US Scrambles to Contain Fury Over Attack in Afghanistan

from nytimes.com: American officials scrambled Monday to understand why a veteran Army staff sergeant, a married father of two only recently deployed here, left his base a day earlier to massacre at least 16 civilians, 9 of them children, in a rural stretch of southern Afghanistan. The devastating, unexplained attack deepened the sense of siege for Western personnel in this country, as denunciations brought a moment of unity to three major Afghan factions: civilians, insurgents and government officials.

Related Updates: 'Highly Unusual':
Marines Disarmed for Panetta Speech*
Vehicle crashes on runway during Panetta visit in Afghanistan*
US Soldier Executes 16 Civilians, Burns Bodies:
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or Mind Control?*
Afghanistan Massacre by US Sergeant Reveals Epidemic of Psychiatric Drugging of Soldiers*
Iran Terror Hearing Next Week in House*
Karzai asks NATO to leave Afghan villages; Taliban scraps talks*

Update: Afghan Shooting Suspect Identified as Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales*

nearly 500 taliban flee in 'daring' afghan jailbreak

surprise! signs of 'inside job' in afghan jailbreak
from afp: Almost 500 Taliban fighters and commanders tunnelled out of a prison in an audacious jailbreak in southern Afghanistan which the government admitted on Monday was a security "disaster". The Taliban said it was behind the operation to free the inmates through a 360-metre tunnel into Kandahar prison which it been digging for five months. It claimed all those who escaped were Taliban, including over 100 commanders. The daring breakout in the Taliban's heartland, the prison's second in three years, threatens to undermine recent gains claimed by NATO forces in the area after a US-led troop surge, just as the annual fighting season begins. It is also a major embarrassment for Afghan forces who are due to take on greater responsibility for security in their country ahead of the planned withdrawal of foreign combat troops in 2014.

related geopolitiks updates:
color revolutions & the 'mystery gunmen'*
90 killed, 80 injured in syria clashes*
bush admin considered pakistan's spy agency, the cia-connected isi, a terrorist organization*
pakistan pushes karzai to drop US as ally, turn to china*
david rockefeller and now superman, globalist traitors*

9/11 updates: osama, october, opinions

video: bin laden being protected by pakistani intelligence!*
october surprise: nato official says bin laden, deputy hiding in northwest pakistan*
video: ahmadinejad calls for 9/11 investigation*
maritime union of australia sec kevin bracken calls 9/11 'conspiracy'*
video: 9/11 truth raids university of florida homecoming parade*
video: 747 stunt over golden gate bridge reminds onlookers of 9/11*
wikileaks & 9/11: what if?*
msnbc poll: do you believe 9/11 conspiracy theories?*
opinion: time to review post-9/11 mentality & face reality?*
released state dept docs mention 'failed pipeline negotiations' with taliban pre-9/11*
anwar al-awlaki: al-qaeda leader dined at the pentagon just months after 9/11*
al-qaeda mastermind invited to pentagon after 9/11*
paul craig roberts: the war on terror is a fraud*
update: anonymous donor leaves $10,000 in cash for 9/11 memorial*

mcchrystal falls on sword after truthful comments on afghan war

updates: mcchrystal relieved of duty; petraeus tapped*
why obama had to fire mcchrystal*
obama's remarks on gen. mcchrystal's resignation*
petraeus will replace mcchrystal in afghanistan, obama announces*
towards the eighteenth brumaire of general david petraeus?*

video: mcchrystal may lose job over rolling stone interview

mcchrystal's burning contempt for the puppet obama
from kurt nimmo: The farce that is the war in Afghanistan is coming apart at the seams. General Stanley McChrystal’s sharp comments about Obama, Biden, and the administration published by Rolling Stone are not so much about disrespect, as the script-reading corporate media talking heads would have it, but rather about a policy in disarray in Afghanistan.

5/27 newspurge: wake up the nation

9/11 updates:
former cia officials admit to faking bin laden video*
top construction firm: wtc destroyed by controlled demolition*
gop: US can't afford to fund health 'entitlement program' for 9/11 rescue workers*
study finds more male babies miscarried in 9/11 aftermath*

drugwar:
plummeting marijuana prices create a panic in california*
100s of 'pot plants' seized by texas cops are horse mint*
seized marijuana legalization petitions missing*
ig report: meth, porn use by drilling agency staff*

