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Gary Edwards

We Call a Top NSA Whistleblower … And Get the REAL SCOOP on Spying | Washingt... - 0 views

www.washingtonsblog.com/...ope-of-the-spying-program.html

William-Binney NSA-Whistleblower NSA-Patriot-Act NARUS Verint

shared by Gary Edwards on 10 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 10 Jun 13
     
    "NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake corroborated Klein's assertions, testifying that while the NSA is using Israeli-made NARUS hardware to "seize and save all personal electronic communications." ..................... I then asked the NSA veteran Binney if the government's claim that it is only spying on metadata - and not content - was correct. We have extensively documented that the government is likely recording content as well. (And the government has previously admitted to "accidentally" collecting more information on Americans than was legal, and then gagged the judges so they couldn't disclose the nature or extent of the violations.) Binney said that was not true; the government is gathering everything, including content. Binney explained - as he has many times before - that the government is storing everything, and creating a searchable database … to be used whenever it wants, for any purpose it wants (even just going after someone it doesn't like). ..................... Binney said that former FBI counter-terrorism agent Tim Clemente is correct when he says that no digital data is safe (Clemente says that all digital communications are being recorded). Both Verint and Narus were founded in Israel in the 1990s. *** Binney next confirmed the statement of the author of the Patriot Act - Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner - that the NSA spying programs violate the Patriot Act. After all, the Patriot Act is focused on spying on external threats … not on Americans. Binney asked rhetorically: "How can an American court [FISA or otherwise] tell telecoms to cough up all domestic data?!" Update: Binney sent the following clarifying email about content collection: It's clear to me that they are collecting most e-mail in full plus other text type data on the web. As for phone calls, I don't think they would record/transcribe the approximately 3 billion US-to-US calls every day. It's more likely that they are reco
Gary Edwards

The Ultimate Net Monitoring Tool: NARUS - 0 views

www.wired.com/...70914

NSA Domestic-Spying NARUS

shared by Gary Edwards on 06 Jun 13 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 06 Jun 13
     
    Chilling stuff.  Note that Mark Klien is an important whistleblower whose testimony has helped expose the  Federal Government - NSA domestic dragnet that has violated the constitutional rights of hundreds of thousands of law abiding American citizens.  The question I have concerns cooperation between NSA NARUS spying and the IRS. We know that the IRS used key words such as "TEA PARTY", "PATRIOT", "Constitution", and "Tenth Amendment" to target American citizens.  Does the NSA NARUS target Americans in the same way?  Are there political enemy lists with background surveillance information now circulating through different government agencies based on this targeted and illegal spying? The first thing we need to do is protect whistle blowers who are risking it all to protect the constitutional rights of American citizens and save our country.   "The equipment that technician Mark Klein learned was installed in the National Security Agency's "secret room" inside AT&T's San Francisco switching office isn't some sinister Big Brother box designed solely to help governments eavesdrop on citizens' internet communications. Rather, it's a powerful commercial network-analysis product with all sorts of valuable uses for network operators. It just happens to be capable of doing things that make it one of the best internet spy tools around. "Anything that comes through (an internet protocol network), we can record," says Steve Bannerman, marketing vice president of Narus, a Mountain View, California, company. "We can reconstruct all of their e-mails along with attachments, see what web pages they clicked on, we can reconstruct their (voice over internet protocol) calls."" Narus' product, the Semantic Traffic Analyzer, is a software application that runs on standard IBM or Dell servers using the Linux operating system. It's renowned within certain circles for its ability to inspect traffic in real time on high-bandwidth pipes, identifying packets of interest as they r
Paul Merrell

Where is the Money Going? - More than Two-Thirds of Afghanistan Reconstruction Money ha... - 0 views

www.allgov.com/...y-dyncorp-international-140428

war & peace war-profiteers Afghanistan

shared by Paul Merrell on 02 May 14 - No Cached
  • If not for the federal government, contractor DynCorp International wouldn’t be in business. Virtually all of its revenue (96%) comes from government contracts. That includes the vast majority of the taxpayer dollars that the State Department has awarded to companies to help rebuild Afghanistan. The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) says that of the $4 billion allotted by the State Department from 2002 to 2013, 69.3% went to DynCorp. In terms of actual dollars, DynCorp took in $2.8 billion. Giving so much to one company might not have been a good idea, given DynCorp’s record. The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) notes the contractor’s “colorful history” includes “instances of labor smuggling, weak performance and overpayments on a base support services contract, botched construction work on an Afghan Army garrison, and lawsuits filed by disgruntled subcontractors.”
  • The second largest recipient of contracts for work in Afghanistan has been PAE Government Services, which received $598 million (or 15% of all State Department reconstruction funds). PAE has also had its troubles, according to POGO. The former subsidiary of Lockheed Martin, one of the biggest defense contractors in the U.S., saw a former program manager, Keith Johnson, and his wife, Angela Johnson, go to prison for conspiring to defraud the military over purchases of vehicle parts. In addition to jail time, the Johnsons were fined $2 million for funneling taxpayer money to a shell company they controlled and to subcontractors in exchange for kickbacks.
Paul Merrell

Taliban Control of Afghanistan Highest Since U.S. Invasion - NBC News - 0 views

www.nbcnews.com/...n-highest-u-s-invasion-n507031

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Afghanistan Taliban-control mission-failure

shared by Paul Merrell on 01 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • America's 14-year project to defeat the Taliban and build a stable Afghanistan is teetering on the brink of failure, according to a sobering report Friday by a government watchdog. The Taliban controls more of the country than at any time since U.S. troops invaded in 2001, notes the quarterly report to Congress by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. The fragile economy is worsening. One of the few bright spots of the troubled reconstruction effort — getting more girls in school — has been tainted by allegations of fraud. "The lack of security has made it almost impossible for many U.S. and even some Afghan officials to get out to manage and inspect U.S.-funded reconstruction projects," wrote John Sopko, the inspector general. The U.S. has spent more than $113 billion on Afghan reconstruction, more in constant dollars than it spend rebuilding Western Europe after World War II under the Marshall Plan. It is on track to spend billions more, but many critics view the Afghan civilian aid effort as a wasteful failure. Sopko has examined a fraction of the spending, but his audits have uncovered $17 billion in questioned costs in just three years, according to a tally by ProPublica, the investigative group.
  • Paul Merrell on 01 Feb 16
     
    The rational commander would have recognized it was mission impossible and turned it down before the war began. But the U.S. response almost beyond doubt will be to send in reinforcements. 
Paul Merrell

