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March 4, 2008
08-11 – Open Thread
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The NYT reporting on Palestine gets more confused day by day.
Today they write
As Israel withdrew its forces from the northern Gaza Strip on Monday after a two-day assault on Hamas militants, …
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Mr. Olmert was quoted as telling Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee of Parliament that the recent military campaign, which started with concerted airstrikes on Wednesday …
So hwo many days are between Wednesday and Monday? But the “two-day” claim is in the first graph and few read further …
Kunstler on the futility whoever gets elected president will be faced with:
Whoever wakes up as the next president on November 5 will have to preside over the comprehensive reorganization of American life. The big question is whether he can persuade the public to let go of its sunk costs, and all the sheer stuff that represents, and move ahead in a unified way that doesn’t end up tearing the nation apart. The danger is that the public will want to mount a kind of last stand effort to defend a way of life that has no future under any circumstances, and they will ask the president to lead that last stand.
Posted by: anna missed | Mar 4 2008 9:04 utc | 2
Great work you do b.
I just do not understand why so many Americans feel that murder and genocide is OK as long as Israel does it. We have a country killing and stealing land not seen since the Europeans took what later became the USA.
Why do so many approve of it?
Mid February I wrote:
Under the justification of the need to prevent smuggling and proliferation of nuclear material, the U.S., the UK and France will establish sea patrols that will interdict all ships from and to Iran and search these for “dual use” material. (The French are preparing for this with their new Navy base in the United Arab Emirates.) They will confiscate any “dual use” stuff under a similar flexible definition of “dual use” as was used against Iraq and killed 500,000 Iraqi children.
Such plans for sea interdiction were laid out in the first reports about a third round of UN sanctions against Iran. These were not, as falsly reported by the NYT, part of new sanctions the permanent SC members had agreed upon, but a suggestion in one of various proposals that were distributed to non-permanent UN security council members.
In international law, the interruption of free sea traffic without a UN SC resolution is an act of war. Iran will be fully in its right to use force to break such an imposed blockade. But if it does, the Iranian use of force will be a welcome justification for punative air strikes and devastating cruise missile attacks against it.
Today Asia Times writes
On Monday, the United Nations Security Council adopted a third round of sanctions on Iran [1] that will likely escalate the nuclear crisis, given Tehran’s stated promise to resist “unlawful” pressures and demands. This may well mean resisting a key aspect of the UN resolution that calls for the interdiction of ships and airplanes carrying suspected nuclear cargo to and from Iran.
With US and French ships poised to carry out this duty in and around the Persian Gulf, the stage has now been set for the next chapter in the nuclear standoff, that is, physical confrontation.
wsws: US missile strike kills women and children in Somalia
There were conflicting reports as to the specific source of the attack. The Associated Press stated that US naval forces, armed with cruise missiles, were responsible. The AP cited an unnamed Pentagon official who said that the bombardment was carried out with Tomahawk missiles fired from a US submarine.
Other attacks have been carried out from American warships, which constantly patrol Somalia’s 1,800-mile coast, which borders strategically key shipping routes between the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.
Reports from witnesses in Dobley, however, cited the presence of AC130 attack gunships, the type of aircraft the US used in attacking the same area in January of last year. A resident of the town speaking by phone to the BBC said, “Right now—in full daylight—the planes keep flying over us. They are so low that we’re deafened by their engines. We are poor civilians living in a simple town. What have we done to deserve this bombing?”
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Predictably, Washington justified the slaughter in the name of the “war on terrorism.”
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The global eruption of US militarism is producing such “precision strikes” by Washington and its surrogates with increasing frequency in every corner of the globe.
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There is, no doubt, an element of political calculation by the Bush administration in pursuing such policies as it enters its last ten months in office. The Republican Party intends to contest the November elections on the basis of a fear-mongering campaign, proclaiming the ubiquitous threat of terrorism and the need for strong “national security.” The greater the global instability created by US actions, the more fodder they will have for such an effort.
More fundamentally, the explosive spread of American militarism is rooted in the deepening crisis of US capitalism, reflected in the precipitous fall of the dollar and the cancerous spread of a credit crisis that is increasingly manifested in the contraction of production and employment. As the economic foundations of the US claim to global hegemony weaken, the American ruling elite is driven to ever greater reliance on its residual military superiority.
Somalia provides a case study in the immense destruction and human suffering produced by this policy. The Bush administration helped engineer and backed an Ethiopian invasion to overthrow the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), the regime formed by the Somalia’s Islamic courts, businessmen and some local and regional officials, with significant popular support, in opposition to the officially recognized Transitional Federal Government, dominated by CIA-backed warlords.
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It is noteworthy that the missile attack on Somalia comes little more than a week after Bush’s tour of Africa. In many ways, Somalia represents a model for American strategy in the region, based on the use of the armies of African regimes as surrogates, aided and directed by US forces, to secure Washington’s interests. This strategy has been developed since the US military was driven out of Somalia in 1993 in the well-known “Black Hawk down” incident, which claimed the lives of 19 American troops. It is now being employed in alliance with some of the same warlords that the US forces were fighting 15 years ago.
The aim of the White House and the Pentagon is to develop its new African military command—Africom—to apply this same brutal strategy throughout the continent in a bid to secure American control of key oil and other natural resources and to beat back the incursions of US capitalism’s increasingly important competitor in the region, China.
Posted by: b real | Mar 4 2008 18:38 utc | 12
Follow up from last OT…
Marine Corps investigates puppy-throwing video; Monroe man target of rage, threats
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 4 2008 18:59 utc | 13
moa could really use a correspondent watching events in the southern hemisphere of the americas. i don’t believe anyone has brought up the situation WRT colombia yet.
Uribe’s Colombia is Destabilizing a New Latin America: A Response to the Murder of FARC Commander Raúl Reyes in Ecuador
On March 1, 2008, the Colombian state, under the leadership of Uribe, Vice-President Francisco Santos Calderón, and his cousin Defence Minister Juan Manuel Santos, illegally deployed a military campaign within Ecuador, which resulted in the deaths of Raúl Reyes, Julian Conrado, and fifteen other combatants associated with the FARC-EP. Such actions are a clear display of the US-backed-Colombian state’s open negation of international codes of conduct, law and social justice.
The actions of March 1 took place days before a major international demonstration scheduled for March 6. Promoted by The National Movement of Victims of State-Sponsored Crimes (MOVICE), the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), and countless social justice-based organizations, March 6 has been set as an international day of protest against those tortured, murdered and disappeared by the Colombian state, their allies within the paramilitary United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC) and the newly-reformed Black Eagles. Recently, President Uribe’s top political adviser, José Obdulio Gaviria, proclaimed that the protest and protesters should be criminalized. In addition, paramilitaries in the southwestern department of Nariño—not far from where the illegal incursions were carried out in Ecuador—have threatened to attack any organization or person associated with the protest activities.
It is believed that the Uribe and Santos administration is utilizing the slaughter of Commander Raúl Reyes and others as a method to deter activists and socially conscious peoples within and outside Colombia from participating in the March 6 events.
as the wsws article in my previous comment points out
The Colombian counter-insurgency forces operate under the supervision of US Special Forces “advisors” and utilize American intelligence to direct such attacks.
and, as justin podur also made clear in another article
There are numerous parallels between the Colombian government’s assassination of Reyes and Israel. First, the tactic of high-tech, long-distance assassination of high-profile leaders. Second, the killing of dozens of others around the target that are considered “collateral damage.” Third, the use of such assassinations to undermine the possibilities for dialogue and negotiated solutions.
plenty of media coverage & links on the sitch at justin delacour’s Latin America News Review for starters
Posted by: b real | Mar 4 2008 19:05 utc | 14
article in colombia journal from early january
Oil and US Policy Toward Colombia
The Bush administration has come up with numerous justifications for its annual handout of around $700 million in mostly military aid to Colombia. Of these, the war on drugs and the urgency of combating “narco-terrorists,” which is code for battling guerrillas from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army (FARC-EP), are the most common. Another oft-cited, and far more unlikely, reason for beefing up Colombia’s military is the administration’s ostensible desire to “defend democracy” in Colombia. There is, however, another factor driving US involvement in Colombia that receives rather less public attention: oil.
That concerns about oil were influencing the Bush administration’s thinking about Colombia was evident from very early on in the president’s tenure. The administration’s controversial May 2001 National Energy Policy report, which called for heightened government efforts to secure supplies of oil from abroad, noted that “Colombia has…become an important supplier of oil to the United States.” Colombia was in fact only providing about 3 percent of US oil imports at the time, but in light of the Bush administration’s enthusiasm for diversifying America’s sources of oil and its eagerness to reduce its reliance on the potentially unstable and/or hostile Persian Gulf oil states, Colombia attained significance.
