Thursday, December 30, 2010
The Empire NEEDS It's Entertainment! Hollywood & The War Machine (The Symbiotic Relationship Between Hollywood And The Military-Industrial Complex)
War is hell, but for Hollywood it has been a Godsend, providing the perfect dramatic setting against which courageous heroes win the hearts and minds of the movie going public.
The Pentagon recognises the power of these celluloid dreams and encourages Hollywood to create heroic myths; to rewrite history to suit its own strategy and as a recruiting tool to provide a steady flow of willing young patriots for its wars.
What does Hollywood get out of this 'deal with the devil'? Access to billions of dollars worth of military kit, from helicopters to aircraft carriers, enabling filmmakers to make bigger and more spectacular battle scenes, which in turn generate more box office revenue. Providing they accept the Pentagon's advice, even toe the party line and show the US military in a positive light.
So is it a case of art imitating life, or a sinister force using art to influence life and death - and the public perception of both?
[This video is 47 minutes long... Pop Out Player?]
[Source, al Jazeera]
You DID Get Fooled Again (Obama's foreign policy could have been John McCain's. What are ya gonna do about it sucka? )
Brought to you by PeaceRally.org
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Tuesday, December 28, 2010
I See! It's Only A Crime When North Korea Does It - FORCED RELOCATION Of Jeju Island South Korea Residents Underway To Build U.S. Navy Base
Historical Note: (2007) It was 'not a crime' however, when the U.S 'looked the other way' as North Korea blatantly violated the U.N. ban on weapons transfers, by overtly yet silently allowing the sea shipment of Russian tanks, parts, and other logistics to Ethiopia...
Because those tanks were intended to be used in America's proxy war on Somalia.
"The United States allowed the arms delivery to go through in January in part because Ethiopia was in the midst of a military offensive against Islamic militias inside Somalia... [IHT via NY Times]
The South Koreans were Enraged.
United States Stands By Silently As North Korea Arms Ethiopians For Somali War
JoongAng Daily
EDITORIAL, April 13, 2007 (JoongAng): It is beyond our understanding why the United States has ignored a United Nations resolution and so given tacit consent to the export of weapons by North Korea.
It is simply astonishing that the United States has seen fit to neglect such an agreement reached by the international community. It is also an absurdity that the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, which the United States has pointed to as a basis for demanding the abolishment of North Korea's nuclear weapons, can be so easily flouted.
Pursuant to the U.N. resolution, the United States should have stopped Ethiopia from importing weapons from the North. But since the weapons would be used to fight Islamic terrorists in Somalia, Washington tacitly approved the imports.
[More images... Korean language source]
More:UPDATE: Thirty-four citizens arrested trying to block 66 cement trucks from dumping their concrete on the rocky coast.
MAKE A CALL: If you'd like to help please call the South Korean embassy in Washington DC and tell them to stop building the Navy base and to quit arresting the villagers.
The phone is 202-939-5600
MONDAY, DECEMBER 27, 2010
RESISTANCE BEGINS ON JEJU ISLAND
MONDAY, DECEMBER 27, 2010
NAVY MAKES MOVE TODAY ON JEJU ISLAND
Korean coverage... Some English, many pictures: "No base stories of Korea", [Jeju Update] 34 people arrested but released except for Prof. Yang/ Island Assembly and Parties denounce Island government and navy
Saturday, December 25, 2010
"Sorry... Two Words" (That Describe How Corrupt A Local Government Official Can Be) - Santa Cruz California Edition
A forwarded document from a friend of mine (click for more on this subject) regarding a local Presbyterian church (hereafter known as "The Red Church") that feeds the local homeless and droves of displaced workers every Monday evening.Apparently SOME PEOPLE in the city government are upset that the pastor of the church did not respond as expected when asked to discontinue the meal citing alleged 'behavioral problems' and 'noise issues' "requiring" police and emergency service calls arising from the serving of a meal for 100 plus mostly homeless youths, over a period of TWO hours, weekly.
This is what happened... Cynthia Matthews, FORMER city council person, wrote a letter to the archdiocese of the Presbyterian church requesting their assistance in forcing Reverend Joel Miller of the Calvary Presbyterian Church to end the meal.
The Reverend Joel P. Miller was called on the carpet by the archdiocese in their equivalent of a Grand Jury and 'convicted'. He IS appealing and the potential for punitive action, including his removal as pastor of the Red Church remains a distinct possibility.
What follows is the document received under the FOIA, penned by Matthews, essentially (at least inferentially) requesting punitive action be taken against Reverend Joel P. Miller of the Calvary Presbyterian Church, Santa Cruz California 95060.
For perspective... Matthew' whine that the Santa Cruz Police Department answered one hundred plus calls in one year from the site of the meal (mostly from affluent unappreciative-of-the-impoverished neighbors), pales in comparison to the three hundred plus assistance calls received in the same year from an organic food supermarket just a block away.
There IS NO hue and cry from the Santa Cruz City Council for New Leaf Market to stop peddling THEIR wares.
SC Supervisor Cynthia Matthew's Letter To The Presbyterian Archdiocese by Auntie Imperial
It would behoove one to note that this is occurring in a town that legislates and creates, in conspiracy with development and property interests, housing and jobs for affluent transients... University students and office workers from elsewhere in the country, who can afford the outlandish rental prices (the office workers come from elsewhere in the US and are far enough away from home that they can write off the often $2,000+ rents as a 'business expense') and have little or no interest in long term planning for the socio-economic health of the city and it's permanent population, but has absolutely locked their own workers AND CHILDREN out of decent affordable housing and jobs that would pay enough to afford the housing... by city policy.
There MUST BE a violation of the State City Charter in there somewhere...
Another example of the city's intent to gentrify the city of Santa Cruz at all social cost... After the suspicious forced closure of the local veterans hall (The vets sued and won... Stand by for a resolution. More from a SC Sentinel Search)
The city also conveniently forgot to assist in the relocation of the annual Thanksgiving and Christmas meals that were staged at the Vets Hall yearly, for the benefit of local senior citizens, the homeless... travelers stranded over the holidays, and anyone else wishing to attend a community meal and consort with other folks who make up Santa Cruz society.
The city of Santa Cruz, when pressured by a large number of citizens, hurriedly allowed the use of the Civic Auditorium for Thanksgiving, but for Christmas... The feast will be served at the INSTITUTIONALIZED homeless 'shelter' (quotes intentional) at the edge of town, near the highway, where the city of Santa Cruz SURELY wishes the less-than-affluent, AKA EX-Workers, of Santa Cruz, would take the hint... pull out the cardboard and marker, make a sign saying "Somewhere Humane Please" and leave the area.