Meet the Israeli-linked firm that sold Big Brother machines to Mubarak, Qaddafi - and W... - 0 views

mondoweiss.net/...chines-qaddafi-washington.html

surveillance state NSA Israel Narus Verint Obama

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • In 2006, an AT&T technician named Mark Klein discovered a secret room inside the company’s windowless “Folsom Street Facility” in downtown San Francisco that was bristling with Narus machines. The now notorious Room 641A was controlled by the NSA, which was using it to collect AT&T customer data for data mining and real-time analysis. Thanks to the powerful NarusInsight system, the NSA was able to monitor 108 billion emails from AT&T customers per day.
  • Following a lawsuit filed against AT&T by the Electronic Freedom Foundation, Congress passed the FISA Amendments Act in July 2008, giving retroactive immunity to telecom corporations that assisted the NSA, and relieving them of any consequences for spying on Americans. Cass Sunstein, an informal advisor to Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign who now heads the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, and who has urged federal law enforcement to “cognitively infiltrate” anti-government groups, was an outspoken supporter of the retroactive immunity bill. With Sunstein by his side, Obama reversed his initial objections to the NSA’s domestic spying operations, voting as a Senator for retroactive immunity. The vote allowed the NSA to expand its domestic spying operations, clearing the legal hurdles obstructing the creation of PRISM. The stage was set for the second term scandal that would leave Obama reeling.
  • Binney told me that throughout the United States there are currently as many as 20 NSA black sites like Room 641A. Narus devices, he said, have been placed at fiber-optic convergence points, allowing the NSA to retrieve about 80 percent of data carried through telecom and online service providers. Binney emphasized that the devices do not only retrieve so-called metadata, which only offers general records of data, but that they gather the actual content of emails and calls. (“We can reconstruct all of their e-mails along with attachments, see what web pages they clicked on; we can reconstruct their (Voice Over Internet) calls,” said Steve Bannerman, the marketing director of Narus). Thanks to PRISM, the NSA bas been able to “fill in the gaps,” Binney explained, gathering bulk data from communications the NSA might have missed with the NarusInsight system, especially those made between Americans and foreign countries.
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  • Another Israeli-linked tech company, Verint, is a subsidiary of the Israeli firm Comverse, which boasts a reputation as “the world’s leading provider… of communications intercept and analysis” technology. Among the many Comverse executives plucked from the ranks of Israeli army intelligence is the company’s founder, Jacob “Kobi” Alexander, an ex-Israeli intelligence agent who cashed in through Israel’s high-tech surveillance industry. Alexander’s lucrative career collapsed in dramatic fashion when he was arrested for fraud in Namibia in 2006 after an international manhunt, and wound up handing over bank accounts worth $46 million to US authorities.
  • Just as AT&T relied on Narus systems, Verint’s DPI devices have been used to fulfill NSA requests for data from Verizon’s subscribers. And as Bamford explained in his 2008 book on the NSA, “Shadow Factory,” much of the data Verint and other private Israeli contractors gather from can be remotely accessed from Israel. “The greatest potential beneficiaries of this marriage between the Israeli eavesdroppers and America’s increasingly centralized telecom grid are Israel’s intelligence agencies,” Bamford wrote.
Paul Merrell

Shady Companies With Ties to Israel Wiretap the U.S. for the NSA | Threat Level | Wired... - 0 views

www.wired.com/...2

surveillance state NSA Israel Narus Verint espionage

shared by Paul Merrell on 15 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • In addition to constructing the Stellar Wind center, and then running the operation, secretive contractors with questionable histories and little oversight were also used to do the actual bugging of the entire U.S. telecommunications network. According to a former Verizon employee briefed on the program, Verint, owned by Comverse Technology, taps the communication lines at Verizon, which I first reported in my book The Shadow Factory in 2008. Verint did not return a call seeking comment, while Verizon said it does not comment on such matters. At AT&T the wiretapping rooms are powered by software and hardware from Narus, now owned by Boeing, a discovery made by AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein in 2004. Narus did not return a call seeking comment. What is especially troubling is that both companies have had extensive ties to Israel, as well as links to that country’s intelligence service, a country with a long and aggressive history of spying on the U.S.
  • In fact, according to Binney, the advanced analytical and data mining software the NSA had developed for both its worldwide and international eavesdropping operations was secretly passed to Israel by a mid-level employee, apparently with close connections to the country. The employee, a technical director in the Operations Directorate, “who was a very strong supporter of Israel,” said Binney, “gave, unbeknownst to us, he gave the software that we had, doing these fast rates, to the Israelis.” Because of his position, it was something Binney should have been alerted to, but wasn’t. “In addition to being the technical director,” he said, “I was the chair of the TAP, it’s the Technical Advisory Panel, the foreign relations council. We’re supposed to know what all these foreign countries, technically what they’re doing…. They didn’t do this that way, it was under the table.” After discovering the secret transfer of the technology, Binney argued that the agency simply pass it to them officially, and in that way get something in return, such as access to communications terminals. “So we gave it to them for switches,” he said. “For access.”
  • But Binney now suspects that Israeli intelligence in turn passed the technology on to Israeli companies who operate in countries around the world, including the U.S. In return, the companies could act as extensions of Israeli intelligence and pass critical military, economic and diplomatic information back to them. “And then five years later, four or five years later, you see a Narus device,” he said. “I think there’s a connection there, we don’t know for sure.” Narus was formed in Israel in November 1997 by six Israelis with much of its money coming from Walden Israel, an Israeli venture capital company. Its founder and former chairman, Ori Cohen, once told Israel’s Fortune Magazine that his partners have done technology work for Israeli intelligence. And among the five founders was Stanislav Khirman, a husky, bearded Russian who had previously worked for Elta Systems, Inc. A division of Israel Aerospace Industries, Ltd., Elta specializes in developing advanced eavesdropping systems for Israeli defense and intelligence organizations. At Narus, Khirman became the chief technology officer.
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  • A few years ago, Narus boasted that it is “known for its ability to capture and collect data from the largest networks around the world.” The company says its equipment is capable of “providing unparalleled monitoring and intercept capabilities to service providers and government organizations around the world” and that “Anything that comes through [an Internet protocol network], we can record. We can reconstruct all of their e-mails, along with attachments, see what Web pages they clicked on, we can reconstruct their [Voice over Internet Protocol] calls.” Like Narus, Verint was founded by in Israel by Israelis, including Jacob “Kobi” Alexander, a former Israeli intelligence officer. Some 800 employees work for Verint, including 350 who are based in Israel, primarily working in research and development and operations, according to the Jerusalem Post. Among its products is STAR-GATE, which according to the company’s sales literature, lets “service providers … access communications on virtually any type of network, retain communication data for as long as required, and query and deliver content and data …” and was “[d]esigned to manage vast numbers of targets, concurrent sessions, call data records, and communications.”
  • In a rare and candid admission to Forbes, Retired Brig. Gen. Hanan Gefen, a former commander of the highly secret Unit 8200, Israel’s NSA, noted his former organization’s influence on Comverse, which owns Verint, as well as other Israeli companies that dominate the U.S. eavesdropping and surveillance market. “Take NICE, Comverse and Check Point for example, three of the largest high-tech companies, which were all directly influenced by 8200 technology,” said Gefen. “Check Point was founded by Unit alumni. Comverse’s main product, the Logger, is based on the Unit’s technology.”
  • According to a former chief of Unit 8200, both the veterans of the group and much of the high-tech intelligence equipment they developed are now employed in high-tech firms around the world. “Cautious estimates indicate that in the past few years,” he told a reporter for the Israeli newspaper Ha’artez in 2000, “Unit 8200 veterans have set up some 30 to 40 high-tech companies, including 5 to 10 that were floated on Wall Street.” Referred to only as “Brigadier General B,” he added, “This correlation between serving in the intelligence Unit 8200 and starting successful high-tech companies is not coincidental: Many of the technologies in use around the world and developed in Israel were originally military technologies and were developed and improved by Unit veterans.
  • Equally troubling is the issue of corruption. Kobi Alexander, the founder and former chairman of Verint, is now a fugitive, wanted by the FBI on nearly three dozen charges of fraud, theft, lying, bribery, money laundering and other crimes. And two of his top associates at Comverse, Chief Financial Officer David Kreinberg and former General Counsel William F. Sorin, were also indicted in the scheme and later pleaded guilty, with both serving time in prison and paying millions of dollars in fines and penalties. When asked about these contractors, the NSA declined to “verify the allegations made.”
  • Paul Merrell on 15 Jun 13
     
