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  • Europe plans to double wind power each decade

    In its newly released Strategic Research Agenda (SRA), the European Wind Energy Technology Platform (TPWind) a new vision in which more than a quarter of the EU’s electricity could be provided by wind in 2030. It describes the research priorities that tie in with this vision, and the financial and human resources these priorities will entail.

    According to the SRA, wind energy could cover 12-14% of the EU’s electricity consumption by 2020, with a total installed capacity of 180 gigawatts (GW). This could increase to 22-28% of consumption and 300 GW by 2030.

    The SRA points out that fulfilling this vision will be a major industrial and technological challenge for Europe, and that public and industry research resources across Europe must be mobilized through the coordination of investment at European and country levels. The report also lays out research priorities and actions for the sector to that could help ensure that it develops new and better technologies successfully.

    TPWind is coordinated by the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA). It was set up in 2006 with the support of the European Commission in order to identify research tasks and reduce the social, environmental and technological costs of wind energy.

    “TPWind’s vision and action plan for research, as presented in the SRA, are hugely important steps forward for the future deployment of wind energy in Europe. The time has now come to begin putting the action plan to effect, and for this the support of the European Commission and Member States will make all the difference,” said Henning Kruse, chairman of TPWind.

    To download the report, click here.

  • Spain builds 28 new solar thermal plants

    From the road to the Solúcar solar plant outside Seville, drivers can see what appear to be glowing white rays emanating from a tower, piercing the dry air, and alighting upon the upturned faces of the tilted mirror panels below. Appearances, though, are deceiving: those upturned mirrors are actually tracking the sun and radiating its power onto a blindingly white square at the top of the tower, creating the equivalent of the power of 600 suns, which is used to vaporize water into steam to power a turbine.

    This tower plant uses concentrated solar technology – otherwise known as solar thermal power – with a central receiver. It’s the first commercial central receiver system in the world.

    Spanish companies and research centers are taking the lead in the recent revival of concentrated solar power, as expanses of mirrors are being assembled around the country for concentrated solar plants. At the same time, Spanish companies are also investing in huge photovoltaic fields, as companies dramatically increase production of PV panels and investigate the next generation of PV. Spain is already fourth in the world in its use of solar power, and second in Europe behind Germany, with more than 120 MW in about 8300 installations of PV. Within only the past ten years, the number of companies working in solar energy has leapt from a couple dozen to a few hundred.

    Power from the Sun’s Heat

    Southern Spain, a region known the world over for its abundant sun and scarce rain, provides an ideal landscape for solar thermal power. The tower outside Seville, built and operated by Solúcar, an Abengoa company, is the first of a number of solar thermal plants and will provide about 10 MW of power. The company SENER is completing Andasol 1, the first parabolic trough plant in Europe, a 50 MW system outside Granada that will begin operation in the summer of 2008.

    Solar thermal power, also known as concentrating solar, works by utilizing the heat of the sun (unlike PV panels, which work on the principle of the movement of electrons between layers when the sun strikes the materials).

    Concentrated solar has until recently cost nearly double that of traditional natural gas or coal power plants, and it only works effectively on a large power-plant scale. “You need a very large budget to set up a concentrated solar power system,” says Eduardo Zarza, solar research director at the concentrated solar research center in Almería. “You need a great deal of land, a steam turbine, an electricity generator, power equipment, people in the control room, staff to run the system.” The costs are also front-loaded, unlike traditional plants: the fuel is free, unlike oil, gas or coal, but the upfront development costs are significantly higher.

    During and immediately following the energy crisis of the 1970s, nine solar thermal plants were built in California to produce a total of 350 MW, but until this year no new commercial plant had been built, anywhere in the world, for fifteen years.

    PV costs run nearly double that of solar thermal for a power plant of a similar size, but PV has the advantage of modularity; individual homes, companies, and buildings can incorporate PV panels into the building or install solar panels in small spaces. This micro-power approach has helped the market for PV explode in the past five years, while solar thermal remained moribund.

    With gas costs rising and the world sharpening its focus on global warming, and governments around the world making a concerted attempt to invest in alternative energy sources on a larger scale, solar thermal is attracting new attention. In Spain in particular, the technology has been assisted by Royal Decree 436, implemented in March 2004, which approved a feed-in tariff (a guaranteed price) for solar thermal power. The
    feed-in tariff made building this type of power plant economically viable. The government also recognizes that, as with wind, the support is necessary at the beginning to enable the creation of new plants – which will most likely drive down prices, as has happened in Spain with wind power.

  • Canadian ice shelf disappears

    AN area of ice covering about 18sqkm has broken off Canada’s largest remaining ice shelf.

    ice floe
    The ice floe drifts off the Ward Hunt shelf

    Trent University researcher Derek Mueller said yesterday he would not be surprised if more ice broke off during the northern summer from the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, a vast frozen plain off the north coast of Ellesmere Island in Canada’s far north.

    In a development consistent with climate change theories, the enormous icy plain broke free some time last week and began slowly drifting into the Arctic Ocean. The piece had been a part of the shelf for 3000 years.

    A crack in the shelf was first spotted in 2002. Last northern spring, a patrol of Canadian Rangers found the weakness had spread into an extensive network of cracks, some 18km long and 40m wide. The crack-riddled section of ice was like a jigsaw puzzle, with the pieces held in place only by each other.

    Formed by accumulating snow and freezing meltwater, ice shelves are large platforms of thick, ancient sea ice that float on the ocean’s surface. Ellesmere Island was once entirely ringed by a single enormous ice shelf that broke up in the early 1900s.

    At 440sqkm in size and 40m thick, the Ward Hunt shelf is the largest of those remnants — even bigger than the Antarctic shelf that collapsed this year and seven times the size of the Ayles Ice Shelf that broke off in 2005 from Ellesmere’s western coast.

    Despite a period of stability in the 80s, the Ward Hunt shelf and its characteristic corrugated surface has been declining since the 30s, Dr Mueller said. Its southern edge has lost 18sqkm over the past six years.

    Dr Mueller did not blame the Ward Hunt breakup specifically on climate change, but said it was consistent with the theory.

    “We’re in a different climate now,” he said.

    It’s the same all over the Arctic, said Gary Stern, co-leader of a major international research program on sea ice.

    Speaking from the Coast Guard icebreaker Amundsen in Canada’s north, Professor Stern said the Ward Hunt breakup was related to what he was seeing thousands of kilometres away.

  • Congressmen cranky at Big Oil’s greed

    By Tom Doggett at Reuters

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Congressional Democrats on Thursday urged big oil companies to invest more of their record profits into boosting U.S. oil production and developing renewable energy instead of buying back their own stock.

    Exxon Mobil, which reported on Thursday the biggest quarterly corporate profit in history at $11.7 billion (5.9 billion pounds), has bought back $16 billion of its stock in the first half of 2008. Other oil companies have also spent billions of dollars buying their stock, earning the ire of the public and many members of Congress.

