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Details you need to fight Sustainable Development and Agenda 21 Marxism - 0 views

us1.campaign-archive2.com/?u=3af5d41d21ad9fce53c86ba9d&id=3da4340aa4&e=da533b503a sustainable-development Agenda-21 Marxism New-World-Order Paganism Banksters
shared by Gary Edwards on 29 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 29 Jan 14
     
    Excellent discussion explaining the connection between local planning boards, Sustainable Development, the UN's Agenda 21, and New World Order Marxism. excerpt: "The Sustainablists will always claim that planning has been with us throughout history and this is nothing new. However, the fact is, older planning groups like the American Planning Association, which had a history in old style planning and zoning, has adopted the Sustainable Development agenda while trying to pretend it hasn't. The fact is,  APA's policy is no different than that brought on by the UN's International Council on Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI).     For proof of this, visit Plannersnetwork.org (of which the APA is a part) and look at its Statement of Principles. This revealing quote will be found: "We believe planning should be a tool for allocating resources…and eliminating the great inequalities of wealth and power in our society…because the free market has proven incAPAble of doing this."   That is the philosophy under which the APA operates. It advocates social justice and anti-capitalism as part of its purpose in enforcing planning.   Agenda 21 is divided into three parts (Economic, Equity and Environment). The "Three Es." Equity is Social Justice. The issue of social justice is the key to understanding Agenda 21 and Sustainable Development. It is the heart of the policy. The environmental concern is a convenient excuse to sacrifice liberty. The economic concern - Public/Private Partnerships is the direct elimination of capitalism through the fascist policy of partnerships between government and business. Social Justice is the redistribution of wealth, which is key to understanding Sustainable Development and specifically to understand what is meant by the Plannersnetwork.org quote above.   Connecting the American Planning Association to Agenda 21:While the APA consistently denies any UN or Agenda 21 connection to its planning programs, recently we f
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The APA Scandal | Just Security - 0 views

justsecurity.org/...apa-scandal war & peace torture CIA DoD FBI APA psychologists ethics
shared by Paul Merrell on 14 Jul 15 - No Cached
  • Last Friday, James Risen published an article describing an independent investigation of the American Psychological Association (APA) by a team of lawyers at Sidley Austin, headed by former prosecutor David Hoffman. The APA commissioned Sidley to investigate the conduct of its own leadership in connection with the role of psychologists in the torture of detainees. To put it mildly, the Hoffman Report is damning. It provides a detailed account of something unparalleled: the corruption of an esteemed professional organization through coziness with the government, when the government has decided to torture. This is different from the much-discussed role of the “torture lawyers,” which was bad enough. Here, the issue is a major organization engaging in a decade of duplicity to permit its members to participate in abusive interrogations while seeming to forbid it. For those of us who have long argued that the torture debate should focus on torture’s corrupting effect on real institutions rather than on imaginary ticking bombs, seeing it in action is a bitter vindication. An episode from the Hoffman Report provides a window into the problem.
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Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova to obtain non-NATO ally status, increase in transfer of mi... - 0 views

stratrisks.com/20345 war & peace Ukraine Russia Georgia Moldova Aserbaijan Bosnia Herzegovina Kosovo Macedonia Montenegro Serbia Crimea NATO
shared by Paul Merrell on 19 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • The U.S. Congress passed in two readings a Russian aggression prevention bill that provides major non-NATO ally status for Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova (during the period in which each of such countries meets specified criteria) for purposes of the transfer or possible transfer of defense articles or defense services. The bill was submitted to the competent commission for being prepared for the final reading, APA reports, quoting the official website of the U.S. Congress. The bill directs President Barack Obama to increase U.S. Armed Forces interactions with the armed forces of Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia; and U.S and NATO security assistance to such states. Armenia is not included in the list. The bill also amends the Natural Gas Act to apply the expedited application and approval process for natural gas exports to World Trade Organization members, and urges the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Trade and Development Agency, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), the World Bank Group, and the European Bank for Reconstruction to promote assistance to Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova in order to exploit natural gas and oil reserves and to develop alternative energy sources.
  • The document prohibits any federal department or agency from taking any action that recognizes Russian Federation sovereignty over Crimea or otherwise endorses the Russian Federation’s illegal annexation of Crimea, and directs the Secretary of State to strengthen democratic institutions, the independent media, and political and civil society organizations in countries of the former Soviet Union; and increase educational and cultural exchanges with countries of the former Soviet Union.
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Russian options against a US attack on Syria | The Vineyard of the Saker - 0 views

