USA Scuttled Negotiations to Free American Killed in Yemen
Luke Somers was not in immediate danger prior to the first raid launched to free him last month. Two of those sources also claim that the United States thwarted attempts by a meditator to negotiate his release by paying a ransom.
The murky world of hostage negotiations leaves few good choices, but Somers’ death highlights the continuing tension the U.S. government faces when dealing with Americans kidnapped by Al Qaeda and its various affiliates and offshoots. It also calls into question the effectiveness of using military raids, rather than negotiations, as the primary tool to free hostages.
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/12/11/u-s-scuttled-negotiations-free-american-killed-yemen/

Posted by: the intercept | Dec 11 2014 21:05 utc | 3

A perfect opportunity for Russia to place anyone associated with torture on its sanctions list or better yet issue an arrest warrant for each of them.

Posted by: Lysander | Dec 11 2014 21:20 utc | 5

great idea lysander.. i wonder how many politicians from the usa that would include?

Posted by: james | Dec 11 2014 21:26 utc | 7

@ James
Well certainly several cia officials of all ranks, legal advocates of torture and Congress creatures who votes for or just sat on intelligence committees and we’re likely to have known about it. That’s just a start. I’m sure there are others. This is good for the information war and does place a practical restriction on war criminals. Since no one else is going to punish them it is at least a start.

Posted by: Lysander | Dec 11 2014 21:56 utc | 9

James @9- thanks for the link. I agree with Taibbi- now that the cat’s out of the bag and no one is held accountable there will be a next time and it will be much worse. Think Terry Gilliam’s Brasil.
Here’s one of the torture drs on the kindness of torture:
“It’s a lot more humane, even if you are going to subject them to harsh techniques, to question them while they are still alive, than it is to kill them and their children and their neighbors with a drone,” he said.
After reading that sentence and throwing up in my mouth a little, I have to wonder what kind of a comeuppance this country has in store for it. I”m afraid it’s going to be colossal.

Posted by: Nana2007 | Dec 11 2014 23:29 utc | 11

Bhadrakumar’s latest on the geopolitics surrounding the recent drop in oil prices vis-a-vis Iran/Saudi Arabia

Posted by: Almand | Dec 12 2014 1:23 utc | 13

It will be interesting to see if this comes to anything:
Deep Resource: PEGIDA

US State Department mouth piece and colonial overseer der Spiegel is alarmed. Alarmed at the sudden rise of German resistance against mass immigration from third world countries. It began in Dresden eight weeks ago and now it is spilling over to other cities like Düsseldorf, Bochum, Bonn, München, Würzburg, Rostock, Kassel and East-Frisia. The resistance has a name: Pegida (Patriotische Europäer gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes, or in English: “Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the Occident”).
Editor: the protesters call themselves Europeans, not Germans, a very clever move, stressing that all Europeans are in the same boat. And they resist Islam, avoiding racial issues. Our prediction: this is not going to end well for the Atlanticist European political class and satraps of Straussian-run Washington. In fact, it is going to end exactly the same way in which the political class in eastern Europe finally came to its well-deserved end in 1989.

This blogger is a reactionary (he thinks the EU is run by leftists), but his hatred of Atlanticism leads him to take a consistently interesting line. He seems to take a consistently conservative position. Thus, he believes that Europe should recognize its Christian identity, but is also supportive of Erdogan’s neo-Ottoman project.

Posted by: Demian | Dec 12 2014 5:03 utc | 15

@13
The last byte in The South’s latest string of bytes… looks to be the same groups of neo-NAZIs in Berlin.
A Maidan in Berlin? Anyone here from Berlin to comment? I tried youtube but didn’t find anything.
I copied the English translation Sahra Wagenknecht’s performance in the Bundestag for easier and more coherent reading and copying … nearly 12000 views as of now. Still peanuts, but apparently the neo-NAZIs on the US payroll in Berlin think this and presumably other growing bits of opposition to the Empire need to be met in the streets?

