BIN-LADEN INSPIRED BANKRUPTCY OF USA CONTINUES APACE

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COST OF SPYING

1997: $26.6 billion was the aggregate amount

1998: $26.7 billion,an increase of $100 million.

2005: $44 billion, included the budget for the military services.

2007: $50 billion, which includes both

• U.S. intelligence spending for the year cost more than $40 billion

• Military intel spending for the year are separate at $10 billion

U.S. intelligence spending includes the budgets of the

• CIA,

• Defense Intelligence Agency,

• FBI's intelligence programs,

• State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research

• Defense Department intelligence collection agencies.

The latter group includes the following and they compose a major part of the $40 billion-plus national intelligence budget.

• National Security Agency, which intercepts electronic communications;

• National Reconnaissance Office, which builds and manages intelligence satellites

• National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which does image collection.

Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, ... "We sued the CIA four times for this kind of information and lost. You can't get it through legal channels."

"There is no single declassification action that would signal the end to obsolete classification practices as clearly and powerfully as declassification of the total annual intelligence budget."

IT'S SHOWTIME

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Constitutional reform referendum," scheduled to take place on December 2.

Coalition for November 3

Destabilizing plan: "ALL MEANS POSSIBLE..."

• massive protest on Saturday, November 3,

• demanding that the National Electoral Council suspend the constitutional reform referendum.

• to coincide with the foundation of the Bank of the South,

The coalition includes

• Alianza Bravo Pueblo (Brave People's Alliance), Antonio Ledezma

• Acción Democrática (Democratic Action),

• Bandera Roja (Red Flag),

• Alianza Popular (Popular Alliance)Claudio Fermin,

• Comando Nacional de la Resistencia (National Resistance Commando), Hermann Escarrá

Opposition student groups,

• calling for the referendum to be postponed.

• demonstrated against the reforms on Tuesday(October 23, 2007)

• have planned another protest at the CNE tomorrow (October 27, 2007)

• planning acts to destabilize the country in the lead up to the referendum, such as possible sabotage of the metro system in Caracas.

priority for the opposition is not whether to participate in the referendum or to abstain, but rather to mobilize against the reform.

Antonio Ledezma:

• Coalition for November 3 "is to require the National Electoral Council (CNE) not to postpone, but to leave without effect the referendum for the reform."

• ...if the CNE "continues organizing the referendum it would be an incitement to the people."

Hermann Escarrá:

• called for a "rebellion" in Venezuela shortly after the constitutional reform was first proposed on August 15,

• "there is no electoral exit."

• the CNE and the electoral system in Venezuela is "fraudulent."

According to the results of a poll by the Venezuelan Institute for Data Analysis (IVAD) published in El Diario de Yaracuy on October 15,

• 50.6% of Venezuelans think the reforms are necessary, while

• 36.0% think they are not.

opposition has been divided over strategy

• some sectors calling for a "NO" vote, and

• others calling for abstention.

Opposition parties are divided and have not yet come on board the call for November 3.

• Un Nuevo Tiempo (A New Time)

• Primero Justicia (Justice First), Julio Borges

• Christian-democratic party COPEI,

some sectors calling for a "NO" vote, and others calling for abstention.

Borges:

• "not convenient" to call for abstention in the constitutional reform referendum.

• argued that the construction of a "political centre" and opposition participation in the referendum was necessary "to curb the constitutional reform that President Chavez aims to implement."

IN SUPPORT

National Assembly Deputy Dario Vivas announced

• campaign in support of the reforms organised by the Zamora Command, will be

• launched on Sunday November 4, with a

• massive national mobilization calling for a "YES" vote in the referendum,

• marching from Parque del Este, to Avenida Bolivar in Caracas.

"We are initiating our electoral campaign

• to diffuse [information] and

• to approve the constitutional project," and

• "to guarantee that the people determine their opinion in relation to the project,"

Vivas said that the demonstration in support of the reform was also

• "in response to the opposition sectors "that seek to impede by any means the democratic approval by the Venezuelan people of this constitution."

LONG LIVE THE BOLIVARIAN REVOLUTION

MIAMI TO GET ECUADOREAN MILITARY BASE...

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...Ecuador's leftist President Rafael Correa said the Ecuadorean military base in Miami is vital for counter-narcotics surveillance operations on east coast drug-running routes.

In spite of Ecuador's new base in Miami, Correa has refused to renew Washington's lease on the Manta air base in Ecuador, set to expire in 2009.

Correa, a popular leftist economist and President of Ecuador, had promised to cut off his arm before extending the lease on the Manta air base in Ecuador that ends in 2009 and has called U.S. President George W. Bush a "dimwit".


But Correa, an ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, told Reuters he believed relations with the United States were "excellent" despite the base closing.

There is a possibility that an additional auxiliary base will be placed in the vicinity of Naples, FL and will be used to monitor well known ex-CIA drug smuggling operations.

Florida's Governor expressed excitment about opportunities that will open up for real estate development and for young female entrepreneurs in the area.

