Friday, January 8, 2010

High-Level CIA Officers: "Reform" of Intelligence Agencies Has Made It MORE DIFFICULT to Stop Terrorism


Two former high-level CIA officers have said that the government's recent "reform" of the intelligence services has made it more difficult to fight terrorism.

Specifically, Jack Rice - a former CIA field officer - told Keith Olbermann yesterday that the Bush administration's reforms of the intelligence community have made it more difficult to prevent terrorist operations.

Rice says that the creation of the National Counterterrorism Center and the office of the Director of National Intelligence in the years after the 9/11 attacks means that information is being shuffled around too many different offices and agencies.

"The problem with that is sometimes you may not get the context of that information," Rice said. "So they only get pieces of it. When you break this up into so many moving parts -- and there are already incredible numbers of moving parts -- you sort of misunderstand how the entire process works. So now they're having to cobble it back together, and try to come up with an answer, and they're still failing at that."

And Ray McGovern - a 27-year CIA veteran, who chaired National Intelligence Estimates and personally delivered intelligence briefings to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, their Vice Presidents, Secretaries of State, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and many other senior government officials - says the same thing.

As McGovern wrote Wednesday:

The creation of the post of Director of National Intelligence, the National Counterterrorism Center, and the 170,000-person Department of Homeland Security was the mother of all misguided panaceas.

Bear in mind that the general election of 2004 was just a few months away when the 9/11 report was published, and lawmakers and administration functionaries desperately needed to be seen to be DOING SOMETHING. And, as is almost always the case in such circumstances, they made things considerably worse.

The 9/11 Commissioners had been fretting over the fact that, in their words, "No one was in charge of coordination among intelligence agencies." That was true, but only because George Tenet much preferred to cavort with foreign potentates and thugs, than to do the job of Director of Central Intelligence (DCI).

It was not a systemic problem, but one of personal irresponsibility. Ignoring that, a new systemic "solution" was sought, and implemented, where none was needed.
By law, the Director of Central Intelligence was responsible precisely for coordinating the work of the entire intelligence community, as the principal intelligence adviser to the President (National Security Act of 1947).

This, indeed, was the main reason why Truman created the Central Intelligence Agency and not only put the DCI in charge of the CIA but also gave the DCI wider--and equally important intelligence community-wide responsibilities.

The idea was to prevent another Pearl Harbor, where bits and pieces of intelligence lay around with the code-breakers, the Navy, the Army Air Corps, the FBI, Embassy Tokyo, the people monitoring Radio Tokyo, etc., etc. with no central
place where analysts could be in receipt of and consider all the evidence. It was abundantly clear to Truman that, had there been such a place in 1941, adequate forewarning of the Japanese attack would have been a no-brainer.

As for the situation obtaining in the Washington bureaucracies in mid-2004, the following personal vignette, I believe, speaks volumes: On July 22, the day the 9/11 Commission Report was issued, BBC TV had scheduled me for comment on it, just minutes after its release, at the BBC bureau in Washington. During my ten minutes before the camera I focused mostly on the curious fact that NO ONE, NO ONE, NOT ONE SOLITARY SOUL WAS BEING HELD ACCOUNTABLE!

As I left the TV studio for the outer room, in walked 9/11 Commissioners Jamie Gorelick and former Senator Slade Gorton (R, Washington) to present their own commentary to BBC viewers. Gorelick went right into the studio; I took advantage
of being one-on-one with Sen. Gorton.

"Sen. Gorton," I asked, "I don't quite understand all this talk alleging that "No one is in charge of the intelligence community." You are surely aware that, by act of Congress, there is such a person, and right now that happens to be Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet."

The avuncular Gorton tiptoed up to me, put his right hand around my shoulder, and with a conspiratorial whisper said, "Yes, Ray, Of course I know that. We all know that. But George would not take charge; he would not do what he was supposed to." ...

The new Director of National Intelligence? This position, created by the post -9/11 "reforms," was/is totally unnecessary--and counterproductive. This was entirely predictable. As my former CIA colleague Mel Goodman has written, the DNI superstructure has actually been very destructive of good intelligence" in more ways than I have space to go into here...

The fact that no National Intelligence Estimate has been completed on Afghanistan and Pakistan, for example, is, at this stage, unconscionable. Were Generals David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal able to head off an NIE, lest its conclusions brand their plans for Afghanistan the "march of folly" that it is?

Ever since President Truman set up the CIA, the preparation of a National Intelligence Estimate has been de rigueur before important the President would make important decisions on foreign, and particularly military, policies. Was the new layer-laden intelligence bureaucracy unable to get its act together in time to give this customary support to the President?

The National Counterterrorism Center?

Also unnecessary; a benighted idea. The recent attempt by Mr. Abdulmutallab to bring down a Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines flight speaks volumes about the NCTC's effectiveness and the kind of leadership exercised by John Brennan--a clone of George Tenet.

We are told that Brennan is supposed to coordinate things at the National Security Council...or is Director of National Intelligence Admiral Blair supposed to do that?".or Panetta? ...or the Janet Napolitano, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security? ...or maybe the FBI?""" Ugh...

