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Post by justjohn on Jun 21, 2012 4:14:28 GMT -7
Pakistan: Was it a coup? And who controls the nukes?
Posted By: DannyCahalin Date: Thursday, 21-Jun-2012 04:14:49
There are very dangerous overtones to this story.The Western media has not been forthright about the situation in Pakistan,Karachi is already the most dangerous city on the planet, and Pakistan was Iran regarding nuclear issues over 20 years ago. You think it was pure luck that both Pakistan and India developed nuclear bombs? I do not,and suspect that this was allowed,to have population controls in place.All that needs to be done is to incite nationalism among both countries,when it does expect to see multiple mushroom clouds rising on the sub continent.Take care *******
There is an insidious war for power raging among Pakistan’s political elite. A war that, on Tuesday, saw the Supreme Court disqualify Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani from office. But was it a coup? By KHADIJA PATEL
Things seemed to be going so well in Pakistan. Sure, there’s that nasty business of Obama’s drones running amok in Waziristan, and then that other business of frequent bouts of load shedding crippling the country’s urban centres. But the current government was set to be the first government in Pakistan’s history to actually complete a five-year term in the office. Then, on Tuesday, the Pakistani Supreme Court delivered a blow to this glorious “political stability” Pakistan has been enjoying.
On Tuesday the chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, ruled Prime Minister Gilani was effectively disqualified as a member of parliament on 26 April. "He has also ceased to be the prime minister of Pakistan, with effect from the same date, and office of the prime minister shall be deemed to be vacant accordingly," he said. As soon as Pakistanis recovered from the shock, allegations of a judicial coup were levelled against the Chief Justice. This is Pakistan all, after all –where conspiracy theory dances dangerously close with political paranoia.
There is good reason to read more into the court’s ruling. The judiciary and the executive have been at loggerheads for some time now, each digging into the other while the military and the religious elite, for now at least, seem content to just look on. But on Tuesday it was the judiciary who won the upper hand in this battle, when the Supreme Court disqualified Gilani from office. This was not a spur of the moment decision. The court's decision follows Gilani’s conviction in April for contempt of court after he refused to accept a court order to reopen a long-dormant corruption investigation against the president, Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of Benazir Bhutto.
Gilani served a symbolic 30-second period of detention in the court in April, but it was unclear whether he would lose his position as head of the government. To the fury of opposition parties, the speaker of parliament – a member of Gilani's Pakistan People's party (PPP) – ruled it was unnecessary for him to stand down.
Gilani decided not to appeal his conviction, in what appeared to be bid to avert further action by the court, but on Tuesday the Chief Justice disqualified him “from membership of parliament” anyway, adding that he “had also ceased to be the prime minister of Pakistan.”
Gareth Price, from the British think tank Chatham House, believes that Gilani’s ouster is telling of the chequered reality of Pakistani politics, where the greater good is being sacrificed in an insidious battle for power among Pakistan’s political elite. “While it is likely to trigger a shuffling of deckchairs amongst the elite, perhaps its greatest significance is in demonstrating the continued inability of Pakistan’s leaders to put differences to one side and tackle the country’s myriad problems,” he says.
Pakistan’s cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan, who, along with Nawaz Sharif, the main opposition leader, asked the Supreme Court to disqualify Gilani, said the judgement struck a blow for ordinary people against the governing “kleptocracy”.
Arif Rafiq, a Washington DC-based consultant on Middle East and South Asian political and security issues, calls the battle between the Pakistani executive and the judiciary a “grudge match”. While he acknowledges that the judiciary now have the upper hand in this match, he points out the length of time it’s taken the judiciary to assert itself on this matter. When Gilani refused to re-open the corruption case against Zardari the judiary, he says ended up looking like a “paper tiger” – entirely unable to challenge Gilani’s contempt with consequences outside the courtroom.
The judiciary, then, has bided its time well, striking Gilani out of his complacency and entirely out of the government. Rafiq is confident Gilani will go quietly. “The party called an emergency meeting soon after the judgement was announced, they are already looking to appoint a successor,” he said. “Previously the PPP have had no qualms about playing the victim card, but this time it seems they are concerned with holding on to power.”
The PPP, then, have been triggered into survival mode. “The matrix through which the PPP determine their success is not on how well their policies are faring, but rather on their political survival,” Rafiq said. “For Zardari and the PPP, they should be able to bounce back from this set back quickly, installing a new government and crucially Zardari, the subject of so much political animosity, is left unscathed.” Rafiq succinctly observes that Gilani ultimately fell for protecting Zardari, “for being his bodyguard”.
Zardari, meanwhile, after receiving the backing of his party and its coalition partners to select a successor for Gilani, has called an emergency session of the National Assembly on Thursday. Zardari cancelled a trip to Russia to weather the growing political storm, but his own role in the abrupt end of Gilani’s career not above scrutiny. Some analysts believe the next prime minister, whoever he is, will also face pressure from the judiciary to reopen the corruption probe into Zardari. Gilani consistently stood by Zardari's claim that the president could not be prosecuted while in office, going as far as saying he would be willing to go to jail on a contempt conviction rather than pursue a reopening of the case.
