Category: Threats

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NIGHTWATCH: Financial Risk for the Few versus Life Risk for the Many

05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Transnational Crime, Office of Management and Budget
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Greece: The General Confederation of Employees of Greece and the civil servants' union federation declared a 24-hour nationwide strike on Wednesday in protest against the finalization of the new package of austerity measures demanded by Greece's creditors.

Tens of thousands of protesters demonstrated outside Greece's parliament on 26 September against austerity measures. The strike included doctors, teachers, tax workers, ferry operators and air traffic controllers. The Greek government is looking for ways to cut 11.5 billion euros ($14.7 billion) from the country's budget.

Comment: The economic hardships and austerity measures carry the risk of a breakdown in civil order. The key indicator of a spreading, unmanageable breakdown is the duration of protests. Thus far they have been short lived in Spain and Greece.

The international media has suggested the Eurozone crisis is now on a more stable trajectory. The protests suggest otherwise. European bankers and financial experts continue to fail to distinguish financial risks from real threats. There will be more outbreaks of civil disorder and more violent clashes.

Phi Beta Iota:  We now know that financial assets inflated seventeen times verus the five times normal inflation (under a corrupt Federal Reserve) for physical assets.  We now know that the financial mandarins and “control fraud” on the part of various governments has led to the internal looting of European Union and Americas commonwealths.  Spain will be the next to collapse because the Spanish government has resolutely refused to consider the Iceland example.  It is difficult to stop doing the wrong thing righter, we know this.  Prospects for the USA in 2013-2014 are terrible.  This is particularly troubling since there is nothing wrong with the USA that could not be fixed rapidly with the restoration of intelligence and integrity to governance.

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Penguin: Israel Lobbyist Suggests False Flag Attack Needed to Get USA Into War with Iran

05 Iran, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, Commerce, Corruption, Government, IO Deeds of War, Officers Call
Who, Me?

YouTube, 1:54, absolutely worth watching!

Today’s nominee for the Larry Silverstein Award for Chutzpah Beyond the Call of Duty: Israel lobbyist Patrick Clawson, who is openly calling for the mass murder of Americans, along the lines of the USS Maine, Lusitania, Pearl Harbor, USS Liberty, and (by implication) 9/11 orchestrated war-trigger events.

Tip of the Hat to Kevin Barrett at Veterans Today.

WATCH THE SHORT VIDEO

Phi Beta Iota:  The Israel lobbyist ably recounts false flags from WWI and WWII to Viet-Nam, neglects to mention 9/11 and the 935 now-documented lies led by Dick Cheney that took the USA into wars that restored Afghanistan as the world's #1 supplier of opium (and Pakistan as the #1 producer of heroin) while destabilizing the entire Middle East.

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Penguin: Bandi Mbubi at TED – Demand a Fair Trade Cell Phone

02 Diplomacy, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 11 Society, Civil Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Government, IO Deeds of War, Liberation Technology
Who, Me?

Your mobile phone, computer and game console have a bloody past — tied to tantalum mining, which funds the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Drawing on his personal story, activist and refugee Bandi Mbubi gives a stirring call to action. (Filmed at TEDxExeter.)  Bandi Mbubi would like to make sure that you are using a fair trade cell phone.

Bandi Mbubi grew up in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly Zaire, experiencing first hand the political unrest and oppression which have since worsened there. As a student activist, Bandi suffered persecution and fled the country, seeking political asylum in the U.K. But Mbubi has kept his home country on his radar, noting how the mining of tantalum — a mineral used in cell phones and computers — has fueled the ongoing war there in which 5 million have died.

While Mbubi sees the cell phone as an instrument of oppression for this reason, he knows that phones can also bring great freedom. And so he has formed CongoCalling.org, a campaign to inspire both the public and companies that make electronics to pay attention to how tantalum used in consumer electronics is mined and traded.

Mbubi is also the Director of the Manna Society, a center for the homeless in South London, and a Trustee of Church Action on Poverty.

TED Video (9:22)

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Chuck Spinney: US Economy Still Hollow, Election Will Not Change That Fact

01 Poverty, 03 Economy, Commerce, Corruption, Government, IO Impotency
Chuck Spinney

Who Will Create More Jobs: Romney or Obama?

