Empire

“We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.” – William Casey, CIA Director (from his first staff meeting in 1981)

If America is to control Eurasia and dominate the world, it cannot sustain a popular democracy, because “the pursuit of power is not a goal that commands popular passion … Democracy is inimical to imperial mobilization.”  – The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives, Zbigniew Brzezinski

What is an empire?

As the only superpower in the world, the US appears committed to maintaining a unipolar world in which it has no peer competitor. This is expressed through economic as well as military power:

• the US has the largest economy in the world
• the US$ is the global reserve currency
• the US military is probably the most powerful in history
• US corporate interests are extended through US foreign policy (e.g. TPP – see below)
• the NSA’s no longer stealth mission to collect ALL digital communications globally has little to do with the stated war on terror and everything to do with maintaining information superiority in all the US’s internal and external affairs (e.g. spying on heads of state and foreign corporations).

Empire building is an expensive undertaking.  The challenge for the US going forward is that it is no longer the economic juggernaut it once was.  While still the largest economy in the world, the US economy has stagnated for at least the last decade.  Over the last 25 years, production and jobs headed offshore, and its ability to generate wealth has eroded to the point where much of its meager economic growth (less than 2%) is generated through financial engineering and tied to printing money, rather than real wealth creation.

Financing its imperial ambitions is done through debt and money printing (QE), and is critically reliant on the continued use of the US$ as the global reserve currency.  If the money machine seizes up, interest rates rise, or the US$ loses its reserve status, the US economy will suffer a major crisis.  This, of course, would send shock waves through the global economy, resulting in calamity.

The boogie man stalking the US economy is hyperinflation, due to the massive money creation since 2008 (in fact, the world is awash in unbacked fiat currency — US$, Yen, Euro, Renminbi, …).  However, while the official narrative points to a CPI of less than 2% and concerns about deflation, real inflation is at least 6-8% and likely higher.

Notwithstanding its debt-driven/laden economy, the US continues unabated with its imperial expansion.

*********************************** Feb 13, 2015

US strategic foreign and defense policy is manically focused on maintaining and extending its hegemony in the world. The Wolfowitz doctrine must have been formally adopted by the Executive, from where it is executed by the sitting president, regardless of political affiliation.

From Wikipedia, the Wolfowitz doctrine establishes “a policy of unilateralism and pre-emptive military action to suppress potential threats from other nations and prevent any other nation from rising to superpower status.”   I think this fully explains US misadventure around the world.

There is much criticism of the inability of the US to win wars, despite having the most advanced military likely in history.  I think this misses the point.  The US does not need or necessarily want to win wars.  Rather, it intends to destabilize governments and regions through a strategy of managed chaos.  This creates a leadership vacuum that allows the US to move in and control territory, resources and populations with little organized opposition.  Iraq and Libya fully represent this strategy.

It is incredulous that the EU countries allow the warmongering US to goad them into war.  Other than the individual mouthpieces in NATO, I don’t think the politicians want this showdown with Russia, and the populations clearly do not.  This serves noone’s interest except the US.  And yet, there is such a reluctance to stand up to the bullying of the US.  It must be fear.