Posted by: jfl | Dec 12 2014 7:18 utc | 17

@16
Not long ago I read To Kill a Nation … it was the first of Michael Parenti’s books that I’ve read. Typing the title into the search box at btdigg brings it right up. He does a good job of conveying the story there, including Germany’s part, and the non-parallel between the West’s creation of Kosovo and the Crimean’s reunion of Crimea with Russia are so stark, yet so utterly uncomment upon. Outside of here of course.
I don’t know if there are any other honorable people in the Bundestag. Wagenknecht is from the Left party, there was some applause during her talk and I imagine is was her party. But they are out of power and unable to do any more than talk, right?
Is more of a revolt against the empire going on in Germany than just Sahra? I saw Michael Hudson’s take on the situation with German business taking a beating … Wagenknect reports that an SDP pol has reported that “trade between Russia and the US this year has grown” … and there were the “politicians and celebrities” who signed the petition against the Nuland/Obama/Merkel sanctions recently.
Your man Joaquin has an article chock full of very interesting threads on the Turkey-Russia pipeline, I imagine you’ve seen it?
Somewhere I saw a picture and a blurb about Russian generals on the ground in Ukraine talking to Ukrainian officers at the site of their concentration of troops in the Southeast of Ukraine and the words were to the effect that they were there to explain how the Ukrainians might best withdraw and keep their troops intact. Don;t know if it was real or not.
I saw another picture of a very large artillery piece on a truck with lots and lots of wheels … said to be Novorossyan … that was moved away from the new ‘ceasefire’ zone … that could could be redeployed one half-hour. If the shelling has stopped that’s good.

Posted by: jfl | Dec 12 2014 8:36 utc | 19

I wonder why none of the questions at Brennan’s “press conference” dealt with questions of credibility – “Isn’t a fact that you lied in the teeth of the U.S. Congress about torture?”, “Hasn’t the CIA lied over and over again about the existence and the effectiveness of of it’s torture program”, “Why are you afraid to call it torture – since it is so defined in U.S. law?”, “So do you deny that the CIA or associates hacked the computers of the very Congressional committee investigating it?”, “Hasn’t the CIA repeatedly obstructed justice by destroying evidence of crime, i.e., the torture tapes?”, “Isn’t there a moral dimension to the question of torture – if not, do you advocate repealing U.S. law against torture?”, “Doesn’t all of the above show that you, and the CIA, consider yourselves above the law?”
Is it because whoever asked such obvious questions, would be considered “beyond the pale” not only by U.S. officials, but also by their sycophant colleagues in the Press? This is what Orwell called double-think: finessing the truth, or rather, shoving it down the memory hole (another Orwell term).
Which brings me to the final point. The ultimate goal of the activities of the U.S. intelligence agencies must be to eliminate and subvert not only historical fact itself, but all honest inquiry into truth – except what can be used for purposes of Empire. The thousand-year Reich isn’t even in the same league as these guys – despite the similarity of methods.

Posted by: kirth gersen | Dec 12 2014 13:00 utc | 21

Latest from Penny: http://pennyforyourthoughts2.blogspot.com/

Posted by: ben | Dec 12 2014 15:39 utc | 23

New toy for the military, oh what joy:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/12/lasers-are-no-longer-science-fiction-watch-the-us-navy-blow-up-stuff-with-a-30-kilowatt-weapon/

Posted by: ben | Dec 12 2014 15:51 utc | 25

@ 22.
It’s still Sci-Fi despite Raw Story’s credulity. The vid is ‘delightfully vague’ (and VERY Hollywood) and reminds me of the ABM interceptor tests in which the target missile continuously transmitted its GPS location.
Unless the laser operator knows the precise location of flammable/explosive material inside a target, there is no way that a laser can cause a significant explosion. The most one could hope for would be to burn holes or short, non-contiguous, slots in the target. I wouldn’t take the “all-weather” claim too seriously either.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Dec 12 2014 16:56 utc | 27

From Cannonfire: http://cannonfire.blogspot.ca/

Posted by: ben | Dec 12 2014 18:02 utc | 29

@9 lysander. i agree with you on this as, but i wonder how much the western msm would cover it? it seems like the only info that goes to press is info scathing of russia, but never of the usa and the west. this disclosure of the cia’s torture program and agenda would be an exception and perhaps a type of watershed moment. we’ll see. i am beyond cynical at this point.
@11 nana – that is disturbing. the usa took a wrong turn somewhere historically with letting the cia have as much power as they have without the oversight.
@19 kirth gersen. excellent questions and great observations on it all too.

Posted by: james | Dec 12 2014 18:29 utc | 31

@25. You have a point Hoarse. When you look at the details these things rarely measure up. That won’t stop the navy ordering a few thousand.

