The US and China: One Side is Losing, the Other is Winning

Asian capitalism, notably China and South Korea are competing with the US for global power. Asian global power is driven by dynamic economic growth, while the US pursues a strategy of military-driven empire building, illustrating the great divide in the world today. Expanding on an article recently published in the Financial Times, James Petras highlights the stark contrast between two strategic visions which will inescapably lead to diametrically opposite results.

Even a cursory read of a single issue of the Financial Times (December 28, 2009) illustrates the divergent strategies toward empire building. On page one, the lead article on the US is on its expanding military conflicts and its ‘war on terror’, entitled Obama Demands Review of Terror List. In contrast, there are two page-one articles on China, which describe China’s launching of the world’s fastest long-distance passenger train service and China’s decision to maintain its currency pegged to the US dollar as a mechanism to promote its robust export sector. While Obama turns the US focus on a fourth battle front (Yemen) in the ‘war on terror’ (after Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan), the Financial Times reports on the same page that a South Korean consortium has won a $20.4 billion dollar contract to develop civilian nuclear power plants for the United Arab Emirates, beating its US and European competitors.

On page two of the FT there is a longer article elaborating on the new Chinese rail system, highlighting its superiority over the US rail service: The Chinese ultra-modern train takes passengers between two major cities, 1,100 kilometers, in less than 3 hours whereas the US Amtrack ‘Express’ takes 3 ½ hours to cover 300 kilometers between Boston and New York.

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US spies walked into al-Qaeda's trap

ISLAMABAD - The suicide attack on the United States Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA's) forward operating base of Chapman in the Afghan province of Khost last week was planned in the Pakistani tribal area of North Waziristan.

The attacker - a handpicked plant in the Afghan National Army (ANA) - detonated his explosive vest in a gym at the base, killing seven agents, including the station chief, and wounding six. The base was officially for civilians involved in reconstruction.

The plan was executed following several weeks of preparation by al-Qaeda's Lashkar al-Zil (Shadow Army), Asia Times Online has learned. This was after Lashkar al-Zil's intelligence outfit informed its chief commander, Ilyas Kashmiri, that the CIA planned to broaden the monitoring of the possible movement of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Well-connected sources in militant camps say that Lashkar al-Zil had become aware of the CIA's escalation of intelligence activities to gather information on high-value targets for US drone attacks. It emerged that tribesmen from Shawal and Datta Khel, in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal area, had been invited by US operatives, through middlemen, to Khost, where the operatives tried to acquire information on al-Qaeda leaders. Such activities have been undertaken in the past, but this time they were somewhat different.

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Americans detained in Pakistan deny terror plans

Five Americans detained in Pakistan denied Monday they planned to carry out terrorist attacks, as a court granted police two weeks to prepare terrorism charges against them, their defense lawyer said.

The young Muslim men from the Washington, D.C., area were arrested in early December in the eastern Pakistani city of Sargodha in a case that has spurred fears that Westerners are traveling to Pakistan to join militant groups. Pakistani police have said they plan to seek life sentences for the men under the country's anti-terrorism law.

The men, aged 19 to 25, denied they had ties with al-Qaida or other militant groups during a court appearance Monday in Sargodha, said their attorney, Ameer Abdullah Rokri.

"They told the court that they did not have any plan to carry out any terrorist act inside or outside Pakistan," said Rokri. "They said that they only intended to travel to Afghanistan to help their Muslim brothers who are in trouble, who are bleeding and who are being victimized by Western forces."

Rokri did not say whether the men planned to fight coalition troops in Afghanistan or simply provide humanitarian assistance. But one of the men indicated they had planned to wage holy war.

"We are not terrorists," Ramy Zamzam told The Associated Press as he entered the courtroom. "We are jihadists, and jihad is not terrorism."

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Jordan is helping CIA in Afghanistan

One of the victims of a fatal attack on a CIA base in Afghanistan last week was a Jordanian intelligence official, the Washington Post reported Monday.

