2010 –Begins Yet Another Ugly Violent Year and the Decade

2010 –Begins Yet Another Ugly Violent Year and the Decade. 

                       The Autumn of the US Republic

 

"When there is a general change of conditions, it is as if the entire creation had been changed and the whole world been altered." - Ibn Khaldun

"History is ruled by an inexorable determinism in which the free choice of major historical figures plays a minimal role" - Leo Tolstoy

 

"History is but glorification of murderers, criminals and robbers." - Karl Popper

This is going be another messy ugly year. Like programmed destructive robots , the homo sapiens would go on their irresponsible barbaric ways with charades like the Climate Change circus in Copenhagen thrown in.

 

In a recent review of the first decade of the century, Time Magazine from US perspective called it  "the decade from hell" on the basis of the ravages of terrorism, failed wars, and a global financial crisis.  Striking a note of optimism about the so called US recovery ,in its next issue, Fed Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke was named "Man of the Year" for his supposedly Herculean efforts to keep the economy afloat .But it was clarified that the honor reflects impact rather than adulation, still the chairman's profile was triumphant. Where as in reality , Bernanke is one of the chief architects of the economic problems that engulfed US in 2007. 

Commenting in Asia Times Peter Schiff said that in terms of economic good fortune, this period shares parallels with the Roaring Twenties- a decade of sin that paved the way to hell. The trauma of 11/9 ( a large number now believe it to be an in house job) not withstanding; for most Americans, especially the top three percent it was a time of unexpected wealth and unearned prosperity. "Up to the days of the stock market crash, the economics of the decade will be remembered for cash-out refinancing for millions of homeowners, no-doc liar loans, no-money-down car purchases, eight-figure Wall Street bonuses, cheap Chinese imports, and trample-to-death holiday sales." In other words, the decade just over , gave US  the biggest and most irresponsible spending orgy in US history." The past decade was the party; the one ahead will be the hangover."

Schiff who is offering himself for Connecticut Senate seat said that neither the corporate media , nor the Congress nor the President have a clue of the realities and the proposed Commission to investigate the causes of the financial crisis would come up with anything but the most politically useful explanations. The usual suspects ie  "ineffective regulators" who failed to "get tough" with industry, banks, and corporate leaders who held the "public good" hostage to their "personal greed" would be blamed . "Perhaps we can turn it into the decade of hope, hard work, individual liberty, savings, production, investment, sound money, de-regulation, exports, budget surpluses, capitalism, limited government, and respect for the Constitution. These traits will harden us to withstand the fallout from our reckless past," he advised.

But just this week, the Treasury Department removed its internal caps on bailout funds to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Meanwhile, another bailout was proffered to ailing GMAC. "If we continue the same bad behavior, it might not just be one (next ) decade from hell, but several", concluded Schiff.

Obama offers wine turned vinegar in broken bottles

On US president Barack Obama's December 1 speech at the West Point, Thomas Johnson, professor of national security affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., who has on-site investigating experience of Afghanistan ,wrote in Foreign Policy magazine of Decemebr 10 ; "The U.S. president and his advisors labored for three months and brought forth old wine in bigger bottles." "The speech contained not one single new idea or approach, nor offered any hint of new thinking about a conflict that everyone now agrees the United States is losing," he added

The Nation magazine's editorial queried why Obama failed to explain that his goal to "disrupt, dismantle and defeat" Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan "requires 100,000 troops at a cost of nearly $100 billion. By the military's own calculation, there are at most 100 Al Qaeda operatives, mostly low-level, in Afghanistan, the leadership having fled to Pakistan years ago." The Afghan war bids to become the longest in U.S. history, The Nation added.

