Politics, Everyday, All day... morning, noon and night....II

[ygmir]

I would bet, over the years, war and economics have made for some very surprising bedfellows.............if we only knew...........

[can't sit still]

The most interesting part of this story to me is Russia and India working on this together.
ABSOLUTELY !
JK

[Elderberry]

I would bet, over the years, war and economics have made for some very surprising bedfellows.............if we only knew...........

Yes, I'm sure; but the reason this is so surprising to me is that I thought we were the ones in bed with India and now I find we are in a three-way. I would have thought India would have way more at stake economically with their relationship with the United States to put that in any sort of jeopardy. Which, considering this is public knowledge, makes me wonder why we haven't heard any more rumblings here about this.

JK

[ygmir]

I'm sure it depends on what sticks/carrots Russia is offering them.........and, us, and we offer Russia, and, China, and, Germany, or, What Germany offers France (other than takeover) *grin*, or what Pakistan will offer us to offer India a deal to keep the Russians happy so they don't side with the Taliban in Afghanistan to embarrass us like we did them, and, leading to a takeover of Trinidad/Tobago and an upset at the Olympics..........

[can't sit still]

India has never been comfortable with Anglos. GB systematically starved India for decades. After the Sepoy revolt, GB killed 10 million Indians. Makes them a bit nervous. India is also nervous about Pakistan. They've fought 3 wars. India has a billion people who have a different mindset than the Chinese. They would love to be happy little consumers,, rather than savers. Also, if India were well-armed, it would be more difficult for the West to penetrate to central Asian oil. Good missiles are far cheaper than aircraft carriers. It all makes sense.

[dr.placebo]

The outcome of war is decided more and more by who has the best missiles.
http://english.pravda.ru/russia/economi ... ia_india-0 It doesn't matter if you have a $2 billion dollar plane if a $ 50,000 missile will take it down. The US has lost supremacy in missile development. The Russian "Sunburn" and "Onyx" missiles will take out our entire navy according to the pentagon.
Now, Russia and India have designed a new missile that will take out anything. It's doubtful that America can catch up. We have space weapons and scalar weapons and weather weapons but, they only fit certain applications.
The Russians and Indians are now developing this missile.
The western military spends way too much time inventing boogeymen and then defending from these boogeymen. If a East--West war looks to be un-winable, maybe the US military will let go of the stranglehold on the US budget.

OMG, not another missile gap! That's so 1959!

First, an East-West war has been unwinnable since both sides got enough nukes with unstoppable means for delivery. That's been true since the 1950's, and is unlikely to change.

Second, Russia (or India, or China) using a lot of missiles to attack the US Navy would have the effect of Pearl Harbor. Even an initial success would be a disaster for the attacker, with the understanding that everybody loses because of nukes. Similarly, we don't get to blow away the navy of any other nuclear power.

Third, the $2 billion plane is already an expensive dinosaur. We are already switching over to unmanned aircraft, and that trend will accelerate. Most of the world's technologically capable militaries appear to be moving in the same direction.

None of these points is going to make it any cheaper to run the US military.

[gyre]

lurker, this proposed "civilian national security force" bears analysis. When you put together the 2 words "force" and "security", it doesn't sound like the Black Rock Rangers. It sounds "armed" . We already have the U.S. Marshals. Do we need another federal police force? Do we need armed civilians doing the same work as U.S. Marshals?
If you remember Kent State, there were deaths because of over-reaction.
If someone is going to be pointing a gun at me, I want them to be well trained.

I met someone who works for fema, on occasion.
They are asking his company to make plans for intake centers for vaccinations.
No details on how that would work.
My guess is for anthrax, etc.
But functional?

Kent State was not over reaction, but planned, organized murder.
Who was ultimately behind it?
Make your own guess.
We know who fixed the cover up though.
And it wasn't the first murder attempt during that period in ohio.
Conspiracies within conspiracies in that period, with the us army actively interfering with the civilian population in all cities.

And my ohio info comes from people that were there in person at all the many ohio events.
And all the hundreds of photos I've seen.

[ygmir]

[youtube][/youtube]

[Elderberry]

lurker, this proposed "civilian national security force" bears analysis. When you put together the 2 words "force" and "security", it doesn't sound like the Black Rock Rangers. It sounds "armed" . We already have the U.S. Marshals. Do we need another federal police force? Do we need armed civilians doing the same work as U.S. Marshals?
If you remember Kent State, there were deaths because of over-reaction.
If someone is going to be pointing a gun at me, I want them to be well trained.

