VP Palin currently being investigated for abuse of office

Rawstory:

The Associated Press reports, “More recently, she has come under the scrutiny of an investigation by the Republican-controlled legislature into the possibility that she ordered the dismissal of Alaska’s public safety commissioner because he would not fire her former brother-in-law as a state trooper.”

The commissioner, Walt Monegan, was fired on July 11, because Palin “wanted to take the department in a new direction,” according to Bloomberg. “Monegan than alleged that he had been pressured to fire state trooper Mike Wooten, who was married to Palin’s sister and was involved in a contentious divorce, according to the Anchorage Daily News.”

The Bloomberg story continues, “Palin has denied any wrongdoing. The state Legislature voted on July 28 to hire an independent investigator to probe whether Palin, her family or members of her administration had pressured Monegan to fire Wooten, according to the Daily News.”

“Palin hasn’t been implicated in the four-year-old federal corruption investigation, which has resulted in convictions of or guilty pleas from three state legislators, Murkowski’s former chief of staff and two executives of an oil-services company, as well as the indictment of Senator Ted Stevens,” Bloomberg’s report concludes.

Last month a Democratic official told the Wall Street Journal that Palin was facing possible impeachment.

“This is a governor who was almost impervious to error,” Hollis French, a Democratic state senator told the Journal. “Now she could face impeachment, in a worst-case scenario.”

The Democrats endorse the “Global War on Terrorism”

The Democrats endorse the “Global War on Terrorism”: Obama “goes after” Osama

Dandelion Salad

by Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, August 29, 2008

Obama’s “American Promise” is War.

Barack Obama has embraced the “Global War on Terrorism” (GWOT).

The Obama-Biden campaign has endorsed the very foundations of the Bush administration’s foreign policy agenda: “Go after Osama bin Laden, “take him out”.

The rhetoric is softer but the substance is almost identical:

“For while Senator McCain was turning his sights to Iraq just days after 9/11, I stood up and opposed this war, knowing that it would distract us from the real threats we face.  When John McCain said we could just “muddle through” in Afghanistan, I argued for more resources and more troops to finish the fight against the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11, and made clear that we must take out Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants if we have them in our sights.  John McCain likes to say that he’ll follow bin Laden to the Gates of Hell – but he won’t even go to the cave where he lives. [APPLAUSE]

And today, as my call for a time frame to remove our troops from Iraq has been echoed by the Iraqi government and even the Bush Administration, even after we learned that Iraq has a $79 billion surplus while we’re wallowing in deficits, John McCain stands alone in his stubborn refusal to end a misguided war.

That’s not the judgment we need.  That won’t keep America safe.  We need a President who can face the threats of the future, not keep grasping at the ideas of the past.” (The American Promise, August 28, 2008, Democratic Convention. Denver, emphasisi added)

The 9/11 Cover-up

The Democrats have endorsed the “Big Lie”. Bin Laden is upheld as the “outside enemy” who threatens the American Homeland. The fact that bin Laden is US sponsored intelligence asset, created and sustained by the CIA, is never mentioned.

The Obama campaign galvanizes public support for the “Global War on Terrorism” (GWOT). In the words of Obama’s running mate, Joe Biden:

“The fact of the matter is, al-Qaida and the Taliban – the people who have actually attacked us on 9/11 [note: exactly the same wording as in the Obama speech] — they’ve regrouped in the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan and are plotting new attacks. And the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has echoed Barack’s call for more troops and John McCain was wrong and Barack Obama was right.” (Joe Biden, Democratic Convention, Denver, August 27, 2008, emphasis added)

In contrast to Iraq, the war on Afghanistan is portrayed by the Obama-Biden campaign as a “Just War”, a war of retribution initiated in October 2001 in response to the 9/11 attacks.

This concept of the “Just War” in relation to Afghanistan has been echoed by several prominent Liberal and “Progressive” intellectuals: The war on Iraq, on the other hand, is seen as an “illegal war”. In October 2001, the attack on Afghanistan was supported by numerous civil society organizations on humanitarian grounds.

It is by no means coincidental that the prominent “Leftist” scholars and intellectuals, who failed to address the use of  the 9/11 attacks as a pretext to wage war, have expressed their support for Barack Obama. The Nation Magazine and Progressive Democrats for America are indelibly behind the Obama-Biden ticket.

The Obama-Biden campaign has endorsed the 9/11 cover-up. Without a shred of evidence, Afghanistan, a nation of 34 million people (the size of Canada) is portrayed as the State sponsor of the 9/11 attacks. This basic premise is accepted by the Democrats.

Obama indelibly upholds 9/11 as an act of war and aggression directed against America, thereby justifying a war of retribution directed against “Islamic terrorists” and their state sponsors.

Spiraling Defense Spending

Both Barack Obama and John McCain have signaled that they will increase overall defense spending, while also revamping the system of Pentagon procurement with a view to reducing cost overruns. (See Bloomberg, June 30, 2008 See also Reuters, August 29, 2008).

It is worth noting that for the FY 2009, the US Defense Department is asking for a $515 billion defense budget plus a separate $70 billion “to cover war costs into the early months of a new administration… Those amounts combined would represent the highest level of military spending since the end of World War II (adjusted for inflation).” (csmonitor.com  Febraury 06, 2008)

Obama’s message is crystal clear. He endorses the Bush adminstration’s proposed surge in military spending. He wants to spend more money on weapons and troops. Going after bin Laden and the “Global War on Terrorism” constitue his main justification for increasing defense spending:

“[M]ore resources and more troops to finish the fight against the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11…”

But at the same time, Obama promises more resources for education and health.

“Now is the time to finally meet our moral obligation to provide every child a world-class education, …  I’ll invest in early childhood education.  I’ll recruit an army of new teachers, and pay them higher salaries and give them more support. …

Now is the time to finally keep the promise of affordable, accessible health care for every single American…. (The American Promise, August 28, 2008, Democratic Convention. Denver, emphasis added)

pic

Will there be a shift in spending priorities?

Will an Obama administration change the structure of Federal government expenditure, which under the Bush administration favors Defense over all other expenditure categories (See Chart above for FY 2004)

Will he reduce the absolute size of defense spending which constitutes approximately 47 percent of global defense spending (all countries combined)?  The US NATO combined control 70% of global defense spending. (See Chart below)

pic

Visibly Barack Obama does understand the Guns versus Butter dilemma.

He fails to address a fundamental macro-economic relationship, namely the issue of public investment in the war economy versus the funding, through tax dollars, of civilian social programs. More broadly, this also raises the issue of  the role of  the US Treasury and the US monetary system, in relentlessly financing the military industrial complex and the Middle East war at the expense of most sectors of civilian economic activity.

pic

More resources to war and weapons, as proposed by both Obama and McCain, favors the Big Five Defense Contractors (Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grunman, Raytheon, Boeing and General Dynamics), Dick Cheney’s Halliburton, British Aerospace, not to mention Blackwater, MPRI et al, at the expense of the civilian sectors, including national, regional and local level economies.

Military Spending Creates Unemployment

Tax dollars allocated, as promised by Obama, to National Defense and Homeland Security will result in unemployment.

In contrast to World War II, the war economy in the 21st Century does not create jobs.

The costs of creating jobs in the military industrial complex are abysmally high when compared to the civilian sectors. In turn, the financial resources channeled by the US government to the DoD defense contractors dramatically reduces public expenditure in favor of all other spending categories.

Lockeed Martin together with Northrop Grumman have been involved in developing the Joint Fighter program. Based on initial estimates, 5400 direct jobs were created at a unit cost of $37 million per job. (See Michel Chossudovsky, War is Good for Business, Global Research, September 16, 2001). Similarly at Boeing’s assembly plant, each job created in the Joint Strike Fighter program costs US taxpayers $66.7 million. (Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 7 September 2001).

