OBAMA: The WAR President

[Protean]

http://spectator.org/blog/2009/12/12/war-doves-protest-obama-in-fro

War Doves Protest Obama in Front of the White House

By Brian O'Connell on 12.12.09 @ 5:55PM

    "Hey, hey Obama! How many kids did you kill today!?"

The above quote was a chant led by former Senator Mike Gravel at an anti-Afghan War escalation rally in front of the White House today. Around two hundred upset citizens came out to protest President Barack Obama, and his move to add 30,000 troops to fight in Afghanistan.

Among those in attendance were Congressman Dennis Kucinich, and former Green Party Presidential nominees Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney.



 The makeup of the rally was mostly an older crowd, with some young people. I would say that the age distribution was somewhat similar to that of the tea party rallies -- although the similarities between tea party goers and anti-war protesters basically end with the age ranges except for one person with a "Ron Paul" sticker.  Much of the crowd was sporting Green Party gear and had posters voicing their opposition.  Among the signs read "War: The Audacity of Compromise", "Arrest OBusha", and "I don't vote because of people like Obama."

When a crowd member burst out during Nader's address "What about Bush!?", Nader replied "it's a seamless transition" -- saying that the war policies of the current president and the last president were the same and both were unacceptable to him. For a small but vocal crowd, Obama is not far enough to the left for them.

If the anti-war movement gains any steam, it could make things problematic for the Democrats in 2010. "They [the Democrats] have nowhere to go politically. We can go for third party candidates or go home," Nader said.


He then pointed out the threat of a  Republican takeover in 2010 as a reason why the Obama coalition would need support from the anti-war wing of the party. The reaction by the crowd was pretty silent on the thought of a Republican takeover, but did give Nader an energetic applause when he concluded his address a few seconds later.

The war movement will need to do better than a couple hundred or so people in order to make much noise politically, and will need to gain favor with some more moderate members of the Democratic Party if it is to have any success. But if casualties rise as the escalation is implemented, then the movement will likely gain some steam and could cause problems for the Obama coalition.

[iRonic]

what is significant about 2010?
how can the anti-war movement cause trouble for Democrats in 2010?
sorry im not american so i don't understand what they are meaning

[America2]

what is significant about 2010?
how can the anti-war movement cause trouble for Democrats in 2010?
sorry im not american so i don't understand what they are meaning

Honestly - it doesn't matter which party is in power, as both are controlled-opposition anyways.

When the Dem midterm landslide happend in 2006 - they were supposed to at least hold Bush and Cheney accountable for all of their crimes(and even impeach them). However - all they did was continue to support the neocon and globalist agendas that their previous Republican colleagues did.

Honestly - I hate to say it, but the damage is already done. By the midterms next year, unemployment will have hit maybe 15%, the national debt potentially doubling...I mean the GOP is already, for some reason, anticipating another Reagan revolution to get our economy back on track. Really - good luck with that!

[Protean]

what is significant about 2010?
how can the anti-war movement cause trouble for Democrats in 2010?
sorry im not american so i don't understand what they are meaning

The significance goes over the heads of many in the Patriot movement, they always say--it doesn't matter who's in power, both parties are the same/controlled.

Yes they are--but how are you going to throw a wrench into the NWO machine gears? You need a strategy.

Obama is the Achilles Heel of the NWO: a usurper spending American tax dollars to fund his team of lawyers keeping the natural/native born Birth issue out of the courts. He was elected by his base: many of them from the anti-war movement and a lot of 911 Truth people. If he is protested from the left; anti-war, he is at his weakest--since they voted for him. This helps expose Obama to the world and the Kool Aid drinkers that believed his/Democrat's hope and change pitch that he is no different than Bush and actually far worse.

This exposure, whether with the anti-war protest, Larry Sinclair's allegations, or the Birth Certificate/sealed records issue, is what Obama and his controllers are most afraid of. The whole plan will go smoothly along as the peeps believe in him, when they start doubting, they start getting restless and, God forbid, "thinking" thoughts other than the ones the MSM feeds them.

With anti-war protests against Obama, the NWO has trouble in River City.

For a weekly analysis of this situation and the regrowing of the Peace Movement, tune in to Webster Tarpley on World Crisis Radio-he's on the cutting edge of what's happening in exposing Obama for what he truly is.

Free podcast download thanks to GCN!

http://gcnlive.com/podcast/world_crisis/pcast.php

Or--

Read this post about the demise of the Democratic Party:

http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=127555.msg898300#msg898300

[Protean]

Ron Paul: War-monger Obama should have returned Nobel Award

Video:
http://blacklistednews.com/news-6640-0-15-15--.html

Republican Congressman Ron Paul says Obama's recent war plans show he shouldn't have been awarded the peace prize.

[Protean]

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=COO20100201&articleId=17330




Another U.S. War? Obama Threatens China and Iran

by Shamus Cooke
   
Global Research, February 1, 2010

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.
 
A more direct military provocation occurred later when Obama agreed to honor a Bush-era military pact with Taiwan, a small island that lies off the mainland coast of China, and is claimed by China as its own territory. Taiwan has been a U.S. client state ever since the defeated nationalist forces fled there from China in the aftermath of the 1949 revolution. Taiwan has remained a bastion of U.S. intrigue and anti-China agitation for the past six decades.  Obama has recently upped the ante by approving a $6.4 billion arms sale to Taiwan, including:

    “... 60 Black Hawk helicopters, Patriot interceptor missiles, advanced Harpoon missiles that can be used against land or ship targets and two refurbished minesweepers.”  (The New York Times, January 30, 2010).

The same article quotes a Chinese government official who responded, accurately, by calling the arms sale “… a gross intervention intoChina’s internal affairs, [and] seriously endanger[ing] China’s national security…”   In 1962, When Russia supplied missiles to Cuba, nearFlorida’s coast, the U.S. interpreted this to be an act of war.

China responded harshly to the Taiwan arms deals, imposing “an unusually broad series of retaliatory measures… including sanctions against American companies that supply the weapon systems for the arms sales.”  These U.S. arms manufacturers are giant corporations who have huge political influence in the Obama administration, and are likely to further push the U.S. government towards an even more aggressive response.   

Obama’s polices against China have been far more aggressive than Bush’s, making a farce out of his campaign promises of a more peaceful foreign policy. Obama’s same, deceitful approach is used inSouth America, where he promised “non-intervention” and then proceeded to build military bases in Colombia on Venezuela’s border, while giving a green light to the coup in Honduras.

Hillary Clinton also threatened China about internet censorship last week, while Obama consciously provoked China by agreeing to talks with the Dalai Lama, who advocates the removal of Chinese influence from Tibet.

 

Still fresh in the memories of both the U.S. and China is the recent trade flair up, when Obama imposed taxes on Chinese imports; and China responded with protectionist measures against U.S. companies, which brings us to the heart of the matter.

The attitude of the U.S. government towards China has nothing to do with the Dalai Lama, internet censorship, or human rights.  These excuses are used as diplomatic jabs in the framework of a larger, geopolitical brawl. Chinese corporations are expanding rapidly in the wake of the decline of the U.S. business class, and Obama is using a variety of measures to counteract this dynamic, with all roads leading to war.

This grand chessboard of corporate and military maneuvering reached a dangerous standoff yesterday, with the U.S. military provoking Iran. The New York Times explains:

    “The Obama administration is accelerating the deployment of new defenses against possible Iranian missile attacks in the Persian Gulf, placing special ships [war ships] off the Iranian coast and antimissile systems in at least four [surrounding] Arab countries, according to administration and military officials.” (January 30, 2010).

The same article mentions that U.S. General  Petraeus admitted that “… the United States was now keeping Aegis cruisers on patrol in the Persian Gulf  [Iran’s border] at all times. Those cruisers are equipped with advanced radar and antimissile systems designed to intercept medium-range missiles.”  Iran knows full well that “antimissile systems” are perfectly capable of going on the offensive — their real purpose.

Iran is completely surrounded by countries occupied by the U.S. military, whether it be the mass occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan, or the U.S. puppet states that house U.S. military bases in Arab nations.  Contrary to the statements of President Obama, Iran is already well contained militarily.  Iran’s government — however repressive it may be — has every right to defend itself in this context.

It is possible that these aggressive U.S. actions will eventually force Iran’s government to act out militarily, giving the U.S. military the “defensive” excuse it’s been waiting for, so the tempers of the U.S. population can be cooled.

 

A separate New York Times editorial outlines the basic agreement onIran shared by the Democrats and the Republicans.  It says:

    “It is time for President Obama and other leaders to ratchet up the pressure with tougher sanctions.”

And:

    “If the [UN] Security Council does not act quickly, then the United States and Europe must apply more pressure on their own [Bush's Iraq war strategy]. The Senate on Thursday approved a bill that would punish companies for exporting gasoline to Iran or helping Iran expand its own petroleum refining capability [another act of war]” (January 29, 2010).

The U.S. anti-war movement must organize and mobilize to confront the plans of the Obama administration.  Obama’s policies not only mirror Bush’s, but have the potential to be far more devastating, with the real possibility of creating a wider, regional war.  Iran and China are far more militarily capable than puny Afghanistan or Iraq; the consequences of a war with either will cause countless more deaths.

Bring All the Troops Home!

U.S. Military Out of the Middle East!

Shamus Cooke is a social service worker, trade unionist, and writer for Workers Action (www.workerscompass.org).  He can be reached at shamuscook@yahoo.com

Shamus Cooke is a frequent contributor to Global Research.  Global Research Articles by Shamus Cooke

[Protean]

http://america-hijacked.com/2010/02/07/will-obama-opt-for-war-on-iran/

Will Obama Opt for War on Iran?