    So, allegedly a Zionist working in NSA passed NSA's telecommunications data mining software to Israel, was identified, but was never prosecuted. And the Verint CEO is now a fugitive from justice on charges of "fraud, theft, lying, money laundering, and other crimes." What's not to like in having this company processing all of our telephone metadata?
Gary Edwards

» EXCLUSIVE: Snowden Level Documents Reveal Stealth DHS Spy Grid Alex Jones' ... - 0 views

www.infowars.com/ts-reveal-stealth-dhs-spy-grid

NSA-Patriot-Act-NDAA Edward-Snowden DHS-Spying

shared by Gary Edwards on 12 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • “The NMS also collects information about every Wi‐Fi client accessing the network, including its MAC address, IP address, signal intensity, data rate and traffic status,” the document reads. “Additional NMS features include a fault management system for issuing alarms and logging events according to a set of customizable filtering rules, along with centralized and version‐controlled remote updating of the Aruba Mesh Operating System software.”
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Nov 13
     
    It just keeps getting better ............... excerpt: "The wireless mesh network, which allows for private communication between wireless devices including cell phones and laptops, was built by California-based Aruba Networks, a major provider of next-generation mobile network access solutions. Labeled by their intersection location such as "1st&University" and "2nd& Seneca," the multiple network devices are easily detected in Seattle's downtown area through a simple Wi-Fi enabled device, leading many residents to wonder if they are being detected in return. "How accurately can it geo-locate and track the movements of your phone, laptop, or any other wireless device by its MAC address? Can the network send that information to a database, allowing the SPD to reconstruct who was where at any given time, on any given day, without a warrant? Can the network see you now?" asked Seattle newspaper The Stranger. According to reports from Kiro 7 News, the mesh network devices can capture a mobile user's IP address, mobile device type, apps used, current location and even historical location down to the last 1,000 places visited. So far Seattle police have been tight-lipped about the network's roll-out, even denying that the system is operational. Several groups including the ACLU have submitted requests to learn the programs intended use, but days have turned to months as the mesh network continues its advancement. According to The Stranger's investigation, Seattle Police detective Monty Moss claims the department has no plans to use the mesh network for surveillance… unless given approval by city council. Despite a recently passed ordinance requiring all potential surveillance equipment to be given city council approval and public review within 30 days of its implementation, the network has remained shrouded in secrecy. Unknown to the public until now, information regarding the system has been hiding in plain view since last February at minimum. Diagr
Paul Merrell

German FM Frank-Walter Steinmeier calls for lifting Gaza Blockade | nsnbc international - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...alls-for-lifting-gaza-blockade

war & peace Israel Gaza Germany blockade

shared by Paul Merrell on 02 Jun 15 - No Cached
  • German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, on Monday, called on Israel to lift the blockade of Gaza in return for Palestinian security reassurances during a visit to the beleaguered coastal enclave. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, heading a delegation of 60 German officials, arrived in the region on Saturday to hold talks with top Palestinian and Israeli officials.
  • During Monday’s visit to Gaza he said the enclave was a “powder keg” at risk of exploding, and called for efforts to quicken reconstruction. “I came out of all my discussions yesterday in Jerusalem and in Ramallah with the hope that all parties are mindful that here we are sitting on a powder keg here and that we must ensure that the fuse does not catch light,” Steinmeier said at a press conference in Gaza City’s fishing port.
  • Palestinian officials in the liaison office told Ma’an News Agency that the Gazan population continues to suffer as “real” reconstruction has not yet started. Last year’s conflict claimed the lives of more than 2,200 Palestinians, most of them civilians, and 73 people on the Israeli side, most of them soldiers. A World Bank report published in May said Gaza’s unemployment rate of 44 percent was “probably the highest in the world” which, coupled with its soaring poverty levels, was “very troubling”.
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  • Earlier this month, Germany announced a $41 million contribution to the UNRWA shelter assistance program in Gaza. With a total contribution of $93 million to UNRWA programs in Gaza to date, Germany is currently the second largest supporter of the UNRWA response to the humanitarian crisis resulting from last summer’s devastating war between Israel and Hamas. UNRWA director in Gaza, Robert Turner, praised the move by Germany saying: “More than eight months after the summer 2014 conflict ended, the situation in Gaza remains desperate and the people of Gaza urgently need other donors to follow the excellent example set by Germany.”
  • Paul Merrell on 02 Jun 15
     
