US Attempts To Extradite 9/11 FEMA Videographer From Argentina

Press TVInfowars, August 27, 2010


Kurt Sonnenfeld, a man who was provided provisory refugee status seven years ago, is now wanted by the US government on murder charges

He is the only cameraman that filmed crucial images of Ground Zero in New York after the Twin Towers collapsed.

Sonnenfeld, who lives in Buenos Aires with his Argentine family, says the footage proves that 9/11 was a lie. He still has the 22-hour footage that US authorities want.

“I have promised to give my footage to the big investigators that are credible and widely known – investigators who will be able to detect anomalies that I or other people without scientific education might miss. With that in mind, I hope that there are many things they can discover that disprove the current official story of what happened,” Sonnenfeld told a Press TV correspondent.

He says he fears for his life if he is sent back to the United States to face trial.

The Denver police have claimed they have evidence that show he killed his first wife in the US.

Social activists who are campaigning for Sonnenfeld to be given refugee status in Argentina say the Denver police are lying.

The Sonnenfelds say they have been under police surveillance and that their phone has been tapped.

Sonnenfeld claims that his footage proves top US government officials were aware of the 2001 terrorist attacks before they occurred says he is a victim of a US plot to silence his 9/11 conspiracy theory.

Not only by Debt: China PWNS US by Rare Earth too

From Secrecy News -- 08/27/10:

RARE EARTH ELEMENTS: THE GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN (CRS)

Rare earth elements -- of which there are 17, including the 15 lanthanides plus yttrium and scandium -- are needed in many industrial and national security applications, from flat panel displays to jet fighter engines.  Yet there are foreseeable stresses on the national and global supply of these materials.

"The United States was once self-reliant in domestically produced [rare earth elements], but over the past 15 years has become 100% reliant on imports, primarily from China," a new report (pdf) from the Congressional Research Service observes.  "The dominance of China as a single or dominant supplier [...] is a cause for concern because of China's growing internal demand for its [own rare earth elements]," the report said.

The CRS report provides background and analysis on the uses of rare earth elements, existing reserves, national security applications, the global supply chain and relevant legislation.  See "Rare Earth Elements: the Global Supply Chain," July 28, 2010.

Join Us on the GoogleGroup!

To suggest or discuss any subject related to this site, we now have a public group:

http://groups.google.it/group/Conspirosphere

Everybody is welcome, except spammers, zionist trolls /shills, and truth-deniers.

Manufacturing an enemy

From Suraci - truth in a time of deceit:

"Terror warning over Muslims (deliberately) radicalised in prisons"

It's all very well pulling off a false flag like 911 and blaming it on Muslims, but to maintain the deception it's essential to then have a large body of them running around committing further terror.

The problem here is that there aren't many radicalised Muslims willing to take up Jihad in the West. The opposite is the case, in that they tend to become less religious and more "westernised", if left alone, particularly in secular Britain.

They soon turn away from the harder line of their parents in favour of Western traditions, like an obsession with music, fashion and the opposite sex. This is quite apparent with young British Pakistani men, who largely want nothing to do with boring Jihad, and much more to do with partying and chasing girls.

So what's to be done? How to radicalise Muslim youth?

The answer of course is to stick thousands of them in prison with undercover Muslim radicals working for M(ossad)I6 etc. With lots of free time and nothing else to do, and certain privileges granted to Muslim adherents - such as a better diet as is the case in British prisons - the homegrown crop of radicalised British Muslims can quickly be manufactured.

In prison for minor or non existent offences - some are in prison simply because they are named as terror suspects with no proof whatsoever - they are soon to be released back in to British society, this time the real thing, having been radicalised inside, and given a grievance against the West that they did not have when they were sent to prison.

It's a stunningly elegant solution to the problem of providing real terrorists when they are so obviously hardly apparent otherwise. A couple of disaffected Iraqi doctors incinerating themselves uselessly driving into airport lounge doors doesn't quite cut the mustard. Similarly a man with a firecracker stuffed in his underpants doesn't quite grab the public attention enough to convince them that the Muslim hoards really are out there waging holy war and itching to blow themselves and us to pieces, particularly when that man is escorted onto the aircraft by spooks.

I've heard personal testimony of this initiative carried on in British prisons these past few years, as an acquaintance of mine is a prison warder at a maximum security prison, and related to me their surprise at the sudden number of Muslims thrown into prison, and the special treatment they received, such as diet. This particular warden is also married to a Freemason, so the NWO is thoroughly a part of their domestic life.

My "truther" ears pricked up when I first heard this a few years ago, and it occurred to me then that, as nothing happens by chance, the sudden explosion in Muslim prisoners must be for a reason, as has turned out to be the case.
Another aspect of course is the resentment towards the indulged Muslim prisoners by non Muslim white prisoners, who will no doubt themselves leave prison into the waiting arms of groups like the EDL, newly radicalised and confirmed in their belief that Muslims really are taking over the world, just as they are taking over the prisons.

Two birds with one stone: very nice.

When these newly radicalised Muslims are loosed on society, no doubt with further covert funding and training from M(ossad)I6 etc, they will be the real deal that we have been promised has been threatening us ever since 911. The daily attacks that have been strangely absent will then start to appear.

It has always been puzzling to many of us just exactly how murderous Muslims are quite so unimaginative when it comes to terror, particularly with so many obvious and yet entirely unprotected strategic targets. Anyone with a moment's thought can think of ways to turn daily society upside down, and yet it simply does not happen.

It probably will now. The terrorist training grounds of Iraq and Afghanistan are probably as nothing compared to what has been happening in British prisons, to the bemusement of warders like my acquaintance, but not to the bemusement of those who know precisely how to manipulate sections like this to do their dark work.

A war on terror needs terrorists, and in the absence of sufficient numbers of these, they've been manufactured.

America Facing Depression and Bankruptcy

From  Steve Lendman Blog:

by Stephen Lendman

Long-time economic, political and market analyst Bob Chapman publishes the International Forecaster, offering incisive analysis absent through mainstream sources, especially important now given America's deepening economic crisis getting harder to conceal as evidence mounts.

His August 25 issue says the following:

"Twenty countries (including America) are headed into bankruptcy and more will follow. That brings up the subject of state debt in the US. America has been in an inflationary depression for 18 months. States have been cutting back for two years," but still face huge budget gaps required to be closed....2011 will be a terrible year (with) 80% of states expect(ing) deficits of more than $200 billion. 2012 looks even worse." Most worrisome, "there is no recovery and there never has been....the US economy and financial system is comatose." The worst is yet to come and will hit hard on arrival.