There's one word to describe people like Cynthia Matthews and her merchant/property owner pandering cronies on the Santa Cruz city council...
Corrupt Scum.
Sorry... Two words.
Friday, December 24, 2010
In America, A Christian Nation Addicted To "Stuff", The Question Remains... What Would Jesus Buy?
From the humble beginnings of preaching at his portable pulpit on New York City subways, to having a congregation of thousands – Bill Talen (aka Rev. Billy) has become the leader of not just a church, but a national movement.
This movie is an examination of the commercialization of Christmas in America while following Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir on a cross-country mission to save Christmas from the Shopocalypse (the end of humankind from consumerism, over-consumption and the fires of eternal debt.)
The film also delves into issues such as the role sweatshops play in America’s mass consumerism and Big-Box Culture.Watch in amazement as a group of pre-teen girls call a Big Box store's consumer 800 number and attempt to ascertain WHERE their clothes come from... and the operator's remarkable response.
(the operator hangs up on these perfectly polite children).
See the woman who has a walk-in closet full of designer clothes, for her dog!
See the Reverend attempt to exorcise the devil out of a WalMart checkout stand and witness the parking lot baptism of a small child who has yet to discern the manifold evils of consumerism.
[This Movie Is 1h 31m Long... Pop Out Player?]
Billy and friends protest outside AIG Bank over
Mountaintop Removal Mining in West Virginia
Visit Reverend Billy's Life After Shopping Church
Film Source, Google
DVD Quality Torrent (4.15 gigabytes)
AVI Torrent (716 megabytes)
Thursday, December 9, 2010
"Who's The Terrorist?" Rapping About Life In Occupied Palestine (English subtitles)
A Rap about life in Occupied Palestine... Only CHRISTIAN-CULTURED ZIONISTS (including christian-cultured-zionist Jews) would prefer it this way.
It must be confusing for the Palestinians and Arabs... The occupiers LOOK like Jews... attend the rituals, use the trappings, BUT CULTURALLY AND SOCIOLOGICALLY their actions and motives are those of invading Christian Crusaders.
[Pop Out Player]
"The Book" on this topic:"If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with all others justly, if you do not oppress the alien, the fatherless, the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place... then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your forefathers for ever and ever." -Jeremiah 7:5-7The BIG guy said:"...then, (as in 'after ALL THOSE OTHER conditions are met like that little bit about the 'shedding of innocent blood') I will let you live in this place..."LIVE IN IT... NOT OWN IT.
Zionsm is a cancer in the lifeblood of Jewish culture, ready to destroy the Jewish tradition (and the lives of millions of Palestinians... "Not worth a Jewish fingernail" to SOME) at the drop of a yarmulke.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
It's ON! Fetch My Trusty Steed! - Hackers take down site of bank that froze WikiLeaks funds and others
"The more the dinosaurs thrash around, the faster they sink themselves into the quicksand.
This is Armageddon in the networks vs. hierarchies war, and we’ll have their bleeding heads on our battlements." (Source...)
...and it was so: "Hackers take down site of bank that froze WikiLeaks funds"
More here:
The forces of Anonymous have taken aim at several companies who are refusing to do business with WikiLeaks. 4chan's hordes have launched distributed denial-of-service attacks against PayPal, Swiss bank PostFinance, and other sites that have hindered the whistleblowing site's operations.
A self-styled spokesman for the group calling himself "Coldblood" has said that any website that's "bowing down to government pressure" is a target. PayPal ceased processing donations to the site, and PostFinance froze WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's account.
The attacks are being performed under the Operation: Payback banner; Operation: Payback is the name the group is using in its long-running attacks on the RIAA, MPAA, and other organizations involved with anti-piracy lawsuits... [Continued]
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
The TSA's Panic Searches & PETN: Quite Simply There Are More Ways To Blow Things Up Than You Could Ever Possibly Prevent
Quite simply there are more ways to blow things up than you could ever possibly prevent.Just in case anyone was wondering what the TSA's panic mode search procedures are all about...
Your government doesn't want you to know that.
Further, there only seem to be two solutions to the dilemma of non-state actor terrorism.
A: Learn to live in a totalitarian police state.
B: Do something (anything!) to ameliorate the reasons WHY someone from that region of (or anyplace in) the world would want to blow up airliners with civilians on board or commit other terror acts.
I fear most Americans will opt-in to the do-nothing method... "A", than sacrifice an inch, a second, of affluent lifestyle...
...a lifestyle BTW that could not possibly last very long under a totalitarian regime and an economy necessary to prevent terror attacks.
Your government doesn't want you to be aware of that last little detail either.
Something ELSE their friends in the Homeland-Security-Industrial Complex don't want you to be aware of...
The scanner companies have DRAMATICALLY increased their spending on convincing your elected representatives that THEIR vision of a police state is a safer state:
"As the national debate over airport screening practices intensifies, little attention has been paid to the increasing lobbying power the manufacturers of full-body scanning machines have in Washington.
USA Today reports L3 Communications has spent $4.3 million on lobbying, up from $2.1 million in 2005. L3 has sold nearly $40 million worth of machines to the federal government. Lobbyists for L3 have included Linda Daschle, the wife of former US Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle.
Meanwhile, Rapiscan Systems has spent more than $270,000 on lobbying so far this year, compared with $80,000 five years earlier. The company made headlines last year when it hired former US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who has become a prominent proponent of body scanners. The CEO of Rapiscan's parent company, Deepak Chopra, recently traveled with President Obama on his three-day trip to India."
(And, no, not that Deepak Chopra. The New Age guru would determine your terrorist potential by evaluating your aura, no machines or strip-searches necessary.) [Source]
Let me state this ANOTHER way..
From a comment I made to the professor on his post:
JC: Al-Qaeda is about using small numbers of men and low-tech techniques to paralyze a whole civilization...
Auntie Imp: Sort of like the CIA, right?
Because THEY WERE CIA.
Right?
AFAICT, they're doing a GREAT job of supplying our Foreign Policy rationale for Central Asia, "where the Gas Pipes are", and the Middle East, "Where the Oil Wells are" and perhaps should STILL be on the CIA's payroll for doing that yeoman's work if they were ever actually relieved of duty.
