Changing Obama's Mindset

By Howard Zinn

May 2009 Issue

We are citizens, and Obama is a politician. You might not like that word. But the fact is he’s a politician. He’s other things, too—he’s a very sensitive and intelligent and thoughtful and promising person. But he’s a politician.

If you’re a citizen, you have to know the difference between them and you—the difference between what they have to do and what you have to do. And there are things they don’t have to do, if you make it clear to them they don’t have to do it.

From the beginning, I liked Obama. But the first time it suddenly struck me that he was a politician was early on, when Joe Lieberman was running for the Democratic nomination for his Senate seat in 2006.

Lieberman—who, as you know, was and is a war lover—was running for the Democratic nomination, and his opponent was a man named Ned Lamont, who was the peace candidate. And Obama went to Connecticut to support Lieberman against Lamont.

It took me aback. I say that to indicate that, yes, Obama was and is a politician. So we must not be swept away into an unthinking and unquestioning acceptance of what Obama does.

Our job is not to give him a blank check or simply be cheerleaders. It was good that we were cheerleaders while he was running for office, but it’s not good to be cheerleaders now. Because we want the country to go beyond where it has been in the past. We want to make a clean break from what it has been in the past.

I had a teacher at Columbia University named Richard Hofstadter, who wrote a book called The American Political Tradition, and in it, he examined presidents from the Founding Fathers down through Franklin Roosevelt. There were liberals and conservatives, Republicans and Democrats. And there were differences between them. But he found that the so-called liberals were not as liberal as people thought—and that the difference between the liberals and the conservatives, and between Republicans and Democrats, was not a polar difference. There was a common thread that ran through all American history, and all of the presidents—Republican, Democrat, liberal, conservative—followed this thread.

The thread consisted of two elements: one, nationalism; and two, capitalism. And Obama is not yet free of that powerful double heritage.

We can see it in the policies that have been enunciated so far, even though he’s been in office only a short time.

Some people might say, “Well, what do you expect?”

And the answer is that we expect a lot.

People say, “What, are you a dreamer?”

And the answer is, yes, we’re dreamers. We want it all. We want a peaceful world. We want an egalitarian world. We don’t want war. We don’t want capitalism. We want a decent society.

We better hold on to that dream—because if we don’t, we’ll sink closer and closer to this reality that we have, and that we don’t want.

Be wary when you hear about the glories of the market system. The market system is what we’ve had. Let the market decide, they say. The government mustn’t give people free health care; let the market decide.

Which is what the market has been doing—and that’s why we have forty-eight million people without health care. The market has decided that. Leave things to the market, and there are two million people homeless. Leave things to the market, and there are millions and millions of people who can’t pay their rent. Leave things to the market, and there are thirty-five million people who go hungry.

You can’t leave it to the market. If you’re facing an economic crisis like we’re facing now, you can’t do what was done in the past. You can’t pour money into the upper levels of the country—and into the banks and corporations—and hope that it somehow trickles down.

What was one of the first things that happened when the Bush Administration saw that the economy was in trouble? A $700 billion bailout, and who did we give the $700 billion to? To the financial institutions that caused this crisis.

This was when the Presidential campaign was still going on, and it pained me to see Obama standing there, endorsing this huge bailout to the corporations.

What Obama should have been saying was: Hey, wait a while. The banks aren’t poverty stricken. The CEOs aren’t poverty stricken. But there are people who are out of work. There are people who can’t pay their mortgages. Let’s take $700 billion and give it directly to the people who need it. Let’s take $1 trillion, let’s take $2 trillion.

Let’s take this money and give it directly to the people who need it. Give it to the people who have to pay their mortgages. Nobody should be evicted. Nobody should be left with their belongings out on the street.

Obama wants to spend perhaps a trillion more on the banks. Like Bush, he’s not giving it directly to homeowners. Unlike the Republicans, Obama also wants to spend $800 billion for his economic stimulus plan. Which is good—the idea of a stimulus is good. But if you look closely at the plan, too much of it goes through the market, through corporations.

It gives tax breaks to businesses, hoping that they’ll hire people. No—if people need jobs, you don’t give money to the corporations, hoping that maybe jobs will be created. You give people work immediately.

A lot of people don’t know the history of the New Deal of the 1930s. The New Deal didn’t go far enough, but it had some very good ideas. And the reason the New Deal came to these good ideas was because there was huge agitation in this country, and Roosevelt had to react. So what did he do? He took billions of dollars and said the government was going to hire people. You’re out of work? The government has a job for you.

As a result of this, lots of very wonderful work was done all over the country. Several million young people were put into the Civilian Conservation Corps. They went around the country, building bridges and roads and playgrounds, and doing remarkable things.

The government created a federal arts program. It wasn’t going to wait for the markets to decide that. The government set up a program and hired thousands of unemployed artists: playwrights, actors, musicians, painters, sculptors, writers. What was the result? The result was the production of 200,000 pieces of art. Today, around the country, there are thousands of murals painted by people in the WPA program. Plays were put on all over the country at very cheap prices, so that people who had never seen a play in their lives were able to afford to go.

And that’s just a glimmer of what could be done. The government has to represent the people’s needs. The government can’t give the job of representing the people’s needs to corporations and the banks, because they don’t care about the people’s needs. They only care about profit.

In the course of his campaign, Obama said something that struck me as very wise—and when people say something very wise, you have to remember it, because they may not hold to it. You may have to remind them of that wise thing they said.

Obama was talking about the war in Iraq, and he said, “It’s not just that we have to get out of Iraq.” He said “get out of Iraq,” and we mustn’t forget it. We must keep reminding him: Out of Iraq, out of Iraq, out of Iraq—not next year, not two years from now, but out of Iraq now.

