We’ve seen this trick time and again in Corporate Media Campaigns. It works. You can tell they’re extorting someone and that the story isn’t going anywhere. Like with this baby here, for instance.

So that’s Graymailing and Eric Prince has been doing it, with a heavy hand, through Vanity FN Fair [January 2010].

But Erik Prince is making it very difficult for the US Government to cover his sorry arse. Two of his guys, in Afghanistan as Trainers for the OBAMa AdminiSTRAtion, up and shot a couple of innocent Afghan civilians — in May — on what appears to have been a lark.

And now we come to find that two of the people that died in the recent bombing of a CIA operations center in Afghanistan — on December 30th, 2009 — were also Blackwater. Plus one of the wounded was also a Blackwater op. After the CIA announced that it was severing ties with the buggers — sometime beFORE December 12th, 2009?

Because of a story that appeared in the infamously warmongering New York Times? Hmmmm . . .

Graymailing. New word. Save it to disk. There’s a shoot out folks, in the planet’s biggest baddest Den of Thieves.

Summary By microdot

“This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land.” Article VI, Section 1. The Constitution.

You be the judge of which is more “American.”

Summary By grady

For what is available, the Houthi rebels proposed peace talks with Saudi Arabia and the Yemeni government around the 1st of January. This likely fell through as isolated reports of ground fighting continue to arise, some of which include Saudi forces.

In fact, the following article pits Saudi Arabia’s first female journalist, Samira al-Madani, in a combat zone around January 4th. It is only ironic that this ground breaking step in Saudi women’s rights is also an indicator that King Abdi’s war continues.

Summary By grady

Now he’s at it again. This time with a quick follow-up to Obama’s Condom Bomber who, while admittedly well known to international postmodern ‘security’ services, managed to fly — undetected — halfway around the world to fumble an attempt to blow up a plane over Detroit with a condom.

Now we have an impoverished Somali, also well known to Western Europe’s security apparatus, allegedly breaking into the home of one of Denmark’s most police protected pendejos — with an axe, no less — to basically just threaten the guy with it.

The pendejo fled to his safe room, from where he called the police, who arrived just in time to shoot the Somali in the hand and knee because the Somali’d apparently decided to wait around — axe in hand — for the cops keeping the pendejo under close surveillance to get back from their coffee break.

And now Western Europe’s right wing press is calling for more than just airport security involving billions of dollars worth of taxpayer funding. Germany, for instance,

will be unable to avoid the necessity of considerably expanding its efforts in the struggle against terror abroad, in particular in its attitude to failed states where [the infamously mythical] Al Qaeda and its affiliates are located.”

Like all the states Obama mentioned in his new Terror Watch List. FN 13 of ‘em muchachos. THIRTEEN.

Summary By microdot

I’d be surprised if this rolls into a conviction. Think of the precedent. It’s gotta be some sort of publicity stunt.

But we’ll take it! Keep those publicity stunts coming, Obama.

Amusing also, is the picture Press TV used to illustrate the story . . .

Summary By microdot

Most important, however, for US global strategies will be the massive gain of control of the port of Aden in Yemen. Britain can vouchsafe that Aden is the gateway to Asia. Control of Aden and the Malacca Strait will put the US in an unassailable position in the “great game” of the Indian Ocean. The sea lanes of the Indian Ocean are literally the jugular veins of China’s economy. By controlling them, Washington sends a strong message to Beijing that any notions by the latter that the US is a declining power in Asia would be nothing more than an extravagant indulgence in fantasy.

See also Engdahl on the same subject. The Yemen Hidden Agenda: Behind the Al-Qaeda Scenarios, A Strategic Oil Transit Chokepoint and China, the world’s new leading exporter

Summary By microdot

Summary By grady

A day later, two militants were killed in a gun battle on the outskirts of the city. The police sweep uncovered registration for the vehicle responsible for the previous day’s bombing.

Summary By grady

So far Washington has only admitted that the 8 were ‘civilians’ working as ‘contractors’ for the CIA — ie., mercenaries. That was December 30.

