This page includes materials on US relations with the world, with a special focus on Northeast Asia and, inevitably, the Middle East. And so Britain is brought into it. And sometimes I stray further afield, when something catches my eye. Prior to 2005 it was called 'US and the world'

• Thatcher was ready for Falkland Islands deal, National Archives papers show
  Newly released papers show PM was privately adopting more flexible approach amid US pressure to avoid military action Share 39 Richard Norton-Taylor and Owen Bowcott The Guardian, Friday 28 December 2012 Jump to comments (47) Margaret Thatcher with Ronald Reagan Margaret Thatcher with Ronald Reagan. The National Archives papers reveal he said the UK should strike a Falklands deal 'while it had the upper hand'. Photograph: AP Margaret Thatcher was prepared to do a deal with Argentina after the invasion of the Falklands over the status of the islands, including the question of sovereignty, as she came under intense pressure from the US to avoid a military response, government papers released on Friday reveal. UK government declarations and rhetoric at the time gave the impression that nothing short of the withdrawal of all Argentinian forces, the reaffirmation of British sovereignty and a return to the position as it was before the invasion would be acceptable. But the papers show Thatcher and her senior ministers were privately adopting a more flexible approach, including allowing a continuing Argentinian presence on the islands.
• Syrian rebels sidetracked by scramble for spoils of war
  Looting, feuds and divided loyalties threaten to destroy unity of fighters as war enters new phase Share 202 Ghaith Abdul-Ahad in Aleppo The Guardian, Thursday 27 December 2012 19.33 GMT Syrian rebels in Aleppo Syrians carry a desk out of a school in the Saif al-Dawla district of Aleppo. Photograph: Ghaith Abdul-Ahad It wasn't the government that killed the Syrian rebel commander Abu Jameel. It was the fight for his loot. The motive for his murder lay in a great warehouse in Aleppo which his unit had captured a week before. The building had been full of rolled steel, which was seized by the fighters as spoils of war. But squabbling developed over who would take the greater share of the loot and a feud developed between commanders. Threats and counter-threats ensued over the following days. Abu Jameel survived one assassination attempt when his car was fired on. A few days later his enemies attacked again, and this time they were successful. His bullet-riddled body was found, handcuffed, in an alley in the town of al-Bab. Captain Hussam, of the Aleppo military council, said: "If he had died fighting I would say it was fine, he was a rebel and a mujahid and this is what he had set out to do. But to be killed because of a feud over loot is a disaster for the revolution. "It is extremely sad. There is not one government institution or warehouse left standing in Aleppo. Everything has been looted. Everything is gone."
• Was there a massacre in the Syrian town of Aqrab?
  To reach Aqrab is to penetrate deep into the badlands of central Syria, where many of the worst atrocities of the war have taken place. It is not a journey undertaken lightly, and 24 hours of intense planning were needed before we were able to drive west from the provincial capital, Hama. Even then, an onboard escort was necessary, and we were passed from escort vehicle to escort vehicle across the patchwork of villages on the central fertile plains. Local knowledge is very much the difference between life and death in a place where a wrong turn can mean the wrong people who find the wrong papers on you – with consequences that are all too often fatal. So a drive of just 10 miles or so as the crow flies took us over an hour. And then, coming over yet another rocky ridge, there it was: Aqrab. Eye-witness accounts It’s a small place, and we were under a mile away. A low-rise, densely packed town of 9,000 Sunni and 2,000 Alawites. Three large minarets pierce the glowering winter skies here. What follows is a series of eye-witness accounts which runs almost entirely against the version of what happened here which has gone global from rebel propaganda websites. We do not say what follows is the truth. But we can say it is the first independently observed story of Aqrab from the first outside journalist to reach this area. We interviewed three key eye-witnesses in three separate locations. They could not have known either of our sudden arrival, nor did they know the identities of the other two eye-witnesses. What is striking is that their accounts entirely corroborate each other, to the last detail. And their accounts are further backed up by at least a dozen conversations with other Alawites who had fled from Aqrab. [Syria] [Disinformation]
• For Whom the Syrian Bell Tolls
  by PEPE ESCOBAR The top geopolitical tragedy in 2012 is bound to remain the top geopolitical tragedy in 2013: the rape of Syria. Just as once in a while I go back to my favorite Hemingway passages, lately I’ve been going back to some footage I shot years ago of the Aleppo souk – the most extraordinary of all Middle Eastern souks. It’s like being shot in the back; I was as fond of the souk’s architecture as of its people and traders. Weeks ago, most of the souk – the living pulse of Aleppo for centuries – was set on fire and destroyed by the “rebels” of the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA). In this Syrian tragedy, there is no Hemingway young hero, no Robert Jordan in the International Brigades fighting alongside Republican guerrillas against the fascists during the Spanish Civil War. In the Syrian civil war, the international brigades are mostly of the mercenary, Salafi-jihadi, beheading and car-bombing type. And the (few) young Americans in place are basically high-tech pawns in a game played by the rapacious NATOGCC club (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and its Arab puppets of the Gulf Cooperation Council). [Syria] [Outsourcing]
• Interview with Official of Jabhat al-Nusra, Syria’s Islamist Militia Group
  By Rania Abouzeid / Outside AleppoDec. 25, 201213 Abu Adnan smirked from behind his black balaclava, his auburn whiskers peeking through the fabric as the corners of his mouth rose. A religious scholar and Shari‘a law official in Jabhat al-Nusra’s leadership in the Aleppo area, the 35-year-old had a ready answer for what he thought of the U.S. designating his Islamist group a terrorist organization: “It’s not a problem,” he said. “We know the West and its oppressive ways. We know the oppression of the [U.N.] Security Council, the lies of the international community. It’s not news. This means nothing to us.” [Islamist]
• Israel lobby rails against Pentagon favourite
  By Jim Lobe WASHINGTON - Neo-conservatives and leaders of the powerful Israel lobby are mobilizing their forces in what looks like an all-out campaign to pre-empt the nomination by President Barack Obama of an outspoken former Republican senator and decorated Vietnam War hero to replace Leon Panetta as secretary of defense. The campaign was launched last week after senior White House officials leaked word that Chuck Hagel, who also co-chairs the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB), was likely to get the nomination whenever, as expected any time, Panetta formally announces his retirement. It gathered steam in the past few days with prominent neo-cons leading the charge against the former Nebraska senator. If Obama goes ahead with the nomination, it could signal a key shift in US Middle East policy, if only because Hagel, a Republican realist in the tradition of former president Dwight Eisenhower and secretary of state James Baker, has been a forthright critic of some of Israel's policies and a consistent advocate of diplomatic engagement with Iran. [Israel] [Client]
• What's at stake in the Hagel affair
  Posted By Stephen M. Walt Wednesday, December 26, 2012 - 4:55 PM Share I don't have much to add to my earlier comments on the manufactured controversy about Senator Chuck Hagel's fitness for the post of secretary of defense. But I do encourage you to read the more recent comments by Andrew Sullivan, Robert Wright, Thomas Friedman, and Bernard Avishai, all of whom make clear that Hagel is perfectly qualified for the position and that the people who are now trying to smear him deserve the same contempt with which former Senator Joseph McCarthy and other narrow-minded bullies are now viewed. Three aspects of the affair do merit brief comment, however. First, I'm baffled by the Obama administration's handling of the whole business.
• Obama's gift to al-Qaida, support for tyranny, and FBI monitoring of dissent
  Numerous individual events from this week alone signify important trends in US government policy Share 557 Glenn Greenwald Glenn Greenwald guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 26 December 2012 13.26 GMT Jump to comments (612) A Bahraini Shia boy takes part to a demonstration in solidarity with political prisoners in the village of Malikiya, south of Manama. Bahrain has announced a date for the trial of the thirteen Shia opposition leaders jailed for their role in last year's unrest. A Bahraini Shia boy takes part to a demonstration in solidarity with political prisoners in the village of Malikiya, south of Manama. Photograph: Mohammed Al-Shaikh/AFP/Getty Images This week will likely entail light posting, but here are several items worthy of note: (1) I can't recall any one news article that so effectively conveys both the gross immorality and the strategic stupidity of Obama's drone attacks as this one from Monday's Washington Post by Sudarsan Raghavan. It details how the US-supported Yemeni dictatorship lies to its public each time the US kills Yemeni civilians with a drone attack, and how these civilian-killing attacks are relentlessly (and predictably) driving Yemenis to support al-Qaida and devote themselves to anti-American militancy:
• CIA’s Global Response Staff emerging from shadows after incidents in Libya and Pakistan
  By Greg Miller and Julie Tate, Thursday, December 27, 2:00 PM The rapid collapse of a U.S. diplomatic compound in Libya exposed the vulnerabilities of State Department facilities overseas. But the CIA’s ability to fend off a second attack that same night provided a glimpse of a key element in the agency’s defensive arsenal: a secret security force created after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Two of the Americans killed in Benghazi were members of the CIA’s Global Response Staff, an innocuously named organization that has recruited hundreds of former U.S. Special Forces operatives to serve as armed guards for the agency’s spies. The GRS, as it is known, is designed to stay in the shadows, training teams to work undercover and provide an unobtrusive layer of security for CIA officers in high-risk outposts. [CIA] [Special Forces]
• Syria opposition activists expect rocky transition after Assad’s fall
  By Karen DeYoung, Published: December 25 Planning for the day after the anticipated fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has become a race against time that many proponents of a pluralistic, democratic Syria fear they are losing. In Washington, Istanbul and elsewhere, opposition activists and their supporters are establishing databases and drafting the outlines of an interim structure to govern Syria until something more permanent can take its place. But even those who have been working on the plans doubt they will serve as more than suggestions in a post-Assad atmosphere that they predict will be characterized at best by conflict and chaos. At worst, they see a sectarian bloodbath and a possible takeover by extremists fighting on the side of rebel military forces. Many Syrian activists believe the United States and Europe have exacerbated the challenges by forbidding interactions with the armed opposition in the country while Assad is still in power. [Outsourcing]
• U.S. drone strategy in Yemen is fraught with peril
  Sorting out the guises, tribal intrigue and cross-allegiances in the Arab nation is a huge challenge for Washington in its effort to assassinate terrorists. Drone strikes in Yemen A painting of the black flag brandished by the militant group Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula marks the wall of Adnan Qadhi's house in the Yemeni village of Beit al Ahmar. Qadhi was killed by a U.S. drone strike in November. (Adam Baron / McClatchy-Tribune / November 25, 2012) By Jeffrey Fleishman and Ken Dilanian, Los Angeles Times December 25, 2012, 6:07 a.m. AL SARRAIN, Yemen — The U.S. drone flew over a cluster of mud houses on a ridge and, according to Yemeni officials, locked onto Adnan Qadhi, a mercurial man of many guises, including radical militant, peace mediator, preacher of violence and army general. Villagers said Qadhi climbed out of his utility vehicle the night of Nov. 7 to make a cellphone call shortly before the missile struck. His photo — broad face peering from beneath a tilted red beret, stars on his epaulets — now hangs in a small grocery store in a land where farmers work narrow fields below the villas of politicians, tribal leaders and a former president that rise like fortresses on nearby hilltops. Some here call him a martyr, others a fanatic. But the life and death of Qadhi, a senior officer in the 1st Armored Division who preached holy war in mosques and donned government-issued fatigues, epitomizes the political instability, tribal intrigue, crisscrossing allegiances and radical Islamist passions the United States must sort out when targeting militants in Yemen. At times, Washington risks being drawn into internal conflicts and becoming increasingly despised in the Arab world's poorest nation. [Assassination] [UAV] [Intelligence]
• Aleut Internment Camps
  Vladislav GULEVICH | 22.12.2012 | 00:00 The Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs came up with the first special report devoted to the human rights in the USA. The Russian State Duma held the hearings on October 22, 2012. The document contains multiple examples of racial and religious discrimination against the US citizens. The movie called Aleut Story has hit the screens recently. This is the story devoted to the horrible events of 1942, when the population of the Aleutian Islands and the island of Pribilof was replaced and interned. Even now few Americans have any idea it has taken place. The story of Japanese internment is more or less known in the United States. In the 1940s Japan was the main enemy in the Pacific. Though the combat actions took place many miles away from the continental USA, 120000 Japanese were forcibly relocated from the West Coast and interned. Over 60% of them were US citizens. Anti-Japanese sentiments were at the height. No wonder: at the beginning of the 1990s the legislation in some states forbade Asia – White intermarriage. The Japanese were moved over and compared to vermin. More extreme depictions of Japanese included picturing them as a bloodthirsty and mean people. I emphasize the story is related to the Americans of Japanese origin, not the Japanese who lived in Japan. Even orphans who had more than 1/16 of Japanese blood were rounded up! The Japanese were taken away from the West Coast deeper into the continent and relocated to live in barracks unfit for accommodating many people and standing up to harsh winters. Whoever dared outside risked to get a bullet fired by guard. After the Japanese bombing of Dutch Harbor in Unalaska in 1942, the Alaska’s Aleuts followed the fate of Japanese Americans. The U.S. government required anyone with one-eighth of Aleut blood or more to be evacuated from the islands. Nobody told them where they were taken to. They were just forcibly moved to ships and taken to special camps (in all there were four of such locations). The living conditions were terrible: hunger, cold, deceases, death… [Human rights]
• Aleut Story
  Aleut Story was developed, researched, filmed and edited for national television over five years. Thousands of pages of historical documents, public testimony, congressional debate, personal memoirs, photographs and scholarly texts wereReturn to Funter Bay reviewed. Filmed entirely on location, the project took the film crew to the Aleutian Islands, the Pribilof Islands, the historic sites of federal duration camps at Funter Bay and Killisnoo, to Anchorage, Juneau, Seattle and Washington, D.C. But the real strength of this film is the chorus of first person voices. [Human rights]
• McClatchy, Washington Post press for release of missing journalist Austin Tice
  By Anders Gyllenhaal and Marcus Brauchli | McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — Austin Tice was well on his way to a law degree when the pull of journalism got to be too much for him. Fascinated by the Middle East and frustrated with news coverage he saw as often too shallow, he decided to see if he could do better. Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/12/23/178125/mcclatchy-washington-post-press.html#storylink=cpy
  Though he traveled mostly with the rebels, Tice was as interested in one side as the other, in capturing opposing viewpoints and casualties. He focused on how the rebels were gaining momentum over the summer. He also helped to break the news in August that rebels were carrying out executions and torture. He was often on the front lines of the conflict. He celebrated his 31st birthday, he noted in his last Twitter post before his capture in mid-August, to the sounds of bombs landing nearby. Information on his captivity, and even on who is holding him, has been hard to confirm despite the constant efforts of his family, our news organizations and contacts in the U.S. and other governments.
• America’s Hype over WMD: Five Invasion Plots, Three Continents, Identical Lies
  From Panama to Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya and Syria By Felicity Arbuthnot Global Research, December 21, 2012 “I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. We have definitely adopted the position at the Peace Conference of arguing in favour of the retention of gas as a permanent method of warfare…. I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes.” (Winston S. Churchill, 1874-1965, from War Office minute, 12th May 1919.) As the sabre rattling against Syria gets ever louder, the allegations ever wilder and double standards, stirring, plotting and terrorist financing (sorry: “aiding the legitimate opposition”) neon lit, it is instructive to look at the justifications presented by US Administrations for a few other murderous incursions in recent history. [cbw] [Pretext] [[Disinformation]
• Cancer of Corruption, Seeds of Destruction: The Monsanto GMO Whitewash
  By F. William Engdahl Global Research, December 19, 2012 Because of the power vested in the EU Commission in Brussels, Belgium, with command over a space encompassing 27 nations with more than 500 million citizens and the largest nominal world gross domestic product (GDP) of 18 trillion US dollars, it’s perhaps no surprise in this era of moral promiscuity that powerful private lobby groups such as the tobacco industry, the drug lobby, the agribusiness lobby and countless others spend enormous sums of money and other favors—legal and sometimes illegal—to influence policy decisions of the EU Commission. This revolving door of corrupt ties between powerful private industry lobby groups and the EU Commission was in full view recently with the ruling of the European Food Safety Administration (EFSA) trying to discredit serious scientific tests about the deadly effects of a variety of Monsanto GMO corn. [Corruption] [GM]
• The Religious and Social Crisis in America. Political Consequences
  Religious Trends in A Political-Economic Context By Prof. James Petras Global Research, December 20, 2012 The opening long decade of the 21st century (2000-2012) has been a period of repeated and profound economic and social crises, of serial and prolonged wars and declining living standards for the vast majority of Americans. How have people responded to this crisis? No large scale, long term, socio-political movements have emerged to challenge the bi-partisan dominent classes. For a brief moment the “ Occupy Wall Street ” movement provided a platform to denounce the 1% super-rich but then faded into memory. Questions arose whether in the midst of prolonged hardship people would turn to religion for solace, escape into spiritual pietism. The question this essay addresses is whether religion has become the ‘opium of the people’ as Karl Marx suggested or whether religious beliefs and institutions are themselves in crisis, losing their spiritual attraction in the face of their inability to resolve the everyday material needs of a growing army of impoverished, low paid, unemployed and contingent workers and a downwardly mobile middle class. In other words are major religions growing and prospering in our time of permanent economic crise and perpetual wars or are they on the downslope part and parcel of the decline of the US Empire? [Decline] [Religion]
• The root cause of green on blue attacks
  Nasim Fekrat 17 December 2012 The draw down of international troops in Afghanistan was predicated on ISAF building a relationship with Afghan forces to 'hand over' security. 'Green on blue attacks' signal an opposite trend, and one that may intensify as troops leave. ‘Green on blue attacks' is the name given to a growing series of incidents where seemingly rogue Afghan security forces turn their guns on their NATO counterparts. These insider attacks have led to the deaths of more than 50 NATO troops since the beginning of 2012. Subsequently, NATO responded in September by halting joint operations with Afghan security forces to prevent further attacks, following the deaths of 6 International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops over one weekend. With the increased frequency of green on blue attacks, the topic has become an important subject for western media. It is usually portrayed as a religious and cultural problem in which Afghan troops react to perceived insults by American troops’ behavior. Others cite Taliban infiltration into Afghan security forces. But after talking to various Afghan journalists and writers who have been covering this issue for the past decade, I realized that the reasons behind these attacks go much deeper than cultural and religious incompatibilities or suspected Taliban infiltration. Rather, the motivation behind the green on blue attacks has developed over the past half decade of NATO operations in Afghanistan. Towards a basic understanding The basic cultural characteristics of Afghans are based on a hierarchy of respect and care for family, clan and tribe. Considering this simple fact, it is very easy to understand why Afghan police soldiers would become rogue and turn their guns against NATO troops. Most of those rogue soldiers became lethal enemies after losing a member of their families through NATO airstrikes. If someone is killed as a result of an accidental NATO bombing, it is likely that he or she has family left behind. The family’s pride is wounded and someone in the family must bring the pride back. [COIN] [Client]
• Why the Washington Post Killed the Story of Murdoch’s Bid to Buy the US Presidency
  by JONATHAN COOK Carl Bernstein, of All the President’s Men fame, has a revealing commentary in the Guardian today, though revealing not entirely in a way he appears to understand. Bernstein highlights a story first disclosed earlier this month in the Washington Post by his former journalistic partner Bob Woodward that media mogul Rupert Murdoch tried to “buy the US presidency”. A taped conversation shows that in early 2011 Murdoch sent Roger Ailes, the boss of his most important US media outlet, Fox News, to Afghanistan to persuade Gen David Petraeus, former commander of US forces, to run against Barack Obama as the Republican candidate in the 2012 presidential election. Murdoch promised to bankroll Petraeus’ campaign and commit Fox News to provide the general with wall-to-wall support. Murdoch’s efforts to put his own man in the White House failed because Petraeus decided he did not want to run for office. “Tell [Ailes] if I ever ran,” Petraeus says in the recording, “but I won’t … but if I ever ran, I’d take him up on his offer.” Bernstein is rightly appalled not just by this full-frontal attack on democracy but also by the fact that the Washington Post failed to splash with their world exclusive. Instead they buried it inside the paper’s lifestyle section, presenting it as what the section editor called “a buzzy media story that … didn’t have the broader import” that would justify a better showing in the paper. In line with the Washington Post, most other major US news outlets either ignored the story or downplayed its significance. [Media]
• How the Bar Code Took Over the World
  By Drake Bennett and Jim Aley on December 17, 2012 (An earlier version of this story ran online.) In 1948 a supermarket executive came to the Drexel Institute of Technology in Philadelphia with a request. He wanted a technology that could encode information about his products. Two graduate students, Bernard Silver and N. Joseph Woodland, took up the challenge. Woodland became obsessed and dropped out of school to concentrate on it. That winter he was sitting on Miami Beach, dragging his fingers in the sand, when he had an idea for a series of lines of different widths that functioned like elongated versions of the dots and dashes of Morse Code—in other words, a bar code. [Innovation]
• America Invades Africa: The Resource War and the Conquest of Mali
  The Role of AFRICOM By Timothy Alexander Guzman Global Research, December 13, 2012 The United States African Command (AFRICOM) was created in 2007 under then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in the Bush Administration as a Military Command center that covers the entire continent of Africa. They wanted to create a permanent footprint in Africa to maintain the peace and security it desires that is deemed beneficial for US interests.
• Why the US media ignored Murdoch's brazen bid to hijack the presidency
  Did the Washington Post and others underplay the story through fear of the News Corp chairman, or simply tin-eared judgment? Share 1975 Carl Bernstein Carl Bernstein The Guardian, Thursday 20 December 2012 16.41 GMT Jump to comments (135) CEO Rupert Murdoch The Ailes/Petraeus tape made clear to many that Murdoch's goals in America have always been nefarious. Photograph: Reuters So now we have it: what appears to be hard, irrefutable evidence of Rupert Murdoch's ultimate and most audacious attempt – thwarted, thankfully, by circumstance – to hijack America's democratic institutions on a scale equal to his success in kidnapping and corrupting the essential democratic institutions of Great Britain through money, influence and wholesale abuse of the privileges of a free press. In the American instance, Murdoch's goal seems to have been nothing less than using his media empire – notably Fox News – to stealthily recruit, bankroll and support the presidential candidacy of General David Petraeus in the 2012 election. [Media] [Petraeus] [US_election]
• Caught between al Qaida and Iran, U.S. struggles over Syria conflict
  By Hannah Allam WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON The bloodshed in Syria has continued for so long that extremist forces have taken charge, with U.S. officials saying they now face two familiar enemies in the struggle to find a resolution: al Qaida in Iraq cells and Iranian-backed sectarian militias. Those groups were responsible for thousands of American and Iraqi casualties during the eight years U.S. forces fought them next door in Iraq. Now, U.S. officials and some analysts say, the Sunni Muslim extremists of al Qaida have regrouped in Syria as the Nusra Front, the leading rebel faction fighting President Bashar Assad’s regime. The Syrian military, meanwhile, is relying increasingly on backup from the thuggish pro-Assad militias known as shabiha, elements of which receive Iranian training and funding, U.S. officials say. Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/12/20/178065/caught-between-al-qaida-and-iran.html#storylink=cpy [Syria] [Islamist] [False balance]
• Were U.S Marines Used as Guinea Pigs on Okinawa?
  A CounterPunch Special Report: Growing Evidence Suggests the U.S. Military Tested Biochemical Agents on Its Own Forces on the Island in the 1960s
  by JON MITCHELL Tokyo. Newly discovered documents reveal that 50 years ago this month, the Pentagon dispatched a chemical weapons platoon to Okinawa under the auspices of its infamous Project 112. Described by the U.S. Department of Defense as “biological and chemical warfare vulnerability tests,” the highly classified program subjected thousands of unwitting American service members around the globe to substances including sarin and VX nerve gases between 1962 and 1974.1 [cbw]
• Syrian Minority Fear the End of Fighting More Than War Itself
  by PATRICK COCKBURN Maloula, Syria. Two masked men armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles tried to kidnap a businessman called George Alumeh in the ancient Christian town of Maloula, north-west of Damascus, last week. It was not the first kidnap attempt on richer members of the Christian community here and Mr Alumeh was prepared. He fought back, first drawing a pistol, hurling his car keys away so his car could not be stolen, and then trying to escape. He got away, but was hit by a burst of gunfire from the kidnappers which has sent him to hospital with stomach, leg and hand wounds. Father Mata Hadad, the priest of the Convent of St Tikla built into the mountain wall that towers over Maloula, tells the story to illustrate how life has become more dangerous for Christians, particularly for those thought to have money. The 10 per cent of the Syrian population who are Christians are debating with trepidation the likely outcome of the Syrian crisis and its effect on them. [Sectarianism]
• Qatar intervening in northern Mali?
  Mehdi Lazar 19 December 2012 If the presence of Qatar in Mali is confirmed, it is difficult to establish how the emirate is trying to change the political and strategic situation. However, despite the lack of proof of Qatari involvement in supporting armed fighters, there is some evidence that this might be the case. It is likely that ECOWAS is preparing for a military intervention to regain northern Mali following the military coup of March 22, 2012 that overthrew the regime of Amadou Toumani Touré. At the same time more and more is being said about Qatar's involvement in this part of the Sahel. Taking advantage of the dual crisis afflicting this country - Islamist groups have benefited from the Tuareg rebellion to take control of the north and a military coup overthrew the incumbent president in Bamako - the emirate could be engaged in advancing its pawns in that territory on a path towards Afghanization. A game which if confirmed would prove quite dangerous [Qatar] [Islamist]
• Syrian conflict’s sectarian, ethnic dimensions growing, U.N. warns
  View Photo Gallery — Syria in turmoil:?As Syria’s vice president calls for a negotiated end to the civil war, rebel fighters aim to make further gains and refugees continue to flee the violence. By Joby Warrick, Published: December 20 The 21-month-old civil war in Syria is rapidly devolving into an “overtly sectarian” and ethnic conflict, a U.N. investigatory panel has concluded, raising the specter of reprisal killings and prolonged violence that could last for years after the government falls. The report by the U.N. Human Rights Council also documented widespread human rights abuses by Syrian government forces, including systematic torture in prisons and the deliberate bombing and shelling of hospitals and other civilian targets. “In recent months, there has been a clear shift” in the nature of the conflict, with more fighters and civilians on both sides describing the civil war in ethnic or religious terms, said the report, due for release Thursday in Geneva. The council described a sectarian conflict emerging “alongside the fight against the government,” with far-reaching consequences for Syria’s future. Many of the rebel fighters interviewed by the panel — including defectors and foreign volunteers — described themselves as loyal to Islamist militias or ­ethnic-based movements, and not to the opposition Free Syria Army, the report’s authors found. [Sectarianism]
• Military funds to spare?
  By Walter Pincus, Published: December 20 Congress and Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta showed this week that there are hundreds of millions, if not billions, of loose dollars in the Pentagon’s budget that can be shifted around without apparent harm to national security. In a speech Wednesday at the National Press Club, Panetta voiced his frustration at changes the House and Senate armed services committees had made in the fiscal 2013 defense authorization bill. At one point he said that the committees “had diverted about $74 billion of what we asked for in savings in our proposed budget to the Congress, and they diverted them to other areas that, frankly, we don’t need.” He spoke about “pressure on the department to retain excess force structure and infrastructure instead of investing in the training and equipment that makes our force agile and flexible and ready.” Without specifying programs, Panetta mentioned having to keep “aircraft, ships, tanks, bases, even those that have outlived their usefulness, [but] have a natural political constituency.” [MISCOM] [Governance]
• Civilian analysts gained Petraeus’s ear while he was commander in Afghanistan
  Video: General David Petraeus maintained a close working relationship with Kimberly Kagan, head of the Institute for the Study of War, and her husband over the course of many months in Afghanistan. The couple advised the general on classified matters, bringing into question their access and mandate. The Post’s Rajiv Chandrasekaran looks at their unusual arrangement. By Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Wednesday, December 19, 3:53 PM Frederick and Kimberly Kagan, a husband-and-wife team of hawkish military analysts, put their jobs at influential Washington think tanks on hold for almost a year to work for Gen. David H. Petraeus when he was the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan. Provided desks, e-mail accounts and top-level security clearances in Kabul, they pored through classified intelligence reports, participated in senior-level strategy sessions and probed the assessments of field officers in order to advise Petraeus about how to fight the war differently. Their compensation from the U.S. government for their efforts, which often involved 18-hour workdays, seven days a week and dangerous battlefield visits? . Zero dollars. Although Fred Kagan said he and his wife wanted no pay in part to remain “completely independent,” the extraordinary arrangement raises new questions about the access and influence Petraeus accorded to civilian friends while he was running the Afghan war. [Thinktanks] [Petraeus]
• PHOTO: Mount Everest, in two billion pixels
  Posted by Anup Kaphle on December 18, 2012 at 4:20 pm You must have seen thousands of photographs of Everest. But there have been none like this: Image shows Khumbu glacier from Pumori viewpoint near Mt. Everest. Click on the photo to view in full resolution. (Photo Credit: David Breashears) (Click to see the panoramic image of the Himalaya in gigapixel navigation) According to NPR, the image is the result of a project by David Breashears, who has already climbed the highest mountain in the world five times. He used old images of Everest and its glaciers and combined them with new ones.
• The Contras, Crack and Senator Inouye
  by THOMAS MOUNTAIN The USA’s longest serving and reputably most powerful Senator, Daniel “The One Armed Bandit” Inouye has died in a hospital outside of Washington D.C. at the age of 88, bringing an end to the career of one of the most loyal, and criminal, careers in service to Pax Americana. Dan “the One Armed Bandit” Inouye was christened such by his comrades in arms in the US Army’s legendary 442nd outfit made up almost exclusively of Japanese Americans during W.W.II for stealing a wedding ring off a dead woman civilian and subsequently having the arm allegedly bearing the stolen ring blown off by a German artillery shell. This marked the beginning of a long, sordid career in service to the USA that reached its peak when he almost single handedly covered up the role of the CIA in starting what went on to become the global pandemic known as the Crack Cocaine holocaust (see Gary Webb’s “Dark Alliance” or “White Out” by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair). [Drugs] [CIA]
• Bashar al-Assad, Syria, and the truth about chemical weapons
  Bashar’s father Hafez al-Assad was brutal but never used chemical arms. And do you know which was the first army to use gas in the Middle East? The bigger the lie the more people will believe it. We all know who said that – but it still works. Bashar al-Assad has chemical weapons. He may use them against his own Syrian people. If he does, the West will respond. We heard all this stuff last year – and Assad’s regime repeatedly said that if – if – it had chemical weapons, it would never use them against Syrians. But now Washington is playing the same gas-chanty all over again. Bashar has chemical weapons. He may use them against his own people. And if he does… [cbw] [Disinformation]
• Syria: Rebels Could Resort to Chemical Weapons Provocation
  Andrei AKULOV | 17.12.2012 | 00:00 Multiple reports have appeared recently revealing that the US and its allies attack against Syria is imminent. A new propaganda story is getting more and more coverage today. According to unconfirmed reports, citing Western intelligence agencies, Syrian technicians are already loading artillery shells and airborne munitions with unconventional agents. They say that chemicals used to produce sarin gas, a deadly nerve agent, were being loaded into bombs some time ago. [cbw] False flag]
• In Iraq, Exxon oil deal foments talk of civil war
  MARWAN IBRAHIM/AFP/GETTY IMAGES - People look at the damage of a building after a car bomb attack in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk on Nov. 27. The attack came a day after security officials from the federal government and Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region reached an agreement aimed at easing high tensions in disputed areas of north Iraq. y Ben Van Heuvelen, Updated: Wednesday, December 19, 1:00 AM BAGHDAD — With their opposing armies massed on either side of the contested border dividing southern and northern Iraq, leaders in Baghdad and the semiautonomous Kurdistan region are warning they are close to civil war — one that could be triggered by Exxon Mobil. Although leaders on both sides are negotiating a walk back from the brink, they also say their armies could easily be provoked into battle. One of the most sensitive tripwires is Exxon, which is preparing to drill for oil in the disputed territories at the heart of the military standoff. Iraq’s two most explosive political conflicts — over land and oil — are primed to combust. [Fragmentation]
• U.S. plans for possibility that Assad could lose control of chemical arms cache
  View Photo Gallery — A broadening war in Syria:?Gains by rebel forces come as fighting escalates in the civil conflict, which has killed more than 40,000. By Craig Whitlock and Carol Morello, Monday, December 17, 12:29 PM As Bashar al-Assad’s hold on power steadily weakens, U.S. officials are increasingly worried that Syria’s weapons of mass destruction could fall into the hands of Islamist extremists, rogue generals or other uncontrollable factions. Last week, fighters from a group that the Obama administration has branded a terrorist organization were among rebels who seized the Sheik Suleiman military base near Aleppo, where research on chemical weapons had been conducted. Rebels are also closing in on another base near Aleppo, known as Safirah, which has served as a major production center for such munitions, according to U.S. officials and analysts. [cbw] [Outsourcing] [Islamists]
• Report finds harsh CIA interrogations ineffective
  By Greg Miller, Published: December 14 After a contentious closed-door vote, the Senate intelligence committee approved a long-awaited report Thursday concluding that harsh interrogation measures used by the CIA did not produce significant intelligence breakthroughs, officials said. The 6,000-page document, which was not released to the public, was adopted by Democrats over the objections of most of the committee’s Republicans. The outcome reflects the level of partisan friction that continues to surround the CIA’s use of waterboarding and other severe interrogation techniques four years after they were banned. [Torture] [Spin]
• Syria, endgame and blowback
  Paul Rogers 13 December 2012 Syria's conflict is approaching a decisive phase, and the United States is making intense efforts to influence the shape of a post-Assad regime. Here, the prominence of Islamist groups among the rebels is becoming ever more important. The pace of the conflict in Syria is accelerating. A series of military and political developments - reports that Bashar al-Assad's regime has fired Scud missiles at rebel-held areas, the encroachment of violence ever nearer to the centre of Damascus, and Russia's acknowledgment that a government defeat is possible - are in different ways signs that a decisive period may be approaching. If the Scud reports are true, this is certainly an escalation in the conflict that began in 2011. Scuds are based on Soviet technology of the 1950s, are cumbersome to fire and highly inaccurate - but they carry substantial high-explosive warheads and can do serious damage if aimed towards large targets such as urban districts. Syria's rebel forces have made some advances in the last weeks of 2012, though their extent and rebel units' ability to hold on to new areas is open to question. There is more clarity about the increasing role being played by Islamist elements within the insurgency, and here two decisions endorsed by Barack Obama's administration are significant: to recognise (along with its diplomatic partners in the "Friends of Syria") the legitimacy of the main rebel coalition, and to place one of several Islamist paramilitary groups operating in Syria, the Al-Nusra Front, on the list of foreign terrorist organisations. These decisions reflect the fact that Washington and its allies are becoming preoccupied with a post-Assad era and the make-up of a successor regime [Unintended consequences]
• Venezuela hits out at Barack Obama's remarks on 'authoritarian' Hugo Chávez
  US president's interview met with anger amid uncertainty over health of Venezuelan leader and future of country's government guardian.co.uk, Saturday 15 December 2012 01.11 GMT Military personnel attend a mass in Caracas to pray for Venezuela's president, Hugo Chávez Military personnel attend a mass in Caracas to pray for Venezuela's president, Hugo Chávez. Photograph: Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters Venezuela's government reacted with fury on Friday to criticism by the US president, Barack Obama, of Hugo Chávez's "authoritarian" government at a time of national anxiety over his battle to recover from cancer surgery. In an interview with the US TV network Univision, Obama declined to speculate on the health of the 58-year-old socialist president who is in a delicate state in Cuba after his fourth operation since mid-2011 for cancer in his pelvic region. But he did say US policy was aimed at ensuring "freedom" in Venezuela. "The most important thing is to remember that the future of Venezuela should be in the hands of the Venezuelan people. We've seen from Chávez in the past authoritarian policies, suppression of dissent," Obama said. Those remarks went down badly with officials in Caracas where emotions are running high over the future of Chávez and his self-styled revolution. In power since 1999, Chávez is due to start a new six-year term on 10 January after winning re-election just weeks before Obama did
• Syrian rebels say Americans, Britons helped train them in Jordan
  Rebel forces end months-long truce in Al Tal A rebel fighter gives a victory cry after capturing a government position in Al Tal, Syria | Austin Tice/MCT By David Enders | McClatchy Newspapers AMMAN, Jordan — Weeks before the Obama administration and other Western nations recognized a new Syrian opposition coalition as “the legitimate representative” of the Syrian people, Syrian rebels were receiving training in the use of light and heavy weapons with the backing of the Jordanian, British and U.S. governments, participants in the training have told McClatchy. The training took place as far back as October and involved hundreds of rebels, the participants said. In one case, the rebel participant said men he believed were American intelligence officers observed what was taking place. Another said he believed British officers were helping to organize the training. The training itself was handled by Jordanian military officers, the rebels said. [Outsourcing]
• America’s Power Game: Iranian People Victims of US Economic Sanctions
  By Kourosh Ziabari Global Research, December 13, 2012 Iran’s nuclear program seems to have reached a dead end. Iranian officials have politically invested a lot on the country’s nuclear program, which was initially set in motion 6 decades ago when President Dwight D. Eisenhower decided to help his close friend Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi construct the first nuclear reactors in Iran, and it seems to be embarrassing for the Iranian government to announce out of the blue that they don’t want to pursue nuclear technology anymore, which will give the West a pretext to launch a new psychological war against Tehran and trumpet this victory that it has retreated from its position.And from the other hand, the obdurate United States and its European allies have not indicated that they’re willing to change their mind and come to terms with a nuclear Iran. The reality is that if the United States and its European allies had compelling evidence that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, they wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to launch a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities, and what troubles them is that Iran is not really seeking nuclear weapons. [Sanctions]
• Syria in Transition: An Insider's View
  While fears of chemical weapons and of an impending "failed state" dominate discussions on Syria, a narrative is being largely lost: civil leaders inside Syria who are taking matters into their own hands. The New America Foundation's Middle East Task Force recently convened a conversation about how Syrian civilians are creating a government of their own, and how this movement may impact the country's future. Read a dispatch from the event below: On Dec. 11, President Obama announced that the United States would recognize the Syrian Opposition Coalition, the umbrella organization that formed to fight and oust President Bashar al-Assad, as “a legitimate representative of the Syrian people.” But the prevailing view at a New America event held on the same day is that it will take much more than diplomatic proclamations to hasten an end to the 20-month-old conflict. “Time is not on the administration’s side,” said Mohammed Ghanem, the senior political adviser for the Syrian American Council, an organization that advocates for civil liberties in Syria. “They [must] either step in [soon] and fill the void, or they risk jeopardizing U.S. national security interests in Syria.” [Islamists] [Diaspora]
• Torture Works, Zero Dark Thirty Edition
  Everybody breaks under torture. From Winston Smith to Jason Bourne. Torture would work on me, for example. If somebody starts crushing my fingertips with a pair of pliers, I’m going to tell them my ATM PIN, Batman’s secret identity, whatever. But if you asked me where Bin Laden was, then I'm not the only person who has a problem. Because I don't know where Bin Laden is, but if you think I do, and keep torturing me, you're going to get a lot of disinformation. [Torture] [Media]
• The Woes of an American Drone Operator
  By Der Spiegel Global Research, December 16, 2012 By Nicola Abé A soldier sets out to graduate at the top of his class. He succeeds, and he becomes a drone pilot working with a special unit of the United States Air Force in New Mexico. He kills dozens of people. But then, one day, he realizes that he can’t do it anymore. For more than five years, Brandon Bryant worked in an oblong, windowless container about the size of a trailer, where the air-conditioning was kept at 17 degrees Celsius (63 degrees Fahrenheit) and, for security reasons, the door couldn’t be opened. Bryant and his coworkers sat in front of 14 computer monitors and four keyboards. When Bryant pressed a button in New Mexico, someone died on the other side of the world. [UAV] [Moral confusion]
• An Interview With Noam Chomsky on Obama’s Human Rights Record
  by ERIC BAILEY Professor Noam Chomsky is an Institute Professor and Professor (Emeritus) in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He was educated at the University of Philadelphia and at Harvard University as a Harvard Junior Fellow. He earned his PhD in Linguistics from the University of Philadelphia in 1955. He has spent the 57 years since then teaching at MIT. In addition to his academic work in linguistics, Professor Chomsky has been a noted political activist and philosopher, gaining national recognition in 1967 over his opposition to the Vietnam War and since then has regularly spoken out against US foreign and domestic policies and mainstream American mass media. Between his academic career and his work as a political activist and dissident, he has published over 100 books. On the eve of the 2012 US presidential election, he discussed with Eric Bailey of Torture Magazine America’s human rights record under the administration of President Obama and the military intervention policies that have seen increased use during the Arab Spring. [Human rights] [Assassination]
• Obdurate Washington
  by PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS With its power declining, Washington was not able any longer to keep Russia out of the World Trade Organization. Congress showed its spite over its impotence by hooking the normalizing of trade with Russia to what is called the “Magnitsky rule.” Sergei Magnitsky was a Russian attorney who represented a British investment firm accused of tax evasion and fraud in Russia. Apparently, the UK firm supplied information to media alleging government misconduct and participation in corruption inside state-owned Russian companies. [Extraterritoriality]
• Justice Department outlines HSBC transactions with drug traffickers
  By Peter Finn and Sari Horwitz, Published: December 12 Mexico’s fearsome Sinaloa Cartel was so practiced at laundering millions of dollars in drug profits at the Mexican branches of the global bank HSBC that it packed bulk cash in boxes that were measured to slide neatly under the teller windows. The Justice Department’s record $1.9 billion settlement Tuesday with HSBC exposed the continuing ability of drug cartels, rogue nations and terrorist financiers to move billions of dollars through the international and U.S. banking systems. [Drugs] [Banking]
• Secret Meeting in London: Plotting to Wage War on Syria without UN Authorization
  Britain’s “Duplicity, treachery and infidelity.” By Felicity Arbuthnot Global Research, December 11, 2012 Somewhere between being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and the consolidating farce of the presentation in Oslo yesterday, recipients were plotting another freedom and democracy bringing “humanitarian intervention”, illegal regime change and the destruction of a country in order to save it. [Outsourcing] [Humanitarian intervention]
• Head of new U.S.-backed Syrian coalition endorses al Qaida-linked rebel faction
  By David Enders and Hannah Allam | McClatchy Newspapers AMMAN, Jordan — Right after the United States formalized its backing of a new Syrian opposition group Wednesday, the mutual unease underpinning the partnership surfaced as the group’s leader openly criticized the United States for declaring the rebel movement’s Nusra Front a terrorist group linked to al Qaida in Iraq. Sheik Moaz al Khatib, head of the Syrian National Coalition of Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, asked the Obama administration to rethink its labeling of the Nusra Front, stressing that the militant faction was integral to the fight against the regime of President Bashar Assad. [Islamist]
• The troubled Middle East and NATO`s future plans
  Natalia MEDEN | 13.12.2012 | 00:00 The West is generously adding fuel to the fire in order to speed up the fall of the Syrian regime. Will it come to a military intervention? In any event, the United States has developed specific plans for a military intervention, which are already being undertaken. According to the Secretary General of NATO, the antimissile systems along the north-western border of Syria can be used to create a no-fly zone, and this is a well-trodden path towards military intervention. In addition to the NATO missile defense systems in the region, Germany is sending AWACS reconnaissance aircraft to potential future combat areas; it will be clear in which places and situations they will fly. Also the transfer of additional U.S. forces to Iraq has been written about, which suggests the preparation for a ground operation… Formally, there is not even a broken a promise regarding the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, which President Barack Obama has honestly fulfilled: but what he has not promised (!) is that the Americans will not return again to Iraq. [US global strategy]
• A Brief History of Superpowers
  by WILLIAM BLUM From the Congress of Vienna of 1815 to the Congress of Berlin in 1878 to the “Allies” invasion of Russia in 1918 to the formation of what became the European Union in the 1950s, the great powers of Europe and the world have gotten together in grand meeting halls and on the field of battle to set the ground rules for imperialist exploitation of Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Australasia, to Christianize and ‘civilize’, to remake the maps, and to suppress revolutions and other threats to great-power hegemony. They have been deadly serious. In 1918, for example, some 13 nations, including France, Great Britain, Rumania, Italy, Serbia, Greece, Japan, and the United States, combined in a military invasion of Russia to “strangle at its birth” the nascent Bolshevik state, as Winston Churchill so charmingly put it. [Imperialism
• Obama backs new Syria coalition but maybe too late to stop al Qaida advance
  By Hannah Allam | McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — In late 2011, U.S. officials say, battle-hardened commanders of al Qaida’s Iraq branch slipped into Syria to rally jihadists around the fight to unseat President Bashar Assad, espousing a militant Islamism that worried pro-democracy activists. A year later, the group those Iraqi commanders formed, the Nusra Front, appears to be leading the insurgency against Assad, even coordinating with non-Islamist rebels who still view the militants with suspicion but can’t dispute their superior battle skills. [Islamist]
• Infatuation and the US Army
  Robert Matthews 10 December 2012 To a large extent Petraeus, four star general and chief spy, was a political and media invention. Take a closer look at the Petraeus record and a spectre starts to appear: of just how blind love can be. As the dust settles on US military star General David Petraeus' extra-marital affair and resignation as CIA director, the episode is still cloaked in some mystery. Unanswered questions remain regarding his striking lack of good judgment, the manner and timing of the probe into the affair after being accidentally stumbled upon by the FBI, and how exactly the public embarrassment widened to envelope US General John R. Allen, head of NATO forces in Afghanistan. Allen's nomination as Supreme Allied Commander, Europe (SACEUR) within NATO is now on hold as the Pentagon’s Inspector General investigates his careless internet dalliances with a married woman. [Petraeus]
• Nusra Front rebel group fighting in Syria is al Qaida in Iraq, U.S. says
  By Hannah Allam and Jonathan S. Landay | McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — The State Department said Monday that the Syrian rebel movement's Nusra Front is just another name for al Qaida in Iraq, an acknowledgment that the uprising to topple President Bashar Assad is led in part by foreign Islamist extremists who fought U.S. troops for years in the bloody Iraq war. U.S. officials said they would amend this week their 2004 designation of al Qaida in Iraq as a terrorist group to include Nusra among the group’s aliases, handing the terrorist label to an Islamist organization that is responsible for many of the rebels’ recent advances against pro-Assad forces. [Islamist]
• After 6 months, rebels gaining ground at Damascus; Islamists lead fighting
  By David Enders | McClatchy Newspapers BEIRUT — A new rebel offensive around the Syrian capital has demonstrated the insurgents’ strengths after six months of combat in the Damascus region. But from afar it’s hard to gauge how close the rebels are to penetrating the central city or to capturing and holding new ground. As in the country’s north, the rebels around Damascus have made gains against government bases, capturing weapons and demonstrating an ability to shoot down some of the government’s aircraft. But their advance has been slow in areas that are loyal to the government, and the government’s advantages of artillery and air power remain important factors in slowing the rebels. Insurgents forced the closure of the Damascus airport, which lies several miles outside the city, last week for the first time. But the extent to which the fighting affected the airport itself – or merely the road leading to it – remains unclear. Residents of the capital report disunion in the rebel ranks and instances of infighting between groups. Some of those fights appeared to be related to ideological splits, residents said, while others appeared to be battles over territory. As in other parts of the country, Islamist rebel groups appear to be leading the fight in Damascus, including fighters from Jabhat al Nusra, or the Nusra Front, a group that U.S. officials say has ties to al Qaida and that the United States said Monday it would designate a foreign terrorist group. [Islamist]
• In ‘Zero Dark Thirty,’ she’s the hero; in real life, CIA agent’s career is more complicated
  By Greg Miller, Tuesday, December 11, 2:18 PM She was a real-life heroine of the CIA hunt for Osama bin Laden, a headstrong young operative whose work tracking the al-Qaeda leader serves as the dramatic core of a Hollywood film set to premiere next week. Her CIA career has followed a more problematic script, however, since bin Laden was killed. The operative, who remains undercover, was passed over for a promotion that many in the CIA thought would be impossible to withhold from someone who played such a key role in one of the most successful operations in agency history. She has sparred with CIA colleagues over credit for the bin Laden mission. After being given a prestigious award for her work, she sent an e-mail to dozens of other recipients saying they didn’t deserve to share her accolades, current and former officials said. [Osama]
• Debt and deficit lessons from 1917
  By Walter Pincus, Published: December 11 As some Republicans again threaten to use the debt limit statute next year to leverage protection of tax rates for the wealthy, it’s worth going back 95 years to see how Americans viewed taxes and spending when that law passed. The statute was born out of the need to pay for government spending from our entrance into World War I. George W. Bush’s White House didn’t consider such an issue when it launched its war on terrorism after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks or undertook the more costly invasion of Iraq in 2003. America in 1917 did not fight on a credit card. In 1917, President Woodrow Wilson, with Congress’s support, raised taxes and sold Liberty Bonds to cover costs. Bush, by contrast, had just lowered taxes and underestimated the costs of his military efforts. Borrowing to pay for the war helped lead to the current fiscal crisis. It was a different story in 1917. [Debt] [Governance]
• Troubled Astute submarine programme to get another £2.7bn
  Ministry of Defence to plough extra cash into Astute-class hunter-killer submarines amid delays and technical problems The Ministry of Defence will commit another £2.7bn to a troubled hunter-killer submarine programme that has been beset by delays, overspend and technical problems. The Royal Navy is to have seven of the new Astute-class boats – two are undergoing sea trials and a third is near completion. Just under half of the money announced on Monday will be spent on building the fourth of the submarines; the rest will to used to buy the equipment and materials needed for the remaining three boats. The decision will secure 3,000 jobs at the dockyards in Barrow-in-Furness where the Astutes are being built by BAE Systems. The programme, which has been beset by difficulties since it was commissioned in 1997, is expected to cost up to £10bn for a fleet that is already years late. [Military expenditure]
• Sharp debate expected on electronic-intercept law
  By Ellen Nakashima, Published: December 9 A measure granting the government expansive power to intercept electronic communications in the United States without a warrant is set to expire this month, setting up a sharp debate in the Senate over how to balance privacy against national security. The government uses the measure, contained in a law known as the FISA Amendments Act, to intercept e-mails and telephone calls of foreigners located overseas under a blanket approval issued once a year by a special court. But communications of U.S. citizens talking with the foreigners also are being scooped up. The intelligence community argues that the measure is essential to protect against foreign threats and has made renewing the law its top legislative priority. The House approved a five-year extension in September by a vote of 301 to 118. The Senate must vote by the end of the year or the authority expires. [Surveillance]
• The chemical question: Dual Iraq legacies hang over a U.S. dilemma on Syria
  Posted by Max Fisher on December 7, 2012 at 12:06 pm Left, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell holds a vial of anthrax before the United Nations in 2003. Right, a Kurdish woman visits the graves of family members who were killed in a 1988 chemical weapon attack by Saddam Hussein. (Getty, AP) Behind the question dominating Western discussion of the escalating violence in Syria – how to respond if Bashar al-Assad’s army uses its chemical weapons? – is another question, just as fraught and perhaps even more pressing: Where is the red line? In other words, does the United States act when it believes Assad has decided to use the weapons, or wait until he deploys them? How can it tell either of these for sure? If he prepares them for deployment, is that enough to mandate action? If the world waits until after he’s used them, isn’t it too late at that point? The United States’s challenge on Syria’s chemical weapons is to minimize the possibility of two distinct nightmare scenarios, both of which, problematically, could require very different paths to avert. Both also echo of some of the darkest moments in neighboring Iraq, the legacy of which still weigh heavily on the United States and its approach to the region. The first, the one we’re hearing about most, is that Assad uses his chemical weapons, despite all the warnings. The second, perhaps just as scary, is that the United States acts too preemptively, escalating or even entering Syria’s war unnecessarily. [cbw] [Media] [Pretext]
• Truth, Propaganda and Media Manipulation
  By Global Research Global Research, December 05, 2012 31 March 2011 Never before has it been so important to have independent, honest voices and sources of information. We are – as a society – inundated and overwhelmed with a flood of information from a wide array of sources, but these sources of information, by and large, serve the powerful interests and individuals that own them. The main sources of information, for both public and official consumption, include the mainstream media, alternative media, academia and think tanks. The mainstream media is the most obvious in its inherent bias and manipulation. The mainstream media is owned directly by large multinational corporations, and through their boards of directors are connected with a plethora of other major global corporations and elite interests. An example of these connections can be seen through the board of Time Warner. Time Warner owns Time Magazine, HBO, Warner Bros., and CNN, among many others. The board of directors includes individuals past or presently affiliated with: the Council on Foreign Relations, the IMF, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Warburg Pincus, Phillip Morris, and AMR Corporation, among many others. [Media] [Co-option] [NGO]
• Confessions of a Strategic Communicator
  Tales from inside the Pentagon's message machine. By Rosa Brooks, New America Foundation December 6, 2012 | Foreign Policy I must have sinned egregiously during a past life, because when I arrived at the Pentagon in spring 2009, I was handed responsibility for the can of worms known as "strategic communication." I was a newly minted political appointee in the Office of the Secretary of Defense's policy shop and no one, including myself, knew quite what I was supposed be doing with my time. But my résumé included a four-year stint as an opinion columnist for the Los Angeles Times. This apparently qualified me as a "communications" expert, so strategic communication policy was deemed an appropriate addition to my murky portfolio. It should go without saying that in and of itself, writing an opinion column reflects no qualifications beyond the having of opinions. I started my job at the Pentagon with plenty of opinions -- many half-baked -- but a mind blissfully free of expertise relating to "communications," strategic or otherwise. Opinionated ignorance is the hallmark of a happy political appointee, however, so I plunged resolutely into my new assignment. For the better part of the 27 months that followed, I spent much of my time trying to figure out whether strategic communication was an idea whose time had come, or a non-idea whose time should come to a rapid end. (Readers with an interest but with limited attention spans can even look at the highly unofficial illustrated history of DOD strategic communication I put together in late 2009.) [Propaganda] [Pentagon]
• The collapse of Transitional Justice
  Mladen Ostojic 7 December 2012 The acquittal of two Croatian generals by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia undermines the very idea that international tribunals can contribute to peace and reconciliation in post-conflict states The acquittal of General Ante Gotovina and General Mladen Markac by the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on 16 November 2012 was a surprise and a shock to many. These two men had previously been convicted by the ICTY’s Trial Chamber for crimes against humanity and war crimes perpetrated by Croatian forces in the summer of 1995. They directed Operation Storm, which allowed the Croatian army to overtake territories controlled by Serb rebels and to expel over two hundred thousand Serb civilians out of Croatia. The ICTY’s Trial Chamber established that this military operation involved indiscriminate shelling and killings and constituted a deliberate attempt by the Croatian leadership to permanently remove the Serbian population from the Krajina region. As a result, General Gotovina and General Markac were sentenced to 24 and 18 years respectively in 2011. The Appeals Chamber decision to overturn this verdict and free the generals produced strong reactions and mixed feelings in Serbia and Croatia. With the exception of a few dissenting voices, this decision was celebrated en masse in Croatia where the two generals are identified as symbols of a just war fought against the Serbian aggressors. The new verdict vindicates the view that Croatia was a victim, not a perpetrator, and that the military actions carried out by the Croatian army were fully legitimate. On the other hand, the Appeals Chamber verdict exacerbated the grief of the Serbian victims and reinforced a deep sense of injustice and victimization in Serbia. The fact that the almost entire Serbian community from Croatia was wiped out under the eyes of the international community has been a cause of deep resentment and frustration among the Serbian public. The Tribunal’s sanctioning of this action as legitimate can only bolster such feelings. [War crimes] [Double standards] [UNUS]
• 'Sending people back to be killed': Today's London to Colombo flight of failed refugees
  Phil Miller 6 December 2012 Mass expulsions from Britain to Sri Lanka of 'failed' asylum seekers are increasing in frequency despite public controversy. The UK Border Agency have planned another deportation charter flight to Sri Lanka, today at 4pm. Despite public controversy, these mass expulsions to Sri Lanka are actually becoming more frequent. There are now charter deportation flights from London to Colombo departing on an almost monthly basis. Since mid-2012, the Australian government have followed Britain’s example, with planes full of ‘failed’ Tamil asylum seekers taking off from Christmas Island. Media reports (see here and here) claim that dozens of refugees deported from Australia in November were arrested on arrival in Sri Lanka. Last month I asked Yasmin Sooka, who is a member of the UN Secretary-General’s Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka, if she was concerned by the deportation of Tamils to Sri Lanka from Commonwealth States such as Britain and Australia. She responded, in a personal capacity, that these governments are “sending people back to be killed and tortured”. [Refugee reception]
• U.S., allies look to expedite Syria transition planning amid rapid rebel gains
  By Karen DeYoung and Anne Gearan, Published: December 6 The United States and like-minded governments are rushing to fund and legitimize a newly formed Syrian opposition group amid fear that plans for a political transition are being outpaced by rebel military gains, U.S. and European officials said. France, the first of several European governments to officially recognize the Syrian National Coalition, has sent diplomats in recent weeks to the Syrian border to hand out cash to the group’s representatives for distribution to local political councils, a senior French official said Tuesday. The Obama administration is considering a similar approach. But because of U.S. law, the money would be given “in coordination with the SOC” and would be carried into Syria by nongovernmental organizations already distributing American aid, a U.S. official said. [Outsourcing] [NGO]
• Syria, the last chance
  Paul Rogers 6 December 2012 The pace of events in Syria is reinforcing the case for western military intervention. There is still - just - time for a Washington-led but inclusive diplomatic option to deliver an outcome that averts further great suffering. The situation in Syria is dire. After twenty months of conflict, the war has created a human and economic disaster. Around 40,000 people have been killed, many more injured and hundreds of thousands displaced. At the same time, media sources in late 2012 have reported major rebel advances and the withdrawal of staff from Syria by the United Nations and several diplomatic missions. All this, now reinforced by concern over Syria's chemical weapons, is creating an upsurge in support (especially in western Europe) for western military intervention, on the grounds that the moment could become the "tipping-point" for Bashar al-Assad's regime.
• Julian Assange: the fugitive
  Julian Assange has been holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy for six months. In a rare interview, we ask the WikiLeaks founder about reports of illness, paranoia – and if he'll ever come out The Ecuadorian embassy in Knightsbridge looks rather lavish from the street, but inside it's not much bigger than a family apartment. The armed police guard outside is reported to cost £12,000 a day, but I can see only three officers, all of whom look supremely bored. Christmas shoppers heading for Harrods next door bustle by, indifferent or oblivious to the fact that they pass within feet of one of the world's most famous fugitives. It's almost six months since Julian Assange took refuge in the embassy, and a state of affairs that was at first sensational is slowly becoming surreal. Ecuador has granted its guest formal asylum, but the WikiLeaks founder can't get as far as Harrods, let alone to South America, because the moment he leaves the embassy, he will be arrested – even if he comes out in a diplomatic bag or handcuffed to the ambassador – and extradited to Sweden to face allegations of rape and sexual assault. Assange says he'll happily go to Stockholm, providing the Swedish government guarantees he won't then be extradited on to the US, where he fears he will be tried for espionage. Stockholm says no guarantee can be given, because that decision would lie with the courts. And so the weeks have stretched into months, and may yet stretch on into years. [Surveillance] [WikiLeaks]
• France funding Syrian rebels in new push to oust Assad
  Money delivered by French government proxies across Turkish border has been used to buy weapons and ammunition Share 126 Martin Chulov in Ankara guardian.co.uk, Friday 7 December 2012 19.58 GMT Syrian rebel fighters in Aleppo France has emerged as the most prominent backer of Syria's armed opposition and is now directly funding rebel groups around Aleppo as part of a new push to oust the embattled Assad regime. Large sums of cash have been delivered by French government proxies across the Turkish border to rebel commanders in the past month, diplomatic sources have confirmed. The money has been used to buy weapons inside Syria and to fund armed operations against loyalist forces. The French moves have stopped short of direct supply of weapons – a bridge that no western state has yet been willing to cross in Syria. But, according to western and Turkish officials as well as rebel leaders, the influx of money has made a difference in recent weeks as momentum on the battlefields of the north steadily shifts towards the opposition. Some of the French cash has reached Islamist groups who were desperately short of ammunition and who had increasingly turned for help towards al-Qaida aligned jihadist groups in and around Aleppo. [Outsourcing] [France]
• US military facing fresh questions over targeting of children in Afghanistan
  Outrage grows after senior officer claimed troops in Afghanistan were on the lookout for 'children with potential hostile intent' Share 392 Karen McVeigh guardian.co.uk, Friday 7 December 2012 18.53 GMT Jump to comments (192) US troops on patrol in Helmand in Afghanistan Children were a potential threat because they were used by the Taliban to assist in attacks against coalition forces, Marion Carrington said. Photograph: Adek Berry/AFP The US military is facing fresh questions over its targeting policy in Afghanistan after a senior army officer suggested that troops were on the lookout for "children with potential hostile intent". In comments which legal experts and campaigners described as "deeply troubling", army Lt Col Marion Carrington told the Marine Corp Times that children, as well as "military-age males", had been identified as a potential threat because some were being used by the Taliban to assist in attacks against Afghan and coalition forces. "It kind of opens our aperture," said Carrington, whose unit, 1st Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, was assisting the Afghan police. "In addition to looking for military-age males, it's looking for children with potential hostile intent." [Counter-insurgency]
• Will Jim DeMint’s departure make room for more pragmatic leaders?
  By Jena McGregor, Published: December 8 Jim DeMint stunned the political world Thursday by announcing he was stepping down from the Senate to lead the Heritage Foundation. Political scribes rushed to explain why a man seen as the tea party’s patron saint would vacate his powerful perch inside the Senate to head a think tank, typically home to retired or defeated politicians. As David Freedlander wrote in the Daily Beast, “DeMint pulled off a move many lawmakers would have considered laughable: leaving elected office—for a think tank no less!—because the gig isn’t powerful enough.” At first, I was surprised at the news too, and almost, in a way, disheartened by it. Not because I identify much with DeMint’s politics, but because of what it seemed to say about the increasing power of outside influences on our political process and, in an era of Congressional dysfunction, the declining clout of the political leaders people actually elect. [Thinktank]
• Neoliberalism in the American military and its impact on civilians
  Jennifer Mittelstadt 7 December 2012 Over the past 30 years, American culture has increasingly drawn from the military model. Now, as even military pensions and health care are outsourced and privitized, what will be the fate of social welfare in America? Many Democrats in the United States Congress enthusiastically support the looming cuts to the U.S. defense budget. They note the enormous costs of protracted wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the imprudence of lavishly funding an American military already unmatched the world over. For many sound reasons, they view the reduction of the defense budget in broad strokes as positive. But details of present defense budget cuts contain specific proposals that ought to give them – and many Americans – pause. Folded into the current military spending cuts is a neoliberal agenda to privatize and outsource the retirement and health care benefits of military personnel and their families. Americans may consider these proposals of minimal concern, and of interest only to military personnel, veterans, and their families. But their implications reach far wider: they are part of a comprehensive neoliberal plan to privatize virtually all government social welfare programs and entitlements. [Privatisation]
• USAID in Afghanistan
  by MARK GRAHAM Whatever beneficence USAID has doled out over the years has come with a heavy price for Afghans and a heavy price tag for Americans. In fact, USAID is not an aid organization by any common understanding of the term, if by aid we mean helping people who are suffering out of the kindness of our hearts. Instead, USAID functions primarily as an instrument of counterinsurgency and as a pipeline by which public money moves into private hands. What happens after that transaction takes place matters little to policy makers in Washington. It’s a sad story that’s been going on since at least the 1980s when the Afghan-Soviet War led America to initiate covert operations supporting Islamist guerilla armies and political parties in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. While the CIA played a huge part in the game, along with Saudi Arabia and ISI (Pakistani Intelligence) USAID stepped in to do its anticommunist part. With a grant of $51 million dollars between 1984-94, it funded the University of Nebraska’s Afghanistan Studies Center and its leader Thomas Gouttierre, who produced a series of now infamous textbooks for schoolchildren. The most detailed account of these books was written by Craig S. Davis in his 2002 article for World Policy Journal, “A is for Allah, J is for Jihad.” Instead of simply instructing Afghan children in the 3Rs, these texts inserted anti-Communist and religious sentiments into grammar exercises and word problems. For homework: “One group of mujahidin attack 50 Russian soldiers. In that attack 20 Russians were killed. How many Russians fled?” Dal [is for] Religion (din). Our religion is Islam. The Russians are the enemies of the religion of Islam. By the time the United States had taken over the attack on Afghanistan from the Soviet Union, it was clear that this kind of short-sighted brainwashing had been a major force in shaping the fanatical worldviews of a generation of Afghan refugees—boys who would grow up to become members of the Taliban. [Outsourcing]
• U.S. reducing plans for large civilian force in post-2014 Afghanistan
  Video: As the U.S. continues its military withdrawal from Afghanistan, plans for a robust civilian and diplomatic presence are threatened by budget and safety concerns By Karen DeYoung, Thursday, December 6, 7:06 AM The Obama administration has ordered significant cutbacks in initial plans for a robust U.S. civilian presence in Afghanistan after U.S. combat troops withdraw two years from now, according to U.S. officials. Learning from Iraq, where postwar ambitions proved unsustainable, the White House and top State Department officials are confronting whether the United States needs — and can protect — a large diplomatic compound in Kabul, four consulates around the country and other civilian outposts to oversee aid projects and monitor Afghanistan’s political pulse. Planners were recently told to reduce personnel proposals by at least 20 percent, a senior administration official said. Projects once considered crucial are being divided into lists of those considered sustainable and those that will not be continued. [Decline]
• Beware the Anti-Anti-War Left
  by JEAN BRICMONT Louvain, Belgium. Ever since the 1990s, and especially since the Kosovo war in 1999, anyone who opposes armed interventions by Western powers and NATO has to confront what may be called an anti-anti-war left (including its far left segment). In Europe, and notably in France, this anti-anti-war left is made up of the mainstream of social democracy, the Green parties and most of the radical left. The anti-anti-war left does not come out openly in favor of Western military interventions and even criticizes them at times (but usually only for their tactics or alleged motivations – the West is supporting a just cause, but clumsily and for oil or for geo-strategic reasons). But most of its energy is spent issuing “warnings” against the supposed dangerous drift of that part of the left that remains firmly opposed to such interventions. It calls upon us to show solidarity with the “victims” against “dictators who kill their own people”, and not to give in to knee-jerk anti-imperialism, anti-Americanism, or anti-Zionism, and above all not to end up on the same side as the far right. After the Kosovo Albanians in 1999, we have been told that “we” must protect Afghan women, Iraqi Kurds and more recently the people of Libya and of Syria. It cannot be denied that the anti-anti-war left has been extremely effective. The Iraq war, which was sold to the public as a fight against an imaginary threat, did indeed arouse a fleeting opposition, but there has been very little opposition on the left to interventions presented as “humanitarian”, such as the bombing of Yugoslavia to detach the province of Kosovo, the bombing of Libya to get rid of Gaddafi, or the current intervention in Syria. Any objections to the revival of imperialism or in favor of peaceful means of dealing with such conflicts have simply been brushed aside by invocations of “R2P”, the right or responsibility to protect, or the duty to come to the aid of a people in danger. [Humanitarian intervention] [Mis-support]
• An Interview With FARC Founder, Miguel Angel Pascuas
  by HERNANDO CALVO OSPINA He arrived, shook hands with me and sat down beside me. He began drinking juice. At times his eyes looked up to see me. Each movement he made was like in silence. I had just finished interviewing Ricardo Téllez, better known as Rodrigo Granda, one of the delegation heads of the FARC in negotiations with the Government of Colombia in Havana. I had proposed to Tellez that he help me to convince him to an interview. “I will introduce you, and he will decide. He has never done an interview in his life, and I think they have never taken a photo of him”, he tells me. I ask him how he feels. “Good, even though I need my land, my jungle”, he answers barely opening his mouth, and to taste the juice again. In truth this man is a typical campesino: reserved and taciturn in talking to strangers.
• Poetic justice in Qatari tyrant’s fairytale of supporting regional democracy and free speech
  Finian CUNNINGHAM | 05.12.2012 | 00:00 Once upon a time there was a very rich emirate whose royal ruler wanted to dazzle the world with his magnanimity and appreciation of free speech. It was a bold move because, in this particular geographical desert enclave, the oil-rich kingdoms were typically ruled with an iron rod by absolute unelected monarchs. These tyrants, who lorded over their people with megalomaniacal majesty, were widely feared by the populace because they did not tolerate the slightest dissent to their hereditary despotism. At the drop of a royal whim, disobedient subjects could be flung into dungeons and tortured until death. [Media] [Qatar] [Al Jazeera]
• Wikileaks, Anonymous: “Media Instruments” Supportive of US-NATO Sponsored Regime Change?
  By Ryan O’Neill Global Research, December 04, 2012 Region: Middle East & North Africa Theme: Media Disinformation, US NATO War Agenda Throughout early 2011, the European liberal left were in a frenzy over the ‘Arab Spring’ uprisings that were sweeping across the region. The Mainstream Media supplied around the clock coverage of the mass demonstrations in Tahrir Square as we were told that the people of the Arab world were standing up to tyranny and demanding the democratic freedoms and human rights that are held in such high esteem in the west. However, this hysteria took a dark turn in February and March of that year when armed gangs managed to take control of Benghazi in Libya and everyone from FOX News to far left political organizations immediately began to hail these events as part of some progressive revolution. In London, demonstrations began to break out in support of these rebel groups and members of the Socialist Workers Party even scaled the walls of the Libyan Embassy and replaced the Libyan flag with that of the King Idris flag which represented the Benghazi rebels.[i] It’s incredibly problematic when organisations in the West feel they not only have a right to attach themselves to developments and struggles throughout the third world but that they can instinctively and egotistically act on them. This type of behavior rarely considers the importance of contextualization and takes sides in such conflicts depending on which narrative fits their romantic notions of ‘global revolution’ and which version their newly assumed role would sit more comfortable with. Wikileaks and Anonymous for instance, despite being relatively new organisations, are merely a new form of such behavior. The problem is that most of these groups in the west are based on the liberal ideas of individualism and human rights formed in more privileged societies that exist in comfort at the expense of oppressed nations. Whilst following a neo-colonial agenda, countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom are able to portray themselves as progressive, philanthropic nations delivering democracy, aid and human rights to poorer nations and their apparent protection and tolerance of such free and democratic values amongst their own populations only serve to support such claims. [Mis-support]
• Sucking up to the military brass
  By William J Astore Few things have characterized the post-9/11 American world more in the United States than our worshipful embrace of our generals. They've become our heroes, our sports stars, and our celebrities all rolled into one. We can't stop gushing about them. Even after his recent fall from grace, General David Petraeus was still being celebrated by CNN as the best US general since Dwight D Eisenhower (and let's not forget that Ike commanded the largest amphibious invasion in history and held a fractious coalition together in a total war against Nazi Germany). Before his fall from grace, Afghan war commander General Stanley McChrystal was similarly lauded as one tough customer, a sort of superman-saint. [Militarisation]
• Al Qaida-linked group Syria rebels once denied now key to anti-Assad victories
  By David Enders | McClatchy Newspapers QALAT AL MUDIQ, Syria — When the group Jabhat al Nusra first claimed responsibility for car and suicide bombings in Damascus that killed dozens last January, many of Syria’s revolutionaries claimed that the organization was a creation of the Syrian government, designed to discredit those who opposed the regime of President Bashar Assad and to hide the regime’s own brutal tactics. Nearly a year later, however, Jabhat al Nusra, which U.S. officials believe has links to al Qaida, has become essential to the frontline operations of the rebels fighting to topple Assad. [Islamists]
• For one Syrian activist, second thoughts on the armed rebellion
  By David Enders | McClatchy Newspapers HASAKA, Syria — Hasaka is still controlled by the Syrian government, but even from the window of a taxi it’s obvious the people here have not been spared from the country’s civil war. The lines at bakeries are daylong, and many schools are closed because they’ve become homes for refugees from other parts of the country. The power is out now as often as it is on, and fuel is in ever shorter supply. Though she is happy to see him, Adam Ebrahem’s mother admonishes him for returning to his family’s home here. [Islamists]
• The new game in the «Syrian opposition»: the redistribution of roles and functions
  Olga CHETVERIKOVA | 03.12.2012 | 00:00 After a failed attempt to start a comprehensive civil war in Syria, the West began to sculpt the image of the «Syrian opposition» in a new way. So far the «alternative» to the government of Bashar al-Assad, sitting in Turkey, is the Syrian National Council (SNC, also called the «Istanbul council»); it is funded by Qatar and is under the full control of French military intelligence, the General Directorate of External Security (DGSE). Most of the members of the Istanbul council are representatives of the «Muslim Brotherhood». The main fighting force is still directed by Turkey and it equips the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which is recruited from Syrian army deserters and criminals, «al-Qaeda» insurgents, Salafists and jihadists… About 80% of the units recognize as their spiritual leader Sheikh Adnan Al-Arour who lives in Saudi Arabia. The militants command center is in the Turkish city of Adana near a U.S. military base at Incirlik and is controlled by the CIA, through which the Americans «legally» provide the gangs with information, financial and logistical support. [Syria] [Outsourcing]
• Fox News chief’s failed attempt to enlist Petraeus as presidential candidate
  By Bob Woodward, Tuesday, December 4, 4:06 PM Roger Ailes, the longtime Republican media guru, founder of Fox News and its current chairman, had some advice last year for then-Gen. David H. Petraeus. So in spring 2011, Ailes asked a Fox News analyst headed to Afghanistan to pass on his thoughts to Petraeus, who was then the commander of U.S. and coalition forces there. Petraeus, Ailes advised, should turn down an expected offer from President Obama to become CIA director and accept nothing less than the chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the top military post. If Obama did not offer the Joint Chiefs post, Petraeus should resign from the military and run for president, Ailes suggested. [Petraeus]
• “Legal Imperialism” and International Law: Legal Foundations for War Crimes, Debt Collection and Colonization
  By Prof. James Petras Global Research, December 03, 2012 Introduction By now we are familiar with imperial states using their military power to attack, destroy and occupy independent countries. Boatloads of important studies have documented how imperial countries have seized and pillaged the resources of mineral-rich and agriculturally productive countries, in consort with multi-national corporations. Financial critics have provided abundant data on the ways in which imperial creditors have extracted onerous rents, royalties and debt payments from indebted countries and their taxpayers, workers, employees and productive sectors. What has not been examined fully is the over-arching legal architecture which informs, justifies and facilitates imperial wars, pillage and debt collection. [Legality] [Imperialism]
• U.S. pushes to restart peace talks with Taliban
  By Karen DeYoung and Anne Gearan, Published: December 4 The Obama administration has launched a post-election push to restart moribund peace talks with the Taliban, despite resistance from the U.S. military, mixed signals from Pakistan and outright refusal by the militants themselves, according to U.S. officials. Senior White House and State Department officials reiterated the administration’s negotiating position — including its willingness to exchange prisoners with the Taliban — to a reluctant Defense Department at a meeting of national security deputies two weeks ago.
• Will RCEP compete with the TPP?
  November 28th, 2012 Author: Beginda Pakpahan, UI Competition appears likely to emerge between ASEAN’s Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), an agreement to launch negotiations for which was reached at the East Asia Summit (EAS) in Phnom Penh on 20 November, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The two regional trade pacts have quite similar objectives ? trade liberalisation and economic integration ? and competition between the two to be Asia’s predominant economic arrangement has the potential to divide the ASEAN countries. The TPP was born out of an agreement between New Zealand, Chile, Brunei Darussalam and Singapore in 2005; the US, Canada, Australia, Peru, Vietnam, Mexico and Malaysia have since joined. Recently, Japan and South Korea have also showed interest in joining. The TPP aims to establish at least a regional FTA which will further liberalise trade in the Asia Pacific, but may potentially lead to even greater regional economic integration. In 2011, the total GDP of TPP countries was US$20 trillion, with the US accounting for three quarters of this. In line with its pivot toward Asia, the US has led the expansion of the TPP and encouraged other APEC countries to join the negotiations. [TPP]
• Malaysia: Victim of America’s “Irregular Warfare” Ops?
  By Nile Bowie Global Research, December 01, 2012 MALAYSIA The issue of civil society groups receiving foreign funding has been a major point of discussion in Malaysia during recent times, causing controversy and drawing criticism from activists to members of Parliament alike. Some activists tend to view Putrajaya’s investigation into rights advocacy groups like SUARAM (a noted recipient of foreign funding) as a desperate attempt to stifle dissent and attack civil society. Former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has repeatedly warned of a foreign-funded destabilization campaign aimed at regime change in Malaysia – a claim that has been generally dismissed by Bersih goers and the like. With the nation’s 13th General Election looming, some see talk of “foreign plots” as tired rhetoric, while others fail to grasp the deeper machinations of foreign influence and do little more than finger pointing at political opponents. In this instance, the pages of a leaked US military document provide valuable insight into the nature of “foreign plots” potentially aimed against Malaysia. [Subversion]
• William Pawley, the Kennedy Assassination, and Watergate
  TILT and the “Phase Three” Story of Clare Boothe Luce By Prof Peter Dale Scott Global Research, November 29, 2012 A new biography of William Pawley clarifies the millionaire’s status as a friend and adviser to presidents, despite his reactionary views that often made the State Department and even the CIA reluctant to deal with him. His ability to modify and on occasion even overturn official U.S. policies easily qualifies him to be considered part of that mostly invisible milieu I have clumsily called the American “deep state,” a milieu both inside and outside government with the power to steer the history of the public state and sometimes redirect it. It would be wrong to think that Pawley had such power only because of his personal wealth and connections. I hope to show that from the beginning of his career to his sudden death by a self-inflicted gun wound, Pawley always acted in conjunction with other powerful people from both the overworld and the underworld– in short, with what I have called other dark forces of the deep state.
• DIA sending hundreds more spies overseas
  By Greg Miller, Published: December 2 The Pentagon will send hundreds of additional spies overseas as part of an ambitious plan to assemble an espionage network that rivals the CIA in size, U.S. officials said. The project is aimed at transforming the Defense Intelligence Agency, which has been dominated for the past decade by the demands of two wars, into a spy service focused on emerging threats and more closely aligned with the CIA and elite military commando units. [Espionage]
• The Geopolitical Chess Game behind the Israeli Attack on Gaza
  By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya Global Research, December 01, 2012 The recent hostilities between the Gaza Strip and Israel have to be viewed in context of a broader geopolitical chessboard. The events in Gaza are tied to Syria and the US’s regional maneuvers against Iran and its regional alliance system. Syria has been compromised as a conduit for weapons to Gaza, because of its domestic instability. Israel has capitalized on this politically and militarily. Benjamin Netanyahu has not only tried to secure his own election victory in the Knesset through an attack on Gaza, but has used the US-sponsored instability in Syria as an opportunity to try and target the arms stockpiles of the Palestinians. [Sectarianism]
• Drone wars: the new blowback
  Paul Rogers 29 November 2012 The United States and Israel see armed drones as a valuable tool of "remote control". But Iran, China and Russia - and non-state actors - are working to achieve their own capacity. The emerging era is one of drone proliferation. Among the changes brought by Egypt's political transformation in 2011-12 has been that international journalists find it easier to enter Gaza. In turn this ensured much greater media reporting from within Gaza of Israel's assault in mid-November 2012 than had been the case over Operation Cast Lead in 2008-09. A largely unreported aspect of this situation was that many of these journalists had immediate experience of frequent and intense Israeli drone-flights over Gaza during the week-long conflict. Suddenly, a large number of journalists was made aware - possibly for the first time - of the kind of situation villagers in northwest Pakistan had long been subject to: the sound of a drone in their vicinity, buzzing above their head, compounded by a fear that it is armed and could, at any moment, unleash a Hellfire missile at a nearby house or compound. [UAV] [Entitlement]
• “Sandy”: Obama’s “Good Storm”
  By Felicity Arbuthnot Global Research, November 12, 2012 Cathy Breen from Voices for Non Violence was late to hear of Hurricane Sandy and of its impact on the Manhattan community where she lives. She was in Najav, in southern Iraq, where, as the rest of the country, the electricity is intermittent to non-existent, nearly ten years after the invasion which wrought its final near extinction. When she finally hooked up to the outside world her host laughed, remarking without malice: “Maybe we can send them some of our electricity.”(1) In the fleeting window of cyber opportunity an email arrived from a friend in Basra, Iraq’s beautiful, battered second city. Electricity was on his mind too. In the summer the high humidity and temperatures which can exceed 120 F (50c), lack of electricity “neither cools temperatures or temperaments.” As winter approaches the desert chill envelopes. Electricity and clean water had not, apparently, been part of US policy for the city where the first planning priority on crossing the border from Kuwait in March 2003, was to secure the oil installations. Hurricanes and their destruction are, of course, an Act of God. Destroying the entire infrastructure of nations, in bombardments and invasions are acts of men and women, planned with malice to the last detail. In 1991 the attack on Iraq included the destruction of the power grid (electricity was entirely destroyed across the nation within an hour) with a detailed blueprint to destroy Iraq’s water system meticulously executed. Both accomplished the embargo rendering reconstruction impossible. Iraqi ingenuity cannibalized bits here and there and electricity wobbled on and off for the twelve years until the invasion’s further decimation, then the lights largely went out all together. Repair wherewithal for the water system was blocked, banned, embargoed, (as had been planned) and as electricity, re-bombed on an ongoing basis,Typhoid and cholera, virtually eradicated by 1989, again stalked Iraq’s children – now, post “liberation”, described by UNESCO as “endemic.” [Incompetence]
• State Secret: Mitterrand as a Doting Father
  By MAÏA de la BAUME Mazarine Pingeot, the daughter of François Mitterrand, the former French president, and his longtime mistress (sic), has written a diary that includes memories of her father.
• The Day After: The Second Battle for Syria is About to Begin
  I wrote the piece reproduced below exactly one year ago. It concludes: The Syrian revolutionaries were too weak to get the nation they wanted. They’ll have to make do with whatever state that Turkey, the Gulf powers, and the western democracies decide to give them. Now, at the end of 2012, perhaps the fundamental dynamic of the current jockeying over recognition, arms, and aid to the reconstituted overseas Syrian opposition has been misunderstood. It isn’t a question of how to help the rebels. The Syrian Army appears increasingly unable to hold its ground and Syria seems to be headed for a total collapse of national authority—at the hands of largely Islamist insurrectionists. The Western powers aren’t concerned with how many more days, weeks, or months Assad is able to maintain a territorial base in Syria centered on Damascus. And they don’t see very concerned with unleashing a flood of arms to hasten the regime’s demise and deliver the Syrian people from their current misery. What matters is the day after, when Syria is fragmented among the victorious fighters, many with an Islamist agenda. Somebody’s going to have to go in with an army to clean up the mess, co-opt, demobilize, or kill the insurrectionists, and restore some semblance of order and security. The Syrian Army probably isn’t going to be up to the job. That’s what I believe the true significance of the hurried establishment of SNCORF (Syrian National Coalition for Opposition and Revolutionary Forces) is all about. It represents the creation of a compliant (and not Muslim Brotherhood-dominated) authority that can call for assistance a.k.a. intervention by NATO and Turkey and the GCC, perhaps as soon as the SNCORF establishes a halfway plausible presence in post-Assad Idlib, Tarsus, or Aleppo, somewhere where foreign aid and, if needed, forces can be funneled into Syria efficiently.
• Drone crashes mount at civilian airports
  Video: The U.S. Air Force suspended Reaper drone operations in the Seychelles after two crashes in the past year. The Washington Post’s Craig Whitlock has obtained previously unreleased photographs from Air Force investigative reports showing what happened to the drones involved. By Craig Whitlock, Published: December 1 The U.S. Air Force drone, on a classified spy mission over the Indian Ocean, was destined for disaster from the start. An inexperienced military contractor in shorts and a T-shirt, flying by remote control from a trailer at Seychelles International Airport, committed blunder after blunder in six minutes on April 4. [UAV]

• Militarising Education
  Emma Sangster 27 November 2012 The incursion of the military into the British education system will mean that alternatives to war and peaceful ways of resolving conflict will be more difficult for young people to explore. In the long term we will all pay a heavy price, says Emma Sangster. The UK government is on a drive to integrate 'military ethos and skills' into the structure of education, echoing developments in the US and founded on an ideology that says that everything military is good. According to an unpublished 2007 report by the Ministry of Defence (MoD), the UK military already has substantial involvement in education, visiting thousands of schools and colleges each year and having contact with a minimum of around 900,000 children aged 8 -18. Figures obtained link under the Freedom of Information Act suggest that in many areas most secondary level state schools and colleges are being visited, often numerous times. The three aims of this involvement were outlined in the Youth Engagement Review 2011: recruitment, to raise awareness of the armed forces “in order to ensure the continued support of the population” and to encourage personal and social development. The first two are Defence outcomes, the third chimes neatly with the Government's agenda in other areas in which military input into young people's lives is being seen as a solution to wider issues of social dysfunction. [Militarisation]
• Elite Intrigues and Military Purges: It’s Not About Sex, Stupid!
  By Prof. James Petras Global Research, November 22, 2012 The headline stories claim that CIA Director General David Petraeus resigned as head of the CIA because of an adulterous relation with his young biographer and that General John Allen, Supreme Commander of US troops in Afghanistan, was under investigation and his promotion to top commander of US troops in Europe was on hold, because, we are told, of his ‘inappropriate’ comments in the exchange of e-mails with a civilian female friend. We are told that a ‘hard-charging’ local FBI agent, Frederick Humphries, Jr., had uncovered amorous e-mails sent by General Petraeus to his girlfriend-biographer in the course of investigating a complaint of ‘cyber-stalking’. Out of concern that the General’s ‘adulterous behavior’ posed a risk to US national security, Florida-based FBI Agent Humphries handed the evidence over to one of Washington, DC’s most powerful Republican, Congressman Eric Cantor, who in turn passed them on to the Director of the FBI… leading to Petraeus resignation. In other words, we are asked to believe that a single, low-ranking, zealous FBI agent has toppled the careers of two top US Generals: one in charge of the principle global intelligence agency, the CIA, and the other in command of the US and allied combat forces in the principle theater of military engagement – on the basis of infidelity and flirtatious banter! Nothing could be more far-fetched simply on prima facie evidence. [Petraeus]
• Puppet State America
  By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts Global Research, November 19, 2012 The United States government and its subject peoples think of the US as “the world’s only superpower.” But how is a country a superpower when its entire government and a majority of the subjects, especially those members of evangelical churches, grovel at the feet of the Israeli Prime Minister? How is a country a superpower when it lacks the power to determine its own foreign policy in the Middle East? Such a country is not a superpower. It is a puppet state. [Client] [Israel]
• US pivot bumps Asian economic reality
  By Peter Lee President Barack Obama's first post - election mission is a trip to Southeast Asia - Myanmar, Thailand, and Cambodia - to affirm his signature diplomatic and strategic initiative, the pivot to Asia. Despite concerted hosannas in the Western press, President Obama's trip was overshadowed - perhaps intentionally - by Israel pitching Gaza back into the meat grinder and drawing attention back to the Middle East, a region that the Obama administration is nakedly and desperately eager to abandon. In Asia, Obama will find a different set of problems, ones that have a lot to do with the United States attempts to assert a leading role in the region by leveraging its military presence - despite the fact [Pivot]
• Obama’s pick for CIA could affect drone program
  By Greg Miller, Published: November 25 President Obama began his first term with a dramatic change of course for the CIA, issuing orders on his second day in office to close the agency’s secret prisons and ban harsh interrogation techniques. As Obama approaches a second term with an unexpected opening for CIA director, agency officials are watching to see whether the president’s pick signals even a modest adjustment in the main counterterrorism program he kept: the use of armed drones to kill suspected extremists. [CIA] [Global insurgency [UAV] [Assassination]
• US military seeks to develop 'silent bullets'
  Commandos attack during an exercise at Fort Bragg in April 2012. Most bullets make small sonic booms when flying through the air, which to our ears sound like a loud, distinct "crack!" For the Pentagon's special forces, that makes it hard to be sneaky about what they're shooting. Now the commandos want to be sneakier with slower, quieter bullets, U.S. information telecommunication magazine Wired reported Tuesday. According to the magazine, the Special Operations Command (SOCOM) under the U.S. Department of Defense plans to develop rifles in the 5.56, 7.62 and.338 calibers, which will travel at low enough velocities to avoid breaking the sound barrier, thus creating no “crack” noise. In the solicitations, the special forces said the bullet aims to “provide superior covert and stealth capabilities” for not only the military,but police forces and the Department of Homeland Security. [Special forces]
• As drug industry’s influence over research grows, so does the potential for bias
  By Peter Whoriskey, Sunday, November 25, 2:45 PM For drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline, the 17-page article in the New England Journal of Medicine represented a coup. The 2006 report described a trial that compared three diabetes drugs and concluded that Avandia, the company’s new drug, performed best. “We now have clear evidence from a large international study that the initial use of [Avandia] is more effective than standard therapies,” a senior vice president of GlaxoSmithKline, Lawson Macartney, said in a news release. What only careful readers of the article would have gleaned is the extent of the financial connections between the drugmaker and the research. The trial had been funded by GlaxoSmithKline, and each of the 11 authors had received money from the company. Four were employees and held company stock. The other seven were academic experts who had received grants or consultant fees from the firm. [Corruption]
• The Big Winner is Hamas
  by URI AVNERY The mantra of this round was Once And For All. “We must put an end to this (the rockets, Hamas, the Palestinians, the Arabs?) Once and For All!” – this cry from the heart was heard dozens of times daily on TV from the harassed inhabitants of Israel’s battered towns and villages in the South. It has displaced the slogan which dominated several decades: “Bang And Finish!” It did not quite work. The big winner emerging from the cloud is Hamas. Until this round, Hamas had a powerful presence in the Gaza Strip, but practically no international standing. The international face of the Palestinian people was Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian National Authority. No more. Operation Pillar of Cloud has given the Hamas mini-state in Gaza wide international recognition. (Pillar of Cloud is the official Hebrew name, though the army spokesman decreed that the English name, for foreign consumption, should be Pillar of Defense.) Heads of state and droves of other foreign dignitaries made their pilgrimage to the Strip.
• A dangerous future of killer robots
  By Tom Malinowski, Published: November 23 Tom Malinowski is Washington director at Human Rights Watch. The use of drones to kill suspected terrorists is controversial, but so long as a human being decides whether to fire the missile, it is not a radical shift in how humanity wages war. Since the first archer fired the first arrow, warriors have been inventing ways to strike their enemies while removing themselves from harm’s way. Soon, however, military robots will be able to pick out human targets on the battlefield and decide on their own whether to go for the kill. An Air Force report predicted two years ago that “by 2030 machine capabilities will have increased to the point that humans will have become the weakest component in a wide array of systems.” A 2011 Defense Department road map for ground-based weapons states: “There is an ongoing push to increase autonomy, with a current goal of ‘supervised autonomy,’ but with an ultimate goal of full autonomy.” [UAV] [Assassination] [Inheritance]
• Army at crossroads, facing budget cuts and uncertainty about future role
  By Greg Jaffe, Published: November 23 For much of this year, Sgt. Maj. Raymond F. Chandler III, the Army’s top enlisted soldier, has traveled to bases around the world with a simple message: “We’ve allowed ourselves to get out of control.” His solution has been a raft of new regulations governing tattoos, the length of soldiers’ sideburns and the color of the backpacks they are allowed to carry while in uniform. The tighter standards are intended to improve discipline in a force that is recovering from an exhausting decade of war. But some of his fellow troops viewed the new regulations as one piece of a larger, more worrisome trend in the Army as it confronts an uncertain future. Instead of embracing change, some officers worry that the service is reverting to a more comfortable, rigid and predictable past. [US military]
• As Colombia and FARC rebels edge toward peace, a former U.S. hostage recalls his captors
  Jim Wyss | Miami Herald BOGOTA For more than five years, Marc Gonsalvez and two other Americans were marched through Colombia’s jungles as hostages of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, guerrillas. Now, as FARC and government negotiators meet in Cuba to hammer out a peace deal, Gonsalvez, 40, said he’s hoping for the best, but fears the intentions of his former captors. “I am quickly losing hope that something positive will come out of it,” Gonsalvez told The Miami Herald from his home in Stratford, Conn. Negotiators from both sides resumed meeting in Havana Monday to plot a path that might allow the nation’s largest guerrilla group to put down its arms after 48 years. There are five points on the peace agenda, including land reform, victims’ rights and the FARC’s political future. But the political pretensions of the guerrillas — considered terrorists by the U.S. and Colombian governments — grate on Gonsalvez. “They haven’t done anything good for the country; all they have done is terrorize the country,” he said. “I don’t think the FARC have the right to discuss political reform or land distribution or land reform or any of that. This type of peace process should be about the terms of their surrender and what kind of amnesty they will get if they turn in their weapons.” Founded in 1964 with Marxist underpinnings, the FARC has found support in rural areas where poverty runs high and the state’s presence is tenuous. But the group has increasingly turned to drug trafficking, extortion and kidnapping to finance its survival. Gonsalvez fell into the FARC’s hands Feb. 13, 2003, when he and four crewmates were on a military surveillance mission with California Microwave Systems, a division of Northrop Grumman. The airplane crash-landed in guerrilla-controlled territory and was quickly surrounded by the FARC. Thomas Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/11/24/175449/as-colombia-and-farc-rebels-edge.html#storylink=cpy [Privatisation]
• Rebels flying black Islamist flag seize artillery base in Syria’s Deir al Zour province
  By David Enders | McClatchy Newspapers MAYADIN, Syria — After a siege that lasted nearly a month, Syrian government soldiers abandoned an artillery base in the town of Mayadin Thursday morning, handing anti-government rebels in southeastern Deir al Zour province a key victory that will allow them to move next to the airport near the provincial capital, one of the last positions the Syrian military controls in the province. “Then we are going to Damascus!” rebels shouted on Thursday afternoon as they hoisted a black flag above the captured base, which had been a livestock feed plant before the Syrian military took it over. The battle for control of Deir al Zour is one of the least watched in Syria, with no foreign reporters visiting this oil-producing region in months. But the struggle here is an important one, with the rebels hoping to use their advance to cut off the government’s access to its oil fields. How quickly the rebels can eject the military entirely from the province is uncertain, however. The Syrian military still controls the roads leading into the provincial capital, also known as Deir al Zour, though the rebels are in the process of effectively surrounding the military there. Rebels said Syrian army reinforcements sent from Tadmor, 100 miles to the west, helped evacuate Syrian soldiers from the artillery base at Mayadin. As the reinforcements arrived, rebels engaged them on the road to the base, destroying at least one Syrian army tank before the rebels were driven back by repeated attacks by a pair of Syrian air force jets and a helicopter. The rebels have effectively cut off soldiers at a number of Syrian army bases in recent weeks around the country, including Hamdan Airport, also in Deir al Zour, near the city of Abu Kamal on Syria’s border with Iraq. On Tuesday, rebels overran a military base east of the country’s largest city, Aleppo, after a siege there. Last week, after another siege, rebels overran a pair of military bases on the eastern side of the country’s capital, Damascus, and appeared to have captured a number of weapons there, including pieces of advanced anti-aircraft missile systems. The fight for the base here was a costly one. “We lost 30 men attacking this base,” said Hajj Hamed, a high school math teacher as he sat on the front line on Monday and bullets whizzed overhead, punctuated by occasional grenade and mortar fire. Among the men he led was one of his students, 17 years old. “He wanted to join. How could we stop him?” he asked. On Tuesday, four soldiers defected from the base. The defectors were all from areas where the rebels have a strong presence and were, like their captors, Sunni Muslims.
  “How many Alawites are on the base?” one of the rebels asked the defectors /11/22/175365/rebels-flying-black-islamist-flag.html#storylink=cpy [Sectarianism] [Islamist]
• Osama bin Laden death: secret emails give details of burial at sea
  Body referred to as 'Fedex package' in cryptic military dispatches arranging disposal of al-Qaida leader's remains Share 36 inShare.0Email Staff and agencies guardian.co.uk, Thursday 22 November 2012 03.58 GMT Osama bin Laden's burial at sea was carried out amid high secrecy, US military emails reveal Osama bin Laden's burial at sea was carried out amid high secrecy, US military emails reveal. Photograph: AP Osama bin Laden was buried at sea from a US warship amid high secrecy that included his body being referred to as "the package" delivered by "Fedex", secret military emails reveal. [Osama]
• Obama: The Legacy Term?
  By John Feffer, November 19, 2012 Originally published in Hankyoreh Barack Obama has won a second term as U.S. president. Voters have decisively rejected the Republican version of economic reform, and Obama has already used this mandate to address the debt crisis through higher taxes on the wealthiest Americans. The implications of the elections for foreign policy, however, are not so clear. To the extent that the presidential candidates talked about global affairs, which they did rarely and in no great depth, they didn’t really find much disagreement on the major issues, whether Iran and Israel or Asia-Pacific affairs and counter-terrorism. Nor has President Obama given any indication that his recent win will result in a bold new U.S. approach to foreign affairs. [Obama2]
• The Assads: Washington’s one-time favorite family in Damascus
  Wayne MADSEN | 20.11.2012 | 08:36 Archived declassified files from the Central Intelligence Agency point to successive U.S. administrations supporting Syria’s long-serving President Hafez al-Assad, the father of current President Bashar al-Assad, as a bulwark against Arab radicals. Israel also recognized Hafez al-Assad as the “most pragmatic” of all the Arab leaders of his day… In fact, in 1980, longtime CIA Middle East operative Wilbur Eveland told the magazine, The Middle East, that under Allen Dulles in the 1950s, the CIA secretly backed Arab nationalist leaders like Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser. The United States wanted to gain favor with rising pan-Arab leaders like Nasser because of the unpopularity of feudalistic monarchs like Egypt’s King Farouk who was overthrown by Nasser in 1952. However, two years later America’s flirtation with Middle Eastern nationalism waned as the CIA’s Kermit Roosevelt, the son of President Theodore Roosevelt, helped oust Iran’s nationalist Prime Minister Mohamed Mossadeq from power, replacing him with the exiled Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.
• The Petraeus Affair vs. the CIA’s Long Criminal History
  By Julie Lévesque Global Research, November 15, 2012 The Petraeus Affair has demonstrated yet again how a sex scandal story can be fed into the U.S. media to serve both as a trigger for “political assassination” and as “the tree hiding the forest.” Even though what lies behind the salacious smoke screen is still the object of speculation, most of those speculations are more credible than a simple extramarital affair. One of the possible explanations of Petraeus’ departure is his stance on Israel which he saw as a liability to US interests in the Middle East: “The enduring hostilities between Israel and some of its neighbors present distinct challenges to our ability to advance our interests in the AOR [Area of Operations]. Israeli-Palestinian tensions often flare into violence and large-scale armed confrontations. The conflict foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel. Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnerships with governments and peoples in the AOR and weakens the legitimacy of moderate regimes in the Arab world. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda and other militant groups exploit that anger to mobilize support. The conflict also gives Iran influence in the Arab world through its clients, Lebanese Hizballah and Hamas.” (Ali Abunimah, When Former CIA Chief David Petraeus Enraged the Israel Lobby, Electronic Intifada, November 12, 2012.) As Stephen Lendman observes, sex scandals don’t necessarily lead to resignations unless state secrets are at stake: [Petraeus]
• Fighting ‘Terrorism’ or Repressing Democracy? Britain’s System of Mass Surveillance
  The British government’s plans to monitor the entire population’s electronic communication By Dr. Paul Anderson Global Research, November 14, 2012 The focus of critiques of authoritarianism today lies increasingly in the use by liberal governments of ‘exceptional’ powers. These are powers in which an imminent threat to national security is judged to be of such importance as to warrant the restriction of liberties and other socially repressive measures in order to protect national security. ‘Terrorism’ has offered a particularly salient source of justification for a level of social repression that would be intolerable in normal times. A dominant line of criticism is that the use of exceptional powers to this end has gone too far. Critics emphasise the need to curtail such power by bringing it into line with basic human rights standards.[1] [Surveillance]
• Iran hosts Syrian peace conference
  Vahid Salemi/AP - Participants listen to a speaker during the "Syria National Dialog" conference, at the Esteghlal Hotel in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012. Iran held Sunday a conference to reconcile Syria's government with opposition factions and end the country's civil war, the official IRNA news agency reported. By Jason Rezaian, Monday, November 19, 7:12 AM TEHRAN— Under the motto “No to violence, yes to democracy,” an estimated 200 Syrian and regional politicians gathered in Tehran on Sunday to discuss a possible end to the violence that has engulfed Syria since March 2011. “We believe reforms in Syria should lead to a free, fair and transparent election with the cooperation of all political parties,” Iran’s foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, said in opening remarks at the one-day Syrian National Dialogue conference. Iran continues to back Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime despite the bloodshed, which has killed more than 40,000 people since the fighting began, making Western and many Arab governments doubt the Islamic republic’s sincerity in trying to end the violence. But the presence of delegations from dozens of countries, including representatives of Russia and China, two key Syrian allies, indicate that Iran is seen as able to wield influence in the matter. Leaders in Tehran have long contended that they support a peaceful solution to the Syrian conflict and can play a positive role in engineering a lasting cease-fire there.
• US denies visas to Iranian UN delegates
  Tension grows as Tehran accuses US officials of 'wanting to prevent us interacting and co-operating with the United Nations' Share 112 guardian.co.uk, Saturday 17 November 2012 19.48 GMT As UN host country, the US has a policy of issuing visas for members of delegations. Photograph: Sven Hoppe/EPA The United States has denied visas to Iranian officials hoping to attend a UN meeting in New York, Iran's state news agency reported on Saturday. The Iranian judiciary's human rights headquarters said in a statement that the US denied visas to members of an Iranian delegation that planned to travel to a meeting of the United Nations' third committee, which focuses on social issues and human rights, state news agency Irna said. "The US government, by not issuing visas to the members of the delegation, wants to ruin the possibility of the presence of the delegation, and prevent its members from conducting their mission of interacting and co-operating with the United Nations," said the statement, according to Irna. The judiciary body urged UN officials to warn the United States against such decisions and remind it of its obligations as UN host country, Irna reported. It did not say how many Iranian officials had applied for visas from the United States or when they wanted to travel. [UNUS] [Legality]
• Petraeus scandal puts four-star general lifestyle under scrutiny
  By Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Greg Jaffe, Sunday, November 18, 2:29 PM Then-defense secretary Robert M. Gates stopped bagging his leaves when he moved into a small Washington military enclave in 2007. His next-door neighbor was Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, who had a chef, a personal valet and — not lost on Gates — troops to tend his property. Gates may have been the civilian leader of the world’s largest military, but his position did not come with household staff. So, he often joked, he disposed of his leaves by blowing them onto the chairman’s lawn. “I was often jealous because he had four enlisted people helping him all the time,” Gates said in response to a question after a speech Thursday. He wryly complained to his wife that “Mullen’s got guys over there who are fixing meals for him, and I’m shoving something into the microwave. And I’m his boss.” [Petraeus]
• FBI investigation of Broadwell reveals bureau’s comprehensive access to electronic communications
  By Greg Miller and Ellen Nakashima, Sunday, November 18, 1:57 PM The FBI started its case in June with a collection of five e-mails, a few hundred kilobytes of data at most. By the time the probe exploded into public view earlier this month, the FBI was sitting on a mountain of data containing the private communications — and intimate secrets — of a CIA director and a U.S. war commander. What the bureau didn’t have — and apparently still doesn’t — is evidence of a crime. [Surveillance]
• U.S. expands counterterrorism assistance in Cambodia in spite of human rights concerns
  By Craig Whitlock, Published: November 16 The Pentagon is expanding counterterrorism assistance to unlikely corners of the globe as part of a strategy to deploy elite Special Operations forces as advisers to countries far from al-Qaeda’s strongholds in the Middle East and North Africa. Much of the new assistance is being directed toward countries in Asia and has been fueled by the Obama administration’s strategic “pivot” to the region. In Cambodia, for example, the Defense Department is training a counterterrorism battalion even though the nation has not faced a serious militant threat in nearly a decade. The training has persisted despite concerns about the human rights record of Cambodia’s authoritarian ruler, former Khmer Rouge commander Hun Sen, who in the past has relied on his military to execute and intimidate political opponents. [China confrontation] [Co-option]
• Another Superfluous War
  by URI AVNERY How did it start? Stupid question. Conflagrations along the Gaza Strip don’t start. They are just a continuous chain of events, each claimed to be a [or “in”] “retaliation” for the previous one. Action is followed by reaction, which is followed by retaliation, which is followed by … This particular event “started” with the firing from Gaza of an anti-tank weapon at a partially armored jeep on the Israeli side of the border fence. It was described as retaliation for the killing of a boy in an air attack some days earlier. But probably the timing of the action was accidental – the opportunity just presented itself. The success gave rise to demonstrations of joy and pride in Gaza. Again Palestinians had shown their ability to strike at the hated enemy. However, the Palestinians had in fact walked into a trap prepared with great care. [Assassination]
• America’s Defense Dependency
  by FRANKLIN C. SPINNEY The essay — America the Third World Nation in Just 4 Easy Steps, (Truthout, 10 Nov 2012) — describes how our political addiction to the free-trade ideology of neoliberal economics has helped to de-industrialize America and thereby impoverish much of the American middle class. My 24 Sept essay in Counterpunch describing decline of manufacturing employment gives you a sense of the mind-boggling magnitude of what has happened. While “4 Easy Steps” makes passing references to the increasing dependence of the manufacturing sector on military spending, as well as the financialization of economy (but not the latter’s siamese-twin ‘managerialism’), the authors did not develop these points. Without implying any criticism of their excellent essay, my aim today is to tweak your interest in these omissions, particularly America’s defense dependency. The late Professor Seymour Melman (Columbia Univ.) wrote a prescient book, Profits Without Production (Knopf, 1983) that explained how the militarization and managerialization of our economy were becoming the central causes of the decline in America’s manufacturing competitiveness. This decline started in the 1970s, but Melman showed how it grew out of seeds planted by the permanent military mobilization of a huge defense industry in the 1950s. [Militarisation]
• Broadwell Defended Petraeus’ Village Destruction Policy
  by GARETH PORTER Paula Broadwell, whose affair with Gen. David Petraeus brought his career to a sudden end last week, had sought to help defend his decision in 2010 to allow village destruction in Afghanistan that not only violated his own previous guidance but the international laws of war. Gen. David Petraeus (right) was under pressure from the Obama administration to produce tangible evidence of “progress” that could be used to justify troop withdrawals. Credit: U.S. Dod/public domain. But her efforts had the opposite effect.