(Removing tongue from cheek now)
Looking for PETN, Scanning Grandma at the Airport, and the Future of Air TravelPosted on November 22, 2010 by Juan
In all the furor about the new TSA scanners and pat-downs at airports, what surprises me is that there is very little discussion of what exactly the inspectors are now looking for and why they are shifting tactics.
The old scanners and procedures designed to discover metal (guns, knives, bombs with timers or detonators) are helpless before a relatively low-tech alternative kind of explosive that is favored by al-Qaeda and similar groups.
The inspectors are looking for forms of PETN, or pentaerythritol tetranitrate, which is from the same family of explosives as nitroglycerin and which is used to make plastic explosives such as Semtex.
Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, used PETN, as did Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the crotch bomber, last year this time over Detroit. PETN was in the HP cartridges sent by a Yemeni terrorist in cargo planes recently. And, a suicide bomber put some up his anus and used it in an attempt to assassinate the son of the Saudi minister of the interior (which does counter-terrorism). Yes, he was the first ass bomber, and he missed his target, though he no longer cares about that, what with being dead and all.
The problem with PETN is that it cannot be detected by sniffing dogs or by ordinary scanners. But if you had a pouch of it on your person, the new scanners could see the pouch, and likewise a thorough pat-down would lead to its discovery.
The TSA guys are trying to look more systematically for PETN. That is why they have adopted these more intrusive methods. And, there has been chatter among the terrorist groups abroad about launching attacks on American airliners with this relatively undetectable explosive.
None of us likes the result, which is a significant invasion of privacy.
But if al-Qaeda and its sympathizers could manage to blow up only a few airliners with PETN, they could have a significant negative effect on the economy and could very possibly drive some American airlines into bankruptcy. Al-Qaeda is about using small numbers of men and low-tech techniques to paralyze a whole civilization, which was the point of the September 11 attacks.
Since the Bush administration hyped the ‘war on terror’ trope half to death, many in the American public no longer want to hear about this danger. But it is part of my business in life to deliver the horrific news that the threat is real.
The question is really what level of risk Americans are willing to live with. On the one hand, studies suggest that the crotch bomber could not really have brought down the airliner over Detroit last year, even if he had been able to detonate his payload. And, 500 million Europeans decline to take off their shoes when they travel by air, but there haven’t been any successful shoe bombings over there, nevertheless.
On the other hand... [In full...]
(The comments are well worth reading as well)
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Sunday Sermon: A Word From The Governor Of One Of The Most (governmentally) Crude & Devolved States In America
"(Texas Governor Rick) Perry said that it’s important to “devolve power out of Washington, D.C., back to the states,” which he called the “laboratories of innovation.” ... Perry pointed to the fact that Texas created 850,000 jobs during the last decade." [Source, Washington Post]Auntie's response...
Yeah, if privatized prison jobs and a 'foster care' industry which detains children forcibly, and many times illegally, when snatched from their parents by an archaic court system and then drugs (2/3rds plus) of the state's 'foster care' children using so-called 'medical' personnel, could be considered "Job Creation"
"From 1984-1996 private prisons spread like wildfire across Texas. In 1984 the first private prison opened in Texas, and by 1996 there were 38 private prisons either operating or soon to open in the state."
[Click the map (or here) for a fully interactive version]
Tactical Briefing For A Week of Living Without Dead Time - An Anarchist's Guide To 'Flyposting'
"It's time to highlight the perversity of a system that has brought us to the zero point of systemic collapse."
Courtesy of Adbusters, the journal of the mental environment, who are calling for "Carnivalesque Rebellion" from November 22 until the 28th... "A sudden unexpected moment of truth, a mass reversal of perspective, a global mindshift – from which the corporate/consumerist forces never fully recover."NOV 22–28, 2010
Day 1: The Awakening
Day 2: The Divestment
Day 3+4: The Meme War
Day 5+6: The Plunge
Day 7: We Rest
We have nothing to lose and a whole new world to gain!
For instance...
In 2008, an activist calmly climbed a three meter barbed wire fence and entered a high-security power plant in the UK. S/he sabotaged a turbine which disabled the power plant for four hours. The Guardian estimates that this single act reduced the UK's total climate change emissions by 2% for the day. The activist, who has never been identified, left a protest message before escaping.Your imagination is the limit.
There are dozens of actions that a solitary activist can do during the Carnivalesque Rebellion: passing out flyers, wheatpasting, billboard jamming, paint bombing, hacktivism, spoofing electronic road signs...
Between November 22-28 the whole world will light up with seven days of Carnivalesque Rebellion!
Think of it as an adventure, as therapy, as Buy Nothing Day times a hundred ... think of it as the World Cup of global activism – a week of postering and pranks, of talking back at your profs and speaking truth to power. Some of us will poster our schools and neighborhoods and just break our daily routines for a week. Others will chant, cut up their credit cards in big box stores and pull off theatrical stunts that provoke mass cognitive dissonance. Others still will drop stink bombs in strategic locations and engage in the most visceral kind of civil disobedience.
In all, millions of people around the world will walk out of their schools, offices and factories for a week and live!
To pull this off, we need to learn from the failures of the recent G8/G20 protests.
A few sensational and spectacular acts of violence (police cars on fire, window smashing) will not provoke the kind of global mindshift that our world so desperately needs. And neither will sitting at home yelling at our screens.
If our Seven Days of Carnivalesque Rebellion are to succeed we’ll need a plethora of actions that cannot be dismissed as petty acts of vandalism, that genuinely challenge the power of megacorporations, that make people think about the climate tipping points now descending upon us and that highlight the perversity of a system that has brought us to the zero point of systemic collapse. [Read the first in a series of tactical briefings]
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Pipelineistan Poker: It All Comes Down To The Top Two 'Players' In A Global "Grand Game" - Pepe Escobar, Asia Times
From May 2009, but more apropos now than ever.
