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Information Clearing House Newsletter
News You Won’t Find On CNN
December 11, 2009
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“If they do it, it’s terrorism, if we do it, it’s fighting for freedom.” – Anthony Quainton, U.S. Ambassador to Nicaragua, 1984: Source: Off the record response of the Ambassador to a group of concerned U.S. citizens when asked to explain the difference between U.S. government actions in Nicaragua and the violence it condemns as terrorism elsewhere in the world.

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It is in the nature of imperialism that citizens of the imperial power are always among the last to know–or care–about circumstances in the colonies: Bertrand Russell

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The president has adopted a policy of ‘anticipatory self-defense’ that is alarmingly similar to the policy that imperial Japan employed at Pearl Harbor, on a date which, as an earlier American president said it would, lives in infamy. Franklin D. Roosevelt was right, but today it is we Americans who live in infamy: Arthur Schlesinger.

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I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. Some of these young men think that war is all glory but let me say war is all hell: William Tecumseh Sherman.

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Number Of Iraqis Slaughtered Since The U.S. Invaded Iraq “1,366,350″
www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths.html

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Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In America’s War On Iraq: 4,687
icasualties.org/oif/

Number Of International Occupation Force Troops Slaughtered In Afghanistan : 1,538
http://icasualties.org/oef/

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Cost of War in Iraq
$707,931,965,989

Cost of War in Afghanistan
$233,686,172,237

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CIA Mercenaries Murdered “Militants”

Private Guards ‘Took Part in Raids on al-Qaeda Militants’

By Giles Whittell and Tim Reid

According to former Blackwater staff, sent to protect CIA officers in the field, they helped to kill militants targeted in “snatch and grab” raids.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24164.htm

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US Refuses To Allow Monitoring Of WMD

By Carl Herman

WMD treaty violations and inspection refusal for biological, nuclear, chemical weapons. Iran? No, US
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24158.htm

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Sound Familiar?
US Refuses to Allow UN Inspectors to Investigate its WMDs

By Agence France-Presse

The United States said Wednesday that it remained opposed to international inspections of biological weapon sites.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24160.htm

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Anthrax War

Video Documentary

In tracing the 2001 bio-terror attacks in the U.S. to the heart of the U.S. bio-defense program, this film raises an alarm. These attacks that helped prepare a country for war have also spawned a multi-billion dollar bio-defense boom. The line between bio-offense and bio-defense is becoming extremely thin.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24159.htm

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Networks Still Hosting Military Analysts Without Identifying Massive Conflicts Of Interest

By Laura Bassett

Military strategy is a frequent topic on TV in the wake of President Obama’s announcement that he will send more troops to Afghanistan now — and start bringing them out by mid-2011. But few television viewers have any idea that some of what they’re hearing originates from men who are literally profiting from the war.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24165.htm

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Following the Money Trail:
Telecoms and ISPs Feed the Secret State’s Surveillance Machine

By Tom Burghardt

That the American people have been kept in the dark when it comes to this and other affairs of state, remain among the most closely-guarded open secrets of what has euphemistically been called the “NSA spying scandal.”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24166.htm

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The Devil and Mr. Obama

Barack promised change — and sure enough, things changed for the worse

By Joe Bageant

Many who voted for Obama out of disgust for the Bush regime are now listening to the Republicans again on their car radios as they drive around looking for a suitable place to hide their vehicles from the repo man.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24161.htm

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Bernanke’s Faux Recovery

By Mike Whitney

By usurping powers not granted under its charter, the Fed has resuscitated insolvent institutions and helped them continue the transfer of wealth from one class to another.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24162.htm

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Food Stamps Go to a Record 37.2 Million, USDA Says

By Alan Bjerga

A record 37.2 million people, or about one out of every eight Americans, received food stamps in September, as the recession drove a surging jobless rate, according to a government report.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24163.htm

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17 militants killed, 49 suspects arrested in NW Pakistan:

Seventeen militants were killed and as many as 49 suspects apprehended in ongoing military operations in Pakistan’s northwest during the last 24 hours, military sources said Friday.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-12/11/content_12633006.htm

