Iraq Heads Into A "Staged" Civil War.

In a few weeks it will be three years. Three years since the US invaded Iraq to bring them "democracy" and oust Saddam. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was in college at the time. It was all over the news and everyone was talking about it.

I remember a discussion which will forever reside in my mind. My history instructor wanted the class to discuss the war and their thoughts on it. I raised my hand and explained that Iraq would turn into another Vietnam, another pointless quagmire which will have no real effect on the average American in a positive way. As I expected, I was criticized by other students in the class, who felt I should support my country.

The fact of the matter is, I DO support my country. But I DON'T support a government which invades a country on false pretenses and slaughters innocent people. But even in 2003 I didn't know what I know now. Even then I didn't understand the true nature of the war.

But now I do. The war in Iraq is more than just a war for oil. It isn't that simple. It is war for global dominance. The plan for the US military was never to "free" the Iraqi people from Saddam or weapons of mass destruction. It was about dividing up the country into two factions, and getting them to slaughter each other.

Divide and conquer. It is the oldest trick in the book. Under P2OG elements of the US government made it clear that this was the plan. Turn the Middle East into the Balkans, and then use it as a launch pad to invade Iran and other nations. Many of the killing and bombings which are taking place in Iraq are not the work of insurgents, but undercover intelligence agencies. Last year British SAS officers were caught dressed up like Arabs shooting police.

Americans have been duped once again. How long will we allow corrupt rich men to get into the white house and get us involved in these charades? When will Americans stand up? The globalists are pushing forward with their plan, doing exactly what they set out to do. Their goal is world domination, and once they have people fighting with each other, it will be easier to accomplish than ever

Analysis of Bush UAE Port Deal

Last week I almost laughed when I watched the news and found out that George W. Bush wants to turn over our ports to a Arab run company. I was slightly surprised. But I shouldn't have been.

This latest episode from Bush has been going on for quite some time. Bill Clinton allowed the largest US port in southern California to be handed over to the Chinese in the late 1990s. Now Bush wants to do the same. The plan of the globalists is to hand over the infrastructure and resources of the US to large corporations.

There is a name which is used to describe the UAE port deal that Bush is pushing for. It can be described using one word. That word is "fascism." When large corporations dictate government policy. This is exactly the situation we see right now. A blatant display of fascism by our own president. But then again, Bush has handed so much power to corporations since he entered the white house that Americans shouldn't be surprised by this news.

In reality, Americans are being distracted from more important issues. The issue with Iran is far from over, and China is a much larger threat than the United Arab Emirates will ever be. Americans should be outraged over the situation which occured in southern California, but you hear nothing about this on the news.

Even more, the shipments coming into the US via these ports are not being thoroughly expect, which sets up the stage for weapons or other dangrous items to be shipped into the country.

When I talk to some Americans about this, they tell me I'm racist against the Arabs and that Bush wants to better the relations. I always tell them that they are being brainwashed. If the Bush administration wanted to "better the relations" in the Middle East, why are they planning on bombing Iran which would cause a complete collapse in relations between the US and Middle East?

Doesn't make much sense, unless you understand that Bush and his father stand to gain millions from the port deal. Why else would he push for it. I can't confirm it, but no doubt the Carlyle Group has their hands in this . I know they have a foothold in Saudi Arabia, and may have influence in United Arab Emirates as well. If this is the case, this entire port deal makes perfect sense.

When it won't need a tyranny to deprive us of our freedom

George Monbiot / London Guardian | February 21 2006

The creeping extension of implantation technology will eventually break down all the barriers between us and the state .

It received just a few column inches in a couple of papers, but the story I read last week looks to me like a glimpse of the future. A company in Ohio called City-Watcher has implanted radio transmitters into the arms of two of its workers. The implants ensure that only they can enter the strongroom. Apparently it is "the first known case in which US workers have been tagged electronically as a way of identifying them".

The transmitters are tiny (about the size of a grain of rice), cheap (£85 and falling fast), safe and stable. Without being maintained or replaced, they can identify someone for many years. They are injected, with a local anaesthetic, into the upper arm. They require no power source, as they become active only when scanned. There are no technical barriers to their wider deployment.
The company that makes these "radio frequency identification tags", the VeriChip Corporation, says they "combine access control with the location and protection of individuals". The chips can also be implanted in hospital patients, especially children and people who are mentally ill. When doctors want to know who they are and what their medical history is, they simply scan them in. This, apparently, is "an empowering option to affected individuals". For a while, a school in California toyed with the idea of implanting the chips in all its pupils.