This Bush administration emphasis on the importance of Colombia’s oil has been a feature of policy statements since 2001. One of the reasons behind US involvement in the country, the State Department explained in a 2003 report on policy toward Colombia, was that “Colombia has important reserves of petroleum, natural gas and coal.” The point was made again in April 2007 by State Department official Charles Shapiro in testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, when he stated that “Colombia is a strategic energy partner with coal and petroleum production contributing to global energy supply.”
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While Bush administration officials make no secret of the fact that oil plays a significant role in US policy towards Colombia they are less keen on advertising the fact that one of Washington’s main concerns vis-à-vis Colombian oil is keeping US petroleum corporations sweet. In February 2002, the Bush administration, as part of its aid request for fiscal year 2003, asked Congress to provide $98 million to establish and train a brigade of elite Colombian troops to protect an oil pipeline running from the Caño Limón oilfield in the eastern province of Arauca to the Caribbean port of Coveñas. The pipeline was a favorite target of guerrillas from the Army of National Liberation (ELN) and the FARC-EP, who bombed it 170 times in 2001.
This decision dovetailed very neatly with the priorities of US oil giant Occidental Petroleum Corporation, which owned over forty percent of the oil flowing through the pipeline. …
Anne Patterson, who was US ambassador to Colombia at the time, acknowledged the part played by big oil in the decision to launch the Caño Limón-Coveñas pipeline protection program when she stated that it was “important for…our petroleum supplies and for the confidence of our investors.” Training Colombian forces to defend the pipeline was also aimed at providing Colombia with much needed revenue to fund its war against the guerrillas. Sabotage of the pipeline was costing Colombia about $500 million a year, so it made sense to guard this source of funds.
Congress acceded to the administration’s request for funds to guard the pipeline, approving $93 million for this purpose in its budget for 2003. Another $6 million was appropriated as part of an anti-terrorism supplemental signed into law in August 2002. US Army Special Forces trainers began arriving in Arauca in early 2003, with the head of the US Army Special Forces mission proclaiming that their aim was “to train the Colombians to find, track down and kill the terrorists before they attack the pipeline.”
Congress has continued to provide funding for the pipeline program in the years since its inception, with the State Department emphasizing its continuing utility.
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Colombia’s oil exports to the United States have dipped since Bush entered office, and it now only provides around 1.5 percent of annual US imports, a relatively small amount. The country’s known oil reserves are scanty, leading to fears that it will become a net importer within a few years. However, there is a widely held view that there are significant unexplored oil deposits on its territory, with Grace Livingstone suggesting in her book Inside Colombia that “Colombia has the potential to be as important an oil supplier as Venezuela to the US.” Unfortunately for the government, however, much of the area assumed to contain oil is controlled by the FARC-EP.
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To put it bluntly, the United States simply cannot afford to let the war in Colombia further destabilize its neighbors and threaten the flow of oil northward. Roughly 16 percent of the oil imported by the United States comes from Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela. Defeating or at least containing the FARC-EP is therefore of critical significance for US energy security. We can therefore expect that Washington will remain heavily involved in Colombia’s affairs for a long time to come.
Posted by: b real | Mar 4 2008 19:38 utc | 15
Well WORLD?
You want a free market economy; well suck this.
Russia went through with its threat to cut gas supplies to Ukraine by another 25% tonight.
But Ukraine insisted deliveries to Western Europe would not be diverted as a result.
Earlier it had warned the opposite and said it could begin diverting the European shipments to bolster its own supplies.
The cut follows yesterday’s decision by Russia’s state-controlled gas monopoly Gazprom to reduce supplies to Ukraine by about a third in a dispute ostensibly over debts and contracts.
You can buy Gazprom shares here.,so what’s the problem?
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Mar 4 2008 21:16 utc | 16
The whole mess in Latin America is becoming really “interesting” indeed. I’ve followed it these last days and am still puzzling over the players’ intent here. Do the USA really want to try open war to oust Chavez from Venezuela, or even to have an excuse to invade Cuba and do 2 regime changes at the same time? BushCo wouldn’t mind, but with which army?
With Iraq still going on and with sabre-rattling against Iran, they won’t have much to divert to some S American advanture, and Columbian army might be able to defend its borders but won’t be able to go to Caracas, particularly when they never managed to subdue the FARC at a time where they didn’t have issues with neighboring countries.
Posted by: CluelessJoe | Mar 4 2008 23:17 utc | 17
yes, it would seem like uribe is the united states mad dog of latin america. he’s as mad as a meat axe guaranteeing that there will be no more freeing of hostages. & it is clear the u s ordered the hit on commander reyes precisely because he perhaps represented a line in farc that was amenable to negotiation
the u s wants a war wherever it can get it & wherever it can protect & extend its own interests. it would of course prefer the blodd of others to be spilt but it is sufficiently mad to allow a war to begin on another front
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Mar 4 2008 23:41 utc | 18
other than making me sick – ô they make me laugh – cnn & all their confreres who give themselves all these titles like chief political reporter, chief international editor etc etc – they are cartoonish in thir buffoonery
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Mar 4 2008 23:53 utc | 19
Who is Henry Okah?
Since he moved with his family to the relative safety of South Africa in 2003, Henry was able to accomplish the following. He:
* amassed a personal fortune through arms sales and oil bunkering in the Niger delta.
* was able to orchestrate the shutdown of over a half a million barrels a day of Nigerian/Shell oil production for over two years, with a total market value of $29 billion — a major reason why the global price of oil is currently over $100 a barrel today.
* pioneered aspects of a system of warfare that will plague nation-states and their corporate allies for decades.
Alternet
U.S. Militarizing Africa (Again)
The Pentagon’s new AFRICOM is all about securing oil resources, countering terrorism, and rolling back Chinese influence.
By Daniel Volman and Beth Tuckey
Posted by: Alamet | Mar 5 2008 1:13 utc | 21
Chalmers Johnson in Asia Times
The ‘rape’ of Okinawa
(snip)
The Japanese government has never even discussed why a large standing army of Americans is garrisoned on Japanese territory, some 63 years after the end of World War II. There is never any analysis in the Japanese press or by the government of whether the Japanese-American Security Treaty actually requires such American troops.
(snip)
As long as Japan remains a satellite of the United States, women and girls in Okinawa will continue to be slugged, beaten and raped by heavily armed young Americans who have no other reason for being there than the pretensions of American imperialism. As long as the Japanese government refuses to stand up and demand that the American troops based on its territory simply go home, nothing will change.
Posted by: Alamet | Mar 5 2008 1:18 utc | 22
So while combing through old files to night I ran across the following, which is something we should all keep on the periphery of our minds.
The Model State Emergency Health Powers Act: An Assault on Civil Liberties in the Name of Homeland Security
Also see, this old post.
whatever happened to Bush’s New [mental health] Freedom Initiative?
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 5 2008 6:32 utc | 23
nyt article on the missile attacks in the somali town of dobley
U.S. Forces Fire Missiles Into Somalia at a Kenyan
The missile strike was aimed at Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, a Kenyan born in 1979 who is wanted by the F.B.I. for questioning in the nearly simultaneous attacks in 2002 on a hotel in Mombasa, Kenya, and on an Israeli airliner taking off from there, said three American officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the strike.
so when the fbi wants an individual “for questioning” that requires the u.s. military to send two or more missiles which “destroyed two houses, killing three women and three children and wounding another 20 people”? wtf? and what about the earlier rpts that the target was hassan turki, who was in dobley “to mediate a dispute between his militias and government troops, which have been fighting for control of the area”?
and what’s the deal w/ “three American officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the strike”?
three? why not eleven? sixty-two? something smells rotten. and the lead in that story states increduously
Residents reached by telephone said that three civilians were wounded, and that the only other casualties were three dead cows, one dead donkey and a partly destroyed house.
yet the article then goes on to rpt that
An American military official said the naval attack on Monday was carried out with at least two Tomahawk cruise missiles fired from a submarine. The official said the missiles were believed to have hit their targets.
“at least two tomahawk crusie missiles” “believed to have hit their targets” results in “a partly destroyed house”?
they think we’re pretty stupid, don’t they…
reuters: Somalis protest after U.S. missile attack
MOGADISHU, March 4 (Reuters) – Hundreds of residents of a remote town in southern Somalia staged an anti-American demonstration on Tuesday after the United States launched an air strike against “a known al Qaeda terrorist” there.