But listen to the second part, too. His whole sentence was: “It’s not enough to get out of Iraq; we have to get out of the mindset that led us into Iraq.”
What is the mindset that got us into Iraq?

It’s the mindset that says force will do the trick. Violence, war, bombers—that they will bring democracy and liberty to the people.

It’s the mindset that says America has some God-given right to invade other countries for their own benefit. We will bring civilization to the Mexicans in 1846. We will bring freedom to the Cubans in 1898. We will bring democracy to the Filipinos in 1900. You know how successful we’ve been at bringing democracy all over the world.

Obama has not gotten out of this militaristic missionary mindset. He talks about sending tens of thousands of more troops to Afghanistan.

Obama is a very smart guy, and surely he must know some of the history. You don’t have to know a lot to know the history of Afghanistan has been decades and decades and decades and decades of Western powers trying to impose their will on Afghanistan by force: the English, the Russians, and now the Americans. What has been the result? The result has been a ruined country.

This is the mindset that sends 21,000 more troops to Afghanistan, and that says, as Obama has, that we’ve got to have a bigger military. My heart sank when Obama said that. Why do we need a bigger military? We have an enormous military budget. Has Obama talked about cutting the military budget in half or some fraction? No.

We have military bases in more than a hundred countries. We have fourteen military bases on Okinawa alone. Who wants us there? The governments. They get benefits. But the people don’t really want us there. There have been huge demonstrations in Italy against the establishment of a U.S. military base. There have been big demonstrations in South Korea and on Okinawa.

One of the first acts of the Obama Administration was to send Predator missiles to bomb Pakistan. People died. The claim is, “Oh, we’re very precise with our weapons. We have the latest equipment. We can target anywhere and hit just what we want.”

This is the mindset of technological infatuation. Yes, they can actually decide that they’re going to bomb this one house. But there’s one problem: They don’t know who’s in the house. They can hit one car with a rocket from a great distance. Do they know who’s in the car? No.

And later—after the bodies have been taken out of the car, after the bodies have been taken out of the house—they tell you, “Well, there were three suspected terrorists in that house, and yes, there’s seven other people killed, including two children, but we got the suspected terrorists.”
But notice that the word is “suspected.” The truth is they don’t know who the terrorists are.

So, yes, we have to get out of the mindset that got us into Iraq, but we’ve got to identify that mindset. And Obama has to be pulled by the people who elected him, by the people who are enthusiastic about him, to renounce that mindset. We’re the ones who have to tell him, “No, you’re on the wrong course with this militaristic idea of using force to accomplish things in the world. We won’t accomplish anything that way, and we’ll remain a hated country in the world.”

Obama has talked about a vision for this country. You have to have a vision, and now I want to tell Obama what his vision should be.

The vision should be of a nation that becomes liked all over the world. I won’t even say loved—it’ll take a while to build up to that. A nation that is not feared, not disliked, not hated, as too often we are, but a nation that is looked upon as peaceful, because we’ve withdrawn our military bases from all these countries.

We don’t need to spend the hundreds of billions of dollars on the military budget. Take all the money allocated to military bases and the military budget, and—this is part of the emancipation—you can use that money to give everybody free health care, to guarantee jobs to everybody who doesn’t have a job, guaranteed payment of rent to everybody who can’t pay their rent, build child care centers.

Let’s use the money to help other people around the world, not to send bombers over there. When disasters take place, they need helicopters to transport people out of the floods and out of devastated areas. They need helicopters to save people’s lives, and the helicopters are over in the Middle East, bombing and strafing people.

What’s required is a total turn­around. We want a country that uses its resources, its wealth, and its power to help people, not to hurt them. That’s what we need.
This is a vision we have to keep alive. We shouldn’t be easily satisfied and say, “Oh well, give him a break. Obama deserves respect.”

But you don’t respect somebody when you give them a blank check. You respect somebody when you treat them as an equal to you, and as somebody you can talk to and somebody who will listen to you.

Not only is Obama a politician. Worse, he’s surrounded by politicians. And some of them he picked himself. He picked Hillary Clinton, he picked Lawrence Summers, he picked people who show no sign of breaking from the past.

We are citizens. We must not put ourselves in the position of looking at the world from their eyes and say, “Well, we have to compromise, we have to do this for political reasons.” No, we have to speak our minds.

This is the position that the abolitionists were in before the Civil War, and people said, “Well, you have to look at it from Lincoln’s point of view.” Lincoln didn’t believe that his first priority was abolishing slavery. But the anti-slavery movement did, and the abolitionists said, “We’re not going to put ourselves in Lincoln’s position. We are going to express our own position, and we are going to express it so powerfully that Lincoln will have to listen to us.”

And the anti-slavery movement grew large enough and powerful enough that Lincoln had to listen. That’s how we got the Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth and Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.

That’s been the story of this country. Where progress has been made, wherever any kind of injustice has been overturned, it’s been because people acted as citizens, and not as politicians. They didn’t just moan. They worked, they acted, they organized, they rioted if necessary to bring their situation to the attention of people in power. And that’s what we have to do today.

Howard Zinn is the author of “A People’s History of the United States,” “Voices of a People’s History” (with Anthony Arnove), and “A Power Governments Cannot Suppress.” Thanks to Alex Read and Matt Korn for transcribing Zinn’s talk on February 2 at the Busboys and Poets restaurant in Washington, D.C., from which this is adapted.

Exposed: The Swine Flu Hoax

By Andrew Bosworth, Ph.D.

The alarm has been sounded. Politicians, pharmaceutical executives and media conglomerates would have us believe that a 1918-style pandemic is a real threat. The 1918 pandemic, however, evolved out of conditions unique to World War I, for four specific reasons.