    “We are writing to express our concern that you have used much of your record profits in recent years to buy back your own stock to enrich the value of your share price, rather than invest in oil exploration or production here in the U.S. or in the research and development of alternative energy sources that are demanded by U.S. consumers,” the lawmakers said in a letter to the heads of the five biggest public oil companies.

    The lawmakers, who wrote to Exxon Mobil, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron and ConocoPhilips, criticized the companies for spending $194 billion on stock repurchases from 2004 through the first quarter of this year.

    They pointed out that $194 billion was enough to give $2,000 rebates to every American family, make 5 million plug-in hybrid cars and build 3.5 million solar-powered homes.

    Based on company filings, the lawmakers said only 5 percent of the total money the firms spent on re-buying their stock was spent on research and development, which may not even have focused on alternatives, while 30 percent of the stock buyback amount was spent on U.S. oil exploration and production.

    “Given today’s strong market incentive for expanding exploration and production, we can only believe that reinvesting your vast profits into the production of more oil and natural gas in the United States is a profitable strategy that will help our country increase its dependence on foreign oil,” the lawmakers said.

    A separate analysis from the Centre for American Progress said the $47 billion in just U.S. profits the five big oil companies earned in the last year was equal to $236 from every person with a drivers license in America.

    “Inside the boardrooms at the major oil companies, it’s Christmas in July,” said Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, one of the lawmakers who signed the letter to the oil company executives.

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  • The World’s Foremost Terrorist – The US Government

    http://www.rense.com/general82/fore.htm

    By Karl Schwarz

    This article will explain to you why the Totally Screwed-Up US Strategic Plan for the Caspian Basin has backfired and created a “megatrend” against America that may well be the doom of our nation.
     
    Any country willing to spend 30 years lying, conniving and scheming – and blow over $3 trillion (reported) on nothing -  is pretty damned stupid or desperate. In the  case of American policy, I submit, both apply…and we can, with no effort, add in DELUSIONAL.
     
    There is nothing that George W Bush, McCain or Obama can do to change the tide now…for it has turned into a tsunami against America. The Grand Chessboard game is over, finished, and the US has lost in a rout. Our nation has blown through trillions of dollars (of new debt) with little to nothing accomplished to pursue a bogus, contrived war that was designed to take over in excess of $15 trillion in Caspian Basin oil and natural gas. The sheer cost of the failed ‘war’ and scheme to take over the Caspian Basin has ruined the value of the dollar, buried the US in debt and a myriad of ancillary problems, skyrocketed the cost of oil, utilities, food, and shredded the reputation of the United States around the world.  By any measure, it is a catastrophe.
     
    They say greed makes people do stupid things. I guess we can all conclude that ‘really stupid greedy people’ do REALLY stupid things. This screw-up is colossal. Only an MBA president like the Great Decider, who bankrupted every company he ever ran, could do such a thorough job of wrecking the world’s largest economy and that of much of the rest of the world, too.
     
    If Americans would learn math and factor these monumentally needless expenditures back into ‘the real US cost for a gallon of gasoline’, Americans would wig out completely. Every time you cringe while gassing up at the pump, multiple that by at least 25 and you are in the ball park of the real ‘net price’ for each gallon of gasoline today. That, of course, does not include the cost of blood, both foreign and American, which made it possible for you to pay these absurd prices for gasoline.
     
    The checkmate went to Russia and the World directly due to the massive strategic blunders by the United States over the past 20 years. Yes, folks, the past 20 years, not just the Bush Administration. The administrations of George H W Bush, Clinton and the current Village Idiot in the Oval Office have predictably managed to put about 1,000 torpedoes into the USS Titanic and their moronic Grand Chessboard scheme.
     
    The ship is going down and Americans need to focus their blame and anger on the idiotic, traitorous, terrorist warmongers in Washington, DC. Theses vampire goons have needed no help whatsoever from any outside ‘enemy’ to utterly destroy America. This was their idea and marketing plan, so let them all burn.
     
    That is one of the basics of Sun Tzu’s classic ‘The Art of War’. Give the delusionally arrogant enough rope and they hang themselves without any outside help…every time. There is no need to wage war on arrogant morons; nobody can trounce them quite as thoroughly as they trounce themselves.
     
     
    Past civilizations had the right idea in having the names of derelicts and traitors stricken from every book, every temple, building and palace. However, we shall not be that fortunate because the names of these creeps will be plastered to libraries, freeways, aircraft carriers, and university and federal buildings as a permanent reminder of monumental self-destruction and treason.  San Francisco had the right idea, name a sewage treatment plant ‘The George W Bush Wastewater Treatment Center.’  Garbage in is garbage out.
     
    When I wrote “One-Way Ticket To Crawford Texas, A Conservative Republican Speaks Out” many things were uncovered during the research, investigations and interviews I conducted as deep background for the book. Much of that data could not be put into the book because of publishing deadlines or to protect the identities of certain sources.
     
    The book had 837 pages and over 950 footnotes. Many enjoyed reading the footnotes as much as the book because they start to show the true ‘Ugly American’ face of the US government. It may wind up a minor ‘classic’ for it predicted what we are all seeing right now.
     
    Many chapters of the book are about the same lunatic policies of our government and how insane ideas become idiotic national policies and even dumber ‘strategic plans.’  It explains how a brain-retarded ‘strategic vision’ evolves into a ‘shitforbrains national strategic plan’ based on a lust for money and power that came from the ‘geostrategic imperative’ of the Grand Chessboard by Zbigniew Brzezinski.
     
    When the DNC heard the title of the book, their Vice Chairman got in touch with me thinking that an “off the ranch Republican” would be their ‘best buddy’ for the 2004 elections.  However, they were horrified when they saw the book and how it exposed this lunatic scheme all the way back to Carter and moved forward through George H W Bush and Clinton, and then showed why Bush, Jr is the complete imbecile he has proven himself to be.
     
    I could write a six volume set the equivalent of Carl Sandberg’s “Lincoln” just from the information that was put into my hands about what a total fraud Bush, Congress and the Global War on Terror are. I, and others, have known from day-one that the problems rest on both sides of the aisle in DC.
     
    We do not have a ‘Dream Team’ in Washington, DC representing America, now, or will we have one in the foreseeable future. All of this euphoria about McCain or Obama (as if he is the Messiah) is a total waste of time and energy. Much ado about absolutely nothing.
     
    What we have is an unmitigated nightmare leading America into the abyss while these lying thugs line their pockets at our expense. It is a deadly cancer and it is time for major surgery.
     
    We have a ‘terrorist organization’ running America.
     
    I have no fear of ‘Al Qaeda’ which is a Jimmy Carter-CIA fabrication used to control the American Sheeple and keep them dead in their tracks, like deer in the headlights. The biggest enemy of the American people is the government of the United States.
     
    As explained below, ‘the world’s foremost terrorist organization’ is the United States government. Read on, and I will provide you some proof.
     
    Barky Obama Black Bush does not have a plan and apparently John McBush does not have a damned clue. I would be more entertained if Daffy Duck Obama were running against Mr. John MaGoo…but we are stuck with the lousy theater DNC and RNC have scheduled for 2008.  There will be no meaningful ‘change’…none whatsoever.
     