The town of Dobley was hit by two missiles on Monday in the fourth U.S. strike in 14 months against Somalia, where Washington says local Islamists are sheltering wanted al Qaeda leaders.
Demonstrators in the small town on the Somali-Kenyan border said 600 people took part.
“We don’t want the Americans because they are against our religion and culture. Down with America,” shouted Mohamed Deq, one of the protesters.
District commissioner Ali Hussein Nur told Reuters by telephone “Since the American government admitted bombing our town, where people and livestock were killed and properties damaged, it must pay compensation.”
The exact toll from Monday’s attack was unclear. Nur said on Monday that six people were killed, but a local resident, Fatuma Omar, said on Tuesday that only four were wounded.
now wait, the district commissioner, a public official, states that six were killed yet reuters feels it necessary to also quote “a local resident” who puts the casualties as four wounded? wtf is up w/ that?
and what’s up w/ the pentagon description as “a known al Qaeda terrorist”? the usual prefix is “alleged” or “suspected” AQ baddie. is this also a PR move?
who will be held accountable? or does the u.s. get automatic exemption b/c the victims were black, african & muslim?
Posted by: b real | Mar 5 2008 6:35 utc | 24
re #24, that quote — “destroyed two houses, killing three women and three children and wounding another 20 people” — came from a cnn article i forgot to link to
Posted by: b real | Mar 5 2008 6:39 utc | 25
@b real – @15 –
You know that U.S. hands are in this when suddenly a mysterious “Laptop of Death” (South American version) pops up:
Adding to the tensions on Tuesday, Colombia’s vice president, Francisco Santos, said Colombian forces had found evidence that the FARC had been seeking the ingredients to make a radioactive dirty bomb.
Material found on a laptop computer recovered in the raid into Ecuador provided the basis for Mr. Santos’s accusations about a dirty bomb, a weapon that combines highly radioactive material with conventional explosives to disperse deadly dust that people would inhale.
“This shows that these terrorist groups, supported by the economic power provided by drug trafficking, constitute a grave threat not just to our country but to the entire Andean region and Latin America,” Mr. Santos said at a United Nations disarmament meeting in Geneva, in a statement that was posted in Spanish on the conference’s Web site. The rebels were “negotiating to get radioactive material, the primary base for making dirty weapons of destruction and terrorism,” he said.
It was unclear from Mr. Santos’s statement with whom the rebels were negotiating.
Mr. Santos made his claim based on information provided Monday in Bogotá by Colombia’s national police chief about the FARC’s negotiations for 110 pounds of uranium, obtained from the laptop computer of Raúl Reyes, the senior FARC commander killed Saturday in Ecuador.
Colombia’s government also said this week that it had obtained information on the computer showing that Mr. Chávez was channeling $300 million to the FARC. The information is the basis for its plan to file charges against Mr. Chávez in the International Criminal Court, Mr. Uribe said Tuesday in Bogotá.
Chad: A Moat Around the Capital
The government is digging a 10-foot-deep trench around the capital, Ndjamena, to prevent a repeat of an attack last month, when rebels in pickup trucks rolled in and fought two days of heavy battles. The ditch will all but encircle the city, slicing through neighborhoods and forcing vehicles to pass through fortified gateways, a security official said. The remaining trees that line the avenues of central Ndjamena are being felled.
islam online: US Strikes Somali Resistance Meeting
A recent US strike on the southern Somali city of Dobley targeted a meeting of senior resistance leaders but instead claimed the lives of nine civilians, well-placed sources have revealed.
“They targeted senior leaders of the Somali resistance who were meeting in the area,” the sources told IslamOnline.net, requesting anonymity for security reasons.
“None of the leaders was hurt.”
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..sources said the resistance leaders had wrapped up a two-day meeting in Dobley hours before the strike.
More than 600 Dobley residents protested Tuesday, March 4, against the strike, saying it killed nine people, injured 20 and destroyed two buildings.
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Whitman, the Pentagon spokesman, had declined to identity the target of the strike.
But sources told IOL it was Sheikh Hassan Hersi Al-Turki.
Turki, 64, is a prominent military leader in the SICS and is in charge of training camps in south Somalia.
He is the former leader of the Al-Itihaad al-Islamiya group.
Turki and his followers joined the SICS in mid 2006 to rout the US-backed warlords who ruled Somali since the ouster of Mohamed Siad Barre regime in 1991.
He is on America’s terrorists list and is accused of offering shelter to Al-Qaeda fighters in Somalia.
Washington accuses the SICS of providing shelter to a handful of Al-Qaeda members.
The SICS has repeatedly denied Al-Qaeda links, dismissing the charge as a pretext to justify foreign intervention in Somalia.
Turki had evaded several capture attempts by the interim government troops since the SICS ouster.
Posted by: b real | Mar 5 2008 7:10 utc | 28
For b real et al…
Memories of a C.I.A. Officer Resonate in a New Era(NYT)
Africa
LOCUST GROVE, Va. — Larry Devlin is 85 now, suffering from emphysema and tethered to an oxygen tank, his Central Intelligence Agency career long behind him. But he recalls with sunlit clarity the day in Congo nearly half a century ago when he was handed a packet of poisons, including toxic toothpaste, and ordered to carry out a political assassination.
Awww. Look at the photo of the nice old man who didn’t want to hurt anyone. Granpa!
But the disinformation claim that the CIA did not kill Patrice Lumumba seems to be the goal of this release while W and the US are courting African resources (oil and minerals) and less than two weeks before the 40th anniversary of the USG murder of another famous African (American) leader, Reverand Martin Luther King, on April 4, 1968.
But [Devilin] thought the order to kill Patrice Lumumba, the charismatic Congolese politician the Eisenhower administration feared would become an African Fidel Castro, was both wrong and stupid, a desperate plan that could easily go awry and devastate American influence in Africa.
“Worldwide it would have been disastrous,” he said.
So he stalled. And Lumumba’s political rivals eventually killed him without the C.I.A.’s help.
Lies. Lies, Mr. Devlin. Lies, Mr. Prados.
What about ex-CIA whistleblower John Stockwell telling us about his 1965 CIA trainer telling the class about driving around with Patrice Lumumba’s body in the trunk of his car wondering what to do with it?
Stockwell from his book ‘In Search of Enemies’ (1978).-
“A few short months after the CIA’s shameful performance in Vietnam, of which I was a part, I was assigned to a managerial position in the CIA’s covert Angola program. Under the leadership of the CIA director [Bush] we lied to Congress and to the 40 Committee, which supervised the CIA’s Angola program. We entered into joint activities with South Africa. And we actively propagandized the American public, with cruel results – Americans, misguided by our agents’ propaganda, went to fight in Angola in suicidal circumstances.
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Our secrecy was designed to keep the American public and press from knowing what we were doing – we fully expected an outcry should they find us out.
Oh, yeah. W Bush was just out lying up a storm in Africa. Timing.
So nice old granpa in the CIA-NYTimes is another typical limited hang-out diversion and PR from CIA-shill John Prados to upstage the VERY DAMNING whistleblowing books by ex-CIA Angola Task Force leader, John Stockwell, the highest ranking CIA officer to turn on that terrorist agency and who damned both CIA Director George HW Bush who Stockwell worked under and Henry Kissinger in 1976.
This Prados book is probably timed to go with the step down of Castro and sneaks in this CIA justifier-
Such episodes aside, he defends the C.I.A’ s achievements in Congo, including support for the rise of Mobutu Sese Seko, who would become a symbol of corruption in his 32-year rule. “We prevented the Soviets from taking over a very large part of Africa,” he said.
More REAL info on CIA from John Stockwell- here
John Stockwell – the U.S. War Against the Third World (video)
The Secret Wars of the CIA lecture – part I (1987)
The Secret Wars of the CIA lecture – part II (1987)
The Praetorian Guard
In Search of Enemies
Quotations
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 5 2008 7:43 utc | 29
voa: Somali Capital Reportedly on Brink of Starvation
Somalia’s interim Prime Minister Nur Adde Hassan Hussein surprised many Somalis on Monday by publicly admitting that government troops took part in the wholesale looting of Bakara market in recent days.
The prime minister apologized for the soldiers’ misconduct and promised that they would be punished.
According to Mogadishu resident Mahmud Hassan and several other reliable VOA sources in Mogadishu, punishing the soldiers would require the cooperation of President Yusuf. Hassan and the others say it was soldiers from the president’s Darod clan who looted and destroyed the market, leaving hundreds of thousands of people in the city with no source of income and no place to buy basic goods.