Why 2009 is Not 1918

First, World War I was characterized by millions of troops living in waterlogged trenches along the Western Front. This war zone became fertile ground for an opportunistic virus, as medical literature reveals:

"…a landscape that was contaminated with respiratory irritants such as chlorine and phosgene, and characterized by stress and overcrowding, the partial starvation in civilians, and the opportunity for rapid ‘passage’ of influenza in young soldiers would have provided the opportunity for multiple but small mutational charges throughout the viral genome." (1)

Second, the war witnessed the growth of industrial-scale military camps and embarkation ports, such as Etaples in France, enabling the flu virus to enter into another phase of accelerated mutation. On any given day, Etaples was a makeshift city of 100,000 troops from around the British Empire and its former dominions. These soldiers concentrated into unsanitary barracks, tents and mess halls.

Today, many cities and nations have dense concentrations of people; none of these, however, are geographically isolated under the conditions of trench warfare and World War I-style deployments. Of course, there are smaller, sub-populations of people in prisons (prone to multi-drug resistant tuberculosis), in military barracks (prone to respiratory pathogens and meningococcal infections) and on cruise ships (prone to the Norovisus) – all proof of the connection between human confinement on the one hand and infectious disease on the other.

Third, after the war, ships such as the USS Alaskan became floating Petri dishes. Thousands of soldiers were packed like sardines for the long voyage home, allowing the virus to reverberate within hermetically-sealed units.

Fourth, returning troops were stuffed into boxcars for the train trip back to military bases, where they infected new recruits. Later, it was documented that Army regiments whose barracks allowed only 45 square feet per soldier had a flu incidence up to ten times that of regiments afforded 78 square feet per man. (2)

The 1918 flu virus became pandemic because, during World War I, the normal host-pathogen relationship was abandoned when millions of young men crowded into geographical confinement. In World War I, a flu virus was presented with a seemingly limitless number of hosts – almost all young, male, and with compromised immune systems. Unconstrained and unchecked by the usual habits of human behavior, the virus went rogue.

Flu viruses are smart, but they are not suicidal: if the host becomes extinct the virus will become extinct too. The evolutionary strategy, from the virus’s perspective, is to stay one step ahead of the immune systems of both humans and animals – but not two steps ahead. The flu virus aims to infect and reproduce without killing a critical mass of the hosts, of the herd, so the virus’s virulence is ameliorated after it becomes fatal for people on the margins of the host population – the weak and the elderly. World War I disrupted this synchronized, co-evolutionary relationship between flu viruses and human populations.

No flu since 1918 has been strong enough to produce, in millions of people, a "cytokine storm," which is an immunological over-reaction leading to pulmonary edema (the lungs filling with fluid) - the curse of those with the strongest immune systems, normally between 20 and 40 years of age.

In normal flu pandemics, even in severe ones, the flu virus kills a portion of the weak and elderly. This appears to be the case in 1837 for Germany and in 1890 for Russia in 1890, though reliable medical evidence is scarce. It was certainly true for the Asian flu of 1957 and the Hong Kong flu of 1968, neither of which were significantly fatal for young adults. The flu 1976-1977 has been exposed as a boondoggle, a fraud, with far more people dying of the vaccine than from the flu itself.

Indeed, 1918 was an aberration. Since then, no flu has scythed away so many people: some 500,000 Americans and anywhere between 25 - 50 million people worldwide in three waves: first in March, then in August (the deadliest wave), and in then again in November of 1918, lasting into the spring of 1919.

The origins of the 1918 pandemic can be traced back to the trenches of the Western Front in 1915, 1916, and 1917 – to the world’s first large-scale industrial and international war. There was no other cause: If WWI had not been fought, it is inconceivable that the 1918 flu pandemic would have been so severe. Today, in 2009, absent the conditions of WWI, it is preposterous for political and medical authorities to claim that the swine flu is a menace to society.

The Mysterious Origins of the H1N1 "Swine Flu" Virus

If the current H1N1 swine flu virus does become abnormally lethal, there would be three leading explanations: first, that the virus was accidentally released, or escaped, from a laboratory; second, that a disgruntled lab employee unleashed the virus (as happened, according to the official version of events, with the 2001 anthrax attack); or third, that a group, corporation or government agency intentionally released the virus in the interests of profit and power.

Each of the three scenarios represents a plausible explanation should the swine virus become lethal. After all, the 1918 flu virus was dead and buried – until, that is, scientists unearthed a lead coffin to obtain a biopsy of the corpse it contained. Later, researchers similarly disturbed an Inuit woman buried under permafrost. (3)

The US Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, with a scientist from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, then began to reconstruct the 1918 Spanish flu. Had Iran or North Korea engaged in Frankenstein experiments (complete with ransacking graves) to reverse engineer the 1918 virus the US and the UK would have gone ballistic at the UN Security Council.

Interestingly, numerous doctors and scientists suspect that the swine flu virus was cultured in a laboratory. A mainstream Australian virologist, Adrian Gibbs - who was one of the first to analyze the genetic properties of the 2009 swine flu – believes that scientists accidentally created the H1N1 virus while producing vaccines. And Dr. John Carlo, Dallas Co. Medical Director, "This strain of swine influenza that’s been cultured in a laboratory is something that’s not been seen anywhere actually in the United States and the world, so this is actually a new strain of influenza that’s been identified."(4) Because of this, the 2009 swine flu virus -- which has yet to be detected in any animals -- has a rather suspicious pedigree.

The Propaganda Campaign

Across the mainstream media, reports announce one swine flu death after another (even though ordinary flu kills about 35,000 Americans each year). Upon closer scrutiny of what passes for journalism, the victims have "underlying health problems," or "a common underlying health condition," or "significant medical conditions."

One news headline even blared: "Swine flu mother dies after giving birth, leaving her premature baby fighting for life," and only later, buried deep in the story underneath, did it explain that she had "other medical problems" which included being confined to a wheelchair because of a serious car accident.

