I have a pit in my stomach, do you?

Written by AfterAmericaNZ

Tonight I had a pit in my stomach as I watched President Obama give his speech at West point. Did you? Do you sense something wrong? Did you see the expression on his face? Did the cadets look a bit somber, frustrated or even scared?

Here is the part of the President’s speech that blew my mind:

For unlike the great powers of old, we have not sought world domination. Our union was founded in resistance to oppression. We do not seek to occupy other nations. We will not claim another nation’s resources or target other peoples because their faith or ethnicity is different from ours. What we have fought for – and what we continue to fight for – is a better future for our children and grandchildren, and we believe that their lives will be better if other peoples’ children and grandchildren can live in freedom and access opportunity.

In my humble view, everything the USA is doing is the opposite of the words spoken above. With an approval rating of only 45% in some polls, it makes you ask this question: “Who are you working for Mr. President? The American People? The Foreign Banks?

Here is what Obama said during his campaign:

http://eclipptv.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=8290

It would appear that America as transformed itself from CHANGE WE NEED to the following:

WE NEED CHANGE!

May God bless you and keep your own family safe this holiday season. Pit, pit a big pit in my stomach.

President Obama’s Speech At West Point

Obama’s Speech at West Point on Afghanistan:
What He Dare Not Tell Us

By Ron Larsen
LibertyCalling.com
November 30, 2009

During his address before the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on Tuesday, December 1, expect President Obama to ask the American people to support his sending an additional 34,000 U.S. troops to fight for freedom in Afganistan so that we do not have to fight radical, militiant Islamic terrorism in the American homeland in coming years. He will probably refer to the shootings at Camp Hood allegedly commited by an Islamic military officer and psychiarist with al-Queda connections earlier this month this month to convince us that al-Queda based terrorism constitutes a genuine threat to the safety of Americans, even those living in the homeland.

Obama will probably go on to say that the heroic Amercan military troops fighting for freedom in Afghanistan since shortly after 9/11, have significantly reduced the numbers of al-Queda and Taliban insurgents fighting there and add that, nevertheless, the still pose of significant threat to the security of the people of that nation and so must be eliminated. Furthermore, he will likely add that to honor the American who died fighting there, he intends to finish the job started by President Bush shortly after the 9/11, which is to rid Afghanistan of al-Queda and Taliban fighters and then train Afghanistant troops to defend their own homeland.

That’s sweet Obama rhetoric. Let the violins play. But how does all of it square with the assertions General James Jones, Obama’s national security advisor, made on October 4 concerning the current strength of Taliban and al-Queda forces in Afghanistan and their danger to American troops and that nation’s people? According to an article published that day in the Washington Times, General Jones said that Afghanistan is not imminent danger of falling to the Taliban. Furthermore, he estimated total al-queda presence in Afghanistan at 100, a drop in a bucket.

What Obama will not tell us is that additional troops are needed to guard the opium poppy fields because of record yields now achieved each year and expansion of growing area and that the opium industry there was designed by the United States over thirty years ago.

The opium trade is big business there and worldwide and revenues are comparable with energy industry levels. Professor writes in a 2006 article titled, Who benefits from the Afghan Opium Trade?, published by GlobalResearch.ca, “…what distinguishes narcotics from legal commodity trade is that narcotics constitutes a major source of wealth formation not only for organized crime but also for the US intelligence apparatus, which increasingly constitutes a powerful actor in the spheres of finance and banking. This relationship has been documented by several studies including the writings of Alfred McCoy.”

What Obama will also not tell us is that the growing presence of the U.S. is all consistent with Zbigniew Brzezinski’s master plan for America’s securing control of Central Asia and Caspian Sea gas and oil producing nations. Brzezinski, elistist master stategist and founder of the Trilateral Commission along with George Soros and David Rockefeller and well as former national security advisor to President Carter, see control of that corridor, which includes the old Silk Route, is the key to control of the world’s commerce. His plan was laid out in masterful detail in his 1997 book, The Grand Chessboard, which may be read free online at Scribd.

The presence of the U.S.military in Afghanistan is pivotal to execution of this plan. Whoever controls Afghanistan controls access to all of the major gas and oil pipelines in this region. It also serves from a logistical standpoint as the perfect staging area for U.S. miliary troop foreays into Pakistan and neighboring countries in Central Asia and into the oil and gas rich Caspian Sea Region.

According to historian and author Webster Tarpley, Brzezinski met Obama when he was a student at Columbia University, became his political mentor and was responsible for Obama’s winning the U.S. presidency. Brzezinski still serves as Obama’s unnamed strategist and advisor. During the 2008 presidential campaign season, Obama’s focus on what he believe was a vital need of the U.S. to switch its military focus from Iraq to Afghanistan. This lends credibility to Tarpley’s contention that Brzezinski is guiding if no specifying Obama policy decisions in Afghanistan and Pakistan and, if fact, all of Cenral Asia, South Caucusus and the Caspian basin.

Obama Plans To Increase Troops by 50%!

President Barrack Obama

Obama will unveil Afghan troops move at West Point

By ANNE GEARAN and ANNE FLAHERTY (AP)

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama plans to announce a redrawn battle plan for Afghanistan, including what the military says could be a roughly 50 percent increase in U.S. forces, in a national address Tuesday night from the U.S. Military Academy.

Although military and administration officials cautioned that Obama has not settled on a final figure, the military is planning for an increase of up to 35,000 troops begin next year. Military officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the president’s plans.

The addition forces would come atop a record 71,000 U.S. troops in the country now and would represent the largest expansion since the war began eight years ago.

Obama will be speaking to a war-weary American public, with the Army’s storied academy at West Point, N.Y., as a backdrop and cadets entering the service most stretched by two wars on hand. Polls show support for the war has dropped significantly since Obama took office, with a majority now saying both that they oppose the war and that it is not worth fighting.

Congressional Democrats may be an even tougher sell. The administration is deploying two Cabinet officials and the nation’s highest-ranking military officer to explain the new Afghanistan plan in Capitol Hill hearings to begin Wednesday.

The president promised this week to “finish the job” begun eight years ago, and press secretary Robert Gibbs said Wednesday the announcement would include an exit strategy. But the surge in troops would be Obama’s second since taking office, and liberal Democrats already are lining up against it, in part because of the also-surging cost — up to $75 billion a year.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are expected to appear before the Senate Armed Services and House Foreign Affairs committees on Wednesday. On Thursday, they would go before the Senate Foreign Relations and House Armed Services committees.

Congressional Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., have been blunt in saying Congress has little stomach for a large troop increase and flagging confidence in the U.S.-backed Afghan government the war effort is meant to support.

