Showing posts with label Dick Cheney. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dick Cheney. Show all posts

Thursday, June 16, 2016

Did the CIA murder Senator John Tower? by Wayne Madsen Report



Did the CIA murder Senator John Tower? by Wayne Madsen ReportAlthough they were both Republican politicians from Texas, Senator John Tower and President George H. W. Bush became bitter rivals. Documents discovered in the Central Intelligence Agency's archives point to Bush and his allies within the CIA being upset with Tower over his findings as the chairman of the Tower Commission, named to investigate the culprits behind the Iran-contra scandal. The information gleaned by Tower may have also resulted in his and his daughter's 1991 death in an airplane crash in Georgia.

In November 1986, President Reagan named Tower, who had declined to run for re-election in 1986, to chair the "President's Special Review Board" on the actions of the National Security Council and its staff during the Iran-contra affair. The Tower Commission, as it was known, discovered, as did Special Prosecutor Lawrence Walsh, that Vice President George Bush was a central figure in the scandal. Bush ensured he had his own plant installed on the Tower Commission, 
former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, who would hold the same office in the George H. W. Bush presidency. The third commission member was former Secretary of State Edmund Muskie.

In 1989, Bush nominated Tower to be his Secretary of Defense. However, the Senate rejected their former colleague in a 47-53 vote. The last Senate rejection of a Cabinet nominee was in 1959. It later became known that it was Bush, who, via articles and statements by the vitriolic conservative rabble rouser Paul Weyrich, leaked rumors of Tower's "womanizing" and problems with alcohol in order to publicly humiliate Tower. The bad press resulted in Tower's embarrassing rejection by the Senate. In other words, Bush set Tower up for a very public fall. It was retaliation for Tower's probing of Bush's central involvement in Iran-contra. And Tower's rejection opened the door for Dick Cheney to become Secretary of Defense.

On April 5, 1991, Tower and his daughter Marian, along with 21 others, died in the crash of Atlantic Southeast Airlines flight 2311 while it approached the Brunswick, Georgia airport. The crash was blamed on aircraft equipment failure. Tower and his daughter, who had just cooperated in the publishing of Tower's memoir, were collaborating on a second "tell-all" book about Iran-contra that was reportedly going to "name names" and Bush's name would have been prominently mentioned.
Photo of Atlantic Southeast Flight 2311 wreckage being lifted  (A fireman examines a portion of the wreckage of the crash that killed Sen. John Heinz.  AP file photo)
Any further investigations of Bush and Iran-contra went down in flames on April 5, 1991 with Atlantic Southeast 2311 [left] and the plane that crashed the day before in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania [right].

CIA archival documents show that Tower cited as one of the major Iran-contra co-conspirators in the Tower Report, Graham Fuller, who was CIA director William Casey's top advisers and a friend of Tower Commission member Scowcroft. Fuller was a major architect of the CIA's training and arming Islamic jihadists to not only fight the Soviets in Afghanistan but in the USSR itself, especially in central Asia and the Caucasus, the latter called the "Second Afghanistan."

It was this policy of encouraging Islamist radicalization that ultimately led to the creation of Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. Fuller's daughter was married to Ruslan Tsarnaev, the uncle of accused Boston Marathon bombers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. As previously reported by WMR, Fuller, t
hroughout the 1980s, Fuller was front and center during many of the acts of violence in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia, from Lebanon and Syria to Iran, Libya, and Algeria, as well as Iraq, Afghanistan, and South Yemen. Among Fuller's fellow CIA provocateurs trying to stir up Muslims against the Russians was John Brennan, the current CIA director who continues the policy with CIA support of jihadist groups in Syria.

As a result of the Tower report, one of the first heads to roll at the CIA was Fuller, who resigned after the report's release in 1987. Bush and his sycophants at the CIA were livid over not only what Tower released in the report but also what he failed to include but knew about: that Bush was the central kingpin in the arms-for-hostages deal with Iran and the use of the profits to aid the contras. Bush swore out a vendetta against Tower, one that would culminate with a fiery plane crash in Georgia in 1991. Bush tried to escape blame by prodding a dementia-afflicted Reagan to fire White House chief of staff Donald Regan. Bush saw to it that Regan was blamed for the Iran-contra debacle. However, unlike Tower and his daughter, Regan did escape Bush's wrath with his life.

Not so lucky was Pennsylvania Senator John Heinz III, a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that investigated Iran-contra and one of Tower's supporters in the confirmation vote for Secretary of Defense. On April 4, 1991, the day before Tower died in the plane crash in Georgia, Heinz was killed in a freakish mid-air crash of his plane with a helicopter outside of Philadelphia.

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Senate Torture Report exposes bizarre sexual voyeurism of Cheney, others by Wayne Madsen





Senate Torture Report exposes bizarre sexual voyeurism of Cheney, others

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's Study of the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program, otherwise known as the "Torture Report," contains a number of references to male sexual abuse also seen in past reports about torture at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and Guantanamo.

The sexual abuse centers around inserting objects into the rectums of detainees. In the recent Senate report this activity also borders on coprophilia, a fetish that WMR exposed in the past on this website as one of Vice President Dick Cheney's more prurient interests. Coprophilia is defined as "paraphilia involving sexual arousal and pleasure from feces." Upon its release by Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Cheney was quick to defend the interrogation and detention practices revealed in the report.

Not only does the report state that detainees, including Abu Zubaydah, were subject to frequent rectal examinations but they were also subjected to "rectal fluid resuscitation" for "partially refusing liquids." The report states that Majid Khan, a legal resident of the United States from Pakistan, was "very hostile to rectal feeding and removed the rectal tube as soon as he was allowed to."

In addition, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, charged as the planner of the 9/11 attack, was "subjected to rectal rehydration without a determination of medical need, a procedure that KSM interrogator and chief of interrogations, [redacted] would later characterize as illustrative of the interrogator's 'total control over the detainee.'" Another detainee, Marwan al-Jabbur, a native of Pakistan who was later released after being held at various CIA black sites, was subjected to what was originally called an "enema," but was later acknowledged to be rectal rehydration. The report states that Abdul Rahim al-Nashiri, charged with being the mastermind of the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, and Majid Khan were subjected to rectal feeding. The CIA destroyed tapes of al-Nashiri being waterboarded at the CIA black site, called the "Blue Site," in Poland. Three detainees, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Khallad bin
Attash, and Adnan al-Libi, were threatened with rectal rehydration.

Medical professionals contacted by WMR said there is no evidence that any nourishment can be achieved by giving someone a colonic enema or rectal infusion of food matter. The Senate report states that Majid Khan was infused rectally with a pureed "lunch tray" of hummus, pasta with sauce, nuts, and raisins. The CIA's June 2013 Response to the Senate committee failed to address the use of rectal feeding with CIA detainees, but defends the use of rectal rehydration as a "well acknowledged medical technique." Doctors WMR consulted rejected the CIA's statement as nonsense. The report also states that the "CIA leadership, including General Counsel Scott Muller and DDO James Pavitt, was also alerted to allegations that rectal exams were conducted with 'excessive force' on two detainees at DETENTION SITE COBALT [located in Afghanistan and known as the "Salt Pit"]. CIA attorney [redacted] was asked to follow up, although CIA records do not indicate any resolution of the inquiry. CIA records indicate that one of the detainees, Mustafa al-Hawsawi, was later diagnosed with chronic hemorrhoids, an anal fissure, and symptomatic prolapse." Al-Hawsawi, charged with being the financier of the 9/11 attack, remains in detention in Guantanamo.