But on December 15 another similar bombing, elsewhere on Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan, also killed 5 mercenaries and DAI has actually issued a Press Release admitting that the mercenaries were theirs.

DAI’s 5 killed on December 15 were ‘implementing’ a USAID project called the “Local Governance and Community Development (LGCD) Program”. What could they be doing, out there in that war zone, working for the CIA USAID? One very good guess would be “coordinating the Drone attacks that have become so famous for one Mai Lai Massacre after the next on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan”.

DAI is one of the largest U.S. government contractors in the world and everyone should please note that this very same DAI has also been awarded a multi-million dollar budget from USAID to “assist civil society and the transition to democracy” in Venezuela.

But there’s more. A lot more: DAI also has operations and field offices in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru and the Dominican Republic.

Their contract in Afghanistan is allegedly only worth $50 Million. But that’s just in Afghanistan. So. When we hear that, of Obama’s $724 Billion, only $130 Billion is earmarked for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, it behooves us to factor the nature and global presence of DAI into the mix.

How many “forward offices” do these guys have in Georgia, I wonder. And or Azerbaijan?

See also (hot off the press): Pakistan detains 5 Americans near Iran border.

Summary By microdot

This incident holds similarities to the previous year’s apprehension of Steve Bierfeldt, who was harassed by TSA agents for carrying Ron Paul campaign material. Michael Yon himself mentioned a previous incident where a friend was detained and forced to give TSA agents her email password. It was on this basis that he refused to give any personal information of his own.

Summary By grady

For some reason Obama & Co. think they can afford to further alienate these 13 economies. We shall see. But, at any rate, the Full Body Scanners — or FSB — go for about $200,000 a pop. And any and all airports sending someone from one of the Terror Watch Countries to the United States is going to have to have plenty of ‘em. So guess what?

the stock of American Science & Engineering, a US company that makes the full body scanners skyrocketed after Christmas and hit $82 dollars per share on 1/4/09, up from around $ 42 this summer.

Surprised?

The clip is a bit sombre, but overall Lamb has written an amusing piece. Do click through and get a load of the Hezbollah van. At the very least.

Summary By microdot

At stake in the impoverished Middle Eastern state:

While Yemen holds modest oil reserves and is strategically located near a fuel-transportation route, Webster Tarpley claims the intervention may be to further meddle with Yemeni affairs, primarily in their operations against the allegedly Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.

In the end, it all leads to Iran. However, as the article mentions earlier, the Obama administration has stepped up efforts in their encirclement of Russia and China. This may just be another step in frustrating another Russian-backed power (Iran).

Oh…and the Obama administration is still considering the transfer of Yemeni Gitmo prisoners back to Yemen, if that does not strike anyone as another hint.

Summary By grady

The Dar as-Salaam Organisation to Combat Revenge and Violence claims that 500-600 child soldiers are killed every year. At the same time, individuals under the age of 18 make up half of the tribal fighting force.

The Yemeni government has also been known to use child soldiers, but has received less flak for their efforts.

Summary By grady

It didn’t work

Apparently the people of Taiwan have had more success.

The “United States” is not happy and issued threats immediately.

The United States recognizes China over self-ruled Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own under its “one China” policy, but remains the island’s closest informal ally and biggest arms supplier.

Summary By microdot

In October of 2008 (over a year ago), Predatory Capitalism’s 3 top banks (Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase and Morgan Stanley) received a total of $45 BILLION in free CASH, because they “lost” so much money.

One year later, they’re giving $49.5 Billion to an unknown number of top employees. The message being that they have no plans to invest it in the US economy. No jobs this year, sowwy (why not join the Army?).

So. Where’s this money coming from? It’s hard to say. But one thing we know for sure is that at least is $2.3 Billion of it is coming out of Virginia’s budget for Education and Government Services.

How many states are there, in the United States? 52? (sorry, i’m australian!)

answer

The U.S. has 50 states. 48 are in the contiguous U.S., Alaska is “separated” by a slice of Canada and Hawaii is a chain of islands off the coast of the state of California.

