Late on a moonless night last March, a plane smuggling nearly half a ton of cocaine touched down at a remote airstrip in Honduras. A heavily armed ground crew was waiting for it — as were Honduran security forces. After a 20-minute firefight, a Honduran officer was wounded and two drug traffickers lay dead.
Several news outlets briefly reported the episode, mentioning that a Honduran official said the United States Drug Enforcement Administration had provided support. But none of the reports included a striking detail: that support consisted of an elite detachment of military-trained D.E.A. special agents who joined in the shootout, according to a person familiar with the episode.
The D.E.A. now has five commando-style squads it has been quietly deploying for the past several years to Western Hemisphere nations — including Haiti, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala and Belize — that are battling drug cartels, according to documents and interviews with law enforcement officials.
The program — called FAST, for Foreign-deployed Advisory Support Team — was created during the George W. Bush administration to investigate Taliban-linked drug traffickers in Afghanistan. Beginning in 2008 and continuing under President Obama, it has expanded far beyond the war zone.
“You have got to have special skills and equipment to be able to operate effectively and safely in environments like this,” said Michael A. Braun, a former head of operations for the drug agency who helped design the program. “The D.E.A. is working shoulder-to-shoulder in harm’s way with host-nation counterparts.”
The evolution of the program into a global enforcement arm reflects the United States’ growing reach in combating drug cartels and how policy makers increasingly are blurring the line between law enforcement and military activities, fusing elements of the “war on drugs” with the “war on terrorism.”
Bruce Bagley, a University of Miami professor who specializes in Latin America and counternarcotics, said the commando program carries potential benefits: the American teams could help arrest kingpins, seize stockpiles, disrupt smuggling routes and professionalize security forces in small countries through which traffickers pass drugs headed to the United States.
But there are also potential dangers.
“It could lead to a nationalist backlash in the countries involved,” he said. “If an American is killed, the administration and the D.E.A. could get mired in Congressional oversight hearings. Taking out kingpins could fragment the organization and lead to more violence. And it won’t permanently stop trafficking unless a country also has capable institutions, which often don’t exist in Central America.”
The House prepared Tuesday to send President Barack Obama $33 billion to pay for his troop surge in Afghanistan, unmoved by the leaking of tens of thousands of classified military documents that portray a war effort beset by Afghan shortcomings.
War Pigs continue financing Genocide in the Middle East
From Obama on down, the disclosure of the documents was condemned anew by administration officials and military leaders, but the material failed to stir new anti-war sentiment. The bad news for the White House: A pervasive weariness with the war was still there — and possibly growing.
At a Senate hearing on prospects for a political settlement of the Afghan conflict, there was scant mention of the leaked material, posted on the website of the whistleblower group WikiLeaks, but there were repeated expressions of frustration over the direction of the fighting.
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who has questioned the realism of U.S. goals in Afghanistan though he supports the war, pointedly asked why the Taliban, with fewer resources and smaller numbers, can field fighters who are more committed to winning than are Afghan soldiers.
“What’s going on here?” Kerry asked with exasperation.
Still, the House seemed ready to vote final approval for more than $33.5 billion for the additional 30,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan and to pay for other Pentagon operational expenses. Other non-war provisions brought the total bill to nearly $59 billion.
Republicans were strongly behind the major war spending, with opposition coming mostly from members of Obama’s own Democratic Party who argued that the money could be better spent at home. Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., said the leaked documents revealed corruption and incompetence in the Afghanistan government.
“We’re told we can’t extend unemployment or pay to keep cops on the beat or teachers in the classroom but we’re asked to borrow another $33 billion for nation-building in Afghanistan,” McGovern said.
At the separate Senate hearing, meanwhile, Sen. Edward Kaufman, D-Del., questioned whether the U.S.-led war effort is capable of pushing the Afghan government to provide the kind of leadership that wins the confidence of the population.
“Can we carry this off?” Kaufman asked.
In his first public comments on the weekend leak of tens of thousands of documents, Obama said it could “potentially jeopardize individuals or operations” in Afghanistan. But he also said the papers did not reveal any concerns that were not already part of the war debate.