“Bakara market has been looted by Abdullahi Yusuf’s clan from Puntland. There is no commerce. There is no business,” he said. “The largest market in Somalia is closed. Now, food is sold in back alleys and inflation is over 300 percent. I would not be surprised if you see a human catastrophe in Mogadishu within the next two weeks if things continue like this.”
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President Yusuf has not commented on the accusations against his soldiers and it is far from clear whether he had any knowledge of their actions in Bakara market. But the reports have nonetheless convinced many Somalis in Mogadishu that the president is following a plan to destroy the clan that currently dominates in the capital, the Hawiye, and give power to his Darod clan.
A prominent Hawiye political leader, Mohamed Uluso, insists that troops loyal to Somalia’s transitional federal government are now largely made up of Darod soldiers from Puntland, who take orders directly from President Yusuf.
“The view is that the destruction of Bakara market will complete the submission and surrender of the Hawiye to the personal rule of President Yusuf,” he said.
global politician: Somalia’s Leadership: Substance or Rhetoric?
Despite the disillusionment with the process that produced the current Transitional Federal Government (TFG) October of 2004 in Kenya, war-fatigued Somalis, those in the homeland and the Diaspora alike were willing to give the benefit of the doubt to a government formed neither by its vision nor capacity to deliver, but by the clan one belongs to or by the brutal reputation or the deadly arsenal one possesses.
It did not take long for the TFG to demonstrate its incompetence. It failed to articulate a new vision and grew more dependent on Meles Zenawi’s regime (Ethiopia). Furthermore, it adopted an ill-advised mantra of threat and polarization and failed to set a foot in Mogadishu due to the instability created by the same warlords that the TFG was made of.
It would take them over two years and for tens of thousands of Ethiopian troops, tanks and fighter jets, and US AC-130 gunship to oust the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) and shield TFG right into their barricades of apathy and corruption.
The invasion that brought TFG into Mogadishu abruptly ended six months of peace enjoyed by the people of Mogadishu under the ICU and it ushered in an occupation force with relentless brutality and no exit plan.
ICU came to the forefront of the Somali politics as part of a grass-roots movement spearheaded by the people of Mogadishu who were eager to get rid of the warlords and have found in the courts interest to advance the common good and willingness to stand up against the warlords. And get rid of the warlords, they did. But, to the utter dismay of civilians sighing relief, a number of these fleeing warlords were granted safe haven by the TFG and later were appointed to critical positions. A case in point is the appointment of two of the most brutal warlords, Mohamed Dheere and Abdi Qeybdiid, to the security of Mogadishu upon TFG’s arrival in Mogadishu.
Despite their lack of good public relations and a holistic view of world politics, for the six months that they governed Mogadishu, the ICU has afforded Somalis, particularly those in Mogadishu, a sense of hope, empowerment, and national pride that mobilized the locals to organize volunteer services to clean the city’s mountainous garbage and debris of the devastation. More importantly, after a decade and half of lawlessness, they established safe route for the delivery of food aid and ensured equitable distribution, and they established law and order to the point that Somali women of Mogadishu could leave their homes without the fear of being raped or robbed.
Having done what they have in such a short time and in the spirit of giving peace a chance, one would assume that ICU would earn the support of the international community. Unfortunately, the fear of “terror” and “terrorism” by the West overshadowed Somalia’s chance to clime out of the hellhole dug and ignited by the warlords and their militias.
The ICU method that defied all logic and proved wrong the prediction of many analysts could’ve been the blueprint for the recovery of Somalia- nationwide. The ordinary people’s victory over the CIA-backed warlords showed all the vital signs that could eventually save Somalia. Somalis, at least while it lasted, were awaken of their deep slumber and were willing to reclaim their national dignity and rights.
…
Now the current situation; Somalia is under a ruthless occupation that killed 7000 civilians in its first year, created approximately 1 million IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons), and pushed 1.5 million people on the verge of utter starvation thus creating what is officially recognized as “the worst humanitarian crisis in Africa.”
On February 14, 2008, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that “there are up to 2 million vulnerable people in need of assistance in the country. In the capital Mogadishu, the number of people escaping the city to the poorest areas of the Horn of Africa nation has doubled to 700,000 in the last six months”. The following day, on February 15th the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) was urging the international community to step-up their support as in the coming months about 90,000 children in war-ravaged Somalia were facing the threat of annihilation by malnutrition resulting from lack of food, supplementary nutrition, and therapeutic feeding.
A few weeks ago the new Transitional Prime Minister, Nur Hassan Hussein (Adde) has formed his government which clearly is a much leaner cabinet of ministers than those formed by his predecessors. To his credit, his cabinet is also free of warlords though many still dispute this as the most powerful positions in the TFG, all so-called defense and security oriented positions, are held by infamous warlords. Also to his credit, the Prime Minister has changed the provocative rhetoric of his predecessor and, by and large, has adopted a language of reconciliation.
Now that the Prime Minister has proven that he can “talk the talk”, the million dollar question is, would he prove that he can “walk the walk”.
Posted by: b real | Mar 5 2008 7:54 utc | 30
Kids, we have had some very interesting visitors to MOA of late…
And to think, we didn’t get to offer them a drink. :-p
In particular,
Domain Name disa.mil ? (Military)
IP Address 159.77.149.# (DISA Information Systems Center)
ISP DISA Information Systems Center
Location
Continent : North America
Country : United States (Facts)
State : Virginia
City : Arlington
Lat/Long : 38.86, -77.0987 (Map)
Language unknown
Operating System Microsoft Windows Server 2003
Browser Internet Explorer 6.0
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.2; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; InfoPath.1)
Javascript disabled
Time of Visit Mar 3 2008 7:09:34 am
Last Page View Mar 3 2008 7:09:34 am
Visit Length 0 seconds
Page Views 1
Referring URL unknown
Visit Entry Page http://www.moonofala…department-of-s.html
Visit Exit Page http://www.moonofala…department-of-s.html
Out Click
Time Zone unknown
Visitor’s Time Unknown
Visit Number 1,276,069
and
Domain Name osd.mil ? (Military)
IP Address 198.97.134.# (DMSSC Europe)
ISP DMSSC Europe
Location
Continent : North America
Country : United States (Facts)
State : Armed Forces Europe, Middle East, & Canada
City : Apo
Lat/Long : unknown
Language unknown
Operating System Microsoft WinXP
Browser Internet Explorer 6.0
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; InfoPath.2)
Javascript disabled
Time of Visit Mar 3 2008 6:19:00 am
Last Page View Mar 3 2008 6:23:11 am
Visit Length 4 minutes 11 seconds
Page Views 6
Referring URL unknown
Visit Entry Page http://www.moonofalabama.org/
Visit Exit Page http://www.moonofala…open-thread-0-1.html
Out Click
Time Zone unknown
Visitor’s Time Unknown
Visit Number 1,276,038
and
Domain Name navy.mil ? (Military)
IP Address 138.162.0.# (Navy Network Information Center (NNIC))
ISP Navy Network Information Center (NNIC)
Location
Continent : North America
Country : United States (Facts)
State : Virginia
City : Chesapeake
Lat/Long : 36.7558, -76.2928 (Map)
Language unknown
Operating System Microsoft Win2000
Browser Internet Explorer 6.0
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0; T312461; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; InfoPath.1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727)
Javascript disabled
Time of Visit Mar 3 2008 5:53:46 am
Last Page View Mar 3 2008 5:53:46 am
Visit Length 0 seconds
Page Views 1
Referring URL unknown
Visit Entry Page http://www.moonofala…the-european-ta.html
Visit Exit Page http://www.moonofala…the-european-ta.html
Out Click
Time Zone unknown
Visitor’s Time Unknown
Visit Number 1,276,024
Domain Name state.gov ? (U.S. Government)
IP Address 169.252.4.# (U.S. Department of State)
ISP U.S. Department of State
Location
Continent : North America
Country : United States (Facts)
State : Virginia
City : Reston
Lat/Long : 38.9579, -77.3439 (Map)
Language unknown
Operating System Microsoft WinXP
Browser Internet Explorer 6.0
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; InfoPath.1)
Javascript disabled
Time of Visit Mar 5 2008 3:11:24 am
Last Page View Mar 5 2008 3:11:24 am
Visit Length 0 seconds
Page Views 1
Referring URL unknown
Visit Entry Page http://www.moonofalabama.org/
Visit Exit Page http://www.moonofalabama.org/
Out Click
Time Zone unknown
Visitor’s Time Unknown
Visit Number 1,278,722
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 5 2008 8:51 utc | 31
uncle –
chpt 5 – instruments of statecraft
Former CIA officer John S. Stockwell, who was based in the Congo and later headed the CIA’s Angola Task Force, adds a further snippet, a colleague’s anecdote about “an adventure in Lubumbashi, driving about town after curfew with Patrice Lumumba’s body in the trunk of his car, trying to decide what to do with it.” (“He presented this story in a benign light, as though he had been trying to help. . . “) Another author adds: “What he did do with it has not yet been made public.”
