Democratic-Revolution, Imperial regime change formula

Democratic-Revolution, Imperial regime change f…, posted with vodpod

Democracy promotion: America’s new regime change formula

Washington’s formula for regime change underwent a makover in the 1980s. In a bid to ensure US political and economic interests were safeguarded, CIA backed coup d’états ousted democratically elected leaders from Iran to Chile.

In their place were brutal dictatorships and governments that committed heinous crimes against their people.

By the 1980s, the reign of terror that blazed across Latin America was too much for most people to stomach. From death squads to torture chambers and various massacres, the Latin American generals who trained in the US to spread democracy around the world quickly gained reputations for major human rights abuses.

To replace the overt support for dictatorships, a new concept for regime change was born; one that sounds and looks better – democracy promotion.

The concept of democracy promotion is simple; finance, train, and politically back local opposition forces around the world that support the American agenda.

Dr. William Robinson is one of the foremost experts on Washington’s democracy promotion initiatives, he wrote the book ‘Promoting Polyarhcy.’

“In Latin America, in Eastern Europe with the Velvet Revolutions, in Africa, in the Middle East, really all over the world, the U.S. set up these different mechanisms now for penetrating these civil societies in the political systems of countries that are going to be intervened and to assure the outcome is going to be pleasing to Washington’s foreign policy objectives,” said Robinson.

Lawrence Wilkerson, the former Chief of Staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell said, “We do this through surrogates and nongovernmental organization and through people who are less suspecting of the evil that may lurk behind their actions than perhaps they were before. Have we learned some lessons in that regard? You bet! Do we do it better? You bet? Is it still just as heinous as it has always been? You bet!”

So while the goal remains the same, it’s no longer the CIA but the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and its partners spearheading the effort.

Allen Weintein, one of the founders of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) explained to the Washington Post in 1991, “A lot of what we do now was done covertly by the CIA 25 years ago.”

And like the CIA, USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy and a number of similar organizations receive funding from Congress.

“Millions and millions of U.S. tax payer dollars go every year into funding for political organizations and campaigns in different countries in the world that promote US agenda. Most U.S. citizens are unaware of the fact that that is how their money is being spent, to meddle, and to influence and to interfere in other nation’s affairs,” said Eva Golinger who has been investigating the US’s democracy promotion efforts in Venezuela.

The concept of facilitating regime change through democracy promotion has garnered wide criticism not just abroad but also at home in the United States.

Congressman Ron Paul once wrote “It is particularly Orwellian to call US manipulation of foreign elections ‘promoting democracy.’ How would we Americans feel if for example the Chinese arrived with millions of dollars to support certain candidates deemed friendly to China?“

“I think it’s terrible, we use taxpayer’s money to go over and use our military and the CIA these programs that say ‘this is what you outta do’ and influence them. There is no authority for that, it doesn’t work, it teaches a lot of people to despise us,” Congressman Paul told RT.

Funding and how it operates

Democracy promotion has been a long standing element of US foreign policy. It operates as a key component of soft power linked to the diplomacy apparatus of Washington.

“The moneys go from the U.S. State because we need to see this starts with the U.S. state.They go into the country that is going to be intervened and inside that country they identify a series of groups that are going to receive this money but also receive this kind of political influence that comes with giving money and comes with on the ground operatives tied to this money,” explained Robinson. “When the U.S. starts an interventionist program, they identify the different sectors it wants to organize.So it’s identifies the trades union movement and where are the pliant parts, the objective is to marginalize radical trade unions and bolster conservative trade unions.They identify women movements, marginalize radical movements and mobilize conservative women moments.Then they do the same with youth.All sectors of civil society will be identified and those that can be brought on board to the US interventionist project will be brought on board and funded.”

One of many examples is the color revolutions in Eastern Europe.

“As I saw happen for example in Ukraine, as I saw happen in Georgia, as I see happening in other places too, they don’t just propagandize or attempt to help with words and rhetoric that opposition, they actually do things that give that opposition more power,” said Wilkerson, recalling the involvement of USAID and NED.

William Blum, a US historian and the author of the book “Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions since WW II” said, “They copy from one area to another, the first one that was successful was the one in Serbia and they borrowed things from that revolution.Certain slogan, symbols and colors, and they use it again and again.”

Analysts recall the similarities in the color revolutions where youth groups were energized, rock bands lined up, and laser shows put on. The movements were marketed as cool.

“The objective was to make them into a national passion, a national fad if you well,” said Blum.

Student leaders of the Serbian youth group Otpor who played a key role in the 2000 ousting of Slobodan Milosevic met 7 to 10 times with officials from USAID affiliates, according to the NY Times. The same group also received several hundred thousand dollars for demonstration material, t-shirts and stickers.

On the other side of the world, in Latin America, some of the most active and capable programs have and continue to flourish in countries where Capitalism isn’t the agenda.

Blum contends, “Venezuela, easily, that is the place where they send the most money.Chavez is enemy number one.

One opposition lawmaker that has been a key figure in Washington’s democracy promotion model in Venezuela is Maria Corina Machado; a woman who is by many standards and to plenty of critics, a product of US interventionism.Machado rose to fame with an NGO known as Sumate, an organization that received hundreds of thousands of dollars from USAID and NED. Sumate led fierce campaigns against democratically elected President Chavez and his Bolivarian Revolution, including a referendum against the President in 2004.

“In our case, we did receive funding from NED as did several, tens of organizations here in Venezuela,” Machador confessed.

Like Georgia’s Saakashvili, foreign financing bolstered Machado’s image on the national and international stage, even granting her a meeting with President George W. Bush.

“This is about promoting an individual; this is about promoting someone who has the capacity to rise to power and share US agenda,” said Golinger.

Since 2000, USAID has activated more than 620 programs in Venezuela alone, costing up to $20 million dollars.

In 2002, a government document from USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives explained a possible coup against Chavez was in the making. The author of the memo, OTI director Russell Porter wrote about the urgency of “sending an assessment team to Venezuela as soon as possible with a prejudice toward starting an active program to support civil society and the media.”

Another 2003 declassified memo drafted by USAID’s OTI in relation to the 2004 referendum said, “the overarching strategic objectives of the program remain the same: that is supporting the continuation of stable, free-market orientated democracy in Venezuela.”

Other documents declassified through Freedom of Information Acts show USAID affiliates NDI and IRI were awarded $500,000 each for campaign schools in Venezuela.These campaign school s were responsible for campaign strategy and organization, message development, outreach, fund-raising, public relations, get-out the-vote techniques, and candidate selection. That same cable also cites the importance of co-opting Venezuela’s poor, with the barrios as the main target. The barrios have long been known as Chavez strongholds.

In Latin American, democracy promotion programs target governments or organizations that have a socialist, anti-free market leaning.

The President of NED Carl Gershman insists democracy promotion does not mean regime change.

“To him [Gershman], Democracy equates to Capitalism, the idea of socialism and democracy is alien to him, if he is working against a socialist government or movement, he is working for democracy,” said Blum.

Funding democracy with US taxpayer dollars

Democracy, US-style, doesn’t come cheap. Most of the money flows to forces in line with US interests. Washington has spent a far amount of money spread democracy worldwide.

“We’re talking here about hundreds of millions of dollars, and over the years since this policy was consolidated, we’re talking about billions. The State Department will have an appropriation of several billion dollars for what it called the Office of Transition Initiatives. The Congress will have an appropriation hundreds of millions of dollars for the National Endowment for Democracy, USAID will have its own budget as well,” said Robinson.

Over the past two decades, USAID has spent 9 billion dollars promoting Washington’s democracy initiatives.

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) received $132 million dollars during 2009; nearly all of the money came from U.S. government agencies.

However, USAID and NED are not the only ones. There is an entire network of organizations involved in the democracy promotion business such as the National Democratic Institute (NDI), the International Republican Institute (IRI), and the American Center for International Labor, the Center for International Private Enterprise and Freedom House.

But these are just the tip of the iceberg. There’s an entire network of organizations involved in the democracy promotion business.

Although all the organizations insist there is no political affiliation, the board of directors for both NDI and IRI suggest otherwise.

Both boards consist of former Secretaries of State, national security advisers, members of Congress, and even Clinton, Bush and Reagan administration officials.

They all have a history in Washington. One deeply rooted in sustaining the current foreign policy priorities.

Blum said, “to understand US foreign policy, one must understand a very basic fact; the US government wants to dominate the world.”

He insists the soft money working behind scenes is directly linked to the CIA.

“They had to have a new organization with a nice sounding name, with the word democracy, which would be free of the taint of the CIA, and that’s why the NED was created,” Blum added.

One of the key areas the democracy promotion network has invested in is Central America, where there is a rising tide in leftist, socialist ideologies.

According to the North American Congress on Latin America, USAID’s latest $2 million disbursement to Honduras was based on proposals to make the Central American country economically competitive on the global market.Since 2004, the United States has spent over $18 million on democracy promotion in Honduras.

While USAID requests $800,000 for more democracy promotion programs in Honduras for FY 2011, journalists and activists are being brutalized and killed under the U.S. backed government

In Egypt, a revolt against the US backed policies of Hosni Mubarak regime has mobilized these agencies to co-opt opposition groups to ensure the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections are beneficial to Washington.

Wael Nawara of the opposition party Al Ghad told RT funding and guidance from NED, NDI, IRI and USAID has increased in the past two years, and that NDI and IRI are operating in Egypt illegally.

Other countries the US has intervened in include the Philippines, Haiti, Nicaragua, Ecuador, El Salvador, Kyrgyzstan, and the Palestinian territories.

The USAID has implemented so called democracy promotion initiatives in over 100 countries in the past 25 years. This year’s budget is $1 billion dollars. According to USAID’s website, spending $10 million in a target country increases its amount of democratic change fivefold.

Blum insists there is pure hypocrisy in Washington’s democracy promotion agenda. “We have a very clear law on the books prohibiting foreign governments from interfering in our elections of supporting any candidates with money.So we do exactly abroad what we prohibit here at home,” he said.

Encouraging transparency is a stated core element of the US government’s democracy promotion efforts in foreign countries. But here at home the agencies themselves are far from transparent. Detailed program budgets and information are unavailable to the public and contact with the media is limited. Over the last six weeks, RT repeatedly requested interviews from USAID, NED, IRI and NDI. All of these requests were denied or unanswered.

Pepe Escobar, a South America based journalist for the Asia Times said US democracy promotion programs use political or other grievances in countries to push and coordinate their own agenda.

“They use the locals,” said Escobar. “They mix their preoccupations and their grievances with the classic full spectrum dominance Washington agenda.”

The US targets nations who are strategic competitors and regimes that antagonize the United States. It utilizes the Pentagon and CIA strategy of full spectrum dominance.

Escobar explained that anti-government messages are often propelled through mainstream corporate media outlets in Brazil and Venezuela that are indirectly linked and influenced by US organizations like Freedom House and the National Endowment for Democracy.

He argued that over time it is possible other nations, like China, will use their growth to influence US elections; however that could take some time.

“They [China] still do not understand the notion of soft power and smart power,” Escobar said. “Maybe it’s going to take a generation to understand how the West thinks.”

Jacob Hornberger, the president of The Future of Freedom Foundation explained that this policy of democracy promotion is not merely an Obama or Bush policy, but instead a systemic issue in overall US policy.

“This is essentially US foreign policy and has been for decades,” he said. “They funnel money into elections, they engage in invasions, assassinations, coups, regime change operations. That’s what foreign policy has been about for a long time.”

Those who feel the policy is truly the promotion of democracy are operating under a lie, Hornberger argued.

“The Government has no more commitment to democracy than it does to dictatorship,” he said.

The US government supports those who best serve their interest at a given time, including having supported leaders Saddam Hussein in the past.

“They’re trying to get their people in public office in countries all over the world,” Hornberger said. “They will stop at nothing to affect that kind of regime change when the administration in that country isn’t towing the official line.”

