Internal report issues black eye for U.S. Embassy in Kabul

The State Department is failing to properly oversee nearly $2 billion in contracts to battle the drug trade, build infrastructure and train police in Afghanistan, according to a bluntly worded internal assessment.

The report by the department's inspector general questions whether the U.S. will be able to stabilize the country in time to meet President Obama's goal of withdrawing some troops by June 2011.

"Embassy oversight of contracts and grants is seriously inhibited by the dangerous security conditions … as well as by the shortage of qualified contract officer representatives in Kabul," says the report, released last week. The embassy "faces serious challenges in meeting the administration's deadline for 'success' in Afghanistan," it adds.

The embassy, which reports to special representative Richard Holbrooke, says the report is generally "accurate in its assessments," spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said in an e-mail from Kabul. "We are already implementing a great majority of the report's recommendations."

That includes better contract oversight, said Deputy Secretary of State Jacob Lew. "We're very much aware of the problems that developed in Iraq and are working to avoid outcomes that would be problematic," he said.

In a January cable reported by The New York Times, U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, who runs the embassy, questioned whether the military could meet its timeline for turning over the country to Afghan forces.

Click to read more...

Evidence of murder at 383 Madison Ave.

Hedge Funds and the Global Economic Meltdown from Judd Bagley on Vimeo.

www.DeepCapture.com

Nearly one year after its original date of publication, my video, Hedge funds and the global economic meltdown has finally received its first bit of serious criticism, and I can’t express how pleased I am about it.

Click to read more...

IMF proposes climate change fund

The head of the International Monetary Fund has proposed a plan for the world's governments to pool together to raise money needed to adapt to climate change, a rare step for an organisation that normally does not develop environmental policies.

The IMF managing director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, said the fund is concerned by the huge amount of money needed and the effect this will have on the global economy. He added that the proposal may help efforts to reach a binding agreement on climate change this year.

Strauss-Kahn proposed that countries adopt a quota system similar to the one the fund uses to raise its own money, which could bring in money faster than proposals to increase carbon taxes or other fundraising methods. He only provided a broad outline of the plan, as the organisation will release a paper this week with full details. It is unclear how the proposal will be received.

The IMF raises funds from its 185 members mainly through a quota system that is based broadly on each country's economic size. The United States is currently the largest shareholder.

"We all know that [carbon taxes and other fundraising methods] will take time and we don't have this time. So we need something which looks like an interim solution, which will bridge the gap between now and the time when those carbon taxes will be big enough to solve the problem," Strauss-Kahn said. "And that is exactly what the IMF proposal is dealing with."

Click to read more...

US drone strikes in Pakistan tribal areas boost support for Taleban

London Times

The deafening explosion rent the calm of the winter night. A house disappeared in a cloud of flame and dust, its thick earthen walls splaying into the street.

“We ran from our house to help but it was after curfew, and soldiers in a nearby post began to fire on us,” Amir Shah Jehn, 25, said. “So it wasn’t until morning that the bodies were pulled from the rubble and laid at the roadside. There were five dead: a three-month-old baby, the woman of the house, two young men and an Arab.”

It was November 2005. The strike on a house sheltering an Egyptian al-Qaeda commander, Abu Hamza Rabia, in the village of Hamzoni five miles (8km) outside Miran Shah, the capital of North Waziristan, was one of the first carried out by a Predator drone in Pakistani tribal areas.

“We didn’t know what happened back then,” said Amir, an alias he uses for security reasons. “But now it’s routine. There is the constant sound of drones. Sometimes up to seven are flying over us. We call them jasoos — spies.”

Drones are the Obama Administration’s weapon of choice for killing militants in the tribal areas. The pilotless Reapers and Predators have chalked up a long list of insurgent deaths, accounting for scores of leaders from al-Qaeda and the Taleban since their deployment in 2004.

The effects of the campaign, however, are beginning to veer dramatically off course as the strikes intensify, according to tribesmen.

Click to read more...

Fiction of Marja as City Was U.S. Information War

For weeks, the U.S. public followed the biggest offensive of the Afghanistan War against what it was told was a "city of 80,000 people" as well as the logistical hub of the Taliban in that part of Helmand. That idea was a central element in the overall impression built up in February that Marja was a major strategic objective, more important than other district centres in Helmand.

It turns out, however, that the picture of Marja presented by military officials and obediently reported by major news media is one of the clearest and most dramatic pieces of misinformation of the entire war, apparently aimed at hyping the offensive as a historic turning point in the conflict.