thesaker.is/s-against-a-us-attack-on-syria war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Syria Russia Aleppo military-options Saker must-read
shared by Paul Merrell on 10 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • The tensions between Russia and the USA have reached an unprecedented level. I fully agree with the participants of this CrossTalk show – the situation is even worse and more dangerous than during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Both sides are now going to the so-called “Plan B” which, simply put, stand for, at best, no negotiations and, at worst, a war between Russia and the USA.
  • In theory, these are, very roughly, the possible levels of confrontation: A military standoff à la Berlin in 1961. One could argue that this is what is already taking place right now, albeit in a more long-distance and less visible way. A single military incident, such as what happened recently when Turkey shot down a Russian SU-24 and Russia chose not to retaliate. A series of localized clashes similar to what is currently happening between India and Pakistan. A conflict limited to the Syrian theater of war (say like the war between the UK and Argentina over the Malvinas Islands). A regional or global military confrontation between the USA and Russia. A full scale thermonuclear war between the USA and Russia During my years as a student of military strategy I have participated in many exercises on escalation and de-escalation and I can attest that while it is very easy to come up with escalatory scenarios, I have yet to see a credible scenario for de-escalation. What is possible, however, is the so-called “horizontal escalation” or “asymmetrical escalation” in which one side choses not to up the ante or directly escalate, but instead choses a different target for retaliation, not necessarily a more valuable one, just a different one on the same level of conceptual importance (in the USA Joshua M. Epstein and Spencer D. Bakich did most of the groundbreaking work on this topic).
  • The main reason why we can expect the Kremlin to try to find asymmetrical options to respond to a US attack is that in the Syrian context Russia is hopelessly outgunned by the US/NATO, at least in quantitative terms. The logical solutions for the Russians is to use their qualitative advantage or to seek “horizontal targets” as possible retaliatory options. This week, something very interesting and highly uncharacteristic happened: Major General Igor Konashenkov, the Chief of the Directorate of Media service and Information of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation, openly mentioned one such option. Here is what he said: “As for Kirby’s threats about possible Russian aircraft losses and the sending of Russian servicemen back to Russia in body bags, I would say that we know exactly where and how many “unofficial specialists” operate in Syria and in the Aleppo province and we know that they are involved in the operational planning and that they supervise the operations of the militants. Of course, one can continue to insist that they are unsuccessfully involved in trying to separate the al-Nusra terrorists from the “opposition” forces. But if somebody tries to implement these threats, it is by no means certain that these militants will have to time to get the hell out of there.” Nice, no? Konashenkov appears to be threatening the “militants” but he is sure to mention that there are plenty of “unofficial specialists” amongst these militants and that Russia knows exactly where they are and how many of them there are. Of course, officially, Obama has declared that there are a few hundred such US special advisors in Syria. A well-informed Russian source suggests that there are up to 5’000 foreign ‘advisors’ to the Takfiris including about 4’000 Americans. I suppose that the truth is somewhere between these two figures.
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  • So the Russian threat is simple: you attack us and we will attack US forces in Syria. Of course, Russia will vehemently deny targeting US servicemen and insist that the strike was only against terrorists, but both sides understand what is happening here. Interestingly, just last week the Iranian Fars news agency reported that such a Russian attack had already happened: 30 Israeli, Foreign Intelligence Officers Killed in Russia’s Caliber Missile Attack in Aleppo: “The Russian warships fired three Caliber missiles at the foreign officers’ coordination operations room in Dar Ezza region in the Western part of Aleppo near Sam’an mountain, killing 30 Israeli and western officers,” the Arabic-language service of Russia’s Sputnik news agency quoted battlefield source in Aleppo as saying on Wednesday. The operations room was located in the Western part of Aleppo province in the middle of sky-high Sam’an mountain and old caves. The region is deep into a chain of mountains. Several US, Turkish, Saudi, Qatari and British officers were also killed along with the Israeli officers. The foreign officers who were killed in the Aleppo operations room were directing the terrorists’ attacks in Aleppo and Idlib.” Whether this really happened or whether the Russians are leaking such stories to indicate that this could happen, the fact remains that US forces in Syria could become an obvious target for Russian retaliation, whether by cruise missile, gravity bombs or direct action operation by Russian special forces. The US also has several covert military installations in Syria, including at least one airfield with V-22 Osprey multi-mission tiltrotor aircraft.