    As the occupying power, it is Israel's responsibility to care for the people in Gaza. But Israel refuses to do so, maintaining a blockade that completely surrounds Gaza, making it the largest open air prison in the world.  
Paul Merrell

TASS: Economy - Greece to confirm construction of natural gas pipeline jointly with Rus... - 0 views

tass.ru/809613

economic-warfare pipelinestan Russia Greece Turkey Turkish-Stream

shared by Paul Merrell on 22 Jul 15 - No Cached
  • Greece supports the plan of building a natural gas pipeline jointly with Russia to be an extension of the Turkish Stream gas pipeline, new Minister of Productive Reconstruction, Environment and Energy of Greece Panos Skourletis said on Monday at the ceremony of responsibilities’ handover from the former minister Panagiotis Lafazanis. Skourletis said the plan of building a new Greek-Russian gas pipeline in the territory of Greece is supported. It opens new opportunities to be used, the minister said. This pipeline is more beneficial for Greece than the planned Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), Lafazanis said earlier. "The Russian project will provide more benefits because Greece will own a 50% stake in the pipeline and because tariffs will be higher," the ex-minister added. Greek state-owned Energy Investments Public Enterprise S.A. (EIPE S.A.) and Russia’s VEB Capital will be partners in the project. Investments into construction will amount to $2 bln. The project will be 100% financed by the Russian side and will make possible to create 20,000 jobs in Greece. The parties signed the intergovernmental memorandum on cooperation within the framework of building the Turkish Stream gas pipeline extension in Greece at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on June 19. Construction of the segment is to start in 2016 and will end at the turn of 2019.
  • Greece supports the plan of building a natural gas pipeline jointly with Russia to be an extension of the Turkish Stream gas pipeline, new Minister of Productive Reconstruction, Environment and Energy of Greece Panos Skourletis said on Monday at the ceremony of responsibilities’ handover from the former minister Panagiotis Lafazanis. Skourletis said the plan of building a new Greek-Russian gas pipeline in the territory of Greece is supported. It opens new opportunities to be used, the minister said. This pipeline is more beneficial for Greece than the planned Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), Lafazanis said earlier. "The Russian project will provide more benefits because Greece will own a 50% stake in the pipeline and because tariffs will be higher," the ex-minister added.
  • Greek state-owned Energy Investments Public Enterprise S.A. (EIPE S.A.) and Russia’s VEB Capital will be partners in the project. Investments into construction will amount to $2 bln. The project will be 100% financed by the Russian side and will make possible to create 20,000 jobs in Greece. The parties signed the intergovernmental memorandum on cooperation within the framework of building the Turkish Stream gas pipeline extension in Greece at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on June 19. Construction of the segment is to start in 2016 and will end at the turn of 2019.
  • Paul Merrell on 22 Jul 15
     
    See also http://tass.ru/en/infographics/7275 (Gazprom to eliminate gas pipelines to Europe via Ukraine during 2018). 
Paul Merrell

9/11 Museum World Trade Center Evidence: No Plane Hit Pentagon? | Dissident Voice - 0 views

dissidentvoice.org/...evidence-no-plane-hit-pentagon

war & peace 9-11 conspiracy 9-11-Truth

shared by Paul Merrell on 06 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • Even a determined debunker of 9/11 skeptics, while laying out a coherent argument that the official 9/11 Pentagon story is true (and conflating physical evidence with photography), ends up concluding: In this essay I asked what conclusions about the Pentagon attack were supported by physical evidence — primarily post-crash photographs of the site. I found that, in every aspect I considered, this evidence comports with the crash of a Boeing 757. At the same time, the evidence does not conclusively prove that the aircraft was a 757, much less that it was Flight 77. However, that lack of conclusiveness should not be surprising given the systematic suppression of evidence by authorities.
  • At best, the events of 9/11 represent the catastrophic failure of numerous American agencies, including airport security, air traffic controllers, national air defense command, and the U.S. Air Force. That reality alone is enough to raise suspicions of a cover-up, if only to avoid accountability for lethal incompetence. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. At worst, the events of 9/11 were the result of an almost unimaginable criminal conspiracy designed to produce the “new Pearl Harbor” that would enable fans of the New American Century (many of them members of the Bush administration) to take the United States in new, warlike, world-dominating directions (maybe something like a Global War on Terror).
  • In any event, the Bush administration fought long and hard to prevent any investigation of 9/11 and continued to work to undermine the 9/11 Commission until it produced its flawed report in August 2004. That final report omits any mention, much less explanation, of what Vice President Dick Cheney knew and when he knew it regarding the attack on the Pentagon. The 9/11 Commission knew full well – and chose not to confront – the serious implications of the testimony to the commission by Transportation Secretary Norman Pinetta (May 23, 2003): During the time that the airplane was coming into the Pentagon, there was a young man who would come in and say to the Vice President…the plane is 50 miles out…the plane is 30 miles out….and when it got down to the plane is 10 miles out, the young man also said to the vice president “do the orders still stand?” And the Vice President turned and whipped his neck around and said “Of course the orders still stand, have you heard anything to the contrary!??”
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  • Even now, still in the shadows of 9/11, it might be instructive to hear President Bush and members of his administration vigorously questioned, under oath, as to why they decided to pay no attention – none at all (Bush is said to have told a CIA officer “you’ve covered your ass,” which sounds in retrospect almost like foreknowledge) – to the CIA briefing paper with the title: “Bin Laden Determined To Strike in US.” Long after the facts of 9/11, the Bush people defended their absolute inattention and inaction based on the absence of evidence.
  • Paul Merrell on 06 Jun 14
     
    Re 9-11, I see the cover-up conspiracy's existence as having been established beyond any reasonable doubt in enormous detail. The cover-up conspiracy's very existence casts doubt on the official version of events. The official version of events itself is a conspiracy theory and it seems beyond question that a conspiracy involving multiple persons was in fact involved (four airliners hijacked within a few hours of each other involves more than  a single pilot acting on his own). The remaining problem is determining who the real conspirators were, their roles and actions, and their motives. Given that the official version is itself a conspiracy theory, other reconstructions of events cannot logically be discarded just on the basis that they are conspiracy theories. 
Paul Merrell

