http://www.sott.net Signs of the Times, featuring news and commentary on world events. Never wavering in our unending search for the light of truth in a pathocracy driven world! en-us Original content Copyright 2010 by Signs of the Times. For other content, see our Fair Use Policy at www.sott.net Mon, 08 Feb 2010 21:02:42 -0500 http://www.sott.net/images/sottlogo_rss.jpg SOTT.net http://www.sott.net http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202689-Shuafat-Refugee-Camp-raided-by-Israeli-Forces-Today What happens when Israeli Border Police decide to stage a massive raid - looking for "tax delinquents" as well as "illegal West Bank worker" - in Shuafat Refugee Camp (the only Palestinian refugee camp inside the boundaries of what Israel unilaterally defined as the "Greater Jerusalem Municipality" in 1967? The legal residents of the camp have Jerusalem IDs. But, in recent years, Israel has unilaterally decided to exclude it and close it off from Jerusalem by the construction of The Wall around three sides of Shuafat refugee camps - it is now only freely open to the West Bank. And, an awful Israeli military checkpoint has been put at the main entrance into Shuafat Refugee Camp. Now, children needing to get to school in the morning, and adults needing to get to their jobs, all have to pass out of the camp through this prison-like checkpoint. The traffic jam, and the stress, are terrible - every day, day in and day out - imposing great stress on people who are technically residents of Jerusalem but who have become de facto West Bankers... http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202689-Shuafat-Refugee-Camp-raided-by-Israeli-Forces-Today Mon, 08 Feb 2010 20:19:24 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202686-Psychopathic-thinking-How-to-save-the-Obama-presidency-bomb-Iran I do not customarily offer advice to a president whose election I opposed, whose goals I fear and whose policies I work against. But here is a way for Barack Obama to salvage his tottering administration by taking a step that protects the US and its allies. If Obama's personality, identity and celebrity captivated a majority of the American electorate in 2008, those qualities proved ruefully deficient in 2009. He failed to deliver on employment and health care, he failed in foreign policy forays small (e.g., landing the 2016 Olympics) and large (relations with China and Japan). His counterterrorism record barely passes the laugh test. This poor performance has caused an unprecedented collapse in the polls and the loss of three major by-elections, culminating two weeks ago in an astonishing senatorial defeat in Massachusetts. Obama's attempts to "reset" his presidency will likely fail if he focuses on economics, where he is just one of many players. He needs a dramatic gesture to change the public perception of him as a lightweight, bumbling ideologue, preferably in an arena where the stakes are high, where he can take charge and where he can trump expectations. Such an opportunity does exist: Obama can order the US military to destroy Iran's nuclear weapons capacity. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202686-Psychopathic-thinking-How-to-save-the-Obama-presidency-bomb-Iran Mon, 08 Feb 2010 18:59:51 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202679-Just-by-ending-the-damn-wars- "In America you can say anything you want - as long as it doesn't have any effect." - Paul Goodman Progressive activists and writers continually bemoan the fact that the news they generate and the opinions they express are consistently ignored by the mainstream media, and thus kept from the masses of the American people. This disregard of progressive thought is tantamount to a definition of the mainstream media. It doesn't have to be a conspiracy; it's a matter of who owns the mainstream media and the type of journalists they hire - men and women who would like to keep their jobs; so it's more insidious than a conspiracy, it's what's built into the system, it's how the system works. The disregard of the progressive world is of course not total; at times some of that world makes too good copy to ignore, and, on rare occasions, progressive ideas, when they threaten to become very popular, have to be countered. So it was with Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. Here's Barry Gewen an editor at the New York Times Book Review, June 5, 2005 writing of Zinn's book and others like it: http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202679-Just-by-ending-the-damn-wars- Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:41:44 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202677-Conspiracies-of-Rich-Men-to-Commit-War-Crimes-and-Aggression The establishment derides conspiracies and, for awhile, it was fashionable to deny the existence of 'conspiracies'. In fact, conspiracies are how things get done. Very little is accomplished by one person working alone. If what is to be accomplished is illegal, the 'conspiracy' is called a 'crime syndicate' or 'orgnized crime'. If the 'conspiracy' in question is legal, however questionable, it is called a corporation or a business enterprise. Theorists on the high court have said corporations are people! But, should you call five idiots who have thus conspired to subvert the U.S. Constitution by the term 'conspirators', you are likely to be called a nut job! But SCOTUS believes mere words on paper is a real, living breathing person if it happens to have a seal on it supplied to you by the Delaware Secreatary of State! So --I ask you --who is nuts? http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202677-Conspiracies-of-Rich-Men-to-Commit-War-Crimes-and-Aggression Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:19:45 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202665-Dr-Aafia-Siddiqui-Innocent-American-brutalized-by-American-injustice On February 3, a Department of Justice press release headlined "Aafia Siddiqui Found Guilty in Manhattan Federal Court of Attempting to Murder US Nationals in Afghanistan and Six Additional Charges." At her scheduled May 6 sentencing, she "faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison on each of the attempted murder and armed assault charges; life in prison on the firearms charge; and eight years in prison on each of the remaining assault charges. Siddiqui faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 30 years in prison on the firearms charge." http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202665-Dr-Aafia-Siddiqui-Innocent-American-brutalized-by-American-injustice Mon, 08 Feb 2010 13:09:12 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202650-There-is-No-Such-Thing-as-a-Pendulum-in-American-Politics-Be-Alarmed-We-Are-Moving-Rightward- Like many of you, I have witnessed the continual, steady rise of the radical right-wing throughout my life. It has had its bumps along the road, with a few setbacks, but whether it is our tax code, militarism, corporatism, freedom of the press, or civil liberties, the great strides made under the New Deal have been eroded methodically to a point that, frankly, is truly troubling. Someone here, in good spirit, replied to one of my recent posts as "fatalistic". Well, at some point, those of us who have lived through this neo-fascist paradigm shift in our nation's political structure, simply begin to speak from our hearts. We are not frustrated. We are not just another opinion on a blog. We can see the conclusion of where this is heading...and it isn't pretty. None other than Noam Chomsky wrote last week that the teabagging madness is nothing to simply ridicule. Noam, a chief custodian of language and the construct that it holds on us as individuals and in groupthink, is a man not given to hyperbole and yet he left the impression that the growing anger and hatred seeded deep within the right-wing lunacy we see with the teabaggers, which of course is fueled by corporate money and puppeteers, is something ominous and dangerous and not to be taken lightly. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202650-There-is-No-Such-Thing-as-a-Pendulum-in-American-Politics-Be-Alarmed-We-Are-Moving-Rightward- Mon, 08 Feb 2010 08:56:57 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202630-America-on-a-killing-spree The televised broadcast of videotape showing a US marine executing a wounded, unarmed Iraqi at point-blank range inside a Fallujah mosque has provoked outrage throughout the Middle East, while creating a fresh crisis for the American military. The marine has been suspended from his command, as the Pentagon initiates an official investigation into whether the killing constituted a war crime. "We follow the law of armed conflict and hold ourselves to a high standard of accountability," said Lt. Gen. John Sattler, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. Please, general, spare us. This killing was noteworthy only because it happened to be captured on camera by an "embedded" reporter. Similar actions have taken place throughout the siege of Fallujah, where the rules of engagement essentially amounted to "kill anything that moves." http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202630-America-on-a-killing-spree Sun, 07 Feb 2010 19:21:29 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202629-US-to-launch-Fallujah-style-attack-in-Afghanistan As US and British troops prepare to attack the town of Marjah in Afghanistan's Helmand Province, military commanders and the media are openly comparing the operation to the November 2004 siege of Fallujah, one of the bloodiest war crimes of the Iraq war. The operation in central Helmand province, long an area of intense resistance to the US-led occupation, will constitute the largest military offensive since Washington invaded the country in October 2001. At least 15,000 troops are expected to lay siege to the Helmand river valley town, which has 80,000 inhabitants and is said by the US military to be a stronghold of the Taliban. A total of 125,000 people live in the district around Marjah, which is an agricultural center 350 miles west of Kabul. The population has been swelled by Afghans fleeing villages occupied by US Marines last summer, following President Barack Obama's order shortly after he took office to send 21,000 more troops into Afghanistan. US Marines, frustrated and enraged over casualties suffered at the hands of an unseen enemy who is able to attack and then blend back into the local population, will be unleashed against the town in a violent military assault, with predictable results. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202629-US-to-launch-Fallujah-style-attack-in-Afghanistan Sun, 07 Feb 2010 19:17:13 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202627-Psychopath-Alastair-Campbell-Gets-Emotional-For-The-BBC Alastair Campbell - former tabloid trash peddler, bully, psychophant and Tony Blair's 'Director of Communications and Strategy', that is to say, chief spin doctor and liar. Campbell was personally responsible for molding and selling the lies to the public leading up to the Iraq invasion that has, to date, caused the deaths of over 2 million Iraqi citizens. He is also arguably the man who played the central role in the murder of Dr David Kelly. So, have you ever seen a psychopath attempt to appear "distressed"? Have a look. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202627-Psychopath-Alastair-Campbell-Gets-Emotional-For-The-BBC Sun, 07 Feb 2010 18:50:18 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202617-What-motivated-the-9-11-hijackers-See-official-testimony-most-didn-t http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202617-What-motivated-the-9-11-hijackers-See-official-testimony-most-didn-t Sun, 07 Feb 2010 17:54:51 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202615-Legal-Experts-Slam-Targeted-Killings-of-U-S-Citizens New York - Civil liberties advocates and legal authorities struck back Friday at what they describe as the "deliberate targeted killing of U.S. citizens far away from any active hostilities, as long as the executive branch determines unilaterally that they meet a secret definition of who the enemy is." In an admission that took the intelligence community and its critics by surprise, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair acknowledged in a congressional hearing Wednesday that the U.S. may, with executive approval, deliberately target and kill U.S. citizens who are suspected of being involved in terrorism. The American Civil Liberties Union is among those expressing serious concern about the lack of public information about the policy and the potential for abuse of unchecked executive power. Attorney George Brent Mickum, who has defended a number of Guantanamo Bay detainees, told IPS, "I guess my sense is that it's just more fear mongering. They kill somebody and don't need to offer any justification." http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202615-Legal-Experts-Slam-Targeted-Killings-of-U-S-Citizens Sun, 07 Feb 2010 17:27:13 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202614-British-RAF-also-relying-on-drones-in-Afghanistan Freedom of information request reveals unmanned weapons more prominent in RAF strategy British forces are relying increasingly on unmanned drones to attack targets in Afghanistan, mirroring controversial tactics used by the US. New Ministry of Defence figures show the RAF has fired 84 missiles from Reaper drones since they were first deployed there in June 2008, with more than 20 being fired over the past two months. The RAF has not disclosed the number of US-made Reapers deployed in Afghanistan, but say they will double the total over the next two years. Defence chiefs say they have been slow to recognise their potential, both in a surveillance role and as a weapons carrier. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202614-British-RAF-also-relying-on-drones-in-Afghanistan Sun, 07 Feb 2010 16:17:43 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202602-Christmas-Day-Crotch-Bomber-Tied-to-Israel-and-FBI The Christmas Day "terrorist" is the latest in a series of staged incidents meant to make The Clash of Civilizations appear plausible and "the war on terrorism" rational. The storyline does not hold together. Not even a little bit. As usual, the source of this media-fueled fear campaign traces directly to Tel Aviv - with a supporting role by the FBI. How did a young Nigerian Muslim without a passport "slip through" security at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport? Not only did his itinerary feature an illogical travel route, he paid cash for a high-priced last-minute ticket and boarded without checked baggage. How? ICTS International, the security screening company at Schiphol, was founded by former members of Shin Bet, Israel's civil security agency, and Israeli executives in charge of El Al security. ICTS had already proven its expertise in mounting this type of operation. In December 2001, Richard "The Shoe Bomber" Reid "slipped through" ICTS security at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. Huntleigh USA, an ICTS subsidiary, shared responsibility for security at Logan International Airport in Boston where hijackers for two of the four 911 jets "slipped through" airport security. It gets better. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202602-Christmas-Day-Crotch-Bomber-Tied-to-Israel-and-FBI Sun, 07 Feb 2010 11:25:18 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202577-Israeli-Commander-We-Rewrote-the-Rules-of-War-for-Gaza- A high-ranking officer has acknowledged for the first time that the Israeli army went beyond its previous rules of engagement on the protection of civilian lives in order to minimise military casualties during last year's Gaza war, The Independent can reveal. The officer, who served as a commander during Operation Cast Lead, made it clear that he did not regard the longstanding principle of military conduct known as "means and intentions" - whereby a targeted suspect must have a weapon and show signs of intending to use it before being fired upon - as being applicable before calling in fire from drones and helicopters in Gaza last winter. A more junior officer who served at a brigade headquarters during the operation described the new policy - devised in part to avoid the heavy military casualties of the 2006 Lebanon war - as one of "literally zero risk to the soldiers". http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202577-Israeli-Commander-We-Rewrote-the-Rules-of-War-for-Gaza- Sat, 06 Feb 2010 19:56:32 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202529-Exclusive-Middle-East-Monitor-Interview-with-Colonel-Desmond-Travers-Co-Author-of-the-UN-s-Goldstone-Report Meeting , one of the four co-authors of the UN's landmark Goldstone Report, a year after the end of the Israeli invasion of Gaza was a fascinating experience. Sitting together in Dublin, he was clearly a man of strong convictions and he was very passionate about getting justice and accountability for the victims of war crimes. He began by telling me a little bit about his military background and how it set him in good stead to be the lead military expert in the fact-finding mission looking at Israel's 22 day attack upon Gaza during Operation Cast Lead in December 2008-January 2009, in which over 1400 Palestinians were killed. The subsequent report, we now know, concluded that actions amounting to war crimes and potentially crimes against humanity had been committed by both sides in the conflict, but mainly by the Israelis against the civilian Palestinian population. Military background. Born in the West of Ireland in 1941, Colonel Travers has had an extremely diverse and distinguished military career. He applied for a cadetship and joined the army on 23rd January 1961 at a time when, after many years of isolation, Ireland was becoming involved in international affairs primarily through the medium of UN peacekeeping. He began his military service in Cyprus, a period of his life which he recalls fondly, partly because that is when he got married. His vast experience in the Irish military has set him up well for his current involvement with, and understanding of, the Palestine-Israel conflict. He draws parallels between the duties he carried out in Ireland and the peacekeeping duties he later performed elsewhere. After the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1987, which left South Lebanon devastated, Colonel Travers volunteered to travel to the region to take up the position of Military Observer. He and his family moved to Northern Israel, where they lived for two years and which he found to be a wonderful experience. His time there made him very inquisitive about the motivation behind violent attacks - why and how they happen - and this remained a fascination of his throughout his time investigating and observing the situation in Lebanon. It was by no means an uneventful posting and he was hijacked and captured by members of a Palestinian-Lebanese national movement as well as by Israeli forces. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202529-Exclusive-Middle-East-Monitor-Interview-with-Colonel-Desmond-Travers-Co-Author-of-the-UN-s-Goldstone-Report Sat, 06 Feb 2010 01:39:29 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202506-Washington-anticipates-plans-new-9-11-within-six-months The top US intelligence chiefs created a commotion at their annual hearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, on 2 February 2010. Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair first alluded to a cyberwar, implying that it would be triggered by China and would jeopardize the entire world internet infrastructure. He later affirmed rather bluntly that the U.S. intelligence community has authority to target anyone, including American citizens, for assassination anywhere in the world if they present a direct terrorist threat to the United States and to other Americans. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202506-Washington-anticipates-plans-new-9-11-within-six-months Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:45:14 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202484-Dubai-to-Issue-Arrest-Warrant-for-Israeli-PM-if-Mossad-Behind-Hamas-Killing Dubai is to issue an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, if investigators conclude that the Mossad intelligence service was behind the killing of a senior Hamas official in the emirate last month. The threat to detain the Israeli leader came as police in Dubai linked the apparent murder of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a senior member of the Hamas military wing, to the Jewish state for the first time. Dahi Khalfan Tamim, Dubai's police chief, claimed that the dead man was killed using methods known to be employed by Mossad, Israel's foreign intelligence agency. He added that Mr Netanyahu would be held personally responsible if Mossad was identified as the culprit. "Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, will be the first to be wanted for justice as he would have been the one who signed the decision to kill al-Mabhouh in Dubai," Gen Tamim told The National, an English language newspaper in Dubai. "We will issue an arrest warrant against him." http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202484-Dubai-to-Issue-Arrest-Warrant-for-Israeli-PM-if-Mossad-Behind-Hamas-Killing Fri, 05 Feb 2010 11:02:53 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202469-Six-Questions-for-Dr-Michael-Baden-The-Guant-namo-autopsies Dr. Michael Baden, the former chief medical examiner for New York City, was host of the HBO series Autopsy and is the forensic science contributor to Fox News. I furnished Baden copies of the official autopsy reports for the three Guantánamo prisoners who died under mysterious circumstances in 2006, as well as information about secondary autopsies arranged by the families of the deceased. 1. When the U.S. government released its autopsy reports, it redacted the names of the pathologists and observers involved in preparing the report. It suggests that this was done to protect their privacy. Is this a normal practice? Redacting the names of pathologists is not normal in either civilian or military practice. It is necessary to know the pathologists' names to be able to evaluate their qualifications, certifications, and experience. This may also help the family assess whether a second autopsy should be done. Mistakes can be made. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, in a recent decision establishing a right to cross-examine forensic experts, wrote that "A forensic analyst responding to a request from a law enforcement official may feel pressure - or have an incentive - to alter the evidence in a manner favorable to the prosecution." Science must remain independent of politics. It is necessary that names of the pathologists be known to the family for accountability purposes. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202469-Six-Questions-for-Dr-Michael-Baden-The-Guant-namo-autopsies Thu, 04 Feb 2010 22:14:22 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202461-Another-U-S-War-Obama-Threatens-China-and-Iran The possibility of yet another U.S. war became more real last week, when the Obama administration sharply confronted both China and Iran. The first aggressive act was performed by Obama's Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, who "warned" China that it must support serious economic sanctions against Iran (an act of war). Clinton said: "China will be under a lot of pressure to recognize the destabilizing effect that a nuclear-armed Iran would have, from which they receive a significant percentage of their oil supply." The implication here is that China will be cut off from a major energy source if they do not support U.S. foreign policy - this, too, would equal an act of war. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202461-Another-U-S-War-Obama-Threatens-China-and-Iran Thu, 04 Feb 2010 19:44:01 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202445-Haiti-s-Earthquake-Natural-or-Engineered- Human activity can cause destructive harm. Columbia University geophysical hazards research scientist, Christian Klose, studies how, including from mining. In a recent paper, he said: "mining activities disturb the in-situ stress in the upper continental crust and can trigger earthquakes (human-triggered seismicity)." Past examples are numerous: -- from potash and other mining in Germany since the 19th century; -- potash mining in Bulgaria; -- copper mining in Silesia; -- ore mining in Russia; -- coal and other mining in various parts of America, including New York state, Pennsylvania, and Wyoming; and -- coal and other mining in China and throughout the world. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202445-Haiti-s-Earthquake-Natural-or-Engineered- Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:51:37 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202442-Israeli-Hypocrisy-in-Haiti Israeli hypocrisy would be comical, if its consequences weren't so tragic. These days, Israeli media and Israel's powerful friends in the US media have been tomtomming about the noble help and rescue mission Israelis have undertaken in the remote, quake-hit island of Haiti. Doubtless, the catastrophe that has hit Haiti is truly mindboggling and terrifying. The all-round devastation the island has suffered is beyond words. This is perhaps how our world would look like when the End comes. And one hates to make a political point out of this terrible, terrible human tragedy. But you can't help it when you come across the kind of hypocrisy that Israel displays in Haiti. While the people it has locked away in their homes in Gaza and across the Palestinian territories live in most despicable conditions and crave for basics such as food, water, electricity and just about everything else, the magnanimous Israel is sending aid and medical teams to help the luckless people of Haiti. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202442-Israeli-Hypocrisy-in-Haiti Thu, 04 Feb 2010 13:27:55 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202438-Drones-and-Death-The-Israeli-Connection Drones are remote-controlled airborne robots. They come in all shapes and sizes. These unmanned high-tech weapons are remarkably versatile. From thousands of feet in the air some reportedly have heat-detecting and surveillance instrumentation that can distinguish between an automatic weapon that has been recently fired and one that hasn't. Unlike the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Palestine, most US Americans are oblivious to drones. But we'd better wake up. Drones are poised to become tools of domestic surveillance. The Houston police are now secretly experimenting with drones. Col. Kevin Bradley, local Hancock Airbase drone commander, looks forward to having drones used for domestic police work (18 Dec.'09 Syracuse Post-Standard). ACLU please take note. In Upstate New York we're beginning to learn about the Reaper drone in our midst - "piloted" via satellite out of Hancock on the outskirts of Syracuse. Syracuse's Reaper now flies surveillance and assassination missions over Afghanistan. The Pentagon proudly describes the Reaper as a "hunter/ killer." http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202438-Drones-and-Death-The-Israeli-Connection Thu, 04 Feb 2010 12:49:48 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202431-U-S-Empire-Says-It-May-Kill-Americans-Abroad In a striking admission from the Obama Administration's top intelligence officer, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair announced Wednesday that the United States may target its own citizens abroad for death if it believes they are associated with terrorist groups. "We take direct action against terrorists in the intelligence community," Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair told the House Intelligence Committee. He said US counter-terrorism officials may try to kill American citizens embroiled in extremist groups overseas with "specific permission" from higher up. If "we think that direct action will involve killing an American, we get specific permission to do that," Blair said in response to questions from the panel's top Republican, Representative Pete Hoekstra. Blair's comments came after The Washington Post reported that US President Barack Obama had embraced predecessor George W. Bush's policy of authorizing the killing of US citizens involved in terrorist activities overseas. If a United States citizen was determined to have joined a foreign terrorist group, that person could be legally murdered under orders given by President George W. Bush after the 9/11 attacks. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202431-U-S-Empire-Says-It-May-Kill-Americans-Abroad Thu, 04 Feb 2010 11:55:54 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202423-Defense-Contractors-and-International-Development-What-s-Going-on-Here- Last week, it was announced that DynCorp - a major private security firm - had acquired Casals Associates, an international development company. Last year, L-3, the sixth largest defense contractor in the US, bought International Resources Group, which "provides specialized management, policy and training support to U.S. government agencies and international development organizations." Why are defense and security contractors buying into international development this way? And what does it mean for American foreign assistance? 1) Support for the Status Quo Neither DynCorp nor L-3 would have bought development companies if they didn't think there was money to be made. They assume that the US will maintain foreign assistance budgets at a level that will support international development contractors - both Casals and IRG got almost all of their contracts from the US government. They also assume that the US will continue to provide development assistance through partners who implement specific projects, not through, say, bilateral budget support or support local NGOs. They now have a vested interested in making sure that those assumptions remain true. Considering the size and lobbying power of both L-3 and Casals Associates, we can now safely assume that any reform to US foreign assistance won't change the way that assistance is implemented on the ground. USAID's role, or that of the State Department, may change, but the basic system of set funding for specific projects by US firms is unlikely to be affected. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202423-Defense-Contractors-and-International-Development-What-s-Going-on-Here- Thu, 04 Feb 2010 10:37:30 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202422-Zionism-Laid-Bare A Review of Shahid Alam's "Israeli Exceptionalism" The essential point of M. Shahid Alam's book, Israeli Exceptionalism: The Destabilizing Logic of Zionism, comes clear upon opening the book to the inscription in the frontispiece. From the Persian poet and philosopher Rumi, the quote reads, "You have the light, but you have no humanity. Seek humanity, for that is the goal." Alam, professor of economics at Northeastern University in Boston and a CounterPunch contributor, follows this with an explicit statement of his aims in the first paragraph of the preface. Asking and answering the obvious question, "Why is an economist writing a book on the geopolitics of Zionism?" he says that he "could have written a book about the economics of Zionism, the Israeli economy, or the economy of the West Bank and Gaza, but how would any of that have helped me to understand the cold logic and the deep passions that have driven Zionism?" Until recent years, the notion that Zionism was a benign, indeed a humanitarian, political movement designed for the noble purpose of creating a homeland and refuge for the world's stateless, persecuted Jews was a virtually universal assumption. In the last few years, particularly since the start of the al-Aqsa intifada in 2000, as Israel's harsh oppression of the Palestinians has become more widely known, a great many Israelis and friends of Israel have begun to distance themselves from and criticize Israel's occupation policies, but they remain strong Zionists and have been at pains to propound the view that Zionism began well and has only lately been corrupted by the occupation. Alam demonstrates clearly, through voluminous evidence and a carefully argued analysis, that Zionism was never benign, never good - that from the very beginning, it operated according to a "cold logic" and, per Rumi, had "no humanity." Except perhaps for Jews, which is where Israel's and Zionism's exceptionalism comes in. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202422-Zionism-Laid-Bare Thu, 04 Feb 2010 09:47:47 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202416-Congressional-hearing-reveals-US-intelligence-agencies-shielded-Flight-253-bomber A January 27 hearing of the House Committee on Homeland Security established that US intelligence agencies stopped the State Department from revoking the US visa of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. The Nigerian student, whom US officials suspected of being affiliated with the Yemeni terrorist group Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, attempted to set off a bomb on Northwest Flight 253 into Detroit on Christmas Day. Revocation of Abdulmutallab's visa would have prevented him from boarding the airplane. The hearing was reported in a brief article posted January 27 on the web site of the Detroit News, headlined, "Terror Suspect Kept Visa to Avoid Tipping Off Larger Investigation." The revelation that US intelligence agencies made a deliberate decision to allow Abdulmutallab to board the commercial flight, without any special airport screening, has been buried in the media. As of this writing, nearly a week after the hearing, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times have published no articles on the subject. Nor have the broadcast or cable media reported on it. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202416-Congressional-hearing-reveals-US-intelligence-agencies-shielded-Flight-253-bomber Thu, 04 Feb 2010 00:13:00 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202414-False-Flag-Attack-Coming-Intel-chief-Al-Qaeda-likely-to-attempt-attack Washington - Al-Qaeda can be expected to attempt an attack on the United States in the next three to six months, senior U.S. intelligence officials told Congress. The terrorist organization is deploying operatives to the United States to carry out new attacks from inside the country, including "clean" recruits with a negligible trail of terrorist contacts, CIA Director Leon Panetta said. The chilling warning comes as the Christmas airline attack suspect, Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutullab, is cooperating with federal investigators, a federal law enforcement official said Tuesday. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202414-False-Flag-Attack-Coming-Intel-chief-Al-Qaeda-likely-to-attempt-attack Wed, 03 Feb 2010 23:34:32 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202413-Uh-Oh-US-doing-scientific-research-to-boost-interrogations Washington - An elite US interrogation unit will conduct "scientific research" to find better ways of questioning top suspected terrorists, US intelligence director Dennis Blair said Wednesday. "It is going to do scientific research on that long-neglected area," Blair told the House Intelligence Committee, without elaborating on the nature of the techniques being tested. A spokesman for Blair, Ross Feinstein, also declined to detail "specific research projects" but stressed that any such projects would follow US law, which forbids torture, and abide by internal review safeguards. Comment: Business as usual. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202413-Uh-Oh-US-doing-scientific-research-to-boost-interrogations Wed, 03 Feb 2010 23:23:41 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202408-Obama-s-surge-killing-spree-on-both-sides-of-AfPak-border CIA drone missile attacks claimed the lives of 123 civilians last month alone in Pakistan, it was reported this week. Meanwhile, on the other side of the border, US Special Forces have launched an assassination campaign against alleged leaders of Afghanistan's Taliban movement in preparation for an imminent military offensive. These killings are the product of the military "surge" ordered by the Obama administration, which is increasing the US troop deployment in the country by another 30,000. With other NATO countries providing between 5,000 and 10,000 additional soldiers, the occupation force in Afghanistan is set to swell to 150,000 by the fall of this year. In Pakistan, the illegal US campaign of targeted assassinations has been joined with repeated Pakistani military offensives, instigated by Washington, that have claimed thousands of lives and displaced over a million people in the country's northwestern tribal areas. Citing figures compiled by Pakistan's Interior Ministry, the Karachi-based daily the News International reported Monday that "Afghanistan-based US predators carried out a record number of 12 deadly missile strikes in the tribal areas of Pakistan in January 2010, of which 10 went wrong and failed to hit their targets, killing 123 innocent Pakistanis." http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202408-Obama-s-surge-killing-spree-on-both-sides-of-AfPak-border Wed, 03 Feb 2010 21:07:08 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202404-Obama-ups-Pakistan-drone-strikes-in-assassination-campaign News reports said a volley of missile strikes from US drones killed 16 alleged militants in Pakistan on Tuesday. The use of drones to assassinate Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan has soared under President Barack Obama. Boston-Several US unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, fired a volley of missiles at houses in a village in Pakistan's northwest on Tuesday and killed roughly 16 alleged Taliban militants, news agencies reported. Information on civilian casualties, if any, was not immediately available. Agence France-Presse cited an unidentified Pakistani security official as saying that about 18 US missiles were fired at targets in the village of Dattakhel. Earlier news reports put the death toll at about 10. A later report by CNN claimed 29 killed. The attack is just the latest confirmation of the commitment President Barack Obama has made to the assassination campaign inside Pakistan -- a close US ally -- that began under his predecessor, President George W. Bush. The Long War Journal, a blog that focuses its coverage on the war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, has been tracking US drone and other air power attacks in Pakistan for some time. Using open-source information, the blog tallied five US aerial attacks in Pakistan in 2007 and 36 in 2008, most of those in the last half of that year. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202404-Obama-ups-Pakistan-drone-strikes-in-assassination-campaign Wed, 03 Feb 2010 20:06:22 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202401-The-Corporate-Takeover-of-U-S-Democracy Now corporate managers can in effect buy elections directly. The U.S. Supreme Court has just handed much more power to the small sector of the population that dominates the economy. Jan. 21, 2010, will go down as a dark day in the history of U.S. democracy, and its decline. On that day the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the government may not ban corporations from political spending on elections - a decision that profoundly affects government policy, both domestic and international. The decision heralds even further corporate takeover of the U.S. political system. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202401-The-Corporate-Takeover-of-U-S-Democracy Wed, 03 Feb 2010 19:15:33 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202395-Why-is-America-in-so-Many-Wars- America is "a nation that seeks war" and if it doesn't change it could end up destroying itself, a law school dean warns. Given all the wars the United States has waged, "It is preposterous but true that we do not see ourselves as a nation that seeks war," writes Lawrence Velvel, dean of the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover. "We see ourselves as a peace loving nation" and that message is constantly drummed into the public by government and media. Since World War Two, an indisputably necessary conflict, Velvel points out the U.S. has fought the Korean War, the Viet Nam War, secret wars in Laos and Cambodia, the First Gulf War, Afghanistan, and the Second Gulf War in Iraq. It has also invaded, bombed or "quarantined" Panama, Grenada, Cuba, Haiti, Somalia, the Sudan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Serbia and Libya, and has "declared" a global war on terrorists. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202395-Why-is-America-in-so-Many-Wars- Wed, 03 Feb 2010 18:16:58 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202372-Clare-Short-Tony-Blair-lied-and-misled-parliament-in-build-up-to-Iraq-war Clare Short, the former international development secretary, today accused Tony Blair of lying to her and misleading parliament in the build-up to the Iraq invasion. Short, giving evidence to the Chilcot inquiry into the war, also said that the 2003 conflict had put the world in greater danger of international terrorism. Declassified letters between Short and Blair released today show she believed that invading Iraq without a second UN resolution would be illegal and there was a significant risk of a humanitarian catastrophe. She told the inquiry that she had a conversation with Blair in 2002. He told her that he was not planning for war against Iraq and that the evidence has since revealed that he was not telling the truth at that point, she said. She also said she was "stunned" when she read the 337-word legal advice on the war written by the then-attorney general Lord Goldsmith during a cabinet meeting on 17 March 2003, three days before the war began. She was forbidden by Blair from discussing it during the meeting. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202372-Clare-Short-Tony-Blair-lied-and-misled-parliament-in-build-up-to-Iraq-war Wed, 03 Feb 2010 13:37:01 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202371-Blair-s-Iraq-War-Decision-Secretive-Deceptive-Misleading Clare Short, former Cabinet minister for international development in British Prime Minister Tony Blair's cabinet at the time Iraq was invaded in March 2003, testified before the Iraq inquiry today (February 2, 2010). Short confirmed a picture of exclusion and secrecy in official deliberations prior to Britain's decision to launch the invasion of Iraq with the United States and minor allies in what President George W Bush called the 'coalition of the willing'. She was the second member of Tony Blair's Cabinet to resign in May 2003, two months after ex-foreign secretary and then leader of the House of Commons, Robin Cook, walked out on the eve of the invasion. Clare Short said that Blair and 'his mates' decided war was necessary and everything was done on 'a wing and a prayer'. She accused Blair's personal friend and Attorney General Lord Goldsmith of misleading the Cabinet. She said Cabinet was not a 'decision-making body' and called Parliament a 'rubber stamp'. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202371-Blair-s-Iraq-War-Decision-Secretive-Deceptive-Misleading Wed, 03 Feb 2010 13:36:50 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202368-Haskell-The-Truth-About-Flight-253-Has-Been-Revealed Please note that in the article that follows, I am not claiming that the U.S. Government knew Mutallab had a bomb or intended to hurt anyone on Flight 253 when the U.S. Government let him board. THE SHARP DRESSED MAN WHO AIDED MUTALLAB ONTO FLIGHT 253 WAS A U.S. GOVERNMENT AGENT. Since our flight landed on Christmas Day, Lori and I have been doing everything in our power to uncover the truth about why we were almost blown up in the air over Detroit. The truth is now finally out after the publication of this Detroit News article. Let me quote from the article: "Patrick F. Kennedy, an undersecretary for management at the State Department, said Abdulmutallab's visa wasn't taken away because intelligence officials asked his agency not to deny a visa to the suspected terrorist over concerns that a denial would've foiled a larger investigation into al-Qaeda threats against the United States. "Revocation action would've disclosed what they were doing," Kennedy said in testimony before the House Committee on Homeland Security. Allowing Adbulmutallab to keep the visa increased chances federal investigators would be able to get closer to apprehending the terror network he is accused of working with, "rather than simply knocking out one solider in that effort."' Now it all becomes apparent. Let me detail everything we know about the "Sharp Dressed Man" (SDM). http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202368-Haskell-The-Truth-About-Flight-253-Has-Been-Revealed Wed, 03 Feb 2010 13:13:26 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202354-Bush-and-Blair-did-strike-Iraq-deal-says-Welsh-MP A Senior Welsh MP said last night he knew "for certain" Tony Blair and George Bush struck a deal to invade Iraq at their notorious Crawford Ranch meeting in 2002 - a year before war was declared. Elfyn Llwyd, Plaid Cymru's parliamentary leader, said he had seen a confidential memo to that effect, although he would not divulge its exact contents. Critics of the military action in Iraq have long suspected Mr Blair and President Bush came to an agreement at the president's ranch in Crawford, Texas in April 2002, a claim Mr Blair denied in evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry last week. Mr Llwyd said he had offered to give evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry himself, in private if necessary. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202354-Bush-and-Blair-did-strike-Iraq-deal-says-Welsh-MP Wed, 03 Feb 2010 06:47:05 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202344-Dr-Norman-Finkelstein-at-the-University-of-Waterloo A powerful three minute video. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202344-Dr-Norman-Finkelstein-at-the-University-of-Waterloo Tue, 02 Feb 2010 19:44:13 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202340-Obama-seeks-money-for-nuclear-weapons-work Albouquerque - President Barack Obama is seeking increased funding for nuclear weapons research and security programs next year, even as his administration promotes nonproliferation and has pledged to reduce the world's stockpile of nuclear arms. The administration on Monday asked Congress for more than $7 billion for activities related to nuclear weapons in the budget of the National Nuclear Security Administration, an increase of $624 million from the 2010 fiscal year. NNSA Administrator Thomas D'Agostino defended putting more money into the programs, saying the U.S. needs the best nuclear weapons facilities, scientists, technicians and engineers as it moves toward eventual disarmament. "This budget is implementing the president's nuclear vision," he said. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202340-Obama-seeks-money-for-nuclear-weapons-work Tue, 02 Feb 2010 18:45:41 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202311-Nation-of-Psychopaths-Israeli-WMD The tenth anniversary of the crash of El Al flight LY1862 in the Netherlands passed virtually unnoticed by the world's media. On 4 October 1992, a Boeing 747 airliner of the Israeli airline El Al crashed into apartment blocks at Bijlmermeer, near Schiphol Airport, south-east of Amsterdam, en route from New York to Tel Aviv (MEI 585, 598). At least 47 people were killed and over a thousand local residents fell ill to respiratory, neurological and mobility ailments and experienced a rise in cancer and birth defects. Facing official Dutch and Israeli stone-walling, an independent Dutch nuclear research group discovered that the plane used depleted uranium as ballast. In 1998 the Dutch daily Handelsblad revealed even deadlier material in the cargo: flight LY1862 was carrying 10 tons of chemicals, including hydrofluoric acid, isopropanol and dimethyl methylphosphonate (DMMP) - three of the four chemicals used in the production of sarin nerve gas. A belated Dutch parliamentary enquiry into the crash discovered unpublicized weekly flights from New York to Tel Aviv stopping off at Schiphol, where cargoes were not inspected and - as the Dutch attorney general testified - El Al security staff worked for Mossad. In the words of an investigator working on behalf of the Bijlmermeer survivors, Schiphol had become, and