February 28, 1991: The End of Operation Desert Storm and the 20 Years After
In what may well be remembered as the high-water mark of the projection of American power and prestige, it was at Midnight on February 28, 1991 that President George H.W. Bush announced the suspension of combat operations, and an end of Operation Desert Storm. Gulf War One had come to a close.
This Sunday marks the 20th anniversary of that day.
To illustrate how far into the depth of national self-loathing and doubt we have descended, I would invite you, dear reader, to imagine Barack Obama standing humbly, yet resolutely and proud, in the Well of the House of Representatives, as President George Bush the Elder did one week later, on March 7th, and announce to the nation:
…We watched over our sons and daughters with pride, watched over them with prayer. As Commander in Chief, I can report to you that our Armed Forces fought with Honor and Valor, and as President, I can report to the nation that aggression is defeated, the war is over.”
It is difficult for me to ever imagine our first Post-Constitutional, Post-American president delivering a public utterance like this; one that mentioned Pride, Prayer, Honor and Valor in the context of victory over aggression. Oh, he might use the words , in a string of vacuous, empty and platitudinous homilies, in his ever-expansive desire to redound to himself the reflected glory of the hard toil and sacrifice of others, but Barack Obama would never, ever praise the stunning efforts of our military armed forces, and the iron willed strength of our warriors that lead, arrow-straight, to victory.
“Victory”, said President Barack Obama “is not a concept I’m comfortable with”.
Oh, what a winding and dark road we’ve trod these last twenty years, that have lead us to this, the Presidency of Barack Hussein Obama.
The twenty-year journey began on August 2nd, 1990. It is interesting to note that the magnificent, common-sense approach to both energy policy and military strength under the exemplary leadership of Ronald Reagan lead (tangentially) both to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and our thunderous victory over Saddam Hussein. Because Reagan deregulated the domestic energy industry, prices for OPEC oil plummeted thoughout most of his presidency, to the point that the cost of oil on the day of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait was a little over $20 a barrel.
Throughout the early stanzas of the Iran/Iraq war, during a period of intense domestic U.S. oil price controls and industry regulation, the price of oil was trading in the $30-$50 per barrel region, and this wealth kept the Hussein Kelptocracy propped up and able to function. But, by the end of the Reagan presidency, the price dropped into the low $20’s, where it remained stuck until the end of the 1980’s.
Saddam (or, as George H.W. Bush pronounced it, “Sad-em”), bereft of his oil revenues, needed cash. He was in hock to everybody, most notably Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. So, he did what any self-respecting bully would do: He attacked his neighbors to whom he owned the most money in the summer of 1990.
The conventional wisdom at the time was that Sad-em wouldn’t stop in Kuwait, and would turn left, and pounce on Saudi Arabia. At the time King Fahd supplied about 35% of our imported oil. So, under the leadership of the elder Bush, a massive coalition military force, consisting at it’s height of nearly one-million men, was assembled as a defensive shield in the sands of Araby.
After the usual multi-national United Nations hi-jinx, in which the Arab beligerents insisted on linking the Iraqi-Kuwaiti question to the age-old whipping boy Israel (huh?), along with the last dying gasps of Gorbachev’s USSR as it tried desperately to remain relevant, the air campaign began in earnest on January 16th, 1991. By February 28th, after a one-hundred hour ground offensive, the war was over. Saddam was driven out of Kuwait. On the streets of Kuwait City, there were riotous celebrations, with the celebrants chanting “George Boosh! George Boosh!” In these scenes alone were the stock footage for the victorious re-election campaign for President Bush, that was certain to be waged in only eighteen months.
Somewhere along the way, though, a small recession intervened (in which unemployment jumped to –gasp– 6.8 percent), a heretofore unknown and insignificant southern Governor name Bill Clinton intervened in these plans, calling it “the worst economy in 50 years”. The rest, they say, is history.
But what of this history?
What IF we’d never bothered to check the gates of Fahd’s kingdom, and thus allowed Saddam to have his way with the Saudi Arabian oil fields? This, at the very least, would have cut off the source of immense wealth that was just beginning to pour into the radicalized Wahhabist movement, and would have likely killed it in the cradle.
Also, it wouldn’t have given the anti-Western fig-leaf to the likes of Osama bin Laden; remember, his only brief with the US was (again, supposedly) our parking of our AWACS and our F-16’s on Saudi Holy Ground, and allowing our female military to prance around without burkas. Such was the hatred-germ in the fevered mind of Mr. bin Laden.
