statism watch

It’s right in your face – this is how intelligence agencies operate. And we’re expected to believe now they’ve given up on using mercenaries and that this proxy war thing has been relegated to the past since they’re busily wiping out their old pawns in the tribal regions of north Pakistan. Presumably that crew has outlived its usefulness and has become inconvenient. Very shameful, tut, tut, we won’t do it again. We’re ‘more wise’ now.

Flashback: Western Governments Funding Taliban & Al-Qaeda To Kill U.S. Troops, Destabilize Countries | Taliban flee new U.S. drive in Afghanistan | Delta Force Officer: We Weren’t Allowed to Kill Osama Bin Laden | Low Level Driver Convicted Of Terror Charges While Bin Laden’s Senior Body Guard Was Let Go | US scales up covert destabilization efforts in Iran, continues funding ‘al-Qaeda’ | Report: U.S. Gave Green Light For Taliban Prison Attack | New Bin Laden Video: 100% Forgery | Investigative Reporter Seymour Hersh: US Indirectly Funding Al-Qaeda Linked Sunni Groups in Move to Counter Iran | US Allowed Taliban, Al-Qaeda Airlift Evacuation

Dean Nelson, The Telegraph
July 8, 2009

Pakistan’s president has admitted his country created terrorist groups to help achieve its foreign policy goals.

Asif Zardari told a meeting of former senior civil servants in Islamabad, it was time to be honest about their deployment.

“Let us be truthful to ourselves and make a candid admission of the realities,” he said. “The terrorists of today were the heroes of yesteryears until 9/11 occurred and they began to haunt us as well.”

These groups were not thrown up because of government weakness, but as a matter of policy. He said they were deliberately “created and nurtured” as a policy to achieve some short-term tactical objectives.

His comments amount to an admission that Pakistan trained Islamic terrorists to launch attacks on India as part of its long war over its claim on Kashmir.

(more…)

And another massively hyped botnet attack comes along, right in the midst of all these recent stories announcing an international cybersecurity apparatus. Gosh, gee, maybe we need a cyber Patriot Act and a good frisking every time we log on. Wired is right to suggest this is being used as a pretext, let’s not fall for it this time.

Flashback: Psiphon braintrust: Ottawa needs a strategy for cyberwar | US ‘concerned’ over cyber threat | UK to found new ‘cyber-security’ units attached to national eavesdropping centre | ISPs must help police snoop on internet under new bill | UK plans to integrate ‘cybersecurity’ centre with US, Canada | Cybersecurity Is Framework For Total Government Regulation & Control Of Our Lives | Obama Set to Create A Cybersecurity Czar With Broad Mandate | Put NSA in Charge of Cyber Security, Or the Power Grid Gets It | Electricity Grid in U.S. Penetrated By Spies | Pentagon spending millions to fix cyberattacks | Should Obama Control the Internet? | Cybersecurity law would give feds unprecedented net control | Munk Centre researchers discover botnet, call for international cyberspace ‘legal regime’

Kim Zetter, Wired.com
July 8, 2009

Talk of cyberwar is in the air after more than two dozen high-level websites in the United States and South Korea were hit by denial-of-service attacks this week. But cooler heads are pointing to a pilfered five-year-old worm as the source of the traffic, under control of an unsophisticated hacker who apparently did little to bolster his borrowed code against detection.

Nonetheless, the attacks have launched a thousand headlines (or thereabouts) and helped to throw kindling on some long-standing international political flames — with one sworn enemy blaming another for the aggression.

Welcome to the New World Order of cybersecurity.

(more…)

Mercer has already reneged on his earlier promise that there would be no removal of homeless in Vancouver, so why should anyone take him at his word when he says the cameras are temporary, or that ‘free speech zones’ will be voluntary? Free speech zones are anything but, and if they were to be voluntary, there would be no need to erect them. They’re a tool to control opposition and to keep it out of the way of the media spotlight. And 4,500 combat forces? Drones? Tanks? Security ships? How much more militarization can the people of Vancouver take?

CBC News
July 8, 2009

Some homeless to be moved out of security zones

Olympic security officials have rolled out plans to create so-called free speech areas during the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, similar to the protest zones used in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

The head of security for the 2010 Games, RCMP assistant commissioner Bud Mercer, told Vancouver city council on Tuesday, however, that protesters will not be required to limit their activities to the areas.

“You’re free to use them, if you like, but anywhere you participate in lawful protest is legal and lawful in Canada. It doesn’t have to be in a free speech area,” said Mercer.

David Eby of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association says officials are being too vague.

(more…)

It’s official, money grows on trees – has for a long time. You just need to operate a central bank printing press if you want access to it. And since the Canadian, American, and US central banks have all now made continuous ‘liquidity creation’ an official part of their mandate, there’s little chance the bailout payola tap will be shut off any time soon.

Flashback: Second wave of economic crisis coming, international regulation necessary Brown warns | US Senate Blocks Bill To Audit The Fed As Government Prepares For Second Round Of Looting | Canada is now on the national securities regulation bandwagon | Financial crisis: Worst may be still ahead, says IMF chief | Flaherty looks for way to end stimulus | Gordon Brown seeks sweeping reforms to give IMF global ’surveillance role’ | Flaherty calls for mandatory IMF surveillance

CBC News
July 8, 2009

On the first day of their summit in L’Aquila, Italy on Wednesday, Group of Eight leaders agreed the global economy is not stable enough to pull back massive fiscal stimulus plans any time soon, according to a draft statement.

However, the leaders from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States did commit to preparing exit strategies from the “unprecedented and concerted action” with the help of the International Monetary Fund, said the statement obtained by The Associated Press.

“We will take, individually and collectively, the necessary steps to return the global economy to a strong, stable and sustainable growth path,” the draft communique said.

The measures include continuing their stimulus packages while keeping inflation under control, and ensuring banks have enough cash to keep lending.

(more…)

Be sure to click through the link in the middle of the article for further revelations of how security forces further tried to bribe Ahmed to ensure he wouldn’t go public with his story. Absolutely disgusting behaviour, which at the same time seems to become standard operating procedure whenever security forces think they can get away with it.

Flashback: ‘If I didn’t confess to 7/7 bombings MI5 officers would rape my wife,’ claims torture victim | MI5 faces fresh torture allegations | Trio not guilty of helping 7/7 London bombers | UK: Government makes ‘unprecedented’ apology for covering up Binyam torture | Former MI5 chief: UK Ministers ‘using fear of terror’ to restrict civil rights | U.K. resident held at Gitmo alleges Canadian involvement in torture

Ian Cobain, The Guardian
July 8, 2009

MP David Davis’s dramatic parliamentary move exposes treatment of terror suspect

The true depth of British involvement in the torture of terrorism suspects overseas and the manner in which that complicity is concealed behind a cloak of courtroom secrecy was laid bare last night when David Davis MP detailed the way in which one counter-terrorism operation led directly to a man suffering brutal mistreatment.

In a dramatic intervention using the protection of parliamentary privilege, the former shadow home secretary revealed how MI5 and Greater Manchester police effectively sub-contracted the torture of Rangzieb Ahmed to a Pakistani intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI), whose routine use of torture has been widely documented.

This is the first time that the information has entered the public domain. Previously it has been suppressed through the process of secret court hearings and, had the Guardian or other media organisations reported it, they would have exposed themselves to the risk of prosecution for contempt of court.

(more…)