May 12, 2009 3:37 pm
Tomgram: Pepe Escobar, Pipelineistan Goes Af-Pak
Back in March, Pepe Escobar, that itchy, edgy global reporter for one of my favorite on-line publications, Asia Times, began laying out the great, ongoing energy struggle across Eurasia, or what he likes to call Pipelinestan for its web of oil and natural gas pipelines. In his first report, he dealt with the embattled energy corridor (and a key pipeline) that runs from the Caspian Sea to Europe through Georgia and Turkey -- and the Great Game of business, diplomacy, and proxy war between Russia and the U.S. that has gone with it. Now, in the second of what will be periodic "postcards" from the energy heartlands of the planet, he plunges eastward into tumultuous Central and South Asia and the great devolving battleground that, in Washington, now goes by the neologism of Af-Pak (for the Afghanistan-Pakistan theater of operations). There, the skies are filled with planes and unmanned aerial drones, and civilians as well as combatants die every day in increasing numbers as ever more frequent attacks and expanding conflicts make daily headlines, while, in Afghanistan, Washington continues to build new military bases and ready itself to send in reinforcements.
Those are, of course, the front-page stories. Energy, especially in the form of oil and natural gas, fuels everything from civilization to its various discontents and means of destruction, and yet it remains largely on the business pages of our papers. Even in a time of relatively depressed oil and gas prices, energy runs like an undercurrent just beneath global headlines. Under the carnage of war, that is, courses what Escobar likes to call the Liquid War, and just how the energy flows and through which territories controlled by whom does turn out to make -- quite literally -- a world of difference, even if that isn't what captures our attention most of the time.
Today, let Escobar, whose latest book is Obama Does Globalistan, take you deep into the "New Great Game" that will determine the shape of our future planet. Tom
Blue Gold, Turkmen Bashes, and Asian Grids
Pipelineistan in Conflict
By Pepe Escobar
As Barack Obama heads into his second hundred days in office, let's head for the big picture ourselves, the ultimate global plot line, the tumultuous rush towards a new, polycentric world order. In its first hundred days, the Obama presidency introduced us to a brand new acronym, OCO for Overseas Contingency Operations, formerly known as GWOT (as in Global War on Terror). Use either name, or anything else you want, and what you're really talking about is what's happening on the immense energy battlefield that extends from Iran to the Pacific Ocean. It's there that the Liquid War for the control of Eurasia takes place.
Yep, it all comes down to black gold and "blue gold" (natural gas), hydrocarbon wealth beyond compare, and so it's time to trek back to that ever-flowing wonderland -- Pipelineistan. It's time to dust off the acronyms, especially the SCO or Shanghai Cooperative Organization, the Asian response to NATO, and learn a few new ones like IPI and TAPI. Above all, it's time to check out the most recent moves on the giant chessboard of Eurasia, where Washington wants to be a crucial, if not dominant, player.
We've already seen Pipelineistan wars in Kosovo and Georgia, and we've followed Washington's favorite pipeline, the BTC, which was supposed to tilt the flow of energy westward, sending oil coursing past both Iran and Russia. Things didn't quite turn out that way, but we've got to move on, the New Great Game never stops.
Now, it's time to grasp just what the Asian Energy Security Grid is all about, visit a surreal natural gas republic, and understand why that Grid is so deeply implicated in the Af-Pak war....
In Full @ TomDispatch
Travus T.Hipp @ Cabale News Service also has a few commentaries committed to audio at Archive.org on the topic:
[November 03 2009] Travus T. Hipp Morning News & Commentary: Facing Up To Reality In Central Asia - The West Is Losing The AfPakistan War... And Losing Badly [Here]
[August 04 2005] Travus T. Hipp Morning News & Commentary: A Laymans Guide to the 'Stans: Chapter 1 - 'Themistan' [Here]
[August 01 2005] Travus T. Hipp Morning News & Commentary: The 'Stans: Quietly, we are a very big part of it as Uzbekistan drops out of 'The Great American Alliance' [Here]
[March 24 2005] Travus T. Hipp Morning News & Commentary: The 'Stans & The U.S. Military Presence In Central Asia [Here]
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Christmas Wish List... The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder
"All I need is a Grand Jury in some little town in America, and
things will change very quickly, I promise" ~~Vincent Bugliosi
This video is 9:44 minutes Use The Pop Out Player?
In The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, (Vincent) Bugliosi presents a tight, meticulously researched legal case that puts George W. Bush on trial in an American courtroom for the murder of nearly 4,000 American soldiers fighting the war in Iraq. Bugliosi sets forth the legal architecture and incontrovertible evidence that President Bush took this nation to war in Iraq under false pretenses—a war that has not only caused the deaths of American soldiers but also over 100,000 innocent Iraqi men, women, and children; cost the United States over one trillion dollars thus far with no end in sight; and alienated many American allies in the Western world.
As a prosecutor who is dedicated to seeking justice, Bugliosi, in his inimitable style, delivers a non-partisan argument, free from party lines and instead based upon hard facts and pure objectivity.
A searing indictment of the President and his administration, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder also outlines a legally credible pathway to holding our highest government officials accountable for their actions, thereby creating a framework for future occupants of the oval office.
Vincent Bugliosi calls for the United States of America to return to the great nation it once was and can be again. He believes the first step to achieving this goal is to bring those responsible for the war in Iraq to justice.... [More]
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
How-To Guide: Hoodwinking Voters, Part One - The Disinformation Age
This pre-2008 election article reposted by permission of Razer Raygun, Razed By Wolves
"The League of Women Voters is withdrawing sponsorship of the presidential debates...because the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter.
It has become clear to us that the candidates' organizations aim to add debates to their list of campaign-trail charades devoid of substance, spontaneity and answers to tough questions.
The League has no intention of becoming an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American public." ~~October 2, 1988, LWV trustees statement, issued by unanimous vote.
The Disinformation Age - Part I
By Carlton Meyer
Sep/12/2008
A common computer adage is “garbage-in, garbage-out”; i.e. putting bad data in a computer produces bad information. This same rule applies to humans. It doesn’t matter if people are educated, intelligent, and logical. They will make bad choices if fed bad information. This happens frequently in American elections because voters are misled by a continual flow of disinformation. Ask any American which country provides the world’s best health care. Very few can provide an informed guess, yet most will exclaim that the United States has the best health care system. This is far from the truth, yet years of corporate advertising, corporate sponsored news programs, and speeches from corporate sponsored politicians have spread this disinformation. Even educated elderly people will parrot the line that socialized medicine doesn’t work, although they eagerly use the government’s Medicare program.
A frequent example occurs when seemingly intelligent Americans state that the media is "left-wing," as though CBS and CNN are run by hippies living in a flophouse.