Pelosi and about 17 other congressional leaders from both parties were invited to the White House for a meeting with Obama late Tuesday before he goes to the military academy in New York.

Congressional Republicans, in particular, are more eager for the testimony that is likely to come the following week. War commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal and the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, are likely to appear on Capitol Hill on Dec. 8 or 9, officials said.

Obama approved 21,000 additional troops for Afghanistan last spring, in what he said at the time was a wholesale rethinking of U.S. strategy for a war he said his predecessor had neglected. That brought U.S. troop force to an expected 68,000 by the end of this year. The actual figure is slightly higher now because of overlap between troops entering and leaving the country on regular rotations. The new troops Obama is expected to add would probably not begin to arrive until February or March.

Gibbs said Obama’s recent meetings with military advisers have often focused on how to train Afghanistan’s police and army to secure and hold areas taken from the Taliban so that U.S. forces can leave. “We are not going to be there another eight or nine years,” he said.

Incompetence and corruption in the Afghan government have aided a rise in the Taliban’s strength. The military strategy is expected to include specific dates that deployments could be slowed or stopped if necessary, a senior military official said.

The president and his top military and national security advisers have held 10 meetings to discuss future U.S. steps in Afghanistan. McChrystal has asked the president for about 40,000 troops, arguing that a robust but temporary surge was the best way to end the war.

NSA helped with Windows 7 development

Developed with Help From NSA

Privacy expert voices ‘backdoor’ concerns, security researchers dismiss idea

Gregg Keizer

Computerworld - The National Security Agency (NSA) worked with Microsoft on the development of Windows 7, an agency official acknowledged yesterday during testimony before Congress.

“Working in partnership with Microsoft and elements of the Department of Defense, NSA leveraged our unique expertise and operational knowledge of system threats and vulnerabilities to enhance Microsoft’s operating system security guide without constraining the user to perform their everyday tasks, whether those tasks are being performed in the public or private sector,” Richard Schaeffer, the NSA’s information assurance director, told the Senate’s Subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security yesterday as part of a prepared statement.

“All this was done in coordination with the product release, not months or years later during the product lifecycle,” Schaeffer added. “This will improve the adoption of security advice, as it can be implemented during installation and then later managed through the emerging SCAP standards.”

Security Content Automation Protocol, or SCAP, is a set of standards for automating chores such as managing vulnerabilities and measuring security compliance. The National Institute of Standards and Technologies (NIST) oversees the SCAP standards.

This is not the first time that the NSA has partnered with Microsoft during Windows development. In 2007, the agency confirmed that it had a hand in Windows Vista as part of an initiative to ensure that the operating system was secure from attack and would work with other government software. Before that, the NSA provided guidance on how best to secure Windows XP and Windows 2000.

According to Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronics Privacy Information Center (EPIC), the NSA’s involvement with operating system development goes back even farther. “This battle goes back to at least the crypto wars of the early ’90s,” said Rotenberg, who remembered testifying about the agency’s role in private sector computer security standards in 1989.

But when the NSA puts hands on Windows, that raises a red flag for Rotenberg, who heads the Washington, D.C.-based public interest research center. “When NSA offers to help the private sector on computer security, the obvious concern is that it will also build in backdoors that enables tracking users and intercepting user communications,” Rotenberg said in an e-mail. “And private sector firms are reluctant to oppose these ’suggestions’ since the US government is also their biggest customer and opposition to the NSA could mean to loss of sales.”

Rotenberg’s worries stem from the NSA’s reputation as the intelligence agency best known for its eavesdropping of electronic messaging, including cell phone calls and e-mail.

Andrew Storms, the director of security operations at nCircle Security, didn’t put much credence in the idea that Microsoft would allow the NSA to build a hidden entrance to Windows 7. “Would it be surprising to most people that there was a backdoor? No, not with the political agenda of prior administrations,” said Storms. “My gut, though, tells me that Microsoft, as a business, would not want to do that, at least not in a secretive way.”

Roger Thompson, chief research officer at AVG Technologies, agreed. “I can’t imagine NSA and Microsoft would do anything deliberate because the repercussions would be enormous if they got caught,” he said in an interview via instant messaging.

“Having said that, I think we should understand that there is every likelihood that certain foreign governments are constantly looking for vulnerabilities that they can use for targeted attacks,” Thompson continued. “So if they’re poking at us, I think it’s reasonable to assume that we’re doing something similar. But I seriously doubt an official NSA-Microsoft alliance.”

The NSA’s Schaeffer added that his agency is also working on engaging other major software makers, including Apple, Sun and Red Hat, on security standards for their products.

“More and more, we find that protecting national security systems demands teaming with public and private institutions to raise the information assurance level of products and services more broadly,” Schaeffer said.

Microsoft was not immediately available for comment on the NSA’s participation in Windows 7’s development.

San Diego Reports 8 H1N1-Related Deaths Reported

San Diego, California

This was reported in San Diego today but never reached the main stream media.

November 24, 2009

The County of San Diego Health and Human Services Agency (HHSA) reports eight additional people have died and tested positive for H1N1. This does not mean H1N1 has been determined to be the cause of death, which is established by the attending physician or the Medical Examiner.

The deceased are:

* A 44-year-old-male with underlying medical conditions
* A 35-year-old female with underlying medical conditions
* A 41-year-old female with underlying medical conditions
* A 42-year-old female with no underlying medical conditions
* A 47-year-old male with underlying medical conditions
* A 67-year-old male non-resident with underlying medical conditions
* A 46-year-old male non-resident with underlying medical conditions
* A 48-year-old female non-resident with underlying medical conditions

The total number of people who have tested positive for H1N1 and died locally is 45. Thirty-eight individuals were San Diego County residents while the others seven were non-residents visiting our community at the time of their death. San Diego County has had 659 hospitalized cases of H1N1 to date.

Second Dose of H1N1 Vaccine for Children Less than 10 Years Old

Children 6 months through 9 years old (until they turn 10 years old) need to receive two doses of H1N1 vaccine. Infants younger than 6 months of age are too young to get the 2009 H1N1 and seasonal flu vaccines. The CDC recommends that the two doses of 2009 H1N1 vaccine be separated by 3 to 4 weeks.

The second dose of H1N1 vaccine will be given to children when there is additional H1N1 vaccine supply in the community. Parents should call their children’s regular medical provider to schedule an appointment for the second dose. If their children’s medical provider does not have H1N1 vaccine (or has not ordered H1N1 vaccine), the second dose may be obtained from a County clinic when additional H1N1 vaccine arrives in the community. It is OK if the second dose of the H1N1 vaccine is given more than 3 to 4 weeks after the first dose – 3 weeks is the shortest recommended time in between the two H1N1 vaccines. While children 6 months through 9 years of age may have some protection against H1N1 infections after the first dose, the most effective protection will come from getting two doses.

