Tariq Ali - Obama, Pakistan and the US empire

Marxsite 2010
"Excellent and extremely useful" - Tariq Ali.

CENTRAL ASIA GAME: CHINA USA

2009 Energy Development Report published by the Chinese Academy of Social Science, an official think-tank.

Robert Ebel, at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington,

. Writing in the Central Asia & Caucasus Institute Analyst of Johns Hopkins University in October last year, Stephen Blank of the US War College

US Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a rare hearing in July regarding China's geopolitical thrust into the Central Asian region. Testifying at the hearing, Richard Morningstar, the US special envoy for energy,

Pan Guang, director of the Shanghai Center for International Studies

the People's Daily newspaper

US Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee special hearing on Central Asia on December 15, George Krol, the deputy assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs,


Nursultan Nazarbayev
new laws would allow only those foreign investors that cooperate with his industrialization program to tap his nation's mineral resources
Beijing has asked Kazakhstan - a country the size of Europe but with just 16 million people - to allow Chinese farmers to use one million hectares
soya and rape seed
Pro-Western elements
Bolat Abilov, co-chairman of the opposition party Azat [United Social Democratic Party]
it would mean 15 people working per hectare.
15 million people would be brought from China.
In 50 years
50 million Chinese
an ambitious 7,000 kilometer pipeline to link the region's gas fields to cities on China's eastern seaboard.
Ten days after
Hu arrived
the 1,833-kilometer pipeline connecting gas fields in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan (and possibly Russia) to China's Xinjiang Autonomous Region.
China pushed ahead against Western views that last year's renewed unrest in Xinjiang put it at risk
Growing nervousness in Washington about the Chinese pipeline

US Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a rare hearing in July regarding China's geopolitical thrust
Richard Morningstar,
US needed to develop strategies to compete with China for energy in Central Asia
openly flagged China as the US's rival in the energy politics of Central Asia.
US experts usually
support for Trans-Caspian projects that bypassed Russian territory.
some
experts
even argued that China was a potential US ally for isolating Russia.
As China's Turkmen gas pipeline got closer to completion, US disquiet began to surface.
China comes in and says, 'Hey, we're going to write a check for X amount of money, we're going to build a pipeline'. That's not a hard deal to accept, and we [US] can't compete in that way."
two suggestions. One, "to develop a strategy to deal with that [Chinese policy] and encourage the US companies to negotiate creatively with Turkmenistan".
Two, Washington should also think about whether it makes sense for US companies to cooperate with China in such countries.

n geopolitical terms, there is a conflict of interest between the two countries. One principal objective of China is to lock in energy sources that are not dependent on supply routes passing through the Malacca Straits,
the crux
"gas that goes to China competes with gas that could go westward"
US realizes that devising a counterstrategy to China's is easier said than done.
In 2005, CNPC International paid
$4 billion for a 33% stake in PetroKazakhstan.
China bought up Kazakh oil assets worth nearly $2 billion in the Karazhanba oil and gas fields
committed $210 million to look for oil and gas in Uzbekistan over the next five years.
In 2008, Kazakhstan and China agreed on jointly developing oil and gas reserves on the continental shelf of the Caspian Sea, while China's Guangdong Nuclear Power Co and Kazakhstan's state nuclear firm Kazatomprom agreed on boosting uranium output in their joint venture.

In April 2009, China made the mother of all energy deals by agreeing to lend Kazakhstan $10 billion in an unprecedented "loan-for-oil" deal and also agreed with state-owned KazMunaiGas to jointly buy oil producer MangistauMunaiGas for $3.3 billion.

In 2009, China also agreed to issue a $3 billion loan for developing the Central Asian state's largest gas field, South Iolotan, which is estimated to contain anywhere between 4 trillion and 14 trillion cubic meters of gas, according to Britain's Gaffney, Cline and Associates - making it one of the world's five largest gas deposits.
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Western calculations went awry in two directions. First, they estimated that, in the ultimate analysis, Central Asian states would be wary of dealing with their giant neighbor and prefer Russia and the West. Second, they blindly assumed that Russia in any case was bound to perceive the Chinese gains as a threat to its own strategic interests and would therefore resist and checkmate Beijing at some stage, indirectly serving Western interests.
Again, China's engagement in Central Asia has been comprehensive and not confined to oil and gas.
Turkmen President
his country's relations with China have become "multi-faceted".
"They now cover all major areas - politics, economy, trade, culture, science, education,'
both sides favors complete mutual understanding and trust, equality and respect, unity of views on key issues of world politics and bilateral relations."
Chinese because they never raise difficult issues such as democracy and human rights
Western discourse on democracy