February 7th, 2010 | Author: Patriot
Will Obama Opt for War with Iran?
Sunday, February 7, 2010 10:45 AM

From: “Stephen Sniegoski”
To: “Stephen Sniegoski”
 
Friends,

Two articles, one by anti-war conservative commentator Patrick Buchanan and the other by neoconservative Daniel Pipes,  deal with the issue of Obama moving toward war on Iran for political reasons. In “Will Obama Play the War Card?,” Patrick  Buchanan points out that  this option is certainly a political temptation for Obama especially since Congress is pushing him in that direction.  Buchanan cites Congress’ effort to impose very stiff sanctions on refined petroleum exports to  Iran as a move toward war.

[On January 28, 2010, the U.S. Senate passed by voice vote the “Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability and Divestment Act of 2009” (S. 2799).  The bill now goes to conference committee to be reconciled with a similar bill from the House of Representatives,  the “Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act” (H.R. 2194), which passed the House in December 2009. Because of the similarity of the two bills and the strong bipartisan support in both Houses of Congress, a final bill incorporating the essence of the Senate bill is almost guaranteed to be passed by both houses of Congress. The Obama administration has expressed objections, but  there is no indication that Obama would dare to veto the final bill—and given the overwhelming congressional support, any presidential veto could be easily over-ridden.]

 

“Senate bill 2799,” Buchanan writes,  “would punish any company exporting gasoline to Iran. Though swimming in oil, Iran has a limited refining capacity and must import 40 percent of the gas to operate its cars and trucks and heat its homes.” He argues that “cutting off a country’s oil or gas is a proven path to war.”  And he cites the examples of Japan attacking the US in 1941  after the US embargo on oil supplies and Israel attacking Egypt in 1967 after Nasser threatened to close the Straits of Tiran through which Israel received 95 percent of its oil.  While  the implementation of the current sanctions would  not cause Iran to attack the United States, it certainly would increase tensions and help to lead to war. Iran will certainly try to get around the sanctions and any American naval  efforts to prevent gasoline from entering Iran  could precipitate war.

 “The Senate,” Buchanan writes,  “is trying to force Obama’s hand, box him in, restrict his freedom of action, by making him impose sanctions that would cut off the negotiating track and put us on a track to war.”

Buchanan also hits the mark by pointing out that “U.S. interests would seem to dictate supporting those elements in Iran who wish to be rid of the regime and re-engage the West. But if that is our goal, the Senate bill, and a House version that passed 412 to 12, seem almost diabolically perverse.”  The sanctions obviously will tend to unify the country behind the regime.  Of course, the neocon/Israel goal is not to bring in the reformers—who also tend to support the Palestine resistance and seek to develop nuclear power—but to destabilize the country by war.  This can best be achieved by keeping the demonized Ahmadinejad in power.

 

In the second article, “How to Save the Obama Presidency: Bomb Iran,” neocon Daniel Pipes naturally encourages Obama to opt for war. “He [Obama] needs a dramatic gesture to change the public perception of him as a light-weight, 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 give orders for the U.S. military to destroy Iran’s nuclear-weapon capacity.”

Pipes candidly admits that the imposition of “crippling” sanctions on Iran would not contribute to a peaceful settlement but would  help to put the United States “on an escalator to confrontation that could lead straight to war.”

Pipes correctly observes that “Obama’s attempts to ‘reset’ his presidency will likely fail if he focuses on economics.”  There are no simply no easy answers for the economic problems that beset America.

Now Pipes is obviously not out to help Obama,  but what he says about the political benefits of war are certainly true.  If  Republican Party leaders were half-way intelligent,  they would realize that pushing the country to war is not in their political interest.  But the Republican Party is not called the “stupid party” for nothing, and it is in the thrall of the neoconservatives—at least indirectly, since the neocons control Murdoch’s Fox News and strongly influence the popular right-wing radio broadcasters such as Rush Limbaugh.  Republicans already did irreparable damage to their party by giving whole-hearted support for the war on Iraq, so the Republicans are quite likely to snatch defeat from the hands of victory.

 

Pipes presents  something on the order of  the spurious claim of  Saddam’s  super dangerous WMD to justify the need for a US bombing attack on Iran. “Eventually, they [Iran] could launch an electromagnetic pulse attack on the United States, utterly devastating the country. By eliminating the Iranian nuclear threat, Obama protects the homeland and sends a message to American’s friends and enemies.”   Of course, an Iranian electromagnetic pulse attack is highly theoretical.  A high altitude explosion would cause damage to electronic communication devices (a nuclear atmospheric test explosion 800 miles from Hawaii in 1962 knocked out a small percentage of the island’s civilian electronic devices) but that it would disrupt all communications devices to the point of preventing a devastating counter strike is highly questionable.   Perhaps China, Russia, and the US possess the capability of developing a weapon that could deliver a knockout blow that would prevent nuclear retaliation (though tests to determine this with certitude would seem almost impossible to conduct), but the likelihood that Iran could do this or would dare to take such a risk would seem very  remote compared to threats from other countries against the US that would increase every time the US made an unprovoked attack on another country—the more the US engages in allegedly preventive wars, the more likely it is for a fearful nuclear power to launch a preventive war against the US.   

Despite the fantasy aspect of an Iranian electromagnetic pulse threat,  it is reasonable to believe that such  a claim, if publicized widely,  could resonate with a substantial proportion of the American public and help to cause the US to launch a preventive war.  In fact, this would seem to be the element that is currently lacking in the existing war propaganda —the American people have not yet been made to believe that Iran really threatens  the US homeland.   

A previous essay of mine provides similar arguments:   

“Strengthening US Defenses in the Gulf as a Step Toward War”

http://tinyurl.com/yhymvsd

Transparent Cabal Website:

http://home.comcast.net/~transparentcabal/

Amazon listing of The Transparent Cabal:

http://tiny.cc/zNV06

Best,

Stephen Sniegoski

[Protean]

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17484

Liberals Get a War President of Their Very Own
by Murray Polner
Global Research, February 8, 2010



Murray Polner is the author of No Victory Parades: The Return of the Vietnam Veteran and is co-editor, with Thomas E. Woods Jr., of We Who Dared Say No to War.

Suddenly and surprisingly, we have a Bush-like Obama Doctrine. To the applause of liberal hawks and formerly critical neocons, the president declared in his Nobel Peace Prize speech that the U.S. will continue to wage war—though naturally, only “just” war—anywhere and against anyone it chooses in a never-ending struggle against the forces of evil. His antiwar supporters can take seats on the sidelines. It’s all reminiscent of John F. Kennedy and the prescient George Ball, and afterward Ball and Lyndon Johnson. In the early ’60s, JFK—reluctantly, we are told by his admirers—decided to send 16,000 “trainers” to Vietnam to teach the South Vietnamese how to play soldier and to stop the Communists from sweeping over Southeast Asia. Vast quantities of money and assorted advisers were shipped without accountability to the corrupt gang of thugs running and ruining that country.

Ball, the one dissenter in Kennedy’s entourage, pleaded with JFK to recall France’s devastating defeat in 1954 at Dien Bien Phu and throughout Indochina. “Within five years we’ll have 300,000 men in the paddies and jungles and never find them again,” he warned the liberal icon in the White House. But JFK thought he knew better, caustically answering, “George, you’re crazier than hell. That just isn’t going to happen.” Ball would also press Lyndon Johnson to stand down in Vietnam before he destroyed his presidency, domestic agenda, and more importantly the lives of tens of thousands of American soldiers and their families, not to mention a few million Southeast Asians. But LBJ wasn’t going to be the first president to lose a war and be blasted by pugnacious home-front warriors. Failing to stop the North Vietnamese would sooner or later have us fighting them on Waikiki Beach, or so the Cold War line went. Ever since then, we have continued to hear about regional menaces that supposedly, if left unchecked, will threaten vital U.S. interests or even Americans at home. Ronald Reagan employed that rationale in defending the proxy war in Central America waged by U.S.-backed Contras. George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton extended the tradition of intervention, sending troops to theaters of combat as far-flung as Panama, Kuwait, and the Balkans, while the second Bush launched invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. They have all been war presidents.

But Barack Obama was going to be different, or so my fellow antiwar liberals— and a few antiwar conservatives— hoped. He was to herald the end of that uncompromising and unilateral era of preventive war. The hundreds of thousands who joyously greeted the president- elect in Grant Park or the 1.5 million at his inauguration were ecstatic with anticipation. Left-wing pundits wrote excitedly about FDR’s One Hundred Days and projected great plans onto the new Man From Illinois. In countless articles, Republicans were declared brain dead, and the Bush- Cheney policies that got us into Iraq, Afghanistan, and the torture business were buried.

One year after those celebrations, it’s the neocons cheering, seeing in Obama’s policies a vindication of the late administration. Who would have dreamed that following Obama’s West Point speech announcing 30,000 more troops destined for Afghanistan, William Kristol would laud Obama in the pages of the Washington Post, writing, “the rationale for this surge is identical to Bush’s,” and praise the Democratic president for having “embraced the use of military force as a key instrument of national power”? War makes strange bedfellows. Michèle Flournoy, Obama’s under secretary of defense for policy, has been invited to speak about the president’s hopes for a new Afghanistan on a panel led by Frederick W. Kagan at the American Enterprise Institute, the heart of neoconservatism.

Why did Obama buy what the hawks sold him? What if he had leveled with the nation and acknowledged that, however obnoxious and cruel the Taliban may be, they pose no danger to the United States? What if he had vowed that we would not dispatch tens of thousands of additional troops to a civil war in an agrarian, impoverished, largely illiterate country divided by tribal loyalties?

