Obama's 'stupid stuff' legacy By Pepe Escobar

THE ROVING EYE Obama's 'stupid stuff' legacy By Pepe Escobar But whether people see what's happening in Ukraine, and Russia's aggression towards its neighbors in the manner in which it's financing and arming separatists; to what's happened in Syria - the devastation that [President Bashar al-]Assad has wrought on his own people; to the failure in Iraq for Sunni and Shia and Kurd to compromise - although we're trying to see if we can put together a government that actually can function; to ongoing terrorist threats; to what's happening in Israel and Gaza - part of peoples' concern is just the sense that around the world the old order isn't holding and we're not quite yet to where we need to be in terms of a new order that's based on a set of different principles, that's based on a sense of common humanity, that's based on economies that work for all people. - President Barack Obama Looks like US President Barack Obama made a royal mess of what his mentor Dr Zbigniew "Grand Chessboard" Brzezinski taught him. Dr Zbig always quotes Sir Halford John Mackinder's three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy; to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals; to keep tributaries pliant and protected; and to keep the barbarians from coming together. After dabbling briefly with "leading from behind" - a non-starter - Obama finally went Mackinderesque with his stellar "Don't Do Stupid Stuff" foreign policy doctrine. Nevertheless, an always alert former secretary of state Hillary Clinton said "Don't do Stupid Stuff" isn't a "foreign policy organizing principle". Yet "Stupid Stuff" is all that the Obama foreign policy team knows how to do. Starting with Obama treating Russia under President Vladimir Putin the way Hillary's husband treated Russia under vodka container Boris Yeltsin. Then came the decision - without any public debate - to start bombing Iraq all over again. And soon Syria. Bombs Away in Syraq! So "protect" Yazidis, yes. Protect Gazans, no. "Protect" Kiev's bunch of neo-Nazis, fascists and shady oligarchs, yes. Protect Russophones in Eastern Ukraine, no. It all started with protecting Irbil - already protected by Sumerian goddess Ishtar for millennia. Then protecting Irbil and Baghdad. Then protecting all "strategic" sites in Iraq. Retired General Carter Ham of AFRICOM/"We came, we saw, he died" fame, was adamant that it will be "very difficult" to pull off so much protecting with only a few fighter jets. So drones will be needed. And troops on the ground. From protecting ExxonMobil and Chevron to double bombing in Syraq. No wonder the Return of the Living (Neo-Con) Dead are so excited. It's the Greater Middle East all over again. And guess who will be part of the coalition of the willing to fight the Caliph? Britain, Australia, Turkey, Jordan and Gulf Cooperation Council stalwarts Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Almost the same bunch (five among seven) that enabled the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in the first place, from "Assad must go" to "good" and "bad" jihadis, and finally to ISIS (now the Islamic State) configured as the sprawling abode - complete with flush private army - of Caliph Ibrahim. And no, there's no strategy. Hee haw! Bye bye petrodollar  Now let's see the dividends of "Don't Do Stupid Stuff" as applied to Ukraine. Back to the Mackinderesque Dr Zbig. Some vassals - the usual NATO/GCC suspects, but not all of them - may still believe they profit from "security dependence", while others remain nervously pliant and, in theory, feel "protected" by the Empire of Chaos. But then the Empire of Chaos "encouraged" a de facto coup. And gave the green light for the new Kiev mob to do in Eastern Ukraine roughly what Israel does in Gaza. The idea in Ukraine was to bog down Russia in its western borderlands and cut off the economic/trade link between Russia and Germany. Cut Eurasia in half. But then Obama launched a Cold War 2.0 that could easily turn hot. He destroyed the relationship with chancellor Angela Merkel and Germany and amplified the strategic embrace between the Bear and the Dragon, with the result that Beijing started paying less attention to the "pivoting to Asia" because now it enjoys even more backing from Moscow. Meanwhile, Moscow further stalls Washington's advances in Central Asia. Sanctions on Russia not only reinforce its internal market but also boost its foreign trade - way beyond European shores. Yet still it was not enough to totally sell out to Wall Street and totally wreck US foreign policy. With aides/advisors like National Security Advisor Susan Rice, Deputy National Security Advisor Benjamin Rhodes, US Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, and Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, who needs enemies? Obama's sanctions hysteria is leading the way to the progressive end of the US dollar as reserve currency, and the end of the petrodollar. Witness this - the most important news of these last few months after the Russia-China "gas deal of the century". Obama is accelerating the now uncontrolled collapse of the Empire of Chaos. The new axis of the future - Beijing, Moscow, Berlin - is slowly but surely coming together. There's nothing "barbarian" about them. And the bulk of the Global South supports them. "The old order isn't holding" - indeed. "The Caliph is evil. So I'm applying more sanctions on Russia." How's that for Empire management? Good boy. Now pivot. With yourself. And with no strategy. 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.

