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Obama Expands Military Involvement in Africa

By Daniel Volman | Inter Press Service | April 3, 2010

When President Barack Obama took office in January 2009, it was widely expected that he would dramatically change, or even reverse, the militarized and unilateral security policy that had been pursued by the George W. Bush administration toward Africa and other parts of the world.

After one year in office, however, it is clear that the Obama administration is following essentially the same policy that has guided U.S. military policy toward Africa for more than a decade. Indeed, the Obama administration is seeking to expand U.S. military activities on the continent even further.

In its FY 2011 budget request for security assistance programs for Africa, the Obama administration is asking for $38 million for the Foreign Military Financing program to pay for U.S. arms sales to African countries.

The administration is also asking for $21 million for the International Military Education and Training Program to bring African military officers to the United States, and $24.4 million for Anti-Terrorism Assistance programs in Africa.

The Obama administration has also taken a number of other steps to expand U.S. military involvement in Africa.

In June 2009, administration officials revealed that Obama had approved a program to supply at least 40 tons of weaponry and provide training to the forces of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) of Somalia through several intermediaries, including Uganda, Burundi, Djibouti, Kenya, and France.

In September 2009, Obama authorized a U.S. Special Forces operation in Somalia that killed Saleh Ali Nabhan, an alleged al-Qaeda operative who was accused of being involved in the bombing of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998, as well as other al-Qaeda operations in east Africa.

In October 2009, the Obama administration announced a major new security assistance package for Mali – valued at $4.5-$5 million – that included 37 Land Cruiser pickup trucks, communication equipment, replacement parts, clothing, and other individual equipment and was intended to enhance Mali’s ability to transport and communicate with internal security forces throughout the country and control its borders.

Although ostensibly intended to help Mali deal with potential threats from AQIM (al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb), it is more likely to be used against Tuareg insurgent forces.

In December 2009, U.S. military officials confirmed that the Pentagon was considering the creation of a 1,000-strong Marine rapid deployment force for the new U.S. Africa Command (Africom) based in Europe, which could be used to intervene in African hot spots.

In February 2010, in his testimony before a hearing by the Africa Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Johnnie Carson declared, “We seek to enhance Nigeria’s role as a U.S. partner on regional security, but we also seek to bolster its ability to combat violent extremism within its borders.”

Also in February 2010, U.S. Special Forces troops began a $30 million, eight-month-long training program for a 1,000-man infantry battalion of the army of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) at the U.S.-refurbished base in Kisangani.

Speaking before a Senate Armed Service Committee hearing in March 2010 about this training program, Gen. William Ward, the commander of Africom, stated “should it prove successful, there’s potential that it could be expanded to other battalions as well.”

During the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Ward also discussed Africom’s continuing participation in Ugandan military operations in the DRC against the Lord’s Resistance Army. Despite the failure of “Operation Lightning Thunder,” launched by Ugandan troops in December 2008 with help of Africom (included planning assistance, equipment, and financial backing), Ward declared, “I think our support to those ongoing efforts is important support.”

And in March 2010, U.S. officials revealed that the Obama administration was considering using surveillance drones to provide intelligence to TFG troops in Somalia for their planned offensive against al-Shabaab. According to these officials, the Pentagon may also launch air strikes into Somalia and send U.S. Special Forces troops into the country, as it has done in the past.

This growing U.S. military involvement in Africa reflects the fact that counterinsurgency has once again become one of the main elements of U.S. security strategy.

This is clearly evident in the new Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) released by the Pentagon in February.

According to the QDR, “U.S. forces will work with the military forces of partner nations to strengthen their capacity for internal security, and will coordinate those activities with those of other U.S. government agencies as they work to strengthen civilian capacities, thus denying terrorists and insurgents safe havens. For reasons of political legitimacy as well as sheer economic necessity, there is no substitute for professional, motivated local security forces protecting populations threatened by insurgents and terrorists in their midst.”

As the QDR makes clear, this is intended to avoid the need for direct U.S. military intervention: “Efforts that use smaller numbers of U.S. forces and emphasize host-nation leadership are generally preferable to large-scale counterinsurgency campaigns. By emphasizing host-nation leadership and employing modest numbers of U.S. forces, the United States can sometimes obviate the need for larger-scale counterinsurgency campaigns.”

Or, as a senior U.S. military officer assigned to Africom was quoted as saying in a recent article in the U.S. Air University’s Strategic Studies Quarterly, “We don’t want to see our guys going in and getting wacked. … We want Africans to go in.”

