Category Archives: War

Chinese and Russian espionage? (Updated)

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In the news today,  intelligence officials seem to have found evidence of Chinese/Russians mapping US infrastructure:

“The Chinese have attempted to map our infrastructure, such as the electrical grid,” a senior intelligence official told the Journal. “So have the Russians.”

The espionage appeared pervasive across the United States and does not target a particular company or region, said a former Department of Homeland Security official.

“There are intrusions, and they are growing,” the former official told the paper, referring to electrical systems. “There were a lot last year.”

The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama was not immediately available for comment on the newspaper report.

Authorities investigating the intrusions have found software tools left behind that could be used to destroy infrastructure components, the senior intelligence official said. He added, “If we go to war with them, they will try to turn them on.”

Officials said water, sewage and other infrastructure systems also were at risk.

Protecting the electrical grid and other infrastructure is a key part of the Obama administration’s cybersecurity review, which is to be completed next week.

The sophistication of the U.S. intrusions, which extend beyond electric to other key infrastructure systems, suggests that China and Russia are mainly responsible, according to intelligence officials and cybersecurity specialists…..”

More here at Reuters.

My Comment

I am not sure what these “software tools” left behind  were……and where they were left behind.

Since Homeland Security is a pervasive umbrella bureaucracy, it could refer to any part of government at any level.

Now, which companies are responsible for Homeland Security software and intelligence gathering?  See below for information on CACI.

Notice also that intelligence is no longer afraid of any terrorists being behind this threat. They wouldn’t have the sophistication, say officials.

Oh really? But we’ve been orange and red-alerted for the past eight years about just that threat, haven’t we? And somehow, these same not competent terrorists managed to pull off 9-11, didn’t they? And elude  the mighty forces of the US for years….despite our  dominance in global electronic surveillance technology…

But now, suddenly, officials know right off the bat that terrorist couldn’t be behind this.  Anyone else find that reasoning a bit suspect?

Please note, the officials who gave this information are not named in the piece.  Would help if we could find out who these unnamed intelligence people and cyber-security experts are.

 Update:

One of the most important, if not the most important, company involved in Homeland Security is CACI, a company I wrote about in LOE (it’s in the section that was cut out).

CACI’s chairman, Jack London, recently (March 24, 2009) addressed a symposium on asymmetric threats to US and Global Security in Arlington Virginia. His remarks included the following useful reference:

“Harvard professor, Joseph Nye, the man behind the term “soft power,” along with former deputy Secretary of State – and former CACI board member – Richard Armitage, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last year: “Smart Power is a framework for guiding the development of an integrated strategy, resource base and tool kit to achieve U.S. objectives, drawing on both hard and soft power.”

From the section cut out of LOE (this part completed around early 2005)

“We can monitor the entire globe,” says CACI’s CEO Jack London (21)

The depth of this penetration of government is not limited to telecommunications and intelligence. CACI also handles the Federal Aviation Administration’s global administrative-data network and runs a system for the Justice Department that lets lawyers pick through millions of documents for what they need. In July 2004 Transportation Services Administration, the villain of the pat-down searches abuse and an agency of Homeland Security, also became a new client. CACI’s  “Knowledge Management” systems capture and convert data to digital format, publish on the internet, manage the Freedom of Information Act process and declassification, electronic information distribution, and related services for the entire Department of Justice (including the FBI, Tax, Drug Enforcement, and Immigration & Naturalization) Defense, Transportation, DHS Customs and Border Protection, and the Environmental Protection Agency, computer and interrogation services to the Defense Department, and other agencies. (22)

CACI is thus at the heart not only of military intelligence, but of internal security, internet technology, air transportation, and law enforcement at home. It encompasses the most vital powers of the state in an octopus-like penetration of populations abroad and at home.

The nerve center of this octopus coincides with power centers and power brokers in Tel Aviv and Washington….”

See also, this piece from December 2005, on CACI’s involvement in disinformation and what’s been called Defense Support for Public Diplomacy, a blending of diplomacy, information ops and psyops.

