The Slaughterhouse Informer

A Compendiium of Various Official Lies, Business Scandals, Small Murders, Frauds, and Other Gross Defects of Our Current Political, Business and Religious Moral Lepers.

Presenting a new magazine that contains material that is not found elsewhere and is very difficult to post on the Internet. The ‘Voice of the White House’ will appear in each issue containing material not found on TBR News for very obvious reasons.This publication will appear once a week, on Wednesday, every week, will be ten pages in length and is available by subscription only. The price is $5.00 a month and can be paid via PayPal or by check, sent to ‘Morris Productions, 3015 E. New York St. Ste A2-190, Aurora, Il 60504.’ If you don’t like it, and Bush supporters can read the Drudge Report for free, you can cancel at any time.

Civil insurrection in America and government countermeasures: The official papers

By Bradley Moscrip

An in-depth study of official American plans to construct FEMA detention centers in America and specific recent U.S. Army domestic counterinsurgency plans. Here is a sampling of the ebook contents:

Gun Control by Confiscation

As the American general population is known to be the most heavily armed in the world, immediately upon the declaration of Martial Law and the execution by the military of counterinsurgency programs, it has been determined that the BATF, will begin the process of rounding up all rifles, pistols and so-called assault weaponry from the civil population. Lists of gun collectors obtained from firearms dealers, gun magazine subscription lists and other sources will be the basis for these mass confiscations. Gun owners will be supplied documentation by the BATF showing which pieces have been confiscated so that in the future, they will be told, they can recover their weapons when the state of emergency has passed. In actuality, weapons that do not have a high value or are not suitable for arming loyalist police forces, will be destroyed by order

This study is available from tbrnews at $5.00 by PayPal  

The Voice of the White House

            Washington, D.C., December 13, 2009: “History, usually of a negative nature, always but always repeats itself. As a case in point, consider the military situation, or rather the situation with the military.

            The military, especially the ground troops of the Army and Marines (with a few SEALS thrown in for leavening) have been constantly at war since 2003: Six unrelenting years of what is in reality a never-ending, nerve-wracking and often very fatal war with fanatical guerrillas.

            Our loony, and vicious,  leaders such as Bush, Blair and Cheney, told us in 2003 that the war would be quick and our boys soon home. They knew they were lying but hoped, privately, that they were right and soon we would have control of the huge untapped Iraqi oil fields.

            Instead of these pipe dreams coming true, the harsh reality was a protracted war that killed many thousands of young Americans (the official DoD death reports were very low on orders) the damage to our trucks, tanks, helicopters, personnel carriers and on and on due to the destructive effect of Iran’s sandy climate.

            Of course in addition to the dead, we had many, many more soldiers who yearned to come home to their families and friends but were (and are still) denied this by a frantic Pentagon who kept trying to convince the Oval Office, Congress and themselves that with just a few more men and just a little more time, victory would be ours.

            Of course they lied and in addition to deceiving themselves, they deceived the American public as well.

            Of the dead, nothing more can be spoken but the living are something else. These mad and totally unproductive constant battles with hit and run guerrillas has worn down the morale, and the numbers of our standing army to a degree that, if ever revealed to the public, would cause a revolution.

            Over 80 k were killed in Vietnam and countless more crippled for life, both physically and emotionally but stupid people never learn from the errors of the past. 

            Now what we are having are countless small acts of rebellion and desertion among our exhausted young men; and this does not even take into account the serious physical and emotional problems that a preoccupied government only occasionally addresses and then only after a scandal bursts onto the scene and then with the smug assurance that that, too, will pass.

            Desertion and suicide rates are now soaring in our ground forces and small acts of sabotage, some very serious, are also growing on a daily basis but, as usual, the media will not report it. Why won’t they do this? Their corporate owners are told not to and, if nothing else, our leashed media does as its masters tell them to (or not, as the case may be).

            The basic purpose of any army is to defend its people but presently, the Pentagon and the White House do not want you to know that our current military is not only incapable of bringing an elusive and very destructive enemy to decisive combat but is, de facto, totally unable to defend this country.

            This is a cat that no one wants to bell but it must be done, immediately, or the results could bring national disaster, mass mutinies and terrible civil unrest.”

Army Releases November Suicide Data

The Army released suicide data for the month of November today. Among active-duty soldiers, there were 12 potential suicides, all of which are pending determination of the manner of death. For October, the Army reported 16 potential suicides among active-duty soldiers. Since the release of that report, three have been confirmed as suicides, and 13 remain under investigation.

 There were 147 reported active duty Army suicides from January 2009 through November 2009. Of these, 102 have been confirmed, and 45 are pending determination of manner of death. For the same period in 2008, there were 127 suicides among active-duty soldiers.

