According to declassified data Russia holds 17 billion tons of oil and 48 billion cubic meters of gas. Moscow believes revealing the extent of the vast reserves will lead to a surge of investment in the extraction and production of hydrocarbons.
The country’s recoverable oil reserves in the C1 category (proven reserves) totals 17.8 billion tons; category C2 (preliminary estimated reserves) is 10.2 billion tons, according to data collected on January 1, 2012.
Meanwhile, gas reserves were equally bountiful at 48.8 trillion cubic meters C1 category; gas stores of the C2 category is estimated at 19.6 trillion cubic meters.
The Minister of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation Sergey Donskoy said the resource potential for these kinds of mineral resources remains one of the most significant in the world. “I am convinced that the opening of this data will give a powerful impetus to investment in reproduction and production of hydrocarbons,” he said. He also added that Russia’s potential for the mineral resources is one of the most significant in the world.
Russia’s available hydrocarbon potential will be able to provide the nation’s growing economy for 30 years, according to expert estimates put out by the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources and the Federal State Commission on Mineral Reserves.
Meanwhile, increased exploration of mineral resources consistently exceed the level of production, the minister said, noting that last year 49 oil fields were discovered.
Last week, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed a government decree that removed the lid of secrecy on oil reserve data.
Earlier, President Putin, explained the necessary level of cooperation that exists between the domestic fuel and energy sector and foreign investors, called the former level of secrecy “an obvious anachronism.”
Putin also called on the development and approval of a new classification of Russian oil and gas reserves as close as possible to international standards.
Before the release of the official data Russia was placed second in the world by gas reserves after Iran, with 32.9 trillion cubic meters, and eighth by crude oil reserves, after Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and UAE, with 11.8 trillion cubic meters of oil.
July 13, 2013
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | Gas, Natural resources, Oil, Oil reserves, Russia, Russian economy |
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The United States has been accused of spying on numerous countries in Latin America in an effort to collect intelligence on trade secrets and military capabilities.
Using information provided by former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden, a Brazilian newspaper, O Globo, published a story that said the U.S. spy agency has gathered data on telephone calls and emails from Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Venezuela and others.
The account indicated that the NSA had collected military and security data on countries including Venezuela, while also carrying out surveillance operations to acquire trade secrets from within the oil industry in Venezuela and the energy sector in Mexico.
O Globo also published a story over the weekend saying Brazil was a major target of the NSA’s global spying on telecommunications, which involved the cooperation of American and Brazilian companies (which were not named).
It was additionally reported that the CIA and NSA jointly operated monitoring stations to gain foreign satellite data in 65 countries, including five in Latin America.
In response to the accusations, the U.S. ambassador to Brazil, Thomas Shannon, reportedly denied that Washington has been conducting surveillance operations on Brazilian communications.
News of the alleged spying upset many in Brazil and other Latin countries, which have a history of military governments—often supported by the United States—that spied on their own people.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who was jailed and tortured in the 1970s under the ruling junta, said her government would raise concerns with the U.N. Commission on Human Rights.
“Brazil’s position on this issue is very clear and very firm,” Rousseff told the media. “We do not agree at all with interference of this kind, not just in Brazil but in any other country.”
To Learn More:
U.S. Spy Spread Through Latin America (by Glenn Greenwald, and Kaz and Roberto Jose’ Casado; O Globo)
Capitals 4 Countries Also Housed the Office of the NSA and CIA (by Kaz and Roberto Jose’ Casado; O Globo)
U.S. and Britain Eavesdropped on World Leaders at 2009 Summits (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)
US NSA Spied on Venezuela When President Chavez Died, Documents Reveal (alethonews.wordpress.com)
July 11, 2013
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception, Economics, Full Spectrum Dominance | Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, Latin America, National Security Agency, NSA, O Globo, United States, Venezuela |
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In ousting Egypt’s first freely elected president, Mohammed Morsi, the Egyptian military have certainly not acted to preserve democracy. They’ve never shown much interest in that. They’re determined to put a break on the mounting political and economic chaos that is ripping the country apart. That turbulence was threatening not just the survival of Egypt, but, more to the point, it was menacing the vast state within a state that Egypt’s military presides over.
Of course, the Egyptian Army is not monolithic. Its lower ranks are very much of the people: filled with hundreds of thousands of conscripts, drawn from the most humble ranks of society—and has a strong identity with the Egyptian people.
It has traditionally been the most important means of socializing and educating the lower classes, in theory, inculcating them with a sense of pride and patriotism.
Indeed the 1971 Constitution says that the Egyptian Army shall “belong to the people”
Thus, as I have previously blogged, in 1977 when the army was called in to quell riots after President Sadat announced cuts in basic food subsidies, the generals refused to intervene unless the subsidies were reestablished. Sadat restored the subsidies.
The top ranks of the army, however, have other concerns—beginning with personal survival. They certainly will never forget the lurid spectacle of Iranian generals being publicly executed in the aftermath of Khomeini’s revolution in Iran. Iran also demonstrated that a radical revolution also means a radically transformed military. (Egypt’s generals have a constant reminder of that lesson nearby: The Shah is buried in a Cairo mosque.).
But since the fall of Mubarak, the military have feared not just a takeover by radical Muslims. There is also the fact that real civilian rule could spell an end to the system of massive military corruption and patronage that has gone on for decades in Egypt, a system that has given the military unimpeded control over an estimated 40% of the Egyptian economy–“a state within a state” as a well-informed Egyptian friend of mine puts it.
For years, Egypt’s top military ranks have enjoyed a pampered existence in sprawling developments such as Cairo’s Nasr City, where officers are housed in spacious, subsidized condominiums. They enjoy other amenities the average Egyptian can only dream of, such as nurseries, bonuses, new cars, schools and military consumer cooperatives featuring domestic and imported products at discount prices. In other areas, top officers are able to buy luxurious apartments on generous credit for 10 percent of what those apartments are actually worth.
But we’re not just talking about sensational official perks. Many of Egypt’s brass are notoriously corrupt. Vast swathes of military land, for instance, were sold by the generals to finance some major urban developments near Cairo — with little if any accounting.
Other choice military property ran on the Nile Delta and Red Sea coast boasted idyllic beaches, and exquisite coral reefs. In return for turning the land over to private developers, military officers became key shareholders in a slew of gleaming new tourist developments.
The generals also preside over 16 enormous factories that turn out not just weapons, but an array of domestic products from dishwashers to heaters, clothing, doors, stationary pharmaceutical products, and microscopes. Most of these products are sold to military personnel through discount military stores, but a large amount are also sold commercially.
The military also builds highways, housing developments, hotels, power lines, sewers, bridges, schools, telephone exchanges, often in murky arrangements with civilian companies.
The military are also Egypt’s largest farmers, running a vast network of dairy farms, milk processing facilities, cattle feed lots, poultry farms, fish farms. They’ve plenty left from their huge output to sell to civilians through a sprawling distribution network.
The justification for all this non-military activity is that the military are just naturally more efficient than civilians. Hard not to be “more efficient” when you are able to employ thousands of poorly paid military recruits for labor.
Many civilian businessmen complain that competing with the military is like trying to compete with the Mafia. And upon retiring, top military officers are often rewarded with plum positions running everything from factories and industries to charities.
Whatever the number, Robert Springborg, who has written extensively on Egypt, says officers in the Egyptian military are making “billions and billions and billions” of dollars.
But there’s no way to know how efficient or inefficient the military are, nor how much money their vast enterprises make, nor how many millions or billions get skimmed off since the military’s operations are off the nation’s books. No real published accountings.
No oversight. Even Mohammed Morsi when he became president, was obliged to agree to the military’s demand that there would be no civilian oversight of the military budget.
Of course none of the above is a surprise to U.S. officials who dole out some 1.3 billion dollars a year in military aid to the Egyptian Army, and hope that sum and the neat weapons it provides will keep the army in line. [One of the most detailed studies of the military’s non-military activities was done by a U.S. military researcher at Fort Leavenworth.]
The U.S. also has a 1.3 billion dollar carrot dangling in front of the Egyptian Army. That annual American military aid to Egypt has allowed the Egyptian officers to get their hands on some of the most sophisticated of modern weapons—as we’ve seen over the past couple of years in downtown Cairo.
The generals realize there is no way the U.S. will continue paying for those goodies if a new regime more hostile to Israel takes power in Cairo.
A perceptive look into all this came via a 2008 U.S.diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks. The writer in the U.S. Embassy in Cairo ticked off the various businesses the military was involved in, and considered how the military might react if Egypt’s then president, Hosni Mubarak, were to lose power.
The military would almost certainly go along with a successor, the cable’s author wrote, as long as that successor didn’t interfere in the military’s business arrangements.
But, the cable continued, “in a messier succession scenario, it becomes more difficult to predict the military’s actions.”
No scenario could be “messier” than the mounting chaos in Egypt over the past few months.
The military acted.
July 5, 2013
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Economics, Timeless or most popular | Cairo, Egypt, Egyptian Armed Forces, Egyptian Army, Hosni Mubarak |
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Global Power Project, Part 4
In May, JPMorgan Chase was listed as the largest bank in the world with assets at roughly $4 trillion — some $1.53 trillion of it in derivatives. This was reported a month after the announcement that the bank had posted a record first-quarter profit of $6.5 billion.
