Preventing Torture in the 21st Century:
Monitoring in Europe Two Decades On,
Monitoring Globally Two Years On
Part II
Cover Page and Acknowledgements
Reference: Preventing Torture
07 Other Atrocities, Articles & ChaptersJournal: Desecration of American Flag in Phoenix
07 Other Atrocities, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, InfoOps (IO), IO Secrets
Protesters desecrate American flag in Phoenix
Posted: Aug 04, 2010 10:57 PM EDT <em>Wednesday, August 4, 2010 10:57 PM EST</em> Updated: Aug 12, 2010 4:36 PM EDT <em>Thursday, August 12, 2010 4:36 PM EST</em>
KOLD News 13 Videos (from August)
PHOENIX, AZ (KOLD) – New video has surfaced from last week's SB-1070 protest that brought people to Phoenix from across the country, including immigrant-rights activists bused in from California.
The video shows those activists desecrating the American flag. They used spray paint to write, “deport Arpaio” and “impeach Brewer.”
There's also a toilet seat on the stars. They displayed the desecrated U.S. Flag and Arizona flag while a man sang the national anthem.
Below the line: Suspected “Urban Myth” email chain mail with photo that is now circulating among US troops. Note that is has taken two months for this to get up to speed. We would not be surprised to find the Koch Brothers behind this as part of their Tea Party mobilization and “anonymous” Information Operations campaign toward the public.
Continue reading “Journal: Desecration of American Flag in Phoenix”
Reference: THE WORLD ORDER A Study in the Hegemony of Parasitism with an Emphasis on the Rothschilds and the Central Banks of Europe
01 Poverty, 03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Transnational Crime, 11 Society, Budgets & Funding, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Historic Contributions, History, IO Sense-Making, Misinformation & Propaganda, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Officers Call, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Waste (materials, food, etc)
This one book will explain more history than any other I have ever read. South Pole Sends.
Phi Beta Iota: The public is starting to do to the Rothschilds, Central Banks, and the Federal Reserve what plane spotters did to CIA rendition flights. We support truth & reconciliation; we do NOT support revenge or expropriation of illicit assets. The ill-gotten gains of the Rothschilds and the banks that front for them, notably the Federal Reserve, are a drop in the bucket compared to the infinite wealth that the five billion poor can create if these parasitic “elites” will just get out of the way. So that is the deal: stay out of the way and keep what you have. Interfere with the emergence of the global community of informed participatory democracy, and the deal is off.
USA Specific:
Journal: Five Myths Debunked–Treasury Run by Crooks
Journal: $750 Billion Wall Street Scam, Russian Anger, Chinese Intent, We are NOT Making This Up!
Reference: US Intelligence & Global Banking
Journal: Mother of All Frauds AFTER 9-11 Mother of All Atrocities–The Information Canivores Begin Circling Wall Street and the Two-Party Tyranny
03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Commerce, Corruption
The Foreclosure Game Tricks and Traps in the Fine Print
By RALPH NADER, Counterpunch
This time the big banks and mortgage servicing companies, with their long, one-sided fine print contracts, may have outsmarted themselves. The newspaper headlines and the network television news are blazing news of the erupting fraudulent foreclosure process. This long-overdue coverage is generating public visibility and suddenly hundreds of thousands of foreclosures may be questioned due to what one commentator delicately called “flawed paperwork.”
That is a euphemism for fraudulently executed contracts violative of state laws regarding home title changes. Read full article online….
Journal: Fox Finds DoD 9/11 Cover-Up, Forgets that It Started under Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld
07 Other Atrocities, Corruption, Military
Witnesses in Defense Department Report Suggest Cover-Up of 9/11 Findings. A document obtained and witnesses interviewed by Fox News raise new questions over whether there was an effort by the Defense Department to cover up a pre-9/11 military intelligence program known as “Able Danger.”
At least five witnesses questioned by the Defense Department's Inspector General told Fox News that their statements were distorted by investigators in the final IG's report – or it left out key information, backing up assertions that lead hijacker Mohammed Atta was identified a year before 9/11.
Atta is believed to have been the ringleader of the Sept. 11 hijackers who piloted American Airlines Flight 11 into the World Trade Center. Claims about how early Atta first tripped the radar of the Department of Defense date back to 2005, but those claims never made it into the Inspector General's report. The report was completed in 2006 and, until now, has been available only in a version with the names of virtually all of the witnesses blacked out.
Fox News, as part of an ongoing investigation, exclusively obtained a clean copy of the report and spoke to several principal witnesses, including an intelligence and data collector who asked that she not be named.
IBD: Did We Know About Mohamed Atta? Why would the Pentagon buy and destroy copies of a book by a former Army intelligence officer? Could it be perhaps because it contained information on how the 9/11 attacks might have been prevented?
The impulse to dismiss this as just another conspiracy theory is overwhelming. Yet the fact is that the Pentagon bought and destroyed 10,000 copies of a book, “Operation Dark Heart,” written by Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, a Bronze Star recipient and career Army intelligence officer, that contained a chapter on a pre-9/11 intelligence operation, Able Danger.
Tip of the Hat to the Association for Intelligence Officers (AFIO)
Phi Beta Iota: The precision hit allegedly wiped out all the computers holding all the forensic evidence on the missing $2.3. trillion that Rumsfeld was being grilled on the day before, 10 September, by Cynthia McKinney. One day, between this and the $240 billion “settled” without record, this will be known as the Mother of All Atrocities.