Posted by: dh | Dec 12 2014 20:18 utc | 33

I am late in finding your site. I was clued to it by an investment advisory group so you are hitting all segments of US Society!
You are American journalism at its best. As a follower of the first journalist, Anne Newport Royall, who chronicled the early days of our Republic, who came from your area, it is great to see the penchant for real facts still emanates from the South!
At 90 years of age, I still follow what is happening in our world, after years spent with my husband, rebuilding it after WWII. I have watched the growing agencies of our victorious government and its anglo partners gradually build their empires within the international structures promoted to accommodate them, giving them access to both white and black sources of financing, exempt from any sense of morality or evenhanded actions. That this scandal was not exposed in The West was not a mystery to us since it accommodated a strange maneuver which began in the early 19th Century just as the USA got its first wings and began to fly as a nation.
Conspiracy is a hot item in discourse today as it has been throughout history and it does exist. In our world much of the action is designed and directed by people who masquerade as members of one of the oldest religious groups in the world but who chose early a heretical departure from that group. This strange fact has clouded claims of “anti-semitism” ever since, this group using it when ii needs it and then using it again as a cover as they move in their own directions for their own aggrandizement.
I refer to those who are known to The West as the Sephardics but who really should be called the Sephardim since their stay in Spain was long after they had made their mark in our world. Their name signifies their passion with numbers, how combinations can explain all the mysteries of life and their obsession with this knowledge which they add to every year that passes. Sephardim recalls the main equation that they worship – 7/11. In effect they worship what arabic numerals can mean and do and they are the ones who replaced Roman numerals with arabic ones, our present way of figuring everything in life! With this knowledge, they have taken our world and we are their creatures.
This situation has been hidden long enough. It is time to reveal it. The Sephardim themselves hint at it. Lloyd Blankenfein, head of Goldman Sachs, spoke out a year ago and told his critics he was doing God’s work and therein lies a tale that Sir Walter Scott told in Ivanhoe, especially the four chapters about international banking, how it came to the British Isles, with the ranson of King Richard , the Lionhearted,removed after the first edition sold out! You can still access those impounded bits of history if you visit the British Israelite Society still headquartered in the manorial home of Lord Rosebury near to Edinburgh. Lord Rosebury was the pal of Randolph Churchill, father to Winston, who was the son of the Jeromes in Brooklyn, NY not just a scion of Blenheim , and the Marlboroughs. All were Sephardim!
A study of the Sephardim will lead you to connections long hinted but never confirmed. It may not solve any problems but it can clear the way to a thorough understanding of what really runs our world.
Regards, Alice Maxwell

Posted by: Alice Maxwell | Dec 12 2014 21:25 utc | 35

@18 Demian
On the Flores piece … funny, I thought it was one of his better ones. He delivered ‘just the facts’ or in this case just that primary hypotheses and didn’t bother to spin second and third level syntheses to ‘explain them’.
The primary hypotheses were/are all interesting in themselves and help to flesh out the elephant … without creating a griffen.

Posted by: jfl | Dec 12 2014 22:56 utc | 37

@35 jo6pac – this picture sums it up.

Posted by: james | Dec 12 2014 23:35 utc | 39

@35 @36
Could this be the first of the 350 mega bucks in supplies?
Where are all the folks who championed the Ukraine winter as the no war season? Seems to ‘hotting’ up.

Posted by: jfl | Dec 12 2014 23:52 utc | 41

@37
‘ Israeli settlements are considered illegal by the UN and most countries because the territories were captured by Israel in the Six-Day War of 1967, and are hence subject to the Geneva Conventions, which forbid construction on occupied lands. ‘
Yeah, but the Israeli Fundamentalists operate in the Bronze age, asserting their right of divinely aided conquest.
And the 21st Century coalition of the unwilling back this set of ‘good’ jihadis 100%, championing their jihad.

Posted by: jfl | Dec 13 2014 0:14 utc | 43

Max Keiser has an great takedown of all the clowns in the West crowing over the Russian rouble being down. His co-host, Stacy, likens those craven fools gloating over Russian inflation to Madeline Albright’s crowing over the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children due to western sanctions in the 1990s.
Max and Stacy point out that Russians have a ridiculously high percentage of disposable income (averaging 60%) because of the privatization of state-owned homes. People of course didn’t pay for housing in the USSR because it was provided by the state. Most people don’t pay now because they were all privatized. Inflation matters of course, but hardly in the same way it crunches the proles of the west.
Max and Stacy point out that the ruble may be down (as are some other currencies because of oil being down like Norway and Nigeria) but no currency is down as far as Ukraine’s. And those in the west will soon be forced to bail out Ukraine – so who is winning there?
Russia has a massive sovereign wealth fund and an excellent balance of payments. Russia could hold out with its saved cash for seven years. Ukraine? Three weeks. The UK – where much of the gloating is happening – three months.
__________
The fact is, like always, the proles of the west are paying for everything. We in the West are left only with our chauvinism and “exceptionalism” to comfort us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a36eKZw0xY4

Posted by: guest77 | Dec 13 2014 1:55 utc | 45

@41 @42
Worth reading twice, especially the bit ‘below the fold’.

