The West and Others

ADDING FUEL TO THE FIRE IN NIGERIA

2012-01-28T12:03:00.000+01:00

ADDING FUEL TO THE FIRE IN NIGERIA

Nigeria’s fuel subsidy reduction protests were called off last week (16 January) as union bosses and the public were presented with a carrot - a return to a compromise level of N97 per litre (as compared to N65 before Jan 1 and up to N200 during last week’s rushed changes) and a stick - military deployments against protesters in major cities (against the objections of Lagos State’s Governor Fashola and others).

With a casualty list of ten dead in five cities across the country, criminal elements starting to take advantage of the disruption, and the nation already reeling under escalating Boko Haram violence, it seems that it was in no-one’s interest to allow for a longer period of instability. In any case, opponents of the new policy, and of Nigeria’s non-transparent political status quo, will rightfully feel that they have achieved a certain shift in the balance of power: While many analysts felt that strikes could not be continued beyond three days, more than a week of sustained action resulted in the government blinking first – despite state efforts to force employees to go back to work through the threat of no-work-no-pay.

In 2004, showdowns between government and union-led civil society over the same issue led – via strikes – to a negotiated settlement that was more elegantly choreographed. So why did the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan act in a manner considerably more intransigent than that of the bullish and often autocratic President Olusegun Obasanjo, who presided over earlier fuel price controversies?

To understand this requires a deeper examination of the structural politics underpinning the current administration in Nigeria. Let’s start by dismissing a myth. Whatever well-meaning technocrats (including Nigeria’s respected ex-World Bank Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala) may think, the ending of fuel subsidies has less to do with correcting a structural imbalance in the national economy, and more to do with the maths of patronage politics.

Anyone who doubts that should just follow the numbers. Note first, that deregulated prices were introduced even though funds for a further three months had been budgeted for. Next, attempt to follow the fate of the N28.875 billion (US$174.9 million) already saved during the 1st – 15th January deregulation (if the calculation based on government’s own figures is correct). If you are unconvinced, then simply follow the national accounts over the next 12 months. The new agreed price will reduce government spending by an estimated N61.2 billion for the last quarter of the current financial year (the new subsidy will save N23 per litre - at a projected consumption of 35m litres per day for 76 days that makes N61.2bn). Come December, try to find where this saving is reflected in the year-end national accounts; if it is not accounted there, it means that another US$380m of public money has vanished into the system with no paper trail.

The agenda here is not an economic one but a political one that is informed by the logic of rent and patronage. The Goodluck Jonathan administration suffers from an unfortunate conjunction of deficiencies of two strategic commodities; legitimacy and cash. Having become President ‘against the grain’ of the unwritten pact of regional power-rotation among the political elite, Jonathan must manufacture that consensus post-facto, which is expensive, as it requires the stuffing of dissenting mouths with Naira bills, issued via lucrative government contracts.

At the outset, when he faced the challenge of how to take over power from the dying late President Yar’Adua, Jonathan commissioned a group of elder states-people, headed by veteran coup-brokering general, turned oil baron and philanthropist, T.Y Danjuma, to do what amounted to a strategic review of the state of the nation. In essence, he got the ‘management consultants’ in. The Danjuma-led Presidential Advisory Council (PAC) reported that the most significant cost to the government was recurrent salary expenditure, which have accounted for nearly 60% of budgets in the last decade. It further reported that the country is already committed to funding N20.84 trillion (US$126.2 billion) of capital projects that have been included in budgets since 1999. As a result, there is basically no money for any major new projects for the medium-term.

This is a political problem, not just a developmental one, because the patronage system of government – on which elite cohesion depends – is based on the issuance of contracts (and thus, kickbacks and leakages) for big infrastructure projects. When kickbacks are demanded in Nigeria, they frequently exceed 10% of a contracts value (this writer has heard reliable accounts of kickback-driven inflation of 40%-300% of the actual cost of the goods and services supplied); and the contracts are often sizeable – a recent Chinese agreement to supply security communications equipment for the capital city was reportedly worth US$470 million.

Kickbacks are what the political elite ‘eats’, and without them the machine grinds to a halt. So, the problem facing Jonathan was where to look for funds to keep the consensus going. The PAC advocated lots of savings, including cutting government waste and reducing salaries. Bureaucratic sinecures, however, are another patronage goods, so the government opted to pass the buck onto the public by availing itself of the huge sums that were tied up in the fuel subsidy. Given the choice of alienating the elite or the public, the Jonathan administration chose the former.

With its back to the wall, and instability in the country mounting, it is perhaps unsurprising that government was so keen to maximize the resources at its disposal. The Jonathan administration may appear to be more vulnerable than ever, but it is worth noting that the President now has funds that may enable him to co-opt support and re-establish his position.

The decision to remove the subsidy brought protesters out onto the streets and the unions out on strike, forcing the government to think again. So now, both sides have stepped back from the barricades, what can we discern from the current state of the political field?

Some commentators have noted the army’s move on to the streets and mooted a return to the military interventions of the 1960s-1990s. Such speculations seem wide of the mark. For one thing, there is no real public appetite for a return to juntas. For another, former President Obasanjo did a thorough job of structurally depoliticizing the army, and the ‘political’ officers of yesteryear are now out of uniform. Just to be sure, it is instructive that Jonathan, like Yar’Adua before him, has ethnicized the top leadership of the military. Ignore for now the post of Chief of Defence Staff (the Yoruba Air Chief Marshal Oluseyi Petinrin) – it is a cosmetic post which enables senior officers to be ‘kicked upstairs’ out of the line of command. Note instead that the strategic posts of Chief of Army Staff (CoAS) and National Security Adviser (NSA) are occupied by faces from areas which strongly support Jonathan. The appointment of Azubuike Ihejirika represents a major boost for the Igbo south-east and represents the region’s first top command appointment since the Biafra war. Similarly, NSA General Andrew Azazi is from Jonathan’s home state of Bayelsa.

A more pertinent fear might be the apparent division of the country along ethno-religious lines. Christian leaders, exasperated with the lack of condemnation of Boko Haram from prominent Islamic voices in the country (who are probably silent due in large part to their own fear of becoming targets of assassination), have begun to advise that Christians in northern states take steps to defend themselves; such statements are provocative but reflect real fears, and increasing numbers of southerners resident in the north are coming home. Meanwhile, a small number of northerners based in the south have moved in the opposite direction. But such trends are yet small, and civil society protests against the fuel subsidies have actually reinforced a message of unity, with Kano protesters striking an interfaith mutual defence pact.

In truth, popular anger in most places is against the government, not other Nigerians, and where it is likely to spill over, security forces are generally positioned for timely reaction. Fifteen Local Governments (including Jos) where ethnic or religious violence has been most pronounced are already under Emergency Rule, volatile Kaduna has been under curfew, and Kano is being carefully managed through savvy community relations. Violence against Hausa money-changers in Benin City under the cover of protests was an unfortunate exception – criminal networks have been a big problem in the city through the last decade – but army units acted fast to round up Hausa residents and place them under protection.

With the controversy over the fuel subsidy seemingly calmed for the time being, what is not yet clear is how the administration plans to react to the wider crisis of stability in Nigeria. President Jonathan seemed to strike a panicky note last week, announcing at a national church service that his government and military had been ‘infiltrated’ by Boko Haram militants. Even if grounded in any evidence, this was an inadvisable thing to say, as it only served to spread uncertainty and fear. But it may be the real state of the President’s thinking. Diplomatic sources reported in 2010 that Jonathan, while VP, had taken to wearing a bulletproof vest. Those who think the President may lose his appetite for office and step down are however wide of the mark: the matter is not up to him. Niger Delta militants, whose campaign of insurgency propelled Jonathan to the VP slot to begin with, now feel that ‘their’ man is in power, so that they are in power; it’s ‘their turn to eat’ and they will be extremely displeased to see it ended prematurely. Jonathan may not be as adept at working with these factors as Nigeria’s First Lady is reported to be; but in any case his freedom of action is likely to be constrained by this powerful constituency.

So, some analysts conclude that the President is not in control of the situation – the real question is does this matter. Nigeria did not have a President at all in any meaningful sense of the term during President Yar’Adua illness in 2009-2010 and nothing fell apart in the realm of the everyday, because the state doesn’t do much for ordinary Nigerians at the best of times. Despite the public demonization of the President in recent days, the issue is not that Jonathan is an especially mean person or bad President – he is certainly an improvement on some figures in Nigeria’s past – but that the system is remarkably impervious to reform. Last week, the administration made a cosmetic change in response to public demands for more transparency with regard to oil revenue by appointing two little-known domestic law firms to investigate and audit the sector; at the same time, the opposition ACN party accused the government of attempting to broker a deal to hand over the country’s entire maritime security to a company run by a former Niger Delta militant.

So, Jonathan alone is not going to make or break Nigeria. The problem is more structural – Nigeria’s government-centred political economy, built on top of a fundamentally unwieldy constitution, has grown too expensive for its own resources and incapable of playing the role that it has carved out for itself. Spatially, central government has been retreating towards Abuja for some time now, ceding more leeway to powerful state governors while it walls itself in to the capital – a glitzy, CCTV-monitored national-scale version of the Government Reserve Area (gated estates) that exist in most Nigerian towns – where it can feed off oil revenues without having to be bothered with actual governance. The more interesting question is not whether or not Jonathan is in control, but which devolved, democratized or fissiparous forces are coming in to fill the vacuum that has been created by the retreat of the centre. Given this trend, and the mediated success of fuel subsidy protests, will we finally see a change in the balance of power towards the public?

2012-01-14T16:40:00.005+01:00

I.M.F and the Stimulus of Destabilization

from left; Sanusi Lamido Sanusi (Nigeria's Central Bank Governor), Christine Lagarde (M.D International Monetary Fund) and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (Nigeria's Finance Minister and co-ordinating Minister for the Economy) Look who's smiling.

by Michael .O. Dibiaezue.

Looking at unfolding events in my country Nigeria, today, I ask how it is possible for a President in full view of our collapsing security situation to go ahead and impose policies that do nothing but aggravate an already frightening situation. Surely, something has gone terribly wrong with decision making in our country. There has to be overpowering reasons for this and they are what I intend to explore through this write-up.

In 2005, the US National Intelligence Council (NIC) announced to the world that Nigeria will break up by the year 2015 if it continued on its then socio-economic path. In May 2008, the official homepage of the United States military (click here) described a war-game scenario playing out in which "The Nigerian government is near collapse and rival factions are vying for power in that troubled part of the world"" It added "The exercise centers around realistic threats to ongoing peace around the world, like the potentially negative effects of globalization, competition for energy, demographic trends, climate change and natural disasters, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the existence of failed or failing states that could be havens for terrorists." In other words, the prospects of Nigeria collapsing with rival factions vying for power are very realistic threats to our nation according to the US government.

In February 2008, Vice Admiral Moeller, in a presentation at an Africom conference held at Fort McNair, declared that protecting "the free flow of natural resources from Africa to the global market" i.e. the West, was one of Africom's "guiding principles" and specifically cited "oil disruption," "terrorism," and the "growing influence" of China as major "challenges" to U.S. interests in Africa. Dwelling on Moeller's statement, clearly reveals Africom's intended purpose and its relationship to war exercises such as Unified Quest 08. Not just that, it showcases America's intolerance to growing spheres of influence and competition. To lump influence and competition alongside terrorism and oil disruption is to underline the fact that America considers them an act of war which is exactly why Africom views them as challenges.

This attitude and the several programs being foisted on African nations in furtherance of these American policies have led to a very negative drain on the African economy. According to Daniel Volman of the African Security Research Project, under the Direct Commercial Sales Program (DCS), the US State Department granted licenses for the sale of police equipment (including pistols, revolvers, shotguns, rifles, and crowd control chemicals) by private U.S. companies to African governments. In the financial year of 2008, American firms were expected to deliver more than $175 million worth of this kind of hardware to Algeria through the DCS program, along with $2 million worth for Botswana, $3 million for Kenya, $19 million for Morocco, $17 million for Nigeria, and $61million for South Africa.

The question that needs to be asked is why it becomes US policy for private US companies to sell $17 million worth of crowd control chemicals and guns to Nigeria or an excess of $300 million of these equipments to select African countries whose citizens live on less than $2-$3 a day, instead of desperately needed medication and infrastructure? Leaders of these African countries will no doubt be tempted to apply these equipments to the suppression of their people and when they refuse to abide by Western dictates for whatever reasons, will be hauled before the ICC at The Hague for killing their citizens.

One will find all across Africa today, several programs put in place for the direct enrichment of the US Military/Industrial Complex. (1) The Flintlock 2005 and 2007 are Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET) exercises to provide training experience for American and African troops. The Flintlock 2007 exercises involved forces from Algeria, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Tunisia, Burkina Faso, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. (2) The Joint Task Force Aztec Silence (JTFAS) is charged with conducting surveillance operations using the assets of the U.S. 6th Fleet (such as the spy plane P-3 Orion) to share information, along with intelligence collected by U.S. intelligence agencies. In February 2008, the U.S. 6th Fleet conducted seven days of joint maritime exercises (known as Exercise Maritime Safari 2008) at Nigeria's Ikeja Air Force Base with the Nigerian Navy and Air Force.

There are also (3) the Trans-Saharan Counter-Terrorism Partnership (TSCTP) which links the United States with eight African countries: Mali, Chad, Niger, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria. (4) The East Africa Counter-Terrorism Initiative is a training program similar to the TSCTP, and is a multi-year program. (5) The Africa Contingency Operations Training and Assistance Program (ACOTA) has Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia participating. (6) The International Military Education and Training Program (IMET) militarizes African youths by training them in the art of war. (7) The Foreign Military Sales Program ensures the sale of US military equipment through the direct supervision of the US government which provides loans to finance these purchases by African governments. (8) The African Coastal and Border Security Program (ACBS) provides specialized equipment such as patrol vessels and vehicles, communications equipments, night vision devices and electronic monitors and sensors to African countries.

Setting aside the colossal sums of money paid by our governments in hosting and participating in these programs, Nigeria and most African countries risk laying bare all their defence and security secrets to elements that may or may not align themselves with America's goals. Modern aerial surveillance planes, like the P-3 Orion, are capable of acquiring and storing huge amounts of data, including photographs of vast swathes of land mass. Rogue elements within the US military may be persuaded, as they have been on numerous other occasions, to sell our defence and security secrets to unknown parties. It is also important to note that whereas these exercises expose virtually the whole of Africa's land mass to prying eyes, the same cannot be said for those Western nations that share in the exercises.

These exercises and programs can best be described as a platform for advertising and marketing American military hardware and crowd control equipments, a market place if you like, which in turn result in the wasteful drain on the Nigerian and African economies. To be sure, there is no point to training people and conducting exercises if the equipments they are trained to use are unavailable to them. Another thought is these exercises provide the pretext for mapping out terrain and for participating foreign nations to test their new ships and weapons with a view to assessing their adaptability and performance on the African continent. The only ingredients missing for persuading African leaders to buy military hardware and crowd control chemicals are the destabilizing stimuli of war, social unrest and conflict. These stimuli can occur as a result of foreign interference or the imposition of unbearable living conditions.

The Niger Delta resistance and the Boko Haram insurgency are clear examples of these destabilizing stimuli at work. No matter the reasons for their occurrence, fact is that government by virtue of these uprisings will be seriously inclined and persuaded to invest in materials and equipments that help quell them. Needless to say, these kinds of purchases are a drain on any economy seeing that they do not add positive growth to a people's economic quest.

On December 2011, another kind of destabilizing stimulus was put to play in Nigeria. The Managing Director of the IMF, Christine Lagarde arrived Nigeria to meet with President Jonathan. Her primary mission was to order him to get rid of fuel subsidy. The issue here was not the unbearable conditions this directive imposed on Nigerians but the freeing up of funds to more quickly enable us service our debt to her organization. The dictates of IMF's conditionality ordered funds accruing from the removal of subsidy and elsewhere to be placed with a Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) and invested in Western markets, the implication being that such funds were unworthy of investment in the Nigerian economy.

Bearing this in mind and noting well that such SWF belonging to the Libyan people was confiscated not too long ago by Western powers, it becomes unrealistic to expect that our SWF, a condition put in place by the IMF, would be applied to lifting the socio-economic yoke of the Nigerian people whereas our debts remained unpaid and I.M.F cash-strapped. My educated guess is that the promises of the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment programme (SURE) will never materialize for want of funds elsewhere applied.

Finally, we come to the issue of subsidy itself. It is a misnomer for government to brand what is by all practical definitions a petroleum tax as subsidy. Essentially, the pump price of fuel at our filling stations, when refined locally, is determined by the sum of a series of costs. They are exploration, development, operation, refining, distribution and marketing costs. Figures available for 2005 and at that year's exchange rate of 130 Naira (N) to the dollar, show that exploration costs came to $.025 per barrel or N.02 per litre, development cost $4 per barrel or N3.27 per litre, operation costs $7.05 per barrel or N5.74 per litre, refining costs $21 per barrel or N17.17 per litre, distribution costs were N2.45 per litre, marketing costs N5.87 per litre bringing total costs for the pump price of a litre of fuel in Nigeria to 24 cents or N31.50 per litre. With pump prices at N65, it means government makes a profit of N33.50 on every litre of fuel sold at the pumps i.e. a profit in excess of 100%.

As long as crude remains extractable from our soil not much will happen to change these 2005 projections, aside from distribution costs. Government's inability to fix existing refineries (which enabled production and delivery costs of a litre of fuel to reach our pumps at 24 cents or N31.50) has now allowed for the kind of fraud we see today in the fuel importation business and has culminated in the emergence of a cabal that hold both government and citizens hostage. This situation is what has made removal of "subsidy' mentionable and has led to the intolerable position Nigerians find themselves today. So, even here, we also see that government's decision to obey Lagarde and remove subsidy amounts to the application of a destabilizing stimulus.

That fuel subsidy could be so arrogantly removed on New Year day without feeling or recourse to Nigerians or their representatives at the National Assembly, speaks of the fear our leaders harbor for International bankers and the degree of control these bankers exert on our lives through their influencing of government's policies. It is in fact, a showing of how sovereign nations are targeted and ripped opened by the lecherous fingers of international financial institutions .

Having said this much, we need to now look at the bigger picture. What we have is the Ambassador to US (a foreign power to which our government has thrown open our borders and country; one that has not come bearing gifts but to educate us on how to kill ourselves [Africans] and present us with the means to get it done at economy-wrecking prices) campaigning and pledging support for the removal of subsidy. Standing shoulder to shoulder with the US, is the I.M.F that has ordered our government to impose conditions which will result in untold hardship to the masses of my country. In other words, our government is being ordered to abdicate its primary responsibility to the people and trash its very reason for being.

It does not take an Einstein to figure what the outcome will be and that result clearly manifests today in the social upheaval that rages. I find it curious that the US government should scare and startle Nigeria with its break-up prediction and turn around to hold war game exercises with it, as the catalysis (i.e. the I.M.F's directive on fuel subsidy removal) to accelerate and bring about such prediction are activated. Observing that the US is I.M.F's foremost patron and financier, it would not be stretching the imagination to think that these actions were premeditated. Considering all this therefore, would it not be true to say that the U.S, Christine Lagarde and the IMF, by their support and directive on the removal of fuel subsidy, have instigated the protests, riots and strikes sweeping across Nigeria today?

There is not a shadow of doubt in my mind that these unfolding events have been brought about by the interference of foreign entities (aided by their agents in government) in the affairs of another sovereign state and that they had been carefully planned for one end; the destabilization or break-up of my country. If President Jonathan abandons us to carry out the instructions passed to him, he will be given the tools and equipments with which to fight us on the streets by this same foreign power while funds will be provided for their purchase by the same shylock financial institution that wish us all dead. If he does not, more destabilizing stimuli will be applied to bend his will. This may come in the form of our being blacklisted and isolated. Sanctions may also be applied in various forms to make us croak and surely, a bad name will be given to that dog.

What Jonathan must do is to look inwards. He must get himself a good pair of scissor and set to work trimming the unsustainable size of government. He must also go to the National Assembly and cut their coat to size. He must let the political class know the party is over. The subsidies of security votes, inflated contracts and ghost workers must go. The subsidy on corruption and unaccountability must also go. Our refineries must be brought back to life and more built. The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) must be seriously diminished and overhauled. Our manufacturing sector must be rehabilitated and tools for effective production put in place, the power sector would be a good place to start.

Government must be made to do some work and now would seem a pretty good time to start. War games and exercises coupled to the purchase of oppressive instruments for use on the citizens of my country will only disenfranchise him politically and out him as a dictator. To conclude, one final question for Christine Lagarde. How would the French react if the price of fuel were to more than double on New Year day? Would Nicholas Sarkozy still be sitting pretty on his political throne?

2012-01-13T02:32:00.002+01:00

A letter from Ayo Obe; Re: The Fuel Subsidy Removal Protests for Dummies

Dear Friends both near and far,

E ku subsidi o! Lagos and other cities remain at a standstill on Day 3 of the nationwide strike.

I hope everybody been able to see this piece which captures a lot of the issues on this matter: you can find it by clicking on this link http://www.naijablog.co.uk/2012/01/fuel-subsidy-removal-protests-for.html

Apart from the bit about the generator - I've withdrawn from that particular vicious cycle of fuel, service, repair, service, fuel, repair - and my limited hustling skills, I recognised my life in that third paragraph! I'm also sending it around because of this propaganda by the FGN that those protesting are being teleguided by the CPC. Granted, Pastor Bakare used intemperate language in raining death curses on President Jonathan (quite uncalled for) but as the writer of Fuel Subsidy Removal Protests for Dummies says: "Would it be acceptable to citizens of affluent countries that the price of petrol doubles overnight without any warning?" Would they need to be teleguided to rise up in protest? The reality is that Labour and the political parties, including CPC, are behind the curve on this matter!

Here is the content, and if you make it to the end of the piece, a link to my regular Wednesday column, though I also wrote about this last Wednesday.

"Monday, January 09, 2012
The Fuel Subsidy Removal Protests for Dummies
On the first day of the indefinite general strike organised by a coalition between two of the largest unions in Nigeria – the TUC and the NLC – and a cluster of smaller unions and social media-based activists and organisations, some external observers have expressed surprise at the intensity of resistance the “Occupy Nigeria” campaign has mounted against the removal of the fuel subsidy on January 1st and the size of the mass demonstrations taking place. From an outside perspective, it might seem like a dust-devil has been whipped up without why in the desert. In case there’s still any confusion, allow me to explain why there is so much anger and resistance.

The answer begins with a question: would it be acceptable to citizens of affluent countries that the price of petrol doubles overnight without any warning? Perhaps Jeffrey Sachs would be alone in his view, or perhaps he only prescribes a certain type of medicine for African countries. Perhaps the view from Sachs' brain is that Africans can get by on generic drugs long past their sell-by date.

Aside from Sachs' development fantasies, the lived reality of citizens of the Nigerian state is that it provides little or no security, no infrastructure, no education and no employment opportunities (apart from mostly McJobs in the civil service). Everywhere in Nigeria, the basic elements of civilised existence have to be taken care of house-by-house, compound-by-compound. You must sink your own borehole for water, buy, install and fuel a generator for power, hire security guards to keep the wolves from the door, pay school fees to ensure your kids get a half-decent education because the public school system is in perpetual meltdown. And to earn enough money to get through the day, you must hustle.

The breakdown of a standard tax and political representation based social contract between citizens and the state in Nigeria is almost entirely a result of the past few decades of the so-called ‘resource curse’. Earning billions of dollars each year from crude exports, the Nigerian government has no need to rely on tax from individuals or local companies; tax and royalty payments from the international oil companies (as well as historically, loans from international financial institutions) have been sufficient to fund the annual budget at all levels of government. For the past few decades, cheap fuel has therefore been the only form of social contract between ordinary Nigerians and the state and the principle lever to control inflation during times of rising oil prices. With most Nigerians subsisting on US$2 or less, subsidised fuel has also been a survival mechanism, making life only just bearable.

It was therefore highly surprising to Nigerians to find out that the fuel subsidy had been removed on January 1st and that the price regulating body under the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) – the PPPRA – had more than doubled the price of petrol overnight. No one had been given warning. The expectation was that the subsidy would be removed at the earliest in April. The strong suspicion is that following on from Christine Lagarde’s visit to Nigeria in late December, the government had accelerated its plans. From the views of key government figures, it’s easy to see how Nigeria acceded to IMF pressure with little or no resistance. The Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has repeatedly stated that removing the fuel subsidy would only hurt the affluent car-owning population, forgetting how central the price of fuel is to almost every basic aspect of life here. Meanwhile, the Governor of the Central Bank, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, has stated that removal of the subsidy would only have a short-term inflationary effect. With opinions like this, the IMF was walking into an open door.

Given the state of the global economy, it is little surprise that the IMF is in favour of insisting on reducing debt wherever it can. However, the IMF also appears to be suffering from institutional amnesia; what is happening in Nigeria is in some respects a re-run of the Structural Adjustment Programme in the 1980s, and President Ibrahim Babangida’s short-term attempts to resist austerity measures. As we will recall, “IBB” ended up creating his own austerity package, which was more severe than that proposed by the IMF. The Nigerian economy quickly tanked, resulting in mass suffering among Nigerians. Fundamentalist strains of evangelical Christianity mushroomed forth from the barren earth. Unlike the World Bank, which is increasingly taking political-economy factors seriously in its analysis and its programmes, even today the IMF and its high-priesthood consultants views the world from the numerical altar of macro-economics. The technocratic nature of the IMF means that the organisation is in fact programmed to forget the past.
During the recent fuel subsidy debate on local Nigerian TV station Channels, Mrs Okonjo-Iweala was keen to state what she referred to as ‘facts’. At no point has anyone in the executive effectively challenged former Petroleum Minister Tam David-West’s querying of whether there is a subsidy in the first place, or whether the landing cost of imported fuel has been artificially padded. Given the findings ofthe recent KPMG report into the NNPC, it seems that facts about the oil sector in Nigeria are thin on the ground.
The defence offered by the Finance Minister during that same debate is that the savings from removal of the subsidy would be spent on a palliative capital-spending programme – the Subsidy Re-investment and Empowerment Programme (SURE). Nigerians have raised a number of critical objections to this proposal and the timing of subsidy removal.

Firstly, given the glut of money in state coffers in the past few years and the lack of any successful infrastructural development (for instance in power and transport), there is little guarantee that the SURE programme would be implemented or successful, rather than go the way of all initiatives in the past. The government of Nigeria has not been able to significantly raise the amount of power generated, nor has it been able to achieve the low-tech objective of revamping the dilapidated railway network, still less has it been able to improve standards in public education and healthcare. What then would be different about the SURE programme?

Secondly, while most Nigerians are probably not ideologically opposed to subsidy removal (and targeting the corrupt ‘cabal’ of fuel importers who benefit from the subsidy), they are utterly opposed to the timing, given the insecurity in the land raised by Islamic militancy in the North and the potential for renewed militancy in response in the Niger Delta. A phased subsidy withdrawal, as has happened elsewhere, would have been the preferred approach.

Thirdly, the idea that removing the subsidy equates to ‘deregulation’ and the equivalent private sector boom as witnessed in the past decade in the telecoms sector is highly suspect to most. For the downstream oil sector to be deregulated, there has to be new legislation in place. The Petroleum Industry Bill, which separates the functions of a national oil company, regulation and policy-making, would need to become law. We have been waiting since the previous minister of petroleum for the PIB to be passed. At present, the NNPC is the epicentre of corruption in the oil sector in Nigeria, and has to broken up into its constituent parts for the private sector to be given space to grow its role. In addition, Nigerians would want to see a much higher percentage of crude oil refined locally, rather than the current reliance on imported fuel, to ensure a favourable local pricing policy that does not depend on state subsidy. Without any of these key deregulatory building blocks in place, removal of the ‘subsidy’ now is simply terrible timing and does not inspire confidence among a people who long ago lost their faith in government.