SHOOT FIRST, AIM AFTERWARDS

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Chalmers Johnson reviews:

The Matador's Cape, America's Reckless Response to Terror by Stephen Holmes (Cambridge University Press, 367 pp., $30).]


Holmes conclusion on Yoo and his fellow neocons is devastating: "[I]f the misbegotten Iraq war proves anything, it is the foolhardiness of allowing an autistic clique that reads its own newspapers and watches its own cable news channel to decide, without outsider input, where to expend American blood and treasure -- that is, to decide which looming threats to stress and which to downplay or ignore" (p. 301).



Stephen Holmes is a law professor at New York University. In The Matador's Cape, he sets out to forge an understanding ... of the Iraq war, which he calls "one of the worst (and least comprehensible) blunders in the history of American foreign policy" (p. 230). His modus operandi is to survey in depth approximately a dozen influential books on post-Cold War international politics to see what light they shed on America's missteps.


Why did American military preeminence breed delusions of omnipotence,

• Robert Kagan's Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order (Knopf, 2003)?

How was the war lost, including U.S. envoy L. Paul Bremer's disbanding of the Iraqi military.

• Fiasco (Penguin 2006) by the Washington Post's Thomas Ricks

• Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq by Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor (Pantheon, 2006)?

How did a tiny group of individuals, with eccentric theories and reflexes, recklessly compound the country's post-9/11 security nightmare?

• James Mann's Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet (Viking, 2004).

What roles did Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld play in the Bush administration,

• Michael Mann's Incoherent Empire (Verso, 2003)?

Why did the U.S. decide to search for a new enemy after the Cold War,

• Samuel Huntington, in The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (Simon and Schuster, 1996)

What role did left-wing ideology play in legitimating the war on terror,

• Samantha Power in "A Problem from Hell": America and the Age of Genocide (Basic, 2002)

How did pro-war liberals help stifle national debate on the wisdom of the Iraq war,

• Paul Berman in Power and the Idealists (Soft Skull Press, 2005)

How did democratization at the point of an assault rifle become America's mission in the world,

• Francis Fukuyama in America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy (Yale University Press, 2006)

Why is the contemporary American antiwar movement so anemic,

• Geoffrey Stone in Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism (W. W. Norton, 2004)

How did the embracing of American unilateralism elevate the Office of the Secretary of Defense over the Department of State,

• John Ikenberry in After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order After Major Wars (Princeton University Press, 2001)

Why do we battle lawlessness with lawlessness (for example, by torturing prisoners) and concentrate extra-Constitutional authority in the hands of the president,

• John Yoo in The Powers of War and Peace: The Constitution and Foreign Affairs After 9/11 (University of Chicago Press, 2005)

Hidden agendas:

• Cheney's desire to expand executive power and weaken Congressional oversight;

• Rumsfeld's schemes to field-test his theory that in modern warfare speed is more important than mass;

• plans by some of Cheney's and Rumsfeld's advisers to improve the security situation of Israel;

• administration's desire to create a new set of permanent U.S. military bases in the Middle East to protect the U.S. oil supply in case of a collapse of the Saudi monarchy;

• the desire to invade Iraq and thereby avoid putting all the blame for 9/11 on al Qaeda -- ... Clinton was right in warning Bush and his top officials that the main security threat to the United States was a potential al Qaeda attack or attacks.

"Because Americans…. have sunk so much of their national treasure into a military establishment fit to deter and perhaps fight an enemy that has now disappeared,"...the very nature of the 9/11 attacks undermined crucial axioms of American national security doctrine...

• a non-state actor on the international stage successfully attacked the United States

• Overwhelming military might cannot deter non-state actors who accept that they will die in their attacks on others

Bush/Cheney reflexively implemented out-of-date formulas in a radically changed security environment" -- rogue state vs. non-state terrorist organization -- by reacting to the threat of modern terrorism with an attack on a substitute target

...(Holmes) underplays the roles of American imperialism and militarism in exploiting the 9/11 crisis to serve vested interests in the military-industrial complex, the petroleum industry, and the military establishment. Holmes leaves the false impression that the political system of the United States is capable of a successful course correction.

Chalmers Johnson's solution to the crisis we face.

• dismantle both the empire that has been created and

• the huge, still growing military establishment that undergirds it.

A task ... comparable to that undertaken by the British government when, after World War II, ... Britain avoided the fate of the Roman Republic -- of becoming a domestic tyranny and losing its democracy,

EVANGELICALS TO GIULIANI : YOU ARE NOT OUR MAN

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WASHINGTON – Religious conservatives served notice Saturday that Rudy Giuliani is not their candidate and began winnowing the field in search of a presidential hopeful they can rally around.

Rudy Giuliani asked that they look beyond his support of gay rights and abortion rights and recognize their "shared values and shared goals."



... "I truly believe that what unites us is much greater than any of the things that divides us," he told 2,400 people attending a Values Voter summit.

STRAW POLL RESULTS

Results of a straw poll of "values voters" conducted Saturday by the conservative Family Research Council. Respondents were asked, "Which of the following candidates for president would you be most likely to vote for?"