and human rights as doublespeak from countries that pander to authoritarian regimes without scruples when it suits their business interests.
China has reset the terms of the West's engagement
need to negotiate
squarely
Secondly, while they are under compulsion to abandon the cherry-picking approach they once took
China-Turkmenistan trade has jumped 40 times since 2000; 35 enterprises are working in Turkmenistan today with Chinese capital.
as diverse as oil and gas, telecommunications, transport, agriculture, textile, chemical and food industries, healthcare and construction.
China's interest in comprehensive engagement
in contrast with the predatory instincts of the Western companies
The second aspect
Russia's post-Soviet control of gas exports from Central Asia has ended.
China's gain
Russia's loss. But it isn't quite a zero-sum game
"China is pursuing diversification of energy imports, while the Central Asian countries are pursuing diversification of exports,''
will also promote

chemical, agricultural, transport infrastructure construction and light industries,
Russia's security interests would also be served, as unemployment, a root of instability, will be cut,
China will become Russia's major strategic competitor in the Central Asian energy industry,''
"In fact, it is not the case.
"Experts believe that the pipeline can transport natural gas produced both in Turkmenistan and in Russia
"In addition, the natural gas cooperation between China and Central Asia is open and non-exclusive, and does not seize Russia's market or compete with Russia for resources,"
the Turkmen-Uzbek-Kazakh pipeline
won't hurt Russia's interests
US and European energy diplomacy in Central Asia has been rendered a lethal body blow.
what Moscow has been striving for
European Union's chances of winning Turkmen supplies for its US-backed Nabucco pipeline
severely diminished
Nabucco
planned
to cut Russia out
China's gain is Europe's loss,
Russia's gain
Russian gas
to remain Europe's
main energy

Russia can now advance
North Stream and South Stream
without constantly having to look over its shoulder
Nabucco
Beijing intends
for the Russian gas
western Siberian
as well as its European part
China
a competing consumer of Russian gas.
Putin's voice
our own pipeline network, which could possibly also reach China,
We know how fast the demand is growing there
the "loss" of Turkmen gas for Nabucco
now
depends on sourcing Iranian gas.
2009 will be noted by historians
a truly regional project has taken shape
China has made such a high level of regional cooperation possible.
It will now be a Herculean task for the West to whip up Sinophobia among the Central Asians.

The alarm bells are ringing in Washington.
Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee special hearing on Central Asia on December 15, George Krol, the deputy assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs, said:
The region is at the fulcrum of key US security, economic, and political interests. It demands attention and respect and our most diligent efforts and the Obama administration [is committed] to this very approach."
US attempt is to widen the gyre of its AfPak strategy so as to draw the Central Asian region into it.
the Northern Corridor for supply of
NATO
make the regional governments important collaborators in the war effort.
the Afghan war has already spilt over to Central Asia.
there has been a spurt in militant activities in Central Asia (and Xinjiang).
Krol framed it
"to expand
Central Asian
to defeat extremists in Afghanistan and Pakistan and bring stability and prosperity to the region"

to "increase the development and diversification of the region's energy resources and supply routes"
He also invoked archetypal fears about terrorists getting hold of weapons of mass destruction,
the region is still engaged in activities relevant to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, namely, uranium mining, plutonium production and the fabrication and testing of biological and chemical weapons,"
US interests would have been best served if Russia and China were at loggerheads in Central Asia
"By opening the RFE [Russian Far East] to Chinese investment and blessing similar investments in Central Asia, Moscow is reversing
a new regional order
China is set to become the region's security manager,
The shift
Kremlin
has been necessitated
by the downturn
following the global economic crisis
Moscow was pursuing a policy aimed at developing the RFE and eastern Siberia
through revenues from energy exports to Europe.
energy demand in the European
compelled to rethink

