By Rick Rozoff, Media Montors Network
"After the U.S. Operation Enduring Freedom attacks on and subjugation of Afghanistan began in October of 2001, Washington and its NATO allies acquired the indefinite use of air and other military bases in Afghanistan, including Soviet-built airfields. The West also moved into bases in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and with less fanfare in Pakistan and Turkmenistan. It has also gained transit rights from Kazakhstan and NATO conducted its first military exercise in that nation, Zhetysu 2009, last September."
Gordon Brown was the worst offender, with his government inventing 33 new crimes a month. Tony Blair's administration made 27 new offences each month.
*~*~*~*~*~*
Afghanistan is occupying center stage at the moment, but in the wings are complementary maneuvers to expand a string of new military bases and missile shield facilities throughout Eurasia and the Middle East.
The advanced Patriot theater anti-ballistic missile batteries in place or soon to be in Egypt, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Israel, Japan, Kuwait, the Netherlands, Poland, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates describe an arc stretching from the Baltic Sea through Southeast Europe to the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, the Caucasus, the Persian Gulf and beyond to East Asia. A semicircle that begins on Russia's northwest and ends on China's northeast.
*~*~*~*~*~*
Over the past decade the United States has steadily (though to much of the world imperceptibly) extended its military reach to most all parts of the world. From subordinating almost all of Europe to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization through the latter's expansion into Eastern Europe, including the former Soviet Union, to arbitrarily setting up a regional command that takes in the African continent (and all but one of its 53 nations). From invading and establishing military bases in the Middle East and Central and South Asia to operating a satellite surveillance base in Australia and taking charge of seven military installations in South America. In the vacuum left in much of the world by the demise of the Cold War and the former bipolar world, the U.S. rushed in to insert its military in various parts of the world that had been off limits to it before.
And this while Washington cannot even credibly pretend that it is threatened by any other nation on earth.
It has employed a series of tactics to accomplish its objective of unchallenged international armed superiority, using an expanding NATO to build military partnerships not only throughout Europe but in the Caucasus, the Middle East, North and West Africa, Asia and Oceania as well as employing numerous bilateral and regional arrangements.
The pattern that has emerged is that of the U.S. shifting larger concentrations of troops from post-World War II bases in Europe and Japan to smaller, more dispersed forward basing locations south and east of Europe and progressively closer to Russia, Iran and China.
The ever-growing number of nations throughout the world being pulled into Washington's military network serve three main purposes.
First, they provide air, troop and weapons transit and bases for wars like those against Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq, for naval operations that are in fact blockades by other names, and for regional surveillance.
Second, they supply troops and military equipment for deployments to war and post-conflict zones whenever and wherever required.
Last, allies and client states are incorporated into U.S. plans for an international missile shield that will put NATO nations and select allies under an impenetrable canopy of interceptors while other nations are susceptible to attack and deprived of the deterrent effect of being able to retaliate.
The degree to which these three components are being integrated is advancing rapidly. The war in Afghanistan is the major mechanism for forging a global U.S. military nexus and one which in turn provides the Pentagon the opportunity to obtain and operate bases from Southeast Europe to Central Asia.
One example that illustrates this global trend is Colombia. In early August the nation's vice president announced that the first contingent of Colombian troops were to be deployed to serve under NATO command in Afghanistan. Armed forces from South America will be assigned to the North Atlantic bloc to fight a war in Asia. The announcement of the Colombian deployment came shortly after another: That the Pentagon would acquire seven new military bases in Colombia.
When the U.S. deploys Patriot missile batteries to that nation - on its borders with Venezuela and Ecuador - the triad will be complete.
Afghanistan is occupying center stage at the moment, but in the wings are complementary maneuvers to expand a string of new military bases and missile shield facilities throughout Eurasia and the Middle East.
~ more... ~
Recommended daily allowance of insanity, under-reported news and uncensored opinion dismantling the propaganda matrix.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Labour invents 33 new crimes every month
Thanks to Labour, it is now illegal to swim in the wreck of the Titanic or to sell game birds killed on a Sunday or Christmas Day – eventualities overlooked by previous governments.