With regard to the F22 Raptor fighter, assembled at Lockheed Martin Marietta’s plant in Georgia, the F22 Raptor fighters was estimated to have a unit cost of $85 million. Three thousand (3000) direct jobs were to be created at an estimated cost of $20 million a job. (Ibid)   The cost of the program once completed in 2005 was of the order of 62 billion dollars. According to 2008 company figures, roughly 2000 jobs remain tied to the production of the F22. (See Free Republic, March 2008). Two Thousand Jobs created at  the Lockheed-Marietta’s plant in Georgia at an initial outlay of 31 million dollars per job.

Imagine how many jobs you could create with 31 million dollars invested in small and medium sized enterprises across America.

pic

These post 9/11 defense expenditures by the Bush administration trigger mass unemployment. Moreover, they are funded by downsizing America’s social programs, which in turn contributes to exacerbating the levels of poverty and unemployment.

Obama’s War Economy

The Obama campaign accepts the logic of a war economy which triggers unemployment and poverty at home while creating death and destruction in the Middle East war theater.

This post 9/11 direction of the US economy has lined the pockets of a handful of defense contractors corporations, while contributing very marginally to the rehabilitation of the employment of specialized scientific, technical and professional workers laid-off by the civilian economy.

Not surprisingly, the defense contractors, while favoring John McCain are also firm supporter of Barack Obama.

America’s largest military contractor Lockheed Martin  (and business partner of Dick Cheney’s Halliburton) was present at the Denver Democratic Party Convention, among a vast array of powerful corporate sponsors and lobby groups. According to a company spokesperson:

“Lockheed Martin strongly supports our nation’s political process and candidates that support in general national defense, homeland security, high technology and educational initiatives,” (quoted by Bill van Auken, Democrats convene in Denver amid police state security and a sea of corporate cash, Global Research, August 2008)

The Big Lie

The Obama lies are perhaps more subtle than those of George W. But again in substance, we are dealing with a continuum.

The “Global War on Terrorism” is an integral part of the Obama campaign. “Islamic terrorists” threaten the American way of life. Al Qaeda and its alleged State sponsors are portrayed as the main threat at home and abroad.

The corporate media applauds.

No shift in direction.

The doctrine of preemptive war against “Islamic terrorists” and their State sponsors remains functionally intact.

The same applies to the post 9/11 nuclear weapons doctrine as first formulated in the 2002 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR). Nuclear weapons on the drawing board of the Pentagon, for use in the Middle East war theater.

Under the Global War on Terrorism, the Homeland Security apparatus, not to mention the anti-terrorist Patriot legislation, the Big Brother surveillance apparatus would under a Barack Obama administration, remain intact.

9/11 constitutes for Obama the main justification for waging a humanitarian war in the Middle East and Central Asia. In this regard, his position does not differ from that of the Bush Administration.

Withdraw from Iraq, but remain in Afghanistan.

Bring the troops back from Iraq. Move them to Afghanistan. Confront Iran, challenge Russia:

“I will end this war in Iraq responsibly, and finish the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.  I will rebuild our military to meet future conflicts.  But I will also renew the tough, direct diplomacy that can prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and curb Russian aggression.  I will build new partnerships to defeat the threats of the 21st century: terrorism and nuclear proliferation; poverty and genocide; climate change and disease.  And I will restore our moral standing, so that America is once again that last, best hope for all who are called to the cause of freedom, who long for lives of peace, and who yearn for a better future.

These are the policies I will pursue.  And in the weeks ahead, I look forward to debating them with John McCain.” (The American Promise, August 28, 2008, Democratic Convention. Denver, emphasis added)

“Finishing the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban”  means extending the “Global War on Terrorism” (GWOT) into new frontiers. Concretely, the GWOT, which is central to the Obama campaign, provides a pretext and justification for waging a war of conquest, for expanding US influence in the Middle East, Central Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and South East Asia.

Obama-Biden and The “New Cold War”

The Obama-Biden campaign is committed to reinforcing US-NATO military presence on the Iran-Afghan border, as well as on Afghanistan’s border with China’s Xinjiang Uigur autonomous region as well as within Pakistan.

Afghanistan is a strategic hub in Central Asia bordering on Iran, the former Soviet Union, China and Pakistan. It is a land bridge and potential oil and gas pipeline corridor which links the Caspian sea basin to the Arabian sea.  It is also part of the continued process of militarization and encirclement of the People’s Republic of China.

The Obama-Biden campaign has also endorsed the “New Cold War”. Russia is explicitly identified in Obama’s speech as an Aggressor. Iran is identified as nuclear threat, despite ample evidence to the contrary.

Joe Biden, who if elected, would take over from Dick Cheney, considers Russia, China and India as the main threat to America’s National Security:

The Bush foreign policy has dug us into a very deep hole, with very few friends to help us climb out. And for the last seven years, the administration has failed to face the biggest the biggest forces shaping this century. The emergence of Russia, China and India’s great powers, the spread of lethal weapons, the shortage of secure supplies of energy, food and water. The challenge of climate change and the resurgence of fundamentalism in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the real central front in the war on terror.

Ladies and gentlemen, in recent years and in recent days we once again see the consequences of the neglect, of this neglect, of Russia challenging the very freedom of a new democratic country of Georgia. Barack and I will end that neglect. We will hold Russia accountable for its action and we will help Georgia rebuild. I have been on the ground in Georgia, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and I can tell you in no uncertain terms, this administration’s policy has been an abysmal failure. America cannot afford four more years of this failure. (Democratic Party convention, August 27, 2008, emphasis added)

The militarization of Afghanistan and Pakistan under the GWOT is directed against two overlapping military alliances: the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).

The SCO is a military alliance between Russia and China and several Central Asian former Soviet republics including Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Iran has observer status in the SCO.

The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), which plays a key geopolitical role in relation to transport and energy corridors, operates in close liaison with the SCO. The CSTO regroups the following member states: Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

For Obama-Biden, the war on Iran is still on. The New Cold War is directed against China, Russia and its allies, namely the SCO-CSTO military alliance.

Challenge the alleged threats from Russia in the Caucasus and East Europe. In other words, the Democrats have endorsed the New Cold War

What Prospects under an Obama Presidency?

Apart from the rhetoric of “bringing the troops home” from war torn Iraq, which may or may be carried out, what distinguishes the Democrats from the Republicans?

A more articulate, knowledgeable and charismatic President?

A more dignified and diplomatic approach to US foreign policy?

An opportunity to the US ruling elite “to present a different face to the world that could revive illusions in its democratic pretensions, not only internationally but within the United States as well.” (Patrick Martin, Tensions rise in Democratic contest as Obama nears nomination, Global Research, May 11, 2008)

A spurious and counterfeit “humanitarian” approach to Empire, which serves to mask the truth and gain popular support.

A less reckless Commander in Chief, who has an understanding of geopolitics and is capable of taking foreign policy decisions. A more carefully thought out military agenda than that experienced during the Bush administration?  But with no substantive shift in direction.

A means to quelling mounting dissent and opposition to the ruling corporate establishment by providing the illusion that the Democrats constitute a Real Alternative.

A means to sustaining the illusion that African-Americans can move up the social ladder in America and that their fundamental rights are being upheld.

A means to undermining real progressive movements by further embedding civil society organizations, trade unions, grass-roots organizations not to mention “Leftist” intellectuals into the realm of the Democratic Party.

A distraction from the extensive war crimes committed under successive US administrations.

A “human face” to war and globalization?

© Copyright Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, 2008

The url address of this article is: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9995

see

Sen. Barack Obama Acceptance Speech 2008 DNC

A Political Alarm Clock Is ringing by Guadamour

Joe Biden: Russia, China, India: “The Real War” + Speech

RNN: Race, Poverty & Obama + The Obama-Biden worldview

Google Rolls Out Tool That Suggests Search Queries

NYTIMES:

After more than four years in development, a new feature that suggests queries as letters and words are typed into Google Inc.’s search engine, is being rolled out over the next week.

Google Suggest, which the company began developing in 2004, aims to help users better formulate queries, reduce spelling errors and save keystrokes, Google noted in a blog post Monday.

“We find that by providing suggestions up-front, we can help people search more efficiently and conveniently,” noted Jennifer Liu, Google product manager. “Instead of just typing ‘hotels in Washington,’ did you want ‘hotels in Washington, DC’ or ‘hotels in Washington state’? Don’t remember that song title or person’s name? Let Google help you search.”