Finally, if savings are urgently required from the annual government budget, most Nigerians would argue that the first place to cut costs is that of the price of running government itself. As the Governor of the Central Bank pointed out last year, the National Assembly consumes 25% of the Federal overheads budget; the cost of running the President’s office has been widely publicised in recent weeks (including a billion naira food bill). It is rare to see a member of the executive - down to director-generals of government agencies most Nigerians have never heard of - travelling without a sizeable convoy of expensive cars. Nigerian government delegations to international conferences and gatherings are often by far the largest, with a supersized retinue of special advisors, assistants and staff for the first-wife in attendance, there to collect their allowance and have access to shopping opportunities overseas.

As it is, most Nigerians are poor, and will simply not be able to survive with any comfort on US$2 a day and a doubling of living costs. That the government of Nigeria didn’t foresee the massive level of resistance happening today is quite bewildering. It shows a complete disconnect and disregard for Nigerians. However, where there is the greatest danger, there is greatest hope. Nigerians have never been so united in years – last week, in the unofficially renamed Liberation Square in Kano, Christians guarded the space as their Muslim co-protestors prayed. In return, last Sunday, Muslims guarded Churches as others prayed inside.

What we are witnessing with Occupy Nigeria is a generational transfer, as young, social-media enabled activists gradually take over the baton from unionist stalwarts. Nigeria's young population is increasingly letting go of the deferential attitude of their parents generation. In the south at least, young Nigerians are beginning to ask questions of the religious leadership that has been complicit with the status-quo. At long last, there is accountability pressure building up in the system.

In the short term, following on from the next few days of protest and shut-down, it’s hard to imagine anything other than a policy reversal, and a planned withdrawal being announced, in step with a clear programme of projects that must be delivered before any further withdrawal of subsidy is implemented (citizens monitoring a re-drafted SURE programme for instance). Even at this very late stage, President Goodluck could become a hero of the process. Come what may, underlying events this week a deeper shift is at work: a new generation of Nigerians well versed in events to the north in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya is demanding that the terms of the social contract in Nigeria are re-written, in favour of increased accountability in political leadership."

For those who haven't seen it, here is my Wednesday column: http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=73440:obethe-kids-are-alright&catid=38:columnists&Itemid=615

All the best,
Ayo

About Ayo Obe

Nigeria; AFRICOM'S next Libya?

2012-01-07T21:45:00.002+01:00

Nigeria; AFRICOM'S next Libya?

On a recent trip to West Africa, the newly appointed managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde ordered the governments of Nigeria, Guinea, Cameroon, Ghana and Chad to relinquish vital fuel subsidies.

Much to the dismay of the population of these nations, the prices of fuel and transport have near tripled over night without notice, causing widespread violence on the streets of the Nigerian capital of Abuja and its economic center, Lagos.

Much like the IMF induced riots in Indonesia during the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, public discontent in Nigeria is channelled towards an incompetent and self-serving domestic elite, compliant to the interests of fraudulent foreign institutions.

Although Nigeria holds the most proven oil reserves in Africa behind Libya, it’s people are now expected to pay a fee closer to what the average American pays for the cost of fuel, an exorbitant sum in contrast to its regional neighbours. Alternatively, other oil producing nations such as Venezuela, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia offer their populations fuel for as little as $0.12 USD per gallon.

While Lagos has one of Africa’s highest concentration of billionaires, the vast majority of the population struggle daily on less than $2.00 USD. Amid a staggering 47% youth unemployment rate and thousands of annual deaths related to preventable diseases, the IMF has pulled the rug out from under a nation where safe drinking water is a luxury to around 80% of it’s populace.

Although Nigeria produces 2.4 million barrels of crude oil a day intended for export use, the country struggles with generating sufficient electrical power and maintaining its infrastructure. Ironically enough, less than 6% of bank depositors own 88% of all bank deposits in Nigeria. Goldman Sachs employees line its domestic government, in addition to the former Vice President of the World Bank, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who is widely considered by many to be the de facto Prime Minister.

Even after decades of producing lucrative oil exports, Nigeria has failed to maintain it’s own refineries, forcing it to illogically purchase oil imports from other nations. Society at large has not benefited from Nigeria’s natural riches, so it comes as no surprise that a severe level of distrust is held towards the government, who claims the fuel subsidy needs to be lifted in order to divert funds towards improving the quality of life within the country.

Like so many other nations, Nigerian people have suffered from a systematically reduced living standard after being subjected to the IMF’s Structural Adjustment Policies (SAP). Before a loan can be taken from the World Bank or IMF, a country must first follow strict economic policies, which include currency devaluation, lifting of trade tariffs, the removal of subsidies and detrimental budget cuts to critical public sector health and education services.

SAPs encourage borrower countries to focus on the production and export of domestic commodities and resources to increase foreign exchange, which can often be subject to dramatic fluctuations in value. Without the protection of price controls and an authentic currency rate, extreme inflation and poverty subsist to the point of civil unrest, as seen in a wide array of countries around the world (usually in former colonial protectorates).

The people of Nigeria have been one of the world’s most vocal against IMF-induced austerity measures, student protests have been met with heavy handed repression since 1986 and several times since then, resulting in hundreds of civilian deaths. As a testament to the success of the loan, the average laborer in Nigeria earned 35% more in the 1970’s than he does in 2012.

Working through the direct representation of Western Financial Institutions and the IMF in Nigeria’s Government, a new IMF conditionality calls for the creation of a Sovereign Wealth Fund. Olusegun Aganga, the former Nigerian Minister of Finance (and ex-Goldman Sachs employee-who ran Goldman Sachs' hedge fund consulting services in London) commented on how the SWF was hastily pushed through and enacted prior to the countries national elections.

If huge savings are amassed from oil exports and austerity measures, one cannot realistically expect that these funds will be invested towards infrastructure development based on the current track record of the Nigerian Government. Further more, it is increasingly more likely that any proceeds from a SWF would be beneficial to Western institutions and markets, which initially demanded its creation.

Nigerian philanthropist, Bukar Usman, prophetically writes “I have genuine fears that the SWF would serve us no better than other foreign-recommended “remedies” which we had implemented to our own detriment in the past or are being pushed to implement today.”

The abrupt simultaneous removal of fuel subsidies in several West African nations is a clear indication of who is really in charge of things in post-colonial Africa. The timing of its cushion-less implementation could not be any worse, Nigeria’s president Goodluck Jonathan recently declared a state of emergency after forty people were killed in a church bombing on Christmas day, an act allegedly committed by the Islamist separatist group, Boko Haram.

The group advocates dividing the predominately Muslim northern states from the Christian southern states, a similar predicament to the recent division of Sudan.

As the United States African Command (AFRICOM) begins to gain a foothold into the continent, with its troops officially present in Eritrea and Uganda, in an effort to maintain security and remove other theocratic religious groups such as the Lord’s Resistance Army, the sectarian violence in Nigeria provides a convenient pretext for military intervention in the continuing resource war.

For further insight into this theory, it is interesting to note that United States Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania conducted a series of African war game scenarios in preparation for the Pentagon’s expansion of AFRICOM under the Obama Administration.

In the presence of US State Department Officials, employees from The Rand Corporation and Israeli military personnel, a military exercise was undertaken which tested how AFRICOM would respond to a disintegrating Nigeria on the verge of collapse amidst civil war. The scenario envisioned rebel factions vying for control of the Niger Delta oil fields (the source of one of America’s top oil imports), which would potentially be secured by some 20,000 U.S. troops if a US-friendly coup failed to take place.

At a press conference at the House Armed Services Committee on March 13, 2008, AFRICOM Commander, General William Ward then went on to brazenly state the priority issue of America’s growing dependence on African oil would be furthered by AFRICOM operating under the principle theatre-goal of “combating terrorism”.

At an AFRICOM Conference held at Fort McNair on February 18, 2008, Vice Admiral Robert T. Moeller openly declared the guiding principle of AFRICOM is to protect “the free flow of natural resources from Africa to the global market”, before citing China’s increasing presence in the region as challenging to American interests.

After the unwarranted snatch-and-grab regime change conducted in Libya, nurturing economic destabilization, civil unrest and sectarian conflict in Nigeria is an ultimately tangible effort to secure Africa’s second largest oil reserves. During the pillage of Libya, its SFW accounts worth over 1.2 billion USD were frozen and essentially absorbed by Franco-Anglo-American powers; it would be realistic to assume that much the same would occur if Nigeria failed to comply with Western interests. While agents of foreign capital have already infiltrated its government, there is little doubt that Nigeria will become a new front in the War on Terror.

World War 3 has begun

2012-01-01T02:53:00.000+01:00

World War 3 has begun

The Pentagon has already declared World War III and President Barack Obama and the Congress never even carried out their constitutional duties to approve the use of American military power for war.

One might reasonably conclude that the United States has outsourced war. Presently, World War III is being conducted on two continents – Asia and Africa – with two others – Europe and South America – looming on the horizon. Today, wars are crafted by the upper one percent of wealthy elitists who, using non-governmental organizations, television networks, non — profit “think tanks,” and public relations firms, can declare war on nations without a whimper from elected public officials.

Symmetric warfare is no longer an option for the global elites. World Wars I and II severely affected the investments of many of the global elite families as a result of the destruction of cities, factories, railways, seaports, and other infrastructures. The Korean, Vietnam, the Arab-Israeli, and Iraq wars were messy affairs that also adversely affected markets and destroyed valuable infrastructures. The Cold War never developed into a hot nuclear war because of the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), which ensured that a nuclear first strike by either the West or the East would result in total annihilation of both sides, along with the rest of the world. Even a western military attack on China would have had disastrous results for the attackers, especially since China could retaliate with a nuclear counter-attack and wipe out the U.S. Seventh Fleet and its East Asian naval bases, including Okinawa and Guam. A new type of warfare was required by the elites: asymmetric warfare – the use of unconventional warfare tactics, including information warfare, by proxies, non-state actors, agents provocateur, and fifth columns.

Largely financed by hedge fund mega-tycoon George Soros and his Central Intelligence Agency interlocutors, our present asymmetric World War III was field tested just like any new product. The “themed” revolutions were market-tested first in Serbia, and then in Ukraine, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan, to oust problematic governments that did not want to get on board with the dictates of the unelected and unaccountable real controllers of the financial and political destiny of the world.

Pro-western and pro-European Union governments, comprised of a number of individuals who were funded by Soros and other non-state operations established by the global elites, for example, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Bilderberg Group, the Trilateral Commission, Freedom House, U.S. Institute of Peace, and others funded and supported by the Houses of Rothschild, Rockefeller, Mellon, and others saw to it that new governments took root in Belgrade, Kiev, Tbilisi, and Bishkek. These new governments were not elected but took power as a result of themed street rebellions, a new manifestation of unconventional warfare.

No longer did armies, navies, and air forces have to face each other across battlefields and battle zones and theaters of warfare. One merely had to embed fifth columnists and provocateurs inside a targeted nation’s capital city, media, political party apparatus, and “civil society” infrastructure to bring about the defeat of the government outside the normal political process and replace it with a new government beholden to the desires of the central banks and global oligarchs.

The beginnings of the asymmetric world war began in Belgrade, Serbia when Otpor – a Serbian resistance movement dedicated to overthrowing the Slobodon Milosevic regime – launched the first “themed revolution.” Otpor’s symbol was a clenched fist, an emblem that would reappear in the future in other capital cities from Kiev to Cairo. Otpor received massive funding from a network of western contrivances, including George Soros’s Open Society Institute, the neo-conservative-infiltrated U.S. National Endowment for Democracy, and various European Union-funded NGOs that were intimately linked to Soros’s “democracy engineering” operations.

The playbook used for Otpor in Serbia and by similar organizations in toppling the governments of Georgia in the Rose Revolution, Ukraine in the Orange Revolution, and Kyrgyzstan in the Tulip Revolution, was developed by University of Massachusetts professor Gene Sharp, the founder of the Boston-based NGO, the Albert Einstein Institute, which helped train Otpor activists in civil disobedience and popular resistance campaigns designed to overthrow governments, those democratically-elected and those not. Albert Einstein Institute-trained provocateurs launched popular resistance campaigns around the world aimed at replacing governments unwilling to acquiesce to the dictates of Western elites. Internal opposition forces, all acolytes of Sharp, for instance Kmara, which helped install the pro-Western and pro-Israeli Mikheil Saakashvili in Georgia; Pora in Ukraine that propelled pro-NATO Viktor Yushchenko into the presidency; and KelKel in Kyrgyzstan that replaced Askar Akayev with the corrupt Kurmanbek Bakiyev.

The domino effect of the themed revolutions saw Serbs helping to overthrow the Georgian government, then Serbs and Georgians flocking to Kiev to oust the Ukrainian government, and Georgians and Ukrainians being directly involved in the insurrection in Bishkek. The neo-conservatives and Sharp had borrowed a page from the Communists and the international proletarian movement that saw Communist cadres fight against capitalists and fascists in foreign civil wars, for example, the Spanish Civil War and conflicts in Africa and Southeast Asia.

Sharp was an alumnus of Harvard University’s CIA-linked Center for International Affairs, also abbreviated “CIA,” which is not coincidental. Harvard and the CIA of Langley, Virginia have long maintained a close relationship. In fact, Sharp was never interested in ensuring the will of the people to map out their own future but was putting into practice the theory of asymmetric warfare – the vanquishing of enemies through the use of proxy internal forces without the requirement for invading foreign armies and the massive death and destruction associated with such action.

Many of Sharp’s tactics have been seen in practice in many asymmetric warfare targets. These include the creation of a perception of a successful movement, even if there is not one. The use of western-controlled news networks like Fox News that showed a video clip of anti-austerity Greek rioters in Athens falsely depicted as anti-government protesters in Moscow and Al Jazeera’s use of a video erroneously showing a U.S.- and Saudi-backed bloody crackdown of pro-democracy protesters by Bahrain’s security forces as the bloody repression of protesters by Syria’s government are examples of Sharp’s propaganda and disinformation tactics.

Cultivating foreign support is another key element of Sharp’s asymmetric warfare tactics. The virtual control exercised by Soros over Human Rights Watch after the multi-billionaire hedge fund kingpin donated $100 million to the group is a case in point. The human rights NGO was at the forefront of hyping “atrocities” committed by the Qaddafi regime in Libya but remained largely silent on Libyan rebel atrocities committed against Libyan and African blacks, as well as Qaddafi loyalists. In so doing, Human Rights Watch had a powerful accomplice in the International Criminal Court, which tended to look the other way when CIA- and Saudi- and Qatari’ supported Libyan rebels were committing the massacres.

Another Sharp tactic is to seek change outside the electoral system. This tactic was evident in the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine, where election results were rejected, and in the recent Russian parliamentary election, where Soros- and U.S. neocon-financed election monitoring groups like Golos rejected the outcome of the election and used shills like former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to call for the nullification of the election. Interference following the Sharp and Soros methodology can also be seen in the presidential candidacies of Russian oligarch and New Jersey Nets basketball owner Mikhail Prokhorov and the backing by western propaganda outlets like the Christian Science Monitor (now derided as the “Christian Zionist Monitor” after its takeover by interests who favor a neo-imperialist U.S. foreign policy) of Moscow street protest veteran Alexei Navalny.

Sharp and Soros are on the same page in calling for the internal opposition forces’ use of the Internet, fax, and social networks like Facebook and Twitter to advance their agendas.

In the next phases of World War III, the asymmetric warriors of the Pentagon and their adjunct non-state actors will continue to turn up the heat in the Arab World, with the revolutions in Libya, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen, and Egypt, after a somewhat shaky start that saw the advancement of Islamist groups, being brought under more western and NATO control. Russia’s presidential election and a turndown in the Chinese economy, with growing village-based dissent among China’s growing middle class, will present further opportunities for the promoters of World War III. The sudden death of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Il has also resulted in a call for an expansion of social networking operations, most notably by the CIA- and Soros-infested Washington Post, inside Asia’s hermit kingdom.

Myanmar, China’s restive provinces of Tibet and East Turkestan, Lebanon, Iran, Algeria, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Nepal, Belarus, Ecuador, Bolivia, Pakistan, Laos, and the two Congos also present opportunities for the World War III architects. Those who seek to extend American and global elitist control over the entire planet will not rest until every acre of land comes under the firm control of the oligarchs of Wall Street, the spymasters of the CIA, and the globalist business cartels and families.

Frustrated Nigerian Announces Own Suicide on Facebook... then takes life.

2011-12-30T20:23:00.001+01:00

Frustrated Nigerian Announces Own Suicide on Facebook... then takes life

His last posting on FB reads:

My xmas gift 2 u all is d news of my death. By d time u are reading this story i should ve being dead somewhere. Pple say i should get a job, save b4 achieving my enterpreneural dream. How do get a good job i can save from without my B sc result dat delsu has wickedly refused 2 issue me. I ve had failure in all aspect of life. I invested 10yrs for a Bsc yet Umukoro, Oboreh n Odirin ate it up. Any biz i run always fail usually due 2 DUEX EX MACHINE. Some say i need deliverance cos day say am cursed. Last month getting married was aborted though am an expecting father. I hate God 4 allowing d demons 2 continuously destroying my hardwork. @ this point i want 2 appreciate some pple. Mudiaga my elder bro, Pawon & Nehi my only true friends 4 always understanding me. Lastly my Unborn child ( omoovie ). Please show my unborn child Omoovie when born in 2012 some love, kindness n favour in anyway u can. I took the best decision cos i don't want to see my child suffer 4 me not 2 b tempted 2 take other persons' life. Did u say am a coward? 9ja, what a pple dwelling there. What are u doing 2 help that person that is stil alive?

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?...509589&sk=wall

Daino Ovie-Richy died on Christmas day, 2011. He was from East Ethiope in Delta State and was a 2009 graduate of Business Administration from Delta State University, Abraka. He was 30 years old and an expecting father. May his young soul find solace in God's place.

A Letter from Nigeria's children to its President

2011-12-26T16:45:00.004+01:00

A Letter from Nigeria's children to its President

Child killed by a bomb at a Catholic church in Madalla, Niger state, Nigeria.

Dear Mr. President: We should say Merry Christmas but we are not your goverment, we are not in the business of deception. After almost ten hours of gathering your thoughts to speak on the bomb blasts that rocked the nation yesterday, you still fell short of your own very low standards.

What did you intend to say when you said Bomb Blasts are a burden we must live with? Why do you bother to budget over a trillion for security if we must live the burden of insecurity? How come you are still a president? We do not blame you, we blame our older ones who were stupid enough to think that where you come from and your religion was all you needed to be a competent president.

They are crying now. We all cried yesterday on the darkest Christmas day of our short lives.

While we cried and left Christmas postponed for another year, we watched as you danced your life away like there was no tomorrow. Is it true that all you care about is the fact that you are the president so whatever can happen should happen. Last night we prayed for you. We prayed that the white men should be able to make common sense so that we can budget for it and then you will have it in abundance. As it is, it is obvious sir that you are grossly lacking in common sense.

If you weren’t, you would never come out to tell a mourning nation that it should get ready to live with the burden of destruction and insecurity. That was utterly insensitive and even the dumbest of our mates, fellow Nigerian children would never descend that low to an unprecedented level of cluelessness.

>Nigeria's grinning President and his Vice amidst his Christmas greeting splatter

We understand this is not a sane country, if this was a sane country, your ilk will not be in a job. Your security chiefs, yourself and your cabinet would have been throwing resignation letters left right and centre. But then, here is a place where people are satisfied with just being in positions, that they are clueless about what to do in such positions does not matter.

Mr. President, Boko Haram defeated you in 2011. What plans are you making for 2012? Do you realise they have since improved while your security tactics remain stop and search? Do you realise they are far more coordinated than ever before? Have you thought of engaging more intelligence in curbing this menace instead of just mere brute? Yes, you have issues with concentrating for long, why not budget for a concentrator? That way you are conditioned to at least focus on being the president of Nigeria instead of our national chief chef? You are wondering where that came from? It came from cassava bread sir. You chose the menu for 2012 but we hope you realise that Boko Haram certainly has a menu.

Please Mr. President, they will look to attack again in the New Year, do what you have never done before, get your security chiefs to prevent that by all means. Contrary to your assertion, we are not prepared to live with the burden of bomb blasts. Get yourself to work and stop excusing your inability to deal with Boko Haram on the premise that they are a necessity. What is that? If you cannot lead and be a president, help yourself and resign. Please take your vice-president along. You are a twin set of incompetence.

This letter has been written with kind words, not because we are in the mood to be nice to you but because we are children and respect is a value we want to live with but our lack of it sometimes is a burden you must live with as long as you force us to live with your Boko Haram burden.

We wrote you a letter on subsidy yesterday but we figured it would be better to send this before you get our other letter. As long as your cluelessness reigns supreme in this country, we will always remind you of our angst and stake in this nation. It is not by force to live in Aso Rock. So if you must, do the right things, say the right things and learn to get the basic things right.

The Bomb Blasts darkened our Christmas but your response dampened our mood even further. This is not the way to lead a people. If you need help, we will nominate one of us to offer you words of wisdom for free. As it is, you look overwhelmed by the mere job of providing security for Nigeria let alone the other duties you swore to carry out for Nigeria.

Action point: Sack yourself sir, and take Arc. Namadi Sambo along. It is a good place to start.

Signed:
Association of Conscious Nigerian Children (ACNC)

Culled from Sahara Reporters

An Addendum: I was lucky to read up some interesting stuff at Aangirfan's site that threw more light on the goings-on in my country Nigeria. It is also amazing to learn from Aangirfan, that in countries such as Indonesia, millions of Muslims are protecting Christians and churches there. It would appear from all of this, that there is a pattern emerging in which Christians and churches are being targeted and destroyed world-wide. It is exceptionally reassuring that Indonesia provides us all with an example of what to do in situations such as my country today finds itself. It shouldn't only be Muslims protecting churches but Christians protecting mosques too, there is a good dose of those ever willing to commit these kinds of mayhem to be found in both religions. I am linking these stories up here for your continued reading as I find them most enlightening and worth reading.

SPOOKS BOMB CHURCHES AT CHRISTMAS

MOSLEMS PROTECTING CHRISTIANS AT CHRISTMAS

Much love...

2011-12-10T21:54:00.001+01:00

Much love...

Much love to all our treasured readers this festive season with our very best wishes for a prosperous and hate-free New Year.

When Financial Armageddon comes knocking

2011-11-28T17:49:00.000+01:00

When Financial Armageddon comes knocking

The writing is on the wall. If you can’t read it, then you’re going to have a problem – very soon. It was in early 2009 that we first warned our readers of the coming wave of riots and social unrest that would envelop the globe. Nearly three years on we’re seeing a progressive increase in tension among those affected by deteriorating economic conditions and the trend towards social unrest seems to be accelerating. Absolutely nothing has been resolved in terms of the economic and financial woes facing the world, despite the literally trillions of dollars of wealth in the form of credit and monetary easing that has been committed to the crisis.

As the economic paradigm shifts and hundreds of millions of citizens from the world’s advanced economies are thrown into poverty (including 100 million from the U.S. alone), the situation is getting critical. So much so that what once existed only in the realm of conspiracy theory and alternative news web sites – that governments, especially in the U.S., are planning for large-scale economic meltdown and social unrest – is now a foregone conclusion in political circles.

Europe, as we discussed in 2009, is now coming unhinged and we have the real possibility of not just a collapse in the sovereign debt of a single nation, but the entire European Union and their beloved currency. This is not just some far-out possibility. The collapse of Europe now seems more likely than ever, and governments and regulatory agencies all over the continent are calling for immediate preparations, planning and strategies to deal with the imminent collapse of sovereign debt of individual countries, European banks, and the Euro monetary system that is the glue holding it all together.

“It’s in our interests that they keep playing for time because that gives us more time to prepare,” the minister told the Daily Telegraph.

Recent Foreign and Commonwealth Office instructions to embassies and consulates request contingency planning for extreme scenarios including rioting and social unrest.

Greece has seen several outbreaks of civil disorder as its government struggles with its huge debts. British officials think similar scenes cannot be ruled out in other nations if the euro collapses.

Diplomats have also been told to prepare to help tens of thousands of British citizens in eurozone countries with the consequences of a financial collapse that would leave them unable to access bank accounts or even withdraw cash.

…

The EU treaties that created the euro and set its membership rules contain no provision for members to leave, meaning any break-up would be disorderly and potentially chaotic.

If eurozone governments defaulted on their debts, the European banks that hold many of their bonds would risk collapse.

Some analysts say the shock waves of such an event would risk the collapse of the entire financial system, leaving banks unable to return money to retail depositors and destroying companies dependent on bank credit.

The Financial Services Authority this week issued a public warning to British banks to bolster their contingency plans for the break-up of the single currency.

Some economists believe that at worst, the outright collapse of the euro could reduce GDP in its member-states by up to half and trigger mass unemployment.

…

“When the unemployment consequences are factored in, it is virtually impossible to consider a break-up scenario without some serious social consequences,” UBS said.

Source: Telegraph

Underestimate this events at your peril. Similar events played out in Europe in the early 1930′s, and we experienced a decade’s long depression here in the United States, followed by five years of world war – and that’s when we were a creditor nation without hundreds of trillions in debt and liabilities.

The collapse of Europe, as we have argued for several years, is imminent. If it so happens that Europe does collapse as we forecast, and capital flees to the safety of the US dollar (thus boosting the dollar’s strength and causing a stock market meltdown) than we urge readers to consider the repercussions that will be felt in America. Within a period of a few months to a few years a similar scenario will play out with our own sovereign debt and currency. And, when the world’s reserve currency goes into meltdown mode, all bets are off.

There’s a reason governments the world over are preparing contingency plans. They know it’s coming, and they know it will be pandemonium. There is, as we noted two years ago, No Way to Avoid Financial Armageddon.

Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst -

* collapse of purchasing power due to hyperinflation
* interruptions to the normal flow of commerce
* disruptions to food supplies
* political upheaval
* increased violence
* riots
* the militarization of Main Street
* and the potential for failure of our domestic utility grid.

We realize these are extreme potentialities and many might suggest we take off the tin foil hat, but the same was true when we and others forecast a collapse of Europe, civil unrest and government contingency planning three years ago. That has now been actualized.

The next leg of this crisis will take hold in the United States in due time. Don’t wait until it’s too late. Start thinking about money during a collapse, bartering items, post-collapse trade skills, and creating a solid preparedness foundation.

This is made in America?!!!

2011-11-27T18:23:00.001+01:00

This is made in America?!!!

Go figure America!!!

A sinister bill has quietly been introduced, so expansive in scope and dangerous in nature that it makes the PATRIOT Act look like the Bill of Rights...

If these provisions are enacted, it would give the federal government the explicit power to imprison civilians, including American citizens, indefinitely with no charges or trial.

This would include individuals apprehended both inside and outside of the United States, meaning that this could give the federal government the ability to openly detain American citizens for their entire lives without so much as a single charge.

While the federal government already murders American citizens abroad based upon the decision of an unlegislated secret death panel within the National Security Council, this would be the first time since 1950 that Congress has explicitly authorized indefinite detention of Americans without charges or a trial.

This provision includes people who had absolutely no role in the attacks of September 11th, 2001, or any hostilities whatsoever and would mandate military detention of certain civilians.

This includes civilians arrested within the United States who would otherwise be outside of military control while also transferring all responsibilities to the Department of Defense.

Instead of the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, National Security Division, or the United States Attorneys, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Prisons, the Marshals Service and/or the state attorneys general handling the prosecutorial, investigative, law enforcement, penal and custodial authority, the Department of Defense would handle it all.