Jordan's King Abdullah II and his wife, Rania reportedly attended the official's military funeral on Saturday.

The Washington Post reported that the General Intelligence Department, Jordan's spy agency, had been working especially closely with the CIA since the September 11, 2001 attacks. A former CIA officer quoted in the report explained that Jordanian intelligence officials "know the bad guy's... culture, his associates, and more [than anyone] about the network to which he belongs."

Nonetheless, US intelligence officials declined comment on the report.

The Washington Post went on to say that after the blast, the CIA lowered the bomb's official death toll from eight to seven, and that the Jordanian was the eighth victim.

The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the deadly attack, stating on Friday that they had used a turncoat CIA operative to carry out a suicide bombing as revenge for a top militant leader's death in a US missile strike.

The suicide bomber struck the CIA's operation at Camp Chapman in eastern Khost province on Wednesday. The base was used to direct and coordinate CIA operations and intelligence gathering in Khost, a hotbed of insurgent activity because of its proximity to Pakistan's lawless tribal areas, former CIA officials said. Among the seven killed was the chief of the operation, they said.

Western troops accused of executing 10 Afghan civilians, including children

American-led troops were accused yesterday of dragging innocent children from their beds and shooting them during a night raid that left ten people dead.

Afghan government investigators said that eight schoolchildren were killed, all but one of them from the same family. Locals said that some victims were handcuffed before being killed.

Western military sources said that the dead were all part of an Afghan terrorist cell responsible for manufacturing improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which have claimed the lives of countless soldiers and civilians.

“This was a joint operation that was conducted against an IED cell that Afghan and US officials had been developing information against for some time,” said a senior Nato insider. But he admitted that “the facts about what actually went down are in dispute”.

The allegations of civilian casualties led to protests in Kabul and Jalalabad, with children as young as 10 chanting “Death to America” and demanding that foreign forces should leave Afghanistan at once.

President Karzai sent a team of investigators to Narang district, in eastern Kunar province, after reports of a massacre first surfaced on Monday.

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US to exploit Iran unrest for sanctions

President Barack Obama plans to focus fresh sanctions on Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, the military force that oversees its pursuit of nuclear weapons. The Revolutionary Guard has also been prominent in the recent crackdown on anti-government demonstrators. Mr Obama gave Iran a deadline of the end of 2009 to make progress on complying with United Nations resolutions and suspending its uranium enrichment programme.

Tehran has not been daunted by previous sanctions but an Obama administration official said the current turmoil in Iran granted “a window to impose the first sanctions that may make the Iranians think the nuclear programme isn’t worth the price tag”.

The administration believes that Iran’s hopes of secretly enriching uranium have faltered since the disclosure in October of a secret enrichment plant under construction near Qom, the Shia Muslim holy city.

Iran suffered a second setback when international nuclear inspectors reported that the number of machines operating at the Natanz plant, used to enrich uranium for nuclear fuel, had dropped by 20 per cent since the summer because of technical problems.

Some European officials believe the problems may have been partly caused by secret sabotage and other covert action by Western intelligence agencies. US officials have said these factors resulted in the extension of how long it would take Iran to achieve what nuclear specialists term “covert breakout”, the capacity to produce functioning weapons secretly.

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Chickens Coming Home to Roost?

By Alicia Hope | GangsterGovernment

I know Elijah Muhammed excoriated Malcolm X for using the phrase "chickens coming home to roost" in reference to JFK's assassination. I don't have a leader. I'll use the phrase as I see fit! Malcolm, with his infinite wisdom and bravado, was talking about the violence that America forced on other countries being karmically returned to the United States. Malcolm talked about "blowback" before Chalmers Johnson!! X's rhetoric concerning "blowback" needs to be resurrected today! The climate of hate and greed has to be changed. How is it that US officials can talk smack about the GWOT on Sunday morning talk shows and how to fight it when the people they are trying to help see the US as a terrorist nation that tortures, murders and detains innocent people? Of course, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda will use infiltration to defeat their enemy. The actions of the US speak louder than sweet words spoken in Cairo. Every nation has a book of deeds as do individuals. Martin Luther King,Jr called the United States, "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today."