The corruption allegations stem from a 2003 Swiss court conviction of Zardari and his late wife, Benazir Bhutto, in absentia, for laundering millions of dollars in bribes from Swiss firms while Bhutto was in power. Bhutto was assassinated in 2007, and Zardari assumed leadership of her party and the presidency a year later. Swiss authorities dropped the case at the request of the Pakistani government in 2008, a year after military ruler Pervez Musharraf granted an amnesty for politicians and bureaucrats accused in corruption cases. The Supreme Court in 2009 ruled that the amnesty was unconstitutional and ordered the reopening of the cases that had been set aside, including the Swiss case. Three years later, the Supreme Court has still not backed down.
Does the upper hand gained by the judiciary translate into a judicial coup, though? Rafiq is hesitant to pronounce on whether it was really the judicial coup mentioned by so many analysts. “The judiciary is definitely partisan,” he says, “It is a hyperactive judiciary, but Gilani did ignore the orders of the court by refusing to reopen the investigation – it demonstrates a unique case of the executive being held accountable to the judiciary.”
As a “hyperactive” judiciary, the Pakistani judiciary is currently embroiled in its own sorry saga of corruption. Some analysts believe the entire spectacle of disqualifying Gilani from office was actually orchestrated to draw attention away from corruption allegations involving millions of dollars that have been levelled against the chief justice’s son – allegations that may impact on the chief justice’s own integrity.
Just this week, Foreign Policy magazine rated Pakistan among the world’s failed states – a moniker that rankles with many Pakistanis. But the latest political upheaval will not help remedy the perception of Pakistan as a kind of Somalia with nukes.
The control of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons is a charged issue. In theory, the prime minister should be in control, as chairman of the Nuclear Command Authority (NCA) that handles the command and control of strategic nuclear forces and organisations. But it is the army leaders who have the final say in the use of nuclear weapons if ever they are needed. Many then believe it is the military that has encouraged the Supreme Court to undermine the government, in the hope of ensuring a non-PPP government in the next general election.
Beneath the political power play lies a maze of problems, but one of them – the mismanagement of the country’s power supply – is fast becoming the greatest gripe Pakistanis have against their government. A murky culture of corruption allows politicians and power companies to shift the blame without getting anything fixed. And yet this one problem may well be fixed in a matter of months – if only Pakistan could find itself leaders with enough time and ambition to actually help the lot of ordinary Pakistanis. DM
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Post by justjohn on Jun 21, 2012 5:45:40 GMT -7
Declassified document contradicts Cheney’s claim of Iraqi connection to 9/11
By Stephen C. Webster
Wednesday, June 20, 2012 11:35 EDT
A document declassified this week by the National Security Archive reveals that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) delivered a briefing to the Bush administration which directly contradicts former Vice President Dick Cheney’s claim that 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta visited an Iraqi intelligence official in Prague.
The document (PDF), dated Dec. 1, 2001 and delivered to the White House on the 8th, claims that Atta “did not travel to the Czech Republic on 31 May 2000,” and adds that “the individual who attempted to enter the Czech Republic on 31 May 2000… was not the Atta who attacked the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001.”
Despite this briefing, just days later on Dec. 9, 2001, Cheney told the late Tim Russert, host of Meet the Press, that the meeting in Prague had been “pretty well confirmed.”
Well, what we now have that’s developed since you and I last talked, Tim, of course, was that report that’s been pretty well confirmed, that he did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April, several months before the attack. Now, what the purpose of that was, what transpired between them, we simply don’t know at this point. But that’s clearly an avenue that we want to pursue.
Cheney’s claim was one of the strongest rhetorical links between the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and Iraq in the administration’s arguments for war, even though it was refuted by the CIA more than once. The initial allegation reportedly came from misinformed Czech intelligence agents, and almost became part of a 2003 speech by the president — a plan that was scrapped after the CIA station in Prague issued a still-classified cable insisting that it was not true.
Even after the CIA had again refuted the link between Iraq and the 9/11 hijacker, Cheney still repeated it during a Sept. 2003 appearance on Meet the Press. Shortly after Russert confronted him with polling that showed as much as 69 percent of Americans believed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks, Cheney responded:
With respect to 9/11, of course, we’ve had the story that’s been public out there. The Czechs alleged that Mohamed Atta, the lead attacker, met in Prague with a senior Iraqi intelligence official five months before the attack, but we’ve never been able to develop anymore of that yet either in terms of confirming it or discrediting it. We just don’t know.
The problem with that now appears to be that the vice president did know the intelligence was bogus, but continued repeating it to support his argument for war. No link was ever established between the Iraqi regime and the attacks of Sept. 11.
Despite insisting publicly that no deal had been made to invade Iraq in the run-up to war, notes from aides to then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, which were subsequently handed to reporters, showed that he directed the Pentagon to draw up invasion plans on the evening of Sept. 11, 2001.
