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Decoding the Pentagon’s Budget Numbers

By WINSLOW T. WHEELER | CounterPunch | February 10, 2012

This Monday, February 13, the Pentagon will release the details of its fiscal year 2013 budget.  The press, congressional staff and think tank-types go through an annual routine, scrambling to get out their take on the numbers and some selected issues.  Some of these efforts are quite predictable; this year we will surely hear about –

•   how much growth or cuts are in the budget, depending on which baseline people select;

•   what is the spending for the F-35, or the next generation bomber, or whatever hardware is the focus of attention;

•   how much will US bases in Europe lose to help pay for the “pivot” toward Asia, and

•   what is the administration going to do about sequestration next year?

These and more clever questions are sure to be asked.  But if this year is like the past, the numbers, specifically those in the Pentagon’s press release, will be the wrong ones, and many of the important and fundamental issues will be distorted or ignored.

What follows is an effort to help people through the maze.

This year, the Defense Department has already released the top line numbers for 2013 and the next four years.  They are at http://www.defense.gov/news/Fact_Sheet_Budget.pdf.  But, as usual, they are incomplete-even for knowing the top line.  They are discretionary spending (annual appropriations) and do not include mandatory spending (entitlement programs) in the DOD budget.  The latter amount is only a few billion dollars (peanuts in DOD budget terms), but that only starts the list of missing numbers.

To identify defense spending not in the Pentagon budget you also need to know what the Department of Energy is spending for nuclear weapons, and what other agencies are spending for the National Defense Stockpile, the Selective Service and other activities that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) calls “Defense-related activities” in the “National Defense” budget function.

You probably will not find these in the Pentagon’s press materials because they frequently aren’t there.  You can always find them at the OMB website, which will post its materials at some point Monday morning.  But you’ll need to know just where to find the complete and accurate number display on the defense budget, lest you get lost in the blizzard of tables and tomes that OMB releases on budget day.  At the OMB website, at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb, hunt down a document in the 2013 budget materials called “Analytical Perspectives;” then go to the “Supplemental Materials” and find a table titled “Policy Budget Authority and Outlays by Function, Category, and Program.” For the past two years, it’s been numbered Table 32-1.  All the National Defense spending categories are there: DOD, DOE/Nuclear, the other cats and dogs, and both discretionary and mandatory spending are listed.  They are right at the top of this long table; “National Defense,” or budget function 050, is the first display.  Get those numbers straight, and for completeness and accuracy you will be head and shoulders above the herd using just the Pentagon press release.  There you can also find what the actual numbers were for 2011 and 2012, which given the chaos in Congress, has not been easy to sort out.

Getting to table 32-1 in Analytical Perspectives can be tricky.  For example for 2012, it is not listed in the Table of Contents to “Analytical Perspectives,” and the “Supplemental Materials” for the entire budget did not show it; you want the “Supplemental Materials” for “Analytical Perspectives.”  Also, in the past, there have been other tables labeled 32-2 or something close, but they show the wrong numbers.  You don’t want them; you want “Policy Budget Authority and Outlays by Function, Category, and Program,” and it should, repeat should, be numbered 32-1, unless OMB has messed around with its formatting for 2013.  Perplexing?  Yup.

Next, you might want to assess national security spending not in the Pentagon or even the “National Defense” budget. In what should be Table 32-1 you can also find the budgets for Veterans Affairs (function 700) for additional costs of past and current wars, and International Affairs (150) for military and economic aid and other State Department programs integral to national security spending.

You can also find some spending for military retirement and DOD health care that is not in the National Defense budget function.  They, however, are hard to tease out. You can find them if you word search in the pdf version of Table 32-1, especially in functions 550, 600 and 900 for “military retirement” and “DOD Retiree Health Care.” But they are a thicket of positive and negative numbers and tricky to net out to an accurate number.  Perhaps it is best to simply be aware that they are there and that they can amount to low double digits of billions of dollars.  Ask your favorite budget geek what they net out to.  If he or she can’t sort it out in a day or two, get a new budget geek.

You still do not have all the defense related numbers.  You don’t have the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Go back to the “Supplemental Materials” for “Analytical Perspectives.”  There find “Appendix — Homeland Security Mission Funding by Agency and Budget Account” or “Table 33-1.”  (At least that’s what they were labeled for 2012.) They should list the budget for DHS which is embedded inside the various budget functions in Table 32-1.  But be careful; make sure you are not double counting any homeland security funding that shows up in both the National Defense budget function or 150 or 700 and the DHS budget.  There should be tables that help you avoid the double counting.

Don’t look for any intelligence community spending; it’s $80 billion, give or take, but it’s not shown; it’s classified and embedded inside the 050 numbers.  Don’t try to add anything for intel; if you do, you will be double counting about $80 billion.

Perhaps you will decide to include the defense share of the national debt, specifically the share of the interest payment in 2013 for the debt that can be attributed to DOD, or National Defense, or all of the above for 2013.  Find the total interest payment in function 900 and make your calculation.

Add it all up and you will get about $1 trillion, very probably more; if you don’t get that high, you are missing something-something big.

Next you may want to make comparisons to show where defense spending is headed.  Some will compare this defense budget to previous plans, showing a gigantic reduction.  Some will compare it to last year’s spending, showing a tiny reduction-basically a flat budget.  One comparison is mostly phony; one is not.  (Hint: Last year I planned to win the lottery.  I didn’t; ergo, my flat salary this year means a gigantic pay cut.)

If you want to go viral on phoniness, compare contemporary spending to historic defense spending using percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as the measure.  That way you can pretend the big recent increases are big decreases, and more huge increases should be oh-so affordable.  Avoid this gimmick, especially those who use it. Apply that thought also to people who use the same gimmick for non-defense spending.