The American media is owned and controlled by billionaires, who have many other corporate interests. They have little concern for working Americans. This should be obvious, yet these billionaires hire television and radio commentators to complain the media is "left-wing." It is in their interest to keep viewers ignorant and distracted by threats, like terrorists and liberals. American writer H. L. Mencken recognized this decades ago when he wrote: "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."[1]
This problem worsened as the American news media no longer attempts to report facts that disturb viewers in order to boost their ratings. Fox News leads the way by hiring young models to deliver happy news or titillating stories about missing children. Walter Cronkite often notes that there are no anchormen anymore, just news readers.
Those attractive faces on television do not write or even edit news stories like he did. They read teleprompter news written by people who are part of network entertainment divisions.
News is designed to entertain Americans, not to inform them...
In Full @ WarandPeace.Ru (Was: Sanders Research, dead link)
Sunday, November 14, 2010
There ARE A Couple Of Things About The Saudi-Sponsored Haj (Pilgrimage to Mecca) That Explain al-Qaeda's Ability To Recruit
In the run-up to the 'Pilgrimage to Mecca' (the Haj), the Saudi Arabian government is worried about an attack on their made-for-Islamic-media 'Religious' Spectacle.Ask any CHRISTIAN Fundamentalist what they'd think about the Crass Commercialization of THEIR religion plus the ability of THEIR government to control a requirement of it, and they'd probably reach for their gun too.
Saudi Arabia on alert for al-Qaida attack on hajj
Saudi does not rule out Qaeda bid during Haj
Here's how the Saudi government has been 'preventing attacks' for quite a few years now:
(and the NeoCons have always wanted to control, claiming OPEC's policies under Saudi control do not adequately suppress price swings, perhaps even secretly 'cheerleading' or covertly supporting enemies of the Saudi government (like 'straw man' Osama bin-Laden) to destabilize the Saudi government and wrest control of OPEC from them via other ME Oil producing countries (ostensibly) friendly to the West)So what do we know about Saudi Arabia?
They're incredibly rich, a nepotistic familial kingdom, a police state with the latest technology that allows them to exert authoritarian control on one of the most basic requirements in Islam, the Pilgrimage to Mecca (click the picture on the left to find out how), have control over a whole lot of oil that the US covets...
...And they're about to buy SIXTY BILLION DOLLARS worth of high tech armaments from the U.S.
Recent U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia have dramatically raised the level of military technology in the region, spurring arms races with other Persian Gulf states and with Israel. Having denied Egypt's request for the sale of Apache helicopters equipped with Longbow radar, the U.S. government has approved the possible sale of this technology to Saudi Arabia. This move opens the way for a further shift in the balance of power and technology in this region.The U.S is even supplying the Saudis with nuclear materials capable of producing Nuclear Weapons
(FAS Search, Saudi Arabia Arms Sales)
(which many Islamic religious leaders, including the religious leaders of Iran consider 'unclean' as these weapons cannot distinguish the 'innocents' from the culpable, as prescribed by their religion's 'laws of war')
The truth is that the Saudis have been trying to get hold of nuclear weapons for decades, with the active help of their business partners, the Bush Family. As the New Yorker reported years ago (this is a link to Globalsecurity.org's coverage, which also notes Pakistani nuclear boogeyman A.Q. Khan's involvement with the U.S. government), the Saudis paid Saddam Hussein at least $5 billion from 1985 to 1990 to support his nuclear weapons program, with the understanding that they would get some of the big bombs for themselves.
Meanwhile, although 'Politics' is considered off-limits during the Haj...
OIC Chief Warns Against Politics During Haj...apparently commercial operations are quite welcome:
MECCA, 8 NOVEMBER, 2010: Secretary-general of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, said the Haj pilgrimage is a time for worship with "no place for politics"
"Meanwhile, telecommunication company, Mobily has launched two new offers for Haj pilgrims who want prepaid mobile service.
When subscribing to a Rihal prepaid line, pilgrims can choose between a Nokia 1280 for SR105 or a Nokia C100 for SR135, which supports the use of two SIM cards. Both offers include a SIM card from Mobily’s Rihal package with SR25 credit.
The offer is available at all Mobily outlets in the holy sites of Mecca and Medina and at every Mobily channel on land, and at seaports and airports." [2010's GONE! A NEW deal for 2011!]
So... Lets summarize what we know about the Saudi regime:
- • Commercialization of the site where a basic Islamic tradition takes place...
- • Control of a basic requirement of the Islamic faith...
- • 'Unclean' views of warfare that violate Islamic law...
Saturday, November 13, 2010
"They're Just Bastards" - A Tribute To Edward Abbey
”Anarchism is not a romantic fable but the hardheaded realization, based on five thousand years of experience, that we cannot entrust the management of our lives to kings, priests, politicians, generals, and county commissioners.” -Edward Abbey, A Voice Crying in the Wilderness 198>
An interview with author and unwilling activist Edward Abbey [Wikipedia]
Phoenix Arizona PBS 1982, on 'progress', politics, the environment, and more.
[This presentation is 23:34 minutes. Pop Out Player?]
Download this video from Indymedia (Windows R-click, AVI, 46.2Mb)
Sources: Interview Part 1, Part 2, Tom Russell
A man named "Edward Abbey" came walkin' up to me
He pulled his 'Seagull' from his mouth said I smell lawyers here
The politician running dogs they crawled away in fear
Yippie doo rahy doo
Yippie doo rahy day
I wish Edward Abbey was walking 'round today
For the more 'Pacific'... Wendell Berry In Defense Of Edward Abbey
Documentary - Edward Abbey: A Voice In The Wilderness
Be like Ed
(Description... Personally uploaded to Archive.org. Download, un-zip, click on the file "inttxt.html")
"We aren't trying to overthrow EVERYTHING... ...but certain specific things.Business POLITICS Poverty, and Oppression." ~~Herbert Marcuse
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Get Up! Stand UP! Friends Of Bradley Manning Are 'Under The Gun'!
Get Up! Stand UP! Friends of Bradley Manning are 'under the gun'.
A number of people who are attempting to assist Bradley Manning in his legal defense are being spooked, illegally searched and stalked by agents of the US government.
Bradley Manning is the American Patriot (Capital 'P') who stands accused of, and is currently incarcerated for, releasing the Wikileaks helicopter gunsight video showing the assassination of an indigenous Iraqi MSM reporter/photographer and other innocent bystanders. One of the aircrew is heard lying to his controller about the presence of an RPG, when it's OBVIOUS from the video that the person, at best, was holding a piece of lumber, if not just a walking stick or broomhandle, and the helicopter's gunner seems quite eager to open fire pressuring his controller for a clearance to engage.