Medvedev admitted
RFE needed to be coordinated with Beijing's regional strategy of rejuvenating northeast China's dilapidated industrial base.
the jettisoning of
prevent Chinese economic penetration of Central Asia.
Moscow faces difficulty in underwriting the security
on its own
congruence of interests with China in forestalling NATO's expansion
Hu to Moscow in June
deals worth $100 billion
facilitating massive Chinese investments in regional projects
t is going to be very difficult for the US to disrupt these plans.
Blank put it
these new deals with Russia have a profound significance that we overlook at our peril."
China has
financial muscle
It can simply outspend the US
Short of stoking the fires of militancy and ethnic unrest in Xinjiang, the US may have run out of options
the stability of Xinjiang is crucial
"foreign devils on the Silk Road" - militant groups with foreign backers - can harass China
Beijing is extremely wary of the hidden intentions behind the Afghan strategy Obama recently unveiled.

Chinese criticism of the US troop surge in Afghanistan
the People's Daily

Yes, sometimes history does recur ... The shadow of the Vietnam War even now still hovers ... what unfolds is replicating the model in Iraq, and further back, in Vietnam.

The war-torn Afghan population will not side with the slumbering Karzai government nor will they welcome the US presence. On the other hand, the bigger footprint made by the enhanced US troops and its NATO allies only help fuel the insurgency and trigger more fierce resistance ... Taliban dies hard.

The predicament facing the US and the one-year old Obama administration is that at the time, there seems no policy that can reverse the undoing in Afghanistan, even with more troops and better-placed tactics. But the young president will try whatever he can to steer clear of the pitfall that would turn the superpower into an occupying power.

Obama's Afghan surge and the new strategy as a whole essentially aim
at pursuing longstanding
US strategic

interests of controlling Central Asia and containing Russia and China through "soft power" - methods
Russia tends to speak in two voices at times about its ties with NATO within the "reset" of relations with the US.
The specter of an open-ended US military presence in the region haunts China.
China was the US's accomplice against the Soviet Union in the Afghan jihad in the 1980s
Washington has myriad ways to make use of radical and extremist elements as instruments of geopolitics.
the horrible example of its "all-weather friend" Pakistan, which by associating with US strategy in Afghanistan has been dragged into the vortex of instability and become the target of religious extremists and militants.

Lies, Wars and Empire

By Dr. Michael Parenti

Parenti speaks about lies, dissent, and how we arrive at the truth of our situation and still retain our sanity. He raises the question whether the Iraq war was not a failure but a success for some parts of the empire - and why.

"Lies, War, and Empire" given May 12, 2007 at Antioch University in Seattle.

More By Dr. Michael Parenti

TSKHINVALI, GROUND ZERO, AN EMPIRE PETERS OUT

clipped from: www.alternet.org - Mark Ames

a Russian army colonel named Igor Konashenko is standing triumphantly at a street corner at the northern edge of Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, his forearm bandaged from a minor battle injury.

The spot marks the furthest point of the Georgian army's advance before it was summarily crushed by the Russians

"Everything that the Georgians left behind, I mean everything, was American. All the guns, grenades, uniforms, boots, food rations -- they just left it all. Our boys stuffed themselves on the food," he adds slyly. "It was tasty." The booty, according to Konashenko, also included 65 intact tanks outfitted with the latest NATO and American (as well as Israeli) technology.

situation blew up late in the evening of August 7, when on the order of president Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia's army swept into South Ossetia, leveling much of Tskhinvali

This spot is ground zero for an epic historical shift. The dead tanks are American-upgraded, as are the spent 40mm grenade shells that one spetznaz soldier shows me. The bloated bodies on the ground are American-trained Georgian soldiers who have been stripped of their American-issue uniforms. And yet, there is no American cavalry on the way.

bleeding money from endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we're a sick giant hooked on ever-pricier doses of oil paid for with a currency few people want anymore. In the history books of the future, I would wager that this very spot in Tskhinvali will be remembered as both the geographic highwater mark of the American empire, and the place where it all started to fall apart.

in 2002
the American empire was riding high
we invaded Afghanistan without breaking a sweat.

