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#46771

From: Rick Rozoff <rwrozoff@...>
Date: Wed Sep 1, 2010 9:00 pm
Subject: Book Review: The Politics of Genocide

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Stop NATO

September 1, 2010

The Politics of Genocide
Edward S. Herman and David Peterson
Monthly Review Press, 2010
U.S. $12.95*

By Rick Rozoff

In 1895 novelist Anatole France - who in the same decade took up cudgels in defense of persecuted Armenians in the Ottoman Empire while also entering the lists on behalf of Alfred Dreyfus - wrote an essay in which he maintained that words are like coins. When freshly minted the images and inscriptions on them are clear. But by dint of constant circulation they become effaced until the outlines are blurred and the words unintelligible.

As Edward S. Herman and David Peterson write in The Politics of Genocide, "During the past several decades, the word 'genocide' has increased in frequency of use and recklessness of application, so much so that the crime of the twentieth century for which the word was originally coined often appears debased. Unchanged, however, is the huge political bias in its usage...." With their painstaking efforts to compile information and analyze the self-serving misuse of this term by the government, media and establishment academic figures of the United States and its allies, the authors have performed a valuable service to the cause of truth and of peace.

The fact that combating "genocide" has replaced confronting communism in some notably left and liberal circles as a major intellectual and moral legitimation for an enduringly aggressive and interventionist U.S. foreign policy is not fortuitous. It has been adopted to further American and allied interests in Europe and Africa in particular but with international application.

Nowhere is this more explicit than in the U.S.-based Genocide Prevention Task Force's 2008 report Preventing Genocide, where the "Save Darfur" activism of the last decade is singled out as a model for how to "build a permanent constituency for the prevention of genocide and mass atrocities."

But this shows that "Darfur has been...successfully framed as 'genocide'," the authors counter, even as "the signature Nefarious bloodbath of the early twenty-first century," and we should take the Task Force's praise of "Save Darfur" activism to mean rather that the "U.S. establishment's handling of the western Sudan (ca. 2003-2010) should serve as a model for how best to propagandize a conflict as 'genocide', and thus to mobilize elite and public opinion for action against its alleged perpetrator."

During the past two decades, the post-Cold War era, Washington has employed and exploited the word genocide in furtherance of geopolitical objectives in several strategic parts of the world. As the foreword to the volume by Noam Chomsky warns, the one-sided, nakedly partisan and frequently fact-distorting genocide stratagem not only diverts attention from genuine acts of mass killing and targeting of ethnic and other demographic groups perpetrated by the U.S., its allies and client states, but runs the risk of producing a boy who cried wolf effect, one moreover with a retroactive component.

Chomsky characterizes the authors' work as indicting a practice that since "the end of the Cold War opened the way to an era of virtual Holocaust denial." That is, as facts such as those marshaled by Herman and Peterson demonstrate, the exaggeration, distortion and even outright fabrication of genocide accusations may produce as an unintended consequence a universal scepticism on the matter, even - most alarmingly - toward the genuine article. That leveling charges of genocide against nations and governments the White House and State Department are opposed to and in parts of the world where the Pentagon is bent on deploying troops and bases occurs as World War II revisionism, neo-Nazism, and the formal rehabilitation of Nazi collaborators and even SS troops plague much of Europe is the most alarming manifestation of that disturbing phenomenon.

The U.S. has rightly been accused of practicing double standards in relation to genocide charges, condemning mass killings (alleged as well as real) in nations whose governments are not viewed favorably by Washington and its allies while ignoring, minimizing and justifying it when perpetrated by an approved government.

But it is not, as defenders of American foreign policy often state, a question of not being able to respond to every crisis or of responding to the most egregious situation first. Nor as the rapidly deteriorating Christopher Hitchens wrote in 1993 in one of his many efforts to mobilize opinion in favor of the "Bosnian cause" (by which he never meant anything beyond the Sarajevo Muslims around Alija Izetbegovic, and Hitchens' own mythic land of multiculturalism overrun by "racist" Serbs) is it a case of "making the best the enemy of the good."

Instead, as Herman and Peterson meticulously detail, it is a fixed policy of assigning cases and charges of genocide to four distinct categories, the first two applicable to the U.S. and its allies and clients, the second two to adversaries or other governments whose nations occupy space or possess resources coveted by Washington's empire-builders and U.S.-based transnational corporations.

Drawing on years of observation and analysis of international events - in Herman's case efforts extending over five decades - the authors present a four-point model for examining how the issue of genocide is viewed by the American government, the mainstream news media and a veritable battalion of "engaged" academics and handsomely funded non-governmental organizations (the latter sometimes not so non-governmental).

As they explain:

"When we ourselves commit mass-atrocity crimes, the atrocities are Constructive, our victims are unworthy of our attention and indignation, and never suffer 'genocide' at our hands - like the Iraqi Untermenschen who have died in such grotesque numbers over the past two decades. But when the perpetrator of mass-atrocity crimes is our enemy or a state targeted by us for destabilization and attack, the converse is true. Then the atrocities are Nefarious and their victims worthy of our focus, sympathy, public displays of solidarity, and calls for inquiry and punishment. Nefarious atrocities even have their own proper names reserved for them, typically associated with the places where the events occur. We can all rattle off the most notorious: Cambodia (but only under the Khmer Rouge, not in the prior years of mass killing by the United States and its allies), Iraq (but only when attributable to Saddam Hussein, not the United States), and so on - Halabja, Bosnia, Srebrenica, Rwanda, Kosovo, Račak, Darfur. Indeed, receiving such a baptism is perhaps the hallmark of the Nefarious bloodbath."

To reiterate their point: When the killing, maiming, poisoning and displacement of millions of civilians are perpetrated by the U.S. directly and in collusion with a client regime it assists, arms and advises - Indochina in the 1960s and early 1970s, Central America in the 1980s, the deaths of as many as a million Iraqis resulting from sanctions and the deliberate and systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure in the 1990s - that form of indisputable genocide is never referred to as such and instead presented by the government-media-obedient academia triad as not abhorrent and criminal but as legitimate actions in pursuit of praiseworthy policies. Constructive genocide.

Similar systematic and large-scale atrocities carried out by U.S. clients armed by Washington - Indonesia against its own people from 1965-1966 and in East Timor from 1975-1999, Israel in the Palestinian Gaza Strip and West Bank from 1967 to the present day, Rwanda and Uganda in Congo (where over five and a half million people have perished over the last twelve years), Croatia and its Operation Storm onslaught in 1995 which caused the worst permanent ethnic cleansing in Europe since World War II and its immediate aftermath - are not condemned and not even deemed regrettable, but in fact are viewed by the U.S. political establishment as Benign.

Contrariwise, though, security and military actions taken by governments not aligned with the U.S., even against armed and cross-border separatist formations, are inevitably branded as gratuitous acts of what Samuel Coleridge called motiveless malignancy: Nefarious genocide.

Related to the last category, the U.S. government and its news and NGO camp followers are not averse to inflating numbers, misattributing the cause of death and outright inventing incidents to justify the charge of genocide and what are frequently pre-planned interventions, including sanctions, embargoes, travel bans on government officials, freezing governments' financial assets abroad, funding and advising assorted "color revolutions" and ultimately bombing from 25,000 feet, beyond the range of a targeted country's air defenses. What the authors call Mythic genocide, though with quite genuine - deadly - consequences. Aesop: The boys throw rocks in jest but the frogs die in earnest.

To illustrate these basic categories, Herman and Peterson conducted exhaustive database searches for usage of the word 'genocide' by some of the major English-language print media in reference to what they call "theaters of atrocities."

The three tables they have compiled for the book are something to behold.
Table 1 is titled "Differential attributions of 'genocide' to different theaters of atrocities," and Table "Differential Use of 'Massacre' and 'Genocide' for Benign and Nefarious Atrocities;" Table 2 focuses on different aspects of Iraq specifically.

The various "theaters of atrocities" include but are not limited to Iraq, the Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the ethnic Albanians of Kosovo, the Tutsi of Rwanda, the Hutu and other peoples of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the peoples of western Sudan (Darfur).

In one of the more impressive empirical confirmations of a hypothesis readers are likely to find anywhere, the results of Herman and Peterson's database research are both predictable and appalling: In case after case, major English-language newspapers such as the New York Times and The Guardian (as well as countless others) used the word 'genocide' in a manner that would have been approved of by the State Department, linking it consistently to toponyms like Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo and Darfur, but rarely if ever to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Palestine, Afghanistan, and Iraq, whether Iraq during the "sanctions of mass destruction" era (1990-2003) or since the U.S. invasion and military occupation (from 2003 onward).

There are, in the terms introduced by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky years earlier, "worthy" and "unworthy" victims in the system of "atrocities management," and each and every victim's worthiness rises or falls depending on who's doing the killing - official enemies or we ourselves.

Again, to elaborate: The worthiness of a victim to elicit concern and support depends not on the victim himself but on the "worthiness" of the perpetrator. "Good" perpetrators - the U.S. and its allies - are eo ipso incapable of bad actions, therefore anyone on the receiving end of an American bomb or cruise missile is inherently unworthy.

Genocide, murder on a grand scale, is treated not with the urgency and gravity the subject warrants but as the theme of a near-comic book morality play. We and they, good and bad.

An analogous bias exists, the authors detail, in relation to the work of the International Criminal Court and even more so with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

The latter two are nothing other than the embodiment and institutionalization of great power victor's justice and the first is used by the U.S. against recalcitrant states on Washington's enemies list. (In the Foreword to The Politics of Genocide, Chomsky cites the Greek historian Thucydides, who placed in the mouth of an Athenian the immortal words: "you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.")

International courts doing the bidding of the U.S. and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization cohorts do not, Herman and Peterson point out, address the greatest cause of suffering brought about through human agency: Wars of aggression. Although borrowing their lexicon from the Nuremberg Principles - for example, "war crimes" and "crimes of humanity" - while adding "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing" (with the last two used all but interchangeably), Western states are highly selective and equally self-serving in their interpretation of the Nuremberg Tribunal, the model for prosecuting international crimes of violence.

Principle VI, the gist of the Nuremberg indictments, states:

The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law:

(a) Crimes against peace:

(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;

(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).

(b) War crimes:

Violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation of slave labor or for any other purpose of the civilian population of or in occupied territory; murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the Seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.

(c) Crimes against humanity:

Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhumane acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds, when such acts are done or such persecutions are carried on in execution of or in connection with any crime against peace or any war crime.

The U.S. and its Western allies, which launched three wars of aggression in less than four years (Yugoslavia in 1999, Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003) with the forced displacement of millions of civilians, have deliberately chosen to ignore the core proscription of the Nuremberg Trials, that against waging wars of aggression, "the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."

Principle VII says that "Complicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity as set forth in Principle VI is a crime under international law."

To relentlessly prosecute lesser crimes while perpetrating and abetting greater ones is the prerogative of the "world's sole military superpower" (from Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech) and its allies. Governments of small, weak countries not sufficiently toeing Washington's line are threatened with prosecution for actions occurring within and not outside their borders and the only "war crimes" trials conducted are also exclusively in response to strictly internal events. By design and selective enforcement, the new system of international law is what Balzac said of the law of his time, that it is a spider web through which the big flies pass and the little ones get caught.

Herman and Peterson have studied the above contrasts, what most often are an inversion of justice and not simply its distortion or selective implementation, in several locations: The Balkans, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Latin America, examining the most salient examples in each locale to demonstrate the unconscionable dichotomy of "good"
and bad genocides.