Autopsies – Wet Hemorrhagic lungs with a lot of blood in them – You think that is Ukraine? NO – It is Iowa In U.S.!

De Moines Iowa 21 Bloody Deaths

DES MOINES, Iowa — Iowa has officially recorded 21 H1N1 deaths, including seven in Polk County alone. But the county’s medical examiner said he has performed autopsies on some residents who were never diagnosed with H1N1, but actually had it.

“In the autopsy, what we’re seeing is very heavy, wet hemorrhagic lungs, lungs with a lot of blood in them,” said Dr. Gregory Schmunk.He said the official count of seven H1N1 deaths is inaccurate, but patient rights laws prohibit him from giving specific numbers.

He said there are two reasons for the discrepancy.
First, not all sick patients get tests and second, the virus is difficult to detect. Some patients may be too sick to receive the most accurate H1N1 test.”They’re not always done and it can be hazardous to the patient if they’re in a respiratory critical situation,” Schmunk said.

He also said that some tests reveal a false negative.”Because of our limitations on testing, sometimes the tests aren’t positive,” he said. “They do appear to fit clinically the course of a H1N1 viral-type pneumonia.”He said the cases he’s seen in Polk County were all middle-aged adults with a few underlying health conditions.”These may be the patients that are obese,” Schmunk said. “Obesity restricts your ability to breathe and clear the virus from your upper respiratory.”He also said that some of the patients had diabetes.

Schmunk said his urging people to get the vaccine.”The thing that concerns me the most is, you still have people out there they believe that if I get the vaccine, the shot, then I’m going to get the flu,” he said. “You can’t get the flu from the shot.”

He said that in the meantime, remember to wash your hands, sneeze into your sleeve and stay home if you’re sick. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said one person who goes to work sick with the virus will infect 10 percent of his or her co-workers.

I would like to know What the Hell is happening and HOW it is happening! I am getting pretty Pissed Off now! WHO, CDC, And the Governments of the World have GOT to come out with the TRUTH! ALSO WHERE THE HELL IS MAIN STREAM MEDIA – MSM? Why the Hell have they NOT said a WORD about this overall! This was a local news organization that reported this. NOW the MSM has GOT to start reporting and investigating WHAT is going on!

UPDATE 11/22/09 6:30PM - Please see the following is under Comments from “Lori” she wrote the following:

I live just NW of Des Moines about 45 miles. There have been low flowing helicopters over my town for the past week. I got woke up about 3 am this morning by a low flying plane, I wasn’t able to see what it was when I looked out.

UPDATE 11/22/09 4:45PM - Fred a reader, passed this information on to me -
VERY ODD – that this mentions IOWA – dated from Sept. – as a Forced Quarantine state! Now they have bleeding lungs – coincidence? Any low flying planes there recently? Sorry, but the conspiracy side of me is coming out. I now say, since Florida is mentioned in this article too – watch for any news coming out of there with bleeding lung cases.

Winston Churchhill

Winston Churchill once said:

“The Americans will always do the right thing… after they’ve exhausted all the alternatives.”

PEOPLE OF THE LIE A QUIET REVOLUTION

 

A Sacred Document Inspired by God

Written by Patrick H. Bellringer

A key question that so many have asked over these many years, and that is more urgent today than ever before is, “What will it take to remove this evil Corporate U.S. Government?” Secondly, “Why cannot it be done now?”

Certainly, this process to remove our evil leadership in government can be expedited very quickly—by a bullet in the head of two or three key people, but is that what we want?  Divine Law says, “You shall not murder your fellowman”.

From the beginning of this plan in the 1950’s to stop the One World Order and restore our nation to its original Constitution of the Republic of the United States of America by abolishing the Corporate U.S., our people have insisted on a quiet non-violent revolution, a military coupe, so to speak without bloodshed.  Throughout history revolutions and the changing of governments have been violent, with much chaos and civil war.  From the ashes and destruction and suffering and death would rise the new government of the people.

This was never the plan for our nation.  If a Quiet Revolution could be done, this would be the first time the people would bring down an evil empire, and transfer the power of the elite back to the people, for in a Constitutional Republic the people are the government.  Thus, this Quiet Revolution to prevent riots, chaos and a bloody revolution by the people in the streets, must be done lawfully and with Divine help and guidance.

Though most people are unaware of such, this is precisely the process that has been proceeding these many years behind the scenes.  Because such has never been done before, it has been a slow process of trial and error by some very brave and talented patriots, the names of whom you may never know.  Some have given their lives in this mission, and some have simply given up, but the mission to restore this nation to Goodness has continued and is being carried forward to completion, in spite of great hardship and a very determined adversary.

You ask, “Who are these brave patriots that are carrying this mission forward?”  They are both civilians and military.  They are people within our nation’s corporate government, within business and banking, and within our courts and in the private sector.  Some are in other nations, and some are very religious and some not at all.  Little people you least suspect are creating a mighty force for Good by being Prayer Warriors.

These people are being “their brother’s keeper!”  With Divine assistance this restoration project is moving finally to completion.  Our Constitutional lawyers have done a magnificent job of lawfully containing the most evil foe, and bringing these most ruthless elite would-be One World Order Controllers to task.   They have nowhere left to run, they have no money, and they have nowhere to hide.  They are being exposed for who they are, deceitful and treasonous puppets of Satan.  Power and greed have brought their demise.

Few people really understand this Divine Plan, as well as the NESARA Mission.  So many demand proof of their existence.  So-called spiritual people debunk them, and people, claiming to be patriots, trash them, all from ignorance and lack of discernment.  So many people only see their rewards and demand their money, now.  So many have no knowledge or understanding of this Quiet Revolution, yet they orderCasper to make it happen, or they call him a liar and a fraud.  Through ignorance, these people trash the very people, who are bringing the Goodness they desire.

Other people offer physical help without any knowledge of the task or with the ability to perform it.  Just to deliver the NESARA bank packets, we need a “David” to stand against “Goliath”, utilizing Divine Power, not a gnat whistling against the wind, though all good intentions are duly recorded in the Lighted Realms.

I repeat again that Casper is a reporter of only a fraction of the activity of this Quiet Revolution.  He, through his contact network, work totally on a voluntary basis to report the “news” to you.  Without his reports, what would you know?  Yet, you discount his efforts and are critical of his reports, with no basis for such claims.