Would a Saddam-controlled Saudi Arabia been better, or worse, for American interests in the world? Looking through the long lens of twenty years, who’s to say? We never would have wound up fighting a second Gulf War, bin Laden would be just some unknown Middle-eastern trust-funder trying to figure out how to keep his garments so sparkling white in his filthy cave. There would have been no 9/11. There would have been no Howard Dean. And thus, there would have been no Barack Obama.
Also, I think it is unlikely we would have witnessed the explosive growth of radicalized political Islam. Yes, a wealthy and powerful Saddam Hussein would have offered his own set of special and horrendous difficulties and trials, but don’t forget: One of his proposals for backing out of Kuwait was his insistence that other nations should leave other occupied areas (a direct, and intentional, insult to Israel) including Syria’s removal from Lebanon . It is hard to imagine a middle-eastern dictator with even a tiny smidgen of realpolitik pragmatism, but, there it is. My, how things have changed…
Now we have a Mid East hurling headlong into the 9th century, and any of that age-old and thread-bare “stability” is gone with the wind. Which brings us back to where we are today: February 28th, 2011.
The only reason any of this is germane is because we categorically, and generationally, refuse to get our domestic energy policy in order. We insist that third-world basket-case nations shoulder the burden of our energy exploration, extraction and refining demands. Thus, we send our valorous Armed Forces hither and yon to protect oil fields. We have, up to this point, been rich enough to pay others to put up with this dirty business or energy extraction. But, this house of cards is crashing down around our ears.
We went to King Fahd’s defense only because the stable and predictable supply of world wide petroleum was in our best national interests. If all the man had in his backyard was sand, we wouldn’t have lifted a finger (-as well we shouldn’t. Oil is a vital national resource. Sand is not.) Or, conversely, we wouldn’t have lifted a finger to defend the Saudi Royal Family if we had all the oil and coal and natural gas and oil shale and nuclear power we needed right here in the United States for the next ten generations, thank you. Deal with Saddam yourself, Mr. Fahd.
In the mid-1940’s, we departed down the path of overt obsequiousness to the Soviet game-plan of world-wide communist domination. This lead to a 50-year arms race that created a Total-State in America with which we are still dealing, and for which we are still paying. It also, not unimportantly, nearly wiped out civilization on a number of occasions during that time. We can thank the left for this.
Similarly, we are today well down the path of overt obsequiousness to radical environmentalism, and our inability to show these people the door in our public policy discourse. There simply is no room for their radical ideology, and their false science, in a world where far too much of our energy comes from places it shouldn’t,–when we can obtain all the energy we need right here at home.
Twenty years ago tomorrow marks the anniversary of one of the most stunning victories ever achieved by the Armed Forces of the United States (or any nation, as far as that goes). As George Herbert Walker Bush so beautifully and movingly observed at the time, they did so with great honor, and with great valor. Their sacrifice and power stands to this day as an exemplary light to our nation.
The sad fact is, though, we usually extend these military risks only as a response to great folly on the part of the political Left, in tandem with the inability of the Right to stand against it. If we’d stood up with Whittaker Chambers and insisted that our most valuable atomic secrets were already in the hands of the Soviets, perhaps things would have been different in 20th century America. Perhaps if we’d stood four-square against the Jane Fondas and Robert F. Kennedy Jrs, and insisted on a rational energy policy in this nation, we wouldn’t have run afoul of Saddam Hussein and his oil-lust on the Arabian peninsula twenty years ago.
This is a lesson we still have time to learn. But just barely. Learning this lesson NOW, TODAY would be a fine and fitting tribute to those magnificent warriors I recall here tonight, twenty years on. It is a lesson, once learned, will help insure we don’t have to fight another war like theirs.
America – The Next Japan?
By Frank Whalen
No, America is not going to lead the world in technological innovations or Sake consumption. Rather, it seems that a blueprint is being carried out in Japan to reduce the population and whose success could very easily be implemented in America if the liberal agenda continues to creep forward.
Many factors have been considered, such as a preponderance of pornography and socially acceptable fetishism, and the overcrowding problem that limits growth opportunities. In America, it can even be taken further, allowing for the global warming alarmists who feel it is a crime against mother earth to have children who will grow up to be a drain on the planet.