In one of the most penetrating sections of the book, the authors study the differential approach of the U.S. in the contexts of both space and time; that is, how the suppression of the Kurdish movement has been treated in relation to Iraq as opposed to Turkey, and in Iraq from one decade to the next depending on whether the same head of state (Saddam Hussein) was a U.S. ally or adversary at the time.

Not a matter of what is right or wrong, not even of who does what to whom, but solely one of what advances America's narrow and cynical geopolitical agenda.

Their model, however, possesses relevance to developments in other nations beyond those studied in The Politics of Genocide. Colombia, for example, and Western Sahara.

Also to Kosovo after 50,000 U.S. and NATO troops marched in eleven years ago and hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Roma (Gypsies) and other ethnic minorities were forced to flee the Serbian province.

Onslaughts against the people of South Ossetia two years ago this August by preeminent U.S. client Mikheil Saakashvili in Georgia and against the Houthi minority community in northern Yemen with military backing from Saudi Arabia and the U.S. would be examples of Benign attempts to exterminate entire peoples, to commit genocide.

During the generation following the end of the Cold War and the triumph of global neoliberalism, enough genuine problems have weighed upon humanity. With the privatization of increasingly broad sectors of former state functions and the concomitant economic dislocation of a large percentage of the population, and with the penetration of rapacious transnational financial and corporate interests, tens of millions - perhaps hundreds of millions - of people in poor countries have fled the countryside to the large cities. Millions more have attempted the desperate and often deadly migration to the global North. The last twenty years have witnessed the largest Völkerwanderung in history.

In that context competition for natural and other resources takes on a drastic intensity, and conflicts based on residual ethnic, religious and regional suspicions and strife can be too easily revived and inflamed. The potential for communal, for inter-ethnic, violence is a power keg that must not be ignited.

The willful exacerbation and exploitation of such conflicts by outside powers to achieve broader geostrategic objectives add a greater degree of peril, one of regional conflicts that could expand into wider wars and even a showdown between the U.S. and nuclear powers like Russia and China.

The 78-day bombing war waged by the U.S. and NATO against Yugoslavia in 1999 in the name of "stopping genocide," the "worst genocide since Hitler," coincided with the induction of the first former Warsaw Pact member states into the Alliance (the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland) and resulted in the building of a mammoth U.S. military base, Camp Bondsteel, in Kosovo and NATO's absorption and penetration of all of Southeastern Europe. Every country in the region but Serbia (for the time being) now has troops serving under the military bloc in Afghanistan.

The crisis in Darfur in western Sudan gave rise to NATO's first operation in Africa, the airlifting of African Union troops from 2005-2007. At the end of 2007 the first U.S. military command established outside North America since the Cold War, Africa Command, was launched.

In the same year and in the name of opposing genocide, a self-styled "March for Darfur" was held in Berkeley, California - a birthplace of the anti-Vietnam War protest movement forty years before - in which participants adapted a standard anti-war chant - "What do we want? Peace! When do we want it? Now!" - to "What do we want? NATO! When do we want it? Now!"

At the end of the day military actions, including full-fledged wars, conducted by the U.S. and NATO in part or in whole to ostensibly "end genocide" will produce more deaths, more mass-scale displacement, and more expulsion and extermination of endangered minorities as has happened over the past eleven years in Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan. More genocide. The genuine article.

Questions about the intentional and systematic extermination of a people are not to be taken lightly. Neither are they to be dealt with as yet another weapon in the arsenal of history's mightiest military power for use against defenseless adversaries. The U.S. government and its highly selective "genocide" echo chambers are adept at seeing the mote in their neighbor's eye, but are blind to the mountain of corpses produced by Washington and its proxies. Myopia passing into active complicity.

In documenting the diametrically opposite manner in which the subject of genocide is treated by the government of the United States and its apologists (acknowledged and otherwise) based on international political and economic motives, Herman and Peterson have provided a simultaneously concise and comprehensive guidebook to separating fact
from fabrication. Truth is the first casualty of war and war is in turn the offspring of falsehood. Exposing the last contributes to eroding the foundation for U.S. armed aggression and global military expansion.

*The Politics of Genocide is available from:

http://monthlyreview.org/books/politicsofgenocide.php
http://www.amazon.com/Politics-Genocide-Edward-Herman/dp/1583672125/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282965484&sr=1-3

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#46772

From: Rick Rozoff <rwrozoff@...>
Date: Wed Sep 1, 2010 9:01 pm
Subject: U.S. Afghan Death Toll Reaches All-Time Annual High

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Voice of Russia
September 1, 2010


US Afghan death toll hits record in 2010


The US death toll in Afghanistan hit a record 323 soldiers during the first 8
months of 2010 compared to 317 killed in 2009. This is the highest rate since
the beginning of the campaign in 2001. In August, NATO forces had 80 officers
and men killed, 56 of them Americans.

The overall death toll for foreign troops reached 490 in August 2010.

The losses were caused by increased activity of the Taliban insurgents.�
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#46773

From: Rick Rozoff <rwrozoff@...>
Date: Wed Sep 1, 2010 9:02 pm
Subject: NATO & Poland: Afghan War Vs. Arms Buildup In Northeast Europe

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http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/southasia/news/article_1581645.php/Afghan\
-mission-costs-hinder-Polish-army-modernization-president


Deutsche Presse-Agentur
September 1, 2010


Afghan mission costs hinder Polish army modernization: president


Brussels: Poland's participation in the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan is so
expensive that it is hampering efforts to modernize the country's armed forces,
Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski said on Wednesday, on his first visit to
NATO headquarters.

Poland is still trying to reform and modernize its armed forces some two decades
after the fall of Communism. It has 2,630 troops in Afghanistan, the
seventh-largest Western contingent in the country and by far the largest from
Central and Eastern Europe.

'The problem is that the cost of Poland's engagement in out-of-area operations
... is so significant that it is having an impact on the modernization of the
armed forces,' Komorowski said after talks with NATO Secretary General Anders
Fogh Rasmussen.

Poland therefore wants NATO to 'define a strategy for putting an end to the
military presence in Afghanistan' as soon as possible, preferably at a summit in
Lisbon on November 19-20, he said.

NATO currently has close on 120,000 soldiers in Afghanistan....The year has
already seen bloody fighting, and more casualties are expected.

That comes as NATO members are struggling to keep public support for the mission
and are facing deep cuts in their defence budgets as a result of the financial
crisis.

But despite the constant flow of casualties, 'We are making progress in
Afghanistan: today, we have cleared areas, we're holding areas where the Taliban
had control before,' Rasmussen stressed.
....
November's summit is also expected to approve a new strategic doctrine to guide
NATO's policies over the next decade.

That doctrine should focus on planning to defend NATO members against future
attacks, rather than looking at more out-of-area operations, Komorowski said.
===========================
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#46774

From: Rick Rozoff <rwrozoff@...>
Date: Wed Sep 1, 2010 9:04 pm
Subject: NATO Deploys More Bosnian Troops To Afghanistan

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News International
September 1, 2010


Bosnia to send more troops to Afghanistan


SARAJEVO: Bosnia's parliament on Wednesday approved the deployment of more
troops to Afghanistan, where it has already a small contingent of soldiers,
National Radio reported.

The decision clears the way for the planned deployment of 45 troops of
Bosnia-Hercegovina's armed forces to serve with the International Security
Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan.

The unit was expected to leave for Afghanistan in October, the report said.

Bosnia, which hopes to join NATO, sent 10 officers to serve with ISAF in 2009.

A European Union peacekeeping mission, numbering around 2,000 troops, remains in
Bosnia in the wake of its 1992-1995 war.
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#46775

From: Rick Rozoff <rwrozoff@...>
Date: Wed Sep 1, 2010 9:02 pm
Subject: South Caucasus: Several Killed In Armenian-Azerbaijani Clashes

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html


Deutsche Presse-Agentur
September 1, 2010


Several killed in fighting in volatile South Caucasus


Yerevan: The former Soviet republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan on Wednesday
blamed each other for fatal clashes in the Armenian-backed breakaway region of
Nagorno-Karabakh, with the two sides giving conflicting casualty figures.

According to Armenia, four Azerbaijani soldiers were killed in the fighting on
Tuesday. However, Azerbaijan said two of its own soldiers were killed, along
with three Armenian soldiers.

In again conflicting reports, the defence ministry of the internationally
unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh republic said only one Armenian soldier had been
injured.

The South Caucasus area was the scene of heavy clashes in June. At the time,
four Armenian soldiers were killed. Clashes resulting in deaths and injuries
have been ongoing in the region despite a 1994 ceasefire deal.

Russia recently pledged military assistance for Armenia in the event of an
attack by Azerbaijan, in the conflict that has been simmering since the Soviet
era.

Earlier, Azerbaijan had made the use of force to resolve the question of
Nagorno-Karabakh part of its official military doctrine. Under international
law, Nagorno-Karabakh belongs to Azerbaijan, but the region has been controlled
by Armenia, following a conflict that claimed 30,000 lives in the mid-1990s.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://en.apa.az/news.php?id=128929


Azeri Press Agency
September 1, 2010


Seyran Ohanyan: The protocol has strengthened Russia-Armenia political
cooperation


Yerevan: “The protocol on the extension of the term of deployment of
Russia’s military base in Gyumri meets Armenia’s interests,” Armenian
Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan told journalists, APA reports.

According to him, the document has strengthened Russia-Armenia political
cooperation.

“It creates opportunities to make resistance to the threats in future. In the
present stage structural and functional changes are being made at the Gyumri
base. After the reforms are completed, we will jointly fulfill the tasks
envisaged in the protocol,” he said.
===========================
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#46776

From: Rick Rozoff <rwrozoff@...>
Date: Wed Sep 1, 2010 9:03 pm
Subject: U.S. Warplanes Take Over NATO Baltic Patrol

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United States Air Forces in Europe
September 1, 2010


493rd EFS stands up in Lithuania
by Tech. Sgt. Chris Stagner
48th Fighter Wing Public Affairs


-"As members of NATO, we work shoulder to shoulder to support Afghanistan and
other operations," General Pocius said. "It's a strong alliance."



LITHUANIA AIR FORCE AIR BASE, Lithuania: The 493rd Expeditionary Fighter
Squadron, deployed from RAF Lakenheath, England, assumed command of the NATO
Baltic air policing mission from the Polish air force at Lithuania Air Force Air
Base on September 1, 2010.

The squadron, comprised of approximately 125 people, is responsible for ensuring
the air sovereignty of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia for the next four months.

This is the third time since 2004 the U.S. Air Force has accomplished this
mission and the second time it's been the 493rd EFS's responsibility.

"The Grim Reapers have already established a legacy of professionalism in the
Baltics, and we look forward to building upon it," said Anne Derse, U.S.
Ambassador to Lithuania. "As all warriors know, the surest way to maintain peace
is to exercise constant vigilance and rigorously prepare to meet all potential
threats. The Baltic air policing mission is just one of many facets of NATO's
vigilance and preparation. This is a mission we take seriously and take on with
pride."

The mission turnover from Poland to America is an example of the strong
relationships America has with its NATO allies.

"Our relationship with the Baltic nations has grown remarkably since the
inception of the Air policing mission," said Maj. Gen. Mark Zamzow, 3rd Air
Force vice commander.

The general went on to explain that a 2008 endeavor designed to provide complex
air policing training has since evolved with a broader scope emphasizing a wide
spectrum of air operations over Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
....
Republic of Latvia Chief of Defence Maj. Gen. Raimonds Graube emphasized the
importance of the NATO relationship that makes the air policing mission
possible.

"It's been more than six years since we started the Baltic air policing mission,
and it's an example of our solidarity [as allied partners]," he said. "It shows
we are ready to work together to support our allies."

Republic of Lithuania Chief of Defence Maj. Gen. Arvydas Pocius agreed.