On August 24, economist David Rosenberg said, "Now (I'll) tell you why this is a depression, and not just some garden-variety recession," what he's been repeating for months unlike few others, corporate analysts claiming the fall 2007 downturn "ended sometime last year." Not so, it's deepened, growing evidence providing more clarity.

Offering a historical perspective, Rosenberg said the Great Depression wasn't marked by declining GDP each quarter. The 1929 - 33 recession lasted four years, followed by recovery and another "deep downturn" in 1937 - 38.

During the first one, "there were no fewer than six - six! - quarterly bounces in GDP data," averaging 8% at an annual rate, accompanied by sharp market increases, then declines confirming false positives. So "guess what? We may be reliving history (now). If you're keeping score, we have recorded four quarterly advances in real GDP," averaging only 3%. The late 1930s reversal showed "how fragile the post-bubble recovery really was," a faux one again repeated in a weaker economy now than then, one headed for serious trouble ahead, harming millions more Americans as a result.

The Fed cut interest rates to near zero with no effect, at best buying time, resolving nothing. "Then the Fed tripled the size of its balance sheet - again with little sustained impetus to a broken financial system."

Weeks back, then confirmed with new data, Rosenberg stressed weakness, numerous indicators turning down, including production, retail sales, consumer confidence, and housing, a bellwether industry impacting the entire economy. New reports show it's collapsing, some readings to record lows, others disturbingly weak throughout the country.

July existing home sales dropped 25.5%, the largest monthly decline since records began in 1968, bringing annualized sales back to 1995 levels, and signaling worse trouble ahead. Other housing data confirm the malaise, including new home sales, housing starts and permits.

As worrisome were increasing layoffs and first-time unemployment claims hitting 500,000, flashing red for trouble nearly three years after the initial downturn, combined with a near-22% unemployment rate, not the bogus 9.5% headline number, the 1980 calculation reengineered to conceal weakness like all other fake economic data, putting lipstick on an economy, increasingly looking and smelling more like a pig, a sick one.

According to Rosenberg, "You know you are in a depression when:

-- "Congress (extends) jobless benefits seven times (in the past two years) when almost half (of those) unemployed have been looking for at least a half year;"

-- the adult male unemployment rate (25 - 54 years) "hit a post-WW II (high and still tops) the 1982 peak," the worst then since the Great Depression;

-- "youth unemployment is stuck near 25%," and for inner-city black youths it's 80% or higher; "these developments will have profound long-term consequences - social, economic and political;"

-- the depression's fiscal costs keep mounting, the federal deficit soaring with no end to it in sight;

-- for over a year into a supposed recovery, the Fed still contemplates new ways to stimulate growth, its tool, of course, printing money (funny money, or as one analyst calls it, "toilet paper") and quantitative easing, compounding the deficit, or the equivalent of throwing fuel on a fire instead of monetary and fiscal sanity plus sound economy policies to extinguish it;

-- after two years of record trillion dollar plus deficits to kick-start the economy, interest rates are shockingly low, flashing weakness, not strength; to wit, on August 24, the 5-year note was 1.36%, 7-year at $1.95%, 10-year at 2.50%, and 30 year at 3.57%; as well as 30-year fixed mortgage rates at record lows below 4.5% (4.42% on August 24), despite "no fewer than eight (government) programs to put a floor under the housing market;" we're in big trouble "when (Washington) can expend so many resources (on) one sector" in vain;

-- the FDIC keeps shuttering more banks; again, the carnage keeps spreading, yet most economists cling tenaciously an economic recovery theme, at most hit by a soft patch; Rosenberg's response - "Some recovery (when) the private credit market is basically defunct....what replaced it was rampant government intervention (buying time) by trying to (put) a floor under the economy;" once it stops, and it will, they'll be no hiding the dire truth, and no end of pain for growing millions.

The Worst Is Yet to Come

Financial expert and investor safety advocate Martin Weiss began warning about a major economic decline long before it began and keeps at it, citing evidence most analysts downplay or ignore, including:

-- America's worst ever housing depression showing no signs of abating; since January 2006, housing starts alone have plunged from 2.3 million annually to a recent 477,000 low that may not yet reflect a bottom because demand is so weak for this bellwether industry;

-- record long-term unemployment, its worst since first officially tabulated over 60 years ago; and

-- "the most chronic credit squeeze ever recorded....suffer(ing) its deepest plunge since WW II."

As a result, he sees deepening economic trouble ahead, no matter what steps the administration, Congress or the Fed undertake. He expects little more stimulus, just another futile central bank attempt to print money (lots of it) to buy time. "These paper dollars will not create real prosperity," just an illusory, "temporary, false prosperity," but none at all for most people, hung out to dry on their own.

He also expects a sovereign debt crisis to hammer Europe and the US, saying America's plight exceeds the dire situation of PIIGS countries (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain), citing the Bank of International Settlements (the central bank of central bankers) saying US debt will hit 400% of GDP, more than triple Greece's burden at 129% that plunged the country into (undeclared) bankruptcy. Indeed the worst for America is yet to come.

America Is Already Bankrupt

Boston University Economics Professor Laurence Kotlikoff explains it in his August 10 article, titled "US Is Bankrupt and We Don't Even Know It," saying:

"Let's get real. The US is bankrupt. Neither spending more nor taxing less will help the country pay its bills." What's needed, he says, is reengineering the economy by "radically simplify(ing) its tax, healthcare, retirement and financial systems...." Revitalization depends on it with unfunded liabilities topping $110 trillion and growing. Even the IMF is worried, saying "closing (America's) fiscal gap requires a permanent annual fiscal adjustment equal to about 14 percent of US GDP," meaning, of course, from working households, not corporate interests or national security, the most glaring areas needing reform.

The fiscal gap represents "the difference between projected spending (including debt service) and projected revenue in all future years. (It's) the government's credit-card bill and each year's 14 percent GDP is the interest on that bill."

When it's not paid, it increases the balance owed. And each trillion the Fed prints bailing out bankers compounds it. Make them pay, not the public they robbed, starting with shutting them down, breaking them up, seizing their assets, and nationalizing them for the collective good.

Kotlikoff is scary saying "Uncle Sam's Ponzi scheme will stop, (perhaps) in a very nasty manner," citing three possibilities:

(1) massive benefit cuts on retirees;

(2) huge tax increases hitting working Americans hardest, and/or

(3) printing vast amounts of money ad infinitum until debt overload crashes the economy eventually.

Calling America "Worse than Greece," he believes "Most likely we will see a combination of all three responses with dramatic increases in poverty, tax(es), interest rates and consumer prices," the path we're on heading us for the worst of all possible worlds.