With the government on the brink of bankruptcy, Americans should be more outspoken against these programs which spend millions in US taxpayer dollars.

The US has entered the realm of imperialism and needs to return to the republican form of governance it was founded on, argued Hornberger.

“This is not the limited government paradigm on which our country was founded. It’s a paradigm based on an empire from which our nation was born in resistance to empire,” he said.

“What Americans have to decide is what do we want? Do we want an empire that is bankrupting this country?” asked Hornberger. “Or do we want to restore a republic and a sense of normality and peace and prosperity to America?”

 

U.S, Pakistan military chiefs hold secret talks in Oman–(Stars and Stripes)

[Are the US/Pakistani militaries preparing to clean-up the awful mess that they have made in Pakistan?]

U.S., Pakistan military chiefs hold secret talks in Oman

By KEVIN BARON

Stars and Stripes

Published: February 23, 2011

MUSCAT, Oman — Several of the most senior leaders of the U.S. military, the Afghanistan War, and the Pakistani armed forces held a daylong secret meeting Wednesday at a secluded luxury resort along the Omani shores of the Persian Gulf.

One U.S. official in attendance described the meeting as “very candid and cordial, and very productive discussions.”

Sunburned European tourists splashed about just yards away from a closely guarded conference room in which Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Gen. David Petraeus, commander of International Security Assistance Force; Adm. Eric Olson, commander of U.S. Special Operations Command; and Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis, commander of U.S. Central Command, met with Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Pakistan’s chief of army staff, and Maj. Gen. Javed Iqbal, director general of military operations.

“I was very grateful for General Kayani’s time and the opportunity to continue the dialogue and the relationship at this very critical time in the effort,” Mullen told reporters traveling with him.

The meeting, planned several months ago, is the third such gathering of high-level American and Pakistani officials since August 2008 to discuss the war, according to a military official in the U.S. party.

“I was pleased to have the opportunity to discuss with American officers the progress we have made fighting extremists in our country and to offer them my thoughts about how our two sides might better cooperate,” Kayani said, in a statement released Wednesday by Pakistan’s military. “Pakistan’s soldiers have fought bravely and accomplished much at great cost. We must honor those sacrifices by making sure our military operations are understood.”

Both sides gave operational updates and emphasized the need for better cross-border communication, information-sharing and physical infrastructure development, such as roads, according to both parties. No other details were provided.

With attention focused on the region’s uprisings, Mullen is on a long-scheduled Persian Gulf tour that also has touched down in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, with plans to visit Djibouti, Bahrain and Kuwait before returning to Washington.

U.S.-Pakistani relations on the whole have improved on many fronts since 2009. In the past two years, the Obama administration and military leaders have praised Pakistan for sending 140,000 troops to fight the Taliban, terrorists and other insurgent groups along its border regions with Afghanistan.

But in 2010, Pakistan stalled its advances citing heavy losses and needing time to renew its forces. Meanwhile, the U.S. has increased its use of drone strikes to kill insurgents inside Pakistan. The strikes, however, remain largely unpopular among Pakistanis. An editorial in Pakistan’s “Daily Times” questioned the efficacy of imprecise drone strikes, concluding, “The political fallout of blunt attacks will not achieve the purpose of winning hearts and minds of the people in the counter-insurgency efforts of the U.S.”

Additionally, relations between U.S. and Pakistani intelligence services are at their lowest in years, to the point of missing chances to target senior terrorists, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. Any deterioration could endanger U.S. troops who frequently confront Pakistan-based terrorists and insurgent fighters sent into Afghanistan.

Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence has stopped giving CIA drone operators information to target terrorists inside Pakistan, according to the Journal, including those with the notorious Haqqani network the ISI has long supported.

In December, CIA’s station chief was outed publicly, forcing him to leave Pakistan. And this week, tensions heightened further as it was revealed former Special Forces soldier Raymond Davis, who is accused of shooting two Pakistani men in Lahore he said were trying to rob him, was working for the CIA at the time. President Barack Obama and other U.S. officials insisted he was a diplomat in efforts to win his release.

Moreover, in November, news accounts of U.S. diplomatic cables revealed by Wikileaks confirmed small numbers of U.S. special operations forces had been operating on the ground inside Pakistan’s borders.

In Congress last week, Gates said Pakistan is a “mixed picture….and it is something we just need to keep working at.”

Mullen, at the same hearing, praised Pakistan’s military performance, but worried about many other factors from the struggling economy to the stream of terrorists flocking there.

“The vector is going in the wrong direction overall for the country.  We are very unpopular there,” he said. “…I am as concerned as I have ever been.”

Mullen, for his part, has made it a personal mission to try and bend Pakistan toward U.S. views, making more than 20 trips to visit Kayani during his term as the top U.S. military officer and senior military advisor to the president.

“The chairman believes this kind of dialogue is vital to improving coordination and communications between our two militaries,” the official said. “He believes [the Pakistan military] continues to do a remarkable job battling extremists inside their borders.”

baronk@stripes.osd.mil

 

An Attack From Harvard Law on the Escalating 9/11 Truth Movement

Those who have read the Fellowship’s Statement of Principles will recognize that the work of Cass Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule, described in the article below by Bill Willers,  directly opposes our religious principles which state, in brief, the following, extracted from Section 4.0 – Ponerology:

We recognize that the roots of human evil, though originating at the Cosmic level, are primarily psychobiological in nature and a product of humanity‘s evolutionary history. {…}  In the case of building blocks missing in the substrate, the extreme of psychopathy represents a near complete deficit of social emotions: trust, honor, love, compassion, empathy, care, duty, allegiance, respect, gratitude, justice. In contrast, the qualities of the psychopath, including cold-heartedness, a ―lying tongue‖, superficial charm, emotional manipulation, arrogance, self-centeredness, lack of remorse, and sadism, have all been known historically as qualities of Evil. {…}

We recognize that psychopathy is the root cause in the cycles of inter-generational and trans-generational social Evil and is the primary player in the mechanical entropic tendency of Cosmic Evil to hinder human development and thus stamp out the full potential of Spirit in this world. As a natural expression of Cosmic Duality and Variation, psychopaths traumatize and distort the minds of those who fall under their influence (see 4.3. On Ponerization) and who, in turn, continue the cycle of Evil. {…}

In a culture blind to their existence and nature, psychopaths are able to take advantage of and subvert the best of human qualities and to achieve positions of authority and domination in our world, whether in family, business, academic, religious, or political structures. They exemplify human Evil and its corrupting, poneric (from the Greek poneros) influence. {…}

We recognize that psychopaths have an insidious and corrupting influence on the minds of normal humanity, dulling our ability to think and feel in humane categories. Psychopaths perceive the world with a distorted, ―dog-eat-dog‖ mentality, in which weakness, innocence, and naiveté are qualities to be ruthlessly exploited. This foreign worldview inspires a traumatizing shock reaction in the human psyche and makes us increasingly susceptible to emotional manipulation via pseudo- or para-moralisms and political–religious propaganda. This influence is cleverly hidden behind the psychopath‘s ―Mask of Sanity‖ (see Sources, H. Cleckley), and our blindness to its root cause allows psychopaths to infiltrate and corrupt human groups (see 4.4. On Ponerogenesis). The problem reaches mass proportions when ponerized political groups achieve control of vast geographical regions, as was the case in the empires of the Hittites, Egyptians, Assyrians, Khazars, Christian Orthodoxies, Nazis, Soviets, and most recently, religiously conservative Americans (see 4.5. On Pathocracy). In each of these cases, religion and government have worked hand in hand (Communism being a type of materialistic religion) to manipulate large groups of people to seek to destroy other groups… {…}

We recognize that the ultimate outcome of Ponerogenesis is the emergence of Pathocracy. Whereas in healthy societies, normal humanity would naturally recognize and isolate psychopathy, in a ponerized society such as exists at the present time, psychopaths isolate and persecute normal humanity. Inspired by their foreign and callous worldview, psychopaths imagine a system of government where the expression of their pathological desires is not blocked. Exploiting popular and humanitarian ideologies as a ―cover‖ or ―mask‖, psychopaths achieve domination through a corruption of moral content of these ideologies that is often so slow and subtle that it is difficult to recognize its progress. They then go about a process of mass indoctrination and terror, defining the limits of human expression and forbidding the normal human revulsion to an anti-human system of oppression, injustice, and mendacity. In such a society, the vast majority of psychopaths rise to the top, from the heads of government down to all important positions of authority and influence at the local level (see Sources, A. Łobaczewski). Their ranks are supported and augmented by other personality disordered individuals, authoritarian personalities, and individuals who have been psychologically wounded personally and/or socially, all of whom contribute to a system of totalitarian rule. {…}

We recognize that there is little possibility of expressing unorthodox views on scientific method and practice or on how the social structure negatively affects science without a venue for robust self-criticism, as has existed within the academic discipline of philosophy. Journals providing outlets where scientists could express their views on how their field serves their own needs as researchers, and society‘s needs as the beneficiary of their ideas, have ceased to exist under pressure from the scientific establishment or have been re-aligned to carry only ―pure research. Thus, there is no venue for the study of the influence of the prevailing social structure of science within which scientists work, and even less for the examination of the ways in which this structure is used in negative ways to hinder innovative research and even destroy the careers of those who dare to step outside the dogmatic scientific paradigms.

We recognize the difficulties faced daily by well-qualified scientists who challenge scientific orthodoxy and the illicit, shameful censorship and blacklisting of scientists. In light of these problems, we recognize that scientific disciplines have been ponerized by pathocratic influences, directing scientific research primarily to areas of corporative and military research and blocking research that contradicts or threatens their aims. Anonymity in the peer review system is particularly susceptible to corruption and interferes with the objective examination of extraordinary ideas on their own merits.

These problems of science are global and even more present in rich, industrial nations where science is increasingly corporatized and forms the backbone of political power and control. The problems are widespread in all fields of science, including physics, astronomy, medicine, and psychology, and in all areas of research performed by humans where the First Criterion of ponerogenesis is ever present. Whether the ideas that are suppressed or ignored are correct is a different matter and subject to the use of a robust feedback mechanism. We recognize that suppression of new ideas and free and open discussion is not the way to filter science and promote progress in human knowledge, and is harmful to the search for Truth. We recognize that the state of science today is that of decay proceeding to death and we declare our right – the right of humanity – to academic and scientific freedom. {…}

We recognize that knowledge of politics and current events in this world is essential for spiritual growth. Ignorance of political and social pathodynamics, whether in the form of corporate influence, government or religious leadership, is tacit acceptance of Evil and thus equates to a refusal to choose Good. The political systems of this world
are the primary method by which the forces of Evil subvert human growth and creativity. The forces that act to subvert Freedom and accrue power and influence are ever-present, and an ability to discern the forces of Good from Evil necessitates a willingness to see their Effects in the domain of politics. We recognize that a love for Truth and Justice necessitates an awareness of their opposite: Machiavellian politics as an eternal tool for domination.

By Bill Willers

OpEd News

A wide appreciation of the implications of “Conspiracy Theories” by Harvard law professors Cass Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule has been slow in coming. What makes the article and the views expressed therein all the more significant is that author Sunstein in 2009 was made Administrator of Information and Regulatory Affairs of the Office of Management and Budget by President Obama. (See HERE)

(Note: The 2008 article at the Social Science Research Network’s website appeared in virtually identical form in the Journal of Political Philosophy 17(2), 2009, pgs 202-227, except that the Journal’s version, which carries the title “Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures”, lacks several terminal pages dealing largely with 9/11 theories outside the U.S.. References to pages below are for the easily downloaded online article for those who want the entire article. The actual Journal is scarce and requires $41 for a download.)

