War For Profit

President of the United States (and former General of the Army) Dwight D. Eisenhower said at his Farewell Address to the Nation on January 17, 1961:


“A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction...

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together."



Cheney’s Former Company Profits from Supporting Troops
by Pratap Chatterjee,
March 20th, 2003

As the first bombs rain down on Baghdad, CorpWatch has learned that thousands of employees of Halliburton, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former

company, are working alongside US troops in Kuwait and Turkey under a package deal worth close to a billion dollars. According to US Army sources, they are building tent cities and providing logistical support for the war in Iraq in addition to other hot spots in the “war on terrorism.”

While recent news coverage has speculated on the post-war reconstruction gravy train that corporations like Halliburton stand to gain from, this latest information indicates that Halliburton is already profiting from war time contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Cheney served as chief executive of Halliburton until he stepped down to become George W. Bush’s running mate in the 2000 presidential race. Today he still draws compensation of up to a million dollars a year from the company, although his spokesperson denies that the White House helped the company win the contract.

In December 2001, Kellogg, Brown and Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, secured a 10-year deal known as the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP), from the Pentagon. The contract is a “cost-plus-award-fee, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity service” which basically means that the federal government has an open-ended mandate and budget to send Brown and Root anywhere in the world to run military operations for a profit.

Linda Theis, a public affairs officer for the U.S. Army Field Support Command in Rock Island Arsenal, Illinois, confirmed for Corpwatch that Brown and Root is also supporting operations in Afghanistan, Djibouti, Georgia, Jordan and Uzbekistan.

“Specific locations along with military units, number of personnel assigned, and dates of duration are considered classified,” she said. “The overall anticipated cost of task orders awarded since contract award in December 2001 is approximately $830 million.”
Kuwait

The current contract in Kuwait began in September 2002 when Joyce Taylor of the U.S. Army Materiel Command’s Program Management Office, arrived to supervise approximately 1,800 Brown and Root employees to set up tent cities that would provide accommodation for tens of thousands of soldiers and officials.

Army officials working with Brown and Root says the collaboration is helping cut costs by hiring local labor at a fraction of regular Army salaries. “We can quickly purchase building materials and hire third-country nationals to perform the work. This means a small number of combat-service-support soldiers are needed to support this logistic aspect of building up an area,” says Lt. Col. Rod Cutright, the senior LOGCAP planner for all of Southwest Asia.

During the past few weeks, these Brown and Root employees have helped transform Kuwait into an armed camp, to support some 80,000 foreign troops, roughly the equivalent of 10% of Kuwait’s native born population.

Most of these troops are now living in the tent cities in the rugged desert north of Kuwait City, poised to invade Iraq. Some of the encampments are named after the states associated with the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 — Camp New York, Camp Virginia and Camp Pennsylvania.

The headquarters for this effort is Camp Arifjan, where civilian and military employees have built a gravel terrace with plastic picnic tables and chairs, surrounded by a gymnasium in a tent, a PX and newly arrived fast food outlets such as Burger King, Subway and Baskin-Robbins, set up in trailers or shipping containers. Basketball hoops and volleyball nets are set up outside the mess hall.
Turkey

North of Iraq approximately 1,500 civilians are working for Brown and Root and the United States military near the city of Adana, about an hour’s drive inland from the Mediterranean coast of central Turkey, where they support approximately 1,400 US soldiers staffing Operation Northern Watch’s Air Force F-15 Strike Eagles and F-16 Fighting Falcons monitoring the no-fly zone above the 36th parallel in Iraq.

The jet pilots are catered and housed at the Incirlik military base seven miles outside the city by a company named Vinnell, Brown and Root (VBR), a joint venture between Brown and Root and Vinnell corporation of Fairfax, Virginia, under a contract that was signed on October 1, 1988, which also includes two more minor military sites in Turkey: Ankara and Izmir.

The joint venture’s latest contract, which started July 1, 1999 and will expire in September 2003, was initially valued at $118 million. US Army officials confirm that Brown and Root has been awarded new and additional contracts in Turkey in the last year to support the “war on terrorism” although they refused to give any details.

“We provide support services for the United States Air Force in areas of civil engineering, motor vehicles transportation, in the services arena here - that includes food service operations, lodging, and maintenance of a golf course. We also do US customs inspection,” explained VBR site manager Alex Daniels, who has worked at Incirlik for almost 15 years.

Cheap labor is also the primary reason for outsourcing services, says Major Toni Kemper, head of public affairs at the base. “The reason that the military goes to contracting is largely because it’s more cost effective in certain areas. I mean there was a lot of studies years ago as to what services can be provided via contractor versus military personnel. Because when we go contract, we don’t have to pay health care and all the another things for the employees, that’s up to the employer.”

Soon after the contract was signed Incirlik provided a major staging post for thousands of sorties flown against Iraq and occupied Kuwait during the Gulf war in January 1991 dropping over 3,000 tons of bombs on military and civilian targets.
Central Asian Contracts

Still ongoing is the first LOGCAP contract in the “war on terrorism” which began in June 2002, when Brown and Root was awarded a $22 million deal to run support services at Camp Stronghold Freedom, located at the Khanabad air base in central Uzbekistan. Khanabade is one of the main US bases in the Afghanistan war that houses some 1,000 US soldiers from the Green Berets and the 10th Mountain Division.

In November 2002 Brown and Root began a one-year contract, estimated at $42.5 million, to cover services for troops at bases in both Bagram and Khandahar. Brown and Root employees were first set to work running laundry services, showers, mess halls and installing heaters in soldiers’ tents.
Future Contracts in Iraq

Halliburton is also one of five large US corporations invited to bid for contracts in what may turn out to be the biggest reconstruction project since the Second World War. The others are the Bechtel Group, Fluor Corp, Parsons Corp, and the Louis Berger Group.

The Iraq reconstruction plan will require contractors to fulfill various tasks, including reopening at least half of the “economically important roads and bridges” — about 1,500 miles of roadway within 18 months, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The contractors will also be asked to repair 15% of high-voltage electricity grid, renovate several thousand schools and deliver 550 emergency generators within two months. The contract is estimated to be worth up to $900 million for the preliminary work alone.

The Pentagon has also awarded a contract to Brown and Root to control oil fires if Saddam Hussein sets the well heads ablaze. Iraq has oil reserves second only to those of Saudi Arabia. This makes Brown and Root a leading candidate to win the role of top contractor in any petroleum field rehabilitation effort in Iraq that industry analysts say could be as much as $1.5 billion in contracts to jump start Iraq’s petroleum sector following a war.
Wartime Profiteering

Meanwhile Dick Cheney’s 2001 financial disclosure statement, states that the Halliburton is paying him a “deferred compensation” of up to $1million a year following his resignation as chief executive in 2000. At the time Cheney opted not to receive his severance package in a lump sum, but instead to have it paid to him over five years, possibly for tax reasons.

The company would not say how much the payments are. The obligatory disclosure statement filled by all top government officials says only that they are in the range of $100,000 and $1million. Nor is it clear how they are calculated.

Critics say that the apparent conflict of interest is deplorable. “The Bush-Cheney team have turned the United States into a family business,” says Harvey Wasserman, author of The Last Energy War (Seven Stories Press, 2000). “That’s why we haven’t seen Cheney - he’s cutting deals with his old buddies who gave him a multimillion-dollar golden handshake. Have they no grace, no shame, no common sense? Why don’t they just have Enron run America? Or have Zapata Petroleum (George W. Bush’s failed oil-exploration venture) build a pipeline across Afghanistan?”

Army officials disagree. Major Bill Bigelow, public relations officer for the US Army in Western Europe, says: “If you’re going to ask a specific question - like, do you think it’s right that contractors profit in wartime - I would think that they might be better [asked] at a higher level, to people who set the policy. We don’t set the policy, we work within the framework that’s been established.”

“Those questions have been asked forever, because they go back to World War Two when Chrysler and Ford and Chevy stopped making cars and started making guns and tanks. Obviously it’s a question that’s been around for quite some time. But it’s true that nowadays there are very few defense contractors, but go back sixty years to the World War Two era almost everybody was manufacturing something that either directly or indirectly had something to do with defense,” he added.

Sasha Lilley and Aaron Glantz helped conduct interviews for this article.

For further reading on Brown and Root’s military contracts, see The War on Terrorism’s Gravy Train by Pratap Chatterjee.

Pratap Chatterjee is an investigative journalist based in Berkeley, California. He traveled to Afghanistan and Uzbekistan in January 2002 and to Incirlik, Turkey, in January 2003 to research this article.

Halliburton given $30m to expand Guantanamo Bay London Independent | June 18 2005 A subsidiary of Halliburton, the oil services group once led by the US Vice-President, Dick Cheney, has won a $30m (£16m) contract to help build a new permanent prison for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Dick Cheney of course makes money to this Day From Haliburton.

Talk about a conflict of interest

Cheney served as chief executive of Halliburton until he stepped down to become George W. Bush’s running mate in the 2000 presidential race. Today he still draws compensation of up to a million dollars or more a year from the company, although his spokesperson denies that the White House helped the company win the contracts .

He isn’t alone however

151 Congressmen Profit From War

More than a quarter of senators and congressmen have invested at least $196 million or more of their own money in companies doing business with the Department of Defense (DOD) that profit from the death and destruction in Iraq.

Now maybe it’s just me but is that not a bit of conflict of interest?

Why would they ever vote to stop a war? No profit in that is there?