continues to be, "a hub for secret weapons transfers". http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202311-Nation-of-Psychopaths-Israeli-WMD Tue, 02 Feb 2010 12:02:20 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202307-1-Year-of-Obama-Change-You-Still-Believe-In- "There is a place where epistemology and morality meet. There is a place where you have to stand and say: It is not acceptable to refuse to look at something - or to refuse to believe something - because it makes you uncomfortable." A little over a year ago this week, millions of people in the U.S. greeted the inauguration of Obama with hope. For years people had watched in revulsion as Bush overrode massive public opposition to launch totally unjustified war against Iraq. They watched as he occupied Afghanistan and declared that the U.S. had the right to go to war against anyone it perceived to be even possibly "threatening" it. They saw the pictures from Abu Ghraib and some heard the tales out of Guantánamo... they watched the basic rights that are supposed to be guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution shredded... and they saw a country rapidly heading in a direction that revolted them. The chart on this page shows what Obama has done about those outrages. In almost every case, he has maintained the course first charted by Bush. In the egregious cases of Afghanistan and Pakistan, including his Wild West use of drone missiles to assassinate any people he wishes (and in the process also kill scores of other people), he has "doubled down" on the vicious course undertaken by Bush. In some cases, Obama has "only" maintained the measures taken by Bush - but far from being "neutral," this makes things far worse. For now, what were unprecedented outrages perpetrated by Bush - for instance, widespread unwarranted wiretapping, or the suspension of habeas corpus (the right to trial) on the say-so of the president, or the assertion that the president can forbid trials on the basis that they might touch on "state secrets" - are transformed into the norm and the status quo; from being unprecedented, these outrages become the precedents for the future. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202307-1-Year-of-Obama-Change-You-Still-Believe-In- Tue, 02 Feb 2010 11:43:15 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202290-Israel-feels-under-siege-like-a-victim-an-underdog Anyone who is anyone in Israel will come to Herzliya this week for a conference about the state of the Jewish nation. Our correspondent joined them and found a climate of unprecedented insecurity - and paranoia So the propaganda war is on. Forget Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the 15,000 Lebanese and Palestinian dead. Forget the Sabra and Shatila massacre that same year by Israel's militia allies as their troops watched. Erase the Qana massacre of 1996 - 106 Lebanese killed by Israeli shellfire, more than half of them children - and delete the 1,500 in the 2006 Lebanon war. And forget, of course, the more than 1,300 Palestinians slaughtered by Israel in Gaza last year (and the 13 Israelis killed by Hamas at that time) after Hamas rockets fell on Sderot. Israel - if you believe the security elite of Israel's right wing here in Herzliya - is now under an even more dangerous, near-unprecedented attack. Britain - this came yesterday from Israel's ambassador in London, no less - is "a battlefield" in which Israel's enemies wish to "de-legitimise" the 62-year-old Jewish state. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202290-Israel-feels-under-siege-like-a-victim-an-underdog Tue, 02 Feb 2010 09:22:31 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202285-Underwear-Bomber-Redux-Was-Mutallab-An-Israeli-Secret-Weapon- After repeatedly denying that the Christmas Underwear Bomber™ had any help in his misguided attempt to blow up Detroit-bound Flight 253 on Christmas day 2009, or that there was any sign of an accomplice on over 200 hours of Amsterdam airport security tapes, the US government recently, and very quietly, chose to admit that it had been watching Mutallab all along and that it's now looking for his accomplice at Amsterdam airport. In one of only a few mainstream news reports on the US government's reversal, the Detroit News stated: The State Department didn't revoke the visa of foiled terrorism suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab because federal counter-terrorism officials had begged off revocation, a top State Department official revealed Wednesday. Patrick F. Kennedy, an undersecretary for management at the State Department, said Abdulmutallab's visa wasn't taken away because intelligence officials asked his agency not to deny a visa to the suspected terrorist over concerns that a denial would've foiled a larger investigation into al-Qaida threats against the United States. "Revocation action would've disclosed what they were doing," Kennedy said in testimony before the House Committee on Homeland Security. Allowing Adbulmutallab to keep the visa increased chances federal investigators would be able to get closer to apprehending the terror network he is accused of working with, "rather than simply knocking out one soldier in that effort." ABC News also reported: Federal agents also tell ABCNews.com they are attempting to identify a man who passengers said helped Abdulmutallab change planes for Detroit when he landed in Amsterdam from Lagos, Nigeria. Of course, that's not an admission that Mutallab had an accomplice, but it says a lot following six weeks of repeated denials on the existence of accomplices. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202285-Underwear-Bomber-Redux-Was-Mutallab-An-Israeli-Secret-Weapon- Tue, 02 Feb 2010 00:47:56 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202277-Israel-Uses-Holocaust-Memory-to-Effect-Own-Holocaust-Against-Palestinians Writing in the Ha'aretz newspaper on Thursday, 28 January, under the title "holocaust remembrance is a boon for Israeli propaganda," the noted Israeli journalist Gideon Levy accused Israel of employing the holocaust memory as a Public Relations gimmick to divert attention from the savagery and brutality meted out to the Palestinians. "When the world is talking Goldstone, we talk Holocaust, as if out to blur the impression. When the world talks occupation, we'll talk Iran as if we wanted them to forget." But Levy, like many other conscientious observers, know this won't help the Israeli goal of making the world forget the Palestinians, or more specifically what Israel has done and is doing to them. "It won't help much. International Holocaust Remembrance has passed, the speeches will soon be forgotten, and the depressing everyday reality will remain. Israel will not come out looking good, even after the PR campaign" http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202277-Israel-Uses-Holocaust-Memory-to-Effect-Own-Holocaust-Against-Palestinians Mon, 01 Feb 2010 21:20:21 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202259-Pathocracy-Brave-New-World-or-1984- To those who have grown up in countries considered "free", the vision of George Orwell's 1984 strikes us as a threatening nightmare, a warning of a not-so-distant future where freedom is but a word. Like seed perpetually scorched before it even has a chance to take root, all that it means to be human is actively degraded, denied, and punished at even the smallest display. The vision of the Party's rule, its inhumanity and utter ruthlessness and mendacity frighten us and we hope it will never come to pass here. But we have no clue how to prevent it, and just like the people in Orwell's fictional world, we are perpetually caught off guard when it comes to pass in our own lives. One day we wake up and realize we are living in a nightmare, and we have been for a long time. "It'll never happen here" and "We've taken every precaution" become "When did it happen" and "How did we get to this point?" This perennial sickness takes hold of a nation and we are at its mercy. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202259-Pathocracy-Brave-New-World-or-1984- Mon, 01 Feb 2010 17:50:15 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202257-Plan-to-oust-Saddam-drawn-up-two-years-before-the-invasion Secret document signalled support for Iraqi dissidents and promised aid, oil and trade deals in return for regime change A secret plan to foster an internal coup against Saddam Hussein was drawn up by the Government two years before the invasion of Iraq, The Independent can reveal. Whitehall officials drafted the "contract with the Iraqi people" as a way of signalling to dissenters in Iraq that an overthrow of Saddam would be supported by Britain. It promised aid, oil contracts, debt cancellations and trade deals once the dictator had been removed. Tony Blair's team saw it as a way of creating regime change in Iraq even before the 9/11 attack on New York. The document, headed "confidential UK/US eyes", was finalised on 11 June 2001 and approved by ministers. It has not been published by the Iraq inquiry but a copy has been obtained by The Independent and can be revealed for the first time today. It states: "We want to work with an Iraq which respects the rights of its people, lives at peace with its neighbours and which observes international law. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202257-Plan-to-oust-Saddam-drawn-up-two-years-before-the-invasion Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:35:50 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202255-US-starts-large-war-game-in-Pacific The US launches its largest military exercise in the Pacific in cooperation with Thailand, Japan, Indonesia and Singapore with South Korea also joining in. The "Cobra Gold" exercise is to runs until February 11 and will see soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen from the six countries taking part in operations across Thailand. At the opening ceremony in the eastern Thai province of Rayong on Monday, US Ambassador Eric G. John called the annual war game, now in its 29th year, a "multinational showcase event." "The US continues to view this exercise, which is our premier training event in Thailand, as an important symbol of US military commitment to maintaining peace and security in Asia," he said. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202255-US-starts-large-war-game-in-Pacific Mon, 01 Feb 2010 13:23:29 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202252-Secret-CIA-Mossad-meeting-preparation-for-new-war- A secret meeting between the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Leon Panetta and Israeli officials has reportedly centered on Iran's nuclear program. In a secret flying visit to Israel on Thursday, the head of the CIA reportedly discussed Iran's nuclear issue in a sit-down with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Mossad Chief Meir Dagan. The trip, which was originally scheduled to take place in May, follows a recent wave of developments in the Middle East that are strongly imply preparations for a possible new military conflict in the region. Israel has allegedly increased the scope of its undercover operations in the region, particularly against Lebanon, Iran, Syria and the Palestinian resistance movement, Hamas. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202252-Secret-CIA-Mossad-meeting-preparation-for-new-war- Mon, 01 Feb 2010 13:09:01 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202234-At-National-Prayer-Breakfast-Obama-to-Address-Shadowy-Christian-Group-Tied-to-Uganda-s-Kill-the-Gays-Bill The National Prayer Breakfast, an annual Washington exercise attended by politicians of all stripes who wish to demonstrate their piety, is one of those must-go events for the U.S. president, or so the conventional wisdom has it. Every president since Dwight D. Eisenhower has attended. But the prayer breakfast, however benign it may seem on the surface, is really a display of power for an underground religious group that often shapes U.S. foreign policy in ways not easy to see, and sometimes at odds the policy goals of the government itself. This Thursday, President Barack Obama is expected to address the gathering, as he did last year. But if there was ever a year for the president to back out, to have a sudden scheduling conflict, it's this one. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202234-At-National-Prayer-Breakfast-Obama-to-Address-Shadowy-Christian-Group-Tied-to-Uganda-s-Kill-the-Gays-Bill Mon, 01 Feb 2010 09:20:48 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202233-Secretary-of-Defense-Reveals-Earthquake-and-Volcano-Weapons This one might seem beyond belief, but we have it from none other than a sitting Secretary of Defense. In April 1997, then-Defense Secretary William Cohen was speaking at a terrorism conference at the University of Georgia. After some introductory remarks about the conference, Cohen takes questions from the media in attendance. A reporter asks a question based on the fake anthrax letters that had recently been sent to B'nai Brith. Cohen gives a strange answer, using the occasion to mention the exotic weapons being developed by terrorists (as well as--one would assume--governments). Here's the exchange, taken verbatim from the transcript posted on the Defense Department's Website: Q: Let me ask you specifically about last week's scare here in Washington, and what we might have learned from how prepared we are to deal with that (inaudible), at B'nai Brith. A: Well, it points out the nature of the threat. It turned out to be a false threat under the circumstances. But as we've learned in the intelligence community, we had something called -- and we have James Woolsey here to perhaps even address this question about phantom moles. The mere fear that there is a mole within an agency can set off a chain reaction and a hunt for that particular mole which can paralyze the agency for weeks and months and years even, in a search. The same thing is true about just the false scare of a threat of using some kind of a chemical weapon or a biological one. There are some reports, for example, that some countries have been trying to construct something like an Ebola Virus, and that would be a very dangerous phenomenon, to say the least. Alvin Toeffler has written about this in terms of some scientists in their laboratories trying to devise certain types of pathogens that would be ethnic specific so that they could just eliminate certain ethnic groups and races; and others are designing some sort of engineering, some sort of insects that can destroy specific crops. Others are engaging even in an eco- type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves. So there are plenty of ingenious minds out there that are at work finding ways in which they can wreak terror upon other nations. It's real, and that's the reason why we have to intensify our efforts, and that's why this is so important. The entire transcript can be accessed at the Defense Department's Website here. It is also available below: http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202233-Secretary-of-Defense-Reveals-Earthquake-and-Volcano-Weapons Mon, 01 Feb 2010 09:17:25 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202231-US-threatens-Iran-with-ships-and-missiles Pentagon says Patriot shield will deter strike on American allies in the Gulf Tension between the US and Iran heightened dramatically today with the disclosure that Barack Obama is deploying a missile shield to protect American allies in the Gulf from attack by Tehran. The US is dispatching Patriot defensive missiles to four countries - Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait - and keeping two ships in the Gulf capable of shooting down Iranian missiles. Washington is also helping Saudi Arabia develop a force to protect its oil installations. American officials said the move is aimed at deterring an attack by Iran and reassuring Gulf states fearful that Tehran might react to sanctions by striking at US allies in the region. Washington is also seeking to discourage Israel from a strike against Iran by demonstrating that the US is prepared to contain any threat. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202231-US-threatens-Iran-with-ships-and-missiles Mon, 01 Feb 2010 07:48:36 -0500