That means that all control would be taken out of the hands of civilians and put into the brutal grip of the American military, essentially this would mean a military takeover of our so-called justice system.

All they would have to do is classify you as a terrorist, no need for actual charges or participation in hostilities; you could be locked up indefinitely for any reason or no reason at all if the Department of Defense saw fit under this NDAA.

The Roads To War And Economic Collapse

2011-11-25T21:56:00.003+01:00

The Roads To War And Economic Collapse

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

November 23, 2011: The day before the Thanksgiving holiday brought three extraordinary news items. One was the report on the Republican presidential campaign debate. One was the Russian President’s statement about his country’s response to Washington’s missile bases surrounding his country. And one was the failure of a German government bond auction.

As the presstitute media will not inform us of what any of this means, let me try.

With the exception of Ron Paul, the only candidate in either party qualified to be the president of the US, the rest of the Republican candidates are even worse than Obama, a president who had the country behind him but sold out the American people to special interests.

No newly elected president in memory, neither John F. Kennedy nor Ronald Reagan, had the extraordinary response to his election as Barack Obama. A record-breaking number of people braved the cold to witness his swearing in ceremony. The mall was filled for miles distant from the Capitol with Americans who could not see the ceremony except as televised on giant screens.

Obama had convinced the electorate that he would end the wars, stop the violation of law by the US government, end the regime of illegal torture, close the torture prison of Guantanamo, and attend to the real needs of the American people rather than stuff the pockets of the military/security complex with taxpayers’ money.

Once in office, Obama renewed and extended the Bush/Cheney/neoconservative wars.

He validated the Bush regime’s assaults on the US Constitution. He left Wall Street in charge of US economic policy, he absolved the Bush regime of its crimes, and he assigned to the American people the financial cost necessary to preserve the economic welfare of the mega-rich.

One would think such a totally failed president would be easy to defeat. Given an historic opportunity, the Republican Party has put before the electorate the most amazingly stupid and vile collection of prospects, with the exception of Ron Paul who does not have the party’s support, that Americans have ever seen.

In the November 22 presidential “debate,” the candidates, with the exception of Ron Paul, revealed themselves as a collection of ignorant warmongers who support the police state. Gingrich and Cain said that Muslims “want to kill us all” and that “all of us will be in danger for the rest of out lives.”

Bachmann said that the American puppet state, Pakistan, is “more than an existential threat.” Bachmann has no idea what is “more than an existential threat.”

However, it sounded heavy, like an intellectual thing to say for the candidate who previously declared the long-defunct Soviet Union to be today’s threat to the US.

Unfortunately for Americans and the world, the US electorate lacks the intelligence and awareness of their plight as denizens of a police state to elect Ron Paul, the last defender together with Rep. Dennis Kucinich of the US Constitution. Nevertheless, there would be a silver lining in one of the Republican morons being elected president of the “world’s only superpower.” Once the rest of the world realized that a war-crazed idiot had his or her finger on the nuclear button, the rest of the world would organize and close down the Washington horror before it destroys life on earth.

Any sentient American who watched or read about the Republican presidential debate must wonder what there is to be thankful for as the national holiday approaches.

The Russian government, which prefers to use its resources for the economy rather than for the military, has decided that it has been taking too many risks in the name of peace. The day before Thanksgiving, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said, in a televised address to the Russian people, that if Washington goes ahead with its planned missile bases surrounding Russia, Russia will respond with new nuclear missiles of its own, which will target the American bases and European capital cities.

The President of Russia said that the Russian government has asked Washington for legally binding guarantees that the American missile bases are not intended as a threat to Russia, but that Washington has refused to give such guarantees.

Medvedev’s statement is perplexing. What does he mean “if Washington goes ahead?” The American missile and radar bases are already in place. Russia is already surrounded. Is Medvedev just now aware of what is already in place?

Russia’s and China’s slow response to Washington’s aggression can only be understood in the context of the two countries experience with communism. The sufferings of Russians and Chinese under communism was extreme, and the thinking part of those populations saw America as the ideal of political life. This delusion still controls the mentality of progressive thinkers in Russia and China. It might prove to be a disaster for Russia and China that the countries have citizens who are aligned with the US.

Belief in Washington’s trustworthiness even pervades the Russian government, which apparently, according to Medvedev’s statement, would be reassured by a “legally binding guarantee” from Washington. After the massive lies told by Washington in the 21st century–”weapons of mass destruction,” “al Qaeda connections,” “Iranian nukes”–why would anyone put any credence in “a legally binding guarantee” from Washington. The guarantee would mean nothing. How could it be enforced? Such a guarantee would simply be another deceit in Washington’s pursuit of world hegemony.

The day prior to Thanksgiving also brought another extraordinary development–the failure of a German government bond auction, an unparalleled event.

Why would Germany, the only member of the EU with financial rectitude, not be able to sell 35% of its offerings of 10-year bonds? Germany has no debt problems, and its economy is expected by EU and US authorities to bear the lion’s share of the bailout of the EU member countries that do lack financial rectitude.

I suspect that the answer to this question is that the failure of the German government’s bond auction was orchestrated by the US, by EU authorities, especially the European Central Bank, and private banks in order to punish Germany for obstructing the purchase of EU member countries’ sovereign debt by the European Central Bank.

The German government has been trying to defend the terms on which Germany gave up control over its own currency and joined the EU. By insisting on the legality of the agreements, Germany has been standing in the way of the ECB behaving as the US Federal Reserve and monetizing the debt of member governments.

From the beginning the EU was a conspiracy against Germany. If Germany remains in the EU, Germany will be destroyed. It will lose its political and economic sovereignty, and its economy will be bled in behalf of the fiscally irresponsible members of the EU.
If Greeks will not submit to the tyranny, why should Germans?

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts is the father of Reaganomics and the former head of policy at the Department of Treasury. He is a columnist and was previously an editor for the Wall Street Journal. His latest book, “How the Economy Was Lost: The War of the Worlds,” details why America is disintegrating.

Los Angeles highway collapses into ocean

2011-11-22T21:06:00.001+01:00

Los Angeles highway collapses into ocean

Talk about crumbling infrastructure!

Neo-colonization of Africa; President Mugabe appeals to China and Russia

2011-11-21T19:26:00.000+01:00

Neo-colonization of Africa; President Mugabe appeals to China and Russia

PRESIDENT Mugabe has appealed to China and Russia to provide leadership in international relations and protect smaller states in view of the blatant attacks they face from the United States and Europe.

At a meeting with Acting Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Great People’s Hall here yesterday, President Mugabe said small countries were beginning to wonder whether international law offered adequate protection from the Anglo-Saxon alliance’s expansionist agenda given what NATO did in Libya and threats posed to Syria and Iran.
“Is international law now dead? Are international relations as governed by the United Nations Charter now dead? Are Europe and America allowed to act so unlawfully with impunity that smaller states feel intimidated and unprotected by international law.

“Countries like China and Russia must provide both leadership and protection,” President Mugabe’s spokesman, Mr George Charamba, quoted him as telling Mr Xi.
The Head of State and Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces said there was now pessimism among smaller states that international law can not protect them.

He told Mr Xi the attacks were made in pursuit of exploiting resources found in these small nations and had become so glaring.
“Nature has disbursed its resources in its own ways to different countries with some countries richly endowed while some are not,” Mr Xi said.
“Even us who do not have oil feel no less menaced as these rapacious countries are looking for other resources,” President Mugabe said. He enumerated Zimbabwe’s minerals such as gold, diamonds and platinum and said even its rich fauna and flora made it a target.

“All this (Zimbabwe’s wealth) is envied and we need protection. We rely on good friends like you to protect us and you have done that in the past. We do not lose confidence in you and please don’t lose confidence in us.”

Mr Charamba said Mr Xi told President Mugabe that China would not abandon its allies.
“In spite of external disturbances China will never forget its friends,” Mr Xi reportedly said. He hailed President Mugabe for personally taking the lead in cultivating relations between the two countries after Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980.

Mr Xi also accepted an invitation from President Mugabe to visit Zimbabwe and noted that it will be fulfilled at a mutually agreed time. A few years ago China and Russia scuttled US and EU attempts to have the United Nations Security Council legitimise their illegal sanctions they have slapped Zimbabwe with.

The Law Case of the Century

2011-11-17T11:39:00.001+01:00

The Law Case of the Century

Indictment against NATO military and political leaders.

NATO: Indictment for breach of international law in the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. The military and political leaders of NATO are hereby accused of the following crimes committed in the Libyan campaign of 2011, in which the systematic breaches of international law are underlined.

Understanding that international law exists and that it is systematically broken by certain powers with impunity, understanding that such a situation is unacceptable and that the same set of laws should apply to all, equally, with the same sets of weights and measures employed in upholding it, I hereby accuse NATO and the below-mentioned individuals, party to its acts in the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya from February to September (ongoing) 2011, of breach of international law;

1. Accusation: NATO war crimes, crimes against humanity, breach of UN Charter, Breach of UNSC Resolutions, breach of Geneva Conventions, occasioning murder, attempted murder, actions occasioning grievous and actual bodily harm, destruction of private and public property.

2. Accused:

Anders Fogh Rasmussen (Denmark) NATO Secretary-General; Charles Bouchard (Canada), Commander of Operations; Nicolas Sarkozy, Édouard Guillaud (France); Rinaldo Veri, Commander Allied Maritime Command (Italy); David Cameron, Sir Stuart Peach (UK); Barack Obama, Carter Ham, Sam Locklear (USA); Harald Sunde (Norway), Abdullah II (Jordan); Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani (Qatar), Khalifa bin Zayed al Nahyan (UAE); Sverker Goranson (Sweden) and the Defence Ministers Pieter de Crem (Belgium), Anuy Angelov (Bulgaria), Gitte Lillelund Bech (Denmark); Panos Beglitis (Greece); Hans Hillen (Netherlands); Gabriel Oprea (Romania);Carme Chacón Piqueras (Spain); Ismet Yilmaz (Turkey), Liam Fox (UK), Ignazio La Russa (Italy), Gérard Longuet (France).

William Hague (UK), Hillary Clinton (USA) Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini

(?)

3. Law and breaches:

3.1 Proper procedure was not followed: Under the UN Charter, any military action which comes outside a UNSC Resolution in any theatre of conflict must necessarily come from a separate Resolution in the UNSC and any military action must come after the Military Council is convened. This was not the case under UNSC Resolutions 1970 and 1973 (2011) covering the Libyan conflict.

Why did NATO not convene the Military Staff Committee of the UNSC? Under the UN Charter, Chapter VII, Article 46: “Plans for the application of armed force shall be made by the Security Council with the assistance of the Military Staff Committee”. Such committee was never convened.

This is a violation of the UN Charter rendering Resolutions 1970 and 1973 (2011) void; There is also evidence that such Resolutions were passed on the evidence from a false flag event. The supposed crimes committed by the Libyan authorities have been hotly contested and must be investigated;

3.2 Intervention in domestic affairs of a sovereign state: UNSC Resolution 2131 (XX) of 21 December 1965, containing the Declaration on the Inadmissibility of Intervention in the Domestic Affairs of States was backed up by Resolutions 31/91 of 14 December 1976, 32/153 of 19 December 1977, 33/74 of 15 December 1978, 34/101 of 14 December 1979 and 35/159 of 12 December 1980 on non-interference in the internal affairs of States.

3.3 Bombardment of undefended buildings and structures: Article 3 of the Statute of The Hague International Penal Court which states clearly that one criterion for indictment for war crimes is:

“Attack or bombardment, by whatever means, against undefended cities, towns, villages, buildings or houses”.

Another clause of the same Article 3 could also be invoked:

“Massive destruction of cities, towns or villages or destruction not justified by military necessity”.

The attack on Libya’s water supply network on Friday July 22 and the attack on the factory making pipes for the supply system on Saturday July 23 in al-Brega were not covered under “military necessity” in which case, under Article 3, this was an act of wanton destruction of civilian structures with military hardware. This renders NATO liable for trial by its own court, the ICC at The Hague;

3.4 Support for outlawed organizations and individuals. Despite this admission:

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/counter-terrorism/
proscribed-terror-groups/proscribed-groups?view=Binary …

There is evidence that armed groups fighting inside Libya include the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) which according to the British Government: “The LIFG seeks to replace the current Libyan regime with a hard-line Islamic state. The group is also part of the wider global Islamist extremist movement, as inspired by Al Qa’ida. The group has mounted several operations inside Libya, including a 1996 attempt to assassinate Mu’ammar Qadhafi” and for which reason is on the Home Office list of proscribed terrorist groups, despite this, the UK aided and abetted the said group;

3.5 Failure to apply international law: Under the UN Charter, Chapter VI, Article 33, member states must “seek a solution by negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means of their own choice”.

3.6 The Jamahiriya Government of Libya had the right to defend itself without being attacked: Chapter VII, Article 51 refers to the right of States to defend themselves against armed insurgency:

“Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security”;

3.7 Mercenaries: UNSC Resolution 1973 (2011), in its Chapter on Protection of Civilians, in paragraph 4. states:

“4. Authorizes Member States that have notified the Secretary-General, acting nationally or through regional organizations or arrangements, and acting in cooperation with the Secretary-General, to take all necessary measures, notwithstanding paragraph 9 of resolution 1970 (2011), to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, including Benghazi, while excluding a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory, and requests the Member States concerned to inform the Secretary-General immediately of the measures they take pursuant to the authorization conferred by this paragraph which shall be immediately reported to the Security Council;

There have been numerous reports of mercenaries being used by NATO and the rebels it supported; French Foreign Legion, Egyptians, Qataris, UAE forces, among others;

3.8 Boots on the ground: UNSC Resolution 1970 (2011) Paragraph 16:

“16. Deplores the continuing flows of mercenaries into the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and calls upon all Member States to comply strictly with their obligations under paragraph 9 of resolution 1970 (2011) to prevent the provision of armed mercenary personnel to the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya;”.

If David Cameron has admitted that UK special services have assisted the terrorists on the ground, this is against the UN mandate which allowed NATO to intervene in Libya, and is a war crime.

A request has been sent (August 30) to the British FCO and Ministry of Defence to confirm or deny that troops have been used in the theatre of operations; no reply has been forthcoming;

3.9 Non-enforcement of UN Resolution, and violation of international law, by transporting rebel forces to enter the theatre of operations:

UNSC Resolution 1970 (2011):

In the Chapter on Enforcement of the arms embargo, Paragraph 13 of the same states:

“13. Decides that paragraph 11 of resolution 1970 (2011) shall be replaced by the following paragraph : “Calls upon all Member States, in particular States of the region, acting nationally or through regional organisations or arrangements, in order to ensure strict implementation of the arms embargo established by paragraphs 9 and 10 of resolution 1970 (2011), to inspect in their territory, including seaports and airports, and on the high seas, vessels and aircraft bound to or from the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, if the State concerned has information that provides reasonable grounds to believe that the cargo contains items the supply, sale, transfer or export of which is prohibited by paragraphs 9 or 10 of Resolution 1970 (2011) as modified by this resolution, including the provision of armed mercenary personnel, calls upon all flag States of such vessels and aircraft to cooperate with such inspections and authorises Member States to use all measures commensurate to the specific circumstances to carry out such inspections”;

In violation of this: supply of French Milan anti-tank missiles, Swedish Carl Gustav 84mm rifles, 68mm rockets and mortars and Maadi assault rifles from Egypt; this, in addition to the British, French and Italian military advisors helping the terrorists.

3.10 Violation of Geneva Conventions: NATO and the Transitional National Council have given the people of Sirte ten days to surrender or face a full military onslaught. This is not a cease-fire. While they await their fate, they will still be subject to artillery fire and NATO bombing, and food, water and electricity have already been cut off.

These siege tactics have been outlawed by the Geneva Conventions. In particular, Article 14 of the second Protocol to the Geneva Conventions states, “Starvation of civilians as a method of combat is prohibited. It is therefore prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless for that purpose objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population such as food-stuffs, agricultural areas for the production of food-stuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations, and supplies and irrigation works.”

The 4th Geneva Convention prohibits all forms of attacks on civilians and the collective punishment of civilian populations, so virtually everything that the combined TNC-NATO forces are doing to the people of Sirte is strictly illegal and in fact criminal.

4. Sample Crimes:

21.03.2011. Tens of civilians killed on 31st of March in Gharyan city in western Libya (video).
07.04.2011. — NATO bombers killed 15 rebels and wounded 22 on the outskirts of Brega.
20.04.2011. TRIPOLI NATO Bombing The Libyan Arab Association For Human Rights (video).
27.04.2011. — NATO attacked the city of Misrata, killing 12 people and wounding 5 others.
30.04.2011. — The bombing of the Downs Syndrome School in Tripoli (video).
30.04.2011.— NATO killed inocent civilinas: The youngest son of our great leader Saif Al arab gaddafi was only 29 years old, grandchildren of our Great Leader, Saif Mohammed Muammar Gaddafi was one year and 3 months (born on 30 January 2010) , Carthage Hannibal Muammar Gaddafi was 2 years and 9 months old (born on 2 August 2008) and Mastura Humaid (daughter of Aisha) was 4 months and half (she was born on 15 December 2010) (video).
09.05.2011. — 600 civilians are reported dead after getting into trouble on thier boat. They send urgent SOS messages to NATO, but they were ignored (video).
13.05.2011. The 11 imams (spiritual leaders of Islam) that were killed. The imams were killed in a NATO bombing in the city of Brega (east), which also injured about 50 people. (video)
17.05.2011.—The NATO attack on Libya’s Anti-Corruption Agency on May 17 was extremely convenient for some Westrern politicians (video).
12.06.2011. — The bombing of the University of Tripoli. Death toll not yet established. (link) or photo evdence.
15.06.2011. — At least 12 people were killed and two injured when a NATO air strike hit a bus Wednesday evening in Libya’s Kikla city (video).
19.06.2011. — 9 civilians were killed by a NATO air strike on Tripoli (video).
19.06.2011. — Massacre of Al-Hamedi family 15 civilians, including 3 children, were killed by another NATO air strike on Sorman (link).
19.06.2011. — Firetracs was bombed (video).
22.06.2011. — The bombing of the Great Man made Waterway irrigation system, which supplies most Libyans with their drinking water. Water for 4,5 million INOCENT CIVILIANS IN LIBYA (video).
22.06.2011. — Zliten – many civilians were chopped into pieces. (link)
28.06. 2011. — NATO air strike killed 16 civilians (one whole family killed) and more than 20 injured in public market in Tawergha east of Misurata (video).
04.07.2011. — NATO bombing civilian checkpoint in ZWARA. (video)
15.07.2011. — At least 12 people were killed and 2 injured when a NATO. The air strike hit the bus with inocent civilians in Kikla City. (video)
17.07.2011. — Multiple urban areas were bombed simultaneously this morning. Anywhere from 60 to 75 bombs may have been dropped mostly in the areas of Tajura and Seraj, according to eyewitness reports. (video)
23.07.2011. — The bombing of the factory which makes the pipes for the water system, and the murder of 6 of its employees.
24.07.2011. NATO bombing cattle and poultry project in Torghae city (video).
24. 07.2011. Libya war: NATO Press Briefing, 15 civilians are dead in Tawergha (video).
24.07.2011. —The bombing of the Hospital at Zliten. Resulting in the murder of a minimum, of 50 civilians many of them children.(video).
25.07.2011. NATO bombed food storage in Zlitan.(video).
25.07.2011. — 20 civilians were killed by NATO air strikes in Bir al Ghanam. (video)
30.07.2011. — NATO warplanes also repeatedly bombed a Libyan television station, killing 3 and injuring 15.
02.08.2011. — Law School In Zlitan (Zliten) (video).
04. 08.2011. — Woman and two children (video).
07.08.2011. — NATO bombed today the vegetable market in Tripoli (link).
08.08.2011. — Libya: NATO MASSACRED 85 CIVILIANS: 33 CHILDREN, 32 WOMEN and 20 MEN (video)…

The persistent on-going bombing of the civilian population in Zliten, Sirte and Tripoli, death toll not yet established. All4Peace & LibyaSOS.

http://libyasos.blogspot.com/2011/11/operation-unified-protector-nato-in.html

5. Further documentary evidence of the crimes.

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000524791925

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49TOmo3CZOU&feature=share

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qXRwBXK34o

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25221

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbR8FaBwPRw

http://rt.com/news/interview-libya-nato-intrusion-127/

http://libyasos.blogspot.com/2011/11/operation-unified-protector-nato-in.html

Drawn up by: Timothy Bancroft Hinchey

Pravda.Ru

Director and Chief Editor Portuguese Version

Sandra Barr, Nada Pejnovic and Tatjana Dimitrijevic

Christopher C. Black, Barrister, Canada

US set and ready to confront Iran

2011-11-17T11:18:00.003+01:00

US set and ready to confront Iran

Over the recent months the political rhetoric concerning Iran has become increasingly heated. Early September 2011 a nsnbc source at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina reported that the USA has been actively preparing for a military aggression against Syria, Iran and Hezbollah for months, and that special operations units had been deployed long ago. While politicians, analysts and media assess the plausibility and dangers of a US-led war on Iran, in a discourse styled for public consumption, the actuality of the situation is that the war has been on for years. The questions that ought to be asked are not whether the USA will attack Iran, but rather when the ongoing low intensity conflict will enter a phase of higher intensity, how an attack most likely would be performed, and what the consequences on a regional and global scale would be.

Bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran

The rhetoric has slowly been heating up for years. When The Republican US-Senator John McCain during his 2007 presidential campaign said “/Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran/” most people throughout the world who heard it thought that it was harmless. The man had no chance to win, he´s a maverick, a loose cannon, a crazy man who just tried to score some cheap points for his election by playing the war hero game. Those who knew who John McCain is, and what positions and influence he has however, knew that it was a threat that needed to be seriously assessed. John McCain is a leading figure in the Republican Party and the Republicans ranking member of the Armed Services Committee (1).

It would be a dangerous mistake to confuse his carefully crafted PR-Image as maverick politician with a John McCain who has close ties to the US-Military-Industrial Complex, and the McCain who is committed to expanding the US-hegemony into Iran by means of a military attack as unavoidable step towards global, full spectrum dominance of the United States of America. The Neo-Conservatives may not currently occupy the White House, but their policy, calling for global primacy of US Military might and global dominance, which requires an attack on Iran, as manifested in “Rebuilding Americas Differences” (2), transcends party politics. The difference between Neo-Conservatives and Democrats with respect to US Military Primacy and full spectrum dominance is one of strategy. The one relies on brute military might, the other on skillful subversion before military might is applied.

http://nsnbc.wordpress.com/2011/11/13/us-set-and-ready-to-confront-iran/ambassadors-speak-before-the-start-of-the-security-council-meeting-at-the-u-n-headquarters-in-new-york-2/

In late September 2011, the French Ambassador to the United Nations Gerard Araud openly threatened Iran with military action if it continued on the path of nuclear proliferation (3).

Letting rhetoric and warmongering propaganda be what they are the factual situation is that contrary to the USA, which has openly sold nuclear technology to countries like Pakistan even though the USA has signed the international non-proliferation treaty. Iran has never signed the treaty, and is thus not bound by it.

If Araud was concerned about breaches of non-proliferation treaties he would have to threaten the USA rather than Iran, but then again, the truth is that the rhetoric has nothing to do with concerns about nuclear proliferation, and that it has everything to do with positioning Iran as the rogue state and threat to world peace, so the populations of the USA and EU member states would become more willing to accept an illegal and dangerous military campaign against Iran. On 12 November 2011 Reuters reported that all Conservative presidential candidates had given statements about what they would be doing about Iran´s purported intentions to develop a nuclear bomb (4).

Even though no one spoke of overt military attacks, the candidates statement spanned from tough sanctions to supporting militant subversion and covert military operations that could be denied. That none of the candidates spoke of overt military action is understandable but by no means a signal that it is not being actively prepared, as a reliable nsnbc source at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina reported in early September 2011. Covert military operations by US-Agents, and CIA as well as DIA operatives have most likely been conducted in Iran for years.

One of those covert operations is the support of the Baluchistani Jundullah militia (5 ) which is targeting both military and civilian targets inside Iran, and which is involved in opium and heroin running operations between Afghanistan and Iran. Drug sales have for decades provided part of US Intelligence Services black budgets. Another militant organization is the Peoples Mujahedeen of Iran, MEK.

The MEK (6 ) was originally established with aid from Iraq´s Intelligence Services with the purpose to establish a militant subversion inside Iran. It is still operating, and today most likely with the support of the new Iraqi as well as US Intelligence Services.

http://nsnbc.wordpress.com/2011/11/13/us-set-and-ready-to-confront-iran/mahmoud-ahmadinejad-4/

The latest days rhetoric about the IAEA report have brought the world one step closer to an overt aggression. In the latest IAEA report (7 ), the IAEA claims that foreign aid has brought Iran closer to developing the capacity to produce nuclear bombs.

According to a report by BBC (8 ) Iran has rejected the IAEA claims as fictitious. In what can only be described as a typical US-Blackmail and Positioning Strategy, the UNSC demands from Iran that it stops it´s 18 year old nuclear enrichment program, until Iran has provided evidence for the fact that it only intends to use its enrichment capacity for peaceful purposes (ibid.). Iranian President Mahmud Ahmedinejad reportedly replied, ” We do not need an atomic bomb. The Iranian nation is wise. It won´t build two atomic bombs while you have 20,000 warheads.“ (ibid.)

The important issue to observe is, that the US backed demand that Iran provides “/evidence/” for it´s peaceful intentions is a hybrid of the US-Blackmail Strategy that was used against Iraq with respect to it´s purported weapons of mass destruction. Former CIA Asset Susan Lindauer, who prior to the overt military aggression against Iraq was working as diplomatic back-channel between Iraq and CIA-Operatives provides an explicit description of the blackmail strategy in her book “Extreme Prejudice“. (9)

The people of Iraq were suffering severely from the sanctions that had been imposed on it due to pressure from the USA. In what prior to the first Gulf War was one of the most developed Arab nations, infant mortality skyrocketed to appalling proportions due to the imposed sanctions. (10 ) According to Lindauer (ibid.) the Iraqi government and diplomats were desperate to have the sanctions lifted and trying everything in their power to comply with the weapons inspectors and US demands. Their problem was, that the USA insisted on Iraq providing evidence for something non-existent. The current US calls for sanctions against Iran and the demand for Iran to provide evidence for its peaceful intentions is bearing a striking resemblance to the criminal strategy the cost over one million Iraqi lives and led up to its criminal invasion and destruction.

Konstantin Kosachev

Russian politicians and diplomats can hardly avoid seeing the striking resemblance between the blackmail of Iraq and the blackmail of Iran either. At a recent meeting of the Russian Parliament, the State Duma, the chairman of the State Duma´s Foreign Affairs Committee Konstantin Kosachev condemned the IAEA report and the allegations against Iran that have been put forward by the USA, France, and Israel. (11 ) According to Voice of Russia (ibid.), Kosachev said, that the recently published IAEA report may be part of a strategy to force a change of power in Tehran or provoke revolts within the country. Kosachev also said that such a scenario would be feasible after the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, adding, that he was surprised by the fact that the IAEA´s accusations against Tehran are not supported by any new evidence of the alleged attempts to develop nuclear weapons. Kosachev described recent statements by some leaders on possible military operations against Iran as “dangerous” (Ibid).

http://nsnbc.wordpress.com/2011/11/13/us-set-and-ready-to-confront-iran/me/

As how dangerous Russia perceives the military threat against Iran by the USA, France, Turkey, Israel, and other NATO and NATO allied countries is evident when analyzing a recent Russian military exercise. Between 9 and 26 September the Russian, Kazakh, Kyrgiz, Taijik armies deployed 12,000 troops in a military exercise with the code name “Center”. (12)

The troops are part of the Russian-led rapid deployment force. Operation “Center” simulated an Iranian assault on oil fields in the Caspian Sea that are operated by US-American firms, as a response to a military attack against its nuclear facilities. According to Russian Intelligence sources Russia expects that Iran will initiate an immediate military response to any military aggression, and that the rapid response forces were briefed for two stages of the Iranian military response. Stage one, a naval attack along the coast of the Caspian Sea, and stage two, a large scale airborne attack including the Iranian Air Force, Armored Divisions, Marine Battalions, and Infantry Brigades, that would be landing by the Northern and Eastern coastline of the Caspian Sea. The political bearing that the exercise had for the top Russian political and military leadership, and the fact that the exercise was to be understood as an overt warning directed against Western countries political leadership becomes evident by the fact that Russian President Dmitri Medvedjev toured the front on 26 September (ibid).