econocrash:
despite soaring natl debt, congress goes on spending spree*

time bomb in times square sparks homeland lockdown

new york city police defuse car bomb in times square
from reuters: Police have "rendered safe" a car bomb found inside a sport utility vehicle that triggered the evacuation of New York's Times Square on Saturday night in an incident that the city's mayor said early on Sunday could have turned into a very deadly event. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg also told a news conference that "we have no idea who did this and why." He said the bomb appeared to have been made in an amateurish manner. "We are very lucky. Thanks to alert New Yorkers and professional police officers, we avoided what could have been a very deadly event," Bloomberg said. He said an alert T-shirt vendor noticed "an unoccupied suspicious vehicle" and alerted a mounted New York police officer, who observed that the SUV had smoke emerging from vents near the back seat and smelled of gun powder. "The NYPD bomb squad has rendered safe an improvised car bomb," said New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.

drugwars: sterilization, scandals & truth

"don't let a pregnancy get in the way of your crack habit":
why drug addicts are getting sterilized for cash
from time: When Joanne Chavarria's grandmother died last summer, she coped by turning to the bottle. "I started to drink. And then I started to smoke some weed. And then I started doing meth," says the 32-year-old from Merced, Calif. Chavarria, who began abusing drugs at the age of 12, was eight months pregnant at the time. Last August, she gave birth to drug-addicted twins, and California's Child Protective Services took the infants, as well as Chavarria's three other children, into custody. As with other addicts, the road to recovery for Chavarria began with counseling and a drug-rehabilitation program. Less orthodox, however, was her decision to undergo a tubal ligation. "Addicts in my situation need to get their tubes tied," she says. "When you stop having kids, it makes you think about what else you can do in life." Chavarria had the procedure done after meeting with Project Prevention, a North Carolina–based charity that gives drug addicts $300 if they go on long-term birth control or undergo sterilization. The aim of Barbara Harris, 57, the organization's controversial founder, is to prevent addicts from having children they can't care for and reduce the number of babies who are born exposed to drugs.

never-ending drug war: the personalities, politics & espionage intrigues that shaped the dea*

9/11 updates: gop, dems, the media & the peace movement

debra medina's 9/11 remark pushes campaign off track*
letter to rachel maddow on debra medina*
media response to the growing influence of 9/11 truth*
peace movement vs 9/11 truth*
gop rep chaffetz agrees with concerns of 9/11 truthers: there's still a lot to learn*
yet another congressman questions 9/11*
1992 flashback: small knives used in hijackings, faa memo warns*

video: govt doesn't want 9/11 public trial*
olbermann blames bush, cheney for 9/11 attacks*
spanish inquiry of alleged bush-era war crimes begins*
taliban pressed bin laden on anti-US terror*
did the taliban try to stop bin laden terror attacks?*
1991 flashback: terrorists plan to crash planes into buildings in madrid*
kerik, disgraced 9/11 'hero' & ex-nypd head, gets 4yrs in prison*

kucinich: US tax dollars help fund taliban attacks

more truth bombs from the man the dems should've nominated...
from raw replay: Ohio’s Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich, a strident anti-war crusader, cited a report on the floor of the House of Representatives Tuesday which claims that US tax dollars used to bribe the Taliban in Afghanistan also help fund attacked “on our troops.” RAW STORY has more details here. This video is from C-SPAN, broadcast Dec. 8, 2009.

updates: update: kucinich resolution to end the war*
kucinich: the war is a threat to our national security*
video: kucinich says afghans want to be saved from us, not by us*

warwhores: failure, funding & finding

global warfare USA: the world is the pentagon's oyster*
army sends infant to protective services, mom to afghanistan*
US army arrests mother who failed to turn up for afghanistan deployment*
army suicides set another yearly record*
nato chief: quick exit from afghanistan will unleash 'global jihad'*
how the US funds the taliban*
US unveils extended bagram prison*

high costs weigh on troop debate for afghan war*
darpa 'liquid laser' gunship program pushes ahead*
israelis want a pain ray of their own*
video: abc finds location of secret cia 'torture' prison*
top US officer: we have until may to reconsider iraq drawdown plan*
video: fred thompson says afghanistan war 'already lost'*
in nod to global warming, navy preps for 'ice-free' arctic*
video: afghanisurge may leave no brigades in reserve*