Writing in "Information Clearing House " ,prize winning journalist John Pilger compared USA to super state Oceania in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four , whose language of war inverted lies that "passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past', ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'"

Barack Obama , the leader of a contemporary Oceania and the Nobel Peace Prize winner, in two speeches at the close of the decade, affirmed that peace was no longer peace, but rather a permanent war that "extends well beyond Afghanistan and Pakistan" to "disorderly regions and diffuse enemies". He called this "global security" and invited our gratitude. To the people of Afghanistan, which America has invaded and occupied, he said wittily: "We have no interest in occupying your country." ( Did he not pontificate in Cairo that America can never be at war with Islam ,yes ,but only for the resources of Muslim countries )

Pilger also disputed Obama's claim that the American attack on Afghanistan in 2001 was authorised by the United Nations Security Council." There was no UN authority." Obama said the "the world" supported the invasion in the wake of 9/11 when, in truth, all but three of 37 countries surveyed by Gallup expressed overwhelming opposition. Obama claimed that America invaded Afghanistan "only after the Taliban refused to turn over [Osama] bin Laden". In 2001, the Taliban tried three times to hand over bin Laden for trial, reported Pakistan's military regime, and were ignored.

Pilger adds that even Obama's mystification of 9/11 as justification for his war is false. Months before the Twin Towers were attacked, the Pakistani foreign minister, Niaz Naik, was told by the Bush administration that an American military assault would take place by mid-October. The Taliban regime in Kabul, which the Clinton administration had secretly supported, was no longer regarded as "stable" enough to ensure America's control over oil and gas pipelines to the Caspian Sea. It had to go.

( In fact the Taliban negotiators , were in US just prior to 11/9 , discussing with UNOCAL to lay pipe lines but had shown preference for an Argentine oil major Bridas which had angered  the ruling oil lobby in USA . In spite of peace offers by the Taliban and for trial of Osama bin Laden in an agreed country if evidence was produced,  US bombed Afghanistan.  But it was an anti Taliban /Pushtun  Northern Alliance forces which fought their way since the Taliban escaped into inaccessible areas and Pakistan and entered Kabul against US wishes and now form the core of the ruling elite supporting president Hamid Karzai , a Pushtun figurehead . US aim was and remains bases in Afghanistan and in central Asian republics to control land corridor for US oil companies to transport energy from the Caspian and central Asia to South Asia , Indian Ocean and further East  .Alternative routes for pipelines to East Asia are now being laid along Eurasia almost along old silk routes . )

Pilger describes Obama's claim that Afghanistan today is a "safe haven" for al-Qaeda's attacks on the West as a most audacious lie. US national security adviser, General James Jones, said in October that there were "fewer than 100"" al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. According to US intelligence, 90 per cent of the Taliban are hardly Taliban at all, but "a tribal localised insurgency [who] see themselves as opposing the US because it is an occupying power". The war is a fraud.

Pilger recalls that in Afghanistan ,"the British in the 19^th century and the Soviets in the 20^th century attempted to conquer that wild country by ethnic cleansing and were seen off, though after terrible bloodshed. Imperial cemeteries are their memorials. People power, sometimes baffling, often heroic, remains the seed beneath the snow, and invaders fear it."

 

'Expert' Ahmed Rashid

 

But said  ,West co-opted 'expert', Ahmed Rashid that 2010 will present Afghanistan and Pakistan with their most difficult set of challenges since the end of the Cold War. People in the South Asia region will be holding their breath in the new year.

 

If both nations fail to achieve a modicum of political stability , success against extremism and economic growth, the world will be faced with an expansion of Islamic extremism, doubts about the safety of Pakistan's nuclear weapons and major questions about US prestige and power as it withdraws from Afghanistan. 

 

The challenges for both countries are deeply interlinked and enormous. Without Pakistan eliminating Taliban sanctuaries or forcing the Afghan Taliban leadership into talks with Kabul, US success in Afghanistan is unlikely , concluded 'expert' Rashid.

 

Serial Catastrophes in Afghanistan threaten Obama Policy

Wrote US Prof Juan Cole on his blog ,"You probably won't see it in most US news outlets, but on Monday morning in Kabul and Jalalabad, hundreds of university students demonstrated against US strikes this weekend that allegedly killed a number of civilians. I want to underline the irony that the students in Tehran University are protesting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, while students in these two Afghan cities are calling for Yankees to go home. Nangarhar University in Jalalabad only has a student body of about 3200, so 'hundreds' of students protesting there would be a significant proportion of the student body.