With the United States, France, Israel, and probably the UK and a number of other nations being set on an aggression against Iran, there are a number of possible scenarios. All of them are equally catastrophic and dangerous.

Scenario one would be to enforce harsh sanctions against Iran, which however is likely to fail at the UNSC. Both Russian and Chinese awareness of the long terms plans behind the US and Allied´s demands for sanctions. Latest since the illegal abuse of the UNSC resolutions on Libya that led to the installation of a NATO proxy regime, destabilization and civil war and occupation, both Russia and China have shown on the example of Syria that they are up to NATO´s colonial ambitions.

Scenario two would be a massive stepping up of the covert operations, including US Special Operations teams and local insurgents, which have been going on ever since the Iran-Iraq war. This strategy would be backed up by subversion strategies similar to those seen in Syria. This strategy however is bound to fail too. Like the Syrian population, the population of Iran stands, in spite of all internal differences, massively behind the Iranian government when it comes to confronting an external threat.

Scenario three would be so called “surgical strikes”, which could be initiated from an Aircraft Carrier, from Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Qatar, or any other allied nations territories in the region. It would most likely involve a combined attack by airplanes and missiles. The most likely targets would be key military installations, key nuclear installations, and eventually key figures within the Iranian government. It is not unlikely, not unrealistic, but would trigger an immediate response by Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, and put both Russian and Chinese military forces back on highest alert.

Scenario four would be an all out military assault on Iran, beginning with an aerial campaign, to be followed by assaults via Afghanistan, Turkey, Iraq, the Gulf Coast, and eventually the Southern Shore of the Caspian Sea. Such a campaign would be supported by airborne assaults in strategic locations. The preparations for such a campaign have according to an anonymous nsnbc source been prepared for months. It would require several staging areas outside the reach of the most prevalent Iranian missiles. The new NATO colony Libya comes to mind as a perfect cover for a staging area.

Whatever the final scenario will be; never since the end of the Second World War has international peace and security been as threatened as today. Both Russia and China are acutely aware of the fact that the USA is set for full spectrum, global military dominance. Both Russia and China are aware that failure to defend Iran as well as Syria would be failure to protect their own nations security, including vital energy supplies. Ever since the discontinuation of the former USSR and the apparent end of the so called cold war, the USA and NATO have been tightening the military net that encircles Russia and China, and both nations are acutely aware that they would not survive militarily or economically if the net was tightened any further.

by Dr. Christof Lehmann@www.nsnbc.wordpress.com
About nsnbc:
nsnbc is a news-media, established on 28 August 2011 with the purpose to break corporate or state controlled medias embargo on truth. nsnbc publishes articles from journalists, authors and experts from all continents. nsnbc was established and is edited by Dr. Christof Lehmann with the intention to bring you daily no-spin reporting, in depth analysis and opinion from throughout the world. nsnbc is politically and economically independent.

See also Implementation of the NPT Safeguards
Agreement and relevant provisions of
Security Council resolutions in the
Islamic Republic of Iran
Report by the Director General of the IAEA

International Law and the Future of Africa

2011-11-14T23:00:00.001+01:00

International Law and the Future of Africa

By Thabo Mbeki

"It seems obvious that a few powerful countries seek to turn the Security Council into an instrument in their hands, to be used by them to pursue their selfish interests, determined to behave according to the principle and practice that ‘might is right’.

The outstanding, but not only, exemplar in this regard is what has happened during the greater part of this year relating to Libya.

Before saying anything else about this issue, I must state this categorically that those who have sought to manufacture a particular outcome out of the conflict in Libya have propagated a poisonous canard aimed at discrediting African and AU opposition to the Libyan debacle on the basis that the AU and the rest of us had been bought by Colonel Gadaffi with petro-dollars, and therefore felt obliged to defend his continued misrule."

Chairperson, Distinguished delegates:

I would like to thank the Law Society of the Northern Provinces for giving me the honour to address its AGM this morning. As you know, I suffer from the great deficiency that I am not a lawyer. However I took the decision to speak to you on what I consider to be the important subject of “International law and the future of Africa”.

I elected to address this topic because I am convinced that the legal community in our country, such as yourselves, and in Africa as a whole, has an urgent obligation to use its enormous talents to defend the inalienable right of the peoples of Africa to self-determination and thus affirm the inviolability of an important principle of international law.

I hope that what I will say later will explain why, in all humility, I decided to place this challenge at your feet.
Last year we celebrated the 50th Anniversary of the adoption by the UN General Assembly of the historic “Declaration on the Granting of independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples”.
Among other things, the Declaration says:

“The subjection of peoples to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation constitutes a denial of fundamental human rights, is contrary to the Charter of the United Nations and is an impediment to the promotion of world peace and co-operation.

“All peoples have the right to self-determination; by virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.”

For the colonised, the Declaration constituted an important step forward in terms of expanding the corpus of international law to the extent that it decreed that “all peoples have the right to self-determination”.

This proposition had been raised earlier in the context of the Second World War, when US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston adopted “The Atlantic Charter” in 1941, which served as the precursor to the UN Charter.

In this context they said they “deem it right to make known certain common principles in the national policies of their respective countries on which they base their hopes for a better future for the world” and went on to say that:

“they desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned”; and,
“they respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self-government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them.”

And yet the UN Charter which came into force in October 1945 suggested that the colonial powers could continue to hold onto their colonies. This was despite the fact that its Article 1, spells out that one of “The Purposes of the United Nations” is: “To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples…”

In its Article 73 the UN Charter says: “Members of the United Nations which have or assume responsibilities for the administration of territories whose peoples have not yet attained a full measure of self-government recognize the principle that the interests of the inhabitants of these territories are paramount, and accept as a sacred trust the obligation to promote to the utmost, within the system of international peace and security established by the present Charter, the well-being of the inhabitants of these territories, and, to this end… “(agree) to develop self-government, to take due account of the political aspirations of the peoples, and to assist them in the progressive development of their free political institutions, according to the particular circumstances of each territory and its peoples and their varying stages of advancement.”

To this extent the UN Charter gave legitimacy to continued colonial rule, of course with the proviso that the colonial powers would chaperone their wards towards self-government. It is self-evident that this was done at the insistence of the then colonial powers, principally the United Kingdom and France.

To the contrary, the “Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples” made the peremptory determination that:

“All peoples have the right to self-determination; by virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.

“Inadequacy of political, economic, social or educational preparedness should never serve as a pretext for delaying independence.”

It goes without saying that the eradication of colonialism, apartheid and white minority rule is one of the great and historic achievements of the period since the end of the Second World War.
As an expression of this development, we too, as South Africans, won the rights “freely (to) determine (our) political status and freely (to) pursue (our) economic, social and cultural development.”

I am certain that all of us present here at this AGM, other South Africans and all Africans throughout our Continent, place a high value on these rights and would defend them with our very lives.

Chairperson:

I have spoken as I have because of troubling developments which suggest, ominously, that Africa’s right to self-determination, so unequivocally confirmed in the “Declaration on the Granting of Independence…”, and entrenched as an important part of international law, is under threat.

In hindsight, it would seem to me that we made a serious error as Africans when we paid virtually no attention to a particular and pernicious thesis advanced by various individuals in the countries of the North, and specifically the UK, arguing for the re-colonisation of Africa.

In a 2002 article on “The Post-Modern State”, the British diplomat and then adviser to UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, who now occupies an important position in the EU Commission, Robert Cooper, said that one of the “main characteristics of the post-modern world” is achieving “security (that) is based on transparency, mutual openness, interdependence and mutual vulnerability.”

He went on to say:

“Today, there are no colonial powers willing to take on the job, though the opportunities, perhaps even the need for colonisation is as great as it ever was in the nineteenth century. Those left out of the global economy risk falling into a vicious circle. Weak government means disorder and that means falling investment…

“All the conditions for imperialism are there, but both the supply and demand for imperialism have dried up. And yet the weak still need the strong and the strong still need an orderly world. A world in which the efficient and well governed export stability and liberty, and which is open for investment and growth – all of this seems eminently desirable.

“What is needed, then, is a new kind of imperialism, one acceptable to a world of human rights and cosmopolitan values. We can already discern its outline: an imperialism which, like all imperialism, aims to bring order and organisation but which rests today on the voluntary principle.”

This view was echoed by Bruce Anderson, columnist of The Independent (London), in a June 2, 2003 article, in which he wrote:
“Africa is a beautiful continent, full of potential and attractive people who deserve so much more than the way in which they are forced to live, and die. Yet it is not clear that the continent can generate its own salvation. It may be necessary to devise a form of neo-imperialism, in which Britain, the U.S. and the other beneficent nations would recruit local leaders and give them guidance to move towards free markets, the rule of law and – ultimately – some viable local version of democracy, while removing them from office in the event of backsliding.”

On April 19, 2008 The Times (London) published an article by Matthew Parris entitled ‘The new scramble for Africa begins’, in which he said:

“Fifty years ago the decolonisation of Africa began. The next half-century may see the continent recolonised. But the new imperialism will be less benign. Great powers aren’t interested in administering wild places any more, still less in settling them: just raping them. Black gangster governments sponsored by self-interested Asian or Western powers could become the central story in 21st-century African history.”

Writing in the New Statesman magazine published on 15 January 2001, another British commentator, Richard Gott, writing to oppose this “new imperialism”, said:

“What Africa really needs, Maier, (in his book This House Has Fallen: Nigeria in Crisis), seems to suggest, is the advice of a new generation of foreign missionaries, imbued with the new, secular religion of good governance and human rights. Men such as Maier himself and R W Johnson would fit the bill admirably. Other contemporary witnesses, the innumerable representatives of the non-governmental and humanitarian organisations that clog the airwaves and pollute the outside world’s coverage of African affairs with their endless one-sided accounts of tragedy and disaster, echo the same message.

“With the reporting and analysis of today’s Africa in the hands of such people, it is not surprising that public opinion is often confused and disarmed when governmentsembark on neo-colonial interventions. The new missionaries are much like the old ones, an advance guard preparing the way for military and economic conquest.”

I am certain that all of us will not hesitate to denounce these arguments in favour of “a new kind of imperialism”, “a form of neo-imperialism”, “neo-colonial interventions” as constituting a direct and unacceptable challenge to international law, and equally repugnant justification for the repudiation of the solemn “Declaration on the Granting of Independence…”

In the passages we have quoted from his article, Robert Cooper says ‘the weak still need the strong and the strong still need an orderly world – a world in which the efficient and well governed export stability and liberty, and which is open for investment and growth…’
In essence he is arguing that the mighty and powerful should use their might to determine the shape and content of ‘the new world order’, positioning themselves as the global but unelected law-givers, giving practical expression to the undemocratic and brutal principle and practice that ‘might is right’.

As South Africans we waged a protracted and costly struggle among other things to assert the primacy of the rule of law and to establish a law-governed society founded on respect for justice in all its forms. In this regard we sought to liberate ourselves from arbitrary rule and injustice and therefore the ineluctably negative consequences of the implementation of the principle that ‘might is right’.

I am certain that all other genuine liberation struggles elsewhere in Africa also sought to achieve the very same outcomes.
It therefore stands to reason that in our own country we have a fundamental obligation to defend and advance the rule of law, and the attendant justice, at the same time as we defend and advance the rule of law, and the attendant justice, in the ordering of the system of international relations, especially as it relates to Africa’s interactions with the rest of the international community.

It is in this context that I have raised the important matter of defending and safeguarding the right of the peoples of Africa to self-determination, and your tasks in this regard, as an important and vibrant segment of our country’s and Continent’s legal community.
On September 14 – 16, 2005, a World Summit Meeting of the UN General Assembly took place at the New York Headquarters of the UN and, inter alia, adopted important decisions about what has come to be known as “the Responsibility to Protect” (R2P).

As part of its “Outcome”, the Summit Meeting said:

“Recognizing the need for universal adherence to and implementation of the rule of law at both the national and international levels, we: Reaffirm our commitment to the purposes and principles of the (UN) Charter and international law and to an international order based on the rule of law and international law, which is essential for peaceful coexistence and cooperation among States.”

What threatens Africa’s hard-won right to self-determination is precisely the contemporary disrespect for “the purposes and principles of the (UN) Charter and international law and to an international order based on the rule of law and international law”, directly contrary to the decisions of the 2005 World Summit Meeting.
In the period since the end of the Second World War the world community of nations has built a corpus of international law precisely to avoid the catastrophe of lawlessness imposed by Nazism, which, among other things, led to the criminal murder of six million Jews, the death of twenty million Soviet citizens, and massive destruction of the accumulated wealth of nations.

As you know, in this regard the UN Charter contains important provisions of international law relating to the maintenance of international peace and security. The 2005 World Summit Meeting to which we have referred, which addressed the so-called Right to Protect, expanded the peace-making obligations of the international community.

Article 24 of the UN Charter says: “In discharging these duties (for the maintenance of international peace and security), the Security Council shall act in accordance with the Purposes and Principles of the United Nations. The specific powers granted to the Security Council for the discharge of these duties are laid down in Chapters VI, VII, VIII, and XII.

“The Security Council shall submit annual and, when necessary, special reports to the General Assembly for its consideration.”
For its part, the 2005 Summit Meeting resolved that:

“The international community, through the United Nations, also has the responsibility to use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means, in accordance with Chapters VI and VIII of the Charter, to help protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. In this context, we are prepared to take collective action, in a timely and decisive manner, through the Security Council, in accordance with the Charter, including Chapter VII, on a case-by-case basis and in cooperation with relevant regional organizations as appropriate, should peaceful means be inadequate and national authorities manifestly fail to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. We stress the need for the General Assembly to continue consideration of the responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity and its implications, bearing in mind the principles of the Charter and international law.”

The critical and essential point I am making is that the UN Security Council understood and accepted that its own actions had to be conducted as prescribed by international law. This relates both to the task to maintain international peace and security as provided for in the UN Charter and the ‘responsibility to protect’ as defined by the 2005 World Summit Meeting.

In other words, the UN Security Council itself could only carry out its work, and demand acceptance of its decisions by the world community of nations, including the General Assembly to which it has to report, if it respected the rule of law and established international law, as these relate to its own decisions and operations.

Part of what has obliged us to ring the alarm bells about the threat to Africa’s hard-won right to self-determination is the concrete reality that in the aftermath of the disappearance of the Soviet Union, and therefore the end of the Cold War, the UN Security Council has been open to abuse with regard to respect for the rule of law and international law in terms of its decisions and actions.

It seems obvious that a few powerful countries seek to turn the Security Council into an instrument in their hands, to be used by them to pursue their selfish interests, determined to behave according to the principle and practice that ‘might is right’.
The outstanding, but not only, exemplar in this regard is what has happened during the greater part of this year relating to Libya.
Before saying anything else about this issue, I must state this categorically that those who have sought to manufacture a particular outcome out of the conflict in Libya have propagated a poisonous canard aimed at discrediting African and AU opposition to the Libyan debacle on the basis that the AU and the rest of us had been bought by Colonel Gadaffi with petro-dollars, and therefore felt obliged to defend his continued misrule.

For example, as part of this offensive, relying on all known means of disinformation, the argument is advanced that Gadaffi’s Libya had supported the ANC during the difficult struggle to defeat the apartheid regime.

The incontrovertible fact is that during this whole period, Libya did not give the ANC even one cent, did not train even one of our military combatants, and did not supply us with even one bullet. This is because Gadaffi’s Libya made the determination that the ANC was little more than an instrument of Zionist Israel, because we had among our leaders such outstanding patriots as the late Joe Slovo.

Libya came to extend assistance to the ANC after 1990, when it realised that the ANC was a genuine representative of the overwhelming majority of our people.

Similarly, the false assertion has been made that the AU depended on Libyan money to ensure its survival. This is yet another fabrication.
The UN Security Council adopted the infamous Resolution 1973 on Libya on March 17, which imposed a ‘no-fly zone’ and authorised various Member States (NATO) “to take all necessary measures…to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya…”

The Resolution said nothing about ‘regime change’. However the fact of the matter is that the NATO actions had everything to do with the overthrow of the Gaddafi regime.

And indeed in a 15 April, 2011 joint letter, Presidents Obama and Sarkozy and Prime Minister Cameron had openly declared their intention to achieve this goal.

In this letter they said: “Our duty and our mandate under Security Council Resolution 1973 is to protect civilians, and we are doing that. It is not to remove Gaddafi by force.”

And yet in the same letter they said: “But it is impossible to imagine a future for Libya with Gadaffi in power…There is a pathway to peace that promises new hope for the people of Libya: a future without Gaddafi…Colonel Gadaffi must go, and go for good.”

And indeed, as leaders of NATO they ensured that this objective was achieved, directly contrary to what the Security Council Resolution said. And yet the UN Security Council has said nothing about what was a clear violation of international law.

A week before Resolution 1973 was approved, the AU Peace and Security Council adopted a roadmap for the negotiated resolution of the conflict in Libya and conveyed this to the UN Security Council, as prescribed under Chapter VIII of the UN Charter.

To all intents and purposes the Security Council ignored the AU decision and later blocked the AU Panel on Libya from flying into the country to begin the process of mediating a peaceful resolution of the conflict in that country.

This was despite the fact that Resolution 1973 itself said the Security Council supports the “efforts (of the Special Envoy of the UN Secretary General) to find a sustainable and peaceful solution to the crisis” in Libya.

The Resolution also noted the decision of the AU PSC “to send its ad-hoc High-Level Committee to Libya with the aim of facilitating dialogue to lead to the political reforms necessary to find a peaceful and sustainable solution.”

Libya is an African country. In addition to this, in terms of international peace and security, the conflict in that country has impacted and will continue to impact directly and negatively on a number of African countries.

Despite this, the Security Council, in violation of Chapter VIII of the UN Charter, which provides for cooperation between the Security Council and regional bodies, chose completely to ignore the African Union, preferring to accord a Chapter VIII status to the League of Arab States, simply because the League had called for the establishment of a ‘no-fly zone’.

Resolutions 1970 and 1973 of the Security Council imposed an arms embargo on Libya. The latter Resolution also specifically excluded “a foreign occupation of any form or any part of Libyan territory” and deplored and demanded an end to what it called “the continuing flow of mercenaries” into Libya.

And yet it is now known that Member States involved in the NATO operation sent weapons to the NTC rebel forces and deployed military and other personnel inside Libya to support these forces.
Again this was in violation of international law, and yet the UN Security Council did nothing to stop it.

The armed uprising in Libya started one week after the beginning of the peaceful demonstrations. This can only mean that preparations had taken place before hand to effect a military uprising. In its resolutions the Security Council says nothing about this.
In this regard, in a Report on Libya issued on June 6 this year, the International Crisis Group (ICG) said:

“Much Western media coverage has from the outset presented a very one-sided view of the logic of events, portraying the protest movement as entirely peaceful and repeatedly suggesting that the (Libyan) regime’s security forces were unaccountably massacring unarmed demonstrators who presented no real security challenge. This version would appear to ignore evidence that the protest movement exhibited a violent aspect from very early on…

“Likewise, there are grounds for questioning the more sensational reports that the regime was using its air force to slaughter demonstrators, let alone engaging in anything remotely warranting use of the term “genocide”. That said, the repression was real enough, and its brutality shocked even Libyans. It may also have backfired, prompting a growing number of people to take to the streets.”

It is clear that the beginning of the peaceful demonstrations in Libya served as a signal to various Western countries to intervene to effect ‘regime change’, as clearly explained by Obama, Sarkozy and Cameron in the joint letter we have cited.

These countries then used the Security Council to authorise their intervention under the guise of the so-called ‘right-to-protect’.
Thus the ‘right-to-protect’ was abused and international law was violated to enable some of the major world powers to help determine the future of an African country. In this context all measures were taken to deny our Continent the possibility to help resolve the Libyan conflict without the death of many people and the massive destruction of property, and on the basis of the democratic transformation of that country.

It is clear to many on our Continent that what has happened in Libya has established a very dangerous precedent. The question has therefore been raised – which African country will be next? As Africans we have a continuing responsibility to protect our right to self-determination as well as a duty to work together to resolve our problems, fully cognisant of the inter-dependence of our countries and the fact that we share a common destiny.

In this regard, to protect that right to self-determination, it seems obvious that we must engage in a sustained struggle to ensure respect for international law and the rule of law in the system of international relations. This must include ensuring that the UN Security Council itself respects international law, which prescribes the rule of law.

I therefore return to the appeal I made at the beginning, that you should use your considerable talents to join this struggle so that indeed, as Africans, we have the possibility “freely (to) determine (our) political status and freely (to) pursue (our) economic, social and cultural development.”

I hope that you will find some space in your busy schedules to reflect and act on this important matter.

Thank you.
ADDRESS BY THE PATRON OF THE TMF AND FORMER SOUTH AFRICAN PRESIDENT, THABO MBEKI,

AT THE AGM OF THE LAW SOCIETY OF THE NORTHERN PROVINCES: SUN CITY,

NOVEMBER 5, 2011.

Notable Notes

2011-10-04T11:25:00.000+01:00

Notable Notes

On a radio show, a caller told Michele Bachmann, American presidential aspirant 2012, he would vote for serial killer Charles Manson over President Obama. "Hey, thank you for saying that," she replied.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1011/64967.html#ixzz1ZnxD22f2

****

ABC's Modern Family star Jesse Tyler Ferguson had just told the president that "the end of Don't Ask, Don't Tell is the signature achievement of our time" when a bearded man in the front row began to yell:

"Christian God is the one and only true living God, the creator of Heaven and the Universe!" the man shouted.

"I love Jesus! Jesus Christ is God! Jesus Christ is the son of God!" he continued.

"I agree," the president smiled.

"You are the antichrist!" the man screamed.

Read more: http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/david/heckler-obama-you-are-antichrist

2011-09-30T18:28:00.000+01:00

Quotable Quotes

"The richest 2% of the world's population own more than half of the world's household wealth. Half the world, nearly 3 billion people, live on less than $2 a day. The three richest people in the world – Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, investor Warren Buffett and Mexican telecom mogul Carlos Slim Helú – have more money than the poorest 48 nations combined."
-- MSN Money Report, 12/13/2006

The Ruinous Rebirth of Libya

2011-09-28T17:04:00.000+01:00

The Ruinous Rebirth of Libya

By Michel Chossudovsky
"There is no tomorrow" under a NATO sponsored Al Qaeda rebellion.

While a "pro-democracy" rebel government has been instated, the country has been destroyed.

Against the backdrop of war propaganda, Libya's economic and social achievements over the last thirty years, have been brutally reversed:

The [Libyan Arab Jamahiriya] has had a high standard of living and a robust per capita daily caloric intake of 3144. The country has made strides in public health and, since 1980, child mortality rates have dropped from 70 per thousand live births to 19 in 2009. Life expectancy has risen from 61 to 74 years of age during the same span of years. (FAO, Rome, Libya, Country Profile.)

According to sectors of the "Progressive Left" which have endorsed NATO's R2P mandate: "The mood across Libya, particularly in Tripoli, is absolutely —like there’s just a feeling of euphoria everywhere. People are incredibly excited about starting afresh. There’s a real sense of rebirth, a feeling that their lives are starting anew. (DemocracyNow.org, September 14, 2011 emphasis added)

The rebels are casually presented as "liberators". The central role of Al Qaeda affiliated terrorists within rebel ranks is not mentioned.

"Starting afresh" in the wake of destruction? Fear and Social Despair, Countless Deaths and Atrocities, amply documented by the independent media.

No euphoria.... A historical reversal in the country's economic and social development has occurred. The achievements have been erased.

The NATO invasion and occupation marks the ruinous "rebirth" of Libya's standard of living That is the forbidden and unspoken truth: an entire Nation has been destabilized and destroyed, its people driven into abysmal poverty.

The objective of the NATO bombings from the outset was to destroy the country's standard of living, its health infrastructure, its schools and hospitals, its water distribution system.

And then "rebuild" with the help of donors and creditors under the helm of the IMF and the World Bank.

The diktats of the "free market" are a precondition for the instatement of a Western style "democratic dictatorship".

About nine thousand strike sorties, tens of thousands of strikes on civilian targets including residential areas, government buildings, water supply and electricity generation facilities. (See NATO Communique, September 5, 2011. 8140 strike sorties from March 31 to September 5, 2011)

An entire nation has been bombed with the most advanced ordnance, including uranium coated ammunition.

Already in August, UNICEF warned that extensive NATO bombing of Libya's water infrastructure "could turn into an unprecedented health epidemic“ (Christian Balslev-Olesen of UNICEF's Libya Office, August 2011).

Meanwhile investors and donors have positioned themselves. "War is Good for Business'. NATO, the Pentagon and the Washington based international financial institutions (IFIs) operate in close coordination. What has been destroyed by NATO will be rebuilt, financed by Libya's external creditors under the helm of the "Washington Consensus":

"Specifically, the [World] Bank has been asked to examine the need for repair and restoration of services in the water, energy and transport sectors [bombed by NATO] and, in cooperation with the International Monetary Fund, to support budget preparation [austerity measures] and help the banking sector back on to its feet [The Libyan Central bank was one of the first government buildings to be bombed]. Employment generation for young Libyans has been added as an urgent need facing the country." (World Bank to Help Libya Rebuild and Deliver Essential Services to Citizens emphasis added)

Libya's Development Achievements

Whatever one's views regarding Moamar Gadaffi, the post-colonial Libyan government played a key role in eliminating poverty and developing the country's health and educational infrastructure. According to Italian Journalist Yvonne de Vito, "Differently from other countries that went through a revolution – Libya is considered to be the Switzerland of the African continent and is very rich and schools are free for the people. Hospitals are free for the people. And the conditions for women are much better than in other Arab countries." (Russia Today, August 25, 2011)

These developments are in sharp contrast to what most Third World countries were able to "achieve" under Western style "democracy" and "governance" in the context of a standard IMF-World Bank Structural Adjustment program (SAP).

Public Health Care

Public Health Care in Libya prior to NATO's "Humanitarian Intervention" was the best in Africa. "Health care is [was] available to all citizens free of charge by the public sector. The country boasts the highest literacy and educational enrolment rates in North Africa. The Government is [was] substantially increasing the development budget for health services.... (WHO Libya Country Brief)

Confirmed by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), undernourishment was less than 5 %, with a daily per capita calorie intake of 3144 calories. (FAO caloric intake figures indicate availability rather than consumption).

The Libyan Arab Jamahiriya provided to its citizens what is denied to many Americans: Free public health care, free education, as confirmed by WHO and UNESCO data.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO): Life expectancy at birth was 72.3 years (2009), among the highest in the developing World.