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• US imperialism is being blatantly confronted in two chaotic spheres — the Middle East and Asia-Pacific (APAC).  Its primary antagonists are also its historical (post WWII) competitors, Russia and China.  Russia is mostly active in extending its influence across the Middle East (e.g. Syria, Iran), while China is active globally, though concentrated in APAC, the Middle East and Africa. Most recently, China provided Venezuela with a $5B loan.
• In APAC, the US is confronted by China’s ambition to extend its own sphere of influence, which necessarily means minimizing US influence in the region and ultimately evicting the US.  America’s current defense posture in Asia is to back all of China’s neighboring rivals in an attempt to curb China’s regional ambitions.  The squabbling over competing sovereignty claims by Japan and China in the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands is a preliminary round to the pending battle for regional hegemony.
• The stage is set for a new cold war => US vs China
• The stage is set for a new cold war => US vs Russia
• Japan’s Prime Minister Abe used his time onstage at Davos 2014 to warn the world of China’s military buildup and increasing aggression in the APAC region.
• Don’t expect the US to scale back NSA and similar surveillance activities.  The intelligence is far too valuable, and it has little to do with the war on terror.  It has everything to do with sustaining US global hegemony.  Essentially building Imperial Amerika, transitioning from costly brute force military power to dominance in space and cyberspace.   From TomDispatch.com: “Compared to the $3 trillion cost of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, the NSA’s 2012 budget of just $11 billion for worldwide surveillance and cyber warfare looks like cost saving the Pentagon can ill-afford to forgo … Edward Snowden has given us a glimpse of the changing architecture of U.S. global power.  At the broadest level, Obama’s digital “pivot” complements his overall defense strategy, announced in 2012, of reducing conventional forces while expanding into the new, cost-effective domains of space and cyberspace.”
• The endless arms race:  On April 5, 2009, Obama proclaimed “America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” That fall, the UN Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1887, which reiterated the point that the NPT required the “disarmament of countries currently possessing nuclear weapons.” What empty rhetoric. Forty-four years after the NPT went into force, the US and other nuclear powers continue to aggressively expand nuclear weapon capabilities.  On January 8, 2014, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced plans to upgrade nuclear weapons systems by modernizing weapons and building new submarines, missiles and bombers to deliver them.  The US has 7,700 nuclear weapons. Together with Russia, it possesses about 95 percent of the more than 17,000 nuclear weapons that comprise the global nuclear arsenal (Israel has 70, and is a non-signatory to the NPT.  They are the only country in the Middle East that possesses nuclear weapons).
• A leaked tape of Victoria Nuland, US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, dropping the F-bomb in reference to the EU, deserves closer scrutiny (you can find a link to the YouTube video and text of the complete transcript here).  We have two high-ranking US diplomatic officials discussing strategies to meddle in Ukraine affairs, essentially  planning how to install a government sympathetic to US interests. The Ukraine is a sovereign state with a democratically elected government.  The Russians have accused the US of spending $20 million a week to help “rebels” overthrow the current Ukraine government.  Nuland herself has acknowledged that the US has pumped as much as $5B over the last 20 years into Ukraine, under the guise of NGO activities, but now clearly meant to destabilize the elected government and empower the obviously violent and suppressive opposition (including neo-nazi groups).  Russia has told the US to bugger off, as Ukraine has long been a Russian vassal state.  This tape was released to embarrass the US, which it succeeds in doing very well.  The F-bomb is a distraction.  The tone and content of this conversation is obviously typical of the US government’s “diplomacy” around the world, as we have seen recently in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Egypt and innumerable countries for decades.  Not diplomatic, but the arrogance of Empire.  Unz.com helps to put Nuland’s comments into perspective.  The idea that the US is an advocate for democracy anywhere in the world is a farce.  This recording puts it on display for the world to hear.
• The manifesto for sustaining and expanding American Imperialism can be traced to Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a neocon organization funded by the military-industrial complex, energy companies and right-wing foundations.  Its members continue to be influential at infecting US foreign policy. (After being outed and discredited for its blatant propaganda and role in a string of failed foreign policy initiatives, PNAC was replaced by Foreign Policy Initiative)  PNAC’s central policy document is entitled “Rebuilding America’s Defenses (RAD).”  Written in 1992 by then Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, the document presents a blueprint for US foreign policy that continues to this day. It outlines a plan for American hegemony, pinpointing “problem areas” of the world and suggesting regime change of unfavorable governments so that eventually the whole world will be unified under the banner of American democracy.  There are good analysis of the document and PNAC here and here.   Here is the full text.  In the text of the document is noted that selling this plan to the American people will likely take a long time, “absent some catastrophic catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.”  There is speculation in the conspiracy community that the catalyzing event in fact occurred on 9/11, which then resulted in the never-ending war on terror that stalks the world today.
  
