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U.S. Ambassador to Israel: Plan to Attack Iran “Ready”

afreeman — Thu, 17 May 2012 15:24:48 +0000

In case you haven’t figured it out already, both U.S. political parties are war-mongering neo-cons.

It’s stories like the one below that make Ron Paul the only choice for president:

Thursday, 17 May 2012, European Phoenix

The U.S. ambassador to Israel, Daniel Shaprio, told a closed conference in Tel Aviv that the United States has completed preparations for a military strike on Iran. His comments were recorded by a reporter and aired on Israel’s Channel 2 TV on Wednesday nightEuropean Phoenix — “It would be preferable to resolve this diplomatically, and through the use of pressure, than to use military force,” Shapiro said. “But that does not mean that option isn’t available. Not just available, it’s ready. The necessary planning has been done to ensure that it’s ready.”

Shaprio’s comments were not intended for public consumption, the Times of Israel reports.

The finalized attack plan arrives as Israel and the United States prepare for joint military exercises in the United States. “The exercises, to be held in the coming months, will strengthen the relationship between the IAF and the US Air Force as they practice carrying out joint operations,” the Jerusalem-based online newspaper reported. “Israeli and US air defense forces are also to take part in a major joint drill later this summer in Israel to simulate a massive attack. Thousands of US soldiers are expected to arrive in Israel for the drills.”

In January, the Stars and Stripes reported that the exercise in Israel – billed as the largest ever conducted by the two countries – is not related to tensions with Iran, according to the U.S. European Command.

The long-planned exercise is “part of a routine training cycle designed to improve the interoperability of our air defense systems, and not in response to any real-world event,” said EUCOM spokesman Air Force Capt. John Ross.

“It’s a classified exercise, and we can’t release even small details about it,” Ross explained in an email to the Department of Defense newspaper.

“Austere Challenge ’12″ was originally scheduled for April, but postponed by Obama.

“U.S. participation in such an exercise, obviously geared to a scenario involving an Iranian retaliation against an Israeli attack on its nuclear facilities, would have made the United States out to be a partner of Israel in any war that would follow an Israeli attack on Iran,” Gareth Porter and Jim Lobe reported in January.

“Obama and U.S. military leaders apparently decided that the United States could not participate in such an exercise so long as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to give the administration any assurance that he will not attack Iran without prior approval from Washington.”

On March 8, the Israel Insider reported that Netanyahu had struck a deal with the United States.

“The US will supply Israel with bunker-busting bombs and refueling planes in return for delaying a strike against Iran until at least the end of the year,” the website reported, citing Maariv, a Hebrew language daily newspaper published in Israel. In short, the long planned strike on Iran will occur after the November election in the United States.

http://www.europeanphoenix.com/en/component/content/article/35-politica/1494-death-knell-to-be-sounded-plan-to-attack-iran-ready.html

Cold War 2.0 Heating Up

afreeman — Thu, 17 May 2012 07:02:13 +0000

by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

KINGSTON, NY, 08 MAY 2012 — An emerging foreign policy trend is Cold War II. The US military/security complex, with help from Obama and Hillary Clinton, is working overtime to revive the profitable long-term stalemate of the Cold War that lasted four decades from the Berlin airlift to the Reagan-Gorbachev accord. During this long period Congress and the public supported an endless array of weapons systems to deter the “Soviet threat,” which, until President Richard Nixon’s opening to China in the early 1970s, comprised together with China the “Communist threat.”

This threat was not all spin. It had an element of real potential, but the threat was hyped to the limit. In the 1950s in Atlanta, Georgia, and elsewhere school children were issued military dog tags, just like the ones GIs would yank off the necks of their dead colleagues in the war movies, with their blood type in event of a nuclear attack. Some Americans built bomb shelters on their home properties. Senator Joseph McCarthy led a witch hunt for communists, and although there were some communists and communist sympathizers in sensitive positions, McCarthyism had many innocent victims, just like “the war on terror.”