Labour has made 4,289 activities illegal since the 1997 election, at a rate of about one a day – twice the speed with which the previous Conservative government created crimes.
Gordon Brown was the worst offender, with his government inventing 33 new crimes a month. Tony Blair's administration made 27 new offences each month.
Some of the more inventive crimes dreamt up by Labour include "disturbing a pack of eggs when directed not to by an authorised officer" and reporting the door of a merchant ship to be closed and locked when it isn't.
~ more... ~
Labour has made 4,289 activities illegal since the 1997 election, at a rate of about one a day – twice the speed with which the previous Conservative government created crimes.
Gordon Brown was the worst offender, with his government inventing 33 new crimes a month. Tony Blair's administration made 27 new offences each month.
Some of the more inventive crimes dreamt up by Labour include "disturbing a pack of eggs when directed not to by an authorised officer" and reporting the door of a merchant ship to be closed and locked when it isn't.
~ more... ~
Victory for Black Mesa – Peabody coal mining permit denied
From It's Getting Hot in Here:
You heard it here first. A Department of Interior Administrative Law Judge withdrew Peabody Coal Company’s Life of Mine permit for operations on Black Mesa, AZ, handing a major victory to tribal and environmental organizations who appealed the permit decision in January. The permit had been granted on December 22nd 2008 by the Department of Interior’s Office of Surface Mining (OSM) in one of several fossil-fuel friendly 11th hour decisions by the Bush Administration.
You heard it here first. A Department of Interior Administrative Law Judge withdrew Peabody Coal Company’s Life of Mine permit for operations on Black Mesa, AZ, handing a major victory to tribal and environmental organizations who appealed the permit decision in January. The permit had been granted on December 22nd 2008 by the Department of Interior’s Office of Surface Mining (OSM) in one of several fossil-fuel friendly 11th hour decisions by the Bush Administration.
According Judge Robert G. Holt, “OSM violated NEPA [National Environmental Protection Act] by not preparing a supplemental draft EIS [Environmental Impact Statement] when Peabody changed the proposed action. As a result, the Final EIS did not consider a reasonable range of alternatives to the new proposed action, described the wrong environmental baseline, and did not achieve the informed decision-making and meaningful public comment required by NEPA. Because of the defective Final EIS, OSM’s decision to issue a revised permit to Peabody must be vacated and remanded to OSM for further action.”
As a community member of Black Mesa I am grateful for Judge Holt’s decision. For 40 years our sacred homelands and people have borne the brunt of coal mining impacts, from relocation to depletion of our only drinking water source. This ruling is an important step towards restorative justice for Indigenous communities who have suffered at the hands of multinational companies like Peabody Energy. This decision is also precedent-setting for all other communities who struggle with the complexities of NEPA laws and OSM procedures in regards to environmental protection. However, we also cannot ignore the irreversible damage of coal mining industries continues on the land, water, air, people and all living things.
Economic Hit Man John Perkins talks to BuzzFlash about global corporate control and how we can stop the coming economic meltdown
BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW
We're headed for disaster. You'd have to be totally blind not to recognize that. So if we don't change -- if this crisis doesn't force us to change -- there will be more and more and more and more. And who knows what the ultimate outcome will be? If we continue to resist, we'll disappear. I mean, you have to be sustainable at some point don't you, by definition?
-- John Perkins
* * *
Initially, John Perkins seems to be a character you'd love to hate. His tales of spreading exploitation and pushing World Bank loans across the planet as an "economic hit man" make him easy fodder. Perkins has been a member of a group that finds itself more and more unpopular every day since the implosion of Wall Street last year.
In his latest book, he introduces himself as one of the "'hired guns' who promote the interests of big corporations and certain sectors of the U.S. government." He adds that though he had a "fancy title" his "real job was to plunder the Third World."