Under 5 mortality rate per 1000 live births declined from 71 in 1991 to 14 in 2009
(http://www.who.int/countryfocus/cooperation_strategy/ccsbrief_lby_en.pdf)

Libyan Arab Jamahiriya General information 2009

Total population (000)
6 420
Annual population growth rate (%) ^
2.0
Population 0-14 years (%)
28
Rural population (%) ^
22
Total fertility rate (births per woman) ^
2.6
Infant mortality rate (0/00) ^
17
Life expectancy at birth (years) ^
75

GDP per capita (PPP) US$ ^
16 502
GDP growth rate (%) ^
2.1
Total debt service as a % of GNI ^
...
Children of primary school-age who are out of school (%)
(1978) 2
Source: UNESCO. Libya Country Profile

Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (2009)

Total life expectancy at birth (years) 72.3
Male life expectancy at birth (years) 70.2
Female life expectancy at birth (years) 74.9
Newborns with low birth weight (%) 4.0
Children underweight (%) 4.8
Perinatal mortality rate per 1000 total births 19
Neonatal mortality rate 11.0
Infant mortality rate (per 1000 live births) 14.0
Under five mortality rate (per 1000 live births) 20.1
Maternal mortality ratio (per 10000 live births) 23

Source WHO http://www.emro.who.int/emrinfo/index.aspx?Ctry=liy

Education

The adult literacy rate was of the order of 89%, (2009), (94% for males and 83% for females). 99.9% of youth are literate (UNESCO 2009 figures, See UNESCO, Libya Country Report)

Gross primary school enrolment ratio was 97% for boys and 97% for girls (2009) .
(see UNESCO tables at http://stats.uis.unesco.org/unesco/TableViewer/document.aspx?ReportId=121&IF_Language=eng&BR_Country=4340&BR_Region=40525

The pupil teacher ratio in Libya's primary schools was of the order of 17 (1983 UNESCO data), 74% of school children graduating from primary school were enrolled in secondary school (1983 UNESCO data).

Based on more recent date, which confirms a marked increase in school enrolment, the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in secondary schools was of the order of 108% in 2002. The GER is the number of pupils enrolled in a given level of education regardless of age expressed as a percentage of the population in the theoretical age group for that level of education.

For tertiary enrolment (postsecondary, college and university), the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) was of the order of 54% in 2002 (52 for males, 57 for females).
(For further details see http://stats.uis.unesco.org/unesco/TableViewer/document.aspx?ReportId=121&IF_Language=eng&BR_Country=4340&BR_Region=40525

Women's Rights

With regard to Women's Rights, World Bank data point to significant achievements.

"In a relative short period of time, Libya achieved universal access for primary education, with 98% gross enrollment for secondary, and 46% for tertiary education. In the past decade, girls’ enrollment increased by 12% in all levels of education. In secondary and tertiary education, girls outnumbered boys by 10%." (World Bank Libya Country Brief, emphasis added)

Price Controls over Essential Food Staples

In most developing countries, essential food prices have skyrocketed, as a result of market deregulation, the lifting of price controls and the eliminaiton of subsidies, under "free market" advice from the World Bank and the IMF.

In recent years, essential food and fuel prices have spiralled as a result of speculative trade on the major commodity exchanges.

Libya was one of the few countries in the developing World which maintained a system of price controls over essential food staples.

World Bank President Robert Zoellick acknowledged in an April 2011 statement that the price of essential food staples had increased by 36 percent in the course of the last year. See Robert Zoellick, World Bank

The Libyan Arab Jamahiriya had established a system of price controls over essential food staples, which was maintained until the onset of the NATO led war.

While rising food prices in neighbouring Tunisia and Egypt spearheaded social unrest and political dissent, the system of food subsidies in Libya was maintained.

These are the facts confirmed by several UN specialised agencies.

"Missile Diplomacy" and "The Free Market"

War and Globalization are intiricately related. The IMF and NATO work in tandem, in liason with the Washington think tanks.

The NATO operation purports to enforce the neoliberal economic agenda. Countries which are reluctant to accept the sugar coated bullets of IMF "economic medicine" will eventually be the object of a R2P NATO humanitarian operation.

Déjà Vu? Under the British Empire, "gun boat diplomacy" was a means to imposing "free trade". On October 5, 1850, England's Envoy to the Kingdom of Siam, Sir James Brooke recommended to Her Majesty's government that:

"should these just demands [to impose free trade] be refused, a force should be present, immediately to enforce them by the rapid destruction of the defenses of the [Chaopaya] river... Siam may be taught the lesson which it has long been tempting-- its Government may be remodelled, A better disposed king placed on the throne and an influence acquired in the country which will make it of immense commercial importance to England" (The Mission of Sir James Brooke, quoted in M.L. Manich Jumsai, King Mongkut and Sir John Bowring, Chalermit, Bangkok, 1970, p. 23)

Today we call it "Regime Change" and "Missile Diplomacy" which invariably takes the shape of a UN sponsored "No Fly Zone". Its objective is to impose the IMF's deadly "economic medicine" of austerity measures and privatization.

The World Bank financed "reconstruction" programs of war torn countries are coordinated with US-NATO military planning. They are invariably formulated prior to onslaught of the military campaign...

Confiscating Libyan Financial Assets

Libya`s frozen overseas financial assets are estimated to be of the order of $150 billion, with NATO countries holding more than $100 billion.

Prior to the war, Libya had no debts. In fact quite the opposite. It was a creditor nation investing in neighboring African countries.

The R2P military intervention is intended to spearhead the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya into the straightjacket of an indebted developing country, under the surveillance of the Washington based Bretton Woods institutions.

In a bitter irony, after having stolen Libya's oil wealth and confiscated its overseas financial assets, the "donor community" has pledged to lend the (stolen) money back to finance Libya's post-war "reconstruction". Libya is slated to join the ranks of indebted African countries which have driven into poverty by IMF and the World Bank since the onsalught of the debt crisis in the early 1980s:

The IMF promised a further $35-billion in funding [loans] to countries affected by Arab Spring uprisings and formally recognized Libya’s ruling interim council as a legitimate power, opening up access to a myriad of international lenders as the country [Libya] looks to rebuild after a six-month war. ...

Getting IMF recognition is significant for Libya’s interim leaders as it means international development banks and donors such as the World Bank can now offer financing.

The Marseille talks came a few days after world leaders agreed in Paris to free up billions of dollars in frozen assets [stolen money] to help [through loans] Libya’s interim rulers restore vital services and rebuild after a conflict that ended a 42-year dictatorship.

The financing deal by the Group of Seven major economies plus Russia is aimed at supporting reform efforts [IMF sponsored structural adjustment] in the wake of uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East.

The financing is mostly in the form of loans, rather than outright grants, and is provided half by G8 and Arab countries and half by various lenders and development banks. (Financial Post, September 10, 2011,

http://www.truthseeker444.blogspot.com/

About the author: Michel Chossudovsky is an award-winning author, Professor of Economics (Emeritus) at the University of Ottawa. He is the Founder and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal and Editor of the globalresearch.ca website. He is the author of The Globalization of Poverty and The New World Order (2003) and America’s “War on Terrorism” (2005). He is also a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. His writings have been published in more than twenty languages.

The Colossal Deceit Known As The Underwear Bomber Case

2011-09-22T21:50:00.000+01:00

The Colossal Deceit Known As The Underwear Bomber Case

by Kurt Haskell

With jury selection set to begin in the Underwear Bomber Trial tomorrow, I've spent the evening reminiscing about Christmas Day 2009 and the 21 months since. The Underwear Bomber attack has fundamentally changed my life. Not in the way most would think, but it has destroyed any faith I've had in the U.S. Government, the media and this country as a whole. To say that I believe the government is corrupt and the media is complicit doesn't fully explain my beliefs. Not only have I come to those conclusions, but I've witnessed that an ordinary person who sees something important can be silenced despite his efforts to spread the truth. Such is the Underwear Bomber case. I can do nothing but laugh at the TSA's new policy of "If you see something say something." That is exactly what I did, and not only did the U.S. Government not want to hear what I had to say, but it actively lied about it, attempted to get me to change my story, and hid, by withholding (secret government) evidence or putting a protective order on the evidence and nearly everything that would support my eyewitness account.

Where are we now? We now have The Underwear Bomber (Umar) representing himself with the help of standby attorney Chambers. Attorney Chambers has indicated to me that if he were Umar's attorney, that the defense would be entrapment and that I would be a key witness. Of course, such a defense would expose the U.S. Government's involvement in the plot. It is much too convenient to have Umar represent himself and be in charge of what the defense will be, what evidence is presented, what witnesses are called and what questions each witness is asked. A trial with Umar representing himself will leave the relevant facts of this case unknown for generations. I can't help but think that Umar fired his attorneys for a reason other than he is a crazy terrorist. It is much too convenient that the entity that staged the event, also controls the evidence, what information is leaked to the media, who the prosecutors are, and the prison where Umar has been staying at for the last 21 months. Let's not overlook the fact that the U.S. Government has admitted to waterboarding and torturing terrorists. Do you see the pieces of the puzzle forming a clear picture yet?

Make no mistake that Umar did in fact attempt to detonate a device (although it was a defective device) on Flight 253. He is not innocent. It remains to be discovered whether my belief that Umar is complicit with the "theatre" going on before our eyes came about before or after the event of Christmas Day 2009. It really is not important except that you must understand that he is now complicit in covering up the true story of Christmas Day 2009. There is no other explanation as to why Umar is representing himself and rejecting the entrapment defense (Which I have discovered he will do).

For those that are still skeptical of my claims, please realize that I do not make my claims without a great deal of thought and research. My firm belief is that Umar was escorted around security and given an intentionally defective bomb by a U.S. intelligence agent. The bomb was never intended to detonate, but merely intended to create a "simulated terrorist attack" or a "false flag attack" if you will. In December of 2009, the U.S. Government hadn't seen a terrorist attack in 8 years, It was getting more and more difficult to spend hundreds of billions a year on terrorism and to continue to fight two fraudulent wars based on terrorism. Those making their livings off of the war on terror didn't want to lose their cash cow. Enter Umar the Underwear Bomber. A second benefit of a failed bomb being found in Umar's underwear, was to enable body scanning machines to be placed in every airport. How convenient for Michael Chertoff , a former head of the DHS, to have ties to the body scanning companies. I doubt that this was any coincidence. Once again, billions of dollars would flow from the U.S. Government for body scanning machines that were needed to protect us.

What we are now left with are the bits and pieces of the Underwear Bomber case that can form a clear picture of what happened that day. For those of you attempting to put it all together, please take your time and think about the evidence instead of glossing over it and continuing to remain in denial. The truth is that your U.S. Government staged a false terrorist attack in order to steal your tax dollars and your 4th Amendment Rights to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures. Please thoroughly consider the following with an open mind and think about why this sort of behavior must stop now:

My thoughts on this case and the list of anomalies that differ from the official version of events were made through: (a) numerous discussions with other passengers, (b) my own eyewitness account, (c) discussions with Umar's standby attorney, (d) hundreds of articles on the story (e) evidence provided to me by others "in the know" or just other concerned citizens, and (f) from the official record at hearings I attended.

Anomalies of the case in no particular order:

1. In December 2010, Chambers told the Detroit Free Press that the Government's own explosives experts indicate that the bomb was impossibly defective. The Free Press later erased this article from its online site, but did not erase earlier underwear bomber stories.
2. The FBI has admitted to supplying the Portland Christmas Tree Bomber and the Wrigley Field Bomber with intentionally defective bombs shortly after the underwear bomber event.
3. Janet Napolitano's comment that "the system worked" was a Freudian slip.
4. The plane taxied to the gate. The passengers were not allowed off the plane for 20-30 minutes (Was the bomb still on the plane?). There was bomb material that was supposedly explosive all over the cabin of the plane. Nobody took any action to make sure the passengers were safe or that the "explosives" were of no danger to the passengers. This is evidence of foreknowledge that there was no danger to the passengers.
5. TSA admitted knowledge of the threat while the flight was over Canada/Atlantic Ocean. No measures were taken to notify the pilot or to divert the flight for an emergency landing elsewhere.
6. My eyewitness account of the sharp dressed man and the related evidence as to this man. There is no other likely explanation for this man except for government involvement. The airport video has never been released and remains under protective order of the court.
7. The government's continued release of Umar's passport picture through the media. This was done for no other reason that to attempt to discredit me. Why such an effort to show a passport picture all over the media? In no other case has a passport picture been shown in the media. A copy of the supposed "passport" of Umar, however, was not released to Chambers until June 2011. The release of the passport to standby defense counsel was delayed 19 months in order to limit the amount of time Chambers would need to have experts verify its authenticity.
8. The explanation for the cameraman is near unbelievable. He started filming the sky just before the attack started and then he turned to film the entire attack from beginning to end. We all thought we were going to die. The last thing on anyone's mind at that time was to film something.
9. On 1-5-10 Breibart posted an article that indicated the Government had viewed over 200 hours of video from the airport and it showed no evidence of an accomplice. This article is contradicted by the 1-22-10 article of ABC News by Brian Ross that indicated that "The government is looking into the identity of a man that helped Umar at Schiphol." The article fails to mention that this "sharp dressed man" escorted Umar through security without a passport and instead tries to paint this man as Al Qaeda. The government is contradicting itself in both of these stories and is attempting weak cover-ups in each story.
10. Umar is charged with conspiracy. The accomplices names or contributions are never mentioned. They are not listed as wanted and they are never discussed. This is because they are U.S. Intelligence agents.
11. Customs spokesperson Ron Smith changed the official story about the 2nd man taken into custody in Detroit 5 times. Then he sent a half-hearted apologetic email to the media. My story as to this man has never changed. Ron Smith eventually gave up lying and quit talking about this man who was witnessed by nearly all of the passengers.
12. Why were pictures of Umar's underwear constantly released to the media? These pictures show Umar's underwear is largely intact. I have information from a credible source that due to this incident, Umar "will never have any kids". This fact is not in line with undamaged underwear. The continued release of the underwear was used as a propaganda piece to reinforce the deceit.
13. The prosecution has continued to block evidence from Umar's standby attorney and in some cases, has provided it late. Why? If Umar was a terrorist nut, what is it that the government does not want the defense to see? It seems to me that if the official story is true, then this is an open and shut case. It appears that the government feels a need to insulate itself from civil cases filed by the passengers.
14. Why has Chambers repeatedly indicated that Umar has a very valid defense? The answer is the entrapment defense.
15. Portions of the Patriot Act were set to expire just before Christmas Day 2009. The Congressional vote to extend them was delayed until February. Body scanning machines were already built and sitting in warehouses. Michael Chertoff, the former head of the Department of Homeland Security has ties to the body scanning manufacturers. The U.S. had no terrorist attacks from 2001 until Christmas Day 2009. A new terrorist attack was needed to get the body scanning machines in the airports.
16. If flight 253 had crashed, nobody would know that the bomb was in Umar's underwear. An unsuccessfully staged attack was necessary to show where the bomb was held. This was needed to sell the American public that body scanners were needed to prevent similar future attacks.
17. The story of Umar obtaining his bomb in another country and wearing it to Schiphol is not logical. It is much more likely that he was given the defective bomb at or near the airport. It is likely that the second man taken into custody in Detroit gave him the bomb at Schiphol. My theory is that the bomb sniffing dog (which we witnessed) in Detroit sniffed bomb residue in his bag after we landed.
18. Umar could have been stopped in Amsterdam after boarding and charged with various charges that would have resulted in a life sentence. Instead he was allowed to fly into U.S. airspace and light his bomb there, over Detroit, on Christmas Day in order to make this a MUCH larger media story to usher in the body scanners.
19. How did Umar pick his window seat over the gas tank when he paid cash for his ticket? (You must buy your ticket with credit in order to pick your seat).
20. Other terrorist attack videos are released within hours. The relevant video in this case has never been released. Note that Schiphol airport has more cameras than any airport in the world.
21. The bomb was lit in the cabin and not in the bathroom so that it could be filmed and made more of a media event than a dud bomb lit in a bathroom.
22. Obama's "failed to connect the dots speech" is discredited by the Congressional testimony of Patrick Kennedy of the State Department. Kennedy indicated, in so many words, that the government was tracking Umar and did not revoke his visa in order to track him into the U.S. This is almost, but not quite an admission that he was let into the U.S. on purpose.
23. The Congressional testimony of Michael Leiter indicated that the U.S. Government frequently lets terrorists into the U.S.
24. In early 2010, a Mr. Wolf appeared on the Keith Olberman Show and indicated that the Obama administration was looking into the possibility that this was an intentional plot by a U.S. intelligence agency.
25. Watch the Congressional testimony of Patrick Kennedy (available on the internet) and watch how he does vocabulary gymnastics to avoid saying that this was an intentional plot by U.S. intelligence.
26. Dutch military police initially indicated that Umar did not go through normal security measures. This was only reported once.
27. Why did a passenger call me in early January 2010 and attempt to convince me that I did not see Umar being escorted around security, but I instead witnessed a minor child being taken through security. This was untrue. I later found out that such passenger works for a contractor that receives a great deal of business from the Department of Defense.
28. Why did the mainstream media continue to not investigate this story and continue to not report my eyewitness account?
29. A second passenger contacted me and confirmed my account of the Sharp Dressed Man. She is scared and refuses to come forward.
30. Why have nearly all of the passengers refused to talk about this case?
31. Why were a great deal of the passengers, military personnel, government workers and government contractors?
32. Why did the prosecution indicate at a recent hearing that it was still withholding some evidence that was deemed to be secret (top secret?). What could be so secret if the government was not involved in the plot?
33. Why has the online Detroit Free Press site erased all underwear bomber articles that support my theory on the case, but retained older articles that support the official story?

It is unfortunate that the upcoming trial will be nothing but a farce and deceitful theatre to imbed lies in the minds of the sheeple.

Kurt Haskell and his lovely wife, Lori, were passengers on board Umar's flight from Schiphol. This article was composed by his wife Lori, and she can be contacted at loridz@comcast.net You may read her blog at haskellfamily.blogspot.com

Ban Ki-moon: A Record of Failure and Betrayal

2011-09-22T20:55:00.000+01:00

Ban Ki-moon: A Record of Failure and Betrayal

by Stephen Lendman on September 20, 2011

The UN Charter's Preamble states:

"WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED"

* to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and
* to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and
* to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and
* to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom...."

The body affirms international support for tolerance, peace and security, and resolve to promote universal economic and social advancement.

However, since its 1945 founding, it's failed on all counts, even though some of its agencies (like UNICEF, WFP, UNHCR and UNESCO) at times provide aid in areas of health, education, food assistance, refugees, social development and more.

It's never enough though, timely, or with resolve to support troubled people adequately in times of need.

Moreover, global wars raged every year post-WW II to the present. The UN's been unable or disinterested in stopping them. One of its fatal flaws is structure, hamstrung by its dominant member, America. It can and does veto measures other member states support, notably when contrary to its imperial interests.

As a result, no action was taken when Indonesia invaded East Timor in 1975. Hundreds of thousands were slaughtered in a secretly US-authorized aggression. Its TNI forces were armed, funded and supported by Washington.

In 1999, it was impotent again after East Timor voted for independence, after which TNI forces attacked and slaughtered thousands more.

During South Africa's border wars and invasion of Namibia in the 1960s and 70s, it was sidelined, as well as during a 36-year Guatemala state-sponsored genocide against its indigenous Mayan majority, following the CIA's ouster of democratically elected Jacobo Arbenz Guzman.

Dozens of other examples reveal a dismal record of failure and betrayal of its high-sounding principles and mandate to enforce them. It didn't earlier or now, including by deploying Blue Helmets as peacekeepers.

In fact, they're hostile occupiers, serving imperial interests in Haiti, South Lebanon, Rwanda, Kosovo, Bosnia, DRC Congo, Sudan, Somalia, various other countries, and its initial UN Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) since 1948, failing to bring peace to Palestine. Yet it's still there, performing no active role, opposing the interests of people they're sworn to protect.

During his tenure as Secretary-General, Kofi Annan (January 1, 1997 - December 31, 2006) was little more than an imperial tool, never achieving or working for peace anywhere.

He never condemned or acted to end the devastating economic sanctions against Iraqis that killed up to 1.5 million defenseless men, women and children.

He didn't use his mandate to denounce Washington's lawless 2003 war. No matter that it's based on lies to permit slaughtering hundreds of thousands more and be able to plunder another occupied country.

He was silent while war raged in Afghanistan and still does without end.

He backed or failed to act against Israel's illegal occupation, its worst crimes against Palestine, and its illegal 2006 Lebanon war.

He took no action to denounce Washington's failed attempts to oust Hugo Chavez, and showed a disturbing indifference to the pain and suffering of his own people throughout the continent of his birth.

Instead, he dutifully served Washington, other dominant powers, and corporate predation of Africa's riches and elsewhere.

His entire tenure was a testimony to failure and betrayal. So is Ban Ki-moon's since becoming Secretary-General on January 1, 2007. Ever since, he's been a co-conspirator in war crimes and other abuses.

In fact, one of his first acts was to reverse the UN's longstanding opposition to capital punishment. It's a barbaric practice often sentencing innocent people to death, notably in America.

At the time, he dismissively said whether or not to enforce it "is for each and every member State to decide," instead of forthrightly condemning it.

Nor did his restructuring plan address the Security Council's illegitimate veto power, giving one nation like America authority over all others. It's abused the practice ever since.

Instead, it's high time the body reflected majority rule, giving all nations equal say on issues affecting everyone. Ban's overall silence, inaction, and support for wrong over right speak volumes.

In fact, despite its own often deplorable record, Human Rights Watch (HRW) acknowledged Ban's shamelessness. Its "World Report 2011: A Facade of Action" included criticism of his "quiet diplomacy facade of (in)action" for not taking forceful steps when needed.

HRW's executive director Kenneth Roth criticized his "use of dialogue and cooperation in lieu of public pressure....on abusive governments," notably America and its imperial partners.

In fact, said Roth, "(f)ar from condemning repression, Ban sometimes (goes) out of his way to portray repressive governments in a positive light."

He meant third world despots, not the world's leading human rights abuser, waging lawless imperial wars and engaging in other scandalous actions.

In response, Ban's office disagreed, despite clear evidence of his complicity in grievous crimes of war and against humanity by indifference, silence, and support for Western aggression. Putting lipstick on that pig doesn't wash.

Nor have his spineless measures protected whistleblowers or prevented peacekeeper killings, rape, sexual exploitation, corruption and other crimes.

In addition, he hasn't defended human rights or condemned violations against them, notably by Western countries. Nor has he denounced aggressive wars and other lawless acts.
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How can he when he supports them, including Washington's ouster of democratically elected Honduran President Manuel Zelaya on June 28, 2009.

Or the Obama administration's militarization of Haiti and complicity in rigging the electoral process to install stealth Duvalierist Michel ("Sweet Micky) Martelly, an anti-populist former Kompa singer supporter of powerful corrupt corporatist interests.

Moreover, Ban backed regime change in Ivory Coast. He authorized a lawless French-backed military operation against Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo, killing hundreds of civilians.

He also echoed Washington's call for Gaddafi's ouster, saying he lost all legitimacy. At the same time, he backs cutthroat rebel paramilitaries, and supports lawless air strikes.

They've laid waste to large parts of Libya and still do, killing and injuring tens of thousands. They also transformed Libya into a charnel house human rights disaster.

Instead of condemning, stopping, or preventing wars, he authorized and cheerled them, betraying his mandate to support peace and human rights.

Shamelessly serving Israel, not Palestine, he caused great harm in the process, including besieged Gaza denied flotilla aid from arriving.

He even petitioned world leaders to back Israel's demand to direct what it permits "through legitimate crossings and established channels" to prevent vital aid getting through or enough of it.

By appointing his own commission to investigate Israel's May 2010 Mavi Marmara massacre, he tried to whitewash his own Human Rights Council's condemnation, as well as independent ones denouncing Israel's cold-blooded murder of nine civilians and injuring dozens more in international waters.

These were high crimes - piracy he should have forthrightly condemned, but he didn't. Instead, he dutifully paid homage to Israel as he always does.

Despite representing 193 member states, Ban only serves Washington, Israel, and other dominant powers. He thumbs his nose at the rest, including majority General Assembly positions on numerous human rights and other vital issues.

In other words, in derogation of his sworn mandate, he solely represents dominant interests. Notably they're those of Washington, Israel, and their imperial partners, ravaging targeted countries to carve up their corpses for profit.

As a result, he shares culpability with lawless predator states, harming billions worldwide by his contempt for human rights. In fact, the very notion's not in his vocabulary, let alone concern for people in dire need.

They're on their own because Ban won't observe his sworn mandate to help them. It's a testimony to his deplorable record.

It's appalling enough to have earned him a second term last June, representing wealth and power for another five years at the expense of billions worldwide he scorns.

It's the mettle of a failed Secretary-General, a legacy history won't let him forget or expunge.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon.

The Elite and their Global chess game

2011-08-03T22:22:00.001+01:00

The Elite and their Global chess game

My country is dead. Its people have surrendered to tyranny and in so doing, they have become tyranny’s primary support group; its base; its defender. Every day they offer their endorsement of tyranny by banking in its banks and spending their borrowed money with the corporations that run it. The great Neocon strategy of George H.W. Bush has triumphed. Convince the America people that they can’t live without the ‘good things’, then sit back and watch as they endorse the progressively more outrageous crimes you commit as you throw them bones with ever less meat on them. All the while lock them into debt. Destroy the middle class, the only political base that need be feared. Make them accept, because of their shared guilt, ever-more repressive police state measures. Do whatever you want.~~~Michael Ruppert.

The control of the US, and of global politics, by the wealthiest families of the planet is exercised in a powerful, profound and clandestine manner. This control began in Europe and has a continuity that can be traced back to the time when the bankers discovered it was more profitable to give loans to governments than to needy individuals.

These banking families and their subservient beneficiaries have come to own most major businesses over the two centuries during which they have secretly and increasingly organised themselves as controllers of governments worldwide and as arbiters of war and peace.

Unless we understand this we will be unable to understand the real reasons for the two world wars and the impending Third World War, a war that is almost certain to begin as a consequence of the US attempt to seize and control Central Asia. The only way out is for the US to back off – something the people of the US and the world want, but the elite does not.

The US is a country controlled through the privately owned Federal Reserve, which in turn is controlled by the handful of banking families that established it by deception in the first place.

In his interesting book The Secret Team, Col. Fletcher Prouty, briefing officer of the US President from 1955-63, narrates a remarkable incident in which Winston Churchill made a most revealing utterance during World War II: “On this particular night there had been a heavy raid on Rotterdam. He sat there, meditating, and then, as if to himself, he said, ‘Unrestricted submarine warfare, unrestricted air bombing – this is total war.’ He continued sitting there, gazing at a large map, and then said, ‘Time and the Ocean and some guiding star and High Cabal have made us what we are’.”

Prouty further states: “This was a most memorable scene and a revelation of reality that is infrequent, at best. If for the great Winston Churchill, there is a ‘High Cabal’ that has made us what we are, our definition is complete. Who could know better than Churchill himself during the darkest days of World War II, that there exists, beyond doubt, an international High Cabal? This was true then. It is true today, especially in these times of the One World Order. This all-powerful group has remained superior because it had learned the value of anonymity.” This “High Cabal” is the “One World Cabal” of today, also called the elite by various writers.

The High Cabal & What They Control

The elite owns the media, banks, defence and oil industry. In his book Who’s Who of the Elite Robert Gaylon Ross Sr. states: “It is my opinion that they own the US military, NATO, the Secret Service, the CIA, the Supreme Court, and many of the lower courts. They appear to control, either directly or indirectly, most of the state, county, and local law enforcement agencies.”

The elite is intent on conquering the world through the use of the abilities of the people of the United States. It was as far back as 1774 that Amschel Mayer Rothschild stated at a gathering of the twelve richest men of Prussia in Frankfurt: “Wars should be directed so that the nations on both sides should be further in our debt.” He further enunciated at the same meeting: “Panics and financial depressions would ultimately result in World Government, a new order of one world government.”

The elite owns numerous “think tanks” that work for expanding, consolidating and perpetuating its hold on the globe. The Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA), the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the Bilderberg Group, the Trilateral Commission, and many other similar organisations are all funded by the elite and work for it. These think tanks publish journals, such as Foreign Affairs, in which these imperialist and anti-mankind ideas are edified as publications, and then, if need be, expanded in the form of books that are given wide publicity.