But there is more to this.
On June 13, 2008, The New York Times reported on the passage of an anti-obesity law in Japan in which both men and women between the ages of 40 and 74 will be required to have their waistlines measured in an attempt to end obesity. Those found to be overweight will be given three months of “dieting guidance” and after six months, they will receive “further re-education. In America, we have a health care reform plan yet to be fully implemented, that could also require annual checkups to accomplish many things, such as controlling weight.
Being overweight is a disease and a drain on health care funds, we hear often. It could also be taken to a different level involving young people. If the children are consistently overweight, could that be construed as child abuse, resulting in children being taken into government custody?
What foods are we eating, both the obese and the slim alike? Foods that contain added hormones to increase production are more available than not. Cows have been given recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone, a Monsanto innovation, to boost milk yields since the early 1990’s. Synthetic Estrogen given to both cows and chickens increases the size of the animals and would clearly affect all resulting food and food products. On July 30, 2007 The Kansas City Star reported on “hormone fluctuation” causing males to experience gynecomastia, or enlarged breasts, some of which are undergoing breast reduction surgery. Considering the widespread use of genetically modified crops and other food, it seems likely that such things would affect the human body and genetic structure.
On October 27, 2005 Pravda.ru reported on a study in which rats exclusively fed genetically modified foods showed a severe and pronounced weakness in their offspring resulting in a birth mortality rate of over fifty-five percent. It seriously affected the behavior of the rats themselves, leading the news story to conclude that genetically modified foods are “in fact a delayed action biological weapon”.
Water would appear to be a factor, as well. Associatedcontent.com reports on a 2006 effort by the University of Colorado in which studies were done to discover why fish were spontaneously changing gender. Studies have shown that the estrogen taken in by women who use birth control is not properly filtered from wastewater during treatment and is released with high hormonal levels back into the water supply.
In 2009, CNN reported that young Japanese men are now commonly referred to as “herbivores” as they seem “not interested in flesh”, meaning not interested in a sexual relationship with women, preferring a more platonic situation. This mentality has resulted in lower birth rates and even translated into less economic production as the aggressive business practices of previous generations have been replaced by a much more passive outlook.
In Japan, masculinity in on the wane, being replaced by a more feminized male. America has experienced something similar.
The term metrosexual was coined in 1994 to describe a straight male who displays an almost stereotypically homosexual obsession with looks, grooming and clothing. Men wearing women’s jeans, makeup and even getting their eyebrows waxed have become more common over the last few years.
Whether you attribute all this to hormone overload, a social engineering program sold as being in touch with your more sensitive, feminine side, the liberal concerns with the overcrowding of the planet or the need to force the entire population to conform to health regulations for the greater good, all factors are on display in Japan, resulting in a sort of easily palatable population control. And like other successful products from our friends to the east, you expect that this program has been exported to America.
Wisconson Assembly On Union Bill
The Wisconsin state Assembly passed a Republican bill Friday that strips most public workers of their collective bargaining rights, but the fight over the bill seems far from over.
It still has to pass the state Senate, which could prove to be a more contentious battle.
Fourteen Democratic senators have fled to neighboring Illinois to prevent a quorum from voting on the issue, and they remained absent early Friday.
“The vote we took wasn’t the easy thing to do, but it was the right thing to do,” said Assembly Majority Leader Scott Suder said early Friday. “I continue to urge my Democrat colleagues in the Senate to come back to Madison so that they can debate this bill and do their job for the taxpayers of Wisconsin.”
Indiana official fired over tweet
Wisconsin governor ‘pranked’
RELATED TOPICS
* Wisconsin
* Scott Walker
Thousands have protested the bill in recent days. On Thursday, Republican Gov. Scott Walker also called on Democrats to come back to Madison “and do their job.”
At a Thursday night press conference,Walker warned that if the Wisconsin legislature does not pass his budget bill, state aid to local governments could be cut by $1 billion. He also discounted critics who said the legislation will destroy public employee unions in the state.
“Wisconsin state employees have the strongest civil protections in the country. That’s not going to change in this bill,” Walker said. “It’s not about the union boss coming in from other parts of the country. It’s about whether we protect the taxpayers and the workers.”
