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Yea, the DNC appears to be attempting to destabilize the West just like Russia wants. Maybe they should stop taking orders from Putin?

Actually, the evidence I have seen suggests they are taking orders from Poroshenko.

"DNC denies working with Ukrainian government, but contractor floated anti-Trump material"
https://edition.cnn.com/2017/0...

"Robert Mueller’s ’13 Russian trolls indictment’ is a COPY + PASTE job from 2015 Ukrainian Radio Free Europe post"
http://theduran.com/busted-rob...

Oh, and for good measure:

"Exclusive! Yanks To The Rescue. The Secret Story Of How American Advisers Helped Yeltsin Win"
https://img.timeinc.net/time/m...

'Victoria Nuland Admits: US Has Invested $5 Billion In The Development of Ukrainian "Democratic Institutions"'
http://www.informationclearing...

And:

"When Will the US Stop Organizing Foreign Coups?"
https://russia-insider.com/en/...

"Here's the short list of U.S.-backed coups over just the past seven-plus decades . . .

        Syria 1949.
        Guatemala 1954.
        Tibet 1955-1970s.
        Indonesia 1958.Cuba 1959.
        Iraq 1960-1963.
        Democratic Republic of the Congo 1960-1965.
        Dominican Republic 1962.
        Iran 1963.
        Guatemala 1963.
        South Vietnam 1963.
        Brazil 1964.
        Ghana 1966.
        Chile 1970-1973.
        Argentina 1976.
        Afghanistan 1979-1989.
        Turkey 1980.
        Poland 1980-1989.
        Ecuador 1981.
        Panama 1981.
        Nicaragua 1981-1990.
        Grenada 1983.
        Haiti 1991.
        Iraq 1992-1996.
        Venezuela 2002.
        Haiti 2004.
        Iran 2005-present.
        Honduras 2009.
        Libya 2011.
        Syria 2012-present.
        Ukraine 2014.

"Moreover, it's no secret that we're at it again right now with Venezuela, and a poorly-kept secret that Russia, Ecuador, Uruguay, Bolivia, probably another shot at Cuba, and recently added Kyrgyzstan, are also in the queue".

Oh no, it wasn't a Republican thing. Not at all. Here's Madeline Albright falsely claiming Saddam had WMD and calling for invasion in 1998. Under Democrat Bill Clinton.

PNAC urges war in 1996
"That strategy should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power. We stand ready to offer our full support in this difficult but necessary endeavor."

So don't go trying to blame this on Republicans. It certainly has nothing to do with good ol' fashioned modern American politics because Americans want nothing to do with foreign affairs. Our lives are falling apart and we badly need attention to our own affairs. Literally nobody except the oh-so-wise US government was in favor of invading Iraq. Any process that produces such an obviously invalid result is suspect in all of its other choices, as well.

Well, we did go into Iraq for (Bush's) thrill of blowing stuff up.

Iraq had not even a thread of a connection to 9/11. This was known prior to the invasion and was communicated to Bush by Richard Clarke immediately after the 9/11 attacks. In response, Bush told him to find a link.

It was known prior to the invasion, and prior to 9/11 that Iraq had no WMD program. To quote Colin Powell, speaking of Iraq's WMD program and sanctions on February 24, 2001 in Cairo:

"Frankly, they have worked. He [Hussein] has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors."

And then the Downing Street Memo:

"Bush wanted to remove Saddam Hussein, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

And then Bush's little slip revealing his hate for Saddam - again pre-invasion. I watched him say it on live TV, so yeah, it happened:

"There's no doubt his hatred is mainly directed at us. There's no doubt he can't stand us. After all, this is a guy that tried to kill my dad at one time."

Inconvenient facts are inconvenient. There was no intelligence failure.

btw the reason I get 'modded up' is because I have good karma. No one is coming being after to say they agree with me, you shouldn't take that as a vote in favor or against. Rummie himself signed this.

This happened in 2003:

U.S. government purchase data on Mexico’s 65 million registered Voters

A probe has been launched into how the Atlanta-based corporation ChoicePoint Inc. was able to purchase data on Mexico’s 65 million registered voters as well as six million licensed drivers in Mexico City.
According to an investigation carried out by the Mexico City newspaper Milenio, ChoicePoint was commissioned by the U.S. government to obtain the data.

...

According to Milenio, low-ranking Mexican government employees routinely sell electronic information to data-gathering groups in a clandestine manner and pocket the proceeds.
ChoicePoint also offers information on 90 percent of large corporations operating in Mexico, disclosing data on names of leading executives, phone numbers, electronic systems and levels of capitalization.

Whatever happened to Choicepoint? Are they still in business?

Nail, meet head.