Finished with the numbers?  Why not address some of the long term, fundamentally important (and disturbing) trends in US defense spending?  Two chapters in the anthology “The Pentagon Labyrinth: 10 Short Essays to Help You Through It” address such things.  One is by Chuck Spinney, and I think it’s an important exposition.  Find it at http://pogoarchives.org/labyrinth/01-spinney-w-covers.pdf.  The other expands on DOD’s habitual misdirection on numbers and briefly addresses the shrinking and aging that are continuing in our combat forces and their equipment.  I wrote that one; find it at http://pogoarchives.org/labyrinth/08-wheeler-w-covers.pdf.  I am sending you this piece with enough time before budget day on Monday to read those short essays and to conjure up your own take on what they mean for questions you should be asking Monday.

I hope this helps.  Have fun on budget day.

Winslow T. Wheeler is director of the Straus Military Reform Project and editor of  The Pentagon Labyrinth: 10 Short Essays to Help You Through It.

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February 13, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Road to Damascus… and on to Armageddon?

By DIANA JOHNSTONE | CounterPunch | February 13, 2012

Paris – What if pollsters put this question to citizens of the United States and the European Union:

“Which is more important, ensuring disgruntled Islamists freedom to overthrow the secular regime in Syria, or avoiding World War Three?”

I’ll bet that there might be a majority for avoiding World War III.

But of course, the question is never framed like that.

That would be a “realistic” question, and we Westerners from the heights of our moral superiority have no time for vulgar “realism” in foreign policy (except Ron Paul, crying out in the wilderness of Republican primaries).

Because, in the minds of our political ruling class, the United States has the power to “make reality”, we need pay no attention to the remnants of whatever reality we didn’t invent ourselves.

Our artificial reality is coming into collision with the reality perceived by most or at least much of the rest of the world.  The tenets of these conflicting views of reality are armed to the teeth, including with nuclear weapons capable of leaving the planet to insects.

Theoretically, there is a way to deal with this dangerous situation, which has the potential of leading to World War.  It is called diplomacy.  People capable of grasping unfamiliar ideas and understanding viewpoints other than their own, examine the issues underlying conflict and use their intelligence to work out solutions that may not be ideal but will at least prevent things from getting worse.

There was even an organizational structure created for this: the United Nations.

But the United States has decided that as sole superpower it doesn’t really need to stoop to diplomacy to get what it wants, and the United Nations has been turned into the instrument of US policy. The clearest evidence of this was the failure of the UN Security Council to block the NATO powers’ abuse of the ambiguous and contested Responsibility to Protect (“R2P”) doctrine to overthrow the Libyan government by force.

Early this year, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon rejoiced that: “The world has embraced the Responsibility to Protect – not because it is easy, but because it is right. We therefore have a moral responsibility to push ahead.”  Morality trumps the basic UN principle of national sovereignty. Ban Ki-moon suggests that pushing ahead with R2P is no less than the “next test of our common humanity”, and announces: “That test is here – in Syria.”

So, the Secretary General of the UN considers the “moral responsibility” of R2P his main guideline to the crisis in Syria.

In case there was any doubt, the Libyan example demonstrated what that means.

A country whose rulers do not belong to the Western club made up of NATO countries, Israel, the emirs of the Gulf states and the ruling family of Saudi Arabia, is wracked by opposition demonstrations and armed rebellion, with the mix of the two making it difficult to sort out which is which.  Western mainstream media hasten to tell the story according to a standard template:

The ruler of the country is a “dictator”.  Therefore, the rebels want to get rid of him simply in order to enjoy Western-style democracy.  Therefore, the people must all be on the side of the rebels. Therefore, when the armed forces proceed to repress the armed rebellion, what is happening is that “the dictator is killing his own people”.  Therefore, it is the Responsibility 2 Protect of the international community (i.e. NATO) to help the rebels in order to destroy the country’s armed forces and get rid of (or kill) the dictator.

The happy ending comes when Hillary Clinton can shout gleefully, “We came, we saw, he died!”

Thereupon, the country sinks into chaos, as armed bands rove, prisoners are tortured, women are put in their place, salaries are unpaid, education and social welfare are neglected, but oil is pumped and the West is encouraged by its success to go on to liberate another country.

That at least was the Libyan model.

Except that in the case of Syria, things are more complicated.

Unlike Libya, Syria has a fairly strong army.  Unlike Libya, Syria has a few significant friends in the world. Unlike Libya, Syria is next door to Israel. And above all, the diversity of religious communities within Syria is much greater and more potentially explosive than the tribal divisions of Libya.  The notion that “the people” of Syria are unanimously united in the desire for instant regime change is even more preposterous.

Electoral democracy is a game played on the basis of a social contract, a general consensus to accept the rule that whoever gets the most votes gets to run the country.  But there are societies where that consensus simply does not exist, where distrust is too great between different sectors of the population. That could very well be the case in Syria, where certain minorities, including notably the Christians and Alawites, have reason to fear a Sunni majority that could be led by Islamists who make no secret of their hostility to other religions.  Still, perhaps the time has come to overcome that distrust and build an electoral democracy with safeguards for minorities.  However, the one sure way to set back such a move toward democracy is a civil war, which is certain to revive and exacerbate hatred and distrust between communities.

Last month, at CounterPunch Aisling Byrne called attention to results of a public opinion poll funded by no less than the Qatar Foundation, which cannot be suspected of working for the Assad regime, given the Qatar royal family’s lead position in favor of overthrowing that regime. The key finding was that “while most Arabs outside Syria feel the president should resign, attitudes in the country are different. Some 55% of Syrians want Assad to stay, motivated by fear of civil war – a specter that is not theoretical as it is for those who live outside Syria’s borders. What is less good news for the Assad regime is that the poll also found that half the Syrians who accept him staying in power believe he must usher in free elections in the near future.”

This indicates a very complex situation.  Syrians want free elections, but they prefer to have Assad stay in power to organize them.  This being the case, the Russian diplomatic efforts to try to urge the Assad regime to speed up its reforms appear to be roughly in harmony with Syrian public opinion.