Based on the latest Congressional Budget Office (CBO) data, he calculates a $202 trillion fiscal gap - "more than 15 times the official debt" because Congress "label(s) most of its liabilities 'unofficial' to keep them off the books, (out of sight) and far in the future" to concern other officials, not them. Labeling, of course, isn't fixing. It's just concealing unpleasant realities, letting others, not them, face the music in out years.

Current federal revenue totals $14.9% of GDP, the IMF saying that closing it requires "an immediate and permanent doubling of our personal-income, corporate and federal taxes as well as the payroll levy set down in the Federal Insurance Contribution Act."

Such policy would produce a 5% surplus this year, the IMF prescribing ad infinitum fiscal austerity, saying delay will make it tougher ahead. "Is the IMF bonkers?" Not at all, just preferential, wanting workers, not special interests hit hardest, the way it's raped and mauled economies for years, serving capital, not people, now aiming at America, the biggest plum of all ripe for plucking with millions of vulnerable households, easy pickings for the powerful, harming, not relieving their needs by:

-- cutting wages and benefits;

-- destroying, not creating jobs; privatizing everything for private gain; and

-- turning America into Guatemala, a corporatist's dream.

Indeed let's get real. Bad policy begets bad results, and bad solutions makes it worse. For sure, America is "broke and can no longer afford no-pain, all-gain 'solutions.' "

It needs responsible ones, too many to list, but here's a few:

-- end imperial wars and a bloated defense budget;

-- reinvent government to make it responsive to public needs and democratic values;

-- make offenders pay most, starting with Wall Street, defense contractors, Big Oil, Big Pharma, Agribusiness, and other corporate predators profiting at public expense for decades;

-- make now the time for payback, assuring their victims fair and equitable reimbursements;

-- reinvigorate industrial America;

-- end Wall Street's financial chokehold;

-- return money creation power to Congress as the Constitution mandates;

-- encourage publicly-owned state banks like North Dakota's, making it prosperous when most states are debt-strapped and faltering;

-- create full-time, good-paying jobs with benefits; don't destroy them;

-- bring back those offshored;

-- protect homeowners from foreclosure;

-- re-institute progressive taxes, including a Tobin tax (perhaps 1%) on all speculative financial transactions, a millionaire's/Wall Street bank levy generating a huge windfall, enough to smack if not close the budget gap, making those most able pay; for example, the Bank for International Settlements estimated annual 2008 global over-the-counter derivatives trading at $743 trillion; a 1% tax would yield $7.43 trillion, and if taxes curbed speculation, the take would still be enormous;

-- dismantle corporate predators;

-- think small and local, not big and global;

-- reinstitute financial, environmental, and other consumer-friendly regulations;

-- get money out of politics;

-- end the two-party monopoly;

-- institutionalize a free, open, fair media and Internet;

-- assure equitable social benefits for all, including universal, single-payer health care, government-supported public and higher education, and more; and

-- reinvigorate an eroding democracy before it's too late to matter.

Responsible policies, all of the above and more, will reinvigorate America. The unsustainable fiscal crisis is reason enough to do it.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

Cameron 'nearly assassinated in Afghanistan'

From politics.co.uk :

The prime minister narrowly avoided being assassinated during a recent trip to Afghanistan, it has emerged. 

Intercepted communication between Taliban fighters revealed that they were aware which helicopter he was on during a visit to a base in Helmand, according to some media reports. 

The trip was quickly averted, with David Cameron's helicopter turned away just ten minutes from the base. 

The communication between militants, who are understood to have possessed heat-seeking, shoulder launched missiles, referred to one Chinook carrying the "big commander". 

An urgent review into the prime ministers' security on visits to war zones is understood to have been launched, although Downing Street itself never comments on security arrangements. 

There is particular concern about pre-trip publicity, which gives the Taliban time to piece together an attack plan using sources within the military and intelligence services. 

A news black out is a distinct possibility, with the media only being made aware of trips once they are completed, - the manner adopted during Liam Fox's recent trip to the area. 

Alternatively, news conferences with foreign leaders, such as Afghan president Hamid Karzai, may only take place at the very end of the trip to avoid drawing attention to the PM's presence. 

Fed and Treasury to force pension funds and IRAs to buy US Treasuries which can’t be sold to suckers abroad

Source: GoldSeek.com 

Friday, 27 August 2010

The Goldsmiths—Part CLVI

By R. D. Bradshaw

In the past two years of publishing, the Goldsmiths and news reports at www.analysis-news have discussed two of the major problems now facing the Obama Administration and the Rothschild banking Cabal which is using the US dollar to conquer and rule the world.  First, there is the manifestly obvious looming possibility of a collapse of the dollar and the US debt structure now in hock for at least $14 trillion. 

And second, there is the clear evidence of maneuvers by the Cabal masters and their relatives at the Fed and Treasury to force pension funds and IRAs to buy US Treasuries which can’t be sold to suckers abroad.  While nothing definite has been forced on Americans at this point in time, the hand writing is on the wall that mandatory purchases of US Treasuries will be soon coming down the pike. Then, the past week has seen a couple of articles on the planned automatic IRA program which has generated some interest on my part to prompt this Goldsmiths. 

The Two Articles and their Backdrop

A blog at AOL.com had this on Aug 21, 2010 on Next They Steal Your Private Retirement Benefits which noted that bills had been introduced in the House and Senate to create the new Automatic IRA accounts to provide funding for future government revenue needs.  The comment noted that at first it will be voluntary but like social security will later become mandatory.  The writer added “I expect the early 3% employee after-tax contribution levels to eventually rise to 10 to 15% of compensation, rising even more than Social Security has increased over the years.”

This blog wisely added “The Auto IRA is the first step to grab and control your retirement assets…  Americans will also likely be ‘means tested’ out of their promised Social Security benefits and discover their private retirement benefits will be subject to confiscatory levels of taxes and penalties which will even target previously taxed Roth IRA accounts.” 

The second provocative article was from EU Times on Line (www.eutimes.net) of Aug 22, 2010 which had an article on US Said Preparing New Laws to Seize Americans Retirement Accounts.  This one said that “the automatic IRA bill now in Congress is their next attack to also control, confiscate and destroy the private retirement system.  Ultimately, nationalizing healthcare is designed to create a major new government revenue stream by replacing private health insurance with a nationalized, mandatory, government program and their goal is identical with your retirement plan.”