The new feature, created by developers in Google Labs, will also automatically correct typos and misspelled words ahead of time, eliminating the need for Google’s “Did you mean?” feature. The feature also will save time by eliminating keystrokes because Google Suggest starts searching for likely query terms a person is entering before they finish typing the words, Liu added.

While Google Suggest is now being made available on Google.com, it had also been available earlier via Google Labs, Toolbar, Maps and Web Search, the Firefox search bar, the iPhone, the BlackBerry and YouTube.

Google Suggest does not base its suggestions on the personal searches of users, although it does use information about the relative popularity of common searches to rank its suggestions, Google noted. Google Suggest searches are covered under Google’s privacy policy, the company added.

Danny Sullivan, a blogger at Search Engine Land, noted that the new tool’s suggestions come from looking in aggregate at Google searches. Next to each suggestion, he noted, Google provides the number of Google results that match the suggestion.

“I’ve always found that odd – I’d rather Google show some metric related to how popular that suggested query is, since that’s the basis of why you’re being shown these words,” he noted. He also urged users to also peruse Yahoo’s similar Search Assist tool, which rolled out in October.

“It offers a more sophisticated query suggestion tool,” Sullivan added. “Over at [ Microsoft's] Live Search, you don’t get query suggestions when typing in the search box. But they will show ‘Related Searches’ links in the top right hand corner of search results, in some cases.”

To use Google Suggest, users must use Internet Explorer 6.0 (or newer), Netscape 7.1 (or newer), Mozilla 1.4 (or newer), Firefox 0.8 (or newer), Opera 7.54 (or newer),or Safari 1.2.2 (or newer) and have JavaScript and cookies enabled.

Gene therapy for ultimate human running speed and strength

Next Big Future:

Professor Peter Weyand, Southern Methodist University (Texas), known for his expertise in terrestrial locomotion and human and animal performance says that humans would soon have the ability to modify and greatly enhance muscle fibre strength. This would enable speeds of 45 miles per hour and 5 seconds times for 100 meters.

The fast four-legged runners or quadrupeds do seem to be advantaged versus bipeds in terms of the mechanics allowed by their anatomy. So to go even faster would require people to successfully adopt the running mechanics of four legged animals (running on hands and feet).

DARPA is also spending 3 billion to enhance strength and endurance. So endurance enhancements combined with the muscle speed enhancements could allow sprinting for an entire mile run. This would mean 80 seconds to run one mile. 1 minute and 20 seconds. It could also mean about 40 minutes to run a marathon.

MUCH MUCH MORE

One of the big quests in nanotechnology has been accomplished

(PhysOrg.com) — A crucial step in developing minuscule structures with application potential in sophisticated sensors, catalysis, and nanoelectronics has been developed by Scottish researchers.

Dr Manfred Buck and his team at the University of St Andrews have accomplished one of the big quests in nanotechnology, opening up an exciting new development in tiny technology.

The St Andrews researchers have developed a way of forming an easily modified network of molecules over a large area – the chemical technique provides an advantageous alternative to traditional methods which become increasingly cumbersome at the ultrasmall length scale.

The key to the development lies in the creation of robust and versatile surface – self-assembling structures just one molecule thick which can be exploited for further control and manipulation of nanostructures.

Dr Manfred Buck, of the University¿s School of Chemistry, explained, “One of the central issues in nanotechnology is the development of simple and reliable methods to precisely arrange molecules and other nanoscopic objects. One promising route intensively investigated by scientists around the world involves the ability of molecules to spontaneously assemble onto a surface. What we have done is successfully combined two strategies which are complementary but, so far, have been explored independently, and it is this combination which opens up unprecedented opportunities for accessing the ultrasmall length scale.”

“The potential of this approach lies in its flexibility on a scale, about 1/10000 of the diameter of a human hair. Using molecules as building units, the features of our structures are less than 5 nanometres in size, which enables us to control structures and materials at dimensions where new properties emerge.”

One of the advantages of the technique is that it works under ambient conditions. Since no sophisticated equipment or special environment – such as a high vacuum – is required, it is easily accessible and adaptable for a wide range of applications. The chemical method provides an alternative route to nanostructures created by conventional lithography, which inscribes patterns into surfaces but struggles to be precise on a scale of a few nanometres.

Dr Buck’s solution-based chemistry works by assembling molecules into tiny dimples, themselves created when molecules self-assemble into a honeycomb-shaped network on a gold surface. Such a so-called supramolecular network is held together by hydrogen bonds -a type of bonding also essential for DNA – and acts as a template to control the arrangement of other molecules.

He continued, “We are just at the beginning of the exploration of a very exciting new area. Ongoing and future work will investigate changes in the dimensions and geometry of the network, where the aim is to get exact control over the arrangement of molecules, ultimately at the level of single molecules.”

“In the short term, this development provides us with an easily accessible platform for fundamental studies of phenomena on the ultrasmall scale,” Dr Buck explained.

“In the future, we might be able to use this technology for the assembly of ‘nanomachines’, molecular devices used to transport and manipulate molecules and nanometer sized objects,” he concluded.

The research is published by the journal Nature.

Provided by University of St Andrews

SEE ALSO:

Major Nano Computing Advance: Drawing Circuits with Nano Pens

Intel touts progress toward A.I. & Intel CTO Among Visionaries Headlining Singularity Summit 2008

Intel touts progress toward AI

CNET News.Com:

At the Intel Developer Forum here, Intel Chief Technology Officer Justin Rattner showed off a number of technologies in computing, robotics, and communication that he cited as evidence that Ray Kurzweil’s concept of “singularity,” when machine intelligence surpasses human intelligence, is impending. Demonstrations spotlighted the wireless transmission of electrical power, dextrous robots with new sensory abilities, a direct interface to the brain, programmable materials that can be used for shape-shifting devices such as resizable cell phones, and silicon photonics that enables chips to communicate with photons rather than electrons.

“We’re making steady progress toward Ray Kurtzweil’s singularity,” Rattner said.

Intel of course remains at its heart a chipmaker, and Rattner began with a brief tour, assisted by Mike Garner, senior technologist for Intel’s emerging materials group, of various successors to the current complimentary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) process used to make processors. Future ideas that pack ever more computing capacity into a given volume include spintronics, quantum computing, carbon nanotubes.

…

See also: From our colleagues at ZDNet, the video below shows Intel CTO Justin Rattner talking to Emotiv Systems President Tan Le about new interface technologies that are making humans more like machines.

READ THE REST INCLUDING PHOTOS & VIDEO

Intel CTO Among Visionaries Headlining Singularity Summit 2008

KurzweilAI.net, Aug. 29, 2008

Singularity Summit 2008: Opportunity, Risk, Leadership takes place October 25 at the Montgomery Theater in San Jose, CA, the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence plans to announce today.

Keynotes will include Ray Kurzweil, updating his predictions in The Singularity Is Near, and Intel CTO Justin Rattner, who thinks the gap between humans and machines will close by 2050.