Mitt Romney: 27.6 percent

Mike Huckabee: 27.2 percent

Ron Paul: 15 percent

Fred Thompson: 9.8 percent

Undecided: 5.7 percent

Sam Brownback: 5.1 percent

Duncan Hunter: 2.4 percent

Tom Tancredo: 2.3 percent

Rudy Giuliani: 1.9 percent

John McCain: 1.4 percent

The Associated Press

J.K. ROWLING TO THE "VALUE VOTERS SUMMIT": DUMBLEDORE IS GAY

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CULTURE WAR GOES DIRTY,
BILL BENNETT'S HEAD EXPLODES


The news brought gasps from the Family Research Council Conference: Washington Briefing 2007: Values Voter Summit, the last stop on Rowling's brief U.S. tour, promoting...

..."Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," the seventh and final book in Rowling's record-breaking fantasy series.

The British author stunned James Dobson and Tony Perkins on Friday night when she answered one young reader's question about Dumbledore by saying that he was gay and had been in love with Grindelwald, whom he had defeated years ago in a bitter fight.

THREE PRIMARY MEANS OF DISINFORMATION

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The first is the word parsed quote designed to leave a false impression but that is so gramatically designed that they are covered if called on it.

The second tactic of dis-information (and the most effective) is the unnsourced and unnamed “leak”. By using compliant whore journalists - all manner of lies can be floated

The third tactic is the use of the Third tier wing nutter press to distribute the really bizarre crap for the true believers

All of these stories get out- get play- and then when proved sketchy or utterly false- just disappear- with never any retraction. The result is a population that holds beliefs that are at best- only 20 percent true.

BOILING FROGS

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... just to roll back to December 11, 2000 when the Supreme Court appointed George as our unelected, un-democratic and illegal President

• Repeal the Patriot Act

• Repeal No Child Left Behind

• Scale down the Department of Homeland Security and rename it so it loses its Nazi tone and is brought under civilian control.
  

• Restore habeas corpus and close all torture camps by repealing the Military Commissions’ Act.

• Repeal all contracts with paid mercenary killer companies.

• Restore the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878.

• Repeal all BushCo-Presidential directives (especially Directive 51) and review all laws that contain signing statements.

• Restore the 4th Amendment by enforcing warrants for spying on Americans.

• Impeach Bush and Cheney-post presidency so they can’t receive federal benefits.

• Bring all troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan and review military needs for other bases around the world.

• Repeal all free trade agreements.

• Kick AIPAC and other lobbyists out of the halls of Congress where they have no business.

A THIRD PARTY

We need 5 senate seats and 25 house seats. That would give an independent third party make or break numbers on close votes in both chambers. And they need to be properly funded. 1 Million for house seats and 2 Million for each senate seat. (I have a plan as to how you could win with that.)This would give us hope that we could change things within two years.

I think it would happen if you asked for this. Attempt to raise 35 million dollars. Target blue dog dems and run candidates against the worst republicans.

YELTSIN IS CONSIDERED THE "GOLDEN AGE" FOR RUSSIAN NGO'S

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A great deal of scorn, for instance, was poured on the decision last November by the U.S. Congress to earmark $4 million in 2006 for the development of Russian democratic parties

The $4 million allocated by the U.S. Congress will be shared between three prominent U.S. organizations: the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the National Democratic Institute (NDI), and the International Republican Institute (IRI).

President Vladimir Putin recently urged the country's security services to prevent foreign governments from meddling in Russian affairs through nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).

He also warned Russian organizations to be more cautious about receiving foreign funding.

His comments, which echoed similar remarks by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, illustrate the ever-increasing scrutiny imposed on the funding of democracy-building programs since the "colored" revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan.

Russian rights activists are now bracing for the implementation of a new law that will place the funding and activities of NGOs under strict state control.

TRAMPLING OUT THE VINTAGE ... THE THIRD LEG

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A new phase in the race: Clinton is now second

Hillary Clinton's rise in the ranking is primarily down to one Israel Factor panelist, whose new regard for the Democratic senator was triggered by her new Israel agenda and her vote to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a terror organization.

SHE IS TRAMPLING OUT THE VINTAGE WHERE THE GRAPES OF WRATH ARE STORED

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The US arms industry is backing Hillary Clinton for President and has all but abandoned its traditional allies in the Republican party

Employees of the top five US arms manufacturers – Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop-Grumman, General Dynamics and Raytheon – gave Democratic presidential candidates $103,900, with only $86,800 going to the Republicans.


Mrs Clinton has also emerged as Wall Street's favourite. Investment bankers have opened their wallets in unprecedented numbers for the New York senator over the past three months and, in the process, dumped their earlier favourite, Barack Obama.

A BIGGER SUV

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• About 85 million barrels of petroleum a day is produced in the entire world.

• The United States consumes about 21 million barrels of petroleum every day.

• The US thus consumes about a fourth of the supply, even though it has only 5 percent of the world's population.

• The US only produces about 7.5 million barrels a day,so it has to import some 13 million.