• The Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies’ is a next act for the PNAC.  In 2000, they published “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm,” which establishes the framework for a series of follow-up reports on the US strategy in its relationship with Israel.
• Cheneyism, the doctrine that guides US foreign policy.  Cheney’s manifesto for US global domination has become the governing principle of US administrations regardless of party affiliation.  The final form of this ideology took shape in 1991 as revealed in the leaked “Draft Defense Planning Guidance” (DPG) devised by Cheney subordinates, Defense Dept staffers Lewis Libby, Paul Wolfowitz, and Zalmay Khalilzad.  From Harpers 2002 article:  “The Plan is for the United States to rule the world. The overt theme is unilateralism, but it is ultimately a story of domination. It calls for the US to maintain its over­whelming military superiority and prevent new rivals from rising up to challenge it on the world stage. It calls for dominion over friends and enemies alike. It says not that the US must be more power­ful, or most powerful, but that it must be absolutely powerful.” In effect, it combines militarism under a state of permanent war with authoritarianism. Obama has wholly embraced Cheneyism as the guiding ideology of the executive office by continuing unilateralism and expanding executive powers into areas such as drone assassinations, targeted assassinations of US citizens, total surveillance and a burgeoning police state.
• Russell Tice, the first NSA whistleblower, talks about the dark secrets Snowden did not have access to.  Among many other things, he reveals that Cheney, through his lawyer David Addington, directed NSA intel collection on certain individuals, in much the same type of surveillance J Edgar Hoover conducted and used. I wonder if he was using such intel in the same way Hoover did.
• Here is a who’s who amongst the neocon family.  While PNAC itself seems to be largely inactive, many of the individuals on the list continue to operate in shaping US foreign policy to achieve the neocon vision.  RT’s Abby Martin calls out some of these characters thru their connection with the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI).  One has to wonder if Victoria Nuland even takes direction from the obviously weak and inept John Kerry, or if she effectively runs a rogue neocon operation.  US now successful efforts to undermine and replace the democratically elected Ukraine government are obviously out of the neocon playbook, but is this the world Obama is trying to shape, or are the neocons doing an end run around the executive?  Wheels within wheels.
• Booze Allen Hamilton, Snowden’s employer when he bailed from the NSA, has tentacles that extend throughout the US government, high up into the intel community, and into the Middle East.  99% of its revenues come from the US government.  James Clapper is a former executive, as is Ian Brzezinski, son of Zbigniew Brzezinski.  Mike McConnell, James Woolsey, and Dov Zakheim are current executives.  Zakheim is co-author of “Rebuilding America’s Defenses,” in which he is credited with the infamous line, “… some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.” He was Comptroller of the DoD when Rumsfeld declared at a press conference on Sept. 10, 2001 that $2.3 trillion cannot be accounted for.
• Booz Allen Hamilton is owned by the Carlyle Group.  The Bin Laden family was an investor in the Carlyle Group.  The House of Saud is an investor.  The Bush family has ties to the Carlyle group.  When you look at the Carlyle group, the word “oligarchy” comes to mind.  Energy, defense and now national security are the major industries the oligarchy controls and profits from.
• “What the Neocons want from Ukraine” — an intriguing article considering the historical and ongoing influence neocons have in shaping US foreign policy.  The article makes the case that Obama and Putin are, in fact, working together to resolve some problems spots (e.g. Syria).  But, the neocons are at work to subvert this effort.  The Ukraine situation drives an obvious wedge between Putin and Obama.  Neocon operatives, with financing from the US-funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and other US sources, played key roles in illegally destabilizing and overthrowing Yanukovycht. NED, a $100 million-a-year agency created by the Reagan administration in 1983 to promote political action and psychological warfare against targeted states, lists 65 projects that it supports financially inside Ukraine, including training activists, supporting “journalists” and promoting business groups, effectively creating a full-service structure primed and ready to destabilize a government in the name of promoting “democracy.”  Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, a key neocon operative, advocated strenuously for Ukraine’s reorientation toward Europe.  Last December, Nuland, speaking to  Ukrainian business leaders stated that the US has “invested more than $5 billion” in the Ukraine.  What she didn’t say was the objective was to achieve its goal of severing Ukraine’s relationship with Russia and realigning it with the EU, ergo US interests.