According to the report, it is quite likely that the "rectal infusions" were contained in CIA videotapes of the interrogations of Zubaydah and al-Nashiri. It is also known that live video streaming of interrogations was viewed by senior U.S. government officials. According to the report, "CIA officers were observing the foreign government interrogations of Ammar al-Baluchi via video feed." Al Baluchi, a native of Kuwait accused of being an Al Qaeda financier in Pakistan and Dubai, was held in a CIA black site and is currently in Guantanamo.

After the Senate Intelligence Committee expressed interest in the torture videotapes, the CIA destroyed them on November 9, 2005, according to the report. The number of videotapes held by the CIA and destroyed is not disclosed. The report indicates that other videotapes of torture were destroyed by the CIA beginning in December 2007.

WMR previously reported that live video streaming equipment used by Vice President Cheney and his aides to view torture sessions in his Old Executive Building office was destroyed by a suspicious fire. On May 28, 2009, WMR reported: "On December 22, 2008, WMR reported on the high-tech support provided the Bush-Cheney White House by Mike Connell's GovTech Solutions and his close colleague Jeff Averbeck's firm SmarTech. Connell died last December when the plane he was piloting crashed short of landing in Akron, Ohio. We have now learned that Connell and Averbeck may have been behind the installation of live streaming black boxes in the White House and the Eisenhower Old Executive Office Building used to stream live video of torture sessions in Guantanamo, Cuba and Abu Ghraib to the Old Executive Office Building office of Vice President Dick Cheney's Chief Counsel David Addington and into the White House, itself."

Addington is mentioned a number of times in the Senate report as being a key player in the torture program.  WMR's May 28, 2009 report continued: "The fire that broke out in an 'electrical closet' in the Old Executive Office Building on December 19, 2007, near Cheney's ceremonial office likely contained the live streaming boxes used to stream torture sessions from Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, according to our sources who added that SmartTech and Airnet have been in the live streaming video business since 2002. With the recent statement of retired U.S. Army General Antonio Taguba that rape and other sexual molestation sessions were prevalent at Abu Ghraib and that they were photographed, the stories of the suspicious death of Connell and the White House fire have taken on new relevancy. As reported by WMR on January 10, 2008: 'Army Major General Antonio Taguba's report on Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse stated that the abuse included 'A male MP guard 'having sex' with a female detainee.' 'Having sex' was an obvious attempt to avoid the use of the word 'rape.' It is obvious that Taguba's report was either altered or some evidence was not shared with him and his investigators . . . Another investigation conducted by Lt. Gen. Anthony Jones and Maj. Gen. George Fay of Abu Ghraib reported male homosexual rape of prisoners but not the rape of female prisoners."

The Taguba report on detainee abuse in Iraq also stated that detainees were sodomized with glow sticks. WMR also reported that U.S. sodomized underage teen at Iraqi detention facilities with broom sticks and flashlights and that videotapes of this abuse were made available to senior White House staff for "entertainment" purposes.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld also personally oversaw sexual abuse of at least one detainee. A December 2005 internal US Army Inspector General report leaked to the on-line publication Salon.com described how  Rumsfeld personally monitored by telephone the interrogation of Saudi detainee Mohamed el Qahtani, described as the "20th hijacker." Lt. Gen. Randall Schmidt reported to the Inspector General that the abuse  of Qahtani "looked like Abu Ghraib." Qahtani was forced to wear women's underwear, perform sex acts in front of a woman, and perform "dog tricks" while wearing a leash. The nudity and "stress position" acts were personally approved by Rumsfeld in December 2002.

However, it is Cheney who has been quick to defend the sexually perverse interrogation practices from which he appears to have derived personal gratification. On October 26, 2006, WMR reported that people who knew Dick Cheney in Wyoming before he served in the Nixon administration claimed he always had an unusual penchant for hanging around young girls, some as young as seven-years old. Cheney reportedly walked around his Wyoming home in his underwear, sometimes when his two young daughters' friends were visiting. Cheney did not seem to mind that his activities around his home would inevitably expose his penis to the young girls.


Senate Intelligence Committee report on rectal rehydration appears to match Dick Cheney's most prurient sexual interests. Cheney's staff suppressed the above edition of The Globe from DC metro area supermarkets.

WMR also reported: "Cheney served as a Congressman from Wyoming from 1979 to 1989. This was during a time when two major page scandals, both involving Republican members of Congress, rocked Capitol Hill. They were the Koreagate scandal and the page/prostitutes visiting the White House in the late 1980s. In 1981, Lynne Cheney wrote "Sisters," an Old West novel containing lesbian themes. Dick Cheney's close friend and former chief of staff Scooter Libby penned a novel called "The Apprentice." The following is an excerpt from Libby's book, which features its main character, Yukiko, drawing hair on the 'mound' of a little girl: 'At age 10 the madam put the child in a cage with a bear trained to couple with young girls so the girls would be frigid and not fall in love with their patrons. They fed her through the bars and aroused the bear with a stick when it seemed to lose interest.'"

In 2002, Cheney held a reception for the publication of the second edition of Libby's book at the vice president's mansion.

On June 5, 2007, WMR reported on bizarre and kinky sexual practices engaged in by top Bush administration and other Republican officials by clients of "DC Madam" Jeane Palfrey's Pamela Martin & Associates escort service and other services: "The Bush administration's increasing nervousness about Deborah Jeane Palfrey's phone list is understandable after more details have emerged about some of the more bizarre prurient appetites of some past clients of Pamela Martin & Associates clients, said to include top officials of the Bush administration, Congressional members and staffers, and at least two well-known Washington, DC journalists.
Some escorts regularly paid visits to clients with whips and handcuffs as part of their regular ensemble.
Prostitutes hired by Louisiana Senator David Vitter in New Orleans are reporting that Vitter had a bizarre sexual fetish -- he liked to wear diapers during his trysts.
While that may be weird, some other prostitution clients due to be outed in Washington would appear much more bizarre. WMR has learned that certain VIPs who engaged the services of 'fantasy' escorts enjoyed what is known as 'water sports' -- firstly, practices that involve urination and, 'number two,' activities that are even worse.

Cheney's coprophilia fetish was the subject of WMR's April 11, 2008 report, "Cheney, according to knowledgeable sources involved in the Palfrey trial, paid at least one escort to straddle a glass top table and defecate on it while Cheney peered at the bowel "evacuation" from underneath" The act was performed before Cheney became vice president at a town home next door to his own residence at Madison of McLean, an upscale housing development in McLean, Virginia close to the CIA's headquarters. Palfrey, had been found guilty of racketeering, mail fraud, and money laundering on April 15, 2008, just four days after WMR published its report about her escorts being involved in coprophiliac activities with Cheney. On May 1, 2008, Palfrey was found hanging in a utility shed at her mother's home in Tarpon Springs, Florida. Police ruled the death a "suicide."

After WMR's report on Cheney's use of Palfrey's escorts ran on the front cover of The Globe supermarket tabloid, the editor was informed that Cheney's aides pressured two local retailers, Giant Food and Safeway, not to carry that issue. However, CVS pharmacy did sell the issue.