• Two-thirds of US consumption is used for transportation

• Japan uses one half the oil of the USA for the same industrial output.

GEORGE SOROS USES DARK ORANGE PAINT THIS TIME

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FREE BURMA (FROM CHINA)...
...AND GIVE IT TO BUSH/CHENEY:

You are invited to join George Soros, Robert Helvey and Gene Sharp in using this

New easy-to-use stencil template to make monks at different sizes! (courtesy of USG website)

(...because all the cool people use stencils now - have you checked out Oaxaca?)

You can help make this image appear all over the world, reminding people everywhere of the uprising in Burma and showing that the struggle for freedom is alive everywhere.


A person like you could print one or both of these at any size, cut them out to make a stencil and use dark orange paint to put the images up. Where you paint it and what you paint it on is up to you...

Do it yourself and remember, only use dark orange paint.


Or, for you convenience, complete your accessorizing here at the CIA on-line shopping center.


...and join hands today with George Bush, Condoleeza Rice and

• 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 since 1988 on behalf of the US strategic agenda)

Do you long for the oldies like

• Serbia's Otpor with it's B92 radio station,

• Ukraine "Orange Revolution" or the

• Georgia "Rose Revolution", or

• Kyrgyzstan's KelKel Tulip Revolution or

• Belarus' Zubr or the

• Venezuela RCTV demonstrations.

And the

• Cedar Revolution in Lebanon

• The "Purple Revolution" in Iraq

• The "Blue Revolution" in Kuwait

...well now you can re-live those day again with the NED sponsored Burmese "Saffron Revolution".


Be a part of a well-orchestrated exercise in Washington-run regime change, down to the details of

• "hit-and-run" protests with "swarming" mobs of monks in saffron,

• Internet blogs,

• mobile SMS links between protest groups,

• well-organized protest cells which disperse and re-form, and

• designer coffee mugs

Be a part of doing today what the CIA did during the Cold War but in a whole new modern way and *now*, for the first time, the use of stencils - you know, like the Anarchists do.

Completely funded, no dues, no sacrifice (some salaries available).


Rub shoulders with 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 since 1988 in key spots around the world.

WHAT'S AT STAKE

(CAVEAT EMPTOR: you don't get any shares in this enterprise, but you *do* get to paint with stencils, using dark orange paint)

• control of the strategic sea lanes from the Persian Gulf to the South China Sea and key choke point in Asia - The Strait of Malacca - where more than 80% of all China's oil imports are shipped

• Enhancing the value of the strategic US airbase on Banda Aceh, the Sultan Iskandar Muda Air Force Base, on the northernmost tip of Indonesia.

• take control of the Yadana, Yetagun and Shwe gas fields from China, where Yadana alone has an estimated gas reserve of more than 5 trillion cubic feet and Yetagun is estimated to have about a third the gas of the Yadana field.

STOP BEIJING

• who has poured billions of dollars in military assistance into Myanmar

• built up Myanmar railroads and roads and won permission to station its troops in Myanmar.

• built a large electronic surveillance facility on Myanmar's Coco Islands and

• is building naval bases for access to the Indian Ocean.

• both in order to counter US control over the Strait of Malacca choke point

BUT WHY NOW AFTER ALL THESE YEARS?

• China is on the verge of building an oil and gas pipeline across Myanmar from the Indian Ocean to the city of Kunming in China's Yunnan province (yellow line on map), a stretch of more than 2,300 kilometers, where

• China also plans to build an oil refinery in Kunming

• ...a pipeline which will allow the routing of oil and gas from Africa (Sudan among other sources) and the Middle East (Iran, Saudi Arabia) without depending on the vulnerable choke point of the Malacca Strait.

• Myanmar becomes China's "bridge" linking Bangladesh and countries westward to the China mainland independent of any possible future moves by Washington to control the strait.

BUSH/CHENEY PLAY THEIR LAST CARD FOR CONTROL OF THE WORLD-ISLAND AND THE HEARLAND BY...

• recruiting India to the Pentagon's "New Framework for US-India Defense Relations"

• in order to have to have a "capable partner" who can take on "more responsibility for low-end operations" in Asia

• and "ultimately provide basing and access for US power projection".

• by offering India a deal to lift its 30-year nuclear sanctions and to sell advanced US nuclear technology, legitimizing India's open violation of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

• (while at the same time accusing Iran of violating same)

• and coordinated with saffron-robed monks of Myanmar taking to the streets, the Pentagon opened US-Indian joint naval exercises, "Malabar 07", along with armed forces from Australia, Japan and Singapore.

• where the US showed the awesome muscle of its 7th Fleet, deploying the aircraft carriers USS Nimitz and USS Kitty Hawk, guided missile cruisers USS Cowpens and USS Princeton, and no less than five guided missile destroyers.

(Shh!! India is not all in.)




NEXT UP: BOLIVIA

(stencils not yet available)









AND ON THE HORIZON: RUSSIA

THEY LOOKED INTO THE SOUL OF PUTIN - AND FOUND AHMADINEJAD

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Some of the politics behind the naming of the present Satan, the future Satan, their spawn and other categories of evil.