Anyone with a social conscience was suspect. The Hollywood blacklist or equivalent suspicion fell upon the likes of Bertolt Brecht, Charlie Chaplin, Aaron Copland, and Lena Horne. Even Carl Foreman, who wrote the screenplay for High Noon, the Gary Cooper Western, was blacklisted, and the stripper, Gypsy Rose Lee, was investigated by the House Committee on un-American Activities. Even Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the Manhattan Project and the “father of the atomic bomb” was under investigation for “left-wing associations” while he developed the first nuclear weapon for the US government. Oppenheimer was on the FBI’s Custodial Detention Index for arrest in case of national emergency.

Whether serious or not, the “Soviet threat” was more real than the “Muslim threat.” The Red Army had defeated Hitler’s previously undefeated armies. In the aftermath of World War II many believed that only nuclear weapons could stop the Red Army from overrunning Western Europe. When the Soviet Union acquired the hydrogen bomb, the public was willing to support the amounts of military spending and security measures necessary to protect the West from the Soviet threat.

New Threat Needed

When the Soviet threat disappeared 20 years ago, the military-security complex was at a loss. A new threat was needed to keep the money and power flowing into the military-security complex. China wasn’t an option. Its new leaders were embracing capitalism, and China was on its way to becoming Washington’s largest foreign creditor. How do you bash your banker? Moreover, China was welcoming American corporations that had discovered that it was profitable to produce in China the goods and services that they sold in US markets. The influential American interests that were becoming allies with China caused the military-security complex to look elsewhere for an enemy.

With the help of the neoconservatives, the military-security complex found the enemy in the Muslim Middle East among the independent states that were not US puppets.

The Muslim wars of the first and into the second decade of the 21st century have not been satisfactory replacements for the “Soviet threat.” There is nothing powerful about Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Iran comparable to the Soviet Union or even to 1950s Red China, which fought the US superpower to a standstill in Korea.

The problem with the “war on terror” is that it is a hot war, not a cold one, that goes on forever. Although expensive and, thereby, rewarding to the profits and power of the military-security complex, the problem with hot wars is that when they do go on forever, no one believes you are a superpower.

Why is it that Superpower America was in Iraq for eight years and only “won” after putting the insurgents on the US military payroll and paying them to stop killing American troops? How come after 11 years in Afghanistan the US Superpower and its NATO mercenaries have failed to subdue the Taliban, a few thousand guys armed with AK-47s? Recently, the Taliban took over Kabul, the American occupied capital of Afghanistan, and attacked the Western embassies for several hours. Last week the Taliban confidently announced its spring offensive against “the invaders.”

Eight- and eleven-year hot wars are definitely profitable, but when they cannot be won, what happens to the Superpower’s reputation? What happens to the morale of its armed forces? The evidence is in: military suicides exceed combat deaths.

To protect its superpower status and morale of the military, Washington needs a new enemy, an enemy it can hype without coming to blows. Washington’s first choice was Russia. Washington did everything possible to provoke Russia. Washington took NATO into Eastern Europe. Washington unilaterally withdrew from the anti-ballistic missile treaty in June 2002. Since this time, Washington has surrounded Russia with anti-ballistic missile bases designed to negate Russia’s nuclear deterrent and to make Russia impotent in the event of US aggression against Russian interests. Washington sponsored “color revolutions” in former Soviet republics and has attempted to make Georgia and even Ukraine members of NATO.

It has taken the Russians a long time to understand that Washington is not a trustworthy ally for peace. Finally, the Russian Chief of General Staff, Nikolai Makarov said at an international conference on May 3 attended by Washington’s operatives and its NATO puppets that Russia will preemptively strike the anti-ballistic missile sites “if the situation worsens.”

Washington has told the Russians the transparent lie that the anti-missile shield is directed at Iranian nuclear missiles. However, the Russians understand full well that Iran has no such missiles. In other words, Washington is doubly provoking Russia by providing an obvious false reason for its naked aggression against Russia.

It took the Russian government a decade to understand the American threat. In the meantime, Washington gave up on drawing Russia into a new cold war and turned to China.

This turn was not completely easy. China had become Washington’s largest foreign creditor, purchasing with its export earnings the US Treasury bonds that finance the military-security complex’s profitable wars. Moreover, China is the site of a number of major US corporations that produce in China for their US markets.

