How to Deal with America's Empire of Bases - A Modest Proposal for Garrisoned Lands
A quote...."The U.S. Empire of Bases -- at $102 billion a year already the world's costliest military enterprise -- just got a good deal more expensive. As a start, on May 27th, we learned that the State Department will build a new "embassy" in Islamabad, Pakistan, which at $736 million will be the second priciest ever constructed, only $4 million less, if cost overruns don't occur, than the Vatican-City-sized one the Bush administration put up in Baghdad. The State Department was also reportedly planning to buy the five-star Pearl Continental Hotel (complete with pool) in Peshawar, near the border with Afghanistan, to use as a consulate and living quarters for its staff there." -- also posted at ICH

The Base Court: Another Fortress Rising in America's Ring of Iron
Chris Floyd's take on the article shown above. - mpg -- A quote...."While Chalmers is undoubtedly one of the wise men of our day, I am not so sure about this final point. Oh, it's true that the empire of bases is further bankrupting our already bankrupt country. And it's an indisputable fact that the fever-dream of dominance and militarism has already spelled the end of the United States as we knew it (or as we once perceived and hoped it to be). Yet it is hard for me to believe that if push really comes to shove for our imperial managers, they will simply stand by and watch their power and privilege melt away with nothing more than a wistful sigh for passing glories. Especially with a unfathomably vast military arsenal -- including thousands of nation-devouring nuclear weapons -- at their command."

The Banality of Evil Applies to Everyone
A quote...."One of the aspects of the Iraq War that has fascinated me the most is how CIA agents and U.S. soldiers could actually bring themselves to kill, torture, and sexually abuse Iraqis. After all, don’t forget that neither the Iraqi people nor their government participated in the 9/11 attacks. The worst “crime” that any Iraqi committed against any American was resisting an unlawful invasion of his country. -- Nonetheless, even though the Iraqi people were innocent of any attacks on the United States, many CIA agents and most U.S. soldiers have been able to bring themselves to kill and maim hundreds of thousands of Iraqis in an invasion and occupation of a country that never attacked the United States, and murder, torture, and sexually abuse dozens of Iraqis detainees and prisoners."

Iraq a failed imperialist venture
A quote...."Not only did the Iraqi invasion and occupation prove the limits of military power, it also exposed how incapable America has become at nation-building. Its postwar incompetence was stunning. -- America plunged Iraq into chaos, shattered the infrastructure and destroyed the society, reducing human beings to their basest instincts. They turned on each other and found safety only in family, tribe, clan and sect. Shiites and Sunnis, who had lived together for ages, ethnically cleansed each other's neighbourhoods, which to this day remain separated by barricades, walls and checkpoints. -- Having unleashed the forces that put Iraq's three main communities at war with each other, the U.S. toyed with the idea of dividing the country into the Kurdish north, a Sunni centre and a Shiite south, much like the British had divided India in two in 1947. -- Having created the chaos, violence and jihadism, the U.S. said, in colonial fashion, it had to stay to curb the chaos, violence and jihadism. Having crippled the state, it had no choice but to prolong the occupation until the natives were ready to govern themselves." -- also posted at ICH

Michael Hudson's "Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire"
Book Review -- A quote...."First written in 1972, it was updated in a 2003 edition that's every bit as relevant now - thus this review focusing on Hudson's new preface, introduction, and detailed account of the book's theme. -- He revisited it in his 2008-09 Project Censored award- winning article titled: "Economic Meltdown - The 'Dollar Glut' is What Finances America's Global Military Build-up" in which he explains the following - the "inter-related dynamics" of:

• "surplus (US) dollars pouring into the rest of the world for yet further financial speculation and corporate takeovers;"
• global central banks "recyl(ing) these dollar inflows (into) US Treasury bonds to finance the federal US budget deficit; and most important (but most suppressed in the US media),"
• "the military character of the US payments deficit and the domestic federal budget deficit."

In other words, the global "dollar glut" finances US corporate takeovers, speculative excesses creating bubbles and global economic crises, America's reckless spending, foreign wars, hundreds of bases worldwide, "military build-up," and culture of militarism and belligerence overall at the expense of democratic freedoms, beneficial social change, and human and civil rights." -- For more on this issue see....Some Tentative Laws - 07-20-08 - mpg

Market Predictions from the Foundation for the Study of Cycles
A quote...."The Foundation for the Study of Cycles was formed during the Great Depression to try to figure out why it happened. It was staffed and funded by leading intellectuals and business men of the day." -- For more on this issue see....Effective Fed Funds Rate & Total Non-Farm Payrolls 03-24-07

America's Praetorian Guard Is Slowly Crumbling
A quote...."Professional armies have traditionally been far more disciplined, especially under the stress of longer-run warfare. -- BUT that does not mean they have no turning points or breaking points. In Rome the professional, imperial guard, The Praetorian Guard, was highly disciplined and bore casualties well in the early years. But over the decades of imperial struggles and military in-breeding common to such armies largely cut off from the civil population, they became bored with routine, self-centered, arrogant, puffed up with their own importance, and started deposing and imposing emperors, forcing them to put more and more of the national wealth into the military and so on. The professional military became a tyrannical force no civilians could control, so it controlled them through their imposed emperors."

Iran and Washington's Hidden Hand - Has the CIA Been Caught in Iran's Cookie Jar, Again?  -- A quote...."Only weeks after the September 11, 2001, attacks, Charles Krauthammer, the Washington Post columnist and mouthpiece of the neoconservatives, revealed the target list of the Bush administration as it set out on its post-9/11 war footing. The list included six nations: Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, and the Palestinian Authority. While the priority allotted to Afghanistan and subsequently Iraq was not in dispute, the remaining order was in flux."

Color Revolutions, Old and New
A quote...."In his new book, "Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order," F. William Engdahl explained a new form of US covert warfare - first played out in Belgrade, Serbia in 2000. What appeared to be "a spontaneous and genuine political 'movement,' (in fact) was the product of techniques" developed in America over decades."
    