See Also:
Worth a Look: Between Threats and War
07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, Military & Pentagon Power, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Terrorism & Jihad, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), Worth A LookWhen confronted with a persistent foreign policy problem that threatens U.S. interests, and that cannot be adequately addressed through economic or political pressure, American policymakers and opinion formers have increasingly resorted to recommending the use of limited military force: that is, enough force to attempt to resolve the problem while minimizing U.S. military deaths, local civilian casualties, and collateral damage.
These recommendations have ranged from the bizarre—such as a Predator missile strike to kill Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, or the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez—to the unwise—the preemptive bombing of North Korean ballistic missile sites—to the demonstrably practical—air raids into Bosnia and Somalia, and drone strikes in Yemen and Pakistan.
However, even though they have been a regular feature of America's uses of military force through four successive administrations, the efficacy of these “Discrete Military Operations” (DMOs) remains largely unanalyzed, leaving unanswered the important question of whether or not they have succeeded in achieving their intended military and political objectives.
In response, Micah Zenko examines the thirty-six DMOs undertaken by the US over the past 20 years, in order to discern why they were used, if they achieved their objectives, and what determined their success or failure. In the process, he both evaluates U.S. policy choices and recommends ways in which limited military force can be better used in the future. The insights and recommendations made by Zenko will be increasingly relevant to making decisions and predictions about the development of American grand strategy and future military policy.
Phi Beta Iota: An extraordinary flaw in the discussion around this book is the assumption that the US resorts to such actions because diplomatic and economic means will not suffice. The reality is that the US “way of war” has nothing to do with strategic analytics, whole of government competency (non-existent), moral contexts, or public interest objectives. We do these things for the same reason Bill Clinton let an intern cost the US taxpayer $50 million–“because we can.” We can also put a bullet in our head, that does not mean we should–but it is the virtual outcome of what Washington is doing now.
Journal: China the Adult, US Barely Out of Diapers
02 China, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, Cultural Intelligence, Military, Peace IntelligenceChina-US-Vietnam: Defense Minister Liang Guanglie held talks with US Defense Secretary Gates in Hanoi on Monday on the sidelines of the 1st ASEAN Defense Ministers' Meeting Plus (ADMM-Plus) on bilateral military ties.
Defense Minister Liang invited Gates to visit China early next year, a Chinese official said. Gates accepted the invitation, according to the deputy head of external relations in the Chinese Defense Ministry.
The meeting in which the Chinese made the offer is the first meeting between the two senior defense officials in a year.
NIGHTWATCH Comment: The Chinese characterization of US ties bears attention. Liang said Sino-U.S. relations have maintained momentum of stable development in recent years as China and the United States have agreed to build a positive, cooperative and comprehensive relationship for the 21st century. China-U.S. relations are of increasing global influence, he added.
Liang said military relations constitute an important part of bilateral ties. Currently, the two countries are facing some obstacles in developing military relations, with the U.S. arm sales to Taiwan being the main reason.
NIGHTWATCH Comment: This part of Liang's remarks glosses over the brittleness of the “obstacles” involving Taiwan. The opening part of the comment minimizes the extent of US concern about China's lack of opacity and unwillingness to cooperate. The Chinese definition of a “positive, cooperative and comprehensive relationship” does not match the US definition. In the US definition, a positive, cooperative and comprehensive relationship does not yet exist. To try to develop such a relationship is the reason for Gates' persistence in soliciting an invitation.
NIGHTWATCH Comment on perception management: The US media has made clear that the US is the supplicant seeking a Chinese invitation for the US Secretary, after several Chinese rejections, most sensationally in Singapore by a low ranking Chinese general. Ties were set back by a US decision to sell Taiwan $6.4 billion in defensive arms, to which the Chinese objected strongly and froze defense contacts.
The imagery in Asia is that the rulers of the Central Kingdom finally granted the request for an audience from a recalcitrant supplicant because of his persistence. This is a scenario out of Chinese folklore. The folklore imagery and analogy suggest the Secretary should expect little because he is a player in a modern version of an old folk tale whose primary purpose was to showcase the superiority of the Central KIngdom.
The US is prone to interpret an invitation as a small political breakthrough. That might be an exaggeration. The Chinese are more likely to interpret it as their politicial victory that requires kneeling, head knockings (the imperial kowtow ritual was 3 kneelings and nine knocking of the head) and gifts.
Regarding Southeast Asia, Defense Minister Liang played to the audience and was his most unctuous. His purpose was to reassure China's Southeast Asian neighbors about China' s peaceful intentions. A quick look at Chinese territorial sea claims in the South China Sea puts the lie to China's peaceful intentions, but the Southeast Asian memory of resisting Chinese hegemony is long and fresh.
Phi Beta Iota: China is a perfect and worthy counter-part for thinking about Whole of Government and 21st Century Leadership, both of which escape the US Government and its two-party political monopoly. Strategic analytics is not something that CIA is capable of, nor is it something that the White House or Congress “compute” as essential to their still-imperial view of hegemony by right and ideological fantasy. Beyond Chna lie Brazil, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, and Wild Cards such as Turkey. The incapacity of the US Government to get its act together is brutally obvious and viscerally troubling.