One of the lawmakers who left the state, Senate Minority Leader Mark Miller, said in a response from Rockford, Illinois, that Walker should “recognize that he got what he wants” in concessions on pension and health insurance contributions and relent on curbing collective-bargaining rights.
The confrontation reached a fever pitch after Gov. Walker was recorded during a prank phone call discussing the idea of duping absentee Democrats by luring them back to the assembly to “talk, not negotiate,” allow them to recess, and then have the 19 Republican senators declare a quorum.
The Republican-led Senate would then, presumably, be able to move forward on the controversial legislation.
The state faces a Friday deadline to balance the budget. Wisconsin is confronted with a $137 million budget shortfall by June 30 and a $3.6 billion gap by 2013.
Psy-Ops Accused Of Targeting US Senators
The top United States commander in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, has ordered an investigation into allegations that members of a psychological-operations team – known as psy-ops – were ordered to target American Senators and other dignitaries visiting the country to help to persuade them to provide new troops and money.
Among politicians reportedly targeted by the team, whose ostensible mission is to manipulate the thought processes of the enemy, were former presidential candidate John McCain and fellow senators Al Franken, Carl Levin, Joe Lieberman and Jack Reed.
The man in charge of psy-ops, Lieutenant-Colonel Michael Holmes, told a reporter for Rolling Stone magazine that he received orders to turn his focus on visiting politicians from Lieutenant-General William Caldwell, one of the top commanders in the country. “How do we get these guys to give us more people? What do I have to plant inside their heads?” the chief of staff to Lt-Gen Caldwell purportedly asked Lt-Col Holmes.
That General Petraeus reacted so quickly reflects the potential gravity of the claim. Using psy-ops on your own side is prohibited by Pentagon policy and is likely to be seen as against US law. The article was penned by Michael Hastings, who last year wrote an article about a climate of disrespect among commanders towards President Barack Obama. That piece resulted in the firing of the then US Commander, General Stanley McChrystal. Lt-Col Holmes told the magazine that he resisted the order but was reprimanded for it. Among the allegations was a claim that his men were told to compile profiles of the politicians ahead of their arrival in the country to identify not just things such as their voting records on the war, but also their likes and dislikes and the things that aroused their passions.
“My job in psy-ops is to play with people’s heads, to get the enemy to behave the way we want them to behave,” Lt-Col Holmes was quoted as saying by Rolling Stone. “I’m prohibited from doing that to our own people. When you ask me to try to use these skills on senators and congressmen, you’re crossing a line.”
Senator Reed, of Rhode Island, said he found the accusations “very serious and disturbing”, while Senator Levin, of Michigan, implied that any attempts to mess with his mind would have been unnecessary. He said: “For years, I have strongly and repeatedly advocated for building up Afghan military capability because I believe only the Afghans can truly secure their nation’s future.”
Psychological warfare
* In the Second World War, loudspeakers were used to amplify the noise of engines to convince German troops they faced a bigger force than was there.
* During the Korean War leaflets calling on enemy troops to surrender were said to have influenced up to a third of the soldiers who were taken prisoner by the United Nations forces.
* A technique adopted in the first Gulf war was to drop leaflets warning of an impending bombing raid, carry out the attack, then drop more leaflets telling Iraqi troops they should surrender. The tactic was to make them trust the word of the Allies.
GERALD CELENTE WANTS YOU!
By Frank Whalen
“Look, the people you are after are the people you depend on. We cook your meals, we haul your trash, we connect your calls, we drive your ambulances. We guard you while you sleep. Do not… f**k with us.”
This is a quote from the 1999 Academy Award nominated film, “Fight Club”, which features a disenfranchised, typical man who looks to liberate himself from the trappings of everyday American society. He lives to feel and to destroy the perceived source of his slavery, culminating in the explosive destruction of credit card companies’ buildings to eliminate records and erase all debt.
Something people might cheer on these days, for certain. But what if things were being orchestrated in such a way that such action is actually being encouraged?
In a recent interview with Current.com, Gerald Celente of the Trends Research Institute speaks of the youth of the world uniting by way of the internet, to combat against constant extraction of taxes and the raising of revenue from the people. He talks about a revolution, he foresees cyber crimes and cyber wars ramping up. He promises the heavy hand of government rising to the occasion to quash this, connecting cyber activities to something as mundane as copyright infringement and to something as outrageous as terrorism.