"The demonstrations could be a harbinger of things to come, but there was worse news. Seven CIA field officers blown up, four US troops killed Sunday, and the rejection of most of the cabinet nominees by parliament, all signal rocky times ahead.

The past two weeks have seen the situation in Afghanistan deteriorate palpably, raising significant questions about the viability of the Obama- McChrystal plan for the country. The chain of catastrophes has been reported in piecemeal fashion, but taken together these events are far more ominous than they might appear on the surface."

 

According to a 3 January report in 'The Peninsula 'of the 44 Predator strikes carried out by the American drones in the tribal areas of Pakistan in 12 months of 2009, only five hit their actual targets, killing five key Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders, but at the cost of around 700 innocent civilian lives ,thus each Al Qaeda and Taliban killed by the American drones, 140 civilian Pakistanis also had to die. Over 90 percent of those killed in the deadly missile strikes were innocent civilians. Apart from making America hated ,it provides a breeding ground for recruiting  Jihadists and bombers.

 

US unlikely to achieve its political and military goals in Afghanistan in 18 months and high casualty rate -Warns retired US general

 

Retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey , currently a professor of international affairs at the US Military Academy at West Point, said in a report that as many as 300 to 500 soldiers would be killed and wounded per month in Afghanistan after 30,000 additional troops are sent to the country to launch a major offensive against insurgents . Gen McCaffrey who has visited Afghanistan numerous times since 2003 to assess the security situation said that the surge will cost about $300 billion .

 

While President Obama's Afghanistan Strategy Speech at West Point last month was "coherent, logical and sincere" and the "result of a very deliberative and thoughtful analytical review of the situation in Afghanistan and our several unpalatable options," Gen McCaffrey concludes, "We are unlikely to achieve our political and military goals in 18 months."

 

Predicting a dire situation in Afghanistan, the General said , "This will inevitably become a three- to ten-year strategy to build a viable Afghan state with their own security force that can allow us to withdraw. It may well cost us an additional $300 billion and we are likely to suffer thousands more US casualties." But adds the patriotic General, since "we now have the most effective and courageous military forces in our nation's history committed to this campaign," the many goals laid down can be achieved in the next five years.

 

Apart from "personal research, data provided during his trips  to Pakistan, Kuwait and Afghanistan ,this assessment is based on a wide range of sources, including information he obtained from US Central Command Gen. David Petraeus; Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commanding general of International Security Assistance Force and US Forces in Afghanistan; Afghan officials such as Minister of Defense Abdul Rahim Wardak; and diplomatic officials such as Karl Eikenberry, US ambassador In Kabul.

 

Afghanistan is the 5^th  poorest nation and the second most corrupt country after Somalia.with general life expectancy of less than 45 years. Tuberculosis and drug addiction are widespread, and the country is infested with millions of land mines, which have disabled more than 200,000 Afghans..It lacks infrastructure, justice, resources and the most basic forms of local and national government. "There is almost no civic or criminal justice," he wrote. "Court trials last only minutes in many cases and lack juries." Also, prisoners are often subject to torture. ( It is a result of e decades long US led West and Muslim nations Jihad against Soviet Unionin 1980s  and now for strategic control of the region and its resources )

 

Gen McCaffrey clarified, "The conclusions are solely my own as an adjunct professor of international affairs at West Point and should be viewed as an independent civilian academic contribution to the national security debate."

 

Uncle Sam or Uncle Tom with anemic Bull Dog in tow have discovered new threats in Yemen . Obama alleged that the Christmas Day 'underwear ' bomber airline attacker in Detroit , Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was trained by a Yemen-based al-Qaeda offshoot. ( Threats to US interests exist in Somalia and down south in Africa .The United States Africa Command (USAFRICOM or AFRICOM) ,responsible for U.S. military operations and military relations with 53 African nations - an area of responsibility covering all of Africa except Egypt was established in October 1, 2007 .Since no African state was willing to host it ,it would operate from Stuttgart )

 

US regional commander Gen David Petraeus , after organizing ethnic cleansing in Iraq and tearing asunder irrevocably Shia and Sunni Iraqis and promoted for that achievement is enthusiastic in supporting Yemen's fight against al-Qaeda . Just another arena to flex his muscles.