Even Bushes Father, apparently has invested a great deal in companies that work for the DOD.

The practice of investing in such things should be forbidden.

Let me tell you they didn’t get themselves elected to serve the people. They are self serving, money hungry, power seeking, well you get the idea.

Haliburton also wasted a lot of money. Your Tax dollars were hard at work.

Whistleblowers Describe Halliburton’s “Free Fraud Zone”

June 27, 2005

Halliburton Iraq

“I can unequivocally state that the abuse related to contracts awarded to KBR represents the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have witnessed during the course of my professional career.”

– Bunnatine Greenhouse, top Army Corps of Engineers contract oversight official, turned whistleblower

Today’s Democratic Policy Committee Hearing was another jawdropper.

The witnesses included:

1) Greenhouse — the highest ranking civilian at the Army Corps of Engineers whose job it is to ensure openness and honesty in contracting. Greenhouse said that “essentially every aspect of the RIO contract remained under the control of the Office of the Secretary of Defense.” In other words, Rumsfeld should be held responsible for giving his old pal Dick Cheney’s firm Halliburton the no-bid contract before the war, under its global logistics contract, a violation of competitive contracting requirements (as Greenhouse testified and 60 Minutes reported, other contractors were itching to bid on the work but were never given a chance).

2) Rory Mayberry, a former manager of Halliburton’s mess halls in Iraq, who testified that KBR fed U.S. troops expired food on a daily basis, and fed Turkish and Filipino workers “leftover food in boxes and garbage bags after the troops ate,” while using beef, chicken, salads and sodas intended for the troops to cater parties and barbeques for KBR management and employees. He also said he was informed that “if we talked, we would be rotated out to other camps that were under fire.”

3) Alan Waller and Gary Butters — two top executives from Lloyd-Owen International, a transportation contractor who testified that one of their convoys was ambushed 2 kilometers from a U.S. base while bringing materials under a Halliburton contract. Not only were they not told by KBR that other contractors had been hit recently in the same area (they lost 3 individuals in the ambush), but upon arriving at the base were denied help by KBR (later learning from emails they obtained that KBR management had instructed its on site staff to offer no assistance).

Could this have anything to do with the fact that the company has a fuel supply contract with the Iraqi government that KBR would have had, if it hadn’t been caught defrauding U.S. taxpayers for fuel shipments?

KBR still controls the military checkpoint along the Kuwait/Iraq border, where Lloyd-Owen has to bring over 100 fuel tankers across on a daily basis. They testified that KBR has hampered the company’s ability to cross the border, using the fact that Lloyd-Owen does not have a U.S. Military contract as a technicality.

Meanwhile, they testified that Halliburton’s incompetence in restoring fuel pumping and refinery equipment has also slowed fuel deliveries down, leading to the kind of festering resentments that are certain to fuel the resistance.

A joint report was also released at the hearing by Senator Dorgan and Rep. Henry Waxman, which estimates that Halliburton’s questioned and unsupported costs in Iraq now exceed $1.4 billion, more than three times the previous estimate.

***

You know why we never can have world peace? Because it would fuck up the economy that's fake anyway. Still there's a moral reason to try. Let's hope that Israel didn't just kick off world war III. Happy new year.

Wikileaks, BND & US Army

This is from Rawstory:

"In the latest twist in a scandal involving the presence of the German intelligence service or Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) in the Balkan nation of Kosovo, the head of the BND has ordered whistleblower website Wikileaks to remove all BND-related files under threat of "immediate prosecution."

Wikileaks has responded with a press release noting that the demands have no legal force outside Germany, so the order "must be assumed to be an attempt to engage Wikileaks via its German component -- or does Mr. Uhrlau suggest it is now BND policy to kidnap foreign journalists and try them before German courts?"

According to Wikileaks, "The threats, made by BND President Ernst Uhrlau, were triggered by the Wikileaks publication of an article by Tom Burghardt, a US journalist, on the BND's bungled Kosovo operation, together with a classified BND dossier on senior Kosovo figures from 2005 -- both of which were specifically named by Mr. Uhrlau."

The Kosovo scandal began on November 19, when three Germans were arrested in Kosovo's capital of Pristina on suspicion of throwing explosives at the European Union office. The men, who said they were not behind the incident but were merely observing the crime scene, were identied by the German paper Spiegel as BND agents.

Germany is one of the strongest diplomatic and financial supporters of the government in Kosovo, which declared its independence from Serbia last February, and the BND is known to be active there.

BND sources charged that the incident was the work of local radicals, who are opposed to the deployment of EU forces in their country to replace UN peacekeepers in certain areas, which they see as likely to lead to an eventual partition of the country into a Serbian half and an Albanian half.

However, other analysts suggested that the high-profile arrests might represent an attempt to embarrass the BND by Kosovo's prime minister, who was accused in the 2005 BND report of being involved with organized crime.

The article by researcher Tom Burghardt, which Wikileaks sees as a primary cause of the BND order, describes Kosovo as both "a European narco state" and "a militarized outpost for Western capitalist powers intent on spreading their tentacles East, encircling Russia and penetrating the former spheres of influence of the ex-Soviet Union."

"For the ruling elites of the former Yugoslavia and their Western allies, Kosovo is a veritable goldmine," Burghardt writes. "Situated in the heart of the Balkans, Kosovo's government is deeply tied to organized crime structures: narcotrafficking, arms smuggling, car theft rings and human trafficking that feeds the sex slave 'industry.' These operations are intimately linked to American destabilization campaigns and their cosy ties to on-again, off-again intelligence assets that include al-Qaeda and other far-right terror gangs."

Burghardt implies that the incident may have been meant as a slap on the wrist to the BND for "stepping on the CIA's toes and that agency's cosy intelligence 'understanding' with Mafia-linked KLA fighters and al-Qaeda assets." Whether he is correct or not, it does seem that the BND chief would like to see his speculations suppressed."

***

That's funny, I just finished reading a manual called US Army Field Manual (FM) 3-05.130, Army Special Operations Forces Unconventional Warfare, leaked by wikileaks. It states (pg. 46-47):

"Some IW [irregular warfare] activities, such as terrorism and transnational crime, violate international law. U.S. law and national policy prohibit U.S. military forces or OGAs from engaging in or supporting such activities. However, since adversaries employ terrorism and transnational criminal activities against the interests of the United States and its partners, these activities are included below as examples of the range of operations and activities that can be conducted as part of IW:
"Terrorism, Transnational criminal activities, including narco-trafficking, illicit arms dealing, and illegal financial transactions, that support or sustain IW.
At the core of IW are insurgency and COIN [counterinsurgency]. The purpose of insurgency is to overthrow and replace an established government or societal structure. Terrorism and CT are activities conducted as part of IW and are frequently subactivities of insurgency and COIN. However, terrorism may also stand alone when its purpose is to coerce or intimidate governments or societies without overthrowing them."

So now it's official, documented and undeniable. Stop living in lala-land and wake up to the real world, because this is how governments operate.
Merry Christmas.

The Obama Cabinet

1. TIMOTHY GEITHNER – TREASURY SECRETARY

Bilderberg, Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, president and CEO of Federal Reserve Bank of New York, director of policy development for IMF, member Group of Thirty (G30), employed at Kissinger & Associates, architect of the recent 2008 financial bailouts, mentored by Lawrence Summers and Robert Rubin.

2. PAUL VOLCKER – ECONOMIC RECOVERY ADVISORY BOARD

Bilderberg, Council on Foreign Relations, North American chairman of Trilateral Commission, Federal Reserve chairman during Carter and Reagan administrations, president of Federal Reserve Bank of New York, G30 member, chairman Rothschild Wolfensohn Company, key figure in the collapse of the gold standard during the Nixon administration, longtime associate of the Rockefeller family.

3. RAHM EMANUEL – CHIEF OF STAFF

Member of Israeli Defense Force, staunch Zionist, senator, Board of Directors for Freddie Mac, member of Bill Clinton’s finance campaign committee, made $16.2 million during 2.5 years as an investment banker for Wasserstein Perella. His father was a member of the Israeli Irgun terrorist group.

4. LAWRENCE SUMMERS – NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL

Bilderberg, Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, treasury secretary during Clinton administration, chief economist at World Bank, former president of Harvard University, Brookings Institute board member, huge proponent of globalization while working for the IMF, protégé of David Rockefeller, mentored by Robert Rubin.

5. DAVID AXELROD – SENIOR ADVISOR

Political consultant whose past clients include Sens. Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Christopher Dodd; main Obama fixer in the William Ayers and Reverend Wright scandals.

6. HILLARY CLINTON – SECRETARY OF STATE

Bilderberg, Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, clandestine CIA asset used to infiltrate the anti-war movement at Yale University and the Watergate hearings, senior partner at the Rose Law Firm, key figure in the Mena drug trafficking affair, architect of the Waco disaster, implicated in the murder/ cover-up of Vince Foster, and many other deaths.

7. JOSEPH BIDEN – VICE PRESIDENT

Bilderberg, Council on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senator since 1972, member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, current chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

8. BILL RICHARDSON – COMMERCE SECRETARY

Bilderberg, Council on Foreign Relations, former U.S. congressman, chairman of the Democratic National Convention in 2004, employee of Kissinger Associates, UN ambassador, governor of New Mexico, energy secretary, major player in the Monica Lewinsky cover-up with Bilderberg luminary Vernon Jordan.

