The fantastic aspect of these revelations is that they should appear in the NYTimes. Something must be brewing inside the Times , loss of readership? loss of reputation? that makes them reveal so plainly that what we are fed is pure unadulterated propaganda in the Goebbelsian sense, that everything and everybody is for sale and that everyone can be deceived through mental manipulation. My nature tends towards an extreme pessimism about the human nature and really nothing that happens, excepting a few examples I brought up for this blog a few days ago, sways me from that dreadful view of mankind.

Posted by: jlcg | Apr 20 2008 13:54 utc | 4

Something must be brewing inside the Times , loss of readership? loss of reputation?
New York Times swings to loss in first quarter

New York Times Co. said Thursday it swung to a first-quarter loss, hurt by a charge and a steep decline in advertising revenue at its newspapers, giving another indication that the environment remains highly challenging for the industry.

Posted by: b | Apr 20 2008 14:26 utc | 6

jlcg: the Times is certainly not a monolith–more of a shark-tank, if you will (where goring each other’s oxen is the stuff of its internal politics)…. There must be a very entertaining, and long-running, intrigue behind the development of this story, details of which will emerge one at a time, slowly.
B: Borges somewhere remarks that “building walls and burning books is the business of princes”. He was referring, if memory serves, to a Chinese emperor of some centuries ago.

Posted by: alabama | Apr 20 2008 14:38 utc | 8

I’d also like to redirect attention to my post here and it’s subsequent next two posts there. Which is worthy of comment and goes well with hambuger’s above #10.
Pentagon institute calls Iraq war ‘a major debacle’

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Apr 20 2008 14:56 utc | 10

A good essay by Tony Just in the NYRB: What Have We Learned, If Anything?

The twentieth century is hardly behind us but already its quarrels and its achievements, its ideals and its fears are slipping into the obscurity of mis-memory. In the West we have made haste to dispense whenever possible with the economic, intellectual, and institutional baggage of the twentieth century and encouraged others to do likewise.
…
What, then, is it that we have misplaced in our haste to put the twentieth century behind us? In the US, at least, we have forgotten the meaning of war. There is a reason for this. In much of continental Europe, Asia, and Africa the twentieth century was experienced as a cycle of wars. War in the last century signified invasion, occupation, displacement, deprivation, destruction, and mass murder. Countries that lost wars often lost population, territory, resources, security, and independence. But even those countries that emerged formally victorious had comparable experiences and usually remembered war much as the losers did. Italy after World War I, China after World War II, and France after both wars might be cases in point: all were “winners” and all were devastated.
…
The United States avoided almost all of that. Americans, perhaps alone in the world, experienced the twentieth century in a far more positive light. The US was not invaded. It did not lose vast numbers of citizens, or huge swathes of territory, as a result of occupation or dismemberment. Although humiliated in distant neocolonial wars (in Vietnam and now in Iraq), the US has never suffered the full consequences of defeat.[4] Despite their ambivalence toward its recent undertakings, most Americans still feel that the wars their country has fought were mostly “good wars.”
…
As a consequence, the United States today is the only advanced democracy where public figures glorify and exalt the military, a sentiment familiar in Europe before 1945 but quite unknown today. … Indeed, the complacent neoconservative claim that war and conflict are things Americans understand—in contrast to naive Europeans with their pacifistic fantasies —seems to me exactly wrong: it is Europeans (along with Asians and Africans) who understand war all too well. Most Americans have been fortunate enough to live in blissful ignorance of its true significance.
…

Recommended

Posted by: b | Apr 20 2008 15:12 utc | 12

b # 7,
Who can blame the Chinese people if they are seething by now, after this? The Western media mumbled its way around the incident, of course, but expect them to adopt an “ugly public mood in China endangers Olympic Games spectators” line as soon as they can switch gears.

Posted by: Alamet | Apr 20 2008 16:22 utc | 14

ap: Former bishop Fernando Lugo scores historic win in Paraguay

ASUNCION, Paraguay – Former Roman Catholic bishop Fernando Lugo won a historic victory in Paraguay’s presidential election Sunday, ending more than six decades of one-party rule with a mandate to help the nation’s poor and indigenous.
His rival, Blanca Ovelar, conceded defeat after a closely fought race to lead this poor, agrarian nation where Ovelar’s Colorado Party is the only ruling party most people have ever known.
News of the win by Lugo, dubbed the “bishop of the poor,” set off massive parties in cities across Paraguay with horn-honking caravans of cars blaring music. Others stamped on torn-down banners of the Colorado Party, which many Paraguayans blame for decades of corruption by political elites.
The triumph by Lugo’s eclectic opposition alliance also marked the latest in a series of electoral wins by leftist, or center-left, leaders in South America.

not a chance of that happening in estados unidos de américa if it’s left up to the elite and the electorate
chris floyd put up a post yesterday w/ a clear enough reason why obama is just another political huckster audacious enough to dispel w/ the fear factor in order to deliver votes to the narrow interests that own this country & permit the vandals to keep their hands & other body parts.
Brilliant Disguise: Bush Torture, Obama and The Boss
and speaking of torture, or rather, of tortured souls, the latest print edition of counterpunch is running doug valentine’s Meet the Real John McCain: North Vietnam ’s Go-To Collaborator. here’s a cliff notes version:

In the fall of 1967, Navy pilot John Mccain was routinely bombing Hanoi from an aircraft carrier in the South China Sea. On October 26, he was trying to level a power plant in a heavily populated area when a surface-to-air missile knocked a wing off his jet. McCain and what was left of his plane splashed into Truc Bach Lake.
A compassionate Vietnamese civilian left his air raid shelter and swam out to McCain. McCain’s arm and leg were broken, and he was tangled up in his parachute underwater. He was drowning. The Vietnamese man saved McCain’s sorry ass, and yet McCain has nothing by hatred for “the gooks.” As he told reporters on his campaign bus in 2000, “I will hate them as long as I live.”
…
In any event, the man who rescued McCain tried to ward off an angry mob, which stomped on McCain for a while until the local cops turned him over to the military. McCain was in pain but suffered no mortal wounds. He was, however, in enough pain to break down and start collaborating with the Vietnamese after three days.
…
The question is: What kind of collaborator was John McCain, the admitted war criminal who will hate the Vietnamese for the rest of his life?
Put it another way: how psychologically twisted is McCain? And what actually happened to him in his POW camp that twisted him? Was it abuse, as he claims, or was it the fact that he collaborated and has to cover up?
…
His Vietnamese captors soon realized their POW, John Sidney McCain III, came from a well-bred line in the American military elite. McCain’s father, John Jr., and grandfather, John Sr., were both full admirals.
…
While his son was held captive in Hanoi, John Jr., from 1968 to `974, was the commander-in-chief of U.S. Pacific Command; Admiral McCain was in charge of all U.S. forces in the Pacific, including those fighting in Vietnam.
…
The Vietnamese realized, the poor stooge has propaganda value.
…
Mccain cooperated with the North Vietnamese for a period of three years.
…
This is the lesson of McCain’s experience as a POW: a true politician, a hollow man, his only allegiance is to power. The Vietnamese, like McCain’s campaign contributors today, protected and promoted him, and, in return, he danced to their tune.
McCain provided his voice in radio broadcasts for the North Vietnamese. General Vo Nguyen Giap, a nationalist celebrity of the time, interview him. McCain’s uneasy compliance was a moment of affirmation for the Vietnamese. His Vietnamese handlers thereafter used him regularly as [a] prop at meetings with foreign delegations, including the Cubans. Mccain became then was he is today, a psy-war stooge.
…
In his current presidential campaign, he’s cozying up to the hate-mongering Christian right he once criticized. He’s reversed positions on so many issues that his Democratic rivals has assembled his contrasting statements into “The Great McCain Versus McCain Debates.”
Underlying all of the schizophrenic reversals is McCain’s hidden past of collaboration. Somewhere in the unplumbed human part of John Sidney McCain III, he knows his POW experience contradicts the war hero image he projects. This essential dishonesty, this lie of the soul, is a sign of a larger lack of character…