Posted by: jfl | Dec 13 2014 2:41 utc | 47

The only hope now does seem to be in Saker’s last sentence … the revolt of the Ukrainian troops, “We who are about to die … turn out arms against the Emperor instead!”. Maybe it will happen.

Posted by: jfl | Dec 13 2014 3:23 utc | 49

@44 – I do fear this more than anything. The Ukrainian and Russian people forced into war by the west. And what a vicious, brutal war it would be. And likely the end of any independent action for any country on the globe anywhere.
Its a disgusting thought, in fact. That would signal complete US Cold War victory. And would be the most foul example of the power of propaganda to tear people apart.
_______
I would note that the people who most virulently believe in the myth that the Ukrainian Famine of the 1930s was some sort of planned genocide were not even a part of the USSR at that point. These were the western parts of the country that were formerly part of Poland and Czechoslovakia. The parts that became part of – and fought for – the Nazi empire. Flooded with propaganda – then and now. Nazi General Reinhard Gehlen played these Ukrainians like fiddles. During WW2 as head of Nazi intelligence on the Eastern Front, and as the head of the West German intelligence during the post war period.

Posted by: guest77 | Dec 13 2014 3:32 utc | 51

Last post, I promose:
Sad but true:
The Dark Side of the Liberals’ Darling
Reality, Politics and Elizabeth Warren
By Robert Fantina
During Israel’s most recent slaughter of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, when Mrs. Warren was asked her opinion of Israel bombing families, she literally ran away from the reporter!

Posted by: guest77 | Dec 13 2014 4:11 utc | 53

guest 77 @ 37: Thanks for the Galloway piece. Another great voice crying in the wilderness.

Posted by: ben | Dec 13 2014 5:08 utc | 55

Time to throw a few quarters in the juke box.
I need to cleanse the palate, too much time of late with the volunteer battalion commanders in Banderastan. Some folks in the past mentioned some “must-hear” music, I’ve finally gotten a chance to get back to it.
Demian —
As promised back in early sept. (see 9/13, disc. of Ukr. and Strelkov) a few thoughts about some music you recommended.
My Bloody Valentine — I looked on Amazon for the “Bestselling” mp3’s, listened to a few, did more or less the same with YouTube. A simple popularity contest, won’t find the back-catalog gems, but it’s a start. The Glider EP appealed to me most. Liked what I heard, the instrumentation and vocals in reminded me of the Cranberries, bits like “Zombie” on their second record. Wikipedia reminded me — both from Dublin.
Wikipedia noted the late, great Joy Division as an influence, and their influence on Smashing Pumpkins. Hip to them since the 1992 soundtrack for “Singles” with “Drown”, which helped popularise grunge. Give “Chloe Dancer/Crown of Thorns” by Mother Lovebone on that same soundtrack a listen, if you don’t know the song. The Wiki for the song says quotes reviewers calling “fantastically melancholy,” “beautifully swirling” and “eerie”. Spot on, they are.
It might be unfair, but Rammstein struck me a pretty std. issue heavy metal. But I’ll keep ’em on the radar, one’s taste always evolves.
I always leaned more towards hard rock, as opposed to what someone at work just today called “screamers from the 80’s”. A younger brother was a metalhead, I had cred with he and his buddy thanks to my love of Jethro Tull (“Aqualung” is probably their best, with 1st. side of “Thick as a Brick.”) I have a little Metallica (awesome “Whisky in the Jar”). I really loved “Discipline,” by the Adrian Belew installment of King Crimson, sort of in lieu of metal (see Indiscipline, from that album).
A few of recent groups I’ve liked (don’t own them, but turn ’em up on the car radio) — Staind, So Far Away, Seether w/ Amy Lee Broken, and Linkin Park Shadow of the Day.
I think live performance is the best way to assess a musician, but I like the string section in “Broken” too much.
James —
I had a look at Downie’s Country of Miracles on YouTube. I liked Who By Rote & Drowning Machine. I find it interesting that Walla from Death Cab for Cutie is currently involved with the project. “Grapevine Fires” really put them on my radar, a startlingly melancholy and enigmatic song for the radio.
I don’t know if you’re a fan of Bruce Cockburn, but here’s a really great duet version of If I Had a Rocket Launcher, maybe the best political song of the 80’s. Sadly, as timely now as it was back then
And finally, folks, just a nice, well-crafted contemporary alt-pop song, by Chvrches, The Mother we Share. It’s a love song, of a sorts, I think. “When it all fucks up, you put your head in my hands
It’s a souvenir, for when you go.” Still, a great sound.