While the article’s title suggests conspiracy theories broadly, the 9/11 Truth Movement is the paper’s focus, and it reveals substantial concern regarding that Movement’s ongoing advance. Particularly ominous is that the authors, who use “theorists” and “extremists” interchangeably, limit their focus “to potentially harmful theories”. To whom, one might wonder, would the 9/11 Truth Movement, so “worrisome” for the authors, be harmful? And why do the authors consider the 9/11 Truth Movement such a “serious threat” that it should be “broken up or at least muted by government action”? (pg 21)

The authors contend that conspiracy theorists suffer from “cognitive blunders” and “crippled epistemology”. Using psycho-philosophic parlance they are saying those failing to accept the official story of the 9/11 Commission, leading members of which admitted it was “set up to fail”, cannot think straight. But the “theorists/extremists” they wish to censure include by now thousands of physicists, architects and engineers using only physical facts and data; substantial figures in theology and philosophy applying elementary logic; military, political and intelligence personnel from all over the world with lifetimes of experience in how the system — including its underbelly — functions.

So, what is proposed? “Practically speaking”, the authors write, “government might do well to maintain a more vigorous counter-disinformation establishment.” (pg 19) They recommend that government officials respond “to more rather than fewer conspiracy theories [which] has a kind of synergy benefit: it reduces the legitimating effect of responding to any one of them, because it dilutes the contrast with unrebutted theories.” (pgs 15, 29) Such advice assumes that all theories — or aspects of a single theory — are essentially equal in validity or lack of validity — an odd position for legal minds supposedly sensitive to fine distinctions. But that would not matter when the point is simply to defeat citizen efforts.

More menacing, however is that the authors suggest “planting doubts [to] undermine the crippled epistemology [through] cognitive infiltration” of groups by governmental agents or by forces appointed by government. (pgs 3, 14, 15, 22, 29) “Government agents (and their allies)”, they write, “might enter chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine percolating conspiracy theories.” In light of such proposals for dealing with citizens seeking truth, that Cass Sunstein is “one of America’s leading constitutional scholars” (See above link to the White House announcement) is appalling.

The authors contend that “crippled epistemology” arises from the “sharply limited number of (relevant) informational sources” used by conspiracy theorists, this making the theories “especially hard to undermine or dislodge; they have a self-sealing quality, rendering them particularly immune to challenge.” (pg 3) This drips with irony, for information coming from the expertise found within the 9/11 Truth Movement, while both extensive and diverse, has been limited only through censoring by the U.S. Government. What’s more, there has rarely been a “theory” more resistant to opposing information — more absolutely and officially “self-sealing” — than the mockery that is the official 9/11 Commission Report.

As one reads through the Sunstein/Vermeule article it is clear that the authors, while aware of the now infamous Popular Mechanics article — that absurd prop for the official governmental account (pg 18) — have carefully avoided any relevant material from within the mountain of easily available credible information that would dash their thesis. For academics ostensibly wedded to truth this is shameful.

Consider from page 20 the following misrepresentation of the position of the 9/11 Truth Movement:

“After 9/11, one complex of conspiracy theories involved American Airlines Flight 77, which hijackers crashed into the Pentagon. Some theorists claimed that no plane had hit the Pentagon; even after the Department of Defense released video frames showing Flight 77 approaching the building and a later explosion cloud, theorists pointed out that the actual moment of impact was absent from the video, in order to keep alive their claim that the plane had never hit the building. (In reality the moment of impact was not captured because the video had a low number of frames per second.”

This is a classic “straw man” set up to be knocked down. The intensely grainy few frames made available (of the many certainly detailed security camera records that exist) were not adequate to identify Flight 77. But in this instance it is beside the point anyway, because ‘moment of impact on the video’ was never a central issue in a case consisting of an abundance of strong evidence. The authors certainly know this as they seek to create the false impression that ‘moment of impact on the video’ is the centerpiece of the 9/11 Truth Movement’s case, an impression the authors can then refute.

And the authors continue:

“Moreover, even those conspiracists who were persuaded that the Flight 77 conspiracy theories were wrong folded that view into a larger conspiracy theory. The problem with the theory that no plane hit the Pentagon, they said, is that the theory was too transparently false, disproved by multiple witnesses and much physical evidence. Thus the theory must have been a straw man initially planted by the government, in order to discredit other conspiracy theories and theorists by association.”

This convolution is rife with falsehood. Witnesses have been conflicting, but of greater import is that abundant physical evidence actually points in a direction contrary to the official narrative. After creating one straw man, the authors cite (manufacture?) “conspiracists” who, once convinced that Flight 77  hit the Pentagon, now see the contrary view as a government-sponsored straw man. Sunstein and Vermeule thereby create scenarios that carefully avoid the considerable evidence countering the government’s explanation of 9/11.

The authors flit between conspiracy theory generally and 9/11 specifically, in this way suggesting connections that denigrate the 9/11 Truth Movement through association with people “mentally ill and subject to delusions” (pg 9), “conspiracy entrepreneurs — who profit directly or indirectly from propagating their theories” (pg 9), and, most disturbingly, Holocaust deniers. (pgs 7,8) While some have sought to connect the 9/11 Truth Movement with Holocaust denial (e.g., the former head of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, who made the association twice in the same interview -click here) there is no such relation either in the inclination of researchers, or in the thought processes involved, or in fact. One suspects therefore that such association is simply one more attempt to silence a movement that is alarming certain powers because if its seemingly unstoppable growth.

Readers of the article are guided toward a false impression that 9/11 conspiracy theories outside the U.S. are virtually limited to the Arab -Muslim world. The authors write that it is likely “that the virulence of conspiracy theorizing in Muslim nations has a great deal to do with social cascades and group polarization, and with weak civil liberties and lack of a robust market for ideas in many of those nations.” (pg 26) As to the prospect that elements of the U.S. Government might be involved in such an incident as 9/11, the authors maintain that for many people in Islamic nations “it is far from jarring to believe that responsibility lies with the United States (or Israel)”. (Parenthesis around “or Israel” in the original, pg. 10)

The implication that the 9/11 Truth Movement outside the U.S. is fundamentally a Muslim/Arab phenomenon is an extraordinary lie of omission, because the 9/11 Truth Movement is indeed global and incorporates experts of every sort, including scientists and demolition specialists, a past president of Italy and even the Russian equivalent of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. And what, one might ask, of the protests at European Union Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium that have drawn demonstrators from all over Europe? What of the open discussions on the very floor of the Japanese Parliament that reveal agreement with the 9/11 Truth Movement?

“Extra resistance to correction through simple techniques”, the authors write, “is what makes conspiracy theories distinctly worrisome.” (pg 5) “Worrisome”? Their concern is mirrored by Philip Zelikow, who was appointed by Bush to direct the 9/11 Commission and who became the primary instrument in the prevention of information flow to the Commission, and hence its planned failure as declared by Commission members. They quote Zelikow thus: “Our worry is when things become infectious …..”.

Bill Willers is emeritus professor of biology, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh now living in Middleton, WI. He is founder of Superior Wilderness Action Network (SWAN) and editor of Learning to Listen to the Land and Unmanaged Landscapes, both from Island Press.

The American Tapeworm

A Tapeworm’s Triumph

The other day, a natural healing practitioner explained the strategy used by a tapeworm to prosper. A tapeworm, she said, injected a chemical into its host that triggered a craving by the host for what the tapeworm wished for its dinner. By managing it’s hosts desire, a tapeworm manipulated its host to set aside self-interest and please its parasite. And so the tapeworm proceeded to consume its host’s energy and health, with the host doing most of the work.

The story of how a tapeworm parasitically eats away at its ecosystem came at a moment when the math lover in me was having an adverse reaction to the description of America as the new Roman Empire that seems to be inspired by the recent occupation of Iraq. The investment economics of American imperial conquest work more along the lines of the tapeworm than of the Romans.

If my rudimentary understanding of the rise and fall of ancient empires is useful, the Roman Empire brought an advancement of science, infrastructure, technology and material progress to many of the poorer lands that it conquered. In essence, Rome’s territory grew in part from its ability to increase the ‘return on investment” of many of the places it conquered.

While those who believe in self-determination may not approve of the Romans right to do so, or their methods, those of us who appreciate roads, bridges and infrastructure understand the positive investment yields that the introduction of intellectual capital to a place can generate. From one point of view, Rome financed its conquests not just by ransacking them — but by making places smarter in the material sense.

The tapeworm — a parasite that over time eats its host —can more accurately describe the demonic patterns of stripping places of intellectual capital that come with American imperial conquest. The “dumbing down” so often complained about within America’s borders is a phenomenon that our military appears to be implementing globally. We seem intent on removing spiritual power and intellectual IQ as we depopulate globally, moving out the honest and competent and putting the corrupt and bureaucratic in charge.

One of the things that is most disturbing about the American tapeworm is that it has organized its leadership around private banks and defense contractors and its governance and intellectual air cover around think tanks and private universities and their tax-exempt endowments.

In so doing it has done a marvelous job of getting the intellectual resources of the nation disengaged from dealing with what is happening and engaged –if not financially dependent on— producing chemicals for injection into the body politic through a highly centralized corporate media that will feed the tapeworm’s desire.

The Harvard Watch reports description of Harvard academics creating the public policy justifications for Enron’s frauds while the Harvard endowment fed at the trough illuminated a perfect example of how the tapeworm gets the host to act against its own self-interest.

The “Break It-Fix It” Subsidy of a Negative Return on Investment Economy

For several years, I have been studying and writing on the corporate and banking economic warfare model of globalization. Just from a case study of one private investor, Pug Winokur, and his investments in and with DynCorp, Enron and Harvard, examples abound.

• US neighborhoods are overrun with narcotics trafficking and HUD financial fraud while systematically worked by enforcement, seizure and War on Drugs teams supported by DynCorp and generating profits for the Harvard Endowment;
• Latin American pipelines, water and other assets are sold for significant discounts to market value to Enron and other multinational investors while DynCorp helps War on Drugs military teams move peasants off the lands;
• Russian banks and pension funds are emptied out by organized crime and laundered through NY Fed member banks while Harvard as financial advisor helps privatize Russian oil companies over to their endowment investment network;
• DynCorp personnel supplying police and aircraft maintenance are active with local mafia in Eastern Europe and practice buying and selling children as slaves which they use for sex;
• $3.3 trillion is missing from the Department of Defense and the Department of Housing Development where Lockheed, DynCorp & AMS are active managing computer systems and Harvard supplies appointees and contract services.
• Manipulation of the gold markets by the US Treasury and NY Fed member banks are led by Larry Summers, Secretary of the Treasury, and now President of Harvard and his predecessor Robert Rubin, Secretary of Treasury, and now member of the Harvard Corporation Board.

These shenanigans are well documented by a series of courageous reporters and market commentators, including Anne Williamson, Greg Palast, Kelly O’Meara, William Murphy and Chris Sanders.

This tapeworm operates globally. It has been winning at economic warfare because those opposed to it cannot see it clearly and are not yet networked globally to move people, places and capital out of its reach. My pastor, Bishop Alfred Owens, says, “If we can face it, God can fix it.” Indeed, divine authority is hamstrung– waiting for the necessary global networks to align around a common map of the real deal about global consolidation of economic and political power — and the resulting liquidation of wealth.

This tapeworm is managed tightly by the cartels that syndicate around central banking and warfare and it has four phases:

• Phase One–Break It: Private syndicates make money destroying a place through organized crime, covert operations, warfare or a variety of both;
• Phase Two- Buy It: The profit generated from breaking it is used to buy or seize “legal control” at a discount;
• Phase Three- Fix It: Government funding, credit and subsidies are then used to “fix it” while harvesting remaining assets, including with narcotics trafficking, sex slavery and any other form of liquidating the human, intellectual, environmental and physical capital in a place:
• Phase Four—Declare Victory: Victory is then declared and a flow of foundation and academic grants funded by the “break it-fix it” profits generate awards, photo opportunities and official archives and documentation for the perpetrators to be admired for their bringing of advanced civilization to the natives.