It was not to be. Instead, as New York Times columnist David Brooks stated approvingly, “With his two surges, Obama will more than double the number of American troops in Afghanistan.” Charles Krauthammer was direct and sharp: “most supporters of the Afghanistan war were satisfied. They got the policy; the liberals got the speech”—and no say in the construction of that policy.

After West Point and Oslo, neocons saw Obama as a more coherent Bush, an electrifying orator who had dazzled antiwar Democrats and independents and then promptly dumped them. When the New York Times printed a photo of the men and women who helped Obama reach his decision to escalate, not one dove was present.

Were there no alternatives? In this huge country, could he not find a handful of realists, whether Left or Right, to supply some workable ideas for eliminating third and fourth tours for our overextended troops and the resulting suicides, amputations, epidemics of post-traumatic stress disorder, and legions of weeping relatives at gravesides?

Hold on, Obama’s loyal liberal defenders counter, shuddering at the memory of Bush. Why blame him for the miserable decisions he has to make based on impossible situations he did not create? They would prefer not to explain why they and their allies in the think tanks and Congress have so little influence.

Granted, some of Obama’s base reacted negatively. In December, MoveOn .org sent its millions of members a scorching email denouncing Obama’s troop escalation for “deepen[ing] our involvement in a quagmire.” Anti-Vietnam War rebel Tom Hayden removed the Obama sticker from his car. United for Peace and Justice, the main organizer of mass peace rallies around the country, announced, “It’s Obama’s War, and We Will Stop it.” The widely read liberal TomDispatch.com dubbed its former champion the “Commanded-in- Chief” for giving way to the hardball pressures exerted by the generals. Matthew Rothschild of The Progressive, founded by the fabled anti-militarist Robert M. LaFollette Sr. in 1909, compared Bush and Obama’s rhetoric and wrote an article called “Obama Steals Bush’s Speechwriters.”

But these protests notwithstanding, we remain—and will throughout Obama’s presidency—an empire of military colonization, the goal for decades of neoconservatives and assorted liberal hawks. In anthropologist Hugh Gusterson’s wonderfully evocative words, “The U.S. is to military bases as Heinz is to ketchup.” American forces are stationed at approximately 1,000 military bases in 120 countries at a cost topping $100 billion annually. Diego Garcia, a remote island in the Indian Ocean midway between Africa and Indonesia, is apparently so essential a base that 5,000 locals were thrown out of their homes so the U.S. could have yet another top-secret facility from which to conduct its perpetual wars.

Far from being a consensus-seeking peacenik, Obama would not even sign the Landmine Ban Treaty, which Bush also refused to endorse, thus leaving the U.S. the only NATO nation unwilling to participate. Said Steve Goose of Human Rights Watch’s Arms Division, “they have simply decided to allow the Pentagon to dictate terms.” A shocked Bill Moyers pointed out that 5,000 people died from mine explosions in 2008, noting the disconnect between Obama’s refusal to enlist the support of the government he leads and the Oslo speech in which he maintained, “I am convinced that adhering to standards, international standards, strengthens those who do and isolates and weakens those who don’t.”

In another instance of history repeating, the first Obama defense budget has been virtually the same as Bush’s military appropriations. Obama has reduced spending on Cold War weapons such as the F-22 fighter, but he reportedly plans to ask Congress for an extra $33 billion for the ongoing wars in the Middle East and Central Asia. To his credit, the president is trying to negotiate a new nuclear-arms reduction pact with Russia and close a few of the CIA’s clandestine prisons. But in many other vital areas of defense and national security, like warrantless wiretaps and renewal of much of the Patriot Act, he persists in activities that violate fundamental freedoms. He has also refused to hold anyone from the Bush-Cheney era accountable.

There’s more: his administration has just signed an accord with Colombia granting the U.S. a ten-year right to use seven of its bases, including the centerpiece of the agreement, Palanquero AFB. Take heed, any leftist South American government that dares defy Uncle Sam. At the same time, Obama blinked at the coup d’état in Honduras. “They really thought he was different,” said Julia Sweig of the Council on Foreign Relations, referring to Latin America’s opinion of Obama. “But those hopes were dashed over the course of the summer.”

So what happened?

Barack Obama happened. More eloquence than substance happened. More time-honored political caution than audacity or hope. Liberal and conservative Cold Warriors as key advisers. A reluctance to cross wartime profiteers. A recognition by his poll-counters that, with future elections in mind, it was best to govern from some ill-defined center, acting tough abroad to keep the neocons off his back while throwing an occasional bone to his left.

That strategy may buy him a second term as fruitless as his first—or it could render him indistinguishable from his deservedly maligned predecessor and cost him re-election in 2012. The Left howls now, but from the very start, Obama signaled his lack of interest in McGovernite ideas of change in foreign policy. There was a time when he talked about pressing Israel to dismantle its settlements. But thus far he has been cowed by Netanyahu and his American backers, betraying any hope for a genuinely independent Palestinian state. There was that stirring speech in Cairo and then silence. There was talk about closing Guantanamo but no mention of the much larger Bagram prison in Afghanistan.

The sad truth is everything we are seeing we have already seen. Despite presidents who come and go, permanent war is a hallowed American institution. Start if you will with the War of 1812, the invasion of Mexico, and the carnage of a Civil War. Move to the mass murder of Native Americans and theft of their property, the killing, torture, and prison camps in the Philippines, then the blood-drenched 20th century. The 21st likewise dawns red. It never changes. Doves protest, hawks rule, ordinary people pay the penalty. All wars are “just.”

As surely as the bloodletting persists, so does the opposition. The old chestnut that liberals have always stood for peace and conservatives for war is historically false. In fact, our past is rich with anti-militarist heroes of surprisingly varied political colors. Daniel Webster opposed the War Hawks and the draft they proposed in 1812. Abolitionist Theodore Parker denounced the Mexican War and called on his fellow Bostonians in 1847 “to protest against this most infamous war.” Henry Van Dyke, a Presbyterian minister and ardent foe of the annexation of the Philippines, told his congregation in 1898, “If we enter the course of foreign conquest, the day is not far distant when we must spend in annual preparation for wars more than the $180,000,000 that we now spend every year in the education of our children for peace.” Socialist and labor leader Eugene Debs received a ten-year prison sentence for daring to tell potential draftees in 1918 that it was “the working class who fight all the battles, the working class who make the supreme sacrifices, the working class who freely shed their blood and furnish the corpses.” Against U.S. entry into World War I, Republican Sen. George Norris of Nebraska asked, “To whom does this war bring prosperity? Not to the soldier … not to the brokenhearted widow … not to the mother who weeps at the death of her baby boy … . War brings no prosperity to the great mass of common and patriotic citizens … .War brings prosperity to the stock gambler on Wall Street.” Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), the only member of Congress in 2001 who voted against George W. Bush’s decision to invade Afghanistan, warned her colleagues to be “careful not to embark on an open-ended war with neither an exit strategy nor a focused target.” Conservative Russell Kirk laid out a post-World War II program for conservatives by reminding them, “A handful of individuals, some of them quite unused to moral responsibilities on such a scale, made it their business to extirpate the populations of Nagasaki and Hiroshima; we must make it our business to curtail the possibility of such snap decisions.”

Anti-militarism is very much an American tradition, but it has never been a majority position. Who now reads Finley Peter Dunne, the Chicago newspaperman who invented the brogish bartender Mr. Dooley speaking to his customer, Mr. Hennessey, while deriding American excesses and the national passion for imperial expansion? He wondered why many leaders and everyday Americans passively embraced, without much knowledge, our devotion to world hegemony—specifically in his time, the decision to invade and occupy the Philippines. “’Tis not more than two months,” he told his pro-annexation readers, “ye larned whether they were islands or canned goods.”

Yet just as certain as opposition to foreign adventuring arises, again it goes unheeded. As we begin President Obama’s second year in office, of this we can be certain: in global affairs, but for a few crumbs here and there, antiwar views will rarely be welcomed by this White House. And when these marginalized voters complain, all the president’s men will remind them that they were told Afghanistan was a “necessary war” and “national security” is everything. I can imagine Obama’s advisers confidently telling him that however many troops he ships to these and future wars, however much money he spends on military hardware, his anguished allies have no place else to go.

[Protean]

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=19029

Predator Drones Used to Target Civilians: Obama’s Predator Joke—No Laughing Matter



by Bill Van Auken

To the guffaws of assembled media celebrities, President Barack Obama used his monologue Saturday night before the Washington Correspondents Association dinner to joke about using Predator drones, a weapon that has killed hundreds of civilians on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and enraged millions throughout the region.

Obama’s joke was ostensibly aimed at the pop group Jonas Brothers, who were among the large number of show business types invited to the annual affair. The President began by noting that his two pre-teen daughters were fans of the boy band and went on to warn: “…but boys, don’t get any ideas. Two words for you: predator drones. You will never see it coming. You think I’m joking?”

Like virtually all of the supposed humor employed at such affairs, Obama’s joke was directed to Washington “insiders,” government officials, politicians of both parties and members of the media elite itself, all of whom would know what he was talking about and could generally be expected to find nothing amiss in his remarks.

The Predator drone has become a hallmark of the Obama administration’s bloody escalation of the nearly nine-year-old war in Afghanistan and its expansion across the border into Pakistan.

According to one recent estimate by Pakistani officials, some 700 Pakistani civilians, the majority of them women and children, were killed by Hellfire missiles fired by drones in attacks ordered by the White House during Obama’s first year in office. The officials indicated that for every alleged Al Qaeda or Taliban figure killed in these remote-controlled assassinations, 147 civilians have died.

A running tally of reported casualties kept by the web site pakistanbodycount.org puts the total number of civilians killed since the first known US drone attack on Pakistan in May 2004 at 1,226.