A survey conducted in Sept. of last year (PDF) by the University of Maryland found that at least 38 percent of Americans still believe the U.S. “found clear evidence in Iraq that Saddam Hussein was working closely with Al Qaeda.” An additional 15 percent still believe Iraq was “directly involved in carrying out” the Sept. 11 attacks. ——
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Post by justjohn on Jun 24, 2012 6:46:40 GMT -7
BBC News China 20 April 2012 Last updated at 06:15 ET Heywood case: China 'murder cover-up began immediately' A senior Chinese journalist has told the BBC that police knew UK man Neil Heywood had been murdered in Chongqing last November and that a cover-up began immediately. Police panicked when they realised the case could be linked to top politician Bo Xilai and his wife, Gu Kailai. It was only this month that authorities promised an investigation and named Ms Gu as a suspect. Bo Xilai has been sacked, amid China's biggest political scandal in decades. The 41-year-old British businessman was found dead in a hotel in Chongqing on 15 November. Local officials initially said he died of excessive drinking. But police who arrived at the hotel immediately knew he had been killed, and panicked after they realised the case was linked to Mr Bo, the journalist told the BBC's Martin Patience in Chongqing. Three of the investigators asked to resign, said Han Pingzao, a former correspondent for the People's Daily in the city. ''They were terrified of the politician,'' Mr Han said. 'Sweating profusely' It was at this point that former Chongqing police chief Wang Lijun became involved. In January, Mr Wang told his boss Mr Bo that he believed Ms Gu was involved in the murder. ''Bo Xilai was shocked when he heard the details,'' Mr Han said. ''He started sweating profusely.'' The flamboyant Mr Bo - the nearest thing China has to a Western-style politician - made his name in Chongqing with two high-profile campaigns. One cracked down on organised crime, the other was to promote China's communist past. Mr Wang, who has been closely identified with Mr Bo and his rise - he was tipped to be promoted to the party's top leadership before the scandal - was responsible for the anti-crime campaign. After half an hour, Mr Bo approached Mr Wang and held both his hands tightly. Mr Wang thought he was safe then, the journalist said, but he was not. He was sacked and subsequently sought refuge at the American consulate in Chengdu, where he reportedly told US officials about the murder and attempted to defect. Mr Wang was eventually persuaded to leave the consulate, emerging into the waiting arms of the police and an investigation. 'Extraordinary scenes' The events surrounding Mr Bo and his wife have become the biggest political scandal in China in years, ahead of a leadership change in Beijing due to get under way in October. There were ''extraordinary scenes'' on the day that Mr Bo's sacking as Chongqing party chief was announced last month, Mr Han said. ''Chongqing party officials attended sessions at various departments to hear how the central government had decided to handle the case,'' he added. This came right after China's annual parliamentary meeting in Beijing. In a news conference at the end of the parliamentary session, Premier Wen Jiabao took - and answered - a direct question on the Wang Lijun incident. "The present Chongqing municipal party committee and the municipal government must reflect seriously and learn from the Wang Lijun incident," he said. While Mr Bo's name was not mentioned, the comment was understood to be a public criticism directed at him. ''There were thousands of officials going in and out all day,'' said Mr Han. ''On the same day, late in the evening, the news was broadcast to the whole country.'' A few weeks later state media reported that Ms Gu and Zhang Xiaojun, an orderly at Mr Bo's home, had been arrested. Mr Bo is also under investigation for ''serious discipline violations''. The Chinese authorities have promised the UK government a thorough investigation into Mr Heywood's death. Gu Kailai, Bo Xilai's Wife, Has Confessed To Neil Heywood KillingJapanese Newspaper Posted: 06/22/2012 12:33 pm Updated: 06/22/2012 12:35 pm Gu Xailai Bo Xilai Neil Heywood (FILES) In a file photo taken on on March 9, 2012, Bo Xilai, Communist Party secretary of Chongqing attends the third plenary session of of the National People's Congress's (NPC) annual session at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. (LIU JIN/AFP/Getty Images) The wife of embattled ex-Chinese politician Bo Xilai has reportedly confessed to the murder of a British businessman, putting an exclamation point on a scandal that helped end her husband's promising career. The Asahi Shimbun reports that Gu Kailai told Chinese investigators she killed Neil Heywood, who was found dead at a hotel in Chongqing, China, in November 2011. Communist party sources told the Ashi that Gu killed Heywood over her corrupt business practices--she worried that he would "reveal llegal remittances of billions of dollars abroad that he allegedly helped organize for her," according to the Shimbun. www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/22/gu-kailai-bo-xilai-neil-heywood_n_1618885.html?view=print&comm_ref=false
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Post by justjohn on Jul 6, 2012 5:48:32 GMT -7
German Documentary about the Lie's of Western Officials during the NATO Aggression against Serbia in 1999. How the Western constructed Lies about slaughter of Albanians by the Serbian Security Forces. This excellent documentary was banned in Czech Republic by Czech TV, and most probably in all mainstream globalist media in western countries. It will reveal to you the horrifying story of Kosovo that nobody ever wanted to tell you, and debunking all hoaxes, lies and propaganda NATO used for trigger events, it will reveal how people live in ghettoes in 21st century, how ancient European heritage and culture is vanishing in the first ethnocide and genocide in the new millennium. It will reveal the disaster of people from different side, and how dirty are the hands of the west in all Balcan tragedies and conflicts, it reveals the real face of globalism, a MUST-SEE!