I met someone who works for fema, on occasion.
They are asking his company to make plans for intake centers for vaccinations.
No details on how that would work.
My guess is for anthrax, etc.
But functional?

Kent State was not over reaction, but planned, organized murder.
Who was ultimately behind it?
Make your own guess.
We know who fixed the cover up though.
And it wasn't the first murder attempt during that period in ohio.
Conspiracies within conspiracies in that period, with the us army actively interfering with the civilian population in all cities.

And my ohio info comes from people that were there in person at all the many ohio events.
And all the hundreds of photos I've seen.

I was there in person as well. I was home on leave from Viet Nam and my sisters were going to school there. I had to pick them up from campus. All that conspiracy shit is crap.

JK

[gyre]

It wasn't one event, but a series of events.
And the same people show up over and over again, with no reasonable explanation.
And the famous murders were not the first incident.
Any responsible parties had plenty of notice.
There are no excuses.
And there were plenty of conspiracies.
You can always call it something else though.

Those photos still exist too.

There are many possible explanations.
None good.
And there are still plenty of mysteries too.
You can call them other things,
But many things from that era have been exposed.

The military in my town was so open about it, that I personally caught them at it more than once.
When a lawsuit exposed the illegal activity, the police burned the records publicly, in direct violation of the court order, still in force today by the way.
Just another cover-up.

And I caught the city violating that same court order about not keeping general files on citizens.

As with most crimes committed by government, the defense is often worse than the truth.
Think it through.
It usually boils down to corruption or incompetence.

[gyre]

I was there in person as well. I was home on leave from Viet Nam and my sisters were going to school there. I had to pick them up from campus. All that conspiracy shit is crap.

JK

Tell us what you know about it.
I'm interested.

[geekster]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/commen ... 886167.ece

The Times of London:

Do starving Africans a favour. Don’t feed them

There is famine in Kenya and Ethiopia again. Sending food and emergency relief will make things worse in the long term

[littleflower]

interesting read for anyone interested in the california budget:

http://www.city-journal.org:80/2009/19_ ... ornia.html

[Elderberry]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/commen ... 886167.ece

The Times of London:

Do starving Africans a favour. Don’t feed them

There is famine in Kenya and Ethiopia again. Sending food and emergency relief will make things worse in the long term

Link didn't work, but if the above is a quote, it was a brave soul that dared to speak the truth. I doubt that article would ever be published in the NY Times...not very politically correct, you know.

JK

[DVD Burner]

C.I.A. Convictions in Italy



Italy got it right: CIA renditions are wrong
The conviction of 23 Americans in the abduction of Muslim cleric Abu Omar may be largely symbolic, but it sends an important message to the Obama administration.
November 6, 2009

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/edi ... 0282.story

'Extrajudicial detentions" and "extraordinary renditions" were nicely scrubbed terms for the Bush administration's policy of capturing suspects in one country and spiriting them away to another, where they were harshly interrogated and even tortured. Now an Italian court has called this CIA practice by its real name -- illegal.

The conviction of 23 Americans and two Italians for kidnapping an Egyptian cleric off the streets of Milan in 2003 in one sense is largely symbolic: The defendants were tried in absentia, and the Italian government is not seeking their extradition; barring a successful appeal, the two governments may try to work out a clemency deal. Yet the decision matters. It repudiates President Obama's expressed desire to look away from the ugly past, and sends a strong message that the U.S. government cannot operate outside the law with impunity in the name of fighting terrorism.

The CIA abducted Hassan Osama Nasr on Feb. 17, 2003. The Muslim cleric, suspected of recruiting insurgents for Iraq and Afghanistan, was flown to Egypt, where he allegedly was tortured with electric shocks, beatings and threats of rape. He was released in 2007.

Obama has since ended CIA interrogations in secret prisons and shut overseas jails used by the CIA, but he has not stopped the practice of extraordinary rendition. The difference between his and his predecessor's policy is that the administration will now demand credible assurances that prisoners won't be tortured, and that prisoners will be "rendered to justice" rather than held indefinitely without trial.

We don't like renditions and generally think even the most dangerous criminals are entitled to due process, including extradition hearings. A war against violent extremists cannot be won by immoral or illegal means; the U.S. can't outsource dirty work and claim to have clean hands.