An article like this doesn't come along very often. The gear of history jumps a cog and is served up without the usual glass of kool-aid.

THE LEAD-UP

1. Rice and Gates left Moscow over the weekend launching an unusually open, harsh and coordinated attack against Putin coupled with various categories of threat including the overthrow of his government through the "color revolution" method which in this case utilizes “human rights activists” generally funded, organized and managed by organizations like 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.

She says,

What the rest of the world hears

The Context

Poland and Czech based US missile defense systems is the *published* bone of contention (the US claims these "treaty busting" systems are needed to protect the "heart of Europe" from Iran (sic), while Russians believe their ultimate purpose is to take down the Russian pipeline monopoly - at least.)

2. Putin responds that he is traveling to Iran to attend the Caspian Sea summit. He will be the first Russian leader to travel to Iran since Josef Stalin in 1943.

As if to emphasize how extraordinary and threatening this is and adding real sizzle to the story, mysterious and "unknown" people from the shadows launch...

3. ...a disinformation campaign advising Putin that there are assassination plots waiting for him in Tehran.

Generally described here, and more explicitly here

4. Putin and Ahmadinejad scoff and respond that they will not be deterred by disinformation campaigns.


From *Tehran* Putin and Summit participants (Russia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan) warn...

1. ...the U.S. not to use Azerbaijan (home of the West's BTC pipeline and a former Soviet republic) to stage an attack on Iran.

2. ...and that, countries bordering the Caspian Sea must jointly back any oil pipeline projects in the region. Moscow has strong opposition to U.S.-backed efforts to build pipelines to deliver hydrocarbons to the West, bypassing Russia.

3. ...and while Putin refused to set a date for the start-up of Iran's first nuclear power plant, (already mostly) completed by Russia, he did say, "We are not going to renounce our obligations."

Enrons in the future


US oil companies have huge investments in the Caspian but have to ship their product through the Russian pipeline system. The western owned BTC pipeline alleviates the problem somewhat. Iran is the quickest, easiest and cheapest pipeline exit from the Caspian Sea. Immediately prior to the "Global War on Terror", Enron went bankrupt trying to get Turkmenistan gas by pipeline through Afghanistan bypassing Iran to supply its $3 billion Dabhol Power Plant in India - built by Bechtel, powered by GE turbines - unpaid for - and currently rusting away in Dabhol.

Meanwhile, don't forget the 'NATO of the East' - Shanghai Cooperation Organization

Or this guy,

And, of course, this kind of stuff goes on day in and day out.

And finally, in my search for information surrounding this turn of events I found this.

If you ever want to build a "conspiracy theory" of history, this website is an excellent model - just because you are paranoid doesn't mean they are not really after you.

PHOTO:
From left: Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev, Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Turkmenistan's President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov walk during the Caspian Sea leaders summit in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2007. (AP Photo/RIA Novosti, Mikhail Klimentyev, Presidential Press Service)

AND NOW A WORD FROM THE BUTCHER OF YUGOSLAVIA

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... less than two weeks after Sept. 11, he writes, a "senior general" told him, "We're going to attack Iraq. The decision has basically been made."

Six weeks later, Clark returned to Washington to see the same general and inquired whether the plan to strike Iraq was still under consideration. The general's response was stunning:

"'Oh, it's worse than that,' he said, holding up a memo on his desk. 'Here's the paper from the Office of the Secretary of Defense [then Donald Rumsfeld] outlining the strategy. We're going to take out seven countries in five years.' And he named them, starting with Iraq and Syria and ending with Iran."

While Clark doesn't name the other four countries, he has mentioned in televised interviews that the hit list included Lebanon, Libya, Somalia and Sudan.

CLINTON AND CLARK, THEY DID IT ONCE THEY CAN DO IT AGAIN, GO WITH A PROVEN TEAM

Key graph:

"Senator Clinton has the experience, good judgment and
the battle-tested character to face the challenges
ahead," Clark told The Associated Press.

Battle-tested, by god!

Clinton and Clark. It's alliterative. It rolls off
the tongue.

The War Goddess and her Four Star General!
Battle-tested!

DISMANTLING STRUCTURES OF DISCEPTION

In his view such powerful forces as official propaganda and state coercion distort human psychology and relationships and thus stifle intellectual development and social life in general.

"It is no easy task to gain some understanding of human affairs. In some respects, the task is harder than in the natural sciences. Mother Nature doesn't provide the answers on a silver platter, but at least she does not go out of her way to set up barriers to understanding. In human affairs, such barriers are the norm. It is necessary to dismantle the structures of deception erected by doctrinal systems. . . ."

He seeks to uncover how indoctrination systems work to prevent people from gaining a real and practical understanding of the major questions of our world, and how they enable intellectuals to exempt their government from criticism of the very same evils for which they easily (and rightly, but safely) condemn other governments.

Washington is well aware that Americans would not accept the real purposes of its policies and have to be fooled into accepting immoral acts of violence.

