statism watch

A new phase of propaganda begins – first used as a pretext to justify militarization and empire-building exercises in the Middle East, ‘extremism’, whatever that means, is now to be retooled as the pretext for mass socialization of the domestic economy. Not that the Obama administration is going to engage in any substantial rollbacks of Bush II policies, you understand. hat wouldn’t be prudent either, in the face of ‘extremism’. It’s the next logical step in a continuing campaign of regime change, only now the regimes being changed are Western, and the methods to be used on the home turf are Fabian where possible.

Context: A Sibel Edmonds Bombshell – Bin Laden Worked for U.S. Until 9/11 | Pakistani president Asif Zardari admits creating terrorist groups | 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

Paul Koring, The Globe and Mail
August 7, 2009

Obama administration changes the nomenclature of a long struggle

The “global war on terrorism” is over and calling it that was a bad idea, President Barack Obama’s counterterrorism adviser said Thursday.

The phrase, coined by former president George W. Bush and often rendered in Washington speak as GWOT (pronounced “gee whot”) enraged many of his critics who argued that it was impossible to wage war on a tactic (or a noun). Mr. Obama has studiously avoided the phase and Thursday, John Brennan, the top White House adviser on homeland security and counterterrorism, explained why.

In his first public speech, the veteran CIA agent said that the shift is more sweeping than a change in vocabulary and that it reflects the President’s broad philosophical approach.

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Dead men tell no tales, and Baitullah Mehsud has been fingered as having connections to Western intelligence agencies. Don’t think for a moment we’re getting the whole story here.

Flashback: Whistleblower Who Linked “Taliban” Leader To US Intelligence Is Assassinated | Pakistani president Asif Zardari admits creating terrorist groups | Western Governments Funding Taliban & Al-Qaeda To Kill U.S. Troops, Destabilize Countries | The Main Result of the “War on Terror”: The Destabilization of Pakistan | Report: CIA runs secret bases in Pakistan | Key Benazir Bhutto assassination witness shot dead | CIA, Pakistani ISI have long, complicated relationship | US Allowed Taliban, Al-Qaeda Airlift Evacuation

CBC News
August 7, 2009

Officials search for verification near missile strike site

Pakistan’s top Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud, left with cap, talks to the media in Kotkai, a village in the Pakistani tribal area of South Waziristan, in this May 2008 file photo. (Associated Press)

Pakistani government authorities headed Friday to the site of a U.S. air strike to search for the remains of notorious militant leader Baitullah Mehsud, who Taliban officials claim died in the attack.

Kafayat Ullah, an aide to Mehsud, told The Associated Press that Mehsud and one of his wives were killed by a U.S. attack Wednesday but declined to provide further details.

“I confirm that Baitullah Mehsud and his wife died in the American missile attack in South Waziristan,” Ullah said.

Three Pakistani intelligence officials have also said Mehsud is believed to have died in an air strike at the home of his father-in-law in Nardusai in South Waziristan. A U.S. intelligence official also said there were strong indications that Mehsud had died, including communications interceptions.

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That’s just how the elite and the powerful like to roll.What good is power and unlimited license if you can’t use it on someone? (Obviously, that’s sarcasm.) Dyncorp, another American contractor, was linked to child kidnapping rings. On a related note, the CBC this morning broadcast an interview with Jeff Sharlet, author of The Family: Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power. It was quite revealing. Between self-professed Christians running around saying their prophet Christ was for a totalitarian state, the questionable activities of American leaders at the Bohemian Grove, and the cases of pedophile rings and abusive religious schools that pop up every so often in the media – all associated with wealth and privilege – it becomes clear there’s a disgusting double standard at work. We, the modest slaves, should behave. The self-proclaimed chosen will do as they will.

Flashback: Blackwater Founder Erik Prince Implicated in Murder | Abu Ghraib abuse photos ’show rape’ | Canadian Forces: Worries about child abuse by Afghan allies ‘unfounded’ | Don’t look, don’t tell, troops told in response to Afghani child abuse

David Edwards, Muriel Kane, Rawstory.com
August 7, 2009

Since the revelation earlier this week of allegations by two former employees of security firm Blackwater that its owner was complicit in murder to cover up the deliberate killing of Iraqi civilians, more explosive charges have continued to emerge.

Perhaps the most shocking of those charges — quoted by MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann on Thursday from the employees’ sworn declarations — is that Blackwater was guilty of using child prostitutes at its compound in Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone and that owner Erik Prince knew of this activity and did nothing to stop it.

The declarations describe Blackwater as “having young girls provide oral sex to Enterprise members in the ‘Blackwater Man Camp’ in exchange for one American dollar.” They add even though Prince frequently visited this camp, he “failed to stop the ongoing use of prostitutes, including child prostitutes, by his men.”

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