The military advisers were dispatched to Georgia ostensibly to train that country's forces to fight local Al Qaeda cells, which everyone knew didn't exist. In reality, we were training them for key imperial outsourcing duties. Georgia would do for the American Empire what Mumbai call centers did for Delta Airlines:

America deftly organized and orchestrated the so-called Rose Revolution
in Tblisi in 2003

Saakkashvili's predecessor, Eduard Shevardnadze, was judged unreliable, so in a multilayered soft putsch that used every lever of influence at our disposal, the U.S. replaced him with Saakashvili, a Columbia-educated hothead who speaks perfect neocon. In the Western media, the Rose Revolution was portrayed as 1776 redux (starring Saakashvili as George Washington

He stacked his cabinet with young right-wing fanatics,

This crew included John McCain's chief foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann, whom Misha paid more than $1 million in lobbying fees.

Why Misha decided to attack is still a mystery

• to preempt a Russian invasion

• he thought this would be his last chance to regain control of South Ossetia

• suckered into his doomed invasion by a clever Russian ruse, part of Putin's plan

• to boost John McCain's prospects in the U.S. election

Privately, however, American advisers and defeated Georgian commanders admit to "total defeat."

full-spectrum smackdown

Gori
Russia seized control of the city at the end of hostilities, essentially cutting its foe in two and leaving it exposed to Vladimir Putin's whims.

I understood that I was looking at the first ruins of America's imperial decline. It's not an easy thing to spot.

We have entered a dangerous moment in history -- America in decline is reacting hysterically

But when that awful moment arrives where the cognitive dissonance snaps hard, it will be an epic struggle to come to our senses in time to prevent the William Kristols, Max Boots and Robert Kagans from leading us into a nuclear holocaust

WATER TORTURE PHILLIPINES

A picture of a “water detail,” reportedly taken in May, 1901, in Sual, the Philippines. “It is a terrible torture,” one soldier wrote.


Many Americans were puzzled by the news, in 1902, that United States soldiers were torturing Filipinos with water. The United States, throughout its emergence as a world power, had spoken the language of liberation, rescue, and freedom. This was the language that, when coupled with expanding military and commercial ambitions, had helped launch two very different wars. The first had been in 1898, against Spain, whose remaining empire was crumbling in the face of popular revolts in two of its colonies, Cuba and the Philippines. The brief campaign was pitched to the American public in terms of freedom and national honor (the U.S.S. Maine had blown up mysteriously in Havana Harbor), rather than of sugar and naval bases, and resulted in a formally independent Cuba.

MID CENTURY WATER BOARDING

Soldiers in Vietnam use the waterboarding technique on an uncooperative enemy suspect near Da Nang in 1968 to try to obtain information from him.

...BECAUSE THE "BOGOTA TERRORIST" WAS BOMBING THE HELL OUT OF THEM, THAT'S WHY.

Alvaro Uribe and his financial backers
.


Colombian President Alvaro Uribe (L) and former U.S. president Bill Clinton wave during a meeting in Bogota June 22, 2005. Clinton is in Colombia to participate in 'Expogestion', a seminar for Colombian businessmen. Photo by Daniel Munoz

**President Hugo Chávez stands with Consuelo González de Perdomo, far left, and Clara Rojas, right of him, behind an official. Howard Yanes/Associated Press

Justin Delacour in his Latin American News Review posts an inconvenient truth from the Argentine daily Pagina 12 because Simon Romero, the "reporter" covering Latin America for the NYT cannot be relied on for anything more than propaganda.

The story is about the first failed Colombian hostage release. One of the released hostages, Consuelo Gonzalez, says that the reason she and Clara Rojas were not released before the New Year, as arranged, was that they were under heavy attack, including bombardment, from the Colombian armed forces. This is also what the FARC, Colombian Senator Piedad de Cordoba, and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez claimed at the time.

Justin Delacour translates the key passage from Página 12 here

POSEUR

Extraordinarily well posed candidate



Yes. The Obamania is sound and fury signifying nothing. And the clearest sign of the fact is that the usual bromides about "color blindness" and "change" are being floated by the media.

The bottom line is that until such time as the "democratic" party is willing to defend the rights of their constituency- and to speak openly about not one, but two elections that the ruling class has now robbed the U.S. electorate of- they are completely unworthy of trust. They said nothing about the disenfranchisement of Blacks in Florida in 2000, they've said nothing about the accumulation of evidence of computer fraud in Ohio in 2004. They are afraid to take on the "presidency" of a man whose obvious gangsterism puts decent people to shame. And Barak Obama is a big, kool-aid grinning phoney who is just playing the Jimmy Carter ticket over again, replete with all Carter's flaws but none of his virtues.