 During November 2009, among reserve component soldiers who were not on active duty, there were two potential suicides. Among that same group, from January 2009 through November 2009, there were 71 reported suicides. Of those, 41 were confirmed as suicides, and 30 remain under investigation to determine the manner of death. For the same period in 2008, there were 50 suicides among reserve soldiers who were not on active duty.

 In a media roundtable on Nov. 17, 2009, Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, Army vice chief of staff, confirmed that the total number of suicides in the Army during 2009 had exceeded the total for 2008.

   “We conduct an exhaustive review of every suicide within the Army,” said Brig. Gen. Colleen McGuire, director, Suicide Prevention Task Force. “What we have learned is that there is no single or simple answer to preventing suicide. This tells us that we must continue to take a holistic approach to identifying and helping soldiers and families with issues such as behavioral health problems, substance abuse, and relationship failures.”

    Although operational tempo and frequent deployments are often cited as possible causes for the Army’s increased suicide rate, data gathered through the Army’s efforts has not shown a link between operational tempo and suicide.

   “We have analyzed this part of the problem very closely,” said Walter Morales, Army suicide prevention program manager. “So far, we just haven’t found that repeated deployments and suicide are directly connected. Approximately 30 percent of suicides in the Army occur among those who have never deployed. Many others occur among those who have deployed once. This means we have to continue to reach the entire Army community with effective suicide prevention programs, for those who have deployed and those who haven’t.”

     In addition to the Army’s current campaign plan to improve the full spectrum of health promotion, risk reduction, and suicide prevention programs, the Army is testing pilot programs in virtual behavioral health counseling, enhanced behavioral health counseling before and after deployment, and expanded privacy protections for soldiers seeking substance abuse counseling.

     For example, the Army recently completed the Virtual Behavioral Health Pilot Program (VBHPP) at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. The VBHPP team is now analyzing the initial results to help the Army better determine whether the program should be expanded to additional units and locations. Army leaders can access current health promotion guidance in newly revised Army Regulation 600-63 (Health Promotion) at http://www.army.mil/usapa/epubs/pdf/r600_63.pdf and Army Pamphlet 600-24 (Health Promotion, Risk Reduction and Suicide Prevention) at http://www.army.mil/usapa/epubs/pdf/p600_24.pdf .

     Soldiers and families in need of crisis assistance can contact Military OneSource or the Defense Center of Excellence (DCOE) for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury Outreach Center. Trained consultants are available from both organizations 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

     The Military OneSource toll-free number for those residing in the continental U.S. is 1-800-342-9647; their Web site address is http://www.militaryonesource.com . Overseas personnel should refer to the Military OneSource Web site for dialing instructions for their specific location.

     The DCOE Outreach Center can be contacted at 1-866-966-1020, via electronic mail at Resources@DCoEOutreach.org , and at http://www.dcoe.health.mil .

     The Army’s comprehensive list of Suicide Prevention Program information is located at http://www.armyg1.army.mil/hr/suicide/default.asp .

      More information about the Army’s Comprehensive Soldier Fitness Program is located at http://www.army.mil/csf/ .

Soldiers Forced to Go AWOL for PTSD Care

December 13, 2009

by Dahr Jamail

Inter Press Service

MARFA, Texas - With a military health care system over-stretched by two ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, more soldiers are deciding to go absent without leave (AWOL) in order to find treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Eric Jasinski enlisted in the military in 2005, and deployed to Iraq in October 2006 as an intelligence analyst with the U.S. Army. He collected intelligence in order to put together strike packets - where air strikes would take place.

Upon his return to the U.S. after his tour, Jasinski was suffering from severe PTSD from what he did and saw in Iraq, remorse and guilt for the work he did that he knows contributed to the loss of life in Iraq.

"What I saw and what I did in Iraq caused my PTSD," Jasinski, 23-years-old, told IPS during a phone interview, "Also, I went through a divorce - she left right before I deployed - and my grandmother passed away when I was over there, so it was all super rough on me."

In addition, he lost a friend in Iraq, and another of his friends lost his leg due to a roadside bomb attack.

Upon returning home in December 2007, Jasinski tried to get treatment via the military. He was self-medicating by drinking heavily, and an over- burdened military mental health counsellor sent him to see a civilian doctor, who diagnosed him with severe PTSD.

"I went to get help, but I had an 8 hour wait to see one of five doctors. But after several attempts, finally I got a periodic check up and I told that counsellor what was happening, and he said they'd help me& but I ended up getting a letter that instructed me to go see a civilian doctor, and she diagnosed me with PTSD," Jasinski explained, "Then, I was taking the medications and they were helping, because I thought I was to get out of the Army in February 2009 when my contract expired."