"It doesn't work in reducing crime"
There's been studies done that show that harsher sentences actually make crime worse. After all, if someone has done something that is very likely to result in a death sentence or life in prison, what possible incentive would they have to stop committing any further crime or atrocity? The rate that we rack up the years to keep someone in prison just means that alleged criminals take less time to reach the point where they see it as an impossibility for their situation to get any worse, and they might as well go for the largest payoff they can.

The Scandinavian countries, Norway in particular, have much more reasonable sentences and have geared their prisons towards preparing the inmates to rejoin society, as opposed to the US' system of vindictive punishment and destruction of the criminal as a human being. As a result, Norway has the lowest recidivism rate in the world (20%), and a similarly low crime rate. Comparatively, the US has the highest incarceration rate in the world, and a recidivism rate that hovers around 67% from year to year.(75% - source: http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?t... )

The numbers would seem to indicate that "harsh on crime" policies ought to be considered "harsh on everyone", since they mean that we spend more money per prisoner and that we have more prisoners than the next dozen countries combined. One in five prisoners in the world are in US prisons. Our imprisonment addiction is almost as bad and destructive as our military spending addiction (since we spend more on defense than the next 14 largest defense-spending countries combined). In it's entire history there have been only 21 years where the US hasn't participated in a war. (source: http://www.informationclearing... )

Name one war he started.

The US (in addition to some European rich guys) funded the insurrection in Ukraine that led to the removal of the (albeit weak) elected government. This directly led to the current conflict. We (the US) were not simply a bystander.

I'd argue it was very good, that only thousands of lives were lost, instead of the millions if spycraft had failed.

John Stockwell, former CIA Station Chief in Angola in 1976, working for then Director of the CIA, George Bush estimated in 1987, 27 years ago, that over 6 million people have died in CIA covert actions. See http://www.informationclearing.... What do you think? Have they doubled their number by now?

William Binney was all over Democracy Now as well.

Seriously--

Whistleblower: The NSA Is Lying-- U.S. Government Has Copies of Most of Your Emails -- April 20, 2012

Exclusive: National Security Agency Whistleblower William Binney on Growing State Surveillance -- April 20, 2012

More Secrets on Growing State Surveillance: Exclusive with NSA Whistleblower, Targeted Hacker -- April 23, 2012

etc. There were also numerous warnings from Assange, Appelbaum, and others outlining exactly what was going on to anyone who was listening.

Not to mention common sense should suggest to anyone familiar with US history and human nature that this was probably happening.

Yo captain dumbass, you were just robbed blind by the banking system. Any intelligent population would be voting D&R out of office, but no you're so addicted to fascism/capitalist ideology and brainwashed by anti-communist ideology and so historically fucking illiterate you vote the dumb fucks right back in.

If a former National security advisor says you people are ignorant, you better fucking believe someone much more educated and in the know than you will ever be knows his shit.

(reprinted from german spiegel)

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27030.htm

Brzezinski: I am very worried that most Americans are close to total ignorance about the world. They are ignorant. That is an unhealthy condition in a country in which foreign policy has to be endorsed by the people if it is to be pursued. And it makes it much more difficult for any president to pursue an intelligent policy that does justice to the complexity of the world.

SPIEGEL: Yet the American right is still convinced of American exceptionalism.

Brzezinski: That is a reaction to the inability of people to understand global complexity or important issues like American energy dependency. Therefore, they search for simplistic sources of comfort and clarity. And the people that they are now selecting to be, so to speak, the spokespersons of their anxieties are, in most cases, stunningly ignorant.

Congress is so corrupt that they have made their corruption legal and no longer answer to the American people who either don't care or are too stupid to realize what's going on. Maybe it's always been an illusion.

Maybe there's still hope for the congress critters to consider other info

I wanted to validate the claims that Gates is guilty. Gates related money is actually limiting the health of people in nations the West considers poor. If Bill Gates really wanted to save the lives of people in poverty he would agree that patents don't matter for medicine in many situations. It's a myth that progress in medicine depends on putting patents before people. We must allow generic and patent free drugs to reach more people, and it would not cut into the massive profits of the drug company stocks held by the Gates Foundation.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2003/06/mother-jones-daily-briefing-0?page=3
>> see the reporting by John Litchfield of the London Independent 2003
Litchfield quotes Doctors without borders and notes the lack of affordable generics

>> Read reporter Greg Palast
"let me let you in on a little secret about Bill and Melinda Gates so-called "Foundation." Gate's demi-trillionaire status is based on a nasty little monopoly-protecting trade treaty called "TRIPS" - the Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights rules of the World Trade Organization. TRIPS gives Gates a hammerlock on computer operating systems worldwide, legally granting him a monopoly that the Robber Barons of yore could only dream of. But TRIPS, the rule which helps Gates rule, also bars African governments from buying AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis medicine at cheap market prices"
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4103.htm