50 * 2.3 is only $115 Billion. So. How many years will it take to pay off the TARP? (HINT: 700,000,000,000 / 115,000,000,000 (or 7/1.15 (answer: just a little over 6 years — in a linear world (not including the cost of the GWoT)))

Summary By microdot

OTOH, if you think it’s just asking for trouble, you’d be exactly correct.

The headlines on Yemen have so far been focused on its Shi’ite minority. Eventually some bright guy on Obama’s team must have pointed out that ‘Al Qaeda’ is notoriously Sunni. No one’s going to think twice about Saudis exterminating defenseless Shia in a neighboring state, but the GWoT needs Sunnis.

Most of Africa’s Muslims are Sunni.

So Obama bombed a quiet Sunni village [mid-December (the 17th)], alleging that it was an Al Qaeda hang out (because a released, undoubtedly tortured, ‘suspect’ had simply gone home), and now they need to release more plausibly pissed off people into the Yemeni meme to justify the conflagration they’re planning for Yemen — conveniently located across the Straits from Somalia — not to mention the US Drone Palace in Djibouti.

Congress may be lining up to profit from their GWoT hedge funds, but their job is to pretend that they’re smart people who can shake their heads later on and say, “I told you so” — while laughing all the way to their offshore bank accounts.

Summary By microdot

And there’s no end in sight. It’s not like there’s an end in sight for the people of the United States. They’ve become hostage to a globalized necrotic predatory capitalism and everyday the US economy clearly sinks deeper and deeper into the quagmire. . . .

No jobs. No health care. No housing. No schools. No savings. No credit. . . . with no end in sight.

Summary By microdot

Interestingly, this report did NOT include major banks like Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N), JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N), Morgan Stanley (MS.N), Bank of America, and Citigroup.

Summary By grady

07 December 2007

“NATO also said Jordan has sent troops to join the alliance-led force in Afghanistan, the first time an Arab nation has publicly agreed to NATO’s requests for assistance on the mission. A document posted on NATO’s Web site listed 90 Jordanian soldiers alongside other contributions to the force. Allied officials confirmed the presence of the troops but declined to say how long they had been in the country or what role they are playing, saying it was up to Jordanian authorities to give details.”

Summary By microdot

Lithium – the lightest metal – is used in mobile phones and increasingly in the batteries of the new generation of environmentally friendly electric cars starting to come off the production lines.

Although China has its own deposits, it makes the batteries and has its own electric car industry, and will in the future need more lithium, analysts say.

But China has competitors in Bolivia. The push towards electric car development around the world has become a mad dash to lock in lithium mining deals with Bolivia.

Japan, France and Korea have been busy courting Bolivian President Evo Morales.

Mr Morales and his officials are talking to France’s Bollore Group, South Korea’s LG Group and Japan’s Sumitomo and Mitsubishi.

Bollore has been asked to join the government’s scientific commission on lithium.

Summary By microdot

Currently, the U.S. is spending $130 billion for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq – this will likely be backed up by the $680 billion in the 2010 National Defense Authorization Act. At the same time, it hosts the world’s second largest military with over 1,445,000 men. With over 100,000 men in Afghanistan and Iraq, this leaves enough forces left-over for bases in Europe, South America, the Middle East, Africa, and the Philippines.

Summary By grady

Summary By Tribal

But as the U.S. continues to make future plans, Yemeni parliament member Shawqi Al-Qadhi made warning against ground forces in the event of any military action. The reason: this would give the populace ever more a reason to join al-Qaeda insurgents in an effort to “drive out the foreigners.”

Summary By grady

Summary By microdot

Meanwhile, International Predatory Capital has launched a plan to hyper-implicate Nigeria in the Global War on Terror by setting up some poor peripherally-Yemeni Nigerian from the UK for a “luckily” thwarted bombing in the United States.