    I totally agree with Mike Gravel. Bush does not deserve impeachment; he deserves war criminal referral to the ICC at The Hague. However, the true list would be much longer than just Bush and would include Big Names from both sides of the aisle.
     
    Somewhere between ‘point A’ and ‘point B’ we, as a nation, got lost. We trusted our government. We trusted that it would always do the right thing, the honorable thing, the just thing. We trusted its members to be better, and on a higher moral ground than any possible enemy. We trusted them to not become a tyranny… or worse, terrorists. We trusted that they would always speak the Truth…but the only thing that flows from their mouths are endless lies.
     
    That should be the first clue to every American that something is amiss. 
     
    We were wrong to have ever trusted them. What and who we trusted are the true enemy of every man, woman and child in America.
     
    In the early years they did the right thing, but ultimately, they sold us out. Shit happens…and it is now way past time to fix it.
     
    Most people I know in America have a deep sense of right versus wrong.  Most people I know will follow that which God and Jesus Christ desire rather than blindly accept orders from evil beings…such as the liar war criminal George W Bush and his co-conspirators in the US House and US Senate.
     
    As I was doing the research for “One-Way Ticket to Crawford Texas” I was contacted one day by a former US Special Forces soldier. He wanted to meet for coffee in a public place and tell me something that Americans needed to know. I drove for hours to get to that meeting.
     
    A full eight weeks before Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, this US soldier was part of a special forces black ops team that was ordered to attack both Iranian and Iraqi positions to stir up tensions in that part of the Middle East. That was weeks before Iraq invaded Kuwait to set the stage for ‘Desert Shield’ and then ‘Desert Storm 1991’ and another completely fabricated war by the Bush Family. This former Special Forces soldier had the dates, operation names, targets, etc. Through other sources I was able to verify it all.
     
    It was just another third-rate, based-on-lies ‘Bush Show’ and if Americans are not tired yet of the ‘Bush Show’ they are a pretty sad lot…to the extent of being dead from the neck up.
     
    Many Americans have heard the babbling fool George H W Bush mumble “if Americans only knew what we have done they would run us out of town.”
     
    Well, we Americans cannot “only knew” when we have blatant liars as leaders and a gutless mainstream media that puts career promotions or ‘talking head status’ as being more important than the truth. Bill O’Reilly gets over $50 million a year to lie to and mislead America. The stakes are high for this criminal cabal.
     
    Before Iraq invaded Kuwait there had been a dispute going on in the background. Reportedly, US oil contractors operating in Kuwait had used ‘directional drilling’ and ‘aided and abetted’ a major theft of Iraqi oil.  They were stealing oil from Iraq’s southernmost oil fields…which just happen to be very close to the Kuwait border.  It took serious planning and premeditation to pull off such a burglary….which went on for years.
     
    Iraq was claiming that about $7 Billion of its oil had been stolen (at 1990 oil prices) and Iraq was demanding payment or Saddam would invade Kuwait and take payment. Of course, this was all heating up as US Special Forces were attacking and making Saddam think some of his neighbors were stirring up the mess.  Just for spite and good measure, George H W Bush had Special Forces playing ‘shits and giggles’ with Iran at the same time they were trying to goad Saddam Hussein into invadingKuwait.  George H W Bush created the mess so he could be a “war president” and appear to be something other than the babbling elitist fool he is. Remember well, Daddy Bush wrecked the US economy, too.
     
    There was a 1990 conference call involving Washington, DC and the US ambassador in Iraq, April Glaspie, and Saddam Hussein. To this day she is under a ‘gag order’ so she cannot tell the world about what really happened on that conference call and what a liar George H W Bush is. The US told Saddam, unequivocally, that it did not care if he invaded Kuwait to collect what had been stolen from his country. Saddam was told the US had no interest whatsoever in the dispute. If the Kuwaitis owed Iraq money, sort it out with the Kuwaitis.
     
    Remember what I wrote just above ­ a full 8 weeks before Iraq invaded Kuwait the US Special Forces, under order of President George H W Bush, started attacking to stir up a hornet’s nest. I will let you figure this out ­ they were not posing as “US soldiers”.
     
    The US wanted Saddam to think the Kuwaitis were flaunting in his face that they were US allies, not Iraq, and could steal all the oil they wished because the Kuwaitis had a Big Bully as an ally. Now, carry that one-step forward as to how the controllers crafted and presented 9-11 to Americans.
     
    They were trying to intentionally start a war – just like they did with Afghanistan, just like they have now done twice with Iraq, and just like they are trying to do with Iran.
     
    Since I could not get confirmation from the ‘gagged’ former ambassador April Glaspie, I had to wait to see if I would get confirmation from other directions. Suddenly, such confirmation did show up from a retired US employee.
     
    There were many on that conference call since it was planned to set off a Middle East shit storm, so the US could take the Iraqi oil and get rid of Saddam Hussein with “Desert Storm.’  They expected the hornet’s nest could quickly spread to the entire Middle East so they included the embassies all over that area of the world in their planning. Their goal was to sucker Saddam Hussein into invading Kuwait to collect what the Iraqi people were legitimately due.
     
    A former US Foreign Service person contacted me and confirmed several things. Yes, he was on the conference call. Yes, the US already had Special Forces attacking to stir things up, and yes, they told Saddam that they had no interest in his dispute with Kuwait. The US also informed Saddam that they were not going to intervene on behalf of Iraq and help recover funds from Kuwait for the stolen oil.
     
    So, Saddam invaded because Iraq had been robbed of billions by BushCo and their buddies. Then the GHWB forces swung into action to ‘save the world’ with 1990 Desert Shield and then 1991 Desert Storm. I remember his arrogant pontificating like it was yesterday, “Saddam, get out of Kuwait!”  What a vile performance.  What an utter betrayal of America and its people.
     
    On January 12, 1991, Congress voted to declare war on Iraq. I have always wondered how many of these dolts knew GHWB had Special Forces over there in the summer of 1990 trying to get a war started and provoke Iraq to invade Kuwait. My bet is many of them.
     
     
    They are liars, folks. Our leaders are blatant, outrageous, psychopathic, unrepentant liars. 
     
    The Zionist Jew Neocon Edward Luttwak was asked in 1991 what the US was going to do to Iraq.
     
    “Saddam is not like the Saudi Princes who spend the bulk of their lives outside of their country, and who fritter away the Kingdom’s oil profits on prostitutes and bottles of champagne in Paris. No, Saddam is building railways! Creating electrical networks! Highways and other important elements of a serious State infrastructure! After eights years of war against the Iranian regime of Khomeini, he desperately needs to demobilize his Republican Guard, which incorporates so many of this technical elite, in order to rebuild his war-devastated country. These people are his technicians, his engineers. If they are put to work in the way Saddam wishes, they will rapidly make Iraq the most advanced power in the region, and we cannot allow this to happen.”
     
    Yeah, I can understand why George H W Bush would not want Americans to know that he started that Desert Storm war and intended to do just that. I can see where that fact does not ‘jive’ with the Presidential Legacy they keep trying to mold for him. Sort of like trying to create a ‘great monumental sculpture’ from countless tons amounts of bullshit rather than marble or clay.
     