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Drone hit may have killed senior al Qaeda leader:

“Nothing has been definitively confirmed, but it’s possible that a senior al Qaeda figure has died,” said the U.S. official, who declined to be named.
http://snipurl.com/tnlos

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Afghan Police Say 2 Officers, 3 Civilians Killed By Suicide Bomber On A Motorcycle
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/12/11/ap/asia/main5966421.shtml

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Child killed in Afghan wedding blast:

The Afghan Interior Ministry said the explosion happened when a grenade was thrown at the event in a province east of Kabul last night.
http://snipurl.com/tnlou

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Why Do Airstrikes in Afghanistan Keep Killing Exactly 30 People?:

On Monday, the anonymous blogger Security Crank noticed something interesting: all the U.S. and NATO airstrikes in Afghanistan seemingly kill exactly 30 people every time. How can that be?
http://snipurl.com/tnlow

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Afghanistan: UK and US seek to cancel 2010 parliamentary election:

Britain and America are seeking to cancel next year’s parliamentary election in Afghanistan amid fears that it will distract from President Barack Obama’s new strategy to bring security to the country.
http://snipurl.com/tnlp4

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Seven killed in Iraq attacks:

Seven people, including three policemen and two soldiers, were killed by attacks in and around Baghdad on Friday, an Iraqi interior ministry official said.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20091211/twl-seven-killed-in-iraq-attacks-3cd7efd.html

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Are deaths from violence in Iraq being under-reported?:

BBC Video Report: The Iraqi government is being accused of under-reporting the number of people killed after weeks of deadly violence.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8407023.stm

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Who is counting the bodies in Iraq?:

Mr Maliki’s political reputation was built largely on his apparent success in bringing violence levels down following the US troop surge in 2007. Now, this image of a man who could keep Baghdad safe has been tarnished.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8405894.stm

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War Criminal : Blair ‘would have gone to war without Iraqi WMD’:

The former Prime Minister has confessed that he would have had to use different arguments to justify toppling Saddam Hussein. But he says in an interview to be broadcast tomorrow morning that he would still have taken steps to remove the Iraqi dictator from power.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6954043.ece

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Iraqi-American Christians blast U.S. policies in Iraq:

Upset and frustrated, about 300 metro Detroiters with roots in Iraq, most of them Chaldeans, gathered Thursday night in a banquet hall in Warren where Michael Corbin, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, spoke to the crowd.
http://snipurl.com/tnlpd

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Spoils of war:

Iraq oil development rights contracts awarded:

Shell and Petronas beat a rival bid from France’s Total and China’s CNPC.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8407274.stm

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Manufacturing Consent For Attack On Iran:

US commander says Iran still arming Iraq militias:

“Iran still smuggles equipment and aid to terrorists across the border,” the general said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091210/pl_afp/iraqunrestusiransyria

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EU ready to accompany UNSC against Iran:

The EU has warned that it will accompany the UN Security Council in punitive action should Iran fail to provide a ‘clear response’ over its nuclear work.
http://snipurl.com/tnlpi

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U.S. warns Iran of ‘consequences’ over nuclear program
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1134458.html

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Diplomat, scientist among 11 Iranians ‘held by US’:

The Mehr news agency said the foreign ministry is “vigorously” pursuing diplomatic means to obtain the release of the Iranians, three of whom have allegedly been detained in countries outside the United States on Washington’s request.
http://snipurl.com/tnlpn

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Take Action: Tell Congress:

Don’t Limit the President’s Ability to Negotiate with Iran:

The bill – H.R. 2194, known as the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act of 2009 – targets Iran’s energy sector in a way that is likely to hurt the Iranian people, not the Iranian government.
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1439/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=1873

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IDF simulates missile attacks, war against Syria and Hezbollah:

Both drills were two-day affairs for which dozens of reserve officers were mobilized and included scenarios in which ballistic missiles with conventional and nonconventional warheads landed in Israeli cities.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1134302.html