Celente says the youth will start this worldwide revolution, using a Wikileaks style of government-targeted reporting, using cell phone cameras and social networking sites.
He calls cyber warfare an “Internet nuclear bomb” that can be used to “bring down entire financial systems, stop the banking transfers. You can blow apart, without ever having to light a fuse, a whole stock exchange…every major computer connected industry or service is a potential target for cyberwar”.
Is Gerald Celente inciting a cyber-originated resistance or merely a bit slow in catching up on his David Fincher films? The Trends Research Institute website describes their purpose as providing “insights and directions in anticipation of what the future may bring – and to be prepared for the unexpected.” Some forecast…shall we party like it’s 1999 again, Gerald?
As Ecclesiastes 1:9 states, there is nothing new under the sun.
Celente’s forecast is deemed inevitable. Take a look at his website and you will see how credentialed he is, how accurate his track record has been. So we are told this is destined, as would be the governmental response of securing and limiting all internet based communications.
However, Celente also says in the aforementioned interview, “Every time they come up with a new way to stop it, a new way to get around it is going to be born.” Therein lies the appeal…the amazing Celente predicts we shall overcome! Why not join the cyberwar if there will always be ways to effectively fight against government tyranny and excessive taxation?
Being an accurate futurist ceases to be impressive when you know the plan in advance and the powers that be have never been shy in telegraphing their punches.
On February 16, 2010, a cyberwarfare doomsday scenario was examined in an exercise known as “Cyber Shockwave”. It began with a corrupt cell phone application download for the March Madness college basketball series and soon spread to computers, collapsing the entire world wide web and devastating the financial and commerce sectors.
Prior even to this was the introduction of the Cyber Security Act in April of 2009, which according to Cnet News, “would allow the president to declare a cybersecurity emergency relating to non-governmental computer networks and do what’s necessary to respond to the threat.”
Since then, there has been a glut of news stories describing the threat posed by cyber warriors and the methods by which the U.S. government plans to keep all Americans safe. Unfortunately for liberty, all of the proactive and protective measures involve limiting or even eliminating access, accountability and communication among the people.
Gerald Celente would seem to relish his near perfect record and encourage the youth of the world in their governmental tear down. However more participants would equate to a greater perceived threat, thereby fast tracking these control mechanisms to the detriment of Constitutional freedoms.
Another quote from another movie comes to mind. In 1983’s Academy Award nominated film WarGames”, the artificially intelligent computer program Joshua shares what it has learned by saying:
“A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.”
Five Myths About Ronald Reagan
By Edmund Morris
Friday, February 4, 2011
It has been argued that Ronald Reagan was a myth himself, a construct of his own and other people’s imaginings, rather than an extraordinary American about whom some untruths are told. The sentimental colossus his acolytes are trying to erect today, with gilded pecs, red-painted smile and an NRA-approved pistol in each manly fist, bears no resemblance to the man I knew: in private a person of no ego and little charisma, in public a statesman of formidable purpose.
1. He was a bad actor.
Well, yes and no. Most of the movies he made as a Warner Bros. contract player are unwatchable by persons of sound mind. When he was president, it was easy to laugh at them. The spectacle of the leader of the free world, a.k.a. Secret Service agent Brass Bancroft, deploying an enormous ray gun against an airborne armada was especially hilarious in 1983, the year he announced the Strategic Defense Initiative, that vaporizer of foreign nuclear missiles. “All right, Hayden – focus that inertia projector on ‘em and let ‘em have it!”
Even when Reagan believed he was acting well, as in “Kings Row,” he betrayed infallible signs of thespian mediocrity: an unwillingness to listen to other performers and an inability to communicate thoughts. Now that he is dead, however, one feels an odd tenderness for the effort he put into every role – particularly in early movies, when he struggled to control a tendency of his lips to writhe around his too-rapid speech.
Ironically, he was transformed into a superb actor when he took on the roles of governor of California, presidential candidate and president of the United States. Then, as never in his movies, he became authoritative, authentic, irresistible to eye and ear. His two greatest performances, in my opinion, were at the Republican National Convention in 1976, when he effortlessly stole Gerald Ford’s thunder as nominee and made the delegates regret their choice, and at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1985, when he delivered the supreme speech of his presidency.
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I asked him once if he had any nostalgia for the years he was nuzzling up to Ann Sheridan and Doris Day on camera. He gestured around the Oval Office. “Why should I? I have the biggest stage in the world, right here!”