"The Bush Administration has also prevented a positive resolution to one crucial issue left unresolved at Doha. Currently, TRIPS allows countries to produce generic drugs through compulsory licensing, but requires that such drugs be used predominantly for the country's domestic market. That means that countries cannot export generic products thus produced - even to countries where there are no patents"
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/vi/node/285

As an English intellectual property and antitrust lawyer I read the piece by David Resnik and Kenneth De Ville (2002) with both interest and surprise. It is startling to suggest that a country with the democratic credentials of the United States should, as a matter of public policy and indeed on apparently "moral" grounds, prefer private monopoly rights to the lives and welfare of its citizens.
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/ajb/summary/v002/2.3smith.html

By pouring most contributions into the fight against such high-profile killers as AIDS, Gates grantees have increased the demand for specially trained, higher-paid clinicians, diverting staff from basic care. The resulting staff shortages have abandoned many children of AIDS survivors to more common killers: birth sepsis, diarrhea and asphyxia.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gates16dec16,0,3743924.story

Wait, what? Did I read that right? Did you just claim that the US funnelled weapons to an Al Qaeda franchaise through the US consulate in Benghazi? Really? And you got a +5 for that bullshit? Man.

You really are a muppet that is completely ignorant of what is going on in the World. Then, despite your ignorance, you insult those that do know more than you. Here is General William G Boykin who has a strong supposition that Ambassador Stevens was running guns through Benghazi. Here's an interview with Boykins:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33698.htm
Note that Boykins was *commander* of U.S. Special Forces Command, the deputy under secretary of defense for intelligence and a CIA staffer. The interview was conducted by a reputable agency, CNS News.

You apoplectic rage was misplaced. Admit it, you have a poor grasp on what is going on. You have the temerity to throw insults at me when you don't even know the facts. I would be ashamed if I was you. Sometimes people know more about a subject than you do. So I would suggest chillin' and opening your mind to what people are trying to tell you. Also, a trivial search on Google will reveal a wealth of facts (including the video link I've posted). Isn't it better to do you research rather than making an (incorrect) assumption as you did.

It is always ok to be wrong. It is arrogance to ignore facts presented to you just because they don't fit with your (incorrect) current worldview. If you open your closed mind and use the Scientific Method you would greatly profit from the diverse points of view on Slashdot.

Stop assuming you already know everything.
Do. your. research.

Owned by an Arab Sheik, IÃ(TM)m sure it will be faire and balanced towards womanÃ(TM)s rights in the Arab World, Jewish issues, and of course homosexuals.

Bah, hahahahahahaa
It will not be any worse than all other major news networks. And the bias will be well known, which is a little better than the status quo

I'll take that over directly sanctioned pieces such as CNNi

CNNi produces those programs in an arrangement it describes as "in association with" the government of a country, and offers regimes the ability to pay for specific programs about their country. ... The disclosure for such arrangements is often barely visible.

Precisely how they did it is yet to be revealed by a truly independent investigation with full subpoena power. This timeline leaves no doubt that the official story is a crock of lies, and indicates a number of people who should be taken in for questioning. For a longer exposition including proof of controlled demolitions, details of disinformation tactics, and information on moving companies, a "factoring company" that specializes in "unconventional transactions worldwide" and deals with the Pentagon, the CIA and the FBI, and possible links to organized crime, see here.

Pre-9/11 Timeline

1946: July 22. Menachem Begin's Irgun Jewish terrorists dress as Arabs and bomb the King David Hotel, killing 92 people. The Irgun also plot to assassinate British foreign secretary Ernest Bevin; fortunately, this conspiracy is foiled by MI6.

1948: May 14. David Ben-Gurion declares the independence of the new Zionist State of Israel, born from deception and from the blood of victims of Jewish terrorism hours before the British Mandate is due to expire. It takes effect at midnight, Tel Aviv time. May 15. Eleven minutes after midnight, U.S. President Harry Truman officially recognises the proclaimed Jewish state in Palestine.

1954: July. An Israeli spy ring is arrested in Egypt. These Israeli secret service agents have been assigned to attack U.S. and British interests in Egypt. "Operation Susannah" is a typical example of false-flag terrorism in which the perpetrators pin the blame on another party - in this case, Egypt and "the Arabs" - for political gain. The operation is unsuccessful, the Israeli defense minister Pinhas Lavon is forced to resign as a result of the scandal, and the incident becomes known as the Lavon Affair.

1967: June 8. Israel carries out a sustained air and naval attack on the USS Liberty for over an hour, employing torpedoes, machine guns and napalm rockets, even to the extent of machine-gunning lifeboats launched to save the most seriously wounded. 34 men are killed and more than 170 wounded.