As for the Department of Homeland Security"just look, if you will, at what has happened to the Secret Service and to the Transportation Security Administration--not to mention FEMA and Katrina. Double ugh.



Print this post
2 comments

Nice Work Creating New Terrorists, You Morons


American civilian and military leaders have been creating new terrorists through their:

(1) Use of torture

and

(2) Killing of innocent civilians- especially children - in Arabic countries.

Torture

A high-level American Special Ops interrogator says that information obtained from torture is unreliable, and that torture just creates more terrorists. Indeed, he says that torture of innocent Iraqis by Americans is the main reason that foreign fighters started fighting against Americans in Iraq in the first place.

A former FBI interrogator -- who interrogated Al Qaeda suspects -- says categorically that torture does not help collect intelligence. On the other hand he says that torture actually turns people into terrorists.

A 30-year veteran of CIA’s operations directorate who rose to the most senior managerial ranks, says:
"This is not just because the old hands overwhelmingly believe that torture doesn’t work — it doesn’t — but also because they know that torture creates more terrorists and fosters more acts of terror than it could possibly neutralize.”
Former counter-terrorism czar Richard A. Clarke says that America's indefinite detention without trial and abuse of prisoners is a leading Al Qaeda recruiting tool.

A former U.S. interrogator and counterintelligence agent, and Afghanistan veteran said,
Torture puts our troops in danger, torture makes our troops less safe, torture creates terrorists. It’s used so widely as a propaganda tool now in Afghanistan. All too often, detainees have pamphlets on them, depicting what happened at Guantanamo.
The Senate Armed Services Committee unanimously found:
"The administration’s policies concerning [torture] and the resulting controversies ... strengthened the hand of our enemies."
Two professors of political science have demonstrated that torture increases, rather than decreases, terrorism.

Killing of Innocent Civilians

The former number 2 counter-terrorism expert at the State Department says that military attacks in Iraq increase terrorism.

Indeed, Al Qaeda wasn't even in Iraq until the U.S. invaded that country.

After the U.S. military allegedly handcuffed and then killed a bunch of Afghan kids, thousands of Afghans are protesting the brutal killings, chanting 'Death to America!' (and see this).

Nice work creating new terrorists, you morons.

Anyone who thinks this is a partisan issue should read this and this.

In related news, not only are the U.S. government's actions creating more terrorists, but "reforms" made to the intelligence agencies have made it MORE DIFFICULT to stop the terrorists they've created.

Idiots.



Print this post
18 comments

Thursday, January 7, 2010

We've Become a Government "Of  The Bankers, By The Bankers, And For The Bankers"


Huffington Post editor Roy Sekoff told Ed Schultz today:

"[The government has become] "Of the bankers, for the bankers, and by the bankers."

I agree, and said the same thing in February.


Print this post
7 comments

How Long Will the Cold-Snap Last?


The following sample of stories from the past year show that much of the world has been experiencing a cold spell:

  • Across the South, Midwest, and Eastern seaboard [of the United States], a stubborn “arctic outbreak," tacked onto an already cold return to work for many Americans, augurs what meteorologist at AccuWeather.com are calling “the coldest winter in many people’s memory.”

Highs Versus Lows

On the other hand, the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder argues that - while there have been numerous record lows - there have been more record highs than lows in the past decade, and that the ratio of record highs to record lows has actually increased. See this, this, this and this.

Short-Term Aberration, Or Change in Climate Trend?

Are the current spate of record lows just a short-term aberration, or a change in climate trends?

Those defending the C02 global warming theory argue, of course, that short-term weather fluctuations are irrelevant, and that the long-term trend is runaway warming.

But on Tuesday, the New York Times' Andrew Revkin presented a less simplistic yet still mainstream view of the issue:

A big driver of the outbreaks of record cold and snow in many spots around the Northern Hemisphere is ... the Arctic Oscillation, a pattern of atmospheric pressure that has two phases, positive and negative (somewhat like the more familiar cycle of El Niño and La Niña in the Pacific). A strong negative or positive condition can powerfully influence weather around the northern half of the globe and the behavior of sea ice on the Arctic Ocean.

The blue dot shows an extraordinary negative plunge of the index in December, taking it below any such reading since at least 1950 ...

The head of the Beijing Meteorological Bureau asserted that global warming was behind unusual atmospheric patterns (a heap of climate scientists I queried saw no such link). Blogs of those variously called climate realists/skeptics/deniers are hammering on the chilly conditions, presumably in hopes of fending off a new push to close out the climate bill in the Senate.

John Michael Wallace of the University of Washington, one of the climate scientists who first identified the seesaw patterns of pressure around the North Pole and northern mid-latitudes, told me that the steep drop at the moment is likely to be transitory rather than a sign of a new trend in the Northern Hemisphere pressure cycle.

Overall, federal forecasters have said that the warming influence of a persistent El Niño warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean is likely to be a bigger driver of conditions through the full course of this winter ...

