Arms Exports Show Apparent Hypocrisy of German Foreign Policy by *Ben Knight

Out of principle, the German goverment refused to take part in military action against Libyan dictator Gadhafi.

But it seems selling arms to both sides of international conflicts has never been a problem for Berlin.

At the end of February, a shaky video appeared on Youtube showing Moammar Gadhafi's son Saif al-Islam addressing a raucous crowd in Tripoli. Struggling to keep the regime supporters quiet long enough to speak, Saif promises that weapons will be handed out to fight the opposition forces. As if to show what kind of weapons he means, Saif waves a large machine gun.

This gun has been identified as a Heckler and Koch G36, manufactured in Germany. It's the standard weapon of the German army, is used by police forces around the world, and is considered one of the deadliest assault rifles there is.

Big trade in small arms

No-one knows exactly how Saif got his hands on one of these. Heckler and Koch, a world-leading gun manufacturer based in the leafy town of Oberndorf in southern Germany, were not allowed to sell the weapon to Libya, and they say this one is either a dummy, or was bought illegally. This is not unlikely - anti-arms activists believe nearly every terrorist group in the world is equipped with Heckler and Koch guns.

Jürgen Grässlin is a veteran activist and chairman of the Armaments Information Bureau (RIB), which seeks out the details of Germany's weapons exports - both legal and illegal. He has received a lot more requests ever since popular uprisings began in the Middle East and North Africa earlier this year. Many journalists and politicians have been calling to find out precisely which German weapons are being used to suppress which opposition movements in which countries.

On Deutsche Welle's request, Grässlin discovered that in 2009 Heckler and Koch legally sold 13,000 rounds of ammunition for its G3 and MP5 machine guns to the Bahraini government.

"Now we see that in the last few weeks, the Bahraini police has used weapons, including these machine guns, against the democracy movement," Grässlin told Deutsche Welle. "We Germans are once again participating in killing around the world, in this case in Bahrain."

Over the counter

While Gadhafi was not allowed to buy any Heckler and Koch guns officially, he obtained plenty of other German weapons legally. For instance, the German-French owned EADS supplied Gadhafi with 168-million euros ($240 million) worth of anti-tank missiles, plus a number of tank transporters and other military vehicles.

It was inevitable that when the weapons embargo against Libya was lifted in 2004, respected German brands like Daimler and EADS would move in. In some cases literally - EADS even opened an office in Tripoli. Mark Bromley, a researcher with the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), confirms that this was part of a general move.

"There was certainly quite a broad push by a number of defense companies, often with the support of their own national governments, to try to access a potentially lucrative arms market in Libya," he told Deutsche Welle.

But Bromley is not convinced Germany is a worse offender than any other European country. "If you look at the German export reports, Germany has granted licenses to export military equipment to Libya, but it was also denying quite a lot of licenses in the last couple of years, particularly ones for small arms and light weapons ammunition," he says.

"Italy, in contrast, recently granted quite a large license for the export of small arms to Libya, and Belgium granted a more limited one a couple of years ago."

Supplying both sides of the front

Any kind of armed conflict is good for weapons makers, but it's ideal when the customers are on both sides of the front. Since EADS also helps to build the Eurofighter Typhoon jet currently being flown by NATO, that is exactly the situation in Libya.

"If, as in the case of Libya, the EADS has supplied weapons to both sides, then management can really crack open the champagne, because then the war profits are higher," says Grässlin. "Then the shareholders get more dividends and the managers get a raise."

Most of Germany's major weapons manufacturers declined to talk to Deutsche Welle for this report, but Heckler and Koch did answer some questions in writing. The company argued that the defense industry is part of a worldwide security infrastructure.

On top of that, the written statement said, "A national defense industry permits control, the independence of political decisions, and underlines the sovereignty of the state. For example, for the fighting troops in Afghanistan it is vitally important that their demand for high-quality and reliable manufacturers is covered."

"Every weapons export goes through a very tight vetting and authorization process, which is tied to a political evaluation of the reliability of the destination country," it went on. "The German weapons export law is among the strictest in the world."

Booming business

SIPRI researcher Bromley agrees that Germany has relatively tight export control laws, but it's undeniable that the German government has done much to keep its arms industry happy. Over the past decade, it has approved more than double the amount of German weapons exports. As a result, the country is now the third-biggest weapons exporter in the world, behind the USA and Russia, with a market share up from 6 percent to 11 percent.

Germany now supplies 20 percent of the weapons in the developing world, where the vast majority of the world's wars are currently being fought. According an annual report for 2010 from the independent peace organization Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC), Germany provided weapons to 40 countries whose human rights record was described as "questionable" - mostly in the Middle East, Latin America and South East Asia. Bromley says this is a new trend.

"Germany has had a reputation in the past for being a bit more restrictive with regards to certain destinations, particularly in the Middle East," he said. "That was probably more true in the past than it is now. I think Germany is now a bit more in line with other European states."

Hypocrisy

Grässlin says that what makes German weapons exports unique is the hypocrisy involved. While the two biggest weapons' exporters, the US and Russia, have a history of military intervention since the Second World War, Germany has always made a show - understandably - of being pacifist. It was apparent in the opposition to the Iraq war, the reluctance to send troops to Afghanistan, and it was made clear again in March, when Merkel refused to vote for the United Nations resolution on military action in Libya.

By the same token, the German government signed up to a political principle to not sell weapons to countries that abuse human rights. But clearly, in the cases of Libya and Bahrain and many others, it appears this principle does not count for much.

It's the gap between the human rights rhetoric and the active encouragement of the arms trade that Grässlin finds most sickening.

"In Germany the contradiction is really extreme," he said. "They say on the one hand they don't deliver weapons to countries that abuse human rights, but then every year you can read in the weapons exports reports which human rights-abusing countries have been supplied with German weapons. There is no area of German foreign and economic policy that is so dishonest and which has so many consequences in terms of the number of victims than the arms industry."

*Ben Knight, lives in Jerusalem and is enjoying every minute of it.

EVOLVING STORY: Israeli Ambassador Leaves Cairo by *Dr. Ashraf Ezzat

Amid Speculations of Opening Egypt’s Border with Gaza Soon

“Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel should not be taken for granted” says Egypt’s foreign minister.

Israel's ambassador to Cairo, Itzhak Levanon

When asked to comment about the terrorist attacks that hit New York on 9/11, Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu told an audience at Bar Ilan University that the September 11, 2001 terror attacks would be beneficial for Israel.

And the years that followed 9/11 proved that Netanyahu was right.

Israel has been the only party that really benefited from 9/11. Those terrorist operations had been enough of a provocation for the United States to wage its military wrath upon two of Israel’s formidable foes namely, Iraq and Afghan-Pakistani Muslim front.

And when again asked his opinion on the pro-democracy popular uprising in Egypt that took place last January, Netanyahu expressed his concerns this revolution might change the Egyptian foreign policy toward Israel.
 

And the days that followed the Egyptian revolution proved that Mr. Netanyahu had been right again.

Ousting Mubarak should not be viewed as only an end to decades of corruption and autocratic domestic Egyptian policy but also to the equally corrupt foreign policy and a considerable share of this has-to-change policy is the Egyptian-Israeli’s.

The Middle East is one of the most politically volatile and inflammatory regions in the whole world. The Arab-Israeli conflict is on top of the Middle East political agenda and with Egypt as a main player in that conflict.