soldiers loyal to cia asset mobutu made the arrest; he then turned lumumba over to tshombe (supported by the cia, the belgians, the rockefellers (later?), etc) who arranged for belgians to finish him off. or that’s how i understand it.
haven’t seen it in a long time, but raoul peck’s film lumumba was quite good though it helps to be familiar w/ the storyline to follow the version i saw, esp thought the lead actor was fantastic. the release in the states is censored in that rumsfield’s college roomie frank carlucci successfully sued to have his name dubbed out, not wanting to be implicated.
the nyt piece on devlin is a joke. no mention of devlin’s role in hiring mercs to fight against the simba rebellion, diamonds, etc…
Posted by: b real | Mar 5 2008 8:56 utc | 32
Jenkins in The Guardian:
Democracy is the new Christianity. It is the chosen faith of western civilisation, and carrying it abroad is the acceptable face of the Crusader spirit.
…
Russia’s elections were imperfect, their casual and crude corruption by Vladimir Putin yet another way of displaying his autocratic machismo. He may have failed to live up to the standards the west “expects”. But he appears to have correctly read the mood of his people, who simply want a strong hand on the wheel for as long as possible.
I cannot see what purpose is therefore served by hurling abuse at these states. Russia’s path to political emancipation is tentative, if not in reverse. That country has never ticked more than a handful of democracy’s boxes, yet is still incomparably freer than under communism. Its pastiche of monopoly capitalism – Putin’s “managed democracy” – so contrasts with the chaos of the 1990s that even sophisticated Russians tell western interviewers that they would happily buy stability and discipline at the expense of another such gamble. We can tell them they are wrong until the cows come home. But we did not live in Russia in the 1990s.
…
There is just no point in the sonorous moralising of western NGOs characterised by the (normally admirable) Human Rights Watch. It complains that “by allowing autocrats to pose as democrats, without demanding they uphold the civil and political rights that make democracy meaningful, influential democrats risk undermining human rights”.
What are these words “allowing … demanding … undermining”? Their major premise is not just western superiority, to which I might subscribe, but western potency and, most extraordinary (and illegal), a western right to global sovereignty. The assumption behind “demand” has lain at the root of so much useless bloodshed over the past half century that a sense of history might surely counsel humility.
The Idenpendent has a good roundup on Columbia: The Big Question: Why has Colombia invaded Ecuador, and why is Venezuela joining the fight?
In case anyone feared that Israeli leaders were weakening, or more to the point becoming reasonable:
The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, warned today that more fighting in Gaza was imminent and admitted one of his goals was now to “weaken” the Islamist movement Hamas.
Israeli troops and tanks pulled out of Gaza before dawn today after five days of intense combat which left at least 106 Palestinians and three Israelis dead and brought stinging criticism from many in the international community, including the UN. New evidence from Israel’s leading human rights group, B’Tselem, which has researchers on the ground, said at least half the Palestinian dead “did not take part in the hostilities”.
Despite the heavy loss of life to both militants and civilians, the Hamas movement claimed a “victory”. Militants continued firing rockets from Gaza into Israel, many towards the nearby town of Sderot but also some of a longer range towards the much larger city of Ashkelon 11 miles to the north.Olmert warns of more fighting soon
Posted by: jj | Mar 5 2008 10:16 utc | 35
OPEC to Shrub: drop dead.
they won’t say it but they’re probably pumping as fast as they can anyway.
Posted by: ran | Mar 5 2008 18:42 utc | 36
Security breaches and criminal activity in the Department of Homeland Security? My shocked face. Let me show you it.
Crimes by Homeland Security agents stir alert
Posted by: Monolycus | Mar 5 2008 19:09 utc | 37
Nobody posted the Vanity Fair article, or I’m not keeping up?
The Gaza Bombshell
After failing to anticipate Hamas’s victory over Fatah in the 2006 Palestinian election, the White House cooked up yet another scandalously covert and self-defeating Middle East debacle: part Iran-contra, part Bay of Pigs. (…)
link
Posted by: Tangerine | Mar 5 2008 21:45 utc | 38
Uh-oh – Bush May Fire CentCom Chief Adm. Fallon, Replace With Commander More ‘Pliable’ To War With Iran
According to a new article by Thomas P.M. Barnett in the April issue of Esquire magazine (on newsstands March 12), Fallon may be prematurely “relieved of his command” as soon as this summer:
[W]ell-placed observers now say that it will come as no surprise if Fallon is relieved of his command before his time is up next spring, maybe as early as this summer, in favor of a commander the White House considers to be more pliable. If that were to happen, it may well mean that the president and vice-president intend to take military action against Iran before the end of this year and don’t want a commander standing in their way.
so where are all the international wire service stories on the latest re the u.s. missile strikes/bombing of a somali target on monday? have to go to nairobi’s daily nation to read that
US missile attack missed key target
A US missile strike against the Somali town of Dobley may have missed its target — Kenyan terror suspect Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan.
Security sources also said in Mombasa Wednesday that Mr Nabhan’s mobile communication was intercepted by the US Navy, leading to the Sunday attack.
Dobley is near the Kenya-Somalia border.
The Tomahawk missile fired from the sea may have hit when the suspect, born in 1968 in Mombasa, had already left the location, the sources added.
But the police are not ruling out that Mr Nabhan may be among the 20 people wounded in the attack.
Mr Nabhan is a close ally of another wanted terrorist suspect Harun Fazul, and are believed to be always together.
Other sources close to Mr Nabhan said they did not believe he was killed. “I think it’s just propaganda to try and find out where he actually is,” said one source.
The source said during an earlier attack in southern Somalia, it was announced that Mr Fazul had been killed, but it was later confirmed that he was not even near the vicinity.
a reporter asked gates in a DoD media roundtable today “Secretary Gates, the strike on Somalia two days ago — did the missiles that were fired — did they strike their target? And was the target Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan? Do you have a report back from the field?” to which he curtly responded “you know we don’t talk about military operations.”
so take note that the SECGEN of the u.s. military acknowledges that his country is conducting military operations in somalia. at least they’re not denying it any longer. that’s a positive step, eh?
an commentary from ghana’s ghana broadcasting corporation rightly asks some pertinent questions & more
On the Somalia strikes, one is surprised that African leaders have not condemned this unilateral action by the US which has left a number of civilians dead. Italy condemned the action saying it could spark new tensions, while UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed concern that the strikes could lead to an escalation of hostilities. What are our leaders on our dear continent of Africa saying? Africa needs a common position on such unwarranted strikes, otherwise the people of the continent will wake up one day to find that every inch of their land is under bombardment by the US under the pretext of targeting terrorists.
As a point of interest one may ask who trained the so called terrorists? It is no secret that most of the people the US is chasing around the world in the name of war on terror were trained by the same US to undertake counter intelligence activities in countries the US perceive as non-democratic and an enemy. One may not be wrong in saying that it is these people Washington is now targeting now as enemies of the American people. The US says it will not submit her citizens for trial by the international criminal court. Yet, that same country will lead the crusade for citizens of other countries to go on trial at the International Criminal Court. What a double standard. It is about time the people at the Capitol Hill in Washington re-assess their double standards in their Foreign Policy and find out if it is not their own actions that have created fertile grounds for terrorism.
these illegal & absurd aggressions against africans, coming on the heels of bush’s PR leapfrogging across the continent late last month, could (and should) really create a public relations disaster for the u.s. and its AFRICOM ambitions.
why should africans believe a word this crew says?
Posted by: b real | Mar 6 2008 5:35 utc | 41
– Elite ‘Democratic’ Planning at the Council on Foreign Relations (Part 1 of 2)
– The Council on Foreign Relations and the Center for Preventive Action (Part 2 of 2)
The first part of this two-part article provided a brief overview of the history of the Council on Foreign Relations, and demonstrated how with the backing of America’s leading liberal foundations (and working closely with many CIA-linked individuals) it has worked industriously to manufacture elite consent. This concluding part of the article will examine the Council’s present day democracy manipulating credentials, and provide a critical investigation of the people involved with their Orwellian Center for Preventive Action.