Now, from my previous posts, you know I believe that our dear leaders are cornered and that the end game is about to roll out. What could that be? Keep temporizing while grabbing more power, use the power to hide how much has been lost and by whom, whistle cheerfully and twist as many arms as possible to keep the vaudeville act going, meanwhile start fanning public anger against everyone possible, from random rich people, CEO’s, bonus recipients, immigrants, China, Russia, terrorists, socialists, communists, anyone in fact other than the specific group of financiers, regulators and politicians whose finger prints are on this mess.  At some point, should things get bad enough, war  will be declared. For further support for this take, check Jake Towne’s very detailed analysis of why the stimulus money just isn’t enough to do anything (with which I agree, in the sense that this isn’t a problem that can be fixed…however, I disagree that it won’t cause inflation – it will, eventually) and why war might be the avenue out.

March Madness in 2009….and in 1939

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From a recent piece at Lew Rockwell,  Nightmare on Wall Street

March Madness

Insurance giant AIG, already rescued by the public, comes back for more. The bill now totals almost $200 billion, nearly half of which goes to foreign banks, including the very banks that shaped government policy on the bank bail-out, a criminal conflict of interest.

  1. China and the US face off over US surveillance in Chinese waters, as well as over Chinese currency pegging
  2. The Bernie Madoff investigation reveals that family and friends of the ex-Nasdaq chief connived in his fraud, which prosecutors charge, has been going on since the 1980s. Money-laundering through an English bank is part of it.
  3. After three rescues, Citigroup ends up trading at around $1 and needing another round of government aid. That brings the government’s total commitment to Citi to over $300 billion.
  4. Net capital flows to the US turn negative, auto sales fall sharply, and pension-funding shortfalls are destroying company balance sheets.
  5. The Fed Reserve commits to buy $300 billion in Treasuries (creating $1 trillion in new money). The bond market reacts positively. But, in what seems like a warning from the other side of the Atlantic, when the Bank of England tries to auction British bonds, it fails to find enough buyers for the first time in seven years. The market is signaling its belief that the UK government is effectively bankrupt.
  6. Upward pressure on LIBOR, the London interbank offer rate, continues relentlessly. This is a measure of the willingness of banks to lend to each other and it’s showing severe credit market stress…..

*******

and,

“As reports about the AIG deal circulate and stir up public anger, the USNS Impeccable, a survey ship (read, spy-ship) faces off with Chinese ships in what the US claims are international waters off Hainan island. But the encounter is also within 200 miles of the Chinese coast, a zone China considers its exclusive economic zone. Hainan is also a key strategic base in the South China Sea and the location of China’s biggest submarine base. This comes just days after US military talks with China resume.

The US claims it’s a Chinese provocation, although it’s hard to believe that a Chinese spy ship snooping around Americans coasts would be greeted with brotherly love. It seems more likely to be a US provocation.

Notice that the incident reinforces Barack Obama’s provocative warnings to the Chinese about currency manipulation during the presidential campaign. Obama was apparently playing to the part of his base that is China-hawkish and protectionist. Notice that this is also a neo-conservative position, as human rights interventionists (let’s call them liberventionists) would like to see a tougher US posture in places like China and Darfur.

In short, the big government wing in both parties likes the “Chinese currency manipulation” motif……”

And in a recent piece at Lew Rockwell and Human Events,  Pat Buchanan writes:

 March Madness in 1939

“Made a fool of by Hitler, baited by his backbenchers, goaded by Lord Halifax, facing a vote of no confidence, on March 31, 1939, Chamberlain made the greatest blunder in British diplomatic history. He handed an unsolicited war guarantee to the Polish colonels who had just bitten off a chunk of Czechoslovakia. Lunacy, raged Lloyd George, who was echoed by British leaders and almost every historian since.

With the British Empire behind it, Warsaw now refused even to discuss a return of Danzig, the Baltic town, 95 percent German, which even Chamberlain thought should be returned.