Citizens the world over are increasingly skeptical of hyped headlines followed by smaller-print caveats. They are uneasy with the effort to create "doublethink" – a term coined by George Orwell in 1984 and a reference to holding two contradictory ideas in one’s mind simultaneously, paralyzing critical thought.

The media has never been in the habit of reporting the cases of people who, for no known reason, die of the flu. Out of the 35,000 Americans who die each year from flu-related illnesses, some are bound to be relatively young and healthy. It happens. This year, however, their stories are front-page news.

More recently, news reports claim that the H1N1 swine flu can affect people in the lungs and lead to pneumonia. This, however, is what separates the flu from the common cold in the first place; and this is why tens of thousands of elderly people die of flu-related symptoms each year. Fox News even claimed that "this one morphs and mutates and comes back in different ways…," (like all flu viruses). In short, the media now uses the flu’s own ordinary symptoms to fuel fear.

Fortunately, a growing wave of online media challenges the propaganda. Back in 1976, there were no rival voices, and the Center for Disease Control’s manipulative television commercials dominated the airwaves. Fortunately, as a testament to official shamelessness, these videos are now archived and searchable on the Internet under the title of "1976 Swine Flu Propaganda."

Now, like then, the US government’s pandemic policy alternates between the ridiculous and the repugnant. The government’s flu website is revealing. First, the historical section on the 1918 virus is intellectually dishonest, making absolutely no link between the unique conditions of World War I and the flu pandemic; instead, the site propagates the erroneous notion that this virus came out of the blue. (5)

Second, the site announces an absurd American Idol-style video contest: "Create a Video About Preventing or Dealing With the Flu & Be Eligible to Win $2500 Cash!" (Congress has earmarked 8 billion dollars for swine flu prevention and can only offer $2,500 to the proles -- or, rather, to the one prole who, rising above mediocrity, best parrots the Party Line.)

And third, the site encourages the use of Twitter to "stay informed…" There is something mildly disturbing about the US federal government promoting Twitter as a form of resistance to foreign authoritarianism, while, simultaneously, using social networking to further federalize and protect the abuse of power at home.

1976 + 1984 = 2009

In sum, it appears that the 2009 swine flu pandemic will not be 1918. It might be a 1976-style hoax, however, serving profit and power - with a bit of Orwell’s 1984 thrown in for good measure.

Andrew Bosworth, Ph.D.
Author of Biotech Empire (Amazon)

Notes
1. JS Oxford, A Sefton, R Jackson, W Innes, RS Daniels, and NPAS Johnson, “World War I may have allowed the emergence of ‘Spanish’ influenza,” The Lancet/ Infectious Diseases Vol. 2 February 2002.
2. Byerly CR. 2005. Fever of War: The Influenza Epidemic in the U.S. Army during World War I. New York, NY: New York University Press.
3. Ann H. Reid, Thomas G. Fanning, Johan V. Hultin, and Jeffery K. Taubenberger, “Origin and Evolution of the 1918 Spanish Influenza Virus Hemagglutinin Gene, PNAS Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. Division of Molecular Pathology, Department of Cellular Pathology, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Washington, DC. Communicated by Edwin D. Kilbourne, New York.
4. Paul Joseph Watson, “Medical Director: Swine Flu Was ‘Cultured In A Laboratory,” This strain of swine influenza that’s been cultured in a laboratory is something that’s not been seen anywhere actually in the United States and the world, so this is actually a new strain of influenza that’s been identified. April 26, 2009.
5. http://www.flu.gov/

24 Aug 2009

THE WAR PROFITEERS

Reportedly, Rockefeller's Standard Oil provided oil for Hitler's U boats. (MySpace)

The Vietnam war was very bad news for the ordinary folks of Texas or Saigon, but it was wonderful news for certain big American corporations.

Now wars mean very good business for private military companies.

That sector is now worth up to $120bn annually with operations in at least 50 countries. (Making a killing: how private armies became a $120bn global ...)




On 11 August 2009, former Canadian diplomat Profesor Peter Dale Scott, at Global Research, wrote The Real Grand Chessboard and the Profiteers of War

Among the points made:

1. Certain countries expand their empires and develop "secretive corporations and agencies".

Eventually such countries may weaken through "needless and crushing wars."

Such wars brought down Spain, Holland and the UK.

The USA is next.

2. A country trying to dominate the world may look mad.

But wars make money for certain people.

"What looks demented from a public viewpoint makes sense from the narrower perspective of those profiting from the provision of private entrepreneurial violence and intelligence."

3. In 1919 Sir Halford Mackinder stated:

"Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; Who rules the heartland commands the World Island; Who rules the World Island commands the World."

Napoleon and Hitler discovered that this kind of thinking does not work.

4. Henry Kissinger did not speak of dominance but of "equilibrium".

This is the Kissinger who saw America defeated by Vietnam.

Brzezinski

5. Now we have Zbigniew Brzezinski, who speaks of global dominance.

Brzezinski built up the Moslem militants in Afghanistan so as to lure in the Russians, and thus weaken the Soviet Empire.

When he was asked whether Islamic fundamentalism represented a world menace, Brzezinski replied, "Nonsense!"

6. Brzezinski reportedly seeks to control the Eurasian heartland.

"For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia... Now a non-Eurasian power is preeminent in Eurasia - and America's global primacy is directly dependent on how long and how effectively its preponderance on the Eurasian continent is sustained." (p.30 of Brzezinski's 1997 book The Grand Chessboard)

According to Brzezinski, "the three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy" are:

A. To prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals or underlings.

B. To keep tributaries or smaller countries pliant and protected.

C. To keep the barbarians from coming together. (p.40 The Grand Chessboard)

Private army

7. The 1992 draft DPG (Defense Planning Guidance), prepared for Defense Secretary Cheney by neocons Paul Wolfowitz and Lewis "Scooter" Libby, stated:

"We must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role."