    Do you recall the Bush speech after Desert Storm? “Now, we can see a new world coming into view. A world in which there is the very real prospect of a new world order.”  Right.  One based on endless lies.
     
    That is why everything has to be such a ‘big damned secret’; why they lie and they intend to keep on doing just that. That is part of selling their stupid strategic plan to control and dominate all things.
     
    I do not know who can be credited with the quote “Like father, like son” but I think they probably knew the Bush Family pretty well.
     
    The research continued and the more I did the more confirmation I received that we are led by evil agenda players, not to mention one of the sleaziest, murderous families in the history of the nation, if not the planet.
     
    At dinner one night, I was meeting with a US Army major who was having a very deep battle of the conscience. Even someone trained to kill as a profession has a conscience and usually weighs the issues of right versus wrong, legal versus criminal, just versus evil, etc.
     
    That is most often the case until one meets the mercenary types employed by firms like Blackwater USA, which put money far above human life. Many of the Blackwater killers are on laced up on drugs to dull their senses for rampant, indiscriminate killing. I have met some of the former Blackwater USA employees.  Chronic, serious use of drugs, severe drinking problems and clinical psychosis are common issue among their employees. I could explain to them why they have a ‘bruised spirit’ but they would have to want that help for it to do any good.
     
    America, at its core, is essentially still a nation of good people for the most part. Unfortunately, we are being riddled by the malignant affliction of being ruled, governed and societally-programmed by idiots, liars and arguably the most evil people on Earth.
     
    At this particular dinner meeting, I was stunned to hear some of the details that were being conveyed to me across the table.  And I am not an easy person to shock. This person was stationed at Landstuhl, Germany at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center. That is where our troops are mainly sent when they are injured in battle or require evacuation for medical attention. That is also where the ‘Official Morgue’ is located.
     
    I was shocked to learn that many US troops have been delivered to Landstuhl on life-support due to a ‘mystery’ pneumonia. Many of them died at Landstuhl or were dead when they arrived (DOA)…still plugged into life support. They were not part of the official KIA stats in Iraq…by order of Bush and Rumsfeld.
     
    I was shocked to learn that many US troops also have chronic problems with DVT, or deep vein thrombosis, after they were given ‘vaccines’ for CBW that they will not even encounter on the field of battle or in their Iraq or Afghanistan missions. Those injections are given, yet again, just to line the pockets of some of the DoD and BushCo insiders. Firms such as…BioPort and DynPort Vaccines, LLC, that hybrid of a biotech and a mercenary company that the FBI keeps overlooking as a suspect in the anthrax attacks in the US.
     
    DVT causes huge blood clots if not treated. The NBC reporter David Bloom and MANY US troops have died or suffered major health setbacks due to heart attacks, strokes or pulmonary embolisms due to blood clots caused by DVT…resulting directly from the Anthrax ‘vaccine’ they are injecting into our young men and women. Our nanotechnology researchers have been on that matter for 4 years now, working on ways to block it or reverse it.
     
    I was further shocked to learn that many of our troops are diagnosed at Landstuhl as having a rare disorder (only 1 per 500,000 in a normal population) that is abundantly common in our US troops after they have had the usual course of vaccine injections. It will take time to nail it down, but it currently appears that possibly as many as 25% of US soldiers have this rare disorder. That huge spike, as compared to a normal population, is too high not to be noticed as being tied to what the DoD and their pet contractors are injecting into our US troops. If that affliction rate holds up, it means from 250,000 to 500,000 US soldiers could now have it.
     
    It’s called ‘amyloidosis’ and while it can be deadly, it is almost always debilitating. The doctors and nurses at Landstuhl were under orders to ‘diagnose’ this new disorder as sprains, fatigue, wear and tear due to physical exercise, carrying heavy army packs on their backs, and hard soldiering work in the desert heat, etc. I was told that some of the soldiers were in so much pain they could not even sit in a chair…but were still expected to serve and perhaps die for Emperor Bush in Iraq and Afghanistan.
     
    It was little wonder to me that when I met some of the US soldiers with this nightmare, I found that they call themselves “the Walking Dead” because of how awful they feel and how ruined their lives are.  Amyloidosis is most likely a direct result of the ruthless barrage of dangerous, sometimes deadly, and ultimately useless ‘vaccines’ they are forced to take.  I have, by now, met several thousand soldiers…and about TWENTY-FIVE percent of them are said to be afflicted.
     
     
    Amyloidosis causes the human body to produce amyloid proteins which the body cannot handle properly.  These proteins destroy joints and vital organs, and over time result in permanent disability and sometimes death.  This is the same crap Bush wanted to inject into all American citizens under his lunatic Project BioShield.
     
    The biggest shock of all was learning that vast numbers of our troops are now confirmed as having been exposed to Depleted Uranium (DU) with often extremely heavy concentrations of it found in their blood and body organs. However, once again, the doctors and nurses were under direct orders to not disclose DU poisoning to the soldier, not to make any note of it in their medical records which would create a ‘criminal chain of evidence.’  They are, instead, instructed to take blood samples only, freeze them, and that the DoD will ‘check back on the soldiers’ in a few years to see how they’re doing.  Many, of course, will be dead or dying, or to have produced deformed children, or to have contaminated their spouses and families with it.
     
     
    You have probably already guessed…the DoD never bothers to check back on the soldiers at all. 
     
    DU weapons were banned by the UN as a “weapon of indiscriminate harm” because after it kills, it just keeps right on killing civilians living in the area such weapons were used…like Bosnia, Palestine, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon and Afghanistan. That list does not include the many US military bases where they have been shooting DU weapons for years and polluting America, too.  In fact, DU contaminated sand was recently shipped from Kuwait to IDAHO…since the Kuwaities are our good buddies because they helped get rid of that evil Saddam after he caught them stealing billions of dollars of Iraq’s oil.
     
    Two of the reasons I have had to fight the Bush Administration professionally (nanotechnology) are because we are trying to do something about the DVT/Anthrax vaccine problems and the DU. They do not want a chain of evidence to nail their asses to the wall, and we are building such a chain to do just that. ‘Indiscriminate harm’ and ‘genocide’ are accurate ways to sum up the entire Bush Administration, and those of Clinton and Daddy Bush.
     
    If the United States government will not help our soldiers, I am, as a United States citizen, trying to find a way to help them.
     
    Many are dying of other conditions and are experiencing major health problems. Of course, all ignored by DoD under the ‘Feres Doctrine’ that grants immunity to our DoD and defense contractors for such criminal negligence. Since DoD is immune, who is George Bush to really care about the well-being of our US troops?
     
    Under Bush orders (and idiotic policies), millions of our soldiers now have ruined health and ruined lives. It is time for accountability for ‘knowingly harmful actions’ and to Hell with the Feres Doctrine.
     