1983: Christopher Bollyn marries

In the last crisis a lot of money indeed "burned up" as the credit supply and hence money in circulation shrunk (M3).

Econ 101.

Macroeconomics != Microeconomics

Opportunity cost makes only sense in the latter context. Most of the yellow wasn't spend but saved or put into investment vehicles, and had therefore very limited stimulus effect. If you want to stimulate the economy with tax cuts you have to tailor them to the lower income segment where the incentive for additional consumption is much higher. The Bush tax cuts on the other hand are structured exactly the other way around.

1) Refusing to fulfil it's obligations as an NPT signatory. It is fairly unique in this regard.

Just like how Saddam was "unique" in his blocking of weapon's inspectors...except the inspectors weren't blocked and he had no WMD's. Same crap, different pile.

Sponsorship of groups on US/European terrorism watch lists. This is something other nations do (including the US/Europe ironically).

Our "terror watch lists" became a joke as soon as we took MEK off them so we wouldn't have the embarrassment of prominent politicians literally acting as paid MEK lobbyists while we send the owner of a cable station to a federal, pound-me-in-the-ass penitentiary for....carrying a Hezbollah TV channel.

The real reasons Iran is being pressured and having it's economy devastated are:

1) They're an oil producing nation that doesn't play ball with the U.S. Ask Gaddafi, Chavez* and Saddam how well that has worked out for them. And the U.S. can hardly hide behind the excuse of "humanitarian intervention" as it lets Israel put the people of Gaza "on a diet", or continued to sell arms to the government of Bahrain, which was brutally suppressing it's own pro-democracy demonstrators even as we were "supporting revolutionaries" in Libya.

2) This isn't about stopping Iran from getting "the bomb", as both Israeli and U.S. intelligence admit that Iran has no nuclear weapons program. It's about making sure that Iran never thinks about getting one, so we can attack them with impunity at any time we chose. If Iran were to get a nuclear weapon, they would have a powerful deterrent against foreign aggression, chiefly from Israel. We can't have that.

So, why is it that in Syria, the same people are our friends, that are our enemies in Afghanistan?

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31818.htm
âAmericaâ(TM)s Syrian Friends and Afghan Foes are Same Peopleâ(TM)

Have you come across information clearing house? I've been looking for reliable, independent news media for a while and while I've found a few good sources I like I'm kind of on the fence about this guy. He is very open about what he does and why he does it, and he manages to dig up a lot of well-cited stories that I wouldn't hear about elsewhere. The editorial bias is thick, but he's upfront about it and seems to provide a good service simply because he's passionate about it.

Thoughts?

That said, the example you are probably looking for is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_American_Regiment

U.S. Congress 1784: "standing armies in time of peace are inconsistent with the principles of republican government, dangerous to the liberties of a free people, and generally converted into destructive engines for establishing despotism."

U.S. Congress 2012: authorizes indefinite military detention, authorizes war with Iran (a nation that poses no threat to the U.S. and hasn't attacked another in over 200 years), and legalizes domestic use of military propaganda.

How times change.

"demonizing adjectives" - I remember the Contract with America, which most thinking people thought was past due.

Non sequitur.

I remember Clinton not remembering a damned thing.

Hand waving.

I remember what the meaning of "is" is.

I remember Republicans spending over 60 million dollars to come up with any reason, any reason at all, to attack a sitting president. How much did Democrats spend to investigate Harken Energy? Bush going AWOL from his Air Guard commitments? Let alone torture and lying us into a war.

Were you even alive then?

Were you? Remember the investigations and re-investigations into Vince Foster and Whitewater when they was zero probable cause that the Clintons did anything illegal?

Then lets get back to Gingrich and his (long) list of ways to demean his political opponents. Suck on it, wingnut, suck it long, suck it hard:

Contrasting Words
      Often we search hard for words to define our opponents. Sometimes we are hesitant to use contrast. Remember that creating a difference helps you. These are powerful words that can create a clear and easily understood contrast. Apply these to the opponent, their record, proposals and their party.

  abuse of power anti- (issue): flag, family, child, jobs betray bizarre bosses bureaucracy cheat coercion "compassion" is not enough collapse(ing) consequences corrupt corruption criminal rights crisis cynicism decay deeper destroy destructive devour disgrace endanger excuses failure (fail) greed hypocrisy ideological impose incompetent insecure insensitive intolerant liberal lie limit(s) machine mandate(s) obsolete pathetic patronage permissive attitude pessimistic punish (poor ...) radical red tape self-serving selfish sensationalists shallow shame sick spend(ing) stagnation status quo steal taxes they/them threaten traitors unionized urgent (cy) waste welfare

Yes. These are the "Mujahadeen" networks - used since the Russo-Afghan war, also known as "Al Qaeda" when convenient.