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Report: Iran and Syria sign defense cooperation pact:

Iran and Syria signed a defense cooperation pact in Damascus on Friday, and pledged to work in coordination to counter the regional threat they see posed by the “Zionist regime,” Iranian news agency Al-Alam reported.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1134474.html

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Take Action: Tell President Obama to demand that Israel free Bil’in nonviolent leader Abdallah Abu Rahmah:

On December 10, 2009 at 2 AM, the Israeli military surrounded the Ramallah home of Abdallah Abu Rahmah, a high school teacher and the Coordinator of Bil’in’s Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements, and arrested him.
http://snipurl.com/tnlpw

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Likud minister: Settler population could grow by 10,000 in next year:

The population of illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank could grow by 10,000 in the coming year despite a declared temporary freeze on Israeli building in the territory, Likud Minister Benny Begin has said.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1134461.html

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Israeli settlers attack mosque:

Israeli settlers in the occupied Palestinian West Bank have vandalised a mosque, torching its library and spraying hate messages in Hebrew on the building.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/12/2009121116190107591.html

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US warns Latin America against cozying up to Iran:

Hillary Clinton said on Friday that “we can only say that is a really bad idea for the countries involved,” warning Bolivia and Venezuela in particular. Clinton went on to accuse Iran of being “the major supporter, promoter and exporter of terrorism in the world
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=113477§ionid=3510203

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Ecuador says U.S. helped Colombia plan 2008 bombing:

U.S. intelligence from inside Ecuador was used to plan a 2008 bombing by Colombian troops that killed a top FARC guerrilla chieftain inside Ecuadorean territory, the government said on Thursday.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5B953020091210

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Blackwater Guards Tied to Secret C.I.A. Kidnapping:

Private security guards from Blackwater Worldwide participated in some of the C.I.A.’s most sensitive activities – clandestine raids with agency officers against people suspected of being insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan and the transporting of detainees, according to former company employees and intelligence officials.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/11/us/politics/11blackwater.html

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Turley: Obama bags Peace Prize while his lawyers are ‘gutting’ Nuremberg:

Turley pointed out that several legal advisors to Germany’s Ministry of Justice were convicted during the Nuremberg trials held after World War II for providing the legal advice that justified Nazi war crimes. Now the Obama administration, in its desire to uphold executive privilege at any cost, is willing to toss that principle aside.
http://rawstory.com/2009/12/turley-obama-ignores-nuremberg/

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President Obama ‘creating torture impunity’: :

Director of ACLU’s National Security Project Jameel Jaffer said “the Bush administration constructed a legal framework for torture and now the Obama administration is constructing a legal framework for impunity.”
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=113436§ionid=3510203

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Judge finds Pentagon in contempt in Gitmo case:

A federal judge has found the Defense Department in contempt of court for failing to videotape the testimony of a prisoner held at Guantanamo Bay.
http://snipurl.com/tnlq2

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Sound familiar? US refuses to allow UN inspectors to investigate its WMDs:

The United States said Wednesday that it remained opposed to international inspections of biological weapon sites, even though it stressed its commitment to a UN treaty covering such arms and invaded Iraq in part over its alleged stalling of — UN weapons inspectors.
http://rawstory.com/2009/12/refuses-inspectors-investigate-wmds/

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Cremated remains dumped in Arlington landfill:

Records at Arlington National Cemetery suggest that workers found an urn of cremated remains that had been dumped — presumably accidentally — in a dirt landfill, reburied those remains as an unknown soldier, and kept the whole thing quiet.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/12/10/arlington

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Leaders of the Rich World Are Enacting a Giant Fraud:

Every delegate to the Copenhagen summit is being greeted by the sight of a vast fake planet dominating the city’s central square. This swirling globe is covered with corporate logos – the Coke brand is stamped over Africa, while Carlsberg appears to own Asia, and McDonald’s announces “I’m loving it!” in great red letters above
http://snipurl.com/tnlqm

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Americans Want Government to Spend for Jobs, Send Bill to Rich:

Americans want their government to create jobs through spending on public works, investments in alternative energy or skills training for the jobless. They also want the deficit to come down. And most are ready to hand the bill to the wealthy.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=awkrRPMONDW8

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House passes $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill:

Blending increases for veterans’ programs, NASA and the FBI with a pay raise for federal workers and help for car dealers, the legislation wraps together six of the 12 annual appropriations bills.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/1932454,house-omnibus-spending-bill-passes-1210009.article

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Max Baucus gave girlfriend $14K raise:

Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, gave a nearly $14,000 pay raise to a female staffer in 2008, at the time he was becoming romantically involved with her, and later that year took her on a taxpayer-funded trip to Southeast Asia and the Middle East, though foreign policy was not her specialty.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/30478.html

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House passes broad Wall Street regulatory overhaul:

In a separate vote Friday, Democratic leaders failed to revive legislation that would let bankruptcy judges rewrite mortgages to lower homeowners’ monthly payments. The measure was rejected by a 241-188 .
http://snipurl.com/tnlqq

Tycoon, Contractor, Soldier, Spy
Erik Prince, recently outed as a participant in a C.I.A. assassination program, has gained notoriety as head of the military-contracting juggernaut Blackwater, a company dogged by a grand-jury investigation, bribery accusations, and the voluntary-manslaughter trial of five ex-employees, set for next month. Lashing back at his critics, the wealthy former navy seal takes the author inside his operation in the U.S. and Afghanistan, revealing the role he’s been playing in America’s war on terror.

Widening concern about the state of climate science after thousands of internal e-mails and computer files were posted on the Internet could jeopardize any agreement at this week’s summit in Copenhagen.

Although a sweeping international deal already appeared unlikely, agreement on even less ambitious measures will be complicated by the growing ClimateGate scandal and questions that have been raised about the reliability of computer models linking global warming to man-made activities. No less an authority than the U.N.’s top climate official, Yvo de Boer, acknowledged on Sunday that the data leak was damaging; domestically, Republicans are pressing the Obama administration to reevaluate its position. (See CBS News’ previous coverage.)

The summit in Denmark that began Monday, properly titled the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference, is expected to draw some 100 heads of state, including President Obama. One unanswered question: How willing are wealthier, developed nations to curb their economic output and tax their citizens to pay poorer countries to emit less carbon dioxide?

A November 20 report from a U.N. working group outlines what many nations would like to see in a final treaty. Wealthier nations including the United States will make “mandatory contributions” to a “multilateral climate change fund” paid for by the requirement that “developed country parties shall restructure their taxation regime.” The report warns: “Delay by developed country parties in implementing their commitments to reduce emissions will increase their climate debt to the developing country parties.”

The leaked electronic files have proven problematic because the argument for an international treaty is attached to this chain of reasoning: the earth is warming, the primary cause is man-made carbon dioxide emissions, the effect is harmful and can be remediated by limiting CO2 output, and, finally, it’s worth spending billions or even trillions to do so. If foundational data about temperature measurements is in error, as critics now say is the case – well, we might as well cancel the Copenhagen summit and tell all those inbound private jets to turn around and return home.

To be sure, many – perhaps even most – climate researchers say any flaw in the leaked data assembled by the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) does not mean the theory of man-made global warming is false. Nicholas Stern, chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics, calls evidence for that theory “overwhelming,” and Obama administration scientists last week downplayed the scandal, as did a U.N. panel. Tempers are flaring: one of the East Anglia academics resorted to calling a skeptic “an asshole” on a live BBC television interview.

And the scandal seems to be broadening. Internal investigations are underway at the CRU and Penn State (with the state senate warning that the school’s budget may be at risk), one estimate from a free-market group says that 12 of the 26 scientists who wrote the relevant section of a U.N. global warming report are “up to their necks in ClimateGate,” and the BBC and independent analysts are evaluating the CRU’s computer code and finding it lacking.

Declan McCullogh

Invisible Hero Exposes the Evil Power Elite

“If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?”
Albert Einstein

The resulting paper can be found HERE.