The memorandum “Collateral Damage: U.S. Covert Operations and the Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001” has been circulating for years on the Internet, studiously ignored by most. It was previously posted as a journal item on this website. Since then, the public has learned a great deal more about both gold and greed, and the memorandum is once again circulating.
This is by no means the complete story, and there are some leaps of imagination and speculation that must be deeply investigated or discounted. Central to appreciating the magnitude of the government cover-up is the FACT that MONTHS before 9/11 Dick Cheney set in motion the national counter-terrorism exercise that gave him complete control on “the day” of 9/11.
What is clear is that there is a great deal more investigation to be done, and that a truth and reconciliation commission should be created in time to put Dick Cheney and the others on the stand before they either die a natural death or are assassinated by foreign governments righteously angry over what has been done to them by American children playing with fire.
Here are a few extracts that today have a greater likelihood of being appreciated for their substance.
Yes, we are watching something melt down. But I'd argue the thing that's dying is not business itself, but a financial parasite — a speculative marketplace that no longer funds business but instead seeks to extract value from healthy commerce. More a funds vampire than an infuser of needed capital, the investment industry has been exposed as a drag on business. The future of commerce looks bright to me because it may be unencumbered by the weight of this non-productive capital.
. . . . . . .
Once we accept the fact that the money and banks we have grown accustomed to using are not the only ways to generate capital, we liberate ourselves and our businesses from a finance industry that has enjoyed a monopoly over our commerce for much too long. They have not only abused our trust through corrupt self-dealing, but abused their privilege through systemic usury. Businesses are only obligated to support their employees, owners, and customers — not an entire finance industry.
Core Concept: “That a generalized, technology-enhanced capacity for manifold cooperation has become the main productive force means that there is no longer any contradiction between ethics and economics. On the contrary, the ethical ability to open up to and share with others has become the most fundamental quality of a successful economic agent.”
Socio-Political Implications: This also means that the old models for institutionalizing ethics and economics, representative democracy and private property are becoming obsolete. Politics is no longer a separate practice, best handled by expert politicians. On the contrary the basic political practice of constructing a common social world, an ethical surplus has become a fundamental aspect of economic production. A brand community is like a social movement, open source is a political program, and a self-managed slum or a cooperative micro-credit system is also a project for a different political order.
The interplay of chance with necessity means that no one can predict the future evolutionary pathway in Libya or the US role in Libya, but Ted Galen Carpenter of the libertarian CATO Inst. provides a thoughtful lens for thinking about potential ramifications of NATO's precipitate intervention in Libya.
Key issues discussed:
De facto or de jure partition vs a unification that sows the seeds of future conflict?
How to replenish empty Libyan treasury and repair infrastructure (including restoring oil production capability)?
Will US get sucked into another NATO stabilization, peacekeeping, nation-building mission?
After weeks of very little movement either militarily or diplomatically in Libya, there are apparent developments on both fronts in recent days. Rebel forces, aided by NATO’s air support, finally appear to be advancing into western Libya and cutting off supply lines to Tripoli, the long-time stronghold of support for Muammar Qaddafi. And reports are swirling about secret negotiations that might provide a peaceful exit from the country for the aging dictator.
Those developments underscore that U.S. and NATO officials urgently need to consider what strategy they intend to pursue if Qaddafi’s more-than-four-decade hold on power finally comes to an end. That is more crucial for the leaders of the European members of the alliance, since Libya is located on Europe’s Mediterranean flank, but because the Obama administration unwisely chose to involve the United States in Libya’s internecine conflict by launching air strikes, it has become a pertinent issue for Washington as well.
The outlook for a post-Qaddafi Libya is midpoint between sobering and depressing. It is possible that the warring parties will accept a de facto division of the country between the eastern and western tribes, although a formal agreement to that effect is unlikely. Even an informal partition would more accurately reflect the demographics, politics, and history of that territory than an insistence on keeping Libya intact.
Phi Beta Iota: A serious world power would heed the wisdom of Ambassador Mark Palmer, and have Undersecretaries for Peace at both foreign affairs and defense, with two strategies: one for dictators that agree to a five year non-violent exit strategy, and another for those that do not. What is happening in the Middle East today is a direct representation of the fact that there are no serious world powers in being today.
(Susan Lindauer) Here’s breaking News from a confidential source inside Tripoli. And it’s nothing like what CNN is broadcasting… Pay attention to live reports from Zawia.
