The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
The Libyan War, American Power and the Decline of the Petrodollar System
by Prof. Peter Dale Scott
Centre for Research on Globalization, 29 April 2011
EXTRACT:
As Ellen Brown has pointed out, first Iraq and then Libya decided to challenge the petrodollar system and stop selling all their oil for dollars, shortly before each country was attacked.
Continue reading “Looting Libya: Insider View of Reasons for War….”
Pakistan-China: “We have asked our Chinese brothers to please build a naval base at Gwadar,” Chaudhary Ahmed Mukhtar, Pakistan's Defence Minister, told the Times.
However, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said that China is unaware of the proposal by Pakistan to build a naval port at the deep-water port of Gwadar. The issue was not discussed during Pakistani Prime Minister Gilani's visit to China last week, the spokesman said.
Comment: Defence Minister Mukhtar did not say when Pakistan asked the Chinese to build a base at Gwadar. In fact, construction of a naval facility has been part of the plans for Gwadar since the early 1990's.
Forty years ago, Gwadar, on the coast of Baluchistan Province and 47 miles east of the Iranian border, was a fishing village with a small port in a sheltered, deep water natural harbor with two bays. In the 1971 War, Pakistan Navy surface ships deployed from Karachi to Gwadar to avoid destruction by the Indian Navy.
Since 1993 Pakistani governments have worked to develop Gwadar as a planned, modern, deep water port and city, as well as a “sensitive defense zone.” The primary investors in the port, adjacent road and rail infrastructure and planned city of Gwadar have been China and the government of Pakistan. Construction on the highway link to Karachi and on the port began in 2002. The port was inaugurated officially in 2007 by General Musharraf. It received its first maritime ship, carrying a cargo of wheat from Canada, in 2008. The Port of Singapore Authority has the administration contract.
The 50-year master plan calls for Gwadar to develop into a major economic hub in the Arabian Sea for energy, oil tankers and deep-draft container shipping and ship building and to be the location of a main naval base for the Pakistan Navy. For China, Gwadar port will be one of three in the Indian Ocean that will have overland links to western or southwestern China that will enable it to avoid relying on the Straits of Malacca and Singapore for shipment of strategic raw materials. The other two are Chahbahar, Iran, and Kyauk Phyu, Burma.
In an interview broadcast on 24 May about the Karachi terrorist attack, Pakistan Chief of Naval Staff Admiral N. Bashir explained, “When the navy created the Karsaz Establishment in the Karsaz area, it was outside the city (Karachi). Now it has become a part of the city center. Similarly, when this base was established, the Faisal Town built up on the backside did not exist. I have been trying for the past three years to relocate from the area. The government has supported us on this. Our major naval base is under construction, far from Karachi…. We are aiming to minimize our presence in Karachi.”
The Admiral was referring to Gwadar. The Chinese are the primary builders of the port, so it is almost certain that they are building the naval base, though security considerations would prevent them from admitting it in public.
News reports over the weekend suggested that the Chinese were building a base for the Chinese navy. Those mischaracterized this long time project. Chinese naval ships will call at Gwadar when the base is complete, as they do at Karachi. However, the base will be a Pakistan Navy base.
Chinese involvement at Gwadar is not news, but it is part of a sophisticated, long term strategic plan.
Phi Beta Iota: While the US Government antagonizes Pakistan and fails in Afghanistan, China in Pakistan (and Iran and Turkey elsewhere) are steadily making substantive gains by waging peace with construction. They are a study in 21st Century strategic sensibility grounded in reality–the USG (not to be confused with the US public) is a failure in this context–a dangerous expensive failure.
Keeping Palestine Cool: A Different Kind of Underground Movement
YouTube – TEDxRamallah – Khaled Al Sabawi
In Passing:
Why Palestinians Have Time on Their Side
By Jeffrey Goldberg Bloomberg, May 24, 2011 7:28 PM ET
‘Concrete Canvas' Makes Erecting Permanent Buildings As Easy as Pitching a Tent
Drapeable fabric turns into solid concrete when it gets wet
popsi.com, Clay Dillow, 18 May 2011
When disaster strikes and permanent structures are leveled, as they were recently by earthquakes in Japan and New Zealand (and more distantly in Haiti), they are usually replaced in the short term by tent cities. Two engineering students thought they could do better and invented Concrete Canvas, a fabric impregnated with concrete that can turn a tent into a hardy, permanent structure in 24 hours. Just add water.