Is this an incident of "Hunting Afghani Civilians", Iraq edition?
Of COURSE it is...
Afterwards, they strafed a civilian vehicle carrying the wounded, and children.
One of the aircrew was heard commenting about the Good Samaritans who attempted to assist the wounded and were also murdered for their effort (along with one of the children I believe): "They shouldn't have brought their kids to a battle", when it is quite obvious to even the casual observer, there WAS NO 'battle'... Just a gun-happy, military-style murder by US military personnel.
The wrong guy's been arrested.
The aircrew should be brought up on court martial charges for simply LYING to their controller.
Yet the Pentagon is refusing (stalling according to this somewhat sympathetic-to-the-pentagon account that also touches on the Afghanistan incidents) to investigate their actions.
The Video (NOT for the squeamish)
For more on the harassment of the people attempting to help this true American Patriot (capital 'P') see
Glenn Greenwald's article in Salon
Saturday, October 30, 2010
'Problem' 'Reaction', 'Solution' - A Musical Propaganda Primer That Explains Why Americans Blindly Support The 'War On Terror'[tm]
"Of course we aren't trying to overthrow EVERYTHING.... but certain specific things. Business POLITICS Poverty And Oppression" ~~Herbert Marcuse
No matter who you vote for, no matter the "party", they'll NEVER mention that they and their "Friend$" ARE the problem.
There was an average of FOUR MILLION DOLLARS spent for every Senate and House seat up for grabs in this election...
Why SHOULD they care what YOU need?
Boeing (for instance) has facilities in all 50 states.
Produced by: NufffRespect @ YouTube
David Icke's explanation how wars are created.
It explains the concept of Problem reaction solution also known as Thesis, synthesis, antithesis developed by philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (albeit he never used the phrase). This concept has been used in many wars including WWII.
Hitler also used this phenomenon to control the minds of the Germans.
Also see this article, "The Rhetoric of Terrorism" by Paul Wolf:
Simplifying the debate, and using dogmatic exhortation, meant that the administration exaggerated the magnitude of the terrorist threat and the "action" necessary to counter that threat. Contrary to the claims of the Reagan administration, international terrorism was neither new nor unprecedented. [150] It was also, in and of itself, not a severe physical threat to American or international security. [151] Yet, because the administration characterized terrorism as so large a problem, the solution required was of similarly large proportions. Specifically, the zero sum game assumed that America needed to totally win -- "or else."
Such exaggeration distracted public attention from other, more pressing foreign policy problems. In a 1987 Roper poll a majority of Americans indicated that terrorism was the number one foreign policy problem faced by the United States. Yet Laqueur, writing about the same time, was persuasive as he emphatically disagreed.Compared with the truly important problems of our time (the potential dangers of modern technologies, global debt, hunger in the Third World, overpopulation, certain new and incurable diseases -- terrorism [is], after all, a sideshow. [152]Exaggerating the physical threat of terrorism itself also obscured the major threat of terrorism, for example, to the democratic functioning of the system. According to scholars like Paul Wilkinson and Walter Laqueur, the greater threat of terrorism is that a conflict begun by terrorism might escalate, both internally and externally. An internal escalation would threaten civil liberties, while an external escalation could lead to war between established states. [153] In both instances, the threat is from the response to terrorism, not from terrorism itself... [In Full]
Saturday, October 23, 2010
The Dispossessed WILL Inherit... "How (not to) to Organize a Community" - Dimitry Orlov
"...You see, upon close examination the English word “community” turns out to be all but meaningless..." [In Full]
"...suppose that our two communities are in an English-speaking country, which is likely to be afflicted with the irrational belief that the free market can solve all problems on its own, even problems with the availability of critical supplies such as oil. Just as one would expect, the invisible hand of the market fails to make itself visible,"How (not to) to Organize a Community
Dimitry Orlov
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Resource Clock Courtesy of Poodwaddle
[Pop out a larger version]
In the midst of all this organizational activity neighbors get a chance to meet, perhaps for the first time, and discover a commonality of interests that leads them to form acquaintances and perhaps even friendships.
As neighbors get to know each other, they start looking out for each other, improving safety and reducing crime.
As the community becomes more tight-knit, it changes in atmosphere and appearance, becoming more fashionable and desirable, attracting better-educated and more prosperous residents while pricing out the undesirable element. News of these vast improvements spreads far and wide, and the community becomes a tourist mecca, complete with food festivals, swank boutiques and pricy bric-Ã -brac shops and restaurants.
The undesirable element is forced to decamp to a less desirable neighborhood nearby. There, it has no choice but to suffer with high levels of crime, but is typically afraid to ask the police for help, having learned from experience that the police are more likely to harass them then to help them, to arrest them for minor offenses and to round them up and deport them if they happen to be illegal immigrants. They also learn to be careful around members of local gangs and drug dealers.
Since official jobs in the neighborhood are scarce, they seek informal, cash-based employment, contributing to an underground economy. Seeking safety in numbers, they self-organize along racial and ethnic lines, and, to promote their common interests, form ethnic mafias that strive to dominate one or more forms of illegal or semi-legal activity.
Growing up in a dangerous, violent environment, their children become tough at a young age, and, those that survive, develop excellent situational awareness that allows them to steer clear of dangerous situations and to know when to resort to violence.
When the fossil fuel-based national economy shuts down due to the increasingly well understood local ramifications of the global phenomenon of Peak Oil, both of these communities are harmed, but to different extents and in different ways.
Other countries may continue to function for another decade or even longer: these are the countries that have enough oil of their own, as well as those that were far-sighted enough to enter into long-term barter agreements with the few remaining oil producers that still have a surplus of oil for export.
But suppose that our two communities are in an English-speaking country, which is likely to be afflicted with the irrational belief that the free market can solve all problems on its own, even problems with the availability of critical supplies such as oil. Just as one would expect, the invisible hand of the market fails to make itself visible, but it is plain to see that fuel is no longer delivered to either of these communities, although in the second one some fuel is likely to still be available on the black market, at prices that very few people can afford.
Sooner or later, due to lack of supplies and maintenance at every level, electricity shuts off, water pumping stations cease to function, sewage backs up making bathrooms unusable, garbage trucks no longer collect the garbage, which piles up, breading rats, flies and cockroaches.
As sanitary conditions deteriorate, diseases such as cholera, dysentery and typhoid reappear and spread. The medical system requires fuel for the ambulances and running water, electricity and oil-based pharmaceuticals and disposable supplies for the hospitals and clinics to operate.
