Expect a False Flag Terror Attack To Precede Invasion Of Iran

By Paul Craig Roberts

According to news reports, the U.S. military is shipping “bunker-buster” bombs to the U.S. Air Force base at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. The Herald Scotland reports that experts say the bombs are being assembled for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The newspaper quotes Dan Piesch, director of the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at the University of London: “They are gearing up totally for the destruction of Iran.”

The next step will be a staged “terrorist attack,” a “false flag” operation as per Operation Northwoods, for which Iran will be blamed. As Iran and its leadership have already been demonized, the “false flag” attack will suffice to obtain US and European public support for bombing Iran. The bombing will include more than the nuclear facilities and will continue until the Iranians agree to regime change and the installation of a puppet government. The corrupt American media will present the new puppet as “freedom and democracy.”

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'Nobel Peace Prize-winner Barack Obama ups spending on nuclear weapons to even more than George Bush'

Barack Obama has allocated £4.3billion to spend on maintaining the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile - £370million more than what was budgeted by George Bush.

The budget will also be increased by more than £3.1billion over the next five years.

The announcement comes despite the American President declaring nuclear weapons were the ‘greatest danger’ to U.S. people during in his State of the Union address on Wednesday.

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Taliban: Buyout Futile Without Foreign Pullout

Just one day before the London Conference on Afghanistan is to begin, Taliban forces issued a statement condemning what is seem by many as the cornerstone proposal likely to come out of the meeting, the buyout strategy.

The nations at the conference will commit money to a “Peace and Reintegration Trust Fund,” aimed at bribing members of the Taliban into giving up the insurgency in return for cash and the promise of jobs with the Karzai government.

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Howard Zinn Passes Away at 89

Howard Zinn died of a heart attack today at age 89.

Zinn was a prominent anti-war activist in the last half of the twentieth century, speaking out against wars ranging from World War II to the American Civil War to the current war in Afghanistan. Zinn also recently wrote a piece critical of the Nobel's decision to award the Peace Prize to Obama.

“Historically, government, whether in the hands of Republicans or Democrats, conservatives or liberals, has failed its responsibilities until forced to by direct action from the people... Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for direct action by concerned citizens," Zinn wrote back in March 2008.

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Comment: A lot of libertarians - including myself - have significant issues with many of Zinn's positions, but it is indisputable that he was a stalwart against wars, whether conducted by a Democrat or Republican. And I have a gut feeling that if Zinn was growing up as an activist in OUR generation - a generation that has seen, more than any other, the severe abuses of the federal government - he would likely be on the side of Liberty. RIP

ExxonMobil to redevelop, expand Iraq's West Qurna 1 field

ExxonMobil Iraq Ltd. signed an agreement with the Iraq Ministry of Oil to redevelop and expand West Qurna 1 field in southern Iraq.

The agreement was signed in Baghdad in the presence of the Iraq Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani and Rob Franklin, president of ExxonMobil upstream ventures. The consortium members are ExxonMobil as the lead contractor with 60% interest, Oil Exploration Co. (owned by the Iraq government) with 25% interest, and Royal Dutch Shell PLC with 15% interest.

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Comment: What do ya know!

US may equip Pakistan with drone aircraft, Gates says

In his first visit to the country since the inauguration of Obama, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the US is considering supplying Pakistan with unarmed drone aircraft. While Pakistan has publicly called America's use of drones a violation of sovereignty, the Pakistani government has requested the technology for itself.

"We are in partnership with the Pakistani military and we are working to give them their own intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance vehicles, both aircraft and drones," Gates said.

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Blackwater/XE behind terrorist bombings in Asia and Africa?

WMR’s intelligence sources in Asia and Europe are reporting that the CIA contractor firm XE Services, formerly Blackwater, has been carrying out “false flag” terrorist attacks in Afghanistan, Somalia, the Sinkiang region of China, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq, in some cases with the assistance of Israeli Mossad and Indian Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) personnel.

Fingers are being pointed at Blackwater/XE and Mossad operatives for the motorbike bomb in Tehran that killed Tehran University nuclear physicist Dr. Moussad Ali-Mohammadi.

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U.N. report finds corruption rife in Afghanistan

LONDON (Reuters) - Corruption costs Afghans $2.5 billion a year, a United Nations agency said on Tuesday, with the scale of bribery matching Afghanistan's opium trade.

A recent national survey found that Afghans were more concerned with public dishonesty than insecurity or unemployment.

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Blackwater/Xe mercs arrive in Somalia, Al-Shabab says

At least 18 people have been killed in clashes between rival factions in southern and central Somalia, and there are reports that Blackwater/Xe mercenaries have entered the country.

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Civilian Casualties Soar; Key Afghan Metric Headed In Wrong Direction

Civilian deaths in Afghanistan climbed in 2009 to their highest number since the fall of the Taliban, the United Nations says in a recent report.

The rising number of innocent Afghan casualties constitutes a major failure for the American forces if judged by the standards set out by General Stanley McChrystal in the summer of 2009, when he testified before Congress.

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Has Obama given tacit approval to Israel’s next Gaza massacre?

When Israel was destroying Gaza in December 2008, Obama was preparing to take office as president. Progressives around the world turned to him to use his surging diplomatic power to pressure Israel to end the massacre. He stayed silent, for days and weeks, the negative space created by his newfound lack of words filled with the explosions of Israeli bombs and the death cries of women and children.

