- `NAFTA’ for military proposed: U.S. war college report urges joint command with Canada, Mexico
- DefenseLink: UNIFIED COMMAND PLAN
- GlobalSecurity.org: U.S. Northern Command
- Executive Intelligence Review: Utopians Launch Drive for Hemispheric Military Force: Thanks to U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the Russellite utopians finally got their long-sought proposals for the creation of a supranational military force to police the Western Hemisphere, placed officially on the agenda of hemispheric policy discussions. Opening the Fifth Defense Ministerial of the Americas in Santiago, Chile on Nov. 19, Rumsfeld laid out two initiatives for the creation of regional military forces, one maritime, the other a broader “peacekeeping and stability” force. With Orwellian Newspeak, Rumsfeld argued that thus violating national sovereignty is required to re-establish “effective sovereignty” over the “ungoverned areas” of the Hemisphere which provide the bases from which narco-terrorists, hostage takers, and arms smugglers destabilize democratic governments.
- U.S. military moves into Mexico (1995-1996): The war on drugs is simply a convenient cover, a time-worn excuse to mount counterinsurgency operations. As Col. Warren D. Hall, Staff Judge Advocate to Gen. Barry McCaffrey when McCaffrey was SOUTHCOM Commander, admitted in an internal memo: “It is unrealistic to expect the military to limit use of the equipment to operations against narcotraffickers…. The light infantry skills US Special Operations forces teach during counter-drug deployments… can be used [in]… counter-insurgency as well.”
- ‘Dollarization’ Fattens Fatcats at Taxpayer Expense: As the Western Hemisphere moves toward a unified currency under the U.S. dollar, bankers will become more enriched at the expense of taxpayers who are losing their national sovereignty.
General
23
Feb 03
Random New World Order Stuff
23
Feb 03
Backing up Globalization with Military Might
From Covert Action Quarterly: Backing up Globalization with Military Might:
The Allure of Rich Resources and Cheap Labor
The determination by the U.S and NATO, at all costs, to occupy Kosovo and virtually all of Yugoslavia, is spurred on by the enticement of abundant natural resources. Kosovo alone has the richest mineral resources in all of Europe west of Russia. The New York Times observed that “the sprawling state-owned Trepca mining complex, the most valuable piece of real estate in the Balkans, is worth at least $5 billion.” producing gold, silver, pure lead, zinc, cadmium, as well as tens of millions of dollars in profits annually. (51)”Kosovo also possesses 17 billion tons of coal reserves and Kosovo ( like Serbia and Albania) also has oil reserves. (52)
“A number of unofficial partition plans have been drawn up for Kosovo all raising the question of who would control an important northern mining region,” the New York Times revealed. (53) Trepca was also a “glittering prize” taken over by Hitler to fuel the Nazi war machine during WWII.
Serbia as a whole is rich in minerals and oil including in Vojvodina, the northern part of the FRY. That coveted area of Vojvodina is also extremely fertile land–a major “breadbasket” for Europe. Then there is the allure of enterprises to be privatized at bargain prices, and the anticipation of exploiting very cheap and highly skilled labor potentially available to work in sweatshop conditions.
Chapter 4 of the outrageous 85-page Rambouillet “agreement” deals with plans for the economic assets of Kosovo. Article 1 calls for the privatization of the whole economy. (54) This meant that private Western corporations would have been allowed to easily plunder the large industries in this Serbian province which are almost entirely state-owned.