"As members of NATO, we work shoulder to shoulder to support Afghanistan and
other operations," General Pocius said. "It's a strong alliance."
....
===========================
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#46777

From: Rick Rozoff <rwrozoff@...>
Date: Wed Sep 1, 2010 9:03 pm
Subject: West's Energy War: Trans-Caspian/Caucasus Oil Transit To Double

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Azeri Press Agency
September 1, 2010


Oil transportation via Kazakhstan-Azerbaijan-Georgia energy corridor to be
doubled
Nijat Mustafayev


Baku: Oil transportation via the Kazakhstan-Azerbaijan-Georgia energy corridor
will be doubled, SOCAR president Rovnag Abdullayev told APA.

According to him this issue was discussed in a meeting of delegations from
Azerbaijan, Georgia and Kazakhstan in Tbilisi. “Kazakhstan intends to extend
and change this energy corridor...in the future. The oil transportation via this
corridor will be doubled to 2 mln tons while it is 10 mln tons, now.”

He also noted that Azerbaijan would improve the railway in the country and $1
bln would be invested in development of railway in the future.
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#46778

From: Rick Rozoff <rwrozoff@...>
Date: Wed Sep 1, 2010 9:03 pm
Subject: NATO Air Strike Kills, Wounds Afghan Civilians

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Press TV
September 1, 2010


US-led strike kills more Afghan civilians


Another US-led airstrike has killed several civilians in Afghanistan's troubled
south, amid growing public discontent over such attacks.

Afghan provincial officials say at least a dozen people were also injured in the
attack, which took place in Kandahar Province on Wednesday, a press TV
correspondent reported.

NATO has yet to comment on the incident.

The incident comes after foreign troops killed three civilians and injured three
others in the southern province of Helmand.

The US-led military alliance says two women died on Tuesday during an airstrike
against alleged Taliban militants.

Another civilian was killed in a separate NATO attack in the same region.

Most of the NATO forces in Helmand are British and American service members.

Loss of civilian lives at the hands of foreign forces has caused anti-American
sentiments and deep anger among Afghans.

Thousands have taken to the streets in recent months, protesting against rising
civilian deaths by US-led forces.
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#46779

From: Rick Rozoff <rwrozoff@...>
Date: Wed Sep 1, 2010 9:04 pm
Subject: Canada: Soldiers Injured Training For Afghan War

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http://www.cbc.ca/canada/edmonton/story/2010/08/31/edmonton-soldiers-injured-wai\
nwright.html


CBC News
August 31, 2010


Soldiers hurt in Alberta training exercise


Two soldiers injured in a live-fire training exercise Monday at CFB Wainwright
are recovering in an Edmonton hospital.

The soldiers, who have been listed in stable condition, are members of the 1st
Battalion, Royal 22nd Regiment, based in Valcartier, Que.

They are part of a group of more than 3,500 involved in a training exercise in
preparation for deployment to Afghanistan.

The names of the soldiers and the type and extent of their injuries are being
withheld by the military under privacy legislation.

The incident is being investigated by the military.

CFB Wainwright is located about 200 kilometres southeast of Edmonton.
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#46780

From: Rick Rozoff <rwrozoff@...>
Date: Wed Sep 1, 2010 9:50 pm
Subject: The Anti-Empire Report

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http://killinghope.org/bblum6/aer85.html

The Anti-Empire Report

September 1st, 2010
by William Blum
www.killinghope.org

Things which don't go away. Things the American government and media don't let go of.
And neither do I.

Iraq

"They're leaving as heroes. I want them to walk home with pride in their hearts," declared Col. John Norris, the head of a US Army brigade in Iraq. ¹

It's enough to bring tears to the eyes of an American, enough to make him choke up.

Enough to make him forget.

But no American should be allowed to forget that the nation of Iraq, the society of Iraq, have been destroyed, ruined, a failed state. The Americans, beginning 1991, bombed for 12 years, with one excuse or another; then invaded, then occupied, overthrew the government, killed wantonly, tortured ... the people of that unhappy land have lost everything — their homes, their schools, their electricity, their clean water, their environment, their neighborhoods, their mosques, their archaeology, their jobs, their careers, their professionals, their state-run enterprises, their physical health, their mental health, their health care, their welfare state, their women's rights, their religious tolerance, their safety, their security, their children, their parents, their past, their present, their future, their lives ... More than half the population either dead, wounded, traumatized, in prison, internally displaced, or in foreign exile ... The air, soil, water, blood and genes drenched with depleted uranium ... the most awful birth defects ... unexploded cluster bombs lie in wait for children to pick them up ... an army of young Islamic men went to Iraq to fight the American invaders; they left the country more militant, hardened by war, to spread across the Middle East, Europe and Central Asia ... a river of blood runs alongside the Euphrates and Tigris ... through a country that may never be put back together again.

"It is a common refrain among war-weary Iraqis that things were better before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003," reported the Washington Post on May 5, 2007.

No matter ... drum roll, please ... Stand tall American GI hero! And don't even think of ever apologizing. Iraq is forced by the United States to continue paying reparations for its own invasion of Kuwait in 1990. How much will the American heroes pay the people of Iraq?

"Unhappy the land that has no heroes ...
No. Unhappy the land that needs heroes."
– Bertolt Brecht, Life of Galileo

"What we need to discover in the social realm is the moral equivalent of war; something heroic that will speak to men as universally as war does, and yet will be as compatible with their spiritual selves as war has proved to be incompatible."
– William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience

Perhaps the groundwork for that heroism already exists ... February 15, 2003, a month before the US invasion of Iraq, probably the largest protest in human history, between six and ten million protesters took to the streets of some 800 cities in nearly sixty countries across the globe.

Iraq. Love it or leave it.

PanAm 103

The British government recently warned Libya against celebrating the one-year anniversary of Scotland's release of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the Libyan who's the only person ever convicted of the 1988 blowing up of PanAm flight 103 over Scotland, which took the lives of 270 largely Americans and British. Britain's Foreign Office has declared: "On this anniversary we understand the continuing anguish that al-Megrahi's release has caused his victims both in the U.K. and the U.S. He was convicted for the worst act of terrorism in British history. Any celebration of al-Megrahi's release would be tasteless, offensive and deeply insensitive to the victims' families."

John Brennan, President Obama's counter-terrorism adviser, stated that the United States has "expressed our strong conviction" to Scottish officials that Megrahi should not remain free. Brennan criticized what he termed the "unfortunate and inappropriate and wrong decision" to allow Megrahi's return to Libya on compassionate grounds on Aug. 20, 2009 because he had cancer and was not expected to live more than about three months.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued a statement saying that the United States "continues to categorically disagree" with Scotland's decision to release Megrahi a year ago. "As we have expressed repeatedly to Scottish authorities, we maintain that Megrahi should serve out the entirety of his sentence in prison in Scotland." ² The US Senate has called for an investigation and family members of the crash victims have demanded that Megrahi's medical records be released. The Libyan's failure to die as promised has upset many people.

But how many of our wonderful leaders are upset that Abdel Baset al-Megrahi spent eight years in prison despite the fact that there was, and is, no evidence that he had anything to do with the bombing of flight 103? The Scottish court that convicted him knew he was innocent. To understand that just read their 2001 "Opinion of the Court", or read my analysis of it at killinghope.org/bblum6/panam.htm.

As to the British government being so upset about Libya celebrating Megrahi's release — keeping in mind that it strongly appears that UK oil deals with Libya played more of a role in his release than his medical condition did — we should remember that in July 1988 an American Navy ship in the Persian Gulf, the Vincennes, shot down an Iranian passenger plane, taking the lives of 290 people; i.e., more than died from flight 103. And while the Iranian people mourned their lost loved ones, the United States celebrated by handing out medals and ribbons to the captain and crew of the Vincennes. ³ The shootdown had another consequence: It inspired Iran to take revenge, which it did in December of that year, financing the operation to blow up PanAm 103 (carried out by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine –- General Command).

Why do they hate us?

Passions are flying all over the place concerning the proposed building of an Islamic cultural center and mosque two blocks from 9/11 Ground Zero in New York. Even people who are not particularly anti-Muslim think it would be in bad taste, offensive. But implicit in all the hostility is the idea that what happened on that fateful day in 2001 was a religious act, fanatic Muslims acting as Muslims attacking infidels. However — even if one accepts the official government version of 19 Muslims hijacking four airliners — the question remains: Why did they choose the targets they chose? If they wanted to kill lots of American infidels why not fly the planes into the stands of packed football or baseball stadiums in the midwest or the south? Certainly a lot less protected than the Pentagon or the financial center of downtown Manhattan. Why did they choose symbols of US military might and imperialism? Because it was not a religious act, it was a political act. It was revenge for decades of American political and military abuse in the Middle East. ⁴ It works the same all over the world. In the period of the 1950s to the 1980s in Latin America, in response to continuous hateful policies of Washington, there were countless acts of terrorism against American diplomatic and military targets as well as the offices of US corporations; nothing to do with religion.

Somehow, American leaders have to learn that their country is not exempt from history, that their actions have consequences.

Afghanistan

In their need to defend the US occupation of Afghanistan, many Americans have cited the severe oppression of women in that desperate land and would have you believe that the United States is the last great hope of those poor ladies. However, in the 1980s the United States played an indispensable role in the overthrow of a secular and relatively progressive Afghan government, one which endeavored to grant women much more freedom than they'll ever have under the current government, more perhaps than ever again. Here are some excerpts from a 1986 US Army manual on Afghanistan discussing the policies of this government concerning women: "provisions of complete freedom of choice of marriage partner, and fixation of the minimum age at marriage at 16 for women and 18 for men"; "abolished forced marriages"; "bring [women] out of seclusion, and initiate social programs"; "extensive literacy programs, especially for women"; "putting girls and boys in the same classroom"; "concerned with changing gender roles and giving women a more active role in politics". ⁵

The overthrow of this government paved the way for the coming to power of an Islamic fundamentalist regime, followed by the awful Taliban. And why did the United States in its infinite wisdom choose to do such a thing? Mainly because the Afghan government was allied with the Soviet Union and Washington wanted to draw the Russians into a hopeless military quagmire — "We now have the opportunity of giving to the Soviet Union its Vietnam War", said Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter's National Security Adviser. ⁶

The women of Afghanistan will never know how the campaign to raise them to the status of full human beings would have turned out, but this, some might argue, is but a small price to pay for a marvelous Cold War victory.

Cuba

Why does the mainstream media routinely refer to Cuba as a dictatorship? Why is it not uncommon even for people on the left to do the same? I think that many of the latter do so in the belief that to say otherwise runs the risk of not being taken seriously, largely a vestige of the Cold War when Communists all over the world were ridiculed for following Moscow's party line. But what does Cuba do or lack that makes it a dictatorship? No "free press"? Apart from the question of how free Western media is, if that's to be the standard, what would happen if Cuba announced that from now on anyone in the country could own any kind of media? How long would it be before CIA money — secret and unlimited CIA money financing all kinds of fronts in Cuba — would own or control most of the media worth owning or controlling?

Is it "free elections" that Cuba lacks? They regularly have elections at municipal, regional and national levels. Money plays virtually no role in these elections; neither does party politics, including the Communist Party, since candidates run as individuals.⁷ Again, what is the standard by which Cuban elections are to be judged? Most Americans, if they gave it any thought, might find it difficult to even imagine what a free and democratic election, without great concentrations of corporate money, would look like, or how it would operate. Would Ralph Nader finally be able to get on all 50 state ballots, take part in national television debates, and be able to match the two monopoly parties in media advertising? If that were the case, I think he'd probably win; and that's why it's not the case. Or perhaps what Cuba lacks is our marvelous "electoral college" system, where the presidential candidate with the most votes is not necessarily the winner. If we really think this system is a good example of democracy why don't we use it for local and state elections as well?