It is not about “the money”, or even about this nation.  It is about the restoration of our entire world to Goodness.  This Quiet Revolution involves all nations standing as One, against this evil Corporate Empire set on domination of our world.  Even now, the nations of our world are being called to commitment, to move against this evil Corporate Empire to set the people free.  Will they do it?  Will they do it, now?  How long must the people suffer?  We shall see.

This Quiet Revolution has evolved from an idea by a small group of people to a plan and to a movement that now spans our planet.  Goodness is breaking out all over, as the little people awaken to Truth and add their positive energy and actions to this mission.

The key patriots today mostly did not know their future, but over time were drawn into this mission, this Quiet Revolution.  The same has happened to Fourwinds.  We had no idea that our website would become a major communications link to the world.  My point is that Creator God Aton of Light “works in strange ways, His wonders to perform”.  In spite of the Darkside’s great control over our planet for so long, the Light of Truth and Goodness is breaking those evil bands, and the little people are doing it.  Through the power of their Spirit, they are doing it.

Victory over evil is assured, and that victory is now.  Know it.  In wisdom may you properly focus your energies and your actions to assist this Quiet Revolution!  It is through our united efforts and energies of Goodness that we are victorious!  As People of the Lie, it is high time that we realize our plight and become People of the Light!

Google Is Watching You — Big Brother

Google is watching you!

By Robert Verkaik

Google, the world’s biggest search engine, is setting out to create the most comprehensive database of personal information ever assembled, one with the ability to tell people how to run their lives.

In a mission statement that raises the spectre of an internet Big Brother to rival Orwellian visions of the state, Google has revealed details of how it intends to organise and control the world’s information.

The company’s chief executive, Eric Schmidt, said during a visit to Britain this week: “The goal is to enable Google users to be able to ask the question such as ‘What shall I do tomorrow?’ and ‘What job shall I take?’.”

Speaking at a conference organised by Google, he said : “We are very early in the total information we have within Google. The algorithms [software] will get better and we will get better at personalisation.”

Google’s declaration of intent was publicised at the same time it emerged that the company had also invested £2m in a human genetics firm called 23andMe. The combination of genetic and internet profiling could prove a powerful tool in the battle for the greater understanding of the behaviour of an online service user.

Earlier this year Google’s competitor Yahoo unveiled its own search technology, known as Project Panama, which monitors internet visitors to its site to build a profile of their interests.

Privacy protection campaigners are concerned that the trend towards sophisticated internet tracking and the collating of a giant database represents a real threat, by stealth, to civil liberties.

That concern has been reinforced by Google’s $3.1bn bid for DoubleClick, a company that helps build a detailed picture of someone’s behaviour by combining its records of web searches with the information from DoubleClick’s “cookies”, the software it places on users’ machines to track which sites they visit.

The Independent has now learnt that the body representing Europe’s data protection watchdogs has written to Google requesting more information about its information retention policy.

The multibillion-pound search engine has already said it plans to impose a limit on the period it keeps personal information.

A spokesman for the Information Commissioner’s Office, the UK agency responsible for monitoring data legislation confirmed it had been part of the group of organisations, known as the Article 29 Working Group, which had written to Google.

It is understood the letter asked for more detail about Google’s policy on the retention of data. Google says it will respond to the Article 29 request next month when it publishes a full response on its website.

The Information Commissioner’s spokeswoman added: “I can’t say what was in it only that it was written in response to Google’s announcement that will hold information for no more than two years.”

Ross Anderson, professor of Security Engineering at Cambridge University and chairman of the Foundation for Information Policy Research, said there was a real issue with “lock in” where Google customers find it hard to extricate themselves from the search engine because of the interdependent linkage with other Google services, such as iGoogle, Gmail and YouTube. He also said internet users could no longer effectively protect their anonymity as the data left a key signature.

“A lot of people are upset by some of this. Why should an angst-ridden teenager who subscribes to MySpace have their information dragged up 30 years later when they go for a job as say editor of the Financial Times? But there are serious privacy issues as well. Under data protection laws, you can’t take information, that may have been given incidentally, and use it for another purpose. The precise type and size of this problem is yet to be determined and will change as Google’s business changes.”

A spokeswoman for the Information Commissioner said that because of the voluntary nature of the information being targeted, the Information Commission had no plans to take any action against the databases.

Peter Fleischer, Google’s global privacy Ccunsel, said the company intended only doing w hat its customers wanted it to do. He said Mr Schmidt was talking about products such as iGoogle, where users volunteer to let Google use their web histories. “This is about personalised searches, where our goal is to use information to provide the best possible search for the user. If the user doesn’t want information held by us, then that’s fine. We are not trying to build a giant library of personalised information. All we are doing is trying to make the best computer guess of what it is you are searching for.”

Privacy protection experts have argued that law enforcement agents – in certain circumstances – can compel search engines and internet service providers to surrender information. One said: “The danger here is that it doesn’t matter what search engines say their policy is because it can be overridden by national laws.”

 

Could Google Be An Extension of Operation Paperclip?

How Google grew to dominate the internet

It’s all about the algorithms. When Google first started up, in summer 1998, it quickly made its mark by being the internet’s best, most efficient search engine. Now Google wants to know everything – all the knowledge contained on the world wide web, and everything about you as a computer user, too.

The key, at every step of the way, has been the methodology the company has used to catalogue and present information. The first stroke of genius that the company’s founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, had while they were still in graduate school was to measure responses to an internet search not only by the frequency of the search word but by the number of times a given web page was accessed via other web pages. It was a revolutionary idea at the time, now copied by every one of their rivals.

A decade later, their technical brilliance is operating on an altogether more ambitious scale. Google is now a $150bn (£77bn) company and a seemingly unstoppable corporate, as well as technical juggernaut.

The big question, of course, is whether the idealism that first fired up Page and Brin can survive in a dirty corporate world where information is not just an intellectual ideal, but also a legal and political hot potato involving profound issues of privacy, intellectual property rights and freedom of speech. “You can make money without doing evil,” runs one of their most celebrated mantras. Does that extend to signing a deal with China whereby its search functions will be subject to state censorship? The furore over that particular decision, made at the beginning of last year, still rages.

Google’s activities thus touch on some of the key philosophical questions of our digital age. Because of its power and prominence, it will also be the benchmark by which we come to measure many of the answers.

Andrew Gumbel

- Robert Verkaik

China sets plan to let currency move higher

It is now predicted the US Dollar will collapse over the next 18 months.

By Andy Hoffman and Barrie McKenna

Globe and Mail Update

Under pressure from trading partners, Beijing signals new policy on yuan

China signalled it will allow its currency to appreciate against the U.S. dollar, bowing to international pressure days ahead of a visit from U.S. President Barack Obama.