The bottom line on the rectal abuse at the CIA black sites, Guantanamo Bay, and Abu Ghraib is that it was performed not to extract any meaningful intelligence but for the sexual gratification of coprohiliacs like Dick Cheney and his closest associates. While squirting a puree of hummus, pasta, nuts and raisins into the rectums of U.S. detainees had no nutritional value for prisoners who refused to eat, the prurient nature of the procedure is in keeping with the bizarre sexual appetites of Mr. Cheney and his entourage.

Wednesday, July 02, 2014

THE ROVING EYE Arab Spring, Jihad Summer By Pepe Escobar




THE ROVING EYE
Arab Spring, Jihad Summer
By Pepe Escobar 

Welcome to IS. No typo; the final goal may be (indiscriminate) regime change, but for the moment name change will do. With PR flair, at the start of Ramadan, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS, or ISIL - the Islamic State of the Levant - to some) solemnly declared, from now on, it will be known as Islamic State (IS). 

"To be or not to be" is so … metaphysically outdated. IS is - and here it is - in full audio glory. And we're talking about the full package - Caliph included: "the slave of Allah, Ibrahim Ibn 'Awwad Ibn Ibrahim Ibn 'Ali Ibn Muhammad al-Badrial-Hashimi al-Husayni al-Qurashi by lineage, as-Samurra'i by birth and upbringing, al-Baghdadi by residence and scholarship". Or, to put it more simply, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. 

IS has virtually ordered "historic" al-Qaeda - yes, that 9/11-related (or not) plaything of one Osama bin Laden - as well as every other jihadi outfit on the planet, to pledge allegiance to the new imam, in theological theory the new lord over every Muslim. There's no evidence Osama's former sidekick, Ayman "the doctor" al-Zawahiri will obey, not to mention 1.5 billion Muslims across the world. Most probably al-Qaeda will say "we are the real deal" and a major theological catfight will be on. 

After all, in Syria, ISIL as well as Jabhat al-Nusra were initially fighting under the banner of al-Qaeda, until the brand - in spectacular fashion - decided to dump al-Baghdadi. He and ISIL went too far - with all those videos of decapitations and crucifixions and serial profanation of Shi'ite, Sufi and Christian sanctuaries. 

Al-Baghdadi, born Ibrahim al-Badri in Samarra, is an average Sunni Iraqi cleric with a degree in pedagogy from the University of Baghdad. His alter ago was born after Shock and Awe in 2003, and soon metamorphosed into a de facto serial killer - blowing up Shi'ite kids at ice-cream shops or scores of women at Shi'ite weddings. 

ISIL's track record in Syria includes banning every flag apart from its own; the destruction of any "polytheist" temple or sanctuary (except if it is Sunni); and strict imposition of Islamically correct women wear. Most of all, it is a track record of terror. This is not an army, rather a well-trained militia of professional mujahid, European passport holders included, with battlefield experience in Iraq, Afghanistan and, to a lesser degree, Chechnya. Heavy weaponizing is petrodollar-financed - the usual, wealthy "Gulf donors", which does not exclude official connections. 

Sources of income diversified mightily when ISIL captured the oilfields surrounding Deir Ezzor in Syria; and after the recent offensive across Niniveh province in Iraq, they were able to lay their hands on vast arsenals of heavy artillery, lots of cash and gold bullion and, why not, US Humvees left behind. Their trademark, of course, are those columns of brand new white Toyota Land cruisers - free off road advertising Toyota HQ in Japan may not find particularly welcome. 

Loaded with oil and profiting from tax revenue, IS is now firmly on its way to provide (minimal) services and support a (mighty) Jihadi Army - much like the Taliban from 1996 to 2001. One may be sure IS will continue its massive "social engagement" strategy; talk about a chatty Caliphate which loves YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. No wonder they are a hit among Google generation recruits - as well as becoming fund-raising aces via gruesome videos. In thesis, indoctrination progresses hand in hand with "charity work"; residents of Aleppo, for instance, can dwell on how ISIL (gruesomely) looks and feels on the ground. 

Mission forever unaccomplished
It's unclear how the new IS reality will play on the ground. The new Caliph has in fact declared a jihad on all that basket of corrupt and/or incompetent Middle East "leaders" - so some fierce "battle for survival" reaction from the Houses of Saud and Thani, for instance, is expected. It's not far-fetched to picture al-Baghdadi dreaming of lording over Saudi oilfields - after decapitating all Shi'ite workers, of course. 

And that's just a start; in one of their Tweeter accounts IS has published a map of all the domains they intend to conquer within the span of five years; Spain, Northern Africa, the Balkans, the whole Middle East and large swathes of Asia. Well, they are certainly more ambitious than NATO. 

Being such a courageous bunch, the House of Saud is now tempted to accept that imposing regime change on Nouri al-Maliki in Iraq is a bad idea. That puts them in direct conflict with the Obama administration, whose plan A, B and C is regime change. 

Turkey - the former seat of the Caliphate, by the way - remains mute. No wonder; Ankara - crucially - is the top logistical base of IS. Caliph Erdogan's got to be musing about his own future, now that he's facing competition. In theory, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Jordan are all saying they're ready to fight what would be a "larger-scale war" than that gift that keeps on giving, the original, Cheney junta-coined GWOT (global war on terror). 

And then there's the future of the new $500 million Obama fund to "appropriately vetted" rebels in Syria, which in fact means the expansion of covert CIA "training facilities" in Jordan and Turkey heavily infiltrated/profited from by IS. Think of hordes of new IS recruits posing as "moderate rebels" getting ready for a piece of the action. 

It's easier for Brazil to win the World Cup with a team of crybabies with no tactical nous than having US Secretary of State John Kerry and his State Department ciphers understand that the Syrian "opposition" is controlled by jihadis. But then again, they do know - and that perfectly fits into the Empire of Chaos's not so hidden Global War on Terror (GWOT) agenda of an ever-expanding proxy war in both Syria and Iraq fueled by terror financing. 

So 13 years ago Washington crushed both al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Then the Taliban were reborn. Then came Shock and Awe. Then came "Mission Accomplished". Then al-Qaeda was introduced in Iraq. Then al-Qaeda was dead because Osama bin Laden was dead. Then came ISIL. And now there's IS. And we start all over again, not in the Hindu Kush, but in the Levant. With a new Osama. 

What's not to like? If anyone thinks this whole racket is part of a new live Monty Python sketch ahead of their reunion gig this month in London, that's because it is. 

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.
 

Tuesday, June 03, 2014

THE ROVING EYE - Return of the living (neo-con) dead By Pepe Escobar




THE ROVING EYE
Return of the living (neo-con) dead
By Pepe Escobar

Amid much hysteria, the notion has been widely peddled in the United States that President Obama's "new" foreign policy doctrine, announced last week at West Point, rejects neo-cons and neo-liberals and is, essentially, post-imperialist and a demonstration of realpolitik.

Not so fast. Although stepping back from the excesses of the Cheney regime - as in bombing whole nations into "democracy" - the "desire to lead" still crystallizes might is right.

Moreover, "exceptionalism" remains the norm. Now not so blatant, but still implemented via a nasty set of tools, from financial warfare to cyber-war, from National Endowment for Democracy-style promotion of "democracy" to Joint Special Operations Command-driven counter-terrorism, drone war and all shades of shadow wars.

In the early 2000s, the model was the physical destruction and occupation of Iraq. In the 2010s the model is the slow-mo destruction, by proxy, of Syria.