Read full article (includes link to very impressive video)
Phi Beta Iota: This has even more potential if combined with the use of cement from carbon, and non-potable water.
U.S. seems to be getting good at killing Taliban, but why?
Friday, May 20, 2011 03:07 AM
BY GEORGIE ANNE GEYER
Columbus Dispatch
While the United States keeps trying to forget about Afghanistan, a new secret program in Afghanistan is quietly boasting of bringing about an end to the decade-long war.
The program is “kill/capture,” and it has been waged by the Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, for the past year, with, according to PBS’s excellent Frontline, 3,000 operations in only the past 90 days.
Essentially, it sends special forces out in the dark of night into slumbering Afghan villages to force Taliban leaders out of their hiding places and then shoot them or capture them.
There is only one major problem: It appears rather too often that the American intelligence planners are not certain that the men they are killing or capturing are really Taliban. There is, of course, a larger question: Why are we killing and capturing Taliban when this war was supposed to be about al-Qaida?
Terrorists To Protest Organizers: Lessons Learned From The Demise Of bin Laden and The Future Of U.S. National Security
Phi Beta Iota: Below the line is a very ably crafted press release from the Project for National Security Reform (PNSR) led by Jim Locher and Dennis Blair, long-time champions of inter-agency reform or “Beyond Goldwater-Nicols.” This is a brilliant contribution to the dialog that points out that we no longer have money to win UGLY, we now have to win smart. That is what we, the Phi Beta Iota collective, have been advocating since 1988.
Continue reading “Lessons Learned on National Security Reform”
India-China-Pakistan: Indian intelligence agencies say they have credible evidence that several hundred Chinese working in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir are People's Liberation Army engineers, the Times of India reported 12 May.
According to the report, Indian intelligence agencies are verifying that the engineers are engaged with military construction projects, such as bunkers, and said the presence of military engineers in civilian construction activities carried out by China in other countries is “unusual,” an intelligence source said. The information about the engineers was part of an assessment presented by the Indian Army to the Indian prime minister, defense minister and other senior officials weeks ago.
Comment: This is the first press report of Chinese military engineers in Pakistan's portion of Kashmir. Chinese engineers are working on road construction in far northern Pakistan which borders China, but no engineering agreements are known that cover Pakistani Kashmir.
India-Afghanistan: India has committed about $1.5 billion to Afghanistan for developmental assistance and plans to commit another $500 million over the next five years, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on 12 May. Priority areas for the aid will be social programs, agriculture and infrastructure, according to Singh
India strongly supports Afghanistan's peace and reconciliation efforts with the Taliban, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told Afghan President Hamid Karzai during Singh's two-day visit to Kabul. Singh told Karzai and senior Afghan officials that New Delhi is Kabul's “neighbor and partner in development.” He expressed support for Afghanistan's “unity, integrity and prosperity
Comment: The two news stores above help explain Pakistan's dogged support for the Taliban and other anti-Kabul movements and its anxiety about India. India supported the Northern Alliance of Uzbek and Tajik tribes against the Pashtun Taliban when Karzai still was working for the Taliban, before he switched sides.
The presence of Indian advisors and influence west of Pakistan confronts Pakistani strategists with the prospect of fighting on two fronts in a putative future war, with no strategic depth because Pakistan is so narrow. More importantly, the Indian Border Roads Organization (BRO) has thousands of workers and Indian Army engineers working on the “infrastructure” projects in Afghanistan about which Prime Minister Singh spoke. BRO seems to concentrate on improving the roads in Afghan provinces that border Pakistan.
Indian motives in helping Afghanistan are far from altruistic, just as are those of Iran. Both states have provided aid to the Northern Alliance and the Afghan government, based on their strategic calculations to restrain Pakistan and especially prevent it from annexing the Pashtun regions of Afghanistan.
Continue reading “Engineers of India-Afghanistan vs China-Pakistan”
