The NEW Fake Threat? US Readies for Cyberwar Leveraging the Google-NSA Nexus

Webster G. Tarpley
Google is now preparing to leave China as a result of this company’s stubborn refusal to obey Chinese laws. Google is in effect demanding extraterritoriality and immunity to the legal norms of the host nation, a claim which goes back to the unequal treaties imposed by foreign imperialists, notably the British, on China starting in the 19th century. It is not surprising that the Chinese response to this arrogant interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state has been stern.

We must also recall that Google was founded with the help of the US intelligence community, and is now acting as a virtual arm of the US National Security Agency, the electronic espionage department of the US government. Google-NSA’s arrogance and hypocrisy are unbearable, especially when we bear in mind the countless times that Google search engines have been used to suppress exposés of the US governments false flag operations, most notably 9/11, and other sensitive topics.

There are two sides to the conflict between Google-NSA and China. One is the Great Cyberwall erected by the Chinese government against attempts by the US-UK to capitalize on ethnic and social tensions inside China to launch a color revolution, CIA people power coup, or postmodern putsch. The other aspect is Google’s claim that hackers working for the Chinese government raided Google’s e-mail servers. The second charge has been formally denied by the Chinese.
Read more here

We Stand on the Cusp of one of Humanity's Most Dangerous Moments

We will have to resist the temptation to fold in on ourselves and to ignore the cruelty outside our door.
Chris Hedges, AlterNet

Aleksandr Herzen, speaking a century ago to a group of anarchists about how to overthrow the czar, reminded his listeners that it was not their job to save a dying system but to replace it: “We think we are the doctors. We are the disease.” All resistance must recognize that the body politic and global capitalism are dead. We should stop wasting energy trying to reform or appeal to it. This does not mean the end of resistance, but it does mean very different forms of resistance. It means turning our energies toward building sustainable communities to weather the coming crisis, since we will be unable to survive and resist without a cooperative effort.

These communities, if they retreat into a pure survivalist mode without linking themselves to the concentric circles of the wider community, the state and the planet, will become as morally and spiritually bankrupt as the corporate forces arrayed against us. All infrastructures we build, like the monasteries in the Middle Ages, should seek to keep alive the intellectual and artistic traditions that make a civil society, humanism and the common good possible. Access to parcels of agricultural land will be paramount. We will have to grasp, as the medieval monks did, that we cannot alter the larger culture around us, at least in the short term, but we may be able to retain the moral codes and culture for generations beyond ours. Resistance will be reduced to small, often imperceptible acts of defiance, as those who retained their integrity discovered in the long night of 20th-century fascism and communism.

Read more here

Cultural Cleansing in Iraq: Why Academics were Murdered and Museums Looted

Prof. Lieven De Cauter, President of the BRussells Tribunal

While the anniversary of the war waged on Iraq is approaching, I think of what I wrote seven years ago: that this illegal invasion had nothing to do with the war on terror but was planned well in advance and was not about democracy but about the destruction of Iraq. I was openly taunted for it. At best, I was considered endearing or pathetic in my anger, but not on the level when it came to world politics.

In preparation for an evening on the occasion of this seventh anniversary on March 20, I am reading a book: Cultural Cleansing in Iraq: Why Museums Were Looted, Libraries Burned and Academics Murdered. The basic thesis is, believe it or not, that the purpose of the war was from the onset the destruction of the Iraqi state. But there is more: cultural cleansing, tolerating the looting of museums, the burning of libraries and the murder of academics was part of the war strategy, the authors argue. State ending will certainly become established as a concept, alongside genocide and its derivatives, such as urbicide (destruction of cities), sociocide (destruction of the social fabric) mnemocide (destruction of the collective memory). We do hope so, because unfortunately these concepts and their intertwinement do not only apply to Iraq.
There was a lot of press coverage about the looting of the museums, albeit the press reports didn’t put responsibility with the occupying powers, as the international laws of war stipulate; and without identifying it as a strategy of "mnenocide”. In contrast, all these years a deafening silence has reigned on the hundreds of academics who have been victims of targeted assassinations in Iraq. Strange. In the first three months of the occupation 250 academics were killed. The BRussells Tribunal has now a list of 437 casualties, a list that serves as a worldwide reference.