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Post by justjohn on Jul 6, 2012 5:56:27 GMT -7
The Last Time We Fought IranAs tensions mount between Washington and Tehran, the lessons of the Iran-Iraq conflict loom large. Bruce Riedel on what a new war might look like. by Bruce Riedel | July 6, 2012 4:45 AM EDT As the Washington and Tehran engage fitfully in what may be the last best chance at negotiations before a war to halt Tehran’s nuclear program, it is useful to remember that America has already fought one war with the Islamic Republic of Iran. In the 1980s President Ronald Reagan intervened in the Iran-Iraq war on the side of Baghdad and Saddam Hussein to tilt the conflict to an Iraqi victory. By 1987 America was engaged in a bloody naval and air war against Iran, undeclared of course, while Iraq fought a brutal land war. The lessons of our first war with Iran should be carefully considered before we embark hastily on a second. The Iran-Iraq War was devastating—the largest and longest conventional interstate war since the Korean conflict ended in 1953. A half-million lives were lost, perhaps another million were injured and the economic cost was over a trillion dollars. One index of the scale of the tragedy is that the battle lines at the end of the war were almost exactly where they were at the beginning of hostilities. It was also the only war in modern times in which chemical weapons were used on a massive scale. Iraq gassed the Iranian army repeatedly and then turned the weapons on its own Kurdish population. No comparable use of weapons of mass destruction had occurred since 1918. The 1980-1988 war led, in addition, to other disasters: the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, the liberation of Kuwait a year later and the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. The bloody U.S. war just ended in Iraq last year by President Obama was the finale in this march of folly. The seeds of multigenerational tragedy were planted in the Iran-Iraq war. We will live with its consequences for decades, perhaps longer. The first lesson of Reagan’s war is: Expect to be blamed for all that goes bad. Both Iraqis and Iranians came to believe the U.S. was manipulating them during the war. Ironically (and perhaps naively) the U.S. tried to reach out to both belligerents during the course of the conflict—in great secrecy both times—to try to build a strategic partnership. The disastrous arms for hostages-policy, which came to be known as Iran-Contra, convinced Iraqis rightly that the U.S. was trying to play both sides of the conflict. The result was that when the war ended, the Iraqi regime and most Iraqis regarded the U.S. as a threat, despite Washington’s support during the hostilities: critical intelligence support to Baghdad; considerable diplomatic cover; and ignoring the largesse of our Arab allies, who loaned tens of billions of dollars to Baghdad to sustain Iraq’s war effort. Iraqi Soldier Watches Burning Iranian Abadan Refinery An Iraqi soldier watches as the Iranian Abadan oil refinery burns near the Iraqi border. (Henri Bureau, Sygma / Corbis) Iranians call the battle the “imposed war” because they believe the U.S. inflicted it upon them and orchestrated the global “tilt” toward Iraq during the fighting. They note that the United Nations did not condemn Iraq for starting the war—in fact, it did not even discuss the war for weeks after it started, and it eventually blamed Iraq as the aggressor only years later as part of a deal to free U.S. hostages held by pro-Iranian terrorists in Lebanon. The UN never sanctioned Iraq for the use of chemical weapons. Though the war had tragic consequences for Iranians, they nevertheless consolidated their revolution by successfully portraying the war as a David and Goliath struggle, started by the U.S. and its allies. The country was mobilized to defend the revolution. The opposition was discredited, especially the Mujahedin e Khalq, which supported Saddam and Iraq. The Islamic revolution of 1979 was fairly short in duration and its cost minuscule in comparison to the Iran-Iraq war. For the generation of Iranians who are now leading their country, men like President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the war was the defining event of their lives and it has shaped their worldview. Their anti-Americanism and deep suspicion of the West generally can be traced directly to their understanding of the Iran-Iraq War. So expect another conflict to make Iran more extreme and more determined to get the bomb while it rallies Iranians behind the mullahs. Another lesson of the first war is that Iran will not be easily intimidated by America. Iran by 1987 was devastated by the fighting; many of its cities like Abadan had been destroyed, its oil exports were minimal and its economy shattered. But it did not hesitate to fight the U.S. Navy in the Gulf and to use asymmetric means including terrorism to retaliate in Lebanon and elsewhere. Even when our navy had sunk most of theirs, Iran kept fighting, and the Iranian people rallied behind Ayatollah Khomeini. No two wars are identical, but we should not expect Iran to back down easily if history is a guide. A few air strikes will not be the end of it. Iran fought smartly, avoiding escalating matters too rapidly and too dangerously. As the U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Major General Dempsey, and his Israeli counterpart, Lieutenant General Benny Gantz, have noted, Iranian behavior is rational, not suicidal. Iranian leaders will not take steps that endanger the revolution’s survival; they will look for our vulnerabilities in Afghanistan and Bahrain, Israel’s in Lebanon and the Saudis’ in Yemen to exploit. A third key lesson is that ending the war will be a challenge. In 1988, Iran sued for a cease-fire only after catastrophic defeat on the ground by Iraq and when Saddam was threatening to fire