Hitler did not want a war with Poland. Had he wanted war, he would have demanded the return of the entire Polish Corridor taken from Germany in 1919. He wanted Danzig back and Poland as an ally in his anti-Comintern Pact. Nor did he want war with a Britain he admired and always saw as a natural ally.

Nor did he want war with France, or he would have demanded the return of Alsace.

But Hitler was out on a limb with Danzig and could not crawl back.

Repeatedly, Hitler tried to negotiate Danzig. Repeatedly, the Poles rebuffed him. Seeing the Allies courting Josef Stalin, Hitler decided to cut his own deal with the detested Bolsheviks and settle the Polish issue by force.

Though Britain had no plans to aid Poland, no intention of aiding Poland and would do nothing to aid Poland – Churchill would cede half that nation to Stalin and the other half to Stalin’s stooges – Britain declared war for Poland.

The most awful war in all of history followed, which would bankrupt Britain, bring down her empire and bring Stalin’s Red Army into Prague, Berlin and Vienna. But Hitler was dead and Germany in ashes….”

My Comment

In an earlier piece,  Nationalization In a Time of Monopoly, I noted the ominous end game in which we’re finding ourselves:

“First, it [the state] creates debt everywhere until the capital base of the economy is destroyed and production is in tatters. Banks become bankrupt, except for those that have government connections and can consolidate. The monopolies have nothing to restrain their anti-market behavior and push their own agendas in concert with the state. With no limit to cheap credit, the money supply swells. Workers can no longer keep up with inflation. The lopsided development of the state sector crushes savings and production in the remainder of the economy. Jobs dwindle.

To supplement them, the corporate-state creates make-work programs on the domestic front. When bad times and discontent persist, it looks abroad.

Then comes war.

That is where nationalization in a time of monopoly will take us.” (Lew Rockwell, March, 2009)

*******

That warning cannot be emphasize enough. We meddle further at our own peril.
Beware any further ceding of power to the government.

Before any more doing  –  undo, undo, undo.

Or , as Buchanan shows in his gripping time-line, when this end game rolls out, we will find that even countries that do not want war with us now,  will be forced into it.

Greenspan Eggs On World War IV: China Versus US

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Some more blows in the ongoing World War IV, known as the War on Terror to the masses. WW IV was always about the perception of the US (and the Anglosphere in general) that the growing economies of China, and to a lesser extent India, posed a threat to access to world resources. The War on Terror was simply a pretext to establish bases from which WW IV could proceed at a more comfortable pace.

Thus Alan Greenspan’s recent piece in the Wall Street Journal, blaming Asia, especially China, for the US housing bubble:

“The result was a surge in growth in China and a large number of other emerging market economies that led to an excess of global intended savings relative to intended capital investment. That ex ante excess of savings propelled global long-term interest rates progressively lower between early 2000 and 2005. That decline in long-term interest rates across a wide spectrum of countries statistically explains, and is the most likely major cause of, real-estate capitalization rates that declined and converged across the globe, resulting in the global housing price bubble…”

Read this along with remarks by Tim Geithner in the Obama administration that China was manipulating the yuan to help its exports ( a sentiment also voiced by Obama during the elections).

That’s the perspective from which the little fracas (actually it’s the biggest fracas between China and the US since 2001) in the South China Sea should be seen. The USNS Impeccable – a civilian ship under Navy control – was apparently conducting surveillance in what it claims was international waters (where US doctrine insists on international freedom to move) but within the 200 mile zone in which Chinese economic control obtains. Chinese vessels came within 25 feet of the US ship which sprayed them with water, and then left.

This  week China will also be unveiling plans for an increase of 15% in its defense spending, including expansion of its naval capacity.

