Guam, an Island nation of 160,000 people has been a victim of Imperialism dating back to the 16th century. More than 65,000 of the population are called the Chamorro people, an indigenous population originally from the Mariana Islands. Many of the Chamorro people also live in the Northern Mariana Islands, another U.S. territory. Guam's fate with imperial powers from the West began with Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan, who represented the King of Spain, landed in Guam around 1521. Spanish General Miguel López de Legazpi claimed Guam for the Spanish throne in 1565. It eventually resulted in the Spanish-Chamorro War which lasted 25 years. Then it was followed by Japan's brutal occupation during World War II. U.S. won a decisive battle against Japanese forces known as the Battle of Guam in 1944. However, the U.S. still remains in Guam. They never left.

Over the years, the U.S. Military-Industrial complex has become the Island's main economic engine besides the tourism industry. With geopolitical developments in recent years, the U.S. is now in the stage of "rebalancing" its Pacific forces to prepare for a possible future war with China and North Korea.

The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is being touted as the newest "threat" to the American homeland: hysterics have pointed to Chicago as the locus of their interest, and we are told by everyone from the President on down that if we don't attack them - i.e. go back into Iraq (and even venture into Syria) to root them out - they'll soon show up on American shores.

How is this supposed to work? Well, you see, that monster who beheaded James Foley had a British accent, and there are reports of more than a few Brits (and Americans) traveling to Syria to fight on behalf of ISIS. So these jihadi "internationalists" could always just fly back to either Britain or the US, where another 9/11 would shortly be in the works.

Let's put aside the FBI statement that, while Americans abroad may be in some unspecified degree of danger, ISIS represents "no credible threat" to the continental United States. If we take the ISIS-threatens-us-at-home war propaganda seriously we have to believe Western law enforcement agencies, with all the tools at their command - including near total surveillance of online and telephonic communications worldwide - have no idea what dubious characters have traveled to Syria via, say, New York or London, and would in any case be powerless to prevent their return.

In short, we have to invade yet another country (or two) because our own post-9/11 security arrangements are virtually nonexistent - in spite of having spent untold billions on building them up.

Can that really be true?

If we step back from the hysteria generated by the beheading of US journalist James Foley, what's clear is that this new bogeyman is the creation of the United States and its allies in the region.

ISIS didn't just arise out of the earth like some Islamist variation on the fabled Myrmidons: they needed money, weapons, logistics, propaganda facilities, and international connections to reach the relatively high level of organization and lethality they seem to have achieved in such a short period of time. Where did they get these assets?

At least 20 Palestinians wounded as Israeli rockets destroy much of one of Gaza's tallest buildings.

At least five Israeli air strikes have destroyed much of one of Gaza's tallest apartment and office buildings, setting off huge explosions and wounding 20 people, Palestinian health officials said.

Israel had no immediate comment on Tuesday's attack.

Seventy families lived in the building, which also housed offices and a shopping complex.

Al Jazeera's Jane Ferguson, reporting from Gaza, said Israel fired three non-explosive warning missiles before the air strikes.


"The 13-storey building, contained 11 floors of residential units and two floors of commercial offices and a coffee shop. those floors also host the offices of the Ministry of Public Works and offices belonging to the political wing of Hamas movement," Ferguson said.


Since a truce between Israel and armed factions in Gaza collapsed, the death toll in the Palestinian enclave has steadily risen, with 13 more Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes since Sunday night.

On Monday, a 17-year-old boy was killed and about 25 people were wounded in a strike on a Gaza City mosque.

The Gaza religious affairs ministry said Israeli fire during the day destroyed four more mosques, raising to 71 the number of mosques destroyed over the past seven weeks.

Abdullah Mortaja, 27, a freelance journalist who previously worked for Hamas's Al-Aqsa TV, was among the latest casualties. Medical officials said he was hit by tank fire in the war-battered Shejaiya area of eastern Gaza City.