9. ROBERT GATES – DEFENSE SECRETARY

Bilderberg, Council on Foreign Relations, former CIA Director, defense secretary under President Bush, co-chaired CFR task force with Zbigniew Brzezinski, knee-deep in the Iran-Contra scandal, named in a 1999 class action lawsuit pertaining to the Mena drug trafficking affair.

10. TOM DASCHLE – HEALTH SECRETARY

Bilderberg, Council on Foreign Relations, former Senate majority leader, Citibank lackey, mentored by Robert Rubin.

11. ERIC HOLDER – ATTORNEY GENERAL

Key person in the pardon of racketeer Marc Rich, deputy attorney general under Janet Reno, facilitated the pardon of 16 Puerto Rican FALN terrorists under Bill Clinton.

12. JANET NAPOLITANO – HOMELAND SECURITY DIRECTOR

Council on Foreign Relations, Arizona governor, attorney for Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas hearings, U.S. attorney during the Clinton administration, instrumental in the OKC cover-up, where she declared, “We’ll pursue every bit of evidence and every lead,” described as another Janet Reno, soft on illegal immigration (i.e. pro-amnesty and drivers licenses to illegals).

13. GEN. JAMES L. JONES – NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR

Bilderberg, Trilateral Commission, European supreme allied commander, special envoy for Middle-East Security during Bush administration, board of directors for Chevron and Boeing, NATO commander, member of Brent Scowcroft’s Institute for International Affairs along with Zbigniew Brzezinski, Bobby Ray Inman, Bilderberg luminary Henry Kissinger and former CIA Director John Deutch.

14. SUSAN RICE – U.N. AMBASSADOR

Council on Foreign Relations, Rhodes scholar, campaign foreign policy advisor to presidential candidates John Kerry and Michael Dukakis, member of Bill Clinton’s National Security Council and assistant secretary of state for Africa, member of the Brookings Institute (funded by the Ford Foundation and the Rockefellers), and member of the Aspen Strategy Group (teeming with Bilderberg insiders such as Richard Armitage, Brent Scowcroft, and Madeleine Albright).

15. TOM VILSACK - SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE

Council on Foreign Relations. Vilsack has repeatedly demonstrated a preference for large industrial farms and genetically modified crops; as Iowa state governor, he originated the seed pre-emption bill in 2005, effectively blocking local communities from regulating where genetically engineered crops would be grown; additionally, Vilsack was the founder and former chair of the Governor's Biotechnology Partnership, and was named Governor of the Year by the Biotechnology Industry Organization, an industry lobbying group. Vilsack has also been known to travel in the Monsanto jet.

UPDATE:

16. DENNIS C. BLAIR - INTELLIGENCE CZAR

Council on Foreign Relations. Past Research Projects include Independent Task Force on U.S. Policy Toward China.
***

CHANGE?!?!?

EU Police State

I'll post this here:

"As they prepare to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, European governments must do more than just congratulate themselves on the continued appeal of fundamental freedoms. Our right to respect for private life is at risk from undue interference by state agencies.

Surveillance systems no longer just watch. High-definition CCTV is combined with face-recognition software; motorway cameras can read car licence plates and track selected cars; a new generation of satellite-based surveillance tools are being developed; computer programs can monitor, screen and analyse billions of calls and emails simultaneously, in real time; and new software can supposedly identify "suspicious behaviour" or "hostile intent".

The security services have developed virtually undetectable bugs, tracing technologies and "spy ware" that can be surreptitiously installed on a suspect's personal computer. Last month, the lower house in the German parliament approved draft legislation giving the police the power to conduct "remote searches" of personal computers. Last week, the EU adopted a new strategy on "cyber crime" that proposes "remote searches" and "cyber patrols".

The coming years will see the mandatory fingerprinting of all EU passport holders, the creation of sprawling central government databases and new data-matching systems that link the fingerprint and DNA databases to EU border control and police information systems. A new generation of biometric identity documents and handheld fingerprint scanners linked to these information systems has the potential to transform policing on the streets as well as security checks at airports.

It is becoming more and more difficult to identify the line between the individual right to privacy on the one hand and the right of state agents to access highly personal information on the other. Irrationally, governments tend now to view laws that safeguard the collection, storing and sharing of personal information as obstacles to effective counter-terrorism measures.

Judicial and democratic controls are falling by the wayside. The UK's "data retention" regime, for example, has removed the obligation on the police to seek judicial authorisation for access to telecoms records; all that is required is the consent of a senior officer. Last year, the UK police force – which now has direct access to the larger customer databases – used these new powers some 500,000 times. As mandatory data retention is extended to internet service providers, this type of surveillance will only increase.

EU law has also placed obligations on the financial and air travel sectors to retain customer records for long periods for police purposes. Combining these and other datasets creates a previously unimaginably detailed picture of our lives and interests, our cultural, religious and political affiliations, and our financial and medical health.

As Sir Ken Macdonald, the former director of public prosecutions, wisely commented recently, we need to think carefully about the type of brave new world we are building for ourselves.

If the human right to privacy is to survive a generation, never mind another 60 years, then European societies must have a serious discussion about surveillance techniques, their limits and how to control them. This will not undermine our security but secure our freedom and democracy.

Thomas Hammarberg is the Council of Europe commissioner for human rights and Ben Hayes is an associate director of Statewatch."

***

There's a document that details this plan, by Tony Bunyan from Statewatch.org. It is a 60-page pdf-file that you can download here. Go read it. I'd also like you to help me to email your MEPs and demand an explanation and also ask them what they are going to do about this. This is serious. This is what Huxley, Russell, Welles and many other technocrats and transhumanists have talked about decades ago. This is Brave New World and 1984 combined. Stand up for liberty.

Happiness Is Contagious

From Reuters, of all places:

Happiness is contagious, researchers reported on Thursday.

The same team that demonstrated obesity and smoking spread in networks has shown that the more happy people you know, the more likely you are yourself to be happy.

And getting connected to happy people improves a person's own happiness, they reported in the British Medical Journal.

"What we are dealing with is an emotional stampede," Nicholas Christakis, a professor of medical sociology at Harvard Medical School in Boston, said in a telephone interview.

Christakis and James Fowler, a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego, have been using data from 4,700 children of volunteers in the Framingham Heart Study, a giant health study begun in Framingham, Massachusetts in 1948.

They have been analyzing a trove of facts from tracking sheets dating back to 1971, following births, marriages, death, and divorces. Volunteers also listed contact information for their closest friends, co-workers, and neighbors.

They assessed happiness using a simple, four-question test.

"People are asked how often during the past week, one, I enjoyed life, two, I was happy, three, I felt hopeful about the future, and four, I felt that I was just as good as other people," Fowler said.

The 60 percent of people who scored highly on all four questions were rated as happy, while the rest were designated unhappy.

CONNECTIONS EQUAL HAPPINESS

People with the most social connections -- friends, spouses, neighbors, relatives -- were also the happiest, the data showed. "Each additional happy person makes you happier," Christakis said.

"Imagine that I am connected to you and you are connected to others and others are connected to still others. It is this fabric of humanity, like an American patch quilt."

Each person sits on a different-colored patch. "Imagine that these patches are happy and unhappy patches. Your happiness depends on what is going on in the patch around you," Christakis said.

"It is not just happy people connecting with happy people, which they do. Above and beyond, there is this contagious process going on."

And happiness is more contagious than unhappiness, they discovered.

"If a social contact is happy, it increases the likelihood that you are happy by 15 percent," Fowler said. "A friend of a friend, or the friend of a spouse or a sibling, if they are happy, increases your chances by 10 percent," he added.

A happy third-degree friend -- the friend or a friend of a friend -- increases a person's chances of being happy by 6 percent.

"But every extra unhappy friend increases the likelihood that you'll be unhappy by 7 percent," Fowler said.

The finding is interesting but it is useful, too Fowler said.

"Among other benefits, happiness has been shown to have an important effect on reduced mortality, pain reduction, and improved cardiac function. So better understanding of how happiness spreads can help us learn how to promote a healthier society," he said.

The study also fits in with other data that suggested -- in 1984 -- that having $5,000 extra increased a person's chances of becoming happier by about 2 percent.

"A happy friend is worth about $20,000," Christakis said.

***

Spread happiness! Lots of ugly things happening around the world but we need to remember that once we spread happiness, we can make this world a better place. Since most crime is either poverty or substance abuse related then by creating happiness and joy we can increase safety and joy. I feel like I've been whining for the past few months but from now on I will be focusing on the positive side of the Truth movement. We need to realize that the Elite controlling the world is max 1000 people. We have 6 billion people living on this planet, and we can make a difference. We can and we must. I encourage you, my friend, to take action against injustice, corruption and evil. We need to keep going and expose evil but not with non-constructive pessimism but with courage and a smile on our face.
The time to take action is now. Don't worry, you're been looked after. I am pretty sure of that.

Outrage III

From TimesOnline:

"Mumbai attacks ‘were a ploy to wreck Obama plan to isolate al-Qaeda’
The carnage may have been an attempt to put Pakistan and India at each other’s throats and kill US hopes for the region -

Officials and analysts in the region believe that last week’s atrocities were designed to provoke a crisis, or even a war, between the nuclear-armed neighbours, diverting Islamabad’s attention from extremism in tribal areas bordering Afghanistan and thus relieving pressure on al-Qaeda, Taleban and other militants based there.

One analyst even described the attacks as a “pre-emptive strike” against Barack Obama’s strategy to put Pakistan and Afghanistan at the centre of US foreign policy.