Posted by: rufus magister | Dec 13 2014 5:59 utc | 57

Corr to 53
I had a feeling one of the links was off — Indiscipline.

Posted by: rufus magister | Dec 13 2014 6:02 utc | 59

test

Posted by: james | Dec 13 2014 6:11 utc | 61

test 3.

Posted by: james | Dec 13 2014 6:23 utc | 63

post without link is what i meant.. when i try to post with link – it doesn’t post..

Posted by: james | Dec 13 2014 6:34 utc | 65

@22
I wonder if a mirror would make a good defense against a laser canon. Although probably not as effective as a metaphorical mirror against issues..

Posted by: YY | Dec 13 2014 7:07 utc | 67

The problem with the ‘opacity’ of the imperial banking system is not accidental, it is purposeful. ‘Economics’ is another name for bullshit. I always suspected that, as the ‘economists’, aka bullshit artists, ‘discovered’ that economics was governed by ‘natural laws’. And that the ‘free market’ was natures way. The disintegration of ‘economics’ in 2008 proved wht economics was, and is : the description of the MO of the mob of banksters who rob us blind, as viewed in the rear view mirror of their getaway vehicle … properly obfuscated to daze, and confuse those who have not acquired a taste for bullshit. Or just put real people to sleep.
Yes, money has it use. As credit. As a transactional medium. Store of value? uh-uh.
As a transactional medium it is created as needed … by a central bank controlled by a nation in a sane world … by everyone and his brother, and ‘loaned’ into existence, in the insane, mobbed up banksterworld. And when the banksters destroy their own credibility … breaking all the ‘natural laws’ of their bullshit ‘economics’ … their central bank starts creating money our of thin air as it should be … but instead of ’emitting’ it into the real economy gives it to the banksters … who use it as ‘fracktional’ reserves and lend it into ‘real’ existence in the real economy.
Glaziev is plodding, step by step, toward the sane, real world of economics, with the creation of ‘fiat’ money by central banks ‘owned’ by nations … and nations are people … disintermediating the banksters who want to be in on the ground floor of the inverted ponzi pyramid … ‘the miracle of compound interest’, the original ‘something for nothing’ racket. The gentleman’s free lunch counter. Where the trees are believed to grow to the sky.
Neither economics nor politics are rocket science. They both just become so when the the traditional oligarchic system is billed as ‘new! improved! now with equality/democracy added!’
Nothing has been ‘added’ but the volumes of hot air and bullshit required to disguise the fact. And that takes millions of degrees of convolution and reams of paper.
The oligarchs don’t pay it any attention, and neither should we.
The only ones who do pay attention are the bullshit artists, the academics, the academic ‘economists’ and ‘political scientists’. The oligarch’s barkers and salesmen.

Posted by: jfl | Dec 13 2014 7:33 utc | 69

My post on an earlier thread …
I heard a Sussex professor speak to a reporter about the Ukraine and western propaganda. The Ukraine is in dire need of another €15bn [$18bn] or it will face bankruptcy. The IMF has reached its limit and the costly war in Eastern Ukraine has emptied the federal reserves. The EU is not in a position to continue funding a bottomless pitt {Greece, Italy and France] and he urged the Ukraine to look eastward and make a deal with Putin’s Russia.
Interesting views from the emeritus professor with perspective of class warfare to neoliberal economics:
○ Global and local rivalries in NATO’s push towards the Caucasus – 2009

Posted by: Oui | Dec 13 2014 9:33 utc | 71

#63 YY posedL I wonder if a mirror would make a good defense against a laser canon.
If a perfect mirror were possible then the answer is yes. But it seems that there is no such thing as a perfect mirror. I once tried to understand the reason why this is so but had difficulty with the theory. Apparently Newton was the first to try to explain why mirrors were not perfect — experiments in the 18th century were already showing that mirrors had limits. The theory of quantum electrodynamics explains why according to those who understand this theory. Basically perfect reflectivity is no more possible than measuring the precise momentum of a particle according to the Heisenburg uncertainty principle. The bottom line is that some of the energy of the photons one tries to reflect in a mirror will be absorbed as heat; i.e. it will break the mirror.