Propaganda Nation: Iraq War Coverage Still Skewed

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“Claims that the mainstream media distorts the violence in Iraq are certainly correct, but not in the way that conservative pundits claim.  The American press has systemically ignored, marginalized, or buried deep within their pages casualty reports indicating that hundreds of thousands, perhaps over one million Iraqis died during the occupation.   What little reporting has been done on casualties focuses more on American lives.  An analysis of the 2003-2005 period finds that the New York Times covered American casualties three times more than Iraqi civilian casualties.  When violence against Iraqis has been reported, it typically portrays the victims of violence as the result of the actions of insurgents and militias, rather than also as the result of American bombing.   This practice, contrary to conservative punditry claims, allows for the U.S. to be framed in a positive light, as a force fighting against civil war and sectarian violence, rather than one that is destabilizing Iraq through its own bombings (which are estimated to have killed tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands).  Furthermore, when the media does report casualties in Iraq (in this case American ones), its reporting is heavily dependent upon the lead of the government itself.  According to one study, 75 percent of the stories filed on American casualties in the New York Times from 2003 to 2005 were based exclusively on press releases from the Department of Defense.  Statistically, the study showed that, as the DOD increased its press releases on casualties (during months when larger numbers of Americans were killed), the New York Times responded to increased DOD releases by increasing its own reporting on American deaths.  During times when the DOD put out fewer releases, the New York Times responded accordingly by reducing its coverage.   Coverage of violence, then, is heavily influenced by the government’s own actions and agenda….”

Anthony Di Maggio in  Counterpunch

John Bolton Jokes About Nuking Chicago

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Here’s John Bolton joking about a possible nuclear hit on Chicago at Think Progress.

Talk about irresponsible and dangerous blather by a man as responsible as any one for the Bush administration isolating itself  in the world and increasing international tensions. First, the ‘Obama terrorist’ cover from his pals, then the  ‘shoot the chimp that wrote the stimulus bill’ joke, now ‘nuke Obama’s town’.

On the other side, Obama and Holder keep up the focus on race in another way.

We don’t need more race talk….and we don’t need any racial slurs or incitement either.

We need someone who can add up the figures and explain how this stimulus bill and the rest of the proposals coming out of the administration do  anything but increase the power of the government and the kleptocrats.

Barack Obama Bombs Pakistan

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“The CIA’s bombing campaign against al Qaeda leadership in Pakistan continued with two more attacks today, an indication, senior officials say, that President Barack Obama has approved the U.S. strategy that has killed at least eight of al Qaeda’s top 20 leaders since July 2008.

The two attacks today in Pakistan’s were the first since President Obama took office on Tuesday….”

More at the ABC blotter

Comment:

Hooray for change! 

Note that Bush actually objected to bombing Pakistan without asking Musharraf’s permission, something Obama criticized. As this Huffington Post piece from last year points out, in this respect, Obama’s action today is worse than Bush’s and more in line with the CIA’s stated preference. (This is not an endorsement of Bush –  at least, Obama got the country right).

Terror Wars: Mumbai Attacks Not About Kashmir

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KABUL: Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said on Thursday international community should not link 26/11 attacks on Mumbai to the Kashmir dispute.

Addressing a joint press conference with his Afghan counterpart Rangeen Dadfar Spanta, Mukherjee said the international community has to take Mumbai attacks as a part of global terrorism,

Apparently referring to the recent statement made by the British Foreign Secretary David Miliband on Kashmir suggesting terror attacks in south Asia would stop with the resolution of the Kashmir dispute, Mukherjee said: These attacks (on Mumbai) are not related to Jammu and Kashmir and are a part of global terrorism.”

More at The Jang News, Pakistan.

Comment:

What’s with Miliband? Whence this common-sense approach so conspicuously absent from that little unpleasantness in Mesopotamia this past – what is it? – half a decade?

Oh, I see. The Brits don’t want the Wogs* to step out of their carefully allotted place in the terror theater.  Can’t have Gunga-Din getting a piece of the global terror racket. No, let the regional empires stick to the regional market. And let the Anglo-American Empire collect on the global terror trade – where you get the best prices and the highest return on your money.