A tag such as this has a maximum range of a few metres. But another implantable device emits a signal that allows someone to be found or tracked by satellite. The patent notice says it can be used to locate the victims of kidnapping or people lost in the wilderness. There are, in other words, plenty of legitimate uses for implanted chips. This is why they bother me. A technology whose widespread deployment, if attempted now, would be greeted with horror, will gradually become unremarkable. As this happens, its purpose will begin to creep.

At first the tags will be more widely used for workers with special security clearance. No one will be forced to wear one; no one will object. Then hospitals - and a few in the US are already doing this - will start scanning their unconscious or incoherent patients to see whether they have a tag. Insurance companies might start to demand that vulnerable people are chipped.

The armed forces will discover that they are more useful than dog tags for identifying injured soldiers or for tracking troops who are lost or have been captured by the enemy. Prisons will soon come to the same conclusion. Then sweatshops in developing countries will begin to catch on. Already the overseers seek to control their workers to the second; determining when they clock on, when they visit the toilet, even the number of hand movements they perform. A chip makes all this easier. The workers will not be forced to have them, any more than they are forced to have sex with their bosses; but if they don't accept the conditions, they don't get the job. After that, it surely won't be long before asylum seekers are confronted with a similar choice: you don't have to accept an implant, but if you refuse, you can't stay in the country.

I think it will probably stop there. I don't believe that you or I or most comfortable, mentally competent people will be forced to wear a tag. But itwill become an increasingly acceptable means of tracking and identifying people who could be a danger to themselves, or who could be at risk of sudden illness or disappearance, or who are otherwise hard for companies or governments to control. They will, on the whole, be people whose political voice is muted.

As it is with all such intrusions on our privacy, it won't be easy to put your finger on exactly what's wrong with this technology. It won't really amount to a new form of control, as all the people who accept the implants will already be subject to monitoring or tracking of one kind or another. It will always be voluntary, at least to the extent that anything the state or our employers want us to do is voluntary. But there is something utterly revolting about it. It is another means by which the barriers between ourselves and the state, ourselves and the corporation, ourselves and the machine are broken down. In that tiny capsule we find the paradox of 21st-century capitalism: a political system that celebrates choice, autonomy and individualism above all other virtues demands that choice, autonomy and individualism are perpetually suppressed.

While implanted chips will not lead to the mass scanning of the population, another use of the same technology quite possibly will. At the end of last month, a leaked letter from Andy Burnham, the Home Office minister, revealed that the identity cards for which we will involuntarily volunteer will contain radio frequency identification chips. This will allow the authorities to read the cards with a scanner. I propose that as the technology improves, the police will be able to scan a crowd and (assuming everyone is carrying his voluntary-compulsory ID card) produce a list of whom it contains. I further propose that it will take only a year or two for this to seem reasonable.

Already we have become used to the police filming demonstrations for the same purpose. When they started doing it, about 10 years ago, it caused outrage. It gave us the impression that by protesting we became suspects. But now we don't even notice them: even to the extent of waving and shouting, "Hello, Mum". Like every other intrusion on our privacy, they have become normal.

I also propose that the mass scanning these identification chips will allow will be assisted by another kind of surveillance technology. Last week, campaigners in west Wales obtained a letter sent by the Welsh Development Agency to Ceredigion County Council. It revealed that the agency, with the help of the European Union, is setting up an industrial estate outside Aberystwyth. Its purpose is the "market acceleration" of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). With the help of companies such as BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce and our new friend Qinetiq, the agency hopes to find the best way of encouraging the "routine operation of UAV systems UK-wide". Ceredigion council's website lists various functions of the UAVs, of which the first is "law enforcement".

So the police won't even have to be there. Someone sitting in a control room could fly a tiny drone (some of them are just a few inches across) equipped with a receiver over the heads of a crowd and, with the help of our new identity cards, determine who's there. It sounds quite mad, just as the idea of biometric identity cards in the UK once did. All these new technologies somehow contrive to seem both wildly implausible and entirely likely.

There will be no dramatic developments. We will not step out of our homes one morning to discover that the state, or our boss, or our insurance company, knows everything about us. But, if the muted response to the ID card is anything to go by, we will gradually submit, in the name of our own protection, to the demands of the machine. And it will not then require a tyrannical new government to deprive us of our freedom. Step by voluntary step, we will have given it up already.

Chavez tells Rice: ‘Don’t mess with me, girl’

Reuters | February 20 2006

CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Sunday warned Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice not to “mess with” him days after Rice described Venezuela as a menace to regional democracy in the midst of tense diplomatic relations between the two countries.