Posted by: b real | Mar 6 2008 7:50 utc | 42
National Dragnet Is a Click Away
She told the system to also search data warehouses built by Coplink in San Diego and Orange County, Calif. — which have agreements to share with Tucson — and came up with the name of a particular suspect, his age and a possible address. She asked the software to find the suspect’s links to other people and incidents, and then to create a visual chart displaying the findings. Up popped a display with the suspect at the center and cartoon-like images of houses, buildings and people arrayed around him. A final click on one of the houses brought up the address of an apartment and several new names, leads she could follow.
“The power behind what we have discovered, what we can do with Coplink, is immense,” Tucson police Chief Richard Miranda said. “The kinds of things you saw in the movies then, we’re actually doing now.”
…
In a paper called “Intelligence-Led Policing: The New Intelligence Architecture,” law enforcement authorities working with the Justice Department said officers ” ‘on the beat’ are an excellent resource for gathering information on all kinds of potential threats and vulnerabilities.”
…
At least 1,550 jurisdictions across the country use Coplink systems, through some three dozen nodes. That’s a huge increase from 2002, when Coplink was first available commercially.
…
One widely used Coplink product is called Intel Lead. It enables agencies to enter new information, tips or observations into the data warehouses, which can then be accessed by people with proper authority. Another service under development, called “predictor,” would use data and software to make educated guesses about what could happen.
Fun in the markets: Carlyle Fund Gets Default Notice After Margin Calls
Carlyle Group’s publicly traded mortgage bond fund failed to meet margin calls and said it received a notice of default.
Carlyle Capital Corp. missed four of seven margin calls yesterday totaling more than $37 million, the Guernsey, U.K.- based fund said today in a statement. The fund expects to get at least one more notice of default related to the margin calls.
The collapse of the subprime mortgage market has prompted investors to flee all but the safest forms of debt, leading to the failure of hedge funds including Peloton Partners LLP. The Carlyle fund raised $300 million in July and used loans to buy about $22 billion of AAA rated so-called agency mortgage securities issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
“The credit crisis is spilling over to the next asset class, agency bonds,” said Philip Gisdakis, senior credit strategist at UniCredit SpA in Munich. “There’s never just one cockroach. If you see one highly leveraged hedge fund going bust, then there’s another on the way.”
…
all these hedgie funds will die …
At or near a military recruiting office. The article goes out of its way to point out that the office has been the site of antiwar protests. The bomb was too small to cause much havoc, too bomblike to be ignored. Just enough to plant the antiwar activist=mad bomber equation in the minds of the Typical American Lemmings. What’s next? Paying young hoodlums to go around calling soldiers in uniform “baby killers?”
With the Official Stolen Columbian Rebel Laptop Containing Hugo Chavez’ Dastardly Plan For World Domination, this has been quite a week for fake news.
Police investigate Times Square blast
A small bomb caused minor damage to an empty military recruiting station in Times Square early Thursday, shaking guests in hotel rooms high above “the crossroads of the world.”
The blast, which happened around 3:45 a.m., left a gaping hole in the front window and shattered a glass door, twisting and blackening its metal frame. No one was hurt. But Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the device, though unsophisticated, could have caused “injury and even death.”
A witness saw a person on a bicycle wearing a backpack and a hood and acting suspiciously, but no one saw the device being placed in front of the recruiting center, authorities said at a news conference.
“If it is something that’s directed toward American troops then it’s something that’s taken very seriously and is pretty unfortunate,” said Army Capt. Charlie Jaquillard, who is the commander of Army recruiting in Manhattan
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 6 2008 16:06 utc | 45
Another fleeting historic moment… Oil futures passed $ 105 today before *retreating* to $ 104.90 as I write.
Posted by: Alamet | Mar 6 2008 16:55 utc | 46
Arrested Arms Dealer’s Planes Flew U.S. Missions in Iraq
That’s non other than Viktor Bout, arrested earlier today in Bangkok, Thailand.
Posted by: Alamet | Mar 6 2008 17:41 utc | 47
On my Carlyle Fund post in 44.
Carlyle is a private investor group. Bush, Baker, Feinstein all the rich bigshoots assholes are invested there.
They put some $300 into that fund and leveraged that to a factor of 32(!). So the borrowed 32 times as much paper than they actually put up money and invested that in first-class mortgage papers. But with 32 times leverage when your principal asset goes down some 3.2% your capital base is destroyed. The people who lend the additional money make margin calls. But you can’t sell any of your assets because the market is frozen.
Tata – gone everything.
Expect some immediate legislation from Bush and Feinstein to prevent further such losses …
Irony alert…
F.B.I. Investigates Missing G.O.P. Money
Wait! I might have just found it…
Lobbyists talk ethics in sin city
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 6 2008 19:54 utc | 50
Iraq – Why So Many Female Suicide Bombers?
Not too bad. A bit silly though, quoting “more than a decade of research by Research and Development Corp. (RAND) experts” for a list of reasons common sense could have told them. Oh, by the way, being against the occupation of your country is defined as xenophobia now, we’d best remember that.
Posted by: Alamet | Mar 7 2008 1:06 utc | 51
U.S. officially joins the Third World
Okay, Alabama…
Posted by: Anonymous | Mar 7 2008 2:38 utc | 52
Did anyone expected less …
Top Iraq contractor skirts US taxes offshore
Shell companies in Cayman Islands allow KBR to avoid Medicare, Social Security deductions
The Pentagon acknowledged that it did know of the scheme. For the U.S. government in total this was a budget loss. For the Pentagon budget it was a relief. This tells something about the Pentagon’s real interest.
re Alamet’s #47
The life of a bullet Opening from “Lord of war” the opening scene…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 7 2008 11:26 utc | 55
Dems! Need material for your campaign?
…
We should harbor no illusions, however, that adopting such a strategy will be easy. The military and energy industries in which the Bush family is so heavily invested will vigorously resist such a policy. And the energy bill now making its way through Congress is nothing so much as a testament to the death grip the energy industry holds on the American people. It provides tens of billions of dollars of subsidies and giveaways to energy companies while actually encouraging more intensive energy use. As the poster boy of these leviathans, President Bush expressed their sentiments best: “We need an energy policy that encourages consumption.” What more need be said?
In the end, the choice of these two alternatives—Grab the Oil or Energy Reconfiguration—is much bigger than oil alone. It is a choice about the fundamental ethos and, in fact, the very nature of the country. Most immediately, it is about democracy versus empire. In economic terms, it is about prosperity or poverty. In engineering terms, it is a matter of efficiency over waste. In moral terms this is the choice of sufficiency or gluttony. From the standpoint of the environment, it is a preference for stewardship over continued predation. In the ways the US deals with other countries it is the choice of co-operation versus dominance. And in spiritual terms, it is the choice of hope, freedom and purpose over fear, dependency and despair. In this sense, this is truly the decision that will define the future of America and perhaps the world.
…
Hey Barack! Eugene Robinson says you need a new “keystone address”. Get busy with the above!
Posted by: Hamburger | Mar 7 2008 14:36 utc | 57
b @ #54
link is broken –
http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2008/03/06/top_iraq_contractor_skirts_us_taxes_offshore/
Posted by: crone | Mar 7 2008 21:24 utc | 58
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Mar 8 2008 1:07 utc | 59
garowe online: Somalia: ‘Muslims are being massacred’: Dobley mayor
DOBLEY, Somalia Mar 7 (Garowe Online) – The mayor of a town in south Somalia which was the target of a U.S. air strike last week says that al Qaeda has never set foot in the town.
Ali “Dheere” Hussein, the mayor of Dobley, told the BBC Somali Service that the U.S. bombing killed innocent civilians.
“The only thing I see here is innocent people being massacred,” Mayor Ali Dheere said, referring to a house hit by U.S. missiles on March 3.
The mayor said that the Somali Transitional Federal Government did not contact Dobley officials, even to send condolences to the families of the deceased.
He said there is no hospital in Dobley town to treat the wounded civilians, so “we took them to the pharmacy since the [Kenya] border is closed.”
Mayor Ali Dheere said the U.S. bombing was “wrong and intentional,” since the people of Dobley did not harm the U.S.
“I here about al Qaeda only from the U.S. government and the Somali President [Abdullahi Yusuf],” the Dobley mayor said.
Asked about the intention of the U.S. bombing, Mayor Ali Dheere said, in his opinion, that “Muslims are being massacred.”