Syria:
The armed opposition which conducted terrorist attacks in Syria is represented by a number of groups from a military wing of the Muslim Brotherhood to the Libyan radical Islamists and Al Qaeda. According to the information we receive from our Syrian colleagues there are training camps for insurgents in Lebanon and Turkey. The officers of security services of NATO, Turkey and some Arab states are in charge for the training and armament of the insurgents, while the monarchies of the Persian Gulf provide the financing.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30412.htm

Libya:
"Some of these groups formed the National Transitional Council (TNC) in Benghazi on February 27, 2011 to act as the political face of the revolution. Politicians, former military officers, tribal leaders, academics and businessmen from Eastern Libya created the Council to serve as a transitional government and to wrap the opposition in an aura of respectability.

But the three well organized movements are the NFSL, its military arm LNA and the Islamist LIFG.

The National Front for the Salvation of Libya (NFSL) established on October 7, 1981, was trained and supported by the CIA and was involved in an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Gadhafi on May 8, 1984.

The Libyan National Army (LNA), military wing of the NFSL, was founded on June 21, 1988 by Khalifa Hafter who, according to a Washington-based think tank, the Jamestown Foundation, had: "strong backing from the Central Intelligence agency". The think tank also reports that the CIA arranged the entry of LNA officers into the United States where they established a training camp. Hafter arrived in Benghazi in March 2011 to join the forces attempting to overthrow Gadhafi.

Another major organization engaged in overthrowing Gadhafi is the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) which has close ties to al Qaida and has been designated as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) by the US State Department in 2004. The LIFG was established in 1995 to oppose Gadhafi's secular state by Libyans who had fought in Afghanistan. They have been committed to supporting jihadi groups everywhere and contributed a significant number of people to fight the U.S. in Iraq."
http://www.asiantribune.com/news/2011/08/22/gaddafi-under-siege-two-cia-backed-groups-al-qaeda-linked-lifg-top-power-stakes

But I guess Soledad O'Brien and Wolf Blitzer didn't deliver the message, so it can't be true.

Read the Greenwald link. There are almost certainly no Al Shababi uses of Twitter - just intelligent and provacative LULZ.

There are - in fact - no terrorists at all. They are a statistically insignificant political fiction.

Read Escobar, and see how you've been played:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30108.htm

Causing the market to crash (most economic gurus Ive heard plant the blame squarely on housing loan requirements instituted under Clinton)

By "most economic gurus" I think you mean "complete morons". Subprime lending by Fannie/Freddie (the organizations whose policies Clinton could modify) was not even close to what was being done by the private sector. If you want to go further back, you could also say that Bush is the reason we even have the TSA, and one of those wars (Iraq) was based on complete fiction. There's also good evidence that Obama is really just a moderate Republican, which helps to really explain why he's continuing so many terrible policies.

You don't know why? Try this for starters.

Paul Craig Roberts has been harping on this for years:

The idea is nonsensical that the US can remain the font of research, innovation, design, and engineering while the country ceases to make things. Research and product development invariably follow manufacturing. Now even business schools that were cheerleaders for offshoring of US jobs are beginning to wise up. In a recent report, âoeNext Generation Offshoring: The Globalization of Innovation,â Duke Universityâ(TM)s Fuqua School of Business finds that product development is moving to China to support the manufacturing operations that have located there. -- A Work Force Betrayed, Watching Greed Murder the Economy, By Paul Craig Roberts

If the USA didn't support any regime that murders and tortures its own people.......

It doesn't just support them politically it actually trains their police how to do this: Leaked U.S. Military Manual:

How to Train Death Squads and Quash Revolutions from San Salvador to Iraq.

I love knowing how America keeps creeping to become more and more like the Soviet Union with a similar kind of loss of privileges.

Where the debate really needs to be centered is on two things:

• What items ought to be kept secret?
• Does the federal bureaucracy really need to be so big in the first place?

By far and away too much is classified material. I don't mind having things like the locations of military units and certain other generally time-sensitive information being classified, but there certainly is a whole bunch of stuff being labeled as classified material mainly because it would be embarrassing if the information was disclosed. That stuff should not be protected under an official secrets act and I wish that a harder evaluation would result in trying to decide what exactly should be considered classified material in the first place.

Speculating that the King of Saudi Arabia is an ass should not be considered an official secret.

DHS already works with a former head of the KGB to assist in fighting the war on terror. Cause, you know, that's what the KGB is famous for.

According to his manifesto, he wants us out of the Middle East. And he wants us to quit resisting Sharia law.