valentine includes in his story criticism from two of McCain’s fellow POWs.

Posted by: b real | Apr 21 2008 4:50 utc | 16

b, (on 7, 14)
The Chinese were hoping (or even shilling) for just such an incident to make the protestors look obscene, they got it, and the prtestors really shot themselves in the foot (pardon my turn of phrase there) in attacking a handicapped athlete.
In any case, I do not plan to follow the Olympics at all other than the parts that make the evening news coverage, and have written to the various sponsors telling them of my intention (or lack thereof).

Posted by: Anonymous | Apr 21 2008 14:40 utc | 18

edward herman: Principles of the Imperial New World Order

We have to recognize that in the Imperial New World Order (INWO), with the Soviet Union gone, and an aggressive and highly militarized United States projecting its great power across the globe, destabilizing and devastating in all its major areas of operation in the alleged interest of liberation and stability, a revised set of principles should be discernible. Most of these are hardly new, but even more audaciously than in the past they translate power relationships into affirmations of rights or the denial of these very same rights, with the ensuing double standards applicable pretty much across the board. The real-world significance of these INWO principles thus depends on three factors: (a) whether Washington affirms them for itself (and directly or by implication for its close allies, clients and hangers-on); (b) whether Washington denies them to its enemies; and (c) whether Washington doesn’t care one way or the other. As we show below, these power-based affirmations or denials of rights are accepted among the powerful, from the leaders of the Western states, political candidates, and top UN officials, to the establishment media and the intellectuals whose voices can be heard. They represent the institutionalization of a system of power in which justice is inoperative and its perversion hidden in clouds of rhetoric and obfuscation.
1. Aggression rights …
2. Terrorism rights(and the right to kill large numbers without being labeled terrorist) …
3. Rights to ethnically cleanse …
4. Subversion rights …
5. Rights to impose sanctions …
6. Rights to resist aggression …
7. Rights to self defense …
8. Rights to acquire nuclear weapons …
9. Rights to having their civilian victims found worthy of international sympathy …
10. “Right to exist”(and the right to demand targets admit one’s “right to exist”) …
Underlying the consolidation of the principles of the Imperial New World Order is the global decline of substantive democracy, as the global political elites have been able to do what they want in service to their interests—the holy trinity of the neoliberal program, militarization, and power-projection—in the face of widespread opposition on the part of the underlying populations.
…
In short, the consolidation of International New World Order principles rests on the United States and its allies, clients, and hangers-on being pseudo-democracies, ruled by elites free to ignore their own publics — failed states, in effect. This in turn rests on the huge and growing inequalities that have come to prevail, both within and between states, the plutocratization of politics, the erosion of a constitutional public sphere, the gatekeeper and propaganda services of an increasingly centralized media, and publics that thus far have been too easily managed despite the disadvantages the great majority has suffered under this unjust and ever-more threatening regime.
The INWO is not likely to disappear anytime soon, unless it causes its own catastrophic destruction. (By no means impossible, given its trajectory, as “little changes, and much gets worse.”) Otherwise, it is not likely to end until the mass of humanity ceases to be manageable, organizes at home and abroad, and fights back.

and, not exactly news to anyone, but
fpif: The New Walls of Baghdad: How the U.S. is Reproducing Israel’s Flawed Occupation Strategies in Iraq

The explosion of walls and enclaves reinforced by aerial violence across Iraq suggest that the primary counterinsurgency lessons being followed by the U.S. military in Iraq today derive less from the lessons of “Lawrence of Arabia” than from Israel’s experiences in the Occupied Palestinian Territories over the past decade.

Posted by: b real | Apr 21 2008 15:23 utc | 20

Two or three days ago I had linked to an Arab Monitor news item about the director of Palestine Children’s Welfare Fund found dead in Austin, Texas.
Here is more about it:
Sometimes your friends end up duct-taped and suicided
(Found via a RigInt discussion board thread)
Suicided… Execution or hate crime cover up. Will they get away with it?

Posted by: Alamet | Apr 21 2008 18:48 utc | 22

Food Rationing Confronts Breadbasket of the World.
Gas Hits $117
Saudis put capacity rise on hold
It’s an overused phrase, but: “deal with reality or reality will deal with you.” Add some “chickens roosting” and “perfect storm” metaphors and the picture isn’t pretty. Here in the USA, we insist on shallowness. We demand it. If anyone of importance dares to speak the truth (“People are bitter”. Duh.), then the media destroys them, while we watch approvingly. On the latest Bill Maher show, he went out on the streets of Cali to ask people: “Who are we fighting in Iraq?” No one knew; well, not really. “Terrorists”. Uh-huh. If there’s anything more craven than not knowing who you’re killing, or why, I don’t know of it.
I’m not sure where I’m going with this, except to say that I’ve been a liberal, progressive news/politics junkie for a long time. Maybe because of my kids, but I’ve tried to avoid tin-hatism and excessive gloom and doom. But it feels real this time, like the wheels are truly coming off.
That is all.

Posted by: montysano | Apr 22 2008 1:40 utc | 24

BenIAM –
i was very suprised that ethiopia would permit access to al jazeera. after threatening & blocking the IRC, MSF, and others, they’ll allow a news crew into the region? i watched the four episodes i could find avail in english & they were not bad. one was from inside kenya, featuring a classroom where women were being taught english-language phrases. not sure what that was about, but from what i saw, the series was way better than the propaganda piece they did on “foreign fighters” in southern somalia last september (& introducing abu mansoor al-amriki). any media spotlight aimed at the ordeal they’re going through in the ogaden is bound to help put pressure on meles & his protectors. and it’s definitely why the tigrayan tyrant is fuming over qatar right now.
ogaden online in a good source for keeping up on media coverage/commentary/analysis

Posted by: b real | Apr 22 2008 3:34 utc | 26

Years later, Biomaterial charges against N.Y. art professor [were] dismissed. A judge has thrown out the charges against Steve Kurtz. I remember being appalled, at this man’s treatment by the state especially, in light of losing his wife and the grief he must have been going through at the time. But like so many other –opps, I was about to say ‘overreactions’, in the war on terrah, I should say sorry ass examples, they were merely to keep the hysteria and fear ramped up at the time.
I hope he sues their asses off. (of course that means that the tax payers will be paying for the Federal Bureau of Intimidation’s — opps I started to say ‘fuck-up’ –, but that would imply it was a mistake.
This case was the basis for the recent film Strange Culture.
All the while, the Anthrax killer is still on the loose. But according to these dinks,
The FBI has narrowed its focus to “about four” suspects in the 6 1/2-year investigation of the deadly anthrax attacks of 2001, and at least three of those suspects are linked to the Army’s bioweapons research facility at Fort Detrick in Maryland, FOX News has learned.

