Land Destroyer

Nation of 65 Million Gets Lesson on Globalist Agenda

2012-01-28T07:34:00.001-08:00

Local media mogul gives 2 hour talk exposing CFR, NED, and global-corporate meddling in Thailand.
by Tony Cartalucci

January 28, 2012 - Media mogul Sondhi Limthongkul of ASTV, a popular news and media outlet in Thailand, gave a 2-hour talk on Friday night (in Thai) regarding the corporate-funded Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), USAID, Human Rights Watch (HRW), and Amnesty International amongst others and their role in destabilizing nation states around the world and in particular their unfolding plot in Thailand itself.

Image: Sondhi Limthongkul - media mogul turned infowarrior - goes from rallying crowds to informing them. Malaysia has used this tactic to great effect against globalist meddling in their sovereign affairs - one can only hope Thailand is starting down a similar path.

....

No punches were pulled, and the talk was accompanied by a news story on the ASTV website, Manager.co.th (in Thai), complete with graphics illustrating the documented ties between foreign corporate-financier interests and seditious elements within Thailand working with them.

Image: From Manager.co.th illustrating the globalist tentacles reaching into Thailand and their willful Thai helpers. (click image to enlarge)

....

Sondhi's narrative encapsulates the underlying cause of over 6 years of political instability plaguing Thailand and focuses on Wall Street and London's proxy of choice, Thaksin Shinawatra.

Thaksin Shinawatra, Thailand’s prime minister from 2001 until a military coup removed him in 2006, was a former Carlyle Group adviser and was literally reporting to the globalist Council on Foreign Relations in New York City on the eve of his ousting from power. While in office, Thaksin attempted to ramrod through the US-Thailand Free-Trade Agreement (FTA) without parliamentary approval, a 2004 FTA backed by the exact same US-ASEAN Business Council recently visited by Thaksin’s "red shirt" street mob leaders in April of 2011.

Image: The US-ASEAN Business Council, a who’s-who of corporate fascism in the US, has been approached by Thailand’s “pro-democracy” UDD for support. The UDD never fully explains what corporations like Exxon, BP, Goldman Sachs, Monsanto, or other banes to humanity have to do with democracy or what sort of support was asked for or promised. (click image to enlarge)

….

The council in 2004 included 3M, war profiteering Bechtel, Boeing, Cargill, Citigroup, General Electric, IBM, the notorious Monsanto, and currently also includes the criminal banksters of Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Chevron, Exxon, BP, Glaxo Smith Kline, Merck, Northrop Grumman, Monsanto’s GMO doppelganger Syngenta, as well as Phillip Morris. These corporations are more synonymous with mass-murder, mass-corruption, war, and human suffering than any of the “democratic” and “open society” ideals Thaksin or his UDD claim to be “bringing” to Thailand.

Since the 2006 coup that toppled his autocratic regime, Thaksin has been represented by US corporate-financier elites via their lobbying firms including, Kenneth Adelman of the Edelman PR firm (Freedom House, International Crisis Group, PNAC), James Baker of Baker Botts (CFR), Robert Blackwill of Barbour Griffith & Rogers (CFR), Kobre & Kim, and currently Robert Amsterdam of Amsterdam & Peroff (Chatham House). Meanwhile, his “red shirt” UDD street mob have received rhetorical support by US-funded NGOs like Prachatai.

Thaksin more recently had his own sister run in his place for elections in July 2011, as he is a convicted criminal currently in hiding abroad, evading a 2 year jail sentence. Thaksin’s proxy political party, with heavy rhetorical support from the Western media, including threats from the notorious Council on Foreign Relations to allow Thaksin’s proxy party to take power unhindered, won the elections with only 35% of eligible voters behind them. Despite gaining power, Thaksin’s legitimacy and support base is now exposed in full-light of the recent election as tenuous at best and still faces an entrenched Thai establishment and Thailand’s powerful military.

All of this documented information, once exclusively in the realm of the alternative media, has now been splashed across Thailand's mainstream via Sondhi's Friday presentation. ASTV's Manager.co.th is ranked 14 in Thailand (a nation of over 65 million people) by Alexa and rivals Russia's RT in readership. This is a promising first step in holding a real, fully informed debate regarding the political future of Thailand, Southeast Asia, and globalization in general. Sondhi also mentioned America's "Pacific Century," which includes integrating ASEAN not only as a regional superstate to rival China, but to integrate all of Asia into the Wall Street/London international order, or as Sondhi referred to it, the "Washington Consensus."

Those behind this creeping integration, analogous to that of the European Union implemented incrementally against the will of the people, will now have to face an increasingly informed public who will realize and begin balking the rise of globalization long before early successes built on deception take them by surprise.

Lifting the Rock, Exposing the Snake

It should be mentioned that following Sondhi's presentation, US State Department-funded Prachatai immediately responded by insisting that its millions of baht a year from the US government via NED "has no bearing on its news coverage." This even after NED's open involvement with undermining and overthrowing governments throughout the Arab World during 2011 has become a matter of public record, including a full admission printed in the New York Times titled, "U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings," which stated:

"A number of the groups and individuals directly involved in the revolts and reforms sweeping the region, including the April 6 Youth Movement in Egypt, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and grass-roots activists like Entsar Qadhi, a youth leader in Yemen, received training and financing from groups like the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute and Freedom House, a nonprofit human rights organization based in Washington."

The article would also add, regarding the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED):

"The Republican and Democratic institutes are loosely affiliated with the Republican and Democratic Parties. They were created by Congress and are financed through the National Endowment for Democracy, which was set up in 1983 to channel grants for promoting democracy in developing nations. The National Endowment receives about $100 million annually from Congress. Freedom House also gets the bulk of its money from the American government, mainly from the State Department. "

NED's duplicity is nothing new. Noam Chomsky in 1993 said of NED's projects in Nicaragua that, "it's about what you would expect from a bipartisan democracy campaign - it's an attempt to impose what is called democracy, meaning rule by the rich and the powerful, without interference by the mob but within the framework of formal electoral procedures." Additionally it was noted in Australia's Southern Cross University's "Activating Human Rights & Peace (AHRP)" conference through a revealing account of their 2008 proceedings that NED was carrying out "a lot of work that was formerly undertaken by the CIA."

Also considering NED's Board of Directors, a who's who of corporate fascism, Neo-Conservatism, and warmongering elitists, one must wonder why a Thai "independent" rights advocate is taking money from such people even if taking the money has "no bearing on its news coverage."

Included on NED's Board of Directors:

Francis Fukuyama: Neo-Con, Project for a New American Century (PNAC) signatory, pro-war
Zalmay Khalilzad: Neo-Con PNAC signatory, pro-war + corporate lobbyist
Will Marshall: Neo-Con PNAC signatory, pro-war
Vin Weber: Neo-Con PNAC signatory, pro-war + corporate lobbyist
Richard Gephardt: pro-war, corporate lobbyist for big-pharma, Boeing & Ford Motor Co.
John Bohn: petrochemicals, corporate consultant & international banker for 13 years
Rita DiMartino: CFR, AT&T "Vice President of Congressional Relations"
Kenneth Duberstein: Boeing, ConocoPhillips, Mack-Cali Realty, CFR member & Fannie Mac
William Galston: Brookings Institution
Moises Naim: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Robert Miller: corporate lawyer
Larry Liebenow: US Chamber of Commerce (a chief proponent of SOPA), Center for International Private Enterprise
Patricia Friend: AFL-CIO (a proponent of SOPA)

Indeed, Prachatai and NGOs like it have a lot to answer for. Like lifting a rock under which a venomous snake hides, Sondhi has exposed not just Prachatai, but the greater globalist plot against Thailand within which Prachatai plays a role. Now are dangerous times for Thailand and the world as a whole. As nations begin lifting up the rocks and shining the light of truth on the globalist agenda, the corporate-financier elite have two options, strike out or run.

The truth and scale of the crimes committed by the global elite means that running is out of the question. There is no where for a global criminal to run to when the entire planet is the crime scene. They will strike, the question is - will we be ready?

Sondhi, for his part, has already had an attempt made on his life. In April 2009, gunmen sprayed his vehicle in broad daylight with over a hundred bullets. One bullet grazed his head but he ultimately survived the ordeal. No doubt there will be many displeased with his most recent and thorough presentation exposing the tentacles of Wall Street's 0.1% making their way into Thailand using the camouflage of "human rights," "democracy," and "freedom of speech" to mask their true intent. Camouflage is decidedly less effective when one knows what to look for. A predator or parasite depending on this rouse will be considerably less effective in an environment of informed vigilance.

Image: Sondhi's vehicle in April 2009 after being attacked in broad daylight by armed "critics" from opposing political cliques, most likely those of Thaksin and his UDD - notorious for their acts of murder and mayhem. By adding our voices behind those daring to speak the truth, we make it less effective to commit acts of violence against individuals exposing the system.

....

Let us continue to undermine the abilities of this predatory-parasitic system by continuing to speak to the truth, identity the source of their corporate-financier power, boycott and entirely replace their self-serving system with one that serves the interests of we the people. By getting active we help diminish the abilities of the global elite and make attempts of violence against those leading the cause of freedom more difficult and less viable, not only in Thailand, but around the globe.

How Do You Escape a Color Revolution? Replace Emotional Reaction With Intellectual Sobriety

2012-01-25T19:01:00.000-08:00

Understanding the 21st Century Global Information War: Protect Your Zeitgeist

By Eric Pottenger and Jeff Friesen

Special Report for Color Revolutions and Geopolitics

January 24, 2012

Authors' Introductory Note: the following essay was prepared in the style of an "open letter" intended to be read by leaders and policy-makers of nation-states targeted for "regime change" by the West.

Try to imagine a world where cultural guidance and future prospects are created largely from within rather than from without. Try to imagine youth in your country—symbolized by genuine energy and enthusiasm and political awareness—pointing the way toward a new national understanding based upon instincts offered from within instead of from without.

Of course each of us knows that Western governments hope to subvert the ambitious political plans of competitor countries and blocs so as to maintain global hegemony and forestall a more equitable distribution of power.

And although there are multiple levels to explore, understand, and different ways to combat this threat, brevity demands that the following analysis offer only a brief solution in the most simplistic terms: namely, the prospect of a world where fear of young people and new ideas are replaced by embracing possibilities; the kind of possibilities that these young people should rightfully embody.

The premise here is that it's absolutely incorrect (and potentially catastrophic) to conclude that 'oppositionists' in each of your countries—and here we mean young local 'foot soldiers' of Western-backed political agendas—are conscious 'agents' of Western governments; or that they're largely “corrupt” or even “unpatriotic.”

The defining characteristics of typical foreign-funded opposition protesters are their youth, their inexperience, their lack of discernment, their relatively high level of education, their personal ambition, their access to media and technology, and their strong inclinations to rebel against the status quo (what they deem to be an unrewarding social and political culture).

In other words, if strategically-placed foreign money, tactical training, and a self-interested geopolitical purpose were absent, these young “protesters” and their rebellion could stably be addressed by (and absorbed within) the local social and political culture, even help infuse this culture with characteristics that every great culture needs: self-reflection; derision; laughter; art; indifference; transcendence; something greater than mere self-preservation.

Unfortunately these movements aren't isolated concerns of an individual nation—they are international security threats. The West now uses both “humanitarian” crises and fake social “revolutions” as a part of its strategic package. This makes national political movements potential arms of foreign powers. To quote Allen Weinstein, the first President of the United States' National Endowment for Democracy (NED), “A lot of what [the NED does] today was done covertly twenty-five years ago by the CIA.”

This presents the principle challenge: how to develop an effective self-defense strategy. The trick is to provide a remedy that doesn't fuel more discord. Coercion sows discord. The movement tacticians anticipate and use ham-handed, unsophisticated, strictly coercive local responses as part of their operational templates. They derive strength from these responses, not weakness. Ultimately the coercive response is a recipe for defeat. If the coercive response appears to be necessary or inevitable, at least it should be provided with some balance.

When the "pro-democracy protester" faces the "government crackdown," whose side are you gonna be on?

Better instead to learn how the imperialist game is now played. The new battlefield of warfare is in the informational realm, the psychological realm. More than at any point in history, war is primarily a media war. The reason the United States, in particular, has been so effective in this style of warfare is because the whole structure of U.S. society has been built around promotion and consumption as a pathway to wealth and power. In the United States, the corporate marketing and advertisement industry has merged seamlessly into the operational templates of foreign policy. There is little difference between selling Coca Cola and selling a particular foreign policy initiative. Corporations sell commodities through marketing campaigns and advertisements; governments sell policies through a myriad of techniques of information control and propaganda.

only the emotional imprint...

Like corporate advertising, propaganda is primarily effective as a form of emotional communication, not one of critical analysis. The purpose is to promote a prescribed behavior, whether that behavior result in the purchasing of a new pair of blue jeans, the supporting of a social initiative, or advocating one's inclusion amongst a battalion of protesters, each of them dragged willingly into the streets to weaken the stature of a particular government.

One identifiable technique the propaganda specialist employs to overthrow unwanted leaders is the exact same one used in the corporate realm: “branding.” In essence, the propagandist attempts to strengthen the “brand” of the opposition movement while weakening the “brand” of the targeted leader or system.

...of the brand remains.

All critical details are removed from the propaganda message; only the emotional imprint of the “brand” remains. The propagandist will rarely explain in substantive terms either the problems of society or the concrete solutions. Instead he will brand the issues in broad emotional terms. The opposition movement will likely be branded as “fun,” “rebellious,” or “revolutionary,” etc., whereas the problems of the entire society are made unspecific, reduced to the actions of a “corrupt,” “greedy,” “power-hungry” “dictator.” The goal is to broadcast this message simply and incessantly; and especially to make people believe that it's true.

Oh, you pretty things! In the words of OTPOR (Serbian) youth group co-founder and international regime change tactician, Ivan Marovic, "I hate politics. It sucks. It's boring. It's not cool. Normal people hate politics...but...you need normal people if you're gonna make change. To do that, you need to make politics sexy. Make it cool. Make it hip. REVOLUTION as a FASHION LINE."

This branding logic works the same for Western governments to achieve domestic public consent for aggressive foreign policy initiatives. For example, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko is known throughout the West as “Europe's Last Dictator.” That is Lukashenko's brand in the West. This brand has been created to prepare Western audiences for his abrupt removal from power. Like Libya's Muammar Gaddafi: allegations of corruption and sponsorship of terrorism had for years been attached to the image of Gaddafi, a fact which later made it permissible for NATO to not only remove him from power illegally, but to even kill him. This should be seen as no surprise. Gaddafi had been branded beforehand for such a fate. The Western public had already been prepared to react uncritically to this violation international justice. For many Westerns, the killing of Gaddafi was even seen as a victory for “the people.”

If I don't live in these countries; and if I know next to nothing about them; WHAT are these ubiquitous images sure to convince me into THINKING? The answers are obvious, but here's the rub: since I don't live there, how can I know for certain whether the impressions they are promoting are actually true?

The only defense against the strength of these branding techniques is to challenge the brand.

Opposition media should never be restricted or prohibited. Instead, governments should provide the domestic media with tools for an effective counter-attack. Governments should sponsor new and better media. They should throw money at it; promote it culturally; expand educational initiatives that develop it. They should make it more entertaining; make it more interesting; infuse it with substance and criticism.

Media should be used to deconstruct the brand the West is selling; it should successfully offer an alternative brand.

The idea here is to hire young people instead of arresting them. Put people to work in the government that have credibility and can project youth and vigor. Demanding love for the country will never be effective if it's about prostrating oneself before the government. The most important and effective way for young people to invest in the destiny of the country is to be embraced as part of the internal power structure. Otherwise these same people are left to wander, highly vulnerable to the venus flytrap of Western propaganda.

Independent media voices in the West can help, both at home and abroad.

Through the critical lens of independent Western media, the highly-romantic impression of “life in the West” (that which is deceptively sold by the propagandist) can be legitimately challenged. Credibility in this case is essential. If these romantic impressions are countered by the local government, the criticism could easily be perceived as propaganda; whereas if an independent Westerner said the same thing, the impressions would probably be considered both interesting and informative. These voices are plentiful in the West. The challenge is to find them and put them to use.

So far as how your countries are perceived in the West, what's important to know is that Western audiences (and especially those in the United States) usually become aware of the existence of a country (and all its internal “problems”) only after that country has been publicly targeted for attack. Although a sizable portion of Western audiences could one day be made to see the injustice of such an attack, by that time it's already too late.

These policies and the motives behind them can be anticipated and even preempted in the dialogue of Western media.

The logic here is that policy-makers and local leaders around the world should come to recognize the value in strengthening the reach of independent voices in the Western media, and expand contacts with them. In other words, help Western journalists more effectively use their own platforms toward the creation of a more balanced view of your countries. Ensure that local officials and scholars are made available to foreign journalists as informational resources. Promote critical conferences and cultural exchanges.

Help assist independent foreign voices to “re-brand” your countries in the West.

Russia has provided a solid example to follow with the launching of the English language media network, Russia Today. By offering Western analysts with a high-profile media platform, Russia Today has provided serious critics of Western policy with the ability to challenge and subvert NED/CIA propaganda campaigns.

Through this contribution, in many circles Russia has come to be seen as “progressive” and even “hip” in the West. And furthermore it is now Western governments--not the usual political targets--that must combat a damaging informational narrative, even on territory the Western propagandist once monopolized.

We conclude here by pointing out that, in a world where the information war reigns supreme, the essence of protecting national sovereignty is change: not change of values, necessarily, but change of attitudes and perspectives. A smart policy would be to embrace this change.

Why not lead the struggle off the traditional battlefield and into the media realm: to television and radio broadcasts; to books and blogs and publications?

Why not take the fight to the battlefield that actually matters?

Our Last Chance for Freedom, Their Last Chance for Global Dominion

2012-01-22T22:25:00.000-08:00

We each can decide the fate of humanity every single day.
by Tony Cartalucci

"And our small planet, at this moment, here we face a critical branch-point in the history. What we do with our world, right now, will propagate down through the centuries and powerfully affect the destiny of our descendants. It is well within our power to destroy our civilization, and perhaps our species as well. If we capitulate to superstition, or greed, or stupidty we can plunge our world into a darkness deeper than time between the collapse of classical civilization and the Italian Renaissaince. But, we are also capable of using our compassion and our intelligence, our technology and our wealth, to make an abundant and meaningful life for every inhabitant of this planet. To enhance enormously our understanding of the Universe, and to carry us to the stars." -Carl Sagan, astronomer

Indeed, we teeter on a precipice upon which technology and human innovation will either free us from chains that have collectively bound us since the beginning of civilization, or enslave us within a global scientific dictatorship that will crush us so completely we will cease to even be human. They, the global elite know this, while the average person snickers and giggles at what is perhaps the greatest struggle with the most at stake ever in human history. As the global elite mobilize the summation of their power and wealth on a daily basis, many of us do nothing at all to assert ourselves or our claim to our own destiny. Worse yet, many of us witlessly pay into a system that seeks to supplant individual human sovereignty and achieve the ultimate culmination of megalomaniacal dominion over the human race.

A fear stalks the global elite however - the fear of inevitable technological breakthroughs slipping from their monopolistic grip and into the hands of the people. Technology like file sharing, blogging, open source software, and cheaper hardware have allowed the masses to challenge and in some ways dismantle the structure of domination the global elite are attempting to build over free humanity. Rules and regulations, bills like SOPA and PIPA, and other legal tactics attempt to stem the tide or indeed reverse it. In other ways, this "disruptive technology" is below the radar of most in both politics and throughout the public - but a potential battlefield the global elite are already preparing to fight upon.

One example, and perhaps the most profound, is that of advanced computer controlled manufacturing that is starting to appear on desktops around the world. An article on the globalist Lowy Institute's "Interpreter" notes the emergence of this technology in an article titled, "The replicator: Life imitates Star Trek," which concludes, "I don't think we yet have any idea of the disruptive capacity of such technology, for good and ill."

The implications are that the average person will be able to design and create their own goods and no longer depend on the crass consumerism that has characterized, aligned, and controlled society for the last several decades. Instead of having the TV tell people what they want, people could decide for themselves. And while we could collaborate globally, we would be able to decide locally how best to employ our time, energy, and resources to solve local problems. The blending of designers, manufacturers, and end-users would make collaboration and the erasing of the concept of "intellectual property" an inevitability. It would deconstruct walls standing in the way of progress like never before - as well as diminish both corporate profits and the unwarranted power these profits have granted corporations for generations.

And while computer-controlled manufacturing entering into the hands of the masses would bring a quantum leap to human progress, reducing material scarcity as the technology improved, none of this is being talked about in political or public circles beyond a handful of universities and enthusiasts who genuinely want what's best for humanity. In attempts to garner government support, many organizations are told specific rules exist that prevent governments or corporations from assisting projects that turn consumers into producers and thus opening the door to the personal manufacturing revolution.

It is a good bet that the upper echelons of the global elite are well aware of the impending personal manufacturing revolution - and would rather keep it silent. Concepts and predictions of "universal constructors" have been around since the 1940's. Even the most obedient and servile amongst the globalists' helping hands would see the value and allure of such a paradigm shift finally becoming reality and might be tempted to stray from servitude if such ideas became more mainstream. Keeping this quiet buys the elite time to put their global system in place, increase interdependency between people and nations as well as increasing dependency on their contrived international institutions - when technology already exists that make such global empires both unnecessary and entirely unpalatable.

Globalists through deindustrialization have made it more difficult to continue making advances in manufacturing technology that would normally trickle down to hobbyists and the general public. Perpetuating and celebrating ignorance and ineptitude amongst a population that now values pop stars and athletes more than those seeking to advance the frontiers of humanity has also served the global elite well in staving off this paradigm shift.

The wisdom of Carl Sagan yielded the observation that we live in a society constructed on science and technology, but where the public has little or no knowledge at all regarding either. So then who, Sagan asked, is determining the fate of humanity? The answer is simple, the corporate-oligarchies that hold a monopoly on science, technology, and engineering and who seek through rules and regulations to defend, consolidate, and expand further that monopoly. In many ways we already live under a scientific dictatorship.

We are faced with a series of decisions. Do we allow the petty, short-sighted self-serving corporate oligarchies to continue dominating society by our paying into their system on a daily basis? Will we allow corporate-funded think-tanks like the Brookings Institution and the Council on Foreign Relations to continue determining national policy for us, but on behalf of their corporate sponsors? Will we continue hoping for political leaders and political solutions to come and improve our lives for us like needy children? Or are we prepared to grow up as a civilization and take on these responsibilities for ourselves? Are we prepared to starve into extinction the antiquated elitist parasites that have misled us from one dark age to another, one war to the next, from one economic depression to even worse, and who have brought us to the edge of perhaps the most frightening abyss in human history?

Personal manufacturing is here, a paradigm shift of immense proportions stands before us. People around the world are already utilizing it to solve real world problems, as demonstrated by MIT's FabLab - and improves lives where politics have categorically failed. Society will continue to march forward with an expanding scientific and technological infrastructure. It is up to us and our will to get involved that will determine whether that infrastructure serves the elite or the people.

Above all others, Americans should be scientifically and technologically literate. The "bread and circus" of corporate-funded spectacles like the NFL, American Idol, and all the other pointless diversions that have absorbed our time and energy and even our own will to determine our destiny are like the ancient Sirens of Greek mythology guiding us into the rocks of our own destruction. It is time for us to determine whether we will command the direction of our own destiny, or if the cage the global elite have constructed around us incrementally is sufficiently comfortable enough to resign the destiny of humanity for.

For those interested in personal manufacturing, the above Interpreter article features the "Makerbot" designed and constructed by a collaborative workspace in New York City called "Resistor." America used to have a thriving DIY industry, with an abundance of clubs, organizations, contests, and publications. Today there is a resurgence - only this time augmented with technology like personal manufacturing that has immense implications that go beyond a constructive pastime.

It would be a good idea to connect with these people and add our talent, energy, and free time to something more constructive than vegetating on the couch behind the glow of the Fortune 500 TV programming that has lulled a great nation to sleep. The future is as bright as we make it - not through merely voting and protesting, but through the use of our two hands and to whom we choose to pay our money, time, and attention to. The fate of humanity is determined each and every day by how we choose to spend these personal commodities. Technology has reached a point of no return granting whoever wields it, control of human destiny well into the foreseeable future. Let's make sure it is we the people that are wielding it.

Australian Militarism in the Asia-Pacific Century

2012-01-21T15:11:00.000-08:00

Nile Bowie
NileBowie.blogspot.com
January 22, 2012

For a nation who has historically subordinated itself to larger powers, Australia’s Labour-led foreign policy shows little divergence away from being wholly complicit to American full spectrum dominance in the region. For all of its pristine natural beauty, the continent-nation has become a treasure chest of precious natural resources managed by a monopolistic elite, and a martial subsidiary of the world’s most militaristically aggressive empire. While the potential exists for Australia’s economy to hemorrhage in the absence of Chinese trade and demand, the permanent force of 2,500 US marines building up in the Northern Territory certainly does not appear to be in the public interest.