And still, those who "conceptualized" the destruction of Iraq keep rearing their Alien-like slimy head. Their icon is of course Robert Kagan - one of the founders of the apocalyptically funereal Project for a New American Century (PNAC) and husband of crypto-Ukrainian hell raiser Victoria "F**k the EU" Nuland (thus their dream of Ukraine as the Khaganate of Nulands, or simply Nulandistan.)

Kagan has been devastatingly misguided on everything, as in his 2003 best-seller Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order, an eulogy of "benign" Americans standing guard against the "threats" (as in Muslim fundamentalism) emanating from a Hobbesian world way beyond the cozy Kantian precinct inhabited by Europe.

Then, in The Return of History and the End of Dreams (2008), the "evil" was not Muslim fundamentalism anymore (too shabby), but the emerging of those vast autocracies, Russia and China, antithetical to Western democracies. But with The World America Made (2012), the paradisiacal shining city on the hill would once again triumph, more than capable to see those autocracies off; after all, the only reliable guarantee of global peace is American exceptionalism.

Kagan still commands the attention even of the otherwise aloof Commander-in-Chief, who avidly consumed The World America Made before his 2012 State of the Union Address, in which he proclaimed "America is back".

It's enlightening to flash back to Kagan writing in the Weekly Standard in March 2011, sounding like an awestruck schoolboy praising Obama; "He thoroughly rejected the so-called realist approach, extolled American exceptionalism, spoke of universal values and insisted that American power should be used, when appropriate, on behalf of those values."

Any similarity with Obama's "new" foreign policy doctrine is, indeed, intentional.

Catfight at the Singapore corral
Now comes Kagan's latest opus, "Superpowers Don't Get to Retire: What our tired country still owes the world", with a sorry mess already inbuilt in the title (he's never read Paul Kennedy after all). History tells us that superpowers do retire because of over-extension - not only military but mostly economic and fiscal, as in facing bankruptcy.

Yet it's hopeless to expect from Kagan and the neo-con nebula anything other than blindness to the lessons of history - with a special, tragic mention of Shock and Awe, trampling of Geneva Conventions, and institutionalized torture. Their parochial dichotomy is either eternal American global hegemony or outright chaos.

Progressives in the US still try to save the day, frantically calling for a core "restoration" of American economic and democratic health; a rather impossible undertaking when casino capitalism rules and the US is now for all practical purposes an oligarchy. These dreamers actually believe this "restoration" is what Obama has done or is trying to do; and that would project the US once again as a global model - and thus "encourage" democracy everywhere. Sorry to break the news, but for the overwhelming majority of the genuine, fact on the ground "international community", the notion of the US promoting democracy is now D.O.A.

So under the banner of exceptionalism - versus the competing birth of a Eurasian century - it's been a fascinating exercise to witness the catfight at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, which I described last year as the Spielbergs and Clooneys of the military sphere all locked up in a Star Wars room (actually a ballroom with chandeliers at the Shangri-La Hotel.)

It all started with Shinzo Abe, the militaristic prime minister of that American protectorate, Japan, denouncing "unilateral efforts" to alter the strategic status quo in Asia. General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, piled up, saying Asia-Pacific was becoming less stable because of "coercion and provocation" by China. And Pentagon supremo Chuck Hagel also blasted Beijing, accusing it of "destabilizing, unilateral actions" in the South China Sea.

But then Lt Gen Wang Guanzhong, the deputy chief of general staff of the PLA, counterpunched in kind, saying Hagel's talk was "full of hegemony, full of words of threat and intimidation" and part of "a provocative challenge against China".

Major General Zhu Chenghu even allowed himself to be condescending (oh, those barbarians ... ); "The Americans are making very, very important strategic mistakes right now ... If you take China as an enemy, China will absolutely become the enemy of the US."

Major General Zhu also accused Hagel of hypocrisy; "Whatever the Chinese do is illegal, and whatever the Americans do is right." Zhu was quick to register Hagel's own threat, as in "the US will not look the other way when fundamental principles of the international order are being challenged." Translation: Don't mess with the exceptionalist. WE are the international order.

It's as if everyone was reading from Kagan's playbook. The difference is that Beijing is not Baghdad, and will not respond to threats by lying down. Instead, it is deploying selective, savvy, tactical moves all across the Western Pacific chessboard. Washington's Asian network of vassals/clients/protectorates is and will be slowly but surely undermined. And on top of it, Beijing clearly sees that both Hagel and Kerry - who know next to nothing about the complexities of Asia - are clearly panicking.

Those Deng Xiaoping dictum days - from "crossing the river by feeling the stones" to "carry a low profile" - are in the past. Now we're talking about the imminent number one economic power, already the world's top trading nation and America's top creditor.

Highway to Hillary
Russia - and not the US - is now the key partner or broker in negotiating hardcore international conflicts. The recent flurry of China-Russia energy and trade agreements, an essential part of their strategic partnership; the progressive integration and concerted economic/financial strategy of the BRICS; and even the slow moving process of Latin American integration all point towards a multipolar world.

Which bring us back to Obama's "new" foreign policy doctrine. Let's quickly survey the recent record.

Obama only refrained from pursuing his reckless, self-imposed red line and bombing Syria because he was saved (from himself) at the eleventh hour by Russian diplomacy.

The Iran dossier remains vulnerable to relentless pressure by neo-cons/Israel lobby/sectors of the weaponizing industry, with the Obama administration introducing extraneous factors bound to sidestep the negotiation.

Obama's sanctions on Russia because of Ukraine were not only unlawful; they are peripheral, as astute European Union business leaders quickly recognized.

A simulacrum of withdrawal is being pushed in Afghanistan - to be replaced by all-out shadow war.

And the Obama administration - covertly and not so covertly - has been supporting neo-nazis in Ukraine and jihadists in Syria.

All this is still not enough for the Kagan bunch - the "conceptual" architects of the 9/11 wars, who always wanted Obama to bomb Syria; bomb Iran; start a war with Russia over Crimea; and even, sooner rather than later, bomb China to prevent it from getting back to number one. Hobbesians gone mad - wallowing in their psychotic sense of perennial entitlement - will stop at nothing to prevent the emergence of a multipolar world. It's Exceptionalist Empire with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as global Robocop, or hell.

Moscow and Beijing, to say the least, are not exactly impressed; rather, they detect desperation. Yet things could - and should - get much nastier, irrespective of imploding Khaganates. Just wait for the Hillary doctrine.

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.
 