The move to allow the yuan to rise against the greenback would provide much-needed relief to countries trying to compete against China’s mighty export machine and put further downward pressure on an already battered U.S. dollar.

China’s latest quarterly monetary policy report said its foreign exchange policy will now consider “capital flows and changes in major currencies,” indicating China will carefully expose the yuan’s value to fluctuations in global markets.

The statement avoided the government’s usual boilerplate language of keeping the yuan “basically stable at a reasonable and balanced level.”

China’s trading partners have complained the government keeps the yuan at artificially low levels, providing an unfair price advantage for China’s goods as they compete for market share around the world. Until now, China has largely ignored calls for greater currency flexibility.

The decision to allow the yuan to climb also points to the maturing of China’s rapidly expanding economy, while giving its people and companies more purchasing power for goods and assets produced outside the country.

“China is exporting blood and sweat and importing copper and oil. Is that really good in the long term? You are sacrificing the local people’s purchasing power in pursuing export growth,” said Na Liu, China analyst at Scotia Capital.

The rise in the yuan is expected to be gradual and is not likely to occur until next year. Still, China is likely to quickly draw increased capital flows into the country as international investors aim to benefit from an eventual rise in the currency and local assets. But that trend brings the risk of potential unsustainable bubbles in its real estate and stock markets.

Other Asian exporting countries such as South Korea, Singapore and Thailand, which should be able to compete better with China as the yuan appreciates, are likely to follow suit and let their currencies appreciate as well.

“A little gradual appreciation in the yuan will not naturally hurt China’s exports because other Asian countries will follow,” Mr. Liu said.

China’s currency has been pegged to the U.S. dollar since July of 2008 in an effort to shield exports from the global recession. But the latest economic data released Wednesday suggest a recovery is well under way in China. Industrial production rose 16.1 per cent in October, the most since March of 2008. Exports declined 13.8 per cent, the smallest drop recorded this year.

“It was inevitable,” Benjamin Reitzes, an economist at BMO Nesbitt Burns said of China’s hint it will shift its foreign exchange policy.

“The reason they can do it now is because they see external demand from the global economy is improving,” he added.

Most G20 nations have been unhappy with China pegging the yuan to the U.S. dollar and many have publicly criticized the policy for exaggerating the trade imbalance between China and the United States. China revalued its currency in 2005, allowing the yuan to appreciate 21 per cent against the U.S. dollar before halting the rise in the middle of last year.

The latest Chinese announcement, coming just days before Mr. Obama is due to make his first visit to Beijing, is as much about politics as economics, experts said.

Charles Freeman, a former assistant U.S. trade representative for China, said the Chinese are willing to let the Americans get something to show the U.S. Congress they’re working to defuse trade tensions. But “precipitous growth” in the value of the yuan is unlikely, he added.

“We’re going back to the slow march that we had before China started really worrying about their own economic recovery,” said Mr. Freeman, who now holds the China chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

“It’s a cautious, go-slow approach. If their exports slow a lot and domestic demand weakens, the Chinese will slow appreciation of the yuan again.”

And any impact on Chinese exports or the U.S. trade deficit with China is likely to be small. Mr. Freeman pointed out that, as the yuan appreciated against the U.S. dollar and other currencies after 2005, China’s current account surplus kept growing and the U.S. trade deficit continued to swell.

“The currency issue is a popular thing to talk about,” Mr. Freeman added. “But as far as the U.S., Canada and the rest of the developed world is concerned, it doesn’t matter to us whether the products are assembled in China or Vietnam, we’re still going to have a deficit with Asia.”

But others see more sinister motives in the Chinese move. By resuming a yuan peg to a basket of international currencies, the biggest winner is likely to be the euro, not the dollar, said Peter Morici, former chief economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission. “That makes it more difficult for the Americans to complain, and the Europeans less likely to help lobby the Chinese,” he said.

Nicholas Lardy, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, said China is caught in a “dollar trap.” It has as much as $1.6-trillion worth of U.S. dollar reserves and there are few options to diversify into other currencies. More worrying to them than a slightly higher yuan, he said, is the prospect of a more precipitous erosion in the value of the dollar, weighed down by U.S. inflation and swelling budget deficits. A falling dollar means China will take hefty losses on those reserves, Mr. Lardy pointed out.

“You Want Me To Produce Your War…..”

"When it's cooking it's cooking......they have the nuclear suit case bomb..."

When the President of the United States is caught with his pants down and charged with sexual misconduct, it’s up to his spin doctors to change public perception. Sound familiar? “Wag the Dog,” loosely structured from Larry Beinhart’s novel “American Hero,” is a darkly comic film that had the good fortune of being released when real life events in the Oval Office seemed to mirror events on the screen.

When “Wag The Dog” came out America was in the grip of the President Clinton Impeachment. Do you all remember it? What you may not remember is that why America was glued to C-SPAN, what was really going on was NAFTA.

The North American Free Trade Agreement. Ross Perot was the champion who shouted from every hill in America via Television….not to sign it. It lead to NAFTA and now you have the Security and Prosperity Partnership Of North America. Basically merging Canada, America and Mexico.

So what better way to keep the American people pre-occupied was simple. What was it? Keep real footage of the over 1 Million plus Iraq’s who were murdered for no reason because there were no weapons of mass destruction.

"Please support me by going to the mall shopping!"

Not only did Americans not see what was really happening in the middle east on television the way Americans did in the vietnam war, 2003 was the same year that the banker’s sub prime lending scam started allowing any American with a home to get a refinance and to be able to pull thousand of dollars of equity out. Of our all of these loans had a variable interest rate. So yeah, your payment might start out at like 1,250.00 dollars a month but within three years you would be paying something like 3,700 dollars. I was one of the unlucky ones who took out one of these loans. There is only one thing that saved our family. What was it? We sold our home in April of 2006. In fact, it was the last home to sell in our neighborhood. Thank God for intuition.

The truth of war 2009, wake up!!

On January 20, a changing of the guard occurred in the United States White House with two-term president George W. Bush being replaced by former freshman senator Barack Obama.

Bush had continued the policies of his predecessor Bill Clinton in relation to the Balkans, Iraq and Latin America – with troops and a massive military base in Kosovo, regular bombings of Iraq and a monumental expansion of military aid to Colombia – and in addition launched two wars of his own, those against Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq two years later.

Reports from the first twelve days of November indicate the global scope of the first attempt in history by one nation to achieve uncontested worldwide military power.

A survey of that period will trace recent trends across the globe with the alphabet as a compass.