    I was also shocked to learn that those troops delivered to Landstuhl Germany on life-support (regardless of reason) are not declared dead until they reach Germany and are therefore not part of the KIA (killed in action) from Iraq or Afghanistan. Some of those people were dead when flown out of Iraq or Afghanistan but the ‘diagnosis’ was delayed until they reached Germany so they did not show up in the Official DoD Certified KIA for Iraq or Afghanistan.
     
    Such “strategies” are to keep American citizens from knowing the true toll of carnage the US has suffered in Iraq and Afghanistan under the beyond stupid Bush Plan.
     
    But, what really stunned me and broke my heart the most was something else this US Army major disclosed to me. By the time our dinner meeting was over, we went to the couple’s home to talk in private. I was fuming by that time, as you may well imagine.
     
    Landstuhl, as the MSM told us, was receiving injured from the Iraq and Afghanistan “theater of operations” where the US was claiming so many successes.  However, it was ALSO receiving wounded from places like Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan where our evil government was trying to carry out Special Forces Ops to target and kill those who were standing in the way of the BushCo regime and its Grand Chessboard, Fake Global ‘War on Terror’ scheme.
     
     
    Standing in the way of their precious pipeline across Turkmenistan and Afghanistan! Standing in the way of their taking over huge amounts of oil and natural gas in theCaspian Basin! Standing in the way by siding with pipelines that were headed north into Russia or east to China! Standing in the way by signing up with non-US oil companies!
     
     
    I asked “Are these medical need cases from the military bases Bush has put in the Caspian Basin area or combat related injuries?”
     
    Response: “They are both…need for general medical treatment and combat related. Vehicle accidents, non-combat injuries, major illness, combat injuries, etc.”
     
    I asked “Interesting, I do not seem to recall reading in ‘the news’ that the US is involved in combat operations in those nations. Are we talking about black ops?”
     
    Response: “Yes, it is almost all black ops in those nations.”
     
    I asked. “How did you know that these troops had been injured in those nations and not say in Afghanistan?”
     
    Response: “Because they were angry at what they had been sent to do and they wanted someone to talk to about it. As their care providers, safe in the hospital late at night, they cried, they talked, they confessed to us what they had been sent to do. We are all under orders to shut up, not tell the truth, but soldier-to-soldier we talked a lot. I heard more than I was prepared to hear. Due to the horrid extent of the injuries, I saw more than I was prepared to see.”
     
    [This major showed me a DVD of photos from the triage, operating rooms and ICU. I have never in my life seen such horrible photos and I do not have a weak stomach.]
     
    I asked. “Why would a tough special ops soldier be crying? Loss of a fellow soldier, loss of a leg or limb, or God-forbid his genitals, or face unrecognizable anymore?”
     
    Response: “Because of what they were sent to do, once they figured out what the real mission was.”
     
    I asked “Like what? What was enough to make the toughest US soldiers cry? Protecting the high and mighty Americans from the “terrorists”?
     
    Response: “No, they were sent to be the terrorists and it is why they were sent that had them crying. Some of them were afraid that God would never forgive them, and, I think they might be right at times. There were some attacks on the US soldiers by people who do not want us there and some ‘pay back’ attacks after US forces had attacked them, but for the most part what I was being told about was the US conducting intimidation and terrorism operations against civilians. to get their oil and gas.”
     
    I asked “Really? US? The honorable, truth-telling US of A being “terrorists” in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan.. and Tajikistan? Please explain.”
     
    Response: “Many of the people in those areas do not like America, do not trust America. Many are competing to get control of areas of land that have, or are thought to have, vast amounts of oil or natural gas. Some of it is oil and gas leases, some of it pipeline right-of-way to get it to a port and ship it all over the world.”
     
    I asked “I know, the Caspian Basin mother lode, the idiotic Grand Chessboard. That is why I have been reporting on and researching the Caspian Basin and the real reasons we attacked Afghanistan to steal a pipeline deal from an Argentina company. Have these soldiers been sent in to strong arm, threaten, terrorize, etc with these Big Oil thugs and things got too hot, shooting started?”
     
    Response: “Some times yes, but that is not what had many of them upset unless they did lose a fellow soldier or yes, they lost a future because of their injuries. What had them upset was they were sent to kill entire families under the pretense of “hitting a terrorist base” and they found out later that it was not a terrorist base. It was the home of a father, mother, children, grandparents who would not roll over for Bush and his thugs and sign over their property or the oil and gas rights. They were uh, in the way of the “Big Mission”. These were people who refused to sign over their land and energy rights to US Big Oil. It was a ‘tract of land’ Big Oil wanted and these people were refusing.”
     
    I asked. “So, it is true. Anyone daring to stand in the way of those trillions in oil and natural gas is classified as a “terrorist” and eliminated? 
     
    Response: “Exactly, and that is exactly why I contacted you. Japan, China, Russia, and others are over there to sign up the oil and gas leases, but the US is the only one I know of that is going in there and terrorizing or killing people to get its way. They are using US soldiers to try to force people to sign a contract or kill them and take it from them anyway. The truth has to get out about what Bush has done and used 9-11 as the excuse to do it. These black ops started way before 9-11. They had to get oil and gas leases signed, then they had to get the pipeline under control.”
     
    “Many of our soldiers have already figured out that 9-11 was just to get the pipeline they need across Afghanistan. Many of these soldiers know they were ‘used’ to get the oil and gas leases nailed down so there would be something to put through that pipeline.”
     
    “The US Army or Marines cannot tell you the truth, lest they want to face court martial and spend the rest of their life in Leavenworth. As for me, I am no longer concerned about making grade to colonel or general. I am resigning my commission and getting out of this web of lies and evil. I can no longer serve this nation and what it really stands for and what is does and will not tell America. I’m finished.”
     
    I asked “Were you able to determine from any of these special ops soldiers how long such covert operations had been going on prior to 9-11?”
     
    Response: “Yes, according to some of them these operations had been going on for up to a year before 9-11 and possibly even longer. They had to nail down those oil and gas leases, pipeline right-of-ways because many other nations were after the same oil and gas deals.”
     
    I continued. “The thought just occurred to me, how do they explain these injuries or KIA of these soldiers who are waging black ops against civilians in nations we supposedly have no ongoing military operations?  Afghanistan?
     
    Response: “Afghanistan some times if after October 7, 2001, or they list them as ‘victims of terrorists’ without explaining that they were killed or injured conducting acts of terrorism against civilians and a fire fight broke out. Innocent humans except they were sitting on land with oil and gas under it. There were some attacks on US troops as ‘pay back”, but most of the attacks were terrorism by the US against those who were not cooperating with the US objectives in the region. If they cannot come up with an excuse, since the ops are black, they just ignore it ever happened.”
     
    I cannot say what you are feeling right now as you just read through that, but I was sickened to my stomach that night and have been ever since that night. That meeting with the US Army Major was the day I stopped being a proud American.
     
    The reason I was offended and angered is that those are all illegal orders. These were orders originated by a US war criminal at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
     
    If such happened even once…it happened one time too many. This US Army Major confirmed that many discussions were held with many wounded US soldiers over a period spanning months.  There were many such black ops targeted at many people who were judged to be ‘in the way.’  This happened far more times than George Bush or Bill Clinton want anyone to know about.
     