Obama faces a Persian rebuff
Some quotes....""It is a little-known slice of history that in the countdown to the Anglo-American coup in Tehran against Mohammed Mosaddeq in 1953, the US Central Intelligence Agency lost nerve just as the Tehran street protests - eerily similar to the recent unrest - were about to be staged, but the British intelligence outpost in Cyprus which coordinated the entire operation held firm, forced the pace and ultimately created a fait accompli for Washington. -- At any rate, Tehran is going after Britain - "the most treacherous of foreign powers", to use Khamenei's words. Marching orders have been given to two British diplomats posted in Tehran, and four local employees working in the British Embassy remain under detention for questioning." -- bold by website editor

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It's The Votes That Count - 06-28-09 - mpg
Iran, Just RELAX!! – Of Course It Was A US-NRE PSYOP! - 06-26-09 - mpg

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It's All Good, Again: 'Uptick' in the American-Made Tides of Violence in Iraq
A quote...."From the very beginning of the abomination that is the American war in Iraq, imperial courtiers have pushed the same line: every act of mass slaughter in the occupied land was actually an encouraging development -- a sign that the insurgents were "getting desperate," that "dead-enders" were launching last-gasp efforts, unable to derail the bounty of liberty and peace that America's paternal goodness had bestowed upon the Iraqi people. -- This has held true from the first suicide attacks following George W. Bush's declaration of "Mission Accomplished" in the spring of 2003 and all through the mounting violence that has claimed more than a million innocent lives. The only exception was during the height of the genocidal fury of 2006, when the forces unleashed and empowered and assisted by the American occupiers carried out a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing against fierce resistance. The American elite suffered a slight wobble at that point, putting together a conclave of worthies in the "Iraq Study Group" to suggest ways to tamp down the raging PR disaster. (And that's all there was to the ISG plan; they were never going to pull out of Iraq.) The whole episode could be seen as yet another sorry chapter in the saga of the ghoulish, goonish family that somehow came to hold sway in American affairs for almost three decades, with Daddy Bush's factotums guiding the ISG, while Junior Bush brushed them off and consulted his own little circle of militarist agitators to find a way to continue the war but get it off the front pages."

Triple Cross or Inside Job?
A quote...."In his just-released book, Triple Cross, former ABC News investigative reporter Peter Lance says (as summarized by Raw Story): -- Ali Mohamed ... was something of an al Qaeda super-spy who managed to work with terrorists, the Green Berets, the CIA and become an FBI informant, even while ensuring Osama bin Laden’s safe passage around the middle east. For years, Triple Cross alleges, the FBI and specifically [prosecutor Patrick] Fitzgerald, knew about him but allowed Mohamed’s activities to continue unchecked." -- also posted at BLN

See also the following recent postings.....
Saudi royals funded 9/11: Lawyers
Documents Back Saudi Link to Extremists
Why Was Al Qaeda Excluded From the Suspects List? -- The Khobar Tower Bombing
Politicization of FBI continuing under Obama

The Best President Money Could Buy
A quote...."Today America is facing the same perilous patterns that the Roman Empire encountered over 1500 years ago. These patterns are characterized by prevalent corruption on every level of government, waging unnecessary expensive wars, inability to resolve conflicts in strategic areas within the empire, erosion of morality, control of the public, eradication of individual liberty, lavish borrowing and spending, hyperinflation, war mongering, and a wavering of the currency. Money and power are the ultimate goals that every man attempts to achieve in the hope of satisfying their egos. This pathological narcissism that infests most of our leaders has been the only driving force in their alleged passion for public service. -- President Barack Obama, allegedly the new face of change, had often proclaimed during his presidential campaign that he would not be bought or influenced by special interest groups, because he wanted to be a president of the people, for the people, and by the people. This rhetoric has rallied the populace who then enthusiastically rushed to send him contributions of $5 and $10 or more. His supporters also believed that he would finally bring back hope, freedom, prosperity, peace, love, and end the extensive depravity and abuses practiced by his predecessor. Sadly, the people were deceived once again."

Bankster Bailouts Of 2008/9 Exceed Over 200 Years Of Major Government Spending
Chart - A quote...."The amount of US taxpayer money committed to bailouts over the last 12 months by far exceeds the combined cost of major historical events dating back over 200 years. -- The combined amount spent, lent, consumed, borrowed, printed, guaranteed, assumed or otherwise committed to bailouts by the government from March 2008 to March 2009 amounts to some $15 TRILLION." -- bold/underline by website editor

The Eurasian Pipeline Calculus
A quote...."Calculus has two main variants—derivative and integral. The Eurasian energy pipeline geopolitics between Turkey Washington and Moscow today has elements of both. It is highly derivative in that the major actors across Central Asia from China, Russia to Turkey are very much engaged in a derived power game which has less to do with any specific state and more to do with maintaining Superpower hegemony for Washington. Integral as the de facto motion of various pipeline projects now underway or in discussion across Eurasia hold the potential to integrate the economic space of Eurasia in a way that poses a fundamental challenge to Washington’s projection of Full Spectrum Dominance over the greatest land mass on earth."

De-Dollarization: Dismantling America’s Financial-Military Empire
Related Article - A quote...."Challenging America will be the prime focus of extended meetings in Yekaterinburg, Russia (formerly Sverdlovsk) today and tomorrow (June 15-16) for Chinese President Hu Jintao, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and other top officials of the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). The alliance is comprised of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrghyzstan and Uzbekistan, with observer status for Iran, India, Pakistan and Mongolia. It will be joined on Tuesday by Brazil for trade discussions among the BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China)."

BRIC countries catch up and overtake G7
Related Article - A quote...."MOSCOW. – The Russian city of Yekaterinburg on May 16 hosted the first official summit of BRIC, a group comprising four countries showing the highest rate of economic growth – Brazil, Russia, India and China."