Thus, the QDR goes on to say, “U.S. forces are working in the Horn of Africa, the Sahel, Colombia, and elsewhere to provide training, equipment, and advice to their host-country counterparts on how to better seek out and dismantle terrorist and insurgent networks while providing security to populations that have been intimidated by violent elements in their midst.”

Furthermore, the United States will also continue to expand and improve the network of local military bases that are available to U.S. troops under base-access agreements.

The resurgence of Vietnam War-era counterinsurgency doctrine as a principal tenet of U.S. security policy, therefore, has led to a major escalation of U.S. military involvement in Africa by the Obama administration that seems likely to continue in the years ahead.

FY 2011 Budget Requests by Country

The $38 million for the Foreign Military Financing program to pay for U.S. arms sales to African countries includes: $9 million for Liberia, $9 million for Morocco, $4.9 million for Tunisia, $2.5 million for Djibouti, $2 million for Ethiopia, $1.5 million for the Democratic Republic of Congo, $1.4 million for Nigeria, and $1 million for Kenya.

The $21 million for the International Military Education and Training Program to bring African military officers to the United States for military training includes: $2.3 million for Tunisia, $1.9 million for Morocco, $1 million for Kenya, $1 million for Nigeria, $1 million for Senegal, $950,000 for Algeria, $825,000 for Ghana, $725,000 for Ethiopia, $600,000 for Uganda, $500,000 for the Democratic Republic of Congo, and $500,000 for Rwanda.

The $24.4 million for Anti-Terrorism Assistance programs in Africa includes: $8 million for Kenya, $1 million for South Africa, $800,000 for Morocco, and $400,000 for Algeria, and $14 million for African Regional Programs.

April 3, 2010 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , | Leave a comment

The So Called ‘Only Democracy in the Middle East’

By Gilad Atzmon | April 3, 2010

In Israel, the so called ‘only democracy in the Middle East’, a journalist has been held under house arrest since December for leaking a story of Israeli barbarism. In the Jewish Democracy another prominent Journalist had to run for his life for telling the truth about Israel’s murderous policies and its chief war criminals.

The Guardian reported today that Anat Kam, 23, an Israeli journalist “has been under secret house arrest since December on charges that she leaked highly sensitive classified military documents that suggest the Israeli military breached a court order on assassinations in the occupied West Bank.”

Seemingly, in the ‘Jews only democracy’, people are put under house arrest even when they are trying to suggest a breach of the state’s High Court’s orders. (Even kosher citizens)

Anat Kam, 23, goes on trial in two weeks on treason and espionage charges and could face up to 14 years in jail. In the ‘democratic’ Jewish state, a court-imposed gagging order is preventing media coverage of the arrest and charges in Israel. I am left puzzled here as it seems Israelis can be prosecuted for reporting illegal activities.

A Haaretz leading journalist, Uri Blau, who has also been linked to the case, has had to escape Israel. He is now in London, apparently for fear he will be targeted for his reporting.

In November 2008, Blau reported in Haaretz that the IDF had been carrying out assassinations of Palestinian militants in the West Bank in contravention of an Israeli high court ruling, which said efforts should be made first to arrest suspected militants rather than assassinating them.

According to Blau the IDF chief General Gabi Ashkenazi allegedly approved the assassination operations. The Haaretz piece was accompanied by copies of military documents but it was approved by the military censor before publication.

I am here to suggest that if America still insists to ‘democratize the world’, it may have to start with its ‘best ally’. Time may also be ripe for Neocon British Foreign Secretary David Miliband who advocates ‘liberal interventionalism’, to face the fact that the Jewish state, the state that lists him as one of its Propaganda (Hasbara) authours, is no less than a Tyranny inspired by a deep Talmudic intolerance.

April 3, 2010 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes | Leave a comment

UK okays Chagos Islands sea reserve, angers exiles

AFP | April 2, 2010

LONDON: Britain created the world’s biggest marine reserve in its Indian Ocean territory on Thursday, pleasing environmentalists but angering exiled Chagos Islanders who say it creates an obstacle to them returning home.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband ordered the creation of a marine reserve, where commercial fishing is banned, in the British Indian Ocean Territory, made up of 55 tiny islands, including Diego Garcia, which houses a U.S. air base.

Some 2,000 Chagos Islanders were forcibly removed from the archipelago in the 1960s and ’70s to make way for the American base and have waged a long legal battle for the right to return.

Representatives of the Chagos Islanders, who have now taken their case to the European Court of Human Rights, argue that the creation of the reserve will stop them returning home because it bars fishing, their main livelihood.

The new “marine protected area” will cover a quarter of a million square miles — an area larger than California — and doubles the area of the world’s oceans under protection.

“Its creation is a major step forward for protecting the oceans,” Miliband said in a statement. The decision by the British government comes weeks before an election that opposition Conservatives are favourites to win.