Jamie Dimon, the bank’s CEO and Chairman, has faced a host of scandals in relation to his management of the megabank, including the loss of roughly $6 billion through the London branch of the bank — losses that Dimon was accused of hiding. A 300-page report by the U.S. Senate, investigating the “creative accounting” of JPMorgan, noted that the bank “hid losses, did not share information with its regulators, and misled the public” in what one banking regulator referred to as “make believe voodoo magic.” Stated bluntly in The New York Times, JPMorgan Chase, the largest derivatives dealer in the world, “is too big to regulate.”
In the midst of the scandal, the bank faced a potential “revolt” of its shareholders in a bid to strip Dimon of his dual role as CEO and Chairman. In confidential government reports which were leaked to The New York Times, the bank was accused of “manipulative schemes” which transformed “money-losing power plants into powerful profit centers” while executives made “false and misleading statements” under oath.
Yet even in the midst of scandal, Jamie Dimon was praised in a storm of support by billionaires, corporate kingpins and media barons. Calling JPMorgan Chase “as good a bank as there is,” New York City mayor and billionaire media baron Michael Bloomberg went on to call Dimon “a very smart, honest, great executive.” News Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch praised Dimon as “one of the smartest, toughest guys around,” while Jack Welch, former chairman and CEO of General Electric, referred to him as a “great leader” and said he had earned the “right to hold both Chairman and CEO titles.” To top it off, billionaire investor and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffet, dubbed Dimon “a fabulous banker.”
And the adoration goes all the way to the top rung. In 2009, The New York Times referred to Jamie Dimon as “President Obama’s favorite banker.” In 2010, Obama told Bloomberg BusinessWeek that he didn’t “begrudge” bank CEOs like Jamie Dimon and Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs for their massive bonuses of $17 and $9 million, respectively. Obama explained: “I, like most of the American people, don’t begrudge people success or wealth. That is part of the free-market system.” The president added, “I know both those guys; they are very savvy businessmen.”
In May of 2012, Obama rushed to Jamie Dimon’s defense in light of the financial scandals, stating that Dimon was “one of the smartest bankers we got.” The Financial Times referred to Dimon as “the last king of Wall Street.” And when finally faced with the decision to strip Dimon of his dual role as chairman and CEO, Obama’s “favorite banker” ended up winning “a decisive victory” by maintaining both his roles.
But this is just the surface of JPMorgan Chase’s financial manipulations. The bank, in fact, was at the forefront of creating Credit Default Swaps (CDS), a key aspect of the derivatives market that led to the inflation and subsequent blowout of the housing bubble. JPMorgan developed these “financial instruments” as a type of insurance policy in 1994, allowing the bank to trade its debt (in the form of loans to corporations and governments) to third parties, thus handing off the risk and removing the debts from its accounts, which allowed it to make further loans. JPMorgan opened up the first CDS desk in New York in 1997, “a division that would eventually earn the name the Morgan Mafia for the number of former members who went on to senior positions at global banks and hedge funds.” Back in 2003, the same Warren Buffet who would later praise Dimon referred to credit default swaps as “financial weapons of mass destruction.”
JPMorgan was also at the forefront in the United States pushing for financial deregulation, particularly the slow-motion dismantling of the Glass-Steagall Act that had been put in place in 1933 in response to the financial speculation which had helped spark the Great Depression. After hearing proposals from banks such as Citicorp, JP Morgan and Bankers Trust, which advocated the loosening of “restrictions” put in place by Glass-Steagall, the Federal Reserve Board in 1987 voted to ease many of the regulations. That same year, Alan Greenspan, who had previously been a director of JP Morgan, became the chairman of the Fed. In 1989, the Fed approved an application submitted by JP Morgan, Chase Manhattan, Citicorp and Bankers Trust to further reduce the regulations imposed by Glass-Steagall. In 1990, JP Morgan became “the first bank to receive permission from the Federal Reserve to underwrite securities.”
Financial deregulation accelerated under President Clinton, much to the delight of Wall Street banks, which were then permitted to merge into megabanks, with JPMorgan merging with Chase Manhattan to form JPMorgan Chase. As early as 2006 and 2007, multiple megabanks were beginning to bet against the housing market through various hedge funds, allowing them to make profits on the housing collapse they created. JPMorgan continued to sell mortgages as it bet against the mortgage market, passing on the risk while it hedged its bets to profit from the failure and losses of others. In 2011, the bank paid a $153 million fine to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to settle allegations of “securities fraud.”
In the midst of the financial crisis in 2008, JPMorgan Chase became not only a major criminal, but also a prime beneficiary. In 2007, the global investment bank Bear Stearns was named by Fortune magazine as the second “most admired” financial securities company in the United States, while Lehman Brothers was put in first place. As the financial crisis erupted, Bear Stearns executives “discovered” that they were “nearly out of cash” in March of 2008. The CEO of Bear Stearns, Alan Schwartz, made a phone call to Jamie Dimon — JPMorgan Chase was the clearing agent for Bear Stearns — asking for an overnight loan. Dimon, who also sat on the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, turned there instead of providing the loan through his own bank. The president of the New York Fed – who was elected by the banks that own the New York Fed – was Timothy Geithner. Geithner began discussions with Bear Stearns, and the following morning he held a meeting with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs, where they agreed to an emergency loan for Bear Stearns, providing the funds through JPMorgan Chase.
Over the following day, Geithner and Paulson informed Bear Stearns that it must sell the bank within days, and a deal was negotiated in which JPMorgan Chase would purchase Bear Stearns at $2 per share. Though Dimon had first refused to purchase the failed bank, he now engaged in negotiations with Geithner who won over Dimon by guaranteeing $30 billion for JPMorgan to purchase the sunken bank. Long story short: through the New York Fed, the U.S. government purchased billions of dollars in bad debts made by Bear Stearns, including $16 billion in credit default swaps that were downgraded to “junk” assets, while JPMorgan Chase acquired $360 billion in Bear Stearns assets with little or no risk.
With the purchase of Bear Stearns facilitated by the New York Fed, and for the benefit of JPMorgan, Geithner continued in his role as willing servant to the banks who had elected him as president. Then, in September of 2008 when the insurance conglomerate American International Group (AIG) plunged into crisis and sought support from the government, the Fed and Treasury initially refused. AIG turned to JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, who went to the government to pressure for state support. The New York Fed, with Geithner at the helm, again organized a secret bailout of the institution, valued at $85 billion. In October, the government added an extra $38 billion to the AIG bailout, and the New York Fed provided a further $40 billion in November. Overall, U.S. taxpayers bailed out the insurance giant with $150 billion.
Because many banks kept junk assets with AIG which didn’t affect its balance sheets, the insurance giant was allowed to continue making risky loans. Meanwhile, the New York Fed, noted Bloomberg journalist David Reilly, acted as “a black-ops outfit for the nation’s central bank,” and as a “quasi-governmental institution [which] isn’t subject to citizen intrusions such as freedom of information requests.” The AIG bailout, wrote Reilly, revealed what could be described as a “secret banking cabal.” Through AIG, bailout funds went to American, French, German, British, Swiss, Dutch and even Canadian banks. Goldman Sachs received over $12 billion, and billions also went to Merrill Lynch, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wachovia, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan Chase.
JPMorgan Chase was using bailout money from the government to purchase other banks and companies. As one executive at the bankcommented in regards to a $25 billion bailout from the government, “I think there are going to be some great opportunities for us to grow in this environment.” The banks repaid the bailout loans from other bailout funds they got from government, siphoning off taxpayer moneyback and forth and rewarding them for their risky behavior. One university study noted that banks with political access – whether through lobbying efforts or board membership on the Fed – were more likely to get bailout funds, and in bigger numbers, than other banks. Notably among the most politically connected banks were Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley.
According to a 2012 study by the International Monetary Fund and Bloomberg magazine, JPMorgan Chase continues to receive government support far beyond the bailouts, as it is a major recipient of corporate welfare and state subsidies. In fact, according to the study, the biggest bank in the world gets roughly $14 billion per year in state subsidies and welfare, largely helping “the bank pay big salaries and bonuses.”
The Biggest and Most Connected Bank
Not only is JPMorgan Chase the biggest bank in the world with over $4 trillion in assets, but its power and influence extends far beyond financial matters. It is a major political force in the world, highly integrated within the network of global elites who make up the plutocratic ruling class. As the subject of study for the Global Power Project, I examined 55 people at JPMorgan Chase, including all members of the executive committee, the board of directors and the international advisory council.
Of the 55 individuals examined at the bank, a total of 13 (or roughly 24%) of the individuals were either members or held leadership positions (previously or presently) with the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). The CFR has been at the heart of the foreign-policy elite of the United States since it was created in 1921. Further, a total of eight JPMorgan officials held leadership positions in the World Economic Forum, the second most represented institutional affiliation of the bank. Holding yearly conferences that bring together thousands of participants from elite financial, corporate, political, cultural, media and other institutions, the WEF is one of the principal forums for the global elite, with JPMorgan operating right there at the center.
The next most represented institution is the Trilateral Commission, with 5 individuals at JPMorgan Chase holding membership in the international think tank – or “global policy group” – uniting elites from North America, Western Europe and Japan (and now also including China, India, and other Pacific-rim nations). The Trilateral Commission itself was founded in 1973 by the CEO of Chase Manhattan Bank – which later merged into JPMorgan Chase – David Rockefeller.