The ever changing story: Anatomy of a typical US military propaganda campaign
A quote...."One month later, after the bombings of a village in western Afghanistan that killed up wards of 150 civilians, we now get this half assed admission of culpability on the part of the US military. -- The US military is now saying that "errors" were made in the air strikes last May 4th that resulted in over a hundred civilian deaths.  Oh, they are still claiming that most killed were "Taliban" (what the Pentagon and their pocket poodle American media call anyone who take up arms against the holy selfless Paladins of the US military in Afghanistan).  And they are still hinting that this "Taliban" is responsible but this new story, a month later, is in stark contrast to first initial responses of the US military on this bombing- which were, in my opinion, outright lies made up out of whole cloth." - also posted at Uruknet - For more on this issue see....US Fake Intel / Propaganda

The Real Meaning of Allowing Guilty Pleas and Death Penalty Without Trial for Alleged 9/11 Plotters -- A quote...."The tin-pot dictator will not let the media talk to the American prisoner captured when his plane crashed. - The dictator says that the prisoner confessed to a horrible murder, and has pleaded guilty. - And so - the dictator announces - there will be no trial, just a death sentence. Indeed, the prisoner is Christian, and the dictator says that the prisoner has asked for martyrdom according to his religious beliefs. - Would the rest of the world believe this is fair? - Of course not. Moreover, world opinion would assume that the prisoner might very well be innocent of the murder charges. - This is exactly the situation we have currently with the prisoners at Guantanamo." - also posted at RogueGov -- See also....9/11 - Iraq - Torture Fables

Exclusive Interview with Future Prediction Expert Gerald Celente
Interview - A quote...."Mr. Celente puts part of the blame squarely on the federal government, and especially FED Chairman Bernanke and Treasury Secretary  Geithner, and warns us not to believe a word they say  “They’re the same people who didn't see it coming - are now telling us the worst is over, that ‘green shoots are spouting upwards’.   But they were wrong before.  They’re wrong on this too”. -- “When you pump out tons of money manure into this system based on nothing – printing press paper, it’s like giving a patient with a chronic disease a pain killer -- it won’t cure the patient.” -- “But let’s go beyond the economics.  Our whole Constitution has been abrogated.  The president simply writes an Executive Order to do whatever he wants.  Nationalize the banks, take over the insurance industry, automobile industry, health care industry… -- None of it is constitutional.” -- When did the problem begin? -- “After Dwight Eisenhower -- our last great president -- the Allied Supreme Commander in WWII – who warned us of the dangers of the military-industrial complex.  We've become completely corrupted.”

Obama, Like Bush, Just Doesn’t Get It
A quote...."Obama, like President Bush, thinks that it’s all just a public-relations problem. We just have to get the message out that U.S. officials love Muslims. Once they get the message, the U.S. Empire will be able to impose its will throughout the Middle East. -- And that’s the core of the problem facing the American people. What business does the U.S. government have imposing its will on people who live thousands of miles away? -- Indeed, what right did the U.S. government have to oust the democratically elected prime minister of Iran and replace him with an unelected dictator, the Shah of Iran? -- What right did the U.S. government have to support Saddam Hussein and deliver weapons of mass destruction to him so that he could use them to kill Iranians? -- What right did the U.S. government have to intervene in the Persian Gulf War, especially after signaling to Saddam Hussein that the United States had no interest in the border conflict between Iraq and Kuwait? -- What right did the U.S. government have to impose brutal sanctions that took the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children?....."

The Household Driven Deflation?
Charts - A quote...."In his daily report yesterday, David Rosenberg had some pertinent things to say about deflation, not the least of which was debunking Melissa Francis' preconception that inflation is equivalent to commodity price increases. The key issue is the differential between absolute and relative price increases: in many ways the current inflation scare is even less moot than the panic in the summer of last year, when it became painfully obvious that neither retailers nor final-state manufacturers have pricing power (think excess capacity: if the manufacturing ISM is any indication, this pricing power is only going to get further obliterated in the coming months, eating away directly at the bottom line, and making the forward EPS ramp up even more of a mirage in the manufacturing sector; also worth pointing out that non-manufacturing ISM actually fell by 2.6% to 44.4%)." - bold by website editor

Time to Break Up the Banks
Video -  (Must view video. It explains the financial crisis in simple, easy, steps, sort of like a "Banksterism Guide for Dummies". - mpg)   -- A quote...."June 05, 2009 "The Nation" -- Last April, I wrote about A New Way Forward, a new and growing movement organized via the web and founded by young people who want to take back the power of the ordinary citizen to affect our economic structure. The organization's coming-out party took place last April 11 with more than sixty coordinated events coast to coast all making the case for alternative bailout plans based on the public's interest." -- also posted at the Nation & CommonDreams

Dollar's wounds reopen
A quote....""Be careful what you wish for, you may receive it." The adage applies well to the US Federal Reserve as it enters what may turn out to be an entirely new and more dangerous phase of the financial and economic crisis that is still firmly centered in the US - notwithstanding the ongoing Wall Street rally and increased hopes that the worst is now over. -- The Fed wished away the hysterical risk aversion reflex of global investors, which came to a head in autumn 2008, when big Wall Street banks collapsed, sending shockwaves around the globe. The position of Fed officials is, after all, that this is a crisis sparked mostly by panic-stricken investors who've artificially driven the value of America's innovative financial assets far below their true values, wrongfully smearing massive sums of such assets with the label, "Toxic!". "

Securitization: The Biggest Rip-off Ever
Some quotes...."June 05, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- -Is it possible to make hundreds of billions of dollars in profits on securities that are backed by nothing more than cyber-entries into a loan book? --  It's not only possible; it's been done." -- "Securitization--which is the conversion of pools of loans into securities that are sold in the secondary market--provides a means for massive debt-leveraging. The banks use off-balance sheet operations to create securities so they can avoid normal reserve requirements and bothersome regulatory oversight. Oddly enough, the quality of the loan makes no difference at all, since the banks make their money on loan originations and other related fees. What matters is quantity, quantity, quantity; an industrial-scale assembly line of fetid loans dumped on unsuspecting investors to fatten the bottom line. And, boy, can Wall Street grind out the rotten paper when there's no cop on the beat and the Fed is cheering from the bleachers. In an analysis written by economist Gary Gorton for the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s 2009 Financial Markets Conference titled, "Slapped in the Face by the Invisible Hand; Banking and the Panic of 2007", the author shows that mortgage-related securities ballooned from $492.6 billion in 1996 to $3,071.1 in 2003, while asset backed securities (ABS) jumped from $168.4 billion in 1996 to $1,253.1 in 2006. All told, more than $20 trillion in securitized debt was sold between 1997 to 2007. How much of that debt will turn out to be worthless as foreclosures skyrocket and the banks balance sheets come under greater and greater pressure?  "