This EU article repeated the concerns from the AOL blog and noted that earlier Obama had proposed such a bill.  The EU writer added “The Auto IRA is the first step to grab and control your retirement assets and replace our private system with a forced, government controlled Social Security type program.  In addition they will force much of your retirement funds into buying junk treasury bonds along with the Federal Reserve when the dollar/national debt crisis hits as billions of retirement funds become the buyer of last resort when the rest of the world is dumping dollars and treasury securities.”

This EU article referred to a couple of earlier articles from www.lewrockwell.com on Get Ready for the Obama Retirement Trap as published on 1/28/2010 and The 10 Step Countdown To Retirement Plan Nationalization as published on 3/22/2010. Both of these articles were by Ron Holland, a retirement consultant in Zurich,Switzerland. 

In the first article, Holland wrote:  “Mandatory IRAs just proposed by Obama Administration on 1/25/10 is the 1st step in stealth nationalization & forced investment of our retirement benefits to support the treasury debt market… Today over $15 trillion is sitting in tax-favored retirement plans, including $4 trillion in IRA accounts.  Retirement savings make up 35% of all private assets. Washington is broke, the deficit is soaring and Congress simply can’t wait for Americans to retire so they can start taxing these funds.  The politicians are tired of waiting; they need your money now.”

In describing the coming confiscation event, Holland wrote:  “At some time during the next decade, a global run on treasury debt and the dollar will also likely take the American stock market down past lows not seen since the financial meltdown crisis in 2008 and 2009.  The 50% to 75% stock market pullback during the actual bankruptcy of the Washington debt and paper dollar will send shock waves through retirees and current plan participants as their private retirement plan balances plummet.

“At this time, Washington will ‘come to the rescue’ and guarantee all private retirement plan market values back to pre-crisis levels.  The gullible American public will overwhelmingly support this effort by switching their dwindling funds into the Guaranteed Retirement Annuity managed by the government.  For the first few years, Washington will probably label those few of us who warn that Americans have lost their retirement benefits as extremists, Ron Paul paranoids and Tea Party advocates. 

“Then it will become crystal clear to all Americans that their retirement benefits have been given away for a promise by an evil group of plunderers who have never in their history kept a promise, a guarantee, or their word on anything. The greatest theft of wealth in the history of the world will have taken place and only those few who took heed of an early warning will still have their retirement benefits and security.” 

Holland also added:  “Although the faltering dollar could rebound in the short run, the longer-term prognosis is terminal unless Washington dramatically reduces spending and borrowing.  When the global run on treasury debt and the dollar develops, the current relative minor fluctuations in values today will be replaced by a virulent death spiral of historic proportions rarely seen in world history. Sometime in the next decade, the Washington dollar collapse will take its shameful place in history at the pinnacle of fiat currency robberies by politicians and central bankers.  We will lead the world in wealth lost and future generations saddled by illegitimate government debts.

“In the meantime, Americans should insulate themselves from the coming dollar and debt debacle by investing in gold bullion stored in the US, as well as outside, in secure facilities like the one offered by Global Gold Inc. in Switzerland, through mining shares, as well as through foreign currency diversification with the euro and Swiss franc.  Don’t wait, take action now while you still have the opportunity to protect and preserve your wealth.”

In the second article, Holland wrote:  “The coming retirement trap I write about in ‘Get Ready For the Obama Retirement Trap’ and the new mandatory retirement system proposed by the Obama Administration known as the ‘automatic IRA’ is just more Washington theft.  It is the same for the eventual nationalization and confiscation of the majority of retirement benefits from successful Americans as their funds are forced into breach of a flood tide of forced liquidations of treasury debt.  Their retirement funds will benefit many lower middle class, unemployed and government employees at the expense of the productive Americans who saved for retirement in the first place. 

“The coming nationalization of private retirement plans and IRAs will be the greatest government theft and wealth transfer scheme in the history of the world but it will be opposed only by a small minority of productive Americans who have worked in the private sector and who have saved for their retirement years. These Americans who have saved a substantial amount for retirement will lose wealth and retirement security while the groups who have spent their entire lives feeding at the public trough will continue to come out ahead as usual in the largest theft in history.  Remember, everything out of Wall Street, Congress andWashington on retirement planning is all about generating money in the form of dramatic government tax revenues for Washington and not about building real retirement security for Americans.” 

On timing, Holland suggested:  “The timing of the steps to retirement plan nationalization and confiscation are a very difficult proposition first because of an uncertain political situation.  While I fear both political parties will move in the direction I've outlined below to retain political power, historically the Democrats have moved faster in this direction than the Republicans.  But now with the revenue needs of Washington totally out of control, which side of the two-party monopoly in control of Congress and the White House may not matter in the future.  Second, most of the probable causes of the next financial or foreign policy crisis depend more on what China, Japan, Iran or Israel may do than on Washington.  I believe the ultimate confiscation conclusion of the Retirement Trap will take place within ten years and I have a suggested time limit for each step to help you in your retirement planning.” 

Holland perceptively quoted Napoleon who stated, "History is a state of lies agreed upon" and then added a Chinese proverb:  "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on (me)."  Though Holland noted in early 2010 that USretirement savings are now at $15 trillion (which is just about the right amount to cover the US Treasury needs), it is likely larger today (the world total is about $43 trillion (per an article by I. M. Vronsky in the Market Oracle of Feb 6, 2010). 

Also while Holland projected something in the next ten years, it appears that circumstances over US debt are forcing the Rothschild Cabal masters ruling theUS to move their schedule up considerably.  As noted above, there is now legislation under way in Congress to start the ball rolling soon. 

The Auto IRA Bill now in Congress

www.investmentnews.com had an Aug 15, 2010 article by Darla Mercado on Advisers Bullish on auto IRA measure which has now been introduced in both the House and Senate in the past several days.  She says if the new proposals become law those advisers counseling small 401(k)s may lose out, but hourly planners could be among winners. 

The bill as drafted will require businesses without retirement plans to provide individual retirement accounts to employees on an opt-out basis.  As proposed by the Obama Administration, the plan this year could raise net national savings by nearly $8 billion annually.  It would apply first to companies with at least 100 employees, and then gradually cover companies with as few as 10 employees by 2015.

Per Mercado, “Employees can deposit up to 5% of their paycheck in either a traditional or Roth IRA and choose from three low-cost standardized investment options.  If the worker doesn't make any specific elections, the employer would place the default percentage — 3% of each paycheck — in a Roth IRA.  The investment options would include a principal preservation fund, through which contributions would be invested in bank deposits, insurance contracts or U.S.savings bonds designed for use in auto IRAs; a fund similar to a target date or lifecycle fund; and an alternative-investment option that would have a greater equity component than the target date fund.  The default investment for new participants would be the principal preservation fund until accounts reach $5,000, when the default would become a lifestyle or a balanced fund.”

