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October 27, 2007
OT 07-75
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Revealed: Poisoned ex-Russian spy Litvinenko WAS a paid-up MI6 agent
The former Russian spy poisoned in a London hotel was an MI6 agent, the Daily Mail can reveal.
Alexander Litvinenko was receiving a retainer of around £2,000 a month from the British security services at the time he was murdered.
…
if you have a really fast connection to the internets, you might like to check out da Vinci’s Last Supper, digitized with some 16 billion pixels.
I confess I did read “The DaVinci Code” and have wondered about the figure on Jesus’s immediate right, is it a man or a woman. The book says it is Mary Magdaline though at the site and elsewhere says it is John.
looking at the painting much more closely than I could in the museum, the features seem to be those of a woman. with the care and accuracy Leonardo is known for, it does make you wonder.
Posted by: dan of steele | Oct 27 2007 20:45 utc | 2
Ummn, Digby pointed today to an article in ABC news which mentions that in the new emergency appropiation of 196 billion there is tucked in a 88 million request which will to be used to fix up B-2 stealth bombers so they can carry MOP (Massive Ordinance Penetrator) a newly developed 30,000 lb bunker buster bomb.
The question is why? For what purpose? (The military says that this is urgently needed!) Where on earth would one want to use a stealth bomber to deliver this monster MOP (designed to go down 200 feet before detonating!) Answer, Nantanz nuke site 130 miles south of Teheran.
Ahmedinejad or no Ahmedinejad, the shrouds of the Ultimate Wars seem to draw closer.
Posted by: Chuck Cliff | Oct 27 2007 21:34 utc | 3
Armageddon in Nahr al-Bared: Everything The Lebanese Army Couldn’t Take, They Destroyed
~Snip
When he returned to his house a week and a half ago, Khaled found that it had been completely looted, including the appliances in the kitchen, which was destroyed by shelling. Additionally, fuel had been thrown onto the remaining walls and everything flammable in the house was put in the center of the rooms and burned. The iron front door had been blasted open and all of Khaled’s furniture, his television and appliances, bed furnishings, and even the olive oil, were stolen from the house.
However, what he did find were a dozen washing machines and a dozen fridges, all of them taken from his neighbors’ houses. Because of his home’s close proximity to the highway, he reckons that it was a strategic place for the looting army, or whomever they let in to do the stealing, to take their bounty from the camp. “Import/export from Nahr al-Bared to China and Indonesia,” Khaled jokes. Also indicating the systematic nature of the looting, a neighbor found 25 televisions being stored in his house. The appliances were eventually matched with their owners, though Khaled is currently making use of an unclaimed washing machine until its owner comes to collect it.
Who will be held accountable for this, and when????
Posted by: Bea | Oct 27 2007 22:19 utc | 4
according to this and this those 30,000lb monsters might go that deep as it all depends on the hardness of the ground (soil – rocks – mixed) it smacks
they could bomb that place and not damage much – not directly anyway – and the place might still go up like Calif, but with yummy radiation
one of those articles talks of delivering “clean” low yield nukes
Posted by: jcairo | Oct 27 2007 22:27 utc | 5
two re south africa
S.Africa says land target unattainable by 2014
PRETORIA (Reuters) – South Africa’s target of transferring 30 percent of farmland to black ownership by 2014 may be unattainable, but it will pursue its policy of seizing land from white farmers, a government official said on Friday.
The government set itself a target of handing 30 percent of all agricultural land to the black majority by 2014 but it is only just approaching 4 percent of that target and says it needs to accelerate the process.
To do so, authorities have gradually embarked on seizures to return land to blacks whose land was forcibly taken under previous governments. Officials have stuck by the 2014 target, as land activists grow increasingly impatient.
However, in what may be the first such acknowledgement by a senior official, Chief Land Claims Commissioner Thozi Gwanya said the goal might prove elusive.
“There are many challenges. It may not be attainable in the medium term, but we say (30 percent of land) is a reasonable and practical target,” he told Reuters.
“I think we were very optimistic when we set the (2014) target. The challenges relate to the acquiring of land, the negotiations, the high land prices, the resistance to land reform by some of the farmers.
South Africa: China Reaches for Its Africa Dream
THE acquisition of a 20% stake in Standard Bank by the Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) is the clearest evidence yet by the Chinese company of its quest to expand its presence in emerging markets.
The deal also reinforces China’s push into becoming the dominant economic player in Africa, where Standard Bank operates in 18 countries.
The state-controlled ICBC, which overtook Citigroup in July as the world’s biggest bank by market value, is flush with cash and eyeing expansion opportunities after raising $21,9bn last year in the world’s biggest initial public offering (IPO).
ICBC chairman Jiang Jianqing said this month he wanted overseas business to account for 10% of ICBC’s total revenues, up from today’ s 3%-4%. He planned to open branches in Doha, Dubai, Moscow and Sydney.
ICBC, which is listed in Hong Kong and Shangai, is the biggest lender in China and its R36,7bn investment in Standard Bank is the largest offshore investment by a Chinese company to date.
…
Standard Bank, with units in 18 countries in Africa and 21 elsewhere, is expanding outside SA, where it earns most of its profit, to tap rising trade in commodities and fees from investment banking. It has acquired banks in Argentina, Nigeria and Kenya, and has said it may make acquisitions in Russia as well as start an operation in India, the fastest-growing economy after China.
ICBC’s investment in Standard Bank also underscores the growing global ambitions of China’s companies. The nation, whose key stock index surged 169% this year, is now home to three of the world’s five largest companies by market value.
The deal also gives credence to the perception that China is seeking to move beyond its standard strategy of the past few years of offering cheap loans in return for access to the continent’s mineral wealth. It will also aid ICBC earn more revenue by financing booming trade between China and Africa, which swelled 40% last year to $55,5bn, making the nation Africa’s third-largest trading partner.
…
China has $1,43-trillion in foreign exchange reserves, a record for any nation.
Posted by: b real | Oct 28 2007 4:29 utc | 7
An acceptable presence: the new US basing structure in the Philippines
The Philippines’ decision 16 years ago to close down a US military base made history and marked a significant victory for anti-base campaigners. But backdoor deals have delivered the largest ever US military presence. Philippines illustrates the latest strategy of US imperialism to create agile, flexible forces to maintain dominance.
Posted by: b real | Oct 28 2007 4:57 utc | 8
Guantanamo military lawyer breaks ranks to condemn ‘unconscionable’ detention
[snip]
“It’s a kangaroo court system and completely corrupt,” said Michael Ratner, the president of the Centre for Constitutional Rights, which is co-ordinating investigations and appeals lawsuits against the government by some 1,000 lawyers. “Stalin had show trials, but at Guantanamo they are not even show trials because it all takes place in secret.”
Combatant Status Review Tribunals were held for 558 detainees at the Guantanamo in 2004 and 2005. All but 38 detainees were determined to be “enemy combatants” who could be held indefinitely without charges. Detainees were not represented by a lawyer and had no access to evidence. The only witnesses they could call were other so-called “enemy combatants”.
[snip]
Posted by: Rick | Oct 28 2007 5:47 utc | 9
Jonathan Schwarz with some insight on “acceptable” foreign leaders:
The dividing line between what foreign leaders are acceptable isn’t, as I implied, just whether Democrats or Republicans are meeting with them. The dividing line is also (perhaps mostly) whether they’ve knuckled under to US foreign policy. Anyone who has is acceptable, and Democrats are generally safe cozying up to them. Anyone who hasn’t is radioactive, and if Republicans meet with them, they may well be attacked from the right, with Democrats joining in.
…
Or take the two Mahmouds, Abbas and Ahmadinejad. They’ve both engaged in exactly the same kind of holocaust denial, with Abbas writing, “Many scholars have debated the figure of six million and reached stunning conclusions—fixing the number of Jewish victims at only a few hundred thousand.”
But it’s perfectly fine for Abbas to have said it, and fine for George Bush or Hillary Clinton to hang out with him, because Abbas follows orders. If he stopped following orders, that holocaust quote would be repeated every time he’s mentioned in the US media, and Hillary couldn’t meet with him anymore. Conversely, if Ahmadinejad would just start following orders, he could deny the holocaust all he wants, and Hillary could make out with him on national TV. No problem.
This is so glaringly obvious you’d think it might occasionally appear in a US newspaper, perhaps as often as once a decade. But it doesn’t. As Noam Chomsky likes to say, you’ve got to admire the discipline.
Uncle’s continuing, War at Home…
Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007
Does the U.S. Government have a reason to believe that the American people are about to snap out of their zombie trance and actually do something?
Maybe… Just maybe the USG knows that the situation on the ground is going to change substantially and that the general level of comfort is going to drop. In other words, less bread and fewer compelling enough circuses. If that was the case, increasing numbers of people could become radicalized. The USG will do what all other governments do as they collapse: Turn inward.
As the level of sociopolitical cohesion falls, the state increasingly views the people as a national security problem.
To wit, from the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007:
(2) VIOLENT RADICALIZATION- The term ‘violent radicalization’ means the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change.
(3) HOMEGROWN TERRORISM- The term ‘homegrown terrorism’ means the use, planned use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual born, raised, or based and operating primarily within the United States or any possession of the United States to intimidate or coerce the United States government, the civilian population of the United States, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.
Yes, indeed. People are about to become very uncomfortable indeed. When that happens, there will almost certainly be trouble–demonstrations, protests–and riots.
Sounds like “homegrown terrorism” is intended to cover any form of protest by US citizens, whether peaceful or otherwise:
“…the use, planned use, or threatened use, of force or violence…to intimidate or coerce the United States government, the civilian population of the United States, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.”
So, how do they define “force”? I suppose that could include blocking a public road or sidewalk, or even making a forceful statement–or perhaps even planning to do these things.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 28 2007 7:04 utc | 11
S’funny… thought they had all this shit worked out in 1967.
Forty years later … the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge still can’t get it to work.
Posted by: DM | Oct 28 2007 9:10 utc | 12
here is a handy link to a data base that keeps track of votes in the House and Senate. you can also display votes by generation, gender, political party, and most importantly….zodiac sign. I gotta tell you, I was crestfallen when I discovered Rahm Emmanuel shares my sign.
Now I will have to invent time travel so that I can go back in time and change my birthday. damn!
