Soldado asesino

Un sargento estadounidense asesina 16 personas en Afganistan, muchos niños y la noticia, que de momento oculta el nombre del sujeto, un sargento, analiza los detalles de si el hombre estaba bebido (¡), de si lo colmaba el estrés acumulado en su ejercicio de noble guerrero que había sido tres veces herido.

Y por si fuera poco, se aluden a posibles problemas matrimoniales. Cosa que se niega aduciendo que su matrimonio era "sano" y a que su  esposa gozaba de un buen empleo.

He sentido auténtico asco ante lo hipócrita que puede ser la información con que nos bombardean: no hay dudas de que las guerras convierten a los seres humanos en psicópatas.

Pero es así como llegan a ser útiles a los ejércitos: cuando como el criminal de la noticia desatan lo peor de si mismos.

El asesinato, como tantos otros delitos que se nos ocultan, quedará sin verdadero castigo. A lo sumo unas sesiones con el psiquiatra, reclusión en un centro especializado, depaquine, ziprexa,seroquel y buena paga extra. Y su muy sano matrimonio, con dos hijos para santificarlo, seguirá adelante.

Pero, ¿Imaginan el profundo odio que siembran a su paso los soldados de la democracia? ¿Pueden ponerse en el lugar de los familiares y vecinos de los muertos? ¿Pueden sentir su desolación e impotencia?. En medio de esos desiertos y montañas donde la supervivencia es un reto.

No es de extrañar que un fanático taliban suicida se lleve por delante lo que pueda. Y ojo por ojo y muerto por muerto.

He leido en alguna parte que Obama ha dicho "que su función de presidente le estimula la necesidad de orar".

Todas sus oraciones seran inútiles presidente, mientras siga sembrando guerras.

Que Dios o Alá o Jehová lo coja confesado, que dicen los abuelos en Spain.

Menudo Nobel de la paz de los sepulcros que está usted hecho.

Mear los muertos



Secretaria de Estado Hillary R. Clinton

 El vídeo no deja lugar a dudas:aparecen cuatro soldados con uniforme de camuflage meando sobre tres cuerpos inhertes envueltos de mala manera en trapos.

Uno puede pensar que los militares están fumados, pinchados o ambas cosa. Porque orinar encima de un cadáver humano es algo que degrada tanto a quien lo practica, que se busca instintivamente un eximente, una razón remota.

Algunos ritos bélicos de ciertas tribus, citados por Fraser, contemplaban el ingerir el corazón de los enemigos como forma de incorporar su fuerza.

Pero aquí no se trata de presuntos salvajes sino de miembros del cuerpo de marines de Estados Unidos, tal vez procedentes de una base de Carolina del Norte.

Allí tengo numerosos buenos amigos. Gente que ama su país como yo también lo hago. Mear encima de un cadaver humano es ni más ni menos que una profanación. ¿Cuántas cosas  suceden en Afganistán y no nos enteramos?.

Y encima sale la Sra. Clinton rasgándose las vestiduras. Tan ñoña y pasada de moda. Cierren de una vez Guantánamo. Dejen de jugar a las guerras nucleares. Todavía están a tiempo.(Para documentación visitar Global Research).

El silencio culpable de los medios

What is the mainstream media not reporting? By Global Research

En varios artículos de "Global Research" se responde a la pregunta de si existen "guerras humanitarias". A juzgar por el elevado número de civiles muertos en lo que va de campaña  por ejemplo, en Afganistan, no es así. Pero el silencio de los medios de comunicación, que miran hacia otro lado, colabora a un panorama como el que describió Orwell en "1984". Vemos lo que quieren que veamos.Y vamos como ciegos.
In George Orwell's oft-quoted and insightful book 1984, we clearly see how this work of fiction has become reality, and in turn how reality is turned back into fiction through the manipulative, inaccurate and deceptive reporting of mainstream media. As Orwell accurately wrote:


"Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct; nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary."


Indeed, this is the "reality" we face when we turn to mainstream news networks, a reality coloured and created through corporate interests which reflect their own agendas instead of the truth.