Two people wounded previously died of their injuries on Monday, raising the Gaza death toll since the July 8 start of the campaign to 2,135 with 10,915 wounded, according to the emergency services.

On the Israeli side, 68 people have been killed, the vast majority were soldiers.

If Argentina were in a high-stakes chess match, the country's actions this week would be the equivalent of flipping over all the pieces on the board. - David Dayen, Fiscal Times, August 22, 2014

Argentina is playing hardball with the vulture funds, which have been trying to force it into an involuntary bankruptcy. The vultures are demanding what amounts to a 600% return on bonds bought for pennies on the dollar, defeating a 2005 settlement in which 92% of creditors agreed to accept a 70% haircut on their bonds. A US court has backed the vulture funds; but last week, Argentina sidestepped its jurisdiction by transferring the trustee for payment from Bank of New York Mellon to its own central bank. That play, if approved by the Argentine Congress, will allow the country to continue making payments under its 2005 settlement, avoiding default on the majority of its bonds.

Argentina is already foreclosed from international capital markets, so it doesn't have much to lose by thwarting the US court system. Similar bold moves by Ecuador and Iceland have left those countries in substantially better shape than Greece, which went along with the agendas of the international financiers.

The upside for Argentina was captured by President Fernandez in a nationwide speech on August 19th. Struggling to hold back tears, according to Bloomberg, she said:

When it comes to the sovereignty of our country and the conviction that we can no longer be extorted and that we can't become burdened with debt again, we are emerging as Argentines.

. . . If I signed what they're trying to make me sign, the bomb wouldn't explode now but rather there would surely be applause, marvelous headlines in the papers. But we would enter into the infernal cycle of debt which we've been subject to for so long.

At least one in four refugees locked in indefinite detention on the basis of secret ASIO findings has attempted or threatened suicide, a new analysis has revealed.

Several of the 44 refugees have now been incarcerated more than five years without charge in Melbourne and Sydney, and none are allowed to know the detail of the secret assessments used to justify their detention.

The heavy psychological toll has led to extraordinary rates of depression, anxiety and self-harm, including one man repeatedly beating his head with a toilet door.

Before the end of this year Ukraine "will spend billions of hryvnas" to upgrade military hardware of the country's armed forces, President Pyotr Poroshenko said at a military parade on the occasion of the 23rd Ukrainian independence anniversary on Sunday.

"Warplanes, helicopter gunships, warships and motor boats will be bought and this is just a moderate start," he said, adding that right from Kreshchatik "the column of troops will be dispatched in the combat action zone" in east Ukraine.

Spurred on by 9/11 and the War on Terror, America has become a feared military force of terror but the prime target has always been the American public which is becoming increasingly aware of their Government sponsored militarized police who see and relate to them as Middle East terrorists until proven innocent such as in Ferguson, Missouri. The military-style occupation of Ferguson, Missouri has ripped aside the thin veneer of democracy to expose a budding police state. This is what martial law looks like.

As I watch, with alarm, the rapidly growing American militarized Police State as well as George W Bush and Dick Cheney's recent book tours - where they rationalize their illegal wars and economic rape of Iraq and Afghanistan as well as justify torture as a means to this criminal end - I am immediately reminded of Milton Mayer's classic They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45.

Mayer's book describes the slow but sure seduction of the German people as their civil liberties, freedoms and moral values were gradually stripped away by Hitler's fascist government while waving the flag of national security and patriotism.

The Russian-Chinese strategic partnership (RCSP), indoctrinated in 1996, is Eurasia's geopolitical anchor in the 21^st century, shaping its evolution and entrance into the Multipolar World. No other political relationship between the two continents' actors even comes close, with the RCSP's only formidable rival being the US via its privileged military alliances with NATO, the Gulf Kingdoms, and Japan. In this century's struggle for the supercontinent, the interplay between the RCSP and the US will come to define global politics.