Peace treaty misinterpreted

When the foreign policy of a prominent and leading nation in the Middle East, such as Egypt, has been neutralized and rather crippled for well over 30 years, then something seriously wrong must have been plotted behind closed doors.

Who would benefit from a politically secluded Egypt?
 

Taking refuge in the Camp David accords and the peace treaty signed with Egypt in 1979, Israel with her backyard nice and quiet and her interest’s best served by a pro-Zionist Mubarak, managed to enjoy the most fruitful 30 years politics could offer.


The peace treaty was meant to put an end to the military confrontation between Egypt and Israel not to put an end to the political and the soft power of Egypt and this is where Mubarak went terribly wrong misinterpreting this treaty.

Signing a peace treaty with Israel doesn’t mean that Egypt should keep silent about the Israeli aggression and the ongoing daily grab of the Arab land in Palestine; it doesn’t mean watching a big Arab country like Iraq shamefully dismantled without moving a finger, it doesn’t mean approving of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and tightening the inhuman blockade on Gaza, it doesn’t mean turning a blind eye to the hostile wars of Israel in Lebanon and Gaza and it certainly doesn’t mean that the only comment any Egyptian foreign secretary could make concerning Israel’s wrongdoings is, “see no evil, hear no evil”.

Changing tones

Getting used to years of tailoring and knowing in advance every Egyptian official response, Israel has lately been dismayed by the harsh statement made by the Egyptian minister of finance, Samir Radwaan, when he was asked to comment on the possibilities for Israeli investments in the country, he went on and simply replied “Egypt doesn’t need investment from the enemy”

May be this was meant to be off the record and not made an official statement by Mr. Radwaan who could have been giving vent to his anger and discontent over the 80 billion dollars loss deal Mubarak made with Tel Aviv that supplied Israel, for long years, with all its requirements of Egypt’s natural gas by the cheapest prices ever that Tel Aviv itself called the “Gas theft”

The minister of finance was not alone in these late accusations, by Mr. Netanyahu, of anti-Israeli hostile comments, Dr. Nabil el-Araby, the new Egyptian foreign minister, who while being interviewed on Egyptian TV lately, said that the peace treaty with Israel should not be taken for granted, and that the Egyptian side is absolutely entitled to revise its terms whenever needed and also said that there are still items in the treaty that Egypt has not benefited from nor activated yet concerning the security arrangements in Sinai and along the borders with Israel.

Dr. el-Araby, was not referring to going back on Egypt’s obligations concerning the Camp David accord; rather he was talking of a new foreign policy that would serve Egypt’s best interest.

On Friday April 8, Thousands of angry Egyptians, on hearing the Israeli news of the latest military attacks on Gaza, marched to the Israeli embassy in Cairo and practically besieged the building with protesters who didn’t only denounce the Israeli attacks but also demanded the Israeli ambassador to be expelled and the instant freeze of the supply of Egypt’s natural gas to Israel.

Hardly a week has passed since the march on the Israeli embassy before Israel is once again faced with news leaked from the office of the Egyptian foreign minister that spoke of the intentions of Egypt to open the borders with Gaza soon.
 

This news was broadcasted on al Jazeera/Arabic channel on Saturday April 16, and on the following day there were breaking news of itzhak Levanon, the Israeli ambassador in Egypt leaving Cairo on a flight to Tel Aviv without comments or any statement about his sudden visit to Israel. And on the same day the Egyptian government gave a special permit to the family of the late Italian activist, Vitorrio Arrigoni, to pass through the Egyptian crossing point into Gaza and bring his body back home.

But Whatever discussions Mr. levanon might be engaged in through the coming days in Tel Aviv, one thing is certain, he is going to assure Tel Aviv that Egypt is regaining its political power back and that the long years of Egypt playing “ see no evil, hear no evil” as far as Israel is concerned are gone.


*Dr. Ashraf Ezzat is a free-lance writer

America's Military Expansion Funded by Foreign Central Banks by *Michael Hudson

Large amounts of surplus dollars are pouring into the rest of the world.Central banks have recycled these dollar inflows towards the purchase of U.S. Treasury bonds, which serve to finance the federal U.S. budget deficit. Underlying this process is the military character of the U.S. payments deficit and the domestic federal budget deficit. Strange as it may seem and irrational as it would be in a more logical system of world diplomacy, the "dollar glut" is what finances America’s global military build-up. It forces foreign central banks to bear the costs of America’s expanding military empire: effective "taxation without representation".
Keeping international reserves in "dollars" means recycling their dollar inflows to buy U.S. Treasury bills, namely, U.S. government debt issued largely to finance the military.

To date, countries have been as powerless to defend themselves against the fact that this compulsory financing of U.S. military spending is built into the global financial system. Neoliberal economists applaud this as "equilibrium", as if it is part of economic nature and "free markets" rather than bare-knuckle diplomacy wielded with increasing aggressiveness by U.S. officials. The mass media chime in, pretending that recycling the dollar glut to finance U.S. military spending is showing their faith in U.S. economic strength by sending "their" dollars here to "invest". It is as if a choice is involved, not financial and diplomatic compulsion to choose merely between "Yes" (from China, reluctantly), "Yes, please" (from Japan and the European Union) and "Yes, thank you" (from Britain, Georgia and Australia).

It is not "foreign faith in the U.S. economy" that leads foreigners to "put their money here". This is a silly anthropomorphic picture of a more sinister dynamic. The "foreigners" in question are not consumers buying U.S. exports, nor are they private-sector "investors" buying U.S. stocks and bonds. The largest and most important foreign entities putting "their money" here are central banks, and it is not "their money" at all. They are sending back the dollars that foreign exporters and other recipients turn over to their central banks for domestic currency.

When the U.S. payments deficit pumps dollars into foreign economies, these banks are being given little option except to buy U.S. Treasury bills and bonds which the Treasury spends on financing an enormous, hostile military build-up to encircle the major dollar-recyclers: China, Japan and Arab OPEC oil producers. Yet these governments are forced to recycle dollar inflows in a way that funds U.S. military policies in which they have no say in formulating, and which threaten them more and more belligerently. That is why China and Russia took the lead in forming the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) a few years ago.

In Europe there is a clear awareness that the U.S. payments deficit is much larger than just the trade deficit. The deficit does not stem merely from consumers buying more imports than the United States exports as the financial sector de-industrializes its economy. U.S. imports are now plunging as the economy shrinks and consumers are finding themselves obliged to pay down the debts they have taken on.

Congress has told foreign investors in the largest dollar holder, China, not to buy anything except perhaps used-car dealerships and maybe more packaged mortgages and Fannie Mae stock. This is the equivalent of Japanese investors being steered into spending one billion dollars for the Rockefeller Center, on which they subsequently took a one hundred percent loss, and Saudi investment in Citigroup. That’s the kind of "international equilibrium" that U.S. officials love to see. "CNOOK go home" is the motto when it comes to serious attempts by foreign governments and their sovereign wealth funds (central bank departments trying to figure out what to do with their dollar glut) to make direct investments in American industry.

So we are left with the extent to which the U.S. payments deficit stems from military spending. The problem is not only the war in Iraq, now being extended to Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is the expensive build-up of U.S. military bases in Asian, European, post-Soviet and Third World countries. The Obama administration has promised to make the actual amount of this military spending more transparent. That presumably means publishing a revised set of balance of payments figures as well as domestic federal budget statistics.