chemical warheads into Iranian cities. Iranians believe they faced a second “Hiroshima” if they did not accept a truce. Many evacuated Tehran in fear of Iraqi chemical attack. For Khomeini it was drinking poison to accept a truce. No two wars are identical, but we should not expect Iran to back down easily if history is a guide. A few air strikes will not be the end of it. Finally, be careful to weigh your ally’s advice. Ironically in the 1980s the closest U.S. partner in the region, Israel, pressed Washington hard and repeatedly to, in effect, switch sides and offer assistance to Iran. Israeli leaders, generals and spies were obsessed by the Iraqi threat in the 1980s, just as they are preoccupied by the Iranian threat today. They longed to restore the cozy relationship they had with the Shah in the 1960s and 1970s. Israel was the only consistent source of spare parts for the Iranian air force’s U.S.-built built jets throughout the war. Israeli leaders, notably Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, brought considerable pressure to bear on Washington for an American engagement with Tehran. Iran-Contra was in many ways their idea. American diplomats and spies abroad were told to turn a blind eye to Israeli arms deals with Tehran even when it was official U.S. policy to (in the Washington euphemism of the day) “staunch” all avenues by which the Iranians might obtain weapons or other material needed for their war effort. Many Israeli security professionals quietly told their American counterparts in the 1980s that they thought Peres’ dream of rebuilding the alliance with Iran was crazy and foolish. They whispered to American intelligence officers that it would end in disaster. They were right. Today many former Israeli intelligence officers are warning America not to listen the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and to avoid a military clash with Iran. Yuval Diskin, the retired head of the Shabak, the Israeli internal security service, has said Bibi is guided by “messianic feelings” which impair his judgement. Meir Dagan, his counterpart at the Mossad, the external security service, has said a military attack on Iran would be “stupid.” This time the warnings from our professional Israeli allies are not quiet. Our Arab allies in the 1980s gave equally awful advice to the Reagan team. Saudi King Fahd assured a succession of visitors to the royal palaces in Riyadh and Jidda that Saddam was a changed man, a new moderate who could be trusted to act responsibly even if he was a tad violent. The Saudis, Kuwaitis and Emiratis gave Saddam billions of loans to fight the war. They pressed Washington to take strong action against Iran, to “kill the head of the snake.” It all sounds very familiar today. Even King Hussein of Jordan, one of the wisest leaders of his generation in the world was enamored of Saddam. He traveled often to Baghdad to see Saddam and the road link from Aqaba to Baghdad was the critical logistical supply line to keep Iraq in the war. Jordanian “volunteers” fought with Iraq. The King urged Reagan to help Iraq and brokered the first CIA visit to Baghdad with critical intelligence for Saddam’s generals. Many Americans have forgotten the lessons of our undeclared war in the 1980s. We have fought so many other wars since, in Iraq (twice), Afghanistan and Libya it is easy to forget. No Iranian has forgotten. As part of any serious political debate on whether to go to war again with Iran, President Obama and others would be wise to study the past.
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Post by justjohn on Jul 13, 2012 4:01:31 GMT -7
This video was censored at first but an outcry forced Vimeo to bring it back.
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Post by JustJohn or JJ on Aug 12, 2012 7:23:51 GMT -7
This is for real and darn scary.
Winner of the 2008 Grierson History Today Award for Best Historical Documentary.
8 November 1983, a date now recognised as one of the most dangerous moments in the entire history of the Cold War.
This documentary tells the dramatic story behind this sequence of events when Soviet fingers hovered perilously over the nuclear button.
The intelligence communities in the US, Europe and the former USSR have never before admitted to the scale of this crisis.
1 x 120 min for Channel 4.
On this near-fateful day, a series of accidents nearly unleashed the Third World War. Senior figures in the Soviet Union had convinced themselves that they were about to come under nuclear attack from the West, and the vast Soviet nuclear arsenal of missiles, bombers and submarines were put on maximum alert, ready to launch a full nuclear retaliatory attack on Western Europe and the US. Armageddon beckoned. NB: The programme is titled 1983 SOVIET WAR SCARE in USA (Discovery). _______________________________________________________________________________________
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Post by kaima on Aug 17, 2012 10:36:09 GMT -7
In Paper, Chief of Egypt Army Criticized U.S. By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and KAREEM FAHIM Published: August 16, 2012
As a student at the United States Army War College in Pennsylvania, the chief of staff of Egypt’s armed forces argued in a paper that the American military presence in the Middle East and its “one sided” support of Israel were fueling hatred toward the United States and miring it in an unwinnable global war with Islamist militants. Related
The Lede Blog: Changes Atop Egypt's Government Create Uncertain Path for United States (August 17, 20
The paper, written seven years ago by the new chief of staff, Gen. Sedky Sobhi, offers an early and expansive look into the thinking of one member of the new generation of military officers stepping into power as part of a leadership shake-up under Egypt’s newly elected president, Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood.