So the government propaganda is partially truthful, but still strongly slanted.

Hey, comrade. The State appreciates your fealty, but unfortunately the State already said this:

Defenders of the June 28 coup have offered some combination of the following, often ambiguous, arguments to assert it's legality:

-- Zelaya had broken the law (alleged but not proven);

-- Zelaya resigned (a clear fabrication);

-- Zelaya intended to extend his term in office (supposition);

-- Had he been allowed to proceed with his June 28 constitutional reform opinion poll, Zelaya would have dissolved Congress the following day and convened a constituent assembly (supposition);

-- Zelaya had to be removed from the country to prevent a bloodbath;

-- Congress "unanimously" (or in some versions by a 123-5 vote) deposed Zelaya; (after the fact and under the cloak of secrecy); and

-- Zelaya "automatically" ceased to be president the moment he suggested modifying the constitutional prohibition on presidential reelection.

4. (C) In our view, none of the above arguments has any substantive validity under the Honduran constitution. Some are outright false. Others are mere supposition or ex-post rationalizations of a patently illegal act. Essentially:

-- the military had no authority to remove Zelaya from the country;

-- Congress has no constitutional authority to remove a Honduran president;

-- Congress and the judiciary removed Zelaya on the basis of a hasty, ad-hoc, extralegal, secret, 48-hour process;

-- the purported "resignation" letter was a fabrication and was not even the basis for Congress's action of June 28;
and

-- Zelaya's arrest and forced removal from the country violated multiple constitutional guarantees, including the prohibition on expatriation, presumption of innocence and right to due process.

Read the whole cable here. Straight from the horse's fucking mouth.

The US government knew the coup was illegal. It refused to admit that fact publicly and follow it's own laws regarding sending aid to nations under military coups in order to get its political objectives achieved in the region. That's because American Interests trump Democracy, every time, without exception, from Egypt to Palestine to Iraq to Honduras to Chile to Argentina.

Your bullshit diversions are meaningless, but hysterically subservient. Thanks for the laugh.

Sorry, you want to use the Daily Mail, a UK tabloid famous for it's high quantities of bullshit, as a SOURCE?

No, I don't think so. It's a shame so many Americans, who don't know the Daily Mail obviously, have 'labelled' you Informative.

Here is an article with some much more reliable sources, which detail the ladies in question connections...

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27005.htm

That's ironic.
1) There's good evidence the CIA *are* behind it.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27005.htm

2) Elected officials (Joe Liberman) took credit for it
http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/01/amazon/
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/12/how_lieberman_got_amazon_to_drop_wikileaks.php

You are aware of the root of the problem, but your solution is still based on chest-thumping militarism.
A Marine with 34 years of service and 2 Congressional Medals of Honor had the solution to American expeditionary misadventures and he had it back in the 1930s.

"War Is A Racket"
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4377.htm
[...]the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives[...]

How to smash this racket
[...]conscript capital and industry and labor. Let the officers and the directors and the high-powered executives of our armament factories[...]and the manufacturers of all the other things that provide profit in war time[...]get $30 a month, the same wage as the lads in the trenches get.

gewg_

You missed the point that the USA's economy is based on war.

A retired Marine with 34 years of service and 2 Congressional Medals of Honor gave us the answer to this riddle in the 1930s.
"War Is A Racket"
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4377.htm

the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives
[. . .]
  - How to smash this racket
It can be smashed effectively only by taking the profit out of war.

The only way to smash this racket is to conscript capital and industry and labor before the nations manhood can be conscripted.

Let the officers and the directors and the high-powered executives of our armament factories[...]and the manufacturers of all the other things that provide profit in war time as well as the bankers and the speculators, be conscripted - to get $30 a month, the same wage as the lads in the trenches get.

gewg_

They keep threatening to wipe an entire country off the map.

I thought they were effectively copying the USA foreign policies and going for "regime change".

e.g.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12790.htm
 

One thing you got right is that he is a rich Saudi. So, we should have invaded Saudi Arabia, not Afghanistan.

Bin Laden was a CIA asset when Bush Sr. was head of the CIA.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1245.htm
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3340101/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_assistance_to_Osama_bin_Laden

Really, anyone who thinks there is any justification of us invading either Iraq or Afghanistan is a fool, or worse. Support Obama in his murderous adventures because he didn't start the wars-- you are worse than a fool.

This is getting really off topic but the suggestion that US went into Iraq the first time because of currency concerns is interesting. The US went into Iraq in January 1991, almost eight years before the euro was first used as a currency (and a year before the Treaty of Maastricht was even signed). I've seen numerous opinions about why currency issues motivated the current Iraq war (such as this one) but nothing on the first gulf war (but I admitedly haven't been actively looking for such stuff).