For example, political leaders and the mainstream media continue to explain to us that the reason for NATO's armed intervention in Libya is to bring freedom and democracy to the subjugated masses. However, as Global Research has been consistently pointing out through deep analysis and on-the-ground reporting, the concept of "humanitarian war" is a gross oxymoron. As Prof. Michel Chossudovsky wrote this week:


"The objective of the NATO bombings from the outset was to destroy the country's standard of living, its health infrastructure, its schools and hospitals, its water distribution system. And then "rebuild" with the help of donors and creditors under the helm of the IMF and the World Bank." (Read: "Destroying a Country's Standard of Living: What Libya Had Achieved, What has been Destroyed").

In Bahrain, Global Research Correspondent Finian Cunningham exposes how the West not only works against democratic principles, but goes to extreme lengths to ensure that their interests are not destabilized. Here is what the well-funded corporate media did not report about this week:


"It is hard not to draw the conclusion that the whole prosecution has been a vile fabrication; a show trial whose real purpose was to impugn the entire Bahraini political opposition. Disgracefully, in order for the US-backed Bahraini regime to achieve that objective two innocent young men are facing firing squads and five others are languishing for life in prison." (Read: "Bahrain: New Evidence of Framed-up Death Sentences Against Pro-Democracy Activists")

Turning the lens to North America, Dr. Paul Craig Roberts minces no words in describing the bleak state of the economy, with Americans living in poverty while funds are directed into the coffers of inflated corporate and defense funds. And true to form, the mainstream media employs distraction techniques to keep people in the dark about where their money is really going and how it is being mishandled:


"US politicians, such as Buddy Roemer, blame the collapse of US manufacturing on Chinese competition and “unfair trade practices.” However, it is US corporations that move their factories abroad, thus replacing domestic production with imports. Half of US imports from China consist of the offshored production of US corporations." (Read: "America and Europe: Saving the Rich and Losing the Economy").




Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Centre for Research on Globalization. The contents of this article are of sole responsibility of the author(s). The Centre for Research on Globalization will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements contained in this article.

The CRG grants permission to cross-post original Global Research articles on community internet sites as long as the text & title are not modified. The source and the author's copyright must be displayed. For publication of Global Research articles in print or other forms including commercial internet sites, contact: crgeditor@yahoo.com


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© Copyright Global Research, Global Research, 2011

A vueltas con Osama bin Laden

Han transcurrido 10 peligrosos años desde el ataque a las Torres Gemelas, al Pentágono y de la explosión de otro avión sobre Pensilvania. La guerra de Afganistán se ha cobrado  2537 muertos y un número indeterminado de heridos. Madrid, Londres y otros muchos lugares han sufrido con creces la acción de un enemigo resbaladizo al que se asocia con el terrorismo islámico o la artera acción de AlQaeda. La muerte fulminante del "enemigo número uno" de Estados Unidos Osama bin Laden ha dejado muchas interrogantes. El libro del profesor Chossudovsky puede contribuir a aclararlas. Aquí se han escogido algunos de los asuntos que se tratan en profundidad en el texto. Pueden enlazar con http://www.globalresearch.ca/ 
La reproducción del texto es gratuita. Pero se ruega publicar los datos del autor.

Ten Years Later: Who Is Osama bin Laden?
By Prof. Michel Chossudovsky


Since 2001, it has appeared on numerous websites.

The original September 12, 2001 posting is one of the most widely read articles on the internet, pertaining to Osama bin laden and Al Qaeda.


Within hours of the attacks, Osama bin Laden was identified as the architect of 9/11. On the following day, the "war on terrorism" had been launched. The media disinformation campaign went into full gear.  Afghanistan was identified as a "state sponsor of terror". The 9/11 attacks were categorized as an act of war, an attack on America by a foreign power.


The right to self-defense was put forth. On September 12, less than 24 hours after the attacks, NATO invoked for the first time in its history "Article 5 of the Washington Treaty - its collective defence clause" declaring the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center (WTC) and the Pentagon "to be an attack against all NATO members."


What happened subsequently, with the invasions of Afghanistan (October 2001) and Iraq (March 2003) is already part of history.

In the wake of the NATO sponsored "Liberation" of Libya (August 20011), Syria and Iran constitute the next phase of the US-NATO military roadmap.