As Mark Twain wrote in 1900, those missionary idealists who have gone to convert the Chinese to Christianity should return home at once to save their own desperate countrymen from the sin of participating in the lynching of blacks:

PETRO DOLLARS BUILDING A REGIONAL ECONOMIC ANTI-HEGEMON

Via the Miami Herald:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's government has pledged more than $8.8 billion in aid, financing and energy funding in Latin America and the Caribbean so far in 2007. Bandes is a Venezuelan state development bank. Below is a list of pledges sorted by type.

ENERGY:

- $3.55 billion. Nicaragua: To build 150,000 barrel-a-day oil refinery. (Source: Venezuelan Foreign Ministry, April 30)

- $1.6 billion. Estimated financing per year under preferential oil deals to at least 17 countries. (Source: Chavez, March 15)

- $340 million. Nicaragua: Grants and loans to supply oil, nine electricity generators. (Source: Venezuela government statement, March 7)

- $240 million. Bolivia: Exploration of gas and oil fields. (Source: Bolivian Hydrocarbons Ministry, Aug. 8)

- $170 million. Bolivia: To build two liquid natural gas extraction plants. (Source: Venezuelan Foreign Ministry, April 30)

- $100 million. Nicaragua: To supply 32 electricity generators. (Source: Chavez, Jan. 10)

- $89 million. Nicaragua: To build 120 megawatt electricity plant. (Source: Venezuelan Foreign Ministry, April 30)

- $80 million. Haiti: To build 10,000 barrel-a-day oil refinery. (Source: Venezuelan Foreign Ministry, April 30)

- $63.7 million. Jamaica: For state oil company to buy 49-percent stake in Jamaican refinery. (Source: Jamaican Energy Ministry, May 18)

- $56 million. Haiti: To build 60-megawatt electricity plant. (Source: Venezuelan Foreign Ministry, April 30)

- $30 million. Bolivia: To build diesel electricity generation plant. (Source: Venezuelan Foreign Ministry, April 30)

- $28 million. Bolivia: To build thermoelectric plant. (Source: Bolivian Hydrocarbons Ministry, Aug. 8)

- $8 million. Cuba: To build liquefied natural gas re-gasification plant. (Source: Venezuelan Foreign Ministry, April 30)

- $5 million. Bolivia: Electricity-saving project. (Source: Venezuelan Foreign Ministry, April 30)

- $4.7 million. Bolivia: To set up 15 service stations to distribute fuel. (Source: Venezuelan Foreign Ministry, April 30)

- $4 million. Haiti: To build LNG re-gasification plant. (Source: Venezuelan Foreign Ministry, April 30)

- $200,000. Ecuador: Donation of two drills for oil exploration. (Source: Chavez, Aug. 9)

ENERGY FUNDING TOTAL: $6.369 billion

FINANCING:

- $1 billion. Argentina: Planned bond purchases, including $500 million in bonds purchased in August. (Source: Chavez, Aug. 7)

- $100 million. Bolivia: Planned purchase of Bolivian government bonds. (Source: Cabezas, Aug. 2)

- $30 million. Nicaragua: Debt forgiveness. (Source: Chavez, Jan 10)

- $8 million. Guyana: Debt forgiveness. (Source: Rodolfo Sanz, Venezuela's deputy foreign minister for Latin America and the Caribbean, Aug. 9)

FINANCING TOTAL: $1.138 billion

DEVELOPMENT AID:

- $250 million. Fund to finance joint economic projects in region's socialist-oriented countries. (Source: Venezuelan Foreign Ministry, April 30)

- $150 million. Dominica: Funding for housing, airport upgrade, scholarships. (Source: Chavez, Feb. 15)

- $135 million. Argentina: Bandes loan for Sancor dairy cooperative. (Source: Venezuelan Finance Minister Rodrigo Cabezas, Feb. 22)

- $88 million. Nicaragua: Grants and loans for tractors, AIDS treatment, sending 86 Nicaraguan athletes to sports tournament, 100,000 Hepatitis B vaccines, etc. An additional $2 million listed below under humanitarian aid. (Source: Venezuelan government statement, March 7)

- $30 million. Bolivia: Bandes capital for low-interest loans. (Source: Bandes president, May 7)

- $25 million. Ecuador: Bandes capital for new branch to offer low-interest loans. (Source: Bandes President Rafael Isea Romero, May 24)

- $21 million. Haiti: Fund to build homes, acquire unspecified equipment and provide medical aid by supporting the work of Cuban specialists offering health care to Haitians. (Source: Venezuelan government statement, March 3)

- $20 million. Bolivia: Grants for local infrastructure projects in health, schools, sports and other areas. (Source: Bolivian Public Finance Minister Luis Arce, April 12).

- $20 million. Nicaragua: Loans for rural poor, health care and education. (Source: Chavez, Jan. 10)

- $20 million. Nicaragua: Capital for Bandes branch for low-interest agricultural loans. (Source: Bandes president, May 24)

- $10 million. Nicaragua: Funding for social projects. (Source: Chavez, Jan. 10)

- $2 million. Guyana: Donation to build a homeless shelter. (Source: Guyanese Foreign Minister Rudy Insanally, Aug. 2)

- $875,000. Bolivia: Computers to digitalize Bolivia's national identification card system. (Source: Bolivian government announcement, April 13.)