The military overhead is much like a debt overhead, extracting revenue from the economy. In this case it is to pay the military-industrial complex, not merely Wall Street banks and other financial institutions. The domestic federal budget deficit does not stem only from "priming the pump" to give away enormous sums to create a new financial oligarchy; it contains an enormous and rapidly growing military component.

So Europeans and Asians see U.S. companies pumping more and more dollars into their economies, not only to buy their exports in excess of providing them with goods and services in return, and not only to buy their companies and "commanding heights" of privatized public enterprises without giving them reciprocal rights to buy important U.S. companies (remember the U.S. turn-down of China’s attempt to buy into the U.S. oil distribution business), and not only to buy foreign stocks, bonds and real estate. The U.S. media somehow neglects to mention that the U.S. Government is spending hundreds of billions of dollars abroad, not only in the Near East for direct combat, but to build enormous military bases to encircle the rest of the world, to install radar systems, guided missile systems and other forms of military coercion, including the "color revolutions" that have been funded and are still being funded all around the former Soviet Union. Pallets of shrink-wrapped hundred-dollar bills, adding up to tens of millions of dollars at a time, have become familiar "visuals" on some TV broadcasts, but the link is not made with U.S. military and diplomatic spending and foreign central-bank dollar holdings, which are reported simply as "wonderful faith in the U.S. economic recovery" and presumably the "monetary magic" being worked by Wall Street’s Tim Geithner at Treasury and "Helicopter Ben" Bernanke at the Federal Reserve.

Here’s the problem: the Coca-Cola Company recently tried to buy China’s largest fruit-juice producer and distributor. China already holds nearly two trillion dollars in U.S. securities, way more than it needs or can use, inasmuch as the United States government refuses to let it buy meaningful U.S. companies. If the U.S. buyout would have been permitted to go through, this would have confronted China with a dilemma:

Choice #1 would be to let the sale go through and accept payment in dollars, reinvesting them in what the U.S. Treasury tells it to do. With U.S. Treasury bonds yielding about one percent, China would take a capital loss on these when U.S. interest rates rise or when the dollar declines, as the United States alone is pursuing expansionary Keynesian policies in an attempt to enable the U.S. economy to carry its debt overhead.

Choice #2 is not to recycle the dollar inflows. This would lead the Renminbi to rise against the dollar, thereby eroding China’s export competitiveness in world markets.

So China chose a third way, which brought U.S. protests. It turned the sale of its tangible company for merely "paper" U.S. dollars, which went with the "choice" to fund further U.S. military encirclement of the SCO. The only people who seem not to be drawing this connection are the American mass media, and hence U.S. public opinion. I can assure you from personal experience, it is being drawn in Europe. (Here’s a good diplomatic question to discuss: Which will be the first European country besides Russia to join the SCO?)

Academic textbooks have nothing to say about how "equilibrium" in foreign capital movements, speculative as well as for direct investment, is infinite as far as the U.S. economy is concerned. The U.S. economy can create dollars freely, now that they no longer are convertible into gold or even into purchases of U.S. companies, inasmuch as America remains the world’s most protected economy. It alone is permitted to protect its agriculture by import quotas, having "grandfathered" these into world trade rules half a century ago. Congress refuses to let "sovereign wealth" funds invest in important U.S. sectors.

So we are confronted with the fact that the U.S. Treasury prefers foreign central banks to keep on funding its domestic budget deficit, which means financing the cost of America’s war in the Near East and encirclement of foreign countries with rings of military bases. The more "capital outflows" U.S. investors spend to buy up foreign economies’ most profitable sectors, where the new U.S. owners can extract the highest monopoly rents, the more funds end up in foreign central banks to support America’s global military build-up. No textbook on political theory or international relations has suggested axioms to explain how nations act in a way so adverse to their own political, military and economic interests. Yet this is just what has been happening for the past generation.

*Michael Hudson is President of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends (ISLET), a Wall Street Financial Analyst, Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City and author of Super-Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire (1968 & 2003), Trade, Development and Foreign Debt (1992 & 2009) and of The Myth of Aid (1971)

Indo-Israeli Nexus Damage the US Interests by *Sajjad Shaukat

After  9/11, India and Israel which had openly jumped on Bush’s anti-terrorism enterprise are acting upon a secret diplomacy, targeting whole of the Islamic World in general and Pakistan, China, Iran, Libya and Syria in particular. Thus these two countries are damaging the US interests on regional and global level.

It is of particular attention that Jewish-Hindu lobbies are collectively working in America and other European countries to manipulate the double standards of the west in relation to terrorism and human rights vis-à-vis Pakistan, Iran and China. Both India and Israel consider Pakistan and Iran as their enemies due to Islamabad’s nuclear assets and Tehran’s prospective nuclear programme which are also opposed by the US. In this regard, when in the recent past, Iran test-fired Shahab 3, a surface-to-surface missile with a range of up to 2,000 km, Israel openly and India clandestinely took it as a greater threat to their collective interests. Although, Iran denied link between the missile firing and the nuclear activities, but Washington speculated that besides Israel, the regional target which Iran intended to attack was India where America and Israel are investing and increasing their presence. Notably, both Israel and India also secretly manipulate Sino-US differences, blaming China for human rights violations, and propagating that China is an emerging superpower which is likely to compete with the US strategically. It was owing to exploitation of China factor that in 2008, US signed a deal of civil energy technology with New Delhi, which lifted sanctions on India in order to import nuclear technology.

However, similarities of interest have brought Israel and India to follow a common secret diplomacy with the help of those Americans who are well-penetrated in the US Administration. In this context, Indian RAW, Israeli Mossad and some American CIA agents are collectively cooperating with each other at the cost of the US interests.

With the support of their lobbies, India and Israel covertly enticed America to invade Afghanistan and Iraq where the US-led allies continue to kill many innocent civilians through heavy aerial bombardment and ground shelling in the name of war on terror. US-led-forces have been using every possible technique of state terrorism in these territories which have become the breeding grounds of a prolonged interaction between freedom fighters and state terrorists, damaging the US interests.

In fact, in more than ten years, well-trained NATO troops, equipped with sophisticated technology have badly failed in coping with the Afghan Taliban. Despite the increase of military troops, suicide attacks, roadside bombs and ambush attacks by the Taliban have rendered the superior power of the US-led forces obsolete. While casualties of the foreign forces have been increasing day by day, and like other years, the last year was also the deadliest year for U.S. troops in Afghanistan, with 499 killed.

Besides, American cost of war against terrorism which has reached approximately 7 trillion dollar is increasing rapidly—decline of dollar, increasing prices of oil and acute recession inside the country have given a greater blow to the US economy vis-à-vis other developed countries. In such a scenario, American public is particularly worried about the failed military campaign in Afghanistan. In this respect, Indian Hindus and American Jews who are on the payroll of the secret agencies are responsible for the prolonged war in Afghanistan and financial crisis in the US. 

Now to distract the attention of American general masses from internal crisis in wake of US failure in Afghanistan, Indo-Israeli lobbies have continuously been propagating against Pakistan’s tribal areas in connection with the Afghan insurgency. Impressed by their propaganda campaign, some US officials have intermittently stated that the next plot to attack the American homeland and Europe will be prepared in Pakistan’s FATA regions. With the help of their secret agencies and lobbies, India and Israel want to denuclearize Pakistan which is the only country in the Islamic World. A perennial wave of subversive events in Pakistan and blame game against country’s intelligence agency ISI and Army are also part of their continued agenda.