THE ROVING EYE The new Great (Threat) Game in Eurasia By Pepe Escobar

THE ROVING EYE The new Great (Threat) Game in Eurasia By Pepe Escobar In Ukraine, the West supported an unconstitutional putsch against an elected government perpetrated, among others, by fascist/neo-nazi storm troopers (Svoboda, Right Sector) instrumentalized by US intelligence. After a Russian counterpunch, US President Barack Obama proclaimed that any referendum in Crimea would "violate the Ukrainian constitution and violate international law." This is just the latest instance in the serial rape of "international law". The rap sheet is humongous, including; NATO bombing Serbia for 78 days in 1999 to allow Kosovo to secede; the 2003 US invasion and subsequent trillion-dollar occupation and civil war creation in Iraq; NATO/AFRICOM bombing Libya in 2011 invoking R2P ("responsibility to protect") as a cover to provoking regime change; US investment in the secession of oil-wealthy South Sudan, so China has to deal with an extra geopolitical headache; and US investment in perennial civil war in Syria. Yet Moscow still (foolishly?) believes international law should be respected - presenting to the UN Security Council classified information on all Western intel/psy-ops moves leading to the coup in Kiev, including "training" provided by Poland and Lithuania, not to mention Turkish intelligence involvement in setting up a second coup in Crimea. Russian diplomats called for an unbiased international investigation. That will never happen; Washington's narrative would be completely debunked. Thus a US veto at the UN. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also called for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe to objectively investigate those snipers shooting everyone on sight in Kiev, as revealed by Estonia's foreign minister to EU foreign policy supremo Catherine "I love Yats" Ashton. According to Russia's ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin, "a completely different picture would be drawn compared to what is being depicted by American media and, unfortunately, by some American and European politicians." Needless to say, there will be no investigation. Hi, I'm your good neo-nazi Everyone remembers the "good Taliban", with which the US could negotiate in Afghanistan. Then came the "good al-Qaeda", jihadis the US could support in Syria. Now come the "good neo-nazis", with which the West can do business in Kiev. Soon there will be "the good jihadis supporting neo-nazis", who may be deployed to advance US/NATO and anti-Russian designs in Crimea and beyond. After all, Obama mentor Dr Zbigniew "The Grand Chessboard" Brzezinski is the godfather of good jihadis, fully weaponized to fight the former Soviet Union in Afghanistan. As facts on the ground go, neo-nazis are definitely back as good guys. For the first time since the end of World War II, fascists and neo-nazis are at the helm of a European nation (although Ukraine most of all should be characterized as the key swing nation in Eurasia). Few in the West seem to have noticed it. The cast of characters include Ukrainian interim defense minister and former student at the Pentagon Ihor Tenyukh; deputy prime minister for economic affairs and Svoboda ideologue Oleksandr Sych; agro-oligarch minister of agriculture Ihor Svaika (Monsanto, after all, needs a chief enforcer); National Security Council chief and Maidan commander of Right Sector neo-nazis Andry Parubiy; and deputy National Security Council chief Dmytro Yarosh, the founder Right Sector. Not to mention Svoboda leader Oleh Tyanhybok, a close pal of John McCain and Victoria "F**k the EU" Nuland, and active proponent of an Ukraine free from the "Muscovite-Jewish mafia." As the Kremlin refuses to deal with this bunch and the upcoming March 16 referendum in Crimea is practically a done deal, Team "Yats" is fully legitimized, with honors, by Team Obama, leader included, in Washington. To quote Lenin, what is to be done? A close reading of President Putin's moves would suggest an answer: nothing. As in just waiting, while outsourcing the immediate future of a spectacularly bankrupt Ukraine to the EU. The EU is impotent to rescue even the Club Med countries. Inevitably, sooner or later, threat of sanctions or not, it will come crawling back to Moscow seeking "concessions", so Russia may also foot the bill. Meanwhile, in Pipelineistan … Meanwhile, the New Great (Threat) Game in Eurasia advances unabated. Moscow would willingly compromise on a neutral Ukraine - even with neo-nazis in power in Kiev. But an Ukraine attached to NATO is an absolute red line. By the way, NATO is "monitoring" Ukraine with AWACS deployed in Polish and Romanian airspace. So as the much lauded "reset" between the Kremlin and the Obama administration is for all practical purposes six feet under (with no Hollywood-style second coming in the cards), what's left is the dangerous threat game. Deployed not only by the Empire, but also by the minions. That monster collection of Magritte-style faceless bureaucrats at the European Commission (EU), following on the non-stop threat of EU sanctions, has decided to delay a decision on whether Gazprom may sell more gas through the OPAL pipeline in Germany, and also delay negotiations on the legal status of South Stream, the pipeline under the Black Sea which should become operational in 2015. As if the EU had any feasible Plan B to escape its dependency on Russian gas (not to mention eschew the very profitable financial game played between key European capitals and Moscow). What are they do, import gas on Qatar Airways flights? Buy LNG from the US - something that will not be feasible in years to come? The fact is the minute a gas war is on, if it ever comes down to it, the EU will be under immense pressure by a host of member-nations to keep (and even extend) its Russian gas fix - with or without "our (neo-nazi) bastards" in power in Kiev. Brussels knows it. And most of all, Vlad the Hammer knows it. 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.