DEVELOPMENT AID TOTAL: $772 million

INFRASTRUCTURE:

- $350 million. Nicaragua: Donation to build Pacific-Atlantic highway. (Source: Nicaragua Infrastructure Minister Pablo Fernando Martinez, Jan. 22)

- $150 million. Bolivia: Asphalt plant. (Source: Venezuelan Foreign Ministry, April 30)

- $57 million. Haiti: Funding to expand Port-au-Prince and Cap-Haitien airports. (Source: Venezuelan government statement, March 3)

- $5.5 million. Bolivia: Funding for paving streets and other improvements to poor neighborhoods in La Paz. (Source: Bolivian government statement, July 14)

- $3 million. Haiti: Donation for garbage trucks. (Source: Chavez, March 13)

INFRASTRUCTURE AID TOTAL: $565.5 million

HUMANITARIAN AID:

- $15 million. Bolivia: Donation for flood victims. (Source: Chavez, Feb. 26 and March 2)

- $2 million. Nicaragua: Free medicine. Announced as part of larger $90 million in grants and loans. (Source: Venezuelan government statement, March 7)

- $1.5 million. Peru: Two planeloads of earthquake relief supplies, with more planned. (Armando Laguna, Venezuelan ambassador to Peru, Aug. 22)

HUMANITARIAN AID TOTAL: $18.5 million

MILITARY AID:

- $10 million. Bolivia: Funding to fix military barracks. (Source: Bolivian Defense Minister Walker San Miguel, May 21 and 22).

MILITARY TOTAL: $10 million

TOTAL OF PUBLIC PLEDGES: $8.87 billion

CREATING THE NEXT BIN LADIN: THE COMING CRIMINALIZATION OF ANTI-GLOBALISM

(Adam Gadahn,"Azzam The American", is the first American charged with treason since 1952)

"Azzam The American" freeze frames Bin Laden and puts words in his mouth.

from: Booman Tribune

the video freezes at about 1 minute and 58 seconds, and motion only resumes again at 12:30. The video then freezes again at 14:02 remains frozen until the end. All references to current events, such as the 62nd anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Japan, and Sarkozy and Brown being the leaders of France and the UK, respectively, occur when the video is frozen! The words spoken when the video is in motion contain no references to contemporary events and could have been (and likely were) made before the U.S. invasion of Iraq.



"Azzam The American" identifies and targets a new enemy

from: Pepe Escobar

Al-Qaeda for its part, with or without a fake, recycled video-only bin Laden, will keep enjoying the fruits of its brand recognition.

Much more than the Middle East, al-Qaeda's special target audience is western Europe, where a legion of "white Moors" - second-generation, radicalized, born-again Muslims - eagerly accepts its new politico-religious anti-imperial message. The best antidote to this expansion would be the dawn of real representative governments in Egypt, Jordan, Syria and the Persian Gulf petro-monarchies. It won't happen - at least not in the near future.

American spy chiefs quickly name Bin Laden's replacement and the replacement quickly identifies the new enemy

from: US loner helps bin Laden to taunt Bush
Tim Shipman in Washington, Sunday Telegraph

American spy chiefs were quick to name Adam Gadahn, the head of al-Qaeda's English language media operations, as the author of large sections of bin Laden's broadcast.

A Californian heavy metal fan, who converted to Islam and became the first American to be charged with treason in half a century, has been fingered as the author of Osama bin Laden's latest video lecture - which left the terror chief sounding like an anti-globalisation protester.

a bizarre rant against America, with references to global warming, "insane taxes", the US mortgage market meltdown and rising interest rates.

What surprised analysts was his use of the language of Left-wing protesters, which showed detailed knowledge of the economic travails of middle America.

Bin Laden referred to "the reeling of many of you under the burden of interest-related debts, insane taxes and real estate mortgage" and blamed "global warming and its woes" on "emissions of the factories the major corporations".

from: KEY QUOTES FROM THE BIN LADEN TRANSCRIPT

EXPANDING THE DEFINITION OF THE ENEMY: HOW TO GO FROM BIN LADEN TO CHAVEZ

• And among the most capable of those from your own side who speak to you on this topic and on the manufacturing of public opinion is Noam Chomsky, who spoke sober words of advice prior to the war,

• to warn against waging the war and describe its true nature in eloquent terms like "no to spilling red blood for black oil,"

• And since the democratic system permits major corporations to back candidates, ... there shouldn't be any cause for astonishment - and there isn't any- in the Democrats' failure to stop the war.

• It has now become clear to you and the entire world the impotence of the democratic system and how it plays with the interests of the peoples and their blood by sacrificing soldiers and populations to achieve the interests of the major corporations...they are the real tyrannical terrorists.

• mankind is in danger because of the global warming ... from the emissions of the factories of the major corporations, ... the White House insists on not observing the Kyoto accord,

• the world is being dominated by the democratic system, which confirms its massive failure to protect humans and their interests from the greed and avarice of the major corporations and their representatives.