Obama said the shortcomings in Afghanistan as reflected in the leaked documents explain why, last year, he undertook an in-depth review of the war and developed a new strategy.
“We’ve substantially increased our commitment there, insisted upon greater accountability from our partners in Afghanistan and Pakistan, developed a new strategy that can work and put in place a team, including one of our finest generals, to execute that plan,” Obama said. “Now we have to see that strategy through.”
The leaked documents are battlefield reports compiled by various military units in Afghanistan that provide an unflinching view of combat operations between 2004 and 2009, including U.S. displeasure over reports that Pakistan secretly aided insurgents fighting American and Afghan forces.
Even as the administration dismissed the leaked documents as outdated, U.S. military and intelligence analysts were caught up in a struggle to limit the damage contained in the once-secret files now scattered across the Internet.
In Baghdad, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters he was “appalled” by the leak, which he said had the potential of putting troops’ lives at added risk.
Officials also are concerned about the impact the disclosures could have on the military’s human intelligence network built up over the past eight years inside Afghanistan and Pakistan. The people in that network range from Afghan village elders who have worked behind the scenes with U.S. troops to militants working as double agents.
Beyond expressions of disgust at the document dump, the political fallout in Washington appeared limited.
Advocates of pulling U.S. troops out of Afghanistan said the leaks reinforced their argument for disengaging. War supporters said they illustrated why Obama was right to decide last December to send an additional 30,000 troops and step up pressure on the Afghan government to reform, while pressing Pakistan to go after insurgents on its side of the border.
At the State Department, spokesman P.J. Crowley said efforts to explain to Afghanistan and other allies that the U.S. government played no role in leaking the documents seemed to have paid off.
“We’re very gratified that the response thus far internationally has been moderate, sober,” Crowley said.
In his only reference to the leak, Kerry called the new material “over-hyped,” said that it was released in violation of the law and that it largely involved raw intelligence reports from the field.
The House, meanwhile, prepared to approve legislation to pay for the extra 30,000 troops.
House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., said he was torn between his obligation to bring the bill to the floor and his “profound skepticism” that the money would lead to a successful conclusion of the war.
Even if there were greater confidence, he said, “it would likely take so long it will obliterate our ability to make the kinds of long-term investments in our own country that are so desperately needed.”
The Democratic and Republican lawmakers have called on President Barack Obama to provide Congress with a clear plan to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan.
The lawmakers from both sides of the political spectrum called Thursday for an end to the Afghan war.
A group of US lawmakers said the war was a drain on US “blood and treasure”.
“Every dollar spent and every life wasted in Vietnam was just that: A waste,” said Democratic Representative Jerrold Nadler.
The revolt against Obama comes as Washington is expected to pump another 37 billion dollars into the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) chief, Leon Panetta, recently admitted that the Afghan war has proven to be much harder and longer than anticipated. He also alluded to serious problems in the US-led war, acknowledging that the Taliban are gaining an upper hand in the battle.
This is while Obama has promised to start withdrawing US forces from Afghanistan in July 2011.
The rising foreign casualties have sparked anger among the public in the countries allied with the US in Afghanistan.
In addition to the foreign troops’ casualties, thousands of civilians have also lost their lives either in US-led raids or in the Taliban-led militancy across the violence-wracked country. Rising number of civilian causalities is undermining support for the presence of US-led forces in the country.
The US-led invasion of Afghanistan was launched with the official objective of curbing militancy and bringing peace and stability to the country. Nine years on, however, US and Afghan officials admit the country remains unstable as civilians continue to pay the heaviest price.
NATO’s blueprint for change mentions cooperation with Russia as a new priority, but Moscow is pushing for more than just words.
Former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who leads the “wise men” responsible for drafting NATO’s New Strategic Concept, stressed that “to safeguard security at home the alliance must continue to treat collective defense as its core purpose.”
Albright, however, added the loose disclaimer that “providing for security is a more complicated proposition than in the past.” This means that NATO – like some sort of transnational corporation that must forever increase in size in order to survive – will be forced to travel further afield in the future, as the challenges continue to mount and disperse.
“NATO must be versatile and efficient enough to operate far from home,” she argued.