Posted by: ToivoS | Dec 13 2014 9:41 utc | 73

@67 @68
State Capture and the Democratic Movement is very refreshing short read. I’m off to Global and local rivalries in NATO’s push towards the Caucasus – 2009. Thanks.
From what I can make out the US$ 15 billion shakedown of the Ukraine is meant to force them into default and end in the privatization of ‘the bread basket of Europe’. Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland, Monsanto and Dupont will be delighted to pick up the pieces of the US/EU Ukrainian Civil War they’ve engineered. And they’ll try to cast the Russians rather than themselves as the authors of the catastrophe.
Even the poor Ukies consumed with such hatred for the Moskuls must eventually see how viciously and unrelentingly they have been and are being played by the US/EU. If they manage finally to see the lay of the land while they have all those weapons in hand they can overthrow the fascist regime in west Ukraine, repudiate all the debts to the US/EU – they’ve paid them in blood and treasure tenfold already – and work with their brothers and sisters in the east to put together a federated Ukraine and to hell with the hegemons.
Or they can die in battle and leave their families dispossessed and at the mercy of the Huns.

Posted by: jfl | Dec 13 2014 10:52 utc | 75

Add to:
Actually these deals are political to the degree where India/China and Russia hedge floating currencies with weapons “defense” deals.

Posted by: somebody | Dec 13 2014 11:56 utc | 77

My apologies moa’ers I fouled the link. Here it is.
http://www.voltairenet.org/article186186.html

Posted by: really | Dec 13 2014 12:34 utc | 79

Defense against lasers is best accomplished by using materials to decohere the light beam. Mirrors won’t work because the backing – unless perfectly reflective as noted above – will melt.
However, smoke or chaff does fine.
Thing is, if the laser beam is sufficiently strong, there won’t be time to deploy the interference until after some number of shots have been fired.
On the other hand, the real problem with laser/line of sight devices is that their range is very poor. Much of modern artillery is indirect; the lasers really are more defense against aircraft and/or slow moving missiles.

Posted by: c1ue | Dec 13 2014 15:04 utc | 81

@Noirette
Germany’s chancellor between 1982 and 1998, Kohl said it took him “years” to build the trust and negotiation skills to convince other European leaders of his ideas and push them through.
“And it paid off, for instance in the Frankfurt Bank,” Kohl said, in reference to the concession made by France and Great Britain to allow the European Central Bank to be based in Frankfurt.
No mention of Helmut Kohl’s nemesis? The longest sitting Dutch PM Ruud Lubbers opposed the ‘big-bang’ of re-unification of Germany because of the costs involved and the uncertainty for the Euro to be adopted in the Treaty of Maastricht. Kohl declared Lubbers his #1 enemy and made sure he didn’t get any top job in Europe or NATO. Lubbers was the architect of the third way in Holland to deal with the recession and economic slump of the 1980s.
Ruud Lubbers asked president Reagan and the CIA why they permitted the theft of the blueprints of centrifuges by Pakistan’s Khan and the development of the Islamic atom bomb. No sanctions were imposed on the nuclear proliferation by Pakistan.
Ahead of the US intervention in Kuwait, premier Lubbers made a deal with the emir to compensate the losses made by Hollandia Kloos, which had ties to the Lubbers’ family. In the 90s the family business merged into the new Mercon.

Posted by: Oui | Dec 13 2014 16:42 utc | 83

Here’s an interesting debunking of the myth of Khodorkovsky as some sort of principled oppositionist. From Russia Insider, John Hellveg argues that the Jailing of Khodorkovsky Was Crucial for Russia’s Prosperity.

Khodorkovsky had been the ringleader of the lobby that fiercely rejected any increase of taxes on oil and other natural resources. Khodorkovsky had also secured control by way of bribery and intimidation of the Russian parliament, the Duma, which rejected all Putin’s proposals on tax hikes…. Khodorkovsky’s oil lobby was aided by the propaganda influence the oligarchs exerted on the population through the Russian media that they had taken over…. The oligarchs did not stop at lobbying against legislation, they also engaged in outright tax evasion.

He cites work by Michael Hudson and Marshall Goldman, amongst others, for the details of Khodorkovsky’s dealings.
For some real gloom and doom about Banderastan’s econ., try Ukrainian government prepares social collapse.

The fact that consequences of the coup and signing an Association Agreement with the EU will be exactly like the ones we are seeing now was known long before… Maidan. However, deceived by sweet-voiced propaganda, the Ukrainians failed to heed the many warnings. The collapse of the economic and social spheres, as well as isolated protest rallies, are there for everyone to see.

Something for the suspicious to consider, Is Kaliningrad NATO’s Real Target?.

Posted by: rufus magister | Dec 13 2014 17:07 utc | 85

Oops, I nearly forgot, in case anyone argues that the West Ukaine landscape is filled with “Shiny Happy People” and represents the way forward for the Ukraine, point them towards Patrick Cockburn’s To see what Ukraine’s future might be, just look at Lviv’s shameful past. His conclusion:

Lviv presents itself as a beautiful city reflecting a culturally diverse past. In reality, it is a monument to ethnic cleansing and the appalling willingness of long-time neighbours to murder each other, as I saw earlier this year in Homs and Damascus – something those who want to heat up the conflict over Ukraine and Crimea’s future should keep in mind.