The US-based Pew Environment Group, one of a number of conservation groups that campaigned for the creation of the marine reserve, called Miliband’s decision “a historic victory for global ocean conservation”. It said the Chagos Islands rivalled the Galapagos Islands and the Great Barrier Reef in ecological diversity and the area was important for research on climate change, ocean acidification, the resilience of coral reefs and sea level rise.

SAFE HAVEN FOR WILDLIFE

It said the islands provided a safe haven for dwindling populations of sea turtles and more than 175,000 pairs of breeding sea birds. The sparklingly clean waters around the islands are home to 220 species of corals and more than 1,000 species of reef fish, it said. But islanders and their supporters said the move could be used to prevent them returning home.

“They will say that if you go there, you are not allowed to fish. How are you going to feed yourself? How are you going to get your livelihood?,” Roch Evenor, an islander who chairs the UK Chagos Support Association, told Channel 4 News.

Marcus Booth, vice-chair of the association, which supports islanders’ right to return home, accused the government of disregarding the islanders’ rights in a rushed move to secure an environmental legacy before the election.

Diego Garcia became an important base for the United States during the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, acting as a refuelling site for long-range bombers.

In 2008, Britain acknowledged that two U.S. planes carrying terrorism suspects had refuelled there six years earlier.

Several British courts ruled that evicted islanders and their descendants had a right to return home but Britain’s highest court overturned those rulings in 2008.

The islanders and their descendants are now believed to number about 5,000. Around a fifth are looking to resettle on the islands, which have belonged to Britain since 1814.

April 3, 2010 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism | Leave a comment

Japan: Kagoshima governor rejects US Marines base

Press TV – April 3, 2010

The governor of Japan’s Kagoshima Prefecture has expressed his strong opposition against the proposed relocation of US Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Okinawa to Tokunoshima Island.

Yuichiro Ito told reporters on Friday that he will oppose the relocation along with the residents of the island and the Kagoshima Prefectural Assembly.

He added that the government has not contacted the prefecture about the relocation. He also stressed that Tokunoshima residents do not want to accept a US military base.

The reaction comes as thousands of residents on Tokunoshima Island in Kagoshima Prefecture held a protest rally on Sunday after the island was reported to be a candidate site for hosting the contentious Futenma base in Ginowan, Okinawa Prefecture.

“The government has never consulted with any of the three mayors about the issue, even though it advocates the decentralization of authority,” said Tokunoshima Mayor Hideki Takaoka, as he criticized Tokyo’s disrespect for municipal governments.

The protest was organized by the municipalities and an organizing committee consisting of over 60 groups from Kagoshima’s Amami Islands.

“We cannot expose our children to noise and crime. We don’t need a base here on this island of children, longevity and mutual cooperation,” said a 39-year-old housewife.

Farmer Tokuhiro Motoda, 80, saw the matter as a threat to his way of life. “Tokunoshima is an island with rich nature and farming. Our living would be destroyed by the base,” he said.

A new survey conducted by the Sankei newspaper showed that more than 73 percent of respondents were unhappy with Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s management of the issue.

Nearly half of the voters believe Hatoyama should resign if he fails to resolve the problem by the end of May as he himself announced the May deadline.

April 3, 2010 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism | Leave a comment

What War with Iran Means

By Patrick J. Buchanan | April 02, 2010

“Diplomacy has failed,” Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told AIPAC, “Iran is on the verge of becoming nuclear and we cannot afford that.”

“We have to contemplate the final option,” said Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., “the use of force to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.”

War is a “terrible thing,” said Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., but “sometimes it is better to go to war than to allow the Holocaust to develop a second time.”

Graham then describes the war we Americans should fight:

“If military force is ever employed, it should be done in a decisive fashion. The Iran government’s ability to wage conventional war against its neighbors and our troops in the region should not exist. They should not have one plane that can fly or one ship that can float.”

Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute, Neocon Central, writes, “The only questions remaining, one Washington politico tells me, are who starts it, and how it ends.”

As to who starts it, we know the answer. Tehran has not started a war in memory and is not going to launch a suicide attack on a superpower with thousands of nuclear weapons. As with Iraq in 2003, the war will be launched by the United States against a nation that did not attack us — to strip it of weapons it does not have.

But to Graham’s point, if we are going to start this war, prudence dictates that we destroy Iran’s ability to fight back. At a minimum, we would have to use air strikes and cruise missiles to hit a range of targets.

First, Iran’s nuclear facilities such as the uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, the U.S.-built reactor that makes medical isotopes, the power plant at Bushehr, the centrifuge facility near Qom and the heavy-water plant at Arak.