When these are no longer available, the surviving residents are left to care for each other as best they can and, when they fail, to bury their own dead. Along with the other municipal and government services, police departments cease to function. Particularly important installations are guarded by soldiers or by private security, while the population is left to fend for itself.
The effect on the two communities is markedly different... In Full @ ClubOrlov
They Don't Just Lie About Wars You Know... Gulf Slick Spreads In Mississippi River As Coast Guard Declares 'Little Visible'
"MATTHEW HINTON / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE A boat travels through oil that was spotted in West Bay just west of the Southwest Pass of the Mississippi River Friday October 22, 2010." In FullHad Enough?
Friday, October 22, 2010
Every Known Death In The Iraq War Google Mapped From WikiLeaks Data
"We don't do body counts" ~~General Tommy Franks src
Wikileaks Iraq war logs: every death mapped
"The Wikileaks Iraq war logs provide us with a unique picture of every death in Iraq.
These are those events mapped using Google Fusion tables."
When the Hand Cursor points at a red dot, click once for the specifics of that particular death.
Go To The Guardian (UK) For More
Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) responded to the WikiLeaks release on Friday with a statement saying, "We need a true accounting of the war in Iraq. The American people have a right to know how many innocent civilians were killed in a war based on lies."
"We must remember that the Iraqi people are still grieving over the loss of husbands, wives, sons and daughters who were innocent noncombatants," Kucinich stated. "We have a moral responsibility to acknowledge the massive loss to the people of Iraq and the world. ... The suffering of the Iraqi people is unfathomable." source
Welcome to Another (S)edition... We Are The Insurgents! - The Stimulator @ SubMedia-TV
"It's The End Of The World As We Know It (and I Feel Fine)"
Anarchist News For October 4, 2010
Another (S)edition brought to you by The Stimulator & SubMedia-TV
[Run Time: 15 Minutes, Pop Out Player]
Go To SubMedia-TV for links to articles and other sources used in the program segments. Video and audio downloads of this program are also available.
Labels:
Agitprop,
Alternative News,
Anarchism,
Anarchist,
Anarchy,
Anti-Imperialism,
Class War,
SubMedia,
Subversion,
The Stimulator,
Video
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Houseless: An Audio Collage... Media & Music - Skidmark Bob, Pop dEFECT Radio
Skidmark Bob from PoP dEFECT RADIO, Free Radio Santa Cruz, with an audio collage of media & music on the current economic crisis, mortgage and job loss The housing bubble as explained by comedian Lewis Black also various media & news stories of people made houseless by foreclosures. Unreported World program on Boston and California Homeless and Al Jazeera English Witness program on Las Vegas homeless living in the sewers.Note: This mix is ONE HOUR LONG!
Pop Out Player? Click Here
Produced mixed and edited by Skidmark Bob live on Free Radio Santa Cruz 101fm http://www.freakradio.org/ Tuesdays 2pm Music by Ben Harper, Bruce Springsteen & Tom Morello, Otis Taylor, John Mellencamp, Unkle, Eric Clapton, Bruce Hornsby.
Visit Santa Cruz IndyMedia.
Lookit ALL Those "Injuns"! - The Comanche and the Taliban... What The Indian Wars Tell Us About The Taliban, Stephen M. Walt
"...it is a sobering fact to realize that despite its clear interest in victory and its clear advantages in numbers, wealth, and technology, it took the United States nearly four decades to finally defeat the Comanche. If you are seeking a similarly decisive victory in Central Asia, therefore, you'd better be prepared to stay there in strength for a long, long time."(Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University and co-wrote The Israel lobby and U.S. foreign policy (2007) with John J. Mearsheimer)
(The Comanche courtesy of Wikipedia)
The Comanche and the TalibanBy Stephen M. Walt
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
One of the most enjoyable books I've read in the past year was S. C. Gwynne's Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches. It's a terrific, gripping story, and I learned a great deal about aspects of U.S. history of which I was only partly aware.
In brief, the book tells the story of the U.S. effort to subdue the Comanche, the most powerful Native American tribe on the Great Plains. It was a bloody and fascinating struggle, in part because the Comanche proved so hard for the far more numerous and technologically superior Anglos to defeat. If you grew up with a John Ford/John Wayne/Randolph Scott view of the Old West, this book will be something of a revelation. And the saga of Quanah Parker himself, a Comanche war chief whose mother was a white woman kidnapped in 1836 at the age of nine, and "rescued" many years later (when her son Quanah was twelve years old), is itself a heart-rending tale of cultural conflict and personal tragedy.
As much as I enjoyed the book, I couldn't help but read it with the current war in Afghanistan in mind. In both cases, a numerically superior, wealthier, and more technologically advanced United States confronts a tribal adversary fighting on its home ground. And in both cases, the U.S. government faces an adversary that is cunning, ruthless, and by our standards even backward or barbaric.But as my late colleague Ernest May used to warn, when you make a historical analogy, it is a good idea to make a list of the ways the two situations differ, instead of just invoking the similarities.
So lest you think that the ultimate victory of the U.S. government over the Comanche heralds a similar victory over the Taliban, consider the following differences between the two situations...
Friday, October 15, 2010
No More Happy Motoring - There Is No "Plan B", North America "remains highly vulnerable to a liquid fuel emergency disruption"
To meet climbing global requirements, OPEC will have to increase its output from 30 MBD to at least 50 MBD. Significantly, no OPEC nation, except perhaps Saudi Arabia, is investing sufficient sums in new technologies and recovery methods to achieve such growth. Some, like Venezuela and Russia, are actually exhausting their fields to cash in on the bonanza created by rapidly rising oil prices. (p. 26)
A severe energy crunch is inevitable without a massive expansion of production and refining capacity. While it is difficult to predict precisely what economic, political, and strategic effects such a shortfall might produce, it surely would reduce the prospects for growth in both the developing and developed worlds. (p. 28)
Well, the amounts needed from OPEC are quite, shall we say, 'ambitious,' as they amount to an additional two Saudia Arabias coming on line in order to make up the shortfall. A massive crunch is not otherwise avoidable.Future Chaos: There Is No "Plan B"
Let's be honest; there are no more Saudia Arabias to be found...
by Chris Martenson
Fri, 15 Oct 2010
Note: This article builds on my recent report, Prediction: Things Will Unravel Faster Than You Think. It explores the coming energy crunch in more detail by looking at existing government planning and awareness, and the implications of what international recognition of Peak Oil as early as 2012 might mean.