Marja is not a city or even a real town, but either a few clusters of farmers' homes or a large agricultural area covering much of the southern Helmand River Valley.

"It's not urban at all," an official of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), who asked not to be identified, admitted to IPS Sunday. He called Marja a "rural community".

"It's a collection of village farms, with typical family compounds," said the official, adding that the homes are reasonably prosperous by Afghan standards.

Richard B. Scott, who worked in Marja as an adviser on irrigation for the U.S. Agency for International Development as recently as 2005, agrees that Marja has nothing that could be mistaken as being urban. It is an "agricultural district" with a "scattered series of farmers' markets," Scott told IPS in a telephone interview.

Click to read more...

Hundreds held in pre-emptive Tibet crackdown

Hundreds of Tibetans have been rounded up in Lhasa and armed paramilitaries are patrolling the streets in the run-up to the anniversary of a bloody riot in 2008.

The authorities are anxious to avoid a repeat of the anti-Chinese attacks that left about 20 people dead when Tibetans rampaged through the streets of the Himalayan city setting fire to shops, offices and banks.

March 10 is regarded by Tibetans as the anniversary of the start of an abortive uprising against Chinese rule in 1959 that resulted in the Dalai Lama’s flight into exile in India.

The armed police patrols that have become routine in the Tibetan heart of Lhasa since the anti-Beijing unrest that spilled over into violence in March 14, 2008, have been expanded to include cavalcades of trucks packed with paramilitaries.

One convoy comprised 14 trucks, each containing 14 helmeted men armed with semi-automatic rifles as well as two officers and a driver. The trucks drove slowly through the streets of the city in a show of force clearly intended to intimidate any Tibetans planning to mark the anniversary with renewed protests against Chinese rule.

Patrols of special police – the Chinese equivalent of Swat teams – also roamed the streets. Their distinctive black trucks and armoured vehicles then proceeded towards the Drepung monastery on the edge of the city where the unrest began on March 10, 2008 with a peaceful march by monks towards the city.

In the narrow alleys around the Jokhang temple, the holiest site in Tibetan Buddhism, in central Lhasa, additional police patrols were checking the identity cards of all Tibetans.

Click to read more...

Taskforce to investigate Iraqi civilians' 'torture'

One of the country's former top policemen is to head a team of investigators who will travel to Iraq to interview witnesses of the alleged murder and torture of civilians by the British Army. 

The taskforce will report to a retired High Court judge who is chairing the inquiry into the events which took place in Iraq in 2004.

Inquiry chairman Sir Thayne Forbes, who presided in the murder trial of Harold Shipman, said defence officials will be forced to disclose documents and provide witnesses if they do not co-operate with the new public inquiry into Iraqi abuse claims.

The Al-Sweady Inquiry is looking into allegations that British soldiers murdered and tortured Iraqi civilians in the aftermath of the "Battle of Danny Boy" in southern Iraq in 2004.

It will report on claims that 20 or more Iraqis were unlawfully killed and others ill-treated at a UK base in Maysan Province called Camp Abu Naji.

The Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth announced the inquiry after admitting that there had been "failures" in the Ministry of Defence's disclosure of documents to lawyers for some of the alleged victims.

The team of four investigators, all retired police officers, appointed to help the inquiry is headed by former detective chief superintendent Stephen Condon.

Click to read more ...

Ex-MI5 head: US hid torture tactics from UK

A former head of MI5 has accused intelligence services in the US of deliberately hiding the mistreatment of terror suspects from their British allies. 

Baroness Manningham-Buller, giving a lecture in London last night, said the US was "very keen" to prevent Britain discovering how they were getting vital intelligence. She cited the case of Binyam Mohamed, a British resident, who was held at Guantanamo Bay after the 9/11 attacks and provided his captors with useful intelligence which was passed on the the UK security services. She was unaware until 2007, she said, that he had been subjected to waterboarding.

She was surprised at the extent of the information coming from Mr Mohamed as Britain's previous experience of questioning terrorism suspects during the Troubles in Northern Ireland was that they remained silent. "I said to my staff, 'Why is he talking?' because our experience of Irish prisoners, Irish terrorists, was that they never said anything," she said. "They said, well, the Americans say he is very proud of his achievements when questioned about it. It wasn't actually until after I retired that I read that, in fact, he had been waterboarded 160 times."