In descending order, the other most highly represented institutions having cross membership between leadership positions with JPMorgan Chase are: the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (4), the Business Council (4), Citigroup (4), Bilderberg (4), the Group of Thirty (4), Sara Lee Corporation (3), Harvard (3), American Express (3), American International Group (3), the Business Roundtable (3), Rolls Royce (3), the Center for Strategic and International Studies – CSIS (3), the European Round Table of Industrialists (3), the Peterson Institute for International Economics (2), the U.S.-China Business Council (2), and the National Petroleum Council (2).
Institutions which hold two individual cross leadership positions with JPMorgan Chase include: the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the University of Chicago, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., General Electric, Asia Business Council, the U.S. President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), the Coca-Cola Company, National Bank of Kuwait Advisory Board, INSEAD, China-United States Exchange Foundation, Mitsubishi, the Carlyle Group, and the IMF.
Meet the Elites at JPMorgan Chase
It’s worth taking a look at some specific individuals who serve in a leadership and/or advisory capacity to JPMorgan Chase to get an idea of the composition of some of these global plutocrats.
Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, sits on the boards of directors of: the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Harvard Business School, and Catalyst. He is a Trustee of the New York University School of Medicine, a member of the Executive Committee of the Business Council, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a member of the International Business Council of the World Economic Forum, a member of the Financial Services Forum, and a member of the International Advisory Panel of the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
Members of the board of JPMorgan Chase include James A. Bell, former President of Boeing and a current member of the board of Dow Chemical; Crandall C. Bowles, a director of Deere & Company and the Sara Lee Corporation, a former director of Wachovia, a Trustee of the Brookings Institution, on the Governing Board of the Wilderness Society, and a member of the Business Council and the Economic Club of New York. Other JPM board members include Stephen B. Burke, CEO of NBC Universal and Executive Vice President of Comcast Corporation; David M. Cote, the Chairman and CEO of Honeywell International who sits on President Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, on the advisory panel to Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR), and is a member of the Trilateral Commission; and Lee Raymond, director of the Business Council for International Understanding, who sits on the advisory panel to KKR, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and former Chairman of the National Petroleum Council as well as former Chairman and CEO of ExxonMobil, from which he retired in 2006 with a compensation package of $398 million.
JPMorgan Chase has an International Council which provides advice to the bank’s leadership on economic, political and social trends across various regions and around the world. The International Council is chaired by Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of the UK, who also sits as an adviser to Zurich Financial. The Council includes Khalid A. Al-Falih, the President and CEO of Saudi Aramco (Saudi Arabian Oil Company), the world’s largest oil company, who also sits on the International Business Council of the World Economic Forum. Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is also on JPMorgan’s International Council, and sits as Chairman of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), a partnership between the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. Annan is also on the boards of the United Nations Foundation, the World Economic Forum, and he is a member of the Global Board of Advisors of the Council on Foreign Relations.
The Council includes the third richest man in Mexico, Alberto Bailléres, as well as the Chairman and CEO of Telecom Italia, Franco Bernabé, who was the former CEO of Eni, one of the world’s largest oil companies (and Italy’s largest corporation), as well as the former Vice Chairman of Rothschild Europe. Bernabé sits on the board of PetroChina, China’s largest oil company. Bernabé is also a member of the European Round Table of Industrialists (a group of roughly 50 major European CEOs who directly advocate and work with EU political leaders in designing and implementing policy), he was a former Advisory Board member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a member of the board of FIAT, and is actively a member of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Meetings.
Martin Feldstein, a prominent Economics professor at Harvard and the President Emeritus of the National Bureau of Economic Research, is another member of the International Council. Feldstein was the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to President Ronald Reagan and sat on the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (an “independent” group that advises the president on intelligence matters) under President George W. Bush (from 2007-2009). President Obama appointed Feldstein to the Economic Recovery Advisory Board, and he also sits on the board of the Council on Foreign Relations, is a member of the Trilateral Commission, a participant in Bilderberg Meetings, and is a member of the International Advisory Board of the National Bank of Kuwait.
Gao Xi-Qing is the Vice Chairman, President and Chief Investment Officer of the China Investment Corporation (CIC), China’s sovereign investment fund. He was referred to by the Atlantic as “the man who oversees $200 billion of China’s $2 trillion in dollar holdings.” Another notable Chinese member of the International Council is Tung Chee Hwa, the former Chief Executive and President of the Executive Council of Hong Kong, a core policy-making institution in the government of Hong Kong. Tung Chee Hwa is also the Vice Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), a major political advisory group in the People’s Republic of China, once chaired by Mao Zedong. Tung Chee Hwa as well is the founder and Chairman of the China-United States Exchange Foundation, and a former member of the International Advisory Board of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Carla A. Hills is the only woman on the JPMorgan International Council, and is Chairman and CEO of Hills & Company International, a global consulting firm. She was the former United States Trade Representative in the George H.W. Bush administration, where she was the primary negotiator for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). She is also the Co-Chair of the Council on Foreign Relations, and sits on the International Boards of Rolls Royce and the Coca-Cola Company, as well as sitting on the board of directors of Gilead Sciences. Hills is a Counselor and Trustee of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a major American think tank where she also sits as Co-Chair of the Advisory Board (alongside Zbigniew Brzezinski, co-founder of the Trilateral Commission). In addition, Hills is a member of the Executive Committee of both the Trilateral Commission and the Peterson Institute for International Economics, as well as sitting on the boards of the International Crisis Group and the US-China Business Council, as Chair of the National Committee on US-China Relations, and Chair of the Inter-American Dialogue.
Henry Kissinger – former U.S. Secretary of State, National Security Adviser to President Richard Nixon, and Secretary of State to President Ford – also sits on the International Council of JPMorgan. Kissinger was a former adviser to Nelson Rockefeller, who recruited Kissinger as director of the Special Studies Project of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund in the 1950s. Kissinger was a director of the Council on Foreign Relations from 1977-1981, is a member of the Trilateral Commission, a former member of the Steering Committee and continuous participant in the Bilderberg Meetings, and is founder and chair of Kissinger Associates, an international consulting and advisory firm. Kissinger Chaired the National Bipartisan Commission on Central America during the Reagan administration, which provided justification for Reagan’s wars in Central America, and he was also a member of the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board from 1984-1990, advising both Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Alongside Zbigniew Brzezinski, Kissinger was a member of the Commission on Integrated Long-Term Strategy of the National Security Council and Defense Department, established in the late 1980s to develop a long-term strategy for the United States in the world. Kissinger has also been a member of the Defense Policy Board, providing “independent” advice to the Pentagon leadership on matters of foreign policy, from 2001 to the present, for both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations. Kissinger is also a Counselor and Trustee of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Honorary Governor of the Foreign Policy Association, an Honorary Member of the International Olympic Committee, an adviser to the board of directors of American Express, and is a Trustee Emeritus of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In addition, Kissinger is a director of the International Rescue Committee, the Atlantic Institute, and is on the advisory board of the RAND Center for Global Risk and Security, as well as Honorary Chairman of the China-United States Exchange Foundation.
Mustafa V. Koc is also a member of the International Council, and is Chairman of Koc Holding AS, Turkey’s largest multinational corporation. He also sits on the International Advisory Board of Rolls Royce, the Global Advisory Board of the Council on Foreign Relations, is a member of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Meetings, a former member of the International Advisory Board of the National Bank of Kuwait, and is Honorary Chairman of the Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen’s High Advisory Council.
Gérard Mestrallet is the Chairman and CEO of GDF Suez, one of the largest energy conglomerates in the world, and is on the board of Suez Environment (one of the major water privatization companies in the world), and also sits on the supervisory board of AXA, a major global French financial conglomerate. He is also an advisory board member of Siemens, and is a member of the European Round Table of Industrialists and the International Business Council of the World Economic Forum.
John S. Watson is the Chairman and CEO of Chevron Corporation. He is on the board of the American Petroleum Institute and is a member of the National Petroleum Council, the Business Roundtable, the Business Council, the American Society of Corporate Executives, and the Chancellor’s Board of Advisors of the University of California Davis. He is also a member of the International Business Council of the World Economic Forum.
The Chairman of JPMorgan Chase International, Jacob A. Frenkel, is Chairman and CEO of the Group of Thirty, and a member of the International Council. He is also a former Vice Chairman of American International Group (from 2004 to 2009, when it was rescued with the massive government bailout); the former Chairman of Merrill Lynch International (from 2000 to 2004), and the former Governor of the Bank of Israel (from 1991 to 2000). Frenkel was an Economic Counselor and Director of Research at the International Monetary Fund (from 1987 to 1991) and prior to that he was the David Rockefeller Professor of International Economics at the University of Chicago (from 1973 to 1987). In addition, Frenkel is the former Editor of the Journal of Political Economy, former Vice Chairman of the Board of Governors of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, former Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Inter-American Development Bank, and a former member of the International Advisory Board of the Council on Foreign Relations. Frenkel is currently a member of the board of directors of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a member of the Trilateral Commission, member of the International Advisory Council of the China Development Bank, member of the board of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, member of the Economic Advisory panel of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, member of the Council for the United States and Italy, member of the Investment Advisory Council of the Prime Minister of Turkey, and sits on the board of Loews Corporation.
