statism watch

Flashback: Homing chips are CIA’s latest weapon against ‘al-Qaida’ targets hiding in Pakistan’s tribal belt | Pakistani troops battle Taliban in key Swat Valley city | Canada eyes arms sales to Pakistan | Caught in the crossfire – the Swat valley’s fleeing families | CIA: Our Drones are Killing Terrorists. Promise.

Gary Leupp, Counterpunch
May 31, 2009

So far the principle result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan following the events of 9-11 has been the destabilization of Pakistan. That breakdown is peaking with the events in what AP calls the “Swat town” of Mingora—actually a city of 375,000 from which all but 20,000 have fled as government forces moved in, strafing it with gunships. We’re talking urban guerrilla warfare, house-to-house fighting, not on the Afghan border but 50 miles away in the Swat Valley. We’re talking about Pakistani troops fighting to reclaim the nearby Malam Jabba ski resort from the Tehreek-e-Taliban, who since last year have been using it as a training center and logistics base. We’re talking about two million people fleeing the fighting in the valley and 160,000 in government refugee camps.

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Flashback: RCMP and US Coast Guard to integrate as Canada signs border pact with Homeland Security | New US border technology directed at insidious threat: Canadians | US Homeland Security forced to retract statement accusing Canada of importing 9/11 terrorists | Predator drones patrolling border irk Manitoba MLA | Homeland Security Assuming Broad Powers, Turning Swaths of U.S. into “Constitution-Free Zone” | Surveillance on the Great Lakes: U.S. tightens security along border | Drivers licences with chips spark heated debate | Border ‘two-headed monster,’ industry minister says | Canada, U.S. agree to use each other’s troops in civil emergencies | U.S. Northern Command, Canada Command establish new bilateral Civil Assistance Plan

CBC News
May 31, 2009

New U.S. rules on cross-border travel that take effect Monday represent a “heightened militarization” that will hurt the traditionally close relationship between border communities, the mayor of Sarnia, Ont., said Sunday.

“That longest and friendliest border in the world is now an invisible Berlin Wall,” Mike Bradley told CBC News, responding to the new requirement that travellers carry a secure document to enter the U.S. by land. It is the latest in a series of security measures implemented since the terror attacks on New York and Washington D.C. on Sept. 11, 2001.

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Forced to reveal – to government-vetted lawyers during in-camera sessions. It’s better than nothing, but don’t be fooled into thinking this is some sort of fair and open process.

Flashback: Judge orders recall of CSIS witnesses in Harkat case for potential perjury, obstruction | Tories aim to bring back anti-terrorism provisions | Lawyers slam CSIS on phone recordings | If released, security detainee Almrei to be surveilled, wiretapped, and GPS-tracked | Feds ordered to share evidence with defence in Harkat security case | More secrecy added to already secret process | Charkaoui set to fight new security certificate law | The New Security Certificate: Rushing injustice through the Senate | New security certificates issued | Court puts security certificates in limbo

Tonda MacCharles, The Toronto Star
May 31, 2009

Mohamed Harkat, left, with his lawyer Matt Webber, shows reporters in Ottawa March 6, 2009 a GPS tracking device he must wear on his ankle.

OTTAWA–The reputation and credibility of CSIS, Canada’s spy agency, is on the line Monday.

Defended by director Jim Judd as “the most reviewed” intelligence agency in the world, CSIS suddenly finds itself under a much more critical Federal Court microscope for questionable conduct in the government’s effort to deport terror suspect Mohamed Harkat.

Justice Simon Noel revealed last week the agency withheld “significant” information about the reliability of a human source on five past occasions and possibly lied in defending a government-issued security certificate to remove the former Ottawa pizza delivery man to his native Algeria.

He has given CSIS until 4 p.m. on Monday to produce, uncensored, the classified information about the human source — whose identity CSIS had sought to protect — that is key to the Harkat case.

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Al-Qaeda? And we thought all this time it was the ‘Taliban’. Anyways – so local tribes get to blast the hell out of each other, the CIA gets its kill numbers up, and the chip gets fine tuned. Everyone wins!

Flashback: CIA: Our Drones are Killing Terrorists. Promise. | US air strikes kill dozens of Afghan civilians | NATO denies air strike killed Afghan civilians | Report: CIA runs secret bases in Pakistan | Don’t-ask-don’t-tell Policy: Pakistan and U.S. Have Tacit Deal On Airstrikes

Declan Walsh, The Guardian

May 31, 2009

Tribesmen plant devices to guide drone attacks, locals shun fighters for fear of becoming targets

The CIA is equipping Pakistani tribesmen with secret electronic transmitters to help target and kill al-Qaida leaders in the north-western tribal belt, in a tactic that could aid Pakistan’s army as it takes the battle against extremism to the Taliban heartland.