A document issued by the Australian Ministry of Defense in 2009 entitled "Defending Australia in the Asia-Pacific Century: Force 2030" cites the introduction of an expansive military program, which seeks to enable a “comprehensive set of reforms that will fundamentally overhaul the entire Defense enterprise, producing efficiency and creating savings of about $20 billion.” The agenda’s efficiency and the savings it can potentially yield however, are unquestionably a subject of speculation. Reconfigurations of Australia’s armed forces under Julia Gillard’s Labour government have ratified a $100 billion program to purchase advanced military hardware from the United States, such as F-35 jet fighters, missile-guided frigates and submarines.

With naval expansionism being cited as a high priority, Australia seeks to maintain twelve submarines, three destroyers equipped with SM-6 long-range anti-aircraft missiles, eight new frigates and a fleet of LHD amphibious ships by the mid 2030s. Australia has also recently purchased ten C-27J aircrafts equipped with missile warning systems and radar from the United States, to the tune of $95 million. While the Gillard government pays lip service to China by welcoming its rise, the zeros on her defense receipt suggest otherwise. With regards to China, the Ministry of Defense document states “China’s rise in economic, political and military terms has become more evident. Pronounced military modernization in the Asia-Pacific region is having significant implications for our strategic outlook.”

By heavily depending on China in the economic sphere and aligning itself militarily with the United States, playing both sides of the coin may prove to be most injudicious. Australia’s involvement in the ostensibly anti-Chinese multilateral trade agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) appears to be fencing China into an economic exclusion zone at the behest of US corporate interests. Much like the detested US-Korea Free Trade Agreement, the TPP requires participating countries to restructure their economies to benefit transnational entities. The carbon tax-pushing Gillard has also aligned closer to India in the form of a new trilateral security pact, which also incorporates the United States. The Chinese perspective on these developments remains plausible; commentators such as People’s Liberation Army Major General Luo Yuan reiterate, “The intent is very clear - this is aimed at China, to contain China".

As a means strengthen the foundation of the new trilateral pact, the Labour government has overturned its own ban on selling uranium to countries that are not signatories to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). By giving India access to 40% of the world’s identified uranium reserves (possessed by Australia), the country plans to build 30 nuclear power stations in the next 20 years, earning billions for the Australian corporate elite. Australian uranium is also sold to the General Atomics Corporation; a producer of unmanned aerial drone aircrafts, which are frequently deployed against sovereign nation-states to indiscriminately exenterate any living being in its focus. The Australian leadership’s contribution to such unethical forms of warfare is truly against the will of the Australian people.

As the US faces economic torpidity and abject bankruptcy, it’s clear that a restored focus on Asia is not solely in the interest of economics, as professed by Hillary Clinton in her manifesto, America’s Pacific Century. The skulking encroachment of American militarism beneath the public relations-jargon of the State Department is increasingly evident in dealings with Australia. Although the Gillard government criminalized certain lethal armaments such as Cluster munitions under Australian law, US personnel transit and stockpile the weapons at US military facilities in Darwin. The people of Australian cannot tolerate a foreign military power illegally conducting operations on their territory and a foreign President asserting, “we’re here to stay.”

The underlining initiative of recent US foreign policy has been to continually thwart Chinese economic interests in various parts of the globe, irrespective of moral and ethical consequence. The moment that it’s provocations appear too reckless, China may incite a collapse of the US dollar by dumping its holdings of US treasury bonds. While the current Labour government spends an unjustifiable amount of money on military expansion, the original inhabitants of Australia have the shortest life expectancy of any of the world’s indigenous groups. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission has reported that half of the Indigenous people in the Northern Territory do not have adequate housing, while various communities are unable to access potable water.

Australia is the only developed nation where cases of blinding trachoma still exist. While basic infrastructure and housing in Aboriginal communities is abjectly insufficient, clearly, owning amphibious warships is more of a priority for the Australian leadership, who sheepishly play junior to American authority. While the rate of Aboriginal imprisonment in the state of Western Australia is eight times the figure than that of South Africa’s apartheid regime, the scene of mining bulldozers demolishing invaluable Aboriginal artwork on the walls of expansive natural caves situated on traditional tribal land is truly the weltschmerz of an entire people. Canberra’s allegiances are evidently not to its population, but to amoral mining enterprises and the military industrial complex.

For more on Australia, please see the Australian Archives.

SOPA - Don't Just Protest - Get Even

2012-01-18T16:41:00.000-08:00

by Tony Cartalucci

January 18, 2012 - The entire reason why SOPA's authors and supporters have the money, influence, and power to put draconian bills like it forward in the first place is because of our daily patronizing of their corporations and the goods and services they provide.

SOPA supporters include the US Chamber of Commerce, the MPAA, and many of the mega-corporations Americans, and indeed people around the world, support on a daily basis. The key to stopping SOPA and the watered down feigned "concession" that will surely follow it is to undermine the unwarranted power and influence of the corporations and financiers backing it in the first place. If Americans withdrew their support from these corporations, if theaters were left empty, if Pepsi and Coke were left collecting dust on the shelves of an empty Walmart, bills like SOPA would not exist, let alone have a chance to be passed into law.

Below is just one letter signed by just one group of these corporations and organizations. Boycott, put out of business, and replace these corporations with local alternatives.

Sponsors of this letter in support of "rougue sites legislation" include:

3M
Alliance of Automobile Manufactures
American Apparel and Footwear Associations
Autodesk Inc.
Bose Corporation
Broadcast Music Inc (BMI)
Caterpillar
CBS
Council of Fashion Designers of America
Electronic Arts (EA)
Ford Motor Company
GlaxoSmith Kline
Harley-Davidson Motor Company
Johnson & Johnson
L'Oreal
Macmillian
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)
National Basketball Association (NBA)
National Football League (NFL)
NBC Universal
News Corporation (Fox News)
NHL
Nike
Nintendo of America
Oakley
Pfizer
PGA of America
Philip Morris International
Reebok
Rite Aid
Rolex
Rosetta Stone
Software & Information Industry Association
Sony
Dow Chemical
McGraw-Hill
Timberland
Walt Disney
Tiffany & Co.
Time Warner
Toshiba
US Chamber of Commerce
Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC)
Universal Music Group
Viacom
Wal-Mart
Warner Music Group
World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE)
Xerox Corporation
Zippo Manufacturing

If you can't live without the endless crass torrent of "bread and circus" as well as trinkets provided by the above mentioned supporters of this corporate-fascist agenda - the literal crafting and backing of legislation of, by, and for corporations -you don't deserve the freedom you believe yourself entitled to.

There is not one corporation listed above that society could not live without and in many cases replace with decentralized, superior local alternatives. Freedom is not simply voicing your opposition or choosing representatives to do so on your behalf. Freedom is also about the responsibility to keep in check the creation of unwarranted power and influence garnered from your daily payments in attention, money, time, and energy to corporations that would seek to impose their will upon society using the very mechanisms of governance designed solely for the people's benefit.

Identify the source of power behind bills like SOPA, and indeed many of the government policies wrecking our society, miring us in endless war, and leaving us in economic destitution. Boycott them, and replace them. We cannot be blamed for the greed and depravity of the global corporate-financier elite, but we can be blamed for fueling their megalomania on a daily basis.

Regime Change Express Surges Toward Budapest

2012-01-16T15:26:00.000-08:00

Daniel McAdams
LewRockwell.com
January 17, 2012

Poor Tamas Fellegi. Hungary's envoy to the International Monetary Fund had to spend last week enduring endless lectures on democracy and fiscal responsibility from the unelected head of an international financial organization that is largely funded with money stolen from the US taxpayer.

And poor Viktor Orban. Just over twenty years ago the young Hungarian had the temerity to stand up at the reburial of the hero of the 1956 uprising to demand that Soviet troops leave and that the communist regime agree to hold free and democratic elections. The communists didn't like him very much. Orban and many other anti-communists of that era were fighting unelected Moscow-based occupiers who stole his country's sovereignty and ruined its economy for ideological reasons. Now, as Hungary's prime minister, he is fighting against an unelected Brussels and Washington-based force that seeks to steal (what's left of) his country's sovereignty and ruin its economy for ideological reasons.

The Europeans — and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — are bearing down on the Hungarian government, attacking its "authoritarian tendencies" and demanding that Orban restore democracy. Charles Gati, a State Department official in the administration of Clinton's husband, has gone even further, opining in the pro-opposition news weekly 160 Ora that, "there are opportunities indeed to remove this (Orbán) government — if possible in a democratic way, if not then in some other way."

Gati, who has been joined at the hip to the renamed Hungarian communist party and its governing allies from even before the regime change in 1989, now threatens a violent overthrow of the democratically-elected Hungarian government — in the name of promoting democracy! (And if you wonder whether he is serious, click on the above link and you can see that he is pictured in front of the "Regime Change Factory" flag of the CIA-affiliated Freedom House).

(Incidentally, Gati's tireless efforts on behalf of the former communists in Hungary were richly rewarded in 2009, when his friends in the Hungarian government awarded him the Commander’s Cross with the Star of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary. Hmmm... a star?)

So what is the problem with Orban? Well the "problem" for Orban and his center-right political party Fidesz is actually not a lack of democracy, but rather too much democracy! His party was elected with an unprecedented two-thirds majority in 2010 by an electorate brought to its knees by the financial mismanagement and corruption of the long-ruling renamed communists, now called the Hungarian Socialist Party, and its junior coalition partner, the Alliance of Free Democrats, which was literally obliterated in the last election.

The Hungarian voter became outraged when a recording at a private Socialist Party meeting was made public in which then-Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany admitted that his government lied to the population and "screwed up" the country.

"It lists the crimes of Communism and lifts the statute of limitations that protected the criminals of the Soviet era who despatched 600,000 Hungarians to concentration camps. Hungary’s transition to democracy is often called painless, because the Red nomenklatura saw the game was up, liquidated state assets and became the new rich. The Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party dropped one word from its title and soon regained power: Ferenc Gyurcsány, prime minister from 2006 to 2009, was the former president of the Communist Youth Organisation. In a world where nonagenarian Nazis who should have been hanged in 1945 are carried into court in oxygen tents, why is it an outrage for Hungary now to target Red murderers? Well, er, because the right commits atrocities, the left commits mistakes."

Orban's other divergences from "democracy" according to the European Commission and the US administration include using his mandate to bring the Hungarian central bank under the oversight of elected officials rather than remain the purview of highly-paid bureaucrats who more often than not do the bidding of their foreign counterparts at the expense of those who pay their salaries. It is not quite an "end the Fed" movement in Hungary but it certainly could be seen as a move to curb the seemingly limitless power of an unelected Hungarian Ben Bernanke.

As financial expert Andrea Hosso observed regarding claims of Orban "threatening the independence" of the central bank:

"How independent is the US Federal Reserve with its consecutive bouts of Quantitative Easing, or the European Central Bank with its new venture into buying up hundreds of billions of Eurozone bonds to keep the big project afloat?"

No wonder the Obama administration is irritated.

It is particularly rich to see the European Commission threatening legal action against the Hungarian government unless it "return to democracy" by overturning laws such as the above curb on the power of the central bank and a new mandatory retirement age for judges. The European Commission, that paragon of democracy, is as we know an entirely unelected body that meets and votes in secret.

Unfortunately for him in this instance, Orban's tendency to shoot from the hip can come back to haunt him. After declaring last year that no new IMF assistance was needed, Orban's government experienced what seems to some a concerted effort to bring the country to its knees -- to bow before the IMF and international finance. Bond yields soared, Moody’s downgraded the government’s debt to junk status, and the forint has lost 15% of its value. Orban sent Fellegi to Washington, tail between legs, to have his pound of flesh extracted by IMF managing director Christine Lagarde.

Not so fast, said the unelected Lagarde last week. First Hungary must change several of its domestic laws and renew its commitment to democracy. Then the price of a bailout to Hungary's creditors will be a new austerity program on its population. It seems the government is in a panic and will agree to anything for IMF assistance, but they would do well to have a look at Greece, where IMF "reform" is producing its usual results.

As if by design in these situations, the demanded austerity programs will make the ruling regime (who the West wants to change) extremely unpopular. A shocked and bewildered population will take to the streets demanding a change in regime, assisted by the generous support — and intoxicating lies — provided by the US regime change experts NED, NDI, and, IRI. Violence may ensue, sovereignty will be destroyed, and the Western-preferred malleable descendents of the old regime will sweep back into power.

Questions the Hungarian government might want to ask instead, looking at its debt obligations, are why should the current population be squeezed to death to repay the endless borrowing by the communist regime in the 1970s and 1980s? Where did that money all go? To build villas in the hills of Buda, no doubt.

The great Bill Bonner suggested last year, "Why Greece Should Default and Go Broke With Dignity." He could be writing for Hungary as well.

Maybe Hungary should just tell Lagarde, José Manuel Barroso, and Hillary Clinton to "stuff it."

Martin Luther King: Praised in Words, Defamed in Deeds

2012-01-16T05:03:00.000-08:00

an editorial by Tony Cartalucci

January 16, 2012 - What a spectacle, the "first black president" of the United States celebrating Martin Luther King Jr Day. How far we've come, or so it would seem.

And while King was primarily a civil rights activist seeking equality amongst men based on their humanity, not the countenance of their skin, and the fact that a black man can become president is indeed progress, King was also a champion for humanity in general. He was a peace activist as much as a civil rights activist.

In a speech given on April 4, 1967 in New York City titled, "Beyond Vietnam - A Time to Break Silence," King gives what is perhaps the widest encapsulation of his philosophy and worldview, one that would undoubtedly criticize and clash with the disingenuous US president celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. Day this year. And the beauty of the equality King helped usher in is, the fact that Obama is black should not shield him from the criticism of the very man that helped pave the way for his accession to office.

One section of King's enlightening speech criticizing the Vietnam War states:

"It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin...we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.

This kind of positive revolution of values is our best defense against communism. War is not the answer. Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons. Let us not join those who shout war and, through their misguided passions, urge the United States to relinquish its participation in the United Nations. These are days which demand wise restraint and calm reasonableness. We must not engage in a negative anticommunism, but rather in a positive thrust for democracy, realizing that our greatest defense against communism is to take offensive action in behalf of justice. We must with positive action seek to remove those conditions of poverty, insecurity, and injustice, which are the fertile soil in which the seed of communism grows and develops."

It is safe to say that America has not mended its ways and only traveled further down the dark path King warned us of back in 1967. The man "leading" us, or at least the front-man for the corporate-financier interests that drive America's destiny, may honor King with carefully contrived words and well orchestrated ceremony, but in deeds and actions Obama and the corporate-financier elite that hold his leash, defame and dishonor King in every way imaginable.

If you want to honor King and his life's work, honor it by implementing the words he uttered while alive, not by playing along with a system that resisted him until his death, and has since dishonored him with disingenuous praise while maliciously carrying out an agenda contra to everything King ever stood for.

You can read and listen to the whole April 4, 1967 speech, "Beyond Vietnam - A Time to Break Silence" on AmericanRhetoric.com.

US-Funded "Rights Advocate" Censoring Free-Speech Forum

2012-01-15T09:01:00.001-08:00

The irony of deceit.
by Tony Cartalucci

January 16, 2012 - Prachatai describes itself as "an independent, non-profit, daily web newspaper established in June 2004 to provide reliable and relevant news and information to the Thai public during an era of serious curbs on the freedom and independence of Thai news media." Their objectives include, "to promote active public participation in Thai news media."

The "independent" daily web newspaper does indeed make daily posts with information taken from organizations with heroic sounding names, including "Freedom House," "Human Rights Watch," "Amnesty International," and the "International Federation for Human Rights," with almost all of their stories centered around anti-censorship, pro-free speech and pro-democracy topics.

At Prachatai.com, one would think it would be the last place to fall victim of the very same censorship they fight against daily. In reality, it is one of the first places to expect such double standards.

In Reality

In reality, Prachatai abjectly lies about being "independent." In fact, they are fully funded by the US State Department via the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and USAID, Wall Street banker George Soros' Open Society and Media Development Loan Fund (MDLF), the Rockefeller Foundation, and the German government's Heinrich Böll Foundation. It was only last year, in 2011, that this information was made available to the public, and only after months of working to expose and hold Prachatai accountable.

And while Prachatai now partially discloses its funding, claiming that, "it is important to state here that none of our foreign donors has ever put up any demands connected to the funds they provided, nor did they ever interfere with our reporting," in full acknowledgement of just how bad it looks - they have yet to address legitimate concerns regarding the nature of their funding and their true agenda.

Prachatai is just one of many disingenuous, insidious NGOs fully funded by Wall Street and London around the world carrying out an agenda of global hegemony by displacing national institutions with homogenous "civil society" directed by the global elite - all done behind the veil of "freedom" and "democracy."

As a rights advocate, Prachatai is portrayed by many, including the BBC, as a "liberal news website." They portray themselves as anti-establishment and pro-people power. It might then be a legitimate question to ask why they accept money from foreign organizations representing interests and agendas running directly against such an image.

Indeed, a look at NED's Board of Directors reveals what is essentially a front for corporate-fascism and big-business interests, not even Thai interests, but those of Wall Street and London:

Francis Fukuyama: Neo-Con, Project for a New American Century (PNAC) signatory, pro-war
Zalmay Khalilzad: Neo-Con PNAC signatory, pro-war + corporate lobbyist
Will Marshall: Neo-Con PNAC signatory, pro-war
Vin Weber: Neo-Con PNAC signatory, pro-war + corporate lobbyist
Richard Gephardt: pro-war, corporate lobbyist for big-pharma, Boeing & Ford Motor Co.
John Bohn: petrochemicals, corporate consultant & international banker for 13 years
Rita DiMartino: CFR, AT&T "Vice President of Congressional Relations"
Kenneth Duberstein: Boeing, ConocoPhillips, Mack-Cali Realty, CFR member & Fannie Mac
William Galston: Brookings Institution
Moises Naim: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Robert Miller: corporate lawyer
Larry Liebenow: US Chamber of Commerce, Center for International Private Enterprise

Nothing could be further from "people power" than Neo-Conservative, warmongering, big-business, corporate-fascists lining the board of directors of a disingenuously named organization like the National Endowment for Democracy. How then is it not immense fraud for Prachatai to take money from these people, year-to-year, and still pose as "independent" or "liberal" or even a "rights advocates?" It can be argued that the board of directors of NED represents many involved in the most egregious transgressions against human rights and national sovereignty in recent human history.

It gets worse though. NED not only has a suspicious board of directors, they have a long nefarious history that has been criticized by real progressives for decades. In 1993, Noam Chomsky spoke of NED's activities in Nicaragua stating, "it's an attempt to impose what is called democracy, meaning rule by the rich and the powerful, without interference by the mob but within the framework of formal electoral procedures." Australia's Southern Cross University's "Activating Human Rights & Peace (AHRP)" conference had put out a revealing account of their 2008 proceedings which stated that NED was carrying out "a lot of work that was formerly undertaken by the CIA."

Last year, during the "Arab Spring," disingenuously portrayed as spontaneous pro-democracy uprisings, it was later revealed in the New York Time article,"U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings," that the National Endowment for Democracy played a key role in training, funding, and equipping protesters long before the first uprisings unfolded. For nations that fell to NED's insidious meddling, it wasn't democratic leaders that came to power, but instead NED's own operatives like Moncef Marzouki in Tunisia, or a representative of Wall Street-London corporate-fascism like Abdurrahim el-Keib, now prime minister of Libya and a long time representative of the BP, Shell, Total-funded Petroleum Institute.

It should be noted that in tandem with NED, worked George Soros' Open Society, either co-funding NED's various global initiatives, or funding similar projects in parallel. It is therefore very troubling to see Prachatai in Thailand, funded by these same disingenuous criminal conspirators, and not answering fully for what they are doing.

Prachatai's Censorship on its own "Anti-Censorship" Website

Of course, if Prachatai is truly an agent of the US State Department it should surprise no one that they would censor and ban anyone in their forums exposing such a fact or challenging the narrative and false consensus they attempt to generate in yet another campaign to divide and destroy a sovereign nation.

For months Land Destroyer has been regularly posting alternative views on Prachatai - always confronted with a unified campaign from alleged Prachatai readers to discredit and deny even facts taken directly from Prachatai's own "About Us" page. Additionally, there have been concerted calls for censoring, "boxing off," and "muzzling" contrary views before finally, this week, Prachatai began an aggressive campaign to delete any new comments posted that contradict their propaganda. Not only this, but apparently planted commentators are claiming that such censorship is not taking place.

It is a simple matter, however, to capture webpages as .pdf's and show the "before and after" affects of Prachatai's censorship. Below is just two examples and readers are encouraged to go to Prachatai.com/english and join the debate, if only to expose one part of the US State Department's vast global propaganda network and see just how US tax dollars are being wasted around the world.

From US-funded Prachatai's "Nitirat's proposed amendments:" (click images to enlarge)

From US-funded Prachatai's "The Last Refuge of a Scoundrel:" (click images to enlarge)

Vulgarity was not used, the comments either addressed directly the subject matter of the article or comments left to stand in Prachatai's comment section. Still, they were removed, as were dozens more in just one evening. Prachatai had been piecemeal censoring comments for months so as to blunt certain messages but to make it appear "freedom of speech" was still being observed. A chorus of abusive commentators would ridicule any suggestion that Prachatai was censoring, but now we have definitive proof that indeed they are.

If Prachatai isn't promoting freedom of speech or democracy, what are they promoting?

It's Not about Freedom of Speech

At the heart of the matter involving Prachatai, is of course the conduit it serves as for Washington and Wall Street to enter and despoil Thailand. As in Egypt, where Egyptian traitor Mohamed ElBaradei was literally sitting on the board of trustees of a US think-tank while leading a US-staged uprising in his native country, Thailand too has a stooge of choice. That stooge is Thaksin Shinawtra. And just as Egypt had mobs of cannon fodder taking to the streets on behalf of ElBaradei’s US-backed uprising, so does Thaksin via the “red shirt” United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD). And just as Egypt’s April 6 street mob leadership was literally face -to-face with the US State Department and US corporate interests, so too was Thailand’s UDD leadership.

Photo: Deposed Thai prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra on the even of the 2006 military coup that would oust him from power. Since 2006 he has had the full, unflinching support of Washington, Wall Street and their immense propaganda machine in his bid to seize back power.

….

The council in 2004 included 3M, war profiteering Bechtel, Boeing, Cargill, Citigroup, General Electric, IBM, the notorious Monsanto, and currently also includes the criminal banksters of Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Chevron, Exxon, BP, Glaxo Smith Kline, Merck, Northrop Grumman, Monsanto’s GMO doppelganger Syngenta, and Phillip Morris. These corporations are more synonymous with mass-murder, mass-corruption, war, and human suffering than any of the “democratic” and “open society” ideals Thaksin, his UDD, or Prachatai claim to be “bringing” to Thailand.

Since the 2006 coup that toppled his autocratic regime, Thaksin has been represented by US corporate-financier elites via their lobbying firms including, Kenneth Adelman of the Edelman PR firm (Freedom House, International Crisis Group, PNAC), James Baker of Baker Botts (CFR), Robert Blackwill of Barbour Griffith & Rogers (CFR), Kobre & Kim, and currently Robert Amsterdam of Amsterdam & Peroff (Chatham House). Meanwhile, his “red shirts” UDD street mobs have received rhetorical support by US-funded NGOs like Prachatai.

Quite clearly if the West is to get Thaksin ably behind the levers of power to make the sort of changes Washington and Wall Street desire, Thailand’s establishment must be further undermined, while the opposition is somehow rehabilitated. Enter Prachatai and the UDD who have made careers of obfuscating facts and misleading people to this end. While both hide behind the veneer of standing for “democracy” "free speech" and “human rights,” we can see that those behind them stand for no such things. Prachatai is forced to sustain their elected narratives by obfuscating, circumventing, and otherwise avoiding a long list of well documented facts that damn their arguments as wholly illegitimate. Logically, the best of all options for them is to simply silence anyone bringing these documented facts to the table.

This is how a "rights advocate" like Prachatai who claims to be "anti-censorship/pro-free speech" ends up censoring their own forums. This is the irony wrought from deceit.

Editor's Note: It would suit those in Thailand's political landscape who wish to at least perpetuate their fraud a few steps further than Prachatai, to speak out against this overtly hypocritical and cause-damning move to censor what is supposed to be an anti-censorship website. This includes the likes of Pravit Rojanaphruk, a journalist at the Nation who openly admits to contributing to Prachatai and has attempted to whitewash their acceptance of foreign money. Should he remain silent after his latest "rights editorial crusade" Prachatai's hypocrisy becomes his own.

This also includes Prachatai's founder, John Ungpakorn, who has since disassociated himself from the organization but still tacitly supports their activities. To his credit, he did join in calling Prachatai to disclose their funding.

Pointing Out the Veil of Authority

2012-01-14T12:03:00.000-08:00

John Bush Returns to Austin City Council After Being Banned to Point Out the Gun in the Room.

FAQ: Why are Globalist Think-Tank Documents Public?

2012-01-13T10:46:00.001-08:00

Q. Why are such research documents - Which Path to Persia? or "String of Pearls" - made public on the web? If these are in fact strategic and provide a view into the world of powers that run the show on our globe, why would they allow such "sensitive" information and "plans" to be made public for everyone to read?

Image: Despite producing the vast majority of rules, regulations, laws and policies that dictate the destiny of Western civilization, as well as drawing up plans for war, these corporate-funded, corporate-serving think-tanks are little known amongst the general public. Despite publishing much of their work on publicly accessible websites, most people will never know about it, let alone take the time to read it.