9/11 remains the pretext and justification for waging a war without borders. In a bitter irony, the global war on terrorism (GWOT) is waged not against the terrorists but with "with the terrorists" (WTT), with the full support, as in Libya, of Al Qaeda affiliated paramilitary brigades under US-NATO supervision.


Excerpts from the Preface of America's "War on Terrorism", Second edition, Global Research, 2005:


At eleven o’clock, on the morning of September 11, the Bush administration had already announced that Al Qaeda was responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center (WTC) and the Pentagon.

This assertion was made prior to the conduct of an indepth police investigation.


That same evening at 9.30 pm, a "War Cabinet" was formed integrated by a select number of top intelligence and military advisors. And at 11.00 pm, at the end of that historic meeting at the White House, the "War on Terrorism" was officially launched.


The decision was announced to wage war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in retribution for the 9/11 attacks.

The following morning on September 12th, the news headlines indelibly pointed to "state sponsorship" of the 9/11 attacks.

In chorus, the US media was calling for a military intervention against Afghanistan.


Barely four weeks later, on the 7th of October, Afghanistan was bombed and invaded by US troops.

Americans were led to believe that the decison to go to war had been taken on the spur of the moment, on the evening of September 11, in response to the attacks and their tragic consequences.


Little did the public realize that a large scale theater war is never planned and executed in a matter of weeks.

The decision to launch a war and send troops to Afghanistan had been taken well in advance of 9/11.

The "terrorist, massive, casualty-producing event" as it was later described by CentCom Commander General Tommy Franks, served to galvanize public opinion in support of a war agenda which was already in its final planning stage.


The tragic events of 9/11 provided the required justification to wage a war on "humanitarian grounds", with the full support of World public opinion and the endorsement of the "international community".


Several prominent "progressive" intellectuals made a case for "retaliation against terrorism", on moral and ethical grounds. The "just cause" military doctrine (jus ad bellum) was accepted and upheld at face value as a legitimate response to 9/11, without examining the fact that Washington had not only supported the "Islamic terror network", it was also instrumental in the installation of the Taliban government in 1996.


In the wake of 9/11, the antiwar movement was completely isolated. The trade unions and civil society organizations had swallowed the media lies and government propaganda. They had accepted a war of retribution against Afghanistan, an impoverished country of 30 million people.


I started writing on the evening of September 11, late into the night, going through piles of research notes, which I had previously collected on the history of Al Qaeda.

My first text entitled "Who is Osama bin Laden?" was completed and first published on September the 12th. (See full text of 9/12 article below).


From the very outset, I questioned the official story, which described nineteen Al Qaeda sponsored hijackers involved in a highly sophisticated and organized operation.

My first objective was to reveal the true nature of this illusive "enemy of America", who was "threatening the Homeland".


The myth of the "outside enemy" and the threat of "Islamic terrorists" was the cornerstone of the Bush adminstration’s military doctrine, used as a pretext to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, not to mention the repeal of civil liberties and constitutional government in America.


Without an "outside enemy", there could be no "war on terrorism". The entire national security agenda would collapse "like a deck of cards". The war criminals in high office would have no leg to stand on.


It was consequently crucial for the development of a coherent antiwar and civil rights movement, to reveal the nature of Al Qaeda and its evolving relationship to successive US adminstrations.

Amply documented but rarely mentioned by the mainstream media, Al Qaeda was a creation of the CIA going back to the Soviet-Afghan war. This was a known fact, corroborated by numerous sources including official documents of the US Congress.

The intelligence community had time and again acknowledged that they had indeed supported Osama bin Laden, but that in the wake of the Cold War: "he turned against us".


After 9/11, the campaign of media disinformation served not only to drown the truth but also to kill much of the historical evidence on how this illusive "outside enemy" had been fabricated and transformed into "Enemy Number One".

Michel Chossudovsky, Excerpts from the Preface of America's "War on Terrorism", Montreal, Global Research, 2005.


Who Is Osama Bin Laden?
by Michel Chossudovsky


http://www.globalresearch.ca/


September 12, 2001


A few hours after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, the Bush administration concluded without supporting evidence, that "Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda organisation were prime suspects". CIA Director George Tenet stated that bin Laden has the capacity to plan ``multiple attacks with little or no warning.'' Secretary of State Colin Powell called the attacks "an act of war" and President Bush confirmed in an evening televised address to the Nation that he would "make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them". Former CIA Director James Woolsey pointed his finger at "state sponsorship," implying the complicity of one or more foreign governments. In the words of former National Security Adviser, Lawrence Eagleburger, "I think we will show when we get attacked like this, we are terrible in our strength and in our retribution."


