Saturday, March 14, 2009
Friday, January 23, 2009
Henry Kissinger: The world must forge a new order or retreat to chaos
That opportunity involves a seeming contradiction. On one level, the financial collapse represents a major blow to the standing of the United States. While American political judgments have often proved controversial, the American prescription for a world financial order has generally been unchallenged. Now disillusionment with the United States' management of it is widespread.
At the same time, the magnitude of the debacle makes it impossible for the rest of the world to shelter any longer behind American predominance or American failings. Every country will have to reassess its own contribution to the prevailing crisis. Each will seek to make itself independent, to the greatest possible degree, of the conditions that produced the collapse; at the same time, each will be obliged to face the reality that its dilemmas can be mastered only by common action.
Even the most affluent countries will confront shrinking resources. Each will have to redefine its national priorities. An international order will emerge if a system of compatible priorities comes into being. It will fragment disastrously if the various priorities cannot be reconciled.
The nadir of the international financial system coincides with simultaneous political crises around the globe. Never have so many transformations occurred at the same time in so many different parts of the world and been made accessible via instantaneous communication. The alternative to a new international order is chaos.
The financial and political crises are, in fact, closely related partly because, during the period of economic exuberance, a gap had opened up between the economic and the political organisation of the world. The economic world has been globalised. Its institutions have a global reach and have operated by maxims that assumed a self-regulating global market. The financial collapse exposed the mirage. It made evident the absence of global institutions to cushion the shock and to reverse the trend. Inevitably, when the affected publics turned to their political institutions, these were driven principally by domestic politics, not considerations of world order. Every major country has attempted to solve its immediate problems essentially on its own and to defer common action to a later, less crisis-driven point.
So-called rescue packages have emerged on a piecemeal national basis, generally by substituting seemingly unlimited governmental credit for the domestic credit that produced the debacle in the first place, so far without achieving more than stemming incipient panic. International order will not come about either in the political or economic field until there emerge general rules toward which countries can orient themselves.
In the end, the political and economic systems can be harmonised in only one of two ways: by creating an international political regulatory system with the same reach as that of the economic world; or by shrinking the economic units to a size manageable by existing political structures, which is likely to lead to a new mercantilism, perhaps of regional units. A new Bretton Woods kind of global agreement is by far the preferable outcome.
America's role in this enterprise will be decisive. Paradoxically, American influence will be great in proportion to the modesty in our conduct; we need to modify the righteousness that has characterised too many American attitudes, especially since the collapse of the Soviet Union. That event and the subsequent period of nearly uninterrupted global growth induced too many to equate world order with the acceptance of American designs, including our domestic preferences. The result was a certain inherent unilateralism – the standard complaint of European critics – or else an insistent kind of consultation by which nations were invited to prove their fitness to enter the international system by conforming to American prescriptions.
Not since the inauguration of president John F Kennedy half a century ago has a new administration come into office with such a reservoir of expectations. It is unprecedented that all the principal actors on the world stage are avowing their desire to undertake the transformations imposed on them by the world crisis in collaboration with the United States.
The extraordinary impact of the President-elect on the imagination of humanity is an important element in shaping a new world order. But it defines an opportunity, not a policy. The ultimate challenge is to shape the common concern of most countries and all major ones regarding the economic crisis, together with a common fear of jihadist terrorism, into a strategy reinforced by the realisation that the new issues like proliferation, energy and climate change permit no national or regional solution.
The new administration could make no worse mistake than to rest on its initial popularity. The role of China in a new world order is crucial. A relationship that started on both sides as essentially a strategic design to constrain a common adversary has evolved over the decades into a pillar of the international system. China made possible the American consumption splurge by buying American debt; America helped the modernisation of the Chinese economy by opening its markets to Chinese goods.
Each side of the Pacific needs the cooperation of the other in addressing the consequences of the financial crisis. Now that the global financial collapse has devastated Chinese export markets, China is emphasising infrastructure development and domestic consumption. It will not be easy to shift gears rapidly, and the Chinese growth rate may fall temporarily below the 7.5 per cent that Chinese experts define as the line that challenges political stability.
What kind of global economic order arises will depend importantly on how China and America deal with each other over the next few years. A frustrated China may take another look at an exclusive regional Asian structure, for which the nucleus already exists in the ASEAN-plus-three concept. At the same time, if protectionism grows in America or if China comes to be seen as a long-term adversary, a self-fulfilling prophecy may blight the prospects of global order. Such a return to mercantilism and 19th-century diplomacy would divide the world into competing regional units with dangerous long-term consequences.
The Sino-American relationship needs to be taken to a new level. This generation of leaders has the opportunity to shape relations into a design for a common destiny, much as was done with trans-Atlantic relations in the postwar period – except that the challenges now are more political and economic than military.
The complexity of the emerging world requires from America a more historical approach than the insistence that every problem has a final solution expressible in programmes with specific time limits not infrequently geared to our political process. We must learn to operate within the attainable and be prepared to pursue ultimate ends by the accumulation of nuance. An international order can be permanent only if its participants have a share not only in building but also in securing it. In this manner, America and its potential partners have a unique opportunity to transform a moment of crisis into a vision of hope.
The author was National Security Adviser, 1969-75 and US Secretary of State, 1973-77.
Obama is changing nothing with the secret prison systems.
Obamas mentor was none other than Brzezinski.
Lets look at the New York Times article on this subject. Its very telling.
We know that supposedly the entire camp structure and facilities World Wide are shutting down, however:
Habeas Corpus, what is it?
"Habeas corpus formed a part of the American legal system from colonial times, and it was the only specific right incorporated in the Constitution. Article 1, Section 9 states, "The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it." The suspension of habeas corpus allows an agency to hold a person without a charge. Habeas corpus has been suspended a number of times, most notably by Abraham Lincoln during the early days of the Civil War.
Habeas corpus became a subject of renewed controversy after the Sept. 11th attacks. When the Bush administration created a system of military tribunals for dealing with terrorism subjects in 2002, it asserted that "illegal non-combatants'' fell outside of the Geneva Conventions and were not entitled to habeas corpus. That view was rejected by the Supreme Court in 2006. Congress, then controlled by Republicans, responded by passing the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which stripped the federal courts of jurisdiction to hear habeas corpus petitions filed by detainees challenging the bases for their confinement. Instead, such challenges were to be governed by the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act, which allowed detainees to appeal decisions of the military tribunals to the District of Columbia Circuit, but only under circumscribed procedures, including a presumption that the evidence before the military tribunal was accurate and complete.
In a 5 to 4 decision issued on June 12, 2008, the Supreme Court ruled that approach to be unconstitutional, declaring that foreign terrorism suspects held at the Guantánamo Bay naval base in Cuba have the right to challenge their detention there in federal courts." http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/h/habeas_corpus/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier
Notice that the Supreme Court on June 12, 2008 stated "have the right to challenge their detention there in federal courts."
Now lets look at what Obama is going to due as was found in the New York Times article. Notice their use of double speak throughout.
"They will also prohibit the C.I.A. from using coercive interrogation methods, requiring the agency to follow the same rules used by the military in interrogating terrorism suspects, government officials said."
The CIA will not be allowed to use coercive interrogation methods, but the same ones that the Military uses when interrogating TERRORISM suspects. This entire circumstance was 'how the military was interrogating' terrorist suspects was it not?
"They could also allow Mr. Obama to reinstate the C.I.A.’s detention and interrogation operations in the future, by presidential order, as some have argued would be appropriate if Osama bin Laden or another top-level leader of Al Qaeda were captured."