General Sobhi’s sharp rebuke of American policy is especially striking because he now oversees the military institution that has been the closest United States ally in the Arab world, relied on by American officials as a critical bulwark in support of Israeli security and against Iranian influence. Despite decades of military collaboration, he urged a full pullout of American forces from the region.
Scholars say his paper is even more significant in part because many of its themes reflect opinions widely held by Egyptians, their new president and people throughout the region — an increasingly potent factor in regional foreign policy, as Egypt and other countries struggle toward democracy.
American officials said their confidence in Egypt was unshaken, while analysts argued that despite the changes in the nation’s military and civilian leadership, any realignment in relations with Washington could be slow — in part because of Egypt’s urgent need for assistance from the United States and the West.
“For sure there are going to be big changes in Egypt’s relationship with Washington,” said Shibley Telhami, a political scientist at the University of Maryland and a scholar at the Brookings Institution who has studied Arab and Egyptian public opinion.
In surveys across the Arab world for more than a decade, he said, about 70 percent of the public has named the United States as the second-greatest threat to regional security, after Israel — even in Egypt, where Washington provides $1.3 billion in annual military aid, and in Saudi Arabia, another close American ally.
As General Sobhi argued, Professor Telhami said, “there were always two central issues driving Arab and Egyptian anger with the U.S., the Palestinian question — the prism of pain through which Arabs see the West — and the U.S. military presence.”
General Sobhi’s paper, first reported by an independent journalist in Cairo, Issandr El Amrani, offers a rare look into the foreign policy thinking of a military institution often considered all but impenetrable to outsiders.
For decades under President Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian military, and the nation’s foreign policy, had been closely allied with the United States and its regional interests. There was concern in Washington after Mr. Mubarak’s ouster that the relationship might not survive — an anxiety that was revived when Mr. Morsi was elected president.
But Washington knew that the longtime defense minister, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, and his chief of staff, Sami Hafez Anan, still wielded considerable power and were reliable allies.
Then, after an embarrassing terrorist attack in northern Sinai this month, Mr. Morsi appeared to consolidate his power by announcing their replacement, while keeping them on as presidential advisers. The shake-up raised for the first time the possibility that Mr. Morsi might begin to exert some real sway over Egyptian foreign policy, and General Sobhi’s paper suggested that at least some of the younger cadre of generals might share an interest in more independence from Washington.
In his paper, General Sobhi spells out a position that fits well with the campaign vows of many Islamist and secular politicians in Egypt to chart a course more independent of Washington. “If the relationship is between equals, with mutual respect and mutual interest, then nothing changes,” Mahmoud Hussein, the secretary general of the Muslim Brotherhood, said this week of the Egyptian relationship with the United States. “But if the U.S. thinks the relationship with Egypt is of a master and a follower, then this will never be.”
Samer Shehata, a professor of Arab politics at Georgetown University, said American policy makers would be naïve to think that the positions held by Mr. Morsi and the Brotherhood — including criticisms of the United States and strong support for the Palestinians — represented fringe thinking.
On those issues, “the Brotherhood is the Egyptian Kansas,” said Professor Shehata. Their positions on foreign policy “reflect rather than oppose what the Egyptian center is thinking,” he said.
In Washington, officials said they were unconcerned about the paper or the broader changes in the leadership of the Egyptian military. Top United States defense officials have said they enjoy strong and positive relationships with General Sobhi and his boss, the new defense minister, Gen. Abdul Fattah el-Sisi, who also studied at the United States Army War College.
“A lot of academic theses offer up interesting ideas that don’t go very far, and often end up as shelf ware,” a senior official in the Obama administration said of General Sobhi’s paper, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the delicate point in relations with Egypt. “This isn’t exactly causing concern. We believe we will work well with the new Egyptian military leaders.”
Other analysts, though, argue that the defense shake-up, which signaled an apparent consolidation of Mr. Morsi’s power, inevitably augured a larger shake-up ahead for Egyptian relations with Washington.
Given the pressure of public opinion on democratically elected leaders — to say nothing of the Brotherhood and Mr. Morsi’s history of criticizing the United States’ Middle East policy — “it thus stands to reason that Morsi’s sacking of Egypt’s top national security and defense officials might in part represent a shift in Egyptian foreign policy away from the United States,” the scholar Steven A. Cook argued this week on the Web site of the journal Foreign Affairs. “Toward what country, however, remains unclear. There is no other power that could be Egypt’s patron, yet Cairo might not need one. Egypt, representing a quarter of the Arab world and strategically located on the Suez Canal and Afro-Asian rift, is a power in its own right.”