So the butt of Obama’s joke was, in the first instance, the people of Pakistan, whose rage against the drone strikes has fed a wave of anti-American sentiment.

But the joke was not on the Pakistanis alone. Not so coincidentally, the same night that Obama was delivering his monologue, New York City’s Time Square was paralyzed by an attempted car bombing that could have claimed hundreds of lives. According to police investigators, Faisal Shahzad, the suspect arrested in connection with the attempted terrorist act, said he was driven to the action after seeing the bloody effects of the drone attacks during a recent visit to his native Pakistan.

And the joke doesn’t end there. Last month, Obama made history by officially ordering the assassination of a US citizen—the American-born Muslim cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki—on foreign soil, presumably also to be executed by means of a Predator missile strike.

The Democratic administration has carried one step further the logic of the Bush White House’s assertion of the right to proclaim American citizens “enemy combatants” and thereby imprison them on executive order, without charges or trial. The Obama administration has arrogated to itself the right to serve as judge, jury and executioner, assassinating US citizens on the president’s sole say-so that they are enemies of the state.

This, presumably, was what Obama’s joke writers saw as “edgy.” Here one is dealing with an American president who has self-proclaimed and—at least within the ruling establishment—universally accepted police-state powers to assassinate innocent civilians as well as US citizens branded as his enemies. To threaten to utilize these real powers against Disney-promoted pre-teen idols was no doubt seen as hilarious.

Involved here is not merely a wildly inappropriate joke, but rather one of those moments that provide an unintentionally revealing look into the real state of political life and culture within Washington’s ruling establishment. From the state apparatus, to a corporate media that acts as its propaganda arm, to the current inhabitant of the White House himself, it is dominated by an atmosphere of brutality and dehumanization in which every crime committed to further the interests of America’s ruling financial elite is justified.

Indeed, just days before Obama delivered his “joke,” legal experts testified on Capitol Hill to the effect that the drone assassinations in Pakistan constitute violations of international law, and that those who order them as well as the CIA operatives, military personnel and private contractors who execute them from air-conditioned cubicles thousands of miles away in the US can be prosecuted as war criminals.

The link between this prevailing political outlook and the brutal 2007 massacre of civilians in Baghdad exposed in the videotape recently released by WikiLeaks becomes clear, as does the near universal indifference if not outright hostility of the corporate-controlled media to this exposure.

While the most repugnant, the Predator drone remark was not the only revealing element in Obama’s monologue. He allowed that he was disappointed at not having received the Nobel prize for physics—a cynical acknowledgement of the absurdity of awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to an American president who not only is waging two wars of aggression, but who used his acceptance speech to proclaim Washington’s “right” to launch new wars wherever it sees fit.

And he quipped that “all of the jokes here tonight are brought to you by our friends at Goldman Sachs. So you don’t have to worry—they make money whether you laugh or not.” Again, the supposed humor stemmed from the cynical acknowledgment of what is. The recently indicted Wall Street firm was Obama’s biggest campaign donor in the 2008 election, and his administration, stacked with former Goldman Sachs executives, from his treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, to his chief economic adviser, Lawrence Summer, has diverted trillions of dollars in public funds to bail out the Wall Street finance houses.

The laughter from the media talking heads and celebrities had an unmistakable significance. They all know that Obama’s posturing as an opponent of war and Wall Street corruption is nothing more than a cover for an administration that is pursuing militarist aggression abroad and the defense of big money interests at the expense of the masses of working people at home.

Obama’s remarks provoked relatively little outcry, particularly from the ostensibly liberal and “left” voices in the media. The response was notably muted even compared to the reaction to George W. Bush’s equally repellent “joke” delivered to a similar 2004 dinner of the Radio and Television Correspondents, in which he provided “humorous” captions to pictures showing himself searching high and low in the White House. “No weapons of mass destruction here,” read one.

The reference was to the exposure of the principal pretext for the US war against Iraq—supposed “weapons of mass destruction” in the hands of the Baghdad government—as a lie. Then, as now, it was a real insiders’ joke, in that the media itself played an indispensable role in foisting this lie onto the American people and justifying a war of aggression that has claimed the lives of more than a million Iraqis and nearly 4,400 US troops.

Nonetheless, sections of the media—as well as leading figures in the Democratic Party—voiced outrage, however hypocritical, at Bush making light of a war that was already proving so costly, as well as unpopular.

Had Bush been in power and made a joke similar to Obama’s, there no doubt would have been similar indignant (albeit phony) statements from the “life-style” left. But when Obama jokes about killing people with Predator drones—after a year in which he has ordered attacks that have claimed the lives of hundreds of Pakistani women and children and left hundreds more maimed for life—they just shrug it off.

What does this event reveal? The political establishment as a whole, both major political parties and the lapdogs of the Washington media, are utterly indifferent to the sentiments of average working people.

Moreover, no section of this establishment holds any genuine commitment to democratic rights or the principle of social equality. In order to defend the interests of a wealthy oligarchy, all of them are prepared to pursue and to justify criminal policies that are leading the broad mass of the American people into a deepening catastrophe.

Bill Van Auken is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

[Protean]

Obama's War

Rev. Manning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsWe-zbRlJQ

[Glastnost4ever]

    "Hey, hey Obama! How many kids did you kill today!?"

The above quote was a chant led by former Senator Mike Gravel at an anti-Afghan War escalation rally in front of the White House today. Around two hundred upset citizens came out to protest President Barack Obama, and his move to add 30,000 troops to fight in Afghanistan.

I was in an anti-Afghan War rally but my home town is just 250k pop.
We numbered less than 100 people and i thought - "Bugger, we are too few to make any noise"
But seeing that they got only 200 people there in Washington which is waaaay bigger city, I guess we were ok then

Why this low activity for peace? Are people too lazy? I mean we got almost 40% of the population here against the war!

[chrisfromchi]

Why this low activity for peace? Are people too lazy? I mean we got almost 40% of the population here against the war!

Because the anti war liberals would have to admit that they were wrong.

Admitting they are wrong about Obama...is hard for them.

They would cut off their nose to spite their faces sooner.

Like a progressive "friend" who after posting a link on facebook to some doctor opening late term abortion clinics in two states comments as "booyahh" and proclaims how fantastic it is.

[Protean]

I was in an anti-Afghan War rally but my home town is just 250k pop.
We numbered less than 100 people and i thought - "Bugger, we are too few to make any noise"
But seeing that they got only 200 people there in Washington which is waaaay bigger city, I guess we were ok then

Why this low activity for peace? Are people too lazy? I mean we got almost 40% of the population here against the war!

Many reasons---
1. Many of the anti-war crowd voted for Barry-O, so they are feeling funny about reversing their support.
2. Many of the largest organizations in the Anti-War movement were infiltrated by foundation funding that kept them away from aligning with 911 Truth and protesting against B.O.
3. The MSM has duped the left lib kool aid drinkers into thinking a protest against B.O. is a racist move.

Bottom line-both Repubs and Demos are controlled by the banksters, but the sheeple voters are all ready to rally support for the 2 party system once again. After 8 years of the Texas village idiot, sheeple are justifying, with the help of their command box (TV), why voting Republican (or Tea Party which has also been infiltrated) is the better choice.

NEVER underestimate the stupidity of the general public.
 

[Protean]

Veterans for Peace White House Civil Disobedience to End War

Rebellion at White House victory for hope (video)

http://www.examiner.com/human-rights-in-national/rebellion-at-white-house-victory-for-hope-video

Direct Video link--
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOde31QYbI0

[Protean]

RT Video-- F. William Engdahl being interviewed.

Troops head to Libya as coalition 'creates zone of chaos & instability'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jagotqno6e0

For a fifth night, explosions and gunfire have shaken Tripoli and other Libyan cities as coalition forces conduct more airstrikes. While the allies debate who will take over command of the operation from the U.S., fighting between Gaddafi's troops and the opposition is intensifying in the west of the country.

On page, another RT interview with F. William Engdahl.
http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/

[Protean]

OBAMA: The WAR President - the legacy continues----

'Depleted uranium's toxic legacy to poison Libya for 40 years'

RT Video---
http://youtu.be/xmK7B6mOsHU

[trailhound]

The Imperial President at War
Barack Obama continues the long, shameful trend of expanding executive power

http://reason.com/archives/2011/04/11/the-imperial-president-at-war

[Protean]

First Drone Friendly Fire Deaths

http://adm.rt.com/usa/news/first-drone-friendly-fire/

Published: 12 April, 2011, 21:10
Edited: 13 April, 2011, 02:02


United States Air Force Global Hawk un-manned reconnaissance aircraft. (Photo from http://www.af.mil)

For the first time, US servicemen were killed last week as a result of friendly fire from an unmanned drone aircraft.

United States officials say that Navy Seaman Benjamin Rast and Staff Sergeant Jeremy Smith lost their lives due to friendly fire when a drone aircraft accidentally unloaded on the troops in the southern Afghanistan province of Helmand. Reports reveal that Rast and Smith were among a unit ordered to reinforce Marines coming under heavy fire in Sangin from insurgents and that their death came as a result of friendly fire.

All--
http://adm.rt.com/usa/news/first-drone-friendly-fire/

[Protean]

Putin: Who gave NATO right to kill Gaddafi?

RT Video Report
http://youtu.be/Iw5Ij_RFJ1Q

[Protean]

Obama Imperialist War-Coup-o-rama continues-------

Deja Vu? US fires 1st salvo in word war with Syria

RT Video--
http://youtu.be/901LXZWWL7Q

The U.S. is ramping up the pressure on Syria - with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton vowing Bashar Al-Assad's government will be held accountable for the violence. This comes on top of economic sanctions from the European Union. Many say the situation's mirroring the build up to the military intervention in Libya.