This was Perkins' basic narrative in his wildly popular book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. But in his latest book, Hoodwinked: An Economic Hit Man Reveals Why the World Financial Markets Imploded -- and What We Need to Do to Remake Them, he connects the plundering of the last three decades to the roots of today's economic crisis.
"We were so successful in the Third World that our bosses directed us to implement similar strategies in the United States and across the rest of the planet," he writes. This is where the global economic crisis came from, and we can only fix it if we understand that.
And that's why BuzzFlash had to talk to the economic hit man himself. Turns out, the H-word that came to mind was not hate, but hope.
In this interview, Perkins explains why "economic recovery," in the mainstream sense of the word, is not desirable for our country, and that such a "return to normal" will only precipitate the next looming crisis. He also told us what he thinks about the supposed "change" as represented by the Obama Administration a year after inauguration and what it's going to take to transition from toxic, predatory capitalism to a sustainable, fair-market society.
* * *
BuzzFlash: First of all, I want to thank you for taking the time, and let you know I really enjoyed Hoodwinked. But I do want to start by going back a bit to your first book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, and your persona in that role. I want to know how well you knew, when you were actually in this role, that you might be doing something wrong as an economist in the Third World.
John Perkins: Well, Meg, I think it was always in the back of my mind. From the moment I first met with Claudine -- you know, this amazing woman who was my mentor and trainer -- and she let me know what I would be in for. I think I had suspicions. But I felt that I could probably be different. I think we often feel that way.
Also, all my training in business school said that if you build big infrastructure projects in developing countries, that was the right way to increase economic growth. And of course, the business schools were teaching that while I was an economic hit man. I was asked to speak at places like Harvard and talk about these things. And the World Bank was very much behind it. Robert McNamara, president of the World Bank, patted me on the back and told me what a good job I was doing.
So there were a lot of ways to kind of convince myself that what I was doing was right. And I was living a very interesting life, traveling first class around the world, visiting countries that I'd always wanted to visit. So there's a side of me that always wanted to convince myself. But as time went on and I questioned more and more, and heard more and more, I saw more and more. Finally after about ten years I reached a point where I could no longer fool myself. I could no longer be in denial.
[ ... ]
BuzzFlash: Do you see another looming crisis on the horizon?
John Perkins: This is not ending. If we don't do something to change it, it's going to get worse. There's no question about that. I mean, we should have seen this crisis coming -- and anybody who was really looking did see it coming.
When your country is as deep in debt as ours is, when you're doing essentially what the Spanish empire did back in the sixteen- or seventeen-hundreds, which was plundering the rest of the planet, and not building up your own manufacturing base, but instead going to other countries, borrowing huge amounts of money. This is exactly what the Spanish did. They plundered Latin America for gold and silver, and they took out huge loans based on that plunder from the Dutch and the British and many others, and just lived this lifestyle. They didn't really build up their own economy, and it imploded.
We're doing the same thing, and it doesn't work. And in addition to that, it's worse today because we've created this world for less than five percent of us who live in the United States and consume more than 25 percent of the world's resources. And you can't -- the world's so big -- it's such a big population that there's no way anybody else can replicate that. The planet's just not big enough. We'd have to have another five planets to do that.
And so, we're headed for disaster. You'd have to be totally blind not to recognize that. So if we don't change -- if this crisis doesn't force us to change, there will be more and more and more and more. And who knows what the ultimate outcome will be? If we continue to resist, we'll disappear. I mean, you have to be sustainable at some point, don't you, by definition? The species has to be sustainable. A lot of species have disappeared from the planet because they haven't been sustainable. A lot of human cultures have disappeared from the planet because they weren't sustainable, like the Mayan culture for example. We have to either become sustainable or perish.
~ more... ~
We're headed for disaster. You'd have to be totally blind not to recognize that. So if we don't change -- if this crisis doesn't force us to change -- there will be more and more and more and more. And who knows what the ultimate outcome will be? If we continue to resist, we'll disappear. I mean, you have to be sustainable at some point don't you, by definition?