Starting trouble with China is not without costs.

But costs mean little to the profits of the military security complex, because the costs are almost entirely external to their own profits. The costs fall on the population and the world as a whole, not on the military-security complex.

It is difficult to demonize Russia, as Russia does not own massive amounts of US debt and does not have large trade surpluses with the US that can be attributed to “currency manipulation.” The fact that China pegged its currency to the dollar in order to solidify its value as China entered world trade allows Washington to claim that China is “manipulating its currency to America’s disadvantage.”

Cold Warriors Turn To China

China is being constructed into America’s new bogyman, with Putin in reserve. Once the military-security complex discovered that China was no longer needed as a creditor, because the Federal Reserve was willing to assume the role of all creditors and purchase the entirety of the debt issued to cover Washington’s huge annual operating deficit, every provocation possible has been thrown at China.

The insults heaved at China go beyond hypocritical human rights accusations or asylum for Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng. A year ago Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared that Washington has a “national interest” in the South China Sea. This interest showed itself last month in joint US-Philippines military exercises. China’s response was a warning that the joint military exercises raise the risks of armed confrontation over the disputed South China Sea. The Liberation Army Daily put the warning bluntly: “Anyone with clear eyes saw long ago that behind these drills is reflected a mentality that will lead the South China Sea issue down a fork in the road to military confrontation and resolution through armed force.”

Despite such warnings, Washington continues to stick its nose into China’s disputes with Philippines, Vietnam, and Malaysia, revealing, in the words of the Liberation Army Daily “the United States’ intention of trying to draw more countries into stirring up the situation in the South China Sea.”

To increase its military presence in the Asia-Pacific, Washington intends to construct a naval base on South Korea’s Jeju Island. Washington has sent US Marines to Australia and is reassigning US Marines from Japan to other Asia-Pacific locations. Pentagon spokesman George Little said the reassignment “signals our commitment to Asia Pacific and it is a reflection of our emphasis on Asia Pacific.” A deal is being cut for the US Navy to return to Subic Bay, and according to some reports Washington is working to get the Philippine government’s agreement for Japanese Self-Defense Forces to be stationed alongside US troops on Philippine bases.

Thus has Washington positioned itself on the side of the Philippines in the dispute with China over the Spratly Islands and Scarborough Shoal, and on the side of Japan in the dispute with China over the Diaoyu Islands. Washington has intentionally militarized the area as its means of instigating a profitable long-term cold war with China.

Unlike Cold War I when the US economy was growing and the incomes of Americans were rising, today the US economy remains mired in years of recession. Much of the US industrial and manufacturing base has been lost. For a decade or longer the economy has been unable to create high-productivity, high-wage jobs. Both citizens and government are deeply in debt. The unemployment rate declines because discouraged Americans unable to find jobs drop out of the work force and cease to be counted as unemployed.

Washington might imagine that the Federal Reserve can continue to finance $1 trillion annual military/security budgets by monetizing the government’s debt. However, printing money with which to buy things eventually means high inflation.

There are only two ways to finance Cold War II. One is to continue to collect the payroll tax but cease to pay Social Security and Medicare benefits. The other is to seize the remaining wealth in private pensions and IRAs.

Cold War II is going to be a bad experience for Americans.

The Chinese economy is dynamic and vibrant. It has been growing at unprecedented rates for 30 years. China has trade surpluses, large reserves of foreign exchange, and has raised 600 million people out of poverty. The US is broke, and its citizens are sinking into poverty.

In other words, the US has lost Cold War II before it begins.

Publisher’s Note: Dr. Paul Craig Roberts is a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, columnist for Business Week, and professor of economics, Dr. Roberts served on personal and committee staffs in the House and Senate and as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan Administration.

MUST WATCH! Ron Paul’s 1998 prediction comes true on September 11, 2001

afreeman — Tue, 08 May 2012 21:48:31 +0000

Pentagon Quit The Avengers Because of Its ‘Unreality’

afreeman — Tue, 08 May 2012 05:59:41 +0000

By Spencer Ackerman, May 7, 2012, Wired

The Pentagon halted its cooperation with Marvel Studios’ blockbuster movie The Avengers because the Defense Department didn’t think a movie about superheroes, Norse Gods and intergalactic invasions was sufficiently realistic in its treatment of military bureaucracy.