Some have questioned how this case differs from the capture of Nazi Germany's Adolf Eichmann by Israeli security forces in Buenos Aires in May 1960, an extrajudicial action that was widely praised at the time. One significant difference is that Argentina's military government was harboring a war criminal, whereas Italy had opened its own criminal investigation of Nasr when the CIA swooped in to kidnap him. Another is that Eichmann was put on trial, publicly. Nasr, to say the least, was not.

[DVD Burner]

http://unclejayexplains.com/2009/11/08/ ... ov-9-2009/

[littleflower]

http://unclejayexplains.com/2009/11/08/ ... ov-9-2009/

thanks for this, DVD ...

[DVD Burner]

The First Ten Lies from Going Rogue

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/geoffrey- ... 56347.html


Excerpts from Sarah Palin's Going Rogue have been released by several news agencies and other sources who have received advanced copies. Here are the first ten lies from Palin's memoirs:

1. The Cover Byline: Palin didn't write the book by herself. Most books with known ghostwriters list their co-author's name on the cover. In this case it was Lynn Vincent (a well-known homophobe). Going Rogue does not.

2. The Subtitle: An American Life. Aside from her infancy, Palin has really spent very little time outside of Alaska, and according to John McCain's campaign advisors, was shockingly unfamiliar with American geography and American history. "Alaska," as John McPhee noted in his resplendent Coming Into the Country, "is a foreign country...Its nature is its own."

3. Going Rogue features Palin's obsession with Katie Couric and characterizes the CBS anchor as "badgering." Palin refused to prep for the Couric interview because she was more concerned about her popularity in Alaska than about what was best for the campaign. Was it really badgering to ask what books or periodicals Palin read? Palin further claims that Couric suffered from low self-esteem. In fact, according to those close to Palin, it's the former governor who suffers from low self-esteem and frequently projects that onto other women.

4. Palin asserts that there was a "jaded aura" around McCain's political advisors once she entered the campaign. In fact, McCain's aides bent over backwards to protect Palin and to try to get her up to speed on international affairs. In addition to not knowing whether or not Africa was a continent, according to sources in the McCain campaign, Palin also didn't understand the difference between England and Great Britain. And much, much more.

5. Palin contends to have been saddled with legal bills of more than $500,000 resulting from what she calls "frivolous" ethics complaints filed against her. The lion's share of those bills resulted from the ethics complaint she filed against herself in a legal maneuver to sidestep the Troopergate charges being brought against her by the bipartisan Alaska Legislative Council.

6. Palin rather astonishingly claims that she was saddled with $50,000 in bills for the legal fees associated with her vice-presidential vetting. A) She was not vetted; B) A McCain campaign advisor says this is "categorically untrue."

7. Palin states that she found out only "minutes" before John McCain's concession speech that she would not be allowed to make remarks of her own introducing McCain. In fact, she had been told at least three times that she would not be allowed to give the speech and kept lying about it in the hopes of creating some last-minute chaos that would allow her to assume the dais.

8. Palin asserts that her effort to award a license for a natural gas transmission line was turning a "pipe dream" into a pipeline. Although she claimed otherwise in her speech at the GOP convention, there is no pipeline. It remains a pipe dream.

9. Palin implies that the McCain campaign intentionally bungled the release of information regarding her daughter Bristol's pregnancy and refused to let her rewrite it. In fact, the McCain campaign allowed her to rework the draft, but the original version went out accidentally. Palin reportedly accepted the recalcitrant staff member's apology for the mistake, then when she left, ordered her immediately dismissed of her duties.

10. Palin complains that McCain's senior advisors, most notably Steve Schmidt, forced her to "stick with the script" they provided her. In fact, Schmidt & Co. were encumbered with the task of keeping Palin from lying and misleading people throughout the campaign, from her well-documented lies about the "Bridge to Nowhere" to her duplicities about her husband Todd's assocation with the Alaska Independence Party. Palin's lying to those in the McCain campaign was so troubling to them that they cringed every time she went "off script."

And that's just for starters.

[geekster]

One of the best political speeches I have seen in a long time.

[youtube][/youtube]

[dr.placebo]

Actually, when I think about the way that this country got started I think about a coalition of Massachusetts merchants and Virginia slave owners.

The guy who made that speech claimed to be in the army for 22 years. In other words, he was a government employee for that time and he was consuming my tax dollars. He got health care, too.

He has a populist message, but he supports a party that consistently votes for tax breaks for the rich.

He also appears to be promoting a violent approach to overthrowing the government. It's probably just as well that he's no longer in the army.

Fail.

