Tag Archives: nato

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

Global Economic War: U.K. prepares for collapse of the Euro, believes Britain will be flooded with economic refugees, Swizterland taking action

Several days ago there were reports that banks around the world were preparing for the demise of the Euro.  Banks are getting ready to go back to older European currencies.

On December 28 the British government discussed contingency plans for such a Euro collapse. Her Majesty’s Treasury (that’s the official title, and proof the Queen of England is no figure head) has announced plans to prevent a flood of currency refugees from overwhelming British banks.

The United Kingdom is part of the European Union, but does not use the Euro.  The British pound has been gaining in value as the Euro, and the U.S. dollar, looses value. The collapse of the Euro could see the value of the British pound skyrocket, which is bad for British exports (making them too expensive to buy, thus breaking Britain’s fragile economy).

It’s not just “The Treasury” that’s making plans, the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office (aka The Foreign Office) announced plans to stop people fleeing the expected chaos of mainland Europe, from flooding into Britain.

The Foreign Office said it would even attempt to rescue British tourists on holiday, and even British expatriates who need help returning to the U.K. 

The British media is also reporting that the rich 10% of Greece, and other EU countries that are in economic trouble, are already transferring large amounts of  wealth to British banks.

This happened to Switzerland a few months ago.  The result was that the value of the Swiss France skyrocketed.  But the Swiss dealt with it in an unusual way; they “attached” the value of their Swiss Franc to the value of the Euro (even though they are not a member of the European Union).

A few days ago there were reports that EU members were going to ground all flights out of their countries, and block all border crossings, to prevent mass exodus of people and cash.  British officials at Whitehall (the part of the British government directly controlled by the Queen of England, and which controls their military, named after a royal palace that once stood there) said they would do the same, but only to prevent foreign people, and their foreign cash, from coming into the United Kingdom.  Whitehall officials said they believe the collapse of the Euro would result in widespread civil unrest in Europe.

 

Business/Economics, International, Technology, U.S.

World War 3: Finland seizes U.S. made Patriot missiles, Germany says legitimate cargo bound for South Korea

“We have impounded the explosives and missiles and asked the Defense Ministry to transport and store them.”-Petri Lounatmaa, Finnish Customs

Finland has cleared an Isle of Man (a British Crown Dependency) registered ship, but only after taking the 69 Patriot missiles and 160 pounds of explosives.

German officials are upset. They claim the missiles came from German inventory, and were properly declared for shipment to South Korea.  Finnish officials basically say Gemany is lying: “Of course, there are legal transports of weapons or defense material (through Finland), but in this case the cargo was marked as containing fireworks. That is quite unusual.”-Paivi Rasanen, Interior Minister of Finland

Finnish port authorities say the 160 pounds of explosives, mainly picric acid (a nitrate based explosive which is also used in fireworks),  were stacked on pallets fully exposed to the elements.  Knowing what it was they began to open crates and that’s when they found the Patriot missiles.  The missiles were in crates marked “fireworks”!

The Finnish government has properly stored the explosives along with the missiles.  Finland is keeping the missiles and explosives, pending further investigation.

The ship, M/S Thor Liberty, is free to sail, but the 11 crew, including the captain, are in custody: “She can sail, but customs is still holding the cargo and the (detained) crew isn’t allowed to leave Finland.”-Markku Koskinen, Port of Kotka

 

International, U.S.

Government & Military Incompetence: 3 U.S. soldiers killed on Xmas Eve, in Afghanistan. Part of growing trend

2011 has seen a growing trend in Afghanistan; Afghan government troops turning on U.S./NATO troops.  On December 24, three U.S. soldiers were shot and killed by an Afghan soldier, after an argument at a training base in Pusht-Rod district of the western province of Farah.

Five other U.S./NATO troops were wounded, one Afghan soldier was killed another wounded.

In November an Afghan soldier wounded at least three Australian soldiers in southern Uruzgan province.  In April an Afghan air force pilot killed eight U.S./NATO soldiers at Kabul airport.

International, U.S.

NAZI-land & Military crimes: 8 U.S. soldiers murdered a fellow soldier in Afghanistan, tried to make it look like suicide, second case of ethnic cleansing within the U.S. military in Afghanistan

Danny Chen, a 19 year old infantryman assigned to Company C, 3rd Battalion of 25th Infantry Division, in Afghanistan, died on October 3, 2011.  Initial reports said he shot himself in the head.