The Eye of the Economic Hurricane
A quote...."Everything was falling in price – houses, office buildings, stocks, commodities…practically everything except the US dollar, US bonds, and gold… These three were seen as the only safe refuges for storm-tossed investors. -- But on March 9, 2009, came a lull. Reluctantly, investors came out of their storm shelters. The skies lightened…the sun shined. Oil has gone up 53% since then. Stocks worldwide are up about 30%. -- And now…people say “the worst is behind us.” -- We meteorologists watch the skies like everyone else. But we also read reports from big storms of the past. And what we notice is that this doesn’t look like the passing storms of the ’80s or ’90s. It looks to us like a major change in weather patterns. To be more precise, it looks to us like the Great Storm of the ’30s. Do you remember that one, dear reader? No? Well, we don’t either, but we’ve read the histories. It was a doozy. And it began…well…just like this one. -- In 1930, six months after the initial storm front passed, world output was down about 15%. Today, it is down about 15%, too. Stock markets were only down about 20% in mid-1930. Today, they’re down about 35%. And world trade slipped about 15% in the six months following the onset of the Great Crash of ’29. Today, it is down 25%."

A Bush in sheep's clothing
Photo - They say a picture is worth a thousand words....they're right. - mpg

If You Are Stressed Now, Just Wait - Policymakers Have Created A Perfect Storm
A quote...."June 03, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- Economic news remains focused on banks and housing, while the threat mounts to the US dollar from massive federal budget deficits in fiscal years 2009 and 2010. -- Earlier this year the dollar’s exchange value rose against currencies, such as the euro. UK pound, and Swiss franc, against which the dollar had been steadily falling. The dollar’s rise made US policymakers complacent, even though the rise was due to flight from over-leveraged financial instruments and falling stock markets into “safe” Treasuries. Since April, however, the dollar has steadily declined as investors and foreign central banks realize that the massive federal budget deficits are likely to be monetized. -- What happens to the dollar will be the key driver of what lies ahead. The likely scenario could be nasty." - also posted at CounterPunch

Chart of the Day - S&P 500 P/E Ratio
Chart - Interesting chart. It's seems to reflect the growing "Virtual Economy™" - mpg

Ordered Assassinations, Sectarian Bomb Attacks Targeting Iraqi Civilians
A quote...."Former collaborator discloses details of US-ordered assassinations, sectarian bomb attacks targeting Iraqi civilians -- An Iraqi who asked not to be identified had disclosed some of the US activities such as assassinations and bombings in markets that aim at sparking sectarian fighting among Iraqis so as to facilitate the partition of the country." -- This will need independent confirmation, but considering what's contained in the US Support of Terror,  US support Death Sqds  and US Sponsored Civil Wars weblists, it all sounds perfectly plausible. - mpg - also posted at WarInIraq

What’s Wrong With Our Foreign Policy and What the Libertarian Party Can Do About It
A quote...."I was asked to talk today about the problems of our foreign policy – a question so wide-ranging it would be impossible to address in a 20 minute speech – and yet it is a fascinating question. Like the search for a grand unified theory, it is also an irresistible challenge. -- In thinking about our foreign policy – or any foreign policy – a libertarian would ask about force, and about freedom. A libertarian would also wisely observe, as Frederic Bastiat did in the 1800s that when goods cease to cross borders, armies will. A libertarian would consider how foreign policy would exist – if at all – without the state."

Again, May God Forgive Us
Some quotes...."Conservatives and others who revere the founders of our late Republic might recall that the men who won our independence and wrote the Constitution opposed a standing army, not only because it could be employed as an instrument of domestic tyranny, but also because it would offer irresistible opportunities for foreign adventurism. In this, as in so much else, the Founders' wisdom has withstood the passage of time." -- ".... Taguba said "protectors of our foreign policy," not "defenders of our independence" or "guardians of our liberties." The foreign policy referred to entails open-ended entanglements in the affairs of nearly every nation on earth, as well as plundering huge sums from taxpayers to sustain a grotesquely huge military establishment and bribe political elites abroad. That foreign policy cultivates misery and harvests war and terrorism. Why in God's Name would any decent human being defend that foreign policy in the abstract, much less spill blood to implement it?  Although I wish harm or death on no human being, it seems to me a good idea to adjust the current set of incentives in such a way that at least some American military personnel, as they deal with another gust of blowback, will have an overdue confrontation with their conscience and decide unilaterally to end their service of the world's largest criminal enterprise, the government of the United State (spelling intentional)." -- also posted at ICH

War Is Sin
A quote...."The crisis faced by combat veterans returning from war is not simply a profound struggle with trauma and alienation. It is often, for those who can slice through the suffering to self-awareness, an existential crisis. War exposes the lies we tell ourselves about ourselves. It rips open the hypocrisy of our religions and secular institutions. Those who return from war have learned something which is often incomprehensible to those who have stayed home. We are not a virtuous nation. God and fate have not blessed us above others. Victory is not assured. War is neither glorious nor noble. And we carry within us the capacity for evil we ascribe to those we fight." -- also posted at ICH & AftrDwngSt  & CommonDreams
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Obama's support for the new Graham-Lieberman secrecy law
A quote...."It was one thing when President Obama reversed himself last month by announcing that he would appeal the Second Circuit's ruling that the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) compelled disclosure of various photographs of detainee abuse sought by the ACLU.  Agree or disagree with Obama's decision, at least the basic legal framework of transparency was being respected, since Obama's actions amounted to nothing more than a request that the Supreme Court review whether the mandates of FOIA actually required disclosure in this case.  But now -- obviously anticipating that the Government is likely to lose in court again (.pdf) -- Obama wants Congress to change FOIA by retroactively narrowing its disclosure requirements, prevent a legal ruling by the courts, and vest himself with brand new secrecy powers under the law which, just as a factual matter, not even George Bush sought for himself." -- also posted at AmericanEveryman & CommonDreams

Death of the Republic, Part CLXVIII
Floyd's take on the article shown above - mpg -- Some Quotes...."[The bill] literally has no purpose other than to allow the government to suppress any "photograph taken between September 11, 2001 and January 22, 2009 relating to the treatment of individuals engaged, captured, or detained after September 11, 2001, by the Armed Forces of the United States in operations outside of the United States."  -- "What kind of country passes such a law? Why, a cheap, corrupt, third-rate junta state, which has elevated war and militarism into its supreme value, its "ultimate concern," its divinity -- that's what kind of country. What other kind of country did you think was skulking there between Mexico and Canada these days? -- But the perniciousness of the act doesn't lie merely in its immediate goal -- suppressing war crimes evidence to protect the Terror War machinery that Obama has inherited and is expanding." -- "Adopting the principle of potential "endangerment" as a justification for government repression is not just an open door to tyranny -- it kicks the door down and brings the rest of the front wall crashing with it. But of course, that edifice crumbled a long time ago. The only thing remotely surprising about this latest Banana Republic Act is that is so blatant in its gutless abandonment of even the slightest pretense that the United States is anything other than a militarist empire."