PS. The REM cut, w/Kate Pierson of the B-52’s, is a suitable antidote to the gloom and doom postings. Add their “It’s the End of the World (And I feel Fine)” if you want to up the black humour quotient.

Posted by: rufus magister | Dec 13 2014 17:49 utc | 87

@78
Petras is instructive …

Merkel glosses over the crucial fact that the East Germans were never consulted or allowed to hold a free election to decide what kind of relation they would like with the West German regime. They were never asked under what terms and in what time frame “reunification” would take place. The West German regime seized control and dictated economic and social policies that destroyed their eastern neighbors’ economy by fiat. Hundreds of thousands of East German factory-workers faced brutal arbitrary firings as the capitalist ‘West’ shut closed state factories. East German farmers looked on helplessly as their prosperous, stable co-operatives were dissolved on the orders of West German officials. Where was the democracy in this policy of brutal annexation and political viciousness that slashed the former ‘East’ Germans living standards, multiplied unemployment ten-fold, greatly prejudiced the welfare benefits and employment of female workers and devastated pensioners.?

… and so is Helmut Kohl …

“In the end, representative democracy can only be successful if someone stands up and says: this is how it is. …”

… and now Merkel has said this is how it is.

Posted by: jfl | Dec 13 2014 18:16 utc | 89

@56/57 rufus.. thanks for checking that out.. yes – bruce cockburn – great song. thanks for the other links as well which i will have to find time to check out!!
@68 demian. thanks.. i wasn’t sure if you had. i think putin is smart enough to understand it all, but the leadership in russia is undecided of how to break this special back door into controlling russia’s monetary system without unleashing something more severe.. as i see it russia is between a rock and a hard place.. all of these bric countries know how this financial octopus has it’s tentacles in everything and wants to devour everything it touches.. they must be working at setting up an alternative system. i don’t know what it means for china specifically as they will be next in line for the colour revolutions and out and out war from the same financial powers that are aiming for russia right now.
@69 jfl – first sentence of yours is exactly how i see it too. and with your first paragraph too by and large..
where we might have a different viewpoint is with the concept of a ‘central bank’.. these central banks seem to be guided by the same anonymous financial oligrachs who have their tentacles into most everything.. i realize it sounds bizarre to say this – but it is how i see it.. some folks think the federal reserve is beholden to the us gov’t for example. they are sorely mistaken and it is the same for the russian central bank too, or canada’s for that matter. the big difference though is at this point most countries are willing to play along and let their countries be exploited in this arrangement.. russia isn’t, or only in so far as they don’t lose their independence.. americans and canucks don’t seem to care – corporations – come on in and rape us – seems to be the viewpoint.
@74 somebody.. stock market=casino.. yes – and guess who the house is? it isn’t the little people who are happy to go along for the ride until the music stops..

Posted by: james | Dec 13 2014 20:14 utc | 91

Ukrainian militias killed tens of thousands of Jews when Hitler invaded in 1941. But current Zionist oligarchs do not seem to care.

Posted by: Andoheb | Dec 13 2014 21:02 utc | 93

jas @ 91
My pleasure, I’m always on the lookout for fresh new sounds.
Sometimes simplicity combined with quiet, contemplative rage, like this take on “If I had a Rocketlauncher,” is the best approach.
On the casino stock market, I can’t help but think of “Casablanca” — “I’m shocked, shocked to find gambling!” as the Capt. pockets the cash. My favorite bit “Have you taken leave of your senses, Rick?” “Yes I have Frenchie, sit down over there.”
demian @ 66
Not so much the Cranberries whole catalog, just that song “Zombie” has the same sort of heavy sound and vocal, it seemed to me. It’s a great, popular and versatile sound. Dublin roots of both made me think of it.
I can see Floyd, JD, & MBV sharing a certain dark, heavy sound. As far as spitting in god’s eye, weren’t Clapton, Eno, and Hendrix called by some of their fans deities? Probably a few others, too. But they really don’t come darker than Joy Division, from the name on down the line.
I find the narrow range in pop music intriguing, seems of a piece with your interest in orthodoxy, both hegelian and christian. I try to keep an open mind and current, so my taste is pretty catholic.
I’ve been jamming with Vance Joy’s Riptide and AWOLNATION’s Sail on the local alt-rock station when they come on, they take different approaches, you’ll see. Another recent fave, within the last few weeks, is sort of between the two – Walk the Moon Shut Up and Dance. A really uplifitng video, for all you hard-bitten types, thanks to redemptive power of power pop love.
I have the local jazz/classical and old school r-n-b station on the presets in the car as well. I have some issue with jazz purists, I’m just a sucker for the vibraphone. I’m just a rootless cosmopolitan, at heart.