It is mentionable that in the recent past, Indo-Israeli diplomacy has played a secret role in creating trust deficit between Pakistan and the United States. Uneasy US-Pakistani ties have become more tense after a string of diplomatic disputes this year owing to a massive drone strike in March and the case of Raymond Davis—a CIA contractor who shot dead two Pakistanis in Lahore.Islamabad is making efforts to curb, restrict and intensely monitor CIA activities in the country. Joint US-Pakistan intelligence cooperation has been halted since late January, reflecting strain in their relationship which is crucial in combating militants and the war in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, it was due to the Indo-Israeli covert tactics that Washington supported kings and dictators in the Middle East. All this has resulted in revolutionary movements against the concerned regimes, and strong anti-Americanism as noted among the protesters in Egypt, Yemen, Oman, Bahrainetc. In this regard, US and other NATO members also attacked Libya for the sake of oil, while unrest was internal problem of the country. This drastic situation has given another setback to the American interests in the Middle East. 

It is worth-mentioning that with the help of Israel, India wants to entrap the US permanently in Afghanistan in order to achieve its secret designs against Pakistan and China—in the Indian-held Kashmir by damaging American global and regional interests. For this purpose, under the pretext of Talibinisation of Afghanistan and Pakistan, Indian secret agency, RAW, with help of Mossad, has well-established its networks in Afghanistan. Particularly, India has been running secret operations against Pakistan from Afghanistan. And from there, Indian RAW has been sending well-trained militants along with arms to Pakistan so as to attack the security personnel including western nationals. New Delhi also wants to get strategic depth against Pakistan.

Regarding Indian activities in Afghanistan, the former NATO commander, Gen. McChrystal in his report on the Afghan war had admitted: “Indian political and economic influence is increasing in Afghanistan including significant development efforts…is likely to exacerbate regional tensions.”

Indians think that if US-led NATO forces withdraw from Afghanistan, Karzai regime will fall like a palace of cards due to the growing Taliban militancy. Even New Delhi will not be to maintain its network in wake of the successful guerrilla warfare of the Taliban.Therefore, India is doing its utmost to convince Washington to have a long stay in Afghanistan. Failed in this objevtive, it can even act upon dirty ticks to get the foreign forces entangled in Afghanistan. In this respect, with help of some so-called Indian Muslims, Indian RAW will increase attacks inside Afghanistan, targeting especially American soldiers with the sole aim to revive old blame game of the west against Islamabad for cross-border-terrorism.

Nonetheless, by manipulating the present phenomena of world terrorism and anti-Muslim approach of the west, both India and Israel have been availing this golden opportunity to achieve their covert goals by convincing the US-led European states that Pakistan is sponsoring cross-border terrorism in Afghanistan and Kashmir. And Iran and Syria are doing the same act in Iraq, Lebanon and Israel. In this connection, equation of ‘war of liberation’ in Kashmir and Palestine with terrorism has become the main target of New Delhi and Tel Aviv who intend to divert the attention of the west from their own atrocities, being perpetrated in the occupied territories of Kashmir and Palestine.

It is noteworthy that irresponsible attitude of some Indian, Israeli and Western  politicians has introduced dangerous socio-religious dimension in their societies by equating the “war on terror” with “war on Islam” and acts of Al Qaeda with all the Muslims. Their media have also been contributing to heighten the currents of world politics on cultural and religious lines with the negative projection of Islam. In this context, reprinting of the caricatures about Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and release of a Dutch film against the Holy Quran in the recent past might be noted as an example. Particularly, on March 20 this year, a US evangelical preacher Terry Jones supervised the burning of a copy of the Quran by Pastor Wayne Sapp in a Florida church.

In the past few years, many conferences were held in various countries in which scholars from Islamic states also participated with a view to conduct inter-faith dialogue and to create cultural understanding among major religious communities. Nevertheless, all these measures have proved fruitless due to a deliberate anti-Muslim campaign, launched by the Indo-Israeli lobbies.

It is because of these developments that a greater resentment is being found among the Muslims who think that the US in connivance with the Indo-Israeli lobbies is sponsoring state terrorism, directly or indirectly from Kashmir to Palestine and Afghanistan to Libya. No doubt, even under the Obama Administration, India and Israel continues to damage the US interests.

*Sajjad Shaukat writes on international affairs and is author of the book: US vs Islamic Militants, Invisible Balance of Power: Dangerous Shift in International Relations

Libya: All About Oil by *Ellen Brown

Several writers have noted the odd fact that the Libyan rebels took time out from their rebellion in March to create their own central bank – this before they even had a government.  Robert Wenzel wrote in the Economic Policy Journal:

I have never before heard of a central bank being created in just a matter of weeks out of a popular uprising.  This suggests we have a bit more than a rag tag bunch of rebels running around and that there are some pretty sophisticated influences.

Alex Newman wrote in the New American:

In astatement released last week, the rebels reported on the results of a meeting held on March 19. Among other things, the supposed rag-tag revolutionaries announced the “[d]esignation of the Central Bank of Benghazi as a monetary authority competent in monetary policies in Libya and appointment of a Governor to the Central Bank of Libya, with a temporary headquarters in Benghazi.”

Newman quoted CNBC senior editor John Carney, who asked, “Is this the first time a revolutionary group has created a central bank while it is still in the midst of fighting the entrenched political power?  It certainly seems to indicate how extraordinarily powerful central bankers have become in our era.”

Another anomaly involves the official justification for taking up arms against Libya.  Supposedly it’s about human rights violations, but the evidence is contradictory.  According to an article on the Fox News website on February 28:

As the United Nations works feverishly to condemn Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi for cracking down on protesters, the body's Human Rights Council is poised to adopt a report chock-full of praise for Libya's human rights record. 

The review commends Libya for improving educational opportunities, for making human rights a "priority" and for bettering its "constitutional" framework. Several countries, including Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia but also Canada, give Libya positive marks for the legal protections afforded to its citizens — who are now revolting against the regime and facing bloody reprisal. 

Whatever might be said of Gaddafi’s personal crimes, the Libyan people seem to be thriving.  A delegation of medical professionals from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus wrote in an appeal to Russian President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin that after becoming acquainted with Libyan life, it was their view that in few nations did people live in such comfort:  

[Libyans] are entitled to free treatment, and their hospitals provide the best in the world of medical equipment. Education in Libya is free, capable young people have the opportunity to study abroad at government expense. When marrying, young couples receive 60,000 Libyan dinars (about 50,000 U.S. dollars) of financial assistance.  Non-interest state loans, and as practice shows, undated. Due to government subsidies the price of cars is much lower than in Europe, and they are affordable for every family. Gasoline and bread cost a penny, no taxes for those who are engaged in agriculture. The Libyan people are quiet and peaceful, are not inclined to drink, and are very religious. 

They maintained that the international community had been misinformed about the struggle against the regime. “Tell us,” they said, “who would not like such a regime?” 

Even if that is just propaganda, there is no denying at least one very popular achievement of the Libyan government: it brought water to the desert by building the largest and most expensive irrigation project in history, the $33 billion GMMR (Great Man-Made River) project.  Even more than oil, water is crucial to life in Libya.  The GMMR provides 70 percent of the population with water for drinking and irrigation, pumping it from Libya’s vast underground Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System in the south to populated coastal areas 4,000 kilometers to the north.  The Libyan government has done at least some things right.  

Another explanation for the assault on Libya is that it is “all about oil,” but that theory too is problematic.  As noted in the National Journal, the countryproduces only about 2 percent of the world’s oil.  Saudi Arabia alone has enough spare capacity to make up for any lost production if Libyan oil were to disappear from the market.  And if it’s all about oil, why the rush to set up a new central bank?