Because the professors who documented these killings and disappearances have been killed or forced to flee the country, it is increasingly harder to keep this list up to date. According to the Christian Science Monitor, by June 2006 already 2500 academics were killed, kidnapped or driven out of the country. Nobody knows how many have been murdered until today. We do know that thousands have been threatened - often by envelopes containing bullets - and fled. Alongside the academics also media professionals, doctors, engineers and spiritual leaders have been targets of intimidation, kidnapping and murder. It is important to know that, in the case of academics, it’s not about sectarian murders, because statistics show that there is no pattern in the murders. Professors in leading positions have especially been targeted, and not just Baathists.

These murders have never being investigated, the culprits never found let alone prosecuted. How come? Perhaps because both the occupiers and the new rulers in Iraq thought it was not important. Or maybe because death squads are part of their strategy, like formerly in El Salvador. That is what the book claims: the murder of academics was and is part of the "Salvador Option".

Conclusion of the authors? The goal was to liquidate the intellectual class, which would naturally be the basis for a new democratic state. It is that sinister. So sinister that it is difficult to believe. And yet it is true: the elimination of academics and other professionals from the middle class served the first and highest war aim: the destruction of the Iraqi state. "State-ending" instead of "nation building". According to the editors of the book this war objective was a decision taken when three parties aligned: the neoconservatives who wanted permanent bases in a geographical strategy of military domination; Israel that did not want a powerful state in its backyard; and the oil industry that wanted to lay its hand on one of the largest oil reserves in the world. This I have also written seven years ago. Now it’s there, in black and white, with many footnotes, well documented in a book published by an internationally renowned publishing house (Pluto Press). Perhaps the world will now finally start to realise the truth.

Worldwide protests from the academic community would be nice. But one minute of silence for their murdered colleagues will not suffice. Because, and that makes it so overwhelming, all this is just the tip of the iceberg: the children who are born severely deformed by the use of white phosphorus and depleted uranium, the lack of potable water, electricity and healthcare, the destruction of the educational system which results in a lost generation, the 1.2 million deaths and 5 million refugees - all these things combined make the war in Iraq the biggest war crime and the largest man-made humanitarian catastrophe in decades. And it continues.
There is little or no hope of improvement, especially not after the recent elections. Add to this the countless bombings and the sectarian disintegration of the country and you have a picture of hell. And we, we all look more and more the other way. Because we are sick and tired of Iraq after seven years? It leaves a bitter taste in my mouth to see that I have been proven right with my thesis about the destruction of Iraq, that so many thought was absurd. Even Bush has been proven right with his famous show on the deck of the USS Lincoln that first May of 2003: "Mission accomplished". Indeed, Iraq is destroyed.

Happy birthday, Mr. President! Yes, tu quoque Obama.

A Third Muslim-World War? Could Israel Drag the U.S. into a War with Iran?

In 1997 Israeli agents tried to kill a Hamas leader, who was then in Jordan, by spraying an exotic poison in his ear. Unlike the killers of another Hamas official in Dubai in January this year, the ones in Jordan were caught. King Hussein of Jordan demanded the antidote from Netanyahu, as well as the release of another Hamas leader, and did not turn over the captured Mossad agents until he got them.
Christopher Dickey NewsweekBack when Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu was elected Israel's prime minister for the first time, in 1996, a Jordanian political scientist with a grim sense of humor said the only way to describe him was like a villain out of an old Western: "He's a lyin', cheatin', deceitin' son of a bitch!"
The Obama administration, without using quite such colorful language, might be inclined to agree. As Aluf Benn, the respected diplomatic correspondent for Israel's Haaretz newspaper wrote in these columns recently, when U.S. Vice President Joe Biden visited Israel last week, he "had come to offer not just friendship, but support (and protection) against Iran—Israel's greatest bogeyman—in exchange for a few concessions from Netanyahu. Instead, he got a finger in the eye."