As the date approached, a problem arose.

"In late 2008 they stop-lossed me, and that pushed me over the edge," Jasinski told IPS, "They were going to send me back to Iraq the next month."

During his pre-deployment processessing "they gave me a 90-day supply of meds to get me over to Iraq, and I saw a counsellor during that period, and I told him "I don't know what I'm going to do if I go back to Iraq."

"He asked if I was suicidal," Jasinski explained, "and I said not right now, I'm not planning on going home and blowing my brains out. He said, 'well, you're good to go then.' And he sent me on my way. I knew at that moment, when they finalised my paperwork for Iraq, that there was no way I could go back with my untreated PTSD. I needed more help."

When Jasinski went on his short pre-deployment leave break, he went AWOL, where he remained out of service until Dec. 11, when he returned to turn himself in to authorities at Fort Hood, in Killeen, Texas.

"He has heavy duty PTSD and never would have gone AWOL if he'd gotten the help he needed from the military," James Branum, Jasinski's civilian lawyer who accompanied him to Fort Hood told IPS. "This case highlights the need of the military to provide better mental health care for its soldiers."

Branum, who is also co-chair of the Military Law Task Force, added, "Our hope is that his unit won't court-martial him, but puts him in a warrior transition unit where they will evaluate him to either treat him or give him a medical discharge. He'd be safe there, and eventually, they'd give him a medical discharge because his PTSD symptoms are so severe."

He's turning himself in "because he is not a flight risk and wants to take responsibility for what he's done," Branum stressed.

"It's been a year, I want to get on with my life and go to college and become a social worker to help people," Jasinski said of why he is turning himself in to the military at this time. "I want to get on with life, and I don't want to hide."

Kernan Manion is a board-certified psychiatrist, who treated Marines returning from war who suffer from PTSD and other acute mental problems born from their deployments, at Camp Lejeune - the largest Marine base on the East Coast.

While he was engaged in this work, Manion warned his superiors of the extent and complexity of the systemic problems, and he was deeply worried about the possibility of these leading to violence on the base and within surrounding communities.

"If not more Fort Hoods, Camp Liberties, soldier fratricide, spousal homicide, we'll see it individually in suicides, alcohol abuse, domestic violence, family dysfunction, in formerly fine young men coming back and saying, as I've heard so many times, 'I'm not cut out for society. I can't stand people. I can't tolerate commotion. I need to live in the woods,'" Manion explained to IPS. "That's what we're going to have. Broken, not contributing, not functional members of society. It infuriates me - what they are doing to these guys, because it's so ineptly run by a system that values rank and power more than anything else - so we're stuck throwing money into a fragmented system of inept clinics and the crisis goes on."

"It's not just that we're going to have an immensity of people coming back, but the system itself is thwarting their effective treatment," Manion explained.

According to the Army, every year from 2006 onwards there has been a record number of reported and confirmed suicides, including in 2009.

There has also been an escalation of soldier-on-soldier violence, as the Nov. 5 shooting spree at Fort Hood by Major Nidal Hassan indicates. In 2008 there was also a record number of suicides for the Marine Corps.

Jasinski's case is representative of a growing number of soldiers returning from the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan who are going AWOL when they are unable to get proper mental health care treatment from the military for their PTSD.

A 2008 Rand Corporation report revealed that at least 300,000 veterans returning from both wars had been diagnosed with severe depression or PTSD.

Jaskinski's experience with the military has inspired him to offer advice for other soldiers who need PTSD treatment but are not receiving it.

"Do not, do not let a 5-10 minute review by a military doctor determine if you go to Iraq," he told IPS. "Even if you have to pay out of pocket, go civilian to a doctor& the military mental health sector is so overwhelmed, they won't take care of you. Go see a civilian, and hopefully that therapist will help you& even then I'm not sure that will help& but you have to take that chance."

            When asked what he feels the military needs to do in order to rectify this problem, he said: "A total overhaul of the mental health sector in the military is needed& we had nine psychiatrists at our centre, and that's simply not enough staff, they are going to get burned out, after seeing 50 soldiers each in one day. We need an overhaul of the entire system, and more, good psychiatrists, not those just coming for a job, but good, experienced mental health professionals need to be involved."

Petraeus Predicts Long, Expensive Mission in Afghanistan

Warns Not to Judge for At Least a Year

December 9, 2009

by Jason Ditz,

AntiWar.com

CENTCOM commander General David Petraeus conceded again today that the war in Afghanistan will continue to “get harder before it gets easier,” a daunting prospect as the war has spiraled to record violence already, and the Taliban is taking growing control over much of the nation.