Pakistan has deployed more than 100,000 troops along its porous border with Afghanistan, where US and Nato forces are fighting against the Taleban, al Qaeda and other militants. Some 35,000 of those Pakistani troops are involved in the fight against al Qaeda and Taleban militants who have been sheltering in Pakistan’s northern tribal areas since late 2001.

Pakistani officials and analysts said that withdrawing troops would also benefit local militant groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed. “The withdrawal of troops will give a huge space to the militants,” said Hasan Askari Rizvi, a Pakistani defence analyst and former professor at Punjab University.

“The main objective of the militants involved in the Mumbai attack was to destablise the region… They will thrive in the event of war between the two countries [India and Pakistan].”

However, Western intelligence agencies have recently perceived a growing nexus between these and other, militant groups such as the Pakistani Taleban and al Qaeda. In June, it was reported that some 300 militant leaders from a number groups including Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad met in the Pakistani garrison city of Rawalpindi.

There they reportedly agreed that while the Kashmir struggle remained important, their primary focus should be the fight against international forces in Afghanistan.

Just a few weeks later, nine US soldiers were killed in an attack on a combat outpost at Wanat in the Afghan border province of Nuristan that displayed unusual military competence. Intelligence reports subsequently assessed that the assault included a significant Lashkar-e-Taiba element, as well as al Qaeda fighters.

The growing relationship between al Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Taiba may explain the scale and sophistication of the Bombay attacks, said Dr Kanchan Lakshman of the South Asia Terrorism Portal. “It would also suggest why they targeted Americans, British and Israelis,” he said.

He added that he had heard from an Indian intelligence official that the Mumbai attack had been funded by Saudi money, again suggesting an al Qaeda link.

Other Indian analysts said the attack appeared to be an attempt to undermine US policy towards India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

“There’s a lot of clamour for action against Pakistan from India,” Pratap Bhanu Mehta, the head of the Centre for Policy Research. “This attack was not just an attempt to scuttle India’s peace process with Pakistan. It was in many ways a pre-emptive strike against [Barack] Obama’s strategy for the region.”

The U.S. President elect has proposed increasing troop levels in Afghanistan and stepping up the pressure on Pakistan to attack militants on its territory. In exchange, he has suggested appointing an special envoy to help resolve Pakistan’s territorial dispute with India over Kashmir.

A crisis in India-Pakistan relations would scupper both plans.

Doctor Antonio Giustozzi, an expert on Afghanistan at the London School of Economics, said Washington could weather such a crisis, but concurred on the militants’ aims.

“I think that the terrorists have made a calculation that aims to worsen relations between India and Pakistan and embarrass the Pakistan government, in the hope that the Indians make an uncontrolled response,” he said.

That, he said, would “strengthen the militants’ hand and compromise the campaign by Islamabad against extremists by diverting troops back to the Indian border.”

***

I MEAN COME ON! This is the worst kind of propaganda I have ever seen. Let's hope that the Indian officials will straighten up their minds and start watching the real problem, that is the DOMESTIC militant action and tribal warfare. This has nothing to do with ISI (which is a WELL-KNOWN CIA-proxy) or Al-Qaeda (which is a well-known CIA-proxy). Get your house in order in Kashmir and stop playing ball with Brzezinski. As for the readers, start educating your family and friends because if they manage to pull this off, it may be a start for a major international conflict, 'cos both India and Pakistan have THERMONUCLEAR WEAPONS.

Outrage II

From The Hindu:

"U.K. intelligence suspects Al-Qaeda hand

Hasan Suroor

LONDON: British intelligence agencies suspect Al-Qaeda is behind the Mumbai attacks, pointing out that taking Western hostages fits in with the pattern of its previous operations, especially the 2002 Bali bombings when Al-Qaeda-linked terrorists attacked restaurants and clubs frequented by tourists.

Security sources were reported in the British media as saying targeting Western citizens suggested a “typical Al-Qaeda-style activity.” The attacks, seen as the most coordinated operation since 9/11, were believed to be in “retaliation” for recent American air attacks on suspected Al-Qaeda hideouts in the tribal areas on Pakistan-Afghanistan border that reportedly killed a number of leading Al-Qaeda militants and its supporters.

In recent weeks, intelligence agencies had reportedly picked up “chatter” suggesting that Al-Qaeda or groups linked to it were planning a “spectacular” partly as a response to CIA’s anti-terror operations in Pakistan and partly to “grab headlines” in the run-up to the change of government in America.

India was chosen as a target because that’s where Al-Qaeda has “sufficient resources to carry out an attack,” according to one counter-terror expert quoted in The Times.

The newspaper said the “sheer audacity” of the terrorists had “familiar elements of Al-Qaeda.”

Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called the attacks “outrageous” and said Britain stood “solidly” behind the Indian government."

***

Be very, very careful who you're going to vote. Anyone who ever supports these ridiculous claims should be re-educated immediately. I beg you, contact the media and tell them the truth about Al-CIAda. Innocent lives in Pakistan are in danger because of this western propaganda. Pakistan is a potential ally of China, that's the truth. In fact, there have been significant co-ops between the two countries in recent months.

Outrage

What happened in India is terrible. Violence and mindless killing is horrible and ought to be judged as wrongdoing and a serious crime. However, what's even more terrible is that the western media, namely Telegraph, blames AL-QAEDA for the terrorist attacks:

"Witnesses said the terrorists, thought to be linked to Al-Qaeda, were specifically targeting British and American visitors." AND: "The Indian Mujahideen, a little known terrorist group thought to sympathise with al-Qaeda, has carried out a series of attacks in India in recent months. More than 200 people were killed in seven blasts on suburban trains and stations in July 2006 and another 46 died in two bombings near the historic Gateway of India – close to the hotels targeted in the latest attack."

I really really hope, from the bottom of my heart that the bombings of Pakistan and Afghanistan will not escalate in to a fullblown invasion. Al-Qaeda does not exist. It is a CIA-funded militia created to stir the former Soviet Empire in Afghanistan in the 1980s, with the help of Brzezinski I might add.

I'm sick of this! I can't take it anymore!!! Bunch of rich powerhungry elitists playing chess on a global board and bombing the living daylights out of brown people!! We need to put these people behind bars for good. GRAAAAAARGH!!!!!!!!


EDIT: From Pakistan Daily, 8 days ago:

"While CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden was accusing Pakistan over the weekend of becoming the hub of all terrorism in the world, a newspaper in Malta on Sunday published the chilling story of an Indian priest who escaped death and recounted to his audience how India’s Hindu terrorist organizations burned ordinary Christians alive and raped nuns on the streets of Orrissa in east India in August.

In short, Pakistan is America’s and Britain’s favorite punching bag, but India is fast becoming the new terror central. And not all of it is by accident. The Indians have used this technique in Sri Lanka, where Indian money, weapons and indoctrination kept a civil war alive for decades. In China, the Indians are recruiting, training and arming Tibetan rebels fighting Beijing."

Dark Africa

Earlier I mentioned Africa to be one the key places in US foreign policy because of oil and minerals. Today I found an article by mr. Engdahl which supports this. Here's something that caught my attention:

"The Kivu region of the Congo is the geological repository of some of the world’s greatest strategic minerals. The eastern border straddling Rwanda and Uganda, runs on the eastern edge of the Great African Rift Valley, believed by geologists to be one of the richest repositories of minerals on the face of the earth.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo contains more than half the world’s cobalt. It holds one-third of its diamonds, and, extremely significantly, fully three-quarters of the world resources of columbite-tantalite or "coltan" -- a primary component of computer microchips and printed circuit boards, essential for mobile telephones, laptops and other modern electronic devices.

America Minerals Fields, Inc., a company heavily involved in promoting the 1996 accession to power of Laurent Kabila, was, at the time of its involvement in the Congo’s civil war, headquartered in Hope, Arkansas. Major stockholders included long-time associates of former President Clinton going back to his days as Governor of Arkansas. Several months before the downfall of Zaire’s French-backed dictator, Mobutu, Laurent Desire Kabila based in Goma, Eastern Zaire had renegotiated the mining contracts with several US and British mining companies including American Mineral Fields. Mobutu’s corrupt rule was brought to a bloody end with the help of the US-directed International Monetary Fund.

Washington was not entirely comfortable with Laurent Kabila, who was finally assassinated in 2001. In a study released in April 1997 barely a month before President Mobutu Sese Seko fled the country, the IMF had recommended "halting currency issue completely and abruptly" as part of an economic recovery programme. A few months later upon assuming power in Kinshasa, the new government of Laurent Kabila Desire was ordered by the IMF to freeze civil service wages with a view to "restoring macro-economic stability." Eroded by hyperinflation, the average public sector wage had fallen to 30,000 new Zaires (NZ) a month, the equivalent of one US dollar."

And:

"Now, in comes the new US AFRICOM. Speaking to the International Peace Operations Association in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 27, General Kip Ward, Commander of AFRICOM defined the command's mission as, ‘in concert with other US government agencies and international partners, [to conduct] sustained security engagements through military-to-military programs, military-sponsored activities, and other military operations as directed to promote a stable and secure African environment in support of US foreign policy.’

The ‘military operations as directed to promote a stable and secure African environment in support of US foreign policy,’ today, are clearly aimed squarely at blocking China’s growing economic presence in the region.