• Galloping Petraeus
  by Dr. SUSAN BLOCK The original Petraeus of ancient Greece was a centaur, a mythical chimera with the body of a man from head to waist, the physique of a horse from loins to hooves and—thanks to this potent hybridization—a voracious sexual appetite. As legend tells us, when he and several other centaurs attended a royal wedding in Thessaly, Petraeus got totally smashed on the king’s fine wine, then proceeded to grab the bride and ravish her, as his fellow horse/men, also violently drunk and horny, commenced attacking the other female guests, turning the wedding party into a stampeding gang rape. With the cunning of a man and the genitalia of a stallion, Petraeus and the other centaurs proved formidable rapists and might have succeeded in their beastly assault. But several human guests, the legendary King Theseus among them, saved the day and the wedding party, fighting off the rapacious beasts, killing Petraeus and several other centaurs in what became known as the battle of the Centauromachy (a favorite classical art motif), while the rest ran off galloping for the Thessalian hills. Fast forward to modern American reality mixed with a hefty dose of media mythologizing, and we have *our* Petraeus (though his folks are Dutch, the name still bears the old Greek meaning), famed former CIA chief and four-star general who recently confessed to surrendering to the embedded charms and well-toned arms of his hagiographer, tight-bodied and loose-lipped army reservist Paula Broadwell. This put them and a few of their friends and colleagues in the center of a superstorm of internecine investigations, horn-honking headlines and titillating gossip at the highest levels of the U.S. “military industrial complex” (MIC). [Petraeus]
• War crimes convictions of two Croatian generals overturned
  Croatia celebrates release of Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac, but Serbian prosecutor calls appeal ruling 'scandalous' Share 530 Julian Borger in The Hague The Guardian, Friday 16 November 2012 12.50 GMT Ante Gotovina, left, and Mladen Markac Ante Gotovina, left, and Mladen Markac. Photograph: Bas Czerwinski/AFP/Getty An appeal court at The Hague war crimes tribunal has overturned the convictions of two Croatian generals for the expulsion of ethnic Serbs in 1995, in a ruling hailed in Croatia as a vindication of its war of independence but denounced in Serbia as evidence of bias. The court ordered the immediate release of Ante Gotovina, a former military commander, and Mladen Markac, a former head of special police, who had been serving jail sentences of 24 and 18 years respectively. The verdict revealed deep divisions inside the tribunal. It threw out last year's trial verdict on the two men, but only by a 3-2 majority. The two dissenting justices were scathing. One called it "simply grotesque" and contradictory to "any sense of justice". [War crimes] [Double standards]
• U.S. workers endure ‘lost decade’ of declining wages
  By Kevin G. Hall | McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — The nation’s high unemployment rate captures the headlines with each monthly jobs report, yet many Americans may be surprised to learn that real earnings, when adjusted for inflation, have declined across most industries and sectors since the Great Recession. Since 2002, in fact, it’s effectively been a lost decade for workers. Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/11/15/174797/us-workers-endure-lost-decade.html#storylink=omni_popular#storylink=cpy [Labour] [Decline]
• Betraeus! The General's Affair
  Jill Kelley: Five Facts About the Petraeus Affair’s Mystery Woman by Nina Strochlic Nov 11, 2012 7:08 PM EST A new name has been dragged into the Petraeus mess: Jill Kelley, who allegedly received ‘harassing’ emails from the general’s mistress. Nina Strochlic on the new clues. The FBI probe that uncovered Gen. David Petraeus’s affair with biographer Paula Broadwell stemmed from harassing emails she sent another woman. The woman apparently felt threatened and reported the emails, sparking an investigation that would lead to Petraeus’s resignation as director of the CIA on Friday. According to a senior U.S. military official, that woman is 37-year-old Jill Kelley, the State Department’s liaison to the military’s Joint Special Operations Command who lives in Tampa, Florida. It’s unclear the nature of her relationship with Petraeus, but her closeness with the general was enough that Broadwell allegedly demanded Kelley “stay away from” him. Here’s what has been reported about this mystery woman. [Petraeus]
• Answering your questions on the Petraeus scandal
  January 30, 2010, from left: Natalie Khawam, Gen. David Petraeus; Scott and Jill Kelley; and Holly Petraeus watch the Gasparilla parade in Tampa, Florida. | Amy Scherzer/Tampa Bay Times/MCT By Franco Ordonez | McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — A guide to the growing scandal involving former CIA Director David Petraeus. Q: Who’s involved? A: So far, there are four key players: David Petraeus, 60, the highly respected retired general who was tapped to lead the Central Intelligence Agency last year. He resigned last Friday after admitting to an extramarital affair with his biographer. Paula Broadwell, 40, a graduate of West Point. Her book, “All In: The Education of General David Petraeus,” was published this year. She’s been accused of sending threatening emails to another woman. Jill Kelley, 37, a socialite in Tampa, Fla., who often organized parties around MacDill Air Force Base and was an honorary ambassador to U.S. Central Command. Kelley and her husband, Scott, were family friends with Petraeus and his wife, Holly, and with another military leader. [Petraeus]
• The New Political Map of the Middle East
  by Patrick Cockburn President Obama is lucky in his opponents, particularly when it comes to explaining why America’s influence is waning in the Middle East. The issue was hardly mentioned in the election, aside from a botched attempt by Mitt Romney to blame the administration for the death of Chris Stevens, the US ambassador to Libya, and for the burning of the US consulate in Benghazi. Romney soon steered away from his initial posture of attacking Obama for “apologising for America” and failing to assert US power. He recognised that the one thing the US electorate does not want is another war in the Middle East. By beating the patriotic drum too hard, Romney risked voters remembering that it was the Republicans who, not so long ago, led them into failed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. On a more prosaic level, Romney may have sensed he would be vulnerable on topics he knew nothing about. This near immunity from effective criticism during the campaign does not mean that Obama is not facing dangers across the region with which he has previously failed to grapple successfully. [US global strategy]
• Why was Petraeus Really Ousted?
  by Bart Gruzalski The resignation of CIA Director David Petraeus just didn’t make sense. An affair? With his biographer Paula Broadwell? Even CBS’s Face the Nation Peggy Noonan commented that Petraeus shouldn’t resign. “And I just have to ask why do we have to lose him over this? That actually makes no sense.” Like all of us, she found his resignation over an extramarital affair “a little too mysterious” and “it looks very strange.” Petraeus was scheduled to testify next week in a closed hearing on what happened at Benghazi. “What I don’t understand is the immediate departure,” Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein told CNN Chief Political Analyst Gloria Borger. “That’s the part I don’t get.” Mainstream media focuses on Petraeus’s upcoming testimony before the Senate intelligence committee on the attack at the Benghazi consulate in Libya which led to the death of our ambassador. That explanation may be the reason. Some members of the intelligence committee already considered charging Petraeus with perjury, but planned to withhold judgment until he testified this week. After resigning as CIA director, the CIA said acting director Mike Morrell would testify in his place. [Petraeus]
• Paula Broadwell claims about Benghazi attack dismissed as 'baseless' by CIA
  Woman who had affair with David Petraeus gave speech about the CIA chief's handling of the Libya assault last month Matt Williams in New York guardian.co.uk, Monday 12 November 2012 20.05 GMT Paula Broadwell, author of the David Petraeus biography All In. Photograph: T Ortega Gaines/AP The CIA has dismissed as "baseless" and "uninformed" claims made by the former lover of ex-agency chief David Petraeus that Libyan militants were held in secret US prisons prior to the deadly Benghazi consulate attack. Paula Broadwell, the biographer whose affair with Petraeus led to his abrupt resignation Friday, alleged that the assault, in which US ambassador Christopher Stevens was killed, was an attempt to free men being detained in a covert CIA annex. Speaking last month at the University of Denver, Broadwell further alleged that Petreaus knew about the secret holding cells. President Barack Obama stripped the CIA of its power to take prisoners through an executive order signed soon after his inauguration in January 2009. [Petraeus]
• When top Justice officials learned of Petraeus affair remains unclear
  By Jonathan S. Landay, Franco Ordonez and Hannah Allam | McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — FBI Director Robert Mueller’s top aide was told former CIA chief David Petraeus was having an extramarital affair that might have compromised national security a week before the Nov. 6 elections, a congressional official said Monday. The disclosure raises fresh questions about why the FBI leadership withheld the information from the nation’s top intelligence official and the congressional committees that oversee the U.S. intelligence community until after President Barack Obama won re-election. Had the affair that forced Petraeus’ startling resignation on Friday become public earlier, it might have stoked a political outcry already flaring over the deaths of the U.S. ambassador to Libya, two CIA contractors and a State Department staffer in a Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, by suspected Islamist extremists. [Petraeus]
• Scandal probe ensnares commander of U.S., NATO troops in Afghanistan
  Rajiv Chandrasekaran/THE WASHINGTON POST - The FBI probe into the sex scandal that led to the resignation of CIA director David Petraeus has expanded to ensnare Gen. John R. Allen, center, the commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, the Pentagon announced early Tuesday. By Craig Whitlock, Nov 13, 2012 06:00 AM EST The Washington Post ABOARD A U.S. MILITARY AIRCRAFT — The FBI probe into the sex scandal that led to the resignation of CIA director David Petraeus has expanded to ensnare Gen. John R. Allen, the commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, the Pentagon announced early Tuesday. According to a senior U.S. defense official, the FBI has uncovered between 20,000 and 30,000 pages of “potentially inappropriate” e-mails between Allen and Jill Kelley, a 37-year-old Tampa woman whose close friendship with Petraeus ultimately led to his downfall. Allen, a Marine, succeeded Petraeus as the top allied commander in Afghanistan in July 2011. [Petraeus]
• Petraeus hoped affair would stay secret and he could keep his job as CIA director
  By Sari Horwitz, Kimberly Kindy and Scott Wilson, Nov 13, 2012 04:37 AM EST The Washington Post Tuesday, November 13, 10:15 AM FBI agents searched the home of the woman at the center of the scandal involving former CIA director David H. Petraeus on Monday evening, carrying away boxes and bags of material and taking photographs inside her home in Charlotte. A senior law enforcement official said the agents were searching for any classified or sensitive documents that may have been in the possession of Paula Broadwell, a former military officer and Petraeus biographer whose extramarital affair with him led to his resignation Friday. Local television stations showed agents carrying boxes out of the two-story brick house Broadwell shares with her husband, a radiologist, and two young sons. Agents also appeared to be taking photographs inside the house. [Petraeus]
• Exclusive: Petraeus biography ghostwriter breaks silence
  Post local editor Vernon Loeb, who ghostwrote Paula Broadwell’s David Petraeus biography, offers his impressions of Broadwell and thoughts on the scandal. [Petraeus]
• Petraeus ghostwriter ‘clueless’ to affair
  By Vernon Loeb, Nov 13, 2012 12:24 AM EST The Washington Post Tuesday, November 13, 1:24 PM My wife says I’m the most clueless person in America. I never anticipated the extramarital affair between David H. Petraeus and Paula Broadwell, the woman I’d worked with for 16 months on a book about Petraeus’s year commanding the war in Afghanistan. On rare occasions, her good looks and close access would prompt a colleague to raise an eyebrow about their relationship, but I never took it seriously. I certainly wasn’t alone. The unusually close relationship between subject and biographer was no secret by the time President Obama nominated Petraeus as CIA director in the summer of 2011 following his command year in Kabul. America’s most famous and heralded general had granted Broadwell extraordinary access for her book, “All In: The Education of General David Petraeus.” Nor has Broadwell done anything to hide this access or her great admiration of Petraeus since the book was published in January, describing him in terms that are, well, effusive. [Petraeus]
• A spy tale with missing pieces
  By Eugene Robinson, Nov 13, 2012 12:24 AM EST The Washington Post Tuesday, November 13, 1:24 PM The one familiar aspect of the David Petraeus scandal is that he had an affair. Everything else about this story is weird. Petraeus, who resigned Friday as director of the CIA, is brilliant, brave, dedicated and accomplished. But he is also vain. Even his most loyal and ardent supporters have to acknowledge the care with which he has always burnished his own image. He is used to being surrounded by acolytes — staff officers, journalists, hangers-on — whose fawning attentions can only foster a sense of superiority and entitlement. Not every man in that situation betrays his marriage vows. Some do, as evidenced by the whole of human history. So the sex part is deplorable but comprehensible. The rest of this saga is bizarrely opaque, starting with the timing. According to reports by The Post and other news outlets, the FBI investigation that uncovered the relationship between the retired four-star general and Paula Broadwell, his two-decades-younger biographer, was launched early in the summer. Yet Petraeus’s boss, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, wasn’t told of the inquiry until Nov. 6. Which just happened to be Election Day. Sorry, but there are no coincidences in spy novels. [Petraeus]
• Timeline of Petraeus scandal scrutinised as Benghazi hearing looms
  Congress questions FBI delay in reporting affair, as details of 'harassed' second woman emerges Matt Williams in New York The Guardian, Sunday 11 November 2012 Jump to comments (91) David Petraeus at his confirmation hearing. The former general was to testify before a Congressional hearing on Thursday. Photograph: Paul J Richards/AFP The dramatic downfall of CIA chief David Petraeus has given rise to political intrigue in Washington as a drip-feed of details concerning his clandestine affair mixes with serious questions over the timing of the resignation. Over the weekend it emerged that his relationship with biographer Paula Broadwell was discovered by FBI agents while they investigated harassing emails she allegedly sent to a second woman, who was named on Sunday by the Associated Press as Jill Kelley, a state department military liaison. The scandal comes at a particularly sensitive time. Petraeus had been due to give evidence before a Congressional body this coming Thursday concerning the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi in which four Americans were killed, including America's ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens. It is now thought that Petraeus will not attend the session, robbing politicians of the opportunity to question an "absolutely necessary witness", according to Peter King, chairman of the House homeland security committee. White House and intelligence officials have suggested that there is no connection between the timing of Petraeus's resignation and the evidence session on the Benghazi attack. But in Washington, questions are being asked as to why the FBI appeared to have sat on the information it uncovered regarding the affair before handing it on to other authorities some time later. [Petraeus]
• Lawmakers want probe of Petraeus investigation
  Video: The scandal that brought down CIA Director David Petraeus started with harassing emails sent by his biographer and paramour, Paula Broadwell, to another woman, and eventually led the FBI to discover the affair, U.S. officials said on Saturday. By Karen DeYoung and Sari Horwitz, Nov 12, 2012 05:04 AM EST The Washington Post Senior lawmakers called for an inquiry into the FBI’s handling of the case of CIA Director David H. Petraeus on Sunday as new ­details and questions emerged about the investigation that led to his resignatio n last week. Law enforcement sources identified Jill Kelley, 37, of Tampa as the woman whose report of harassing e-mails eventually ­exposed an extramarital affair ­between Petraeus and Paula Broadwell, a former Army officer who wrote a biography of the retired four-star general. The departure in disgrace of one of the administration’s most respected and prominent figures came as President Obama is re­organizing his national security team for a second term. Petraeus was to have been a primary witness this week at a series of closed-door congressional hearings on possible intelligence and security lapses surrounding the September attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya. [Petraeus]
• Former aides wonder: Did Petraeus stumble in unfamiliar terrain?
  View Photo Gallery — Gen. David Petraeus:?The retired four-star Army general who commanded forces in Iraq and Afghanistan has resigned from the head of the CIA, citing an extramarital affair. Text Size Print E-mail Reprints By Greg Jaffe, Nov 12, 2012 01:18 AM EST The Washington Post No general in the U.S. military had a more loyal retinue of staff officers than retired general David H. Petraeus. Many of these soldiers had followed him through multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade. The collapse of his storied career after his admission of an affair has left them all asking the same questions: How could the illicit relationship have happened? And how does it square with the officer they knew and admired? [Petraeus] [Think tanks]
• Lawmakers want probe of Petraeus investigation
  Video: Leaders of congressional intelligence committees want to know more about the FBI investigation that led to David Petraeus resignation as CIA Director. By Karen DeYoung and Sari Horwitz, Nov 12, 2012 05:04 AM EST The Washington Post Senior lawmakers called for an inquiry into the FBI’s handling of the case of CIA Director David H. Petraeus on Sunday as new ­details and questions emerged about the investigation that led to his resignation last week. Law enforcement sources identified Jill Kelley, 37, of Tampa as the woman whose report of harassing e-mails eventually ­exposed an extramarital affair ­between Petraeus and Paula Broadwell, a former Army officer who wrote a biography of the retired four-star general. [Petraeus]
• China and Russia are Acquiring Gold, Dumping US Dollars
  By Prof Michel Chossudovsky Global Research, November 11, 2012 Global Research 6 January 2011 There is evidence that central banks in several regions of the World are building up their gold reserves. What is published are the official purchases. A large part of these Central Bank purchases of gold bullion are not disclosed. They are undertaken through third party contracting companies, with utmost discretion. US dollar holdings and US dollar denominated debt instruments are in effect being traded in for gold, which in turn puts pressure on the US dollar. [Reserve]
• The storied career of David H. Petraeus
  View Photo Gallery — Gen. David Petraeus:?The retired four-star Army general who commanded forces in Iraq and Afghanistan has resigned from the head of the CIA, citing an extramarital affair. By Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Nov 10, 2012 02:53 AM EST The Washington Post Published: November 10 On the march to Baghdad in 2003, back when many Americans expected the Iraq war to last weeks and not years, a little-known two-star Army general named David H. Petraeus posed a question to a reporter accompanying him that would come to define the grueling U.S. combat mission there: “Tell me how this ends.” Before long, it was a query that many began to pose about Petraeus himself. After refashioning the military’s strategy for fighting insurgencies, after picking up his third and fourth stars, after overseeing the troop surge in Iraq and running the U.S. Central Command, and after taking charge of the war in Afghanistan, Washington buzzed with speculation of his next move. Would he run for president? The questions continued even after President Obama appointed him CIA director. Would he be Mitt Romney’s running mate? Nothing, it seemed, was out of reach for America’s most-famous living general. David Petraeus has resigned as director of the CIA after admitting he had an extramarital affair. According to his letter of resignation, Petraeus asked President Barack Obama on Thursday to allow him to resign. T he president accepted on Friday. Now, we know how it ends for Petraeus. His resignation Friday as CIA director because of an acknowledged extramarital affair aborts an almost four-decade-long career in public service defined by boundless ambition, political savvy and strategic acumen. And it almost certainly tarnishes the legacy of a man seen by many as the nation’s preeminent military leader in the post-Sept. 11 world, a commander who turned around the failing Iraq war and dealt the Taliban a bloody punch in Afghanistan. [Petraeus]
• The Oddities of Election Year Gasoline Prices
  By Matthew Philips on November 06, 2012 Among the many gasoline-related conspiracy theories out there is the one that says national elections cause gasoline prices to fall. It’s true that prices do tend to decline in the run-up to Election Day—as they have, nationally, over the past two months. It’s also true that they do the same thing in years when we’re not voting. The effect, however, does appear to be greater in election years. From 1991 to 2012, national gasoline prices fell by an average of 3.27 percent each year between the July 4th weekend (when demand tends to peak) and the first week of November. During presidential election years, prices fell by more than twice as much, 7.6 percent. Factoring in congressional election years (every even-numbered year), the average price decline is 5.35 percent. The smallest effect happens during odd-numbered years, when no candidates are running for the House of Representatives or Senate, though five states do hold gubernatorial elections. In those years, prices declined by only 0.6 percent. Those election-year results include the whopping 45 percent price decline that happened from July to November in 2008. Remember, the national average price for a gallon of gasoline hit an all-time high of $4.17 during the week of July 4, 2008. By the time Election Day rolled around four months later, it had fallen by almost two full dollars. Still, when you strip out 2008, presidential election-year gasoline prices fall by an average of 6.5 percent from July to November. I must say, these results are more stark than I expected them to be. I’m reticent to draw conclusions. The sample size is way too small, and there are far too many external factors that determine gasoline prices to say that something significant is going on. For lack of a better explanation, I’ll revert to the old standby: “Correlation does not imply causation.”
• Petraeus admits affair, quits as CIA director
  Saying that he had shown "extremely poor judgment," CIA Director David Petraeus, seen in this 2008 file photo, resigned after admitting to having an extra-marital affair. | Chuck Kennedy/MCT By Jonathan S. Landay and Hannah Allam | McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON CIA Director David Petraeus abruptly resigned Friday after admitting to an extramarital affair in a shocking end to a 37-year career in which he rose to become the Army’s leading counterinsurgency strategist, the top U.S. commander in Iraq and Afghanistan and then head of the country’s premier spy agency. “After being married for over 37 years, I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair,” Petraeus said in a statement sent to the CIA workforce. “Such behavior is unacceptable, both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as ours. This afternoon, the president graciously accepted my resignation.” [Petraeus]
• FBI probe of Petraeus triggered by e-mail threats from biographer, officials say
  Video: David Petraeus has resigned as director of the CIA after admitting he had an extramarital affair. According to his letter of resignation, Petraeus asked President Barack Obama on Thursday to allow him to resign. T he president accepted on Friday. Text Size Print E-mail Reprints By Sari Horwitz and Greg Miller, Nov 10, 2012 07:17 PM EST The Washington Post Sunday, November 11, 8:17 AM The collapse of the dazzling career of CIA Director David H. Petraeus was triggered when a woman with whom he was having an affair sent threatening e-mails to another woman close to him, according to three senior law enforcement officials with knowledge of the episode. The recipient of the e-mails was so frightened that she went to the FBI for protection and help tracking down the sender, according to the officials. The FBI investigation traced the threats to Paula Broadwell, a former military officer and a Petraeus biographer, and uncovered explicit e-mails between Broadwell and Petraeus, the officials said. When Petraeus’s name first surfaced, FBI investigators were concerned that the CIA director’s personal e-mail account had been hacked and security had been breached. But the sexual nature of the e-mails led them to conclude that Petraeus and Broadwell were engaged in an affair, the officials said.
• Why David Petraeus’s Gmail account is a national security issue
  Posted by Max Fisher on November 10, 2012 at 11:14 am CIA Director David Petraeus speaks during a high-level meeting in the White House Situation Room. (Pete Souza/The White House via Getty Images) The beginning of the end came for CIA Director David Petraeus when Paula Broadwell, a younger married woman with whom he was having an affair, “or someone close to her had sought access to his email,” according to the Wall Street Journal’s description of an FBI probe. Associates of Petraeus had received “anonymous harassing emails” that were then traced to Broadwell, ABC’s Martha Raddatz reported, suggesting she may have found their names or addresses in his e-mail. The e-mail account was apparently Petraeus’s personal Gmail, not his official CIA e-mail, according to the Wall Street Journal. That’s a big deal: Some of the most powerful foreign spy agencies in the world would love to have an opening, however small, into the personal e-mail account of the man who runs the United States’ spy service. The information could have proved of enormous value to foreign hackers, who already maintain a near-constant effort to access sensitive U.S. data. [Petraeus]
• NAVY LAUNCHING ITS FIRST DRONE COPTER SQUADRON
  Unmanned aircraft could eventually be on every ship Written by Jeanette Steele 12:01 a.m., Sept. 10, 2012 Updated 8:26 p.m. , Sept. 9, 2012 The Navy will usher in a new era next month in Coronado by launching its first unmanned-helicopter squadron, which will train current pilots and enlisted nonpilots to fly the up to 6,000-pound drones that may eventually claim a spot on every Navy ship. The Navy is using helicopters more often — saying they’re better for multi-tasking than airplanes — and now it is cementing its commitment to the unmanned version. [UAV] [Surveillance]
• the Human Rights Industry
  by Daniel Kovalick When I studied law at Columbia in the early 1990s, I had the fortune of studying under Louis Henkin, probably the world’s most famous human rights theoretician. Upon his passing in 2010, Elisa Massimino at Human Rights First stated in Professor Henkin’s New York Times obituary that he “literally and figuratively wrote the book on human rights” and that “[i]t is no exaggeration to say that no American was more instrumental in the development of human rights law than Lou.” Professor Henkin, rest his soul, while a human rights legend, was not always good on the question of war and peace. I know this from my own experience when I had a vigorous debate with him during and continuing after class about the jailing of anti-war protestors, including Eugene V. Debs, during World War I. In short, Professor Henkin, agreeing with Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, believed that these protestors were properly jailed because their activities, though peaceful, constituted a “clear and present danger” to the security of the nation during war time. I strongly disagreed. [NGO] [Outsourcing] [Human rights] [AI]
• US election results: Voter turnout shaping up to be lower than 2008
  US election results: Voter turnout shaping up to be lower than 2008 WASHINGTON: A drop in voter turnout in Tuesday's U.S. election didn't keep President Barack Obama from winning a second term. Preliminary figures suggest fewer people voted this year than four years ago, when voters shattered turnout records as they elected Obama as the country's first black president. "By and large, people didn't show up," said Curtis Gans, the director of American University's Center for the Study of the American Electorate. Still, the full picture may not be known for weeks, because much of the counting takes place after Election Day. With 95 percent of precincts reporting, The Associated Press figures showed more than 117 million people voted in the White House race, but that number will go up as more votes are counted. In 2008, 131 million people voted, according to the Federal Election Commission. [US_election12]
• The Elections, Gridlock and Foreign Policy
  November 7, 2012 | 1000 GMT Stratfor By George Friedman The United States held elections last night, and nothing changed. Barack Obama remains president. The Democrats remain in control of the Senate with a non-filibuster-proof majority. The Republicans remain in control of the House of Representatives. The national political dynamic has resulted in an extended immobilization of the government. With the House -- a body where party discipline is the norm -- under Republican control, passing legislation will be difficult and require compromise. Since the Senate is in Democratic hands, the probability of it overriding any unilateral administrative actions is small. Nevertheless, Obama does not have enough congressional support for dramatic new initiatives, and getting appointments through the Senate that Republicans oppose will be difficult. There is a quote often attributed to Thomas Jefferson: "That government is best which governs the least because its people discipline themselves." I am not sure that the current political climate is what was meant by the people disciplining themselves, but it is clear that the people have imposed profound limits on this government. Its ability to continue what is already being done has not been curbed, but its ability to do much that is new has been blocked. . [US global strategy] [US_election12]
• The Triumph of Conservatism
  by Tariq Ali Obama’s victory was no surprise. Agitated liberals, fearful that their man might lose or trying to save what was left of their depleted consciences, chose to paint Mitt Romney in garish colors, a satanic monster had to be kept out of the White House. How lucky for liberals that Obama gave the Presidency the power to execute any US citizen without recourse to law. Had it been Bush, the Democrats would have been baying for blood in the NYRB and the NYT. As the debates showed there were hardly any differences between the two men. Both products and defenders of the Reagan consensus, they had to fight a testy campaign in order to spend the billion dollars they had raised: the electoral stimulus that is much more generous proportionately than the other kind. Nothing could disguise the fact that it was a painfully dull election, a tribal conflict at which little was really at stake. [US_election12]
• China, Russia and Obama's second coming
  By M K Bhadrakumar Barack Obama's four-year second term in office as the president of the United States will be setting the tone of the final countdown on China's emergence as a superpower. The power dynamic in Asia-Pacific becomes a crucial template in this historic process. While the US can count on Japan and Australia as time-tested allies, its cogitations with China and Russia are evolving and how they shape up will decisively impact the power dynamic in Asia-Pacific.
• The British have invaded 90% of the world's countries. Ha ha?
  New research feeding the easy conviviality of imperialist revival is seriously misleading, despite the author's satirical intent Richard Seymour guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 6 November 2012 08.30 GMT The British empire in 1850. All the Countries We've Ever Invaded: And the Few We Never Got Round To is styled as a ‘lighthearted' look. Photograph: Buyenlarge/Getty The other countries must feel so left out. New research shows that practically everyone has been invaded by British troops at one point or another. A "staggering 90% of the world's nations" have been overrun by the turbulent Brits – Sweden, Mongolia and the Vatican City are among the 22 to have been tragically overlooked. If you think this is a facetious tone to adopt, it is nothing compared with the knockabout, what-a-larf tone of some of the coverage that has been lavished on this new book. In a way, this is what the book set out to accomplish. As its author says, it is lighthearted fun, and it claims not to take a moral stance on Britain's empire. [Imperialism]
• Afghan corruption, and how the U.S. facilitates it
  By Walter Pincus, Nov 05, 2012 11:54 PM EST The Washington Post Published: November 6 When it comes to corruption in Afghanistan, the time may be now for the United States to look in the mirror and see what lessons can be learned from contracting out parts of that war. On Sept. 30, Afghan President Hamid Karzai told CBS’s “60 Minutes” that the corruption wracking his government and its people has been at a level “not ever before seen in Afghanistan.” In the 1980s, when the Soviets ran the country, the government was “not even 5 percent as corrupt,” Karzai said. “ The Soviets didn’t give contracts to the relatives, brothers and the kin of the influential and high ups,” he said. “The Americans did, and they continue to do, but we get blamed for it.” [Corruption]
• Money Laundering and Offshore Fraud for the Rich, Economic Austerity for the Poor
  By Julie Lévesque Global Research, November 02, 2012 Offshore banking is the elephant in the global economic room which the political and financial elite is trying to hide from the public view. While imposing austerity measures on hard working citizens, they are well aware that astronomical amounts of money are secretly held in offshore banks, thus lost in taxes. Where is that money from? What is it for? Drug cartels, fraud, tax evasion and money laundering are common answers to those questions. Despite this reality and even in this era of fiscal austerity, the question world leaders avoid is: why is secret banking still allowed? Are they capable of putting a term to it but unwilling to do it because of the benefits it provides? Clearly. [Corruption] [Banking]
• It Doesn’t Matter Who Wins
  This is the least consequential US election in years. By Andrés Martinez, New America Foundation October 30, 2012 | Quartz The big day is a week out. The campaigns and their allies are closing in on $2 billion spent; cable TV pundits are hoarse from months of spin and the urgency of the countdown; anxious partisans on both sides check daily tracking polls the way the superstitious look to their horoscope; the candidates are flying across the country nearly around the clock, appearing before ever larger crowds, their rhetoric raw, shed of any previous restraint. Because, as everyone keeps saying, the stakes have never been higher. Except they have been. Indeed, and I say this with some regret for spoiling the melodrama, the stakes have rarely been lower in a presidential race. This has to rank as one of the least consequential presidential elections in a long time. Partisans on both sides will take strong exception to that claim. Certainly the campaign’s shrill atmospherics—the uncivil tenor of discourse, the amounts spent, the hyperbole on both sides—suggest Nov. 6 is an epic showdown. And there is no denying that hyper-partisan factions in both parties have a louder voice than ever, that the blue-red national divide seems more entrenched; that these two candidates don’t particularly like each other, and that a racially-tinged animosity towards President Obama remains a factor in the constant efforts to delegitimize him (for not really being American/Christian/one of us)—all of which has made this election season especially nasty. But we shouldn’t confuse the heat of the contest and its surrounding rhetoric with the stakes involved. Compared to most presidential elections, the outcome on Nov. 6, will not be all that consequential to the nation’s future. And that’s partly because both candidates, despite partisan caricatures of this election pitting a socialist against a plutocrat, are pragmatic moderates [US_election12]
• Destroying Iran’s Economy. Fighting dollarization
  By Eric Walberg Global Research, October 31, 2012 The West’s attempts to destroy the Iranian economy through heightened sanctions—including most imports, oil exports and use of banks for trade operations—is having its affect. According to Johns Hopkins University Professor Steve Hanke, Iran is facing hyperinflation, with a monthly inflation rate of nearly 70% per month and its national currency, the rial, plummeting in value against western currencies. Iran is the latest casualty to be placed on his Hanke-Krus Hyperinflation Index, which includes France (1795), Germany (1922), Chile (1973), Nicaragua (1986), Argentina (1990), Russia (1992), Ecuador (1999) and Zimbabwe (2007), countries which experienced price-level increases of at least 50% per month.Hanke, relishing his role as the world’s expert on this nightmarish phenomenon, has “played a significant role in stopping more hyperinflations than any living economist, including 10 of the 57 episodes” on his Index. He writes that Iran has three options: spontaneous dollarization (people unloading rials on the blackmarket for dollars, as happened in Zimbabwe), official dollarization (the government withdrawing the currency in favor of dollars, as in Ecuador), or a currency board issuing a new domestic currency backed 100% by—you guessed it—dollars. Hanke insists that the foreign currency doesn’t have to be US dollars. Pitcairn Island, for instance, uses New Zealand dollars. [Reserve]
• The rise of hybrid governance
  Parastatals occupy a vital middle ground between public agencies and private-sector organizations. They're powerful, opaque, and proliferating around the world. October 2012 | by Parag Khanna The age of hybrid governance is already upon us. China today is a hybrid of 19th-century communist ideology and 21st-century capitalist practice, yet it stands on the cusp of becoming the world’s largest economy. Asian state capitalism is actually a centuries-old European practice dating back at least to the government of Victorian Britain, which gradually brought the British East India Company under its direct supervision and control over the course of the 19th-century, absorbing all of its colonies and wealth. Could China’s state-owned companies and banks today—with their expansive operations and lending across the developing world—be the East India Company of the 21st-century? As much as this article is about the future of governance, there are always important echoes from the past. More and more entities occupy the middle ground between state-owned and fully privatized, especially in emerging markets. What was taboo under the “Washington Consensus” is today the norm, particularly sizable government stakes in leading industries, whether in the form of ownership, management, subsidies, or other forms of preferential treatment. [Governance] [Parastatals]
• Kim Dotcom: fund free NZ internet by suing Hollywood and US government
  Megaupload founder proposes free New Zealand broadband paid for by lawsuits over 'unlawful' destruction of his business Peter Walker guardian.co.uk, Sunday 4 November 2012 17.02 GMT Kim Dotcom appears in court in Auckland in January. The US wants New Zealand to extradite him to face internet piracy allegations. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images Kim Dotcom, the flamboyant German-born internet entrepreneur facing extradition to the US for alleged piracy, has put forward a plan to give all householders in his new home of New Zealand free broadband access, financed by suing Hollywood studios and the American government. The 38-year-old, better known to his mother as Kim Schmitz, made a fortune reputed to exceed £100m with his hugely popular Megaupload file storage site, which US prosecutors allege was involved in the distribution of copyright-protected films, music and other material.
• US Elections: From the “Lesser to the Greater Evil”. The Demise of Critical Liberalism
  By Prof. James Petras Global Research, November 03, 2012 Introduction There is ample evidence that the Obama Presidency has pulled the US political spectrum further to the Right. On most domestic and foreign policy issues Obama has embraced extremist positions surpassing his Republican predecessor and in the process devastating what remained of the peace and social movements of the past decade. Moreover, the Obama Presidency has laid the groundwork for the immediate future promising a further extension of regressive policies following the presidential elections: cuts in Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. Incumbents and their opposition compete over hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign funding from wealthy donors, which they will have to repay in the post-election period in billion dollar handouts, subsidies, tax abatements, anti-labor and environmental policies. Not a single positive proposal was put forth by the Obama campaign but numerous militarist and regressive social policies were articulated. The Obama campaign ran a fear campaign, playing off of the reactionary proposals of the Romney-Tea Party alliance: a cover for his own record of unprecedented military spending, sequential wars, immigrant expulsions, mortgage foreclosures and Wall Street bailouts. In the process, critical liberals have crossed the line, surrendering their integrity by deflecting attention from Obama’s militarist-socially regressive policies to focus on “opposing Romney” as a “greater evil”: progressives and critical liberals have multiplied and magnified the duplicity of the Obama political apparatus. In the name of opposing the current ‘greater evil’ (Romney) they dare not enumerate and specify the wanton political crimes and monumental socio-economic in justice perpetrated by their “lesser evil” candidate (Obama). Will the “progressives” ever play honest and publicly state: we back Obama in “swing states” because he has “only” murdered 10,000 Afghans, 5,000 Iraqis, is starving 75 million Iranian’s via sanctions, gives $3 billion for Israeli displacement of millions of Palestinians, personally oversees the arbitrary executions of US citizens and promises an extended kill list … because Romney promises to be worse … Expecting honesty from the proponents of ‘lesser evils’ is as farfetched as taking serious their criticisms between elections. [US_election12]
• Letter to a Non-Voter
  By Michael Moore November 4th, 2012 9:04 PM To my friend who is not voting on Tuesday: I get it – and I don't blame you. You're fed up and you could care less whether Tweedledee or Tweedledumber wins on Tuesday – because on Wednesday, your life will be the same, unchanged, regardless who is president. Your mortgage will still be underwater. You will still owe $50,000 on your student loan. Your son will still be in Afghanistan. Your daughter will still be working two jobs to make ends meet. And gas will still be at $4. Four years ago you gave in and voted – and you voted for Obama. You wanted to believe he would go after the Wall Street crooks who crashed the economy – but instead the banks that were "too big to fail" four years ago are now even bigger and more dangerous. You thought there'd be universal health care – but the new law only went so far (with most of it not taking effect until 2014). You were tired of war and homeland security measures that violated our civil liberties – but we're still in Afghanistan, we're sending in drones to Pakistan and basic constitutional rights to privacy and fair trial have been ignored. And you thought you'd have a middle-class, good-paying job like your dad had – but you didn't know that Goldman Sachs was Obama's #1 private campaign donor in 2008, and well, he was beholden to corporate America in more ways we cared to think about. So, I get it why you've had it with all these politicians and elections. In the end, it doesn't really seem to be our country any more. It's run by those who can buy the most politicians to do their bidding. Our schools are made a low priority and women are still having to fight for just the basic human rights we thought they already had. So, it's hard for me to ask you for this very personal favor. It's ok if you say "no," but I'm hoping you don't. I cannot believe it is possible that, after a group of rich plutocrats wrecked the economy, threw people out of work and stole our future, we may actually hand the keys to our country over to...a rich Republican plutocrat who made millions by throwing people out of work! This is insane, and despite all the legitimate criticisms of Obama, he is nothing like the tsunami of hate and corporate thievery that will take place if Mitt Romney is president. As bad as it feels now, it will only get worse. [US_election12]
• U.S. Spending Shifts to Demands of Asia-Pacific Theater
  Oct. 24, 2012 - 09:15AM | By MARCUS WEISGERBER The U.S. Defense Department plans to purchase weapons and equipment geared to combat in the Asia-Pacific, a maritime-heavy region that will require long-range, stealthy systems that were rarely used over the past decade of combat. Even as it prepares to downsize, the Pentagon plans to purchase fighters, unmanned aircraft and intelligence aircraft in the coming years, while beginning development of systems, such as a long-range bomber. “With the war in Iraq now over, and as we transition security responsibilities to the government of Afghanistan, we will release much of our military capacity that has been tied up there for other missions, like fostering peace and strengthening partnerships in the Asia-Pacific,” Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said during an Oct. 3 speech at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. [US global strategy] [AirSea battle]
• A CIA veteran transforms U.S. counterterrorism policy
  View Photo Gallery — Guiding the evolving U.S. counterterrorism policies:?White House counterterrorism adviser John O. Brennan is compiling a “playbook” that will lay out the administration’s procedures for the targeted killings that have come to define its fight against al-Qaeda and its affiliates. By Karen DeYoung, Oct 25, 2012 12:58 AM EDT In his windowless White House office, presidential counterterrorism adviser John O. Brennan is compiling the rules for a war the Obama administration believes will far outlast its own time in office, whether that is just a few more months or four more years. The “playbook,” as Brennan calls it, will lay out the administration’s evolving procedures for the targeted killings that have come to define its fight against al-Qaeda and its affiliates. It will cover the selection and approval of targets from the “disposition matrix,” the designation of who should pull the trigger when a killing is warranted, and the legal authorities the administration thinks sanction its actions in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and beyond. [US global strategy] [Global insurgency] [Assassination]
• Plan for hunting terrorists signals U.S. intends to keep adding names to kill lists
  Video: Over the past few years, the Obama administration has institutionalized the use of armed drones and developed a counterterrorism infrastructure capable of sustaining a seemingly permanent war. By Greg Miller, Oct 23, 2012 11:08 PM EDT The Washington Post Editor’s note: This project, based on interviews with dozens of current and former national security officials, intelligence analysts and others, examines evolving U.S. counterterrorism policies and the practice of targeted killing. This is the first of three stories. Over the past two years, the Obama administration has been secretly developing a new blueprint for pursuing terrorists, a next-generation targeting list called the “disposition matrix.” The matrix contains the names of terrorism suspects arrayed against an accounting of the resources being marshaled to track them down, including sealed indictments and clandestine operations. U.S. officials said the database is designed to go beyond existing kill lists, mapping plans for the “disposition” of suspects beyond the reach of American drones. [US global strategy] [Global insurgency] [Assassination]
• Former CIA officer in leaks case pleads guilty to a single charge
  By Greg Miller and Sari Horwitz, Oct 23, 2012 04:15 PM EDT The Washington Post Published: October 23 | Updated: Wednesday, October 24, 5:15 AM A former CIA officer who was charged with repeatedly leaking classified information pleaded guilty in federal court Tuesday to a single charge of disclosing the identity of an undercover CIA operative. Under the plea agreement, the former officer, John C. Kiriakou, will be sentenced to prison for up to 30 months. The agreement marks the end of a case that involved the spilling of secrets to reporters and that was part of the Obama administration’s unprecedented crackdown on leaks. (ABC News/AP) - Former CIA officer John Kiriakou, who told reporters he participated in the interrogation of terrorist Abu Zubaydah, has been charged with leaking classified secrets about CIA operatives and other information to reporters. Kiriakou, 47, worked undercover for the CIA for years and took part in multiple operations that led to the capture of al-Qaeda suspects in Pakistan. But he is most widely known for being among the first former CIA officials to speak publicly about the agency’s secret interrogation program, describing in a 2007 television interview the use of waterboarding on al-Qaeda suspects [Torture] [[Whistle-blower]
• Up in Arms: against the militarisation of everyday life
  Vron Ware 23 October 2012 This week Vron Ware's new book, Military Migrants (Palgrave Macmillan) is published, documenting the untold story of the British Army's recruitment of Commonwealth citizens from 1998 to the present. Why did this happen and what do military recruitment policies have to do with nationhood, politics and culture? To further explore the militarisation of every day life in its shifting global context, we are proud to launch Vron Ware’s new column, Up in Arms What is the impact of war on the home front? Up in Arms will address the idea that Britain has been undergoing some complex processes of militarisation as a consequence of ‘Blair’s wars’. [Militarisation]
• British Democracy: Living in Fear, Kept in the Dark
  By Colin Todhunter Global Research, October 17, 2012 Earlier this year, I watched the BBC’s main political debate programme that allows an audience of members of the public to put questions to a panel of politicians and so-called experts. Syria was on the agenda. A member of the panel referred to the Syrian rebels as ‘freedom fighters’. Within a few minutes, all panel members and the audience were using this term to refer to the rebels. It led me to ponder why so many people were willing to accept at face value an agenda that portrayed the insurgents in such a wholly positive light. It also led me to conclude just how easy it is to manipulate ordinary people into backing imperialist ventures abroad, which are fought on behalf of rich interests. At a time of biting austerity and attacks on workers and the welfare state, well over a billion pounds of ordinary people’s money was used to fund the illegal bombing of Libya. The justification sold to people for such militarism is that dictators are bad. The justification sold to people for attacking or destabilising countries resulting in mass death is that democracy must therefore be forced through by the barrel of a gun. Isn’t it terrible, the politicians and media say, that Assad is a brutal dictator who is preventing democracy by putting down the rebels. [Propaganda] [Double standards]
• Remote control, a new way of war
  Paul Rogers 18 October 2012 The proliferating use of armed drones is but part of a wider and dangerous shift in the nature of 21st-century warfare. The extension of armed drones as a weapon of war is reflected in the way that the United States is deploying them to attack targets in countries such as Pakistan and Yemen. In addition, numerous countries are devoting more resources to researching their potential and practising their use, with Israel in the forefront and Britain also active. But in parallel with these efforts there is a growing risk of proliferation and "asymmetrical" operations, whereby powerful states could become the target rather than the perpetrator of drone attacks (see "Suicide-bombs without the suicides: why drones are so cool", 13 September 2012). Israel has in recent years been overflown by Iranian-made but Hizbollah-assembled drones, and is thus in the frontline of such "blowback". Most of these flights have involved only "reconnaissance" drones, but some could be adapted to carry munitions. An early warning arrived in November 2004 when a small drone crossed the border from Lebanon and briefly overflew Israeli territory before crashing into the sea. Hizbollah tried again five months later and succeeded with a drone that evaded Israeli air-defences in a thirty-kilometre flight before returning safely to its launch-point (see "Hizbollah's warning flight", 5 May 2005). There have been further incursions since then, the latest being the audacious effort on 6 October 2012. [UAV]
• The Myth of “Surgical Strikes” on Iran
  By David IsenbergOct. 18, 20120 For all the years that the world has focused on the confrontation between Western nations and Iran, oceans of ink have been spilled over many aspects of its nuclear program — the quantity and quality of its enriched uranium, various UN Security Council resolutions, the number of Iranian centrifuges, IAEA safeguards, compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty, diplomatic negotiations, red lines, U.S. and Israeli attack scenarios, possible Iranian responses, the impact of a nuclear Iran, and so on. Yet, almost nothing has been written about one critical factor: the impact on Iranian civilians, if the U.S. and/or the Israelis were to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. That vacuum has now been filled, thanks to a recent lengthy report — The Ayatollah’s Nuclear Gamble: The Human Cost of Military Strikes Against Iran’s Nuclear Facilities. It was authored by Khosrow Semnani, an Iranian-American industrialist and philanthropist with extensive experience in the industrial management of nuclear waste and chemicals. [Iran] [Casualties]
• Webcast: Forging Consensus: US-Asia Policy in the Next Administration
  Thursday, November 1, 2012 4 p.m. ET This event will feature a rare collection of America's top past and present diplomats on Asia stretching from the George H.W. Bush administration to the present. Our distinguished speaker panel will consist of Dr. Kurt Campbell, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, and former Assistant Secretaries of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Ambassador Christopher Hill, Ambassador Winston Lord, and Ambassador Richard Solomon. The Assistant Secretaries engage each other in a roundtable discussion on the Obama administration's record in Asia and the challenges and tasks for the future. [US global strategy] [Video]
• The Real Reason America Used Nuclear Weapons Against Japan. It Was Not To End the War Or Save Lives.
  By Washington's Blog Global Research, October 14, 2012 Like all Americans, I was taught that the U.S. dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in order to end WWII and save both American and Japanese lives. But most of the top American military officials at the time said otherwise. The U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey group, assigned by President Truman to study the air attacks on Japan, produced a report in July of 1946 that concluded (52-56): Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey’s opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945 and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated. General (and later president) Dwight Eisenhower – then Supreme Commander of all Allied Forces, and the officer who created most of America’s WWII military plans for Europe and Japan – said: The Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing. [Nuclear weapons] [1945]
• Free Syrian Army Kills Prisoners
  Video WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT 8 prisoners, including wounded are kicked and abused before being shot. Posted November 02, 2012 US-Backed Terrorists Mass Murder Unarmed Civilians in Syria Washington Post claims "soldiers" were executed - terrorists in video clearly refer to victims as civilian "shabih." Victims had no weapons, uniforms, or IDs indicating they were soldiers. By Tony Cartalucci Land Destroyer November 2, 2012 An egregious war crime was reported on by the Washington Post, but deceitfully and purposefully spun and shrugged off. In the Post's article, "Syrian rebels execute unarmed government soldiers; dozens killed in fighting," it is first reported: Syrian rebels executed at least a half-dozen unarmed government soldiers Thursday after attacks on checkpoints near the town of Saraqeb in northwest Syria. Then: The execution of the soldiers, which was documented in a graphic video [GRAPHIC] posted online Thursday, is not the first time that rebel fighters appear to have committed war crimes. U.N. representatives and human rights organizations have repeatedly criticized the Syrian opposition in recent months for carrying out summary executions and for abusing detainees. The video clearly shows unarmed men, none of whom are wearing uniforms or equipment typical of "government soldiers." [Syria] [War crimes] [Media]
• US Dumps Syrian National Council (SNC), Focus Exclusively on Arming “Al Qaeda in Syria”
  US dumps Syrian proxy political front in latest move to accelerate long-stalled regime change. By Tony Cartalucci Global Research, November 01, 2012 The Washington Post in its recent article, “U.S. looks to build alternative Syrian opposition leadership,” claims: The Obama administration has spent the past several months in secret diplomatic negotiations aimed at building a new Syrian opposition leadership structure that it hopes can win the support of minority groups still backing President Bashar al-Assad. The strategy, to be unveiled at a Syrian opposition meeting next week in Qatar, amounts to a last-ditch effort to prevent extremists from gaining the upper hand within the opposition and to stop the Syrian crisis from boiling over into the greater Middle East. The Post also indicates that de facto “administrative zones” are being set up along the Turkish-Syrian border with “nonlethal” assistance provided by the United States, France and “other like-minded governments.” The so-called “Syrian National Council” is being discarded, as it is wholly seen as illegitimate by both Syrians and the world at large.
• Jihadist killing of captives widens the split among rebel fighters in Syria
  A video showing the shooting of regime troops after they had been taken prisoner angered rebels who say foreign Islamists are being favoured with arms and funds Share92 Martin Chulov in Aleppo The Observer, Saturday 3 November 2012 17.18 GMT A rebel fighter in Aleppo, Syria. Islamist groups say the military council is refusing to support them. Photograph: Narciso Contreras/AP Rebel groups are accusing Syria's military council of infighting and nepotism and a failure to lead in the wake of a video that shows an opposition unit killing around two dozen captured regime soldiers. Armed opposition units across the Aleppo hinterland say the western-backed council is failing in its bid to create a co-ordinated opposition army, partly because of its refusal to deal with Islamist-leaning Syrian groups. The groups say the military council's favouritism towards some units means other militias are unwilling to act with discipline or to be held accountable. The disturbing scenes of the captured regime troops being killed, shortly after their post near Damascus was overrun, have angered rebel units in the north.
• Ottoman Déjà Vu?
  by CONN HALLINAN Two years ago Turkey was on its way to being a player in Central Asia, a major power broker in the Middle East, and a force in international politics. It had stepped in to avoid a major escalation of the 2008 war between Georgia and Russia by blocking U.S. ships from entering the Black Sea, made peace with its regional rivals, and, along with Brazil, made a serious stab at a peaceful resolution of the Iran nuclear crisis. Today it is exchanging artillery rounds with Syria. Its relations with Iraq have deteriorated to the point that Baghdad has declared Ankara a “hostile state.” It picked a fight with Russia by forcing down a Syrian passenger plane and accusing Moscow of sending arms to the regime of Bashar al-Assad. It angered Iran by agreeing to host a U.S. anti-missile system (a step which won Turkey no friends in Moscow either). Its war with its Kurdish minority has escalated sharply. What happened? The wages of religious solidarity? Ottoman de’je vu? There is some truth in each of those suggestions, but Turkey’s diplomatic sea change has less to do with the Koran and memories of empire than with Illusions and hubris. It is a combination that is hardly rare in the Middle East, and one that now promises to upend years of careful diplomacy, accelerate unrest in the region, and drive Turkey into an alliance with countries whose internal fragility should give the Turks pause.
• Obama’s Secret Wars
  by PATRICK COCKBURN Drones or their equivalent have long attracted political and military leaders dreaming of the surgical removal of their enemies. In 1812, the governor of Moscow, Count Rostopchin, devised a plan to get a hot-air balloon to hover over the French lines at Borodino and drop an explosive device on Napoleon. The source for this is the memoirs of the French writer, traveller and politician Chateaubriand and I have not read it anywhere else, but the story illustrates how, from the first moment man took to the air, he has seen it as a means of assassination. [UAV]
• U.S. move to de-recognize Syrian opposition group baffles allies
  By Roy Gutman | McClatchy Newspapers ISTANBUL — The Obama administration’s decision to drop its recognition of the Syrian National Council as the leading Syrian opposition group and propose creating a new umbrella organization surprised and puzzled close U.S. allies, diplomats said Friday. The U.S. government gave no advance notice of its intention to renounce the council as the lead umbrella group, diplomats of three countries said. They said their governments learned about the initiative from news accounts. Diplomats criticized Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for using what they called inappropriate language in describing the council as made up of people who haven’t been in Syria for decades; many of its members, the diplomats said, left the country only after the uprising against President Bashar Assad began 19 months ago. [Strategic incoherence]
• Bishop orders priests to read anti-Obama letter at Sunday sermons
  Manya A. Brachear | Chicago Tribune CHICAGO — Joining the chorus of Roman Catholic clergy in Illinois criticizing President Barack Obama before next week's election, Peoria Bishop Daniel Jenky ordered priests to read a letter to parishioners on Sunday before the presidential election, explaining that politicians who support abortion rights also reject Jesus. "By virtue of your vow of obedience to me as your Bishop, I require that this letter be personally read by each celebrating priest at each Weekend Mass," Jenky wrote in a letter circulated to clergy in the Catholic Diocese of Peoria.
• Syrian rebels execute unarmed government soldiers; dozens killed in fighting
  By Babak Dehghanpisheh, Nov 01, 2012 05:05 PM EDT The Washington Post BEIRUT — Syrian rebels executed at least a half-dozen unarmed government soldiers Thursday after attacks on checkpoints near the town of Saraqeb in northwest Syria. At least 28 soldiers and five opposition fighters were killed in the rebel operation, which targeted checkpoints on roads connecting Saraqeb to Aleppo and Ariha, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The execution of the soldiers, which was documented in a graphic video posted online Thursday, is not the first time that rebel fighters appear to have committed war crimes. U.N. representatives and human rights organizations have repeatedly criticized the Syrian opposition in recent months for carrying out summary executions and for abusing detainees. In early August, members of a clan loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad were executed by rebels, and a video of the killings was widely disseminated on the Internet. The executions prompted some commanders of the opposition Free Syrian Army to draft a code of conduct for their fighters in an attempt to curb human rights abuses. But the execution of the soldiers Thursday indicated that the code is not being observed by all rank-and-file rebel fighters.
• Pulling the U.S. drone war out of the shadows
  By Editorial Board,
  Nov 01, 2012 11:26 PM EDT The Washington Post IT’S BEEN 10 years since the first strike by an armed U.S. drone killed an al-Qaeda leader and five associates in Yemen. Since then, according to unofficial counts, there have been more than 400 “targeted killing” drone attacks in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia — countries where the United States is not fighting a conventional war. About 3,000 people have been killed, including scores — maybe hundreds — of civilians. And though the United States is winding down its military mission in Afghanistan, the Obama administration, as The Post’s Greg Miller reported last week, “expects to continue adding names to kill or capture lists for years.” All of this causes increasing unease among Americans of both political parties — not to mention many U.S. allies. They are disturbed by the antiseptic nature of U.S. personnel launching strikes that they watch on screens hundreds or thousands of miles from the action. They question whether drone attacks are legal. They ask why the process of choosing names for the kill list as well as the strikes themselves are secret and whether such clandestine warfare does more harm than good to long-term U.S. interests. Some of these anxieties seem to us misplaced. But the means and objectives of drone attacks — and the Obama administration’s steps toward institutionalizing the system — deserve much more debate than they have attracted during the presidential campaign. [UAV] [US global strategy]
• The Twisted Logic of Drone Warfare
  by TOM MCNAMARA A recent article in the Washington Post entitled “Plan for hunting terrorists signals U.S. intends to keep adding names to kill lists” by Mr. Greg Miller explains, in detail, the finer points of the White House’s policy of targeted killings and drone attacks. The article explains how the Obama administration has been “secretly developing a new blueprint for pursuing terrorists” called the “disposition matrix.” The matrix is an organized array that lists suspected terrorists and the corresponding resources that are being used to apprehend them (or “neutralize” them). It is a key component of the war on terror, a war that the US government plans on carrying out for some years to come. [UAV]
• How the Clinton Administration Nixed an Iran Nuke Deal
  by GARETH PORTER In 1998, the Defence Department vetoed a delegation of prominent U.S. nuclear specialists to go to Iran to investigate its nuclear programme at the invitation of the government of newly-elected Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, according to the nuclear scientist who was organising the mission. The Pentagon objected to the delegation’s mission even though it was offered the option of including one or more scientists of its own choosing on the delegation, according to Dr. Behrad Nakhai, the nuclear scientist who was organising it. The Pentagon veto of the nuclear scientists’ delegation eliminated the Khatami government’s most promising initiative to promote a thaw in U.S.-Iran relations by weakening a key U.S. argument for viewing Iran as a threat.
• Kim Dotcom announces Mega, successor to Megaupload
  Encrypted service due for launch in January will replace filesharing site that led to prosecution by US authorities Share21 guardian.co.uk, Thursday 1 November 2012 06.26 GMT Kim Dotcom has announced he will launch Mega, a file-sharing site to pick up where Megaupload left off. Photograph: Simon Watts/Reuters Kim Dotcom, founder of the banned Megaupload filesharing site, has announced a new version called Mega designed to sidestep the American laws under which he is being prosecuted for £175m worth of alleged online piracy, racketeering and money laundering. Dotcom on Thursday announced the new online storage service, saying it would give users direct control – and responsibility – over their files. The site has previously been referred to as Megabox in a teaser video. Dotcom said Mega would launch in January 2013, just before he is scheduled to face a New Zealand extradition hearing brought on by the United States where he and other Megaupload operators face prosecution. The site would not use US-based hosting companies as partners in order to avoid being shut down by US authorities, Dotcom said. [IPR]
• Fighting erupts between Syrian rebels and Kurds
  By Liz Sly, Nov 01, 2012 12:23 AM EDT The Washington Post BEIRUT — Nearly a week of fighting between Kurds and Arab rebels in northern Syria risks opening a new front in the already bloody battle for control of the country, underscoring the complexity of a conflict that threatens to ignite sectarian and ethnic tensions across the region. Efforts were underway Wednesday between the leadership of the rebel Free Syrian Army and Kurdish representatives in Turkey to negotiate an end to the clashes, in which scores of hostages have been seized and more than 40 fighters on both sides killed. But the eruption of violence exposed little-noticed frictions that have been building between the mostly Arab Syrian opposition forces seeking to oust President Bashar al-Assad and Syrian Kurds, who increasingly see the revolt as an opportunity to extend their long-standing aspirations for the autonomy — and perhaps independence — of Kurdish areas across the region.
• U.S. looks to build alternative Syrian opposition leadership
  By Karen DeYoung and Anne Gearan, Nov 01, 2012 12:02 AM EDT The Washington Post The Obama administration has spent the past several months in secret diplomatic negotiations aimed at building a new Syrian opposition leadership structure that it hopes can win the support of minority groups still backing President Bashar al-Assad. The strategy, to be unveiled at a Syrian opposition meeting next week in Qatar, amounts to a last-ditch effort to prevent extremists from gaining the upper hand within the opposition and to stop the Syrian crisis from boiling over into the greater Middle East. As envisioned by the Obama administration, the new Syrian leadership will include representatives of revolutionary councils and other unarmed groups inside the country. Territory along Syria’s northern border with Turkey that is effectively under rebel military control is to be organized into an administrative zone with non­lethal assistance from the United States, France and other like-minded governments.
• Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein charged with trespassing in Keystone XL protest
  Scott Olson/Getty Images - Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein is interviewed prior to a debate hosted by the Free and Equal Elections Foundation and moderated by former CNN talk-show host Larry King on Oct. 23, 2012 in Chicago, Ill. By Steven Mufson, Oct 31, 2012 04:24 PM EDT The Washington Post Thursday, November 1, 5:24 AM Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein was arrested Wednesday morning in east Texas while attempting to bring food and Halloween candy to protesters camping out in trees to oppose the Keystone XL pipeline, according to anti-pipeline activists. Stein was taken to the Wood County jail and charged with criminal trespassing, a class B misdemeanor, said Kim Huynh, a spokesman for the Tar Sands Blockade. Opponents of the pipeline have climbed some trees in the path of the pipeline in Winnsboro, Tex., and have been there for 38 days.
• Economic Nationalism and Regionalism in Contemporary East Asia
  Mark Selden Introduction Regions are socially constructed areas defined by state, supra-state, and societal agents, with shifting territorial, economic, and socio-political parameters. In contrast to the dominant literature, which has focused on states and state-constructed regions, we assess multiple forces in defining, constructing, and deconstructing regional formations in an epoch in which competing definitions of, and approaches to, region and nation challenge the reigning order (Katzenstein and Shiraishi 1997; Gamble and Payne 1996; Hamanaka 2009). Political, geostrategic, economic, social, and cultural factors may all shape a regional order and its position in the world economy. In light of competing claims of national, regional, and global forces, we inquire into the possibility of contemporary region formation that does not rest on the hegemony of a single nation or power, that is, an imperium whether formal or informal, and which serves, in varying degrees, the interests of the nations and peoples that comprise it. In particular, consider the interplay between economic nationalism and region formation, including China, Japan, Korea, and the United States.
• History of Peace Thought East and West: Its Lessons For Today
  John Gittings Generals preparing to go to war are, we are often told, fond of reading military classics on the Art of War. Some of the stories may be apocryphal - did Norman Schwarzkopf really have a copy of the ancient Chinese strategist Sunzi on the subject in his back pocket when he launched the Gulf War, or did Napoleon have it at his bedside? - but it is certainly studied widely, along with Machiavelli's essay of the same title, and Clausewitz's On War, at West Point, Sandhurst and Saint Cyr.

• For Mitt Romney, a bigger military, but at what price?
  By Walter Pincus, Oct 29, 2012 09:35 PM EDT The Washington Post Published: October 30 The Pentagon is preparing the fiscal 2014 budget, but the November elections and Congress’s lame- duck session could change it all. The gap between President Obama’s strategy for the U.S. military over the next 10 years and Mitt Romney’s defense proposals couldn’t be greater. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told Pentagon reporters Thursday that Congress has provided funds through March 2013 at essentially the fiscal 2012 level, but he doesn’t know what the new Congress will give him for the rest of next year. [Romney] [Militarisation]
• Exercise may protect the aging brain, a study shows
  By Linda Searing, Oct 29, 2012 09:30 PM EDT The Washington Post For older people, exercise, rather than socializing, may protect the brain THE QUESTION The brain sometimes shrinks as people age, altering their memory and thinking abilities. Might physical or mental activities help prevent this shrinkage? THIS STUDY analyzed data on 691 adults in their early 70s, including information on their exercise habits and participation in socially oriented or intellectually challenging activities. MRI brain scans showed less shrinkage in the brains among those who reported the most physical activity, compared with those who were the least physically active. Atrophy, or brain shrinkage, was greatest among physically inactive men. Participating in mentally and socially stimulating activities had no effect on brain shrinkage.
• Obama and Romney not that different on national security, foreign policy
  By Matthew Schofield | McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — After a campaign that’s been about jobs, jobs and more jobs, the next president will be faced with a world full of problems that have little to do with improving the American economy. These are issues that often bear a geographic name: Afghanistan, Benghazi, Iran, Syria, Israel, or with out-thinking and overcoming those who seek to harm Americans. These are the issues for the commander in chief role of the Oval Office, and while they’re often thrust upon a president more than sought, they will go a long way toward determining how history will view a presidency. The two major party candidates, President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney, both generally back the same course on many of the major issues. Both would withdraw U.S. combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, for example, albeit at a slightly different pace. Both hope tough sanctions will force Iran to halt its nuclear program, while both reserve the right to use force as a last resort. Obama even joked at their last debate that Romney’s solutions consist of nothing more than speaking louder when saying the same things. [US_election12] [Continuity]
• Accusations against generals cast dark shadow over Army
  By Ernesto Londoño, Oct 27, 2012 11:57 PM EDT The Washington Post Published: October 28 The accusations leveled against three Army generals over the past six months are as varied as they are striking, the highest-profile of a growing number of allegations of wrongdoing by senior military officials. A one-star general was flown home from Afghanistan this spring to face criminal charges, including sexual assault. A four-star general formerly in charge of the increasingly vital Africa command was accused of financial mismanagement, accepting inappropriate gifts and assigning staff personal tasks. And a three-star general who oversees the U.S. Missile Defense Agency was described in an inspector general report as an abrasive and verbally abusive boss. The investigations have become an embarrassment for the Army, raising questions about how thoroughly the military has screened senior leaders before putting them in crucial assignments. [Corruption]
• Fall 1941: Pearl Harbor and The Wars of Corporate America
  By Dr. Jacques R. Pauwels Global Research, October 27, 2012 11 December 2011 Myth: The US was forced to declare war on Japan after a totally unexpected Japanese attack on the American naval base in Hawaii on December 7, 1941. On account of Japan’s alliance with Nazi Germany, this aggression automatically brought the US into the war against Germany. Reality: The Roosevelt administration had been eager for some time to wage war against Japan and sought to unleash such a war by means of the institution of an oil embargo and other provocations. Having deciphered Japanese codes, Washington knew a Japanese fleet was on its way to Pearl Harbor, but welcomed the attack since a Japanese aggression would make it possible to “sell” the war to the overwhelmingly anti-war American public. An attack by Japan, as opposed to an American attack on Japan, was also supposed to avoid a declaration of war by Japan’s ally, Germany, which was treaty-bound to help only if Japan was attacked. However, for reasons which have nothing to do with Japan or the US but everything with the failure of Germany’s “lightning war” against the Soviet Union, Hitler himself declared war on the US a few days after Pearl Harbor, on December 11, 1941.
• United National Antiwar Coalition Statement on Elections
  October 23, 2012 As election day approaches and campaign news dominates the media, anti-war activists should note that there is no true debate between the two major parties on the central issues of war, U.S. interventions abroad or the wars waged against Americans at home. There is no argument between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney about the size of the military budget or on a perceived right of the United States to interfere in the affairs of sovereign nations or to create more “collateral damage” worldwide against civilian populations. Both candidates promise an endless “war against terror”, a war which victimizes human beings and violates the rights of people across the planet. President Obama appealed a court decision striking down the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which allows him to indefinitely detain anyone he chooses. Mitt Romney is not in disagreement on the powers of the NDAA and has said that he would utilize them just as much should he become president. President Obama oversees targeted assassinations and we can be sure that Romney would continue this criminal practice. [US_election12]
• “Romnography”: Where’s the Persian Gulf? Epic Fail
  By Prof Michel Chossudovsky Global Research, October 25, 2012 “Syria is Iran’s only ally in the Arab world. It’s their route to the sea. It’s the route for them to arm Hezbollah in Lebanon, which threatens, of course, our ally, Israel. And so seeing Syria remove Assad is a very high priority for us” (Mitt Romney, presidential debate, October 23, 2012) The Islamic Republic of Iran has an extensive maritime coastline bordering onto the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman and Arabian Sea. Iran is an ally of Syria but it does not have a border with Syria. For Iran’s commodity trade to reach the Mediterranean by land through Syria would require transit through Iraq (under US military occupation) and/or Turkey, a US ally and NATO stronghold. Epic Fail, D+ Romney has a degree from Harvard. So much for University standards. [Romney]
• Europe should label Hezbollah a terrorist group, U.S. urges
  Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images - White House counterterrorism chief John O. Brennan listed Hezbollah at the top of a list of joint U.S. and European security challenges. By Karen DeYoung, Oct 26, 2012 10:50 PM EDT The Washington Post White House counterterrorism chief John O. Brennan said Friday that European failure to join the United States in designating the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah a terrorist organization is undermining international counterterrorism efforts. “Let me be clear,” Brennan said in a speech in Dublin, European resistance “makes it harder to defend our countries and protect our citizens.” Brennan listed Hezbollah at the top of a list of joint U.S. and European security challenges. In addition to its alliance with terrorist activities by Iran, he said, “we have seen Hezbollah training militants in Yemen and Syria.” [Global insurgency]
• Neocons and the Foreign Policy Presidential Debate: The ism That Dare Not Speak Its Name
  Posted: 10/26/2012 12:10 pm In Monday's final presidential debate, President Barack Obama came full circle and more from his conflict-averse showing in the first debate. Obama not only attacked his opponent, but, in the absence of much challenge from Mitt Romney, took it upon himself to raise the very points required to mount his attacks. For the most part, when the debate was not sidelined back to the domestic economy, Romney tended to endorse Obama's specific policies, while offering weak and generic bromides about being strong and increasing defense spending. On critical matters, like Afghanistan, Romney's earlier campaign-trail objections seemed to turn ethereal. As Obama observed in a discussion of sanctions on Iran: I'm glad that Governor Romney agrees with the steps that we're taking. There have been times, Governor, frankly, during the course of this campaign, where it sounded like you thought that you'd do the same things we did, but you'd say them louder and somehow that would make a difference. On point after point, Obama brought up earlier statements and positions that Romney has enunciated during his long run to the nomination and since. And a notable list of topics it was: Russia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden, Libya, Syria. It was as though Obama himself needed to conjure up the foreign policy adversary he was debating with -- the Romney from the campaign trail, not the Romney sitting beside him. But there was good reason for Romney's failure to offer his counter foreign-policy positions, much less a competing foreign-policy vision. He has taken on a foreign policy team that, above all, needs to be kept out of sight as much as possible from the American public. He has resurrected the neoconservatives, and they are spoiling for an attack on Iran. [Romney] [Neocons]
• U.N. to probe drone attacks by U.S., others resulting in civilian deaths
  By Colum Lynch, Oct 25, 2012 11:53 PM EDT The Washington Post NEW YORK — An independent U.N. human rights researcher on Thursday announced plans to launch an investigation into the use of drone attacks and other targeted assassinations by the United States and other governments that result in civilian deaths or injuries. Ben Emmerson, the U.N. special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights, said in a Harvard University law school speech that he and South African Christof Heyns, the U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, will establish an investigative unit early next year in Geneva to probe drone attacks. [UAV] [Civilian]
• Police State USA: In Amerika there will Never be a Real Debate
  In the US today, the power of money rules. Nothing else is in the equation By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts Global Research, October 24, 2012 God help them if Obama and Romney ever had to participate in a real debate about a real issue at the Oxford Union. They would be massacred. The “debates” revealed that not only the candidates but also the entire country is completely tuned out to every real problem and dangerous development. For example, you would never know that US citizens can now be imprisoned and executed without due process. All that is required to terminate the liberty and life of an American citizen by his own government is an unaccountable decision somewhere in the executive branch. No doubt that Americans, if they think of this at all, believe that it will only happen to terrorists who deserve it. But as no evidence or due process is required, how would we know that it only happens to terrorists? Can we really trust a government that has started wars in 7 countries on the basis of falsehoods? If the US government will lie about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction in order to invade a country, why won’t it lie about who is a terrorist?
• US Comes Up With New Defense Concept
  Andrei AKULOV | 26.10.2012 | 00:00 The USA has come up with a new Americas defense concept. On October 4 the Western Hemisphere Defense Policy Statement saw light outlining the major security vision for the next decade or longer. It makes precise how the January 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance will shape the US Department of Defense engagement in the region. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said “a remarkable transformation has taken place in the Western Hemisphere” and “the United States is provided with a historic opportunity to renew and strengthen its defense partnerships in the region.” The 11-page statement describes US defense policy goals of promoting mature, professional national defense institutions, fostering integration and interoperability among partners and promoting hemispheric defense institutions. The strategy seeks to renew U.S. military ties with Latin America after a decade of neglect when Washington was focused on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
• Syrian car bomb breaks Eid al-Adha ceasefire
  Bomb explodes near Damascus mosque as three-day truce called for Islamic holiday falters across country Martin Chulov guardian.co.uk, Friday 26 October 2012 17.53 BST Syrian President Bashar al-Assad greets supporters before prayers on the first day of Eid al-Adha in Damascus, where the car bomb exploded. Photograph: Sana/AFP/Getty Images A car bomb has exploded near a Damascus mosque in a serious blow to a mooted three-day truce that was already struggling to take hold across Syria. The explosion late on Friday is reported to have caused scores of casualties. It took place as the ceasefire called to mark the Islamic festival of Eid al-Adha was already faltering in parts of the country, with regime forces and rebel groups blaming each other for the violations. Car bombs have been increasingly used by rebel groups, including the Islamist Jabhat al-Nusraf organisation, which has some ideological links to the global jihad movement. However, such groups have largely targeted security bases.
• Thatcher, Murdoch, Hillsborough and beyond: What the 1980s did to Britain
  The values of 80s Britain, which once reigned supreme, now seem utterly discredited. Are we finally waking up to what that decade did to us? Andy Beckett The Guardian, Saturday 27 October 2012 Thatcherism, the miners' strike, Hillsborough, Murdoch … what will be the final reckoning on 1980s Britain? Photomontage: Andrew Stocks In 2006, the year before the financial crisis started, BBC2 broadcast a luxurious adaptation of The Line of Beauty, Alan Hollinghurst's heady novel about rich Britain in the mid-80s. In the Observer, Tim Adams, who had been a young adult in the heyday of Thatcherism, wrote a perceptive essay about the feelings the programme and book provoked. For some of the people who had read the novel on his recommendation, "certainly those a few years younger than me," he wrote, the "moral shifts Hollinghurst was concerned with no longer had the power to shock. They had grown up with nothing else but 80s values." Adams concluded: "The point about the 80s is that they have never finished."
• What the U.S. risks by relying on drones
  By Kurt Volker, Oct 26, 2012 11:54 PM EDT The Washington Post Kurt Volker was U.S. ambassador to NATO from July 2008 to May 2009. He is executive director of the McCain Institute for International Leadership at Arizona State University and a senior adviser to the Atlantic Council of the United States. As documented in the recent Post series “The Permanent War,” the United States increasingly relies on drone strikes as a principal and permanent component in fighting global terrorism. This is effective at killing terrorist leadership and is relatively painless politically at home, as it does not require massive military engagements or put U.S. soldiers or pilots at risk. There appear to be no short-term consequences. Yet as necessary as some drone strikes have been — and will be in the future — over-reliance on drones raises problems. In establishing a long-term approach, a good rule of thumb might be that we should authorize drone strikes only if we would be willing to send in a pilot or soldier to do the job if a drone were not available. There are four principal issues with excessive reliance on drones. [UAV] [Entitlement]
• After Benghazi attacks, Islamist extremists akin to al-Qaeda stir fear in eastern Libya
  Abigail Hauslohner/THE WASHINGTON POST - Concrete debris and twisted metal cover the ground at a base that was until recently controlled by the Abu Slim Martyrs Brigade, an extremist militia in Darna, Libya. When local authorities tried to take control of the base, an explosion ripped through this main building. By Abigail Hauslohner, Oct 27, 2012 01:05 AM EDT The Washington Post DARNA, Libya — Operating from the shadows, armed Islamist extremists are terrorizing the eastern Libyan city of Darna, six weeks after the deadly attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi threw a spotlight on Libya’s growing religious extremism. A campaign of bombings and death threats aimed at Libyan government targets is being blamed on armed Islamist extremists, including the city’s most powerful militia, the Abu Slim Martyrs Brigade, whose ideology residents say is akin to al-Qaeda’s. [Libya] [Islamist] [Unintended consequences]
• Egypt seizes Libyan weapons, suspects in further sign of spreading terrorist influence
  By Mel Frykberg and Jonathan S. Landay | McClatchy Newspapers CAIRO — Egyptian police have arrested five Libyans who allegedly are members of al Qaida, intercepted two truckloads of arms from Libya and killed a Libyan who police said is suspected of involvement in the assault on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, adding new evidence that arms and extremists are leaching out of Libya into the wider region. The flow of men and material across Libya’s borders highlights the growing chaos and weak central authority afflicting the North African nation more than a year after dictator Moammar Gadhafi was toppled and killed in what was at the time the bloodiest of the Arab Spring uprisings. [Libya] [Unintended consequences]
• Berlusconi convicted of tax fraud just days after announcing he won’t run for premier
  Livio Anticoli, Berlusconi press office/Associated Press - In this photo released by the Berlusconi press office Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012, former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi tapes a video message where he announces he will not run for a fourth term as premier in spring elections. Berlusconi has until now been coy about his intentions. But the three-time former premier posted a statement on his movement’s website yesterday, under the headline: “I won’t run for premier.”, following today with a video where he confirms his intentions. By Associated Press, Oct 26, 2012 07:45 PM EDT AP MILAN — Just two days after announcing he won’t run in spring elections, former Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi was convicted of tax fraud and sentenced to four years in prison Friday in a verdict that could see him barred from public office for five years. Berlusconi, after dominating Italian politics for nearly two decades, has seen his power weakening in the last year as a sex scandal tarnished his image and he was forced to resign as premier after failing to convince financial markets that he could come up with convincing reforms to shield Italy from Europe’s debt woes. [Corruption]
• Facing Taliban threats, Afghan interpreters wait for U.S. visas
  By Kevin Sieff, Oct 25, 2012 10:50 AM EDT The Washington Post KABUL — Of the more than 5,700 Afghans who have applied for U.S. visas under a special program tailored for those who have supported the American war effort, just 32 have been approved, the State Department says, leaving the rest in limbo as foreign forces begin their withdrawal. The growing, protracted backlog threatens to undermine congressionally approved legislation, as well as the longstanding guarantee that the United States will protect Afghans whose contribution to the American mission has left them hunted and vulnerable. [Imperialism] [Renege]
• Remote U.S. base at core of secret operations
  View Photo Gallery — Potent weapon of counterterrorism war:?Drone strikes by the CIA and the U.S. military have become a critical component of the administration’s counterterrorism strategy. By Craig Whitlock, Oct 26, 2012 12:07 AM EDT The Washington Post This is the third of three articles. DJIBOUTI CITY, Djibouti — Around the clock, about 16 times a day, drones take off or land at a U.S. military base here, the combat hub for the Obama administration’s counterterrorism wars in the Horn of Africa and the Middle East. Craig Whitlock This transcript recounts the moments before the crash of an armed drone in Djibouti on May 17, 2011. Four others have crashed since drone traffic was stepped up at the clandestine U.S. base. More on this Story Behind the U.S. targeted killing program Plan for hunting terrorists signals U.S. intends to keep adding names to kill lists Tracking America’s drone war CIA veteran reshapes counterterrorism policy View all Items in this Story Secret ops expand at U.S. base Some of the unmanned aircraft are bound for Somalia, the collapsed state whose border lies just 10 miles to the southeast. Most of the armed drones, however, veer north across the Gulf of Aden to Yemen, another unstable country where they are being used in an increasingly deadly war with an al-Qaeda franchise that has targeted the United States. [UAV] [Global insurgency]
• Anti-U.S. rebels’ triumph in northern Yemen brings peace to embattled region
  By Adam Baron | McClatchy Newspapers SAADA, Yemen — For much of the past decade, Yemen’s far northern governorate of Saada, on the border with Saudi Arabia, has been one of the most conflict-wracked areas of this fractious nation, a place where war between the Houthis, who practice a brand of Shiite Islam known as Zaydi, and Yemen’s central government has left thousands of dead and much of the region in ruins. Today, however, the governorate is an unlikely bastion of calm, with the Houthis effectively seizing control during the months that the battle to depose former President Ali Abdullah Saleh distracted the central government. Residents of the area largely welcome the stability that the Houthis have brought and discount the concerns elsewhere that the Saada “state within a state” is ruled through violence and intimidation.
• Nobel Peace Prize Laureate EU Making a Mockery of Free Speech
  Kourosh ZIABARI | 25.10.2012 | 00:00 Only three days after being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its alleged role in promoting peace and reconciliation across the European continent, the European Union made the most undemocratic and non-peaceful decision one might think of by ordering the French-based satellite provider Eutelsat SA to take 19 Iranian TV channels, including the 24-hour English-language Press TV off air, denying millions of viewers across the world the opportunity to benefit from the alternative, critical standpoint of a group of media which had for long endeavored to challenge the Western mainstream media's uncontested influence over the global public opinion… [EU] [Sanctions] [Double standards]
• Libya and the Human Rights Double Standard
  by DANIEL KOVALICK For some time to come, Libya shall stand as an enduring symbol of the West’s hypocrisy, and indeed duplicity, on the issue of human rights. While the West, and especially the United States, justified its aerial bombardment of Libya last year on the pretense of saving civilians from a possible, future (rather than actual) attack by Gaddafi forces, the West is silent about the real and ongoing attack of the new Libyan regime upon the town of Bani Walid. Indeed, one must strain hard to even learn of this attack in the press. [Libya] [Human rights] [Double standards] [Media]
• Obama and Romney identical twins regarding foreign policy
  Global Times | 2012-10-24 21:40:03 By Joshua Gass The amazing thing about Tuesday's presidential debate was the overwhelming amount of agreement between the candidates. At times, it hardly seemed like a debate at all. Both candidates incessantly pictured the US as the world's greatest military and moral power, beleaguered by threats from abroad. Even the moderator participated in this depiction, opening the proceedings by noting that the debate marked the 50th anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis, "a sobering reminder that every president faces at some point an unexpected threat to our national security from abroad." This comment also highlights a major shift in global politics. The entire debate was dominated by discussion of the Middle East and, to a lesser extent, China. Other regions were mentioned only in passing. Obama even made fun of Romney for referring to Russia as a "geopolitical threat" in an earlier speech. Despite these massive shifts in global politics, neither candidate deviated from a conventional vision of the world order, with the US as its dominant power. [US global strategy] [US_Election12] [Continuity]
• Romney gaffe: 'Syria is Iran's route to the sea'
  During Monday night's presidential debate, Mitt Romney repeated a gaffe he has already made at least five times before Saeed Kamali Dehghan guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 23 October 2012 13.57 BST Jump to comments (212) Barack Obama and Mitt Romney in Florida. Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images Mitt Romney is not particularly new to gaffes but when it comes to one about the relationship between Syria and Iran, he has shown extraordinary courage in repeating it at least six times just in the past year. During last night's foreign policy debate, Romney said: "Syria is Iran's only ally in the Arab world. It's their route to the sea." In fact, Iran, a close ally of Bashar al-Assad's regime, has direct access to international waters through its large coastline on the Gulf and is not even a neighbour to Syria in order to rely on it as a route to the sea. [Romney] [Incompetence]
• To tally the Navy’s strength requires more than math
  The U.S. Navy's nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington is now stationed at its new home port at the U.S. naval base in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, marking the first time a U.S. nuclear carrier has been based outside the United States. | Yomiuri Shimbun/MCT By Matthew Schofield | McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — America’s Navy is stronger, smaller, more dominant, more vulnerable and more lethal than at any time since World War I. So, for those confused by dueling candidates on the topic during Monday night’s presidential debate, hope that’s cleared up things. If not, it’s because determining naval strength, while never simple, is exceedingly complicated in these complicated times. All-of-the-above answers can be easily found among those who study the U.S. Navy. Sometimes, a single expert will voice many of the contradictions in the same statement. [Sea power]
• Inconvenient Allies
  by MARC LEVY Not for the first time but likely the last a dozen or so senior level Viet Minh and American OSS officers held a public reunion at the Asia Society in New York City in 1997. Among the OSS agents present: Charles Fenn, who contacted Ho Chi Minh to rescue downed Allied pilots and send intelligence and weather reports to the OSS. Henry Prunier, who parachuted into Tan Trao to provide small arms and training and who marched with General Vo Nguyen Giap, later hailed as the architect of America’s defeat in Vietnam. And Frank White, who served under Peter Dewey, possibly the first American killed in Indochina.
• Political chaos in Libya hampers U.S. probe of deadly Benghazi attacks
  ESAM OMRAN AL-FETORI/REUTERS - The U.S. Consulate in Benghazi is seen in flames during a protest by an armed group in this file photo taken Sept. 11, 2012. Political chaos in Libya has stymied efforts to bring the Benghazi attackers to justice. Text Size Print E-mail Reprints By Michael Birnbaum, Friday, October 12, 6:20 PMThe Washington Post TRIPOLI, Libya — More than a month after attacks in Libya left the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans dead, the United States is struggling to bring the killers to justice. But when American officials try to speak to Libyan leaders, there’s often no one on the other end of the line. Moammar Gaddafi’s death almost a year ago left a country with few political institutions, and Libya’s new political class is still trying to put together a democratically elected government. Infighting has grown even more bitter since the Sept. 11 attack on U.S. outposts in the eastern city of Benghazi. Many ministries, including those that would take the lead in an investigation, are on autopilot as the new lawmakers plot alliances and betrayals over endless cups of coffee in Tripoli, the capital. [Outsourcing] [Unintended consequences]
• A platoon awaits end of Afghan war
  View Photo Gallery — A war ends in a remote Afghan outpost:?Soldiers from the 173rd Airborne Brigade are in the final months of their mission in Combat Outpost Jaghautu, which will likely close later this year. Text Size Print E-mail Reprints By Greg Jaffe, Updated: Friday, October 12, 6:30 PMThe Washington Post JAGHATU, Afghanistan — The platoon sergeant poses a simple question to the men of 3rd Platoon: “What do you consider success on a mission?” There is an uneasy silence in the dark chow tent. In a few months, the U.S. Army will bulldoze its portion of the base, part of America’s slow withdrawal of combat forces from Afghanistan. All that will remain here in this isolated place is a small Afghan army camp and a mostly empty government building with a mortar hole in its roof, the sum total of 11 years of U.S. counterinsurgency efforts in this district 65 miles south of Kabul. Sgt. Gary M. Waugh, a soldier on his second Afghan tour, takes a stab at answering the question. “Us not doing a thing,” he says. “Not firing our weapon.” A few of the soldiers rest their chins on the butts of their rifles. A diesel generator drones in the background as the platoon sergeant surveys his men. “Right answer,” he replies.
• Behind Romney’s tough talk on Syria
  By Walter Pincus, Thursday, October 11, 2:28 AM The Washington Post Does Mitt Romney understand the implications of his campaign pledge to “ensure” that Syrian opposition members “who share our values” will “obtain the arms they need” to defeat President Bashir al-Assad’s “tanks, helicopters and fighter jets”? It’s quite easy for a speech­writer in Boston or Washington to put such promises on paper, and even easier for the candidate to make them in front of American flags to an audience of Virginia Military Institute cadets as he did on Monday. Does he plan to add to the task of CIA and military intelligence officers who already are trying to identify the right Syrians to receive intelligence and communications equipment along with humanitarian assistance? Sorting out which among almost 100 groups deserve even this non-military help is one of the reasons the Obama administration is holding back from doing even more. What other test does Romney have in mind to make sure various militia leaders with forces of varied sectarian, religious, criminal and even jihadist backgrounds “share our values”? Does he plan to link U.S. military and other material assistance to militia leaders to pledges to respect responsibilities that he listed, such as the rights of “all their citizens including women and minorities .?.?. space for civil society, a free media, political parties and an independent judiciary”? [Romney] [Rhetoric]
• Towards a Western Retreat from Syria
  By Thierry Meyssan Global Research, October 09, 2012 The Syria war drags on. Continuing it has become too expensive and too dangerous for its neighbors. Russia, which aims to re-establish itself in the Middle East, is trying to show the United States that it is in their best interest to allow Moscow to resolve the conflict. The military situation in Syria is turning against those in Washington and Brussels who hoped to change the regime there by force. Two successive attempts to take Damascus have failed and it has become clear that that objective cannot be achieved. Where NATO has failed to make war, the CTSO is preparing to make peace. The Secretary General of the Organization Nikolay Bordyuzha is setting up a peacekeeping force of 50,000 men, ready to be deployed in Syria. On July 18th, an explosion killed the leadership of the Council of National Security, signalling the beginning of a vast offensive during which tens of thousands of mercenaries descended on the Syrian capital from Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq. After several days of pitched battles, Damascus was saved when the fraction of the population hostile to the government chose out of patriotism to assist the National Army rather than bid welcome to the forces of the FSA.
• The Myth That Screwed Up 50 Years of U.S. Foreign Policy
  It's time to set the record straight about John F. Kennedy's handling of the Cuban missile crisis.
  BY LESLIE H. GELB |NOVEMBER 2012 U.S. President John F. Kennedy's skillful management of the Cuban missile crisis, 50 years ago this autumn, has been elevated into the central myth of the Cold War. At its core is the tale that, by virtue of U.S. military superiority and his steely will, Kennedy forced Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev to capitulate and remove the nuclear missiles he had secretly deployed to Cuba. As Secretary of State Dean Rusk rhapsodized, America went "eyeball to eyeball," and the Soviets "just blinked." Mythologically, Khrushchev gave everything, and Kennedy gave nothing. Thus the crisis blossomed as an unabashed American triumph and unmitigated Soviet defeat. Kennedy's victory in the messy and inconclusive Cold War naturally came to dominate the politics of U.S. foreign policy. It deified military power and willpower and denigrated the give-and-take of diplomacy. [Militarisation]
• Public ire one goal of Iran sanctions, U.S. official says
  By Karen DeYoung and Scott Wilson, Published: January 10, 2012The Washington Post An earlier version of this article incorrectly reported that a U.S. intelligence official had described regime collapse as a goal of U.S. and other sanctions against Iran. An updated version clarifies the official’s remarks. The Obama administration sees economic sanctions against Iran as building public discontent that will help compel the government to abandon an alleged nuclear weapons program, according to a senior U.S. intelligence official. [Sanctions[ Destabilisation]
• Financial Warfare: Destabilizing Iran’s Monetary System
  By Nile Bowie Global Research, October 06, 2012 ESFAHAN – Dramatic fluctuations of the Iranian rial triggered small protests among merchants in Tehran’s grand bazaar on October 3rd, 2012. In an attempt by authorities to prevent further devaluation, Iran’s central bank recently issued new limits on the amount of USD available for purchase at a subsidized rate, leading many to panic as the rial fell 40% against the dollar since the start of October. Although the demonstrations were economic in nature, many took advantage of the moment to voice their grievances against the political system, with many crediting President Ahmadinejad with overseeing fiscal mismanagement that has exacerbated Washington’s unceasing barrage of economic sanctions. Ahmadinejad’s political opponents also blame his administration for economic mismanagement, sentiment that is appearing more frequently among Iranian society. While combating the challenges that economic sanctions represent is an arduous task for any government, it is important to recognize that these sanctions are not aimed against Iran’s government, but at its poor and merchant population. An unnamed US intelligence source cited by the Washington Post claims: ”In addition to the direct pressure sanctions exert on the regime’s ability to finance its priorities, another option here is that they will create hate and discontent at the street level so that the Iranian leaders realize that they need to change their ways.” Washington has long engaged in psychological operations that aim to foment the kind of “hate and discontent” among Iran’s factory workers, merchants, shopkeepers, students, and manufacturers – as part of a series of measures taken to coax widespread social discontent and unrest throughout the country to topple the government. [Sanctions] [Destabilisation]
• Air-Sea Battle and the utility of land power in the Asia Pacific
  October 5th, 2012 Author: Peter J. Dean, ANU People live on land. This might be a blatantly obvious statement but it is worth remembering in the context of the discussion surrounding the US pivot to Asia and the emerging military-operational concept of Air-Sea Battle. Air-Sea Battle has become the showpiece US military concept for countering China’s Anti-Access/Area-Denial (A2AD) system over the last two decades. But it is important to note that Air-Sea Battle is just one component of the US military’s approach to countering A2AD. The overarching framework for Air-Sea Battle is the US Joint Operational Access Concept (JOAC). JOAC consists not only of Air-Sea Battle, which is in fact principally designed to deal with anti-access technologies and strategies which prevent forces from entering an operational area, but also the Gain and Maintain Access Concept (GMAC). In the littoral environment, the GMAC deals with area denial, or limiting freedom of action within an operational area once access has been achieved. The GMAC is aimed at ‘the capability for decisive action on land and in the littorals’ and is primarily the domain of the US Army and Marine Corps. [AirSea Battle]
• Remember us with forbearance: the unrepentant Eric Hobsbawm, an obituary
  Donald Sassoon , 5 October 2012 A fellow historian celebrates the life of one of the greatest British exponents of one strand of the tradition of European Marxism: a pessimism of the intelligence barely tempered by an optimism of the will. Eric Hobsbawm outlived his short twentieth century (1917-1991) by more than twenty years. And right to the end he was still the object of scandal for having been far too long a communist. ‘You see’, he might have said, (‘you see’ was one of his habitual linguistic tics) ‘there have been many communists among major historians, but they left. Some stayed on the left (E.P. Thompson), some moved right (Annie Kriegel, François Furet). I stayed until the end, the bitter end.’ Since even the popular media agree that Hobsbawm was a remarkable historian, a great historian, and some even say that he was the greatest living historian (something which he found rather unconvincing and a little embarrassing), it begs the question: how can an impenitent communist be a great historian?
• A Dangerous New World of Drones
  By Peter Bergen, Jennifer Rowland, New America Foundation October 1, 2012 | CNN ...without an international framework governing the use of drone attacks, the United States is setting a dangerous precedent for other nations with its aggressive and secretive drone programs in Pakistan and Yemen, which are aimed at suspected members of al Qaeda and their allies. A decade ago, the United States had a virtual monopoly on drones. Not anymore. According to data compiled by the New America Foundation, more than 70 countries now own some type of drone, though just a small number of those nations possess armed drone aircraft. The explosion in drone technology promises to change the way nations conduct war and threatens to begin a new arms race as governments scramble to counterbalance their adversaries. [UAV] [Unintended consequences] [Entitlement]
• The Fed’s “QE Infinity”: Money Galore… What Is It All About?
  By Ellen Brown Global Research, October 03, 2012 QE3, the Federal Reserve’s third round of quantitative easing, is so open-ended that it is being called QE Infinity. Doubts about its effectiveness are surfacing even on Wall Street. The Financial Times reports: Among the trading rooms and floors of Connecticut and Mayfair [in London], supposedly sophisticated money managers are raising big questions about QE3 — and whether, this time around, the Fed is not risking more than it can deliver. Which raises the question, what is it intended to deliver? As suggested in an earlier article here, QE3 is not likely to reduce unemployment, put money in the pockets of consumers, reflate the money supply, or significantly lower interest rates for homeowners, as alleged. It will not achieve those things because it consists of no more than an asset swap on bank balance sheets. It will not get dollars to businesses or consumers on Main Street. So what is the real purpose of this exercise? Catherine Austin Fitts recently posted a revealing article on that enigma. She says the true goal of QE Infinity is to unwind the toxic mortgage debacle, in a way that won’t bankrupt pensioners or start another war: [Finance] [Crisis]
• Hegemony and Propaganda: The Importance of Trivialisation in Cementing Social Control
  By Colin Todhunter Global Research, October 03, 2012 Knowledge in modern societies has expanded to the point whereby specialisms and sub-specialisms are the norm. It is just not possible for one person to have in-depth knowledge of every discipline. We must rely on others to convey such knowledge, usually in relatively simplistic terms. Most of us have to take at face value many of the ideas and concepts that we are bombarded with in this age of instant, mass communications and information overload. People tend to like simplicity. In many instances, not possessing sufficient expertise on matters, they require it. They require easily manageable packages of knowledge, and these packages become taken for granted stocks of ‘common sense’ knowledge that enable them to cope, however faulty or misrepresented that ‘knowledge’ may be. Politicians and the media also recognise people’s need for simplicity. And here lies the problem, particularly in an increasingly complex and confusing world. In order to rally the masses around certain ideas and to make things ‘simple’ for them, both politicians and the media have to a large extent taken their cue from Edward Bernays, the father of advertising, propaganda and public relations. This is where simplicity morphs into manipulation. [Media]
• Overwrought empire
  By Tom Engelhardt Americans lived in a "victory culture" for much of the twentieth century. You could say that we experienced an almost 75-year stretch of triumphalism - think of it as the real "American Century" - from World War I to the end of the Cold War, with time off for a destructive stalemate in Korea and a defeat in Vietnam too shocking to absorb or shake off. When the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, it all seemed so obvious. Fate had clearly dealt Washington a royal flush. It was victory with a capital V. The United States was, after all, the last standing superpower, after centuries of unceasing great power rivalries on the planet. It had a military beyond compare and no enemy, hardly a "rogue state," on the horizon. It was almost unnerving, such clear sailing into a dominant future, but a moment for the ages nonetheless. Within a decade, pundits in Washington were hailing us as "the dominant power in the world, more dominant than any since Rome." [Overreach]
• The Forces Behind Iran’s Currency Crisis
  by SASAN FAYAZMANESH In September and early October of 2012 the Iranian currency, rial, was in a state of free fall relative to the value of major world currencies and gold. The government of Iran, as well as the Central of Bank of Iran (Bank Markazi), appeared to be helpless in stopping the nosedive. The adversaries of Iran, particularly Israel and the US, were jubilant and attributed the currency crisis to the success of “crippling,” “paralyzing” or “lethal sanctions,” to use various descriptions of these sanctions by US-Israeli officials. On September 30, 2012, Reuters quoted Israeli Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz as saying: “The sanctions on Iran in the past year jumped a level” and Iran’s economy “is not collapsing, but it is on the verge of collapse.” “The Iranians,” he went on to say, “are in great economic difficulties as a result of the sanctions.” Similarly, in a daily press briefing on October 1, 2012, US Department of State Spokesperson Victoria Nuland had the following exchange with a reporter: QUESTION: Iran. The Iranian currency has lost about a quarter of its value in the last week alone. Is the Department pleased to see this? It seems to reflect the efficacy of the sanctions against Iran. Are you dismayed by it, or what is your view? MS. NULAND: You’d like an adjective of choice? QUESTION: I’d like a verb, really. MS. NULAND: You’d like a verb, yeah. Well – QUESTION: Delighted? MS. NULAND: — simply to confirm what you are seeing, Arshad, our understanding is that the Iranian currency has dropped to a historic low today against the dollar in informal currency trading. This despite some frantic efforts by the Iranian Government last week to try to prop it up, rearrange the way it dealt with these issues. From our perspective, this speaks to the unrelenting and increasingly successful international pressure that we are all bringing to bear on the Iranian economy. It’s under incredible strain. Iran is increasingly cut off from the global financial system. Significant amounts of Iranian oil is also coming off the market. As you said, the currency is plummeting. And firms all over the world are refusing to do business with Iranian companies. The jubilation and boastfulness about the success of sanctions were more subdued when the question was put differently to Secretary of State Hilary Clinton a few days later. In a press conference Clinton was asked about the efficacy of “hurting” the Iranian people by means of sanctions. She answered: I think the Iranian Government deserves responsibility for what is going on inside Iran. And that is who should be held accountable. [Sanctions] [Agency] [Subcritical]
• Who Runs the Global Drug Mafia (II)
  Valentin KATASONOV | 11.10.2012 | 00:00 Part I As noted in the previous part of the paper, the global drug mafia is a three-level formation. The strategic objectives pursued at the executive Level 3 are: • The whitewashing of the cash flows generated by drug sales; • Revenue investment in various sectors of the economy; • Organization and security of drug supply operations at Level 1 and Level 2; • The creation of the conditions favorable to the expansion of the drug business in various countries. Global Drug Mafia: Strategic Objectives and Real Bosses I will dwell in what follows on how the first and second objectives from the above list are accomplished. As for the third one – the maintenance of drug operations security - the methods on the basis of which it is pursued are: • The buying of state officials supposed to counter illicit drug-related activities (policemen, drug enforcement agents, customs service staff, etc); • The infiltration of the corresponding government institutions; • The armament of drug cartels and likewise groups. Keeping competitors out of the respective drug market niches is also a purpose bracketed within the third of the objectives discussed. The fourth objective translates into an extremely wide range of activities: • Lobbyist promotion of the legislation favorable to circulating drugs (including the legislative initiatives aimed at legalizing narcotics); • Propaganda of drug use in mass media; • The lifting of restrictions on cargo transit, financial flows, and travel under the pretexts of liberalization and free trade; • The support for the existence or creation of offshore zones where money laundering is relatively easy; • The organization of political or military pressure – oftentimes in the guise of anti-terrorist campaigns - on the countries which attempt to crack down on the drug business. The 2001 NATO invasion of Afghanistan – with the stated goal of hunting down terrorists - provides a stark example of an operation designed to establish a situation conductive to the expansion of the drug business in a whole country. Its actual result was a boost of drug output – of heroin and opium – in the settings of the international occupation. The Talibs who ruled Afghanistan prior to the coalition offensive managed to induce a considerable reduction of poppy farming, whereas the intervention led to an increase of drug production in Afghanistan by orders of magnitude and to the conversion of the country into the world's top narcotics supplier… Analysts, in fact, suggested that the September 11 terrorist attacks could have been arranged to help the drug business spread globally under the protection of the Western military coalition.
  At the moment, Iran is one of the few countries to be credited with implementing a strong anti-drug program. The country not only suppresses illicit drug activities domestically but also does a lot to counter drag trafficking internationally, blocking the supply routes which head from Afghanistan or Asia towards Europe via the Iranian territory. This may be one of the reasons behind the US tendency to maintain chronic tensions around Iran. [Drugs] [US global strategy]
• 130,000 guests reportedly attend wedding in Malaysia
  The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission is carrying out an investigation into Malacca chief minister following complaints about the lavishness of his son's wedding party last weekend, the New Straits Times has reported. MACC deputy chief commissioner Datuk Mohd Shukri Abdul said a thorough investigation of Datuk Seri Mohd Ali Rustam would be carried out. "We are going to look through item by item, to see how much money was spent and who paid for it... we are checking," he said. Since the investigation had just begun, Shukri declined to comment further. Up to 130,000 guests reportedly attended the wedding of Mohd Ridhwan and Nur Azieha Mohd Ali at Dewan Tun Ali in Bukit Katil here on Sunday. [Corruption] [Bizarre]
• Libya militias lay siege to pro-Gadhafi city in another sign of chaos
  By Mel Frykberg | McClatchy Newspapers CAIRO — Thousands of Libyan security force members and hundreds of militiamen have massed around the Libyan town of Bani Walid in a show of force that underscores how tense and fragile the country’s security situation remains, nearly one month after an attack by Islamist militants on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans.
• Romney foreign-policy speech takes tough tone but proposes few changes
  By Lindsay Wise and Jonathan S. Landay | McClatchy Newspapers LEXINGTON, Va. — Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney slammed his rival’s international strategy as weak Monday in a speech at Virginia Military Institute. But many of the remarks in his critique didn’t pass the truth test, and despite his tough tone, the foreign-policy positions he outlined hewed close to those already held by President Barack Obama. Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/10/08/170867/romney-to-outline-his-foreign.html#storylink=cpy [Romney]
• Iran, Syria and the Balance of Power in the Middle East
  by Patrick Cockburn Turkish artillery is firing across the border into Syria. Explosions have torn apart buildings in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, making their floors collapse on top of each other so they look like giant concrete sandwiches. The country resembles Lebanon during its civil war, the victim of unbearable and ever-escalating violence but with no clear victor likely to emerge.
• Drone attacks in Pakistan are counterproductive, says report
  US academics' report says drones kill large numbers of civilians and increase recruitment by militant groups Owen Bowcott, legal affairs correspondent The Guardian, Tuesday 25 September 2012 Pakistani men protest against drone strikes. The report said a study showed 74% of Pakistanis considered the US an enemy. Photograph: SS Mirza/AFP/Getty Images The CIA's programme of "targeted" drone killings in Pakistan's tribal heartlands is politically counterproductive, kills large numbers of civilians and undermines respect for international law, according to a report by US academics. The study by Stanford and New York universities' law schools, based on interviews with victims, witnesses and experts, blames the US president, Barack Obama, for the escalation of "signature strikes" in which groups are selected merely through remote "pattern of life" analysis. Families are afraid to attend weddings or funerals, it says, in case US ground operators guiding drones misinterpret them as gatherings of Taliban or al-Qaida militants. "The dominant narrative about the use of drones in Pakistan is of a surgically precise and effective tool that makes the US safer by enabling 'targeted killings' of terrorists, with minimal downsides or collateral impacts. This narrative is false," the report, entitled Living Under Drones, states. [UAV]
• Special interview with Immanuel Wallerstein
  part 1 of 2 Posted on : Oct.3,2012 13:34 KST Modified on : Oct.4,2012 09:32 KST Yale professor and World Systems Theory specialist talks to the Hankyoreh about the need for a new global system Interviewed by Lee Su-hoon, reported by Ryu Yi-geun Immanuel Wallerstein, the 82-year-old emeritus professor at Yale University noted for his World Systems Theory, has a perspective all his own. While most economic experts were predicting the Eurozone (the 17 countries that use the Euro as currency) would weaken or break apart over the combined effects of the global financial crisis and debt crisis, this world-renowned scholar was saying the exact opposite. His distinctive and superlative perspective is always tuned to the macroscopic, yet remains rooted in the analysis of systems and phenomena as wholes rather than parts. The Hankyoreh organized a meeting on Sept. 17 between him and Kyungnam National University Institute for Far Eastern Studies director Lee Su-hoon, a leading proponent of world systems theory in South Korea. Wallerstein was in the country to attend the 2012 Peace BAR Festival, an international conference organized to commemorate the 31st anniversary of the UN’s International Day of Peace. The original analytic framework Wallerstein provided with his theory ushered in a new era in the social sciences. His main area of interest is the capitalist world economy that emerged in Europe in the 16th century. In his analysis, this global economy took on a geographic and hierarchical division of labor between periphery, semi-periphery, and core. The current global system, he says, will come to an end within the next forty to fifty years with the decline of the core country in the US, with a new order taking shape thereafter. His magnum opus is “The Modern World-System.”
