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.
tiistai 30. joulukuuta 2008
tiistai 23. joulukuuta 2008
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.
"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.
perjantai 19. joulukuuta 2008
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?!?!?
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?!?!?
tiistai 9. joulukuuta 2008
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.
"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.
perjantai 5. joulukuuta 2008
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.
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.
maanantai 1. joulukuuta 2008
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.
"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.
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