The hard news is that there is no "Plan B." The future is likely to be more chaotic than you probably think. This was the primary conclusion that I came to after attending the most recent Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas (ASPO) in Washington, DC in October, 2010.The impact of Peak Oil on markets, lifestyles, and even national solvency deserves our very highest attention - but, it turns out, some important players seem to be paying no attention at all.
ASPO conferences tend to start early, end late, and be packed with more data and information than should be consumed in one sitting.
Despite all this, I was riveted to my seat. This year's usual constellation of excellent region-by-region analyses confirmed what past participants already knew: Peak Conventional Oil arrived a few years ago, and new fields, enhanced recovery techniques, and unconventional oil plays are barely going to keep up with demand over the next few years.
But there were two reports that really stood out for me.
The first was given by Rear Admiral Lawrence Rice, who presented the findings of the 2010 Joint Operating Environment (a forward-looking document examining the trends, contexts, and implications for future joint force commanders in the US military), which spends 76 pages summarizing the key trends and threats of the world.
"Energy" occupies six of those pages, and Peak Oil dominates the discussion.
Among the conclusions (on page 29), we find this hidden gem, which uses numbers and timing that are eerily similar to those that I put forth in my April 2009 report, Oil - The Coming Supply Crunch:
By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 MBD. (Source)In Full, At EnergyBulletin.com
Monday, October 11, 2010
Todd Snider - 'Fixing' An Old Woody Guthrie Song... For Columbus Day
[Pop Out Player]
Doesn't it make you just want to sing along?
Freeway through a reservation,
Make way for a brand new nation,
Big ideas, we got brand new plans,
Heaven knows we need this land,
We're gonna build big, high and wide city streets
Through countrysides, chemicals, and pesticides.
This land is our land.
Hey, redman don't waste our time,
We're young and strong, we got hills to climb,
There's a lot of room but we need it all
For slave trade and shopping malls,
Gonna build big factories with paper plates and plastic trees
Styrofoam and antifreeze.
This land is our land... In Full
Saturday, October 9, 2010
The Worthless War Chronicles - Afghanistan, Year Ten
Rethink Afghanistan
Auntie thinks we should all ruminate on what we've achieved in those ten long years.
Corrupt colonial governments?
Yes.
Peace?
No.
Security?
NOT!
Dead soldiers?
Absofuckinglutely!
Lance Cpl. Joshua Bernard is tended to by fellow U.S. Marines in Afghanistan.
Photograph: Julie Jacobson/AP
But the Pentagon and the other monetarily interested parties in America's wars to feed the gaping maw of the Military-Financial-Educational-Industrial Complex want you to just simply play along with their murderous imperial wars like "Good Americans-cum-Germans" and certainly don't want you to think about... REALLY think about, those Absofuckinglutely dead soldiers.
(Here's what Stars and Stripes thinks too!)
They want you to think of...
"Little America In Afghanistan" (click)
[Pre-1942 American Classroom Salutes Flag]
Source, PoP dEFECT Radio, Courtesy of Skidmark Bob Freek Radio Santa Cruz |
The Way It Was, one day after, October 08, 2010:
Seven more fuel tankers have been burned in Pakistan as the country's security service, the ISI, is being accused of supporting the Talib in those attacks... and in Afghanistan the Talib have killed a politician ostensibly associated with the Northern Alliance (CIA affiliated Opium grower's army) and the Peace Commission/truce meeting is still in it's infancy with much secrecy and no word yet.
Juan Cole with more on our FUBAR involvement in the region:
Sen. Carl Levin of the Senate Armed Services Committee announced a report on Thursday on the way the private security contractors hired by the US military (even to guard bases!) are subject to little oversight, are corrupt, and sometimes pass on money or resources to what are essentially Taliban.[Quote Source]
That is, the US may be indirectly hiring the Taliban to hit US bases.
At the same time, the some 3000 Afghans serving in the private CIA army in Afghanistan have been accused of carrying out among the worst attacks in that country. Erica Gaston of the Open Society Institute talks about her own experiences on the ground in this regard.
The Open Society Foundation reports the finding of Open Society Institute social scientists that ordinary Afghans blame US and NATO military actions as much or more than they blame the Taliban for civilian losses.
The tendency to blame the US is visible in Todd Pitman’s excellent piece revisiting Marjah.
Remember Marjah?
This cluster of farm houses in the Taliban poppy-growing region of Helmand Province was supposed to be a demonstration project for Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s counter-insurgency campaign (take, clear, hold and build). All these months later, the US forces have not dislodged the Taliban, and it seems clear that there are places that GIs cannot go without incurring a firefight.
That is, the ‘clear’ phase has hit a Himalayan-sized snage. Much less hold and build. It was on the “success” of the Marjah campaign that the long-delayed attack on the major southern city of Qandahar was to have been modeled. I wouldn’t advise the US to try to attack and occupy Qandahar if they cannot even deal with Marjah.
While it won’t yield results soon, the negotiations of the Karzai government with insurgents are likely to point the way toward the end of the foreign military presence and the establishment of a new, more inclusive government in the medium to long term. [In Full @ Informed Comment]
One Last Thing... from Razer, with Auntie Imperial seconding:
An un-indicted co-conspirator in "Torture under the color of law" dies an early death.
He and his traitorous ilk WILL NOT be mourned.
Scott Caplan, a Portland lawyer who was caught up in a scandal over flying terror suspects to secret prisons, died this week after suffering a heart attack. He was 49.
As reported in The Lake Oswego Review, Caplan was playing tennis Monday at the Lake Oswego Tennis Center when he collapsed from a heart attack. He died on Tuesday morning.
In 2007, WW reported on Caplan’s ties to the CIA’s so-called “extraordinary rendition” program flying terror suspects to countries that practice torture.
Caplan’s law practice in large part consisted of acting as a registered agent for companies. In 2003 he set up Bayard Foreign Marketing LLC, a company whose listed owner—Leonard T. Bayard—had no official history and didn’t appear to exist.
In 2004, days after reporters blew open the story of the CIA’s secret flights, Bayard bought one of the program’s busiest planes from a company in Dedham, Mass., that reporters determined was a CIA front. The tail number of the Gulfstream V executive jet was changed, but it continued to make flights to countries like Egypt and Iraq... [More]
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