The US's Vicious Colonial War - LewRockwell.com - 0 views

www.lewrockwell.com/...the-uss-vicious-colonial-war

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Afghanistan war-on-drugs™

shared by Paul Merrell on 03 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • The last British soldiers were airlifted out of Afghanistan last week, marking the sorry end of Britain’s fourth failed invasion of Afghanistan. With them went the last detachment of US Marines in Helmand. Well has Afghanistan earned its title, “Graveyard of Empires.” To be more precise, this honor belongs to Afghanistan’s Pashtun (or Pathan) mountain tribes, who bend their knees for no man and take pride in war.
  • The US garrison in Kabul will continue to make Afghanistan safe for opium, which is the base for heroin. Americans have simply turned a blind eye to their ownership if the world’s top producer of heroin. As Washington orates about the so-called War on Drugs, Afghan opium production rose in 2013 from $2 billion to $3 billion. The UN says over 500,000 acres of land in Afghanistan are now devoted to the opium poppy – right under the eyes of the US garrison. While US-installed rulers in Kabul pay lip service to opium eradication, the rural warlords who support them, and receive stipends from CIA, continue to grow rich on the opium trade. Trying to blame Taliban for the scourge of opium is dishonest: when Taliban was in power it eradicated almost all of the nation’s opium production, reported he UN Drug Agency, except in the region controlled by the Communist Northern Alliance – which today shares power in Kabul. When the full history of the Afghan war is finally written, CIA’s involvement in that nation’s drug trade will become a notorious episode. French intelligence became deeply involved in the Laotian opium trade to pay its Lao mercenaries. The US was up to its ears with its Contra allies in the Central American cocaine trade.
  • Any native “disturbance” would be bombed and strafed by the RAF. In the 1920’s, Winston Churchill authorized RAF to use poison gas bombs against restive Pashtun and Kurdish tribesmen. Ironically, seven decades later I discovered British scientists who had been sent by HM government to Iraq to build germ weapons for Saddam Hussein to use against Iran. Similarly, the “Pax Americana” will be enforced by US airpower based at Bagram. US warplanes flying from Bagram, Qatar, and aircraft carriers on 24 hour call have been the only force keeping the Pashtun movement Taliban at bay. Without intense employment of US air power, western occupation forces, like the Imperial British armies before them, would have been driven from Afghanistan. Without US air power, garrison troops and large numbers of “civilian contractors” and old-fashioned mercenaries the Kabul puppet regime would soon be swept away. Afghanistan’s government army is likely to collapse as quickly as Iraq’s did before ISIS. Most of southern Afghanistan would declare for Taliban which, however harsh, is the nation’s only authentic political movement apart from the Tajik and Uzbek Communists in the north.
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  • The old imperialists are gone, but the occupation of Afghanistan continues. The new regime in Kabul just installed by Washington to replace uncooperative former ally Hamid Karzai, rushed to sign an “agreement” allowing the United States to keep some 10,000 soldiers in Afghanistan for years. This garrison will be exempt from all Afghan laws. However, there’s much more to this arrangement. The US combat troops, tactfully labeled “trainers” or “counter-terrorist forces,” are too few in number to dominate all Afghanistan. Their task is to defend Kabul’s sock puppet government from its own people and to defend the all-important US Bagram airbase. Washington clearly plans to continue ruling Afghanistan and Iraq the same way that the British Empire did. Small numbers of British troops garrisoned the capital; white officers led the native mercenary army. But Britain’s real power was exercised by RAF units based in Iraq and Northwest Frontier Province.
  • Now, US intelligence has besmirched its name once again aiding and abetting Afghan drug lords so as to supposedly wage war on “terrorists.” In dirt-poor Afghanistan, there are only two sources of income: money from Washington, and from narcotics. The collusion of senior members of government, military and police is necessary to export tons of opium to either Pakistan, Central Asia or Russia – where morphine addiction is now a major epidemic. Adding to this shameful record, the US Congressional auditor for Special Reconstruction of Afghanistan just reported that much of the $104 billion appropriated for Afghan “reconstruction” has to no surprise been wasted or stolen. Some of it has been used to irrigate opium poppy fields. Spare parts are unavailable for Russian helicopters bought by the US for use in battling Taliban and supposed opium fighting. Why? Because the US-imposed trade sanctions on Russia bars the US from buying the spare part. Catch-22.
  • By now, the longest war in US history has cost some $1 trillion, maybe more. No one can properly account for the billions and billions of US dollars flown into Afghanistan and Iraq and dished out to the natives – or the numbers of Afghans killed. For Washington’s allies, like Canada and Britain, the war has been a total waste of lives and treasure. For Canada, 158 dead for nothing; for Britain 453. Forget all the phony claims about “mission” and “nation building.” This has been yet another dirty little colonial war that is better forgotten – and never repeated. So this war will simmer on, at least until Washington finds some face-saving way out of the mess in the Hindu Kush. If the US was wise, it would simply quit Afghanistan. But power, like opium, is highly addictive. So America’s longest war will drag on and on.
Paul Merrell

See for yourself: Aerial and panoramic views show devastation in Gaza | The Electronic ... - 0 views

electronicintifada.net/...ic-views-show-devastation-gaza

war & peace Gaza Israel Gaza-devastation videos maps photos

shared by Paul Merrell on 31 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • A total of 2,168 people were killed, 521 of them children, during Israel’s 51-day bombardment of the Gaza Strip that ended in a ceasefire agreement on 26 August. Such images help us to understand the reality behind the shocking statistics about the physical destruction: 108,000 people have had their homes destroyed or severely damaged and will need permanent rehousing, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA). As the ceasefire allows for more in-depth assessments “it is clear that the scale of damage is unprecedented, with approximately 13 percent of the housing stock affected,” UN OCHA says. “Five percent of the housing stock is uninhabitable – an estimated 18,000 housing units have been either destroyed or severely damaged.” This on top of a shortage of 71,000 housing units before the Israeli attack. Since there is no functioning airport in Gaza and Israel controls the skies, many people have wondered how the aerial video was taken. Another video published by MediaTown in March shows the company’s crew demonstrating their use of a quadcopter remote control aircraft similar to this one to make a video:
  • The photojournalist Lewis Whyld created the “The Gaza War Map,” a website that allows the viewer to see panoramic scenes of various places in Gaza.
  • The viewer can select and virtually stand in any of 20 sites in Gaza from Rafah in the south to Beit Hanoun in the north and see a 360-degree view of the destruction all around. Short of being in Gaza it is an effective way to get a sense of the scale of devastation Israeli bombing has caused. Try it yourself.
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  • The United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) has published a series of satellite images showing areas of Gaza before and after the Israeli bombardment. Such maps are used by international agencies to make overall damage assessments. For instance, using satellite images, the UN estimated that as of 25 July, the Israeli bombardment had completely destroyed 700 structures and severely damaged 316 others in (a “structure” might be an individual house or an entire apartment block with a number of individual units) in the eastern Gaza City districts of Shujaiya, Tuffah and Shaaf (see the PDF below).
  • For instance, using satellite images, the UN estimated that as of 25 July, the Israeli bombardment had completely destroyed 700 structures and severely damaged 316 others in (a “structure” might be an individual house or an entire apartment block with a number of individual units) in the eastern Gaza City districts of Shujaiya, Tuffah and Shaaf (see the PDF below).
  • UN OCHA has published another invaluable resource, the Gaza Crisis Atlas. Viewable online, it contains numerous maps and satellite images with neighborhood-by-neighborhood information about the destruction in Gaza.
  • Paul Merrell on 31 Aug 14
     