Our problem here is that the last three are not even operational and all are subject to U.N. inspections. There are Russians at Bushehr. And there is no evidence that diversion to a weapons program has taken place.

If Iran has secret plants working on nuclear weapons, why have we not been told where, and demanded that U.N. inspectors be let in? Why did 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, three years ago, tell us they did not exist and Iran gave up its drive for a nuclear weapon in 2003?

If Iran is on the “verge” of a bomb, as Schumer claims, the entire U.S. intelligence community should be decapitated for incompetence.

This week, in a hyped headline, “CIA: Iran capable of producing nukes,” the Washington Times said that a new CIA report claims, “Iran continues to develop a range of capabilities that could be applied to producing nuclear weapons, if a decision is made to do so.”

Excuse me, but this is mush. We could say the same of a dozen countries that use nuclear power and study nuclear technology.

But let us continue with Graham’s blitzkrieg war.

To prevent a counterattack, the United States would have to take out Iran’s 14 airfields and all its warplanes on the ground. We would also have to sink every warship and submarine in Iran’s navy and destroy some 200 missile, patrol, and speedboats operated by the Revolutionary Guard, else they would be dropping mines and mauling our warships.

Also, it would be crucial on day one to hit Iran’s launch sites and missile plants for, like Saddam in 1991, Iran would probably attack Israel, to make it an American and Israeli war on an Islamic republic.

Among other critical targets would be the Silkworm anti-ship missile sites on Iran’s coastline that would menace U.S. warships and oil tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz. Any Iranian attack on ships or seeding of mines would likely close the gulf and send world oil prices soaring.

Revolutionary Guard barracks, especially the Quds Force near Iraq, would have to be hit to slow troop movement to and across the border into Iraq to kill U.S. soldiers and civilians. The same might be necessary against Iranian troops near Afghanistan.

With Iran’s ally Hezbollah in south Beirut, all U.S. civilians should probably be pulled out of Lebanon before an attack lest they wind up dead or hostages. And how safe would Americans be in the Gulf region, especially Bahrain, home of the U.S. Fifth Fleet, a predominantly Shi’ite island?

And whose side would Shi’ite Iraq take?

Would we have to intern all Iranian nationals in the United States, as we did Germans and Italians in 1941? How many terror attacks on soft targets in the USA could we expect from Iranian and Hezbollah agents in reprisal for our killing thousands of civilians in hundreds of strikes on Iran?

Before the War Party stampedes us into yet another war, the Senate should find out if Tehran is really on the “verge” of getting a bomb, and why deterrence, which never failed us, cannot succeed with Iran.

COPYRIGHT 2010 CREATORS.COM

April 2, 2010 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, War Crimes | Leave a comment

Liberals with guns: scarier than Tea Partiers

Charles Davis | False Dichotomy | March 25, 2010

I often begin my political science courses with a brief introduction to the idea of “the state.” The state is the entity that has a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, force and coercion. If an individual travels to another country and kills its citizens, we call it terrorism. If the state does it, we call it war. If a man kills his neighbor it is murder; if the state does it is the death penalty. If an individual takes his neighbor’s money, it is theft; if the state does it, it is taxation.

Maria Harris-Lacewell is a professor at Princeton University, as so subtly alluded to in the above excerpt from her latest drivel for The Nation, and she’s concerned about the “legitimacy” of the state — a legitimacy she assumes but doesn’t explain — which she notes some backwards reactionaries have had the temerity to challenge in the age of Democratic government. Now, considering that U.S. government imprisons more of its own citizens than any other in the history, with 25 percent of the world’s prisoners; that it has more military bases in more countries than any previous empire in history, and has killed millions of people from Iraq to Vietnam; and that its current head, Barack Obama, is openly targeting for extrajudicial killing Americans and foreigners alike, one might ask: why is a liberal magazine so concerned about this state’s legitimacy?

Because of the Tea Party movement, you see, whose flashes of racism and disrespect toward politicians is of more concern to Ivy League academics than the “legitimate” state violence they applaud. Tea Partiers, by accusing the current administration of “various forms of totalitarianism . . . are arguing that this government has no right to levy taxes or make policy,” the professor writes, apparently under the mistaken belief that most taxes the state levies go to gumdrop bridges and fairy dust health clinics, rather than less wholesome things like aircraft carriers and daisy cutters. Rather than focusing on what the state actually does, though, Harris-Lacewell, like most liberals, would prefer we focus on their shining, abstract ideal of what it could be, while sanctimoniously dismissing those who see no distinction between state-sponsored and private sector murder, an approach befitting the wait-until-you’re-called merit-class liberal mentality that dominates the Democratic Party and the progressive press.