Friday, March 28, 2014

Continuity and Change ... For the Worse - The Obama Paradox





Continuity and Change ... For the Worse

The Obama Paradox

by ANDREW LEVINE
Barack Obama ran for office promising change; he delivered continuity.  But then, continuity brought change – for the worse.
In 2008, “change” meant whatever voters wanted it to mean.  Like the candidate, the word was a Rorschach inkblot.
Many, probably most, Obama voters had no clear idea what kind of change they expected.  All they knew was that, under George W. Bush, the country had veered dramatically off course.  They thought Obama would fix that.
Some voters did have more specific expectations.  Some thought that Obama would wean the country off neoliberalism.  With a financial and economic meltdown raging, the time was ripe.
Some expected him to restore the rule of law at least to pre-9/11 levels; many hoped and expected that Bush era war criminals would be brought to justice.
Others thought that the Democratic Party would become more like what it had been before the Clintons had had their way with it.
The list goes on.
Of course, nobody knew what “change” meant to Obama.  Perhaps Obama didn’t know either.  He could hardly have been more vague.
On one point, though, everybody, except perhaps the candidate himself and his close advisors, agreed: Obama would transform the post-9/11 Bush-Cheney regime beyond recognition.
They could not have been more wrong.
Perhaps he had other ideas; perhaps he was overcome by what the ancient Greeks called akrasia, weakness of will.  Perhaps there was never any there there.
Obama’s most ardent supporters, the ones who stuck by him as it became clear that change wasn’t happening, blamed the Republicans; many still do.  Corporate America gives them a nightly forum; they call it MSNBC.
But they are fooling themselves.  Even in the face of Republican obstinacy and determination, the Obama administration didn’t have to be as Bush-Cheney-like as it turned out to be.
Still, the apologists have a point; Republicans really are pieces of work, and they really have dedicated themselves to making sure that the Obama presidency would fail.
Therefore Obama’s apologists are not exactly deluded.  They just give their man – and his opponents — too much credit.
Who knows what Obama really thinks about the issues of the day or how he understands the relation between his words and his intentions.  All we can say for sure is that his words are noncommittal and vague; and that, for all practical purposes, he and his fellow Democrats are on the same page as the Republicans.
This is hardly surprising; they feed from the same trough.   Their antagonism is tactical, not strategic or ideological.
To be sure, racism shapes Republican attitudes, along with other status anxieties and base ideological convictions.  Democrats, on the whole, are nicer people.   But ultimately what both parties want is to win the next election.  For them, it is all about who gets to serve the one percent.
This is bad news for the ninety-nine percent of us about whose interests and wellbeing they could care less.  But that is the least of it.  When our leaders, regardless of party, fix their gaze beyond our (increasingly policed and militarized) borders, the whole world suffers.
Even so, one would expect that there would be a level of competence in the White House and throughout the foreign policy establishment commensurate with the tasks at hand.  Remarkably, this expectation has been confounded by Democratic and Republican administrations for the past quarter century.
When James Baker and Brent Scowcroft left office, who would have guessed that they would outshine all who would follow in their wake?  And, earlier still, who would have imagined that the days of Zbigniew Brzezinski and Henry Kissinger would seem like a Golden Age when giants walked upon the face of the earth!
Barack Obama, like Bill Clinton and George W. Bush before him, put a bunch of clueless stumblebums in charge of throwing America’s weight around in the world.  Predictably, they keep getting in over their heads.
In Bush’s case, the mess was so bad that not even his Poppy could straighten it out.  Then the “change” President came along to continue his work.
The empire’s victims have suffered enormously as a result, but so far the empire itself has survived unscathed.  It is too big to fail.  But, even so, there are limits.
The Obama administration almost exceeded those limits twice.  Vladimir Putin saved Obama both times.
He saved him from being dragged into a potentially catastrophic war against Iran and he saved him from getting America bogged down in the on-going civil war in Syria.
But America’s arch-enemy du jour is not likely to be similarly helpful when the geniuses at Foggy Bottom and in the National Security Council focus their machinations on Russia itself.
Putin’s foreign policy establishment outclasses Obama’s by every measure.   Should it be in their interest to stop helping Washington out, Obama’s luck will run out faster than in a New York (or Moscow) minute.
Was it better under Bush and Cheney?  No.  But the world has changed – partly in consequence of the policies Obama has continued.  This is why, for the most part, those policies are even more toxic now than they were in the Bush-Cheney days.
In this sense, we did get change after all.  But when the reckoning is made, we will likely find that we would have been better off with less than we got.
Bush and Cheney trampled due process and privacy rights in the name of security.  When they were in charge, Constitutional constraints were only a minor inconvenience that they felt free to ignore.
This is how it has been for Obama too.  But, in carrying on their work, Obama made the situation qualitatively worse.  Thanks to Edward Snowden, we now have some idea how bad it was, and how much worse it became.
We do not know how much, if any, terrorism Bush and Cheney – or Obama — actually stopped.  What we do know is that they increased the supply of potential terrorists many-fold.  Invading foreign lands will do that; so will terrorizing civilian populations by unleashing murder and mayhem upon them.
Obama notched the terror level up, even as he diminished the overall level of violence.
His predecessors used assassins and drones too.  But bombers and soldiers were more to their liking.  For the most part, they did their foul deeds the old fashioned way.
Obama, the peace candidate, kept their wars going; he even escalated them for a while – the better to repackage the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
But his preference has always been to kill covertly – by making the most of assassins and drones.  And so, he did change America’s military posture.  From a moral point of view, he made it worse.
Now terror is no longer only the last recourse of the powerless; it is also the first choice of a super-power equipped with a military juggernaut as large as the rest of the world’s combined.
In taking up where Bush and Cheney left off, the Nobel laureate let loose the functional equivalent of an army of suicide bombers, casting large swathes of the Muslim world into a perpetual reign of terror.
His drones are especially onerous.
For one thing, they are even worse than suicide bombers because they terrorize civilian populations more efficiently.  Ordinary people can avoid places suicide bombers are likely to target; no one can steer clear of those drones.
And, from a moral point of view, killing with drones is plainly more reprehensible.  Suicide bombers sacrifice their lives for their cause.  When their workday is over, drone operators spend evenings at home with their families.
Their superiors, the ones who order the killings, are even less involved.  Obama decides whom to kill, his underlings decide where and when, and then their underlings push the buttons.  The higher up the chain of command, the more pleased with themselves they seem to be.
On environmental issues, Obama has made things worse just by continuing the do-nothing policies of his predecessors.  Meanwhile, ecological changes already underway are rapidly ratcheting up the peril.
His administration has made a few changes for the better: for example, on fuel emissions standards.  But on the main causes of global warming, Obama has done nothing significant.  Meanwhile, with each year that passes, points of no return approach and are exceeded.
Then there is Obama’s penchant for enhancing the harm done by his predecessors’ policies through more effective implementation.
One would think that when those policies target key Democratic constituencies, he would at least think twice.  But all he does is talk an earful.  For example, Obama has spoken out frequently in favor of immigration reform; yet his record on deportations is far worse than Bush’s.  Organized labor has fared no better.
In a similar vein, Obama has had nary a bad word to say about government transparency or the importance of a vigorous and adversarial press.  To hear him speak, one would think that he is the whistleblower’s best friend.   Yet, on this too, he has been worse than Bush and Cheney or indeed any other president before him except perhaps Richard Nixon.
The man plods on.  No doubt, on domestic issues, he has his reasons, good or ill.  But on the diplomatic front, there seems to be no coherent thought behind what he does; he and his minions have no clue.
This is why the world now seems even more perilous than it did when Obama took office.
