Transition Afghanistan Begins

1:04Added to
queue

'Transition in Afghanistan Will Begin'

also begin in Afghanistan next year. ... Politics Obama Oval Office President White House Washington Iraq cbsiraq Soldier Afghanistan Dead Died ...

by CBSNewsOnline | 20 hours ago | 294 views

Jim Rogers Sees Much Higher Food Prices

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Jim Rogers Sees Much Higher Food Prices

Jim Rogers reacts to the spike in wheat prices by saying that food prices are going to get much more expensive
“That’s the straw that broke the camel’s back,” Rogers, who has been warning about shortages coming in the agriculture sector for a while, said in a telephone interview with CNBC early this month "We're going to have much, much higher prices over the next few years," Jim Rogers added "Be prepared, if you have a sugar bowl home go fill it up because it's going to be more expensive,""Prices aren't high enough and most people don't believe it," he said. "Unless prices are high you're not going to attract people in the business. Eventually people will go into farming again but it's going to take a while."
via CNBC.com

A Timetable For War By Philip Giraldi May 06, 2010

A Timetable For War

By Philip Giraldi

May 06, 2010 "AntiWar" -- Readers of my articles will know that I am extremely pessimistic about the prospects for peace in the Middle East. I do not believe for a second that the leaders of Israel actually consider Iran to be an "existential" threat but the fact that they have cried wolf so often has convinced the Israeli public that it is so. Worse still, Israel’s friends in the US have convinced the American public of the same thing even though Iran does not threaten the United States at all. Relying on a complaisant media that has fully embraced the fabricated narrative of fanatical Mullahs brandishing nuclear weapons shortly before handing them over to al-Qaeda, a majority of Americans now believes that Iran must be dealt with by force and that it already has a nuclear weapon. As in the case in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq, the fictitious threat has taken on an ominous reality because the lie has been repeated often enough to appear to be truth.

I believe several things must be understood in relationship to the likely formula for initiation of such a conflict. First, in spite of the increasingly bellicose language coming from Robert Gates and Hillary Clinton, I do not believe that the Obama Administration wants a war. On the contrary, I believe that the language is designed to convince Tel Aviv that the US is getting tough with Iran to preempt any possible military action. The principal advocates of war in the United States are not in the White House. They continue to belong to the Israeli lobby as given voice through its acolytes in Congress and the media.

Second, the Israeli government having sold the "existential threat" fiction does want a war, but its options are limited. It knows it can only do temporary damage to Iran and wants the United States to do the heavy lifting. That will require contriving a situation that will bring about US entry into the conflict, otherwise an Israeli attack will have only limited value, possibly slowing down Iran’s nuclear program but not stopping it while also guaranteeing that the Mullahs will make the political decision to develop a weapon.

Third, Washington has no real ability to put pressure on Israel as the White House has already made clear that it will not cut aid to Tel Aviv and will continue to use its veto to protect Israel in international fora like the United Nations.

Fourth, once the shooting begins, even if Israel starts it, both Congress and the media will demand that Washington intervene to support brave little democracy Israel. One can be sure that on the day after Tel Aviv starts a conflict Congress will overwhelmingly pass a motion approving the Israeli action and also calling on the White House to have American forces join in. The Washington Post, FOX news, and The New York Times will be beside themselves with joy.

Putting the four premises together, what does it all mean? It means that Israel will seek to start a conflict with Iran and pull the United States in. It will ignore any US calls for restraint and will attack the Mullahs with or without a pretext, whether or not Iran remains in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty regime (which I believe it will), and whether or not Tehran does anything aggressive. In the lead-up to such an attack, Israel will intensify its propaganda efforts and is quite prepared to lie to make a case against Iran and its friends in the Middle East region. The recent total fabrication of a case that Syria had given Scud missiles to Hezbollah is a case in point. Israel sees everyone in the region as an enemy or a potential enemy and it works very hard to make Washington see things the same way. Once the fighting starts, Washington will inevitably be drawn in with Congress and the mainstream media cheerleading the process.