As The Nation’s house political scientist explains it, adopting an argument that one could never imagine being applied to the left, “When protesters spit on and scream at duly elected representatives of the United States government it is more than act of racism. It is an act of sedition.”

Put another way: offenses against the state are inherently more despicable than any offense one could commit against some poor schmuck civilian. An overstatement? Well, no, as Harris-Lacewell herself demonstrates in writing about Congressman John Lewis (D-GA), who “is no longer just a brave American fighting for the soul of his country- he is an elected official. He is an embodiment of the state.” Yeah, you know, before Lewis just marched in the streets against racism and state-enforced segregation as a (ho-hum) private citizen, but now he chairs a subcommittee — show him some respect!

Hooping and hollering at an elected official — sorry, “an embodiment of the state” — might give liberals at The Nation the vapors, and right-wing protesters who cheered on the Bush administration’s abuses of power may not be my cup of tea, but color me unimpressed with the argument that I have more to fear from the talk radio right than I do the incarcerating-and-assassinating state. Now while there’s little chance you’ll catch me marching against compact fluorescent light-bulbs or Obamacare anytime soon — though I promise nothing — I just don’t fear a rollback of the Reconstruction period “and the descent of a vicious new Jim Crow terrorism” as much as I fear and abhor the actual, happening-right-now terrorism carried out by my esteemed public officials with the tacit approval of the humanitarian progressives too busy lecturing the rabble on the need to pay taxes and pledge allegiance to their betters in Washington than to challenge their leader’s wars. In addition to the hundreds killed without so much as a show trial by hellfire missiles since the glorious advent of The Liberal Ascendancy, agents of the U.S. government have been implicated in several headline-grabbing atrocities, the latest of which involved the pre-dawn slaying of a pair of pregnant women and a teenage girl. That female civilians are being killed at a level on par with Afghan males is no doubt being hailed in the halls of Brookings as a feminist triumph, but it’s more troubling to me than the idea of some people questioning the legitimacy of the perpetrators’ employer.

Perhaps they shouldn’t just be ignored, but until Glenn Beck’s followers kill two dozen people in a remote village, I’m going to spend most of my time focusing on those with control over the tanks and nuclear weapons. And rather than seeking to bolster the state and reinforce the idea of some mythical, mystical social contract, I just might seek to undermine this government, so far as I can, for as long as it continues enriching a politically connected corporate elite while imprisoning and enlisting the rest of its population, no matter how “duly elected” our politicians might be as a result of the sham two-party electoral system. When political leaders are engaged in senseless war and widespread human rights abuses — and the occupation of Afghanistan and the U.S. prison system at home and abroad qualify — the person of conscience’s duty is not to the state but to justice, which usually means opposing the state and questioning its presumed legitimacy.

The proper attitude toward a criminal government is not deference and respect, however much some at The Nation might love a smooth-talking Democrat, but defiance and rebellion — of the non-violent variety.

April 2, 2010 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes | Leave a comment

Honest in the Worst Way

By Philip Giraldi | April 01, 2010

When the beefsteak mine bonds salesman J. Frothingham Waterbury in the W.C. Fields movie The Bank Dick wanted to unload his worthless paper he put his hand on his heart and said with a straight face, “I want to show you I’m honest in the worst way.”  Well, Frothingham Waterbury had nothing on today’s masters of the sharp deal former Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and ex head of the Department of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff.  The problem with the two gentlemen and many others who have formed the detritus of both Republican and Democratic administrations over the past twenty years is that they sometimes fail to understand where private interests end and the public interest begins. They and others like them are a valuable commodity to large private contractors because they can exploit their former positions to obtain access to colleagues who remain in government.  They also give a measure of credibility to their new employers based on their former status, which can be used to sell goods and services.  The relentless pursuit of the fast buck obscures that there is a public trust that is being betrayed.  Because the American people want to believe in the integrity of the message being conveyed by the Chertoffs and McConnells it is easy to forget that they are really just salesmen offering wares that may not actually be needed.

If the public wonders how the US government has gotten so big and expensive they might well look at the huge security industry that has grown dramatically enabled by senior managers like McConnell and Chertoff moving between government jobs and the private sector, often a revolving door that spawns fat government no-bid contracts.  Did Dick Cheney get rich with Halliburton because he was a business genius or because he was put in a position where his government contacts could be exploited to bring in the cash even when the American taxpayer had no need of what was being purveyed?  How did people like Donald Rumsfeld and Richard Perle become multi-millionaires?