To sum: it should be clear, from the evidence, that the leadership of JPMorgan Chase is not an isolated group of individuals involved in finance and exclusively relegated to the banking world, but a highly networked and influential group consisting of central figures in the global plutocracy – referred to as the “Transnational Capitalist Class” – with significant economic, social and political power. To refer to JPMorgan Chase simply as “a bank” is like referring to the United States as just “a country.” A geopolitical force unto itself, and a conglomerate embedded within a transnational network of elite institutions and individuals, JPMorgan Chase goes beyond the financial indicators. Put simply, it is one of the most powerful banks in the world.
Andrew Gavin Marshall is an independent researcher and writer based in Montreal, Canada. He is Project Manager of The People’s Book Project, head of the Geopolitics Division of the Hampton Institute, the research director of Occupy.com’s Global Power Project, and has a weekly podcast with BoilingFrogsPost.
July 5, 2013
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Economics, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | Credit default swap, Dimon, Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase, Lloyd Blankfein |
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Centuries of oppression have made black people particularly susceptible to the tempting siren song which comes with the image of black success. It is harmless to want a black person to win some coveted acclaim like a Pulitzer prize or even an Oscar, but quite another to be rendered stupid by the sight. Our history teaches us that we must be wary lest we be carried away by emotion that is without substance.
Barack Obama is the most obvious example of this phenomenon and its pernicious influence. A black man being elected as president of the United States was long hoped for but seemingly impossible. The realization of what had long been imagined and the often racist attacks against this dream create common cause with Obama and intense personal happiness on his behalf. Yet what seems inspirational is in fact anything but. The feelings of affection for Obama have been a negative force which impede rational thought and political common sense. The people who most epitomized the American search for true democracy have given it up completely because they love seeing a black man wearing a POTUS jacket and get angry when white people don’t like seeing it.
That history of struggle and the group identity it creates have not been limited to the American experience. The decades long fight against the racist apartheid system in South Africa was supported by millions of people in this country too. Jim Crow was America’s own apartheid. It is only logical that the sight of black people being treated cruelly in the name of white supremacy would elicit feelings of affinity in this country and around the world.
Nelson Mandela’s release from 27 years of imprisonment and his subsequent election as president created a surge of pride and joy among black people everywhere. Unfortunately we did not truly understand what we were witnessing. These events came about as a result of forces unacknowledged in America and they also came with a very high price.
The name of the Angolan town Cuito Cuanavale means little to all but a handful of Americans but it lies at the heart of the story of apartheid’s end. At Cuito Cuanavale in 1988 Cuban troops defeated the South African army and in so doing sealed apartheid’s fate.
It is important to know how apartheid ended, lest useless stories about a miraculously changed system and a peaceful grandfatherly figure confuse us and warp our consciousness. Mandela was freed because of armed struggle and not out of benevolence. He was also freed because the African National Congress miscalculated and made concessions which have since resulted in terrible poverty and powerlessness for black people in South Africa. By their own admission, some of his comrades concede that they were unprepared for the determination of the white majority to hold the purse strings even as they gave up political power.
Now the masses of black South Africans are as poor as they were during the time of political terror. The Sharpeville massacre of 1960 which galvanized the world against South Africa was repeated in 2012 when 34 striking miners were killed by police at Marikana. The Marikana massacre made a mockery of the hope which millions of people had for the ANC and its political success.
Obama’s recent visit to South Africa when the 94 year old Mandela was hospitalized created a golden opportunity for analysis and a questioning of long held assumptions about both men but the irrefutable fact is this. The personal triumphs of these two individuals have not translated into success for black people in either of their countries.
The victory of international finance capital wreaks havoc on both sides of the Atlantic ocean. In the U.S. black people have reached their political and economic low point during the Obama years. The gains won 50 years ago have been reversed while unemployment, mass incarceration, and Obama supported austerity measures have all conspired to undo the progress which was so dearly paid for.
Obama’s visit to Africa as Mandela lay critically ill brought very sincere but very deeply misled people to remember all of the wrong things. It isn’t true that black people benefit from the political success of certain individuals. It isn’t true that role models undo systemic cruelty or that racism ends because of their presence or that white people see or treat the masses of black people any differently when one black person reaches a high office.
The maudlin sentiment was all built on lies. Mandela fought the good fight for many years and is worthy of respect for that reason alone. But his passing should be a moment to reflect on his mistakes and on how they can be avoided by people struggling to break free from injustice. Obama’s career is a story of ambition and high cynicism which met opportunity. There is little to learn from his story except how to spot the next evil doer following in his footsteps.
It is high time that myths were called what they are. They are stories which may help explain our feelings but they are stories nonetheless and they do us no good.
Margaret Kimberley’s Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR. She can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.
July 4, 2013
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | Africa, African National Congress, Mandela, Nelson Mandela, Obama, South Africa, United States |
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From its inception the uprising against President Morsi was aided by the US, researcher and writer Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich told RT. She argues that whoever succeeds the ousted Egyptian leader will likely be beholden to the forces that put him in power.
RT: What do you think the future holds for Mohamed Morsi now?
Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich: I don’t think Mohamed Morsi has any place to go to really. There might be a lot of jubilation that the military has removed him from office. President Morsi did make himself very unpopular not only inside Egypt but with his neighbors, the surrounding countries. But that being said, the implications are huge as he was democratically elected. And for the army to step in and remove him from office is a military coup and it is very hard for me to believe that the military would have taken this step without the blessing of the United States.
I know that the Americans said, President Obama said, that they would review aid to Egypt. But [US Secretary of Defense] Chuck Hagel had been on the phone with Egypt for two or three days. Egypt basically owes its military, owes its existence to the United States of America. This is not a step they would take without their blessings.
Mohamed Morsi may be out now, but his followers will not be and we’ll only see an escalation of clashes, which is very unfortunate for the Egyptian people.
‘People rallying against poverty – and Morsi’
RT: You talk about the support the Egyptian military got from the US. But live video from Tahrir Square suggests that there are people out there, a significant if not a majority of the Egyptian population who also want Morsi out of power.
SSU: I’m not arguing with that, I’m talking about a military that gets its support from the United States. You have to understand that a lot of people that are on Tahrir Square right now, many of them are not supporters of Morsi. The military actually put tanks against Morsi’s supporters and was very quick to arrest them.
There are people on the streets. A lot of them may be opposed to Morsi because of the laws that he wanted to establish, but a lot of it is also the economy. The [Egyptian] economy is very poor, these are very poor people. A lot of them are out there maybe protesting the fact that President Morsi was not able to improve the economic conditions better over the last year he had in office.
‘Egyptian army defends US-Israeli interests’
Again, for the military to have stepped in and removed him from power, and especially for General [Chief of the Egyptian Armed Forces, Abdul Fatah Khalil] Al-Sisi, who was instrumental in blocking and enabling the Israelis to kill the Gazans, for them rejoicing over that is just mindboggling. The [Egyptian] military is an instrument of the United States of America, and the billions [of dollars] in support it has gotten for years now goes towards maintaining peace with Israel, not to serve Egyptian people.
Very soon the Egyptian people will wake up and realize that they are perhaps cheering the wrong faction.
American protégé ElBaradei most likely to replace Morsi
RT: The military, having pushed Morsi out of power now, do you think they have a plan who will lead the country next?
SSU: Again, America has invested a lot of time and money into this. Ever since 2007, America knew that former President Mubarak was dying of cancer. There was even a New York Times article in 2007 talking about who would be his replacement. Since 2008, they would have young Egyptians coming to America, go to the State Department, meet at the time Condoleezza Rice and others, and learn how to use modern technology to start an uprising in Egypt.
So this uprising from the very start was aided by the United States and one of the favorite horses in the race has been and continues to be [Nobel Peace Prize winner and opposition leader] Mohammed ElBaradei. He is the one who actually met with the military to remove Morsi.
Interestingly enough, ElBaradei is a member of the International Crisis Group, which is funded by George Soros and also the Carnegie Endowment and Ford Foundation, which during the Cold War was a conduit for CIA money. Although some have said that Mohamed ElBaradei [when he served as Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)] never pushed hard enough to say that Iran was developing a nuclear program and Israel might have had issues with that, he is in fact a favorite [to succeed Morsi] and he is coming up very prominently right now.
‘Next Egyptian president risks becoming a puppet’
RT: Do you think this is bad for the country right now? Mohammed ElBaradei is internationally respected figure, widely regarded as moderate and pro-democratic force for Egypt.
SSU: ElBaradei absolutely is. But it is bad for any country when somebody is helped from the outside – from forces without – to bring this person to power.
Then that person will automatically turn into a puppet. Their concern will not be for ‘what is good for the country’, their concern is their ambition, and that is always dangerous, whether they are moderate or fundamentalist – it does not matter. It should be an Egyptian decision.
RT: If he is elected into office – do you think that there will be a legitimate popular support for him?
SSU: I think that the people will have to decide. But ultimately, should he be elected into office, which is very likely, one has to remember where he comes from and how he got to become so prominent and whose support he has.
A lot of times it happens in every country and we’re not aware of the forces behind a figurehead or a given politician. And once that plays out, you might realize that it is a bit too late to change the course. But let’s hope for the best.
‘Chaos will prevail’
I don’t think that the followers of President Morsi will sit back and take this very quietly.
My hope and my wish for Egypt is to see a very peaceful process from here on. But I doubt that will be the case. I think chaos will prevail.