The announcement of government-approved plans to build 1,600 new Israeli homes in largely Arab East Jerusalem was a direct challenge to Biden's efforts to move peace talks forward. The Palestinians, who want East Jerusalem as the capital of their state, accuse the Israelis of using such projects to create "facts on the ground" that vastly complicate future negotiations—and, indeed, that is precisely the intent of many Israelis who support the building program.

But the problem as Benn presented it was more complex than that: a combination of brinkmanship and blackmail in which Netanyahu's government makes veiled threats to attack Iran, or not, depending on how much pressure it feels on the Palestinian issue.

Read more here

The Global Decline in Democracy - How Democracy Dies

A global decline in political freedom is partly the fault of the middle class.

Joshua Kurlantzick, NEWSWEEK
Political freedom blossomed in the developing world in the 1990s and early part of this century. While authoritarians still ruled most of Africa, Eastern Europe, and Asia in 1990, by 2005 democracies had emerged across these continents. The Soviet Union had morphed into Russia, a freewheeling society that seemed to bear little resemblance to its grim predecessor. With the fall of Saddam Hussein, the overthrow of the Taliban, the apparent end of military interventions in Turkey, and the reformist presidency of Mohammad Khatami in Iran, even the Middle East, long the laggard in democratic reform, appeared to be joining the trend.

In 2005, Freedom House noted that only nine countries experienced rollbacks of democracy; in its report in 2009, it registered declines in "40 countries in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and the former Soviet Union." Indeed, the organization found that the number of electoral democracies had fallen back to 116, its lowest number since 1995.

The culprits in democracy's decline may come as a surprise. Many of the same middle-class men and women who once helped push dictators out of power are now seeing just how difficult it can be to establish democracy, and are pining for the days of autocracy. Why has this happened? In many cases because the early leaders of the young democracies that emerged in the 1990s failed to recognize that free societies require strong institutions, a loyal opposition to the ruling party, and a willingness to compromise.

Instead, they saw democracy as just semiregular votes; after they won, they then used all tools of power to dominate their countries and to hand out benefits to their allies or tribe. This narrow interpretation of democracy not only distorted the true meaning of the word but also alienated the public in many countries, who became disgusted that these democrats seemed no more committed to the common good than their authoritarian predecessors.
Read more here

Paul Krugman's Nonsensical Proposal Diverged From Economic Reality

Peter Schiff, Euro Pacific Capital
In his latest weekly New York Times column, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman put forward arguments that were so nonsensical that the award committee should ask for its medal back.
Recent rhetoric from Washington has put the economic relationship between the U.S. and China squarely on the front burner, and Krugman is demanding that we crank up the flame. This week 130 members of Congress sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner demanding that the Obama administration designate China as a "currency manipulator". Following that, a bipartisan group of senators introduced a bill that looks to force the Obama administration's hand. For its own part, Beijing invites criticism by continuing to deny its utterly obvious currency agenda.
As these tensions escalate, most economists urge Washington to tread lightly because of the negative fallout for America if China were to begin selling its enormous cache of U.S. Treasury bonds. Krugman pushes back, asserting that the U.S. risks little by playing hardball, and that China has more to lose. He asserts that a Chinese decision to end its purchases of U.S. Treasury debt would make only a marginal impact on long-term interest rates. Did you hear that Stockholm?
Read more here

Interview: Credit Default Swap Casino and Stimulus Funded Economies Will Lead to Runs on Paper Currencies

Interview with Bill Laggner of Bearing Asset Management where he talks about:

• Enron Redux: Sovereign Special purpose vehicles (SPVs) scam now becoming exposed.
• What happens when the Fed stops its MBS purchases?
• What happens when central banks remove stimulus?
• Crisis will culminate in a run on paper currencies.