• Odessa appears to be a false-flag operation, designed to draw Putin into Ukraine conflict.  So far he is not falling for it.  Here is a video of pro-government thugs shooting at people trying to escape the flames of the building burning down, from a fire likely set by the pro-government thugs.
• Within the sphere of neocon collusion and influence is Israel.  In Feb 2013, Israel granted a US energy firm rights to explore for oil and gas in the occupied Golan Heights.  This was likely illegal under international law, and would clearly inflame tensions with Syria.  The company is a local subsidiary of New Jersey-based Genie Energy Ltd.  The Strategic Advisory Board of another subsidiary, Genie Oil and Gas, includes former Vice President Dick Cheney, media magnate Rupert Murdoch, former Republican Rep. Jim Courter, Jacob Rothschild, chairman of the J. Rothschild group, and Michael Steinhardt, a major contributor to Jewish and Zionist causes.
• The rumour that won’t go away: Did Israel steal bomb-grade uranium from the United States? After a 1965 inventory, Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) was found to be missing 100 kg of bomb-grade uranium, and by 1968 as much as 330 kg, even after accounting for all processing losses. The close personal and commercial ties to Israel of the plant owners and operators raised suspicions that remain unresolved.  The issue of the missing bomb-grade uranium was revived in 1976. The newly formed Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) was in the process of writing licensing regulations for commercial fuel firms—of which NUMEC was one—and had heard rumors of possible theft in the 1960s from NUMEC’s Apollo facility.  At the CIA’s February 1976 briefing of a small group at the NRC, Carl Duckett, then-CIA deputy director for science and technology, told the NRC group the CIA believed the missing highly enriched uranium ended up in Israel.  President Carter instructed his national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, to investigate the NUMEC matter.  Reporting back to Carter, Brzezinski appears to have whitewashed Israeli involvement.  In the linked article, the section on Time for Real Transparency summarizes Israel’s considerable high-level intelligence, commercial and military interactions with NUMEC.
• More current news on NUMEC.  Contaminated soil needs to be cleaned up, but will NUMEC be on the hook.  Article offers up more background on NUMEC/Israeli connection
• Released US report concedes it helped Israel develop nuclear weapons
• And to add more gasoline to the Israel nuclear weapons fire, in 2010, declassified South African apartheid-era documents reveal that Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to the regime.  Minutes of meetings between senior officials from the two countries in 1975 show that South Africa’s defence minister, PW Botha, asked for the warheads and Shimon Peres, then Israel’s defence minister, responded by offering them “in three sizes”. Good thing Israel is not a signatory of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), otherwise they would be in real trouble.
• To complete the thought on Israel and nuclear weapons, one intriguing part of the story is that, in the early 60s, the Kennedy administration suspected Israel duplicity on its nuclear program, which it claimed to not have.  In addition to all the other obfuscations by the Israelis, the lead American inspector, Floyd Culler, noted in his reports that there were newly plastered and painted walls in one of the buildings. It turned out that before each American visit, the Israelis had built false walls around the row of elevators that descended six levels to the subterranean reprocessing plant.  There is clearly lots more info on this topic which I will not include here.
• U.S. historian Gareth Porter charges that U.S. and Israeli policies on Iran have been based on fabricated evidence.  According to Porter, it was a hidden political agenda of U.S. decision makers (from long before Israel entered the picture) that gave rise to the Iranian nuclear crisis.  The CIA, led by ideologues Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz and John Bolton, launched a campaign to delegitimize the Islamic Republic with the aim of regime change.