    What the Major was seeing in the hospital at Landstuhl was for the most part US soldiers who were injured by someone who was defending their rights and their property. This man had many heart-to-heart talks with these wounded soldiers. Few of them were angry at a Turkmen, or an Uzbek, or a Kazakh. They were angry at who sent them and why they were sent.
     
    It did not take long for many of them to figure out that they had been sent under illegal orders to commit murder, not take out a terrorist. Some of the missions were literally to kidnap persons who had been labeled ‘terrorist’ but were really just resisters defending their property rights.
     
    Most of our US soldiers have very strong sense of duty, but they also have very strong senses of right versus wrong and they have good instincts to see wrong for what it is. In their hands are matters of life and death, and they do not take that as lightly as the arrogant bastards in Washington, DC who don’t have the courage to stand on that front line…cowards that they are.
     
    I asked “Did any of these soldiers admit to you how they figured out that someone had ordered them on an illegal mission, an illegal order, to go process a death warrant on civilians who would not sign a contract?”
     
    Response: “Yes, because I had the same question. There was a targeted site, an alleged “terrorist camp”. and the team leader sent snipers as advance recon to get into position and closely watch a house. A smart soldier will always size up what he is about to lead his men into. While they were watching a vehicle pulls up, three men get out and there is a huge argument regarding a stack of papers the men were trying to get them to either take or sign. It was a US oil company truck and they were ordered off the property at gun point. They then went to another house about half-mile away that could be also be seen by the snipers, where a second group ordered them off the property at gun point, would not accept or sign the papers. That night they were ordered to ‘take out’ everyone at both houses. They had already been briefed on the ‘intel regarding the alleged terrorist camp’ and knew that both houses could not fit what the mission description was. That was when they realized that the orders were to remove “resisters” not ‘terrorists’. Most were women and children. The reason more than one of that team were at Landstuhl was the locals were more than prepared and repelled the attack that night. As one soldier of that team said, ‘those folks know how to deal with burglars. I am lucky to be alive’.
     
    I am not naïve enough to think that all such attacks were repelled.”
     
    What was being described to me pre-dated 9-11 in the Clinton and Bush Administrations and continued on as they launched their bogus, fraudulent Global War on Terror. As this US Army Major talked, I was remembering Operation Gladio where US, UK and NATO were conducting terrorist operations against innocent people in Europe to get their way.
     
    As I was driving back home, I thought about the Special Forces soldier who was involved prior to Desert Shield / Desert Storm and about what I was just told that predated 9-11 in the Caspian Basin nations. I had to resist the urge several times to pull over on the side of the road and throw up…over their description of what America had become.
     
    I know exactly what these arrogant murderous bastards are after, and have been since they planned 9-11 so they could launch this hideous, murderous scheme…this ‘lunatic strategic plan.’  I did not know until that night that even before 9-11 they were attacking and taking out families in the Caspian Basin area who did not want to sign over their property or their oil and gas rights to the US thugs.
     
    That was when I truly understood the level of evil that has taken control of our nation and our government. These are not legitimate “missions” in defense of America; they are death warrants to kill people who do not wish to roll over to US demands.
     
     
    Anyone who would prefer to do business with others, were labeled “terrorists” and murdered or extorted into complying with US demands, or ‘disappeared’. If they would not sign the contracts with Big Oil, the ‘T” designation was hung on them, and elimination was next. Sign the contract or die.
     
     
    I can well imagine that some were ‘tortured’ into signing the contracts. They may still be torturing some into signing the contracts. Think on that one.
     
    Folks, these are the acts of desperate people who are wickedly sick in mind and heart.
     
    Resisting is not ‘terrorism’ by a property owner.  It is, by legal definition, self-defense of family and property and what was rightfully theirs and not rightfully the property of Big Oil or BushCo. People have a legitimate right to get the best price for what they own…but not when they happen to be standing in the way of US hegemony and pipedreams of trillions and trillions and trillions of oil and natural gas. If they refuse to sign with BushCo, they are ‘terrorists’.
     
     
    The GITMO fiasco has already proven many in our government are psychopathic liars and conducting illegal actions and violations of human rights against many people.
     
    When some of the military started objecting to such orders, they were ‘relieved of duty’. The tasks were handed over to the mercenary firms, since they will do anything for money.
     
    In my travels in the EU and elsewhere, I have noticed and met many people from Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, etc. I started asking questions as to why they were no longer living in their homeland. They are afraid to live in their homeland. They are afraid of the US and their black ops killers who come in the night like the thugs, thieves and murderers they are.and the terrorists they are.
     
    Countless people were targeted by George W Bush for execution as terrorists because they wanted to take a better business offer from others. Merely designate them as ‘terrorists’ and target them for elimination, entire families. It was that night that I had a totally clear picture of what some in the US will do for oil and natural gas and domination of anyone who gets in their way.
     
    They were also targeted by Clinton as muscle for Big Oil, so I rest my case. Both sides of the aisle are corrupt and criminal.
     
    I laugh when I think now of what a total failure their scheme has turned out to be. These people are past nuts, they are completely insane.
     
    The Bush Family is all about “family values”? Do not believe that bullshit lie for even a nano-second. If you believe a word that comes out of the mouth of any Bush family member, you are a complete fool. They are family killers. And don’t forget it.
     
    That, folks, is the mark of a war criminal and a terrorist.
     
     
    AND THEY FAILED – AND IT DOES NOT TAKE SHERLOCK HOLMES TO FIGURE OUT WHY!
     
    I have no way to confirm this. but I am willing to bet that many of those persons being held by our government ­ reportedly up to 26,000 people ­ are not terrorists at all. My bet is many of them are “property owners” in the Caspian Basin who would not cooperate with the Grand Chessboard lunacy. My bet is they are being tortured (or punished) for not rolling over and handing their oil and gas over to the Thugs of BushCo.
     
    I think often about the ‘Big Picture’ implications of how incredibly stupid this “Bush Strategery” has proven to be. No wonder the former Russian states are welcoming Russia back in. They want protection from BushCo.
     
    I do have confirmation from two governments (and citizens of those nations) in that area, that they figured out what the US was up to and ordered them to ‘cease and desist’ or. get out of the Caspian Basin, period.
     
    So, this is who we have sitting in the Oval Office:  a world terrorist, a liar, a murderer, and war criminal as our president. To the shame of America, Clinton did this same kind of evil, too, and so did Daddy Bush. Sadly, Bush Lite (McCain) and Bush Dark (Obama) would keep the same status quo in place like the unthinking, compromised, sock-puppet morons they are.
     
    Great, one of them is going to be our next ‘Terrorist in Chief.’
     
    They are ‘All American Terrorists.’  They are all liars and they are all war criminals and murderers and traitors to the very spirit of America. They are leaders of nothing but a pack of murderous thugs.
     
    What has been interesting and infinitely predictable, is that most of the Caspian Basin is standing its ground and signing contracts with ANYONE BUT THE UNITED STATES or UNITED KINGDOM. They are not about to let the US have its way after what they have done.
     