NATO's War on Libya is Directed against China: AFRICOM and the Threat to China's National Energy Security

by F. William Engdahl

Global Research, September 25, 2011

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MAP above. Africom's regional interests. Copyright Stratcom 2011

The Washington-led decision by NATO to bomb Gaddafi's Libya into submission over recent months, at an estimated cost to US taxpayers of at least $1 billion, has little if anything to do with what the Obama Administration claims was a mission to "protect innocent civilians." In reality it is part of a larger strategic assault by NATO and by the Pentagon in particular to entirely control China's economic achilles heel, namely China's strategic dependence on large volumes of imported crude oil and gas. Today China is the world's second largest imported of oil after the United States and the gap is rapidly closing.

If we take a careful look at a map of Africa and also look at the African organization of the new Pentagon Africa Command—AFRICOM—the pattern that emerges is a careful strategy of controlling one of China's most strategically important oil and raw materials sources.

NATO's Libya campaign was and is all about oil. But not about simply controlling Libyan high-grade crude because the USA is nervous about reliable foreign supplies. It rather is about controlling China's free access to long-term oil imports from Africa and from the Middle East. In other words, it is about controlling China itself.

Libya geographically is bounded to its north by the Mediterranean directly across from Italy, where Italian ENI oil company has been the largest foreign operator in Libya for years. To its west it is bounded by Tunisia and by Algeria. To its south it is bounded by Chad. To its east it is bounded by both Sudan (today Sudan and Southern Sudan) and by Egypt. That should tell something about the strategic importance of Libya from the standpoint of the Pentagon's AFRICOM long-term strategy for controlling Africa and its resources and which country is able to get those resources. 

Gaddafi's Libya had maintained strict national state control over the rich reserves of high quality "light, sweet" Libyan crude oil. As of 2006 data Libya had the largest proven oil reserves in Africa, some 35%, larger even than Nigeria. Oil consessions had been extended to Chinese state oil companies as well as Russian and others in recent years. Not surprisingly a spokesman from the so-called opposition claiming victory over Gaddafi, Abdeljalil Mayouf, information manager at Libyan rebel oil firm AGOCO, told Reuters, "We don't have a problem with Western countries like the Italians, French and UK companies. But we may have some political issues with Russia, China and Brazil." China and Russia and Brazil either opposed UN sanctions on Libya or pressed for a negotiated settlement of the internal conflict and an end to NATO bombing.

As I have detailed elsewhere,1  Gaddafi, an old adherent of Arab socialism on the line of Egypt's Gamal Nasser, used the oil revenues to improve the lot of his people. Health care was free as was education. Each Libyan family was given a state grant of $50000 towards buying a new house and all bank loans were according to Islamic anti-usury laws, interest free. The state was also free of debt. Only by bribery and massive infiltration into the tribal opposition areas of the eastern part of the country could the CIA, MI6 and other NATO intelligence operatives, at an estimated cost of $1 billion, and massive NATO bombing of civilians, destabilize the strong ties between Gaddafi and his people.

Why then did NATO and the Pentagon lead such a mad and destructive assault on a peaceful sovereign country? Clear is that one of the prime reasons was to complete the encirclement of China's oil and vital raw material sources across northern Africa.

Pentagon alarm over China

Step-by-step in the past several years Washington had begun to create the perception that China, which was the "dear friend and ally of America" less than a decade ago, was becoming the greatest threat to world peace because of China's enormous economic expansion. The painting of China as a new "enemy" has been complex as Washington is dependent on China to buy the lion's share of the US Government debt in the form of Treasury paper.

In August the Pentagon released its annual report to Congress on China's military status. 2 This year the report sent alarm bells ringing across China for a strident new tone. The report stated among other things, “Over the past decade, China’s military has benefited from robust investment in modern hardware and technology. Many modern systems have reached maturity and others will become operational in the next few years,” the Pentagon said in the report. It added that “there remains uncertainty about how China will use its growing capabilities... China’s rise as a major international actor is likely to stand out as a defining feature of the strategic landscape of the early 21st century.”3