Posted by: rufus magister | Dec 13 2014 22:02 utc | 95

As long as we’re recommending music –
I’m generally suspect of straight-forwardly “political” bands but I love bands that are just sort of innately political in what they do and in their spirit (if that makes any sense). The MC5 were sort of both.
The MC5 is a great 1960s band from Detroit with an interesting political history too. Seen as sort of proto-punks for their loud, fast, blues-and-soul influenced garage rock they’re notorious for their most famous lyric: “Kick out the Jams, Motherfuckers!”.
They were active like right at the peak of the counter-culture, in 1968. And it is important to recall that the counter-culture didn’t always mean hippy dippy flower-child bullshit (not that there’s anything wrong with that). These were some extremely hard edged people out there – people ready and willing to take on the cops and establishment. And they were seen as such: surveilled and followed and watched by the FBI.
They were one of the few bands who went through with playing in Chicago’s Grant Park (the link is actual FBI footage of them playing! Cops too stupid to record the best part though… the sound!) during the 1968 Democratic National Convention (notorious, for those outside of the US, for the Chicago Police rioting on demonstrators and even normal citizens who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time). Norman Mailer apparently witnessed them play in the park that day, because they’re briefly described (though not by name) in his first-person journalism novel Miami and the Siege of Chicago.
You have to recall that Detroit was one of the most radicalized cities of 1960s/70s America – Detroit experienced a huge Black Rebellion in 1967. It was a center of the Black Panther Party. In this scene, the MC5 emerged as the loud, fast, blues-and-soul influenced garage rock they’re notorious for their most famous lyric: “Kick out the Jams, Motherfuckers!”.
They were active like right at the peak of the counter-culture, in 1968. And it is important to recall that the counter-culture didn’t always mean hippy dippy California bullshit. These were some extremely hard edged people out there – people ready and willing to take on the cops and establishment. And they were seen as such: surveilled and followed and watched by the FBI.
They were one of the few bands who went through with playing in Chicago’s Grant Park (the link is actual FBI footage of them playing! Cops too stupid to record the best part though… the sound!) during the 1968 Democratic National Convention (notorious, for those outside of the US, for the Chicago Police rioting on demonstrators and even normal citizens who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time). Norman Mailer apparently witnessed them play in the park that day, because they’re briefly described (though not by name) in his first-person journalism novel Miami and the Siege of Chicago.
You have to recall that Detroit was one of the most radicalized cities of 1960s/70s America – Detroit experienced a huge Black Rebellion in 1967. It was a center of the Black Panther Party. In this scene, the MC5 emerged as the wild house band for the “White Panther Party”, a group of white radicals in Detroit that were on the scene for the “Flint War Council” that spawned nearly decade-long the bombing campaign of the Weather Underground.
Here is a decent mini-docu on them (5 min).
The lead guitarist, Wayne Kramer, who eventually went to prison for drug-trafficking – today still makes music but also runs a great organization called Jail Guitar Doors which provides guitars and music training for some of the millions of Americans caught in the massive US penal system.”>wild house band for the “White Panther Party”, a group of white radicals in Detroit that were on the scene for the “Flint War Council” that spawned nearly decade-long the bombing campaign of the Weather Underground.
Here is a decent mini-docu on them (5 min).
The lead guitarist, Wayne Kramer, who eventually went to prison for drug-trafficking – today still makes music but also runs a great organization called Jail Guitar Doors which provides guitars and music training for some of the millions of Americans caught in the massive US penal system.

Posted by: guest77 | Dec 13 2014 23:20 utc | 97

@92
The US ‘central bank’ is in fact de jure owned by the private banks it ‘regulates’. As is de facto the entire US government.
I think that the Russian central bank has an ‘agreement’… as does any central bank in any country that has ever borrowed from and owes money to the IMF … with the IMF and that the Russian central bank is IMF-run. In the case of Russia I think the agreement was signed 1998-9 under Boris Yeltsin when he was the government of Russia. And that that is the problem.
You could look it up. The IMF has a title, Central Bank Reforms in the Baltics, Russia, and the Other Countries of the Former Soviet Union, only US$ 18 for all vi+62 pages.
Not for me. I have found How Russia May Create a More Viable Financial and Fiscal System at Michael Hudson’s site and I think i’ll give that a peep.

Posted by: jfl | Dec 13 2014 23:49 utc | 99