Michelle L’Heureux, a meteorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center, told me there’s simply no explanation for what drives such extremes in the Arctic Oscillation, which she described as both a potent driver of northern latitude conditions and one of the least predictable, and understood, patterns in the atmosphere.

In other words, the mainstream view is that the Arctic Oscillation is driving the cold whether, no one knows what causes the Arctic Oscillation to switch on or off, but it will likely be short-term.

Top Climate Scientists Disagree

One of the leading climate modelers in the world - Professor Mojib Latif of Germany's Leibniz Institute - disagrees. Professor Latif is the recipient of several international climate-study prizes and a lead author for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) who has contributed significantly to the IPCC's last two five-year reports that have stated unequivocally that man-made greenhouse emissions are causing the planet to warm dangerously.

Specifically, Latif thinks that the cold temperatures could last a decade or two.

In case you didn't catch it, Latif made a presentation in September which addressed the cooling trend:

Yet last week in Geneva, at the UN's World Climate Conference--an annual gathering of the so-called "scientific consensus" on man-made climate change --Latif conceded the Earth has not warmed for nearly a decade and that we are likely entering "one or even two decades during which temperatures cool."

The global warming theory has been based all along on the idea that the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans would absorb much of the greenhouse warming caused by a rise in man-made carbon dioxide, then they would let off that heat and warm the atmosphere and the land.

But as Latif pointed out, the Atlantic, and particularly the North Atlantic, has been cooling instead. And it looks set to continue a cooling phase for 10 to 20 more years.

"How much?" he wondered before the assembled delegates. "The jury is still out."

And see this.

Latif believes that after several decades of cooling, then global warming will kick in.

Other climate scientists predict longer periods of cooling. For example, Professor Don Easterbrook from Western Washington University says:

The PDO cool mode has replaced the warm mode in the Pacific Ocean, virtually assuring us of about 30 years of global cooling.
And professor Qing-Bin Lu University of Waterloo argues in a peer-reviewed paper that we will have 50 years of cooling.

Who Is Right?

So who's right?

I have no idea. But - for now - I'm freezing my tail off.

Note: New evidence shows that ice ages can start faster than scientists previously believed - perhaps in a matter of months. See this and this.

That raises an interesting question: even if we are projected to have C02-induced global warming in the future, will the current cold snap - if it continues for another year or so - change the long-term climate trend?



Print this post
10 comments

American Intelligence Knew That That Al Qaeda In Yemen Was Training A Nigerian Named "Umar Farouk" To Carry Out An Attack


The chairman (Tom Keane) and chief counsel (John Farmer) of the the 9/11 Commission wrote an op-ed in the New York Times Tuesday stating:

Others in the intelligence community, according to [White House counterterrorism director John] Brennan, were aware that Al Qaeda in Yemen was training a Nigerian, perhaps named Umar Farouk, to carry out an attack.

Given that the crotch bomber's name is Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, wouldn't that have warranted a little attention?

Nah ... checking names is too obvious a way to prevent terrorism. Instead, let's take away whatever remaining constitutional rights we have and start a couple of new wars.



Print this post
1 comments

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Campaign to Move Money From Giant Banks to Community Banks Is Going Viral


Arianna Huffington and Rob Johnson's campaign for people to move their money from the giant "too big to fail" banks to local community banks and credit unions is quickly going viral.

Numerous financial writers have endorsed the campaign, including:

Keith Olbermann and other commentators have also endorsed it.

As Gary North correctly writes at libertarian website LewRockwell.com:

The protest is neither Right wing nor Left wing.
Indeed. Polls show that both liberals and conservatives are furious that the big banks are calling the shots and that the giant banks are running amok with the backing of the taxpayers. That's why the campaign is going viral.

Moving our money will let us all - left and right - vote with our wallets and regain some control over our economy and our finances.


Print this post
21 comments

Stoner: North Pole Is "Moving Really Fast"


The headline is intentionally goofy, but the science is real.

In 2005, National Geographic wrote:

New research shows the (North magnetic) pole moving at rapid clip—25 miles (40 kilometers) a year.

Over the past century the pole has moved 685 miles (1,100 kilometers) from Arctic Canada toward Siberia, says Joe Stoner, a paleomagnetist at Oregon State University.

At its current rate the pole could move to Siberia within the next half-century, Stoner said.

"It's moving really fast," he said. "We're seeing something that hasn't happened for at least 500 years."

Stoner presented his team's research at the American Geophysical Union's meeting last week in San Francisco.

Lorne McKee, a geomagnetic scientist at Natural Resources Canada, says that Stoner's data fits his own readings.

"The movement of the pole definitely appears to be accelerating," he said.

The shift is likely a normal oscillation of the Earth's magnetic field, Stoner said, and not the beginning of a flip-flop of the north and south magnetic poles, a phenomenon that last occurred 780,000 years ago.

National Geographic now points out that the pole is shifting at the rate of 40 miles, instead of 25 miles, per year.

Print this post
4 comments

Does Lockerbie Parallel 9/11?


As AFP notes:

A BBC investigation has cast doubt on key evidence in the case against the Libyan convicted of blowing up a US jet over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988, the broadcaster said Wednesday.