Is Cuba a dictatorship because it arrests dissidents? Thousands of anti-war and other protesters have been arrested in the United States in recent years, as in every period in American history. Many have been beaten by police and mistreated while incarcerated.

And remember: The United States is to the Cuban government like al Qaeda is to Washington, only much more powerful and much closer. Since the Cuban revolution, the United States and anti-Castro Cuban exiles in the US have inflicted upon Cuba greater damage and greater loss of life than what happened in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001. (This is documented by Cuba in a 1999 suit against the United States detailing $181.1 billion in compensation for victims: the death of 3,478 Cubans and the wounding or disabling of 2,099 others. The Cuban suit has been in the hands of the Counter-Terrorism Committee of the United Nations since 2001, a committee made up of all 15 members of the Security Council, which of course includes the United States, and which may account for the inaction on the matter.)

Cuban dissidents typically have had very close, indeed intimate, political and financial connections to American government agents. Would the US government ignore a group of Americans receiving funds from al Qaeda and engaging in repeated meetings with known members of that organization? In recent years the United States has arrested a great many people in the US and abroad solely on the basis of alleged ties to al Qaeda, with a lot less evidence to go by than Cuba has had with its dissidents' ties to the United States.

Virtually all of Cuba's "political prisoners" are such dissidents. While others may call Cuba's security policies dictatorship, I call it self-defense.⁸

The terrorist list

As casually and as routinely as calling Cuba a dictatorship, the mainstream media drops the line into news stories that "Hezbollah [or Hamas, or FARC, etc.] is considered a terrorist group by the United States", stated as matter-of-factly as saying that Hezbollah is located in Lebanon. Inclusion on the list limits an organization in various ways, such as its ability to raise funds and travel internationally. And inclusion is scarcely more than a political decision made by the US government. Who is put on or left off the State Department's terrorist list bears a strong relation to how supportive of US or Israeli policies the group is. The list, for example, never includes any of the anti-Castro Cuban groups or individuals in Florida although those people have carried out literally hundreds of terrorist acts over the past few decades, in Latin America, in the US, and in Europe. As you read this, the two men responsible for blowing up a Cuban airline in 1976, taking 73 lives,

Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada, are walking around free in the Florida sunshine. Imagine that Osama bin Laden was walking freely around the Streets of an Afghan or Pakistan city taking part in political demonstrations as Posada does in Florida. Venezuela asked the United States to extradite Posada five years ago and is still waiting.

Bosch and Posada are but two of hundreds of Latin-American terrorists who've been given haven in the United States over the years. ⁹ Various administrations, both Democrat and Republican, have also provided close support of terrorists in Kosovo, Bosnia, Iran, Iraq, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and elsewhere, including those with known connections to al Qaeda. Yet, in the grand offices of the State Department sit learned men who list Cuba as a "state sponsor of terrorism", along with Syria, Sudan and Iran. ¹⁰ That's the complete list.

Meanwhile, the five Cubans sent to Miami to monitor the anti-Castro terrorists are in their 12th year in US prisons. The Cuban government made the very foolish error of turning over to the FBI the evidence of terrorist activities gathered by the five Cubans. Instead of arresting the terrorists, the FBI arrested the five Cubans (sic).

Steroids

"Hall of Shamer: Clemens Indicted" — page one headline in large type about fabled baseball pitcher Roger Clemens charged with lying to Congress about his use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs. ¹¹ Of all the things that athletes put into their bodies to improve their health, fitness and performance, why are steroids singled out?

Doesn't taking vitamin and mineral supplements give an athlete an advantage over athletes who don't take them? Should these supplements be banned from sport competition?

Vitamin and mineral supplements are not necessarily any more "natural" than steroids, which in fact are very important in our body chemistry; among the steroids are the male and female sex hormones. Moreover, why not punish those who follow a "healthy diet" because of the advantage this may give them?

Notes

Washington Post, August 19, 2010 ^↩
Associated Press, August 21, 2010 ^↩
Newsweek, July 13, 1992 ^↩
See chapter one of Blum's book Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower^↩
US Department of the Army, Afghanistan, A Country Study (1986), pp.121, 128, 130, 223, 232 ^↩
See Brzezinski's Wikipedia entry ^↩
See Anti-Empire Report of September 25, 2006, 3rd item, for more information about the Cuban election process ^↩
For a detailed discussion of Cuba's alleged political prisoners see article 'Cuba and the Number of "Political Prisoners"', Huffington Post, August 24th 2010 ^↩
Rogue State, Chapter 9 ^↩
See State Department: www.state.gov/s/ct/c14151.htm ^↩
The Examiner (Washington, DC), August 20, 2010 ^↩
===========================
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#46781

From: Rick Rozoff <rwrozoff@...>
Date: Wed Sep 1, 2010 10:47 pm
Subject: Canada: U.S. Joint Strike Fighters Vs Russia, For NATO Use

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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/military-sees-f-35s-stealth-as-way-\
to-assert-sovereignty/article1692076/


Globe and Mail
September 1, 2010


Military sees F-35’s stealth as way to assert sovereignty
Plane’s ability to remain undetected will deter Russian bombers – or any
other adversary – from violating Canada’s airspace, head of air force says
Campbell Clark


-The F-35s can be used against any adversary that emerges over the decades, as
the aircraft will remain in service for 30 years or more after they enter
service in 2017, Gen. Deschamps said.
“Who knows 50 years from now? Who knows what the North Koreans will be up to?
The Iranians?” he said.
-The plane will also be able to provide air support for troops fighting
insurgents in a place like Afghanistan....[A]nalysts say the argument that
stealth capability is needed over Canada obscures the real reason for buying
jets that will use the same data networks that allies have: to take part in air
campaigns overseas.
No country other than Russia will be a potential threat in Canadian airspace for
decades....Russia resumed long-range flights of its Cold War-era Tupolev bombers
in 2007 in response to U.S. plans to develop a missile-defence system –
demonstrating that even if its nuclear missiles could be knocked out by a
shield, the bombers couldn’t.


Canada needs stealth fighter jets so its military can sneak up on an adversary
at the edges of domestic airspace and use that potential for surprise as a
deterrent, the head of the air force says.

Lieutenant-General André Deschamps, the chief of the air staff, responded to
critics of the government’s planned purchase of high-tech F-35 stealth
fighters by asserting that the aircraft will provide a needed capability for
defence at home, and not just for fighting air battles abroad.

“If they can’t detect us and don’t know where we are, it dramatically
changes their potential tactics. So it is a deterrent,” Gen. Deschamps said in
an interview with The Globe and Mail.

The untendered purchase of 65 F-35s to replace the existing fleet of CF-18s has
sparked criticism that at a price of $9-billion plus about $7-billion in
maintenance costs, they are more plane than Canada needs.

The Harper government has pointed to recent flights of Russian long-range
bombers near Canadian airspace in the Arctic and off the east coast –
intercepted by CF-18s – to assert the need for top-notch fighters.

Gen. Deschamps said he’s not seeking to amplify “the noise around the
Russians,” but pointed to the interceptions to argue that the F-35s will let
the Canadian Forces observe foreign planes unseen, and the potential surprise
will deter interlopers.
....
The F-35s can be used against any adversary that emerges over the decades, as
the aircraft will remain in service for 30 years or more after they enter
service in 2017, Gen. Deschamps said.

“Who knows 50 years from now? Who knows what the North Koreans will be up to?
The Iranians?” he said.

Gen. Deschamps said the F-35’s ability to operate with allies that have the
same plane – it was developed by the Joint Strike Fighter program – will be
an advantage in air battles abroad. The plane will also be able to provide air
support for troops fighting insurgents in a place like Afghanistan – if
cheaper unmanned drones aren’t available – giving Canada the “best
value” for money.

Stealth fighters are designed to be undetectable by radar, and the F-35 uses
“low-emission” communications systems with hard-to-detect signals.

But some analysts say the argument that stealth capability is needed over Canada
obscures the real reason for buying jets that will use the same data networks
that allies have: to take part in air campaigns overseas.

No country other than Russia will be a potential threat in Canadian airspace for
decades, said Philippe Lagassé, a defence analyst at the University of Ottawa.
And the only reason Russia would send a fleet through Canada’s airspace would
be to launch a nuclear war against the United States and its allies, against
which 65 fighters would be useless.

“Let’s be clear: We’re talking about the Russians here,” Mr. Lagassé
said. “And it would be thoroughly against all their national interests to ever
contemplate sending a fleet of aircraft into our airspace.”

Russia resumed long-range flights of its Cold War-era Tupolev bombers in 2007 in
response to U.S. plans to develop a missile-defence system – demonstrating
that even if its nuclear missiles could be knocked out by a shield, the bombers
couldn’t.

Stealth capability won’t assert sovereignty against the occasional long-range
Russian bomber that is intended to be seen, Mr. Lagassé said. “It doesn’t
fit with the threat environment. Let’s be frank: The real value of this
aircraft is inter-operability with allies overseas.”
===========================
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#46782

From: Rick Rozoff <rwrozoff@...>
Date: Fri Sep 3, 2010 2:18 am
Subject: Middle East Loses Trillions As U.S. Strikes Record Arms Deals

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rikes-record-arms-deals


Stop NATO
September 2, 2010


Middle East Loses Trillions As U.S. Strikes Record Arms Deals
Rick Rozoff


The Internet has provided the world with, if nothing else, instantaneous access
to news and in-depth information previously available only to governments and
think tanks. It has also allowed for the exchange of data and analyses between
groups and individuals around the globe, in part by making one tongue, English,
the language of the World Wide Web. It remains to be seen whether the keystroke
is mightier than the sword.

An illustrative case in point is an August 29 report from China's Xinhua News
Agency on a news article by Egypt's Middle East News Agency regarding a study
conducted by the Strategic Foresight Group in India. The latter, a report
published in a book entitled The Cost of Conflict in the Middle East, calculates
that conflict in the area over the last 20 years has cost the nations and people
of the region 12 trillion U.S. dollars.

The Indian report adds that the Middle East has recorded "a high record of
military expenses in the past 20 years and is considered the most armed region
in the world." [1]

The study was originally released in January of 2009 and was recently translated
into Arabic by the Institute for Peace Studies of Egypt. It estimates that in a
peaceful environment the nations of the Middle East could have achieved an
average annual growth in gross domestic product of 8 percent.

Sundeep Waslekar, president of the Strategic Foresight Group and one of the
report's authors, was quoted in January of last year saying of the region's
nations, "The choice they have to make is the choice between the danger of
devastation and the promise of peace." [2]

An account of the presentation of the report last year added that the cost of
conflict in the region is estimated at 2 percent of growth in gross domestic
product.

In regards to specific cases, it stated:

"One conclusion is that individuals in most countries are half as rich as they
would have been if peace had taken off in 1991.

"Incomes per head in Israel next year would be $44,241 with peace against a
likely $23,304. In the West Bank and Gaza Strip they would be $2,427 instead of
$1,220.

"For Iraq, income per head next year is projected at $2,375, one quarter of the
$9,681 that would have been possible without the conflicts of the past two
decades." [3]

Other sources estimate the overall rate of unemployment in the Middle East at
20-25 percent, with joblessness in nations like Lebanon and Yemen at 30 percent
or more. This despite the fact that the region has achieved one of the more
impressive successes in improving educational opportunities, measured by the
amount of years students spend in school, in the world.