For more on the two articles shown above see....9/11 - Iraq - Torture Fables

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The 'No Problem' Mindset: Guaranteed Destruction
A quote...."In short, count the costs. This is what people have refused to do. They have counted the cost of doing something radical. It's high. They have counted the immediate cost of doing nothing new. It seems low. They prefer doing nothing.  --  But what about the long term? What about:"

    1. Retirement (no Social Security or Medicare)
    2. The Federal Deficit ($1.8 trillion this year)
    3. Federal Reserve's monetary base (doubled)
    4. Falling house prices
    5. Rising unemployment
    6. The war in Afghanistan (forever, until our defeat)

"No problem!"  --  How do you reason with these people? Answer: you don't, if you value your time and your privacy. If you turn out to be wrong, you will be ridiculed or at least treated as a child. If you are correct, you will be hated. You will also be hit up for money. If you are a Christian, you will be told you are heartless. You will become a line of credit for those whose mantra was "No problem!"

Shanghai Cooperation Organization: representing half of humanity.
Geopolitical Analysis - A quote...."On June 15th and 16th the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) will hold its ninth annual heads of state summit in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg. - It will be attended by the presidents of its six full members - China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan - and by representatives of various ranks from its four observer states - India, Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan - and from several aspiring partner nations yet to be announced. - The SCO as an institution and as a concept represents the world's greatest potential and in ways is its major paradox as its capacities and their realization to date are so far apart." -- also posted at BLN

Convergence and Continuity: The American-Backed Terror Campaign in Iran
A quote...."On Thursday, a suicide bomber walked into a mosque, detonated his explosives and killed and wounded almost 140 people. In the wreckage and confusion afterward, a final death count has not yet been established, but the latest available information puts it at 23. -- It is unlikely that you heard about this terrorist attack -- because it took place in Iran. For years, Iran has endured a series of terrorist actions -- suicide bombings, kidnappings, beheadings, open assaults by fanatical gunmen, sabotage, and "targeted assassinations" of government officials, scientists and others. Multitudes have been slaughtered in these operations, whose ferocity and frequency are surpassed only by the atrocities that have been unleashed in the four countries that have been on the forefront of America's Terror War: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia. One shudders to think what Washington's response would be to such a sustained campaign on American soil." -- For more on this issue see....US Support of Terror - MEK-PKK-Others

Just think about it this way folks, for every dollar the US-NRE / Military Industrial Complex gives to support terrorist groups throughout the Middle East, it generates for itself about two hundred dollars in funding for the "war on terror".  That's a pretty good rate of return, and a very well designed, highly profitable business model. - mpg - posted 03-03-09

Who will Stand Up To America [The New Roman Empire] and Israel?
Certainly NOT AIPAC's lackey Obama -- A quote...."We are witnessing the Washington gangsters construct yet another threat like Slobodan Milosevic, Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, John Walker Lindh, Hamdi, Padilla, Sami Al-Arian, Hamas, Mahkmoud Ahmadinejad, and the hapless detainees demonized by the US Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld as “the 700 most dangerous terrorists on the face of the earth,” who were tortured for six years at Gitmo only to be quietly released. Just another mistake, sorry. -- The military/security complex that rules America, together with the Israel Lobby and the financial banksters, needs a long list of dangerous enemies to keep the taxpayers’ money flowing into its coffers. -- The Homeland Security lobby is dependent on endless threats to convince Americans that they must forego civil liberty in order to be safe and secure. -- The real question is who is going to stand up to the American and Israeli governments?"

Spies, Lies, and Mr. Lebanon's Demise
Geo-Political Alert - A quote...."There are agents, like Mahmoud Rafea, who confessed to have delivered bags with explosives. Other collaborators have confessed to have carried out field reconnaissance missions. Others have facilitated the entrance and exit of Israelis after accomplishing their missions. This is what is meant by executive agents. The door must be opened wide ... this Israeli path should be scrutinized so as to reach a place where we would find information about many crimes, particularly 2005 onwards." – Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah, commenting on the recent spate of Israeli spy arrests during a rally marking the ninth anniversary of the removal of Israeli troops from Lebanon, 22 May 2009." -- The Israelis got their little collective butts caught in a ringer this time. - mpg

Pipelineistan goes Iran-Pak
Geo-Political Alert - A quote...."A deal was finally signed this week in Tehran by which Iran will sell gas from its South Pars mega-fields to Pakistan by way of the 2,100-kilometer, US$7.5 billion Iran-Pakistan pipeline. For the moment, Iran, Pakistan, China and Russia win. Washington and NATO lose, not to mention Afghanistan. But will Balochistan province also win? If not, all hell will break loose, creating an even greater, regional, ball of fire."

The Deeper Origins of the Economic Crisis
A quote...."....the typical explanation of the economic crisis goes as follows: depression-era financial regulations were tossed aside, and banks were allowed to merge into new institutions that then invented ways to transform debts into assets, which were gambled away on the stock exchange to the tunes of trillions of dollars. -- All of which is true. -- What’s missing, however, is why. Why did successive governments allow the regulations to be destroyed? And more importantly, why did the entire political establishment agree that these regulations needed to go? -- One important statistic can help provide some insight: Whereas manufacturing was twice as large as the financial sector of the U.S. GDP in 1970, these numbers have since been reversed — the financial sector is now 21 percent of U.S. GDP, while manufacturing is just 12 percent, and shrinking. -- Why did the financial sector grow as manufacturing sank? And how are the two related?"