Meanwhile, parroting official statements, the Western media mantra has approved the launching of "punitive actions" directed against civilian targets in the Middle East. In the words of William Saffire writing in the New York Times: "When we reasonably determine our attackers' bases and camps, we must pulverize them -- minimizing but accepting the risk of collateral damage" -- and act overtly or covertly to destabilize terror's national hosts".


The following text outlines the history of Osama Bin Laden and the links of the Islamic "Jihad" to the formulation of US foreign policy during the Cold War and its aftermath.


1) Prime suspect in the New York and Washington terrorists attacks, branded by the FBI as an "international terrorist" for his role in the African US embassy bombings, Saudi born Osama bin Laden was recruited during the Soviet-Afghan war "ironically under the auspices of the CIA, to fight Soviet invaders".

2) In 1979 "the largest covert operation in the history of the CIA" was launched in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in support of the pro-Communist government of Babrak Kamal.


3) With the active encouragement of the CIA and Pakistan's ISI [Inter Services Intelligence], who wanted to turn the Afghan jihad into a global war waged by all Muslim states against the Soviet Union, some 35,000 Muslim radicals from 40 Islamic countries joined Afghanistan's fight between 1982 and 1992. Tens of thousands more came to study in Pakistani madrasahs. Eventually more than 100,000 foreign Muslim radicals were directly influenced by the Afghan jihad.


The Islamic "jihad" was supported by the United States and Saudi Arabia with a significant part of the funding generated from the Golden Crescent drug trade:


4) In March 1985, President Reagan signed National Security Decision Directive 166,...[which] authorize[d] stepped-up covert military aid to the mujahideen, and it made clear that the secret Afghan war had a new goal: to defeat Soviet troops in Afghanistan through covert action and encourage a Soviet withdrawal. The new covert U.S. assistance began with a dramatic increase in arms supplies -- a steady rise to 65,000 tons annually by 1987, ... as well as a "ceaseless stream" of CIA and Pentagon specialists who traveled to the secret headquarters of Pakistan's ISI on the main road near Rawalpindi, Pakistan. There the CIA specialists met with Pakistani intelligence officers to help plan operations for the Afghan rebels.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) using Pakistan's military Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) played a key role in training the Mujahideen. In turn, the CIA sponsored guerrilla training was integrated with the teachings of Islam:



Michel Chossudovsky is the author of the international best America’s "War on Terrorism" Second Edition, Global Research, 2005. He is Professor of Economics (emeritus) at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Center for Research on Globalization.



























media inquiries crgeditor@yahoo.com










Related article: Where was Osama on September 11, 2001? by Michel Chossudovsky, 9 September 2006


Notes






Hugh Davies, International: `Informers' point the finger at bin Laden; Washington on alert for suicide bombers, The Daily Telegraph, London, 24 August 1998.


See Fred Halliday, "The Un-great game: the Country that lost the Cold War, Afghanistan, New Republic, 25 March 1996):


Ahmed Rashid, The Taliban: Exporting Extremism, Foreign Affairs, November-December 1999.


Steve Coll, Washington Post, July 19, 1992.


Dilip Hiro, Fallout from the Afghan Jihad, Inter Press Services, 21 November 1995.


Weekend Sunday (NPR); Eric Weiner, Ted Clark; 16 August 1998.


Ibid.


Dipankar Banerjee; Possible Connection of ISI With Drug Industry, India Abroad, 2 December 1994.


Ibid


See Diego Cordovez and Selig Harrison, Out of Afghanistan: The Inside Story of the Soviet Withdrawal, Oxford university Press, New York, 1995. See also the review of Cordovez and Harrison in International Press Services, 22 August 1995.


Alfred McCoy, Drug fallout: the CIA's Forty Year Complicity in the Narcotics Trade. The Progressive; 1 August 1997.


Ibid


Ibid.