“Alliance leaders should learn from its experiences in Afghanistan… the need to deploy forces at a strategic distance for an extended period of time. There should be no question that NATO’s fundamental purpose is to protect the security of its members, but providing for security is a more complicated proposition than in the past.”
Albright, in an effort to assuage Russian apprehensions over the Western organization’s policy shift, reiterated for the umpteenth time that the new concept was not “a threat to Russia.”
“We do not see the gradual enlargement of NATO… as something that should be viewed as a threat to Russia,” she said, “and we all believe that and will continue to state it and the Russians in their own turn have to decide how they react.”
One between-the-lines interpretation of Albright’s comment could be that “NATO will act as it will, and Russia is free to respond however it feels necessary.” In other words: take our new global strategy or leave it; Moscow will just have to take Brussels on its word that the military bloc will never exist as a threat to Russia’s security.
In May 2009, Russia released its own updated national security strategy, which specifically mentioned NATO as one of the country’s greatest threats.
“The instability of the existing global and regional architecture, especially in the Euro-Atlantic region… is an increasing threat to the international security,” the document said.
Interestingly, especially in light of the ongoing battles being waged courtesy of US forces in oil-rich Middle East/Central Asian countries, the Russian paper mentioned “competition for resources” as a potential geopolitical flashpoint in the years to come.
“In a competition for resources, problems that involve the use of military force cannot be ruled out, which would destroy the balance of forces close to the borders of the Russian Federation and her allies,” it said.
But it is not simply a matter of NATO introducing weighty game pieces in Russia’s “near abroad” that is playing havoc with the Kremlin’s nerves; it is America’s unflinching determination to drop an antimissile system into Eastern Europe that is the primary source of US-Russian tensions today.
One man’s shield is another man’s sword
In February, Romania and Bulgaria announced they were in talks with US President Barack Obama’s administration on deploying elements of the US missile shield on their territories from 2015.
The move came after Obama shelved plans to deploy missile-defense elements in the Czech Republic and Poland due to “a reassessment of the threat from Iran.”
Russia fiercely opposed the plan – both the original one hatched by the previous Bush administration, and the latest one by Obama – calling it a direct threat to its national security.
According to the new NATO blueprint for change, Russia will figure into the new system. The question remains: How? As a mere occasional observer of the cool new technology, or a hands-on participant in the entire process? And if the latter, will they be involved from construction to activation?
“Missile defense is most effective when it is a joint enterprise and cooperation … between the alliance and its partners – especially Russia – is highly desirable,” the NATO blueprint advised.
“We are faced with a real threat and we need real protection against a real threat, and to that end we need an effective missile defence system which covers all populations in all allied nations,” Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Secretary General of North Atlantic Treaty Organization told reporters at a news conference.
Meanwhile, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov told his own news conference on Tuesday that it will be clear by the end of the year exactly to what degree Russia will cooperate with NATO in the missile defense system, while stressing that the level of cooperation includes everything from “from A to Z.”
“But cooperation needs to be from A to Z: to the end,” Ivanov said, adding, “We will assess the threats together, evaluate the risks together, and begin creating a defense system together.”
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview with the Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR) in April that Moscow advises that “the system of global missile defense must protect not only a definite country or a group of countries, but also function in the interests of all responsible participants of the international society.”
Medvedev said Russia is opposed to the formation of air defense systems because they eventually “damage the current balanced system between the main nuclear powers.”
“Either we are together or [Russia has] have to react somehow,” he said.
NATO foreign ministers agreed at an informal meeting in Estonia in April that it was essential to begin dialogue with Russia on cooperation in the sphere of anti-missile defense.
A new strategic concept should be drafted by the NATO Secretary General this summer on the basis of the report. The new strategic concept will then be approved by the NATO summit in Lisbon in November. On the basis of that summit we will finally have a peek at NATO’s hand. Will it be a bluff, or a sincere desire to reset relations with Moscow?
Give NATO-Russian cooperation a chance?
The document mentioned Russia’s decision to open an air corridor route over its territory to accommodate NATO military flights into Afghanistan, where 100,000 coalition troops are fighting a protracted war against Taliban forces. Incidentally, two-thirds of the soldiers fighting in Afghanistan are from the United States, and for Washington, the outcome of this war may very well spell make or break for NATO.