Her comments follow the insistence of ministers and Jonathan Evans, the current head of MI5, that there was no collusion by British security services in the torture of suspects. Lady Manningham-Buller added at the event, organised by the Mile End Group, a political and historical research body, that allegations Britain was complicit in the torture of suspects could damage MI5's ability to carry out its work.

Army contractor's use of a cover name for Blackwater angers Sen. McCaskill

"The American people have a right to be outraged that we're playing this kind of game with contracting. It's wrong. It's flat wrong."

With those words, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) voiced her exasperation near the end of a three-hour Senate Armed Services Committee hearing about a contract to train Afghan National Army troops last year to use American weapons. One issue at the Feb. 24. hearing was that the $25 million contract, awarded in September 2008, was to a company called Paravant -- well known to those involved as a cover name for Blackwater (now Xe Services).

Another issue was that while the U.S. Army was paying for it, the contract was awarded to Paravant (Blackwater) by a Raytheon subsidiary called Raytheon Technical Services Co. RTSC holds a multibillion-dollar War Fighter Focus contract, primarily to train U.S. troops, but in this case the Army decided to use the company, through a separate task order under the War Fighter Focus contract, to hire Paravant.

Why didn't the Army contract directly with Paravant? That was not explored at the hearing. But the use of a cover name, Paravant, to bid on a contract when the attached qualifications were essentially those of Blackwater has been referred to the Justice Department by the committee's chairman, Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.).

Another major issue examined at the hearing was the lack of oversight of the Paravant contract by Raytheon and the Army. The military unit responsible for overseeing this odd contracting was the Army Program Executive Office for Simulation, Training and Instrumentation, referred to as PEO-STRI.

Click to read more...

Japan confirms Cold War-era 'secret' pacts with US

AP

TOKYO – Japan confirmed for the first time Tuesday the existence of once-secret Cold War-era pacts with the U.S. that tacitly allowed nuclear-armed warships to enter Japanese ports in violation of Tokyo's postwar principles.

While declassified U.S. documents have already confirmed such 1960s agreements, Tuesday's revelation broke with decades of official denials.

The investigation by a government-mandated panel is part of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's campaign to rein in the power of bureaucrats and make his government, which was elected to power last year, more open than that of the long-ruling conservatives, who repeatedly denied the existence of such pacts.

"It's regrettable that such facts were not disclosed to the public for such a long time, even after the end of the Cold War era," Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada told a news conference, adding that the investigation was meant to restore public trust in Japan's diplomacy.

The panel examined documents surrounding four pacts, including Tokyo's tacit permission that U.S. nuclear-armed warships could make calls at Japanese ports — a violation of Japan's so-called three non-nuclear principles not to make, own or allow the entry of atomic weapons.

There is strong aversion to nuclear weapons in Japan, the only country to suffer atomic bombings — in Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II.

Click to read more ...

Dubai charges Israel with vast passport falsification

The United Arab Emirates police have accused Israel of vast falsification of Western passports that was discovered after a January assassination of a Hamas commander in Dubai.

"I ring alarm bells. Israel is falsifying Western passports on a large scale. We discover forged passports on a daily basis," said Dubai police Chief Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim on Tuesday.

"The world must stop an operation of vast falsification of official documents (that) a formal body (Israel's spy agency Mossad) is carrying out," he added.

Dubai police have formerly accused Mossad spy agency of being behind the terrorist killing of Hamas commander Mahmud al-Mabhuh who was drugged and then suffocated in his hotel room in January 19.

The police released photos and information of 27 suspects, who entered Dubai on fake passports, using the identities of 12 individuals from Britain, six from Ireland, four from France, three from Australia, and a German.

The international police agency Interpol named a fourth Australian passport holder in connection with the terror killing of al- Mabhuh on Tuesday, Australian officials said.

The Australian government said it believed Mr Krycer's passport was forged, like other false documents used in the plot.

Click to read more ...

10 Brewing Stories You Need To Be Watching Right Now

Failed Banks May Get Pension-Fund Backing as FDIC Seeks Cash

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is trying to encourage public retirement funds that control more than $2 trillion to buy all or part of failed lenders, taking a more direct role in propping up the banking system, said people briefed on the matter.

Direct investments may allow funds such as those in Oregon, New Jersey and California to cut fees for private-equity managers, and the agency to get better prices for distressed assets, the people said. They declined to be identified because talks with regulators are confidential.