According to Joint Chiefs of Staff strategic document Joint Vision 2020, "Full-spectrum dominance means the ability of U.S. forces, operating alone or with allies, to defeat any adversary and control any situation across the range of military operations."

This is arguably insane.

It is however useful to the corporations who make money from oil and wars.

8. Brzezinski is wrong.

"Vassals" are human being, not chess pieces.

The idea of a single chess player in control is wrong.

In Central Asia, the US, Russia, China and the local states are all weak.

Here, corporations like BP and Exxon are more important than local states and US forces.

Here, "agitated Muslims" and drugs barons are important.

Whatever happened to the Empires of Britain and Holland?

9. Brzezinski’s goal is "to exert permanent restraints on the power of China and above all Russia."

He has sensibly opposed destabilizing moves like a western strike on Iran.

However, Brzezinski promotes a policy that suits the oil industry and its backers, including the Rockefellers, who first launched him into national prominence.

10. In March 2001 the biggest oil corporations were secretly involved with Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force.

The Task Force developed a map of Iraq’s oil fields.

In February 2001, a Bush National Security Council document had noted that Cheney’s Task force would consider "actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields."

Earlier the oil companies had taken part in a non-government task force calling for "an immediate policy review toward Iraq including military, energy, economic and political/diplomatic assessments."

11. After 9/11, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Douglas Feith set up the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans (OSP) which became President Bush’s main source of intelligence regarding Iraq’s possible possession of weapons of mass destruction and connection with Al Qaeda.

Feith, and others, had links to Israel, which wanted US armies to become established militarily in Central Asia.

Big corporations do well from wars.

12. According to counterterrorism expert, retired U.S. Army colonel Andrew Bacevich: "invading and occupying other countries ...is ...going to bankrupt the country and break the military."

Donald Rumsfeld increased the use of Private Military Contractors (PMCs) in the Iraq War.

Diligence "set up shop in Baghdad [in July 2003] to provide security for companies involved in Iraqi."

It is virtually a CIA spin-off.

Mike Baker, its chief executive officer, spent 14 years at the CIA.

Whitley Bruner, its chief operating officer in Baghdad, was once the CIA station chief in Iraq.

Its partner in Diligence Middle East (DME) is New Bridge Strategies, "a consulting firm to advise companies that want to do business in Iraq."

New Bridge has top Republicans on its board.

The Financial Times linked the success of New Bridge to its relationship with Neil Bush.



13. Another Private Intelligence Contractor or PIC is Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC).

SAIC is "the invisible hand behind a huge portion of the national-security state."

SAIC represents "a private business that has become a form of permanent government".

SAIC epitomizes the "military-industrial-counterterrorism complex."

SAIC is "not a unified bureaucracy, but more like a platform for individual entrepreneurship in obtaining contracts".

Robert Gates was a member of SAIC's board of directors.

SAIC personnel have been recruited from the CIA, NSA, and DARPA, among them John M. Deutch, C.I.A. director under President Bill Clinton.

SAIC "helped supply the faulty intelligence about Saddam’s WMD" that then got lots of contracts in Iraq.

9/11 served the interests of private intellience and military contractors including SAIC.

Private firms now not only provide, but also analyse intelligence.

Overseas associates of Diligence LLC and its allies have been accused of false-flag operations intended to provoke war.

The Patriot Act provides a new area of profit for SAIC contractors - domestic surveillance of U.S. citizens.

14. Donald Rumsfeld created CIFA in 2002.

The Counterintelligence Field Activity office was used against people suspected of opposing the Bush administration.

~~

aangirfan: Lockerbie Evidence

aangirfan: Police chief- Lockerbie evidence was faked

Barack Obama: Change We Can Deceive In*

-- A critique from the Left
By Lori Price,

19 Aug 2009

President Barack Obama is selling out the left wing of his party - those who contributed $750 million to his campaign for 'change' - quicker than a Blue Cross rate rise in August. Mr. Obama won the Democratic nomination -- and the presidency -- on a wave of anti-Bush sentiment and the promise of 'change we can believe in.' But when the assertions and actions of the Obama Administration are critically examined, a conclusion can be drawn that the key difference -- thus far -- between Barack Obama and George W. Bush is their choice in breed of White House pet. 'Bipartisanship,' the bane of Obama's first eight months as president, is providing the groundwork for an extended (albeit educated, charming) Bush-light Administration. Those of us on the left are fearing a Bush-ultra Administration, wrapped in populist rhetoric, and disguised as everything but the same.

Barack Obama: Meteorological Nightmare

Nuclear Leaks and Response Tested Obama in Senate By Mike McIntire 03 Feb 2008 When residents in Illinois voiced outrage two years ago upon learning that the Exelon Corporation had not disclosed radioactive leaks at one of its nuclear plants, the state’s freshman senator, Barack Obama, took up their cause. Mr. Obama scolded Exelon and federal regulators for inaction and introduced a bill to require all plant owners to notify state and local authorities immediately of even small leaks. He has boasted of it on the campaign trail, telling a crowd in Iowa in December that it was “the only nuclear legislation that I’ve passed...” A close look at the path his legislation took tells a very different story. While he initially fought to advance his bill... Mr. Obama eventually rewrote it to reflect changes sought by Senate Republicans, Exelon and nuclear regulators. The new bill removed language mandating prompt reporting and simply offered guidance to regulators, whom it charged with addressing the issue of unreported leaks. Those revisions propelled the bill through a crucial committee. But, contrary to Mr. Obama’s comments in Iowa, it ultimately died amid parliamentary wrangling in the full Senate.