9/11 updates: heroes, drills, the database & rowley redux

new york '9/11 hero police chief' bernard kerik jailed*
kevin ryan: top 10 connections between nist & nanothermite*
did drills prevent andrews afb from responding to 9/11?*
flashback: al-qaeda - the database: how the pentagon/cia made an 'enemy'*
'the single database that contains terrorist-related intelligence & law enforcement information in a single repository'*
toxic wtc tactic*
review finds 9/11/09 potomac exercise was a bad idea*
video: 9/11 redux part1 - former fbi agent colleen rowley discusses still unanswered questions about the lead up to 9/11*

and here are parts 2 & 3 of the real news' 9/11 redux ... updates: history commons' reaction to coleen rowley on real news network: where’s wilshire?

update: passport with 9/11 suspect's name found in pakistan
from cnn: A passport bearing the name of Said Bahaji, a suspect linked to the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, has been found in a town captured by the Pakistani military. The passport was found in South Waziristan, where the Pakistani military has been battling to wrest territory from the Taliban in Pakistan. It contained a Pakistani visa issued in August 2001 showing that the bearer entered Pakistan on September 4, 2001, and appeared unusually new for a document eight years old. CNN has not independently confirmed its authenticity.

ugly rundown: police state, geopolitiks, warwhores & more

america's summer of discontent:
some fear a looming class war, others cite racism

pentagon wants to post almost 400k military personnel in US
from matthew rothschild: The Pentagon has approached Congress to grant the Secretary of Defense the authority to post almost 400,000 military personnel throughout the United States in times of emergency or a major disaster. This request has already occasioned a dispute with the nation’s governors. And it raises the prospect of U.S. military personnel patrolling the streets of the United States, in conflict with the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. In June, the U.S. Northern Command distributed a “Congressional Fact Sheet” entitled “Legislative Proposal for Activation of Federal Reserve Forces for Disasters.” That proposal would amend current law, thereby “authorizing the Secretary of Defense to order any unit or member of the Army Reserve, Air Force Reserve, Navy Reserve, and the Marine Corps Reserve, to active duty for a major disaster or emergency.”

rumors of large troop deployment to iraq

US to resume training georgian troops
from nytimes: The United States is resuming a combat training mission in the former Soviet republic of Georgia to prepare its army for counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan, despite the risks of angering Russia, senior Defense Department officials said Thursday. The training effort is intended to prepare Georgian troops to fight at NATO standards alongside American and allied forces in Afghanistan, the Pentagon officials said. Russian officials have been informed, American officials said. The training should not worry the Kremlin, they said, because it would not involve skills that would be useful against a large conventional force like Russia’s. “This training mission is not about internal defenses or any capabilities that the Georgians would use at home,” said Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary. “This is about the United States supporting Georgia’s contribution to the war in Afghanistan, which everybody can recognize is needed and valued and appreciated.” At the same time, officials in Washington said, the Georgians should not see the new training mission as a military counterweight to Russian influence along Georgia’s borders and within the separatist regions they fought over. A year ago, the republic’s brief, disastrous war with Russia froze a similar American training operation that prepared Georgian troops for deployments to Iraq.

canada to train mexican police in $15m program

gates: it's a 'mystery' how long US forces will be in afghanistan
from ap: The Pentagon presented a grim portrait of the Afghanistan war Thursday, offering no assurances about how long Americans will be fighting there or how many U.S. combat troops it will take to win. Defeating the Taliban and al-Qaida will take "a few years," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, with success on a larger scale in the desperately poor country a much longer proposition. He acknowledged that the Taliban has a firm hold on parts of the country President Barack Obama has called vital to U.S. security. Congress wants answers to what lawmakers described as basic questions to soothe a war-weary American public. "In the intelligence business, we always used to categorize information in two ways, secrets and mysteries," Gates, a former CIA director, told a Pentagon news conference. He added: "Mysteries were those where there were too many variables to predict. And I think that how long U.S. forces will be in Afghanistan is in that area."

who is funding the afghan taliban? you don’t want to know

video: 'incestuous' relationships between blackwater & US govt
from russia today: Obama did extend the contract for Blackwater in Iraq because the infamous contractor and the government are closely tied, believes investigative journalist Wayne Madsen. “So we have a lot of very “incestuous” relationships here between the government and Blackwater and key individuals who were responsible for contracts, and some still are,” he told RT.


state dept upholds blackwater 'license to kill'

lynndie england talk canceled after threats
from ap: A lecture by the woman who became the public face of the Abu Ghraib scandal was canceled Friday at the Library of Congress after threats caused concerns about staff safety. Former Army reservist Lynndie England had been scheduled to discuss her biography as part of a veterans forum on Capitol Hill. The book by author Gary S. Winkler is called "Tortured: Lynndie England, Abu Ghraib and the Photographs That Shocked the World." Members of the Library of Congress Professional Association, the employee group holding the talk, received an e-mail from president Angela Kinney saying the event was canceled due to staff safety concerns. A spokeswoman for the library said Kinney would not comment further. The group had received "numerous expressions of protest" about the lecture from its members, the e-mail said.