First, today the power went out in all of Tripoli today. As a gift to the Muslim community for their 17th day of Ramadan, NATO bombed a power plant and six high voltage sub stations. Apparently they believed the Libyans would have no ability to repair this, and so, in their “humanitarian effort to protect civilians,” they tried to cut power to 2 million innocent people during the holy month of Ramadan and the hottest month of the year in this desert country. Well, NATO sorely underestimated these resilient people. They had the power back in 6 hours! You know, there is NO fighting in Tripoli, never has been, no fighting on the outskirts never has been. So, NATO has been continually bombing a peaceful city, destroying the infrastructure, killing and constantly terrorizing civilians.
Second, the media outside is trying to win this war by completely flipping the truth upside down. Ghadafi is stronger than ever. Today, people gathered in two areas of Tripoli where people said NATO was planning on bombing. Hundreds of thousands of people waving green flags, chanted (Allah, Muammar, Libya, Wah bes) (God and Muammar makes Libya complete). Dancing and daring NATO to come and hit them.
These people are so pissed at NATO that they would all lay down their lives before they let “The NATO” win as they say. A young woman from the Foreign Minister’s office named Sana spoke with us tonight. She said the people are so used to NATO now that they are beginning to name their worthless pets after NATO.
Sana said that the Western news media is showing old pictures of Zawia in an attempt to show bunches of rebels there. So a few people went and waved a green flag at the over pass that the media was showing on the news. And guess what? The group was never on camera, because it was not a live shot.
She also told us that the Libyans are now in complete solidarity behind the legitimate government and Ghadafi. She said all the Libyan people have offered to have Ghadafi come and sleep at their homes, he should switch homes every night, all Libyans are prepared to die for Ghadafi. She said, Ghadafi should run for president in the US, because the US is so divided and people are so disgusted with their government there. The unity of Libya behind Ghadafi is unmatched for any leader world wide, she thinks the American people need someone to unite them, not to divide them.
Spoke with the Electronic army, they say there are small pockets of rebels they liken to gangs in Misurata and the Libyan army is the middle of the city cleaning them out. Most of them are running away.
Dr Moussa Ibrahim stated yesterday that Oil Companies of the aggressor nations are trying frantically to open avenues of communication with any and every minister trying to garner favor and regain their once lucrative contracts. You won’t see that in the Western news, even though this release was given to all the journalists here in Tripoli.
That is all for now.
Phi Beta Iota: NATO attacks against Tripoli are an atrocity–commanders and pilots should be held accountable for obeying blatantly illegal orders.
Yousaf Butt is a nuclear physicist and is currently serving as a scientific consultant to the Federation of American Scientists on global security issues. Previously, he was a fellow on the Committee on International Security and Arms Control at the US National Academy of Sciences, and on the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Consider yourself warned – “[I]n the next few years Iran will be in position to detonate a nuclear device,” so writes Ray Takeyh, confidently, in a recent Washington Post OpEd [1]. Why? Because the Iranian government willingly informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that it would begin installing additional centrifuges with higher capacity to enrich uranium. [2]
Just like fertilizer can be used to increase crop yields – or make bombs – uranium is a dual use material.
Below is an exact reprint from the Association For Intelligence Officers (AFIO). HOWEVER, AFIO does not endorse the tone of the article, only the fact of its appearance.
The CIA Should be a bit more ‘CAIR'less. This week, a three-day conference hosted by the CIA on “homegrown radicalization” was supposed to have taken place at CIA headquarters. It did not. The conference was abruptly canceled – or, softening the blow, “postponed.” Question: Did pressure from what we might (and should) call a certain “homegrown radical” group – the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) – make this happen?
Here is what we know.
On Monday, July 18, CAIR issued a press release headlined: “CAIR Asks CIA to Drop Islamophobic Trainer.” It revealed that CAIR national executive director Nihad Awad wrote a letter to now-former CIA Director Leon Panetta to that effect. The rest of the release is more opaque. In referencing an NPR report that slammed one counterterrorism trainer by name, former FBI agent John Guandolo, for “allegedly smearing” an “Ohio Muslim” in a presentation, CAIR noted that an entirely different trainer, unnamed, was “scheduled to hold a similar session in August for the CIA.” (Full disclosure: Guandolo and I are among 19 co-authors of Shariah: the Threat to America.) The August CIA “session” appears to be the driver of both the CAIR release and letter asking the CIA, as the headline put it, to “Drop Islamophobic Trainer.”
The memorandum “Collateral Damage: U.S. Covert Operations and the Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001” has been circulating for years on the Internet, studiously ignored by most. It was previously posted as a journal item on this website. Since then, the public has learned a great deal more about both gold and greed, and the memorandum is once again circulating.