• brazen attack on the people, ... Bush, Blair, Sarkozy and Brown- still talk about freedom and human rights with a flagrant disregard for the intellects of human beings. ... you should liberate yourselves from the deception, shackles and attrition of the capitalist system.

• The capitalist system seeks to turn the entire world into a fiefdom of the major corporations under the label of “globalization” in order to protect democracy.

• and the reeling of many of you under the burden of interest-related debts, insane taxes and real estate mortgages; global warming and its woes; ... all of this is but one side of the grim face of this global system.

• So it is imperative that you free yourselves ... and search for an alternative, ... in which it is not the business of any class of humanity to lay down its own laws to its own advantage at the expense of the other classes as is the case with you, since the essence of man-made positive laws is that they serve the interests of those with the capital and thus make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

OH SHIT! ABU, I FORGOT TO TELL YOU....

YOU CANT BE SHAKING HANDS WITH THIS PRICK AND LIVE IN ANBAR. COLLABORATORS EITHER HAVE TO LIVE IN THE FORTIFIED GREEN ZONE OR IN LONDON. PREFERABLY IN LONDON. THAT'S WHERE EVERYONE ELSE IS.

VENEZUELA COMUNITY RADIO: RECLAIM THE MEDIA

Caricuao is one of the outer western parishes of Caracas. As the subway train from the center of Caracas approaches the parish, we pass by precarious ranchos, or flimsy tin and board houses, nestled in the sides of the looming hills and large project-like buildings with bars across the windows. Radio Perola is located on the ground floor of one of these “projects” or popular blocks, known as Canagua. The broadcasting studio is a small room, painted bright yellow and covered with posters from the social justice movement and community radios. On one large corner table there is a mixer, microphone and computer, and at a round table in the center there are several mikes and chairs.

Like other community radio stations in Venezuela, Radio Perola began as a clandestine station nearly nine years ago, and activists have fought for it to be legally authorized by the state. Under the hip-hop inspired slogan, “Maximum Respect!,” community journalists at Radio Perola are creating spaces for new voices, such as those of the young women, to be heard.

a community activist who works with Radio Perola, a Caracas independent radio station that means "Radio Can,"a reference to the string can telephones that many of us know from childhood. In the context of Caracas, where five elite TV stations have long dominated the flow of information, Radio Perola is an example of how the grassroots, in picking up tin can and some string, can take back the media.

Radio Negro Primero, otro Medio Comunitaria de radio. Socios de PCASC, yo tambien, visitaron la estacion en Enero, 2006 cuando 23 personas que viven en Portland asistaron el Foro Social Mundial).

(PHOTO: near Caricuao, Distrito Federal (Venezuela) by Orlando Leiva
See in Google Earth now | Original size)

VENEZUELA MEDIA

The private media has accumulated a large degree of power since the late seventies, due to the growing deregulation and commercialization of media in Venezuela. In 1979, the Venezuelan government sold Channel 5, a state-owned channel, to the private sector. Through the eighties and nineties, successive governments continued the expansion of concessions to media corporations, leading to the centralization of the media in a small number of conglomerates.


Private television at a national level has been monopolized by the Cisneros group (Venevisión) and the 1BC group of Phelps-Granier (Radio Caracas Televisión). Out of 44 regional television networks, nearly all are linked by chain to private networks Venevisión, Radio Caracas Televisión, Televen, and Globovision. This small group of corporations also control radio-electric spaces and the national press.

THE EMPEROR FEARS THE BAGHDAD GREEN ZONE

HE MUST GO TO AL-ASAD AIR BASE IN AL-ANBAR PROVINCE IN THE IRAQI DESERT, MORE THAN 100 MILES WEST OF THE CAPITAL.

Berezovsky wants "orange revolution" money back from Ukraine

14:18 | 03/ 09/ 2007

Print version

KIEV, September 3 (RIA Novosti) - Boris Berezovsky, the fugitive Russian oligarch, is suing Ukrainian politicians for nearly $23 million he says he provided to fund the country's 2004 "orange revolution," Ukrainian justice authorities said Monday.

The London-based businessman, who has a British passport, has filed a suit against Oleksandr Tretyakov and David Zhvaniya, parliamentarians from the pro-presidential Our Ukraine-People's Self-Defense bloc, with the High Court of England and Wales, the Ukrainian Justice Ministry said.

Berezovsky, 61, accused the two politicians, who have been summoned to court September 5 to receive subpoenas, of misusing the money he allocated for what he called the development of democracy.

The "orange revolution" was a popular bloodless uprising in Ukraine that brought pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko to power following a controversial run-off election November 21, 2004, that declared pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovych the victor.

Tretyakov is a former presidential aide, and Zhvaniya was emergencies minister in 2005.

Berezovsky, who is wanted in Russia on charges of fraud and a coup attempt, said he transferred the money to the accounts of Yushchenko's relatives, who have denied the allegations. Berezovsky said he would sue them as well.