Moviegoers and comic fans know that S.H.I.E.L.D., led by Samuel L. Jackson’s super-spy Nick Fury, is an international peacekeeping/global surveillance/crisis response/quasi-military organization. But its relationship with the United States is murky. And that basically stopped the U.S. military, which is normally eager to cooperate with the film industry on blockbuster movies, from teaming up with the Avengers.

“We couldn’t reconcile the unreality of this international organization and our place in it,” Phil Strub, the Defense Department’s Hollywood liaison, tells Danger Room. “To whom did S.H.I.E.L.D. answer? Did we work for S.H.I.E.L.D.? We hit that roadblock and decided we couldn’t do anything” with the film.

Well, almost anything. In the movie’s climactic Manhattan fight scene, New York National Guardsmen show up to try to help police and firemen contain — spoiler alert — the damage wrought by a cosmic invasion. The Defense Department allowed Marvel to film Humvees for the scene.

But attentive moviegoers may have noticed the U.S. military’s latest stealth jets, the F-22 Raptors and what looked like F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, aboard S.H.I.E.L.D.’s airborne helicarrier, an awe-inspiring, tilt-rotor aircraft carrier. (One assumes that thing has the runway space necessary for a Raptor take-off — and S.H.I.E.L.D. super-scientists fixed the jet’s oxygen woes.) The fighters were “digitally inserted” by the studio, Strub explains, not actual planes provided by the U.S. military.

Normally, the military loves to help Hollywood make mega-blockbusters. Iron Man got into a dogfight with F-22 Raptors in his first eponymous movie. The Navy provided the producers of the recent Act of Valorwith unprecedented access to SEAL training missions and even let its secretive elite warriors act on camera. And the secretary of the Navy, Ray Mabus, even has a cameo in the forthcoming Battleship. (“I had a great time, although the director would probably recommend that I keep my day job,” Mabus told Politico.)

But the ambiguity around what exactly S.H.I.E.L.D. is provides a vexing complication. If it’s an American governmental agency, what kind of constitutional authority does it exercise over the military? If it’s an international body, as the movie text suggests and Strub determined, are U.S. military personnel and equipment on loan to it through some kind of United Nations Security Council resolution? The questions may seem picayune, but they’re precisely the stuff that can cause an image-conscious military to yank its cooperation from a movie.

The comics have fudged the issue for decades. Marvel now describes it as an “extra-government” body, although many takes on the organization have clearly emphasized its international character. Yet U.S. presidents have fired S.H.I.E.L.D. directors (Fury, Tony Stark/Iron Man) and appointed others (Norman Osborn/The Green Goblin, incumbent Steve Rogers/Captain America) — although that might operate by an informal international understanding, much like the U.S. appoints the director of the World Bank.

Either way, the ambiguity prevented the Avengers from assembling beside the U.S. military. “It just got to the point where it didn’t make any sense,” Strub laments. And now comic nerds have another data point to bring up during continuity debates about what exactly S.H.I.E.L.D. is.

Protests close in on U.S. Spy Base in the U.K.

afreeman — Tue, 08 May 2012 05:20:19 +0000

Ron Paul wins more delegates

afreeman — Tue, 08 May 2012 03:09:14 +0000

Obama: The Man Who Fooled The World (Full Length Part One)

afreeman — Tue, 08 May 2012 02:47:51 +0000

Indiana: Mother sends son to school with stun gun to confront bullies

afreeman — Tue, 08 May 2012 02:39:39 +0000

A mother from Indiana, US, has said that she would gladly ask her gay son to carry a stun gun to school again, in order to confront homophobic bullies, even as the teenager now faces expulsion from the school.

Her comments, to CNN’s gay anchor Don Lemon, come after Darnell “Dynasty” Young, was suspended from school on account of his threatening his school-mates with a short-range stun gun, when they surrounded him, threatening to beat him up. Mr Young raised his gun in the air and set off an electric charge, which sent the groups running, CNN reports.