In a matter of perhaps two to five years, depending on how the rest of the world reacts or plays their cards, the Peoples' Republic of China will emerge in the controlled Western media painted as the new "Hitler Germany." If that seems hard to believe today, just reflect on how that was done with former Washington allies such as Egypt's Mubarak or even Saddam Hussein. In June this year, former US Secretary of the Navy and now US Senator from Virginia, James Webb, startled many in Beijing when he told press that China was fast approaching what he called a “Munich moment,” when Washington must decide how to maintain a strategic balance, a reference to the 1938 crisis over Czechoslovakia when Chamberlain opted for appeasement with Hitler over Czechoslovakia. Webb added, “If you look at the last 10 years, the strategic winner has been China.” 4

The same massively effective propaganda machine of the Pentagon, led by CNN, BBC, the New York Times or London Guardian will get the subtle command from Washington to "paint China and its leaders black." China is becoming far too strong and far too independent for many in Washington and in Wall Street. To control that, above all China's oil import dependency has been identified as her Achilles Heel. Libya is a move to strike directly at that vulnerable Achilles heel.

China moves into Africa

The involvement of Chinese energy and raw materials companies across Africa had become a major cause of alarm in Washington where an attitude of malign neglect had dominated Washington Africa policy since the Cold War era. As its future energy needs became obvious several years ago China began a major African economic diplomacy which reached a crescendo in 2006 when Beijing literally rolled out the red carpet to heads of more than forty African states and discussed a broad range of economic issues. None were more important for Beijing than securing future African oil resources for China's robust industrialization.

China moved into countries which had been virtually abandoned by former European colonial powers like France or Britain or Portugal.

Chad is a case in point. The poorest and most geographically isolated African countries, Chad was courted by Beijing which resumed diplomatic ties in 2006.    

In October 2007 China's state oil giant CNPC signed a contract to build a refinery jointly with Chad's government. Two years later they began construction of an oil pipeline to carry oil from a new Chinese field in the south some 300 kilometers to the refinery. Western-supported NGO's predictably began howling about environmental impacts of the Chinese oil pipeline. The same NGOs were curiously silent when Chevron struck oil in 2003 in Chad. In July 2011 the two countries, Chad and China celebrated opening of the joint venture oil refinery near Chad's capital of Ndjamena. 5 Chad's Chinese oil activities are strikingly close to another major Chinese oil project in what then was Sudan's Darfur region bordering Chad.

Sudan had been a growing source of oil flows to China since cooperation began in the late 1990s after Chevron abandoned its stake there. By 1998 CNPC was building a 1500 km long oil pipeline from southern Sudan oilfields to Port Sudan on the Red Sea as well as building a major oil refinery near Khartoum. Sudan was the first large overseas oilfield project operated by China. By the beginning of 2011 Sudan oil, most all from the conflict-torn south, provided some 10% of China's oil imports from taking more than 60% of Sudan's daily oil production of 490,000 barrels. Sudan had become a point of vital Chinese national energy security.

According to geological estimates, the subsurface running from Darfur in what was southern Sudan through Chad into Cameroon is one giagantic oil field in extent perhaps equivalent to a new Saudi Arabia. Controlling southern Sudan as well as Chad and Cameroon is vital to the Pentagon strategy of "strategic denial" to China of their future oil flows. So long as a stable and robust Ghaddafi regime remained in power in Tripoli that control remained a major problem. The simultaneous splitting off of the Republic of South Sudan from Khartoum and the toppling of Ghaddafi in favor of weak rebel bands beholden to Pentagon support was for the Pentagon Full Spectrum Dominance of strategic priority. 

AFRICOM responds

The key force behind the recent wave of Western military attacks against Libya or more covert regime changes such as those in Tunisia, Egypt and the fateful referendum in southern Sudan which has now made that oil-rich region "independent" has been AFRICOM, the special US military command established by the Bush Administration in 2008 explicitly to counter the growing Chinese influence over Africa's vast oil and mineral wealth.

In late 2007, Dr. J. Peter Pham, a Washington insider who advises the US State and Defense Departments, stated openly that among the aims of the new AFRICOM, is the objective of "protecting access to hydrocarbons and other strategic resources which Africa has in abundance ... a task which includes ensuring against the vulnerability of those natural riches and ensuring that no other interested third parties, such as China, India, Japan, or Russia, obtain monopolies or preferential treatment." 6

In testimony before the US Congress supporting creation of AFRICOM in 2007, Pham, who is associated with the neo-conservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies, stated:

"This natural wealth makes Africa an inviting target for the attentions of the People’s Republic of China, whose dynamic economy...has an almost insatiable thirst for oil as well as a need for other natural resources to sustain it...China is currently importing approximately 2.6 million barrels of crude per day, about half of its consumption; more than 765,000 of those barrels—roughly a third of its imports—come from African sources, especially Sudan, Angola, and Congo (Brazzaville). Is it any wonder, then, that…perhaps no other foreign region rivals Africa as the object of Beijing’s sustained strategic interest in recent years...