Incidentally, what has "Brother" Obama had to say about the disenfranchisement of Blacks in Florida in 2000? Nothing. Zip. Oh, yeah, the U.S. is now "color-blind" and embracing "change".

It ought to be obvious to all that nothing would benefit the U.S. oligarchy more than having house slaves out defending the aims of the empire. Colin Powell and Condalezza Rice are the clearest evidence of that fact. Black folks who still buy into this bullshit, out of some desperate hunger to see a Black face leading this parade of chiselers need to grow up. Period.

Posted by Michael Hureaux | January 5, 2008 7:31 PM
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Deconstruct the Democratic Party here

THE CLINTONS: IN SEARCH OF A NARRATIVE - A WORKING DRAFT

The Clintons were elected to put the Democratic Leadership Council in control of the party. The DLC is a the right-wing lobby within the Democratic Party that was founded in 1985 to adapt the party’s policies to the “free market” and pro-corporate voodoo economics and quackery of the Reagan administration and repudiate any connection to or program arising out of the social reform policies dating back to Roosevelt’s New Deal and Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society.

They finished off what was left of the Democratic Party.

The welfare reform bill that left thousands of women black, white, yellow and brown destitute. Clinton supported and signed welfare legislation that shredded the federal safety net for the poor from which he personally had benefited."

Their administration saw a high rate of black incarceration as a result of Draconian drug laws that occurred during his regime.

And interrupting his campaign to get a mentally disabled black man, Ricky Ray Rector executed.


The "neoliberalization" and "asset stripping" of Russia with Yeltsin, the same with Pakistan with Bhutto, the Rwanda project put into play to lead to the war and economic theft of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the first trade agreement with several to follow with the NAFTA/Salinas project that sent thousands of jobs out of the country , the destruction and neoliberalization of Yugoslavia, the continued "quiet" destruction of Iraq with more Iraqis dead than the Bush years, a quantum leap in the militarization of Colombia with Plan Columbia's support for the death squads and the introduction of paramilitary forces of DynCorp.

Somalia

Haiti

deepening intervention in Somalia, invading Haiti, bombing Bosnia, and finally going to war over Kosovo.

The crucial and obvious difference is this: Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo were humanitarian ventures--fights for right and good,

It would also include the perfecting of "asset stripping" of US corporations, the rise of "financial capitalism" and the wholesale removal of the US industrial base to China.

The list goes on.

And now there is ample evidence to support the claim that they "diebolded" the New Hampshire primary.

When Bill Clinton took office in 1993, he appointed neoconservative Democrat James Woolsey to head the CIA. Then, in a gesture of bipartisanship, the new President pulled the plug on ongoing investigations of Reagan-Bush-era wrongdoing regarding secret arms deals with Iran and Iraq.


Deconstruct the Democratic Party here

Analysts note that the idea of NATO expansion has its roots in Bill Clinton’s administration, which reversed the first Bush administration’s policy of treating Moscow with caution. President Clinton moved quickly to expand the alliance eastward into areas that Russia had long considered its sphere of influence.

In January 1994, Clinton announced it was no longer a question of if NATO would expand but when. The Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland all became NATO members in March 1999,

Obama will have to confront Alvaro Uribe and determine any meaningful change to Plan Colombia - a Pentagon "war on terror" gambit disguised as a failed, Bill Clinton-born anti-drug program.

THE FAILED STATE HUSSLE

It's a common US strategy with covert intelligence support,

Washington's scheme is "to actively promote the political fragmentation and balkanization of Pakistan as a nation."

From it, a new political leadership will emerge that will be "compliant," have "no commitment to (Pakistan's) national interest," and will be subservient to "US imperial interests, while concurrently....weakening....the central government (and fracturing) Pakistan's fragile federal structure."

It includes "balkanizing" the country Yugoslavia-style the way it's planned for Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran - a simple divide and conquer strategy.

Pakistani military and intelligence (that worked up to now) has been scrapped in favor of political breakup and balkanization." The scheme is to foment "social, ethnic and factional divisions and political fragmentation, including the territorial breakup" of the country.

"expand the authority of the CIA and the military to conduct far more aggressive covert operations in the tribal areas of Pakistan" against Al-Queda and the Taliban to counteract their efforts and "destabilize the Pakistani government."