Posted by: dan of steele | Oct 28 2007 11:26 utc | 13
The kidnapped chiefs were riding two cars when they were stopped by the gunmen in Shaab, a district in which US troops have set up a security centre used as a launching pad for military operations.
dunno, the fecal matter is hitting the ventilator now. could this be the beginning of the “Ted” ;>) offensive…
Posted by: dan of steele | Oct 28 2007 16:14 utc | 14
for the francofiles in the house, here are a couple of links to La Revue du Liban and a photo journalist’s coverage of the 34 day war…
http://www.rdl.com.lb/2007/q4/4129/index.html
http://www.rdl.com.lb/34j/index.html
sorry my posting is not very elegant :/
Posted by: esme in paris | Oct 28 2007 23:05 utc | 15
Something rather nice for us here at MOA, from Information Clearinghouse.
Truth Matters
Posted by: ‘citizen’ | Oct 29 2007 1:42 utc | 16
Oil at new record on Turkey-Iraq tensions, Nigeria
SYDNEY, Oct 29 (Reuters) – Oil prices extended gains to set a new all-time high on Monday, lifted by heightened tensions between Turkey and Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq, as well as a second wave of abductions in major oil producer Nigeria.
U.S. light crude for December delivery leapt more than half a dollar to a record $92.43 in early electronic trade, adding to Friday’s $1.40 surge. It was trading up 52 cents at $92.38 a barrel by 0027 GMT.
London Brent crude rose 41 cents to $89.10. It hit an all-time high of $89.30 on Friday.
…
Turkish troops killed 20 Kurdish guerrillas on Sunday in a major operation against separatist rebels in eastern Turkey, army sources said.
The attacks have sparked worries of supply disruptions from northern Iraq and heightened fears of wider regional fallout if Turkey follows through with threats to launch attacks inside northern Iraq if necessary.
Iraq and neighbouring major oil producers Saudi Arabia, Iran and Kuwait between them produce over 17 million bpd, around 20 percent of the world’s supply.
The abduction of foreign oil workers in Nigeria on Friday which forced ENI unit Saipem and SBM Offshore to cut production by 50,000 barrels per day (bpd), have also reignited fears of further supply cuts, potentially worsening a supply shortage in the upcoming winter.
Posted by: b real | Oct 29 2007 4:29 utc | 17
Rumsfeld Indicted on Torture Charges.
“We Do Not Do Torture (sic)”
Paraguay, perhaps?
—
Post equitem sedet atra cura
Posted by James Wimberley
(Horace: behind the horseman rides black care)
French and international human rights groups filed torture charges yesterday in Paris against Donald Rumsfeld while he was giving a talk.
Is this a strategy? I hope so, because it’s a good one:
1. Prepare charges secretly against suspected torture perps for as many jurisdictions as possible.
2. Wait till the perps travel, then ambush them with charges.
Short-term result:
* Media event overshadowing anything else about the trip; the perp scuttles away just in case; there’s no arrest.
Long-term results:
* The charges stay on file, are investigated, and arrest warrants may be issued;
* Return trips become much riskier;
* Other perps (Tenet, Goss, Gonzales, Cambone, Miller, Addington and Yoo under the Nuremberg precedent, and above all Cheney and Bush) will have to worry about every foreign trip after they retire and pay for criminal defence lawyers all their lives;
* Eventually the spider’s web of torture charges will make travel too risky for the perps over much of the globe.
There’s only an outside chance of actual foreign torture trials of US citizens. Few foreign prosecutors will have the nerve, reflexes and independence to make arrests – but there are some, like the Spaniard Baltasar Garzón who might take a shot. If justice is ever to be done, it will have to be by Americans.
Update 28 October
Larry Johnson, blogging at TPM Café (after me) on the same subject, adds the point that if arrest warrants are issued, some of them will themselves have international reach. If a French prosecutor issued a European arrest warrant for Rumsfeld, he wouldn’t be safe even in politically sympathetic EU countries like Poland.
Posted by: Apres Deluge | Oct 29 2007 5:19 utc | 18
sounds like the transitional federal govt in somalia is another step closer to the grave. president yusuf & prime minister gedi each have others announce that the other is about to leave office.
BAIDOA, Somalia Oct 28 (Garowe Online) – An advisor to interim Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf told the international press Sunday that Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi will return to Baidoa and submit his resignation.
Abdirisak Adan, President Yusuf’s foreign affairs advisor, told London-based Asharq Alawsat newspaper that Premier Gedi will submit his resignation upon returning from the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.
…
Abdullahi “Odka” Muhiyadin, a Gedi spokesman, dismissed Mr. Adan’s claim that the Somali prime minister will resign.
“If anyone is going to resign the closest person [to resignation] is President Abdullahi Yusuf and everyone is aware of his deteriorating health condition,” Odka said.
President Yusuf has pushed parliament to sack Prime Minister Gedi, but insiders say Gedi has a lot of supporters in parliament and has repeatedly refused to face lawmakers.
Rumors of Yusuf’s illness have circulated through Baidoa, home of the Somali parliament, since last week when reports surfaced that German doctors were transported from Kenya to see the Somali president.
and the mayor of mogadishu, former warlord mohamed dheere, is further enamoring the public of the TFG’s good graces
Somalia: Mogadishu mayor warns civilians to evacuate as violence rages
MOGADISHU, Somalia Oct 28 (Garowe Online) – The mayor of the Somali capital Mogadishu has warned residents in select neighborhoods to leave their homes because the government has “run out of patience” with insurgent groups.
Mayor Mohamed “Dheere” Omar held a press conference at his Mogadishu residence Sunday, saying that Bakara market business groups have failed to stop “anti-peace groups” from using the market to launch attacks on government security forces.
“We appeal to the public to leave areas where the anti-peace groups are in Hodan and Howlwadaag neighborhoods, like Bakara market, because we must take military action and we wish to spare civilian lives,” Mayor Dheere said in his strongest words since coming to office earlier this year.
He warned the Bakara business groups to vacate the market in preparation for a military operation carried out by Somali federal troops and Mogadishu police, supported by the Ethiopian army.
AP reported a protest on sunday against the TFG & ethiopian occupiers
Somali protesters burn tires, throw rocks to demand departure of Ethiopian troops
Hundreds of protesters demanding the departure of government-allied Ethiopian troops burned tires and threw stones Sunday in the Somali capital as some of the worst violence in months continued for a second day.
Two demonstrators were wounded when Ethiopian troops fired toward protesters after several hundred Somalis — many of them women and children — took to the streets shouting anti-Ethiopian slogans, erecting burning barricades and tossing rocks, witnesses said.
“We will resist them — for our country, our religion, our honor,” said demonstrator Ahmed Hussein.
AFP reported that
Ethiopian troops fire on Somalia protesters – witness
Ethiopian forces opened fire on demonstrators protesting against their presence in Mogadishu Sunday, killing three, witnesses said, as fresh violence engulfed the Somali capital.
A crowd of hundreds of protesters chanting “Allahu Akbar” (God is great) and wielding sticks had been marching in the streets of southern Mogadishu in reaction to the latest Ethiopian crackdown on the insurgency when the deaths occurred.
“A young boy and two other civilians died when Ethiopian forces in Suqaholaha area opened fire on us. We were demonstrating against them and they opened fire to disperse the crowd,” witness Hussein Adan Suley said.
“We ran away when the Ethiopians opened fire. I know that one child was killed,” said another protester, Asma Wardhere.
There was no immediate confirmation of the casualty toll from medical sources following the demonstration, the first to be staged by disgruntled Mogadishu residents in several months.
But a police official speaking on condition of anonymity confirmed that three people had died during the demonstration, and added that two other people had been killed Sunday in separate incidents.
that article is incorrect in writing that “The Ethiopian army came to the rescue of Somalia’s embattled government last year to defeat fundamentalist Islamist militia that briefly controlled large parts of the country,” b/c the islamic courts union itself was not a militia. one of its components was, which was necessary to defeat the cia-backed warlords who had been terrorizing & looting the peoples of somalia, but the AFP for whatever reason doesn’t feel the readers need to know the real story.
and that rpt really underplays the bodycount from the battles on saturday, mentioning only two dead. the article on the mayors directive, OTOH, which is a somalian news source, states that “Yesterday’ s face-to-face gun battles led to nearly 20 deaths, including 3 Ethiopian soldiers.”
the ethiopian govt has been extremely secretive about the number of casualties its forces have incurred in somalia since the december 26th invasion. i haven’t even seen estimates, though it has to be significant.
the fighting over the last week was evidently some of the heaviest fighting in months.
Posted by: b real | Oct 29 2007 5:45 utc | 19
For all you Ron Paul fans out there…
“Milton Friedman 1912-2006” by Ron Paul
He isn’t there as an alternative to anything. He’s there to make sure an alternative movement doesn’t develop.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 29 2007 9:15 utc | 20
Further, wrt my #20 I’m also beginning to suspect that is also the role of Kucinich\Gravel, to be used knowingly or not as an OFV (overflow valve) and set of sealing washer’s.
Ultimately provided for with actuating means for a discharge valve.
To discharge collective angst.
An overflow valve controls the pressure on the inlet side. It is used wherever a specific inlet pressure must not be exceeded. And status quo must be maintained.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 29 2007 10:49 utc | 22
Asia Times: The Turks Are Coming
To say this is all part of a “structural crisis” between Turkey and the US would be the understatement of the century. Turkey is actually deciding nothing less than its real geopolitical position in a mesmerizing balancing act involving Iran, Israel, the Arab world, Europe, Russia and the US.
Fascinating piece that gives a comprehensive overview of Turkey’s intentions vis a vis northern Iraq and the many regional faultlines that are starting to heat up like hot lava…
Recommended.
Posted by: Bea | Oct 29 2007 12:53 utc | 23
Rummy torture links:
Torture Complaint Filed Against Rumsfeld [NYT]
Rumsfeld and the Taxi to the Darkside, by Larry Johnson
also of note:
Sibel Edmonds Ready to Tell All
Posted by: manonfyre | Oct 29 2007 20:46 utc | 24
that’s the beauty of it.
It’s not clear why the Diplomatic Security investigators agreed to give immunity to the bodyguards, or who authorized doing so.
and it never will be.
I mean, we’re just talking 17 dead wogs. who gives a fuck?
Posted by: ran | Oct 29 2007 21:43 utc | 25
I had a hard time getting into the Brad Blog site, but with some pains, was able to look at the story that’s breaking about Sibel Edmonds. (thanks manonfyre, for that link) Wonder if anyone else has had the same problem I had, getting connected to the site. High traffic I guess; but I did manage to read the article before my computer sort of froze up.
The story of Edmonds being willing to tell all now, even though she may face prison, is a pretty damned hairy political story. There are numerous ways to go–angles to take in terms of choosing the most cogent lede for the story.
But what strikes me as the most pertinent, is the way the whole damned Waxman Committee has just gone dark on the exposure of this story. It’s not simply that they broke their promise to Edmonds (made before the November election) to give priority to her testimony and make a public investigation of it, just as soon as they rode in with a majority; but what is obvious now, is the way they have put her off and stonewalled from the beginning of the new Congress until now.