The plan provides that auto-IRA employers will receive a tax credit of $250 for each of the first two years to defray the cost of adopting the plan and because some sponsors of small 401(k) plans could decide to switch, industry observers say.  As drafted, it will compete with advisers who provide advice to small 401(k)s.  It exempts employers from fiduciary liability if they use a provider approved by the Treasury Department (and we can bank on it that eventually the only approved plan will be US Treasuries).

The Bottom Line

Like all or most all government programs and undertakings, the scheme is to start small which won’t promote much opposition.  Once the program is underway, the plan can slowly be changed and altered to expand out and cover more and more territory in later days.  This seems to be what the Cabal masters have in mind on the present scheme.  We can bank on it that once in place, the project will be expanded to cover more and more employees to eventual encompass all retirement savings.  By then, it will become mandatory.  Soon, the government will dictate that only purchases of US Treasuries will be allowed. 

The Rothschild masters face a soon coming day when the US dollar and US debt will go down the tubes.  In order to prepare for that eventuality, it is clear that the Rothschild Cabal master planners are looking at US retirement savings plans of at least $15 trillion as a very plausible rescue source for the failing US dollar and US debt structure.  This new Auto IRA legislation may pave the way for mandatory investment of retirement savings funds into US Treasuries (too, we can bank on it that most or all pension and retirement funding in general at all levels will also in time be forced into buying US Treasuries).  As the Rothschild masters apparently see it, this move would solve the US debt problems. 

______

Back issues of the Goldsmiths, by the editor of the Analysis of News, can be accessed from a Google or Yahoo search engine by typing in “R. D. Bradshaw” Goldsmiths.  Several hundred web sites can be found with the back issues and with translations to Spanish, Italian, German, Dutch, Polish, Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian, Serbian, and other foreign languages.  Finally, the “Archives-Goldsmiths” of this website (www.analysis-news.com ) has all of the Goldsmith articles issued to date. 

Besides the revelations contained in the Goldsmiths’ articles, the work of the plutocratic financial market manipulators to conspiratorially manipulate and control the financial markets (to make more profits and install a world government under their management) is also addressed at length in the periodic analysis of the news and in other articles produced at www.analysis-news.com.  This website has an article of interest to any person interested in understanding the market Manipulators.  It is the Hidden Secret of the Manipulators, why they succeed and how to follow their manipulations. 

Readers of the above articles are invited to visit www.analysis-news.com and become a subscriber to regularly read some of the material from the world of information which will further reveal how extensive the manipulation, control and dishonesty realities are in the financial, currency and commodity markets, not only in the USbut indeed around the world.  To go to the Home Page of this web site, click here:  www.analysis-news.com.

_________________________


Related: Social Security: The Futile Fight For What’s Been Promised - By Bill Bonner

Surviving Social Security By Addison Wiggin | 08/26/10

Treasury Makes Shocking Admission: Program for Struggling Homeowners Just a Ploy to Enrich Big Banks

The Treasury Dept.'s mortgage relief program isn't just failing, it's actively funneling money from homeowners to bankers, and Treasury likes it that way. Alternet, August 25, 2010 |


The Treasury Department's plan to help struggling homeowners has been failing miserably for months. The program is poorly designed, has been poorly implemented and only a tiny percentage of borrowers eligible for help have actually received any meaningful assistance. The initiative lowers monthly payments for borrowers, but fails to reduce their overall debt burden, often increasing that burden, funneling money to banks that borrowers could have saved by simply renting a different home. But according to recent startling admissions from top Treasury officials, the mortgage plan was actually not really about helping borrowers at all. Instead, it was simply one element of a broader effort to pump money into big banks and shield them from losses on bad loans. That's right: Treasury openly admitted that its only serious program purporting to help ordinary citizens was actually a cynical move to help Wall Street megabanks.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has long made it clear his financial repair plan was based on allowing large banks to "earn" their way back to health. By creating conditions where banks could make easy profits, Getithner and top officials at the Federal Reserve hoped to limit the amount of money taxpayers would have to directly inject into the banks. This was never the best strategy for fixing the financial sector, but it wasn't outright predation, either. But now the Treasury Department is making explicit that it was—and remains—willing to let those so-called "earnings" come directly at the expense of people hit hardest by the recession: struggling borrowers trying to stay in their homes.
This account comes secondhand from a cadre of bloggers who were invited to speak on "deep background" with a handful of Treasury officials—meaning that bloggers would get to speak frankly with top-level folks, but not quote them directly, or attribute views to specific people. But the accounts are all generally distressing, particularly this one from economics whiz Steve Waldman:

The program was successful in the sense that it kept the patient alive until it had begun to heal. And the patient of this metaphor was not a struggling homeowner, but the financial system, a.k.a. the banks. Policymakers openly judged HAMP to be a qualified success because it helped banks muddle through what might have been a fatal shock. I believe these policymakers conflate, in full sincerity, incumbent financial institutions with "the system," "the economy," and "ordinary Americans."

Mike Konczal confirms Waldman's observation, and Felix Salmon also says the program has done little more than delay foreclosures, as does Shahien Nasiripour.
Here's how Geithner's Home Affordability Modification Program (HAMP) works, or rather, doesn't work. Troubled borrowers can apply to their banks for relief on monthly mortgage payments. Banks who agree to participate in HAMP also agree to do a bunch of things to reduce the monthly payments for borrowers, from lowering interest rates to extending the term of the loan. This is good for the bank, because they get to keep accepting payments from borrowers without taking a big loss on the loan.
But the deal is not so good for homeowners. Banks don't actually have to reduce how much borrowers actually owe them—only how much they have to pay out every month. For borrowers who owe tens of thousands of dollars more than their home is worth, the deal just means that they'll be pissing away their money to the bank more slowly than they were before. If a homeowner spends $3,000 a month on her mortgage, HAMP might help her get that payment down to $2,500. But if she still owes $50,000 more than her house is worth, the plan hasn't actually helped her. Even if the borrower gets through HAMP's three-month trial period, the plan has done nothing but convince her to funnel another $7,500 to a bank that doesn't deserve it.
Most borrowers go into the program expecting real relief. After the trial period, most realize that it doesn't actually help them, and end up walking away from the mortgage anyway. These borrowers would have been much better off simply finding a new place to rent without going through the HAMP rigamarole. This example is agood case, one where the bank doesn't jack up the borrower's long-term debt burden in exchange for lowering monthly payments
But the benefit to banks goes much deeper. On any given mortgage, it's almost always in a bank's best interest to cut a deal with borrowers. Losses from foreclosure are very high, and if a bank agrees to reduce a borrower's debt burden, it will take an upfront hit, but one much lower than what it would ultimately take from foreclosure.
That logic changes dramatically when millions of loans are defaulting at once. Under those circumstances, bank balance sheets are so fragile they literally cannot afford to absorb lots of losses all at once. But if those foreclosures unravel slowly, over time, the bank can still stay afloat, even if it has to bear greater costs further down the line. As former Deutsche Bank executive Raj Date told me all the way back in July 2009:

If management is only seeking to maximize value for their existing shareholders, it's possible that maybe they're doing the right thing. If you're able to let things bleed out slowly over time but still generate some earnings, if it bleeds slow enough, it doesn't matter how long it takes, because you never have to issue more stock and dilute your shareholders. You could make an argument from the point of view of any bank management team that not taking a day-one hit is actually a smart idea. 