• American Militarism
  by Dave Lindorff There is a massive deception campaign in the US, and in its global propaganda, which seeks to portray the United States as a poor set-upon nation that would like world peace but just has to keep a military stationed around the globe to “police” all the world’s “trouble spots.” In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. That truth is that the US is the biggest war-monger the world has ever known. [Military expenditure] [Militarisation]
• Secrets Behind September 11
  11.09.2012 Nikolai Malishevski, political scientist Surveys conducted across the US show thatthe majority of Americans, including senior citizens old enough to remember the US entry into World War II, regard the September, 11, 2001 drama as exceeding in historical importance the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack. Speaking of the latter, these days it is an open secret that the US Administration was aware of the coming Japanese offensive and, instead of taking adequate measures beforehand, knowingly sacrificed around 1,500 lives to have the country drawn into a war as planned in Washington. US Secretary of War Henry Stimson rote in his diary following the November 25, 1941 government meeting: “The question was how we should maneuver them [the Japanese] into the position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves. It was a difficult proposition”. [False flag] [9/11]
• US Economy Sustained by Export of Dollars and Wars
  Martin KUKSHA | 23.09.2012 | 12:11 For those who feel that 13 is an unlucky number, the belief was vindicated on September 13, considering that a new liquidity injection – a massive infusion of freshly printed and essentially worthless money into the global economy – was announced in the US on the day. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke said that, as a third round of quantitative easing (QE3), the US would beef up its long-term securities holdings by open-ended purchases of $40b of mortgage debt. No information concerning the total to be thrown into QE3 was supplied. Instead, Bernanke made it clear that Operation Twist - a program to swap $667b of short-term debt for long-term securities – would continue. Earlier, the swap fund used to measure $400b, meaning that, in fact, Bernanke pledged to give it an appreciable boost. He also sent a portion of cheering news to the US financial sector by telling that the unprecedentedly low federal funds rate – 0 to 0.25% - will stay in effect at least through mid-2015 rather than till the end of 2014 as decided earlier. Knowing what exactly constitutes the main US export should give a reasonable idea of what the QE3 plan promises worldwide. [Decline] [Militarisation] [Financialisation]

• The New Deal Illusion
  by GABRIEL KOLKO What was the New Deal of the 1930s? There are so many myths surrounding it, and to a large extent the Democratic Party’s credibility today is based on the assumption they were fundamental social innovators, progressive if you will, during the New Deal. But the 1920s and 1930 was a very complex period and are best treated as one unified era because the administration of Herbert Hoover, the much-reviled president during the Great Depression that began in 1929 and lasted well into the 1930s, was also a part of the American “Progressive” tradition. As I have argued elsewhere, American “progressivism” was a part of a big business effort to attain protection from the unpredictability of too much competition. [See my book The Triumph of Conservatism: A reinterpretation of American History, 1900-1916, New York, 1962] In fact, the New Deal was many things, having numerous aspects: what was not made up on the spur of the moment was copied from earlier efforts. The Democrats did not have a real economic strategy when they came to power. Most of what they said about the economy during the election campaign was, naturally, simply designed to get votes. They certainly had no idea the day they came to office how to deal with the Depression. Hoover had more ideas than they did.
• The Western Onslaught on International Law
  by PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS A new film, “Compliance,” examines “the human desire to follow and obey authority.” Liberal institutions, such as the media, universities, federal courts, and human rights organizations, which have traditionally functioned as checks on the blind obedience to authority, have in our day gone over to power’s side. The subversion of these institutions has transformed them from checks on power into servants of power. The result is the transformation of culture from the rule of law to unaccountable authority resting on power maintained by propaganda. Propaganda is important in the inculcation of trust in authority.The Pussy Riot case shows the power of Washington’s propaganda even inside Russia itself and reveals that Washington’s propaganda has suborned important human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch, Chatham House, and Amnesty International. [NGO] [Legality]
• Navy Seal account of Bin Laden raid contradicts White House claims
  No Easy Day, to be published next week, raises questions over whether Osama bin Laden presented a clear threat to US forces The Seal says he was directly behind a 'point man' going up the stairs during the Bin Laden raid. Photograph: Greg E Mathieson/Rex Features A first-hand account of the US Navy Seal raid that killed Osama bin Laden contradicts previous accounts by administration officials, raising questions over whether he presented a clear threat when he was first fired upon. Bin Laden apparently was hit in the head when he looked out of his bedroom door into the top-floor hallway of his compound as Seals rushed up a narrow stairwell in his direction, according to a former Navy Seal writing under the pseudonym Mark Owen in No Easy Day. The book is to be published next week by Penguin's Dutton imprint. [Osama] [Disinformation]
• SEAL book depicts Osama bin Laden shot on sight in hallway, contradicting original account
  View Photo Gallery — Images after Osama bin Laden’s death:?View images showing the compound where Osama bin Laden was killed on May 2, 2011, as well as Americans’ reactions to the news. By Associated Press, Updated: Wednesday, August 29, 7:23 PMAP WASHINGTON — A firsthand account of the Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden contradicts previous accounts by administration officials, raising questions as to whether the terror mastermind presented a clear threat when SEALs first fired upon him. Bin Laden apparently was shot in the head when he looked out of his bedroom door into the top-floor hallway of his compound as SEALs rushed up a narrow stairwell in his direction, according to former Navy SEAL Matt Bissonnette, writing under the pseudonym Mark Owen in “No Easy Day.” The book is to be published next week by Penguin Group (USA)’s Dutton imprint. Bissonnette says he was directly behind a point man going up the stairs in the pitch black hallway. Near the top, he said, he heard two shots, but the book doesn’t make it clear who fired them. He wrote that the point man had seen a man peeking out of a door on the right side of the hallway. The author writes that the man ducked back into his bedroom and the SEALs followed, only to find the man crumpled on the floor in a pool of blood with a hole visible on the right side of his head and two women wailing over his body. [Osama][Disinformation]
• Syria: Turning Back the Clock on the Arab Spring
  by Ahmad Barqawi Global Research, August 27, 2012 Whatever genuine grievances and demands for political reform the Syrian people might have had a year and half ago were trodden underfoot by this stampeding sectarian drive that the Syrian opposition itself worked so hard to foster among its own supporters. Perhaps one of the most inglorious accomplishments of the western-backed/Gulf-funded Syrian opposition is that it has – and over the course of mere months - managed to inflict such a colossal, irreparable damage to the Syrian people’s future prospects of having a real, homegrown and genuine uprising to bring about positive change in their own country. Thanks to the devious Syrian National Council and the crazed Free Syrian Army; the term ‘revolution’ has sadly lost its worth and lustre for a sizable portion of the Syrian populace and in the Arab world in general, as it has become marred by abhorrent stigmas of sectarianism, religious fanaticism, succumbing to foreign agendas, subjugation of national integrity and social disintegration. We must concede to the SNC, the FSA and their western patrons their unrivalled ability in transforming what was essentially a flicker of hope into an entire landscape of desolation and ruin. In the blink of an eye, the home country in which all Syrians coexisted peacefully and harmoniously together for decades became a place they do not even recognize; reciprocal kidnappings between rival tribes, sects, ethnicities and neighbourhoods have become the order of the day; makeshift illegal checkpoints manned by pundits and warring militias have popped up all over Syrian cities; where ID cards could easily get unfortunate passersby killed on the spot, the country’s normally amicable population has been driven headfirst into a horrible cycle of killings and reprisal killings, torture and summary executions, and Mount Kassioun, a once picturesque and vibrant touristic site that overlooks Damascus has become a strategic vantagepoint for rocket launchers and artillery barrage.
• The Decline of Political Protest
  by DIANA JOHNSTONE Paris. Once upon a time there was an organization called Amnesty International which was dedicated to defending prisoners of conscience all over the world. Its action was marked by two principles that contributed to its success: neutrality and discretion. In the context of the Cold War, the early AI made a point of balancing its campaigns between prisoners from each of three ideological regions: the capitalist West, the communist East and the developing South. The campaigns remained discreet, avoiding ideological polemics and focusing on the legal and physical conditions of captives. Their aim was not to use the prisoners as an excuse to rant against an “enemy” government, but to persuade governments to cease persecuting non-violent dissidents. It strove successfully to exercise a universal civilizing influence. Since the end of the Cold War, the work of Amnesty International has become more complicated and more difficult. [NGO] [Subversion]
• America’s Descent Into Poverty
  by PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS The United States has collapsed economically, socially, politically, legally, constitutionally, environmentally, and morally. The country that exists today is not even a shell of the country into which I was born. In this article I will deal with America’s economic collapse. In subsequent articles, i will deal with other aspects of American collapse. Economically, America has descended into poverty. As Peter Edelman says, “Low-wage work is pandemic.” Today in “freedom and democracy” America, “the world’s only superpower,” one fourth of the work force is employed in jobs that pay less than $22,000, the poverty line for a family of four. Some of these lowly-paid persons are young college graduates, burdened by education loans, who share housing with three or four others in the same desperate situation. Other of these persons are single parents only one medical problem or lost job away from homelessness. [Inequality] [Decline]
• Rethinking Italian National Interest And Strategy In a Changing World
  21.08.2012 Tiberio Graziani is a president of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Geopolitics and Auxiliary Sciences (IsAG) The world is rapidly changing. For some years now, even more rapidly. Systemic crises (and the following “great depressions”) have historically caused an acceleration of the already existing dynamics of the rise and fall of powers: the 1873 crisis facilitated the rise of the USA and Germany relative to Great Britain, that of 1929 helped the German recovery and the USSR to cross its industrial gap. The crisis started in 2008 accelerates the rise of the so called “emerging powers” (in truth often already “emerged” for quite a while), particularly the BRICS, and above all China, while the until now dominant Western system of USA, Europe and Japan is losing ground. The short unipolar moment, approximately coincident with the ‘90s and the early 2000s, has now passed: today we commonly speak of a multipolar world. In reality, we are still in a transitional unipolar to multipolar phase with the USA maintaining its hegemonic position. But an arrival at a realized multipolar system in the near future seems to be now inevitable. The changes we are facing are not of little importance. Some events have a crucial dimension; it is the case of the revival of China and India after centuries of oblivion, or the progressive loss of political, cultural and economic centrality of the West. A structure manifesting itself since the sixteenth century is now vanishing. In the face of momentous changes none, not even Italy, can stay still and inactive. The time has come for Italy to reflect, without any ideological bar or immobility due to habit, on its national interests and on the most appropriate strategy to achieve them in a future approaching apace. Adapting to the environment is essential for success. Attention must be directed above all to the two pillars which have determined Italian foreign policy during the last sixty years and more: Atlanticism and Europeanism. An epochal change brings also a categorical shift. Geopolitics can provide useful tools to define and understand the new historical categories, even if it must be assisted by a series of auxiliary sciences ranging from economics to anthropology, from technology to geography. [Realignment] [Allegiance]
• US responsible for nearly 78 percent of global weapons sales, government says
  Tiffany Hsu | Los Angeles Times LOS ANGELES — Global arms transfer agreements between governments - both developing and developed - nearly doubled last year to $85.3 billion, reaching their highest level since 2004. The U.S. dominated as a supplier, making $66.3 billion from transactions with other nations - a record high representing nearly 78 percent of all weapons sales, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service. The haul is more than triple the $21.4 billion the U.S. made from arms agreements in 2010. Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/08/27/163700/us-responsible-for-nearly-78-percent.html#storylink=cpy [Arms sales]
• Documentary film ‘2016: Obama’s America’ came out of nowhere to burn up the box office
  By Dan Zak, The Washington Post One of the top 10 films at the weekend box office was a documentary that equates Barack Obama’s reelection with the death and dismemberment of the United States of America — “2016: Obama’s America” grossed about $6.5 million to land at No. 7, nearly $800,000 ahead of Meryl Streep’s latest, the Obamically titled “Hope Springs.” This was the second-lowest-grossing weekend of the year, but the film’s $9.3 million seven-week haul is still enough to make it the most successful conservative political documentary of all time, as defined and ranked by Box Office Mojo. It’s also the sixth-highest-grossing all-around political documentary, ranking behind four Michael Moore films and “An Inconvenient Truth,” which starred Al Gore and glaciers. “It’s like the sophomore on the varsity squad who comes out and plays better than the seniors but they still lose the game,” says Keith Simanton, managing editor of IMDb. “It’s still impressive.” So, uh, where’d this movie come from? [Decline] [Bizarre] [Obama]
• Why was a Navy adviser stripped of her career?
  By Jeff Stein, Published: August 21The Washington Post Gwenyth Todd had worked in a lot of places in Washington where powerful men didn’t hesitate to use sharp elbows. She had been a Middle East expert for the National Security Council in the Clinton administration. She had worked in the office of Defense Secretary Dick Cheney in the first Bush administration, where neoconservative hawks first began planning to overthrow Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. But she was not prepared a few years later in Bahrain when she encountered plans by high-ranking admirals to confront Iran, any one of which, she reckoned, could set the region on fire. It was 2007, and Todd, then 42, was a top political adviser to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet. Previous 5th Fleet commanders had resisted various ploys by Bush administration hawks to threaten the Tehran regime. But in spring 2007, a new commander arrived with an ambitious program to show the Iranians who was boss in the Persian Gulf. Vice Adm. Kevin J. Cosgriff had amassed an impressive résumé, rising through the ranks to command a cruiser and a warship group after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Following a customary path to three stars, he had also spent as much time in Washington as he had at sea, including stints at the Defense Intelligence Agency and as director of the Clinton White House Situation Room. Cosgriff — backed by a powerful friend and boss, U.S. Central Command (Centcom) chief Adm. William J. “Fox” Fallon — was itching to push the Iranians, Todd and other present and former Navy officials say. “There was a feeling that the Navy was back on its heels in dealing with Iran,” according to a Navy official prohibited from commenting in the media. “There was an intention to be far more aggressive with the Iranians, and a diminished concern about keeping Washington in the loop.” [Pentagon]
• Visit by Egypt’s Morsi to Iran reflects foreign policy shift
  By Ernesto Londoño, Published: August 27The Washington Post CAIRO — A decision by Egypt’s new president to travel to Tehran for a summit of the Non-Aligned Movement this week reflects a major foreign policy shift for the Arab world’s most populous nation, after decades of subservience to Washington. The visit by President Mohamed Morsi to Iran will be the first by an Egyptian leader since the nations broke off diplomatic relations in the 1980s after Egypt’s recognition of Israel. As the host nation, Iran is widely expected to use the gathering to strengthen tepid ties among the 120 countries set to attend the summit, and to decry what Tehran has portrayed as a heavy-handed and unfair crusade by the West to isolate the Islamic republic over its controversial nuclear program. [Decline] [Realignment]
• Car bombings rise in frequency as Libya marks a year since Gadhafi’s flight
  By Mel Frykberg | McClatchy Newspapers TRIPOLI, Libya — One year after a rebel offensive in this capital city began the final push to end the long rule of Moammar Gadhafi, a string of car bombings has spurred concerns that the late dictator’s supporters remain strong enough to wreak havoc in this still recovering nation.
• Syrian ex-radio star Honey al Sayed struggles with exile, her country’s fate
  Honey al Sayed, a radio star in Syria, fled the uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad seven months ago and now lives in Washington, D.C., as a refugee. ( | MARY F. CALVERT/MCT By Hannah Allam | McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — Never, ever say the word “revolution.” Protesters are to be called “terrorists” at all times. When a listener calls in to praise the president, you must agree in flowery terms. When suffering civilians beg you to describe their plight, you ignore them. Those are just a few of the rules imposed on Honey al Sayed in the final weeks before she abandoned her nationally broadcast radio show, “Good Morning, Syria,” which drew millions of listeners each day. Eight months ago, Sayed left Damascus under the pretense of pursuing her studies, though she knew she was fleeing both the regime of President Bashar Assad and a rebel movement that’s killed media personalities who are seen as pro-government. For months after Sayed left, the radio station continued to play promotional jingles for her show, to cover her departure and make her return seem imminent even when it became apparent that she was gone for good.
• Robert Mugabe enjoys popularity surge among Zimbabwe's voters
  Poll puts president on 31% support, ahead of MDC's Morgan Tsvangirai, but 40% of respondents did not declare intentions Share David Smith guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 22 August 2012 23.05 BST Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe came top in a poll in which Zimbabweans were asked for whom they planned to vote. Photograph: Antonio Silva/EPA Zimbabwe's president, Robert Mugabe, is enjoying a surge of popularity that could propel him to victory in the country's next elections, an independent poll of voters' intentions suggests. Mugabe would command the support of 31% of voters in a presidential election, ahead of rival Morgan Tsvangirai on 19%, according to research for the US-based pro-democracy group Freedom House. Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) dismissed the results, noting that Mugabe's supporters were outnumbered by voters who refused to declare their intentions. But it is likely to boost the confidence of Mugabe's Zanu-PF party heading into elections expected next year. [Public opinion]
• Zimbabwe Opinion Survey Reveals Hope for Elections, but Cynicism About Political Leaders .
  Washington According to a public opinion survey released today, Zimbabweans remain anxiously uncertain about the political future of their country. Findings from Change and ‘New’ Politics in Zimbabwe revealed that despite widespread optimism that the next elections expected in the first half of 2013 will bring definite change, many Zimbabweans continue to fear that the lead up to elections will include heightened levels of political violence. [NGO]
• Julian Assange urges US to end 'war on whistleblowers'
  WikiLeaks founder makes speech from balcony of Ecuadorean embassy thanking supporters and asking US to end 'witch-hunt' guardian.co.uk, Sunday 19 August 2012 15.52 BST Julian Assange's statement from a balcony at the Ecuadorean embassy in London Link to this video The WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, has urged the United States to end its "war on whistleblowers" as he used a dramatic appearance on the balcony of the Ecuadorean embassy to thank supporters for backing his fight against extradition. Assange thanked the nation of Ecuador for taking a "stand for justice" in giving him political asylum, while warning that the United States risked shunting the world into an era of journalistic oppression. {WikiLeaks]
• In Syria, group suspected of al-Qaeda links gaining prominence in war to topple Assad
  By Justin Vela and Liz Sly, Updated: Monday, August 20, 12:52 AMThe Washington Post ALEPPO, Syria — A shadowy jihadist organization that first surfaced on the Internet to assert responsibility for suicide bombings in Aleppo and Damascus has stepped out of the shadows and onto the front lines of the war for Syria’s cities. Here in Aleppo, the al-Nusra Front for the Protection of the People of the Levant, widely known as the Jabhat al-Nusra, is fielding scores of fighters, some of them foreigners, in the battle for control of Syria’s commercial capital, a key prize in the bitter war of attrition being waged across the country. The group, suspected of affiliations to al-Qaeda, says it is also fighting in other locations, including the cities of Homs and Idlib and the suburbs of the capital, Damascus. Its growing role has prompted concerns that the 17-month-old uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime is becoming radicalized as the bloodshed soars. [Islamists]
• The survivalist: Roscoe Bartlett prepares for a threatened future
  Melina Mara/The Washington Post - Congressman Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) in his Capitol Hill office, Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2011. By Ben Pershing, Published: August 17The Washington Post Deep in the West Virginia woods, in a small cabin powered by the sun and the wind, a bespectacled, white-haired man is giving a video tour of his basement, describing techniques for the long-term preservation of food in case of “an emergency.” “We don’t really think of those today, because it’s so convenient to go to the supermarket,” he cautions. “But you know, you’re planning because the supermarket may not always be there.” The electrical grid could fail tomorrow, he frequently warns. Food would disappear from the shelves. Water would no longer flow from the pipes. Money might become worthless. People could turn on each other, and millions would die. [Decline]
• U.S. plans for larger presence in Pacific
  By Gidget Fuentes - Staff writer Posted : Saturday Apr 21, 2012 10:13:32 EDT The failed mid-April launch of a long-range North Korean rocket, billed as a satellite launch but widely seen as the test of a ballistic missile, was the latest reminder of how the Pacific region remains one of the world’s most volatile. It’s also a key focus of the Obama administration’s new national defense strategy. [Pivot]
• Paul Ryan has record of pushing for and earmarking federal funds for his district
  By Jerry Markon and David S. Fallis, The Washington Post Five months ago, Rep. Paul Ryan reached out to the Transportation Department, urging that it look favorably upon his home town’s request for $3.8 million, which would help build a new city transit center. It was the same center that four years ago received $735,000 in federal funds through an earmark that Ryan (R-Wis.) had secured. Ryan says he has never sought stimulus funds, but he has written letters on behalf of constituents seeking stimulus funds. So what's the difference? Over his 13 years in Congress, Ryan has often used the powers of his office to seek federal funds for his district, sometimes from existing pools of money and other times in ways that would increase federal spending. His success has meant funding for projects including a runway extension at a local airport and an environmental study of the Kenosha Harbor. There is nothing improper or even unusual about what Ryan has done — in fact, it is the essence of what many congressmen do and what many of their constituents expect. But it complicates the image that Ryan, and now Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, have sought to project of a man who is single-mindedly focused on sharply cutting the federal budget and erasing the nation’s deficit. [US_election12] [Romney] [Double standards]
• Israeli-US Script: Divide Syria, Divide the Rest
  by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya Global Research, August 15, 2012 Press TV - 2012-08-14 What is happening in Syria is a sign of things to come for the region. Regime change is not the sole goal of the US and its allies in Syria. Dividing the Syrian Arab Republic is the end goal of Washington in Syria. Britain’s Maplecroft, which specializes in consulting on strategic risk, has said that we are witnessing the balkanization of the Syrian state: “Kurds in the north, Druze in the southern hills, Alawites in the coastal northwestern mountainous region and the Sunni majority elsewhere.” We are already hearing people like White House advisor Vali Nasr talking about all this. The religious and ethnic cleavages in Syria are not demarcated in purely geographic terms and the balkanization process could play out as a lebonization process, which means that Syria will be divided along violent sectarian fault lines and face political deadlock like Lebanon during its civil war without formally breaking up. Lebonization, a soft form of balkanization, has already taken place in Iraq under federalism. The events in the Middle East and North Africa are seeing the animation of mass movements against local tyrants, like in Bahrain, Jordan, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia, but there is also a vicious script from Israel’s Yinon Plan and its offshoots. The Yinon Plan and similar schemes want a contrived Shitte-Sunni war amongst the Muslims as the central piece of the sectarian divisions - or fitna in Arabic - that are to include Christian-Muslim, Arab-Berber, Arab-Iranian, Arab-Turkish, and Iranian-Turkish animosity. What this process intends to do is create sectarian hatred, ethnic divisions, racism, and religious wars. All the countries that the US and its allies are destabilizing have natural dividing lines, and when tribal, ethnic, confessional, and religious animosity is ignited in one country, it will spill over into other countries. The problems in Libya have spilled into Niger and Chad and the problems in Syria are spilling over into Turkey and Lebanon. [US global strategy] [Fragmentation]
• The Global 1%: Exposing the Transnational Ruling Class
  by Prof. Peter Phillips and Kimberly Soeiro Global Research, August 14, 2012 Project Censored This study asks: Who are the the world’s One percent power elite? And to what extent do they operate in unison for their own private gains over benefits for the 99 percent? We examine a sample of the 1 percent: the extractor sector, whose companies are on the ground extracting material from the global commons, and using low-cost labor to amass wealth. These companies include oil, gas, and various mineral extraction organizations, whereby the value of the material removed far exceeds the actual cost of removal.We also examine the investment sector of the global 1 percent: companies whose primary activity is the amassing and reinvesting of capital. This sector includes global central banks, major investment money management firms, and other companies whose primary efforts are the concentration and expansion of money, such as insurance companies. Finally, we analyze how global networks of centralized power—the elite 1 percent, their companies, and various governments in their service—plan, manipulate, and enforce policies that benefit their continued concentration of wealth and power. We demonstrate how the US/NATO military-industrial-media empire operates in service to the transnational corporate class for the protection of international capital in the world. [Inequality]
• IMF Says Bailouts Iceland-Style Hold Lessons in Crisis Times
  By Omar R. Valdimarsson on August 13, 2012 Iceland holds some key lessons for nations trying to survive bailouts after the island’s approach to its rescue led to a “surprisingly” strong recovery, the International Monetary Fund’s mission chief to the country said. Iceland’s commitment to its program, a decision to push losses on to bondholders instead of taxpayers and the safeguarding of a welfare system that shielded the unemployed from penury helped propel the nation from collapse toward recovery, according to the Washington-based fund. [Crisis]
• How Do You Like the Independent’s War?
  (with apologies to W.R. Hearst, who used the heading How Do You Like the Journal's War? to celebrate his paper's unrelenting advocacy of war with Spain in 1898) As Asad AbuKhalil a.k.a. the Angry Arab noted, The Independent’s Kim Sengupta committed the journalistic no-no of offering a lift to FSA fighters heroically getting the hell out of Dodge as their infiltration and uprising in a district of Aleppo collapsed. On August 10, Sengupta wrote: … fighters without transport [were] desperately trying to get out. We gave some of them a lift to the Sahar district, in the outskirts, where minibuses were lined up to take people out of Aleppo. This represents a step across the journalistic red-line from being a “homer” (one-sidedly supporting one’s favored team from the sidelines or the press box) to a participant (jumping out of the stands to give the ball a helpful kick). Sengupta’s selective cheerleading was also on display in the article. He was anxious to downgrade the significance of the foreign jihadis entering Syria to get a piece of the anti-Assad action: An Islamist battalion which had become noted for its unfriendliness to outsiders including fellow rebels, and had claimed Assad’s army would be defeated quickly if only they had more fellow jihadists, were the first to run from Salaheddine. One of their getaway vehicles, a red pick- up truck, had been hit from the air, just as it had come out of the district. Remains of three bodies lay at the back. A passing fighter, Hussein Ali Motassim, gestured: “They were full of talk about their experience in Iraq and Afghanistan; bombmaking and IDs [IEDs] but at the end, nothing.” To pick a bone with Sengupta, it does look like the jihadis a) were right about the battlefield limitations of FSA units, whose commanders and fighters seem most interested in currying favor with sympathetic visiting journalists (as opposed to those unfriendly jihadis who, in at least one incident, indicated a strong interest in beheading two slumming infidel reporters) and b) they sacrificed themselves in a foreign land for their cause and perhaps didn’t really deserve having their corpses mocked by a member of the same anti-Assad team. Badmouthing the blown-up retreating jihadists may turn out to be a triumph of on the spot war-reporting, but it may also mark the point when Sengupta’s enthusiasms clearly overcame his professional and analytic detachment. [Syria] [Media] [Islamists]
• Navy Special Forces units: How many are needed?
  By Walter Pincus, The Washington Post Is the Navy’s increased interest in irregular warfare and counterterrorism “partly motivated” by concerns about remaining relevant, or by a desire to secure some of the growing funding for Special Forces units, or both? That’s a question posed by a Congressional Research Service (CRS) study on Navy irregular warfare and counterterrorism operations released Friday. The Pentagon’s new strategic plan, put together by the Defense Department last fall, calls for an increase in spending on Special Forces units, despite the need to reduce planned funding increases over the next 10 years that could go beyond the $487 billion already agreed to. “We will continue to build and sustain tailored capabilities appropriate for counterterrorism and irregular warfare,” reads the strategy put forward by Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta. The Naval Special Warfare Command, with some 9,000 military personnel, is smaller than the Army and Air Force elements that make up the operational forces under the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM). The relatively new Marine Special Forces Command is far behind with 2,500, according to a June 26 CRS report. However, the Navy has by far the most famous of the individual Special Operations units, SEAL Team Six, the group that carried out the 2011 nighttime raid that killed Osama bin Laden. [Special Forces] [US military]
• Imperial Reconstruction and Its Discontents
  by PETER VAN BUREN Some images remain like scars on my memory. One of the last things I saw in Iraq, where I spent a year with the Department of State helping squander some of the $44 billion American taxpayers put up to “reconstruct” that country, were horses living semi-wild among the muck and garbage of Baghdad. Those horses had once raced for Iraqi autocrat Saddam Hussein and seven years after their “liberation” by the American invasion of 2003, they were still wandering that unraveling, unreconstructed urban landscape looking, like many other Iraqis, for food.
• Julian Assange: from Stockholm to Knightsbridge - and then Ecuador?
  Media and police surround embassy in west London as both Britain and Sweden protest at asylum decision Rajeev Syal and Lizzy Davies guardian.co.uk, Thursday 16 August 2012 19.48 BST Beneath a whirl of police helicopters, freedom of information campaigners and the world's media gathered around Ecuador's embassy in Knightsbridge on Thursday to watch the next extraordinary scenes from Julian Assange's life unfold. The 41-year-old founder of WikiLeaks, whose notoriety and ability to polarise rarely fails to draw a crowd, was waiting to hear whether he would be granted asylum. He had already spent 54 days in the building as he sought to avoid extradition to Sweden to face questioning over allegations of sexual misconduct. His supporters had claimed that any such move could result in him facing a further trial in the United States, and maybe the death penalty, for releasing thousands of damaging internal government documents via his campaigning website. The decision to grant him asylum came in a televised address by Ricardo Patiño, the foreign minister, who supports Assange's fears of political persecution, and was greeted with cheers. [WikiLeaks] [Sting]
• Confronting Wall Street: Establishing a Democratic Public Postal Banking System in America
  Letter Carriers Consider Bringing Back Banking Services by Ellen Brown Global Research, August 12, 2012 Web of Debt On July 27, 2012, the National Association of Letter Carriers adopted a resolution at their National Convention in Minneapolis to investigate establishing a postal banking system. The resolution noted that expanding postal services and developing new sources of revenue are important to the effort to save the public Post Office and preserve living-wage jobs; that many countries have a successful history of postal banking, including Germany, France, Italy, Japan, and the United States itself; and that postal banks could serve the 9 million people who don’t have bank accounts and the 21 million who use usurious check cashers, giving low-income people access to a safe banking system. “A USPS bank would offer a ‘public option’ for banking,” concluded the resolution, “providing basic checking and savings – and no complex financial wheeling and dealing.” Some Examples of Successful Public Postal Banks Kiwibank: New Zealand’s profitable postal bank had a return on equity of 11.7% in the second half of 2011, with net profits almost trebling. It is the only New Zealand bank able to compete with the big four Australian banks that dominate the New Zealand financial sector. In fact, it was set up for that purpose. By 2001, Australian mega-banks controlled some 80% of New Zealand’s retail banking. Profits went abroad and were maximized by closing less profitable branches, especially in rural areas. The New Zealand government decided to launch a state-owned bank that would compete with the Aussie banks. To keep costs low while still providing services throughout New Zealand, the planning team opened bank branches in post offices. In an early version of the “move your money” campaign, 500,000 customers transferred their deposits to public postal banks in Kiwibank’s first five years—this in a country of only 4 million people. Kiwibank consistently earns the nation’s highest customer satisfaction ratings, forcing the Australia-owned banks to improve their service to compete. [Banking]
• Israel and the Iran Nuclear Weapons MacGuffin
  I think there is some misunderstanding about Israel’s concern over Iran’s nuclear program. To use Alfred Hitchcock’s term, the Iranian bomb is simply “the MacGuffin”, the psychologically potent but practically insignificant pretext for action, reaction, and drama. To my mind, the main object of Israel’s foreign policy as practiced by Benjamin Netanyahu, is to preclude US and European rapprochement with Iran. [Pretext]
• False Flag Terror and Conspiracies of Silence
  by Prof. James F. Tracy Global Research, August 10, 2012 The news media’s readiness to accept official pronouncements and failure to more vigorously analyze and question government authorities in the wake of "domestic terrorist" incidents contributes to the American public’s already acute case of collective historical amnesia, while it further rationalizes the twenty-first century police state and continued demise of civil society. Some may recall "Bugs Raplin" (Giancarlo Esposito), the resolute investigative journalist depicted in Tim Robbins’ 1992 political mockumentary Bob Roberts. After being framed as the culprit in a false flag assassination attempt by corrupt political huckster Bob Roberts (Robbins), Raplin delivers a perceptive soliloquy that among other things effectively describes the American public's moribund civic condition and short-circuited democracy. “The reason Iran-Contra happened,” Raplin begins, is because no one did anything substantial about Watergate. And the reason Watergate happened is because there were no consequences from the Bay of Pigs. They’re all the same operatives—the foot soldiers at the Bay of Pigs, the plumbers that got busted at Watergate, the gunrunners in Iran-Contra—all the same people, same faces. Now it doesn’t take a genius to figure out the connection here: A secret government beyond the control of the people and accountable to no one. And the closer we are to discovering the connection, the more Congress turns a blind eye to it. “We can’t talk about that in open session,” they say. “National security reasons.” The truth lies dormant in their laps and they stay blind out of choice. A conspiracy of silence. Twenty years later amidst the vast outsourcing of intelligence and military operations many more events may arguably be added to such a shadow government’s achievements—the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 1995 Oklahoma City Murrah Federal Building bombing, the September 11 terror attacks, the non-existent weapons of mass destruction prompting the occupation of Iraq, the July 7, 2005 London tube bombings, the shoe and underwear "bombings"—all of which have contributed to the official justification of imperial wars abroad and an ever-expanding police state at home. Lacking meaningful contexts with which to understand such events in their totality the general public is incapable of recognizing the road it is being forced down. The most recent set of events that give pause are the horrific, military-style shootings in Aurora Colorado and Oak Creek Wisconsin that authorities maintain were carried out by "lone wolf" gunmen. Operation Gladio in America? [False flag] [Context]
• Standard Chartered shares rise as US regulator drops licence threat
  Bank's shares up 3% despite agreement to pay $340m fine over allegations it breached sanctions Share4 Jill Treanor, City editor guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 15 August 2012 08.46 BST Standard Chartered shares jumped after the London-based bank fended off threats by a New York regulator to revoke its banking licence for alleged breaches of US sanctions that it is claimed left the financial system vulnerable to corrupt regimes and weapons and drug dealers. The shares rose 3% when the market opened in London, even though the bank agreed to pay a $340m (£220m) penalty – a sum expected to rise once the bank settles with other US authorities investigating the breaches, which allegedly took place between 2001 and 2007. [Sanctions] [Tribute] [Extraterritoriality]
• Poland peels back layers on secret CIA prison for suspected terrorists
  Posted on Monday, August 13, 2012 Visitors are not welcome to take the path to the villa in Stare Kiejkuty, where the CIA once interrogated Al Qaida suspects in northern Poland. | Roy Gutman/MCT By Roy Gutman | McClatchy Newspapers STARE KIEJKUTY, Poland — On an idyllic lake surrounded by woods and a double row of mesh-and-razor-wire fences about 100 miles north of Warsaw, there stands a secluded villa that the CIA once used to interrogate – and allegedly torture – top al Qaida suspects. On the grounds of the Polish intelligence-training academy and nicknamed “Markus Wolf” for the former East German spy chief, it’s the focal point for a top-secret probe that Polish prosecutors have launched into how their government tolerated rampant violations of international and Polish law. If former officials are brought to trial, or if the stacks of classified files in the prosecutors’ offices are made public, the result will be revelations about an American anti-terrorism operation whose details U.S. officials are fighting to keep secret. Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/08/13/162137/poland-peels-back-layers-on-secret.html#storylink=cpy [Torture]
• Outlaw of the Sea
  The Senate Republicans' UNCLOS Blunder Thomas Wright August 7, 2012 When U.S. Senators Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio), both vice presidential hopefuls, recently declared their opposition to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, they virtually guaranteed that it would be dead on arrival if it were sent to the Senate. A group of 34 senators, including Ayotte and Portman and led by Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), is now on the record promising to vote against UNCLOS, which is enough to make getting the two-thirds majority necessary for ratification impossible. [South China Sea]
• U.S. to Vet Hypersonic Global Strike Aircraft
  Aug. 13, 2012 A scale model of the X-51A WaveRider hypersonic drone aircraft. A test flight of the device scheduled for Tuesday is aimed at developing a capacity to rapidly deliver conventional warheads to any location on the planet (AP Photo/Ty Greenlees). The U.S. Air Force is scheduled on Tuesday to test a developmental hypersonic drone aircraft as part of an effort to develop technology capable of delivering a non-nuclear strike on any location in the world within one hour, the Los Angeles Times reported (see GSN, March 24, 2011). A B-52 strategic bomber is expected to fly from Edwards Air Force Base in California and deploy the wing-mounted X-51A WaveRider off the state's southern coast at an altitude of 50,000 feet. The remotely piloted device would drop for roughly four seconds before its initial propulsion equipment activates, bringing it to a speed exceeding 3,400 mph. That component would drop away after half a minute and a secondary propellant system would enter operation, bringing the craft to a maximum speed of more than 4,500 mph during a planned ascent to almost 70,000 feet. The WaveRider is slated to fracture into pieces above the Pacific Ocean following a period of roughly 300 seconds, more than double its present record flying time. It reached 3,500 mph during its initial, 143-second trial in 2010, but in a test last year ended operations earlier than planned following a mechanical glitch. The system is one of six large-scale hypersonic development projects the Defense Department said have absorbed up to $2 billion in funding over the last decade. The global strike initiatives are intended to offer an alternative to using long-range nuclear-tipped missiles to eliminate major imminent threats. Globalsecurity.org has calculated the WaveRider project's expense to be $140 million (W.J. Hennigan, Los Angeles Times, Aug. 13). [Military balance]
• The Syrian Spillover
  Is anyone prepared for the unintended consequences of the war for Syria? BY DANIEL L. BYMAN, KENNETH M. POLLACK |AUGUST 10, 2012 Terrorism: Many civil wars have become breeding grounds for particularly noxious terrorist groups, while others have created hospitable sanctuaries for existing groups to train, recruit, and mount operations -- at times against foes entirely unconnected to the war itself. The Palestine Liberation Organization, Hezbollah, the Tamil Tigers, and al Qaeda, to name only a few, all trace their origins to intercommunal wars. Today, after years of punishing U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan, al Qaeda'a core is weak, but its offshoots remain strong in countries wracked by internal conflict such as Yemen and Somalia. The most recent flare-up is in Mali, where fighters fleeing Muammar al-Qaddafi's Libya fled with arms looted from his arsenals, and have seized parts of Mali, in some areas even imposing a draconian form of Islamic law. While there had been intermittent rebellions in Northern Mali for years, the civil war in Libya vastly increased the capability of the rebels and created a worse terrorism problem for the region, andpotentially for the world. [Strategic incoherence] [Unintended consequences]
• The United States and Its Comrade-in-Arms, Al Qaeda.
  Tales of an Empire Gone Mad by WILLIAM BLUM Afghanistan in the 1980s and 90s … Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s … Libya 2011 … Syria 2012 … In military conflicts in each of these countries the United States and al Qaeda (or one of its associates) have been on the same side. 1 What does this tell us about the United States’ “War On Terrorism”? Regime change has been the American goal on each occasion: overthrowing communists (or “communists”), Serbians, Slobodan Milosevic, Moammar Gaddafi, Bashar al-Assad … all heretics or infidels, all non-believers in the empire, all inconvenient to the empire. Why, if the enemy is Islamic terrorism, has the United States invested so much blood and treasure against the PLO, Iraq, and Libya, and now Syria, all mideast secular governments?
• Bosnia, Kosovo, and Now Libya: The Human Costs of Washington’s On-Going Collusion with Terrorists
  Peter Dale Scott Twice in the last two decades, significant cuts in U.S. and western military spending were foreseen: first after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and then in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. But both times military spending soon increased, and among the factors contributing to the increase were America’s interventions in new areas: the Balkans in the 1990s, and Libya today.1 Hidden from public view in both cases was the extent to which al-Qaeda was a covert U.S. ally in both interventions, rather than its foe. U.S. interventions in the Balkans and then Libya were presented by the compliant U.S. and allied mainstream media as humanitarian. Indeed, some Washington interventionists may have sincerely believed this. But deeper motivations – from oil to geostrategic priorities – were also at work in both instances. In virtually all the wars since 1989, America and Islamist factions have been battling to determine who will control the heartlands of Eurasia in the post-Soviet era. In some countries – Somalia in 1993, Afghanistan in 2001 – the conflict has been straightforward, with each side using the other’s excesses as an excuse for intervention. [US global strategy] [Outsourcing]
• Syria: western diplomats lose faith in SNC to unite opposition groups
  US, UK and France seek to build more direct links with disparate rebels amid fears that Islamists are getting Gulf donations Share1 Julian Borger, diplomatic editor guardian.co.uk, Monday 13 August 2012 19.12 BST A Syrian man looks at destroyed buildings in Khaldiyeh, Homs. Western diplomats have lost faith in the Syrian National Council to unify opposition groups. Photograph: AP The US, Britain and France are scrambling to retain their influence with Syrian opposition groups amid fears that most support from the Gulf states has been diverted towards extremist Islamic groups. Rising concern that an increasingly sectarian civil war could spread across the region, combined with reports of brutality by some opposition groups, and evidence that the best-organised and best-funded rebel groups are disproportionately Salafist (militant Sunni fundamentalists), has triggered an urgent policy change in western capitals. Washington, London and Paris now agree that efforts to encourage a unified opposition around the exile-led Syrian National Council (SNC) have failed, and are now seeking to cultivate more direct links with internal Syrian groups. [Syria] [Outsourcing]
• Pope's butler Paolo Gabriele faces prison term for stealing letters
  Man who believed Vatican was plagued by scandal could be sentenced to six years in prison Tom Kington in Rome guardian.co.uk, Monday 13 August 2012 19.09 BST The pope's butler could face up to six years in jail after a Vatican judge sent him to trial on Monday for leaking papal correspondence containing embarrassing allegations of corruption at the tiny Vatican state. The judge, Piero Antonio Bonnet, also sent a Vatican IT expert to trial for harbouring stolen correspondence on behalf of the butler, Paolo Gabriele, and warned that investigators would continue to track down other culprits in the so called Vatileaks scandal. "Magistrates do not believe they have finished their investigations," said Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi. "This is a partial conclusion." Gabriele, 46, confessed to leaking letters to an Italian journalist after he was arrested in May and held in a secure room at the Vatican. The journalist, Gianluigi Nuzzi, who published the letters in a successful book, has said he has been told 20 disgruntled Vatican staffers have released internal documents, shedding light on allegations of corrupt contracting and infighting at the Holy See. In his confession, Gabriele said he believed the Vatican was plagued by scandal, corruption and "mysteries" and needed the "shock" of seeing its most confidential documents published to force it "back on track". The butler said he believed he was an agent of the holy spirit who could help root out the "evil and corruption" in the church. [Corruption]
• Mitt Romney chose Paul Ryan to shift the campaign debate; will the gamble pay off?
  By Dan Balz, Updated: Monday, August 13, 4:38 PMThe Washington Post It doesn’t take a political genius to see where the contest between President Obama and Mitt Romney is heading. With Paul Ryan on the Republican ticket, the campaign is looking at a full-throated debate over the future of Medicare. Are Romney and Ryan ready? There is plenty in Ryan’s budget blueprint -- and by implication Romney’s platform — that will spark debate and controversy. The size and shape of Romney’s and Ryan’s proposed tax cuts already are under attack by Obama and the Democrats. The domestic spending cuts in Ryan’s plan have been singled out by Democrats, who say they would shred the social safety net. [US_Election12]
• The morality of drone warfare revisited
  Drone strikes may cause less collateral damage than bombing, but that's not an argument for current US targeted killing policy guardian.co.uk, Monday 6 August 2012 16.32 BST In the contentious debate over drone warfare, it is necessary to separate US government policy from the broader moral question of killing by aerial robots. The policy question deserves vigorous debate by legal scholars, policy experts, and diplomats. The moral question posed by this new form of remote warfare is more abstract and has only recently begun to receive critical examination by philosophers and ethicists. [UAV] [Ethics]
• The philosopher making the moral case for US drones: 'There's no downside'
  It's one of the US's most controversial policies; one that resulted in large numbers of civilian deaths overseas. So why does Bradley Strawser see targeted killing as a moral obligation? Rory Carroll in Monterey guardian.co.uk, Thursday 2 August 2012 16.02 BST At first sight, Bradley Strawser resembles a humanities professor from central casting. He has a beard, wears jeans, quotes Augustine and calls himself, only half in jest, a hippie. He opposes capital punishment and Guantánamo Bay, calls the Iraq invasion unjust and scorns neo-conservative foreign policy hawks. "Whatever a neocon is, I'm the opposite." His office overlooks a placid campus in Monterey, an oasis of California sun and Pacific zephyrs, and he lives up the road in Carmel, a forested beauty spot with an arts colony aura. Strawser has published works on metaphysics and Plato and is especially fond of Immanuel Kant. Strawser is also, it turns out, an outspoken and unique advocate for what is becoming arguably the US's single most controversial policy: drone strikes. Strawser has plunged into the churning, anguished debate by arguing the US is not only entitled but morally obliged to use drones. [UAV] [Ethics]
• Ter·ror·ism (Noun): When OTHER People Do What We Do
  Posted on August 9, 2012 by WashingtonsBlog It’s Not Terrorism When WE Do It …. The United States is arguably the world’s largest sponsor of terrorism, although we call it “self defense” and fighting “humanitarian” wars. But when other people – especially brown-skinned people who wear funny clothes – do the same things that we do, we label it as terrorism. Mark Selden - Bartle Professor of History and Sociology at Binghamton University – explains: American politicians and most social scientists definitionally exclude actions and policies of the United States and its allies” as terrorism. For example, the American military indiscriminately kills innocent civilians (and see this), calling it “carefully targeted strikes”. When others do it, we rightfully label it terrorism. When Al Qaeda, Syrians or others target people attending funerals of those killed – or those attempting to rescue people who have been injured by – previous attacks, we rightfully label it terrorism. But the U.S. government does exactly the same thing, without any criticism by government apologists. Torture is a recognized form of terrorism. The United States has always considered waterboarding to be a crime of torture, including when the Japanese did it in WWII (and see this). But the government and its lackeys tried to say that American waterboarding in the “war on terror” was not torture. When asked during his 2008 presidential bid whether waterboarding was torture, Rudy Giuliani answered: It depends on the circumstances. It depends on who does it. [Terrorism] [Double standards]
• The G192 report The UN and the Financial Crisis
  by ROBERT H. WADE Among those who care about the fate of the United Nations it is widely assumed — and regretted — that the UN stood on the sidelines at the start of the global financial crisis, and let the G20, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank take the lead in an international response. Jean-Pierre Bugada, chief of communication for France and Monaco at the UN Regional Information Centre, said the UN had “missed the boat” (1). The accusation is only partly true. More accurately, western states, with the UK and US in the lead, tried hard to ensure that the UN did not become a forum for discussion on the crisis, and the UN Secretary-General supported them. [Crisis] [UNUS]
• U.S. Syria policy in shambles a year after Obama told Assad to step down
  By Hannah Allam | McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — On Aug. 18 last year, President Barack Obama issued a statement that for the first time demanded that Syrian leader Bashar Assad step aside. Similarly worded statements came from Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and the European Union that same day. Nearly a year and thousands of dead later, U.S. policy on Syria’s crisis remains an enigma. American officials refuse to acknowledge openly that they support the rebels, but they provide the fighters with nonlethal aid and look the other way as U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf send them weapons and ammunition. [US global policy] [Strategic incoherence]
• Syrian Tragedy: Continued
  Boris DOLGOV | 11.08.2012 | 00:00 The armed anti-government groupings in Syria come out in the open trying to topple the county’s leadership and get hold of power. It is said that the operation is masterminded by special services of the USA, Turkey, other NATO member countries and the monarchies of Persian Gulf. The terror act committed in Damascus on July 18 2012 served as a signal to launch subversive activities. A few Syrian government top officials lost their lives as a result. There had been attempts to poison the members of Assad family. The next phase of the operation is pretentiously called Damascus Volcano. Capturing government offices in the capital is part of the plan. The plot counts on panic and internal split caused by death toll among top government leaders. That what the news about President Assad leaving Damascus for Latakia was leaked into media for. The very same day the “friends of Syria” did another attempt to squeeze through a resolution allowing foreign intervention through the UN Security Council. Russia and China vetoed it for the third time. The Syrian leadership stood tall against all the odds no matter how difficult it was (individual betrayal, for instances, like in the case of former acting Prime Minister Riad Hijab who defected from the government and sided with the “opposition”). By the beginning of August the Syrian armed forces quelled and eliminated all organized resistance in Damascus.
• Zbigniew Brzezinski: Syrian conflict ‘not as horrible or as dramatic as it is portrayed’
  Published: 2:26 PM 05/30/2012 By Jeff Poor - The Daily Caller On Tuesday’s “Morning Joe” on MSNBC, former Carter administration national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, the author of “Strategic Vision: America and the Crisis of Global Power,” went against the grain and downplayed the ongoing crackdown on rebels in Syria, saying that “it is not as horrible or as dramatic as it is portrayed.” Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haas, Brzezinski’s co-panelist on the morning program, asked if one of the appropriate measures would be for Syria’s neighbors in the Middle East to withdraw their diplomats from Russia to show their disapproval of Moscow’s support for Syria. “I don’t think the Russians will be terribly impressed by that,” Brzezinski said. “Ambassadors will be gone and what has changed in Syria is the consequence. I think the fact of the matter this issue is extraordinarily sensitive.” “At the same time,” he added, “it is not as horrible or as dramatic as it is portrayed. If you look at the world in recent years, the horrible war in Sri Lanka, the killings in Rwanda, and the deaths in Libya and so forth. You know, let’s have a sense of proportion here. This is a neurologic part of the world in which all of a sudden if we are not intelligent about it we can create a nexus between a difficult internal problem which has not assumed huge proportions yet and a regional problem and a global problem which involves our relationships with the other major powers, particularly Russia, but also the negotiations with Iran over the nuclear problem.”
• Brzezinski: West “Recreating Sino-Soviet Bloc” in Syria
  Nick Ottens, July 20, 2012 Former national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski appears on MSNBC's Morning Joe, July 20 Former American national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski warned on Friday that the United States and their allies are “unintentionally recreating the Sino-Soviet bloc against” them by vilifying these countries’ stance in the Syrian crisis. China and Russia on Thursday again used their veto power in the United Nations Security Council to block a resolution that threatened sanctions against the Ba’athist regime of Bashar al-Assad if it did not suspend its brutal suppression of a sectarian uprising in Syria. It was the third time that China and Russia vetoed a resolution from Western members that aimed to put pressure on Assad. Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin said that his government could not accept a resolution that open the path to “external military involvement in Syrian domestic affairs.” [NCW] [US global strategy] [Unintended consequences]
• Fareed Zakaria suspended for plagiarism by Time, CNN
  By Paul Farhi, Saturday, August 11, 1:01 AMThe Washington Post Time magazine and CNN suspended columnist and TV host Fareed Zakaria on Friday after he acknowledged that he plagiarized sections of another writer’s article about gun control. The Washington Post, which publishes a separate column by Zakaria on its op-ed page, said it was reviewing Zakaria’s work for the newspaper. Zakaria has apologized to CNN and Time over the column, which was published in Time’s Aug. 20 issue. A shorter blog post that included some of the plagiarized material appeared on CNN.com. The column in question has not appeared in The Post. Zakaria lifted several passages from an article by historian Jill Lepore that was published by the New Yorker magazine in April. In her article, Lepore wrote: “Laws banning the carrying of concealed weapons were passed in Kentucky and Louisiana in 1813, and other states soon followed. .?.?. Similar laws were passed in Texas, Florida, and Oklahoma. As the governor of Texas explained in 1893, the ‘mission of the concealed deadly weapon is murder.’?” In his Time column, headlined “The Case for Gun Control,” Zakaria uses this wording: “Laws that banned the carrying of concealed weapons were passed in Kentucky and Louisiana in 1813. Other states soon followed. .?.?. Similar laws were passed in Texas, Florida, and Oklahoma. As the governor of Texas (Texas!) explained in 1893, the ‘mission of the concealed deadly weapon is murder.’?”
• Paul Ryan is Romney’s VP pick, setting up stark choice on budget issues
  Video: Mitt Romney introduced Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) as his vice presidential nominee at a campaign event in Norfolk, Va. on Saturday. Text Size Print E-mail Reprints By Philip Rucker and Rosalind S. Helderman, Updated: Saturday, August 11, 7:09 PMThe Washington Post NORFOLK — Mitt Romney has selected Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as his vice presidential running mate, introducing the seven-term congressman and architect of Republicans’ budget-cutting plans at a spirited rally on the deck of a battleship here Saturday morning. In shirt sleeves and tie, Romney promised that he and Ryan would restore the American economy by cutting deficits and growing jobs. He called Ryan a man of integrity and character rooted in his middle-class Midwestern upbringing and said he had chosen a candidate with a vision for addressing the nation’s fiscal problems. [US_election12] [Romney]
• Student finds the truth behind ‘truthiness’
  9 August 2012 People are more likely to believe something is true if a photograph appears alongside the story, according to findings by a Victoria University student. Eryn Newman, a PhD student in Victoria’s School of Psychology, has been examining the phenomenon American comedian and news satirist Stephen Colbert calls ‘truthiness’—the feeling that something is true. In four different experiments Ms Newman, and colleagues at a Canadian university (the University of Victoria, based in British Columbia), discovered that people are more likely to believe claims are true, regardless of whether they actually are true, when a decorative photograph appears alongside the claim. The work is being published this week in a leading psychology journal, the Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. “We wanted to examine how the kinds of photos people see every day—the ones that decorate newspaper or TV headlines, for example—might produce ‘truthiness’,” says Ms Newman. “We were really surprised by what we found.” [Media]
• Anglo-American 1957 Secret Plan to Assassinate the Syrian President. Déjà Vu?
  by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky Global Research, August 7, 2012 At a time when the British press was still "reporting the truth", London's Guardian (27 September 2003) published a detailed report of a 1957 Anglo-American assassination plot directed against the Syrian president, with a view to implementing "regime change". The similarity to today's war on Syria is striking. What is revealing is that the political assassination of the Syrian president has been on the Anglo-American drawing board for over half a century. The article, which reviews the text of the leaked 'Secret Document", confirms that British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and President Dwight D. Eisenhower had ordered the assassination of the Syrian Head of State. "Macmillan backed Syria assassination plot Documents show White House and No 10 conspired over oil-fuelled invasion plan" To consult the complete article by Ben Fenton, The Guardian, 27 September 2003 click here http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2003/sep/27/uk.syria1 The stated objective of this Secret Plan, entrusted to Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) [today's MI6] and the CIA, consisted in assassinating the Syrian president together with key political and military figures. "Mr Macmillan and President Eisenhower were left in no doubt about the need to assassinate the top men in Damascus." [Assassination] [US global strategy] [Syria]
• Macmillan backed Syria assassination plot
  Documents show White House and No 10 conspired over oil-fuelled invasion plan Ben Fenton The Guardian, Saturday 27 September 2003 02.35 BST Nearly 50 years before the war in Iraq, Britain and America sought a secretive "regime change" in another Arab country they accused of spreading terror and threatening the west's oil supplies, by planning the invasion of Syria and the assassination of leading figures. Newly discovered documents show how in 1957 Harold Macmillan and President Dwight Eisenhower approved a CIA-MI6 plan to stage fake border incidents as an excuse for an invasion by Syria's pro-western neighbours, and then to "eliminate" the most influential triumvirate in Damascus. The plans, frighteningly frank in their discussion, were discovered in the private papers of Duncan Sandys, Mr Macmillan's defence secretary, by Matthew Jones, a reader in international history at Royal Holloway, University of London. [Assassination] [US global strategy] [Syria]
• The Rental Generation Sees No Point in Buying
  By Caroline Fairchild on August 09, 2012 The day Michael Anselmo signed a lease on his first apartment in New York City, he lost his job at Buck Consultants (XRX). He spent about 10 months struggling to pay rent with unemployment benefits. Two years later he’s hesitant to buy a bike, let alone try home ownership. “Every decision that I have made since I lost my job has been colored by that insecurity I feel about the future,” says Anselmo, 28, who rents an apartment in Austin, Texas, and works as a consultant for UnitedHealth Group (UNH). “Buying a house is just further out on the timeline for me than it used to be.” [Decline]
• An American Abroad
  By Steve Coll, New America Foundation August 6, 2012 | New Yorker Mitt Romney, the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee, lacks a defining foreign-policy disagreement with the President, which makes an overseas campaign trip more problematic. The humid lull between the party primaries and the party conventions is the traditional moment for a Presidential challenger to peacock abroad as a prospective Commander-in-Chief. Four years ago, Barack Obama cruised the Iraqi war zone in a helicopter, dazzled throngs in Europe with his then fresh rhetoric of change, and charmed American soldiers in a Kuwaiti gymnasium, where, with preternatural nonchalance, he lofted a three-point shot toward a distant rim. He drained the three, the soldiers roared, and, somewhere back home, John McCain slumped deeper into gloom. In 2008, Obama’s itinerary was as effective as his performance. He visited Europe to signal a renewed relationship with traditional allies and the Middle East to signal his intense disagreements with George W. Bush and McCain. Obama had promised to end the war in Iraq—a war that Bush had initiated and McCain had championed—and the tour made clear that he, a lightly credentialled senator, fully intended to bring the troops home, but also that he would lead when necessary at the front lines. In facing McCain, a former P.O.W., Obama established both difference and resolve. Mitt Romney, the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee, lacks a defining foreign-policy disagreement with the President, which makes an overseas campaign trip more problematic. [US global strategy] [Romney]
• The Clash of Civilizations Revisited
  by MOHAMMED AYOOB In what was probably the most influential essay published in the 1990s Samuel Huntington argued in Foreign Affairs that henceforth “The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.”[i] Huntington was criticized by a whole host of academics, journalists, and public persons for being too simplistic in his analysis as well as for making religion the primary marker for his concept of “civilization”. I must admit that I was one of those who joined in this chorus of criticism. Nonetheless, over the past few years I have been pondering over Huntington’s thesis and gradually revising my views although I have not said so publicly because I was not absolutely sure of my conversion to Huntington’s thesis. But, this week I have seen the light on the road to Damascus (more appropriately on the road to Jerusalem). The light shone in the form of the statement made by Presidential-hopeful Mitt Romney in the Holy City that “Culture makes all the difference” combined with his unqualified support for Netanyahu’s bellicose policy toward Iran. What could explain such “foreign-policy mischief”, in the words of Robert Merry in the National Interest,[ii] but kinship based on common culture (“civilization” in Huntington’s words)?
• S.C. Sen. Graham: Military cuts 'will be death blow' to U.S. defense
  Jeff Wilkinson | The State (Columbia, S.C.) Gov. Nikki Haley on Wednesday warned that deep, automatic cuts to the military that result from last year’s military debate could cost the state about 14,000 jobs as the state’s military industries lose contracts and lay off employees. And U.S. Sen Lindsey Graham, who is proposing his own plan for what should be done, called on Congress and the president to spend an entire week in September addressing alternatives to the $1.2 trillion in cuts that will begin taking effect in January — half to the military and half to domestic spending. “Everything has to be on the table,” he said. “This will be a death blow to our ability to defend ourselves.” Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/08/09/161189/sc-sen-graham-military-cuts-will.html#storylink=cpy [MISCOM]
• After 40 Years, U.S. to Clean Up Agent Orange in Vietnam
  Maika Elan/Associated Press Against the backdrop of a field contaminated by Agent Orange in Da Nang, Vietnamese military officers attended a ceremony on Thursday to mark the United States' first big cleanup of war chemicals in Vietnam. By THOMAS FULLER Published: August 9, 2012 ¶ DA NANG, Vietnam — In the tropical climate of central Vietnam, weeds and shrubs seem to grow everywhere — except here. Luu Thi Thu and her son, whose birth defects are linked to his father's exposure to Agent Orange at a former American base in Da Nang, Vietnam. ¶ Forty years after the United States stopped spraying herbicides in the jungles of Southeast Asia in the hopes of denying cover to Vietcong fighters and North Vietnamese troops, an air base here is one of about two dozen former American sites that remain polluted with an especially toxic strain of dioxin, the chemical contaminant in Agent Orange that has been linked to cancers, birth defects and other diseases. ¶ On Thursday, after years of rebuffing Vietnamese requests for assistance in a cleanup, the United States inaugurated its first major effort to address the environmental effects of the long war. [cbw]
• UPDATE 5-Iran urges Syrians to talk after Tehran meeting
  Fri Aug 10, 2012 12:56am IST * Iran calls for talks between Syrian govt and opposition * Meeting attended by 28 nations, Western powers sceptical * Joint statement calls for three-month ceasefire By Marcus George LONDON, Aug 9 (Reuters) - Iran urged Syrian rebels on Thursday to start talks with President Bashar al-Assad about political reform and said it won international support at a meeting in Tehran for such a strategy to end the conflict. The Iranian foreign minister insisted Assad's administration - a key ally of Tehran - would not collapse under pressure from abroad and the state broadcaster said a diplomatic gathering attended by Russia, China, India, Jordan and a couple of dozen other states had backed Tehran's call for a three-month truce.
• China vs. the US in Africa: Who's 'Winning?'
  Published: Thursday, 9 Aug 2012 | 5:04 PM ET Text Size By: John C.K. Daly CEO of U.S.-Central Asia Biofuels Ltd Twitter U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in the midst of an 11-day trip across sub-Saharan Africa. Speaking on Aug. 1 on the topic of “Remarks on Building Sustainable Partnerships in Africa,” at the University of Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar, Senegal, Clinton told her audience, “The Obama Administration’s comprehensive strategy on Sub-Saharan Africa is based on four pillars: first, to promote opportunity and development; second, to spur economic growth, trade, and investment; third, to advance peace and security; and fourth, to strengthen democratic institutions.” Warming to her themes, Clinton continued, “We’re also working with resource-rich nations to help make sure that their mineral and energy wealth actually improves the lives of their citizens. The days of having outsiders come and extract the wealth of Africa for themselves leaving nothing or very little behind should be over in the 21st century.” While Clinton did not specify the “outsiders,” in Beijing it was taken as a direct criticism of Chinese African policies and the country was quick to reply. Xinhua news agency stated that Clinton's Africa trip was a "plot to sow discord between China (and) Africa" and continued, "Whether Clinton was ignorant of the facts on the ground or chose to disregard them, her implication that China has been extracting Africa's wealth for itself is utterly wide of the truth." Leaving no rhetorical stone unturned, China, which suffered colonial depredations at the hands of European powers in the 19th century, saw the editorial continue, "Ironically, it was the Western colonial powers that were exactly the so-called outsiders, which, in Clinton's words, came and extracted the wealth of Africa for themselves, leaving nothing or very little behind."
• Iraq-Iran-Syria: triangle of war
  Paul Rogers , 9 August 2012 The American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 launched a grand strategy to reorder the middle east. A decade on, growing tensions over Iran and the conflict in Syria suggest that it created the seeds of even greater instability. The George W Bush administration spent much of 2002 planning for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, confident that a rapid termination would change the face of the middle east. During this preparatory period, some analysts expressed doubts about this assessment. The Oxford Research Group, for example - in its paper Iraq: Consequences of a War (October 2002) - concluded that a war would create many civilian casualties, the likelihood of an insurgency, and a rise in anti-American sentiment that would fuel the development of al-Qaida and related groups (the paper did err in saying it was possible that the regime, if it faced oblivion, might use a small cache of chemical and biological weapons). [US global strategy] [Unintended consequences]
• Intervention is now driving Syria's descent into darkness
  Western and Gulf regime support for rebel fighters isn't bringing freedom to Syrians but escalating sectarian conflict and war Seumas Milne guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 7 August 2012 22.20 BST Jump to comments (273) Syrian women cooking in a school where they have taken refuge after fleeing their homes in the town of Kafr Hamra, six miles north of Aleppo. Photograph: Khalil Hamra/AP The destruction of Syria is now in full flow. What began as a popular uprising 17 months ago is now an all-out civil war fuelled by regional and global powers that threatens to engulf the entire Middle East. As the battle for the ancient city of Aleppo grinds on and atrocities on both sides multiply, the danger of the conflict spilling over Syria's borders is growing.
• Splendour and Misery of Western Diplomacy. Situation in and around Syria
  Alexander MEZYAEV | 07.08.2012 | 00:00 The situation in and around Syria is still one of the most important issues being in focus of international events. This is the case when diplomacy equals military operations in importance. The failure of the UN Security Council resolution of July 19 to great extent spurred the diplomatic and military activities. First Kofi Annan, UN Special Envoy for Syria, resigned, and then in violation of UN Charter the Syrian issue was transferred to the UN General Assembly, where a new resolution was adopted. Formally Kofi Annan refused to continue his mission claiming» to lack of support from the international community». How should one understand it? The majority of countries supported him without any conditions attached. It’s clear the resignation of Kofi Annan is a response to the veto of Russia and China. Really so! A bit later he was more candid saying: "At a time when we need — when the Syrian people desperately need action — there continues to be finger-pointing and name-calling in the Security Council." He concluded: "it is impossible for me, or anyone, to compel the Syrian government in the first place, and also the opposition, to take the steps necessary to begin a political process». Is it not a veiled call for military intervention? On August 3 the UN General Assembly approved a new resolution on Syria. It received the support of 133 states while 12 UN members opposed it and 31 abstained. It is the third resolution related to the situation in Syria that was adopted by the current 66th session of the General Assembly. [UNUS] [Syria] [Russia confrontation]
• Afghanistan: Destitute Land's Jihad Spilling From a Country Which Does Not Look Poor on Pentagon's Map
  Nikolai MALISHEVSKI | 08.08.2012 | 00:00 Curious information surfaced in the media last month – based on space reconnaissance, the US Department of Defense put together a map of Afghanistan showing in detail the country's mineral riches which, as it transpired, may be quite impressive. The fact that Afghanistan sits on lucrative natural resources was recognized indirectly back in 2010 when the Afghan ministry of mines rolled out a $1b (!) estimate of what the country might have, and The New York Times quoted a source in the US Administration as saying that Afghanistan's list of reserves included copper, gold, cobalt, and even lithium on which the present-day industry is heavily dependent. A Pentagon memo actually described Afghanistan's potential lithium holdings as big enough to make it the “Saudi Arabia of lithium”. Somehow, the news flew below the radars of most watchers worldwide. [Afghanistan] [Drugs]
• Syrian rebels feel abandoned, betrayed by U.S.
  View Photo Gallery — Fighting in Syria:?Violence escalates between government and opposition forces in the key Syrian cities of Aleppo and Damascus. Text Size Print E-mail Reprints By Liz Sly, Wednesday, August 8, 2:17 AMThe Washington Post AL-BAB, Syria — As the Arab world’s bloodiest revolt continues to maim, kill and ravage lives on an ever-escalating scale, anti-American sentiments are hardening among those struggling to overthrow President Bashar al- Assad, in ways that could have profound consequences for the country and the region in a post-Assad era. America, once regarded by the Syrian opposition as a natural friend in its struggle for greater freedoms against a regime long at odds with the West, increasingly is being viewed with suspicion and resentment for its failure to offer little more than verbal encouragement to the revolutionaries. [Outsourcing]
• Syria instability leaves U.S. at crossroads
  By Karen DeYoung and Anne Gearan, Wednesday, August 8, 1:39 AM The Washington Post The collapse of the U.N. initiative on Syria, rebel gains that opened a corridor from Turkey to Aleppo, and a rash of high-level defections mark a turning point in the Syrian crisis and in the Obama administration’s plans for influencing the outcome. While some U.S. officials, particularly inside the State Department, are pushing for more direct assistance to the Syrian opposition, for now, administration policy remains focused on nonlethal aid and planning for the day after the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Once regarded by the opposition as a natural ally, the United States is increasingly being viewed with resentment. In a hastily arranged trip to Turkey this weekend, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton plans to meet with Syrian opposition figures beyond the exile leaders who have been the public political face of the insurgency, a senior administration official said.
• Syria Christians fear life after Assad
  THE WORLD They worry they'll be the target of revenge attacks by Sunnis if the leader is ousted. March 07, 2012|Alexandra Zavis Greek Orthodox priests in Damascus pray during a Mass in January for a Christian… (Joseph Eid / AFP/Getty Images ) DAMASCUS, SYRIA — For 40 years, Um Michael has found comfort and serenity amid the soaring pillars and ancient icons of St. Mary's Greek Orthodox cathedral. But as a priest offered up a prayer for peace one recent Sunday, the 70-year-old widow dabbed tears from her eyes. "I was wishing that life would go back to the way it used to be," she said. At night, Um Michael can hear the echoes of fighting near her home in Bab Touma, the centuries-old Christian quarter of Damascus. Like many Christians here, she wonders whether Syria's increasingly bloody, nearly yearlong uprising could shatter the veneer of security provided by President Bashar Assad's autocratic but secular government. [Sectarianism]
• Massacres in Aleppo by Western-armed "Free Syrian Army"
  by Tony Cartalucci Global Research, August 5, 2012 landdestroyer.blogspot.com - 2012-08-04 "Responsibility to Protect" crumbles as Western-armed terror front slaughters civilians while foreign sponsors attempt to tie hands of Syrian security forces. For the people of Aleppo, their only hope is Syria's security forces restoring order. In the pockets of Syria's largest city the so-called "Free Syrian Army" (FSA) has dug into, a campaign of systematic detention, torture, and mass murder has been carried out against "enemies of the revolution." Demonized as either "Shabiha" or "government supporters," men have been rounded up, lined up against walls, and gunned down en mass. Others await barbaric "drumhead trials" where FSA warlords deal out arbitrary justice under the guise of "Sharia law."
• High cost of a defense label
  By Walter Pincus, The Washington Post How can the Pentagon keep $2.5 billion left over from a canceled program sloshing around for “reinvestment by the Army” when Capitol Hill and the White House are worried about Pentagon budget cuts and national security? How does the Pentagon get to simply hold on to that money without greater scrutiny? The food stamp program could not get away with that, nor could the WIC health and nutrition program for women, infants and children, both of which are facing deep cuts. That $2.5 billion was money the Army once planned to spend between 2013 and 2017 on its Autonomous Navigation System (ANS). The system, begun in 2003, was “to serve as the autonomous navigation system for as many as 13 unmanned vehicle types as part of the FCS [Future Combat System],” according to a Government Accountability Office report released Thursday. [Pentagon]
• The Ascendancy of a Criminal Financial Elite
  The Two Faces of a Police State: Sheltering Tax Evaders, Financial Swindlers and Money Launderers while Policing the Citizens by Prof. James Petras Global Research, August 5, 2012 Never in the history of the United States have we witnessed crimes committed on the scale and scope of the present day by both private and state elites. An economist of impeccable credentials, James Henry, former chief economist at the prestigious consulting firm McKinsey & Company, has researched and documented tax evasion. He found that the super-wealthy and their families have as much as $32 trillion (USD) of hidden assets in offshore tax havens, representing up to $280 billion in lost income tax revenue! This study excluded such non-financial assets as real estate, precious metals, jewels, yachts, race horses, luxury vehicles and so on. Of the $32 trillion in hidden assets, $23 trillion is held by the super-rich of North America and Europe . [Tax]
• £13tn hoard hidden from taxman by global elite
  • Study estimates staggering size of offshore economy • Private banks help wealthiest to move cash into havens Heather Stewart, business editor guardian.co.uk, Saturday 21 July 2012 21.00 BST A global super-rich elite has exploited gaps in cross-border tax rules to hide an extraordinary £13 trillion ($21tn) of wealth offshore – as much as the American and Japanese GDPs put together – according to research commissioned by the campaign group Tax Justice Network. James Henry, former chief economist at consultancy McKinsey and an expert on tax havens, has compiled the most detailed estimates yet of the size of the offshore economy in a new report, The Price of Offshore Revisited, released exclusively to the Observer. [Tax] [Inequality]
• Why Kofi Annan had enough over Syria
  The UN's special envoy and the Bric countries have got increasingly frustrated with the west's domineering consensus on Damascus Share206 Jonathan Steele guardian.co.uk, Sunday 5 August 2012 21.00 BST When the history of Syria's catastrophic civil war comes to be written, 30 June 2012 will surely be recognised as the only true moment of hope. On that day in Geneva the five permanent members of the UN security council united behind a communique calling for a transition to a democratic system in Syria and the formation of a government of national unity in which opposition leaders and members of the current government would share power. They called for a firm timetable for elections in a fair environment. And, with an eye on the chaos that followed the US-imposed scheme of de-Ba'athification in Iraq, said the continuity of government institutions and qualified staff in Syria's public services must be preserved. This included the military and security forces – though they must in future adhere to human rights standards. [Syria]
• Assad’s inner circle seen as intact despite defection of Syrian prime minister
  By Hannah Allam and Sheera Frenkel | McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — Syrian President Bashar Assad’s administration struck a defiant tone Monday, renewing its counterattack on rebel forces in the country’s largest cities and vowing to stay in place, despite the defection of the country’s prime minister. The defection of Prime Minister Riad Hijab to Jordan was the highest-profile departure from Assad’s government so far, but analysts said it was unlikely to indicate a fatal fissure in his inner circle. Hijab, who’d been appointed just two months ago, is a Sunni Muslim, while Assad’s most ironclad allies are fellow members of his minority Alawite sect. Assad appointed a successor within hours. Sectarian rhetoric has worsened on both sides of the nascent civil war in recent weeks, with the regime portraying the rebels as Sunni terrorists and the rebels calling Alawites heretics and blaming them for Assad’s ability to withstand international isolation and sanctions for 17 months. Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/08/06/160521/assads-inner-circle-seen-as-intact.html#storylink=cpy [Syria] [Sectarianism]
• Widening of Panama Canal will remake world trade patterns
  By Tim Johnson | McClatchy Newspapers PANAMA CITY, Panama — The nature of global trade is about to change. The Panama Canal will soon have a third lane that can accommodate mega-ships nearly three times larger than any vessel that has ever transited the isthmus over the past century. It might not seem like earth-shaking news. But the impact will ripple around the world, from shipyards in South Korea to highways in Texas to coalfields in Colombia and soy plantations in Brazil’s northeast. Entire nations will see trade patterns shift. Ports up and down the U.S. Atlantic Seaboard are in a frenzied race to get ready for the larger, slower, more efficient ships that one day will ply the oceans.
• Assad Interview Video and Transcript
  By ROBERT MACKEY As my colleague Neil MacFarquhar reports, the German television network ARD broadcast an interview with President Bashar al-Assad of Syria on Sunday, in which he accused the United States of supporting “terrorists” in his country. The interview was conducted, in English, by Jürgen Todenhöfer, a former member of the German Parliament who is an outspoken critic of Western foreign policy in the Muslim world. After the interview was broadcast by ARD, the public service broadcaster posted a complete transcript of the conversation online and made video of the entire discussion available for download. Bloggers quickly posted copies of the full 18-minute interview on YouTube
• Syrian Prime Minister Riyad al-Hijab reportedly defects to Jordan
  KHALED AL-HARIRI/REUTERS - Syrian Prime Minister Riyad al-Hijab has defected to Jordan, according to news reports, becoming the most senior official yet to quit the embattled government. By Liz Sly, Updated: Monday, August 6, 3:14 PMThe Washington Post ANTAKYA, Turkey — Syria’s prime minister defected to Jordan on Monday, according to news reports, becoming the most senior official yet to quit the embattled government of President Bashar al-Assad. A statement read on the al-Jazeera Arabic news channel that was attributed to Prime Minister Riyad al-Hijab said he had resigned to protest his government’s harsh tactics as it tries to crush the country’s rebellion, which started nearly 17 months ago. “I am announcing that I am defecting from this regime, which is a murderous and terrorist regime,” the statement said. “I join the ranks of this dignified revolution.”
• Mr Rent-a-Quote fools mainstream media
  PR boss's hoax exposes flaws in modern newsgathering methods Guy Adams Los Angeles Sunday 05 August 2012 With a keen imagination, a decent poker face and a career that sometimes revolves around being economical with the truth, it was perhaps inevitable that the PR strategist Ryan Holiday would have a formidable talent for pretending to be someone that he's not. Even he was surprised by quite how formidable that talent was, though. In a burst of relentless self-promotion that lasted just a few weeks, the self-confident 25-year-old managed to lie his way on to the pages, websites and airwaves of an extraordinary cross-section of America's most prestigious news-gathering organisations. [Media]
• Iran Sanctions Result In Shortages of Cancer Drugs, Heart Medicine
  May 06, 2012 Iran's "Shargh" daily reports that the country is facing shortages of drugs for the treatment of 30 illnesses including cancer, heart and breathing problems, thalassemia, and multiple sclerosis. According to the daily, the shortage is the result of international sanctions against the Islamic republic, the implementation of subsidy cuts, and the foreign-currency exchange-rate fluctuations that Iran has experienced in recent months. "Shargh" reports that the production and import of drugs for cancer and other diseases has reached "worrying levels." The daily has issued a list of the anticancer drugs and other medications that are difficult to obtain, including drugs that are used in chemotherapy such as Fluoroucil and Doxorucibin. [Sanctions]
• The Devastating Impacts of Economic Sanctions on the People of Iran
  Ordinary citizens are the silent victims by Kourosh Ziabari Global Research, August 3, 2012 While the United States and European Union are vehemently competing with each other in the seemingly endless race of imposing sanctions on Iran, the ordinary Iranian citizens are experiencing the most breathtaking, agonizing impacts of the crippling embargoes. On July 31, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) sent a letter to all members of the U.S. Congress, demanding a concerted action to approve The Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act which imposes a new set of sanctions on Iran's energy and transportation sector. On August 1, the media reported that the Congress has ratified the bill and it's waiting to be signed by the president. Iran is already under 6 rounds of sanctions endorsed by the United Nations Security Council. The sanctions are purportedly aimed at preventing Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons. [Sanctions]
• Dispatch from Damascus – Manuel Ochsenreiter about the Situation in Syria
  Posted on August 4, 2012 By Manuel Ochsenreiter. – According to the mainstream Western media, a ‘civil war’ is raging in Syria. Campaigning groups like the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights make extravagant claims about huge numbers of casualties (they claim that around 20,000 people have already died) at the hands of the Syrian state security forces. Independent journalists, it is alleged, are not allowed to report directly from Syria, and the regime does not permit free press activities.
  From such accounts, visitors might expect to find a country shocked and paralyzed by war, full of destruction. But when I arrived in Damascus on 12 July with a journalist visa to report for ZUERST! I saw none of these things. I took the land route from Beirut to Damascus, although a lot of people had told me the route wasn’t safe, because Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebels had declared that they controlled around 85% of Syria. But when I crossed the Lebanese-Syrian border, I witnessed the normal border traffic – no masses of refugees, no panic, no fights. The route to Damascus had several Syrian Army checkpoints, but was calm and safe. [Media] [Disinformation]
• Under the shadow of power: a short history of BBC war reporting - and its failings
  Tom Mills , 2 August 2012 From WMDs and the Hutton Report back through the first Iraq war, the Falklands, the Cold War, Suez, WW2, all the way to Lord Reith's affinity for the British Empire, the BBC has always operated, as John Birt admitted, 'under the shadow of the state and the other main repositories of power'. Since the publication of the Hutton Report even liberal journalists like John Kampfner have argued that the BBC has been guilty of ‘muzzling journalism and deliberately avoiding giving offence to the Government and the Establishment’. This is certainly true and it has been powerfully illustrated by a number of incidents, not least the callous refusal to broadcast the Disasters Emergency Committee’s Gaza Appeal in January 2009. Nevertheless, the fact that the post-Hutton BBC has recently become particularly subordinated to power should not obscure the fact that it has always been a creature of the Establishment and has always operated, in the words of its former Director-General John Birt, ‘under the shadow of the state and the other main repositories of power’. In the case of the Iraq war, the fact that the BBC was so ferociously attacked by the New Labour government should not obscure the fact that it was largely pro-war. A study by Cardiff University, commissioned by the BBC, found that the proportion of government sources used by the BBC was twice that of ITN and Channel 4 News and that it was also less likely to use independent sources such as the Red Cross. This is not very surprising when we consider that the BBC leadership actively sought to amplify Government propaganda and to marginalise dissent. In his memoirs Greg Dyke recalls that he ‘made strenuous efforts to ensure that the Government position was fairly reported.’ He writes that he ‘set up and chaired an ad hoc group that met every morning to discuss our coverage of the Iraq issue.’ This group banned BBC employees from attending anti-war marches and sought to ‘balance’ the popular anti-war feeling which was dominating phone-ins and live television audiences. In one leaked email the BBC’s Director of News Richard Sambrook warned programme makers that they were ‘attracting some of the more extreme anti-war views’ and reminded them that it was ‘important we have someone to articulate the Bush/Blair line’. [Media]
• Accounts of Syria rebels executing prisoners raise new human rights concerns
  By Hannah Allam and Austin Tice | McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — Syrian insurgents fighting to unseat President Bashar Assad face a growing list of accusations that they’ve carried out executions and torture, muddying the Western narrative of a heroic resistance force struggling against a vicious regime. The issue of rebel conduct has come to the forefront this month largely because of a video posted online showing the aftermath of apparent executions of pro-Assad militiamen during the rebels’ capture of an intelligence center in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city. A reporter for the Turkish newspaper Milliyet witnessed the incident Tuesday and confirmed in a first-person account the circumstances of the killings: More than a dozen men were captured alive and then summarily executed in what advocacy group Human Rights Watch called an apparent “war crime.” The men “were forced into a building, then brought before a court of the Free Syrian Army on the back of a pickup truck, after which they were lined up and shot at lightning speed,” the Milliyet reporter wrote. The incident doesn’t appear to be isolated, either.
• Canberra backs off US strike-force base
  By Greg Ansley 5:30 AM Friday Aug 3, 2012 Australia has backed away from a proposed base on its west coast for a United States carrier strike group, including nuclear submarines and guided missile cruisers. The proposal, in a list of options for strengthening the US counterbalance to China in the Pacific, also suggested basing more strike jets in Australia and increasing the new rotational deployment of a 2500-strong Marine task force in the Northern Territory. But while affirming that no American bases would be established, Defence Minister Stephen Smith repeated Canberra's commitment to a more powerful US presence in the region and increased access to Australian naval, air force and army facilities. Identifying the rise of China and India as key elements in a continuing strategic power shift, Smith told the Australian Strategic Policy Institute: "Substantially enhanced practical co-operation between Australia and the US is an essential part of Australia's contribution to regional peace and stability." [Allegiance]
• America's "Long War": Pentagon Rallies Arab, Israeli Allies Against Syria and Iran
  by Rick Rozoff Global Research, July 31, 2012 Stop NATO Pentagon Chief Rallies Arab, Israeli Allies Against Syria, Iran U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has begun a five-day, four-nation tour of North Africa and the Middle East to consolidate military ties with traditional allies against the backdrop of mounting Western pressure aimed at the governments of Syria and Iran. His first two stops are to Tunisia and Egypt, long-standing American military client states and members of NATO’s Mediterranean Dialogue partnership program. The next two are to Israel and Jordan, also Mediterranean Dialogue members, the first the main and the second one of the largest recipients of American military aid. The two North African countries were the bellwethers of the so-called Arab Spring, a topic Panetta dwelled on at some length during his visit to Tunisia, though in relation to following Pentagon diktat Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak might well still be in power for all the difference that now exists. Last year’s biennial joint U.S.-Egyptian Bright Star military exercise was cancelled during the early months of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, but there is no reason to believe next year’s won’t go ahead as usual. Four months ago Washington released $1.3 billion in military assistance to the Egyptian junta, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton waiving congressional conditions introduced last year and State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland stating, “These decisions reflect America’s over-arching goal: to maintain our strategic partnership with an Egypt made stronger and more stable by a successful transition to democracy.” [US global strategy]
• Twilight of the Lobbies
  by ANDREW LEVINE Among the most powerful lobbies in Washington that have nothing directly to do with the pecuniary interests of the fraction of the one percent who keep the rest of us down are the National Rifle Association (NRA) and, of course, the Israel lobby. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is its largest and best-known component, but there are many other organizations associated with it. Lately, both lobbies have wielded unprecedented power, despite widespread but tepid popular disapproval. By now, neither lobby has to say much or throw large sums of money around; they get their way, and then some, through intimidation. Mainstream politicians are so used to it that they do their bidding as if out of habit.
• Romney on the World Stage
  by MICHAEL BRENNER Mitt Romney’s provocative remarks in Jerusalem this week on Palestine and Iran have focused attention on how he thinks about American foreign policy generally. Beyond the immediate controversy, there is fresh reason to puzzle as to who exactly the Republican presidential nominee is and who are the people he relies on for advice. For his reputation in the United States as a reserved, scripted candidate who strives to avoid impetuous comments is now contradicted by radical pronouncements that ran against the grain of both his cultivated public persona and the established norm that you limit criticism of a incumbent president when speaking abroad.
  A cautionary note is in order. Romney has demonstrated that he is not a man of fixed views and immutable policy positions. If he does manage to gain the presidency, his cautious temperament and sensitivity to the political winds could lead to decisions and actions rather less belligerent than his recent blustering rhetoric suggests. [Romney]
• Why Drone Pilots Deserve Medals
  Military decorations will help create badly needed accountability. By Jamie Holmes, New America Foundation August 2, 2012 | Slate The escalating dependence on drone pilots, as Maj. Dave Blair agonized in the May-June issue of Air & Space Power Journal, is undercutting the ability to award combat medals. “On the current trajectory,” Blair wrote, “the only Air Medals will be the ones in history books.” In 2009, after all, the Air Force was already training more drone pilots than bomber and fighter pilots combined. Blair’s proposal to give drone pilots combat medals—despite the fact that the pilots sit safely thousands of miles away from the battlefield—is revealing. Technology is radically altering warfare, and it seems inevitable that military medals will need to evolve, too. But evolution here is not a bad thing, as so many have lately suggested. [UAV] [Bizarre]
• The British Seeds of American Decline
  By Michael Lind, New America Foundation July 31, 2012 | The Globalist When people speculate on the decline of America, they usually compare it to the decline of the Roman Empire. Michael Lind, author of "Land of Promise," an economic history of the United States, thinks the British Empire provides a more instructive parallel. Today, Britain — the first industrial nation and the world's first superpower — is a deeply distressed economy. Can America avoid Britain's fate? When American and foreign observers speculate about American decline, as they often do, they tend to draw parallels between the United States and the Roman Empire. But parallels between a modern, industrial, urban, nearly-monolingual nation-state and a loose collection of tribes with an agrarian economy are worthless. A more apt comparison is between the America of the early 2000s and the Britain of the early 1900s. Is the United States repeating the United Kingdom's decline, but on a larger scale? In one area, the answer is clearly no. A century ago, most of the consumers and resources of the British Empire were located outside of the British Isles. The loss of India and other colonies turned Britain overnight from a power of the first rank into a medium-sized nation-state. [Decline]
• Humanitarian Military Intervention in Syria? Who is Behind the Atrocities?
  by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky Global Research, July 30, 2012 In the wake of the UN Security Council face-off with Russia and China, a new dangerous phase of the war on Syria is unfolding. The Obama administration, in liaison with London, Paris, Tel Aviv and NATO headquarters in Brussels, is mulling over various military "intervention options", including the conduct of both naval and air operations in support of "opposition" rebel forces on the ground. The dubious justification for waging a "humanitarian war" on Syria hinges upon the West's "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P) the Syrian people against their own government, which allegedly is involved in the routine killing of civilians. In the aftermath of the battle of Damascus and the setbacks of the Free Syrian Army in Aleppo, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta reiterated Washington's threat of military intervention, accusing Syrian government forces of waging "a tragic attack on their own people". The Defense Secretary vowed not only to unseat the Syrian president, but also, in so many words, "to get rid of" Bashar Al Assad: ... I think it ultimately will be a nail in Assad's own coffin,.. What Assad has been doing to his own people and what he continues to do to his own people makes clear that his regime is coming to an end. It's lost all legitimacy," he said, adding, "It's no longer a question of whether he's coming to an end, it's when." (Quoted in Syria says it recaptures Aleppo district after battle, Reuters, July 29, 2012, emphasis added) Meanwhile, Moscow has accused the US led coalition of supporting the terrorist attacks committed by the "Free Syrian Army" (FSA) and Al Qaeda affiliated entities operating inside Syria. It is important at this historical juncture to set the record straight as to who is behind these atrocities and crimes against humanity, particularly in view of the fact that the Obama administration and its allies are contemplating outright military intervention against Syria on "humanitarian grounds".
• Major Media Admit Presence of Foreign Militants in Syria
  by Stephen Lendman Global Research, July 31, 2012 Syria's conflict isn't an uprising, revolution or civil war. It's lawless Western aggression. It targets an independent government and its people. Doing so violates fundamental international law. Washington planned it years ago. It wants puppet leaders installed. It's Afghanistan/Iraq/Libya 2.0. America destroys nations to control and plunder them. War on humanity is waged for unchallenged global dominance. Syria is ground zero. Other targeted states come later. Proxy death squads are used. They're heavily armed, trained and directed. They reign terror on Syrian civilians. They've murdered thousands of noncombatant men, women and children. At issue is ravaging and intimidating Syria to submission. Foreign militants show no mercy. Their presence has been well known all along. Media scoundrels now admit it. At the same time, their framing deceives more than explains. On July 29, The New York Times headlined "As Syrian War Drags On, Jihadists Take Bigger Role," saying: "....Syrians involved in the armed struggle say it is becoming more radicalized: homegrown Muslim jihadists, as well as small groups of fighters from Al Qaeda, are taking a more prominent role and demanding a say in running the resistance." [Islamists] [Outsourcing]
• Aging power grid on overload as U.S. demands more electricity
  By Ashley Halsey III, Published: August 2The Washington Post They began to bend in the roaring wind, then their steel girders snapped like twigs, the towers toppled and the lights went out. Minutes before the windstorm arrived to pummel the Washington area on June 29, it swept east through West Virginia, crushing three electrical transmission towers that are a tiny part of an intricate power grid that’s supposed to keep the lights on in America. The term “grid” suggests a certain uniformity to the power system’s structure, but the network more closely resembles a patchwork quilt stitched together to cover a rapidly expanding nation. The United States doesn’t yet face the critical shortage of power that has left more than 600?million people in India without electricity this week But the U.S. grid is aging and stretched to capacity. More often the victim of decrepitude than the forces of nature, it is beginning to falter. Experts fear failures that caused blackouts in New York, Boston and San Diego may become more common as the voracious demand for power continues to grow. They say it will take a multibillion-dollar investment to avoid them. [Decline] [Infrastructure]
• Syria, al-Qaida, and the future
  Paul Rogers , 2 August 2012 The changes in United States military strategy since the "war on terror" was at its height are echoed by the evolution of al-Qaida and its ideas. The consequences are being felt in Syria. The month just ended, July 2012, was the worst for violent attacks in Iraq for two years. The bare details tell the story. Over 325 people were killed, including 241 civilians, forty-four soldiers and forty-one police; 697 people were injured, including 480 civilians, ninety-five soldiers and 122 police; there were attacks on twenty-seven of the thirty-one days of the month; on a single day, 23 July, coordinated attacks across the country took the life of 103 people. [Outsourcing]
• The Militarization of Western Society
  Selected Articles Global Research, August 1, 2012 Are Western governments waging a war on people power? The signs of a sprawling police state in the U.S. are abundant and conspicuous: a specialized military police trained for civil unrest, a wall-to-wall spying apparatus monitoring ordinary citizens, media censorship, re-education camps, etc. Prof. James F. Tracy notes: “As the recent emergence of US plans for indoctrination in reeducation camps reveals, Western governments’ actual enemy is the capacity for a people to exercise critical thought en route to intervening in and altering political-economic processes.” The Framework For Suppressing Information: Public Opinion in America's 21st Century Police State The military also plays an important role in the police state framework, not only as an instrument of repression but also as a propaganda tool. The overwhelming presence of the British military at the London Olympics and most of all, its very symbolic hoisting of the event’s flag, which should epitomize peace among all nations, is at once Orwellian and unequivocal: “War is Peace”. [Militarisation]
• The Syrian Intelligence War: A Tale of Two Security Headquarters
  by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya Global Research, July 31, 2012 There is much more to the conflict in Syria than meets the eye. Syria is currently the scene of a cold war between the US, NATO, Israel, and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) on one side and Russia, China, Iran, and the Resistance Bloc on the other hand. Amidst the fighting between the Syrian government and anti-government forces, an intense intelligence war has also been taking place. Germany’s foreign intelligence service, the Bundes Nachrichtendienst (BND, Federal Intelligence Service), has been pointing its finger at Al-Qaeda for the bombings in Syria. This, however, has the effect of hiding and detracting the role that the intelligence services of the US and its allies have played. By crediting Al-Qaeda, the Bundes Nachrichtendienst is helping get Washington and its allies off the hook. Albeit Al-Qaeda is far more than just a US intelligence asset, the organization and label of Al-Qaeda is a catch-all term that is used to camouflage the operations of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and other affiliated intelligence services. Syrian intellectuals and scientists have also been reportedly assassinated in Damascus. Like in Iraq and Iran, it is probably the work of Israel’s Mossad and part of Tel Aviv’s policy of crippling scientific and technological advancement in enemy states. Informed sources in Washington have already clarified that Israel is helping the Free Syrian Army and actively participating in the intelligence war against Syria. An unnamed US official has confirmed to David Ignatius that both the CIA and Mossad are involved in Syria. [1] In his own words: “Scores of Israeli intelligence officers are also operating along Syria’s border, though they are keeping a low profile.” [2] A Qatari defector in Venezuela has also been reported to have divulged that the Qataris have been outsourced intelligence work against Syria by the CIA and Mossad.
• Press Briefing: Report on U.S. Force Posture in Asia-Pacific
  Thursday, Aug 2, 2012 | 8:30 am - 10:00 am The Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) will host a press briefing to discuss the recent CSIS independent assessment, commissioned by the Department of Defense and delivered to Congress on July 24th, on U.S. force posture strategy in the Asia-Pacific region. The assessment’s co-directors, David J. Berteau and Michael J. Green, will lead the briefing. [US global strategy] [China confrontation]
• Report denotes positive steps for buildup
  Posted: Jul 27, 2012 8:05 AM Updated: Jul 27, 2012 9:38 AM by Ken Quintanilla Guam - An 100+ page unclassified portion of the Independent Assessment of the U.S. Force Posture in the Asia-Pacific Region was released today and according to the governor's buildup director Mark Calvo, it appears mostly positive. "From what we can tell, it's a positive report for us because it does identify that the Department of Defense has challenges with coordinating realignment in this area and the buildup altogether. And we saw those challenges the last four years," he said. The study was mandated as part of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act and was one of requirements before funding can be released for the Marines' relocation from Okinawa to Guam. This independent analysis was conducted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and focuses on the larger question of how to align U.S. force posture to overall U.S. national interests in the Asia Pacific Region. Calvo added, "It endorses that there's consensus that the DOD needs to move quickly because of some strategic imperatives given by the President of the United States about defense in this area...and also that Guam is an appropriate location for military initiative here even if its smaller than the original one planned 1521 with the 9,700 Marines." [Buildup] [Bases]
• Escape From Economics
  by PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS Readers ask me from time to time to recommend a book from which they can learn about economics. The problem with reading a book to learn economics that is taught in the universities and practiced in Washington is that economics is now a highly formalized subject based on abstract models and assumptions and has been mathematized. It is not that the subject is totally useless and without any applicability to real world problems. Rather, the problem is that the discipline both lags an ever-changing world and got some things wrong at the beginning. Consequently, learning economics places one inside a box where some of the tools and understanding provided are outdated and incorrect. For example, every textbook will draw a picture of agriculture as the perfect example of competitive markets in which “no producer’s output is large enough to affect price.” This made sense when one-third of the US work force was on family farms. Today, American agriculture is dominated by corporations and agribusiness. Additionally, part of the disastrous financial deregulation pushed by no-think economists and special interests was the removal of position limits on speculators. Formerly, speculators smoothed agricultural and commodity markets by buying and selling in order to stabilize price over periods when supply and demand were out of balance. Now speculators can dominate markets and rig prices to the benefit of their profits. There are many such examples where economics no longer speaks to the real world.
• US sees Israel, tight Mideast ally, as spy threat
  WASHINGTON (AP) - The CIA station chief opened the locked box containing the sensitive equipment he used from his home in Tel Aviv, Israel, to communicate with CIA headquarters in Virginia, only to find that someone had tampered with it. He sent word to his superiors about the break-in. The incident, described by three former senior U.S. intelligence officials, might have been dismissed as just another cloak-and-dagger incident in the world of international espionage, except that the same thing had happened to the previous station chief in Israel. It was a not-so-subtle reminder that, even in a country friendly to the United States, the CIA was itself being watched. In a separate episode, according to another two former U.S. officials, a CIA officer in Israel came home to find the food in the refrigerator had been rearranged. In all the cases, the U.S. government believes Israel's security services were responsible. [Client]
• Romney wraps up turbulent trip overseas, aide swears at U.S. reporters for yelling questions about it
  By David Lightman | McClatchy Newspapers WARSAW, Poland — Mitt Romney ended his six-day foreign trip Tuesday with a pointed address praising Poland as an economic and freedom-loving model for the world, a speech that proved a decided contrast to the turbulence that shadowed much of his journey.
• India blackout, on second day, leaves 600 million without power
  By Simon Denyer and Rama Lakshmi, Updated: Tuesday, July 31, 7:15 PM The Washington Post NEW DELHI — The worst blackout in India’s history spread to more than half the country Tuesday, as an electrical grid collapse in 14 states deprived at least 600 million people of power, many for a second day. The blackout, the largest in global history by the number of people affected, dramatically underlined the concerns industry leaders have raised for years – that the nation’s horribly inefficient power sector is dragging on the economy and could undermine its longer-term ambitions. More generally, it renewed concerns about India’s failure to invest in the infrastructure needed to support its rapidly growing economy, in sharp contrast to neighboring China. It also destroyed one myth about the country – that its entrepreneurial spirit and vibrant private sector could somehow deliver a brighter future without a dramatic improvement in the way the country is governed.
• That’s Mitticulous!
  By Matt Miller, Tuesday, July 31, 3:16 PM The Washington Post He goes to London. Insults the Brits. Draws a rebuke from the prime minister. Becomes tabloid fodder. But the man doesn’t rest. Mitt Romney goes next to the Middle East. Insults Palestinian “culture.” Palestinians call him “racist.” Says one: Even our worst enemies (i.e., the Israelis) never say such things! Out of context, Team Mitt cries. He wasn’t singling out Palestine. Why, just the other day he made the same point about Mexicans! Hole dug deeper. What next in Warsaw — a Polish joke? And this is just the past few days. We’ve reached a rare moment. Sometimes a phenomenon is so unprecedented and altogether singular that existing language doesn’t suffice to capture it. This is how language evolves, as new realities inspire fresh coinages to do justice to human experience. Often our vocabulary expands because of technology. In 2011, 400 words were added to the Oxford Concise Dictionary’s tally of 240,000. “Retweet,” “sexting” and “cyberbully” were three. (“Mankini” and “jeggings” were lower-tech additions, in case you were wondering.) Romney’s penchant for remarks and behaviors that are false, dumb, tone-deaf, ill-advised, pandering, implausible, awkward, regressive, out of touch or some blend of the above — and which unfold with no apparent awareness of their having the aforementioned qualities but instead are swiftly defended or sidestepped with an arrogance or haughtiness that compounds the offense — has brought us to the cusp of a linguistic breakthrough. [Romney]

• M1 Abrams tank builder pushes Congress to keep contract going
  By Aaron Mehta and Lydia Mulvany | The Center for Public Integrity WASHINGTON — The M1Abrams tank has survived the Cold War, two conflicts in Iraq and a decade of war in Afghanistan. No wonder: It weighs as much as nine elephants and it’s fitted with a cannon that’s capable of turning a building to rubble from two and a half miles away. But now the machine is a target in an unusual battle between the Defense Department and lawmakers who are the beneficiaries of large campaign donations by its manufacturer. Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/07/30/158730/m1-abrams-tank-builder-pushes.html#storylink=cpy [MISCOM]
• Al-Qaida turns tide for rebels in battle for eastern Syria
  In his latest exclusive dispatch from Deir el-Zour province, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad meets fighters who have left the Free Syrian Army for the discipline and ideology of global jihad Share351 Ghaith Abdul-Ahad in Deir el-Zour guardian.co.uk, Monday 30 July 2012 20.00 BST A member of a jihadist group sprays the slogan 'No Islam without Jihad' in Arabic on the wall at a border crossing with Turkey. Photograph: Bulent Kilic/AFP/Getty Images As they stood outside the commandeered government building in the town of Mohassen, it was hard to distinguish Abu Khuder's men from any other brigade in the Syrian civil war, in their combat fatigues, T-shirts and beards. But these were not average members of the Free Syrian Army. Abu Khuder and his men fight for al-Qaida. They call themselves the ghuraba'a, or "strangers", after a famous jihadi poem celebrating Osama bin Laden's time with his followers in the Afghan mountains, and they are one of a number of jihadi organisations establishing a foothold in the east of the country now that the conflict in Syria has stretched well into its second bloody year. They try to hide their presence. "Some people are worried about carrying the [black] flags," said Abu Khuder. "They fear America will come and fight us. So we fight in secret. Why give Bashar and the west a pretext?" But their existence is common knowledge in Mohassen. Even passers-by joke with the men about car bombs and IEDs. According to Abu Khuder, his men are working closely with the military council that commands the Free Syrian Army brigades in the region. "We meet almost every day," he said. "We have clear instructions from our [al-Qaida] leadership that if the FSA need our help we should give it. We help them with IEDs and car bombs. Our main talent is in the bombing operations." Abu Khuder's men had a lot of experience in bomb-making from Iraq and elsewhere, he added. [Islamists]
• U.S. construction projects in Afghanistan challenged by inspector general’s report
  By Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Published: July 30The Washington Post A U.S. initiative to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on construction projects in Afghanistan, originally pitched as a vital tool in the military campaign against the Taliban, is running so far behind schedule that it will not yield benefits until most U.S. combat forces have departed the country, according to a government inspection report to be released Monday. The report, by the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, also concludes that the Afghan government will not have the money or skill to maintain many of the projects, creating an “expectations gap” among the population that could harm overall stabilization efforts. “Implementing projects that the Afghan government is unable to sustain may be counter­productive” to the U.S. [Decline] [Incompetence]
• How to Defeat the Air Force’s Powerful Stealth Fighter
  By David Axe July 30, 2012 | 4:00 am The fast, stealthy F-22 Raptor is “unquestionably” the best air-to-air fighter in the arsenal of the world’s leading air force. That’s what outgoing Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz wrote in 2009. Three years later, a contingent of German pilots flying their latest Typhoon fighter have figured out how to shoot down the Lockheed Martin-made F-22 in mock combat. The Germans’ tactics, revealed in the latest Combat Aircraft magazine, represent the latest reality check for the $400-million-a-copy F-22, following dozens of pilot blackouts, and possibly a crash, reportedly related to problems with the unique g-force-defying vests worn by Raptor pilots. In mid-June, 150 German airmen and eight twin-engine, non-stealthy Typhoons arrived at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska for an American-led Red Flag exercise involving more than 100 aircraft from Germany, the U.S. Air Force and Army, NATO, Japan, Australia and Poland. Eight times during the two-week war game, individual German Typhoons flew against single F-22s in basic fighter maneuvers meant to simulate a close-range dogfight.
• Welfare State: Meet America's socialist military.
  BY ROSA BROOKS |JULY 19, 2012 F. Scott Fitzgerald, meticulous chronicler of American social class, famously confided to Ernest Hemingway that "the rich are different from the rest of us." "Yes," was Hemingway's laconic reply. "They have more money." These days, the same could be said of the American military. Is the military different from the rest of us? Yes -- it has more money. This is true in a multitude of ways. Start with the obvious: if we view military spending as synonymous with defense spending (which it's not, really, but pretend it is for now), boy, does it have more money. In 2011, the United States spent an estimated $768 billion on defense. Defense spending has gone down a tad since then -- by the time I ended a two-year stint as counselor to the under secretary of defense for policy in summer 2011, we were beginning to speak glumly of the coming age of austerity. But the Pentagon budget still dwarfs pretty much everything else. The poor little State Department, for instance, shared a measly $55 billion with USAID and numerous other international programs. [Militarisation]
• Amnesty's Shilling for US Wars
  By Ann Wright (about the author) This article cross-posted from Consortium News was co-writted by *Coleen Rowley Amnesty International's "NATO: Keep the Progress Going" poster at a Chicago bus stop. The new Executive Director of Amnesty International USA -- Suzanne Nossel -- is a recent U.S. government insider. So it's a safe bet that AI's decision to seize upon a topic that dovetailed with American foreign policy interests, "women's rights in Afghanistan," at the NATO Conference last month in Chicago came directly from her. Nossel was hired by AI in January 2012. In her early career, Nossel worked for Ambassador Richard Holbrooke under the Clinton Administration at the United Nations. Most recently, she served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Organizations at the U.S. Department of State, where she was responsible for multi-lateral human rights, humanitarian affairs, women's issues, public diplomacy, press and congressional relations. She also played a leading role in U.S. engagement at the U.N. Human Rights Council (where her views about the original Goldstone Report on behalf of Palestinian women did not quite rise to the same level of concerns for the women in countries that U.S.-NATO has attacked militarily). [NGO] [Shill] [US global strategy]
• Doubts Cast on Turkey's Story of Jet
  U.S. Intelligence, Contradicting Ankara, Indicates Aircraft Was Shot Down by Syria in Its Own Airspace, Officials Say . By JULIAN E. BARNES, ADAM ENTOUS and JOE PARKINSON U.S. intelligence indicates that a Turkish warplane shot down by Syrian forces was most likely hit by shore-based antiaircraft guns while it was inside Syrian airspace, American officials said, a finding in tune with Syria's account and at odds with Turkey. [Disinformation]
• Russia Ready to Share Data on Turkish Jet - Lavrov
  GENEVA, June 30 (RIA Novosti) Tags: F-4, Sergei Lavrov, Switzerland, Geneva, Syria, Turkey, Russia Russia possesses “objective observation data” concerning the downing of a Turkish jet off the Syrian coast one week ago and is prepared to present it, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at a press conference in Geneva on Saturday. “We have our objective observation data and we are prepared to present it,” Lavrov said. An F-4 fighter jet of the Turkish Air Force was shot down by Syrian air defenses on June 22 and crashed in the Mediterranean Sea. Syrian authorities said the jet had violated its airspace while Turkish officials claimed it was attacked over international waters. Turkey responded by moving air defense weapons close to the Syrian border. “The main thing now is not to allow any incident to ignite passions in one or another direction,” Lavrov said.