Why It's a Distinction Without a Difference

by FRANKLIN C. SPINNEY

CounterPunch, 24 September 2012

My prediction: The eventual answer will turn out to be a distinction without a difference.  Here’s why.

Both political parties and their candidates for President now accept neoliberal ideology as being the incontrovertible truth.  This belief is more theological than scientific, because neoliberalism has a thirty year track record of not producing the high-paying jobs for the middle class its promisers say it will produce.  Quite the reverse would be a more accurate description.

According to neoliberal dogma, the only way to stimulate the growth of high-paying jobs for Americans is to unleash the private sector by getting government off the back of business.  Therefore, given this truism, the government’s economic purpose is simply to make it easier for the private sector to invest in productive capacity at home — or to use a popular but vacuous buzzword: to invest in the ‘supply side’ of the economy.

Continue reading “Chuck Spinney: US Economy Still Hollow, Election Will Not Change That Fact”

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Steven Aftergood: CRS on Poverty and on Intelligence

01 Poverty, 03 Economy, 06 Family, 11 Society, Congressional Research Service, IO Impotency
Steven Aftergood

POVERTY IN THE UNITED STATES, AND MORE FROM CRS

“In 2011, 46.2 million people were counted as poor in the United States, the same number as in 2010 and the largest number of persons counted as poor in the measure's 53-year recorded history,” according to a timely new report from the Congressional Research Service.  See Poverty in the United States: 2011, September 13, 2012.

Other new and newly updated CRS reports that have not been made publicly available include the following.

Intelligence Authorization Legislation: Status and Challenges, updated September 18, 2012

Latin America and the Caribbean: Fact Sheet on Leaders and Elections, updated September 17, 2012

Phi Beta Iota:  The juxtaposition of a report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS) on poverty in America – a hot issue being kept under wraps at this time – with a report on the intelligence authorization bill by two experienced analysts new to the account (Richard Best finally retired and Al Cumin is on assigment elsewhere), is encouraging.  In the latter instance, Richard F. Grimmett (CRS International Security analyst) and Rebecca S. Lange (an Air Force Fellow) demonstrate intelligence with integrity in tackling the militarization of intelligence and the excessive focus of intelligence on defense targets to the exclusion of all others (Whole of Government).

See Also:

Graphic: Intelligence Requirements Definition for the 21st Century

2008 Rebalancing the Instruments of National Power–Army Strategy Conference of 2008 Notes, Summary, & Article

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Mini-Me: Italian Court Confirms Convictions of CIA Personnel for Rendition & Torture – Way Now Clear for Formal Extradition Request

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Ethics, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Officers Call
Who, Mini-Me?

Huh?

Italy court upholds American convictions in CIA case

ROME (AP) — Italy's highest criminal court on Wednesday upheld the convictions of 23 Americans in the abduction of an Egyptian terror suspect from a Milan street as part of the CIA's extraordinary rendition program, paving the way to possible extradition requests by Italian authorities.

The ruling by the Court of Cassation marks the final appeal in the first trial anywhere in the world involving the CIA's practice of abducting terror suspects and transferring them to third countries where torture is permitted.

The Americans were convicted in absentia following a three-and-a-half-year trial, and have never been in Italian custody. They risk arrest if they travel to Europe and one of their court-appointed lawyers suggested that the final verdict would open the way for the Italian government to seek their extradition.

“It went badly. It went very badly,” lawyer Alessia Sorgato said after the court announced its decision after a day of deliberations. “Now they will ask for extradition.”victed in absentia following a three-and-a-half-year trial, and have never been in Italian custody. They risk arrest if they travel to Europe and one of their court-appointed lawyers suggested that the final verdict would open the way for the Italian government to seek their extradition.

Milan Prosecutor Armando Spataro, one of Italy's top anti-terrorism magistrates who shaped the prosecution, hailed the top court's decision, saying it was tantamount to a finding that extraordinary rendition “is incompatible with democracy.”

Read full article.

Continue reading “Mini-Me: Italian Court Confirms Convictions of CIA Personnel for Rendition & Torture – Way Now Clear for Formal Extradition Request”

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