I was able to read most of Brad’s story; and the shocker (for me) is that neither Waxman nor anyone on his staff is now willing to make any comment about the case. The whole committee has “gone mum”.
Sibel offers to tell the whole story, if any one of the major networks is willing to give her unedited access to the public. She has exhausted all avenues of government to get the story out; and in her frustration with this long injustice and the stranglehold the Justice Department put on her testimony, she thinks her only remaining option is to face the possibility of prison. Her act of public service would connect several government officials with certain specific criminal acts, and reveal a level of institutional corruption, as well as the penetration of criminal enterprises into organs of US intelligence services and perhaps other areas of the bureaucracy.
copeland, yes i had trouble earlier accessing the site. my guess is things are really tenuous w/turkey right now. that factor, along w/the obvious issue of hasket etc, makes this too hot to handle. or maybe waxman found out he would be liable under some law for breaking a gag order??
more likely it messes w/the turkey tightrope, imho.
or maybe the 9/11 evidence is too over the top for it to come out.
cowards!
Posted by: annie | Oct 30 2007 3:41 utc | 30
annie,
Probably my mistake – I see the story on presstv homepage.
try this:
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=29089§ionid=3510203
Posted by: Rick | Oct 30 2007 4:02 utc | 31
Sibel…
I find it hard to believe that a woman with her experience would be stupid enough to “taunt” and threaten that crowd with potentially bogus accusations. I suspect she is leaving some “in the bag” because she is wise. If you let all your marbles out of the bag before hand, and show them to your opponent, they have ample time to counter a defense. If you save some ammo until the last minute, a prepared defense isn’t possible. She is aware of the value of the element of last minute surprise…obviously.
She isn’t stupid enough to give them time to come up with a defense. That is also the value of “last minute surprise witnesses with valuable testimony” used in court rooms daily when possible. It gives less time for the opponent to prepare.
And besides, she has put the offer on the table if the interview will not be edited and misconstrued.
@ rick:
US Brigadier General wounded in Iraq
A US Brigadier General has been wounded in a roadside bomb blast in northern Iraqi capital of Baghdad, media sources have reported.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 30 2007 4:21 utc | 32
The NYT: Foreign Fighters of Violent Bent Bolster Taliban
The foreign fighters are not only bolstering the ranks of the insurgency. They are more violent, uncontrollable and extreme than even their locally bred allies, officials on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border warn.
The Pashtun Daily News: Foreign Fighters of Violent Bent Bolster Northern Tribes
The foreign fighters are not only bolstering the ranks of the insurgency. They are more violent, uncontrollable and extreme than even their locally bred allies, officials on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border warn.
…
Foreign fighters are coming from America, Canada, Netherlands, various Western countries and perhaps also Australia, Taliban officials say.
Comparisons of America and Rome are everywhere these days, whether deploring an over-extended military, social decadence, or illegal immigration. A more disturbing—and largely ignored—similarity lies in the wholesale privatization of the U.S. government , which has blurred the line between public good and personal gain. In an excerpt from his new book, Cullen Murphy charts a dynamic that is more dangerous than corruption, unprecedented in scale, and visible everywhere from Hurricane Katrina to the Iraq war, to the justice system.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 30 2007 7:03 utc | 34
On the Somalia resignations b real reported:
Pravda: Premier Quits Amid Turmoil In Somalia
Somalia’s prime minister resigned Monday amid pressure from neighboring powerhouse Ethiopia, faltering support from the United States and a power struggle with the Somali president who had appointed him.
…
In recent weeks, Gedi had come under mounting internal and external pressure to resign. Some of it came from the United States, which backed Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia to oust a nascent Islamic movement and install a government friendly to the U.S. policy of fighting suspected terrorists in the Horn of Africa.
Gedi flew to the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa twice for meetings with government figures there before finally offering his resignation to Yusuf, who told parliament he welcomed it.
The U.S. State Department issued a statement relatively quickly, saying that Gedi’s resignation was “made in the spirit of continued dialogue and national reconciliation” and calling on Yusuf’s government to “use this opportunity to engage with key Somali stakeholders, particularly those in Mogadishu.”
Mohamed Uluso, a political leader of an influential Hawiye subclan, said he was not so sure Yusuf had the spirit of reconciliation in him. The president, he pointed out, has failed, along with Gedi, to reach out to opposition groups — not only insurgents but also intellectuals, businessmen and religious leaders.
“Really, we see this as a victory for Abdullahi Yusuf,” Uluso said, adding that he believes Gedi is to some extent being made a scapegoat for Yusuf’s failures. “It’s the beginning of an authoritarian system in Somalia. There is an abuse of power-sharing, and I think what’s coming will be worse than what we have seen before.”
2007 Spying Said to Cost $50 Billion
The director of national intelligence will disclose today that national intelligence activities amounting to roughly 80 percent of all U.S. intelligence spending for the year cost more than $40 billion, according to sources on Capitol Hill and inside the administration.
The disclosure means that when military spending is added, aggregate U.S. intelligence spending for fiscal 2007 exceeded $50 billion, according to these sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the total remains classified.
…
While the budget figure released by McConnell excludes intelligence programs for the separate military services, it includes the budgets of the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the FBI’s intelligence programs, the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research and the major Defense Department intelligence collection agencies.
Let Sibel Edmonds tell her story unedited? A few problems – w/her knowledge of the Criminal Drug Running Generals who run Turkey when a) xUS forces get 80% of their supplies in Iraq via Turkey & b) they payoff most of the Zionist Am. political figures…. This on 60 Minutes…Sure
As far as Waxman, Pelosi told him if he brought impeachment up, he’d be removed from his Chairmanship. Turns out she’s a pretty figurine. Chief Lieutenant is Rightwing Clinton loyalist Rahm Emmanuel.
Posted by: jj | Oct 30 2007 8:48 utc | 37
Malcolm Nance at Small Wars gives a detailed description of what waterboarding really is – its NOT simulated drowning, its controlled REAL drowning. Torture? Ya sure you betcha:
1. Waterboarding is a torture technique. Period. There is no way to gloss over it or sugarcoat it. It has no justification outside of its limited role as a training demonstrator. Our service members have to learn that the will to survive requires them accept and understand that they may be subjected to torture, but that America is better than its enemies and it is one’s duty to trust in your nation and God, endure the hardships and return home with honor.
2. Waterboarding is not a simulation. Unless you have been strapped down to the board, have endured the agonizing feeling of the water overpowering your gag reflex, and then feel your throat open and allow pint after pint of water to involuntarily fill your lungs, you will not know the meaning of the word.
Waterboarding is a controlled drowning that, in the American model, occurs under the watch of a doctor, a psychologist, an interrogator and a trained strap-in/strap-out team. It does not simulate drowning, as the lungs are actually filling with water. There is no way to simulate that. The victim is drowning. How much the victim is to drown depends on the desired result (in the form of answers to questions shouted into the victim’s face) and the obstinacy of the subject. A team doctor watches the quantity of water that is ingested and for the physiological signs which show when the drowning effect goes from painful psychological experience, to horrific suffocating punishment to the final death spiral.
Waterboarding is slow motion suffocation with enough time to contemplate the inevitability of black out and expiration –usually the person goes into hysterics on the board. For the uninitiated, it is horrifying to watch and if it goes wrong, it can lead straight to terminal hypoxia. When done right it is controlled death. Its lack of physical scarring allows the victim to recover and be threaten with its use again and again.
Posted by: anna missed | Oct 30 2007 9:32 utc | 38
Israel’s decision to cut power in Gaza is illegal, says UN
The UN’s top official in Gaza will tell British ministers today that Israel’s cuts in fuel and power to the Palestinians violate international law, while the isolation of Hamas has strengthened extremism and started to drive non-affiliated moderates who can leave Gaza to do so.
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The UNRWA chief, who will meet Douglas Alexander, Secretary of State for International Development and other ministers in London today, said: “I can understand why from the Israeli point of view people may think we need a stronger reaction to the Qassams [and] nothing has worked so far. But I don’t see how you can want to punish people, all of them in Gaza, which means most of them who are not behind these activities, in the way you are doing now.” In an interview, Ms Koning-Abu Zayd said: “Most people, even in some of the refugee camps, live in high-rise apartments in Gaza and if you don’t have electricity, you don’t have water, you probably don’t have food and if you’re older or sick in any way you probably can’t climb up and down all those stairs.” A cut in fuel would have a “very serious” effect on civilian movement.
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Since Hamas won the elections two months earlier, “We were saying … you had to deal with whoever is elected democratically, fairly, justly and that if you didn’t, and history seemed to us to prove this, you drive people into becoming more extreme.”
anna missed, #38,
This is significant information that has not surfaced in the corporate media and maybe never will. Pardon the pun “surfaced”, but “drowned out” comes to mind also. Waterboarding scares the crap out of me – just reading about it is scary. The details of waterboarding need to be explained to the American people, although I am sure it is more than they wish to know. Unfortunately, the word “waterboarding” has a nice sound to it – fun like surfing. Probably no accident that this is the preferred term used to describe this torture.
Posted by: Rick | Oct 30 2007 12:52 utc | 40
@b real –
There was a blogger roundtable with DoD on AFRICOM with THERESA WHELAN, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR AFRICAN AFFAIRS. A transcript (pdf). Looks like the US is using the OXFAM report Africa’s missing billions: International arms flows and the cost of conflict as justification to increase the arms flow and cost of conflicts.
I don’t have time to go through it, sorry, but thought some might be interested.
Adding to the above – the US seems to move ships around Somalia
However, new details are being reported that the hijacking took place off the Socotra Islands, and the USS Arleigh Burke (DDG 51) is shadowing the vessel. More interesting is news that the Somalian government has given permission to the USS Arleigh Burke (DDG 51) to enter Somalian waters to pursue the hijacked vessel. As far as I am aware, this is the first time the government of Somalia has given the international coalition permission to hunt pirates.
hmm
Haaretz: The Importance of a Failed Summit
Do not belittle the Annapolis summit. Despite all the prophecies of failure, justified as they are, this summit could still make an important contribution to the history of Israeli-Arab negotiations: For the first time, it will become crystal-clear who aspires toward peace and, more important, who flees from it as if from fire.