In fact, as various Washington sources state openly, AFRICOM was created to counter the growing presence of China in Africa, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, to secure long-term economic agreements for raw materials from Africa in exchange for Chinese aid and production sharing agreements and royalties. By informed accounts, the Chinese have been far shrewder. Instead of offering only savage IMF-dictated austerity and economic chaos, China is offering large credits, soft loans to build roads and schools in order to create good will.

Dr. J. Peter Pham, a leading Washington insider who is an advisor of the US State and Defense Departments, states openly that among the aims of the new AFRICOM, is the objective of ‘protecting access to hydrocarbons and other strategic resources which Africa has in abundance ... a task which includes ensuring against the vulnerability of those natural riches and ensuring that no other interested third parties, such as China, India, Japan, or Russia, obtain monopolies or preferential treatment.’...

...Curiously, US and most European media neglect to report that small detail. It seems AFRICOM is off to a strong start as the opposition to China in Africa. The litmus will be who President Obama selects as his Africa person and whether he tries to weaken Congo President Joseph Kabila in favor of backing Nkunda’s death squads, naturally in the name of ‘restoring democracy.’."

***

Notice the Clintons again? That's Brzezinski, no doubt about it. Have a look at the earlier posts I've made. I repeat: The Endgame seems to be an open thermonuclear war with Russia and China. Interestingly enough, I've read a few reports on the Israeli and US regime to attack Iran when Obama gets in. Now, this to me seems highly controversial with the destruction of the neo-con imperialism and the Kissinger-inspired obsessions with the Middle-East (PNAC), but the again; they're all bunch of power-trippin' goofballs. It's really hard to say what's gonna happend next (Januray-February), but the long-term plan seems to become clearer and clearer every day.

Finnish Bilderbergers

* Krister Ahlström (1994)
* Esko Aho (1994)
* Martti Ahtisaari (1994, 1995, 1996)
* Antti Blåfield (2008)
* Georg Ehrnrooth (1994)
* Aatos Erkko (1994)
* Jukka Harmaja (1995)
* Eero Heinäluoma (2006)
* Olli-Pekka Heinonen (2001)
* Seppo Honkapohja (2008)
* Sirkka Hämäläinen (1994)
* Jaakko Ihamuotila (1994)
* Jaakko Iloniemi (1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997)
* Max Jakobson (1994)
* Atte Jääskeläinen (2007)
* Jyrki Katainen (2007)
* Sixten Korkman (2006)
* Olli Kivinen (2003)
* Jarl Köhler (1992, 1993, 1994)
* Johannes Koroma (1993)
* Paula Lehtomäki (2004)
* Paavo Lipponen (1998, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004)
* Björn Mattsson (1995)
* Sauli Niinistö (1997)
* Johan Nykopp (1964)
* Jorma Ollila (1994, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008)
* Ulf Sundqvist (1992)
* Christoffer Taxell (2002)
* Teija Tiilikainen (2002, 2007)
* Björn Wahlroos (2003)
* Matti Vanhala (1999)
* Pentti Vartia (1999)
* Gerhard Wendt (1994)
* Janne Virkkunen (1998, 2001)
* Pertti Voutilainen (1995)
* Raimo Väyrynen (2008)

Don't know what Bilderberg is?

Please do not exhale

“With the economy in bad shape and the possibility of a deep recession looming, the Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to levy new taxes—on cows and pigs,” American Farm Bureau Federation Director of Regulatory Relations Rick Krause told Wyoming Farm Bureau members at their annual meeting. Krause spoke in Sheridan on Nov. 7.

“This is no laughing matter,” Krause said. “The cow tax and the pig tax are parts of a larger scheme by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.”

“Under the proposal, if a state charged the “presumptive minimum rate” from the EPA, the cow tax would be $175 per dairy cow, $87.50 per head for beef cattle and a little more than $20 per pig,” Krause explained.

Krause explained that the U.S. Department of Agriculture says that a producer with more than 25 dairy cows, 50 beef cattle or 200 hogs would emit more than 100 tons of carbon and be subject to the permitting requirements. “These thresholds would impact 99 percent of dairy producers, over 90 percent of beef producers and 95 percent of hog producers in the United States,” Krause stated.

According to Krause, the EPA has issued an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in preparation to regulate automobile greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act (CAA). “The regulation of automobile emissions automatically initiates other provisions of the CAA,” Krause explained. “One of those provisions requires permits from anyone who emits more than 100 tons of a regulated pollutant per year and there are millions of sources that emit more than 100 tons of carbon.”

The Title V permits, that are essentially a cow and pig tax, are supposed to contain provisions designed to reduce or eliminate the emissions of the regulated pollutant. “Cows and pigs methane emissions come from natural and biological processes,” Krause stated.

“The economic costs to producers from the cow and pig tax would be great and could cause the cost of beef, pork and dairy prices to rise,” Krause continued. “The cow and pig tax would impose severe penalties on livestock producers in the United States without effectively reducing greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere.”

The comment deadline for the cow and pig tax is Nov. 28. Visit www.wyfb.org to find the link for information.

Global Warming and CoR quotes

I found an article from Telegraph that supports the tinfoiled schizophrenic mind of mine stating that certain international agencies falsify their data in order to push the agenda of Climate Change or global warming:

"A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore's chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record.

This was startling. Across the world there were reports of unseasonal snow and plummeting temperatures last month, from the American Great Plains to China, and from the Alps to New Zealand. China's official news agency reported that Tibet had suffered its "worst snowstorm ever". In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years.

So what explained the anomaly? GISS's computerised temperature maps seemed to show readings across a large part of Russia had been up to 10 degrees higher than normal. But when expert readers of the two leading warming-sceptic blogs, Watts Up With That and Climate Audit, began detailed analysis of the GISS data they made an astonishing discovery. The reason for the freak figures was that scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running.

The error was so glaring that when it was reported on the two blogs - run by the US meteorologist Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre, the Canadian computer analyst who won fame for his expert debunking of the notorious "hockey stick" graph - GISS began hastily revising its figures. This only made the confusion worse because, to compensate for the lowered temperatures in Russia, GISS claimed to have discovered a new "hotspot" in the Arctic - in a month when satellite images were showing Arctic sea-ice recovering so fast from its summer melt that three weeks ago it was 30 per cent more extensive than at the same time last year.

A GISS spokesman lamely explained that the reason for the error in the Russian figures was that they were obtained from another body, and that GISS did not have resources to exercise proper quality control over the data it was supplied with. This is an astonishing admission: the figures published by Dr Hansen's institute are not only one of the four data sets that the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) relies on to promote its case for global warming, but they are the most widely quoted, since they consistently show higher temperatures than the others.

If there is one scientist more responsible than any other for the alarm over global warming it is Dr Hansen, who set the whole scare in train back in 1988 with his testimony to a US Senate committee chaired by Al Gore. Again and again, Dr Hansen has been to the fore in making extreme claims over the dangers of climate change. (He was recently in the news here for supporting the Greenpeace activists acquitted of criminally damaging a coal-fired power station in Kent, on the grounds that the harm done to the planet by a new power station would far outweigh any damage they had done themselves.)

Yet last week's latest episode is far from the first time Dr Hansen's methodology has been called in question. In 2007 he was forced by Mr Watts and Mr McIntyre to revise his published figures for US surface temperatures, to show that the hottest decade of the 20th century was not the 1990s, as he had claimed, but the 1930s.

Another of his close allies is Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, who recently startled a university audience in Australia by claiming that global temperatures have recently been rising "very much faster" than ever, in front of a graph showing them rising sharply in the past decade. In fact, as many of his audience were aware, they have not been rising in recent years and since 2007 have dropped.

Dr Pachauri, a former railway engineer with no qualifications in climate science, may believe what Dr Hansen tells him. But whether, on the basis of such evidence, it is wise for the world's governments to embark on some of the most costly economic measures ever proposed, to remedy a problem which may actually not exist, is a question which should give us all pause for thought.

***

So there, now the CoR quotes. I've given you the sources for these documents before:

"The need for enemies seems to be a common historical factor. Some states have striven to overcome domestic failure and internal contradictions by blaming external enemies. The ploy of finding a scapegoat is as old as mankind itself - when things become too difficult at home, divert attention to adventure abroad. Bring the divided nation together to face an outside enemy, either a real one, or else one invented for the purpose."

AND

"In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. In their totality and their interactions these phenomena do constitute a common threat which must be confronted by everyone together. But in designating these dangers as the enemy, we fall into the trap, which we have already warned readers about, namely mistaking symptoms for causes. All these dangers are caused by human intervention in natural processes, and it is only through changed attitude and behaviour that they can be overcome. The real enemy then is humanity itself."

***

It's really about the one world religion that's being implemented through earth-worship and the UN agenda. Get real.

Theosphy, United Nations & the Elite

"The New Age movement is made up of those who follow a potpourri of beliefs and practices that fall outside the boundaries of the major traditional religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, animism, and Buddhism). Its manifestations are protean. Some Catholic nuns walk on labyrinths to contact the "Divine Feminine." Increasing numbers of health insurance companies have heeded consumers' demands to cover offbeat treatments, ranging from Ayurvedic herbal medicine to "therapeutic touch" - in which a healer's hands manipulate "energy fields" but never touch the patient's body. Hillary Clinton has contacted the spirit of Eleanor Roosevelt under the guidance of Jean Houston - a New York-based avatar who runs a "Mystery School," and who inspired the current fad of walking on labyrinths."