            But as the war continues to worsen, Gen. Petraeus doesn’t want to hear any complaints, insisting that Congress should “reserve judgement” on the new strategy for at least a year.

The prospect that America will throw 30,000 more troops at Afghanistan and forget about for the next 12 months as the death toll continues to spiral seems unlikely, as President Obama’s March escalation of 21,000 troops only lasted a few months before generals started hankering for another surge.

Gen Petraeus is just the latest in a growing chorus of military commanders conceding that the record violence of 2009 is going to give way to record violence in 2010. All seem to be keeping on message that the violence is going to eventually drop, but for the time being the effort

seems mostly to stifle criticism of the rising casualties.

US Losing War in Afghanistan, Mullen Admits

Joint Chiefs Chairman Admits Situation Still Worsening

December 8, 2009

by Jason Ditz,

AntiWar.com

             “We are not winning, which means we are losing and as we are losing, the message traffic out there to insurgency recruits keeps getting better and better and more keep coming.

 This was the message Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Admiral Michael Mullen had for US soldiers at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, from which two combat brigades will be sent to Afghanistan as part of President Obama’s latest escalation.

When President Obama sent 21,000 additional troops in his March escalation, violence in Afghanistan only continued to worsen, and Mullen and other top military officials are predicting that the death toll in 2010 will be even higher, in no small measure as a result of the new escalation.

Though the White House has presented the current surge as a can’t miss strategy that will yield such overwhelming results that they can begin a pullout by July 2011, it seems that officials remain aware the grim realities of an ever worsening war. Not so aware that they would actually end the war in a timely fashion, of course, but aware all the same.

The Afghan/Iraq Death Toll: December 8

December 14, 2009

by Brian Harring

December 2, 2009

            The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

            Pfc. Derrick D. Gwaltney, 21, of Cape Coral, Fla., died Nov. 29 south of Basra, Iraq, of injuries sustained from a non-combat related incident.  He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 377th Field Artillery Regiment, 17th Fires Brigade, Fort Lewis, Wash.

            The circumstances surrounding the incident are under investigation.

            The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

            Lance Cpl. Jonathan A. Taylor, 22, of Jacksonville, Fla., died Dec. 1 while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.  He was assigned to 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.

December 4, 2009

            The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

            Sgt. Kenneth R. Nichols Jr., 28, of Chrisman, Ill., died Dec. 1 in Kunar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit using small arms and rocket-propelled grenade fires.  He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Fort Carson, Colo.

            DOD Announces Afghanistan Force Deployment

http://www.defense.gov/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=13167

            The Department of Defense today announced the deployment of approximately 16,000 additional forces to Afghanistan, the initial elements of the 30,000 troops authorized by President Obama on Nov. 30. An infantry battalion task force, with approximately 1,500 Marines, from Camp Lejeune, N.C., will deploy later this month. Regimental Combat Team-2, headquartered at Camp Lejuene, N.C., will deploy approximately 6,200 Marines in early spring 2010. A Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward) headquarters from I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif., will deploy approximately 800 Marines in spring 2010.

A Brigade Combat Team (BCT), with approximately 3,400 soldiers from the 1st Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, Fort Drum, N.Y. will deploy in early spring 2010 to conduct a training mission.

            Secretary Gates also approved the deployment of approximately 4,100 support forces, which will deploy at various times into spring 2010.

            DoD will continue to announce major unit deployments as they are approved

December 9, 2009

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

Sgt. Elijah J. Rao, 26, of Lake Oswego, Ore., died Dec. 5 in Nuristan, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device.  He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 77th Field Artillery Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Fort Carson, Colo.

December 10, 2009

            The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

             Cpl. Xhacob Latorre, 21, of Waterbury, Conn., died Dec. 8 of wounds sustained while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan. He was assigned to 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.

            The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

            Staff Sgt. Dennis J. Hansen, 31, of Panama City, Fla., died Dec. 7 at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Landstuhl, Germany, of wounds sustained when insurgents attacked his unit Dec. 3 with an improvised explosive device in Logar province, Afghanistan. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), Fort Drum, N.Y.

December 11, 2009

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Sgt. Ralph Anthony Webb Frietas, 23, of Detroit, Mich., died Dec 8. as a result of unknown causes in Baghdad. He was assigned to Marine Wing Support Squadron 172, Marine Wing Support Group 17, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, III Marine Expeditionary Force, Okinawa, Japan.

The incident is under investigation.

December 14, 2009

    The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

                Pfc. Jaiciae L. Pauley, 29, of Austell, Ga., died Dec. 11 in Kirkuk, Iraq, of injuries sustained from a non-combat related incident. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Stewart, Ga.

