Corruption – Page 597 – Public Intelligence Blog

2013/03/192013/03/26

Paul Craig Roberts: Iraq Invasion at 10 Years — The legacy of “the war on terror” is the death of liberty.

08 Wild Cards, Commerce, Corruption, Government, Ineptitude, Media, Military, Peace Intelligence

March 19, 2013. Ten years ago today the Bush regime invaded Iraq. It is known that the justification for the invasion was a packet of lies orchestrated by the neoconservative Bush regime in order to deceive the United Nations and the American people.

The US Secretary of State at that time, General Colin Powell, has expressed his regrets that he was used by the Bush regime to deceive the United Nations with fake intelligence that the Bush and Blair regimes knew to be fake. But the despicable presstitute media has not apologized to the American people for serving the corrupt Bush regime as its Ministry of Propaganda and Lies.

It is difficult to discern which is the most despicable, the corrupt Bush regime, the presstitutes that enabled it, or the corrupt Obama regime that refuses to prosecute the Bush regime for its unambiguous war crimes, crimes against the US Constitution, crimes against US statutory law, and crimes against humanity.

In his book, Cultures Of War, the distinguished historian John W. Dower observes that the concrete acts of war unleashed by the Japanese in the 20th century and the Bush imperial presidency in the 21st century “invite comparative analysis of outright war crimes like torture and other transgressions. Imperial Japan’s black deeds have left an indelible stain on the nation’s honor and good name, and it remains to be seen how lasting the damage to America’s reputation will be. In this regard, the Bush administration’s war planners are fortunate in having been able to evade formal and serious investigation remotely comparable to what the Allied powers pursued vis-a-vis Japan and Germany after World War II.”

Continue reading “Paul Craig Roberts: Iraq Invasion at 10 Years — The legacy of “the war on terror” is the death of liberty.”

2013/03/192013/03/26

Winslow Wheeler: Iraq Invasion at 10 Years — Learning from the Past

08 Wild Cards, Commerce, Corruption, Government, Media, Peace Intelligence

The media is doing its usual vapid tour of the 10th “anniversary” of the American invasion of Iraq. Far better to consider how the nation permitted the disgrace to happen. Mike Lofgren cites three important lessons to learn.

For myself, I believe it most important to consider the domestic politics and careerist posturing that drives civilian (and military) leaders to beat the drums of war in order to manipulate political (and budgetary) decisions, or worse to simply advocate war.

Consider Mike's lessons below as you read in the morning news articles of the current US B-52 exercises over the Korean peninsula and the hysteria of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in reacting to a historically minor budget correction. Given the nature of the North Korean regime, is this the time to bait them? Have the Joint Chiefs shown they are capable to dealing with budget events they have only had a year and a half to prepare for? Is there an American domestic political (and budgetary) content to the US escalation of events in Korea?

As you read Mike's important column below, it is useful to think about such questions.

Michael S. Lofgren

Former Congressional Staffer, author of The Party is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless, and the Middle Class Got Shafted

Iraq: 10 Years After, Have We Learned a Thing?

On the decennial of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the persons responsible have shown remarkably little guilt over launching an unprovoked war of aggression, even when the lamentable results might be expected to give one pause to rethink the enterprise. Marveling at the complacency about Iraq of America's foreign policy elite as they are fawningly interviewed on the Sunday talk shows, columnist Alex Pareene says that “[p]eople who were integral in the decision to wage that war sat there and opined on what the United States should do about Iran and China and North Korea and no one laughed them out of the room. It was disgusting.” Disgusting, but hardly surprising here in the United States of Amnesia.

Are there any lessons to be drawn from the debacle? Here are three tentative conclusions:

Continue reading “Winslow Wheeler: Iraq Invasion at 10 Years — Learning from the Past”

2013/03/192013/03/26

SchwartzReport: State of the Media — Quite Dead….

Corruption, Ineptitude, Media

This is the latest on the major trend concerning the American media. Not a happy story. A democracy requires a healthy functional objective media to be healthy itself. The trend seems to be moving against this.

Click through to see the excellent clarifying graphs.

The State of the News Media 2013

Pew Research Center

EXTRACT

This adds up to a news industry that is more undermanned and unprepared to uncover stories, dig deep into emerging ones or to question information put into its hands. And findings from our new public opinion survey released in this report reveal that the public is taking notice. Nearly one-third of the respondents (31%) have deserted a news outlet because it no longer provides the news and information they had grown accustomed to.

Read full article (long and fact-filled).

2013/03/192013/03/26

NIGHTWATCH: Cyprus Shows Three Threats – Fall of Government, Widespread Rioting, Spread of Rioting to Mainland Europe

Commerce, Corruption, Government, Ineptitude

Cyprus: Comment. International press outlets have provided detailed reporting on the so-called tax Cypriot leaders have proposed imposing on bank deposits to help pay for an international bailout. Cyprus is the fifth European Union country to request a bailout. The issues are complex and not relevant to this brief discussion.