Among the pool of suspects are three scientists — a former deputy commander, a leading anthrax scientist and a microbiologist — linked to the research facility, known as USAMRIID.
The FBI has collected writing samples from the three scientists in an effort to match them to the writer of anthrax-laced letters that were mailed to two U.S. senators and at least two news outlets in the fall of 2001, a law enforcement source confirmed.

However, according to many, not just Mike Rivero, the FBI has know all along who did the mailings…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Apr 22 2008 4:18 utc | 28

Continued from:#28
This case was the basis for the recent film Strange Culture.
All the while, the Anthrax killer is still on the loose. But according to these dinks,
The FBI has narrowed its focus to “about four” suspects in the 6 1/2-year investigation of the deadly anthrax attacks of 2001, and at least three of those suspects are linked to the Army’s bioweapons research facility at Fort Detrick in Maryland, FOX News has learned.

Among the pool of suspects are three scientists — a former deputy commander, a leading anthrax scientist and a microbiologist — linked to the research facility, known as USAMRIID.
The FBI has collected writing samples from the three scientists in an effort to match them to the writer of anthrax-laced letters that were mailed to two U.S. senators and at least two news outlets in the fall of 2001, a law enforcement source confirmed.

However, according to many, not just Mike Rivero, the FBI has know all along who did the mailings…
I know I posted about this at the time, but damn if I can find it in the MOA archives…
Bone up here: FAQ

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Apr 22 2008 4:25 utc | 30

(so much to cover, so little time!)
Shell Declares Force Majeure As MEND Intensify Attacks!

Oil giant, Royal Dutch Shell today declared a force majeure on Bonny Light exports following debilitating attacks by Nigeria’s main militant group, Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND).
The oil company said it will cut production by 169,000 barrel per day in Nigeria after militants attacked two pipelines Monday in the restive southern region.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, or MEND, said in a statement that fighters hit two pipelines it believes to be a joint venture between Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Chevron Corp. in southern Rivers state.
The group also called for former U.S. president Jimmy Carter to help mediate an end to the crisis.
The militants last week claimed a separate attack on a pipeline operated by a Shell joint venture that the company said shut down a small amount of oil production.
The militants say they are stepping up their activities after the arrest of one of their leaders, Henry Okah, who is on trial for terrorism and treason.
The militants also called for mediation by Carter with the aim of ending the long-running crisis that government-led peace parleys have so far failed to control. The militants have also asked U.S. President George W. Bush and actor George Clooney for their involvement, but said they have received no reply.

letter from jomo @ times of nigeria reads, in part
MEND Blows Up Oil Pipelines, Invites President Carter To Mediate

Today’s attack was prompted by the continuous injustice in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria where the root issues have not been addressed by the illegal and insincere government of Umaru Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan. It also dispels the false impression that peace and security have been restored in order to gain the confidence of potential investors in the oil and gas sector; to protest the continuous detention and secret trial of Henry Okah who was taken hostage during a supposed truce and who must be a key participant in any on-going peace process to make it acceptable to us. Then finally, to show our way of saying “welcome” to the US Naval warship, USS Swift which is transiting the Gulf of Guinea.
In our first open letter to you dated February 17, 2008 which remains valid and another dated January 19, 2008 to Actor George Clooney, a UN Messenger for Peace, MEND expressed its willingness to embrace a genuine and transparent peace program without getting any response. The ripple effect of this attack will touch your economy and people one way or the other and hope we now have your attention.
Mr president, your warships do not intimidate us. Instead they only embolden our resolve in fighting the Goliaths of the world that support injustice. Do you consider the over 4,000 precious lives of your compatriots wasted in that senseless war in Iraq? You have meddled negatively in other countries using false excuses and information in deceiving a gullible American public.
It was your country that once backed a blood thirsty despot called Mobuto and conspired in killing the visionary Lumumba. Now you are repeating the same evil in the Niger Delta and the gulf of Guinea.You dined with Olusegun Obasanjo, who not only committed genocide against the people of Odi, in Bayelsa state but is being discovered as the biggest thief in the history of Nigeria. In your God fearing heart, you know the truth concerning the fraudulent electoral process that has ascended Yar’Adua and his deputy to the presidency, yet your country looked the other way.
We have nothing to loose because he that is down need fear no fall. Our waters and farms have been polluted by oil companies with double standards. Our girls are raped by soldiers of the Nigerian army with impunity and protesting youths are assaulted and killed daily. Even journalists from your country can not visit the region to report the truth without being arrested and embarrassed.
MEND is prepared for talks and will prefer Ex President Jimmy Carter to mediate. Mr Carter is not in denial as the rest of you who brand freedom fighters as terrorists, forgetting their integral role in any sustainable peace process just as he has demonstrated in his meeting with Hamas.
If the root issues such as the control of our resources continues to be swept under the carpet, and the governments deception of the Niger Delta people continues; including holding sons of the Niger Delta hostage in Northern Nigeria, then, like Otto von Bismarck once remarked, “the great questions of the time will be decided, not by speeches and resolutions, but by iron and blood”.

Posted by: b real | Apr 22 2008 4:35 utc | 32

RE the link in #33 if you want the pdf of WTC article, it’s easier to go directly here

Posted by: Chuck Cliff | Apr 22 2008 5:46 utc | 34

CNN: RFK assassination controversy
Researchers say evidence shows that there was a second gunman in the 1968 assassination. CNN’s Adrian Finighan reports.
Interesting in light of my above 911 CD links eh?