....

A. You can't keep global empire a secret - by necessity you need people to believe in your cause - even if you dress it up and spin it as something other than naked conquest. The global corporate-financier elite manage access to information by marketing different levels of it to different demographics. This has been done throughout all of history. The reasoning done with the aristocracy to keep them in line was more straight-forward and pragmatic than the absolute fantasies used to dupe and manipulate the common man.

It works in layers - papers like "Which Path to Persia?" being toward the top are aimed at people who believe in global governance and globalization - professors, senior editors, CEOs etc. who falsely believe they have a stake in the process - and while it is made public, it is generally inaccessible to the average reader because of its use of academic English, length, and very high minimal requirements in understanding the history, strategy, geopolitics, and human nature necessary to understand the contents.

On Brookings own website you will also see their policy makers pen articles & op-eds for newspapers, sufficiently dumbed-down, in plainer English, and with noticeably more spin in place of the straight-forward frankness of pieces like "Which Path to Persia?" Consider Kenneth Pollack, co-author of "Which Path to Persia?," then penning this fluff piece, "Iran's Covert War Against the US" for the Daily Beast.

Below that is your corporate-media propaganda which is almost entirely useless and also the most widely viewed by the greatest number of people. Those that believe anything they see on CNN or Fox are generally unaware that organizations like Brookings even exist - despite their "experts" often being brought on for commentary & analysis.

As much as the alternative media has grown, a tremendous amount of ordinary people have still never heard of PNAC, Agenda 21, Brookings (let alone any specific work of theirs) and so on. Also keep in mind that "Which Path to Persia?" while being incredibly frank and incriminating, is not necessarily the pinnacle manifestation of their conspiracy which most likely would not be "public." However, human nature being what it is - we can take what they do make known, and what human history has already taught us and extrapolate what indeed they are really up to and why.

I am acutely aware of a possible strategy of tension created by dictating the tempo & nature of global conflict by publicly releasing apparent intentions - then again the global elite of Wall Street and London really are subverting governments with US/UK funded NGOs and there is a paper trail overtly, publicly proving it. Since these NGOs are defended publicly as doing "humanitarian" work when targeted governments crackdown on them, they must show where their funding comes from and appear, at least to the ignorant, as legitimate. Despite both governments -the aggressor and the besieged - knowing the truth, the fact that so many gullible people don't understand that the "National Endowment for Democracy" is actually a corporate fascist front, tips the balance of power in favor of the greater propagandist - Wall Street/London.

Of course, the only thing we can ever be sure of is ourselves, our family and friends, and people in our immediate community. That is why facing the vast landscape of geopolitics and a means of implementing change across it is better off being started in your own backyard, on your own block, and in your own community. It is easy to identify those in society who have acquired unwarranted influence, and just as easy in many cases to immediately begin boycotting and replacing them with local solutions.

The Global Elite Want You Dead

2012-01-12T11:50:00.000-08:00

Dr. Webster Tarpley breaks down current White House science adviser John P. Holdren's book "Ecoscience." Co-authored by Paul Ehrlich, the book is still available for purchase in some bookstores and online - it is indeed a real book, as difficult as it will be for some to believe as Dr. Tarpley covers the material contained within.

15:00: "Question for Holdren... If you have a bunch of people and you want to give them all a hat, and there are not enough hats to go around, what do you do? I say, manufacture more hats. Holdren says start cutting off heads..."

....

While depopulating the world and stifling industry is still the goal of the corporate-financier elite, it should be noted that all of the concerns in Ecoscience and Ehrlich's earlier book, "The Population Bomb," were entirely wrong. Their predictions were wrong and their lack of faith in human innovation and technological progress was entirely flawed.

Instead of reexamining their hypothesis as real men of science would, they have instead shifted from one crack-pot elitist-subsidized theory to another - this time attacking human development from behind the cloak of "climate change" and "environmentalism." Ehrlich's fans will be happy to know that he has published a more recent book titled, "The Dominant Animal" which he explains in a piece titled, "Too Many of the Dominant Animal?" Ironically, it was published the same year the fraud of "climate change" began collapsing under increased public scrutiny and alternative media activism following "Climategate."

To explain the persistence of these ideologies and why they so often find an audience and vast support amongst the elite, Dr. Tarpley also has done an in-depth interview with the crew of Infowars.com regarding the mentality of oligarchs and the psychological and historical pathology of their hatred for human development, technology, and any form of tangible progress.

For more of Dr. Tarpley's work, please visit his website at Tarpley.net. These interviews were conducted by Alex Jones' Infowars.com.

Obamney (Romney+Obama) vs. Paul for 2012

2012-01-12T11:18:00.000-08:00

January 12, 2012 - The Corbett Report & Media Monarchy

Welcome back to http://NewWorldNextWeek.com — the video series from Corbett Report and Media Monarchy that covers some of the most important developments in open source intelligence news. This week:

Story #1: Ron Paul Is The Only Candidate With The Momentum to Challenge Romney
http://ur1.ca/7fkv9
Ron Paul Says It's Two-Man Race Now
http://ur1.ca/7fkvd
Why Paul Won't Make Third Party Bid
http://ur1.ca/7fkvm

Story #2: Israel 'Not Shedding a Tear' Over Mystery Death of Iranian Nuclear Scientist
http://ur1.ca/7fkvv
Haaretz Timeline on Mysterious Deaths And Blasts Linked to Iran's Nuclear Program
http://ur1.ca/7fkwa
Clinton Denies US Role in Killing Iranian Nuclear Scientist
http://ur1.ca/7fky7
More Murder of Iranian Scientists: Still Terrorism?
http://ur1.ca/7fkyc
Assassination of Iranian Scientist Joint Operation By Mossad, MKO
http://ur1.ca/7fkyg
NWNW Flashback: 'Funding Terror' from December 22, 2011
http://ur1.ca/7fkyj

Story #3: Forced Sterilization Victims Granted $50,000 Over Admitted US 'Eugenics' Program
http://ur1.ca/7fkyp
North Carolina May Compensate Sterilization Victims
http://ur1.ca/7fkyr
Related: US Argues It Is 'Immune' From Guatemalan STD Experiment Lawsuit
http://ur1.ca/7fkyx
NWNW Flashback: 'Experiments Exposed' from March 3, 2011
http://ur1.ca/7fkz5

Visit http://NewWorldNextWeek.com to get previous episodes in various formats to download, burn & share. And as always, stay up-to-date by
subscribing to the feeds from Corbett Report http://ur1.ca/39obd and Media Monarchy http://ur1.ca/kuec Thank you.

Previous Episode: New World Next Year 2011/2012
http://ur1.ca/7fkzj

Syria Unrest-News Analysis with Webster Tarpley

2012-01-12T10:48:00.000-08:00

via Tarpley.net: “Free Syrian Army” Unleashes Suicide Bombing in Damascus; Madrid 2004 Bomber Belhadj of Al Qaeda Now Commands “FSA” from Iskanderun, Turkey; NATO Airlifting Libyan Terrorists and Weapons for Salvadoran Death Squad Option vs. Syria.

Think-Tanks Explained

2012-01-11T15:25:00.000-08:00

Or, Where National Policy Comes From.
by Tony Cartalucci

January 12, 2012 - I was shocked to see the corporate-financier Lowy Institute of Australia tweet a story explaining the ins-and-outs of think tanks. I was equally shocked to actually read the article, titled "Devaluing the Think Tank," written by Tevi Troy and published in "National Affairs." It describes what is basically an extra-legal process where national policy is not produced by our elected representatives within the legislative branch, but rather in these policy think-tanks and in some cases, even described as being "marketed."

Image: "Your nation's policy has been brought to you by...." These represent just some of the corporate sponsors of just one single think-tank (the Brookings Institution) that creates both foreign and domestic policy for the United States, extra-legally beyond the nation's legislative branch, as well as the blueprints for America's future wars of conquest. Afterward, all that remains is for "elected representatives" to rubber stamp it and for the corporate-media to sell it to an unsuspecting public.

....

I was impressed by the depth at which Troy covered the inner workings of policy think-tanks and was only disappointed in three respects. One, Troy never mentions who actually funds and directs these think-tanks. Two, because of the first omission, the illusion that these think-tanks are aligned along and driven by political parties is created. And three, Troy whitewashes, and even defends think-tanks and their role in policy making that should remain exclusively within the realm of elected representatives and the legislative branch.

However, these omissions are easily remedied by reading "Naming Names: Your Real Government" and "Clinton Turns to Naked Corporate-Fascism" where the real forces driving this think-tank industry described by Troy is fully explained. While reading these three articles together is not going to be "light reading," those who succeed in doing so will walk away fully enlightened of how policy, both domestic and foreign, is created throughout the dominion of Wall Street and London.

Understanding how utterly futile faith in our representative form of government is when our "representatives" are simply handed policy by established think-tanks funded by a combine of billion-dollar multinational corporations is the first step in devising viable solutions to correcting this enormous imbalance of power.

Quite obviously, if corporate-financier interests dominate our policy because of the immense wealth and unwarranted influence we have granted them through our patronizing them, boycotting and replacing them back down to size would be a good first step.

To illustrate how complementary Troy's article is with "Naming Names," and "Naked Corporate Fascism," consider these two excerpts:

"Devaluing the Think Tank" by Tevi Troy

"The Center for American Progress is easily the most thoroughgoing example of what City College of New York professor Andrew Rich has called "marketing think tanks." For these institutions, the balance between original research and public relations is clearly tipped in the direction of the latter. As Rich puts it, these organizations often seem more interested in selling their product than in coming up with new ideas. CAP in particular seems to have turned marketing and organizing into an art form. According to a 2008 article by Bloomberg's Edwin Chen, CAP devoted about 40% of its resources to communication and outreach that year, eight times as much as typical liberal policy organizations did. At the time, CAP had a budget of $27 million and claimed 180 staffers, employing about as many full-time bloggers (11) as PPI did scholars. CAP has even been involved in the Occupy Wall Street protests: According to the New York Times, CAP "encouraged and sought to help coordinate protests in different cities"; a spokesman for the center told the Times that "we've definitely been publicizing it and supporting" the movement."

"Clinton Turns to Naked Corporate-Fascism" by Tony Cartalucci

Center for American Progress
americanprogress.org

Background: The Center for American Progress holds transparency in contempt, refusing to reveal on its website or in its annual report, exactly who is paying the bills. While "right-wing-styled" institutes are generally more proud to show off their corporate sponsors - a sign that they are for the "free market," allegedly left-leaning organizations attempt to portray their efforts as subsidized on goodwill alone. We saw this earlier this year when the self-proclaimed "independent" Prachatai, a "liberal news website" according to the BBC, which was exposed to be funded millions of Thai baht a year by the Neo-Conservative lined National Endowment for Democracy. Likewise, just beneath the surface of "American Progress" are billionaire bankers, corporate-lobbyists, and everyone else one would consider corporate-fascist.

The New York Times exposes the center's backers in an article titled, "John Podesta, Shepherd of a Government in Exile." And while the New York Times attempts to portray the center as "liberal," and its the lack of transparency as "normal," what we find is yet another corporate infested organization of unelected policy makers, producing reports and bills on behalf of the planet's monied elite, that are passed to Congress for rubber stamping, while their connections throughout the corporate-media ensure that the policy is promoted, sold to, and accepted by the public.

The New York Times reveals George Soros as a donor, as well as Peter Lewis of Progressive, a Fortune 500 insurance company, and Herb Sanders, formally of World Savings Bank, who made billions in the "mortgage industry." The center itself is headed by John Podesta, whose colorful career within the United States government is elaborated at length within his bio featured on the center's website. And despite the New York Times' long, ranting history of Podesta's ties to the Democratic party, what is never mentioned by either, is that he also heads a Washington lobbying firm, the Podesta Group representing corporate-financier interests including Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and British Petroleum.

A long and self-incriminating "record" of their past work can be found on their website. Despite the colorful pictures and adjectives used to describe Podesta's work, what is essentially representing corporate-special interests in Washington, we may see the clearest example yet of what and of whom these think-tanks are really made of -hardly "scholars." Lobbying firms like Podesta are literally the glue that holds this un-Constitutional, corporate-fascist system together. While bills like the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation shut down small, start up competitors, Podesta was busy "convincing" Congress that its client didn't need to be regulated - resulting in a system that is literally stacked against the people, in favor of the Fortune 500 - Wall Street and London.

Podesta even brags about its ability to use the media to manipulate public opinion on behalf of their clients. Ed Rothschild's biography on Podesta's site claims:

"Chairing the Podesta Group’s energy and environment practice, Ed crafts and executes government relations and public relations strategy for many of the firm’s clients, including companies, trade associations and advocacy groups. With his deep Rolodex of media contacts and communications savvy, Ed provides messaging guidance and media training, and opens doors to media outlets for clients."

Under a section of the Podesta Group's website titled, "International," is a breathtaking admission of how lobbying groups drive foreign policy for "clients," be they foreign governments or international corporations.

"Some consider international policy and Washington politics to be separate entities - we know better. Whether the client is a foreign government, international corporation or interest group, our team of experts is a favorite for international entities with regulatory, legislative and communications needs in Washington. Our strategists have worked in senior positions in the offices of Washington’s foremost decision makers, with international law firms and think tanks. They have experience at the highest levels of journalism, and have worked abroad, affording a global perspective necessary to crafting successful strategies here in the US. Routine tactics for many complex projects rarely work. Our international team understands the unique needs of global interests and in developing and executing customized strategies that are effective in any political environment."

On the same page, beneath the category, "PG at Work" and "PG in the News," we see links that lead off to the New York Times, Washington Post, and the Christian Science Monitor featuring Podesta's employees literally writing editorials and articles, the vast majority of them calling for or defending war with nations across the planet. Podesta employee Stephen Rademaker is even featured in an article declaring that he is now a "foreign policy adviser" for presidential hopeful Mitt Romney.

Clearly Mr. John Podesta is as compromised as any man can be in Washington, and clearly in bed with corporate-financier interests while heading a "think-tank" policy front simply dressing up his lobbying work with a certain air of "scholarly" credibility. Now, and hopefully to the alarm of all Americans, these lobbyists will be directly advising the US State Department.

Clearly Troy, while whitewashing and spinning the implications of "CAP's" activities, still gives readers insight into how they operate. The latter excerpt then gives readers a more detailed explanation of who funds CAP, why, what their real agenda is, and how they carry it out.

Not only will reading these three articles give us the ability to understand how policy is made, how our society is governed, and a starting point from which to begin changing this obviously fraudulent system, but by understanding where our policy comes from and following these think-tanks instead of the disingenuous corporate-media that then spins and sells these policies to the public, we can tell what the global corporate-financier elite are really doing and why.

Devaluing the Think Tank
Naming Names: Your Real Government
Clinton Turns to Naked Corporate Fascism

American-backed Terrorists In Iran

2012-01-11T12:55:00.000-08:00

US State Department tells bold lies regarding the latest assassination in Iran as it harbors MEK terrorists in Iraq.
by Tony Cartalucci

January 12, 2012 - While the fifth and latest assassination of an Iranian scientist in broad daylight has Iran pointing the finger at Israel and the United States, with at least the US State Department denying any involvement, there is no evidence yet to determine exactly who was behind the attack.

However, the US State Department complicated what would have otherwise been plausibly denied, by claiming no US involvement "in any kind of act of violence inside Iran." This is a verified lie. The US has indeed conspired to carry out a campaign of covert violence against Iran and is on record already beginning operations against the Islamic Republic even before Obama came into office. These operations have continued up until present day with the US harboring, arming, funding, training, and providing diplomatic support for a US State Dapartment listed "foreign terrorist organization," the Mujahedeen e-Khalq (MEK).

Image: US State Department lists MEK as a "Foreign Terrorist Organization." This page has since been taken down and replaced with this .pdf list.

....

Who Is MEK and Why is the US Funding Terror?

The best profile of MEK is given to us by the Fortune 500 funded Brookings Institution in their report, "Which Path to Persia?" In their report, they also openly conspire to use what is an admitted terrorist organization as a "US proxy" (emphasis added):

"Perhaps the most prominent (and certainly the most controversial) opposition group that has attracted attention as a potential U.S. proxy is the NCRI (National Council of Resistance of Iran), the political movement established by the MEK (Mujahedin-e Khalq). Critics believe the group to be undemocratic and unpopular, and indeed anti-American.

In contrast, the group’s champions contend that the movement’s long-standing opposition to the Iranian regime and record of successful attacks on and intelligence-gathering operations against the regime make it worthy of U.S. support. They also argue that the group is no longer anti-American and question the merit of earlier accusations. Raymond Tanter, one of the group’s supporters in the United States, contends that the MEK and the NCRI are allies for regime change in Tehran and also act as a useful proxy for gathering intelligence. The MEK’s greatest intelligence coup was the provision of intelligence in 2002 that led to the discovery of a secret site in Iran for enriching uranium.

Despite its defenders’ claims, the MEK remains on the U.S. government list of foreign terrorist organizations. In the 1970s, the group killed three U.S. officers and three civilian contractors in Iran. During the 1979-1980 hostage crisis, the group praised the decision to take America hostages and Elaine Sciolino reported that while group leaders publicly condemned the 9/11 attacks, within the group celebrations were widespread.

Undeniably, the group has conducted terrorist attacks—often excused by the MEK’s advocates because they are directed against the Iranian government. For example, in 1981, the group bombed the headquarters of the Islamic Republic Party, which was then the clerical leadership’s main political organization, killing an estimated 70 senior officials. More recently, the group has claimed credit for over a dozen mortar attacks, assassinations, and other assaults on Iranian civilian and military targets between 1998 and 2001. At the very least, to work more closely with the group (at least in an overt manner), Washington would need to remove it from the list of foreign terrorist organizations."

- page 117-118 of "Which Path to Persia?" Brookings Institution, 2009

It should be noted that both the Brookings Institution and the RAND Corporation note that Iran, even upon possessing nuclear weapons is unlikely to use them or proliferate them to non-state actors. This is based on observations made of Iran's long standing chemical and biological arsenals that have been under strict control for decades.

There is also recognition of the fact, that despite the propaganda found throughout the corporate-media, Iran does indeed value self-preservation and conducts its foreign-policy aggressively but not irrationally. The real danger of Iran's possession of nuclear weapons, as stated by the Brookings Institution (page 24 & 25), is that they may attempt to then subvert American allies and emboldened by the inability for the US to retaliate, allow them to overturn the Middle Eastern status quo, as currently dictated by Wall Street and London. In other words, it is not American or Israeli national security that is at risk, but rather their unchecked and unwarranted hegemony throughout the region.

It then seems that US support for MEK becomes all the more indefensible when one realizes it is for extraterritorial hegemony, not national security that America is sponsoring bonafide terrorists.

As revealed in Seymour Hersh's 2008 New Yorker article "Preparing the Battlefield," not only has MEK been considered for their role as a possible proxy, but the US has already begun arming and financing them to wage war inside Iran:

"The M.E.K. has been on the State Department’s terrorist list for more than a decade, yet in recent years the group has received arms and intelligence, directly or indirectly, from the United States. Some of the newly authorized covert funds, the Pentagon consultant told me, may well end up in M.E.K. coffers. “The new task force will work with the M.E.K. The Administration is desperate for results.” He added, “The M.E.K. has no C.P.A. auditing the books, and its leaders are thought to have been lining their pockets for years. If people only knew what the M.E.K. is getting, and how much is going to its bank accounts—and yet it is almost useless for the purposes the Administration intends.”

Seymore Hersh in an NPR interview, also claims that select MEK members have already received training in the US.

Incredibly, US forces in Iraq had provided MEK's main camp with security, and with the recent "withdrawal" of US troops from Iraq, the US State Department and even the UN have been scrambling to find a new safe haven for the US listed terrorist organization. Even more unimaginable is the fact that many of the foremost fearmongers and proponents of the "War on Terror" are engaged in desperate lobbying efforts to get MEK delisted. In October of 2011, a full page ad was taken out in the Washington Post on MEK's behalf.

Image: Full-page treason - US politicians, many the most prominent proponents of the "War on Terror," appeal to the President of the United States to delist MEK as a terrorist organization. While hand-wringing humanitarian concerns are cited, what the ad fails to mention is that MEK has long been sought after to serve as an armed US-proxy to be turned on Iran and carry out a campaign of terror, as stated clearly in the Brookings Institution "Which Path to Persia?" report. (click image to enlarge)

....

Among those signing the statement made in the ad were John Bolton, Howard Dean, Rudy Giuliani, Ed Rendell, and Tom Ridge. When reading the statement, it must be kept in mind that the Brookings Institution already confirmed that MEK was a terrorist organization and that it had verifiably killed US military personal and civilians. Also keep in mind that Brookings admitted that MEK's targets in Iran included political and civilian targets. With MEK's specialty being among other things, assassinations, they are also likely suspects behind the recent spat of targeted killings of Iranian scientists.

Conclusion

The Brookings Institution report, "Which Path to Persia?" confirms that indeed US policy makers have conspired to use MEK as an armed-proxy to commit acts of violence inside Iran, while Seymour Hersh's 2008 New Yorker article "Preparing the Battlefield confirmed that MEK had already begun receiving weapons, training, and financing to begin their campaign. Foreign Policy's most recent article, "State Department scrambling to move the MEK -- to a former U.S. military base?"confirms that MEK is still receiving considerable support from the US to this very day.

The US State Department's recent claim that it is not involved "in any kind of act of violence inside Iran," is clearly false. The US is committing acts of violence inside of Iran to the extent of using not only special forces as noted by Hersh's 2008 article, but also by using terrorists with a long history of attacking political and civilian targets in Iran.

Syria: Endgame approaches as conspiracy continues

2012-01-11T11:07:00.000-08:00

Three people have reportedly been killed by security forces across Syria on Wednesday. Bashar Al-Assad has spoken to supporters in Damascus for the second time in the last 24 hours, reiterating his dismissal of calls to step down. He's blaming the ten-month-long unrest in the country on foreign-funded terrorists, promising to crush them with extreme prejudice. The UN says Damascus has stepped up its crackdown on protesters, but Assad claims no order was ever given to fire on civilians. The President's pledged commitment to Democratic reform, promising a referendum on a new constitution by March, and free elections soon after. RT talks to independent news editor James Corbett.

....

See more of James Corbett's work at his site, The Corbett Report. The cables and US State Department admissions James Corbett is referring to can be found in the excerpt below taken in part from, "IISS: Syria's Opposition Is Armed" and "Syria's Bashar Assad Speaks to Western Press."

"The unrest in Syria from the beginning was entirely backed by Western corporate-financier interests and part of a long-planned agenda for region-wide regime change. Syria has been slated for regime change since as early as 1991. In 2002, then US Under Secretary of State John Bolton added Syria to the growing "Axis of Evil." It would be later revealed that Bolton's threats against Syria manifested themselves as covert funding and support for opposition groups inside of Syria spanning both the Bush and Obama administrations.

In an April 2011 CNN article, acting State Department spokesman Mark Toner stated, "We're not working to undermine that [Syrian] government. What we are trying to do in Syria, through our civil society support, is to build the kind of democratic institutions, frankly, that we're trying to do in countries around the globe. What's different, I think, in this situation is that the Syrian government perceives this kind of assistance as a threat to its control over the Syrian people."

Toner's remarks came after the Washington Post released cables indicating the US has been funding Syrian opposition groups since at least 2005 and continued until today.

In an April AFP report, Michael Posner, the assistant US Secretary of State for Human Rights and Labor, stated that the "US government has budgeted $50 million in the last two years to develop new technologies to help activists protect themselves from arrest and prosecution by authoritarian governments." The report went on to explain that the US "organized training sessions for 5,000 activists in different parts of the world. A session held in the Middle East about six weeks ago gathered activists from Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon who returned to their countries with the aim of training their colleagues there." Posner would add, "They went back and there's a ripple effect." That ripple effect of course is the "Arab Spring," and in Syria's case, the impetus for the current unrest threatening to unhinge the nation and invite in foreign intervention."

Stop Waiting to Live a Free Life

2012-01-11T10:56:00.001-08:00

Video: You have rights, use them. If the government makes a ridiculous dictate banning gardens, collecting rainwater, building in "wetlands," guns, cottage industry, swap meets, flea markets, etc., just do it anyway. The more people who organize and overtly exercise their rights, define and pursue their own destiny, the more difficult it is for the global elite to impose their will on you.

....

Why Washington Wants ‘Finito’ with Putin

2012-01-09T14:50:00.000-08:00

The Shady National Endowment for Democracy &The Prime Agenda of ‘Whoever’ is Next US President

By F. William Engdahl - Boiling Frogs

January 10, 2012 - Washington clearly wants ‘finito’ with Russia’s Putin as in basta! Or as they said in Egypt last spring, Kefaya–enough! Hillary Clinton and friends have apparently decided Russia’s prospective next president, Vladimir Putin, is a major obstacle to their plans. Few however understand why. Russia today, in tandem with China and to a significant degree Iran, form the spine, however shaky, of the only effective global axis of resistance to a world dominated by one sole superpower.