“The stakes are high … Continued access to oil revenue will be a powerful incentive for the king makers to find a way out of the current crisis, despite their regional, ethnic and religious divisions,” Campbell said.

“If the current crisis spins out of control, the Nigerian military is likely to intervene, possibly with a nominal civilian head,” said Campbell, who was US ambassador to Nigeria from 2004 to 2007.

According to Nigeria’s Constitution Section 145, the president must write and deliver a formal letter to both chambers of parliament, relinquishing power to the vice-president.

There has been no indication from Yar’Adua that he plans on relinquishing his powers.

Meanwhile . . . Nigerian Muslim leaders have vehemently dismissed the alleged reports on the al-Qaeda network’s terrorist activities inside Nigeria.

Summary By microdot

Bolivia, with its coca plantations covering some 30,000 hectares, is the world’s third largest producer of cocain. Columbia, with 150,000 hectares of coca, is the leader of cocain production. Peru takes second place, with 97,000 hectares of plants.

That’s a LOT of Coca Colla.

Summary By microdot

Of course, unlike Iraq, Yemen, Qatar, and other Middle Eastern nations on the receiving end of al-CIA-da strikes, Iran has seen a relatively low number of these attacks. It only makes more sense that the primarily Shi’ite republic been using the bin Ladens as hostages/human shields for the past eight years.

Summary By grady

But they have to “spend” it. It’s not real until they spend it. They have to have lots of excuses to spend it.

So it makes a lot of sense to make a big deal out of cooperation between Sunni and Shi’ite states.

This is called taking control of the dialectic.

This is what the United States and Europe are doing when 1.) Europe takes responsibility for instigating the recent riots in Iran and 2.) the US intelligence community accuses the UK of being an Israeli lapdog.

Summary By microdot

But Yahoo? He must be talking about their new CEO Carol Bartz. For sure he’s not talking about Jerry Yang — look at the new Management Team (does it seem contaminated to you?).

Just because someone’s Jewish, doesn’t mean they’re a Zionist Extremist. Just because someone’s a Protestant, doesn’t mean they’re George Bush.

As far as Facebook is concerned, Walberg appears to be talking about Mark Zuckerberg.

Has anyone heard anything to link Bartz or Zuckerberg to the Israel Project?

OPEN QUOTE

Recently Shimon Peres suggested that Israelis and Jews worldwide use Facebook to fight anti-semitism in addition to inviting Mark Zuckerberg to Israel. I asked him about his thoughts on Facebook as a tool to fight anti-semitism and if Facebook would take proactive measures to fight against it. Mark believes that Facebook need to focus on building useful communication tools and that the users can use these tools to connect and generate more worldly perspectives. As such Facebook does not need to be proactive about it. When asked about whether he will visit Israel next year, he said maybe. [March 2008]

Summary By microdot

Where the holiday has generally been marked by processions of weeping for the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, the Ashura of 2009 was marked by violent protests and government crackdowns in Iranian cities. The opposition has held the government’s feet to the fire, claiming that the violence is unprecendented in Iranian history, especially with a government that claims to uphold “religious tradition.”

Summary By grady

On a daily basis, Juarez residents need to brave army checkpoints and stop lights, where they risk being gunned down or kidnapped. This marks a major contrast from life in El Paso, which has enjoyed an even lower level of violence with 30 murders at the height of the drug war (all of which were unrelated to the war, might we add).

Summary By grady

Slowly but surely, the GWoT is expanding its ‘plausibly legitimized’ targets into Africa — at least for the sake of its infamously gullible (and remarkably sanctifying, still) US American TV audiences.

Who, I wonder, is recalling that ‘al Qaeda’ is infamously Sunni, as are nearly all Somalis, and mostly what we’ve been hearing about are Yemen’s Houthis — who are infamously Shi’ite? But Obama’s taken care of that. He’s found a Sunni village in Yemen to bomb, while the Saudis busy themselves with trying to set up Iran.

Summary By microdot

These protests come during the Shi’ite festival of Ashoura, which commemorates the death of the third Imam, Hussein.