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky blended Eastern religion with Western occultism, establishing the Theosophical movement in 1875 in New York City. Theosophy has influenced occult, spiritualist, "New Thought," and New Age movements around the world since then. For Blavatsky, the Lord is not God; mankind is. She says, "Man is truly the manifested deity in both its aspects - good and evil." Since mankind is god, it follows that "mankind will become freed from its false gods, and find itself finally - SELF-REDEEMED." "the Aryan and other civilized nations"- is "god-informed" and capable of self-redemption. Others, "such human specimens as the Bushmen, the Veddhas of Ceylon, and some African tribes" are "lower human creatures," "inferior races" that are "now happily - owing to the wise adjustment of nature which ever works in that direction - fast dying out. Verily mankind is 'of one blood,' but not of the same essence." Part of Blavatsky's pantheon is the seven-headed "Serpent of Darkness" bearing the swastika on its crowns, an entity worshipped "in India, among esoteric Buddhists, in Egypt, Chaldea, etc." The Nazis borrowed the swastika symbol and ideas of Aryan racial supremacy from the Thule Society and other German theosophists, and then made their own murderous adaptations to occultism.

In the early 1900s, Alice A. Bailey carried forward the teachings of Theosophy in the United States. She founded the Lucifer Publishing Company in New York City in 1922, and renamed it the Lucis Publishing Company in 1923. Between 1922 and 1949, Bailey published 24 books of "revelations" that she claimed to have channeled from the Tibetan ascended "spiritual master" Djwhal Khul.

Lucis Trust promulgates the work of an "Ascended Master" who was working 'through' Alice Bailey for some 30 years. The Lucis Trust Publishing Company and their many fronts and organizations worship an "Externalized Hierarchy" of "Ascended Masters," who carry out the work of a Luciferian "master plan" for the establishment of a permanent "Age of Aquarius" ruled by one "Sanat Kumara", the "Lord of the World."

Lucis Trust is a powerful institution that enjoys "Consultative Status" with the United Nations, which permits it to have a close working relationship with the U.N., including a seat on the weekly sessions, but most importantly, influence with powerful business and national leaders throughout the world. Through its founding of World Goodwill, Lucis Trust is "aggressively involved in promoting a globalist ideology":

"Authors and participants in its various conferences read like a Who's Who of globalist insiders. Featured on its website, for example, is the Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities, put forth in April 1998 as a companion document to the notorious UN Universal Declaration on Human Rights. Signatories to the World Goodwill document include: Helmut Schmidt, former chancellor of West Germany; Malcolm Fraser, former Australian prime minister; Oscar Arias Sanchez, former prime minister of Costa Rica; Shimon Peres; Robert McNamara; Paul Volcker; and Jimmy Carter."

Lucis Trust directs an activity called Triangles in Education, which is partnered with groups that "make some contribution to the task of laying the foundations for the new education." This, according to Bailey, is part of the overall work of the New Group of World Servers, "a band of obedient workers and servers of the WORD." The word being the teachings of her channeled Master Djwhal Khul, through her voluminous occult works. The word, has also been heeded by the likes of Robert Muller — former assistant Secretary General of the United Nations and winner of the UNESCO Prize for Peace Education in 1989 for his World Core Curriculum. He said, "The underlying philosophy upon which The Robert Muller School is based will be found in the teaching set forth in the books of Alice A. Bailey by the Tibetan teacher, Djwhal Khul."

This is the mentor and teacher of Bailey, H.P. Blavatsky from Isis Unveiled:
"Once the key to Genesis is in our hands it is the scientific and symbolic Kabbala which unveils the secret. The Great Serpent of the Garden of Eden and the "Lord God" are identical ...
Stand in awe of him, and sin not, speak his name with trembling ... It is Satan who is the god of our planet and the only god ...
When the Church, therefore, curses Satan, it curses the cosmic reflection of God ...
In this case it is but natural ... to view Satan, the Serpent of Genesis as the real creator and benefactor, the Father of Spiritual mankind.
For it is he who was the "Harbinger of Light," bright radiant Lucifer, who opened the eyes of automaton (Adam) created by Jehovah, as alleged; and he who was first to whisper, "In the day yea eat there of, ye shall be as Elohim, knowing good and evil" -- can only be regarded in the light of a Saviour. An "adversary" to Jehovah ... he still remains in esoteric truth the ever loving "Messenger"... who conferred on us spiritual instead of physical immortality ...

Satan, or Lucifer, represents the active ... "Centrifugal Energy of the Universe" in a cosmic sense ... Fitly is he ... and his adherents ... consigned to the "sea of fire," because it is the Sun ... the fount of life in our system, where they are petrified ... and churned up to re-arrange them for another life; that Sun which, as the origin of the active principle of our Earth, is at once the Home and the Source of the Mundane Satan"

For mankind to enter the New Age, we must abandon the traditional religions, especially the monotheistic faiths: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Alice Bailey said, "Palestine should no longer be called the Holy Land; its sacred places are only the passing relics of three dead and gone religions. ... Judaism is old, obsolete, and separative and has no true message for the spiritually minded which cannot be better given by the newer faiths; the Moslem faith has served its purpose and all true Moslems await the coming of the Imam Mahdi who will lead them to light and to spiritual victory; the Christian faith also has served its purpose; its Founder seeks to bring a new Gospel and a new message that will enlighten all men everywhere."

Bailey's call to "recognise the divinity in all faiths" is belied by her hatred for traditional religions. This avatar of New Age globalism was willing to nuke the Vatican if necessary. In 1946, she wrote: "The atomic bomb ... belongs to the United Nations for use (or let us rather hope, simply for threatened use) when aggressive action on the part of any nation rears its ugly head. It does not essentially matter whether that aggression is the gesture of any particular nation or group of nations or whether it is generated by the political groups of any powerful religious organisation, such as the Church of Rome, who are as yet unable to leave politics alone." Bailey wrote that the Jews' sufferings were "the working out of the retributive aspect of the Law of Cause and Effect ... Though much that has happened to the Jews originated in their past history and in their pronounced attitude of separativeness and nonassimilability, and in their emphasis upon material good ... the agents who have brought the evil karma upon them equally incur the retributive aspects of the same law."

In Western Europe and North America since 1945, any public figure suspected of anti-Semitism has been made a pariah. This sanction has not been applied to Alice Bailey, her teachings, and her Theosophist followers. On the contrary. Betsy Stang, an "interfaith minister" at the Wittenberg Center and an active participant in the URI, said, "Some of Bailey's writing is really remarkable, very Gothic. You would put her with Blavatsky, Gurdjieff, and Steiner. She is historically very important. In my mind, Bailey has beautiful, poetic evocations in her books."

Dr. Jim Garrison, President of the State of the World Forum (SWF) and a self-described follower of "inclusive Buddhism," said in 1998 that the days of dogmatic religion are ending: "I think that Judaism and Christianity and Islam have done real damage to the planet because they have too many answers. ... If my theology is an impediment I have to get rid of my theology. ... The conservative Jews and the conservative Christians and the conservative Imams they think what I'm saying is heresy, but I just say to these people, your box is too small, get into a bigger box." And: "...during times of transition orthodoxies fall and the heretics and the mavericks are the people creating the new orthodoxy." Garrison to traditional monotheism: change or die.

Again, Bailey says that "Only those will remain as guides and leaders of the human spirit who speak from living experience, and who know no creedal barriers; they will recognise the onward march of revelation and the new emerging truths. These truths will be founded on the ancient realities but will be adapted to modern need and will manifest progressively the revelation of the divine nature and quality." Bailey believed that the New Religion would work closely with the United Nations: "Thus the expressed aims and efforts of the United Nations will be eventually brought to fruition and a new church of God, gathered out of all religions and spiritual groups, will unitedly bring to an end the great heresy of separateness."

New Age leaders agree that the last 2,000 years - the Age of Pisces - were a time for development of individual identity and personality. In the coming Age of Aquarius, this will change. People will happily let go of individualism and merge their own goals and identity into that of the whole race. As Alice Bailey said, "Selfishness, as we now understand it, will gradually disappear, for the will of the individual will voluntarily be blended into the group will."

Alice Bailey and her followers at the Lucis Trust have repeatedly praised revolutions and dictatorships, approving them as part of the workings of "the Plan." In September 1939, she said, "The men who inspired the initiating French revolution; the great conqueror, Napoleon; Bismarck, creator of a nation; Mussolini, the regenerator of his people; Hitler who lifted a distressed people upon his shoulders; Lenin, the idealist, Stalin and Franco" were "all expressions of the Shamballa force" - a force which Bailey extolled. She viewed the dictatorships of her time as a positive part of human evolution, fostering humanity's "power to regard himself as part of a whole." Alice Bailey criticized the Stalinist regime in the USSR but said that "The true communistic platform is sound; it is brotherhood in action and it does not - in its original platform - run counter to the spirit of Christ."

The implosion of the Soviet Empire has not dampened the enthusiasm of today's New Age writers for world government and "socialism". Robert Muller favors using the European Union as the basis for "World Union," unless the UN is "rapidly transformed" into "an effective world political union." Then, "since Russia reaches into the North of Asia, the old dream of Eurasia can be implemented. The plan of
Robert Schuman who dreamt of integrating the African countries into Eurafrica can be implemented ... In the meantime, the US can organize the Americas from Alaska to the [sic] Tierra del Fuego and the two unions can be integrated into a World Union." This ought to be interesting news for Latin Americans who cherish independence from the Yankees. Projects for the world government would include global prohibition of alcohol, a global ID card for all, global police and military forces under the control of "the Ministry of Peace" (the same term that Orwell used in 1984 for Big Brother's military force), a global secret service, "world penal legislation," a global property register similar to "what the young French revolutionaries did for France," a global income tax, and a global computer database to house "all data on our planet, on its environment, and on humanity."