“Don’t mess with me Condoleezza. Don’t mess with me, girl,” Chavez said during his weekly Sunday broadcast, sarcastically offering her a kiss and jokingly referring to her as “Condolence.”

The warning comes days after Rice described Venezuela as one of the “biggest problems” for the Western Hemisphere and promised to develop regional alliances as part of an “inoculation” strategy to expose what the State Department calls anti-democratic behavior in Venezuela.

Chavez has repeatedly accused Washington of trying to topple him, and says the United States will attempt to sow chaos this year as he launches a re-election bid.

Diplomatic relations between the United States and Venezuela, the world’s No. 5 oil exporter, have been strained since Chavez accused the United States of plotting a coup d’etat that briefly ousted him in 2002.

Chavez, a former soldier turned populist leader, has promised to create socialist revolution in Venezuela and promote regional integration in Latin America to roll back U.S.-supported economic reforms.

The State Department says Chavez is using the nation’s bountiful oil wealth to meddle in the affairs of neighboring countries, and has slammed him for boosting ties to U.S. foes like Cuba and Iran.

Tensions between Washington and Caracas increased in February after Chavez expelled a U.S. naval attache for alleged espionage. The State Department responded by expelling a top Venezuelan diplomat.

Shooting Whittington: the Least of Cheney’s Crimes

Kurt Nimmo | February 16 2006

I don’t care if the war criminal Dick Cheney shot one of his rich Republican friends. I am disgusted by this story dominating headlines while the Straussian neocons—who run roughshod over the Constitution in dictatorial fashion through their cardboard cut-out, brain damaged, unelected president—methodically plan to attack another sovereign nation and kill hundreds of thousands of people, poison millions of innocent others with depleted uranium, destroy and loot more antiquities, deliberately wreck hospitals, electrical plants and water and sewage treatment facilities, the same way they did in Iraq.

Harry Whittington’s gunshot wounds are nothing compared to the distinct possibility the Straussian neocons may use nuclear weapons against the people of Iran—and down the road, against other official enemies, numbering in the billions (according to the “heavy-lifter” Straussian neocon Frank Gaffney, these enemies include the people of China, Russia, and “anti-American” countries in Latin America, in other words Latin American countries that have rejected neoliberalism and are sick and tired of globalist bankers and multinational carpetbaggers stealing their natural resources and impoverishing their people).

Katherine Brengle documents how Cheney considers himself above the law, bird hunting without proper legal documentation. For some reason we are supposed to be upset about this. Meanwhile, right out in the open and yet ignored, there is a bundle of damning evidence that makes the Cheney hunting incident pale by way of comparison: Cheney the scurrilous war profiteer, his advocacy of the use of torture by the CIA, Powell’s chief of staff Lawrence Wilkerson’s accusations that Cheney disdainfully violated the Geneva Conventions.

Cheney’s war crimes have besmirched the public record for over a decade and a half—it was Cheney, as Secretary of War in the Bush Senior administration, who engineered and instigated a 43-day bombing campaign against Iraq (the most devastating concentrated bombing attack in history at the time), a blitzkrieg that targeted Iraqi electrical, water, and sewage treatment systems, resulting in massive civilian casualties, especially children, the elderly, and the sick, in short the most vulnerable of Iraqi society, a particularly horrendous war crime.

“So, what did Cheney have to say about these choices of targets after the war, when there was no way to deny the deadly effects on civilians?” asked Robert Jensen, writing for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “Every Iraqi target was ‘perfectly legitimate,’ … adding ‘if I had to do it over again, I would do exactly the same thing.’” In short, Cheney is not only a war criminal, he is an unrepentant war criminal, an anti-human sociopath who brags about his serial murdering exploits. All of this is scrupulously avoided in the corporate media.

Meanwhile, Straussian neocon provocations, far more worthy of headlines and analysis, are relegated below the fold.

An Australian TV show has revealed “terrible photographs” of Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse, “bloodier and more sexually charged than the originals” (if you wish to stomach such sadism, follow this Rolling Stone link and watch a video montage).

It is hardly a coincidence these new photos were released as “rioting erupted … as tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Pakistan’s third straight day of violent protests over the Prophet Muhammad cartoons. Three people were killed, including an 8-year-old boy,” according to ABC News. As suspected, these riots are well organized, although specifics are absent (asking the question “who benefits” usually settles the issue). “An Associated Press reporter in Lahore saw crowd members who appeared to be orchestrating the attacks, directing protesters—some of whom were carrying containers of kerosene—toward particular targets. The demonstrators also set the provincial government assembly building on fire,” Asif Shahzad writes for the Chicago Sun Times.

