Chuck Spinney: Intellectual Crap & Marine Honor

03 Economy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Analysis, Budgets & Funding, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Deeds of War, Media, Military, Misinformation & Propaganda, Policy, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Waste (materials, food, etc)
Chuck Spinney

The 2012 election is now in play, and the Republican wing of the war party is gearing up to blame President Obama for America’s failed wars (who, while not entirely blameless, is hardly the architect of defeat) and the accompanying national humiliation. This email is about an opening shot that just appeared in the Weekly Standard.

One of my closest friends, retired Marine Colonel XXX, forwarded the attached analysis of the US defeat in Iraq. (I use the word ‘analysis’ charitably) It was written by Fred Kagan, his wife, and another person, neocons all. The Kagans are among one of America’s most vocal advocates preventative war, especially the invasion of Iraq, and were “architects” of the so-called “surge” (which is Versailles-speak for a relatively modest, time-consuming escalation, whereas in traditional military parlance, the word ‘surge’ implies a massive increase, like a doubling or tripling, of effort over a very short period of time).

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Owl: Financial Terrorism in USA Against USA by Wall Street and 400 Specifically Named Most Wealthy

03 Economy, 04 Education, 05 Energy, 06 Family, 07 Health, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Transnational Crime, 11 Society, Blog Wisdom, Book Lists, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corporations, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Deeds of War, Law Enforcement, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, True Cost, Waste (materials, food, etc)
Who? Who?

EXCLUSIVE: Analysis of Financial Terrorism in America: Over 1 Million Deaths Annually, 62 Million People With Zero Net Worth, As the Economic Elite Make Off With $46 Trillion

Editor’s Note: The following report includes adapted excerpts from David DeGraw’s book, “The Road Through 2012: Revolution or World War III.”

Release Date: 9.28.11

Analysis of Financial Terrorism in America
By David DeGraw, AmpedStatus Report

EXTRACTS

The following report is a statistical analysis of the systemic economic attacks against the American people.

Currently, at least 62 million Americans, 20% of US households, have zero or negative net worth.

Recently, the National Academy of Science released their latest findings, backing up my claim by revealing that 52,765,000 Americans, 17.3% of the population, lived in poverty in 2009.

In 2005, 25.7 million Americans needed food stamps, currently 45.8 million people rely on them.

…counting the total number people in need of employment, you get a current unemployment rate of 22.5%, which is an all-time record total of 34 million people currently in need of work.

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Chuck Spinney: Big Oil Screwing US for Peak Profits

03 Economy, 03 Environmental Degradation, 05 Energy, 07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Blog Wisdom, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corporations, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Government, Misinformation & Propaganda, Politics of Science & Science of Politics, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Waste (materials, food, etc)
Chuck Spinney

It looks increasingly likely that President Obama is going to cave into the oil interests promoting the pipeline to move oil mine in tar sands of Canada to the Port Arthur Free Trade Zone in Texas.

One of the prime selling points of this scheme, which has environmentalists all in uproar will no doubt be that the pipeline is needed  for energy security.  So what is going on?  My good friend Pierre Sprey's answer may surprise you.  He has graciously given me permission to distribute it.

Peak Oil or Peak Profits?

email from Pierre Sprey, 5 September 2005

A new Oil Change International report has injected a breath of fresh air into the endless stream of media BS about peak oil, declining US oil production, disastrous dependence on foreign oil, need for new offshore drilling, blah, blah , blah, blah…. The report's charts show that our domestic oil production has been rising  markedly since 2008. The excess domestic oil and the new Keystone pipeline oil are unneeded for the domestic market and will go largely to exports to fatten Big Oil's bottom line.

The most interesting conclusions are:

  • “Gasoline demand is declining due to increasing vehicle efficiency and slow economic growth;
  • Meanwhile the surge in new shale oil production in North Dakota and Texas has led to the first rise in U.S. oil production since 1970 and is forecast to continue for some time;
  • As a result of stagnant demand and the rise in both domestic and Canadian oil production, there is a glut of oil in the U.S. market.

Refiners have therefore identified export markets as their primary hope for growth and maximum profits.

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Chuck Spinney: Can USA Move Beyond 9/11 Pathology?

01 Poverty, 03 Economy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 06 Genocide, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, 10 Transnational Crime, Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, DoD, Government, IO Deeds of War, Media, Military, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Officers Call, Policy, Politics of Science & Science of Politics, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Strategy, Waste (materials, food, etc)
Chuck Spinney

CS Note: Lightly reformatted by text unchanged and nothing added

Can the United States move beyond the narcissism of 9/11?