    No blood and gore in any of these. Just a useful collection of video, satellite photos, and maps of the aftermath of summer 2014's Israeli military devastation of Gaza, the world's most densely populated area. Some of the satellite photos have before and after views of the destruction. The only worse devastation of urban areas that I have seen are photos of Dresden and Berlin at the end of World War II. So much for Israel's claims of careful targeting using precision methods of delivery. Wide areas of utter devastation. Using weapons and funds provided by the U.S.  I'm thinking about launching a political action for the U.S. to pay for Gaza reconstruction and humanitarian relief and to deduct that expense from Israel's annual $3 billion in U.S. military aid.  Contrary to widely republished Israeli propaganda, Israel, not Hamas, started this mess. http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/7/israel-hamas-palestiniansconflictunitedstatesinternationallaw.html  see also Adam Horowitz and Phil Weiss, Claim that Hamas killed 3 teens is turning out to be the WMD of Gaza onslaught, Mondoweiss (26 July 2014),
Paul Merrell

9,500 Palestinians still living in Gaza UN schools | The Electronic Intifada - 0 views

electronicintifada.net/...14328

war & peace Gaza Israel reconstruction refugees

shared by Paul Merrell on 08 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • Almost 9,500 people in Gaza were taking shelter in UN facilities, according to data released last week. UNICEF, the UN children’s fund, has reported that the humanitarian situation is worse than it was before Israel began its attack. The “coping skills” of women and children have been badly affected as a result, UNICEF has stated.
  • Although international donors pledged $5.4 billion towards rebuilding Gaza in October last year, just a fraction of that aid has materialized. Robert Serry, the Dutch diplomat who has been overseeing the UN’s reconstruction activities, said on Monday that the slow pace of aid delivery was “frankly unacceptable.” Oxfam has warned that at current rates of delivery, it will take a century to meet Gaza’s needs. More than 43,500 families have been affected by the destruction of homes.
Paul Merrell

UN officials accused of bowing to Israeli pressure over children's rights list | World ... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...pressure-childrens-rights-list

war & peace U.N. Israel IDF child-rights

shared by Paul Merrell on 20 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • Senior UN officials in Jerusalem have been accused of caving in to Israeli pressure to abandon moves to include the state’s armed forces on a UN list of serious violators of children’s rights. UN officials backed away from recommending that the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) be included on the list following telephone calls from senior Israeli officials. The Israelis allegedly warned of serious consequences if a meeting of UN agencies and NGOs based in Jerusalem to ratify the recommendation went ahead. Within hours, the meeting was cancelled. “Top officials have buckled under political pressure,” said a UN source. “As a result, a clear message has been given that Israel will not be listed.”
  • Organisations pressing for the IDF’s inclusion on the list since the war in Gaza last summer – which left more than 500 children dead and more than 3,300 injured – include Save the Children and War Child as well as at least a dozen Palestinian human rights organisations, the Israeli rights organisation B’Tselem and UN bodies such as the children’s agency Unicef. “These organisations are in uproar over what has happened,” said the UN source
  • The IDF’s inclusion on the UN’s list of grave violators of children’s rights would place it alongside non-state armed forces such as Islamic State, Boko Haram and the Taliban. There are no other state armies on the list. It would propel Israel further towards pariah status within international bodies and could lead to UN sanctions.
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  • Although Jerusalem-based officials cancelled the meeting – and subsequently decided not to recommend the IDF’s inclusion on the list – the UN complained to Israel over the intimidation of its staff. Susana Malcorra – a high-ranking official in the New York office of the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon – raised the issue in a private letter to Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Ron Prosor. The UN in New York said it could not comment on leaked documents. The telephone calls were made to June Kunugi, Unicef’s special representative to Palestine and Israel, on 12 February, the night before a meeting to decide whether to recommend the IDF’s inclusion on the list. One call was from a senior figure in Cogat, the Israeli government body that coordinates between the IDF, the Palestinian Authority and the international community; the other was made by an official in Israel’s foreign ministry.
  • ccording to UN and NGO sources, Kunugi was advised to cancel the meeting or face serious consequences. However, Israeli sources described the telephone conversations as friendly and courteous attempts to persuade Kunugi to delay the working group’s decision on its recommendation regarding the IDF until Israel had been allowed to present its case on the issue. At 8.54am the next morning, an email was sent on behalf of James Rawley, a senior official with UNSCO (the office of the UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process) who had called the meeting, to participants. It said: “Please be informed that today’s meeting scheduled at 13:00hrs has been postponed. Sincere apologies for the inconvenience this may have caused.” A joint statement to the Guardian from Kunugi and Rawley said the “strictly confidential process” of determining inclusion on the list was still ongoing and was the “prerogative of the UN secretary general, and it rests with him alone”. The UN in Jerusalem was unable to comment on the process, it added, but the submission from Jerusalem to New York was “based on verified facts, not influenced by any member state or other entity”.
  • Unicef has called a fresh meeting to update UN and NGO officials in Jerusalem on Thursday. The decision on which state and non-state armed forces are to be included on the list will be taken by UN chiefs in New York next month. However, according to the UN source, “a political decision has already been taken not to include Israel”.
  • A separate source told the Guardian: “The UN caved to Israel’s political pressure and took a highly contentious step to shelter Israel from accountability.” The list of violators of children’s rights is contained in the annex of the annual report of the secretary general on children and armed conflict. A “monitoring and reporting mechanism”, established by a UN security council resolution, supplies information on grave violations of children’s rights, such as killing and maiming, recruitment of minors into armed forces, attacks on schools, rape, abduction, and denial of humanitarian access to children. The secretary general is required to list armed forces or armed groups responsible for such actions. Following last summer’s seven-week war in Gaza, a number of UN agencies and NGOs met to consider whether to recommend the IDF’s inclusion on the list. According to insiders, participants “agreed there is a strong and credible case to recommend listing”.
  • A 13-page internal Unicef paper seen by the Guardian examined the case for the IDF to be listed on the basis of its actions in last summer’s war in Gaza, including the killing and injuring of children, and “targeted and indiscriminate” attacks on schools and hospitals. Several of the working group’s participants wrote to the UN secretary general to urge the inclusion of the IDF on the list. A letter sent in December by Defence for Children International (Palestine) said: “There is ample evidence to demonstrate that Israel’s armed forces have committed acts that amount to the grave violations against children during armed conflict, as defined by UN security council resolutions, including killing or maiming children and attacks against schools and hospitals.” The Israeli ministry of foreign affairs and Cogat declined to answer specific questions about the phone calls to Kunugi, but said in a joint statement: “Israel has a good working relationship with Unicef and the United Nations in general. Israel has no desire to get into a slanging match with anti-Israel elements nor to submit to their intimidations.”
  • Paul Merrell on 20 Mar 15
     