Already this year, 200 NATO soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan, compared with 119 in the same period last year. Europe’s patience for such bloodshed will not last forever.
In a recent article in the Financial Times, Richard Haas, the president of the Council of Foreign Relations, argued that NATO’s future role only makes sense “as an expeditionary force in an unstable world,” while predicting that the ties that bind Europe, NATO and the US together will eventually come undone.
“European political culture has evolved in ways that make it harder to field militaries willing to bear the cost in blood,” Haas writes, before quoting Robert Gates, US Secretary of Defense, who complained about “the demilitarization of Europe – where large swaths of the general public and political class are averse to military force and the risks that go with it.”
Desde a infância tenho ouvido sobre a possibilidade de uma moeda global. Naquele tempo, ninguém por perto conseguia me explicar como iria surgir e quem a controlaria. A resposta a estas questões já estão claras. Dominic Strauss-Kahn respondeu às minhas questões de infância. Uma moeda global gerida por um Banco Central Global. O chefe do FMI disse que isto é necessário durante uma reunião na qual reafirmou sua opinião de que esta crise é uma “oportunidade.”
Segundo Kahn, o Fundo Monetário Internacional e o Banco de Pagamentos Internacionais seriam de última instância nos casos em que a economia global ficasse em ruínas. Kahn disse que a nova moeda seria um ativo “livre de risco para o sistema independente de moedas nacionais” e um banco mundial central “também poderia servir como um emprestador de última instância”. Que inteligente o Sr. Kahn! O problema é que estas ideias não são novas e não são dele. A criação de uma instituição financeira global tem estado em formação ao longo de décadas.
A idéia de um órgão mundial que controle a emissão de moeda e a política financeira como um todo foi criado antes do nascimento das Nações Unidas, a Liga das Nações e da União Européia. Este princípio de concentração do poder e política foi originalmente concebido para acumular o controle sob o pretexto de evitar a corrupção econômica e os desastres financeiros. No entanto, não demorou muito para descobrirmos que é exatamente o oposto. Assim como a criação da Liga das Nações, as Nações Unidas e a União Européia não acabou com as guerras, a instabilidade econômica não terminará com a criação de uma organização supranacional -na verdade será perpetuada.
Revisemos alguns acontecimentos passados. Desde que as Nações Unidas nasceram, temos experimentado conflitos em todos os continentes. Esses conflitos não ocorreram entre países, mas eram desestabilizações realizadas com grupos criminosos patrocinados por governos ou agências de inteligência. Mossad, a MI6, a CIA, os talibãs e o IRA são apenas alguns exemplos. Guerras patrocinadas por países são uma coisa do passado, pois os banqueiros entenderam que poderiam causar conflitos usando e controlando as organizações terroristas que fariam o trabalho para eles.
No mundo da economia e finanças, os impérios, ou os países que aspiravam a tornar-se impérios, tinham e ainda têm os instrumentos para a realização de terrorismo económico e financeiro. As corporações que operavam fora dos governos, inicialmente contrataram instituições financeiras para realizar atividades fraudulentas. Depois, as corporações se tornaram o governo e, em seguida, era mais fácil realizar suas operações de terrorismo financeiro. Multinacionais da Banca estabeleceram uma nova ordem controlada por elas, acabaram com a supervisão dos governos e criaram políticas que efetivamente as transformou em donas da economia mundial.
Assim, os banqueiros não precisam de Al-Qaeda, MI6, Mossad ou a CIA para colocar o mundo de joelhos. Esse objetivo poderia ser alcançado através de Wall Street, o FMI e o Banco Internacional de Pagamentos. A criação de blocos regionais para promover o comércio e a troca era uma desculpa para consolidar o poder e os recursos. Essa idéia foi mais tarde provada em todo o mundo, promovendo a criação de uma instituição financeira global que irá lidar com a questão do dinheiro e em que condições este é fornecido.