Intentionally or not, many analysts expect that Africa—especially the states along its oil-rich western coastline—will increasingly becoming a theatre for strategic competition between the United States and its only real near-peer competitor on the global stage, China, as both countries seek to expand their influence and secure access to resources."7

It is useful to briefly recall the sequence of Washington-sponsored "Twitter" revolutions in the ongoing so-called Arab Spring. The first was Tunisia, an apparently insignificant land on north Africa's Mediterranean. However Tunisia is on the western border of Libya. The second domino to fall in the process was Mubarak's Egypt. That created major instability across the Middle East into north Africa as Mubarak for all his flaws had fiercely resisted Washington Middle East pollicy. Israel also lost a secure ally when Mubarak fell.  

Then in  July 2011 Southern Sudan declared itself the independent Republic of South Sudan, breaking away from Sudan after years of US-backed insurgency against Khartoum rule. The new Republic takes with it the bulk of Sudan's known oil riches, something clearly not causing joy in Beijing. US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice, led the US delegation to the independence celebrations, calling it "a testament to the Southern Sudanese people." She added, in terms of making the secssion happen, "the US has been as active as anyone." US President Obama openly supported seccession of the south. The breakaway was a project guided and financed from Washington since the Bush Administration decided to make it a priority in 2004. 8          

Now Sudan has suddenly lost its main source of hard currency oil revenue. The secession of the south, where three-quarters of Sudan’s 490 000 barrels a day of oil is produced, has aggravated economic difficulties in Khartoum cutting some 37% off its total revenues. Sudan’s only oil refineries and the only export route run north from oilfields to Port Sudan on the Red Sea in northern Sudan. South Sudan is now being encouraged by Washington to build a new export pipeline independent of Khartoum via Kenya. Kenya is one of the areas of strongest US military influence in Africa.9

The aim of the US-led regime change in Libya as well as the entire Greater Middle East Project which lies behind the Arab Spring is to secure absolute control over the world's largest known oil fields to control future policies in especially countries like China. As then US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is reported to have said during the 1970's when he was arguably more powerful than the President of the United States, "If you control the oil you control entire nations or groups of nations."

For the future national energy security of China the ultimate answer lies in finding secure domestic energy reserves. Fortunately there are revolutionary new methods to detect and map presence of oil and gas where even the best current geology says oil is not to be found. Perhaps therein lies a way out of the oil trap that has been laid for China. In my newest book, The Energy Wars I detail such new methods for those interested.

F. William Engdahl is author of Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order

 Notes

1 F. William Engdahl, Creative Destruction: Libya in Washington's Greater Middle East Project--Part II, March 26, 2011, accessed in http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23961

2 Office of the Secretary of Defense, ANNUAL REPORT TO CONGRESS: Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2011, August 25, 2011, accessed in www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/2011_cmpr_final.pdf.

3 Ibid.

4 Charles Hoskinson, DOD report outlines China concerns, August 25, 2011, accessed in http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/62027.htmlhttp://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/62027.html

5  Xinhua, China-Chad joint oil refinery starts operating, July 1, 2011, acessed in http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90776/90883/7426213.html. BBC News, Chad pipeline threatens villages, 9 October 2009, accessed in http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8298525.stm.

6 F. William Engdahl, China and the Congo Wars: AFRICOM. America's New Military Command, November 26, 2008, accessed in http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11173

7 Ibid.

8 Rebecca Hamilton, US Played Key Role in Southern Sudan's Long Journey to Independence, July 9, 2011, accessed in http://pulitzercenter.org/articles/south-sudan-independence-khartoum-southern-kordofan-us-administration-role

9 Maram Mazen, South Sudan studies new export routes to bypass the north, March 12, 2011, accessed in http://www.gasandoil.com/news/2011/03/south-sudan-studies-routes-other-than-north-for-oil-exports

F. William Engdahl is a frequent contributor to Global Research.  Global Research Articles by F. William Engdahl

Obama's "Brave New Africa" -- U.S. mercenaries killing Africans for minerals

Africa's first native son President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama, may be its worst nightmare.

WMR's Africa sources report that a company that contracts to Pentagon and U.S. intelligence and homeland security agencies, Astrata Group Inc. (ATTG) of Los Angeles, has deployed private military contractors to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to track down and kill Rwandan Hutu refugees, claimed to be members of the Rwandan "Interhamwe" opposition to U.S.-backed Rwandan Tutsi dictator Paul Kagame, and kill them. ATTG, which it prefers to be called by its on-ground employees rather than Astrata, has reportedly ferried by helicopter into the eastern DRC U.S. private military contractors, many veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and directed them to take out Hutus and their allies in the region. Eastern DRC is rich is highly-prized col-tan, used in micro-electronic consumer products, as well as diamonds and gold. ATTG's motto is reportedly "Doing bad things to bad people."