What would the Military-Industrial Complex do?

Watch This Suckers

Depends, did you vote for tax cuts in the last year? Support for libraries will little or no fees with expanded hours is the key. Some libraries are closed Sunday and Monday here, and we can't borrow books from out of county. The rest have odd hours that make it difficult for someone working 8-5 to utilize.

I think I'd be happier paying taxes if I was allowed to indicate on a long check list where I wanted my money to go. Restrict dollars to the Halliburton "cost plus" burn pits and increase spending on public transit, green infrastructure, (which I mean literally; more trees in cities), and libraries. I bet taxes would go down this way, too.

Happy New Year.

-FL

While I don't mean to demean your service, or the service of anyone. We owe them more than the paltry benefits that they already receive. (While the New GI Bill does help, we can and should do more.) That said, there is little demand for being able to drive a submarine in civilian life. This isn't a secret. Even, Air Force recruiters use that line. Life experience, while valuable to an individual's growth, isn't the point of the military. It isn't a vision quest, or a coming of age story. (Though it does tend to be that due to the predominance of 18 year olds joining.) Life experience can be gained anywhere, include going straight from high school to college, or even into a trade.

In other words, the taxpayers aren't shelling out billions of dollars on weapons instead of roads and schools, for an elaborate rite of passage. It's train people, to kill people, for the off chance, we need to. It's a resource sink, but one we unfortunately have to pay, just as Eisenhower said.

Funding parties that oppose policies the U.S. government doesn't like most certainly is interference:

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22868.htm

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts06192009.html

The neo-cons are openly bragging that they are supporting the Iranian opposition ie interfering in their society:

"The National Endowment for Democracy has spent millions of dollars during the past decade promoting âcolorâ(TM) revolutions in places such as Ukraine and Serbia, training political workers in modern communications and organizational techniques.

âoeSome of that money appears to have made it into the hands of pro-Mousavi groups, who have ties to non-governmental organizations outside Iran that the National Endowment for Democracy funds.â

Yes, you say, but what does a blow-hard propagandist like Timmerman know about such things? Well, he should know! His very spooky Foundation for Democracy in Iran has its own snout deep in the trough of NEDâ(TM)s âoeopen covert actionsâ against the Iranian government.

How does the âoeFoundation for Democracy in Iranâ seek to âoepromote democracyâ in Iran with our tax dollars? Foundation co-founder Joshua Muravchik gives us a hint in his subtly-titled LA Times piece, âoeBomb Iran.â

Frankly, what I find more disturbing than the fact that the US government continues meddling in this new magical era of Obama is how many in the United States continue to be taken in by these events color-coordinated from afar. Pundits have turned their websites green in âoesolidarityâ with this âoegreen revolution.â Self-described âoelibertariansâ have thrown all critical thinking aside to embrace their inner green. As if hoping, somehow, that this time it will all be true. That the âoepeople powerâ really is on the march. That it is a binary world where there are evil incumbents â" the old guard â" oppressing thrusting âoereformersâ who are Twittering away toward the bright tomorrow of a world where everyone wants to be just like us! Democracy!"

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/027782.html

Even the Voice of America admits Ahmadinejad was ahead going in to the elections:

http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-06-08-voa60.cfm

Note that I think Ahmadinejad is a cruel and reactionary leader, but if that is the Iranian peoples choice I think we ought to stay out of it 100% and focus on our own dire economic circumstances, decayed infrastructure, and lack of healthcare in the U.S. first and foremost. Endless meddling in other peoples affairs only leads to wasted blood and treasure and blowback, something I very much agree with Ron Paul on despite being a leftist activist.

On balance I think we've done more good than harm.

I never said otherwise. The balance of deeds generally probably should not, however, affect your critical examination of any specific deeds, as such.

It's relevant because that coup that everybody likes to blame on the United States was actually instigated by the British

By British *and* the CIA (google for "Monty Woodhouse", e.g.: Fisk interviewed him not long before his death). Unfortunately, we're unlikely to find out much more as those involved are all dead now and the CIA somehow managed to destroy all its files on the matter.

It's relevant because the leader that everybody blames on the United States was actually installed by the Soviet Union and Great Britain.

You mean they installed another, more pliant member of the already long-ruling dynasty. That's beside the point though, I'm certainly not trying to defend British or Soviet actions, nor trying to shift blame from them onto the USA.

I don't like seeing people quote half of history while ignoring or being ignorant of the other half.

The point is, regardless of the past, when Iran finally had a strong, democratically elected government, certain great powers helped overthrow it, elevating the existing head of state to autocrat. One of those great powers continued to prop up this increasingly despotic ruler for twenty odd years, till finally there was a popular revolution. Have you googled for SAVAK btw?

