CIA 'Ghost Cash' Effect: Is US main source of Afghan corruption?

Liberty Was Also Attacked in Boston

Forced lockdown of a city. Militarized police riding tanks in the streets. Door-to-door armed searches without warrant. Families thrown out of their homes at gunpoint to be searched without probable cause. Businesses forced to close. Transport shut down.

These were not the scenes from a military coup in a far off banana republic, but rather the scenes just over a week ago in Boston as the United States got a taste of martial law. The ostensible reason for the military-style takeover of parts of Boston was that the accused perpetrator of a horrific crime was on the loose. The Boston bombing provided the opportunity for the government to turn what should have been a police investigation into a military-style occupation of an American city. This unprecedented move should frighten us as much or more than the attack itself.

What has been sadly forgotten in all the celebration of the capture of one suspect and the killing of his older brother is that the police state tactics in Boston did absolutely nothing to catch them. While the media crowed that the apprehension of the suspects was a triumph of the new surveillance state – and, predictably, many talking heads and Members of Congress called for even more government cameras pointed at the rest of us – the fact is none of this caught the suspect. Actually, it very nearly gave the suspect a chance to make a getaway.

The “shelter in place” command imposed by the governor of Massachusetts was lifted before the suspect was caught. Only after this police state move was ended did the owner of the boat go outside to check on his property, and in so doing discover the suspect.

No, the suspect was not discovered by the paramilitary troops terrorizing the public. He was discovered by a private citizen, who then placed a call to the police. And he was identified not by government surveillance cameras, but by private citizens who willingly shared their photographs with the police.

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Putin holds marathon question and answer session

Journalism as a ‘Vice’

What does a prediction of a ricin attack on the United States, North Korea, Dennis Rodman, and punk rock fans have in common? The answer is a bizarre but well-funded magazine and documentary production company called “Vice,” which has alternated its headquarters between Montreal and Brooklyn.

Vice has been billed as the “Rolling Stone” for the modern era. However, its deep pockets and involvement in the world’s hottest trouble spots has some observers believing it is yet another George Soros-financed operation to destabilize honest journalism with unmitigated trash and disinformation. It has debuted on HBO with a news documentary program that is about as full of facts as other cable offerings like “Ancient Aliens” and “Pawn Stars.”

After hosting a trip to North Korea by former basketball star Dennis Rodman and members of the Harlem Globetrotters, where Rodman pronounced his never-ending love for Kim Jong Un, Vice’s HBO show, which is hosted by HBO’s Bill Maher, featured a segment on North Korean women smuggled out of North Korea into Laos and in danger of being forced into the sex trade. The picture of Vice as a double-dealing disinformation outlet becomes clearer.

Vice’s visit to Pyongyang came after one by Google boss Eric Schmidt and his Google Ideas guru Jared Cohen. Cohen is a veteran of the State Department’s involvement with “themed revolutions” and the “Arab Spring” uprisings. Cohen is yet another of Soros’s many well-paid operatives who search the world for destabilization opportunities. Although Schmidt and Cohen did not get an audience with young Kim, their presence in North Korea likely had more to do with sizing up support for the real faction governing North Korea: the military clique of Kim’s aunt and uncle, Kim Kyong-hui and Jang Sung-taek, which has received the covert backing of Israel and the Mossad.

Vice’s documentary crew has also traveled into the jungles of the Philippines to report on the long-simmering Muslim rebellion in that nation, as well as to Iran and Liberia. And in another sign that Vice is nothing more than a new form of Soros-financed propaganda, CNN’s “globalized” Fareed Zakaria is a consultant to the program.

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Back to Back C-Span Callers Saying That The Boston Marathon Bombing

The Boston Blowback

Let’s cut to the chase; the Boston bombing was a classic blowback – the word US networks won’t dare pronounce. The key question to consider is who profits from it.

If the convoluted FBI narrative of the Boston bombing is to be believed – and that’s a suspension of disbelief ‘if’ - here’s the new Osama Bin Laden (this time captured alive); Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, a graduate from a Cambridge, Mass. High school, enrolled at UMass Dartmouth, fluent speaker of English, Russian and Chechen, former wrestling all-star, listing ‘career and money’ on his VKontakte (Russia’s Facebook) page as key interests.

The FBI narrative includes exploits worthy of the Die Hard franchise, such as Dzhokhar running over his brother Tamerlan’s body - enveloped in a suicide vest - in a stolen SUV, and crashing a massive police barricade.