RT: Why do you say chaos will prevail?
SSU: The Muslim Brotherhood followers, the people that put Morsi into power, they feel disenfranchised. In fact, all though one does not want to see this conflict at all, they are the ones who have more right to backing the democratically elected president than anyone else.
If they feel they don’t really count anymore, that their votes and voices don’t count, they are going to show reaction, I think it is normal.
July 4, 2013
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Corruption, Economics | Egypt, Egyptian Armed Forces, Hosni Mubarak, Mohamed ElBaradei, Mohamed Morsi, Morsi, United States |
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Ecuador renounced trade benefits which the US threatened to revoke over the Latin American country’s consideration of harboring NSA leaker Edward Snowden. It offered $23 million a year to fund human rights education for Americans instead.
The government of leftist President Rafael Correa came up with an angry response on Thursday after an influential US senator said he would use his leverage over trade issues to cut preferential treatment of Ecuadoran goods at the US market, should Ecuador grant political asylum to Snowden.
“Ecuador will not accept pressures or threats from anyone, and it does not traffic in its values or allow them to be subjugated to mercantile interests,” government spokesman Fernando Alvarado said at a news conference.
He added that Ecuador is willing to allocate $23 million annually, an equivalent of the sum that it gained from the benefits, to fund human rights training in the US. It will “avoid violations of privacy, torture and other actions that are denigrating to humanity,” Alvarado said.
US Senator Robert Menendez, who heads the Foreign Relations Committee in the Senate, said this week that Ecuador risks losing the benefits it enjoys under two trade programs because of its stance on the NSA whistleblower.
“Our government will not reward countries for bad behavior,” he said.
The US is Ecuador’s prime trade partner, with over 40 percent of exports going to the US market.
Both programs were due to expire by the end of next month and were subject to congressional review. Before the Snowden debacle arose, the US legislature was expected to scrap one of them while renewing another one.
Snowden has applied for political asylum, hoping to find protection from American prosecutors, who charged him with espionage over his leaking of classified documents on US surveillance programs.
He is currently thought to be staying in the transit zone of a Moscow airport. He became stranded in the Russian capital after arriving from Hong Kong, because the US annulled his travel passport as part of its effort to get him to American soil for trial.
June 28, 2013
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Economics, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism | Bob Menendez, Ecuador, Human rights, Internet, Latin America, Mass media, National Security Agency, Politics, Rafael Correa, South America, United States, United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, USA |
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Brazil’s legislative body has thrown out a proposed constitutional amendment, which was a key grievance of protesters across the country. The government is also planning to introduce a range of political reforms to appease demonstrators.
In what in being seen as a victory for people power, the measure was defeated on Tuesday by Congress by 430 votes to nine; with the Rio Times saying the protests were “largely fueled by social media and citizen journalists.”
The amendment, known as PEC 37, would have limited the power of state prosecutors to investigate crimes.
The protesters had argued that PEC 37 might have opened the way to more corruption; a problem which is endemic in Brazil.
Brazil ranks 69 out of 174 countries on the 2012 Transparency International index, a score that indicates significant problems with corruption.
The defeat of PEC 37 will keep public prosecutors at the forefront of the fight against corruption. If the amendment had become law, it would have granted power to carry out criminal investigations exclusively to the police.
Critics to the bill argued that it would have prevented prosecutors from conducting fair, impartial and effective criminal investigations, particularly into organized crime and corruption, in which the police themselves have been embroiled. In December last year 63 police officers were arrested after a yearlong bribery investigation.
The police in Brazil are amongst the most corrupt in the world and have been mired in recent years in a number of corruption scandals.
Congress also voted Tuesday to funnel all revenue and royalties from newly-discovered oil fields off the Brazilian coast into education and health.
The new fields are among the largest finds in recent years and, once fully operational, are expected to produce tens of billions of barrels of oil; although they are located deep on the ocean floor and extracting the oil will require expensive new technology and carries huge risks.
Protestors also voiced their anger at other issues, which they say the government is mishandling, including soaring levels of corruption, poor public services and the huge cost of staging the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Summer Olympics, both to be held in Brazil.
The government, though, has promised a range of initiatives, which they say will combat corruption and improve public services.
A referendum proposing political reform is meant to address campaign financing and political representation, and the government says a vote may take place as soon as September 7.
A controversial plan to bring in foreign doctors to reverse a shortfall in the country is being pushed through despite the objections of Brazilian medical practitioners and an increase in public transport fares in many cities has also been scrapped. The President of the Senate, Renan Calheiros, has even proposed free transport for students.
Yet it is still unclear whether or not these hasty political concessions are having an impact. Protests are due to continue in the city of Belo Horizonte Wednesday, with tens of thousands of people expected to take part.
In a security nightmare for police, the demonstration will take place at the same time as the semifinal of the Confederation Cup between Brazil and Uruguay. One protest group has said it plans to protest outside the national team’s hotel.
Last Saturday there were violent clashes in Belo Horizonte during another protest and President Rousseff has warned against a repeat of violence.
June 27, 2013
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Solidarity and Activism | 2014 FIFA World Cup, 2016 Summer Olympics, Belo Horizonte, Brazil, Corruption, Dilma Rousseff, Human rights, Latin America, Police, Politics, Protest, South America |
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A wave of outraged comments have swept the German media after it was revealed Monday that British secret Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) wiretapped the dataflow of Germany’s major transatlantic cable.
The northern German public broadcaster NDR and Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper reported late on Monday that Germany’s external intelligence service BND (Bundesnachrichtendienst) has been in the dark about GCHQ wiretapping Transatlantic Telephone Cable No. 14 (TAT-14) connecting Germany with the US via UK, in the framework of its Tempora data collection project.
The TAT-14 fiber optic cables entered service in 2001. It is operated by private consortium German Telekom and used by around 50 international communication companies for phone calls, internet connection, data transfer etc.
Countries like Denmark, France, the Netherlands, and the UK itself also use this cable for internet connection to North America.
The capacity of the 15,000km TAT-14 is enormous; it transfers hundreds of gigabytes of data per second in both directions. The report claimed British GCHQ has already had access to 21,600 terabytes of private and business German data transferred through the cable.
‘We haven’t asked NSA and GCHQ to protect us’
The initial reaction from official Berlin concerning Edward Snowden’s revelations about British intelligence straddling Germany’s major fiber optics cables without Berlin’s knowledge was rather moderate.
Senior German Interior Ministry official Ulrich Weinbrenner admitted to the Bundestag committee that it was known “in general form” that foreign tapping programs – like American PRISM and British Tempora – existed.
Having met American President Barack Obama last week, German Chancellor Angela Merkel cautiously commented that collecting information needs ‘proportionality’ and that “the free democratic order is based on people feeling safe.”
However, German government spokesman Steffen Seibert announced that Berlin wanted explanations from NATO allies “on what legal basis and to which extent” surveillance had been conducted.
The head of the Free Democratic Party parliamentary group, Rainer Brüderle, demanded an investigation.
“A comprehensive monitoring of citizens in the network cannot and will not be accepted ,” he told Passau Neue Presse.
“We need to step back here and say clearly: mass surveillance is not what we want,” said Jan Philipp Albrecht, a German Green member in charge of a planned overhaul of the European Union’s data protection laws.
“We urge the Federal Government and the EU Commission to initiate an infringement proceedings against the UK government,” which would have to deal with the matter, Albrecht said to Berliner Zeitung.
“The Federal Government and the Commission must take the issue of protecting fundamental rights seriously,” the rapporteur added in the Judiciary Committee.
Albrecht’ thoughts were echoed by CSU MEP Manfred Weber who told Berliner Zeitung that “If European law has been broken, such as in relation to the retention, the Commission must act.”
The harshest comment came from German Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, who dubbed the total eavesdropping from a NATO ally a “Hollywood nightmare.”
Federal Commissioner for Data Protection Peter Schaar called on the federal government to proceed on an international level against data espionage from abroad.
“The federal government must insist that our emails will not be penetrated by foreign intelligence services,” he demanded according to Bild newspaper.
The methods used by the American NSA and British GCHQ agencies are “secret, but lawful” and “subject to proper UK statutory controls and safeguards,” stated UK Foreign Secretary William Hague.
But such statements have produced little effect on the public or within expert communities.
“How much and which data of German citizens and companies had been secretly accessed by the Anglo-American intelligence services NSA and GCHQ, for example by tapping glass fiber cables?” questioned Greens party parliamentarian Hans-Christian Ströbele, as quoted by Deutsche Welle (DW).
‘Not our laws’
“The shoulder-shrugging explanation by Washington and London that they have operated within the law is absurd. They are not our laws. We didn’t make them. We shouldn’t be subject to them,” Spiegel online columnist Jakob Augstein. “We have not asked the NSA and GCHQ to ‘protect’ us,” he said.
Gisela Pilz, a data protection expert with the parliamentary group of the liberal FDP, the junior partner in the governing coalition, agrees.
“We observe with a great deal of concern and dismay the amount of data that has been collected and stored,” she told DW.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition government was caught in the crossfire of criticism for not ensuring national digital security.
It is the responsibility of the German government to see that foreign agencies no longer process the data of German citizens and companies, Augstein stressed, because “a government that cannot make that assurance is failing in one of its fundamental obligations: to protect its own citizens from the grasp of foreign powers,” he concluded. “Germans should closely observe how Angela Merkel now behaves.”