General Sobhi couched his paper as an argument to American policy makers about their long-term interest.
But he made his case by focusing on what he said were American misunderstandings of the region, arguing that Westerners undermined their professed support for Arab democracy with their hostility toward the role of Islamic law in many Arab states. The push for democracy “must have and project political, social, cultural and religious legitimacy,” he wrote.
General Sobhi also argued that it was wrong to characterize Al Qaeda and other militant groups as merely “irrational terrorist organizations.” Instead, he suggested that they had tapped into popular grievances with American policy, “becoming an international insurgency movement.”
“I recommend that the permanent withdrawal of United States military forces from the Middle East and the Gulf should be a goal of U.S. strategy in this region,” he wrote, adding that the United States should pursue its objectives through “socioeconomic means and the impartial application of international law.”
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Post by kaima on Aug 17, 2012 10:47:07 GMT -7
Given the pressure of public opinion on democratically elected leaders — to say nothing of the Brotherhood and Mr. Morsi’s history of criticizing the United States’ Middle East policy — “it thus stands to reason that Morsi’s sacking of Egypt’s top national security and defense officials might in part represent a shift in Egyptian foreign policy away from the United States,” the scholar Steven A. Cook argued this week on the Web site of the journal Foreign Affairs. “Toward what country, however, remains unclear. There is no other power that could be Egypt’s patron, yet Cairo might not need one. Egypt, representing a quarter of the Arab world and strategically located on the Suez Canal and Afro-Asian rift, is a power in its own right.” Gee... the dangers of Democracy in the hands of the people! I have supported democratic government all of my life, until I gave some thought to the problems we would have if the Middle East power was ever taken from the hands of our client leaders handed over to the people.... that is scary indeed, and we are there today.
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Post by JustJohn or JJ on Aug 29, 2012 1:27:18 GMT -7
This is a frightening situation. It is the first time I have heard of this. The Truth About the 2007 Invasion of Iran and the Woman Who Stopped ItA Brave Loyal American Prevents a USS Liberty Type False Flag Attack Saving Hundreds of Marines and Sailors “These four women survive, all have worked with Veterans Today and make up a group of patriotic and honest Americans who put duty and honor before career and cash.” ...Gordon Gwenyth Todd in Iraq by Gordon Duff, Senior Editor Five years ago, an American woman serving in Bahrain single handedly stopped the United States government from a criminal attack on Iran and a series of “false flag” terror attacks on American troops and ships in the region. American Neocons and Israeli lobby decided this was their last chance to start a war, one that would saddle the next president with a disaster of unprecedented proportions, fighting 3 wars during America’s Bush driven economic collapse. The plans were in motion, plans that would have eventually collapsed the United States, plans also aimed at the destruction of Iran and the enslavement of her people. One person, known to few, played a key role in stopping this disaster. This is Gwyneth Todd, former member of President Clinton’s National Security Council and top Middle East advisor. Stopping the Bush invasion would end her career and nearly cost her life. More here: www.veteranstoday.com/2012/08/28/the-truth-about-the-2007-invasion-of-iran-and-the-woman-who-stopped-it/
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Post by karl on Aug 29, 2012 9:30:03 GMT -7
J.J.
Our world is rather fragile without those of motives rather of national interest or personal. And all the more fragile with those of power as heads of state to use their power for deception and destruction.
It is good of you to bring forth such as above in the light of reality..If so inclined, there was in recent past, programmes of similar nature such as: {Operation Northwoods}. If interested, I am confident it may be accessed on google if so desired.
In respect to others, I wished not in past to bring this deplorable bit of recent history. It was a programme designed for the times as a proposal that is used by most advanced nations as a demonstration for possible use and then discarded. The difference is these programmes are destroyed or kept in lock up reserve for not to be pubic property.
Karl
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Post by Jaga on Aug 29, 2012 11:41:54 GMT -7
John,
amazing story. It is almost hard to believe that it is true. I hope that Israel would not try to attack Iran again. Netanyahu is so eager to do so, but either Israel's public opinion, nor pres. Obama support it.