As the army mops up Taliban resistance in the Swat valley, where a defence official predicted fighting would be over within days, the focus is shifting to Waziristan and the Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud.

But a deadly war of wits is already under way in the region, where tribesmen say the US is using advanced technology and old-fashioned cash to target the enemy.

Over the last 18 months the US has launched more than 50 drone attacks, mostly in south and north Waziristan. US officials claim nine of the top 20 al-Qaida figures have been killed.

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Flashback: Soaring loonie adds to anxiety over economy | US backing for world currency stuns markets | U.N. panel says world should ditch dollar | IMF poised to print billions of dollars in ‘global quantitative easing’ | IMF may need to “print money”, act as “world’s central bank” as crisis spreads | History: How the US Government Was Overthrown In Three Easy Steps | Bilderberg Seeks Bank Centralization Agenda

Xinhuanet.com
May 31, 2009

BEIJING — On the first day of U.S. treasury secretary Timothy Geithner’s visit to China, the Beijing-based Global Times published a survey of 23 famous Chinese economists on Sunday, saying that the majority of them deemed the vast holding of U.S. bonds “risky.”

Among the 23 experts polled, 17 said they believed that U.S. equities pose great risks to China’s economy.

Geithner will begin his first visit to Beijing as US treasury secretary in an attempt to assure the U.S.’ biggest creditor that its large holding of purchased US bonds is safe.

The visit also highlights Geithner’s comments made earlier this year alleging that China has manipulated its currency.

Li Wei, an expert with the Institute of Ministry of Commerce, and Tian Yun, a scholar at the China Macro Economics Institute, expressed concerns over the risks, saying that the United States may export its deepening crisis to China “by printing U.S. dollar notes uncontrollably.”

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One can only hope Mr. Stronach is savvy enough to get the Nazi Sig rune off of the hood, at least, considering the company’s chequered past.

Flashback: Auto bailout costs soar, contribute to $50B deficit | Fiat aims to be global powerhouse by acquiring Chrysler, Opel | US government may take controlling share of General Motors

Greg Keenan, Eric Reguly, Bertrand Marotte, The Globe and Mail
May 30, 2009

Magna’s successful bid will give country a national auto maker, Stronach says

Canada will have a national auto maker now that Magna International Inc. has won the bidding to take over Adam Opel AG.

“We want to build Opel cars in Canada,” Magna chairman Frank Stronach said late Friday from Vienna as he awaited confirmation that the Canadian auto-parts giant had indeed won the backing of the German government for a deal that would give it and its partners a controlling stake.

“Canada should have its own Canadian company … a truly Canadian automobile industry,” he said, although he did not indicate where in Canada the cars would be built.

His comments came as the Magna-led bid for the key European operations of General Motors Corp. was being debated by German politicians, who later approved the deal and a bridge loan of 1.5-billion euros. Germany is home to several Opel assembly plants and about 25,000 of the company’s employees.

The victory for the 76-year-old native of Austria is the culmination of an automotive career that began in 1957, when Mr. Stronach founded a company in a Toronto garage whose first contract was with GM to stamp out metal brackets to hold sun visors in place.

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For this, we have falling confidence in the US dollar to thank. Russia is moving to the Euro as its reserve currency, and Timothy Geithner, US Treasury Secretary, is on his way to China this weekend to convince them that their vast holdings of US bonds are safe. For those who haven’t heard, China’s immense US debt holdings give them the power to pull the plug on the US dollar. Which is why it was so stunning Geithner announced that he wasn’t opposed to the idea of a world currency in March.

Flashback: US backing for world currency stuns markets | U.N. panel says world should ditch dollar | IMF poised to print billions of dollars in ‘global quantitative easing’ | IMF may need to “print money”, act as “world’s central bank” as crisis spreads | History: How the US Government Was Overthrown In Three Easy Steps | Bilderberg Seeks Bank Centralization Agenda

Julian Beltrame, Canadian Press
May 29, 2009

OTTAWA–The recession has handed Canada its first double deficit in years but it’s what many would consider good news – a suddenly resurgent loonie – that poses the newest economic threat.

The Canadian currency rose almost two cents Friday to soar well past the 91 cent U.S. level for the first time since October, blithely oblivious to the economic wreckage piling up around it.

It’s the last thing the Canadian economy needs at this time, say economists, because a strong loonie prices exports out of foreign markets.