Sound familiar? Just replace the words 'Exelon Corporation' with 'insurance companies' and the words 'Senator Obama' with President Obama' and here we are. 'Mr. Obama scolded Exelon and federal regulators for inaction,' we learned in 2008, regarding Obama's reaction to the undisclosed radioactive leaks. In 2009, the president condemned the insurance companies for their record-breaking profits and role in the U.S. health care situation: Obama says insurance companies holding U.S. hostage,' Reuters, 14 August. In 2006, the Obama admonishment preceded the sellout, just as it likely will in 2009. Yup, those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

The Exelon incident should have set off alarms in every progressive's brain from Portland, Oregon to Portland, Maine. The corporate-owned media, determined to see the 'better' liberal -- Hillary Clinton -- lose the Democratic primary, waged a Hillary-bashing campaign, 24-7. This media bias was couched and defended in the enthralling possibility of the election of the first African-American U.S. president.

And so, the Exelon incident passed as insignificant -- the unnoticed fluffy cloud on a bright summer day. But to those of us in the meteorological know, we're aware of the path that a singular cumulus cloud can take. More cumulus clouds appear, then populate the horizon. Soon, cumulonimbus clouds form -- which lead to thunder, lightning and a nightmarish end to the day.

My Exelon-Obama umbrella has been with me since February of 2008, when New York Senator Hillary Clinton co-sponsored legislation to boot Blackwater and other mercenaries from Iraq and Afghanistan. Candidate Obama remained silent. Under President Obama, the mercenary industry is flourishing.

President Obama: They're toting assault rifles and you're toting 'bipartisanship.'

All of this pandering to the GOP, and the elusive quest for 'bipartisanship,' is not entirely the fault of Barack Obama. As soon as a Democrat is elected, the corporate-owned media begins the 'bipartisanship' brainwashing of the public, to elevate the GOP. Indeed, Obama was 'conditioned' to select a political moderate to the Supreme Court, despite the fact that the lack of political balance on the Court clamored for a left-leaning Justice. Even though George W. Bush stole two elections, the media never chided Bush for not acting in a bipartisan fashion. Apparently, Obama the Conciliator chooses to live and breathe to to please everyone --well, every Republican.

How did Bush force his pharma-terrorist giveaway aka Medicare Modernization Act through Congress in 2003?

Drug Industry and HMOs Deployed an Army of Nearly 1,000 Lobbyists to Push Medicare Bill, Report Finds --Study Shows Special Interests Spent $141 Million in 2003, Hired 431 Lobbyists With "Revolving Door" Connections to Congress and the White House 23 Jun 2004 In the final push for Medicare prescription drug legislation, the pharmaceutical industry, HMOs and related interests spent more money and hired more lobbyists in 2003 than ever before, according to a report issued today by Public Citizen.

The bill came to a vote at 3 a.m. on November 22. After 45 minutes, the bill was losing, 219-215. Speaker Dennis Hastert and Majority Leader Tom DeLay sought to convince some of dissenting Republicans to switch their votes, as they had in June... In a highly unusual move, the House leadership held the vote open for hours as they sought two more votes. Then-Representative Nick Smith (R-MI) claimed he was offered campaign funds for his son, who was running to replace him, in return for a change in his vote from "nay" to "yea."

I can just see the Fox heads exploding -- and more AR-15s waving -- if House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pulled such a stunt! In 2003, the mainstream media -- owned by the same corporations who financially benefit from corporate profits -- did not demand that the White House 'work with the Democrats' on the 'Patriot' Act, Medicare, Iraq or any other Bush-Cheney disaster forced upon the United States.

True, the day after his Inauguration, President Obama signed legislation to close the U.S. detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, by January 2010. He has also pushed for some popular programs, such as 'Cash for Clunkers.' Although his rhetoric is with the left, his actions are serving the rightwing. Obama is allowing his detractors to call the shots. The Obama Administration's acts of appeasement merely serve to embolden the gun-toting critics and snarly Congresscritters who would do anything to destroy the Obama presidency.

Herewith is the running list of Barack Obama's supplications and fabrications. After having endured eight months of an Obama presidency, a case can be made that Barack Obama was 'allowed' to win the election so that he would provide the relief valve for the rising anger over predatory capitalism in the U.S.

Thus far, Obama has out-Bushed Bush. This list is under construction!

Extraordinary rendition we can believe in: Obama Administration Maintains Bush Position on 'Extraordinary Rendition' Lawsuit 09 Feb 2009
State secrets we can believe in: Obama Administration Backs Bush Secrecy Policy in Terror Case 10 Feb 2009
Mercenaries we can believe in: KBR Awarded Convoy Support Center Contract by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 28 Jan 2009
Torture architects we can believe in: Obama lawyers set to defend Yoo 28 Jan 2009
Air strikes we can believe in: Obama ordered Waziristan airstrikes --Guardian report says US commanders consulted president before Friday's missile attacks 25 Jan 2009 Loopholes we can believe in: A Loophole In the Rules --In a national-security crisis, Obama could deviate from his own rules. 24 Jan 2009
Eavesdropping we can believe in: Obama Sides With Bush in Spy Case --'President Barack Obama adopted the same position as his predecessor.' 22 Jan 2009
Defense lobbyists we can beleive in: Obama Picks Lobbyist as Pentagon No. 2 09 Jan 2009
Mission creep we can believe in: The Pentagon is muscling in everywhere. It's time to stop the mission creep. By Thomas A. Schweich 21 Dec 2008
Warmongers we can believe in: Obama wants Bush war team to stay 23 Dec 2008
Silence we can believe in: Obama's silence on Israeli airstrikes disappoints many 29 Dec 2008
Spies we can believe in: President-Elect Obama May Keep Mike Hayden as Director of the CIA 05 Dec 2008
War criminals we can believe in: Obama Plans to Retain Gates at Defense Department 26 Nov 2008
Bailout critters we can believe in: Obama's Bailout Bunch Brings Us More of the Same By Jonathan Weil 11 Nov 2008
Bush trolls we can believe in: Obama Wants Lieberman to Stay With Dem Caucus 11 Nov 2008
Republicans we can believe in: Obama advisers signal Republican roles in administration 10 Nov 2008
Surges we can believe in: British troops 'cannot bear brunt of Barack Obama's Afghanistan surge' 09 Nov 2008
Big business we can believe in: Obama reassures big business on economic policy By Patrick Martin 8 Nov 2008