The Middle East requires comprehensive regional development, but instead is
receiving billions of dollars worth of arms. The area's nations could be
spending that sum on rural and urban infrastructure, dams and reservoirs,
desalination and irrigation, forestation and fisheries, industry and
agriculture, medicine and public health, housing and information technology,
equitable integration of cities and villages, and repairing the ravages of past
wars rather than on U.S. warplanes, attack helicopters and interceptor missiles.

An American news report of a year ago revealed that, according to a U.S.-based
consultancy firm, several Middle Eastern nations are slated to spend over $100
billion on weapons in the upcoming five years. Most of those arms purchases -
"unprecedented packages" - will be by Iraq, Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United
Arab Emirates, and the "core of this arms-buying spree will undoubtedly be the
$20 billion U.S. package of weapons systems over 10 years for the six states of
the Gulf Cooperation Council - Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and
Bahrain." The expansion of American arms sales and military presence in the
Persian Gulf targets Iran in the first place.

The same feature documented plans for the U.S. to supply Egypt with a $13
billion arms package and Israel with $30 billion in weaponry over ten years, the
latter "a 25 percent increase over previous levels." [4]

A year later it was disclosed that Washington will sell $13 billion worth of
arms and military equipment to Iraq, "a huge order of tanks, ships and hardware
that U.S. officials say shows Iraqi-U.S. military ties will be tight for years
to come." A $3 billion deal for 18 F-16 Fighting Falcon multirole jet fighters
is also in the works. Iraq will become one of the largest purchasers of U.S.
weapons in the world.

According to the U.S. Army's Lieutenant General Michael Barbero, ranking
American officer in charge of training and advising Iraqi troops, such military
agreements help "build their capabilities, first and foremost; and second, it
builds our strategic relationship for the future." [5]

With 4.7 million Iraqis displaced since 2003, 2.2 million as refugees in Jordan,
Syria and other nations, and a near collapse of the nation's civilian
infrastructure since the U.S. invasion, surely there are better ways of spending
$16 billion that on American arms.

To Iraq's south, last month the U.S. announced one of the largest weapons sales
in its history: A $60 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia. The Pentagon notified
Congress of the colossal transaction which the U.S. legislative body will
approve later this month.

Over the next decade Washington will supply Saudi Arabia with F-15SA Strike
Eagle jet fighters (SA is for Saudi Advanced), 72 UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters,
60 AH-64D Apache Longbow attack helicopters, helicopter-carrying offshore patrol
vessels and upgrades for the 96 Patriot Advanced Capability-2 interceptor
missiles already stationed in the kingdom.

Last month Kuwait announced that it planned to purchase more than 200 U.S.
Patriot anti-ballistic missiles in a $900 million deal. The U.S. Defense
Department also advised Congress of that transaction, stating "Kuwait needs
these missiles to meet current and future threats of enemy air-to-ground
weapons."

The news agency which reported the above, Agence France-Presse, also provided
the following information:

"The U.S. has several military bases in Kuwait, including Camp Arifjan, one of
the biggest U.S. military facilities in the region. There are between 15,000 and
20,000 U.S. troops stationed in Kuwait." [6] The American Fifth Fleet is
headquartered in neighboring Bahrain.

The U.S. is also providing Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates with
Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missile interception batteries.

Last year Washington approved the transfer of a Terminal High Altitude Air
Defense (THAAD) missile shield system to the United Arab Emirates. The deal,
estimated to cost $7 billion, is the first transfer of the advanced interceptor
missiles outside the U.S.

In May the Barack Obama administration requested $205 million from Congress for
the Israeli Iron Dome layered interceptor missile shield, in the words of a
Pentagon spokesman "the first direct U.S. investment in the Iron Dome system."
[7]

In the autumn of 2008 the U.S. opened an interceptor missile radar base in
Israel's Negev Desert centered on a Forward-Based X-Band Radar with a range of
2,900 miles.

This August 15 Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak announced his country is to
receive - one can't say buy - 20 U.S. F-35 Joint Strike Fighters worth $96
million apiece along with spare parts, maintenance and simulators. "The $2.7
billion deal will be paid for using U. S. military assistance." [8] The fifth
generation stealth warplanes are the world's most advanced. According to Israeli
government sources in reference to the prospect of eventual deployment of
Russian air defenses to Iran and Syria, "the purchase of F-35 fighters would
effectively eliminate the threat from Russian-made S-300 air defense systems
because a series of computer simulations had clearly demonstrated that new U.S.
stealth fighters outperform the Russian missiles."

This year the State Department confirmed that $2.55 billion in U.S. military
assistance was given to Israel in 2009 and that the figure will "increase to $3
billion in 2012, and will total $3.15 billion a year from 2013 to 2018." [9]
That is, will grow by almost 25 percent.

Since the administration of Jimmy Carter and his National Security Advisor
Zbigniew Brzezinski bought off Anwar Sadat and through him Egypt in 1978 at the
expense of Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and other Arab states, Washington has
provided Cairo with $1.3 billion a year in military aid, adding up to $50
billion by 2008.

In January of this year General David Petraeus, then head of U.S. Central
Command and now in charge of 150,000 American and NATO troops in Afghanistan,
visited Yemen and called for more than doubling military aid to the strife-torn
nation from $70 to $150 million annually. He was later forced to retract his
comments, but the Wall Street Journal reported on September 2 that "The U.S.
military's Central Command has proposed pumping as much as $1.2 billion over
five years into building up Yemen's security forces." The United Nations
Statistics Division estimated Yemeni gross national income per capita for 2008
at $1,260.

The U.S. has launched several missile strikes inside Yemen over the past nine
months and "U.S. Special Operations teams...play an expansive role in the
country." [10] Funding for what the Pentagon describes as a counterterrorism
program in the country has grown from $5 million a year in fiscal year 2006 to
over $155 million four years later.

Washington is planning to add unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) equipped with
lethal missiles operated by the Central Intelligence Agency to its operations in
Yemen, replicating the same arrangement in Pakistan.

After the so-called Cedar Revolution in Lebanon in 2005 - modeled after
comparable "color revolutions" in the former Soviet states of Georgia, Ukraine
and Kyrgyzstan in 2003, 2004 and 2005 respectively - led to the withdrawal of
Syrian troops from the country and the installation of pro-Western Fouad Siniora
as prime minister, the U.S. reestablished military contacts with Lebanon, which
had been broken off after 1983. A dozen U.S. military officials travelled to
Beirut at the end of the year, inspecting bases as part of a "comprehensive
assessment of the condition of U.S.-made equipment in the Lebanon armed forces."
[11]

After the Israeli invasion of the country the following summer, Washington
started military aid to the nation of four million people which two years later
had exceeded $410 million. According to an Associated Press account in 2008,
"The [George W. Bush] administration has spent about $1.3 billion in the past
two years trying to prop up Siniora's Western-allied government, including about
$400 million in military aid." [12]

On October 6, 2008 the U.S. established a joint military commission with Lebanon
"to bolster military cooperation."

The, by Lebanese standards, unprecedented donations of arms and military
equipment by the Pentagon were explicitly for internal use - against Hezbollah -
and for deployment at the Syrian border. Not for defending the nation against
the country that had invaded it in 1978, 1983 and 2006 - Israel.

On August 2 of this year, a day before two Lebanese soldiers were killed in a
firefight with Israeli troops on Lebanese territory, Congressman Howard Berman,
chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, blocked a $100 million security
assistance package to the Lebanese military. There should be no
misunderstanding: The Pentagon has not built up the armed forces of post-"Cedar"
Lebanon to defend the nation, its people or even the army itself.

The sum blocked by Berman, added to that already provided by the Pentagon, well
exceeds half a billion dollars. That amount of money would go a long way in
alleviating the suffering of 900,000 Lebanese displaced and in rebuilding some
of the 30,000 housing units destroyed by the Israeli military in 2006.

Weapons are the most expensive of manufactured goods and the least productive,
generating no value and designed only to destroy and kill. They are not produced
solely or primarily to be displayed in parades or at air shows.

The Middle East is that part of the world that has known the least peace in the
past 60 years and that is in most need of it. Regional disputes - over land and
borders, over water and other resources - need to be resolved in a
non-antagonistic manner.

The foreign and national security policies of the region's states need to be
demilitarized. Disarmament of both conventional and nuclear forces is
imperative.

Washington pouring over $100 billion in news arms into the Middle East will not
contribute to the safety and security of its inhabitants. It will not benefit
the nations of the region. In truth not a single one of them.


1) Xinhua News Agency, August 29, 2010
2) Reuters, January 23, 2009
3) Ibid
4) United Press International, August 25, 2009
5) USA TODAY, August 31, 2010
6) Agence France-Press, September 1, 2010
7) Reuters, May 13, 2010
8) Russian Information Agency Novosti, August 15, 2010
9) Reuters, May 13, 2010
10) Wall Street Journal, September 2, 2010
11) Chicago Tribune, March 2, 2006
12) Associated Press, May 14, 2008

===========================
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#46783

From: "ANTIC.org-SNN" <mantic@...>
Date: Thu Sep 2, 2010 11:14 pm
Subject: NATO may open counterterrorist center in Tajikistan

minimaks

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NATO may open counterterrorist center in Tajikistan

NATO may establish a counterterrorism center in Tajikistan, NATO Secretary General's special representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia, Robert Simmons, said on Tuesday following talks with the Tajik leader Emomali Rakhmon. Simmons did not specify a location, but it is no secret that Moscow takes a negative view toward any expanding Western military presence in its sphere of influence, which includes Tajikistan. Experts say that if NATO troops start arriving at the airport Aini, which is located near the town of Gissar, 25 kilometers from Dushanbe, it could strain relations between the alliance and Russia.

Robert Simmons made his sudden announcement on Tuesday right after his meeting with Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon. He did not specify a location. Furthermore, according to reports from other news agencies, the NATO official had in mind a Central Asian country other than Tajikistan.

But on Wednesday, Robert Blake, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, who visited Dushanbe in Robert Simmons' wake and also had talks with Rakhmon, hastened to deny possible rumors about U.S. troops appearing in Tajikistan. Following the talks, the diplomat said the United States had no plans to set up a military base in Tajikistan.

Meanwhile, Moscow points to the increased attention being shown by NATO countries and the U.S. in Central Asia. "Missions and training centers are used as a way for the U.S. and its allies to establish their presence in other countries," said Dmitry Rogozin, Russia's NATO envoy. "Reports of possible NATO training centers from nearly every Central Asian republic continue to reach Moscow.. But these reports need verification." The Russian Foreign Ministry said it has no information in which of the region's countries NATO is interested.

Andrei Grozin, head of the Central Asia and Kazakhstan department at the Institute of CIS Countries, believes that if the alliance opts for Tajikistan as a base for a counterterrorist center, the most likely places for NATO counterterrorism fighters to appear are Kulyab and the military airfield at Aini near Gissar not far from Dushanbe. It is also true that Moscow has long shown interest in the facility. The Tajik government even promised to allow Russian pilots in as long ago as 2004.

However, the expert thinks any conflict over Aini between Russia and NATO is unlikely. "NATO appears to have no desire to step on Russia's toes. Moscow's calm response to Simmons' words also confirms this. What's more, the impression is that Moscow and Washington have already divided up Central Asia between themselves relative to a possible presence there," Grozin believes.

Vzglyad

http://en.rian.ru/papers/20100902/160439262.html

Reply | Messages in this Topic (1)

#46784

From: Rick Rozoff <rwrozoff@...>
Date: Fri Sep 3, 2010 2:20 am
Subject: Pentagon Chief Pays Unannounced Visit To Afghnistan

rwrozoff

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http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2010-09/02/c_13475562.htm


Xinhua News Agency
September 2, 2010


U.S. defense secretary on surprise visit to Kabul�


KABUL, Afghanistan: U.S. Defense Secretary Gates arrived in Afghanistan's
capital Kabul on Thursday for an unannounced visit.