On December 8 several days after election results for Russia’s parliamentary elections were announced, showing a sharp drop in popularity for Prime Minister Putin’s United Russia party, Putin accused the United States and specifically Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of fuelling the Russian opposition protesters and their election protests. Putin stated, “The (US) Secretary of State was quick to evaluate the elections, saying that they are unfair and unjust even before she received materials from the Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (the OSCE international election monitors-w.e.) observers.”[1]

Putin went on to claim that Clinton’s premature comments were the necessary signal to the waiting opposition groups that the US Government would back their protests. Clinton’s comments, the seasoned Russian intelligence pro stated, became a “signal for our activists who began active work with the US Department of State.” [2]

Major western media chose either to downplay the Putin statement or to focus almost entirely on the claims of an emerging Russian opposition movement. A little research shows that, if anything, Putin was downplaying the degree of brazen US Government interference into the political processes of his country. In this case the country is not Tunisia or Yemen or even Egypt. It is the world’s second nuclear superpower, even if it might still be an economic lesser power. Hillary is playing with thermonuclear fire.

Democracy or something else?

No mistake, Putin is not a world champion practitioner of what most consider democracy. His announcement some months back that he and current President Medvedev had agreed to switch jobs after Russia’s March 4 Presidential vote struck even many Russians as crass power politics and backroom deal-making. That being said, what Washington is doing to interfere with that regime change is more than brazen and interventionist. The same Obama Administration which just signed into law measures effectively ripping to shreds the Bill of Rights of the US Constitution for American citizens[3] is posing as world supreme judge of others’ adherence to what they define as democracy.

Let’s examine closely Putin’s charge of US interference in the election process. If we look, we find openly stated in their August 2011 Annual Report that a Washington-based NGO with the innocuous name, National Endowment for Democracy (NED), is all over the place inside Russia.

The NED is financing an International Press Center in Moscow where some 80 international NGOs can hold press briefings on whatever they choose. They fund numerous “youth advocacy” and leadership workshops to “help youth engage in political activism.” In fact, officially they spent more than $2,783,000 in 2010 on dozens of such programs across Russia. Spending for 2011 won’t be published until later in 2012. [4]

The NED is also financing key parts of the Russian “independent” polling and election monitoring, a crucial part of being able to claim election fraud. They finance in part the Regional Civic Organization in Defense of Democratic Rights and Liberties “GOLOS.” According to the NED Annual Report the funds went “to carry out a detailed analysis of the autumn 2010 and spring 2011 election cycles in Russia, which will include press monitoring, monitoring of political agitation, activity of electoral commissions, and other aspects of the application of electoral legislation in the long-term run-up to the elections.”[5]

In September, 2011, a few weeks before the December elections the NED financed a Washington invitation-only conference featuring the Russian “independent” polling organization, the Levada Center. According to NED’s own website Levada, another recipient of NED money, [6] had done a series of opinion polls, a standard method used in the West to analyze the feelings of citizens. The polls profiled “the mood of the electorate in the run up to the Duma and presidential elections, perceptions of candidates and parties, and voter confidence in the system of ‘managed democracy’ that has been established over the last decade.”

One of the featured speakers at that Washington conference was Vladimir Kara-Murza, member of the federal council of Solidarnost (“Solidarity”), Russia’s democratic opposition movement. He is also “advisor to Duma opposition leader Boris Nemtsov” according to NED. Another speaker came from the right-wing neo-conservative Hudson Institute. [7]

Nemtsov, one of the most prominent of the Putin opposition today is also co-chairman of Solidarnost, a name curiously enough imitated from the Cold War days when the CIA financed the Polish Solidarnosc workers’ opposition of Lech Walesa. More on Nemtsov later.

And on December 15, 2011, again in Washington, just as the series of US-supported protests were being launched against Putin, led by Solidarnost and other organizations, the NED held another conference titled, Youth Activism in Russia: Can a New Generation Make a Difference? The featured speaker was Tamirlan Kurbanov, who according to the NED, “most recently served as a program officer at the Moscow office of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, where he was involved in developing and expanding the capacities of political and civic organizations; promoting citizen participation in public life, youth engagement in particular.” [8] The National Democratic Institute is an arm of the NED.

The shady history of NED

Helping youth engage in political activism is precisely what the same NED did in Egypt over the past several years in the lead up to the toppling of Mubarak. The same NED was instrumental by informed accounts in the US-backed “Color Revolutions” in 2003-2004 in Ukraine and Georgia that brought US-backed pro-NATO surrogates to power. The same NED has been active in promoting “human rights” in Myanmar, in Tibet, and China’s oil-rich Xinjiang province. [9]

As careful analysts of the 2004 Ukraine “Orange revolution” and the numerous other US-financed color revolutions discovered, control of polling and ability to dominate international media perceptions, especially major TV such as CNN or BBC is an essential component of the Washington destabilization agenda. The Levada Center would likely be in a crucial position in this regard to issue polls showing discontent with the regime.

Read more...

# # # #F. William Engdahl is author of A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics in the New World Order. He may be contacted through his website at www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net where this article was originally published.

"Get a Program"

2012-01-09T11:11:00.001-08:00

Voting isn't and never will be enough.
editorial by Tony Cartalucci

January 10, 2012 - At the top of Tarpley.net is a five-point economic recovery program that has sat there since 2009. It was written by Dr. Webster Tarpley, a historian, journalist, economist, and geopolitical expert who was one of the first and most vocal critics of current US President Barack Obama. He gave stark warnings before the 2008 presidential election of expanded wars, economic depression, and Obama's catering to Wall Street, contrary to his alleged "progressive-liberal" rhetoric. In fact, Dr. Tarpley's criticism was so exact, so specific, and so troubling even Obama's opponents were hesitant to agree. However, we see in retrospect that Dr. Tarpley's words while troubling, were also prophetic. Dr. Tarpley was also one of the first geopolitical analysts to point out the true, foreign-funded nature of the US-engineered "Arab Spring." The unrest was based on a methodology used by the Western intelligence community and spelled out in detail in Tarpley's 2008 book, "Obama: The Postmodern Coup."

Now Tarpley has offered up equally harsh criticism of 2012's GOP presidential contenders without exception. Recently Dr. Tarpley, when asked what choice we have if none of the candidates were adequate, responded by saying, "you can't sit there as a political consumer and expect someone to offer you a palette of choices and you get a chance to choose from a prepackaged attractive choice." He then elaborated on the public activism necessary to take America back including getting organized, recalling state governors, and committing to general strikes.

Indeed this is the crux of the issue, not even necessarily the details of Tarpley's criticism for all of the GOP candidates as well as his continued criticism of Obama - but getting active with a specific, enumerated program to take America back.

For Tarpley, the program of choice is:

1. Reduce financial speculation by ending all bailouts, instituting a 1% Tobin tax on Wall Street trading, and liquidating failed banks - not rescuing them.

2. Nationalize the Federal Reserve (which is currently privately owned) and have all its activity debated publicly and decisions made by elected representatives. End federal borrowing from private bankers and foreigners and allow the US to act as its own bank - offering 0% interest loans for production and industry.

3. Invest in infrastructure & develop science drivers including modernizing America's rail system, improving existing hospitals while building entirely new ones, energy production, and even permanent space colonization.

4. Expand the social safety net and pay for it with money earned from the 1% Tobin tax and by ending America's endless foreign wars.

5. Promote a world economic recovery by replacing the IMF with a multilateral development bank to invest in global mega-projects including the development of the world's great rivers, the building of additional canals (a second Panama canal and a Kra Isthmus canal), and the creation of mega-bridges connecting continents and island nations.

....

Tarpley's five-point program is just one of many possible programs, but it requires not simply voting in someone that will execute it, but instead creating the conditions on the ground through grassroots activism to make it happen. Oligarchical tyrants throughout history have never relinquished control of their empires simply because of "elections" or because a sufficient number of people publicly disagreed with their grip on power. It has always been force of one kind or another.

Immediately the use of the term "force" conjures up images of revolutions, particularly bloody, armed revolutions, but taking up arms is neither necessary nor optimal. It was once said that, "to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting." These were not the words of a pacifist, but rather the words of an accomplished Chinese warlord, Sun Tzu, the author of the immortal tactical treatise "The Art of War."

Indeed, today, the corporate-financiers that dominate the Western world from Wall Street and London will not submit to a 1% Tobin tax and the quick cessation of their growing collection of global wars simply because the people vote for change. To believe that the corporate-financiers that reign over the West would subject their agenda and fate to the whims of the voting masses is naive at best. They have painstakingly ensured that no matter who gets into office, in whatever country, the guns, the oil, the wealth and the power keep flowing perpetually into their own hands.

The real revolution will commence when we identify the true brokers of power and when we begin systematically removing our dependence on them, and replacing their systems and institutions with ones of our own. Tarpley suggests getting organized, initiating political campaigns with enumerated, concrete goals like recalling a corrupt state governor.

Others have suggested boycotting the Fortune 500 who have built their unwarranted power upon our constant complicity and servile dependency on their goods and services. Pursuing technological and pragmatic local solutions offers us options of what to fill the void with after boycotting these corporations dominating modern society. Still others believe in reaching out to local law enforcement, particularly their county sheriffs to ensure the law is enforced to the benefit of the people and not a tyrannical corporate oligarchy. In reality, a combination, or synergy between all of these ideas and many more would work to our benefit, and each and every one of them involves shifting the balance of power away from the current system and the illusion of choice, to people defining for themselves their destiny and executing it from the grassroots up.

Freedom by necessity means responsibility. We as Americans have become full-spectrum consumers, believing that even in politics we sit before a buffet from which to feed. We are tired of the same choices laid out before us, but refuse to return home and cook for ourselves. We must get into our own fields, back into our own kitchens and "get a program" as Dr. Tarpley often says. And while you may not agree with all or any of Tarpley's five points, without a concrete, enumerated program of your own, your destiny and your self-determination remains undefined, undeclared, ambiguous, and therefore will be defined for you.

Aung San Suu Kyi Receives Corporate Fascist Seal of Approval

2012-01-07T06:40:00.000-08:00

British FM William Hague awards her the "Chatham House Prize."
by Tony Cartalucci

January 7, 2012 - In the first visit to Myanmar by a British foreign minister in 56 years - since the British were expelled from the nation, then called Burma after its declaration of independence in 1956 - William Hague took it upon himself to present "democracy icon" Aung San Suu Kyi with the "Chatham House Prize."

Photo: Hague hands Suu Kyi the "Chatham House Prize." Nothing quite says "democracy promotion" like a prize from an organization consisting of Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, BP, Exxon, Chevron, BAE, Boeing, Lockheed, and many more. This is just the latest in a long line of self-aggrandizing stunts the global elite pull to lend themselves otherwise non-existent legitimacy.

....

The "Chatham House Prize" is given annually to a "statesperson who is deemed by Chatham House members to have made the most significant contribution to the improvement of international relations in the previous year." The decision process is conducted by research teams and the Chatham House's presidents who are currently John Major, Patricia Scotland, and none other than Paddy Ashdown, who just finished defiling the spirit of innovation and pragmatism at the TED Talks with his sales pitch for global governance run by the corporate-financier elite.

The prize is given to those "deemed by Chatham House members" to have made contributions to the improvement of "international relations." The Chatham House membership is described as "individuals, companies and organizations who share a deep interest in international affairs, independent thinking and debate." Their membership includes, "academics, diplomats, the media, NGOs, politicians, policy-makers, researchers and business people."

Of course, an actual look at Chatham House's membership reveals what is essential a fraudulent convergence of corporate-financier elitist interests, government, so-called "NGOs," and media. Their "corporate & NGO membership" includes Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, British Petroleum, Amsterdam & Peroff, Bloomsberg, BBC, Coca-Cola, Dutsche Bank, BAE Systems, the Economist, GlaxoSmithKline, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Morgan Stanley, Total, Texco, Reuters, Boeing, Standard Chartered Bank, Thales, Lockheed Martin, World Vision, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and Barclays Capital.

When we look at the fraudulent concert with which these converging interests operated in the persecution of war against Libya and the subsequent genocide, destruction, and installation of a Petroleum Institute representative as "prime minister" of the nation as it began handing out the above mentioned big-oil interests exclusive contracts, it is quite clear the potential conflicts of interest present at the Chatham House have bred atrocious improprieties. That it would later turn out that the claims of "humanitarian intervention" were based on admitted lies by "human rights activists" in Libya who were in fact working directly for/with the opposition, illustrates the absolute lack of legitimacy with which these global elite operate.

From the lies told by Chatham House media members, to policies crafted by government members, to the immense profits now being reaped by its big-business members - the Chatham House is an interlocking criminal enterprise of unprecedented proportions.

The Chatham House is one of many corporate-financier round tables that represent the collective interests of the global corporate-financier elite. Their policy papers and the agendas they support directly represent their collective corporate-financier interests. The "Chatham House Prize" therefore is in no shape, form, or manner, a testament to a recipient's service to the people, but rather their service to the powers that be - globally.

Aung San Suu Kyi has just been granted the seal of global corporate-fascist approval, accepting the prize from Hague who has played an instrumental role in the destruction and genocide brought upon Libya, and a man who is busy attempting a repeat performance in Syria and Iran.

As described in depth in "Burmese "Pro-Democracy" Movement a Creation of Wall Street & London," Aung San Suu Kyi's entire political movement, the NGOs supporting her both inside Myanmar and abroad, as well as domestic and foreign media fronts that ceaselessly promote her and her agenda, are entirely funded by the US and British governments. A 2006 36-page document out of the "Burma Campaign UK" explicitly details the enormous amount of money and resources both the US government and its corporate-funded foundations have poured into Suu Kyi's image and her "movement."

The goal of course is to remove anti-Western, pro-nationalist cliques within the Myanmar government and replace them with compliant stooges like Aung San Suu Kyi. It is then ironic that 56 years after the British were expelled from Myanmar, they are now back along with the likes of George Soros, US-stooge Yingluck Shinawatra, and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, bestowing accolades, praise, and support upon Aung San Suu Kyi, a proxy holding enormous potential to usher in a new age of neo-colonialism managed by Wall Street and London - all part of the so-called American "Pacific Century" aiming at encircling and containing the rise of China.

The age of British imperialism never truly ended, its global spanning megalomania never went extinct - rather it has evolved into a system of global corporate-financier fascism.

For those interested in what can be done to stop the building of this insidious empire, please see "Solutions."

Nigeria: The Next Front for AFRICOM

2012-01-07T04:40:00.000-08:00

Lagos Dissents Under IMF Hegemony

Nile Bowie
NileBowie.blogspot.com
January 7, 2012

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 would of 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 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 was 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 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.

Wall Street to "Open" Up Myanmar

2012-01-07T03:14:00.000-08:00

Wall Street bankster Soros to open “official presence” in Myanmar.
by Tony Cartalucci

January 7, 2012 - Following a Dec 26-Jan 3 visit to Wall Street and London's proxy of choice, "democratic icon" Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar, billionaire banker/speculator George Soros has declared his intentions to set up a permanent mission in Myanmar, still called "Burma" by neo-colonial advocates and Aung San Suu Kyi herself. US State Department-funded "Democratic Voice of Burma" reported that Soros' mission was an effort to aid Myanmar in "the transition from a closed to a more open society."

Image: Soros is just the latest globalist to rain accolades, praise, and support down upon "democracy icon" Aung San Suu Kyi, whose entire movement is in fact created and funded by the US State Department and corporate-financiers like Soros. Here Suu Kyi consorts with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, head of a department Suu Kyi would not exist politically without.

....

By "open," of course, Soros means open to the forces of globalization and exploitation by the "international order" contrived by the corporate-financier elite that run it. It should be noted that "democracy icon" Aung San Suu Kyi's entire movement including the network of NGOs that support her political movement as well as the domestic and foreign media fronts that build up her image is entirely funded by Wall Street and London.

It should also be noted that Soros works in tandem with many of these Wall Street/London organizations, including the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) which was descibed by Australia's Southern Cross University's "Activating Human Rights & Peace (AHRP)" as carrying out "a lot of work that was formerly undertaken by the CIA" in a revealing account of AHRP's 2008 proceedings.

Myanmar's Wall Street Puppet

Every aspect of Aung San Suu Kyi is the creation of a carefully orchestrated, immensely funded propaganda campaign carried out not within Myanmar but from Washington and the city of London. Every NGO associated with Suu Kyi, every pro-Suu Kyi news service in Myanmar, and every opposition movement supporting her, is either funded by, or a whole cloth creation of, the British and US government.

Soros' recent trip to Myanmar to meet with this unelected, though defacto "point of contact" for the West, signifies an attempt to conduct this support more openly and possibly attempt to dispel suspicion resulting from Soros and NED's omnipresent sedition sown worldwide, often operating behind the scenes. However, as we will see, regardless of how open or secretive Wall Street and London attempt to be as they carry out their agenda, the trend of manipulating the destiny of a sovereign nation-state for the sake of their own financial and political benefit is apparent.

A 2006 36-page document out of the "Burma Campaign UK" explicitly details the enormous amount of money and resources both the US government and its corporate-funded foundations have poured into Suu Kyi's image and her "movement." It also details the complicity of then Thai Prime Minster and verified Wall Street-stooge Thaksin Shinwatra's government in aiding the West in their Burmese agenda.

The most telling information begins on page 14 of 36 of the report's .pdf. Titled, "Failing the People of Burma?" the report enumerates the vast resources the West has invested in building a "pro-democracy" movement, in tandem with similar disingenuous movements throughout the region, and indeed throughout the world, and insists that even more support be given to initiate a "transition" in Myanmar. It states:

"The restoration of democracy in Burma is a priority U.S. policy objective in Southeast Asia. To achieve this objective, the United States has consistently supported democracy activists and their efforts both inside and outside Burma…Addressing these needs requires flexibility and creativity. Despite the challenges that have arisen, United States Embassies Rangoon and Bangkok as well as Consulate General Chiang Mai are fully engaged in pro-democracy efforts. The United States also supports organizations, such as the National Endowment for Democracy, the Open Society Institute (nb no support given since 2004) and Internews, working inside and outside the region on a broad range of democracy promotion activities. U.S.-based broadcasters supply news and information to the Burmese people, who lack a free press. U.S. programs also fund scholarships for Burmese who represent the future of Burma.

The United States is committed to working for a democratic Burma and will continue to employ a variety of tools to assist democracy activists."

The report then continues detailing the specifics of each organization mentioned, including the National Endowment for Democracy:

"The National Endowment for Democracy (NED – see Appendix 1, page 27) has been at the forefront of our program efforts to promote democracy and improved human rights in Burma since 1996. We are providing $2,500,000 in FY 2003 funding from the Burma earmark in the Foreign Operations legislation. The NED will use these funds to support Burmese and ethnic minority democracy-promoting organizations through a sub-grant program. The projects funded are designed to disseminate information inside Burma supportive of Burma’s democratic development, to create democratic infrastructures and institutions, to improve the collection of information on human rights abuses by the Burmese military and to build capacity to support the restoration of democracy when the appropriate political openings occur and the exiles/refugees return."

NED is cited as behind the creation of the New Era Journal, the Irrawaddy, and the above mentioned Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) radio, all posing, just as the recently exposed Thai-US propaganda front, Prachatai, as "independent" media sources despite the fact they are in reality fully-funded by the US government.

The role of US State Department-run Radio Free Asia (RFA) and Voice of America (VOA) is also discussed in detail, including the revelation that US foreign policy specifically supports and actively promotes Aung San Suu Kyi and "her" agenda.

"Both Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Asia (RFA) have Burmese services. VOA broadcasts a 30-minute mix of international news and information three times a day. RFA broadcasts news and information about Burma two hours a day. VOA and RFA websites also contain audio and text material in Burmese and English. For example, VOA's October 10, 2003 editorial, "Release Aung San Suu Kyi" is prominently featured in the Burmese section of VOAnews.com. RFA's website makes available audio versions of 16 Aung San Suu Kyi's speeches from May 27 and 29, 2003. U.S. international broadcasting provides crucial information to a population denied the benefits of freedom of information by its government."

The US also pours vast resources into organizations affiliated with Aung San Suu Kyi, including "Prospect Burma," a London-based Soros-funded organization:

"The State Department provided $150,000 in FY 2001/02 funds to provide scholarships to young Burmese through Prospect Burma, a partner organization with close ties to Aung San Suu Kyi. With FY 2003/04 funds, we plan to support Prospect Burma’s work given the organization’s proven competence in managing scholarships for individuals denied educational opportunities by the continued repression of the military junta, but committed to a return to democracy in Burma."

Of course, billionaire-bankster and geopolitical meddler George Soros not only funds and coordinates with the above mentioned "Prospect Burma" organization, but also directly funds activities through his "Open Society Institute" literally training an army of subversion meant to return to Myanmar and overthrow the government:

"Our assistance to the Open Society Institute (OSI) (until 2004) provides partial support for a program to grant scholarships to Burmese refugee students who have fled Burma and wish to continue their studies at the undergraduate, or post-graduate level. Students typically pursue degrees in social sciences, public health, medicine, anthropology, and political science. Priority is given to students who express a willingness to return to Burma or work in their refugee communities for the democratic and economic reform of the country."

Throughout the period covered in the "Burma Campaign UK" report, includes a description of then Thaksin Shinawtra's government and its support of Western activities to subvert the government of neighboring Myanmar. The Thai Ministry of Public Health, also implicated in grants to the US propaganda front, Prachatai, is mentioned specifically:

"Last year the U.S. government began funding a new program of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to provide basic health services to Burmese migrants outside the official refugee camps in cooperation with the Thai Ministry of Public Health. This project has been supported by the Thai government and has received favorable coverage in the local press. Efforts such as this that endeavor to find positive ways to work with the Thai government in areas of common interest help build support for U.S.-funded programs that support Burmese pro-democracy groups."

While many may be tempted to claim that such work is humanitarian in nature, it is mentioned several times that the actual goal of dolling out scholarships and other aid is specifically to create a pro-Western bloc meant to overthrow the anti-West regime in Myanmar. With names like "National Endowment for Democracy" people are meant to believe that a benign, benevolent agenda is being carried out that is in the best interest of all involved. In reality, the National Endowment for Democracy is packed wall-to-wall with corporate-fascist interests, warmongering elitists, and confessed imperialists.

Historical Pattern of Domineering Dressed up as "Democratization."

Students of history will recognize the immense network Wall Street and London are building, not only in Myanmar, but in nations around the world, as the imperial administrative networks that had managed the British Empire for centuries. While "civilizing" the world was the excuse used by British elite to justify their megalomania and empire building during the glory days of the British Empire, Wall Street and London are now using the term "democratization" or the "opening of society" to justify their equally unjustified, criminal consolidation of power and the dominion they seek to hold over mankind.

This racket is perhaps best described by Noam Chomsky in 1993 during the "Covert Action Quarterly Anniversary Dinner" where he noted of NED's projects in Nicaragua, "It's about what you would expect from a bipartisan democracy campaign - it's an attempt to impose what is called democracy, meaning rule by the rich and the powerful, without interference by the mob but within the framework of formal electoral procedures."

In other words - "sham democracy" to placate the people with the illusion of choice, while a system perpetually run by and for the elite lords over the masses. A gilded cage kept by a global empire.

For those interested in what can be done to stop the building of this insidious empire, please see "Solutions."

British Politician Peddles Globalism at TED

2012-01-05T14:08:00.000-08:00

Innovative TED Talks Once Again Tainted by Globalist Salesmen.
by Tony Cartalucci

January 5, 2012 - UK politician Paddy Ashdown, during a recent TED Talk, claims power is shifting from nation-states to a global stage where the lawless global elite will somehow create "sensible" treaty-based global governance, citing the World Trade Organization (WTO) as a prime example. While he chastises the bankers whom he calls "money changers," he fails to note that they along with other corporate-financier interests, hold dominion over the WTO and indeed all so-called "international institutions."

Ashdown sees the world as interdependent at an unprecedented level and that tragedy in one nation inevitably affects all others. He also claims that the nation-state is no longer a viable proposition and cites a myriad of contrived global threats, the fraudulent "War on Terror" in particular, as evidence supporting his argument.

He concludes his sales pitch for "global governance" stating that we no longer hold individual or national destinies, but a global, collective destiny. In a way Ashdown's words are true at face value - but for those reading Agenda 21, the duplicitous plots drawn up within the halls of the Brookings Institution, or for those who watched the global elite destabilize the entire Arab World, commit genocide, and install one puppet regime after another in 2011 with more to come in 2012, it is clear that Ashdown is peddling the global elites' vision of a one world government where the corporate-financier interests of Wall Street and London hold dominion over mankind within the confines of an inescapable scientific dictatorship.

That Ashdown began his talk warning of World War III and the inevitable reordering the world is about to undergo, should prompt us to again re-read "The Middle East and Then the World" and realize that instead of the revolutionary change Ashdown promises, we are simply getting more of the same - what elites throughout the ages have always aspired toward, global empire and total, full-spectrum domination over all of mankind.

Ashdown isn't the first British politician to pollute the TED Talks with his globalist sales pitch. British PM Gordon Brown also attempted to spin his talk of global domination as philosophical and technological revolution back in 2009.

Video: Many truly inspirational talks are given before TED, but it is those like Ashdown's and Brown's that make many cringe before watching another.

....

For those interested in disappointing Ashdown's vision of a global government run by the monied elite, it is essential that we identify these elite, boycott and replace their system entirely, and move toward a "global power shift" that leaves our destiny not in the hands of Ashdown's global elite, but in the hands of "we the people."