Detractors or Distracters?

Much ado has been made in the Western media about the RCSP, with some highlighting its significance in challenging the Washington Consensus and others brushing it off as nothing more than Moscow's increasing dependency on Beijing. The views of the former are often trumpeted to scare Americans and justify their government's aggression against Russia and China, while the latter serves to feed a disinformation campaign meant to split Russia and China apart. Only rarely is the RCSP mentioned as a cautionary warning for the US to moderate its policies, which is the most responsible way to present this development to the Western voter.

The article's intent is to provocatively argue that the RCSP is already a worldwide reality in the making, the manifestation of Washington's nightmare, and that it extends beyond Eurasia and even into North Africa and Latin America. It does seek to challenge the Western order, but only to help guide the transition to the Multipolar World, a goal which both countries pledged their solidarity to in 1997. The US' reluctance in recognizing the tectonic shifts that have occurred in the world since then and its insistence on prolonging the fading unipolar moment are the largest sources of global destabilization today. Despite what the detractors try to achieve by fear mongering and the distracters by divisionary tactics, the RCSP is peaceful, defensive, and more unified than ever. By exploring the confluences of Russian-Chinese policy in key areas of Eurasia and beyond, the article will prove that the RCSP is alive and growing, actively working to steer the world closer to multipolarity.

The French government has resigned despite being formed just 4 months ago. They quit after ministers slammed President Francois Hollande's plans for taxation and cuts, while also being critical of Germany's austerity program.

The statement published on Monday said the new office would be formed on Tuesday and would be in the "direction he (the president) has defined for our country."

Following the 2008 financial crisis, Germany has taken the lead to try and resurrect the EU's economy. This has been marked by cutbacks and taxation, which have not proved to be universally popular within the eurozone. Economics Minister, Arnaud Montebourg, an outspoken critic of Germany, believes that country has hindered France's development.

Montebourg said it was time to resist Germany's "obsession" with austerity and work out some alternative ways to promote household consumption. He said that measures that had been introduced since the financial crisis were not doing anything to help the country's economy grow. He also blamed Germany for factory closures in France.

"You have to raise your voice. Germany is trapped in an austerity policy that it imposed across Europe," the Socialist minister said in the interview with the French newspaper Le Monde on Saturday.

The U.S. military is banning and blocking employees from visiting The Intercept in an apparent effort to censor news reports that contain leaked government secrets.

According to multiple military sources, a notice has been circulated to units within the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps warning staff that they are prohibited from reading stories published by The Intercept on the grounds that they may contain classified information. The ban appears to apply to all employees - including those with top-secret security clearance - and is aimed at preventing classified information from being viewed on unclassified computer networks, even if it is freely available on the internet. Similar military-wide bans have been directed against news outlets in the past after leaks of classified information.

A directive issued to military staff at one location last week, obtained by The Intercept, threatens that any employees caught viewing classified material in the public domain will face "long term security issues." It suggests that the call to prohibit employees from viewing the website was made by senior officials over concerns about a "potential new leaker" of secret documents.

The directive states:

We have received information from our higher headquarters regarding a potential new leaker of classified information. Although no formal validation has occurred, we thought it prudent to warn all employees and subordinate commands. Please do not go to any website entitled "The Intercept" for it may very well contain classified material.

As a reminder to all personnel who have ever signed a non-disclosure agreement, we have an ongoing responsibility to protect classified material in all of its various forms. Viewing potentially classified material (even material already wrongfully released in the public domain) from unclassified equipment will cause you long term security issues. This is considered a security violation.

A military insider subject to the ban said that several employees expressed concerns after being told by commanders that it was "illegal and a violation of national security" to read publicly available news reports on The Intercept.

"Even though I have a top secret security clearance, I am still forbidden to read anything on the website," said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the subject. "I find this very disturbing that they are threatening us and telling us what websites and news publishers we are allowed to read or not."