Zbigniew Brzezinski and Henry Kissinger et al, as well as the neo-con “thinkers,” owe their positions and good living standards to the largesse of the elite. This is an important point that must be kept in full view at all times. These thinkers and writers are on the payroll of the elite and work for them. In case someone has any doubts about such a statement, it might help to read the following quotes from Professor Peter Dale Scott’s comprehensively researched book The Road to 9/11 – Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America (University of California Press, 2007):

Bundy’s Harvard protégé Kissinger was named to be national security adviser after having chaired an important “study group” at the Council on Foreign Relations. As a former assistant to Nelson Rockefeller, Kissinger had been paid by Rockefeller to write a book on limited warfare for the CFR. He had also campaigned hard in Rockefeller’s losing campaign for the Presidential nomination in 1968. Thus Rockefeller and the CFR might have been excluded from control of the Republican Party, but not from the Republican White House. (Page 22)

The following quote from page 38 of the book is also very revealing:

The Kissinger-Rockefeller relationship was complex and certainly intense. As investigative reporter Jim Hougan wrote: “Kissinger, married to a former Rockefeller aide, owner of a Georgetown mansion whose purchase was enabled only by Rockefeller gifts and loans, was always a protégé of his patron Nelson Rockefeller, even when he wasn’t directly employed by him.”

Professor Scott adds:

Nixon’s and Kissinger’s arrival in the White House in 1969 coincided with David Rockefeller’s becoming CEO of Chase Manhattan Bank. The Nixon-Kissinger foreign policy of detente was highly congruous with Rockefeller’s push to internationalise Chase Manhattan banking operations. Thus in 1973 Chase Manhattan became the first American bank to open an office in Moscow. A few months later, thanks to an invitation arranged by Kissinger, Rockefeller became the first US banker to talk with Chinese Communist leaders in Beijing.

How They Manipulate Public Opinion

In addition to these strategic “think tanks” the elite has set up a chain of research institutes devoted to manipulating public opinion in a manner the elite desires. As pointed out by John Coleman in his eye opening book The Tavistock Institute on Human Relations – Shaping the Moral, Spiritual, Cultural, Political and Economic Decline of the United States of America, it was in 1913 that an institute was established at Wellington House, London for manipulation of public opinion. According to Coleman:

The modern science of mass manipulation was born at Wellington House London, the lusty infant being midwifed by Lord Northcliffe and Lord Rothmere. The British monarchy, Lord Rothschild, and the Rockefellers were responsible for funding the venture… the purpose of those at Wellington House was to effect a change in the opinions of British people who were adamantly opposed to war with Germany, a formidable task that was accomplished by “opinion making” through polling. The staff consisted of Arnold Toynbee, a future director of studies at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA), Lord Northcliffe, and the Americans, Walter Lippmann and Edward Bernays. Lord Northcliffe was related to the Rothschilds through marriage.

Bernays was a nephew of Sigmund Freud, a fact never mentioned, and developed the technique of “engineering consent.” When Sigmund Freud moved to Britain he also, secretly, became associated with this institute through the Tavistock Institute. According to Coleman, Bernays “pioneered the use of psychology and other social sciences to shape and form public opinion so that the public thought such manufactured opinions were their own.”

The Tavistock Institute has a 6 billion dollar fund and 400 subsidiary organisations are under its control along with 3,000 think tanks, mostly in the USA. The Stanford Research Institute, the Hoover Institute, the Aspen Institute of Colorado, and many others, devoted to manipulation of US as well as global public opinion, are Tavistock offshoots. This helps explain why the US public, by and large, is so mesmerised as to be unable to see things clearly and to react.

Bilderberg researcher Daniel Estulin quotes from Mary Scobey’s book To Nurture Humanness a statement attributed to Professor Raymond Houghton, that the CFR has been clear for a very long time that “absolute behaviour control is imminent… without mankind’s self realisation that a crisis is at hand.”

Also keep in mind that currently 80% of US electronic and print media is owned by only six large corporations. This development has taken place in the past two decades. These corporations are elite owned. It is almost impossible for anyone who is acquainted with what is going on at the global level to watch, even for a few minutes, the distortions, lies and fabrications, incessantly pouring out of this media, a propaganda and brainwashing organ of the elite.

Once your picture is clear it is also easy to notice the criminal silence of the media on crimes being perpetrated against humanity at the behest of the elite. How many people know that the cancer rates in Fallujah, Iraq are higher than those in Hiroshima and Nagasaki because of the use of depleted uranium, and maybe other secret nuclear devices, by US forces? Fallujah was punished for its heroic resistance against the American forces.

The Importance of Eurasia

Why is the US in Central Asia? In order to understand this, one has to look at the writings of the stooges of the elite – Brzezinski, Kissinger, Samuel P Huntington, and their likes. It is important to note that members of these elite paid think tanks publish books as part of a strategy to give respectability to subsequent illegal, immoral and predatory actions that are to be taken at the behest of the elite. The views are not necessarily their own – they are the views of the think tanks. These stooges formulate and pronounce policies and plans at the behest of their masters, through bodies like the Council on Foreign Relations, Bilderberg Group, etc.

In his infinitely arrogant book The Grand Chessboard, published in 1997, Brzezinski spelled out the philosophy behind the current US military eruption. He starts by quoting the well-known views of the British geographer Sir Halford J Mackinder (1861–1947), another worker for the elite. Mackinder was a member of the ‘Coefficients Dining Club’ established by members of the Fabian Society in 1902. The continuity of the policies of the elite is indicated by the fact Brzezinski starts from Mackinder’s thesis first propounded in 1904: “Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland: Who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island: who commands the World-Island commands the world.”

Brzezinski argues that for the first time in human history a non-Eurasian power has become preeminent and it must hold sway over the Eurasian continent if it is to remain the preeminent global power: “For America the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia… About 75 percent of the world’s people live in Eurasia… Eurasia accounts for about 60 percent of the world’s GNP and about three fourths of the world’s known energy resources.”

It is not just the geostrategic location of this region – it is also its wealth, “both in its enterprises and beneath its soil,” that holds such attraction for the elite whose greed for money, and lust for power, remain insatiable, as if there was a sickness afflicting it.

Brzezinski writes: “But it is on the globe’s most important playing field – Eurasia – that a potential rival to America might at some point arise. This focusing on the key players and properly assessing the terrain has to be a point of departure for the formulation of American geostrategy for the long-term management of America’s Eurasian geopolitical interests.”

These lines were published in 1997. Millions of people have died in the past two decades and millions have been rendered homeless in this region but it remains a “playing” field for Brzezinski and his likes! In his book Brzezinski has drawn two very interesting maps – one of these has the caption The Global Zone of Percolating Violence (page 53) and the other (page 124) is captioned The Eurasian Balkans. The first of these encircles a region which includes the following countries: Sudan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran, all Central Asian states, Afghanistan, Pakistan and parts of Russia as well as India. The second one has two circles, an inner circle and a wider circle – the outer circle encloses the same countries as in the first map but the inner circle covers Iran, Afghanistan, eastern Turkey and the former Soviet Republics in Central Asia.

“This huge region, torn by volatile hatreds and surrounded by competing powerful neighbours, is likely to be a major battlefield…” writes Brzezinski. He further writes: “A possible challenge to American primacy from Islamic fundamentalism could be part of the problem of this unstable region.” These lines were written at a time when this kind of fundamentalism was not a problem – subsequently the US manipulated things and chose to make it one by its provocative and deceptive tactics. According to its strategic thinkers, the US might face a serious challenge from a coalition of China, Russia and Iran and must do whatever it can to prevent such a coalition from forming.

For Brzezinski, “terrorism” – a Tavistock-type concept – is just a well planned and well thought out strategy, a lie and a deception, to provide cover for a military presence in the Central Eurasian region and elsewhere. It is being used to keep the US public in a state of fear, to keep Russia in a state of insecurity about further breakup (the US has trained and supported Chechen fighters, “terrorists,” throughout) and to justify presence of US troops in and around Central Asia.

The Concocted War on Terrorism

Terrorism provides justification for transforming the United States into a police state. According to the Washington Post of 20 & 21 December 2010, the US now has 4,058 anti-terrorism organisations! These are certainly not meant for those so-called terrorists who operate in Central Asia – the number far exceeds the number of so-called terrorists in the entire world. Unbridled domestic spying by US agencies is now a fact of life and the US public, as always, has accepted this because of the collusion of media and Tavistock type institutes owned by the elite.

The US historian Howard Zinn puts it very well: “The so-called war on terrorism is not only a war against innocent people in other countries, but also a war on the people of the United States: a war on our liberties, a war on our standard of living. The wealth of the country is being stolen from the people and handed over to the superrich. The lives of our young are being stolen. And the thieves are in the White House.” Actually the thieves control the White House and have been doing so for a very long time.

In his outstanding book Crossing the Rubicon, Michael Ruppert points out that much of the violence in the Central Asian region as well as in Pakistan, which has been encircled in two maps in Brzezinski’s book, was “initiated by the US proxies.” “Given that these maps were published a full four years before the first plane hit the World Trade Centre, they would fall in a category of evidence I learned about at LAPD [Los Angeles Police Department]. We called them ‘clues’.” This means that the eruption of US militarism after 9/11, and the event itself, were part of a pre-planned and coherent strategy of global domination in which the people of the US were also “conquered” through totalitarian legislation carried out in the wake of 9/11.

As Brzezinski puts it:

America is too democratic at home to be autocratic abroad. This limits the use of America’s power, especially its capacity for military intimidation. Never before has a popular democracy attained international supremacy. But the pursuit of power is not a goal that commands popular passion, except in conditions of a sudden threat or challenge to the public’s sense of domestic well-being… The economic self-denial (that is, defence spending) and the human sacrifice (casualties even among professional soldiers) required in the effort are uncongenial to democratic instincts. Democracy is inimical to imperial mobilisation.

Certainly post 9/11 legislation, the extraordinary expansion of agencies and surveillance of the US public is a cause of great satisfaction for the elite – the US can hardly be called a democracy now. As reported by the Washington Post, the National Security Agency intercepts over 1.7 billion emails, phone calls and other communications every day and stores them. No wonder Bush called 9/11 “a great opportunity” and Rumsfeld saw it analogous to World War II to “refashion the world.”

In order to achieve the objectives of the elite, the US destroyed Yugoslavia while Russia stood by mesmerised and impotent, carried out regime changes in Central Asia, set up military bases in East Europe and Central Asia, and staged highly provocative military exercises testing Russia’s and China’s will. It set up a military base in Kyrgyzstan that has a 500 mile or so border with China. When the Chinese protested recent naval exercises with South Korea were too close to Chinese territory, a US spokesman responded: “Those determinations are made by us, and us alone… Where we exercise, when we exercise, with whom and how, with what assets and so forth are determinations that are made by the United States Navy, by the Department of Defence, by the United States government.” As journalist Rick Rozoff notes: “There is no way such confrontational, arrogant and vulgar language was not understood at its proper value in Beijing.”

The US has acquired bases in Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, and the Czech Republic – and set up the largest military base ever built in the region, Camp Bondsteel, in Kosovo. According to a report in the Russian Kommersant newspaper on 3 March 2011, a four-phase plan for deployment of a US missile system in Europe is to be fully implemented by the end of 2020. The US is also busy setting up bilateral military ties in Russia’s backyard with Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and is pursuing the goal of a “Greater Central Asia” from Afghanistan right up to the Middle East, a great corridor from where the oil, gas, and great mineral wealth of this region will flow to the coffers of the US elite, at bloody expense to the local people.

As remarked by the Indian career diplomat M.K. Bhadrakumar: “The time is not far off before they begin to sense that ‘the war on terror’ is providing a convenient rubric under which the US is incrementally securing for itself a permanent abode in the highlands of Hindu Kush, the Pamirs, Central Asian steppes and the Caucasus that form the strategic hub overlooking Russia, China, India and Iran.” The scene for a great war involving the great powers of the time – US, Russia and China – is now set, by design of the elite. It is just a matter of time.

Time and again the US elite has taken its good people into great wars through documented and proven deceptions – the sinking of the Lusitania during World War I, Pearl Harbour in World War II, and so on. The elite considers us “human garbage” – a term first used by the French in Indo-China. It is also generating a good deal of “human garbage” in the US. A World Bank report points out that in 2005, 28 million Americans were “insecure” – in 2007 the number had risen to 46 million! One in every five Americans is faced with the possibility of becoming “destitute” – 38 million people receive food coupons!

Michael Ruppert laments:

My country is dead. Its people have surrendered to tyranny and in so doing, they have become tyranny’s primary support group; its base; its defender. Every day they offer their endorsement of tyranny by banking in its banks and spending their borrowed money with the corporations that run it. The great Neocon strategy of George H.W. Bush has triumphed. Convince the America people that they can’t live without the ‘good things’, then sit back and watch as they endorse the progressively more outrageous crimes you commit as you throw them bones with ever less meat on them. All the while lock them into debt. Destroy the middle class, the only political base that need be feared. Make them accept, because of their shared guilt, ever-more repressive police state measures. Do whatever you want.

A global economic system erected on inhuman and predatory values, where a few possess more wealth than the billions of hungry put together, will end, but the end will be painful and bloody. It is a system in which the elite thrives on war and widespread human misery, on death and destruction by design. As Einstein said, “I do not know how the Third World War will be fought, but I can tell you what they will use in the Fourth – rocks!”

Quotable Quotes

2011-08-01T19:16:00.000+01:00

Quotable Quotes

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
-- Eisenhower's Farewell Address to the Nation

"This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron." -- Eisenhower's "Cross of Iron" speech

"We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without asking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow." -- Eisenhower's Farewell Address to the Nation.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society." Eisenhower's Farewell speech to the Nation

ICC: A maze of contradiction and selective justice.

2011-07-04T21:58:00.002+01:00

ICC: A maze of contradiction and selective justice.

Being the legal statement in respect of the ICC position on Col. Qadhafi and Libya
by Themba Benedict Langa, Acting as counsel to and on behalf of Muammar Qadhafi, Saif Al Islam Qadhafi and Abdullah Al Senussi, and FABIO MARIA GALIANI, Legal Adviser, Member of the Defence Team.

Statement

1. The Libyan Arab Jamahiriya never signed or ratified the international treaty establishing the International Criminal Court, therefore such international treaty and the International Criminal Court do not apply to the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. It is clear that the ICC has no jurisdiction on the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and that the immunity of the Head of State, provided by the international customary law, applies to Colonel Qadhafi.

2. The UN SC Resolution 1970 (2011) referred the situation in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. The referral is invalid because it violates the Jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court in that the UN SC prescribes to the ICC who to prosecute and who not to prosecute when the Resolution prohibited the ICC from prosecuting “nationals, current or former officials or personnel from a State outside the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya which is not party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of that State for alleged acts or omissions arising out or related to operations in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya established or authorized by the Council, unless such exclusive jurisdiction has been expressly waived by the State”. Therefore, the International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction, independence and impartiality have been compromised as it has been caused to discriminate against the State of Libya and its people. In so doing, the ICC has acted in a manner that is forbidden by its governing statute.

3. There is no doubt that in terms of the ICC Statute the UN SC has the power to refer a “situation” to the ICC, however, that does not entitle the UN SC to arrogate themselves powers that they fancy and to even undermine and violate the ICC Statute. In other words, by issuing the warrants of arrest the ICC has complacently misled the world about its penchant to take the law into its own hands as the ICC has no jurisdiction over Libya and the UN SC does not have the competency to grant the ICC ‘powers’ over Libya as the rule of customary international law states that the Rome Treaty cannot apply to States, such as Libya, that are not signatories thereto.

4. The ICC investigation was opened in a very short period of time compared to the other situations. In other situations, even much less complicated, the Prosecutor took much more time to decide if to open an investigation or not under at.53, ICC Statute:· Afghanistan, under valuation since 2007;

· Georgia, since 2008;
· Guinea, since 2009;
· Colombia, since 2006;

Regarding the investigations already opened by the ICC Prosecutor,

· Congo, took 2 months
· Central Africa, 4 months
· Uganda, 6 months
· Darfur, 3 months

Regarding the situation in Libya, the Prosecutor took 3 days to decide to open an investigation (in such time he had to consider all the information he had, the jurisdiction, the admissibility and the interests of justice). In just 5 days the ICC Prosecutor already indicated the names of the persons under investigation.

5. This is extraordinary given that the referral by the UN SC violates the ICC Statute. This goes to show that the ICC Prosecutor is absolutely not independent. The ICC did not show to be independent and impartial in this matter. For example, one of the judges of the Pre-Trial Chamber I, Mr. Cuno Tarfusser, recently made statements to the Italian media on the situation in Libya which indicated that the ICC is not impartial.

6. Now that the ICC has issued its illegitimate warrants, we expect NATO to stop their bombings and to also abandon its threat to kill Colonel Qadhafi and allow the ICC disputed process to take course. Failing which, it would mean that the ICC is not recognized and respected by NATO itself. Furthermore, NATO should immediately announce a ceasefire to guarantee the safety of the legitimate Libyan Leader, Colonel Qadhafi and other representatives and officials of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya to exercise their right to defend themselves in a fair tribunal.

7. We have good reasons to believe that the case against our client is found on the desperation to have access to the rich oil resources and not any legal ground as NATO should account on the destruction of Libyan infrastructure, killing of innocent civilians, women and children as well as the deprivation of access to basic necessities, including baby food.

8. The merit of the facts alleged do not require long comments, they are the result of a campaign conducted through the media. A great deal of information that has been given to the media has already proven to be false. It is responsibility of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya to use all legitimate means, as our clients used, to maintain and re-establish law and order in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and to defend the unity and the territorial integrity of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.

JOHANNESBURG AND ROME 27TH JUNE 2011

THEMBA LANGA
SOUTH AFRICAN LAWYER
COUNSEL TO
MUAMMAR QADHAFI
SAIF AL ISLAM QADHAFI
ABDULLAH AL SENUSSI
FABIO MARIA GALIANI
ITALIAN LAWYER
LEGAL ADVISER
MEMBER OF THE DEFENCE TEAM.

UNICC loses all legitimacy

2011-07-03T22:23:00.000+01:00

UNICC loses all legitimacy

If an entire continent rejects an alleged international institution's actions as illegitimate and self-serving, does said institution still get to call itself "international?" Furthermore, does it still hold any sort of mandate to continue on as self-proclaimed international arbiter? Certainly not, and for the International Criminal Court, whose "arrest warrant" for Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi was soundly rejected by the 53-member African Union, their last shred of self-proclaimed credibility has been rendered moot.

The arrest warrant itself is based on ICC's own "investigation." The ICC said, "in the course of its investigation, due to unprecedented cooperation from different States and organisations (none of which are currently working in Libya), the Office of the Prosecutor has been able to collect extensive documentation and evidence in a short period of time, through 30 missions to 11 States, and through interviews with a large number of persons, including key insiders and eyewitnesses. " Such a premise is so recklessly irresponsible, so baseless, and so morally bankrupt, it is easy to see why the African Union has such a difficult time accepting it.

A look over this "evidence" presented by the "Office of the Prosecutor" reveals a "cut & paste" bonanza of articles and reports taken from disingenuous organizations funded by the same corporations and foundations that contrived the ICC itself. The entire basis of the "Prosecutor's" case is built upon reports taken from BBC, Al Jazeera, the London Guardian, New York Times, the US State Department's Broadcasting Board of Governors-run Voice of America, the globalist-funded Human Rights Rights Watch, and the National Endowment for Democracy and Tides Foundation-funded International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), among many, many others.

The International Criminal Court itself claims to be, "an independent, permanent court that investigates and prosecutes persons accused of the most serious crimes of international concern, namely genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes." A visit to the Coalition for the International Criminal Court (CICC) site reveals just who is behind the ICC, who is actively promoting it and networking with the ICC's various NGO partners, and the fact that all involved boast the same financial and political supporters.

The CICC claims to include, "2,500 civil society organizations in 150 different countries working in partnership to strengthen international cooperation with the ICC; ensure that the Court is fair, effective and independent; make justice both visible and universal; and advance stronger national laws that deliver justice to victims of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide." The CICC however, also is "deeply appreciative of the generous support" provided by the European Union, the Ford Foundation, the Fortune 500-lined John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, George Soros' Open Society Institute, and Humanity United.
Humanity United in turn boast partnerships with the globalist co-conspirators of BBC World Service Trust, NED/Open Society/US State Department-funded Benetech, George Soros' Open Society Institute, and the NED-funded Solidarity Center which mobilized Egypt's labor unions just as the US-stoked unrest began to falter. These "generous supporters" are literally the same organizations that have built up the very "civil society organizations" the CICC is "working in partnership" with, and the same disingenuous organizations supplying the fake, contrived ICC with "evidence" to issue its "arrest warrants" with.

African Union executive Jean Ping called the ICC discriminatory, going only after "crimes" committed in Africa while ignoring those committed by the West in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. The AU has also condemned France for its blatant violation of the already illegitimate UNSC r.1973 by dropping weapons to Libya's Al-Qaeda-linked rebels.

Meanwhile, US National Endowment for Democracy-funded Project on Middle East Democracy reported that in reaction to Libya's threats to fight back against NATO aggression, U.S. State Department Spokesman Mark Toner said, "This is an individual who is obviously capable of carrying out these kinds of threats. It’s what makes him so dangerous. But we continue to carry out the NATO mission, while at the same time increasing pressure on him to step aside." Like France air-dropping weapons to admitted terrorists, the US attempting to remove Qaddafi is a direct violation of the NATO coalition's own contrived UN resolution. That the ICC isn't filing cases against NATO members for their multitude of crimes, and the fact that an entire continent has rejected the ICC's decision, settles the fact for all concerned that the contrived organization holds absolutely no legitimacy.

African Union rejects ICC arrest warrant for Ghaddafi

2011-07-03T22:11:00.000+01:00

African Union rejects ICC arrest warrant for Ghaddafi

The body representing African nations has called on its members to disregard the arrest warrant issued for Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, in a move that will seriously weaken the International Criminal Court's ability to bring him to justice.

The decision passed by the 53-member African Union late on Friday states that the warrant against Gaddafi "seriously complicates" efforts by the organisation to find a solution to the Libyan crisis.

AU executive Jean Ping also told reporters the ICC is "discriminatory" and only goes after crimes committed in Africa, while ignoring those he says were committed by Western powers in places like Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"With this in mind, we recommend that the member states do not cooperate with the execution of this arrest warrant," said the motion, which was shown to The Associated Press and whose passage was confirmed on yesterday by Daniel Adugna, a spokesman in the AU commissioner's office.

If countries in Africa abide by the recommendation, it opens the possibility that Gaddafi could avoid prosecution by seeking refuge on the soil of his neighbours.

A total of 31 states in Africa are signatories to the International Criminal Court, representing nearly a third of the nations where the mandate applies. However, there has been increasing malaise in Africa over the ICC, which has been denounced by the continent's entrenched rulers as an instrument of neocolonialism.

Diplomats present during this week's AU summit in Malabo said that although they support the court, they agree with the AU's claim that the warrant complicates effort to end the crisis in Libya.

"If he knows he has nowhere to go, he will fight till the end. He would rather die than be tried," according to a Western diplomat who requested anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media.

Gaddafi's chief of staff applauded the AU's decision, holding a copy of it in his hand on Friday evening as the heads of state emerged for their declaration to the assembly following a day of closed-door deliberations on Libya.

They announced they were inviting the warring sides to talks which will begin soon in Addis Ababa and which aim to put in place a transitional government that will govern the country until new elections can be held.

Of Bill Gates, Kofi Annan, Contraceptive Corn, Vaccines et al

2011-06-02T23:15:00.000+01:00

Of Bill Gates, Kofi Annan, Contraceptive Corn, Vaccines et al

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, along with David Rockefeller’s Rockefeller Foundation, the creators of the GMO biotechnology, are also financing a project called The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) headed by former UN chief, Kofi Annan. Accepting the role as AGRA head in June 2007, Annan expressed his “gratitude to the Rockefeller Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and all others who support our African campaign.” The AGRA board is dominated by people from both the Gates’ and Rockefeller foundations.

Monsanto, DuPont, Dow, Syngenta and other major GMO agribusiness giants are reported at the heart of AGRA, using it as a back-door to spread their patented GMO seeds across Africa under the deceptive label, ‘bio-technology,’ a euphemism for genetically engineered patented seeds. The person from the Gates Foundation responsible for its work with AGRA is Dr. Robert Horsch, a 25-year Monsanto GMO veteran who was on the team that developed Monsanto’s RoundUp Ready GMO technologies. His job is reportedly to use Gates’ money to introduce GMO into Africa.

To date South Africa is the only African country permitting legal planting of GMO crops. In 2003, Burkina Faso authorized GMO trials. In 2005, Kofi Annan’s Ghana drafted bio-safety legislation and key officials expressed their intentions to pursue research into GMO crops. AGRA is being used to create networks of “agro-dealers” across Africa, at first with no mention of GMO seeds or herbicides, in order to have the infrastructure in place to massively introduce GMO.

GMO, Glyphosate and Population Reduction

GMO crops have never been proven safe for human or animal consumption. Moreover, they are inherently genetically ‘unstable’ as they are an unnatural product of introducing a foreign bacteria such as Bacillus Thuringiensis (Bt) or other material into the DNA of a given seed to change its traits. Perhaps, equally dangerous are the ‘paired’ chemical herbicides sold as a mandatory part of a GMO contract, such as Monsanto’s Roundup, the most widely used of such herbicide in the world. It contains highly toxic glyphosate compounds that have been independently tested and proven to exist in toxic concentrations in GMO applications far above that safe for humans or animals. Tests show that tiny amounts of glyphosate compounds would do damage to a human umbilical, embryonic and placental cells in a pregnant woman drinking the ground water near a GMO field.

One long-standing project of the US Government has been to perfect a genetically-modified variety of corn, the diet staple in Mexico and many other Latin American countries. The corn has been field tested in tests financed by the US Department of Agriculture along with a small California bio-tech company named Epicyte. Announcing his success at a 2001 press conference, the president of Epicyte, Mitch Hein, pointing to his GMO corn plants, announced, “We have a hothouse filled with corn plants that make anti-sperm antibodies.”

Hein explained that they had taken antibodies from women with a rare condition known as immune infertility, isolated the genes that regulated the manufacture of those infertility antibodies, and, using genetic engineering techniques, had inserted the genes into ordinary corn seeds used to produce corn plants. By this manner, in reality they produced a concealed contraceptive embedded in corn meant for human consumption. “Essentially, the antibodies are attracted to surface receptors on the sperm,” said Hein. “They latch on and make each sperm so heavy it cannot move forward. It just shakes about as if it was doing the lambada.” Hein claimed it was a possible solution to world “over-population.” The moral and ethical issues of feeding it to humans in Third World poor countries, without their knowing it, was left out of his remarks.

Spermicides hidden in GMO corn provided to starving Third World populations through the generosity of the Gates’ foundation, Rockefeller Foundation and Kofi Annan’s AGRA or vaccines that contain undisclosed sterilization agents are just two documented cases of using vaccines or GMO seeds to “reduce population."

****

The questions raised by "[s]permicides hidden in GMO corn provided to starving Third World populations through the generosity of the Gates’ foundation, Rockefeller Foundation and Kofi Annan’s AGRA" are many and profound.

1. Isn't GM technology directed beyond third world countries but at all countries in the world, and first and most heavily in the US?

2. Is there a relationship, since the introduction of GM-crops in the US, of how steeply birthrates in the US have fallen?