 

Writes Ambassador MK Bhadrakumar in Asia times ;"Obama is a smart man. The intervention in Yemen will go down as one of the smartest moves that he ever made for perpetuating the US's global hegemony. It is America's answer to China's surge.

"A cursory look at the map of region will show that Yemen is one of the most strategic lands adjoining waters of the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula. It flanks Saudi Arabia and Oman, which are vital American protectorates. In effect, Uncle Sam is "marking territory" - like a dog on a lamppost. Russia has been toying with the idea of reopening its Soviet-era base in Aden. Well, the US has pipped Moscow in the race.

"The US has signaled that the odyssey doesn't end with Yemen. It is also moving into Somalia and Kenya. With that, the US establishes its military presence in an entire unbroken stretch of real estate all along the Indian Ocean's western rim. Chinese officials have of late spoken of their need to establish a naval base in the region. The US has now foreclosed China's options. The only country with a coastline that is available for China to set up a naval base in the region will be Iran. All other countries have a Western military presence. "

 

Did US not start with similar rosy hopes in Iraq, expecting GI's to be welcomed with flowers or for that matter in Afghanistan in end 2001 when it thought it could buy its way or coerce and bribe Pakistan to implement only US objectives in the region. There is something called imperial over stretch which US reached sometime ago.

 

Rep. John P. Murtha , a decorated Marine veteran of Vietnam, now a senior Democrat on the House Appropriations defense subcommittee of the defense affairs said in end 2005 that the U.S. Army in Iraq was  "broken, worn out" and "living hand to mouth." When expectedly criticised by the establishment ,his spokeswoman Cindy Abram, said the congressman's comment about the Army being broken "has a lot to do with recruiting goals. They cannot recruit enough people. They don't have the equipment they need. The equipment is broken down." It is no secret that boots on ground have little appetite left for fight .The number of injured , maimed and gone crazy Gis is over hundreds of thousands . Now US Military personnel sitting in US are fighting wars with drones in Afghanistan and Pakistan and mostly killing civilians with very adverse reactions there .

The US army's broken sword is caught in Iraqi quagmire and it is now trying to fight with the sword handle in Afghanistan .Washington's exhortations to other Nato members to pitch in more men and material has elicited little response except the British , whose ex-prime minister Tony Blair was once described as US foreign minister by Nelson Mandela and Bush's poodle in media.

Military hardware induced Testosterone

Basically these are symptoms of rise in the level of militaristic Testosterone , because of massive investment in and production of offensive military hardware churned by profitable military-industry complex financed mostly by Jewish controlled western banks , they also financed most wars in European history. The complex controls the US Congress , the media , many think tanks and even academic institutions.

Below is a list of the top 10 biggest spenders on military expenditure annually from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute's  Yearbook publication. The figures for 2008 are from the Institutes 2009 Yearbook and were calculated using market exchange rates. Of course most countries hide additional military expenditure under other heads .

US dominates the global arms trade, monopolizing almost 70% of the arms business in 2008. US funding of war, armed forces, and the weaponry of war is more than the next 25 countries combined (and that's without even including Iraq and Afghan war costs). With hundreds of bases on land and flotillas of aircraft carriers , Washington garrisons the planet in a way no empire or nation in history has ever done. And US plan for the future, for "the next war" - on the ground, on the seas and in space - in a way that is surely remarkable since most of this is now financed by trade deficit amounting to nearly US$ 600 billion .Thus ,ironically creditors like China, Japan, Gulf kingdoms and others now pay for their being militarily encircled , threatened , coerced and controlled by US .

 

 

A recent example being illegal invasion and brutal occupation of Iraq since 2003, based on lies about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction , nuclear bomb programme and connections with Al Qaeda .Just remember the spins and lies by US president George Bush , his deputy , secretary of state and others , many times. In the case of  the greatest spinner of truth,Tony Blair  ,twice in Moscow he was told in media conferences that Russia did not trust his accusations .In recent enquires into the invasion being held in London ( most are shams or whitewashes ) it has boiled down to Blair not liking Saddam Hussein and incase of Dick Cheney , well , he told Crown Prince Hassan of Jordan because the invasion ( without adverse consequences , so he thought  ) was doable .But soon after the invasion it was proclaimed by US deputy defense minister Paul Wolfowitz that it was for Iraq's oil .This was later confirmed by Alan Greenspan ,former Federal Reserve Chairman .Such touching love for transparency and truth !