Singularity Summit 2008 will feature an impressive lineup:

* Dr. Ruzena Bajcsy, pioneering AI and robotics researcher
* Dr. Eric Baum, AI researcher, author of What is Thought?
* Marshall Brain, founder of HowStuffWorks.com, author of Robotic Nation
* Dr. Cynthia Breazeal, robotics professor at MIT, creator of Kismet
* Dr. Peter Diamandis, chair and CEO of X PRIZE Foundation
* Esther Dyson, entrepreneur, investor, philanthropist
* Dr. Pete Estep, chair and CSO of Innerspace Foundation
* Dr. Neil Gershenfeld, director of MIT Center for Bits and Atoms, author of Fab
* Dr. Ben Goertzel, CEO of Novamente, director of research at SIAI
* John Horgan, science journalist, author of The Undiscovered Mind
* Ray Kurzweil, CEO of Kurzweil Technologies, author of The Singularity is Near
* Dr. James Miller, author of forthcoming book on Singularity economics
* Dr. Marvin Minsky, one of AI’s founding fathers, author of The Emotion Machine
* Dr. Dharmendra Modha, cognitive computing lead at IBM Almaden Research Center
* Bob Pisani, news correspondent for financial news network CNBC
* Justin Rattner, VP and CTO of Intel Corporation
* Nova Spivack, CEO of Radar Networks, creator of Twine semantic-web application
* Peter Thiel, president of Clarium, managing partner of Founders Fund
* Dr. Vernor Vinge, author of original paper on the technological Singularity
* Eliezer Yudkowsky, research fellow at SIAI, author of Creating Friendly AI
* Glenn Zorpette, executive editor of IEEE Spectrum

Online: Tune into Denver Police Scanners of DNC Protests

Listen to Police and Fire radio communications from Denver, Colorado, home of this year’s DNC, by going here.

http://co.scanamerica.us/index.php?county=Denver

http://co.scanamerica.us/index.php

McCAIN’S BIG OIL TIES —FROM IRAQ TO COLOMBIA

by Nikolas Kozloff, NACLA News

When you consider John McCain’s ties to Big Oil, the GOP candidate’s claim to be a political maverick taking on special interests is nothing short of absurd. According to Progressive Media USA, a Washington, DC-based non-profit, the Arizona Senator has benefited handily from the oil sector. Indeed, McCain has netted at least $700,000 from the oil and gas industry since 1989.

In Congress, he has worked tirelessly to advance the interests of the oil industry. For example, McCain’s tax plan gives the top five oil companies $3.8 billion a year in tax breaks. McCain meanwhile has voted against reducing dependence on foreign oil, has twice rejected windfall profits tax for Big Oil, and has voted against taxing oil companies to provide a $100 rebate to consumers. If that were not enough, McCain also made a risky political decision recently to back new offshore oil drilling in the US.

McCain, Iraq and Chevron
Moreover, oil companies that have contributed to McCain have benefited greatly in terms of their foreign operations. One might cite the case of Chevron, for example, which has donated to McCain’s cloak-and-dagger International Republican Institute (IRI). Though the Arizona Senator seldom talks about it, he has gotten much of his foreign policy experience working with the operation. Since 1993, McCain has served as chair of the outfit, which is funded by the US government and private money. The group, which receives tens of millions of taxpayer dollars each year, claims to promote democracy worldwide.

The hottest country in which IRI currently operates is Iraq. According to the IRI’s own web site, since the summer of 2003 the organization “has conducted a multi-faceted program aimed at promoting the development of democracy in Iraq. Toward this end, IRI works with political parties, indigenous civil society groups, and elected and other government officials. In support of these efforts, IRI also conducts numerous public opinion research projects and assists its Iraqi partners in the production of radio and television ads and programs.”

Prior to 2003, McCain was one of the biggest proponents of invading Iraq. Now that US forces are installed in the Middle Eastern nation, McCain wants the occupation to continue indefinitely, even for “a thousand” or “a million years.” Upon closer scrutiny, it is clear that oil companies have benefited from McCain’s hawkish Iraq policy. Though George Bush has scoffed at suggestions that the invasion of Iraq had anything to do with oil, recent press reports give some credence to such claims.

In April of this year, Chevron announced that it was involved in discussions with the Iraqi Oil Ministry to increase production in an important oil field in southern Iraq. The discussions were aimed at finalizing a two-year deal, or technical support agreement, to boost production at the West Qurna Stage 1 oil field near Basra, Iraq’s second-largest city. Since McCain solidified his position as the GOP’s nominee, Chevron Chairman David O’Reilly gave $28,500 to the GOP. Meanwhile lobbyist Wayne Berman, McCain’s national finance co-chairman, counts Chevron as one of his principal clients.

Colombia’s Oil Profile
Another war-torn country attracting McCain’s attention is Colombia. In early July, McCain took valuable time out of his presidential campaign to visit the Andean nation. Catching a fast ride on a Colombian drug interdiction boat near Cartagena, McCain praised the government for prosecuting the drug war and making “substantial and positive” progress on human rights. Contrasting himself to his presidential opponent Barack Obama, McCain endorsed the pending trade deal with the South American country.

For the most part, the US media ignores Colombia. When it does cover the Andean nation, it tends to focus on drug-related issues and cocaine production. As a result, the US public doesn’t know that Colombia is also a huge oil producer and that the US has important economic interests in this part of the world. US officials would like to guarantee a safe and steady supply of crude from neighboring countries like Venezuela and Colombia, thus lessening dependence on Middle East providers. Today, Colombia is the United States’ 12th largest foreign oil supplier (and third largest in South America after Venezuela and Ecuador) and ships 150,000 barrels of oil per day to the American market.

According to Oil and Gas Journal, Colombia had 1.45 billion barrels of proven crude oil reserves in 2007, the fifth-largest in South America. The bulk of Colombia’s crude oil production occurs in the Andes foothills and the eastern Amazonian jungles. However, vast unexplored and potentially hydrocarbon-rich territories remain in the country, which shares many of the geological features of oil-rich neighbor Venezuela.

Since 1999, Colombia’s government has undertaken extraordinary measures to make the investment climate more attractive to foreign oil companies (in this sense, Colombia differs from other South American countries which have adopted a more nationalistic oil policy). The authorities for example have allowed petroleum corporations to own 100 percent stakes in oil ventures. The government has also established a lower, sliding-scale royalty rate on oil projects, mandated longer exploration licenses and forced the state-owned oil company Ecopetrol to compete with private operators. According to the US Energy Information Administration, the measures “have contributed to creating one of the most attractive oil investment regimes in the world.”

McCain’s Colombia Ties
One firm attracted by the generous new financial terms has been Chevron, the same company that contributed to McCain’s campaigns and the IRI and which has benefited handsomely from the opening up of Iraqi fields. In association with Ecopetrol, Chevron operates the Ballena and Riohacha natural gas fields in the Guajira province of northeastern Colombia. Chevron’s total daily average production in 2007 was 469 million cubic feet of gas per day.

But McCain’s Colombia ties go much deeper than this.

As Sam Stein noted on the Huffington Post, McCain’s “position as an independent arbitrator on Colombia—a country often criticized for its labor and human rights practices—is undermined by a bevy of advisers who have earned large amounts either lobbying for the Colombia Free Trade Agreement, or representing corporations that do business with that country.”

To get a sense of the scope of McCain’s conflict of interest on Colombia one need look no farther than Charlie Black, a senior adviser to the Arizona senator. A successful 60-year-old Washington lobbyist, Black is a notorious figure within the GOP. Over the course of his career he has gained a reputation as a ruthless operator with a merciless instinct for exposing an opponent’s flaws.

Black, who enjoyed stints as campaign operator for George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, got to know John McCain in the late 1970s when the future Arizona senator worked as the Navy’s liaison to the Senate. In 1996, the pair became close while working on Senator Phil Gramm’s failed presidential bid. Today, Black is a frequent McCain campaign surrogate on television. On the trail he sits in a big swivel chair at the front of the “Straight Talk Express,” joining in McCain’s rolling news conferences.

Black’s Washington, DC public relations firm BKSH has developed a reputation for taking on foreign clients who display scant regard for human rights. In 1998, Black agreed to represent Occidental Petroleum (or Oxy), an energy company based in Los Angeles, California. At the time, the GOP spin master was surely aware of Occidental’s sordid past. In Colombia, the company had already acquired a reputation for its brutal and militaristic policies.

Charlie Black and Santo Domingo Massacre
The same year Black took on Occidental, the company was embroiled in controversy when the Colombian Air Force dropped cluster bombs on Santo Domingo, a village near an Occidental pipeline, killing 18 innocent civilians. Human rights groups and Colombian government officials said the bombing was a mistake that occurred because three employees of a Florida-based aerial security company employed by Occidental to monitor guerrilla movements had provided incorrect coordinates to Colombian military pilots.

The US employees of the security company dropped out of sight and Colombian government efforts to have them handed over for questioning and perhaps trial proved fruitless. Frustrated by the security company’s stonewalling, human rights groups filed suit in California in 2003 and 2004 against Occidental. Occidental still denies any responsibility for the bombing of Santo Domingo, and has claimed that it “has not and does not provide lethal aid to Colombia’s armed forces.”