Quais foram os resultados da concentração de política financeira e económica na Europa? Nós estamos vendo agora. Islândia, Grécia e agora Espanha, Portugal e Inglaterra estão em ruínas. Por quê? Porque a homogeneização financeira não se destina a promover economias estáveis e políticas econômicas sólidas, mas a reforçar o controle e a implementação de políticas que permitam aos banqueiros consolidar ainda mais poder. O objetivo dos banqueiros nunca foi uma economia estável, com uma política monetária sólida, porque nesse tipo de mundo eles têm menos controle e a riqueza não está concentrada em suas mãos.
Vejamos outro exemplo que a historia nos dá: A criação de políticas globalistas como acordos de livre comércio. NAFTA, CAFTA, GATT por citar alguns, foram as tropas no terreno para os banqueiros. O fim do mundo industrial, o fim do capitalismo como funcionou com sucesso durante algum tempo, deu lugar à abertura das fronteiras para o fluxo de produtos tóxicos e baratos assim como imigrantes ilegais. Os acordos de livre comércio não só destruiram a indústria, mas também aniquilaram a rede de segurança social nas nações do mundo ocidental. Enquanto o dinheiro das cidades e povos foi roubado e usado para investir em produtos financeiros imaginários, estrangeiros ilegais espremiam os serviços sociais básicos, já enfraquecidos, em todas as nações da América e da Europa.
Hoje, os políticos mais influentes e as estrelas da cultura pop justificam a falta de respeito para as nações, suas constituições e leis, para permitir não só acordos de livre comércio, mas o fluxo contínuo de imigrantes ilegais nas fronteiras. Aplicar as leis de imigração e a constituição é visto como racista e os defensores da imigração legal são rotulados como injustos, desumanos e simplesmente loucos. Este é exatamente o resultado que os banqueiros queriam. Dividir para conquistar nunca foi melhor. As políticas de imigração são definitivamente radicais em um mundo onde todas as pessoas, inconscientemente, acreditam que a abertura das fronteiras é normal e as mercadorias baratas feitas pelos escravos na América Latina e Ásia são os melhores pelo seu preço.
Agora que demos uma olhada para trás, vamos olhar para o futuro. Como seria um mundo com maior concentração de poder e controle nas mãos dos responsáveis pela crise atual? Vamos ser otimistas e dizer que não poderia ser pior, certamente, não melhor. A centralização de poder e do governo a nível regional é o que causou a confusão em que estamos agora, a centralização nas mãos daqueles que financiaram Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Noriega, Pinochet, Saddam Hussein e que agora controlam as finanças e os governos dos Estados Unidos, Inglaterra, Ásia e África vai fazer o mundo mais caótico do que já é. Para seu benefício, é claro. A história não mente, não é?
Aqueles que prometeram o fim da guerra, só trouxeram mais conflito. Aqueles que prometeram estabilidade financeira só criaram mais desigualdade, pobreza e miséria. Será que você deixaria as chaves de sua casa nas mãos do ladrão que está fora de sua propriedade para cuidar dela? Você não faria isso. Você não deveria. Na eleição seguinte, sem importar onde você mora, vote por você e vote os ladrões fora do governo. Essa é a única forma de derrotar a sua agenda de conquista e escravidão. Muitas pessoas já estão trabalhando ativamente para acabar com a tirania global criada décadas atrás, assim que você não está sozinho.
Agora, basta de falar! Vamos agir! Abaixo está uma lista de algumas das empresas fraudulentas que controlam o mundo de hoje. Eu estou esperando que você lhes negue o privilégio de conduzir a sua vida. Pare o uso, a compra e o consumo dos seus produtos. Vamos usar o globalismo contra eles mesmos. Um boicote mundial dos seus produtos baratos, tóxicos e fraudulentos é o primeiro passo.
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Sugira o nome de mais empresas através da seção de comentários. Além disso, participe na nossa pesquisa sobre as corporções e seu controle sobre os governos.
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me explicar como iria surgir e quem a controlaria. A resposta a estas questões já estão claras. Dominic Strauss-Kahn respondeu às minhas questões de infância. Uma moeda global gerida por um Banco Central Global. O chefe do FMI disse que isto é necessário durante uma reunião na qual reafirmou sua opinião de que esta crise é uma “oportunidade.”