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Apr 22 2008 6:17 utc | 36

not so well at the moment
but a wealth of work being done here by everybody
& so i give thanks

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Apr 22 2008 15:19 utc | 38

rememberinggiap.,
have you heard of a connection between wheat gluten and syndrome X (larger category encompassing diabetes – not sure if that term used in France)?
The falloff in the pancreas’ health and abilities is sometimes theorized as an autoimmune problem wherein organs get old fast because the immune system is ‘seeing’ them as filled with foreign bodies. I’ve been looking into celiac disease (in which gliadin, a protein from wheat glutens, first inflame the gut, then escapes through the weakened gut to get into the body systematically, and sparks immune attacks on your own tissue) and discovered some recent shifts in knowledge about how many people are vulnerable to wheat-caused disease.
Short story: the still-contemporary estimates of celiac disease in the U.S. are around 1 per 150 people. However, this is based on positive dignoses of the full fledged problem. Blood tests show 12% of people have gliadin antibodies, and stool tests show a 29% antibody rate. That’s a lot of people who should stop eating wheat glutens!
I’ll pass on this one link, and I apologize if this turns out to be irrelevant for you. The link does not assert that celiac causes diabetes, but in my experience being reactive to gliadin causes something that is easily diagnosed as diabetes, and so it’s reasonable to see them interlinked. Getting off wheat, while still something new for me, has been a tremendous relief to my health, energy, and mood. Here’s hoping I can share some of that relief with you.
http://www.westonaprice.org/moderndiseases/gluten-intolerance.html

Posted by: citizen | Apr 22 2008 16:50 utc | 40

Funny: India: U.S. Advice on Iran Is Rejected

A day after the Bush administration urged India to step up pressure on Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on his coming visit to New Delhi, India tartly said it did not need “any guidance on the future conduct of bilateral relations,” making it plain that no saber rattling from its friends in Washington would impair its relationship with a vital energy supplier. “India and Iran are ancient civilizations whose relations span centuries,” the Indian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday. “Both nations are perfectly capable of managing all aspects of their relationship with the appropriate degree of care and attention.”

Shorter: F*** you!

Posted by: b | Apr 23 2008 5:15 utc | 42

The World According to Monsanto – A documentary that Americans won’t ever see.

On March 11 a new documentary was aired on French television (ARTE – French-German cultural tv channel) by French journalist and film maker Marie-Monique Robin, The World According to Monsanto – A documentary that Americans won’t ever see. The gigantic biotech corporation Monsanto is threatening to destroy the agricultural biodiversity which has served mankind for thousands of years.
1 hr 49 min

In light of news of massive food riots across the globe, I find this quite an interesting informative work. MOA’s will be enlightened to know, that Bush gang aren’t the only ones whom ditch science and data and common sense and the well being of it’s citizens for an ideology, and that ideology is of course, cold hard cash, directly, however, I seriously suspect an indirect and quite nefarious outcome that no one is talking about, and that is, Henry Kissinger’s National Security Population Control Memorandum. What else can one think after for example the FDA and other so called government societal protection organizations hide behind and often are in collusion with money making chemical companies and the forever lobbies. NPR had a story program (though this isn’t it*) last week talking about the FDA only testing 2% of the imports coming into America and that countries virtually can volunteer as to if they are within the standards of the FDA regulations.
I’ll just come out and say it, I believe whether intended or not, the PTB has decided to hell with safe guarding the population, that unfettered capitalism and the market is worth lives both at home and abroad.
*I can’t seem to find the recent story, perhaps some of you guys caught it and can post it.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Apr 23 2008 11:38 utc | 44

@44 – Monsanto
Independent: Exposed: the great GM crops myth
Major new study shows that modified soya produces 10 per cent less food than its conventional equivalent

Genetic modification actually cuts the productivity of crops, an authoritative new study shows, undermining repeated claims that a switch to the controversial technology is needed to solve the growing world food crisis.
The study – carried out over the past three years at the University of Kansas in the US grain belt – has found that GM soya produces about 10 per cent less food than its conventional equivalent, contradicting assertions by advocates of the technology that it increases yields.

Posted by: b | Apr 23 2008 14:14 utc | 46

This short clip from the film ‘Animals Are Beautiful People’ is a perfect metaphor for how mankind (personified by the baboon) is a victim of its own stupidity and greed. The baboon is trapped by its unwillingness to let go of the melon seeds in pretty much the same way that mankind is unwilling to let go of its dependence on consumerism.

The Human Condition metaphorically illustrated in ‘Animals Are Beautiful People’ conditioned, domesticated primates
Well, (keeping in mind my last post)and the title above, The Human Condition metaphorically illustrated in ‘Animals Are Beautiful People’ which infers or perhaps suggests, that we are hard wired into these detrimental behaviors. I argue we are programed into this greed and addiction to the scarcity model.
If we look at our brains as a computer, what the late Bob Wilson called, the wetware, we would see the program or conditioning is merely a form of software, and not hardwired at all. Which for all intent purposes means we can change. However, in the ever increasing science wars, whom ever controls the understanding of the data controls the message, and thus the finding, for example, Research casts fresh doubt on concept of free will.
Now, as we have seen with the Bush era and his unprecedented ideological war on science, who would benefit from manipulating this data into saying that we have no free will? Caveat, I’m not saying this is what’s happened here in this instance, just roll with me for a moment…
As someone, a commenter from another board says, — and I concur mind you –,

“The conclusion that this necessarily implies anything about free will—or indicates doubt about whether humans may have it—seems illogical to me.
So what if “patterns of brain activity predict people’s decisions up to 10 seconds before the people are aware of them”?
All that may mean is that people make their decisions before they are CONSCIOUSLY aware of having made them.”

Bingo!
Now think about this for a moment, how could an agency (if it wanted to), use the above to make it mean what they want it to mean? And to what end?
What if a nefarious faction within a group wanted to use it in a wholly political way, such as an office as DHS? Or the organization and institutions in places as the UK where they are already controversially profiling children for later life criminal behavior?
We are talking thought crimes here, people. Of course my little hypothesis here is highly speculative, and I get a lot of flack from my peers, “oh’, thats just uncle’s conspiracy paranoia again”, until I ask them the following questions.
We agree the ptb wants complete control over our lives right? “Yes, we concede that” they say, then if you agree to that, I ask, then wouldn’t it be logical to take it further, “what do you mean they ask?”, then I reply, what would you say to the proposal that if they could do what I suggest, do you think they would? Often I get an uncomfortable silence.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Apr 23 2008 14:46 utc | 48

And just on cue…
EPA scientists complain about political pressure.

Hundreds of Environmental Protection Agency scientists complain they have been victims of political interference and pressure from superiors to skew their findings, according to a survey released Wednesday by an advocacy group.
The Union of Concerned Scientists said that more than half of the nearly 1,600 EPA staff scientists who responded online to a detailed questionnaire reported they had experienced incidents of political interference in their work.
EPA spokesman Jonathan Shradar attributed some of the discontent to the “passion” scientists have toward their work. He said EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, as a longtime career scientist at the EPA himself, “weighs heavily the science given to him by the staff in making policy decisions.”
But Francesca Grifo, director of the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Scientific Integrity Program, said the survey results revealed “an agency in crisis” with low morale, especially among scientists involved in risk assessment and crafting regulations.
“The investigation shows researchers are generally continuing to do their work, but their scientific findings are tossed aside when it comes time to write regulations,” said Grifo.

more…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Apr 23 2008 17:23 utc | 50

almost exercising the “think” in thinktank…
guardian: US ‘war on terror’ backfiring, says thinktank