Such affairs were apparently of little concern to Black, who lobbied Congress, the State Department, and the White House on Occidental’s behalf regarding “general energy issues” and “general trade issues” involving Colombia. McCain’s PR man also fought to win foreign assistance to Colombia and to block an economic embargo against the South American country.

Occidental and the U’wa
The Santo Domingo massacre was certainly a black mark on Occidental’s record. However, there were yet more controversies in store for the company.

Under an agreement with the Colombian government, Oxy acquired the right to explore for oil in the country’s northeast. Unfortunately, in granting Oxy its exploration permit, the government ignored a constitutional requirement that native peoples within the area be consulted first. Oxy quickly became embroiled in conflict with the indigenous U’wa, whose territory was nestled in the misty forests of northeast Colombia near the border with Venezuela.

As company geologists and engineers moved in to build roads through the indigenous reservation, so too did the Colombian army, which installed two military bases in the vicinity. It wasn’t long before the military began to harass local residents.

Known as a proud, strongly rooted people, the U’wa repeatedly denounced Occidental’s oil operation. The U’wa argued that oil exploration would threaten their people, damage the land, fill their territory with alien workers and destroy the world they knew. At one point the approximately 5,000 U’wa even threatened to commit collective suicide by leaping from a cliff unless the oil company stopped operations on their territory.

Tensions were ratcheted up when, in February 2000, Oxy began construction on its Gibraltar 1 drill site. Some 2,700 U’wa Indians, local farmers, students, and union members immediately attempted to stop Oxy’s construction. When indigenous peoples sought to prevent trucks from reaching the construction site, riot police used tear gas to break up a road blockade. Three U’wa children were drowned in a fast-flowing river as the U’wa fled the attack.

Two months later, when Oxy began to move heavy equipment and materials into the area, the U’wa again blocked local roads. While the protesters permitted other traffic to pass, they laid their bodies in front of Occidental trucks. In June, the government sent in riot police and soldiers; 28 demonstrators were subsequently injured and 33 arrested. Believing that the area might contain up to 1.5 billion barrels of oil, Occidental shortly thereafter began test drilling on U’wa ancestral lands.

Promoting Oil Development through Militarization
Even as tensions escalated within the U’wa reserve, McCain adviser Black was unperturbed. According to Atossa Soltani, executive director of Amazon Watch, a human rights group that works on behalf of Colombian indigenous groups opposed to oil drilling, Black was “very active” while Congress was debating a $1.3 billion military assistance package to Colombia that became law in 2000. “We’d be making the rounds in Congress,” Soltani said, “and Oxy would be there making the rounds, too.”

Why would Black also be so interested in trying to secure military funding for Colombia? As Oxy’s oil operations expanded, acquiring military support proved increasingly vital for the company. Oxy was part owner of the Caño Limón-Coveñas oil pipeline. The Caño Limón pipeline leads from Arauca to the Caribbean coast and crosses through the U’wa’ traditional lands. Not surprisingly, Oxy’s activities quickly attracted the attention of left-wing guerrillas who repeatedly blew up the pipeline. The attacks caused more than $500 million in losses to the company between December 1999 and December 2000.

The U’wa had long feared that oil exploration would bring bloodshed and conflict within their ancestral lands.

And as it turned out, the Indians were right.

Soon enough, Colombia’s wider civil conflict began to spill over into U’wa traditional territory. In March 1999, three U’wa supporters from the United States—Terence Freitas, Ingrid Washinawotok, and Laheehae Gay—were kidnapped and killed by FARC guerrillas in the department of Arauca.

While it’s unclear whether Oxy had any direct involvement in the killings, the company is known to have had links to the guerrillas. In testimony given before a Congressional subcommittee, Lawrence Meriage, Oxy’s vice president for communication and public affairs, acknowledged that Occidental personnel regularly paid off guerrillas in exchange for being left alone.

Meriage also claimed during the hearing that one benefit of Occidental operations in the U’wa region had been the increased presence of government troops. Indeed, Oxy paid a fee to the Colombian government on every barrel of oil produced. Meriage said that Occidental supported increased US military assistance to Colombia, and even urged the United States to expand its military operations in Colombia

In an effort to expand military funding to Colombia, the company spent nearly $4 million lobbying Congress in Washington. The investment paid off when the US government agreed to provide military aid, equipment and training to the 18th Brigade in Arauca, a unit which had been involved in grave human rights violations including attacks against trade unions and other members of civil society.

In May 2002, following a massive outcry by environmental groups, Oxy finally announced that it would return its controversial oil block to the Colombian government. Nevertheless, the company continued to operate in Colombia. Currently, the oil firm occupies the Caño-Limón oil field located in the Llanos Basin in the northeastern part of the country. The company also holds a 35 percent interest in the Caricare field and has signed a production agreement with Ecopetrol to operate the La Cira-Infantas field in central Colombia.

Although Oxy’s Caño-Limón field has yielded hundreds of million dollars annually in profits, the pipeline has been an ongoing target for guerrilla forces. In 2007, Occidental again found itself in the midst of a human-rights mess. This time, the company was accused in congressional testimony of being “complicit”—with several other major corporations—in the murder of three labor leaders.

Hopelessly Compromised on Colombia
Despite these ominous developments, Black continued his lobbying efforts over at BKSH. Over the long haul the PR man’s loyalty to Occidental proved enormously lucrative, with Black netting $1.6 million in fees for BKSH from 2001 to 2007. Occidental was surely pleased with Black’s work: in 2003, Congress approved a special appropriation of nearly $100 million for the protection of oil pipelines in Colombia.

McCain’s aides have repeatedly argued that the senator’s presidential campaign does not have direct connections to companies represented by such advisers as Black. The Arizona senator’s handlers assert that McCain should not be held accountable for any company misdeeds nor should the public presume that McCain is unduly influenced by corporate interests.

Granted, McCain may claim that there is a degree of separation between Charlie Black and himself. There are several problems with this argument however.

To begin with McCain appointed Black to his position, which speaks volumes about McCain’s political priorities. In the second place, the Senator has a personal connection to Oxy through Ray Irani, Occidental’s chief executive. In 2008, Irani doled out $2,800 to McCain’s presidential campaign and a full $25,000 to the Republican National Committee. Irani could easily afford the donation: in 2007 he was the tenth highest paid CEO in the United States, raking in a whopping $34.2 million from Occidental.

Throughout his political career, McCain has protected Big Oil on Capitol Hill. The Arizona Senator has eagerly accepted Chevron and Occidental money to ensure his own success. The oil lobby, which is surely hoping for a McCain win come November, can count on its man to ensure a healthy “investment climate” in Iraq and Colombia. If anyone happens to interfere with petroleum investment, warrior President McCain can be relied upon to back up US oil operations with the full might and resources of the US military.

—-

Nikolas Kozloff is the author of Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New Left (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2008).

This story first appeared July 8 on NACLA News.

RESOURCES

McCain Source, Progressive Media USA
http://mccainsource.com/

Colombia page, Energy Information Administration, US Department of Energy
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/Colombia/Oil.html

McCain Heads to Colombia, Already Tied to Country by Lobbyists
by Sam Stein, Huffington Post, July 1
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/01/mccain-heads-to-colombia_n_110108.html?page=2

“A Million Years in Iraq”—President McCain’s Dangerous Recruiting Poster for Insurgents
by Jon Soltz, Huffington Post, Jan. 4
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jon-soltz/a-million-years-in-iraq_b_79798.html

BKSH & Associates
http://www.bksh.com/

International Republican Institute
http://www.iri.org/

Destabilizing Haiti
New York Times editorial on the IRI, Feb. 3, 2006
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/02/03/opinion/edhaiti.php

United Steelworkers press release on Occidental Petroleum complicity with human rights abuses in Colombia
July 22, 2008
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=PRNI2&STORY=/www/story/07-22-2008/0004853487&EDATE=

See also:

OBAMA AND THE SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS
from Weekly News Update on the Americas
World War 4 Report, July 2008
http://ww4report.com/node/5716

From our Daily Report:

FCC probe of Haiti telcom deal hits McCain backer
WW4 Report, July 29, 2008
http://ww4report.com/node/5832

——————-

Reprinted by World War 4 Report, Aug. 1, 2008
Reprinting permissible with attribution

Fringe ‘Space Marines’ Idea Gets First Official Meeting

Danger Room:

Seven years ago in the Pentagon cafeteria, two sci-fi-loving Marines shared a vision: to build a Space Shuttle-like “spaceplane” that could “to instantaneously deliver Marine squads anywhere on Earth.” The two Marines, Roosevelt Lafontant and Franz Gayl, and their mildly crazy idea were the subjects of my Popular Science cover story from last year. “The whole idea still rings of science fiction, and the question is whether its proponents can corral the various technologies together to make the project possible,” I wrote.

