This article is divided into two parts: the first part will summarise the situation and propose solutions, explaining the analytical and geopolitical reasons behind the war, the main players and events, future evolution and political proposals; the second will set out the events in chronological form, in order to avoid including an excessive amount of detail in the previous part.
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Democratic politics has been kidnapped and intoxicated by the insidious totalitarianism of finanzcapitalism. If democracy is not capable of winning back its independence and freedom, we may only have the cold comfort of living in a science fiction world where financial zaibatsu control the planet and Blade Runner will seem like a children’s fairy-tale.
Thanks to Michael Feikema and Doug Hendren for inviting me. Like most of you I do not spend my life studying trade agreements, but the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is disturbing enough to make me devote a little time to it, and I hope you will do the same and get your neighbors to do the same and get them to get their friends to do the same — as soon as possible.
I spend most of my time reading and writing about war and peace. I'm in the middle of writing a book about the possibility and need to abolish war and militarism. I hate to take a break from that. But if we think trade and militarism are separate topics we're fooling ourselves.
New York Timescolumnist Thomas Friedman, a big fan of the supposed wonders of the hidden hand of the market economy says, “The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the U.S. Air Force F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies to flourish is called the U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.”
Editor Note: Official Washington’s national security/mainstream media incest was on scandalous display when ex-NSA chief Michael Hayden posed as a CNN analyst to denounce Edward Snowden for exposing surveillance excesses that Hayden had a hand in creating.
Mike Hayden
Former National Security Agency Director Michael Hayden should not throw any more stones, lest his own glass house be shattered. His barrage Friday against truth-teller Edward Snowden and London Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald invited a return rain of boulders for Hayden committing the same violations of constitutional protections that he is now excusing.
Writing as “CNN Terrorism Analyst,” Hayden read from the unctuous script previously used by “Meet the Press” host David Gregory on June 23 when he questioned Greenwald’s status as a journalist. Hayden claimed Greenwald deserves “the Justice Department’s characterization of a co-conspirator.”
But the principal target of Hayden’s ire was Snowden. After lumping him together with despicable characters like CIA’s Aldrich Ames, Robert Hanssen of the FBI, and others who spied for the U.S.S.R. – and then disparaging “leakers” like Bradley Manning – Hayden wrote, “Snowden is in a class by himself.”
But it is Michael Hayden who is in a class by himself. He was the first NSA director to betray the country’s trust by ordering wholesale violation of what was once the First Commandment at NSA: “Thou Shalt Not Eavesdrop on Americans Without a Court Warrant.” Not to mention playing fast and loose with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 and the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.
Coming back to work topics after a weekend of covering Twitter's endless nerdwars I am pretty horrified by the news coming out of Syria.
Ethnic Kurds are the largest group of stateless people in the world. Their population straddles the meeting point for Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran. I read a few weeks ago that the Assad regime had recognized early on that Kurdish disinterest was in their best efforts and they left the far northeast provinces alone. That is apparently changing.
The new round of fighting broke out in Tel Abyad, a border town near Turkey in the rebel-held Raqqa province. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said clashes began after Kurdish militias in the area discovered fighters from an al Qaeda-linked rebel group trying to rig one of their bases with explosives.
Sounds like the equivalent of the US “coke can” nuke. Unverified information. Eight hours highly suspect unless pre-positioned in their embassies. Since US still cannot detect proliferation devices based on content rather than containers, and HUMINT is non-existent, we will just have to wait and see.
TERMINAL X SPECIAL REPORT – 001
Dated: July 20, 2013
SOURCE REPORT
Over the past few years, Pakistan’s strategic forces, responsible for the country’s primary deterrence program, have been doing extensive research into the design and development of smart weapons i.e. nuclear weapons that have a dynamic and compact form, and which can easily be transported from one location to another.
I find the food trend in the U.S. utterly shameful. It says something really sad about us as a culture. Click through to see the charts which are very helpful.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In the U.S., 31% of single-parent households report times in the past 12 months when they struggled to afford food, much more than the 19% of two-parent households who say the same, according to an analysis of adults aged 18 to 50. Single-parent households also report greater difficulty affording food than do unmarried and single adults who do not have children. But, in households with two adults, the percentage who struggled at times to afford food is the same — 19% — regardless of the presence of children in the home.