Listen to the full interview on King World News here

Iran’s Natural Gas Riches: US Knife to the Heart of World Future Energy

Finian Cunningham

The scheduled start of drilling this month by China National Petroleum Company (CNPC) in Iran’s South Pars gas field could be both a harbinger and explanation of much wider geopolitical developments.

First of all, the $5 billion project – signed last year after years of foot dragging by western energy giants Total and Shell under the shadow of US-led sanctions – reveals the main arterial system for future world energy supply and demand.

Critics have long suspected that the real reason for US and other western military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan is to control the Central Asian energy corridor. So far, the focus seems to be mainly on oil. For example, there have been claims that a planned oil pipeline from the Caspian Sea via Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Arabian Sea is the main prize behind the US’s seemingly futile military campaign in those countries.

But what the CNPC-Iranian partnership shows is that natural gas is the bigger prize that will be pivotal to the world economy, and specifically the dual flow of this fuel westwards and eastwards from Central Asia to Europe and China.

Michael Economides, editor of the Huston-based Energy Tribune, is one of a growing number of industry observers who is convinced that natural gas will supplant oil as the primary energy source, not only in the coming decades but over the next several centuries.

He points to the recent forecast by the International Energy Agency (IEA), based in Paris, which has dramatically revised its estimates of recoverable global natural gas reserves by 100 per cent. Economides ascribes this huge upgrade to rapid technological improvements in tapping hitherto inaccessible gas fields. He says that the IEA estimates of natural gas amount to 300 years of supply at current world demand. "If one only just fantasises any future contributions from the orders-of-magnitude larger resource in the form of natural gas hydrates, it is easy to see how natural gas is almost certainly to evolve into the premier fuel of the world economy," he adds.

Read more here

American Naïfs Bringing Ruin to Other Lands

Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of Treasury

According to news reports, the U.S. military is shipping "bunker-buster" bombs to the U.S. Air Force base at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. The Herald Scotland reports that experts say the bombs are being assembled for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. The newspaper quotes Dan Plesch, director of the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at the University of London: "They are gearing up totally for the destruction of Iran." [Final destination Iran?, March 14, 2010]

The next step will be a staged "terrorist attack," a "false flag" operation as per Operation Northwoods, for which Iran will be blamed. As Iran and its leadership have already been demonized, the "false flag" attack will suffice to obtain U.S. and European public support for bombing Iran. The bombing will include more than the nuclear facilities and will continue until the Iranians agree to regime change and the installation of a puppet government. The corrupt American media will present the new puppet as "freedom and democracy."

If the past is a guide, Americans will fall for the deception. In the February issue of "American Behavioral Scientist," a scholarly journal, Professor Lance DeHaven-Smith writes that state crimes against democracy (SCAD) involve government officials, often in combination with private interests, that engage in covert activities in order to implement an agenda.

Read more here

US “Bunker-Buster” Bombs Being Shipped in Preparation for Possible Strike Against Iran

Rob Edwards, The Herald (Scotland)

Hundreds of powerful US “bunker-buster” bombs are being shipped from California to the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean in preparation for a possible attack on Iran.

The Sunday Herald can reveal that the US government signed a contract in January to transport 10 ammunition containers to the island. According to a cargo manifest from the US navy, this included 387 “Blu” bombs used for blasting hardened or underground structures.

Experts say that they are being put in place for an assault on Iran’s controversial nuclear facilities. There has long been speculation that the US military is preparing for such an attack, should diplomacy fail to persuade Iran not to make nuclear weapons.

Although Diego Garcia is part of the British Indian Ocean Territory, it is used by the US as a military base under an agreement made in 1971. The agreement led to 2,000 native islanders being forcibly evicted to the Seychelles and Mauritius.

The Sunday Herald reported in 2007 that stealth bomber hangers on the island were being equipped to take bunker-buster bombs. Although the story was not confirmed at the time, the new evidence suggests that it was accurate. Contract details for the shipment to Diego Garcia were posted on an international tenders’ website by the US navy.

Read more here