It would be so convenient to pigeonhole the Tsarnaev brothers as Chechen terrorists. But that’s not the case.

Dzhokhar being a member of a few internet groups discussing Chechnya does not prove much. They have been to the US long enough to be thoroughly assimilated; Dzhokhar arrived with his family in March 2002 and Tamerlan on his own in 2004. Before that, the family lived in Kyrgyzstan and then in Dagestan, Russia, where Dzhokhar went to school No. 1 in Makhachkala, Dagestan’s capital.

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CISPA cybersecurity bill approved by the House of Representatives

The Boston Bombings in Context: How the FBI Fosters, Funds and Equips American Terrorists

The Boston Marathon bombing has provoked shock, grief and outrage from around the world. After decades of conditioning, the public automatically equates such terrorism with Muslim radicals. But the evidence shows that every major terror plot on American soil in the past 10 years has been fostered, funded and equipped by one organization: the FBI.

 

People around the world watched in horror this week as explosions rocked the finish line of the Boston Marathon, turning a day of sportsmanship and celebration into one of shock, grief and outrage. As with all such events, the desire to discover who was behind this cowardly act has driven many into a speculative frenzy. And, in a sad reminder of the indoctrination that the Western world has been under for over a decade now in the mythical “war of terror,” it did not take long at all before the collective finger of the mob was pointed squarely in the direction of Muslim terrorists.

 

Within hours of the blast, fear spread throughout the international Muslim community that the bombing would be connected to an Islamist extremist. A Libyan Twitter user touched a nerve—and received thousands of retweets and worldwide media coverage—by tweeting “Please don’t be a ‘Muslim.’” The backlash began shortly thereafter, with the New York Post falsely implying that a Saudi national was being questioned for his possible role in the attack. The next day, a plane departing Boston Logan Airport returned to the gate and two passengers were forcibly removed because they had been overheard speaking Arabic before takeoff.

 

As data continues to pour in regarding the bombing and who may be behind it, it is instructive to take a moment to step back and consider this knee-jerk tendency to conclude that this is the work of Islamic radicals. In the minds of millions of Americans, bombs targeting innocents on US soil are inextricably linked with the image of the bearded, turban-wearing boogeyman that has become the shorthand for evil in this age of terror.

 

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Boston Bombing Coverage: A Campaign of Extreme Disinformation

FBI's History of Handing "Terror Suspects" Live Explosives

In late September 2011, AFP reported that a man was charged with "planning to fly explosive-packed, remote controlled airplanes into the Pentagon and the Capitol in Washington." In its report, "US man charged with Pentagon bomb plot," AFP stated (emphasis added):

During the alleged plot, undercover FBI agents posed as accomplices who supplied Ferdaus with one remote-controlled plane, C4 explosives, and small arms that he allegedly envisioned using in a simultaneous ground assault in Washington.

However, ''the public was never in danger from the explosive devices, which were controlled by undercover FBI employees,'' the FBI said.

Ferdaus was arrested in Framingham, near Boston, immediately after putting the newly delivered weapons into a storage container, the FBI said.

Authorities described Ferdaus as a physics graduate from Northeastern University who followed al-Qaeda and was committed to ''violent jihad'' since early last year.

In November 2010, a similar "plot" was engineered, then "disrupted," also by the FBI - this time in Portland, Oregon. The so-called "Christmas Tree Bomber" attempted to remote detonate a van he believed was filled with explosives, provided by the FBI, before being arrested during a Christmas tree lighting ceremony at Pioneer Courthhouse Square. The FBI's official statement regarding the incident revealed that FBI agents had handled, even detonated live explosives with the entrapped suspect at Lincoln County Park in the lead up to the final failed bombing.
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"They" must be getting desperate to resort to such flagrant manipulation of gold

Zionist Lunacy Taking World to Hell in Handbasket

Zionism. Of course, you can be forgiven for thinking it’s extreme lunacy. Extreme lunacy is beyond nightmares; beyond the ravings of perverted murderers; beyond grotesque, drug-induced hallucinations; beyond that which could be conceived by a drunken Nero; beyond something thought up for Caligula’s birthday party.

Or, put another way, it’s what the USA, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, Jordan, UK, the CIA, Mossad and a few others are up to in Syria. Yes, claiming that they are responsible and rational, these self-righteous, corrupt countries and organizations are engaged in financing, training and arming the very Wahhabis, Jihadists, Salafists and al-Qaeda rebels who wish to destroy not only Syria but them as well.