[Protean]

'Syria regime marked for death as US, UK move swiftly to split Libya'

RT Video--
http://youtu.be/WPHcE96PIaI

Eric Margolis, a columnist, author and war correspondent, says he got the impression that Gaddafi had the strength of character to survive challenges back in the 1980s, when he interviewed the Libyan leader in person. Margolis also stated the US has been behind the assault on Libya all along.

[Protean]

US cloaks lies with bigger lies - campaigner
12 May, 2011, 12:59

“It is like any lie; once people are exposed as lying and you probe that lie, then they have to come up with more lies to cover the gaps in the original lie” - Ian R. Crane

RT Video on page---
http://rt.com/news/us-lies-libya-laden-crane/

The wave of Middle East revolutions was a false flag from the start and the ultimate target for the US was indeed Libya all along, insists Ian R. Crane, an independent researcher and campaigner for political truth and integrity.

­The reason for the Western media having certain countries tagged – such as Venezuela, Cuba, Libya, Iraq, Iran, North Korea – is “they all have or had one thing in common – that is they are free of debt of the World Bank.”

“They are not locked in the World Bank or IMF, they have their own banks, they issue their own currency,” said the researcher.

“We also have to recognize the remarkable coincidence between the Gaddafi statement that he was going to start issuing a gold dinar and demanding that his oil is purchased with gold – and the next thing we know we have a popular uprising [in Libya],” points out Crane.

The researcher believes that the ongoing riots in any other country in the region, particularly the clashes between the army and rioters in Syria, “is deliberately contrived to take the attention away from Libya – the goal is Libya.”

“The goal is not just to control the oil in Libya. Libya’s debt was less than one month of its GDP, so it was not debt – it was just a working capital. But it is not just the oil, because in addition to supporting the country, let’s understand that Gaddafi paid a social wage, every Libyan of working age received the equivalent of $US 1,000 a month and it was up to them whether they worked or not,” reveals Crane, saying that Gaddafi was putting money back into the community and also making all education in Libya free.

All--
http://rt.com/news/us-lies-libya-laden-crane/

[Protean]

Source---
http://www.rense.com/general94/wag.htm

Wayne Madsen Report
http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/

US - Wag The Dog

By Wayne Madsen
5-13-11
 
President Obama anxiously kept the media and the world waiting on the evening of May 1 for what later turned out to be his announcement that he ordered a US Navy SEAL team to attack the compound of Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Obama claimed that the SEALs had shot and killed Bin Laden in a firefight.
 
The reason for the delay of Obama's announcement, according to WMR's sources, had nothing to do with national security but to alert Obama's student supporters at George Washington and Howard universities in Washington, DC to marshal a group of Obama fans to gather at Lafayette Park in front of the White House in a "flash mob" to stage a pep rally for Obama after his announcement. The "Wag the Dog"-inspired demonstration was planned by Obama's political adviser David Plouffe.
 
MS-NBC's dutiful bleating Obama sycophant, Rachel Maddow, showed a flash mob gathered in Lafayette Park shouting "USA! USA!" while she proceeded to lambast Pakistan for providing sanctuary to Bin Laden and other top Al Qaeda leaders. Of course, Maddow was merely parroting the new neocon line that Pakistan must be the next nation to be rendered like a kosher chicken in the Maddow kitchen.
 
Plouffe, of course, arranged for brand new American flags to be distributed to the college students for the widely-televised "impromptu" demonstration. The new, just unfolded American flags appeared faster than the new Libyan royalist flags showed up in Benghazi, Libya after the uprising against Muammar Qaddafi.
 
The Obama vs. Osama television show continued into the weekend, with the Pentagon releasing a video, said to be captured, along with tera-bytes of other computer data, from Bin Laden's ramshackle lair in Abbottabad. But the White House originally said that Bin Laden's compound was a $1 million dollar "mansion." Obama's counter-terrorism adviser John O. Brennan, the former CIA official who helped craft the agency's kidnapping, rendition, and torture program, was responsible for much of the White House bombast, which later had to be recanted by White House press secretary Jay Carney. It was Brennan's firm, The Analysis Corporation, which had rifled through Obama's passport files at the State Department in January 2008. It now appears that it is Brennan who is Obama's current CIA control officer, the latest in a series of CIA handlers who have "run" Obama since his days at Occidental College in Los Angeles.
 
It is now apparent that the phony "hit" on Osama was known to only a few White House, CIA, and Pentagon officials, particularly the Air Force, which appears to be under the control of the cabal that is waging a devious information war on behalf of a continued war agenda by the Obama administration. Just two hours after Obama was said to have authorized the "hit" on Bin Laden, RAI television of Italy caught Obama handing a piece of paper to Air Force General Burke E. "Ed" Wilson at Cape Canaveral, Florida where the President landed after touring tornado-ravaged Alabama. After slipping Wilson the piece of paper, the general hands another piece of paper back to Obama. The fact that Obama was using a courier system, keeping whatever was on the pieces of paper away from the official White House communications systems, including the extremely limited access Planning and Decision Aid System (PDAS) that is used to support the operational capabilities to the Joint Staff at the Pentagon and and Combatant Commanders (COCOMs), indicates that Obama, the Air Force cabalists, and the CIA did not trust other elements of the Department of Defense and even the White House Communications Agency to be aware of the plans for Pakistan. Anyone with access to the White House communications systems would have "all-source" and "multi-compartmented" access and requisite security clearances. It is noteworthy that PDAS was used by Vice President Dick Cheney and a limited group of other officials to communicate during the 9/11 attacks.
 
A White House staff photograph issued after the assault on Bin Laden showed Air Force Brigadier General Marshall B. "Brad" Webb operating a laptop, which was said to be involved with providing a live video feed of the attack on Bin Laden's compound from the SEAL team in Pakistan. Webb is the assistant commanding general of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, also home to the Army's Civil Affairs & Psychological Operations Command, which, in the past, has supplied interns who helped craft news stories for CNN's Atlanta headquarters and National Public Radio in Washington.
 
Senior administration officials gathered in the White House Situation Room were shown intently looking at scenes of the attack on a video screen. Later, it was revealed that the live video feed had gone down prior to the photograph being taken. WMR has learned from news photographers in Washington that the Situation Room photograph was carefully stage-managed by White House staff. Standing among the senior administration officials was the gaunt figure of Brennan, a man who exudes as much warmth as the "cigarette smoking man" in the X-Files.
 
Webb is a 2008 graduate of the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) in Greensboro, North Carolina. As previously reported in WMR's exposé of Obama and his family's past ties to the CIA, the CCL, according to CIA files, was linked to the CIA's Political Psychology Division, and renamed the Political Psychology Center in 1984 by another individual with Obama, Webb, and Brennan in the Situation Room, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. In 1984, Gates was the deputy director for intelligence of the CIA.
 
CIA records show that past graduates of CCL training programs include former National Security Agency (NSA) director Admiral Noel Gayler, and William Verity, Jr., the former chairman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a director at Business International Corporation (BIC) in Manhattan. BIC, a known CIA front company, employed Obama for about a year after his graduation from Columbia in 1983. Verity became Secretary of Commerce in the Reagan administration after Malcolm Baldrige was stormed to death by his horse during a rodeo. CCL is also linked to the Tavistock Institute of London, the "group think" organization that specializes in the type of flash mob operation that took place outside of the White House on the evening of May 1, in addition to operations that support "sock puppet" inundation of Internet sites that question official government story lines.
 
The Tavistock Institute has long been linked with the CIA's MK-ULTRA and Projects BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE mind control and brain-washing operations, conducted by the CIA's top scientist for such matters, Dr. Sidney Gottlieb. Much of the records about MK-ULTRA and other CIA programs were destroyed on the order of CIA director Richard Helms in 1972. BLUEBIRD documents describe what the CIA was trying to accomplish with behavioral modification in the early 1950s: "Can we 'alter' a person's personality? Can we devise a system for making unwilling subjects into willing agents and then transfer that control to untrained agency agents in the field by use of codes or identifying signs?" In other words, the movie "The Manchurian Candidate," was not purely a fictional account within the CIA's research and scientific community. One of Helms's five favorite universities for the CIA's behavioral science program was the University of Hawaii, the alma mater of Obama's mother, Kenyan father, and Indonesian step-father.
 
Obama and Brennan will undoubtedly gain further control over the Pentagon when Leon Panetta, an Obama loyalist, transfers from the CIA to the Secretary of Defense office. Another Obama loyalist is Air Force chief of staff, General Norton Schwartz, who may be tapped to become Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Neocons in Washington affectionately call the general, "Nortie" Schwartz. The former Air Force Secretary's chief adviser, John P. Wheeler III, was an integral part of the Air Force chain-of-command through his work on the Air Force's cyber-warfare and related information warfare programs. Wheeler continued his cyber-warfare work at MITRE Corporation after leaving the Pentagon.
 
Wheeler would have also worked with Dr. Lani Kass, a former Israeli Air Force officer who skyrocketed into a major position in the Air Force hierarchy. Whatever Wheeler knew about the de facto alternate Air Force chain of command went with him to the grave. Wheeler's body was discovered in a Wilmington, Delaware landfill on New Year's Eve last year. Although ruled a homicide, Wheeler's widow has accused Wilmington and Delaware law enforcement law enforcement officials of dragging their feet in the investigation of her husband's death. Delaware's Attorney General also happens to be the son of Vice President Biden, Joseph "Beau" Biden III.
 