Oregon’s retirement fund may contribute $100 million as regulators seek “the support of state pension funds to solve the crisis surrounding ongoing bank failures,” Jay Fewel, a senior investment officer at the Oregon State Treasury, said in a presentation at the fund’s Feb. 24 meeting. New Jersey’s fund may also participate, said Orin Kramer, chairman of New Jersey’s State Investment Council.

The FDIC shuttered 140 lenders last year and expects the tally may be higher in 2010. Regulators have avoided signing up private-equity firms as rescuers on concern that they might take too much risk. Pension funds, whose 100 largest members manage $2.4 trillion, could provide capital to acquire deposits and outstanding loans from collapsed banks, according to the people.

Welcome Mat

Click to read more...

Cyberwar declared as China hunts for the West’s intelligence secrets

London Times

Urgent warnings have been circulated throughout Nato and the European Union for secret intelligence material to be protected from a recent surge in cyberwar attacks originating in China.

The attacks have also hit government and military institutions in the United States, where analysts said that the West had no effective response and that EU systems were especially vulnerable because most cyber security efforts were left to member states.

Nato diplomatic sources told The Times: “Everyone has been made aware that the Chinese have become very active with cyber-attacks and we’re now getting regular warnings from the office for internal security.” The sources said that the number of attacks had increased significantly over the past 12 months, with China among the most active players.

In the US, an official report released on Friday said the number of attacks on Congress and other government agencies had risen exponentially in the past year to an estimated 1.6 billion every month.

The Chinese cyber-penetration of key offices in both Nato and the EU has led to restrictions in the normal flow of intelligence because there are concerns that secret intelligence reports might be vulnerable.

Sources at the Office for Cyber Security at the Cabinet Office in London, set up last year, said there were two forms of attack: those focusing on disrupting computer systems and others involving “fishing trips” for sensitive information.

Click to read more...

Graham’s Closest Senate Allies Want Indefinite Detention of U.S. Citizens

Washington Independent

Here’s another measure of how unlikely it is that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) can actually bring along GOP votes for closing Guantanamo Bay if only, only, the Obama administration caves on trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a civilian court. Last week, Graham’s two best Senate friends, John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), introduced a bill presenting, essentially, the GOP response to Obama’s legal approach to terrorism. (PDF.) Here’s a sampling of what it says:

SEC. 5. DETENTION WITHOUT TRIAL OF UNPRIVILEGED ENEMY BELLIGERENTS.

An individual, including a citizen of the United States, determined to be an unprivileged enemy belligerent under section 3(c)(2) in a manner which satisfies Article 15 5 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War may be detained without criminal charges and without trial for the duration of hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners in which the individual has engaged, or which the individual has purposely and materially supported, consistent with the law of war and any authorization for the use of military force provided by Congress pertaining to such hostilities.

My emphasis. Lieberman is constantly described as a moderate. McCain — at least once upon a time — used to buck his party and is now taking a for-it-before-he-was-against-it position on closing Guantanamo. And they favor keeping U.S. citizens detained indefinitely, a position that wouldn’t withstand a second of judicial scrutiny.

These are Graham’s closest allies in the Senate. They would be the very first people he would call to round up their votes for closing Guantanamo if the White House agrees to a deal. And they favor keeping American citizens detained forever!

N. Korea Says It Is Ready to 'Blow Up' U.S.

SEOUL, South Korea —  North Korea's army said Monday it is ready to "blow up" South Korea and the U.S., hours after the allies kicked off annual military drills that Pyongyang has slammed as a rehearsal for attack.

South Korea and the U.S. — which normally dismiss such threats as rhetoric — began 11 days of drills across South Korea on Monday morning to rehearse how the U.S. would deploy in time of emergency on the Korean peninsula.

The U.S. and South Korea argue the drills — which include live firing by U.S. Marines, aerial attack drills and urban warfare training — are purely defensive. North Korea claims they amount to attack preparations and has demanded they be canceled.

The North's People's Army issued a statement Monday, warning the drills created a tense situation and that its troops are "fully ready" to "blow up" the allies once the order is issued.

The North also put all its soldiers and reservists on high alert to "mercilessly crush the aggressors" should they encroach upon the North's territory even slightly, said the statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

The communist country has issued similar rhetoric in the days leading up the drills. On Sunday, it said it would bolster its nuclear capability and break off dialogue with the U.S. in response to the drills.

South Korea's military has been closely monitoring Pyongyang's maneuvers but hasn't seen any signs of suspicious activities by North Korean troops, Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff said earlier Monday.