Claiming they are promoting democracy (and if Saudi Arabia is a democracy then I am Caligula’s horse) they are financing, training and arming those who would destroy democracy as well as life, liberty, human rights, tolerance, decency, standard of living, female integrity - you name it. And, oh yes, the Wahhabis, Jihadists, Salafists and al-Qaeda want to kill all Christians, Sikhs, Hindus, Jews and, in particular, Shia Muslims.

Of course, the West is claiming that it is only financing and arming the ‘good’ terrorists in Syria but the facts on the ground are that the ‘bad’ ones (e.g., the Jabhat al-Nusra [Victory Front] of throat-slitting, choking gas bent) are, one way or another, getting more and more weapons.

Moreover, they are bragging about it. That is the significance of al-Qaeda in Iraq admitting that it is al-Qaeda; of Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria merging with al-Qaeda in Iraq; and of the leader of Jabhatal-Nusra in Syria proclaiming his fealty to the global leader of al-Qaeda (Ayman al-Zawahiri). The whole lot of them - al Qaeda, Wahhabists, Jihadists and Salafists - are joining up to fight for the "Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham," encompassing, for starters, Iraq, Syria and the Levant but going much wider in due course.

By financing and arming these gas ghouls and macabre murderers, the West, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey and Qatar are shooting themselves in the foot, leg, back and mouth because they are creating something that they cannot control.

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Anarcho-capitalism Why it's Broken & How to Fix it

The Anti-Empire Report Wikileaks Has Done It Again

Would you believe that the United States tried to do something that was not nice against Hugo Chávez?

Wikileaks has done it again. I guess the US will really have to get tough now with Julian Assange and Bradley Manning.

 

In a secret US cable to the State Department, dated November 9, 2006, and recently published online by WikiLeaks, former US ambassador to Venezuela, William Brownfield, outlines a comprehensive plan to destabilize the government of the late President Hugo Chávez. The cable begins with a Summary:

During his 8 years in power, President Chavez has systematically dismantled the institutions of democracy and governance. The USAID/OTI program objectives in Venezuela focus on strengthening democratic institutions and spaces through non-partisan cooperation with many sectors of Venezuelan society.

USAID/OTI = United States Agency for International Development/Office of Transition Initiatives. The latter is one of the many euphemisms that American diplomats use with each other and the world – They say it means a transition to “democracy”. What it actually means is a transition from the target country adamantly refusing to cooperate with American imperialist grand designs to a country gladly willing (or acceding under pressure) to cooperate with American imperialist grand designs.

OTI supports the Freedom House (FH) “Right to Defend Human Rights” program with $1.1 million. Simultaneously through Development Alternatives Inc. (DAI), OTI has also provided 22 grants to human rights organizations.

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Pyongyang warns foreigners to evacuate S. Korea

The Coup

The sun was setting over Capitol Hill as we took up our positions. All entrances were covered: those were the orders coming down from on high, and who were we – mere pawns in the game – to question why, or (heaven forfend!) disobey? We did what we were told. And we had a list of those who were to be detained: the troublemakers, our captain called them: a list with names and photographs, although we all knew by sight who they were. There weren’t many of them, to be sure: there weren’t all that many troublemakers on Capitol Hill these days. Go along to get along: that was the unspoken rule, and most obeyed. So the list was short. But there was that noxious minority – from both parties – who could conceivably give us a bit of trouble.

Evil loves the night, which is why most crimes occur under cover of darkness, and this one was no exception. The plan was to quickly take out the Secret Service – those who weren’t in on the plan, that is – and move the President to an Undisclosed Location. Lop off the head and the body would be paralyzed. Although I was just a drone – a mere sergeant at the time – and not in on the big boys’ plans, it was clear to me what they were doing. In a highly centralized apparatus such as Washington, all we had to do was go after a few vulnerable locus points and the bloated body of the bureaucracy would be immobilized while we ran rampant over the prostrate body of the republic.