“I brought the stun gun ’cause I wasn’t safe,” the 17 year old said, who goes to the Arsenal Technical High School in Indianapolis. The school held an expulsion hearing last week, and a decision is expected later this week.

His mother, Chelsea Grimes, told Mr Lemon: ”I do not promote violence — not at all — but what is a parent to do when she has done everything that she felt she was supposed to do … at the school? I did feel like there was nothing else left for me to do, but protect my child.”

Larry Yarrell, the school’s principal, noted that Mr Young was a flamboyant dresser, and that the school staff have asked him to “tone down” his accessories. Echoing comments that one Essex teacher is claimed to have made, Mr Yarrell told the Indianapolis Star: ”If you wear female apparel, then kids are kids and they’re going to say whatever it is that they want to say… Because you want to be different and because you choose to wear female apparel, it may happen. In the idealistic society, it shouldn’t matter. People should be able to wear what they want to wear.”

Mrs Grimes thinks however that the school officials haven’t done enough to protect LGBT students on the campus, a complaint echoed by surveys which have found that 9 out of 10 gay and trans students felt some sort of harassment or bullying at school.

Mr Young said that his bullies had been spreading “nasty” rumours about him and his teachers. He added: ”I was at my wit’s end. I didn’t know what to do and I thought about suicide… “I hate saying that word because God blessed me with this life. I love life. I love my education. I would never … but this bullying got so bad that I thought about that.”

Ron Paul wins most delegates in Nevada!!!

afreeman — Mon, 07 May 2012 22:18:17 +0000

Finally the truth is beginning to come out!!!

A. FreeMan

The US Military Wants To ‘Microchip’ Troops

afreeman — Mon, 07 May 2012 22:06:16 +0000

Just some food for thought before reading the below article:

Technological innovation is a great thing -especially when it can help save lives. That much is easily agreed upon. But do you trust those in government’s halls of power to only use nanotechnology within the narrow parameters outlined in the article below? Furthermore, is it ethical to implant soldiers with microchips without their consent? Also, as the U.S. Healthcare system becomes more and more Nationalized/Socialized, do you really want a chip in your body that government agents can use to track your whereabouts 24/7?

-A. FreeMan

“Super-Soldiers” Fight Disease With Bionic Implants

by Kate Knibbs, Mobile Media, March 21, 2012

The U.S. military plans to implant soldiers with medical devices, making them harder to kill with diseases.

The military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, announced plans to create nanosensors that monitor soldiers’ health on the battlefield and keep doctors constantly abreast about potential health problems.

DARPA’s plan for nanosensors reflects a larger trend, as scientists are trying to harness technology to improve health care across the globe. Doctors are already quickly adopting mobile technology to improve patient care, carrying around iPads to better explain procedures and inventing smartphone apps to oversee drug users’ progress and watch for signs of stress in at-risk patients.

DARPA called the implants “a truly disruptive innovation,” highlighting how healthier soldiers would change the state of modern warfare because most medical evacuations occur due to ordinary illnesses and disease, not injuries. If the U.S. can lead the way in this kind of high-tech monitoring, it could give the military another leg up on adversaries still beset by everyday illness.

Nanotechnology continues to find a place in the medical field as well. Stanford University researchers are developing tiny robotic monitors that can diagnose illnesses, monitor vital stats and even deliver medicine into the bloodstream, similar to the devices that the military plans to create. The two projects have yet to link up, but their similar goals suggest the military could benefit from coordinating efforts with leading university scientists.

The U.S. military regularly invests in the latest mobile technology, not only in healthcare but in its ground operations as well, as the military encourages app developers to develop apps for warfare. The Army is actively incorporating smartphones into battlefield equipment, recognizing the devices’ ability to revolutionize combat.

Still, the U.S. is not the only country in on the action, as China developed an iPhone app to give the People’s Liberation Army information.

The military runs on the strength of its soldiers, and this latest innovation holds promise to bolster the U.S. armed forces by decreasing preventable illnesses and keeping its men and women at the peak of their health.