Hillary Clinton aide at the helm of Amnesty International USA

2012-01-03T21:49:00.000-08:00

Voltaire Network
January 4, 2012

From November 2011 - Suzanne Nossel, former assistant to Richard Holbrooke in his capacity as UN Ambassador and currently Hillary Clinton’s Deputy Assistant for International Organization Affairs, has been selected as the new Executive Director of Amnesty International USA. In the discharge of her duties at the State Department, she diligently exploited human rights to benefit imperial ambitions.

Ms. Nossel had previously worked for Human Rights Watch, as well as for Bertelsmann Media Worldwide and the Wall Street Journal as Vice President of Strategy and Operations.

The AI-USA Board of Directors deemed that Suzanne Nossel’s commitment to the Clinton and Obama administrations was sufficient proof of her competence and decided not to hold a grudge against her for the crimes committed in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, etc.

Ms. Nossel has launched several campaigns against Iran, Libya and Syria. In recent months she made a name for herself by misinforming the Human Rights Council in Geneva with a view to getting the resolution authorizing the war on Libya adopted by the Security Council. Ms. Nossel’s allegations have since been debunked.

Editor's Note: It should be noted that Amnesty International receives funding from George Soros' Open Society Institute (annual report page 10) as well as the UK Department for International Development and the European Commission.

Caging Humanity

2012-01-03T04:25:00.000-08:00

And how to escape...
by Tony Cartalucci

January 3, 2012 - National Geographic's recent article, "The City Solution: Why cities are the best cure for our planet's growing pains," argues that urbanization is not only "good news," but also, "the best hope for lifting people out of poverty without wrecking the planet." Making the argument, National Geographic cites Harvard economist Edward Glaeser who considers Wall Street as the "quintessence of the vibrant city." He insists that the trading floor exemplifies the valuing of information over space and that cities in general produce more because "the absence of space between people" reduces costs on transporting goods, people, and ideas. There is also David Satterthwaite of the International Institute for Environment and Development, London, who claims the problem of growing cities isn't that too many people are being drawn into them, but rather the inability of mayors to "govern them."

Cited by National Geographic as a "hopeful example" of how to manage rapid urbanization is the South Korean capital of Seoul. Described is a centrally planned totalitarian dystopia literally started in the wake of the near total destruction the city saw during the Korean War and its reemergence under military dictator Park Chung-Hee. In this model of recommended urbanization, entire districts can be bulldozed to make way for denser housing and features serving whatever the "greater good" might decide. The metric of success and livability is apparently the material wealth and the superficial trappings residents adorn their uniform living quarters with, signifying that it's not that bad after all.

One picture featured in the article shows identical apartment blocs with different families occupying them and decorating them differently. Without National Geographic's captions coaxing a reader along, one might conclude they are well-dressed, spacious jail cells.

While the story National Geographic tells does explain why urbanization is taking place now, it fails entirely to justify why it should continue or why it is supposedly our "best hope."

Harvard economist Edward Glaeser concludes, in regards to the environmental impact of not urbanizing that "it would be a lot better for the planet if people in those countries end up in dense cities built around the elevator, rather than in sprawling areas built around the car." What National Geographic and the experts it deferred to in writing this article fail to understand is that population distribution alone is not the determining factor of either economic prosperity or environmental impact. It is instead what current technology makes possible with such population distributions.

Photo: Described as our "best hope" the cramped confines of the city are designed to reduce the use of resources as well as reduce the distance between individuals and ideas. In reality, technological innovation, not the political shifting of demographics, has already helped reduce both, as well as reduce our need to "urbanize." (photo credit: National Geographic)

....

In fact, a future of urbanization only makes sense if humanity is frozen technologically and that advances in transportation, energy production, manufacturing, and information technology cease to be made. Glaeser's comments about reducing the space between people in fact undermines his entire argument for urbanization. Already, collaboration between people who have never met in real life, or who rarely ever meet physically is possible in ways even 10-20 years ago would have been quite impossible, thanks to technological innovation. The "reduction of space" between people needs not be physical and certainly doesn't require urbanization.

Video conferencing is something that science fiction had long since predicted, and up until now had seemed like a far fetched fantasy. Now seeing and hearing someone on the other side of the planet can be accomplished by anyone with an Internet connection and a webcam. As Internet speeds increase the ability to collaborate more seamlessly with people remotely will only be enhanced. Similarly, advances in manufacturing technology, as mentioned in "Globalists' Worst Nightmare" in regards to MIT's Fab Lab project, will allow an increasing number of people to possess the means of advanced production in their garages or even on their own desktop, "printing" objects as easily as they now print images.

Video: MIT's Fab Lab described. This is one of the many labs inspired by the original based at MIT.

....

During PBS' Scientific American Frontiers episode "You Can Make it on Your Own" hosted by Alan Alda, Alda would examine a bike designed and made in MIT's Massachusetts Fab Lab. The machines occupying a single room and available to be used by designers allowed Australian inventor Saul Griffith to create his own polycarbonate bike. Since the design is digital and manufactured by computer controlled machines, Griffith was able to email the design to his sister in Australia where she was able to use machines there to build it.

Griffith's idea traveled at the speed of light from the US to Australia where it was manufactured and in the hands of the end user faster than any traditional model of economics could deliver, even if everyone crammed into densely populated cities as proposed by National Geographic and the bike factory was just down the street.

Video: Meet a real "progressive," spacecraft designer Burt Rutan who in the first 2 minutes of his TED Talk makes a poignant observation of the human condition, "we stand a very big chance of losing our ability to inspire our youth to go out and continue this very important thing that we as a species have always done, and that is instinctively we've gone out and climbed over difficult places, went to more hostile places, and found out later maybe to our surprise that that's the reason we've survived. "

....

Human progress has always moved forward because of innovation and exploration. The myriad of political solutions paraded before us by economists and politicians are cheap substitutes compensating for their lack of imagination coupled with complete technical incompetence. Even their suggestions of putting "technocrats" in charge leaves much to be desired, especially so when the reins still lead back to their uninspired hands. The ability to solve problems on one's own, self-sufficiently is inexorably linked to self-determination - not the cramming of papers into ballot boxes in pursuit of others to handle our responsibilities and destiny for us.

Cities are not "the best cure for our planet's growing pains." To find the real cure, a proper diagnosis must first be made. These growing pains are not due to "overpopulation" but rather the complete failure of global leadership to meet the challenge of protecting human freedom while managing the growth our ingenuity has lent us. Innovation spurred by proper technical education can immediately begin alleviating many of the problems we face pursuing antiquated economic models, industrial centralization, big-agri that is neither healthy nor efficient and many other problems born from our current paradigm.

If the government refuses to give people better, more meaningful education - this problem too is being solved technologically. In fact, anyone with an Internet connection now has access to a huge and ever-growing collection of MIT lectures, called "Open Course Ware" (OCW). Future innovations can allow us to continue to expand here on Earth and beyond. Just as exploration has expanded our habitat here on Earth, it will likewise make it possible for us to expand amongst the stars.

Image: No more land? Make some more. Commissioned by NASA in the 1970's, conceptual artist Don Davis illustrated a torus-shaped space station that maintains artificial gravity through centripetal force - it was designed by a NASA Ames/Standford University study. While people may be taken by the same Pavlovian giggles that accompanied the scorn of concepts such as a heliocentric planetary system or the idea of manned flight, such space habitats are not only possible, they are inevitable. In space, there's plenty of room to spread out. Human innovation may make compromises necessary in the short-term, but entirely unnecessary in the long-term.

....

Already we have a permanently manned space habitat orbiting over our heads - produced by incredible engineers, however tempered by bureaucracy, budget constraints, and politics they may be. It is entirely possible that if we took more control over our own destiny, instead of having it dictated to us by a self-serving political clique, we could not only marshal our resources toward more inspiring pursuits, but improve our access and use of available resources in ways we never imagined. The concept of post-scarcity already presents itself to us in more realistic terms as manufacturing goes from factories to our garages and desktops. As the cost of advanced manufacturing decreases and the means to manufacture is decentralized, the barriers to achieving what was once the exclusive realm of science fiction will likewise fall, while the decisions to proceed are likewise decentralized.

Politicians have a cage prepared for us, amply described in the United Nation's "Agenda 21." It relieves them of their responsibility to truly lead, and protects them from being replaced for their infinite incompetence. All that is necessary for us to avoid ending up in this cage, is for us to get active locally in devising solutions to the problems our "leaders" refuse to adequately and permanently address. We must not only recognize the faults within this current paradigm, we must reject it and replace it entirely. We can do so in a measured sensible way and we can start today by how we choose to spend our time, money, energy, and attention. Whether you excel in technology, agriculture, art, or even martial pursuits, there are local people with whom you can connect with and begin building the world you want to live in.

Pentagon Created Arab Spring Over a Decade Ago

2012-01-01T13:54:00.000-08:00

RT
January 1, 2012

The Arab Spring uprisings were arguably the most significant events of the last 12 months. Protests are still raging across the region, even after regimes were toppled. Journalist and author F. William Engdahl gives his view on the Arab world in 2012.

Editor's Note: William Engdahl breaks down the Arab Spring with absolute precision. For a documented history of the engineered 2011 Arab Spring, please see, "2011 - Year of the Dupe." For more research and analysis by Engdahl, see his website Geopolitics-Geoeconomics.

Syria: Pepe Escobar Breaks Down Arab League Investigation

2011-12-30T12:03:00.000-08:00

Free Syria Army includes foreign mercenaries armed & backed by very Arab League supposedly investigating Syrian violence.

For more information on Syria, please see the Syrian Archives.

Panetta Signals Green Light for Attack on Iran

2011-12-30T11:15:00.000-08:00

More Imperialist Moves Against Syria; Wall Street Faction Seeks Closure of Hormuz to Stave Off Dollar Collapse

Webster G. Tarpley, Ph.D.
PressTV
December 30, 2011

For more information on Iran please see the Iran archives.

Arab Spring: Egypt Strikes Back

2011-12-30T01:49:00.000-08:00

US-funded agitators have offices raided across Egypt.
by Tony Cartalucci

December 30, 2011 - The LA Times reported, "Egypt raids foreign organizations' offices in crackdown. Three U.S. groups are among those raided. Activists say the army is using the ruse of foreign intervention to stoke nationalism and deflect criticism of abuses."

Photo: (AP) US State Department agitators from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) subsidary, the National Democratic Institute, standby as Egyptian security forces raid their offices. Despite NED veritably being run by Neo-Conservative, corporate-fascists who have signed PNAC documents declaring their intentions of acheiving and maintaining a century of global hegemony, they and the US State Department would decry Egypt's crackdown on their insidious activities as a slight against "human rights."

....

However, it is no "ruse" as the US-funded "activists" claim. And while the LA Times denies its readership a documented back-story either confirming or denying "activist claims," understanding the US role in funding sedition in Egypt is essential to understanding why not only are the raids of NGOs justified, but an absolute necessity to protect both Egyptian national sovereignty and international stability.

Documented Back-Story of the US-Engineered "Arab Spring" in Egypt

In January of 2011, we were told that "spontaneous," "indigenous" uprising had begun sweeping North Africa and the Middle East, including Hosni Mubarak's Egypt, in what was hailed as the "Arab Spring." It would be almost four months before the corporate-media would admit that the US had been behind the uprisings and that they were anything but "spontaneous," or "indigenous." In an April 2011 article published by the New York Times titled, "U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings," it was stated:

"A number of the groups and individuals directly involved in the revolts and reforms sweeping the region, including the April 6 Youth Movement in Egypt, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and grass-roots activists like Entsar Qadhi, a youth leader in Yemen, received training and financing from groups like the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute and Freedom House, a nonprofit human rights organization based in Washington."

The article would also add, regarding the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED):

"The Republican and Democratic institutes are loosely affiliated with the Republican and Democratic Parties. They were created by Congress and are financed through the National Endowment for Democracy, which was set up in 1983 to channel grants for promoting democracy in developing nations. The National Endowment receives about $100 million annually from Congress. Freedom House also gets the bulk of its money from the American government, mainly from the State Department. "

It is hardly a speculative theory then, that the uprisings were part of an immense geopolitical campaign conceived in the West and carried out through its proxies with the assistance of disingenuous organizations including NED, NDI, IRI, and Freedom House and the stable of NGOs they maintain throughout the world. Preparations for the "Arab Spring" began not as unrest had already begun, but years before the first "fist" was raised, and within seminar rooms in D.C. and New York, US-funded training facilities in Serbia, and camps held in neighboring countries, not within the Arab World itself.

In 2008, Egyptian activists from the now infamous April 6 movement were in New York City for the inaugural Alliance of Youth Movements (AYM) summit, also known as Movements.org. There, they received training, networking opportunities, and support from AYM's various corporate and US governmental sponsors, including the US State Department itself. The AYM 2008 summit report (page 3 of .pdf) states that the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, James Glassman attended, as did Jared C0hen who sits on the policy planning staff of the Office of the Secretary of State. Six other State Department staff members and advisers would also attend the summit along with an immense list of corporate, media, and institutional representatives.

Shortly afterward, April 6 would travel to Serbia to train under US-funded CANVAS, formally the US-funded NGO "Otpor" who helped overthrow the government of Serbia in 2000. Otpor, the New York Times would report, was a "well-oiled movement backed by several million dollars from the United States." After its success it would change its name to CANVAS and begin training activists to be used in other US-backed regime change operations.

The April 6 Movement, after training with CANVAS, would return to Egypt in 2010, along with UN IAEA Chief Mohammed ElBaradei. April 6 members would even be arrested while awaiting for ElBaradei's arrival at Cairo's airport in mid-February. Already, ElBaradei, as early as 2010, announced his intentions of running for president in the 2011 elections. Together with April 6, Wael Ghonim of Google, and a coalition of other opposition parties, ElBaradei assembled his "National Front for Change" and began preparing for the coming "Arab Spring."

Clearly then, unrest was long planned, with activists from Tunisia and Egypt on record receiving training and support from abroad, so that they could return to their home nations and sow unrest in a region-wide coordinated campaign.

An April 2011 AFP report would confirm this, when US State Department's Michael Posner stated that the "US government has budgeted $50 million in the last two years to develop new technologies to help activists protect themselves from arrest and prosecution by authoritarian governments." The report went on to explain that the US "organized training sessions for 5,000 activists in different parts of the world. A session held in the Middle East about six weeks ago gathered activists from Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon who returned to their countries with the aim of training their colleagues there." Posner would add, "They went back and there's a ripple effect." That ripple effect of course, is the "Arab Spring."

NED & Freedom House are Run by Warmongering Neo-Cons

The National Endowment for Democracy, despite the lofty mission statement articulated on its website, is nothing more than a tool for executing American foreign policy. Just as the military is used under the cover of lies regarding WMD's and "terrorism," NED is employed under the cover of bringing "democracy" to "oppressed" people. However, a thorough look at NED's board of directors, as well as the board of trustees of its subsidiary, Freedom House, definitively lays to rest any doubts that may be lingering over the true nature of these organizations and the causes they support.

Upon NED's board of directors we first find John Bohn who traded petrochemicals, was an international banker for 13 years with Wells Fargo, and is currently serving as a principal for a global advisory and consulting firm, GlobalNet Partners, which assists foreign businesses by making their "entry into the complex China market easy." Surely Bohn's ability to manipulate China's political landscape through NED's various activities both inside of China and along its peripheries constitutes an alarming conflict of interest. However, it appears "conflict of interest" is a reoccurring theme throughout both NED and Freedom House.

Bohn is joined by Rita DiMartino who worked for Council on Foreign Relations corporate member AT&T as "Vice President of Congressional Relations" as well as a member of the CFR herself. Also representing the Fortune 500 is Kenneth Duberstein, a board member of the war profiteering Boeing Company, big oil's ConocoPhillips, and the Mack-Cali Realty Corporation. Duberstein also served as a director of Fannie Mae until 2007. He too is a CFR member as are two of the companies he chairs, Boeing and ConocoPhillips.

We then consider several of the certified warmongers serving upon NED's board of directors including Francis Fukuyama, Zalmay Khalilzad, Will Marshall, and Vin Weber, all signatories of the pro-war, pro-corporate Project for a New American Century. Within the pages of documents produced by this "think tank" are pleas to various US presidents to pursue war against sovereign nations, the increase of troops in nations already occupied by US forces, and what equates to a call for American global hegemony in a Hitlerian 90 page document titled "Rebuilding Americas Defenses." As we will see, this warmongering think tank serves as a nexus around which fellow disingenuous rights advocate Freedom House also gravitates.

The "Statement of Principles," signed off by NED chairmen Francis Fukuyama, Zalmay Khalilzad, and Vin Weber, states, "we need to accept responsibility for America's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles." Of course by "international order" they mean meddling beyond the sovereign borders of the United States and is merely used as a euphemism for global imperialism. Other Neo-Con that signed their name to this statement include Freedom House's Paula Dobriansky, Dan Quayle (formally), and Donald Rumsfeld (formally), along with Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, Eliot Cohen, and Elliot Abrams.

A PNAC "Statment on Post-War Iraq" regarding a wholehearted endorsement of nation-building features the signatures of NED chairman Will Marshall, Freedom House's Frank Carlucci (2002), and James Woolsey (formally), along with Martin Indyk (Lowy Institute board member, co-author of the conspiring "Which Path to Persia?" report), and William Kristol and Robert Kagan both of the warmongering Foreign Policy Initiative. It should be noted that the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI) is, for all intents and purposes, PNAC's latest incarnation and just recently featured an open letter to House Republicans calling on them to disregard the will of the American people and continue pursuing the war in Libya. The FPI letter even suggests that the UN resolution authorizing the war in the first place, was holding America "hostage" and that it should be exceeded in order to do more to "help the Libyan opposition."

An untitled PNAC letter addressed to then US President George Bush regarding a general call for global warmongering received the seal of approval from Freedom Houses' Ellen Bork (2007), Ken Adelman (also former lobbyist for Thailand's Thaksin Shinawatra via Edelman), and James Woolsey (formally), along with Neo-Con degenerates Richard Perle, William Kristol, Robert Kagan, and the always disingenuous demagogue Daniel Pipes.

It is safe to say that neither NED nor Freedom House garners within its ranks characters appropriate for their alleged cause of "supporting freedom around the world." It is also safe to say that the principles of "democracy," "freedom," and "human rights" they allegedly champion for, are merely being leveraged to co-opt well meaning people across the world to carry out their own self-serving agenda.

Considering NED and Freedom House's role in fomenting the premeditated destabilization disingenuously titled the "spontaneous, indigenous" "Arab Spring," and the true nature of those that constitute their boards of directors, we can examine the LA Times article regarding the recent raids for what it is - a white wash if not an outright lie. Similarly, the US State Department comments made condemning the recent raids in Egypt take on a new, farcical, and very hypocritical tone in light of the documented fraud the US is carrying out through the State Department and the organizations it is on record funding.

The Current NGO Raids in Egypt

The LA Times claims:

"Egyptian security forces on Thursday raided the offices of 17 nongovernmental organizations, including three U.S.-based agencies, as part of a crackdown on foreign assistance that has drawn criticism from the West and threatened human rights groups and pro-democracy movements.

The move appeared to be part of a strategy to intimidate international organizations. The ruling military council has repeatedly blamed "foreign hands" for exploiting Egypt's political and economic turmoil. But activists said the army was using the ruse of foreign intervention to stoke nationalism and deflect criticism of abuses."

The LA Times would go on to describe the US State Department's response:

"This action is inconsistent with the bilateral cooperation we have had over many years," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said at a news briefing after the raids. "We call on the Egyptian government to immediately end the harassment of NGO staff, return all property and resolve this issue immediately."

Egyptian soldiers and black-clad police officers swept into offices, interrogated workers and seized computers across the country. Those targeted included U.S. groups the National Democratic Institute, the International Republican Institute and Freedom House, which are funded by Congress to monitor elections and promote democracy overseas."

Ironically, US-stooge Mohamed ElBaradei would chime in on the side of the US State Department claiming, "human rights organizations are the guardians of the nascent freedom. Efforts to suffocate them will be a major setback and will surely backfire." Freedom House director David Kramer, formally a State Department official under the Bush Administation, would claim the Egyptian army crackdown was "an intensive campaign by the Egyptian government to dismantle civil society through a politically motivated legal campaign aimed at preventing 'illegal foreign funding' of civil society operations in Egypt." Meanwhile NDI president Ken Wollack said "cracking down on organizations whose sole purpose is to support the democratic process during Egypt's historic transition sends a disturbing signal."

We see then, US and Egyptian organizations that are documented frauds acting in absolute concert not only with each other, but in tandem with both the US State Department and a willfully ignorant corporate-media. These "NGOs" are the equivilant of Great Britain's imperial networks that spanned the globe, supplanted national sovereignty in nation after nation and executed the will of the crown, not that of the people they ruled over from Ireland to India, from Myanmar to the American colonies.

Conclusion

Let us note and expose the perversion of ideals such as "representative governance" cheaply reduced to "democracy" or "mob rule," and the obscene abuse of concepts such as "free speech" and "human rights" by organizations like NED and Freedom House who have themselves engineered conflicts that have resulted in genocide, state-sponsored terrorism, codified torture and indefinite detention as well as everything else that crawls out from beneath the rocks of Wall Street and London's brand of corporate-fascism and its willing servants in America's "Neo-Conservative" establishment and more recently Obama's supposedly "liberal" presidency.

And while Egypt has taken up the challenge to directly confront traitors and foreign-funded sedition within their own sovereign borders, as has Belarus recently, Egypt is by far not the only nation suffering under the debilitating division and destruction NED and its US State Department-funded subsidiaries sow throughout nations.

Tunisia's new president had literally served the US agenda for decades via his Paris-based, NED-funded "NGO." The destabilization that his NGO contributed to paved the way for his coming to power. Likewise, a list of nations are documented to be under similar attack.

Myanmar: "Democracy icon" Aung San Suu Kyi's entire political apparatus is US and British funded.

Thailand: Fraudulent NGOs like Prachatai, Thai Netizen, and many others are entirely funded by US State Department cash and are insidiously paving the way for Wall Street servant Thaksin Shinawatra to remove Thailand's traditional institutions and replace it with US-installed "civil society."

Russia: Moscow's streets have been choked week after week with protesters led by verified servants of the US State Department, funded for years by NED and whose foreign-funded NGOs constitute the entirety of accusations of "fraud" in Russia's recent elections.

Malaysia: NED-funded "Bersih" protesters are attempting to sow division and instability to pave the way for IMF stooge Anwar Ibrahim to return to power and enter the people of Malaysia back under Anglo-American servitude.

Egypt and Belarus have given the world a model to follow. Instead of striking out at throngs of protesters manipulated and used by these insidious organizations as the Egyptian military has been doing, they are now striking at the organizations and the foreign-funded traitors doing the manipulation in the first place. By exposing and attacking Wall Street and London's network of insidious agents directly, the global destabilization they are attempting to carry out may just very well fail - and not only fail but leave those behind it naked in their megalomania and criminal intentions for all the world to see.

And finally, while Egyptians, and indeed the world, must scrutinize NGOs claiming to promote "democray," "freedom," and "human rights," they must likewise scrutinize those whom these NGOs are attacking. If the forces of "liberal activism" can be so completely hijacked, so can the forces of nationalism. We must then identify the corporate-financier interests driving this obscene agenda, and not only boycott and entirely replace them, but in the meantime, monitor their interactions not only with these NGOs now confirmed to be frauds, but inroads they may be making in compromising the nationalist forccs they are attacking. Eternal vigilance is a price we must be willing to pay if freedom is truly something we aspire for.

Iraq: Invasion Ends - Neo-Colonial Rule Begins

2011-12-29T00:31:00.000-08:00

Foreign-domination of Iraq's economy are the real chains of servitude.
by Tony Cartalucci

December 29, 2011 - Even as US troops symbolically withdraw from Iraq, a superficial indicator that many may interpret as the return of Iraqi sovereignty, it is the flow of foreign-investment into the country that marks the true chains of foreign-rule being laid out. USA Today in an article titled, "Foreign investment begins to pour into Iraq," describes the real take over, prepared for over the course of nearly a decade, and is now beginning.

Image: A nation can survive and resist an occupation of troops. It is much more difficult to resist an insidious occupation build on an endless, fraudulent torrent of capital and economic domination. Iraqi PM Nouri Al-Maliki "opens Iraq" for just such an occupation - one of Wall Street and London's corporate-financier interests.

....

The US Chamber of Commerce, which represents the collective interests of the largest corporations both in the United States and around the world, has a "US-Iraq Business Initiative" dedicated to "building a better Iraq through private sector investment." The Chamber of Commerce stated in a post titled, "Iraqi Prime Minister: Business Now at the Front," that "Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki visited the Chamber today [December 13, 2011] to mark the transition from U.S. military engagement to economic engagement through commerce, trade, and investment." A similar article can be read via "The Hill's" "Iraq is open for Business."

What is Economic-Imperialism?

An explanation of how economic-imperialism works was noted in February 2011's "Egypt Today, Thailand Tomorrow:"

In the late 90's these think-tanks, NGOs, and research groups together with their International Monetary Fund and the World Bank made immense loans to developing nations around the world. Nations were forced to take these loans with the threat of sanctions aimed against them by the World Trade Organization should they refuse. Like a mafia loan shark, these globocrat gangsters decided to call in the loans knowing how hopelessly unpayable they were.