So, at any time Obama can reinstate the same operation that they are supposedly closing. Is this not the same power still in effect that Bush had? Not to mention that the entire reason for the operations to begin with; Osama bin laden and Al- CIAta, have not only not been investigated, but spoken off by Bush as "not important any longer", should really indicate to most people that it never was important to find Al CIAta, nor will it be, because if so, they wont have the PATSY any longer to blame things on, for they did create Al Qaeda for that exact purpose.
"A government official said Mr. Obama’s order on the C.I.A. would still allow its officers abroad to temporarily detain terrorism suspects and transfer them to other agencies, but would no longer allow the agency to carry out long-term detentions."
What agencies? And until that is known for sure, then nothing has changed.
"Mr. Obama had suggested in the campaign that, in place of military commissions, he would prefer prosecutions in federal courts or, perhaps, in the existing military justice system, which provides legal guarantees similar to those of American civilian courts."
No, there is no similar under the Constitution. "perhaps, in the existing military justice system" is not an option. They are not in the Military; or are they? This action would be the same as now, against their Rights. This is not a War, no matter what Bush has said. They are not Military Combatants as the Supreme Court has pointed out "In a 5 to 4 decision issued on June 12, 2008, the Supreme Court ruled that approach to be unconstitutional, declaring that foreign terrorism suspects held at the Guantánamo Bay naval base in Cuba have the right to challenge their detention there in federal courts." Source - http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/us/politics/22gitmo.html?_r=2&hp
You see, they SHOULD be allowed Redress in Federal Courts, having cases 'against' the United States Government. This would open a way up as well to PROSECUTE Bush, but its not going to happen under Obama. We are already seeing him protect his 'cabinet' affiliates as well as his own ass on many issues that he was in support of in his years in the Senate.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
NO, WE DON'T HAVE A NEW PRESIDENT
By: Devvy
January 22, 2009
© 2008 - NewsWithViews.com
“It is a terrible thing when you think you got on a bandwagon and it turns out to be a garbage truck." Ernst (Putzi) Hanfstaengl*
The circus out in Washington, DC., for the unlawful swearing in of the impostor president, Barack Hussein Obama aka Barry Soetoro and so forth, is now over. All the gushing and slobbering over the trashy looking rag worn by the militant Michelle Obama, has faded into the night. I wonder how many of the mindless mouth pieces giving their commentary about the "wonderful, smart First Lady," know that in 1993, Michelle Obama, was ordered by the Illinois Supreme Court to stop practicing law? The faux First Lady was ordered by the court; it was not her choice. (Click here). The records are sealed by the court so we don't know why, but I am told by lawyers sending me email, it had to be something major for such drastic action.
The A-list stars from Hollywood were out in full regalia to celebrate history: the first African American president. Barack Hussein Obama aka and so forth, is the first mulatto to run for president, but he is not the 44th president. He is an usurper who has committed a horrible fraud on our nation. Someone or a number of people knew years ago that his citizenship would become an issue and began greasing the skids to pull off this fraud.
In 2004, the impostor president unlawfully ran for the U.S. Senate. Allegedly, with help from ACORN and the massive vote fraud we see every election, he won a seat in the U.S. Senate under a law that does not exist. That election was November 2004.
One year later, Sarah Herlihy, an associate at the Chicago firm of Kirkland & Ellis gets her paper published in the Kent University Law Review on line. Herlihy claims in her paper that the citizenship requirement of the U.S. Constitution has been called "stupid and discriminating." Of course, she never tells us who makes this claim. Please note that a partner at the same law firm was one Bruce I. Ettelson, who apparently had a working relationship on finance committees for Obama and buffoon, Sen. Richard Durbin. Herlihy's paper, which shows "author approved editing" as November 23, 2005, is titled, "Amending the Natural Born Citizenship Requirement: Globalization as the Impetus and the Obstacle." You can read the paper here.
In February 2008, Democrats (and one Republican) began pushing legislation on the issue of citizenship:
"...on February 28, 2008, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) introduced a bill to the Senate for consideration. That bill was known as S. 2678: Children of Military Families Natural Born Citizen Act. The bill was co-sponsored by Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), and Sen. Thomas Coburn (R-OK).
"Bill S. 2678 attempted to change article II, section 1, clause 5 of the Constitution of the United States with reference to the requirements of being a “natural born citizen” and hence; the entitlement to run for President of the United States. This bill met the same fate that similar attempts to change the Constitution have in the past. Attempts such as The Natural Born Citizen Act were known to have failed and the text scrubbed from the internet, with only a shadow-cached copy left, that only the most curious public can find....
"Within only five short weeks after Senate Bill 2678 faded from the floor, we find Sen. Claire McCaskill back again, making another attempt with Senate Resolution 511. On April 10, 2008, she introduced a secondary proposal in the form of a non-binding resolution, recognizing John McCain as a “natural born citizen” in defiance of the Constitution. Curiously, it contained the same identical co-sponsors, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
"One has to wonder — what dire urgency could there possibly have been in persisting with trying to legislate a candidate into being a “natural born citizen”? Certainly providing a birth certificate and reading the Constitution would be more than sufficient. Why did these candidates and their wishful nominees go to such lengths in the Senate when obviously, they had more pressing matters to attend to? And why were there two Senators co-sponsoring such an issue, twice, who were in direct competition with John McCain in the 2008 election?"
Somewhere along the way, the issue of Obama's father being a Kenyan national and under British rule (British Neutrality Act of 1948) surfaced while the new Messiah was being groomed to steal the White House. Obama is a lawyer and has spent a great deal of time around other high power lawyers. Someone along the way said, uh, we have a problem. Beginning not too long after Obama became a U.S. Senator, the thorny problem of the U.S. Constitution had to be dealt with and out comes a paper by his lawyer friend, Herlihy, which opens up the discussion. Next comes the smoke screen legislation which was really to "qualify" Obama. Of course, it didn't work, so with the help of the useful fools in the dominant media and cable news networks like FOX, CNN and MSNBC, the issue was covered up and/or ridiculed as nothing more than sore losers or conspiracy nuts.
There is a conspiracy and a cover up here, just as there is regarding all the documents and records Obama is hiding from the American people.
We know that Chief Justice John Roberts, Jr., met in private with Obama on January 14, 2009. A gross conflict of interest since Roberts is deciding current cases before the court where Obama is either the defendant or the target of the litigation. Roberts' role in the unlawful swearing in of the impostor president was a sobering moment. It made me sick to my soul. The very next day, January 21, 2009, Phil Berg's second case which was heard in secrecy by the almighty Supreme Court last Friday was denied.
The next case to be heard in conference (private) is tomorrow: Lightfoot v Bowen. Dr. Orly Taitz is counsel on that one. Orly also filed a new lawsuit on Monday, January 19, 2009, in response to an Executive Order issued by George Bush, on January 16, 2009. You can read that lawsuit here; it explains the basis of the lawsuit in relationship to Bush's EO. Summons were issued; Federal District Judge David O Carter was assigned. The Case Number is: SACV09-00082DOC. Orly beat the clock with Obama's Chief of Staff, who has such a shady background (Madsen is a die hard progressive Democrat), one wonders how he could get any security clearance at all:
"White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel dispatched a memo yesterday afternoon to federal agencies and departments, directing them to stop pending rules until the new administration has time to conduct a "legal and policy review" of each one. The directive has become a first-day tradition among presidents, dating to Ronald Reagan in 1981, helping incoming administrations put their own philosophical stamp on the regulatory work that is a subtle but potent tool of presidential power. Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton did the same thing."