In addition to U.S. military veterans, ATTG has reportedly hired British and French military veterans. The firm reportedly pays the military contractors in Africa in cash. ATTG is said to have agents serving in regular military forces who scout out for those whose enlistments are expiring for hiring. The key factor for hiring into ATTG is personality type. The new hires are introduced to their corporate handlers who introduce them to their paymaster who, in turn, provides them with cash for them to buy their own equipment from a list provided to them.

ATTG new recruits are given plane tickets by their handlers and then fly to their mission location where they meet their fellow team members.

Astrata's public relations tear sheet states the company provides "position-centric solutions for mining, surveying, and construction professionals worldwide. It operates in two segments, Geomatics and Telematics. The Geomatics segment offers high precision surveying/positioning instruments for surveying and construction professionals, the mining industry, government agencies, utility companies, and municipalities . . . the Telematics segment offers products, accessories, and services related to the business of remote monitoring of assets, including track-and-trace. This segment addresses the market for fleet management, workforce management, remote asset management and tracking, meter reading, and emergency services by providing hardware for global positioning system information and data collection, as well as the software needed to access and analyze the data through the Internet. In addition, the company offers a range of rugged mobile computing, wireless and location-based solutions, which combine GPS and global system for mobile telecommunications technologies. Astrata Group serves industrial, commercial, governmental entities, academic/research institutions, and professional customers in various markets, including surveying, utility, construction, homeland security, military, intelligence, mining, agriculture, public safety, marine, and transportation. The company was founded in 1986 and is based in Los Angeles, California."

Astrata markets vehicle tracking and immobilization systems, which permits law enforcement or other agents to slow down, stop, or speed up vehicles thought to pose a security threat.

Astrata, which is known as Astrata-Sirius outside the United States, went public in 2004. The firm is very active in Brunei and Southeast Asian waters, particularly the Straits of Malacca, where its private military contractors reportedly pose as tourists in boats to lure the attention of pirates who are then killed. The "tourists" have satellite phones in order to call in other boat squadrons in the event they require additional firepower.

On February 22, 2006, WMR reported: "The CIA's maritime interdiction program was designed to stop suspect cargo vessels on the high seas, mostly in the Straits of Malacca and the South China Sea, and search them for nuclear material and missiles and their respective components. The unique and most sensitive aspect of the CIA program was the use of Southeast Asian sea pirates to gain access to the interdicted vessels. The CIA's interdiction program began in the early 1990s . . . Special armed CIA units, masquerading as pirates themselves, accompanied the actual pirates on their fast boats when they attacked merchant vessels identified by other intelligence as likely trafficking in nuclear and missile cargo. The CIA teams, wearing personal dosimeters and using Geiger counters and other radiation detection equipment, would inspect cargo holds and containers as the 'official pirates' off-loaded commercial cargo such as electronic equipment, small vehicles, and other merchandise. The quid pro quo was that the CIA would not interfere with the pirates' looting of commercial cargo and the pirates would give the CIA teams first access to the cargo holds and containers. The two teams also provided each other mutual security. In most cases, the CIA had arranged to pay off local police, maritime police, and coast guards not to interfere with the joint CIA-pirate gang operations. The U.S. Navy was also instructed not to interfere in the pre-arranged piracy actions."

Astrata provides monitoring equipment for clients in Singapore, Senegal, Denmark, Italy, Jordan, Dubai, and United Kingdom, as well as for the Ministry of Transport of Iraq.

In 2008, Astrata announced that it had been awarded a $100 million contract to provide equipment to a "classified" client with an option of additional "product options."

In 2005, Astrata changed its NASDAQ market trading symbol to ATTG from "ATTA." Astrata CEO Anthony Harrison stated: "We are grateful for the thoughtfulness and prompt action by NASDAQ in changing our prior symbol, ATTA, which had been computer generated and inadvertently assigned and which may have had a disturbing association with the name of the lead hijacker in the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center."

AFRICOM AIN’T THE PEACE CORPS

by Mark P. Fancher

The U.S. military’s AFRICOM forces pretend their mission on the continent is humanitarian. In reality, AFRICOM is the sharp edge of U.S. imperialism, a killing force eager to impose American dominance. The military command “locks Africa into a state of dependency and maintains favorable political and social conditions for U.S.-based corporations that exploit Africa’s natural resources.” This is not a bug in the system. It's a defining feature of it.

AFRICOM AIN’T THE PEACE CORPS

by Mark P. Fancher

“AFRICOM downplays its military projects and instead presents itself as a Peace Corps type operation.”

Mention the words “Peace Corps” to folks who associate that agency with the idealism of the 1960s and in their minds’ eye they will probably see a dynamic young president who dispatched a virtual army of gentle, denim-clad, pony-tail wearing young Americans into the world’s most poverty-stricken villages to carry out a simple mission - to lend a neighborly hand.