Click to read more...

Open war over Rahm Emanuel, Barack Obama's master of the dark arts

Rahm Emanuel, President Obama's outspoken chief of staff, has become embroiled in a public row with his critics amid accusations that he has damaged the standing of the presidency and undermined his boss.

Emanuel has become the subject of an intense war of words between those who blame him for the failings of Obama's tough first year in office and those who insist that Obama should have listened to him more. If the controversy deepens any further, some feel that he may be forced to resign.

The development has been remarkable for a man in Emanuel's job, which calls for him to adopt a behind-the-scenes role similar to that of a Mafia boss's consigliere, whispering advice in the ear of the president and then strong-arming political targets into obeying his master's will.

But critics say the row shows just how much of a strain Obama's first year of office has taken on his top White House team after a series of political setbacks, especially over healthcare. Officials in Obama's administration, who once appeared so united, now seem to be in siege mode and starting to fight among themselves.

"It was inevitable that this would happen on one level. You have a president with an ambitious agenda and they have not been getting as much done as they had hoped," said John Geer, editor of the Journal of Politics and a political scientist at Vanderbilt University.

The worsening atmosphere could become particularly difficult for Emanuel if November's mid-term elections turn into a Democratic rout. "Rahm Emanuel is burning the candle at both ends. I would not be surprised if he steps down after the mid-terms," Geer said.

Click to read more...

US to engage in 'hit and run' war in Somalia

The United States is involved in preparatory military operations in Somali for a 'major' offensive against Somali fighters, report says.

US is providing military assistance to Somali government in order to retake capital Mogadishu from Somali fighters, a recent report in The New York Times indicates.

The American military is conducting nighttime surveillance in the Al-Shabab-controlled areas of the capital and training Somali intelligence officers and forces in addition to providing logistical supports for the government, the report adds.

All the preliminary efforts, including reconnaissance and logistic operations, are meant to help launch a major assault on what US government dubs the 'al-Qaeda' branch in Somalia within 'a few' weeks.

“It's the Americans … helping us," the US newspaper quoted Somali military chief General Mohamed Gelle Kahiye as saying.

Meanwhile, a US official who spoke on condition of anonymity was quoted in the report as saying that American 'covert forces would get involved if the offensive fails to dislodge al-Qaeda terrorists.'

“What you're likely to see is airstrikes and Special Ops moving in, hitting and getting out,” noted the official.

Click to read more ...

March 6- 7 Conference, Philadelphia : "Treason in America: 911, the Wars & Our Broken Constitution"

Saturday, March 6, 2010 - 9am - 6pm (Music 7-10pm)
Sunday,   March 7, 2010 - 9am - 6pm
(Please note the Sunday beginning and end times have changed from 10-5pm TO 9-6pm)

Where:

Valley Forge Convention Center
1160 First Avenue
King of Prussia, PA 19406 
close to Philadelphia
www.vfconventioncenter.com   
 

Cost:

$35 - Pre-order regular weekend pass.
$20 - Pre-order discounted (students, 65+, military, & the unemployed) weekend pass.

$40 - "At the door" regular weekend pass.
$30 - "At the door" discounted (students, 65+, military, & the unemployed) weekend pass.

Click to read more ...

9/11 Truth is divine and unstoppable!

By Alicia Hope | Gangster Government

A lot of us know the perps of 9/11 worship satan, money and power!

9/11 was satanic by nature, therefore 9/11 Truth is divine by nature!

The exact opposite of evil is good. So let's keep doing what we're doing. Order more AE911 Truth evidence cards. I just ordered 100 more today! Hand them out to people everywhere! I've had many people thank me for the beautifully produced AE911 evidence cards! People are actually asking me for the cards!

We have all the information needed to prove 9/11 was an inside job! If any additional forensic proof is discovered, it will be icing on the cake!

Don't give up! Don't get discouraged! Richard Gage has given us some great tools to use and we should all be using them!

Since 2001, a lot of federal information has not been easily obtained. Barack Obama issued an order making FOIA requests easier to access. Let's hope that order applies to documents pertaining to the 9/11 attacks as well.

"All agencies should adopt a presumption of disclosure," Obama wrote, adding that "in the face of doubt, openness should prevail."

They can remove all the You Tube videos they want but they will never be able to stop the momentum of 9/11 Truth.

It's divine by nature!

Now, get out of our way!!!