A tiny fragment of the timer allegedly used to blow up Pan Am flight 103 -- crucial in linking Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi to the bomb -- was not properly tested and was also unlikely to have survived the explosion, it said...

According to the BBC's Newsnight programme, the fragment of the timer -- found embedded in a charred piece of clothing three weeks after the bombing -- was never tested to confirm if it had actually been in a blast.

Anyone who's watched a tv detective show knows that crooked police officers sometimes plant false evidence in order to frame an innocent person for the crime (and see this video).

Or police sometimes plant false evidence to convict someone who really is a criminal, just to strengthen the case.

In that light, remember that Seymour Hersh - the Pulitzer prize-winning reporter who uncovered the Iraq prison torture scandal and the My Lai massacre in Vietnam - wrote:

Many of the investigators believe that some of the initial clues that were uncovered about the [9/11] terrorists' identities and preparations, such as flight manuals, were meant to be found. A former high-level intelligence official told me, "Whatever trail was left was left deliberately -- for the F.B.I. to chase".

And see this.

In addition, the passport from one of the 9/11 hijackers was found a couple of blocks from the Twin Towers. But the passport-owner's hijacked plane was almost completely lodged in the building's core.

The government stated that the areas inside the Twin Towers where planes crashed were infernos so hot that they caused the collapse of the massive steel cores in the center of the towers. Indeed, the New York Times points out:

A combination of an uncontrolled fire and the structural damage might have been able to bring the building [World Trade Center building 7] down, some engineers said. But that would not explain steel members in the debris pile that appear to have been partly evaporated in extraordinarily high temperatures
(pay-per-view). Note that evaporation means conversion from a liquid to a gas; so the steel beams in building 7 were subjected to temperatures high enough to melt and evaporate them.

There is also substantial eyewitness evidence by fireman, engineers, hazardous waste experts and others that the World Trade Center had molten metal under the basement for many weeks after 9/11, despite a torrent of water pouring on ground zero.*

If the timer fragment couldn't have survived the Lockerbie explosion, a paper passport couldn't have survived the catastrophic destruction of the Twin Towers.

Of course, if the passport was ejected from the plane prior to explosions and fire, then it might have survived. But it would be quite a coincidence.

I'm not addressing whether or not the hijackers are the only people guilty for pulling off 9/11. I'm simply asking whether evidence was planted in the ruins of 9/11 to make sure that the hijackers were found guilty?

* Here's a partial list:
  • A rescue worker "crawled through an opening and down crumpled stairwells to the subway"
  • See also witness statements at the beginning of this video.

Print this post
1 comments

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

What Do the Pending Home Sale Numbers Mean?


The report released today by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) on pending home sales shows that housing is down:



Associated Press notes that the housing market may be headed for a "double-dip" downturn over the winter, and that the report "adds to worries industry is mostly propped up by government stimulus".

Remember that pending home sales figures are based on contracts which have been written, but have not yet closed. As NAR notes:
The Pending Home Sales Index [is] a forward-looking indicator based on contracts signed ...
NAR explains:
  • Our sample shows that over 80% of all pending home sales go to settlement within a 2-month time-period (and a significant share of the rest close in month 3 and month 4).
  • Not all pending home sales go to closing. A certain percentage of properties that go under contract are cancelled (or fallout) before ever going to settlement.
Given that the big banks have substantially tightened up on lending, it might be that less than 80% of the low number of current pending home sales will end up actually closing.

No wonder the New York Times wrote yesterday, even before the new pending home sales report was released:
When it comes, a lasting recovery will be evident in a housing rebound. Unfortunately, housing appears to be weakening anew ...

We wish we could proclaim a Happy New Year in housing. But until more is done to help struggling homeowners, the portents are not good.

2 comments

Barton Biggs: 1 in 10 Chance of Anarchy in the U.S.


Today, Paul Farrell quoted Barton Biggs as predicting the breakdown of civilization and anarchy:

In his 2008 bestseller "Wealth, War and Wisdom" former Morgan Stanley research guru Barton Biggs warns us to prepare for a "breakdown of civilization ... Your safe haven must be self-sufficient and capable of growing some kind of food ... It should be well-stocked with seed, fertilizer, canned food, wine, medicine, clothes, etc ... A few rounds over the approaching brigands' heads would probably be a compelling persuader that there are easier farms to pillage." Biggs sounds like an anarchist militiaman.

I haven't read Wealth, War and Wisdom, and I wanted to find out what Biggs is actually forecasting for the U.S.

I found a recent (December 15th) interview in which Biggs gives specifics:

Is what’s happening now in Dubai and Greece, for example, a canary in the coal mine? In Greece, there is real chaos and anarchy, with mobs on the street. If Dubai goes down the drain, there’s going to be serious trouble, because they have a million or so imported workers from third-world countries. They are working their butts off, and they have been cheated for years, in terms of what they are paid and their food allowances. There are going to be real problems there.

You can make the case that it is not inconceivable that the barbarians could be at the gate in Europe, Japan and the US. It’s one chance in ten that’s going to happen but, as a person with wealth, you must ask what type of insurance to take out against that ...