wyoming & guam civil support teams hold anti-terror drill

uk anti-terror technology: 007 or 1984?
from danger room: The British government is launching a new initiative for technology to fight terrorism. As the BBC report it this will involve “real life versions of the scientist Q in the 007 films” getting funding for gadgets to defeat groups like al-Qaeda. The BBC even uses a picture of the fictional Q. But a closer look at the initiative suggests that much of the technology being sought is closer to George Orwell than James Bond... Darpa have previously investigated brain-screening technology which might be able to detect intent, which led to some concern about prosecutions for “thoughtcrime.” And Darpa’s Rapid Checkpoint Screening Program looked at a range of physiological indicators to see whether it would be possible to spot whether someone was lying at a checkpoint interview (the answer appears to be “yes”, with some provisos), and whether the technology could be extended to read the body language, pulse rate and so on of people just standing in line. Britain differs from America in the level of surveillance that is considered acceptable. Omnipresent CCTV cameras are a fact of life here, though their effectiveness in combatting crime and terrorism is still a matter of debate. The Evening Standard newspaper complained that in spite of over 10,000 official CCTV cameras, 80% of crimes in London remain unsolved. The existing network means that, unlike in the US, it would be relatively easy to deploy new technology to detect hostile intention alongside or within the CCTV set up. Admiral Lord West, Britain’s counter terrorism minister, also mentioned to the BBC that there were other initiatives which include countering cyber terrorism and “investigating how to intercept new methods of telecommunications.” New technology is clearly on the way. And it’s not just about providing James Bond with a boat-stopping bazooka.

natl guard exercise hits western new york;
prep for full scale exercise nov1-9

report: israeli troops killed unarmed gazans carrying white flags
from antiwar: The latest in a long line of charges of war crimes by Israeli forces during January’s invasion of the Gaza Strip, a new report by Human Rights Watch cites investigations and reports of eyewitnesses who say Israeli soldiers shot 11 unarmed Palestinians, including five women and four children, who were waving white flags at them. The report urged the Israeli military to conduct a thorough investigation into the charges, but this appears unlikely as the Israeli military publicly condemned Human Rights Watch for releasing the report, saying that it was unreliable because it included eyewitness accounts and accusing the US-based rights group of unfairly criticizing Israel for an invasion that killed well over 1,000 Palestinians, the vast majority of them civilians. The Israeli military also claimed that on occasion Gazans had acted illegally in waving white flags, insisting that this had endangered the civilian population. It did not appear to provide any information to directly dispute the evidence of the particular incident, but merely appeared irked that Human Rights Watch didn’t present it to them before releasing it to the public. Israel’s own probes into the Gaza War have largely stalled without result, most notably when it abandoned an investigation stemming from the direct public testimony of several of its own soldiers who reported indiscriminate killing of civilians just days after announcing it. The military declared that all the testimony was “hearsay” and that not a single claim was true.

fighter jets collide, crash into houses near moscow

obamessiah & the apostles of war: strange change & nope hope

apologies, but we have to deal w/ some soap opera issues ... these topics are important & worth discussing, but not nearly as important as why goldman, gates, monsanto & the council on foreign relations seem to be running this fake change ... more on those later

obama rushes to quell racial uproar he helped fire
from ap: President Barack Obama concedes his words — that a white police officer "acted stupidly" when he arrested a black university scholar in his own home — were ill-chosen. But, while he invited both men to visit him at the White House, Obama stopped short of publicly apologizing for his remark. The president personally telephoned the two men, Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Cambridge, Mass., police Sgt. James Crowley, in an effort to end the rancorous back-and-forth over what had transpired and what Obama had said about it. Trying to lighten the situation, he even commiserated with Crowley about reporters on his lawn.

video: police release 911 call leading to gates arrest

now, as i've repeatedly mentioned on the show: the birther meme is akin to paying attention to the building collapses on 9/11 - it's the spectacle that draws attention, but it's not the key to unlock what goes on behind our latest puppet. if only 9/11 questions got this much attention...

obama press sec exasperated over 'birther' issue
from infowars: The New York Times claims the Obama birth certificate issue is “a rumor that has been widely discredited,” and yet the state of Hawaii, where Obama was allegedly born, refuses to release the primary birth certificate document, instead offering this image, declared to be a Photoshop fake.