• The US-NATO War on Syria: Western Naval Forces Confront Russia Off the Syrian Coastline?
  by Michel Chossudovsky Global Research, July 26, 2012 "As I went back through the Pentagon in November 2001, one of the senior military staff officers had time for a chat. Yes, we were still on track for going against Iraq, he said. But there was more. This was being discussed as part of a five-year campaign plan, he said, and there were a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia, and Sudan." Former Nato Commander General Wesley Clark "Let me say to the soldiers and officials still supporting the Syrian regime -- the Syrian people will remember the choices you make in the coming days...." Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Friends of Syria conference in Paris' July 7, 2012 While confrontation between Russia and the West was, until recently, confined to the polite ambit of international diplomacy, within the confines of the UN Nations Security Council, an uncertain and perilous situation is now unfolding in the Eastern Mediterranean. Allied forces including intelligence operatives and special forces have reinforced their presence on the ground in Syria following the UN stalemate. Meanwhile, coinciding with the UN Security Council deadlock, Moscow has dispatched to the Mediterranean a flotilla of ten Russian warships and escort vessels led by the Admiral Chabanenko anti-submarine destroyer. Russia's flotilla is currently stationed off the Southern Syrian coastline.
• Opening Statement at the UN Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty
  Remarks Donald A. Mahley U.S. Ambassador U.S. Representative to the Arms Trade Treaty Conference UN Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty New York City July 12, 2012 I thank you Mr. President, It gives me great pleasure to address this gathering on behalf of the United States. Mr. President, the enormous energy, diplomatic skill, and patience that you have demonstrated in leading us up to this point is indeed extraordinary, and I pledge the United States will continue to work closely with you and our colleagues around the room to achieve the consensus on an effective arms treaty in order, as Secretary Clinton clearly stated, “to ensure that all countries can be held to standards that will actually improve the global situation by denying arms to those who would abuse them.” [Arms sales] [Double standards]
• The Arab Spring story in a nutshell: Fake springs, post-modern coup d'etat
  by Prof. Ismael Hossein-zadeh Global Research, July 22, 2012 Within the first few months of 2011, the United States and its allies lost three loyal "friends": Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, Zine el-Abbidine Ben Ali in Tunisia and Saad Hariri in Lebanon. While Mubarak and Ali were driven out of power by widespread popular uprisings, Hariri was ousted by the parliament. Inspired by these liberating developments, pro-democracy rebellions against autocratic rulers (and their Western backers) soon spread to other countries such as Bahrain, Yemen, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. As these revolutionary developments tended to politically benefit the "axis of resistance" (consisting of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas) in the Middle East, the US-Israeli "axis of aggression" and their client states in the region mounted an all-out counterrevolutionary offensive. Caught off-guard by the initial wave of the Arab Spring in Egypt and Tunisia, the US and its allies struck back with a vengeance. They employed a number of simultaneous tactics to sabotage the Arab Spring. These included: (1) instigating fake instances of the Arab Spring in countries that were/are headed by insubordinate regimes such as those ruling Iran, Syria and Libya; (2) co-opting revolutionary movements in countries such as Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen; (3) crushing pro-democracy movements against "friendly" regimes ruling countries such as Bahrain, Jordan and Saudi Arabia "before they get out of hand," as they did in Egypt and Tunisia; and (4) using the age-old divide and rule trick by playing the sectarian trump card of Sunnis vs. Shi'ites, or Iranians vs. Arabs. [US global strategy]
• ‘Don’t be duped by Western humanitarian rhetoric on Syria’
  Interview with Russia’s UN ambassador by Vitaly Churkin Global Research, July 20, 2012 RT and Stop NATO [H]umanitarian intervention unfortunately only sounds humane, but the fact of the matter is that any military intervention for whatever reason is inevitably going to cause more bloodshed. And we know the greatest humanitarians in the world – the US and UK – intervened in Iraq, for instance, citing all sorts of noble pretexts, in that particular case – non-existent weapons of mass destruction. What it caused – 150 thousand civilian deaths alone, to say nothing about millions of refugees, displaced persons and the whole dislocation in the country. So, don’t be duped by humanitarian rhetoric. There is much more geopolitics in their policy in Syria than humanism. [C]urbing Iranian influence in the Middle East…is also a major motivation of the other Middle Eastern fighters for democracy – Saudi Arabia and Qatar – who are concerned about what they see as Iranian interests; in Bahrain as well. [A]bout vetoes – if I am not mistaken, the US has cast 60 vetoes on the Palestinian issue alone. So, why don’t you question my American colleagues about the impact of the image of the US in the Middle East of those continuous vetoes? Russia and China have for the third time vetoed a UN Security Council resolution on Syria which would entail tragic consequences for Damascus. Russia’s ambassador to the UN told RT why a diplomatic solution to the crisis remains the only option. [Humanitarian intervention]
• Romney book: Britain is a tiny island that makes stuff nobody wants
  Posted By Joshua Keating Thursday, July 26, 2012 - 12:16 PM Share Mitt Romney has already gotten in a spot of trouble in London for suggesting that Britain may not be quite ready to host the Olympic Games. Romney has walked back his comments, but it's not the first time the candidate has said some not-so-flattering things about the Sceptered Isle. In his book, No Apology, he writes: England [sic] is just a small island. Its roads and houses are small. With few exceptions, it doesn't make things that people in the rest of the world want to buy. And if it hadn't been separated from the continent by water, it almost certainly would have been lost to Hitler's ambitions. Yet only two lifetimes ago, Britain ruled the largest and wealthiest empire in the history of humankind. Britain controlled a quarter of the earth's land and a quarter of the earth's population. Its roads and houses are small? The trees probably aren't the right height either.
• Mitt Romney Repeatedly References Height Of Trees In Michigan
  The Huffington Post | By Ariel Edwards-Levy Posted: 02/24/12 03:38 PM ET | Updated: 02/24/12 04:03 PM ET Mitt Romney speaks in front of an improperly-sized Florida tree Mitt Romney's last few Michigan stump speeches have included an unusual plank -- his appreciation for the apparently perfect height of the state's trees. "I love this state," he told an audience Tuesday. "The trees are the right height." On Friday afternoon, Romney reprised the comment, saying, “This feels good, being back in Michigan. You know, the trees are the right height." But these statements are just the latest salvos in Romney's longstanding fascination with the stature of his home state's trees. HuffPost dug up some earlier comments along the same lines. Here's Romney in November 2011: “I love being in Michigan,” Romney said at the social club. “Everything seems right here. You know, I come back to Michigan; the trees are the right height. The grass is the right color for this time of year, kind of a brownish-greenish sort of thing. It just feels right.” And back during the last presidential race, in January 2008: "What a thrill it is to come back to Michigan, particularly in the winter, where the skies are cloudy all day, trees are just at the right height, almost all the cars you see are American-made -- the way they ought to be," Romney told an enthusiastic crowd at Lawrence Technological University in metropolitan Detroit. Romney's relationship to Michigan's trees, however, wasn't always so cordial, according to his mother. As a teenager, he allegedly punched one.
• The worst general in American history?
  Posted By Thomas E. RicksWednesday, June 2, 2010 - 10:51 AM Share That was the discussion I was having yesterday with several friends. Here is my ranking of their nominees: 1. Douglas MacArthur 2. Benedict Arnold 3. Ned Almond 4. Tommy R. Franks 5. William Westmoreland 6. George McClellan 7. Ambrose Burnside 8. Horatio Gates It was my contest, so I declared MacArthur the No. 1 loser, because of his unique record of being insubordinate to three presidents (Hoover, Roosevelt and Truman) as well as screwing up the Korean War. Plus additional negative points for his role in the gassing and suppression of the Bonus Marchers in 1932. You can't defend a country by undermining it. It really is extraordinary how the Army has extirpated his memory. The influence of Marshall, Eisenhower and Bradley lives on, while MacArthur has been treated as a historical dead end. Kind of amazing, considering he was a general for 26 years, was the Army chief of staff, received the Medal of Honor, fought in three wars and was a senior commander in two. [MacArthur]
• The battle of Damascus has begun
  by Thierry Meyssan Global Research, July 24, 2012 Voltaire Network Western and Gulf powers have launched the largest secret war operation since the Contra war in Nicaragua. The Battle of Damascus is not intended to topple President Bashar al-Assad, but to fracture the Syrian Army to better ensure the domination of Israel and the U.S. over the Middle East. While the city is bracing for a new assault by foreign mercenaries, Thierry Meyssan takes stock of the situation.| Coming from abroad, the "Contras" started their invasion of Syria by taking border posts. Over the past five days Washington and Paris have launched an attack operation dubbed “Damascus Volcano and Syrian Earthquake." It is not a new campaign of aerial bombardment, but a secret military operation, similar to the one used in Central America during the Reagan era. Within a few days, 40 to 60 000 Contras, mostly Libyans, entered the country, most often via the Jordanian border. The majority of them are attached to the "Syrian" Free Army, a secret operations front for NATO under Turkish command. Some are affiliated with groups of fanatics, including Al-Qaeda, under Qatar’s command or factions of the Saudi Royal Family, the Sudairi. Along the way, they took some border posts, and then moved to the capital where they have sown confusion by attacking random targets: police groups or isolated military.
• US commander warns Australia on defence spending cuts
  Date July 13, 2012 Read later Daniel Flitton Senior Correspondent Leaders should take a long-term view when deciding on defence spending, says the US's top commander in the Pacific, Admiral Samuel Locklear. Photo: Reuters THE top US commander in the Pacific has noted defence spending in Australia has slipped below America's European allies and warned military planning cannot be turned on or off when economies go bad. The Gillard government slashed defence spending in the May budget, next year taking the overall military budget to 1.5 per cent of the Australia's economy. This is despite commitments in the 2009 defence white paper to build a new fleets of 12 attack submarines and buy additional fighter jets to met the threat of ''shows of force by rising powers'' in the region — widely interpreted as code for China. Admiral Samuel Locklear, who heads US Pacific Command in Hawaii and has charge of forces across half the globe, told reporters in Canberra this morning that even in difficult fiscal times maintaining a credible deterrence and defence was important. Read more: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/opinion/political-news/us-commander-warns-australia-on-defence-spending-cuts-20120713-21zwk.html#ixzz21kIGlOKX [MISCOM] [Subordinate]
• British pilots flew armed US drones in Libya, MoD reveals
  Disclosure comes 10 months after end of a campaign in which the government insisted no British drones were involved Nick Hopkins guardian.co.uk, Thursday 26 July 2012 18.26 BST An unmanned US Predator drone flies over Kandahar in southern Afghanistan. Photograph: Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP RAF pilots flew armed US drones as part of Nato's military effort in last year's Libyan conflict, the Ministry of Defence has revealed. The disclosure, slipped out in a parliamentary answer, comes 10 months after the end of a campaign in which the UK government had insisted no British drones, or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), were involved. Though that remains true, the MoD has admitted RAF personnel on an exchange programme in the US flew American Predator drones, which were a key component of the air campaign. The US announced last April it was deploying two patrols of armed UAVs above Libya and they launched numerous missile strikes against buildings, tanks and other military equipment being used by forces loyal to Colonel Gaddafi. [Disinformation] [UAV]
• Spying on Americans through Cellphone Carriers
  NSA Spying: 'If We Tell You, We'll Have to Kill You' by Tom Burghardt Global Research, July 14, 2012 Antifascist Calling... What most Americans are blissfully unaware of is the fact that they carry in their pockets what have been described as near-perfect spy devices: their cellphones. When Congress passed the FISA Amendments Act (FAA) in 2008, a privacy-killing law that gutted First, Fourth and Fifth Amendment protections for Americans while granting immunity to giant telecoms that assisted the National Security Agency's (NSA) warrantless wiretapping programs, we were assured that the government "does not spy" on our communications. Yet scarcely a year after FAA was signed into law by President Bush, The New York Times revealed that under Hope and Change™ huckster Barack Obama, NSA continued the previous regime's illegal practices, intercepting "private e-mail messages and phone calls of Americans in recent months on a scale that went beyond the broad legal limits established by Congress last year." The wholesale vacuuming-up of private communications by the sprawling Pentagon bureaucracy were described by unnamed "senior officials" as the "'overcollection' of domestic communications of Americans;" in other words, a mere technical "glitch" in an otherwise "balanced" program. But what most Americans are blissfully unaware of is the fact that they carry in their pockets what have been described as near-perfect spy devices: their cellphones. [Surveillance]
• The Arab Spring story in a nutshell: Fake springs, post-modern coup d'etat
  by Prof. Ismael Hossein-zadeh Global Research, July 22, 2012 Within the first few months of 2011, the United States and its allies lost three loyal "friends": Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, Zine el-Abbidine Ben Ali in Tunisia and Saad Hariri in Lebanon. While Mubarak and Ali were driven out of power by widespread popular uprisings, Hariri was ousted by the parliament. Inspired by these liberating developments, pro-democracy rebellions against autocratic rulers (and their Western backers) soon spread to other countries such as Bahrain, Yemen, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. As these revolutionary developments tended to politically benefit the "axis of resistance" (consisting of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas) in the Middle East, the US-Israeli "axis of aggression" and their client states in the region mounted an all-out counterrevolutionary offensive. Caught off-guard by the initial wave of the Arab Spring in Egypt and Tunisia, the US and its allies struck back with a vengeance. They employed a number of simultaneous tactics to sabotage the Arab Spring. These included: (1) instigating fake instances of the Arab Spring in countries that were/are headed by insubordinate regimes such as those ruling Iran, Syria and Libya; (2) co-opting revolutionary movements in countries such as Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen; (3) crushing pro-democracy movements against "friendly" regimes ruling countries such as Bahrain, Jordan and Saudi Arabia "before they get out of hand," as they did in Egypt and Tunisia; and (4) using the age-old divide and rule trick by playing the sectarian trump card of Sunnis vs. Shi'ites, or Iranians vs. Arabs. [US global strategy]
• ‘Don’t be duped by Western humanitarian rhetoric on Syria’
  Interview with Russia’s UN ambassador by Vitaly Churkin Global Research, July 20, 2012 RT and Stop NATO [H]umanitarian intervention unfortunately only sounds humane, but the fact of the matter is that any military intervention for whatever reason is inevitably going to cause more bloodshed. And we know the greatest humanitarians in the world – the US and UK – intervened in Iraq, for instance, citing all sorts of noble pretexts, in that particular case – non-existent weapons of mass destruction. What it caused – 150 thousand civilian deaths alone, to say nothing about millions of refugees, displaced persons and the whole dislocation in the country. So, don’t be duped by humanitarian rhetoric. There is much more geopolitics in their policy in Syria than humanism. [C]urbing Iranian influence in the Middle East…is also a major motivation of the other Middle Eastern fighters for democracy – Saudi Arabia and Qatar – who are concerned about what they see as Iranian interests; in Bahrain as well. [A]bout vetoes – if I am not mistaken, the US has cast 60 vetoes on the Palestinian issue alone. So, why don’t you question my American colleagues about the impact of the image of the US in the Middle East of those continuous vetoes? Russia and China have for the third time vetoed a UN Security Council resolution on Syria which would entail tragic consequences for Damascus. Russia’s ambassador to the UN told RT why a diplomatic solution to the crisis remains the only option. [Humanitarian intervention]
• Drone operations over Somalia pose danger to air traffic, U.N. report says
  By Craig Whitlock, Wednesday, July 25, 1:54 AMThe Washington Post The skies over Somalia have become so congested with drones that the unmanned aircraft pose a danger to air traffic and potentially violate a long-standing arms embargo against the war-torn country, according to United Nations officials. In a recently completed report, U.N. officials describe several narrowly averted disasters in which drones crashed into a refu­gee camp, flew dangerously close to a fuel dump and almost collided with a large passenger plane over Mogadishu, the capital. Although U.N. investigators did not directly pin the blame for the mishaps on the United States, the report noted that at least two of the unmanned aircraft appeared to be U.S.-manufactured and suggested that Washington had been less than forthcoming about its drone operations in Somalia. [UAV]
• Prisons as Growth Industry
  by Ralph Nader Ever visit a major prison? The vast majority of Americans have not, despite our country having by far a higher incarceration rate per capita than China or Iran. Out of sight is out of mind. Imagine the benefits of the average taxpayer touring a prison. The lucrative prison-industrial complex would definitely not like public exposure of their daily operations. Prison CEOs have no problem with a full house of non-violent inmates caught with possession of some street drugs (not alcohol or tobacco). Our horrendous confinement system cannot change when it clings to perverse practices such as cruel, costly, arbitrary, mentally destructive solitary confinement (again, the highest in the world, see: http://solitarywatch.com/). Corporate profits drive the prison system’s insanity. Indeed, for the giant Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), times are booming. [Prisoners] [Privatisation]
• Is Libya the Next Somalia?
  by Thomas C. Mountain Libya seems well on its way to becoming the next Somalia, with much of the country already ruled by tribal/clan based armed militias. As was the case in Somalia, Libya is in the process of separation, with the eastern, oil rich, Cyrenica region having issued a de facto declaration of independence. Tripoli, the capital of Libya, seems to be headed in the direction of where Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia was 20 years ago, with various well armed militias from outside the city taking up residence and clashing over territory and the spoils of power. The only real modern national government Libya ever knew was under Gaddafi just as the only modern government Somalia ever knew was under Siad Barre. [Fragmentation]
• Reagan: the Real Story
  by MICHAEL K. SMITH He had but the foggiest idea what the policies of his own administration were. When not programmed by his staff he talked nonstop about Hollywood or whiled away the hours watching T.V. Bored with his duties, he came to work reluctantly, amusing himself doodling and nodding off in cabinet meetings. His solution for every problem was a dismissive one-liner accompanied by an amiable grin. The first telepresident in history, he came alive only for the camera, and appeared coherent thanks to the constant assistance of a Teleprompter. Unchoreographed moments left him babbling like a small child. With curious vehemence and farcical regularity his aides announced that he was in charge and understood what was going on
• Will round-the-clock police surveillance be legacy of London Olympics?
  By Shashank Bengali | McClatchy Newspapers LONDON — To understand the gargantuan security operation that authorities have prepared for the Olympic Games that open here Friday – nearly twice as many military troops are on the streets as Britain has deployed in Afghanistan, for starters – it helps to remember what happened the morning after London won the right to host these games seven years ago. On July 7, 2005, homegrown militants detonated bombs in the city’s Underground subway and on a passenger bus, killing dozens in one of the worst terrorist attacks in the country’s history. While there’s no evidence that attack was linked to the Olympic bid, it’s had an unmistakable impact on planning for these games. The 10,000 athletes competing for medals will be dwarfed by a contingent of more than 36,000 soldiers, police officers and private security staff, backed by American law enforcement agents, thousands of closed-circuit cameras, unmanned drones, at least six missile batteries positioned on rooftops in East London and the Royal Navy’s largest warship, the HMS Ocean, floating in the Thames. Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/07/24/157473/will-round-the-clock-police-surveillance.html#storylink=cpy [Surveillance]
• Skype makes chats and user data more available to police
  By Craig Timberg and Ellen Nakashima, Thursday, July 26, 1:43 AMThe Washington Post Skype, the online phone service long favored by political dissidents, criminals and others eager to communicate beyond the reach of governments, has expanded its cooperation with law enforcement authorities to make online chats and other user information available to police, said industry and government officials familiar with the changes. Surveillance of the audio and video feeds remains impractical — even when courts issue warrants, say industry officials with direct knowledge of the matter. But that barrier could eventually vanish as Skype becomes one of the world’s most popular forms of telecommunication. The changes to online chats, which are written messages conveyed almost instantaneously between users, result in part from technical upgrades to Skype that were instituted to address outages and other stability issues since Microsoft bought the company last year. Officials of the United States and other countries have long pushed to expand their access to newer forms of communications to resolve an issue that the FBI calls the “going dark” problem. [Surveillance]
• War On All Fronts
  Washington's three-front war: Syria, Lebanon, Iran in the Middle East, China in the Far East, Russia in Europe...
  by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts Global Research, July 18, 2012 paulcraigroberts.org The Russian government has finally caught on that its political opposition is being financed by the US taxpayer-funded National Endowment for Democracy and other CIA/State Department fronts in an attempt to subvert the Russian government and install an American puppet state in the geographically largest country on earth, the one country with a nuclear arsenal sufficient to deter Washington’s aggression. Just as earlier this year Egypt expelled hundreds of people associated with foreign-funded “non-governmental organizations” (NGOs) for “instilling dissent and meddling in domestic policies,” the Russian Duma (parliament) has just passed a law that Putin is expected to sign that requires political organizations that receive foreign funding to register as foreign agents. The law is based on the US law requiring the registration of foreign agents. [NGO] [US global strategy] [Double standards]
• Crisis Batters Global Faith in Capitalism
  By Gregor Peter Schmitz in Washington A new Pew survey has identified steep declines in support for capitalism around the world. The global economic crisis has hit millions where it hurts the most: in the pocketbook. But a study released Thursday by the US-based Pew Research Center also finds that the crisis has damaged their faith in political leaders and the free market economy in general. People around the world are worried about the state of their national economies, reports a new global survey conducted by the respected Pew Research Center in Washington. The survey, which polled 26,000 people in 21 countries, found that only about a quarter of respondents (27 percent) were happy with the economic situation in their countries. The survey found only four countries in which a majority of people were happy with and optimistic about the economic situation: China (83 percent), Germany (73 percent), Brazil (65 percent) and Turkey (57 percent). Compared with a similar Pew survey conducted in 2008 -- that is, before the outbreak of the global financial crisis -- the recent poll found a striking decline in confidence. This, in turn, has led to a crisis in capitalism's economic model. In 11 out of the 21 states covered in the study, only up to a half of respondents said that they believe the free market economy leads to increased general well-being. [Decline] [Capitalism] [Public opinion]
• In Syria conflict, U.S. struggles to fill intelligence gaps
  By Greg Miller and Joby Warrick, Tuesday, July 24, 12:07 AM Sixteen months into the uprising in Syria, the United States is struggling to develop a clear understanding of opposition forces inside the country, according to U.S. officials who said that intelligence gaps have impeded efforts to support the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. U.S. spy agencies have expanded their efforts to gather intelligence on rebel forces and Assad’s regime in recent months, but they are still largely confined to monitoring intercepted communications and observing the conflict from a distance, officials said. A look at the Syrian uprising one year later. Thousands of Syrians have died and President Bashar al-Assad remains in power, despite numerous calls by the international community for him to step down. The United States is struggling to develop a clear understanding of opposition forces inside the country, according to U.S. officials. Interviews with U.S. and foreign intelligence officials revealed that the CIA has been unable to establish a presence in Syria, in contrast with the agency’s prominent role gathering intelligence from inside Egypt and Libya during revolts in those countries. With no CIA operatives on the ground in Syria and only a handful stationed at key border posts, the agency has been heavily dependent on its counterparts in Jordan and Turkey and on other regional allies. [Intelligence] [Outsourcing]
• US Prepares For Direct Intervention in Syria
  As FSA proxies fail and psychological operations falter, US prepares more direct approach for long-sought regime change by Tony Cartalucci Global Research, July 22, 2012 As it becomes increasingly clear that last week's "surge" by NATO-backed so-called "Free Syrian Army" terrorists was a failed psychological operation, coordinated with meticulously timed assassinations the day of the UN Security Council vote designed to stampede the Syrian government out of power, the FSA's foreign sponsors are preparing the public for a more direct intervention while desperately attempting to maintain the illusion of chaos and the imminent collapse of Syria's government. Video: Thierry Meyssan in Damascus, Syria. Please choose from "choose language" to see English subtitles. Contradicting NATO's narrative, was Thierry Meyssan in Damascus, Syria who reported that Syria's continuity of government seamlessly moved forward after the assassinations last week, and that state institutions are still standing and very much functional. He describes Syria's latest unrest as the result of a coordinated NATO-backed terrorist operation aimed at creating confusion and panic, coupled with Western propaganda - and warns that more operations are likely on the way. The Telegraph's, "Bashar al-Assad's Syria is now in a death spiral," and the Guardian's "Syria endgame: who and what will emerge from the ruins?" both desperately attempt to write off the Syrian government as already finished, an unsubstantiated reoccurring narrative being repeated daily by the West. Both articles however, categorically fail in qualifying their premises with subsequent facts - instead they depend on rehashing the initial violence that accompanied last week's assassinations - violence that has already been adequately dealt with by Syrian security forces. In New York Times' article, "US to Focus on Forcibly Toppling Syrian Government," is all but an admission that indeed NATO's FSA terrorists have failed, and that what is in reality imminent, is the restoration of order by the Syrian army after over a year of foreign subversion and armed infiltration. Essential to the West's plan, is now fabricating a justification the US, Israel, and the Gulf despots currently do not have - to more directly intervene before the limitations of NATO's proxy forces are irrevocably exposed.
• Consequences of the Fall of the Syrian Regime
  July 24, 2012 | 0900 GMT Stratfor By George Friedman We have entered the endgame in Syria. That doesn't mean that we have reached the end by any means, but it does mean that the precondition has been met for the fall of the regime of Syrian President Bashar al Assad. We have argued that so long as the military and security apparatus remain intact and effective, the regime could endure. Although they continue to function, neither appears intact any longer; their control of key areas such as Damascus and Aleppo is in doubt, and the reliability of their personnel, given defections, is no longer certain. We had thought that there was a reasonable chance of the al Assad regime surviving completely. That is no longer the case. At a certain point -- in our view, after the defection of a Syrian pilot June 21 and then the defection of the Tlass clan -- key members of the regime began to recalculate the probability of survival and their interests. The regime has not unraveled, but it is unraveling. .
• "Progressive" Journalism's Legacy of Deceit
  by Prof. James F. Tracy Global Research, July 20, 2012 Progressive-left media persist in acting as propaganda outlets for the US-NATO destabilization of Syria, thus placating a politically conscious audience that might otherwise be mobilized against acts of imperialism and violence. The historical record suggests how this is not the first time "Progressive publicists" were used to sell a war. A recent report in the UK Guardian by Charlie Skelton explains that Western news outlets remain willing victims (or accomplices) in a propaganda campaign for US -NATO led Syrian intervention being carried out by skilled and well-financed public relations practitioners. According to Skelton, “the spokespeople, the ‘experts on Syria’, the ‘democracy activists’ … The people who ‘urge’ and ‘warn’ and ‘call for action’" against the Assad regime are themselves part of a sophisticated and well-heeled public relations effort to allow NATO forces to give Syria the same medicine administered to Libya in 2011. “They're selling the idea of military intervention and regime change,” Skelton reports, “and the mainstream news is hungry to buy. Many of the "activists" and spokespeople representing the Syrian opposition are closely (and in many cases financially) interlinked with the US and London – the very people who would be doing the intervening. Which means information and statistics from these sources isn't necessarily pure news – it's a sales pitch, a PR campaign.”[1] If one thinks that a revelation of this magnitude would be cause for other major Western news media to reassess their reportage of the Syrian situation they would be greatly mistaken. Amy Goodman's Democracy Now is a case in point. Since the beginning of the “Arab Spring” color revolutions the foremost broadcast venue of “independent” progressive-Left journalism in the United States has used its reportage to obfuscate and thereby advance the campaign for regime change in Egypt, Libya, and now Syria. The tactics of disinformation and death squads employed in Libya and Syria should be easily recognizable since they were refined against popular Central American moves toward popular enfranchisement by the Reagan administration during the 1980s.
• The Syrian opposition: who's doing the talking?
  The media have been too passive when it comes to Syrian opposition sources, without scrutinising their backgrounds and their political connections. Time for a closer look … Charlie Skelton guardian.co.uk, Thursday 12 July 2012 15.48 BST A nightmare is unfolding across Syria, in the homes of al-Heffa and the streets of Houla. And we all know how the story ends: with thousands of soldiers and civilians killed, towns and families destroyed, and President Assad beaten to death in a ditch. This is the story of the Syrian war, but there is another story to be told. A tale less bloody, but nevertheless important. This is a story about the storytellers: the spokespeople, the "experts on Syria", the "democracy activists". The statement makers. The people who "urge" and "warn" and "call for action". It's a tale about some of the most quoted members of the Syrian opposition and their connection to the Anglo-American opposition creation business. The mainstream news media have, in the main, been remarkably passive when it comes to Syrian sources: billing them simply as "official spokesmen" or "pro-democracy campaigners" without, for the most part, scrutinising their statements, their backgrounds or their political connections. [Outsourcing] [Thinktank] [Media]
• Syria Fighting Off Terrorism
  Boris DOLGOV | 24.07.2012 | 00:00 The July 18 terrorist attack on the headquarters of the security ministry in Damascus took the lives of several high-ranking Syrian government officials and military commanders, including the defense minister, his deputy, the minister of the interior, and the head of the army intelligence department (B. Assad's son-in-law). Syrian foreign minister Walid al Muallem and director of the counter-espionage agency were hospitalized and reported to be in critical condition. A kamikaze, who evidently served in the defense ministry, delivered a bomb to the building which is sited across the street from the US embassy, and detonated it in the office where the Syrian administration was holding a meeting with the security chiefs. Two groups of insurgents - the Free Syrian Army and Allah's Brigades – claimed responsibility for the terrorist act which prompted an outpouring of positive emotions from the Itanbul-based Syrian National Council. It must be noted in the context that, pressing for regime change in Syria at any cost, the Syrian opposition leaders who visited Moscow on July 10-11, among them the Council's president Abdulbaset Sieda and Michael Kilo, the leader of the Free Tribune established in Cairo last year, did subscribe to the Geneva connections. It was fairly clear during the rounds of negotiations in Russia, in one of which I took part, that the only real objective behind the guests' agenda was to talk Moscow into supporting the course aimed at the ouster of the current administration in Syria. In fact, the envoys of the Syrian National Council admitted coordinating activities with the Free Syrian Army, which, in the light of the recent developments, automatically means complicity in terrorism.
• Bravery and drone pilots
  Tuesday, Jul 10, 2012 09:54 PM +0100 The Pentagon considers awarding war medals to those who operate America's death-delivering video games By Glenn Greenwald The effort to depict drone warfare as some sort of courageous and noble act is intensifying: The Pentagon is considering awarding a Distinguished Warfare Medal to drone pilots who work on military bases often far removed from the battlefield. . . . [Army Institute of Heraldry chief Charles] Mugno said most combat decorations require “boots on the ground” in a combat zone, but he noted that “emerging technologies” such as drones and cyber combat missions are now handled by troops far removed from combat. The Pentagon has not formally endorsed the medal, but Mugno’s institute has completed six alternate designs for commission approval. . . . The proposed medal would rank between the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Soldier’s Medal for exceptional conduct outside a combat zone. So medals would be awarded for sitting safely ensconced in a bunker on U.S. soil and launching bombs with a video joystick at human beings thousands of miles away. [UAV] [Inversion] [Bizarre]
• War on Syria and Imperial Hubris: Clinton Demands Russia And China to “Pay The Price”
  by Rick Rozoff Global Research, July 9, 2012 Stop NATO At the third meeting of the so-called Friends of Syria in Paris on July 6, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proved once again that diplomacy is to the United States what refined dining etiquette is to a jackal. The third such meeting, earlier versions were held in “post-revolution” Tunisia and in Turkey, a NATO member with military forces massed on Syria’s border, was opened by French President Francois Hollande (who already is making his predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy appear less anomalously egregious), who declaimed, “Bashir al Assad must go…a transitional government must be set up.” The head of state of Syria’s former colonial master also engaged in comic opera theatrics by observing a moment of silence for – some – of the victims in Syria and insisted that the Syrian government’s “fall is inevitable.” Just as Sarkozy had done last year with the governments of Ivory Coast and Libya. Just as Clinton had done with both as well and now with Syria. But Hollande was only the compère who warmed up the audience for the true personification of 21st century imperial hubris – Clinton. She, who in February referred to Russia and China as being despicable for blocking a resolution in the United Nations Security Council aimed at the regime change in Syria mentioned above, abandoned any remaining element of restraint – a quality she has never been noted for, any more than for subtlety, judgment, humility, fairness and other seemingly outdated virtues – and exploited the Syrian crisis to crudely excoriate Russia and China once again. Her shrill diatribe included an attempt to incite attendees from over 100 countries and organizations against the two alleged villains: “I ask you to reach out to Russia and China and to not only urge, but demand that they get off the sidelines and begin to support the legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people.” The operative word is demand. As in démarche. As in diktat. [Hubris] [Hillary] [US global strategy]
• Land of the Free: the Best Investigative Reporting on U.S. Prisons
  by Cora Currier ProPublica, June 29, 2012, 1:51 p.m. The U.S. has the highest reported incarceration rate in the world. We’ve rounded up some of the best investigative journalism on U.S. prisons and the problems that plague them. These stories cover juvenile justice, private prisons, immigration detention and other aspects of America’s vast incarceration system. [Prisoners]
• Entire world - Prison Population Rates per 100,000 of the national population
  For more details about the figures of any country, please click on the name of that country
• The Collapsing US Economy and the "End of the World"
  by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts Global Research, July 9, 2012 In a recent column, “Can The World Survive Washington’s Hubris,” I promised to examine whether the US economy will collapse before Washington in its pursuit of world hegemony brings us into military confrontation with Russia and China. This is likely to be an ongoing subject on this site, so this column will not be the final word. Washington has been at war since October, 2001, when President George W. Bush concocted an excuse to order the US invasion of Afghanistan. This war took a back seat when Bush concocted another excuse to order the invasion of Iraq in 2003, a war that went on without significant success for 8 years and has left Iraq in chaos with dozens more killed and wounded every day, a new strong man in place of the illegally executed former strongman, and the likelihood of the ongoing violence becoming civil war. Upon his election, President Obama foolishly sent more troops to Afghanistan and renewed the intensity of that war, now in its eleventh year, to no successful effect. These two wars have been expensive. According to estimates by Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, when all costs are counted the Iraq invasion cost US taxpayers $3 trillion dollars. Ditto for the Afghan war. In other words, the two gratuitous wars doubled the US public debt. This is the reason there is no money for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, the environment, and the social safety net. Americans got nothing out of the wars, but as the war debt will never be paid off, US citizens and their descendants will have to pay interest on $6,000 billion of war debt in perpetuity. Not content with these wars, the Bush/Obama regime is conducting military operations in violation of international law in Pakistan, Yemen, and Africa, organized the overthrow by armed conflict of the government in Libya, is currently working to overthrow the Syrian government, and continues to marshall military forces against Iran. [Decline]
• Mysterious fatal crash offers rare look at U.S. commando presence in Mali
  By Craig Whitlock, Published: July 9 In pre-dawn darkness, a ­Toyota Land Cruiser skidded off a bridge in North Africa in the spring, plunging into the Niger River. When rescuers arrived, they found the bodies of three U.S. Army commandos — alongside three dead women. What the men were doing in the impoverished country of Mali, and why they were still there a month after the United States suspended military relations with its government, is at the crux of a mystery that officials have not fully explained even 10 weeks later. At the very least, the April 20 accident exposed a team of Special Operations forces that had been working for months in Mali, a Saharan country racked by civil war and a rising Islamist insurgency. More broadly, the crash has provided a rare glimpse of elite U.S. commando units in North Africa, where they have been secretly engaged in counterterrorism actions against al-Qaeda affiliates. [Special forces]
• The Western Welfare State: Its Rise and Demise and the Soviet Bloc
  by Prof. James Petras Global Research, July 4, 2012 One of the most striking socio-economic features of the past two decades is the reversal of the previous half-century of welfare legislation in Europe and North America . Unprecedented cuts in social services, severance pay, public employment, pensions, health programs, educational stipends, vacation time, and job security are matched by increases in tuition, regressive taxation, and the age of retirement as well as increased inequalities, job insecurity and workplace speed-up. The demise of the ‘welfare state’ demolishes the idea put forth by orthodox economists, who argued that the ‘maturation’ of capitalism, its ‘advanced state’, high technology and sophisticated services, would be accompanied by greater welfare and higher income/standard of living. While it is true that ‘services and technology’ have multiplied, the economic sector has become even more polarized, between low paid retail clerks and super rich stock brokers and financiers. The computerization of the economy has led to electronic bookkeeping, cost controls and the rapid movements of speculative funds in search of maximum profit while at the same time ushering in brutal budgetary reductions for social programs. The ‘Great Reversal’ appears to be a long-term, large-scale process centered in the dominant capitalist countries of Western Europe and North America and in the former Communist states of Eastern Europe . It behooves us to examine the systemic causes that transcend the particular idiosyncrasies of each nation. [Capitalism]
• Have the One-Percent Already Won? Why Do the Poor Cheer for the Rich?
  by DAVID MACARAY Evidence that things are far, far worse than we ever dreamed can be seen in John Q. Public’s resentment of labor unions. Twenty-five years ago people who argued with me (and I had these arguments every day) about the contributions of organized labor used to maintain that unions were “bad” because they were either (1) too anti-democratic and dictatorial, or (2) too “corrupt” (i.e., mobbed up or otherwise “crooked”) But that was the extent of it. No one suggested that unions weren’t beneficial, or that they weren’t devoted to the interests of working people or, considering the stark alternatives, that they weren’t, in fact, “necessary.” Rather, their gripes were confined to the procedural, to the way unions were governed. Or to be more accurate, to the way they perceived unions to be governed (because, in truth, people often confused “corruption” with simple laziness and inefficiency). But that’s all changed. While you still hear the occasional grumbling directed toward “corrupt union bosses,” what people complain about today it that labor unions are “elitist.” It’s true. Shocking as that may seem, America’s working people actually use the E-word when referring to other working people—to people who, by virtue of a union contract, have managed to stay above water, who’ve managed to retain decent wages and benefits, and haven’t fallen victim to the biggest money grab since the Gilded Age.
• National Reconnaissance Office accused of illegally collecting personal data
  By Marisa Taylor | McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — One of the nation’s most secretive intelligence agencies is pressuring its polygraphers to obtain intimate details of the private lives of thousands of job applicants and employees, pushing the ethical and legal boundaries of a program that’s designed instead to catch spies and terrorists. The National Reconnaissance Office is so intent on extracting confessions of personal or illicit behavior that officials have admonished polygraphers who refused to go after them and rewarded those who did, sometimes with cash bonuses, a McClatchy investigation found. Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/07/10/155587/national-reconnaissance-office.html#storylink=cpy [Surveillance]
• From Syria to Caucasus: Will Separate Sparks Become One Big Fire?
  Andrey ARESHEV | 11.07.2012 | 00:00 After a stop in the Bosphorus a NATO naval group weighed anchor and sailed on to the Eastern Mediterranean nearing the Syrian shore in early July. Formally the mission (no US Navy ships in the composition of the unit) is countering the «terrorist threat». German General T. Kughler literally said NATO would not allow terrorism in the Mediterranean. The words smack of outright hypocrisy. If not for arms and mercenaries coming from the West into the country stricken by unrest and rogues going on a rampage, the Bashar Assad’s government would have dealt with the very terrorist threat that herr Kughler called to fight against. The real goal of the NATO’s new naval «anti-terror mission» is intimidation of Syria and demonstration of solidarity with Turkey. [US global strategy] [Outsourcing] [Turkey]
• Biggest Financial Scandal in Britain’s History, Yet Not a Single Occupy Sign; What Happened?
  by ALEXANDER COCKBURN Since what is now going is being described as “the greatest financial scandal in the history of Britain” — the Barclays imbroglio – I have a question to ask. Where are those tents outside St Pauls? Or ones in solidarity this side of the Atlantic? Where are the vibrant reminders that – as has happened in the Barclays case – there is most definitely one law for the 1% (none, in fact) and another for the 99 %? It was very hard not to be swept away by the Occupy movement which established itself in New York’s Zuccotti Park last September and soon spread to Oakland, Chicago, London and Madrid. And indeed most people didn’t resist its allure.? ?Leninists threw aside their Marxist primers on party organisation and drained the full anarchist cocktail.
• Afghans greet upbeat Clinton remarks with deep skepticism
  By Jon Stephenson | McClatchy Newspapers KABUL, Afghanistan — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton painted a positive picture of Afghanistan’s fledgling security forces in a visit Saturday and promised Afghans that the United States would never abandon their country, but several Afghans weary of the U.S. presence expressed doubt. Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/07/07/155344/afghans-greet-upbeat-clinton-remarks.html#storylink=cpy
• U.S. pushes for more scientists, but the jobs aren’t there
  Text Size Michelle Amaral wanted to be a brain scientist to help cure diseases. She planned a traditional academic science career: PhD, university professorship and, eventually, her own lab. But three years after earning a doctorate in neuroscience, she gave up trying to find a permanent job in her field. Dropping her dream, she took an administrative position at her university, experiencing firsthand an economic reality that, at first look, is counterintuitive: There are too many laboratory scientists for too few jobs. That reality runs counter to messages sent by President Obama and the National Science Foundation and other influential groups, who in recent years have called for U.S. universities to churn out more scientists. Obama has made science education a priority, launching a White House science fair to get young people interested in the field. [Decline] [S&T]
• The Longest War
  by KATHY KELLY In April of 2003, I returned from Iraq after having lived there during the U.S. Shock and Awe bombing and the initial weeks of the invasion. Before the bombing I had traveled to Iraq about two dozen times and had helped organize 70 trips to Iraq, aiming to cast light on a brutal sanctions regime, with the “Voices in the Wilderness” campaign. As the bombing had approached, we had given our all to helping organize a remarkable worldwide peace movement effort, one which may have come closer than any before it to stopping a war before it started. But, just as, before the war, we’d failed to lift the vicious and lethally punitive economic sanctions against Iraq, we also failed to stop the war, and the devastating civil war that it created. So it was April and I’d returned home, devastated at our failure. My mother possessed ample reserves of Irish charm, motherly wisdom, and, for purposes of political analyses, a political analysis consistent with that of Fox News Channel. She knew I was distraught, and aiming to comfort me, she said the following in her soft, lilting voice. “Kathy, dear, what you don’t understand is that the people of Iraq could have gotten rid of Saddam Hussein a long time ago, and they ought to have done so, and they didn’t. So we went in there and did it for them.” She clearly hoped I could share her relief that the U.S. could lend a helping hand in that part of the world. “And they ought to be grateful, and they’re not.”
• Press Still at Assange’s Throat
  by PATRICK COCKBURN As Julian Assange evades arrest by taking refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in Knightsbridge to escape extradition to Sweden, and possibly the US, British commentators have targeted him with shrill abuse. They almost froth with rage as they cite petty examples of his supposed gaucheness, egotism and appearance, as if these were criminal faults. These criticisms tell one more about the conventionality and herd instinct of British opinion-makers than they do about Assange. Ignored, in all this, is his achievement as founder of WikiLeaks in publishing US government cables giving people across the world insight into how their governments really behave. Such public knowledge is the core of democracy because voters must be accurately informed if they are to be able to chose representatives to carry out their wishes. [Media] [WikiLeaks]
• Afghanistan isn't ready to govern itself, visiting lawmakers say
  Stephen Magagnini | The Sacramento Bee Afghanistan is far from ready to govern and police itself or defend its jagged borders, several members of that country's legislative branch said on a visit to the California Capitol on Monday. A journalist, an obstetrician/gynecologist, a school principal, a political scientist and a businessman – all members of Afghanistan's House of the People – said that chaos and terror will reign if the United States leaves the poor, war-torn country of more than 30 million in 2014 without making sure its new democracy is working. "If the U.S. just wants to escape from Afghanistan without a responsible exit strategy, that will send a clear message to the Taliban, al-Qaida and the Haqqani network that it's safe," said journalist Baktash Siawash, at 28 the youngest of the 249 parliamentarians elected in 2010 to the lower house of the country's National Assembly. Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/07/03/154815/afghanistan-isnt-ready-to-govern.html#storylink=cpy [Client]
• Ocean explorer Bob Ballard tapped to find downed Turkish warplane
  NOAA Ocean Explorer - Bob Ballard’s exploration ship, the ­Nautilus, shown above, was anchored in Istanbul preparing for a two-month scientific expedition when the Turkish government asked for his assistance in its hunt for the U.S.-built F-4 and the two pilots. By Brian Vastag and Karen DeYoung, Wednesday, July 4, 12:35 PM Bob Ballard, the celebrated ocean explorer who discovered the wreck of the Titanic, is in the Mediterranean Sea on a sensitive new mission: searching the sea bottom for the remains of a Turkish warplane downed by Syrian fire. Ballard’s exploration ship, the ­Nautilus, was anchored in Istanbul preparing for a two-month scientific expedition when the Turkish government asked for his assistance in its hunt for the U.S.-built F-4 and the two pilots. Syria maintains the plane was within its airspace when it was shot down June 22, but Turkey disputes that. Territorial airspace extends 12 nautical miles offshore. Debris, if found, could help settle the matter. If the plane was hit by antiaircraft gunfire, it was probably attacked within Syrian airspace, as such weapons have limited range, said a senior U.S. military official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. But if the wreckage indicates that a missile downed the plane, then it could have been hit either in Syrian airspace or farther out to sea. The official said that U.S. intelligence reports have been “in­conclusive” on the location of the plane when it was hit and the type of weapon fired at it.
• Turkey – Triple Split over Syria.
  ‘Are you from the Baath Party of Syria or the Republican People’s Party [CHP] of Turkey? Which one are you?,’ PM Erdogan says referring to Kiliçdaroglu’s words. After a period of surprising calm over Turkey´s active role in the covert war on Syria, the downing of a Turkish military over Syrian territory by a Syrian anti-aircraft machine gunner has finally ignited the domestic political powder keg. The Erdogan led government continues its war of words and its covert military transgressions against Syria, using the incident as a pretext for a direct military confrontation with Syria under the guise of establishing a “buffer zone” or secure areas. The secular Republican People´s Party of Turkey, CHP, has been opposed to Turkey´s ambitions of empire from the onset of the covert war but was not as outspoken about its opposition as it became after the downing of the F4 Phantom.
• Balochistan: Crossroads of Another US Proxy War?
  by Eric Draitser Global Research, July 1, 2012 The current unrest in Balochistan centers around forced disappearances, kidnappings, targeted killings, assassinations and terrorism. However, these are merely the tactics of a much broader, more geopolitically complex war in which the United States and its Western allies are engaged. Though seemingly insignificant against the backdrop of all the regional and international crises affecting our world, Balochistan is, in fact, a nexus: the point at which diametrically opposing strategic interests converge. The United States views Balochistan, an area that encompasses western Pakistan, eastern Iran, and a piece of southern Afghanistan, as critical to the maintenance of US hegemony in the Middle East and Central and South Asia. Conversely, China regards the region as necessary for its own economic and political evolution into a world superpower. Seen in this way, Balochistan becomes central to the development of geopolitical power in the 21st Century. Balochistan's Strategic Location Balochistan is located in one of the most geographically and politically significant places anywhere in the world. Not only does the region sit astride three countries which have become central to Western political and military power projection, it is also central to the development and export of energy from Central Asia, access to the Indian Ocean, and a host of other geopolitical imperatives for both the West and the SCO/BRICS countries. Because of this, the region has grown exponentially in importance to all the major powers of the world. [Location] [US global strategy] China global strategy] [Separatism]
• Syrian Crisis Escalating
  02.07.2012 Boris Dolgov, political scientist Syria's crisis remains the focal point of the world politics as a new escalation in and around the country broke out last week. The root cause of the conflict unraveling in Syria since March, 2011 is that external forces provide crucial support to the armed opposition groups which unleashed a terrorist war against the Syrian administration and civilians. The groups receive large quantities of armaments and ammunition from Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan with the assistance from NATO intelligence services and the financial backing from the Gulf monarchies. Even Pentagon chief Leon Panetta admits that al Qaeda militants fight in the ranks of the opposition groups in Syria, meaning that the country is de facto fighting a war against internationally supported terrorists. As prescribed by existing contracts, Moscow continues to sell to Syria the armaments it needs for self-defense, particularly the anti-aircraft systems, and to service the Russian-made weaponry, including copters, already delivered to the Syrian army. By doing so, Russia draws biting criticism from Western administrations, notably, from US Secretary of State H. Clinton, who, for example, charges that the Syrian government plans to use the copters to crash popular protests. The West's cynicism over the matter is shocking: while Russia takes hammering for the supplies and maintenance of completely defensive weapons to the Syrian government which is forced to resist terrorist attacks, the Western countries help to illicitly feed armaments to the terrorists in Syria.
• Report: Syrian President Assad tells Turkish newspaper regrets shooting down Turkish jet.
  By Associated Press, Updated: Tuesday, July 3, 7:45 PM ANKARA, Turkey — Syrian President Bashar Assad says he regrets the shooting down of a Turkish jet by his forces, and he will not allow tensions between the two neighbors to turn into an “armed conflict,” a Turkish newspaper reported Tuesday. Syria downed the RF-4E warplane on June 22, after, Syria says, it flew very low inside its airspace. Turkey says the jet was hit in international airspace after it briefly strayed into Syria. Assad offered no apology for the downing of the plane during an interview with Cumhuriyet in Damascus on Sunday, insisting that it was shot down over Syria, and his forces acted in self-defense. He said that the plane was flying in a corridor inside Syrian airspace that had been used by Israeli planes in 2007, when they bombed a building under construction in northern Syria. The UN nuclear agency has said that the building was a nearly finished reactor, meant to produce plutonium, which can be used to arm nuclear warheads “The plane was using the same corridor used by Israeli planes three times in the past,” Assad told Cumhuriyet. “Soldiers shot it down since we did not see it on our radars and we were not informed about it.” Assad said: “I say 100 percent, I wish we did not shoot it down.” Turkey responded by deploying anti-aircraft missiles on the Syrian border, and has scrambled its jets several times after it said its border was approached by Syrian helicopters. A search for the wreckage of the plane and its two missing pilots is still under way in Syrian waters. Assad said Syria had no intention of fueling tensions along its border with NATO-member Turkey. “We will not allow it to turn into an armed conflict that would harm both countries,” he said. “We did not build up our forces on the Turkish border and we will not.” He said Syria “would have apologized” for the shooting if the plane had not been shot down in Syrian airspace. He said the rise of tensions could have been prevented if channels of communication between the two militaries remained open. “We are in a state of war, so every unidentified plane is an enemy plane,” the paper quoted Assad as saying. “Let me state it again: we did not have the slightest idea about its identity when we shot it down.” Turkey, however, has insisted that the plane’s electronic signals, which indicate if an aircraft is friend or foe, were activated during the entire flight and that Turkey even intercepted radio conversations in which Syrian forces referred to the plane. Hurriyet newspaper, citing intelligence sources, said early last week that Syrian forces referred to the plane using the Turkish word for “neighbor” — “komsu” —in an intercepted radio conversation. Turkey also insisted that the plane was not spying on Syria but just testing Turkey’s radar capabilities. [Media]
• Outsourcing: What’s the true impact? Counting jobs is only part of the answer.
  By Steven Pearlstein, Published: July 2 The battle has been going on since at least the 1880s, when the first New England textile mills began moving production to the Carolinas. Whatever name it goes by — “runaway plants,” “outsourcing,” “global sourcing,” “offshoring”— workers and the public tend to hate it, executives view it as inevitable and economists defend it as part of the painful process by which market economies prosper. Now, President Obama and his election-year rival, Mitt Romney, have joined the debate. Their focus is Romney’s tenure as head of Bain Capital, which owned controlling stakes in firms that either moved their own work overseas or specialized in helping other companies do so. [Offshoring]
• Economic Sanctions portray West's Duplicity on Iran
  by Kourosh Ziabari Global Research, June 30, 2012 As Iran refuses to bow down to the illegitimate demands of the United States, Israel and their European allies to abandon its peaceful nuclear program, the inhumane economic sanctions against Tehran are being intensified, putting an excessive and unjustifiable pressure on the ordinary Iranian citizens who are unquestionably the victims of the West's hostility and antagonism toward the Islamic Republic. Since Iran ended its voluntary suspension of uranium enrichment in August 2005, the United States and its European allies have made several efforts to put huge economic and political pressure on Iran and force it into giving up its nuclear rights. Before August 2005, Iran for two years had temporarily suspended uranium enrichment as a confidence-building measure in return for assurances by the representatives of EU that it can keep up with its civilian nuclear program while the negotiations between the two sides were underway. But the EU three bloc members consisting of France, Germany and the UK retreated from their commitments and demanded that Iran should halt its uranium enrichment program permanently. In this juncture, Iran found out that the European negotiators have been insincere in their stance and that it should revise its cooperation with them. [Sanctions]
• US building $92 million military headquarters for Afghanistan
  Construction site of the Ministry of Defense in Afghanistan. The United States is spending $92 million to build Afghanistan a new "Pentagon," a massive, five-story military headquarters with domed rooves and a high-tech basement command center that will link Afghan generals with their troops fighting Taliban across the country. NATO Training Mission Afghanistan By Joshua Partlow The Washington Post Published: July 1, 2012 KABUL — The United States is spending $92 million to build Afghanistan a new “Pentagon,” a massive five-story military headquarters with domed roofs and a high-tech basement command center that will link Afghan generals with their troops fighting the Taliban across the country. But when Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak asked for a bigger office in the building — a change that would cost about $300,000 — he got a firm “no” in response. These types of changes cost time and money, U.S. military officials said, and in Afghanistan, both are in ever-shorter supply. [Client]
• For West, no satisfying explanation for Russia’s stance on Syria
  By Karen DeYoung, Published: June 30 If Russia holds the key to ending the conflict in Syria, as the Obama administration and much of the world have long said it does, then why won’t it open the door to a solution? Moscow has said it will not abandon its longtime material and moral support for President Bashar al-Assad just because the United States and other powers have ganged up on him. The Russians say they are acting out of respect for Syrian sovereignty and concern about who would replace Assad. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met on Friday in St. Petersburg, Russia. The U.S. wants Syrian President Bashar Assad to leave power. Russia opposes any 'external meddling' in Syrian affairs. Western officials and Russia experts have suggested additional reasons. They contend Russia fears losing a base of influence in the Middle East, a Mediterranean naval harbor and a reliable customer for its defense industry. Moscow also worries about Islamic extremists within the Syrian opposition and may be playing a Cold War-style game of one-upmanship and enjoying the international spotlight, they said. But for the broad coalition of countries that want to see Assad gone and an end to a conflict that has left thousands of civilians dead, there is no satisfying explanation for a policy whose eventual downsides seem blindingly obvious. “If you look at everything they claim to care about — stability, economic ties, a military and defense relationship — all of that presumably will go away if Syria crumbles into either a failed state or a prolonged sectarian conflict,” said Andrew S. Weiss, a Russia expert who served in the Bill Clinton administration. [Syria] [Bizarre] [US global strategy] [Hubris]
• America's war on Iran: the plan revealed
  Paul Rogers , 30 June 2012 The United States is more seriously preparing for military action against Iran than is widely realised. An attack - obviating the need for one by Israel - may not be immediate and is not yet certain, but it is being intensively planned. The third round of talks between Iran and the "P5+1" group, held in Moscow on 18-19 June 2012, ended in stalemate. A formal process will continue at a lower level, but amid an atmosphere of continuing mutual suspicion and in a situation where United States electoral politics work against compromise. Iran believes that most of the P5+1 is bargaining that sanctions increase their impact until Tehran bends to its will, whereas Washington holds that it is the Iranians who are happy to prolong matters while they accelerate uranium enrichment (see "Syria and Iran: a diplomatic tunnel", 25 June 2012).. Alongside these calculations, at least some European (especially German) politicians recognise that any substantial delay in negotiations could well create the space for a unilateral Israeli military strike on Iran, an act that would inaugurate a lengthy period of deep instability and perhaps an intensely destructive war.
• Syria conference leaves open whether Assad can be part of transitional government
  By Associated Press, Published: June 30 | Updated: Sunday, July 1, 9:19 AM GENEVA — An international conference on Saturday accepted a U.N.-brokered peace plan that calls for the creation of a transitional government in Syria, but at Russia’s insistence the compromise agreement left the door open to Syria’s president being part of it. The U.S. backed away from insisting that the plan should explicitly call for President Bashar Assad to have no role in a new Syrian government, hoping the concession would encourage Russia to put greater pressure on its longtime ally to end the violent crackdown that the opposition says has claimed more than 14,000 lives. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met on Friday in St. Petersburg, Russia. The U.S. wants Syrian President Bashar Assad to leave power. Russia opposes any ‘external meddling’ in Syrian affairs. But even with Russia’s most explicit statement of support yet for a political transition in Syria, it is far from certain that the plan will have any real effect in curbing the violence. A key phrase in the agreement requires that the transitional governing body “shall be formed on the basis of mutual consent,” effectively giving the present government and the opposition veto power over each other.

• What Did Turkey Think Syria Would Do?
  Syria and the Phantom by CONN HALLINAN What was that Turkish F-4 Phantom II up to when the Syrians shot it down? Ankara said the plane strayed into Syrian airspace, but quickly left and was over international waters when it was attacked, a simple case of carelessness on the part of the Turkish pilot that Syrian paranoia turned deadly. But the Phantom—eyewitnesses told Turkish television that there were two aircraft, but there is no official confirmation of that observation—was hardly on a Sunday outing. According to the Financial Times, Turkey’s Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, told the newspaper “the jet was on a test and training mission focused on Turkey’s radar defense, rather than Syria.” Translation: the F-4 was “lighting up” a radar net. It is a common—if dangerous and illegal—tactic that allows one to probe an opponent’s radar system. Most combat radar is kept in a passive mode to prevent a potential enemy from mapping out weaknesses or blind spots that can be useful in the advent of an attack. The probes also give you valuable information on how to neutralize anti-aircraft guns and ground to air missiles. “Lighting up” radar was what the US Navy EP-3E Aries II was doing near China’s Hainan Island when it collided with a Chinese interceptor in 2001. Nations normally take a very dim view of warplanes entering their air space, particularly if there is tension between the countries involved.
• Turkey goes to Nato over plane it says Syria downed in international airspace
  Foreign minister says Ankara will take incident to Nato and dismisses Syria's claim it did not know plane was Turkish guardian.co.uk, Sunday 24 June 2012 10.52 BST Ahmet Davutoglu says the Turkish jet entered Syrian airspace but quickly left, and was then shot down without warning by Syrian forces Photograph: Adem Altan/AFP/Getty Images Nato is to meet on Tuesday at Turkey's request following the shooting down of one of its warplanes by Syria in what it says was international airspace. Turkey's foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, said Ankara would formally present the incident to its Nato allies to prepare a response under article four of the organisation's founding treaty. The article provides for states to "consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the parties is threatened". It stops short of the explicit mention of possible armed responses cited in article five. The Turkish foreign ministry said on Sunday it knew the coordinates of the plane's wreckage 1,300 metres deep in the Mediterranean sea, but had not found it or the pilots. Turkey has filed an official protest to Syria about the shooting down. Davutoglu told the state broadcaster TRT on Sunday that the plane had entered Syrian airspace but quickly left when warned by Turkey and was shot down in international airspace several minutes later. [Syria] [Blame] [Media]
• In reversal, Turkey now says plane Syria shot down was over international waters
  By Roy Gutman | McClatchy Newspapers ISTANBUL — Turkey on Sunday called for a meeting of its NATO allies after charging that Syria’s shoot-down of a Turkish F4 Phantom jet Friday had occurred over international waters without any warning. The report was a reversal of Turkey’s statement Saturday that its plane had strayed over Syrian airspace.
• Operation «European Union»: the Cost of Freedom
  Elena PUSTOVOITOVA | 25.06.2012 | 00:00 The hysteria currently surrounding the global economic problems serves to divert the public attention from the arising trends in the US foreign policy. One gets an impression that in the foreseeable future the five countries seeking to shake off Washington's pervasive dictate – China, Brazil, India, Turkey, and, of course, Russia – will top the list of the US foes. Long accustomed to dominating the international politics, Washington will not tolerate other countries' eating away at its international status simply because they are about to catch up with the US in terms of the economic output or somehow have managed to preserve serious ambitions rooted in their respective histories. The US, a totally business-minded nation, runs the world with the help of the US dollar, a currency made completely nominal by the Bretton Woods accord, and is equipped with a military force of unsurpassed proportions whose mission is to maintain the last empire's global grip, with no regard for national borders. At the moment, US mercenaries are building bastions of American influence in the Balkan region, the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia, while Europe obsessed with globalism readily sacrifices its sovereignty to institutions like the IMF. [Decline] [EU]
• Turkey hits Kurdish rebels deep inside Iraq
  The Associated Press ANKARA, Turkey — Turkish warplanes have bombed Kurdish rebel hideouts deep inside northern Iraq, and Kurdish rebels killed one policeman and wounded three others in a roadside bomb attack inside Turkey on Sunday, authorities said. The military said on its website Sunday that warplanes bombed nine shelters and caves — mostly in the Mount Qandil area, where the main rebel base is located on the Iraqi-Iranian border. It said the raids began Friday. They were the second Turkish air campaign against rebel hideouts in Iraq in a week following the killing of eight Turkish soldiers along the Iraq border on Tuesday. The military said more than 30 rebels have been killed during clashes within Turkey following Tuesday's attack. Kurdish rebels have used northern Iraq as a springboard for attacks on Turkish targets in their decades-long fight for autonomy in Turkey's Kurdish-dominated southeast. In that region Sunday, rebels killed one policeman and wounded three in a roadside bomb explosion near the town of Derik in Mardin province, Gov. Turhan Ayvaz of Mardin province told the state-run Anadolu Agency. The conflict has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people since 1984. [Separatism] [Legality] [Double standards] [media]
• Michèle Flournoy on U.S. Engagement in Asia
  Former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michèle Flournoy was awarded the Policy Achievement Award at Asia Society's Washington Awards Dinner on June 19, 2012. The following is a transcript of her remarks on the future of U.S. engagement in Asia. [Decline][US global strategy]
• British forces in Syria, Assad presidential compound said under attack
  DEBKAfile Exclusive Report June 26, 2012, 11:59 AM (GMT+02:00) Tags: Syria military operation British forces Bashar Assad Vladimir Putin Qaisoun Palace British special forces on field missionUnconfirmed first reports from British, French and Turkish sources say British special operations forces crossed from Turkey into northern Syria Tuesday, May 26, and advanced up to 10 kilometers inside the country. The same sources report heavy fighting around the Presidential Guards compound on the outskirts of Damascus. debkafile’s military sources note that this compound exists to defend Bashar Assad’s presidential palace on Mount Qaisoun overlooking Damascus. British and Gulf TV stations are again running interviews with dozens of Syrian soldiers taken prisoner by rebel forces and transferred to Free Syrian Army centers in South Turkey. But this time, they are being aired in conjunction with those two developments, indicating pivotal and coordinated military action inside the embattled country, or even the start of western intervention against the Assad regime. [Special Forces] [Syria]
• Syria puts double whammy on Turkey
  By M K Bhadrakumar The shooting down of a Turkish fighter aircraft by Syria on Friday has become a classic case of coercive diplomacy. A Turkish F-4 Phantom fighter aircraft disappeared from radar screens shortly after taking off from the Erhach airbase in Malatya province in southeastern Turkey and entered Syrian airspace. According to Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), air-defense forces shot down the plane 1 kilometer off the coast from the Syrian port city of Latakia. A Turkish search-and-rescue aircraft rushed to the area of the crash but came under Syrian fire and had to pull out.
• NATO Switches to Smart Defense
  23.05.2012 Sergey Filatov, observer with the International Affairs journal The May 20-21, 2012 NATO summit which convened in Chicago, announced the Alliance's strategic turn to defense on the worldwide scale. The forum further rolled out the smart defense concept which, as NATO Secretary General Anders Rasmussen explained, implies 'a renewed culture of cooperation'1. The alliance, according to its Secretary General, is moving towards a profound transformation, the purpose being to emerge as a pole in the security network spanning most of the world's countries and organizations. “Chicago will not be the end of our efforts, only the start,” said Rasmussen2. Translated into commonly understood language, the above amounts to NATO's bid for global control. It is worth noting that, unprecedentedly, the summit drew to the City of Winds a total of 28 country leaders and represented a concert of over 50 countries3. The list of guests ranged from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon (and that alone gave an idea of the relative positions of the UN and NATO in the global hierarchy!), to Ukrainian president V. Yanukovych, Afghanistan's H. Karzai, and the heads of a dozen of NATO's newly gained partner-countries - Qatar, Jordan, and Morocco - which assisted NATO in the campaign against late M. Gaddafi. More would have gladly shown up but were not rewarded with invitations. For example, due to the ferocious objections voiced by Turkey, Israel was left out, as were the rising heavyweights China and India. [US global strategy] [NATO] [Alliance]
• Syrian downing of Turkish jet serves as warning
  By Greg Jaffe, Published: June 27 The Syrian government’s downing of a Turkish fighter jet has served as a stark warning that its military is capable of mounting a sophisticated defense against potential enemies, complicating a Libya-style intervention. Turkey has said that it has no immediate plans to respond to the incident with military action. But the Turkish prime minister warned Tuesday that he had ordered commanders along the country’s southern border to treat any Syrian military approach as a threat, escalating concerns that Turkey — along with the United States and its allies — could be drawn into a regional war. Details of the plane incident along the Syrian coast are still emerging, but officials said Syria beefed up its air defenses with purchases from Russia after Israeli fighter jets destroyed a nuclear reactor under construction in the Syrian desert nearly five years ago. At least on paper, U.S. military officials said, the Syrian air defenses appear to be far more robust than those encountered by NATO in Libya and stronger than even Iran. “I can name you worse [systems], but they are in places like China,” said an Air Force official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. [Syria] [Air power]
• NATO War Council To Target Syria
  by Rick Rozoff Global Research, June 26, 2012 On Tuesday, June 26 Belgium time the North Atlantic Council, the highest governing body of the U.S.-dominated North Atlantic Treaty Organization military bloc, will take up the issue of Syria under provisions of its founding document that in the past ten and a half years have resulted in military deployments preparatory to and the subsequent waging of full-scale wars. The ambassadors of the alliance's 28 member states constitute the council, nations whose collective population is 900 million. Its founding members include three nuclear powers - the U.S., Britain and France - the first the self-proclaimed world's sole military superpower. Until the day before the meeting NATO was to take up a request by member Turkey to hold consultations under the terms of the North Atlantic (Washington) Treaty's Article 4, which allows any member state to call on the entire alliance to respond to alleged threats to its territorial integrity and security. On June 25, three days after a Turkish F-14 supersonic fighter-bomber was shot down over Syrian waters, Turkey announced that it was going to ask the military alliance to discuss its Article 5, which states that "an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all" and commits NATO allies to "assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force..." [Turkey] [Syria] [Inversion]
• Jimmy Carter savages US foreign policy over drone strikes
  Former president calls on Washington to regain moral leadership in wake of drone strikes and targeted assassinations
  Drone strikes and targeted assassinations abroad have seen the US violating human rights in a way that "abets our enemies and alienates our friends", according to the former president Jimmy Carter. He said America was "abandoning its role as a champion of human rights", and called on Washington to "reverse course and regain moral leadership". Revelations that US officials were targeting people including their own citizens abroad were "only the most recent disturbing proof" of how far such violations had extended, he wrote in the New York Times. At a time when popular revolutions were sweeping the globe, the US should be strengthening, not weakening, "basic rules of law and principles of justice", Carter said. [UAV] [Assassination] [Jimmy Carter] [Ethics] [Softpower]
• Syrian Air Defense Stands Firm against NATO Test
  Andrey ARESHEV | 25.06.2012 | 19:54 Ankara is trying to get the most out of the incident when a Turkish reconnaissance aircraft was downed flying over the Syrian territorial waters on June 22. The North Atlantic Council will meet on June 26 to hold consultations on the issue. NATO spokesperson Oana Lungescu said Turkey would submit a corresponding report in Brussels. On June 22. a Turkish Air Force RF-4E Phantom fighter aircraft disappeared from radar screens an hour and a half after taking off from the Erhach airbase in the Hatay province in southeastern Turkey bordering on Syria (1). A bit later Damascus said the aircraft was hit after entering the Syrian airspace stressing the incident was not to be considered as a “hostile act against Turkey”. Ankara responded saying Syria was to warn the crew about the planned action according to international law. By putting it this way Turkey admitted that its plane violated Syrian air space. Even in a much less tense situation than the one taking place in Syria now it couldn’t do without consequence. True, Turkey added later that while in international airspace the downed fighter “accidently” came near Syria but it sounded absolutely unconvincing. Right after that Ibrahim Kalyn, foreign policy advisor to the Turkish prime minister, accused Syria of “violating international law” and posted remarks on his microblog saying Turkey would take “strong and resolute measures” in response to the downed fighter. According to the data available the brought down reconnaissance plane made two circles over the Syrian shore invading the country’s airspace. Flying that low it had the mission to test the Syrian air defenses and report the information to a respective NATO center [Syria] [Airpower]
• Turkey admits downed plane had strayed into Syrian airspace
  By Roy Gutman | McClatchy Newspapers ISTANBUL — Turkey and Syria on Saturday pulled back from a possible confrontation over Syria’s downing of a Turkish fighter jet that had strayed across their common border into Syrian air space Friday. As their respective navies searched for the two missing Turkish crew, both sides said Friday’s clash had been accidental. A spokesman for the Syrian foreign ministry said the military unit that shot down the Turkish F4 Phantom interceptor had not realized the aircraft was Turkish and added: “There was no enmity against Turkey.” Spokesman Jihad Makdisi made the comment to the Turkish state news channel TRT, AP reported. Earlier Saturday, Turkish President Abdullah Gul said the Turkish incursion into Syrian air space was not deliberate. “It is routine for jet fighters to sometimes fly in and out over borders,” he said. “These are not ill-intentioned things, but happen beyond control due to the jets’ speed.” It wasn’t clear how or whether Turkey would retaliate. Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/06/23/153548/turkey-admits-downed-plane-had.html#storylink=cpy [Syria] [Blame]
• Members of Congress trade in companies while making laws that affect those same firms
  By Dan Keating, David S. Fallis, Kimberly Kindy and Scott Higham, Sunday, June 24, 2:47 PM One-hundred-thirty members of Congress or their families have traded stocks collectively worth hundreds of millions of dollars in companies lobbying on bills that came before their committees, a practice that is permitted under current ethics rules, a Washington Post analysis has found. The lawmakers bought and sold a total of between $85 million and $218 million in 323 companies registered to lobby on legislation that appeared before them, according to an examination of all 45,000 individual congressional stock transactions contained in computerized financial disclosure data from 2007 to 2010. [Corruption]
• Turkey deliberates over response to downing of one of its planes by Syria
  Video: Syria said Saturday that it shot down a Turkish military jet because the aircraft had violated its airspace, but Turkey threatened retaliatory action as it searched for its two missing pilots. By Liz Sly, Published: June 23 | Updated: Sunday, June 24, 8:06 AM BEIRUT — Turkey was weighing its response Saturday after Syria shot down one of its military jets, an incident that sent tensions soaring between two neighbors already at odds over the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad’s rule. The deliberations appeared to be focusing in part on whether the Turkish plane was in Syrian airspace when it was hit, as the Syrian government claims. Two pilots remained missing late Saturday, and the Turkish and Syrian navies had launched a massive rescue operation in the eastern Mediterranean, where the aircraft came down. Turkish President Abdullah Gul was quoted by Turkish news media as saying the government was trying to ascertain where the plane was when the incident occurred Friday, suggesting it was looking for ways to ease the crisis.
• Kony 2012 and America's Conquest of Africa's Mineral Wealth
  by Nile Bowie Global Research, June 21, 2012 As public interest in African affairs briefly found a place in mainstream talking points following a controversial viral video campaign about Ugandan rebel group, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), both the United States and the African Union are mobilizing military forces to Central Africa to counter further threats to civilian safety posed by the group. Following the US deployment of one hundred military personnel to Uganda in 2011, the African Union has deployed a 5,000-solider brigade to LRA affected areas, tasked with pursuing the group and its leader, Joseph Kony [1]. In the United States, a new bill co-authored by U.S. Representative Edward Royce has been introduced to the Congress calling for the further expansion of regional military forces into the nations of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic and the newly formed South Sudan [2]. Although the Lord’s Resistance Army has been accused of recruiting child soldiers and conducting crimes against humanity throughout its two-decade campaign for greater autonomy against the Ugandan government, the group is presently comprised of less than four hundred soldiers [3] and remains a questionable threat. Meanwhile, China’s deepening economic engagement in Africa and its crucial role in developing the mining and industrial sectors of several nations is reportedly creating "deep nervousness" in the West, according to David Shinn, former US ambassador to Burkina Faso and Ethiopia [4]. As the Obama administration claims to welcome the peaceful rise of China on the world stage, recent policy shifts toward an increased US military presence in several alleged LRA hotspots threaten deepening Chinese commercial activity in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, widely considered the world’s most resource rich nation [5]. As China maintains its record of consistently strong economic performance, Washington is crusading against China's export restrictions on minerals that are crucial components in the production of consumer electronics such as flat-screen televisions, smart phones, laptop batteries, and a host of other products. As the United States, European Union and Japan project international pressure on the World Trade Organization and the World Bank to block financing for China’s extensive mining projects [6], US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s irresponsible accusations of China perpetuating a creeping “new colonialism” of the African continent remain rather telling [7]. As China is predicted to formally emerge as the world’s largest economy in 2016 [8], the successful aggregation of African resources remains a key component to its ongoing rivalry with the United States. The villainous branding of Joseph Kony may well be deserved, however it cannot be overstated that the LRA threat is wholly misrepresented in recent pro-intervention US legislation. The vast majority of LRA attacks have reportedly taken place in the north-eastern Bangadi region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, located on the foot of a tri-border expanse between the Central African Republic and South Sudan. However, the small number of deaths reported by official sources in recent times relies on unconfirmed reports where LRA activity is “presumed” and “suspected” [9]. Considering the Congo’s extreme instability after decades of foreign invasion, falsely crediting the LRA with the region’s longstanding cases of violence for political gain becomes relatively simple for those looking to gain enormous contracts for Congolese resources. [Pretext] [Africa] [China confrontation]
• Why Miloševic Yielded
  by Andrew Cockburn Paul Wilson, in his review of Madeleine Albright’s Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937–1948 [NYR, June 7], sensibly puts quotation marks around the word “success” in referring to the seventy-eight-day NATO bombing campaign against Serbia in 1999, hailed at the time by John Keegan as “proof positive that wars can be won by airpower alone.” As Wilson correctly observes, the war “transformed liberal attitudes to military intervention,” its legacy celebrated in subsequent campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and, perhaps in the near future, Syria and Iran. The war was indeed a triumph for air power, though not quite in the way Keegan and others understand. The eleven-week bombing offensive against Serbian military and civilian targets ended when Slobodan Miloševic agreed to evacuate Kosovo, and it was therefore a simple matter for air power partisans to claim victory—a clear case of post hoc, propter hoc. In the view of many on the ground, however, the Serbs yielded for political, not military reasons. In the words of Lieutenant General Michael Jackson, commander of the British contingent advancing into Kosovo, it was the Russian government’s abandonment of its ally Miloševic that had “the greatest significance in ending the war.” Indeed, Miloševic accepted the allied terms immediately the Kremlin had spoken. [Airpower] [Disinformation] [UAV]
• Saudi Arabia plans to fund Syria rebel army
  Exclusive: Command centre in Turkey organising weapon supply to opposition Martin Chulov in Beirut, Ewen MacAskill in Washington, John Densky in Idlib province guardian.co.uk, Friday 22 June 2012 18.03 BST Comments (277) Free Syria Army fighters are to be paid by Saudi Arabia in an attempt to encourage pro-Assad troops to defect. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images Saudi officials are preparing to pay the salaries of the Free Syria Army as a means of encouraging mass defections from the military and increasing pressure on the Assad regime, the Guardian has learned. The move, which has been discussed between Riyadh and senior officials in the US and Arab world, is believed to be gaining momentum as a recent flush of weapons sent to rebel forces by Saudi Arabia and Qatar starts to make an impact on battlefields in Syria. Officials in the Saudi capital embraced the idea when it was put to them by Arab officials in May, according to sources in three Arab states, around the same time that weapons started to flow across the southern Turkish border into the hands of Free Syria Army leaders. [Syria] [Outsourcing]
• Qargha Lake siege undercuts U.S.-led narrative that Afghanistan war is on track
  Norwegian special forces – trainers for the Afghan police commandos who supposedly had the lead in the operation – raid the restaurant where the attackers were holed up | Jon Stephenson/McClatchy By Jon Stephenson | McClatchy Newspapers QARGHA LAKE, Afghanistan — The handful of insurgents who launched an assault on a resort on Qargha Lake, west of Kabul, provided yet another deadly reminder Friday that security in Afghanistan is hardly as rosy as portrayed by U.S.-led coalition commanders and Pentagon officials in Washington. The attack – in which insurgents stormed the peaceful resort frequented by Afghan families, leaving 18 Afghans dead including a police officer and several security guards – capped off a week of bloodshed that has seen a spate of audacious and well-planned attacks. With every episode of fresh violence, the story that the war is going well, or at least according to plan, seems to be unraveling.
• US shopping for «lily pads» in Central Asia
  Melkulangara BHADRAKUMAR | 22.06.2012 | 10:24 The hidden agenda of the United States’ invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 lay enveloped by the fog of the war for most of the past ten-year period. The angst in Afghanistan as well as in the regional capitals – especially New Delhi – used to be that the stalemate of the war would prompt the US and its allies to “cut and run” in the near future so as to avoid an ignominious defeat in a war that was also becoming prohibitively expensive. Indeed, the US fuelled this misperception to prevail even while quietly investing hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade certain select bases in Afghanistan where the American troops would be quartered on a long-term basis. It has only been in the past year or so that the US began acknowledging publicly that it wasn’t really contemplating an exit from the Hindu Kush. And when it did acknowledge, the rhetoric took a curious turn as if the US is making a solemn commitment to the Afghan people rather than its plans to occupy Afghanistan for years or decades to come as part of a long-term geo-strategy. Even now, when the topic of discussion is the withdrawal of the US forces from Afghanistan by end-2014, it is being overlooked in much of the world opinion that something like 50000 troops will stay back for an indefinite period in the region, including combat troops and air power. But then, the argument goes that 50000 US troops cannot be expected to turn the tide of the war when three times that number (during the ‘surge’ in 2010) couldn’t succeed, after all. So, where is the need of a hidden agenda? In bits and pieces, however, the hidden agenda is finally beginning to surface [Bases] [US global strategy]
• U.S. eyes return to some Southeast Asia military bases
  By Craig Whitlock, Saturday, June 23, 1:26 PM As the Obama administration revamps its Asian strategy in response to a rising China, the U.S. military is eyeing a return to some familiar bases from its last conflict in the region — the Vietnam War. In recent weeks, the Pentagon has intensified discussions with Thailand about creating a regional disaster-relief hub at an American-built airfield that housed B-52 bombers during the 1960s and 1970s. U.S. officials said they are also interested in more naval visits to Thai ports and joint surveillance flights to monitor trade routes and military movements. [Bases] [Humanitarian intervention] [Pretext] [US global strategy]
• Turkey says it will take ‘steps’ after determining that Syria shot down missing jet
  By Liz Sly, Saturday, June 23, 6:53 AM BEIRUT — Turkey vowed to take “necessary steps” after concluding that Syria shot down a Turkish fighter jet near the Syrian border on Friday, sending tensions soaring in the already fraught region. In a terse statement issued after an emergency security meeting summoned by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish government said that a missing F-4 fighter jet had been brought down by Syria. The statement said Turkey “will make its final position known once the evidence is fully uncovered and will determinedly take necessary steps.” The fate of the jet’s two pilots was unknown, and Turkey said that Syrian vessels had joined in a massive search operation in the eastern Mediterranean where the plane was thought to have gone down. The Turkish military said earlier that it had lost contact with the warplane shortly before noon as it flew over the southern Turkish province of Hatay. After Turkey, a NATO member, confirmed the shooting, a Syrian military spokesman issued a statement acknowledging that it had shot the plane down at 11:40 a.m., after it approached Syria at low altitude from the sea. “An unidentified aerial target violated Syrian airspace, coming from the west at a very low altitude and at high speed over territorial waters, so the Syrian anti-air defenses counteracted with anti-aircraft artillery,” said the statement, carried by the official news agency SANA. The plane was less than a mile away from the Syrian coast when it was hit and it came down about six miles away, in Syrian territorial waters, the statement said. [Media] [Heading] [Syria]
• ‘Little America’ excerpt: Obama’s troop increase for Afghan war was misdirected
  The United States made remarkable progress in part of southern Afghanistan with the deployment of thousands of Marines. But was it worth it? (Rajiv Chandrasekaran/Anup Kaphle/Jason Aldag/The Washington Post) By Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Saturday, June 23, 2:47 AM Excerpted from “Little America: The War Within the War for Afghanistan.” The day after he arrived in Kabul in June 2009, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, then the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, gathered his senior officers to discuss the state of the war. They barraged him with PowerPoint slides — the frequency of Taliban attacks and their impact; the number of local security forces; and an evaluation of the Afghan government’s effectiveness in each province. The metrics were grim, the conclusion obvious: The Americans and their NATO allies were losing. [Strategic incoherence]
• Asylum for Julian Assange?
  By Editorial Board, Thursday, June 21, 12:02 PM RAFAEL CORREA, a small-time South American autocrat, may smell a political opportunity. Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan populist who has been his political mentor, appears to be dying of cancer. That means the role of chief Yanqui-baiter and friend-to-rogues, which Mr. Chavez has modeled for the past dozen years, may soon come open. Mr. Correa, who has been president of Ecuador since 2007, has been doing his best to establish his bona fides: In January, for example, he hosted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Quito. [Human rights] [Media] [Bizarre]
• Afghan refugees forced to return home
  View Photo Gallery — Afghan refugees forced to return home:?Many Afghans in Pakistan are heading home after years in exile. By Kevin Sieff, Published: June 21 Kabul — During the last stretch of his family’s journey home, Esmatullah perched atop a truckload of kitchenware, firewood and furniture, hurtling toward Kabul while the evidence of three decades in exile shifted beneath him. On either side of the truck, the bazaars grew denser. The buildings became taller and more fortified. American convoys snaked through traffic, heading downtown. Life and war in Afghanistan: June 2012:?See our continuing photo coverage of life in Afghanistan as coalition forces fight the Taliban. Nearly two days after leaving their home in Pakistan, Esmatullah and his 22 relatives had made it to Afghanistan’s capital, after 30 years as refugees. They looked out at their country. They tried not to panic. The uncertainty shrouding Afghanistan’s future has prompted thousands of Afghans to seek an escape route — foreign visa applications, asylum pleas, long journeys across the border. But every day, families swim against that current, returning to Afghanistan after years abroad, finding a country that has been transformed by all the development and war wrought by a decade-long U.S. intervention and a persistent insurgency. Some of the returnees are here by choice — nostalgic for the country of their youth, drawn back by word of renewed security and opportunity. Most, like Esmatullah’s family, have returned involuntarily — compelled by the Pakistani government’s unwillingness to extend their refugee status. Nearly 3 million Afghans will be expelled from Pakistan by the end of the year if an extension isn’t granted, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Such a mass deportation could further destabilize Afghanistan, straining its economy and challenging its fledgling security forces. [Refugee] [AfPak]
• Somebody in government finally asks a taxing question about the next war
  By Walter Pincus, Published: June 21 At last, after 11 years of the United States at war, a few minutes of public discussion of a tax to pay for the fighting. But that would be for the next war. “What would be the impact of going to war again without committing to pay for that war with up-front taxes, something we did not do in either Iraq or Afghanistan, for the first time in the history of the country?” Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) asked Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta at a Senate Defense Appropriation subcommittee hearing on June 13. That’s a question that should be asked before any president sends U.S. forces into a fight overseas or members of Congress propose legislation that authorizes some sort of military action abroad. “We basically ran that war [Iraq] on a credit card,” Leahy told Panetta, who was there to discus the fiscal 2013 Defense Appropriations bill. “Now we find people who are calling for more military action in other parts of the world; at the same time, they do not want to consider any way of paying for it.” [Militarisation] [Debt] [Decline]
• Russian ship carrying helicopters to Syria turns back
  By Karen DeYoung, Published: June 20 A Russian ship carrying attack helicopters to the Syrian government turned back toward home Tuesday after its London-based insurance carrier canceled coverage, following a warning from the British government that the delivery would violate European Union sanctions. U.S. and British officials said the ship, which had reached the North Sea near Scotland, appeared to be returning to its home port on the Baltic Sea. A Pentagon official says the U.S. believes three Russian ships carrying supplies and possibly personnel will be departing for Syria and the U.S. has no reason to believe they are headed anywhere other than Russia's naval base in Tartus. The Obama administration declined to claim credit for stopping the journey of the Russian-owned merchant vessel Alaed. But the insurance tactic was originated by the Treasury Department four months ago to prevent at least two shipments of Syrian oil from reaching the open market via Iran, a senior administration official said. [Subcritical]
• Iraq: War Crimes, Lies and Statistics
  by Felicity Arbuthnot Global Research, June 18, 2012 Recently a contradictory, but in important areas, remarkably sunny opinion poll on “progress” in Iraq, conducted in April, was released. (i) It was, it has to be said, a divide and rule sort of survey as it split respondents in to Shia, Sunni, Kurdish – the Shia, obviously were largely supportive of Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki, from the Iranian backed Dawa Party. However, for those in the West wishing a phoenix to rise from Iraq’s ashes - the illegal invasion, occupation, destruction, resultant mass graves of maybe one and a half million beings, the million orphans, the over four million displaced, the unimaginable, near industrial scale, often daily carnage, nearly a decade on – incredibly, things are looking up. Around half the respondents thought Iraq was going in the right direction and that Nuri al Maliki was OK at the steering wheel. (Don’t mention torture, secret prisons, hasty swathes of executions and a largely more than questionable judiciary.) Near three quarter polled said it: “… was more important to have a strong leader to keep Iraq stable, even if it meant giving up some freedoms.” Arguably then they would have done better with President Saddam Hussein. He even managed to keep the lights and water on for longer, the streets safe and grenade and car bomb free (with the exception of the occasional car bombs, allegedly courtesy of CIA-backed, former post-invasion, interim, allegedly British passport holding “Prime Minister” Iyad Allawi’s Iraq National Accord’s handiwork.) [NGO]
• Julian Assange seeking asylum in Ecuadorian embassy in London
  WikiLeaks founder walked into the embassy and asked for asylum under the United Nations human rights declaration Esther Addley and Beatrice Woolf guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 20 June 2012 02.05 BST Julian Assange has dramatically sought political asylum at the Ecuadorean embassy in London, days after the supreme court rejected the last of his appeals against extradition to Sweden to face sex crime accusations and after what he called a "declaration of abandonment" by his own government in Australia. In a move that appears to have surprised even some of his closest supporters, the WikiLeaks founder walked into the country's embassy in Knightsbridge and asked for asylum, citing the UN declaration of human rights. "I can confirm I arrived at the Ecuadorean embassy and sought diplomatic sanctuary and political asylum," Assange said in a statement. "This application has been passed to the ministry of foreign affairs in the capital Quito. I am grateful to the Ecuadorean ambassador and the government of Ecuador for considering my application." [Human rights]
• The Mortal Combat in the Land of Pharaohs
  Igor IGNATCHENKO | 20.06.2012 | 00:00 The run-off presidential election took place on June 16-17. Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi and Ahmed Shafiq, the presidential hopeful representing the military and the last prime minister of the Hosni Mubarak regime, came to clash in a decisive grapple. The name of the winner is to become public on June 21. Perhaps even a more significant event took place a week before the date: the Egypt’s Supreme Court annulled the parliamentary election results recognizing the parliament as illegal. According to the Court’s decision the parliament, where the Islamists have 70% of seats, is to be dissolved. Before that the Political Isolation Law forbidding former high standing officials to hold political office had been reversed to make General Ahmed Shafiq a legal runner in the run-off presidential election. Preceding the reversal decision another law had been passed making legal the arrests of civilians by military police. As a result the Egyptian Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has concentrated all power - executive, legislative and judicial - in its hands. [US global strategy] [Islamist]
• Koch brothers, Cato Institute reach settlement
  By Allen McDuffee David Koch, shown in April 2011. (Mark Lennihan - AP) The Cato Institute and billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch have reached an agreement that will end their legal dispute for control of the libertarian think tank. The two have been embroiled in a public battle since ÂMarch 1 when the Kochs filed a lawsuit over the distribution of controlling shares of the think tank, first reported by The Washington Post. A subsequent lawsuit was filed in April in response to additions Cato made to its board. Charles Koch (Bloomberg News) Today’s settlement, first reported at the National Journal based on an internal e-mail, includes a solution to dissolve the controversial shareholders agreement, and Edward H. Crane, Cato co-founder its only president in 1977, will step down. Crane, who is nearing retirement, told Think Tanked in an interview this spring that he offered to step down multiple times in the last year in exchange for dissolution of the shareholder’s agreement, despite having “at least a few good years” left in him. The Koch’s declined. [Thinktank]
• Veteran Kurdish politician calls on Israel to support the break-up of Syria
  16.5.2012 By Jonathan Spyer - The Jerusalem Post May 16, 2012 Sherkoh Abbas, a veteran Syrian Kurdish dissident, called on Israel this week to support the break-up of Syria into a series of federal structures based on the country’s various ethnicities. Speaking from Washington, Abbas was also critical of US attempts to induce Syrian Kurds to join and work with the main opposition body, the Syrian National Council. Abbas, who heads the Washington- based Kurdistan National Assembly, said that dismantling Syria into ethnic enclaves with a federal administration would serve to “break the link” between Syria and the Iran-led “Shi’a crescent.” Syrian Kurdish, Druse, Alawite and Sunni Arab federal areas, he suggested, would have no interest in aligning with Iran. At the same time, a federalized Syria would avoid the possibility of a resurgent, Muslim Brotherhood-controlled Sunni Islamist Syria emerging as a new challenge to Israel and the West. “We need to break Syria into pieces,” Abbas said. [Syria] [Fragmentation]
• Hidden US-Israeli Military Agenda: "Break Syria into Pieces"
  by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky Global Research, June 16, 2012 A timely article in the Jerusalem Post last month brings to the forefront the unspoken objective of US foreign policy, namely the breaking up of Syria as a sovereign nation state --along ethnic and religious lines-- into several separate and "independent" political entities. The article also confirms the role of Israel in the process of political destabilization of Syria. The JP article is titled: "Veteran Kurdish politician calls on Israel to support the break-up of Syria' (by Jonathan Spyer) (The Jerusalem Post (May 16, 2012) The objective of the US sponsored armed insurgency is --with the help of Israel-- to "Break Syria into Pieces". The "balkanisation of the Syrian Arab Republic" is to be carried out by fostering sectarian divisions, which will eventually lead to a "civil war" modelled on the former Yugoslavia. Last month, Syrian "opposition militants" were dispatched to Kosovo to organize training sessions using the "terrorist expertise" of the US sponsored Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in fighting the Yugoslav armed forces. Sherkoh Abbas, President of the US based Kurdistan National Assembly of Syria (KNA) has "called on Israel to support the break-up of Syria into a series of federal structures based on the country’s various ethnicities." (Ibid) [Syria] [Fragmentation]
• The Technocratization of Public Education
  Subverting educational practices by Prof. James F. Tracy Global Research, June 14, 2012 The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is directing $1.1 million to fit students in seven US pubic school districts with “galvanic skin response” bracelets. The devices are designed to measure students' receptivity to teachers’ lessons through biometric technology that reads and records “skin conductance, a form of electrodermal activity that grows higher during states such as boredom or relaxation.” [1, 2]. The funding is part of the Gates Foundation’s $49.5 million Measures of Effective Teachers project that is presently experimenting with teacher evaluation systems. As Melinda Gates put it on the PBS NewsHour, “What the Foundation feels our job is to do is to make sure we create a system where we can have an effective teacher in every single classroom across the United States.” [3] The effort of extraordinarily wealthy elites to further subvert educational practices through “neuromarketing” techniques is the latest example in a long sequence of educational reforms dating to the early 1900s. Indeed, the Gates Foundation’s fixation on stimulus-response measurement and data collection is a fitting chapter of this history. State sanctioned education in the United States has become a type of task-oriented training, quite apart from what education once involved--the cultivation of the human will and intellect. Children in most public schools today receive this type of conditioning, while the more affluent often send their offspring to private institutions or home school. What passes for education today is to a significant degree the legacy of late-nineteenth-to-early-twentieth century German psychologist Wilhelm Wundt and the Rockefeller family's philanthropic project. [Education]
• On the offensive, rebels push Syrian military out of cities around Homs
  By David Enders | McClatchy Newspapers TALBISEH, Syria — This city is almost completely empty after a week of heavy shelling by the Syrian government. But it is empty of government forces as well. The shelling, which killed 20 civilians and five rebel fighters, failed to dislodge rebels who had driven the Syrian military out of nearly a dozen bases and checkpoints in the city over a period of two days earlier this month. Syrian president Bashar Assad has promised a new offensive to drive rebels from their strongholds in the center of Homs, the country’s third largest city, as the civil war in Syria grinds on. Opposition activist groups reported that Syrian troops bombarded Homs on Sunday with mortar rounds and heavy machine guns, leaving at least 11 people dead. The site of the worst violence in the country since a peaceful uprising against Assad became an armed rebellion last year, Homs has been preparing for more fighting as Syrian troops massed around rebel-held neighborhoods there over the weekend. But the troop buildup belied the fact that more of the countryside around Homs – which includes Talbiseh – had fallen out of the government’s control. Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/06/17/152639/on-the-offensive-rebels-push-syrian.html#storylink=cpy
• Intelligence experts: Nato has options on Assad
  Today @ 09:27 By Andrew Rettman Andrew email BRUSSELS - A former Israeli intelligence chief has said EU and Nato countries can do more on Syria than complaining about Russia or imposing sanctions. The contact, who asked not to be named, spoke to diplomats and press in the EU capital last week. He said the Sunni Muslim opposition is not going to win by itself. Assad's generals, secret police chiefs and his diplomatic corps are still loyal and important minorities - such as Alawite Muslims, Druze Muslims and Christians, as well as businessmen in Damascus and Aleppo - do not want Sunni rule. Outside the country, Russia, Iran, Shia Muslims in Iraq and Shittes and Christians in Lebanon, also want him to stay. "When you see a real general, preferably an Alawite general, defect, then you will know he is on his way out ... Unless the Druze clearly change position, he is quite stable," the contact noted.
• THE COUP OF 2012: Encroachment upon Basic Freedoms, Militarized Police State in America
  by Frank Morales Global Research, June 14, 2012 Email this article to a friend Print this article 3digg 306Share Back in 1992 the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff held a "Strategy Essay Competition." The winner was a National War College student paper entitled, "The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012." Authored by Colonel Charles J. Dunlap, Jr. the paper is a well documented, "darkly imagined excursion into the future." The ostensibly fictional work is written from the perspective of an imprisoned senior military officer about to be executed for opposing the military takeover of America, a coup accomplished through "legal" means. The essay makes the point that the coup was "the outgrowth of trends visible as far back as 1992," including "the massive diversion of military forces to civilian uses," particularly law enforcement. http://www.carlisle.army.mil/USAWC/Parameters/Articles/1992/1992%20dunlap.pdf Dunlap cites what he considered a dangerous precedent, the 1981 Military Cooperation with Civilian Law Enforcement Agencies Act, an act that sanctioned US military engagement with law enforcement in domestic “support operations,” including “civil disturbance” operations. The act codified the lawful status and use of military “assets” in domestic police work. [Militarisation]
• Reporting conflict in Syria
  Jon Williams | 16:23 UK time, Thursday, 7 June 2012 Some months ago, I reflected on the difficulties of reporting from Syria. The deaths of Marie Colvin and a dozen other journalists in the country so far this year has given us cause to think long and hard about the very real dangers there. But so too does the complexity of the situation on the ground in Syria, and the need to try to separate fact from fiction. Damascus prides itself on being the oldest, continually inhabited city in the world. It also has the longest history of rumours passing for fact. I spent three days in Syria earlier this week, talking to all sides involved in the current conflict. Waking up on my first morning, social media was alive with reports that the mobile phone network was down. True enough, I could access the hotel wi-fi but not place a call. On Twitter and Facebook, people claimed the phones had been turned off as the precursor to a major military assault. The truth it seems was more prosaic. It's the high school exam season in Syria - diplomats claimed the real reason was the phone network had been turned off to prevent students cheating. Even in a conflict zone, good grades count for a lot. In the aftermath of the massacre at Houla last month, initial reports said some of the 49 children and 34 women killed had their throats cut. In Damascus, Western officials told me the subsequent investigation revealed none of those found dead had been killed in such a brutal manner. [Syria] [Evidence] [Media]
• BBC world news editor: Houla massacre coverage based on opposition propaganda
  By Chris Marsden 15 June 2012 As quietly as possible, BBC world news editor Jon Williams has admitted that the coverage of last month’s Houla massacre in Syria by the world’s media and his own employers was a compendium of lies. Datelined 16:23, June 7, Williams chose a personal blog to make a series of fairly frank statements explaining that there was no evidence whatsoever to identify either the Syrian Army or Alawite militias as the perpetrators of the May 25 massacre of 100 people. By implication, Williams also suggests strongly that such allegations are the product of the propaganda department of the Sunni insurgents seeking to overthrow Bashar al-Assad. [Syria] [Disinformation] [Media]
• British journalist “set up to be shot” by Syrian rebels
  By Richard Tyler 12 June 2012 The mass media rarely questions the official version of events in Syria. It functions as a propaganda tool for the major imperialist powers to justify their policy of regime change in Syria and the region more broadly. The role of the United States and the UK in deliberately stoking up sectarian conflict in Syria to this end, with the aid of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, is airbrushed entirely from media accounts. An account filed last week by Alex Thomson, chief correspondent for Britain’s Channel 4 News, marked a rare and revealing breach in official propaganda. It gave an indication of what is really taking place on the ground and the filthy role being played by the Western-backed opposition. On his blog, Thomson explained that during a trip to Syria he and his news team were deliberately set up by opposition forces to be killed by the Syrian Army. [Syria] [Disinformation] [Media]
• Set up to be shot in Syria’s no man’s land?
  Friday 8 June 2012 7:45 am Alex Thomson Standing outside the Safir Hotel in Homs as the white UN Nissan landcruisers stood waiting, the Irish officer in charge, Mark Reynolds, came over: “Usual rules Alex OK? We’re not responsible for you guys. If you get into trouble we’ll leave you, yes? You’re on your own.” [Syria] [Disinformation] [Media]
• Phony ‘Houla Massacre’: How Media Manipulates Public Opinion For Regime Change in Syria
  Patrick Henningsen Infowars.com May 28, 2012 If you are still needing an academic tutorial on exactly how the mainstream media is able to generate a completely phony public consensus to support foreign intervention projects, you need look no further than the dangerous, fictional narrative currently being rolled out regarding Syria. This past Saturday and Sunday morning, almost every major corporate mainstream newspaper and TV network in North America and in Europe ran with the average headline, “Massacre of the children as Syrian forces hit rebels”, giving hundreds of millions of readers and viewers to artificial impression that it was Syrian government forces – and not western-backed terrorist groups, who carried out a massacre on children and others days ago - even though, the true culprit of these attacks has not yet been determined – a fact which was only briefly mentioned later on in these very same media reports. One of the UK best-selling weekend papers and most widely read online journals, Guardian media group’s The Observer, ran such a headline – one which shamelessly implied that the Syrian government carried out a massacre in Houla. This was used to shape public opinion in Europe, a reality which is later shaped for the North American market. [Syria] [Disinformation] [Media]
• Mexico's 'maquiladora' labor system keeps workers in poverty
  The production line at a factory in Ciudad Acuna, Mexico Employees work the production line at a factory in Ciudad Acuna, Coahuila state, Mexico. | Marcelo A. Salinas/MCT By Tim Johnson | McClatchy Newspapers CIUDAD ACUNA, Mexico — By day, Sergio Martinez labors in a modern air-conditioned factory a few miles from the Texas border, a human cog in the global supply chain that helps build pickups and tractor-trailer cabs. He wears a smart uniform at work. At night, he comes home to a dirt-floor shack with a bare light bulb and no indoor plumbing. Mosquitoes buzz incessantly. He and his family live like poor dirt farmers. His salary of $7.50 a day is enough to provide for the family dinner table, the cost of bootleg water and electricity, and an occasional article of discarded clothing for his wife or two girls, but rarely anything else. Martinez, 35, is emblematic of the industrial sector of Mexico, a magnet for foreign investment hitched to a strong U.S. locomotive. Factories in Mexico pump out plasma TVs, BlackBerry smartphones, kitchen blenders, airplane components and automobiles. Yet millions of workers, like Martinez, can only dream of climbing from the lower class to buy the appliances, smartphones and cars they help manufacture. Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/06/17/152220/mexicos-maquiladora-labor-system.html#storylink=cpy [SEZ] [Labour]
• Vietnam, the US and China
  by GABRIEL KOLKO If history proves anything, it is that nothing can be taken for granted. Men and parties that rule nations fall all the time—as witnessed today in much of the Middle East, a region that was once considered stable. The American Central Intelligence Agency, a huge, highly expensive operation with many analysts paid to predict the future, was utterly surprised when the Soviet Union fell apart and the whole Eastern Communist bloc dissolved with it. Change is the norm today, everywhere, and rulers who think they will be in power forever—even if they try to repress signs of discontent—have a poor sense of history. What is certain is that the Americans have a motive to see that the regime in Vietnam that defeated them militarily fall because of its own failures. Given the tremendous and growing disparity between Vietnam’s nominal Marxist-Leninist ideology and its state-led capitalist practice, Vietnam is as ripe for overthrow as any nation has ever been, and Vietnam’s present rulers should take very little for granted–no more, indeed, than those who ran the former U S S R. Basic change is very likely to occur in Vietnam: how and when cannot be predicted precisely, but the anomaly between its ideology and its practice is too overwhelming to persist indefinitely. The higher levels of the Party are now very corrupt and increasingly cynical, and the patriotic legitimacy it had when it led the struggle against the French and then the Americans is gone. The younger generation of Vietnamese increasingly regard the Communists as corruptionists who practice nepotism. [Corruption] [Legitimacy]
• £1billion deal paves the way for Trident nuclear deterrent replacement
  Britain is to forge ahead with a new generation of nuclear weapons with a £1bn contract to be unveiled this week. Britain's deterrent, Trident missiles on Vanguard-class submarines, is based on the Clyde Photo: ROYAL NAVY Robert Watts By Robert Watts, and Patrick Hennessy 8:30PM BST 16 Jun 2012 Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, will reveal the scheme to build a new nuclear deterrent in a move which will cause tensions with the Liberal Democrats. He will announce a deal ordering nuclear reactors for a new class of submarines to replace the current Vanguard fleet, which carries Britain’s Trident nuclear arsenal. The decision is the most public statement yet that the Government is committed to a full-scale replacement of Trident - something opposed by the Lib Dems, who want a cheaper way of maintaining nuclear weapons. Mr Hammond will say that a Rolls-Royce plant at Raynesway, in Derby, will be given the order to build the reactors, and that the Ministry of Defence will fund an 11-year refit of the plant. [Nuclear weapons] [Decline]
• China, India, Iran wait to pounce on Afghan riches
  Friday, June 15, 2012 Even before NATO forces begin leaving Afghanistan, predator nations are pouring lavish praise, diplomatic agreements and buckets full of cash on Afghan leaders, trying to win access to the nation's vast natural resources after Western troops are gone. Chief among them are China, Iran and India - nations that contributed nothing toward the military effort over the past decade but hope to reap benefits from it anyway. [Decline] [Logic] [Afghanistan]
• The Pentagon's Last Frontier: Battle-Hardened Troops Headed To Africa
  by Rick Rozoff Global Research, June 13, 2012 After the U.S. begins to wind down more than ten consecutive years of combat, mainly counterinsurgency, operations in what has variously been labeled the Broader, Greater and New Middle East, war-tested troops are being prepared for redeployment to Africa and Latin (largely South) America.* Last September President Barack Obama hailed the five million U.S. soldiers that have served in the so-called global war on terror, what he called the 9/11 generation, in the preceding decade. American commanders issue regular statements that war-time experience in Afghanistan and Iraq has trained the armed forces for new operations in other parts of the world: Africa, Latin Americ [US global strategy] [Africa] [US military] [Outsourcing]
• Syria: The Military Nuances of the Conflict
  June 15, 2012 | 1003 GMT Numerous recent reports indicate that Syrian rebels have taken the April 12 cease-fire as an opportunity to regroup and rearm with weapons shipments organized, funded and transferred by other countries. The rebels claim that large numbers of assault rifles, machine guns, mortars, sniper rifles and anti-tank missiles have been smuggled into Syria in recent weeks. The weapons came to the rebels allegedly through Turkey, Lebanon and Iraq, predominantly from suppliers in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. With the rebels better armed and motivated and the Syrian regime determined to crush the opposition, the environment is right for the conflict to intensify. Supply lines through Lebanon have proven crucial, particularly because they are so close to Homs. But in the last few weeks, the number of weapons reportedly entering Syria from Turkey has increased dramatically. [Syria]
• Russia and China Try to Draw the Line on Saudi Hegemony in Syria
  I have a long piece up in Asia Times about sectarian aspects of the Syrian crisis. But first, updates on some interesting elements. In the piece, I wrote: The narrative of escalating Syrian government brutality is important to Assad’s enemies, as it counters another, more embarrassing narrative: the increased flow of money and material aid to the rebels… A sure sign of the increased flow of aid to the rebels was the deployment of publicly unsubstantiated accusations by the US State Department that Russia was sending attack helicopters to Syria. Perhaps the State Department has unique insights into the flow of military materiel from Russia to Syria, but the key change in Syria is not in the order of battle of the government forces; it is the increase in military capabilities of the local rebels thanks in significant part to foreign supply of arms. And today, via Jason Ditz at Antiwar.com: It turns out Russia was telling the truth, and the US State Department today admitted that the helicopters they were railing about were actually already owned by Syria and that they had just been sent to Russia for repairs. Presumably the United States was acting on the principle, to paraphrase Mark Twain, that a righteous lie will make it around the world to every receptive media outlet before an inconvenient truth manages to get its butt out of bed. Another matter I touched on was how different things would have been if Syria had a nuclear program, like North Korea: Today, there is no international consensus and a shrinking domestic commitment to sustaining Syria—a diminished, artificially constructed rump with almost no oil and no atomic bomb (with hindsight, Assad’s failed clandestine attempt to get Syria into the nuclear business appears wise instead of reckless)—as a successful multi-ethnic state. [Syria]
• Russia and China Mull Syria ... and Saudi Arabia
  By Peter Lee Vladimir Putin and Hu Jintao had an interesting question to discuss during their summit in Beijing. Is it good business and good geopolitics to acquiesce to a Sunni Arab triumph in Syria? Or is Syria the place to hold the line against a destabilizing and counterproductive projection of Saudi Arabian power into Iran's near beyond? Absent from the discussion is the United States, which has abdicated any claims to moral or political leadership and contents itself by bleating from the sidelines as the Western media pleasures itself with fantasies of righteousness. Meanwhile, Syria bleeds … and bleeds … and bleeds. [Syria]
• "Blowback, or Impossible Dilemmas of Declining Powers"
  Blowback is a term coined by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that originally meant the unintended negative consequences to a country of its own espionage operations. For example, if a secret CIA operation led to a revenge attack on U.S. individuals who were unaware of the CIA's operation, this was considered "blowback." But these days, many of the operations are not all that secret (for example, the U.S. use of drones in Pakistan or Yemen). And the "revenge" attacks are often publicly avowed. Nevertheless, countries don't seem to cease engaging in such operations. We need a more useful definition of blowback to explain how and why it's occurring all over the place. I think the first element is that the countries engaging in such operations today are powerful, yes, but less powerful than they used to be. When they were at the acme of their power, they could ignore blowback as minor unintended consequences. But when they are less powerful than before, the consequences are not so minor, yet they seem to feel the need to pursue the operations even more vigorously and even more openly. [Decline] [Unintended consequences]
• World Slightly More Peaceful, Despite U.S. Militarisation
  By Carey L. Biron WASHINGTON, Jun 13 2012 (IPS) - Countering a two-year trend, the world overall became slightly more peaceful over the past year, according to an annual report released here on Tuesday. The United States, however, moved down seven places to 88 out of 158, a “fairly low rank (that) largely reflects much higher levels of militarisation and involvement in external conflicts”, according to the Global Peace Index (GPI) 2012. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States has proven itself largely incapable of engaging in a way that leads to peaceful societies. Credit: U.S. Defence Department The report notes that although U.S. military expenditure “declined sharply” between 1991 and 2000, it “has now returned to Cold War levels”. Worryingly, the GPI finds that higher military expenditure (as a percentage of overall gross domestic product) correlates with lower levels of peace. The U.S. also continues to score among the highest in the world on the proportion of its population in jail. (A U.S.-specific Peace Index was released in April.) [Militarisation]
• The Falklands Syndrome: the 30 year legacy of Iron Britannia
  Anthony Barnett, 12 June 2012 The British fought the Falklands/Malvinas War to a victorious conclusion exactly thirty years ago. In response I published a critique of the political culture that embraced the war, Iron Britannia. It came out in November 1982 and is now republished by Faber Finds ? . This 2012 edition has three additional sections that were written in the year that followed and a new introduction (of 13,000 words) on how a war for the past still shapes today's Britain which is published here. Miss Roberts was very fervent in her determination to stand by the Empire. It was the most important community of peoples that the world had ever known. It was so bound with loyalty that it brought people half way across the world to help each other in times of stress. The Empire must never be liquidated. (An account of the first known speech by Margaret Thatcher ? , 25 June 1945, at a general election hustings in Sleaford, Lincolnshire.) It is the New Year. Preparing a new edition of Iron Britannia, I sit and re-read a book written half a lifetime ago, and I am shocked. Having expected to write a brief, ironic introduction on the thirtieth anniversary of a past polemic, mainly to help those young enough to have no recollection of the Falklands War, I am instead appalled at how relevant Iron Britannia has once again become. [Decline] [Militarisation]
• China and Japan currency swap
  A nail in the coffin of the US Dollar Horace Campbell 2012-01-26, Issue 567 China and Japan have taken a decisive step to diversify their reserve holdings away from the dollar. African peoples have a lot of lessons to learn from both the capitalist crisis in Europe and this new financial arrangement. INTRODUCTION On 25 December 2011, the government of Peoples Republic of China and Japan unveiled plans to promote direct exchange of their currencies. This agreement will allow firms to convert the Chinese and Japanese currencies directly into each other, thus negating the need to buy dollars. This deal between China and Japan followed agreements between China and numerous countries to trade outside the sphere of the US dollar. A few weeks earlier, China also announced a 70 billion Yuan ($11 billion) currency swap agreement with Thailand. [Reserve]
• Coming weeks may prove crucial to world’s faltering economies
  By Kevin G. Hall | McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — The U.S. economy is stumbling, the global economy is slowing and the next few weeks are likely to be crucial in determining the pace of business activity for everyone from Boston to San Francisco, Beijing to Sao Paulo. Greek elections Sunday may determine whether the European Union holds together or sinks deeper into recession. Leaders of industrialized nations, the so-called G-20, will meet Monday and Tuesday in Mexico to discuss ways to spark growth. Later next week there’s a mini-summit Thursday of leaders from Germany, France, Spain and Italy that may determine how quickly Europe moves on needed revisions, and audit results expected late next week will determine how much of a bailout is necessary for the banks in Spain, a large and teetering economy.
