Obama touts the Navy SEALS’ raid and killing of Osama bin Laden in his hideaway compound in Abbotabad, Pakistan, as one of, if not the greatest, achievements of his administration. Reportedly, the administration even disclosed details of the raid to Hollywood for an upcoming movie, Zero Dark Thirty, directed by Kathryn Bigelow. The movie is scheduled to be released — SURPRISE! — on October 12, 2012, within a month of the presidential election. Joseph Straw reports for the N.Y. Daily News, Aug. 11, 2011, that the CIA defended its collaboration with the maker of Zero Dark Thirty. CIA spokesman Preston Golson said that such collaboration with filmmakers has precedent and is part of the CIA’s “public outreach.” Despite the CIA’s insistence, Congressman Peter King (R-Long Island), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, has demanded that the Pentagon and CIA inspectors general investigate whether the agencies breached policy in this case, in particular whether the filmmakers saw classified material or got access to personnel working under cover.
Category: Head Stories
Leaked emails show an American private security company, SCG International has been helping the Syrian opposition in its efforts to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad at the request of US officials. The whistleblower website, Wikileaks, released the emails sent by SCG Chief Executive James F. Smith, the former director of the notorious company Blackwater, which is blamed for the killing of many civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. In one of the emails, Smith says his company was contracted to engage the Turkey-based Syrian opposition in a so-called “fact finding mission,” but “the true mission is how they can help in regime change.”
While regional organizations are going to be the mainstay in international politics in the post-cold war world, one of the old regional organizations Arab League (formed in 1945) has shown all weakness of a broken house with members failing to take coordinated position on any of the raging international issues. A simple juxtaposition of the Arab League summit with the BRICS summit, held on the same date 29 March 2012, brings stark contrast how coordination in one part of the world is failing acutely, while on the other part the rise of BRICS in global arena is a foregone conclusion. While the Arab League, as the recent summit at Baghdad revealed, has become known for all differences, whether on Syria or Iran or on issues of conflict resolution, the BRICS countries developed commonalities on many issues including that of Syria and Iran. That the summit schedule was shifted twice before this one at Baghdad, and that only 9 member countries out of total twenty two countries participated in the summit itself reveals a poor story of the League. Even the nine countries participating in the summit did not send their top leaders; rather the member countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar sent junior officials instead of head of states to participate in the summit.
Japan’s Pacific coastline may be hit by an enormous tsunami, should a major earthquake occur off the coast of the country’s central island. This is the scenario feared – and expected – by local specialists. A special Cabinet Office panel warned of the possibility Saturday, after it revised its 2003 estimate, reports the Kyodo news agency. The new revision reflects new findings from the March 2011 earthquake that triggered a massive tsunami and the world’s worst nuclear crisis in 25 years. Back in 2003, the panel was sure that Japan would never see a tsunami more than 20 meters high. The new report, however, is based on the assumption that the earthquake will have a magnitude of 9.0 and will occur on the Nankai Trough. The oceanic fault runs east of the central Japanese island of Honshu and is 900 km long. Moreover, this trough is one of the most probable places for an earthquake of such magnitude to occur in the coming decades, local specialists believe.
A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny. -Alexander Solzhenitsyn The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has nothing to gain and all to lose – especially their lives. -Eugene Victor Debs Few nations have such extensive borders or coasts as the United States. Few have borders as blessedly uncontested and unthreatened. Why, then, is the US so contemptuous of international law? Why does the US intervene in and invade other lands, often far from our shores, with such alarming frequency? Why does this nation squander trillions of dollars on “security” and “defense”? Why does this nation maintain fleets and hundreds of costly military bases all over the globe? Why does this nation dissipate its treasure deploying the world’s most massive killing machine?
The BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – have agreed to provide credit to each other in local currencies. Officials say the deal will facilitate economic growth in times of crisis. The currency swap deal is aimed at promoting trade and investment in local currencies as well as to cut transaction costs. It’s also seen as a step to replace the dollar as a reserve currency in trade between BRICS. “The idea is in line with many interests and economic exigencies in the world economy,” Yaroslav Lissovolik, the chief economist at Deutsche Bank told RT. “The euro and dollar are no longer seen as unquestionable monopolies in the role of reserve currencies. Clearly the world needs more reserve currencies.” The deal would also increase the BRICS influence on the international arena and will make their cooperation less sensitive to sanctions from the West, experts say.
In two carefully coordinated events, the USA put an end to Israel’s plan to attack Iran. On March 28, 2012, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak publicly praised himself and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta: “The decision [to cancel the attack] was the result of contacts between the [Israeli] Defense Ministry and the Pentagon.” At that moment, the poker game between the USA, Israel and Iran came to an abrupt end. There was no winner, but one loser: Israel.About a week ago, I published Obama Bluffs Netanyahu, just after President Obama’s video appeal to the Iranian people on the occasion of Nowruz, the Persian New Year. He told them that there was “no reason for the United States and Iran to be divided from one another.” This was a sharp deviation from the belligerent Israeli-American discourse in recent months. Moreover, it was a clear end to Netanyahu’s desire to force the USA into attacking Iran (see Netanyahu Wags the Dog). “Netanyahu needs a war with Iran. The only way Netanyahu could prevent a deal between the USA and Iran is by attacking Iran before an agreement is signed, or by performing a false flag attack on American soil. Obama bluffed Netanyahu,” I summarized the event.
Seven months after the official announcement on 9/21/11 of “Operation Twist” not much progress has been made at the long end of the market to reduce yields.The yield on the 10-year T-note has gone from 1.88% to 2.3% and the 30-year bond went from 3.03% to 3.41%. The episode has been marred by hedge fund and sovereign selling, which has left the short end a little higher, but the long end much higher. The question now is how much did this cost the Fed for such disappointing results? Or in fact was this really their objective? We may never know, because the Fed hides what they do not want anyone to know. These results might not seem important but US Treasury instruments are the foundation of the global monetary system.
So this is how the cookie crumbles. From burning books to butchering babies, it seems everything is fair game as the victors near their tether. Four years after Barack Hussein Obama offered a “new way forward”; the gulf between America and the world’s Muslims is at its widest. The horrific details of the Panjwai massacre, with first person accounts recounting how the brave US soldiers coolly went about killing women and sleeping children, have poured fuel over a land already ablaze. Obama has condemned the massacre but chose to describe it as “an isolated incident.” Is it really now? Why do I feel we have been here before? From bombing wedding parties to striking funeral processions and even cemeteries, there’s been a long trail of such ‘isolated incidents.’ Interestingly, the latest in Yankee shenanigans coincides with a groundbreaking book that seeks to make sense of Uncle Sam’s worldview. Andrew Alexander’s America and the Imperialism of Ignorance is a damning critique of the US foreign policy over the past six decades and offers a cogent analysis of the military-industrial complex mindset that commands and dictates the actions of the most powerful nation on the planet.
The March 11 Massacre of the 17 Afghan citizens, including at least nine children and four women, raises many fundamental issues about the nature of a colonial war, the practices of a colonial army engaged in a prolonged (eleven-year) occupation and the character of an imperial state as it commits war crimes and increasingly relies on arbitrary dictatorial measures to secure public compliance and suppress dissent.After the cold-blooded murder of the 17 Afghan villagers in Kandahar Province the US military and the ever-complicit Obama regime constructed an elaborate cover-up, exposing the Administration to charges of conspiracy to suppress the essential facts, falsify data and obstruct justice. All are grounds for criminal prosecution and impeachment.This massacre is just one of several hundred committed by US armed forces, according to the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai. It could ruin the Obama presidency, by putting him on trial for conspiracy to obstruct justice and arguably send him to jail for war crimes.