    It will take years to know the full damage of such policies, such senseless acts of US sponsored terrorism. Some day, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, etc, will publish who has the natural gas and oil leases and how much is being sold to what nations. When that happens, America will truly see how little of the oil and natural gas the US was able to control through commercially abusive business practices, threats and acts of terrorism. When those facts are known, the sheer lunacy of the Obama/Brzezinski continuing push for the Afghanistan pipeline will be known, too. 
     
    Then we shall truly know how stupid this entire Grand Chessboard scheme has been from its inception. Folks, this has been the most colossal failure of thinking in the history of the United States. Their ‘strategic vision’ that they could do anything they wanted because the US was the only Superpower was a brain spasm of the magnitude of Krakatoa blowing up.
     
    Their ‘strategic plan’ that they could be terrorists and get the oil and gas and the money, and get away with it because they were shouting ‘terror’ and ‘terrorists’ more than anyone else, was incredibly stupid.
     
    The main mission was to prevent the locals from signing with others and to force them to sign with the US oil companies under commercially abusive, unacceptable terms and conditions. Sign the contracts under duress, at gun point, at threat of death if they did not sign, or ‘kill those terrorists’ and take it any way.
     
    I know some of the terms that Russia, China and Bridas have put forth and they are much more equitable than what BushCo thought it could cram down the throats of the Caspian Basin citizens who have oil and natural gas under their lands.
     
    Remember the recent piece ‘What to do? What to do?”  http://www.rense.com/general82/whattodo.htm
     
    <start insert>
     
    “”He admitted to the pipeline ‘mission’ in Afghanistan and Rumsfeld quickly corrected him, the entire DC ‘spin cycle’ had to scramble to cover its tracks because this was PRIOR TO SEPTEMBER 11, 2001.
     
    As they say, oops!
    _____
     
    “In April 2001, Tommy Franks, the commander of US forces in the Persian Gulf/South Asia area, testifies to Congress in April that his command’s key mission is “access to [the region’s] energy resources.” The next month US Central Command begins planning for war with Afghanistan, plans that are later used in the real war May 2001 (F)). Sydney Morning Herald, 12/26/02] Other little noticed but influential documents reflect similar thinking September 2000 and April 2001 (D)).” “
     
    <end insert>
     
    The black ops, the acts of intimidation and US terrorism and slaughter started well before 9-11. Here the commanding General Tommy Franks was admitting to Congress what the ‘key mission’ was of his command. The ‘region’ includes Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan as well as Afghanistan for the pipeline.
     
    There were some soldiers there trying to build good-will and do the right thing. There were others sent there to do the unspeakable. Some times they even got their asses kicked by people defending their property, their family, their rights. Since they were ‘black ops’, not a word about their missions came from BushCo.  They just didn’t exist.
     
     
    This is the sort of evil your taxpayer dollars are being used for, America. Wake the Hell up, especially you idiots over in the Christian community. You idiot Far Right Christian folks are aiding and abetting murder, terrorism, genocide and war crimes and the wiping out of entire families of innocent people by US acts of terrorism…who just happened to have oil and gas under their property.
     
    Just so America could have gas for those Soccer Mom SUVs, and shopping, Christian retreats, and $20 million jets for Kenneth Copeland, and.
     
    “One Nation under God?” Do not believe that lie for a nano-second. We are a nation led by a terrorist organization. That is why they lie so much and cannot utter a single word of truth.
     
    I think Americans need to start demanding ‘full disclosure’ on four matters:
     
    1.                  The name and country of origin, country of “extraordinary rendition” of each and every person ‘nabbed’ by the US government as an alleged terrorist, including total number of persons held, where held and why; and
     
    2.                  The name of every person who owned property on any “oil and gas lease” tract in any Caspian basin nation, or pipeline right-of-way, and that oil and gas lease is signed with a US Oil company and the identity of that US Oil company; and
     
    3.                  The identity of every oil and gas lease in the Caspian Basin held by any US oil company and the date they entered into that oil and gas lease, and the identity of the US and non-US parties on the contract for that oil and gas lease; and
     
    4.                  The whereabouts of each and every such person who signed with the US on any tract of land, wherever in the Caspian Basin.
     
    I would be willing to bet that some of those “oil and gas deals” are fake signatures on the non-US side of the contract. I also think many of those owners are among the 26,000 our government is holding as ‘alleged terrorists’ and still refusing to roll over for BushCo.
     
    There is a simple moral to this entire US created fiasco: If one wants to take over an area of Oil and Natural Gas controlled by Islamic nations, the dumbest thing one can do is declare a Global War on Islam and really piss off the people that have what you want.
     
    Their “Second Really Dumb Move” was to be the exact terrorists that they claim they are defending the world from.
     
    Checkmate, the Grand Chessboard game is over.
     

  • CENTCOMÂ’s Master Plan and U.S. Global Hegemony

    Of course, the kingpins who control this massive machinery of coercion never describe it in such terms. In their lexis, American motives and actions are invariably noble. Listening to these bigwigs describe what the U.S. forces abroad are doing, you would never suspect that they seek anything but “regional stability,” “security,” “deterrence of potential regional aggressors,” and “economic development and cooperation among nations.” Inasmuch as hardly anybody favors instability, insecurity, international aggression, economic retrogression, and mutual strife among nations, the U.S. objectives, and hence the actions taken in their furtherance, would appear to be indisputably laudable.

    Yet, from time to time, a U.S. leader lets slip an expression so revealing that it warrants a thousand times greater weight than the vague, mealy-mouthed banalities they routinely dispense. I came across such a statement recently. In seeking funds in 2007 for construction of a $62 million ammunition storage facility at Bagram Air Base, Admiral William J. Fallon, then the commander of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), referred to Bagram as “the centerpiece for the CENTCOM Master Plan for future access to and operations in Central Asia.”

    Pause to savor this phrase for a moment; let it roll around in your mind: CENTCOM Master Plan for future access to and operations in Central Asia. What an intriguing expression! What dramatic images of future U.S. military actions it evokes! But can those actions be anything other than the very sort that empires undertake? Ask yourself: why does the U.S. military anticipate conducting operations in Central Asia, a region that lies thousands of miles from the United States and comprises countries that lack either the capacity or the intention to seriously harm Americans who mind their own business in their own national territory? Indeed, what is the U.S. military doing in Central Asia in the first place? Have you ever heard of “the Great Game”?

    When the Army sought the funds for the new ammunition storage facility at Bagram again this year, its request echoed Admiral Fallon’s sentiments by stating: “As a forward operating site, Bagram must be able to provide for a long term, steady state presence which is able to surge to meet theater contingency requirements.” The statement’s reference to “a long term, steady state presence” would seem to be especially revealing because it takes for granted that U.S. forces will not be leaving this part of the world any time soon. Giving even more weight to this interpretation, Congress approved not only the $62 million for the ammunition storage facility, but also $41 billion for a 30-megawatt electrical power plant at Bagram, a plant large enough to serve more than 20,000 American homes.