Date, it should be emphasized, does not condone this strategy. He now heads the Cambridge Winter Center for Financial Institutions Policy, and is a staunch advocate of financial reform.
If, say, Wells Fargo had taken a $20 billion hit on its mortgage book in February 2009, it very well could have failed. But losing a few billion dollars here and there over the course of three or four years means that Wells Fargo can stay in business and keep paying out bonuses, even if it ultimately sees losses of $25 or $30 billion on its bad loans.
So HAMP is doing a great job if all you care about is the solvency of Wall Street banks. But if borrowers know from the get-go they're not going to get a decent deal, they have no incentive to keep paying their mortgage. Instead of tapping out their savings and hitting up relatives for help with monthly payments, borrowers could have saved their money, walked away from the mortgage and found more sensible rental housing. The administration's plan has effectively helped funnel more money to Wall Street at the expense of homeowners. And now the Treasury Department is going around and telling bloggers this is actually a positive feature of the program, since it meant that big banks didn't go out of business.
There were always other options for dealing with the banks and preventing foreclosures. Putting big, faltering banks into receivership—also known as "nationalization"—has been a powerful policy tool used by every administration from Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan. When the government takes over a bank, it forces it to take those big losses upfront, wiping out shareholders in the process. Investors lose a lot of money (and they should, since they made a lousy investment), but the bank is cleaned up quickly and can start lending again. No silly games with borrowers, and no funky accounting gimmicks.
Most of the blame for the refusal to nationalize failing Wall Street titans lies with the Bush administration, although Obama had the opportunity to make a move early in his tenure, and Obama's Treasury Secretary, Geithner, was a major bailout decision-maker on the Bush team as president of the New York Fed.
But Bush cannot be blamed for the HAMP nightmare, and plenty of other options were available for coping with foreclosure when Obama took office. One of the best solutions was just endorsed by the Cleveland Federal Reserve, in the face of prolonged and fervent opposition from the bank lobby. Unlike every other form of consumer debt, mortgages are immune from renegotiation in bankruptcy. If you file for bankruptcy, a judge literally cannot reduce how much you owe on your mortgage. The only way out of the debt is foreclosure, giving banks tremendous power in negotiations with borrowers.
This exemption is arbitrary and unfair, but the bank lobby contends it keeps mortgage rates lower. It's just not true, as a new paper by Cleveland Fed economists Thomas J. Fitzpatrick IV and James B. Thomson makes clear. Family farms were exempted from bankruptcy until 1986, and bankers bloviated about the same imminent risk of unaffordable farm loans when Congress considered ending that status to prevent farm foreclosures.
When Congress did repeal the exemption, farm loans didn't get any more expensive, and bankruptcy filings didn't even increase very much. Instead, a flood of farmers entered into negotiations with banks to have their debt burden reduced. Banks took losses, but foreclosures were avoided. Society was better off, even if bank investors had to take a hit.
But instead, Treasury is actively encouraging troubled homeowners to subsidize giant banks. What's worse, as Mike Konczal notes, they're hoping to expand the program significantly.
There is a flip-side to the current HAMP nightmare, one that borrowers faced with mortgage problems should attend to closely and discuss with financial planners. In many cases, banks don't actually want to foreclose quickly, because doing so entails taking losses right away, and most of them would rather drag those losses out over time. The accounting rules are so loose that banks can actually book phantom "income" on monthly payments that borrowers do not actually make. Some borrowers have been able to benefit from this situation by simply refusing to pay their mortgages. Since banks often want to delay repossessing the house in order to benefit from tricky accounting, borrowers can live rent-free in their homes for a year or more before the bank finally has to lower the hatchet. Of course, you won't hear Treasury encouraging people to stop paying their mortgages. If too many people just stop paying, then banks are out a lot of money fast, sparking big, quick losses for banks -- the exact situation HAMP is trying to avoid.
Borrowers who choose not to pay their mortgages don't even have to feel guilty about it. Refusing to pay is actually modestly good for the economy, since instead of wasting their money on bank payments, borrowers have more cash to spend at other businesses, creating demand and encouraging job growth. By contrast, top-level Treasury officials who have enriched bankers on the backs of troubled borrowers should be looking for other lines of work.

Mass Assassinations Lie at the Heart of US Military Strategy in the Muslim World

By Fred Branfman, Alternet, Aug 24 2010
120 COMMENTS

“Gen McChrystal says tha] for every innocent person you kill, you create 10 new enemies.”
- “The Runaway General,” Rolling Stone, 6/22/10

The truth that many USAians find hard to take is that that mass US assassination on a scale unequaled in world history lies at the heart of US military strategy in the Muslim world, a policy both illegal and never seriously debated by Congress or the US people. Conducting assassination operations throughout the 1.3b-strong Muslim world will inevitably increase the murder of civilians and thus create exponentially more “enemies,” as McChrystal suggests, posing a major long-term threat to US national security. This mass assassination program, sold as defending USAians, is actually endangering us all. Those responsible for it, primarily Gen Petraeus, are recklessly seeking short-term tactical advantage while making an enormous long-term strategic error that could lead to countless US deaths in the years and decades to come. Petraeus must be replaced, and the US military’s policy of direct and mass assassination of Muslims ended.The US has conducted assassination programs in the Third World for decades, but the actual killing, though directed and financed by the CIA, has been largely left to local paramilitary and police forces. This has now has changed dramatically. What is unprecedented today is the vast number of USAians directly assassinating Muslims, through greatly expanded US military Special Operations teams, US drone strikes and private espionage networks run by former CIA assassins and torturers. Most significant is the expanding geographic scope of their killing. While CENTCOM Commander from Oct 2008-Jul 2010, Petraeus received secret and unprecedented permission to unilaterally engage in operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Iran, former Russian Republics, Yemen, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Kenya, the Horn of Africa, and wherever else he deems necessary. Never before has a nation unleashed so many assassins in so many foreign nations around the world (9,000 Special Operations soldiers are based in Iraq and Afghanistan alone) as well as implemented a policy that can be best described as unprecedented, remote-control, large-scale “mechanized assassination.” As the NYTnoted in Dec 2009:

For the first time in history, a civilian intelligence agency is using robots to carry out a military mission, selecting people for killing in a country where the US is not officially at war.