Are Obama's most virulent critics open to bipartishanship? Well, they would have to drop their assault rifles, first. Obama should simply jettison them, and abandon his 'Bush-light' agenda. If he doesn't, leftists and liberals need to back an actual progressive candidate for the 2012 presidential elections. Now, that would be 'change we can believe in.'

*Essay title attributed to Michael Rectenwald, Ph.D.
Lori Price is Managing Editor of Citizens For Legitimate Government.

Barack Obama, front man for the ‘man’

By William Bowles
Featured Writer

Dandelion Salad
Creative-i

16 August 2009

I contend that ever since the first slave ship left the shores of Africa, the ideology of racism has been central to the success of capitalism. Without it and the wealth that slavery produced, Europe and its bastard offspring, the United States, would never have accumulated the capital that made today’s world possible. And if the corrosive and utterly destructive effects of the ideology of racism were not apparent to you before the election of Barack ‘Hope & Change’ Obama, then surely by now they should be, and especially its effects on the ‘left’.

And in all likelihood, the inner sanctum, those who selected Obama in the first place were fully aware of what would happen when they put up a black man to front a white, racist United States. Obama was, and is fully intended to be the whipping boy of that there is no doubt, exploiting his own ambitions and hubris. Whether Obama has failures or successes, matters not one iota for if failures, well play the race card and if successes, well play the race card.

The elite are fully aware of the role of racism, and given not only the history of the US, a country literally founded on genocide and slavery, but also the ongoing treatment of Black Americans, surely they must have calculated that Obama would be a ‘one hit’ prez and, having served his purpose (namely preserving the status quo, at least as the power elite hoped he could), he can be safely relegated to the position of front man for the ‘man’. Of course, unlike Ralph Ellison’s ‘The Invisible Man’, Obama is far from invisible, he stands as the personification of ‘blackness’ (whatever that is) at least in the eyes of those millions of Black Americans (and youngsters) who voted for him.

Of course, as far as his Masters’ see things, this means discounting ten million or so really pissed off Black Americans who saw in Obama some kind of salvation for their condition. But what the hell, it’s just back to business as usual, at least that’s the plan.

As Tim Wise pointed out in his essay, ‘Socialism as the New Black Bogeyman – Red-Baiting and Racism’, Black-Baiting has turned into Red-Baiting (but when was it ever different?). The ‘Left’ are afraid of attacking Obama for fear of being called racists (and hey, what do I know?) and the right are calling him a Commie!

‘This noise is about race. It is about ‘othering’ a President who is seen as a symbol of white dispossession: dispossession of white hegemony, white entitlement, white expectation, and white power, unquestioned and unchallenged from the darker skinned other. This is what animates the every move of the angry masses, individual exceptions notwithstanding. Unless the left begins pushing back, and insisting that yes, the old days are gone, white hegemony is dead, and deserved its demise, and that we will all be better off for it, the chorus of white backlash will only grow louder. So too will it grow more effective at dividing and conquering the working people who would benefit–all of them–from a new direction.’ — ‘Socialism as the New Black Bogeyman – Red-Baiting and Racism’

The problem with Wise’s analysis is that it doesn’t go far enough, ‘white hegemony’ isn’t dead just because a ‘black’ man got elected to be president, that was never the intention. Would Wise say that had ‘Hellfire’ Hillary gotten elected, patriarchy was dead (the gender counterpart to racism)? And in any case, when Wise says that ‘it’s [Obama’s election] seen as a symbol of white dispossesssion’, who is he talking about? The ‘old days’ haven’t gone, they’ve just gotten a sun tan and, like all sun tans, it’s already wearing off.

Race is a state of mind, which is why, for the ‘left’ it’s so difficult to deal with from a ‘socialist’ perspective. Racism on the other hand is an ideological construct, four-five hundred years in the making (damn, the Roman Empire had Black Caesars!), and it needs to be dealt with the same way; deconstructed and demolished in the same way the banksters have been. But the white left lives in fear of its own demons and unfortunately, white privilege whether of the left or the right is so deeply embedded it distorts all analysis as the ‘confusion’ on the ‘left’ concerning Obama so clearly demonstrates.

The ‘noise’ isn’t about race, the noise is about protecting white, capitalist privilege, the race noise comes from the Rottweiler’s of capitalism, the Lou Dobbs’ et al, that is after all, their role in the scheme of things. Likewise all the noise about ‘socialism’ is again aimed at protecting corporate privilege.

Thus the ruling elite have (and surely that was also part of their game plan) exploited the deeply rooted racism of a society that still hasn’t acknowledged that it’s founded on the extermination of an entire culture, the real Americans and nourished by the blood of twenty million Africans.

For the Empire getting Obama elected was seen as a win-win solution, it salved the aching heart (for awhile anyway) and in the long run, if he got too ‘uppity’, well, brand him a Black Red, that’ll take care of things (‘uppity’ in this case means any proposal somewhat to the left Adolf Hitler as Obama’s half-baked and utterly compromised ‘health care’ proposals reveal).

What I think Wise underplays is the fundamental and intrinsic reality of race to the nature of US capitalism, nay, not only US capitalism, though it expresses itself differently under different circumstances. For example in the UK it is smothered in a layer of hypocritical crap about ‘tolerance’ and ‘fairness’, but the end-product is essentially the same.