It is an obvious fake for the following reasons: 1) the document does not have a raised, embossed seal 2) it is not signed (take a look at your birth certificate and see if it has the signature of a physician or hospital officials) 3) there are no creases from folding in the scanned version above 4) the certificate number is redacted 5) the document claims to be a “certification of birth,” not a “certificate of birth,” and 6) the date supposedly bleeding through the back of the document says 2007, not 2008, when it was allegedly released.

The Annenberg Political Factsheet claims to have examined the original document and says it is legitimate (see Born in the U.S.A., The truth about Obama’s birth certificate). “Recently FactCheck representatives got a chance to spend some time with the birth certificate, and we can attest to the fact that it is real and three-dimensional and resides at the Obama headquarters in Chicago. We can assure readers that the certificate does bear a raised seal, and that it’s stamped on the back by Hawaii state registrar Alvin T. Onaka.”

Annenberg is a less than credible source considering Obama was chairman of the Annenberg Challenge in Chicago. One of his cohorts in that position was none other than the terrorist Bill Ayers.

Instead of releasing the original document, the Obama administration trots out White House press secretary Robert Gibbs to make sarcastic comments about those crazy birthers. Gibbs’ comments reveal the Obama administration and his supporters are sincerely worried about the issue.

updates: video: colbert interviews birther lawyer orly taitz & rep louie gohmert quietly signs onto birther bill (or: left-wing website with direct ties to white house smears infowars, again

video: matthews says truthers & birthers are insane


also, we need to remember that this was started by a left-dem from pennsylvania named phil berg. so, just as the phony right said 9/11 questions came from the fringe left; the phony left now says that obama questions come from the extreme right: either way, the false left/right paradigm wins again...

obama admin begins opposition to states claiming sovereignty & gun rights

video: obama's new war
from brasschecktv: Why it is possible for part-time researchers to scoop the New York Times over and over again? Because the Times is not a news source. It's a disinformation bureau and they have other things in their minds. Their current project: Erasing public memory of the fact that the US trained and armed the Taliban, the same people who are slaughtering our troops in Afghanistan right now.


video: obama's soylent green health care


updates from jul30:
obama faces carter/clinton parallels*
california man found guilty of making threats against obama*
widespread domestic surveillance continues under obama*
hillary moved to halt disclosure of cia torture evidence, court told*
holt calls for next church committee on cia*
officers run background check on obama; placed on leave*

power shifts in plan for capital calamity:
obama's continuity of the shadow government
from nytimes: A shift in authority has given military officials at the White House a bigger operational role in creating a backup government if the nation’s capital were “decapitated” by a terrorist attack or other calamity, according to current and former officials involved in the decision.

The move, which was made in the closing weeks of the administration of President George W. Bush, came after months of heated internal debate about the balance of power and the role of the military in a time of crisis, participants said. Officials said the Obama administration had left the plan essentially intact.

Under the revamped structure, the White House Military Office, which reports to the office of the White House chief of staff, has assumed a more central role in setting up a temporary “shadow government” in a crisis.

And the office, a 2,300-person outfit best known for flying Air Force One, has taken on added responsibilities as the lead agent in shepherding government leaders to a secure site at Mount Weather in rural Virginia, keeping classified lists of successors and maintaining computer systems, among other operational duties. Many of these types of tasks were previously handled by civilians at other agencies, led by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

pakistani president zardari believes osama is dead

bin laden was an 'operator' for US
from raw replay: Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari believes Osama bin Laden is dead. “I don’t think he’s alive,” Zadari told NBC’s David Gregory. “I have a strong feeling and reason to believe that.” This video is from NBC’s Meet the Press, broadcast May 10, 2009.

update: cia & isi together created taliban
from times of india: In a new revelation, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has said that the CIA of the United States and his country's ISI together created the Taliban. "I think it was part of your past and our past, and the ISI and CIA created them together," Zardari told the NBC news channel in an interview. In the interview, which was given to the NBC on May 7, Zardari also accused the US of supporting the military rule of Pervez Musharraf who was alleged to be taking sides of the Taliban. He disagreed with the popular belief in the US that the Pakistan military and intelligent services still have sympathies for the Taliban. "I think General Musharraf may have had a mindset to run head and hand with the hound but certainly not on our watch. We don't have a tough process at all," Zardari said. Asked about the influential role of the Pakistan army, Zardari said he is in control of everything in the country, including the military. "The Parliament has final say. It's the Parliament form of government, and I am a product of the Parliament," he said. Earlier, Zardari in an another interview had said that India was not a "threat" to his country and that Pakistan had moved some of its forces from its Indian border to western frontier to eliminate Taliban in its tribal belt.

