- Pentagon Demands WikiLeaks Return all Leaked Documents
- Video: Message for the Uniforms and Dark Suits
- From Freedom Fighter to Terrorist
- New IMF Strategy Document Charts Launch Of “Bancor” Global Currency
- No Boondoggle Too Costly
Pentagon Demands WikiLeaks Return all Leaked Documents Posted: 05 Aug 2010 04:59 PM PDT Sorry Pentagon, the documents don’t belong to you, they are owned by the taxpayers who unwillingly pay for you to exist. — From CNN — Washington (CNN) — The Defense Department has demanded WikiLeaks return all documents belonging to the Pentagon and delete any records of the documents, department spokesman Geoff Morrell said Thursday. “The only acceptable course is for Wikileaks to take steps immediately to return all versions of all of these documents to the U.S. government and permanently delete them from its website, computers and records,” Morrell said. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has said his Web site has an additional 15,000 documents that it wants to publish but is redacting information that could endanger people named. Through the New York Times, the organization has asked the Obama administration for its guidance on what to redact. A recently published report suggested the site has asked the Pentagon directly as well. Morrell, however, denied that claim. “WikiLeaks has made no such request directly to the Department of Defense,” he said. Morrell stated that other steps would be considered if WikiLeaks is not willing to cooperate. “If doing the right thing is not good enough for them, then we will figure out what other alternatives we have to compel them to do the right thing,” he said. “These documents belong to the United States government. They don’t belong to WikiLeaks. They don’t belong to anyone else.” The demand, Pentagon officials tell CNN, is an extra effort to prevent the publication of the 15,000 documents. Morrell said Pentagon officials do not know for sure which documents are included in the extra batch, although they say they have “some idea.” Morrell didn’t seem convinced that the Pentagon’s request of WikiLeaks will be taken seriously. “I don’t know that we’re very confident they’ll have a change of heart,” he said. “They’ve shown no indication thus far that they appreciate the gravity, the seriousness of the situation they have caused, the lives they have endangered, the operations they have potentially undermined, the innocent people who have potentially been put in harm’s way as a result.” Legal experts say the administration has few legal options to stop the publication of the leaked documents, except to go after those who took the documents initially. “The FBI, the (Justice Department) are also investigating this,” Morrell said. They “will obviously have to make judgments about how to proceed. The Pentagon is continuing to assess the already-published documents for sensitive material. A team of more than 80 personel, mostly intelligence analysts from various branches of the Defense Department, in addition to the FBI, are involved in the round-the-clock review. Morrell said the team could grow to as many as 120 personnel. The team has searched using some 400 key words, isolating documents that are concerning, for further review. Items of concern are then followed up on. “As we find things that are of concern, we are notifying appropriate entities — (including) foreign governments, when they come up,” Morrell explained. “If there are Afghan citizens who are named, we are informing the command in Kabul, (which) is then sharing the information with the appropriate subordinate commands and units so that they can take appropriate action to safeguard those people” There are also counterintelligence officials assessing whether changes in tactics need to be made because tactics, techniques and procedures have been exposed, he added. Once they have finished the keyword searches, the team will then begin a “painstaking” review of each of the 70,000-plus documents published by WikiLeaks. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, blasted Assange last week, declaring that Assange and the individual responsible for the leak “might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family.” Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned that the massive leak will have a significant impact on troops and allies. Assange, in turn, said Gates “has overseen the killings of thousands of children and adults” in Afghanistan and Iraq. Pfc. Bradley Manning, who served as an intelligence analyst in Iraq, is the military’s focus in the investigation into the leak. Manning, 22, was charged in June with eight violations of the U.S. Criminal Code and was recently transferred from Kuwait to a Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Virginia. He will remain in confinement as the Army continues the investigation to determine whether he should face the military equivalent of a trial over the charges, according to an Army statement. Assange has refused to say where WikiLeaks got the documents. Related posts: |
Video: Message for the Uniforms and Dark Suits Posted: 05 Aug 2010 03:03 PM PDT |
From Freedom Fighter to Terrorist Posted: 05 Aug 2010 11:25 AM PDT From The Future of Freedom Foundation — by Jacob G. Hornberger The Washington Post yesterday profiled a Pakistani man named Hamid Gul, who served as head of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency from 1987 to 1989. The article pointed out that Gul is viewed by U.S. officials as a terrorist, one who has been helping the Taliban oust U.S. forces from Afghanistan. What makes the story interesting, however, is that it wasn’t always that way. Gul used to be a freedom fighter and a close friend and ally of the U.S. government. What happened? Back when it was the Soviet Union that was the foreign occupier of Afghanistan, Gul and the U.S. government were working together to end the Soviet occupation. As the Post points out, Gul “helped the CIA funnel Islamist fighters to fight the Soviets.” In fact, it was during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan that Osama bin Laden came into Afghanistan and made a name for himself as a freedom fighter. According to the Post, Gul “readily acknowledged that he has maintained friendships with former mujaheddin such as Jalaluddin Haqqani, a onetime CIA-backed fighter whose network is now viewed as the coalition forces’ most lethal foe. ‘The Americans dropped him like a hot brick,’ Gul said. ‘Why should I drop him just because he is doing the same thing … that they did against the Soviet occupation? They are fighting for the liberation of their country.'” The same Gul who was viewed by U.S. officials as a “pro-Western and moderate” freedom fighter is now viewed by the U.S. government as a “murderous terrorist agent.” What accounts for the change in perspective? Before, Gul was helping the Afghans bring an end to the Soviet occupation of their country. That made him a freedom fighter. Now, however, Gul is helping the Afghanis bring an end to the U.S. occupation of their country, and that makes him a terrorist. For his part, Gul maintains that his actions have been entirely consistent the entire time — helping the Afghanis end the foreign occupation of their country. Which one is it? Is Gul a freedom fighter or a terrorist? The answer would seem to turn on who is doing the occupying and who is doing the labeling. As the old saying goes, one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. Send him email. Related posts: |