The Lies of Abbottabad
 
The entire story of the raid on Abbottabad has been a series of lies and half-truths:
 
­ Bin Laden was first said to have resisted with weapons. It was later revealed that Bin Laden offered no resistance. Bin Laden, or the man who may have served as his double in U.S. intelligence-produced video tapes since 2001, was also reported to have offered to surrender before he was shot and killed.
­ According to Brennan, Bin Laden was said to have been buried at sea in accordance with Islamic traditions. Yet, Islamic scholars and clerics said if someone dies on land, they must be buried on land.
­ Obama administration officials stated that Pakistan was not informed of the operation beforehand. Yet Abbottabad residents reported that Pakistani government officials ordered residents of the military cantonment town to turn off their lights and remain indoors at the same time U.S. and Pakistani helicopters were first spotted by residents in the area.
­ SEAL team members and the CIA were not able to get a voice recording of "Bin Laden" before he was killed. Nor could a height be determined of Bin Laden because the strike force had no tape measure. After Brennan stated there was a 99.9 percent certainty that from DNA and other forensics that the man killed was Bin Laden, a military official at Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan, where the "Bin Laden" body was transported, said the degree of certainty was 95 percent. In other words, certainty decreased, not increased, after a more thorough post-mortem examination at Bagram. The comparative DNA used to identify Bin Laden was said to have been obtained from Bin Laden's sister, after she died from cancer. However, Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman of the house Intelligence Committee, later said DNA samples were used from a number of Bin Laden's relatives.
­ Facial recognition technology used on Bin Laden's corpse at Bagram drove the degree of certainty down to 90 percent.
­ Brennan stated that US forces also killed Bin Laden's son Khalid in the attack. The White House later said it was another Bin Laden son, Hamza, who was killed. Bin Laden's wife, Amal al-Sadeh, was reported by the White House to have been shot and killed while trying to shield Bin Laden. The story was later changed to her being shot in the leg while lunging at one of the SEAL team members.
­ Obama refused to release photos of Bin Laden's body, the burial at sea (from which a determination of the height of Bin Laden could be made since the body was said to have been buried in a simple shroud from a lower deck of the USS Carl Vinson,or the actual military assault on the compound.
­ The compound was originally reported to have been a $1 million mansion. The photographs after the attack show a much less stately abode, one that has been estimated at worth $250,000 or less. Local residents reported they never heard the occupants of the compound speak Bin Laden's native Arabic but only Pashto.
 
And why would a primarily Pashto-speaking household have a cable or dish satellite television feed that offered only Arabic-language news channels in a primarily Urdu- and Pashto-speaking community? A close look at the elderly "Bin Laden" channel surfing his television shows only Arabic language stations being offered for favorite selection, except for the rock music station DJTV from France, BBC World, and Al Jazeera English.

In addition to Al Jazeera Arabic, Bin Laden's channel surfing favorite options starting from 001 include BBC Arabic, Al Arabiya, Iqraa TV from Saudi Arabia, Al Hiwar from London, ANB TV from Lebanon, Dubai TV, Al Emarah from the UAE, MBC Maghreb, France 24 Arabic, Future TV from Lebanon, Al Anwar TV from Kuwait, Deutsche Welle Arabic, Al Alam from Iran, Sharjah TV, Qatar TV, Saudi 1 TV, Kuwait TV, Libya TV, Sudan TV, Oman TV, LBC Lebanon, and Al Wakrah TV from Qatar (Sports). Pakistan TV (PTV) offers an Arabic service but it was not one of Bin Laden's favorites. In fact, Bin Laden's channel options are more in keeping with those offered in the Gulf states, perhaps Qatar where the U.S. Central Command has a large base that includes psychological warfare elements.
 
What's next? Hint: You won't like the answer
 
After neocons and Obama faux liberal Democratic media dragoons began to blame Pakistan for harboring Bin Laden, these same circles began calling for sanctions on Pakistan, as well as seizing Pakistan's nuclear weapons so that they could not fall into the hands of "Al Qaeda" or Bin Laden sympathizers.
 
The dubious WikiLeaks had previously provided an indication of the staged raid on and killing of Bin Laden. On April 25, five days before the raid on Abbottabad, The Daily Telegraph (UK), known to pander to neocon interests, published an article stating that according to State Department cables it obtained from WikiLeaks, enhanced interrogation of 700 detainees at Guantanamo revealed that Al Qaeda would unleash a "nuclear hellstorm" on the West if Bin Laden were ever captured or assassinated. Five days later, after Bin Laden was killed, there were immediate concerns raised by neocons, many reflecting media talking points originating from Tel Aviv and New Delhi, about the security of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. The report had the added effect of legitimizing Brennan's rendition and torture program, since the information allegedly was derived from the use of torture. The case was being made for the "ticking nuclear bomb" scenario previously used to convince doubters of torture whether they would still be opposed to the technique if it meant that a ticking nuclear bomb could be located and disarmed.
 
The CIA and its predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), have long been involved in helping to produce movies in Hollywood to further the propaganda and mind control goals of the U.S. intelligence community and the Pentagon. Frank Wisner Sr., the creator of Project MOCKINGBIRD, pressed a number of Hollywood moguls into service to support the Cold War propaganda efforts of the CIA. Among those recruited for MOCKINGBIRD were producers Daryl Zanuck of 20th Century Fox, Howard Hughes of RKO, and Cecile B. DeMille of Paramount, as well as director John Ford. "Predictive programming" was a major component of MOCKINGBIRD's propaganda operations. Many of Steven Spielberg's and Jerry Bruckheimer's movies point to the strong possibility that Wisner's Cold War operations in Hollywood continue to this day.
 
In fact, since 1996, the CIA has maintained an Entertainment Liaison Office that interfaces with Hollywood on film production. The office's first director was Chase Brandon, a 25-year veteran of the CIA's Clandestine Service who also happens to be a cousin of actor Tommy Lee Jones.
 
Alan Watt defines "predictive programming" as "the power of suggestion using the media or fiction to create a desired outcome." The WikiLeaks cables about an Al Qaeda nuclear attack was not the only predictive programming operation that occurred in April.
 
It should be recalled that on March 4, 2001, Fox aired an episode of the X Files spin-off, "The Lone Gunmen," in which the actual scenario for the 9/11 attacks was revealed. In the episode, a Boeing 727, en route to Boston, was hijacked by a shadowy group of U.S. government plotters intent on crashing the plane into the World Trade Center and blaming it on an anti-American despot to drag the United States into war and increase weapons sales. The plot was called "Scenario 12D." The Boeing had its autopilot commandeered from the ground. Unlike the actual 9/11 events, the control of the plane was restored at the last minute to the pilot. "The Lone Gunmen" series was canceled in June 2001.
 
On April 1, Hollywood released a movie, filmed in Canada and without the support of the Chicago Film Office, Chicago Police Department, or Illinois Film Office, called "Source Code." Film credits do thank the Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune, both owned by neocon interests, for their assistance. David Axelrod, Obama's former political adviser who is currently running Obama's re-election campaign, is a former reporter and columnist for the Tribune. Axelrod reportedly continues to exercise political influence over the newspaper. The movie's theme is that a "lone wolf" terrorist builds a nuclear dirty bomb and is planning to detonate it in a white van parked in downtown Chicago with an estimated death count of 2 million people. Before the terrorist detonates the bomb, he blows up a morning Chicago commuter train after it departs the Glenbrook station, killing all aboard. The train bombing and dirty bomb are said to be one of a series of attacks in Chicago.
 
Although the doubled-decked commuter train is called "CCR ­ Chicago Commuter Rail" ­ in the film, it is clearly a Chicago Metra commuter train. The bomb is detonated by two cell phones attached to a bomb. The plot is discovered by a top secret remote viewing program, code named "Beleaguered Castle" run out of Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada. One of the series of playing cards that is used to put the remote viewer in trance state is the Queen of Spades. In the film, "The Manchurian Candidate," the trigger card is the Queen of Diamonds. One of the passengers on the targeted commuter train, a professional comedian, is heard telling a joke about "Barack and Michelle."

The remote viewing program in "Source Code" is called "Beleaguered Castle." The Chicago Water Tower is often called "The Castle."
 
Among the computer files seized from Bin Laden's compound was intelligence that indicated that in February 2010, Al Qaeda was making plans to attack America's rail system. Attacks on rail hubs and rail lines and bridges were said by Homeland Security officials to be in the "aspirational phase."
 
Chicago appears to replacing New York as the "aspirational" target for the next false flag terrorist attack, one that will all but assure Obama's re-election.
 
Obama's former chief of staff, the mercurial Rahm Emanuel, will be sworn in as Mayor of Chicago on May 16. Emanuel's team will include a number of individuals who would relish the idea of a false flag terror attack in America's "Second City."
 

 
"Al Qaeda" files, Hollywood predictive programming, and dubious WikiLeaks cables setting the stage for an attack involving Chicago's rail transit system.
 
After spending $45 million in federal funds on the Project Shield, designed to cover Cook County with stationary and mobile security cameras, the cameras have been found not to work, according to a February 16 article in the Chicago Sun-Times. The FBI is supposedly investigating the security debacle.
 
Emanuel's police superintendent is Garry McCarthy, the deputy commissioner of operations of the New York Police Department under Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Before he became the police chief of Newark, New Jersey, McCarthy threatened two Palisades Interstate Parkway policemen for issuing his daughter a parking ticket in 2005. McCarthy and his wife were arrested after they confronted the officers who issued their daughter the ticket. McCarthy was also handcuffed during the confrontation withe the two officers. McCarthy and his wife were later convicted for obstruction of traffic during their melee with the police officers. McCarthy's bombast certainly matches that of Emanuel.
 