 

About the Detroit attempt ,in his weekly radio and video address posted on the White House website, Obama said: "We know that [Mr Abdulmutallab] travelled to Yemen, a country grappling with crushing poverty and deadly insurgencies. It appears that he joined an affiliate of al-Qaeda, and that this group, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, trained him, equipped him with those explosives and directed him to attack that plane headed for America."

 

This is the kind of accusation US led West used against anyone who was not 'with us and hence against us ' during the cold war .A nationalist Ho Chi Minh , President Abdul Gamal Nasser and even peace loving Jawaharlal Nehru were accused of being communists , with non-alignment being dubbed as immoral .

 

US would now like to post their own intrusive security experts at embarkation points for planes headed for USA .Would US allow any such facility to another nation , say its strategic partner India to even extradite Headley, clearly implicated in Mumbai rape of 26/11.

Who Would Benefit Politically from a Terrorist Incident on American Soil?

Many are rightly doubting the Detroit failed terror attack story. Wrote Tom Burghardt in Global Research website "The Strange Case of Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab." Strangely, $40 billion dollars has been spent by the American people on airline security since 2001 but it were the airline passengers who thwarted the terror act .

A closer look at the available evidence , available in the British media surrounding Abdul Mutallab, makes it abundantly clear that U.S. security officials had far more information on the would-be underwear bomber than admitted. The Observer revealed that the British secret services had Abdul Mutallab on their radar for several years and that he had become "politically involved" with "extremist networks" while a student at University College London, where he served as president of the Islamic Society.

Examining "e-mail and text traffic," security officers claim to have belatedly discovered that "he has been in contact with jihadists from across the world since 2007." The Sunday Times disclosed that Abdul Mutallab was "'reaching out' to extremists whom MI5 had under surveillance." The officials said that Abdul Mutallab was "'starting out on a journey' in Britain" that ended with the attempt to destroy North West flight in Detroit . It was then leaked that '"none of this information was passed" to their American counter parts which has now been duly done .Go and tell it to the marines .

Michel Chossudovsky, Peter Dale Scott and Richard Labévière, who have painstakingly documented the complex of jihadi groups known as al-Qaeda say that it has enjoyed the closest ties with Western intelligence agencies stretching back decades. Security analyst Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed wrote in the New Internationalist (October 2009): "Islamist terrorism cannot be understood without acknowledging the extent to which its networks are being used by Western military intelligence services, both to control strategic energy resources and to counter their geopolitical rivals. Even now, nearly a decade after 9/11, covert sponsorship of al-Qaeda networks continues."

That the Western intelligence agencies did nothing to hamper an alleged al-Qaeda operative from getting on that plane--in a chilling echo of the 9/11 attacks--calls into question the official narrative.

Bill Van Auken wrote on World Socialist Website  on December 31, 2009, "The Northwest Flight 253 intelligence failure: Negligence or conspiracy?,"

 The general outlines of the Northwest bombing attempt and the 9/11 attacks are startlingly similar. One might even say that what is involved is a modus operandi. In both cases, those alleged to have carried out the actions had been the subject of US intelligence investigations and surveillance and had been allowed to enter the country and board flights under conditions that would normally have set off multiple security alarms.

Both then and now, the government and the media expect the public to accept that all that was involved was mistakes. But why should anyone assume that the failure to act on the extensive intelligence leading to Abdulmutallab involved merely "innocent" mistakes--and not something far more sinister.

Many intelligent persons around the world are now getting convinced that 9/11 was an inside job.

Like 9/11 which provided the alibi for bombing of Afghanistan, which continues and invasion and occupation of Iraq since 2003 under false accusations , Northwest bombing attempt in Detroit is being used to take the war to an impoverishe