2. He was but a movie-set soldier in World War II.
It’s true that Reagan spent virtually all the war years flying a desk at the First Motion Picture Unit, USAAF, in Culver City. But that hardly means he did not passionately want to fight for his country overseas. Army doctors found his vision to be so defective, at “7/200 bilateral,” that a tank could advance within seven feet of him before he could identify it as Japanese. His Warner Bros. colleague Eddie Albert, a veteran of the Pacific War, later told me about presenting Reagan with a souvenir from the bloodbath of Tarawa. “I’ve never forgotten the way he looked. Like I’d humiliated him.”
In the spring of 1945, Capt. Reagan, as the FMPU’s intelligence officer, spent weeks processing raw color footage from the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps. The images so burned into his brain that later in life – quite understandably – he imagined he had been there at Ohrdruf and Buchenwald. He kept one of those Army reels to show to each of his children in early adolescence, so that they could learn about man’s inhumanity to man. Ask Patti. Ask Ron.
3. He was warm-hearted.
No. But Reagan wasn’t cold – except in his detestation of totalitarianism – so much as cool, in the way a large, calm lake is cool. Like many another natural leader (George Marshall and Charles de Gaulle come to mind), he viewed those who clustered around him abstractedly. He registered audiences rather than individuals. Reagan intimates have confessed to me that they were never sure he knew who the hell they were.
His three younger children have publicly stated that there were times (decades before any rumors of dementia) when he treated them as complete strangers. As for his marriage to Nancy, I’ll note only that she was the fourth short, tough, street-smart woman he dreamily depended on to organize his everyday life, the others being his mother, Nelle Reagan; his first fiancee, Margaret Cleaver; and his first wife, Jane Wyman. He had no close friends. And until young Ron reminded him, it didn’t occur to him to put a headstone on either of his parents’ graves.
4. He was only a campaign Christian.
On the contrary, Reagan was a “practical Christian,” that being the name of a mainly Midwestern, social-work-oriented movement when he was growing up. At 11, young Dutch had an epiphany, prompted by the sight of his alcoholic father lying dead drunk on the front porch of the family house in Dixon, Ill. In a moving passage of autobiography, Reagan wrote: “Seeing his arms spread out as if he were crucified – as indeed he was – his hair soaked with melting snow, snoring as he breathed, I could feel no resentment against him.” It was the season of Lent, and his mother, a devotee of the Disciples of Christ, put a comforting novel in his hand: “That Printer of Udell’s” by Harold Bell Wright. Dutch read it and told her, “I want to declare my faith and be baptized.” He was, by total immersion, on June 21, 1922.
I read a speckled copy of that book in the Library of Congress. Almost creepily, it tells the story of a handsome Midwestern boy who makes good for the sins of his father by becoming a practical Christian and a spellbinding orator. He develops a penchant for brown suits and welfare reform, marries a wide-eyed girl (who listens adoringly to his speeches) and wins election to public office in Washington.
Shy about his faith as an adult, Reagan was capable of conventional pieties like all American politicians. He attended few church services as president. But on occasion, before critical meetings, you would see him draw aside and mumble prayers.
5. He was an “amiable dunce.”
Yeah, right, Clark Clifford. Ronald Reagan only performed successfully in six different careers: radio sportscaster, movie actor, trade union president, corporate spokesman, two-term governor and two-term president of the United States. Lucky for him he wasn’t hampered by Jimmy Carter’s intelligence!
Edmund Morris was the authorized biographer of Ronald Reagan. In addition to “Dutch,” his life of the 40th president, he has published a trilogy about Theodore Roosevelt.
Read “Five myths about Abraham Lincoln.”
Want to challenge everything you know? The Five Myths Archive
Third Day Of Wisconson Protests: White House Meets With AFL-CIO War Council
Today is the third straight day of protests in Madison, Wisconsin as Barack Obama’s shock troops storm the state capitol to fight Governor Walker’s plan to reform the public-sector scam that has ravaged that state for decades.
As Democrats fled the statehouse (to an apparently non-union hotel in Illinois) to avoid doing the duties they were elected for and capitol staffers were told to lock their doors, the impression that the rest of America may have is that this is a “spontaneous” uprising (sort of like Tunisia and Egypt were supposed to be spontaneous). However, if that’s what you’re thinking, you couldn’t be more mistaken.