• Contractors run U.S. spying missions in Africa
  By Craig Whitlock, Friday, June 15, 11:30 AM ENTEBBE, Uganda — Four small, white passenger planes sit outside a hangar here under a blazing sun, with no exterior markings save for U.S. registration numbers painted on the tails. A few burly men wearing aviator sunglasses and short haircuts poke silently around the wing flaps and landing gear. The aircraft are Pilatus PC-12s, turboprops favored by the U.S. Special Operations forces for stealth missions precisely because of their nondescript appearance. There is no hint that they are carrying high-tech sensors and cameras that can film man-size targets from 10 miles away. To further disguise the mission, the U.S. military has taken another unusual step: It has largely outsourced the spying operation to private contractors. The contractors supply the aircraft as well as the pilots, mechanics and other personnel to help process electronic intelligence collected from the airspace over Uganda, Congo, South Sudan and the Central African Republic. [Intelligence] [Privatisation]
• Every call, every email, every text: UK unveils bill aimed at logging citizens’ Web activity
  By Associated Press, Published: June 14 LONDON — British authorities on Thursday unveiled an ambitious plan to log details about every Web visit, email, phone call or text message in the U.K. — and in a sharply-worded editorial the nation’s top law enforcement official accused those worried about the surveillance program of being either criminals or conspiracy theorists. The government insists it’s not after content. It promises not to read the body of emails or eavesdrop on phone calls without a warrant. But the surveillance proposed in the government’s 118-page draft bill would provide authorities a remarkably rich picture of their citizens’ day-to-day lives, tracking nearly everything they do online, over the phone, or even through the post. All that data would be kept for up to a year — ready for browsing whenever anyone in authority wanted it. In some cases, the bill envisages monitoring the information in real time. Home Office Secretary Theresa May said in an editorial published ahead of the bill’s unveiling that only evil-doers should be frightened. [Surveillance]
• U.S. attacks Russia over copters for Syria, but Pentagon buys them, too
  A Nepalese human rights activist A Nepalese human rights activist protests at a rally in Katmandu organized by Amnesty International. | Niranjan Shrestha/AP By Maria Recio | McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, is in the middle of a high-stakes diplomatic chess match over a Russian government-owned arms agent that supplies the U.S.-backed army in Afghanistan as well as President Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria, which the United Nations says is embroiled in a civil war against anti-government rebels. For Cornyn, the issue is the Pentagon’s $900 million no-bid contract with Rosoboronexport – the Russian government-owned arms supplier – which he told reporters Wednesday “strikes me as profoundly wrong and inappropriate.” Russia, he said, has “blood on its hands, specifically Syrian blood.” The senator, a member of the Armed Services Committee, has called for an investigation into the contract. The issue of Russian support for Assad’s regime has taken center stage this week after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke out against Russia sending a new shipment of attack helicopters that she said were being used to kill Syrian civilians. Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/06/13/152284/us-attacks-russia-over-copters.html#storylink=cpy [Arms sales] [Double standards] [NGO]
• U.S. expands secret intelligence operations in Africa
  View Photo Gallery — From the archives:?In another effort to combat al-Qaeda militants in Africa, specifically in Somalia, the United States has been training troops from other African nations to be peacekeepers. By Craig Whitlock, Thursday, June 14, 2:02 PM OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso — The U.S. military is expanding its secret intelligence operations across Africa, establishing a network of small air bases to spy on terrorist hideouts from the fringes of the Sahara to jungle terrain along the equator, according to documents and people involved in the project. At the heart of the surveillance operations are small, unarmed turboprop aircraft disguised as private planes. Equipped with hidden sensors that can record full-motion video, track infrared heat patterns, and vacuum up radio and cellphone signals, the planes refuel on isolated airstrips favored by African bush pilots, extending their effective flight range by thousands of miles. About a dozen air bases have been established in Africa since 2007, according to a former senior U.S. commander involved in setting up the network. Most are small operations run out of secluded hangars at African military bases or civilian airports. [Special forces] [US global strategy] [Militarisation]
• SYRIA: The Houla Massacre and the Subversion of the Peace Plan
  by Prof. Chandra Muzaffar Global Research, June 7, 2012 Anyone with even an iota of conscience would condemn the Houla massacre of 25-26 May 2012. That 49 of the 108 killed were children is what makes that massacre unbearably brutal and barbaric. The government of Syria has accused armed terrorists of committing the massacre. It has provided a detailed account of what had happened. Eyewitness testimonies have been presented over state media. The armed opposition and its supporters within West Asia and in certain Western capitals have put the blame upon the Syrian government. They allege that a clandestine militia linked to the government --- the shabbiha--- had done most of the butchering. There is no credible, independent entity that can help reveal the entire truth about the Houla massacre. The United Nations Human Rights Council which has passed a resolution condemning the massacre hastily targeted the Syrian government as the culprit without waiting for reports from the UN-Arab League Observer Mission in Syria. This is one of the reasons why China, Cuba and Russia voted against the resolution. The Council has since the outbreak of the conflict in Syria 14 months ago adopted an antagonistic attitude towards the government. In all its submissions to the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly, it has ignored or downplayed the views of the Syrian government. While we hope the truth about Houla would be known soon, our most urgent challenge is to ensure that violence in Syria is brought to an end immediately. This is also the main aim of the Kofi Annan Peace Plan. All the principal perpetrators of violence --- the government, the armed opposition, and what has been described as the “third force” comprising groups such as Al-Qaeda and the Salafists --- must play their part. The Bashar Assad government and its armed forces should exercise maximum restraint however severe the provocation from its armed opponents. There have been a number of occasions when the State had used excessive force. Syria’s close ally, Iran, Russia and China should also be firm in warning Bashar of the danger of going beyond the limit in trying to maintain law and order. If it is true Iran is channeling military assistance to the Bashar government, it should cease to do so. By the same logic, Russia should suspend its arms sales to Damascus. At the same time, the armed opposition should lay down its arms.
• The United Nations and the Houla Massacre: The Information Battlefield
  by Ronda Hauben Global Research, June 12, 2012 At a press conference held on June 4 marking the beginning of China’s presidency of the UN Security Council for the month of June, Li Baodong, China’s Ambassador to the UN, observed that there are different versions of the facts of the Houla Massacre. “Now we have different stories from different angles,” he noted. “Now we have the story from the Syrian government, and from the opposition parties, and from different sources.” Since the Security Council has “ a team….on the ground,” he said, “We want to see first-hand information from our own people.” He hoped this would make it possible to put the different pieces of information together and to come “to our own conclusion with our own judgment.”(1) The expectation was that Joint UN-Arab League Envoy Kofi Annan would be able to provide further information from the UNSMIS Observer mission when he came to speak with the Security Council on Thursday, June 7. It was anticipated that Annan’s presentation would help to clarify the facts of the massacre. (2) On June 7, however, instead of providing new information from such an investigation, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and several of the other speakers at the Informal General Assembly (GA) meeting put the responsibility for the Houla Massacre on the Assad government. This was also the dominant response of the nations that spoke at the Informal GA meeting even though there had not yet been any adequate investigation into facts of the situation. (3) Also, there were claims of a new massacre. [Syria] [Disinformation] [Media] [UNUS]
• SYRIA: URGENT ! NATO preparing vast disinformation campaign.
  By Thiery Meyssan – Voltairenetwork. Member States of NATO and the GCC are preparing a coup d’état and a sectarian genocide in Syria. If you want to prevent these crimes, you should act now: circulate this article on the Internet and alert your elected officials. In a few days, perhaps as early as Friday, June 15, at noon, the Syrians wanting to watch their national TV stations will see them replaced on their screens by TV programs created by the CIA. Studio-shot images will show massacres that are blamed on the Syrian Government, people demonstrating, ministers and generals resigning from their posts, President Al-Assad fleeing, the rebels gathering in the big city centers, and a new government installing itself in the presidential palace. This operation of disinformation, directly managed from Washington by Ben Rhodes, the US deputy national security adviser for strategic communication, aims at demoralizing the Syrians in order to pave the way for a coup d’etat. [Media] [Disinformation] [Psychwar]
• SAS SET UP SAFE CAMPS IN SYRIA
  DAILY STAR SUNDAY ABOVE: Nearly 2,300 Syrians have been killed since the ceasefire ­supposedly took effect in mid April “ Safe havens would be an invasion of Syria but a chance to save lives ” A senior Whitehall source 3rd June 2012 By Deborah Sherwood BRITISH defence chiefs have drawn up secret plans to set up safe havens for Syrians fleeing President Assad’s killers. Special Forces will help ­protect the refugees in Syria along the borders. Last week as the president ignored an international ceasefire, plans were being finalised to ­rescue thousands of Syrians. SAS troops and MI6 agents are in the country ready to help rebels if civil war breaks out as ­expected this weekend. [Special forces] [Syria]
• Assassination Campaigns Do Not Win Wars, and They Create as Many Enemies as They Destroy: The Myth of the Drone War “Successes”
  by PATRICK COCKBURN As the US and its allies ponder what to do about Syria, one suggestion advanced by the protagonists of armed intervention is to use unmanned drones to attack Syrian government targets. The proposal is a measure of the extraordinary success of the White House, CIA and Defense Department in selling the drone as a wonder weapon despite all the evidence to the contrary. The attraction of the drone for President Obama and his administration five months before the presidential election is self-evident. The revelation that he personally selected targets from the top ranks of al-Qa’ida for assassination by remote control shows the President as tough and unrelenting in destroying America’s enemies. The program is popular at home because the cost appears not to be large and, most importantly, there are no American casualties. The media uncritically buys into claims of the weapon’s effectiveness, conveniently diverting voters’ attention from the US army’s failure to defeat puny opponents in two vastly expensive campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Republicans cried foul, alleging that the administration is selectively leaking highly classified secrets to portray Obama as a man of decision untroubled by liberal qualms in the defense of his country. The White House expressed itself deeply shocked by such a claim of political opportunism, and last week the US Attorney General, Eric Holder, appointed two lawyers to track down the leakers, though without giving them special powers to do so. Almost unquestioned in all this is the utility of the drone strikes and whether they really are the wonder weapon they are claimed to be. After all, air forces have been over-selling precision bombing as a way of winning wars on the cheap since Lord Trenchard ran the RAF in the 1920s. Politicians of all nations have been attracted by new war-winning armaments or commando-type organisations. Examples include Churchill in the Second World War and President Kennedy, who favored the Green Beret special units and helicopter-borne forces in Vietnam. The media has traditionally gobbled up and publicized tales of magically effective arms or the derring-do of elite detachments, often ignoring their lack of long-term military success. [UAV] [Efficacy] [Domestic]
• Japan and China Bypass US in Direct Currency Trade
  Kosuke TAKAHASHI Japan and China started direct trading of their currencies, the yen and the yuan, on the inter-bank foreign exchange markets in Tokyo and Shanghai on June 1 in an apparent bid to strengthen bilateral trade and investment between the world's third- and second-largest economies. Direct yen-yuan trades also aim to hedge the risk of the dollar's fall in the long run as the world's key settlement currency and as the main reserve currency in Asia, the world's economic growth center in the 21st century. By skipping the dollar in transactions, the region's two biggest economies indicate their intention to reduce their dependence on dollar risk and US monetary authorities' leeway and prowess on the Asian economy. The move aids China's goal of undercutting US influence in the region while strengthening China-Japan financial ties. [Reserve] [Decline] [China global strategy]
• Factbox - Sanctions imposed on Iran
  (Reuters) - International sanctions meant to deprive Iran's nuclear programme of funds and technology are squeezing the country's vital oil exports. Talks between Iran and major powers, that could lead to an easing of sanctions if successful, are set to begin in Baghdad on Wednesday. Following are details of major sanctions imposed on Iran by the United States, the European Union, and the United Nations over the years. [Sanctions] [Iran]
• The History of Knowledge: Darkness in the Academy
  by Prof. John Kozy Global Research, June 7, 2012 As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being. Carl Jung Knowledge does not always prevail or even endure. When the Empire fell, the Justinian Code was replaced by Canon Law. The augustness of knowledge was transformed into heresy and mankind's curiosity was virtually extinguished. The age became dark. In the 11th century, people began to study rediscovered Greek and Roman texts. The darkness of the age had begun to lift but the lifting took seven hundred years and was never completed. Today, nothing ensures the light's endurance despite our pious accolades to learning and science. But anti-intellectualism never died; it continued to live in the dark alcoves of the religious institutions of the Middle Ages. That darkness came to America when its first universities were established. These universities were established as fundamentalist vocational training institutions. They were not established to further knowledge. They are madrassas, Sunday Schools, one and all. Now even this conservative educational system is under attack by ideological fundamentalists. Professors throughout the Western world, stock up on lanterns. The darkness is returning! [Education]
• Syria rebels gaining ground, strength
  By Liz Sly, Published: June 9 | Updated: Sunday, June 10, 7:20 AM BEIRUT — An increasingly effective Syrian rebel force has been gaining ground in recent weeks, stepping up its attacks on government troops and expanding the area under its control even as world attention has been focused on pressuring Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to comply with a U.N. cease-fire. The loosely organized Free Syrian Army now acknowledges that it is also no longer observing the truce, although rebel commanders insist they are launching attacks only to defend civilians in the wake of concerns generated by two recent massacres in which most of the 186 victims were women and children. The rebels say they are acquiring access to ammunition and funding that had been in short supply a few months ago, streamlining their structures to improve coordination and steadily eroding the government’s capacity to control large swaths of the country. [Syria] [Subversion] [Sectarianism]
• China and Russia stick to principles on Syria
  Global Times | June 07, 2012 20:10 By Global Times Editor's Note: Russian President Vladimir Putin began his visit to China on Wednesday, the first time since he returned to Kremlin. Putin is visiting for the meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), in which China and Russia are the two chief players. Is Putin's visit a signal of a Sino-Russian honeymoon? Will the two coordinate their stance on thorny issues like Syria and Iran in opposition to the US? Global Times (GT) reporter Fu Qiang talked to Li Xing (Li), director for Russian studies at the School of Political Science and International Studies at Beijing Normal University, on these issues. GT: One of the topics on the agenda of Putin's China visit, Syria, has been attracting worldwide attention. Do you think China and Russia will adjust their stance on Syria? Li: Currently there are two proposals to solve the Syrian crisis in the international community. The West holds a stand which requires a regime change in Syria. On the other hand, China and Russia are against external intervention in the Syrian unrest. The six-point proposal brought up by UN envoy Kofi Annan is very close to China and Russia's appeal. Personally, I think Russia's stance is the key to the Syrian crisis. Russia and Syria have mutually beneficial relations. Compared with Russia, China's position on the Syrian issue is more detached. But again, China shares the same beliefs with Russia in the Syria crisis. These two nations have formed their own strategic ideas on the Middle East situation, based on national interests and also international political dynamics. [Syria]
• Sorting Out the Houla Massacre
  Juan Cole jumped the gun a bit by attributing the hundred+ deaths in the Syrian town of Houla to a Syrian Army artillery assault. In a perverse way, a massacre by the Syrian military would have been almost a stabilizing phenomenon. It would have placed the bad-guy hat firmly and irrevocably on the heads of the Syrian armed forces. It would also have served as an affirmation that the Assad regime is in complete command of the security forces and responsible for the atrocities committed against Syrian civilians. And it would have given Dr. Cole added ammunition to argue for a new humanitarian intervention in Syria against the convenient and vulnerable target of the Assad regime, one that might banish the embarrassing memory of the last intervention he promoted: the fiasco in Libya
• Syria: the tension picks up steam. Eager Lion exercise – on the way to cross the threshold
  Andrei AKULOV | 05.06.2012 | 00:00 The possibility of intervention in Syria without United Nations approval is growing. The events in Houla, the following expulsion of Syrian ambassadors from a number of countries exacerbate the situation while the guilt of the Syrian government is far from being a proven fact. The tension picks up steam. Looks like warmongers gradually get the upper hand in the in desire to provoke a conflict. Eager Lion 2012, the largest joint military exercise in the Middle East in a decade held in Jordan, lasted three weeks wrapping up on May 30. It brought together more than 12,000 special forces servicemen from 19 countries, including Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Pakistan, Qatar, Britain, France, Italy, Spain and Australia. Of those, 6,500 soldiers were from the United States, and 3,500 were from Jordan. The event drew special attention given the events in Syria. Some media outlets claimed Eager Lion was a general rehearsal before an invasion or cover for training Syrian militants. The US and Jordanian military brass say it’s not the case because it had taken three years in the planning and actually is an outgrowth of the annual bilateral "Infinite Moonlight" US-Jordan exercise that goes back to the 1990s. Perhaps so, but it’s an interesting fact that Assad, the surname of Syrian president, means “lion” in Arabic. [Syria] [Joint US military]
• Pentagon Consolidates Control Over Balkans: US Military Presence in the former Yugoslavia
  by Rick Rozoff Global Research, May 30, 2012 Stop NATO Ahead of, during and after the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's 25th summit in Chicago on May 20-21, the Pentagon has continued expanding its permanent military presence in the former Yugoslavia and the rest of the Balkan region. The military bloc's two-day conclave in Chicago formalized, among several other initiatives including the initial activation of its U.S.-dominated interceptor missile system and Global Hawk-equipped Alliance Ground Surveillance operations, a new category of what NATO calls aspirant countries next in line for full Alliance membership. Three of them are former Yugoslav federal republics - Bosnia, Macedonia and Montenegro - and the fourth is Georgia, conflicts involving which could be the most immediate cause of a confrontation between the world's two major nuclear powers. This year new NATO partnership formats have sprung up like poisonous toadstools after a summer rain: Aspirants countries, the Partnership Cooperation Menu, the Individual Partnership and Cooperation Programme, the Connected Forces Initiative and partners across the globe among them. The military bloc's inauguration as an active, aggressive military force in Bosnia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the 1990s laid the groundwork for the U.S.'s already unmatched military to move troops, hardware and bases into Southeast Europe for actions there and to points east and south: The Middle East, the Caucasus, North Africa and Central and South Asia. Since 2004 several nations in the east and west Balkans - Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia, Croatia and Albania - have been incorporated into the alliance as full members and the remainder - Bosnia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and the generally unrecognized Republic of Kosovo - have in the first four instances joined NATO's Partnership for Peace program and in the last had its nascent armed forces, the Kosovo Security Force, built from scratch by the leading alliance powers.
• THE HOULA MASSACRE: Opposition Terrorists "Killed Families Loyal to the Government"
  Detailed Investigation by Marat Musin Global Research, June 1, 2012 ANNA NEWS (Original Russian) and syrianews.cc Global Research Editor's Note This incisive report by independent Russian journalist Marat Musin dispels the lies and fabrications of the Western media. The report is based on a chronology of events as well as eyewitness accounts. Entire pro-government families in Houla were massacred. The terrorists were not pro-government shabbiha militia as conveyed, in chorus, by the mainstream media, they were in large part mercenaries and professional killers operating under the auspices of the self-proclaimed Free Syrian Army (FSA): "When the rebels seized the lower checkpoint in the center of town and located next to the local police department, they began to sweep all the families loyal to the authorities in neighboring houses, including the elderly, women and children. Several families of the Al-Sayed were killed, including 20 young children and the family of Abdul Razak. The people were killed with knives and shot at point blank range. Then they presented the murdered [corpses] to the UN and the international community as victims of bombings by the Syrian army, something that was not verified by any marks on their bodies." We call on our readers to forward this report far and wide, post it on facebook. . The massacre in Houla is being blamed on the Syrian government without a shred of evidence. The objective is not only to isolate Syria politically and economically, but to develop a pretext and a justification for waging an R2P humanitarian war on Syria. The US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice has hinted that if the Security Council does not act, the US and its allies may consider "taking actions outside of the Annan plan and the authority of the [UN Security] Council.” This report by Marat Musin confirms that crimes against humanity are being committed by terrorist militia. It is essential to reverse the tide of war propaganda which uses civilian deaths as a pretext to wage war, when those killings of civilians were carried out not by government forces but by professional terrorists operating under the helm of the US-NATO sponsored Free Syrian Army.
• A pity about this visitor
  May 1, 2012 | Filed under: Comments | Posted by: newsroom Talk about a closed mind and closed eyes. Australia’s Foreign Minister Bob Carr takes the prize this week. Before he even left Australia for Suva yesterday Mr Carr had made it clear that his mind was made up. Talk of removing sanctions was premature, Mr Carr said. That, he told Australian journalists, was several steps into the future. Mr Carr is supposedly here as part of a Pacific Islands Forum Ministerial Contact Group seeing how things are-talking with people on the ground and seeing for himself how things are.
• U.S. drone targets in Yemen raise questions
  By Greg Miller, Published: June 3 There is little doubt among U.S. intelligence officials that Kaid and Nabil al-Dhahab — brothers who reportedly survived a U.S. airstrike in Yemen on Memorial Day — are associated with the al-Qaeda insurgency in that country. Less clear is the extent to which they are plotting against the United States. “It’s still an open question,” a U.S. counterterrorism official said. The siblings were related by marriage to Anwar al-Awlaki, an al-Qaeda operative killed in September, but they have not been connectedto a major plot. Their focus has been “more local,” the official said. But “look at their associations and what that portends.” The quickening pace of the U.S. drone campaign in Yemen this year has raised new questions about who is being targeted and why. A review of strikes there so far suggests that the Obama administration has embraced a broader definition of what constitutes a terrorism threat that warrants a lethal response. In more than 20 U.S. airstrikes over a span of five months, three “high-value” terrorism targets have been killed, U.S. officials said. A growing number of attacks have been aimed at lower-level figures who are suspected of having links to terrorism operatives but are seen mainly as leaders of factions focused on gaining territory in Yemen’s internal struggle. [UAV] [US global strategy]
• US Military Spending: Where are the Jobs?
  Military spending creates 11,200 jobs for each billion dollars spent by Greg Guma Global Research, May 31, 2012 In recent Vermont debate about the impacts of bedding F-35A fighter jets at the Burlington International Airport the arguments in support often come down to balancing noise and other impacts against economic necessities and benefits. Whatever the outcome it has raised renewed questions about the economic impacts of military spending. A new study finds that money spent on clean energy, health care, and education would create many more jobs than if the same money is spent on defense. [Military expenditure] [Employment]
• Obama's 'kill list': commentary and analysis from around the web
  An ongoing collection of commentary and analysis on the president's role in US counterterrorism efforts Amanda Michel Amanda Michel guardian.co.uk, Thursday 31 May 2012 21.17 BST Barack Obama's wealth was disclosed in official documents released by the White House. Photograph: Carolyn Kaster/AP According to the New York Times, President Barack Obama has stepped to the helm of the administration's secret efforts in selecting terrorists for its 'kill list.' The story describes Obama leading weekly meetings in which administration officials review suspected terrorists' bios on what an official described as the equivalent of "baseball cards". Since Obama took office, he has escalated the use of unmanned drones to kill suspected al-Qaida terrorists abroad in countries like Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan. The president has also continued the Bush administration's policies on rendition, military commissions and indefinite detentions, angering those who expected the president to honor his early ambitions to close Gitmo. [Assassination] [Obama] [Ethics]
• We are sleepwalking into the Drone Age, unaware of the consequences
  Obama's policy of killing 'militants' in Pakistan may go down well in the US, but it is provoking an extremist backlash abroad Clive Stafford Smith Clive Stafford Smith guardian.co.uk, Saturday 2 June 2012 18.55 BST Crew Moves Predator At Tallil Innocent civilians are being killed by US Predator drones in Waziristan despite claims by the CIA that this is not the case. Photograph: US Air Force/Getty Images Last October I was at a jirga in Islamabad where 80 people from Waziristan had assembled to talk about the US Predator drones that buzz around overhead, periodically delivering death by Hellfire missile. A jirga is the traditional forum for discussing and resolving disputes, part parliament, part court of law. The turbaned tribal elders were joined by their young sons on a rare foray out of their region to meet outsiders and discuss the killing. The isolation of the Waziris is almost total – no western journalist has been to Miranshah for several years. At our meeting I spoke as the representative westerner. I reported the CIA claim that not one single innocent civilian had been killed in over a year. I did not need to understand Pashtu to translate the snorts of derision when this claim was translated. During the day I shook the hand of a 16-year-old kid from Waziristan named Tariq Aziz. One of his cousins had died in a missile strike, and he wanted to know what he could do to bring the truth to the west. At the Reprieve charity, we have a transparency project: importing cameras to the region to try to export the truth back out. Tariq wanted to take part, but I thought him too young. Then, three days later, the CIA announced that it had eliminated "four militants". In truth there were only two victims: Tariq had been driving his 12-year-old cousin to their aunt's house when the Hellfire missile killed them both. This came just 24 hours after the CIA boasted of eliminating six other "militants" – actually, four chromite workers driving home from work. In both cases a local informant apparently tagged the car with a GPS monitor and lied to earn his fee. [UAV] [Assassination] [Efficacy]
• Al-Houla massacre leaves Syrian regime on the ropes
  Global Times | May 31, 2012 21:58 By Khaled Ali Until recently, al-Houla, a sleepy town in the Syrian interior, was virtually unknown globally. Located between Homs and Hama, two hotbeds of the Syrian Revolution that broke out against Bashar al-Assad in early 2011, al-Houla had never made headlines. Overnight al-Houla became the focus of the world's attention as armed men stormed it late last Friday, killing 116 civilians in cold blood, including 55 children, 32 of them less than 10 years old. Those who survived to tell the tale played dead, to avoid being butchered. The massacre looked like the Sabra & Shatila atrocities that appalled the world in Beirut back in September 1982. The identity of the killers, however, remains in doubt although the entire Syrian opposition, along with ordinary Syrians, has blamed it on the Assad regime, and so have world powers from all four corners of the globe.
• Syrian military casualties rose in May while death toll overall dropped Syria U.N. observers
  By David Enders | McClatchy Newspapers ANTAKYA, Turkey — Despite the international outcry over recent massacres allegedly committed by backers of President Bashar Assad, statistics compiled by human rights activists show that violence in Syria has dropped since a United Nations peace plan went into effect in April and is down sharply from its peak in March. One measure of violence, however, seems to have increased appreciably: More Syrian soldiers were killed in clashes with rebels in May than in any month since the 14-month-old uprising began. There were also reports that arrests by Syrian security forces have increased, a violation of the U.N. plan that appears to be a major factor in the violence.
• Sentenced to Extermination
  Igor IGNATCHENKO | 30.05.2012 The clouds gather over the Middle East. Not so long ago the clashes between the Sunni Muslims, who support the Free Syrian Army, and the Alawites, who stand by the government of Syrian president Bashar Assad, took place in Tripoli, the second largest city of Lebanon. Fighting also took place in the capital Beirut. Speaking at the press-conference on May 23 Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov said the Syrian conflict may spread to the territory of neighboring Lebanon. It’s a long time ago the northern part of Lebanon became the main transition route for delivering arms to Syrian militants, fighting the legitimate government of Syrian President. The border between Lebanon and Syria is used by Western special services as a passageway for getting special operations units and militants inside Syria. Formally Lebanon takes a neutral position on the Syrian crisis. But the opposition leader Saad al-Hariri openly supports the adversaries of President Bashar Assad, some sources say he is involved in arms supplies to the Syrian insurgents. According to French Le Figaro, there is a smoothly running system of providing funds to terrorists on the territory of Syria. Its center is situated in Lebanese Tripoli. The network faces no problem of funds shortage, it exists at the expense of the Persian Gulf monarchies, in particular the Eid Charity Foundation under the control of Saudi national Safar al-Hawali, Walid Tabtabi from Kuwait and Abdul Rahman al-Naimi from Qatar. . The operation aimed at eliminating Syria is in full swing, it has already moved to the final stage [Syria] [US global strategy] [Sectarianism]
• US slammed from both sides of Bahrain's divide
  By BRIAN MURPHY, Associated Press – 3 hours ago MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) — During one of the nightly clashes with Bahrain's security forces, a new chant broke out among opposition protesters: "The U.S. is the great Satan." A few days later, pro-government marchers also waved their fists against Washington. In a place with almost no common ground left after more than 15 months of Arab Spring-inspired unrest, both sides in the Bahrain meltdown are finding a shared target in the United States. Their gripes are vastly different — protesters claiming the U.S. has ignored them, government backers expecting full loyalty from their longtime allies — but the across-the-board potshots at Washington's policies point to the deep complexities of U.S. attempts to navigate the crisis in the tiny Gulf kingdom. Bahrain tugs at just about every critical Gulf issue for Washington. Atop the list: America's relations with Saudi Arabia as the main patron for the embattled Bahraini monarchy, and the stability of the Bahrain-based headquarters of the Navy's 5th Fleet, which is one of the Pentagon's main counterweights to Iranian military influence in the Gulf. At the same time, the nonstop clashes in Bahrain — and at least 50 deaths since February 2011 — have brought critical remarks from Washington about alleged human rights abuses and claims of heavy-handed police tactics. [Double standards] [US global strategy]
• Pakistan’s power crisis may eclipse terrorist threat
  By Richard Leiby, Updated: Monday, May 28, 3:33 AM ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — In the militant-infested northwestern city of Peshawar, hundreds of businessmen recently marched in a mock funeral procession — but not to protest bombings or kidnappings. The “corpse” they carried was an electric meter. In other areas of the country, shopkeepers have threatened mass suicide to protest 18 to 20 hours of power blackouts every day. Mobs are descending on utility offices to destroy records and meters, and have attacked political parties’ headquarters in riots that sometimes turn deadly. This month Pakistan tumbled into sovereign default for the first time in its history because the government failed to reimburse millions to independent power providers — more proof that, after years of mismanagement and neglect, the nation’s energy sector is in extremis. Now some experts suggest that the power crisis is more of a threat to Pakistan’s stability than is terrorism — a bitter outcome given the massive amount of aid the United States has poured into energy projects here over the decades. A long-running Islamist insurgency has carved two percent from the nation’s GDP, said Sakib Sherani, a former government economic adviser, whereas rotating daily blackouts — referred to here as “load shedding” — have resulted in a four percent loss. [Decline] [Incompetence]
• The Politics of Language and the Language of Political Regression
  by Prof. James Petras Global Research, May 24, 2012 Capitalism and its defenders maintain dominance through the ‘material resources’ at their command, especially the state apparatus, and their productive, financial and commercial enterprises, as well as through the manipulation of popular consciousness via ideologues, journalists, academics and publicists who fabricate the arguments and the language to frame the issues of the day. Today material conditions for the vast majority of working people have sharply deteriorated as the capitalist class shifts the entire burden of the crisis and the recovery of their profits onto the backs of wage and salaried classes. One of the striking aspects of this sustained and on-going roll-back of living standards is the absence of a major social upheaval so far. Greece and Spain, with over 50% unemployment among its 16-24 year olds and nearly 25% general unemployment, have experienced a dozen general strikes and numerous multi-million person national protests; but these have failed to produce any real change in regime or policies. The mass firings and painful salary, wage, pension and social services cuts continue. In other countries, like Italy, France and England, protests and discontent find expression in the electoral arena, with incumbents voted out and replaced by the traditional opposition. Yet throughout the social turmoil and profound socio-economic erosion of living and working conditions, the dominant ideology informing the movements, trade unions and political opposition is reformist: Issuing calls to defend existing social benefits, increase public spending and investments and expand the role of the state where private sector activity has failed to invest or employ. In other words, the left proposes to conserve a past when capitalism was harnessed to the welfare state. The problem is that this ‘capitalism of the past’ is gone and a new more virulent and intransigent capitalism has emerged forging a new worldwide framework and a powerful entrenched state apparatus immune to all calls for ‘reform’ and reorientation. The confusion, frustration and misdirection of mass popular opposition is, in part, due to the adoption by leftist writers, journalists and academics of the concepts and language espoused by its capitalist adversaries: language designed to obfuscate the true social relations of brutal exploitation, the central role of the ruling classes in reversing social gains and the profound links between the capitalist class and the state. Capitalist publicists, academics and journalists have elaborated a whole litany of concepts and terms which perpetuate capitalist rule and distract its critics and victims from the perpetrators of their steep slide toward mass impoverishment.
• Memorial Day: Among post-9/11 veterans, deepening antiwar sentiment
  By Gloria Goodale posted May 26, 2012 at 4:09 pm EDT Los Angeles Despite the end of the Iraq war and the scheduled drawdown in Afghanistan, this Memorial Day arrives against a backdrop of deepening – and some say more troublesome – antiwar sentiment among military veterans. One of the most vivid and replayed images of protesters at the NATO summit last weekend in Chicago was a group of some 40 vets lined up to toss their war medals over the chain link fence to protest what former naval officer Leah Bolger calls “the illegal wars of both NATO and America.” According to a recent Pew Research Center study, 33 percent of post-9/11 veterans say that neither the war in Iraq nor in Afghanistan “were worth the cost,” and this among a highly motivated cohort who chose to serve. [US military]
• Landslide loss stings Singapore PM
  From: AFP May 27, 2012 4:25AM AN opposition candidate has won by a landslide in a Singapore by-election as voters handed a rebuke to the ruling party. The poll was widely seen as a referendum on the government's recent reforms. The Workers' Party retained the seat in the district of Hougang, winning 62.09 per cent of votes cast despite having to fire the previous member of parliament over allegations of extramarital affairs. The ruling People's Action Party (PAP) received 37.91 per cent, the elections department said. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and other PAP big guns had gone all out to campaign for the ruling party candidate, Desmond Choo, but in the end failed to win control of the ward, which has been in opposition hands for the past 21 years. The vote took place a year after the ruling party, which has been in power more than half a century, suffered its worst performance in a general election.
• Pakistan compounds US tensions
  By Amir Mir html ISLAMABAD - The United States administration's decision to construct a huge embassy building in Islamabad, which has been described by Pakistani media as a "super embassy" rivaling only the US mission in Baghdad, has hit a serious snag with the filing of a constitutional petition in the Supreme Court challenging the construction of the compound in the federal capital. The US State Department's plans to build a massive new embassy in Islamabad by adding several adjacent properties to the already sprawling compound with a view to expanding office space and accommodation for 400 to 500 apartments, had already created ripples in establishment circles, amid apprehension that the expansion project is a part of imperial US designs on the region. The current US mission in Islamabad houses a large military and intelligence contingent as well as diplomats. This site would expand by 18.5 hectares under US$1 billion plans for its buildings to be knocked down and reconstructed. The scale of the project means the site would rival the 42-hectare American Embassy in Baghdad, which when completed in 2009 at a cost of $736 million became the biggest US mission overseas to date. The Islamabad embassy expansion project would be mirrored by an ambitious upgrade and expansion of the Kabul mission, putting a $2 billion-plus price tag on a revamped diplomatic presence for the US in Afghanistan and Pakistan. However, a constitutional petition filed this week by Lieutenant Colonel (retired) Inamul Rahim under Article 184(3) and challenging the US plans, has urged the Supreme Court to pass a restraining order to prevent the Americans from proceeding further on their "expansionist imperial agenda". [US global strategy] [AfPak]
• DRUG-FINANCED SALAFI JIHADISM: The Afghan Drug Trade, A Threat to Russia and U.S.-Russian Relations
  by Prof. Peter Dale Scott Global Research, May 23, 2012 Preface for a North American Audience I delivered the following remarks at an anti-NATO conference held in Moscow on May 15, 2012. Unlike other speakers, my paper urged Russians -- despite the expansionist and aggressive activities in Central Asia of the CIA, SOCOM, and NATO -- to cooperate under neutral auspices with like-minded Americans, towards dealing with the related crises of Afghan drug production and drug-financed Salafi jihadism. Since the conference I have continued to reflect intensely on the battered state of U.S.-Russian relations, and my own slightly utopian response to it. Although the speakers at the conference represented many different viewpoints, they tended all to share a deep anxiety about US intentions towards Russia and the other former states of the USSR. Their anxiety was based on shared knowledge of past American actions and broken promises, of which they (unlike most Americans) are only too aware. A key example of such broken promises was the assurance that NATO would not take advantage of détente to expand into Eastern Europe. Today of course Poland is a member of NATO, and there are still proposals on the table to expand NATO also into the Ukraine – i.e. the very heart of the former Soviet Union. This push was matched by U.S. joint activities and operations – some of them under NATO auspices – with the army and security forces of Uzbekistan. (These began in 1997 – i.e. in the Clinton administration.) [Imperialism] [US global strategy][ Oil] [Drugs]
• A Soros-Made “New World Order” Takes Shape at the UN
  Wayne MADSEN | 28.05.2012 | 00:00 Major multinational corporations and the financial and non-governmental organization network of George Soros have taken effective control of a number of United Nations functions within the UN Secretariat and within the organization's specialized agencies. The goal of this alliance is to re-draw the map of the world for the benefit of the global elites and the “top 1 percent.” The United Nations, which once prided itself on transparency, has now become a bureaucratic behemoth where decisions are made in closed door meetings attended by diplomats, mostly from English-speaking Western countries; corporate representatives; NGO officials tied to Soros and other entities like the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations; and current and former CIA officers, some of whom act under U.S. State Department cover. It is a fact of life that today a number of UN agencies and elements are funded by private money. Although South Korean Ban Ki-moon is the Secretary General of the UN, his most important deputies represent the interests of NATO and its allies. The Undersecretary General for Political Affairs is B. Lynn Pascoe, a former U.S. ambassador to Indonesia and Malaysia and is thought by many UN staffers to have links to the CIA. The Undersecretary General for Safety and Security is Gregory Starr, a former Director of the U.S. State Department's Diplomatic Security Service who is also thought to have close links to the CIA. The Assistant Secretary-General for Strategic Planning and Policy Coordination is Robert Orr, the former Director of Global and Multilateral Affairs at the U.S. National Security Council on which the CIA is represented. The Executive Director of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) is Anthony Lake, a former U.S. National Security Adviser. The Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations is Herve Ladsous of France who has served as French ambassador to Indonesia and China and who is a pro-NATO Atlanticist.
  Perhaps no where is the Soros and CIA influence felt more than in the UN Development Program (UNDP), which is headed by Helen Clark, a former Prime Minister of New Zealand. However, Soros's operatives are heavily present in every UN agency except for Peacekeeping Operations but it, too, is an ultimate target for the multi-billionaire Hungarian Jew who once cooperated with the Nazi occupation forces in wartime Hungary.
• U.N. Security Council blames Syrian government for civilian massacre
  By Liz Sly and Colum Lynch, Monday, May 28, 12:38 AM BEIRUT — The U.N. Security Council on Sunday blamed the Syrian government for most of the deaths in a massacre of 116 civilians in the village of Houla, issuing a unanimous statement condemning the killings that was supported by Syria’s staunch allies Russia and China. The killings on Friday, which included at least 32 children, represented one of the bloodiest single incidents yet in the 14-month-old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad’s rule and have served to highlight the failure of a U.N. monitoring mission to halt the violence, which appears to be steadily rising again. The White House and the U.N. are denouncing what Syrian activists say was a shelling that killed more than 90 people, including dozens of children. Activists say it was one of the deadliest regime attacks in Syria's 14-month-old uprising. The White House and the U.N. are denouncing what Syrian activists say was a shelling that killed more than 90 people, including dozens of children. Activists say it was one of the deadliest regime attacks in Syria's 14-month-old uprising. After meeting in a closed-door emergency session Sunday, the 15-member Security Council issued a statement directly accusing Syria of carrying out the killings “of dozens of men, women and children and the wounding of hundreds more .?.?. in attacks that involved a series of government artillery and tank shellings on a residential neighborhood.” The “outrageous use of force” against civilians constitutes a violation of international law and of Syria’s commitment to abide by a U.N.-mandated peace plan, the statement added, calling on Syria to immediately comply with the Security Council resolution endorsing the plan by withdrawing all of its troops and tanks from residential areas. Russia and China, which have in the past blocked criticism of Syria’s behavior, signed on to the statement, signaling their strongest condemnation yet of the Syrian government. But Russia’s deputy U.N. envoy, Alexander Pankin, told reporters after the session that the events leading up to the incident remained “murky.” He raised the prospect that a “third force” had carried out the killings to undermine the U.N. monitoring mission on the eve of Monday’s visit to Damascus by Kofi Annan, the joint U.N.-Arab League special envoy. [War crimes] [Evidence]

• Pan Am 103: Libya and a case unclosed
  Paul Rogers, 24 May 2012 The death of the Libyan official convicted over the Lockerbie bombing in December 1988 will not end the question of responsibility for the atrocity. [Lockerbie]
• Give Tony Blair a war criminal's welcome Leveson Inquiry into the Press
  Monday 28 May 9am-10am Royal Court of Justice, Strand London WC2A 2LL Tony Blair appears at the Royal Court of Justice on Monday 28 May to give evidence to the Leveson Inquiry into the culture, Practice and Ethics of the Press. The court Blair should be in is the International Criminal Tribunal at the Hague to account for the culture, practice and ethics of his lies that took Britain into the illegal war with Iraq, on the coat tails of George W. Bush, and which has left one million Iraq civilians dead and the country devastated. These days -- and quite rightly -- Blair can't go anywhere without being confronted with his war crimes, as happened in the United States just last week (See: Why I heckled war criminal Tony Blair) Will the Leveson Inquiry ask the questions of Blair it should have asked Rupert Murdoch when he gave evidence earlier this month (See: 10 questions Leveson should ask Rupert Murdoch about his relationship with Tony Blair) We're not holding our breath.
• No foreign intervention in Syria
  Statement by Stop the War Coalition
  December 2011 There is a clear danger of yet another war in the Middle East. The United States and Britain are turning their attention to Syria, with the intention of engineering regime change in their favour. Stop the War Coalition fully supports the right of the peoples in all the countries of the Middle East to determine their own future and assert democratic rights. We are therefore implacably opposed to any external intervention, especially military intervention, in Syria. In relation to Syria, any military intervention will most likely be even more destructive and costly than it was in Libya. It will increase Arab and Muslim alienation from the western powers. Most Syrian people, while demanding democratic rights, would oppose any such interference.
• It’s Back to 1980, With the JCS Auctioning Off the Presidency From the Pentagon Battlements
  by ALEXANDER COCKBURN Let me whisk you to 1980 on one of Obama’s miracle drones. In the right-center we had incumbent President Jimmy Carter, derided as a man of peace, el wimpo. True his top foreign policy man was an unreconstructed Polish cold war warrior burning to bringing the Soviet Union to its knees. True, the two had launched the largest covert operation in the CIA’s history — $3.5 billion – against the Soviets in Afghanistan. True he was financing Argentinian torturers to impart their skills to the Nicaraguan contras. True, his out-year military budgets actually outstripped those of his opponent. On the far right was Ronald Reagan, his candidacy crowning almost a decade’s worth of propaganda for the New Cold War from outfits such as Paul Nitze’s Committee on the Present Danger. Nitze used to go on speaking tours with a rack of missiles. On one side were America’s trim little ICBMs, on the other, their mighty, albeit technically somewhat backward Soviet counterparts. The Reaganites derided all treaties as traps, depicting Uncle Sam as, in military terms, down to his underwear, with a peashooter in his holster. Every Pentagon wish received a cordial welcome. Here we are today. On our center-right , Obama, derided as a man of peace, el wimpo, though his relations with the Pentagon have been intimate, and he himself ductile to their demands. True, he’s been waging war on… how many fronts? Five, six, with probably more on a covert, semi-privatized basis. True, he has given the finger to all positive developments in Latin America, presided over a bloody coup in Central America. True, he has been Israel’s serf, and has thumped the drum against China and Russia. True, his secretary of state has been a fountain of bellicose bullyswaggering. And on the far right here’s Romney. The Pentagon auctioneers await the next bid. Up goes Romney’s paddle. [US_election12]
• For U.S., Egyptian election results are simply 'flavors of bad'
  Egyptians protest against Ahmed Shafiq By Matthew Schofield | McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — The United States has been preparing for varying degrees of anti-Americanism with the election of a new Egyptian president. But that doesn’t make it any easier to bridge the gaps that almost certainly will exist between the ultimate winner of this election process and a nation seen as the power behind the toppled autocratic rule of Hosni Mubarak. “We have to get our heads around the idea that there are no good things coming out of the Egyptian elections, as far as the United States is concerned,” said Eric Trager, an Egypt expert with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “Instead, this is about flavors of bad.” Consider recent relations. Since Mubarak ascended to the presidency in 1981, the United States pursued three primary goals through Egypt: Peace with Israel, military cooperation and regional stability. Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/05/25/150225/for-us-egyptian-election-results.html#storylink=cpy
• NATO's Drug Escapades As Seen in the Wake of the Chicago Summit
  Elena PONOMAREVA | 26.05.2012 | 00:00 The NATO summit held in Chicago on May 20-21 featured an extensive program, the list of issues touched upon including European missile defense, the Open Door policy, and the alliance's efforts to strengthen its network of partnerships worldwide. Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Mongolia took part in the forum, and even though the current NATO candidates – Georgia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina - were not issued the desired entry tickets, no doubt was left that the global march of the alliance would proceed at an accelerated pace. Importantly, the presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan were – for the first time ever – on the invitations list. In Putin's footsteps, neither chose to show up, but the foreign ministers of the Central Asian republics attended the summit. [Drugs] [US global strategy]
• Center of gravity in oil world shifts to Americas
  By Juan Forero, Saturday, May 26, 9:35 AM LOMA LA LATA, Argentina — In a desertlike stretch of scrub grass and red buttes, oil companies are punching holes in the ground in search of what might be one of the biggest recent discoveries in the Americas: enough gas and oil to make a country known for beef and the tango an important energy player. The environment is challenging, with resources trapped deep in shale rock. But technological breakthroughs coupled with a feverish quest for the next major find are unlocking the door to oil and natural gas riches here and in several other countries in the Americas not traditionally known as energy producers. That is quickly changing the dynamics of energy geopolitics in a way that had been unforeseen just a few years ago. From Canada to Colombia to Brazil, oil and gas production in the Western Hemisphere is booming, with the United States emerging less dependent on supplies from an unstable Middle East. Central to the new energy equation is the United States itself, which has ramped up production and is now churning out 1.7 million more barrels of oil and liquid fuel per day than in 2005. [Oil] [US global strategy]
• Obama dominates global summits, but do U.S. voters care?
  By Lesley Clark | McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama dominated the world stage over the weekend, convincing European leaders to embrace growth-stimulating economic policies along with austerity and securing NATO commitments for his exit strategy from Afghanistan. The administration declared both global confabs a success and analysts said the president got credit for managing the intricacies of global diplomacy. But with Obama shifting Wednesday to domestic and campaign considerations during a two-day visit to swing states and fundraisers, political analysts say the advantage of an incumbent president making gains on the world stage may not carry all that much punch. Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/05/22/149750/obama-dominates-global-summits.html#storylink=cpy [US_election12] [Domestic]
• NYT Admits Lockerbie Case Flaws
  May 21, 2012 Exclusive: Even in death, Libyan Ali al-Megrahi is dubbed “the Lockerbie bomber,” a depiction that proved useful last year in rallying public support for “regime change” in Libya. But the New York Times now concedes, belatedly, that the case against him was riddled with errors and false testimony, as Robert Parry reports. By Robert Parry From the Now-They-Tell-Us department comes the New York Times obit of Libyan agent Ali al-Megrahi, who was convicted by a special Scottish court for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. After Megrahi’s death from cancer was announced on Sunday, the Times finally acknowledged that his guilt was in serious doubt. Note the lack of doubt or even attribution. A similar certainty prevailed in virtually all other mainstream news reports and commentaries, ranging from the right-wing media to the liberal MSNBC, whose foreign policy correspondent Andrea Mitchell would seal the deal by recalling that Libya had accepted “responsibility” for the bombing. Gaddafi’s eventual defeat, capture and grisly murder brought no fresh doubts about the certainty of the guilt of Megrahi, who was simply called the “Lockerbie bomber.” Few eyebrows were raised even when British authorities released Libya’s former intelligence chief Moussa Koussa after asking him some Lockerbie questions. Scotland Yard also apparently failed to notice the dog not barking when the new pro-Western Libyan government took power and released no confirmation that Gaddafi’s government indeed had sponsored the 1988 attack. After Gaddafi’s overthrow and death, the Lockerbie issue just disappeared from the news. [Libya] [Disinformation]
• US Officially Arming Extremists in Syria
  Denied no longer, US officials admit US-Saudi cash & logistical support arming terrorists in Syria. by Tony Cartalucci Global Research, May 18, 2012 landdestroyer.blogspot.com - 2012-05-17 Recently reported in "Brookings Announces Next Move in Syria: War," it was stated that "by the US policy think-tank Brookings Institution's own admission, the Kofi Annan six-point peace plan in Syria was merely a ploy to buy time to reorganize NATO's ineffective terrorist proxies and provide them the pretext necessary for establishing NATO protected safe havens from which to carry out their terrorism from." It was also examined in detail, how in 2007, US, Saudi, and Israeli officials admitted they were creating a militant front of extremists for the sole purpose of causing the destabilization of Syria we see today, and ultimately overthrowing the Syrian government. It was noted how these extremist militants had direct ties to Al Qaeda. [Terrorism] [Outsourcing]
• White House visitor logs provide window into lobbying industry
  By T.W. Farnam, Published: May 21 Before 9 a.m., a group of lobbyists began showing up at the White House security gates with the chief executives of their companies, all of whom serve on President Obama’s jobs council, to be checked in for a roundtable with the president. At 1 p.m., a dozen representatives from the meat industry arrived for a briefing in the New Executive Office Building. At 3 p.m., a handful of lobbyists were lining up for a ceremony honoring the 2011 World Series champions, the St. Louis Cardinals. The White House visitor logs capture the ordinary (and extraordinary) pulse of the presidency, from state arrival ceremonies to bowling alley tours. And at 4 p.m., a lobbyist for Goldman Sachs arrived in the Old Executive Office Building for a meeting with Alan B. Krueger, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. It was an unremarkable January day, with a steady stream of lobbyists among the thousands of daily visitors to the White House and the surrounding executive office buildings, according to a Washington Post analysis of visitor logs released by the administration. The Post matched visits with lobbying registrations and connected records in the visitor database to show who participated in the meetings, information now available in a search engine on the Post’s web site. The visitor logs for Jan. 17 — one of the most recent days available — show that the lobbying industry Obama has vowed to constrain is a regular presence at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. The records also suggest that lobbyists with personal connections to the White House enjoy the easiest access. More than any president before him, Obama pledged to change the political culture that has fueled the influence of lobbyists. He barred recent lobbyists from joining his administration and banned them from advisory boards throughout the executive branch. The president went so far as to forbid what had been staples of political interaction — federal employees could no longer accept free admission to receptions and conferences sponsored by lobbying groups. [Corruption]
• New Lockerbie inquiry rejected by PM as Abdelbaset al-Megrahi dies
  Cameron says bombing case was properly conducted, but MP says there are 'still so many unanswered questions' Severin Carrell, Chris Stephen in Tripoli, Patrick Wintour in Chicago and James Meikle guardian.co.uk, Sunday 20 May 2012 21.10 BST The man convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing has died of cancer at his home in Tripoli, according to his brother. Video: guardian.co.uk Link to this video David Cameron has dismissed the possibility of a UK inquiry into the conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi – the only person convicted of involvement in the Lockerbie plane b David Cameron has dismissed the possibility of a UK inquiry into the conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi – the only person convicted of involvement in the Lockerbie plane b [Lockerbie] [Disinformation]
• Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi dies at 60, report says
  By T. Rees Shapiro, Monday, May 21, 2:06 AM Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, a shadowy Libyan intelligence officer who was convicted in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 people, and whose release from prison in 2009 sparked international uproar, died May 20 at his home in Tripoli. He was 60. The death was confirmed by his son, Khaled al-Megrahi, the Associated Press reported. Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the National Security Council, wrote in a e-mail, “Megrahi’s death concludes an unfortunate chapter following his release from prison in 2009 on medical grounds — a move we strongly opposed. As we have long said, we want to see justice for the victims of the Lockerbie bombing and their families. We will continue working with our new partners in Libya toward a full accounting of Qadhafi’s horrific acts.” [Lockerbie]
• Brave New World, Brave New Majority
  by ALEXANDER COCKBURN The news is in. White births are no longer a majority in the United States. The Bureau of the Census confirms that non-Hispanic whites accounted for 49.6 of all births in the year ending July, 2011, while minorities including Hispanics, blacks, Asians and those of mixed race — reached 50.4 percent. I felt lonely and went out on the porch and hollered for my neighbor, a white German-American. Nothing stirred. I went back to my computer. At least someone is thinking constructively. The World Wildlife Fund says we need two planets. The rationale is that we create too much waste for one, but the roots of American environmentalism were always nourished by dislike of “those of mixed race”, and some over there at WWF has got their thinking cap on. Is whitey ready for a fresh start? Face it, we may be a minority, but we got the firepower. [Militarisation] [Decline] [Fascism]
• The American Press and the Middle East
  by JAMES ABOUREZK In the May 3 edition of the International Herald Tribune (but not its domestic sister publication, The New York Times), Raja Shehadeh wrote a personal observation resulting from his experience as a human rights worker in Palestine. Here are two paragraphs from his article: It was 1982 [when Shehadeh first met Sabri Garaib]. In the many years since then Sabri repeatedly fought the settlers in order to hold on to his land. He would go to the Military Objection Committee to counter claims challenging his ownership. He would appeal to the Israeli high court, using every recourse available. He would go to jail for fighting off settlers who tried to stop him from farming or for removing fences they’d put up. But the settlement kept growing all around his house, claiming his land one acre at a time. Sabri died on April 18. He was 73. It had been several years since I’d gone to his house, and when I visited recently to pay my condolences to his family I was appalled by what I saw. The house was hemmed in on three sides, with only a few yards of space left for a garden between the house and a gigantic steel fence. To get to the front door, I had to pass through a metal gate that is operated from the army camp nearby and walk down a narrow walkway lined with more steel fencing. Two cameras placed by the army monitor all movement through the gate. [Media]
• Syria car bomb kills nine and injures hundreds
  Suicide bomber drove vehicle to army base and detonated explosives in city of Deir al Zor, according to opposition group guardian.co.uk, Saturday 19 May 2012 12.24 BST The suicide bomb contained an estimated 1,000kg of explosives. Link to this video Nine people were killed and hundreds injured when a car bomb exploded in the Syrian city of Deir al Zor, Syrian state media has reported. A suicide bomber drove a car to an army base and detonated an estimated 1,000kg of explosives, according to Sana news agency. Observers from the UN visited the scene of the explosion. An opposition group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the blast was near military intelligence offices and was followed by heavy gunfire. The group said the bomb went off on a street where a military hospital and air force intelligence offices are also located. Omar Abu Laila, spokesperson of the Free Syrian Army in Deir az-Zour accused the Syrian regime of organising the bombing.
• U.S., allies accelerating plans to secure chemical arsenal as Syrian crisis worsens
  By Joby Warrick, Updated: Sunday, May 20, 8:04 AM The Obama administration is accelerating its planning with Middle Eastern allies for a series of potentially fast-moving crises in Syria in the coming months, including the possible loss of government control over some of the country’s scattered stocks of chemical weapons, U.S. and Middle Eastern security officials say. The planning, involving intelligence and military officials from at least seven countries, includes detailed arrangements for securing chemical arms with special forces troops in the event that parts of Syria are seized by militants, the officials said. Western and regional intelligence officials are increasingly concerned that Islamic extremists could attempt to seize control of whole towns and districts if the country slides into full-scale civil war. [Seizure] [Syria] [Unintended consequences]
• U.S. grants visa to Raul Castro’s daughter but denies visit by Cuban academics
  AFP/Getty Images - Cuban Director of the National Centre for Sexual Education Mariela Castro, daughter of President Raul Castro, participates in a march against homophobia on May 12, 2012, in Havana. By Pamela Constable, Friday, May 18, 1:12 PM The Obama administration granted a visa this week to the daughter of Cuban President Raul Castro but rejected visas for nearly a dozen other Cubans to attend an academic conference in California, angering both conservative Cuban American leaders and American scholars seeking to improve U.S.-Cuban academic ties. Mariela Castro, 50, an advocate for gay rights and a niece of longtime communist leader Fidel Castro, will be allowed to travel to San Francisco next week for a meeting of the Latin American Studies Association, and she will later visit New York, administration officials and several American scholars confirmed Thursday. The news provoked a flood of condemnation from Cuban American politicians, including several members of Congress, who strongly oppose the Castro government and are wary of rewarding or loosening ties with the island’s communist regime. In a letter Thursday to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, a group of legislators blasted the government’s “appalling decision to allow regime agents” from Cuba to enter the United States. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) said advocates of Cuba’s government such as Mariela Castro should not be granted a platform to espouse “twisted rhetoric.” Among American scholars who specialize in Latin America, the decision to deny visas to other prominent Cubans invited to the conference — including several who visited the United States last year — aroused equally forceful criticism. [Human rights]
• U.S. escalates clandestine war in Yemen
  May 16, 2012 | WASHINGTON -- In an escalation of America’s clandestine war in Yemen, a small contingent of U.S. troops is providing targeting data for Yemeni airstrikes as government forces battle to dislodge Al Qaeda militants and other insurgents in the country’s restive south, U.S. and Yemeni officials said. Operating from a Yemeni base, at least 20 U.S. special operations troops have used satellite imagery, drone video, eavesdropping systems and other technical means to help pinpoint targets for an offensive that intensified this week, said U.S. and Yemeni officials who asked not to be identified talking about the sensitive operation. The U.S. forces also advised Yemeni military commanders on where and when to deploy their troops, two senior Obama administration officials said. The U.S. contingent is expected to grow, a senior military official said. The Obama administration’s direct military role in Yemen is more extensive than previously reported and represents a deepening involvement in the nation’s growing conflict. [Yemen] [Special operations] [Global insurgency]
• Syria: Is this country headed straight to hell or what?
  Back in February I wrote for Asia Times about the Chinese diplomatic initiative on Syria, which is now largely represented by the Annan peace plan. At the time, I wrote China’s plan had a chance, albeit slim, because, for all the brave talk emanating from the Gulf, Turkey, the EU, and the West nobody seemed particularly eager to step up and destroy the Assad regime.
• Wal-Mart took part in lobbying campaign to amend anti-bribery law
  By Tom Hamburger, Brady Dennis and Jia Lynn Yang, Published: April 25 Wal-Mart, the giant retailer now under fire over allegations of foreign bribery in Mexico, has participated in an aggressive and high-priced lobbying campaign to amend the long-standing U.S. anti-bribery law that the company might have violated. The push to revisit how federal authorities enforce the statute has been centered at a little-known but well-funded arm of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce where a top executive of Wal-Mart has sat on the board of directors for nearly a decade. [Corruption]
• Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: Why I won't be going to the London Olympics
  Iran's president stays away but other controversial national leaders will attend, causing a headache for David Cameron Luke Harding guardian.co.uk, Thursday 17 May 2012 18.00 BST President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad applauded Iran's athletes but said he would not be going to London to watch them. Photograph: Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has said he would like to come to the London Olympics but will not be attending because Britain has "a problem" with him. His decision to stay away highlights a dilemma for the British government, which faces an unprecedented influx of leaders from unsavoury regimes for the opening ceremony on 27 July. Ahmadinejad did not give details of the "problem" but made it clear he had been keen to travel to London to support Iran's Olympic team. Speaking at Tehran's Azadi sports complex, he told a group of athletes: "I would like to go. But unfortunately they have a problem with my presence. Otherwise I would have liked to have participated in the Olympics, and to have applauded our dear youth." Iran's state media this week speculated that Ahmadinejad was unwilling to submit to the fingerprinting necessary to obtain a British visa – seeing this as an unacceptable and humiliating procedure. The Iranian leader is not subject to an EU travel ban and, theoretically, could have entered the UK to join other world leaders. [Double standards] [Media] [Hypocrisy]
• Syria's Bashar al-Assad vows to display captured foreign mercenaries
  President issues warning on Russian state TV against those fighting his regime and denounces governments who interfere Ian Black, Middle East editor guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 16 May 2012 20.11 BST Syria's president Bashar al-Assad has promised to display captured foreign "mercenaries" who have been fighting his regime and denounced western governments for failing to protest at the violence being perpetrated by his enemies. In his first interview in many months, Assad told Russian state TV that the Syrian opposition had shown itself to be insignificant by calling for a boycott of the recent parliamentary elections – dismissed as a sham by critics in Syria and abroad. "How can you boycott the people of whom you consider yourself the representative?" the president asked. "I don't think that they have any kind of weight or significance within Syria."
• Transformations of global power and influence: The political, economic, and security dimension
  03.05.2012 Milos Balaban is a Head of the Centre for Security Policy in the Centre for Social and Economic Strategies at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University in Prague Erosion of the West’s global dominance In the early 2010s, the world is witnessing a major transformation of the existing international system, a system that began to take shape some 150 years ago, in the last three decades of the nineteenth century. In this period, Western Europe and the United States became the dominant powers in international affairs and the world economy. The first and, even more strongly, the second world war challenged this dominance, most markedly by the emergence of the Soviet Union and its subsequent rise as a new world power after the defeat of Nazi Germany. For four decades, the world was bipolar, swayed by the rivalry between the USSR and the US. Then came the political, economic and social collapse of the former, and, in the early 1990s, the USSR as a superpower ceased to exist. But even while the bipolar world order existed, the powerful economies of the US and Western Europe (with the addition of Japan after the Second World War) were able to gain a substantial edge on the rest of the world. The breakup of the USSR strengthened the political, economic and security superiority of the United States on the global stage, ushering in what has come to be known as the “unipolar moment”, a phrase coined by the American journalist Charles Krauthammer.[1] However, America´s superiority is already a thing of the past, mostly due to the “US-made” economic and financial crisis[2], which the global importance of the US economy helped spread wide, most markedly to the Euro-Atlantic area. The West´s dominance should also be perceived in a wider context of global development. In Civilization: The Six Ways the West Beat the Rest,[3] Niall Fergusson attributes the West´s success in overtaking the rest of the world over the last 500 years to its ability to embrace six key areas: competition, science, private ownership, medicine, consumerism and work ethics. The seventh ingredient one may add to this formula is the technological revolution. This Western “monopoly” was first challenged by Japan after the Second World War, but over the past three decades Japan has been joined by other Asian countries: China, in particular, but also India, South Korea, Indonesia, Singapore and Vietnam. The rise of Asia has been aptly characterized by the former US finance minister Lawrence Summers. He noted that while the industrial revolution raised the living standard by some 50 % during a person´s lifespan, Asia’s current growth rate represents an unprecedented 100-fold (that is, 10,000 %) rise in standards of living during one lifetime.[4 [Decline]
• Census: Minority babies are now majority in United States
  By Carol Morello and Ted Mellnik, Updated: Thursday, May 17, 4:45 PM For the first time in U.S. history, most of the nation’s babies are members of minority groups, according to new census figures that signal the dawn of an era in which whites no longer will be in the majority. Population estimates show that 50.4 percent of children younger than 1 last year were Hispanic, black, Asian American or in other minority groups. That’s almost a full percentage point higher than the 49.5 percent of minority babies counted when the decennial census was taken in April 2010. Census Bureau demographers said the tipping point came three months later, in July. The latest estimates, which gauge changes since the last census, are a reflection of an immigration wave that began four decades ago. The transformation of the country’s racial and ethnic makeup has gathered steam as the white population grows collectively older, especially compared with Hispanics. [Demographics]
• U.S., Australia to broaden military ties amid Pentagon pivot to SE Asia
  By Craig Whitlock, Published: March 27 The United States and Australia are planning a major expansion of military ties, including possible drone flights from a coral atoll in the Indian Ocean and increased U.S. naval access to Australian ports, as the Pentagon looks to shift its forces closer to Southeast Asia, officials from both countries said. The moves, which are under discussion but have drawn strong interest from both sides, would come on top of an agreement announced by President Obama and Prime Minister Julia Gillard in November to deploy up to 2,500 U.S. Marines to Darwin, on Australia’s northern coast. [US global strategy] [China confrontation]
• The expansion of the US military into Asia-Pacific is not just about power, but also about profit.
  Last Modified: 07 May 2012 11:28 Jon Letman Kauai, Hawaii - As Noam Chomsky wrote in this two-part essay, the US "pivot" towards the Asia-Pacific region is in response to what it calls "classic security dilemmas" posed by the rising influence of China and Russia. Reacting with military programmes and strategies it says are "defensive", this "pivot" is perceived as bullying, threatening and an intrusion - in other words more of the same - by those most impacted by US foreign military presence. The "classic security dilemma makes sense", Chomsky argues, if one operates under the assumption that the US has "the right to control most of the world, and that US security requires something approaching absolute global control". A major component of this "pivot" is its pursuit of "missile defence" which both President Obama and presumed Republican nominee Mitt Romney argue are intended to counter threats from Iran and North Korea. Critics call it a ruse, but most of the US public calls it nothing at all - the issue is barely on the radar. {MISCOM] [US global strategy]
• European Elections: Is the Center Holding?
  Commentary No. 329, May 15, 2012 Elections in Western parliamentary systems are always about the center. The standard situation is one in which there are two dominant parties - one somewhat right of center and one somewhat left of center. There are differences between the policies these parties pursue when in office, but there are also enormous similarities. The election never reflects a profound political split. Rather, it is about recentering the center - what is to be considered the leverage point in the seesaw between the parties. The rarer situation is about repudiating the center, and therefore repudiating the two erstwhile principal parties that revolve around the center. Such a result throws national politics into major turmoil, and sometimes has considerable impact outside the country as well. The recent elections in France and Greece illustrate these two situations well.
  If Germany moves in that direction, the euro and the European Union will survive, and continue to be a major (if chastened) actor on the geopolitical scene. Worldwide, the recentering of Europe as a whole will however not encrust a status quo but rather speed up the geopolitical realignments that are inevitable. Nonetheless, German recentering may help Europe to resist better the coming tsunami of the collapse of sovereign funds and of the dollar as reserve currency. [Crisis] [Euro] [Debt] [Reserve]
• NATO underplayed civilian deaths in Libya: HRW
  BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO air strikes killed 72 civilians in Libya last year, Human Rights Watch said on Monday, accusing the western alliance of failing to acknowledge the scope of collateral damage it caused during the campaign that helped oust Muammar Gaddafi. In a report based on investigations at bombing sites during and after the conflict, the New York-based HRW said NATO strikes killed 20 women and 24 children. It called on the alliance to compensate civilian victims and investigate attacks that may have been unlawful. "Attacks are allowed only on military targets, and serious questions remain in some incidents about what exactly NATO forces were striking," Fred Abrahams, special adviser at HRW, said in a statement. The report claims to be the most extensive investigation to date of civilian casualties from NATO's air campaign and presents a higher death toll estimate than a March paper by Amnesty International which documented 55 civilian deaths, including 16 children and 14 women. NATO considers its Libya operation highly successful, illustrating the allies' ability to work well together in a limited campaign. NATO carried out some 26,000 sorties including some 9,600 strike missions and destroyed about 5,900 targets before operations ended on October 31. The alliance said the campaign had been conducted with "unprecedented care and precision and to a standard exceeding that required by international humanitarian law". [Casualties][Civilian]
• Israel’s drone dominance
  Tuesday, May 15, 2012 11:45 PM +1200 If you want to know how drones will change America, look to the Jewish State -- where they're already widespread By Jefferson Morley Stark Aerospace of Mississippi is perhaps the only foreign-owned company with FAA permission to fly a drone in U.S. airspace. Based in the town of Columbus, not far from Mississippi State University, Stark is a subsidiary of the state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries — not that you could tell from looking at the company’s website, executive leadership or affiliations. You have to go to the Mississippi secretary of state website to learn that two of Stark’s three directors are Israelis. So too with the America’s drone industry. The Israeli influence is not visible but it is real, documented and extremely relevant to the future of drones in America. If you want to know how drones may change American airspace in coming years, just look to Israel, where the unmanned aerial vehicle market is thriving and drones are considered a reliable instrument of “homeland security.” “There are three explanations for Israel’s success in becoming a world leader in development and production of UAVs,” a top Israeli official explained to the Jerusalem Post last year. “We have unbelievable people and innovation, combat experience that helps us understand what we need and immediate operational use since we are always in a conflict which allows us to perfect our systems.” [UAV] [Israel]
• Syrian rebels get influx of arms with gulf neighbors’ money, U.S. coordination
  By Karen DeYoung and Liz Sly, Published: May 16 Syrian rebels battling the regime of President Bashar al-Assad have begun receiving significantly more and better weapons in recent weeks, an effort paid for by Persian Gulf nations and coordinated in part by the United States, according to opposition activists and U.S. and foreign officials. Obama administration officials emphasized that the United States is neither supplying nor funding the lethal material, which includes antitank weaponry. Instead, they said, the administration has expanded contacts with opposition military forces to provide the gulf nations with assessments of rebel credibility and command-and-control infrastructure. [Syria] [Arms] [Legality] [Subversion]
• President Obama executive order gives Treasury authority to freeze Yemeni assets in U.S.
  By Karen DeYoung, Published: May 16 | Updated: Thursday, May 17, 3:10 AM President Obama issued an executive order Wednesday giving the Treasury Department authority to freeze the U.S.-based assets of anyone who “obstructs” implementation of the administration-backed political transition in Yemen. The unusual order, which administration officials said also targets U.S. citizens who engage in activity deemed to threaten Yemen’s security or political stability, is the first issued for Yemen that does not directly relate to counterterrorism. [Imperialism] [Subcritical]
• Mubarak Still Has His Billions
  By Cam McGrath CAIRO, May 8, 2012 (IPS) - More than a year since president Hosni Mubarak was removed from power, the money he allegedly syphoned from Egypt during his 29-year rule remains beyond the reach of authorities attempting to recover it. Mubarak amassed a fortune by carving up Egypt as if it were his own private estate. The dictator and his family are believed to have accumulated anywhere from 2 billion to 70 billion dollars in illicit wealth, much of it tied up in secret offshore accounts as well as lavish estates in London, Madrid, New York and across Egypt. Authorities responsible for identifying and recovering these assets have dragged their feet, giving Mubarak's intermediaries more time to move the money to safe havens, says Amir Marghany, a member of the Egyptian Legal Group for Recovering the People’s Wealth (ELGRPW), an ad hoc group of lawyers and jurists seeking restitution of Mubarak’s ill-gotten gains. [Corruption] [Imperialism] [US global strategy]
• COLD WAR II: From the Balkans to Central Asia: U.S.-NATO Prepare for New Cold War
  by Rick Rozoff Global Research, May 1, 2012 Stop NATO Though infrequently acknowledged if even given consideration, the current historical period remains what it has been for a quarter century, the post-Cold War era. Beginning in earnest in 1991 with the near simultaneous disintegration of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia - instantaneous in the first case, comparatively slower in the second, only complete with the independence of Montenegro in 2008 - the bipolar world ended with the demise of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact and the nonaligned one with the fragmentation of Yugoslavia, a founder of the Non-Aligned Movement. The dissolution of the two nations, the only both multi-ethnic and multi-confessional countries in Europe, was accompanied by violent ethnic conflicts often reinforced by religious differences. In Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo, the South Caucasus, the Russian North Caucasus and on the east bank of the Dniester River. In many instances, in Serbian-majority areas of Croatia and Bosnia and in Transdniester, memories of World War II gave rise to legitimate fears of revanchism among populations that recalled the death camps and pogroms of Adolf Hitler's allies in the early 1940s and witnessed the recrudescence of the ideologies, the irredentism and the political trappings that gave rise to them. [NCW]
• President's Top Terrorism Aid Calls Drone Killings "Legal," "Ethical," "Wise"
  By Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet Posted on April 30, 2012, Printed on April 30, 2012 President Obama's senior anti-terrorism advisor, John Brennan, on Monday gave the administration's most detailed explanation of the policy and considerations behind using unmanned drones to target and kill terrorists abroad, saying the process was "legal," "ethical," and "conformed to the principle of necessity" and "proportionality," in a speech at a Washington, D.C. foreign policy think tank. "In the course of the war in Afghanistan and the fight against al-Qq'ida, I think the American people expects to use advanced technologies, for example, to prevent attacks on U.S. forces and to remove terrorists from the battlefield," said Brennan, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism. "We do and it has saved the lives of our men and women in uniform." Brennan's speech comes as the Obama administration has come under attack from progressives for expanding the global fight on terrorism to U.S. shores by supporting numerous policies and signing legislation that have curtailed domestic civil rights and liberties, including creating extra-judicial procedures for arresting and detaining terrorism suspects as well as expanding the military's authority to operate domestically, including spying on American's Internet activities. [UAV] [Assassination] [Legality]
• American decline and the imperative for higher education
  As the American era of global dominance draws to a close, higher education becomes more important than ever. Last Modified: 09 Feb 2012 06:45 Saint Paul, MN - The waning of the American era of global dominance has caused a good deal of hand wringing in US foreign policy circles and denial by many in the political establishment. It is the country's lack of preparation for this historic transition which should worry Americans, not the change itself. Just when the US should be strengthening university education to produce a more cosmopolitan citizenry that will deal intelligently with its new position in the world, public expenditures on higher education are declining at unprecedented levels. [Decline] [Education]
• Why America is Doomed to One Disaster After Another
  by GABRIEL KOLKO Both Europe and the United States confront great crises; while they are different in certain regards they have important similarities too. America’s crisis is both military and economic; they are interrelated because America has a huge deficit, in large part because it has the chimerical ambition to be the world’s dominating military power, which costs it immense sums of money, which its deficit spending largely funds. At the same time it has lost most of its major conflicts militarily, politically—or both. Europe is at the threshold of crucial economic decisions, and they also have grave political implications, whose effects are likely to last for many years. In essence, in Europe the question is whether or not German power or domination of the continental economy will be revived1 under the guise of pan-Europeanism. [Decline] [Militarisation]
• SYRIA: The Kofi Annan "Peace Plan" is a Ploy. The Unspoken Objective is "Regime Change"
  Brookings Announces Next Move in Syria: War by Tony Cartalucci Global Research, May 9, 2012 landdestroyer.blogspot.com After admitting UN peace plan was a ploy, Brookings predictably scraps it and begins promoting expanded military conflict. By the US policy think-tank Brookings Institution's own admission, the Kofi Annan six-point peace plan in Syria was merely a ploy to buy time to reorganize NATO's ineffective terrorist proxies and provide them the pretext necessary for establishing NATO protected safe havens from which to carry out their terrorism from. In fact, Brookings actually stated in a recent report, "Assessing Options for Regime Change" (emphasis added): "An alternative is for diplomatic efforts to focus first on how to end the violence and how to gain humanitarian access, as is being done under Annan’s leadership. This may lead to the creation of safe-havens and humanitarian corridors, which would have to be backed by limited military power. This would, of course, fall short of U.S. goals for Syria and could preserve Asad in power. From that starting point, however, it is possible that a broad coalition with the appropriate international mandate could add further coercive action to its efforts." -page 4, Assessing Options for Regime Change, Brookings Institution.
• Afghan commanders show new defiance in dealings with Americans
  By Kevin Sieff, Published: May 11 KABUL —Afghan commanders have refused more than a dozen times within the past two months to act on U.S. intelligence regarding high-level insurgents, arguing that night-time operations to target the men would result in civilian casualties, Afghan officials say. The defiance highlights the shift underway in Afghanistan as Afghan commanders make use of their newfound power to veto operations proposed by their NATO counterparts. [Afghanistan] [Client] [Decline]
• In defence of greatness: Britain's carrier saga
  Paul Rogers, 10 May 2012 A single cost-cutting decision to an expensive naval project is in itself a mere adjustment. But in a wider context it highlights the missing debate about Britain's 21st-century security needs. Even by the expensive standards of major defence projects, Britain's commitment to maintaining both a nuclear-weapons capability and a global naval reach over the next decades represents a substantial burden. A decision announced ? on 10 May 2012 illustrates the enduring problems in pursuing the second of these ambitions - and reveals anew the flaws in the ambitions themselves. [Decline] [Governance]
• U.S. trains African soldiers for Somalia mission
  By Craig Whitlock, Monday, May 14, 12:31 PM KAKOLA, Uganda — The heart of the Obama administration’s strategy for fighting al-Qaeda militants in Somalia can be found next to a cow pasture here, a thousand miles from the front lines. Under the gaze of American instructors, gangly Ugandan recruits are taught to carry rifles, dodge roadside bombs and avoid shooting each other by accident. In one obstacle course dubbed “Little Mogadishu,” the Ugandans learn the basics of urban warfare as they patrol a mock city block of tumble-down buildings and rusty shipping containers designed to resemble the battered and dangerous Somali capital. “Death is Here! No One Leaves,” warns the fake graffiti, which, a little oddly, is spray-painted in English instead of Somali. “GUNS $ BOOMS,” reads another menacing tag. Despite the warnings, the number of recruits graduating from this boot camp — built with U.S. taxpayer money and staffed by State Department contractors — has increased in recent months. The current class of 3,500 Ugandan soldiers, the biggest since the camp opened five years ago, is preparing to deploy to Somalia to join a growing international force composed entirely of African troops but largely financed by Washington. [Outsourcing] [Global insurgency]
• Islamist group al-Nusra Front claims responsibility for Damascus bombings
  Video posted online says twin car bombings that killed 55 people in Syrian capital were revenge for Assad regime's aggression Damien Pearse and agencies guardian.co.uk, Saturday 12 May 2012 15.37 BST Car bombs explode in Damascus Cars burn at the scene of two blasts that hit the Syrian capital Damascus on 10 May 2012. Photograph: Sana/EPA An obscure Islamist group, the al-Nusra Front, has posted a video online claiming responsibility for two bomb attacks that killed 55 people in Syria's capital, Damascus, earlier this week. The video, narrated by a man whose voice was disguised, showed no images of militants making or setting up the bomb and did not claim the attacks as suicide bombings. [Syria] [Terrorism]
• The triage commander: Gen. John Allen hastily transforming U.S. mission in Afghanistan
  By Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Sunday, May 13, 8:29 AM GELAN, Afghanistan — Standing in a plywood-walled command post before Gen. John R. Allen, the supreme allied commander in Afghanistan, the nervous-but-earnest young lieutenant cast his platoon’s task for the day in the grand terms of counterinsurgency strategy — the American military’s wartime playbook for the past several years. The goal of the platoon’s walk through a bazaar and meetings with village leaders, the lieutenant said, was for the Afghan government to be “seen as an effective governing body that gains legitimacy with the local population.” Such ambition used to elicit enthusiastic praise from visiting generals. Not anymore. “How are you going to create that as an end state?” Allen asked, making no effort to mask his deep skepticism. Faced with an order from President Obama to withdraw 23,000 troops by the end of the summer, and the prospect of further reductions next year, Allen is hastily transforming the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan. Instead of trying to continue large U.S. counterinsurgency operations for as long as he can, he is accelerating a handover of responsibility to Afghan security forces. He plans to order American and NATO troops to push Afghans into the lead across much of the country this summer, even in insurgent-ridden places that had not been candidates for an early transfer. [Decline]
• The Silver Lining to the Drop in Startups
  By Scott Shane on May 08, 2012 Scott_shane A long-term trend toward fewer business failures. That’s what you could have titled the recently released Kauffman Foundation-Census Bureau study (PDF) on U.S. entrepreneurship, entitled “Where Have All the Young Firms Gone?” While the report focuses on the decline in business creation, implicit in the data it discusses is a long-term decline in the failure rate of businesses. The study discusses the dramatic drop in startup activity in the United States over the past three decades: U.S. Census data reveal that the share of new businesses shrank, from 13 percent of U.S. employers in 1980 to 8 percent in 2010 (when measured as the number of new ones formed as a percentage of all those in operation in the prior year). While the press release that accompanies the report implies that the decline is problematic because new businesses have historically been an important source of job creation, the interpretation need not be so dire. [Decline]
• Where Have All the Young Firms Gone?
  Sixth in a series of reports using data from the May 2012 U.S. Census Bureau’s Business Dynamics Statistics John Haltiwanger University of Maryland Ron Jarmin U.S. Bureau of the Census Javier Miranda U.S. Bureau of the Census Business Dynamics Statistics Briefing: Where Have All the Young Firms Gone? About the Business Dynamics Statistics The Business Dynamics Statistics (BDS) is a product of the U.S. Census Bureau that measures business openings and closings, startups, job creation, and job destruction by firm size, age, industrial sector, and state. The U.S. economy is comprised of more than six million establishments with paid employees. The population of these businesses is constantly churning—some businesses grow, others decline, and yet others close. New businesses constantly replenish this pool. The BDS monitors this activity to provide a picture of the dynamics underlying aggregate net employment growth. More information about the BDS can be found at http://www.census.gov/ces/dataproducts/bds/index.html. ©2012 by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. All rights reserved. Business Dynamics Statistics Briefing: Where Have All the Young Firms Gone? [1] Where Have All the Young Firms Gone? by John Haltiwanger, Ron Jarmin, and Javier Miranda1 1. University of Maryland and NBER, U.S. Census Bureau, and U.S. Census Bureau. The analysis in this paper uses only public domain data from the Business Dynamics Statistics (BDS The new BDS data release shows that, in 2010, 394,000 startups created 2.3 million jobs (these were not simply establishment openings but new firms whose establishments also were new to the economy). This reflects substantial job creation in a time of anemic overall economic activity. Over the same period from March 2009 to March 2010,4 the net job creation from all U.S. private sector firms was -1.8 million jobs. Without the contribution of business startups, the net employment loss would have been substantially greater. [Innovation] [Decline]
• Obama Stump Speech Reflects More Modest Vision of America’s Global Ambitions
  Gone from the president’s stump speech are calls for America to lead the world on global warming, or on anything else—a foreign-policy minimalism that acknowledges changes in global power. By Peter Beinart, New America Foundation May 7, 2012 | The Daily Beast Listening to Barack Obama road-test his general-election stump speech this weekend in Virginia, I kept remembering the 2008 version and thinking that something was missing. Then it hit me: what’s missing this time is the rest of the world. In Richmond this weekend, Obama described his 2008 campaign this way: “We came together to reclaim the basic bargain that built the largest middle class and the most prosperous nation on Earth. We came together because we believe that in America, your success shouldn’t be determined by the circumstances of your birth.” [Decline]
• Damascus blasts kill 55, wound 372
  AFP - Xinhua | May 11, 2012 00:10 By Agencies Suicide attackers detonated massive bombs in Damascus during the morning rush hour Thursday, killing at least 55 people and wounding nearly 400 in the deadliest bombings of Syria's 14-month uprising. UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan strongly condemned the attacks, which President Bashar al-Assad's government blamed on "terrorists" and the opposition accused his regime of carrying out to threaten UN observers. State television aired gruesome footage of the aftermath of the explosions in the neighborhood of Qazzaz, which the UN mission chief later visited and appealed for help to end the bloodshed. [Syria] [Terrorism]
• Underwear bomb plot: British and US intelligence rattled over leaks
  Leak about UK involvement described as despicable by CIA as anger turns to Obama administration for compromising mission Ewen MacAskill in Washington and Ian Black, Middle East editor guardian.co.uk, Friday 11 May 2012 19.26 BST Detailed leaks of operational information about the foiled underwear bomb plot are causing growing anger in the US intelligence community, with former agents blaming the Obama administration for undermining national security and compromising the British services, MI6 and MI5. The Guardian has learned from Saudi sources that the agent was not a Saudi national as was widely reported, but a Yemeni. He was born in Saudi Arabia, in the port city of Jeddah, and then studied and worked in the UK, where he acquired a British passport.
• Seif al-Islam Gaddafi and the Fight behind the Scene over His Fate
  Alexander MEZYAEV | 12.05.2012 | 00:00 The legal proceedings against Seif al-Islam, the son of Muammar Gaddafi, have developed into an unusual situation, that has had no precedents in the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) history. The matter is that the Court itself is exerting efforts to destroy the case so that the accused would never have to face it. It has started from a strange leak of information that took place a few days ago from the International Criminal Court. And it happened through a formal source: the ICC’s website. First the two documents1 were posted for public view, but disappeared in a few hours without any explanation. They were related to the report of the ICC’s delegation that had visited Seif al-Islam Gaddafi in Zintan. The questions change places while reading the text: it is becoming clear why they have been taken away from public view. But the question pops up, why have they been made public at all? There is ground to believe that some kind of clash between two opposing forces took place inside the Court. One of the forces had never made itself known before
• First Madeleine Albright, now Prince Harry: The Strange World of Humanitarian Awards
  by Felicity Arbuthnot Global Research, May 7, 2012 “You fasten the triggers for others to fire, Then you sit back and watch, When the death count gets higher. You hide in your mansion As young people’s blood Flows out of their bodies And is buried in mud.” (“Masters of War”, Bob Dylan, 1941- ) Humanitarian Awards are surely taking on a whole new meaning. The end of April brought the obscenity of the announcement that Madeleine Albright, a woman prepared to sacrifice children by proxy(i) was to be awarded America’s highest honour, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, for her role as a long time champion of democracy and human rights all over the world. In the same twenty four hours, an announcement was made that Britain’s Prince Harry is to receive a special award for his “humanitarian work.” The ”Distinguished Humanitarian Leadership” award: “recognizes outstanding achievement” and is presented annually by the Atlantic Council. Prince Harry and his brother, Prince William, have been jointly nominated, with Prince Harry traveling to Washington to accept on behalf of both, on 7th May. Madeleine Albright’s latest honour for her services to humanity, has been awarded to others who compete admirably with her dedication. They include such peerless war mongers as Henry Kissinger, Donald Rumsfeld, General Colin Powell, whose pack of lies to the United Nations (February 2003) initiated Iraq’s destruction – and former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair whose offices and officers provided those lies. That human dove of peace, Dick Cheney has been a recipient, as has his Israeli counterpart, Shimon Perez and General Norman “No one left to kill” Schartzkopf, to name a few. Fellow recipient of the Award with Albright is Bob Dylan. Funny world.. Prince William and Harry are both in the armed forces (between social engagements.) In a career move that has been dubbed by many: “a cynical PR stunt”, William flies Naval Rescue helicopters. Seemingly it no longer looks good for a future king to kill people. Harry clearly faces no such trying constraints. Deployed to Helmand Province, Afghanistan, in 2007, he reportedly lurked safely, deep in a bunker, out of harms way, surrounded by a phalanx of armed Royal Protection Officers (ii) whilst playing at being a Forward Air Controller, who remotely (in all senses of the word) guide in aircraft to attack the locals. There is not alone an irony, but a terrible deviance, about a supremely privileged young man, whose entire upbringing has been in palaces, castles and most elite of schools, calling in aircraft to destroy peasant farmers, in remote, poverty stricken villages – along with their subsistence livilihood and simple adobe homes. There is a further irony in that his “child within” knows loss. At thirteen he walked behind his mother, Princess Diana’s coffin, as it was transported for her funeral, after her death in Paris in an appalling car crash, with her Muslim lover – some say fiancée - Dodi al Fayad. Freud might have had something to say of his display of Crusading contempt for the people of Afghanistan – 99% Muslim population - just before he was hurriedly whisked out of the country for his safety in January 2008, once the media had exposed that he was there. His attitude, “day job” and his fleeing, beneath contempt. If Albright sacrificed children by proxy, the Prince, arguably, killed them by proxy. [Double standards] [Inversion]
• Madeleine Albright: “Champion of Democracy.”
  by Felicity Arbuthnot Global Research, April 30, 2012 “There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women.” (Madeleine Albright, 1937 - ) "That place is reserved for you Madeleine..." As the anniversary of probably one of the most infamous responses in broadcasting history approaches, the woman who uttered it is shortly to be awarded “the highest honour” that America bestows upon civilians: the Presidential Medal of Freedom Madeleine Albright, Iraq’s “Grim Reaper”, of course confirmed on “Sixty Minutes” (12th May 1996) that the deaths of half a million children as a result of the absolute, all-embracing deprivations of the UN embargo were: “A hard choice, but the price, we think the price is worth it.” [Double standards] [Sanctions] [War crimes]
• Six Syrian soldiers injured in blast near UN observer mission convoy
  Roadside explosion in southern city of Daraa happens 100 metres behind convoy carrying head of UN observer mission Associated Press in Daraa guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 9 May 2012 15.45 BST Syrian army soldiers are seen through a damaged military truck window Syrian army soldiers are seen through a damaged military truck window, after a roadside bomb exploded. Photograph: Muzaffar Salman/AP A roadside bomb struck a Syrian military truck on Wednesday, wounding six soldiers seconds after a convoy carrying the head of the UN observer mission passed. The blast – which came just a day after former UN secretary general Kofi Annan issued a plea for peace in the country – cracked the truck's windows and caused a plume of black smoke to rise into the sky. The UN convoy was not hit. The attack was a graphic example of what the Syrian people live with every day, the head of the UN observer mission, Major General Robert Mood, told reporters. He said the observers' work would continue as usual. The blast went off after Mood headed into the southern city of Daraa, the birthplace of the Syrian uprising, with a convoy of monitors and journalists. The explosion was more than 100 metres (330ft) behind the convoy. "We were driving behind the UN convoy as protection when a roadside bomb exploded, wounding a first lieutenant and five troops," a soldier who asked to be identified only by his first name, Yahya, told Associated Press at the scene. At least three bloodied soldiers were rushed away. Mood said he did not know whether the blast was meant to target the observers or the military. "For me the important thing is really not speculating about who was the target, what was the target, but it is to make the point that this is what the Syrian people [are] seeing every day and it needs to stop," he said. "Whomever is doing it and whomever is supporting it." [Syria]
• Tea-party lawmakers face quandary in House vote on export bank
  By James Rosen | McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — A vote Wednesday in the House of Representatives to pour billions into a little-known federal bank illustrates the divide among tea party-backed lawmakers torn between upholding anti-government principles and helping American companies compete in foreign markets. The bill, to increase the financing cap of the Export-Import Bank, passed by 330-93. The congressional Tea Party Caucus split almost in half: Thirty-seven members opposed the measure, while 31 supported it. [Decline] [Incompetence] [Governance]
• Sen. Richard Lugar’s defeat bodes badly for compromise, centrism
  By David Lightman | McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — The political world absorbed a chilling message Wednesday from the fall of Washington icon Sen. Richard Lugar: Rabid partisanship is popular, especially in Republican primaries, and cutting deals with political opponents is not. Lugar’s defeat will have ripple effects nationally in this year’s elections and in the Senate, where he’s served since 1977. Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/05/09/148283/sen-richard-lugars-defeat-bodes.html#storylink=cpy [Decline] [Domestic] [Governance]
• Syrian troops say cease-fire hasn’t stopped rebel attacks
  By David Enders | McClatchy Newspapers IDLIB, Syria — With a United Nations-sponsored peace plan nearly one month old, Syrian soldiers in the country’s north say rebel forces trying to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad are continuing to launch attacks on their positions daily in apparent violation of a cease-fire and are strong enough that government troops cannot enter several towns and villages near this city. The soldiers, who were interviewed by a McClatchy correspondent traveling with U.N. monitors, described attacks that had taken place every day this week. Gunfire and explosions could be heard after dark on Tuesday in Idlib and into early Wednesday morning, testimony to ongoing fighting. On Wednesday, soldiers manning a checkpoint outside the town of Ariha, south of Idlib, showed reporters damage to an armored personnel carrier that they said was caused by a bomb planted on a nearby road last week. “I know 17 soldiers who have died in the last two or three months,” said Ahmed, who asked that he be identified by a single name only because he was not authorized to talk to reporters. “We can’t leave the city unless we are in armored vehicles.” [Syria]
• Syria says dozens dead or wounded in 2 Damascus blasts
  By Associated Press, Updated: Thursday, May 10, 7:21 PM DAMASCUS, Syria — Two strong explosions ripped through the Syrian capital Thursday, killing or wounding dozens of people and damaging a military intelligence building, officials said. The blasts happened at about 7:50 a.m. when employees are usually arriving at work. An Associated Press reporter at the scene said medical workers were collecting human remains from the streets after the explosions, and there were smoldering cars and pickup trucks in the area. The outer wall of a military intelligence building collapsed, although the structure inside appeared intact. The Syrian government blamed “terrorists” and said dozens were killed and wounded. Central Damascus is tightly under the control of forces loyal to President Bashar Assad but has been struck by several bomb attacks, often targeting security installations or convoys. [Syria] [Media]
• Study predicts 42 percent of Americans will be obese in 2030
  By David Brown, Published: May 8 In 2030, 42 percent of American adults will be obese, and about one-quarter of that group will be severely obese, a condition that shortens life and incurs large medical expenses, a new study predicts. This view into the future is less ominous than one published four years ago that predicted that 51 percent of the population would be obese in 2030. Nevertheless, the trend fortells a huge drag on the health and economic welfare of the United States. Just over a third of U.S. adults are obese. By 2030, 42 percent will be, says a forecast released Monday. That's not nearly as many as experts had predicted, but the new forecast suggests even small continuing increases will add up. Just over a third of U.S. adults are obese. By 2030, 42 percent will be, says a forecast released Monday. That's not nearly as many as experts had predicted, but the new forecast suggests even small continuing increases will add up. “If we don’t do anything, this is going to really hinder any efforts to contain future health-care costs,” Justin G. Trogdon, an economist and one of the authors of the projection, told experts Monday at the start of the two-day “Weight of the Nation” conference in Washington. [Decline] [Health]
• Disinformation On Every Front
  by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts Global Research, May 5, 2012 Some readers have come to the erroneous conclusion that the Matrix consists of Republican Party disinformation as if there is no disinformation from the left. Others think that propaganda is the business of Obama and the Democrats. In fact, propaganda from the right, the left and the middle are all part of the disinformation fed to americans. If I may give some examples: The other day Chuck Colson, one of the Nixon officials imprisoned for Watergate crimes, died. This gave NPR the opportunity to relive the Nixon horror. What precisely was the Nixon horror? Essentially, there was no such thing. Watergate was about President Nixon lying about when he learned about the Watergate burglary. [Disinformation] [MISCOM]
• World Bank: Global Economic Prospects
  In Iran, despite the introduction of international sanctions, rising oil prices and a good crop helped to support growth of about 2.5 percent in calendar year 2011. A revision to the system of subsidies and cash transfers to better balance reimbursements and fiscal accounts has been looked upon favorably by outside analysts. But severe difficulties in the non-oil sector (manufacturing and services) persist. ... [Sanctions] [Unintended consequences] [Iran]
• U.S. abandons consulate site in Afghanistan, citing security risks
  By Ernesto Londoño, Published: May 6 After signing a 10-year lease and spending more than $80 million on a site envisioned as the United States’ diplomatic hub in northern Afghanistan, American officials say they have abandoned their plans, deeming the location for the proposed compound too dangerous. Eager to raise an American flag and open a consulate in a bustling downtown district of the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif, officials in 2009 sought waivers to stringent State Department building rules and overlooked significant security problems at the site, documents show. The problems included relying on local building techniques that made the compound vulnerable to a car bombing, according to an assessment by the U.S. Embassy in Kabul that was obtained by The Washington Post. The decision to give up on the site is the clearest sign to date that, as the U.S.-led military coalition starts to draw down troops amid mounting security concerns, American diplomats are being forced to reassess how to safely keep a viable presence in Afghanistan. The plan for the Mazar-e Sharif consulate, as laid out in a previously undisclosed diplomatic memorandum, is a cautionary tale of wishful thinking, poor planning and the type of stark choices the U.S. government will have to make in coming years as it tries to wind down its role in the war. [Decline]
• U.S. special forces commander seeks to expand operations
  In a sign of shifting Pentagon tactics and priorities, draft plans indicate a push to expand clandestine units to fight terrorism and other 'emerging threats' around the globe. May 04, 2012|By David S. Cloud, Los Angeles Times WASHINGTON — A top U.S. commander is seeking authority to expand clandestine operations against militants and insurgencies around the globe, a sign of shifting Pentagon tactics and priorities after a grueling decade of large-scale wars. Adm. William H. McRaven, a Navy SEAL and commander of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, has developed plans that would provide far-reaching new powers to make special operations units "the force of choice" against "emerging threats" over the next decade, internal Defense Department documents show. [Special Forces] [US global strategy]
• Lebanon to pay dearly if Hezbollah retaliates to Israel attack on Iran: report
  BEIRUT: A senior Israeli officer told the Telegraph Sunday that Lebanon will face severe damages if Hezbollah retaliates to an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. According to the officer, any retaliation by Hezbollah to an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities would lead to a destructive war where Israel would destroy much of Lebanon's infrastructure. "The situation in Lebanon after this war will be horrible," the officer, a senior commander on Israel's northern border with Syria and Lebanon, said. "They will have to think about whether they want it or not. I hope that Iran will not push them into a war that Iran will not pay the price for but that Lebanon will." The officer said that all of Lebanon would suffer but the areas considered Hezbollah strongholds would face the worst of the attacks. "In these villages where Hezbollah has infrastructure I will guess that civilians will not have houses to come back to after the war," he said. "The Lebanese government has to take this into consideration. Many of the villages in southern Lebanon will be destroyed. Unfortunate, but we will have no other solution. The day after [we attack] the village will be something that it will take 10 years to rebuild." [Inversion]
• Turkey feels history’s weight in Syria
  By Ersin Kalaycioglu When the self-immolation of Mohammad Bouazizi in Sidi Bouzid led to an avalanche of protests in Tunisia in January 2011, nearly the entire Arab world began to rock with popular uprisings. Unforeseen protests by Arab youth seemed to catch diplomats, politicians and students of Middle East politics unprepared. The initial reaction of the pundits was that a long awaited wave of democratization appeared to have arrived. Then, the initial euphoria began to subside as the events in Yemen and Libya turned into tribal warfare, and in Syria into sectarian civil war. Since we have no evidence in human history that tribalism leads to democracy, pundits began to wonder whether the Arab revolts were ushering in democracy, tribalism or yet another form of authoritarianism such as theocracy. Indeed, Yemen had been experiencing anti-government protests before 2011. But with the revolt in Tunisia, the Yemeni uprisings gained greater relevance, followed by those in Bahrain, Egypt and Syria. Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Morocco experienced minor stirrings, which were met with some reforms or, in Saudi Arabia, washed away with petrodollars. The Bahraini revolts were crushed by force with the military aid and intervention of Saudi Arabia and its Gulf partners. Formerly effervescent Lebanese, Palestinian, Iraqi and Algerian politics seemed not to have changed into anything more tumultuous. Eventually, Yemen experienced merely a change of leadership as the main political actors preserved their positions. Egypt also experienced the downfall of President Hosni Mubarak, his family and close entourage, where the military took over the reins of government and began to manage the transition to popular or populist rule. Libya, with the onslaught of NATO forces on the side of the rebels, slid into a tribal civil war, which led to the downfall of Moammar Gadhafi and his regime. Syria also moved from peaceful popular protests to armed conflict between Muslim Brotherhood-led Sunni communities and the Alawite-dominated regime. Interestingly, different interlocutors took part in influencing events from Tunisia to Yemen to Syria. It looks as if the two Wahhabi political regimes of the region, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, have been playing a major role in all of the theaters of conflict through the use of soft power, bolstered by enormously deep pockets. Curiously enough, these two major Wahhabi states are not readily identifiable with democracy and individual liberties, especially when it comes to women, yet they seem to be pressuring Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria to democratize. [Double standards] [Syria] [Softpower]
• Military leaders seek higher profile for Pentagon’s Cyber Command unit
  By Ellen Nakashima, Published: May 2 Senior military leaders are recommending that the Pentagon’s two-year-old cyberwarfare unit be elevated to full combatant command status, sending a signal to adversaries that the U.S. military is serious about protecting its ability to operate in cyberspace, officials said. Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will recommend the change to Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, said officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss classified matters. Final approval rests with President Obama. Little opposition is expected, though the timeline is uncertain. A Pentagon spokesman, Capt. John Kirby, declined to discuss the pending move. [Cyberwar]
• On the History of the U.S. Economy in Decline
  by NOAM CHOMSKY The Occupy movement has been an extremely exciting development. Unprecedented, in fact. There’s never been anything like it that I can think of. If the bonds and associations it has established can be sustained through a long, dark period ahead — because victory won’t come quickly — it could prove a significant moment in American history. The fact that the Occupy movement is unprecedented is quite appropriate. After all, it’s an unprecedented era and has been so since the 1970s, which marked a major turning point in American history. For centuries, since the country began, it had been a developing society, and not always in very pretty ways. That’s another story, but the general progress was toward wealth, industrialization, development, and hope. There was a pretty constant expectation that it was going to go on like this. That was true even in very dark times. [Decline]
• 'Underwear bomber' was working for the CIA
  Bomber involved in plot to attack US-bound jet was working as an informer with Saudi intelligence and the CIA, it has emerged Paul Harris and Ed Pilkington in New York The Guardian, Wednesday 9 May 2012 A would-be "underwear bomber" involved in a plot to attack a US-based jet was in fact working as an undercover informer with Saudi intelligence and the CIA, it has emerged. The revelation is the latest twist in an increasingly bizarre story about the disruption of an apparent attempt by al-Qaida to strike at a high-profile American target using a sophisticated device hidden in the clothing of an attacker. The plot, which the White House said on Monday had involved the seizing of an underwear bomb by authorities in the Middle East sometime in the last 10 days, had caused alarm throughout the US. [US_Election12]
• Lugar loss tempers Romney primary victories for GOP establishment
  By MICHAEL FINNEGAN | Los Angeles Times LOS ANGELES — After more than 35 years in the United States Senate, Richard Lugar of Indiana was ousted Tuesday by a "tea party" challenger in a Republican primary that demonstrated the perils of compromise in an era of ideological purity and intransigence in Congress. The 80-year-old senator, a leading voice for his party on foreign policy, was pummeled for weeks by Republican rival Richard Mourdock for his breaches with conservative orthodoxy.