Israel is going to Annapolis as if by force. The prime minister’s hands are tied. If he were to dare to raise the core issues, which are the only thing to be discussed there, then his political fate would be sealed. Shas and Yisrael Beiteinu have already announced that in such an event, they will bring down his government. One can assume that Ehud Olmert, the survivor, is aware of this danger. Despite the lofty agreements that he will achieve – or not, it will seem as if his biweekly talks with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas never took place. Eli Yishai won’t permit it, Avigdor Lieberman is making threats and even Ehud Barak is making sour faces. An Israel that refuses to discuss the core issues is an Israel that does not want peace. There’s no other way to put it.
All this is made even more serious by the context in which the summit is being held: Israel never had as few excuses for evading progress toward peace, the ambient climate was never more conducive to progress….
All the cards will be shown at Annapolis, and that is no small thing. The world will see and judge, Israelis will see and decide: Do we genuinely want peace?
Posted by: Bea | Oct 30 2007 13:25 utc | 43
@Rick
Unfortunately, the word “waterboarding” has a nice sound to it – fun like surfing.
My god, you are completely right about that, I never thought of it. Viz Wakeboarding
Posted by: Bea | Oct 30 2007 13:29 utc | 44
i don’t think israel has ever wanted peace. that is its faustian bargain with the u s empire. even moreso today. it represents for the psychopaths that govern america – the last hope of christian civilisation against the barbarian hordes; & that is how they sell their immoral occupation of a people
it is reminiscent of another leader who imagined slavs were the beginning of the barbarian civilisation & needed to be liquidated on behalf of christian civilisation
except in the end it was the ‘barbaric’ slavs who saved christian civilisation
no, peace would underline the racist nature of zionism & it would signal the manner it has dishonoured jewish history – ashkenazi & sephardi
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 30 2007 13:36 utc | 45
thanks for the links on somalia, b. no time yesterday to follow the events or post on it. a really good source for headline stories on somalia is garowe online, for anyone interested
ex-PM gedi is from a hawiye subclan — hawiyes are the largest clan in somalia, plus they dominate mogadishu & a good part of the south — and was allegedly brought in to appease them enough to tolerate the TFG, which is led by their rival darod warlord, president yusuf. that didn’t really work out, obviously. the acting PM now is from the digil-mirifle subclan of the rahanweyn, which comprise roughly 17% of the population, leaving the hawiye out again, which is why the hawiye subclan leader expressed further concern over authoritarianism in your wapo link.
the piracy story is getting more interesting. hopefully someone will provide stats on piracy rates for the 2nd half of 2006, after the ICU had driven out the warlords. the stories i’ve read state that the ICU substantially curbed, if not eliminated, piracy during this period — as they did the roadblocks, looting, etc in somalia. however, w/ the restoration of the warlords to power at the begining of 2007, rates of piracy have dramatically shot up, surpassing that of previous years. whatever the intention, it’s hard to deny that u.s. involvement in destabilizing somalia has played a role in this increase. plus, the roadblocks & looting are back, along w/ the warlords. betcha the u.s. will try to put a port in somewhere.
Posted by: b real | Oct 30 2007 15:48 utc | 46
more info on #36
secrecynews: DNI Discloses National Intelligence Program Budget
As required by law, the Director of National Intelligence today disclosed (pdf) that the budget for the National Intelligence Program in Fiscal Year 2007 was $43.5 billion.
The disclosure was strongly resisted by the intelligence bureaucracy, and for that very reason it may have significant repercussions for national security classification policy.
Although the aggregate intelligence budget figures for 1997 and 1998 ($26.6 and $26.7 billion respectively) had previously been disclosed in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by the Federation of American Scientists, intelligence officials literally swore under oath that any further disclosures would damage national security.
Posted by: b real | Oct 30 2007 15:58 utc | 47
counterpunch has posted david price’s article online now
Pilfered Scholarship Devastates General Petraeus’s Counterinsurgency Manual
* Core Chapter a Morass of “Borrowed” Quotes
* University of Chicago Press Badly Compromised
* Counterinsurgency Anthropologist Montgomery McFate’s Role Under Attack
Editors’ note: This expose of the stolen scholarship in the Army’s new manual on counterinsurgency to which General David Petraeus has attached his name also runs in our current newsletter sent by US mail or as a pdf to our newsletter subscribers. Normally material in our newsletter does not run on the CounterPunch website. In the belief that David Price’s story merits the widest and swiftest circulation, not only as regards the “borrowings” from unacknowledged sources but also the prostitution of anthropology in evil military enterprises we re making an exception in this case.
Posted by: b real | Oct 30 2007 17:32 utc | 48
Big story over at Counterpunch: Army Counterinsurgency Manual Plagiarized
CP Editors’ note: This expose of the stolen scholarship in the Army’s new manual on counterinsurgency to which General David Petraeus has attached his name also runs in our current newsletter sent by US mail or as a pdf to our newsletter subscribers. Normally material in our newsletter does not run on the CounterPunch website. In the belief that David Price’s story merits the widest and swiftest circulation, not only as regards the “borrowings” from unacknowledged sources but also the prostitution of anthropology in evil military enterprises, we’re making an exception in this case.
Posted by: Bea | Oct 30 2007 17:33 utc | 49
another ship hijacked in somalia & guess who the reported hijackers are
Somalia: A cargo ship hijacked off Mogadishu main port
Mogadishu 30, Oct.07 ( Sh.M.Network)- A big Korean cargo ship charted by Somali businessmen has been reported to have been hijacked off Somali seaport overnight.
Officials from Mogadishu seaport confirmed to Shabelle Radio that the Korean Ship has been hijacked by Somali guards at the harbor after it had offloaded the load it was carrying include sacks of sugar from Brazil.
The ship is said to be named DIA HONGA DAN, and there have been 22 crew members on board, all from Southeastern Asian nationals.
It would be the second ship hijacked off Somali coast in the course of 24 hours.
Posted by: b real | Oct 30 2007 18:03 utc | 50
Thanks bea, for #49
David Price is some what of a anthropological mentor of mine, while I never took any classes from him, we have corresponded many times over the years. I was and am very impressed with his work.
I relied heavily on his data while doing my own anthropological research. His books are very much worth reading even, if one doesn’t have an anthro background. As a matter of fact I may write him in particular on this subject.
So thanks for the heads up.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 30 2007 20:07 utc | 51
WTF, editor and publisher has a story that is chilling, when the assistant to Gen. Petraeus’ Col. Steven A. Boylan director of the force’s combined press center, centcom is sending threatening and hostile and politically charged e-mails to both ‘editor and publisher’ and Glenn Greenwald something is fucking wrong. I was just talking to a friend and she was listening to the Randi Rhodes show today and an interview with Glenn Greenwald about this madness.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 31 2007 1:04 utc | 52
follow up on a mogadishu story i pointed to in #19 above on the (warlord) mayor dheere’s warnings to the citizens of mogadishu. a quick revisit of that story:
MOGADISHU, Somalia Oct 28 (Garowe Online) – The mayor of the Somali capital Mogadishu has warned residents in select neighborhoods to leave their homes because the government has “run out of patience” with insurgent groups.
Mayor Mohamed “Dheere” Omar held a press conference at his Mogadishu residence Sunday, saying that Bakara market business groups have failed to stop “anti-peace groups” from using the market to launch attacks on government security forces.
“We appeal to the public to leave areas where the anti-peace groups are in Hodan and Howlwadaag neighborhoods, like Bakara market, because we must take military action and we wish to spare civilian lives,” Mayor Dheere said in his strongest words since coming to office earlier this year.
story today from reuter’s
Weekend fighting drove 36,000 from Somali capital – UN
GENEVA (Reuters) – About 36,000 Somalis have fled Mogadishu after weekend fighting, the worst in months between Ethiopian troops backing the interim government and Islamist-led rebels, the United Nations refugee agency said on Tuesday.
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“After a weekend of violence in Mogadishu there has been another wave of displacement from the capital, with about 36,000 more Somalis fleeing from their homes,” spokeswoman Jennifer Pagonis of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said.
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An estimated 400,000 Somalis fled Mogadishu by May, of whom about 125,000 later returned to the coastal city. But renewed violence sparked a new wave of departures in June, with an estimated 90,000 people fleeing, according to the UNHCR.
story today from garowe
Somalia leaders advise Mogadishu residents not to flee
MOGADISHU, Somalia Oct 30 (Garowe Online) – The mayor of Somalia’s war-wracked capital, Mogadishu, today retracted comments he made to local press on Sunday calling on residents to evacuate sections of Mogadishu.
Mayor Mohamed “Dheere” Omar spoke to reporters Tuesday, saying that he was misquoted earlier.
He said the residents of south Mogadishu’s Hodan and Howlwadaag districts should not leave their homes.
The previous press statement warning residents to evacuate in anticipation of ongoing military operations was taken out of context, leading to a mass exodus of civilians from these areas, Mayor Dheere said.
“We ask the people misinformed about my words to stay home,” Mogadishu’s mayor said. His previous comments were intended to inform the people that government troops and their Ethiopian allies would undertake a “careful offensive” against insurgent forces, according to the mayor.
Gen. Abdi Qeybdiid, Somalia’s national police boss, reiterated Mayor Dheere’s calls for calm today. “The government does not wish to see women and children flee their homes,” Gen. Qeybdiid said.
Local sources in Mogadishu confirmed that over the past two days hundreds of families fled their homes in Hodan and Howlwadaag districts.
dheere previously has threatened to attack IDP camps, calling the women & children there “terrorists”. unless, that is, he was quoted “out of context.” 😉
Posted by: b real | Oct 31 2007 3:20 utc | 53
to follow on..
perhaps dheere is trying to clean up his image in lieu of the new opening for prime minister
U.N. applauds “peaceful” end to Somali government feud
NAIROBI (Reuters) – The United Nations welcomed on Tuesday the peaceful conclusion of a long-running feud between the Somali government’s two most powerful men, which ended with Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi’s resignation this week.
But analysts and diplomats warned that President Abdullahi Yusuf would have to please the Hawiye clan, from which Gedi hails, if he wanted to boost unity behind the government and cool an insurgency in Mogadishu.
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Some diplomats who follow Somalia said they feared Yusuf might again make the mistake of not assenting to the demands of Mogadishu’s powerful Hawiye clan, one of Somalia’s biggest.
Although a Hawiye, Gedi was never backed by Hawiye outside his sub-clan because he was not their choice for the clan’s top job in government. Yusuf comes from the rival Darod clan.
“I think you can be very sure it will be worse. For now you can forget about sensible changes. It will never happen,” said a Western diplomat who declined to be named.