U.S. birthrates overall are at an all time low. Continuing a 12-year decline, the U.S. birth rate has dropped to the lowest level since national data have been available ...  Bt-corn was introduced in the US in 1996, three years before the dramatic decline began. "Some seven million acres were planted with Bt corn in 1997, with hybrids primarily from Mycogen, Novartis (formerly Ciba), and Northrup King. Mycogen and Novartis both produce pharmaceutical contraceptives.

5. How would researchers begin to answer questions under numbers 3 and 4? when in the US and in many countries, despite consumer demand for labeling, the corporations involved have exerted tremendous pressure to keep GMOs unlabeled and are pushing through Codex to have all GMOs, internationally, unlabeled?

Doesn't keeping GMOs unlabeled undermine in any country in which this is the case, scientists' capacity to trace them epidemiologically and to investigate their impact biologically?

Teen birthrates in the US are inexplicably plummeting. Corporate media, offering no evidence, suggests this is due to the economy, but does not offer a comparison to previous serious economic downturns generating any previous teen birthrates decline. Is there any data showing that teens forgo sex or become more careful about contraception out of concern about jobs? Are unemployed teens, stressed and with time on their hands, more careful, or the opposite?

3. If GMOs are highly associated with infertility and spontaneous abortions in animals, is a similar rate of infertility (20%) occurring in people and are there increases in spontaneous abortion? Would GMOs not affect humans who eat not only the crops but the animals who are already so seriously affected by the crops?

4. Where did the Epicyte/USDA corn go? To what countries? To the US as well? To US consumers?

Isn't keeping GMOs unlabeled a virtual form of mandating them, since that lack of information leaves a population prey to them? Does a population have a right to sue the government based on such forced exposure? Is there any connection between a current raw milk lawsuit in which the FDA claims the public has no right to choose its food or any right to its health, and the government/corporations creating an additional means of trapping the public into consuming GMOs?

6. With what other products do manufacturers claim a range of astounding superior qualities (huge yields, ability to compensate for global warming, ....) while marketing them rapidly and aggressively, and yet want them kept unlabeled?

The FDA approved GMOs and kept them unlabeled while Monsanto lawyer Michael Taylor was there, bypassing the requirement for safety tests on human beings. Keeping GMOs unlabeled has meant that the only arena for study has been crop yield data (studies are showing that the biotech claims are exaggerated) and animal studies, but non-labeling has ensured there is little information on human impact. The FDA did not follow the law in providing pre-marketing tests for human safety in consuming GMOs, and by keeping them unlabeled, has ensured that post market safety testing is nearly impossible.

Meanwhile, GE-corn, GE-soy, GE-cotton seed oil, GE-canola, are in most processed foods in the US. Consumers have little idea they are there, little means to distinguish them from other items, and they were never tested for safety for human consumption. Yet studies in animals repeatedly show severe organ damage and infertility/sterility.

7. If the USDA is funding the creation of a corn crop that sterilizes, is it not committing a crime by poisoning those who are on the receiving end? And according to the UN, is it not also committing genocide, a crime against humanity, in damaging the reproductive ability of any group?

But the UN appears to operate on two levels, one that sets international standards for moral/legal behavior and one that is complicit in immoral/illegal acts. The UN itself is involved in forced sterilization and is interested in accelerating fertility decline in the least developed countries. The UN is also impacted by "the generosity of the Gates’ foundation, Rockefeller Foundation and Kofi Annan’s AGRA."

The USDA was also involved in developing terminator seeds as were the Rockefellers who have a long history of eugenics and genocide and are the developers of genetic engineering. In developing corn that sterilizes, has the USDA, in fact, also now developed "terminator food"?

Food is defined as "any nourishing substance that is eaten, drunk, or otherwise taken into the body to sustain life, provide energy, promote growth, etc. and by Webster as "material consisting essentially of protein, carbohydrate, and fat used in the body of an organism to sustain growth, repair, and vital processes and to furnish energy."

But based on the incontrovertible harm done to animal organs as animals eat GMOs, do GMO-crops even meet the definition of "food" for animals since they do not sustain life, repair or vital processes, but the opposite?

And if one assumes that "sustaining life" encompasses reproduction, a basic human function that is the very basis of life itself, does the USDA's funding of GMOs to sterilize human beings indicate that GMOs for human beings do not meet the basic definition of "food"?

9. While the biotech companies have balked at labeling GMOs as a means of foisting them upon the world - untested and unknown - there appears a larger problem for them now. The corporations have gotten GMOs into the market and patented them, using the legalism of "substantial equivalence" to normal organisms, but at the more complex biologic level of food itself, don't GMOs transparently fail to meet the definition and/or the biologic function of actual food, since they do not sustain life? And does that make labeling of GMOs truly complex at that point?

10. If GMOs are not "food" by essential biologic criteria and are being designed by the US government and private corporations to damage or end the continuation of life, then would the GMO label more appropriately be considered weapon?

Strauss-Kahn's Alleged Sex Attack Victim Is African Woman From Guinea

2011-05-16T20:49:00.000+01:00

Strauss-Kahn's Alleged Sex Attack Victim Is African Woman From Guinea

"Until he stepped out of the shower naked in his swanky hotel suite on Saturday and reportedly tried to rape the Guinean immigrant, Mr. Strauss-Kahn was the Socialist Party's early favorite for next year’s French presidential race. That ambition is now in tatters, as is his international power base at the IMF."~Sahara Reporters

The alleged rape victim of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), has been identified as an African immigrant from Guinea, a country once colonized by the French.

New York Police said the woman, 32, had already identified the suspect from a lineup that included five other men.

The alleged sexual attack at the Times Square Sofitel, by a man with a formidable opportunity to be the next French president on the platform of the Socialist Party, is shifting focus to the sexual abuse of African women dating back to the colonial days.

But it also, ironically, underscores years of failed economic policies championed by the IMF on the African continent, the very reason that increasing numbers of Africans have become vulnerable second class citizens in Western capitals, often exploited as sex slaves, maids and nannies by powerful capitalist oligarchs.

Whereas most African families live on one dollar per day, Mr. Kahn was soaking in luxury at a lavish $3,000 per night hotel suite. That amount alone, without even one French cigar, croissant or a tot of cognac added to the bill, equals the daily sustenance of 3,000 African families in Guinea today.

This is at a time that the IMF is continuing to force African governments to cut programs for the poor through Structural Adjustment Programs and other controversial economic policies such as the devaluation of national currencies.

Meanwhile, Mr. Strauss-Khan is assembling an all-star defence team to be led by Benjamin Brafman, famously remembered as Michael Jackson's pre-eminent lawyer. He appeared in a New York court today, but his lawyers said he would plead not guilty to charges of a criminal sexual act...

Also, in Paris, a female writer is reportedly considering a formal complaint against Mr. Strauss-Khan for a similar assault upon her in 2002.

Until he stepped out of the shower naked in his swanky hotel suite on Saturday and reportedly tried to rape the Guinean immigrant, Mr. Strauss-Kahn was the Socialist Party's early favorite for next year’s French presidential race. That ambition is now in tatters, as is his international power base at the IMF.

A New York judge has denied the IMF chief bail, the judge ordered on Monday that Mr. Strauss-Kahn be held in a New York jail without bail until the next adjourned court date.

Radiation Experiment on Black people left holes in their heads

2011-05-16T19:26:00.000+01:00

Radiation Experiment on Black people left hole in their heads

In this unbelievable video, an elderly man tells a story about unknown radiation experiments that started when he was five-years old. As a result, he has a hole in his head to this day. In a Smith Leonard Production, the story is going to be told about what happened to these people and why most of us never knew anything about it.

Quotable Quotes

2011-05-15T22:54:00.000+01:00

Quotable Quotes

"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves."~William Pitt in the House of Commons, November 18, 1783

The many deaths of Osama bin Laden

2011-05-14T18:47:00.003+01:00

The many deaths of Osama bin Laden

"At about 1:20 a.m. local time a Pakistani helicopter was shot down by unknown people in the Sikandarabad area of Abbotabad. The Pakistani forces launched a search operation in the nearby area and encountered with a group of unknown armed people. A fire exchange followed between the two sides. When the fire exchange ended, the Pakistani forces arrested some Arab women and kids as well some other armed people who later confessed to the Pakistani forces they were with Osama Bin laden when the fire was exchanged and Bin Laden was killed in the firing."

The first fake photo, used by Reuters' and the British Press.

US Senator Scott Brown confirmed that this was the image he was shown as part of an official US government briefing to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"Brown, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, suggested he had viewed them as part of an official briefing, and he argued that they were too graphic to be released to the public and could inflame terrorists..."

Oops.

"Brown later acknowledged that he had fallen victim to a hoax, apparently the same doctored images that were making the rounds on the Internet..."

And here is how the fake was made!

The mouth and beard from a photo of the real Bin Laden in the mid 80s was photoshopped onto the head of another dead man.

"If at first you don't succeed, lie, lie again!" -- Motto of the White Hourse

Another photo that was leaked onto the net following the collapse of the first fake. The White House strategy appears to have been to "test" the fakes with leaks, then go with the first image that appeared to fool everyone. This one did not.

Ignoring the bullet hole this guy looks very healthy for ten years of dialysis. The nose is also too narrow. But the main reason to disregard this as another likely fake is simple. This image is tainted green to make it look like a night vision image, yet the soldier at right is looking off left, apparently able to see just fine without night vision goggles. And finally, there is something missing from this image that should be there (besides night vision goggles).

There is an illumination source to the upper right of the camera taking this image. You can see the resulting shadows on the jaw line and cheek of the soldier. More to the point, there is clearly a shadow from the soldier's face extending left from his face and falling on the floor and the side of "Osama's" face. Yet there is no trace of a similar shadow from the face of "Osama" above the beard near the right eye. And didn't the White House say "Osama" was shot above the LEFT eye?

Source image for the second fake is found; a clip from the movie "Blackhawk Down."

Flipped left to right

And merged with another fake bin Laden.

The people who want to send your children off to die in wars for Israel's enemies are nothing but persistent. After the above Blackhawk Down failed, they tried once more.

This is a simple morph, again exposed when the original source image was located by a WRH reader.

The real Osama Bin Laden ...

... died of natural causes in December 2001.

Translation of above news of Bin Laden's Death and Funeral.

"Islamabad - A prominent official in the Afghan Taliban movement announced yesterday the death of Osama bin Laden, the chief of Al-Qaeda organization, stating that bin Laden suffered serious complications in the lungs and died a natural and quiet death. The official, who asked to remain anonymous, stated to The Observer of Pakistan that he had himself attended the funeral of bin Laden and saw his face prior to burial in Tora Bora 10 days ago. He mentioned that 30 of Al-Qaeda fighters attended the burial as well as members of his family and some friends from the Taliban. In the farewell ceremony to his final rest guns were fired in the air. The official stated that it is difficult to pinpoint the burial location of bin Laden because according to the Wahhabi tradition no mark is left by the grave. He stressed that it is unlikely that the American forces would ever uncover any traces of bin Laden."

Even Fox News reported Bin Laden was dead in 2001 ... until it was decided that a live bin Laden was more useful to the war hawks than a dead one!

In 2007, shortly before her own assassination, Benazir Bhutto confirmed that Osama bin Laden was dead.

The above is from the last known video of the real Bin Laden, just weeks before his death. Note the indications on his skin of the effects from dialysis.

Every Bin Laden shown on TV since then has been a phony to justify wars, TSA, and the loss of your civil protections.

In one notorious case, the FBI simply took the face from a Spanish politician, photoshopped it, and claimed it was Bin Laden.

In another case, the CIA openly admitted making fake Bin Laden videos.

Finally, a photo used to support the claim that a 24 (or 29; the story kept changing) year old woman was Bin Laden's wife, the Daily Mail published the following photo.

Click for larger image

Take a close look at the fingers in the Daily Mail photo of the passport. This is another photoshop creation and a very clumsy one at that. The face seems to be an overlay as well and not part of the actual image of the passport.

Fool me once ...

Common sense will tell you that if you have real evidence of a real event, you do not need, nor would you risk, using a fake piece of evidence, because once the fake is exposed, doubt is cast on the real evidence. So, if the US Government is showing phony bin Laden photos to the Senate Armed Services Committee, it means all the evidence must be fake.

Osama Been Laid(in) Tora Bora awhile

2011-05-13T20:44:00.000+01:00

Osama Been Laid(in) Tora Bora awhile

When the news first broke that alleged Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden had been caught, killed and then thrown overboard at sea, the mainstream media were quick to call the procedure a traditional Muslim burial, or more subtly “a burial at sea in accordance with traditional muslim rites”. However the simplicity of this account has backfired and added to the suspicion that his burial was some kind of cover-up or complete psyop. The history of Bin Laden is hardly clear-cut as we’ll soon find out.

At a glance you may come to the conclusion that sea burials themselves are some kind of tradition in Islam. Indeed a look on Wikipedia for Islamic Funerals lists Burial at Sea as an option.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_funeral#Burial_at_Sea

But if we take a closer look at the detail, a burial at sea could be nothing further from tradition:

“This is, however, a tradition, specific to each culture, and not found in the Quran. However, even in cases of drowning, all effort must be made to perform a burial in the ground.”

In other words sea burials are a last resort for those who have died at sea, not something Muslims might choose in ordinary circumstances.

Islamic scholars and experts soon made the facts clear.

“Dumping the body into the sea is not part of any Islamic ritual,” said Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy and a physician of internal medicine. “Koranic scripture says God created him and he must return to the earth.”

The addition of this entry in to Wikipedia seems out of context and irrelevant to the main topic of Islamic funerals. The Christian Burial page features no section on sea burials [2], so why add it to the Islamic page?

If we check the edit history of the page in question, we find that the entry was only added after the news that Bin Laden had been executed. At the bottom of this screenshot you can see that it says May 3rd.

Click to Enlarge:

[Update: Somebody with some sense has now removed the sea burial section from the page]

One conclusion we could draw from this is that somebody at the time wanted it to seem like Burial at sea was an Islamic tradition in order to mask the fact that dumping Osama’s body (the evidence) in to the sea is extremely illogical. How is anybody ever going to properly verify his death without a body? With something as important as the death of the world’s most notorious terrorist it shouldn’t be left to the word of the US government alone. Not when there is far more evidence that he died years ago and that the establishment have continually lied about and manipulated the image of Bin Laden, and covered up the fact that he was a CIA ally for a number of years.

Osama Bin Dead For Ages

The Pakistan Observer reported that Bin Laden died of untreated lung complications and was buried in an unmarked grave in Tora Bora on December 15, 2001. This was picked up by the American media.

Also on December 26, the Egyptian newspaper AlWafd – Daily carried a short obituary by a prominent official of the Afghan Taliban, who was allegedly present at the funeral, stating Bin Laden had been buried on or about December 13. This was reported in British news.

You only have to look at one of his videotapes at the time to see that he was on his last legs. He appears pale and sick:

An expert reporting to CNN noted:

"You can look [at pictures from a December 2001 video] and notice that he has what some doctors refer to as sort of a frosting over of his features — his sort of grayness of beard, his paleness of skin, very gaunt sort of features. A lot of times people associate this with chronic illness. Doctors can certainly look at that and determine some clinical features.

But even more than that, it’s sometimes possible to differentiate the specific type of disease or illness that he may be suffering from. The sort of frosting of the appearance is something that people a lot of times associate with chronic kidney failure, renal failure, certainly someone who is requiring dialysis would have that."

According to Pakistani President Musharraf in the above CNN article, Bin Laden required two dialysis machines. He concluded: “I think now, frankly, he is dead.”

Osama Bin CGIed

The image of Bin Laden is a carefully crafted hoax. Before his most recent death, the west would use him as a propaganda tool to support their various agendas. They claimed he was wherever they wanted him to be.

It was only about a year ago that we were told he was living in Iran under the protection of President Ahmadinejad. As we reported at the time in the article (Bin Laden In Iran? Get Real), this was ridiculous because Bin Laden and the Iranian majority worship completely opposing versions of Islam. This was just another piece of propaganda to demonize Iran, along with their thoroughly debunked Nuclear Threat.

Since the months surrounding 9/11 every tape released alleging to be Bin Laden has been marred in controversy. Many were just audio tapes; easily faked, others appeared to be carefully edited video re-cuts.

After the 2007 tape was released it was quickly analyzed by experts. CNETnews reported:
In analyzing the video, Neal Krawetz of Hactor Factor, an expert on digital image forensics, said in his latest blogs that the video contained many visual and audio splices, and that all of the modifications were of very low quality.

As documented in the WideShut documentary 7/7 The Big Picture – the tape heralded as Bin Laden’s confession to orchestrating the 9/11 attacks was re-translated by German experts and found to be fake, in that the US claimed he said things that he clearly didn’t.

Professor Gernot Rotter, scholar of Islamic and Arabic Studies explains: “Regardless of the question if bin Laden personally was actively involved in the organization of the attacks or not: This tape is of such poor quality that many passages are unintelligible. And those that are intelligible have often been taken out of context, so that you can’t use that as evidence…The American translators who listened to the tape and transcribed it obviously added things that they wanted to hear in many places. Things that can’t be heard – never mind how often you listen to it.”

The available evidence suggests Bin Laden died shortly after the 9/11 attacks and ever since then fake videos and stories have been leaked to the media by elements of the international intelligence community to justify the western agenda in the Middle-East.
Osama Bin Played

It’s not entirely clear how much the real Bin Laden knew about the New World Order agenda. What we do know is that he was the CIA’s ally for a number of years. A likely scenario is that they simply used him as a tool and then threw him under the bus when they were done.

Bin Laden first came on to the scene in 1979 when Obama’s Columbia University mentor Zbigniew Brzezinski (then National Security Adviser under President Jimmy Carter) developed a strategy to defeat the Soviet war machine.

They would entice them in to a conflict in Afghanistan while backing the Muslim opposition.

As revealed by Brzezinski himself to Le Nouvel Observateur, Paris, 15-21 January 1998:

“According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention…We didn’t push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.”

Code named Operation Cyclone, the CIA funded, armed and helped train hundreds of thousands of militant Muslims (known then as freedom fighters or the Mujahideen) to fight the Soviets; it was here that Bin Laden began working with the CIA to nurture this Muslim army.

On whether he regretted creating this fundamentalist force, Brzezinski responded:

“What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?”

Three years later the Twin Towers were attacked and the US mounted an invasion in to Afghanistan, claiming it was those stirred-up Muslims who were to blame.

Bin Laden became enemy number 1 and any mention of America’s own involvement in creating what would later be labeled Al Qaeda was swept under the carpet.

The anomalies surrounding the 9/11 attacks and the evidence that suggests elements within the US government/intelligence community helped carry them out are far too numerous to investigate for this article, but what is worth mentioning is former FBI Translator turned Whistle-blower Sibel Edmonds, who testified that the US were still working with Bin Laden up until the day of 9/11 itself.

At the same time aid had been given to the Taliban up until at least 1996 with talks about a gas Pipe-Line in 1998.

It was soon revealed after 9/11 that an invasion of Afghanistan was pre-planned before the attacks.

This all suggests that Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda and the Taliban were built up on one hand, just to be taken down by the other. If Bin Laden did die in 2001 it made the whole operation easier because they could fabricate his bogeyman status and use it to further demonize other countries the west wished to invade and pillage.

They’ve wheeled out his death now for a number of reasons, it helps Obama get reelected, it distracts the average citizen from important issues like the economy and the illegal operations in Libya and it gives the pretext for further attacks on Pakistan, who will be blamed for harboring Bin Laden. The overall goal in all of this is full spectrum dominance of the Middle-East.

Conclusion

One mainstream headline claimed Bin Laden’s sea burial fuels conspiracy theories, but what’s really fueling these quote “conspiracy theories” is a decade of deception and outright lies. If we had a transparent trustworthy government that didn’t fund and train Muslim extremists, work with Bin Laden himself, fake videos and invade innocent countries, a burial at sea could possibly slide. But we don’t, so his burial at sea is highly suspicious for the reasons already outlined.

Perhaps what’s even more suspicious is that he was murdered to begin with. If you had the world’s leading terrorist in your clutches, somebody that was allegedly still signing off on attacks and would obviously have a treasure trove of information….would you kill him? Or would you maybe ask him a few questions first?

The first official story (of course like all of these dubious events it’s already changed a billion times), Bin Laden was resisting so he had to be neutralized. But as the Guardian is reporting:

The US has backed away from its initial account of the killing of Osama bin Laden, which claimed that the al-Qaida leader was carrying a weapon and fired at US troops before he was shot dead.

On Monday, John Brennan, a counter-terrorism adviser to Barack Obama, said Bin Laden was “engaged in a firefight” with his assailants and he did not know if he “got off any rounds”. Other US officials briefed that he was firing at members of the US navy’s elite Seal Team Six.

However, subsequent briefings by US officials suggest that, when confronted at the high-security complex in Abbottabad, Bin Laden did not have a weapon and did not fire at his assailants.

Nobody knows what’s going on for 100% fact, that’s just the nature of secretive government actions, but judging from the available evidence it’s much more likely that Bin Laden has been dead for years, thus they would have to report that he’d been shot and his burial at sea is a way to dispose of the evidence, or account for the lack of a body.

What we have is a complex web of lies with more lies being added on top. The majority of the public are running around like headless chickens, wrapped up in the superficial patriotism of it all; making it even harder to expose the truth. Off the back of this the Obama administration can justify numerous abhorrent actions, and we’re already being told to expect a retaliatory attack from Bin Laden’s so called loyal followers.

The future doesn’t look too bright, but the saga continues.

Who is Ghaddafi?

2011-05-02T01:40:00.001+01:00

Who is Ghaddafi?

It was Gaddafi’s Libya that offered all of Africa its first revolution in modern times – connecting the entire continent by telephone, television, radio broadcasting and several other technological applications such as telemedicine and distance teaching. And thanks to the WMAX radio bridge, a low cost connection was made available across the continent, including in rural areas.

It began in 1992, when 45 African nations established RASCOM (Regional African Satellite Communication Organization) so that Africa would have its own satellite and slash communication costs in the continent. This was a time when phone calls to and from Africa were the most expensive in the world because of the annual US$500 million fee pocketed by Europe for the use of its satellites like Intelsat for phone conversations, including those within the same country.

An African satellite only cost a onetime payment of US$400 million and the continent no longer had to pay a US$500 million annual lease. Which banker wouldn’t finance such a project? But the problem remained – how can slaves, seeking to free themselves from their master’s exploitation ask the master’s help to achieve that freedom? Not surprisingly, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the USA, Europe only made vague promises for 14 years. Gaddafi put an end to these futile pleas to the western ‘benefactors’ with their exorbitant interest rates. The Libyan guide put US$300 million on the table; the African Development Bank added US$50 million more and the West African Development Bank a further US$27 million – and that’s how Africa got its first communications satellite on 26 December 2007.

China and Russia followed suit and shared their technology and helped launch satellites for South Africa, Nigeria, Angola, Algeria and a second African satellite was launched in July 2010. The first totally indigenous-built satellite and manufactured on African soil, in Algeria, is set for 2020. This satellite is aimed at competing with the best in the world, but at ten times less the cost, a real challenge.

This is how a symbolic gesture of a mere US$300 million changed the life of an entire continent. Gaddafi’s Libya cost the West, not just depriving it of US$500 million per year but the billions of dollars in debt and interest that the initial loan would generate for years to come and in an exponential manner, thereby helping maintain an occult system in order to plunder the continent.

AFRICAN MONETARY FUND, AFRICAN CENTRAL BANK, AFRICAN INVESTMENT BANK

The US$30 billion frozen by Mr Obama belong to the Libyan Central Bank and had been earmarked as the Libyan contribution to three key projects which would add the finishing touches to the African federation – the African Investment Bank in Syrte, Libya, the establishment in 2011 of the African Monetary Fund to be based in Yaounde with a US$42 billion capital fund and the Abuja-based African Central Bank in Nigeria which when it starts printing African money will ring the death knell for the CFA franc through which Paris has been able to maintain its hold on some African countries for the last fifty years. It is easy to understand the French wrath against Gaddafi.

The African Monetary Fund is expected to totally supplant the African activities of the International Monetary Fund which, with only US$25 billion, was able to bring an entire continent to its knees and make it swallow questionable privatization like forcing African countries to move from public to private monopolies. No surprise then that on 16-17December 2010, the Africans unanimously rejected attempts by Western countries to join the African Monetary Fund, saying it was open only to African nations.

It is increasingly obvious that after Libya, the western coalition will go after Algeria, because apart from its huge energy resources, the country has cash reserves of around €150 billion. This is what lures the countries that are bombing Libya and they all have one thing in common – they are practically bankrupt. The USA alone, has a staggering debt of $US14,000 billion, France, Great Britain and Italy each have a US$2,000 billion public deficit compared to less than US$400 billion in public debt for 46 African countries combined.

Inciting spurious wars in Africa in the hope that this will revitalize their economies which are sinking ever more into the doldrums will ultimately hasten the western decline which actually began in 1884 during the notorious Berlin Conference. As the American economist Adam Smith predicted in 1865 when he publicly backed Abraham Lincoln for the abolition of slavery, ‘the economy of any country which relies on the slavery of blacks is destined to descend into hell the day those countries awaken’.

REGIONAL UNITY AS AN OBSTACLE TO THE CREATION OF A UNITED STATES OF AFRICA

To destabilise and destroy the African union which was veering dangerously (for the West) towards a United States of Africa under the guiding hand of Gaddafi, the European Union first tried, unsuccessfully, to create the Union for the Mediterranean (UPM). North Africa somehow had to be cut off from the rest of Africa, using the old tired racist clichés of the 18th and 19th centuries ,which claimed that Africans of Arab origin were more evolved and civilized than the rest of the continent. This failed because Gaddafi refused to buy into it. He soon understood what game was being played when only a handful of African countries were invited to join the Mediterranean grouping without informing the African Union but inviting all 27 members of the European Union.

Without the driving force behind the African Federation, the UPM failed even before it began, still-born with Sarkozy as president and Mubarak as vice president. The French foreign minister, Alain Juppe is now attempting to re-launch the idea, banking no doubt on the fall of Gaddafi. What African leaders fail to understand is that as long as the European Union continues to finance the African Union, the status quo will remain, because no real independence. This is why the European Union has encouraged and financed regional groupings in Africa.

It is obvious that the West African Economic Community (ECOWAS), which has an embassy in Brussels and depends for the bulk of its funding on the European Union, is a vociferous opponent to the African federation. That’s why Lincoln fought in the US war of secession because the moment a group of countries come together in a regional political organisation, it weakens the main group. That is what Europe wanted and the Africans have never understood the game plan, creating a plethora of regional groupings, COMESA, UDEAC, SADC, and the Great Maghreb which never saw the light of day thanks to Gaddafi who understood what was happening.

GADDAFI, THE AFRICAN WHO CLEANSED THE CONTINENT FROM THE HUMILIATION OF APARTHEID

For most Africans, Gaddafi is a generous man, a humanist, known for his unselfish support for the struggle against the racist regime in South Africa. If he had been an egotist, he wouldn’t have risked the wrath of the West to help the ANC both militarily and financially in the fight against apartheid. This was why Mandela, soon after his release from 27 years in jail, decided to break the UN embargo and travel to Libya on 23 October 1997. For five long years, no plane could touch down in Libya because of the embargo. One needed to take a plane to the Tunisian city of Jerba and continue by road for five hours to reach Ben Gardane, cross the border and continue on a desert road for three hours before reaching Tripoli. The other solution was to go through Malta, and take a night ferry on ill-maintained boats to the Libyan coast. A hellish journey for a whole people, simply to punish one man.

Ghaddafi and assasinated adopted daughter

Mandela didn’t mince his words when the former US president Bill Clinton said the visit was an ‘unwelcome’ one – ‘No country can claim to be the policeman of the world and no state can dictate to another what it should do’. He added – ‘Those that yesterday were friends of our enemies have the gall today to tell me not to visit my brother Gaddafi, they are advising us to be ungrateful and forget our friends of the past.’