McConnell has surfaced most recently, in the Washington Post, in a lengthy opinion piece warning about the cybersecurity threat.  Now, I’ll admit that I don’t know much about cyber-terrorism, but I would bet that McConnell’s argument that the US is facing something like a new Pearl Harbor is just a tad overstated.  It is essentially the same argument that has been played and replayed over the past nine years by those who want big government and large budgets.  What McConnell does understand very clearly is that if the United States government spends some hundreds of billions of dollars in protecting the country against cyber attack, his company, Booz Allen Hamilton, will get a very large slice of that pie.  Booz is currently one of the largest government contractors and it is already advising clients on cybersecurity, which makes the article in the Washington Post pretty much free advertising combined with special pleading.

McConnell cites two instances of cyber-threat, one the hacking of Google late last year “emanating from China” and an attack in 2008 that compromised the security of 2,500 companies.  McConnell would like to see a huge government-funded effort to deal with the threat both preemptively and through deterrence.  Now I am sure McConnell knows perfectly well that al-Qaeda does not have a cyber division and that a computer or information threat does not actually kill anyone.  Cyber attack is primarily an economic weapon, used to steal valuable information, often somewhat akin to vandalism when it interferes with the ability of systems to communicate and exchange information.  And there are commercially available defenses against it that already exist.  If you can hack into a system there are ways to build walls to prevent that.  Companies that have identified cyber threats can go out and buy software and engage IT experts who can and do protect their systems.  It is just a matter of weighing risk and providing protection that is commensurate.  A massive government program to involve the private sector would make everyone buy into the same level of security, which is just not needed in most cases. And the key word is “buy.” It would also make McConnell and Booz Allen even richer.

And then there is Michael Chertoff.  Chertoff seized the bully pulpit in the wake of the Christmas underwear bomber, writing op ed pieces and appearing all over the media to advocate the use of expensive scanners at airports to prevent such incidents.  There were only two problems with the hype.  First, tests revealed that the scanners would not necessarily have detected the device used by the bomber and second, Chertoff’s company The Chertoff Group had a consulting relationship with the company Rapiscan Systems that made the scanners.  Which means that Chertoff, who appeared to be providing disinterested expert advice, would benefit personally if the scanners are placed in airports.  It was reported last week that Chertoff has also decided to become a board member at BAE Systems, a top defense contractor that has defrauded the US government. The British company has agreed to pay $447 million in fines to the American and British governments to settle charges of corruption, including an alleged $2 billion bribing of Saudi Arabian Prince Bandar, who was Ambassador to the US at the time.

McConnells and Chertoffs have always been around.  During the Civil War contractors in Philadelphia made army boots out of cardboard and uniform jackets that fell apart after being worn once or twice.  Trying to make money off of government contracts goes back even farther than that with Cicero having prosecuted corrupt governors who robbed the treasury of the Roman Republic.  Today’s snake oil vendors will always be with us, particularly as both Republicans and Democrats appear to be enamored of the war on terror which will apparently go on forever and everywhere.  As it is global and terror is a tactic you can bet it will never end until it bankrupts the United States, which just might come sooner than most people think likely.

What is lacking is any restraint on the activity of the promoters of the war economy.  The salesmen for total war would not be so dangerous if they were not portrayed as experts and given a platform to parlay their former government positions into private gain.  A skeptical media would be nice, asking hard questions about what financial interests former senior government officials might have.  But we are long past the point where we might expect the media to do its job or do anything at all but promote the long war, which presumably sells newspapers and ad time on television.  It would also be nice to stop senior government officials from setting up their own companies like The Chertoff Group that then turning around to do contracting with the government.  That’s not only unseemly, it involves potential conflict of interest and could lead to more serious forms of corruption.  It would be far better to close the revolving door completely and send the Chertoffs and McConnells off to a comfortable retirement somewhere where they would no longer be reaching into in the taxpayers’ pockets to fund scanners we don’t need and a new global conflict, which, if the pattern holds true to form, will no doubt be dubbed the war on cyber.

Read more by Philip Giraldi

April 1, 2010 Posted by | Corruption, Militarism | Leave a comment

THE MILITARY’S UNKNOWN A-WASTE AT HANFORD

Radioactive waste is building daily throughout the United States and the government doesn’t seem to know what to do with it. The failure of the media to fully address the issue of increasing radioactive waste qualifies this story for nomination as the #3 censored story of 1981.

While public interest generally focuses on commercial nuclear power plants, wastes from atomic weapons production accounts for half the radioactivity and more than 90 percent of the volume of nuclear waste in the U.S., including some 7 million gallons of high-level liquid waste that result annually from the manufacture of plutonium. Most of the weapons-related liquid waste is stored in 169 temporary underground tanks at the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington state. Since the mid-1950s, there have been more than 20 instances of leakage at Hanford totaling at least 500,000 gallons of radioactive liquid waste.