The problem is not just that the War on Terror, and its continuation under Obama, has been stupendously counter-productive; that it has conjured up terrorists faster than assassins and drones and “boots on the ground” can kill them.
It is becoming just as clear that the Bush-Obama wars have destabilized the entire region – from Libya to Pakistan, and lately, under Obama’s aegis, from the banks of the Tigris to the Mediterranean Sea.
East Africa and Muslim areas as far away as the Pacific Ocean have also felt the brunt, and are worse off for it.
The Bush-Obama wars have also strengthened Iran’s role as a regional power.  Whether or not this is a good thing, it is hardly what the United States and Israel had in mind.
Of course, cluelessness is a two-edged sword.   Latin America has benefited enormously from the fact that the United States is mired down in several Middle Eastern quagmires.
While Bush and Obama were otherwise distracted, popular democratic movements in Nicaragua, Ecuador, Bolivia and Uruguay were able to flourish and even come to power.  The governments of Brazil and Argentina veered leftward as well.
And, despite several attempts since 9/11 – the latest still underway – the United States has been unable to overthrow the democratically elected government of Venezuela.  America’s never-ending war against Cuba has gotten nowhere either.
South of the border, the 9/11 attacks – or rather the American reaction to them — were, so to speak, a godsend.
It is now becoming clear that, in at least one respect, it has been the same for the rest of the world too.  America’s counter-productive maneuverings throughout the Muslim world brought American and European plans to bring the EU right up to Russia’s borders, and to encircle it with NATO bases, to a temporary halt.
That plan was proceeding apace in the Clinton days.  Russia then was hardly in a position to resist – not with kleptocrats running the country, and with the vast majority of Russians undergoing the hardships and social dislocations brought on by the restoration of a retrograde economic system.
America’s and Europe’s (mainly Germany’s) success in dismembering Yugoslavia provided valuable lessons and also encouragement.  With a new millennium dawning, it looked like full speed ahead.
But then came 9/11 and priorities changed.  Now, it seems they are changing back.
Evidently, our foreign policy wallahs have come to believe that in addition to carrying on in the Middle East, central Asia and the Indian sub-content, it is time to put Russia back in the crosshairs as well.
This too may be about oil, at least to some extent; but that is not the main thing.  And it goes far beyond the exigencies of running a global empire or making the world safe – or safer – for Western capitalists.
Western capitalists don’t need a revival of eastern European fascism and anti-Semitism any more than the rest of us do.  Neither do they – or we — need Al Qaeda-like movements to flourish throughout the Middle East or central and southern Asia.
But that is where our leaders’ policies lead.  Needless to say, it is not what they have in mind.  But then what do they have in mind?  Nothing remotely coherent, most likely; they know not what they do.
Yet onward they go.  With the old Soviet “satellites” currently ensconced in America’s and Europe’s ambit, all that is left is to bring the EU and NATO into the old Soviet Union itself.
The idea is ludicrous, and not just because Russia now is far stronger than it was in the nineties.  If the American empire were in competent hands, it wouldn’t be happening.
Overthrowing recalcitrant governments is old hat for the empire’s stewards.  Their timeworn method was perfected first in Latin America.  After World War II, it was deployed around the world.
The formula is simple: spend serious money stirring up chaos.  Then, when the time is right, discreetly support coups d’état perpetrated by clients or friends.
This is what they are doing right now – so far unsuccessfully – in Venezuela.
But, until now, our leaders always had the good sense to confine their machinations to American spheres of influence or to peripheral areas that did not raise serious security concerns for other major powers.
After World War II, no power was more major than the Soviet Union.  Encouraging dissidents there and in Eastern Europe was acceptable.  But no sane leader would actively encourage “regime change”; not with the possibility that a nuclear war would result.  Eisenhower’s role in the Hungarian Uprising of 1956 was exemplary in this respect.
Post-1991 Russia was still able to reduce the world to rubble.  Therefore, even Bill Clinton showed some restraint.  Circumstances emboldened him – but not to the point of recklessness.  And he got away with it.
It is unlikely that his First Lady had much to do with plans for enlarging the EU or for bringing NATO up to Russia’s borders.  That doesn’t seem to have been on her to-do list when she was Obama’s Secretary of State either.
But Hillary Clinton is quick to jump on whatever bandwagon is passing by, and so she has lately taken up the cause.  In her opening salvo, she famously likened Vladimir Putin to Hitler.
A dumb remark; though, considering the source, that is only to be expected.
Obama went beyond dumb.   Speaking in Belgium after meeting with the leaders of the G7 (plus and now minus 1), he went out of his way to insult his (disinvited) Russian counterpart, calling him a leader of a regional power whose actions betoken weakness.  Obama calling Putin weak!  How did he keep a straight face?
But then how does he keep a straight face when he accuses Putin of violating international law?  The man continues to amaze.
Is reviving Clinton-era policies towards Russia his idea too?   Or should we blame lesser eminences like John Kerry or those dreadful “humanitarian interveners” Obama empowered?  Whoever is at fault, putting Russia’s security interests in jeopardy is the worst idea that has come along since George W. Bush left the White House in ignominy.
It was for not being associated with ideas like that that it used to be possible to argue that Obama really was the lesser evil in 2008, when he ran against John McCain.  Despite McCain’s inclination of late to put his recklessness and bad judgment on display, it now looks like it was more of a tie.
In any case, it is already plain that the Americans and Europeans – and the Ukrainian nationalists whose “revolution” they encouraged – lost in at least one key respect; Russia’s annexation of the Crimea will hold.
For all their faults, Putin and his crew so far outclass Obama and his that when they set their minds to it, they get their way, even when their hand is weaker.
Fortunately, they are not only smarter; they are also wiser.  They know when not to push their luck; and also, let us hope, how to deal with opponents who are as clueless as theirs are.
This is why we will probably dodge the bullet this time too; the perils Obama et. al. let loose upon the world by setting their sights on Ukraine will probably stay contained.
Unlike the United States, Russia does have legitimate security interests in goings-on in the former Soviet republics.  Obama and the others are therefore like little kids playing with matches.  Fortunately, though, it seems that the Russians also know how to resist egregious provocations.
Because provoked they have been, and will continue to be.  Obama could always decide to put a lid on it, but so far he has been doing just the opposite.
In recent days, anti-Russian animosity seems even to have overcome Washington’s gridlock.  And where Democrats and Republicans go, so go the mainstream media.  The usual suspects are busily doing all they can to whip up a ruckus.
Not since the build-up to the Iraq War has so much wrong-headed pro-regime propaganda spilled forth from their quarters.  NPR has become especially unbearable.  I, for one, can no longer keep it tuned in for background noise.
If the Russians were to stoop to Obama’s level by taking his bait, the consequences would be dire.
And the prospects would be no better if they acquiesce.  Team Obama gets its way so seldom than when they do it only encourages them.
Therefore, if they are not stopped in their tracks, their provocations will continue and become increasingly dangerous.  There are other former Soviet republics out there, after all; and we should not forget that Obama is still itching to “pivot towards Asia.”
In other words, he has China in his sights too.  Too bad he doesn’t also have prudence in his head.
How ironic – and pathetic — that our best hope for avoiding the consequences of Bush-Obama policies lies with a conservative Russian strong-man — a leader with autocratic inclinations, but also with political skills, a sense of history, and the wisdom not to act out foolishly.
This is not how it is supposed to be in a democracy; it only shows how distant our democracy is from the ideal.  But with inept and clueless leaders at the helm – and a political system too corrupt and degraded to provide the change voters want – this, for the time being, is where “hope” resides.
ANDREW LEVINE is a Senior Scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, the author most recently of THE AMERICAN IDEOLOGY (Routledge) and POLITICAL KEY WORDS (Blackwell) as well as of many other books and articles in political philosophy. His most recent book is In Bad Faith: What’s Wrong With the Opium of the People. He was a Professor (philosophy) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Research Professor (philosophy) at the University of Maryland-College Park.  He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press).