Now the U.S. Army has charged eight U.S. soldiers in connection with Chen’s death: 1st Lt Daniel J. Schwartz, Staff Sgt Blaine G. Dugas, Staff Sgt Andrew J. Van Bockel, Sgt Adam M. Holcomb, Sgt Jeffrey T. Hurst, Sgt Travis F. Carden, Spc Thomas P. Curtis and Spc Ryan J. Offutt.

They are charged with dereliction of duty, maltreatment, involuntary manslaughter, assault consummated by battery, and reckless endangerment.

But get this, the U.S. Army would never had investigated if it wasn’t for Chen’s hometown of Chinatown, in New York City! The Asian community demanded the Army investigate.

The U.S. Army investigators discovered that Chen was subjected to physical abuse and ethnic slurs, because he’s ethnically Chinese.

This is the second such case. The first involved the death of Harry Lew, a U.S. Marine from California.  Lew was subjected to brutal hazing in Afghanistan.  The USMC quietly court martialed Lew’s attackers in October of this year.    

International, U.S.

Government Incompetence: The 12 (Big) Lies of Xmas 2011

1. “The war in Iraq is finally over after nine years.”

Rothkopf notes the U.S. has been militarily engaged in Iraq since the early 1990 and this will likely be just the end of another installment in the long running series of U.S. warmongering policies in the region.

2. “America’s mission in Iraq was a success.”

He expresses astonishment at such a claim while Iraq is divided, undemocratic, corrupt, and the U.S. invasion has cost U.S.$1 trillion, thousands of U.S. lives, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, and its national reputation. U.S. war in Iraq bears greater semblance to a full-scale “fiasco”, he says.

3. “We are winning in Afghanistan.”

Rothkopf describes this one as a hot from the oven “howler” by the U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta. Washington has strengthened the region’s extremists and the threat of instability in nuclear Pakistan is now actually higher than it was when U.S. went in, he says.

4. Tie: “Pakistan is America’s ally” and “Afghanistan is America’s partner.”

Neither Pakistan nor Afghanistan can by any “credible definition” be called a U.S. ally. This is attested to by the animosity of Islamabad towards Washington and Kabul’s belittling of the U.S. on the world stage, Rothkopf says.

5. “America is unthreatened by China’s growth.”

A “prayer” by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Rothkopf says. “It should be true. But it’s not,” he adds.

6. Tie: “Republicans are the problem” and “Democrats are the problem.”

Rothkopf dubs this one as “the great lie of American politics.” He says the problem with U.S. politics is not the parties, but the money. “The system is so resolutely corrupt that recent scandals have only resulted in more money flowing into the system and past reforms being undone,” he notes.

7. “Cutting the taxes of millionaires helps create U.S. jobs.”

There is not even one single solitary shred of evidence to support this “idiotic” suggestion, Rothkopf notes.

8. “This next summit of European leaders will be decisive …”

Rothkopf says despite the fact that this claim has been made every few weeks for the past months, the “supposedly sophisticated financial markets” of the United States continue to fall for it.

9. “The Obama administration is committed to serious financial services reform.”

The U.S. financial system is still plagued by all the threats that instigated the 2008 recession. “Not an inch of progress,” Rothkopf says.

10. “Only nine percent of Americans approve of Congress.”

“This can’t possibly be true. There can’t possibly be that many,” Rothkopf says in a stinging sarcastic tone.

11. “The operation in Libya will be over in a matter of days or weeks.”

Rothkopf says the operation was wrong to begin with, “and then wrong and then wrong again for months.”

12. “I love Israel.”

Even though everyone in U.S. politics makes such an assertion, nobody really means it, Rothkopf notes. What the politicians really mean, however, is that “I want American Jews to think I love Israel enough to vote for me and give me money,” he says.

“Those are just a few of a bumper year for duplicity, mendacity, and craven misstatements.”-David J. Rothkopf, Foreign Policy

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? One step closer to One World Government, IMF proposes international co-op, hints at Global Great Depression

“It’s not a crisis that will be resolved by one group of countries taking action. It’s going to be hopefully resolved by all countries, all regions, all categories of countries actually taking action.”-Christine Lagarde, IMF Managing Director

The director of the International Monetary Fund made that comment in a U.S. State Department conference on December 15.  Christine Lagarde also used the word “retraction” which is another way of saying economic depression.

Lagarde said she is greatly concerned because recent efforts to ‘save’ Europe have failed, and there is growing economic protectionism, and political isolationism, which will only make the global economy worse.  These are all things that helped cause the Great Depression of the 1920s-1930s.

She is calling for a new global financial co-operative system to prevent the coming Global Great Depression.