The United States Justice Foundation has issued a subpoena duces tecum for Obama's academic and housing records from Occidental College for their lawsuit representing Alan Keyes, et al v Bowen, Obama, Biden, et al. You can view the documents here. Someone asked what will happen if Occidental comes back and says they have no records for Barack Hussein Obama? That immediately raises a red flag and the good folks at the USJF can file a new subpoena for Barry Soetoro, or petition the judge to force this guy in the White House to disclose his legal name so these lawful subpoenas can be served and processed.
There is a new petition to impeach Obama; you can view it here. I wouldn't bother signing it. God bless these folks for wanting to see justice done, but I don't believe this petition will have any impact. First, the incompetent mad woman running the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, will never let such a petition get past her skirt. And, second, while I am not a lawyer, the high crimes and misdemeanors cited, i.e., the fraud committed by Obama, was perpetrated before he was unlawfully sworn into office. Dr. Edwin Vieira explained this in a column last October: "Seventh, if Obama does become an usurper posturing as “the President,” Congress cannot even impeach him because, not being the actual President, he cannot be “removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors” (see Article II, Section 4)."
Furthermore, Dr. Edwin Vieira points out in a column last December, even should all these constitutionally based lawsuits fail with the U.S. Supreme Court, the lawsuits will continue over any legislation signed by the usurper president.
Obama has pulled off this gigantic hoax. For now. Judging by my email and many columns posted the last two days, Americans are discouraged, outraged and just plain old-fashioned whizzed off. Many are saying the Constitution is dead. Edwin addressed that in a column, March 14, 2006:
"On the other side, if "the Constitution is dead", then to what authority can patriots appeal against the depredations of malign public officials and a corrupted electorate? Without the Constitution, patriots are mere dreamers or rebels whom the Establishment can condemn as crackpots or criminals. In short, if common Americans concede that "the Constitution is dead", they will surrender the high ground, the initiative, and even their own best weapon, and put themselves at their enemies' mercy. Moreover, if "the Constitution is dead", how and with what should or could patriots attempt to replace the present political apparatus that oppresses them?"
Those who birthed this republic did not cut and run even when they were bloodied and crawling on their hands and knees. We shall do no less. The pain will be great, but so was the pain of Nathan Hale when he was hung at age 21. Last April, I stood at his home up in Connecticut. It was very quiet and no one was around. I stood there thinking about the patriots of that time. I've been to Bull Run, Valley Forge, the homes of Jefferson, Andy Jackson, Madison, Washington and Gen. Robert E. Lee. Obama has been made powerful by those working to destroy this country. As the impostor president's power has grown, so too has his arrogance which will be his undoing. The day of reckoning for Obama the Impostor President will come.
What about the masses who responded to the prod and voted for Obama? It's being reported that nearly two million people showed up for the coronation two days ago. It would have been convenient to have stands along the way to fit these people for their chains of bondage. I hope you can take time over the weekend to read a document I covered on my radio show as the coronation parties were in full swing. What made millions swoon, weep, raise their hands to the heavens, declare Obama the next Messiah and go over the edge for a nobody with a closed past - besides the color of his skin?
As I told my listening audience, I am not a conspiracy freak. Frequently, I get very angry email from patriots for debunking some popular theories that don't hold water. A couple of months ago, I read this paper and as I read the 67 pages, it all came together. Untold numbers of us couldn't figure out this "Obama phenomenon" and what was causing it....until I read this explanation about conversational hypnosis. Not only did I read it, I spent six hours running down the foot notes and studying Erickson's method used and accepted in the field of psycho-analysis.
Finally, it all made sense. As a lay person not trained and with little prior understanding on this issue, all I could keep wondering is are these people all mad, desperate or did they all take the same pill? No, Obama simply used a technique of hypnosis on mass crowds and turned them into little better than melting butter. A master orator without an original thought in his head, he used his voice and hands to mesmerize.
I learned a great deal from this document. At some point the stupefaction will wear off and millions of people, except for too many black Americans who voted for one half of Obama's race (most of them forget Obama's mother was Caucasian), will begin to wonder why they voted for Obama as he blunders along and the economy worsens. Except, of course, those blinded by skin color. An incredible statement was made by a low IQ minion of Obama's which sends an ugly message:
"...while watching ABC News coverage of the inauguration with my wife over lunch, hosts Charles Gibson and Diane Sawyer were joined by Donna Brazile, a Democratic African-American author, educator and political activist, who gave a humorous account of her snatching the complementary fleece blanket she found abandoned in Barack Obama’s chair after the swearing-in ceremony. Apparently she wanted a souvenir of the momentous occasion and when the opportunity arose, she took it.
"As they all laughed about it, Gibson responded playfully to her candid admission by saying: “We're going to check with the legal staff and find out if that's a felony or a misdemeanor.” Brazile then gave a stern look into the camera and said: “We have a black president – it's neither.”
Read this document:
Obama's use of hypnotic technique during his speeches
You can decide for yourself. I'm certain those who support Obama will poo-poo it away. They've got too much riding on his campaign promises. These very same people haven't done a minute of research on Obama's background, his proven communist ties and Marxist beliefs. Obama's faithful will not see or hear his slick lies because the thought of betrayal is simply too much to handle. As Judge Andrew Napolitano so accurately named his book, A Nation of Sheep, can you hear the baaa-baaa still echoing from the Washington Mall?
Obama is sworn in for second time
Barack Obama has been sworn in as US president for the second time in two days, because one word was given out of order during Tuesday's ceremony.
The Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, John Roberts, administered the oath again at the White House.
The decision to repeat the oath was taken out of an abundance of caution, an official said.
But Mr Obama joked: "We decided it was so much fun...." before adding: "We're going to do it very slowly."
In contrast to the first oath-taking, Mr Obama did not swear on a Bible and his wife Michelle was not at his side.
And instead of an audience of millions, only a few close aides saw the second attempt, with even journalists excluded from the Map Room of the White House.
Tuesday's stumble went largely unnoticed at the time.
In the oath, as set out in the US Constitution, the new incumbent swears to "faithfully execute the office of president of the United States".
But as Chief Justice Roberts read out the oath for Mr Obama to repeat, he moved the word "faithfully" to the end of the phrase.
Mr Obama, apparently noticing the error, hesitated. Mr Roberts repeated the phrase correctly, but Mr Obama went with the incorrect formula.
"We believe the oath of office was administered effectively and that the president was sworn in appropriately," said White House counsel Greg Craig.
"Out of the abundance of caution, because there was one word out of sequence, Chief Justice John Roberts will administer the oath a second time."
Two other presidents, Calvin Coolidge and Chester Arthur, have had to repeat the oath because of similar problems.
And Chief Justice William Taft introduced a new word into the oath when he swore in President Herbert Hoover in 1929, promising to "preserve, maintain and defend the Constitution", instead of "preserve, protect and defend".Obama Appoints Top Notch CFR, Bilderberg Members
Kurt Nimmo
Infowars
January 22, 2009
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| Obama announces the appointment of CFR-Bilderberg members George Mitchell and Richard Holbrooke at the State Department. | |
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From Reuters:
In a flurry of diplomatic activity in his first week in office, U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday named special envoys for the Middle East and the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.
Newly confirmed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Obama had chosen George Mitchell, a former senator and seasoned international trouble-shooter, as an envoy who will try to jump-start moribund Arab-Israeli peace talks.
Obama tapped former ambassador to the United Nations Richard Holbrooke as a special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan and related issues.
George Mitchell is not simply a CFR member — he is a former director of the globalist organization.