    More information, including that Palestine Civil Society has requested that U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon to discharge two U.N. officials involved becuase of this issue and because of signifificant delays that work to Israel's advantage in reconstruction of Gaza following Israel's assault last summer. http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/un-providing-israel-cover-killing-gazas-children
Paul Merrell

Syria to revive Middle East's biggest Industrial Zone as Army consolidates Sovereignty ... - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...-army-consolidates-sovereignty

war & peace Syria reconstruction China

shared by Paul Merrell on 20 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • After the Syrian Arab Army reestablished sovereignty over Syria’s biggest industrial zone, Sheikh Najjar, near Aleppo, it started the process of rebuilding the devastated and pillaged industrial powerhouse of the Middle East. The Syrian Arab Army also regained control over a number of other key locations in Aleppo, Homs, Daraa, Quneitra, Idleb, Lattakia and Deir Ez-Zor.  Almost all of the buildings in the Middle East’s biggest industrial zone of Sheikh Najjar have been devastated, factories have been pillaged, entire production facilities have been shipped to Turkey and “rebel/terrorist-held” territories to fuel and finance the foreign-backed insurgency.
  • Sheikh Najjar is located northeast of the city of Aleppo which  has seen heavy fighting in and around the city since the onset of the foreign-backed insurgency in 2011. Syrian economists noted that the war has caused a forty percent contraction of Syria’s economy, that some fifty percent of the labor force is unemployed and that the country has an inflation of about fifty percent. The Syrian government has implemented economic countermeasures, with some success, is about to open a market for the export of gold to other Middle Eastern countries, and has entered into long-term economic and reconstruction agreements with, among others, China. The Sheikh Najjar industrial zone employed some 42,000 people after it was opened in 2004, only three years before core NATO member states and Israel actively began preparing for the war on Syria. It was the home of some 1,250 companies when it opened in 2004 and was built with the capacity to host about 6,000.
  • The recapture and revival of the Sheikh Najjar Industrial Zone is a landmark victory and progress for the Syrian Arab Army, the elected Syrian government and for all those who participate in the peaceful political discourse. However, progress in all regions of the country is significant and contradicts western media reports, and governments, some of which call for an “intervention” and the support of “moderates” to bring peace and security to the country. As the US American historian Webster G. Tarpley noted, “there is no moderate opposition in Syria other than that which is in parliament and which participates in the Syrian political discourse”.
Paul Merrell

Farsnews - 0 views

en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx

war & peace Syria U.S.-foreign-policy invasion

shared by Paul Merrell on 07 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • US experts are reconstructing and equipping a desolate airport special to carrying agricultural products in the region controlled by the Kurdish forces in Hasaka region, Northeastern Syria, to turn it into a military base.The Lebanese al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Saturday that a number of US experts have entered the region since 50 days ago to develop and prepare the runways with 2,500m length and 250m width to be used by fighter jets. Abu Hajar airport which has not been used since 2010 is located in Tal al-Hajar region in the Eastern countryside of Hasaka which is controlled by the Kurdish People's Defense Units (YPG).
  • The airbase is located Southeast of the town of Rimelan, which is one of the YPG’s main strongholds and “largest arms and ammunition depots”. The US has not received or even asked for a permission from Damascus for reconstructing the airbase. The United States does not have a UN mandate for interventing in the Syria war. The airport will help enable Washington to add an additional safe place to land its forces, commando units for instance, and bring in military support to its allies who are working to finalize control over Southern Hasaka countryside, al-Akhbar said. The report came over a week after the Kurdish region said that the US and Kurdish forces were working together to construct a 10 hectare military airbase South of the town of Rimelan in the village of Rimelan al-Basha. “American experts are directly supervising the airbase with a Kurdish workforce,” the reports claimed, saying that US unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) had been flown from the facility to test it.
ashkif as

Affordable Facelift NY - 0 views

www.portalmarkets.com/...21957.html

affordable facelift

shared by ashkif as on 24 Jan 19 - No Cached
  • ashkif as on 24 Jan 19
     
    You are invited to visit with Dr. Edmund Kwan in one of our state-of-the-art facilities. Many of our procedures are performed at a well-appointed facility for plastic and reconstructive surgery, located in Manhattan. Dr. Kwan is Board Certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery (also known as the ABPS) and focuses on providing unmatched facial contouring, body contouring and shaping, along with the augmentation and improvement of various parts of the body. If you have already visited one ...
Paul Merrell