Hassan Turki, the commander of Islamist militias in south Somalia, was a target in the U.S. bombing of Dobley.
He told the BBC that the American government is being lied to by local opportunists, who are using the “terrorist card” to their own advantage.
He compared U.S. policy to a man who once loved a girl, but the girl refused him and so he gave her money every time he saw her.
“We are not terrorists. We are righteous fighters. [Former Somali President] Mohamed Siad Barre released me from jail in 1964 to fight the Amhara and now [Ethiopian Gen.] Gabre rules Villa Somalia,” Turki said.
He dismissed Somali President Yusuf’s allegations that al Qaeda fighters trained in Afghanistan were regrouping in Dobley.
“We were trained as children because the clans used to fight. All Somalis are trained,” he said with a slight chuckle.
Turki said he does not know the three al Qaeda fugitives whom the U.S. government believes are being sheltered in southern Somalia.
“We don’t know about them [three wanted al Qaeda operatives] but even if they did exist, is it right to kill all the innocent people for them?”
Posted by: b real | Mar 8 2008 7:33 utc | 60
@ Uncle $cam #31 – What’s curious to me is that whenever I check out “Who’s On?” someone is reading the “Blowverbod” thread from two years ago which only had a few comments.
Posted by: beq | Mar 8 2008 15:10 utc | 61
since i’m in attention-junkie mode, the typepad had loosen it’s grip on me and I wanna reach the regulars for a round of discussion. i’ll repost this stuff here:
At risk of over-express my happiness, I must tell my satisfaction for the reactions to my commentaries. Having been posted here is great, and also the vitality of the discussion. I love the issues discussed here and has been a personal honor for me contribute to put Colombia’s situation in your scope. I want to share some brief thinkings with you , specially because my work gets harder and maybe for a while I won’t be able to serious interacion.
First a little one about the Black Friday forewarned by Bernhard. It was, in effect, a day of reckoning in Wall Street. Their effects remains to be seen ¿could the markets go on with the cat-and-mouse game and the la-la-la I don’t hear you that has been played for most of the year? Nest week promises to be a wildly one.
Returning to colombian stuff, some remarks about the suspicions over the putative “Israel” role for Colombia in LatAM.
If that hypothetical role were to be true, it’ll be a far larger blunder than Chavez’s perception of FARC as selfless revolutionaries. If for “Israel” one means the regional cop in charge of scare the neighborhood into submission, It must be said that Colombia, simply, can’t deliver. There are zillions of arguments. I’ll put just a few.
1) The average Colombian soldier has the mercilessness of the Israeli, but lacks self-discipline. In the past, the Israelis had confronted both standing armies and guerrilla units. That’s not the case in Colombia, and their soldiers are over-specialized in fighting lightly armed guerrillas.
2) One of the fields in which such over-specialization is more visible is the air force. It has become very useful for bombardment and air support, but, very unlike Israel, they don´t have an air-to-air combat capacity worth that name, while many of our neighbors had. Between them is…(uh-oh) Venezuela. The Ecuadorean Air Force, although small, had a not-so-old successful combat experience in the Cenepa War(1995) against Peru
3) And there it is Brazil. With half the population and landmass of South America, It couldn’t ever possibly be “scared” by Colombia. It will be like think India scared by Nepal. Although far less vocal than Chavez, Lula da Silva knows well when his national interest lies. Brazil seeks stability and a widening of his influence in the actual favorable conditions. I don’t see regional war in their interest. And if Brazil doesn’t want war in his turf,is close to impossible wage one.
4) …And let’s not forget that Colombia won’t manage nuclear weapons at least in the current milennia.
The fear of USA card had gone rusty lately. Yesterday it was a summit of the Rio Groupbeaucoup de la politesse that he better stick his “war in terror” crap where the sun doesn’t shine.
Best regards on the newbie barfly
Posted by: Colombianonymous | Mar 8 2008 22:56 utc | 63
Hang on to your mouse and back up your files.
Washington Prepares for Cyber War Games
USG Cyber-Wargames second week of March
‘Cyber Storm II’ coming to an ISP near you….
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 9 2008 0:24 utc | 64
sorry beq, just saw your post, yeah, see the first entry in my #31 i.e., the
DISA Information Systems Center…closely associated w/ the Joint Task Force-Global Network Operations…
Coinky-dink?
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 9 2008 0:37 utc | 65
Are we cyberfoes?
Goody. Can you pass the popcorn, please? [just kidding GIG]
Posted by: beq | Mar 9 2008 1:04 utc | 66
there have been a lot of mil hits on the understanding africom series recently, as well. remember, plenty of mil personnel have net access & are just as interested in finding out what’s really going on as we are & when you start hearing more about plans centered around africa it’s only normal to want to seek out more POVs. iow, don’t assume that all these visits from mil institutions are of nefarious – surf & destroy – designs.
Posted by: b real | Mar 9 2008 3:46 utc | 67
PM Erdoğan: I will quit politics if US pressure confirmed
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan made a statement yesterday similar to that of Turkey’s top military commander, who had lashed out at charges suggesting that Turkey ended its ground offensive against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in northern Iraq under pressure from the US, with the prime minister threatening to step down from his post if the allegations are proven true.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of the Uşak Atatürk Sports Hall yesterday, Erdoğan also commented on accusations by opposition parties regarding the timing of the Turkish troops’ withdrawal. Chief of General Staff Gen. Yaşar Büyükanıt recently stated that he would quit if US pressure is proven, and Prime Minister Erdoğan has now also said that he will step down from his political post if critics can prove their accusations.
Erdoğan noted: “Gen. Büyükanıt has said something very significant, and now I also repeat the same [for my own post]. Nobody can accuse us of getting orders from the US or other authorities. If such accusations are proven, I will quit politics. I am making a significant claim.”
Posted by: b real | Mar 9 2008 5:08 utc | 68
monolycus et al…
bbc: New dawn for US-S Korean military ties
The commander of US forces in South Korea has told the BBC he welcomes plans to strengthen the military alliance between the two countries. In an exclusive interview, General Burwell Baxter Bell describes the proposals for a closer partnership as “positive and reassuring”.
For more than half a century, the strategic relationship between the two countries has meant that there are large numbers of US soldiers deployed in support of South Korean troops.
Today, Gen Bell commands a force of around 28,000.
…
Now South Korea’s newly elected president, conservative Lee Myung-bak … says he will once again place the US alliance at the centre of his foreign policy vision.
“Certainly the pronouncements of the new government here, with respect to the alliance, I think are very positive and reassuring and I know my government is heartened by it,” Gen Bell told the BBC.
“I look forward to a strengthening of the bond… I know that President Lee is going to the United States in April and I suspect that President Bush will come to Korea in the relative near term,” he added.
Mr Lee will become the first South Korean president to visit Camp David.
Posted by: b real | Mar 9 2008 5:47 utc | 69
greg grandin: Fidel Castro, the First Superdelegate
“Long ere the second centennial arrives,” Walt Whitman predicted in 1871, “there will be some forty to fifty great States,” among them Cuba. It was a common enough belief. From Thomas Jefferson onward, many Americans thought that, as Secretary of State James Blaine said in 1881, “Cuba must necessarily become American.”
Based on its current population, if the island had become a U.S. state, it would hold about the same weight in deciding American presidential elections as does Ohio. History, of course, took a different turn; yet, over the last five decades, Cuba could still count one superdelegate.
Fidel Castro hasn’t been seen in public since July 2006, when a near-fatal stomach illness forced him into semi-retirement. In the U.S., however, he remains a contender, at least in terms of the hold he has on the imagination of candidates running for the White House. Here’s a short history of Castro’s long run in U.S. presidential politics:
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Posted by: b real | Mar 9 2008 6:16 utc | 70
yeah, b real @67
I’m aware that it is ubiquitous to a great extent, and that many military people are normal seekers of info, however, the .mil, .gov, etc extensions visitors have picked up a great deal too. I rarely check the site meter detail thingy, only do so when there seems to be a problem with posting or with the site in general. But it seems like every time I do there is some type of branch of the gov visiting..
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For billmon, where ever he is…
Mego Presents the Planet of the Apes
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 9 2008 7:07 utc | 71
@b real (#69)
Thanks. I didn’t know about the scheduled Camp David visit in April, but I was already very aware of President Lee’s basic platform and US-friendliness.
He was elected under a cloud of scandal which alternates between being swept under the rug and being brought out again every few weeks. I remember hearing that he had fled to the US prior to the election in connection to the BBK dealings and had to be extradited back… but I can find no source for that story right now and it doesn’t appear in his less-than-flattering wikiography.