Speaking of kerosene and fires—at least in a metaphorical sense—Roberto Calderoli, Italian Reforms Minister and member of the neocon friendly Lega Nord (Northern League), has declared his intention “to wear a T-shirt sporting cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that have sparked violent reactions from Muslims around the world,” reports the Mail & Guardian, thus inflaming Muslim anger even more.

It now appears there is a possibility Cheney may be charged with criminal “negligence, defined as failing to understand the dangers involved and disregarding them, or recklessness, defined as understanding the dangers and disregarding them” if Whittington dies from injuries sustained in the so-called hunting mishap, according to the New York Times.

Shooting Whittington, of course, is the least of Cheney’s crimes, and if indeed justice prevailed in the world he would be immediately arrested for the above enumerated crimes, tried before a jury of his peers, convicted like Nazi war criminals of yore, allowed a one appeal, and then marched to the gallows. Of course, this will not happen, not any more than he will suffer serious consequence from the criminal negligence of shooting Harry M. Whittington at close range with bird shot.

Forget Iran, Americans Should be Hysterical About This: Nuking the Economy

PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS | February 13 2006

Last week the Bureau of Labor Statistics re-benchmarked the payroll jobs data back to 2000. Thanks to Charles McMillion of MBG Information Services, I have the adjusted data from January 2001 through January 2006. If you are worried about terrorists, you don’t know what worry is.

Job growth over the last five years is the weakest on record. The US economy came up more than 7 million jobs short of keeping up with population growth. That’s one good reason for controlling immigration. An economy that cannot keep up with population growth should not be boosting population with heavy rates of legal and illegal immigration.

Over the past five years the US economy experienced a net job loss in goods producing activities. The entire job growth was in service-providing activities--primarily credit intermediation, health care and social assistance, waiters, waitresses and bartenders, and state and local government.

US manufacturing lost 2.9 million jobs, almost 17% of the manufacturing work force. The wipeout is across the board. Not a single manufacturing payroll classification created a single new job.

The declines in some manufacturing sectors have more in common with a country undergoing saturation bombing during war than with a super-economy that is “the envy of the world.” Communications equipment lost 43% of its workforce. Semiconductors and electronic components lost 37% of its workforce. The workforce in computers and electronic products declined 30%. Electrical equipment and appliances lost 25% of its employees. The workforce in motor vehicles and parts declined 12%. Furniture and related products lost 17% of its jobs. Apparel manufacturers lost almost half of the work force. Employment in textile mills declined 43%. Paper and paper products lost one-fifth of its jobs. The work force in plastics and rubber products declined by 15%. Even manufacturers of beverages and tobacco products experienced a 7% shrinkage in jobs.

The knowledge jobs that were supposed to take the place of lost manufacturing jobs in the globalized “new economy” never appeared. The information sector lost 17% of its jobs, with the telecommunications work force declining by 25%. Even wholesale and retail trade lost jobs. Despite massive new accounting burdens imposed by Sarbanes-Oxley, accounting and bookkeeping employment shrank by 4%. Computer systems design and related lost 9% of its jobs. Today there are 209,000 fewer managerial and supervisory jobs than 5 years ago.

In five years the US economy only created 70,000 jobs in architecture and engineering, many of which are clerical. Little wonder engineering enrollments are shrinking. There are no jobs for graduates. The talk about engineering shortages is absolute ignorance. There are several hundred thousand American engineers who are unemployed and have been for years. No student wants a degree that is nothing but a ticket to a soup line. Many engineers have written to me that they cannot even get Wal-Mart jobs because their education makes them over-qualified.

Offshore outsourcing and offshore production have left the US awash with unemployment among the highly educated. The low measured rate of unemployment does not include discouraged workers. Labor arbitrage has made the unemployment rate less and less a meaningful indicator. In the past unemployment resulted mainly from turnover in the labor force and recession. Recoveries pulled people back into jobs.

Unemployment benefits were intended to help people over the down time in the cycle when workers were laid off. Today the unemployment is permanent as entire occupations and industries are wiped out by labor arbitrage as corporations replace their American employees with foreign ones.

Economists who look beyond political press releases estimate the US unemployment rate to be between 7% and 8.5%. There are now hundreds of thousands of Americans who will never recover their investment in their university education.

Unless the BLS is falsifying the data or businesses are reporting the opposite of the facts, the US is experiencing a job depression. Most economists refuse to acknowledge the facts, because they endorsed globalization. It was a win-win situation, they said.

They were wrong.