He is expected to meet with President Hamid Karzai and top U.S. and NATO-led
troops commander Gen. David Petraeus.

Gates flew to Kabul from Baghdad, where he participated in ceremonies marking
the formal close of the U.S. combat mission in Iraq.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/US-Defense-Secretary-in-Afghanistan-10205315\
3.html


Voice of America News
September 2, 2010


US Defense Secretary in Afghanistan


U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is in Afghanistan for meetings with
President Hamid Karzai and the commander of NATO forces in the country, U.S.
General David Petraeus.

Gates arrived in Kabul Thursday from Baghdad, where he attended ceremonies
Wednesday marking the end of the U.S. military's seven-year combat mission in
Iraq.

U.S. President Barack Obama said Tuesday the drawdown of U.S. forces in Iraq has
freed up resources to go on the offense against insurgents trying to topple the
Karzai government.

Mr. Obama said he will start a transition to Afghan security responsibility next
August.�But, he added the pace of U.S. troop reductions in Afghanistan will be
determined by "conditions on the ground."

NATO says the latest fighting in Afghanistan has killed two American soldiers
and a Taliban commander.

The alliance says the U.S. soldiers were killed Thursday in separate attacks in
eastern and southern Afghanistan, regions where Taliban militants are
strongest.� This week has been deadly for U.S. troops with a spate of militant
attacks, killing at least 21 since Saturday.
....
In August, Taliban militants killed 80 international troops, 56 of them
Americans, while NATO said combined forces killed 160 militants and detained
more than 500 others.

Some information for this report was provided by AP, and AFP.
===========================
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#46785

From: Rick Rozoff <rwrozoff@...>
Date: Fri Sep 3, 2010 2:22 am
Subject: More NATO Tankers Destroyed In Baluchistan

rwrozoff

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http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010%5C09%5C02%5Cstory_2-9-2010_pg\
7_10


Daily Times
September 2, 2010


2 NATO tankers set on fire in Balochistan


QUETTA: Two more NATO tankers were attacked in two separate incidents in Mastung
and Khuzdar on Wednesday.

According to sources, a tanker, carrying logistics support for NATO forces
stationed in Afghanistan, was heading towards Kandahar from Karachi when some
unidentified armed men opened fired on it on the national highway in Mastung.

Resultantly, the driver received bullet wounds and the assailants managed to
escape from the scene.

Separately in Wadh, unidentified men intercepted a NATO tanker and took the
driver and the cleaner hostage at gunpoint. The attackers sprinkled petrol on
the tanker and set it on fire.

Local police are investigating into the matter. Attacks on NATO supply
containers are consistently being carried out in Balochistan for the past 10
days. No arrest has been made so far in this regard.
===========================
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#46786

From: Rick Rozoff <rwrozoff@...>
Date: Fri Sep 3, 2010 2:21 am
Subject: NATO Bombs Afghan Election Campaign Workers, Kills 10

rwrozoff

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http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5joBmfjpagAVjwdMZPfPhqOrgNjgA


Agence France-Presse
September 2, 2010


NATO air strike kills 10 civilians: Afghan president


KABUL: Ten Afghan civilians were killed Thursday in a NATO air strike on three
vehicles carrying election campaign workers in northern Afghanistan, President
Hamid Karzai said in a statement.

Karzai strongly condemned the incident in his statement, confirming earlier
reports of an air strike that killed election workers in Takhar province.

"Three vehicles carrying the members of a parliamentary election candidate's
team was targeted by NATO aircraft twice while travelling towards the Kiwan area
in Rustaq district of Takhar province this morning, during which 10 campaign
members were martyred (killed) and two others injured," the statement from the
presidential palace said.

"In the war on terror, pro-democracy people should be distinguished from those
who fight against democracy," the statement quoted Karzai as saying.

"President Karzai once again emphasised that air strikes over Afghan villages
will achieve nothing in the war on terrorism but the killing of Afghan
civilians," it said.

Officials said earlier that 10 election campaigners had been killed in an air
strike by international forces in the relatively peaceful north of the country.
....
Two other people, including a candidate in the September 18 parliamentary
elections, were injured in the alleged air raid in Rustaq district, Takhar
provincial government spokesman Faiz Mohammad Tawhedi told AFP.

The men were travelling in a "caravan" of vehicles when they were attacked by
"aircraft and helicopter gunships," he said.

The election campaigners were working for parliamentary candidate Abdul Wahed
Khurasani, who had survived the bombing with injuries, he said.

NATO has around 150,000 troops in Afghanistan to fight a Taliban-led insurgency.

The international force has been responsible for scores of civilian deaths, many
of them killed during air raids aimed against insurgents.

A recent UN report said about 20 percent of the more than 1,300 civilians killed
in the first half of the year lost their lives in NATO and other pro-government
troops' actions, with most of the rest killed by militants.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://en.rian.ru/world/20100902/160439616.html



Russian Information Agency Novosti
September 2, 2010


Six killed as NATO jets attack election rally in Afghanistan


Kabul: Six people were killed and more than 10 were injured on Thursday when
NATO aviation mistakenly attacked an election rally in the country's north,
local officials said.
....
Neither NATO, nor the International Security Assistance Force's commanders have
commented.

Accidental attacks by NATO aviation on civilians are common in Afghanistan, and
are a major cause behind growing resentment at the presence of foreign troops.

Elections to the Afghan parliament's lower house, Wolesi Jirga, will take place
on September 18. The polls were initially scheduled to be held in January, but
were then postponed because of "security concerns, logistical problems, and
insufficient funds."

A total of 2.577 candidates, including 405 women, are expected to run.
===========================
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#46787

From: Rick Rozoff <rwrozoff@...>
Date: Fri Sep 3, 2010 2:21 am
Subject: NATO Involved In Deaths Of More Afghan Civilians

rwrozoff

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http://english.ruvr.ru/2010/09/02/18405044.html


Voice of Russia
September 2, 2010



Civilians die in Afghan fighting


At least 5 civilians were killed and 12 injured during a Nato-led operation in
the province of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.

Regional authorities and representatives of coalition forces have launched a
joint investigation into the incident.

Four civilians, two women among them, were killed in two separate incidents in
the Helmand province on Wednesday.

In the first case, the civilians happened to come under fire in a skirmish
between NATO troops and Talibs.

In the second incident, a car driven by local Afghans allegedly approached a
NATO convoy too closely.
===========================
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#46788

From: Rick Rozoff <rwrozoff@...>
Date: Fri Sep 3, 2010 2:22 am
Subject: NATO Loses Soldier In Eastern Afghanistan

rwrozoff

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http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2010-09/02/c_13475216.htm


Xinhua News Agency
September 2, 2010


Taliban attack claims NATO soldier life in E. Afghanistan�


KABUL: Another soldier of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force
(ISAF) was killed in Taliban-linked activities on Thursday, bringing the number
of the alliance' casualties to two since Wednesday, a press release of the
alliance said.

"An International Security Assistance Force service member died following an
insurgent attack in eastern Afghanistan today," the press release said.

Nevertheless, it did not identify the nationality of the soldier, saying it is
ISAF policy to defer casualty identification procedures to the relevant national
authorities.

Mostly troops from the U.S. are stationed in east Afghanistan.

More than 480 NATO soldiers, the majority of them Americans, have been killed in
Afghanistan since the beginning of this year.

Over 140,000-strong NATO-led ISAF forces, theh majority of them Americans, have
been deployed in Afghanistan....
===========================
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#46789

From: Rick Rozoff <rwrozoff@...>
Date: Fri Sep 3, 2010 3:04 am
Subject: Poland Hands NATO Baltic Air Patrol Over To U.S.

rwrozoff

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http://www.defpro.com/news/details/18005/


Defence Professionals
September 2, 2010


Air contingents conducting NATO Baltic Air-policing mission rotation


On September 1 Air Contingents deployed on the Baltic Air-policing mission
rotated in a ceremony is Siauliai Airbase of the Lithuanian Air Force. The
outgoing shift of Polish troops was replaced on the mission by a US Air
Contingent with four F-15 C Eagle. F-15 and MiG-29 scrambled for a demonstration
flight during the ceremony.

The USA will be in charge of the Baltic Air-policing mission for a third time.
The country provided F-16 Fighting Falcons to guard Baltic airspace on
October-December of 2005, and F-15 C Eagles on October 2008.

The incoming US rotation consists of over 120 personnel - pilots, technicians,
medical personnel, logistic teams, communications specialists, etc. - the
majority of which comes from a permanent deployment location in the United
Kingdom, RAF Lakenheath. It is a second deployment on the QRA Baltic
Air-policing mission for troops coming from the US Air Forces in Europe, 48th
Fighter Wing, 493rd Fighter Squadron; they were deployed for the first time
before two years. US Contingent will be under the command of Lt Col Skip Pribyl,
commander of the 493rd Fighter Squadron.

Chief of Defence of the Lithuania Maj Gen Arvydas Pocius, US Ambassador in
Lithuania HE Anne Elizabeth, Commander Lithuanian Air Force Brig Gen Arturas
Leita, Chief of Defence of Latvia Maj Gen Raimonds Graube, Maj Gen Mark R.
Zamzow is the Vice Commander, 3rd Air Force, Ramstein Air Base, Chief of Support
Centre, Polish Operations Command Adm (R) Adam Mazurek, Chief of Staff - Deputy
Commander of the Polish Air Force Brig Gen Slawomir Kaluzinski, Commander of the
Lithuanian Air Force's Airbase Lt Col Virginijus Steponavicius, Commander of
AMari Airbase of the Estonian Air Force Lt Col Roman Timofejev, Vice Mayor of
Siauliai City Daiva Matoniene, representatives of Poland's and US embassies and
military attach�s in Lithuania were present in the changeover ceremony.

The ceremony was also attended by the Adjutant General of the US Pennsylvania
National Guard Maj Gen Jessica Lynn Wright on a visit in Lithuania from August
31 to September 4.

In the event outgoing Polish Air Contingent were bestowed with awards, Commander
of the Polish Air Contingent handed over the symbolic key to the Baltic airspace
to the US Air Contingent's commander.

The Polish Air Contingent guarded Baltic skies with four MiG-29s. Poland had
deployed around 100 personnel to conduct the mission. The unit was led by Lt Col
Robert Kozak. The unit scrambled MiG-29 for training events for over 80
times....

NATO countries began sending their air contingents to ensure the security of the
Baltic skies since March 2004 when the three Baltic States entered NATO.

The mission has been conducted on a three-month rotation basis by Belgian,
Danish, United Kingdom's, Norway's, Dutch, German, US, and Polish troops since
then; in spring of 2006 four-month duty period was introduced and Turkey, Spain,
Belgium, and France took part in the mission in a sequence till present. The
Romanian Air Force participated in the mission for the period of three months;
the mission of the Portuguese Air Force lasted for a month and a half, whereas
the Norwegian, Polish, German and the USA personnel served in the Baltic States
for the duration covering three months each. The later detachments of the
Danish, Czech, German, French and Polish Air Force participated in the mission
for four months. The present USA Air Force contingent will also serve four
months. The US Contingent will guard Baltic airspace with single-seat fighters
F-15 C Eagle. F-15 C Eagle is highly maneuverable tactical fighters for aerial
warfare capable of reaching
  ultrasonic speed and conducting tasks under any weather conditions.
===========================
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#46790

From: Rick Rozoff <rwrozoff@...>
Date: Fri Sep 3, 2010 3:06 am
Subject: Now Full NATO Member, Albania's Military Revamped By Pentagon

rwrozoff

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http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/world/breakingnews/albania-getting-3-coast-guar\
d-patrol-boats-from-the-us-102089508.html


Associated Press
September 2, 2010


Albania getting 3 coast guard patrol boats from the US


TIRANA, Albania: Albania says the United States has given it three coast guard
patrol boats to help in its fight against terrorism, organized crime and illegal
trafficking.