You are a citizen of that great power, and you're on this forum suggesting Iran is an irresponsible child, and making remarks that suggest you have no appreciation of the history of your nation's involvement in Iran (why do you think they invaded your embassy??!).

I'm not trying to cast blame (there's always plenty of that to throw around - often a pointless exercise), I'm just trying to get people to go find out stuff about their own country and increase understanding generally.

threats to wipe neighbors off the map

While the intent of Ahmadinejad's statement can still be debated, it is almost certain that it was mistranslated to some degree. This article covers the various opinions about what the proper translation should have been.

As a side note, I seem to recall Ahmadinejad not being particularly concerned with correcting the mistranslation, as it played well to his political base.

I credit the fact that I can make a decent living on the fact that I not only went to college, but when my first degree wasn't doing it for me I went back again and got another degree. My first ever "real job" that wasn't in retail grew out of an internship I had while I was getting my second degree, and all my jobs since then have come from the fact that I was able to get real world experience to put on my resume.

I have some pretty big regrets about mistakes I made during my life, it's never even occurred to me to put college in there.

On the other hand, I did have a lot of help from academic scholarships and money my family saved for it (as well as my employer later on). I never had any debt from that.

However, I'm living with horrible debt now, which came from a relationship as opposed to college. I think that the debt "industry" (some industry, it's primary product is poor people) will find a way to get at people until it is properly regulated.

It's been no secret to me that Saudi Arabia has always been a poor country, and it's citizens have become poorer over the decades.

Beggars hawk bottles of water at intersections. Penniless women huddle in strips of shade outside their crumbling mud-brick houses, begging for money. Many families in the capital are so poor they can't afford electricity. Raw sewage runs through parts of Jidda.

- http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3412.htm

The princes have treated the country's wealth of oil and minerals as their personal domain and made themselves famous for their extravagant life style. Some princes have accumulated enormous personal wealth; with King Fahd bin Abd al-Aziz, the reigning monarch, topping the list with a personal fortune estimated at $20 billion.

...

A Saudi newspaper speculates that while the unemployment rate is estimated at 20 percent it could be as high as 30 percent. The irony of the situation is that the Saudis employ 6 to 7 million foreign workers, including 3 million maids and drivers.

And it's obvious why the Saudi's prefer foreign workers:

current situation: Saudi Arabia is a destination country for workers from South and Southeast Asia who are subjected to conditions that constitute involuntary servitude including being subjected to physical and sexual abuse, non-payment of wages, confinement, and withholding of passports as a restriction on their movement; domestic workers are particularly vulnerable because some are confined to the house in which they work unable to seek help; Saudi Arabia is also a destination country for Nigerian, Yemeni, Pakistani, Afghan, Somali, Malian, and Sudanese children trafficked for forced begging and involuntary servitude as street vendors; some Nigerian women were reportedly trafficked into Saudi Arabia for commercial sexual exploitation.

- https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/sa.html

They just don't care about the rules and don't care what other people think about it.

Yes, many will not concur with Richard, but the truth is that the foundation IS Bill Gates PR arm. I give you the example of Mexico's enciclomedia project (which was an absolute failure): with the simplest menace of the country's strategy of including linux as a base platform for millions of computers for elementary schools, the B&MG foundation (after a lightning trip of ballmer and gates to personally talk to President Fox) donated 40 million dollars worth of boxes with a simple, little string attached: it HAS to run Microsoft Windows.

also :
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gatesx07jan07,0,4205044,full.story
Also, as an earlier poster mentioned :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_and_Melinda_Gates_Foundation#Criticisms
also this :
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4103.htm

Yes, many will not concur with Richard, but the truth is that the foundation IS Bill Gates PR arm. I give you the example of Mexico's enciclomedia project (which was an absolute failure): with the simplest menace of the country's strategy of including linux as a base platform for millions of computers for elementary schools, the B&MG foundation (after a lightning trip of ballmer and gates to personally talk to President Fox) donated 40 million dollars worth of boxes with a simple, little string attached: it HAS to run Microsoft Windows.

also :
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gatesx07jan07,0,4205044,full.story
Also, as an earlier poster mentioned :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_and_Melinda_Gates_Foundation#Criticisms
also this :
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4103.htm

Some fellow posted the following here somewhere

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4103.htm

Your asking for a citation is certainly a good idea. However, you could find one yourself and post it instead, so you don't just look as if you were spreading FUD.

Now why don't you find some more mainstream source for this citation which might look a little bit more reliable than the link above.

giving away of billions in charity is all a ruse to solidify his ill-gotten position of power.

So you're saying, that it isn't?

Citations. Desperately. Needed.

In an opinion piece?