                The circumstances surrounding the incident are under investigation.

Laughing in the Cemetery!

      The  economy is so bad that I got a pre-declined credit card in the mail.

The economy is so bad Dick Cheney took his stockbroker hunting.
 
The economy is so bad Motel Six won't leave the light on anymore.
 
The economy is so bad Exxon-Mobil laid off 25 Congressmen.
 
The economy is so bad, if the bank returns your check marked "Insufficient
Funds," you call them and ask if they meant you or them.

A Kept Man

December 2, 2009

by Paul Craig Roberts

takimag.com

It didn’t take the Israel lobby very long to bring President Obama to heel regarding his prohibition against further illegal Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land. Obama discovered that a mere American president is powerless when confronted by the Israel lobby and that the United States simply is not allowed a Middle East policy separate from Israel’s.

Obama also found out that he cannot change anything else either, if he ever intended to do so.

The military-security lobby has war and a domestic police state on its agenda, and a mere American president can’t do anything about it.

President Obama can order the Guantanamo torture chamber closed and kidnapping and rendition and torture to be halted, but no one carries out the order.

Essentially, Obama is irrelevant.

President Obama can promise that he is going to bring the troops home, and the military lobby says, “No, you are going to send them to Afghanistan, and in the meantime start a war in Pakistan and maneuver Iran into a position that will provide an excuse for a war there, too. Wars are too profitable for us to let you stop them.” And the mere president has to say, “Yes, Sir!”

Obama can promise health care to 50 million uninsured Americans, but he can’t override the veto of the war lobby and the insurance lobby. The war lobby says its war profits are more important than health care and that the country can’t afford both the “war on terror” and “socialized medicine.”

The insurance lobby says health care has to be provided by private health insurance—otherwise, we can’t afford it.

The war and insurance lobbies rattled their campaign contribution pocketbooks and quickly convinced Congress and the White House that the real purpose of the health care bill is to save money by cutting Medicare and Medicaid benefits, thereby “getting entitlements under control.”

Entitlements is a right-wing word used to cast aspersion on the few things that the government did, in the distant past, for citizens. Social Security and Medicare, for example, are denigrated as “entitlements.” The right wing goes on endlessly about Social Security and Medicare as if they were welfare giveaways to shiftless people who refuse to look after themselves, whereas in actual fact citizens are vastly overcharged for the meager benefits with a 15 percent tax on their wages and salaries.

Indeed, for decades now the federal government has been funding its wars and military budgets with the surplus revenues collected by the Social Security tax on labor.

To claim, as the right wing does, that we can’t afford the only thing in the entire budget that has consistently produced a revenue surplus indicates that the real agenda is to drive the mere citizen into the ground.

The real entitlements are never mentioned. The “defense” budget is an entitlement for the military-security complex about which President Eisenhower warned us 50 years ago. A person has to be crazy to believe that the United States, “the world’s only superpower,” protected by oceans on its East and West and by puppet states on its North and South, needs a “defense” budget larger than the military spending of the rest of the world combined.

The military budget is nothing but an entitlement for the military-security complex. To hide this fact, the entitlement is disguised as protection against “enemies” and passed through the Pentagon.

I say cut out the middleman and simply allocate a percentage of the federal budget to the military-security complex. This way we won’t have to concoct reasons for invading other countries and go to war in order for the military-security complex to get its entitlement. It would be a lot cheaper just to give them the money outright, and it would save a lot of lives and grief at home and abroad.

The U.S. invasion of Iraq had nothing whatsoever to do with American national interests. It had to do with armaments profits and with eliminating an obstacle to Israeli territorial expansion. The cost of the war, aside from the $3 trillion, was over 4,000 dead Americans, over 30,000 wounded and maimed Americans, tens of thousands of broken American marriages and lost careers, 1 million dead Iraqis, 4 million displaced Iraqis and a destroyed country.

All of this was done for the profits of the military-security complex and to make paranoid Israel, armed with 200 nuclear weapons, feel “secure.”

My proposal would make the military-security complex even more wealthym as the companies would get the money without having to produce the weapons. Instead, all the money could go for multimillion dollar bonuses and dividend payouts to shareholders. No one, at home or abroad, would have to be killed, and the taxpayer would be better off.

No American national interest is served by the war in Afghanistan. As the former British Ambassador Craig Murray disclosed, the purpose of the war is to protect Unocal’s interest in the Trans-Afghanistan pipeline. The cost of the war is many times greater than Unocal’s investment in the pipeline. The obvious solution is to buy out Unocal and give the pipeline to the Afghans as partial compensation for the destruction we have inflicted on that country and its population, and bring the troops home.