Douglas Keh, Drug Money in a changing World, Technical document no 4, 1998, Vienna UNDCP, p. 4. See also Report of the International Narcotics Control Board for 1999, E/INCB/1999/1 United Nations Publication, Vienna 1999, p 49-51, And Richard Lapper, UN Fears Growth of Heroin Trade, Financial Times, 24 February 2000.


Report of the International Narcotics Control Board, op cit, p 49-51, see also Richard Lapper, op. cit.


International Press Services, 22 August 1995.


Ahmed Rashid, The Taliban: Exporting Extremism, Foreign Affairs, November- December, 1999, p. 22.


Quoted in the Christian Science Monitor, 3 September 1998)


Tim McGirk, Kabul learns to live with its bearded conquerors, The Independent, London, 6 November1996.


See K. Subrahmanyam, Pakistan is Pursuing Asian Goals, India Abroad, 3 November 1995.


Levon Sevunts, Who's calling the shots?: Chechen conflict finds Islamic roots in Afghanistan and Pakistan, The Gazette, Montreal, 26 October 1999..


Ibid


Ibid.


See Vitaly Romanov and Viktor Yadukha, Chechen Front Moves To Kosovo Segodnia, Moscow, 23 Feb 2000.


The European, 13 February 1997, See also Itar-Tass, 4-5 January 2000.


BBC, 29 September 1999.










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Los gastos militares empobrecen a los ciudadanos

Una presentación obsoleta: El presente artículo de James Petra analiza el presupuesto de Estados Unidos para gastos militares y su repercución en servicios sociales y sanitarios. No hay dudas de que las actuales inversiones en guerras perjudican a la extensa clase media estadounidense, trama fundamental de la prosperidad del país. Los gastos en los diferentes frentes mantenidos  por el gobierno de Obama arrojan cifras mareantes. Y sería el colmo de la ingenuidad afirmar que tanto dinero se dirige a combatir el terrorismo. Petras desmenuza paso a paso las tramas que funcionan detrás de las partidas del presupuesto destinadas a fines bélicos. Y no le hacen falta teorías conspiratorias alambicadas:los números hablan por sí solos.


Imperial Decline: Multi-Billion-Dollar Terrorists and the Disappearing Middle Class
by Prof. James Petras


The US government (White House and Congress) spends $10 billion dollars a month, or $120 billion a year, to fight an estimated “50 -75 ‘Al Qaeda types’ in Afghanistan ”, according to the CIA and quoted in the Financial Times of London (6/25 -26/11, p. 5).

During the past 30 months of the Obama presidency, Washington has spent $300 billion dollars in Afghanistan , which adds up to $4 billion dollars for each alleged ‘Al Queda type’. If we multiply this by the two dozen or so sites and countries where the White House claims ‘Al Qaeda’ terrorists have been spotted, we begin to understand why the US budget deficit has grown astronomically to over $1.6 trillion for the current fiscal year.


During Obama’s Presidency, Social Security’s cost-of-living adjustment has been frozen, resulting in a net decrease of over 8 percent, which is exactly the amount spent chasing just 5 dozen ‘Al Qaeda terrorists’ in the mountains bordering Pakistan .


It is absurd to believe that the Pentagon and White House would spend $10 billion a month just to hunt down a handful of terrorists ensconced in the mountains of Afghanistan . So what is the war in Afghanistan about? The answer one most frequently reads and hears is that the war is really against the Taliban, a mass-based Islamic nationalist guerrilla movement with tens of thousands of activists.

The Taliban, however, have never engaged in any terrorist act against the territorial United States or its overseas presence. The Taliban have always maintained their fight was for the expulsion of foreign forces occupying Afghanistan . Hence the Taliban is not part of any “international terrorist network”. If the US war in Afghanistan is not about defeating terrorism, then why the massive expenditure of funds and manpower for over a decade?


Several hypotheses come to mind:
The first is the geopolitics of Afghanistan : The US is actively establishing forward military bases, surrounding and bordering on China .




Secondly, US bases in Afghanistan serve as launching pads to foment “dissident separatist” armed ethnic conflicts and apply the tactics of ‘divide and conquer’ against Iran , China , Russia and Central Asian republics.




Thirdly, Washington’s launch of the Afghan war (2001) and the easy initial conquest encouraged the Pentagon to believe that a low cost, easy military victory was at hand, one that could enhance the image of the US as an invincible power, capable of imposing its rule anywhere in the world, unlike the disastrous experience of the USSR.