The diplomat said some maneuvering was afoot to put up Hawiye warlords like Mohamed Qanyare Afrah or current Mogadishu Mayor Mohamed Dheere up for the job.
the la times also reports
Among the candidates reportedly under consideration include Mogadishu mayor Mohammed Dheere, whose harsh tactics in attempting to pacify the capital have come under fire.
i’ve written about him before, but dheere‘s a warlord of the abgal subclan of the hawiye, was on the payroll of the cia as late as last summer, and is also the governor of the banadir region in addition to being the mayor of somalia’s capital (and largest) city. interestingly, wrt the prime minister consideration, gedi was able to get the nod only b/c dheere “stepped down” from the transitional federal parliament in order to make room for gedi to get an official position, which then allowed him to qualify to get the PM gig.
Posted by: b real | Oct 31 2007 3:50 utc | 54
Sudan says cooperation with CIA prevented US ‘destructive’ backlash
October 30, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — Sudan’s spy chief revealed that his government has maintained strong relationships with US law enforcement agencies including CIA and FBI as well as the US Department of Defense.
Salah Gosh, the head of Sudan’s National Security and Intelligence Service, told the Al-Ahdath daily from Libya that the cooperation with the US “helped avert devastating measures [by US administration] against Sudan”.
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Gosh said that Sudan’s intelligence services has ‘excellent’ relations with its counterparts in US, UK, France, China, India, Iran and Spain. He added that Sudanese Intel officers have been receiving training in these countries without elaborating.
However the spy chief said that the cooperation with CIA “is not at the expense of Islamic public opinion in Sudan” and spoke of differences with US spy agency over combating terrorism.
Gosh’s statements brings back into spotlight the nature of the intelligence relationship between the US and Sudan. Sudanese officials have been making contradictory statements on the extent of their cooperation.
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Analysts speaking to Sudan Tribune said that the conflicting statements show that Khartoum is concerned that it is increasingly appearing to be acting as a proxy for the CIA which may put it at odds with its Islamic popular base.
Posted by: b real | Oct 31 2007 4:45 utc | 55
This is so absurd that one suspects it to be from “The Good Soldier Švejk”
U.S. and Pakistan: A Frayed Alliance
Five years ago, elite Pakistani troops stationed near the border with Afghanistan began receiving hundreds of pairs of U.S.-made night-vision goggles that would enable them to see and fight al-Qaeda and Taliban insurgents in the dark. The sophisticated goggles, supplied by the Bush administration at a cost of up to $9,000 a pair, came with an implicit message: Step up the attacks.
But every three months, the troops had to turn in their goggles for two weeks to be inventoried, because the U.S. military wanted to make sure none were stolen or given away, U.S. and Pakistani officials said. Militants perceived a pattern and scurried into the open without fear during the two-week counts.
“They knew exactly when we didn’t have the goggles, and they took full advantage,” said a senior Pakistani government official who closely tracks military operations on the border.
Nahr al-Bared – Families salvage what bombs, looters and arson did not destroy
His wife described finding excrement on the stairs of the house, in the landing, and in the pots in the kitchen, when she first returned to the house. “My neighbour had it worse,” she said, “They left it on every one of the mattresses in her house.”
Many families said they returned to find evidence of systematic looting. “When we got back to the house, there were 12 washing machines and 12 fridges stacked up in my courtyard,” said Ibrahim, a video editor. “It was like an import export business. We invited the other families to come and claim their things.”
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Inside the few homes that escaped the fires, racist graffiti covered the walls, many signed by a group calling themselves Sons of the Army or by particular commando groups.
One read: “It’s a sin for a Palestinian to live in a home, they should live in hovels with the other animals.”
Another read: “Whatever you rebuild we will destroy.”
I should pay more tax, says US billionaire Warren Buffett
Warren Buffett, the famous investor known as the “Sage of Omaha”, has complained that he pays a lower rate of tax than any of his staff – including his receptionist. Mr Buffett, who is worth an estimated $52bn (£25bn), said: “The taxation system has tilted towards the rich and away from the middle class in the last 10 years. It’s dramatic; I don’t think it’s appreciated and I think it should be addressed.”
During an interview with NBC television, Mr Buffett brandished an informal survey of 15 of his 18 office staff at his Berkshire Hathaway empire. The billionaire said he was paying 17.7% payroll and income tax, compared with an average in the office of 32.9%.
“There wasn’t anyone in the office, from the receptionist up, who paid as low a tax rate and I have no tax planning; I don’t have an accountant or use tax shelters. I just follow what the US Congress tells me to do,” he said.
Here’s something environmental, sensible seed storage in Svalbard, Norway. Note the 400’ above current sea level, and the mining connection.
Re #56, thanks b for more evidence that modern wars are not fought nor supplied in good faith.
The pentagon is lying? Isn’t that impossible?
Pentagon misstates sniper data in $1.4B request
The Pentagon has asked Congress for $1.4 billion in emergency spending to combat a growing threat of sniper attacks in Iraq based on an overstated assessment of the extent of the attacks, its records show.
In last week’s spending request, the Pentagon said sniper attacks have quadrupled in the past year and, if unchecked, the attacks could eclipse roadside bombs as the top killer of U.S. troops. However, the rate of sniper attacks has dropped slightly in 2007 and fallen dramatically in the past four months, according to military records given to USA TODAY
Us Navy Accidentally Drops Bomb On Virginia
(AP) VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. The Navy said a small, inert training bomb fell Tuesday from an fighter jet that was heading to Oceana Naval Air Station. No one was hurt.
The Navy said the bomb landed near a warehouse in the resort city of Virginia Beach. Minimal damage was reported.
The F/A-18C Hornet was returning to Oceana following a training mission at the Navy’s bombing range in Dare County, N.C., when it dropped the bomb. The jet landed safely.
Naval authorities were investigating.
I quit thinking of these things as accidents long ago, at the very least they are instances of criminal negligence. How many of these incidences doe this make within the last few months, loose nukes, the Second Major Nuclear Protocol Breach in a Month and now this?
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 31 2007 14:02 utc | 61
my, my.. some people have got some serious cover. who ever heard of someone “declining” an interview with the FBI?
Some of the dozen or so Blackwater personnel involved, at least two of whom have returned to the United States, declined FBI interviews.
as for the dropped bomblet…that happens more often than you think. the racks used to carry those things, visible here along with a human to give an idea of the size, are quite old and use a small explosive charge to release the dummies from the rack. sometimes they don’t get released when the pilot wants them to go and then fall off on the way back home. you can be almost certain that the airplane avoided populated areas whenever possible.
Posted by: dan of steele | Oct 31 2007 17:29 utc | 62
A good Guardian comment: In praise of Putin
For too long the west has rested on an assumption of superiority. The Russian president should be praised for exposing this old fallacy.
There is a plague afflicting casual commentary on foreign affairs today, and it is the survivor of cold war assumptions. We talk a great deal too much about “the west,” and by implication we mean the good, civilised west facing its enemies. Stalin has been dead for 54 years but across that time “the west” has acquired any number of new enemies. Such thinking or dumb assumption-making has glazed over every act of meddling or aggression by the United States. The rest of us on the western list may hint at doubt and make reservations, but official commentary, the government and increasingly the new, tamed BBC, think systemically of a common western interest.
…
We may yet come to see the America’s rise over last 20 years as a kind of convulsion, with triumph leading to calamity, and hubris meeting its nemesis. It may be, and let’s candidly hope that it is, the Spanish Empire moment of United States history.
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People ate out of dustbins, but Boris Yeltsin was a westerner, a splendid thing, evidence of western triumph. Somehow American and British governments have never felt the same way about Vladimir Putin. But then neither have the Russians.
Putin is enormously popular. The device by which he is continuing his leadership, behind a competent but happily subordinate technician, is accepted there as good news. I suggest that we should agree with the Russian people. They are getting what they want and they want it because Putin has governed Russia for Russia and Russians, has put back self-respect in a country whose nadir reflected an American zenith.
Anthropology was one of those subjects which many liberal arts undergraduates ‘had a crack at’ when I went to Uni a long time back. Usually a filler course to support some study by numbers degree, I suppose it did provide a few otherwise uninterested ethno-centric types with a window or maybe even the tools for some to open a window into other cultures.
I didn’t give it a second glance when I was in the liberal arts phase of my self education at western tertiary institutions because “in my day” (back in my day when you could get three cream buns for a farthing) the anthropology instructors of undergraduates were chiefly specialists in American indigenous anthropology, which was great for those wanting to clad their hallucinogen fascination with a patina of academic respectability but I enjoyed a good trip more for the experience itself and not the third hand Chinese-whispered mumbo-jumbo which the followers of Carlos Castaneda appeared to favour.
Maori and Polynesian cultures were regarded with the contempt that conquerors reserve for what they imagine has been smashed to smithereens, seemingly beyond repair (ha ha little did they know. The current attempt to crush Maori nationhood with the BushCo authored anti-terra legislation will fail just as miserably. I will write about that when I can channel my anger effectively).
So I have undertaken no formal anthropological study, but over the years I have spent time living in societies vastly different from the western post industrial model, in particular the so called ‘stone age’ societies of Aboriginal Australia whose existence appeared safe at the time but are now in great jeopardy by greedy whitefellas wishing to reap the harvest of the commodities boom.
In some ways not having any anthropological training may have helped. It meant I learned fresh insights by experience rather than relating what I saw to a western construct of what hunter gatherer communities ‘should do’. In addition it probably helped my development of a relativistic view of what I was doing. IE I was especially aware of the effect of my presence on what I saw. I understand that is pretty much par for the course for anthropological observation, but I was also more insightful of the effect that my experiences were having on my attitudes and behaviours than I may have been if I had the safety net of an imagined construct of ‘safe’ protocols to re-assure me.
This is all a very roundabout way of saying that I cannot see how one can become involved with an alien culture to the degree necessary to provide useful insights into the society which adheres to that culture without appreciating it, respecting it’s effectiveness and success over centuries (in the case of Australian Aborigines, millennia), and wanting to ensure it’s preservation. Cultures evolve just as living forms evolve and those which have existed for long periods of time almost always longer than the western culture attempting to study them, are worthy of respect and where possible preservation.
These are the first thoughts which came to mind when I heard of General Petraeus’ claim that his ‘groundbreaking’ use of military anthropologists to determine the best methods for quelling Iraqi counter insurgency. Given that success for Petraeus and his band of rapists, murders and thieves will be the subjugation of dozens of individually definable cultures that in some instances go back thousands of years and the replacement of this amazing array of human expression with a single homogenized westernised, cash using, consumerist society, how is that genuine anthropologists would wish to be a part of this?
For me the greatest tragedy of the world my descendants will face in the 22nd century, if we make it that far, will be the uniform nature of the planet’s human language, cultural expression, sense of identity. Sure there are bound to be some regional differences, but globalism carries with it the belief that ‘everyone must read from the same page’. Eventually capitalism’s insane dependence on growth must lead us to a point where every society on the planet have had their turn at being the sweat shop labour force for the ‘developed’ world. From thence begins the descent down the ladder of sociopath individualism.