The reason my sensible solutions cannot be effected is that the lobbies think that their entitlements would not survive if they were made obvious. They think that if the American people knew that the wars were being fought to enrich the armaments and oil industries, the people would put a halt to the wars.

In actual fact, the American people have no say about what “their” government does. Polls of the public show that half or more of the American people do not support the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan and do not support President Obama’s escalation of the war in Afghanistan. Yet, the occupations and wars continue. According to Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the additional 40,000 troops are enough to stalemate the war—that is, to keep it going forever, the ideal situation for the armaments lobby.

The people want health care, but the government does not listen.

The people want jobs, but Wall Street wants higher-priced stocks and forces American firms to offshore the jobs to countries where labor is cheaper.

The American people have no effect on anything. They can affect nothing. They have become irrelevant, like Obama. And they will remain irrelevant as long as organized interest groups can purchase the U.S. government.

The inability of the American democracy to produce any results that the voters want is a demonstrated fact. The total unresponsiveness of government to the people is conservatism’s contribution to American democracy. Some years ago, there was an effort to put government back into the hands of the people by constraining the ability of organized interest groups to pour enormous amounts of money into political campaigns and, thus, obligate the elected official to those whose money elected him. Conservatives said that any restraints would be a violation of the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech.

The same “protectors” of “free speech” had no objection to the Israel lobby’s passage of the “hate speech” bill, which has criminalized criticism of Israel’s genocidal treatment of the Palestinians and continuing theft of their lands.

In less than one year, President Obama has betrayed all of his supporters and broken all of his promises. He is the total captive of the oligarchy of the ruling interest groups. Unless he is saved by an orchestrated Sept. 11-type event, Obama is a one-term president. Indeed, the collapsing economy will doom him regardless of a “terrorist event.”

The Republicans are grooming Sarah Palin. Our first female president, following our first black president, will complete the transition to an American police state by arresting critics and protesters of Washington’s immoral foreign and domestic policies, and she will complete the destruction of America’s reputation abroad.

Russia’s Vladimir Putin has already compared the U.S. to Nazi Germany, and the Chinese premier has likened the U.S. to an irresponsible, profligate debtor.

Increasingly, the rest of the world sees the U.S. as the sole source of all of its problems. Germany has lost the chief of its armed forces and its defense minister because the U.S. convinced or pressured, by hook or crook, the German government to violate its Constitution and to send troops to fight for Unocal’s interest in Afghanistan.

The Germans had pretended that their troops were not really fighting, but were engaged in a “peacekeeping operation.” This more or less worked until the Germans called in an air strike that murdered 100 women and children lined up for a fuel allotment.

The British are investigating their leading criminal, former Prime Minister Tony Blair, and his deception of his own cabinet in order to do George W. Bush’s bidding and provide some cover for Bush’s illegal invasion of Iraq. The British investigators have been denied the ability to bring criminal charges, but the issue of war based entirely on orchestrated deception and lies is getting a hearing. It will reverberate throughout the world, and the world will note that there is no corresponding investigation in the U.S., the country that originated the False War.

Meanwhile, the U.S. investment banks, which have wrecked the financial stability of many governments, including that of the U.S., continue to control, as they have done since the Clinton administration, U.S. economic and financial policy. The world has suffered terribly from the Wall Street gangsters, and now looks upon America with a critical eye.

The United States no longer commands the respect it enjoyed under President Ronald Reagan or President George Herbert Walker Bush. World polls show that the U.S. and its puppet master are regarded as the two greatest threats to peace. Washington and Israel outrank on the most dangerous list the crazy regime in North Korea.

The world is beginning to see America as a country that needs to go away. When the dollar is over-inflated by a Washington unable to pay its bills, will the world be motivated by greed and try to save us in order to save its investments, or will it say: thank God, good riddance?

Blackwater Guards Tied to Secret Raids by the CIA

December 11, 2009

by James Rizen and Mark Mazzetti

The New York Times

WASHINGTON - Private security guards from Blackwater Worldwide participated in some of the C.I.A.'s most sensitive activities - clandestine raids with agency officers against people suspected of being insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan and the transporting of detainees, according to former company employees and intelligence officials.

The raids against suspects occurred on an almost nightly basis during the height of the Iraqi insurgency from 2004 to 2006, with Blackwater personnel playing central roles in what company insiders called "snatch and grab" operations, the former employees and current and former intelligence officers said.