*Westernized Oriental Gentlemen

814 Palestinians Dead So Far

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“At least 814 Palestinians, roughly half of them civilians, have died since war broke out on Dec. 27, according to Palestinian medical officials. Thirteen Israelis, including 10 soldiers, have been killed.

Weary Palestinians watched from apartment windows as thousands of leaflets fluttered from aircraft with a blunt warning: Israeli forces will step up operations against Islamic militants who have unleashed a daily barrage of rocket fire on southern Israeli towns.

“The IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) is not working against the people of Gaza but against Hamas and the terrorists only,” the leaflets said in Arabic. “Stay safe by following our orders.”

The leaflets urged Gaza residents not to help Hamas and to stay away from its members. There was no immediate sign of an escalation, though earlier in the day, witnesses said Israeli troops moved to within one mile of Gaza City before pulling back slightly.

Israeli defense officials say they are prepared for a third stage of their offensive, in which ground troops would push further into Gaza, but are waiting for approval from the government. Early on Sunday, Israeli tanks were heard moving near the central Gaza border as Israeli artilley pounded the area, indicating the possibility of a larger operation.

Palestinian witnesses said Israeli forces fired phosphorus shells at Khouza, a village near the border, setting a row of houses on fire. Hospital official Dr. Yusuf Abu Rish said a woman was killed and more than 100 injured, most suffering from gas inhalation and burns. Israeli military spokesman Capt. Guy Spigelman categorically dened the claims.”

And this:

” The U.N. estimates two-thirds of Gaza’s 1.4 million people now lack electricity, and half don’t have running water.”

More at AP.

And the Independent breaks the numbers down:

“In the day’s bloodiest incident, an Israeli tank shell landed outside a home in the northern Gaza town of Jabaliya, killing nine people as they sat in their garden. They were all from the same clan, and, said health administrator Adham Hakim, their bodies were so mangled they were brought to hospital in the boot of a civilian car. Two were women and two were children. This wretched pair will be added to the nearly 300 Gaza children who have been killed by Israeli fire. In the perversely disproportionate mathematics of this conflict, 13 Israelis have been killed – four of them by militant rockets. According to the Hamas-run Palestinian health ministry, the overall death toll now exceeds 800, more than a third of them children. The United Nations corroborates this, a report two days ago from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs putting the number of children killed at 265. The Israelis respond that Hamas often uses schools and homes, and therefore are the ones bringing down fire on Gaza’s children. Last week, an Israeli attack outside a UN school killed nearly 40 people.”

Comment:

IDF math runs like this: 8 of us, 800 of you. 4 soldiers among us; 300 children among you. There is no way to call this war or reprisal. It is indiscriminate civilian massacre.

Change under Barack Obama

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“When America’s new leader of “change” was informed of Israel’s massive air attack on the Gaza Ghetto, an area of 139 square miles where Israel confines 1.4 million Arabs and tightly controls the inflow of all resources–food, medicine, water, energy–America’s president-elect Obama had “no comment.” According to the Jerusalem Post ( December 26), “at 11:30 a.m., more than 50 fighter jets and attack helicopters swept into Gazan airspace and dropped more than 100 bombs on 50 targets. . . . Thirty minutes later, a second wave of 60 jets and helicopters struck at 60 targets . . . More than 170 targets were hit by IAF aircraft throughout the day. At least 230 Gazans were killed and over 780 were wounded . . .”

Paul Craig Roberts in Counterpunch

Not So Quiet On the Eastern Front….

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WASHINGTON – U.S. authorities are investigating whether Chinese officials secretly copied the contents of a government laptop computer during a visit to China by Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez and used the information to try to hack into Commerce computers, officials and industry experts told The Associated Press.

Surreptitious copying is believed to have occurred when a laptop was left unattended during Gutierrez’s trip to Beijing for trade talks in December, people familiar with the incident told the AP. These people spoke on condition of anonymity because the incident was under investigation….”

More at MSNBC