The US “war on terror” has backfired, strengthening extremists in Afghanistan and Somalia and turning them into legitimate political actors in the eyes of their local populations, a thinktank said today.
The Senlis Council, which has strongly criticised US policy in Afghanistan in the past, is particularly scathing of the Bush administration’s “abject policy failures” in Somalia.
It said air strikes, support for Ethiopian troops that attacked Somalia last year and the ill-timed designation of a radical Islamist group, al-Shabab, as a terrorist group had been successfully exploited by the insurgency to boost recruitment.
“The lack of strategic acumen present in the ‘war on terror’ in Somalia and Afghanistan is in fact enabling the spread of the insurgencies present throughout both countries,” said Norine MacDonald QC, the council president.
“The US is the common denominator in both countries – instead of containing the extremist elements in Somalia and Afghanistan, US policies have facilitated the expansion of territory that al-Shabab and the Taliban have psychological control over.”
…
..the Senlis Council, in its 79-page report, directly accused the US of undermining reconciliation efforts by backing the hardline president, Abdullahi Yusuf, instead of the more moderate prime minister, Nur Hassan Hussein.
According to the security thinktank, the US government in February disrupted negotiations with opposition parties – including hardline Islamists – by exerting pressure on the prime minister to exclude certain groups and individuals from a reconciliation process, particularly those on a US list of designated terror suspects.
The council urged Bush to end all bombing operations in Somalia, back a phased withdrawal of Ethiopian troops who are shoring up Yusuf, and create a UN stabilisation force to neutralise the power of Yusuf’s transitional federal government.
…
As for Afghanistan, the Senlis Council said the resurgent Taliban provided a bleak example of how the US-led war on terror had failed there as well.
It said: “The Taliban and al-Shabab are successfully exploiting policy mistakes such as aerial bombings, ongoing poverty, and aggressive foreign military presence to the extent that they are increasingly viewed by local populations as representatives of their legitimate political grievances.”

isn’t that the point? one cannot have a global war on terror w/o terrorists. what other pretext would imperial stormtroopers have for being in these areas then? energy security? bah! chalk it all up to misguided blunders. (haven’t read thru the report, maybe there’s some teeth to it, but the guardian story leaves a bad taste in the gums)

Posted by: b real | Apr 23 2008 18:46 utc | 52

rememberinggiap, you have been missed, I hope you are feeling better. A good news source these days is the Real News Network which I first discovered through Uncle $cam here (much thanks!).
Try Will Sadr declare open war? for example. With Pepe Escobar and Patrick Cockburn, it should be a good antidote to the mealymouthed Al Jazeera.

Posted by: Alamet | Apr 23 2008 22:01 utc | 54

merci, alabama et alamet
it is odd, that what is happening in the middle east now approaches apocalyptic proportions- that is, not only can the middle east not be ‘managed’ or ‘birthed’ as the monster rice might put it – it cannot conceivably be controlled today & in the future without the physical menace & actuality of violence – the empire has lost so profoundly that only the repressive apparatus will be seen – the idiocy of the empire is compounde by its hysteria, which in many ways it cannot seem to manage either
watching the media which rules from the roll of dollars – the hysteria that a murdoch created on almost every subject has now subsumed those subjects – so that all of it is drowned in hysteria – the psyops operations that were functioning against iran for example came from the corridors of the ivy league & their cool cynicism, their cultivated nihilism. today’s psyops are just brutally hysteric & incapable of the slightest concentration. kristol & friedman are prime examples of that. & dumb as all fuck, to boot
so it is a little odd that our drinking hole should provide me with such soulagement, calm & yes sometimes, tranquility – precisely because of our divergences & the depth & rapidity of research which are continually contextualising what needs to be understood (i weep for the opportunites such a site as this would have offered me as a student which now seems many centuries ago)

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Apr 24 2008 0:04 utc | 56

@48 – Ah yes, I read aboot that a ways back and thought – thought crime and I concur our fellow F^in’ talking monkeys are conditioned to inhumane behaviour
However, if I were the believing type and felt otherwise, I would dismiss the facts you’ve presented with a cavalier “I’m not a regular member of the church of government conspiracy”
And since that type of offhand dismissal can be applied to any subject, regardless of a preponderance of facts, is it any wonder the beautiful blue marble is in such dire straits when belief and feelings trump any and all evidence to the contrary?
“I believe I must follow my Presidential/Party line and will feel unpatriotic if I don’t.” “I have faith in my country and feel those that question her, hate her.” – anon
Critical thinking in spades.
Not to create any tension dear Uncle, but given your poor regard for the Law of Conservation of Momentum, I’m confused by your seeming concern for any ideological war on science.
Speaking of tension, did you know that that is how it is thought this, or any, Universe is formed? Kinda gives an ominous symmetry to The Strategy of Tension.
Tension, like a fitted sheet a little too small for a foam mattress that slowly pulls up one corner and then – BANG – the mattress snaps back into shape, the sheet flies and the tension is relieved. This analogy is also true for radiation and the multi-verse.
Radioactive material and regular stuff like your desk or your skin are also under tension, and yes, even your skin could radiate. Unlike Polonium, you would have to wait longer than the current age of our “correct” Universe, or 6000 years, for it to happen so dinna fret.
Correct universe, because they too are under tension and will radiate or come apart in some unimaginable cataclysmic maelstrom that would put to shame the horrors Gaia or the universe has visited upon life in the past (220M BCE – the oceans die as the great currents shut down and hydrogen sulphide clouds sweep and sterilize the land – global warming?) and will most certainly do so again given our primitive state.
Correct universe, because it is stable and uniform in an entirely holistic sense. If it were not, there would be too much tension and Gotterdammerung would have likely already heard the fat lady.
Correct universe, because all observable evidence points to stability and a slow drift away into entropic darkness. Because the inarguable laws are uniformly applied – holistically – to our universe or BANG.
Any remaining life will be huddled round the remnants of back holes, perhaps via Dyson Spheres.
And while you are a well respected Uncle $cam, these facts, this knowledge comes to me via one of the worlds preeminent theoretical physicists. Someone whose ideas do not contravene the law of conservation of momentum or any of the others – without which this pixellated chat would not be happening. Therefore he gets more weight. Sorry.
Knowledge, things you know.
Do you know RFK was assassinated or do you believe it? You can believe it was done anyway you like, but you know it was done.
As for your preference in pursuing the financial shenanigans, what difference does it make in a world where faith and feelings trump knowledge, where people cherry pick their facts as whimsically as their scripture?
Where facts and faith are eternally conflated at will? Educational conditioning perchance?
The airlines, that’s just business. Why don’t you share my faith in capitalism, dear Uncle? Why so paranoid?
I weep for the potential of the talking monkeys…
Speaking of universes, I’ve been revisiting that of Babylon 5. While the assertion that “it was our last best hope that failed” is entirely factual, the scribe had forgotten the remainder:
“…it became something greater, our last best hope for victory.”
Which it did of course, leading to the longest era of peace the galaxy had ever known. A series that deftly weaves our spirituality and myths with that of truly alien, yet familiar, cultures. Well written and produced, it is worth a look. Excellent story telling, you’ll forget it is sci-fi.
For instance, creeping fascism with psychics at the helm. Why not? Every group likes to feel special, better than others. Why wouldn’t those with so much power succumb to the weaknesses of human nature and abhor the mundanes with none and use it to rise above and rule? Because they are the ONLY group on Gaia not subject to human folly and foibles? I bet we’d have to wait longer than 6000 years for that to come to be.
With history as our guide, oh yeah, what’s the relevance of those facts to most people when they feel otherwise…
Feeling special, a woman decides to use a dangerous biotoxin to treat her, by all accounts, mild acne.
So dangerous to pregnancy, the pharmco insists on two methods of birth control simultaneously to prevent onerously probable extreme deformities.
Well her husband had his vas clipped 4 1/2 years prior with no probs, so her doc thought it overkill.
In her own words, god blessed them with a special gift and wouldn’t do that to them – despite the facts clearly presented upfront – and birthed a severely malformed girl.
She felt special, her faith guided her and now her factually frivolous case is before the Supreme Court of Canada – wasting precious resources – because this special woman blames her doctor for her own decisions
Facts lose all meaning when faith walks in and it will be the death of us, one way or another as history truly does show, oh that again
We are all shepherds…