And like a mafia loan shark, favors were asked of those who defaulted on their payments. Target nations were called to exercise sweeping economic liberalization reforms, eliminating their control and protection over their economy, industry, infrastructure, and as a result, eliminating their national sovereignty itself. It was a new form of an old art. It was economic neo-colonialism.

This is no different than the one-sided trade deals made by the old European empires with target nations in the colonial age. These trade deals also included ownership of property by foreigners, the ability to operate a business, and travel with impunity throughout the host nation - all with minimum or no taxes imposed upon the foreign occupiers. The only difference would be that modern day concessions are forced through invasive economic policy, while colonial concessions were forced through "gunboat policy."

Colonial Southeast Asia circa 1850's. Thailand/Siam
was never colonized but made many concessions.

Thailand, then the Kingdom of Siam, was surrounded on all sides by colonized nations and in turn was made to concede to the British 1855 Bowring Treaty. See how many of these "gunboat policy" imposed concessions sound like today's "economic liberalization:"

1. Siam granted extraterritoriality to British subjects.
2. British could trade freely in all seaports and reside permanently in Bangkok.
3. British could buy and rent property in Bangkok.
4. British subjects could travel freely in the interior with passes provided by the consul.
5. Import and export duties were capped at 3%, except the duty-free opium and bullion.
6. British merchants were to be allowed to buy and sell directly with individual Siamese.

A more contemporary example would be the outright military conquest of Iraq and Paul Bremer's (CFR) economic reformation of the broken nation.

The Economist gleefully enumerates the neo-colonial "economic liberalization" of Iraq in a piece titled "Let's all go to the yard sale: If it all works out, Iraq will be a capitalist's dream:"

1. 100% ownership of Iraqi assets.
2. Full repatriation of profits.
3. Equal legal standing with local firms.
4. Foreign banks allowed to operate or buy into local banks.
5. Income and corporate taxes capped at 15%.
6. Universal tariffs slashed to 5%.

As you can see, not much has changed since 1855 as far as imperialist "wish-lists" go. The Economist argued, as would any 19th century imperialist, that Iraq needed foreign expertise to catch up, justifying the evisceration of their national sovereignty.

Similarly we saw in April 2011's "Libyan Rebels Fighting the Globalists' War" NATO's military conquest of Libya sowing the seeds for post-war dominion of Libya's economy led by what was predicted to be a "Western stooge" that would serve foreign, not Libyan interests. Months later, it would be confirmed that indeed such a Western stooge, Abdurrahim el-Keib, had been found and promptly installed as "Prime Minster" after the fall of Qaddafi's government.

Abdurrahim el-Keib, portrayed by the Western corporate-media as a progressive academic who had spent decades in the United States teaching at Alabama University and leading the local Muslim community, was in fact also a "professor & chairman" at the Petroleum Institute, based in Abu Dhabi, UAE and sponsored by British Petroleum (BP), Shell, France's Total, the Japan Oil Development Company, and the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. El-Keib's Petroleum Institute profile also describes extensive research conducted by him sponsored by various US government agencies and departments over the years. In other words, el-Keib is a man that owes his existence to corporate-financier oligarchs, as well as his current position of power, and will surely spend his time in office paying them back at the expense of the Libyan people.

Conclusion

Considering the Economist's eagerness to commandeer the Iraqi economy, historical contexts stretching back over a century, the US Chamber of Commerce's own admissions, and recent developments in Libya where a fraudulent "humanitarian war" has yielded a government led not by a national government in the service to the people, but to foreign interests, it is safe to say that Iraq's real occupation by the forces of global corporate-fascism is only now beginning.

It should be noted that many of the corporations now jockeying for a position to infest the Iraqi economy, represented within the Chamber of Commerce's Board of Directors, are also chief contributors, partners, members, and sponsors of the very US policy think-tanks that engineered the Iraq War in the first place, as well as America's other planned or ongoing military operations around the world. They literally have hijacked the governments of the West to carry out a campaign pursuing global hegemony, both militarily and economically.

It is essential to take note of these corporate-financier interests, boycott them entirely, and replace them with local, pragmatic solutions. Their unwarranted influence throughout business, politics, and even the theater of war constitutes the greatest threat toward free humanity, not the contrived excuses they have used to dominate nation after nation and continuously perpetuate their agenda.

William Engdahl on NATO's Encirclement of Russia

2011-12-28T11:13:00.000-08:00

Why Moscow Doesn’t Believe Washington on Missile Defense… or on Just Almost Nuthin’…

William Engdahl
Geopolitics-Geoeconomics
December 28, 2011

Most in the civilized world are blissfully unaware that we are marching ineluctably towards an increasingly likely pre-emptive nuclear war. No, it's not at all about Iran and Israel. It's about the decision of Washington and the Pentagon to push Moscow up against the wall with what is euphemistically called Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD).

On November 23, a normally low-keyed Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told the world in clear terms that Russia was prepared to deploy its missiles on the border to the EU between Poland and Lithuania, and possibly in the south near Georgia and NATO member Turkey to counter the advanced construction process of the US ballistic missile defense shield: "The Russian Federation will deploy in the west and the south of the country modern weapons systems that could be used to destroy the European component of the US missile defense," he announced on Russian television. "One of these steps could be the deployment of the Iskander missile systems in Kaliningrad." Those would be theatre ballistic missile systems. The latest version of Iskander, the Iskander-K, whose details remain top secret, reportedly has a range up to 2000 km and carries cruise missiles and a target accuracy to 7 meters or less.

Medvedev declared he has ordered the Russian defense ministry to "immediately" put radar systems in Kaliningrad that warn of incoming missile attacks on a state of combat readiness. He called for extending the targeting range of Russia's strategic nuclear missile forces and re-equipping Russia's nuclear arsenal with new warheads capable of piercing the US/NATO defense shield due to become operational in six years, by 2018. Medvedev also threatened to pull Russia out of the New START missile reduction treaty if the United States moves as announced.

Image: NATO's creeping encirclement of Russia. Engdahl concludes, "in any case the fact that Washington continues to tear up solemn international arms treaties and illegally proceed to install its global missile shield is basis enough for those in Moscow, Beijing or elsewhere to regard US promises, even treaties as not worth the paper they were written on."

....

Medvedev then correctly pointed to the inevitable link between “defensive” missiles and “offensive” missiles: “Given the intrinsic link between strategic offensive and defensive arms, conditions for our withdrawal from the New Start treaty could also arise,” he said.

The Russian President didn’t mince words: “I have ordered the armed forces to develop measures to ensure, if necessary, that we can destroy the command and control systems” of the US shield, Medvedev said. “These measures are appropriate, effective and low-cost.” Russia has repeatedly warned that the US BMD global shield is designed to destabilize the nuclear balance and risks provoking a new arms race. The Russian President said that rather than take the Russian concerns seriously, Washington has instead been “accelerating” its BMD development.

Read the rest of Engdahl's report here, in .pdf format. For more of Engdahl's work, please visit his website, Geopolitics-Geoeconomics here.

Arab League in Syria: A pre-ordained conclusion

2011-12-28T08:55:00.000-08:00

December 28 2011

James Corbett
RT.com / Corbett Report

RT.com
December 28, 2011

The Syrian government has released 755 detainees as Arab League monitors continue their mission to stop nine months of violence that has killed thousands. However, doubts remain on both sides that the observers can provide a neutral verdict.

The release of the detainees Wednesday follows the three-pronged Arab League plan that will see Damascus withdrawal government troops from residential areas, release prisoners and begin talks with the opposition.

The report comes as Sudanese General Mustafa Dabi, the head of the Arab League mission, said he saw “nothing frightening” in the city of Homs, the epicenter of the nine-months of the anti-government rising and the first stop on the month-long monitoring mission that kicked off Tuesday, Reuters reports.

“There were some places where the situation was not good,” Dabi told Reuters by telephone on Wednesday. “But there wasn’t anything frightening, at least while we were there. Things were calm and there were no clashes.”

Meanwhile, some members of the opposition believe the Arab League will prove ineffective by concluding that the violence is being generated from both sides.

The opposition also says Dabi’s military background disqualifies him from being a neutral witness, while the Arab League’s mission is nothing more than a stalling tactic to put off a foreign military intervention.

However, political analyst James Corbett told RT that while the observer mission is in fact lacking in credibility, it is only because conclusions will unlikely be based on facts on the ground.

“The final report will be a pre-ordained conclusion that the Assad government is not doing enough to listen to the concerns of its citizens. Personally, I’m not sure what is more ridiculous about this story – the idea that the autocratic thugs of the Arab League are going to presume to pronounce on the democratic leanings of the Syrian government, or that the international community is supposed to take what they say with any sort of moral authority.”

“Clearly, these are not people in a position to be lecturing on this. I think that the report has been pre-ordained, and I’d be very surprised to see that it concludes anything other than the fact that the Assad government is to blame for what’s going on in Syria right now,” Corbett said.

While he argues that the monitoring mission could potentially be effective, he fears efforts to put off a potentially catastrophic war will likely be disregarded.

“It [the monitoring mission] could actually avert military intervention if they do come out and say that the tensions are internal and need to be dealt with internally, but I don’t think that is what is ultimately going to be concluded, but we certainly have to hope that that is the case, because as we know, military intervention in Syria would be an extremely destabilizing event in the region, and would lead almost inevitably to some sort of confrontation with Iran, if not eventually with other states in the region. So I think it is absolutely imperative that this mission does indeed defuse the situation, though I’m not hopeful for that possibility.”

While Corbett argues the international community’s decision to dictate how Syria should manage their internal affairs is as ludicrous as Damascus telling the Obama administration how to deal with the Occupy Wall Street protests, he fear that the observer mission will ultimately serve as the first step to justifying outside military intervention in the country.

“This is all just political theater that is being played out for the benefit of the public that is obviously unwilling to go along with military intervention unless there is the degree of some sort of body that’s seen to – or at least we’re told – have some sort of moral authority to pronounce on the subject,” he added.

Understanding North Korea

2011-12-28T06:40:00.000-08:00

Analyzing social engineering through domestic propaganda & official mythology

Written and Photographed by Nile Bowie

Editor’s note by Nile Bowie: After years of fascination, I had the opportunity to spend eight days in North Korea in September 2011. At the moment, it is only possible to visit North Korea through a highly organized government-sanctioned tour. Perhaps the most incredible thing about my time there was the genuine authenticity of the emotions displayed in ordinary people towards their leaders, who are viewed with the utmost piety. The degree to which the Korean people are motivated and inspired by the State’s official media and mythology is unparalleled in contrast to any other country. I wrote this article in an attempt to define their worldview as I have come to understand it, because it remains one of the world’s least understood (and most fascinating) societies.

Nile Bowie
NileBowie.blogspot.com
December 28, 2011

These portraits of the Great Leader, Kim il Sung and

the Dear Leader, Kim Jung il are required to

be hung in the home of every Korean by law.

The recent political transition in North Korea has once again focused the world’s attention towards the least accessible society on earth. Its epitaphic spectacle of mourning for the Father Leader, the Great General Kim Jung il, has invited a torrent of conjecture and analysis from the peering spectators of the outside world. While the majority of experts speak of issues such as the possibility of a failed succession, followed by a military coup d’état or a “Pyongyang Spring”, it becomes apparent that so few outlets take the domestic North Korean worldview into account. While all parties exchange wild rhetoric, Washington’s insistent stance on denuclearization is a clear demonstration of its incoherency in diffusing tension, reaching a common resolution with Pyongyang and most importantly, understanding how the regime views itself.

While the country is referred to as the twenty first century’s last bastion of Stalinism, the internal propaganda to which the domestic population is exposed suggests an antipodal ideology intrinsically irreconcilable with the worldview of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin. Under the surface of immense concrete monuments espousing Communism and the rambling doctrine of Juche Thought, North Korea’s domestic propaganda suggests that its identity is derived from a staunchly race-based brand of nationalism, at times channeling a rhetoric of ethnic superiority, similar to that claimed by the Nazis. While the propaganda designated to foreign scrutiny dryly champion’ principles of self-reliance in vague humanistic themes, as found within the Juche doctrine, the least accessible propaganda intended for internal consumption is a uniquely Korean brand of racist orthodoxy.

Image: “The Korean people are too pure-blooded and therefore too virtuous, to survive in this evil world without a great parental leader.”The servicemen depicted on this Korean banknote share identical physical characteristics; great pride is taken in the homogenous & mono-ethnic features of the Korean race.

While some dismiss the hysterical outpour of sorrow displayed at the mourning ceremonies of Kim il Sung and Kim Jung il as “dramatized acting”, the intimacy of the people’s emotional attachment to their exalted Parent Leaders is genuine and unparalleled in it’s fanaticism, even in contrast to the fervor displayed in other devoutly religious cultures. Great pride is derived from the unique homogeneity of the Korean race and with that, a heightened sense of innately inborn ethics and lofty virtues. The characteristic virginal innocence of the Korean people is stressed incessantly in its propaganda, necessitating the guidance of an unchallenged parental overseer to protect the race. The internal apparatus of Korean pedagogy is unique in its portrayal of the ruling Kim as a hermaphroditic entity espousing both maternal concern and paternalistic authority. In Korea’s brand of unique Theocratic National Socialism, Kim il Sung is the nation’s Phallic Mother.

“Mono-ethnicity is something that our nation and no other on earth can pride itself on. There is no suppressing the nation’s shame and anger at the talk of ‘a multi-ethnic, multi-racial society’, which would dilute even the bloodline of our people.”

For centuries prior to the peninsula’s division, Korean civilization was firmly grounded in the staunch Confucian ideology of China, a worldview that espouses total compliance to the fatherly authority figure within royal dynasties and individual families. The Korean Peninsula has been historically referred to as “The Hermit Kingdom” because of its self-imposed isolation from mainland China in the seventeenth century, as a means to safeguard it’s internal Confucianism (Koreans saw themselves as superior Confucian practitioners when equated to the Chinese themselves). For centuries, the xenophobic kingdoms of the Korean Peninsula upheld a repressive brand a Confucianism that oversaw virtually no intramural innovation, while the accounts of many historians indicate diminutive loyalty paid towards the concept of a distinct Korean race or nation-state.

“Long live the Democratic People’s Republic Of Korea!”

The unwavering proudness of the Korean ethnic distinction, displayed today in both nations, was cultivated in part under the decree of Japanese fascism during their brutal thirty-five year occupation of the peninsula beginning in 1910. As certain regimes of that period justified their supremacy through the prepotencies of racial pseudo science, which exhorted a claim of predominance due to their hereditary characteristics and epistatic genealogy, the Japanese asserted that their Korean subjects shared a common bloodline and were products of the same racial stock. These racial proclamations sought to imbue its Korean subjects with a strong sense of national pride, suggesting the common ancestry of a race, morally superior to all others. Following the independence of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the internal propaganda apparatus further mythicized their inherent claims to racial superiority and exploited the Korean people’s traditional tendency to conform.

"Thousands of years ago, on a beautiful peninsula in the center of East Asia, there emerged one of mankind’s first distinct races, the Korean race. While still evolving from the early Korean to the modern Korean man, the Koreans settled the whole peninsula and much of northeast Asia. All they lacked was a strong leader. At last, in the third millennium BE, a great emperor named Tan’gun united Koreans into a state named Choson, taking Pyongyang as it’s capital. Koreans were thus the first Asians to achieve nationhood, a crucial first stage of civilization.

Though Old Choson shared the peninsula with other, smaller kingdoms, the Koreans were always one people with the same blood, language, culture and lofty morals. In the year 918 they were united once more. Alas, foreign aggressors, resentful of Korea’s autonomy and greedy for it’s natural riches, refused to leave the peace-loving people alone. Only by repeatedly driving back invading forces – from Chinese tribes to Japanese Samurai to American war ships – was the Korean race able to preserve its unique integrity up to the present day.

From the start Koreans were marked by a strong sense of virtue and justice, and their exemplary manners earned then country renown as “The Land of Politeness in the East.” No less famous were their clothes, which were as white as the snow-capped peaks of Mount Paektu. Kind-hearted and well featured, Koreans lived in harmonious villages, respecting the people above them and loving those beneath them. Unfortunately, the effete ruling classes, having fallen under the sway of Confucianism, Buddhism and other pernicious foreign ideologies, proved no match for the imperialists’ schemes, and in 1905 Korea became a Japanese colony.

Burning with righteous anger, the masses rose up on March 1, 1919 to demand national independence. The demonstration was brutally suppressed. Fortunately a great leader had already been born who would guide the nation to its proper place on the world stage…"

Images of fresh snowfall and the snow-capped peaks of

Mount Paektu are conjured to exemplify

the pristine quality of Korean racial stock.

Much emphasis is placed on the purity of the race, its homogeneity and its virtuous accomplishments, including defending the motherland against reviled foreign invasion. Unlike modern South Korea, which still remains strongly influenced by Confucian values, the official line in the North rebukes these social systems, branding them as trappings of an over refined ruling class. The personality cult itself is built into the story of racial origins, mythicizing Kim il Sung into a messianic entity, destined to lead to Korean people to independence through Korean Socialism and self reliance. Like the mysticism around Japan’s Mount Fuji during the time of the Japanese occupation, Korea’s highest peak, Mount Paektu, was designated a sacred place and given a central role in official mythology. Kim Jong il’s birth supposedly took place on the peaks of Mt. Paektu beneath twin rainbows in a log cabin during the armed struggle against the Japanese occupiers. His biography reads, "Wishing him to be the lodestar that would brighten the future of Korea, they hailed him as the Bright Star of Mount Paektu."

“The snowstorm rendered Pyongyang – this city steeped in the five thousand year old, jade-like spirit of the race, imbued with proudly lonely life-breath of the world’s cleanest, most civilized people – free of the slightest blemish… covering everything in a thick white veil of purity.”

“The Revolutionary Spirit of Mount Paektu.”

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea may have a communist exterior, however it bares little resemblance to a Marxist-Leninist state in its commitment to improve material living standards; economics are nowhere near a central priority. Its emphasis is on maintaining an ideological state focused on personifying Korean virtues, as embodied in the state’s ruling family. Unlike the communist models of the past, which strove to educate the masses to empower the working classes, the Korean model encourages quite the opposite. Alternatively, the Korean model encourages its subjects to remain in their natural state of intellectual juvenescence and innocence, under the watch of the Great Parent. Official media would often refer to Kim il Sung under the androgynous title of Parent Leader (아버지수령 aboijee seulyong), as his portrayal depicted him as a nurturing maternal figure, fussing over the food his soldiers consumed and making sure they had warm clothing. Internally, there is a stronger effort on indoctrinating the masses with the official fantasy biographies of the Leaders (furthering their messianic character), than there is a serious application of the leaders teachings, such as Juche Thought.

It becomes more likely that the Juche doctrine’s existence, in addition to Kim il Sung’s reputation as a playwright, is used to justify his intellectual credentialism, much like Chairman Mao, a noted poet and creator of Mao Zedong Thought. Kim is feted as a boundless academic under the authorship of Juche law, allowing his government to expediently indite policy, irrespective of criticism. Additionally, while the Juche ideology trumpets autonomy and self-reliance (something that was never economically realized in the history of the nation, as the majority of it’s infrastructural development was funded by the Soviet Union), it provides a convenient facade to outside spectators away from the central ideology of xenophobic race-based nationalism. The ruling Kim is never seen exerting authority or divulging insight to his people, rather stories of him caring for injured children in hospitals and nurturing soldiers on the front lines are far more prevalent, defining “the Great General as the loving parent who holds and nurtures all Korean children at his breast”.

As further evidence of purging the North of cultural ideologies such as Confucianism (still a huge foundation of importance in South Korea), the acclimation of the Korean Worker’s Party as the ‘Mother’ Party lends further credence to this vastly different social climate due to the impossibility of reconciling a maternal authority figure within the male-centric bounds of Confucianism. While Confucius necessitated meticulous self-cultivation through study and condemned race-oriented claims to superiority, the Kim cult encourages its subjects to maintain a perpetual state of childhood in the Parent Leader’s embrace, while remaining naturally virtuous. The maternal appeal is evident in the popular poetry and literature of the country:

"Ah, Korean Workers’ PartyAt whose breast onlyMy life begins and ends;Be I buried in the ground or strewn to the windI remain your son, and again return to your breast!Entrusting my body to your affectionate gaze,Your loving outstretched hand,I will forever cry out in the voice of a child,Mother! I can’t live without Mother!"

“When provoking a war of aggression, we will

hit back, beginning with the US!”

Nearly all of Korea’s internal propaganda maintains a derogatory depiction of foreigners, especially of Americans, who are unanimously viewed as depraved vampires of polluted racial stock. Such animosity exists partly due to the degree of devastation experienced during the Korean war, when nearly a third of the North Korean population were killed in US led aerial bombardments, flattening seventy eight cities and showering over fourteen million gallons of napalm on densely populated areas over a three year period. While these events have faded from the historical consciousness of most, far more civilian causalities existed in North Korea in contrast to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Americans are also blamed for the initial division of the peninsula and for preventing it’s reunification, all true to some extent. While these historical events would create deep seeded trauma and xenophobia in any nation, the added influence of a blood-based nationalism created a climate where even allied Chinese troops were regarded with hostility.

Although under a thick climate of excessive race-based nationalism, there was little hesitation in adopting foreign administrative models deemed progressive to the leadership. Just as South Koreans today view the United States as developmentally superior while being morally inferior, the same relationship existed between the Soviet Union and North Korea. While Kim il Sung paid tribute to the Soviet Union’s “superior culture” in his speeches, foreign literature translated into Korean was sparsely available and the performance of Soviet plays were outright prohibited, instead domestic propaganda focused on the virtues of the Korean race and the purity of it’s bloodline. The accounts of diplomats residing in Korea at the time observed how the education system was not oriented to the study of Marxism-Leninism and how the successes of the nation were attributed to the Korean workers and leadership, omitting the huge role of foreigners in the creation of the state itself. Korean women who romantically affiliated themselves with foreign aid workers or diplomats from the Communist Bloc were accused of betraying their race.

The war crimes committed by American soldiers in the Korean war and the subsequent struggle of the Korean people is constantly channelled in domestic propaganda.

As the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea exists today in a virtual time pocket, one of the world’s wealthiest and most developed economies exists just south of the Demilitarized Zone in the Republic of Korea. The contrast couldn’t be any harder to fathom. There was once a time after the Korean War where the North was developmentally superior to the South, decades of Northern propaganda depicted the South as an emaciated Yankee Colony where American soldiers reign freely, killing Korean children for pleasure. While the South Korea public regards the US military presence in their country (and the legitimate cases of rape and unprovoked murder committed by US soldiers) with the highest distain, the South has become one of the world’s flourishing hubs of modernity and economic development.

Kim Jung il is depicted as the

center of public praise in Seoul.

While knowledge of the South’s economic success became well known among citizens of the North, the propaganda apparatus began to openly admit that the Southerners enjoy a higher standard of living, due to Kim Jong il’s military-first policy which allegedly prevented American forces from fomenting additional war on the peninsula. Despite their wealth, North Koreans are taught that their brethren in the South are humiliated living under the yoke of American imperialism and unanimously seek the warm embrace of the Great Leader’s bosom. North Korean leadership has expressed its repugnance towards the South’s unwavering consumerism and the youth’s adoption of decadent foreign trends such as American hip-hop and immoral foreign fashions. As nearly all other formerly State-planned economies have incrementally adopted a market-based system with relaxed controls on foreign entertainment. Doing so for North Korea would have detrimental consequences for its race-based nationalism, which seeks to preserve innate Korean purity. Any adoption of foreign pop culture is viewed as a pollutant to the virtuous consciousness of the people.

“Through all manner of falsehoods and trickery, the imperialists and reactionaries are paralyzing the healthy thinking of the masses while spreading among them bourgeois-reactionary ideas and rotten bourgeois customs. What will happen if we succumb to and fail to block these customs of living that the bastards are disseminating? In a word, we become… incapable of adhering to socialism. Most importantly, we become unable to defend to our death the leadership of the revolution.” – Kim Jong il

The cost of travel is subsidized for villagers from the

countryside who must annually pilgrimage

to Kim il Sung’s mausoleum in Pyongyang.

Despite the staunch central authority enjoyed by the leading Kim (and potentially the ruling hierarchy in their ability to influence policy, especially under Kim Jong Un), the North attempts to convey its commitment to democracy (at least to it’s own people). Unsurprisingly, the concept of democracy is interpreted differently in North Korea. Due to the leaders irreplaceable qualifications and the unanimity of the people’s desire to hold him in the highest esteem, his rule constitutes the absolute fulfillment of democratic principles. One may be confused as to how any country, which touts Marxism-Leninism as a central ideology, can be associated with theocracy. Karl Marx himself was famous for his view of religion being a characteristic of oppressed creatures, citing “Religion is the opium of the people.” Amidst this supposedly atheist society, Kim il Sung’s mausoleum shares every possible characteristic associable with a sacred place of worship. For North Koreans, the final resting place of Kim il Sung (and now, Kim Jong il) is viewed at the virtual Mecca of their ideology. The aura within this colossal structure of marble and granite is unmistakably pious, the perfect resting place for the posthumous deities responsible for leading the perfect race.