Afghanistan

Any day now Washington may announce plans to add 40,000 or more troops to the 68,000 already there. [2] Plans are underway to accommodate that influx.

The American military compound at and fanning out from the Bagram Air Field has been expanded from 3,993 to 5,198 acres since 2001 and is in the process of further enlargement. It already hosts some 25,000 U.S. troops and contractors and “a new parking ramp supporting the world’s largest aircraft is to be completed this spring….[I]t is continuing to grow to keep up with the requirements of an escalating war and troop increases.” [3]

Regarding non-military personnel at Bagram and elsewhere in the nation, “Contractors in Afghanistan outnumber U.S. troops there” [4] as they do in Iraq.

The Army Times recently reported on the main purpose of the airbase at Bagram. Last month the number of U.S. and NATO air strikes in Afghanistan was the highest since July of 2008, with 647 bombs dropped in October compared to 752 a year ago July. “The airstrike numbers don’t include strafing runs, attacks by special operations AC-130 gunships, launches of small missiles or helicopter attacks.” [5]

Africa

A U.S. Defense Department news source reported on November 5 that Air Forces Africa commanders visited Mali and Senegal in West Africa. Vice commander Michael Callan “visited Mali’s 33d Parachute Regiment, a unit that carries out operations using tactical vehicles and communication equipment provided by the U.S. Defense and State Departments.” The Malian military is involved in a counterinsurgency war in the nation’s north aided by Washington.

A commander of Mali’s armed forces said, “Ninety-five percent of our soldiers were trained by the U.S, and we’ve engaged with you in exercises like Flintlock, Joint Planning and Assessment Teams and special bilateral training.” [6] Flintlock military exercises have been held in different locations on the African continent for years, this year’s being conducted by the new Africa Command (AFRICOM) for the first time. The U.S. also recently led multinational military exercises in Gabon and Uganda on both ends of the continent. [7]

The USS San Juan, “a fast-attack submarine,” arrived in South Africa on November 4, “setting the stage for a series of first-ever, at-sea engagements with the South African Navy submarine force.” [8]

Armenia

Robert Simmons [9], NATO’s special representative to the South Caucasus and Central Asia – former Senior Adviser to the United States Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs on NATO – was in this South Caucasus nation earlier this month and announced that he had recruited an initial contingent of Armenian troops for the war in Afghanistan. This marks the first deployment to that nation of soldiers from the Russian-led seven-nation Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a potential counterbalance to NATO in post-Soviet space.

“Simmons expressed NATO’s ‘appreciation to Armenia for its strong contributions’ to alliance missions, which he said began in Kosovo and will now be repeated in Afghanistan.” [10]

In reference to his mission of pulling yet another Russian ally into the U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization orbit, Simmons said, “We are continuing cooperation with the Armenian Defense Ministry. NATO assists the implementation of reforms and the development of strategically important documents.” [11]

Baltic Sea

After participating in NATO war games off the coast of Scotland, the guided-missile destroyer USS Cole paid visits to the capitals of Finland and Estonia in the Baltic Sea. “Cole hosted a reception in Helsinki, which was joined by Adm. Mark Fitzgerald, commander, U.S. Naval Forces Europe, U.S. Naval Forces Africa and Allied Joint Forces Command Naples.

“Immediately following the departure from Helsinki, Cole arrived in Tallinn, Estonia, a few hours later.” [12]

The beginning of this month the guided-missile frigate USS John L. Hall with sailors of Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron 48 “completed a theater security cooperation (TSC) port visit to Klaipeda, Lithuania.”

A U.S. Navy official stated: “We are here as part of the United States Navy’s continuing presence in the Baltic Sea….We are also here to work with the Lithuanian Navy, who has been a valuable partner and our visit here is part of the ongoing relationship between our two countries and our two navies.” [13] [14]

On November 3 Estonian Defense Minister Jaak Aaviksoo was at the Pentagon to meet with Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Associated Press reported on the occasion that he was “discussing with the United States why NATO needs plans in case his region is attacked.” [15]

Bangladesh

In early November three high-ranking American military officials arrived in the country. The three – U.S. Army Lieutenant General Benjamin R. Mixon, Commanding General of U.S. Army, Pacific, Vice-Admiral John M. Bird, Commander of U.S. Navy 7th Fleet, and U.S. Marine Corps Major General Randolph D. Alles, Director for Strategic Planning and Policy at the U.S. Pacific Command – engaged in discussions focusing “on interoperability, readiness in the region, security-force assistance, and bilateral approaches to maintaining regional stability.” [16]

On November 12 the U.S.-led Tiger Shark military exercises to train Bangladeshi naval commandos ended. A press release on the operation stated: “The training demonstrates the United States government’s commitment to Bangladesh and to regional security by promoting military-to-military relationships throughout Asia and the Pacific.” [17]

Black Sea

The Pentagon’s European Command (EUCOM) reported on November 2 that its Joint Task Force-East had completed an almost three-month series of trainings in Bulgaria and Romania which began on August 7 and included Stryker and Airborne units destined for the war in Afghanistan. [18] “Nearly 600 members of the Romanian Land Forces, 500 Bulgarian Land Forces, and more than 1,500 U.S. service members participated in this year’s combined training.” [19]

After U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden’s visit to the country on October 22, a news source in Romania wrote of Washington’s new interceptor missile plans: “A strong and modern surveillance system located in Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey could monitor three hot areas at once: the Black Sea, the Caucasus and the Caspian and relevant zones in the Middle East.” [20]

Colombia

The Obama administration signed a ten-year military treaty with the Alvaro Uribe government on September 30 which “gives American military forces access to seven Colombian army, navy and air force bases, but also to major international civilian airports in the country. In addition, U.S. personnel and defense contractors will enjoy diplomatic immunity under the agreement.” [21]

A copy of the pact surfaced on November 4 and detailed that it “allows Washington access to civilian airports as well as military bases” and as a result “the US will have access to all international airports across the Andean nation including airports in the cities of Barranquilla, San Andres, Cartagena, Bogota, Cali, Medellin and Bucaramanga.” [22]

In the initial phase an estimated 1,400 U.S. personnel will be assigned to the seven bases with the likelihood that the number will be increased as Washington sees fit. [23]

Eva Golinger observed that one of the newly acquired bases, that at Palanquero, was identified by a American Air Force document as providing the Pentagon “an opportunity for conducting full spectrum operations throughout South America….” [24]

Two South American nations bordering or near Colombia, Venezuela and Bolivia, were not slow to respond.