NightWatch sees three threats in the situation. First is the breakdown of public confidence in the government and public financial institutions. That is already manifest in the run on ATMs. Banks on Cyprus were closed on the 18th, but the run on the banks should continue when they open on the 19th. There will not be enough cash to service the customers. Civil disorders should be expected.

The breakdown in confidence feeds the second threat which is the breakdown in respect for law and order. Cyprus is one step away from widespread rioting and a serious breakdown in public order. Rioting is likely when ordinary citizens conclude that they are powerless to protect what they have earned and no amount of effort on their part ensures their property rights.

The third threat is that the fear of losing everything will spread to other countries.

NIGHTWATCH KGS Home

2013/03/182013/03/26

Chuck Spinney: The Truth About the Cuban Missile Crisis

Corruption, Government, IO Impotency, Peace Intelligence

The below article, which appeared in the Atlantic last January, is a very important illustration of how domestic politics determine foreign policy. Bear in mind, the behaviour described below occurred when there was (and still is) a consensus among the pol-mil intellectuals that domestic politics stops at the water's edge and that foreign policy was and should be bi-partisan — the conclusion is a good analysis of where this kind of romantic intellectualization leads.

The Real Cuban Missile Crisis

EVERYTHING YOU THINK YOU KNOW ABOUT THOSE 13 DAYS IS WRONG.

By Benjamin Schwarz, The Atlantic, 11 January 1913

EXTRACT

On that very first day of the ExComm meetings, McNamara provided a wider perspective on the missiles’ significance: “I’ll be quite frank. I don’t think there is a military problem here … This is a domestic, political problem.” In a 1987 interview, McNamara explained: “You have to remember that, right from the beginning, it was President Kennedy who said that it was politically unacceptable for us to leave those missile sites alone. He didn’t say militarily, he said politically.” What largely made the missiles politically unacceptable was Kennedy’s conspicuous and fervent hostility toward the Castro regime—a stance, Kennedy admitted at an ExComm meeting, that America’s European allies thought was “a fixation” and “slightly demented.”

Read full article.

2013/03/172013/03/26

Penguin: Banks Confiscating Percentage of Depositors Cash in Cyprus, Collapse of Banking Across Europe Possible

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Transnational Crime, Commerce, Corruption, Government

Facing Bailout Tax, Cypriots Try to Get Cash Out of Banks

ATHENS — In a move that could set off new fears of contagion across the euro zone, anxious depositors drained cash from automated teller machines in Cyprus on Saturday, hours after European officials in Brussels required that part of a new 10 billion euro bailout be paid for directly from the bank accounts of ordinary savers.

The move — a first in the three-year-old European financial crisis — raised questions about whether bank runs could be set off elsewhere in the euro zone. Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the president of the group of euro area ministers, declined early Saturday to rule out taxes on depositors in countries beyond Cyprus, although he said such a measure was not currently being considered.

Although banks placed withdrawal limits of 400 euros, or about $520, on A.T.M.’s, most had run out of cash by early evening. People around the country reacted with disbelief and anger.

Read full article.

2013/03/172013/03/26

Berto Jongman: Argentna’s Bad (Soy) Seed

01 Agriculture, Commerce, Corruption, Government, Ineptitude

Argentina's Bad Seeds

The country's soya industry is booming, but what is the impact on Argentinians and their land?

Filmmakers: Glenn Ellis and Guido Bilbao

For much of the past decade Argentina has seen a commodities-driven export boom, built largely on genetically-modified soy bean crops and the aggressive use of pesticides.

Argentina's leaders say it has turned the country's economy around, while others say the consequences are a dramatic surge in cancer rates, birth defects and land theft.

People & Power investigates if Argentina's booming soy industry is a disaster in the making.

By Glenn Ellis

As I flew in to Buenos Aires to make this film, all the talk was of President Cristina Kirchner’s latest gambit. Her foreign minister had pulled out of a meeting with the British foreign secretary to discuss the Falklands (or the Malvinas depending on your outlook). And for the people I rubbed up against in Argentina’s smart and chic capital, on discovering I was English, this, along with Maradona’s ‘hand of god’ moment, was the topic on everybody’s lips. “We won the war”, they would say. “After the fighting we got rid of our dictators but you had another 10 years of Thatcher.”

When I explained I was in the country to cover the soya boom, which has given Argentina the fastest growth rate in South America, but also allegedly caused devastating malformations in children, there was a look of disbelief. “Here, in Argentina? Why haven’t we heard about it?”

Read full article. [Includes 25 minute video]