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

THE ROVING EYE - Asia will not 'isolate' Russia By Pepe Escobar



THE ROVING EYE
Asia will not 'isolate' Russia
Envy the fly on the wall in The Hague when cool Xi Jinping met Barack Obama, pivoting around himself because China and the rest of Asia will not "isolate" Russia. China is Russia's strategic partner and along with Japan and South Korea (essentially US protectorates) identifies more with a steady supply of oil and gas, and business deals struck in Moscow, than helping stir an anachronistic Western-provoked New Cold War.

Any (bureaucratic) doubts the New Cold War is on have been dispelled by the Group of Seven issuing a pompous, self-described Hague Declaration. Abandon all hope those who expected The Hague to become the seat of a tribunal judging the war crimes of the Cheney regime. 

The G-7 also cancelled its upcoming summer summit in Sochi as a means of "punishing" Moscow over Crimea. As if this carried any practical value. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov responded with class; if you don't want us, we have better things to do. [1] Everyone knows the G-7 is an innocuous, self-important talk shop. It's in the G-20 - much more representative of the real world - where crucial geopolitical and geoeconomic issues gain traction. 

The Hague Declaration comes complete with the kiss of death, as in, "The International Monetary Fund has a central role leading the international effort to support Ukrainian reform, lessening Ukraine's economic vulnerabilities, and better integrating the country as a market economy in the multilateral system." That's code for "wait till structural adjustment starts biting". 

And then there will be "measures to enhance trade and strengthen energy security" - code for "we will destroy your industry" but "are not very keen on paying your humongous Gazprom bill". 

All this in the sidelines of a supposed summit on nuclear security in the Netherlands, where US President Barack Obama, at the Rijksmuseum, in front of Rembrandt's The Night Watch, extolled Washington's "support of the Ukrainian government and Ukrainian people". Rembrandt's watchers have never seen anything like it in their glorious lifespan. It pays to be a Nazi after all; you just need to be in the right government, against the right enemy, and fully approved by the hyper-power. 

King Willem-Alexander hosted a lavish dinner for the members of the nuclear security summit at the Royal Palace Huis ten Bosch in The Hague - after Obama met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in a (failed) bid to "isolate" Russia. The White House would later add that, as long as Russia continues "flagrantly" to violate international law, "there is no need for it to engage with the G7". Unless, of course, it starts conducting a drone war in Ukrainian badlands - with kill-list attached. 

All about NATO
The US Senate - always enjoying superb popularity ratings - laboriously laid the groundwork for debating a bill backing a US$1 billion loan guarantee for the regime changers in Kiev, plus $150 million in aid also including "neighboring countries". These figures are enough to pay Ukraine's bills for maybe two weeks. 

Meanwhile, in the facts on the ground department, Crimea will be booming soon - tourism included - and may even become a "special economic zone". [2] Subjects of the upcoming IMF/agrobusiness-plundered Khaganate of Nulands will see the results for themselves. 

Hysteria within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization that Russia is about to invade everyone and his neighbor literally tomorrow - remember The Russians Are Coming! - persists unabated. Independent observers, The Roving Eye included, always insisted this is all about NATO, and not the European Union. [3] 

Since the go-go days of the Bill Clinton era, NATO has been expanding to the doorstep of Russia. The process graphically represents US hegemony over Europe; NATO "annexed" Eastern Europe even before the EU. And even those certified US Cold Warriors such as Paul Nitze always thought this was a needless, dangerous provocation of Russia. 

Very few remember how "Bubba" Clinton, to make sure terminal alcoholic Boris Yeltsin was re-elected in 1996, postponed NATO's expansion for a year. Afterwards, the expansion turbocharged into NATO as global Robocop - from the Balkans to the intersection of Central and South Asia, and to Northern Africa. 

NATO's humanitarian bombing of Yugoslavia - 36,000 combat missions, 23,000 bombs and missiles - whose 15th anniversary is "celebrated" this week, codified the new realities. NATO had nothing to do with defense; it was a multi-lethal (transformer) attack dog. It was the epitome of clean war; aerial blitzkrieg, and no casualties. And it was totally legitimized by "human rights" over national sovereignty; that was humanitarian imperialism in the making, opening the way to "responsibility to protect" and the destruction of Libya. 

Moscow knows very well the lineaments of the neo-barbarian behemoth at its gates, in the form of NATO bases in Ukraine, assuming the regime changers in Kiev remain in power. And their response has absolutely nothing to do with "Putin's aggression". Or the so-called "Medvedev Doctrine" of Russia theoretically extending military protection to Russians everywhere. As if Russia was about to "threaten" its business interests in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan or Mongolia. 

What the White House calls "the international community" - roughly the "Hague Declaration" G-7 plus a few European minions - could not possibly admit that. Asia, on the other hand, clearly identifies it. China, Japan and South Korea, for starters, identify Russia with a steady supply of oil and gas and further business deals. Even considering that Japan and South Korea are essentially US protectorates, nothing could be more anachronistic in their calculations than a Western-provoked New Cold War. 

Asia will not "isolate" Russia - and Asians and Russians know it, as much as The White House is in denial. Beijing's abstention in "condemning" Moscow - talk about the American angry-schoolmaster brand of politics - is classic Deng Xiaoping-style "keep a low profile", as China is Russia's strategic partner and both are busy working for the emergence of a multipolar world. Not to mention Beijing's utmost rejection of US-style color-coded "revolutions" and regime change ops - as well as that "pivoting to Asia" encirclement ops. 

Oh, to have been an EU-regulated fly on the wall in that Hague room where Obama and Xi were talking; cool Xi meets Obama pivoting around himself. 

Notes:
1. Russia not clinging to G8 if West does not want it - Russian FM, Russia Today, March 24, 2014.
2. Crimea to become Russian special economic zone-Medvedev, Russia Today, March 24, 2014.
3. Why the EU won't annex Ukraine, Russia Today, March 24, 2014.


Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.
 

Thursday, April 22, 2010

BREAKING STORY. NSA domestic electronic surveillance targeted everyone

WMR has learned from U.S. intelligence sources that the Justice Department's Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP), the warrantless domestic wiretapping program largely conducted by the National Security Agency (NSA), was a mere bureaucratic contrivance developed by the Justice Department to legally cover the NSA from constitutional oversight hearings by Congress and law suit actions from telecommunication customers over what amounted to total surveillance of the American people.

The NSA operation, code named STELLAR WIND, and known only to a few top officials in the Bush administration, targeted massive collected digital databases of phone calls, emails, faxes, pages, and other digital communications. The data, known as meta-data, was searched by NSA signals intelligence analysts for key words and phrases using a Google-like search engine.

The STELLAR WIND program was overseen by Vice President Dick Cheney's chief counsel David Addington. In a new twist, intelligence sources report that the plans for STELLAR WIND were put into place long before the 9/11 attacks. Qwest chairman Joseph Nacchio claimed that he and his firm were pressured by NSA six months prior to 9/11 to participate in a program to conduct warrantless surveillance of Qwest customers. Nacchio and Qwest believed the program was illegal and demanded court warrants. Nacchio was later indicted and convicted for insider trading, a move Qwest sources claim was government retaliation for Nacchio's refusal to participate in the wiretapping program. It is now been revealed to WMR that the program in question was, in fact, STELLAR WIND.

On February 25, 2010, WMR reported: "WMR has learned from sources who worked in senior positions for the telecommunications company Qwest that its former Chairman and CEO Joseph Nacchio was threatened with retaliation after he refused to participate in an unconstitutional and illegal National Security Agency (NSA) wiretapping program after he met with NSA officials on February 27, 2001, some six months before the 9/11 attacks. Nacchio refused to turn over customer records without a court order -- something NSA did not possess at the time it made its request.