The head of the Bundestag’s intelligence supervisory committee, opposition Social Democrats deputy Thomas Oppermann, called to speed up the elaboration of data privacy legislation currently being drafted in the EU.
June 26, 2013
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception, Economics | Angela Merkel, European Union, Germany, Government Communications Headquarters, Information Technology, Intelligence, Internet, Merkel, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, Scandal, Security, UK, United States |
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Hundreds crammed into a room for over six hours, passing around the microphone so that everyone could weigh in. The protestors, mostly students, called the meeting in order to better articulate their message after Rio de Janeiro’s Mayor, Eduardo Paes, had requested to meet with one of the university groups. They emerged that Thursday night with five demands—”five points”—they felt would bring cohesion to the slogans splashed across the signs being waved in the street.
This meeting, or plenaria, took place on Tuesday, June 18, the day after the protests first surged and two days before over a million people took to the streets in over 100 cities across Brazil. While there is no uniformity to all the protests from city to city, and—as Kate Steiker-Ginzberg, a 23-year-old from Philadelphia who attended the plenaria insisted—there exists diversity among protestors within each city, the five points coming out of the plenaria address issues cutting across the various protests.
The first point addresses the 20-cent increase in transportation fare, what has been seen as the catalyst for the protests. While this may not sound like a significant fare hike, as Steiker-Ginzberg explains, it represents a “political miscalculation” on the part of the administration. The fare increase was implemented the same day as the Confederation Cup opened in Brazil. Since 2005, this international soccer tournament had served as a rehearsal for the World Cup, which will be held in Brazil next year. Many were frustrated that the price hike would go toward the extravagant sporting facilities instead of improving the dismal public transportation that is often slow, overcrowded, and dangerous—despite the relatively steep price Brazilians pay for their public transportation.
The fare hike was one among many contributing factors to these protests, and together with the other points addressed by the plenaria, reflects grievances that have been brewing across Brazil for quite some time. The second point concentrates specifically on the excessive spending on mega-events instead of on investment in health and education. Along with the World Cup, Brazil is slated to host the 2016 Olympics.
This taps into the broader question of who benefits from these mega-events. While the country is pouring massive amounts of public funds into the construction and improvement of stadiums, some people complain of the poor state of public infrastructure, hospital overcrowding, and low educational performance in Brazil. As soccer-player-turned-congressman Romário de Souza Faria criticizes, the money for the World Cup could have been used for “8,000 new schools, 39,000 school buses or 28,000 sports courts in the whole country.”
Cost benefit analysis of mega–events shows that these exorbitant affairs rarely deliver many of the economic outcomes promised. While it is estimated that Brazil will spend over $12.5 billion in preparation for the World Cup, it looks as though private interests are the ones poised to benefit most from these events. FIFA reported a profit of $202 million from the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. As their financial statement boasts, “The 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa™ was a huge success, a fact that was reflected by its financial result.” Most of these profits are a result of selling broadcasting rights and sponsorships, with a smaller percentage coming from ticket prices. Similarly, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) garnered $250 million from the last Olympic games, the majority of those profits coming from television licensing.
Furthermore, Brazil has spent over $473 million in public funds on improvements to the Maracanã, Rio de Janeiro’s iconic soccer stadium, which will host the World Cup Final as well as stage the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympic games. This investment was on top of the almost $300 million that had been spent on renovations to the stadium during the last 15 years. Earlier this year, after months of negotiations, Maracanã was privatized with the granting of a 35-year contract to a consortium of investors for a comparatively low price tag of $85 million. After public outcry over the deal, a judge reversed the ruling, citing irregularities and claiming that one of the companies involved in the deal had an unfair advantage in the process. Finally, on May 13, the judgment was reversed again, allowing the privatization to continue. Beyond the importance as the site for the most high-profile moments in the upcoming mega-events, the stadium has long been a cultural symbol for Brazil. According to Steiker-Ginzberg, “this major symbol of democracy and public space and class intermingling in the city is now being destroyed and privatized.”
The megalopolises of Rio and São Paulo are not the only places the public’s money is being spent. Throughout Brazil, $13.9 million will be put toward preparing for the World Cup and the Olympics. In many of these places, such as the northeastern city of Manaus, the excessive and over-budget spending does not seem justified. This is especially true considering that after the games are over, Manaus’s $246 million Amazonia Arena is predicted to be underutilized in the city of 2.3 million people. This could be true of other stadiums around Brazil as well—Brasília, Cuiabá, and Natal simply don’t have clubs with a following that would justify the investment over the long term.
The third concern of the plenaria focused on the criminalization of protests and the militarized response of the police to demonstrations. Social media has been rife with images of the riot police with Choque emblazoned on their shields, indicating they are “shock troops,” shooting rubber bullets, using pepper spray, and hurling seemingly endless canisters of tear gas at protestors. These crowd-control tactics have been so aggressive that some have termed this the Vinegar Revolution, in reference to the palliative effects the common kitchen staple has against tear gas. As Brazil and Security Policy expert Joseph Bateman explained in an interview with the Washington Office on Latin America, while other sectors throughout the government have opened up to civil participation since the end of the military dictatorship in 1985, the security sector has only just begun to do so, and “a lot of police still see their role as protecting the state, not protecting citizens.” This has been especially salient in São Paulo, where protests intensified in response to images of police brutality, particularly against journalists, that circulated on social media. Shock police shot a journalist, Juliana Vallone, at point-blank range in the face.
This violence against protestors is tied into the fourth point, which aims to democratize the media. There has been criticism that the major media networks, primarily O Globo, have been concentrating on the vandalism and violence of the protestors while largely ignoring the police brutality against the protestors. The fixation on the violent aspects of the protests is also at the expense of the reporting of the largely peaceful expression coming from the majority of protestors. As a university professor remarked after recently arriving for a visit to her native Rio de Janeiro, “it’s sad that some television stations only show the destruction and fail to show the people that want a better Brazil.”
The fifth point concerns the forced evictions and community removals resulting from the major urban transformation taking place in Brazil. In 2012 in São Paulo, 2,000 riot police were called in to suppress the uprising of more than 6,000 residents who refused eviction in the community of Pinheirinho. Many of these evictions throughout Brazil are being done in preparation for the World Cup and Olympics. Rio’s oldest favela, Providência, has lost its central square—the community’s only public space—to Olympic construction. Almost 5,000 residents are slated for eviction in this community alone. Altogether 170,000people throughout Brazil are facing removal or have already been evicted. The Popular Committee for the World Cup and the Olympics, a human rights group based in Rio, estimates that over 10,000 families will be affected in Rio de Janeiro alone because of these mega-events.
These forced evictions have been taking place amidst a major real estate boom throughout Brazil.
Future Trump Towers (Photo from donnabowater.com)
According to Forbes, Brazil is the country with the most rapidly increasing home prices in the world. In Rio, the rise in home prices has been four times greater than the rise in wages over the last five years. Donald Trump is investing in five skyscrapers in the city that, according to the developer’s website, will be the “largest urban office development in the BRIC [Brazil, Russia, India, and China] countries.”
Critics contend that many of these evictions are driven by economic incentives. The city of Rio de Janeiro has used a host of reasons to justify the demolition of the community of Vila Autódromo—from environmental and safety concerns to its use as a security or media zone for the Olympics. It is reported that the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo Paes, entered into a partnership with private companies that will open up 75% of this site for private development after the Olympics. His reputation for these kinds of deals recently made headlines after a physical altercation with a constituent who accused him of catering to the interests of developers.
While the government does provide several forms of compensation to communities facing removal, the resettlement programs have systematically moved poor residents away from the high-value land and into peripheral areas of the city with little access to transportation or employment opportunities. Furthermore, O Estadão reported that the City of Rio de Janeiro paid $8.9 million for resettlement land to two companies—both contributors to Mayor Paes’s election campaign. After this was revealed, Paes revoked the deal.
On Saturday, June 15, communities affected by these evictions came together on the same day as the Confederation Cup opened, not far from Maracanã stadium for their own soccer tournament. The People’s Cup Against Removals was organized to “give a voice, to give time, to give space for those being excluded and for those being removed.” The stark contrast between the newly renovated stadium hosting the precursor to the World Cup and the small and humble field occupied by the People’s Cup players reflected the disparities at the heart of many of these protests. “I think that’s something that people woke up to,” remarked Steiker-Ginzberg, “the disparity between the investment in these stadiums and then people overflowing out of the public hospitals and ambulances not arriving on time . . . You can’t just reverse a 20 cent hike and expect everyone to get off the streets.”
June 25, 2013
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Economics, Solidarity and Activism, Supremacism, Social Darwinism | 2016 Summer Olympics, Brazil, Eduardo Paes, International Olympic Committee, Latin America, Rio de Janeiro, World Cup |
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Washington’s options in Syria are dwindling – and dwindling fast.
Trumped up chemical weapons charges against the Syrian government this month failed to produce evidence to convince a skeptical global community of any direct linkage. And the US’s follow-up pledge to arm rebels served only to immediately underline the difficulty of such a task, given the fungibility of weapons-flow among increasingly extremist militias.