Not to be found in this naive, rosy memory is a provision of the 1961 Peace Corps law that required volunteers to submit to: “... instruction in the philosophy, strategy, tactics, and menace of communism.” The plan to use the Peace Corps as a Cold War propaganda tool was explained by John F. Kennedy himself when he was still a presidential candidate. An advance text of one of his speeches said:

“...A friend of mine visiting the Soviet Union last year met a young Russian couple studying Swahili and African customs at the Moscow Institute of Languages. They were not language teachers - he was a sanitation engineer and she was a nurse. And they were being prepared to live among African nations as missionaries for communism.... Missiles and arms cannot stop them - neither can American dollars. They can only be countered by Americans equally skilled and equally dedicated....”

“The plan to use the Peace Corps as a Cold War propaganda tool was explained by John F. Kennedy himself.”

Regardless of whether Peace Corps volunteers were aware that their benevolent impulses were being politically exploited, some leaders of underdeveloped countries knew exactly what was going on, and they did not take kindly to U.S. attempts to gain a Cold War advantage at the expense of impoverished nations. Irritation escalated to rage when some leaders began to suspect that the Peace Corps was a cover for intelligence operations. In 1965, Ghana’s then-president Kwame Nkrumah wrote: “[Sargent] Shriver’s record makes a mockery of President Kennedy’s alleged instruction to Shriver to ‘keep the CIA out of the Peace Corps.’...Since its creation in 1961, members of the Peace Corps have been exposed and expelled from many African, Middle Eastern and Asian countries for acts of subversion or prejudice.”

Numerous well-meaning Peace Corps volunteers never became entangled in political intrigue and with the purest of motives they provided assistance and friendship that was much appreciated by the villages they served. But the program’s early propaganda agenda as spelled out in legislation and regulations was completely disrespectful of the rights to sovereignty, non-intervention and self-determination of the countries where volunteers were assigned. The Peace Corps’ Cold War agenda was later to be officially jettisoned, and in the 21^st Century, it is disturbing to look back on that chapter in U.S. history. At least we can now take comfort in knowing that the U.S. no longer uses deception to advance a propaganda agenda. Or can we?

“Irritation escalated to rage when some leaders began to suspect that the Peace Corps was a cover for intelligence operations.”

The U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) deploys U.S. military personnel to advise and support African soldiers in missions designed to advance U.S. strategic and economic interests in Africa. But it also implements a not-so-subtle propaganda campaign to win the hearts and minds of Africans and the grudging support of a broader public that correctly suspects that AFRICOM is a Trojan horse for imperialism.

If one takes AFRICOM’s reports about its own activities at face value, it is easy to conclude that it exists solely for humanitarian purposes. For instance, the AFRICOM website has published warm and fuzzy accounts of: a military chaplain’s assistance to a homeless double amputee in Uganda; an Army Reserve nurse’s delivery of a baby in a rural village; the delivery of emergency supplies for Chad refugees; and the exchange of medical information with the Djibouti military. It almost appears from these reports that AFRICOM personnel are really Peace Corps-type volunteers who happen to dress in military combat gear.

Not emphasized is AFRICOM’s primary mission, which is to use the armies of African governments to make Africa “a stable and secure African environment in support of U.S. foreign policy.” Interviews given by AFRICOM’s leaders make it pretty clear that they pay special attention to armed African militants, even if these rebels claim they are preserving and protecting their environment and natural resources from exploitative western corporations and individuals.

“It almost appears from these reports that AFRICOM personnel are really Peace Corps-type volunteers who happen to dress in military combat gear.”

For example, insurgent forces in the Niger Delta that have battled oil companies have been specifically identified by AFRICOM’s leadership as a problem. Last year, AFRICOM sent a military ship from port to port in the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea training African civilians and soldiers to combat “security threats” in the region. Likewise, so-called “pirates” in Somalia who in some cases have contested foreigners’ illegal dumping and fishing are among those that have been the focus of AFRICOM’s not-so-charitable concern.

By design AFRICOM downplays its military projects and instead presents itself as a Peace Corps type operation. However, missing from that version of its public face is the practice that makes it most like the 1961 version of the Peace Corps. That is, that AFRICOM is committed to the indoctrination of Africa’s people. It implements its program in a way that is far more sophisticated than any method contemplated when politicians hoped to use the Peace Corps to fight the “communist menace.”

Specifically, AFRICOM’s International Military Education and Training program is a vehicle not only for selling African leaders on the value of cooperating with the U.S. militarily, but also for exposing them to “the U.S. way of life.” An AFRICOM fact sheet on the program states that graduates “fill key leadership positions in militaries of many African nations.”

“AFRICOM is committed to the indoctrination of Africa’s people.”

Even the smallest, poorest African countries have a right to self-determination that is firmly grounded in international law. However, when AFRICOM drags future African leaders into a room to brainwash them into believing that U.S. strategic and economic interests are helpful to Africa’s development needs, it does not promote African independence, self-sufficiency and self-determination. Rather, it locks Africa into a state of dependency and maintains favorable political and social conditions for U.S.-based corporations that exploit Africa’s natural resources.