  • Another interesting recent development has been the Fox News report that Russians are deploying S-300V (aka “SA-23 Gladiator anti-missile and anti-aircraft system”) in Syria. Check out this excellent article for a detailed discussion of the capabilities of this missile system. I will summarize it by saying that the S-300V can engage ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, very low RCS (“stealth”) aircraft and AWACS aircraft. This is an Army/Army Corps -level air defense system, well capable of defending most of the Syrian airspace, but also reach well into Turkey, Cyprus, the eastern Mediterranean and Lebanon. The powerful radars of this system could not only detect and engage US aircraft (including “stealth”) at a long distance, but they could also provide a tremendous help for the few Russian air superiority fighters by giving them a clear pictures of the skies and enemy aircraft by using encrypted datalinks. Finally, US air doctrine is extremely dependent on the use of AWACS aircraft to guide and support US fighters. The S-300V will forces US/NATO AWACS to operate at a most uncomfortable distance. Between the longer-range radars of the Russian Sukhois, the radars on the Russian cruisers off the Syrian coast, and the S-300 and S-300V radars on the ground, the Russians will have a much better situational awareness than their US counterparts. It appears that the Russians are trying hard to compensate for their numerical inferiority by deploying high-end systems for which the US has no real equivalent or good counter-measures.
  • There are basically two options of deterrence: denial, when you prevent your enemy from hitting his targets and retaliation, when you make the costs of an enemy attack unacceptably high for him. The Russians appear to be pursuing both tracks at the same time. We can thus summarize the Russian approach as such Delay a confrontation as much as possible (buy time). Try to keep any confrontation at the lowest possible escalatory level. If possible, reply with asymmetrical/horizontal escalations. Rather then “prevail” against the US/NATO – make the costs of attack too high. Try to put pressure on US “allies” in order to create tensions inside the Empire. Try to paralyze the USA on a political level by making the political costs of an attack too high-end. Try to gradually create the conditions on the ground (Aleppo) to make a US attack futile To those raised on Hollywood movies and who still watch TV, this kind of strategy will elicit only frustration and condemnation. There are millions of armchair strategists who are sure that they could do a much better job than Putin to counter the US Empire. These folks have now been telling us for *years* that Putin “sold out” the Syrians (and the Novorussians) and that the Russians ought to do X, Y and Z to defeat the AngloZionist Empire. The good news is that none of these armchair strategists sit in the Kremlin and that the Russians have stuck to their strategy over the past years, one day at a time, even when criticized by those who want quick and “easy” solutions. But the main good news is that the Russian strategy is working. Not only is the Nazi-occupied Ukraine quite literally falling apart, but the US has basically run out of options in Syria (see this excellent analysis by my friend Alexander Mercouris in the Duran).
  • The only remaining logical steps left for the USA in Syria is to accept Russia’s terms or leave. The problem is that I am not at all convinced that the Neocons, who run the White House, Congress and the US corporate media, are “rational” at all. This is why the Russians employed so many delaying tactics and why they have acted with such utmost caution: they are dealing with professional incompetent ideologues who simply do not play by the unwritten but clear rules of civilized international relations. This is what makes the current crisis so much worse than even the Cuban Missile Crisis: one superpower has clearly gone insane. Are the Americans crazy enough to risk WWIII over Aleppo? Maybe, maybe not. But what if we rephrase that question and ask Are the Americans crazy enough to risk WWIII to maintain their status as the “world’s indispensable nation”, the “leader of the free world”, the “city on the hill” and all the rest of this imperialistic nonsense? Here I would submit that yes, they potentially are.
  • Paul Merrell on 10 Oct 16
     
    This is a must-read. We are at a perilous moment in history.
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