So let us assume that Israel will attack Iran. After all, it is a win-win situation for them in that they will demonstrate once again to the Muslim world that they are not to be trifled with and will leave the serious fighting to the United States. I believe they will attack Iran by the shortest route, which is over Iraqi airspace. Iraqi airspace is controlled by the United States Air Force, which would undoubtedly be under orders not to shoot down the Israeli planes lest Obama find himself facing a furious AIPAC, Congress, and the press immediately thereafter. A shoot down order is just not possible given Congressional democrats’ fear of how Jewish political donors would react, not to mention the danger that the usual voices in the media would turn against the Obama administration on the eve of the midterm elections. Unless the Iranians were to react in an extremely restrained fashion, they would consider the US complicit in the attack due to the passage over Iraq and their retaliation would bring Washington into the war, which is precisely what Israel expects to happen.

The only joker in the deck for Israel is the possible unintended consequences. If the war were to go badly, with Iran, for example, using its Chinese supplied cruise missiles to sink a US aircraft carrier, the role of Israel in starting the conflict might well be challenged by many in the US, so many that even the media and Congress would have to take notice. But Israel probably considers that a remote possibility given the huge military advantage that the United States enjoys over Iran so they likely believe it to be it a risk worth taking. Also, one must consider that the hard right Israeli government of Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu is not necessarily a rational player that will weigh up all the pluses and minuses. Netanyahu is driven by racism, intellectual arrogance, and a belief that he can control events in the United States, all of which will be part of his decision making.

Which leads to the question of timing. There has been some talk in the media that Israel would likely "do something" by November. Why that date is being selected is not completely clear, but I believe it will be sooner and this is why: as noted above, the United States controls Iraqi airspace currently. But that control will be ceded to the Iraqi government in August when the US presence in Iraq is due to be reduced to a "garrison non-combatant" level of 60,000 soldiers and airmen. At that point, the US Air Force will no longer have autonomous authority to engage in Iraqi airspace, but the Iraqi government will be empowered to request US assistance to do so. Imagine for a moment what it would do to US credibility in the Arab world if Baghdad were to ask the US to help defend its airspace against an Israeli incursion and the US were to refuse to do so. So I think the Israelis will make their move before August. They want to entangle the United States into fighting on their behalf but they will not necessarily want to humiliate Obama while doing so.

So what can Obama do to stop this? There has been some speculation that he might send a private emissary to Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu with the message that the United States does not support an Israeli attack and that Washington will both denounce the action and not back Tel Aviv. I believe that Obama has already told Netanyahu both privately and through diplomatic channels that the US opposes military action but the Israeli government no doubt regards such a warning as toothless, particularly as both Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton have asserted that Israel has a right to make its own security decisions. Any move to punish or pressure the Israelis would be blocked by Congress, so the Obama warning can be brushed off. The only option that I believe would actually work is for Obama to go public preemptively on the issue and proclaim that there is no casus belli with Iran, that any Israeli attack will not be supported by the United States and that furthermore the United States will take the lead in condemning such an act in the United Nations and in all other appropriate international fora. Is that likely to happen? I think not. And that is precisely the reason why I think a new war in the Middle East is inevitable and will take place this year, probably by August.

Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is a contributing editor to The American Conservative and a fellow at the American Conservative Defense Alliance.

The Decade Of Tyrrany

The Decade Of Tyranny

Loss of basic freedoms has spurred a mass awakening, next decade will be defined by restoration of liberties

Alex Jones, Steve Watson and Paul Watson
Prisonplanet.com
Tuesday, Dec 29, 2009

During the first nine years of the new millennium we have been witness to a rapid erosion of freedom. Our basic liberties have been systematically denigrated and diluted by a vast expansion of coordinated global tyranny.

The decade is not over yet, there is still another year to go, however, given that the mainstream media is obsessively compiling it’s own decade lists, we felt it necessary to draw up our own to highlight the major events that have shaped the world we now live in and the future we face.

It is important to stress the fact that while we have indeed experienced a decade of tyranny, we have also seen a mass awakening, an expansion of knowledge and an exponential increase in opposition to the agenda we have come to know as the new world order.

Here in chronological order, follow’s Prisonplanet.com’s defining moments of the decade.

2001 – 9/11

9/11 was the precursor for everything that followed during the decade of tyranny. The immediate invasion of Afghanistan saw the U.S. go to war without a formal declaration.