It sounds simplistic, but there’s nothing the matter with having some kind of self-sufficient farm that is not close to the big cities. It sounds almost stupid, but it sure paid off in occupied Europe during World War II. I don’t think periods of anarchy are going to last a long time in countries like the US. But could we have four or five months of anarchy? I think there’s one chance in ten that could happen.
Marc Faber also recommends buying a farm. And many experts and officials have warned of economic crisis-induced unrest.




Print this post
60 comments

Krugman: American Economy Will Not Recover for a Long Time

Last week, Pimco's CEO said that he doesn't think we'll have a v-shaped recovery, and that economists, advisors and managers who have been counting on a v-shaped recovery are ignoring the economic fundamentals in our economy.

Now, Paul Krugman is agreeing:

Plunging prices of houses and CDOs ... don’t produce any corresponding macroeconomic silver lining. ... This suggests that we’re unlikely to see a phoenix-like recovery from the current slump. How long should recovery be expected to take?

Well, there aren’t many useful historical models. But the example that comes closest to the situation facing the United States today is that of Japan after its late-80s bubble burst, leaving serious debt problems behind. And a maximum-likelihood estimate of how long it will take to recover, based on the Japanese example, is ... forever. OK, strictly speaking it’s 18 years, since that’s how long it has been since the Japanese bubble burst, and Japan has never really escaped from its deflationary trap.

This line of thought explains why I’m skeptical about the optimism that’s widespread right now about recovery prospects. The main argument behind this optimism seems to be that in the past, big downturns in the world’s major economies have been followed by fast recoveries. But past downturns had very different causes, and there’s no good reason to regard them as good precedents


Print this post
4 comments

"This Time, It Is Not The Usual Suspects Such As Brazil And Mexico Who Are In the Worst Positions. Instead, It Is the Industrialized Nations"


There have been a slew of articles recently on the risk of sovereign defaults.

The threat of sovereign defaults is not surprising. In fact, BIS - the world's most prestigious financial agency, nicknamed the "central banks' central bank" - warned in December 2008 that the bailouts and other bank rescue programs were putting nations were transferring risks from private companies to nations.

As I noted at the time:

BIS points out in a new report that the bank rescue packages have transferred significant risks onto government balance sheets, which is reflected in the corresponding widening of sovereign credit default swaps:

The scope and magnitude of the bank rescue packages also meant that significant risks had been transferred onto government balance sheets. This was particularly apparent in the market for CDS referencing sovereigns involved either in large individual bank rescues or in broad-based support packages for the financial sector, including the United States. While such CDS were thinly traded prior to the announced rescue packages, spreads widened suddenly on increased demand for credit protection, while corresponding financial sector spreads tightened.
In other words, by assuming huge portions of the risk from banks trading in toxic derivatives, and by spending trillions that they don't have, central banks have put their countries at risk from default.

While sovereign credit default swap spreads narrowed for a while after the BIS report, they are starting to widen again. See this, this, this and this.

So who cares whether Dubai, Iceland or Bulgaria default on their debt?

It might not be such a small economy which goes down in flames.

As Mitu Gulati notes :

At some point, sovereign borrowing inevitably reaches a level at which repayment becomes difficult (especially when the private sector bailouts don’t work). That point was perhaps reached roughly a month ago when Dubai had a default (it was corporate debt, but of a corporate entity where the government was a major holder). That produced concerns about the viability of other nations and the ratings downgrades of the debt of other nations (Greece being the most prominent).


All of this has produced much concern about whether the world is on the brink of another major financial crisis, this time with sovereigns. And if the sovereigns default, there is no one to bail them out (except perhaps the IMF, but it does not have limitless funds).


In a series of radio interviews with Bloomberg, Lee C. Buchheit, a partner at Cleary Gottlieb in New York, and the guru of sovereign debt, explains the current state of affairs. Even if you have no interest in sovereign debt or the potential for another global crisis, Buchheit is worth listening to just for the elegance with which he delivers his lines. One of the things about these interviews that stuck out was Buchheit’s explanation for why this particular sovereign debt crisis, if it occurs, will be different. This time, it is not the usual suspects such as Brazil and Mexico who are in the worst positions. Instead, it is the industrialized nations who have borrowed so very heavily to fund their bailouts.


Print this post
1 comments

Is Dick Cheney Really That Bad?


Here is a sample of headlines about Dick Cheney from the last 24 hours:

Is Cheney really that bad?

To get beneath the surface of the headlines to find out, I am re-posting a roundup of Cheney's background which I first published in February 2006 (slightly updated).

Most people know that Vice President Dick Cheney is former CEO of Halliburton, which makes billions of dollars a year from oil and primarily defense-related construction contracts (and that war and chaos increase Halliburton's profits, which in turn increase the value of Cheney's stock options). Most people also know that Cheney was secretary of Defense under George H. W. Bush.

Well-read people may know that Cheney was a congressman from Wyoming. Some even know that he was one of the founders of the Neocon think tank, Project for a New American Century.