While the Russians are urging President Assad to speed up reforms, the West is ordering him to stop the violence (that is, order his armed forces to give up) and resign.  Neither of these exhortations is likely to be obeyed.  The Russians would almost certainly like to stop the escalation of violence, for their own good reasons, but that does not mean they have the power to do so.  Their attempts to broker a compromise, decried and sabotaged by Western support to the opposition, merely put them in line to be blamed for the bloodshed they want to avoid.  In a deepening civil war situation, the regime, any regime, is most likely to figure it has to restore order before doing anything else.  And restoring order, under these circumstances, means more violence, not less.

The order to “stop killing your own people” implies a situation in which the dictator, like an ogre in a fairy tale, is busily devouring passive innocents.  He should stop, and then all the people would peacefully go about their business while awaiting the free elections that will bring the blessings of harmony and human rights. In reality, if the armed forces withdraw from areas where there are armed rebels, that means turning those areas over to the rebels.

And who are these rebels?  We simply do not know…

With uncontrolled armed groups fighting for control, the insistent Western demand that “Assad must step down” is not really even a call for “regime change”.  It is a call for regime self-destruction.

As in Libya, the country would de facto be turned over to rival armed groups, with those groups that are being armed covertly by NATO via Turkey and Qatar having an advantage in hardware.  However, the likely result would be a multi-sided civil war much more horrific than the chaos in Libya, thanks to the country’s multiple religious differences.  But for the West, however chaotic, regime self-destruction would have the immediate advantage of depriving Iran of its potential ally on the eve of an Israeli attack.  With both Iraq and Syria neutralized by internal religious conflict, the strangulation of Iran would be that much easier – or so the Western strategists obviously assume.

At least initially, the drive to destroy the Assad regime relies on subversion rather than outright military attack as in Libya.  A combination of drastic economic sanctions and support to armed rebels, including fighters from outside, notably Libya (whoever they are), reportedly already helped by special forces from the UK and Qatar, is expected to so weaken the country that the Assad regime will collapse.  But a third weapon in this assault is propaganda, carried on by the mainstream media, by now accustomed to reporting events according to the pattern: evil dictator killing his own people.  Some of the propaganda must be true, some of it is false, but all of it is selective.  The victims are all victims of the regime, never of the rebels.  The many Syrians who fear the rebels more than the present government are of course ignored by the mainstream media, although their protests can be found on the internet. A particular oddity of this Syrian crisis is the way the West, so proud of its “Judeo-Christian” heritage, is actively favoring the total elimination of the ancient Christian communities in the Middle East.  The cries of protest that Syrian Christians rely for protection on the secular government of Assad, in which Christians participate, and that they and other minorities such as the Alawites may be forced to flee if the West gets its way, fall on deaf ears.

The story line of dictators killing their own people is intended primarily to justify harsh Western measures against Syria. As in Bosnia, the media are arousing public indignation to force the US government to do what it is in fact already doing: arming Muslim rebels, all in the name of “protecting civilians”.

Last December, US National Security Advisor Tom Donilon said that the “end of the Assad regime would constitute Iran’s greatest setback in the region yet – a strategic blow that will further shift the balance of power in the region against Iran”.  The “protection of civilians” is not the only concern on the minds of US officials.  They do think of such things as the balance of power, in between their prayer breakfasts and human rights speeches.  However, concern with the balance of power is a luxury denied less virtuous powers such as Russia and China. Surely the shift in the balance of power in the region cannot be limited to a single country, Iran.  It is meant to increase the power of Israel, of course, but also the United States and NATO.  And to decrease the influence of Russia.  Thrusting Syria into helpless chaos is part of the war against Iran, but it is also implicitly part of a drive to reduce the influence of Russia and, eventually, China.  In short, the current campaign against Syria, is clearly in preparation for an eventual future war against Iran, but also, obscurely, a form of long term aggression against Russia and China.

The recent Russian and Chinese veto in the Security Council was a polite attempt to put a brake on this process. The cause of the veto was the determination of the West to push through a resolution that would have demanded withdrawal of Syrian government forces from contested areas without taking into consideration the presence of armed rebel groups poised to take over. Where the Western resolution called on the Assad regime to “withdraw all Syrian military and armed forces from cities and towns, and return them to their original home barracks”, the Russians wished to add: “in conjunction with the end of attacks by armed groups against State institutions and quarters and towns.”  The purpose was to prevent armed groups from taking advantage of the vacuum to occupy evacuated areas (as had happened in similar circumstances in Yugoslavia during the 1990s).  Western refusal to rein in armed rebels was followed by the Russian and Chinese veto on Febuary 4th.

The veto unleashed a torrent of insults from the Western self-styled “humanitarians”.  In an obvious attempt to foster division between the two recalcitrant powers, US spokespersons stressed that the main villain was Russia, guilty of friendship with the Assad regime.

Russia is currently the target of an extraordinary propaganda campaign centered on demonizing Vladimir Putin as he faces a lively campaign for election as President.  A prominent New York Times columnist attributed Russian support to Syria to an alleged similarity between Putin and Assad.  As we saw in Yugoslavia, a leader elected in free multi-party elections is a “dictator” when his policies displease the West. The pathetically alcoholic Yeltsin was a Western favorite despite shooting at his parliament.  The reason was obvious: he was weak and easily manipulated.  The reason the West hates Putin is equally and symmetrically obvious: he seems determined to defend his country’s interests against Western pressure.

The European Union has become the lapdog of the United States. This week the European Union is continuing to impoverish the Greek people in order to squeeze out money, among other things, lent by German and French banks to pay for expensive modern weaponry sold to Greece by Germany and France.  Democracy in Europe is being undermined by subservience to a dogmatic monetary policy.  Unemployment and poverty threaten to destabilize more and more member states.  But what is the topic of the European Parliament’s main monthly political debate this week?  “The situation in Russia.”  One can count on orators in Strasbourg to lecture the Russians on “democracy”.