Despite his feigning ignorance on the situation in Wisconsin, the President’s background is as a “community organizer,” working with groups like ACORN and the SEIU. As a community organizer, their modus operandi is to make it seem as though marches and protests are “popular uprisings” [yeah, Mubarek got pwned].
Because of this background, this should come as no surprise to you…
According to the DNC’s activist arm OFA, “Organizing for America is mobilizing on the ground in Wisconsin…”
That’s right. The Democrat National Committee’s Organizing for America (along with their union boss buddies) are helping to orchestrate the “uprising” in Madison.
[Perhaps that's what Nancy Pelosi means by "astroturf."]
You can follow the OFA tweets from Wisconsin here.
However, it gets even better.
On March 4th, [via Politico] a closed-door meeting is being held at the AFL-CIO headquarters to ostensibly discuss the 2010 elections. The presenters include operatives from the AFL-CIO, DSCC, DGA and operatives from other “shadowy outside groups.”
Here’s the schedule (and list of speakers):
National Briefing (9:00am)
* Joel Benenson, Benenson Strategy Group
* Nathan Daschle, Former DGA Executive Director
* JB Poersch, Former DSCC Executive Director
* Jon Vogel, Former DCCC Executive Director
* Mike Podhorzer, AFL-CIO
Nevada Panel (10:30am)
* Travis Brock, Former Nevada Democratic Party ED
* Lorena Chambers, Chambers Lopez & Gaitán
* Brandon Hall, Former Reid Manager
* Jill Hanauer, Project New West
* Craig Varoga & George Rakis, Patriot Majority
Wisconsin Panel (10:30am)
* Heather Colburn, Political Consultant
* Paul Maslin, FM3
* Mike Tate, Democratic Party of Wisconsin
Ohio Panel (1:00pm)
* Doug Kelly & Lauren Groh-Wargo, Ohio Democratic Party
* Aaron Pickrell, Former Strickland Manager
* Will Robinson, The New Media Project
Colorado Panel (1:00pm)
* Guy Cecil, DSCC Executive Director
* Paul Harstad, Harstad Research
* Steve Stenberg, The Strategy Group
New Hampshire Panel (1:00pm)
* Nick Baldick, Hilltop Public Solutions
* Matt Hogan, Anzalone Research
* Valerie Martin, Former Hodes manager
* Ed Peavy, Mission Control
Florida Panel (2:30pm)
* Dave Beattie, Hamilton Campaigns
* New Mexico Panel (2:30pm)
* Dawn Laguens, LKK Partners
* Mike Bocian, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner
Iowa Panel (2:30pm)
* Pete Giangreco, The Strategy Group
* Jeff Link, Link Strategies
* John Lapp, Ralston Lapp Media
* Jef Pollock, Global Strategy Group
Minnesota Panel (4:00pm)
* Jeff Blodgett, Wellstone Action
* Andy O’Leary, Minnesota DFL
* Robert Richman, Grassroots Solutions
Pennsylvania Panel (4:00pm)
* JJ Balaban, The Campaign Group
* Kevin Mack, Mack Crounse Group
* David Petts, Bennett, Petts & Normington
Michigan Panel (4:00pm)
* Amy Chapman, Grassroots Democrats
* Mark Brewer, Michigan Democratic Party
* Wendy Fields Jacobs, UAW
* Walt Herzig, Former Bernero Manager
As stated on another post, the battle is in front of you.
This is just the beginning.
_________________
“I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes.” Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776
Turkey Won’t Allow U.S. To Use NATO Bases In Country For Attacks
Turkish President Abdullah Gul says Ankara will not allow the US to use NATO bases in Turkey for military purposes against other countries.
In an exclusive interview with Press TV in Tehran on Tuesday, Gul said every military facility in Turkey is under the control of Turkish commanders, noting that “without our knowledge, nothing can happen there.”
Gul arrived in Tehran on Sunday heading a high-ranking 135-member delegation upon the invitation of his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Gul also said Turkey supports Iran’s nuclear rights and would play a constructive role in Iran’s nuclear program in the future.
“We want to see this dispute solved in a peaceful way… through diplomacy and dialogue,” he said.
The US and its allies accuse Iran of developing a military nuclear program. In June 2009, the UN Security Council imposed a fourth round of sanctions against Iran’s financial and military sectors under Western pressure.