• It looks decidedly unlikely that either the surveillance-industrial complex or the military-industrial complex will ever be reigned in.  In fact, we are spiraling down to a very dangerous state of fascism.  Efforts to oversee and rein in their activities end in laughable exchanges, obfuscation, lies, destruction of incriminating evidence, and now spying.  From The Intercept — The Inverse of Oversight: CIA Spies on Congress and from TomDispatch — The Pentagon’s Phony Budget War.  Spy agencies and the military that should be answerable to the People act with total impunity.  And the People, via its elected officials in Congress (Parliament or whatever), clearly do not have the power to demand obedience.  The true strength of democracy is not the authority to grant power, but to take it away.  We have lost that authority.  One wonders if a coup has already occurred and we are just beginning to realize it.
• With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the national-security state (NSS = Pentagon, CIA, NSA) needed a new enemy and NATO needed a new mission.  The events of 9/11 conveniently delivered an open-ended war on terror.  And, in 2014, with Al-Qaeda’s having morphed into an instrument of the USG for executing proxy wars – the search for an appropriately powerful and sinister enemy has settled on Russia. The US-engineered crisis in Ukraine has revitalized the cold war and given NATO a new lease on life.  In all this, the emperor has no clothes, as we can see the US in what it has become: a totalitarian state.  This is exemplified by its: militarism, empire building, foreign military bases, domestic and international surveillance, enormous defense budget and standing army, military industrial complex, regime change operations, drone assassinations, torture, endless foreign interventions, containment, indefinite detention without trial, the shocking CIA MKULTRA program, …
• Automaton assassins, MKULtra and Project Artichoke.  This stuff is just evil.
• The peculiar timing of NSAM 273.  On Oct. 11, 1963, President Kennedy signed National Security Action Memorandum 263 (NSAM 263). This ordered a withdrawal of 1,000 troops out of roughly 16,000 Americans stationed in Vietnam by the end of 1963, with the complete withdrawal by the end of 1965.  However, NSAM 273, signed on Nov. 26, 1963 by newly sworn-in President Johnson (following the Nov 22 assassination and the day after Kennedy was buried), overturned NSAM 263 and ordered the planning of increased activity in Vietnam. The memorandum also authorized open-ended covert operations against North Vietnam. This led to the Gulf of Tonkin incident, a USG lie which Johnson used to push the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution through Congress and obtain authorization for a drastic escalation of the war.  The draft of NSAM 273 was dated Nov. 21, 1963, the day before the assassination; however, Kennedy had not ordered its creation and did not see it.  Was this a coup by the deep state?  See 50 years of the Deep State for a thorough expose on how deep such a conspiracy might reach.  Read more about the two NSAMs, and their political implications, here.
• As with NSAM 263, on June 4, 1963, Kennedy signed Executive Order No. 11110 that returned to the U.S. government the power to issue currency, without going through the Fed.  Silver certificates are backed by silver and the Federal Reserve notes are backed by debt.  If enough of these silver certificates were to come into circulation, they would have eliminated the demand for Federal Reserve notes, effectively putting the Fed out of business. Kennedy was assassinated five months later, and Johnson reversed the order to switch to Treasury bills.  However, the Executive Order was never repealed by another Executive Order, and is still valid.
• Further to the JFK assassination meme, here is a forgotten interview with E. Howard Hunt that casts a light on the dark shadows of a corrupt LBJ and his nefarious  association with CIA.  Also, buried in the annuls of time is a 1985 Miami jury that concluded the CIA was involved in the assassination of Kennedy.  Clearly, not enough light has shone on this historic event.
• Fifty years of the Deep State — coup started w JFK assassination
• Sirhan exonerated in Robert Kennedy assassination.  Sirhan has no recollection of the night of the assassination.  Likely an MKULTRA manipulation
• When Black Things Propel Us: ‘Deep State’ Power Crimes — the Five Eyes spy network is one of three critical components of a totalitarian state apparatus. This article explores the dark underpinnings of the deep state and the elite masters.  Essential background.
• The CIA is the primary tool of the deep state in exercising regime change operations around the world.  Perhaps this expertise was also exercised domestically.  Since at least the early 60’s, Major General Edward Lansdale was the CIA’s go-to guy to manage these operations.  There is much speculation that he was in Dealy Plaza at the time of the JFK assassination, having been identified at the Texas School Book Depository Building on Sept 11 by two witnesses, as well as some photographs that purport to be of Lansdale. See here and here.
• 35 countries where the U.S. has supported fascists, drug lords and terrorists
• 50+ countries the US has attempted or accomplished regime change since the end of the second world war