American pundits and cartoonists have totally internalized their double standards, so that Russia’s comparatively modest arms deliveries to Syria can be denounced as cynical support to dictatorship, whereas gigantic US arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States are never seen as relevant to the autocratic nature of those regimes (at most they may be criticized on the totally fictitious grounds of being a threat to Israel).  To be “democratic”, Russia is supposed to cooperate in its own subservience to Washington, as the United States pursues construction of a missile shield which would theoretically give it a first-strike nuclear capability against Russia, arms Georgia for a return war against Russia over South Ossetia, and continues to encircle Russia with military bases and hostile alliances.

Western politicians and media are not yet fighting World War III, but they are talking themselves into it. And their actions speak even louder than words… notably to those who are able to understand where those actions are leading.  Such as the Russians. The West’s collective delusion of grandeur, the illusion of the power to “make reality”, has a momentum that is leading the world toward major catastrophe.  And what can stop it?

A meteor from outer space, perhaps?

DIANA JOHNSTONE is the author of Fools Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions. She can be reached at  diana.josto@yahoo.fr

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February 13, 2012 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Syria as Tonkin Gulf for Attack on Iran?

By Daniel McAdams | LewRockwell.com | February 10, 2012

Michael Lofgren, an old friend who recently retired after a long career analyzing House and Senate national security budgets, has an excellent piece in the Huffington Post, in which he admits that after dismissing the decades of scare reports on Iran by the warmongers he is suddenly a bit more worried about a possible attack on Iran.

Writes Lofgren:

During this presidential campaign season, there is on the GOP side the most toxic warmongering political dynamic imaginable: one that makes Bush look like a pacifist in retrospect. President Obama for his part is trying to triangulate à la Bill Clinton between the GOP, a Democratic base that is mostly antiwar but politically ineffectual, Israel, the military-industrial complex, and his polling numbers.

Lofgren warns that with “the U.S. and Iran…reprising the Gulf of Tonkin in the Strait of Hormuz…these factors compose a a brew potentially so toxic that one would think it would give even the most belligerent chickenhawk pause before quaffing it.”

But what if Syria itself is the Gulf of Tonkin rather than the cat and mouse games around the Hormuz Strait?

Let us consider a few points:

First: The atrocity stories are mostly cooked-up to make the case for Western military intervention.

Human rights groups like the “Syrian Observatory for Human Rights” are the sole sources of information for events on the ground in Syria, even though the SOHR is based in London, has no contact information, no street address, no e-mail address, no list of officers or employees. The sole responsible person listed, Rami Abdul Rahman, is in fact not a real person at all, as the organization admits, but rather is “just an alias that was being used by all SOHR members.” (Readers: have a good look at their website and decide if you would base a US war on Syria on the credibility of this organization providing the “atrocity stories” about Syria.) The only other mention of a real human attached to this organization is in this photo, whose caption reads, “Rami Abdelrahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, leaves the Foreign and Commonwealth Office after meeting Britain’s Foreign Secretary, William Hague, in central London November 21, 2011.” (Thanks to Land Destroyer blog for first pointing out the curiousness of the Syrian opposition coordinating with the UK government).

It is this organization that has been almost the exclusive source of the horror stories coming out of Syria, such as the tale of Assad’s callous murder of 18 premature babies in Homs — dutifully reported yesterday in the UK Independent newspaper AND last August on CNN! For a full and compelling report on the pro-war propaganda campaign being cooked up by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and dutifully amplified by our complicit media, see today’s excellent piece on Infowars.

I guess nothing says “let’s go to war” like the old babies in incubator stories. Who can forget that poor 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl, known only by her first name of Nayirah, who told us harrowing tales of Saddam’s ruthlessness: “”While I was there, I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns, and go into the room where . . . babies were in incubators. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the incubators, and left the babies on the cold floor to die.”

Except, as we now know, she turned out to be the Kuwaiti ambassador’s daughter and the tale was cooked up in the PR offices of Hill & Knowlton with the collusion of the late war-loving US Rep. Tom Lantos…

Likewise, the Syria Observatory for Human Rights was the source of last week’s stories of “hundreds murdered” in Homs, conveniently on the day before the UN Security Council was to vote on US/UK/French regime change resolution. The absurdity that Assad would be insane enough to go Rambo on his cities the day before the UN/NATO’s Libya liberators decided whether or not to invade was lost on most observers, who see what they want to see in these situations once the narrative has been established. That is why just a day later when “hundreds” became “dozens” and many of those dozens turned out to be Syrian security forces killed by the famed unarmed democracy protestors, nobody noticed. The narrative was set. No matter who kills who, it is always, as Hillary Clinton says, the government murdering peaceful protestors.

Now the Syrian opposition propaganda machine warns that Assad might be “mulling” the use of chemical weapons in Homs! First the babies, then this!

Today’s bomb attacks on the Military Security Directorate in Aleppo follow a familiar pattern of rebels targeting Syrian security forces and taking out scores of civilians in the process. The Syrian opposition groups, i.e. Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, again makes the claim that in fact Assad is blowing up his own military and intelligence facilities. Rational people might judge for themselves whether a leader attempting to put down an armed insurrection in his country would start by blowing up his own military. Alas, rationality has been thrown out the window in the frenzied rush to regime change.

Second: Once burned, twice shy — or, the pitfalls of falling for the propaganda.

The Russians and Chinese, whose skepticism on Libya proved to be very well placed and who as a result vetoed the recent Syria “regime change” resolution in the UN Security Council are doubly skeptical on Syria, and having been proven right on Libya should be accorded a degree of attention this time. That is why when someone like Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says that those pushing the UNSC resolution on Syria were “hysterical” and “indecent” the world should listen. The Russians urged that any resolution call for an end to all violence — on the part of the government and on the part of the rebels (based in Turkey and armed by Qatar and the West). Their urging that both sides stop shooting rather than just the government side was ignored by the US/UK/NATO/GCC regime changers.