Fourthly, the early success of the Afghan war was seen as a prelude to the launching of asequence of successful wars, first against Iraq and to be followed by Iran , Syria and beyond. These would serve the triple purpose of enhancing Israeli regional power, controlling strategic oil resources and enlarging the arc of US military bases from South and Central Asia, through the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean .


The strategic policies, formulated by the militarists and Zionists in the Bush and Obama Administrations, assumed that guns, money, force and bribes could build stable satellite states firmly within the orbit of the post-Soviet US empire. Afghanistan was seen as an easy first conquest the initial step to sequential wars.

Each victory, it was assumed would undermine domestic and allied (European) opposition. The initial costs of imperial war, the Neo-Cons claimed, would be paid for by wealth extracted from the conquered countries, especially from the oil producing regions. The rapid US defeat of the Taliban government confirmed the belief of the military strategists that “backward”, lightly armed Islamic peoples were no match up for the US powerhouse and its astute leaders.


Wrong Assumptions, Mistaken Strategies: The Trillion Dollar Disaster

Every assumption, formulated by these civilian strategists and their military counterparts, has been proven wrong. Al Qaeda was and is a marginal adversary; the real force capable of sustaining a prolonged peoples wars against an imperial occupier, inflicting heavy casualties, undermining any local puppet regime and accumulating mass support is the Taliban and related nationalist resistance movements. Israeli-influenced US think-tanks, experts and advisers who portrayed the Islamic adversaries as inept, ineffective and cowardly, totally misread the Afghan resistance. Blinded by ideological antipathy, these high-ranking advisers and White House/Pentagon civilian-office holders failed to recognize the tactical and strategic, political and military acumen of the top and middle-level Islamist nationalist leaders and their tremendous reserve of mass support in neighboring Pakistan and beyond.




The Obama White House, heavily dependent on Islamophobic pro-Israel experts, further isolated the US troops and alienated the Afghan population by tripling the number of troops, further establishing the credentials of the Taliban as the authentic alternative to a foreign occupation.


As for the neo-conservative pipe dreams of successful sequential wars, cooked up by the likes of Paul Wolfowitz, Feith, Abrams, Libby et al, to eliminate Israel’s adversaries and turn the Persian Gulf into a Hebrew lake, the prolonged wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan has, in fact, strengthened Iran’s regional influence, turned the entire Pakistani people against the US and strengthened mass movements against US clients throughout the Middle East.


Sequential imperial defeats have resulted in a massive hemorrhage of the US treasury, rather than the promised flood of oil wealth from tributary clients. According to a recent scholarly study, the military cost of the wars in Iraq , Afghanistan and Pakistan have exceeded $3.2 trillion dollars (“The Costs of War Since 2001”, Eisenhower Study Group, June 2011) and is growing at over ten billion a month. Meanwhile the Taliban “tightens (its) psychological grip” on Afghanistan (FT6/30/2011, p. 8). According to the latest reports even the most guarded 5-star hotel in the center of Kabul, the Intercontinental, was vulnerable to a sustained assault and take over by militants, because “high security Afghan forces” are infiltrated and the Taliban operate everywhere, having established “shadow” governments in most cities, towns and villages (FT 6/30/11 p.8).


Imperial Decline, Empty Treasury and the Specter of a Smash-Up


The crumbling empire has depleted the US treasury. As the Congress and White House fight over raising the debt ceiling, the cost of war aggressively erodes any possibility of maintaining stable living standards for the American middle and working classes and heightens growing inequalities between the top 1% and the rest of the American people. Imperial wars are based on the pillage of the US treasury. The imperial state has, via extraordinary tax exemptions, concentrated wealth in the hands of the super-rich while the middle and working classes have been pushed downward, as only low paid jobs are available.


In 1974, the top 1% of US individuals accounted for 8% of total national income but as of 2008 they earned 18% of national income. And most of this 18% is concentrated in the hands of a tiny super-rich 1% of that 1%, or 0.01% of the American population, (FT 6/28/11, p. 4 and 6/30/11, p. 6). While the super-rich plunder the treasury and intensify the exploitation of labor, the number of middle income jobs is plunging: From 1993 to 2006, over 7% of middle income jobs disappeared (FT 6/30/11, p. 4). While inequalities may be rising throughout the world, the US now has the greatest inequalities among all the leading capitalist countries.