Posted by: jcairo | Apr 24 2008 8:49 utc | 58

B,
Get over your paranoid, outdated prejudice about sunglasses! They don’t necessarily hide anything. Perhaps it was sunny out and he forgot to take them off for the picture.
You ain’t all that!

Posted by: WR | Apr 24 2008 23:59 utc | 60

the answer to #59 is that the article is by a prolific MoA comrade, in case nobody caught that. plus, it’s a great article too!

Posted by: b real | Apr 25 2008 5:34 utc | 62

According to Roads to Iraq Muqtada al-Sadr will end the self imposed ceasefire today.

Posted by: anna missed | Apr 25 2008 7:27 utc | 64

Censored Science: Part . . . . (we’ve lost count)

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Apr 25 2008 8:45 utc | 66

@cloned poster
Whew…
He doesn’t believe in balancing liberty with security? Well, no shit you bastard, but it’s good to get it out isn’t it.
America is a bird with two right wings pushing supermarket beliefs.
“Never believe anything until it’s officially denied”
“This country is going to move so far to the right, you won’t even recognize it.” Spiro Agnew, 1972
And it has, and I don’t.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Apr 25 2008 11:25 utc | 68

i am somewhat bemused by the victory of the maoist in nepal – between 1/3 and 1/2 of the parliament – with the opposition party being a more orthodox communist party & a diminished congress party
bemused because the indians must be shitting themselves because of their own maoist opposition who already control ipso facto a number of important provinces & cities, the chinese being past masters in attacking the red flag with the red flag & tho there is no oil in nepal – its geopolitical position must be upsetting a few of the numbskulls at the state dept & pentagon
hadley couldn’t tell the difference between tibet & nepal & i imagine bush would confuse nepal with nipple

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Apr 25 2008 18:01 utc | 70

& it seems clear that the repressive state apparatus in those united states can kill african americans with complete immunity – as if a sport

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Apr 25 2008 19:03 utc | 72

times of nigeria: Panic As MEND Attack, Strike, Cut Nigeria’s Oil Output By Half!

An attack on a major oil pipeline belonging to oil giant, Shell along with a strike at ExxonMobil’s workers has drastically cut Nigeria’s oil production by half.
NNPC’s head of crude oil marketing, Aminu Baba-Kusa said the company was forced to shut down 370,000 b/d of Qua Iboe production as well at its 220,000 b/d Erha field, the 130,000 b/d Yoho field and around 50,000 b/d of condensate from the field.
“The entire operations have been grounded,” Abuja-based Baba-Kusa said yesterday.
The disruption followed a renewed campaign by Nigeria’s militant group, Movement for Emancipation of Niger delta (MEND) aimed at crippling Nigeria’s oil export.
A strike at ExxonMobil’s Nigerian arm also wiped out 770,000 b/d of production due to industry action by oil workers fighting for better pay.
Senior employees of the Nigerian arm of ExxonMobil Thursday joined contract workers to strike at the US major’s 400,000 b/d Qua Iboe export terminal after the two sides failed to reach a deal over compensation and other labor-related issues.
…
“Our candid advice to the oil majors is that they should not waste their time repairing any lines as we will continue to sabotage them. We have time on our side and there is so much to be destroyed. The only time we will stop is when we receive a direct order from our Shepherd.” The group said in an email sent by Jomo Gbomo to The Times of Nigeria.
The militants have stepped up activities as one of the group’s reputed leaders, Henry Okah, faces trial on terrorism and treason charges.

now tell me how this the person that wrote the headline for the following actually read the copy
afx news limited: Shell Confirms Another Attack on Nigerian Pipeline

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), the main armed group in the south of Nigeria, confirmed on Friday it was responsible for the sabotage of a Royal Dutch Shell pipeline on Thursday, some four days after its initial attack on the oil major.
In a message to Agence France-Presse, MEND said it successfully attacked a pipeline run by Shell Petroleum Development Company on the Kula River in Rivers
state on Thursday.
No official at Shell was available for comment on MEND’s latest claim on Friday.

probably b/c of all the panic that was going on, no doubt 😉
but the weird coverage on these stories makes one ponder for a moment just how much of this panic may be hype
dow jones newswires: PENGASSAN: Nigeria Strike Shuts 90% Of Mobil Production

Oil production by Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited, or MPN, has been cut by 90% due to the strike by MPN workers, George Sola Olumoroti, Mobil branch chairman of the white-collar Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, or Pengassan, told Dow Jones Newswires Friday.
He said MPN has a production figure of 866,000 barrels of oil a day.
Earlier, a union official told Dow Jones Newswires the ExxonMobil Corp. (XOM) has shut in around 200,000 barrels a day of crude output in Nigeria.
Olurotimi earlier Friday told Dow Jones Pengassan workers would achieve total shut down of MPN production by Friday. The strike, which began Thursday over demand for higher wages, was still on.
“No talks are going on now with the Mobil management to end the strike,” Olurotimi said. “But we are standing-by for the management to call us for a resumption of negotiations.”
Efforts to get MPN official to comment were unsuccessful.

huh? (b real gets up from bar stool and walks off the set scratching head)