Emanuel's head the Chicago Office of Emergency Management and Communications is Gary Schenkel, a 29-year veteran of the Marine Corps. According to the December 23, 1999, Chicago Sun-Times, Schenkel, a sharpshooter, "was one of 80 Marines spending three days in Chicago touring bridges and sewers as they studied how to work in urban combat zones" in 1998. The Chicago operation was part of the Marine's "Urban Warrior Advanced Warfighting Experiment." Schenkel took part in similar exercises during the late 1990s in Oakland-Alameda, California; Jacksonville, Florida; New York City; and Charleston, South Carolina. Schenkel headed up the Federal Protective Service (FPS), part of the Department of Homeland Security, in the George W. Bush administration. During his tenure as chief of the FPS, agents of the Government Accountability Office were able to sneak bomb making components into federal buildings with security levels just below those implemented for the White House.
 
William Daley, the brother of outgoing Mayor Richard Daley, is serving as White House chief of staff. Presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett was born in 1956 in Shiraz, Iran. Her father, William Bowman, a geneticist and pathologist, is believed by some Iran experts to have been a CIA clandestine services officer. The Bowmans moved from Shiraz to London in 1961 and to Chicago in 1963. Shiraz was a hotbed of support for Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeq, ousted by the CIA in 1953 in Operation Ajax.
 
Dr. Bowman was reportedly part of a U.S. program that sent Americans to Iran to help with economic development, a program that is similar to the CIA program that saw Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, providing economic assistance and training to Indonesians following the 1965 CIA coup against President Sukarno. In the case of Bowman, he and the Americans were likely providing more than assistance to Iranians. Shiraz was not only a center of support for ousted Prime Minister Mossadeq but also a major center of activity for Iran's Tudeh (Communist) Party, which called for nationalization of Iran's oil industry. A decade before Stanley Ann Dunham was helping to finger Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) members for Indonesian army death squads, Bowman, possibly assisted by his wife, were in a location where Tudeh and pro-Mossadeq forces could also be identified for the dreaded Iranian secret police, the SAVAK, which set up shop with assistance from the CIA and Mossad in 1957. Nemazee, a supporter of the Shah, was born in India to Iranian parents and was a resident of Washington, DC in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
 
Bowman's cover was the Nemazee Hospital established in Shiraz by Mohamed Nemazee. On August 29, 2009, Nemazee's son, Hassan Nemazee, chairman of Nemazee Capital and brother-in-law of Britain's ambassador to France, was arrested for defrauding Citibank and other banks of $292 million in loans. Nemazee Capital also had a past partnering agreement with AIG, the CIA-linked insurance giant that Obama arranged to bail out with federal money. Namazee was convicted last year of fraud was sentenced to 12 and a half years in prison. Hassan Nemazee was nominated by President Clinton to be U.S. ambassador to Argentina but Clinton suddenly withdrew the nomination amid congressional opposition. Hassan Nemazee was a major donor to the presidential campaigns of John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and forked over $50,000 to President Obama's Inaugural Committee.
 
On April 14, 2011. WMR reported on a flurry of suspicious maritime liens filed against the U.S. Department of Treasury by leading Chicago and Illinois officials: "WMR has discovered that although less than 100 maritime liens had been filed in Cook County since 1985, since March 28 of this year, 11 maritime liens have been filed in Cook County against the U.S. Treasury Department.
 
Such a development could be easily explained away, except when examining the names of the maritime lien filers in the order that they were filed. It is not known who some of the individuals are who filed the liens since March 28, but they are also listed:
 
W. Smith (unknown affiliation)
 
Lisa Madigan (Attorney General of Illinois)
 
C. Wallace (unknown affiliation)
 
Richard Michael Daley (outgoing Mayor of Chicago)
 
Chicago Police Department
 
Thomas G. Byrne (Commissioner of the Chicago Streets & Sanitation Department; ex-Chicago Police Department)
 
Catherine Hennessy (affiliation unknown)
 
Pat Quinn (Governor of Illinois)
 
Milton R. Sees (former Illinois Department of Transportation Secretary)
 
Jesse White (Secretary of State of Illinois)
 
Ernie Dannenberger (Director of Vehicle Service Department of the Illinois Secretary of State's office)
 
Filing maritime liens against the US Treasury Department might indicate the future movement of U.S. Navy and/or Coast Guard vessels into Chicago's ports. However, the question looms: As Rahm Emanuel prepares to take over as mayor of Chicago, why was there a sudden flurry of maritime liens filed by top city and state officials a few weeks after Emanuel captured the mayor's seat in the election?"
 
According to the "intelligence" gleaned from the captured "Al Qaeda" computer files from Abbottabad, attacks on the U.S. rail system were planned for September 11, 2011, the tenth anniversary of the plane attacks on the United States. A handwritten note from February 10, 2010, mentions the possibility of rail attacks on a train on a bridge on the the 10th anniversary of the September 11, 2001.
 
Chicago should remain ever-vigilant against its new mayor and his cronies, suspicious Israelis masquerading as art students, office/furniture movers, kiosk vendors, and those who speak fluent Arabic and who claim to be security consultants, as well as suspicious financial transactions, and security training exercises planned for the city, especially those involving the Chicago Transit Authority and Metra. The London 7/11 attacks on London transit targets were conducted during an anti-terrorism exercise. One thing that can be said about the architects of false flag terrorist attacks is that they seldom stray from their master playbook. End.

Source---
http://www.rense.com/general94/wag.htm

Wayne Madsen Report
http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/

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http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24591

SYRIA: Who is Behind The Protest Movement? Fabricating a Pretext for a US-NATO "Humanitarian Intervention"
Global Research, May 3, 2011

by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky

There is evidence of gross media manipulation and falsification from the outset of the protest movement in southern Syria on March 17th.

The Western media has presented the events in Syria as part of the broader Arab pro-democracy protest movement, spreading spontaneously from Tunisia, to Egypt, and from Libya to Syria.

Media coverage has focussed on the Syrian police and armed forces, which are accused of indiscriminately shooting and killing unarmed "pro-democracy" demonstrators. While these police shootings did indeed occur, what the media failed to mention is that among the demonstrators there were armed gunmen as well as snipers who were shooting at both the security forces and the protesters.

The death figures presented in the reports are often unsubstantiated. Many of the reports are "according to witnesses". The images and video footages aired on Al Jazeera and CNN do not always correspond to the events which are being covered by the news reports.



There is certainly cause for social unrest and mass protest in Syria: unemployment has increased in recent year, social conditions have deteriorated, particularly since the adoption in 2006 of sweeping economic reforms under IMF guidance. The IMF's "economic medicine" includes austerity measures, a freeze on wages, the deregulation of the financial system, trade reform and privatization. (See IMF  Syrian Arab Republic — IMF Article IV Consultation Mission's Concluding Statement,

http://www.imf.org/external/np/ms/2006/051406.htm

, 2006)

With a government dominated by the minority Alawite (an offshoot of Shia Islam), Syria is no "model society" with regard to civil rights and freedom of expression. It nonetheless constitutes the only (remaining) independent secular state in the Arab world. Its populist, anti-Imperialist and secular base is inherited from the dominant Baath party, which integrates Muslims, Christians and Druze.

Moreover, in contrast to Egypt and Tunisia, in Syria there is considerable popular support for President Bashar Al Assad. The large rally in Damascus on March 29, "with tens of thousands of supporters" (Reuters) of President Al Assad is barely mentioned. Yet in an unusual twist, the images and video footage of several pro-government events were used by the Western media to convince international public opinion that the President was being confronted by mass anti-government rallies.  

All--
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24591

[Protean]

https://rt.com/politics/columns/bridge-too/barack-obama-us-bridge/

Barack Obama: A Neocon in sheep’s clothing

30 May, 2011

I admit it; I was one of the estimated 5.9 billion people worldwide who was initially captivated, enraptured, shellacked, call it what you will, by America’s “first black president” Barack Hussein Obama.

But who on earth wasn’t?

Following eight brutal years of being dragged around the planet in search of monsters by a self-declared “war president,” it was all too easy to be seduced by Obama’s honey-dripping message of Hope and Change.

The Bush years, we believed, were an unfortunate and very un-American anomaly and Obama would put the American house back in order. Yes, we’d sit down and chat with tyrants; we’d get tough with transnational corporations; we’d put the long-forgotten rugged individuals back where they belong in the grand order of things. With the triumphant election of Barack Obama, it felt like morning again in America, which had just passed through the longest, darkest night of its history.

Indeed, the need to believe the hype and hysteria was so powerful that it even compelled the otherwise intelligent people at the Nobel Institute to pin the peace laurels on Obama’s chest at the very same time US troops were  hunkered down on two fronts.

The international community is no longer enamored by Obama, however, at least not the way they were just three years ago. The American president can still charm the pants off a news conference, and deliver a mesmerizing speech via the teleprompter, but the magic of those early days, when Change was so close you could almost reach out and touch it, has vanished into thin air.

"Obamania" has been downgraded to "Obamanic depression."

The British betrayed their inner feelings about America’s Commander in Speech when they chose a tongue-in-cheek codename for Obama's recent UK visit.

According to the Daily Mail: “More than one person has wanted to call Barack Obama a 'smart alec', and now British police will get the chance to do so without getting reprimanded. That's because Scotland Yard has tapped the codename 'Chalaque' to refer to the U.S. president for security reasons during his upcoming state visit to the United Kingdom May 24-26.”

And what exactly does "Chalaque” mean? The Mail, quoting a Punjabi speaker, said the word is used “when we want to denigrate someone who we think is too clever for their own good.”

Although Scotland Yard says the name was selected randomly from some cheeky supercomputer, the characterization appears too accurate to be the product of mere chance. Besides, even if the program really did spit out the very applicable designation, the British authorities could have easily commanded the computer to 'try again."

Anyways, there is no need for name calling when simply reporting the facts is so much more effective.