Another provocative bit of data circulating on the Net is a 2007 “Democracy Now” interview of U.S. General Wesley Clark (Ret.).  In it he says that about 10 days after September 11, 2001, he was told by a general that the decision had been made to go to war with Iraq.  Clark was surprised and asked why.  “I don’t know!” was the response.  “I guess they don’t know what else to do!”  Later, the same general said they planned to take out seven countries in five years: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran. 

What do these seven countries have in common?  In the context of banking, one that sticks out is that none of them is listed among the 56 member banks of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).  That evidently puts them outside the long regulatory arm of the central bankers’ central bank in Switzerland. 

The most renegade of the lot could be Libya and Iraq, the two that have actually been attacked.  Kenneth Schortgen Jr., writing on Examiner.com, noted that “[s]ix months before the US moved into Iraq to take down Saddam Hussein, the oil nation had made the move to accept Euros instead of dollars for oil, and this became a threat to the global dominance of the dollar as the reserve currency, and its dominion as the petrodollar.”

According to a Russian article titled “Bombing of Lybia – Punishment for Ghaddafi for His Attempt to Refuse US Dollar,” Gadaffi made a similarly bold move: he initiated a movement to refuse the dollar and the euro, and called on Arab and African nations to use a new currency instead, the gold dinar.  Gadaffi suggested establishing a united African continent, with its 200 million people using this single currency.  During the past year, the idea was approved by many Arab countries and most African countries.  The only opponents were the Republic of South Africa and the head of the League of Arab States.  The initiative was viewed negatively by the USA and the European Union, with French president Nicolas Sarkozy calling Libya a threat to the financial security of mankind; but Gaddafi was not swayed and continued his push for the creation of a united Africa.

And that brings us back to the puzzle of the Libyan central bank.  In an article posted on the Market Oracle, Eric Encina observed:

One seldom mentioned fact by western politicians and media pundits: the Central Bank of Libya is 100% State Owned. . . . Currently, the Libyan government creates its own money, the Libyan Dinar, through the facilities of its own central bank. Few can argue that Libya is a sovereign nation with its own great resources, able to sustain its own economic destiny. One major problem for globalist banking cartels is that in order to do business with Libya, they must go through the Libyan Central Bank and its national currency, a place where they have absolutely zero dominion or power-broking ability.  Hence, taking down the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) may not appear in the speeches of Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy but this is certainly at the top of the globalist agenda for absorbing Libya into its hive of compliant nations.

Libya not only has oil.  According to the IMF, its central bank has nearly 144 tons of gold in its vaults.  With that sort of asset base, who needs the BIS, the IMF and their rules? 

All of which prompts a closer look at the BIS rules and their effect on local economies.  An article on the BIS website states that central banks in the Central Bank Governance Network are supposed to have as their single or primary objective “to preserve price stability.”  They are to be kept independent from government to make sure that political considerations don’t interfere with this mandate.  “Price stability” means maintaining a stable money supply, even if that means burdening the people with heavy foreign debts.  Central banks are discouraged from increasing the money supply by printing money and using it for the benefit of the state, either directly or as loans. 

In a 2002 article in Asia Times titled “The BIS vs National Banks,” Henry Liu maintained:   

BIS regulations serve only the single purpose of strengthening the international private banking system, even at the peril of national economies. The BIS does to national banking systems what the IMF has done to national monetary regimes. National economies under financial globalization no longer serve national interests. 

. . . FDI [foreign direct investment] denominated in foreign currencies, mostly dollars, has condemned many national economies into unbalanced development toward export, merely to make dollar-denominated interest payments to FDI, with little net benefit to the domestic economies. 

He added, “Applying the State Theory of Money, any government can fund with its own currency all its domestic developmental needs to maintain full employment without inflation.”  The “state theory of money” refers to money created by governments rather than private banks.

The presumption of the rule against borrowing from the government’s own central bank is that this will be inflationary, while borrowing existing money from foreign banks or the IMF will not.  But all banks actually create the money they lend on their books, whether publicly-owned or privately-owned.  Most new money today comes from bank loans.  Borrowing it from the government’s own central bank has the advantage that the loan is effectively interest-free.  Eliminating interest has been shown to reduce the cost of public projects by an average of 50%.   

And that appears to be how the Libyan system works.  According to Wikipedia, the functions of the Central Bank of Libya include “issuing and regulating banknotes and coins in Libya” and “managing and issuing all state loans.”  Libya’s wholly state-owned bank can and does issue the national currency and lend it for state purposes. 

That would explain where Libya gets the money to provide free education and medical care, and to issue each young couple $50,000 in interest-free state loans.  It would also explain where the country found the $33 billion to build the Great Man-Made River project.  Libyans are worried that NATO-led air strikes are coming perilously close to this pipeline, threatening another humanitarian disaster.       

         

So is this new war all about oil or all about banking?  Maybe both – and water as well.  With energy, water, and ample credit to develop the infrastructure to access them, a nation can be free of the grip of foreign creditors.  And that may be the real threat of Libya: it could show the world what is possible.  Most countries don’t have oil, but new technologies are being developed that could make non-oil-producing nations energy-independent, particularly if infrastructure costs are halved by borrowing from the nation’s own publicly-owned bank.  Energy independence would free governments from the web of the international bankers, and of the need to shift production from domestic to foreign markets to service the loans. 

If the Gaddafi government goes down, it will be interesting to watch whether the new central bank joins the BIS, whether the nationalized oil industry gets sold off to investors, and whether education and health care continue to be free.

*Ellen Brown developed her research skills as an attorney practicing civil litigation in Los Angeles. In Web of Debt, her latest book, she turns those skills to an analysis of the Federal Reserve and "the money trust."

Libya: America Considering the use of Nuclear Weapons! by *Prof. Michel Chossudovsky

Shortly after the commencement of the Libya bombing campaign on March 19, the Pentagon ordered the testing of the B61-11 nuclear bomb. These tests announced in an April 4 press release, pertained to the installed equipment and weapon's components. The objective was to verify the functionality of  the nuclear bomb…..  

The B-2 Spirit Stealth bomber is the "chosen carrier" of the B61 -11 nuclear bombs. The B-2 Spirit Stealth bomber out of Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri was not only sent on a mission to bomb Libya at the very outset of the air campaign, it was subsequently used in the testing of the B61 Mod 11 nuclear bomb. 

The B61-11 has a yield of two thirds of a Hiroshima bomb. Why were these tests of the equipment and functionality of a tactical nuclear weapon scheduled shortly after the onset of the Libya bombing campaign?

Why now?

Is the timing of these tests coincidental or are they in any way related to the chronology of the Libya bombing campaign?

U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command, which is responsible for the coordination of US bombing operations directed against Libya was also involved in the testing of the B61-11 nuclear bombs. 

  

Both the bombing of Libya by the B-2 Spirit Stealth bomber (see image above) on March 19-20, as well as the testing of the functionality of the B61-11 nuclar bomb (announced April 4) were implemented out of the same US Air Force base in Missouri. 

An earlier article entitled America's Planned Nuclear Attack on Libya,  (PART I)  provided details of the Pentagon's plan under the Clinton administration to wage a nuclear attack on Libya.