flashbacks: emmanuel goldstein: dead or alive?, former cia operative robert baer: 'of course bin laden is dead' & ground zero lounge: bloating in the dead pool

more troops to guard afghan heroin that props up banks

the use of terms like 'theater' & 'enablers' should really tell you what's going on here... this is all about the drugs.
from time: Afghanistan became President Obama's war on Tuesday [feb17], when he ordered two more U.S. combat brigades into the fight. He will send 17,000 combat troops to join the 36,000-strong U.S. force already in the theater. The fact that the units now ordered to Afghanistan had originally been slated for Iraq underscores the new Administration's shift in priorities. The reinforcements include about 8,000 Marines from Camp Lejeune, N.C., who should be in Afghanistan by late spring, and a 4,000-strong Army brigade from Fort Lewis, Wash., which should arrive in the summer. Those units will be joined by about 5,000 more Army "enablers" to provide logistical support.

obama: 'afghanistan is still winnable'
from raw replay: President Obama talked with CBC’s chief correspondent, Peter Mansbridge, about the war in Afghanistan.

the invisible hand of the market: british troops have seized £50 million of afghan opium

two-thirds of afghan police are hooked on drugs
from bbc: Sixty per cent of the Afghan police in the country's southern province of Helmand use drugs, it is claimed. The estimate, made by a UK official working in the province, was contained in emails obtained by the BBC. International forces are fighting a fierce counter-insurgency campaign against Taleban militants and other insurgents in Helmand. But British officials are clearly worried about the reliability of the Afghan police. "We are very concerned by the levels of drug abuse among the police," the British Foreign Office said in a statement.

the dea has 106 planes, so why did it charter private jet for chief?

how much of our debt comes from drug money?
from business insider: Allen Stanford forfeited $3 million in drug money back in 1999, and it's a sure thing that within his multi-billion empire he had many more drug dollars under his care. This is true not just of Stanford, but of the whole Caribbean offshore banking complex, as drug dealers are obviously interested in the regulation-light, few-questions-asked private banking system. Offshore banks, meanwhile, have grown rapidly as major purchasers of US treasuries over the years. As you can see in the chart below, they really spiked in the 04-05 range, right as Japanese holdings leveled off. According this table, Caribbean banks are now the fourth biggest holders of treasuries, having surpassed Brazil and all the oil states combined in just the last year. So again, how much drug money goes into financing our debt? And if you doubt the premise of our question, here's famed rapper KRS-One making basically the same point...

olbermann: 8 years in 8 minutes

feel the change! more neocons & hawks in obama cabinet

obama announces clinton, gates for his cabinet
from ap: President-elect Barack Obama on Monday announced a foreign policy team led by former campaign rival Hillary Rodham Clinton and President Bush’s defense secretary, Robert Gates — both early supporters of a war in Iraq that he opposed and will be seeking to wind down. At a news conference, Obama also introduced retired Marine Gen. James Jones as White House national security adviser, former Justice Department official Eric Holder as attorney general and Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano as secretary of homeland security. The announcements rounded out the top tier of the team that will advise the incoming chief executive on foreign and national security issues in an era marked by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and terrorism around the globe.

obama vows to continue to invest in military
from reuters: President-elect Barack Obama vowed on Monday to continue to invest to strengthen the U.S. military, increase ground forces and ensure success against al Qaeda and the Taliban. Announcing his national security team, Obama said Defense Secretary Robert Gates had agreed to remain in office, and reiterated his intention to announce a new mission as soon as he took office to end the war in Iraq. "We will also ensure that we have the strategy - and resources - to succeed against al Qaeda and the Taliban," Obama told a news conference. "And going forward, we will continue to make the investments necessary to strengthen our military and increase our ground forces to defeat the threats of the 21st century."

meet the new boss...
from danger room: As predicted, Robert Gates will be staying on as Defense Secretary in the new Obama administration. Count me as psyched. I've been of fan of Gates', for quite some time.