Several former Blackwater guards said that their involvement in the operations became so routine that the lines supposedly dividing the Central Intelligence Agency, the military and Blackwater became blurred. Instead of simply providing security for C.I.A. officers, they say, Blackwater personnel at times became partners in missions to capture or kill militants in Iraq and Afghanistan, a practice that raises questions about the use of guns for hire on the battlefield.

Separately, former Blackwater employees said they helped provide security on some C.I.A. flights transporting detainees in the years after the 2001 terror attacks in the United States.

The secret missions illuminate a far deeper relationship between the spy agency and the private security company than government officials had acknowledged. Blackwater's partnership with the C.I.A. has been enormously profitable for the North Carolina-based company, and became even closer after several top agency officials joined Blackwater.

"It became a very brotherly relationship," said one former top C.I.A. officer. "There was a feeling that Blackwater eventually became an extension of the agency."

George Little, a C.I.A. spokesman, would not comment on Blackwater's ties to the agency. But he said the C.I.A. employs contractors to "enhance the skills of our own work force, just as American law permits."

"Contractors give you flexibility in shaping and managing your talent mix - especially in the short term - but the accountability's still yours," he said.

Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Blackwater, said Thursday that it was never under contract to participate in clandestine raids with the C.I.A. or with Special Operations personnel in Iraq, Afghanistan or anywhere else.

Blackwater's role in the secret operations raises concerns about the extent to which private security companies, hired for defensive guard duty, have joined in offensive military and intelligence operations.

Representative Rush D. Holt, a New Jersey Democrat who is chairman of the House Select Intelligence Oversight Panel, said in an interview that "the use of contractors in intelligence and paramilitary operations is a scandal waiting to be examined." While he declined to comment on specific operations, Mr. Holt said that the use of contractors in such operations "got way out of hand." He added, "It's been very troubling to a lot of people."

Blackwater, now known as Xe Services, has come under intense criticism for what Iraqis have described as reckless conduct by its security guards, and the company lost its lucrative State Department contract to provide diplomatic security for the United States Embassy in Baghdad earlier this year after a 2007 shooting that left 17 Iraqi civilians dead.

Blackwater's ties to the C.I.A. have emerged in recent months, beginning with disclosures in The New York Times that the agency had hired the company as part of a program to assassinate leaders of Al Qaeda and to assist in the C.I.A.'s Predator drone program in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Leon E. Panetta, the C.I.A. director, recently initiated an internal review examining all Blackwater contracts with the agency to ensure that the company was performing no missions that were "operational in nature," according to one government official.

Five former Blackwater employees and four current and former American intelligence officials interviewed for this article would speak only on condition of anonymity because Blackwater's activities for the agency were secret and former employees feared repercussions from the company. The Blackwater employees said they participated in the raids or had direct knowledge of them.

Along with the former officials, they provided few details about the targets of the raids in Iraq and Afghanistan, although they said that many of the Iraq raids were directed against members of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. To corroborate the claims of the company's involvement, a former Blackwater security guard provided photographs to The Times that he said he took during the raids. They showed detainees and armed men whom he and a former company official identified as Blackwater employees. The former intelligence officials said that Blackwater's work with the C.I.A. in Iraq and Afghanistan had grown out of its early contracts with the spy agency to provide security for the C.I.A. stations in both countries.

In the spring of 2002, Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater, offered to help the spy agency guard its makeshift Afghan station in the Ariana Hotel in Kabul. Not long after Mr. Prince signed the security contract with Alvin B. Krongard, then the C.I.A.'s third-ranking official, dozens of Blackwater personnel - many of them former members of units of the Navy Seals or Army Delta Force - were sent to provide perimeter security for the C.I.A. station.

But the company's role soon changed as Blackwater operatives began accompanying C.I.A. case officers on missions, according to former employees and intelligence officials.

A similar progression happened in Iraq, where Blackwater was first hired for "static security" of the Baghdad station. In addition, Blackwater was charged with providing personal security for C.I.A. officers wherever they traveled in the two countries. That meant that Blackwater personnel accompanied the officers even on offensive operations sometimes begun in conjunction with Delta Force or Navy Seals teams.

A former senior C.I.A. official said that Blackwater's role expanded in 2005 as the Iraqi insurgency intensified. Fearful of the death or capture of one of its officers, the agency banned officers from leaving the Green Zone in Baghdad without security escorts, the official said.

That gave Blackwater greater influence over C.I.A. clandestine operations, since company personnel helped decide the safest way to conduct the missions.

The former American intelligence officials said that Blackwater guards were supposed to only provide perimeter security during raids, leaving it up to C.I.A. officers and Special Operations military personnel to capture or kill suspected insurgents or other targets.