Mitchell “got his start in Federal politics when appointed by President Jimmy Carter (CFR member),” writes Tom Kovach. “Mitchell is chairman of the second-largest law firm in the world, DLA Piper. You know, the firm that recently put a full-service, ‘multicultural’ office in Dubai. You know, the port city in a country that tried to buy American port operations with oil money. Mitchell’s law firm has a ’strategic alliance’ with a consulting group owned by former US Secretary of Defense William Cohen (CFR member), which did PR work on behalf of DP World, the Dubai company that tried to buy the ports.” DLA Piper represents more than half of the top 250 Fortune 500 clients and nearly half of the FTSE 350 or their subsidiaries.
Mitchell sits on the steering committee of the American Friends of Bilderberg along with such luminaries as Conrad Black, Henry Kissinger, and David Rockefeller,
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| Alex Jones confronts globalist minion Richard Holbrooke at the Bilderberg meeting in Ottawa. | |
Ditto Richard Holbrooke. He is on the board of directors of the Council on Foreign Relations. A dedicated Clintonite and former ambassador to the United Nations, Holbrooke brokered the Dayton Peace Accords, the “peace agreement” that partitioned and reduced Bosnia to a NATO and IMF client state, a model of bankster privatization. Holbrooke’s “peace plan” was only realized after massive NATO bombardment of Bosnian Serb territory.
Holbrooke is a consummate insider and global elite operative. Along with Henry Kissinger, David Rockefeller, and Paul Allaire, Holbrooke directs the American Friends of Bilderberg, an organization that takes money from Exxon, Arco, IBM, and other transnational corporations and has its meetings funded by the globalist Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, and the Carnegie Endowment fund.
It looks like the White House is shaping up to become a branch office of the CFR and Bilderbergers, but then this is simply business as usual. For years, the CFR — with its associate memberships in such international units as the Trilateral Commission, Club of Rome, and Bildebergers — has infested not only the White House, but the State Department, the NSC, the Pentagon, and much of the federal government.
“CFR membership is also inclusive of West Point Superintendents, Allied Supreme Commanders, Secretaries of Defense, and Military Policy members. Media memberships include Time, New York Times, Newsweek, Washington Post, CBS, NBC, ABC, etc.,” writes Noah W. Hutchings. “The CFR also exerts influence on United States personnel at the various United Nations agencies, which is natural, because UN goals usually parallel CFR’s goals.”
The American people think they voted for change, but in fact they simply signed off on four or eight more years of globalist rule.
Planning Agency Approves Homeland Security Complex
Friday, January 9, 2009; Page B01
After years of battling historic preservationists, the federal government won approval yesterday to build a massive headquarters for the Department of Homeland Security on a 176-acre hilltop site east of the Anacostia River.
The $3.4 billion headquarters would be one of the largest construction projects in the Washington area since the Pentagon was built in the 1940s. Advocates say it would generate economic activity in one of the city's poorer corners and provide a secure workplace for 14,000 Homeland Security employees scattered across the Washington area.
"This is an important step forward for Anacostia and for Washington," said John V. Cogbill III, chairman of the National Capital Planning Commission, which voted 9 to 1 to approve the master plan for the headquarters, to be built on the grounds of St. Elizabeths Hospital.
Historical preservationists have said the project would ruin a national landmark site with panoramic views of the District, where the first federal psychiatric institution was established in Southeast Washington in 1852. Some questioned whether a high-security facility tucked behind two layers of fencing would produce much of a payoff for the neighborhood.
"The DHS employees might as well be working on the moon for all their presence will benefit the city," testified David Garrison, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, who said that the personnel would largely commute from the suburbs.
The dissenting vote on the master plan came from a National Park Service representative, who warned that the development could endanger the site's historic landmark status.
If Congress provides funding, construction will begin next year and continue through 2016, according to the plan. Building the complex and renovating existing historical structures would create at least 26,000 jobs, officials said.
"The timing is optimal," said Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), who has championed the project. "Development has dried up in the city, and this is direct government-funded work."
Under the plan, most of the facility would be built on the vacant western campus of St. Elizabeths, property owned by the federal General Services Administration. One large building would be constructed on land leased from the District on the eastern campus, where the D.C. government is hoping to lure offices, restaurants and shops.
Residents of nearby neighborhoods have expressed mixed feelings about the complex. James Bunn, executive director of the Ward 8 Business Council, predicted that Homeland Security's migration would serve as a long-needed catalyst for new retail and housing in the Congress Heights community.
"Those 14,000 employees will need a place to live," he said. "And they'll need somewhere to eat. I can already see a coffee shop or a sit-down restaurant. It's a win-win situation for the ward."
But Linda Jackson, executive director of the East of the River Community Development Corp., questioned whether Homeland Security employees would leave their self-contained campus along Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue and frequent nearby businesses.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
The Answer Is Hiding In Plain Sight
Jim Kirwan
1-20-9- The Inauguration that should have happened didn't. The people of this nation and the world are desperately searching for answers and today they missed their one huge chance to turn everything around in just this one day. We could have avoided this outcome, this sterile failure of what any government ought to have done, to prevent the coming failure of this nation.
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- When Bush went to board Marine One for the flight from the White House to Andrews Air Force Base he and Cheney should have been arrested by US Marshals, backed up by US Marines and taken immediately to Ft.Leavenworth, to await their trials, in solitary confinement, for war-crimes and treason against the people of theUnited States.
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- Then, Obama could have topped Roosevelt's first Inaugural speech to explain to the nation just exactly how he (Obama) was going to begin to fix this mess: beginning at the top with the criminals that caused it and continuing on through the whole sordid mess. That's exactly what Roosevelt did in his first Inaugural speech. Here's the beginning of that speech in 1933, in which FDR blames the money changers, and vows to root them out of this society. The whole speech is in the footnote below.
- "I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our people impel. This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself-nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.
- In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things. Values have shrunken to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income; the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade; the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets for their produce; the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone.
- More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.
- Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind's goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.
- True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.
- The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit." (1)
- Compare Roosevelt's speech with the pathetic effort that Obama delivered this afternoon, wherein Barack blamed the public for not working hard enough, for not coming together enough, for not "believing" enough in this government that has done nothing but lie to us for the last eight years.
- In fact the money-changers are still being protected: And under Obama their influence will grow not diminish, despite the fact that they (on instructions from the Illuminati and the Zionists) are driving this colossal Depression that is shutting down every aspect of this nation and the global financial community. This is our 'Great Hope' for the restoration of American life?
- For the last eight years the nation has not had any oversight from the same congress from which so many of the "new faces" were directly chosen-including Obama. And the martial display on the Capital building façade today should have had Israeli flags hanging there, instead of the Stars & Stripes; because so many of the new members of the Cabinet and the government are now Israeli's or Zionist sympathizers. Beginning with Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Pelosi but including his Chief of Staff and the whole cadre of stand-in's that do not put America's well being at the top of their private agenda's but instead, for them, Israel's survival comes first.
- This crime has to include the 531 members of this faux congress that voted to defend Israel's slaughter of the Arab and Muslim populations in Gaza, during the latest Israeli outrage as well. Israel has committed piracy on the high seas, while violating every provision of US and International Law during the 60 years that they've been screwing the rest of world outright and with impunity. (2)
- On top of that; three times today, on main-stream-media, in the course of the official ceremonies we were lectured by preachers and told repeatedly about God and who God will and should bless-when in fact this was supposed to be a secular event, paid for by the state. To insert God into these proceedings in so crass a manner was insulting to everything that the American government: The one that was to be "of, by and for the people" was supposed to stand for. But all of that got lost in the born-again nature of the three insulting speeches that together totaled more time than it took Obama to make his rather-pedestrian inaugural address.