The US has used infiltration for decades. The US infiltrates organizations all the time. Were not the Black Panthers infiltrated by government operatives? Even, the US Congress is infiltrated! What about the recent report about spying on the NOI? What about the MIAC report? Dare I mention the infiltration of the Pentagon in the US media?! I could go on and on and on! Did I mention COINTELPRO?

Now, the shoe is on the other foot and no one in the US government knows what to do about the infiltration of Pakistani or Afghan nationals. Now, they want to strip search all Muslim men 18-28. They've gone completely insane! It is sad and painful when anyone perishes in a violent act but violence is what "Comrade Wolf" does best!

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US taxpayer losses will top $400 Billion

BLOOMBERG

Taxpayer losses from supporting Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will top $400 billion, according to Peter Wallison, a former general counsel at the Treasury who is now a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

“The situation is they are losing gobs of money, up to $400 billion in mortgages,” Wallison said in a Bloomberg Television interview. The Treasury Department recognized last week that losses will be more than $400 billion when it raised its limit on federal support for the two government-sponsored enterprises, he said.

The U.S. seized the two mortgage financiers in 2008 as the government struggled to prevent a meltdown of the financial system. The debt of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks grew an average of $184 billion annually from 1998 to 2008, helping fuel a bubble that drove home prices up by 107 percent between 2000 and mid-2006, according to the S&P/Case- Shiller home-price index.

The Treasury said on Dec. 24 it would provide an unlimited amount of assistance to the companies as needed for the next three years to alleviate market concern that the government lifeline for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the largest source of money for U.S. home loans, could lapse or be exhausted.

Lax regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac led to the mortgage companies taking on too many risky loans, Wallison said.

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U.S. Loan Effort Is Seen as Adding to Housing Woes

NY Times

The Obama administration’s $75 billion program to protect homeowners from foreclosure has been widely pronounced a disappointment, and some economists and real estate experts now contend it has done more harm than good.

Since President Obama announced the program in February, it has lowered mortgage payments on a trial basis for hundreds of thousands of people but has largely failed to provide permanent relief. Critics increasingly argue that the program, Making Home Affordable, has raised false hopes among people who simply cannot afford their homes.

As a result, desperate homeowners have sent payments to banks in often-futile efforts to keep their homes, which some see as wasting dollars they could have saved in preparation for moving to cheaper rental residences. Some borrowers have seen their credit tarnished while falsely assuming that loan modifications involved no negative reports to credit agencies.

Some experts argue the program has impeded economic recovery by delaying a wrenching yet cleansing process through which borrowers give up unaffordable homes and banks fully reckon with their disastrous bets on real estate, enabling money to flow more freely through the financial system.

“The choice we appear to be making is trying to modify our way out of this, which has the effect of lengthening the crisis,” said Kevin Katari, managing member of Watershed Asset Management, a San Francisco-based hedge fund. “We have simply slowed the foreclosure pipeline, with people staying in houses they are ultimately not going to be able to afford anyway.”

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War hero from the SAS says US making same mistake as Soviets in Afghanistan

The white flashes of explosions and red traces of artillery fire filled the moonlit sky on the night of October 7, 2001, as Britain and the US launched the war in Afghanistan against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

From the roof of a mud-caked house in Tobdara, a mountainside village high above the Shomali valley, 30 miles north of the Afghan capital, Kabul, I watched as allied war planes and cruise missiles streaked beyond a high ridge separating us from the front line.

Loud explosions echoed into the night as I was joined by a group of hardened Northern Alliance fighters, the loose coalition of former mujaheddin rebels who had sided with the West. Armed with AK-47 machine guns and careful not to use even a torch to avoid attracting incoming fire from an enemy position above, the men had come to witness the twilight of the Taliban.