Third: Western militaries and secret services are already in the vicinity.

We must consider reports of UK and Qatari special forces troops operating in Syria (alongside their US counterparts no doubt). One reason to believe these reports is that they have been denied by the British government.

Fourth: Has Iran really thrown Syria under the bus?

We have heard reports, most recently yesterday from RT, that Iran was sending some 15,000 special forces into Syria to help its government defend against rebel attacks.

Fifth, and finally: Why is Syria being readied as the next target?

The US is “reviewing military options” against the Syrian government. US bases literally surround Iran and Iran may have lent military assistance to its ally, Syria. The Israelis have been champing at the bit to attack Iran, but fear having to go it alone. When the US begins military action against Syria, what are the chances that a huge Iranian attack on US forces in Syria or vicinity might be manufactured? What would be the US response considering the “toxic” pro-war brew that Mike Lofgren points out is currently being quaffed in Washington? Smells a bit like Tonkin in Damascus?

One final note: News organizations and websites that have uncritically reported the atrocity stories from these “human rights” groups have helped set the stage for military action against Syria, and have been in fact part of the psychological preparation of the battlefield. As such, they should be considered as morally culpable for the disaster that will soon unfold for the Syrians and for us as the John McCains and the Hillary Clintons and the Sean Hannities and the Bill Kristols of the world.

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February 11, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

B[elated] Broadcasting Corporation reports on ‘UK’s secret mission to beat Gaddafi’ — Silent on not-so-secret mission to beat Assad

By Maidhc Ó Cathail | The Passionate Attachment | February 11, 2012

Almost a year late, on January 19 the BBC “revealed”:

British efforts to help topple Colonel Gaddafi were not limited to air strikes. On the ground – and on the quiet – special forces soldiers were blending in with rebel fighters. This is the previously untold account of the crucial part they played.

On February 8, the Israeli intelligence-linked Debkafile reported:

British and Qatari special operations units are operating with rebel forces under cover in the Syrian city of Homs just 162 kilometers from Damascus, according to debkafile’s exclusive military and intelligence sources. The foreign troops are not engaged in direct combat with the Syrian forces bombarding different parts of Syria’s third largest city of 1.2 million. They are tactical advisers, manage rebel communications lines and relay their requests for arms, ammo, fighters and logistical aid to outside suppliers, mostly in Turkey.

This site is the first to report the presence of foreign military forces in any of the Syrian uprising’s embattled areas.

Our sources report the two foreign contingents have set up four centers of operation – in the northern Homs district of Khaldiya, Bab Amro in the east, and Bab Derib and Rastan in the north. Each district is home to about a quarter of a million people.

How long will it take before the venerable Beeb decides to report the “Inside story of the UK’s secret mission to beat Assad”?

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February 11, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Russia Says West “Accomplice” to Violence in Syria

Al-Manar | February 10, 2012

Russia accused the West on Friday of being an “accomplice” to the violence in Syria and said the country’s opposition bore full responsibility for ending the ongoing violence.

Speaking to ITAR-TASS news agency, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that “Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s promise to stage a new constitutional referendum meant that it was now up to the armed resistance movement to take the next step.”

He also warned that “Russia was ready to follow this month’s veto of a draft UN Security Council resolution on the crisis with additional strong measures if the West continues to refuse acknowledging the opposition’s role in the crisis.”

“The Syrian leadership has assured us of its readiness to quickly hold a referendum on a new constitution and move toward elections,” Ryabkov said.

“This means that the opposition bears full responsibility for improving the situation and finding a way to stop the bloodshed… Western states that push the Syrian opposition into uncompromising measures, which arm them and give them advice and instructions are accomplices in the process of inflaming the crisis,” he added.

“The responsibility rests with those who while holding the levers of influence over the opposition still fail to call it to order and demand that it accepts the Syrian government’s offers and begin real talks,” the Russian deputy foreign minister further pointed out, warning that “Russia will have to again and again resort to strong measures at the Security Council if Western states introduce new resolutions on the crisis that only blame Assad.”

In addition, Ryabkov dismissed joint efforts by the United States and Turkey to organize an international conference on the crisis and possible relief efforts for the opposition.

“Russia does not share the West’s views about so-called humanitarian intervention,” he said.

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February 10, 2012 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Steven Spielberg to Direct Bloody Moses Flick

By Keith Johnson | Revolt of the Plebs | February 2, 2012

Amid all the hype and hysteria over the so-called “radical” and “violent” roots of Islam and its prophet Mohammed, Steven Spielberg is set to direct,“Gods and Kings,” a biopic based on the Old Testament’s most beloved homicidal maniac.

According to the National Ledger, “The movie will see Moses presented as ‘the warrior of all warriors’ and will follow him from birth to death.”

The article goes on to say, “[It’s] a movie like a Braveheart-ish version of the Moses story – him coming down the river, being adopted, leaving his home, forming an army and getting the Ten Commandments.”

It will be interesting to see how Spielberg spins this one. If he stays true to the first five books of the Old Testament (otherwise known as the Torah), we should expect to see the “chosen ones” doing what they did best: stealing land, razing cities, taking women and children as slaves, looting, raping, pillaging—and lest I forget—the wholesale slaughter of innocent men, women, children, cattle, sheep, donkeys, and anything else that had a pulse.

Gee, I wonder if any of these lines will make their way into the script:

Exodus 15:14 The people shall hear, and be afraid: sorrow shall take hold on the inhabitants of Palestine.

Deuteronomy 2:25 This very day I will begin to put the terror and fear of you on all the nations under heaven. They will hear reports of you and will tremble and be in anguish because of you.”

Deuteronomy 2:34 At that time we took all his cities and completely destroyed them—men, women and children. We left no survivors.