Earlier this month Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez stated in his weekly radio and television address that “We cannot waste one day to fulfill our mission: to prepare for war and help the people to get ready for war,” [25] warning that an armed conflict with the U.S. client regime in Bogota “could extend throughout the whole continent.” [26]

Days earlier two Venezuelan National Guard troops were killed at a checkpoint near Colombia and Caracas deployed 15,000 troops to the border.

In his November 13 address Chavez added. “Don’t make a mistake, Mr. Obama, by ordering an attack against Venezuela by way of Colombia.” [27]

On the same day his Bolivian counterpart, President Evo Morales, warned “I am convinced that where there are military bases, the social peace, the democracy and the development of the nations as well as their integration are not guaranteed. These facilities are an open provocation against the peace.”

Morales also said that he failed to comprehend how the American head of state could have been awarded the Peace Nobel Price “when his country does everything to promote wars and conflicts.

“Obama must justify that award by withdrawing all the troops of his country from around the world….” [28]

Czech Republic

Following up on his visit to Prague in late October, on November 5 U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden hosted Czech President Vaclav Klaus at the White House and “they mostly discussed the U.S. plan for a new missile defence architecture.”

The two “also talked about the situation in Afghanistan and Iran” and “Klaus said the United States knows that it is necessary to continue with the anti-missile project in Europe.” [29]

The next day U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Alexander Vershbow met with Czech defense officials in their nation to discuss new American missile plans for Eastern Europe, ones intended to be “stronger, smarter, and swifter” than the previous Bush administration version and to incorporate all of Europe under a NATO umbrella.

Vershbow characterized the content of the talks as having presented “some concrete ideas to begin that process of developing the Czech role in the new approach” and said that the Czech contribution could include “potential facilities here on the territory of the Czech Republic.” [30]

On November 4 the local press announced that “A few U.S. delegations will visit the Czech Republic in November, following up on the recent visit by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, including an expert military team that arrives in Prague this Friday.”

One of those delegations will include Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs Ellen Tauscher, who “recently said the command for the managing and control of elements of the new version of anti-missile defence could be stationed in the Czech Republic.”

“The USA wants to build the system in cooperation with NATO.” [31]

Georgia

Earlier this week U.S. Marines completed the two-week Immediate Response 2009 military training exercises in the South Caucasus nation of Georgia. The preceding maneuvers of the same name, those of 2008 in which over 1,000 American troops participated, ended one day before Georgia started shelling neighboring South Ossetia and killed several people including a Russian peacekeeper. [32]

Days after that the U.S. client regime launched an all-out invasion of South Ossetia, triggering a five-day war with Russia.

The official purpose of this year’s exercises was to train Georgian troops to serve under NATO command in Afghanistan, but a Russian news source saw matters differently:

“Immediate Response was clearly designed not to fight against the Taliban or al-Qaeda…..Commander of US Army in Europe General Carter Ham visited Georgia to inspect the exercises but no one came from Afghanistan.

“Perhaps, the exercises were aimed at issuing a warning to Russia.” [33]

As the drills were ending Alexander Shliakhturov, chief of Russia’s military intelligence, said “that he did not rule out that Georgia might again use force against breakaway South Ossetia and Abkhazia.” [34]

A lengthier account of Shliakhturov’s concerns appeared in the Georgian media and included these quotes:

“According to our information, Georgia is still getting military aid from Ukraine, Israel and NATO. NATO countries, especially Eastern European countries, provide Georgia with arms and equipment, Israel provides Georgia with air equipment, the USA trains Georgian troops and Ukraine provides Georgia with heavy equipment, namely, tanks.”

“The Russian Intelligence Service is addressing other dangers too, namely, the efforts being made by the USA and NATO to bring Georgia and Ukraine into the alliance and the new US plan to locate anti-missile systems in Europe.” [35]

Four days later other Russian sources revealed “that the United States plans to supply weapons, including a Patriot-3 air defense system and shoulder-launched Stinger missiles, worth a total of $100 million, to Georgia.” [36]

The next day Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov “recalled the situation in the summer of 2008 when many countries ignored Russian warnings that modern arms in Saakashvili’s hands might prompt this man to unleash military aggression.” [37]

The chief of the Russian General Staff, General Nikolai Makarov, said “Georgia is getting large amounts of weapons supplied from abroad” and “Georgian military potential is currently higher than last August [2008].” [38]

India

Shortly after the Pentagon wrapped up the largest joint U.S.-Indian military exercises ever, Yudh Abhyas [Preparation for War] – which featured the first deployment of new American Stryker armored combat vehicles outside of Iraq and Afghanistan – at the end of October [39], it was announced that “India is negotiating with the United States to acquire state of the art Javelin anti-tank missiles worth several million dollars for large-scale induction.” [40]

Days earlier former president George W. Bush was in India and called on his host nation to join in the war in Afghanistan, urging the U.S. and India to “work together to win the war in Afghanistan.” [41]

Iraq

In early November Arabic language news sources revealed that “The US military has finished erecting an advanced radar system in Iraq to monitor the border with Iran, Syria and Turkey” and that “the radar is a preparatory measure aimed at providing the United States and its allies advanced control capabilities in event of a US military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities.” [42]

Korean Peninsula

The South Korean Yonhap News Agency reported on November 1 that “The US and South Korea have completed joint action plans for responding to a regime collapse and other internal emergency situations in North Korea….” [46]

Citing an unidentified South Korean official, the report contains these details:

“South Korea and the US had long worked on Concept Plan 5029, to prepare for a regime collapse and other internal emergencies in North Korea.

“Since its inauguration last year, the [South Korean President] Lee Myung-bak government has pushed to convert the concept plan into an operational plan and it was recently completed.

“If the South Korea-US combined forces intervene in North Korea’s internal instabilities, the South Korean military will assume the leading role in consideration of neighboring countries, while the US military will be responsible for the removal of the North’s nuclear facilities and weapons.” [47]

On the final day of last month Washington expressed its satisfaction at South Korea redeploying troops to Afghanistan shortly after Pentagon chief Robert Gates’ visit to Seoul and the South Korean defense ministry on October 22.

“Washington supports and welcomes South Korea’s plans to deploy troops to Afghanistan…the U.S. Department of State said.” [48]

Kosovo

This month began with former U.S. president Bill Clinton arriving in the capital of Kosovo for the unveiling of a gaudy 11-foot gold-sprayed bronze statue of himself on November 1. [49]

He was being hailed by the breakaway entity’s nominal prime minister, former Kosovo Liberation Army chieftain Hashim Thaci, for his role in launching the 78-day NATO air war against Yugoslavia in March of 1999. That sustained bombing campaign, Operation Allied Force, inaugurated the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as an active war-making machine and issued in the ten-year war cycle that continues to this day with no indication of it ever abating.