But even well-informed people probably don't know that -- in the 70's -- Cheney was instrumental in generating fake intelligence exaggerating the Soviet threat in order to undermine coexistence between the U.S. and Soviet Union, which conveniently justified huge amounts of cold war spending. See also this article.

And did you know that, according to former high-level intelligence officer Melvin Goodman, Cheney orchestrated phony intelligence for the Congress in order to get an endorsement for covert arms shipments to anti-government forces in Angola?

Have you heard that Cheney has been perhaps the leading advocate for strengthening the powers of the White House to the point of monarchy for at least 20 years?

And did you know that Cheney has been instrumental in creating and practicing Continuity of Government measures for the last 20 years or so. "COG" measures were actually implemented on 9/11.

Or that newly-released documents show that Cheney was involved in debates concerning illegal wiretaps 30 years ago?

Did you catch that Cheney is the guy who pushed for torture? Or that he was the guy who pressured the Justice Department lawyers to write memos saying torture was legal? Or that Or that Cheney's the one who actually led the briefings of lawmakers to defend torture? Or that the former director of the CIA accused Cheney of overseeing American torture policies ? Or that Colin Powell's former chief of staff stated that Dick Cheney is guilty of war crimes for his role in facilitating torture?

And you may have heard that the Energy Task Force chaired by Cheney prior to 9/11 collected maps of Iraqi oil fields and potential suitors for that oil. But did you know that a secret document written by the National Security Council on February 3, 2001 directed the N.S.C. staff to cooperate fully with the Energy Task Force as it considered the “melding” of two seemingly unrelated areas of policy: “the review of operational policies towards rogue states,” such as Iraq, and “actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields”? In other words, it is difficult to brush off Cheney's Energy Task Force's examination of Iraqi oil maps as a harmless comparison of American energy policy with known oil reserves because the N.S.C. explicitly linked the Task Force, oil, and regime change. Indeed, a former senior director for Russian, Ukrainian, and Eurasian affairs at the N.S.C. said “if this little group was discussing geostrategic plans for oil, it puts the issue of war in the context of the captains of the oil industry sitting down with Cheney and laying grand, global plans” (see also this essay).

And guess who was largely responsible for generating fake intelligence about Iraq in order to justify the war?

And guess which American politician called the shots in the failed Iraq war according to the former British Defense Secretary?

And guess who was was probably responsible for outing CIA agent Valerie Plame?

According to to the Pulitzer prize-winning reporter who uncovered the Iraq prison torture scandal and the massacre against Vietnamese civilians - Seymour Hersh - Cheney was also the main guy helping to fund groups which the U.S. claims are terrorists (see confirming articles here and here)

Hersh also says that the military ran an "Executive Assassination Ring" throughout the Bush years which reported directly to Cheney.

And guess who is the prime architect of efforts to bomb Iran? (And see this).

A top official at the State Department stated there was a secret "cabal" involving Cheney, and that Cheney and a handful of others had hijacked the country's foreign policy.

Oh, and Cheney was apparently in charge of ALL 5 of the war games which occurred on 9/11 and coordinated the government's "response" to the attacks. See this CNN article; this essay; and this.

And Cheney is the one who monitored flight 77 for many miles as it approached the Pentagon and -- when a military man asked "do the orders still stand?" -- Cheney responded affirmatively:
"The plane is 50 miles out. The plane is 30 miles out." And when it got down to, "The plane is 10 miles out," the young man also said to the vice president, "Do the orders still stand?" And the vice president turned and whipped his neck around and said, "Of course the orders still stand. Have you heard anything to the contrary?"
Watch the video for yourself (and see this essay).

Heck of a job, Dick.

Postscript: Of course, Cheney has not acted alone in his actions. But he's been an important player in many different arenas and is, perhaps, the most widely-known figure who has had a hand in all of the above-described events. Cheney might not be the ultimate Mr. Big in these crimes, but he appears to have gotten his hands dirtier -- and to be closer to the true seat of power -- even than Mr. Bush.

In addition, while Cheney was not solely responsible for the above-listed actions, he hired many of the people who caused the mischief, such as the chief architect of the Iraq war - Paul Wolfowitz.

See also this round-up of Cheney's actions.
11 comments

Monday, January 4, 2010

PPIP May Have INCREASED the Amount of Some Toxic Assets


In March, I pointed out that:

PPIP [the Public-Private Investment Program] is a massive wealth transfer from taxpayers to investors and banks, and that Treasury funds are being used to sidestep Congress and their constituents - the American people...

Citigroup, Bank of America and other players are already gaming the program (and see this), which will create unintended consequences.

In April, I noted that the former head of structured products at UBS said that game theory exposes PPIP as fraudulent.

Also in April, I predicted that the PPIP will not substantially reduce the amount of toxic assets in the system.

It's turned out to be even worse ...

PPIP has actually increased the amount of some toxic assets.

As Bloomberg notes this morning, some of the nation's largest banks have actually bought more risky home loans instead of getting them off their balance sheets.