 

International, Technology, U.S.

World War 3 & Government Incompetence: Stealth drone incident reveals diplomatic impotence of the United States

“We have asked for it back. We’ll see how the Iranians respond.”-Barack Obama, President of the United States

“I don’t expect that that will happen.”-Leon Panetta, U.S. Secretary of Defense

“We submitted a formal request for the return of our lost equipment as we would in any situation to any government around the world.”-Hillary Clinton, U.S. Secretary of State

“There are people here who have been able to control this spy plane, who can surely analyze this plane’s system…In any case, now we have this spy plane.”-Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran

 

International, Technology, U.S.

World War 3: Iranian official says if another U.S. drone violates Iranian air space, then the War is On, bitch!

“Our question is that if this aircraft belonged to Iran and had violated U.S. territory, how many sessions would the international community and the UN Security Council have held and how many resolutions would they have issued against Iran?”-Esmail Kowsari, Deputy Chairman of the Majlis (parliament) National Security and Foreign Policy Committee

Kowsari pointed out the hypocrisy of the UN, in not denouncing the fact that the United States broke internatonal law when it sent the RQ-170 stealth UAV into Iranian air space.  Two unnamed U.S. officials say the recon drone was supposed to stay in Afghan air space while spying on Iran.

Kowasri added that if it happens again Iran “…will target every U.S. military base anywhere in the world.”

Technology

World War 3: Iran reveals U.S. Stealth drone, shot down by cyber bullets. Iranians are expert reverse engineers now they have latest U.S. military technology. Is the U.S. planning a commando raid?

“It carries a variety of systems that wouldn’t be much of a benefit to Iran, but to its allies such as China and Russia, it’s a potential gold mine.”-Peter W. Singer, author of Wired for War

Iran has put on public display the Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel stealth UAV.  The vehicle in the Iranian video matches photos taken of a Sentinel possibly operated from Pakistan’s Shamis air base.  Could it be that the real reason for U.S. forces evacuating Shamis is because their precious stealth UAV, nicknamed The Beast of Kandahar, got shot down by Iranians?

Back in January of this year, the buzz on the internet, concerning the appearance of the Beast in Afghan skies, was what was it doing there, it’s just a high tech and highly expensive recon vehicle?  It was first spotted over Afghanistan back in 2009.  Now, Iranian media says Afghan officials told the Iranian government the Beast was being used to spy on Iran.

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps was ordered to hunt down the Beast, and they did.  But instead of using real bullets or missiles, they used their Iranian designed electronic warfare computers.  This explains why U.S./NATO operators lost control of the UAV: “The operators of the UAV lost control of the aircraft and had been working to determine its status.”-NATO statement

In fact, reports say that the possibility that the Beast was a victim of remote cyber hacking never crossed the minds of those operating the multi-million dollar UAV.

One reason they didn’t think it was hacked is that, according to John Bumgarner of research company U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit, the UAV should have self destructed if it was hacked.

Another UAV ‘expert’ from the United States said “…what the Iranians have is a pile of wreckage, many small and damaged pieces from which they could glean little in the way of technological insights.”-Loren Thompson, Lexington Institute

That was before the Iranians released the video of a near intact aircraft, boy does that UAV ‘expert’ have egg on his face!

So since the ‘experts’ say the Beast should have self destructed if it sensed it was being hacked, and, even if it suffered a malfunction it should’ve crashed into a thousand tiny bits, yet, the Iranians have a nearly intact Beast to publicly display, it strongly suggests that they not only hacked it, but were able to disable any self destruct and land it!

Islamic Revolution Guards Corps say they will reverse engineer the UAV.

By the way, flying a military aircraft into another country’s airspace, without permission, constitutes an act of war under international law.  So officially the United States is at war with Iran.

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

Government Incompetence & World War 3: Russia & China say the West is foolish to ask them to embargo Iranian oil! China willing to fight for it!

Russia and China have said they will not join any embargo of Iranian oil.  For Russia the reason is simple: “…we are not consuming Iranian oil at all!”-Sergei Shmatko, Energy Minister of Russia

You’d think the leaders of Canada, the U.K. and U.S. (the countries pushing for an embargo of Iranian oil) would already know that.

For China the reason is personal: “Iran is a very important supplier of oil for China. I believe there would be a massive conflict between America’s prohibition from, and China’s interest in, the Iranian crude. China won’t certainly do what the United States says!” He Jun, Anbound Information Consultancy

Put it another way; China is willing to go to war over it!