A Russian commentary of the following day put the ceremony in perspective:

“Over the course of the 10-week conflict, NATO aircraft flew over 38,000 combat missions; even the German Luftwaffe had its first taste of combat over the skies of Yugoslavia since having its wings clipped in World War II.

“The ensuing 78-day aerial bombardment campaign, which grew continuously more aggressive and reckless, spared little infrastructure: factories, bridges, roads and power stations were all bombed with deadly accuracy. As a result, thousands of innocent civilians suffered great deprivation on both sides of the battle.

“In perhaps the worst public relations disaster for NATO during the conflict, five US ’smart’ bombs severely damaged the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, killing three Chinese journalists. NATO officials, in an effort to cool Chinese outrage, blamed the error on outdated maps. Chinese officials rejected both the apologies and explanations.” [50]

Pakistan

Over the past year the nine-year-long U.S. and NATO war in Afghanistan has been extended into Pakistan, the so-called AfPak theater of operations.

On November 4 the U.S. launched its latest drone missile attack into North Waziristan, killing two Pakistanis.

“According to independent reports, since August 2008 alone, around 70 cross-border predator strikes carried out by American drones have resulted in the death of 687 Pakistani civilians.” [51]

The Nation, a Pakistani daily newspaper, reported on November 12 that the massive increase in NATO convoys crossing the country en route to Afghanistan are overwhelming the country’s highways and that “Pakistani authorities are simply helpless in checking truckloads of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) forces badly damaging the Indus Highway, the repair of which would cost billions of rupees to the national exchequer….NATO trucks and trailers have not been [held accountable] even once for the repair and maintenance work, while cracks are developing on the Indus Highway after every three to four months due to overloading….” [52]

Persian Gulf

A local news sources wrote on November 9 that “The US has deployed a new expeditionary force in the Persian Gulf – the first time a permanent self-sustaining US naval force has been set up in the region.

“The newly established Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG) 5 will serve in the area of responsibility of the US Navy 5th Fleet Combined Task Force (CTF) 51 in Manama, Bahrain,” where the entire U.S. Fifth Fleet is based. [53]

The Philippines

Two American servicemen were killed in a mine attack in Mindanao in late September, the first official deaths in the U.S.-assisted counterinsurgency war against not only the Abu Sayyaf Group but also the Moro National Liberation Front and the New People’s Army.

Filipino senators “called for the abrogation of the [Visiting Forces Agreement], saying the US Seabees killed in the explosion weren’t supposed to be there, as…the presence of the alleged land mine constitutes the area as a war zone.” [54]

Pentagon chief Robert Gates insisted earlier in the month “that some 600 US counter-terrorism troops will remain in the southern Philippines….” [55]

An opponent of the active American military involvement in the country said that “the US military has established its permanent presence in the Philippines through the auspices of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA). Many of the US soldiers are currently deployed in Mindanao under the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines headquartered in Zamboanga City.” [56]

On November 12 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in Manila after the Philippine Senate recently passed a nonbinding resolution calling on the government to renegotiate the 1999 Visiting Forces Agreement, “which enables U.S. forces to train and assist Philippine troops” and “vowed…to continue American military support.” [57]

Poland

Before departing for the Philippines Clinton hosted Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski in Washington “to discuss the new anti-missile shield plan.” [58]

On the same day, November 2, U.S. Air Force personnel transferred five C-130 Hercules military cargo planes from the Ramstein Air Base in Germany to the Powidz Air Base in Poland.

A U.S. Air Force website offered these details: “Prepping Polish aircrews and maintainers for the transition to the larger Lockheed-Martin built Hercules has been accomplished with a blend of English language and specialty knowledge training at bases in Texas and Arkansas and through a type of work mentorship exchange between U.S. and Polish air force personnel….”

A Polish air force officer revealed the purpose of the U.S. transfer in stating “The main task for the C-130s is to support our contingency operations in Afghanistan, Chad, Africa and everywhere Polish troops and supplies are needed.” [59]

After NATO defense chiefs, including the U.S.’s Gates, met in Slovakia late last month and U.S. Vice President Biden visited Poland at about the same time, Warsaw announced that it was deploying 600 more troops to Afghanistan, bringing the nation’s total toward the 3,000 mark.

Sweden

Sweden’s Chief of Defense Staff General Sverker Goranson was in Washington, D.C. in early November and was interviewed by Defense News.

His nation, which has for decades presented itself as neutral, has 500 troops serving under NATO command in Afghanistan – Sweden and Finland are in charge of four northern provinces for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force – and five Swedish soldiers were injured in a roadside bomb explosion on November 11, two them seriously.

Goranson’s comments demonstrate how far from anything resembling neutrality Sweden has recently strayed:

“The transformation we are conducting is a huge turnaround, and as I told Adm. [Michael] Mullen [U.S. Joint Chiefs chairman], we know where we are going….The major shift is globalization and the fact that most of the things we are dealing with aren’t necessarily about national boundaries.

“What turned Sweden around is not focusing on national defense, but being a part of this globalized world and solving issues together, because wherever conflicts are, whether in the Balkans or Afghanistan….”

When asked about the potential for a showdown in the Arctic Circle with Russia, he spoke about starting “discussions between the United States, Norway, Denmark and Canada [all NATO members] about what are the borders….As part of the Nordic Battle Group, Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark are already sharing the operational picture in the air and on the sea, and that can be extended to the High North.”

Lastly, the Swedish visitor, whose meetings included one with the U.S.’s top military commander, acknowledged: “We had a defense resolution in 1996 that said the Swedish armed forces should be completely NATO-interoperable, which is the standard we have worked to accordingly, to make sure that wherever we go, as we did to Afghanistan.” [60]

Yemen

The government of Yemen is waging military operations against Shiite rebels in the north of the country and neighboring Saudi Arabia started launching air strikes against them earlier this month.

On November 10 Yemen’s official news agency, Saba, announced that the U.S. has signed a military cooperation agreement with the nation.

The news agency also quoted Brigadier General Jeffrey Smith, the commander of the U.S. 5th Signal Command, “as renewing Washington’s support for Yemen’s unity, security and stability.” [61]

One account of the agreement was provided under the headline “Yemen, US sign military deal to fight rebels.” [62]

As the rebels are Shiite Muslims, Washington is exploiting the conflict to recruit Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations against Iran.

Yemen, on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, lies directly across from Djibouti where the Pentagon maintains its only permanent base in Africa, Camp Lemonier, and from Somalia, which U.S. warships periodically shell from the Indian Ocean.

Link: http://bit.ly/war_war_3