For example uniform laws are put in place to decide how we treat illness. Now health care is one of the cultural practices which most determines a community’s behaviour. So much of a society’s religion or philosophy, even it’s power structure is a product of the way that sick people within the community are treated. It is fine to ensure that everyone can get access to the best that modern medicine can offer, yet that isn’t all that the standardisation of health systems does. Trans-national corporations’ agenda for domination inspires them to suppress and outlaw any other types of treatment. That is one example – there are countless others which are foist by “The West” upon foreign (to them) societies at every meeting of the acronyms. OECD, UNESCO, APEC, WHO. . .
But those are gentler means of persuasion than Petraeus’ assault upon Iraqi societies. Petraeus’ gang recognised that many of the actions undertaken by ‘the sharp end’ of the amerikan military stick were so culturally inappropriate that Iraqi citizens were being turned off amerika more than they need be.
So he has hired anthropologists to give his troops some windows into Iraqi culture and maybe even some tools to open their own windows. That’s a good thing isn’t it? No more offensive , insensitive treatment of Iraqi women. That well help the culture be preserved, surely? Even if that were the case, which it won’t be since rape and war are as inseparable as eating and shitting – one is the natural progression of the other. War is a quest for dominance and rape is the most basic expression of dominance.
How can amerika’s invasion lead to anything other than the destruction of traditional Iraqi society when the ultimate aim is to make Iraqi society more ‘user friendly’, for amerika and it’s allies? This cultural appropriateness will last just long enough for amerika’s military to explain in the crudest possible terms that it is what ordinary Iraqis believe that is inappropriate in the larger ‘western world’. This is what imperialism does. It replaces the original culture with the culture of the invader. That way everyone is dealing with systems which because they are more familiar to the invader than the invaded, give the invader advantage.
So WHAT THE FUCK ARE ANTHROPOLOGISTS DOING ASSISTING AMERIKA”S ILLEGAL INVASION AND CONQUEST OF IRAQ?
Well the short answer to that seems to be they aren’t – there are no anthropologists assisting Petraeus or the military.
How can that be? Wasn’t the new Counterinsurgency Field Manual which has been touted around the hustings, written by a group of military ‘academics’ including anthropologists Dr David Kilcullen and Dr Montgomery McFate?
Well no, not according to anthropologist and author David Price in “Pilfered Scholarship Devastates General Petraeus’s Counterinsurgency Manual” – A CounterPunch Special Investigation.
According to Price large chunks of crucial text have been plagiarised from a range of sources, chiefly from anthropologists but also from such diverse authors as TE Lawrence (yes that Lawrence – of Arabia):
. . .”McFate claims the Manual is so radical that it “is considered ‘Zen tinged’ not just by the media, but also by many members of the military who felt that the Manual, and chapter 3 in particular, was ‘too innovative’ and ‘too politically correct.'” Like any manual, the Counterinsurgency Field Manual is written in the dry, detached voice of basic instruction. But as I re-read Chapter 3 a few months ago, I found my eye struggling through a crudely constructed sentence and then suddenly being graced with a flowing line of precise prose:
“A ritual is a stereotyped sequence of activities involving gestures, words, and objects performed to influence supernatural entities or forces on behalf of the actors’ goals and interest.” (Counterinsurgency Manual, 3-51)
The phrase “stereotyped sequence” leapt off the page. Not only was it out of place, but it sparked a memory. I knew that I’d read these words years ago. With a little searching, I discovered that this unacknowledged line had been taken from a 1972 article written by the anthropologist Victor Turner, who brilliantly wrote that religious ritual is:
“a stereotyped sequence of activities involving gestures, words, and objects, performed in a sequestered place, and designed to influence preternatural entities or forces on behalf of the actors’ goals and interests.”
. . . “
Price includes many other instances of ideas, word constructions and concepts flagrantly hi-jacked from other more studious and eminently more proficient anthropologists. I had suspected Killcullen to be a fraud judging by some of his sillier contentions ‘studying’ (in reality spying on) the Javanese people, and there is no doubt that concentration of the power to award research grants into the hands of agents of the amerikan military and the corporate beneficiaries of amerika’s defense budget, has advantaged those of an imperialist bent.
I suppose that in this sense the academic failings of neo-con academics is a ‘good thing’. They are not good academics and the discrediting will restore disciplines such as anthropology and psychology (the torturers’ friend) back into the hands of genuine scholars.
Except it won’t. It will be no surprise if Price’s expose is ignored, but if it isn’t the resulting study, inquiry, commission or whatever appellation given the convening of a whitewash, will be a white-wash.
That will send a signal to young anthropologists that ‘the bar has been lowered’ hell not just anthropologists – any main chancing young academics and there are plenty of them around given the current practices used to fund students into tertiary study favour greedheads’ culture, to cheat and steal their scholarship.
Aha! – The effects upon the culture of the observer may be destructive and rarely planned for.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Oct 31 2007 22:22 utc | 64
Trick or threat…
Talk about frightening, Col. Boylan’s implosion accelerates, meanwhile, the stupid motherfucker, Rep Jane Harman, who brings us the HR 1955 Ideological thought crime bill, otherwise known as ‘The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007’ just boggles the mind, I mean they want to criminalize us, for what they themselves are doing. This has been the M.O. time after time after time.
The controlled insanity of blame, accuse, and criminalize the very thing that you yourself are doing.
As I have said before, it’s methodical, It’s a form of deceitful purposely induced controlled cognitive dissonance.
Well, Rep Jane Harman got a much deserved smack down by… drum roll please,…dkos today, all be it for a different reason, Telecom immunity.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 1 2007 2:38 utc | 65
Democracy is messy… where have we heard that before? mmm? YouTube – U.S. Representative Jane Harman
Jane Harman caught secretly working against the H.RES.106 Armenian Genocide Resolution while being a Co-Sponsor for it! Hypocrite, Liar, Genocide Denier!
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 1 2007 3:15 utc | 66
update on a story i pointed out in #53
Latest figures show 90,000 flee fighting in Mogadishu
MOGADISHU, Somalia, October 31 (UNHCR) – Almost 90,000 people have fled Mogadishu or moved to safer areas within the city to escape the latest outbreak of violence in the war-torn Somali capital.
An aid worker in Mogadishu had told UNHCR on Tuesday that fighting on Saturday, Sunday and Monday was “the worst in months.” The situation in the city was calmer on Wednesday and the number of civilians fleeing appeared to fall though people were still seen leaving the capital or preparing to move out.
…
Of the people who have left the capital since Saturday, about 46,000 have settled along the road linking Mogadishu to Afgooye, some 30 kilometres to the west, according to the latest figures collected by a network of UNHCR’s local partners. They say another 42,000 have either fled Mogadishu for areas outside the city or moved to safer neighbourhoods within the capital.
…
Exiled within their own country, many people can’t hide their frustration. “You see groups of people spontaneously protesting, crying for help from the international community and wondering aloud how long Mogadishu will keep on being destroyed,” the UNHCR staff member added.
The displaced include large numbers of women and children who have left behind their male relatives to take care of their homes and belongings. With the fresh influx, more shelters, food, water and sanitation facilities are needed.
According to UNHCR’s local partners, the 88,000 people recorded as fleeing Mogadishu came largely from the districts of Hodan, Hawl Wadaag, Wardhiigley and Haliwaa.
— — — —
maybe this goes w/ #55
US officials try to delay Sudan divestment bill
WASHINGTON, Oct 31 (Reuters) – The Bush administration is seeking to delay Senate action on a bill authorizing states to divest assets in companies doing business with Sudan, a letter made public on Wednesday said.
Sudan has been a focus of grass-roots divestment activism for some time because of the conflict in its Darfur region, which has taken an estimated 200,000 lives since 2003.
Twenty states have initiated some form of divestment from companies that do business with, or in Sudan, congressional aides said.
But the letter from the State Department to Senate leaders argues that the legislation, which attempted to provide a legal framework for such divestment, interferes with presidential foreign policy.
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The Senate Banking Committee on Oct. 17 approved the divestment bill 21-0. Sponsored by Connecticut Democrat Chris Dodd, it would let states and local governments and private asset fund managers, if they choose, adopt measures to divest from companies involved in four key business sectors in Sudan.
The act would also prohibit U.S. government contracts with companies involved in the four sectors — oil, power production, mineral extraction and military equipment.
With bipartisan support, the bill had seemed headed for floor action soon. It was unclear what impact the objections from the State Department would have.
and late wednesday
BREAKING NEWS: US excludes Southern Sudan from sanctions
October 31, 2007 (WASHINGTON) — The US department of Treasury issued a new rule revising the areas of Sudan covered by sanctions and recognizing the government of Southern Sudan (GOSS) as an entity separate from the Government of Sudan.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control of the U.S. Department of the Treasury which issued the rule late Wednesday justified its decision by saying that presidential executive order imposing sanctions had to be reconciled with the Darfur Peace and Accountability of 2006 that called for “support of the regional government of Southern Sudan”.
However the new rule upheld sanctions imposed on all transactions relating to Sudan’s petroleum or petrochemical industries even in Southern Sudan.
The rule exempts “all trade and related transactions and humanitarian assistance in specified areas of Sudan, including Southern Sudan, Southern Kordofan/Nuba Mountains State, Blue Nile State, Abyei, Darfur, and four official camps for internally displaced persons (Mayo, El Salaam, Wad El Bashir, and Soba) from the sanctions imposed on Sudan by Executive Order 13067 of November 3, 1997”.
The amendment exempts financial transactions and all shipments of goods, services, and technology as long as they do not transit non-exempt areas of Sudan or involve institutions owned by the government of Sudan.
However the rule provided for exceptions if imports or exports from South Sudan may transit non-exempt areas provided the US Treasury grants prior approval.
from the txt of the ruling
..OFAC is revising the definition of the term Government of Sudan contained in SEC 538.305 to exclude the regional government of Southern Sudan, as set forth in section 6(d) of E.O. 13412.
Posted by: b real | Nov 1 2007 5:16 utc | 67
White House Withholds Hundreds of Abramoff Documents \
Today Chairman Waxman asks White House Counsel Fred Fielding to turn over more than 600 pages of documents relating to the activities of convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff that are being withheld because they involve internal White House deliberations.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 1 2007 5:28 utc | 68
@DoD – thanks!
—
Japan Orders Navy Ships Home From Afghan Mission
Japan ordered its naval ships to withdraw from a mission backing U.S.-led military operations in Afghanistan as a deadline to extend the activities was set to expire on Thursday.
Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda has been struggling against a resurgent opposition to enact a new bill to allow Japan’s navy to keep providing free fuel for U.S. and other ships patrolling the Indian Ocean, a mission seen as vital by close ally Washington.
b- ***ALERT***
THE $tory in xAm. today is headline story in WaPo on Rumbo’s Memos they obtained. I’m not linking ‘cuz I’d have to do the sign-in blah blah…”elevate the fear”. Elites clearly want a change in policy or this wouldn’t be printed, much less featured….’bout time even some kleptocrats woke up…
Posted by: jj | Nov 1 2007 8:24 utc | 71
Blackwater pays about anybody in DC village …
Blackwater Mounts a Defense With Top Talent From Capital
Blackwater is pursuing a bold legal strategy, going so far in a North Carolina case as to seek a gag order on the lawyers for the families of four Blackwater employees killed in an ambush in Falluja in 2004. The company argues that the dead men had signed contracts that prohibited them from talking to the press about Blackwater and that this restriction extended to their lawyers and their estates even after death.
One of Blackwater’s Washington lawyers is Beth Nolan, who served as White House counsel for the last two years of the Clinton administration.
…
The company’s chief Washington lobbyist is Paul Behrends, who worked at the now-defunct Alexander Strategy Group, a Republican firm with close ties to the jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Mr. Behrends, who now works at C & M Capitolink, a Washington lobbying firm, declined to discuss his work for Blackwater, which has paid his company $300,000 since last year.
Anne E. Tyrrell, the company’s chief spokeswoman (and the daughter of R. Emmett Tyrrell, the longtime editor of the conservative magazine American Spectator), said that Blackwater was more comfortable operating in the shadows, but that it decided that it had to strike back publicly.
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In the days leading up to the hearing before the oversight panel, which is led by Representative Henry A. Waxman, a liberal California Democrat who has no love for Blackwater, the company hired Burson-Marsteller, a global public relations firm. Blackwater said it hired the company on a temporary basis to help prepare Mr. Prince for his testimony.
Mark J. Penn, Burson-Marsteller’s chairman and a senior adviser to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign, said in an e-mail message that he had no direct contact with Blackwater and that the work was landed by BKSH, a subsidiary. BKSH is a political consulting firm led by Charles R. Black Jr., an adviser to President Bush and his father, and R. Scott Pastrick, a top Democratic fund-raiser. Mr. Penn said that a BKSH associate had worked briefly in Iraq and met several Blackwater personnel, who steered the work to his firm.
…
From the Desk of Donald Rumsfeld . . .
In a series of internal musings and memos to his staff, then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld argued that Muslims avoid “physical labor” and wrote of the need to “keep elevating the threat,” “link Iraq to Iran” and develop “bumper sticker statements” to rally public support for an increasingly unpopular war.
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In one of his longer ruminations, in May 2004, Rumsfeld considered whether to redefine the terrorism fight as a “worldwide insurgency.” The goal of the enemy, he wrote, is to “end the state system, using terrorism, to drive the non-radicals from the world.” He then advised aides “to test what the results could be” if the war on terrorism were renamed.
…
In a memo to national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley in July 2006, Rumsfeld warned that the United States is “getting run out of Central Asia” by the Russians, who are doing a “considerably better job at bullying” than Washington is doing to “counter their bullying.”
…
I wonder why the “worldwide insurgency” slogan hadn’t been used. It is so over the top …
In b’s #58, the linked story is from the UK Guardian but follows standard U.S. newspaper practice. Only in the phrase “payroll and income tax” is any distinction hinted at between what U.S. tax forms call “earned” income, subject to payroll tax, i.e. Social Security, and “unearned” income, that not from wage or salary but from investments: interest, dividends, capital gains, rentals, business income etc.
During an interview with NBC television, Mr Buffett brandished an informal survey of 15 of his 18 office staff at his Berkshire Hathaway empire. The billionaire said he was paying 17.7% payroll and income tax, compared with an average in the office of 32.9%.
[snip]
A leading Democrat, the Harlem congressman Charlie Rangel, published alternative plans this week that would impose a 4% surcharge on people earning more than $200,000 a year, while delivering tax relief to 90 million working families.
Republicans say the net effect would be a $2 trillion tax increase that would hurt small businesses and farmers. Meanwhile, Mr Buffett’s remarks drew a robust response from the US Chamber of Commerce, which said the top 1% of US earners accounted for 39% of tax revenue – and the highest earning 25% of the population delivered 86% of the tax-take.
Note that the “U.S.Chamber of Commerce”, a private lobbying group but a British reader is less likely to know that, calls those with the most investment income “earners”, just like the poor wage slaves.
I doubt I’ve ever seen {has anyone here?} an editorial or story on widening chasms between rich and poor that didn’t try to muddy tax code distinctions between “earned income” and “unearned income”, though in recent western tax codes the latter is always taxed at lower rates.
The top and the bottom are not in the same boat, no matter how many times the propagandists tell us we are.
Mutiny at the state department: Envoys Resist Forced Iraq Duty
At a town hall meeting in the department’s main auditorium attended by hundreds of Foreign Service officers, some of them criticized fundamental aspects of State’s personnel policies in Iraq.
…
Service in Iraq is “a potential death sentence,” said one man who identified himself as a 46-year Foreign Service veteran. “Any other embassy in the world would be closed by now,” he said to sustained applause.
Harry K. Thomas Jr., the director general of the Foreign Service, who called the meeting, responded curtly. “Okay, thanks for your comment,” he said, declaring the town hall meeting over.
William Pfaff with some choice words on the Empire:
The Impossibility of American Empire
The Empire of the United States was launched in 1898, and has since traversed a mere century, experiencing increasing ambition, and suffering increasing difficulties. Could it too last 406 years? The current evidence is not reassuring.
Take the capacity to rule. Take the current Republican party candidates for their party’s presidential nomination. The level of intelligence, emotional and intellectual maturity, and simple information about the subjects on which they discourse, would disqualify them from mainstream political rank in any other major democracy.
This is seriously distressing – although in principle a soluble problem, since there are plenty of intelligent people in the United States, as well as great universities and a rich culture. But elected U.S. government has been so debased by the national willingness to submit elections to the values and habits of a medium of entertainment, television, and to the corruptions of money, that it is hard to see that such a nation can indefinitely maintain representative government.
The Bush administration has demonstrated that major groups and forces in American society indeed do not wish that form of government to survive, and are deliberately engaged in destroying the constitutional order, undermining the powers of Congress and of the courts, so as to install unchecked executive power, rationalized by a novel and authoritarian legal ideology, and sustained by national security demagogy.
…
The United States government, in its effort to execute its national security strategy of dominating and defeating global radicalism and extremism, is currently directly attempting to manipulate and control the internal political processes of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and Hezbollah, Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya; and indirectly it attempts to exercise decisive influence on the affairs of Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Yemen, Libya, the Gulf Emirates, and a non-existent Kurdistan – and this is to take only a single zone of the world.
This is what the War on Terror has come to mean. It is an attempt to create a universal empire that exists only in the American imagination, by an effort that, because its aim is impossible to achieve, is unlimited in the damage it could do to Americans and others.
This story is not being well reported in the media yet; hopefully it will get some more coverage today …
Several hundred U.S. diplomats vented anger and frustration Wednesday about the State Department’s decision to force foreign service officers to take jobs in Iraq, with some likening it to a “potential death sentence.”
Posted by: Rick | Nov 1 2007 10:54 utc | 77
‘Funny’ details in an oped about the Japanese retraction of support for the U.S. in Afghanistan: The Japanese Navy Heads Home
the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), newly invigorated by a landslide election victory in July, continues to adamantly object to an extension of the authorizing legislation, which expires November 1.
The prospect of Japanese withdrawal from the Operation has made some Japan-handlers and Japan-watchers in and out of the Bush Administration uneasy. After the DPJ captured control of the upper house of Japan’s Diet last summer, U.S. Ambassador Thomas Schieffer — who managed to spend two years in Japan without meeting Ichiro Ozawa, the leader of the DPJ — hustled for a face-to-face session to try to persuade him to reverse his opposition.
…
In the ensuing six years, the Japanese navy has provided more than 70 million barrels of oil, free of charge, mostly to U.S. vessels, but also to the navies of Britain, Pakistan and other countries in the “coalition of the willing.” But annual deliveries have now decreased to less than a tenth of their peak in 2002, and earlier this year, the DPJ uncovered data showing that some of the oil provided to the U.S. was used to support U.S. Navy operations in Iraq, a clear violation of the Japanese authorizing law.
…
this goes w/ the “piracy” story mentioned in #50
from shabelle media thursday
Somali businessman says, MV DAIN HONGO DAN was hijacked by Somali Seaport security Guards
Mogadishu 01, Nov.07 ( Sh.M.Network)- The agent of MV DAIN HONG DAN which was recently hijacked from Mogadishu International Port strongly declared that the hijackers of the Korean Vessel were from Mogadishu seaport security Guards.
Businessman Gabow said before the TFG took over the Ctrl of the seaport the business men had security guards, but after the Government handed the control of the port the accountability of the Security run by the government and the hijackers of DAIN HONGO DAN were soldiers from Mogadishu seaport guards assigned by the Government.
traditionally, “pirates” are state-less plunderers, not acting as agents for any sovereign entity. if the TFG is behind this recent spate of hijackings, is it correct to still refer to them as “pirates”? and it’s interesting that the ship had already unloaded its cargo before it was hijacked.
anyway, it made good press for u.s. forces & grownups who like to play ‘good guy vs. bad pirate’ games.
Posted by: b real | Nov 1 2007 14:56 utc | 80
This is a long terrible, most disturbing and frightening read. B, feel free to edit or delete but, I thought others may find it interesting and useful in light of Naomi’s, ‘Shock Doctrine’.
[ok – I edited this down to a few lines – the whole piece is available at the link Uncle provides – b.]
Electroshock & Mind Control
Secret, Don’t Tell The Encyclopedia of Hypnotism
by Carla Emery
Electroshock
[The shock voltage is]…about equivalent to that consumed [by]…a 100-watt light bulb. This much power applied continuously would soon be lethal, but the shock timer is usually set between one-half and one second, long enough to set off a grand mal epileptic convulsion, but not long enough to kill.
– Scheflin and Opton, p. 365
Electroshock has three effects which are of interest to mind controllers:
Increased suggestibility
Amnesia, even retroactive amnesia
Calming
Here is a detailed look at each of those three uses.