-- John Perkins
* * *
Initially, John Perkins seems to be a character you'd love to hate. His tales of spreading exploitation and pushing World Bank loans across the planet as an "economic hit man" make him easy fodder. Perkins has been a member of a group that finds itself more and more unpopular every day since the implosion of Wall Street last year.
In his latest book, he introduces himself as one of the "'hired guns' who promote the interests of big corporations and certain sectors of the U.S. government." He adds that though he had a "fancy title" his "real job was to plunder the Third World."
This was Perkins' basic narrative in his wildly popular book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. But in his latest book, Hoodwinked: An Economic Hit Man Reveals Why the World Financial Markets Imploded -- and What We Need to Do to Remake Them, he connects the plundering of the last three decades to the roots of today's economic crisis.
"We were so successful in the Third World that our bosses directed us to implement similar strategies in the United States and across the rest of the planet," he writes. This is where the global economic crisis came from, and we can only fix it if we understand that.
And that's why BuzzFlash had to talk to the economic hit man himself. Turns out, the H-word that came to mind was not hate, but hope.
In this interview, Perkins explains why "economic recovery," in the mainstream sense of the word, is not desirable for our country, and that such a "return to normal" will only precipitate the next looming crisis. He also told us what he thinks about the supposed "change" as represented by the Obama Administration a year after inauguration and what it's going to take to transition from toxic, predatory capitalism to a sustainable, fair-market society.
* * *
BuzzFlash: First of all, I want to thank you for taking the time, and let you know I really enjoyed Hoodwinked. But I do want to start by going back a bit to your first book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, and your persona in that role. I want to know how well you knew, when you were actually in this role, that you might be doing something wrong as an economist in the Third World.
John Perkins: Well, Meg, I think it was always in the back of my mind. From the moment I first met with Claudine -- you know, this amazing woman who was my mentor and trainer -- and she let me know what I would be in for. I think I had suspicions. But I felt that I could probably be different. I think we often feel that way.
Also, all my training in business school said that if you build big infrastructure projects in developing countries, that was the right way to increase economic growth. And of course, the business schools were teaching that while I was an economic hit man. I was asked to speak at places like Harvard and talk about these things. And the World Bank was very much behind it. Robert McNamara, president of the World Bank, patted me on the back and told me what a good job I was doing.
So there were a lot of ways to kind of convince myself that what I was doing was right. And I was living a very interesting life, traveling first class around the world, visiting countries that I'd always wanted to visit. So there's a side of me that always wanted to convince myself. But as time went on and I questioned more and more, and heard more and more, I saw more and more. Finally after about ten years I reached a point where I could no longer fool myself. I could no longer be in denial.
[ ... ]
BuzzFlash: Do you see another looming crisis on the horizon?
John Perkins: This is not ending. If we don't do something to change it, it's going to get worse. There's no question about that. I mean, we should have seen this crisis coming -- and anybody who was really looking did see it coming.
When your country is as deep in debt as ours is, when you're doing essentially what the Spanish empire did back in the sixteen- or seventeen-hundreds, which was plundering the rest of the planet, and not building up your own manufacturing base, but instead going to other countries, borrowing huge amounts of money. This is exactly what the Spanish did. They plundered Latin America for gold and silver, and they took out huge loans based on that plunder from the Dutch and the British and many others, and just lived this lifestyle. They didn't really build up their own economy, and it imploded.
We're doing the same thing, and it doesn't work. And in addition to that, it's worse today because we've created this world for less than five percent of us who live in the United States and consume more than 25 percent of the world's resources. And you can't -- the world's so big -- it's such a big population that there's no way anybody else can replicate that. The planet's just not big enough. We'd have to have another five planets to do that.
And so, we're headed for disaster. You'd have to be totally blind not to recognize that. So if we don't change -- if this crisis doesn't force us to change, there will be more and more and more and more. And who knows what the ultimate outcome will be? If we continue to resist, we'll disappear. I mean, you have to be sustainable at some point, don't you, by definition? The species has to be sustainable. A lot of species have disappeared from the planet because they haven't been sustainable. A lot of human cultures have disappeared from the planet because they weren't sustainable, like the Mayan culture for example. We have to either become sustainable or perish.