The unity brought about by the tragedy was intense but fleeting. The war on terror has been disastrous abroad and divisive at home

Gary Younge, guardian.co.uk, Sunday 4 September 2011 18.00

In the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks the then national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, called in her senior staff and asked them to think seriously about “how [to] capitalise on these opportunities”.

The primary opportunity came from a public united in anger, grief and fear which the Bush administration sought to leverage to maximum political effect. “I think September 11 was one of those great earthquakes that clarify and sharpen,” Rice told the New Yorker six months afterwards. “Events are in much sharper relief.”

Ten years later the US response to the terror attacks have clarified three things:

  1. the limits to what its enormous military power can achieve,
  2. its relative geopolitical decline and
  3. the intensity of its polarised political culture.

It proved itself

  • incapable of winning the wars it chose to fight and
  • incapable of paying for them and
  • incapable of coming to any consensus as to why.

The combination of domestic repression at home and military aggression abroad kept no one safe, and endangered the lives of many. The execution of Osama bin Laden provoked such joy in part because almost every other American response to 9/11 is regarded as a partial or total failure.

Read original online–safety copy below the line.

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Cynthia McKinney: Libya Eyewitness Tour Final Report

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Blog Wisdom, Civil Society, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Deeds of War, IO Impotency, Military, Misinformation & Propaganda, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Peace Intelligence, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Waste (materials, food, etc)
Cynthia McKinney

On today, the anniversary of the overthrow of King Idris in Libya, the neo-colonial powers met in France to continue their drive at the new carve-up of Africa. This set of circumstances makes many of us very sad.

I had a dream last night.  I was caught in the midst of intense fighting–street fighting:  house to house.  I guess I was channeling what the typical Libyan is feeling and has been feeling for the past 6 months.  In my chats with DIGNITY Delegation members, one thing is clear:  we are traumatized by what is happening to the lovely people of Libya.  But imagine, if we feel that way, how must they feel?  Terrorized and worse.

When the DIGNITY Delegation of journalists was there, we could already see the impact of the bombing on patients in the hospital, children trying to understand what was happening, women trying to soothe their families, men trying to carry on with their normal activities, shopkeepers trying to eke out a living despite fighting and bombing all around them, Black Libyans who felt threatened by their fellow countrymen and the outsiders who have streamed into the country, siding with NATO and openly boasted of killing dark-skinned Libyans (who number between 50% and 58% of the population, according to one of the Libyans who joined us on the tour, now returned to his country, not the 30% written in the special interest press) and non-Libyan Africans.
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DefDog: The Pentagon’s new China war plan

02 China, 03 Economy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Iran, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, 11 Society, Analysis, Budgets & Funding, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, IO Deeds of War, Military, Officers Call, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Strategy, Waste (materials, food, etc)
DefDog

The Cold War Part 2, revisiting a failed strategy…..

Good closing paragraph in the story……

The Pentagon's new China war plan

Despite budget woes, the military is preparing for a conflict with our biggest rival — and we should be worried

This summer, despite America’s continuing financial crisis, the Pentagon is effectively considering trading two military quagmires for the possibility of a third. Reducing its commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan as it refocuses on Asia, Washington is not so much withdrawing forces from the Persian Gulf as it is redeploying them for a prospective war with its largest creditor, China.

. . . . .

AirSea Battle, developed in the early 1990s and most recently codified in a 2009 Navy-Air Force classified memo, is a vehicle for conforming U.S. military power to address asymmetrical threats in the Western Pacific and the Persian Gulf — code for China and Iran. (This alone raises a crucial point: If the U.S. has had nothing but trouble with asymmetrical warfare for the last 45 years, why should a war with China, or Iran for that matter, be any different?) It complements the 1992 Defense Planning Guidance, a government white paper that precluded the rise of any “peer competitor” that might challenge U.S. dominance worldwide.

. . . . . . .

For the first time since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. government has encountered the practical limits of the 1992 Defense Planning Guidance.

. . . . . .

Here is a noble appeal for Washington to match its commitments with the resources needed to sustain them, the absence of which has fueled the debt crisis that nearly reduced the United States to a mendicant state. Such are the crippling costs of a defense policy that makes global hegemony a mindless imperative.

Read full article….