Although it is shameful that some Peace Corps volunteers were instructed to politically indoctrinate struggling, poverty-stricken villagers, it was probably a whole lot easier for a villager to tell a sandal-wearing Peace Corps volunteer to “go to Hell” than it is to give that same advice these days to a steely-eyed, square-jawed, gun-toting, U.S. military commander. AFRICOM ain’t the Peace Corps.

Mark P. Fancher coordinates the National Conference of Black Lawyers’ Africom TaskForce, and he is a member of the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party. He can be contacted at mfancher(at)Comcast.net.

Predator and Reaper UAV operations -- from the inside

WMR has received a number of briefings on the operations of the MQ-1 Predator and the MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). For the operators of the remotely-piloted vehicles, however, they do not consider the aircraft "unmanned" because they provide 24 hours and seven days a week coverage and there is a large support team behind every Predator and Reaper flight. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Lance "Sky" King is quick to point out that "we do not fly drones, we fly aircraft."

The Air Force has proudly claimed that it has not had one Predator shot down. Unofficially, however, there are reports of Predators being shot down in Iraq. There are plans afoot to place more than two A6M-114P laser-guided Hellfire supersonic missiles on the Predator, replace the Predator with a new and more foolproof radar-avoiding stealthy version. The present fleet of Predators and Reapers already possess stealth capabilities due to their carbon-fiber skin and very little metal components. An advanced version of the Reaper foresees the capability for in-flight re-fueling. Currently, the larger Reaper, which can carry four Hellfire missiles, can operate with 18 hours of sustained flight. There are plans to increase to eight the number of Hellfires carried by a Reaper.

One drawback of the Predators and Reapers are that they are not all weather. Because of the satellite links to operators at Nellis Air Force base in Nevada, cloud cover poses problems for the satellite links, requiring operations to be conducted from line-of-sight forward ground control centers.

When UAVs were first used by the Air Force in 1995, they only has line-of-sight capabilities, which meant they could operate 100 miles from the ground control station. Beyond line-of-sight capabilities, using satellite links via the Predator Primary Satellite Link (PPSL) for Predator in-flight operations, began in 2001. Hellfires were also first fitted on the Predators in 2001.

There have also been reported icing problems with the Predator and Reaper, which has resulted in them being grounded. The reconnaissance capabilities of the forward camera on the Predator and Reaper, known as the "MTS Ball" or MQ-16 electro-optical/intra-red camera, can read a driver's license from 20,000 plus feet. Infra-red sensors are so sensitive, often the operators have honed on lit cigarettes at night to target people. Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) permits day and night operations in most weather conditions. The infra-red surveillance systems have one drawback at night that does not exist for daytime operations. At night, the color of a vehicle, for example, cannot be determined.

Currently, the Air Force can fly 50 UAVs 24 hours a day. Two-thirds of the remotely-piloted vehicle training squadrons are at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, while the others are at Creech Air Force Base, north of Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. Four every four UAVs, there are two ground control stations. Reservist training on the UAVs takes place at Ellington Field, Houston, Texas and Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona.

Each Predator and Reaper has a "cockpit" comprised of a pilot on the left, usually a qualified Air Force pilot, and and a sensor operator on the right, usually a senior enlisted person. The pilot controls a throttle stick and a rudder control. The sensor operator controls the camera at the bottom of the aircraft. There is also a moving map display with a Global Positioning System (GPS) overlay.

The pilot's screen permits the pilot to look out from the nose and the bottom of the aircraft. The screen feature is of primary importance during takeoffs and landings. For deployment operations, there is a two second delay in sending instructions to the aircraft from either Nellis or Creech.

The pilot and sensor operator also have access to the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network or "SIPRNET" screen, which allows them to read email and scan Internet websites. A third member of the UAV team is the mission intelligence contol (MIC) operator. The MIC monitors additional screens to gather real-time and other intelligence.

Presently, Predators and Reapers, which are exchanged between the Iraq and Afghanistan theaters, are a high priority for the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), Central Command (CENTCOM), and European Command (EUCOM). However, at the present time, 90 percent of all UAVs are dedicated to operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Although the Hellfire missiles are billed by the Air Force as causing "minimal collateral damage," some Air Force personnel pointed out that they do not exclusively use the weaponry or the Predators. It is known that the CIA maintains its own fleet of Predators and that some of the operations were contracted out to the former Blackwater USA, now Xe Security Services. Predators firing Hellfires have been reported to have killed hundreds of civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and possibly, Somalia.

In 2007, there were 112 Hellfire attacks from UAVs, in 2008, the number climbed to 132, and in 2009, so far, there have been 87 missile attacks. The UAVs are a personal favorite of Defense Secretary Robert Gates.