So-called progressives lined up behind him to generate one excuse after another as to Obama’s inexplicable conduct. Most apologia centered on the idea that their "can be only one president at a time", whatever that means in the context of needed moral courage, not military might.

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US Threatens Venezuela. Netherlands has Granted US Military Use of its Islands in the Caribbean

The government of the Netherlands recently granted the US military use of its islands in the Caribbean, with the excuse that this is to help in the “war against drugs”. In reality, this is a direct threat to the Chavez government in Venezuela.

In the Dutch media articles have appeared about the “war-mongering” president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, who is “preparing a war against Colombia”. Now Chávez has accused the Netherlands of supporting aggression against Venezuela, because the Netherlands has given permission to the American armed forces to use the military bases on the Dutch Caribbean islands of Aruba and Curaçao[1].

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The Raw Story | US to store more weapons, ammunition in Israel: official

The US military plans to expand its stockpiles of weapons in Israel under a recent agreement with Jerusalem, a Pentagon spokesman said Monday. The deal will double the value of military equipment kept on Israeli soil from 400 million to 800 million dollars, Major Shawn Turner told AFP.

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Obama wants record $708 billion for wars next year

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama will ask Congress for an additional $33 billion to fight unpopular wars in Afghanistan and Iraq on top of a record $708 billion for the Defense Department next year, The Associated Press has learned - a request that could be an especially hard sell to some of the administration's Democratic allies.

The extra $33 billion in 2010 would mostly go toward the expansion of the war in Afghanistan. Obama ordered an extra 30,000 troops for that war as part of an overhaul of the war strategy late last year.

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IS ISRAEL CONTROLLING PHONY TERROR NEWS? : Veterans Today - News for U.S. Military Veterans Jobs, VA Benefits, Home Loans, Hospitals

Who says Al Qaeda takes credit for a bombing? Rita Katz. Who gets us bin Laden tapes? Rita Katz. Who gets us prettymuch all information telling us Muslims are bad? Rita Katz? Rita Katz is the Director of Site Intelligence, primary source for intelligence used by news services, Homeland Security, the FBI and CIA. What is her qualification? She served in the Israeli Defense Force. She has a college degree and most investigative journalists believe the Mossad "helps" her with her information. We find no evidence of any qualification whatsoever of any kind. A bartender has more intelligence gathering experience.

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Gen. McChrystal Declares Afghan Surge a ‘Success’

Somewhat of a shocking development, considering the situation in Afghanistan continues to deteriorate, and most of the “surge” troops won’t even arrive for several months, but General Stanley McChrystal today declared the Afghan surge was already a success with “turned the tide” against the Taliban.

Though Gen. McChrystal conceded that the war isn’t entirely won yet, he insisted that considerable progress has been made, citing territory seized in the most recent Helmand Province offensives.

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Obama Plays Down Military Role in Yemen

President Obama said he has “no intention of sending U.S. boots on the ground” to Yemen and Somalia amid mounting concern about terrorist cells in those countries.

In excerpts of an interview with People magazine released on Sunday, Mr. Obama said that the “border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan remains the epicenter of Al Qaeda,” though he acknowledged that the group’s branch in Yemen has become “a more serious problem.”

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Children’s deaths spark anti-US outrage in Afghanistan

More than 5,000 people demonstrated in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad Thursday to protest the deaths of four children and wounding of scores of others in an explosion that ripped through a crowd in a nearby village the day before.

The crowd blockaded the main highway to the Pakistan border for hours, shouting "Death to America" and burning US President Barack Obama in effigy.

Despite NATO denials of responsibility for the carnage and a claim by local police that the blast was caused by a police vehicle hitting a landmine, Afghans blamed the deaths on the US-led occupation.

The incident took place Wednesday as a group of US soldiers were visiting a road-construction site in the village of Mazzina. The village lies south of Jalalabad, which is the capital of Nangarhar Province.

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Another Iranian Revolution? Not Likely

By FLYNT LEVERETT and HILLARY MANN LEVERETT

THE Islamic Republic of Iran is not about to implode. Nevertheless, the misguided idea that it may do so is becoming enshrined as conventional wisdom in Washington.

For President Obama, this misconception provides a bit of cover; it helps obscure his failure to follow up on his campaign promises about engaging Iran with any serious, strategically grounded proposals. Meanwhile, those who have never supported diplomatic engagement with Iran are now pushing the idea that the Tehran government might collapse to support their arguments for military strikes against Iranian nuclear targets and adopting “regime change” as the ultimate goal of America’s Iran policy.

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Where’s the Beef, Mr. Murdoch?

By Philip Geraldi

Regarding policy towards Iran, the American national interest would be best served by avoiding any involvement, if only because comments from the White House will be seen as outside interference, strengthening the hands of the conservatives. But there are many in the United States who do not see it quite that way, hoping to tighten the screws on the rulers in Tehran. They have been exploiting the so-called deadline of the year’s end for Iran and the US to enter into meaningful negotiations on Tehran’s nuclear program. To be sure, many of those who are pushing hardest for sanctions are really only interested in war and regime change with sanctions as a first step establishing an irreversible course of action based on conflict rather than diplomacy.

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Comment: So Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen soon and still Iran on the table. How the hell can we sustain 5 wars when we're already borrowing and printing at breakneck speed?