• 50+ assassination attempts of foreign leaders
• 30+ bombed
• NGOs have been infiltrated by spies and operatives from a multitude of countries, both for surveillance activities but also to further more nefarious agendas and campaigns.  In Ukraine, none other than Victoria Nuland boasted to business leaders that over the years, the US has provided more than $5B in funding for NGO activities in that country.  The US underwrites a number of NGOs who advance US policy agendas and interests in countries they operate.  The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the US Agency for International Development (USAID),  and associated groups, are allegedly “Non-government organizations” (NGOs) but are largely funded by Congress.  The Republican branch of NED, the International Republican Institute (IRI), is headed by John McCain and the Democratic version, the National Democratic Institute (NDI), is headed by Madeleine Albright.  The CIA covertly used NED in the 50’s and 60’s, usually the first step in the process to destabilize the local government. If Russian accusations are to be believed, in the months leading up to the coup, opposition groups were being funded $20M / week, likely through one of the NGOs.  The linked video documents other specific instances of NGOs’ hidden agendas.
• The USG used polio vaccinations in Pakistan as a ruse to withdraw blood samples for DNA testing in an attempt to track down bin Laden.
• Further to NGOs as a front for nefarious political agendas, the USG covertly created a “Cuban Twitter” called ZunZuneo in order to disrupt the Cuban government and encourage rebellion.  The program was paid for and run by the US Agency for International Development (USAid) using $1.6 million in funds officially earmarked for aid to Pakistan.  The plan was to introduce political content aimed at inspiring Cubans to organize “smart mobs” — mass gatherings called at a moment’s notice that might trigger a Cuban Spring, or, as one USAID document put it, “renegotiate the balance of power between the state and society.”  As part of the program, cell phone users were sent text messages, asking about gender, age, “receptiveness” and “political tendencies.”  The Cubans responding to the text messages were not aware the US government was gathering data on them.  Respondents were then manually profiled, categorized as “pro-revolution,” ”apolitical” or “anti-revolutionary.”   USAid was also fingered for funding anti-government activities in Ukarian prior to the coup.  Obviously a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
• Turns out setting up fake social networks is in the State Dept business plan for fomenting political unrest.  In fact, they are a serial Twitter cloner, having built similar applications in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kenya, and others.  I don’t know, but this whole efforts strikes me as naive and amateurish, which perhaps indicts the Obama administration as much as anything else.  Too hip for their own good, perhaps. The “real” bad guys must be shaking in their boots. Probably a Twitter clone coming to Russia soon.
• I am now convinced that “Al-Qaeda” is the creation of the west to give a face to the synthetic “war on terror”.  Whatever form Al-Qaeda takes, it is a tool of the USG for executing proxy wars.  Terrorism and endless war — who benefits??  Follow the money. see here and here and here and here.
• A provocative interview with Jim Sinclair.  Believes Putin has enough levers to tank the US economy.  Forget nuclear bombs.  The petrodollar is the most important financial instrument in the global economy.  If Russia allows payment for energy in anything other than US$ (most likely Euros), the stranglehold the US$ has on energy transactions would be broken.  Don’t forget, US adventurism in Iraq and Libya, as well as the drumbeats of war against Syria and Iran, are tied directly to efforts of those countries to bypass the petrodollar.  The collapse of the petrodollar would mean financial Armageddon for the US economy.
• Robert Blecker, constitutional history professor at New York Law School talks about Crimea’s recent secession from Ukraine and subsequent annexation by Russia. He takes aim at the hypocrisy of Obama et al in proclaiming the referendum in Crimea is illegal. Blecker explains that secession is a valid and necessary part of constitutionalism; one that played a prominent role in the foundation of the US.  He further presents the case that the west “should not punish Russia, but should promote true constitutionalism and the right of any free people to their own form of government as they truly see fit.”  Recall that Obama’s credentials are as a constitutional lecturer at the University of Chicago.  Seems he must have missed a class or two when they were discussing a People’s right to secession.