While the Reagan administration plans to increase nuclear weapons production, it has yet to discover what to do with all the radioactive waste we already have.

This story appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, 12/28/81.

March 30, 2010 Posted by | Environmentalism, Militarism, Nuclear Power, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Obama Declares Afghan War ‘Absolutely Essential’

Insists America Will Never Abandon Conflict

By Jason Ditz | March 28, 2010

Underscoring his administration’s commitment to continue the already eight and a half year long occupation of Afghanistan, President Barack Obama made a surprise visit today and delivered a speech declaring the war ‘absolutely essential.’

Citing 9/11, President Obama insisted that continuing the conflict makes all Americans safer, and assured the troops that “everyone” knows the importance of the continued occupation of the landlocked nation.

He also threw water on the notion that the war might come to an end any time soon, saying “the United States of America does not quit once we start on something.” He reiterated his confidence that the US would ultimately prevail.

But despite pledging to give the troops a clear mission and a clear goal, and insisting that they would “get the job done,” he didn’t make it at all clear what exactly this job was. His only hint at any mission beyond endless conflict was a reference to al-Qaeda in the region, though administration officials have repeatedly conceded that there are virtually no al-Qaeda members left in Afghanistan, and have not been in some time. Yet momentum and a sufficiently hawkish administration suggests the conflict will continue to find enemies wherever it can and continue indefinitely.

.

March 28, 2010 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | Leave a comment

US casualties double in Afghanistan

Press TV – March 28, 2010

The number of US troops killed in Afghanistan has roughly doubled in the first quarter of 2010 compared with the same period last year.

According to Pentagon figures, some 77 American service members have been killed so far in 2010, the Associated Press reported on Saturday. This is while, the figure stood at 41 in the same period a year ago.

US officials have warned that casualties are likely to rise even further. “We must steel ourselves, no matter how successful we are on any given day, for harder days yet to come,” Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said a month ago.

A rise in the number of the wounded also shows the Taliban remain a formidable opponent. According to the data, the Americans are facing an increase of almost 350 percent in the wounded soldiers.

The number of American troops in Afghanistan rose from 32,000 at the beginning of last year to 68,000 at the end of the year, an increase of more than 110 percent.

March 27, 2010 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | Leave a comment

Profs protest university scholarship program promoting Canadian military

By Richard Fidler | March 26, 2010

Congratulations to the 16 professors at the University of Regina who have sent a letter to the university’s president Vianne Timmons saying it should withdraw from the program known as “Project Hero”. The program, an initiative of Rick Hillier, a retired general, offers free tuition to the children of dead Canadian soldiers. Hillier, as Chief of the Defense Staff, was notorious for his war-mongering propaganda about killing Afghan resistance “scumbags”. In addition to the thousands of Afghans killed by Canadian forces, close to 140 Canadian soldiers have died in that country, and thousands more have been permanently disabled physically or mentally.

According to the Globe & Mail, “Several universities have signed onto the program, including Memorial University in Newfoundland and the universities of Ottawa, Windsor and Calgary. The University of Regina announced earlier this month that it would provide the scholarship starting in September.”

The professors’ letter says Project Hero is “a glorification of Canadian imperialism in Afghanistan and elsewhere.” Instead of “privileging the children of deceased Canadian soldiers,” it says, “we suggest that our administration demand all levels of government provide funding sufficient for universal qualified access to post-secondary education.”

The professors’ action has been met, predictably, by a storm of criticism in the corporate media and denunciation by the Royal Canadian Legion, which purports to speak for military veterans.

The Globe quotes political science prof Joyce Green, who signed the letter: The program “conflates heroism with the death of individuals who are in the military service and we think that the death of individuals is always a tragic matter, but we think that heroism is something different,” Ms. Green said.

“When you attach heroism to the deaths of the military, it makes it very difficult, maybe impossible for us to talk about what’s going on, what the nature of our military engagement is. In other words, it shrinks the space for democratic discussion and criticism of military policy in Canada and in the university.”

Few media outlets have actually published the text of the letter. Here it is:

Dear President Timmons:

We write to you as concerned faculty members of the University of Regina, to urge you to withdraw our university immediately from participation in the “Project Hero” scholarship program. This program, which waives tuition and course fees, and provides $1,000 per year to “dependents of Canadian Forces personnel deceased while serving with an active mission”, is a glorification of Canadian imperialism in Afghanistan and elsewhere. We do not want our university associated with the political impulse to unquestioning glorification of military action.