~ more... ~
Increased "Risk of Secession" in European Union
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard has recently pulled some noteworthy quotes from the European Central Bank's December 2009 guide on expulsion from the EU, such as, “recent developments have, perhaps, increased the risk of secession…”
The new document is part of a legal working paper series and is entitled, “Withdrawal and expulsion from the EU and EMU: some reflections” (PDF). With the ongoing economic upheaval throughout the industrialized world, and especially in the PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Spain) nations, it's looking like an increasingly useful resource for EU leaders to have on hand.
From The Telegraph:
“Crucially, he [Phoebus Athanassiou] argues that eurozone exit entails expulsion from the European Union as well. All EU members must take part in EMU (except Britain and Denmark, with opt-outs).
“This is a warning shot for Greece, Portugal, Ireland and Spain. If they fail to marshal public support for draconian austerity, they risk being cast into Icelandic oblivion. Or for Greece, back into the clammy embrace of Asia Minor.
“ECB chief Jean-Claude Trichet upped the ante, warning that the bank would not bend its collateral rules to support Greek debt. "No state can expect any special treatment," he said. He might as well daub a deaths cross on the door of Greeces debt management office.”
Here the topic arises again… the steady drumbeat for austerity measures in troubled, but developed economies. Which countries will be able to answer the call, in what has become an entitlement era, remains to be seen. Visit The Telegraph to read the article in its entirety and get a better sense of how the ECB is preparing the legal ground for a euro rupture.
~ Link ~German homeschoolers granted political asylum in US
The decision, announced Tuesday in Memphis, clears the way for Uwe Romeike, his wife and five children to stay in Tennessee, where they have been living since 2008.
German state constitutions require children to attend public or private schools, and parents can face fines or prison time if they do not comply.
Mr Romeike, an evangelical Christian, said he believes the German curriculum is "against Christian values".
Mike Donnelly, a lawyer with the Home School Legal Defence Association advocacy group, said he hoped the ruling will influence public opinion in Germany.
~ Link ~
German state constitutions require children to attend public or private schools, and parents can face fines or prison time if they do not comply.
Mr Romeike, an evangelical Christian, said he believes the German curriculum is "against Christian values".
Mike Donnelly, a lawyer with the Home School Legal Defence Association advocacy group, said he hoped the ruling will influence public opinion in Germany.
~ Link ~
NGOs call for the impeachment of torture lawyer Jay Bybee
WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A campaign is building to demand the impeachment of Jay Bybee, a sitting federal judge and the former head of the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Legal Council (OLC), who wrote torture memos to facilitate offensive war and torture.
DisbarTortureLawyers, www.DisbarTortureLawyers.com, is joining with many allied organizations at www.impeachbybee.org to lobby for immediate impeachment hearings and the introduction of a bill that would create such hearings. Allies have planned protests at courthouses of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in three West Coast cities on Thursday, February 4th.
Newsweek reported on Friday that the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility's (OPR) report on the actions of Bybee and his subordinates has been edited to remove the finding of misconduct that was reached in the report's original version. This alteration occurred after Bybee and the other subjects of the report were permitted to review and suggest changes to it. Newsweek concludes:
"[T]he original finding would have triggered a referral to state bar associations for potential disciplinary action‹which, in Bybee's case, could have led to an impeachment inquiry."
Impeachment, however, is the prerogative of the legislative branch rather than the executive branch. Bybee has committed impeachable offenses whether or not the very department of government he worked for agrees. Bybee wrote legal memos that were, and to some extent still are, treated as laws which legalized offensive wars of choice and a variety of acts of torture. These facts are public, and the House Judiciary Committee does not need the permission of the Department of Justice in order to move forward on impeachment.