• John Kerry may once have been a better man, but he is now just a mouthpiece for the propaganda being passed off as intelligence in US foreign affairs.  US interventions in Syria and Ukraine reveal a USG that has an unapologetic pathology for lying to further its imperial agenda.  These lies are replays of WMDs in Iraq and the Gulf of Tonkin in Vietnam to justify war to the American people and on the world stage.
• The irony here is that the tough talking USG pathologically lies to further military adventurism and regime change around the world, but will cower in the face of a truth that everyone knows but cannot speak.  Kerry recently mustered the courage (in a closed door meeting of the Trilateral Commission that was secretly recorded) warning that Israel “could become an apartheid state” in the absence of a “two-state solution.” He promptly clarified his use of the “A-word” due to intense pressure from the pro-Israel lobby and the anti-defamation league.  Perhaps Kerry, and implicitly Obama, have lost patience with Israeli obfuscation on any sincere effort to settle the Palestinian question.  There is a broad consensus that what he said is true, and that Israel is, in fact, already an apartheid state (read more here, and here, and here, and even in the Washington Post) but merely suggesting it brings aggressive charges of anti-semitism and is political suicide.
• The Iron Triangle:  Justifying the premise for war can be a full-time job for some military planners.  Many of the people in the USG making decisions have been in and out of the same set of revolving doors connecting government, conservative think tanks, lobbying firms, law firms and the defense industry. So strong is the bond between lobbyists, defense contractors and the Pentagon that it is known in Washington as “the iron triangle.” And this triangle inevitably gets what it wants. Why? Because in the revolving door system, a defense contractor executive can surface as an official in the Department of Defense, from which position he can give lucrative contracts to his former employer, and his prospects for an even better paying job in the private sector brighten. Former aides to members of congress become handsomely paid lobbyists for the companies they were able to help in their position on Capitol Hill. Such lobbyists can spread their corporate-funded largesse to the friendliest members and their aides on the Hill.
• This entry is a little off the beaten path, but is still germane to the general discussion of control of the empire.  Carmen Segarra was a bank examiner at the NY Fed.  Following her negative examination of Goldman Sachs, she was asked/advised to reverse it.  When she refused, she was fired.  She sued for wrongful dismissal.  That part is bad enough. However, it turns out the judge presiding over her case had ties to Goldman Sachs through her husband, who was a partner in the legal firm, Davis Polk & Wardwell.  Through the firm, he personally was legal adviser to GS, while DP&W routinely handled GS business.  Turns out the judge as well as the attorney representing the NY Fed also had previously worked at DP&W.  Segarra’s case was tossed by the judge.  The linked article, from Wall Street on Parade, also goes through the unique position of power the NY Fed holds and its deep ties with the Wall Street financial community it is supposed to supervise.  Here is a more detailed update.
• The reach of Goldman Sachs in the upper echelons of global finance is astounding, to the extent that GS and its alumni are now largely running the global economic system.  Alumni of the firm include: ECB president, Mario Draghi, Bank of England Governor (ex-Bank of Canada) Mark Carney, NY Fed president Bill Dudley.  GS also advises Putin on Russian financial matters.
• The ties between key law firms, Wall Street and the USG goes deep elsewhere.  (see here and here) The Justice Dept has yet to prosecute a single US bank for illegal activities despite significant evidence of wrongdoing.  Covington & Burling (C&B) are Wall Street’s go-to guys for legal counsel in alleged crimes.  US Attorney General Eric Holder and Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division Lanny Breuer were C&B partners before they joined the Justice Department.   Following a PBS Frontline episode exposing that Lanny Breuer had never seriously tried to indict any Wall Street bank, Breuer announced he was stepping down the next day, rejoining C&B.  The law firm recently hired Mythili Raman, who became head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division when Breuer stepped down.  Other former Justice Department lawyers now at C&B include Steven Fagell, former deputy chief of staff at the criminal division; Jim Garland, former deputy chief of staff to Attorney General Eric Holder; and Dan Suleiman, former deputy chief of staff to Breuer.