- This was not a good beginning, but this goes to the fact that this man with three different names, from three different countries is not qualified to hold that office.
- Too bad America-you really blew the one chance we had to turn everything around in a heartbeat. The world would have cheered wildly, applauded, and then they could have begun to laugh and breath again if we had just owned up to our responsibilities to lock up these criminals and in so-doing, we would have shown the world that we mean what we say about the sanctity of law and all that other drivel that Obama muttered on about during that fairy-tale he presented as his Inaugural address to the nation and the world.
- With that single act the entire world could have been granted a chance to turn this entire series of crimes into a totally new beginning for the world, as well as the US. But there is no law and the whole world knows it; just as there is no moral compass, regardless of how many preachers try to ignore the truth behind that fact. But as we 'know' that action would never be taken by these people, because the "new administration" is part of the cabal that stole the last three elections and the nation. They planned this: so they are not about to undo any of it!
- Instead of change, Obama plans to take years to 'fix' our problems: but he knows that he has only a few weeks at best to turn this all around-meanwhile California is going broke along with several other states, and there is no relief in sight, more states will follow California's lead, and the feds can't be far behind because the nation is beyond broke. We are destitute and we are finally admitting that we are in the Depression that has existed for at least the last two years for those same people that Obama just blamed this afternoon for all our problems!
- So much for the road not taken ~
- kirwanstudios@sbcglobal.net
- 1) The only thing we have to fear is fear itself
- http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5057/
- 2) Why Israel won't survive
- http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10215.shtml
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Gaza invasion: Powered by the U.S.
It's well known that the U.S. supplies the Israelis with much of their military hardware. Over the past few decades, the U.S. has provided about $53 billion in military aid to Israel. What's not well known is that since 2004, U.S. taxpayers have paid to supply over 500 million gallons of refined oil products -- worth about $1.1 billion –- to the Israeli military. While a handful of countries get motor fuel from the U.S., they receive only a fraction of the fuel that Israel does -- fuel now being used by Israeli fighter jets, helicopters and tanks to battle Hamas.
According to documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, between 2004 and 2007 the U.S. Defense Department gave $818 million worth of fuel to the Israeli military. The total amount was 479 million gallons, the equivalent of about 66 gallons per Israeli citizen. In 2008, an additional $280 million in fuel was given to the Israeli military, again at U.S. taxpayers' expense. The U.S. has even paid the cost of shipping the fuel from U.S. refineries to ports in Israel.
In 2008, the fuel shipped to Israel from U.S. refineries accounted for 2 percent of Israel's $13.3 billion defense budget. Publicly available data shows that about 2 percent of the U.S. Defense Department's budget is also spent on oil. A senior analyst at the Pentagon, who requested anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press, says the Israel Defense Force's fuel use is most likely similar to that of the U.S. Defense Department. In other words, the Israeli military is spending about the same percentage of its defense budget on oil as the U.S. is. Therefore it's possible that the U.S. is providing most, or perhaps even all, of the Israeli military's fuel needs.
What's more, Israel does not need the U.S. handout. Its own recently privatized refineries, located at Haifa and Ashdod, could supply all of the fuel needed by the Israeli military. Those same refineries are now producing and selling jet fuel and other refined products on the open market. But rather than purchase lower-cost jet fuel from its own refineries, the Israeli military is using U.S. taxpayer money to buy and ship large quantities of fuel from U.S. refineries.
The Israeli government obtains the fuel through the Defense Department's Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program, and pays for the fuel and the shipping with funds granted to it through Foreign Military Financing (FMF), another Defense Department program. (In 2008, Congress earmarked $2.4 billion in FMF money for Israel, and $2.5 billion for 2009.) The dimensions of the FMS fuel program are virtually unknown among America's top experts on Middle East policy. For his part, the Pentagon analyst was surprised to learn that FMS money was even being used to supply fuel to Israel. "That's not the purpose of the program," he says. "FMS was designed to allow U.S. weapons makers to sell their goods to foreign countries. The idea that fuel is being bought under FMS is very, very odd."
The U.S. fuel shipments are part of a sustained policy that has widened the energy gap between Israel and its neighbors. Over the past few years, the Israel Defense Force has cut off fuel supplies and destroyed electricity infrastructure in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon. Those embargoes and attacks on power plants have exacerbated a huge gap in per-capita energy consumption between Israelis and Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza. And that sharp disparity helps explain why the Palestinians have never been able to build a viable economy.
Edward S. Walker, former president of the Middle East Institute, a Washington-based think tank, says the fuel supply program is emblematic of U.S. military support for Israel. Walker, who has served as U.S. ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Israel, explains that the FMF money allows the Israelis to "do with it what they want. They can buy equipment or fuel. It's their choice, not the government's choice. It's the only program where we give someone a blank check and they can use it any way that they choose."
Given the recent spike in oil prices, which helped send the U.S. and the world economy into a tailspin, and Americans still smarting from paying $4 at the pump, says Walker, "Why are we supplying fuel to Israel when we are paying such high prices?"
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Wednesday, January 14, 2009
The Humiliation of America
Infowars
January 14, 2009
“Early Friday morning the secretary of state was considering bringing the cease-fire resolution to a UNSC vote and we didn’t want her to vote for it,” Olmert said. “I said ‘get President Bush on the phone.’ They tried and told me he was in the middle of a lecture in Philadelphia. I said ‘I’m not interested, I need to speak to him now.’ He got down from the podium, went out and took the phone call.”"Let me see if I understand this,” wrote a friend in response to news reports that Israeli Prime Minister Olmert ordered President Bush from the podium where he was giving a speech to receive Israel’s instructions about how the United States had to vote on the UN resolution. “On September 11th, President Bush is interrupted while reading a story to school children and told the World Trade Center had been hit–and he went on reading. Now, Olmert calls about a UN resolution when Bush is giving a speech and Bush leaves the stage to take the call. There exists no greater example of a master-servant relationship.”
Olmert gloated as he told Israelis how he had shamed US Secretary of State Condi Rice by preventing the American Secretary of State from supporting a resolution that she had helped to craft. Olmert proudly related how he had interrupted President Bush’s speech in order to give Bush his marching orders on the UN vote.
Israeli politicians have been bragging for decades about the control they exercise over the US government. In his final press conference, President Bush, deluded to the very end, said that the whole world respects America. In fact, when the world looks at America, what it sees is an Israeli colony.
Responding to mounting reports from the Red Cross and human rights organizations of Israel’s massive war crimes in Gaza, the United Nations Human Rights Council voted 33-1 on January 12 to condemn Israel for grave offenses against human rights.
On January 13, the London Times reported that Israelis have gathered on a hillside overlooking Gaza to enjoy the slaughter of Palestinians in what the Times calls “the ultimate spectator sport.”
It is American supplied F-16 fighter jets, helicopter gunships, missiles, and bombs that are destroying the civilian infrastructure of Gaza and murdering the Palestinians who have been packed into the tiny strip of land. What is happening to the Palestinians herded into the Gaza Ghetto is happening because of American money and weapons. It is just as much an attack by the United States as an attack by Israel. The US government is complicit in the war crimes.
Yet in his farewell press conference on January 12, Bush said that the world respects America for its compassion.
The compassion of bombing a UN school for girls?
The compassion of herding 100 Palestinians into one house and then shelling it?
The compassion of bombing hospitals and mosques?