"They were supposed to be the outer layer of the onion, out on the perimeter," said one former Blackwater official of the security guards. Instead, "they were the drivers and the gunslingers," said one former intelligence official.

But in the chaos of the operations, the roles of Blackwater, C.I.A., and military personnel sometimes merged. Former C.I.A. officials said that Blackwater guards often appeared eager to get directly involved in the operations. Experts said that the C.I.A.'s use of contractors in clandestine operations falls into a legal gray area because of the vagueness of language laying out what tasks only government employees may perform.

P.W. Singer, an expert in contracting at the Brookings Institution, said that the types of jobs that have been outsourced in recent years make a mockery of regulations about "inherently governmental" functions.

"We keep finding functions that have been outsourced that common sense, let alone U.S. government policy, would argue should not have been handed over to a private company," he said. "And yet we do it again, and again, and again."

According to one former Blackwater manager, the company's involvement with the C.I.A. raids was "widely known" by Blackwater executives. "It was virtually continuous, and hundreds of guys were involved, rotating in and out," over a period of several years, the former Blackwater manager said.

One former Blackwater guard recalled a meeting in Baghdad in 2004 in which Erik Prince addressed a group of Blackwater guards working with the C.I.A. At the meeting in an air hangar used by Blackwater, the guard said, Mr. Prince encouraged the Blackwater personnel "to do whatever it takes" to help the C.I.A. with the intensifying insurgency, the former guard recalled.

But it is not clear whether top C.I.A. officials in Washington knew or approved of the involvement by Blackwater officials in raids or whether only lower-level officials in Baghdad were aware of what happened on the ground.

The new details of Blackwater's involvement in Iraq come at a time when the House Intelligence Committee is investigating the company's role in the C.I.A.'s assassination program, and a federal grand jury in North Carolina is investigating a wide range of allegations of illegal activity by Blackwater and its personnel, including gun running to Iraq.

Several former Blackwater personnel said that Blackwater guards involved in the C.I.A. raids used weapons, including sawed-off M-4 automatic weapons with silencers, that were not approved for use by private contractors. In separate interviews, former Blackwater security personnel also said they were handpicked by senior Blackwater officials on several occasions to participate in secret flights transporting detainees around war zones.

They said that during the flights, teams of about 10 Blackwater personnel provided security over the detainees.

"A group of individuals were selected who could manage detainees without the use of lethal force," said one former Blackwater guard who participated in one of the flights.

Intelligence officials deny that the agency has ever used Blackwater to fly high-value detainees in and out of secret C.I.A. prisons that were shut down earlier this year. Mr. Corallo, the Blackwater spokesman, said that company personnel were never involved in C.I.A. "rendition flights," which transferred terrorism suspects to other countries for interrogation.

Shell and Petronas Win Rights to Develop Giant Iraq Oilfield

Majnoon oilfield goes to Anglo-Dutch and Malaysian consortium in second auction of oil assets since 2003 invasion

December 11, 2009

by Haroon Siddique and agencies

The Guardian/UK

A consortium led by Shell has won the rights to develop the giant Majnoon oilfield at the second auction of Iraq's oil rights since the 2003 invasion.

The auction for about a third of the country's known reserves quickly surpassed last summer's sale, with Majnoon the largest field on offer in the current round. A group of oil companies led by China's CNPC struck a deal to develop the Halfaya field.

There are 10 fields being auctioned over two days under tight security at the Iraqi oil ministry's headquarters. Last summer's auction saw a single deal struck despite eight fields being on offer.

Shell and Malaysia's state-run oil company, Petronas, beat another consortium consisting of France's Total SA and China National Petroleum Corp for the rights to Majnoon, which has estimated reserves of almost 13bn barrels of oil, compared with 4.1bn for Halfaya.

A total of 45 firms are vying for 20-year contracts to develop the 10 fields, spanning from northern Iraq to major fields in the Basra region in the south. Among the bidders are Britain's BP, America's Exxon Mobil and state-backed companies from Asia.

The deals are crucial for Iraq, which relies on oil for 90% of its government budget and sorely needs international companies' help in boosting production and revamping its dilapidated oil sector. Iraq has the world's third-largest known oil reserves.

Although the security situation has improved since the 2007 surge of US troops, the auction takes place against a background of attacks in Baghdad that killed at least 127 people on Tuesday and raised questions about the ability of Iraq security forces to stem the violence as US troops depart.

Opening the auction, Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, played down the significance of Tuesday's attacks. "There is no security deterioration in Iraq even if a security violation took place here," he said.

The US defence secretary, Robert Gates, flew into Iraq to discuss security concerns. In a meeting with Maliki he expressed his condolences for the Baghdad bombing and offered any assistance the country might need.