What emerges from an investment banker’s analysis of billions of transactions involved in situation after situation, in place after place, in year after year, is surprisingly simple.

We are watching a global first world economy that has a negative return on investment.

For example, in 1997 I lead an analysis of US federal expenditures and credit activities in the Philadelphia area for a group of US pension fund leaders. After analysis of the detailed data resulting from $10 billion of government reengineering and $400 billion of federal credit portfolio strategy managed by my company, the evidence was overwhelming —the federal investment in Philadelphia had a negative return on investment. In short, government budgets were rigging profits and income for companies and people in the area. After each year of government investment, Philadelphia spent more time doing things that were fundamentally not productive and so had been paid to grow “stupider.”

The deterioration in environment, culture, infrastructure and quality of life in Philadelphia that was obvious from walking around the city matched the numbers rather than the spin in the corporate news that the economy was doing well. Equity yields were falling steadily and only cooked government and corporate books could make it look otherwise. The primary thing on the rise was the smugness of the leaders of Philadelphia institutions as their success at covert management and personal “personnel benefits” grew ever stronger.

The Giant Sucking Sound as the Tapeworm Consumes Global Capital

Another way of saying this is that the banking and corporate model as currently constituted does not work. Banks and corporations are entirely dependent on rigged government budgets, government contracts, federal credit arbitrage and corrupt regulation in way that generates a negative return on investment for taxpayers. In addition, as corporations and banks become dependent on such government intervention they become progressively less able to function in a free market. Their culture becomes progressively soviet.

The combination of negative returns to taxpayers and increasingly non-market worthy private organizations is steadily lowering productivity. Add to this the increasingly power of organized crime as a % of GNP and a determinant of who sits in power on Wall Street and Washington, and fundamental productivity does not have a chance.

This state of affairs can go on as long as it can be financed. Hence, as long as America can continue to export dollars, export Treasury bills and mortgage backed and other federally supported credit, and lead in global organized crime and warfare, a negative return economy can continue.

Another way to say this is that rather than let markets adjust in a manner that would hold banks and corporations accountable, the central banks and military and enforcement machinery will guarantee markets by offsetting ever less productivity with ever greater amounts of debt and the liquidation of planetary assets – people, places, and all living things.

Which leads us to Iraq.

The Tapeworm Ransacking of Iraq

The economic desperation that lead up to the invasion of Iraq has been eloquently described by Chris Sanders of Sanders Research Associates and fits the patterns that SRA colleague, John Laughland and his colleagues at the British Helskinki Human Rights Group, have documented in Eastern Europe. Assuming the patterns that we have seen throughout the world apply, that tapeworm’s economic desperation will feed on Iraq as follows:

• The first meal to be harvested on Iraq is the profits of invasion — from government contracts and arms trafficking to media coverage.
• The second meal to be harvested on Iraq is the resulting control of assets, including gold, oil, bank accounts and antiquities. Iraq will be stripped, shipped, or otherwise switched to new ownership. Occupiers will use Iraqi assets to leverage more debt that generates more contracts and business for the inside companies. The antiquities in Iraq and this area of the world have a special meaning and attraction for the American and British leadership networks so don’t underestimate the value of these. The gold bugs at LeMetropole Café reported that the Americans have captured $1 billion of gold which was quite relevant as the NY Fed Banks particularly JP Morgan, Goldman, Citibank, are running significant short positions to suppress the gold price. Such a replenishment of their stocks (or the US Treasury who they may be trading on the account of — they usually simply move the shorts over to the taxpayers on all these types of situations) will be quite refreshing.
• The third meal on Iraq to be harvested will be occupation management. If Eastern Europe is representative, America will partner with local and global organized crime and other intelligence agencies to significantly increase organized crime profits from the place. Attractive children will be culled from the population for shipment to Europe and other areas for sex slavery and pedophilia. Narcotics trafficking will increase as it has in Afghanistan. The award to CSC DynCorp of a $500 million sole source contract to run police, courts and judiciary in Iraq is an important signal. My question after years of research is whether CSC DynCorp’s core competencies relates to enforcement infrastructure designed for places with growing financial fraud, narcotics trafficking, sex slavery and control of leadership through “control files.” These are the talents that America needs to strip mine the assets to feed its economic desperation.
• The fourth meal to be harvested on Iraq will be fixing it and declaring victory. This will involve significant government contracts to bring Western Civilization as defined by building those things that ensure the assets that the private corporations and investors have now acquired have the largest increase in value at no expense to themselves. A careful analysis will show expenditure rations in the soviet style—that is we will spend much more than necessary to get anything done. The banks will acquire an entirely new market. Critical to the fixing it phase is the financing of the occupation with the requirement that Iraq use the US dollar. We will print dollars and the Iraqi’s will use them. This is free financing for us. Next will come the payback for the not for profit groups. Because Christianity is an essential political support base for legitimizing the de-population of the Moslem territories, a flow of resources to the right church groups to support an expansion of their missionary ministries is likely. Progressive groups will bid for contracts to bring the rule of law and economic development and things like “the rights of women.” There will be a flow of money from foundations and universities to study how to help Iraq and to justify what we are doing.

As the corporations and banks are digesting Iraq, the American tapeworm will be setting its sights for the next meal. The money will be flowing to the right think tanks, academia and media apparatus for the preparation of the next injection into the body politic.

The lethal combination of a debt based financial system, falling productivity and the absence of meaningful feedback systems means that the magic of compound interest will dictate that the American tapeworm’s hunger for more capital is accelerating.

Where is the Tapeworm’s Brain?

The great mystery in all of this is who is really in charge. On one hand, we are watching an official action of the American governmental apparatus. On the other hand, that governmental apparatus is now run by the private companies and banks that operate the apparatus accounts and systems and finance its ever-growing debts. The investors behind these entities are global, not American. This is not a picture of a sovereign government or leaders loyal to the American people. A review of global insurance risk positions, debt and capital markets would show more about who is managing what than American politics. Indeed, Greg Palast of the BBC has proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Bush lost the election – something of no practical consequence thanks to the Supreme Court and the corporate media.

The tapeworm is in control and eating into the people of America as it is eating into the people of Iraq. Federal accounts are missing $3.3 trillion, pension funds have been stripped by pump and dump stock fraud and neighborhoods are overrun with narcotics trafficking. There are increasingly numbers of American citizens who have more in common with the people of Iraq than with the leadership of Wall Street and Washington.

With the takeover of American digital data by defense contractors and banks managing governmental functions, economic warfare takes on a whole new meaning. What is supposed to be private is not as those in the know have total access. What is supposed to be transparent is private, except for those in the know who are free to use it to advantage. With total defense contractor information awareness, people can be adjusted to ensure that markets do not have to adjust.

The American tapeworm is a symptom that the central banking-warfare model that has created the supremacy of the English-speaking people since the time of Queen Elizabeth I is dying. It is dying not because it is wrong but because it is weak. It is dying because — like a tapeworm – it has begun to create a rapidly weaker system. Hence it is incumbent upon the English-speaking people to reinvent themselves by engaging globally to invent a new model.

Yet, the opportunity to move to a new model requires the ability to see where we are and to outline a vision to those in the system that there is hope. Doing so becomes progressively more important as who is in charge is less important than how many of us are dependent for our bread and butter on a negative return on investment economy as it tapeworms its way towards planetary extinction — and all of us with it.

In short, the primary problem is not that the folks in charge are centralizing wealth in a destructive way or that some have too much money. That’s a problem – but a secondary one. The problem is that from the point of view of the dolphins, the plants and the trees, the planet is worse off for the presence of humans.

All solutions are found when we realize that this is something you and I can correct without wasting more time trying to find someone in charge of the tapeworm to persuade them to change its ways. It can’t change — its too busy finding food to feed all of us.
Return to the Tapeworm Economics Archive

Ohio, Wisconsin, Indiana protesters: ‘Kill the bill!’

Tens of thousands of protesters are rallying in Wisconsin.

 

Thousands of protesters are chanting, drumming, singing, locking arms and waging campaigns against bills that would affect union rights in Ohio, Wisconsin and Indiana. CNN’s iReporters are there, capturing the demonstrations from within the crowds.

Wisconsin: Facebook, Twitter and e-mail are playing a huge role in student involvement in the massive protests outside the state Capitol building in Madison. Watch protesters chant, “Kill the bill!” Three student walkouts were reportedly sparked by Facebook invitations that were sent across the University of Wisconsin-Madison Facebook page. Thousands are now standing, shouting and chanting in the city Wednesday, voicing their opposition to what Republican Gov. Scott Wilson calls a “Budget Repair” bill that would force state workers to increase their contributions to their pensions and health insurance benefits. Wilson said the bill must pass to head off a $3.6 billion budget gap by 2013 – and layoffs.

University of Wisconsin students have protested alongside teachers. Health care workers have shown up to rally, and dozens of other state employees are literally beating drums to express their opposition to the bill that would eliminate collective bargaining rights. Even Rage Against the Machine’s guitarist is there.He wrote about why he’s joined the demonstrators for CNN.com. And CNN’s Tom Foreman penned this note to President Barack Obama about the protests. All-but-declared presidential candidate Rick Santorum compared protesters to drug addicts.

Indiana: Democratic members of the state House walked out yesterday on a Republican-supported bill that would reduce private-sector union rights and prevent unions from requiring workers to pay dues. Labor unions shouted, “You’re fired!” at Republicans on Tuesday, according to the Indianpolis Star-Tribune. The paper filed a Q & A about the bill. The battle in this state is all about politics at this point – a political standstill.

Ohio: For the second week, crowds of teachers gathered in Columbus, shouting and chanting “Kill the bill!” Ohio is facing an $8 billion budget shortfall, and Republican Gov. John Kasich says that it has to pass to restore “balance” to the budget. Demonstrators have been yelling, “Teachers, yes! Kasich, no!” The measure is not about destroying unions, Kasich has repeatedly said. The legislation would allow school administrators to be able to ignore tenure when considering whether to lay someone off. The bill would also mandate that workers pay at least 20 percent of their health insurance premiums. Merit-based pay – though it’s unclear how merit would be measured – would be given to some public employees.

Indiana Official: “Use Live Ammunition” Against Wisconsin Protesters

A conservative deputy AG let his emotions get out of hand. It wasn’t the first time.

— By Adam Weinstein

On Saturday night, when Mother Jones staffers tweeted a report that riot police might soon sweep demonstrators out of the Wisconsin capitol building—something that didn’t end up happening—one Twitter user sent out a chilling public response: “Use live ammunition.”From my own Twitter account, I confronted the user, JCCentCom. He tweeted back that the demonstrators were “political enemies” and “thugs” who were “physically threatening legally elected officials.” In response to such behavior, he said, “You’re damned right I advocate deadly force.” He later called me a “typical leftist,” adding, “liberals hate police.“

Only later did we realize that JCCentCom was a deputy attorney general for the state of Indiana.

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As one of 144 attorneys in that office, Jeff Cox has represented the people of his state for 10 years. And for much of that time, it turns out, he’s vented similar feelings on Twitter and on his blog, Pro Cynic. In his nonpolitical tweets and blog posts, Cox displays a keen litigator’s mind, writing sharply and often wittily on military history and professional basketball. But he evinces contempt for political opponents—from labeling President Obama an “incompetent and treasonous” enemy of the nation to comparing “enviro-Nazis” to Osama bin Laden, likening ex-Labor Secretary Robert Reich and Service Employees International Union members to Nazi “brownshirts” on multiple occasions, and referring to an Indianapolis teen as “a black teenage thug who was (deservedly) beaten up” by local police. A “sensible policy for handling Afghanistan,” he offered, could be summed up as: “KILL! KILL! ANNIHILATE!“

Early Sunday, Mother Jones sent an email to Cox’s work address at the Indiana attorney general’s office, asking if the Twitter and blog comments were his, and if he could provide context for some of them. He responded shortly after from a personal email address: “For ‘context?’ Or to silence me? All my comments on twitter & my blog are my own and no one else’s. And I can defend them all.