As Huffington Post puts it:

In other words, the program that was supposed to help banks dispose of these toxic assets instead made those assets so marketable that banks bought more -- which has pushed Wall Street's titans to even greater exposure to the stalled housing market. The banks apparently decided that the government's entry into the mortgage security market was simply a guaranteed money-making opportunity.
Bloomberg has some choice quotes:
It’s “absolutely ridiculous” that banks, which were expected to reduce their holding of such volatile mortgage securities, bought them before the government program was running and may now profit, said Michael Schlachter, managing director of Wilshire Associates, the Santa Monica, California- based investment-consulting firm. “Some of them created this mess, and they are making a killing undoing it” ...

“Any time the government says, ‘We’re going to buy something in the securities market,’ they’re putting out a sign that says, ‘Free money, come and get it’,” he said.

Well yes . . . isn't that what looting is all about?


Print this post

Abandon False Hope ... And Get Some Real Hope


It is easy to be skeptical.

Virtually all of our politicians are corrupt. See this, this and this.

The giant banks are running the show.

The healthcare bill being rammed through Congress "is just another bailout of the financial system", and law school professors say that it is unconstitutional.

America is on a permanent war footing, when the people (and soldiers) are sick of war.

Our civil rights have been eroded, and yet we are not being made any safer.

Top scientists, economists and environmentalists all say that cap and trade being pushed through in American and around the world is a scam which won't significantly reduce C02 emissions, and will only help in making the financial players who crashed the economy even more wealthy.

Obama has sold us out.

So there's nothing we can do, right?

Well, actually - as I have previously documented, things would actually change very quickly if enough people started raising a ruckus.

The ironic thing is that if all of the people who think of themselves as cynics or skeptics made noise, things would instantly change for the better. In other words, the millions upon millions of cynics/skeptics/self-described "realists" aren't raising a ruckus against the fraud being committed by the giant banks, the corruption of our political system, or the lawlessness and imperial arrogance of our military-industrial complex because they think things can't change.

But by staying silent, they are actually creating the conditions in which nothing can change.

If the millions of cynics woke up to the fact that they are a huge group - especially when combined with the people who are already actively working for the restoration of a democratic republic, justice, and the rule of law - they would suddenly realize that collectively we can change things in a heart beat.

Don't believe me?

Read what Daniel Ellsberg and Dean Baker and others say.

And remember that hoping that Obama will change things is a "hopiate". We must stop smoking the "hopium" - no good daddy or heroic leader will save us.

We have to save ourselves.

The truth is that:

  • "Hope has never trickled down. It has always sprung up."
  • "It's time to stop waiting for hope to be handed down, and start pushing it up, from the hoperoots."

The truth is that real hope is an act of will. Real hope is like a muscle that needs to be developed. Real hope is an act of freedom, defiance and courage in the face of power, corruption and tyranny.

Skepticism, cynicism and "realism" is an act of fear, of cowardice, of apathy. Because if the skeptics just got off their backsides and made some noise, things would change.

So abandon false hope (as the skeptics have properly done). But start getting a backbone, take some steps that can actually change things, and start getting some real hope.

Note: I am not going to tell you what to do. But if you don't have any ideas, start here.


10 comments

Given Everything That's Happened, Shouldn't We At Least ASK?


Given that Cheney is apparently at least partly responsible for creating the terror problem in Yemen ...

And that one of the most highly decorated soldiers of all time says that "war is a racket" ...

Given that FBI agents and CIA intelligence officials, constitutional law expert professor Jonathan Turley, Time Magazine, Keith Olbermann and the Washington Post have all said that U.S. government officials "were trying to create an atmosphere of fear in which the American people would give them more power" ...

And that "truth is the first casualty of war" ...

And that fear of terrorism makes people stupid ...

Isn't it worth at least ASKING whether we can rule out false flag terrorism?

False WHAT?

"False flag terrorism" is defined as a government attacking its own people, then blaming others in order to justify going to war against the people it blames. Or as Wikipedia defines it:

False flag operations are covert operations conducted by governments, corporations, or other organizations, which are designed to appear as if they are being carried out by other entities. The name is derived from the military concept of flying false colors; that is, flying the flag of a country other than one's own. False flag operations are not limited to war and counter-insurgency operations, and have been used in peace-time; for example, during Italy's strategy of tension.
The term comes from the old days of wooden ships, when one ship would hang the flag of its enemy before attacking another ship in its own navy. Because the enemy's flag, instead of the flag of the real country of the attacking ship, was hung, it was called a "false flag" attack.

There are many examples of false flag attacks through history. For example, it is widely known that the Nazis, in Operation Himmler, faked attacks on their own people and resources which they blamed on the Poles, to justify the invasion of Poland. And it has now been persuasively argued — as shown, for example, in this History Channel video — that Nazis set fire to their own government building and blamed that fire on others (if you have trouble playing the clip, it is because the website hosting the clip requires you to download the clip before playing it). The fire was the event which justified Hitler's seizure of power and suspension of liberties.

And the Russian KGB apparently conducted a wave of bombings in Russia in order to justify war against Chechnya and put Vladimir Putin into power (see also this short essay and this report).