The compassion of depriving 1.5 million Palestinians of food, medicine, and energy?
The compassion of violently overthrowing the democratically elected Hamas government?
The compassion of blowing up the infrastructure of one of the poorest and most deprived people on earth?
The compassion of abstaining from a Security Council vote condemning these actions?
And this is a repeat of what the Israelis and Americans did to Lebanon in 2006, what the Americans did to Iraqis for six years and are continuing to do to Afghans after seven years. And still hope to do to the Iranians and Syrians.
In 2002 I designated George W. Bush “the White House Moron.” If there ever was any doubt about this designation, Bush’s final press conference dispelled it.
Bush talked about connecting the dots, but Bush has failed to connect any dots for eight solid years. “Our” president was a puppet for a cabal led by Dick Cheney and a handful of Jewish neoconservatives, who took control of the Pentagon, the State Department, the National Security Council, the CIA, and “Homeland Security.” From these power positions, the neocon cabal used lies and deception to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, pointless wars that have cost Americans $3 trillion, while millions of Americans lose their jobs, their pensions, and their access to health care.
“These obviously very difficult economic times,” Bush said in his press conference, “started before my presidency.”
Bush has plenty of liberal company in failing to connect a $3 trillion dollar war with hard times. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities blames Bush’s tax cut, not the wars, for “the fiscal deterioration.”
Bush told the White House Press Corps, a useless collection of non-journalists, that the two mistakes of his invasion of Iraq were: (1) Putting up the “mission accomplished” banner on the aircraft carrier, which, he said, “sent the wrong message,” and (2) the absence of the alleged weapons of mass destruction that he used to justify the invasion.
Although Bush now admits that there were not any such weapons in Iraq, Bush said that the invasion was still the right thing to do.
The deaths of 1.25 million Iraqis, the displacement of 4 million Iraqis, and the destruction of a country’s infrastructure and economy are merely the collateral damage associated with “bringing freedom and democracy” to the Middle East.
Unless George W. Bush is the best actor in human history, he truly believes what he told the White House Press Corps.
What Bush did not explain is how America is respected when its people put a moron in charge for eight years.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Martial Law, the Financial Bailout, and War
Global Research
January 8, 2009
Paulson’s Financial Bailout
It is becoming clear that the bailout measures of late 2008 may have consequences at least as grave for an open society as the response to 9/11 in 2001. Many members of Congress felt coerced into voting against their inclinations, and the normal procedures for orderly consideration of a bill were dispensed with.
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| It is clear that there has been a sustained move in the direction of martial law preparations, a trend that has been as continuous as it has been unheralded. | |
According to Congressman Peter Welch (D-Vermont) the bailout bill originally called for a cap on executive salaries, but Paulson changed the requirement at the last minute. Welch and other members of Congress were enraged by “news that banks getting taxpayer-funded bailouts are still paying exorbitant salaries, bonuses, and other benefits.”1 In addition, as AP reported in October, “Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. questioned allowing banks that accept bailout bucks to continue paying dividends on their common stock. `There are far better uses of taxpayer dollars than continuing dividend payments to shareholders,’ he said.”2
Even more reprehensible is the fact that since the bailouts, Paulson and the Treasury Department have refused to provide details of the Troubled Assets Relief Program spending of hundreds of billions of dollars, while the New York Federal Reserve has refused to provide information about its own bail-out (using government-backed loans) that amounts to trillions. This lack of transparency has been challenged by Fox TV in a FOIA suit against the Treasury Department, and a suit by Bloomberg News against the Fed.3
The financial bailout legislation of September 2008 was only passed after members of both Congressional houses were warned that failure to act would threaten civil unrest and the imposition of martial law.
U.S. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., and U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., both said U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson brought up a worst-case scenario as he pushed for the Wall Street bailout in September. Paulson, former Goldman Sachs CEO, said that might even require a declaration of martial law, the two noted.4
Here are the original remarks by Senator Inhofe:
Speaking on Tulsa Oklahoma’s 1170 KFAQ, when asked who was behind threats of martial law and civil unrest if the bailout bill failed, Senator James Inhofe named Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson as the source. “Somebody in D.C. was feeding you guys quite a story prior to the bailout, a story that if we didn’t do this we were going to see something on the scale of the depression, there were people talking about martial law being instituted, civil unrest….who was feeding you guys this stuff?,” asked host Pat Campbell. “That’s Henry Paulson,” responded Inhofe, “We had a conference call early on, it was on a Friday I think – a week and half before the vote on Oct. 1. So it would have been the middle … what was it – the 19th of September, we had a conference call. In this conference call – and I guess there’s no reason for me not to repeat what he said, but he said – he painted this picture you just described. He said, ‘This is serious. This is the most serious thing that we faced.’”5
Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA 27th District) reported the same threat on the Congressional floor (Rep. Sherman later downplayed his remarks slightly on the Alex Jones show):
“The only way they can pass this bill is by creating a panic atmosphere…. Many of us were told that the sky would fall…. A few of us were even told that there would be martial law in America if we voted no. That’s what I call fear-mongering, unjustified, proven wrong.”6
So it is clear that threats of martial law were used to get this reprehensible bailout legislation passed. It also seems clear that Congress was told of a threat of martial law, not itself threatened. It is still entirely appropriate to link such talk to the Army’s rapid moves to redefine its role as one of controlling the American people, not just protecting them. In a constitutional polity based on balance of powers, we see the emergence of a radical new military power that is as yet completely unbalanced.
The Army’s New Role in 2001: Not Protecting American Society, but Controlling It
This new role for the Army is not wholly unprecedented. The U.S. military had been training troops and police in "civil disturbance planning" for the last three decades. The master plan, Department of Defense Civil Disturbance Plan 55-2, or "Operation Garden Plot," was developed in 1968 in response to the major protests and disturbances of the 1960s.
But on January 19, 2001, on the last day of the Clinton administration, the U.S. Army promulgated a new and permanent Continuity of Operations (COOP) Program. It encapsulated its difference from the preceding, externally-oriented Army Survival, Recovery, and Reconstitution System (ASRRS) as follows:
a. In 1985, the Chief of Staff of the Army established the Army Survival, Recovery, and Reconstitution System (ASRRS) to ensure the continuity of essential Army missions and functions.
ASRRS doctrine was focused primarily on a response to the worst case 1980’s threat of a massive nuclear laydown on CONUS as a result of a confrontation with the Soviet Union.
b. The end of the Cold War and the breakup of the former Soviet Union significantly reduced the probability of a major nuclear attack on CONUS but the probability of other threats has increased. Army organizations must be prepared for any contingency with a potential for interruption of normal operations.
To emphasize that Army continuity of operations planning is now focused on the full all-hazards threat spectrum, the name "ASRRS" has been replaced by the more generic title “Continuity of Operations (COOP) Program.”7
This document embodied the secret Continuity of Operations (COG) planning conducted secretly by Rumsfeld, Cheney, and others through the 1980s and 1990s.8 This planning was initially for continuity measures in the event of a nuclear attack, but soon called for suspension of the Constitution, not just “after a nuclear war” but for any “national security emergency.” This was defined in Reagan’s Executive Order 12656 of November 18, 1988 as “any occurrence, including natural disaster, military attack, technological emergency, or other emergency, that seriously degrades or seriously threatens the national security of the United States.” The effect was to impose on domestic civil society the extreme measures once planned for a response to a nuclear attack from abroad.9
In like fashion ARR 500-3 Regulation clarified that it was a plan for “the execution of mission-essential functions without unacceptable interruption during a national security or domestic emergency.”