Yes, for a brief few days, Syrian oppositionists congratulated themselves on this long-awaited American entry into Syria’s bloodied waters. They spoke about “game-changing” weapons that would reverse Syrian army gains and the establishment of a no-fly zone on Syria’s Jordanian border – a la Libya. Eight thousand troops from 19 countries flashed their military hardware in a joint exercise on that border, dangling F-16s and Patriot missiles and “superb cooperation” in a made-for-TV show of force.
But it took only days to realize that Washington’s announcement didn’t really have any legs.
Forget the arguments now slowly dribbling out about why the US won’t/can’t get involved directly. Yes, they all have merit – from the difficulties in selecting militia recipients for their weapons, to the illegalities involved in establishing a no-fly zone, to the fact that more than 70% of Americans don’t support an intervention.
The single most critical reason for why Washington will not risk entering the Syrian military theater – almost entirely ignored by DC policy wonks – may be this: the 2014 US military withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“Help, we can’t get out”
There are around 750,000 major pieces of American military hardware costing approximately $36 billion sitting in Afghanistan right now. The cost of transporting this equipment out of the country is somewhere close to the $7 billion mark. It would be easier to destroy this stuff than removing it, but given tightening US budgets and lousy economic prospects, this hardware is unlikely to be replaced if lost.
Getting all this equipment into Afghanistan over the past decade was a lot easier than getting it out will be. For starters, much of it came via Pakistani corridors – before Americans began droning the hell out of that country and creating dangerous pockets of insurgents now blocking exit routes.
An alternative supply route through Afghan border states Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan called the Northern Distribution Network was set up in 2009, but is costlier and longer than going via Pakistan. And human rights disputes, onerous conditions on transport and unpredictable domestic sentiment toward the Americans places far too much leverage over these routes in the hands of regional hegemon Russia.
Unlike Iraq, where the US could count on its control over the main ports and Arab allies along the Persian Gulf border, Afghanistan is landlocked, mountainous and surrounded by countries and entities now either hostile to US interests or open to striking deals with American foes.
In short, a smooth US exit from Afghanistan may be entirely dependent on one thing: the assistance of Russia, Iran, and to a lesser degree, China.
All three countries are up against the US and its allies in Syria, refusing, for the better part of 18 months, to allow regime-change or a further escalation of hostilities against the state.
In the past few months, the Russian and Iranian positions have gained strength as the Syrian army – with assistance from its allies – pushed back rebel militias in key towns and provinces throughout the country.
Western allies quickly rushed to change the unfavorable equilibrium on the ground in advance of political talks in Geneva, unashamedly choosing to further weaponize the deadly conflict in order to gain “leverage” at the negotiating table.
But none of that has materialized. As evidence, look to the recent G8 Summit where western leaders sought to undermine Russian President Vladimir Putin, calling him “isolated” and referring to the Summit as “G7+1.”
In the meeting’s final communiqué, Putin won handily on every single Syria point. Not only was it clear that the international community’s only next “play” was the negotiations in Geneva, but there was no mention of excluding President Bashar al-Assad from a future Syrian transitional government, once a key demand of opponents. Furthermore, the declaration made it clear that there was no evidence linking chemical weapons use to the Syrian government – had there been any “evidence” whatsoever, it would have made it to paper – and Syrian security forces were empowered, even encouraged, to weed out extremist militias by all the G8 nations.
This was not an insignificant victory for the Russians – it was the first public revelation that Washington, London and Paris have conceded their advantage in Syria. And it begs the question: what cards do the Russians hold in their hand to bring about this kind of stunning reversal, just a week after Washington came out guns blazing?
America – choose your Afghan exit
The US military establishment has, for the most part, stayed out of the fray in Syria, where special ops have been ceded to the CIA and external contractors.
But as the gargantuan task of extricating the US from its decade-long occupation of Afghanistan nears, President Barack Obama has scrambled to accommodate the Pentagon’s top priority. Having assiduously avoided a negotiated political or diplomatic solution with the Taliban for years, he hopes to now pull a face-saving, 11th hour deal out of his hat with foes who will sell him down the river at a moment’s notice.
“The Americans are deeply worried that if the war continues the Kabul government and army might collapse while American bases, advisers, and special forces remain in the country, thereby putting the U.S. in an extremely difficult position,” says Anatol Lieven, a professor and Afghanistan expert at King’s College London, about the already-stalled US-Taliban talks in Doha last week. “They would obviously like to bring about a ceasefire with the Taliban.”
Even if Americans could get to the table, there are myriad issues that could conclusively disrupt negotiations at any time – in a process that “could take years,” as various US officials concede.
For starters, the involved parties – Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s government (which consists of competing ethnic and tribal leaders) and the “new Taliban” – now have multiple interests with regional players like Iran, Pakistan, Russia, China, and the neighboring “Stans” which puts a serious strain on any straightforward negotiation goals.
As an example, the very same Taliban delegation now sitting with the Americans in Doha, were traipsing through Tehran late last month – ostensibly with the knowledge of all parties. And this was certainly not the first visit between the two.
While the US arrogantly kept its Afghan foes at arm’s length for years, the Iranians were busy employing soft power in their neighborhood – a task facilitated by a decade of US regional policy mismanagement that has aggravated its own allies in and around Afghanistan.
This isn’t just a matter of Pakistan and Iran inaugurating a once-inconceivable gas pipeline, as they did earlier this year. Iran is now participating in infrastructure and social service projects in the heart of Kabul, has forged working relationships with Pakistani intelligence on a variety of mutual security issues, and has built deep networks within Afghanistan’s political and tribal elite – even with the Taliban, courtesy of mentors in Islamabad.
A US security expert and frequent advisor to US military forces inside Afghanistan and Iraq gives me the bottom line:
“Iran has basically exploited our vulnerabilities and filled those gaps well.
The US’s very presence in Afghanistan has helped Iran gain tremendous influence in both Afghanistan and Pakistan because of widespread disdain for US military activities and intervention, period. This is where Iranian diplomacy has excelled. Iran and Pakistan have ramped up their relationship both in military terms and with local insurgents during the past seven years. Iran has moved in and built mosques, schools in the middle of Kabul, for God’s sakes.”
The Iranians may be able to upset hopes of a smooth US military withdrawal from Afghanistan, but, this source warns, the Russians can potentially play “spoiler” in a big way as well:
“In Kyrgyzstan we have a base there to airlift a lot of supplies – mostly food, small scale things, not heavy equipment – for US soldiers and troops inside Afghanistan. Russia has so much influence there that at one point they threatened to give the Kyrgyz more money for the base that we were renting to kick us out and shut down that essential supply route. We were forced to heavily increase our rent payments to stay there.”
A few days ago, the Kyrgyz parliament voted overwhelmingly to shut down this very Manas base by July 2014, a full six months before the US withdrawal from Afghanistan is set to complete. Was it a coincidence that the vote came up around the time of the G8 huddle in Ireland, dominated almost entirely by news about a stand-off on Syria?
The US military source also explains how easily the Russians can sweeten the pot for the Pentagon:
“We have, concurrently, gained some support to withdraw from Afghanistan thru neighboring Tajikistan with the help of the Russians – and in return we are going to have to help build some infrastructure, like roads, under the auspices of US aid. These negotiations within and between the US and Tajik governments are ongoing. On this, the Russians have given their word that if we can find a way to exit through any of these countries, they will not interfere. Of course, the politics are fluid and anything can change at anytime.”
In April, NATO reached out to Moscow for help and advice on their military withdrawal from Afghanistan. NATO is keen to ensure the cleanest exit possible, but is also concerned about volatility in the aftermath of its departure – and desperately wants to avoid the perception of “mission defeat.”
What about the Chinese?
“China’s interests are a bit different. Less focused on our military withdrawal, more inclined to undermine our long-term influences and goals,” explains my source. “The Chinese are hell-bent on influencing countries for resource extraction and allocation, given their huge domestic demand. They are very competitive with the US and are going after the same resource pool. They undermine US influence because they play the game differently – they will bribe where we have strict rules on bidding, etc., and therefore enjoy more flexibility going after these same resources.”
In other words, like just about everybody else in that neighborhood, China will edge out any US gains made over the past decade – in both the political and economic sense.
In terms of near-term domestic and international political perception, however, that loss will pale in comparison to a failure by the Pentagon to secure the safe exit of its assets from Afghanistan.
“In the final analysis,” says the US military source with great irony, “if we want to get out of Afghanistan quickly and with minimum sacrifice to troops and hardware, it would save us a great deal of trouble if we could exit with the help of – and through – Iran.”
Enter James Dobbins, who was named Obama’s special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan in May. The veteran US diplomat, who I had the opportunity to interview in Washington three years ago, is an interesting choice for this position precisely because he has been so vocal in advocating for US-Iranian negotiations when few others dared.
Dobbins, notably, engaged actively with Iran in the aftermath of the US invasion of Afghanistan, based on a mutual interest of replacing the extremist Taliban with a more moderate, inclusive government. But further dealings came to an abrupt halt just weeks later, when then-US President George W. Bush delivered his infamous “Axis of Evil” speech, including Iran in this trio of top American foes.
It is doubtful that Dobbins or the Doha talks can work any miracles though. The kind of exit the US needs from Afghanistan must rely on a constellation of determined players and events that would be quite remarkable if amassed.
While it is obvious to all that the combined weight of Russia, Iran and China could tip that balance in favor of an expeditious American exit, what would motivate any of these three – who have all recently been at the receiving end of vicious US political and economic machinations – to help?