[ygmir]

someday, it'd be neat to discuss, instead of tax breaks and who gets them........

to

Washington, taking a "spending break", and, quit throwing money everywhere from social spending waste to wars in places we shouldn't care about anyway............

[dr.placebo]

Getting rid of wasteful spending and even more wasteful wars is something where we can in principle agree.

[ygmir]

I'd bet, in many instances, we could even agree on what is wasteful............

And, that would probably even reduce the budget substantially.

[DVD Burner]

[youtube][/youtube]

[dr.placebo]

Ah yes, argument by disconnected sound bite. Gotta love it.

Not as entertaining as the Daily Show, though.

[DVD Burner]

Iraqi cab driver was source for Iraq WMD claim, British MP says

http://rawstory.com/2009/12/iraqi-cab-d ... ritish-mp/

By John Byrne
Tuesday, December 8th, 2009 -- 9:43 am
A British parliamentarian claimed in an report published Tuesday that an Iraqi cab driver was the source of an infamous claim made by Prime Minister Tony Blair that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

The member of Parliament, a member of the conservative British Tory Party, claims that he was told by a British intelligence official that the claim actually came from an Iraqi taxi driver, and that it was considered highly unreliable but was tacitly backed by Blair's government in public statements anyway.

According to the report, the taxi driver worked near Iraq's border with Jordan. The cab driver is said to have made the comments while transporting two British intelligence officers.

"Under pressure from Downing Street to find anything to back up the WMD case, [British intelligence services] were squeezing their agents in Iraq for anything at all," MP Adam Holloway wrote in his report, leaked to the British Daily Mail. "One agent did come up with something - the [claim that chemical weapons could be launched on British forces in Cyprus in] '45 minutes,' allegedly discussed in a high-level Iraqi political meeting."

British intelligence officers "were running a senior Iraqi army officer who had a source of his own, a cab driver on the Iraqi-Jordanian border. He apparently overheard two Iraqi army officers two years before who had spoken about weapons with the range to hit targets elsewhere in the Middle East."

But in a "footnote to their report," sent to Blair, "it flagged up that part of the report describing some missiles that the Iraqi government allegedly possessed was demonstrably untrue. The missiles verifiably did not exist.

"The footnote said it in black and white," Holloway continued. "Despite this the report was treated as reliable and went on to become one of the central planks of the dodgy dossier."

Former British intelligence chief John Scarlett will face an inquiry from an investigatory committee Tuesday, where he will likely be asked questions about Holloway's report.

The Guardian noted Tuesday that the original intelligence dossier cited by the Blair government didn't specifically say that Hussein had chemical weapons; officials later acknowledged that it was intended to refer to conventional weapons

"But, when it was published, some British papers interpreted the dossier as meaning that British troops based in Cyprus would be vulnerable to an Iraqi attack," the paper said. "At the time the government did not do anything to correct this error."

More than 3,000 American and British soldiers have died since the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Estimates put the number of Iraqi dead since the war began at somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000.

[Ugly Dougly]

I think that his name was "Yuldu".

[DVD Burner]

Shell, Lukoil to Join Iraqi Top Producers Based on Winning Bids

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... QYxe._JmMU

By Anthony DiPaola

Dec. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Royal Dutch Shell Plc and OAO Lukoil will join BP Plc and Exxon Mobil Corp. among Iraq’s top oil producers based on their pledges in winning bids this weekend as the country auctioned 28 percent of its crude assets.

Russia’s Lukoil and partner Statoil ASA of Norway won rights yesterday to develop the second phase of Iraq’s “super giantâ€

[gyre]

Where does oil come from in the usa?
Imports

Canada 1.9 M
mexico 1.2 M
Saudi Arabia 1.05 M
Venezuala 1.04 M
Nigeria 635 K
Angola 535 K
Iraq 468 K
Brazil 336 K
russia 272 K
Colombia 256 K
Algeria 246 K
Ecuador 216 K
Kuwait 170 K
UK 130 K
Norway 79 K
Barrels/day 8-2009

Persian gulf is about 14 % of imports.

Source- Road & Track

[can't sit still]

gyre, those numbers look old. Mexico has run out of oil in the Cantarell field and is soon to be an importer. The UK number is from the North Sea fields that have been declining at 15% a year. The Venezuelan oil is thick as tar and most refineries can't process it. I'm too lazy to check current numbers but, I believe the balance has changed.
The more oil that is produced in Iraq, the less that the US has to compete for oil from other countries.
Pretty sucky war,,, just to keep the military/industrial complex tuned up.