“[Y]ou will probably try to demonize me,” he wrote, “but that comes with the territory.”

To be sure, in the current political climate, partisan rhetoric has run hot online—and the Constitution guarantees everyone’s right to such rhetoric. Nonetheless, a spokesman for the Indiana attorney general’s office, Bryan Corbin, told Mother Jones that Cox’s statements were “inflammatory,” and he promised “an immediate review” of the matter. “We do not condone any comments that would threaten or imply violence or intimidation toward anyone,” Corbin added.

The incident seems all the more troubling now that the public-sector union fight playing out in Wisconsin is now headed to other states—including Indiana, where GOP senators Tuesday passed a bill that would abolish collective bargaining for state teachers. (Indiana’s Republican governor walked back his support of the measure Tuesday after taking stock of the opposition.) Cox’s public writings made it clear that he isn’t a member of a public-service union, and he has no love for those who are.

“Individuals have the First Amendment right to post their own personal views in online forums on their own time,” Corbin wrote to Mother Jones, “but as public servants, state employees also should strive to conduct themselves with professionalism and appropriate decorum in their interactions with the public.” Cox had been contacted by the office, Corbin added: “We have reiterated to the employee the standards of professional conduct expected for all licensed attorneys and for employees of the Indiana Attorney General’s Office. After all the relevant information is obtained, this agency then will determine whether there has been any violation of the personnel handbook.”

In the meantime, we hoped to give Cox a chance to explain his thoughts in greater detail. In his initial email to Mother Jones, Cox had written, “Ask what questions you want & I will do my best to answer. Maybe you’ll learn something. Maybe I’ll learn something.” So we emailed him a list of questions:

What did he mean when he tweeted: “Planned Parenthood could help themselves if the only abortions they performed were retroactive”?

In referring to President Obama, why did he use a George W. Bush line once directed at the Iraqi people: ”Your enemy is not surrounding your country, your enemy is ruling your country”?

Were members of the SEIU really like Hitler’s Sturmabteilung, and did he stand by his headline, “Putting the ‘Reich’ in Robert Reich“?

We never heard back.

Adam Weinstein is Mother Jones’ copy editor. For more of his stories, click here or follow him on Twitter. Get Adam Weinstein’s RSS feed.

Mexican President Interview On US Agencies’ Rivalries Obstructing Drug War

FCH: states evade combat crime

U.S. ambassadors have hurt the relationship, he says. PAN-PRD alliance defends against undemocratic rulers. Read the full interview here.

The president defended the relevance of the alliance of the PAN and PRD ante governors representing a democratic regression “ (Photo: LUCIA GODINEZ / EL UNIVERSAL) 

Felipe Calderón Hinojosa was wearing yesterday with the intention of those who have determined to weigh his words, calculate impact, fine embroidery.

Extended a distant look on the issues ofpartisan politics , although licenses were allowed in areas that evidently exasperated, as the passivity of the governors againstorganized crime or criticism of diplomacy in the United States.

“They themselves are like ‘Borondongo’…, Barnabas gave the CIA and the DEA or ICE really not coordinated, even compete with each other …”.

The man who with his colleagues frequently says that we must choose the battles that they agree that the fight against drug trafficking was “inevitable.” Receiving recommendations suggests that “do not mess around …”, but the president argues that” the country that sin has brought repentance. “

Warning that not all parties and presidential candidates have the same level of commitment in the fight against organized crime, so that voters must determine who to support.

Not surprisingly, when Calderón referred to as bitter pages of their fatal accident management Juan Camilo Mouriño and the crisis of the new influenza virus, but when you take away from Elba Esther Gordillo, leader of the National Union of Education Workers on which says that the only alliance that holds it is “the pursuit of educational quality.”

Shown speaking formal partnerships PAN and PRD, but make sure you leave the door open when state governments exist for their excesses and closure ‘represents an authoritative regression, contrary to democracy. “

Felipe Calderon is in the beginning of the final stretch of his administration. Here, excerpts from his conversation with EL UNIVERSAL

What is the most difficult time that management has to live, and what the brightest?

On November 8, 2008, when Juan Camilo Mouriño died in 2008, was an affectation of government, because it was the Interior Minister at that time, also social, personal and because he had a close relationship with him. Really meant literally irreparable loss. Also, the time we had knowledge of influenza and the dimensions of risk involved for the country. The scene spoke of the possibility of up to 20 million dead. Another was also the most difficult moments and each day, to publicize the death of soldiers, police and civilian deaths they are always difficult challenges for a president.

“In government takes great satisfaction from the first day of inauguration. I think it was a great day for taking risks, having decided not to give in to blackmail and betrayal, violence, and take possession on campus Congress, I remember with great joy and pride. The day that could be consummated making facilities Luz y Fuerza, in half the time than we anticipated and without any violent incident. “

Did you think any time you may succeed Juan Camilo Mouriño in 2012?

He had great qualities, was very capable, very intelligent, very charismatic. I had given instructions, as I did with other secretaries of Interior, which could not possibly be thinking or planning action … even thinking. But I know I would face the issue of being born in Spain but has been registered in Mexico. That would have complicated their chances.

Once you have completed your management, what do you think that will be remembered by Mexicans?

It is very difficult, very difficult. I would like to be remembered as a president who transformed Mexico, a president who could initiate a turning point in many things, a president who achieved universal health coverage … in short, or a president committed to the environment, which is my favorite subject. But I also know that one should not measure their actions by the ability to be remembered, is to do what must be done. Bear in mind that the policy is shortsighted and the story is grossly unfair. The only trial to which we aspire and that objectivity is the trial will show that we have to conclude our lives, is the only trial to which we must abide.

On the security issue, when he took the decision on what diagnosis to make this task a top priority of his government?

Never decided it would be the main task, but it has been the most prominent being the most visible, most obviously, the most striking. In fact, the triggering factor that put the emphasis on safety arose just in the transition period, to be gathering the reports, information on the behavior of gangs, and in particular the case of Michoacán.

But remember that in 2004, in elections in Sinaloa and Tamaulipas, alerted to the problem. Tamaulipas said that if there was no government to be responsible for the fundamental task of the safety of Tamaulipas, in the future who would rule would be neither the PAN or the PRI, will be Los Zetas.

Sometimes it seems that this is a task only the federal government, state governments circumvent a specific role … Makes an enormous lack assume that this issue with responsibility, because it is easy throw the ball to the president of the republic, when it is in accordance with the Constitution, a responsibility is a task that corresponds to the mayors and governors, not just the president. I think if we had all taken with the same integrity the task of dealing with crime in a while we were living a much more encouraging in Mexico, and I mean not just organized crime, we must remember that the theft is 83% of crimes committed in Mexico. People who suffer crime in the country who steal the public transport portfolio, is that he got to his house, which was assaulted in the street. That crime has little or nothing to do with organized crime, but neither is combat.

“This issue is conditioning a time scraping with the U.S.?

Complex always has been, and particularly on this issue. I have found both President Bush and with President Obama cooperation in this matter, but obviously institutional cooperation ends up being well enough.

What Americans need to cooperate?

In reducing drug consumption, not reduced. And two, to stop the flow of weapons, and have not decreased but have increased.

What is your opinion on the cables that exhibited WikiLeaks?

There the ambassadors who cast him cables generated a lot of cream to her heels. Always wanted to raise their own agendas in their own heads, and have done so much damage to the stories they tell and the truth, distort.There are many cases that is not worth talking.

Can you cite a particular cable?

Those who spoke of the lack of coordination between different agencies. I the U.S. ambassador that I have not tell you how many times I meet with the security cabinet or what I say, the truth is that it is a matter for them. I do not accept or tolerate any kind of intervention. But ignorance of Mr. results in a distortion of what happens in Mexico and falls in an affectation and a nuisance in our own team.

Where if there is lack of coordination among security agencies in the United States. We see that the DEA, CIA and the ICE always have a policy of “Borondongo gave Barnabas … The truth is that they are coordinated and other rivals.

Does the next government, regardless of which party is, follow this line of work, or are concerned about a shift in strategy?

I think that whoever becomes the next president or president can not resign, can not give in, to protect citizens.Now, is there any risk? Yes I see the same degree of commitment from candidates and parties, but it is a subject that touches distinguish the voters, and eventually decide whom to support.

In times of former President Diaz Ordaz ordered people in the streets asking people what they thought of the president, because the media were silent. Today they say the President all, in almost all media, including on his personal life.

How do I live this reality?

I’ve always been someone who believes in freedom, but I think that freedom must be accompanied with responsibility. I think that freedom of expression has to be done responsibly and that is unfortunate when there is so exercised. But more unfortunate would not have it. I was a candidate for the first time at 21 years of age, virtually all my life I have been under political scrutiny and have also been subject to intense and comprehensive attack those who just plain are not happy that I won. That does not bother me much, my principle is to follow what conscience dictates. When there is any libel or fib, which are so common among those with no arguments, I focus on talking with my children and keep an affectation.

They are about to begin the pre-campaign towards 2012. In 2006, his party had an alliance with SNTE and its leader, Elba Esther Gordillo, which resulted in this government in government positions to people close to her.

“This alliance has been discontinued or modified?

The essence of my agreement with the SNTE weighs heavily on an alliance for quality education … But there was an alliance in the electoral … Yes, but that varies depending on the circumstances and conditions. The party most identified with teachers is New Alliance, which has been in recent years various alliances … With different parties … particularly with the PRI. And surely make more in the future in the sense that is most appropriate to their interests.

Do you not foresee a new partnership with them and the PAN, in 2012?

That depends on what the PAN, the truth is that in that sense I’ve been respectful of all political parties, including mine. I can not venture what will happen in 2012.

What is your position on alliances with the PRD, PAN, in some states, especially that which could be in the State of Mexico?

It is a very complicated issue. Generate benefits for some parties who perform in some cases. I think the PRI and the Green Ecological Party of Mexico have been very fruitful partnership and a long time ago. I have a certain reluctance to subject the risk that these partnerships generate a conflict in terms of party identification and policy options.

But I think, on the other hand, much depends on the agreements of the party leaders.

But you would like or not the PAN was in alliance with the PRD in the State of Mexico?

I will respect the decision made by the National Action Party. Obviously as a man of the match I would like the PAN had its own political capacity to apply their own candidates. But I understand when the subject is placed in the perspective of pending democracy in Mexico.

It seems that state election machinery still have much to explain in terms of transparency to the citizens, when they are truly unimaginable amounts of resources in favor of candidate organizational capabilities that hardly a party can assemble their own, without other support. In that sense, I understand the logic that has led some to ally those concerns in mind, to put it shortly, authoritarian regression.

“When two or more parties have a common concern with a return or an authoritarian regression by means of the crush, so do not democratic elections, without saying if you agree, I do understand the logic of their arguments.”

Calderon aims fury at U.S. diplomats

Leaked cables contain remarks that undermine relations, he says

By DUDLEY ALTHAUS
HOUSTON CHRONICLE

MEXICO CITY — As officials from both countries vow to jointly avenge the murder of a U.S. federal agent, Mexican President Felipe Calderon has accused senior American diplomats of damaging the cross-border relationship with criticism of Mexico‘s public security forces.

In a wide-ranging interview published Tuesday in El Universal, one of Mexico City’s leading newspapers, Calderon charged that U.S. Ambassador Carlos Pascual‘s “ignorance has translated into a distortion of what is happening in Mexico” that has caused “an impact and an irritation in our own team.”

Calderon was reacting to a barrage of analytic cables – some signed by Pascual, others by senior embassy officials – that discuss the perceived shortcomings of Mexico’s intelligence services, the conduct of its army in Calderon’s anti-crime campaign and the inability of its security forces to work well with one another.