It has been almost a year since Congress Members Jerrold Nadler and Jan Schakowsky each said that Bybee should be impeached. We call on them and other House Members to introduce a bill to begin that process, and to hold hearings to investigate both Bybee's original abuses and the years-long process of editing the OPR report. Indeed, a resolution announcing impeachment proceedings could result in Bybee's disbarment and resignation. It should read:
"Resolved, That the Committee on the Judiciary shall investigate fully whether sufficient grounds exist for the House of Representatives to impeach Jay Bybee, for high crimes and misdemeanors."
"If the Newsweek piece is true that the OPR report has been further manipulated to give torture lawyers a free pass, then Congress should immediately launch a full scale investigation to determine if politics, political pressure, or something worse entered into this decision," said DisbarTortureLawyers spokesperson and attorney Kevin Zeese. "Jay Bybee, John Yoo and the others did not merely exercise poor judgment, they violated their oath of office and the rules of legal ethics. Â We intend to work aggressively with Congress to get to the bottom of this matter, to seek impeachment of Judge Bybee, to press our complaints for disbarment, and to work with lawyers and judges in foreign countries to have these torture advocates fully prosecuted for crimes against humanity. It is a real shame that the United States Department of Justice is whitewashing the very torture that was made possible by its own employees. Â That torture has resulted in many deaths, not just of torture victims, but of our own soldiers who were killed by those who turned against America because our government tortured."
SOURCE DisbarTortureLawyers.com
~ Link ~
DisbarTortureLawyers, www.DisbarTortureLawyers.com, is joining with many allied organizations at www.impeachbybee.org to lobby for immediate impeachment hearings and the introduction of a bill that would create such hearings. Allies have planned protests at courthouses of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in three West Coast cities on Thursday, February 4th.
Newsweek reported on Friday that the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility's (OPR) report on the actions of Bybee and his subordinates has been edited to remove the finding of misconduct that was reached in the report's original version. This alteration occurred after Bybee and the other subjects of the report were permitted to review and suggest changes to it. Newsweek concludes:
"[T]he original finding would have triggered a referral to state bar associations for potential disciplinary action‹which, in Bybee's case, could have led to an impeachment inquiry."
Impeachment, however, is the prerogative of the legislative branch rather than the executive branch. Bybee has committed impeachable offenses whether or not the very department of government he worked for agrees. Bybee wrote legal memos that were, and to some extent still are, treated as laws which legalized offensive wars of choice and a variety of acts of torture. These facts are public, and the House Judiciary Committee does not need the permission of the Department of Justice in order to move forward on impeachment.
It has been almost a year since Congress Members Jerrold Nadler and Jan Schakowsky each said that Bybee should be impeached. We call on them and other House Members to introduce a bill to begin that process, and to hold hearings to investigate both Bybee's original abuses and the years-long process of editing the OPR report. Indeed, a resolution announcing impeachment proceedings could result in Bybee's disbarment and resignation. It should read:
"Resolved, That the Committee on the Judiciary shall investigate fully whether sufficient grounds exist for the House of Representatives to impeach Jay Bybee, for high crimes and misdemeanors."
"If the Newsweek piece is true that the OPR report has been further manipulated to give torture lawyers a free pass, then Congress should immediately launch a full scale investigation to determine if politics, political pressure, or something worse entered into this decision," said DisbarTortureLawyers spokesperson and attorney Kevin Zeese. "Jay Bybee, John Yoo and the others did not merely exercise poor judgment, they violated their oath of office and the rules of legal ethics. Â We intend to work aggressively with Congress to get to the bottom of this matter, to seek impeachment of Judge Bybee, to press our complaints for disbarment, and to work with lawyers and judges in foreign countries to have these torture advocates fully prosecuted for crimes against humanity. It is a real shame that the United States Department of Justice is whitewashing the very torture that was made possible by its own employees. Â That torture has resulted in many deaths, not just of torture victims, but of our own soldiers who were killed by those who turned against America because our government tortured."
SOURCE DisbarTortureLawyers.com
~ Link ~