“It won’t take long,” predicted one, wrapped in an Afghan blanket and wearing a pakol, the woollen round-topped hat favoured by the mujaheddin. “The Taliban are finished. A few days of heavy bombardment and then we’ll go in with a ground assault. They’ll either flee or die.”

His confidence was engaging. But in the dusty plains below there were many reminders of another superpower’s bloody attempt to wage war in Afghanistan. Soviet tanks and armoured personnel carriers, burnt out and twisted, still littered the country, more than two decades after Moscow had withdrawn its troops, ending its disastrous nine-year war.

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CIA base attacked in Afghanistan supported predator drone program

The CIA base attacked by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan this week was at the heart of a covert program overseeing strikes by the agency's remote-controlled aircraft along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, officials familiar with the installation said Thursday.

The assailant, wearing an explosives belt under his clothes, apparently was allowed to enter the small base after offering to become an informant, according to two former agency officials briefed on the attack. The CIA declined to comment on the circumstances behind the incident, and it was unclear whether the bomber chose the base because of its role in supporting CIA airstrikes against top al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders in the region.

The blast early Wednesday evening in the eastern province of Khost killed seven CIA officers and contractors, including the base chief, and seriously wounded six others in what intelligence officials described as a devastating blow to one of the agency's key intelligence hubs for counterterrorism operations. It was the deadliest single day for the agency since eight CIA officers were killed in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut.

The CIA continued drone strikes Thursday. A security official in Pakistan confirmed that two militants were killed late in the day in what was described as a missile attack by a Predator drone in Pakistan's autonomous North Waziristan region, across the border from Khost.

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Big Brother: Baltimore, Britain and eyes of the law

In one of the most-watched boroughs in the most-watched city in the most-watched country in the world, Rob McAlister has a message for Baltimore officials: It's not about the cameras.

Among the millions of people passing up and down the streets of Westminster, a dense borough in central London, there are thieves, pickpockets and drug dealers, and finding them by scanning the hundreds of cameras is like trying to spot a raindrop that differs from the rest.

McAlister, the Westminster city coordination manager who helped Baltimore set up its network of closed-circuit television cameras, says cameras must be incorporated into a broader city management strategy in which intelligence-sharing allows camera operators to be investigators and not night watchmen.

"We don't have a strategy for cameras any more than we have a strategy for a police car. You have a city management strategy, and the CCTV or police car is a tool in the box, to achieve the overall strategy," said McAlister. "It's not the CCTV that makes the crime go. Without an overall plan, what you end up with is very expensive recording equipment."

Five years after launching a system that cost at least $5 million and continues to grow, Baltimore claims successful results - but is still trying to work out the kinks.

McAlister gives former Mayor Martin O'Malley high praise for his research into CCTV and says Baltimore went big, buying some of the highest-quality equipment available at the time.

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Before vote, some senators knew of testimony error by TSA nominee Southers

Washington Post

Democratic senators rallied around President Obama's pick to head the Transportation Security Administration on Friday as new details emerged indicating that key lawmakers already knew when they voted in November to advance his nomination that he had mischaracterized a personal incident in his testimony.

The White House rushed to defend Erroll Southers, who is under fire for providing inconsistent statements to Congress about inappropriately accessing confidential criminal records 20 years ago about his then-estranged wife's new boyfriend. Democratic senators, meanwhile, intensified pressure to confirm Southers soon after Congress returns from its winter recess, saying it is critical that permanent leadership is installed at the TSA in the aftermath of the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a U.S. airliner.

Still, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), who earlier delayed Southers's nomination over a labor union issue, on Friday became the first senator to oppose the nominee, saying, "If he can't tell the truth, then he's not qualified and should not be confirmed."

The discrepancy surfaced in documents published by The Washington Post on Thursday.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who had raised suspicions about Southers's statements to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said Friday that she is satisfied with his explanations and has faith in his nomination.