Nobody expected President Paul – or his guards – to put up much resistance: of the Secret Service agents who were guarding him, two were in on the plot. He did resist, however, although that didn’t come out until much later: we had the media on our side, or at least the major players, and they could be counted on for discretion – and, if not, we had ways of dealing with them. Even as the CIA paramilitaries were moving in on the White House that night, so were smaller groups of urban commandos moving through the streets of New York City’s “media district,” securing the major networks. All stations would broadcast the message from the chairman of the joint chiefs the next morning, at 9 am sharp, and we frankly didn’t expect much trouble from those quarters. Those guys hated the new President, the Kentucky Hick as they called him: although it’s verboten to diss the commander-in-chief, when my company commander called him the Poor White Trash President in the company of several officers, everybody laughed.

Rumors of the coup had been rife in the weeks: you can’t keep a secret in Washington, and especially not this kind. But the guys upstairs had that one all figured out way in advance: anticipating leaks, they had started spreading the rumors themselves, and then had their pet pundits debunk them as “wild conspiracy theories” spread by “extremist” supporters of the President-elect. Yet more evidence that the Paulians – or Paulbots, as the media dubbed them – are dangerous hotheads who see a conspiracy hiding behind every bush. What kooks! And as for their Kook-in-chief, who had somehow snuck into the White House when no one was looking – a leader is defined by his supporters. The election of 2014 had all been one huge mistake. Can we roll back the tape?

I chuckled to myself as I moved through the darkness. Get ready, folks, because this is one “urban myth” that’s about to come true, like those alligators in the New York City sewers my buddy from Brooklyn told me about: he grew up in that hood and had actually seen one. Or so he said. But you never know, do you?

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North Korea & the Corporate Media

Sanctions on Iran building up independent economy

A former high-level U.S. government official who has just returned from Iran reports to WMR that Western sanctions are having the opposite effect on Iran than what was expected. Instead of grounding Iran’s economy to a halt, Western sanctions have provided an impetus for Iran to grow an indigenous and self-sustaining economy.

Our source reports that the skyline of the Tehran metropolis is marked by construction cranes. While some of these are inactive, it is clear that there is a building boom in Tehran.

There are also huge expressway projects in downtown Tehran that include the construction of overpasses and tunnels.

Not only is Iran over 90 percent self-sufficient in food production, but it is manufacturing aircraft, ground vehicles, missiles, and critical oil and natural gas production equipment in the face of a technological blockade by the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan, Norway, Switzerland, and the European Union.

The United States and the neoconservatives also gave Iran a significant prize from the American invasion and occupation of Iraq. A pro-Iranian Shi’a-dominated government in Baghdad has been more than willing to help Iran evade sanctions, including those on the banking sector. In addition, Iraq’s Kurdistan is not keen on applying sanctions on Iran, a nation that Iraqi Kurds have been trading with for centuries. Iraqi companies are more than willing to rebrand Iranian oil as Iraqi oil and ship it around the world in defiance of U.S. and U.N. sanctions. Although the Iraqis receive a handsome markup as intermediaries, the oil deals bring in much-needed foreign hard currency into Iran.

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THE MONSANTO PROTECTION ACT

Why Gay Marriage Isn’t the ’60s Civil Rights Fight

The 20-something me would consider the 30-something me a bleeding-heart liberal. Though I still hate political correctness, I no longer find it valuable to attack PC by charging off in the opposite direction, making insensitive remarks that even if right in fact were so wrong in form. I’m not the first political pundit to use excessive hyperbole. I might be one of the few to admit being embarrassed about it.

This embarrassment is particularly true concerning my own region, the South, where slavery, segregation, and institutional racism left a heavy mark. I still detest those on the left and right who exploit racial tension for their own purposes. But I detest even more the inhumanity suffered by African-Americans in our early and later history. T.S. Eliot said, “humankind cannot bear too much reality,” and it is impossible for those of us living in the new millennium to comprehend that absolute horror of being treated like chattel by your fellow man, or being terrorized by your neighbors, because of the color of your skin.

Books, memorials, and museums will never be able to adequately convey such tragedy, at least not in any manner remotely comparable to the pain of those who lived it.

The debate over gay marriage has been portrayed as the civil rights struggle of our time. I’m generally a supporter of same-sex unions and hold the same view as President Obama—I’m personally for it, but believe it should be decided at the state level. I find it legally objectionable that those in longstanding same-sex relationships do not have the same inheritance, tax, and hospital-visitation rights as straight couples. Whatever the courts or states decide now and in the future, I hope this changes.

That said, gay marriage is simply not on par with the black civil rights struggle. Not even close.

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Monsanto Protection Act signed into Law