But now the so-called Small Unit Space Transport and Insertion, or Sustain, has taken a step towards reality. Joe Rouge, director of the National Security Space Office, has scheduled the first official meeting to define Sustain’s Concept of Operations:

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The Small Unit Space Transport and Insertion (SUSTAIN) capability is a potential revolutionary step in getting combat power to any point in the world in a timeframe unachievable today. The National Security Space Office (NSSO) is pleased to host a conference focusing on SUSTAIN employment options. …

The draft CONOPS responds to Service and Joint needs as well as to guidance regarding manned DoD spaceflight within the National Security Space Plan (NSSP). The CONOPS will serve to lay the foundation for a follow-on Technology Roadmap, also outlined in the NSSP, and the finalization of a SUSTAIN Initial Capabilities Document (ICD).

If that sounds to you like a lot of bureaucratic gobbledygook, you’re not alone. But every serious weapons development starts with meetings, reports and bureaucracy. For fans of future Space Marines, this is good news.

(Art: PopSci)

Electronic binoculars from Northrop Grumman team to detect threats through brain activity

Dandelion Salad

Military & Aerospace Electronics
23 Aug. 2008

LINTHICUM, Md., 23 Aug. 2008. Everyone who has ever watched the Star Wars films from George Lucas has probably at one moment wished they had Jedi abilities such as mind control or what Lucas called Jedi reflexes – knowing something will happen a second before it does.

A team led by Northrop Grumman’s Electronic Systems Sector is looking to bring a similar threat detection capability to warfighters as part of an advanced research contract to develop a panoramic day/night optical system that will utilize human brain activity to detect, analyze, and alert foot-soldiers to possible threats.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), in Arlington, Va., awarded the contract, which is for the first phase of the Cognitive Technology Threat Warning System program, or CT2WS.

DARPA officials say the CT2WS will function as an intelligent neuro-optical system, using the stimuli sensed by brain activity to detect targets at long-range over a wide field of view.

[...]

Electronic binoculars from Northrop Grumman team to detect threats through brain activity – Military & Aerospace Electronics.

h/t: CLG

Anxious Governments React to Google Earth

Secrecy News:

The easy availability of high-resolution imagery of much of the Earth’s surface through Google Earth has presented a significant challenge to longstanding secrecy and national security policies, and has produced several distinct types of reactions from concerned governments, according to a recent report (pdf) from the DNI Open Source Center (OSC).

“As the initial shock wore off, five main responses to the ‘Google threat’ emerged from nations around the world: negotiations with Google, banning Google products, developing a similar product, taking evasive measures, and nonchalance,” the OSC report said.

The report documents these responses with citations to published news sources. It also notes several incidents in which terrorists or irregular military forces reportedly used Google Earth to plan or conduct attacks.

The OSC report has not been approved for public release, but a copy was obtained by Secrecy News. See “The Google Controversy — Two Years Later,” Open Source Center, 30 July 2008.

Further background on the impact of commercial satellite imagery may be found in “Can You Spot the Chinese Nuclear Sub?” by Sharon Weinberger, Discover, August 2008.

Due to government restrictions, lawsuits or other arrangements with Google, quite a few locations have been excluded from detailed coverage in Google Earth. Many of these were identified in “Blurred Out: 51 Things You Aren’t Allowed to See on Google Maps,” IT Security, July 15, 2008.

Both articles were cited by the OSC in its new report.

Dennis Kucinich sells out and endorses Obama and the DNC

CLICK FOR VIDEO

CONVENTION SPEECH VIDEO

That’s too bad. He’s endorsing the same party and puppet that snubbed and smeared him on the campaign trail, as well as in his House efforts such as hitting a brick wall of Democrats preventing him from impeaching BushCo.

Note the “Democratic” party and Obama are controlled by the same Ruling Establishment as the GOP and McCain. It’s all a stage and either Dennis doesn’t get it, or he’s lost his spine. You’d think Denny would cut his losses and head over to one of the independent liberal parties, such as the Green Party. Quite frankly, as Ron paul has little place in the modern “Republican” party, in truth there’s hardly much difference between the modern NeoLiberal “Democrats” anf the NeoConservative “Republican” parties.

Lost a lot of respect for DK this time.

How dare he say “Wake Up America”!

ACLU: DNC Protesters Arrested, Shackled, Denied Attorneys, Forced To Plead Guilty

Denver police used pre-printed forms to issue charges, misled arrestees

Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Thursday, August 28, 2008

The ACLU has accused the Denver Police Department of violating the constitutional rights of protesters arrested in the vicinity of the Democratic National Convention by denying them access to lawyers, forcing them to plead guilty to inappropriate charges and placing some of them in leg shackles.

The charges are detailed in a letter (Click here for PDF) which at time of writing is yet to appear on the website of ACLU Colorado but has been obtained by alternative news website Raw Story.

The letter summarizes how basic facts of law and criminal justice were either ignored or turned on their head by the police in the absence of legal counsel for arrestees, itself a violation of the Constitution.

The ACLU alleges that police effectively forced some protesters into pleading guilty, by tricking them into believing they had to do so in order to post bond and gain access to a phone call.

In addition it is thought that some arrestees were led to believe that only they could post bond, rather than having a third party do it on their behalf.

“This meant that no one was allowed to make a phone call unless they plead guilty, thus making it impossible for arrestees to even call a lawyer until admitting guilt.” Raw Story writer John Byrne comments.

Furthermore, the letter charges that some of those in custody were told that pleading not guilty would result in a “double sentence” if convicted.

FULL ARTICLE AT INFOWARS.NET

ABC Reporter Arrested in Denver Taking Pictures of Senators, Big Donors

BRIAN ROSS
ABC News
August 27, 2008

DENVER–Police in Denver arrested an ABC News producer today as he and a camera crew were attempting to take pictures on a public sidewalk of Democratic Senators and VIP donors leaving a private meeting at the Brown Palace Hotel.

A police official later told lawyers for ABC News that Eslocker is being charged with trespass, interference, and failure to follow a lawful order. He also said the arrest followed a signed complaint from the Brown Palace Hotel.

Eslocker was put in handcuffs and loaded in the back of a police van which headed for a nearby police station.

Video taken at the scene shows a man, wearing the uniform of a Boulder County sheriff, ordering Eslocker off the sidewalk in front of the hotel, to the side of the entrance.

The sheriff’s officer is seen telling Eslocker the sidewalk is owned by the hotel. Later he is seen pushing Eslocker off the sidewalk into oncoming traffic, forcing him to the other side of the street.

Read article

U.S., Russian Ships Square Off in Black Sea

Ian Traynor
The Guardian
August 27, 2008

US and Russian warships took up positions in the Black Sea today in a risky war of nerves on opposing sides of the Georgia conflict.

With the Russians effectively controlling Georgia’s main naval base of Poti, Moscow also dispatched the Moskva missile cruiser and two smaller craft on “peacekeeping” duties at the port of Sukhumi on the coast of Abkhazia, the breakaway region that the Kremlin recognised as independent yesterday.

The Americans, wary of escalating an already fraught situation, cancelled the scheduled docking in Poti of the US Coast Guard vessel, the Dallas, and instead sent it to the southern Georgian-controlled port of Batumi, 200km (124 miles) from the Russian ships, where it delivered humanitarian aid.