Donald Rumsfeld, who as a private citizen had helped author the COG planning, promptly signed and implemented the revised ARR 500-3. Eight months later, on 9/11, Cheney and Rumsfeld implemented COG, a significant event of which we still know next to nothing. What we do know is that plans began almost immediately – as foreseen by COG planning the 1980s — to implement warrantless surveillance and detention of large numbers of civilians, and that in January 2002 the Pentagon submitted a proposal for deploying troops on American streets.10
Then in April 2002, Defense officials implemented a plan for domestic U.S. military operations by creating a new U.S. Northern Command (CINC-NORTHCOM) for the continental United States.11 In short, what were being implemented were the most prominent features of the COG planning which Oliver North had worked on in the 1980s.
Deep Events and Changes of Party in the White House
Like so many other significant steps since World War Two towards a military-industrial state, the Army’s Regulation 500-3 surfaced in the last days of a departing administration (in this case the very last day). It is worth noticing that, ever since the 1950s, dubious events–of the unpublic variety I have called deep events–have marked the last months before a change of party in the White House. These deep events have tended to a) constrain incoming presidents, if the incomer is a Democrat, or alternatively b) to pave the way for the incomer, if he is a Republican.
Consider, in the first category, the following (when a Republican was succeeded by a Democrat):
* In December 1960 the CIA secured approval for the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, and escalated events in Laos into a crisis for which the Joint Chiefs proposed sending 60,000 troops. These events profoundly affected President Kennedy’s posture towards Cuba and Indochina.
* In 1976 CIA Director George H.W. Bush installed an outside Team B intelligence unit to enlarge drastically estimates of the Soviet threat to the United States, eventually frustrating and reversing presidential candidate Jimmy Carter’s campaign pledge to cut the U.S. defense budget.12
Equally important were events in the second category (when a Democrat was succeeded by a Republican):
* In late 1968 Kissinger, while advising the Johnson administration, gave secret information to the Nixon campaign that helped Nixon to obstruct the peace agreement in Vietnam that was about to be negotiated at the peace talks then taking place in Paris. (According to Seymour Hersh,“The Nixon campaign, alerted by Kissinger to the impending success of the peace talks, was able to get a series of messages to the Thieu government” in Saigon. making it clear that a Nixon presidency would offer a better deal. This was a major factor in securing the defeat of Democratic candidate Hubert Humphrey.13 Kissinger was not the kind of person to have betrayed his president on his own personal initiative. At the time Nixon’s campaign manager, John Mitchell (one of the very few in on the secret), told Hersh that “I thought Henry [Kissinger] was doing it because Nelson [Rockefeller] wanted him to. Nelson asked Henry to help and he did.”14
* In 1980 the so-called October Surprise, with the help of people inside CIA, helped ensure that the Americans held hostage in Iran would not be returned before the inauguration of Reagan. This was a major factor in securing the defeat of incumbent Jimmy Carter.15 Once again, the influence of the Rockefellers can be discerned. A CIA officer later reported hearing Joseph V. Reed, an aide to David Rockefeller, comment in 1981 to William Casey, the newly installed CIA Director, about their joint success in disrupting Carter’s plans to bring home the hostages.16
Both the financial bailout, extorted from Congress and the escalated preparations for martial law can be seen as transitional events of the first category. Whatever the explanations for their timing, they will constrain Obama’s freedom to make his own policies. I fear moreover they may have the consequence of easing this country into unforeseen escalations of the Afghan war.
The Intensive Quiet Preparations for Martial Law
Let us deal first with the preparations for martial law. On September 30, 2008, the Army Times announced the redeployment of an active Brigade Army Team from Iraq to America, in a new mission that “may become a permanent part of the active Army”:
The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle, helping restore essential services and escorting supply convoys.
Now they’re training for the same mission — with a twist — at home.
Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks. . . . After 1st BCT finishes its dwell-time mission, expectations are that another, as yet unnamed, active-duty brigade will take over and that the mission will be a permanent one. . . .They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control.17
This announcement followed by two weeks the talk of civil unrest and martial law that was used to panic the Congress into passing Paulson’s bailout legislation. Not only that, the two unprecedented events mirror each other: the bailout debate anticipated civil unrest and martial law, while the announced positioning of an active Brigade Combat Team on U.S. soil anticipated civil unrest (such as might result from the bailout legislation).
Then on December 17, 2008, US Northern Command chief General Renuart announced that “the US military plans to mobilize thousands of troops to protect Washington against potential terrorist attack during the inauguration of president-elect Barack Obama.”18
The US Army War College has also raised the possibility of the U.S. Army being used to control civil unrest, according to the Phoenix Business Journal:
A new report by the U.S. Army War College talks about the possibility of Pentagon resources and troops being used should the economic crisis lead to civil unrest, such as protests against businesses and government or runs on beleaguered banks.
“Widespread civil violence inside the United States would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security,” said the War College report.
The study says economic collapse, terrorism and loss of legal order are among possible domestic shocks that might require military action within the U.S.19
It is clear that there has been a sustained move in the direction of martial law preparations, a trend that has been as continuous as it has been unheralded. Senator Leahy was thus right to draw our attention to it back on September 29, 2006, in his objections to the final form of the Fiscal Year 2007 National Defense Authorization Act, which gave the president increased power to call up the National Guard for law enforcement:
It . . . should concern us all that the Conference agreement includes language that subverts solid, longstanding posse comitatus statutes that limit the military’s involvement in law enforcement, thereby making it easier for the President to declare martial law. There is good reason for the constructive friction in existing law when it comes to martial law declarations.20
This quiet agglomeration of military power has not “just growed,” like Topsy, through inadvertence. It shows sustained intention, even if no one has made a public case for it.
How the Bush Administration Protected Predatory Lending and Let the Financial Crisis Grow
Let us now consider the financial crisis and the panic bailout. No one should think that the crisis was unforeseen. Back in February Eliot Spitzer, in one of his last acts as governor of New York, warned about the impending crisis created by predatory lending, and reveled that the Bush Administration was blocking state efforts to deal with it. His extraordinary warning, in the Washington Post, is worth quoting at some length:
Several years ago, state attorneys general and others involved in consumer protection began to notice a marked increase in a range of predatory lending practices by mortgage lenders. …
Even though predatory lending was becoming a national problem, the Bush administration looked the other way and did nothing to protect American homeowners. In fact, the government chose instead to align itself with the banks that were victimizing consumers. . . . Several state legislatures, including New York’s, enacted laws aimed at curbing such practices. . . .Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.
Let me explain: The administration accomplished this feat through an obscure federal [Treasury] agency called the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The OCC has been in existence since the Civil War. Its mission is to ensure the fiscal soundness of national banks. For 140 years, the OCC examined the books of national banks to make sure they were balanced, an important but uncontroversial function. But a few years ago, for the first time in its history, the OCC was used as a tool against consumers.
In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks. The federal government’s actions were so egregious and so unprecedented that all 50 state attorneys general, and all 50 state banking superintendents, actively fought the new rules.