The U.S. Embassy offered no immediate reaction to the interview.

The cables, some classified secret, have been published by the website WikiLeaks, with still more appearing this week. Until Tuesday, Mexican officials have responded to the cables with shrugs and condemnations of WikiLeaks rather than the diplomats.

Not any more.

“They have done a lot of damage with the stories they tell and that, in truth, they distort,” Calderon said of the cables in the interview.

Frustration festering

Calderon’s remarks came just a week after Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agent Jaime Zapata, 32, was shot to death on a central Mexican highway, presumably by gangsters. ICE agent Victor Avila, was injured in the attack. Zapata was buried Tuesday in Brownsville.

U.S. and Mexican officials have continually stressed the two countries’ close cooperation in Calderon’s offensive on organized crime cartels, whose ensuing violence has claimed nearly 35,000 lives in little more than four years. The U.S. government has committed more than $1.4 billion in training, equipment and other assistance.

Now, with Calderon entering the final third of his six year term – and doubts growing whether his successor will continue the fight – neither the criminal gangs nor the violence seem close to being extinguished.

Frustration festers on both sides of the border.

Criminal ‘insurgency’

In addition to the U.S. diplomats, Calderon accused Mexico’s local and state governors of failing to do their part against the gangsters.

“If we all had assumed the task of confronting crime with the same integrity,” Calderon said, “we long ago would have been living a much more encouraging scenario in Mexico.”

Mexican officials were angered more than two years ago when a U.S. agency issued a report suggesting the country was on the verge of becoming a “failed state.” They were riled again a few weeks ago when a U.S. undersecretary of the Army publicly repeated concerns in Washington of a criminal “insurgency” threatening Mexico.

“Although operational cooperation is much better today than it was a decade or two ago, the same nationalist sentiments continue to bubble up to the top of the political debate in both countries,” said Andrew Selee, a Mexico specialist at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C.

“We will see the relationship become more tense over the next year and a half as the Mexican election approaches and frustrations mount in the Calderon administration over lack of immediate progress in containing the violence.”

As he has in the past, Calderon complained to El Universal that the U.S. government has done little to curb either American demand for the drugs produced or smuggled through Mexico or the flow of weapons south across the border.

“The institutional cooperation ends up being notoriously insufficient,” Calderon said. He also complained that U.S. agencies have often failed to work together and in view one another as rivals.

Two years, 60 deaths

Still, scores of U.S. federal agents work with Mexican counterparts throughout the country in advisory and support roles. A U.S. Embassy cable from early 2009 revealed that more than 60 Mexican agents who had worked closely with the Americans had been killed in just the first two years of Calderon’s crackdown.

Zapata was the first U.S. agent slain by Mexican gangsters since Enrique “Kiki” Camarena in 1985. But U.S. officials had feared such an attack as the ties with Mexican agencies grew closer.

“The threat to U.S. personnel could increase if the violence continues to escalate and more high-level government officials and political leaders are targeted,” the cable warned. “A reaction may be triggered if traffickers perceive their losses are due to U.S. support to the (Mexican government’s) counternarcotics efforts.”

dudley.althaus@chron.com

Kayani Still Denying Responsibility for Anything Bad In Balochistan

[The scary part is that the head warlord is grasping at straws concerning both Pakistan and Afghanistan, denying the Army hand in Balochistan and denial of meeting with Haqqani leadership over cross-border issues.  The Army does no wrong, period.  Lest anyone forget, the ISI is Army intelligence, just as surely as CIA is US military.  If CIA is in error in either Pakistan or Afghanistan, it is the US military that is wrong in the end.  If ISI is guilty of something (perhaps the abduction, torture and murder of Baloch dissidents?), then it the Army's responsibility.  The missing of Balochistan is an Army matter, whether Gen. Kayani will admit that or not.  If it is not, then perhaps it should be.]

Baloch Hal Editorial: A Futile Visit

If the purpose of army chief General Parvez Ashraf Kayani’s one-day visit to Balochistan was the economic uplift of the province then there is surely something wrong with our democracy. If it was intended to promote education in the province, it definitely highlighted the faults in our civilian government and its failure to deliver public services. If the high-profile visit was destined to heal the Baloch wounds, the guilt was never admitted nor was a solution offered.

As ardent believers in democracy, we have always advised the military to stay away from economic ventures anywhere in the country.This is a job for the elected federal and provincial governments to perform.  The military has a professional role which is to guard the country’s frontiers. This task needs to be performed very professionally in the wake of the robust threat of  religious extremists from all over the world endeavoring to cross our borders to take the whole country hostage.

However, the army chief still has an undesired “right” to make political statements given the deep involvement of the military in the country’s polity. General Kayani categorically stated that nowhere in Balochistan was an operation taking place. His remarks came two days after the killing of two Baloch political activists by the Frontier Corps (FC) in Khuzdar district. As we write this editorial, there are unconfirmed reports about the recovery of the dead bodies of two more Baoch missing persons, including that of Mehboob Wadela, near Ormara coastal area.

Political observers have always admired General Kayani for his frigid political ambitions. Ever since taking charge of his office from General Musharraf, who captured power in 1999 through a bloodless coup, Kayani has largely stayed away from politics. Our fledgling democracy has been dwindling in the recent times but he still preferred to provide politicians a chance to learn from their mistakes and keep the democratic process continue.

General Kayani’s visit to volatile Balochistan was being seen with great anticipation that he would take serious notice of the uncontrollable role of the secrete services inside the province. He has certainly read about more than a hundred missing Baloch persons  whose dead bodies have been found from all corners of Baloch-populated districts of  the province. Most of these victims were educated, middle class students and professionals who were shot dead brutally and dumped in in isolated places.

A similar reminder was given to General Kayani by Balochistan governor Nawab Zulfiqar Ali Magsi during his last visit to the province when Magsi drew the attention of the army chief about the worsening phenomenon of kill and dump policy of the secrete services. Sadly, Chief Minister Raisani did not raise this matter with the Army Chief though it was his prime responsibility as the head of the government. Nonetheless, the army chief has a crucial role to play in deescalating tensions in Balochistan. He has to publicly call of all  overt and covert operations in Balochistan.

We believe no one but General Kayani has the capability to restore order in Balochistan. While talking of the restoration of order we must be mindful of the fact that this objective cannot be attained by applying force, a blunder General Musharraf committed in futility. This time the army chief has to take personal notice of the missing person’s cases and dig out all the disappeared activists who have been kept in illegal detention centers. Only the army can save or lose Balochistan. It is for General Kayani to decide whether he wants Balochistan to become another Bangladesh or a happily accommodated, developed and stable province of the federation.

Based on the exclusion of the most outstanding issues confronting Balochistan, General Kayani’s this week’s trip to Balochistan was a disappointment and a sheer wastage of another opportunity to reconcile with the Baloch. To say no operation is taking place at a time when the missing persons’ dead bodies are recovering on regular basis is in fact tantamount to escaping responsibility. No doubt, Balochistan faces multiple problems ranging from economic deprivation to lack of ample representation in the country’s army but right now the most pressing issue that requires urgent attention is that of the missing persons. After the failure of the civilian government and the so-called independent judiciary, the army chief is the only person who can offer some hope to resolve this issue. He has to intervene and settle the issue once and for all.

Security Forces Attacked in Gwadar, Khuzdar, Nushki

[These sites were all mentioned as targets in the original warnings we had been given about US/NATO intentions to create a "strategic corridor" in western Balochistan in the NCA (NewsCentralAsia) reports, ‘Final Solution’ Frenzy – Part Four: Final Solution for Pakistan ]

The Baloch Hal News

QUETTA: At least five security personnel were wounded in a remote control bomb attack in the port city of Gwadar on Tuesday while unidentified people attacked a Frontier Corps (FC) check post with hand grenade in Khuzdar and a rocket was fired in Nushki.

According to sources, a vehicle carrying security personnel were passing from Fish Harbour Road of Gwadar when an explosive device planted with a motorbike parked on the road exploded soon after vehicle of security personnel passed by the area. As a result, five security personnel received serious wounds and were moved to nearby hospital for medical aid. The blast badly damaged vehicle and scattered windowpanes of nearby buildings. “Explosives were detonated through a remote control device and the vehicle of security personnel was the main target of saboteurs,” a police official said.

Soon after the blast, law enforcement agencies reached the site and cordoned off the area.

Eyewitnesses said that security personnel fired gunshots in the air after the blast that created panic in the area.

Sources said that some injured personnel were shifted to Turbat from where they would be shifted to Karachi by airplane for further treatment. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack till filing this report.

In another incident, unidentified people attacked a check post of Frontier Corps with a hand grenade in Khuzdar located on southeast of Quetta.

As per reports, unidentified people riding a motorbike threw hand grenade at FC check post set up on the RCD Highway near FC mess. Hand grenade exploded, however, caused no injuries.

FC personnel opened fire after the blast that forced the attackers to escape from the site.

Meanwhile, a rocket fired by unidentified people from undisclosed location landed nearby ground of District Police Officer’s office, in Nushki town some 148 KM away from Quetta. Rocked exploded with a big bang and caused panic amongst the people of the area. However, no loss of life and damage to property was reported in the blast.

Jail Superintendent Fired for Attempt to Help Davis Retrieve Data from USB Memory Stick

[It seems that the jailor was asked to provide hard copies of whatever was hidden on chip,  so that Davis could refresh his memory before questioning.]

Asst. Superintendent Jail sacked for providing facilities to Davis

DAWN.COM

US official Raymond Davis, in custody of Pakistani officials. – File Photo by Reuters

LAHORE: Assistant Superintendent Kot Lakhpat Jail and a prison constable were allegedly dismissed from their posts for providing facilities to US official Raymond Davis, who is detained for killing two Pakistani nationals, DawnNews reported.

According to sources, Naved Asghar posted as an assistant superintendent at the Kot Lakhpat prison allegedly tried to provide Davis with a universal serial bus (USB) memory stick with the help of a constable, Hafiz Hussain, posted in the high security zone of the Information Technology (IT) department of the prison.

The USB stick was recovered from Hussain when he was trying to enter high security cells. During investigation, he disclosed that Asghar had asked him to take the memory stick in the high security cells.

However, Asghar told officials during investigations that he had asked Hussain to take a print-out of the data of the USB stick, but he took it to the high security cells instead and did so of his own volition.

According to sources, senior officials dismissed both accused and handed investigation responsibilities to an intelligence organisation.