The Pentagon had envisaged  the use of the B61 Mod 11 nuclear bomb against Libya. Categorized as a mini-nuke, the B61-11 is a 10 kiloton bomb with a yield equivalent to two thirds of a Hiroshima bomb. (See Michel Chossudovsky, America's Planed Nuclear Attack on Libya, Global Research, March 25, 2011)

The Pentagon's 1996 plan to nuke Libya had been announced in no uncertain terms at a press briefing by Assistant Secretary of Defense Harold P. Smith:  

"[The] Air Force would use the B61-11 [nuclear weapon] against Libya's alleged underground chemical weapons plant at Tarhunah if the President decided that the plant had to be destroyed. 'We could not take [Tarhunah] out of commission using strictly conventional weapons,' Smith told the Associated Press. The B61-11 'would be the nuclear weapon of choice,' he told Jane Defence Weekly. (The Nuclear Information Project: the B61-11)

Clinton's Defense Secretary William Perry –who was present at the press briefing– had earlier told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee that "the U.S. retained the option of using nuclear weapons against countries [e.g. Libya] armed with chemical and biological weapons."(Ibid, See also Greg Mello, The Birth Of a New Bomb; Shades of Dr. Strangelove! Will We Learn to Love the B61-11? The Washington Post, June 01, 1997)

The Department of Defense's objective was to fast track the "testing" of the B61-11 nuclear bomb on an actual country and that country was Libya:

"Even before the B61 came on line, Libya was identified as a potential target". (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists – September/ October 1997, p. 27). (For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, America's Planned Nuclear Attack on Libya, March 2011) 

While the 1996 plan to bomb Libya using tactical nuclear weapons was subsequently shelved, Libya was not removed from the "black list": "The Qadhafi regime" remains to this date a target country for a pre-emptive ("defensive") nuclear attack.

As revealed by William Arkin in early 2002, "The Bush administration, in a secret policy review… [had] ordered the Pentagon to draft contingency plans for the use of nuclear weapons against at least seven countries, naming not only Russia and the "axis of evil" Iraq, Iran, and North Korea but also China, Libya and Syria. (See William Arkin, "Thinking the Unthinkable", Los Angeles Times, 9 March 2002).

According to the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review, adopted by the Senate in 2002, Libya is on the "Pentagon's list". Moreover, it is also important to emphasize that Libya was the first country to be tagged and formally identified (at a Department of Defense press briefing) as a possible target for a US sponsored nuclear attack using the B61 Mod 11 nuclear bomb. This announcement was made in 1996, five years prior to the formulation of  the pre-emptive nuclear war doctrine under the Bush administration (i.e the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review).

The Testing of the B61-11 Nuclear Bomb (Announced on April 4, 2011)

What is the relevance of the history of the B61-11 nuclear bomb and earlier threats directed by the Clinton administration against Libya?

Has the project to nuke Libya been shelved or is Libya still being contemplated as a potential target for a nuclear attack?

Shortly after the commencement of the Libya bombing campaign on March 19, the US Department of Defense ordered the testing of the B61-11 nuclear bomb. These tests pertained to the installed equipment and weapon 's components of the nuclear bomb.

The announcement of these tests was made public on April 4; the precise date of  the test was not revealed, but one can reasonably assume that it was in the days prior to the April 4 press release by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA. Press Release, NNSA Conducts Successful B61-11 JTA Flight Test, Apr 4, 2011,)

The B-2 Spirit Stealth bomber is the US Air Force's chosen "carrier" for the delivery of the B61 Mod 11 nuclear bomb. In late March or early April  (prior to April 4), the B-2 Spirit Stealth bomber from the 509th Bomber Wing operating out of Whiteman Air Force Base, was used in the so-called "Joint Test Assembly" (JTA) of the B61 Mod 11 nuclear bomb.

In other words, the B61-11 was tested using the same B-2 Spirit Stealth bombers out of Whiteman Air Force Base, which were used to bomb Libya at the very outset of the air campaign.

The Joint Test Assembly (JTA) of the B61-11

This JTA testing was undertaken by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) together with the U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command, which coincidentally is responsible for the coordination of US bombing operations directed against Libya as well as ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"The JTA was produced by the NNSA in support of the Joint Surveillance Flight Test Program between the Department of Defense and the NNSA" (Press release, op cit)

The Joint Test Assembly (JTA) in the case of  the B61 Mod 11 nuclear bomb, requires testing the equipment of the B61-11 using a proxy conventional non-nuclear warhead. Essentially what is involved is to test all the installed equipment on the nuclear bomb and ensure its functionality without actually having a nuclear explosion. The JTA test "was built to simulate the actual B61-11 weapon configuration utilizing as much war reserve hardware as feasible.  It was assembled at the Pantex plant in Amarillo, Texas and was not capable of nuclear yield, as it contained no special nuclear materials."  (Press Release, NNSA Conducts Successful B61-11 JTA Flight Test, Apr 4, 2011)

“JTA tests [are to ensure] that all weapon systems [e.g. B61-11 nuclear bomb] perform as planned and that systems are designed to be safe, secure and effective,”…. A JTA contains instrumentation and sensors that monitor the performance of numerous weapon components [e.g of the B61-11] during the flight test to determine if the weapon functions as designed. This JTA also included a flight recorder that stored the bomb performance data for the entire test. The data is used in a reliability model, developed by Sandia National Laboratories, to evaluate the reliability of the bomb. (Ibid) 

The B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber operating out of the Whiteman Air Force Base was reported to have "delivered and released" the B61-11 JTA at the Tonopah Test Range in Nevada, which is routinely used to test nuclear ordnance. (See Press Release, op cit.).

The Tonopah Test Range while owned by the US Department of Energy, is managed and operated by Sandia National Laboratories, a division of America's largest weapons producer Lockheed-Martin (under permit with the NASA). (See 

Aerial View of Tonopah Test Range where the B61 11 JTA was tested using a B-2 Spirit Stealth bomber. Source NASA. 

The Deployment of B 2 Stealth bombers to Libya

Why were these JTA tests of the equipment and functionality of a tactical nuclear weapon scheduled shortly after the onset of the Libya bombing campaign?

Why now?

Is the timing of these tests coincidental or are they in any way related to the chronology of the Libya bombing campaign?

It is worth noting that the U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command was in charge of both the JTA tests of the B61-11 as well as the deployment of three B-2 Spirit Stealth bombers to Libya on March 19.  

 "Three B-2 Spirit bombers, piloted by two men each, made it back after the 11,418-mile round trip from the Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri – where they are kept in special hangars – to Libya, where they hit targets on forces loyal to Colonel Gaddafi and back again."(Libya-crisis-B2-stealth-bombers-25-hour-flight-Missouri-Tripoli, Daily Mail, March 21, 2011)

In other words, both the deployment of the B-2s to the Libya war theater as well as the JTA  test (using the B-2 bomber for delivery) were coordinated out of Whiteman Air Force base.

"Humanitarian war" is carried out through a "Shock and Awe" Blitzkrieg. Three B-2 Spirit Stealth bombers were sent on a bombing mission at the very outset of the Libya bombing campaign. According to the reports, they returned to Whiteman Air Force base on March 21st. The reports suggest that the three B-2s were carrying bunker buster bombs with conventional warheads.

The report suggests that the B-2 Stealth bombers dropped 45 one ton satellite guided missiles on Libya, which represents an enormous amount of ordnance: "At $2.1bn, they are the most expensive warplanes in the world and rarely leave their climate-controlled hangars. But when it does, the B-2 bomber makesa spectacularly effective start to a war – including during this weekend's aerial attack on Libya's air defences. (Daily Mail, March 21, 2011, op cit)  

While we are not in a position to verify the accuracy of these reports, the 45 one-ton bombs correspond roughly to the B-2 specifications, namely each of these planes can carry sixteen 2,000 pound (900 kg) bombs.