Albania's defence ministry says the first three vessels have already been handed
over, while two more will arrive next year. The ministry statement Thursday said
the US Coast Guard has trained Albanian crews to use the craft, which are worth
a total €4.13 million ($5.3 million).

Former Communist Albania joined NATO last year, and the U.S. has been a main
backer of efforts to reform the small Balkan country's military.
===========================
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#46791

From: Rick Rozoff <rwrozoff@...>
Date: Fri Sep 3, 2010 3:14 am
Subject: Arctic: U.S. Raptors, Strike Eagles In Air Warfare Drills

rwrozoff

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http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123220352


United States Air Force
American Forces Press Service
September 2, 2010


Airmen train in Arctic Circle
by 2nd Lt. David Liapis
366th Fighter Wing Public Affairs


MOUNTAIN HOME AIR FORCE BASE, Idaho: More than 200 Airmen from here arrived at
Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, Aug. 20 and 21 to participate in an
exercise with some of the Air Force's most advanced operational fighter
squadrons.

The 209 members of the 391st Fighter Squadron and aircraft maintenance unit will
spend approximately three weeks in Alaska, flying with F-22 Raptors from JB
Elmendorf's 90th FS and the 525th FS. The Idaho-based unit will play the
aggressor and also work on the integration of two different generations of
aircraft.

"We will not just be supporting the (F-22s), but rather (we) will be working
toward the effective integration of the F-15E (Strike Eagle) with a
fifth-generation fighter," said Lt. Col. Brian McCarthy, the 391st FS commander.

In addition to the integration mission, 391st Airmen will be flying "red air"
(flying as aggressors) against the F-22s just as Mountain Home's 389th FS has
done for the Raptors from Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla., for the past few weeks
at Mountain Home AFB, Idaho.

The Airmen from Mountain Home AFB will have the opportunity to engage in
air-to-air strafing while flying near the Arctic Circle, said Capt. Raymond
Rounds, a pilot from the 391st FS.  The Airmen also will get to fly "blue air",
flying as partners, with the F-22s against F-16 Fighting Falcon "aggressors"
from the 354th Fighter Wing from Eielson AFB, Alaska.,
....
===========================
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#46792

From: Rick Rozoff <rwrozoff@...>
Date: Fri Sep 3, 2010 10:16 pm
Subject: Wisconsin: NATO Holds First U.S. International Afghan War Air Drills

rwrozoff

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http://www.rr10.ac-ramstein.de/


North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe
September 2, 2010


Exercise Ramstein Rover 2010


Volk Field Air National Guard Base Camp Douglas, Wisconsin, and nearby training
facilities will host the first international exercise training NATO Forward Air
Controllers (FACs) in the US from 21 August to 3 September 2010.

Exercise Ramstein Rover 2010 (RR10) is an advanced training opportunity to
exercise Close Air Support (CAS), FAC and Joint Terminal Attack Controller
(JTAC) capabilities. It is conducted in close coordination with the Volk Field
Combat Readiness Training Centre (CRTC) in a synthetic, but realistic scenario.
Hosted by the United States of America, the training audience is composed of
NATO member nations Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany,
Greece, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovenia and the United Kingdom.

Exercise participants of RR10 are provided training that ensures effective
employment of airpower in support of own forces....RR10 also prepares NATO
FACs/JTACs for their deployment to NATO’s ISAF mission in Afghanistan.

Training objectives include, but are not limited to: control of fighter aircraft
in the execution of CAS; maintain training currency and develop FAC skills;
introduce and practise convoy procedures and use spot maps and aerial
photographs, and ; observe effect of live ordnance. Training will include
state-of-the-art FAC technology like the ROVER V ground terminal.

“With NATO’s approach ‘train as you operate’ we ensure best training and
exercise opportunities during RR 10 for Air-Land Integration (ALI) elements and
facilities in theatre-realistic scenarios,” says the Exercise Director Colonel
Rob Redanz, USA AF, head of the HQ AC Ramstein ISAF Branch overseeing the FAC
Capability Branch (FCB), “about 40 trainees and 15 FAC instructors will
participate in RR10. During the exercise’s nine fly days, Air National Guard
(ANG) F-16, B-1 and A-10 aircraft as well as ANG KC-135 tanker aircraft,
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and rotary-wing assets will portray the air
dimension.”

HQ AC Ramstein FCB has prepared the exercise. The FCB has been working the
standardization of NATO’s FACs/JTACs and, using this process, has accredited
several FAC training facilities.

The 25-strong HQ AC Ramstein team deploying to Volk Field is supported by staff
from Allied Command Transformation, Norfolk, Virginia, Joint Force Command
Brunssum, the Netherlands, NATO Communications and Information Systems Service
Agency (NCSA) Squadrons Ramstein and Norfolk, the Air Support Operations Centre
(ASOC), Salisbury, Great Britain, and the 111th Air Support Operations Squadron
(ASOS), Camp Murray, Washington.
===========================
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#46793

From: Rick Rozoff <rwrozoff@...>
Date: Fri Sep 3, 2010 10:16 pm
Subject: War Games: Advanced U.S. Submarine In First Japanese Visit

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http://www.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_id=55770


Navy NewsStand
September 3, 2010


USS Hawaii Arrives in Yokosuka
By Lt. Lara Bollinger, Commander Submarine Group 7 Public Affairs


YOKOSUKA, Japan: Virginia-class fast attack submarine USS Hawaii (SSN 776)
arrived at Yokosuka Naval Station in Yokosuka, Japan, Sept. 3, marking the very
first time in U.S. 7th Fleet's history that a Virginia-class submarine visited
the region.

With a crew of approximately 130, Hawaii is on its first Western Pacific
deployment.

The boat's scheduled deployment will give Hawaii's crew the opportunity to
conduct a multitude of missions and showcase the latest capabilities of the
submarine fleet.
....
Measuring 377 feet long and weighing 7,800 tons when submerged, Hawaii is one of
the Navy's newest and most technologically sophisticated submarines. The
state-of-the-art submarine is capable of supporting a multitude of missions,
including anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface ship warfare, strike, naval
special warfare involving special operations forces, intelligence, surveillance
and reconnaissance, irregular warfare and mine warfare.
===========================
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#46794

From: Rick Rozoff <rwrozoff@...>
Date: Fri Sep 3, 2010 10:15 pm
Subject: U.S. Leads Joint Anti-Submarine Warfare Exercises In Yellow Sea

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http://www.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_id=55773


Navy NewsStand
September 3, 2010


US, ROK to Conduct Anti-Submarine Warfare Exercise
From Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Korea Public Affairs


YONGSAN GARRISON, Seoul: Republic of Korea (ROK) and U.S. forces will conduct an
anti-submarine warfare (ASW) exercise in the waters west of the Korean Peninsula
from Sept. 5-9.

This exercise is the second in a series of combined exercises that...enhance
interoperability and are designed to send a clear message of deterrence to North
Korea, while improving overall alliance ASW capabilities.

Participating units from the U.S. Navy include the guided missile destroyers USS
Curtis D. Wilbur (DDG 54) and USS Fitzgerald (DDG 62) and the ocean surveillance
ship USNS Victorious (T-AGOS 19). Assets also include a fast attack submarine
and P-3C Orion aircraft from Patrol Squadron (VP) 9. Curtis D. Wilbur and
Fitzgerald are forward deployed to Yokosuka, Japan, and VP-9 is homeported at
Kaneohoe Marine Corps Base in Hawaii.

Participating units from the ROK Navy include two destroyers, a fast frigate, a
patrol craft, P-3C aircraft from Carrier Air Wing 6 and a ROK submarine.

The ASW exercise will focus on ASW tactics, techniques and procedures. The first
exercise in this series, Combined Naval and Air Readiness Exercise "Invincible
Spirit," was conducted in the seas east of the Korean Peninsula from July 25-28.
===========================
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#46795

From: Rick Rozoff <rwrozoff@...>
Date: Fri Sep 3, 2010 10:14 pm
Subject: Obama, NATO Chief To Meet At White House

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http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jG_8LEv4up7Cm5V5crs1Tpwwk8sgD9\
I0LRNG0


Associated Pres
September 3, 2010


Obama, NATO secretary-general to meet next Tuesday


WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama plans to meet at the White House next week
with NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs says the visit is part of Obama's ongoing
consultations with allies. The two leaders are expected to discuss NATO's role
in Europe and Afghanistan, as well preparations for a NATO summit in Lisbon,
Portugal, in November.
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#46796

From: Rick Rozoff <rwrozoff@...>
Date: Fri Sep 3, 2010 10:17 pm
Subject: U.S. Missile Strikes Kill Ten In Pakistan

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http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\09\04\story_4-9-2010_pg1_7


Associated Press
September 3, 2010


US missiles kill seven in North Waziristan


DERA ISMAIL KHAN: Two US missile strikes killed seven people in the country’s
Tribal Areas on Friday.

In the first strike, Pakistani officials said suspected US missiles killed five
people in a tribal region near the Afghan border.

The two intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they
were not authorised to release the information to the media, said three missiles
hit a house in a village near Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan, on
Friday evening.

They said the identity of the slain could not be ascertained....

In the second missile strike two people were killed. The officials said they
believe both men slain in the vehicle in the village of Dattakhel in North
Waziristan were foreign militants.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/141089.html


Press TV
September 3, 2010


US drone attacks kill 10 in Pakistan


Two US drone attacks have killed at least ten people in Pakistan's northwestern
tribal region amid growing discontent over climbing number of civilian
casualties.

Security officials say the first strike hit a compound near Miranshah, the main
town in North Waziristan district.

The missiles landed in an area where mainly Afghan refugees live. The identity
of those killed is yet unknown.

"A US drone fired two missile on a house used by militants at a compound; six
militants have been killed and three wounded in this attack" AFP quoted a
regional security official as saying.

The second attack targeted a car travelling through a small town some 30
kilometers east of Miranshah.

"US drones fired three missiles at the car, killing at least four militants
inside the car," the official added

The US has carried out numerous such attacks on Pakistan's tribal areas.

The aerial raids, initiated by former US President George W. Bush, have been
escalated under President Barack Obama.

Washington claims the strikes target militants. However, the attacks, conducted
by CIA in coordination with the Pentagon, have reportedly killed hundreds of
civilians in Pakistan since 2008.

Islamabad has repeatedly condemned the attacks, saying they violate Pakistan's
sovereignty.