The burden of sustaining a declining empire, with its the monstrous growth in military spending, has fallen disproportionately on middle and working class taxpayers and wage earners. The military and financial elites’ pillage of the economy and treasury has set in motion a steep decline in living standards, income and job opportunities. Between 1970 -2009, while gross domestic product more than doubled, US median pay stagnated in real terms (FT 7/28/11, p. 4). If we factor in the added fixed costs of pensions, health and education, real income for wage and salaried workers, especially since the 1990’s, has been declining sharply.


Even greater blows are to come in the second half 2011: As the Obama White House expands its imperial interventions in Pakistan, Libya and Yemen, increasing military and police-state spending, Obama is set to reach budgetary agreements with the far right Republicans, which will savage government health care programs, like MEDICARE and MEDICAID, as well as Social Security, the national retirement program. Prolonged wars have pushed the budget to the breaking point, while the deficit undermines any capacity to revive the economy as it heads toward a ‘repeat recession’.


The entire political establishment is bizarrely oblivious to the fact that their multi-hundred- billion-dollar pursuit of an estimated 50-75 phantom Al Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan has hastened the disappearance of middle income jobs in the US .


The entire political spectrum has turned decisively to the Right and the Far-Right. The debate between Democrats and Republicans is over whether to slash four trillion or more from the last remnants of our country’s social programs.


The Democrats and the Far-Right are united as they pursue multiple wars while currying favor and funds from upper 0.01% super-rich, financial and real estate moguls whose wealth has grown so dramatically during the crisis!


Conclusion
But there is a deep and quiet discomfort within the leading circles of the Obama regime: The “best and brightest” among his top officials are scampering to jump ship before the coming deluge: the Economic Guru Larry Summers, Rahm Emmanuel, Stuart Levey, Peter Orzag, Bob Gates, Tim Geithner and others, responsible for the disastrous wars, economic catastrophes, the gross concentration of wealth and the savaging of our living standards, have walked out or have announced their ‘retirement’, leaving it to the smiling con-men - President Obama and Vice-President ‘Joe’ Biden - and their ‘last and clueless loyalists’ to take the blame when the economy tanks and our social programs are wiped out. How else can we explain their less-than-courageous departures (to ‘spend more time with the family’) in the face of such a deepening crisis? The hasty retreat of these top officials is motivated by their desire to avoid political responsibility and to escape history’s indictment for their role in the impending economic debacle. They are eager to hide from a future judgment over which policy makers and leaders and what policies led to the destruction of the American middle and working classes with their good jobs, stable pensions, Social Security, decent health care and respected place in the world.




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La guerra de Afganistan ha provocado 2537 civiles muertos en los 2 últimos años

Daños colaterales en Afganistan:2537 muertos

En enero la Fuerza de Asistencia a la Seguridad Internacional proporcionó a la revista científica "Science" datos militares internos sobre cifras de civiles muertos y heridos civiles en la guerra de Afganistan.

El balance es de 2537 muertos y 5594 heridos en los dos últimos años transcurridos.

La mayoría de las bajas se atribuyen, por expertos consultados por Science, a "ataques indiscriminados de los insurgentes, más que a las fuerzas regulares de ISAF".


Summary


In January, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) provided Science with the military's internal record of the death and injury of Afghan civilians, broken down by month, region, weaponry, and perpetrator.

By its reckoning, 2537 civilians were killed and 5594 were wounded over the past 2 years, with 12% of those casualties attributed to ISAF forces and the rest to insurgents.

 In February, after learning that the military was releasing these data, both the United Nations and an Afghan human rights organization agreed to release versions of their own civilian casualty data to Science.

Science assembled a team of experts to analyze the released data sets.

They conclude that while the war has grown deadlier for Afghan civilians over the past 2 years, ISAF has become a safer fighting force.

The majority of deaths, and nearly all of the recent increase, are attributed to indiscriminate attacks by insurgents rather than ISAF soldiers.

All of these data, as well as other information never before released, are now freely available online. Taken together, they provide the clearest picture yet of the human cost of the war.