The passage of the USA PATRIOT Act overnight, with members of Congress not even being afforded time to read it, paved the way for a decade of freedom stripping government legislation.

The expansion of the phony war on terror as justification for big government, a domestic police state and an interventionist foreign policy also stemmed directly from 9/11.

Over the past decade we have ceaselessly exposed the lies behind 9/11. We have seen the 9/11 truth movement blossom from the efforts of a select few individuals to encompass the work of thousands.

While there is no doubt 9/11 is the decade of tyranny’s defining moment, exposing the truth behind it has also led to to an equally influential awakening that is still ongoing.

2002 – Creation Of The Department of Homeland Security

The fallout of 9/11 led to a re-alignment of power in the U.S., with the shadow government stepping out into the open and implementing elements of a long term agenda to subvert Constitutional freedom.

After the passage of the PATRIOT Act in late 2001, the next major step toward tyranny came with the expansion of the federal government through the creation of the DHS.

The DHS has played the role of the domestic police state enforcer agency, encompassing every major law enforcement agency in the nation under one single office.

With multiple subsequent reports and video productions fingering the American people as potential terrorists, the Orwellian titled agency has proven it has nothing to do with security and everything to do with limiting the freedoms of people all over the country.

2003 – Invasion Of Iraq

The March 2003 invasion of Iraq was a war based on a mountain of lies and deceit, and yet at the time the public swallowed the propaganda with wanton bloodlust. The constant invocation of a link between 9/11 and Saddam Hussein was repeatedly debunked both before and after the invasion, but the course for war was set.

The invasion was an illegal attack based on a wholly contrived pretext and the war was not approved by Congress. This set the precedent for unconstitutional global pre-emptive strikes in the name of the war on terror. Conservative estimates put the death told as a result of the invasion at around 655,000, but this number is far higher when the previous years sanctions are taken into account. Upon U.S. occupation of the country, Iraq was turned into one giant gulag, with hundreds of thousands detained and held in internment camps for the most menial offenses.

The occupation of Iraq provided the opportunity to build hundreds of military bases to be used as launch pads for future pre-emptive wars in the key geopolitical region of the Middle East.

2004 – The Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal

The Abu Ghraib torture scandal was shocking for two primary reasons. The first being the treatment of the prisoners themselves, the vast majority of whom were innocents caught up in random sweeps who had nothing to do with insurgents or terrorism whatsoever. However, the photographs that were broadcast around the world only scratched the surface of the the true horror of what happened not just at Abu Ghraib, but what happened and continues to occur at dozens of U.S. torture camps around the world where suspects are illegally kidnapped and imprisoned on a whim via a process euphemistically labeled “rendition”.

The second most disturbing aspect to the story was how the media covered it and how the public’s reaction was carefully manipulated. By only showing the most mild examples of torture, which in reality were disgusting but to a public immersed in violent movies and television were seen as tame, the true depth of the scandal, as revealed in the Taguba military report, was disguised. Abu Ghraib was also about inoculating the public against the idea that torture was something only history’s despotic regimes engaged in. To many who have been completely brainwashed by this tyranny – torture is now as American as Mom and apple pie.

Low-level culprits in the scandal were burned while their superiors who ordered them to torture in complete violation of both the U.S. constitution and the Geneva Conventions were protected by the Bush administration and continue to be protected by Obama who has failed to fulfil his election promise that they would be prosecuted and that similar detention sites like Guantanamo Bay would be closed.

2005 – Hurricane Katrina Fallout

The disaster in New Orleans provided the federal government with the perfect opportunity to wargame a martial law takeover.

Emergency preparedness legislation and FEMA executive orders that have been in effect for decades, were suddenly put into use at the expense of basic freedoms.

The Posse Comitatus Act was overturned as active duty military paraded the streets and aided police in confiscating firearms and implementing mandatory evacuation orders.

The precedent has now been set for natural disasters to constitute broad sweeping changes to ancient laws and rights, overturning and replacing basic liberties with repressive mechanisms of government control.

2006 – Liquid Bombing Scam

The biggest story of 2006 was undoubtedly the staged liquid bomb plot, which led to tighter restrictions on carrying fluids aboard airliners and heralded a new wave of invasive technologies to be implemented in airports and eventually introduced on a day-to-day basis.