At a time when America desperately needs the voices of educated people as a counterweight to the disinformation that emanates from the Bush administration and its supporters, economists have discredited themselves. This is especially true for “free market economists” who foolishly assumed that international labor arbitrage was an example of free trade that was benefitting Americans. Where is the benefit when employment in US export industries and import-competitive industries is shrinking? After decades of struggle to regain credibility, free market economics is on the verge of another wipeout.

No sane economist can possibly maintain that a deplorable record of merely 1,054,000 net new private sector jobs over five years is an indication of a healthy economy. The total number of private sector jobs created over the five year period is 500,000 jobs less than one year’s legal and illegal immigration! (In a December 2005 Center for Immigration Studies report based on the Census Bureau’s March 2005 Current Population Survey, Steven Camarota writes that there were 7,9 million new immigrants between January 2000 and March 2005.)

The economics profession has failed America. It touts a meaningless number while joblessness soars. Lazy journalists at the New York Times simply rewrite the Bush administration’s press releases.

On February 10 the Commerce Department released a record US trade deficit in goods and services for 2005--$726 billion. The US deficit in Advanced Technology Products reached a new high. Offshore production for home markets and jobs outsourcing has made the US highly dependent on foreign provided goods and services, while simultaneously reducing the export capability of the US economy. It is possible that there might be no exchange rate at which the US can balance its trade.

Polls indicate that the Bush administration is succeeding in whipping up fear and hysteria about Iran. The secretary of defense is promising Americans decades-long war. Is death in battle Bush’s solution to the job depression? Will Asians finance a decades-long war for a bankrupt country?

Muslims Riot Over Cartoon of Muhammad: They are being fooled by the Globalists

Just about everyone has heard about the violence sparked in the middle east and elsewhere over the cartoon of the prophet Muhammad which was shown in a Danish Newspaper. Here at the Conspiracy Zone I want to explain why this is a divide and conquer tactic used by the globalists to worsen relations between the West and Middle East.

It is the oldest trick in the book. Get people of different ethnic groups fighting with each other so that you can conquer them both. The Muslims who reacted violently to the cartoon of Muhammad have been duped. So have many people in the US and Europe.

Both sides are being played like a fiddle by the elite. The Muslims were expected to react violently to the cartoon, and they did. This has allowed people in the US and Europe to be able to say that Muslims are insane and dangerous.

This will allow less restraint in allowing the Bush administration to push forward with their attack on Iran, a move which could turn into a disaster. Both westerners and muslims are being fooled by this whole situation.

Then the mainstream news stations add fuel to the fire, talking about the issue and demonizing the Muslims for the way they have reacted. When you talk to most American, they point the finger at the Muslims.

When you talk to most muslims, they point the finger at the West. But what neither realize is that the problem is being instigated by the globalists, a group of people who hide in the shadows and cause so much chaos and misery in the world. Only after understanding this will both sides be able to live in peace.

If the Muslims had reacted to the cartoon in a peaceful manner, the elite would not have got what they wanted. They should have responded the way Martin Luther King, or Gandhi would have responded. Instead, they caused riots, they have given the elite exactly what they want.

US Savings Rate at Lowest Level Since 1933

America is headed toward another Great Depression. A depression that will dwarf anything that Americans experienced in 1929. An article was recently placed on yahoo news about Americans saving on average the lowest amount since 1933, when the great depression was in full throttle.

The article went on to say that as of the end of 2005, Americans fell into a -0.5 percent savings rate. This means that most people here in the US are spending all of their income after taxes. This is a dangerous trend since at least 78 million Americans are baby boomers getting ready to retire.

The fact that most Americans are not saving can only mean one thing. It means that many people are either living paycheck to paycheck, swamped with bills and monthly debt payments, or simply living below the poverty line. It is already a fact that the average American owes eight thousand dollars in debt.

The country as a whole owes trillions, and the Chinese banks ran an article last month saying that they may soon have to begin dumping the dollar. Yet the average American is clueless. They spend all of their money, buying gadgets and cars that have no value after they've been purchase.

They run up huge debts, while more and more big corporations lay off workers and send jobs to India and China. Add to this the problem of both legal and illegal immigration, in which many illegals aren't paying taxes and are working under the table, leaving natural born American citizens huge tax payments to make.

The problems that the US is facing will only continue to get worse. As more and more illegal immigrants pour into the US, big companies will rush to hire them for low wages and no health insurance benefits, saving themselves millions of dollars while costing Americans jobs and making illegals perpetually slaves.

The illegal immigrants, while making more money in the US than they would at home, will begin taking on huge amounts of debts to pay for homes, cars, and other goods which they will not be able to afford on their low wages. Because of this big corporations will maximize profits, and the middle class will effectively be destroyed.