A grand bargain over Syria would surely be a sweetener: you and your allies exit Syria, we’ll help you exit Afghanistan.
The problem with Washington though, is that it never fails to botch up an opportunity – always striving for that one last impossible power-play which it thinks will help it gain dominance over a situation, a country, an enemy.
There remains the concern that the US’s oft-repeated Al Qaeda mantra – “disrupt, dismantle, defeat” – will prove to be its one-stop solution for every problem.
And that is the exception to my premise about a Syrian exit. That US spoilers who cannot accept even the perception of vulnerability – let alone an outright defeat – may instead choose to catapult the entire Mideast into a region-wide war for the sake of avoiding a painful compromise.
Sharmine Narwani is a commentary writer and political analyst covering the Middle East. You can follow Sharmine on twitter @snarwani.
June 25, 2013
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Militarism, War Crimes | Afghanistan, Iran, Obama, Pakistan, Russia, Syria, Taliban, United States, Vladimir Putin |
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Steve Sailer has an article on the tie-in between Israeli high tech firms and the NSA spying on American citizens (“Does Israel Have a Backdoor to US Intelligence?“). It’s always seemed very suspicious that Amdocs, an Israeli firm, was responsible for billing for US phone companies, and that two Israeli firms, Narus and Verint, are involved in wiretapping AT&T and Verizon for the NSA. It’s also not surprising that, as noted by James Bamford in his April 2012 article for Wired, someone with close connections to Israel secretly gave software designed by NSA to Israel: “the advanced analytical and data mining software the NSA had developed for both its worldwide and international eavesdropping operations was secretly passed to Israel by a mid-level employee, apparently with close connections to the country.” Bamford’s source describes him as “a very strong supporter of Israel.”
This is likely yet another example of a long list of American Jews who are credibly believed to have spied for Israel, including pretty much the entire roster of prominent neocons (Perle, Wolfowitz, Stephen Bryen, Douglas Feith, and Michael Ledeen; see here, p. 47ff)—none of whom, with the exception of Jonathan Pollard, have been convicted, and many of whom, like the person mentioned here, have never been indicted. And given this long list, it is certainly reasonable to think that Israel is using its connections with the NSA to mine US data for its own purposes. In fact, it would be silly to think otherwise.
The NYTimes, The Washington Post, and the LATimes have completely ignored the Israeli connection, and you certainly won’t hear about it on FOX news. So, as often happens, one must read Israeli papers. Haaretz (but not neocon The Jerusalem Post) has several articles on the Israeli connection. On the PRISM program that collects data from companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft and AOL:
The data, gathered by the U.S. National Security Agency’s PRISM surveillance program, came from email accounts, Internet chats, browsing and search histories. The aim was to amass a database through which the NSA could learn whether terror suspects had been in contact with people in the United States.
In contrast to similar cases revealed in the past, the program involved thorough and continuous collection of data, even when no particular person or communications had aroused the authorities’ suspicions. …
Behind the scenes are a host of Israeli companies that have almost certainly taken part in the program as suppliers of technology. They may yet find themselves in the maelstrom, warns Nimrod Kozlovski, head of Tel Aviv University’s program for cyber studies.
“The exposure of PRISM underscores the feeling that communications networks and Internet companies have become the main tool for governments to gather information,” he says. “It is critical for the United States at all times to put a wall of separation between the government and commercial enterprises in order to quiet concerns that it has secret relationships with these companies.”
The concern is not just that the local government is spying on its citizens but that the manufacturers themselves have the ability to spy from afar.
Telecommunications systems almost always feature components that can be operated remotely so that software can be updated and routine maintenance chores can be conducted. … But these same systems can be used to penetrate the user country’s communications network as well. With the United States at the center of the world’s Internet traffic that problem is magnified. (“In U.S. snooping affair, Israeli firms at risk “)
Right. It’s quite possible that Gen. Keith Alexander is telling the truth when he says that the NSA is not mining these data on American citizens, but there’s nothing to stop the Israelis from doing so. The assumption must be that Israel has access to American’s emails and internet usage—very useful for all kinds of reasons, including providing ammunition for those who would destroy anti-Zionists, providing insider information in financial transactions, stealing technology, etc. When someone like Gen. David Petraeus, who had been targeted by the ADL for his statements on Israel, is suddenly compromised by leaked emails to his mistress, it’s not surprising that people are wondering at the involvement of the Lobby.
The Haaretz article continues:
Israeli companies are particularly vulnerable to such suspicions [of spying] because they have such close ties to the country’s security establishment.
“Graduates of the IDF’s technology units and those who have worked in other security bodies have created business opportunities for themselves based in no small part on their previous employment,” said Udi Shani, a former Defense Ministry director general, at the Herzliya Conference last March.
That’s one way to say it. But it’s also quite reasonable that the MOSSAD decided to allow its programmers to use the technology created for MOSSAD’s Unit 8200 and then set up companies that would be able to secure foreign contracts which would be impossible for MOSSAD itself to secure for obvious reasons. Indeed, “Hanan Gefen, a former commander of the unit, told Forbes magazine in 2007 that Comverse’s technology was directly influenced by the technology of 8200.”
MOSSAD doesn’t seem too worried about its technology falling into the hands of its ex-employees. In other words, these companies are likely to be MOSSAD operations in all but name.
And in the U.S., because of the power of the Israel Lobby, there would be no outcry in the media, from politicians, or even from the defense establishment when an Israeli company is awarded a contract to do the spying for the NSA. James Petras says as much:
The domestic spy apparatus operates with impunity because of its network of powerful domestic and overseas allies. The entire bi-partisan Congressional leadership is privy to and complicit with its operations. Related branches of government, like the Internal Revenue Service, cooperate in providing information and pursuing targeted political groups and individuals. Israel is a key overseas ally of the National Security Agency, as has been documented in the Israeli press (Haaretz, June 8, 2013). Two Israeli high tech firms (Verint and Narus) with ties to the Israeli secret police (MOSSAD), have provided the spy software for the NSA and this, of course, has opened a window for Israeli spying in the US against Americans opposed to the Zionist state. The writer and critic, Steve Lendman points out that Israeli spymasters via their software “front companies” have long had the ability to ‘steal proprietary commercial and industrial data” with impunity . And because of the power and influence of the Presidents of the 52 Major American Jewish organizations, Justice Department officials have ordered dozens of Israeli espionage cases to be dropped. The tight Israeli ties to the US spy apparatus serves to prevent deeper scrutiny into its operation and political goals – at a very high price in terms of the security of US citizens. In recent years two incidents stand out: Israeli security ‘experts’ were contracted to advise the Pennsylvania Department of Homeland Security in their investigation and ‘Stasi-like’ repression of government critics and environmental activists (compared to ‘al Queda terrorists’ by the Israelis) – the discovery of which forced the resignation of OHS Director James Powers in 2010. In 2003, New Jersey governor, Jim McGreevy appointed his lover, an Israeli government operative and former IDF officer, to head that state’s ‘Homeland Security Department and later resigned, denouncing the Israeli, Golan Cipel, for blackmail in late 2004. These examples are a small sample illustrating the depth and scope of Israeli police state tactics intersecting in US domestic repression.
From hearing media accounts of NSA spying, the only data on Americans that are collected are the times of phone calls and the identities of the parties in the phone call. But, as noted above, the data collected go well beyond that to include “email accounts, Internet chats, browsing and search histories.” Another Israeli company mentioned in the Haaretz article with very broad-based spying capabilities is NICE, yet another Israeli company with close ties to the Israeli government. NICE “has technology that is used to monitor some 1.5 billion people. In a brochure published by the company itself, it describes how its system can analyze conversations (including technology to make transcripts of phone calls), and gather and analyze data from public sites. With these tools it can build an intelligence file from millions of communications.” NICE’s website describes itself:
NICE solutions capture interactions, transactions and video surveillance from multiple sources, including telephones, CCTV video feed, emergency services radio communications, emails, chat, social media, and more.
In other words, pretty much all communications can be monitored and, if you represent a threat to the people with access to these operations, you must assume that you are being monitored. (I know of no evidence that the NSA employs NICE.) Although the company claims that its operations are aimed at “customers, criminals and terrorists, or fraudsters,” it’s not at all far-fetched to be suspicious that the information obtained could be used in a very wide range of operations, including insider information on financial affairs. Sailer suggests that fear of having conversations recorded may account for the concentration of elites in urban centers like Washington, DC and New York, and he pointedly links to his previous article on Jewish wealth, implying that insider information is a key to Jewish wealth. However, even voice conversations are susceptible to NICE’s technology. And the other side of the coin is that it would not be at all surprising to learn that Jewish trading networks are privy to information obtained by companies like NICE.
The situation with the NSA is yet another example of what it means to have a Jewish elite in the U.S.: Jewish spies who deliver vital computer programs to Israel are not indicted. And despite a long history of aggressive spying against the U.S., the NSA hires Israeli firms to do its data collection, with nary a word heard in Congress or the media about the obvious problems that presents.
It’s good to be king.
June 23, 2013
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception, Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | 52 Major American Jewish organizations, David Petraeus, Homeland Security Department, Israel, James Bamford, James Petras, Mossad, Narus, National Security Agency, NSA, United States, Verint |
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