Concluding Remarks: The Decision to Use Nuclear Weapons

Through a propaganda campaign which has enlisted the support of "authoritative" nuclear scientists, the B61-11 "mini-nuke" is presented as an instrument of peace rather than war.

In an utterly twisted logic, low yield tactical nuclear weapons are presented as a means to building peace and preventing "collateral damage". 

In this regard, US nuclear doctrine ties in with the notion that the US-NATO war under Operation Odyssey Dawn is a humanitarian undertaking.  

The important question addressed in this article is whether the recent test of a B61-11 is "routine" or was it envisaged by the DoD directly or indirectly in support of Operation Odyssey Dawn, implying the possible deployment of mini nukes at some future stage of the Libya bombing campaign. There is no clear-cut answer to this question.

It should be emphasized, however, that under the doctrine of "pre-emptive nuclear war" mini nukes are always deployed and  in "a state of readiness" (even in times of peace). Libya was the first "rogue state" to be tagged for a nuclear attack in 1996 prior to the approval of the mini nukes for battlefield use by the US Congress.

The Pentagon claims that "mini-nukes" are harmless to civilians because  "the explosion takes place under ground".  Not only is the claim of an underground explosion erroneous, each of these ‘mini-nukes’,  constitutes – in terms of explosion and potential radioactive fallout – a significant fraction of the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945…. 

We are at a dangerous crossroads: The rules and guidelines governing the use nuclear weapons have been "liberalized" (i.e. "deregulated" in relation to those prevailing during the Cold War era). The decision to use low yield nuclear nuclear weapons (e.g. against Libya) no longer depends on the Commander in Chief, namely president Barack Obama. It is strictly a military decision. The new doctrine states that Command, Control, and Coordination (CCC) regarding the use of nuclear weapons should be "flexible", allowing geographic combat commanders to decide if and when to use of nuclear weapons: 

Known in official Washington, as "Joint Publication 3-12", the new nuclear doctrine (Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations , (DJNO) (March 2005)) calls for "integrating conventional and nuclear attacks" under a unified and "integrated" Command and Control (C2).

It largely describes war planning as a management decision-making process, where military and strategic objectives are to be achieved, through a mix of instruments, with little concern for the resulting loss of human life.

Military planning focuses on "the most efficient use of force", i.e. an optimal arrangement of different weapons systems to achieve stated military goals. In this context, nuclear and conventional weapons are considered to be "part of the tool box", from which military commanders can pick and choose the instruments that they require in accordance with "evolving circumstances" in the "war theatre". (None of these weapons in the Pentagon's "tool box", including conventional bunker buster bombs, cluster bombs, mini-nukes, chemical and biological weapons are described as "weapons of mass destruction" when used by the United States of America and its "coalition" partners). Michel Chossudovsky, Is the Bush Administration Planning a Nuclear Holocaust? Global Research, February 22, 2006  

Authors note:

In researching these issues I have attempted to present the documented facts without drawing simple conclusions as to the potential use of nuclear weapons in the Libya war theater.

Having examined the various facets of US nuclear doctrine for many years, I have become increasingly aware that the use of nuclear weapons does not belong to the field of abstraction.  Neither does the testing of the equipment of the B61-11 nuclear bomb including its various installed functions. 

The matter needs further examination, the release of more information, discussion at all levels, questions in the US Congress and above all a detailed, honest and unbiased media coverage. 

It is my sincere hope that this article will contribute to an understanding of US nuclear doctrine as well as a greater awareness of the impending dangers of nuclear war. 

Prof. Michel Chossudovsky is Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He has taught as visiting professor at academic institutions in Western Europe, Latin America and Southeast Asia, has acted as economic adviser to governments of developing countries

Bob Woodward-Obama's War-Book Review by Yusuf Ergen

Book Review

“Obama’s Wars”

The Story Inside

By

Bob Woodward

 Winner of the Pulitzer Prize

441 pages

A story concerning about a house which for more than 200 years has been more than just the home of the Presidents and their families would be very attractive. Of course the most attractive part of that house would not be the family issues, it is preferable that President’s closest comrades’ stories. And maybe a journalist would only the unique address to detect the ‘what is going on’ in that House. It’s well-known that the need of options cynically may divide the president’s advisers and the executives immersed themselves in the details of the decision making that utterly produced a diversified version of the “process” strategy in practicing foreign policies. 

The latest versions of a ‘clash’ in the White House over such a process that joint chiefs were similarly split over in Afghanistan’s policy while the commanders working on the ground.

And also while the President Barack ‘Hussein’ Obama’s suffering push on how to act forward in what he has called “a war of necessity” in Afghanistan has been broadly reported. Here we see one of the America’s preeminent investigative reporters and non-fiction authors Bob Woodward sets out to tell in “Obama’s Wars-The Inside Story” actually is fairly well-known.

Woodward undersigns in-depth reporting and access to first hand source, even includes President Obama, and documents provide are the voices and detailed sketches that focus on the people in the White House down to the names.

There are sedate explanations abundantly in “Obama’s Wars, The Inside Story” that includes intelligence assessments on al-Qaida’s ongoing attempts to recruit more terrorists from among the over 30 countries whose nationals do not need even visas while entering the United States.

For example according to one daily briefing dated May 26,2009 (Page 121-122), at least 20 holders of American, Canadian or Western European passports are being trained by al-Qaida in Pakistani safe havens.

Within the book the readers would notice that things are not much sophisticated as widely known. And also there is no room for such conspiracies at all. As Woodward put it in the book, during the last presidential election in 2008, U.S. intelligence services caught a Chinese hacking into the computers both camps used to run their campaigns. When the president-elect Obama got his first private briefing from Admiral Michael Mullen, the Joint Chiefs chairman, he figure out that for eight years there were “no strategy” for struggle the Afghan war. And the contingency plan for military action against Iran dated to the Carter administration and even had no plans at all for dealing with the growing al-Qaida presence in Yemen and Somalia. (Page 34-35)

While there were no contingency plans exist for dealing militarily if nuclear-armed Pakistan collapses, there is “a retribution plan” in place, which had been developed by the Bush administration. As Gen. L. James Jones had several get-togethers and meals with Pakistani Ambassador Haqqani in a hope to work out a deal he figures out Pakistan wants his nuclear programs to become legitimate. (Page 345).  

Plus, the contingency planning had become the weakest point of the White House in which the book shows that was the Bush Administration responsibility of lacking. “One of the closest held secrets of President Bush’s inner circle,” Woodward writes, “was that the president had lost his appetite for military contingency planning. The tough-talking, saber- rattling Bush Administration had not prepared for some of the worst- case scenarios the country might face.”  (Page 35)

According to Woodward, Bush convened the last National Security Council before leaving the office. In that meeting Bush decided to hold back a report commissioned from his Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute on the Afghan situation. The review stated that the United States had no coordinated strategy in Afghanistan, Woodward says "which we were neither losing nor winning the war there, that the local government was totally corrupt and that the far strategic threat to American security was in Pakistan. "

In the book Woodward gives a severe account of the secretive visit of VP Joe Biden and Sen. Lindsey Graham, made to Islamabad and Kabul on Obama’s behalf. Both of them faced up to Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari over his intelligence service’s ties to the Taliban and the al-Qaida that operates in his country. In Kabul there was an angry facing up with President Hamid Karzai. In the intelligence assessment it says Hamid Karzai is a manic-depressive person.