Comrades (can I call you that?), it’s not rocket science, the Brits have been doing this for centuries, admittedly in the far-flung corners of their former Empire, not up close and personal but it amounts to the same thing; using a Black front man, Nigeria is a good example, during the ‘independence’ process, thus making sure ‘our man’ got elected (see ‘Hidden Histories’ and, ‘Hidden histories confirmed: So much for the ‘Mother of Parliaments’).

Obama got elected precisely because of the racist nature of the capitalist system. Yes, I know it sounds like a contradiction and indeed it is, and it’s a contradiction that is now playing itself out. Effectively, from the point that Obama got elected, he was past his usefulness, all that counted was that distance (or the appearance of it) was put between the ‘new’ government and the old. We now see the real players, Hillary Clinton et al, emerge. Surely it’s obvious that Obama is a puppet on a string?

And anyway Obama is in too deep, trapped like a fly in a spider’s web. Having sold his soul to the devil (something he clearly did well before being selected as presidential candidate) he will play out his allotted role, he has no choice, until the next ‘election’ that is. And no doubt, he will go down in history replete with a (corporately funded) library, don the mantle of ‘elder statesman’ and retire gracefully, having done his bit for the Empire.

It's the Body Bags, Stupid!

By Iftekhar A. Khan

"The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organised violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do" (Samuel P Huntington).

August 04, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- It's irrelevant to discuss who was responsible for 9/11. The western world knows who engineered it and rest of the world fearful for its safety is silent about it. Why to destroy the Towers by demolition when the West could invade sovereign countries without the stratagem would remain a mystery. Iraq had no link to WTC destruction yet the West invaded and occupied it. The FBI said it had "no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11." Neither did FBI in its Most wanted terrorist web page, implicate Laden in 9/11, but US attacked Afghanistan nonetheless. Muslims' perception that the West has no qualms about unleashing its violence against them is therefore a stark reality. The West marches its armies anywhere it fancies.

Violence follows a preconceived method far from madness. Muslim states marked for occupation must not only overflow with energy resources but also possess strategic importance. However, occupation isn't a free course through a country; it entails blood, death, and body bags. Afghans seem to rephrase Bill Clinton's "it's economy stupid" to "it's body bags stupid."

US has occupied Iraq, established its largest embassy and 14 military bases, after massacring more than 1.3 million civilians. Had the US-UK-NATO alliance, veritably renamed Anti-Muslim Western Alliance (AWA), invaded Iraq without the mendacity of WMD, none of the Muslim leaderships would have stirred. Leaving Iraq to its fate, Barack Obama has focused on war in Afghanistan, assumed as his war. Will he win it? Not likely. Pashtuns are more tenacious than are the Iraqis. Taliban is another name of the Pashtuns striving to rid their country of foreign occupiers. Account of a British soldier in the UK Guardian unravelled the mystery of Taliban and Pashtuns for those who confuse the two: "One minute these...are Afghan farmers another minute Taliban." The soldier later lost his life in Helmand.

Many who thought Obama would change US policies in Iraq and Afghanistan have been disappointed. Obama and Brown don't formulate policies; reps of powerful interest groups do. How could Robert Gates, who outlasted Bush regime, take a U-turn on the AfPak strategy he himself devised? He has been at the centre stage of conceiving and planning the brutal military offensive Panther's Claw in Helmand - Southern Afghanistan. Richard Holbrooke on the AfPak scene is another face for Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.

AWA has slim chance of winning the war in Afghanistan as Guardian's editorial (July 23) explained: "Two major thrusts by US and British troops into territory the Taliban once dominated have resulted in record US and Isaf casualties: 31 US troops and 23 Isaf, 22 of them British, have been killed so far this month and many more (57) grievously injured. The Taliban have lost men, but they have an endless supply of recruits. And they would be even less bothered by loss of territory. The battlefield has merely grown." AWA has endless supply of military hardware but it lacks the nerve to supply more boots on ground.

Merely 22 British soldiers' death this month taking the tally to 189 so far has set off wide public resentment in UK. Mourners continue to protest against keeping the royal blood in jagged Afghanistan. Compare it with the slaughter of 1.3 million Iraqis and hundreds of thousands of Afghans when none of the two nations had aggressed against the West. After ruthless AWA bombing of their mud hamlets, Pashtuns have been collecting bits and pieces of their men, women, and children to bury them in mass graves, while civilised West grieves over the death of its few soldiers.

Even if US-led AWA bombs every inch of Southern Afghanistan, it will ultimately need hundreds of thousands boots on ground to put down the resistance, which will mean thousands of body bags. AWA cannot afford to take casualties because the dead arriving home draped in national flags exact political cost. Yet military commanders in Helmand "insist that troops morale remains high" even though ruthless Taliban exploitation of sophisticated IEDs make every foot and vehicle patrol a potentially lethal last journey. Some morale it is that remains high when taking each step is a lethal last journey.

However, situation in Afghanistan has begun to change despite Messrs Brown and Miliband's lofty assertions a fortnight ago that troops would remain there to secure British lives in UK, not explaining the nature of danger the Pashtuns posed. Five days, 22 British and 31 US soldiers' lives later, operation Panther's Claw envisioned to put down resistance in southern Afghanistan has run aground. Both Britain and US have decided to open talks with the Taliban - the moderate Taliban. Both powers even consider an exit strategy. Why the sudden change in policy? Perhaps caskets reaching home and their consequent political fallout have compelled them to rethink their strategy. So far, AWA only wants to negotiate with moderate Taliban; soon it will be willing to negotiate with all of them.

The writer is a freelance columnist - E-mail: pinecity@gmail.com

This item was first published in the Nation: Pakistan