The events following North Korea’s first political transition subsequent to the death of Kim il Sung in 1994 were surely the nation’s most unstable period. Kim Jung il was portrayed in much the same way as his father, however substantial economic difficulties ensued due to the recent fall of the DPRK’s biggest creditor, the Soviet Union. Severe flooding, a lack of arable land and a breakdown of the countries food distribution system led to a period referred to as The Arduous March, resulting in nearly one million deaths from hunger-related causes during the worst period of the famine, from 1995 to 1997. As the economy collapsed, social discipline and internal security began to breakdown outside of Pyongyang. Refugees have allegedly reported seeing streets littered with famished corpses of the starving, soldiers robbing civilians in search of food and widespread cannibalism. Kim Jung il managed to maintain his legitimacy in this period by condemning the US-led economic blockade against Korea, citing it as the dominant cause of the famine and depravity. While it is no exaggeration that sanctions are an act of war and have yielded debilitating results in various countries around the world, there are widespread reports of Kim Jong il’s disproportionate use of the countries budget to import gourmet foods for himself and the upper echelons of his government during this period. Much of the food aid received from abroad was redistributed directly to the military.

“Held together not by a mere bond between a leader and his warriors but by the family tie between a mother and her children who share the same blood and breath, Korea will prosper forever. Let the imperialist enemies come at us with their nuclear weapons, for there is no power on earth that can defeat our strength and love and the power of our belief, which thanks to the blood bond between mother and child create a fortress of single-heartedness. Our great Mother, General Kim Jong il!”

While it has been reported that under the rhetoric, the North Korean leadership seeks peaceful relations with the United States (allegedly even advocating the establishment of an American Embassy in Pyongyang), the policy of the United States Government is one pushing unwavering denuclearization of the North’s nuclear artillery. Washington’s insistent stance on disarmament tends to eclipse any concentration on other issues vital to building stability and more importantly, it advertises their inability to understand how the regime views itself. Kim Jong il oversaw the shift from his father’s policy of equal focus on both economic development and military prowess, to the highly touted Songun rule or, military-first policy, under which his legitimacy is derived solely from reaching the status of a nuclear state. The propaganda apparatus had done much to equate this accomplishment as the pride of the nation, depicting it as integral to the national defense of the country and the race. When taking this into account, Washington’s efforts to convince the DPRK to forfeit it’s main source of pride, legitimacy and defense to it’s blood-enemy in exchange for only thin assurances of prosperity and opportunity seem entirely futile.

“In 2006 the Dear General successfully saw the acquisition of a nuclear deterrent that would protect the Korean race forever. Truly, the son had proven himself worthy of his great father.”

The Songun Military First emblem has become a prominent

propaganda motif under Kim Jung il, “Let us loyally

venerate the party’s military-first leadership!”

The recent actions of NATO in Libya (a former nuclear state which complied to disarmament) has only cemented the resolve in Pyongyang, a DPRK spokesmen commented, "It has been shown to the corners of the earth that Libya's giving up its nuclear arms was used as an invasion tactic to disarm the country by sugarcoating it with words like 'the guaranteeing of security' and the 'bettering of relations.' Having one’s own strength is the only way to keep the peace. The way of the Songun (military-first ideology) that we have chosen is proper in a thousand ways, and our self-defense forces act as a precious restraint that blocks war.” It is unfeasible to expect a country that has so strongly advocated it’s own belief system and intellectual isolation from the outside world to voluntarily eliminate its nuclear stockpiles, while it’s biggest adversary (historically responsible for the deaths of a third of the North Korean population), boasting the world’s highest military budget, reigns unhindered in the region.

“Kim Jong Il, great master of politics and illustrious commander born of Heaven, honorably defended the socialist gains, noble heritage bequeathed by the President, by dint of Songun politics despite the collapse of the world socialist system, the demise of the President which was the greatest loss to the nation, the vicious offensive of the imperialist allied forces to stifle the DPRK and severe natural disasters. He turned the DPRK into an invincible political and ideological power in which single-minded unity has been achieved and made it emerge a nuclear weapons state and an invincible military power, which no enemy can ever provoke.”

A painting on the North Korean side of the DMZ reads:

“Our children will inherit a unified peninsula!”

The reunification of the Korean Peninsula is something that the North claims to desperately yearn towards, propaganda promoting eventual reunification is displayed all over the country in an obstinate vigor. Increasingly, the younger generations in South Korea have begun to regard the concept of reunification with indifference and disregard (much to the dismay of the North). Although the circumstances were drastically different, the only comparable reunification scenario in Germany saw citizens in the socialist German Democratic Republic earning a third of what their West German counterparts earned; the income gap is forty times higher in the South than in the North. The contrast between the two Koreas is not only vastly divergent in its economic and infrastructural development, but more crucially, in its cultural awareness and social consciousness. North Koreans remain one of the least exposed populaces in the world, completely restricted from Internet access and foreign travel (domestic travel is heavily restricted as well); their version of the world is purely an illustration of the worldview decreed to them by their state. In contrast, South Korea is one of the world’s most wired countries, boasting the world’s fastest Internet connection speed; it is a leading producer of smart phones, luxury goods, fashion and commercial pop music. The idea of reunifying these two countries would be akin to building a bridge between two different time periods, so perhaps the outside world should place more emphasis on encouraging economic stimulus in the North, so that it can perhaps develop into a more manageable state. At this stage, reunification can be considered a non-statement because each country views its eventual integration completely in its own vision and ideological concept, irrespective of the views of the people on the opposing side.

“We should highly value comrade Kim Jong Un’s military-first leadership and should preserve our socialist system and achievements of our revolutions through bolstering our defense power in every way, Kim Jong Il passed away to our sorrow before seeing the victory in the drive for building a thriving nation, his great desire, but we are under respected Kim Jong Un identical to him. Kim Jong Un's leadership provides a sure guarantee for successfully carrying forward the revolutionary cause of Juche through generations, the cause which was started by the President and led by Kim Jong Il to victory.”

The circumstances of the recent political succession in the North are quite different to that of Kim Jung il’s experience. Today, the DPRK is far more stable than it was during the period of the Arduous March, following the first political succession. Many analysts have made comments suggesting that high-level military officials within the regime would feel ashamed to recognize a 27-year-old as their Supreme Leader (a concept highly incompatible under Confucian practices). As the succession of Kim Jong Un appears to have smoothly shifted without censure, this lends further credence to the cultural purging of Confucianism in the North. Although the Dear Leader has perished, the regime remains unscathed. During this eleven-day mourning period, the North Korea propaganda apparatus has focused more on paying homage to the late Kim Jong il than it has on authoring an elaborate fantasy biography around his son. Unsurprisingly, there is an emphasis on Kim Jong Un being identical to his father, primarily in his military-first approach to governing. According to North Korea’s official news agency, the skies over the sacred Mount Paektu glowed red, while the ice on the volcanic Lake Chon cracked with a with a load roar just minutes prior to Kim’s recent death. While appearances may have changed, Pyongyang’s system is not ideologically shifting focus.

For more on North Korea’s recent succession: The Changing Face of Pyongyang by Nile Bowie. Many translations in this article have originally appeared in BR Meyer’s book, The Cleanest Race

Wall Street Journal "Determines" Russian Election a "Fraud"

2011-12-28T03:59:00.000-08:00

Admits "statistical studies can't prove vote fraud" but US-funded Golos "data" collaborates conclusion.
by Tony Cartalucci

December 28, 2011 - The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), going through extraordinary lengths to prove a foreign election "fraudulent," claims to have written a "computer program that downloaded 2,957 web pages posted on Russia's Central Election Commission website." They then claim they used another program to mine pages "for precinct-level data extracting outcomes for 95,228 precincts spread across 2,745 electoral commissions. " The Wall Street Journal then had "experts" in "election fraud and statistics" look at the data finding what they called, "the fingerprints of fraud."

In Wall Street Journal's article, "Russia's Dubious Vote," the authors admit that "the analysis doesn't in itself prove fraud in Russia's Dec. 4 parliamentary elections." But the WSJ then cites "local and international observers," that corroborate their findings of "fraud" with claims of ballot-box stuffing, vote falsification, and other violations. The only organization WSJ is able to cite by name, however, is US National Endowment for Democracy (NED) funded GOLOS.

In, "US Caught Meddling in Russian Elections," GOLOS was noted as being the key "observer" cited across Western media in an attempt to portray the Russian elections as "stolen," a similar ploy that has been used throughout color revolutions since the 80s and in particular during the last year of US-backed destabilization also known as the "Arab Spring." However, GOLOS owes its existence to the US government and in turn the banking oligarchs of Wall Street and London who have been trying in vain to dislodge Russia's Vladimir Putin from power for years.

Indeed, something is "dubious" about Russia's elections, namely the concerted, overeager campaign by the West to portray them as fraudulent, to lend ammunition to their stable of US-funded NGOs and opposition leaders now taking to the streets in Moscow, and the Wall Street Journal's insistence that "local and international observers" back their recent "analysis" but failed to name any beyond a US-funded propaganda front, GOLOS. That the WSJ disingenuously insisted that GOLOS was "Russia's main independent election-monitoring group" despite receiving its funding from the US government - hardly independent by any stretch of the imagination - calls into question the alleged computer program they wrote to draw the conclusions they have presented.

Image: A screenshot from NED's official website, listing GOLOS as a recipient of NED funding, which in turn is provided by the US State Department. Despite this overt conflict of interest - especially with NED subsidiary International Republican Institute chairman John McCain openly threatening Russia with "Arab Spring" unrest, "journalists" like those at the Wall Street Journal continue citing them as "independent" election monitors. (click image to enlarge)

....

A computer program can be written to render any result desired, as the recent "Climate Gate" hoax has proven. It is then only the integrity of those carrying out the analysis and presenting the results that determine the possible veracity of their conclusions. Since the Wall Street Journal makes such overt misrepresentations, such as GOLOS being "independent" when they are clearly, admittedly funded by the US government, indicates that the WSJ lacks such integrity. Instead, they are but the most recent corporate-media propaganda front to jump on the Wall Street-London battlewagon on its way to Moscow.

Wall Street Journal's Conclusions are Fraudulent as are the Protest Leaders in Russia's Streets

Meanwhile, Christmas Eve protests in Moscow were once again led by verified agents of Western sedition, namely Alexei Navalny, according to an AP report titled, "Alexei Navalny, Key Engine Behind Russian Protests." Called a "corruption-fighting lawyer and popular blogger" by AP, who unlike Wall Street Journal, skipped feigned analysis and jumped right to labling the elections as "shameless falsification," Navalny is portrayed as a force of reform against a corrupt system.

And while Alexey Navalny is renowned for "exposing corruption," at least when profitable, those researching his background begin unraveling his own insidious, compromised agenda. Alexey Navalny was a Yale World Fellow, and in his profile it states:

"Navalny spearheads legal challenges on behalf of minority shareholders in large Russian companies, including Gazprom, Bank VTB, Sberbank, Rosneft, Transneft, and Surgutneftegaz, through the Union of Minority Shareholders. He has successfully forced companies to disclose more information to their shareholders and has sued individual managers at several major corporations for allegedly corrupt practices. Navalny is also co-founder of the Democratic Alternative movement and was vice-chairman of the Moscow branch of the political party YABLOKO. In 2010, he launched RosPil, a public project funded by unprecedented fundraising in Russia. In 2011, Navalny started RosYama, which combats fraud in the road construction sector."

The Democratic Alternative, also written DA!, is indeed a National Endowment for Democracy fund recipient, meaning that Alexey Navalny is an agent of US-funded sedition and willfully hiding it from his followers. The US State Department itself reveals this as they list "youth movements" operating in Russia:

"DA!: Mariya Gaydar, daughter of former Prime Minister Yegor Gaydar, leads DA! (Democratic Alternative). She is ardent in her promotion of democracy, but realistic about the obstacles she faces. Gaydar said that DA! is focused on non-partisan activities designed to raise political awareness. She has received funding from the National Endowment for Democracy, a fact she does not publicize for fear of appearing compromised by an American connection."

Alexey was involved directly in founding a movement funded by the US government and to this day has the very people who funded DA! defending him throughout Western media. (For more information, please see, "Wall Street Vs. Russia.")

It becomes clear then, that the AP report has misidentified the real "engine" behind the Russian protests. It is not Navalny, but rather Wall Street and London via organizations like the National Endowment for Democracy. It is safe to say that yet again we are watching unfold a "revolution" created from whole cloth not by the aspirations of the Russian people, but by the disingenuous "democracy promoting" forces of Wall Street and London bent on destabilizing Russia, undermining the Kremlin, and either extracting concessions from Russia, especially regarding Syria, or even going as far as replacing entirely the Russian government for one more servile like that of Yelsin's and the corrupt oligarchs that succeeded him.

Syrian NGOs Working Directly With British Government

2011-12-25T11:43:00.000-08:00

London-based "Syrian Observatory" Consorting Directly with UK Foreign Minister Hague.
by Tony Cartalucci

December 26, 2011 - In May 2011's article "The Siege of Syria," it was reported:

"The coverage by the corporate-owned Western media exclusively relies on "activists inside and outside the country," the London-based "Syrian Human Rights Monitoring Centre" which apparently has no web presence, the Damascus Center for Human Rights which boasts memberships with the National Endowment for Democracy and Tides Foundation-funded International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the Coalition for the International Criminal Court, funded by the European Union, the Ford Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Open Society Institute, the Sigrid Rausing Trust, and Humanity United.

Humanity United in turn boast partnerships with the BBC World Service Trust, NED/Open Society/US State Department-funded Benetech, the Open Society Institute, and the NED-funded Solidarity Center which mobilized Egypt's labor unions just as the US-stoked unrest began to falter. In other words, every organization involved interlocks with the vast corporate/foundation-funded imperial network masquerading as individual "human rights organizations" and benign NGOs. In reality this "civil society" network seeks to supplant national governments, and interface with global "institutions" like the IMF, World Bank, and the UN, all of which have been contrived by corporate-financier oligarchs. It is a modern day empire in the making."

The US National Endowment for Democracy's journal, Democracy Digest, would report in their August 2011 article titled, "Syrian military ‘strained’, as Clinton meets opposition activists," (warning: link automatically plays very loud video clip) that the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights made one of many joint statements with the above mentioned US-funded Damascus Center for Human Rights. Meanwhile, Reuters featured a photograph of the Observatory's head, Rami Abdelrahman, leaving a meeting with the British Foreign Minister William Hague.

Photo: From Reuters: "Rami Abdelrahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, leaves the Foreign and Commonwealth Office after meeting Britain's Foreign Secretary, William Hague, in central London November 21, 2011. REUTERS/Luke MacGregor"

....

It is quite clear that the "Syrian Observatory for Human Rights" based in London and receiving the entirety of their reports via "phone" & YouTube videos from Syria, is working in coordination with both US-funded NGOs and the British Foreign Minister. Considering that Hague similarly coddled Libyan opposition leaders in London while playing a key role in promoting the NATO attack on Libya and the subsequent installation of a BP oilman as "prime minister," Abdelrahman's consorting signifies a verbatim repeat of the now openly fraudulent and genocidal NATO campaign in Libya.

Just as in Libya, where "human rights activists" have now admitted to fabricating the evidence used by the International Criminal Court and the United Nations to rubber stamp Wall Street and London's designs for regime change, likewise the "evidence" from Syria has turned out to be a complete fraud, derived by opposition "witnesses" and compiled by a corporate D.C. think-tank director into a UN "human rights report."

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights serves as the exclusive source of "reports" coming out of Syria despite the fact that it is actually, entirely based in London. While it is verified that the NGOs it works in tandem with are US-funded, the Observatory itself fails to publish where its money comes from or the backgrounds of those that constitute its membership. We then, are expected to simply believe on face value a mysterious organization whose head meets with the British government and their unverified "witness accounts" as evidence to initiate military intervention at the cost of potentially millions of lives.

That the corporate-media has utterly failed to hold the Observatory accountable for its lack of transparency and parrots verbatim its absolutely unverified. undocumented reports as if they were factual gives us a new appreciation of the level on which we are being deceived across the Western world by the press.

It is already confirmed that NATO-backed Libyan terrorists are on their way to Syria to oversee the "Free Syria Army," led by Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) commander Abdul Belhaj. It should be noted that LIFG is currently listed by the US State Department as a foreign terrorist organization (#26). Shortly thereafter, two bombs detonated in Damascus killing 44 people. France24 reported that the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood's official website claimed responsibility for the bombings, confirming that indeed, the "protests" were armed militants all along.

Despite later retractions by the Brotherhood's London-based leadership, mounting evidence suggests that NATO and its proxies are behind the unrest and increasing violence, while London-based NGOs like the Observatory disingenuously spin responsibility back onto the Syrian government as part of a malicious hoax aimed at triggering the same genocide and destruction that delivered Libyan into the hands of global corporate-fascism.

The Christmas Truce of 1914

2011-12-24T23:27:00.000-08:00

A moment of sanity amidst the infinite stupidity of war.

In the end, we have more in common with the furthest flung foreign common man than the closest corporate-fascists that presume dominion over our lives. If only the British & Germans realized it was the greed of their own banking houses that had them in the trenches and not some irreconcilable difference amongst themselves... Knowledge is power, ignorance literally can mean death.

....

Ron Paul Foreign Policy

2011-12-24T15:09:00.000-08:00

Video: Ron Paul's Foreign Policy: Defend this country, restore our economy, secure our borders, end foreign aid, lead by example, not by force for a safer stronger America.

....

For more information on the "War on Terror" please see, "The War on Terror is a Fraud" and "Globalists Coming Full Circle."

2011 - Year of the Dupe

2011-12-24T03:50:00.001-08:00

A timeline & history: One year into the engineered "Arab Spring," one step closer to global hegemony.
by Tony Cartalucci

Editor's Note: The title, "Year of the Dupe," was inspired, and indeed coined by Dr. Webster Tarpley of Tarpley.net, who is noted below as giving the initial tip-off regarding Egypt's unrest back in January 2011.

dupe (dp, dyp)

1. An easily deceived person.

2. A person who functions as the tool of another person or power.

tr.v. duped, dup·ing, dupes To deceive (an unwary person).

December 24, 2011 - In January of 2011, we were told that "spontaneous," "indigenous" uprising had begun sweeping North Africa and the Middle East in what was hailed as the "Arab Spring." It would be almost four months before the corporate-media would admit that the US had been behind the uprisings and that they were anything but "spontaneous," or "indigenous." In an April 2011 article published by the New York Times titled, "U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings," it was stated:

"A number of the groups and individuals directly involved in the revolts and reforms sweeping the region, including the April 6 Youth Movement in Egypt, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and grass-roots activists like Entsar Qadhi, a youth leader in Yemen, received training and financing from groups like the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute and Freedom House, a nonprofit human rights organization based in Washington."

The article would also add, regarding the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED):

"The Republican and Democratic institutes are loosely affiliated with the Republican and Democratic Parties. They were created by Congress and are financed through the National Endowment for Democracy, which was set up in 1983 to channel grants for promoting democracy in developing nations. The National Endowment receives about $100 million annually from Congress. Freedom House also gets the bulk of its money from the American government, mainly from the State Department. "

....

Foreign Policy Magazine would report in their article, "Revoluton U," that CANVAS assisted protesters in the "Rose Revolution" of Georgia, the "Orange Revolution" of the Ukraine, and is currently working with networks from Belarus, Myanmar (Burma), all across the Middle East and North Africa, as well as with activists in North Korea, and 50 other countries.

2009: In a US State Department funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Libery (RFE/RL) article titled, "Exporting Nonviolent Revolution, From Eastern Europe to The Middle East," it was stated, "Popovic then exported his nonviolent methods, helping train the activists who spearheaded Georgia's Rose Revolution in 2003 and Ukraine's Orange Revolution in 2004. And now, Popovic is deploying his new organization, called Canvas, even farther afield -- assisting the pro-democracy activists who recently brought down despotic regimes in Egypt and Tunisia."

Activists from Iran, Belarus, and North Korea were also confirmed by RFE/RL as having received training from CANVAS. The RFE/RL article places the activists' meeting with CANVAS sometime during 2009.

February 2010: The April 6 Movement, after training with CANVAS, would return to Egypt in 2010, along with UN IAEA Chief Mohammed ElBaradei. April 6 members would even be arrested while awaiting for ElBaradei's arrival at Cairo's airport in mid-February. Already, ElBaradei, as early as 2010, announced his intentions of running for president in the 2011 elections. Together with April 6, Wael Ghonim of Google, and a coalition of other opposition parties, ElBaradei assembled his "National Front for Change" and began preparing for the coming "Arab Spring."

Clearly then, unrest was long planned, with activists from Tunisia and Egypt on record receiving training and support from abroad, so that they could return to their home nations and sow unrest in a region-wide coordinated campaign.

An April 2011 AFP report would confirm this, when US State Department's Michael Posner stated that the "US government has budgeted $50 million in the last two years to develop new technologies to help activists protect themselves from arrest and prosecution by authoritarian governments." The report went on to explain that the US "organized training sessions for 5,000 activists in different parts of the world. A session held in the Middle East about six weeks ago gathered activists from Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon who returned to their countries with the aim of training their colleagues there." Posner would add, "They went back and there's a ripple effect." That ripple effect of course, is the "Arab Spring."

The Timeline - 2011 Year of the Dupe

January 16, 2011: Al Arabiya News reported in their article, "Tunisian exiled reformist to head back home," that Moncef Marzouki was returning to Tunisia (from Paris) amidst the chaos sown by US State Department trained, supported, and equipped mobs who were "triggered" by the convenient release of US State Department cables via Wikileaks. Quite clearly, considering the training Tunisian opposition groups received long before the cables were released, the Wikileaks cables were merely used as a planned rhetorical justification for long ago premeditated foreign-funded sedition. Since then, Wikileaks has been employed in an identical manner everywhere from Egypt to Libya, and even as far flung as Thailand.

Moncef Marzouki, it would turn out, was founder and head of the Arab Commission for Human Rights, a collaborating institution with the US NED World Movement for Democracy (WMD) including for a "Conference on Human Rights Activists in Exile" and a participant in the WMD "third assembly" alongside Marzouki's Tunisian League for Human Rights, sponsored by NED, Soros' Open Society, and USAID.

A "call for solidarity" by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) mentions by name each and every group constituting the Tunisian opposition during the "uprising" in January 2011 as "FIDH member organisations." These include Marzouki's "Tunisian League for Human Rights," the "Tunisian Association of Democratic Women," and the "National Council for Liberties in Tunisia," or CNLT. FIDH, acting as an international nexus for various foreign-funded organizations carrying out sedition worldwide under the guise of "human rights," is itself fully funded by the US government through the National Endowment for Democracy, Soros' Open Society, and many others with clearly compromised affiliations.

January 28, 2011: After a warning by journalist/activist Dr. Webster Tarpley of World Crisis Radio, the alternative media began looking closer at the unrest in Egypt which began shortly after Tunisia's growing crisis. In "All is not what it seems in Egyptian Clashes," it was noted that protest leader Mohammed ElBaradei was in fact a devoted agent of the West, with a long standing membership within the Wall Street/London funded International Crisis Group (ICG) along side "senior Israeli officials" including the current Israeli President Shimon Peres, the current Governor of the Bank of Israel, Stanley Fischer, and former Israeli Foreign Minister, Shlomo Ben-Ami. The ICG also includes senior American bankers and geopolitical manipulators including George Soros, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Richard Armitage, Samuel Berger, and Wesley Clark.

Photo: ElBaradei's ties to the West go much deeper than merely play-acting within the ineffectual, genocide-enabling UN. He is also a member of the corporate-financier funded International Crisis Group.

....

Ironically, Western media outlets insisted ElBaradei was both anti-American and strongly anti-Israeli in a rouse best described a year earlier in March 2010 in the Council On Foreign Relations' paper, Foreign Affairs' article "Is ElBaradei Egypt's Hero?":

"Further, Egypt’s close relationship with the United States has become a critical and negative factor in Egyptian politics. The opposition has used these ties to delegitimize the regime, while the government has engaged in its own displays of anti-Americanism to insulate itself from such charges. If ElBaradei actually has a reasonable chance of fostering political reform in Egypt, then U.S. policymakers would best serve his cause by not acting strongly. Somewhat paradoxically, ElBaradei’s chilly relationship with the United States as IAEA chief only advances U.S. interests now. "

The most recent manifestation of this came when Israel farcically called ElBaradei an "Iranian agent." This latest performance further illustrates the immense level of duplicity with which world events are being manipulated.

February 17, 2011: The London-based National Front for the Salvation of Libya (NFSL) calls for a Libyan "Day of Rage" to match the US-destabilization rhetoric used in Tunisia and Egypt. The NFSL has been backed by the CIA-MI6 since the 80's and had made multiple attempts to overthrow Qaddafi's government with both terrorist attacks and armed insurrection.

Photo: Please note the "EnoughGaddafi.com" signs. EnoughGaddafi.com's webmaster is listed on the US State Department's Movements.org as the "Twitter" to follow.

....

February 18, 2011: In the wake of Honsi Mubarak's ousting, billionaire bankster George Soros' Open Society Institute was found to be behind NGOs drafting Egypt's new constitution. These "civil society" groups include the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information openly funded by George Soros' Open Society Institute and the Neo-Con lined NED funded Egyptian Organization for Human Rights. It appears that while the International Crisis Group was turning out the strategy, and their trustee ElBaradei leading the mobs into the streets, it is the vast array of NGOs their membership, including Soros, fund that were working out and implementing the details on the ground.