The issue of civilian casualties has strained relations between Islamabad and
Washington with the Pakistani government repeatedly objecting to the attacks.
===========================
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#46798

From: Rick Rozoff <rwrozoff@...>
Date: Fri Sep 3, 2010 10:17 pm
Subject: Stop NATO articles 151-160

rwrozoff

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Middle East Loses Trillions As U.S. Strikes Record Arms Deals
September 2, 2010
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/09/03/middle-east-loses-trillions-as-u-s-st\
rikes-record-arms-deals

Book Review: The Politics Of Genocide
September 1, 2010
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/09/01/book-review-the-politics-of-genocide

Afghanistan: North Atlantic Military Bloc's Ten-Year War In South Asia
August 31, 2010
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/08/31/afghanistan-north-atlantic-military-b\
locs-ten-year-war-in-south-asia

Canada Opens Arctic To NATO, Plans Massive Weapons Buildup
August 29, 2010
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/08/29/canada-opens-arctic-to-nato-plans-mas\
sive-weapons-buildup/

Pentagon's New Global Military Partner: Sweden
August 25, 2010
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/08/25/2380

U.S. Marshals Military Might To Challenge Asian Century
August 21, 2010
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/08/21/u-s-marshals-military-might-to-challe\
nge-asian-century

U.S. Global Strategy: Defeating Potential Challengers In Eurasia
August 19, 2010
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/08/19/2353

Part II: U.S.-China Crisis: Beyond Words To Confrontation
August 17, 2010
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/08/17/part-ii-u-s-china-crisis-beyond-words\
-toward-confrontation

U.S.-China Conflict: From War Of Words To Talk Of War, Part I
August 15, 2010
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/08/15/u-s-china-conflict-from-war-of-words-\
to-talk-of-war-part-i/

Iraq: NATO Assists In Building New Middle East Proxy Army
August 13, 2010
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/08/14/iraq-nato-assists-in-building-new-mid\
dle-east-proxy-army/
===========================
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==============================

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#46799

From: Romi Elnagar <bluesapphire48@...>
Date: Fri Sep 3, 2010 7:40 pm
Subject: Document Reveals Military Was Concerned About Gulf War Vets' Exposure to Depleted Uranium

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Document Reveals Military Was Concerned About Gulf War Vets' Exposure to Depleted Uranium

Wednesday 28 July 2010

by: Mike Ludwig, t r u t h o u t | Report

(Photo: John Out and About / Flickr)

For years, the government has denied that depleted uranium (DU), a radioactive toxic waste left over from nuclear fission and added to munitions used in the Persian Gulf and Iraq wars, poisoned Iraqi civilians and veterans.

But a little-known 1993 Defense Department document written by then-Brigadier Gen. Eric Shinseki, now the secretary for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), shows that the Pentagon was concerned about DU contamination and the agency had ordered medical testing on all personnel that were exposed to the toxic substance.

Shinseki's memo, under the subject line, "Review of Draft to Congress - Health and Environmental Consequences of Depleted Uranium in the U.S. Army -- Action Memorandum," makes some small revisions to the details of these three orders from the DoD:

1. Provide adequate training for personnel who may come in contact with DU contaminated equipment.

2. Complete medical testing of all personnel exposed to DU in the Persian Gulf War.

3. Develop a plan for DU contaminated equipment recovery during future operations.

The VA, however, never conducted the medical tests, which may have deprived hundreds of thousands of veterans from receiving medical care to treat cancer and other diseases that result from exposure to DU.

The Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center recently reported that ten years of data confirm that service members tend to have higher rates of certain cancers compared to civilians, according to the Army Times. While researchers suspected that service members are diagnosed with cancer more often and at a younger age because they have guaranteed access to health care and mandatory exams, the data does not explain the disparities in diagnosis among branches of the military. For example, the rate of lung cancer among sailors is twice that of other branches, while Marines have much lower cancer rates across the board.

On Tuesday, the VA's ongoing failure to treat and diagnose Gulf War related illnesses came up during a House Veterans Affairs subcommittee hearing where a veterans advocacy group urged Shinseki to undertake comprehensive research on the correlation between chronic illness and exposure to DU in munitions during the Gulf War.

Armed with Shinseki's August 19, 1993 memo, Veterans for Common Sense (VCS), said the VA, and Shinseki in particular, have "a rare opportunity for a second chance."

"In military terms, VCS asks VA for a ceasefire," said Paul Sullivan, the executive director for VCS. "VCS urges VA leadership to stop and listen to our veterans before time runs out, as VA is killing veterans slowly with bureaucratic delays and mismanaged research that prevent us from receiving treatments or benefits in a timely manner."

Sullivan, himself a Gulf War veteran, told the subcommittee that the VA has refused to listen to scientists and veterans who are concerned about DU, leaving thousands of veterans suffering from chronic illnesses related to the conflict unsure if they will ever receive a solid diagnosis to justify the benefits and treatment they need.

Of the 697,000 men and woman who served in Gulf War operations Desert Storm and Desert Shield between 1990 and 1991, about 250,000 suffer from symptoms collectively known as "Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses." The symptoms include fatigue, weakness, gastrointestinal problems, cognitive dysfunction, sleep disturbances, persistent headaches, skin rashes, respiratory conditions and mood changes, according to the VA.

The VCS also petitioned Shinseki to investigate the 2009 termination of a $75 million research project on Gulf War illnesses at the University of Texas medical center. Last year the VCS filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for records of the "internal sabotage" of Gulf War Veterans Illnesses research and the intentional delaying of research and treatment, according to Sullivan. The VA has yet to release any documents about the impeded research, and VCS filed a FOIA appeal on June 29.

Sullivan said the VCS simply wants the government to support independent testing on veterans exposed to DU, but the Department of Defense prefers a "don't look, don't find policy."

"As a Gulf War veteran, I have watched too many of my friends die without answers, without treatment, and without benefits," Sullivan said. "In a few cases, veterans completed suicide due to Gulf War illness and the frustration of dealing with VA."

Sullivan testified as disturbing reports have emerged in recent months from Fallujah, Iraq, about the skyrocketing rates of birth defects and cancer, which are being blamed on DU-laced bombs and munitions used by US and British forces during a brutal coalition assault on the city in 2004. Iraqi human rights officials are reportedly planning to file a lawsuit.

Don’t miss a beat - get Truthout Daily Email Updates. Click here to sign up for free.

DU is a dense metal added to munitions and bombs to pierce tanks and armor, and the military seems to chose unrestricted use of the radioactive substance over its soldiers' safety. Sullivan told Truthout that original medical tests ordered in a 1993 memo, which also called for personnel to be trained in dealing with contaminated equipment, were canceled after a training video scared soldiers.

"It was pulled after [the training video] was seen by some soldiers who became upset when they saw soldiers in moon suits holding Geiger counters, and the military realized that the training could present a problem in the battlefield where soldiers need to disregard exposure issues while trying to kill the enemy," Sullivan said.

Sullivan said that the DU "follow-up" program the VA consistently references was inadequate as it consisted of sporadic studies on only a small fraction of estimated 400,000 veterans exposed to the radioactive heavy metal.

"The VA does not listen to expert scientists. The VA does not even listen to Congress," Sullivan said in his testimony. "Two decades of inaction have already passed. Gulf War veterans urgently want to avoid the four decades of endless suffering endured by our Vietnam War veterans exposed to Agent Orange."

Sullivan said it took 40 years and an act of Congress to fund and sanction independent studies that proved the VA was responsible for providing benefits to soldier suffering from Agent Orange-related diseases.

The VA now recognizes that exposure to Agent Orange, an herbicide sprayed across Vietnam to kill foliage and expose guerrilla fighters, has plagued veterans with several deadly diseases and disorders.

VCS also advocated for the research on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that became the foundation of new PTSD rules, making it easier for veterans to receive benefits.

Last week, the VA announced $2.8 million worth of research on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses, a sum Sullivan called "paltry." A VA press release announcing the research does not mention DU. The release references a recent Institute of Medicine report that identified the quarter million veterans affected by various symptoms associated with Gulf War illness, which "cannot be ascribed to any psychiatric disorder and likely result from genetic and environmental factors, although the data are not strong enough to draw conclusions about specific causes."

Popular medical science holds that kidney damage is the primary health problem associated with exposure to high amounts of DU. The heavy metal is 60 percent as radioactive as natural uranium, and is also linked to lung cancer in some cases and leukemia in even fewer cases, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Some critics have claimed that the WHO and governments have suppressed links between DU and cancer.

The debate over the use of DU in conventional warfare will rage on as the Fallujah fallout continues, but according to Sullivan, there is only one way for thousands of Gulf War veterans at home to know the truth and receive the relief they deserve.

"After 20 years of waiting, we refuse to wait on more empty promises from VA. The first step is for Secretary Shinseki and Chief of Staff Gingrich to immediately clean house of VA bureaucrats who have so utterly and miserably failed our veterans for too long," said Sullivan, vowing to petition Congress if the VA refuses to respond. "Our waiting must end now."

http://www.truth-out.org/document-reveals-military-was-concerned-about-gulf-war-vets-exposure-depleted-uranium61781

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#46800

From: Rick Rozoff <rwrozoff@...>
Date: Fri Sep 3, 2010 10:40 pm
Subject: Condoleezza Rice To Visit Georgia

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http://rustavi2.com/news/news_text.php?id_news=38480&pg=1&im=main&ct=0&wth=


Rustavi 2
September 2, 2010


John Bass confirms visit of former state secretary to Georgia


The ambassador of the United States to Georgia, John Bass, has said the informal
visit of the former state secretary Condoleezza Rice to Georgia is very
important. Because it emphasizes the significance of ongoing reforms in the
country.

Mrs. Rice will arrive together with other prominent politicians in Georgia on
September 6, 2010. A cruise ship will arrive in Batumi and the guests will
attend attend a symposium dedicated to discussion of the issues of global
challenges. The ambassador abstained from speaking about other details of the
visit.

`Former Secretary Rice is making a private visit as part of a cruise through the
Black Sea. I am afraid I don`t have the details about that because it is a
private visit,` John Bass said.
===========================
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#46801

From: Rick Rozoff <rwrozoff@...>
Date: Fri Sep 3, 2010 10:47 pm
Subject: Trial Balloon: Report Proposes Russia's Integration Into NATO

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http://www.interfax.com/newsinf.asp?id=187068


Interfax
September 3, 2010


Kremlin-sponsored think tank draws up report proposing Russia's integration into
NATO


MOSCOW: The Institute of Contemporary Development (INSOR), a leading Russian
think tank, has drawn up a report outlining positive scenarios of development of
relations between Moscow and NATO, including Russia's accession to the alliance.

A report referred to by www.gazeta.ru, which, according to its information, had
been passed to the presidential secretariat, identifies such scenarios as
Russia's institutional integration into the alliance (INSOR for the first time
allowed for such a possibility in its February report entitled 'The Image of
Desirable Tomorrow'), 'an alliance with the alliance', which implies Russia's
accession to NATO based on a bilateral strategic security treaty, and the
establishment of a coordinating council of international organizations.

"An alliance option could be integrated in a new treaty on European security
already proposed by Medvedev," the website quoted INSOR chairman Igor Yurgens as
saying.

Integration with NATO could be pursued within a coordinating council that could
consolidate not only NATO but also other international organizations, such as
the European Union, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), and the
Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Alexander Nikitin, a professor at the
Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) and co-author of the
report, told www.gazeta.ru.

"Among other steps that could be taken in the near future, Nikitin talks about
transition to practical interaction on the Afghan-Tajik border region and joint
training of peacekeeping operations (he mentions the international community's
helplessness in preventing ethnic massacre in Kyrgyzstan earlier this year,
despite the fact that CSTO and NATO military units were stationed near the
confrontation center," it says.

The article quoted Yurgens as saying that, "in writing the report, we proceeded
from the feeling that the president is prepared for closer relations with the
West. We will try to stir the audience."

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is the chairman of the INSOR supervisory
board.
===========================
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Yahoo! Groups

Breaking News Visit Yahoo! News for the latest.

The Yahoo! Groups Product Blog

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Messages

The Anti-Empire Report

Things which don't go away. Things the American government and media don't let go of.And neither do I.

Iraq

PanAm 103

Why do they hate us?

Afghanistan

Cuba

The terrorist list

Steroids

Notes

Document Reveals Military Was Concerned About Gulf War Vets' Exposure to Depleted Uranium

Things which don't go away. Things the American government and media don't let go of.
And neither do I.