Deuteronomy 2:35 But the livestock and the plunder from the towns we had captured we carried off for ourselves.

Numbers 21:35 So they killed him and his sons and all his people, until there was none left to him alive, and they possessed his land.

Deuteronomy 3:6 We completely destroyed them, as we had done with Sihon king of Heshbon, destroying every city—men, women and children.

Deuteronomy 20:16 In the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes.

Numbers 31:17 Kill all the boys [,] and kill every woman


If you think I’m taking this all out of context, then I suggest you read your Old Testament, or follow this link to the first in an excellent series of essays on the subject:

Warrior Prophet: Moses or Muhammad

I’m sure Spielberg will work his movie magic in convincing us all that these Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites all had it coming, and that Moses was simply taking orders from the man upstairs.

Oh, and let’s not forget the casting. Expect to see the Arabs portrayed as dirty, dark-skinned, wide-nosed psychotics with bloodshot eyes. Of course the Israelites will have Caucasian features and swimmers physiques with a light coat of perspiration that glistens off the stage lighting as their slow-motion swords slice the heads off their enemies.

HMMMM…I see a vision:

Brad Pitt: “Behold his mighty hand!”

February 8, 2012 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

An Exchange on “Humanitarian” Intervention with Rocky Anderson

The Infected Scalpel

By John V. Walsh | Dissident Voice | February 7th, 2012

A few days back I received an announcement from Rocky Anderson, announcing his presidential bid as the candidate of the newly formed Justice Party. Although social justice was mentioned prominently along with the desperate economic plight of many in the U.S., I was struck by the fact that the struggle against war was not prominently mentioned and the question of the U.S. Empire and overseas bases seemed to get no mention. “Human Rights,” an increasingly plastic category at least in the hands of the U.S. ruling elite, figures prominently in Anderson’s campaign literature and world view. I was further surprised that “High Road to Human Rights,” an organization founded by Anderson, counted on its board of advisers, Elie Wiesel, a defender of the Apartheid Israeli regime. On the other hand, Anderson was a staunch opponent of the war on Iraq and even the war on Libya, the latter because it lacked Congressional approval.

I wondered about Anderson’s commitment to anti-interventionism and his view on “humanitarian” interventions, something that should be crystal clear from someone running for president and appealing to progressives. The following email exchange resulted:

From JW to RA:  Hello Rocky,

I wish that you would spell all this out a bit more clearly.

Are you for “humanitarian” interventions as in the Balkans?  Have you read Jean Bricmont’s great (and short) book “Humanitarian Imperialism”?

Are you for getting rid of all our overseas bases and devoting a limited military to purely defensive purposes?

Many pwogs*, for example, Amy Goodman and CIA “consultant” Juan Cole, were cheerleaders for the Libyan intervention, despite Libya having had the highest Human Development Index in all of Africa before NATO destroyed its infrastructure and reduced it to rubble in the name of human rights.

We have two versions of imperialism – the “tough guy” Dick Cheney brand and the “humanitarian” Susan Rice version.  Both are the same in reality whatever the words attached to them.  We must break with them both and cease viewing the world solely through the very arbitrary lens of “human rights,” a good sell among the pwogwessives.

But what good are human rights to a starving illiterate woman in India, a category that Mao consigned to the dust heap of history in China?

From RA to JW:  Yes, so long as we are in compliance with the War Power Clause of the Constitution and the U.N. Charter, I favor the U.S. working with the international community in putting to an end massive atrocities.  I strongly believe in living up to the promise of “Never Again.”  Given all my work in this area, I don’t know how you would have any doubt about my position.  I don’t think political boundaries should control our moral obligations to our brothers and sisters elsewhere.

I recommend to you A Problem From Hell, by Samantha Power.

Your reference to Susan Rice was a curious one.  She sat on her hands (as you apparently would have had her do) when she was with the NSC and failed to take any action to stop the genocide that led to the slaughter of 800,000 Rwandans in 100 days.  According to an article in The Atlantic by Samantha Power, Susan Rice was apparently more concerned with the political implications in the mid-term elections in 1994 than she was about the horrendous fate of the Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda. Those who stood by when their action could have ended the atrocities are, in my view, complicit.

From JW to RA: I think the Samantha Powers of the world are a big part of the problem.

I recommend that you read Humanitarian Imperialism by Jean Bricmont.

From RA to JW: I think isolationist nationalists who don’t care about the suffering of other people who happen to be in other parts of the world are “the problem”.  Sorry, John, we’re on completely different moral planets here.

I’ll try to read the book you referenced.  Have you read A Problem From Hell?  It’s heart-breaking — and a real indictment of the failure of the US to do what is required to stop the atrocities.

From JW to RA: I cannot agree, Rocky.  The “international community” is a euphemism for NATO and the US.  The UN foolishly went along with the destruction of Libya – and we can now see that Russia and China are finally drawing a line in the sand at Syria.

You fail to see that the US is the most ruthless Empire in the history of humankind, and it will cover up its atrocities with appeals to “human rights.”  It is the biggest lie of all.   Would you favor military intervention to end apartheid in Israel?  Will you take that position on the campaign trail?

For those of us living in the heart of Empire there is no alternative to being principled anti-interventionists.  The Empire is incapable of waging a “good war,” whatever that may be.  An anti-interventionist is not an “isolationist nationalist.”  That is simply a smear.

Samantha Power has not written a heart rending account of what has been done to Iraq, I notice.

Finally, the Empire has always cloaked its wars in virtue, from the White Man’s burden to “human rights,” and it always will.  The path to hell is paved with naiveté.

From RA to JW: Samantha Power has not written that account of Iraq because we did not intervene on humanitarian grounds.  It was an illegal war of aggression, at odds with the War Power Clause and with the UN Charter.  You paint with a very misleading, broad brush.  You can advocate abandoning people during genocides and other mass atrocities.  I will always be on the other side.  I share your anti-imperialistic views; I do not share your willingness to turn a blind eye to humanitarian disasters.