After Nacchio refused NSA's request on the grounds that it was illegal, sources close to Nacchio reported his legal problems with the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission began in earnest. First, Qwest lost out on several lucrative federal government contracts and second, Nacchio was indicted and convicted in 2007 of 19 counts of insider stock trading. Nacchio was sentenced to six years the Schuykill federal prison camp in Minersville, Pennsylvania where he is now assigned prisoner number 33973-013."

WMR has learned additional technical details about STELLAR WIND. The NSA was able to conduct key word and key phrase differentiation between various American accents by using sophisticated algorithms. The software used by NSA could determine the spoken word "car" in a Bostonian accent as opposed to the spoken word "car" in a Midwestern or Southern accent. The NSA algorithms could also determine spoken words in New York, Philadelphia, Hispanic, Asian, New Orleans, French Canadian, African American, Tidewater Virginian, and Native American accents, as well as others.

TARGETING JOURNALISTS

In addition to STELLAR WIND's warrantless tracking and analysis of meta-data containing all the communications of Americans, another super-classified code-named NSA program monitored the communications of U.S. journalists. At least 150 U.S. journalists were subjected to NSA surveillance. There is some evidence that the surveillance was also conducted prior to 9/11.

A U.S. intelligence source confirmed that among the journalists monitored were "Sy Hersh, James Bamford, Wayne Madsen, Siobhan Gorman, James Risen, Bill Gertz."

NSA's "Q Group" security branch maintains a file on many of the surveilled journalists. WMR has learned that the files include the driver's license photos of journalists, including the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles license of this editor. The FBI is an active participant in the NSA journalist surveillance program. The Stasi-like electronic and physical surveillance continues to this day.

Of particular interest to NSA analysts were the satellite-borne communications of U.S. journalists reporting from foreign locations, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela and other countries.

WHO ELSE HAS BEEN UNDER TOTAL SURVEILLANCE?

Although NSA's surveillance of journalists would appear to be a major and egregious violation of the Constitution, there is evidence that STELLAR WIND had another, more sinister, off-shoot. The most sensitive program conducted warrantless electronic surveillance of elected officials at the federal, state, and local levels, as well as federal and state judges. WMR has previously reported that the communications and transactional data of Governors Bill Richardson of New Mexico and former Governor Eliot Spitzer of New York were subjected to NSA surveillance. The surveillance of the two governors has been confirmed by extremely knowledgeable sources.

The future for NSA's warrantless total surveillance programs appears rosy. NSA is building a $2 billion, 120 acre meta-data facility at Camp Williams in Utah and another similar data repository in San Antonio, Texas. Data storage capabilities are also being expanded at NSA headquarters at Fort Meade, Maryland and at NSA's huge signals intelligence collection facility at Menwith Hill, UK. The Congress has made no move to question the NSA's warrantless spying on Americans and President Obama flipped his position when he backed retroactive immunity for telecommunication firms that illegally participated in STELLAR WIND and its affiliated surveillance programs before and after 9/11.

NSA Security currently maintains the following Virginia DMV photo of editor in its files of journalists under NSA and FBI surveillance.

Monday, April 05, 2010

SPECIAL WMR REPORT FROM ISTANBUL, TURKEY -- U.S. links to Turkish Ergenekon network revealed


Informed sources in Istanbul have told WMR that documents seized in the investigation of the Turkish "Deep State" network, also known as Ergenekon, describe links between top Turkish military officers and top figures in the Bush administration, including Vice President Dick Cheney. The documents also show that there is an American counterpart to Turkey's "Deep State." Turkish sources report that former FBI Turkish and Azeri translator Sibel Edmonds stumbled upon documents revealing both the Turkish and American "deep states" but was prevented on reporting on their activities by a Turkish Ergenekon agent assigned to the FBI translation office in Washington. Edmonds was fired by the FBI after she complained that no action was being taken on wiretaps that showed the criminal activities of both nations' "deep states."

Revelations expose U.S. links to Ergenekon

WMR has also learned of strong links between the Kemalist (supporters of Turkish secular state founder Kemal Ataturk) Ergenekon players and major figures of the Israeli Likud Party.

The Kemalist-Likud alliance explains to a great degree the repeated presence at the U.S. embassy in Ankara of U.S. diplomatic officials who are also close to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

Chief among the U.S. diplomats who have served the interests of Ergenekon and AIPAC is Marc Grossman, the U.S. ambassador to Ankara from 1994 to 1997 and the GW Bush administration's Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs who was one of the first Bush officials to leak to Turkish intelligence agents the fact that CIA nuclear counterproliferation covert agent Valerie Plame Wilson's Brewster Jennings & Associates energy consulting company was a CIA brass plate operation.

WMR has also learned that Grossman and his chief military aide in Ankara Major Douglas Dickerson were asked to leave Turkey after it was learned that they were working with Ergenekon Turkish military and intelligence agents to overthrow the Azerbaijan government of President Haydar Aliyev, who was considered too pro-Russian. Dickerson's wife, Melek Can Dickerson, was Edmonds's co-worker at the FBI's translation shop who was marking intercepted Ergenekon-related conversations as "unimportant." WMR has learned from Turkish sources that Melek Can Dickerson was placed in the FBI's unit top ensure that Grossman's and her her husband's roles in working with Ergenekon remained secret.

Furthermore, Grossman and Dickerson, while at the US embassy in Ankara, were linked to the Susurluk scandal, an operation between Turkish military officers and criminal syndicates that exposed the linkage between the Turkish military and several "false flag" assassinations and terrorist bombings that were blamed on the Kurdish Worker's Party (PKK). The Susurluk scandal was exposed on November 3, 1996, when a Mercedes 600 SEL crashed in Susurluk in Balikesir province. In the trunk were discovered weapons, drugs, cash, listening devices, and Turkish diplomatic passports. The same network involved in the Susurluk incident were, according to our sources, working with Grossman and Dickerson at the U.S. embassy in Ankara to depose Aliyev in Baku and install Ebulfeyz Elchibey in his place. At the same time, Richard Armitage, who also figured in the outing of Valerie Plame, was the head of the U.S.-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce, which had among its advisers Richard Perle. Dickerson eventually began working for Perle's colleague Douglas Feith at the Pentagon, according to our sources.

Another member of the U.S. AIPAC faction tied to the Kemalists in Turkey was Eric Edelman, the U.S. ambassador in Ankara between 2003 and 2005. His major task was to ensure that U.S. and Israeli links to Ergenekon were not exposed. Edelman served as Vice President Dick Cheney's Principal Deputy Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs from February 2001 to July 2003. WMR has also learned from Turkish sources that the principal players in the Susurluk scandal, including those planning to overthrow Aliyev in Azerbaijan, were supported by Cheney while he was the chief of Halliburton, a major player in Azerbaijan's oil industry and a backer of Armitage's U.S.-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce. Azerbaijan was the origination point for the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline and Halliburton was a key contractor.

The revelations that Cheney was involved in a plot by Turkish military officers and criminal syndicates to carry out false flag terrorist attacks and assassinations of Turkish citizens would presage Cheney's similar operations while he was Vice President, including the most infamous false flag attack of all time: 9/11.

Next: How the Israel Lobby is spreading fear and lies in the United States about the Turkish AKP government.