gates announces plan to make natl guard a homeland 'operational force'*
gates will stay on as secretary of defense*
gates to stay on as sec def*
the pros & cons of keeping gates on at defense*

the new obama administration: a lot more of the same

obama to be next neocon US president?
from presstv: The next US government might not be able to keep its promise on 'Change' and might turn into a war-oriented administration, a prominent historian says. President-elect Barack Obama, who inspired Americans during his presidential campaign, defeated his Republican rival John McCain thanks to the new slogans in a historic election last month. During his transition time, Obama has been trying to name his administration among American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) lobbyists, foreign relation advisers, and congressmen. Selecting Joe Biden as vice president who supported the Iraq war before it became unpopular was a surprising decision when Obama himself opposed the war. "He [Biden] is a strong supporter of Israel. He even made a statement 'I am a Zionist'," Stephen Sniegoski, US historian and author, told Press TV correspondent in Washington.

obama 'dream team': rubin-clones and political fakery

neocons ♥ obama
from kurt nimmo: Max Boot just adores Barack Obama’s proposed national security team, especially the retention of Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense and General Jim Jones over at the NSC. “I have to admit that I am gobsmacked by these appointments, most of which could just as easily have come from a President McCain,” Boot fawns.

obama’s odious entourage

obama picks former fed chair to head economic advisory panel
from washington post: Barack Obama's appointment yesterday of former Federal Reserve chairman Paul A. Volcker to the growing team advising him on the nation's deepening financial crisis only heightens a central leadership challenge the president-elect will face: how to manage a stable packed with big brains and bigger personalities - and how to make decisions when those high-powered experts disagree. Volcker, as chairman of Obama's new Economic Recovery Advisory Board, will join New York Federal Reserve Bank President Timothy F. Geithner, who will lead the Treasury Department, and former Treasury secretary Lawrence H. Summers, who will run the White House's National Economic Council. The appointment of Volcker, who led the fight to rejuvenate the U.S. economy after the stagflation of the 1970s, is part of Obama's effort to seek "the best minds in America" to deal with the current crisis, as the president-elect put it this week.

audio: kenya ambassador confirms obama born in kenya

obama’s unusual transition: already a co-president
from mcclatchy: America has never seen anything quite like this: The president and president-elect acting like co-presidents, consulting and cooperating on the day's biggest crises. "It's pretty unusual," said George Edwards, a presidential expert at Texas A&M University, in College Station.

obamccain camps coordinated on staff rosters for next govt
from the washington note: A senior Obama campaign official shared with The Washington Note that in July 2008, the McCain and Obama camps began to work secretly behind the scenes to assemble large rosters of potential personnel for the administration that only one of the candidates would lead. Lists comprised of Democrats and Republicans were assembled, sorted into areas of policy expertise, so that the roster could be called on after the election by either the Obama or McCain transition teams. This kind of out-of-sight coordination is rare between battling presidential camps and provides some indication that both Obama and McCain intended to draw expertise into their governments from both sides of the aisle - or at least they wanted to appear interested in doing so if the information leaked out about the list development process. Fascinating tidbit on cooperation behind battle lines.

obama tells disappointed supporters: 'i am the change."
from gateway pundit: Oh, brother... Barack Obama told his disappointed supporters who voted for him on the promise of change only to find him appoint old Clintonites and Bush cabinet members not to be upset - 'I am the change.' McClatchy reported: "President-elect Barack Obama essentially said Wednesday that he is the change, striving to assure Americans that he'll shake up Washington despite filling his administration with old hands from the Clinton administration and the capital's corridors of power. "Understand where the vision for change comes from, first and foremost," Obama said. "It comes from me. That's my job, is to provide a vision in terms of where we are going, and to make sure, then, that my team is implementing." Halleluiah.

video: obama may scale back his big inaugural balls
obama operative on ‘natural born requirement’ in 2006*
suit contesting obama's citizenship heads to scotus*
obama's familiar orbit of advisers*
will scotus take case on obama's citizenship?*
questions over obama's birthplace going viral*
obama's new world order*
cfr/brookings to dominate obama 'strategy'*
video: obama & the new world order *
obama's kettle of hawks*
obama vows US military rule over planet*
obama vows to keep military 'strongest on the planet'*
obama's vow to change dod meets facts*
obama’s national security team: minions of the nwo*

pakistan in the crosshairs: bombs, blackops & bhutto

huge truck bomb strikes marriot hotel in islamabad
from winter patriot: A huge truck bomb exploded at the entrance to the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad on Saturday evening, killing at least 40 people and wounding more than 150, the police said. This according to Carlotta Gall, who reports from Pakistan and Afghanistan for the New York Times: "The blast, one of the worst acts of terrorism in Pakistan’s history, went off just a few hundred yards from the prime minister’s house, where all the leaders of government were dining after the president’s address to Parliament." ... an address which was reported as a broadside against both terrorism and US intervention ...