Against the Tortured Logic of Obama's Placebo Presidency: A Call for the Audacity of Hopelessness -- A quote...."From time to time, events unfold that are so large in scope, so all-encompassing in their implications that one's initial response is muted by an inability to categorize it all within the realm of experience. Previous reference points prove of little service. One's image of oneself and one's place in the world is under siege, perhaps even in danger of being torn away. One stares into the abyss, until the abyss removes its dark shades and makes direct eye contact. The mind buzzes; one's thoughts scuttle in circles like stunned insects.  ---  On a collective basis, we as a nation are living through such a time. At present, we are witnessing the descending spiral of Icarusian Capitalism; our sacred delusion of the perpetual ascendancy of a god-like market place lies broken in the dust. Malls and Mcmansions stand abandoned, desolate as the edifices of forgotten gods, as the come-ons of the salesmen of deregulated capitalism are churned to spittle amid a cacophony of collapsing market platitudes.  ---  And not an uptick in public optimism, nor a surge of euphoria on Wall Street, nor the "invisible hand of the marketplace" sprinkling pixie dust will bring back the Olympian days of 2005, when the wise men of Washington and Wall Street knew the force of gravity was just a myth believed in by those embittered prophets of doom whose only joy in life is fantasizing the fall of their wealthy betters."

China Is Now in Firm Control of U.S. Debt Markets
Financial Warning - A quote...."It is hilarious listening to the propagandists try to “spin” the events in bond and currency markets to make it sound like the U.S. government is still operating from a position of strength. - While there are many Western, corporate-media outlets spouting such drivel, I'll use the Financial Times as my example.“China stuck in dollar trap”, crows FT on May 24th. Then, later “...[Beijing] has little choice but to keep pouring the bulk of its growing reserves into the U.S. Treasury”. - What somehow escaped this “analysis” by FT is that China won't touch any U.S. dollar asset except Treasury bonds. The monthly flows of capital into (or out of) the U.S., which is known as the Treasury Department's “TIC” report, tell a clear story. - So far, in the three months of data which have been reported for this year (Jan., Feb., March), the net result was an outflow of capital from the U.S. totaling $211.4 billion. - Does this number suggest China is “trapped” into buying U.S. debt?"

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Torture and 9/11
A quote...."May 22, 2009 "Information Clearing House" --- It could be argued that of the panoply of evil of which human beings find themselves uniquely capable, nothing is as abominable as the deliberate infliction of mental or physical pain on a helpless captive person.

That a nation grandiosely referring to itself as the world’s lone ‘superpower’ would, on the basis of very thin manufactured evidence stoop to such behavior as using sodomy (even against innocent children), cramming people into coffin-like boxes, chaining them in stress positions, karate-kicking them (even to death), suffocating them, slamming their heads into walls, taking away their clothing, freezing them, using sensory deprivation and drowning, plus a hundred other cruel measures gives the lie to that assertion. An evil power, certainly. Hardly a ‘shining city on a hill’.

And now that we know that orders for torture came right from the very top of the unrepentant Bush Administration even before the twisted entitlement of the Yoo/Bybee memos, and even as it is revealed that torture was employed not to gain information but to bolster the false assertion that Saddam Hussein had ties to Al Quieda and thus justify the indefensible invasion of Iraq, we are treated to ad nauseam appearances by the previously mute and bunkered Dick Cheney defending his cretinous actions and calling for more of the same. It is unbelievable that a nation that calls itself Christian could even countenance a debate on torture, and, after killing perhaps a million innocent Iraqi citizens in an illegal war, call for more of the same in Afghanistan. Or to employ white phosphorous and other war crime weapons in either location. The combination of hypocrisy and self-serving delusion is stunning. These ‘Christians’ are statistically more likely to favor torture than non-believers."

For more on this issue see....Making Up Stories - With Torture

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Osama Bin Laden: Dead Or Alive? - The Eight-Year-Long Psychological Operation
Book Review - A quote...."Osama Bin Laden: Dead Or Alive?" by David Ray Griffin is a crucially important and timely examination of the whole range of evidence bearing on the question, is Osama bin Laden still alive? The importance of this question for the present comes from the fact that the United States under its new president is escalating its offensive in Afghanistan and expanding the war into Pakistan, and has claimed that the “hunt for bin Laden” is one of its principal motivations for doing so. Either explicitly or implicitly, the US government and major media outlets such as The New York Times and Washington Post continue to assert that bin Laden is alive, hiding in the tribal territories on the “AfPak” border, posing an undiminished threat to US security." -- For more on this issue see....US Fake Intel / Propaganda - al Qaeda Videos

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Active and retired top military brass met to discuss what really happened on 9/11
A quote...."(WMR) -- WMR has learned from a well-informed source that in the months after the 9/11 attacks, a group of retired and active duty military officers, with ranks as high as general, met in an informal and hush-hush working group to discuss what actually occurred on September 11, 2001. -- WMR has been told that those who met did not believe, in whole or in part, the official line that 19 Arabs nationals armed with box cutters hijacked four U.S. passenger planes and flew three of them into the World Trade Center and Pentagon. -- The officers included veterans of Marine Corps Special Operations."

Eyes Wide Shut: Gross Negligence with NIST Denial of Molten Metal on 9/11 - Alt
(YuTb - 2 min 15 sec - 05/21/09) -- Video - A quote...."John Gross, lead structural engineer of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) denies the vast witnessed and documented evidence of molten metal found at all 3 World Trade Center towers destroyed on 9/11. Examine the evidence at http://www.ae911truth.org/

The Ultimate Cheney Deception is 9/11 Conspiracy
A quote...."Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld are the key co-conspirators in the 9/11 cover up and all will soon have their day in court when the appalling truth of America's most treasonous act is laid bare for the world to see ~ If Obama allows it to happen: Allen L Roland" -- See also Jet Fuel Laughs  - Photo-- Also check out the websites listed, some of the photos are absolutely hilarious. - mpg

IraqTortureGate: Powell Denies Knowing He Used Tortured Evidence for UN Case
Special Note - A quote...."The most damning credible allegation to emerge regarding the Bush Administration is arguably that Dick Cheney and other Bush Administration officials ordered the use of torture to produce false evidence of a connection between Iraq and al-Qaida to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq." -- For more on this issue see....Making Up Stories - With Torture