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Blackwater 5 acquitted

The Iraqi government on Friday expressed "regret" about a US court decision to dismiss all charges against Blackwater guards who killed 17 Iraqi civilians in 2007.

US District Court Judge Ricardo Urbina acquitted five members of Xe Services LLC, formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide, of manslaughter charges involving the killing of 17 people in Baghdad.

Xe Services LLC is a private military company contracted by the US Army to mainly provide security for American officials during war time.

On September 16, 2007, Blackwater security detail was escorting members of the US Agency for International Development to a meeting in western Baghdad when, according to Iraqi investigations and US military reports, they opened fire and used excessive force on civilians in Nisour Square without the slightest provocation.

The Iraqi government's spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, on Friday reacted to the court ruling.

"Inquiries carried out by the Iraqi government clearly confirm that the Blackwater (Xe) guards committed a crime and used weapons when there was no threat necessitating the use of force," he said.

Al-Dabbagh stated that Iraq would "act forcefully and decisively to prosecute the Blackwater (Xe) criminals".

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US court allows NSA to hide info on Gitmo detainees

US intelligence has the right to decline, confirm or deny the existence of surveillance records in order to safeguard the national security, a federal appeal court has ruled.

The ruling came on the heels of a request filed by a group of lawyers, defending Guantanamo Bay captives. They have sought to take advantage of the Freedom of Information Act in order to find out whether US intelligence agencies intercepted their communications with their clients at Guantanamo Bay Prison in Cuba.

The lawyers argued that the Terrorist Surveillance Program and the Warrantless Wiretapping Program launched under the former President George Bush's administration is now a matter of public record and there is no reason for secrecy.

The appeal court judge, Jose Cabranes, said as long as the disclosure of such data puts national security at risk, intelligence agencies can withhold secret information.

"The fact that the public is aware of the program's existence does not mean that the public is entitled to have information regarding the operation of the program, its targets, the information it has yielded, or other highly sensitive national security information that the government has continued to classify," Judge Cabranes wrote, Reuters reported Friday.

NSA discreetly conducted the program until its existence was disclosed in the US media. Under public pressure, President Bush was forced to publicly acknowledge its existence in his December 2005 radio address.

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CIA base chief killed in attack

The CIA said Thursday that seven of its employees were killed and six others wounded in a suicide bombing at a base in Afghanistan. The Associated Press has learned that one of them was the chief of the CIA's post in Afghanistan's southeastern Khost Province.

CIA Director Leon Panetta said in a message to agency staff that the casualties sustained in Wednesday's strike at Forward Operating Base Chapman were the result of a terrorist attack. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the bombing.

Initial reports indicated that eight American civilians had been killed. There was no explanation for the discrepancy in Panetta's message, which was released by the CIA in an unusual step a day after one of the deadliest attacks on the agency in its history.

"Those who fell yesterday were far from home and close to the enemy, doing the hard work that must be done to protect our country from terrorism," Panetta said. "We owe them our deepest gratitude, and we pledge to them and their families that we will never cease fighting for the cause to which they dedicated their lives � a safer America."

"Yesterday's tragedy reminds us that the men and women of the CIA put their lives at risk every day to protect this nation," he said. "Throughout our history, the reality is that those who make a real difference often face real danger."

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NATO Kills at Least Eight Afghan Civilians in Fresh Air Strike

Kabul - At least eight villagers were killed and two injured in an airstrike by NATO forces in Helmand province in Afghanistan, local officials reported Thursday.

A spokesman for the provincial government said a house near the provincial capital Lashkar Gah was hit in the airstrike The spokesman did not provide further details.

On the weekend, 10 civilians including eight children were killed in NATO military action in the eastern province of Kunar.

President Hamid Karzai stated Thursday that according to the latest information from the investigative commission in Kunar, the victims were shot dead in their homes by soldiers.