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Post by JustJohn or JJ on Sept 12, 2012 5:16:56 GMT -7
The Real Reason for the Afghan War?Posted By Russ Baker On September 10, 2012 @ 8:00 am “Previously Unknown” mineral deposits in Afghanistan (Click to Enlarge) When the United States decided to invade Afghanistan to grab Osama bin Laden—and failed, but stayed on like an unwanted guest—could it have known that the Afghans were sitting on some of the world’s greatest reserves of mineral wealth? We’ve raised this topic before (see here [2])—where we noted the dubious 2010 claim, published by the New York Times, that “the vast scale of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth was [recently] discovered by a small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists.” Other evidence, and logic, point to the fact that everyone but the Western public knew for a long time, and before the 2001 invasion, that Afghanistan was a treasure trove. So we were interested to see a new piece [3] from the Times that emphasizes those riches without stressing the crucial question: Was the original impetus for the invasion really Osama—or Mammon? The failure to pose this question is significant because the pretense of a “recent discovery” serves only to justify staying in Afghanistan now that the troops are already there—while ignoring the extent to which imperial-style resource grabs are the real drivers of foreign policy and wars, worldwide. As long as we continue to dance around that issue, we will remain mired in disaster of both a financial and mortal nature. As long as we fail to tote up who are the principal winners and losers then we fail to understand what is going on. Some of the least likely candidates for insight are waking up. To quote Alan Greenspan [4]: “I’m saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.” Who will say the same about Afghanistan and its mineral wealth? Once we acknowledge what General Wesley Clark claims [5] (and which the media keeps ignoring)—that he was told the U.S. had plans ready at the time of the 9/11 attacks to invade seven countries (including Iraq and Afghanistan)– then the larger picture begins to come into view. At this point, we can’t help but revisit our WhoWhatWhy exclusive [6] tying the 9/11 hijackers to that very reliable U.S. ally, the Saudi royal family— which itself needs constant external war and strife throughout the Middle East to keep its citizens from focusing on its own despotism and staggering corruption, and to maintain its position as an indispensable ally of the West in these wars. It was the actions of the Saudi-dominated 9/11 hijackers and their Saudi sponsor, Osama bin Laden, that created the justification for this endless series of resource wars. So, learning that the hijackers themselves may have been sponsored by, or controlled by elements of the Saudi royal family is a pretty big deal. Nevertheless, the Times plays a key role in sending us in the wrong direction [3]: If there is a road to a happy ending in Afghanistan, much of the path may run underground: in the trillion-dollar reservoir of natural resources — oil, gold, iron ore, copper, lithium and other minerals — that has brought hopes of a more self-sufficient country, if only the wealth can be wrested from blood-soaked soil. So, according to the world’s most influential opinion-making outlet, the fact of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth has nothing to do with why the United States and its allies want to stay—and why others want us to leave. No, we are told, it is just a fortuitous “discovery” that can benefit the Afghans themselves, make them “self-sufficient.” If only it can be extracted….. Of course, this narrative continues, the suffering Afghans can only be helped to become self-sufficient if enough long-term military and technical might is applied to the country. We’d love to see more reporting from The Times about what Western companies knew and when they knew it. Instead, we see JPMorgan Chase’s Afghan venture mentioned, in passing, between references to efforts by the Chinese to get their piece of the action: Already this summer, the China National Petroleum Corporation, in partnership with a company controlled by relatives of President Karzai, began pumping oil from the Amu Darya field in the north. An investment consortium arranged by JPMorgan Chase is mining gold. Another Chinese company is trying to develop a huge copper mine. Four copper and gold contracts are being tendered, and contracts for rare earth metals could be offered soon. The truth is, as long as the Chinese and Russians are cut in on the deal, their objections to military actions that enrich oligarchs everywhere are likely to be muted. Imperial militaries exist in large part to grab and hold resources vital to the continuance of empires, while their paymasters back home reap benefits. That includes the rest of us, who must balance the security and creature comforts this approach provides against the death and destruction it inevitably entails. And we can’t begin to do the moral calculus until we acknowledge what’s being done in our name around the world, and why. # # WhoWhatWhy plans to continue doing this kind of groundbreaking original reporting. You can count on it. But can we count on you? We cannot do our work without your support. GRAPHIC: www.a-w-i-p.com/media/blogs/articles/Directory2/AFG_mineral_map_44.jpg & 2.bp.blogspot.com/_hzQHlX0Ywx4/SG5yoTE8FLI/AAAAAAAAA5M/WhP4ivnwIUg/s400/drum-of-gold-mine.bmp
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Post by kaima on Sept 12, 2012 8:21:12 GMT -7
Right now I can only imagine Afghanistan with its many resources going the way of the Congo. Corruption, war, greed and anarchy and suffering people.
At the same pessimistic moment I cannot see any good for the USA in any of this business of protecting Israel.
Anyone for isolationism and letting the world go to hell by itself? We ran ourselves broke with our misguided efforts and greed.
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Post by JustJohn or JJ on Sept 29, 2012 5:39:56 GMT -7
I can't verify this statement. It is an interesting video.
This video is banned for broadcast on News Networks in USA, Israel and Europe. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that Israel and US does not want you to see. Jewish leaders and prominent businessmen Greet Ahmadinejad with Inshallah and Bless him for long life. Jews have lived in Iran for thousands of years. Over 50,000 Jews live in Teheran. Israeli Jews Love Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Please also watch
يحظر هذا الفيديو للبث على شبكات الأخبار في الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية وإسرائيل وأوروبا. محمود أحمدي نجاد إسرائيل والولايات المتحدة لا تريد لك أن ترى. زعماء اليهود ورجال الأعمال البارزين . لقد عاش اليهود في إيران منذ آلاف السنين. أكثر من 50،000 يهودي في طهران. اليهود الإسرائيليين الحب محمود أحمدي نجاد
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