This combination of human and technological murder amounts to a worldwide “Assassination Inc.” that is unique in human affairs. The increasing shift to direct US assassination began on Petraeus’s watch in Iraq, where targeted assassination was considered by many within the military to be more important than the “surge.” The killing of Al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was considered a major triumph that significantly reduced the level of violence. As Bob Woodward reported in The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008:

Beginning in about May 2006, the US military and the US intelligence agencies launched a series of top secret operations that enabled them to locate, target and kill key individuals in extremist groups. A number of authoritative sources say these covert activities had a far-reaching effect on the violence and were very possibly the biggest factor in reducing it. McChrystal, commander of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) responsible for hunting al Qaeda in Iraq, conducted lightning-quick and sometimes concurrent operations When I later asked the president about this, he offered a simple comment: ‘JSOC is awesome.’

Woodward’s finding that many “authoritative sources” believed assassination more important than the surge is buttressed by Petraeus’ appointment of McChrystal to lead US forces in Afghanistan. McChrystal’s major qualification for the post was clearly his perceived expertise in assassination while heading JSOC from 2003-’08, where he also conducted extensive torture at “Camp Nama” at Baghdad International Airport, successfully excluding even the Red Cross. Another key reason for the increased reliance on assassination is that Petraeus’ announced counter-insurgency strategy in Afghanistan obviously cannot work. It is absurd to believe that the corrupt warlords and cronies who make up the “Afghan government” can be transformed into the viable entity upon which his strategy publicly claims to depend, particularly within the next year which Obama has set as a deadline before beginning to withdraw US troops. Petraeus is instead largely relying on mass assassination to try and eliminate the Taliban, both within Afghanistan and Pakistan. The centrality of assassination to US war plans is revealed by the fact that it was at the heart of the Obama review of Afghan policy last fall. The dovish Biden position called for relying primarily on assassination, while the hawkish McChrystal stance embraced both assassination and more troops. No other options were seriously considered. A third factor behind the shift to mass assassination is that Petraeus and the US military are also determined to attack jihadi forces in nations where the US is not at war, and which are not prepared to openly invite in US forces. As the NYT reported on May 24:

Petraeus has argued that troops need to operate beyond Iraq and Afghanistan to better fight militant groups.

The most significant aspect of this new and expanded assassination policy is Obama’s authorizing clandestine US military personnel to conduct it. The NYT has also reported:

In roughly a dozen countries, from the deserts of North Africa to the mountains of Pakistan to former Soviet republics crippled by ethnic and religious strife, the US has significantly increased military and intelligence operations, pursuing the enemy using robotic drones and commando teams, paying contractors to spy and training local operatives to chase terrorists. Special Operations troops under secret “Execute Orders” have conducted spying missions that were once the preserve of civilian intelligence agencies.

Particularly extraordinary is the fact that these vastly expanded military assassination teams are not subject to serious civilian control. As the NYT has also reported, Petraeus in Sep 2009 secretly expanded a worldwide force of assassins answerable only to the military, without oversight by not only Congress but the president himself:

The top US commander in the Middle East has ordered a broad expansion of clandestine military activity in an effort to disrupt militant groups or counter threats in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and other countries in the region, according to defense officials and military documents. The secret directive, signed in September by Petraeus, authorizes the sending of US Special Operations troops to both friendly and hostile nations in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Horn of Africa. Unlike covert actions undertaken by the CIA, such clandestine activity does not require the president’s approval or regular reports to Congress.

Although sold to the US public and Congress as targeted, selective assassination aimed only at a handful of “high value” insurgent leaders, the program has in fact already expanded far beyond that. As personnel and aircraft devoted to assassination exponentially increase, so too do the numbers of people they murder, both “insurgents” and civilians. While it is reasonable to assume that expanding the number of Special Operations commandos to its present worldwide level of 13,000 will result in increasing assassinations, the secrecy of their operations makes it impossible to know how many they have murdered, how many of those are civilians, and the effectiveness of their operations. It is not known, for example, how many people US military assassins murder directly, and how many they kill indirectly by identifying them for drone strikes. Much of their activity is conducted, for example, in North Waziristan in northwest Pakistan, which as the NYT reported on Apr 4, “is virtually sealed from the outside world.” More information, however, has emerged about the parallel and unprecedented mass mechanized assassinations being carried out by the CIA drone programs. It is clear that they have already expanded far beyond the official cover story of targeting only “high-level insurgent leaders,” and are killing increasing numbers of people. The CIA, of course, is no novice at assassination. Future CIA Director William Colby’s Operation Phoenix program in South Vietnam gave South Vietnamese police quotas of the number of civilians to be murdered on a weekly and monthly basis, eventually killing 20-50,000 people. CIA operatives such as Latin American Station Chef Duane “Dewey” Clarridge also established, trained and operated local paramilitary and death squads throughout Central and Latin America that brutally tortured and murdered tens of thousands of civilians, most notably in El Salvador where CIA-trained and -directed killers murdered Archbishop Romero and countless other Salvadorans. But the present CIA assassination program in Pakistan and elsewhere is different, not only because it is USAians who are themselves the assassins, but because of the unprecedented act of conducting mechanized mass assassination from the air. The CIA, as Nick Turse has reported for TomDispatch.com, is exponentially increasing its drone assassination program:

Reapers flew 25,391 hours in 2009. This year, the air force projects that the combined flight hours of all its drones will exceed 250,000 hours. More flight time will, undoubtedly, mean more killing.

There were already signs in 2009, when drone strikes were a fraction of what they are now, that they were striking large numbers of civilians and proving militarily and politically counterproductive. Most Pakistanis believe it is largely civilians who are being killed, and anti-US hatred is growing accordingly. A Gallup poll conducted in Jul 2009, based on 2,500 face-to-face interviews, found that “only 9% of Pakistanis supported the drone strikes.” A Global Research study documented the drone murder of 123 civilians in Jan 2010 alone. A particularly significant indication of the drone strikes’ military ineffectiveness has come from Col David Kilcullen, a key Petraeus advisor in Iraq, who testified to the House Foreign Affairs Committee on May 23 2009:

Since 2006, we’ve killed 14 senior Al Qaeda leaders using drone strikes; in the same time period, we’ve killed 700 Pakistani civilians in the same area. We need to call off the drones.