***

OK! Now when we know what Lucis Trust, the Windsors (and the UN) are up to, let's take a look what organizations are associated with the Windsor Bank (for LT is part of the superlarge force UN):

* International Fund For Development
* The Hall Family Foundation
* The Rockefeller Foundation
* WHO/Habitat For Humanity
* The Lucis Trust (NGO); United Nations
* National Resources Defense Council
* Capital Missions Company
* Investors Circle
* The Coca-Cola Foundation
* Fellowship For International Education
* International Monetary Agency
* International Center For Educational Advancement
* Christian Children's Fund (Worldwide)
* BAMPAC (Black America's Political Action)
* Fellowship For Reconciliation
* National Institute For the Advancement Of Science
* International Association For Environmental Cooperation
* World Wildlife Federation
* Council On Foreign Relations (CFR)
* CARICOM
* NAFTA
* MERCOSOR
* Council Of Emerging Nations
* Freedom Communications, Inc.
* The European Institute (Foreign Affairs Magazine)
* United Nations Association of The USA
* The NAACP (National Association of Colored People)
* The Royal Heritage Charitable Relief Fund

***

Ok, so who donated the land for the UN building? The Rockefellers. Lucis Trust is like this: Fifty years at the United Nations plaza. Currently located on Wall Street in New York. Lucis Trust provides worldwide financial support for the Arcane School, World Goodwill, Triangles, Lucis Publishing, Lucis Productions, Lucis Trust Libraries, and the New Group of World Servers. Maintains the UN meditation room.

***

Google more. Lots of sources available. Sheesh...

China, Africa and Oil

From CFR:

The U.S.-China competition in Africa extends beyond securing access to oil. China blocked U.S.-backed efforts at the UN to heavily sanction the Sudanese government for its alleged role supporting attacks on civilians in Darfur, in which an estimated two hundred thousand people have been killed. And China’s massive no-strings-attached loans undermine U.S. attempts to improve transparency and good governance in Africa, writes Ian Taylor in Foreign Policy in Focus. “It’s on human rights and governance, not oil or strict security matters, that the interests of the United States and China will likely collide,” argues Paul McLeary in Foreign Policy. But the official charged with leading the World Bank’s infrastructure lending, Katherine Sierra, tells CFR.org that the bank sees China as “potentially a good partner in developing countries.” She says, the bank has invited China to take part in a consortium that seeks to make infrastructure investment in Africa effective.

***

Another one:

Some experts suggest that the need to secure natural resources—whether oil, metal, or timber—is the driving component of Chinese foreign policy toward Africa. China's manufacturing sector has created enormous demand for aluminum, copper, nickel, iron ore, and oil. As this trend was under way in 2005, David Zweig and Bi Jianhai wrote in Foreign Affairs that China "has been able to adapt its foreign policy to its domestic development strategy" to an unprecedented level by encouraging state-controlled companies to seek out exploration and supply contracts with countries that produce oil, gas, and other resources. At the same time, Beijing aggressively courts the governments of those countries with diplomacy, trade deals, debt forgiveness, and aid packages.

***

Now, as Webster Tarpley rightfully points out in his analysis on the infamous Alex Jones Show, the need for the change in the US foreign policy contrdicts the neo-con agenda concerning China and especially Russia. The current state of affairs seems to be the need to kick the Chinese out of Africa. Whether this be done by military actions or through the pseudo-humanitarian efforts of the UN peacekeeping operations, it is not clear. Although I'd like to point out that there's something of that nature going on today in Congo. Also Joe Biden has been blaming Sudan and calling for international operations on the Darfur situation it is reasonable to point out the analysis of the Chinese involvment particularly in Sudan. The CFR document linked above states the following:
"Analysts say China's most successful African energy investment has been in Sudan, which now sends 60 percent of its oil output to China."

So I don't see any reason to be optimistic on this subject. Looks like the imperialism has not reduced but rather shapeshifted and "had a facelift" under "left cover", as I have pointed out before. The endgame is a direct confrontation with Russia, as it was with the Carter adminstration in which Brzezinski played a key role. But we'll have to wait and see.. I'd rather be wrong on this one.

Change

This is from the official Obama adm. site, Change.gov:

"When you choose to serve -- whether it's your nation, your community or simply your neighborhood -- you are connected to that fundamental American ideal that we want life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness not just for ourselves, but for all Americans. That's why it's called the American dream."

The Obama Administration will call on Americans to serve in order to meet the nation’s challenges. President-Elect Obama will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will create a new Classroom Corps to help teachers in underserved schools, as well as a new Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, and Veterans Corps. Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year. Obama will encourage retiring Americans to serve by improving programs available for individuals over age 55, while at the same time promoting youth programs such as Youth Build and Head Start.

***

Blackshirts.

The Warning Choir

Looks like the warning choir reached a new member, none other than mr. Brzezinski. Trilateral Commission co-founder and top Obama advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski told CNN yesterday that Barack Obama would be faced with “imminent problems” in the context of foreign policy once he takes office, echoing prophetic warnings made recently by Joe Biden, Colin Powell and Madeleine Albright.

And Colin Powell made similar statements when he endorsed Obama on Meet the Press, saying “There’s going to be a crisis which will come along on the 21st, 22nd of January that we don’t even know about right now.”

So umm... They're giving us the dates but they're not sure what's gonna happen? Riiiight. Sounds like preconditioning to me. Anyways, whether it's gonna be economic or an act of war, something's gonna come up, and I think that's exactly what Obama is trying to come up with: Change.

China, Russia renounce the dollar

From RIA Novosti:

MOSCOW. (Anatoly Gorev for RIA Novosti) - The recent meeting between Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart, Wen Jiabao, created a financial sensation. Wen said that the two nations could withstand the global financial crisis if they joined forces; Putin urged him to go farther and stop using U.S. dollars in Russian-Chinese settlements.

This idea is nothing new. Russia and China reached a "framework" agreement in November 2007, which was followed by China's similar agreement with Belarus.

Earlier this year, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez turned against the dollar as well when they asked their OPEC partners to stop using the dollar for oil settlements. They argued that the "green" currency was no longer reliable and it was high time they look for a more stable and predictable alternative.

Curiously, unlike the Ahmadinejad and Chavez appeal, Putin's proposal came as the dollar was on the rebound and even began pushing the euro. Economists even started talking in terms of a reversal of the global currency trends, rather than the temporary appreciation of the dollar.

Analysts predict that the dollar will regain its value in the next few months. They do not see anything which could hinder its steady growth.

Yet, Putin proposed that Russia and China stop using it as a settlement instrument. What is it - lack of confidence in the dollar's prospects or a political move?

Experts differ on this count. Igor Nikolayev, chief strategic analyst at FBK private auditing firm, sounded skeptical: "I think it was a political statement rather than an economic decision. There is a dominant public sentiment that the United States is the source of all evil, so let's stop using the dollar," he explained.

One has to bear in mind, though, that some other currency will need to be found to replace the dollar for international settlements. China is unlikely to use the ruble, and Russia would be equally reluctant to accept the yuan.

"They could opt for the euro, but its future is uncertain, especially considering current developments on global financial markets. It is also unclear whether China would be happy to start using the euro while most of its international reserves are held in dollars," he added.

There are more questions than answers here, Nikolayev concluded.

To be objective, one has to admit that other analysts are not as skeptical about the possibility of using other currency units between Russian and Chinese companies.

Andrei Marinchenko, director general of the Kalita-Finance company, said the idea was quite realistic. Moreover, he thinks that the ruble stands a good chance of being selected as a reserve currency, primarily because the Chinese are disappointed in the dollar but aren't yet accustomed to the euro.

Only time will show who is right. But to stop using the dollar in Russian-Chinese settlements is too important a decision to make for purely political reasons - that much is obvious.

Suppose we do it; what will be the implications for Russian businesses, how will the new financial and political reality affect their incomes and savings?

Marinchenko is convinced of a beneficial impact. According to Marinchenko, once the ruble is recognized as a settlement unit, it will enjoy growing demand with Chinese companies and individuals. The Russian currency will consequently grow stronger and more influential globally.

Russia will also become immune to many shocks from stock market meltdowns and won't have to fear future devaluation or revaluation of the ruble. It will happen because the role of the U.S. dollar, which has earned a reputation as an unstable and unreliable currency lately, will be much less important.

***

And from Russia Today:

The Russian Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, has called for a complete overhaul of the world’s financial system in order to guarantee stability and ensure progress. He was speaking in Astana in Kazakhstan, where the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is meeting to in discuss the global financial crisis.

The organisation, which comprises Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, is widely seen as a counter-weight to NATO's influence in Eurasia. It is primarily concerned with security issues. This time, however, the sides are discussing how to develop social and economic cooperation.

At the beginning of his speech at the SCO Council of Prime Ministers, Vladimir Putin stressed the role the SCO countries should play in the changing world political and economic landscape.

“We now clearly see the defectiveness of the monopoly in world finance and the policy of economic selfishness. To solve the current problem Russia will to take part in changing the global financial structure so that it will be able to guarantee stability and prosperity in the world and to ensure progress,” he said.