In addition to the speech mentioned above, this attack comes mere days after Pakistan's announcement that its military would fight back if American troops attacked on its soil again, and a few days before a scheduled meeting between the presidents of Pakistan and USA, at which the fight against terrorism is on the agenda - or is the agenda! Thus, the timing can hardly be coincidental. And as you can see quite clearly from the photos posted here, this attack is orders of magnitude beyond the suicide terrorism which occurs in Pakistan on a regular basis. In other words, it appears to be state-sponsored. And you can probably guess which state. You might think everybody would hate these terrorists. But you'd be wrong. Some people like them. For some people, terror is good for business. The presidential candidates lost no time in pointing fingers - even though they can have no idea who was behind this atrocity... So there you have it: the government was "elected" and the threat is "enduring"; that's all the pretext these guys need for another hundred years of war. But what the heck? Your kids weren't planning to do anything different with their lives, were they?

the questionable timing of the pakistan blast
from 9/11 blogger: Let me see if I got this straight now.

Over the past 7 years we have dumped billions and billions of dollars into Pakistan to help with the Global War on Terror™. Yet, we know that former President Musharraf spent much of that money beefing up his military presence on the border of India, while another large part of that money, just went missing. Some of that money was traced to election fraud attempts. All of this, and the accepted wisdom is that the Taliban and bin Laden, are in Pakistan (of course I think he is dead, but that is beside the point).

When Musharraf lost the election, he shut down the democracy in Pakistan and arrested judges and opposition party leaders. Eventually, Pakistan shamed us by actually impeaching their president for corruption, while ours gets off Scott-Free thanks to Nancy Pelosi and a complicit congress.

Along comes a new President, President Asif Zardari, one that isn’t in the pocket of BushCo and low and behold, we start ramping up the rhetoric about needing to attack inside Pakistan “when ever we feel like it“. They even get the leading “progressive” man-god, Obama, to spin the same bullshit story.

Now, after several weeks of international bad press because of drone planes being piloted by 19 year olds with joy-sticks in California, blowing up families in Pakistan willy-nilly, after all that, the “terrorists” in Pakistan decide to blow up a second rate hotel there, killing civilians, and making them the bad guys once again? How’s that for the worst timing ever, huh? Well, the worst timing for them and the best possible timing for those troubled U.S. Military PR guys and all the politicians who had been saying just a month ago we need to step up military action in Pakistan.

Let’s face it, the Global War on Terror™ is the biggest thing since sliced bread for making serious cash, removing those troubling restrictions, and undermining the constitution at every turn.

but before the bombing, all of this was going on...

washington is risking war with pakistan
from robert baer: As Wall Street collapsed with a bang, almost no one noticed that we're on the brink of war with Pakistan. And, unfortunately, that's not too much of an exaggeration. On Tuesday, the Pakistan's military ordered its forces along the Afghan border to repulse all future American military incursions into Pakistan. The story has been subsequently downplayed, and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Mike Mullen, flew to Islamabad, Pakistan's capital, to try to ease tensions. But the fact remains that American forces have and are violating Pakistani sovereignty.

unknown powder sent to US diplomats in pakistan
from ap: Two American diplomatic outposts in Pakistan received envelopes containing an unknown white powder last week, sparking a security scare, a U.S. Embassy spokesman said Sunday. Tests are being conducted on the substance, spokesman Lou Fintor said. He declined comment on whether any embassy staffers had become ill or were under observation. The envelopes were sent to the U.S. Consulate in Karachi on Thursday and the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad on Friday. Fintor said both facilities have remained open, with no plans to close them. "Embassy personnel followed established response procedures," Fintor said. "We applaud the rapid and appropriate response by our mailroom and security staff to contain any potential threats. We take threats of this type very seriously, hoax or not." He would not say where the envelopes had been mailed from, pending an investigation, or to whom they were addressed.

bhutto widower elected pakistan president
from ap: Benazir Bhutto's widower swept Pakistan's presidential election on Saturday, offering hope for stability to a nuclear-armed country feeling intense U.S. pressure to crack down on Islamic militants. In a grim reminder of the problems awaiting Asif Ali Zardari, rescuers in the northwest dug with their hands for survivors after at least 30 people were killed in a massive suicide bombing. Already head of the main ruling party, Zardari becomes one of the most powerful civilian leaders in Pakistan's turbulent 61-year history. Last month, he marshaled a coalition that forced stalwart U.S. ally Pervez Musharraf to quit as head of state.