Indonesian Espionage Incident Exposes Internal Feud Within S, Korean Spy Agency, NIS

Infighting and feud with military cited as factors in NIS debacle

Lawmakers say the NIS was divided before the incident between Won and an official associated with the president’s elder brother

» The door of the Lotte Hotel room 1961 entered by National Intelligence Agents remains open as cleaning workers clean up the room, Feb. 22. (Photo by Kim Myoung-jin) By Shin Seung-keun, Staff Writer and Hwang Chun-hwa  What was behind the farcical incident in which National Intelligence Service (NIS) agents seeking to collect industrial information were caught infiltrating the room of an overseas delegation of special envoys visiting South Korea? Observers within and close to the political sector say the incident was the product of a power battle within the NIS, inappropriate organizational changes, and competition and conflict between the military and NIS. Analysts suggest that another major factor may have been an excessive emphasis on results, with a determination to use any means necessary to realize President Lee Myung-bak’s long-cherished wish of exporting advanced training aircraft. According to accounts from various ruling and opposition party figures familiar with the intelligence sector, at the time Won Sei-hoon took over as NIS director in February 2009, so-called “TK” connections from the Daegu (Taegu)-North Gyeongsang (Kyungbuk) Province area gained control of the NIS, handling matters such as appointments. At the center of this group was Policy Office Director Kim Ju-seong, an associate of Grand National Party Lawmaker Lee Sang-deuk, who is the older brother of President Lee Myung-bak. In response, sources report, Won carried out wide-ranging appointments in September 2010, during which a large number of TK figures received transfers to outlying provinces. “TK figures in the NIS unanimously called for Won’s firing after the NIS reported during a National Assembly intelligence committee meeting in December of last year that it had collected intelligence about a North Korean provocation in August, three months before the artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island,” said a Democratic Party (DP) lawmaker and member of the Intelligence Committee. “It looks like the TK move to unseat Won was behind this incident,” the lawmaker said. A ruling party lawmaker on the committee said, “Judging from the media reports, which are extremely specific, there seems to be a battle within the NIS between the contingent that is trying to unseat Won and move into key posts in the service and the side that is already holding the reins.” Other observers say the system for intelligence collection and administration has broken down because of large-scale organizational changes effected after Won took office. “Won really shook up the areas of intelligence and investigation in the name of reforms,” said a source familiar with the NIS situation. “Intelligence activity is not something you do according to a manual,” the source said. “The reality of the NIS is the transmission of practices in a kind of apprenticeship system through years of know-how and connections, and internal disorder arose when they disregarded this.” “To hear the talk coming from the NIS now, the working level there is a big mess,” the source added. “The talk about a power battle may be partially true, but the biggest problem is the collapse of the internal system.” Another interpretation from overseas is that this major incident erupted after reckless competition between the Ministry of National Defense and the NIS over weapons exports. A Defense Ministry source said, “When President Lee Myung-bak visited Indonesia last December, he thought there would be progress with the exportation of the Korean-made T-50 advanced training aircraft, and after the other side showed its reluctance, he was very upset when he came back to Korea.” “After seeing the president enraged like that, the NIS tried to show extra loyalty and ended up overreaching,” the source said. Meanwhile, sources reported NIS employees have been disgruntled that an incident that might have been quietly ignored blew up after the military needlessly informed the police. The military and NIS have been in conflict repeatedly over critical situations such as the sinking of the Cheonan in April 2010 and the Yeonpyeong Island attack in November. Some observers are questioning whether the decision to rashly pursue a major coup arose in the process of keeping step with the president, someone who likes the production of visible results quickly. Shin Kuhn, a Democratic Party lawmaker and NIS director during the Kim Dae-jung administration, said, “The NIS committed this reckless action because it was caught up in the focus on results, the idea that they simply need to produce results, whatever the means or methods.” Meanwhile, it was reported that the NIS is operating a “safe house” at a major hotel in downtown Seoul, where it is routinely and aggressively gathering intelligence. An official with Lotte Hotel said, “There is a room where NIS employees are permanently stationed, and one employee is always at the hotel.” Sources said the NIS has used this safe house to gather intelligence on major foreign guests staying at Lotte Hotel. An official who took part in the handling of this case said, “In the past as well, NIS employees would secretly gather intelligence at the lodgings of guests, but as far as I know this is the first time they have been caught by the other party.” Other sources say that NIS has similar safe houses at most major hotels in downtown Seoul and that intelligence gathering efforts using them have become more aggressive since the Lee administration took office. An official at one luxury hotel in downtown Seoul said, “Up until the time of the Kim Young-sam administration, intelligence organizations used two to three rooms year round, but this practice went away for the most part during the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations.” “The NIS’s year-round use of hotel rooms made a comeback when the Lee administration took office,” the official said.   Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]

Common Purpose/Common Scam

Common Purpose Link to Stop Common Purpose Home Page

This mind map gives an overview of Common Purpose.

Common Purpose UK

Common Purpose is a fraudulent ‘educational charity’ acting as a change agent being used to recruit and train the commissars and apparatchiks needed to implement the British government’s hidden New World Order communitarian agenda.

Common Purpose hates having people discuss it. Please donate to help keep this website going and spread the message.

1. Britain 2010s

We are living at a particularly momentous time in history. In order to understand what is happening in Britain in the 2010s, you need to know about four things:

1. The New World Order;
2. The United Nations Agenda 21 Sustainable Development Plan;
3. A political philosophy called ‘communitarianism’;
4. A fake charity named Common Purpose.

These four things are linked together. This website will help you join the dots.

Background

In 1973 the UK joined the Common Market and in the 1975 referendum the people of Britain were conned into voting in favour of staying in the Common Market. [1.1]

Prime Minister Heath, whose government entered into the accession treaty, and Prime Minister Wilson, who arranged the referendum, both knew that the Common Market was simply a stage in the development of the European Union.

At some point, those behind the take-over of Britain by the EU realised that they needed people whom they could trust to manage the new bureaucracy.

Enter Common Purpose, which was established to recruit and train the commissars and apparatchiks needed to run this bureaucracy.

The Hidden Agenda

From 1997, the New Labour government worked to two agendas. Firstly, the open agenda as laid out in their manifestos and secondly, their hidden agenda.

The objective of the hidden agenda is the creation of a communitarian society controlled by the EU collective.

In order to achieve this objective, the New Labour government ran a parallel administration made up of QUANGOs and fake charities. A fake charity is legally a charity but effectively operates as a government department, receiving a substantial amount of funding directly or indirectly from government and operating as a government department.

The hidden agenda continues to operate under the coalition government.

The British parliament has become just a puppet organization. They merely go through the motions – the pretense of acting like a governing body, but the reality is they are just rubber-stamping the programmes of the New World Order global communitarian technocrats.

New World Order

This project has been in the works for decades. Its main objectives are:

1. The creation of a One World Government with a unified monetary system under their direction;

2. To bring about the utter destruction of all national identity and national pride;

3. To bring about the end to all industrialization in what they call ‘the post-industrial zero-growth society’.

Quisling Plan for Change

Brian Gerrish

Hover your mouse over the image above to zoom in. Right click and “save image as …” to download the full image.

–

We have consistently warned that Britain is being attacked by our own government, and under the front page headline of our last edition, “Dark Actors Playing Games”, we exposed that there was a hidden agenda between the Tory Cabinet Office and the political charity Common Purpose.

In lifting the lid on the dirty deals, insider dealing, lies and cover-ups surrounding the Cabinet Office’s plan to use Common Purpose to “reframe” the Top 200 Civil Servants, we also demonstrated that there was no difference in the Tory political agenda to that of Blair / Brown NuLabour. Since the Lid Dems have now been subsumed into the Conservatives, they can also be seen to be in the same political bed.

If we continue to naively believe the traditional political model of Conservative, Labour and LibDem, which suggests that each of the three main parties has a unique and discrete brand of politics, then we will find it hard to accept that forces much deeper are acting against us. If, however, we ask a simple question – Just how can a top ‘right wing’ Conservative like Francis Maude MP work hand in hand with an extreme Fabian left-wing Socialist such as Julia Middleton, the CEO of Common Purpose? – we start to see through the smoke and mirrors. The truth is they are all working to a ‘common purpose’, have been for many years, and that purpose is overwhelmingly hostile to a sovereign British nation and our historic values, laws and customs.

An elitest dictatorship is emerging from the shadows with increasing speed. Call it socialist, communitarian or fascist it is still a dictatorship with supranational and One World Government goals.

When an attack is subversive, devious and hidden, just how do you expose it for what it is? We can write thousands of words and hundreds of articles trying to explain what is happening, but the old adage that a picture paints a thousand words is still so true. Battles are fought, won and lost on maps, and today the military uses a myriad of electronic means to produce pictures of the enemy and his tactics.  If we can’t see the enemy we can’t fight.

Our centre page diagram sets out as simply as we can the political change network at work at the heart of government. Though even the expression ‘government’ is a misnomer, since government is not a simple seat of democratic power in Westminster and the House of Lords – government is now buried in a morass of unaccountable charities, think-tanks, non-governmental organisations, pressure groups and ‘change agents’ – Cameron’s so called Big Society. The devil is in the detail of it (all).

The first revelation in the diagram is that the Prime Minister and his Chief Cabinet Office aid Francis Maude are controlled by those above. In recent weeks Head of the Civil Service, Gus o’Donnell has demonstrated that he is above our constitutional law. He has single-handedly produced the ‘Cabinet Manual’ – a so called compendium of the laws, conventions and constitutional underpinning of the UK system of government. His directives allowed Brown to remain in post after the public had voted him out at the last general election, and at the same time blocked Cameron from taking office. More recently O’Donnell was able to refuse to disclose critical information at Chilcott inquiry – just who is this man, and from where does his power come?

Closely linked to O’Donnell are Geoff Mulgan (Young Foundation) and Julia Middleton (Common Purpose). Perhaps surprisingly for true conservatives, both are spawn of the marxist based think tank Demos, and are driving a hard line socialist communitarian agenda. Aside from driving Blair’s Forward Strategy Unit, Mulgan’s plans also include the remaking of charities to suite a new political agenda. Through the Young Foundation, he is a key socialist policy driver, exerting almost guru-like influence through the spectrum of government training organisations such as the National School of Government, Institute for Government and others. He appears to have powerful and willing financial backers for his initiatives.

Happy to quote Marx in her book Beyond Authority, Middleton is desperate to change adult and children’s behaviour to create ‘new leaders’ in society. She is a personal friend of Maude, and believes that a fifth column can be used to achieve political change. Also great friends with the top international banks ranging from Deutsche Bank to the now defunct Lehman Brothers, as well as media moguls, and the rich, great and good, Julia is also happy to quote and use East German tactics of exploiting ‘useful idiots’, to achieve her political agenda. Cameron and Maude are active with both the Young Foundation and Common Purpose. Yet they are supposedly Tories?

Having exposed direct links between Common Purpose and the Cabinet Office, it came as no surprise to discover a Behavioural Change Unit within the Cabinet Office. Shown in the box at the bottom of the diagram, we feature the Director, Dr Halpen, and expose many other names that the Cabinet Press office tried to hide. Their agenda is psychological reprogramming / reframing of the British public to achieve political and social change. Their agenda is well suited to the Common Purpose model. Other significant and surprising links shown include the Young Foundation, the Franco British Council, the DEMOS Advisory Panel for Progressive Conservatism and the White House.

Most explosive in our network diagram is the powerful position of the Franco British Council (FBC), now shown to be driving British political policy, including defence (in conjunction with the Royal United Services Institute, RUSI). As a registered charity, working to political ends, FBC fits both the Mulgan and Middleton model. Much more sinister is the fact that Cameron has used FBC within 10 Downing Street to plan yet more psychological and behavioural change initiatives for the British general public – even using French President Sarkozy’s top neuro expert Prof. Olivier Ouillier.

Central to the quisling network is the public sector, such as DWP, Dept Health and Ministry of Defence, shown with logos in the centre of the diagram. Documents seen by the UK Column indicate that the staff within these departments are to be politically and socially re-framed as a priority by means of internal Behavioural Change Units. Once this process has been completed, the ‘reframed’ departments will then be better placed to run Behavioural Change programmes for the public and the wider spread of Charities, Trusts, Local Government, Local Government Training Organisations, and NGOs of the Third Sector. Highly active within this mix is the Oxford Said Business school, itself linked to Common Purpose and French NLP experts.

The Cabinet Office has already lied about contracts with Common Purpose. To date the Cabinet Office has also refused to reveal the value of the Common Purpose behavioural training received by the Top 200 Civil Servants. The press office has also totally denied the use of Neuro Linguistic Programming NLP, although we are already aware of contracts by NLP World, Coaching Leaders NLP and Life Coach NLP. Why would the Cabinet office want to lie? As a further example of the pressure to implement behavioural training, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) spent some £25 million on behavioural change under the guidance of Helen Ghosh, even before setting up their Behavioural Unit. Ghosh is now Permanent Secretary of the Home Office.