New IMF Strategy Document Charts Launch Of “Bancor” Global Currency Posted: 05 Aug 2010 08:32 AM PDT The globalist agenda is out in the open for all to see nowadays. If you choose to ignore the facts, you are a part of the problem. — From The Financial Times — A newly published IMF strategy document calls for the implementation of a global currency, called the “bancor”, to stabilise the international monetary system, while acknowledging that only a monumental shift toward acceptance of globalism will make it possible in the short term. The IMF blueprint, authored by Reza Moghadam, director of the IMF’s strategy, policy and review department, has stayed under the radar for three months. However, an article , entitled IMF blueprint for a global currency – yes really, today highlights the document and the clear strategy of the global financial body. “…in the eyes of the IMF at least, the best way to ensure the stability of the international monetary system (post crisis) is actually by launching a global currency.” Izabella Kaminska notes. “And that, the IMF says, is largely because sovereigns — as they stand — cannot be trusted to redistribute surplus reserves, or battle their deficits, themselves.” A chart within the document, innocuously titled Reserve Accumulation and International Monetary Stability (PDF link), presents a stepping stone system toward a fully fledged global currency: Beginning with a vague recommendation for “voluntary policy adjustments” to be adopted by member states, the chart moves through more and more draconian economic policies toward a long term endgame of a global currency. The chart also plots “potential resistance” to each stepping stone from sovereign states, with a spike in the short term, followed by a lull, and then a general rise as the move toward a global currency progresses over time. The IMF’s road to a global currency hinges on a wider use of and eventual implementation of an international monetary system based on special drawing rights (SDR), the IMF’s synthetic paper currency. Once an SDR-based system is in place, the IMF envisages just one final step to the launch of a new global currency. The document even gives the global currency a name, the “bancor” after John Maynard Keynes’ proposed, but never implemented, World Currency Unit of clearing. The following section of the IMF document highlights this:
The document concludes that without a catalyst to create a sudden clamour for globalism, the implementation of a global currency will take time:
The IMF first touted the possibility of a new global currency in March of last year. The issue was then debated at the G20 Summit in London just days later. A clause in Point 19 of the communiqué issued by the G20 leaders led to analysts describing the dawn of a “revolution in the global financial order.” “We have agreed to support a general SDR allocation which will inject $250bn (£170bn) into the world economy and increase global liquidity,” The clause stated. “In effect, the G20 leaders have activated the IMF’s power to create money and begin global ‘quantitative easing’. In doing so, they are putting a de facto world currency into play. It is outside the control of any sovereign body. Conspiracy theorists will love it.” Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of the London Telegraph wrote at the time. “The world is a step closer to a global currency, backed by a global central bank, running monetary policy for all humanity.” he added. The same conclusion was drawn by the Washington Post’s Anthony Faiola, who described how the IMF is on course to be transformed into “a veritable United Nations for the global economy.” The move has also been endorsed separately by the World Bank and the UN. The head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, has repeated the call for a global currency via SDR multiple times. The introduction of a new global currency and taxation system, with an overarching regulatory body, is a key cornerstone in the move towards global government, centralized control and more power being concentrated into fewer unaccountable hands. The IMF’s push toward this kind of system is part of the ongoing movement to empower a group of unelected central bankers with the authority to usurp state sovereignty by overseeing benchmarks for national financial governance and setting regulations for financial institutions all over the globe Related posts: |
Posted: 04 Aug 2010 08:38 PM PDT From C4SS Last week New Jersey Governor Chris Christie endorsed providing $875 million in state financial aid for the Xanadu entertainment and retail complex in the Meadowlands. For those unfamiliar with Xanadu, Wikipedia has a representative picture of its ugly gigantism. The complex rises from the horizon appearing to be the result of a giant child who threw something together using mismatched Lego blocks. The gigantism is reminiscent of Marxist regimes trying to show off their grandeur in ways they don’t realize are ironic. If the project is ever completed, it will be one of the largest malls in the world. The announcement comes at a time when Christie’s administration is cutting funding for schools and public transit. In the typical manner of conservative reform, they will keep forcing people to pay for bureaucracy, boondoggles, and enforcers, but will give them less in return besides a politician’s promise to lower taxes. Keep the coercive monopoly in place but give the “customers” less. But apparently the People’s Lego Mishap is too big to fail. The Associated Press reports (in Christie backs NJ oversight of AC casino district) that Christie said the project has come too far to abandon. He called it “the ugliest building in New Jersey and perhaps the United States of America,” but said “It is still a $2 billion investment.” Even a self-styled reformer rules by the logic of government: “We’re digging ourselves into a hole, so let’s get more shovels.” Climbing out of the hole would make you look like a quitter. It’s easier to dig when you can use taxation to make others pay for the shovels. Government is not funded by individual choice. It is funded through coercion based on the choices of those making the rules. Government is structured so those who are most able to access the top levels of policy-making wield political power. Because of this, government responds primarily to the most powerful groups in society, who create solutions that everyone will be forced to follow. Government answers to the political demand of power, not to the diverse demands of individual actors. Starting small and building networks of exchange and consensual aid from the ground up are the immediate steps that should be taken to release the burden of power structures. The sooner people are able to meet their needs outside of government and corporate behemoths, the more smoothly the giants can be slid off the backs of society to fail on their own time. No related posts. |