“Let’s hope we don’t see any direct confrontation,” said Dmitri Peskov, the spokesman for the Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin, as the Russians challenged the US policy of using military aircraft and ships to deliver relief supplies.

Read article

Police State Thug Clocks Code Pink at DNC Convention

When Alicia began to tell the media what happened – in still another questionable act – the sheriff grabbed her, collared her gruffly, whisked her off the premises, and arrested her. Watch the video to get a taste of what is coming.

Military help for Georgia is a ‘declaration of war’, says Moscow in extraordinary warning to the West

thisislondon.co.uk:

Moscow has issued an extraordinary warning to the West that military assistance to Georgia for use against South Ossetia or Abkhazia would be viewed as a “declaration of war” by Russia.

The extreme rhetoric from the Kremlin’s envoy to NATO came as President Dmitry Medvedev stressed he will make a military response to US missile defence installations in eastern Europe, sending new shudders across countries whose people were once blighted by the Iron Curtain.

And Moscow also emphasised it was closely monitoring what it claims is a build-up of NATO firepower in the Black Sea.

Enlarge

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev (right) meets with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin – the ‘real architect’ of the Georgia conflict – and the Security Council (unseen) in Sochi yesterday

The incendiary warning on Western military involvement in Georgia – where NATO nations have long played a role in training and equipping the small state – came in an interview with Dmitry Rogozin, a former nationalist politician who is now ambassador to the North Atlantic Alliance.

“If NATO suddenly takes military actions against Abkhazia and South Ossetia, acting solely in support of Tbilisi, this will mean a declaration of war on Russia,” he stated.

Yesterday likened the current world crisis to the fevered atmosphere before the start of the First World War.

Rogozin said he did not believe the crisis would descend to war between the West and Russia.

But his use of such intemperate language will be seen as dowsing a fire with petrol.

Enlarge

The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Dallas at Georgia’s Black Sea port of Batumi today, carrying what the U.S. says is humanitarian aid

Top military figure Colonel General Leonid Ivashov, president of the Academy of Geopolitical Studies in Moscow, alleged that the US and NATO had been arming Georgia as a dress rehearsal for a future military operation in Iran.

“We are close to a serious conflict – U.S. and NATO preparations on a strategic scale are ongoing. In the operation the West conducted on Georgian soil against Russia – South Ossetians were the victims or hostages of it – we can see a rehearsal for an attack on Iran.”

He claimed Washington was fine tuning a new type of warfare and that the threat of an attack on Iran was growing by the day bringing “chaos and instability” in its wake.

With the real architect of the worsening Georgian conflict – prime minister Vladimir Putin – remaining in the background, Medvedev followed up on Rogozin’s broadside with a threat to use the Russian military machine to respond to the deployment of the American anti-missile defence system in Poland and the Czech republic.

Poland agreed this month to place ten interceptor missiles on its territory, and Moscow has already hinted it would become a nuclear target for Russia in the event of conflict.

Enlarge

A South Ossetian separatist fighter prepares to fire his weapon as another raises the South Ossetian and Russian flags, in Tskhinvali, the capital of Georgia’s separatist-controlled territory of South Ossetia yesterday

“These missiles are close to our borders and constitute a threat to us,” Medvedev told Al-Jazeera television. “This will create additional tension and we will have to respond to it in some way, naturally using military means.”

The Russian president said that offering NATO membership to Georgia and Ukraine, two former Soviet republics, would only aggravate the situation.

Moscow has consistently expressed its opposition to the U.S. missile shield, saying it threatens its national security.

The U.S. claims the shield is designed to thwart missile attacks by what it calls “rogue states,” including Iran.

Meanwhile, Russia – seen by the West as flouting international law – today demanded NATO abide by an obscure agreement signed before the Second World War limiting its warships in the Black Sea.

Russian ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin

“In light of the build-up of NATO naval forces in the Black Sea, our fleet has also taken on the task of monitoring their activities,” said hawkish deputy head of Russia’s general staff, Anatoly Nogovitsyn.

The Montreux Convention, as it is called, sets a weight restriction of 45,000 tonnes on the number of warships that countries outside the Black Sea region can deploy in the basin.

“Can NATO indefinitely build up its forces and means there? It turns out it cannot,” said Nogovitsyn.

NATO has said it is undertaking pre-arranged exercises in the Black Sea involving US, German, Spanish and Polish ships. Two other US warships sailed to Georgian waters with humanitarian aid.

Georgia is poised to sever diplomatic relations with Russia, or reduce them to a bare minimum.

“We will drastically cut our diplomatic ties with Russia,” said a top official.

President Mikhail Saakashvili said he was frightened to leave Georgia to attend the EU summit on the crisis.

“If I leave Georgia, the Russians will close our airspace and prevent me from returning home,” he said.

Russia sought Chinese backing for its action – but the Communist regime in Beijing appeared reluctant to offer support, instead issuing a statement saying it was “concerned” about recent developments.

NATO called for Russia to reverse its decision on recognition for the two enclaves, both Georgian under international law.

But the new ‘president’ of South Ossetia, Eduard Kokoyty, called for Russian military bases on his territory.

French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner warned today that an marauding Russian bear could trample over other ex-Soviet states.

“That is very dangerous,” he said, pointing at Ukraine and Moldova.

Biden’s Record Is Inconsistent On Cyber-Rights Issues

Information Week:
Posted by Mitch Wagner, Aug 28, 2008

Joe Biden has a mixed record on privacy and Internet civil liberties issues. He often votes with the FBI and media companies against consumers and citizens. He sponsored legislation designed to make it illegal to circumvent copy-protection — even on content and devices you legally own. He also sought to weaken encryption, and introduce a bill like the controversial PATRIOT Act long before 9/11. But in other areas he’s defended privacy and cyber-rights.

Days after Barack Obama named Biden as his pick for VP, political and technology bloggers examined Biden’s record and found no clear trend. On some issues he votes with big government and big business. Other times, he stands up for privacy.

Biden sponsored a bill in 2002 that would make it a felony to hack some devices into playing unauthorized music or executing unapproved computer programs, according to CNET’s Declan McCullagh. The legislation had the backing of media companies including News Corp., but died when Verizon, Microsoft, Apple, eBay, and Yahoo lobbied against it.

McCullagh writes:

A few months later, Biden signed a letter that urged the Justice Department “to prosecute individuals who intentionally allow mass copying from their computer over peer-to-peer networks.” Critics of this approach said that the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America, and not taxpayers, should pay for their own lawsuits.Last year, Biden sponsored an RIAA-backed bill called the Perform Act aimed at restricting Americans’ ability to record and play back individual songs from satellite and Internet radio services. (The RIAA sued XM Satellite Radio over precisely this point.)

All of which meant that nobody in Washington was surprised when Biden was one of only four U.S. senators invited to a champagne reception in celebration of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act hosted by the MPAA’s Jack Valenti, the RIAA, and the Business Software Alliance. (Photos are here.)

Biden was chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and introduced the Comprehensive Counter-Terrorism Act in the 90s, requiring carriers of encrypted communications to turn the keys over to law enforcement, according to McCullagh.

Biden’s bill spurred Philip Zimmerman to invent the PGP algorithm and publish it for free, McCullagh notes.

However, Zimmerman defends Biden. “Declan seems to be trying to draft me in his opposition to Biden, and, by extension, makes it seem as if I am against the Democratic ticket. I take issue with this,” Zimmerman wrote Tuesday on Slashdot.

When someone serves in the Senate for 30 years, we have to judge them by their whole body of work. Much has happened since 1991. I don’t know what Biden’s position would be today on the issue of encryption, but I would imagine it has changed, because I can’t think of any politicians today who would try to roll back our hard-won gains in our right to use strong crypto. In fact, considering the disastrous erosion in our privacy and civil liberties under the current administration, I feel positively nostalgic about Biden’s quaint little non-binding resolution of 1991.

The Comprehensive Counter-Terrroism act was defeated, but Biden followed up with the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement (ACT), which became law in 1994, says McCullagh.