9/11 Shock Opera… Act 4 – Building 7 and Flight 93: The Grand Finale that Wasn’t
9/11 Analysis - Some quotes...."Take yourself back to that day when you watched or listened to the attack on America; the day that everything changed. Remember where you were, who you were with, and most importantly, how you felt." -- "To start off with, we are going to put aside all the other volumes of research done by well meaning, dedicated researchers on the subject of proving the feasibility of an alternative narrative of the events of 9/11. An alternative narrative, that is, to the “official story” of 19 (or is it 16 now?) angry Muslims with “box-cutters”. For the most part, there is some really good information out there compiled by skilled researchers, engineers, chemists, architects, intelligence agents, politicians, fire-fighters, pilots, and even simply concerned citizens trying to help make a difference. Not all of the theories out there are valid, not all follow the standardized scientific method of research, but there are enough honest efforts (albeit they are often clouded by the obvious “disinformation” efforts) to prove beyond the point of “reasonable doubt” that the official story is not only not plausible, it is simply not possible." -- also posted at RockTheTruth

Zelikow Caught in a Whopper; Made False Statements to Author about Criminal Referral for NORAD, FAA  -- A quote...."Documents recently found in the National Archives cast doubt on the integrity of the 9/11 Commission’s Executive Director Philip Zelikow. In an e-mail exchange with author Philip Shenon, Zelikow claimed that he first learned of a dispute on the commission over the investigation of false statements made by NORAD and FAA officials after it had been “percolating for a while” and was not involved in the initial stages of the argument. However, an e-mail chain (scroll down) found in the Archives by History Commons contributor paxvector shows that Zelikow had been involved in the issue from very near the beginning."

For more on the four articles shown above see....9/11 - NORAD & 9/11 - WTC7 & 9/11 - Commission & 9/11 - Punish or Reward & 9/11 - WTC-1&2 & 9/11 - Planning Guidance
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Article #1 -- In Bronx Bomb Case, Missteps Caught on Tape
A quote...."(Informant – arrested on Federal Identity theft charges – turned FBI confidential informant. According to the “official story” the informant had been hanging around the mosque since 2007 trying to get people to “join his team”.  He had even offered people “large sums” of money.  I guess it’s hard to find dumbass losers at a mosque these days.  The informant was there when they had lunch (he paid the tab), when they bought cell phones (he paid the tab), when they bought their one stupid gun (he paid the tab), and when they bought a camera to case out the targets (he paid the tab). -- but the official story is… “The full nature and extent of the informant’s role in facilitating the plot is unknown.” … yeah, right."

Article #2 -- FBI Agent on Synagogue Case Has Questionable Record
**BREAKING** - Village Voice  Exposé - The FBI agent with a high-profile role in yesterday's arrests of four men for plotting a terror attack in New York has a pretty interesting -- and controversial -- track record. -- Special Agent Robert Fuller, whose name appears at the top of the federal criminal complaint in the case, had a hand in the FBI's failure to nab two of the 9/11 hijackers, had one of his informants set himself on fire in front of the White House, and was involved in misidentifying a Canadian man as a terrorist leading to his secret arrest and torture -- a case that is now the subject of a major lawsuit. -- Fuller is listed as the lead agent in the arrests of four men yesterday who officials say were trying to blow up a couple of synagogues and shoot a military jet from the sky. But as in other cases of seemingly inept homegrown terrorists, the four suspects were supplied (inert) weapons from an FBI informant, and in coming weeks we'll learn more about how much that informant goaded the four suspects into carrying out the supposed acts of terrorism."

Regarding the two articles shown above -- Mind you folks this is the EXACT same FBI who flew over a hundred and eighty members of the Saudi Royal and bin Laden families out of the country, just days after 9/11, at the request of Osama bin Laden himself....don't believe this website editor?  Check it out here.  It was also the SAME FBI who somehow completely botched the anthrax investigation.  Anthrax that was supplied by a US military installation and was mailed to Democratic Congressmen just days before they were scheduled to vote on new dictatorial "enabling" legislation.  Of course it must be just another set of "dem dare coincidences". -- mpg

More articles on this issue.....

Exactly As We Predicted; NY Terr. Cell Are Semi-Retarded Potheads - posted 05-22-09
Yet Another Bogus 'Terror' Plot - posted 05-22-09 - Article - also posted at ICH
Jihad-lite? - posted 05-22-09
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Two Sides of the Same Coin: Heads-Heads
A quote...."In politics we presume that everyone who knows how to get votes knows how to administer a city or a state. When we are ill... we do not ask for the handsomest physician, or the most eloquent one." -- *Plato*
 
"During the campaign, amid their state of elation, many disregarded Presidential Candidate Senator Barack Obama's past record and took any criticism of these past actions as partisan attacks deserving equally partisan counterattacks. Some continued their reluctant support after candidate Obama became grand finalist and prayed for the best. And a few still continue their rationalizing and defense, with illogical excuses such as 'He's been in office for only 20 days, give the man a break!' and 'He's had only 50 days in office, give him a chance!' and currently, 'be reasonable - how much can a man do in 120 days?!' I am going to give this logic, or lack of, a slight spicing of reason, then, turn it around, and present it as: If 'the man' can do this much astounding damage, whether to our civil liberties, or to our notion of democracy, or to government integrity, in 'only' 120 days, may God help us with the next [(4 X 365) - 120] days."

Barack Obama: Son of a Gipper
A quote...."The cost of elevating appearance above substance is never worth the price.  I said it under both the presidency of John F. Kennedy and Ronald RayGun.  I am now saying it about the presidency of Barack Obama.  We have elected a clean, well-spoken flim-flam man who is in reality just another house servant of the military/industrial/media complex. -- The moral, spiritual, intellectual and aesthetic bankruptcy of our present condition is beyond bearing.  Paradoxically, it was actually more manageable under the past administration than it is at present.  At least we felt no complicity with Bush.  The dividing line between the Philistine and those who knew better was bright and well defined.  Now everything is confusing.  The sad disparity between appearance and substance in this new president is about the only thing that is beginning to emerge with some degree of clarity."