You will never convince me of what I perceive to be an extremely selfish, heartless isolationist position.  I would always advocate doing what I would want the U.S. and international community to do if I were in the position of a victim of genocide.  To advocate doing what is right is hardly naïve.  And it is hardly countenancing wars of aggression.  No one has a stronger record of opposition to the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq than I.

From JW to RA: You are well meaning as far as I can tell, but you hold very dangerous views IMHO.

If people want to help those in far off lands, let them form their Abraham Lincoln brigades, something the US Empire also opposed.  Of course, that means putting one’s body on the line, not someone else’s body.

First do no harm.

From RA to JW: So you would advocate repeal of the Genocide Convention?  We couldn’t be further apart in our views on this.

But, then, I recognize the concerns with US empire that drive your views on this.  We need to strive to be better on all counts.  That’s why I have worked so hard in all of these areas over the years — and a large part of why I’m doing what I am now.

From JW to RA:  I never said that I wanted to repeal the Genocide Convention.  Why do you conclude that?

But what is being done to the Palestinians is a slow genocide.  Do you advocate military action against Israel to get rid of the Apartheid regime there?  You should be explicit about that.

Noam Chomsky points out that the slaughter in the Balkans, greatly exaggerated, took place AFTER NATO’s bombs started falling.  And that was not really a genocide either.

Nor is Darfur a genocide either – a brutal war on both sides apparently but not a genocide. In fact, only the US and that outrageous liar Susan Rice label it as such.

And then there is the slaughter in Libya a country that once had the highest Human Development Index in all of Africa.  The concrete reality is that the US is always up to no good and will kill and kill to get its way. We should not be in the business of providing cover for that.

I do not think that you really appreciate that the formerly colonized peoples of the world do not want Western interventions.  They have had quite enough of the benefits of such neocolonial acts.

From RA to JW: You are so incredibly wrong.  The people (at least the Tutsis) of Rwanda, and of Kosovo, view the U.S. as heroically coming to their aid and stopping the massacres.  You would have been content with sitting back after the massacre at Srebrenica.  To me, that is the greatest moral cowardice.

And how can you maintain that you would not seek the repeal of the Genocide Convention?  It creates a legal obligation to take action to stop genocides wherever they occur.

I cannot countenance the U.S. continuing to build its empire; neither can I countenance people — or our nation — turning a blind eye to mass atrocities when they can be stopped.

This will be my last email on this topic.  I’m dismayed that any person can be so insensitive toward victims of genocide or other mass atrocities.  (I’m curious.  What have you done, if anything, to help stop wars of aggression or mass atrocities?)

Good luck – 

At this point someone on the list of those cc’d to this exchange jumped in, J.A., an Israeli expat who as a young man was swept into the Yom Kippur war and saw many of his friends needlessly killed. He left Israel in part to save his son from future slaughters of this sort and has vowed never to return. He wrote:

From J.A. to RA and JW:  Rocky, humanitarian intervention is a slippery slope argument, and is being used for imperialistic ambitions (The latest example is Libya, and still Afghanistan – freeing the Afghan women. I remember well, Samantha Power supported this view) and, in general, being used to justify our military power. (Humanitarian aid via aircraft carriers, being the good policeman of the world, etc).

BTW, you wrote “illegal invasion”; is there a legal invasion?

Here is a question: Since you support “humanitarian” intervention, do you support attacking Israel and freeing the Palestinians from the  Israeli harsh occupation? You must know about the suffering of the Palestinians under the Israeli Apartheid and the stealth genocide by Israel, so should we invade Israel?

(It is a rhetorical question to demonstrate how absurd is the “humanitarian” intervention view).

Joshua

From JW to RA:  You did not answer whether you would advocate in your campaign a military expeditionary force led by the US to end Israeli apartheid and the slow genocide of the Palestinians?  Why can you not answer that?

And will you launch another expedition to restore the Tibetan theocracy?  It will probably take a few million persons under arms and a return to the draft.  Or how about an occupation of India where the most dire poverty continues and the farmers driven from their agriculture by agribusiness commit suicide in huge numbers?  Or is that OK because “democracy” reigns?

And a second point.  The greatest stimulus to nuclear proliferation is the huge conventional military force which the US has.  That is the force that you need to preserve in order to save the world.  The only protection for a small nation is nukes.

Long ago when the US was trying to take down the Chinese revolution and waging a war on Vietnam, Mao Zedong opined that US imperialism is the number one enemy of the peoples of the world.  I am afraid that remains true.

And you are proof positive that the progressive movement, so called, is no longer anti-interventionist or anti-Empire.

As they say, “You’ve come a long way, baby.”

At least you admit it outright – and that amount of honesty deserves credit.  I suggest that you openly proclaim the new humanitarian interventionism as part of your platform.  Now if only other progressives would also do that, we could separate wheat from chaff more readily.

JW

P.S. As a medical student I learned that there are some things that are beyond one’s control and that when one tries to control them the only thing that results is harm — sometimes fatal harm.

John V. Walsh can be reached at john.endwar@gmail.com.

~

* Pwog

A derisive term for a political progressive. First appeared in the 1960s as a term for old guard leftists of Jewish background. Derived from the tendency of Jews of Eastern European heritage to pronounce ‘R’ as ‘W’, in keeping with Yiddish pronunciation. Now can be used as a term for all progressives, regardless of ethnicity.

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February 7, 2012 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Anti-war activists in Munich protest major security confab

Press TV – February 5, 2012
German policemen block demonstrators trying to approach Munich’s Bayerischer Hof Hotel, where the 48th Munich Security Conference is held.

Hundreds of anti-war activists have taken to the streets in the southern German city of Munich to protest against an annual, high-profile security conference.

Some 800 demonstrators marched on Saturday toward the Bayerischer Hof Hotel in Munich where the 48th Munich Security Conference is being held.