Indeed, the West still considered the South African racists to be their brothers who needed to be protected. That’s why the members of the ANC, including Nelson Mandela, were considered to be dangerous terrorists. It was only on 2 July 2008, that the US Congress finally voted a law to remove the name of Nelson Mandela and his ANC comrades from their black list, not because they realized how stupid that list was but because they wanted to mark Mandela’s 90th birthday. If the West was truly sorry for its past support for Mandela’s enemies and really sincere when they name streets and places after him, how can they continue to wage war against someone who helped Mandela and his people to be victorious, Gaddafi?

ARE THOSE WHO WANT TO EXPORT DEMOCRACY THEMSELVES DEMOCRATS?

And what if Gaddafi’s Libya were more democratic than the USA, France, Britain and other countries waging war to export democracy to Libya? On 19 March 2003, President George Bush began bombing Iraq under the pretext of bringing democracy. On 19 March 2011, exactly eight years later to the day, it was the French president’s turn to rain down bombs over Libya, once again claiming it was to bring democracy. Nobel peace prize-winner and US President Obama says unleashing cruise missiles from submarines is to oust the dictator and introduce democracy.

The question that anyone with even minimum intelligence cannot help asking is the following: Are countries like France, England, the USA, Italy, Norway, Denmark, Poland who defend their right to bomb Libya on the strength of their self proclaimed democratic status really democratic? If yes, are they more democratic than Gaddafi’s Libya? The answer in fact is a resounding NO, for the plain and simple reason that democracy doesn’t exist. This isn’t a personal opinion, but a quote from someone whose native town Geneva, hosts the bulk of UN institutions. The quote is from Jean Jacques Rousseau, born in Geneva in 1712 and who writes in chapter four of the third book of the famous ‘Social Contract’ that ‘there never was a true democracy and there never will be.’

Rousseau sets out the following four conditions for a country to be labelled a democracy and according to these Gaddafi’s Libya is far more democratic than the USA, France and the others claiming to export democracy:

1. The State: The bigger a country, the less democratic it can be. According to Rousseau, the state has to be extremely small so that people can come together and know each other. Before asking people to vote, one must ensure that everybody knows everyone else, otherwise voting will be an act without any democratic basis, a simulacrum of democracy to elect a dictator.

The Libyan state is based on a system of tribal allegiances, which by definition group people together in small entities. The democratic spirit is much more present in a tribe, a village than in a big country, simply because people know each other, share a common life rhythm which involves a kind of self-regulation or even self-censorship in that the reactions and counter reactions of other members impacts on the group.

From this perspective, it would appear that Libya fits Rousseau’s conditions better than the USA, France and Great Britain, all highly urbanized societies where most neighbours don’t even say hello to each other and therefore don’t know each other even if they have lived side by side for twenty years. These countries leapfrogged leaped into the next stage – ‘the vote’ – which has been cleverly sanctified to obfuscate the fact that voting on the future of the country is useless if the voter doesn’t know the other citizens. This has been pushed to ridiculous limits with voting rights being given to people living abroad. Communicating with and amongst each other is a precondition for any democratic debate before an election.

2. Simplicity in customs and behavioral patterns are also essential if one is to avoid spending the bulk of the time debating legal and judicial procedures in order to deal with the multitude of conflicts of interest inevitable in a large and complex society. Western countries define themselves as civilized nations with a more complex social structure whereas Libya is described as a primitive country with a simple set of customs. This aspect too indicates that Libya responds better to Rousseau’s democratic criteria than all those trying to give lessons in democracy. Conflicts in complex societies are most often won by those with more power, which is why the rich manage to avoid prison because they can afford to hire top lawyers and instead arrange for state repression to be directed against someone one who stole a banana in a supermarket rather than a financial criminal who ruined a bank. In the city of New York for example where 75 per cent of the population is white, 80 per cent of management posts are occupied by whites who make up only 20 per cent of incarcerated people.

3. Equality in status and wealth: A look at the Forbes 2010 list shows who the richest people in each of the countries currently bombing Libya are and the difference between them and those who earn the lowest salaries in those nations; a similar exercise on Libya will reveal that in terms of wealth distribution, Libya has much more to teach than those fighting it now, and not the contrary. So here too, using Rousseau’s criteria, Libya is more democratic than the nations pompously pretending to bring democracy. In the USA, 5 per cent of the population owns 60 per cent of the national wealth, making it the most unequal and unbalanced society in the world.

4. No luxuries: according to Rousseau there can’t be any luxury if there is to be democracy. Luxury, he says, makes wealth a necessity which then becomes a virtue in itself, it, and not the welfare of the people becomes the goal to be reached at all cost, ‘Luxury corrupts both the rich and the poor, the one through possession and the other through envy; it makes the nation soft and prey to vanity; it distances people from the State and enslaves them, making them a slave to opinion.’

Is there more luxury in France than in Libya? The reports on employees committing suicide because of stressful working conditions even in public or semi-public companies, all in the name of maximizing profit for a minority and keeping them in luxury, happen in the West, not in Libya.

The American sociologist C. Wright Mills wrote in 1956 that American democracy was a ‘dictatorship of the elite’. According to Mills, the USA is not a democracy because it is money that talks during elections and not the people. The results of each election are the expression of the voice of money and not the voice of the people. After Bush senior and Bush junior, they are already talking about a younger Bush for the 2012 Republican primaries. Moreover, as Max Weber pointed out, since political power is dependent on the bureaucracy, the US has 43 million bureaucrats and military personnel who effectively rule the country but without being elected and are not accountable to the people for their actions. One person (a rich one) is elected, but the real power lies with the caste of the wealthy who then get nominated to be ambassadors, generals, etc.

How many people in these self-proclaimed democracies know that Peru’s constitution prohibits an outgoing president from seeking a second consecutive mandate? How many know that in Guatemala, not only can an outgoing president not seek re-election to the same post, no one from that person’s family can aspire to the top job either? Or that Rwanda is the only country in the world that has 56 per cent female parliamentarians? How many people know that in the 2007 CIA index, four of the world’s best-governed countries are African? That the top prize goes to Equatorial Guinea whose public debt represents only 1.14 per cent of GDP?

Rousseau maintains that civil wars, revolts and rebellions are the ingredients of the beginning of democracy. Because democracy is not an end, but a permanent process of the reaffirmation of the natural rights of human beings which in countries all over the world (without exception) are trampled upon by a handful of men and women who have hijacked the power of the people to perpetuate their supremacy. There are here and there groups of people who have usurped the term ‘democracy’ – instead of it being an ideal towards which one strives it has become a label to be appropriated or a slogan which is used by people who can shout louder than others. If a country is calm, like France or the USA, that is to say without any rebellions, it only means, from Rousseau’s perspective, that the dictatorial system is sufficiently repressive to pre-empt any revolt.

It wouldn’t be a bad thing if the Libyans revolted. What is bad is to affirm that people stoically accept a system that represses them all over the world without reacting. And Rousseau concludes: ‘Malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium – translation – If gods were people, they would govern themselves democratically. Such a perfect government is not applicable to human beings.’ To claim that one is killing Libyans for their own good is a hoax.

WHAT LESSONS FOR AFRICA?

After 500 years of a profoundly unequal relationship with the West, it is clear that we don’t have the same criteria of what is good and bad. We have deeply divergent interests. How can one not deplore the ‘yes’ votes from three sub-Saharan countries (Nigeria, South Africa and Gabon) for resolution 1973 that inaugurated the latest form of colonization, baptized ‘the protection of peoples’, which legitimizes the racist theories that have informed Europeans since the 18th century and according to which North Africa has nothing to do with sub-Saharan Africa, that North Africa is more evolved, cultivated and civilized than the rest of Africa?

It is as if Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Algeria were not part of Africa, Even the United Nations seems to ignore the role of the African Union in the affairs of member states. The aim is to isolate sub Saharan African countries to better isolate and control them. Indeed, Algeria (US$16 billion) and Libya (US$10 billion ) together contribute 62 per cent of the US$42 billion which constitute the capital of the African Monetary Fund (AMF). The biggest and most populous country in sub Saharan Africa, Nigeria, followed by South Africa are far behind with only 3 billion dollars each.

It is disconcerting to say the least that for the first time in the history of the United Nations, war has been declared against a people without having explored the slightest possibility of a peaceful solution to the crisis. Does Africa really belong anymore to this organisation? Nigeria and South Africa are prepared to vote ‘Yes’ to everything the West asks because they naively believe the vague promises of a permanent seat at the Security Council with similar veto rights. They both forget that France has no power to offer anything. If it did, Mitterand would have long done the needful for Helmut Kohl’s Germany.

A reform of the United Nations is not on the agenda. The only way to make a point is to use the Chinese method – all 50 African nations should quit the United Nations and only return if their longstanding demand is finally met, a seat for the entire African federation or nothing. This non-violent method is the only weapon of justice available to the poor and weak that we are. We should simply quit the United Nations because this organisation, by its very structure and hierarchy, is at the service of the most powerful.

We should leave the United Nations to register our rejection of a worldview based on the annihilation of those who are weaker. They are free to continue as before but at least we will not be party to it and say we agree when we were never asked for our opinion. And even when we expressed our point of view, like we did on Saturday 19 March in Nouakchott, when we opposed the military action, our opinion was simply ignored and the bombs started falling on the African people.

Today’s events are reminiscent of what happened with China in the past. Today, one recognizes the Ouattara government, the rebel government in Libya, like one did at the end of the Second World War with China. The so-called international community chose Taiwan to be the sole representative of the Chinese people instead of Mao’s China. It took 26 years when on 25 October 1971, for the UN to pass resolution 2758 which all Africans should read to put an end to human folly. China was admitted and on its terms – it refused to be a member if it didn’t have a veto right. When the demand was met and the resolution tabled, it still took a year for the Chinese foreign minister to respond in writing to the UN Secretary General on 29 September 1972, a letter which didn’t say yes or thank you but spelt out guarantees required for China’s dignity to be respected.

What does Africa hope to achieve from the United Nations without playing hard ball? We saw how in Cote d’Ivoire a UN bureaucrat considers himself to be above the constitution of the country. We entered this organisation by agreeing to be slaves and to believe that we will be invited to dine at the same table and eat from plates we ourselves washed is not just credulous, it is stupid.

When the African Union endorsed Ouattara’s victory and glossed over contrary reports from its own electoral observers simply to please our former masters, how can we expect to be respected? When South African president Zuma declares that Ouattara hasn’t won the elections and then says the exact opposite during a trip to Paris, one is entitled to question the credibility of these leaders who claim to represent and speak on behalf of a billion Africans.

Africa’s strength and real freedom will only come if it can take properly thought out actions and assume the consequences. Dignity and respect come with a price tag. Are we prepared to pay it? Otherwise, our place is in the kitchen and in the toilets in order to make others comfortable.

What people said 56 years ago... astounding!

2011-04-18T19:37:00.000+01:00

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What people said 56 years ago... astounding!

"I’ll tell you one thing, if things
keep going the way they are,
it’s going to be impossible to
buy a week’s groceries for $10.00."

"Have you seen the new cars
coming out next year? It won’t
be long before $1, 000.00 will
only buy a used one."

"If cigarettes keep going up in
price, I’m going to quit; 20 cents
a pack is ridiculous."

"Did you hear the post office is
thinking about charging 7 cents
just to mail a letter."

"If they raise the minimum wage
to $1.00, nobody will be able to
hire outside help at the store."

"When I first started driving, who
would have thought gas would
someday cost 25 cents a gallon.
Guess we’d be better off leaving
the car in the garage."

"I’m afraid to send my kids to the
movies any more. Ever since they
let Clark Gable get by with saying
DAMN in ‘GONE WITH THE WIND’,
it seems every new movie has
either HELL or DAMN in it."

"I read the other day where some
scientist thinks it’s possible to put
a man on the moon by the end of
the century. They even have some
fellows they call astronauts
preparing for it down in Texas .."

"Did you see where some baseball
player just signed a contract for
$50,000 a year just to play ball?
It wouldn’t surprise me if someday
they’ll be making more than the
President."

"I never thought I’d see the day
all our kitchen appliances would
be electric. They are even making
electric typewriters now."

"It’s too bad things are so tough
nowadays. I see where a few
married women are having to
work to make ends meet."

"It won’t be long before young
couples are going to have to hire
someone to watch their kids so
they can both work."

"I’m afraid the Volkswagen car
is going to open the door to a
whole lot of foreign business."

"Thank goodness I won’t live to
see the day when the Government
takes half our income in taxes. I
sometimes wonder if we are
electing the best people to
government."

"The drive-in restaurant is
convenient in nice weather,
but I seriously doubt they
will ever catch on."

"There is no sense going on short
trips anymore for a weekend. It
costs nearly $2.00 a night to stay
in a hotel."

"No one can afford to be sick
anymore. At $15.00 a day in
the hospital, it’s too rich for
my blood."

"If they think I’ll pay 30 cents
for a hair cut, forget it."

If only they could see our world now!

The face of a captured tyrant or the agony of a tortured nationalist; Laurent Gbagbo?

2011-04-11T18:48:00.002+01:00

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The face of a captured tyrant or the agony of a tortured nationalist; Laurent Gbagbo.

UN Security Council urges Côte d'Ivoire to form all-inclusive government ... United Nations Security Council on Wednesday urged President of Côte d'Ivoire Alassane Ouattara to form an all-inclusive, broad-based Government to restore peace to the nation. Ambassador Néstor Osorio of Colombia, which holds the Council's rotating monthly presidency, called on all Ivoirians to abstain from any reprisals, revenge or provocation and to exercise maximum restraint. Following the surrender of former President Laurent Gbagbo, Ambassador Osorio urged the North African nation to unite in order to "promote national reconciliation and restore sustainable peace through dialogue and consultation." – News Wires

Dominant Social Theme: The removal of Laurent Gbagbo from the tiny Ivory Coast is a big victory for freedom everywhere.

Free-Market Analysis: In the modern age, with the power elite pressing hard for world government, it is sometimes difficult to note turning points, but the more we see of the tiny Ivory Coast affair the more we tend to believe this is another watershed moment. It is truly a big deal. Though we have covered this unfolding story with regular articles now, we believe it deserves additional coverage.

What is the underlying message? That the UN is evidently and obviously not just in charge of elections but of results as well. This presumably was necessary as Africa is about to be convulsed by no less than 30 top-level elections and the Western powers-that-be want to make sure that appropriate controls are in place so no unpleasant surprises (unexpected and anti-Western results) take place. No longer will the top powers refuse to act when one believes another is engaged in "abuses." Instead interference is the order of the day. We see in the results in the emergent agony of the Ivory Coast.

What has been engineered, in fact at the very least, is not merely a local coup but a pan-African one. The murderous results of the contented Ivory Coast election are a banner, a bloody flag that Western powers have planted in the tortured soil of sub-Saharan Africa. The UN and France have sent a message to all of Africa that the UN itself will not merely supervise elections but determine the winners. And if the winners are not amenable to Western interests, they will be thrown out, overthrown, forced to the sidelines. If they resist as Laurent Gbagbo did, they may be hauled into The Hague.

This is not idle speculation. The Western media ignores it, but a continental coup has just taken place. It is the direct result apparently of an "R2P" UN resolution that has changed the way the world's governments relate to one another. In 2005, while the West's confused populations concentrated mostly on buying and selling overpriced real estate, something of the utmost import took place: the UN's great powers engineered the overthrow of The Pact of Westphalia, a 400-year-old pact that had been the foundation of whatever peace was to had in this miserable world.

It is truly remarkable. People know the ins and outs of the scandalous behavior of their favorite movie stars and singers and the endless security measures implemented against imaginary terrorists, but they still do not know that one of several building blocks of Western civilizations has just been deliberately blasted away. While the Peace of Westphalia was never entirely effective – observed more in the breach than in fact – the results initially ended wars that had simmered in Europe for decades and presented the principal that the nation state itself was impregnable within its own boundaries. Not anymore.

Now we live with the results, a "new world order." In both the Ivory Coast and Libya, France has attacked with force using 2005's R2P as the rationale. If citizens are seen to be under threat by their governments, then those who run the UN (the Anglo-American elite and its Gallic ambit, to sure) have an affirmative obligation to respond in force. R2P is not merely a statement of modern civility and governmental responsibility – which is what it has been dressed up as – but a significant justification for violent, renewed neo-colonialism. It is truly another watershed moment for the world.

France under Nikolas Sarkozy has used R2P to great effect (if great effect is taken to mean the initiation of great violence). In Libya a war will simmer on infinitely as a result. In the Ivory Coast the results have been immediately horrific; millions are displaced and an elected government has been overthrown in what can only be described as a Western coup (not that the mainstream media would ever explain it that way).

Alassane Ouattara, a former International Monetary Fund official will do what the nationalist Gbagbo will not; He will bring the Ivory Coast into the technocratic embrace of the larger military and economic superstructure that is being erected for Africa – which is destined to be the next China, a continent whose underpaid workers will busy themselves constructing trinkets that will be sold to the West. (Money shall flow to Africa and then back to America, as cowed African leaders purchase the Treasuries that in turn fund continued US's military adventurism abroad.)

Yet sometimes it is not that neat. Now the UN panics and France's military slips away from the crime scene. Sarkozy has hastily announced France is cutting its military presence in the Ivory Coast by half, to 900 or so troops and airlifting out (or otherwise removing) heavy military equipment such as tanks, big guns, etc. The UN, meanwhile has moved beyond calling for the removal of the "tyrant" Laurent Gbagbo (he was likely no such thing in the strict meaning of the word) to openly advocating the astonishing position of a government of joint-political interests. This was what Gbagbo himself had advocated for the last four months without success. Irony is piled atop of bloodletting.

No doubt the sudden change of heart stems from (Muslim) revenge killings sweeping the Ivory Coast that include reports of cold-blooded street side executions, machete-wielding exterminations, rape, torture and general mayhem in pro-Gbagbo Christian strongholds. Could it be said that the Anglo-American elites in their hypocritical insistence that they must act in such instances to prevent "another Rwanda" have now given rise to one – writ small but occurring nonetheless? Here's something from a Christian Network that is borne out by other reports from the area:

An Associated Press reporter witnessed Ouattara's troops beating a man for not giving them the right answers. The man turned up dead a few minutes later. Another reporter also saw pro-Ouattara soldiers pull five men from a minibus and drag them into some thick brush at a road block. A woman at the cathedral who was too scared to give her name said her neighbor, the headmaster of the Catholic primary school, was killed Monday night at his home because he belonged the wrong tribe.

"We have a very toxic and explosive mix here of political, ethnic, religious, and land rivalry," the priest said. "The recent tumultuous events have brought long-simmering conflicts to a head. Who knows where this will end." No one knows how many people have been killed. A week ago when the United Nations was reporting more than 400 deaths throughout the country, the International Federation of the Red Cross Society said thousands had been killed and wounded. The U.N. is launching an investigation. (-CBN)

Gbagbo, who fought for a decade to remove the Ivory Coast from France's grasp was supposed to go quietly. But "the baker" – who rolls people in flour and then pops them in the oven before they know it – would not concede to the evident high-handedness of UN "electoral supervision." He objected to being displaced and eventually was driven out of office by the combined might of UN and French forces.

Gbagbo had demanded a joint government along the lines of what had emerged in Kenya after the electoral violence in that country in 2008. In Kenya, the two main tribes that spilled blood as a result of close elections agreed to share power and the electoral crisis was finally resolved. Today of course The Hague has interfered and threatens to undermine the fragile truce by putting various Kenyans on trial for "crimes against humanity."

But in the Ivory Coast, Gbagbo wanted to use the Kenyan resolution as an example. He wanted to remain as president and Ouattara could presumably serve as the country's Prime Minister. The facts are seemingly not in dispute and the reality of what has occurred in the Ivory Coast is being reported mostly by African publications, though only in a somewhat patchy presentation. Here is an excerpt from something we found yesterday in Ghana's Joy Online News entitled: "Gbagbo's 'girl' screams: Release Gbagbo, he's still the president:"

A proponent of the discredited Ivorian leader Laurent Gbagbo, claims peace could return to Ivory Coast only if the international community prevails on his captors to free him. Nathalie Nyamba, a top business executive from Ivory Coast, maintained that Mr Gbagbo's life was under threat due to the maltreatment being meted out to him after his capture, insisting that "Mr Gbagbo is still the President of Ivory Coast."

"The way forward for me would be, first of all, Mr Gbagbo must be freed; Mr Gbagbo is in danger, he was mutilated, he was beaten up, his wife was beaten up, it was shown on TV, this is the president of Cote d'Ivoire and he must be freed. "Then the French army must leave Cote d'Ivoire and then we shall sit down and have a dialogue ... It is not a civil war, it is an electoral crisis, so lets deal with it," she argued on Joy FM's Super Morning Show on Wednesday. Ms Nyamba described the circumstances under which Gbagbo was seized as a coup, contesting that the only way a president could be disposed would be through a constitutional means, insisting that it is the reason why his captors did not say he has been arrested.

The Joy article also sources a BBC report from Amnesty International that armed men in uniforms "were conducting house-to-house searches in Abidjan looking for Laurent Gbagbo's supporters." And Ms. Nyamba finally penetrates to the heart of the UN's electoral fraud when she "wondered why nobody raised an alarm when the [Ivory Coast] Constitutional Council announced a runoff after the general election failed to produce a winner, but, when this same body overturned the Electoral Commission's decision and declared Mr Gbagbo the winner of the runoff, the international community started crying foul."

According to Ms Nyamba, Gbagbo's determination to maintain power was "absolutely" right. Ouattara cannot hold himself out as the president because the Constitutional Council body has already declared Gbagbo as the president. The country's Electoral Commission that said Mr Ouattara won November's election – she pointed out – lacked credibility because it was fully packed with "90% supporters and men of Mr Ouattarra."

The results, illegitimate or not, surely haven't been pleasant for Gbagbo and his family. Gbagbo's wife was the subject just yesterday of a New Yorker article, which commented on the strangeness of a photograph that had been released of her. In the photo, no less than six armed, uniformed men surround her. Her eyes are wide. Some of the soldiers hold her hair and braids, tipping her head back. Her clothes are well ripped and do not entirely cover her nakedness. The New Yorker commentary uses its trademark sophisticated language to imply – sorrowfully but resignedly – that she has possibly just been raped. Presumably if she were a more popular person there would be more of an outcry. Her husband, meanwhile, is nowhere to be seen, but there are dark rumors about his health and safety.

An article posted by BNO news entitled "UN Security Council urges Côte d'Ivoire to form all-inclusive Government seems to recognize what is actually taking place. The illegitimacy of Gbagbo's overthrow remains, and the current UN position likely recognizes that fact. While barricaded in his presidential bunker, he remained cognizant of the law and as a history professor would not be pressured into signing a French-composed letter acknowledging that Ouattara was the legitimate president of the Ivory Coast. This was perhaps the incident that precipitated his removal by force. Here's more from the weird article featuring the UN's sudden reversal excerpted at the top of this analysis :

Critical challenges in Côte d'Ivoire following the surrender of recalcitrant former President Laurent Gbagbo, include restoration of order, prevention of further human rights abuses, national reconciliation and rebuilding and completion of the peace process," said Y. J. Choi, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General. Choi also remarked that despite all the challenges Ivoirians organized impressive elections, resolved the post-election crisis largely by themselves, and allowed the will of the people to prevail. The Special Representative called for national reconciliation and reconstruction as the ways for restoring peace and stability.

Choi, who is also the head of the UN Operation in Côte d'Ivoire (ONUCI), assured the support of the international community for this transition. "Reconciliation will not be accomplished without meaningful accountability, which has been lacking in Côte d'Ivoire over the past decade," said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay. "To achieve peace and reconciliation, the cycle of impunity must be stopped, perpetrators must be brought to justice, and victims must be rehabilitated in their rights and dignity." UN aid officials have estimated that up to 1 million Ivorians have been displaced by the violence, with some internally displaced and others forced to flee into neighboring countries, particularly Liberia which is hosting 135,000 Ivorians.

It is the UN itself, with France's help, that has spawned this latest "genocide." Those who should be "brought to justice" surely are those who provided the fuel and lit the match. Instead, Gbagbo may face a Hague trial unless his nemesis Ouattara – who apparently while briefly in power a few years ago tortured him and his wife – is discouraged. Judging by the backpedaling the UN is doing now, various pressures will be brought on Ouattara to be at least a little less vengeful, at least cosmetically.

In the meantime, the larger message has been sent: The UN shall do as it pleases, ignore results that are not in line with Western interests and will even use overwhelming force when necessary to abrogate sovereign electoral results. We are no fans of regulatory democracy but what has taken place in the Ivory Coast is noteworthy. We highly doubt that Ouattara's "conciliation" will be effective. The results of this deliberate disaster will likely spawn yet another undeclared civil war between the Muslim North and the Christian South.

Was it necessary? The 21st century is not the 20th as we often point out and as France's hasty retreat from the Ivory Coast shows us. Given the prevalence of electronic communication and a rising knowledge of how Western powers actually operate, the new Pax-UN may not hold despite the passage of R2P. The warning has surely been sent to African leaders that they are to be obedient within the larger context. But the results are not clear cut; the UN overreached and may now regret at leisure. If Gbagbo is tried in an international court, he shall surely be gagged.

Conclusion: Gbagbo, reviled and beaten, his wife perhaps raped (both under UN protection not less), may yet emerge on the right side of history. The actions that have taken place in the little Ivory Coast may have big ramifications indeed, just not the ones the West expects.

Remember Patrice Lumumba anyone?

The Danger to World Peace

2011-04-05T15:05:00.003+01:00

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The Danger to World Peace

US "Kill Team" posing with body of slaughtered Afghan teenager.

In the space of thirty-one years (for about as long as Mubarak lorded it over Egypt), the United States, a predominantly Christian nation, has attacked El Salvador (1980), Libya (1981), Sinai (1982), Lebanon (1982 1983), Egypt (1983), Grenada (1983), Honduras (1983), Chad (1983), Persian Gulf (1984), Libya (1986) , Bolivia (1986), Iran (1987), Persian Gulf (1987), Kuwait (1987), Iran (1988), Honduras (1988), Panama (1988), Libya (1989), Panama (1989), Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru (1989), Philippines (1989), Panama (1989-1990), Liberia (1990), Saudi Arabia (1990), Iraq (1991), Zaire (1991), Sierra Leone (1992), Somalia (1992), Bosnia-Herzegovina (1993 to present), Macedonia (1993), Haiti (1994), Macedonia (1994), Bosnia (1995), Liberia (1996), Central African Republic (1996), Albania (1997), Congo/Gabon (1997), Sierra Leon (1997), Cambodia (1997), Iraq (1998), Guinea/Bissau (1998), Kenya/Tanzania (1998 to 1999), Afghanistan/Sudan (1998), Liberia (1998), East Timor (1999), Serbia (1999), Sierra Leone (2000), Yemen (2000), East Timor (2000), Afghanistan (2001 to present), Yemen (2002), Philippines (2002) , Cote d'Ivoire (2002), Iraq (2003 to present), Liberia (2003), Georgia/Djibouti (2003), Haiti (2004), Georgia/Djibouti/Kenya/Ethiopia/Yemen/Eritrea War on Terror (2004), Pakistan drone attacks (2004 to present), Somalia (2007), South Ossetia/Georgia (2008), Syria (2008), Yemen (2009), Haiti (2010), (Libya 2011?) and counting...

None of these nations can be said to be any match for America, by any stretch of one's imagination. The picture it paints (like the photo above) is that of the big school bully, inflicting pain on peoples all about. America has attacked only weak nations in its desperation to steal their God-given and cherished resources but has studiously avoided those nations that can and will stand up to it. How else do you spell coward?