February 21, 2011: An interview with Ibrahim Sahad of the National Front for the Salvation of Libya (NFSL) on ABC Australia, featured every talking point covered by the mainstream corporate media from previous weeks regarding Libya, all with the White House and Washington Monument looming over him in the background. He made calls for a no-fly zone in reaction to unsubstantiated accusations Qaddafi was strafing "unarmed protesters" with warplanes.

March 2011's "US Libyan Policy: Zero Legitimacy," noted the clearly heavily armed, western-backed insurgency that was still being disingenuously portrayed by Western media as "peaceful protests."

February 28, 2011: "Destroying Libya" stated:

While Libyan opposition leader Ibrahim Sahad leads the rhetorical charge from Washington D.C., his National Front for the Salvation of Libya (NFSL) on the ground is armed to the teeth, as it has been throughout its 20 year history of attempted CIA backed rebellions against Qaddafi. In 1984, the NFSL tried to overthrow Qaddafi in a failed armed coup. The Daily Globe and Mail also recently confirmed that the NFSL along with the Libyan National Army, both under Sahad's new National Conference of Libyan Opposition (NCLO), had both "attempted coups and assassinations against Col. Gadhafi in the 1980s."

Already at this point, both British and US representatives were admitting Libyan rebels were indeed heavily armed, and instead of condemning the violence, openly called for additional weapons and military support to be provided.

March 17, 2011: The UN decided to enforce a no-fly zone over Libya to save the globalist-backed rebellion sputtering in failure and bordering on a "Bay of Pigs" disaster. Canadian, US, French, Arab, and UK jets were already reported to be preparing for the operation.

March 24, 2011: Unrest had already begun in Syria, as NATO began bombing Libya while Egypt and Tunisia had already fallen into political and economic chaos. In "Globalists Hit in Syria," the opposition is closely examined and documented to be once again a creation of Western-backed opposition groups.

Much of the "evidence" of Syria's unrest was being filtered through organizations such as the London-based Syrian Human-Rights Committee whose hearsay statements posted on its website were cited by corporate news media in outlandish reports of violence that also include "activists say" after each allegation. The "Syrian Observatory for Human Rights," also London-based, is now the exclusive source cited by corporate-media reports regarding Syria.

March 26, 2011: In Egypt, signs of a counterrevolution and the first signs of weakness in ElBaradei's chances to be installed as president began to show. Mobs pelted ElBaradei with rocks calling him "an American agent." Wikileaks would again come to the aid of US interests and try to reintroduce the "anti-Western" image ElBaradei had been hamfisted in portraying.

Photo: The "barrier of legitimacy" is broken: a mob shouts "American agent" as they hurl rocks at ElBaradei who most certainly is an American agent - a trustee of the US International Crisis Group alongside George Soros.

....

March 28, 2011: Fortune-500 funded Brookings Institution's "Libya's Test of the New International Order" is reported on - exposing the war as not one of a "humanitarian" nature, but one aimed explicitly at establishing an international order and the primacy of international law.

Image: Red = US-backed destabilization, Blue = US occupying/stationed. China's oil and sea access to the Middle East and Africa are being or have already been cut. A similar strategy of isolation was used on Japan just before the onset of World War II.

....

April 17, 2011: Syria's unrest yields widespread arson as well as reports of gunmen targeting both protesters and state security forces in a bid to escalate violence. In, "Globalist War Machine Fixates on Syria," the "Libyan Precedent" is already being cited by US and French politicians as justification to use force against Syria. A later article, "Color Revolution's Mystery Gunmen," establishes a historical context within which to view the current violence in Syria and the fact that it is provocateurs sowing much of the violence.

April 21, 2011: Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko announces that his nation is now also under covert attack by Western forces to foster an "Arab Spring-style" insurrection. In, "Besieging Belarus," documented ties between Belarus opposition members and the same Western organizations and institutions fueling the Arab Spring are illustrated.

April 22, 2011: John McCain touches down in Benghazi, Libya and consorts with verified terrorists who were fresh back from Iraq and Afghanistan, killing US troops. A West Point report would later confirm (.pdf from West Point's CTC can be found here) with absolute certainty that the region from which the Libyan rebellion began was also the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group's (LIFG) center of operations. It would also expose the fact that LIFG were in fact long-time affiliates of Al Qaeda with LIFG members occupying the highest levels of leadership within the terrorist organization.

Photo: Ultimate act of treason: McCain calls for recognition and extra-legal support for the very men who had killed US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. By denying "Al-Qaeda" a base in Iraq, but handing them the entire nation of Libya, he has brought American foreign policy
to a new level of surrealism.

....

May, 2011: In "Libya at Any Cost," the conflict in Libya was reported to be escalating, including NATO attempts to assassinate Qaddafi and the targeted killings of several of his family members including several of his grandchildren.

"America's Arab Deception" attempted to review the past several months of engineered chaos blowing through Northern Africa and the Middle East, while it was noted in, "You Can't Make This Stuff Up," that the National Endowment for Democracy already began its first round of self-aggrandizing, and passing out awards to several of the dupes and collaborators that made its campaign of carnage throughout the Arab World a reality.

June, 2011: In "Arab Spring brings Corporate Locust," the true agenda behind Egypt's, and indeed the entire "Arab Spring's" unrest became apparent as US representatives gave Fortune 500 executives a tour of destabilized Egypt and Tunisia in an effort to promote economic liberaliztion and privatization. John McCain and John Kerry led the tour and had co-sponsored bills to promote what would essentially be the meshing of Egypt and Tunisia's economy into the Wall Street/London international order.

Photo: McCain (left) and Kerry (right) gesticulate as they explain their paymaster's agenda within the confines of an Egyptian Coca-Cola factory. This is part of their latest trip surveying the effects of their US-funded opposition overthrowing Hosni Mubarak's government.

....

In late June, France would admit to violating the terms of UN resolution 1973, and arming Libyan rebels.

July, 2011: The African Union would wholly reject the International Criminal Court's mandate against Libya, exposing the severe illegitimacy with which it operates. Ties to corporate-financier funded organizations are revealed in "It's Official: International Criminal Court has ZERO Mandate," as well as the tenuous nature of the ICC's claims against Libya's Qaddafi. It would later be confirmed by members of Libya's "human rights" community that indeed they, in collaboration with the rebel leaders, fabricated the numbers supplied to both the UN and the ICC, and that no verified or documented evidence of Qaddafi's "atrocities" were produced.

In Thailand, another long-running US-backed color revolution finally yielded results and saw the return of Wall Street proxy, Thaksin Shinawatra's political party to power. Various mouthpieces of the global elite, including the Council on Foreign Relations itself, gave stern warnings to Thailand's establishment to accept the tenuous results of the July election or face isolation and other consequences. Another Southeast Asian country, Malaysia would also see color revolution take to their streets - this time in Malaysia by the yellow-clad, NED-funded Bersih movement.

Photo: Thaksin Shinawatra, a long time servant of the global elite, since before even becoming Thailand's prime minister in 2001, reports to the CFR in New York City on the eve of the 2006 military coup that ousted him from power. He has now returned to power in Thailand via a proxy political party led by his own sister, Yingluck Shinawatra. Securing the votes of only 35% of eligible voters puts on full display how tenuous his support really is within a nation he claims stands entirely behind him.

....

August, 2011: By August, even the corporate-media began admitting that Syria's opposition was "mostly unarmed," or in other words, armed. The opposition was starting to be more clearly defined as armed ethnic groups and armed militants of the Muslim Brotherhood.

By late August, NATO began a coordinated attack on Tripoli, Libya, involving an elaborate psychological-operation that claimed to have eliminated or captured the entire Qaddafi family in a single day. The following day, Saif Al-Qaddafi would turn up alive and well, and free, while leading fierce fighting that would carry on until October and result in NATO leveling the cities of Bani Walid and Sirte in particular, into piles of rubble. It had become entirely clear that NATO was providing air support not for democracy-loving freedom fighters, but for hardcore terrorists who were carrying out a systematic campaign of genocide and reprisals throughout the country.

Photo: Libya's rebels are far from motivated by democratic aspirations. Their grievances lie along ethnic, not political divides. "Gaddafi supporters" is the euphemism being used by the global corporate-media in describing the generally darker skinned and African tribes that form the majority of Western Libya's demographics and who are bearing the brunt of NATO-backed rebel atrocities.

....

September, 2011: Sensing victory in Libya, corporate-financier funded think-tanks began preparing for the rebuilding and despoiling of the Libyan economy. In "Globalists to Rebuild Libya," NATO's Atlantic Council wrote a report detailing just how they would go about doing this.

Also as Libya's violence spiraled out of control and atrocities carried out by the rebels and their NATO backers became more obscene, it became clear how fraudulent the "War on Terror" was. In "Libyan Rebels Listed by US State Department as Terrorists," it is illustrated how NATO members were guilty of anti-terrorist laws for providing material support for listed terrorist organizations.

Image: A screenshot taken directly from the US State Department website showing the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) clearly listed as a foreign terrorist organization. This is important, as US Code prohibits providing material support to listed terrorist organizations. With revelations of Al Qaeda and LIFG fighters leading the Libyan rebellion with NATO-members' full military, financial, and diplomatic support, attempts are being made to plea ignorance as to the true nature of the rebels. Listed below LIFG, is MEK, an Iraqi/Iranian group also being armed and supported by the US. (click on image to enlarge)

....

September also saw real humanitarian catastrophe unfold in Uganda, where a British corporation sanctioned genocide to clear land they had "leased" from the Ugandan government. Thus illustrates how the cause of "humanitarian concerns" is called on only when it serves Wall Street and London's interests, and otherwise ignored when it involves verifiable genocide carried out in the pursuit of furthering their wealth and power.

Photo: Robert Devereux, a long time investor, a long time con-artist spinning his company's despoiling of Africa as some sort of cutting-edge investment strategy that makes money and "helps" people. Even as Devereux made his disingenuous statements in 2010 regarding New Forests, the villagers in Uganda he was "helping" had already filed a court case a year earlier protesting the British company's encroachment on their land. These villagers would be forcibly displaced, many of them killed by Ugandan troops acting on behalf of Devereux.

....

John McCain would land once again in Libya, this time in Tripoli to celebrate the destruction of the country and shake hands once again with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group that delivered Qaddafi's Libya into the hands of the Wall Street/London elite.

Photo: It's all smiles and laughs in Tripoli as McCain, a chief proponent and driving force behind the US intervention in Libya, literally glorifies Al Qaeda's exploits in the now ruined nation. Miles away, the very rebels he was praising are purposefully starving the civilian population of Sirte in an effort to break their will, while they and NATO indiscriminately use heavy weapons aimed at crowded city centers.

....

October 2011: While Tunisia and Egypt had fallen, and Libya too being seized by proxy forces fueled by the West, the Obama administration began withdrawing troops from Iraq. This suspicious withdrawal when otherwise the rest of the Middle East was under US proxy assault raised serious suspicions that an escalation, not retreat was to follow.

Rhetoric for war with Iran had been steadily increasing and the beginning of what looked like a covert war was being fought inside and along Iran's borders. A disastrous ploy of framing Iran for the alleged planned assassination of a Saudi ambassador in Washington D.C. fell apart when Iranians linked the plot to US-backed terrorist organization Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK).

Image: MEK. Admittedly a terrorist organization, listed by the US State Department as being such, it is fully funded, armed, and backed by the United States, based in France and US-occupied Iraq, and allowed to conduct terrorist operations against the Iranian people. The "War on Terror" is a fraud.

....

It is more than likely that the withdrawal of troops from Iraq would simply provide the US "plausible deniability" for an Israeli airstrike on Iran.

November 2011: Syria's "peaceful protesters" who had been all along fully armed and attempting to stoke a Libyan-style civil war, were finally acknowledge as such by the corporate-media and more importantly by the corporate-funded think-tanks that supply them with their talking points. In "IISS: Syria's Opposition is Armed," it is states that a report out of the International Institute for Strategic Studies by Senior Fellow for Regional Security at IISS-Middle East, Emile Hokayem openly admitted that Syria's opposition was armed and prepared to drag Syria's violence into even bloodier depths.

Also in November, Wall Street and London's assault on Libya came full circle with the installation of Abdurrahim el-Keib as prime minister. El-Keib who spent decades in exile in the US, was formally employed by the Petroleum Institute, based in Abu Dhabi, UAE and sponsored by British Petroleum (BP), Shell, France's Total, the Japan Oil Development Company, and the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.

Photo: And so begins the farce that is Western "democracy." One corporate-fascist puppet Mahmoud Jibril , steps down, another, Abdurrahim el-Keib, takes his place. In reality, it is NATO-states and their corporate sponsors that now determine Libya's fate. Pictured above, el-Keib poses with Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, chairman of the unelected, NATO-backed "National Transitional Council."

....

Joining el-Keib would be US-funded activist, Moncef Marzouki, named Tunisia's president. Marzouki's organization, the Tunisian League for Human Rights, was a US National Endowment for Democracy and George Soros Open Society-funded International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) member organization. Marzouki, who spent two decades in exile in Paris, France, was also founder and head of the Arab Commission for Human Rights, a collaborating institution with the US NED World Movement for Democracy (WMD) including for a "Conference on Human Rights Activists in Exile" and a participant in the WMD "third assembly" alongside Marzouki's Tunisian League for Human Rights, sponsored by NED, Soros' Open Society, and USAID.

Photo: US NED-funded activist leader Moncef Marzouki after spending two decades in Paris, helps foist the facade of "democracy" onto the Tunisian people. Of course, he, or someone of equal servitude to the West was going to become "President." In 1993 Noam Chomsky would concisely describe the work of NED as "an attempt to impose what is called democracy, meaning rule by the rich and the powerful, without interference by the mob but within the framework of formal electoral procedures." In other words, those fighting in the "Arab Spring" did so for gilded tyranny.

....

In Egypt, in late November, a second "revolution" began unfolding on the streets. In reality it was the same Western-backed forces led by ElBaradei and the emerging Mamdouh Hamza, against Egyptian military forces that seemed to have gone back on whatever arrangements they made with the West after the fall of Mubarak.

The UN, in another attempt to escalate foreign intervention in Syria, would release a UN Human Rights Council report regarding Syrian "crimes against humanity" which was actually co-authored by Karen Koning AbuZayd, a director of the US Washington-based corporate think-tank, Middle East Policy Council, that includes Exxon men, CIA agents, US military and government representatives, and even the president of the US-Qatar Business Council, which includes amongst its membership, AlJazeera, Chevron, Exxon, munitions manufacturer Raytheon (who supplied the opening salvos during NATO's operations against Libya), and Boeing.

The report itself contained no verifiable evidence, but rather hearsay accounts recorded in Geneva by alleged "victims" "witnesses," and "defectors," put forth by "all interested persons and organizations." In other words, it was an open invitation for Syria's enemies to paint whatever image of the ruling government they pleased.

December 2011: With Tunisia and Libya fully run by Western proxies, Egypt and Syria still mired in chaos, and with globalists calling for war on Iran, the "Arab Spring" was nearly complete. However, the "Arab Spring" was only the first leg of a grander strategy to encircle Russia and China. In December, the campaigns to move in on Russia and China would begin in earnest.

Image: The "String of Pearls:" China's oil lifeline is to be cut by the destabilization and regimes changes being made throughout Africa and the Middle East. Along the "String" the US has been destabilizing nations from Pakistan to Myanmar, from Malaysia to Thailand, to disrupt and contain China's emergence as a regional power.

....

Hillary Clinton, in Foreign Policy Magazine would pen, "America's Pacific Century," a Hitlerian declaration of imperial intent for American "leadership" in Asia for the next 100 years. From "Hillary Clinton and the New American (Pacific) Century:

"Upon reading Clinton's declaration of intent for American leadership into the next century, readers may recall the similarly named, ranting "Project for a New American Century" signed off on by some of America's most notorious Neo-Conservatives, which almost verbatim made the same case now made by Clinton. In fact, America's evolving confrontation with China, marked acutely by Obama's announcement of a permanent US military presence in Australia just this week, is torn directly from the pages of decades old blueprints drawn up by corporate-financier funded think-tanks that truly rule America and its destiny.

As reported in June, 2011's "Collapsing China," as far back as 1997 there was talk about developing an effective containment strategy coupled with the baited hook of luring China into its place amongst the "international order." Just as in these 1997 talking-points where author and notorious Neo-Con policy maker Robert Kagan described the necessity of using America's Asian "allies" as part of this containment strategy, Clinton goes through a list of regional relationships the US is trying to cultivate to maintain "American leadership" in Asia.

For example, the recently reinstalled Wall Street proxy regime in Thailand led by Thaksin Shinawatra and his sister Yingluck, has received reassurances by Clinton herself just this week stating that, "it is in the national security and political interest of the United States to have this government succeed." As reported in-depth in "CONFIRMED: Thailand's "Pro-Democracy" Movement Working for US," Thaksin Shinawatra and his political regime have had long standing, well documented ties to Wall Street and London. The US backing of puppet-regimes like Thaksin, installing them into power, and keeping them there is central to projecting power throughout Asia and keeping China subordinate, or as Kagan put it in his 1997 report, these proxy regimes will have China "play Gulliver to Southeast Asia's Lilliputians, with the United States supplying the rope and stakes.""

In Myanmar (Burma) "democracy icon" Aung San Suu Kyi, whose entire movement is a creation of Wall Street and London, received Hillary Clinton as well as Thailand's proxy-PM Yingluck Shinawatra in a globalist show of support designating her as the defacto leader and point of contact within the Southeast Asian country. Clinton's visit coincided with a successful campaign led by US NGOs to oust Chinese interests in the nation that resulted in the halting of a dam that was to provide electricity, revenue, flood control and irrigation for the people of Myanmar.

Image: The Myitsone Dam, on its way to being the 15th largest in the world until construction was halted in September by a campaign led by Wall Street-puppet Aung San Suu Kyi, a stable of US-funded NGOs, and a terrorist campaign executed by armed groups operating in Kachin State, Myanmar.

....

Meanwhile in Russia, Wall Street and London attacked more directly, attempting to interfere with Russian elections in December and resulting in several street protests led by overtly linked NED, Soros, and Rothschild operatives. NED-funded NGO "Golos" played a key role in portraying the elections as "rigged" and constituted America's extraterritorial meddling in Russia's sovereign affairs.

Image: NATO's creeping encirclement of Russia has now been combined with another round of "color revolution" destabilizations in Belarus and now in Russia itself.

....

A concerted effort by the corporate-media to misrepresent the unrest in Russia was pointed out in, "Russian Protests: Western Media Lies ," illustrating just how coordinated the overarching global destabilization being carried out actually is. In "Wall Street Vs. Russia," it was concluded:

"It is quite clear that the National Endowment for Democracy, Freedom House, the Foreign Policy Initiative, and even the US State Department whose new foreign affairs advisory board is full of think-tanks representing overt corporate-financier interests, are not interested in "democracy," "human rights," or "freedom" in Russia, but rather removing the Kremlin out of the way, and reestablishing the parasitic feeding on the Russian people and its economy they enjoyed after the fall of the Soviet Union."

In late December it would be confirmed that the same Al Qaeda militants that ravaged Libya with NATO's aid, were on their way to Syria to help overthrow the Assad government. LIFG leader Abdel Hakim Belhaj was confirmed to be on the Syrian border preparing troops of the so-called "Free Syrian Army."

This wasn't the only recent example of the West operating in tandem with listed terrorist groups. It was also reported in, "EXPOSED: US Troops Guarded Terrorist Camp in Iraq," that the US has been guarding a terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq training camp inside Iraq with US troops and is planning to relocated them, possibly in a freshly abandoned US military base in Iraq while D.C. lobbyists work feverishly to have them de-listed, armed, and sent to conduct terrorist operations in Iran. Shocking comments are made in the Brookings Institution's report, "Which Path to Persia?" where US policy experts conspire to use the terrorist organization against the government of Iran. In essence, corporate-funded policy makers have transformed the US into a state-sponsor of terror.

Conclusion

The year 2011 was surely the year of the dupe. Youth enamored with lofty, naive notions of "freedom" sold to them by corporate-fascist funded NGOs were brought into the streets to create chaos and division which was then capitalized on by covert political and even military maneuvering by the West and its proxy forces. In Egypt the nation is teetering on the edge of being fully integrated into the Wall Street/London international order, while a big-oil representative is enjoying his new position as prime minister of Libya. In Tunisia a life-long stooge of Western machinations is now president, and an alarming campaign of NATO-backed violence and terrorism is gripping Syria.

With the encirclement of Russia and China, these dupes have witlessly brought the world to the edge of World War III, and clearly done nothing at all to improve their own state of being. As their nations fall under the control of increasing Western influence, the resources once used to placate them and defend their nationalism will now be diverted into the bottomless maw of the parasitic banking combines that are currently destroying both North America and Europe.

February's "The Middle East & then the World" is well worth reading again - to see how far we've come over the last year since it was written, and what is left for the globalists to do. As the globalists come ever closer to China and Russia's doorsteps the stakes will continue to rise and the placid spectating Americans and Europeans have enjoyed this year will forever be lost.

Finally, consider what was written in one of the last articles of this year, "The End Game Approaches:"

"Complacency will kill, apathy is complicity: as the elitist-engineered "Arab Spring" reaches its conclusion, we stand on the precipice of being meshed into an inescapable, corporate-fascist, scientific planetary regime.... the End Game approaches.

Now more than ever, "we the people" must steel ourselves against this immense corporate-fascist empire as it sprawls death, destruction, and domination, militarily and economically, across the planet. We must, our very survival depends on it, boycott and replace entirely the corporate-financier interests that drive this dark, expansive agenda. It has been literally spawned of our apathy, complicity, and ignorance, fueled by us - the very source of corporate fascism's power - and it must be our activism, resistance, and intellect that brings it to an end.

As far fetched as it may sound, every Pepsi we swig, every day we decide to drink beer and tune into our corporate-sponsored bread and circus, be it the modern day chariot races of NASCAR or the gladiatorial contests of the NFL, we bring inescapable eternal servitude to a corporate-fascist scientific dictatorship one step closer.

It is now "do or die" - unlike in the past, mankind now possesses the technology to render the vast majority of the population intellectually inferior through mass medication, food poisoning, GMO crops that rot our bodies and minds from the inside-out, and the martial means of eliminating vast swaths of the population permanently. Not only is this a possibility, it is a reality the global elite have conspired over at great length through texts like Ecoscience penned by current White House science adviser John Holdren and former White House science adviser Paul Ehrlich who openly talk about mass, involuntary medication to forcibly sterilize the population, reduce our numbers and confine us within what they literally call a "planetary regime." The End Game approaches."

Let us not "hope" next year fairs better for free humanity. Let us with our two hands, our will, and our capable intellects ensure that it is better. The decision is not that of our "leaders" or "representatives," it is the decision of each and every one of us and what it is we do with our time, our money, our resources, our energy, and to where we pay our attention - each and every day. Let us define where it is we want our destiny to take us, and start taking one step at a time to get there.

Let us wait no longer for "saviors," but rather look in the mirror and realize, God, the Universe, or whatever higher power you believe in, has already endowed you with everything you need, in your heart, your mind, and within your hands to prevail in whatever noble pursuit you, or "we the people" choose.

Flash Back: 1993 Noam Chomsky Exposes "Democracy Promotion"

2011-12-23T23:05:00.000-08:00

Video: Noam Chomsky in 1993 on the NED's projects in Nicaragua: "It's about what you would expect from a bipartisan democracy campaign - it's an attempt to impose what is called democracy, meaning rule by the rich and the powerful, without interference by the mob but within the framework of formal electoral procedures."

....

For more information on the fraud that is the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) please see, "NED & Freedom House are run by Warmongering Imperialists." For an in depth example of the fraud carried out by NED-funded NGO's, please see the story of Thailand's "Independent" rights advocate Prachatai, "EXPOSED: Indy "Newspaper" Funded by US Government."

Frito-Lay sued for labeling its GMO-filled snacks as “All Natural”

2011-12-22T11:35:00.000-08:00

Food Freedom

by Rady Ananda
December 20, 2011

Less than a year after Frito-Lay announced plans to make half their products without “any artificial or synthetic ingredients,” the $13 billion company was sued last week in federal court for fraudulently marketing the snacks that contain genetically modified ingredients.

Somehow, “artificial” and “synthetic” doesn’t include “genetically modified” in Frito’s mind.

In its April 2011 “Seed-to-Shelf” disclosure campaign, Frito-Lay promised to inform consumers about each individual snack’s ingredients, even setting up an app for smartphone users to swipe the product’s barcode and read about it. Ann Mukherjee, Frito-Lay’s senior vice president and chief marketing officer, gushed:

“What better way to share the story behind Frito-Lay snacks than by giving consumers a look inside our Flavor Kitchen to see first-hand the all natural ingredients and real foods that inspire the products we make?”

Real foods? All natural? Even Monsanto defines genetically modified organisms as unnatural, which the lawsuit quoted:

“Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) – Plants or animals that have had their genetic makeup altered to exhibit traits that are not naturally theirs.”

The World Health Organization agrees, defining GMOs as “organisms in which the genetic material (DNA) has been altered in a way that does not occur naturally.”