Posted by: b real | Apr 26 2008 4:50 utc | 74

@ b #73
Thank you so much for linking to the Rolling Stone article. I have distrusted organized religion for most of my life (though raised and baptized Lutheran) but have often been around people who are completely absorbed by it. If you are not careful you can get sucked into the rituals and see the outward appearing harmony as something you want to have too. I was most impressed by my first Catholic Mass (first wife extremely devout Catholic) and thought it was a beautiful thing when the faithful exchanged pace. soon afterwards I noticed that many people only did this because they felt compelled to do it and then reluctantly. That ended my love affair with the Catholic church.
then I noticed a small group of born-agains being grown among my cow-workers and was a bit curious as to their meetings and outings and seemingly great camaraderie. soon thereafter I got invited to a meeting and the organizer/leader set to work upon me using similar tactics to those described in b’s linked story. damn if it doesn’t work! you get all worked up and a kind of euphoria takes over and it is as good as any drug. fortunately I had already tried other euphoria inducing substances so I was able to resist the temptation of giving away all my possessions and devoting my life to this “savior” who had selflessly shown me how to get Jesus into my heart and head.
After the first encounter I never went back, already at the end of the first meeting there was squabbling about the lack of sincerity by some volunteers and another issue about money. whenever money is involved I already know it is not something that is gonna be spiritual.
don’t want to bore anyone here and certainly don’t want to offend anyone who truly does believe. I have tried many times and just can’t get my head around it. I know it would be a lot easier to simply behave like an innocent and ignorant child and let my betters tell me what to think and what to believe. however when I put that together with my indoctrination as a US citizen that all men are created equal and everyone can aspire to be the best in the land I was never able to reconcile the two opposing points of view. Questioning the pastor and other religious figures produced no satisfying or believable answers. I decided it was not all that important as I intended to and really do try to live my life without harming others and let them live theirs without interfering. What happens after I die is not something I spend a lot of time worrying about.

Posted by: dan of steele | Apr 26 2008 8:00 utc | 76

@dan – interesting. I only talked to born-agains on very few occasion (we have very few here). These folks didn’t know the bible especially didn’t know the new testatment. They couldn’t say when it was written, where and by whom in what language. They were not well advised on its content either. The catholic indoctrination I went through in my youth left at least some actual knowledge. Their’s seemed to lack that aspect.

Posted by: b | Apr 26 2008 16:25 utc | 78

#79
sounds like the same stories from fallujah, white phosphorus munitions again.

Posted by: anna missed | Apr 26 2008 17:24 utc | 80

anna missed and Uncle $cam, yes, white phosphorous was my first thought as well. I even dug up this Independent report from back then to link with the above. But I just couldn’t decide what ‘fissile’ really means.

Posted by: Alamet | Apr 27 2008 0:27 utc | 82

@73 & 76:
Tangentially…
My former boss described to me a documentary called “Mer Joe” that was about money-drenched ‘evangelism’ and revival meetings and such. I have not been able to find any info about this on the net, even at IMDB, which has quite a store house about all kinds of movies. Anyone seen this film? Know where a copy may be obtained?

Posted by: Dr. Wellington Yueh | Apr 27 2008 1:46 utc | 84

My lips are moving and the sound’s coming out
The words are audible but I have my doubts
That you realise what has been said
wsj: U.S. Accepts International Criminal Court

A senior Bush administration official said Friday that the U.S. now accepts the “reality” of the International Criminal Court, and that Washington would consider aiding the Hague tribunal in its investigation of atrocities in Sudan’s Darfur region.
“The U.S. must acknowledge that the ICC enjoys a large body of international support, and that many countries will look to the ICC as the preferred mechanism” for punishing war crimes that individual countries can’t or won’t address, John Bellinger, the State Department’s chief lawyer, told a conference in Chicago marking the 10th anniversary of the tribunal’s founding treaty, the Rome Statute. More than 100 countries have ratified the treaty.
Although it reiterated longstanding U.S. concerns about the court, Mr. Bellinger’s speech represented a rhetorical turnabout for an administration that came to power determined to hobble the movement for a permanent war crimes tribunal.
“This is a meaty piece of work,” said Richard Dicker, international justice director for Human Rights Watch. “It’s impossible to imagine such a statement four years ago.”

You look at me as if you’re in a daze
It’s like the feeling at the end of the page when you realise
You don’t know what you just read.

An architect of the White House’s earlier policies dismissed Mr. Bellinger’s remarks as “pabulum” from a State Department that is too solicitous of international institutions. “It would be a great speech in the first Clinton administration, and probably a great speech in the second Clinton administration,” said John Bolton, the former ambassador to the United Nations who, as undersecretary of state, signed the letter repudiating Rome Statute.
“It reflects the yearning the Rice State Department has for acceptance” by academics and foreign intellectuals, Mr. Bolton said.

What are words for
ap: ‘Jihadist’ booted from government lexicon

Don’t call them jihadists any more.
And don’t call al-Qaida a movement.
The Bush administration has launched a new front in the war on terrorism, this time targeting language.
Federal agencies, including the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the National Counter Terrorism Center, are telling their people not to describe Islamic extremists as “jihadists” or “mujahedeen,” according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. Lingo like “Islamo-fascism” is out, too.
The reason: Such words may actually boost support for radicals among Arab and Muslim audiences by giving them a veneer of religious credibility or by causing offense to moderates.
For example, while Americans may understand “jihad” to mean “holy war,” it is in fact a broader Islamic concept of the struggle to do good, says the guidance prepared for diplomats and other officials tasked with explaining the war on terror to the public. Similarly, “mujahedeen,” which means those engaged in jihad, must be seen in its broader context.
U.S. officials may be “unintentionally portraying terrorists, who lack moral and religious legitimacy, as brave fighters, legitimate soldiers or spokesmen for ordinary Muslims,” says a Homeland Security report. It’s entitled “Terminology to Define the Terrorists: Recommendations from American Muslims.”
…
Language is critical in the war on terror, says another document, an internal “official use only” memorandum circulating through Washington entitled “Words that Work and Words that Don’t: A Guide for Counterterrorism Communication.”
The memo, originally prepared in March by the Extremist Messaging Branch at the National Counter Terrorism Center, was approved for diplomatic use this week by the State Department, which plans to distribute a version to all U.S. embassies, officials said.
“It’s not what you say but what they hear,” the memo says in bold italic lettering, listing 14 points about how to better present the war on terrorism.
“Don’t take the bait,” it says, urging officials not to react when Osama bin Laden or al-Qaida affiliates speak. “We should offer only minimal, if any, response to their messages. When we respond loudly, we raise their prestige in the Muslim world.”
“Don’t compromise our credibility” by using words and phrases that may ascribe benign motives to terrorists.

credibility? for the same folks who brought us the ‘war on terror’? ya gotta be kidding.
Something has to happen to change the direction
What little filters though is giving you the wrong impression
“it’s a sorry state” I say to myself
What are words for

Posted by: b real | Apr 27 2008 7:24 utc | 86

badger

A group of over 50 parliamentarians staged a sit-in in Sadr City to demand the lifting of the siege on that city, and the attacks on it. They said if normality isn’t restored they will do the same again on Monday. Voices of Iraq takes the trouble to point out that the group included not only Sadrist members of parliament, but also two members representing Sunni groups, the IAF and the Dialogue Front, along with one representing the (remains of the) United Iraqi Alliance.