GUANTANAMO BAY

Of Barack Obama’s numerous unfulfilled promises, the failure to shut down the Guantanamo Bay detention facility is the most glaring and unpardonable. Not only does this prison, situated in a remote corner of communist Cuba, fly in the face of democratic principles, it has actually served to harden the resolve of America’s enemies due to the inhumane treatment of the detainees, some of whom are innocent.

According to a report by Human Rights Watch, "Washington has ignored human rights standards in its own treatment of terrorism suspects. It has refused to apply the Geneva Conventions to prisoners of war from Afghanistan, and has misused the designation of 'illegal combatant' to apply to criminal suspects on U.S. soil."

On May 25, 2005, Amnesty International released its annual report calling the detention facility the "gulag of our times."

Meanwhile, Lord Steyn, a prominent judge in the United Kingdom,  called it "a monstrous failure of justice," because "… The military will act as interrogators, prosecutors and defense counsel, judges, and when death sentences are imposed, as executioners. The trials will be held in secret. None of the guarantees of a fair trial need be observed."

Remember, Obama was going to reverse all of this insanity. And there is no question about: it is insane.

Guantanamo Bay ranks as one of the most sinister war-time camps ever devised. Who will ever forget (certainly, America’s enemies never will) the images of cuffed detainees kneeling on the ground, inside of barbed-wire enclosures, while sporting sensory-deprivation devices – i.e. no light, no sound, no tactile stimuli whatsoever. All the while, US soldiers, armed to the teeth, were inside of the enclosures as well. Even if there was a chance that one of the bad guys would pull a Houdini and escape, Guantanamo Bay is in the middle of shark-infested waters miles away from nothing. Why so many over-the-top security measures, which only make the American captors look cruel and ridiculous?

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https://rt.com/politics/columns/bridge-too/barack-obama-us-bridge/

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Repost--

'NATO bombs civilians!' - Cynthia McKinney from Tripoli with truth

RT--Video
http://youtu.be/48J_DIZBNyE

Former US congresswoman and presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney told RT she went to Libya because she wanted to know the truth.

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Obama 'ignore' button: Congress has a say?
From: RussiaToday  | Jun 17, 2011

RT Video--
http://youtu.be/1LyU0z_WpCU

The U.S. President is under fire from Congress over the military campaign in Libya, which is continuing despite not having the approval of lawmakers. Barack Obama has rejected accusations that the law is being broken, arguing that America is only playing a supporting role through NATO, which makes it legal. RT's Gayane Chichakyan has more.
NATO's warplanes have targeted the Libyan capital in more daytime raids.But the very credibility of the campaign could be fatally damaged, if Congress forces Barack Obama to abandon operations. Author David Swanson says the problem is that there's political confusion over exactly what's happening in Libya

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Will 'illegal war' sink Obama's career?

RT--Video
http://youtu.be/w7NJpsMFO0w

The US Congress has refused to grant President Obama authority to continue the military campaign in Libya. But the very same lawmakers have turned down a motion to cut funding for the American action in the country. The votes are being seen as largely symbolic, as the White House says it doesn't need Congressional approval for the mission. RT's Gayane Chichakyan has more from Washington.
The head of the U.S. Center for Constitutional Rights, Michael Ratner, says President Obama is staking his political career on the war in Libya.
RT on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/RTnews
RT on Twitter: http://twitter.com/RT_com

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Senate gives blessing to Obama for military intervention in Libya
29 June, 2011,

RT-Video
http://rt.com/news/senate-obama-military-libya/

In Washington, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has finally authorized American involvement in the military mission – something President Obama was strongly pushing for.

­The vote was 14 to 5 in the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday. The resolution gives approval for US warplanes and unmanned drones to continue limited strikes for up to one year, but forbids the deployment of ground troops.

At the Tuesday hearing, a top US State Department lawyer Harold Koh told a Senate panel, which was divided over Obama's authority to commit US military resources to the conflict, that the US president was acting within the law in ordering military attacks against Libya. He insisted that the commander-in-chief did not require congressional authorization for his actions.

"This administration is acting lawfully, consistent with both the letter and the spirit of the constitution and the War Powers Resolution," Koh told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as quoted by AP.

At the same time, Koh faced both Republicans and Democrats who challenged his stance that air strikes and drone attacks on Gaddafi's forces did not qualify as military intervention.

"We are contributing 70 per cent of the coalition's intelligence capabilities and the majority of its refuelling assets. The fact that we are leaving most of the shooting to other countries does not mean the United States is not involved in acts of war," AP quoted a top Republican Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana as saying.

Just days ago, the Republican-led House of Representatives voted down a measure to carry on military action in Libya. This had no immediate effect on the campaign, but represented a symbolic falling-out between congress and the president.

RT-Video
http://rt.com/news/senate-obama-military-libya/

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http://www.good.is/post/more-us-soldiers-killed-themselves-than-died-in-combat-in-2010

More U.S. Soldiers Killed Themselves Than Died in Combat in 2010



For the second year in a row, more American soldiers—both enlisted men and women and veterans—committed suicide than were killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Excluding accidents and illness, 462 soldiers died in combat, while 468 committed suicide. A difference of six isn't vast by any means, but the symbolism is significant and troubling. In 2009, there were 381 suicides by military personnel, a number that also exceeded the number of combat deaths.
Earlier this month, military authorities announced that suicides amongst active-duty soldiers had slowed in 2010, while suicides amongst reservists and people in the National Guard had increased. It was proof, they said, that the frequent psychological screenings active-duty personnel receive were working, and that reservists and guardsmen, who are more removed from the military's medical bureaucracy, simply need to begin undergoing more health checks. This new data, that American soldiers are now more dangerous to themselves than the insurgents, flies right in the face of any suggestion that things are "working." Even if something's working, the system is still very, very broken.

One of the problems hindering the military's attempt to address soldier suicides is that there's no real rhyme or reason to what kind of soldier is killing himself. While many suicide victims are indeed afflicted with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after facing heavy combat in the Middle East, many more have never even been deployed. Of the 112 guardsmen who committed suicide last year, more than half had never even left American soil.

"If you think you know the one thing that causes people to commit suicide, please let us know,” Army Vice Chief of Staff General Peter Chiarelli told the Army Times, "because we don't know what it is."

http://www.good.is/post/more-us-soldiers-killed-themselves-than-died-in-combat-in-2010

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Coming Soon: Obama’s Big Move in Central Africa
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford


President Obama would have you believe that 100 elite U.S. Special Forces soldiers are running around in the African Bush looking for what’s left of the Lord’s Resistance Army. “The real target is South Sudan, where the United States is setting the stage for an African proxy oil war with China.” The Green Berets are in central Africa to coordinate military operations by Washington’s African clients. “The United States and Europe can no longer compete economically with China in Africa, and must now resort to raw force, through African puppet armies.”

http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/coming-soon-obama%E2%80%99s-big-move-central-africa#comments

“The U.S. needs its own Special Forces units in place to coordinate its puppet African armies.”

It’s now becoming apparent why President Obama sent 100 U.S. Special Forces troops to central Africa, back in October of last year. The president’s official explanation was that the Green Berets would be helping Uganda, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the new nation of South Sudan to hunt for remnants of the Lord’s Resistance Army. The L.R.A., which has a reputation for killing civilians, was driven from its home in Uganda and now numbers only a few hundred scattered fighters. It poses no threat to any government in the region, and is not a plausible cause to dispatch significant numbers of U.S. Special Forces. Obama is using the L.R.A. to give his military mission a humanitarian cloak – that he’s going after rogue bad guys in the bush who threaten African civilians. The actual mission has to be something much larger.

It looks like the real target is South Sudan, where the United States is setting the stage for an African proxy oil war with China. Last July, South Sudan won independence from northern Sudan, a country that has been targeted for regime change by presidents Bush and Obama. Sudan’s oil lies right at the border between North and South, and the fields are under production by Chinese companies. The South Sudanese fought a decades long war against the north, during which they were heavily armed and financed by the U.S., Europeans and Israel. The newly independent nation is among poorest and least developed in the world – and broke. South Sudan is also already engaged ethnic civil wars of its own that have killed or displaced many tens of thousands. But chaos is precisely the environment that Washington prefers, in Africa – so that it can establish a new order that is to U.S. advantage.

“Obama is using the L.R.A. to give his military mission a humanitarian cloak.”

Reporter Thomas C. Mountain, who calls himself the only independent western journalist in the Horn of Africa, points out in a recent article that the United States pays the salaries of South Sudan’s army, and also pays the costs of the thousands of United Nations so-called “peacekeepers” who have been sent to South Sudan to help contain the ethnic violence. Those UN peacekeepers are mostly soldiers from Ethiopia, a U.S. client state that, along with Kenya and Uganda, is waging a proxy war under U.S. sponsorship in Somalia. The Ethiopians worked very closely with U.S. Special Forces, right down to the company level, in the 2006 invasion of Somalia.

Now, in the heart of central Africa where South Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Congo, and the Central African Republic meet – all of them U.S. client states – the U.S. needs its own Special Forces units in place to coordinate its puppet African armies, and to keep all of them focused on the larger mission. Reporter Thomas C. Mountain says that mission is to destabilize northern Sudan and China's oil operations, there.

That makes perfect imperial sense. The United States and Europe can no longer compete economically with China in Africa, and must now resort to raw force, through African puppet armies. The U.S. has mobilized all its proxies in East and Central Africa for a big push that will need close coordination on the ground. Obama's Green Berets aren't hunting for the rag-tag Lord’s Resistance Army; they're out to control the resources of half the continent.

For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford. On the web, go to--
http://BlackAgendaReport.com

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at
Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.