And the Turkish government has been caught bombing its own and blaming it on a rebel group in order to justify a crackdown on that group.

Indeed, even Muslim governments appear to play this game. For example, the well-respected former Indonesian president said that the government had a role in the Bali bombings.

This sounds nuts, right? You've never heard of this "false flag terrorism", where a government attacks its own people then blames others in order to justify its goals, right? And you are cynical of the statements discussed above?

Please take a look at these historical quotes:

"This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector." - Plato

"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." - U.S. President James Madison

"Terrorism is the best political weapon for nothing drives people harder than a fear of sudden death". - Adolph Hitler

"Why of course the people don't want war ... But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship ... Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." - Hermann Goering, Nazi leader. "The easiest way to gain control of a population is to carry out acts of terror. [The public] will clamor for such laws if their personal security is threatened". - Josef Stalin

But NOT the U.S.

It is logical to assume that, even if other countries have carried out false flag operations (especially horrible regimes such as, say, the Nazis or Stalin), the U.S. has never done so.

Well, as documented by the New York Times, Iranians working for the C.I.A. in the 1950's posed as Communists and staged bombings in Iran in order to turn the country against its democratically-elected president (see also this essay).

And, as confirmed by a former Italian Prime Minister, an Italian judge, and the former head of Italian counterintelligence, NATO, with the help of the Pentagon and CIA, carried out terror bombings in Italy and blamed the communists, in order to rally people’s support for their governments in Europe in their fight against communism. As one participant in this formerly-secret program stated: "You had to attack civilians, people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple. They were supposed to force these people, the Italian public, to turn to the state to ask for greater security."

Moreover, recently declassified documents show that in the 1960's, the American Joint Chiefs of Staff signed off on a plan to blow up AMERICAN airplanes (using an elaborate plan involving the switching of airplanes), and also to commit terrorist acts on American soil, and then to blame it on the Cubans in order to justify an invasion of Cuba. If you view no other links in this article, please read the following ABC news report; the official documents; and watch this interview with the former Washington Investigative Producer for ABC's World News Tonight with Peter Jennings.

But Al-Qaeda is Different

You might say "But Al-Qaeda is different -- powerful, organized, and out to get us", right? Maybe, but take a look at this Los Angeles Times Article, reviewing a BBC documentary entitled "The Power of Nightmares", which shows that the threat from Al Qaeda has been vastly overblown (and see this article on who is behind the hype). And a former National Security Adviser told the Senate that the war on terror is "a mythical historical narrative".

And did you know that the FBI had penetrated the cell which carried out the 1993 world trade center bombing, but had -- at the last minute -- canceled the plan to have its FBI infiltrator substitute fake powder for real explosives, against the infiltrator's strong wishes (summary version is free; full version is pay-per-view)? See also this TV news report.

And have you heard that the anthrax attacks -- which were sent along with notes purportedly written by Islamic terrorists -- used a weaponized anthrax strain from the top U.S. bioweapons facility, the Fort Detrick military base? Indeed, top bioweapons experts have stated that the anthrax attack may have been a CIA test "gone wrong"; and see this article by a former NSA and naval intelligence officer; and this statement by a distinguished law professor and bioterror expert (and this one). It is also interesting that the only congress people mailed anthrax-containing letters were key democrats, and that the attacks occurred one week before passage of the freedom-curtailing Patriot Act, which seems to have scared them and the rest of congress into passing that act without even reading it. And it might be coincidence, but White House staff began taking the anti-anthrax medicine before the Anthrax attacks occurred.

Even the former director of the National Security Agency said "By any measure the US has long used terrorism. In ‘78-79 the Senate was trying to pass a law against international terrorism - in every version they produced, the lawyers said the US would be in violation"(the audio is here)

Why Does This Matter?

 A former National Security Adviser told the Senate that a terrorist act might be carried out in the U.S. and falsely blamed on Iran to justify war against that nation.

A retired 27-year CIA analyst who prepared and presented Presidential Daily Briefs and served as a high-level analyst for several presidents stated that if there was another major attack in the U.S., it would lead to martial law. He went on to say:
"We have to be careful, if somebody does this kind of provocation, big violent explosions of some kind, we have to not take the word of the masters there in Washington that this was some terrorist event because it could well be a provocation allowing them, or seemingly to allow them to get what they want."
The former CIA analyst would not put it past the government to "play fast and loose" with terror alerts and warnings and even events themselves in order to rally people behind the flag.

Daniel Ellsberg, the famous Pentagon Papers whistleblower, said "if there is another terror attack, "I believe the president will get what he wants", which will include a dictatorship.

Scott Ritter, the former UN Weapons Inspector (an American) - who stated before the Iraq war started that there were no weapons of mass destruction - is now saying that he would not rule out staged government terror by the U.S. government.

And a member of the British Parliament stated that "there is a very real danger" that the American government will stage a false flag terror attack in order to justify war against Iran and to gain complete control domestically.

Given the swarm of terrorism-related scares happening now, shouldn't we at least ask whether history is repeating?
19 comments
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)