US strategy aims to trigger "ethnic and religious strife," abet and finance "secessionist movements while also weakening" Musharraf's government. "The broader objective is to fracture the Nation State....redraw the borders of Iraq, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan"

It may as internal secessionist elements are strong, especially in energy rich (mostly gas) Balochistan province, and "indications" are they're supported by "Britain and the US." The idea is a "Greater Balochistan" by integrating Baloch areas with those in Iran and southern Afghanistan.

the 2005 National Intelligence Council-CIA report predicted a 'Yugoslav-like fate' for Pakistan" through internally and externally manufactured "economic mismanagment."

US Special and other forces already operate in Pakistan, and head of US Special Operations Command, Admiral Eric Olson, "US Hopes to Use Pakistani Tribes Against Al Queda" in the country's "frontier areas."

US Central Command Commander Admiral William Fallon ... saying we're ready to provide "training, assistance and mentoring based on our experience with insurgencies," but he left out the bribing part that's part of these deals.

"Bhutto Killing Roils Province, Spurring Calls to Quit Pakistan" and calls Bhutto's native Sindh province (second largest of Pakistan's four provinces) the "Latest Fault Line In a Fractured Country; Like Occupied Territory."

Mourners filed past Bhutto's grave chanting "We don't want Pakistan," and in the wake of her death "Sindh has been swept by nationalist rage." Many in the province are "calling for outright independence," and support for separation has grown among rank and file PPP members. There's even talk of an "armed insurgency" as anger is directed against neighboring Punjab, the largest province, and home of the military, ISI and government.

what's happening in Sindh is already in play in the Northwest Frontier province where central government authority withered in recent years.

THE "NON-VIOLENT" REGIME CHANGE HUSSLE

The tragedy of Burma, whose land area is about the size of George W. Bush's Texas, is that its population is being used as a human stage prop in a drama which has been scripted in Washington by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the George Soros Open Society Institute, Freedom House and Gene Sharp's Albert Einstein Institution, a US intelligence asset used to spark “non-violent” regime change around the world on behalf of the US strategic agenda.

Burma's “Saffron Revolution,” like the Ukraine “Orange Revolution” or the Georgia “Rose Revolution” and the various Color Revolutions instigated in recent years against strategic states surrounding Russia, is a well-orchestrated exercise in Washington-run regime change, down to the details of “hit-and-run” protests with “swarming” mobs of Buddhists in saffron, internet blogs, mobile SMS links between protest groups, well-organized protest cells which disperse and reform. CNN made the blunder during a September broadcast of mentioning the active presence of the NED behind the protests in Myanmar .

In fact the US State Department admits to supporting the activities of the NED in Myanmar . The NED is a US Government-funded “private” entity whose activities are designed to support US foreign policy objectives, doing today what the CIA did during the Cold War. As well the NED funds Soros' Open Society Institute in fostering regime change in Myanmar . In an October 30 2003 Press Release the State Department admitted, “The United States also supports organizations such as the National Endowment for Democracy, the Open Society Institute and Internews, working inside and outside the region on a broad range of democracy promotion activities.” It all sounds very self-effacing and noble of the State Department. Is it though?

In reality the US State Department has recruited and trained key opposition leaders from numerous anti-government organizations. It has poured the relatively huge sum (for Myanmar ) of more than $2.5 million annually into NED activities in promoting regime change in Myanmar since at least 2003. The US regime change, its Saffron Revolution, is being largely run according to informed reports, out of the US Consulate General in bordering Chaing Mai , Thailand . There activists are recruited and trained, in some cases directly in the USA , before being sent back to organize inside Myanmar . The USA 's NED admits to funding key opposition media including the New Era Journal , Irrawaddy and the Democratic Voice of Burma radio.

The concert-master of the tactics of Saffron monk-led non-violence regime change is Gene Sharp, founder of the deceptively-named Albert Einstein Institution in Cambridge Massachusetts , a group funded by an arm of the NED to foster US-friendly regime change in key spots around the world. Sharp's institute has been active in Burma since 1989, just after the regime massacred some 3000 protestors to silence the opposition. CIA special operative and former US Military Attache in Rangoon, Col. Robert Helvey, an expert in clandestine operations, introduced Sharp to Burma in 1989 to train the opposition there in non-violent strategy. Interestingly, Sharp was also in China two weeks before the dramatic events at Tiananmen Square .