Deputy says there is proof the US is using cluster bombs in Sadr City

Posted by: annie | Apr 27 2008 15:56 utc | 88

U.S. media and counting the dead:
Iraqi leaders discuss unity govt; 5 die in Baghdad violence

Iraqi police said two people were killed and 12 injured in Sadr City in exchanges of fire between joint Iraqi-American forces and fighters of the Mahdi army.
…
But a U.S. military statement said an unmanned drone had killed a total of five militants using Hellfire missiles in three separate engagements.
…
In the southern suburb of Maalif, five people died and 14 were wounded in a clash between Shiite militiamen and Iraqi and American forces,…
…
Elsewhere in Baghdad, a suicide car bomber blew himself up at a security checkpoint in the eastern neighborhood of Zayouna killing three people and injuring nine

I count:
– 2 in a fire fight
– 5 by hellfires from UAVs in Sadr city
– 5 in Maalif in firefights
– 3 by a suicide bomber in Zayouna
That sums up to 15 to me. Why does the headline says “5 die in Baghdad violence” when the piece reports 15?

Posted by: b | Apr 27 2008 19:51 utc | 90

the guardian has a sunday article on the so-called pirates in somalia, adding a splash of racism into the headline, but otherwise enlightening since, unlike the majority of press coverage on the topic, the reporter does not rely on the IMB as their main source of information
How savage pirates reign on the world’s high seas

…
The hijackings are confirmation, if any were needed, that the waters off Somalia are the most dangerous in the world. Last year, there were 31 attacks there, making the notorious bandits operating in the South China Sea and Malacca Straits look almost lazy by comparison. So far this year there have been 23 attacks by Somali pirates, including the 47-day hijacking of a new, British-captained icebreaker tug, the Svitzer Korsakov, on its way from Europe through the Gulf of Aden towards the gas fields in far eastern Russia. The ransom paid for its release was reported to be $1.6m.
It is not only the frequency of the attacks off Somalia that has maritime experts deeply worried. It is the skill and daring of the pirates, some of whom call themselves ‘marines’ and claim to be protecting the country’s maritime resources from foreign exploitation.
…
The Transitional Federal Government (TFG) of President Abdullahi Yusuf, which is packed with former warlords, exercises little authority and claims to be unable to stop the piracy. But it is perhaps telling that during the six-month reign of the Somali Council of Islamic Courts over much of south and central Somalia in 2006, attacks on passing ships all but stopped.
Andrew Mwangura, head of the Mombasa-based Seafarers’ Assistance Programme, and one of the foremost experts on Somali piracy, says there are five main pirate groups operating, sometimes together.
‘Most of them are linked to warlords,’ he said. ‘And the warlords are linked to the TFG, all the way to the top.’
…
A gunman on a pirate ship typically earns between $10,000 and $30,000 for a year’s work – a fortune in Somalia. Those bankrolling the attacks from bases in the United Arab Emirates or Kenya, and sometimes as far afield as Canada, London or Hong Kong, can net several million dollars from a single strike, depending on the nationality of the shipowner, the origins and gender of the crew, the cargo and the age of the boat.
‘Once the pirates’ bosses have the ship’s name they immediately use the internet to research how much money they can make,’ said Mwangura. ‘These guys really know what they are doing.’
Most owners pay up quickly, transferring money through a network of accounts in Nairobi, Mombasa and Dubai. The crews are seldom harmed. When older, less valuable trawlers – often from Taiwan or China – are captured, the demand is not cash but the temporary use of the boat. The owners promise not to report their vessel missing, and it becomes a temporary ‘mother ship’.
…
..bizarre as it sounds, there is some truth in the pirates’ claim that they are acting as a coastguard. Under international law, a country’s ‘exclusive economic zone’ – where it has sole rights over marine and mineral resources – extends 200 nautical miles out to sea. Foreign ships are allowed to pass through these waters, but not to fish without a permit.
Yet at any one time there are up to 500 foreign-registered boats fishing in Somalia’s rich waters, according to the Seafarers’ Assistance Programme. European boats catch tuna or shrimp; vessels from the Far East catch sharks for their fins. Almost all are fishing illegally. Often, pirate attacks are not even reported to maritime authorities: the ransoms paid are regarded as legitimate fines, both by the pirates and the ship-owners.
‘One way to stop the piracy is to stop the illegal fishing,’ said Mwangura. ‘That way there will be nowhere for the pirates to hide.’

Posted by: b real | Apr 27 2008 23:27 utc | 92

@Schneb #91
It would appear that information regarding “The Pond” has yet to be declassified.
This would seem to be confirmed as of November 2007 at this site, and appears in a single paragraph halfway down (reproduced below):

Little information is known about such an agency. The CIA published some time ago a report on their homepage about an intelligence group called „the Pond“, founded in 1942, just in the year of investigation against Standard Oil. William Mosetti, that mysterious man who played a central role in the Eichmann transportation to Israel, would fit well in the „Pond“, “The Pond” was disbanded in the fifties, after competition with CIA. Mosetti, first of all, was a businessman, open towards all sides. The documents, held by the CIA, are still classified because “they are now in a process of being reviewed before being sent to NARA to be made available to the public“. As the CIA official in charge of declassification told me, “this process will take three years”. But the CIA offered to sell me the information, paying 2880 dollars for the research. My request to get full access to the „Pond“ documentation is still pending.

Posted by: Monolycus | Apr 28 2008 0:36 utc | 94

It is quite strange that the latest attempt to stop Kabul Mayor Hamid Karzai’s clock is receiving so little coverage. This latest attempt – at a parade ground on Sunday (just yesterday even here on this side of the dateline), hasn’t made headlines in the media despite the fact that several people were killed and Prez Karzai claims the all perps were arrested. Well according to this hard to find NYT article they were all arrested. On the TV appearance a couple of hours after the attempt Hamid said they had all been killed or arrested.
There are many unanswered questions about the attempt. Although TV cameras were focussed on the mayor during the parade there has been no footage of Hamid during the attempt shown on TV. Maybe his double got wasted, although the Karzai, genuine or lookalike, was standing next to the bossfellas, amerikan ambassador William B. Wood, english ambassador Sherard Cowper-Coles (sans ostrich feathers) and capo da capo General Dan McNeill, commander of international forces in Afghanistan and none of them were even winged either godammit.
However a couple of the tribal leaders who have been ‘persuaded’ to side with “peace justice and the amerikan way” did cop a bellyful of lead so mebbe they were the targets. By all accounts those injured were at least 30 metres away from the ‘top of the table’ and it is difficult to believe that so much planning and preparation would go into placing blokes who couldn’t hit a barn door at 5 paces into the parade ground.
The TV report I saw let something rather droll slip. The reason all of the troops whose parade the fat cats were watching went on the hoof, running away from the action rather than towards it to defend their prez, was that none of the troops on parade had any ammo.
Whenever Hamid is to inspect this ‘new’ afghan army, which is the pride and joy of so many american congresspeople, the evidence they are “turning the corner” in the Ghan, the troops have all ammunition taken off of them.
Soldiers with ammo up the spout aren’t allowed round Hamid lest one of these apples of amerika’s eye takes a potshot at their prez.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Apr 28 2008 8:48 utc | 96

Thanks Did,
for thoughtful analysis with the link.

Posted by: citizen | Apr 28 2008 11:24 utc | 98

enjoy

Posted by: annie | Apr 29 2008 0:24 utc | 100