Woodward’s picked up every quotation in an eclectic manner that the reader easily draws the picture which guides the non-strategic approach to Afghanistan is the policy. For example, U.S military briefers told Biden that “We haven’t really seen an Arab here in a couple of years.” For all purposes, there was no al-Qaida (in Afghanistan). Al-Qaida was a Pakistani problem.”  Woodward adds, everything Biden saw seemed to remind him of Vietnam, which made him “more convinced than ever” that the United States had slipped into a chaos. (Page 65-70)

Pulitzer Prize Winner Woodward gives much more gossips in the book and he gives some ironical character analysis. John Podesta compares Obama to the hyper-rational, inexpressive, poker faced Mr. Spock in “Star Trek. The former Clinton White House of Chief of Staff John Podesta who managed the transition for Obama. Podesta; “Obama was unsentimental and capable of being ruthless. I’m not sure that Obama felt anything, especially in his gut. He intellectualized and then charged the path forward, essentially picking up the emotions of others and translating them into ideas. He had thus created a different kind of politics.” (Page 38)

In his face-to-face interview with Woodward, Obama explained his predecessor’s failure to do critical strategic and contingency planning. Obama: “Wars absorb so much energy on the part of any administration that even if people are doing an outstanding job, if they’re in the middle of a war - particularly one that’s going badly, as it was, obviously, for a three-year stretch there in Iraq - that’s taking up a huge amount of energy on the part of everybody. And that means that there are some things that get left undone.” (Page 35)

That is Obama’s War

Yusuf Ergen

Connecting: Financing of Illegal Wars on “Humanity” by *Tomy Tucci

Connecting “Too Big To Fail Cartel” “U.S. Debt Is Myth” “Financing of Illegal Wars on Humanity”

The significant and strong conflict between corrupt organized U.S. cartels and the anomalies recited by high level academic, bureaucratic, banking and economic derelicts. America is heavily weighted with severe narcissistic incompetents, cavalier academic derelicts, legions, and cadres of organized criminals manufacturing a nation that can barely get through one 24 hour period without compounding crises upon crises. The latest dysfunctional sanctimonious sound byte diversion comes directly from chief economic spokesman for John Thomas Financial Funds in New York City reciting “U.S. Debt Is Myth.”

Subsequently, from the bowels of organized crime a “cookie cutter” financial fund perpetrating a “me too” academic propaganda. Shadowing the ‘Too Big To Fail Cartel’ ivy league alibi. The outrageous alibi that the U.S. government will never run out of money to pay its infinite and ever expanding $trillions of debt obligations. Furthermore, this staged show and bad acting goes on to explain, “current rating agencies are moot and inapplicable to a sovereign nation that holds the worlds reserve currency.”

Disinformation, Manufactured Conventional Flawed Wisdom

Really now! A sovereign nation that holds the worlds reserve currency can continue to issue fiat worthless paper IOU’s against finite value, wealth and assets. An extremely false narrative wisdom saturated with disinformation sound bytes. Resulting in gross exposure of party line endemic contradictions of historical facts and events. Factual events that substantiate self admitted indictable offenses. Negative forces and outrageous violations of law that focus on the conflict that the “U.S.A Is A Total Myth.”

Clash of Ideals, Deflecting Core Principals

Validating the clash of ideals between basic core principals and U.S. myths perpetuating phony omnipotence, fundamental free market principles, fiat worthless paper IOU’s, outrageous racist hatred against humanity, International  laws, and the corrupt operation of cartels and monopoly.

Why is there no academic or university textbook definition of “cartel” correlating to the U.S. private corporation Federal Reserve trust? Answer; cartels, trusts, syndicates are illegal monopolies that contradict free market or sovereign nation principals. All reference to cartels associate illegality to a “country” as opposed to a “nation” further shadowing U.S. sovereignty.

Sovereignty Versus Cartels, Rigged Markets, Financing Wars

Corrupt academics, bureaucratic apparatus, economists, bank barons, and crony rigged market operatives represent a masked affinity to illegal trusts syndicates and cartels. Consequently, subjugates its citizenry accelerates crimes against the will of its citizenry including irreparable damage to the nation and ‘We the People.’

Chief economists by circumventing historical factual events effectuate the shadowing of deceptive sound bytes. Therefore, perpetrating a particular criminal activity effectively eliminates all free market enterprise, competition, represents exclusively the illegality of trusts, cartels and syndicates. A collusive international association of independent syndicated enterprises formed to monopolize production and distribution of a product or service, control prices, future contracts, taxes, interest rates, confiscate labor, property, natural resources, hard assets, and eternal illegal militarism occupation and war.

No nation is a free market sovereign entity that relegates its citizenry to second position status. A second position to a private monolithic cartel. The U.S. fails to meet it’s onus and obligations to ‘We the People’ a sovereign free nation of laws under the US Constitution by legislating disinformation. Phony specialists improvise at will a false representation of c.1910 legions of conventional economic organized criminal cartel deceptions.

Ah – but what if the “criminals” were to write the laws and the statutes themselves? Then, the conniving and conspiring isn’t legally defined as a crime, nor the “criminals” called criminals. In fact, most are called bankers (emperors previously), and their instruments today, foundations (fleets previously)! Isn’t that just peachy? Posted byAtlantic Press

Conclusion US Sovereignty, Myth, Wars, Cartels

The U.S. is a myth, a lost sovereign nation since c.1910. The U.S. cannot compete in free markets. Ignores a 21st Century world with militaristic monopoly control, operated by a private cartel above all laws, a total war against humanity and the confiscation of the worlds property, assets, labor and natural resources.Tarak Kauff, Veteran For Peace activist and organizer, stated, “There are trillions for wars and occupations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and now Libya, billions yearly to support Israel’s occupation and oppression of Palestine, again trillions in bailouts to make those at the top of the economic food chain even more powerful, but relative pennies for our children’s education, adequate health care, infrastructure, housing and other necessities of Americans. Yet big corporate banks are thriving and, like Bank of America, pay no taxes. But you do, and I do, and working people all across this country pay taxes. “Link Between War and Big Finance” Posted byGlobal Research 

I ask, what are we paying for and into whose pockets is it going? The wealth of this country is disappearing down the tubes into the stuffed pockets of the financial/military/industrial oligarchs. Americans are being bled dry while people of the world are literally bleeding and dying from U.S.-made weapons and warfare. Do we not see the connection?” Posted by Tarak Kauff Veterans for Peace. A lost nations sovereignty with gouls, goons, bag men, buffoons, organized crime, hatchets, and war criminals self imploding themselves with hyper ignorance and ultra stupidity. That’s what were paying for and whose pockets its going to. Daylight thefts simultaneously expanding radiation toxins and poisons across the global enviornment. Showering depleted uranium DU ordnance on the human race. See confirmation video showing hatchets taking America to the abyss daily. Madeline Albright Best Selling Author.

Madeleine Albright confronted on Bilderberg New World Order Crimes

Sources

• Mike Norman: “US Debt is a Myth”
• Why Economist Love the Fed
• Some dare call it Conspiracy! Are you among them?
• The link between War and Big Finance
• Madeleine Albright confronted on Bilderberg New World Order Crimes

*Tommy is a freelance contributing writer for 21st Century Reverse Pyramid AK47 Blog.