Shock to Increase Suggestibility
Shock is inductive. It literally can send a person into trance (a state of relaxed “sleep”). Induction by mild shocking is called electronarcosis.[18] More intense shocking will also cause convulsion. Electroshock is also known as ECT (electroconvulsive therapy), or ECS (electroconvulsive shock).
The treatment jolts 70 to 140 volts of electricity through the subject’s brain. That’s enough to cause convulsions as long as the shocking continues. Dr. Ugo Cerletti, the Italian psychiatrist who demonstrated the first experimental human convulsion was fascinated:
…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 1 2007 16:25 utc | 81
Abizaid: US forces can’t leave the Middle East while any of our oil remains under their sand.
Posted by: ran | Nov 1 2007 16:36 utc | 82
secrecynews: Secrecy Threatens Historical Record, State Dept is Told
Broad classification restrictions on the disclosure of historical intelligence information are making it difficult or impossible to accurately represent the record of U.S. foreign policy, an official advisory committee warned in a report (pdf) to the Secretary of State last summer.
By law, the Department of State is obliged to publish “a thorough, accurate and reliable documentary record” of United States foreign policy in its official Foreign Relations of the United States series.
But due to official secrecy, “the credibility of the series… remains in the balance,” according to the newly disclosed report of the State Department’s Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation.
…
In short, “Committee members believe that unless policies consistent with respect for the right of the American people to be fully informed about their government’s conduct of foreign policy are adopted and implemented by the Executive Branch, it may become impossible for The Historian [of the State Department] to carry out his duties or for the committee to carry out its Congressionally mandated obligations.”
Posted by: b real | Nov 1 2007 20:41 utc | 83
60 minutes says the Iraq war is Germanys fault:
US network names Iraqi who pushed US case for war
US television network CBS said Thursday it had identified a man known to intelligence agents as “curve ball,” whose fake story of biological weapons drove the US argument for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
…
The program said that after a two-year investigation it had found that Alwan had lied about being a chemical engineer in charge of a facility making mobile biological weapons in order to bolster his case for asylum in Germany.
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Alwan eventually ended up in the hands of German intelligence and was able to provide credible descriptions of the Djerf al-Nadaf plant because he had actually worked there, albeit not as head of a biological weapons program.
…
The program said it had also obtained a copy of a letter from the head of German intelligence to former CIA chief George Tenet saying that Alwan appeared to be believable but that there was no evidence to verify his accounts.
But please:
Germans accuse US over Iraq weapons claim
An Iraqi defector nicknamed Curveball who wrongly claimed that Saddam Hussein had mobile chemical weapons factories was last night at the centre of a bitter row between the CIA and Germany’s intelligence agency.
German officials said that they had warned American colleagues well before the Iraq war that Curveball’s information was not credible – but the warning was ignored.
…
There were several such reports, wellfounded, that Germany had claimed early on that Curveball was a fabricator.
Are we now to believe that Germany tricked the U.S. into attacking Iraq???
“It was a guy trying to get his green card (residency permit) essentially, in Germany, and playing the system for what it was worth,” the program quotes former CIA senior official Tyler Drumheller as saying.
is anyone really going to blame the war on this flimsy concoction? get real. everybody knows cheneyco was creaming over any and all explanations to invade. maybe 60 minutes is getting its wings clipped after they had the audacity to air plame last week. maybe this is ‘balanced’ reporting.
Posted by: annie | Nov 2 2007 0:18 utc | 85
Court to debate State’s refusal to acknowledge Israeli nationality
The Jerusalem Administrative Court on Wednesday ordered the State to justify its refusal to include the term ‘Israeli’ on the list of possible nationalities inscribed in Israeli identification cards.
“In its response, we as of the State to address, among other things, the manner in which the list of nationalities is set and through which legal means a nationality can be added or removed from that list,” wrote Judge Noam Solberg.
The court’s decision follows a petition filed by 38 Israeli intellectuals and artists, including former minister Shulamit Aloni, former MK Uri Avnery, Professors Yehoshua Porat, Yosef Agassi and Uzzi Ornan and singer Alon Olearchick.
In their petition the plaintiffs note that there are currently over 132 different nationalities recognized by the State of Israel for use in registering for an ID card but ‘Israeli’ is not one of them.
i recommend the comments
Posted by: annie | Nov 2 2007 3:11 utc | 86
two differing stances on imperialism wrt AFRICOM
danny glover & nicole lee of transafrica forum cowrite a commentary in the nation
Say No to Africom
armchair warrior robert kaplan over at the atlantic thinks its just frickin’ dandy
The Next Frontier
glover & lee know the territory & what things look like inside the footprint after the boot moves on to the next step. kaplan sees maps & strategies.
glover/lee point out the basics
An alarming step forward in the militarization of the African continent, the US Africa Command (Africom) will oversee all US military and security interests throughout the region, excluding Egypt.
…
General Ward told the Senate Armed Services Committee that Africom would first seek “African solutions to African problems.” His testimony made Africom sound like a magnanimous effort for the good of the African people. In truth Africom is a dangerous continuation of US military expansion around the globe. Such foreign-policy priorities, as well as the use of weapons of war to combat terrorist threats on the African continent, will not achieve national security. Africom will only inflame threats against the United States, make Africa even more dependent on external powers and delay responsible African solutions to continental security issues.
…
American policy-makers should be mindful that South Africa, whose citizens overthrew the US-supported apartheid regime, opposes Africom. In addition, Nigeria and the fourteen-nation Southern African Development Community resist Africom. These forces should be joined by other African governments and citizens around the world, to develop Africa’s own strong, effective and timely security capacities. Progressive US-Africa policy organizations and related civil society groups have not been sufficiently organized to bring this critical issue before the people of the United States. It is urgent that we persuade progressive US legislators to stop the militarization of aid to Africa and to help ensure Africa’s rise to responsible self-determination.
kaplan, otoh, could care fuck-all about non-white non-imperialists. (emphases & ad-libs added.)
Africa matters. It is no longer a third-rate theater of war. The Pentagon’s decision to stand up a war-fighting command exclusively for Africa by the end of 2008 presages a new direction for the global war on terrorism, with profound implications for the military and its relations with the State Department and other executive-branch institutions. It also provides a way for the United States to deal with a rising China.
…
Without seeking to conquer or govern anything, the American military is pursuing a strategy of security linkages similar to those of the French 150 years ago.
…
Because most of these countries have little or no structured military tradition, it’s easier for American noncommissioned officers to shape and influence their forces.
…
AFRICOM, if it is done right, will be a test case for putting the Pentagon and the State Department under one bureaucratic roof: becoming, in effect, a bureau for nation building. [typo there — he obviously means “empire building” abroad & jackbooted repressive military state back home]
…
..AFRICOM will be about picking low-hanging terrorist fruit. [“terrorist” evidently being a code word for oil & other extractable resources]
The so-called long war—and particularly the work of AFRICOM—will be relentless and low-key. Small-scale elite ground units composed largely of junior and noncommissioned officers, working with local armies, assisted by air and sea platforms, will hunt down select individuals. [who fail to realize the benevolence of their new colonial masters.] And unlike U.S. operations in Iraq, AFRICOM will deny any point of concentration for the media. Strikes earlier this year on suspected al-Qaeda targets in Somalia are a case in point. When an AC-130 gunship takes off from a base in Djibouti, or attack helicopters and surveillance planes take off from warships in the Indian Ocean, there is nothing to film, no way of embedding, and no way of knowing the result until the military tells you. [dude’s got his head so far up his ass he’s not even aware that there’s such a thing as a foreign media or, especially, african journalists. not to mention a heavy use of cell phones across the continent.]
Such operations by AFRICOM will not need an exit strategy, since the military will not be present in high numbers in the first place. Southern Command in the drug war in Colombia, and Pacific Command in the war against Islamic insurgents in the southern Philippines, work like this. The creation of AFRICOM signifies the adoption of that paradigm on a grander scale. [that’s only benign if you’ve never read what happens to the local populations in both of those examples. wtf?]
AFRICOM will also help the United States to keep pace with the Chinese…
…
The U.S. military is not the solution to Africa’s development problems, but without it there is simply no credible Western model to compete with China’s. [no mickey d’s w/o mcdonnell douglas, i think, was the catch-phrase not so long ago]
China will be a tough competitor. It is already sending over teams of area experts with capitalist instincts.
…
AFRICOM should be a catalyst for greater military cooperation with civilian relief agencies and other nongovernmental organizations. Like it or not, because humanitarian operations are about logistics, quick access, and the establishment of security perimeters, they encompass a strong military element. The boards of directors of some NGOs understand this; it is their young and idealistic volunteers who must get over their inherent distrust of the American military. Indeed, through a combination of small-scale military strikes that do not generate bad publicity and constant involvement on the soft, humanitarian side of military operations, AFRICOM could rebuild the post-Iraq image of the American soldier in the global commons.
kaplan & kind are banking on controlling the press & awareness of what the eagle does to mother africa, perhaps solving an “image” problem in the process.
glover & lee, otoh, add to the voices of sanity calling for a new anti-imperialism mvmt to block AFRICOM and allow africans to actually help themselves.
Posted by: b real | Nov 2 2007 3:16 utc | 87
it all depends on your definition of “humanity”
UN food agency regrets “crime against humanity” label on biofuels
JOHANNESBURG, 1 November 2007 (IRIN) – The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said an independent UN human rights expert’s description of biofuel production as a “crime against humanity” was regrettable.
Jean Ziegler, the UN Special Rapporteur on The Right to Food, said in a press briefing in New York on 26 October, “It is a crime against humanity to convert agriculturally productive soil into soil which produces foodstuffs that will be burned into [as] biofuel.” He called for a five-year moratorium on biofuel production because the conversion of maize, wheat and sugar into fuels was driving up the prices of food, land and water.
The FAO, which has issued at least one report this year on how biofuel production has been causing food prices to rise, said, “We regret the report of the Special Rapporteur has taken a very complex issue, with many positive dimensions as well as negative ones, and characterised it as a ‘crime against humanity’.”
Speaking from Cuba on 1 November, Ziegler told IRIN, “I stand by what I said: biofuel production is a violation of the right to food.” He has argued that biofuels will only lead to more hunger in a world where an estimated 854 million people – 1 out of 6 – already have too little to eat.
Citing FAO figures showing that the world already produced enough food to feed everyone, and could feed 12 billion people – double the current world population – Ziegler told journalists that the 232kg of maize needed to produce 50 litres of ethanol could feed a child in Mexico or Zambia for a year.
…
The FAO recently launched a project to help policy-makers assess the potential effects of bioenergy production on food security in developing countries.
Posted by: b real | Nov 2 2007 4:09 utc | 89