So secret are the Behavioural Reframing Units that, just as with the Cabinet Office media team, the Defra press office refused to reveal to the UK Column who was in charge, how many were in the team and what their annual budget was. Welcome to Cameron’s transparency in government.
Just what is all this behavioural reframing about? Our diagram shows top right that both the public sector and the Big Society initiative are being used to change the values, behaviour and beliefs of every single member of society. Most worryingly for parents, Lord Wei has been parachuted in by Cameron to lead the Big Society. His connections and interests lie with children and he is an advisor to the Government Office for Civil Society. Only 33 years old, we wonder where his knowledge or wisdom to lead society come from? Certainly he will be well aquainted with the immensely powerful industrial military firms such as Vickers and BAE Systems that are lining up to take control of the Academy System (ARK) schools. Taking children from pre-school to 18 years old, the Academy system will include on site Children’s Services and behavioural ‘therapy’ – sounds familiar doesn’t it?

The British public – individuals and families – men, women and children are the target of the “Quisling Brainwashing Network.”  Alongside the political lies, corrupt courts, fraudulent banks and heavy-handed police, we are now to be psychologically attacked not just to obey the new political elite, but to be happy doing so. The danger is real and obvious. Talk about it, tell your friends, laugh at it, refuse to be conned, bring your MP to account. Say no! The use of psychological manipulation without your permission is assault.

Need we say more?

The Nature of the Beast–Tavistock mind manipulation

The Nature of the Beast–Tavistock mind manipul…, posted with vodpod

Iranian War Ships Transit Suez Canal

Iranian War Ships Transit Suez Canal, posted with vodpod

The Coming Shutdowns and Showdowns: What’s really at stake

[SEE: Competing Wisconsin protests draw thousands]

The Coming Shutdowns

By Robert Reich

The Coming Shutdowns and Showdowns: What’s really at stake.

isconsin is in a showdown. Washington is headed for a government shutdown.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker won’t budge. He insists on delivering a knockout blow to public unions in his state (except for those, like the police, who supported his election).

In DC, House Republicans won’t budge on the $61 billion cut they pushed through last week, saying they’ll okay a temporary resolution to keep things running in Washington beyond March 4 only if it includes many of their steep cuts – among which are several that the middle class and poor depend on.

Republicans say “we’ve” been spending too much, and they’re determined to end the spending with a scorched-earth policies in the states (Republican governors in Ohio, Indiana, and New Jersey are reading similar plans to decimate public unions) and shutdowns in Washington.

There’s no doubt that government budgets are in trouble. The big lie is that the reason is excessive spending.

Public budgets are in trouble because revenues plummeted over the last two years of the Great Recession.

They’re also in trouble because of tax giveaways to the rich.

Before Wisconsin’s budget went bust, Governor Walker signed $117 million in corporate tax breaks. Wisconsin’s immediate budge shortfall is $137 million. That’s his pretext for socking it to Wisconsin’s public unions.

Nationally, you remember, Republicans demanded and received an extension of the Bush tax cuts for the rich. They’ve made it clear they’re intent on extending them for the next ten years, at a cost of $900 billion. They’ve also led the way on cutting the estate tax, and on protecting Wall Street private equity and hedge-fund managers whose earnings are taxed at the capital gains rate of 15 percent. And the last thing they’d tolerate is an increase in the top marginal tax rate on the super-rich.

Meanwhile, of course, more and more of the nation’s income and wealth has been concentrating at the top. In the late 1970s, the top 1 percent got 9 percent of total income. Now it gets more than 20 percent.

So the problem isn’t that “we’ve” been spending too much. It’s that most Americans have been getting a steadily smaller share of the nation’s total income.

At the same time, the super-rich have been contributing a steadily-declining share of their own incomes in taxes to support what the nation needs – both at the federal and at the state levels.

The coming showdowns and shutdowns must not mask what’s going on. Democrats should make sure the public understands what’s really at stake.

Yes, of course, wasteful and unnecessary spending should be cut. That means much of the defense budget, along with agricultural subsidies and other forms of corporate welfare.

But America is the richest nation in the world, and “we’ve” never been richer. There’s no reason for us to turn on our teachers, our unionized workers, our poor and needy, and our elderly. The notion that “we” can no longer afford it is claptrap.

---

Robert Reich is Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. He has written twelve books, including “The Work of Nations,” “Locked in the Cabinet,” “Supercapitalism” and his latest book, “AFTERSHOCK: The Next Economy and America’s Future.” His ‘Marketplace’ commentaries can be found on publicradio.com and iTunes.

Failure To Compromise By Deadline Threatens Federal Shutdown on Mar. 4

“There is a growing danger the federal government will close down on March 4 if a compromise short-term spending deal cannot be struck.”

US shutdown looms as budget war rages

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner warns that the Republican Party’s deal to slash budget by $61bn will hit the economy’s fragile recovery

President Obama has already pledged to veto the aggressive cuts

By Philip Sherwell

Fears over the strength of the US economic recovery were growing last night after a highly unusual all-night session of the Republican House of Representatives agreed to slash the federal budget by $61bn by the end of September.

The deal, thrashed out in the early hours, was immediately condemned by US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who said the cuts would hit the fragile economy.

It now appears there will be a potentially damaging stand-off between President Barack Obama and Republican leaders with a possible shut-down of the federal government if agreement cannot be reached in the next fortnight.

“The continuing resolution as passed by the House would undermine and damage our capacity to create jobs and expand the economy,” Mr Geithner said at the G20 summit in Paris yesterday.

President Obama has already pledged to veto the aggressive cuts. The proposal must now be debated by the Senate, the upper chamber of Congress, where Democrats hold a slim majority. There is a growing danger the federal government will close down on March 4 if a compromise short-term spending deal cannot be struck between the White House and two houses of Congress. Such paralysis is likely to damage US economic prospects and therefore the chances of continuing global recovery.

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• US House passes $61bn of cuts to domestic programs

Mr Obama is likely to push for a budget extension freezing spending at 2010 levels while deeper cuts are negotiated. The multi-billion dollar cuts package reveals the big division between US political parties on how to support growth. Republicans say the deficit must be brought under control if America is to experience a strong recovery.

The House Speaker, John Boehner, said the legislation was part of Republican efforts “to liberate our economy from the shackles of out-of-control spending”. But Democratic Leader, Nancy Pelosi, said the Republican-backed bill would damage the economy.

“They have made matters worse – passing a spending bill that destroys jobs, weakens the middle class, hurts schools and young adults, eliminates assistance to homeless veterans, and diminishes critical investments in our future,” she said. Republicans crushed the Democrats in November’s mid-term elections after a campaign mainly fought on government spending. Emboldened by that win and with their ranks buoyed by fiscal conservatives from the Tea Party movement, the Republicans insist cuts must be made immediately.

The vote paves the way for fiscal policy clashes up to the 2012 presidential election. Republicans have vowed to cut the size of government, a direct challenge to the Keynesian economics pursed by the White House as the US struggles with the deepest downturn since the Great Depression eight decades ago.

“The American people have spoken,” said Republican congressman Tim Huelskamp, saying that the people wanted Washington to stop its out-of-control spending now.

Congress is in recess this week after tomorrow’s President’s Day holiday, leaving five working days to forge a deal before the current budget expires on Friday, March 4.

If no compromise can be reached, the government will be forced to close – the so-called “nuclear option”. That last happened in 1995 in a budget row between President Bill Clinton and House speaker, Newt Gingrich. With several states also embroiled in battles over cuts, Wall Street is watching the current clashes over the deficit nervously.

US stocks continued their steady upward progress last week on all the major market indices. But against a backdrop of turmoil in the Middle East, the sovereign debt crisis in some European economies, stubbornly high US unemployment and now the federal and state budget showdowns in the US, some analysts are predicting a retrenchment.

The IMF has previously predicted that US gross public debt would nearly double from 62pc of GDP in 2007 to 111pc by 2015.

Lukashenko Threatens International Meddlers, “Chechnya in the West,” In Order To Survive

Lukashenko has threatened its neighbors, “Chechnya in the west”

Tetyana Melnychuk

Russian Service of BBC, Minsk

Alexander Lukashenko threatens enemies – until the words

President and Chief of the Armed Forces of Belarus has threatened its neighbors, “Chechnya in the West,” and said that he could use the army to restore order in the country.

A series of “offensive” statements, Alexander Lukashenko, made by visiting the second engineer brigade of the armed forces of Belarus.

“If the situation is turned around so that over the country were in grave danger, I would not stop before going to use the armed forces. If it was under the threat of the ten millionth people. But, thank God, we do not have to involve the army,” – said Lukashenko , speaking about developments in Belarus following the presidential elections on 19 December last year.

In the elections, according to official figures, Lukashenko has supported almost 80% of voters. However, the opposition and rival for the presidency was named the official results were falsified. In the evening on election day in central Minsk Protest protest, in which, according to various sources, participated from 25 to 40 thousand people.

The use of force against participants in peaceful protest and the subsequent mass arrests of opposition provoked condemnation from the West. EU and U.S. imposed visa sanctions against a hundred Belarusian officials, including Lukashenko and his older sons.

“Pohlesche than Kosovo”

Judging by statements made by Belarusian President Lukashenko fears that the use of sanctions may have recourse, and Russia.

I do not saber-rattling, but this stuff we have enough

Alexander Lukashenko
President of Belarus

“Now we are under pressure, scare economic sanctions. If someone wants to have in our environment in Belarus, Chechnya, the West, it is not a problem. It will be more complicated than Chechnya. I think it’s anybody is not necessary. If someone wants to have here pohlesche than Kosovo, I think this is not a problem, “- said Alexander Lukashenko, speaking to the military.

“If someone wants to try an economic war with Belarus, it will cost so dearly” – promised the head of state.

Lukashenko is sure that no one is given the right to “decide for us how to live.” ”We do not want to be in Belarus, someone was talking to a position of strength and the language of ultimatums, and then never know, we will be able to respond in kind” – quoted Lukashenko’s official news agency has learned.

“I’m not to escalate the situation, a situation not in now. But if it arises, and we will act appropriately – added the President. – I do not saber-rattling, but that’s good enough for us.”

In the ring of enemies

According to analyst Alexander Klaskovsky Minsk, the Belarusian president’s offensive rhetoric primarily designed to maintain “the image of strong-arm the country.

No one can believe anyone can not rely only on themselves

Alexander Lukashenko
President of Belarus

“In the eyes of European leaders, Lukashenko is seeking to increase their bets. He demonstrates an aggressive style that, during the political bargaining with the West have the opportunity to maneuver and roll back” – notes Klaskouski.

Experts in Minsk noted that after the presidential election, Alexander Lukashenko, shows an image of “fortress surrounded by enemies.”

Arguing on the causes of the revolutionary crisis in northern Africa and the “plot” of the West against the official Minsk, Lukashenko reiterated: “No you can not believe anyone can not rely only on themselves.”

Chief of the Belarusian armed forces said, however, that “despite some difficult moments in recent years, the military cooperation between Belarus and Russia is developing successfully.”

As head of the Presidency of the CSTO, Lukashenko believes that “must be activated study the mechanism of the Organization of Collective Security Treaty in crisis situations.”

The Scout for the Imperial Revolution Sizes-Up Turkmenistan

Deputy Secretary of State Robert Blake arrives in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan

From 14 to 19 February 2011 will be the visit of Deputy Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Robert Blake in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, according to U.S. Department of State. Mr. Blake will lead an interagency delegation and attend the annual bilateral consultations.

February 16 in Ashgabat, the Deputy Secretary of State will review the annual bilateral consultations and meet with representatives of government, business and civil society in Turkmenistan. 17-18 February, Mr. Blake will represent the U.S. side in Tashkent at the second annual bilateral consultations. Business delegation, which included representatives of leading U.S. firms, will accompany Mr. Blake on the Uzbek-American Business Forum to be held on February 18. Deputy Secretary of State will also meet with government representatives and civil society. United States began to hold annual bilateral consultations with the countries of Central Asia in 2009, the purpose of these meetings is to discuss the entire spectrum of bilateral relations, including issues of strategic cooperation, human rights, economic issues and regional challenges.