But the unanimous opposition of the 50 states did not deter, or even slow, the Bush administration in its goal of protecting the banks. In fact, when my office opened an investigation of possible discrimination in mortgage lending by a number of banks, the OCC filed a federal lawsuit to stop the investigation.21
Eliot Spitzer submitted his Op Ed to the Washington Post on February 13. If it had an impact, it was not the one Spitzer had hoped for. On March 10 the New York Times broke the story of Spitzer’s encounter with a prostitute. According to a later Times story, “on Feb. 13 [the day Spitzer’s Op Ed went up on the Washington Post website] federal agents staked out his hotel in Washington.”22
It is remarkable that the Mainstream Media found Spitzer’s private life to be big news, but not his charges that Paulson’s Treasury was prolonging the financial crisis, or the relation of these charges to Spitzer’s exposure. As a weblog commented,
The US news media failed to draw the obvious connection between the bizarre federal law enforcement investigation and leak campaign about the private life of New York Governor Spitzer and Spitzer’s all out attack on the Bush administration for its collusion with predatory lenders.
While the international credit system grinds to a halt because of a superabundance of bad mortgage loans made in the US, the news media failed to cover the details of Spitzer’s public charges against the White House.
Yet when salacious details were leaked about alleged details of Spitzer’s private life, they took that information and made it the front page news for days.23
After Spitzer’s Op Ed was published, according to Greg Palast, the Federal Reserve, “for the first time in its history, loaned a selected coterie of banks one-fifth of a trillion dollars to guarantee these banks’ mortgage-backed junk bonds. The deluge of public loot was an eye-popping windfall to the very banking predators who have brought two million families to the brink of foreclosure.”24
What are we to make of Spitzer’s charge that the Bush administration interfered to preempt state laws against predatory lending, and of the fact that the mainstream media did not report that? A petty motive for the OCC’s behavior in 2003 might have been to allow the housing bubble to continue through 2003 and 2004, thus facilitating Bush’s re-election. But the persistence of Treasury obstruction thereafter, despite the unanimous opposition of all fifty states, and the continuing silence of the media about this disagreement, suggest that some broader policy intention may have been at stake.
One is struck by the similarities with the Savings and Loan scandal which was allowed to continue through the Reagan 1980s, long after it became apparent that deliberate bankruptcy was being used by unscrupulous profiteers to amass illegal fortunes at what was ultimately public expense.25
In the same way, the long drawn-out housing bubble of the current Bush decade, and particularly the derivative bubble that was floated upon it, allowed the Bush administration to help offset the trillion-dollar-plus cost of its Iraq misadventure,26 by creating spurious securities that sold for hundreds of billions, not just in the United States, but through the rest of the world.
In the long run, this was not a sustainable source of wealth for America’s financial class, which is now suffering like everyone else from the consequent recession. But in the short run, the financial crisis and bailout made it possible for Bush to wage a costly war without experiencing the kind of debilitating inflation that was brought on by America’s Vietnam War.
The trillion dollar meltdown,27 in other words, can be rationalized as having helped finance the Iraq War. When we turn to the martial law preparations, however, they are being made in anticipation of civil unrest in the future. Why such intense preparation for this?
The obvious answer of course is memory of the rioting that occurred in San Francisco and elsewhere during the great depression of the 1930s. Indeed that thought may be uppermost among those who recently arranged for the redeployment of a Brigade Combat Team from Iraq to America. But the planning for martial law in America dates back almost three decades, from the days when Reagan appointed Rumsfeld, Cheney and others to plan secretly for what was misleadingly called Continuity [i.e., Change] of Government. Concern about the 2008 recession cannot have been on their minds then, or on those who introduced the Army’s “Continuity of Operations (COOP) Program” on January 19, 2001. Instead the “full all-hazards threat spectrum” envisaged in that document was clearly ancillary to the doctrine of “full-spectrum dominance” that had been articulated in the Joint Chiefs of Staff blueprint, Joint Vision 2020, endorsed eight months earlier on May 30, 2000.28
The interest of Cheney and Rumsfeld in COG planning, including planning for martial law, also envisaged full spectrum dominance. This is made clear by their simultaneous engagement in the 1990s in the public Project for the New American Century (PNAC). PNAC’s goals were stated very explicitly in their document Rebuilding America’s Defenses: to increase defense spending so as to establish America’s military presence throughout the world as an unchallengeable power. This would entail permanent U.S. forces in central as well as east Asia, even after the disappearance[jam1] of Saddam Hussein.29
In short PNAC’s program was a blueprint for permanent overseas American empire, a project they recognized would not be easily accepted by an American democracy. Their call frankly acknowledged that it would be difficult to gain support for their projected increase in defense spending to “a minimum level of 3.5 to 3.8 percent of gross domestic product, adding $15 billion to $20 billion to total defense spending annually.” “The process of transformation,” the document admitted, “is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor.”30
There is of course every reason to hope that the disastrous era of Rumsfeld and Cheney is about to end, with the election of Barack Obama. Obama has made it clear that he will pursue a foreign policy dedicated to diplomacy and multilateralism. In this spirit he has declared his willingness to talk to Iran without preconditions.
But Obama’s stated reason for disengagement from Iraq – “The scale of our deployments in Iraq continues to set back our ability to finish the fight in Afghanistan”31 – is very ominous. Few serious students of the Afghan scene believe that America can “finish the fight in Afghanistan,” any more successfully than could the Russians or British before them. The U.S. position there is visibly deteriorating, while the U.S. strategy of cross-border attacks is having the effect of destabilizing Pakistan as well. The U.S.-backed Karzai regime has so little control over the countryside that Kabul itself is now coming under rocket attack. Experts on the scene agree that any effort to “finish” will be a long-term proposition requiring at a minimum a vastly escalated commitment of U.S. troops.32
One cannot predict the future, but one can examine the past. For thirty years I have been writing about the persistence in America of a war mentality that, time after time, trumps reasonable policies of negotiation, and leads us further into armed conflict. This dominant mindset is not restricted to any single agency or cabal, but is rather the likely outcome of on-going tensions between hawks and doves in the internal politics of Washington.
If a container of rocks and gravel is shaken vigorously, the probability is that the gravel will gravitate towards the bottom, leaving the largest rocks at the top. There is an analogous probability that, in an on-going debate over engaging or withdrawing from a difficult military contest, the forces for engagement will come out on top, regardless of circumstances. Available military power tends to be used, and one of the most remarkable features of history since 1945 is that this tendency has not so far repeated itself with atomic weapons.
Let me explain this metaphor in more concrete detail. Progressive societies (in this era usually democracies) tend to expand their presence beyond their geographic boundaries. This expanded presence calls for new institutions, usually (like the CIA) free from democratic accountability. This accretion of unaccountable power, in what I have elsewhere called the deep state, disrupts the public state’s system of checks and balances which is the underpinning of sane, deliberative policy.
We might expect of progressive democracies that they would evolve towards more and more rational foreign policies. But because of the dialectic just described, what we see is the exact opposite – evolution towards foolish and sometimes disastrous engagements. When Britain became more democratic in the late 19th Century, it also initiated the Boer War, a war very suited to the private imperial needs of Cecil Rhodes, but irrelevant if not deleterious to the interests of the British people.33 Hitler’s dreams of a Third Reich, entailing a doomed repeat of Napoleon’s venture into the heart of Russia, suited the needs of the German industrialists who had financed the Nazis; but from the outset sane heads of the German military staff could foresee the coming disaster.
For over a half century now, beginning with Vietnam, unaccountable forces have been maneuvering America into unsustainable adventures on the Asian mainland. We now know that Kennedy did not intend ever to commit U.S. combat troops to Vietnam.34 But the fatal planning to expand the Vietnam War north of the 17th parallel was authorized in the last week of his aborted presidency, probably without his being aware.35 When elected, Jimmy Carter was determined to reduce the size and frequency of CIA covert operations.36 Yet his national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, initiated maneuvers in Afghanistan that led to the largest CIA covert operation (and in my view, one of the most deleterious) of all time.37