Iraq war costs U.S. more than $2 trillion -study | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...iversary-idUSL1N0C5FBN20130314

foreign wars costs casualties

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • (Reuters) - The U.S. war in Iraq has cost $1.7 trillion with an additional $490 billion in benefits owed to war veterans, expenses that could grow to more than $6 trillion over the next four decades counting interest, a study released on Thursday said.The war has killed at least 134,000 Iraqi civilians and may have contributed to the deaths of as many as four times that number, according to the Costs of War Project by the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University.When security forces, insurgents, journalists and humanitarian workers were included, the war's death toll rose to an estimated 176,000 to 189,000, the study said.
  • The report, the work of about 30 academics and experts, was published in advance of the 10th anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq on March 19, 2003.It was also an update of a 2011 report the Watson Institute produced ahead of the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks that assessed the cost in dollars and lives from the resulting wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.The 2011 study said the combined cost of the wars was at least $3.7 trillion, based on actual expenditures from the U.S. Treasury and future commitments, such as the medical and disability claims of U.S. war veterans.That estimate climbed to nearly $4 trillion in the update.
  • The estimated death toll from the three wars, previously at 224,000 to 258,000, increased to a range of 272,000 to 329,000 two years later.Excluded were indirect deaths caused by the mass exodus of doctors and a devastated infrastructure, for example, while the costs left out trillions of dollars in interest the United States could pay over the next 40 years.The interest on expenses for the Iraq war could amount to about $4 trillion during that period, the report said.The report also examined the burden on U.S. veterans and their families, showing a deep social cost as well as an increase in spending on veterans. The 2011 study found U.S. medical and disability claims for veterans after a decade of war totaled $33 billion. Two years later, that number had risen to $134.7 billion.
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  • The report concluded the United States gained little from the war while Iraq was traumatized by it. The war reinvigorated radical Islamist militants in the region, set back women's rights, and weakened an already precarious healthcare system, the report said. Meanwhile, the $212 billion reconstruction effort was largely a failure with most of that money spent on security or lost to waste and fraud, it said.
  • "Action needed to be taken," said Steven Bucci, the military assistant to former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in the run-up to the war and today a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington-based think-tank.Bucci, who was unconnected to the Watson study, agreed with its observation that the forecasts for the cost and duration of the war proved to be a tiny fraction of the real costs."If we had had the foresight to see how long it would last and even if it would have cost half the lives, we would not have gone in," Bucci said. "Just the time alone would have been enough to stop us. Everyone thought it would be short."
Paul Merrell

Asia Times Online :: The Fall of the House of Europe - 0 views

www.atimes.com/...WOR-01-110313.html

banksters financial-collapse EU collapse Italy

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • There's more, much more. These four characters - Bersani, Monti, Grillo, Berlusconi - happen to be at the heart of a larger than life Shakespearean tragedy: the political failure of the troika (European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund), which translates into the politics of the European Union being smashed to pieces. That's what happens when the EU project was never about a political ''union'' - but essentially about the euro as a common currency. No wonder the most important mechanism of European unification is the European Central Bank. Yet abandon all hope of European politicians asking their disgruntled citizens about a real European union. Does anybody still want it? And exactly under what format?
  • All hell is breaking loose in the EU. Le Monde insists Europe is not in agony. Oh yes, it is; in a coma. And yet Brussels (the bureaucrat-infested European Commission) and Berlin (the German government) simply don't care about a Plan B; it's austerity or bust. Predictably, Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem - the new head of the spectacularly non-transparent political committee that runs the euro - said that what Monti was doing (and was roundly rejected by Italians) is ''crucial for the entire eurozone''.
  • The verdict is of an Italy ''in the hands of polit-clowns that may shatter the euro or force the country to exit''. Even the liberal-progressive Der Tagesspiegel in Berlin defines Italy as ''a danger to Europe''
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • So whatever government emerges in Italy, the message from Brussels, Berlin and Frankfurt remains the same: if you don't cut, cut and cut, you're on your own. Germany, for its part, has only a plan A. It spells out ''Forget the Club Med''. This means closer integration with Eastern Europe (and further on down the road, Turkey). A free trade deal with the US. And more business with Russia - energy is key - and the BRICS in general. Whatever the public spin, the fact is German think-tanks are already gaming a dual-track eurozone.
  • Philosopher Franco Berardi - who way back in the 1970s was part of the Italian autonomous movements - correctly evaluates that what Europe is living today is a direct consequence of the 1990s, when financial capital hijacked the European model and calcified it under neoliberalism. Subsequently, a detailed case can be made that the financial Masters of the Universe used the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis to turbo-charge the political disintegration of the EU via a tsunami of salary cuts, job precariousness for the young, the flattening of pensions and hardcore privatization of everything. No wonder roughly 75% of Italians ended up saying ''No'' to Monti and Merkel.
  • What Grillo's movement has already done is to show how ungovernable Europe is under the Monti-Merkel austerity mantra. Now the ball is in the European financial elite's court. Most wouldn't mind letting Italy become the new Greece. So we go back full circle. The only way out would be a political reformulation of the EU. As it is, most of Europe is watching, impotently, the death of the welfare state, sacrificed in the altar of Recession. And that runs parallel to Europe slouching towards global irrelevance - Real Madrid and Bayern Munich notwithstanding. The Fall of the House of Europe might turn into a horror story beyond anything imagined by Poe - displaying elements of (already visible) fascism, neo-Dickensian worker exploitation and a wide-ranging social, civil war. In this context, the slow reconstruction of a socially based Europe may become no more than a pipe dream.
Gary Edwards

An Inconvenient Truth: Liberal Climate Inquisition Can't Explain Past Temperature Changes - 0 views

dailysignal.com/...plain-past-temperature-changes

Climate-Change Global-Warming Carbon-Tax redistribution-of-wealth

shared by Gary Edwards on 07 May 16 - No Cached
  • For instance, the chart above shows reconstructed average world temperature data for the past 500,000 years. Depending on the magnification and size of your monitor, each pencil dot would span something on the order of 1,000 years. The myriad 10-degree Celsius temperature flips all happened before man-made carbon dioxide could have had any impact—the final temperature spike started at the end of the last ice age.
  • Now see if you can follow this: The “science thought police” insist that even though none of the temperature variations for the first 499,950 years had anything to do with human activity, virtually none of the temperature increases of the past 50 years had anything to do with nature. Got it?
  • Gary Edwards on 07 May 16
     
    "In the week prior to the administration signing what should constitute an international climate treaty, one think tank, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, was subpoenaed for casting doubt on the agreement's associated science of climate catastrophe. As disturbing as such thuggery from state attorneys general would be in any case, the premise of the subpoena is faulty. The Competitive Enterprise Institute did not cast doubt on the dubious climate science. The actual data cast the doubt. The think tank and others have simply pointed out what the data show. It looks like thoughtcrime has now moved from George Orwell's novel "1984" to the twisted reality of our judicial system. Pointing out facts should never be a real crime. The Heritage Foundation's new Paris-bubble-popping science summary is also a case of letting the numbers tell a story. A story many never hear in the media-hyped spectacle that is international climate policy."
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