• The Karadzic Trial
  Alexander Mezyaev | 07.05.2012 | 08:43 The prosecutors have closed their case in the trial of former Bosnian Republic leader Radovan Karadzic on May 4. It has lasted two and a half years. 190 court witnesses have given their testimony on eleven charges. Now the trial procedures are suspended for five months. In October the R.Karadzic defense will start presenting its evidence. What evidence has been provided by the prosecution? Has it really succeeded in proving “beyond reasonable doubts” that R. Karadzic was guilty of genocide, killings, extermination, deportation, crimes against humanity, unlawful attacks on civilians, terror among the civil population and taking of hostages? First, precisely a third of evidence was given by secret witnesses. In 56 cases we have not seen their faces and don’t know their names, and we don’t even know what they said. Of course, it’s done on purpose. There is always a chance to say the guilt of Karadzic is proven by the evidence given by these witnesses. Those witnesses, who gave their evidence openly, could be divided into four major groups: the crime victims, foreign military servicemen and politicians, experts and insiders (Bosnian leaders and military). The first were to prove that these and that crimes have really been committed, the second – that the Bosnian Serb army servicemen have been involved, the third – separate crimes have been part of general policy conducted by the leadership of Republika Srpska. But all this doesn’t prove the guilt of R. Karadzic. That’s why the insiders were assigned the main role to play, their mission was to establish links between the crimes committed and the accused. It was necessary to prove that it was Karadzic who gave orders to commit crimes. Though, in some cases the prosecutors understood they had no such evidence to go upon. Then say called in “side” witnesses, for instance the journalists who were repeating like mantra “Karadzic controlled everything”, “No decision was taken without Karadzic” and so on. The goal of the prosecution was to convict Karadzic no matter if there was evidence of orders given by him. [War crimes] [Double standards] [Legality]
• Pentagon: Wars Used To Train Global NATO Expeditionary Force
  Rick Rozoff Troops from the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan In the past seventeen years millions of troops from approximately 60 nations have served under NATO command in wars and post-war zones in several countries outside of the military bloc's territory. The NATO-led Stabilization Force in Bosnia had 60,000 troops in 1995, the Kosovo Force 50,000 in 1999, the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan 140,000 at peak strength and smaller detachments have served with Operation Unified Protector in Libya, Operation Allied Harmony in Macedonia, Operation Active Endeavor in the Mediterranean Sea and Operation Ocean Shield in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean. With rotations, the number of troops serving under the alliance's command in Southeastern Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East is likely in the millions. In 2010 the American commander of the Transit Center at Manas in Kyrgyzstan said that 55,000 NATO troops had been airlifted through that base to Afghanistan in May of that year, an annual rate of two-thirds of a million at a time when an estimated 140,000 of 152,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan were serving under NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). [NATO]
• Syrians vote in parliamentary elections
  Global Times | May 08, 2012 00:20 By Hao Zhou and Zhang Beixin in Damascus Syrian citizens went to vote Monday in the country's first multiparty parliamentary election in more than four decades, which has been ridiculed by the US and its allies as a "farce" because some conflict areas were not represented. The election, part of a series of reform steps promised by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, came after the February referendum on a new constitution that was introduced in response to a 14-month bloody uprising against Assad's rule. A total of 7,195 candidates had registered to vie for 250 seats in the People's Assembly. More than half of the seats are for candidates representing farmers and workers, government sources said. Posters of candidates for 29 seats in the Damascus constituency, with slogans promising changes, progress and freedom, were seen plastered along across the capital's streets. Security forces could be seen in key areas as the government attempted to prevent what it calls "terrorists" from disturbing the electoral process. At least five bomb attacks hit Damascus and Aleppo during the weekend, which the government said were carried out by terrorists to scare people from taking part in Monday 's votes. "Monday evening, some armed and masked guys went to my house and told me not to vote, otherwise they will kill me and burn my house," Samul Saqqer, a resident of the Mazar district of Damascus, told the Global Times. "But I am not afraid of them. I have the duty to save my own country." "I am confident about the future of Syria, which will be decided by ourselves through our votes," said Heeba Suleiman, a primary school teacher who just cast her vote at a polling station in Kafarsusa district in downtown Damascus. [Syria] [Elections]
• Batang Kali massacre hearing due to start at high court
  Judges to review government decision not to hold official inquiry into 1948 killing of 24 Malaysian rubber plantation workers Owen Bowcott, legal affairs correspondent guardian.co.uk, Monday 7 May 2012 17.58 BST The government will be challenged in court on Tuesday to investigate the killing by British troops of 24 Malaysian rubber plantation workers more than 60 years ago. Lawyers representing relatives of those killed at Batang Kali in 1948 claim the alleged massacre has been covered up by successive administrations determined to hide the truth about the UK's colonial past. The two-day judicial review of the decision not to hold an official inquiry is due to open at the high court. "What happened at Batang Kali was an extremely serious human rights abuse," said John Halford, one of the families' UK-based lawyers. "It was a massacre of 24 unarmed people who weren't in any sense combatants, weren't offering any kind of threat to the British troops who killed them. [War crimes] [Civilian]
• Syria goes to the polls in parliamentary elections
  But President Assad opponents refuse to participate, saying the elections are designed to reinforce the regime's grip on power Martin Chulov guardian.co.uk, Monday 7 May 2012 19.08 BST Article history Syrians have voted in parliamentary elections that were hailed by the government as a landmark in the country's reform programme, but derided as a sham by groups opposed to the current regime, who refused to take part. Polls to elect members of Syria's 250-member parliament opened at 7am on Monday and closed 13 hours later, although many voting booths in the country's war-torn areas remained closed throughout the day or were poorly attended. [Media] [Syria] [Elections]
• A Regime’s Tight Grip on AIDS
  Jose Goitia for The New York Times By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr. Published: May 7, 2012 HAVANA — Yudelsy García O’Connor, the first baby known to have been born with H.I.V. in Cuba, is not merely still alive. She is vibrant, funny and, at age 25, recently divorced but hoping to remarry and have children. Her father died of AIDS when she was 10, her mother when she was 23. She was near death herself in her youth. “I’m not afraid of death,” she said. “I know it could knock on my door. It comes for everyone. But I take my medicine.” Ms. García is alive thanks partly to lucky genes, and partly to the intensity with which Cuba has attacked its AIDS epidemic. Whatever debate may linger about the government’s harsh early tactics — until 1993, everyone who tested positive for H.I.V. was forced into quarantine — there is no question that they succeeded. Cuba now has one of the world’s smallest epidemics, a mere 14,038 cases. Its infection rate is 0.1 percent, on par with Finland, Singapore and Kazakhstan. That is one-sixth the rate of the United States, one-twentieth of nearby Haiti [Health] [Socialism] [Media]
• French election not likely to bring change
  Global Times | May 07, 2012 00:00 By Global Times The French presidential election runoff was held Sunday and Sarkozy's fate has been decided with no miracle happening. Francois Hollande has won the election in the final polling. Looking back at what Sarkozy has done in the past five years, there seems to be little left except for gossip about him and his high-profile wife, plus his emotional speeches. In fact, politicians in Western countries seem to share this tendency toward celebrity-style performances. It is difficult to say whether this is good or bad. The Western world lacks a clear goal for moving their countries forward. It is stuck in a mixed feeling of superiority and anxiety before emerging nations. Few politicians are seriously pondering the solution to this puzzle, instead offering only sweet promises to woo voters. Elections have given rise to more bad practices, and their ability to solve the problems is declining. [Democracy]
• 9/11 families angered over behaviour of alleged plotters at Guantánamo hearing
  Arraignment marked by near-farcical defiance sets stage for lengthy trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four co-defendents Ed Pilkington in New York guardian.co.uk, Sunday 6 May 2012 18.50 BST Article history Family members of those killed in the 9/11 attacks have expressed anger over displays of defiance shown by the alleged plotters during an arraignment hearing at Guantánamo Bay. The hearing, which was expected to last two hours, stretched to 13 hours as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his four co-defendants refused to accept the start of trial proceedings in a controversial "military commission" inside the US naval base in Cub [Media]
• What the Coming French Presidency Promises
  Igor Ignatchenko, political scientist 02.05.2012 At the moment, there is little doubt that Francois Hollande can count on winning the presidential run off in France. The questions naturally arising in the context are which, if any, transformations await the French foreign policy under the incoming president and, in particular, how Paris will be shaping its relations with Moscow in the coming five years. A statement released by Hollande in December, 2011 - with an eye to the elections on the horizon - contained passages to the effect that Russia's domestic policies, including the alleged crackdown on opposition protests in the wake of the parliamentary poll, were a cause for serious concern and that Russia should do more to guarantee the freedoms of expression and public dissent. Generally, Hollande made it clear that, if elected, he would not stay indifferent to the state of democracy in other countries. Moreover, the current front-runner said in an interview to Le Nouvel Observateur that, in his view, Russia shared the responsibility for the massacre in Syria. Hollande had it written on his ticket during the elections campaign that France would support a UN-flagged military mission in Syria, which was essentially what his rival N. Sarkozy had on his foreign policy agenda. The coincidence was completely predictable - it is a permanent spot on the record of the French left that the French socialists led by Martina Aubrey called for tough action and used to slam Sarkozy for passivity during the recent intervention in Lybia. Like Sarkozy, Hollande appears to belong wholeheartedly to the school of thought championed by former French diplomacy chief Bernard Kouchner, a protege of the Israeli lobby and a believer in humanitarian interventions which he defined as any invasion into sovereign countries for humanitarian purposes and the protection of basic human rights which the local populations are unable or unprepared to defend.
• Parliamentary vote in Syria can’t cover up country’s violent divisions
  Pictures of those killed in Syria's uprising in the city of Zabadani, near the Lebanese border, mock election posters, reading In Zabadani, Syria, photos of those killed in Syria's uprising against President Bashar Assad mock Monday's parliamentary elections. "Vote for the martryr" they say. | By David Enders | McClatchy Newspapers ZABADANI, Syria — Nationwide parliamentary elections are scheduled for Monday in Syria, but in this city not far from the border with Lebanon, the only posters on the walls bear the faces of the dead. “Vote for the martyr,” read the posters, which were plastered across walls in the city’s main square, a half-hour drive from the capital, Damascus. There is, not surprisingly after more than a year of bloody conflict, little common ground between the country’s increasingly militant opposition and those who support the government of President Bashar Assad. The opposition has fielded no candidates for parliament, and it is unlikely any political party that has called for Assad’s removal, as the opposition does, would be allowed to stand in elections. But those who said they plan to vote also said there was no alternative.
• Probes overlook McChrystal's role in costly Afghan battles
  McClatchy's Jonathan S. Landay talks about the ambush of U.S. and Afghan troops he was embedded with on Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2009. For reporter, no doubt: 'I'd use the rifle if I had to' WASHINGTON — Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, kept a remote U.S. base in the country manned last year at the local governor's request despite warnings from his field commanders that it should be closed because it was vulnerable and had no tactical or strategic value. McChrystal's decision to maintain the outpost at Barg-e Matal prompted the top American commanders in eastern Afghanistan to delay plans to close a second remote U.S. outpost, Combat Outpost Keating, where insurgents killed eight U.S. troops in an assault Oct. 3, a McClatchy investigation has found. Keeping Barg-e-Matal open also deprived a third isolated base of the officer who would have been its acting commander and left its command to lower-ranking officers whose "ineffective actions" led "directly" to the deaths of five American and eight Afghan soldiers in an ambush Sept. 8, according to a high-level military investigation. In addition, an unidentified witness told the military investigators that the operations center that failed to provide effective artillery and air cover to the U.S. and Afghan force that was ambushed in the Ganjgal Valley was focused instead on Barg-e Matal. However, the ambush inquiry and a similar high-level Army probe into the Oct. 3 deaths at COP Keating, the worst single American combat loss in 2009, don't mention that McChrystal's decision to keep Barg-e Matal open made the combat outpost and the Ganjgal operation more vulnerable.
• THE GLOBAL SPY APPARATUS: You Are All Suspects Now. What Are You Going To Do About It?
  by John Pilger Global Research, April 26, 2012 You are all potential terrorists. It matters not that you live in Britain, the United States, Australia or the Middle East. Citizenship is effectively abolished. Turn on your computer and the US Department of Homeland Security’s National Operations Center may monitor whether you are typing not merely "al-Qaeda", but "exercise", "drill", "wave", "initiative" and "organisation": all proscribed words. The British government’s announcement that it intends to spy on every email and phone call is old hat. The satellite vacuum cleaner known as Echelon has been doing this for years. What has changed is that a state of permanent war has been launched by the United States and a police state is consuming western democracy. What are you going to do about it? In Britain, on instructions from the CIA, secret courts are to deal with "terror suspects". Habeas Corpus is dying. The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that five men, including three British citizens, can be extradited to the US even though none except one has been charged with a crime. All have been imprisoned for years under the 2003 US/UK Extradition Treaty which was signed one month after the criminal invasion of Iraq. The European Court had condemned the treaty as likely to lead to "cruel and unusual punishment". One of the men, Babar Ahmad, was awarded 63,000 pounds compensation for 73 recorded injuries he sustained in the custody of the Metropolitan Police. Sexual abuse, the signature of fascism, was high on the list. Another man is a schizophrenic who has suffered a complete mental collapse and is in Broadmoor secure hospital; another is a suicide risk. To the Land of the Free, they go -- along with young Richard O’Dwyer, who faces 10 years in shackles and an orange jump suit because he allegedly infringed US copyright on the internet. As the law is politicised and Americanised, these travesties are not untypical. In upholding the conviction of a London university student, Mohammed Gul, for disseminating "terrorism" on the internet, Appeal Court judges in London ruled that "acts... against the armed forces of a state anywhere in the world which sought to influence a government and were made for political purposes" were now crimes. Call to the dock Thomas Paine, Aung San Suu Kyi, Nelson Mandela. [Surveillance] [Human rights] [Democracy]
• 9/11 suspects refuse to answer judge's questions as Guantánamo trial opens
  Military judge dismisses claim trial is unfair as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, four others and their lawyers put on defiant show Chris McGreal at Fort Meade guardian.co.uk, Saturday 5 May 2012 19.28 BST Article history The self-proclaimed (sic) mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and four other accused terrorists were ordered to stand trial at a hearing before a Guantánamo military tribunal that descended into chaos on Saturday as the defendants refused to acknowledge the judge and their lawyers repeatedly challenged the legitimacy of the court. The accused men, one of whom was brought to the arraignment hearing strapped to a restraining chair after refusing to attend, dropped their previous insistence on pleading guilty and demanding to be executed in favour of largely sitting in silence as defence lawyers attempted to raise the issue of torture and question the independence of the judge. None of the defendants chose to enter a plea at the hearing and reserved it for a later appearance. The judge set a tentative trial date of May 2013 although he acknowledged that there are likely to be more delays. After a 13-hour session to arraign the suspects, proceedings have been adjourned until 12 June. Mohammed's lawyer, David Nevin, told the court that "the world is watching" the trial after the US government admitted to waterboarding the accused terrorist 183 times. Another defence lawyer, James Connell, called the military tribunal a "blight on America's international reputation and her commitment to the rule of law". [Global insurgency] [Legality] [Torture] [Media]
• Five myths about America’s decline
  By Ian Bremmer, Published: May 4 Drawn-out wars, economic struggles, exploding debt — it’s easy to point to these signs and conclude that America is in an irreversible decline; that after a good run, it’s time to hand the superpower baton to China or some other up-and-comer. Certainly, America faces big challenges, and it’s true that, economically, the United States was better off a decade ago.But those seeing decline as inevitable do not just ignore the nation’s history of resilience, they also misread the facts on the ground. America’s decline is a myth — and here are five common misconceptions worth dispelling. [Decline]
• Plutocracy, Paralysis, Perplexity
  By PAUL KRUGMAN Published: May 3, 2012 Before the Great Recession, I would sometimes give public lectures in which I would talk about rising inequality, making the point that the concentration of income at the top had reached levels not seen since 1929. Often, someone in the audience would ask whether this meant that another depression was imminent. Well, whaddya know? Did the rise of the 1 percent (or, better yet, the 0.01 percent) cause the Lesser Depression we’re now living through? It probably contributed. But the more important point is that inequality is a major reason the economy is still so depressed and unemployment so high. For we have responded to crisis with a mix of paralysis and confusion — both of which have a lot to do with the distorting effects of great wealth on our society. Put it this way: If something like the financial crisis of 2008 had occurred in, say, 1971 — the year Richard Nixon declared that “I am now a Keynesian in economic policy” — Washington would probably have responded fairly effectively. There would have been a broad bipartisan consensus in favor of strong action, and there would also have been wide agreement about what kind of action was needed. But that was then. Today, Washington is marked by a combination of bitter partisanship and intellectual confusion — and both are, I would argue, largely the result of extreme income inequality. [Inequality]
• Obama’s military connection
  By David Maraniss, Saturday, May 5, 10:15 AM David Maraniss, an associate editor of The Post, is the author of “First in His Class: A Biography of Bill Clinton” and the forthcoming “Barack Obama: The Story.” This is the fourth column in an occasional series on the 2012 presidential candidates’ political lives. Before his first speech at an antiwar rally, the one that helped propel him toward the presidency, Barack Obama shifted uneasily in his chair waiting for the program to begin. Something was bugging him. The date was Oct. 2, 2002, when the drums for war in Iraq were growing louder. The scene was Federal Plaza in Chicago’s Loop, where a thousand or so people had gathered at noon, some holding placards that proclaimed “War Is Not an Option.” On stage with the state senator from Hyde Park were religious leaders, union officials, students and peace activists. Obama sat near Bettylu Saltzman and Marilyn Katz, key figures in Chicago’s liberal network. Katz moderated the rally. Saltzman, in charge of rounding up speakers, had placed the call that brought in Obama, who was already plotting his rise out of Springfield to the U.S. Senate. Whether his appearance at the rally would help or hurt his political fortunes was a topic he and his advisers had discussed intently, but that was not bothering him now. It was the music that was getting to him. One after another came the baby-boom anthems of the Vietnam era — “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” and “Give Peace a Chance.” At one point Obama turned to Saltzman and Katz and asked plaintively, “Couldn’t they think of something else to play?” That moment 10 years ago illuminated more than musical tastes. It offers another way to understand President Obama’s relationship with war and peace and the military. The simple fact that he was there, speaking out against Iraq so early, proved crucial to his support among ­MoveOn.org and other antiwar groups during the 2008 presidential primary. But his lament about the music, along with the content of his speech (he pointedly said he was not against all wars, just a war in Iraq), offered more predictive insight into his behavior as president. On a personal level, he seems at ease in the presence of soldiers and sailors, more so than he would be in the midst of an antiwar rally; on a policy level he seems increasingly comfortable wielding the powers of a commander in chief. [Obama] [Militarisation]
• The Man With Messianic Tendencies
  by URI AVNERY GENERALS AND secret police chiefs get together for an attack on the politicians. In some countries, they arrest the president, occupy government offices and TV stations and annul the constitution. They then publish Communique No. 1, explaining the dire need to save the nation from perdition and promising democracy, elections etc. In other countries, they do it more quietly. They just inform the elected leaders that, if they don’t desist from their disastrous policies, the officers will make their views public and precipitate their downfall. Such officers are generally called a “junta”, the Spanish word for “committee” used by South American generals. Their method is usually called a “putsch”, a German-Swiss term for a sudden blow. (Yes, the Swiss actually had revolts some 170 years ago.) What almost all such coups have in common is that their instigators thrive on the demagoguery of war. The politicians are invariably accused of cowardice in face of the enemy, failure to defend national honor, and such. Not in Israel. In our country we are now seeing a kind of verbal uprising against the elected politicians by a group of current and former army generals, foreign intelligence and internal security chiefs. All of them condemn the government’s threat to start a war against Iran, and some of them condemn the government’s failure to negotiate with the Palestinians for peace. Only in Israel.
• Obama boasts of Bin Laden killing
  by Patrick Martin Global Research, May 2, 2012 World Socialist Web Site President Barack Obama has launched his campaign for re-election by glorifying his role in giving the order for the killing of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. In speeches, interviews and a seven-minute web video narrated by former President Bill Clinton, the Obama campaign has hailed his decision to order the commando raid one year ago today on bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan, while suggesting that Republican Mitt Romney would not have made that choice. The campaign began last Thursday with a speech by Vice President Joseph Biden at New York University, in which he declared that the bumper sticker slogan for Obama’s re-election could be: “Osama bin Laden is dead, and General Motors is alive,” while claiming that for Romney, the opposite would be the case. On Friday, the Obama campaign released the web video titled “One Chance,” in which former President Clinton praised Obama as the “decider-in-chief” for ordering the raid in which a team of Navy Seals gunned down bin Laden and several members of his family. The ad then asks, “Which path would Mitt Romney have taken?” The public relations blitz culminated Monday night in an interview with Obama broadcast on NBC Nightly News, conducted in the White House Situation Room, where Obama, Biden and other officials gathered on the night of May 1, 2011 (early May 2 in Pakistan) to monitor the progress of the commando attack in Abbottabad. What is most striking about this campaign appeal is its brazenly right-wing character. The Bill Clinton video, for example, plagiarizes one of the most notorious statements of George W. Bush, when he dismissed mounting public opposition to the war in Iraq by declaring that on such issues, “I’m the decider.” [Obama] [Assassination] [Depravity]
• Why Osama Lives
  by PATRICK COCKBURN It is a sight the world had got used to: a crater in the road where the suicide bomber detonated the explosives packed into his vehicle; the pools of blood and hunks of flesh of people caught in the blast; ruined buildings where floors have collapsed on top of each other; shocked survivors wandering amid the mangled cars and broken glass. Almost invariably over the last decade such carnage has been the work of al-Qa’ida or similar Islamic fundamentalist movements such as the Afghan or Pakistan Taliban. But the latest such explosions, coming a year after the killing of Osama bin Laden, took place this week in the Syrian city of Idlib where two suicide bombers blew themselves up outside the headquarters of army and airforce intelligence services. The Syrian government says that nine people were killed and 100 wounded. [Al Qaeda] [Syria]
• US’ Post-2014 Regional Strategy: The Assembling of Building Blocks
  Melkulangara BHADRAKUMAR | 03.05.2012 | 00:00 The long-awaited resumption of high-level talks in Islamabad last week to break the deadlock in the relations between the United States and Pakistan ended in an air of strategic ambiguity. Prima facie, the talks ended in failure. The curious twist to the tale is that the talks broke down because the US resigned from an assurance given to the Pakistani side that it would render an apology for the American strikes last November that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers on the Afghan border. [US global strategy]
• South Sudan’s Missing $10 Billion
  by THOMAS C. MOUNTAIN South Sudan’s leaders have stolen at least $10 billion in oil revenues shared with them by Sudan in the past 7 years. With somewhere between $12 to $17 billion turned over to South Sudan, Africa’s newest “government”, during this time frame some say estimates of only $10 billion stolen is to conservative. South Sudan has about 8 million people so the oil revenues amount to somewhere between $1,500 to $2000 per man, woman and child in a country where everyday hundreds if not thousands die from hunger and disease.
• Afghan army members prefer light touch of U.S. to Soviets' heavy hand
  Adam Ashton | Tacoma News Tribune KABUL, AFGHANISTAN - Soviets shaped the Afghan army that Maj. Gen. Mohammad Hashim remembers from his days as an up-and-coming officer. They tended to give the orders, as if his countrymen were working for the Russians. The Americans assisting him today use a lighter touch as they aim to restore a different kind of army, he said. “It used to be the other army would tell the Afghans what to do,” said Hashim, who counts 31 years wearing his country’s uniform. “The Americans just come up with recommendations. The Americans work side by side” with Afghan soldiers. Hashim’s U.S. advisers, including several from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, are cultivating a hands-off approach both to show their respect to distinguished Afghan officers and to instill in them a creativity they say the Soviets lacked.
• Obama makes surprise trip to Afghanistan to sign key pact, mark bin Laden raid
  View Photo Gallery — Obama’s surprise visit to Afghanistan:?The president arrived on the one-year anniversary of the attack that killed Osama bin Laden and during a pivotal moment in U.S-Afghan relations as the countries look to define their relationship after U.S. troops officially withdraw in 2014. By Kevin Sieff and Scott Wilson, Wednesday, May 2, 2:41 PM KABUL — President Obama outlined his plan to end America’s longest foreign war during a visit here Tuesday colored by election-year politics and economic uncertainty, declaring that “this time of war began in Afghanistan, and this is where it will end.” “We have traveled through more than a decade under the dark cloud of war,” the president said at a U.S. military base. “In the pre-dawn darkness of Afghanistan, we can see the light of a new day on the horizon.” Obama delivered his address at the end of an unannounced visit here to sign a long-term partnership agreement with the Afghan government and to mark, alongside American troops at Bagram air base outside this capital city, the first anniversary of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. The trip came amid criticism at home that Obama is using the raid to advance his reelection prospects by featuring his decision to launch the mission in campaign videos and other political settings. As Republican critics have called his leadership abroad weak, Obama has held up the bin Laden operation as evidence that he is willing to make risky decisions to protect U.S. interests. [US_Election12]
• Talking With Chomsky
  by Laura Flanders A CounterPunch Exclusive Noam Chomsky has not just been watching the Occupy movement. A veteran of the civil rights, anti-war, and anti-intervention movements of the 1960s through the 1980s, he’s given lectures at Occupy Boston and talked with occupiers across the US. A new publication from the Occupied Media Pamphlet Series brings together several of those lectures, a speech on “occupying foreign policy” and a brief tribute to his friend and co-agitator Howard Zinn. From his speeches, and in this conversation, it’s clear that the emeritus MIT professor and author is as impressed by the spontaneous, cooperative communities some Occupy encampments created, as he is by the movement’s political impact. We’re a nation whose leaders are pursuing policies that amount to economic “suicide” Chomsky says. But there are glimmers of possibility – in worker co-operatives, and other spaces where people get a taste of a different way of living. We talked in his office, for Free Speech TV on April 24.
• Obama campaign marks Bin Laden raid anniversary with Romney attack ad
  Republicans infuriated over advert that questions whether Mitt Romney would have ordered killing of Osama bin Laden Chris McGreal in Washington guardian.co.uk, Monday 30 April 2012 17.36 BST Article history Barack Obama is marking the anniversary of Osama bin Laden's death with a campaign suggesting that his Republican rival, Mitt Romney, lacks the guts to have ordered the raid that killed the al-Qaida leader. Infuriated Republicans have hit back by accusing the president of dividing America, calling the campaign "shameless" and accusing Obama of seeking "cheap" political advantage out of the daring raid inside Pakistan. The Romney campaign has been particularly angered by a YouTube video in which former president Bill Clinton praises Obama's courage in ordering the Navy Seals' attack on Bin Laden's compound. [Assignation] [Bizarre] [US_Election12] [Decline]
• Joseph Kony hunt is proving difficult for U.S. troops
  By Craig Whitlock, Monday, April 30, 9:00 AM OBO, Central African Republic — Six months after President Obama ordered 100 elite troops to help capture the messianic warlord Joseph Kony, U.S. military commanders said Sunday that they have been unable to pick up his trail but believe he is hiding in this country’s dense jungle, relying on Stone Age tactics to dodge his pursuers’ high-tech surveillance tools. Kony and his brutal militia, the Lord’s Resistance Army, have slowed their pace of rapes, abductions and killings in recent months. Under renewed international pressure, LRA fighters have slipped deeper into the bush, splintering into smaller bands to avoid detection and literally covering their tracks, according to U.S., African and United Nations officials who are collaborating on the hunt. Kony, a Ugandan guerrilla who began his uprising in the 1980s, long ago ordered his followers to stop using radios and cellphones to avoid leaving an electronic trail. Nowadays, officials said, his 200 or so fighters rely on foot messengers and preordained rendezvous points to communicate. Kony’s methods have proven effective against the U.S. military’s satellites, sensors and other forms of surveillance. Commanders warn that it could take years to find him. [Asymmetry] [Africa] [Pretext]
• Syria: Central Bank, police patrol attacked with rocket-propelled grenades
  By Associated Press, Updated: Monday, April 30, 7:06 PM DAMASCUS — Syria’s state news agency says assailants have fired rocket-propelled grenades at the Central Bank and a police patrol in the capital Damascus and detonated two bombs in the northwestern city of Idlib. The SANA agency says four policemen were hurt and the bank building was slightly damaged in Monday’s attacks. An activist says 10 people were hurt in the explosions in Idlib. Syrian crackdown:?Protesters opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have faced violent responses from security forces. State media blamed the attacks on “armed terrorists,” a term it uses to describe those trying to overthrow President Bashar Assad. A largely peaceful uprising began more than 13 months ago but turned into an insurgency under a regime crackdown. The U.N. is trying to make a cease-fire stick, and a Norwegian general arrived in Syria on Sunday to take command of a team of truce observers. [Media] [Spin] [Syria]

• Missiles could be stationed on rooftops during London Olympics
  Minstry of Defence says it is evaluating placing surface-to-air missiles on top of residential flats to protect against terror threats The Army could potentially station soldiers and high velocity surface-to-air missiles on top of a block of residential flats to ward off any airborne terror threats during the Olympics. Residents in the private, gated flats in Bow, east London, have received a leaflet warning them that a team of 10 soldiers and police will be stationed at the building - home to 700 people - for the duration of the Games. [Hysteria] [Unintended consequences]
• Ex-Israeli spy boss attacks Netanyahu and Barak over Iran
  PM and defence chief not fit to lead Israel and are misleading the public over Iran, warns former Shin Bet boss Yuval Diskin Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem Israel's former security chief has censured the country's "messianic" political leadership for talking up the prospects of a military stike on Iran's nuclear programme. In unusually candid comments set to ratchet up tensions over Iran at the top of Israel's political establishment, Yuval Diskin, who retired as head of the internal intelligence agency Shin Bet last year, said he had "no faith" in the abilities of the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and the defence minister, Ehud Barak, to conduct a war. The pair, who are the foremost advocates of military action against Iran's nuclear programme, were "not fit to hold the steering wheel of power", Diskin told a meeting on Friday night. "My major problem is that I have no faith in the current leadership, which must lead us in an event on the scale of war with Iran or a regional war," he said. "I don't believe in either the prime minister or the defence minister. I don't believe in a leadership that makes decisions based on messianic feelings. Believe me, I have observed them from up close ... They are not people who I, on a personal level, trust to lead Israel to an event on that scale and carry it off. "They are misleading the public on the Iran issue. They tell the public that if Israel acts, Iran won't have a nuclear bomb. This is misleading. Actually, many experts say that an Israeli attack would accelerate the Iranian nuclear race." [Iran] [Israel]
• Al-Qaeda is weaker without bin Laden, but its franchise persists
  By Greg Miller, Published: April 28 | Updated: Sunday, April 29, 1:31 PM As U.S. helicopters approached in darkness a year ago, Osama bin Laden was woefully unprepared: no means of escape, no way to destroy files, no succession plan. But U.S. intelligence analysts scouring the trove of data he left behind continue to find evidence that al-Qaeda was making provisions for the long term, plans that in some cases remain on track. Among the previously undisclosed records is a lengthy paper by bin Laden’s successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri, laying out the al-Qaeda strategy for Afghanistan in the years after the United States withdraws, current and former U.S. officials said. Other files show that through his couriers, bin Laden was in touch not only with al-Qaeda’s established affiliates but also with upstarts being groomed for new alliances. Among them was Nigeria’s Boko Haram, a group that has since embraced al-Qaeda and adopted its penchant for suicide attacks. [Global insurgency] [Osama]
• UAE-based F-22s A Signal To Iran
  By Amy Butler abutler@aviationweek.com Source: AWIN First April 26 , 2012 As tensions between Tehran, Washington and Tel Aviv continue to mount over Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons technologies, the U.S. has quietly begun a deployment of its premier stealthy fighter, the twin-engine F-22, to the United Arab Emirates. Multiple Lockheed Martin aircraft will operate out of Al Dhafra Air Base there, industry sources say. This is the same base from which U.S. U-2s and Global Hawk UAVs have been launched since shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. [Provocation]
• Russia’s SA-24 ‘Grinch’ Lands In Insurgent Hands
  By David Fulghum Source: Aviation Week & Space Technology March 12 , 2012 David Fulghum/Washington and Robert Wall/London Fears that some of the world's most sophisticated anti-aircraft weapons that disappeared from government warehouses in Libya would end up in the hands of stateless insurgent are being realized. At least some of the roughly 480 high-performance SA-24 “Grinch” shoulder-launched missiles that disappeared during the Libyan uprising have reappeared in the hands of insurgents on the borders of Israel, say senior Israeli officials. The advanced weapons were smuggled out of Libya to Iran. From there the supply line split, with some weapons going to Syria and finally to the military wing of the Hezbollah organization in Lebanon. Others were smuggled into Egypt and then to Hamas in Gaza. [Unintended consequences] [Libya]
• The Rise of the Killer Drones: How America Goes to War in Secret
  An inside look at how killing by remote control has changed the way we fight. by: Michael Hastings drones An MQ-1 Predator drone goes through post-flight maintenance in Iraq. U.S. Air Force photo/Airman 1st Class Christopher Griffin One day in late November, an unmanned aerial vehicle lifted off from Shindand Air Base in western Afghanistan, heading 75 miles toward the border with Iran. The drone's mission: to spy on Tehran's nuclear program, as well as any insurgent activities the Iranians might be supporting in Afghanistan. With an estimated price tag of $6 million, the drone was the product of more than 15 years of research and development, starting with a shadowy project called DarkStar overseen by Lockheed Martin. The first test flight for DarkStar took place in 1996, but after a crash and other mishaps, Lockheed announced that the program had been canceled. According to military experts, that was just a convenient excuse for "going dark," meaning that DarkStar's further development would take place under a veil of secrecy. The drone that was headed toward Iran, the RQ-170 Sentinel, looks like a miniature version of the famous stealth fighter, the F-117 Nighthawk: sleek and sand-colored and vaguely ominous, with a single domed eye in place of a cockpit. With a wingspan of 65 feet, it has the ability to fly undetected by radar. Rather than blurting out its location with a constant stream of radio signals – the electronic equivalent of a trail of jet exhaust – it communicates intermittently with its home base, making it virtually impossible to detect. Once it reached its destination, 140 miles into Iranian airspace, it could hover silently in a wide radius for hours, at an altitude of up to 50,000 feet, providing an uninterrupted flow of detailed reconnaissance photos – a feat that no human pilot would be capable of pulling off. Not long after takeoff – a maneuver handled by human drone operators in Afghanistan – the RQ-170 switched into a semiautonomous mode, following a preprogrammed route under the guidance of drone pilots sitting at computer screens some 7,500 miles away, at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada. But before the mission could be completed, something went wrong. One of the drone's three data streams failed, and began sending inaccurate information back to the base. Then the signal vanished, and Creech lost all contact with the drone. [UAV]
• Dealing in death: the battle against the UK arms trade
  Barnaby Pace, 27 April 2012 David Cameron’s arms selling trip to Indonesia ? demonstrates the cynical realities of the weapons market. It was not long ago that the Indonesian armed forces used UK Hawk jets to bomb civilians ? in East Timor. There are continuing human rights abuses in West Papua and elsewhere. Meanwhile military officers are rumoured to be receiving up to 40 per cent of the value of arms purchases in bribes. But these sales and the damage they cause can be stopped by ordinary people who make a stand. The arms trade is the only business in the world that counts its profits in pounds and its losses in lives. The arms trade thrives on conflict and corruption is routine. Its products are not only intended to maim and kill but to generate profits; profits taken from state budgets that could otherwise be used on healthcare, education or dealing with the threats of climate change or resource depletion. [Arms sales]
• Bombings in Syria put UN-backed initiative at stake
  Xinhua | April 28, 2012 14:09 By Agencies Officials work at the site of a suicide bombing in front of Zein el-Abiddin Mosque in the Midan neighborhood in Damascus, Syria, April 27, 2012. A suicide bomber detonated himself Friday in a central neighborhood of the Syrian capital Damascus, leaving at least nine people dead and 29 others wounded, the state TV reported. Photo: Xinhua A string of bombings hit the Syrian capital of Damascus on Friday, leaving at least 11 people killed. The surge in violence dealt a tough blow to a peace plan brokered by the Arab League (AL)-UN joint envoy Kofi Annan. About four bombings hit Damascus Friday, the deadliest of which took place in the central al-Midan neighborhood, when a suicide bomber blew himself up near a security forces' bus stationed under a bridge near a mosque apparently to prevent worshipers from staging anti-government protests, witnesses said. [Syria] [Terrorism]
• DSK: New York sex scandal orchestrated by political opponents
  Exclusive: Dominique Strauss-Kahn accuses enemies linked to Nicolas Sarkozy of destroying bid for French presidency DSK interview: 'I didn't believe they'd go that far' Ed Pilkington in New York and Angelique Chrisafis in Paris guardian.co.uk, Friday 27 April 2012 18.15 BST The former head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, has accused political enemies linked to Nicolas Sarkozy and his ruling UMP party of destroying his bid for the French presidency by choreographing the scandal that erupted last year when he was accused of assaulting a New York hotel maid. In an exclusive interview published by the Guardian, Strauss-Kahn stated that he believes the highly public undoing that followed his encounter with the housekeeper in the Sofitel hotel's presidential suite, and his imprisonment on charges of attempted rape, were orchestrated by his political opponents. [DSK]
• Liberian President Charles Taylor’s Conviction: Holiday Sacrifice
  Alexander MEZYAEV | 28.04.2012 | 00:00 On April 26 the Special Court for Sierra Leone found former President of Liberia Charles Taylor guilty of international war crimes committed on the territory of a neighboring state – Sierra Leone during the civil war of 1991-1997. He was the first former head of state to be convicted by an international court since the Nuremberg. It had been clear he would be found guilty long before the sentence. It’s not thanks to the evidence provided but because of the Court’s stance. The reason is its tolerant attitude towards the prosecutor’s office and its false witnesses who changed their testimony a few times receiving money from the prosecutors and finding refuge in the Netherlands and other European countries. It’s also because of strictness towards defense whose arguments were taken lightly and dismissed in a too hasty manner, or even left without being taken into consideration at all. [Legality] [War crimes]
• Tear gas fired as 25,000 rally demanding electoral reforms in Malaysia ahead of upcoming polls
  By Associated Press, Updated: Saturday, April 28, 8:37 PM KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Malaysian police fired tear gas and chemical-laced water Saturday at thousands of demonstrators demanding an overhaul in electoral policies that they call biased ahead of national polls expected soon. At least 25,000 demonstrators had swamped Malaysia’s largest city in one of the Southeast Asian nation’s biggest street rallies in the past decade. The demonstration reflected concerns that Prime Minister Najib Razak’s ruling coalition — which has held power for more than 50 years — will have an unfair upper hand in elections that could be called as early as June. Activists have alleged that the Election Commission is biased and claimed that voter registration lists are tainted with fraudulent voters. [Democracy]
• Washington Bets on the Gulf Royals
  by Vijay Prashad In late March, Hillary Clinton traveled to Riyadh, the capital of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. There she met with King Abdullah, the primus inter pares of the Arabian Peninsula. Shortly afterwards, she inaugurated the US-GCC Strategic Cooperation Forum. The GCC is the Gulf Cooperation Council, the Arab NATO, whose members include Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. Each of these is a monarchy, with the UAE disguising the royals behind a federation and with the Saudis ecstatic to proclaim the benefits of the royal bloodline. They pretend that their great enemy is Iran, but in actual fact it is the idea of Democracy. By any means necessary, the Gulf Arab royals ensure that talk of reform is reserved for the short dramatic skits played out in the presence of visiting US politicians who are primed to preen about the far-sightedness of the benevolent monarchs. If genuine calls for reforms arise, as they did in Saudi Arabia in March 2011, those voices are shut down: often literally, as in the case of Faisal Ahmed Abdul-Ahadwas, age 27, shot near his home on March 2, a week before the Days of Rage that he promised on his Facebook site. It is to these Gardens of the Arab Spring that Secretary Clinton brought the full force of her commitment to Human Rights and Democracy. [US global strategy] [Democracy] [Double standards]
• The Children of Fallujah
  by Robert Fisk For little Sayef, there will be no Arab Spring. He lies, just 14 months old, on a small red blanket cushioned by a cheap mattress on the floor, occasionally crying, his head twice the size it should be, blind and paralysed. Sayeffedin Abdulaziz Mohamed – his full name – has a kind face in his outsized head and they say he smiles when other children visit and when Iraqi families and neighbours come into the room. But he will never know the history of the world around him, never enjoy the freedoms of a new Middle East. He can move only his hands and take only bottled milk because he cannot swallow. He is already almost too heavy for his father to carry. He lives in a prison whose doors will remain forever closed. It’s as difficult to write this kind of report as it is to understand the courage of his family. Many of the Fallujah families whose children have been born with what doctors call “congenital birth anomalies” prefer to keep their doors closed to strangers, regarding their children as a mark of personal shame rather than possible proof that something terrible took place here after the two great American battles against insurgents in the city in 2004, and another conflict in 2007. [cbw] [War crimes] [Iraq]
• Ken Livingstone: 'This isn't a race to elect a chat-show host'
  He is a lifelong champion of London's poor and dispossessed. So, with a week to go before the mayoral election, why is he still struggling to get his message across against a millionaire old Etonian? Decca Aitkenhead guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 25 April 2012 20.00 BST Article history The last time I met Ken Livingstone we had a bit of a row about electoral strategy. He told me that voters respect him because he speaks his mind and refuses to play the media game of placating the rightwing press. I suggested that if he really wants to help Londoners, he owes it to them to watch his words very carefully – because he knows full well they'll be twisted into gaffes if he gives the media half a chance. He said I was capitulating to the politics of cynical spin and soundbites. I said he was being dangerously stubborn. [Media] [Election]
• Vogue’s flattering article on Syria’s first lady is scrubbed from Web
  (STR/ AFP/GETTY IMAGES ) - Syrian First Lady Asma al-Assad listens to a speech by her husband, President Bashar al-Assad, during a rare public appearance in Damascus on January 11, 2012. Assad vowed to defeat a \"conspiracy\" against Syria, a day after he blamed foreign interests for stoking months of deadly violence. By Paul Farhi, Thursday, April 26, 1:30 PM It may have been the worst-timed, and most tin-eared, magazine article in decades. “Asma al-Assad is glamorous, young, and very chic — the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies,” writer Joan Juliet Buck began her profile of Syria’s first lady in Vogue last year. Amid descriptions of Assad’s “energetic grace” and Christian Laboutin shoes, Buck wrote: “The 35-year-old first lady’s central mission is to change the mind-set of six million Syrians under eighteen, encourage them to engage in what she calls ‘active citizenship.’ ” Well, perhaps. But just as Buck’s profile appeared, Assad’s husband, Bashar al-Assad, began a bloody crackdown on his opponents. Since then, about 9,000 Syrians have been slaughtered by security forces loyal to Assad, Syria’s hereditary president. Meanwhile, rather than the progressive, arts-loving, British-educated banker of Buck’s telling, Asma al-Assad has emerged as the Marie Antoinette of the Arab Spring. E-mails leaked by Syrian opposition groups last month showed that she was involved in shopping online for jewelry, chandeliers and designer shoes in boutiques in Paris and London while her government’s violent repression was underway. Buck’s article, in the March 2011 issue of Vogue, drew widespread surprise and ridicule, especially among Washington’s foreign-policy community, which had long regarded Syria as a regional troublemaker and leading violator of human rights. It contained little hint of the Assad family’s history of repression, offering only that Syria is “a country full of shadow zones.” And then the story disappeared. The 3,200-word article apparently proved so embarrassing to the magazine that it scrubbed it from its Web site, an almost-unheard-of step for a mainstream media organization and a generally acknowledged violation of digital etiquette. [Media] [Syria] [Censor]
• Syria records 1,300 violations by "terrorists" of UN-led truce
  English.news.cn 2012-04-27 03:22:43 DAMASCUS, April 26 (Xinhua) -- Syrian Minister of Information Adnan Mahmoud announced Thursday that a total of 1,300 violations of the UN-backed cease fire have been committed by armed groups since the truce went into effect on April 12, state-run SANA news agency reported. The cease-fire is part of a six-point peace plan brokered by Arab League (AL), UN joint envoy to Syria Kofi Annan. The plan, widely backed by the international community, calls for the withdrawal of heavy weapons and troops from population centers, a daily halt in fighting for the delivery of humanitarian aid and treatment for the wounded, as well as talks between the government and opposition. Mahmoud said armed groups have ramped up their crimes, kidnappings and assassinations since the activation of the cease- fire, adding that Syria, through its foreign minister, has notified Annan of the violations in a number of messages. The minister, meanwhile, said his country has abided by Annan's plan, stressing that the halt of violence requires an even-handed and transparent observation as well as stopping the armed groups' violations. Mahmoud reserved Syria's rights to retaliate against any violation and aggression. "We wait for Annan to exert real efforts, of which results could be felt on ground," the minister said. [Syria]
• Disillusion With the Euro and Europe
  by Diana Johnstone Democratic elections in the NATO member states serve one clear purpose. They contribute to the self-satisfaction concerning “our values” needed to justify military intervention in the imperfect internal affairs of other countries. But do the citizens really decide policy through their votes, or is electoral democracy fatally corrupted by the power of money? At least in its form, the French presidential election is a model of resistance to the power of money that so blatantly dominates presidential elections in the United States. While the United States is locked in a two-party system where both parties depend on millions of dollars from rich donors, the French two-round system allows as many candidates as can gather the required number (500) of mayors’ signatures to run in the first round. Then voters can decide between the two front-runners in the second round.
• Joining Washington’s one-percenters takes more than the U.S. average
  By Annie Gowen, Carol Morello and Ted Mellnik, Published: April 22 At the Collection at Chevy Chase, a $1,100 purple python pump gleams in the window of the Gucci store. Across Wisconsin Avenue at TTR Sotheby’s, sales agents prepare to sell a $32 million riverview home near Annapolis — one of the most expensive properties ever listed in the D.C. area. And at a nearby Whole Foods, BMWs idle in the circular drive as shoppers dash in for $19.99-a-pound Dijon-crusted rack of lamb. Long before “the 1 percent” became part of the political lexicon, a growing number of highly educated, dual-income families were driving the region’s top income levels into the stratosphere. To be considered part of the 1 percent in this area, it takes a household income far above the national average of $387,000. The gateway for the region is $527,000. In the District, the top 1 percent of households bring in at least $617,000; in Montgomery County, more than $606,000; and in Fairfax County, $532,000, according to an analysis of census statistics by The Washington Post and Sentier Research, a firm that specializes in income data. Most of those people making the big bucks are exactly who you would expect: doctors, lawyers, chief executives, managers and management analysts. Eight in 10 households in the 1 percent are white. Just 6 percent are black. [Inequality]
• Iran says it recovered data from captured US spy drone, plans to build copy
  By Associated Press, Published: April 22 TEHRAN, Iran — Iran claimed Sunday that it had recovered data from an American spy drone that went down in Iran last year, including information that the aircraft was used to spy on Osama bin Laden weeks before he was killed. Iran also said it was building a copy of the drone. Similar unmanned surveillance planes have been used in Afghanistan for years and kept watch on bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan. But U.S. officials have said little about the history of the particular aircraft now in Iran’s possession. Tehran, which has also been known to exaggerate its military and technological prowess, says it brought down the RQ-170 Sentinel, a top-secret drone equipped with stealth technology, and has flaunted the capture as a victory for Iran and a defeat for the United States. [UAV] [Asymmetry]
• Britain destroyed records of colonial crimes
  Review finds thousands of papers detailing shameful acts were culled, while others were kept secret illegally Ian Cobain, Owen Bowcott and Richard Norton-Taylor The Guardian, Wednesday 18 April 2012 Hanslope Park, where the Foreign Office kept a secret archive of colonial papers. Photograph: Martin Argles for the Guardian Thousands of documents detailing some of the most shameful acts and crimes committed during the final years of the British empire were systematically destroyed to prevent them falling into the hands of post-independence governments, an official review has concluded. Those papers that survived the purge were flown discreetly to Britain where they were hidden for 50 years in a secret Foreign Office archive, beyond the reach of historians and members of the public, and in breach of legal obligations for them to be transferred into the public domain. [Imperialism] [War crimes]
• Beltway Academics and the War Machine
  by CHRISTIAN SORENSEN The Pentagon rewards beltway academics in exchange for scholarly support. Dr. Michael O’Hanlon and Dr. Robert Kagan, of the Brookings Institution, exemplify this symbiotic aggrandizement of power. [Thinktank] [MISCOM]
• John Simpson: I was on wrong side in Bosnia death camps libel trial
  BBC veteran apologises for backing magazine that claimed exposé of Serb-run camps was false Share 4 Observer Staff The Observer, Sunday 22 April 2012 Article history John Simpson John Simpson: 'The account of what happened in the camp is completely unanswerable'. Photograph: Murdo Macleod John Simpson, the BBC's world affairs editor, has admitted for the first time that he was "sorry" he offered to give evidence against fellow journalists who had been wrongly accused of fabricating a report about conditions in two Serb-run camps during the Bosnian war. Writing in the Observer today, the award-winning journalist says he regrets his involvement as a defence witness for the now defunct Living Marxism magazine, which accused an ITN television crew and Ed Vulliamy – then a journalist with the Guardian and now with the Observer – of manufacturing an account. The same claim was repeated in a press release accompanying the publication of the article. The libel action brought by ITN against Living Marxism, over an article that it published by a German journalist, Thomas Deichmann – "The picture that fooled the world" – led to one of the most high-profile media libel trials of the past two decades. [Media]
• Book review: ‘Why Nations Fail,’ by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson
  By Warren Bass, Published: April 21 “Why Nations Fail” is a sweeping attempt to explain the gut-wrenching poverty that leaves 1.29 billion people in the developing world struggling to live on less than $1.25 a day. You might expect it to be a bleak, numbing read. It’s not. It’s bracing, garrulous, wildly ambitious and ultimately hopeful. It may, in fact, be a bit of a masterpiece. Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, two energetic, widely respected development scholars, start with a bit of perspective: Even in today’s glum economic climate, the average American is seven times as prosperous as the average Mexican, 10 times as prosperous as the average Peruvian, about 20 times as prosperous as the average inhabitant of sub-Saharan Africa and about 40 times as prosperous as the average citizen of such particularly desperate African countries as Mali, Ethiopia and Sierra Leone. What explains such stupefying disparities? [Imperialism] [Context]
• The Pacific Century
  By Elizabeth Weingarten on April 19, 2012 - 4:56 pm At 8:07 a.m. Thursday morning on an island off India’s east coast, the Southeast Asian nation successfully launched a nuclear-capable missile with a range far enough to strike Beijing or Shanghai. Not that India wants to attack China. And it probably won’t -- at least as long as the United States has a military presence in the area. The crucial peacekeeping role the U.S. plays in the region was one of several issues addressed at Wednesday evening’s second Election 2012: The National Security Agenda event, part of the four-event series sponsored by the New America Foundation, the Center for a New American Security and the American Enterprise Institute. The panelists at Wednesday’s event, titled "The Pacific Century," explored the rich history and possible future of U.S. foreign policy in East Asia. They highlighted recent geopolitical changes in the region, and suggested an agenda of issues that Mitt Romney and President Obama should tackle during this fall’s presidential debates. But they may need to start that discussion a little earlier. CNAS senior fellow Robert Kaplan presciently emphasized the significance of India’s missile launch last night in a response to a question about why U.S. ships remain in the region. “If you extract American presence in this theore1tical way, suddenly the India-China rivalry would not be so benign. The India-Russian rivalry would not be so benign. The Chinese-Russia rivalry would not be so benign,” Kaplan explained. “These are countries that could easily go to war. The fact that…what we see is jockeying for position on the high seas more than real strong outbreaks of hostilities is because of the pacifying effect of an American military hegemon in the area. That pacifying effect allows world trade to happen.” What does all this mean for the next president? He’d be wise to strengthen and refine U.S. foreign policy in the Asia-Pacific region, with particular attention to bolstering relationships with China and North Korea. [US global strategy] [Pivot] [MISCOM]
• Afghanistan-Iraq, and America's fix
  Paul Rogers, 19 April 2012 The Taliban assault on key sites in central Kabul highlights the strategic predicament of the United States and its Nato allies in Afghanistan. The forewarnings were present a decade ago, in ways that still cast a shadow on the present and future. The war in Afghanistan again reached the heart of Kabul on 15-16 April 2012 with a series of coordinated Taliban assaults ? on western and Afghan targets, including embassies and Nato's headquarters, in the city. The three distinct operations in the capital, which disrupted its central area for eighteen hours, were complemented by two more in Jalalabad, one in Gardez and another in the eastern city of Pul-e-Alam. The Afghan National Army and the Afghan police were in the forefront of handling the emergency, in accordance with the west's strategy of attempting to devolve more responsibility to these agencies; though to bring the attacks to an end the United States eventually had to bring in helicopter-gunships. [Afghanistan] [Decline]
• Value Added: America's Manufacturing Future
  by Michael Lind and Joshua Freedman American policymakers are beginning to catch on: domestic manufacturing is in the midst of a new wave of innovation, and as a result has the potential to revitalize the economy. A new report from the Economic Growth Program at the New America Foundation, entitled Value Added: America's Manufacturing Future, explains why retaining domestic manufacturing is centrally important to the health of the economy, how technology continues to transform manufacturing, and what policy options leaders in Washington can pursue to capture the benefits. The authors of the report, Michael Lind and Joshua Freedman, argue that the next generation of manufacturing will continue to be crucial to the economy, but it increasingly will not resemble the typical mass-production assembly lines that many Americans associate with manufacturing. Instead, advanced manufacturing, aided by information technology, and servitization, or the integration of services and manufacturing, will define the future of American manufacturing. [Manufacturing] [Services] [Decline]
• The Philanthropies of American Imperialism: Foundations and American Power
  by JOAN ROELOFS Zbigniew Brzezinski in The Grand Chessboard (1997) noted that “Cultural domination has been an underappreciated facet of American global power.” United States philanthropic foundations skillfully applied this weapon during the Cold War. If we define this war as a conflict between two ways of organizing societies, capitalist and socialist, we can see how broad were the fronts and diverse the weapons. We may also conclude that the Cold War is not over; targets such as Cuba, India, and Nepal are still under attack, and the small news we receive from Eastern Europe suggests considerable activity in the trenches. Knowledge networks created in the service of American global hegemony are the main subject of Inderjeet Parmar’s book Foundations of the American Century: The Ford, Carnegie, and Rockefeller Foundations in the Rise of American Power (Columbia University Press, 2012). These, he argues persuasively, promote technocratic capitalist economics while failing to eradicate poverty. His focus is on the “big three” foundations: Ford, Carnegie and Rockefeller, traditionally the ones most active in foreign policy. Even given this limitation, the title and introduction are somewhat misleading, as only a slice of their activity promoting U.S. power in the world is discussed. [Think tanks] [Softpower] [NGO]
• One-quarter of adults went without health care last year, report finds
  By Noam N. Levy | McClatchy Tribune Newswire WASHINGTON — With the future of the health care law emerging as a major campaign issue this fall, a new survey has found that more than a quarter of adults ages 19 to 64 in the United States lacked health insurance for at least some time in 2011. And the vast majority of those people, nearly 70 percent, had been without coverage for more than a year, according to the study by the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund, a leading authority on health policy. The holes in health insurance were a driving force in President Barack Obama's push for the controversial health care overhaul he signed in 2010. Close to 50 million people in the country now lack coverage, a number that has been rising as employers eliminate jobs or cut back health benefits. [Decline]
• Egypt’s Salafists on edge of political exile as their candidates are disqualified
  Supporters of the disqualified Egyptian presidential candidate Hazem Salah Abu Ismail stage a rally outside the election commission in Cairo. By Hannah Allam | McClatchy Newspapers CAIRO — Egypt’s ultraconservative Salafists, long political exiles here, surged onto the stage after Hosni Mubarak was forced from the presidency last year, winning a surprise quarter of the seats in Parliament and broadening their support in remote provinces through efficient charity networks, a half-dozen satellite TV channels and huge town hall meetings across Egypt. But after that rapid ascent, the Salafists find themselves adrift and divided just weeks before the first presidential election since Mubarak’s ouster. [Democracy] [Double standards]
• Richard O'Dwyer: Lib Dems fight to halt extradition to US on piracy charges
  Sheffield student – who founded tvshack.net website – faces 10 years in high-security prison James Ball guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 18 April 2012 21.30 BST Lib Dem Tim Farron has described the US extradition request for Richard O’Dwyer – above, who faces 10 years in jail – as 'ludicrous'. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA The government is coming under cross-party pressure from within the coalition to stay the extradition of a Sheffield student who founded a website sharing links to TV shows, and to review the US extradition treaty in the wake of the case. The home secretary Theresa May signed an extradition order last month for Richard O'Dwyer, 23, to be sent to the US, where he faces 10 years in high-security prison. O'Dwyer founded a website, tvshack.net, in 2007, which acted as a search engine for people to find out where they could watch and in some cases download popular TV shows, typically programmes not yet available outside America. Some of the links led to legal sources, others to unauthorised sites. [Human rights] [US dominance]
• Syrian rebels, but not residents, have returned to contested area
  By David Enders | McClatchy Newspapers AL BUWAYDA, Syria — When the Syrian government stepped up its offensive against anti-government rebels ahead of the cease-fire that went into effect a week ago, the villages and towns south of Homs, including this one, were hit especially hard. Residents say 400 mortar rounds slammed into this town from March 26 to April 10, killing 12 civilians and forcing most of the residents to flee, but rarely touching the rebel fighters who were operating here. Now, as the cease-fire sputters, the rebels have returned, but not many civilians or any semblance of normal life. [Media]
• CIA seeks new authority to expand Yemen drone campaign
  By Greg Miller, Thursday, April 19, 11:53 AM The CIA is seeking authority to expand its covert drone campaign in Yemen by launching strikes against terrorism suspects even when it does not know the identities of those who could be killed, U.S. officials said. Securing permission to use these “signature strikes” would allow the agency to hit targets based solely on intelligence indicating patterns of suspicious behavior, such as imagery showing militants gathering at known al-Qaeda compounds or unloading explosives. [Assassination] [US global strategy]
• Pentagon condemns photos of U.S. troops posing with dead Afghan insurgents
  By Craig Whitlock, Thursday, April 19, 12:43 AM The U.S. military on Wednesday once again condemned the actions of some of its troops in Afghanistan after photographs surfaced of smiling soldiers posing with dead insurgents in the latest battlefield scandal. The photographs, obtained by the Los Angeles Times, show soldiers posing next to Afghan corpses, including the mangled body of a suicide bomber hoisted by his ankles. In another shot, which the newspaper described but did not publish, two soldiers hold up a dead man’s hand, extending his middle finger.
• U.S. troops posed with body parts of Afghan bombers
  An American soldier says he released the photos to the Los Angeles Times to draw attention to the safety risk of a breakdown in leadership and discipline. The Army has started a criminal investigation. A soldier from the Army's 82nd Airborne Division with a dead insurgent's hand on his shoulder. It's one of 18 photos given to The Times of troops posing with corpses. The paratroopers had their assignment: Check out reports that Afghan police had recovered the mangled remains of an insurgent suicide bomber. Try to get iris scans and fingerprints for identification. The 82nd Airborne Division soldiers arrived at the police station in Afghanistan's Zabol province in February 2010. They inspected the body parts. Then the mission turned macabre: The paratroopers posed for photos next to Afghan police, grinning while some held — and others squatted beside — the corpse's severed legs.
• Vatican report: U.S. Catholic sisters, nuns hold ‘serious theological’ errors
  By Elizabeth Tenety A Vatican investigation of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), an umbrella group representing 80 percent of Catholic sisters and nuns in the United States, found serious theological errors in statements by members, widespread dissent on the church’s teaching on sexuality and “radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith” a church report released Wednesday stated. The church appointed Archbishop Peter Sartain of Seattle to oversee “reform” of the women’s organization. NETWORK, a Washington, DC lobbying group founded by Catholic sisters in 1971 was singled out as “silent on the right to life”; the organization’s head said the group was not consulted during the inquiry. She said that its focus on poverty, immigration and health care stems from its founding mission. “I think we scare them,” Sr. Simone Campbell, a lawyer who serves as the executive director of the lobby said of the church’s male hierarchy.
• The Left Radicalism of Jean-Luc Mélenchon
  by Philippe Marliere Superbly ignored by the media until recently, Jean-Luc Mélenchon is the new flavour of the day in the French presidential campaign. In truth, while trying to account for his dramatic rise in the polls – latest reports put him at 17% of the vote – most commentators could not help pour scorn on the Left Front candidate. A survey of the main articles recently published in the British media provides a compelling case study of political prejudice and misunderstanding. Mélenchon is described as an “Anglo-Saxon basher with a whiny voice” (the Independent), a “populist” who’s “on the hard-left” (all newspapers) and a “bully and a narcissist, out to provoke” (BBC). More sympathetic commentaries compare him to George Galloway or depict him as a “far-left firebrand”, a “maverick” and the “pitbull of anti-capitalism”.
• Obama concludes Summit of the Americas on the defensive about inviting Cuba
  View Photo Gallery — Colombia hosts Summit of the Americas:?The coastal city of Cartagena, Colombia, hosts leaders from the Western Hemisphere during the sixth Summit of the Americas on April 14 and 15. By Scott Wilson, Monday, April 16, 12:31 PMThe Washington Post CARTAGENA, Colombia — President Obama concluded a contentious hemispheric summit on the defensive Sunday as it ended without agreement on whether Cuba’s Communist leaders should be invited to the next meeting, something the United States firmly opposes. The standoff meant that the sixth Summit of the Americas ended without an official declaration — a negotiated statement of shared principles from the hemisphere’s heads of state — and left open the question of whether there would be a seventh such meeting. The ambiguous conclusion underscored the fact that Obama, while pledging a new relationship with the United States’ leery southern neighbors, has had little success in bridging significant policy differences that have divided the region for decades. With the scandal involving a number of Secret Service agents and prostitution coloring the weekend meeting, Obama departed here with the U.S. image mildly blemished and the enduring political differences between the hemisphere’s wealthy north and rising south firmly intact. [Decline] [US global strategy]
• George Galloway claims outlaw status
  Respect leader likens himself to Robin Hood and says that he is the most inquired-into political figure in the UK Press Association guardian.co.uk, Monday 16 April 2012 06.00 BST Article history George Galloway said in an interview with the Big Issue that we was like the Robin Hood of politics. Photograph: Dave Thompson/PA Newly-elected MP George Galloway has claimed he is the "Robin Hood" of British politics. Galloway, who was victorious in the Bradford West byelection last month, compared himself to the folklore outlaw and said he was the "most inquired-into individual in British politics". In an interview with the Big Issue street newspaper, he said: "If I was a bigamist, I'd be under arrest. If I was a tax dodger, I'd be under arrest. I'm the most inquired-into individual in British politics. By a country mile. If I did things wrong, be sure I'd be already in big trouble. "We have a prevailing orthodoxy: there's a few inches of political life in which it's acceptable to have a different view, but if you challenge the fundamentals of policy, you're an outlaw. You're Robin Hood." Galloway scored a dramatic win in Bradford West, securing a 10,000-plus majority in what he called a "massive rejection" of mainstream parties.
• Taliban attack U.S. embassy and government sites across Afghanistan
  Insurgents took over a high-rise building and began firing rocket propelled grenades and assault weapons at government buildings and towards the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan | Jonathan S. Landay / MCTStay Connected Jonathan S. Landay and Ali Safi McClatchy Newspapers KABUL, Afghanistan — Insurgents took over a high-rise building on Sunday and began firing rocket propelled grenades and assault weapons at government buildings and towards the U.S. Embassy. The attack was part of coordinated suicide assaults elsewhere in Afghanistan and appeared to herald the beginning of the Taliban's spring offensive. There were no immediate reports of casualties in Kabul what appeared to be a strike mirroring an attack on the heavily fortified American mission in September. [Decline]
• Latin American Perspective on US-Invented Open Government
  Nil NIKANDROV | 16.04.2012 | 00:00 A conference of the Open Government Partnership will convene in Brazil on April 17-18, with representatives of 52 countries planning to attend. The event is supposed to demonstrate that the partnership which has the reputation of a US invention has a big and global following, facilitates communication between civil societies and governments in line with the stated objectives of the initiative, and in every way proves to be a major success. US initiatives are regarded with suspicion in Latin America as their seemingly sound agendas typically disguise attempts to dictate to partners, to coerce them into accepting Washington's rules of the game, or to install puppet governments in the continent's countries. The Open Government Partnership was born within the US Department of State. [NGO] [Outsourcing] [US global strategy] [Subversion]
• Taliban hits Kabul, other Afghanistan cities in rare coordinated attack
  View Photo Gallery — Taliban hits Kabul, other Afghanistan cities in rare coordinated attack:?Insurgents attacked cities across eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, including three prominent targets in Kabul, in a rare coordinated attack spanning some of the country’s most important urban centers. The Taliban called the effort the beginning of its spring offensive. Text Size PrintE-mailReprintsBy Kevin Sieff, Javed Hamdard and Sayed Salahuddin, Updated: Monday, April 16, 4:00 AMThe Washington Post KABUL — Insurgents attacked cities across eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, including three prominent targets in Kabul, in a rare coordinated attack spanning some of the country’s most important urban centers. The Taliban called the effort the beginning of its spring offensive. By evening, as the attacks were still ongoing, at least 14 police officers and nine civilians had been wounded, according to the Interior Ministry. .“This is a message that our spring offensive has begun,” said Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid, who said the primary targets were western military and diplomatic installations. In central Kabul, insurgents fired rocket-propelled grenades and rifles from an unfinished eight-story commercial building. From their perch, at least four men fired in the direction of the German Embassy and NATO’s military headquarters, both of which were just a few hundred yards from the attackers. Less than an hour after the attack began, Afghan commandos and their NATO trainers entered the building that the insurgents were firing from.
• Whatever Happened to the Arab Spring?
  by ISMAEL HOSSEIN-ZADEH Within the first few months of 2011, the U.S. and its allies lost three loyal “friends”: Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, Zine el-Abbidine Ben Ali in Tunisia and Saad Hariri in Lebanon. While Mubarak and Ali were driven out of power by widespread popular uprisings, Hariri was ousted by the parliament. Inspired by these liberating developments, pro-democracy rebellions against autocratic rulers (and their Western backers) soon spread to other countries such as Bahrain, Yemen, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. As these revolutionary developments tended to politically benefit the “axis of resistance” (consisting of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas) in the Middle East, the US-Israeli “axis of aggression” and their client states in the region mounted an all-out counterrevolutionary offensive. Caught off-guard by the initial wave of the Arab Spring in Egypt and Tunisia, the US and its allies struck back with a vengeance. They employed a number of simultaneous tactics to sabotage the Arab Spring. These included (1) instigating fake instances of the Arab Spring in countries that were/are headed by insubordinate regimes such as those ruling Iran, Syria and Libya; (2) co-opting revolutionary movements in countries such as Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen; (3) crushing pro-democracy movements against “friendly” regimes ruling countries such as Bahrain, Jordan and Saudi Arabia “before they get out of hand,” as they did in Egypt and Tunisia; and (4) using the age-old divide and rule trick by playing the sectarian trump card of Sunnis vs. Shias, or Iranians vs. Arabs. [US global strategy]
• Libyan dissident offered money to avoid MI6 appearing in open court
  Abdel Hakim Belhaj offered £1m in compensation over alleged UK involvement in his rendition to the Gaddafi regime Share 50 reddit this Richard Norton-Taylor guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 10 April 2012 21.21 BST Article history Abdel Hakim Belhaj has been offered £1m in compensation by the government over his alleged rendition to Libya. Photograph: Francois Mori/AP MI6 and former Labour ministers are facing fresh pressure over Britain's involvement in the rendition of a prominent Libyan dissident as it emerged that the government is offering him more than £1m in compensation for being brutally treated by Muammar Gaddafi's secret police. The government has offered the money to Abdel Hakim Belhaj in a move that would avoid MI6 appearing in open court, where it would face the prospect of explaining its role and that of ministers, the Guardian has been told. Leigh Day, lawyers for Belhaj, who was appointed head of Tripoli's military council after the Libyan revolution, have served a claim on Sir Mark Allen, the MI6 officer at the centre of the affair. They are suing Allen, then the most senior officer in MI6 responsible for counter-terrorism, alleging "complicity in torture" and "misfeasance in public office". [Jihadi] [Strategic incoherence][Bizarre]
• Israel eyes Iraq's F-16s and worries
  Israel is monitoring Iraq's re-armament program with disquiet amid intelligence reports Iran is consolidating its influence in Baghdad. Published: April 9, 2012 at 11:53 AM TEL AVIV, Israel, April 9 (UPI) -- Israel is monitoring Iraq's rearmament program, particularly Bahgdad's acquisition of 36 Lockheed Martin F-16s, with some disquiet amid intelligence reports Iran is consolidating its influence in Iraq following the U.S. military withdrawal. Baghdad ordered the F-16 Block 52 multi-role Fighting Falcon jets -- enough to equip the Iraqi air force's first two fighter squadrons -- in two 18-plane batches in 2011 at an estimated total cost of $7 billion. Israel didn't publicly question the sales, part of an $85 billion rearmament plan for oil-rich Iraq, when they were announced. It's not clear whether the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama, which has approved massive military sales to Iraq, will adjust its defense sales to Baghdad in light of Israeli concerns about growing Iranian influence in Iraq. [Arms sales] [Unintended consequences]
• From the Cold War to NATO's "Humanitarian Wars" - The Complicity of the United Nations
  by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya Global Research, April 4, 2012 Humanitarian wars, especially under the guise of the “Responsibility to Protect (R2P),” are a modern form of imperialism. The standard pattern that the United States and its allies use to execute them is one where genocide and ethnic cleansing are vociferously alleged by a coalition of governments, media organizations, and non-governmental front organizations. The allegations – often lurid and unfounded – then provide moral and diplomatic cover for a variety of sanctions that undermine and isolate the target country in question, and thereby pave the way for military intervention. This is the post-Cold War modus operandi of the US and NATO. In facilitating this neo-imperialism, the United Nations has been complicit in the hijacking of its own posts and offices by Washington. Former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan has been appointed a “special peace envoy” with a mediating role in Syria. Yet, how can Annan be evaluated as an “honest broker” considering his past instrumental role in developing the doctrine of R2P – the very pretext that has served to facilitate several US/NATO criminal wars of aggression? Furthermore, the evidence attests that the US and its allies – despite mouthing support for Annan’s supposed peace plan – are not interested in a mediated, peaceful solution in Syria. [Imperialism] [Humanitarian interventionism] [UNUS]
• Why Do They Hate George Galloway So Much?
  by PATRICK COCKBURN The ferocity of the attacks on George Galloway by the British commentariat is one of the most revealing outcomes of his victory in the Bradford West by-election. News presenters saw no problem in conducting interviews with the newly elected MP that were largely a shower of insulting and unproven accusations. Columnists wrote thousands of shrill words warning readers that he and his victory were atypical and had no broader significance for the country. And, if his success did have any relevance, it was the ominous one of illustrating deepening racial division in Britain, despite the fact that Galloway continually explained that he had won in non-Muslim as well as Muslim majority wards. There is an amusing half-hour to be spent watching YouTube clips of television interviews with Galloway in the days after he was elected. With a few honorable exceptions – Sky was more even-handed here than the BBC or ITN – most of the interviewers appeared in the role of prosecuting attorneys. They had the air of men and women who knew they were not going to be reprimanded by their employers, however rude they were to the successful candidate. They were convulsed with rage because Galloway said complimentary things to Saddam Hussein and Bashar al-Assad when he met them. Of course he had, as had every other visitor from Donald Rumsfeld to Tony Blair who had been to see these autocrats when they were in power. Other criticism was of astonishing naivety. For instance, had not Galloway played ethnic politics by cultivating Muslim voters? Of course he had since they were numerous in the constituency, but then so had Labour to a far greater extent by selecting a Pakistani Muslim as its candidate.
  Few statements by the new member for Bradford West seem to have enraged pundits so much as his comparison between his own electoral victory and the Arab Spring. One interviewer, her voice rippling with distaste, asked how he could compare his success with a movement in which thousands had died. But Britain does sometimes feel like Egypt, a country in which disasters occur but somehow nobody running the country is ever held responsible and where power circulates within a narrow clique. Decisions on war and peace have been delegated to the US. Wars are fought supposedly to defend Britain against terrorism, when all the evidence is that they provoke it. It says something about the comatose nature of British politics that an effective critic of these failed wars like Galloway, who beats an established party, should be instantly savaged as a self-serving demagogue.
• THE "SPECTER" OF AL QAEDA IN AFRICA: A Cover for Western Reconquest of the Continent
  The "Al Qaeda Brand", a Lucrative “Investment”.... by Finian Cunningham Global Research, April 5, 2012 A British foreign policy think tank has this week released a study claiming that the terror group Al Qaeda is regrouping in Africa creating “an arc of instability” from the Western Sahel to the Eastern Horn. The Royal United Services Institute, based in Whitehall, London, and closely aligned to official British foreign policy, cites “disturbing new trends” across the continent that “Osama bin Laden’s terror network” is seeking influence in Somalia, North Africa and the Western Sahara-Sahel. “If correct [sic], this assessment would raise the worrying prospect of an arc of regional instability encompassing the whole Sahara-Sahel strip and extending through to East Africa, which the now weakened Al Qaeda-core could well exploit to regroup, reorganise and reinvigorate its terrorist campaign against the West,” the report said. Meanwhile, in other media reports it is claimed that Al Qaeda elements are joining forces with the Tuareg separatists following a military coup in the West Africa country of Mali. The alleged involvement of Al Qaeda in Mali has been cited by former colonial power France in its pledge to crush the coup. The purported Al Qaeda link in Mali appears incongruous. The Tuareg rebels – a nomadic group inhabiting northern Mali and Niger – were formerly fighting in Libya in support of the Gaddafi government against Western-backed insurgents. The Western-backed Libyan insurgents are known to have comprised Al Qaeda jihadists. Now it is being claimed by France and media reports that Al Qaeda are in league with their former enemies – the Tuareg – in the secession of the northern Mali territory. What these various reports suggest is that Al Qaeda is being raised as a “spectre” over Africa to justify increased intervention by Western powers in that continent under the guise of “global security”. The RUSI, with an old colonialist flourish, says Al Qaeda “appears to be adopting a strategy of ‘going native’, which implies seizing upon and exploiting local grievances with the ultimate aim of securing a stable foothold in volatile countries”. Significantly, that scary thought allows the RUSI study to conclude: ““The focus of anti-jihadist counter-terrorism is shifting to Africa.” In other words, the pretext of anti-jihadist counter-terrorism by Western powers is shifting to Africa. But in point of fact, the Western counter-terrorism pretext is not shifting; it is more accurately being extended to Africa, as NATO is continuing its illegal occupation and wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan. [Spin] [Pretext]
• THE F-35 STEALTH FIGHTER PROGRAM: How the War Economy Contributes to Exacerbating the Social Crisis
  by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky Global Research, April 4, 2012 There is mounting controversy regarding the purchase of the F-35 stealth fighter jet from US defence giant Lockheed Martin. The Pentagon has commissioned the purchase of 2,443 aircraft "to provide the bulk of its tactical airpower for the US Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy over the coming decades". This massive procurement of advanced weapons systems is part of America's "Global War", largely directed against China, Russia, North Korea and Iran. The overall cost of the program to the US military is estimated at a staggering $1.51 trillion over the so called life cycle of the program, namely $618 million per plane. (Shalal-Esa, Andrea. Government sees lifetime cost of F-35 fighter at $1.51 trillion., Chicago Tribune, April 2, 2012). Several of America's close allies including the UK, Australia, Italy, Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, Turkey, Israel, and Japan are slated to purchase the F-35 stealth fighter plane. The economic and social implications of this program are potentially devastating. [MISCOM] [Arms sales]
• U.S. intelligence gains in Iran seen as boost to confidence
  View Photo Gallery — Iran’s quest to possess nuclear technology:?Iran said it has made advances in nuclear technology, citing new uranium enrichment centrifuges and domestically made reactor fuel. By Joby Warrick and Greg Miller, Sunday, April 8, 12:24 PMThe Washington Post More than three years ago, the CIA dispatched a stealth surveillance drone into the skies over Iran. The bat-winged aircraft penetrated more than 600 miles inside the country, captured images of Iran’s secret nuclear facility at Qom and then flew home. All the while, analysts at the CIA and other agencies watched carefully for any sign that the craft, dubbed the RQ-170 Sentinel, had been detected by Tehran’s air defenses on its maiden voyage. Increasing tensions between United States and Iran:?A string of volatile incidents has raised tensions between the two countries. U.S. officials say Iran's leaders are gathering the materials for a nuclear bomb but have not decided to build one. If they do, they'l have to overcome technical hurdles and risk having their work discovered by outsiders. Here are steps Iran might follow to make its first weapon. .“There was never even a ripple,” said a former senior U.S. intelligence official involved in the previously undisclosed mission. [Surveillance] [Intelligence]
• Jean-Luc Mélenchon: the poetry-loving pitbull galvanising the French elections
  Angelique Chrisafis joins charismatic hard-left firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon on the presidential campaign trail In a packed agricultural hanger in a rural town in central France, an enraptured crowd raised their fists and chanted: "Resistance! Resistance!" On stage, arms flung wide, sweat pouring down his face, stood the charismatic, hard-left firebrand hailed as the best orator of the presidential campaign. "The French Revolution of 1789 hasn't breathed its last!" roared Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the poetry-loving pitbull of anti-capitalism. "If Europe is a volcano, France is the crater of all European revolutions!" Mixing brute rage with killer, comic one-liners about the French political class, Mélenchon whipped up the crowd with promises of a civic insurrection to crush aristocracy and privilege. Hundreds who could not fit into the hall stood freezing in the car-park watching a live feed on a video screen, waving red banners and tricolour flags. "Welcome to Mélenchon-mania," beamed a student at her first ever rally.
• Former hard-line exiles return to Cuba to talk
  Desmond Boylan/Reuters - Cars are driven as the sun sets over Havana's seafront boulevard. President Raul Castro has begun to open the Cuban economy to its citizens and there is cautious but visible change on the island. Text Size PrintE-mailReprintsBy William Booth, Saturday, April 7, 1:53 AMThe Washington Post HAVANA — The setting was historic. The looming 18th-century Seminary of San Carlos in Old Havana. The attendance remarkable. A hall packed with professors, dissidents, clergy, bloggers, leftists, diplomats. The subject matter once unthinkable. Just after Pope Benedict XVI left Cuba last week, the Catholic Church hosted a talk by Miami millionaire Carlos Saladrigas, who politely but directly said here in a public forum that socialism — the bedrock of the revolution — wasn’t working anymore on the communist-run island. After his first visit to Mexico, Pope Benedict stopped in Cuba, formerly an officially atheist country. .“To be honest,” Saladrigas said later, “who could have thought such a meeting possible? Not me. Never.” But the meeting was clearly a sign that there is cautious but visible change on the island. Saladrigas, a Cuban exile entrepreneur and former hard-liner who has flourished in Miami, said that “big changes in the next few years” were inevitable, and he advised young Cubans to stay put. Although Saladrigas said that Cuba’s state-run economy needed to be opened to free enterprise, the 63-year-old investor also blamed the U.S. government and the anti-Castro Cuban exiles and their politicians in South Florida for perpetuating a standoff that has hurt Cubans on both sides of the Florida Straits. “Change is not easy, I know this personally,” he said. “This was an event of tremendous importance, the first time that a prominent Cuban from aboard could express these thoughts in a large forum,” said Oscar Espinosa Chepe, an independent Cuban economist who attended the meeting. He remarked that Saladrigas and the dozen people who stood at the microphone criticized both the Cuban and U.S. governments — and even offered a few solutions — in voices respectful and calm. There were tough questions, too, directed at Saladrigas. Participants asked how the Miami exiles could really help Cuba while still supporting the 50-year-old embargo. The questioners wanted to know how U.S.-style capitalism could replace Cuban socialism, without turning workers into wage slaves and leaving the most vulnerable at the mercy of the markets.
• The United States as Number 2
  by DEAN BAKER Politicians in the United States must ritualistically assert that the United States is and always will be the world’s leading economic, military and political power. This chant may help win elections in a country where respectable people deny global warming and evolution, but it has nothing to do with the real world. Those familiar with the data know that China is rapidly gaining on the United States as the world’s leading economic power. According to data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), China’s economy is currently about 80 percent of the size of the U.S. economy. It is projected to pass the United States by 2016. [Decline] [China rising]
• Günter Grass's Israel poem provokes outrage
  Germany's most celebrated writer's lyrical warning of a looming Israeli aggression against Iran triggers international row Luke Harding and Harriet Sherwood guardian.co.uk, Thursday 5 April 2012 23.16 BST Article history Günter Grass’s poem What Must Be Said was first published in the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Photograph: Graeme Robertson During his long literary career, Günter Grass has been many things. Author, playwright, sculptor and, unquestionably, Germany's most famous living writer. There is the 1999 Nobel prize and Grass's broader postwar role as the country's moral conscience – albeit a claim badly undermined in 2006 when it emerged that the teenage Grass had served in the Waffen SS. But at the ripe old age of 84, Grass has triggered a furious row with a poem criticising Israel. Entitled What Must Be Said and published on Wednesday in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the lyric warns of a looming Israeli aggression against Iran. It argues that Germany should no longer deliver nuclear submarines to Israel that might carry "all-destroying warheads". [Double standards]
• UAE briefly detains staff of closed U.S. pro-democracy group, officials say
  By Associated Press, Friday, April 6, 4:26 AMAP DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — United Arab Emirates authorities temporarily detained members of a U.S.-funded democracy group as they tried to leave the country after their office was ordered closed, U.S. officials said Thursday. The group included the local director of the National Democratic Institute, or NDI, who was briefly held and left the country, and another staff member, who was apparently held longer and later released, said State Department spokesman Mark Toner. The other NDI staff member remained in the UAE. “We continue to be in close contact with the government of the UAE to try to find a resolution to this,” said Toner in Washington. The NDI was ordered closed last week along with other foreign groups in the UAE. The NDI also was among several foreign groups raided by Egyptian authorities in December. Some activists, including the son of U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and other Americans, were later charged with fomenting unrest. [Strategic incoherence] [Subversion]
• Afghanistan sees rise in ‘dancing boys’ exploitation
  By Ernesto Londoño, Thursday, April 5, 3:45 PM The Washington Post DEHRAZI, Afghanistan — The 9-year-old boy with pale skin and big, piercing eyes captivated Mirzahan at first sight. “He is more handsome than anyone in the village,” the 22-year-old farmer said, explaining why he is grooming the boy as a sexual partner and companion. There was another important factor that made Waheed easy to take on as a bacha bazi, or a boy for pleasure: “He doesn’t have a father, so there is no one to stop this.” A growing number of Afghan children are being coerced into a life of sexual abuse. The practice of wealthy or prominent Afghans exploiting underage boys as sexual partners who are often dressed up as women to dance at gatherings is on the rise in post-Taliban Afghanistan, according to Afghan human rights researchers, Western officials and men who participate in the abuse. “Like it or not, there was better rule of law under the Taliban,” said Dee Brillenburg Wurth, a child-protection expert at the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, who has sought to persuade the government to address the problem. “They saw it as a sin, and they stopped a lot of it.”
• U.S. announces $10 million reward for Pakistani militant figure
  Tom Hussain McClatchy Newspapers ISLAMABAD — Pakistan was stung Tuesday by the U.S. State Department's announcement of a $10 million reward for the capture or conviction of the founder of a Pakistani militant group that allegedly carried out the November 2008 terrorist attacks on Mumbai, India's largest city. The size of the bounty for Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, founder of the Lashkar-e-Taiba organization, is on par with what the U.S. is offering for Mullah Mohammad Omar, the leader of Afghanistan's Taliban. U.S. officials also announced a $2 million reward for information leading to the location of Hafiz Abdul Rahman Makki, Saeed's deputy and brother-in-law. [Imperialism] [Extraterritoriality] [Global insurgency] [Corruption]
• The continued legacy of Britain’s South Atlantic adventure
  Gerry Hassan, 2 April 2012 The Falklands/Las Malvinas war, 30 years on. The 30th anniversary of the beginning of the Falklands war is today, a conflict that continues in its importance. Like many at the time, I had to first find the South Atlantic islands on a map, then put them into my leftist anti-Thatcherite view of the world, and then observe the mood of a Britain I barely recognised. The Falklands war raised so many questions then and now. Was this a war of principle or pride? What did this say about Britain’s self-image and who ‘we’ were as a ‘people’? Would Margaret Thatcher have survived without retaking the islands? And would the Tories have won in 1983 without military victory? Definitely not and arguably; Thatcher herself concedes the former in her memoirs. The Falklands changed domestic and international perceptions of the UK. [Decline] [Imperialism]
• Make Peace in the South Atlantic
  Anthony Barnett, 2 April 2012 About the authorAnthony Barnett is the founder of openDemocracy and the Co-Editor of its UK section, Our Kingdom. The Falklands/Las Malvinas war, 30 years on. Cross-posted with thanks from the New Statesman The Falklands war is hugely important. Especially on the left, many try to pretend otherwise. The episode was an accident, a bizarre throwback to colonial impulses, a tragic joke. American support was vital so all the talk of ‘our winning it alone’ is nonsense. Also, it has nothing to do with us on the left (True, Labour supported it, and when it finally got to power 15 years later it fought in Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, committed itself to renew Trident and build new aircraft carriers - but really Labour is not militaristic). The list could be lengthened. I’m pretty sure that most New Statesman readers prefer to shrug or sigh, i.e. repress, rather than embrace the ongoing significance that the Falklands conflict has for politics and power in the UK. [Decline] [Imperialism]
• Clinton Builds Gulf Military Ties While Urging Democracy
  By Nicole Gaouette - Apr 2, 2012 9:03 AM GMT+1200 A raid on pro-democracy groups in the United Arab Emirates underscores a contradiction at the core of the Obama administration’s response to the Arab Spring. As the U.S. advocates for freedom in Libya and Syria, its closest allies in the Persian Gulf region consider democracy a threat to their stability. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was the only representative of a democracy when she met Persian Gulf allies, including the UAE, in Saudi Arabia on March 31 to discuss a common defense against Iran and support for Syria’s anti-regime, pro-democracy uprising. [US global strategy] [Double standards]
• NATO: U.S.-Led Global Military Alliance With 78 Members and Partners
  March 31, 2012 Richard Rozoff NATO: U.S.-Led Global Military Alliance With 78 Members and Partners The 28-member North Atlantic Treaty Organization officially lists the following 40 nations as partners. With the 22 members of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, all but Russia are also members of the Partnership for Peace program, which graduated twelve nations – Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia – to full membership from 1999-2009. Other NATO partners not listed below include: Oman and Saudi Arabia, de facto members of the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative. Libya, which late last year NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen identified as a prospective member of the Mediterranean Dialogue. Kosovo, not recognized by a majority of the world’s nations but in fact the first NATO pseudo-state. Other countries supplying troops serving under NATO command in Afghanistan that are not formal members of the partnerships itemized below: Colombia, El Salvador (according to then Secretary of Defense Robert Gates earlier and as recently as yesterday by U.S. ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder), Malaysia, Singapore and Tonga. Somalia (Puntland), used by NATO for its Operation Ocean Shield in the Gulf of Aden. In all, 78 nations on all six inhabited continents. [US global strategy]
• US missile shield branches into Asia, Middle East
  VIDEO The Pentagon has revealed plans to deploy elements of its global antiballistic missile defense system in Asia and the Middle East. A similar project in Europe is one of the key points of conflict between America and Russia. The plan to have AMD shields in Asia and the Middle East was revealed on Monday by Madelyn Creedon, the US Assistant Secretary of Defense for Global Strategic Affairs. Washington is engaged in two sets of trilateral talks over the Asian system – one with Japan and Australia, the other with Japan and South Korea, the official said. The so-called “phased adaptive approach” used for deploying a similar system in Europe will serve as the model for the Asian region. The controversial European antimissile shield includes placing a radar in Turkey, missile interceptors in Poland and Romania, and the deployment of destroyers equipped to use the Aegis antimissile system in Spain. [Missile defense]
• BRICS Official Documents
  University of Toronto BRICS Information Centre
• CIA Drone War in Pakistan in Sharp Decline
  By Peter Bergen, Jennifer Rowland, New America Foundation March 27, 2012 | CNN The White House ordered an evaluation of the drone program during the summer of 2011. The study found that the CIA was primarily killing low-level militants in its drone strikes. Those results prompted the government to implement new rules in November governing when and how specific drone strikes were authorized. The State Department was given a larger say in the decision-making process. Pakistani leaders were promised advanced notification of some strikes. The CIA pledged to refrain from conducting strikes during visits by Pakistani officials to the United States. But the new rules are unlikely to placate critics inside and outside of Pakistan, who condemn the violation of Pakistan's sovereignty and the killing of its civilians.The past year has seen the number of CIA drone strikes in Pakistan plummet. In the first three months of 2012, there were 11, compared with 21 in the first three months of 2011 and a record 28 in the first quarter of 2010. On Monday, Pakistan's parliament started to debate whether the United States should be made to stop CIA drone strikes altogether in the Pakistani border regions with Afghanistan and also whether the U.S. should apologize for NATO airstrikes that killed some two dozen Pakistani soldiers late last year. [Assassination] [US global strategy] [Decline]
• BRICS Tighten United Front
  Ranjit Devraj NEW DELHI, Mar 29 (IPS) - At their summit in the Indian capital on Thursday, leaders of the coalition known as BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – made several poignant decisions that experts say hint at the converging of economic and political interests of a disparate regional bloc. Though the leaders chose to defer the long-awaited announcement of a ‘South-South Bank’ to next year’s meet, or beyond, the ‘Delhi Declaration' produced at the end of the summit said BRICS finance ministers have been directed to "examine the feasibility and viability of such an initiative, set up a joint working group for further study, and report back to us (heads of state) by the next Summit (in South Africa)." "Creating such a ‘BRICS Bank’ involves complex issues, such as the medium of transfer of credit," said Vivan Sharan, associate fellow at the prestigious Observer Research Foundation (ORF), which hosted a BRICS academic forum of experts and scholars from member countries in New Delhi from Mar. 4 – 6. "But there are no roadblocks ahead and it is an idea whose time has come," Sharan told IPS. "While the plan now is to supplement rather than supplant the existing global financial structure, there is clearly the ambition to go ahead." For now though, according to Sharan, citizens of the bloc, who account for nearly half the world’s population, can be content with the knowledge that by June there will be a BRICS Exchange Alliance in place, allowing trading options using local currency. [Reserve] [Decline] [BRIC]
• Myanmar Wants to Be the Next Tiger
  Jim Rogers is bullish on Myanmar. The Singapore-based investor, chairman of Rogers Holdings, last month compared the Southeast Asian country today with China in 1979, just as Deng Xiaoping was launching the economic reforms that helped transform China into the world’s second-largest economy. With Myanmar’s authoritarian government finally starting on the road of reform, Rogers said, there’s no end to the possibilities for the country’s economy. “It’s right between China and India, 60 million people, massive natural resources, agriculture,” Rogers said. “You could feed much of Asia, they have metals, they have energy, they have everything.” [Sanctions] [Myanmar]
• WESTERN PSY-OPS AGAINST SYRIA: When Mrs Assad’s "Shopping" Becomes a "Crime Against Humanity"
  by Finian Cunningham Global Research, March 27, 2012 Michelle Obama, the fashion style icon wife of US President Obama, is to have travel sanctions imposed on her by member countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, including Russia, China and SCO associate state Iran. Mrs Obama’s annual six-figure budget for designer clothes and accessories is seen as an affront to moral decency at a time when her husband is overseeing foreign wars of aggression, mass murder in several territories using aerial drones, and ordering the assassination of individuals such as nuclear scientists in Iran. The equally fashionista-conscious wives of British and French premiers, David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy, are also reportedly lined up for sanctions in several Middle East and Central Asian countries owing to these leaders supporting the illegal and murderous US-led NATO bombing campaign on Libya. By now, the reader will have spotted the above “report” to be a spoof. However, when it comes to the real world, the European Union is applying such unprecedented measures against the wife of Syria’s President Bashar Al Assad. “EU slaps Sanctions on Assad’s Wife,” read several newspaper headlines after Europe’s foreign ministers banned British born Asma Assad from traveling to EU states, and ordered the freezing of her personal assets. Describing the 36-year-old Syrian First Lady as stylish, glamorous, even sexy, the combined lurid portrayal was aimed at presenting Mrs Assad as an insensitive bimbo in the face of her country’s ongoing violence and misery. The Washington Post called her Syria’s Marie Antoinette, alleging that “while bloodshed continues, she shops for crystal-encrusted shoes”. Despite the defamatory wording in the mainstream media written as if it were factual, it turns out that the hype about Mrs Assad, is based on “a trove” of emails obtained by the British Guardian newspaper allegedly from the private correspondence of the Assad family. Even the Guardian puts in a disclaimer about the veracity of the emails, which it says were supplied by “Syrian oppositionists”. There is more than a fair chance that the emails are bogus and forged by intelligence groups well-versed in the black arts of slander, such as MI6. [Syria] [Psychwar] [Double standards]
• The battle for the Pacific
  by: Cameron Stewart, Associate editor From: The Australian March 29, 2012 12:00AM Chinese naval helicopters hover above one of China's new Jiangwei-class frigates. Picture: AFP. Source: AFP US military expansion Picture: The Washington Post Source: The Australian "HOW do you deal toughly with your banker?" US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton mused while dining with then prime minister Kevin Rudd in Washington in March 2009. She was talking about China and the dexterous diplomacy required to respond to Beijing's steep and relentless growth in military spending while courting closer trade and investment ties. Three years later, Australia and the US are not being so dexterous or diplomatic. While Canberra and Washington maintain the rhetoric that they are not seeking to contain China, both countries are moving hand-in-glove to prepare for a new era of strategic rivalry with Beijing. [China confrontation] [Subordinate]
• Bangladesh: The next hot spot in apparel sourcing?
  Lower costs are an advantage for the country’s ready-made-garment industry, but challenges remain. MARCH 2012 • Achim Berg, Saskia Hedrich, and Thomas Tochtermann ..In 2010, China dominated European and US markets for ready-made garments, accounting for about 40 percent of the import volume in each region. A recent McKinsey survey, however, found that 86 percent of the chief purchasing officers in leading apparel companies in Europe and the United States planned to decrease levels of sourcing in China over the next five years because of declining profit margins and capacity constraints.
• AL QAEDA AND HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS: Al Qaeda, Al Qaeda.... An Incessant and Repetitive Public Discourse
  Part I By Prof. Michel Chossudovsky Global Research, March 24, 2012 There is something disturbing in the nature of post 9/11 public discourse. Incessantly, on a daily basis, Al Qaeda is referred to by the Western media, government officials, members of the US Congress, Wall Street analysts, etc. as an underlying cause of numerous World events. Occurences of a significant political, social or strategic nature --including the US presidential elections campaign-- are routinely categorized by referring to Al Qaeda, the alleged architect of the September 11 2001 attacks. What is striking is the extent of media coverage of "Al Qaeda related events", not to mention the mountains of op eds and authoritative "analysis" pertaining to "terror events" in different part of the World. [Indoctrination] [Global insurgency]
• Britain weighs proposal to allow greatly increased Internet ‘snooping’
  By Anthony Faiola and Ellen Nakashima, Tuesday, April 3, 8:23 AM The Washington Post LONDON — Under daily observation from thousands of surveillance cameras mounted everywhere from street corners to taxicabs to public parks, Britons rank among the most-watched people on Earth. But a new government plan is poised to take the gaze of this nation’s security services dramatically deeper: letting them examine the text messages, phone calls, e-mails and Web browsing habits of every person in the country. The “snooping” proposal set to be presented in Parliament later this year is sparking an uproar over privacy in Britain, fueling a debate over the lengths to which intelligence agencies should go in monitoring citizens — a debate that has resonance on both sides of the Atlantic. [Surveillance]
• Assad tightens grip on Syrian borders, cutting rebel supply routes
  David Enders McClatchy Newspapers TRIPOLI, Lebanon — Syria has tightened control of its borders with Lebanon and Turkey in recent days, laying fresh fields of land mines and sweeping through areas critical to rebel smuggling operations in a development that raises questions about how aid, lethal or non-lethal, would reach the armed opponents of President Bashar Assad. The Syrian efforts have been aided, anti-Assad activists say, by the militaries of both Lebanon and Turkey, which have recently taken steps to obstruct actions of both the rebel Free Syrian Army and smugglers operating from their territory. "We wish the Turks would be softer in allowing the Free Army to operate," said a Syrian activist in Turkey who uses the nom de guerre "Godfather" and helps provide communications and medical aid to activists inside Syria. "Godfather" said the Turkish military was pushing FSA groups inside Turkey further and further from what are often ambiguously marked areas along the mountainous border with Syria. He also said that Syria 10 days ago had placed new land mines along its side of the border. At a meeting of countries working for Assad's ouster in Istanbul, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Sunday said the United States was supplying logistical support to the rebels, including communications equipment and would nearly double economic aid to the opposition by another $12 million. Representatives of Qatar and Saudi Arabia said their countries would begin paying salaries to FSA fighters. [Syria]
• Born Again! George Galloway Stuns Labor, Shakes Up Britain
  by TARIQ ALI London George Galloway’s stunning electoral triumph in the Bradford by-election on Thursday 29th March has shaken the petrified world of English politics. It was unexpected and for that reason the Respect campaign was treated by much of the media (Helen Pidd of The Guardian an honorable exception) as a loony fringe show. The BBC toady, a shamelessly partisan compeer on a local TV election show, who tried to mock and insult Galloway should be made to eat his excremental words. The Bradford seat, a Labour fiefdom since 1973, was considered safe and the Labour Leader, Ed Miliband, had been planning a celebratory visit to the city till the news seeped through at 2 am. He is now once again focused on his own future. Labour has paid the price for its failure to act as an Opposition, imagining that all they had to do was wait and the prize would come their way. Scottish politics should have forced a rethink. Perhaps the latest development in English politics now will, though I doubt it. Galloway has effectively urinated on all three parties. The Lib-Dems and Tories explaining their decline by the fact that too many people voted! Thousands of young people infected with apathy, contempt, despair and a disgust with mainstream politics were dynamised by the Respect campaign
• Post-Gaddafi Libya confronts its diversity
  By Steve Hendrix, Sunday, April 1, 12:50 PMThe Washington Post TRIPOLI, LIBYA — At the entrance to Tripoli’s main landfill, Mustafa al-Sepany stands in combat fatigues, wearing an expression that says no trash trucks will get past him. For four months, none has, leaving the country’s capital city wallowing in uncollected garbage. Sepany is one of thousands of still-armed rebel fighters who ousted Libyan despot Moammar Gaddafi in last year’s bloody uprising. Now he is one of the residents near the landfill who are exercising their newfound freedoms by declaring they don’t want Tripoli’s trash. Anywhere but here, they say. And in post-revolution Libya, not-in-my-backyard fights come with automatic weapons. [Fragmentation]
• As crisis roils Syria, its diplomats stand firm with President Bashir al-Assad
  Mary Altaffer/AP - While addressing the Security Council meeting, Syrian Ambassador to the United Nations Bashar Ja'afari said, “I am an ambassador of the Syrian president, and proud to be here in that capacity.” By Colum Lynch, Sunday, April 1, 12:45 PMThe Washington Post UNITED NATIONS — To understand the staying power of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, consider his envoy to the United Nations. As the crisis in Syria has deepened, Bashar al-Jaafari has shown his loyalty to Assad in a series of now-stock monologues in which he has marshaled the spirits of history and literature to defend his nation, comparing the president to Mohandas Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and George Washington. He has claimed Syria is being targeted for punishment because of its “commitment to international legal norms.” .“I am an ambassador of the Syrian president,” he told the U.N. Security Council, “and proud to be here in that capacity.”
• Suppressing Press TV is deplorable – Ofcom should restore its licence now
  Ofcom is banning the station on spurious grounds, and this move will only serve to increase anti-western sentiment in Iran Geoffrey Alderman guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 24 January 2012 12.27 GMT Article history 'Press TV is and always has been state-funded by the Iranian Islamic Republic.' Photograph: Raheb Homavandi/Reuters Ofcom, which regulates broadcasting media in the UK, has revoked the licence of Press TV, whose UK operation is based at studios in west London but whose editorial control is – so Ofcom argued – located in Tehran. Ofcom had given Press TV a choice: either move editorial control to London or transfer its UK broadcasting licence to Iran. Press TV apparently ignored this ultimatum. So now it is off the air. [Human rights] [Media] [Double standards]
• George Galloway hails 'Bradford spring' as Labour licks its wounds
  Helen Pidd, the only national newspaper reporter at the Bradford West count, explains how the former MP defied all expectations Helen Pidd guardian.co.uk, Friday 30 March 2012 19.26 BST Article history V for victory … George Galloway waves to supporters from his open-top bus during a tour of the city as he celebrates his win in the Bradford West byelection. Photograph: Dave Thompson/PA For a result which seemed to knock the major parties for six, you didn't need to spend too long on the ground in Bradford to see that George Galloway was capable of giving Labour yet another black eye in Thursday's byelection. The clues were all there. The first-time voters shimmying up trees to hang Respect banners at the perfect height for anyone sitting on the top deck of a bus. The taxi drivers competing to see who could cancel their Labour party membership first. The queue of students waiting patiently to have their picture taken with their arms around his shoulders as if he was Brad Pitt. All this and more suggested that writing Galloway off as a narcissistic has-been would be a dangerous mistake in this particular electoral contest.
• A new doctrine of intervention?
  By Henry A. Kissinger, Saturday, March 31, 12:27 PM Henry A. Kissinger was secretary of state from 1973 to 1977 and is the author, most recently, of “On China.” Not the least significant aspect of the Arab Spring is the redefinition of heretofore prevalent principles of foreign policy. As the United States is withdrawing from military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan undertaken on the basis (however disputed) of American national security, it is reengaging in several other states in the region (albeit uncertainly) in the name of humanitarian intervention. Will democratic reconstruction replace national interest as the lodestar of Middle East policy? Is democratic reconstruction what the Arab Spring in fact represents? [Strategic incoherence] [US global strategy]

• Conservatives have lost faith in science, study shows
  John Hoeffel As the Republican presidential race has shown, the conservatives who dominate the primaries are deeply skeptical of science - making Newt Gingrich, for one, regret he ever settled onto a couch with Nancy Pelosi to chat about global warming. A study released Thursday in the American Sociological Review concludes that trust in science among conservatives and frequent churchgoers has declined precipitously since 1974, when a national survey first asked people how much confidence they had in the scientific community. At that time, conservatives had the highest level of trust in scientists. Confidence in scientists has declined the most among the most educated conservatives, the peer-reviewed research paper found, concluding: "These results are quite profound because they imply that conservative discontent with science was not attributable to the uneducated but to rising distrust among educated conservatives." [Decline] [Governance]
• Mali Coup a New Step towards Global Resources Grab
  Alexander MEZYAEV | 27.03.2012 | 00:00 A coup erupted in Mali, a landlocked West African country, on March 22. The presidential palace, a number of the country's state institutions, and the premises of the national broadcaster were seized by a mutinous group led by Capt. Amadou Haya Sanogo, and at the moment, authority in Mali announcedly rests with an improvised “National Committee for the Restoration of Democracy and State” (CNRDR), the government is disbanded, and the constitution – put on hold. The putchists are also known to have placed several Mali ministers and the majority of candidates who registered to run in the upcoming April 29 elections under arrest.