Similarly, a major aspect of the implementation of the Dayton Accords on Bosnia is overseeing the publicly owned enterprises and their privatization. (55)
Perhaps most significantly, Yugoslavia has strong elements of a socialist economy —the last in Europe– however tattered it may have become by years of economic destabilization by the West and international financial institutions. Sixty-five percent of all firms are either state-owned or self-managed cooperatives. Most heavy industry is state-owned. Factories bombed during the 79 days of NATO attacks were exclusively state-owned. The banking and financial system is also state-controlled. Only 20 percent of the workforce is in the private sector. (56) Yet like scores of nations around the globe, Yugoslavia fell prey to the international financial institutions. …
23
Feb 03
Geopolitics
I need to check more on this website. Good quotation:
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“Only after one understands how freedom and rights are being suppressed by the managers of imperial states — even as they preach peace, freedom, justice, rights, and majority rule to their citizens to maintain their beliefs in the morality of their society, and thus assure the continued support of the masses for inflicting such violence upon the world–can one write honest history. If one does not understand that process, one is almost certain to write a history in which, unbeknownst to the author, the background and documentation have been carefully created to give Managers of State the freedom to suppress other people’s rights and transfer their wealth to the imperial center through unequal trades.” — J.W. Smith, Economic Democracy; The Political Struggle for the 21st Century (M.E. Sharpe, 2000), p.95
23
Feb 03
Read the local news
I was listening to some wonderful programs on The Connection about Turkish and Kurdish relations and it occurred to me that it’s helpful to read the news from different countries and regions. A lot of times we read about a certain part of the world with the myopic eye of the west and do not get all the information we need to. Either because our domestic media only reflects the American establishment point of view or due simply to media ignorance. Anyway, I’m starting to bookmark news sources from around the world and might start linking to those here.
22
Feb 03
A Balance of Power
From InfoPlease.com: Balance of Power:
balance of power, system of international relations in which nations seek to maintain an approximate equilibrium of power among many rivals, thus preventing the preponderance of any one state. Crucial to the system is a willingness on the part of individual national governments to change alliances as the situation demands in order to maintain the balance. Thucydides’ description of Greece in the 5th cent. B.C. and Guicciardini’s description of 15th-century Italy are early illustrations. Its modern development began in the mid-17th cent., when it was directed against the France of Louis XIV. Balance of power was the stated British objective for much of the 18th and 19th cent., and it characterized the European international system, for example, from 1815–1914. After World War I the balance of power system was attacked by proponents of cooperation and a community of power. International relations were changed radically after World War II by the predominance of two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, with major ideological differences between them, but this ended with the collapse of the USSR in 1991.
See H. J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations (1960); H. Butterfield and M. Wright, ed., Diplomatic Investigations (1966); P. Keal, Unspoken Rules and Superpower Dominance (1984); R. J. Lieber, No Common Power: Understanding International Relations (1988).
22
Feb 03
US effort to secure world sanction of Iraq invasion slowing
UN: Russia Affirms Objection To Second Resolution On Iraq
I’m glad to see all these countries lining up against the US. From Machiavelli’s The Prince:
The Prince who establishes himself in a Province whose laws and language differ from those of his own people, ought also to make himself the head and protector of his feebler neighbours, and endeavour to weaken the stronger, and must see that by no accident shall any other stranger as powerful as himself find an entrance there. For it will always happen that some such person will be called in by those of the Province who are discontented either through ambition or fear; as we see of old the Romans brought into Greece by the Aetolians, and in every other country that they entered, invited there by its inhabitants. And the usual course of things is that so soon as a formidable stranger enters a Province, all the weaker powers side with him, moved thereto by the ill-will they bear towards him who has hitherto kept them in subjection. So that in respect of these lesser powers, no trouble is needed to gain them over, for at once, together, and of their own accord, they throw in their lot with the government of the stranger. The new Prince, therefore, has only to see that they do not increase too much in strength, and with his own forces, aided by their good will, can easily subdue any who are powerful, so as to remain supreme in the Province. He who does not manage this matter well, will soon lose whatever he has gained, and while he retains it will find in it endless troubles and annoyances.
I think this is what is happening. The weaker nations are banding together to check the power of the United States. In that sense, a balance of power can be a positive situation.
22
Feb 03
Butt skirts
You just have to check out these silkscreened skirts that appear to be see through but that are actually sik-screened to look this way. Check it out.
22
Feb 03
Trackback
I finally upgraded to Movable Type 2.62 and added the trackback tags to the site. So, you know what that means? Trackback me so I can see how it works!
In other news regarding the site, I’m looking to change the look a bit and to set up a site for my online photo album. I’m guessing I’ll have to familiarize myself with how to set up PHP so I can set up one. Apparently, most of the free photo album packages I’ve seen are in PHP.