The next year, months before the Oklahoma City bombing took place, Biden introduced another bill called the Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995. It previewed the 2001 Patriot Act by allowing secret evidence to be used in prosecutions, expanding the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and wiretap laws, creating a new federal crime of “terrorism” that could be invoked based on political beliefs, permitting the U.S. military to be used in civilian law enforcement, and allowing permanent detection of non-U.S. citizens without judicial review.

But Biden hasn’t always sided with the government and media companies on cyber-rights issues, according to Sarah Lai Stirland, writing on Wired.

Biden, a 30-plus-year veteran of the senate, has been a strong supporter of civil liberties. Most recently, he diverged from Obama’s position when he voted in July against a controversial bill that legalized President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program. The legislation also provided legal immunity to the telecommunications providers subjected to dozens of lawsuits for participating in the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program.And during the fall 2005 senate confirmation hearings for Supreme
Court Chief Justice John Roberts, Biden grilled Roberts in his views of privacy in the high-tech age — an issue Biden said was of equal importance to Roe v. Wade.

In other issues, not so directly related to technology, Biden sided with expanding government authority, writes J.D. Tuccille on the Civil Liberties Examiner. He scores an F from the NRA on gun-control issues, and sponsored harmful drug war legislation including expanding RICO and asset forfeiture laws. He sponsored the RAVE Act, which makes sponsors of events liable if attendees consume illegal drugs.

Tuccille concludes:

Overall, I think that Biden is good on privacy issues — when he’s opposing intrusive proposals originating in a White House held by the other party. As a check on the Bush administration’s surveillance agenda and its violation of due process guarantees, Joe Biden can be a valuable ally of individual freedom against state power. On other issues, and as a member of a ruling majority, the almost-vice-president is no reliable friend of liberty.

And speaking of friends of liberty: On the same day that Democrats were endorsing Obama and Biden as their presidential ticket, ABC News reporters were arrested Wednesday attempting to take pictures from a public sidewalk of Democratic Senators exiting a private meeting with fat-cat donors.

Group Protests Army Video Game Recruitment Tools

Video Game produced by Army to entice children into enlisting

Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Friday, August 8, 2008

An anti-war group protested the offices of video game maker Ubisoft in San Francisco yesterday to bring attention to the company’s ongoing work with the U.S. Army on “America’s Army“, a video game that has been developed specifically to increase the number of Army recruits.

In the absence of a military draft the Army has turned to technological propaganda to meet it’s recruitment targets.

The game immerses players in basic training before they can go on to play specialized combat roles. Players travel through Middle East settings using weapons that replicate those used by the US army.

The United States Army and the Modeling, Virtual Environments and Simulation Institute has stated of the game that “The Department of Defense want[ed] to double the number of Special Forces Soldiers, so essential did they prove in Afghanistan and northern Iraq; consequently, orders … trickled down the chain of command and found application in the current release of ‘America’s Army.’”

Since its release, the game has “recruited” over 30,000 players everyday. It now has more than nine million registered users, and a new version is due to be launched next month.

Watch video of the protest: CLICK

Commentator Michael B. Reagan recently penned an excellent piece exposing the game as not only a fierce form of propaganda but also as a violation of international law:

Beyond its recruitment goals, the game serves as a training device for both military tactics and weapons, and to condition players for battlefield operations. To this end, “America’s Army” game assignments are designed to simulate real world battlefield missions. For example in one mission, “Special Forces fight alongside Indigenous Forces they have trained. For this mission, [players] must rescue and escort a wounded resistance leader who’s escaped to a neutral hospital for treatment – or hinder the escape of a wounded enemy courier, depending which side you’re on.” Missions like this shadow real world military actions such as the November 2004 seizure of a Fallujah hospital, a blatant violation of international law.

[...]

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has found that Army use of the game, and its recruiting practice in general, violate international law. In May, the ACLU published a report that found the armed services “regularly target children under 17 for military recruitment. Department of Defense instruction to recruiters, the US military’s collection of information of hundreds of thousands of 16-year-olds, and military training corps for children as young as 11 reveal that students are targeted for recruitment as early as possible. By exposing children under 17 to military recruitment, the United States military violates the Optional Protocol.” The Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, ratified by the Senate in December 2002, protects the rights of children under 16 from military recruitment and deployment to war.

Furthermore, “America’s Army” is not the only video game the army has produced in an effort to vamp up recruitment. A piece in The Wall Street Journal recently highlighted the fact that the Army has been touring an exhibit known as The Virtual Army Experience for the past year and a half. This giant videogame, currently stopping at amusement parks, air shows and county fairs, has been in production since 1999 when the Army fell short of recruitment goals.

Spokesman for the U.S. Army Recruiting Command, Douglas Smith, admits that the game is a recruitment tool stating “parents are less likely to encourage their children to consider military service”.

Col. Casey Wardynski, director of the Army’s Office of Economic and Manpower Analysis at West Point has also described the game as a tool to capture the public interest and “an opportunity to shape their tastes”.

Of course, the graphic horror of war is completely absent in both video games. Being hit by a bullet translates into a red puff of mist on the screen and soldiers regenerate once they have been killed.

Click for second video.

First Space Espionage GPS Satellite Launched

Space War
RIA Novosti
by Andrei Kislyakov
RIA Novosti political commentator
Moscow (RIA Novosti) Aug 21, 2008

Replacements are expected to take place soon in the “space spy community”. Yet another American GPS (Global Positioning System) Navstar satellite will be launched into the low earth orbit in autumn.

It might seem an ordinary event, had it not been for this satellite being equipped with a platform for intelligence equipment. A purely navigational GPS has turned into an advanced intelligence system, appropriate for a variety of special tasks.

Military experts expect the world’s major powers to spend as much as $30.6 billion for intelligence satellite programs in the next decade. By that time, around one hundred military satellites of various types will be orbiting earth.

Intelligence satellite constellations, including imagery intelligence (optic and electronic, and radar intelligence), electronic surveillance, military communications, and space navigation satellites are packed with the following capabilities:

- early warning of a nuclear missile attack;

- timely detection of preparations for and start of hostilities,

- sustained communication and combat control in the interest of the state leadership, strategic nuclear forces, and other branches and services;

- navigational, hydro-meteorological support, cartographic survey support, time and frequency support for the armed forces.

The U.S. possesses the most powerful space intelligence network, having launched over 500 satellites by now. The Key Hole imagery intelligence satellites, also codenamed Big Bird, are the heart of the U.S. space intelligence system.

The first of the series, the KH-9, was deployed in 1971. Now these “birds”, weighing up to 15 tons, provide coverage of nearly all the Earth’s surface. One of these satellites was given a special assignment in 2001 to track down Bin Laden in Afghanistan.

Nevertheless, the further operation of “Big Birds” is at risk. The Misty program, launched by Boeing and Lockheed Martin and aimed at the creation of advanced imagery intelligence satellites, has already consumed $7.6 billion with no significant results.

In late winter last year, a U.S. Navy cruiser fired a missile and shot down the malfunctioning satellite USA-193, which, military experts believe, could be the latest KH-14. In September 2007, a transitional model of Key Hole, the KH-12-4, which was a prototype of the KH-13 series, fell to earth in Peru.

In Russia, the fate of the intelligence satellite program is inseparable from the fate of the national space program. There was a great decline between the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. By 2005, only one Russian electronic reconnaissance satellite was in orbit, compared to 12 American satellites, surveying Russia’s territory.

Currently Russia has almost nothing to match the Big Bird. In November 2006 and August 2007, optical reconnaissance satellites ceased operation.

Still, there’s no need to panic.

In late July this year, a Persona optical reconnaissance satellite was placed into orbit. It is a modern intelligence space vehicle, able to transmit images via a radio channel. Russia’s Defense Ministry plans to launch two Persona satellites a year, starting with 2009.

Moreover, in late January, Vladimir Popovkin, who was in charge of Russia’s Space Force at that time, said a new domestic-made satellite will be launched next year to retransmit signals from Russian intelligence space vehicles to ground centers.

It will have a lifetime of 12 years, while the satellites currently in service operate a maximum of three years.