• Defense secretary to tour amphibious assault ship off CA coast, talk with sailors, Marines
  By Associated Press, Published: March 29AP CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. — Defense Secretary Leon Panetta plans to zip over the ocean in a hovercraft before touring a Navy amphibious assault ship off the Southern California coast. The Defense Department announced Wednesday that Panetta will meet with sailors and Camp Pendleton Marines on Friday aboard the USS Peleliu on Friday. His visit aims to show the Pentagon’s continued commitment to such ships amid budget cuts and the debate over whether beach invasions have become obsolete in modern warfare. The Pentagon says big-deck amphibious assault ships are critical because of the flexibility they provide commanders to move Marines and supplies ashore. Marines have been returning to their amphibious roots as the military shifts its focus toward coastal countries, such as Iran, North Korea and China, after a decade of landlocked wars. [US global strategy] [Chin confrontation]
• How the New American Empire Really Works
  by PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS Great empires, such as the Roman and British, were extractive. The empires succeeded, because the value of the resources and wealth extracted from conquered lands exceeded the value of conquest and governance. The reason Rome did not extend its empire east into Germany was not the military prowess of Germanic tribes but Rome’s calculation that the cost of conquest exceeded the value of extractable resources. The Roman empire failed, because Romans exhausted manpower and resources in civil wars fighting amongst themselves for power. The British empire failed, because the British exhausted themselves fighting Germany in two world wars. [Imperialism]
• Ayn Rand’s Nightmare is Today’s Wall Street
  by PAM MARTENS The high priestess of corporate deregulation and free markets, Ayn Rand, wrote a novella in the 1930s. It was published in the U.S. in 1946 under the title, Anthem, by a corporate front group, a precursor to today’s astroturf groups. Anthem is currently being pumped into high schools across the U.S. and Canada with financial inducements to both teachers and students by a corporate funded nonprofit that has the financial support of some of the largest hedge funds in the U.S. The book presents a frightening dystopian world produced by the ever present Randian trademark – an out of control government. People are known by numbers instead of names; individual rights have been eviscerated. To break the will of the individual, uttering the word “I” results in being burned alive in the town square. (Charming high school literature.) What has happened today, however, proves that in a country dominated by powerful multinational corporations, Rand not only had the wrong target of big government in her cross hairs but the despotic enemy became the very deregulated market she helped design with acolytes like former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan and her corporate cronies. [Astroturfing]
• Syria Was Not Libya After All: Bid to Overthrow Assad Fails
  by PATRICK COCKBURN The year-long effort to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad and his government has failed. Two or three months ago, it seemed to come close to succeeding, as insurgents took over enclaves in cities such as Homs and Deir el-Zour. There was talk of no-fly zones and foreign military intervention. Severe economic sanctions were slapped on Syria’s already faltering economy. Every day brought news of fresh pressure on Assad and the momentum seemed to build inexorably for a change of rule in Damascus. It has not happened. Syria will not be like Libya. [Subversion] [Outsourcing] [Sanctions]
• U.S., Australia to broaden military ties amid Pentagon pivot to SE Asia
  View Photo Gallery — ?Obama arrives in Bali for the ASEAN and the East Asia summits after meeting with Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillardm to announce a permanent military presence in Australia beginning next summer. By Craig Whitlock, Tuesday, March 27, 11:13 AM The United States and Australia are planning a major expansion of military ties, including possible drone flights from a coral atoll in the Indian Ocean and increased U.S. naval access to Australian ports, as the Pentagon looks to shift its forces closer to Southeast Asia, officials from both countries said. The moves, which are under discussion but have drawn strong interest from both sides, would come on top of an agreement announced by President Obama and Prime Minister Julia Gillard in November to deploy up to 2,500 U.S. Marines to Darwin, on Australia’s northern coast. [US global strategy] [Subordinate] [China confrontation]
• The Situation in and around Syria
  Boris DOLGOV | 26.03.2012 | 00:00 On March 21, 2012 the UN Security Council unanimously (all 15 members) approved a statement on Syria that is to facilitate the crisis solution. The statement is a six point proposal emphasizing a ceasefire by both sides, a pull back of Syrian army from populated areas, the continuation of UN intermediary mission headed by Kofi Annan, a start of political dialogue between the Syrian government and the opposition. The statement was worked out together with Russia, Kofi Annan and the League of Arab States and then agreed on by representatives of the leading Western states and other UN Security Council’s members.
• At CIA, a convert to Islam leads the terrorism hunt
  By Greg Miller, Published: March 25The Washington Post For every cloud of smoke that follows a CIA drone strike in Pakistan, dozens of smaller plumes can be traced to a gaunt figure standing in a courtyard near the center of the agency’s Langley campus in Virginia. The man with the nicotine habit is in his late 50s, with stubble on his face and the dark-suited wardrobe of an undertaker. As chief of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center for the past six years, he has functioned in a funereal capacity for al-Qaeda. Roger, which is the first name of his cover identity, may be the most consequential but least visible national security official in Washington — the principal architect of the CIA’s drone campaign and the leader of the hunt for Osama bin Laden. In many ways, he has also been the driving force of the Obama administration’s embrace of targeted killing as a centerpiece of its counterterrorism efforts. [Global insurgency] [Assassination]
• Is a paywall coming to The Washington Post?
  By Patrick B. Pexton, Published: March 24The Washington Post Will you soon have to start paying to use The Post’s Web site? No, not in the short term, and maybe never, if I read the tea leaves correctly. Paying for online or digital content (called a “paywall” in media jargon) is much in the news right now because this month has seen several headlines on the subject: The New York Times’ digital fee system had its first birthday, and the paper reduced from 20 to 10 the number of free stories you can view per month before you have to pay; the Los Angeles Times launched its digital “membership program” on March?5; and the Gannett Co. announced that its array of 80 regional newspapers — but not its flagship paper USA Today — will begin charging for online content by the end of the year. So why not The Post? The Post feels that it first has to accomplish two goals before it would even consider charging for digital content. [Media]
• The Myth of the “Knowledge Economy”
  by ALEXANDER COCKBURN “In the 21st century, the best anti-poverty program around is a first-class education,” President Obama famously declared in his 2010 State of the Union Address, just as millions of high schoolers across the nation were embarking on the annual ritual of picking their preferred colleges and preparing the grand tour of the prospects, with parents in tow, gazing ashen faced at the prospective fees. The image is of the toiling students springing from lecture room to well-paying jobs demanding advanced skills in all the arts that can make America great again – outthinking, outknowing the Chinese, Japanese, Indians, South Koreans and Germans in the cutting edge, cut-throat high tech economies of tomorrow. [Decline] [Education]
• World Bank race gets front-runner
  Agencies | March 23, 2012 23:55 By Agencies 0 E-mail Print Jim Yong Kim was nominated by President Obama on Friday to be the next president of the World Bank. The US has picked a public health expert of Korean origin as its candidate for the World Bank presidency, a job emerging market economies are contesting for the first time. President Barack Obama will nominate Jim Yong Kim, President of Dartmouth College in New Hampshire and former director of the Department of HIV/AIDS at the World Health Organization, the White House announced on Friday. [Imperialism] [Proxy] [Multiculturalism]
• Borat's version of Kazakh anthem played at Kuwait medal ceremony
  Shooting team demands apology after song from Sacha Baron Cohen film used as gold medal winner takes podium Share 230 reddit this Barry Neild guardian.co.uk, Friday 23 March 2012 23.44 GMT Article history Borat spoof anthem played at medal ceremony in Kuwait to feliciate Kazakh gold medal winner Kazakhstan's shooting team was taken by surprise when a spoof national anthem from the film Borat was used at a medal ceremony in Kuwait. The team demanded an apology after Maria Dmitrienko was played the obscene song, which features lyrics about prostitutes and potassium exports, as she received her gold medal. A video posted on YouTube shows Dmitrienko on the podium, her hand on her heart, looking perplexed as the song begins to play. She appears to see the funny side and is smiling by the end. The blunder apparently occurred after the event's organisers downloaded the parody from the internet by mistake. They also got the Serbian anthem wrong.
• Leader of Mali military coup received U.S. training
  Alan Boswell McClatchy Newspapers NAIROBI, Kenya — The leader of the military coup that toppled the democratic government of the West African nation of Mali this week underwent basic officer training in the United States, the Obama administration acknowledged Friday.
• Military grabs power in Africa's Mali as Libya fallout spreads
  Alan Boswell McClatchy Newspapers NAIROBI, Kenya — In the latest unforeseen consequence of the toppling of Moammar Gadhafi in Libya, a barracks mutiny turned into a full-fledged military power grab in the West African nation of Mali on Thursday, replacing an elderly, well-regarded statesman with a cadre of unknown junior officers. On the face of it, Mali, which has been a democracy for 20 years, would not seem to be have been a prime candidate for Africa's latest coup, especially compared to its far more politically fluid neighbors in the impoverished region. President Amadou Toumani Toure was due to step down ahead of elections slated for April 29.
• Economists offer more pessimistic view on manufacturing in upcoming report
  By Peter Whoriskey, Published: March 20The Washington Post During the 2000s, as U.S. manufacturing was transformed by devastating job losses, prominent economists and presidential advisers offered comforting words. The paring of the manufacturing workforce, which shrank by a third over the decade, actually represented good news, they said. It meant that U.S. workers and factories had become more efficient and that, as a result, manufacturing companies needed fewer people. .“What happened to manufacturing? In two words, higher productivity,” Robert Reich, who served as labor secretary in the Clinton administration, wrote in 2009. “The decline in U.S. manufacturing employment is explained by rapid growth in manufacturing productivity over the past 50 years,” said Glenn Hubbard, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) under President George W. Bush. But a handful of economists are challenging that explanation, chipping away at the long-offered assurances that the state of U.S. manufacturing is not as bad as employment numbers make it look. Instead, they say, it’s significantly worse. [Decline] [Manufacturing]
• Amnesty International, George Clooney and the Bidding of Empire
  by JOHN VINCENT In March this year Frank S. Jannuzi was named Washington DC office head at Amnesty International USA (AIUSA). Frank, a former staffer with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is Hitachi International Affairs Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the most powerful foreign policy pressure group in the world. Over the years, CFR’s membership has included 22 US secretaries of state. [NGO]
• Worry about Iranian arms flights reveals U.S-Iraq differences over Syria
  Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, left, and his Syrian counterpart Bashar Assad in 2010. | AP Photo/Vahid SalemiStay Connected Sahar Issa McClatchy Newspapers BAGHDAD — A diplomatic dispute over whether Iran is using Iraqi airspace to ship arms to the besieged regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad has highlighted differences between the Iraqi and American governments over what should happen in Syria. U.S. officials last week raised concerns that a growing number of Iranian cargo flights crossing Iraq for Syria were carrying weapons and said that the United States had raised the subject with the Iraqis. Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/03/19/142459/worry-about-iranian-arms-flights.html#storylink=cpy [Client] [Iraq] [Syria]
• Human Rights Watch alleges serious abuses by some Syrian rebel soldiers
  By Liz Sly, Published: March 20The Washington Post ANTAKYA, Turkey — Even as Syria’s security forces have tortured and massacred civilians and anti-government activists, armed members of the Syrian opposition have carried out “serious human rights abuses” against Syrian soldiers and some civilians, the New York-based Human Rights Watch said Tuesday. [Human rights] [NGO] [Media] [Spin]
• Amid anger over Afghan killings, U.S. faces growing public weariness about war
  By Craig Whitlock and Jon Cohen, Published: March 12The Washington Post The massacre of at least 16 Afghan civilians, apparently by an American soldier, forced the Obama administration Sunday to confront yet another nightmare from the war zone and fresh evidence that patience back home is increasingly wearing thin. A majority of Americans — 55 percent — believe that most Afghans are opposed to what the United States is trying to accomplish in that country, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. About as many Americans — 54 percent — want the U.S. military to withdraw even before it can train the Afghan army to be self-sufficient, a pillar of President Obama’s war strategy. .While most Democrats and independents soured on the war a long time ago, the poll found that Republicans, for the first time, are evenly split on whether the ­decade-long war is worth fighting.
• War, Pipelineistan-style
  Pepe Escobar United States Secretary of State Hillary "We came, we saw, he died" Clinton's message to Pakistan was stark; try to go ahead with the IP (Iran-Pakistan) gas pipeline, and we're going to take you out financially. Islamabad, its economy in tatters, living in power-cut land, and desperate for energy, tried to argue. Pakistan's top official in the Petroleum and Natural Resources Ministry, Muhammad Ejaz Chaudhry, stressed that the 2,775-km, $1.5 billion IP was absolutely crucial for Pakistan's energy security. That fell on deaf ears. Clinton evoked "particularly damaging" sanctions - tied to Washington's push to isolate Iran by all means available and the no-holds-barred campaign to force particularly India, China and Turkey to cut off their imports of Iranian oil and gas.
• Abbottabad operation had Zardari’s approval: Ijaz
  London—The main character of memogate scandal Mansoor Ijaz said that the Abbottabad operation was carried out after the approval of President Zardari and US was told directly that they could conduct operation.He was answering the questions raised by Zahid Bukhari, counsel of former Pakistani ambassador Hussain Haqqani, during the proceedings of the Judicial Commission, which met under the chairmanship of Chief Justice Baluchistan High Court Justice Qazi Faiz Isa in the Islamabad High Court here on Saturday.“The activities of Hussain Haqqani in USA were causing to deteriorate ties between ISI and CIA”, Mansoor added. Mansoor Ijaz has said that it was wrong perception that he wanted conflict between the institutions but as matter of fact President Zardari and Hussain Haqqani wished to do so. Haqqani had strong relations with those agencies that were desirous to increase its staff in Pakistan for American interests. [Client]
• Launching the U.S. Terror War: the CIA, 9/11, Afghanistan, and Central Asia Bush’s Terror War and the Fixing of Intelligence
  By Prof. Peter Dale Scott Global Research, March 16, 2012 The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol 10, Issue 12, No 3 URL of this article: On September 11, 2001, within hours of the murderous 9/11 attacks, Bush, Rumsfeld, and Cheney had committed America to what they later called the “War on Terror.” It should more properly, I believe, be called the “Terror War,” one in which terror has been directed repeatedly against civilians by all participants, both states and non-state actors.1 It should also be seen as part of a larger, indeed global, process in which terror has been used against civilians in interrelated campaigns by all major powers, including China in Xinjiang and Russia in Chechnya, as well as the United States.2 Terror war in its global context should perhaps be seen as the latest stage of the age-long secular spread of transurban civilization into areas of mostly rural resistance -- areas where conventional forms of warfare, for either geographic or cultural reasons, prove inconclusive.
• 'Mossad, CIA agree Iran has yet to decide to build nuclear weapon'
  Published 08:53 18.03.12 Latest update 08:53 18.03.12 New York Times report quotes senior American officials who believe there is little disagreement between Israeli and U.S. intelligence over Iran’s nuclear program, despite calls for a strike by Israeli officials. Israel’s intelligence services agree with American intelligence assessments that there is not enough proof to determine whether Iran is building a nuclear bomb, according to a report published Sunday in the New York Times. The newspaper said that senior American officials believe there is little disagreement between the Mossad and U.S. intelligence agencies over Iran’s nuclear program, despite the fact that Israeli political leaders have been pushing for quick action to block Iran from becoming what they describe as an existential threat. The report further quoted one former senior American intelligence official who states that the Mossad “does not disagree with the U.S. on the weapons program,” adding that there is “not a lot of dispute between the U.S. and Israeli intelligence communities on the facts.”
• KONY 2012: Merchandising and Branding Support for US Military Intervention in Central Africa
  By Nile Bowie Global Research, March 14, 2012 URL of this article: Edward Bernays believed that society could not be trusted to make rational and informed decisions on their own, and that guiding public opinion was essential within a democratic society. Bernays founded the Council on Public Relations and his 1928 book, Propaganda cites the methodology used in the application of effective emotional communication. He discovered that such communication is capable of manipulating the unconscious in an effort to produce a desired effect – namely, a capacity to manufacture mass social adherence in support of products, political candidates and social movements. Nearly a century after his heyday, Bernays’ methodology is apparent in almost every form of civic and consumer persuasion. The platform of social media is being used in unprecedented new ways, one such example is a new online documentary about the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), an extremist rebel group operating in Central Africa. [Propaganda] [Manipulation]
• China's Share of Global Arms Imports Falls, Sipri Says
  By Daniel Ten Kate on March 18, 2012 Tweet China, the world’s top weapons importer for much of the past decade, fell to fourth from second on an annual list from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute as it produces more arms at home. China received 5 percent of the volume of international transfers of “major conventional weapons” from 2007 to 2011, Sipri said in a report released today. The total was half that of India, which last year overtook China as the world’s largest recipient of arms, and less than South Korea and Pakistan. [Arms sales]
• TRENDS IN INTERNATIONAL ARMS TRANSFERS, 2011
  Paul holtom, mark bromley, pieter d. Wezeman and siemon t. Wezeman SIPRI Fact Sheet March 2012 The volume of international transfers of major conventional weapons was 24 per cent higher in the period 2007–11 than in 2002–2006 (see figure 1). In 2011, the United States and India maintained their positions as the world’s top exporter and importer of arms, respectively. The most significant order placed in 2011, and the largest arms deal for at least two decades, was Saudi Arabia’s order for 84 new and 70 rebuilt F-15SG combat aircraft. Volumes of transfers continued to fluctuate by region, with significant rises in East Africa, North Africa, South East Asia and the South Caucasus. [Arms sales]
• Why The Huge Spike in Oil Prices? "Peak Oil" or Wall Street Speculation?
  By F. William Engdahl Global Research, March 16, 2012 engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net Since around October last year, the price of crude oil on world futures markets has exploded. Different people have different explanations. The most common one is the belief in financial markets that a war between either Israel and Iran or the USA and Iran or all three is imminent. Another camp argues that the price is rising unavoidably because the world has passed what they call “Peak Oil”—the point on an imaginary Gaussian Bell Curve (see graph above) at which half of all world known oil reserves have been depleted and the remaining oil will decline in quantity at an accelerating pace with rising price. Both the war danger and peak oil explanations are off base. As in the astronomic price run-up in the Summer of 2008 when oil in futures markets briefly hit $147 a barrel, oil today is rising because of the speculative pressure on oil futures markets from hedge funds and major banks such as Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase and most notably, Goldman Sachs, the bank always present when there are big bucks to be won for little effort betting on a sure thing. They’re getting a generous assist from the US Government agency entrusted with regulating financial derivatives, the Commodity Futures Trading Corporation (CFTC).
• Syria: The Western Deception Over Regime Change Unravels. NATO Prepares for All Out War
  By Finian Cunningham Global Research, March 8, 2012 The Western governments' and mainstream media’s narrative of a one-sided humanitarian crisis in Syria is rapidly unwinding to reveal a self-serving deception to justify a re-run of Libya-style NATO conquest. In reality, it is the Western powers and their Israeli and Arab henchmen who are fuelling a humanitarian crisis and creating the conditions for all-out war. All of which, it should be said, constitutes criminality comparable to Nazi Germany’s wars of aggression. The latest crack in the Western façade over Syria comes in the form of leaked correspondence from Western private intelligence firm Stratfor, which reports that US-led NATO special forces have been operating inside Syria alongside armed opposition groups. Stratfor is closely aligned with Pentagon planners; indeed can be viewed as a private wing of the Pentagon. The document, disclosed by Wikileaks, cites US military sources discussing a campaign of destabilisation against the Syrian government of Bashir Al Assad, involving training opposition groups and deploying guerilla tactics, including assassinations. In other words, discussing a scenario that approximates to what is actually happening in Syria. [Outsourcing]
• Gaddafi 'contributed €50m to Sarkozy's 2007 presidential election fund'
  French president hit by new claims as confidential note suggests ex-Libyan leader helped finance his election campaign
  Kim Willsher in Paris guardian.co.uk, Monday 12 March 2012 19.16 GMT Damaging new claims have emerged about the funding of Nicolas Sarkozy's 2007 election campaign and his links with former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi emerged. The French investigative website Mediapart claims to have seen a confidential note suggesting Gaddafi contributed up to €50m (£42m) to Sarkozy's election fund five years ago. Similar allegations emerged a year ago when Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam claimed Libya helped finance the 2007 campaign and demanded the French president, who led the war on the Libyan leader, return the money. In an interview with the Euronews TV channel, Saif al-Islam, who is currently being held in Libya after his father's defeat and death, threatened to make details of the bank transfers public after the French leader threw his weight behind opposition forces.
• Syria, and the cost of failure
  Paul Rogers, 8 March 2012 The Syrian regime's violent repression persists, in a context of regional rivalries that fuel the country's conflict. The ensuing impasse also reflects the dominance of state interests over international justice. The Syrian regime's violent repression of dissent has now continued for a year, with results that are both brutal and inconclusive. The security forces remain in control of the major cities? of Damascus and Aleppo, and have used their great military superiority to crush opposition in areas (such as the Baba Amr district of Homs) where protest has been most sustained and vigorous. Yet the widespread calls for international action to prevent a greater? humanitarian disaster have not come even close to a tipping-point: western states may talk tough, including at the United Nations Security Council and in other public forums, but clearly have little appetite? at present for further intervention.
• Syria’s Bashar al-Assad firmly in control, U.S. intelligence officials say
  View Photo Gallery — ?Death toll rises amid continuing attacks by government forces. By Greg Miller and Karen DeYoung, Published: March 10The Washington Post A year into the uprising in Syria, senior U.S. intelligence officials described the nation’s president, Bashar al-Assad, on Friday as firmly in control and increasingly willing to unleash one of the region’s most potent militaries on badly overmatched opposition groups. The officials also said Assad’s inner circle is “remaining steadfast,” with little indication that senior figures in the regime are inclined to peel off, despite efforts by the Obama administration and its allies to use sanctions and other measures to create a wave of defections that would undermine Assad. Assad “is very much in charge,” said a senior U.S. intelligence official responsible for tracking the conflict, adding that Assad and his inner circle seem convinced that the rebellion is being driven by external foes and that they are equipped to withstand all but a large-scale military intervention. [Syria] [Subversion] [Outsourcing] [Decline]
• Hands Off the Heavens
  By JOHN R. BOLTON and JOHN C. YOO
  Published: March 8, 2012 OUTER space has become the next frontier for American national security and business. From space, we follow terrorists and intercept their communications, detect foreign military deployments, and monitor a proliferation of unconventional weapons. Our Global Positioning System gives us targeting and tactical advantages, spacecraft create image-rich maps, and satellites beam data around the world. But instead of advancing American primacy in this realm, the Obama administration has wrongly decided not only to follow a European Union draft “code of conduct” regulating outer space, but also to circumvent the Senate’s central constitutional role in making treaties. [US global strategy] [Aerospace]
• EU accused of hypocrisy for £1 billion in arms sales to Greece
  European Union countries have been accused of hypocrisy over imposing savage austerity measures on Greece while at the same time selling the highly indebted country over £1 billion of arms. After EU demands for greater austerity, as Greece debt has deepened despite multi-billion bailouts, Greek social spending has been cut by nine per cent while military budgets have risen, by as much as 18 per cent Photo: Getty Images Bruno Waterfield By Bruno Waterfield, Brussels 8:00AM GMT 08 Mar 2012 New official figures show that bailouts and an EU austerity programme aimed at reducing Greek living standards by 30 per cent have not dented lucrative arms sales to Greece. In 2010, as Greece was plunged into crisis and the EU began a scheduled £200 billion in aid payments, European countries continued to sell aircraft, tanks, artillery and submarines to the Greek military. [Arms sales]
• Disarming Viktor Bout
  The rise and fall of the world’s most notorious weapons trafficker.
  By Nicholas Schmidle, New America Foundation March 5, 2012 | The New Yorker Viktor Bout made his first major foray into the weapons business in 1995, on a pleasant summer day in Bulgaria. A Russian entrepreneur who was then twenty-eight years old, he had flown to Sofia from Sharjah, the third largest city in the United Arab Emirates, where he had lived for the previous two years. Sharjah was a kind of postmodern caravansary—as Bout told me recently, it was a place with “practically no law.” Although he had arrived in the Emirates not knowing much about Arab culture, he had a cosmopolitan ability to adapt to new circumstances. He was intending to enter the field of aviation. Supple with languages, he could flip among Russian, English, Portuguese, and Esperanto; today, he says, he can “read fifteen or sixteen languages, go to the market with nine or ten, and fluently speak five or six.” He started spending time at the cargo hangars at Sharjah’s international airport, got to know the pilots and crews, and soon formed an air-freight company, Air Cess, with a small fleet of Russian planes [Arms sales] [Double standards]
• The ten worst books in international relations
  Posted By Daniel W. Drezner Friday, April 10, 2009 - 10:41 PM Share It's "top ten" week here at Foreign Policy, and the powers that be have asked me to chip in with a list of my own. The thing is, Steve Walt poached a lot of the books I would have named on my own list of top ten international relations books (if there's real demand for a "top 10" books in international political economy specifically, let me know in the comments and I'll put one up next week). So, rather than replicate Steve, let's have some fun -- what are the ten worst books in international relations? In one sense, this question is difficult to answer, in that truly bad books are never read. Smply putting down books by bad people -- Mein Kampf, etc. -- is kind of superfluous. The books matter less than the person. So, let's be clear on the criteria: to earn a place on this list, we're talking about: Books by prominent international policymakers that put you to sleep; Books that were influential in some way but also spectacularly wrong, leading to malign consequences. In chronological order: 1. Norman Angell, The Great Illusion. This book has been widely misinterpreted, so let's be clear about what Angell got right and got wrong. He argued that the benefits from international trade vastly exceeded the economic benefits of empire, and therefore the economic motive for empire no longer existed. He was mostly right about that. He then argued that an enlightened citizenry would glom onto this fact and render war obsolete. Writing this in 1908, he was historically, spectacularly wrong. [F&E]
• NATO’S Craven Coverup of Its Libyan Bombing
  by VIJAY PRASHAD Ten days into the uprising in Benghazi, Libya, the United Nations’ Human Rights Council established the International Commission of Inquiry on Libya. The purpose of the Commission was to “investigate all alleged violations of international human rights law in Libya.” The broad agenda was to establish the facts of the violations and crimes and to take such actions as to hold the identified perpetrators accountable. On June 15, the Commission presented its first report to the Council. This report was provisional, since the conflict was still ongoing and access to the country was minimal. The June report was no more conclusive than the work of the human rights non-governmental organizations (such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch). In some instances, the work of investigators for these NGOs (such as Donatella Rovera of Amnesty) was of higher quality than that of the Commission. [Libya] [War crimes] [UNUS]
• Massacre Fatigue in Afghanistan
  by Alexander Cockburn In the wake of the lethal rampage by a US sergeant who killed 16 Afghans in the early hours of March 11, the Taliban have put a halt to talks with the Americans and President Hamid Karzai has demanded that NATO troops pull out of the villages and return to their camps. As with the burning of the Korans last month, the US Army and the Pentagon have been groveling in contrition: the acting commander of the U.S.-led coalition, Lt. Gen. Adrian Bradshaw, expressed “deep regret and sorrow at this appalling incident. I cannot explain the motivation behind such callous acts, but they were in no way part of authorized … military activity.”
• Last of the Independents: The Death of Investigative Journalism
  by Andre Vltchek Fifteen years ago, in 1997, my Haitian friends helped to arrange my visit to Cite Soleil, then the largest and the most brutal slum (or ‘commune’) in the Western hemisphere, at the outskirts of Port-au-Prince. The arrangement was simple: my F-4 camera and I were to be loaded on the back of the van. The driver and two guards promised to take me there for a two-hour photo shoot. The condition was simple: I was supposed to stick to the back platform of the pickup truck. [Media]
• The bin Laden plot to kill President Obama
  By David Ignatius, Saturday, March 17, 3:58 AMThe Washington Post Before his death, Osama bin Laden boldly commanded his network to organize special cells in Afghanistan and Pakistan to attack the aircraft of President Obama and Gen. David H. Petraeus. “The reason for concentrating on them,” the al-Qaeda leader explained to his top lieutenant, “is that Obama is the head of infidelity and killing him automatically will make [Vice President] Biden take over the presidency. .?.?. Biden is totally unprepared for that post, which will lead the U.S. into a crisis. As for Petraeus, he is the man of the hour .?.?. and killing him would alter the war’s path” in Afghanistan. [Assassination][Double standards]
• Will Obama’s Wars Come Back to Bite Him?
  by ANDREW LEVINE Can President Obama lose in November? The consensus among those who claim to know is No, unless the economy tanks again; and this, the cognoscenti say, is unlikely to happen. Therefore barring improbable contingencies, Obama will win a second term. The rationale is seldom stated, but is plain as can be: Obama will win because Mitt Romney will be his opponent. [US_election12]
• How One-Sided Reporting is Facilitating Escalation
  Six Ways the Media Has Misreported Syria by AFSHIN MEHRPOUYA As in the case of Libya, from NY Times to Fox News, from Guardian to National Post and from Le Monde to Le Figaro, the Western mainstream media’s coverage of the Syrian conflict has been mostly simplistic and black & white with a Hollywoodian good (opposition) and evil (Syrian government) story. The basic storyline reported is: “The dictatorial Syrian government is torturing and killing Syrian protestors and civilians including women and children and that the Western counties and the Arab League want to protect these Syrian civilians”. These outlets use any information that supports their stance regardless of its source and quality, and dismiss or ignore any information that brings it to question. The bloody suppression of protestors by the Syrian government and also instability resulting from the armed insurgency aggravated by a complex set of foreign forces, each with its own set of vested interests, have resulted in significant suffering for the people of Syria. Western media’s unquestioning, consensual, biased and melodramatic coverage of the Syrian events risks moving this conflict to a full blown war with grave consequences for the Syrian people and the region. Here are the six ways that the Western media, across the board, have been uncritical and misleading in their coverage of the Syrian conflict: 1. What do the majority of Syrians want? In the mainstream Western media coverage, there is an implicit assumption rarely questioned that the majority of the Syrians support the armed insurgency and that they want immediate departure of Bashar Assad. However, the only opinion poll that has been carried out by the Qatar based YouGovSiraj, since the start of the conflict claims that about 55%[1] of Syrians do not want immediate departure of Assad. The methodology for this poll is not robust. In addition, this stance might be not due to support for Assad rather, because the Syrian people are afraid of instability and civil war or because some believe in the reform intentions of Assad and still others because they might be benefiting from the existing regime. The 89% backing of the new Syrian constitution in the recent referendum with a turnout of 57% was also dismissed because of the ongoing violence on the ground and lack of independent supervision on the referendum[2]. [Syria] [Disinformation]
• Syria Opposition Group Is Routed and Divided
  By ANNE BARNARD Published: March 14, 2012 BEIRUT, Lebanon — The main Syrian exile opposition group suffered a serious fracture on Wednesday as several prominent members resigned, calling the group autocratic, dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood and powerless to help Syrian rebels as government forces, having flushed insurgent strongholds in the north, swept into the rebellious southern city of Dara’a. The government’s near-complete takeover of the cities of Homs and Idlib fueled frustration with the exile group, the Syrian National Council, said one activist who had resigned, Kamal al-Labwani, a respected dissident released from Syrian prison last year halfway through a 12-year sentence.
• State Dept. moves to fire Peter Van Buren, author of book critical of Iraq reconstruction effort
  By Lisa Rein Peter Van Buren, a foreign service officer who wrote an unflattering book about his year leading two reconstruction teams in Iraq, was stripped of his security clearance, banned from State Department headquarters for a time and transferred to a telework job that consists of copying Internet addresses into a file. Now the State Department is moving to fire him based on eight charges, ranging from linking on his blog to documents on the whistleblowing site WikiLeaks to disclosing classified information. In 24 years as a diplomat, Van Buren was posted around the world and speaks four languages. He called the termination notice he received Friday the coup de grace in a series of blows he received since his book, “We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People” was published last fall.
• Iran’s parliament summons a slippery Ahmadinejad
  Vahid Salemi/AP - Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the first president in the country's history to be hauled before the Iranian parliament, a serious blow to his standing in a conflict pitting him against lawmakers. By Thomas Erdbrink, Thursday, March 15, 4:59 AM The Washington Post TEHRAN — Iran’s outgoing parliament summoned President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for an unprecedented grilling Wednesday, but he spent much of the session deflecting lawmakers’ questions with jokes and mockery. Apparently encouraged by victories in the March 2 parliamentary elections, hard-line lawmakers had seized the opportunity to call the president in to answer questions on a range of issues, including his economic policies, his views on the obligatory Islamic head scarves for Iranian women and his relations with the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The new 290-member legislature is slated to take office in May.

• As Syria holds referendum on constitution, rebels vow to fight on
  David Enders and Hannah Allam McClatchy Newspapers WADI KHALID, Lebanon — On the Lebanon-Syria border, Syrian refugees scoffed Sunday at the idea of a referendum on a new constitution proposed by President Bashar Assad. "Homs is completely destroyed," said Firas, 25, who left Syria five months ago. "Who is voting? (Assad) is telling lies to himself. Everyone around the world knows it's a big lie." Firas asked that his last name be withheld because he still has family in Homs, Syria's third largest city. Homs has become the center of the year-old rebellion against al-Assad's government. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton agreed with the rebels. "It's a phony referendum and it is going to be used by Assad to justify what he's doing to other Syrian citizens," Clinton told CBS News in Rabat, Morocco. Syrian activists posted videos of demonstrations on Sunday against the referendum across the country. The proposed constitution would, in theory, make Syria a multi-party democracy, ending nearly five decades of rule by the Baath Party. But in Damascus, the Syrian capital, not everyone was cynical about the promise of reforms, with voters lining up to cast ballots in favor of the changes to the constitution.
• More violence as Syrians vote in referendum
  SANA/REUTERS - Syria's President Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma vote during a referendum on a new constitution at a polling station in a Syrian TV station building in Damascus February 26, 2012, in this handout photograph released by Syria's national news agency. Text Size PrintE-mailReprintsBy Alice Fordham, Monday, February 27, 6:40 AM BEIRUT — Syrians across the country voted Sunday in a referendum on a proposed new constitution, according to state media, as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called upon them to abandon President Bashar al-Assad. “The longer you support the regime’s campaign of violence against your brothers and sisters, the more it will stain your honor,” Clinton said to reporters in Morocco. “If you refuse, however, to prop up the regime or take part in attacks .?.?. your countrymen and women will hail you as heroes.” Voting stations opened at 7 a.m. for a poll on a constitution that would technically mean the end of the Baath party that has dominated political life in Syria for the last 40 years, but which critics contend would do little to lessen Assad’s grip on the country and could legally allow him to remain in power until 2028. The Syrian Arab News Agency published photographs of people lining up to vote and reported that there were polling centers in every province.
• Britain leads dash to explore for oil in war-torn Somalia
  Government offers humanitarian aid and security assistance in the hope of a stake in country's future energy industry Share 338 reddit this Mark Townsend and Tariq Abdinasir guardian.co.uk, Saturday 25 February 2012 21.04 GMT Article history Engineers and visitors tour an exploratory well in Somalia's semi-autonomous Puntland region. Photograph: Reuters Britain is involved in a secret high-stakes dash for oil in Somalia, with the government offering humanitarian aid and security assistance in the hope of a stake in the beleaguered country's future energy industry. Riven by two decades of conflict that have seen the emergence of a dangerous Islamic insurgency, Somalia is routinely described as the world's most comprehensively "failed" state, as well as one of its poorest. Its coastline has become a haven for pirates preying on international shipping in the Indian Ocean. David Cameron last week hosted an international conference on Somalia, pledging more aid, financial help and measures to tackle terrorism. The summit followed a surprise visit by the foreign secretary, William Hague, to Mogadishu, the Somali capital, where he talked about "the beginnings of an opportunity'' to rebuild the country. The Observer can reveal that, away from the public focus of last week's summit, talks are going on between British officials and Somali counterparts over exploiting oil reserves that have been explored in the arid north-eastern region of the country [Imperialism] [Fragmentation]
• NATO personnel withdrawn from Afghan ministries after killing of two Americans
  By Kevin Sieff, Sunday, February 26, 5:15 AM KABUL — The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan on Saturday recalled all NATO personnel working in Afghan ministries in the Kabul area — a bold and potentially divisive response to the killing of two American service members by an Afghan security official in the country’s fortified Interior Ministry earlier in the day. Marine Gen. John R. Allen’s directive comes five days after U.S. military personnel burned a pile of Korans at the largest military base in Afghanistan in an apparently inadvertent act that set off violent protests across the country. More than 25 Afghans have died in those demonstrations, and four NATO soldiers have been killed by men wearing Afghan security uniforms since Thursday, when the Taliban urged Afghan soldiers and police to turn their weapons on their Western counterparts. .The week’s events have exposed a core vulnerability of the Obama administration’s strategy for winding down the decade-long Afghan war: a fraying trust between two presumed allies who must depend on each other to keep the insurgency at bay. [Client]
• As Syria prepares to vote on new constitution, some still support Assad
  By Alice Fordham, Sunday, February 26, 6:07 AM BEIRUT — Syrians are set to vote Sunday in a referendum on a proposed new constitution, part of a process of purported political reform that President Bashar al-Assad’s opponents have derided as cosmetic and irrelevant in the face of violence by government security forces and a growing armed insurrection. Despite the 11-month-old uprising and calls for Assad’s departure by the United States, European countries and many Arab nations, however, numerous observers report that the president maintains substantial support in Syria. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton blasted Russia and China as "despicable" for opposing U.N. Security Council action on Syria. .A significant portion of the population is likely to vote in favor of the draft constitution, in a show of support for Assad, said Fawaz A. Gerges, director of the Middle East Center at the London School of Economics. “I think one of the major mistakes that many of us have made is that we have underestimated the power base of Assad,” Gerges said. “I think he has at least 30 percent solid support.”
• Santorum: Obama is ‘a snob’ because he wants ‘everybody in America to go to college’
  By Felicia Sonmez Speaking to a tea party group in Michigan on Saturday, former senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) accused President Obama of being a “snob” because he wants “everybody in America to go to college.” The statement is a curious one considering that Santorum — who holds a B.A., M.B.A. and J.D. — holds more advanced degrees than Obama, who has a B.A. and a J.D. [Logic]
• Egypt-US Standoff Could Hit 40,000 NGOs
  By Cam McGrath CAIRO, Feb 22, 2012 (IPS) - The ongoing crackdown by Egypt’s military rulers on a handful of civil society groups accused of receiving illegal foreign funds has far-reaching implications for the estimated 40,000 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) operating in the Arab world’s most populous country. [NGO] [Outsourcing]
• Time on the Cross With Rick Santorum
  by Alexander Cockburn Surely Rick Santorum is the most fanatical Christian to run for the Republican nomination in the modern era, maybe any era. Next to him Pat Robertson, billionaire founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network, who ran for the nomination in 1988, has the tolerant, glassy-eyed bonhomie of the late Dean Martin. Robertson has always been in show business. Four years ago we had Mike Huckabee, the evangelist and former governor of Arkansas, one of the boys, shacked up with Mrs Huckabee in his doublewide on the grounds of the Arkansas gubernatorial mansion. He has always been in show business too. But with Santorum – a conservative Roman Catholic and member of Opus Dei – there’s a truly manic edge to his religious pronouncements and activities. It was Santorum and Mrs S, don’t forget, who took their still-born baby home from the hospital and laid it among their living tots, telling them, “he’s with the angels now,” an episode Mrs Santorum later recorded in a memoir.
• Iran, Israel & the U.S The Slide to War
  by Conn Hallinan Weekend Edition February 24-26, 2012 Wars are fought because some people decide it is in their interests to fight them. World War I was not started over the Archduke Ferdinand’s assassination, nor was it triggered by the alliance system. An “incident” may set the stage for war, but no one keeps shooting unless they think it’s a good idea. The Great War started because the countries involved decided they would profit by it, delusional as that conclusion was. It is useful to keep this idea in mind when trying to figure out if there will be a war with Iran. In short, what are the interests of the protagonists, and are they important enough for those nations to take the fateful step into the chaos of battle?
• U.S. Agencies See No Move by Iran to Build a Bomb
  By JAMES RISEN and MARK MAZZETTI Published: February 24, 2012 WASHINGTON — Even as the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog said in a new report Friday that Iran had accelerated its uranium enrichment program, American intelligence analysts continue to believe that there is no hard evidence that Iran has decided to build a nuclear bomb. [Iran] [Nuclear weapons]
• The art of the presidential apology
  View Photo Gallery — ?Crowds of Afghans protest reports of burning of Koran while U.S. officials step up outreach and apologize. By Scott Wilson, Saturday, February 25, 3:35 PM When should a president say he’s sorry? President Obama’s apology to his Afghan counterpart, Hamid Karzai, has resurrected the politically vexing issue of national contrition at a delicate moment in both the war in Afghanistan and in the presidential campaign at home. .The president’s “I’m sorry,” for U.S. military involvement in the burning of copies of the Koran, has resonated in Kabul and on the campaign trail, where Republicans have been using it to support their claim that he is more interested in apologizing for American mistakes than in defending American power. But Obama’s decision to apologize sprang from a mix of principle and pragmatism, the hallmarks of presidential apologies over the years. The mostly partisan outcry over Obama’s apology shows the challenge he faces as both a candidate for reelection and as a wartime commander in chief, roles whose motivations are sometimes at odds. In this case, his attempt to assuage angry Afghans with an apology he hoped would protect American troops allowed some conservatives to question the strength of his leadership.
• What Really Happened in the “Yom Kippur” War?
  by Israel Shamir Moscow Here in Moscow I recently received a dark-blue folder dated 1975. It contains one of the most well-buried secrets of Middle Eastern and of US diplomacy. The secret file, written by the Soviet Ambassador in Cairo, Vladimir M. Vinogradov, apparently a draft for a memorandum addressed to the Soviet politbureau, describes the 1973 October War as a collusive enterprise between US, Egyptian and Israeli leaders, orchestrated by Henry Kissinger. If you are an Egyptian reader this revelation is likely to upset you. I, an Israeli who fought the Egyptians in the 1973 war, was equally upset and distressed, – yet still excited by the discovery. For an American it is likely to come as a shock. According to the Vinogradov memo (to be published by us in full in the Russian weekly Expert next Monday), Anwar al-Sadat, holder of the titles of President, Prime Minister, ASU Chairman, Chief Commander, Supreme Military Ruler, entered into conspiracy with the Israelis, betrayed his ally Syria, condemned the Syrian army to destruction and Damascus to bombardment, allowed General Sharon’s tanks to cross without hindrance to the western bank of the Suez Canal, and actually planned a defeat of the Egyptian troops in the October War. Egyptian soldiers and officers bravely and successfully fought the Israeli enemy – too successfully for Sadat’s liking as he began the war in order to allow for the US comeback to the Middle East.
• Germans, French Were Keen to Sell Arms to Greece
  by PATRICK COCKBURN Athens As Greeks waited for a second eurozone rescue package to finally be agreed in Brussels today, many were blaming Germany and France for encouraging and benefiting from some of the much-criticized profligate spending that reduced Greece to near bankruptcy. About 1000 protesters gathered in front of the Greek Parliament in central Athens yesterday, while riot police waited to see if there would be a fresh confrontation. But, in general, Greeks are resigned to the new package of austerity measures which will cut jobs in public service and slash pensions and the minimum wage. Hopes are high that the eurozone ministers’ meeting today will agree to the €130 billion bailout after Athens detailed the new budget cuts. While most Greeks are critical of the reforms on which the troika of the EU, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank are insisting, many also feel that Germany and France share some of the blame for Greece’s overspending. Over much of the past decade, Greece – which has a population of 11 million – has been one of the top five arms importers in the world. [Arms sales]
• The Syrian Dilemma
  by Saul Landau How to evaluate events in Syria and what to do? Syria borders on Turkey (north), Iraq (east), the Mediterranean (west), Lebanon (south and west), Israel (Golan Heights) and Jordan (south). Unlike the “humanitarian” intervention in Libya — now edging toward chaos — outside fiddling with Syrian destiny will have great costs Syria’s strategic location and alliance with Iran means its internal violence could evolve from the regional to a larger stage. The West’s intervention formula, starting with a UN Security Council resolution condemning the regime, its killing of civilians and demanding President Bashar al-Assad step down, got derailed by Russian and Chinese vetoes. The UN vote coincided with Syria’s attack on Homs, a Muslim Brotherhood stronghold like neighboring Hama, where in 1982 Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father, had wiped out 10,000 (Robert Fisk, veteran Middle East correspondent says 20,000) of his armed foes. The Brotherhood had rebelled against Assad’s ruling Alawite clique (a Shiite sect). At a party in Damascus, in 2004, I asked a Syrian businessman to assess Hafez al-Assad’s ruthlessness. “He didn’t kill enough of them.” He didn’t smile. [Syria]
• Somalia: UK weighs up air strikes against rebels
  Fears over piracy and al-Shabaab insurgents lead Britain and other EU countries to consider air strikes on logistical hubs Share 63 reddit this Nick Hopkins and Richard Norton-Taylor guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 21 February 2012 21.00 GMT Article history Al-Shabaab militants in Somalia. The group is said to have growing links with al-Qaida affiliates in other countries. Photograph: Feisal Omar/Reuters Mounting concern about the twin threats posed by pirates and Islamic insurgents operating in Somalia has led Britain and other EU nations to consider the feasibility of air strikes against their logistical hubs and training camps, the Guardian has been told. [Double standards]
• Arab League As An Anti-Arab Weapon
  22.02.2012 Elena Pustovoytova, political scientist Elementary arithmetic routinely holds keys to much more complex political algebra. At the moment, for example, it appears that fairly simple regards explain the bizarre conduct of the Arab League which, contrary to reasonable expectations, alligned itself with the West in destabilizing Syria and keeping B. Assad under pressure. It became clear immediately when protests erupted in Syria in March, 2011 that Washington would welcome serious arguments in favor of Assad's ouster. The unrest in the country came as a predictable – and by no means the last - phase in the sequence of revolts inspired by the US and other countries in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Bahrain with the aim of tailoring the maps of North Africa and the Middle East to the liking of global heavyweights. Later on, the slogan of regime change in the name of “democracy” similarly popped up in Algeria, Jordan, Morocco, and Oman. It did not evade watchers that mass protests in Syria began in the southern city of Daraa and mostly took place on Fridays, at the Muslims' post-prayer time. Due to the clearcut tendency, Syria's brewing revolt was even dubbed “the Friday Revolution”. The unrest quickly spilled from Daraa to other Syrian cities, with the protesters' agenda – the abolition of the state of emergency law and the uprooting of the decades-old regime – borrowed with minimal adjustments from the Tahrir Square. Unlike Mubarak in Egypt, Syria's Assad lifted the state of emergency right away, but the protesters evidently had much more far-reaching goals in mind
• U.S. officials apologize after troops burn Qurans in Afghanistan
  Ali Safi McClatchy Newspapers KABUL, Afghanistan — The commander of U.S.-led international forces in Afghanistan apologized Tuesday after reports that American troops at Bagram Air Base had accidentally burned hundreds of copies of the Quran, sparking outrage among Afghans. "I offer my sincere apologies for any offense this may have caused, to the president of Afghanistan, the government ... of Afghanistan, and most importantly, to the noble people of Afghanistan," Marine Gen. John R. Allen said in a statement. The burning of the Quran and other Islamic religious materials sparked tense scenes at Bagram Air Base, a major coalition facility about 40 miles north of Kabul.
• Iraq officials: Violence drops as al Qaida group moves to Syria
  Sahar Issa McClatchy Newspapers BAGHDAD — The departure of al Qaida-affiliated fighters from Iraq to join the rebellion against Syrian President Bashar Assad in Syria has had one benefit, Iraqi officials say: Violence has dropped in this country, in some areas by as much as 50 percent in just a few months. Iraqi officials declined to provide precise figures for the drop-off or to estimate how many al Qaida-affiliated fighters have left the country for Syria. But the impact of the departure, they said, has been especially apparent in Ninewah province, which borders Syria and has long been the scene of some of al Qaida in Iraq's most violent bombings and assassinations. Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/02/20/139408/iraq-officials-violence-drops.html#storylink=cpy [Syria] [Al Qaeda]
• «Kill Every Russian and Every Chinese in Syria...»
  Dmitriy SEDOV | 20.02.2012 | 10:51 In contrast to Libya, Syria became the scene of a revolt that almost immediately went off script: the majority of Syria's population remain the government's loyalists, and the Syrian army never disintegrated into warring factions. According to Western estimates, the rebel forces in Syria combined with the relatively small bunch of army defectors are outnumbered by at least a factor of four by the regular army which is also much better armed. The attacks launched by guerrillas on the regions where most of the residents are traditionally hostile to B. Assad and the attempts to cause the people to rebel are at the moment being successfully suppressed, while the opposition's street marches typically run into response rallies staged by the supporters of the legitimate authority. Importantly, Russia and China strongly hold their own in the UN and block whatever Security Council resolutions that might be read as authorizing an intervention against Syria. As a result, the key objective behind the revolt in the country — to unleash a full-blown civil war in Syria — at the moment stays out of reach for those who orchestrated the unrest.
• Taking Mines Seriously
  Scott C. Truver Naval War College Review, Spring 2012, Vol. 65, No. 2 Mine Warfare in China’s Near Seas Scott C. Truver mine is a terrible thing that waits. The easy way is always mined. Any ship can be a minesweeper—once. Sea mines and the need to counter them have been constants for the U.S. Navy since the earliest days of the Republic. In January 1778, patriot David Bushnell used floating kegs of gunpowder fitted with contact firing mechanisms to attack a British fleet anchored in the Delaware River above Philadelphia. Four British sailors died trying to retrieve the kegs—an early example of the challenges of explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) against an unknown threat—but the ships were unscathed. Since that uncertain beginning, mines and mine countermeasures (MCM) have figured prominently in the Civil War, Spanish-American War, both world wars, Korea, Vietnam, numerous Cold War crises, and Operations DESERT STORM and IRAQI FREEDOM.1 In February 1991, the U.S. Navy lost command of the northern Arabian Gulf to more than 1,300 mines that had been sown by Iraqi forces virtually under the “noses” of multinational coalition naval forces constrained by their rules of engagement. Mines severely damaged two Navy warships, and commanders aborted an amphibious assault for fear of more casualties. That mirrored the Navy’s experience four decades earlier, off the east coast of North Korea, when more than three thousand mines (put in place in a matter of weeks) utterly frustrated an October 1950 assault on Wonsan by a 250-ship United Nations amphibious task force. Its commander, Rear Admiral Allen E. Smith, lamented, “We have lost control of the seas to a nation without a navy, using pre–World War I weapons, laid by vessels that were utilized at the time of the birth of Christ.”2 The initial clearance operations saw three mine countermeasures vessels sunk by mines and more than a hundred personnel dead or wounded. By the end of hostilities in July 1953, coalition MCM forces, which accounted for just 2 percent of all UN naval forces, had suffered 20 percent of all naval casualties. [Asymmetry] [Military balance][Korean War events] [China confrontation
• NATO double-game in Libya under UN-cover revealed
  Suitcase size drones played decisive role Akhtar Jamal 14 Islamabad—A Canadian newspaper has revealed the account of NATO’s double-game in Libya and disclosed how the NATO countries collaborated with each others to topple the Libyan regime and secretly supplied most sophisticated weapons and drones to Libyan rebels. According to the newspaper, Ottawa Citizen, the NATO states misused the UN embargo of arms and sea-blockage and enforced one-sided sanction while allowing NATO-backed special forces and trainers to slip into Libya via sea. The paper also disclosed that dozens of brief-case size drones were also sent to Libya to monitor and track Gadhafi forces and hunt them down. It said that NATO partners in the Mediterranean Sea enforcing an embargo under authority of the United Nations Security Resolution 1973 allowed weapon supplies without any interception to anti- Gadhafi forces. [Libya] [UNUS]
• SOCIAL MEDIA "TACTICAL INTELLIGENCE COLLECTION": Spying and Propaganda using Facebook, Twitter
  by Julie Lévesque Global Research, February 15, 2012 A new study by the Mediterranean Council for Intelligence Studies’ (MCIS) 2012 Intelligence Studies Yearbook points to the use of social media as “the new cutting edge in open-source tactical intelligence collection”. IntelNews.org's Joseph Fitsanakis, who co-authored the study, reports: We explain that Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and a host of other social networking platforms are increasingly viewed by intelligence agencies as invaluable channels of information acquisition. We base our findings on three recent case studies, which we believe highlight the intelligence function of social networking. (Joseph Fitsanakis, Research: Spies increasingly using Facebook, Twitter to gather data, intelNews.org, February 13, 2012) What the study fails to mention, however, is the use of social media by intelligence agencies for other purposes. The study leads us to believe that social media is solely an intelligence gathering tool, when in fact, a number of reports have shown that it is used for propaganda including the creation of fake identities in support of covert operations. Those practices are discussed in Army of Fake Social Media Friends to Promote Propaganda, Social Media: Air Force ordered software to manage army of Fake Virtual People and Pentagon Seeks to Manipulate Social Media for Propaganda Purposes, published on Global Research in 2011. [Social media] [Surveillance] [Intelligence] [Covert]
• America and China: strategic choices in the Asian Century
  February 19th, 2012 Author: Hugh White, ANU Four months ago, as Australia’s parliamentarians rose to give President Barack Obama a standing ovation, it seemed they had already decided how best to navigate the profound strategic changes that must inevitably flow from the shift in relative economic weight from West to East. Obama laid out in the starkest terms yet his determination that America will resist China’s challenge to US leadership in Asia, using all the elements of its power — including military force — to perpetuate a future for Asia framed by American values and interests. The Parliament’s applause, and the simultaneous announcement that Australia would host more US forces, seemed to show that Australians had made up their minds to back Obama’s forthright policy to the hilt. [Hegemony] [Australia]
• US wants SWIFT war on Iran
  By Pepe Escobar What was the parade of European poodles thinking - that Tehran would just roll over and absorb the European Union's oil embargo, scheduled to start on July 1? No wonder Brussels was caught as a Gucci deer in the headlights when the news started to flow that Tehran would pre-empt the move and immediately slap its own embargo of crude oil exports to six European Union countries - deeply in crisis Club Med members Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain plus recession-hit France and the Netherlands.
• US, Iran inching toward talks
  By M K Bhadrakumar The foreplay is nearing completion on the Iran situation. The surest sign is that there were no serious takers in Western capitals for the Israeli smear campaign this week that Tehran's agents had been going about placing bombs in New Delhi, Tbilisi and Bangkok. Simply put, there is growing impatience that it is way past the time for histrionics. Several indicators are available that matters are moving towards a substantive plane. One cluster of events this week consists of the Iranian reply to the letter from the European Union foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, penned by Tehran's chief negotiator, Saeed Jalili. Simultaneously, Tehran announced it was developing a new generation of centrifuges and augmenting its number of centrifuges from 6,000 to 9,000 as well as loading a research reactor with Iran's first batch of domestically produced fuel. While Tehran's announcement of new nuclear "achievements" might have appeared as a belligerent move - Washington derided it as "hype" meant for the domestic audience in Iran - the contents of Jalili's letter, and, more important, the initial responses of cautious optimism it generated within hours in Western capitals convey that there are positive stirrings in the air.
• Another Pretext To Wage War?
  The Fingerprints of False Flags Against Iran. The Thailand, India, Georgia Terrorist Bomb Blasts
  By Finian Cunningham Global Research, February 15, 2012 URL of this article: Have American and Israeli efforts to pin international terrorism on Iran just gone global? A series of bomb attacks apparently on Israeli diplomats in India and Georgia are now being linked with blasts in the Thai capital, Bangkok, for which it is reported that three Iranian men have been arrested. Israel is claiming that the explosive devices recovered in Thailand are the same “sticky bombs” that were used in the attacks in New Delhi and Tbilisi, and that is proof that an Iranian terror network is conducting an assassination campaign against its foreign diplomats. [False flag]
• Israeli Attack on Iran ’Not Prudent’: Depmsey
  By Katarzyna Klimasinska - Feb 19, 2012 6:34 AM GMT+1300 An Israeli attack on Iran would be “destabilizing,” the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, U.S. Army General Martin Dempsey, said. “It’s not prudent at this point to decide to attack Iran,” Dempsey said in an interview with CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS,” scheduled to be broadcast tomorrow. The U.S. government is confident the Israelis “understand our concerns,” he said, according to an e-mailed transcript. Amid U.S. concerns that Israel may initiate military action against Iran’s nuclear sites, the White House National Security Adviser Tom Donilon begins a two-day visit to Israel today to discuss Iran and other issues, such as the turmoil in Syria. Iran has been under United Nations investigation since 2003 over suspected nuclear weapons work. [US global strategy] [Iran]
• U.S. intelligence officials offer grim words on Afghanistan
  February 16, 2012 | 2:27 pm REPORTING FROM WASHINGTON -- Senior U.S. intelligence officials offered a bleak view of the war in Afghanistan in testimony to Congress on Thursday, an assessment they acknowledged was more pessimistic than that of the military commanders in charge. “I would like to begin with current military operations in Afghanistan, where we assess that endemic corruption and persistent qualitative deficiencies in the army and police forces undermine efforts to extend effective governance and security,” Lt. Gen. Ronald Burgess, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told the Senate Armed Services Committee at its annual worldwide threat hearing. The Afghan army remains reliant on U.S. and international forces for logistics, intelligence and transport, he said. And “despite successful coalition targeting, the Taliban remains resilient and able to replace leadership losses while also competing to provide governance at the local level. From its Pakistani safe havens, the Taliban leadership remains confident of eventual victory.”
• Bright Minds and Dark Attitudes
  Lower Cognitive Ability Predicts Greater Prejudice Through Right-Wing Ideology and Low Intergroup Contact
  Gordon Hodson and Michael A. Busseri Despite their important implications for interpersonal behaviors and relations, cognitive abilities have been largely ignored as explanations of prejudice. We proposed and tested mediation models in which lower cognitive ability predicts greater prejudice, an effect mediated through the endorsement of right-wing ideologies (social conservatism, right-wing authoritarianism) and low levels of contact with out-groups. In an analysis of two large-scale, nationally representative United Kingdom data sets (N = 15,874), we found that lower general intelligence (g) in childhood predicts greater racism in adulthood, and this effect was largely mediated via conservative ideology. A secondary analysis of a U.S. data set confirmed a predictive effect of poor abstract-reasoning skills on antihomosexual prejudice, a relation partially mediated by both authoritarianism and low levels of intergroup contact. All analyses controlled for education and socioeconomic status. Our results suggest that cognitive abilities play a critical, albeit underappreciated, role in prejudice. Consequently, we recommend a heightened focus on cognitive ability in research on prejudice and a better integration of cognitive ability into prejudice models. [Multiculturalism]
• Conservatism Thrives on Low Intelligence and Poor Information
  By George Monbiot, The Guardian Posted on February 12, 2012, Printed on February 18, 2012 Self-deprecating, too liberal for their own good, today's progressives stand back and watch, hands over their mouths, as the social vivisectionists of the right slice up a living society to see if its component parts can survive in isolation. Tied up in knots of reticence and self-doubt, they will not shout stop. Doing so requires an act of interruption, of presumption, for which they no longer possess a vocabulary.
• US Trojan Horses in Venezuela
  Nil NIKANDROV | 20.02.2012 | 00:00 Several days ago, representatives of 55 Venezuelan NGOs called the international community to rise to the defense of democracy in the country at a media event in Miami, charging Hugo Chavez with threatening democracy, neglecting human rights, and igniting a civilian conflict in Venezuela. The participants of the event pledged that the campaign built around the demand to put the Venezuelan leader on trial would continue in order to keep Chavez's regime under permanent pressure, and its coordinator Carlos Fernandez announced that an appeal had been supplied to the Hague Tribunal to make Chavez face justice over nothing less than alleged crimes against humanity. At the moment, the key lines on the Venezuelan opposition's grievances list are company nationalizations, the looming closure of the anti-Chavez Globovision TV channel, attempts to introduce Marxist instruction in Venezuelan schools, and crackdowns on the opponents of the current Venezuelan regime. Fernandez, who had been on the radical fringe during the 2002 outbreak of anti-government protests in Venezuela, urged the international community to act immediately and warned that failure to do so would result in the entrenchment of a militarist, Castro-communist regime in Venezuela for years. He also confided to the audience that an investigator was dispatched by the Hague Tribunal to Columbia to examine the files on the notebooks which belonged to slain FARC secretariat member and spokesman Raúl Reyes. Chavez would eventually face justice for his FARC connections, claimed Fernandez. NGOs mushroomed in Venezuela after Chavez's 1998 electoral triumph, and at the moment their number estimatedly reaches several hundreds. Back in 1998, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) enjoyed unlimited freedom of maneuver in the country and made full use of it to expand the influence of the US intelligence community over the Venezuelan society [NGO] [US global strategy]
• Hypocrisy and Syria
  by Alexander Cockburn Few spectacles have been more surreal than senior US officials – starting with the President, the Secretary of State and the US ambassador to the UN – solemnly lecturing Assad and his beleaguered Syrian government on the need to accommodate rebel forces whose GCC sponsors are intent on slaughtering the ruling Alawite minority or driving them into the sea. At one grimly hilarious moment last Friday, these worthy sermons were buttressed by a message from Ayman al-Zwahiri, the head of al-Qaeda, therefore presumably the number one target on President Obama’s hit list, similarly praising the ‘Lions of Syria’ for rising up against the Assad regime. Al-Qaeda and the White House in sync! [Syria]
• Richard Dawkins expresses disbelief over slave owner ancestor story
  Evolutionary biologist and atheist calls 'surreal' Sunday Telegraph article citing 18th-century forefather Matthew Taylor guardian.co.uk, Sunday 19 February 2012 13.38 GMT Article history Richard Dawkins has put down as 'surreal' a Sunday Telegraph article linking his ancestor with the slave trade. Photograph: Murdo Macleod Richard Dawkins, evolutionary biologist and prominent atheist, is used to criticism from those who do not share his views on religion or the origins of mankind. But he has expressed surprise at the latest attack, which claims the scientist faces awkward questions because some of his ancestors were slave owners. The Sunday Telegraph reported that Henry Dawkins had amassed more than 1,000 slaves in Jamaica by the time of his death in 1744, and quoted campaigners calling on Dawkins to pay reparations. But Dawkins hit back on his blog, describing the interview and subsequent article as "surreal". "At the end of a week of successfully rattling cages, I was ready for yet another smear or diversionary tactic of some kind," said Dawkins, who clashed on the BBC Today programme with Giles Fraser, formerly canon chancellor of St Paul's cathedral, on Tuesday. "But in my wildest dreams I couldn't have imagined the surreal form this one was to take." [Media]
• At Iran-Afghanistan-Pakistan summit, a show of unity
  AAMIR QURESHI/AFP/Getty Images - Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai, Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari and Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad put on a display of unity Friday at a trilateral summit in Islamabad. By Richard Leiby, Published: February 18 ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — At one end of the flower-festooned table sat the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, perhaps the world’s most relentless America basher. At the other end sat Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan’s leader, who owes his government’s survival to the United States. .And in the middle was Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, whose country’s complex relationship with Washington swings from pole to pole. If any conflict exists among the chief executives of the three neighboring Islamic nations, it certainly was not apparent Friday at the close of a two-day trilateral summit in Pakistan’s capital. At a news conference that Zardari hosted in his splendid official residence, the theme was fraternal unity as the trio pledged to work for peace and prosperity in a region racked by war and terrorism. [Client] [Decline]
• One year into revolution, Libya is beset by uncontrolled militias, rights abuses
  Hannah Allam McClatchy Newspapers CAIRO — Thousands of euphoric Libyans filled Tripoli's main square in September to hear Mustafa Abdul-Jalil's first speech since rebel forces chased Moammar Gadhafi from the Libyan capital. Then the most visible opposition leader — and now Libya's de facto president — Abdul-Jalil seemed to embody the country's promise of democratic change. A former justice minister, he had defected early to the rebel cause and came with a reputation for dissent and honesty despite his role in the Gadhafi regime. If anyone could corral the competing factions in the aftermath of Gadhafi's ouster, surely he could, Libyans said at the time. "We need unity, rejecting fear and envy with no retaliation or injustice," Abdul-Jalil proclaimed to cheers so thunderous they drowned out parts of his speech. Six months later, however, fear, retaliation and injustice are hallmarks of the new Libya. Vigilante justice reigns, human rights abuses are rampant and loose weapons float around the country — and across the border into Egypt — with little hindrance, according to human rights groups and analysts who've monitored the country's transition.
• Top U.S. intelligence officials confirm al Qaida role in Syria
  Jonathan S. Landay McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — Al Qaida's Iraqi affiliate appears to have infiltrated Syrian opposition groups and was likely responsible for recent suicide bombings in Damascus and the industrial capital of Aleppo, senior U.S. intelligence officials told Congress Thursday. "We believe that al Qaida in Iraq is extending its reach into Syria," Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper said in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee. It was the first time that a top U.S. official publicly confirmed the involvement of al Qaida in Iraq, or AQI, in the uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad, which began nearly a year ago as peaceful protests for an end to his family's four-decade-long rule.
• Who Arms the Gang Called «Free Syrian Army»
  Leonid SAVIN | 17.02.2012 | 19:33 The US Foreign Policy magazine said in an article devoted to the Syrian situation that NATO intervention in Libya in compliance with the UN sanctions and funded by Qatar can be repeated in Syria now; the USA and its allies are already on the way implementing the scenario by arming the Free Syrian army. The American author views it as pursuing the «responsibility to protect» (1) policy. He’s got enough common sense to conclude that in case of the Syrian situation one wrong decision may lead to really grave consequences. The European parliament adopted a resolution calling on Russia to immediately stop all arms supplies to Syria on February 16. At the same time the calls to openly deliver weapons to all those who fight to topple Bashar Assad are becoming louder in the USA. Indefatigable John McCain calls to start «arming the opposition». Elliot Adams, an influential American Foreign Policy Council’s member, says the same thing on CNN "I would give them money and I would give them arms». The calls are made to divert attention. [Arms sales]
• The Syrian Impasse
  Immanuel Wallerstein Bachar al-Assad has risen to the heights of being one of the least popular men in the world. He is denounced as a tyrant, indeed a very bloody tyrant, by almost everyone. Even those governments that refuse to denounce him seem to be counseling him to curb his repressive ways and to make some sort of political concessions to his internal opponents. So, how is it that he ignores all this advice and proceeds to continue to use maximum force to continue political control of Syria? Why is there no outside intervention to force his removal from office? To answer these questions, let us start with assessing his strengths. To start with, he has a reasonably strong army, and up to now, with a few exceptions, the army and other structures of force in the country have stayed loyal to the regime. Secondly, he still seems to command the support of at least half of the population in what is increasingly being described as a civil war. Yet, I don't think that, a year or two from now, we will find that Assad is gone or the regime basically changed. The reason is that those who are denouncing him the loudest do not really want him to go. Let us take them one by one. [Syria] [Strategic incoherence]
• Washington Reaps the Rewards of Its "Arab Spring" Destabilization Campaign
  US-Funded Tunisian President Prepares to Withdraw Recognition of Syrian Government by Tony Cartalucci Global Research, February 8, 2012 landdestroyer.blogspot.com On February 5, 2012 - Reuters reported, "Tunisia "to withdraw recognition" of Syria government," and specifically that newly appointed Tunisian president Moncef Marzouki made the announcement on his Facebook page. Reuters also notes "Tunisia's decision to sever ties with Damascus carries moral weight because the north African country's revolution last year started off the "Arab Spring" upheavals which later spread throughout the Middle East, including to Syria." What Reuters of course fails to mention is that the "Arab Spring" was engineered years in advance, planned, funded, and directed by the US State Department, with Moncef Marzouki a direct recipient on record of such support which ultimately paved his way from obscurity to now president of the North African nation. [NGO] [US global strategy]
• Washington’s Insouciance Has No Rival
  February 15, 2012 Is Obama a hypocrite or merely insouciant? Or is he an idiot? According to news reports Obama’s White House meeting on Valentine’s day with China’s Vice President, Xi Jinping, provided an opportunity for Obama to raise “a sensitive human rights issue with the Chinese leader-in-waiting.” The brave and forthright Obama didn’t let etiquette or decorum get in his way. Afterwards, Obama declared that Washington would “continue to emphasize what we believe is the importance of realizing the aspirations and rights of all people.” Think about that for a minute. Washington is now in the second decade of murdering Muslim men, women, and children in six countries. Washington is so concerned with human rights that it drops bombs on schools, hospitals, weddings and funerals, all in order to uphold the human rights of Muslim people. You see, bombing liberates Muslim women from having to wear the burka and from male domination. One hundred thousand, or one million, dead Iraqis, four million displaced Iraqis, a country with destroyed infrastructure, and entire cities, such as Fallujah, bombed and burnt with white phosphorus into cinders is the proper way to show concern for human rights. Ditto for Afghanistan. And Libya. [Human rights] [Double standards] [Chutzpah]
• American Decline in Perspective
  by Noam Chomsky In the years of conscious, self-inflicted decline at home, “losses” continued to mount elsewhere. In the past decade, for the first time in 500 years, South America has taken successful steps to free itself from western domination, another serious loss. The region has moved towards integration, and has begun to address some of the terrible internal problems of societies ruled by mostly Europeanized elites, tiny islands of extreme wealth in a sea of misery. They have also rid themselves of all U.S. military bases and of IMF controls. A newly formed organization, CELAC, includes all countries of the hemisphere apart from the U.S. and Canada. If it actually functions, that would be another step in American decline, in this case in what has always been regarded as “the backyard.” [Decline]
• Syria sets referendum for Feb. 26 as refugees flock to Lebanon
  David Enders McClatchy Newspapers BEIRUT — Syrian state media announced Wednesday that the country would hold a referendum Feb. 26 on a new constitution even as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees predicted that ongoing fighting in that country would drive growing numbers of Syrians to seek refuge inside Lebanon. The announcement of the referendum comes as violence rages in a number of Syrian cities, particularly those near the Lebanese border. Syrian government troops continued to shell the city of Homs on Wednesday, and the Syrian army reportedly moved into neighborhoods in the city of Hama, north of Homs, as well. Syrians fleeing the violence have flooded into Lebanon, though not in the numbers the U.N. had expected. The UNHCR has registered more than 6,000 Syrian refugees in Beirut and northern Lebanon and estimates that another 2,000 to 3,000 are now living in the Bekaa Valley, in eastern Lebanon. [Spin]
• Aggressive Acts by Iran Signal Pressure on Its Leadership
  By SCOTT SHANE and ROBERT F. WORTH Published: February 15, 2012 WASHINGTON — A string of aggressive gestures by Iran this week — assassination attempts on Israelis living abroad that were attributed to Tehran, renewed posturing over its nuclear program and fresh threats of economic retaliation — suggest that Iranian leaders are responding frantically, and with increasing unpredictability, to the tightening of sanctions by the West. [Inversion] [Sanctions] [Media]
• Circassian theme of Syria’s tragedy
  Vladislav GULEVICH | 16.02.2012 | 09:41 The currently tense situation in Syria and around it has galvanized the propaganda clichés that the West is using to stigmatize Russia for the so-called “Circassian question”. The Circassians is a general terms for the kindred languages and cultures of the Kabardians, the Cherkess, the Ubykh people, the Adygs and the Shapsugs of the North Caucasus. Individual members of the Circassian diaspora in different countries have repeatedly manifested their wish to be repatriated to their historical homeland, - to Russia, and Circassians in Syria are no exception. On January 31st 2012, three officials of Syria’s Circassian community arrived in the Russian republic of Kabardino-Balkaria to meet the Head of the Republic, Arsen Kanokov, who pledged his support for the guests. “We think highly of the stand that Russia took during the discussion of the Syria issue at the United Nations. Russia’s stance is unbiased, based on justice and seeks to prevent Syria from being turned into another Iraq or Libya”, said one of the messengers (1). Before that, Syrian Circassians had visited the Republic of Adygea. From December 2011 to January 2012, a total of more than 200 Syrian Circassians asked Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and the Heads of Government of Adygea, Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay-Cherkessia for assistance. Some 100,000 Circassians make their home in Syria as of today.
• Syria’s crackdown on rebels continues as Assad schedules vote on new constitution
  By Liz Sly, Thursday, February 16, 3:10 AM BEIRUT — Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Wednesday ordered a referendum to be held Feb. 26 on a new constitution, a move that appeared unlikely to defuse the country’s rapidly escalating crisis. The document allows multiple political parties to compete in elections for the legislature, sets a limit of two seven-year terms on the president and eliminates a clause that guarantees political supremacy to Assad’s Baath Party, according to copies of the draft circulating in the Syrian press. But it also gives sweeping powers to the president to decree laws, appoint the government and dissolve parliament, and seemed designed to ensure that the current system remains largely intact. With most members of the opposition calling for the ouster of the Assad regime, activists said the document falls far short of their demands for radical change.
• The Divine Right of Money
  by Paul Craig Roberts The United States government and its NATO puppets have been killing Muslim men, women and children for a decade in the name of bringing them democracy. But is the West itself a bastion of democracy? Skeptics point out that President George W. Bush was put in office by the Supreme Court and that a number of other elections have been decided by electronic voting machines that leave no paper trail. Others note that elected officials represent the special interests that fund their campaigns and not the voters. The bailout of the banks arranged by Bush’s Treasury Secretary and former Goldman Sachs chairman, Henry Paulson, and Washington’s failure to indict any banksters for the fraud that contributed to the financial crisis, are evidence in support of the view that the US government represents money and not the voters. Recent events in Greece and Italy have created more skepticism of the West’s claim to be democratic. Two elected European prime ministers, George Papandreou of Greece and Silvio Berlusconi of Italy, were forced to resign over the sovereign debt issue. Not even Berlusconi, a billionaire who continues to lead the largest Italian political party, could stand up to the pressure brought by private bankers and unelected European Union officials. Papandreou lasted only 10 days after announcing on October 31, 2011, that he would let the Greek voters decide in a referendum whether or not to accept the austerity being imposed on the Greek people from the outside. Austerity is the price charged by the EU for lending the Greek government the money to pay to the banks. In other words, the question was austerity or default. However, the question was decided without the participation of the Greek people. [Democracy]
• Road to Damascus… and on to Armageddon?
  by DIANA JOHNSTONE Paris What if pollsters put this question to citizens of the United States and the European Union : “Which is more important, ensuring disgruntled Islamists freedom to overthrow the secular regime in Syria, or avoiding World War Three?” I’ll bet that there might be a majority for avoiding World War III. But of course, the question is never framed like that. That would be a “realistic” question, and we Westerners from the heights of our moral superiority have no time for vulgar “realism” in foreign policy (except the eccentric Ron Paul, crying out in the wilderness of Republican primaries). Because, in the minds of our political ruling class, the United States has the power to “make reality”, we need pay no attention to the remnants of whatever reality we didn’t invent ourselves. [Syria] [US global strategy]
• 405 Bases and It’s Not Over Yet
  by NICK TURSE In late December, the lot was just a big blank: a few burgundy metal shipping containers sitting in an expanse of crushed eggshell-colored gravel inside a razor-wire-topped fence. The American military in Afghanistan doesn’t want to talk about it, but one day soon, it will be a new hub for the American drone war in the Greater Middle East. Next year, that empty lot will be a two-story concrete intelligence facility for America’s drone war, brightly lit and filled with powerful computers kept in climate-controlled comfort in a country where most of the population has no access to electricity. It will boast almost 7,000 square feet of offices, briefing and conference rooms, and a large “processing, exploitation, and dissemination” operations center — and, of course, it will be built with American tax dollars. Nor is it an anomaly. Despite all the talk of drawdowns and withdrawals, there has been a years-long building boom in Afghanistan that shows little sign of abating. In early 2010, the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) had nearly 400 bases in Afghanistan. Today, Lieutenant Lauren Rago of ISAF public affairs tells TomDispatch, the number tops 450. [Bases] [Afghanistan]
• Obama in denial about American influence
  By Richard Cohen, Tuesday, February 14, 1:32 PM The usually reliable sources tell us that President Obama picked up a recent edition of the highly reliable New Republic and came away impressed. He read a lengthy essay by Robert Kagan amorphously titled “Not Fade Away,” but unambiguously subtitled “The Myth of American Decline” — the latter saying it all. The president then expropriated (eminent domain?) the essay’s theme for part of his State of the Union message, saying, “Anyone who tells you that America is in decline or that our influence has waned doesn’t know what they’re talking about.” Among those who have done so is Barack Obama himself. [Decline]
• Dominion From Sea to Sea: America's Pacific Ascendancy
  By Bruce Cumings Dominion From Sea to Sea differs from my other books in that it does not have so much to say about Korea or East Asia. Obviously my books on the Korean War have Korean history as the centerpiece, and even my book of essays, Parallax Visions: Making Sense of American—East Asian Relation, is a Korea-centric examination of U.S. relations with China, Japan and Korea. Nevertheless, this new book could not have been written without the years of experience since I first landed in Seoul in 1967. East Asia’s history in the modern period, and its relationship with the United States, gave me an optic that was indispensable for examining America’s relationship not just toward East Asia, but to the world. It is an optic that differs radically from most American orientations toward the foreign.
• Israeli Attack on Iran's Nuclear Facilities Easier Said Than Done
  Analysis by David Isenberg* The Tehran Research Reactor where uranium enriched to 20 percent is used to produce medical isotopes. / Credit:Jim Lobe/IPS WASHINGTON, Feb 13, 2012 (IPS) - Despite renewed media speculation regarding possible Israeli attacks against Iran's nuclear facilities as early as this spring, scepticism that such a campaign could actually be successfully carried out remains relatively high, raising the question of whether there is more bark than bite to Israeli threats. It cannot expect a repeat of 1981 when the Israeli air force destroyed the Osirak reactor at Al-Tuwaythah, just south of Baghdad. The Iranians are aware of both Israeli capabilities and the U.S.-made precision-guided penetrating munitions in the Israeli inventory. The Iranian programme has been dispersed all over the country - estimates range between 12 and more than 20 locations - and the facilities have been built with U.S. and Israeli capabilities in mind and are protected by modern Russian air defence systems. [LEU]
• Exclusive: Turkey sticks with Iran oil after Saudi talks
  By Humeyra Pamuk and Evrim Ergin DUBAI/ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey has no plans to cut its imports of Iranian oil, remaining a rare loyal customer of Tehran despite rising pressure from international sanctions and initial signals it may buy more Saudi oil, Turkish and Saudi sources told Reuters. The sources said Ankara's intentions became clear after a high level delegation travelled to Riyadh over the weekend and decided against requesting additional supplies from top oil exporter Saudi Arabia, the only producer in the world that has spare volumes to offer to replace Iranian barrels. The development will help Iran avoid extra pain from reduced sales of crude as the European Union seeks to ban Iranian oil imports from July 1 and major Asian customers are signaling they might cut purchases under pressure from Washington. [Sanctions] [Client] [Decline]
• Gunfights in Saudi Oil Province Show Spread of Iran Tensions
  February 13, 2012, 3:22 PM EST By Glen Carey Feb. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Armored anti-riot vehicles cluster outside the police station in Awwamiya in Saudi Arabia’s oil- producing eastern region, where unrest is turning violent. “We have enough police force to deal with any criminal or prohibited situation,” says Brigadier-General Yousef al-Qahtani as he drives through the town. In nearby al-Qatif, graffiti scrawled on a cemetery wall criticizes the Al Saud family, founders of the kingdom eight decades ago, and calls for the removal of their fellow Sunni Muslim monarchs in Bahrain. Black Shiite flags adorn religious centers in the back-alleys. Clashes between police and armed Shiite protesters in the two towns have intensified since October, when 11 police were injured in an attack. Since then, seven Shiites have been killed by security forces, according to figures provided by Saudi Arabia’s Human Rights First Society. It’s in such places that tensions between the Gulf’s Sunni nations and Shiite-led Iran may spark violence inside Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter. Shiites here have cultural and family ties with Iran, and also with Bahrain, where Saudi troops helped crush Shiite-led protests that broke out a year ago today. Saudi authorities accuse Iran, which is under growing western pressure to back down over its nuclear program, of stirring up unrest in both cases. [Sectarianism]
• World War and the Russia-China Veto: Towards a Break Point at the UN Security Council?
  by Carla Stea Global Research, February 8, 2012 It is troubling, indeed, that although Mrs. Navi Pillay, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights had never set foot in Syria during the period about which she professed expertise, she was, nevertheless, invited to address the United Nations Security Council on December 9, 2011, and much of the Western media quoted her as the authoritative source on human rights abuses by the Syrian government, citing her poorly substantiated remarks on numerous occasions. It is especially troubling because, at the January 31, 2012 Security Council meeting on Syria, addressed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, UK Foreign Secretary William Hague, the French Foreign Minister, the Qatar Prime Minister and other diplomatic luminaries, Mr. Muhammad Ahmad Mustafa Al-Dabi, the Head of the League of Arab States Observer Mission to Syria, who had traveled throughout Syria from December 24, 2011 through January 18, 2012, who had interviewed a broad spectrum of Syrians, from members of the Syrian opposition, to Syrian government officials, and Syrian civilians, was not invited to that meeting to present facts about the reality on the ground in the Syrian Arab Republic. However, Mr. Al-Dabi’s Report, dated January 27, 2012 presents too many “inconvenient truths” which undermine and discredit the campaign to demonize the Syrian government. [Syria] [Disinformation]
• Truly Disgusting - the West in Kosovo
  Aleksandar PAVIC | 11.02.2012 In the tantrums thrown by the Western powers in the wake of the Russo-Chinese veto of their UN Security Council resolution on Syria, the US’s UN Ambassador, Susan Rice, expressed «disgust» at these two states’ behavior. In addition to these kinds of «hysterics» – as Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov so aptly described them – being calculated to rally the global media further against the two Eurasian giants, they also serve the purpose of directing attention away from the West’s own disastrous intervention track record. On February 8, just four days after the failed Syria resolution, the UNSC had a chance to discuss another Western interventionist «success story» – Kosovo. Many might think that Russia’s and China’s reluctance to give a green light to foreign intervention in Syria is mostly based on the recent Libya (and Iraq and Afghanistan) experience. That is only partly true. For the occupied Serbian province of Kosovo has been under NATO/EU control for more than 12 years now – since June 10, 1999 – and offers a much better view of what Western intervention brings than the still-fresh, although already clearly disastrous, Libyan case.
• Will Iran Be Attacked?
  44 US military bases surrounding Iran... by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts Global Research, February 8, 2012 Washington has made tremendous preparations for a military assault on Iran. There is speculation that Washington has called off its two longest running wars--Iraq and Afghanistan--in order to deploy forces against Iran. Two of Washington’s fleets have been assigned to the Persian Gulf along with NATO warships. Missiles have been spread amongst Washington’s Oil Emirate and Middle Eastern puppet states. US troops have been deployed in Israel and Kuwait. Washington has presented Israel a gift from the hard-pressed american taxpayers of an expensive missile defense system, money spent for Israel when millions of unassisted americans have lost their homes. As no one expects Iran to attack Israel, except in retaliation for an Israeli attack on Iran, the purpose of the missile defense system is to protect Israel from an Iranian response to Israeli aggression against Iran. Juan Cole has posted on his blog a map showing 44 US military bases surrounding Iran. [Corruption] [Imperialism]
• Want an aisle seat? Not for $2,000, Ralph Nader tells American Airlines
  Maria Recio McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — As if bankrupt American Airlines didn't have enough problems, along comes consumer advocate Ralph Nader — who's really steamed that for a flight Saturday to Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, the only way for a non-frequent flyer to get an aisle seat was to pay full-fare $2,680 instead of the $700 price he'd already paid. Price of American Airlines ticket: $700. Cost of aisle seat: $2,680. Potential price for alienating Ralph Nader: priceless It was Nader who forced the creation of the "bumped passenger" rules — request for volunteers to give up their seats — when, yup, he got bumped years ago in a case that went to the Supreme Court. And it was Nader who beat back a lawsuit from MasterCard after parodying their "priceless" campaign during his 2000 presidential bid. This time, the persistent Nader got his aisle seat — at no extra cost — as a goodwill gesture from American. But he says, "They're not going to make me go away."
• Syria: On the Brink of War?
  Oleg DMITRENKO | 09.02.2012 | 00:00 The Syrian situation appears to be moving to the new qualitative stage – the brink of war. Those who plan attacking Iran see the Basar Assad’s overthrow as a preliminary step. The veto imposed by Russia and China on the UN Security Council’s draft resolution opening a way to intervention in Syria gave rise to a storm of intimidations by the USA and its allies against Moscow. It’s imperative to meet the assault with rapid and tough response because the intervention threat is not gone. Countries rather exotic for the world politics arena like Qatar, for instance, followed the example of the USA and Germany intimidating Russia.
• Profit Driven Prison Industrial Complex: The Economics of Incarceration in the USA
  For every 100,000 Americans, 743 citizens sit behind bars by Nile Bowie Global Research, February 6, 2012 For anyone paying attention, there is no shortage of issues that fundamentally challenge the underpinning moral infrastructure of American society and the values it claims to uphold. Under the conceptual illusion of liberty, few things are more sobering than the amount of Americans who will spend the rest of their lives in an isolated correctional facility – ostensibly, being corrected. The United States of America has long held the highest incarceration rate in the world, far surpassing any other nation. For every 100,000 Americans, 743 citizens sit behind bars. Presently, the prison population in America consists of more than six million people, a number exceeding the amount of prisoners held in the gulags of the former Soviet Union at any point in its history.
• Anniversaries From The “Unhistory”
  Noam Chomsky | Tuesday, February 7, 2012, 11:02 George Orwell coined the useful term “unperson” for creatures denied personhood because they don’t abide by state doctrine. We may add the term “unhistory” to refer to the fate of unpersons, expunged from history on similar grounds. The unhistory of unpersons is illuminated by the fate of anniversaries. Important ones are usually commemorated, with due solemnity when appropriate: Pearl Harbor, for example. Some are not, and we can learn a lot about ourselves by extricating them from unhistory. Right now we are failing to commemorate an event of great human significance: the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy’s decision to launch the direct invasion of South Vietnam, soon to become the most extreme crime of aggression since World War II. [Imperialism]
• Why the Neo-Con Turn?
  by ANDREW LEVINE Despite Rick Santorum’s successes this week in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri, the Republican establishment should still be able to get its way, notwithstanding Sheldon Adelson’s money and spirited resistance from the party’s base. The only contender for the Republican nomination whom they deem fit to do their bidding, Mitt Romney, will still, in all likelihood, become the Republican nominee. [Obama] [Neocon]
• Ron Paul’s strange claim about bases and troops overseas
  Posted by Glenn Kessler at 06:02 AM ET, 02/09/2012 “We don't need to pay all this money to keep troops all over the country, 130 countries, 900 bases. But also, just think, bringing all the troops home rather rapidly, they would be spending their money here at home and not in Germany and Japan and South Korea, tremendous boost to the economy.” — Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.), Feb. 7, 2012 This comment by GOP presidential aspirant Ron Paul after Tuesday night’s caucuses caught the ear of our editor. Paul’s phrasing could have left the impression that he thinks there are 900 bases in 130 countries, but normally he makes it clear he is talking about two different things. For instance, in the GOP debate Sept. 12, Paul said: “We're under great threat, because we occupy so many countries. We're in 130 countries. We have 900 bases around the world.” We will lay aside Paul’s loose definition of “occupy” — which denotes taking away a country’s sovereignty. You could also quibble with the concept of a “base,” but we’ll accept that he’s talking about any military facility. Are there any facts to back up these eye-popping figures? [Bases]
• Eliot Cohen and the Return of the Neocons
  Romney’s Man on Iran by MAX BLUMENTHAL In 2005, a group of graduate students at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced and International Studies (SAIS) participated in the school’s annual diplomatic simulation. The high-pressure scenario required the students to negotiate a resolution to a standoff with a nuclear-armed Republic of Pakistan. Mara Karlin, a student known for her hawkish politics on Israel and the Middle East, played President of the United States. Though most of the participants were confident they could head off a military conflict with diplomatic measures, Karlin jumped the gun. According to a former SAIS student, not only did Karlin order a nuclear strike on Pakistan, she also took the opportunity to nuke Iran. Her classmates were shocked. It was the first time in 45 years that a simulation concluded with the deployment of a nuclear weapon. [Neocon]
• Threat Assessment Report: US Vision
  Andrei AKULOV | 08.02.2012 | 08:05 A few days ago US Director of National Intelligence (DNI), General James Clapper, accompanied by the chief of the CIA, General David Petraeus and FBI director Robert Mueller, gave Congress their annual assessment of the world’s security situation. The report on the world threats is a result of many months of work carried out by 16 intelligence services. The 30-page unclassified review of the state of the world presented the vision of global trends along with threats and challenges the USA faces in 2012. The core idea is that there is no single major adversary, the treats are multiple and versatile. Mr. Clapper also noted the rising volatility in the Middle East and North Africa after the popular uprisings of the Arab Spring, increasing threats of cyberattacks against government and private business computer systems, continued tensions with North Korea over its nuclear program and rising drug-fueled violence in Mexico and Central America that threatens to spill over the border. [US global strategy]
• Oil war in South Atlantic: Great Britain vs. Latin America
  Nil NIKANDROV | 07.02.2012 | 00:00 Comments: 1 Buenos-Aires and other cities of Argentina have many monuments dedicated to the officers and men, who died on the Malvinas Islands. Hundreds of shields along the Argentinean roads carry a single line: Las Malvinas son Argentinas (Las Malvinas belong to Argentina). All the participants of that war of a long ago are regarded as national heroes… At present a new escalation of tension between Argentina and Great Britain is being intensively discussed in the media. Does it mean that Las Malvinas (the Folkland Islands for Great Britain) may become the theater of war again? In the current situation a new war may become even fiercer – the reserves of the oil and gas fields which were discovered on the shelf of the archipelago are comparable with the reserves of the oil fields in the North Sea. The British experts, who estimate the reserves at 60 billion barrels, are probably lowering the real figure in order not to tease Argentine people. Since it won independence in the early 19th century Argentina has always considered the Malvinas to be its territory. The archipelago’s geographical location close to Argentina, the history of economic development, the fight for keeping it an integral part of the country all these factors linked with the unsolved Malvinas dispute strengthen patriotism of Argentine people. Argentina has always seen Great Britain’s capture of the archipelago in 1833 as an act of colonial plunder. [Oil] [Territorial disputes]
• CIA digs in as Americans withdraw from Iraq, Afghanistan
  By Greg Miller, Wednesday, February 8, 1:13 PM The CIA is expected to maintain a large clandestine presence in Iraq and Afghanistan long after the departure of conventional U.S. troops as part of a plan by the Obama administration to rely on a combination of spies and Special Operations forces to protect U.S. interests in the two longtime war zones, U.S. officials said. U.S. officials said that the CIA’s stations in Kabul and Baghdad will probably remain the agency’s largest overseas outposts for years, even if they shrink from record staffing levels set at the height of American efforts in those nations to fend off insurgencies and install capable governments. The withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq in December has moved the CIA’s emphasis there toward more traditional espionage — monitoring developments in the increasingly antagonistic government, seeking to suppress al-Qaeda’s affiliate in the country and countering the influence of Iran. [CIA]
• How the War Was Lost
  February 06, 2012 14“The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100 billion a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all.” by PATRICK COCKBURN The United States’ announcement that it plans to end the combat role of its troops in Afghanistan earlier than expected, and before the end of next year, is a crucial milestone in the international forces’ retreat from the country. Coming after the French decision to go early, the US move looks like part of a panicky rush for the exit. More important, Afghans like to bet on winners, and the US action will convince many that these are increasingly likely to be the Taliban and Pakistan rather than the Afghan government. No wonder NATO officials looked so anxious as they pretended that the US action had not come as a nasty surprise. [Afghanistan] [Decline] [Pacification]
• Congressional earmarks sometimes used to fund projects near lawmakers' properties
  By David S. Fallis, Scott Higham and Kimberly Kindy, Published: February 7 A U.S. senator from Alabama directed more than $100 million in federal earmarks to renovate downtown Tuscaloosa near his own commercial office building. A congressman from Georgia secured $6.3 million in taxpayer funds to replenish the beach about 900 feet from his island vacation cottage. A representative from Michigan earmarked $486,000 to add a bike lane to a bridge within walking distance of her home. Thirty-three members of Congress have directed more than $300 million in earmarks and other spending provisions to dozens of public projects that are next to or within about two miles of the lawmakers’ own property, according to a Washington Post investigation. [Corruption]
• New sanctions on Iran constrict trade flows to Asia
  8:01am EST By Lucy Hornby BEIJING (Reuters) - Trade between Asia and Iran is likely to slow as new U.S. sanctions make payments more difficult, traders said Tuesday, although the more determined can still find a route through Middle Eastern intermediaries. Sunday, U.S. President Barack Obama authorized new measures which extend sanctions to all Iranian financial institutions and require financial institutions doing business in the United States to block and freeze transactions having a suspected link to Iran. [Sanctions] [Unintended consequences] [Tribute]
• Exclusive: Iran defaults on rice payments to India
  Mon, Feb 6 2012 By Ratnajyoti Dutta and Mayank Bhardwaj NEW DELHI | Tue Feb 7, 2012 10:54am EST NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Iranian buyers have defaulted on payments for about 200,000 tonnes of rice from their top supplier India, exporters and rice millers said on Tuesday, a sign of the mounting pressure on Tehran from a new wave of Western sanctions. The default prompted the head of the All India Rice Exporters' Association to call on members to stop rice exports to Iran based on credit, which would be a fresh blow to a country where imports of staple foods are already being hampered by sanctions. "It is a serious issue and we do not rule out further payment defaults by Iran," said Vijay Setia, the association's president. [Sanctions] [Food]
• Iraq War Crimes: Haditha: Another Small Massacre – No One Guilty
  by Felicity Arbuthnot Global Research, February 4, 2012 “We gather tonight knowing that this generation of heroes has made the United States safer and more respected round the world.” (President Barack Obama, State of the Union address, 24th January 2012.) On the 24th January, the day President Obama delivered his last State of the Union speech to Congress before the election, citing the: “selflessness and teamwork of America’s Armed Forces (their) focus on the mission at hand”, the “selfless” Staff Sgt., Frank Wuterich, leader of the massacre at Haditha, in Iraq, became the seventh soldier to walk free - from the mass murder of twenty four unarmed men, women and children, in three homes and a taxi. It was another chilling, ruthless, cold blooded, up to five hour rampage, revenge for the death a colleague, in a roadside bomb - which had nothing to do with the rural families that paid the price. The youngest to die was one year, the oldest was seventy six year old, wheelchair-bound amputee, Abdul Hamid Hassan Ali. He died with nine rounds in the chest and abdomen. Other children who died were aged 3,4,5,8,10 and 14. [War crimes]
• Obama gives blessing to a super PAC
  By Dan Eggen, Published: February 7Fearing a tide of spending by outside conservative groups, President Obama is giving his blessing to a pro-Democratic Party “super PAC” that will work to help his reelection, his campaign said late Monday. Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said in a message to supporters that “our campaign has to face the reality of the law as it stands,” which he said gives a large financial advantage to Republicans and their allied groups. Messina said Obama will throw his support to Priorities USA Action, a super PAC founded by two former White House aides that until now has been unable to match its conservative competitors in fundraising. .“We can’t allow for two sets of rules in this election whereby the Republican nominee is the beneficiary of unlimited spending and Democrats unilaterally disarm,” Messina wrote. [US_election12] [Finance] [Corruption]
• Double veto on regime change in Syria
  Globaltimes.cn | February 05, 2012 11:35 By Globaltimes.cn Russia and China on Saturday joined hands again since October last year to block a UN resolution on Syria. Russia and China used double veto to block a UN Security Council resolution on Syria, which they deemed not the best choice to promote peace in the Middle East country. [UNUS]
• Egypt files criminal charges against NGO workers, including 19 Americans
  Hannah Allam McClatchy Newspapers CAIRO — Egyptian investigators filed criminal charges Sunday against at least 40 international civil society workers, reportedly including the son of a U.S. Cabinet secretary, in a controversial case that could cost the ruling generals millions of dollars in U.S. aid. Nineteen Americans are among the employees of nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs, referred to trial on charges of involvement in banned activities and receiving foreign funds illegally, according to state media. The other defendants are Egyptians, Serbs, Germans and Arabs from other countries, according to news reports. All of them face a travel ban preventing them from leaving Egypt. [NGO] [Subversion] [Client]
• Syria and UNSC: New Provocation against Russia
  Alexander MEZYAEV | 06.02.2012 | 00:00 On February 4 the UN Security Council (UNSC) held a new session devoted to Syria. This time the targets of the strike were Russia and China. It was done in an open and demonstrative way. The provocative skills become more and more honed. This time around the number of the draft resolution sponsors was not four (like in October 2011) but nineteen. Besides seven Security Council members (the USA, France, Great Britain, Togo, Portugal, Germany, Colombia) there were twelve more “co-authors”: Morocco (the official author of the draft), Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Oman, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Turkey, Egypt, Tunisia, and even Libya. An attempt was made to present the draft as “an all Arabs stance”. The draft resolution was supported by thirteen Council members, two permanent members – Russia and China voted against it. What strikes an eye is that no one abstained. It means that exerting pressure on all those, who dared, even inertly, to resist it in October, brought results. For instance, two BRICS members, India and South Africa, who abstained in October, voted “yes” this time. “It’s nice to see” they didn’t become co-authors of the draft. Besides all new five Council members joining “the strong of the world” since January 1, 2012: Azerbaijan, Guatemala, Pakistan, Togo and Morocco voted for it. [NCW]
• Egypt to prosecute Americans, including Sam LaHood, in NGO probe
  By Ernesto Londoño and William Wan, Monday, February 6, 3:42 AM CAIRO — Nineteen Americans will face criminal charges as part of a probe of the funding of pro-democracy groups, Egyptian officials announced Sunday, a provocative move that could deprive Egypt of crucial aid from the United States and upend one of Washington’s most important bilateral relationships. The development added pressure to an already strained relationship between Egypt’s ruling generals and the Obama administration. The targets of the investigation include well-connected American groups, among them one led in Cairo by Sam LaHood, son of U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. Sam LaHood reportedly was among those facing charges. U.S. officials have sternly warned Cairo in recent days that the roughly $1.5 billion in aid earmarked for Egypt this year could be withheld if the politically charged investigation isn’t resolved quickly. But the tone of Sunday’s announcement suggested the Egyptian government is doubling down on what has become a high-stakes diplomatic dispute. [Client] [NGO]
• Military preparedness does not come cheap
  By Gordon England, Monday, February 6, 2:27 PM Gordon England served twice as secretary of the Navy in the George W. Bush administration and as deputy defense secretary under Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates. Here’s something for critics of the country’s defense budget to ponder: After I was confirmed as secretary of the Navy in May 2001, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld asked me and the other service secretaries to work with Congress to gain approval for a pending supplemental appropriation to the defense budget. This was not a war supplemental; it was still four months before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The Pentagon was simply running out of money. [MISCOM] [Threat] [Military expenditure]
• That “Disgusting” “Travesty” Over Syria at the UN
  What went down at the UN: As a riposte to the Arab League initiated, US/EU backed “Assad must step down” resolution, Russia proposed a resolution calling on both sides to pull back forces and negotiate. Pretty reasonable proposal. But reasonableness is not part of the program on Syria. Instead, a Security Council vote was called on the West's proposal, even though everyone knew it was headed for a veto. Not just as a gratifying piece of “moral outrage theater” designed to embarrass the Russians and Chinese. The Gulf and Western powers wanted to advertise, no, make that provoke, a failure at the United Nations. They got it when Russia and China, as promised, vetoed a resolution they considered one-sided. Even though the resolution had been advertised as precluding armed intervention, i.e. so toothless as to be meaningless, it was paradoxically trumpeted as “the last chance” for peace. What it really means is that, with the UN rejected as a suitable venue for great power diplomacy, it’s open season on Syria. Time to crank up another extra-UN “coalition of the willing” (Iraq-speak) or “contact group on Syria” (Libya-speak). In fact, the process has already started. Basically, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, France, Turkey whoever can now meddle in Syria with cash and arms to their heart’s content. My personal feeling: the United States is pushing regime collapse in Syria (I’m not even going to dignify the process with “regime change”) as a consolation prize to the Gulf states for the US not going all out to start a war with Iran. Assad’s scalp on the GCC’s belt will have to do for now. A while back, I wrote that the people’s revolution in Syria had failed; and the rebellion would now have to make do with whatever nation the GCC, the US, the EU, and Turkey decide to give them. I’ve got a feeling that, beyond the full-time insurrectionists and propagandists of the SNC, the people of Syria are not going to be happy with the increasingly militarized, bloody, and divisive rebellion executed in their name, accompanied by the high-minded bleating of the neo-liberal interventionists. To me, that’s “disgusting” and a “travesty”
• Russia, China use double veto to block UN draft on Syria
  Xinhua | February 05, 2012 08:39 By Agencies Russia and China on Saturday joined hands in vetoing an Arab-European draft resolution which backs an Arab League plan to promote a regime change in Syria. It was the second time since October 2011 that Russia and China used double veto to block a UN Security Council resolution on Syria, which they deemed not the best choice to promote peace in the Middle East country. The unadopted draft resolution meant to say that the Security Council "fully supports" the January 22 Arab League plan to ask Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down, one of the major stumbling blocks in pre-vote consultations which Russia strongly opposed. The draft also urged efforts to "facilitate a Syrian-led political transition to a democratic, plural political system ... including through commencing a serious political dialogue between the Syrian government and the whole spectrum of the Syrian opposition." [UNUS]
• Robert Fisk: Syria is used to the slings and arrows of friends and enemies
  Bashar al-Assad is clinging to power despite the slow growth of a civil war. But if the regime should survive, what sort of country will it rule? Robert Fisk Wednesday 01 February 2012 The violence grows worse. The Arab League throws up its hands in despair. Madame Clinton may huff and puff at the United Nations. But the Syrian regime and the stalwarts of the old Baath party don't budge. Only the Arabs are unsurprised. For Syria – the "Um al-Arabia wahida", the Mother of One Arab People, as the Baathists would have it – is a tough creature, its rulers among the most tenacious in the Middle East, used to the slings and arrows of their friends as well as their enemies. Syria's "No" to anything but total Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights in return for peace is almost as famous as De Gaulle's "No" to British entry to the European Union.
• Russia as Smokescreen Cynicism Around Syria
  by VIJAY PRASHAD Rehearsed statements filled the stale air of the UN Security Council on the last day of January. The Arab League’s Nabil el-Araby pleaded with the Council to adopt a draft resolution on Syria furnished by the Moroccan delegation to the UN. The Moroccan resolution is based on a report by the Arab League’s human rights mission to Syria. This draft called for an immediate cessation of violence in Syria and a national dialogue. “We are attempting to avoid any foreign intervention,” el-Araby told the Council, “especially military intervention.” [US global strategy] [Israel] [Syria]
• Russia, China veto U.N. resolution on Syria
  By Colum Lynch, Updated: Sunday, February 5, 8:50 AM UNITED NATIONS — Russia and China on Saturday vetoed a Western and Arab-sponsored U.N. resolution condemning Syria’s violent repression of anti-government demonstrators, throwing their prestige and power behind President Bashar al-Assad as he intensifies a military operation aimed at crushing the 10-month-old uprising. The Russian and Chinese stance came as a blow to U.S. and European efforts to rally behind an Arab League plan that would require Assad to step down, making way for a democratically elected unity government with a leader commading support from both the government and the opposition. [UNUS] [Resurgence]
• Their vigor unflagging, Russians protest
  Ivan Sekretarev/AP - Demonstrators braving bitterly cold weather attend a massive protest against Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's rule in Moscow on Saturday. Text Size PrintE-mailReprintsBy Will Englund and Kathy Lally, Updated: Sunday, February 5, 6:24 AM MOSCOW — Tens of thousands of Russians embraced the numbing cold and marched to a frozen riverbank near the Kremlin on Saturday, demonstrating their determination to keep up the pressure on Vladimir Putin for fair elections and honest government. Two months after disputed parliamentary balloting ignited Russia’s first significant protest movement in more than a decade, Saturday’s turnout showed that the demonstrators are not fading away. .In size, the rally was in the same ballpark as two large demonstrations in December; the police said 36,000 came out, the organizers said 120,000. [Media] [Putin]
• Currency Warfare: What are the Real Targets of the E.U. Oil Embargo against Iran?
  by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya Global Research, January 31, 2012 Strategic Culture Foundation - 2012-01-30 Against whom is the European Union’s so-called “oil embargo on Iran” really aimed at? This is an important geo-strategic question. Aside from rejecting the new E.U. measures against Iran as counter-productive, Tehran has warned the member states of the European Union that the E.U. oil embargo against Iran will hurt them and their economies far more than Iran. Tehran has thus warned the leaders of the E.U. countries that the new sanctions are foolish and against their national and bloc interests. But is this correct? At the end of the day, who will benefit from the chain of events that are being set into motion? [Iran] [Reserve]
• Robert Kelley: Nuclear arms programme charge against Iran is no sure thing
  "I regret now that ElBaradei did not speak out more vehemently...about the falsification of evidence" The conflict between Iran and the West just keeps heating up, with the Iranians announcing earlier this month that they had begun to enrich uranium at a second major facility, Fordo, located in a well-defended tunnel complex outside the city of Qom. Given the high stakes, it is valuable to take another look at the main source of the tension: Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons programme. That this enterprise is active is widely considered a given in the United States. In fact, the evidence, described in a report issued in November 2011 by the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Yukiya Amano, is sketchy. Furthermore, the way the data has been presented produces a sickly sense of déjà vu. As a member of the IAEA Iraq Action Team in 2003, I learned first hand how withholding the facts can lead to bloodshed. [Disinformation]
• SYRIA. TEXT OF LEAKED ARAB LEAGUE MISSION REPORT Reveals Media Lies Regarding Syria
  Commentary by Michel Chossudovsky Global Research, February 1, 2012 Global Research Editor's Note We bring to the attention of our readers the Observers' Mission Report of the League of Arab States to Syria. The report acknowledges the existence of "an armed entity" involved in the killings of civilians and police as well as the conduct of terrorist acts, which in turn have contributed to triggering actions by government forces. The Report refers to "armed opposition groups" as well as to the "Free Syrian Army", both of which, according to the AL Mission, are involved in the deliberate killing of innocent civilians: [Syria] [Disinformation]
• The Health Care Racket
  by Ralph Nader Looking at millions of individual bills that makeup the 2.7 trillion dollars of annual health care costs opens a gigantic window on the massive waste, redundancy, profiteering, fraud and sometimes criminal over-billing. Here is a partial example of what I mean, in the words of Philip M. Boffey, the estimable science writer for the New York Times: “Why does an appendectomy in Germany cost roughly a quarter what it costs in the United States? ($3,285 compared to $13,123). Or an MRI scan cost less than a third as much, on average, in Canada? ($304 compared to $1,009). “Americans continue to spend more on health care than patients anywhere else. In 2009, we spent $7,960 per person, twice as much as France, which is known for providing very good health services. And for all that spending, we get very mixed results—some superb, some average, some inferior—compared with other advanced nations.” [Health]
• White House scrambles to ease fallout from Panetta's Afghanistan comments
  Jonathan S. Landay and Nancy A. Youssef McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — The Obama administration scrambled Thursday to tamp down the fallout out from Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's surprise announcement that the United States would end its combat role in Afghanistan a year earlier than expected — a revelation that heightened confusion over U.S. strategy and stoked Afghan distrust of American intentions. The U.S. decision also could weaken the administration's hand as it tries to pressure the Taliban into peace talks by confirming to insurgent leaders that they can hold out until the U.S. combat mission draws to a close in December 2014, several current and former U.S. and Afghan officials warned. Panetta's remarks reflect a White House desire — in part driven by election-year politics — to hasten an end to the increasingly unpopular decade-old war that has claimed hundreds of American lives and cost billions of dollars amid demands for reducing federal spending. [US_election12] [Domestic] [Strategic incoherence]
• Economics 101
  by Paul Craig Roberts Last Friday (January 27) the US Bureau of Economic Analysis announced its advance estimate that in the last quarter of 2011 the economy grew at an annual rate of 2.8% in real inflation-adjusted terms, an increase from the annual rate of growth in the third quarter. Good news, right? Wrong. If you want to know what is really happening, you must turn to John Williams at shadowstats.com. What the presstitute media did not tell us is that almost the entire gain In GDP growth was due to “involuntary inventory build-up,” that is, more goods were produced than were sold. Net of the unsold goods, the annualized real growth rate was eight-tenths of one percent. And even that tiny growth rate is an exaggeration, because it is deflated with a measure of inflation that understates inflation. The US government’s measure of inflation no longer measures a constant standard of living. Instead, the government’s inflation measure relies on substitution of cheaper goods for those that rise in price. In other words, the government holds the measure of inflation down by measuring a declining standard of living. This permits our rulers to divert cost-of-living-adjustments that should be paid to Social Security recipients to wars of aggression, police state, and banker bailouts. When the methodology that measures a constant standard of living is used to deflate nominal GDP, the result is a shrinking US economy. [Decline] [Statistics] [Spin] [offshoring]
• Egypt football match violence: dozens dead and hundreds injured
  At least 74 people die after clashes break out at game in Port Said between local club Al-Masry and Cairo side Al-Ahly Abdel-Rahman Hussein in Cairo The Guardian, Thursday 2 February 2012 Article history Dozens dead in Egypt football clashes. Link to this video At least 74 people have died and hundreds are injured after clashes broke out at a football match in Port Said between Cairo club Al-Ahly and local club Al-Masry, government officials said.