Despite the fact that the alleged terrorists involved in the plot to explode multiple airliners were closely tracked for months beforehand, added to the fact that they didn’t have flight tickets or even passports, it was announced on August 10th that authorities had busted the plot amidst a wave of propaganda about continuing the war on terror, similar to what we are hearing in the aftermath of the Christmas Day bombing attempt.

According to news reports the British government and MI5 wanted to wait at least a week before busting the liquid terror cell that their agents had fully infiltrated, including planting a mole within the bomb squad. From the acknowledged timeline and admission that the real attack was scheduled for August 16th – little else can be deduced but the shocking fact that MI5 wanted the bombings to go forward – arresting the perpetrators only after the attack.

A deluge of fearmongering and paranoia ensued, with ridiculous measures hastily enforced in airports which remain with us to this day, such as mothers being forced to drink their own bottled breast milk to prove it is not an explosive liquid.

2007 – Ron Paul Revolution, The Rise Of The Resistance

After years of endless war, economic decline and suppression of basic freedoms, 2007 saw a mobilization of resistance amid a clamor for change.

With a presidential election looming, Congressman Ron Paul, a public representative with an immaculate record, emerged as an icon of counteraction against the growth of big government and the erosion of liberty.

Beginning as an underground phenomenon driven by grassroots activists, the Ron Paul Revolution soon became a mainstream talking point and the Congressman was propelled to the forefront of the debate over America’s future.

Of course, big money and the monopoly of power eventually won out, so the 2008 election saw a new new world order puppet installed in the shape of Barack Obama.

However, Ron Paul’s incredible efforts throughout 2007 and 2008 during his presidential campaign provided a platform for the restoration of liberty and proved that the electoral process has not been completely usurped by those who have shown they have no allegiance to we the people.

2008 – The Bailout Heist

In October 2008, the central banks that own the U.S. government set the course for the most egregious looting of the American public in history with the passage of the TARP “bailout” legislation.

The bailout merely increased the severity of the financial downturn and allowed the same elite to exploit the crisis as a pretext for centralizing control of the world economic system and creating a new world order and a single global currency.

Henry Paulson, one of the chief architects of the bailout and the man who committed financial terrorism by threatening the Congress with martial law and food riots if they didn’t pass the initial TARP package, brazenly pocketed $200 million in Goldman Sachs profits tax free while handing out billions in ill-gotten gains to his bankster buddies, all this after he pulled a bait and switch by changing the entire focus of the bailout from buying up toxic debt to giving money directly to financial institutions.

Following the election of Barack Obama in November 2008, the new President’s actions made it abundantly clear that he would pick up where the Bush administration left off, increasing the looting exponentially to a figure well over $24 trillion by the latest estimates, which don’t even account for the last 6 months.

2009 – Acceleration of World Government

2009 represents the year that the agenda for a world government was both openly announced and the acceleration of its implementation reached breakneck speed as globalists exploited both the engineered financial crisis and the contrived global warming scam to move to finalize total dictatorial control over the planet.

In an October New York Times editorial entitled “We Can Do It,” Ki-moon wrote that efforts to impose restrictions on CO2 emissions “Must include an equitable global governance structure.”

New EU President Herman Van Rompuy said in a December press conference that the Copenhagen conference was, “The first step towards the global management of our planet.”

Similarly, Al Gore said in a speech earlier this year that attempts to regulate CO2 emissions would be driven through “global governance and global agreements.”

Although it failed to ram through a large portion of the global government agenda, the Copenhagen agreement laid the foundation for the introduction of a global transaction tax which would be paid to the World Bank, representing a massive transfer of wealth to the new world government now being primed for total takeover.

Ten years ago, people who warned about a coming new world order bossed by a global government were called paranoid conspiracy theorists. Is the march towards a one world government still a conspiracy theory, even as its architects openly announce its implementation?

The Decade of Freedom?

The battle between tyranny and freedom is a long term game of brinkmanship, however, as we move into 2010, we are reaching a crucial time in modern history. Humanity must decide whether to engage in a battle for freedom or accept a future under the rule of tyranny.