He announced early on that he planned to take a “firm stand” (read: antagonize) against North Korea and suck up to Washington. It didn’t take a fortune teller to figure out the direction he wants to move the country in.
He did not win the election on that platform, however. He won because his opposition were nothing shy of looney (I wrote about this previously… one of them, can’t recall which now, promised to conquer and annex Mongolia), and he promised to fix Daehanminguk’s flagging economy. Interestingly, the election season saw a nearly unprecedented peak of anti-foreigner sentiment, and Lee’s stance towards dealing with the “foreigner problem” was the softest. The economic promises ended up carrying more weight with the voters than pandering to their hatred of foreigners, their hopes for a unified peninsula, or their distrust of US and Japanese military policies.
Any rate, after last night’s embarrassing bout of drunk posting, I’m going into lurker mode for awhile. Let this be an object lesson to the impressionable kiddies out there: Drunk posting is NOT cool.
Christ.
Posted by: Monolycus | Mar 9 2008 9:20 utc | 72
For R’giap, et al..
This Ho Chi Minh Trail Ends at the 18th Hole
Grab your puke bucket… this complete debasement is sickening.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 9 2008 11:43 utc | 73
“Drunk posting is NOT cool.”
I doubt you’re alone there Monolycus. No need for you to lurk.
Posted by: beq | Mar 9 2008 12:20 utc | 74
monolycus
i do not know if the allussions refer to me but i rest unashamed by my writing here – other than the caveats about my orthography, typing & sometimes my energy not being what i want it to be – leading perhaps to a lack of clarity
while i remain interested in mystery i am not in the least interested in mystification. & i know while posters might agree with certain points i make – they are far from taking the position i take – which might seem comes from a fanatic’s heart. & perhaps it does
evangalism is not one of the gigs i have chosen in this life – even as an ultra maoist – it was not my business to convert – you change people by your proper exemplarity which can often include one’s fragility
& while i argued insistently with slothrop – i saw that there was a real desire for communication which was too often destroyed by rhetorical tricks he learnt or teaches at school that did neither his argument or his person much good
i was principally oppossed in all his posts – to the absence of the dead – as if slothrop didn’t do a body count when it came to the empire – or he reduced it to stephan curthois exercises in chiffres(which are the cause of much doubt about their veracity)
you & i were the subjects of much of sloth’s rebukes & i would have imagined that the both of us have thick enough skins to deal with that – though i’ll admit – the repittions ad nauseum of insults were more wearing than the insults themselves
Posted by: r’giap | Mar 9 2008 16:40 utc | 76
@R’Giap: i do not know if the allussions refer to me…
Oh, lord no. You do not want for clarity and do not write to be deliberately obtuse. While we are not politically identical, we both share a similar passion and I place great value on your continued contributions. I would never have implied otherwise.
I think we share another quality; this is the second time that I have made a careless scattershot and you have asked me if I was referring to you. I am also very prone to having my feelings wounded and becoming defensive when I perceive myself to be criticised unfairly. This is especially true when that criticism comes from someone whose opinion I have a great amount of respect for… if you share that same trait, then I’m as flattered as a pancake that you have asked me to clear the matter up.
You wrote: i would have imagined that the both of us have thick enough skins to deal with that, and that is only true in the most general sense. Political opposition is, by its nature, impersonal. Coming here, however, is not.
When we gather at this community, we do so voluntarily because we are driven to surround ourselves with people whom we trust enough to share and critique our views. If you take annie as just an example of that, you will see someone who has had a tremendous amount to share, but had to be encouraged over time to do so. She blossomed in a very short time into a valuable contributor, but it took an establishment of trust for that to happen. She has since gone on to share her wealth of passion in other places as well as here.
On the other hand, for slothrop, this was simply another front in the war, an exercise in virtual guerrilla tactics. The contributors here were viewed as the enemy, to be swayed or eliminated. Trust and camaraderie were never to be fostered for fear that those influences would taint the purity of the a priori position slothrop had brought with him or her. There was no growing, no learning, no sharing… it was simply slash-and-burn with the intent to be the last one standing.
And even in that case, slothrop eventually had his or her feelings hurt.
So whether you view this as a virtual watering hole, foxhole, or garden, trust and reciprocity are important to us. We are compelled to share ourselves because at the end of the day, we want to share ourselves. That leaves us vulnerable… which, I feel is a very beautiful and very human thing for us to be. It is our greatest strength as well as our most obvious weakness.
I believe strongly that while we are tough with one another, we need also be tender or no good comes of our efforts. You were a boxer, weren’t you? How foolish would it be to step into a ring that did not come with basic medical care? It is our responsibility, both as comrades and as fellow human beings, to care for one another. Feelings will necessarily be hurt while we seek and grow together no matter how thick our skins are. Once we stop feeling, we lose our value to help others.
I apologise for the rambling explanation, but the short answer is: “No. I have never had the least problem with your contributions. Please, for all of us, continue to do as you have always done.”
BTW: Thanks, beq. I’m drinking too much these days and need to reel it in. I was posting while I was still bleeding on to my keyboard from having been fighting. I re-read what I wrote and it wasn’t as embarrassing as I remember it, but it is still a warning to me.
Posted by: Monolycus | Mar 10 2008 3:56 utc | 77
r’giap, your clarity is impeccable and theres no doubt it will always be.
Posted by: jony_b_cool | Mar 10 2008 5:10 utc | 78
Feith: It was Powell’s fault. He didn’t stop us.: Pentagon insider attacks war plan
A former Pentagon official has written a book attacking Colin Powell, the CIA and other US officials over the US-led Iraq war, the Washington Post reports.
As under secretary of defence until 2005 Douglas Feith was closely involved with the planning of the invasion.
However, in “War and Decision”, he blames officials outside the Pentagon for seriously mismanaging the invasion and occupation, the Post reports.
Out next month, it is the first insider account of Pentagon decision-making.
The newspaper says that Mr Feith accuses intelligence officials and the US state department, led at the time by Mr Powell, of repeatedly scuppering defence department plans for the invasion.
According to the Post, Mr Feith claims that US President George W Bush told a National Security Council meeting “war is inevitable” weeks before a team of UN weapons inspectors, headed by Hans Blix, had made their final report on Saddam Hussein’s weapons capabilities.
‘More harm than good’
Mr Feith reportedly singles Mr Powell out for criticism, saying that though he allowed himself to be portrayed as a dove, he never spoke out against the war.
Yeah, blame the ‘nigger’, a time tested travesty.
IT’S FALLING APART, WHY THE FUCK DOESN’T ANYONE MOVE TO CONVICT THESE WAR CRIMINALS ???
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 10 2008 5:34 utc | 79
In case anyone was under the happy illusion that the boyking Admin. was coterminus w/the Age of Resource Wars, and that pressure on the EU would decline w/its passing dream on. The raison d’etre of NATO was always building an alliance against the Soviet Union. After Larry Summers et al gutted the rotting carcas, the EU became increasingly impervious to being mobilized in support of xAm. Resource War Adventures. Finally, a way has been found around this dilemma. Climate change may spark conflict with Russia, EU told
European governments have been told to plan for an era of conflict over energy resources, with global warming likely to trigger a dangerous contest between Russia and the west for the vast mineral riches of the Arctic.
A report from the EU’s top two foreign policy officials to the 27 heads of government gathering in Brussels for a summit this week warns that “significant potential conflicts” are likely in the decades ahead as a result of “intensified competition over access to, and control over, energy resources”.
The seven-page report, obtained by the Guardian, has been written by Javier Solana, the EU’s foreign policy supremo, and Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the commissioner for external relations. It predicts that global warming will precipitate security issues for Europe, ranging from energy wars to mass migration, failed states and political radicalisation.
…
With specific reference to Arctic exploration, the EU’s report says: “The scramble for resources will intensify.”
But the retired generals complain that the EU is not tackling the issue of “protection of energy resources and their means of transportation. The EU is using soft instruments and this is unlikely to protect energy security”.
The Solana report is the first high-level attempt to get the issue on the summit agenda. …
Posted by: jj | Mar 10 2008 9:28 utc | 80
I had missed the news of Victor Bout’s arrest in Thailand.
A decidedly contrarian view on that arrest may stimulate some useful questions.
For the Republicans in the U.S. this may be the next best thing to capturing Osama during an election year. In a similar vein, this story from the BBC on the ersatz nature of Al Qaeda ought to be a bombshell, but probably will remain largely unknown.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Mar 11 2008 6:41 utc | 81