“Project Hero” is the brainchild of Kevin Reed, a 42-year-old honorary lieutenant-colonel of an army reserve unit in southwestern Ontario, who has said publicly he was inspired by the work of retired Canadian General Rick Hillier. General Hillier, one of the most controversial figures in the recent military history of this country, was the first to introduce “Project Hero” at a Canadian post-secondary institution, just after he took up the post as Chancellor of Memorial University of Newfoundland. Since then, a number of other public Canadian universities have come on board.

In our view, support for “Project Hero” represents a dangerous cultural turn. It associates “heroism” with the act of military intervention. It erases the space for critical discussion of military policy and practices. In signing on to “Project Hero”, the university is implicated in the disturbing construction of the war in Afghanistan by Western military- and state-elites as the “good war” of our epoch. We insist that our university not be connected with the increasing militarization of Canadian society and politics.

The majority of young adults in Canada find it increasingly difficult to pay for their education. If they do make it to university, they rack up massive student debts which burden them for years. Instead of privileging the children of deceased Canadian soldiers, we suggest that our administration demand all levels of government provide funding sufficient for universal qualified access to post-secondary education.

The University of Regina has always been closely tied to our Saskatchewan community, and the strategic plan, mâmawohkamâtowin, means “co-operation; working together towards common goals”. We do not think that “Project Hero” is a common goal chosen by those of us who work in the University; it is not drawn from the values of this institution. We think it is incompatible with our understanding of the role of public education, or with decisions made by a process of collegial governance.

In addition to withdrawing from “Project Hero”, we think the issues we raise should be publicly debated. We are calling on the U of R administration to hold a public forum on the war in Afghanistan, and Canadian imperialism more generally, at which the issues we raise can be debated. This forum should be open to all; it should take place this semester, before exams, as “Project Hero” is set to start at U of R in September 2010.

To summarize, we are calling for:

(1) The immediate withdrawal of our university from “Project Hero”.

(2) An institutional deployment of public pressure on both orders of government to provide immediate funding sufficient for universal access to post-secondary education.

(3) A public forum on the war in Afghanistan and Canadian imperialism more generally to be held this semester before exams begin.

Signatures:

Joyce Green, Department of Political Science

J.F. Conway, Department of Sociology and Social Studies

George Buri, Department of History

Emily Eaton, Department of Geography

Jeffery R. Webber, Department of Political Science

David Webster, International Studies

Annette Desmarais, International Studies

Darlene Juschka, Women’s and Gender Studies and Religious Studies

Meredith Rogers Cherland, Faculty of Education

Garson Hunter, Social Work

John W. Warnock, Department of Sociology and Social Studies

William Arnal, Department of Religious Studies

Leesa Streifler, Department of Visual Arts

Carol Schick, Faculty of Education

Ken Montgomery, Faculty of Education

André Magnan, Department of Sociology and Social Studies”

March 27, 2010 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism | Leave a comment

Netanyahu to Ask Obama for Bunker Buster Bombs against Iran

Al-Manar, 21/03/2010

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will press the American administration during his upcoming visit to Washington to release sophisticated bunker-busting bombs needed for a possible strike on Iran’s nuclear sites, the Sunday Times reported in its website.

Netanyahu will leave for the United States on Sunday evening in order to attend a meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). He is also expected to meet with senior administration officials.

In Washington, Netanyahu is scheduled to meet with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. A meeting with President Barack Obama is in the works.

The Scotland Herald reported last week that hundreds of powerful US “bunker-buster” bombs were shipped from California to the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean in preparation for a possible attack on Iran. The newspaper quoted a manifest from the US navy as saying that the shipment included 387 “Blu” bombs used for blasting hardened or underground structures.

Experts told the paper that the ammunition was being put in place for an assault on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Although Diego Garcia is part of the British Indian Ocean Territory, the Herald said, it is used by the US as a military base under an agreement made in 1971. According to the newspaper, the preparations were being made by the US military, but it would be up to President Obama to make the final decision.

The London Weekly said that for the first time since Operation Cast Lead against Gaza, Israel has agreed to ease the blockade on the Strip, discuss all core issues during the proximity talks, with the condition of reaching final conclusions only in direct talks with the PA. It added that Netanyahu will seek returns for the concessions, asking Washington to provide the IAF with the ‘bunker-buster’ bombs.

Without proof, Israel and the West accuse Iran of using its enrichment program to build a nuclear bomb, a charge Tehran firmly denies. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad issued on Saturday a Persian New Year’s address to Iranians, in which he said that Iran would resist Western pressure even more determinedly in the coming year.

March 21, 2010 Posted by | Militarism, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

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