Iranian officials have repeatedly refuted the charges, arguing that as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Tehran has the right to use peaceful nuclear technology.
The Turkish president’s interview with Press TV will be broadcast on February 16 at 20:35 GMT and rerun on February 17 at 01:35GMT, 06:35GMT and 14:35GMT.
Defector admits to WMD lies that triggered Iraq war
The defector who convinced the White House that Iraq had a secret biological weapons programme has admitted for the first time that he lied about his story, then watched in shock as it was used to justify the war.
Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, codenamed Curveball by German and American intelligence officials who dealt with his claims, has told the Guardian that he fabricated tales of mobile bioweapons trucks and clandestine factories in an attempt to bring down the Saddam Hussein regime, from which he had fled in 1995.
“Maybe I was right, maybe I was not right,” he said. “They gave me this chance. I had the chance to fabricate something to topple the regime. I and my sons are proud of that and we are proud that we were the reason to give Iraq the margin of democracy.”
The admission comes just after the eighth anniversary of Colin Powell’s speech to the United Nations in which the then-US secretary of state relied heavily on lies that Janabi had told the German secret service, the BND. It also follows the release of former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s memoirs, in which he admitted Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction programme.
The careers of both men were seriously damaged by their use of Janabi’s claims, which he now says could have been – and were – discredited well before Powell’s landmark speech to the UN on 5 February 2003.
The former CIA chief in Europe Tyler Drumheller describes Janabi’s admission as “fascinating”, and said the emergence of the truth “makes me feel better”. “I think there are still a number of people who still thought there was something in that. Even now,” said Drumheller.
In the only other at length interview Janabi has given he denied all knowledge of his supposed role in helping the US build a case for invading Saddam’s Iraq.
In a series of meetings with the Guardian in Germany where he has been granted asylum, he said he had told a German official, who he identified as Dr Paul, about mobile bioweapons trucks throughout 2000. He said the BND had identified him as a Baghdad-trained chemical engineer and approached him shortly after 13 March of that year, looking for inside information about Saddam’s Iraq.
“I had a problem with the Saddam regime,” he said. “I wanted to get rid of him and now I had this chance.”
He portrays the BND as gullible and so eager to tease details from him that they gave him a Perry’s Chemical Engineering Handbook to help communicate. He still has the book in his small, rented flat in Karlsruhe, south-west Germany.
“They were asking me about pumps for filtration, how to make detergent after the reaction,” he said. “Any engineer who studied in this field can explain or answer any question they asked.”
Janabi claimed he was first exposed as a liar as early as mid-2000, when the BND travelled to a Gulf city, believed to be Dubai, to speak with his former boss at the Military Industries Commission in Iraq, Dr Bassil Latif.
The Guardian has learned separately that British intelligence officials were at that meeting, investigating a claim made by Janabi that Latif’s son, who was studying in Britain, was procuring weapons for Saddam.
That claim was proven false, and Latif strongly denied Janabi’s claim of mobile bioweapons trucks and another allegation that 12 people had died during an accident at a secret bioweapons facility in south-east Baghdad.
The German officials returned to confront him with Latif’s version. “He says, ‘There are no trucks,’ and I say, ‘OK, when [Latif says] there no trucks then [there are none],’” Janabi recalled.
He said the BND did not contact him again until the end of May 2002. But he said it soon became clear that he was still being taken seriously.
He claimed the officials gave him an incentive to speak by implying that his then pregnant Moroccan-born wife may not be able to travel from Spain to join him in Germany if he did not co-operate with them. “He says, you work with us or your wife and child go to Morocco.”
The meetings continued throughout 2002 and it became apparent to Janabi that a case for war was being constructed. He said he was not asked again about the bioweapons trucks until a month before Powell’s speech.
After the speech, Janabi said he called his handler at the BND and accused the secret service of breaking an agreement that they would not share anything he had told them with another country. He said he was told not to speak and placed in confinement for around 90 days.
With the US now leaving Iraq, Janabi said he was comfortable with what he did, despite the chaos of the past eight years and the civilian death toll in Iraq, which stands at more than 100,000.
“I tell you something when I hear anybody – not just in Iraq but in any war – [is] killed, I am very sad. But give me another solution. Can you give me another solution?
“Believe me, there was no other way to bring about freedom to Iraq. There were no other possibilities.”
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