Kilcullen’s testimony was ignored, however, and as drone strikes have not only been continued but exponentially increased, there are increasing signs that they have vastly increased the scope of the killing far beyond the claimed “high-level insurgent leaders.” The NYT reported on Aug 14:

The CIA has broadened its drone campaign beyond selective strikes against Qaeda leaders and now regularly obliterates suspected enemy compounds and logistics convoys, just as the military would grind down an enemy force.

Reuters reported on May 5:

The CIA received approval to target a wider range of targets in Pakistan’s tribal areas, including low-level fighters whose identities may not be known, US officials said on Wednesday. Former intelligence officials acknowledged that in many, if not most cases, the CIA had little information about the foot soldiers killed in the strikes.

What this means is clear: the CIA is assassinating an expanding number of “low-level” people, labeling them as “fighters,” but has little if any idea of who they really are. The history of such mechanized campaigns from the air, such as Laos where I have studied the US 1964-’73 air war intensively, is that increased warfare from the air inevitably becomes increasingly indiscriminate, destroying civilian and military targets alike. As the drone program continues to expand, it will inevitably wind up killing more civilians, and, if McChrystal is right, exponentially create more people committed to killing USAians. Numerous moral, legal and ethical objections have been raised to this program of mass assassination. Philip Alston, the UN representative on extrajudicial executions, has stated:

This strongly asserted but ill-defined license to kill without accountability is not an entitlement which the US or other states can have without doing grave damage to the rules designed to protect the right to life and prevent extrajudicial executions.

The notion that a handful of US military and CIA officials have the right to unilaterally and secretly murder anyone they choose in any nation on earth, without even outside knowledge let alone oversight, is deeply troubling to anyone with a conscience, belief in democracy, or respect for international law. It was precisely such behavior that made the Gestapo and Soviet secret police symbols of evil. Since the US Congress has never reined in an Executive Branch that has routinely ignored international law since 1945, however, it is likely that the question of whether this program will be continued will be determined by its perceived effectiveness, not its morality. The evidence is mounting that US assassinations are so ineffective they are actually strengthening anti-US forces in Pakistan. Bruce Reidel, a counter-insurgency expert who coordinated the Afghan review for Obama, said:

The pressure we’ve put on them in the past year has also drawn them together, meaning that the network of alliances is growing stronger not weaker.

Reidel’s striking conclusion that jihadi forces in Pakistan are stronger after six years of drone airstrikes the CIA claims are weakening them, is echoed by numerous other reports indicating that Petraeus’ strategy of using military force against Al Qaeda, Afghan and local insurgent forces in Pakistan has pushed them further east from isolated northwest areas into major cities like Karachi, where they operate freely and work together far more closely than before. The general’s miscalculations regarding Pakistan are reason enough for him to be replaced. In the long run, Petraeus’ strategy of expanding both ground and mechanized assassination throughout the 1.3b-strong Muslim world is likely to do the greatest disservice to his country’s interests. It is true that US leaders have used local forces to assassinate tens of thousands since 1945 and that while these programs were largely ineffectual, they did not lead to attacks on US soil. But 9/11 has changed the calculus. It is clear that in today’s wired and globalized world, marked by large-scale immigration, cheap telecommunications and airline travel, where crude technologies like car bombs or IEDs can be as easily detonated in New York as in Kandahar, and where the US’s enemies are growing increasingly technologically sophisticated even as nuclear weapons proliferate and become miniaturized, it is the height of folly to foment geometrically growing anti-US hatred in the volatile Muslim world. A growing number of military and counter-insurgency experts support Kilcullen’s belief that these assassination programs abroad are not protecting USAians at home. Both the “Underwear” and the “Times Square” bombers attributed their attempts to blow up USAians to their anger at the drone strikes. While USAians were saved by their incompetence, the US may not be so lucky the next time, and the time after that. One thing is crystal clear: inflaming anti-US hatred throughout the Muslim world can only exponentially increase the numbers of those committed to killing USAians. Such fears are increasing in Washington, as the NYT reported in the wake of the Times Square bombing:

A new and disturbing question is being raised in Washington: have the stepped-up attacks in Pakistan, notably the Predator drone strikes, actually made USAians less safe? Are they inspiring more attacks on the US than they prevent? As one US intelligence official said, “Those attacks have made it personal for the Pakistani Taliban, so it’s no wonder they are beginning to think about how they can strike back at targets here.”

As Petraeus and the US military “make it personal” to increasing numbers of people throughout the Muslim world, they are recklessly sowing a whirlwind for which many of us, our children and grandchildren may well pay with our lives for decades to come. It is difficult for most USAians to grasp the fact that their leaders’ incompetence, Republican and Democrat, civilian and military, poses one of the single greatest threats to their own safety. But only when USAians do so will there be any hope of making the US more secure in the dangerous years to come. A clear place to begin protecting the US is to abandon the assassination approach to war, ditch Petraeus, end the military and CIA’s focus on worldwide and mechanized mass assassination, and halt its reckless expansion of US war-making into nuclear-armed Pakistan and so much more of the Muslim world.

We’ll intervene whenever we decide it’s in our national security interest. And if you don’t like it, lump it. Get used to it, world!
- Duane Clarridge, interviewed by John Pilger in “The War on  Democracy”

As the NYT reported, Clarridge is presently advising CIA assassination efforts in Pakistan. (“Duane R Clarridge, a profane former CIA officer who ran operations in Central America and was indicted in the Iran-contra scandal, turned up this year helping run a Pentagon-financed private spying operation in Pakistan.”) Watch an extraordinary three-minute video interview with Clarridge that reveals the true face of US policy in the Muslim world.

___________________-

Related: US-led Airstrike Kills Six Afghan Children
US 'Kill Team' Targeted Afghan Civilians

Five US soldiers are charged with deliberately targeting Afghan civilians amid growing discontent over the rising civilian causalities in the war-torn country.

The troopers allegedly killed three Afghans in Kandahar Province this year and they were charged with murder in June.

Since then US army prosecutors have also filed additional charges of conspiracy to commit premeditated murder -- a plot that allegedly began when one soldier discussed how easy it would be to "toss a grenade" at Afghan civilians, The Seattle Times reported on Thursday.

One of the soldiers had reportedly formed what has been called a "kill team" to randomly execute Afghan civilians while on petrol.'

Read more...