Karzai called on the NATO-led military force International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to hand over the soldiers responsible for the action to the Afghan authorities.

ISAF has so far not responded.

Civilian victims in military actions against insurgents is causing continued resentment among the population.

Haskell: 'My own country is lying to me and all of my fellow Americans'

Following up on a visit from FBI officials about an eyewitness account first described to MLive.com, Michigan attorney Kurt Haskell described the visit in comment sections across MLive on Wednesday.

Haskell and his wife, Lori, were aboard Flight 253 when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly tried to destroy the plane. They say another man tried to help Abdulmutallab board the plane in Amsterdam.

Haskell had two detailed posts in two different stories. Here is Part One, originally posted here (Nothing below in the indent has been changed. Only links have been added.):

"Today is the second worst day of my life after 12-25-09. Today is the day that I realized that my own country is lying to me and all of my fellow Americans. Let me explain."

Ever since I got off of Flight 253 I have been repeating what I saw in US Customs. Specifically, 1 hour after we left the plane, bomb sniffing dogs arrived. Up to this point, all of the passengers on Flight 253 stood in a small area in an evacuated luggage claim area of an airport terminal. During this time period, all of the passengers had their carry on bags with them. When the bomb sniffing dogs arrived, 1 dog found something in a carry on bag of a 30 ish Indian man. This is not the so called "Sharp Dressed" man. I will refer to this man as "The man in orange".

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What are we really eating? Deliberate mislabeling for economic gain?

LA TIMES

Who says scientists with PhD.s should have all the fun? Not us, especially after a high school class project involving DNA analysis resulted in the discovery of an invasive insect species and several mislabeled food items. Enjoying that sturgeon caviar? It might be Mississippi paddlefish.

Brenda Tan and Matt Cost, both students at Trinity School in New York City, did a projected last year they called DNAHouse, collecting specimens from around their homes and nearby areas, and analyzing them via the Barcode of Life Database used to identify various species. (They had help from DNA barcoding experts from Rockefeller University and the American Museum of Natural History, both in New York City.) In an article in the January issue of the journal BioScience, the two reported they found readable DNA in 151 out of 217 items, including DNA from 95 different animal species.

Among the findings: Inside a box of grapefruit shipped from Texas was an Oriental latrine fly, considered an invasive species common to the South. In a packaged snack of dried shredded squid was DNA of the jumbo flying squid, which can grow up to 100 pounds. Tan and Cost also took hair samples from several classmates and wrote, "We were happy to report that our classmates came back as 100% human" (That must have been a relief.) A cockroach at first looked like Periplaneta americana, an American cockroach, but its DNA differed enough to possibly render it a new species or subspecies.

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Obama to Provide Path to Citizenship for 12 Million Undocumented Workers

WASHINGTON — With the health-care battle still unfinished, the Obama administration has been laying plans to take up an issue that could prove even more divisive — a major overhaul of the nation's immigration system.

Senior White House aides privately have assured Latino activists that the president will back legislation next year to provide a path to citizenship for the estimated 12 million undocumented workers now living in the United States.

In addition to the citizenship provision, the emerging plan will stress efforts to secure U.S. borders against those trying to cross illegally. But that two-track approach was rejected repeatedly in the past by Republicans and other critics who insist a border crackdown must demonstrate its effectiveness before any action on citizenship is considered.

Whatever proposal Obama puts forward will likely be complicated by the calendar: Midterm elections are in November, and polls show the public is more worried about joblessness and the fragile economy than anything else.

The White House already has a packed agenda for 2010: economic recovery, global-warming legislation and tougher regulation of financial institutions.

In an effort to enlist the kind of business support that helped drive its health-care initiative, for example, administration officials have reached out to the National Restaurant Association, which represents an industry that employs thousands of immigrants. Earlier this year, the new head of the association, Dawn Sweeney, met with Cecilia Munoz, a White House aide involved in the issue, and expressed interest in cooperating.

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