Obama Says, "There will be NO prosecutions of anyone in Bush administration" - Alt - (YuTb 9m10s 05/20/09) -- Video - A quote...."No 9/11-Type Commissions, either. **BREAKING NEWS**- On The Rachel Maddow Show, Michael Isikoff reports a secret meeting at the White House today with Obama and AG Eric Holder and human rights activists. Obama announced, emphatically, "There will be NO prosecutions of anyone in the Bush administration" and "No 9/11-type commission either." 5/20/09" -- For more on this issue see....A Funny Thing Happened On The Way to the New American Century" - 10-31-08 - mpg & Do It for the Sake of Your Children - 04-26-09 - mpg

Dick Cheney - Tortured Evidence
A quote...."In 2002 the Bush administration was gearing up to launch an illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq for profit (and Israel). The CIA at that point was tasked with providing justification in the form of 'evidence' that Saddam had links to "al-qaeda". Under the direction of the office of the VP and the Sec of Defense, the CIA began torturing individuals that they had picked up in random sweeps of Afghanistan and Pakistan (and later Iraq after the invasion). -- To seasoned sadists like Cheney and high level members of the CIA it was clear that far from being a reliable way to extract accurate information from a prisoner, torture was much better suited to forcing a prisoner to state something that was not true - prisoners like Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi (who coincidentally appears to have been suicided recently in prison in Libya) and Abu Zubaydah who remains in Gitmo to this day." -- For more on this issue see....Making Up Stories - With Torture

A Key 911 “Witness” Turns Out to be an Actor
Contains Video - A quote...."This is the guy who, somehow or another, just happened to know the “official story-line” about how the Towers collapsed right after the event on Sept. 11th 2001. And he just HAPPENED to be interviewed, ready with his analysis. And he just HAPPENED to fade away into history, never coming forward and never beeing identified. This is what he said that day…" -- For more on this sort of issue see....9/11 - NORAD & 9/11 - WTC7 & 9/11 - Commission & 9/11 - Punish or Reward & 9/11 - WTC-1&2 & 9/11 - Planning Guidance

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Columbia Space Shuttle Investigation Cost $175 Million. Challenger Investigation Cost $100 Million. 9/11 InvestigationOnly Got $15 Million -- Special Note -  Many people have written on the 9/11 Commission's budgetary constraints. See this. - Want to Know has a great new summary of the Commission's scandalously inadequate budget:"


Remember, the Commissioners stated that government did everything it could to cover up and obstruct their investigation:" - also posted at AtheoNews -- For more on this issue see....9/11 - Commission

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Like Iraq, the "Facts" Regarding 9/11 Were "Fixed Around the Policy"
A quote...."3 facts show that the government "fixed the facts" regarding 9/11 around a policy decision to exonerate the government from any blame whatsoever.


"As Daily Kos notes in a recent recommended story, the senior counsel to the 9/11 Commission - John Farmer - states in a new book that the official story of 9/11 "almost entirely untrue". -- also posted at GlobRsrch -- For more on this issue see....Making Up Stories - With Torture

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Ron Paul: Israel created Hamas, US created Osama bin Laden
Video - Related Video - A quote...."Amazing. US Congressman,against the resolution support Israel, tells on the floor on Congress that Israel created Hamas for their own agendas like the US created Osama bin Laden." -- For more on the four articles shown above see....US Support of Terror & US Sponsored Civil Wars - Palestine

Obama's Problems With Gas
Maps & Charts -- Some quotes...."Obama thinks a lot about gas in Asia. - Pakistan, and Afghanistan, would benefit from the proposed TAPI pipeline, if it follows the route above. - The USA is in favour of the TAPI pipeline, which could take gas from Turkmenistan to India." -- "What's really going on in Pakistan, India, Iran, Afghanistan and other such places in Asia with links to oil, gas and pipelines? - Is the USA trying to cause divisions between Pakistan and India?" -- also posted at BLN

Global Systemic Crisis: "Financial Surrealism at the Heart of Stock Market Trends"
A quote...."When the world steps out of a 60 year old referential framework  -- The financial surrealism which has been at the heart of stock market trends, financial indicators and political commentaries in the past two months, is in fact the swan song of the referential framework within which the world has lived since 1945. -- Just as in January 2007, the 11th edition of the GEAB described that the turn of the year 2006/07 was wrapped in a « statistical fog » typical of an entry into recession and designed to raise doubts among passengers that the Titanic was really sinking (1), our team today believes that the end of Spring 2009is characterized by the world’s final stepping out of the referential framework used for sixty years by global economic, financial and political players in making their decisions, in particular of its “simplified” version massively used since the fall of the communist bloc in 1989 (when the referential framework became exclusively US-centric). In practical terms, this means that the indicators that everyone is accustomed to use for investment decisions, profitability, location, partnership, etc ... have become obsolete and that it is now necessary to find new relevant indicators to avoid making disastrous decisions."

From My Lai to Bala Baluk - Obama Picks Up Where Bush Left Off
A quote...."Barack Obama is aggressively stepping up the war in Afghanistan. He's intensified the cross-border bombing of Pakistan and he is doubling the number of U.S. troops to 68,000 by 2010. He's also a strong proponent of pilotless drones even though hundreds of civilians have been killed in bombing raid blunders. -- On May 4, 2009, 143 civilians were killed in a bombing raid in Bala Baluk, a remote area south of Herat. Obama brushed off the incident with terse apology never intimating that the US policy for aerial bombardment would be reviewed to avoid future mishaps."

We wouldn't want to inflame anti-American sentiment
A quote...."There are many bizarre aspects to Obama's decision to try to suppress evidence of America's detainee abuse, beginning with the newfound willingness of so many people to say:  "We want our leaders to suppress information that reflects poorly on what our government does."  One would think that it would be impossible to train a citizenry to be grateful to political officials for concealing evidence of government wrongdoing, or to accept the idea that evidence that reflects poorly on the conduct of political leaders should, for that reason alone, be covered-up:  "Obama and his military commanders decide when it's best that we're kept in the dark, and I'm thankful when they keep from me things that reflect poorly on my government because I trust them to decide what I should and should not know."  It's the fantasy of every political leader to have a citizenry willing to think that way ("I know it's totally unrealistic, but wouldn't it be great if we could actually convince people that it's for their own good when we cover-up evidence of government crimes?")."

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