The three-day event brings together foreign and defense ministers and military experts from around the world.

The activists said that they were demonstrating against global arms deals, calling for a genuine global peace. The anti-war protesters also condemned the conference for ‘only paving the way for future conflicts.’

The event gathers the world’s major weapons producers who seek to invent wars and move profit backwards and forwards with certain countries, they said.

The 48th Munich Security Conference, focusing on Europe’s debt crisis and strategies for global security, was held with security provisions that were not as tight as the previous years, with police presence at a 3,100-strong low.

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February 5, 2012 Posted by | Militarism, Solidarity and Activism | , , | Leave a comment

Britain resorts to nuclear bullying against Argentina

Press TV – February 4, 2012

The UK is sending a nuclear submarine to the Malvinas Islands amid growing tensions between Britain and Argentina over the disputed territories.

According to media reports on Saturday, British Prime Minister David Cameron has personally approved the deployment of the Trafalgar-class vessel, believed to be either HMS Tireless or HMS Turbulent, in the South Atlantic.

However, a British Ministry of Defense (MoD) spokeswoman said, “We do not comment on submarine deployments.”

The heavily-armed submarine is set to be in the Malvinas waters in April for the 30th anniversary of the 1982 war which the two countries fought over the islands also known as the Falklands.

The Royal Navy has already revealed it is sending HMS Dauntless, a Type 45 destroyer, to the Falklands.

Britain’s Prince William arrived in the Malvinas on Thursday for a six-week training mission as a search and rescue pilot with the Royal Air Force (RAF).

Buenos Aires has strongly condemned Britain’s “provocative” move to post Prince William, likening it to that of a “conqueror.”

“The Argentinean people regret that the royal heir is coming to the soil of the homeland with the uniform of the conqueror and not with the wisdom of a statesman who works in the service of peace and dialogue between nations,” read an Argentine Foreign Ministry statement.

Situated about 250 nautical miles from Argentina, Malvinas has been a British colony for over 180 years.

Argentina claims sovereignty and the two countries fought a destructive 74-day war over the islands in 1982.

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February 4, 2012 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Barak Warns that Iran’s Nuclear Program could Reach Immunity Stage

Al-Manar | February 2, 2012

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned that the Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear program is reaching an immunity stage when no armed intervention could stop it, the Guardian reported.

According to the British daily, Barak indicated that the Zionist state is closer than ever to authorizing a military action, but said there is an “extent of debate and disagreement within Israel’s political and military echelons over the merits of a military strike.”

Speaking at the Herzliya conference Thursday, Barak said that “the world today has no doubt that the Iranian military nuclear program … will enter the immunity stage, from which point the Iranian regime will be able to complete the program without any effective intervention and at its convenience.”

“Dealing with a nuclearised Iran will be far more complex, far more dangerous and far more costly in blood and money than stopping it today. In other words, those who say later may find that later is too late…” he added.

The Zionist Defense Minister further called upon the international community to intensify sanctions on the Islamic Republic so that it stops its nuclear program, and noted that if these did not achieve the desired effect, a different kind of action must be considered.

February 3, 2012 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , | Leave a comment

Trident at risk from Scottish independence

Press TV – January 31, 2012

Scottish independence would bring an end to the UK’s nuclear deterrent as there are no other suitable locations for the base in Britain, warns a report from the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).

The Nowhere to Go report commissioned by CND revealed there is no viable alternative for the Trident nuclear weapons’ bases than its existing sites in Coulport and Faslane in Scotland, implying that the bases have nowhere to go if Scots vote for independence from the UK.

Kate Hudson, the general secretary of CND, said, “Trident is at a dead end, strategically and economically. Now we can add ‘geographically’ to the list too, as Ministry of Defence sources have confirmed CND’s analysis: that there ‘simply isn’t anywhere else’ for Trident to go.”

Asked in the Scottish parliament last week whether an independent Scotland would do a deal to keep the Trident, the Scottish First minister Alex Salmond replied, “It is inconceivable that an independent nation of 5.25m people would tolerate the continued presence of weapons of mass destruction on its soil.”

However, senior British defence officials have suggested that they could negotiate a treaty permitting the Trident missiles, submarines and warheads to remain in Scotland. Philip Hammond, the UK defence secretary, has also suggested that Scotland would be forced to pay the costs of relocating Trident nuclear deterrent.

Meanwhile, slamming the imposition of nuclear weapons on Scotland, Scottish CND chairman Arthur West described Scotland independence as “an opportunity to make a difference and to put an end to weapons of mass destruction in Britain.”

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January 31, 2012 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

US to send ‘mothership’ to Middle East

Press TV – January 28, 2012

The US military plans to deploy a large floating base, unofficially dubbed the “mothership,” for commando teams to the Middle East amid recent developments in the region.

The Navy is converting an aging warship it had planned to decommission into a makeshift staging base for the commandos in response to requests from the US Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, The Washington Post reported on Saturday.

The floating base could accommodate smaller high-speed boats and helicopters commonly used by the United States Navy’s Sea, Air, and Land Teams, commonly known as Navy SEALs.

Lieutenant Commander Mike Kafka, a spokesman for the Navy’s Fleet Forces Command, declined to elaborate on the floating base’s purpose or to say where exactly it will be deployed in the Middle East.

There are indications that the Pentagon will send the vessel to the region by early summer, and Navy documents show that it could be headed to the Persian Gulf.

The deployment of the floating base to the Middle East marks a return to maritime missions for SEAL teams, who have been engaged in ground operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for the past decade.

The US Navy had earlier planned to retire the amphibious assault ship USS Ponce and decommission it in March 2012 after 41 years of service. The warship was sent to the Mediterranean Sea last year to provide military support to NATO air strikes on Libya.

The USS Ponce will be instead transformed into what the US military calls an Afloat Forward Staging Base.

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January 28, 2012 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

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