Summary By grady

Gutenberg’s the German Defense Minister most famous for covering up the civilian death toll of a recent German-ordered strike in northern Afghanistan.

A German courtroom recently gave one of its citizens life in prison for stabbing a woman to death — in a courtroom — while she was filing charges against him for verbally assaulting her.

The Germans let the guy into the courtroom without searching him and he just happened to have a 7 inch knife on him.

Perhaps the German Courts forgot to ask their Defense Minister for some advice on what to do. What do you think, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, should Angela invite the murderous mofo to join her government?

Certainly he’d be in good company.

Summary By microdot

Amidst a media blackout, sources remain scarce. The most updated sources indicate further strikes by Saudi warplanes and missiles, despite King Abdi’s declaration.

Summary By grady

What this ends up being is a good indication of the extent to which the Free Press is still taking its cue from the Corporate Press. This, in turn, is interesting because it suggests that there’s a whole new ballgame just waiting to be played out.

Clearly the people who gave us genocidal conflagrations from Iraq to Pakiistan are hiding the value of gas futures to give themselves a chance to buy shares up cheap and develop technology and market penetration strategies without having to worry about competition.

Summary By microdot

As part of negotiating this transformation, they’ve been using the US military installation in Okinawa to basically say to the world, “we are open to new ideas, please come chat”.

And, of course, the “United States” is livid. Well, at least they felt it necessary to issue the threat of a smear campaign — which is basically what this headline is.

Has Obama refused to resign? Following his plummeting popularity? Does anyone know?

Obama, are you going to resign? How about an apology? Can we get an apology, for all those campaign lies?

No?

Quelle surprise.

Summary By microdot

First of all, the international community knows the IAEA didn’t find anything suspicious in Iran. They remember there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And they know Israel’s been fabricating evidence in an attempt to put Iran on the defensive. At a very bare minimum, these are things the international community knows. The fact that the postmodern community does NOT know these things does not mitigate the realpolitik.

Meanwhile, the international community has put enough 2 and 2 together about the Fruit and Flower Revolutions to seriously incriminate Iran’s Green Twitterlution and China’s Xingiang Pogroms. China might have had some doubts about Iran, if it hadn’t been for Xinjiang (they might even have had some doubts about Tiananmen, if it weren’t for Xinjiang). Russia might have had some doubts about Iran, if it weren’t for Igushetia, Chechnya, Georgia, Poland, Ukraine etc etc etc . . .

And now the United States is issuing Press Releases to the effect that their “Senate Banking Committee” — small-time architects of the still smoldering global financial meltdown — is calling for crippling sanctions on a state competing with them for the global energy market? On top of that, they’re issuing ultra-hyped ultimatums to Total, BP and Glencore?

Who here exactly is asking for trouble?

Summary By microdot

While declaring that the operation was near its “end,” bin Sultan also gave a 48-hour ultimatum for Yemeni rebels in the border village of al-Jabiri to surrender or face action. The outpost, surrounded on three sides, has been fought over repeatedly between Saudi forces and Houthi rebels.

At the same time, Egypt recently declined an appeal to send special forces to help counter the Houthis. The same source indicates that Jordanian forces and “American advisers” are helping out the Saudis with little success.

Summary By grady

At any rate, it would appear that Cambodia is fast becoming SE Asia’s Venezuela.

Perhaps you will recall that, back in the 60s, Cambodia was unwilling to join the US-lead crusade against “Communism”. The CIA staged a coup against Cambodia’s King Sihanouk (March 1969), replaced him with the puppet Lon Nol, launched over 3,600 B-52 bombing raids between 69 and 75 — causing famine, destitution and chaos and setting the stage for Pol Pot’s rise to power.

Nixon and Kissinger (yet anOTHER Nobel Peace Prize) can take a bow for the deaths of some 600,000 Cambodians — to which Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge then added another 350,000.

One of the things the CIA did to try and sway Sihanouk first was present him with fraudulent documents predicting Communist aggressions against him.