***

I think this could be one of the reasons for the future events that are going to take place. This is the end of the Project for the New American Century.

Breaking news

Another article from Prisonplanet. I don't know what to say. I'll just post it here:

According to reports out of top Chinese mainstream news outlets, the RAND Corporation recently presented a shocking proposal to the Pentagon in which it lobbied for a war to be started with a major foreign power in an attempt to stimulate the American economy and prevent a recession.

A fierce debate has now ensued in China about who that foreign power may be, with China itself as well as Russia and even Japan suspected to be the targets of aggression.

The reports cite French media news sources as having uncovered the proposal, in which RAND suggested that the $700 billion dollars that has been earmarked to bailout Wall Street and failing banks instead be used to finance a new war which would in turn re-invigorate the flagging stock markets.

The RAND Corporation is a notoriously powerful NGO with deep ties to the U.S. military-industrial complex as well as interlocking connections with the Ford, Rockefeller, and Carnegie foundations.

Current directors of RAND include Frank Charles Carlucci III, former Defense Secretary and Deputy Director of the CIA, Ronald L. Olson, Council on Foreign Relations luminary and former Secretary of Labor, and Carl Bildt, top Bilderberg member and former Swedish Prime Minister.

Carlucci was chairman of the Carlyle Group from 1989-2005 and oversaw gargantuan profits the defense contractor made in the aftermath of 9/11 following the invasion of Afghanistan. The Carlyle Group has also received investment money from the Bin Laden family.

Reportedly, the RAND proposal brazenly urged that a new war could be launched to benefit the economy, but stressed that the target country would have to be a major influential power, and not a smaller country on the scale of Afghanistan or Iraq.

The reports have prompted a surge of public debate and tension in China about the possibility that a new global conflict is on the horizon.

China’s biggest media outlet, Sohu.com, speculated that the target of the new war would probably be China or Russia, but that it could also be Iran or another middle eastern country. Japan was also mentioned as a potential target for the reason that Japan holds the most U.S. debt.

North Korea was considered as a target but ruled out because the scale of such a war would not be large enough for RAND’s requirements.

The reported RAND proposal dovetails with recent comments made by Joe Biden, Colin Powell, Madeleine Albright and others, concerning the “guarantee” that Barack Obama will face a major “international crisis” soon after taking office.

Translations from Chinese provided by Yihan Dai.

***

Take a real close look at that. A real damn close look!! Please, prepare yourselves.

The Brzezinski Code

I found an article from The Sun where British PM Gordon Brown (Bilderberg, etc.) warned that "THE world’s bank — the International Monetary Fund — is going BUST and must be bailed out."
I'll post the whole article here:

The IMF has only got £150billion left, it emerged — with dozens of countries queuing up for major handouts to keep afloat.

The PM urged cash-rich China and oil sheikhs to give hundreds of billions so the IMF can keep giving out funds — and stop it going bust.

Mr Brown said: “This may not be enough. It is becoming increasingly clear to me we cannot delay and we now need substantial additional resources in addition to the $250billion the IMF already has available.

“The big surplus countries — those that have got big reserves — are in a position to help most and we will be urging them to do so.”

The IMF’s role is to help countries stave off bankruptcy. It handed over £16.5billion to Ukraine this week and Hungary is also desperate for funds.

Dozens of others — especially in eastern Europe — will need big bailouts because of the global slump.

World leaders fear a Russian takeover move unless they are able to survive. China is cash-rich, having spent ten years banking profits in a special fund rather than investing them abroad.

Oil-rich countries in the Gulf are also able to plough funds into the IMF. The UK supplies five per cent of IMF cash, compared with China’s 3.7 per cent.

Last night Mr Brown held talks in Paris with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who backed the PM in urging the reshaping of the IMF.

Mr Sarkozy said: “We will work hand in glove to get out of this terrible crisis.”

Mr Brown said: “Our first priority is to stop the contagion to other countries, including in eastern Europe, where there are problems emerging and action must be taken.”

...

Okay, so this is about Russia after all? The same thing happened with Iceland, when IMF rushed to save it before Russia could buy it over. This is total Brzezinski. Russia has become the old-new enemy. It has begun.

Back from the Future

Counterpoint: How I Learned to Love the New World Order
Biden, Joseph R Jr. Wall Street Journal. (Eastern edition). New York, N.Y.: Apr 23, 1992. pg.
A13

Imagine my surprise when a Wall Street Journal editorial appointed me dean of the Pat Buchanan school of neo-isolationism. My credentials? Believing that the Pentagon's new strategy -- America as "Globocop" -- could render the United States a hollow superpower. All agree we need the military capacity to defend our vital interests -- by ourselves when need be. The question is grand strategy. With the Journal's endorsement, the Pentagon has called for a Pax Americana: The U.S. should cast so large a military shadow that no rival dare emerge.


American hegemony might be a pleasant idea, but is it economically, politically or even militarily wise? Bristling with weapons, we would continue our economic decline, while rising industrial and financial giants in Europe and Asia viewed our military pretensions with indifference or contempt.


Defense Secretary Dick Cheney outdid even the Journal, dipping deep into the well of Cold War argumentation to accuse Pax Americana critics of thinking "America's world presence is somehow immoral and dangerous.
" Why doesn't the Journal stop the namecalling, get its schools sorted out, and court an honest debate over America's proper role in the new world order?

Pat Buchanan's "America First" preaches martyrdom: We've been suckered into fighting "other" people's battles and defending "other" people's interests. With our dismal economy, this siren song holds some appeal.


But most Americans, myself included, reject 1930s-style isolationism. They expect to see the strong hand of American leadership in world affairs, and they know that economic retreat would yield nothing other than a lower standard of living. They understand further that many security threats -- the spread of high-tech weapons, environmental degradation, overpopulation, narcotics trafficking, migration -- require global solutions.


What about America as globocop? First, our 21st-century strategy has to be a shade more clever than Mao's axiom that power comes from the barrel of a gun. Power also emanates from a solid bank balance, the ability to dominate and penetrate markets, and the economic leverage to wield diplomatic clout.


Second, the plan is passive where it needs to be aggressive. The Journal endorses a global security system in which we destroy rogue-state threats as they arise. Fine, but let's prevent such problems early rather than curing them late. Having contained Soviet communism until it dissolved, we need a new strategy of "containment" -- based, like NATO, on collective action, but directed against weapons proliferation.


The reality is that we can slow proliferation to a snail's pace if we stop irresponsible technology transfers. Fortunately, nearly all suppliers are finally showing restraint. The maverick is China, which persists in hawking sensitive weapons and technology to the likes of Syria, Iran, Libya, Algeria and Pakistan -- even while pledging otherwise.


The Senate has tried to force China's leaders to choose between Third World arms sales (1991 profits of $500 million) and open trade with the U.S. (a $12.5 billion annual Chinese surplus). Even though we have convincing intelligence that China's leaders fear the use of this leverage, the president inexplicably refuses to challenge Beijing.


Weapons containment can't be foolproof; and against a nuclear-armed North Korea, I would support pre-emptive military action if necessary. But let's do our best -- using supplier restraint and sanctions against outlaw sellers and buyers-to avoid having to round up the posse.
Why not an anti-proliferation "czar" in the cabinet to give this objective the prominence it urgently needs?

Third, Pax Americana is a direct slap at two of our closest allies -- Japan and Germany -- and a repudiation of one of our panel1. Rather than denigrating collective security, we should regularize the kind of multilateral response we assembled for the Gulf War. Why not breathe life into the U.N. Charter? great postwar triumphs. For years, American leaders argued that building democracy in Europe and Asia would guarantee stability because democracies don't start wars. Now the Pentagon says we must keep our military large enough to persuade Japan and Germany "not to aspire to a greater role even to protect their legitimate interests.
"

How has our success suddenly become a threat? It hasn't, but the Pentagon plan could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. By insulting Tokyo and Berlin, and arrogating to ourselves military stewardship of the world, we may spark the revival no one wants.


Secretary Cheney says he wants the allies to share the burden on defense matters. But Pax Americana puts us on the wrong end of a paradox: Hegemony means that even our allies can force ever greater U.S.
defense spending the more they try to share the burden!

Fourth, collective security doesn't rule out unilateral action. The Journal says I'm among those who want "Americans . . . to trust their security to a global committee." But no one advocates that we repeal the "inherent" right of self-defense enshrined in Article 51 of the United Nations Charter.


Secretary Cheney says his plan wouldn't undermine support for the U.N. Who would know better than the U.N.'s usually understated secretary general? If implemented, says Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the Pentagon's strategy would spell "the end of the U.N." Rather than denigrating collective security, we should regularize the kind of multilateral response we assembled for the Gulf War. Why not breathe life into the U.N. Charter? It envisages a permanent commitment of forces, for use by the Security Council. That means a presumption of collective action -- but with a U.S. veto.


Rather than defending military extravagance, the Bush administration should be reallocating Pentagon funds to meet more urgent security needs: sustaining democracy in the former Soviet empire; supporting U.N. peacekeepers in Yugoslavia, Cambodia and El Salvador; and rebuilding a weakened and debt-burdened America.


If Pentagon strategists and their kneejerk supporters could broaden their horizons, they would see how our superpower status is best assured. We must get lean militarily, revitalize American economic strength, and exercise a diplomatic leadership that puts new muscle into institutions of collective security.

....

The vice presidential candidate, in the early 90s. Yyyyyyyyep, can't make this stuff up.