• … and sometimes war is in the best interest of an individual for purely personal reasons.  New evidence indicates Nixon helped scuttle Vietnamese peace talks in desperate bid to take the wind out of Hubert Humphrey’s sails.  Lots of skullduggery in this story.  As the 1968 election approached, Nixon feared that Johnson would try to help the Democratic nominee—Vice President Hubert Humphrey — by staging an October surprise. When LBJ announced to the nation, just days before the balloting, that he was calling a halt in the bombing of North Vietnam to help fuel progress in ongoing peace talks, the Republicans thought their fears were realized.  Anna Chennault, a Republican activist with ties to the South Vietnamese government, sent word to Saigon that it would get better terms if Humphrey lost and Nixon took office, the FBI would discover. The South Vietnamese subsequently dragged their feet in the peace talks, infuriating LBJ.  LBJ ordered the FBI to put Chennault under surveillance intercepting communications with the South Vietnamese embassy. After Nixon won, J. Edgar Hoover told Nixon that Johnson had ordered Nixon’s campaign planes bugged as well.  And here is Robert Parry’s article on “Nixon’s Treason.”  Creepy people in the upper echelons of government.
• “Chaos is useful in preventing conventional governments and civil societies from achieving national goals that are inimical to imperialism” – Glen Ford
• The US/NATO and its actors/allies/agents provocateur are likely behind ISIS, with an agenda to break Syria and Iraq into sectarian territories, while drawing Iran into the conflict to their destruction. ISIS known backers are Saudi Arabia and Qatar, but the CIA seems to have its fingerprints all over ISIS.  This would mean that The US is backing both ISIS as the aggressor and the Iraq government as the defender.  No wonder al-Maliki is looking to the Russians for help.  See here and here and here.
• Perhaps the Wolfowitz doctrine is the guiding principle of US foreign policy in Ukraine, Syria …, but most importantly as it relates to Russia and China: “Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that posses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power.”
• If you think the government would do you no harm, think again.  Operation Northwoods was a provocative plan drawn up in 1962 by the US DoD and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The proposals called for the CIA and other operatives, disguised as Cubans, to commit acts of terrorism in US cities and elsewhere.  The intent was to foment US public opinion and enable an invasion of Cuba.  The plan was drawn up in reaction to and frustration with the failed Bay of Pigs operation.  The Kennedy administration turned down the plan.  The plan had the written approval of the Chairman and every member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  It called for innocent people to be shot on American streets; for boats carrying refugees fleeing Cuba to be sunk on the high seas; for a wave of violent terrorism to be launched in Washington, D.C., Miami, and elsewhere. People would be framed for bombings they did not commit; planes would be hijacked. Using phony evidence, all of it would be blamed on Castro, thus giving the war machine the excuse, as well as the public and international backing, they needed to launch a war. Does the downing of MH17 follow the Operation Northwoods playbook?  About half-way down the posted link, read about the plan for downing of a civilian aircraft over Cuban airspace.  I guess a good idea is still a good idea even after 50 years.
• Gladio history
• Interview with Barry Jennings, 9/11 emergency mgmt person offers up weird story or pre-knowledge about fall of towers.  Hears explosions.  Dies suspiciously.
• CIA plane busted in Australia w 35kg of heroin on board. Article traces CIA involvement in drug smuggling using their planes.
• Anwar al-Maslawki was an FBI informant for several years after 9/11.  He purchased airline tix for three of the 9/11 hijackers.  When 9/11 commission wanted to interview him, FBI refused to facilitate meeting.  He was first American droned by presidential order, in Yemen.
• The Bush clan’s project hammer plan to crush the USSR.  Apparently succeeded.
• War profits, on Washington Blog.  Always follow the money.
• Gary Webb suicide notes.  Lots of detail what he was up to and the machinations that took him down.
• Amazing 3-part interview of political philosopher Sheldon Wolin by Chris Hedges, who says democracy requires continuous opposition and vigilance by the citizenry
• The CIA runs a global drug cartel
• Nicholas Deak was money-launderer for CIA drug operations for decades.
• Deak was assassinated by Lois Lang, who appears to have been an automaton programmed for the deed by Stanford Research Institute psychiatrist, Frederick Melges.
• JFK to 911 Everything is a Rich Man’s Trick – video
• Not just the Federal Govt.  Homan Square, Chicago, a domestic black site.
• The rise of fascism in the US.  OpEdNews piece that brings a lot together in a single place.
• Operation Phoenix.  Program introduced by the CIA in Vietnam to, through interrogation, to identify and neutralize “dissidents”, i.e. those who did not want to submit.