  Chants rang out against the ministry of interior and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. One Al-Ahly fan, Khaled Gad, told the Guardian: "What's upsetting is the huge lapse in security, which I feel is purposeful on the part of the interior ministry and the military." Chants of "down with military rule" were sung by the supporters.
• TeleSur closely watched by U.S.
  Nil NIKANDROV | 02.02.2012 | 00:00 The Latin American TV channel TeleSur (The New Television Station of the South) was launched in July of 2005. It became the first project of television broadcasting suggested by President Hugo Chavez. It took TeleSur nearly two years to have its own network of correspondents and develop a unique manner of informative journalism. From the very start, the Latin American audience was the channel’s key target group. Objective coverage of the region’s political, economic and cultural life has always been a priority for TeleSur. Very soon it became not just a catalyst for the integration process in the region but also a source of reliable and most up-to-date information about the situation in the neighborhood. TeleSur is headquartered in Caracas. The company is sponsored by Argentina, Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Uruguay and Venezuela, which views its spending on TeleSur as part of ‘international obligation’. [Media]
• A Modest Proposal:How Niall Ferguson Can Save the World from the Rabble Unfit to Rule
  An interesting conservative meme is bubbling to the surface in time for the 2012 presidential election. Call it “The Rabble Are Unfit to Rule.” In essence, it’s trying to turn the 99% doctrine on its head, saying “Yes, I am the 1%. Not just the richest 1%. I’m the best and smartest 1% too.” Making this argument on behalf of the 1% also provides the delicious side benefit of celebrating one’s own intellectual endowment. Niall Ferguson, history professor at Harvard University, set the argument forth in an article for Newsweek that, one year from now, may be remembered as the ultimate resume stain on his CV, or perhaps an opening salvo in the rich’s counterrevolution against the grasping poors.
• Why U.S. Needs Amphibious Skills
  February 01, 2012 By Rep. J. Randy Forbes Amphibious combat capabilities are vital to the U.S. military. This is no more so than in the Asia-Pacific region. “Amphibious warfare.” To most Americans, the term conjures up images from HBO’s The Pacific, where U.S. Marines assault the beaches of Pacific islands on their way to Tokyo. Sure, it served its purpose in World War II, but are we ever going to need to fight our way onto a beach again? A decade of combat in the Middle East has only strengthened the opinion that the Marine Corps may be a muscular instrument of warfare, but its amphibious tradition is now ancient history. Nothing could be further from the truth. Our Navy-Marine Corps team’s ability to conduct joint amphibious operations bestows the United States with a range of unique capabilities that will be in high demand in tomorrow’s uncertain security environment, specifically in the Indo-Pacific maritime region. [Amphibious] [US military] [China confrontation]
• “Long embargoes kill more people than brief wars”: The Ongoing War on Iran
  by PATRICK COCKBURN The way in which the growing confrontation with Iran is being sold by the US, Israel and West European leaders is deeply dishonest. The manipulation of the media and public opinion through systematic threat exaggeration is similar to the drum beat of propaganda and disinformation about Iraq’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction that preceded the invasion in 2003. The supposed aim of imposing sanctions on Iran’s oil exports and central bank, measures officially joined by the EU, is to force Iran to abandon its nuclear program before it reaches the point where it could theoretically build a nuclear bomb. Even Israel now agrees that Iran has not yet decided to do so, but the Iranian nuclear program is still being presented as a danger to Israel and the rest of the world. There are two other menacing parallels between the run-up to the Iraq war and what is happening now. The purported issue is the future of the Iranian nuclear program, but, for part of the coalition mustering against Iran, the real purpose is the overthrow of the Iranian government. The origin of the present crisis was the moves last November and December by the neoconservatives in the US, Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party and the Israel lobby in Washington to impose sanctions on Iranian oil exports and Iran’s central bank. These are very much the same people who targeted Iraq in the 1990s. They have been able to force the White House to adopt their program and it is now, in turn, being implemented by a European Union that naively sees sanctions as an alternative to military conflict. In reality, sanctions are likely to intensify the crisis, impoverish ordinary Iranians and psychologically prepare the ground for war because of the demonization of Iran. [Sanctions] [Iran]
• Egypt's crackdown on U.S. groups finds support at home
  Hannah Allam and Nancy A. Youssef McClatchy Newspapers CAIRO — The scenario is familiar to Egyptian political activists: Authorities harass pro-democracy groups, raid their offices, ban employees from travel and threaten criminal charges to smear them as foreign agents. Typically, the revolutionary set in Cairo would spring to the groups' defenses, with Twitter campaigns and rallies. However, there's been no such public response in the current drama involving American democracy-building groups, whose presence has long made a cross-section of Egyptians uncomfortable. The American groups' predicament has exposed the strain in U.S.-Egyptian relations since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak last year, with U.S. officials privately conceding that it's the most serious rupture in the bilateral relationship in three decades. While some U.S. officials expressed confusion at the actions of Egypt's ruling military generals — counterparts they once viewed as reliable allies — analysts see a calculated move to boost the military's credibility with the Egyptian public. Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/01/31/137466/egypts-crackdown-on-us-groups.html#storylink=cpy [Subversion] [Client]
• Iran, perceiving threat from West, willing to attack on U.S. soil, U.S. intelligence report finds
  By Greg Miller, Wednesday, February 1, 4:04 AM An assessment by U.S. spy agencies concludes that Iran is prepared to launch terrorist attacks inside the United States, highlighting new risks as the Obama administration escalates pressure on Tehran to halt its alleged pursuit of an atomic bomb. In congressional testimony Tuesday, U.S. intelligence officials indicated that Iran has crossed a threshold in its adversarial relationship with the United States. While Iran has long been linked to attacks on American targets overseas, U.S. officials said they see troubling significance in Tehran’s alleged role in a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington last year. Intelligence shows that Iran received foreign assistance to overcome key hurdles in acquiring technology that could lead to a nuclear weapon, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Highlights from a series of potentially volatile incidents .U.S. officials said they have seen no intelligence to indicate that Iran is actively plotting attacks on U.S. soil. But Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. said the thwarted plot “shows that some Iranian officials — probably including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei — have changed their calculus and are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or perceived U.S. actions that threaten the regime.” [Double standards] [Inversion] [Terrorism]
• Clinton, diplomats urge Russia to allow Security Council vote on Syria
  By Colum Lynch and Will Englund, Wednesday, February 1, 9:08 AM UNITED NATIONS — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton joined Arab and European diplomats at the United Nations on Tuesday in a forceful attempt to win support for tougher action against Syria, even as Russia continued to indicate that it is unwilling to participate in a plan that would ease President Bashar al-Assad from power. The Security Council meeting provided an extraordinary diplomatic tableau, with Arab leaders publicly denouncing Assad’s government and calling for U.N. help in responding to Syria’s year-long crackdown on protesters. The show of support was calculated to boost the U.S.-backed effort to persuade Russia, Syria’s most powerful supporter, to permit the adoption of a Security Council resolution endorsing an Arab League plan for a political transition in Syria. .But, in Moscow, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Gennady Gatilov, stood firm, warning that such a resolution would put Syria on the “path to civil war.” [Syria] [Resurgence]
• The Iranian oil embargo blowback
  By Pepe Escobar If the sorry parade of European poodles - or what analyst Chris Floyd delightfully dubbed Europuppies - had any understanding of Persian culture, they would have known that blowback for their declaration of economic war in the form of an Iranian oil embargo would be nothing short of heavy metal. Better yet; death metal. The Majlis (Iranian parliament) will discuss this Sunday, in an open section, whether to cancel right away all oil exports to any European country that approved the embargo - according to Emad Hosseini, the rapporteur of the Majlis Energy Committee. And that comes with the requisite apocalyptic warning, relayed via the Fars news agency, courtesy of member of Parliament Nasser Soudani: "Europe will burn in the fire of Iran's oil wells." Soudani expresses the views of the whole Tehran establishment when he says that "the structure of their [Europe's] refineries is compatible with Iran's oil", and so Europeans have no alternative as replacement; the embargo "will cause an increase in oil prices, and the Europeans will be compelled to buy oil at higher prices"; that is, Europe "will be compelled to buy Iran's oil indirectly and through intermediaries". According to the EU sanctions package, all existing contracts will be respected only until July 1 - and no new contracts are allowed. Now imagine if this pre-emptive Iranian legislation is voted within the next few days. Crisis-hit Club Med countries such as Spain and especially Italy and Greece will be dealt a deathblow, having no time to find a possible alternative to Iran's light, high-quality crude. Saudi Arabia - whatever the oily spin in Western corporate media - does not have the spare capacity; and on top of it, the absolute priority for the House of Saud is high oil prices, so it can bribe - apart from repressing - its own population into forgetting about noxious Arab Spring ideas. So yes, already broken European economies would be forced to keep buying Iranian oil, but now from the winners of choice - middlemen vultures. [reserve][Unintended consequences]

• American workers for pro-democracy organizations in Cairo take shelter at U.S. embassy
  By Ernesto Londoño and William Wan, Monday, January 30, 6:06 AM CAIRO — The American Embassy in Cairo on Sunday took the highly unusual step of sheltering U.S. citizens employed by ­nongovernmental organizations amid fears that they could be detained as part of a crackdown on pro-democracy groups, according to U.S. officials and a former NGO official. The move comes a week after Sam LaHood, director of the International Republican Institute’s program in Egypt, was barred from boarding an international flight in Cairo. LaHood is the son of U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. Several other NGO workers later learned that they had also been barred from leaving the country. [NGO] [Outsourcing]
• NATO allies grapple with shrinking defense budgets
  By Craig Whitlock, Published: January 30 NATO allies are confronting a sustained weakening of the military alliance as ailing economies are forcing nearly all members, including the United States, to accelerate cuts to their defense budgets at the same time. The Pentagon’s recent decision to eliminate two of the Army’s four brigades in Europe is the latest blow to NATO’s military capabilities. It extends a year of grim announcements from members of the alliance that they can no longer afford their security commitments and that a long period of austerity is in the offing. Obama administration officials warned last year that European members of NATO could no longer expect the United States to shoulder a disproportionate burden of maintaining the 28-member alliance, the bedrock of trans-Atlantic security and diplomacy since the end of World War II. The United States accounts for 75 percent of all NATO defense spending, up from 50 percent during the Cold War. [Military expenditure]
• Key Reasons against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran
  Source: Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran (CASMII) Introduction The current US stand-off against Iran, like the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, was instigated by the neoconservatives of the Bush Administration based on their doctrine of “maintaining US pre-eminence, thwarting rival powers and shaping the global security system according to US interests” [1]. In the case of Saddam’s regime, its fictitious Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and its alleged links to Al-Qaida were used in the US propaganda war to first impose UN sanctions and eventually invade Iraq for a regime change. We now have a deja vu situation in which the US and its allies, prodded by Israel, demonize Iran as a threat to world security and accuse it of having a nuclear weaponisation programme. The same Israeli lobby and “hawks” who pushed for the invasion of Iraq under the Neo-Conservative Bush administration, are now succeeding in browbeating Obama administration on to the path of most crushing sanctions and military attack on Iran
• The Truth Behind the Coming "Regime Change" in Syria
  by Shamus Cooke Global Research, January 24, 2012 After meeting again to decide Syria's fate, the Arab League again decided to extend its "monitoring mission" in Syria. However, some Arab League nations under U.S. diplomatic control are clamoring for blood. These countries — virtual sock puppets of U.S. foreign policy — want to declare the Arab League monitoring mission "a failure,” so that military intervention — in the form of a no fly zone — can be used for regime change. The United States appears to be using a strategy in Syria that it has perfected over the years, having succeeded most recently in Libya: arming small paramilitary groups loyal to U.S. interests that claim to speak for the local population; these militants then attack the targeted government the U.S. would like to see overthrown — including terrorist bombings — and when the attacked government defends itself, the U.S. cries "genocide" or "mass murder,” while calling for foreign military intervention. This is the strategy that the U.S. is using to channel the Arab Spring into the bloody dead end of foreign military intervention. [Subversion] [Pretext] [Disinformation]
• Arabs want Syria's President Assad to go - opinion poll
  Monday, January 02 2012 Although the majority of Arabs believe Syria’s President Basher al-Assad should resign in the wake of the regime’s brutal treatment of protesters, fewer Syrians are supportive of an immediate leadership change. According to the latest opinion poll commissioned by The Doha Debates, Syrians are more supportive of their president with 55% not wanting him to resign. One of the main reasons given by those wanting the president to stay in power was fear for the future of the country. [Media]
• Russian Says Western Support for Arab Revolts Could Cause a ‘Big War’
  By ELLEN BARRY and MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ Published: January 18, 2012 MOSCOW — Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, warned Wednesday that outside encouragement of antigovernment uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa could lead to “a very big war that will cause suffering not only to countries in the region, but also to states far beyond its boundaries.” Mr. Lavrov’s annual news conference was largely devoted to a critique of Western policies in Iran and Syria, which he said could lead to a spiral of violence.
• ‘Foreign military intervention – threat to freedom’ – Syrian opposition
  19 January, 2012, 10:39 With the EU preparing fresh sanctions against Syria, Russia says it will block any UN Security Council move to authorize military intervention in the country. It insists that dialogue is the only way out of the ongoing violence. On Wednesday, British Prime Minister David Cameron denounced Syria’s president as a "wretched tyrant” killing “his own people." While Bashar al-Assad’s regime is under intense pressure from European countries and the US, dialogue between the conflicting sides is not expected to be easy. How do you stop a fractured country from falling apart… a country where some cities now resemble a war zone, where the economy is on its knees and where children are being shot dead on the street? That is the question everybody is desperately trying to answer right now. Some call for military intervention – others call for dialogue.
• Navy wants commando ‘mothership’ in Middle East
  Craig Whitlock, Published: January 28 The Pentagon is rushing to send a large floating base for commando teams to the Middle East as tensions rise with Iran, al-Qaeda in Yemen and Somali pirates, among other threats. In response to requests from U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, the Navy is converting an aging warship it had planned to decommission into a makeshift staging base for the commandos. Unofficially dubbed a “mothership,” the floating base could accommodate smaller high-speed boats and helicopters commonly used by Navy SEALs, procurement documents show. The strait, between the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf, is a strategic 20-mile-wide link for Gulf oil-exporting nations and the shipping lanes to oil-importing nations. .Special Operations forces are a key part of the Obama administration’s strategy to make the military leaner and more agile as the Pentagon confronts at least $487 billion in spending cuts over the next decade. [Amphibious] [Special forces]
• The Iran complex: why history matters
  Paul Rogers, 26 January 2012 A sense of enduring history and more recent experience of bitter conflict inform Iran's nuclear stance. To understand this could be a way to avoid war. The United States navy currently has two aircraft-carrier battle-groups on station in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea, led by the USS Abraham Lincoln and the USS Carl Vinson. Both deployments are said by official sources to be "routine", and it is true that there are often two battle-groups in the region during a changeover. In the present circumstances, however, both have just joined the fleet and are likely to be on station for several months (see "The thirty-year war: past, present, future", 20 January 2012). [Iran] [Inversion]
• Philippines studying U.S. offer to deploy spy planes
  By Manuel Mogato MANILA | Fri Jan 27, 2012 5:44am EST MANILA (Reuters) - The Philippines is considering a U.S. proposal to deploy surveillance aircraft on a temporary, rotating basis to enhance its ability to guard disputed areas in the South China Sea, the Philippine defense minister said on Friday. Ongoing talks in Washington on security ties between the two allies include plans to deploy more littoral combat ships and spy aircraft, said Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin. [Outsourcing] [China confrontation]
• Grading Obama's Foreign Policy
  Nine experts rate the president’s performance so far. [US global strategy]
• Obama's State of the Union Address: Militarism mixed with "Empty Liberal Rhetoric"
  America targets China. Financial crimes go unpunished by Richard Becker Global Research, January 26, 2012 "If we have to use force, it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future." Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, 1998 “America remains the one indispensable nation in world affairs—and as long as I’m President, I intend to keep it that way.” President Barack Obama, State of the Union message, 2012 President Barack Obama’s 2012 State of the Union message is an object lesson in contemporary U.S. class politics. Obama came into office three years ago on a wave of progressive hopes and even euphoria, very understandable given the bitter history of racism in this country and the fact that he was taking the place of his widely despised predecessor, George W. Bush. What the last three years as well as this speech have reaffirmed is that, regardless of the particular personality or characteristics of the person assuming the U.S. presidency, it is a job that comes with a specific job description: CEO of the imperialist ruling class. [Obama] [Continuity]
• State of the Apple (Rotten)
  by JEFF BALLINGER President Barack Obama blew a kiss to Apple in the State of the Union speech, praising the entrepreneurial spirit of its founder, the late Steve Jobs, as the cameras panned to his widow in the audience. Obama’s timing couldn’t be weirder. In the last month, Apple has released a damning audit which found that almost 100 of Apple’s supplier factories force more than half their workers to exceed a 60-hour week. The company announced responsibility for aluminum dust explosions in Chinese supplier factories that killed four workers and injured 77. Hundreds more in China have been injured cleaning iPad screens with a chemical that causes nerve damage. Apple was just subjected to a “This American Life” radio special reporting on its abysmal factory conditions in China (Jon Stewart gigged ‘em on the issue, too). Last weekend a front-page New York Times story asked why the company offshored all of its manufacturing, mostly to China. (The answer is found in the what its executives call “flexibility.” Tens of thousands of workers there live in factory dorms on-site, where, the Times reports, they are woken in the middle of the night and forced onto 12-hour shifts when Apple decides a product needs tweaking.) [Globalisation] [Labour]
• Polio in Afghanistan
  by CATHERINE WILKINSON, MD Polio forever seared two images in my mind. That may account for my reaction to the story in the January 17th New York Times, “After Years of Decline, Polio Cases in Afghanistan Triple in a Year”.
  Efforts to eradicate polio took flight after Jonas Salk developed the first effective vaccine in 1955. This despite years of being targeted by the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover as a suspected communist. It was in Czechoslovakia and Hungary that the first mass vaccination campaigns, using the Sabin oral vaccine, were carried out starting in 1959. Czechoslovakia had no reported polio after 1960 and Hungary was declared polio-free in 1969.
• Not A Peep About The President’s Praise of Military
  by LAURA FLANDERS The grades for the president’s State of the Union are in and the critics have been kind. In fact, it’s chilling to see just how few hits the President takes for couching his entire address in unqualified celebration of the US military. Speaking of the troops, Obama began: “At a time when too many of our institutions have let us down, they exceed all expectations.” [Militarisation]
• Nuclear Iran
  by ROBERT FISK Turning round a story is one of the most difficult tasks in journalism – and rarely more so than in the case of Iran. Iran, the dark revolutionary Islamist menace. Shia Iran, protector and manipulator of World Terror, of Syria and Lebanon and Hamas and Hezbollah. Ahmadinejad, the Mad Caliph. And, of course, Nuclear Iran, preparing to destroy Israel in a mushroom cloud of anti-Semitic hatred, ready to close the Strait of Hormuz – the moment the West’s (or Israel’s) forces attack. Given the nature of the theocratic regime, the repulsive suppression of its post-election opponents in 2009, not to mention its massive pools of oil, every attempt to inject common sense into the story also has to carry a medical health warning: no, of course Iran is not a nice place. But … Let’s take the Israeli version which, despite constant proof that Israel’s intelligence services are about as efficient as Syria’s, goes on being trumpeted by its friends in the West, none more subservient than Western journalists. The Israeli President warns us now that Iran is on the cusp of producing a nuclear weapon. Heaven preserve us. Yet we reporters do not mention that Shimon Peres, as Israeli Prime Minister, said exactly the same thing in 1996. That was 16 years ago. And we do not recall that the current Israeli PM, Benjamin Netanyahu, said in 1992 that Iran would have a nuclear bomb by 1999. That would be 13 years ago. Same old story. In fact, we don’t know that Iran really is building a nuclear weapon. [Iran] [Disinformation]
• In praise of … JB Priestley
  As a prose realist with strong leftwing politics, Priestley was more famous than George Orwell and is now back in the news Editorial guardian.co.uk, Thursday 26 January 2012 23.00 GMT Article history Ask people to name an outstanding prose realist of the 1930s and 40s, with strong leftwing politics, a piercing eye for social reportage and a unique line in imaginative fiction – and many will probably say George Orwell. Many fewer these days would cite the vastly talented JB Priestley (more famous in his day than Orwell), whose English Journey was the precursor of The Road to Wigan Pier, whose disjunctive "time" plays are at last being revived though his novels remain largely in eclipse, and whom Orwell secretly advised the Foreign Office to blacklist as too pro-communist.
• Egypt bars U.S. workers from travel, escalating crackdown
  Hannah Allam McClatchy Newspapers CAIRO — Egypt has barred at least 10 American and European civil society workers — including the son of a senior Obama administration official — from leaving the country in a sign that the ruling generals are extending their crackdown on foreign pro-democracy groups. Sam LaHood, the director of the Egyptian program of the Washington-based International Republican Institute and the son of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, said Thursday that four employees of the institute had been banned from traveling outside Egypt. He learned he was included when he was prevented from leaving via the Cairo airport Saturday. Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/01/26/137045/egypt-bars-us-workers-from-travel.html#storylink=cpy [NGO] [Client]
• Kristof and the Rescue Industry: The Soft Side of Imperialism
  by LAURA AGUSTÍN Reasons abound to be turned off by the New York Times columnist, Nicholas Kristof. He is too pleased with himself and demonstrates no capacity for self-reflection. He is too earnest. He claims to be in the vanguard of journalism because he tweets. He is said to be Doing Something about human suffering while the rest of us don’t care; he is smarmy. He doesn’t write particularly well. But most important, he is an apologist for a soft form of imperialism. [Manipulation]
• Batang Kali relatives edge closer to the truth about 'Britain's My Lai massacre'
  Key Malayan Emergency notes have been handed to families of the 24 unarmed victims of the December 1948 shootings Owen Bowcott guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 25 January 2012 15.51 GMT Article history Prisoners during the Malayan Emergency: the Foreign Office has produced documents about the deaths of 24 Malaysian men in 1948. Photograph: Jack Birns/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Image Lawyers representing relatives of 24 unarmed victims who died at Batang Kali, Malaysia, in December 1948 have finally been provided with key Foreign Office correspondence about past investigations and Cabinet Office guidance on when inquiries should be held. Even Buckingham Palace has been pulled into the furore surrounding the fate of the villagers, who were rounded up on a large rubber-tapping estate in the colonial government's counter-insurgency operation against communists, known historically as the Malayan Emergency. A petition to the Queen about the deaths has been handed to the British high commissioner in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, and the royal household has replied. The palace, however, has declined to release the text of the letter. The Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence have always insisted the villagers were shot while trying to escape detention. The incident has been described by some as the "British My Lai massacre", after the US troop killings in Vietnam. [Colonialism] [War crimes]
• SUPERPOWER: Behind the Scenes of America’s National Security Apparatus A not-to-be-missed feature documentary
  Global Research, January 31, 2012 - 2012-01-24 "The only thing new in the world is the history you don't know." -Harry S. Truman SUPERPOWER: A documentary film by Barbara-Anne Steegmuller WATCH THE OFFICIAL TRAILER ON GRTV SUPERPOWER is a comprehensive film that asks tough questions and goes behind the scenes of America’s national security apparatus and military actions. Far from a conspiracy film about the dangers of government secrets and regime change, this well-balanced film straddles the philosophical divide and allows viewers to understand the US quest for global dominance through economic and military strategy that is exposed through review of historical events, personal interviews, and analysis of US foreign policy. Featuring interviews with Michel Chossudovsky, Bill Blum, Chalmers Johnson and Noam Chomsky, among many others. [Imperialism]
• Full text of the State of the Union speech
  McClatchy Newspapers Remarks of President Barack Obama, as prepared for delivery. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow Americans: Last month, I went to Andrews Air Force Base and welcomed home some of our last troops to serve in Iraq. Together, we offered a final, proud salute to the colors under which more than a million of our fellow citizens fought – and several thousand gave their lives. [Obama]
• In State of the Union, Obama warns economic disparity threatens middle class
  By Scott Wilson and David Nakamura, Wednesday, January 25, 12:06 PM President Obama warned the nation Tuesday that the decades-old promise of a secure and rising middle class is under threat because of growing disparities between the rich and everyone else in America. In an election-year State of the Union message that will likely serve as the template for the months of campaigning ahead, Obama outlined a series of steps that he believes will reinforce the tentative economic recovery, including proposals to eliminate tax incentives for companies to move jobs overseas, to make college more affordable and to expand help for credit-worthy homeowners looking to refinance mortgages at historically low interest rates. [Inequality] [Obama]
• Libyan government faces growing frustration
  By Alice Fordham, Wednesday, January 25, 2:21 AM BENGHAZI, Libya — As Libya’s interim government struggles to bring security, stability and democracy to the country, a burgeoning protest movement is rocking the fragile nation, venting grudges and challenging the legitimacy of the ruling authorities. The movement is at its strongest in the eastern city of Benghazi, the cradle of the uprising that saw NATO-backed forces help end Moammar Gaddafi’s 42-year rule.
• Pentagon to cut Air Force’s pricey Global Hawk drone program; Navy’s will continue
  By Associated Press, Wednesday, January 25, 1:49 PM WASHINGTON — Officials say Pentagon budget cuts will end the Air Force’s long-range surveillance drone known as the Global Hawk, but keep the Navy’s version of the unmanned aircraft. Defense analyst Loren Thompson says defense officials have decided to rely on the less expensive, high-altitude U-2 spy plane, which has a shorter range but has been used in Asia, particularly to keep an eye on North Korea. Thompson, who is with the Virginia-based Lexington Institute, says the Global Hawk, which can stay airborne for 24 hours, would be more valuable as the Pentagon shifts focus to the vast Pacific region. Officials say that while Air Force Block 30 version is being cut, the Navy’s variant could be used by the Air Force. Global Hawks are made by Northrop Grumman Corp. [UAV] [Surveillance]
• War, War Crimes, Power and Justice: Toward a Jurisprudence of Conscience
  Richard Falk Ever since German and Japanese leaders were prosecuted, convicted, and punished after World War II at Nuremberg and Tokyo, there has been a wide split at the core of the global effort to impose criminal accountability on those who commit crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, and war crimes on behalf of a sovereign state. The law is always expected to push toward consistency of application as a condition of its legitimacy. In the setting of international criminality the greatest danger to widely shared values is posed by those with the greatest power and wealth, and it is precisely these leaders that are least likely to be held responsible or to feel threatened by the prospect of being charged with international crimes. The global pattern of enforcement to date has been one in which the comparatively petty criminals are increasingly held to account while the Mafia bosses escape almost altogether from existing mechanisms of international accountability. Such double standards are too rarely acknowledged in discussions of international criminal law nor are their corrosive effects considered, but once understood, it becomes clear that this pattern seriously compromises the claim that international criminal law is capable of achieving global justice. [War crimes] [Double standards]
• Gaddafi loyalists take back Bani Walid
  Reports say at least four people killed in clashes between besieged NTC forces and well-organised pro-Gaddafi fighters Chris Stephen in Tripoli, Luke Harding and agencies guardian.co.uk, Monday 23 January 2012 19.00 GMT Article history Abdul Hafez Ghoga has resigned as the NTC’s deputy leader after being manhandled at a protest in Benghazi. Photograph: Sabri Elmhedwi/EPA Fighters loyal to Muammar Gaddafi have seized back the town of Bani Walid and raised the late dictator's green flag, in a blow to Libya's struggling provisional government. Reports said at least four people were killed during clashes between besieged forces loyal to the ruling National Transitional Council (NTC) and armed and well-organised supporters of Gaddafi. "They control the town now. They are roaming the town," one militia member was quoted as saying of the pro-Gaddafi fighters, according to Reuters. [Libya] [Pacification]
• On current situation in Syria
  Boris DOLGOV | 24.01.2012 | 00:00 The current situation in Syria remains one of the most important components of the Middle Eastern and international policies. Using Syria’s domestic crisis and pursuing their own goals NATO’s leading states, Israel, Turkey and the monarchies of the Persian Gulf are trying to undermine the Syrian regime. Since the beginning of the crisis in Syria I have made two trips to that country as a member of international delegations in August 2011 and in January 2012. If we watch the dynamics of situation’s development over that period on the one hand we can state intensification of terrorist groups in Syria and on the other hand we see a broader people’s support of President Bashar Assad and a clear demarcation of political forces’ positions. [Syria] [Destabilisation]
• World's largest solar plant powers up
  Spanish venture is as big as 210 football pitches and has 600,000 mirrors. But there's a dark side Alasdair Fotheringham Sunday 01 January 2012 Just under a month ago, on an empty mountain plateau in Andalusia, the last of 600,000 parabolic mirrors were connected, and Andasol, the world's largest solar power station, become operational. It is, as it glints in the Spanish sun, a shining example – literally – of what renewable energy offers.
• With U.S. troops hardly gone, Iraq's government is coming apart
  Roy Gutman McClatchy Newspapers BAGHDAD — Faster than anyone expected, barely a month after the last U.S. troops left, Iraq's government appears to be coming apart, prompting fears that the country is headed for another round of sectarian strife. Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, a Shiite Muslim, is driving to consolidate control and sideline more secular politicians in a battle that increasingly appears to be a fight to the finish in which there can be no compromise Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/01/22/136579/with-us-troops-hardly-gone-iraqs.html#storylink=cpy [Fragmentation]
• VIPs tackle 2012 at Davos forum clouded by economic uncertainty _ and igloo protesters
  By Associated Press, Updated: Monday, January 23, 6:04 PM DAVOS, Switzerland — An igloo protest camp sprouting up amid $500-a-night hotels and security cordons at the Swiss resort of Davos seems to serve a warning to the world’s rich and powerful gathering here: Beware, or you might be sleeping in the snow next year, too. In many countries, prospects for prosperity are increasingly fragile. Trust in presidents and CEOs, and the systems they represent, is drying up. Uncertainty lurks for the eurozone, and for Afghanistan, Syria and North Korea as well.
• The World War on Democracy
  by John Pilger
  Global Research, January 19, 2012 Lisette Talate died the other day. I remember a wiry, fiercely intelligent woman who masked her grief with a determination that was a presence. She was the embodiment of people’s resistance to the war on democracy. I first glimpsed her in a 1950s Colonial Office film about the Chagos islanders, a tiny creole nation living midway between Africa and Asia in the Indian Ocean. The camera panned across thriving villages, a church, a school, a hospital, set in a phenomenon of natural beauty and peace. Lisette remembers the producer saying to her and her teenage friends, "Keep smiling girls!" [Bases][Imperialism]
• How the U.S. Manipulates Key U.N. Appointments
  By Thalif Deen Former secretary-general Boutros Boutros-Ghali has accused the U.S. of wielding a very heavy hand in internal U.N. affairs. Credit:UN Photo/Milton Grant UNITED NATIONS, Jan 19, 2012 (IPS) - When Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announces his new team of senior officials shortly, his appointments will be based not only on merit but also on demands made by the five big powers - the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia - as well as key donors who sustain U.N. agencies through voluntary contributions. The World Food Programme (WFP), one of the world's largest humanitarian agencies, will have a new head, come April, according to one of the first appointments announced early this week. Ertharin Cousin, a U.S. national, will be the new executive director in an organisation which in recent years has been dominated by the United States, the last two heads being Catherine Bertini and Josette Sheeran [UNUS]
• Iraq: Under Worse Management
  Just a month after the U.S. withdrawal, hopes for turning the country into an economic beacon are already in shambles Photograph by Elliott Woods By Elliott Woods January 23, 2012 Seif Abdel Sadeh’s eyes lolled as his brother tipped a cup of orange juice to his swollen lips. As he lifted his arm to push his brother’s hand away, he grimaced, agitating the charred skin on his face, causing still more pain. The day before, Seif, 18, was walking to his Sadr City high school when a bomb strapped to a motorcycle exploded. It shattered his left leg and sent so much shrapnel into his right leg that it had to be removed. The bomb that hit Seif that morning, and another that went off minutes later, killed a dozen Iraqis, mostly day laborers waiting to pick up work at a busy intersection on the road that connects Sadr City, a suburb of Baghdad, to the downtown expressway [Agency]
• The thirty-year war: past, present, future
  Paul Rogers, 20 January 2012 The prognosis of a thirty-year war that looked outlandish as Saddam's regime toppled then persuasive as Iraq's insurgency erupted now seems less plausible amid American forces' retreat. But two core issues continue to give it life. In early April 2003, United States troops were moving towards Baghdad in the early stages of the bombardment and occupation of Iraq. Their campaign was already facing many problems and intense fighting, but political leaders and media exuded confidence that the war would soon end. [US global strategy]
• The CIA’s Cassandras
  by GABRIEL KOLKO At no time has the U.S. based its foreign policies on facts — as opposed to its conceptions reliant on sheer wishes, interests, or pretensions, (its ambitions are often a mixture of all of these). Nor has it had fears that are warranted by reality. It has needs, whether economic or geopolitical. It has, however, often had the correct intelligence and the facts before it to warrant entirely different policies on its part. At the same time as it gets into tenuous military situations, situations it is often destined to lose and pay a great deal for while in the process of doing so, it employs people to produce rational analyses—which it then ignores. Why? The United States is scarcely alone in suffering from an analytic myopia or intelligence failures. The most important events in the world in the decades before 1945 were due to the actions of the Germans, French, Japanese, and English, who ripped traditional European and Asian societies apart; they were unprepared for the traumatic consequences of the two world wars they so blithely began, the results of which caught the simplified military strategies of the Germans, especially, by shock and uprooted a good part of the world —Europe, China, and the Middle East at least — in the process of making wars. [Intelligence]
• France threatens early withdrawal from Afghanistan
  By Edward Cody and Kevin Sieff, Saturday, January 21, 12:21 AM PARIS — France threatened Friday to unilaterally speed withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan, underlining growing doubts about coalition unity in the U.S.-led effort to leave behind a lasting government in Kabul after more than a decade of war. President Nicolas Sarkozy and key members of his government made the threat in a burst of anger over the killings of four French soldiers and the wounding of more than a dozen by a renegade Afghan soldier who turned an automatic rifle on his trainers Friday morning at a mountaintop base northeast of Kabul. .The attack, coming after a similar shooting less than a month ago, sabotaged confidence here in the training and transition effort that has become the top focus of U.S. and allied troops.
• False Flag
  A series of CIA memos describes how Israeli Mossad agents posed as American spies to recruit members of the terrorist organization Jundallah to fight their covert war against Iran. BY MARK PERRY | JANUARY 13, 2012 Buried deep in the archives of America's intelligence services are a series of memos, written during the last years of President George W. Bush's administration, that describe how Israeli Mossad officers recruited operatives belonging to the terrorist group Jundallah by passing themselves off as American agents. According to two U.S. intelligence officials, the Israelis, flush with American dollars and toting U.S. passports, posed as CIA officers in recruiting Jundallah operatives -- what is commonly referred to as a "false flag" operation. The memos, as described by the sources, one of whom has read them and another who is intimately familiar with the case, investigated and debunked reports from 2007 and 2008 accusing the CIA, at the direction of the White House, of covertly supporting Jundallah -- a Pakistan-based Sunni extremist organization. Jundallah, according to the U.S. government and published reports, is responsible for assassinating Iranian government officials and killing Iranian women and children. But while the memos show that the United States had barred even the most incidental contact with Jundallah, according to both intelligence officers, the same was not true for Israel's Mossad. The memos also detail CIA field reports saying that Israel's recruiting activities occurred under the nose of U.S. intelligence officers, most notably in London, the capital of one of Israel's ostensible allies, where Mossad officers posing as CIA operatives met with Jundallah officials. [Subcritical] [Israel] [Client] [Spin]
• Insiders Detail Obama Administration's Tough Choice About Iran
  Jan. 19, 2012 By Yochi J. Dreazen National Journal WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration is locked in a fierce internal debate about whether to order military strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities, a move that would represent a high-stakes gamble that Iran’s nuclear program could be destroyed without triggering a new Mideast war (see GSN, Jan. 18). High-level deliberations about issues as important as Iran are held behind closed doors in secure facilities at the White House and the Pentagon, rarely giving outsiders a view of various options under discussion. Now, however, competing essays by Matthew Kroenig and Colin Kahl, who both stepped down recently from jobs in the Pentagon’s Mideast policy shop, are offering an unusual look inside the White House deliberations about how far to go to stop Iran. With American-Iranian tensions rising by the day, the essays in Foreign Affairs -- one making the case for striking Iran and one making the case against -- illustrate why the U.S. and its allies are having such a difficult time deciding how to respond to Iran's ongoing progress toward building a nuclear bomb. The White House declined comment on the essays. [US global strategy] [Iran]
• Post-War Constitutions: Privatization and Empire-Building
  by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya Global Research, January 15, 2012 Eurasia - Rivista di studi Geopolitici, Vol. 23, No. 8 (May/August 2011):pp.45-52. ABSTRACT: The U.S.A. has re-written the constitution of vanquished nations since the Second World War. In the last two decades, however, Washington has managed to totally restructure vanquished states economically and politically by de-centralizing them and legalizing foreign tutelage over their political structure and their national economies. From the former Yugoslavia to Afghanistan and Iraq, this process has gone hand-in-hand with war and both an immediate and extended foreign military presence. In this regard the new national constitutions of these countries have been central to the process and opened the door for the integration of these states into Washington’s empire-building project.
  Under the new legal framework and constitutions established by Washington and its allies any central authority within the conquered countries are systematically eroded and devolved. The political sub-units of these countries, such as cities, counties, governorates, provinces, and regional political groupings are given increased autonomy, especially in regards to their trade and their relationships with the occupying powers. [US global strategy] [Imperialism] [Fragmentation]
• Barack Obama's presidency, three years on – is it time to give up hope?
  He promised radical change, a new kind of politics. Many one-time believers now say he has no stomach for a fight reddit this Comments (129) Jonathan Freedland guardian.co.uk, Thursday 19 January 2012 20.36 GMT Article history Barack Obama with his wife, Michelle, at the White House in December 2011. Photograph: Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images Three years ago to the day, Barack Hussein Obama stood before a crowd shivering in the frigid January air and took the oath of office that made him the 44th president of the United States. By some estimates, there were two million people thronging the National Mall in Washington that day, a human carpet stretching to the steps of the Capitol, to witness a moment many – perhaps most – never believed they would see: the inauguration of America's first black president. When Aretha Franklin, in a splendid hat, sang My Country, 'tis of Thee, the air filled with hope that this would be a moment of healing – of the immediate, bruising past of the Bush years, but also of the long history of racial division in America. Hopes, in other words, that were almost impossibly high. And these vaulted ambitions did not only apply to the vexed matter of race. Time magazine's cover featured a photo-montaged image merging Obama and Franklin Roosevelt, hailing "the New New Deal". There was a breathless expectation that Obama was poised to solve an economic crisis with a programme of investment and government activism that would not only put Americans back to work but rebuild the country, preparing it for a cleaner, greener future. And of course Obama would put aside the reckless, swaggering foreign policy of his predecessor, would reach out to the Muslim world and would doubtless replace discord with harmony across the globe. It was not just those who were there on that bright January morning who got caught up in the excitement of all this promise. Less than nine months later, the Nobel committee gave Obama its peace prize. Now all that seems a long time ago
  What explains these multiple failings? Are they the fault of Obama the man or of the system? [Obama]
• Britain admits 'fake rock' plot to spy on Russians
  Tony Blair's former aide Jonathan Powell says UK was behind plot to spy on Russians with device hidden in fake plastic rock Alexandra Topping and Miriam Elder in Moscow guardian.co.uk, Thursday 19 January 2012 08.49 GMT Britain was behind a plot to spy on Russians with a device hidden in a fake plastic rock, a former key UK government official has admitted. Jonathan Powell, former chief of staff to prime minister Tony Blair, admitted in a BBC documentary that allegations made by the Russians in 2006 - dismissed at the time - were in fact true. "The spy rock was embarrassing," he said in the BBC2 documentary series, Putin, Russia and the West. "They had us bang to rights. Clearly they had known about it for some time and had been saving it up for a political purpose." [Subversion]
• US Military Strategy – Is It Really New?
  Andrei AKULOV | 20.01.2012 | 00:00 The US military will be reshaped between now and 2020 with an emphasis on countering terrorism, maintaining a nuclear deterrent, protecting the U.S. homeland and «deterring and defeating aggression by any potential adversary». That’s what «Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense» new military strategy review says. The National Military Strategy is a supporting document based on National Security Strategy, a document prepared periodically by the administration for Congress which outlines the major national security concerns of the United States and ways the president plans to deal with them. The legal foundation for the document is spelled out in the Goldwater – Nichols Act. The document is general in content to be elaborated in supporting documents, the national military strategy in particular. At the beginning of 2012 President Obama unveiled the results of an eight-month defense strategy review giving guiding lines on cutting hundreds of billions dollars from previously planned Pentagon’ spending over the coming decade. The eight-page document contained no details about how broad concepts for reshaping the military - such as focusing more on Asia and less on Europe - will translate into cuts. Since 9/11 the Defense budget grew by leaps and bounds. Over the next decade, the budget will grow less, but will still go up, and it will still be larger than it was at the end of the Bush administration. [US global strategy]
• Terror Attacks, U.S.-Israeli War Games Raise the Prospects for War with Iran
  by Tom Burghardt Global Research, January 14, 2012 Antifascist Calling... Amid rising tensions over bogus Western claims that Iran plans to build nuclear weapons, upcoming American war games with Israel have the potential of escalating into a deadly confrontation. A miscalculation, or deliberate provocation by the West designed to maneuver the Iranians into "firing the first shot," could have disastrous consequences far beyond the confines of the Persian Gulf. That provocation wasn't long in coming. Despite an agreement reached by Iran with the P 5+1 group of nations (Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany), to restart talks in Turkey over the nuclear issue, the CIA-Mossad-MEK terror campaign took a dark turn this week; a sign that the imperialist powers, spearheaded by the United States, aim to scupper negotiations even before they start. [Iran]
• Iraq Lashes Out at Turkey as Sunni-Shiite Rift Grows
  By JOE PARKINSON in Istanbul and SAM DAGHER in Erbil, Iraq Iraq summoned Turkey's ambassador on Monday to protest what it called Ankara's meddling in Iraqi politics, the latest sign of a rising rift between Sunni Turkey and its Shiite neighbors. Iraq's government was angered by recent warnings from Turkish leaders that Sunni-Shiite tensions in Iraq could engulf the entire Islamic world, as well as by Turkey's support for a Sunni rival to Iraq's Shiite prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki. "Turkey interferes by backing certain political figures and blocs" in Iraq, Mr. Maliki told The Wall Street Journal last month. "I believe Turkey is unqualified to intervene in the region's flash points." In a weekend interview with Arabic language Al-Hurra TV station, Mr. Maliki went further. "Unfortunately, Turkey is playing a role that could lead to a catastrophe or civil war in the region," he said. Iraqi officials were particularly angered by public Turkish comments on the case of Tariq al-Hashemi, Iraq's Sunni vice president. Mr. Hashemi took refuge in Kurdish-ruled northern Iraq late last year, after the government accused him of leading death squads against Shiites. But analysts say the rapid deterioration of relations between Ankara and Baghdad also reflects the wider conflicting interests of Sunni Turkey and Shiite Iran in the wake of the U.S. drawdown from Iraq and of the Arab Spring, now lapping at the borders of both Iraq and Turkey, in Syria. [Sectarianism]
• Banking on Sanctions
  by Pepe Escobar Let’s start with red lines. Here it is, Washington’s ultimate red line, straight from the lion’s mouth. Only last week Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said of the Iranians, “Are they trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No. But we know that they’re trying to develop a nuclear capability. And that’s what concerns us. And our red line to Iran is do not develop a nuclear weapon. That’s a red line for us.” How strange, the way those red lines continue to retreat. Once upon a time, the red line for Washington was “enrichment” of uranium. Now, it’s evidently an actual nuclear weapon that can be brandished. Keep in mind that, since 2005, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has stressed that his country is not seeking to build a nuclear weapon. The most recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iran from the U.S. Intelligence Community has similarly stressed that Iran is not, in fact, developing a nuclear weapon (as opposed to the breakout capacity to build one someday). What if, however, there is no “red line,” but something completely different? Call it the petrodollar line. [Iran] [Sanctions] [Reserve]
• In Syria, world inaction fuels armed revolt
  By Liz Sly, Thursday, January 19, 2:52 PM BEIRUT — Growing indications that a deeply divided international community is either unable or unwilling to intervene to halt the violence in Syria are fueling an armed rebellion that risks plunging the country, and perhaps the region, into a wider war. The slide toward all-out conflict seemed to accelerate Wednesday after the opposition claimed that Syrian government forces had been forced to accept a cease-fire negotiated with rebel soldiers in the town of Zabadani, near the Lebanese border. Nov. 15, 2011: Syria may not yet be fighting a full-blown civil war, but signs are pointing that way. While some Syrian soldiers are defecting, others continue to kill opposition protesters. .Rebel soldiers who identified themselves as members of the Free Syrian Army and a Zabadani activist said loyalist soldiers retreated Wednesday afternoon, five days after launching an offensive to quell dissent in Zabadani. The mountain resort 20 miles north of Damascus is one of as many as three dozen places in Syria that the opposition says have slipped beyond government control in recent weeks. [Syria] [Media] [inversion]
• Kodak, photography pioneer, files for bankruptcy protection
  By Dawn McCarty and Beth Jinks, Updated: Thursday, January 19, 7:24 PM Jan. 19 (Bloomberg) --- Eastman Kodak Co., the photography pioneer that introduced its $1 Brownie Camera more than a century ago, filed for bankruptcy court protection from creditors Thursday after consumers worldwide transitioned from film to digital technology. The Rochester, New York-based company, which traces its roots to 1880, listed assets of $5.1 billion and debt of $6.8 billion in Chapter 11 documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. “They were a company stuck in time,” said Robert Burley, an associate professor at Toronto’s Ryerson University who has photographed shuttered Kodak facilities in the U.S., Canada and France since 2005. “Their history was so important to them, this rich century-old history when they made a lot of amazing things and a lot of money along the way. Now their history has become a liability.”
• U.S. losing high-tech manufacturing jobs to Asia
  By Peter Whoriskey, Wednesday, January 18, 12:23 PM The United States lost more than a quarter of its high-tech manufacturing jobs during the past decade as U.S.-based multinational companies placed a growing percentage of their research-and-development operations overseas, the National Science Board reported Tuesday. The rapid expansion of science and engineering capabilities in China and its neighbors pose a more formidable economic challenge to the United States, according to the group, with Asia rapidly boosting the number of engineering doctorates it produces and research dollars it spends. [Decline] [China rising] [R&D]
• WAR PLAN IRAN: Dispelling the Lies, Telling the Truth about Western Aggression in the Persian Gulf
  GR ONLINE NEWS READER by Finian Cunningham and Michel Chossudovsky Global Research, January 16, 2012 The year 2012 may become known as a watershed for humanity – the year when mankind was precipitated into a global conflagration involving nuclear weapons. The signs are indeed grimly ominous as formidable military forces converge on the Persian Gulf in the long-running stand-off between the United States and Iran.
• How Newt Gingrich Sabotaged the Closing of Guantanamo
  January 2012 marks the 10th melancholy anniversary of the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay; if polling is correct, it will also mark the end of Newt Gingrich’s presidential ambitions, as the immense, gas-filled Hindenburg of his ego approaches its Lakehurst in South Carolina. The two intersect in remarkable fashion. Gingrich was key to igniting the firestorm of criticism that prevented the public release of 17 Uighur captives from Guantanamo to Germany and the United States in early 2009. Uighurs were considered to be the cutest and cuddliest of detainees, largely because of a rather bizarre finding that, though they might be terrorists, if they were terrorists they would be anti-China terrorists, not anti-US terrorists. [Terrorism] [Double standards] [China confrontation]
• What That Dead Iranian Scientist Has to do With China
  I titled my most recent article for Asia Times “Desperate Days: The Obama Administration Struggles to Disengage from the Middle East and Escape to Asia”. The crack editors at AT instead opted for Obama Drags Middle East Baggage to Asia, which perhaps doesn’t convey the bloody Great Game element as well. My point is, the logic of economics, diplomacy, and security theater tells the Obama administration that the US will find its future and, equally importantly, welcoming arms in Asia. A meticulous, multi-stage campaign has been crafted to sell the “strategic pivot to Asia” to the key stakeholders: policy wonks and insiders, politicos, US moneybags, military brass, and the nations in Asia that are worried about China but also dubious about American staying power. Part of the shift in resources involves putting the complications, compromises, and expenses of the Middle East in America’s rearview mirror. Goodbye Iraq, goodbye Afghanistan, and maybe, just maybe, the United States can work out a modus vivendi with Iran. Iran, without exaggeration, has been desperate for normalization of relations with the US for probably the last decade. The only dispute within Iran seems to be on the terms of engagement and who gets to take credit for reintegrating Iran into the global system. [US global strategy]
• Plans for high-speed rail are slowing down
  View Photo Gallery — ?President Obama set a goal of giving 80 percent of Americans access to high-speed rail within the next quarter century. Here’s a look at the high-speed rail industry around the world. Text Size PrintE-mailReprintsBy Michael A. Fletcher, Published: January 16 PALO ALTO, Calif. — Critics began panning the first leg of California’s futuristic high-speed rail network as a “train to nowhere” soon after officials decided to build it not in the major population centers of Los Angeles or San Francisco, but through the state’s Central Valley farming belt. Since then, things have only gotten worse. Spiraling cost estimates and eroding political and public support now threaten a project crucial to a 21st-century vision of train travel that President Obama promised would transform U.S. transportation much as interstate highways did more than a half-century ago. .A national high-speed rail network would not only support tens of thousands of construction and manufacturing jobs, but it would get Americans out of their cars, revitalize struggling downtowns, and spare the environment millions of tons of carbon emissions and travelers untold hours wasted in traffic or in airport terminals waiting out delays. Obama set a goal of providing 80 percent of Americans access to high-speed rail within 25 years. But that lofty vision is yielding to the political gravity generated by high costs, determined opponents and a public that has grown dubious of government’s ability to do big things. [Railways] [Decline] [Governance]
• Fate of U.S. effort to isolate Iran could rest with China
  Posted on Monday, January 16, 2012Modified Monday, January 16, 2012 Tom Lasseter and Kevin G. Hall McClatchy Newspapers BEIJING — Most days, the announcement of an $8.5 billion joint venture oil deal between Saudi Arabia and China wouldn't raise eyebrows. Riyadh, after all, is China's largest supplier of oil. But with the United States pushing for an oil embargo against Iran, China's third-largest oil provider, the calculus has changed. China is emerging as a key test of whether the West and its allies will be able to squeeze Tehran into slowing its nuclear program. The role China will play in the U.S.-led effort is still far from clear, but the United States and others are watching Beijing's moves closely for clues about its intentions. Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/01/16/136046/fate-of-us-effort-to-isolate-iran.html#storylink=cpy [US global strategy] [Iran] [China confrontation]
• America’s Last Chance
  by PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS America has one last chance, and it is a very slim one. Americans can elect Ron Paul President, or they can descend into tyranny. Why is Ron Paul America’s last chance? Because he is the only candidate who is not owned lock, stock, and barrel by the military-security complex, Wall Street, and the Israel Lobby. All of the others, including President Obama, are owned by exactly the same interest groups. There are no differences between them. Every candidate except Ron Paul stands for war and a police state, and all have demonstrated their complete and total subservience to Israel. The fact that there is no difference between them is made perfectly clear by the absence of substantive issues in the campaigns of the Republican candidates. [US_Eection12]
• The Newsfakers
  by PATRICK COCKBURN “Rumor” used to have a bad reputation. In Shakespeare’s plays it is assumed that “rumors” mean artful lies and the spreading of detailed but false accounts of victory and defeat. No journalist could credibly tell of massacre, torture and mass arrests, citing “strong rumors” as the sole evidence for the story. Editors at whatever newspaper, television or radio station the reporter worked on would shake their heads in disbelief at such a vague and dubious source and almost certainly refuse to run it. But suppose that our journalist takes out the word “rumor” and substitutes “YouTube” or “blogger” as the source. Then, going by recent experience, editors will nod it through, possibly commending their man or woman for judicious use of the internet. The BBC and other television stations happily run nightly pictures of mayhem from Syria, grandly disclaiming responsibility for their authenticity. These disclaimers are intoned so often that they now have as much impact on viewers as warnings that a news report may contain flash photography. People understandably believe that if the BBC and other channels were not convinced of the truth of YouTube pictures they would not be using them as their main source of information on Syria. YouTube pictures may have played a positive role in the uprisings of the Arab Spring, but the international media is largely mute about how easy it is to manipulate them [Media] [Disinformation] [Syria]
• Obama drags Middle East baggage to Asia
  By Peter Lee The signature event in United States-Chinese relations last week was not the anti-climactic release of the US Defense Strategic Review, which re-emphasized the Barack Obama administration's widely touted ambitions to perform a strategic pirouette from the Middle East to East Asia. It was the murder of another Iranian nuclear scientist in Tehran. The assassination of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan by forces unknown serves as a message that the Obama administration will find it difficult to reinvent itself as the savior of Asian peace and prosperity; instead, the United States will find itself reprising its dreary and detested role in the Middle East soap opera as defender of the pro-Israel/anti-Iranian status quo. [US global strategy]
• Iran has pay back in mind
  By Kaveh L Afrasiabi PALO ALTO, California - Despite a strong pitch by Iran, the United Nations has failed to condemn the latest assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist, thus sending a bad signal about the UN's determination to fight global terrorism and to condemn all acts of terrorism even-handedly. Instead of a swift and decisive response to the letter by Iran's ambassador to the UN, Mohammad Khazaee, to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the 15 members of the UN Security Council and the president of the UN General Assembly, requesting the UN's condemnation of the terror of scientist Mostafa Rahimi Roshan and his driver in Tehran this week, the only reaction so far has been by Ban's spokesperson promising "to study" the request. [UNUS] [Double standards] [Terrorism]
• Iran Claims CIA Behind Nuclear Scientist's Killing
  by The Associated Press text size A A A January 14, 2012 Iran said Saturday it has evidence that the United States was behind the assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist this week in Tehran, state media reported. Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan was killed in a brazen daylight assassination Wednesday when two assailants on a motorcycle attached a magnetic bomb to his car in the Iranian capital. The killing bore a strong resemblance to earlier killings of scientists working on the Iranian nuclear program, and has prompted calls in Iran for retaliation against those deemed responsible. The IRNA state news agency said Saturday that Iran's Foreign Ministry has sent a diplomatic letter to the U.S. saying that it has "evidence and reliable information" that the CIA provided "guidance, support and planning" to assassins "directly involved" in Roshan's killing. The U.S. has denied any role in the assassination. [Assassination]
• Manipulation of the UN Security Council in support of the US-NATO Military Agenda
  Coercion, Intimidation & Bribery used to Extort Approval from Reluctant Members by Carla Stea Global Research, January 10, 2012 United Nations Security Council decisions are portrayed as “the will of the international community,” and Security Council action in support of a national agenda confers moral authority upon that agenda. For this reason it is crucial to understand the tactics by which UN Security Council independence is frequently usurped, and the methods of coercion, intimidation and bribery used to extort approval from reluctant members of the Security Council, or from those members adamantly opposed to a particular course of action. Twenty-two years ago, as a result of the Untied Nations Security Council adoption of Resolution 678, which authorized the use of “all necessary means” to end the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and “approved” the launch of the first United Nations supported Persian Gulf War, former United States Attorney General, Ramsey Clark, who had witnessed the devastating consequences of that war’s saturation bombing of Baghdad, stated that “The United Nations, which was created “to prevent the scourge of war,” has become an instrument of war.” [UNUS]
• ElBaradei slams military as he quits Egypt presidential race
  Mohannad Sabry McClatchy Newspapers CAIRO — The prominent Egyptian presidential candidate and Nobel laureate Mohammed ElBaradei made a surprise withdrawal from the race Saturday, dealing a blow to young supporters who'd counted on him to guard their revolution from the country's new military and Islamist leaders.
• Regime Change in the Russian Federation? Why Washington Wants ‘Finito’ with Vladimir Putin
  by F. William Engdahl Global Research, January 10, 2012 Washington clearly wants ‘finito’ with Russia’s Putin as in basta! or as they said in Egypt last spring, Kefaya--enough!. Hillary Clinton and friends have apparently decided Russia’s prospective next president, Vladimir Putin, is a major obstacle to their plans. Few however understand why. Russia today, in tandem with China and to a significant degree Iran, form the spine, however shaky, of the only effective global axis of resistance to a world dominated by one sole superpower. [NGO] [Putin] [US global strategy]
• U.S. intelligence report on Afghanistan sees stalemate
  The sobering judgments in a classified National Intelligence Estimate appear at odds with recent optimistic statements about the war by Pentagon officials. By Ken Dilanian and David S. Cloud, Los Angeles Times January 11, 2012, 6:39 p.m. Reporting from Washington— The U.S. intelligence community says in a secret new assessment that the war in Afghanistan is mired in stalemate, and warns that security gains from an increase in American troops have been undercut by pervasive corruption, incompetent governance and Taliban fighters operating from neighboring Pakistan, according to U.S. officials. The sobering judgments, laid out in a classified National Intelligence Estimate completed last month and delivered to the White House, appeared at odds with recent optimistic statements by Pentagon officials and have deepened divisions between U.S. intelligence agencies and American military commanders about progress in the decade-old war. [AfPak]
• Turkey Hoisted on Syrian Cleft Stick of its Own Devise; Arab League Shafted by Anwar Malek
  There is an emerging picture of an embarrassing dilemma for Turkey on Syria. Eager for regional leader cred and anxious to establish itself as an equal partner with the Western powers in the ongoing Middle East make over, Turkey got out in front in supporting the Syrian rebellion. Maybe too far in front. Western military intervention appears genuinely off the table, perhaps because of Russia’s unambiguous opposition. And Bashar Assad doesn’t seem to be going anywhere for now. If Turkey wants to finish him off, it will have to take the lead in sending in troops—and in cleaning up the gigantic and destabilizing sectarian mess foreign intervention would probably provoke. That is beyond Turkey’s ability.
• The Next War on Washington’s Agenda
  by PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS Only the blind do not see that the US government is preparing to attack Iran. Washington has deployed missiles directed at Iran in its oil emirate puppet states, Oman and the UAE, and little doubt in the other US puppet states in the Middle East. Washington has beefed up Saudi Arabia’s jet fighter force. Most recently, Washington has deployed 9,000 US troops to Israel to participate in “war games” designed to test the US/Israeli air defense system. As Iran represents no threat unless attacked, Washington’s war preparations signal Washington’s intention to attack Iran.
  In my judgment, the US government’s war preparations are driven by three factors. A third factor is to deter or slow China’s rise as a military and economic power by controlling China’s access to energy. [Iran] [US global strategy] [China confrontation]
• Some worry 'new' U.S. military focus on Asia is a muddle
  Nancy A. Youssef and Tom Lasseter McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — The Obama administration pledge to shift American military strategy toward Asia overlooks a key fact: The United States never really dropped its focus on the region. But the current budget proposal that might flow from that pledge contains a potentially crippling contradiction: The plan might cut the big-ticket items the United States needs to increase its presence in Asia and counter China's growing military capability. The result, some analysts fear, is a muddled approach that could end up with a tough-talking United States saying it will do more in Asia but not committing the resources needed. That, they say, could leave America and its allies in the region exposed if China's military moves aggressively in the future. [US global strategy] [China confrontation] [MISCOM]
• U.S. Embassy workers detained in Baghdad
  Text Size PrintE-mailReprintsBy Dan Morse, Friday, January 13, 6:33 AM BAGHDAD — Four U.S. Embassy workers driving through Baghdad were stopped and detained by Iraqi security forces for two hours Thursday, a day after the embassy warned that some American citizens working here had been held for days over “discrepancies in permits and paperwork.” The tensions come more than three weeks after the U.S. military left a country that has since been rocked by a political crisis and spectacular bombings. Baghdad’s governor was quoted on an Iraqi news Web site Thursday as calling the embassy workers’ behavior “suspicious.” But an embassy spokesman played down the detention, saying the staff members were served tea as security officers checked their paperwork. .“The identities were verified, and they were released,” said the spokesman, Michael McClellan. Other U.S. citizens have apparently been held much longer. “Detentions often last 24-96 hours or more,” the U.S. Embassy said in a statement posted on its Web site. “The Embassy’s ability to respond to situations in which U.S. citizens are arrested or otherwise detained throughout Iraq is limited, including in and around Baghdad.” [Decline] [Iraq] [Anti-Americanism]
• Obama administration denies any role in killing of Iranian nuclear scientist
  (AP/ AP ) - This undated photo released by Iranian Fars News Agency claims to show Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan. Two assailants on a motorcycle attached a magnetic bomb to the car of an Iranian university professor working at a key nuclear facility, killing him and his driver Wednesday, reports said. CAPTIONFULLSCREEN Text Size PrintE-mailReprintsBy Associated Press, Updated: Thursday, January 12, 9:56 AM WASHINGTON — The Obama administration denied any role in Wednesday’s killing of an Iranian nuclear scientist, the latest in a series of events that have exacerbated tensions with Iran. The assassination of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan was the latest in a year that has already seen new U.S. economic sanctions, threats to bar American ships from the Persian Gulf, an Iranian death sentence to a jailed U.S. citizen and an escalation in Tehran’s uranium enrichment program. [Assassination]
• Syria attacks: 'If the regime wanted to prove Homs was safe, it failed
  ...'French journalist among dead after convoy is attacked on official trip to war-hit city
  Ian Black in Homs guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 11 January 2012 21.44 GMT Article history Syria attacks – smoke is seen after a rocket attack on the Akrama neighbourhood in Homs. Photograph: Joseph Eid/AFP/Getty Images It was a trip Syria's ministry of information had gone to some lengths to arrange: taking foreign journalists to Homs, where government forces are fighting an opposition they call armed terrorists. But if the regime minders had been hoping to portray a city under government control yesterday, then they most certainly failed. The death of an acclaimed French television correspondent was a stark reminder of what are routine dangers for ordinary people in the war in Syria. Gilles Jacquier of France 2 was killed along with eight Syrians when mortar bombs or grenades impacted near them. Jacquier was the first western journalist to die in what is currently the bloodiest chapter of the Arab spring as President Bashar al-Assad continues his brutal crackdown. [Syria] [Media] [Inversion]
• Rise of the Vulcans Redux
  Peter Certo | Posted: December 19, 2011 This past July, the New Republic’s Eli Lake claimed to discern in the emerging 2012 GOP presidential field the “end of the neocon consensus.” That peculiar blend of faux democratic idealism and unbridled militarism that had characterized establishment Republican thinking throughout the George W. Bush years and into the John McCain presidential campaign, Lake thought, was under assault from business-friendly, deficit-wary, and “isolationist”-minded politicos. As it turns out, however, the main threat to the neocon consensus in the presidential campaign is the fact that U.S. foreign policy has receded into the deep background of public concerns and, consequently, of the rhetoric of most of the Republican presidential candidates. To the extent they utter views on issues like Iraq, Israel, or China, GOP candidates appear to be to taking many of their cues from long-worn-out neoconservative talking points. [US global strategy]
• U.S. authorities probe U.S.-China commission email hack
  By Mark Hosenball Tue Jan 10, 2012 7:09am EST (Reuters) - U.S. authorities are investigating allegations that an Indian government spy unit hacked into emails of an official U.S. commission that monitors economic and security relations between the United States and China, including cyber-security issues. [Cyberespionage]
• Has Obama taken Bush’s ‘preemption’ strategy to another level?
  By Walter Pincus, Published: January 10 Has President Obama adopted George W. Bush’s “policeman of the world” approach to the fight against terrorism? A troubling element of Bush’s defense strategy was the perceived need for the United States to prevent ungoverned areas of the world from becoming breeding grounds for terrorists, on the assumption that all terrorists are a threat to U.S. interests. That approach apparently has been expanded and given more prominence in Obama’s revised strategic guidance, which was released Thursday. With one war over and another ending, President Obama has unveiled a new defense strategy that aims to cut spending dramatically without undermining America's military readiness. (Jan. 5) .Under the subtitle “A Challenging Global Security Environment,” the first pages discuss the success in killing Osama bin Laden and rendering al-Qaeda “far less capable,” then say that extremist groups in the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere “will continue to threaten U.S. interests, allies, partners and the homeland.” The paper says, “For the foreseeable future, the United States will continue to take an active approach to countering these threats by monitoring the activities of non-state threats worldwide, working with allies and partners to establish control over ungoverned territories, and directly striking the most dangerous groups and individuals when necessary” — emphasis added. [Legality]
• America, Israel, Iran: a dangerous moment
  Paul Rogers, 29 December 2011 The previous column in this series examined the factors that are increasing tensions between Iran and the United States. They include political uncertainty in Iraq, economic problems in Iran, and a hardening of the Barack Obama administration's stance (see "America, Israel, Iran: a shifting risk", 22 December 2011).
• Pakistan speeds pursuit of Iranian pipeline, defying U.S.
  Posted on Tuesday, January 10, 2012Modified Tuesday, January 10, 2012 Tom Hussain McClatchy Newspapers ISLAMABAD — With a decision to fast-track the construction of a natural gas pipeline from Iran, Pakistan is underscoring not only the energy needs of its flailing economy but also its growing estrangement from Washington. The move came despite the objections of the United States and could put Pakistan at risk of violating U.S. sanctions on Tehran aimed at denying Iran hard currency that it needs for its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. But as President Asif Ali Zardari said in a rare television interview last week, Pakistan has no choice but to seek greater ties with its neighbors — Iran, China, India and Afghanistan — "because the economies of the West are in trouble and not in a position to help us." [Pipeline]
• Romney looks like the nominee, but his flaws could hurt come fall
  Steven Thomma McClatchy Newspapers MERRIMACK, N.H. — Mitt Romney heads out of New Hampshire on Wednesday on a probable march to the Republican presidential nomination — but with scars and weaknesses that could lead him to limp weakly into a general election against President Barack Obama. On the plus side, his back-to-back wins in Iowa and New Hampshire were unprecedented; anti-Romney conservatives head to South Carolina as divided as ever; and polls signal that he could win both South Carolina and Florida against that fractured opposition for a January sweep. That probably would clinch the nomination for him. Yet he received an often-tepid response from Republicans, even in his own New England backyard. He faces a blistering ad assault in South Carolina that could hurt him among moderates and independents critical to the fall vote. And he's shown a tendency to utter politically tone-deaf quotes that signal difficulty connecting with working-class voters who appear ripe for the picking from the Democrats. [US_election12]
• Time to ditch caveman mentality
  By Gwynne Dyer 5:30 AM Thursday Jan 12, 2012 Military in every major power has powerful hold over perceived threats If you're not allowed to enslave people any more, or even loot their resources, then what is the point of being a traditional great power? [US global strategy] [China confrontation][Militarisation]
• Main Elements Of US Foreign Policy Towards Asia
  by: B. Raman January 9, 2012 As President Obama nears the end of his first term and gets ready to seek a second term, he has sought to give a new focus to the US foreign policy towards Asia. This new focus is marked by two characteristics. Firstly, an open and uninhibited expression of US concerns over China’s ever-increasing economic and military capabilities and its far from transparent intentions. Secondly, an open expression of the US determination to maintain and strengthen its capabilities in the Asia-Pacific region in order to safeguard the strategic interests of not only the US, but also other like-minded countries which share the US concerns over China’s capabilities and intentions. Prominent among such like-minded countries are Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines, Vietnam and India. [US global strategy] [Counterbalance] [China confrontation]
• Iran ends 2011 with a blaze of intelligence
  By Mahan Abedin The appearance on Iranian state TV on Sunday of alleged Central Intelligence Agency spy Amir Hekmati is yet another twist in a string of apparent Iranian counter-intelligence successes at the expense of US espionage. The 28-year old Arizona-born man of Iranian origin has been accused by Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) of trying to feed disinformation to the ministry with a view to gaining a foothold on the outer reaches of the MOIS. [Espionage]
• The US-Iran economic war
  By Pepe Escobar NEW YORK - Here's a crash course on how to further wreck the global economy. A key amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act signed by United States President Barack Obama on the last day of 2011 - when no one was paying attention - imposes sanctions on any countries or companies that buy Iranian oil and pay for it through Iran's central bank. Starting this summer, anybody who does it is prevented from doing business with the US. [Iran] [Sanctions] [Subcritical]
• A U.S. intelligence report affirms America’s global decline
  December 10, 2011 01:12 AM By David Ignatius The Daily Star Is American power in decline, relative to the rest of the world? That question is at the center of a provocative study by the U.S. intelligence community exploring what the world might look like in 2030. The answer, judging by comments from a panel convened to discuss the topic, is that America faces serious trouble: The U.S. economy is slowing, relative to its Asian competitors, which will make it harder for the country to assert its traditional leadership role in the decades ahead. That, in turn, could make for a less stable world. This pessimism among intelligence analysts contrasts sharply with the relentlessly upbeat prognostications made by politicians, especially the field of Republican presidential candidates, who describe an America of perpetual sunshine and unchallenged leadership. That’s certainly not the view of this nonpartisan group. The unclassified study, titled “Global Trends 2030,” is being prepared by the National Intelligence Council, which is part of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. This is the fifth such study (the first, published in 1996, looked toward 2010) and the only one to radically question U.S. staying power. [Decline]
• The Geo-Politics of the Strait of Hormuz: Could the U.S. Navy be defeated by Iran in the Persian Gulf?
  by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya Global Research, January 8, 2012 After years of U.S. threats, Iran is taking steps which suggest that is both willing and capable of closing the Strait of Hormuz. On December 24, 2011 Iran started its Velayat-90 naval drills in and around the Strait of Hormuz and extending from the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman (Oman Sea) to the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea. Since the conduct of these drills, there has been a growing war of words between Washington and Tehran. Nothing the Obama Administration or the Pentagon have done or said so far, however, has deterred Tehran from continuing its naval drills. The Geo-Political Nature of the Strait of Hormuz Besides the fact that it is a vital transit point for global energy resources and a strategic chokepoint, two additional issues should be addressed in regards to the Strait of Hormuz and its relationship to Iran. The first concerns the geography of the Strait of Hormuz. The second pertains to the role of Iran in co-managing the strategic strait in accordance with international law and its sovereign national rights. The maritime traffic that goes through the Strait of Hormuz has always been in contact with Iranian naval forces, which are predominantly composed of the Iranian Regular Force Navy and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Navy. In fact, Iranian naval forces monitor and police the Strait of Hormuz along with the Sultanate of Oman via the Omani enclave of Musandam. More importantly, to transit through the Strait of Hormuz all maritime traffic, including the U.S. Navy, must sail through Iranian territorial waters. Almost all entrances into the Persian Gulf are made through Iranian waters and most exits are through Omani waters.
• The Heritage Foundation Then and Now
  by THOMAS CHRISTIE, PIERRE SPREY, CHUCK SPINNEY & WINSLOW WHEELER Almost 30 years ago, in 1983, The Heritage Foundation stepped forward as a thoughtful, independent thinking participant in the then-raging debate over Ronald Reagan’s defense budget increases. In one of its major policy publications, Heritage published an insightful analysis with an unambiguous conclusion: “The increased spending secured by President Reagan should afford significant improvements in force size. It does not.” (See Agenda ’83: A Mandate for Leadership Report, Richard N. Holwill, ed., The Heritage Foundation, 1983; see chapter 4, p. 69 of “Defense” by George W.S. Kuhn.) The analysis was crammed with data and straightforward logic as it made the case for real reform in America’s overpriced, underperforming defense budget. [Thinktank] [MISCOM]
• The US schools with their own police
  More and more US schools have police patrolling the corridors. Pupils are being arrested for throwing paper planes and failing to pick up crumbs from the canteen floor. Why is the state criminalising normal childhood behaviour? Chris McGreal guardian.co.uk, Monday 9 January 2012 20.00 GMT The charge on the police docket was "disrupting class". But that's not how 12-year-old Sarah Bustamantes saw her arrest for spraying two bursts of perfume on her neck in class because other children were bullying her with taunts of "you smell". "I'm weird. Other kids don't like me," said Sarah, who has been diagnosed with attention-deficit and bipolar disorders and who is conscious of being overweight. "They were saying a lot of rude things to me. Just picking on me. So I sprayed myself with perfume. Then they said: 'Put that away, that's the most terrible smell I've ever smelled.' Then the teacher called the police." The policeman didn't have far to come. He patrols the corridors of Sarah's school, Fulmore Middle in Austin, Texas. Like hundreds of schools in the state, and across large parts of the rest of the US, Fulmore Middle has its own police force with officers in uniform who carry guns to keep order in the canteens, playgrounds and lessons. Sarah was taken from class, charged with a criminal misdemeanour and ordered to appear in court. [human rights] [Decline]
• South Sudan rampage toll may be in thousands amid threats of genocide
  lan Boswell McClatchy Newspapers NAIROBI, Kenya — Threats of genocide and ethnically charged rhetoric are roiling South Sudan's Jonglei state one week after a days-long rampage by a tribal militia forced 50,000 people from their homes and may have left thousands dead. The commissioner of Pibor County, where most of the bloodshed took place, said that 3,141 people were killed, according to an initial assessment of the attack. But officials from the United Nations and the South Sudanese government cautioned that the number was unconfirmed and may be inflated. Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/01/09/135324/south-sudan-rampage-toll-may-be.html#storylink=cpy [Sectarianism] [Media]
• Pentagon Tries to Counter Cheap, Potent Weapons
  By THOM SHANKER Published: January 9, 2012 WASHINGTON — President Obama’s new military strategy has focused fresh attention on an increasingly important threat: the use of inexpensive weapons like mines and cyberattacks that aim not to defeat the American military in battle but to keep it at a distance. .The president and his national security team predict that the security challenges of the coming decade will be defined by this threat, just as the last one was defined by terrorism and insurgency. [US global strategy] [Asymmetry]
• Iran: Prospects and Consequences
  Andrei AKULOV | 10.01.2012 | 00:00 Iran’s nuclear program is a burning issue in the world’s most volatile region. It’s widely believed in the West Tehran is planning to go nuclear, Iran’s leadership says its goal is nuclear energy for purely peaceful purposes. In November, 2011, United Nations weapons inspectors released a report containing new evidence corroborating Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear device and the project may still be under way.
• In creating new defense strategy, Obama attempts to outflank Congress
  By Scott Wilson and Greg Jaffe, Published: January 8 As President Obama stood on the podium in the Pentagon briefing room Thursday to outline the nation’s defense priorities, the military stood with him. Their primary audience was a few miles across the Potomac River — in Congress. Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, whose beloved Army will face a significant troop reduction under Obama’s plan, was at the president’s side. Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James F. Amos, whose service will also shrink, stood just behind him. And over Obama’s right shoulder loomed Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the former commander in Iraq who is now chief of staff of the Army. [Pentagon] [Obama] [US global strategy]
• Iraq: A country in shambles
  Despite promises made for improvements, Iraq’s economy and infrastructure are still a disaster. Dahr Jamail Last Modified: 08 Jan 2012 17:36 In Sadr City, Bahgdad, the streets are cracked, filled with potholes, and strewn with refuse [Dahr Jamail/Al Jazeera] Baghdad, Iraq - As a daily drum beat of violence continues to reverberate across Iraq, people here continue to struggle to find some sense of normality, a task made increasingly difficult due to ongoing violence and the lack of both water and electricity. During the build-up to the US-led invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration promised the war would bring Iraqis a better life, and vast improvements in their infrastructure, which had been severely debilitated by nearly 13 years of strangling economic sanctions. More jobs, improved water availability, better electricity, and major rehabilitation of the medical infrastructure were promised. But now that the US military has ended its formal military occupation of Iraq, nearly eight years of war has left the promises as little more than a mirage.
• The Coming War Over the Pentagon Budget
  How the president’s new defense strategy could spark an existential crisis for the Army and the Marines. By Fred Kaplan,New America Foundation January 5, 2012 | Slate It looks like something seriously different is about to happen with the defense budget—and not just the budget, but the way the Pentagon does business and the military fights wars. President Obama sought to dramatize this fact—or at least to deepen its impression—by going to the Pentagon press room himself (something no previous president had ever done) to lay out the main points of the new “Defense Strategic Guidance,” a document that was hammered out in a half-dozen meetings involving the president, the service chiefs, and the national-security bureaucracy. The precise scope and even nature of these changes are not yet clear. The top Pentagon officials—who followed the president’s appearance with a slightly more expansive press conference—are leaving the details to their budget rollout in a few weeks. But certain inferences can be drawn from some of their statements. The biggest one is that the Army and Marine Corps will soon be facing an enormous—one might even say, existential—crisis. [Pentagon] [Obama] [US global strategy]
• After America
  How does the world look in an age of U.S. decline? Dangerously unstable.
  BY ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI | JAN/FEB 2012 Not so long ago, a high-ranking Chinese official, who obviously had concluded that America's decline and China's rise were both inevitable, noted in a burst of candor to a senior U.S. official: "But, please, let America not decline too quickly." Although the inevitability of the Chinese leader's expectation is still far from certain, he was right to be cautious when looking forward to America's demise. For if America falters, the world is unlikely to be dominated by a single preeminent successor -- not even China. International uncertainty, increased tension among global competitors, and even outright chaos would be far more likely outcomes. [Decline] [Multipolarity]
• Strength of Egyptian Islamists proves a test for Obama’s pro-democracy policy in the Middle East
  By Karen DeYoung and Leila Fadel, Published: January 6 The strong electoral showing of Islamist parties in Egypt has provided the first major test of the Obama administration’s pledge to support democratically elected governments in the Arab world, even when its preferred candidates lose. U.S. officials described recent outreach to the Muslim Brotherhood, which appears destined to win the largest share of parliamentary seats, as a chance to put in practice policies President Obama outlined nearly three years ago in a major speech proposing a new relationship with the Muslim world centered on mutual respect. [US global strategy] [Democracy]
• Media Manipulation and the Drums of War: How Media is used to Whip the Nation into Wartime Frenzy
  Faking It: How the Media Manipulates the World into War by James Corbett Global Research, January 3, 2012 As the US and Iranian governments escalate tensions in the already volatile Straits of Hormuz, and China and Russia begin openly questioning Washington's interference in their internal politics, the world remains on a knife-edge of military tension. Far from being a dispassionate observer of these developments, however, the media has in fact been central to increasing those tensions and preparing the public to expect a military confrontation. But as the online media rises to displace the traditional forms by which the public forms its understanding of the world, many are now beginning to see first hand how the media lies the public into war. The centuries-long history of how media has been used to whip the nation into wartime frenzy, dehumanize the supposed enemies, and even to manipulate the public into believing in causes for war that, decades later, were admitted to be completely fictitious. As the drums of war begin to beat once again in Iran, Syria, the South China Sea, and other potential hotspots and flashpoints around the globe, concerned citizens are asking how a world so sick of bloodshed and a population so tired of conflict could be led to this spot once again. To understand this seeming paradox, we must first understand the centuries-long history of how media has been used to whip the nation into wartime frenzy, dehumanize the supposed enemies, and even to manipulate the public into believing in causes for war that, decades later, were admitted to be completely fictitious. The term “yellow journalism” was coined to describe the type of sensationalistic, scandal-driven, and often erroneous style of reporting popularized by newspapers like William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal. In one of the most egregious examples of this phenomenon, Hearst’s papers widely trumpeted the sinking of the Maine as the work of the Spanish. Whipped into an anti-Spanish frenzy by a daily torrent of stories depicting Spanish forces’ alleged torture and rape of Cubans, and pushed over the edge by the Maine incident, the public welcomed the beginning of the US-Spanish war. Although it is now widely believed that the explosion on the Maine was due to a fire in one of its coal bunkers, the initial lurid reports of Spanish involvement stuck and the nation was led into war. [Media]
• The Taliban come to roost in Qatar
  The Taliban have reportedly agreed to open a representative office in Qatar. What is unclear is who are these ‘Taliban’. There is deafening silence in Pakistan, which should have been bestir with excitement that a defining moment has been reached in the Afghan endgame. The silence needs to be interpreted. But given the tenor of the media briefings by the spokesman of the Pakistani military in the last few days, it doesn’t seem that Pakistan is part of this Qatar show, although ISI chief Shuja Pasha did pay a quiet visit to Doha last week. Nor is it likely that the Iranians are in the loop.
• Pentagon Cuts and a Changing U.S. Military
  By Yochi J. Dreazen Jan 6 2012, 2:57 PM ET 1 The decline of counterinsurgency, the rise of air and naval, shifting away from Europe, and more changes ahead Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin E. Dempsey at the Pentagon / AP The Obama administration's high-profile roll-out of its new military blueprint for the years ahead was designed to do two very different things: mark a decisive shift away from manpower-heavy counterinsurgencies like Afghanistan and shield the White House from Republican criticism over its plans for significant cuts to the Pentagon budget. The blueprint personally unveiled by President Obama on Thursday during an unusual visit to the Pentagon has far-reaching implications for the U.S. military, Washington's friends abroad, and the defense industry--and its congressional protectors--here at home. The document represents the administration's clearest public expression to date of how it believes the U.S. should prepare to respond to major security challenges in an era of shrinking budgets. Military funding will fall by more than $450 billion in the years ahead; if automatic sequestration cuts take effect, it will lose roughly $500 billion more. [US global strategy] [US military] [Inversion]
• Hackers expose defence and intelligence officials in US and UK
  Security breach by 'hacktivists' reveals email addresses of 221 British military staff and 242 Nato officials Ed Pilkington in New York and Richard Norton-Taylor guardian.co.uk, Sunday 8 January 2012 20.43 GMT Article history Thousands of British email addresses and encrypted passwords, including those of defence, intelligence and police officials as well as politicians and Nato advisers, have been revealed on the internet following a security breach by hackers. Among the huge database of private information exposed by self-styled "hacktivists" are the details of 221 British military officials and 242 Nato staff. Civil servants working at the heart of the UK government – including several in the Cabinet Office as well as advisers to the Joint Intelligence Organisation, which acts as the prime minister's eyes and ears on sensitive information – have also been exposed.
• National Archives: Britain agreed secret deal to back Mujahideen
  Britain secretly agreed to back Afghan resistance fighters after the Soviet invasion of their country, some of whom would go on to form al-Qa’eda. By Martin Beckford 12:01AM GMT 30 Dec 2010 Newly published papers show that one of the country’s top civil servants held a private summit with senior American, French and German politicians at which they decided to provide “discreet support for Afghan guerrilla resistance”. One faction of the Mujahideen fighters, who were also covertly funded by the CIA, went on to become founding members of the al-Qa’eda terrorist network.
• The Surge to Withdrawal
  by VIJAY PRASHAD I. Crisis. Kabul sprawls like an injured lion. Its population has increased four-fold to 4.5 million over the past ten years. War refugees, fleeing the countryside for the relative safety of the citadel, find themselves in permanent slums (“Kabul Informal Settlements” in the bureaucratic argot). These slums (such as Chamane Babrack, Bagrami, Parwan Du, and Charahi Qambar) sit on hillsides or on the edges of Kabul, bursting with people whose lives have been measurably worsened by the ongoing conflict. The UN’s High Commission on Refugees and the Afghan Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation squabble over definitions: which family has been displaced by war, and who is an economic migrant. These distinctions mean little to the 5.7 million people who have been displaced by the insecurity occasioned by the ten-year war. A friend who works in one of the UN agencies in Kabul tells me that matters have reached a crisis point. He has used the term “crisis” four times over the past few years. The idea of Afghanistan as “crisis” has a lineage that stretches back at least to 1818.
• The Stolen War
  by URI AVNERY IS THERE no limit to the villainy of Hamas? Seems there isn’t. This week, they did something quite unforgivable. They stole a war. FOR SOME weeks now, our almost new Chief of Staff, Benny Gantz, has been announcing at every possible opportunity that a new war against the Gaza Strip is inevitable. Several commanders of the troops around the Strip have been repeating this dire forecast, as have their camp-followers, a.k.a. military commentators. One of these comforted us. True, Hamas can now hit Tel Aviv with their rockets, but that will not be so terrible, because it will be a short war. Just three or four days. As one of the generals said, it will be much more “hard and painful” (for the Arabs) than Cast Lead I, so it will not last for three weeks, as that did. We shall all stay in our shelters – those of us who have shelters, anyway – for just a few days. Why is the war inevitable? Because of the terrorism, stupid. Hamas is a terrorist organization, isn’t it? But along comes the supreme Hamas leader, Khaled Mash’al, and declares that Hamas has given up all violent action. From now on it will concentrate on non-violent mass demonstrations, in the spirit of the Arab Spring. When Hamas forswears terrorism, there is no pretext for an attack on Gaza. But is a pretext needed?
• Blair Inc's 'baffling' increase in earnings
  Accountants question transparency of financial records kept by former PM's complex web of companies Jamie Doward guardian.co.uk, Saturday 7 January 2012 22.42 GMT Article history Tony Blair at a press conference in Beijing in August last year. His Windrush Ventures Limited had a 2011 turnover of £12m. Photograph: Chinafotopress/Getty Images Unemployment is rising and companies are going to the wall as the economic turmoil continues to inflict damage across the globe. But one organisation is thriving. Records recently filed at Companies House show Tony Blair Inc is going from strength to strength. They reveal that income channelled through a complex network of firms and partnerships controlled by Blair rose more than 40% last year to more than £12m. Of this, almost £10m was paid for "management services". The money was transferred via a network of firms and financial vehicles. Accountancy experts are questioning the arcane nature of the network's finances, which makes it difficult to trace where its money is coming from, or where it is being spent. [Corruption]
• A mistaken case for Syrian regime change
  By Aisling Byrne "War with Iran is already here," wrote a leading Israeli commentator recently, describing "the combination of covert warfare and international pressure" being applied to Iran. Although not mentioned, the "strategic prize" of the first stage of this war on Iran is Syria; the first campaign in a much wider sectarian power-bid. "Other than the collapse of the Islamic Republic itself," Saudi King Abdullah was reported to have said last summer, "nothing would weaken Iran more than losing Syria." [1]
• Syrian bomb attacks cause people to rally around Bashar al-Assad's regime
  Suicide bombing which killed 11 people in Damascus has shifted attention away from the protests across the country Ian Black in Damascus guardian.co.uk, Friday 6 January 2012 20.08 GMT Article history Syria blames al-Qaida for Damascus suicide attack. Source: Reuters Link to this video If you looked carefully, in the folds of a plastic bin bag, you could make out part of a human head, a mass of shredded flesh and innards, and two bare feet. That was all that was left of the suicide bomber blamed by Syria's government for committing mass murder in Damascus on Friday when the Guardian reached the scene. [Terrorism]
• President Obama’s defense strategy rests on shaky assumptions
  By Editorial Board, Saturday, January 7, 1:42 PM PRESIDENT OBAMA pledged that the $489 billion in defense cuts he has proposed over 10 years would be governed by a concerted strategy, and on Thursday he delivered one. At the Pentagon, Mr. Obama unveiled a “strategic guidance,” which aides said reflected a considerable investment of his personal time and ideas. The president’s thesis is that the need for fiscal austerity coincides with a global “moment of transition,” in which the United States is winding down a decade of land wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and facing the need to turn toward a very different set of challenges, particularly in Asia. Several previous administrations have tried to shift to Asia from the messy Middle East, only to be dragged back by wars, terrorists, turmoil and the unending need to protect allies and the flow of oil. The Obama strategy acknowledges that history and says this pivot will be different. The means to reduce spending and build capacity in Asia, it suggests, will come not from the Mideast but from U.S. deployments in Europe, benefit and retirement costs, Cold War weapons systems and the U.S. nuclear arsenal. [US global strategy]
• Obama outlines leaner military but gives few specifics
  Nancy A. Youssef McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — Even as the United States has withdrawn from Iraq, winds down its ground war in Afghanistan and prepares to make do with a leaner military budget, it faces an array of future threats and must still be prepared to fight several conflicts simultaneously, the Pentagon said Thursday in unveiling its latest defense strategy. The eight-page document aims to address mounting calls for budget cuts and explain why the Pentagon needs to maintain most of the resources thrown its way over the last decade of war. It concludes that the military must be prepared to conduct one major conventional war and several smaller conflicts at the same time. [US global strategy] [Pentagon]
• As currency crisis and feud with West deepen, Iranians brace for war
  ATTA KENARE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES - Economists and businessmen say that after years of erratic economic policies by the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, each new round of sanctions aimed at Iran’s key oil income increases fears of an overall economic meltdown. By Thomas Erdbrink and Joby Warrick, Friday, January 6, 2:06 PM TEHRAN — At a time when U.S. officials are increasingly confident that economic and political pressure alone may succeed in curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the mood here has turned bleak and belligerent as Iranians prepare grimly for a period of prolonged hardship and, they fear, war. This stark contrast has been evident in the Iranian capital this week as a top military commander declared a “critical point” in the country’s long feud with the West and ordinary Iranians stocked up on essential supplies. Merchants watched helplessly as the Iranian currency, the rial, shed more than a third of its value, triggering huge increases in the prices of imported goods. [Sanctions] [Victim] [Inversion]
• Obama announces new, leaner military approach
  Haraz N. Ghanbari/AP - President Barack Obama, accompanied by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, left, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, and other officials, announced a strategy shift towards Asia and said budget issues will require more restrained use of military force. By Craig Whitlock and Greg Jaffe, Friday, January 6, 5:03 AM The U.S. military will steadily shrink the Army and Marine Corps, reduce forces in Europe and probably make further cuts to the nation’s nuclear arsenal, the Obama administration said Thursday in a preview of how it intends to reshape the armed forces after a decade of war. The downsizing of the Pentagon, prompted by the country’s dire fiscal problems, means that the military will depend more on coalitions with allies and avoid the large-scale counterinsurgency and nation-building operations that have marked the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
• Former “Dumbest Member of Congress” Scorches Romney
  by ALEXANDER COCKBURN A Catholic former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania once rated the dumbest man in the US Congress crested Tuesday night in Iowa’s see-saw battle among candidates for the Republican nomination and ran a virtual tie with Mormon millionaire Mitt Romney. Well after chilly midnight on caucus night in the Midwestern state, Iowa’s Republican Party declared Romney the winner by 8 votes, a count that Santorum will inevitably question and perhaps contest. Each hovered just below 30,000 votes, with libertarian Republican Ron Paul of Texas running third with a respectable 26,000-plus votes. Only a couple of weeks ago Newt Gingrich seem poised for exactly the same unexpected surge that blessed Santorum across the last week. But battered by volleys of viciously negative campaign ads financed by big Republican money backing Romney, Gingrich ran fourth with just under 16,000 votes. Hobbling along in the rear came Texas governor Rick Perry, Tea Party star Michele Bachmann and – with 668 votes – Utah millionaire Jon Huntsman. [US_elections12]
• Britain and US to scale down military capability due to debt crisis
  UK defence secretary to say global economic slump is 'greatest strategic threat to future security' of transatlantic allies Richard Norton-Taylor guardian.co.uk, Thursday 5 January 2012 Article history The MoD spent £37bn on the UK's fleet of Eurofighter Typhoons. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images Britain and the US, close allies who are both victims of the debt crisis, will today agree to scale down their military capability and back away from the kind of armed intervention they have enthusiastically supported in recent decades. That will be the clear message from the first meeting between Philip Hammond, the UK's new defence secretary, and Leon Panetta, his opposite number in the Pentagon, officials say. The Washington meeting will also be the first opportunity for Hammond to confront the US over particular British concerns, notably the availability and soaring cost of the US-made joint strike fighters destined for Britain's new aircraft carrier, HMS Prince of Wales. [MISCOM]
• Why The US Needs a Major War
  Viktor BURBAKI | 04.01.2012 | 00:00 At the moment, we find ourselves in the middle of a turbulent phase of the global evolutionary cycle which commenced in the 1980ies and is projected to end by the middle of the XXI century. In the process, the US is clearly loosing its hyperpower status… Estimates offered by experts from the Russian Academy of Science show that the current period of severe instabilities should end roughly in 2017-2019 with a crisis. The crisis will not be as deep as those of 2008-2009 or 2011-2012 and will mark the transition to an economy built on a novel technological basis. The economic revival will, in 2016-2020, likely entail serious shifts in the global power balance and serious military-political conflicts involving both the global heavyweights and the developing countries. The epicenters of the conflicts will supposedly be located in the Middle East and the post-Soviet Central Asia. The century of the US global military-political dominance and economic primacy appears to be nearing completion. The US failed the unipolarity test and, bled by permanent Middle Eastern conflicts, currently lacks the resources retaining the global leadership would take. [Decline] [Realignment]
• Iran intensifies efforts to influence policy in Afghanistan
  By Ernesto Londoño, KABUL — Worried that U.S. troops could stay in Afghanistan beyond 2014, Iran is mounting an aggressive campaign to fuel anti-American sentiment here and convince Afghan leaders that a robust, long-term security partnership with Washington would be counterproductive, Afghan officials and analysts say. The Iranian initiative involves cultivating closer relations with the Taliban, funding politicians and media outlets, and expanding cultural ties with its eastern neighbor. Although the effort has been underway for years, Iran has been moving with increased vigor in recent months because the United States and Afghanistan are negotiating a security agreement that could set the parameters for a U.S. troop presence here after 2014.
• The risks of talking with the Taliban
  By Editorial Board, Thursday, January 5, 12:46 PM ONE WEAKNESS of the Obama administration’s emerging initiative to negotiate with leaders of the Afghan Taliban is evident in the misleading rhetoric with which it is described. On Tuesday, State Department and White House spokesmen carefully distanced themselves from an announcement from the Taliban that it would open an office in the Persian Gulf emirate of Qatar — “we’ve seen these reports of some kind of preliminary agreement with regard to an office for Taliban political activity,” said State spokeswoman Victoria Nuland — while insisting that the process was “Afghan-led.” In fact, as The Post has reported, the pending deal to open the Qatar office has been driven by the Obama administration, which has been secretly negotiating with the Taliban — and the Afghan government of Hamid Karzai has been all but dragged into accepting it. A far more honest description of what is occurring came Wednesday from the office of the Afghan president: “Afghanistan,” said his statement, “agrees to U.S.-Taliban peace negotiations and a liaison office in Qatar for the Taliban.” So far, in other words, the negotiations with the Taliban have been anything but “Afghan-led.” The danger is that they will end up serving the short-term interests of an administration eager to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan as quickly as possible — rather than serving the interests of Afghans or an enduring peace. [US Global strategy] [Negotiations]
• The Outlook for the New Year.
  Paul Craig Roberts In March 2010 when I resigned from my column with Creator’s Syndicate and put down my pen, I received so many protests from readers that two months later I began writing again. This renewed activity has resulted in this new year in a website of my own. My columns will first appear on my site. Sites on which readers are accustomed to find my columns are permitted to continue to post my columns as long as they link to my site and indicate my copyright. The site will stay up if reader support justifies it. Otherwise, I will conclude that the cost of the site exceeds the value of what I have to say. This past year has not been a good one for the 99%, and the new year is likely to be even worse. This column deals with the outlook for liberty. The next will deal with the economic outlook. The outlook for liberty is dismal. Those writers who are critical of Washington’s illegal wars and overthrow of the US Constitution could find themselves in indefinite detainment, because criticism of Washington’s policies can be alleged to be aiding Washington’s enemies, which might include charities that provide aid to bombed Palestinian children and flotillas that attempt to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza.
• Taliban publicly expresses interest in talks with U.S.
  By Ernesto Londoño, Wednesday, January 4, 12:47 AM KABUL — The Taliban on Tuesday for the first time publicly expressed interest in negotiating with Washington, outlining a vision for talks with U.S. officials in Qatar that conspicuously excluded a role for the Afghan government. The announcement marked a major departure for a militant group that had long said it would not negotiate while foreign troops remained in Afghanistan. It offered a measure of hope that after years of missteps, a U.S.-sought negotiated settlement to the decade-long war is possible. If a Taliban office is established in Qatar, U.S. and Afghan interlocutors would have a formal venue to hold substantive talks with the group’s envoys after months of clandestine contact. But analysts warned of substantial unknowns and possible pitfalls, including whether Pakistan will back or seek to thwart the effort. In addition, the statement’s omission of a role for the Afghan government could anger Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who in the past has felt slighted in U.S.-led attempts at peace talks.
• American Groups Rebut Egyptian Accusations
  By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK Published: January 2, 2012 CAIRO — Two American democracy-building organizations accused Egypt’s military-led government of a campaign of false statements about their activities and history, ratcheting up a confrontation between Washington and Cairo over police raids that shut down the groups’ offices. [NGO] [Subversion]
• Billions needed to upgrade America’s leaky water infrastructure
  By Ashley Halsey III, Tuesday, January 3, 1:59 PM At first glance, the pizza-size hole that popped open when a heavy truck passed over a freshly paved District street seemed fairly minor. Then city inspectors got on their bellies with a flashlight to peer into it. What they discovered has become far too common. A massive 19th-century brick sewer had silently eroded away, leaving a cavern beneath a street in Adams Morgan that could have swallowed most of a Metro bus. [Decline] [Infrastructure]
• Iranian currency slides under latest U.S. sanctions
  Vahid Salemi/AP - Iran’s ailing currency, seen at right, took another slide Monday, losing 12 percent against foreign currencies after a U.S. decision to place its central bank under unilateral sanctions. Text Size PrintE-mailReprintsBy Thomas Erdbrink, Tuesday, January 3, 6:40 AM TEHRAN — Iran’s ailing currency took a steep slide Monday, losing 12 percent against foreign currencies after President Obama on Saturday signed a bill that places the Islamic republic’s central bank under unilateral sanctions. The currency, which economists say was held artificially high for years against the dollar and the euro, has lost about 35 percent of its value since September. Its exchange rate hovered at 16,800 rials to the dollar, marking a record low. The currency was trading at about 10,500 rials to the U.S. dollar in late December 2010. [Sanctions] [Subversion]
• Analysis: U.S. fighter sales soar in time for campaign
  By Jim Wolf WASHINGTON | Sun Jan 1, 2012 5:13pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Booming Middle East purchases of U.S. fighter jets will be a bright spot in what is expected to be a sluggish economy in 2012, possibly paying dividends for President Barack Obama's bid for a second term. Beneficiaries include Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing Co, whose respective F-16 and F-15 production lines are being extended by U.S. government sales to Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Oman, among other rich arms deals announced in recent weeks. [Arms sales] [Militarisation] [US_election12]
• Militants create haven in southern Yemen
  By Sudarsan Raghavan, Published: January 1 ZINJIBAR, Yemen — — In this remote, sun-blasted corner of southern Yemen, there’s a battle raging that is as important to the United States as it is to this nation’s beleaguered government. Each day, American-backed Yemeni forces engage in a grueling struggle to retake territory from militant Islamists — a conventional army pitted against a guerrilla militia with grand ambitions to stage an attack on U.S. soil. Each day, the soldiers feel increasingly besieged. “We are like an island in a sea of al-Qaeda,” said Lt. Abdul Mohamed Saleh, standing at a checkpoint on a desolate highway that connects Zinjibar with the port city of Aden. “We are surrounded from every direction.” [Global insurgency]
• Ron Paul leaves rosy outlooks, campaign promises to the other GOP candidates
  By Nia-Malika Henderson, Monday, January 2, 11:23 AM DES MOINES — At nearly every event, Ron Paul begins on a high note. He generally smiles, introduces a member of his family, talks up his campaign and says how pleased he is with the way things are going. And then, for the next 45 minutes or so, he outlines a view of the world so bleak it would make Chicken Little sound like an optimist. .There will be a total collapse of the economy. An eruption of violence in the streets. Martial law is just around the corner. Paul says he would like to cut $1 trillion out of the budget. “People say that means everybody will suffer,” he adds. Some probably will, he concedes, but “they should have to suffer.” And then there are the sorts of ominous predictions he made at an evening rally here Wednesday: “There are certain events that are coming that are going to happen — they are going to be very dangerous. They might come in a day, a week or a year.” Not exactly morning in America. [Decline] [US_election12]
• Pakistan between fragility and resilience
  A more pragmatic and sustainable relationship with America, respecting its sovereignty and interests, will be Pakistan's major objective in 2012 By Tariq Osman Hyder, Special to Gulf News Published: 00:00 December 31, 2011 Pakistan stands out in the Muslim world as a functioning democracy of 180 million and a nuclear power. Abroad it is often regarded as a fragile state with unstable internal dynamics and difficult relations with the United States and its neighbours Afghanistan and India. How far is this correct?
• The abolition of the NHS. That’s what is happening.
  Allyson Pollock and David Price, 24 November 2011 In a speech on exports and growth on 10th November 2011, David Cameron went “off-script” and revealed his government’s true agenda for the NHS. Standing in front of a Union Jack banner and the slogan “START UP BRITAIN” the Prime Minister told his audience of small and medium enterprise people at the BFI on London’s South Bank: “We have a growth review, led by the Chancellor and the business secretary, which ensures that every minister has to come to the table with proposals to cut regulation in their departments and come up with ways of helping business in their sector, helping them to grow.” Then he said: “From the Health Secretary, I don’t just want to know about waiting times. I want to know how we drive the NHS to be a fantastic business for Britain.” [Health] [Privatisation]
• Contractors' role grows in drone missions, worrying some in the military
  Posted on Thursday, December 29, 2011Modified Friday, December 30, 2011 WASHINGTON — After a U.S. airstrike mistakenly killed at least 15 Afghans in 2010, the Army officer investigating the accident was surprised to discover that an American civilian had played a central role: analyzing video feeds from a Predator drone keeping watch from above. The contractor had overseen other analysts at Air Force Special Operations Command at Hurlburt Field in Florida as the drone tracked suspected insurgents near a small unit of U.S. soldiers in rugged hills in central Afghanistan. Based partly on her analysis, an Army captain ordered an airstrike on a convoy that turned out to be carrying innocent men, women and children. Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/12/29/134436/contractors-role-grows-in-drone.html#storylink=cpy [Privatisation] [UAV]
• Red Lines and Ticking Clocks: U.S. War Plans Against Iran
  The possibility of Russia's Military Involvement... by Tom Burghardt Global Research, December 26, 2011 Antifascist Calling... Before the first bomb falls disinformation specialists prepare the ground. Leading media outlets, foreign policy journals and a plethora of think tanks funded by elite foundations, energy and weapons' conglomerates, "right," "left" or "center" take your pick, churn out war propaganda disguised as "analysis." From the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI) to the neoliberal Center for American Progress (CAP), rhetorical skirmishes aside, the line is remarkably similar. Indeed, for "conservative" and "liberal" elite bloviators alike, Iran poses an "existential threat" to Israel and America's regional "allies," a disparate crew of land-grabbing colonizers, murderous princes and profligate potentates. Only U.S. intervention, in the form of an overt military attack now or crippling economic sanctions followed by military action later, can save the day and bring "democracy" to the benighted Iranian people.
• Will 2012 Bring Tribal War to Libya?
  by FRANKLIN LAMB Tripoli The weather in Tripoli this New Year’s weekend is unseasonably bone chilling with heavy rains flooding the streets reminding this observer more of dreary London this time of year than the southern Maghreb coast of the Mediterranean. My modest family run neighborhood hotel off Omar Muktar Street is clean and cheap, but my room has no heat except what eventually builds up under a stack of velour Turkish blankets. Much valued by me and the only other registered guest, a Libyan engineer from Sirte whose home was torched by rebels in early October, is the hotel proprietor who reopened in early November following closure since last March. He is an encyclopedia of knowledge and opinion on “the current situation” here. But the hotel owner and his two English speaking sons are not the only ones who are increasingly speaking out about realities in the “new Libya” nearly two months after NATO declared another victory and stopped systematically and seemingly indiscriminately reducing to rubble this essentially defenseless and militarily speaking, Third World country, with the First Worlds most advanced arsenal. [Libya] [Fragmentation]
• Sources of Libyan War. Revelations of Former French Foreign Minister
  Alexander MEZYAEV | 31.12.2011 | 00:00 At first glance at the 2011 events in Libya it looks like the decision to attack the country was taken only somewhere in February or March. A number of facts and official documents seem to prove it. In January 2011 the UN was preparing to discuss the human rights in Libya. Not a single state expressed concern, and praises were sung to commend the leadership of the country for outstanding achievements in this field. What was it the main enemies of Libya were saying those days, the same ones in the vanguard to attack it in just a few weeks after? [Libya] [Syria]