During the Vietnam War, about 80% of all USAF air strikes over North Vietnam originated from air bases in Thailand.

Summary By microdot

The death toll from Gene’s Tiananmen Square protests is estimated to have been between 400 and 800 (how’s that for a ballpark figure?).

Does anyone know the death toll from his Saffron Revolution in Burma/Myanmar?

The Pogroms in Xinjiang have so far only cost 200 lives — not including the 22 subsequent death sentences.

So, to a certain extent, I think we can say we’re making a lot of progress. I think Gene’s Green Twitterlution in Iran has only cost 65 lives — so far.

Interesting about the Cambodian Decision.

Summary By microdot

Sources, though scarce, indicate that Jordanian and Moroccan Special Forces have been involved with operations against Houthi rebels in northern Yemen as early as late-November 2009. After the first contingent of Jordanian forces (some 2,000) arrived in November, they immediately saw action and took losses against the rebels in the battle for Dukhan Mountain.

Then on December 5th, the Span­ish news­pa­per El Impar­cial revealed that Morocco had also sent a contingent of special forces in wake of rising tensions between Tehran and Rabat.

Summary By grady

The planet’s banking sector may not have the most emperors wearing new clothes of any of the world’s sectors, but they certainly have a massive infestation of them.

Once that little boy speaks out above the noise of the parade, the spell is well on it’s way to being broken.

There’s nothing that people are more superstitious about than money. As we get more and more organized it will become increasingly clear that national banks are mission critical to the life and party of any real democracy. But the people have to understand how they work – and also how they don’t work.

The leisure classes aren’t going to show their cards, much less let go of ‘em, unless we grab them by the collar and stick their nose in the shit, and that’s a fact.

Summary By microdot

Hossein Ali Montazeri, who died of natural causes on December 20th, was no stranger to government scrutiny. He was placed under house arrest in the 1980’s after claiming the clerical rulers sought absolute power after the 1979 Revolution. He also made the bold claim that the powers of the supreme leader (then Ruhollah Khomeini) came from the people, not from God. He was released from arrest in 2003, but made headlines again in 2009 after denouncing the “despotic” regime.

Summary By grady

The incursion came on December 17th after Iranian forces occupied an oil well that lay 500 metres from an Iranian border post and one kilometer from an Iraqi border post. Supposedly, the two day standoff was the result of “the lack of a formally demarcated border between the two countries.”

Summary By grady

Contractors, of course, are a lot more expensive than low income boots. And, needless to say, they can be quite a bit more deadly because they have zero accountability.

On the other hand, they could just be kitchen staff and road workers from the Philippines.

Summary By microdot

It’s true that these installations are largely populated by US Americans, but it’s difficult to see how anyone can still believe they’re there to serve the people of the United States, now suffering from some 22% unemployment and the most expensive health care on the planet coupled with the lowest life expectancy of any Post Modern state.

Meanwhile . . .

OPEN QUOTE

All told, US military spending in 2010 will be close to $700 billion. If one adds the hundreds of billions of dollars in military-related spending included in the budgets of other departments, the total is as much as $1 trillion.

Summary By microdot

- how the Basij spent three months in advance preparing for the election

- how ballot boxes were tampered with and how the illiterate/elderly were duped into voting for Ahmadinejad

- how, after underestimating the violence that ensued, the Basij received orders to use all means to suppress the demonstrations, including live fire and sexual abuse

Summary By grady

This event also comes after Iraq failed to include U.S. firms at a recent auction for oil deals. Russia and China were conveniently listed instead.

Summary By grady

December 16th – a car exploded after being fired upon by police forces. The police opened fire after the car approached, then immediately turned away. Remnants of explosives were later found in the car.

December 17th – 23 people, including 10 children, were injured when a car-bomb rammed into a traffic police post in Nazran. The incident occurred as a number of Russian Interior Ministry forces drove by. Elsewhere, gunmen with assault rifles and grenade launchers killed two FSB agents in a separate ambush on their vehicle.

Summary By grady