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“[Bush] joked that his mother, Barbara Bush, told him Clinton has been spending so much time with his own father, former U.S. president George H.W. Bush, that he is “like a son to her.”" You got that yet? The left and the right are a false dichotomy, and neither the east coast nor the Texas oil elite are looking out for your interests. Both are variants of statism. The left, traditionally, has been for controlling your economic life, while the right has been for controlling your spiritual life as philosopher Ayn Rand pointed out. These days, they are indistinguishable. The only real alternative is individual rights and liberty, in the small-l libertarian sense, as opposed to hierarchical state power. (Note that Rand eschewed ‘Libertarianism’ for its big-tent approach and lack of any agreed upon systemic ethical basis.) The amiable jousting of the left and right in our national capitols is no more real than a wrestling script, designed to make you think you have a choice. The entire spectacle is stomach-turning. To pursue this further, look into both Bush I and Clinton’s CIA pasts. You could start here or here.

Flashback: An inconvenient truth: Libertarianism is a counterexample to traditional political categories

CBC News
May 29, 2009

Former U.S. presidents perplexed by moderator’s passport question

Former U.S. presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton drew a standing ovation from a packed Toronto convention centre Friday after their mostly amiable discussion touching on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, AIDS programs in Africa and border security at home.

At one point during the event, which was billed by organizers as a “moderated conversation,” both Clinton and Bush admitted they were surprised to learn Canadians and Americans will require a passport or an enhanced driver’s licence to cross into the United States as of Monday.

Clinton, the first to take to the stage at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, joked in his opening speech that the event felt like a “21st-century coliseum,” and the audience might want to see him and his Republican counterpart “devour each other.” He said he and Bush would do their best to “thwart” such a spectacle.

Bush also struck a congenial note when he took the stage, giving Clinton top billing as he told the audience: “Welcome to the Bill and George Show.”

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Flashback: UK: New biometric security checks could include brain scans, heart rhythm fingerprinting | Parents, children to be fingerprinted at initial 250+ nursery schools in UK | Police will use new device to take fingerprints in street, vendors say face scanning next | Scots schoolchildren to be fingerprinted in controversial ID scheme | Eye scans, fingerprints to control NZ borders | American Border Officers Want to Fingerprint Canadians at SPP Bridge | UNBC students give thumbs down to fingerprint scanners | Give public biometrics the finger

Brett Winterford, itNews
May 29, 2009

The US Department of Homeland Security is set to kickstart a controversial new pilot to scan the fingerprints of travellers departing the United States.

From June, US Customs and Border Patrol will take a fingerprint scan of international travellers exiting the United States from Detroit, while the US Transport Security Administration will take fingerprint scans of international travellers exiting the United States from Atlanta.

Biometric technology such as fingerprint scans has been used by US Customs and Border Patrol for several years to gain a biometric record of non-US citizens entering the United States.

But under the Bush Administration, a plan was formulated to also scan outgoing passengers.

Michael Hardin, a senior policy analyst with the US-Visit Program at the United States Department of Homeland Security told a Biometrics Institute conference today that the DHS will use the data from the trial to “inform us as to where to take [exit screening] next.”

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Is Iran supplying terrorists to bomb itself, now? Unlikely… as the Guardian observes, in the province involved, it’s more likely that Jundallah is involved. As no less a journalist than Seymour Hersh has observed, this is a proxy entity funded by the CIA. But of course, here in North America, we’ve been trained to ignore important nuances like the Sunni/Shia divide, and are more likely to call Iran, and in fact any brown-skinned fundamentalist group ‘Al-Qaeda’. Unfortunately for this myopic worldview, Iran is on the other side of this sectarian division from the various Sunni insurgent groups lumped together for the sake of American foreign policy under the moniker ‘Al-Qaeda’. Of course, none of this should come as any surprise since the CIA has quite the history of manipulation of Iranian affairs.

Update (2009/05/30): Jundallah has claimed responsibility, and Iran has sent three suspects to the gallows.

Flashback: US scales up covert destabilization efforts in Iran, continues funding ‘al-Qaeda’ | Investigative Reporter Seymour Hersh: US Indirectly Funding Al-Qaeda Linked Sunni Groups in Move to Counter Iran

Robert Tait, The Guardian
May 29, 2009

A suspected suicide attack on an Iranian mosque killed at least 15 people and injured scores more yesterday, raising tensions in the run-up to next month’s presidential election and jeopardising prospects of rapprochement with the US.

Officials blamed a “terrorist group” for the massive explosion that ripped through the Shia Ali Ebne-Abitaleb mosque in Zahedan, capital of the volatile Sistan-Baluchestan province in eastern Iran.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Sistan-Baluchestan, bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan, has been the site of repeated attacks linked to Jundallah, a Sunni insurgency group which Iran claims is backed by Washington, although the US denies this.

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