    Along the same lines, Lt. Colonel John Sotham, commander of the 455 Expeditionary Force Support Squadron, which is now stationed at Bagram Air Base, recently described a number of improvements his squadron is making at the base, looking toward giving it “a more permanent footprint.” He added: “It’s pretty clear that the U.S. Air Force will be at Camp Cunningham [a living area at Bagram] and involved in the fight against terrorism for a very long time.” He relished the opportunity to “help drive Bagram from expeditionary to enduring!”

    The United States government divides the world into six military regions called Unified Combatant Commands. (A separate Africa Command has been created only recently. Once it is fully operational, it will include all of the African countries except Egypt. A few other northeastern African countries were previously included in the Central Command’s area of responsibility.) The Central Command, abbreviated as CENTCOM, stretches from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen in the West to Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Tajikistan, and Pakistan  in the East. The easternmost reaches of this combatant area butt up against India, China, and Russia.

    Looking carefully at the map, one discovers that Israel is not included in the CENTCOM area, but in the European Command area. In a sense, however, we may describe the twenty-one countries in CENTCOM’s newly defined “area of responsibility” as a sort of logical complement of Israel: the people of every one of these countries devoutly wish (and here I have chosen my adverb carefully) that Israel had never come into existence and that it will go out of existence as soon as possible. Thus, CENTCOM’s area, inhabited predominantly by Muslims, comprises a predominant subset of Israel’s avowed enemies.

    It comes as no surprise, then, that of all the unified commands, CENTCOM is the one in which, in todayÂ’s world, the U.S. empireÂ’s rubber meets the road most abrasively. The commandÂ’s area of responsibility includes a great part of the worldÂ’s known petroleum and natural gas deposits, a preponderance of IsraelÂ’s enemies, and the places in which the George W. Bush administration has chosen to focus its so-called Global War on Terror. Of course, the region also includes Iraq and Afghanistan, where U.S. forces have been fighting for years, and, sandwiched between these two battlefields, Iran, where Dick Cheney and the rest of the neocons ardently desire to extend the fighting at the earliest opportunity.

    The high imperial authorities are not embarrassed by the U.S. empire; on the contrary, they are immensely proud of it. They simply do not describe their activities as the maintenance and exploitation of an empire. If you care to read an extended example, I invite you to peruse Admiral Fallon’s testimony of May 3, 2007, before the Senate Armed Services Committee, regarding CENTCOM’S “posture.” This carefully prepared statement, written in impeccable military bureaucratese, illustrates well how imperial commanders wish to represent their forces’ actions and, equally important, how members of Congress wish to have those actions represented to them. Of course, it’s all a solemn farce, a polished and meaningless charade staged purely for public-relations purposes a ceremonial hors d’oeuvres served in public before the diners consume the entrée, which consists of a massive amount of the taxpayers’ money ladled out to the armed forces and their civilian contractors.

    “Our top priority,” Fallon declares, “is achieving stability and security in Iraq.” Everyone knows, of course, that Iraq was more stable and secure before the U.S. invasion, which suggests that perhaps the quickest way to reestablish those conditions is for the U.S. forces to leave the country. Certainly many Iraqis resolutely oppose a permanent U.S. presence there, and some of them will continue their violent resistance to U.S. forces as long as the Americans remain. Intelligent adults also know that when Fallon or any other U.S. official speaks of achieving stability and security, he has in mind the achievement of those blessed conditions only on terms acceptable to the U.S. government, and most likely in accordance with its prescription. That the U.S. forces will ever pull out of Iraq and leave the Iraqis to do as they please is virtually impossible to conceive at this point. Indeed, a mere pullout is nearly inconceivable, despite the great amount of talk that goes on about it on both sides. On the Iraqi side, this talk is sincere; on the U.S. side, it is all for show.

    Fallon testified that in Afghanistan, “the foundation of security and governance is in place.” He must have known how ludicrous that statement was. Outside of Kabul, the U.S. forces, their allies, and the puppet regime control hardly anything, and U.S. and allied forces that move about the country are at constant risk of attack. The Taliban has not been vanquished, and in fact it has been rebuilding its ranks and its operational capabilities recently.  The likelihood that outside forces will ever impose their designs on Afghanistan’s backward but fiercely resilient tribesmen verges on nil. Even Fallon has the temerity to observe that “parts of the country have never known centralized governance.” Great powers have sought to conquer Afghanistan and bend it to their imperial will for centuries, never with more than short-lived success. Eventually the imperialists leave, and the Afghans remain.

    In an earlier day, Rudyard Kipling advised “The Young British Soldier” who served in Britain’s imperial army:

    When youÂ’re wounded and left on AfghanistanÂ’s plains,

    And the women come out to cut up what remains,

    Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains

    AnÂ’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.

    ItÂ’s probably still good advice. Alternatively, you can get yourself killed by your own comrades and instantly become a Great American Hero, thanks to the Great American Military Bullshit Information Team (GAMBIT).

     Continuing his parade of politicking platitudes, Fallon declares that “Iran’s most destabilizing activity has been the pursuit of nuclear weapons technology in defiance of the international community.” Of course, if the Iranians have undertaken any such pursuit at all, which remains in doubt, it has been not in defiance of the mythical “international community,” but in defiance of the United States and Israel, as everybody who reads the newspapers knows. It is nothing short of astonishing that U.S. officials speak in almost hysterical tones of the threat posed by nonexistent Iranian nuclear weapons, yet never breathe a word about the hundreds of such weapons already in the Israeli arsenal, not to mention the thousands that remain at the disposal of U.S. forces. Of course, members of Congress, who live in mortal fear of the American Israel Political Affairs Committee (AIPAC), want to be seen listening to this phony-baloney message, so military politicians such as Admiral Fallon dare not disappoint them.

    Fallon arranged the bulk of his testimony around a description of how CENTCOM’s “initiatives are organized into five focus areas: setting conditions for stability in Iraq; expanding governance and security in Afghanistan; degrading violent extremist networks and operations; strengthening relationships and influencing states to contribute to regional stability; and posturing the force to build and sustain joint and combined war fighting capabilities and readiness.” Notice that except possibly for the third item listed (“degrading violent extremist networks and operations”), none of this has more than a very remote connection with defending the people of the United States against foreign enemies.

    Instead, it has everything to do with maintenance of the U.S. empire in the Middle East and Central Asia. The U.S. government maintains a lavishly financed Department of Defense, ostensibly to protect Americans in their own country from foreign attackers. In reality, however, this department acts as an overfed foreign legion, operating around the world as an offensive or potentially offensive force to bully other countries into submission to the U.S. governmentÂ’s wishes.

    To read Fallon’s testimony is to take a refresher course in U.S. nation building. He speaks about “infrastructure development,” “provision of basic services to Iraq’s citizens,” and improving “local government performance and capacity.” In Afghanistan, he perceives that the “priorities are roads and electricity, followed by agricultural development, microcredit, job skills, and education.” The occupation force, he testified, “is actively pursuing initiatives in these areas, from building schools and providing them with supplies to encouraging and stimulating the growth of small businesses.” Should we laugh or cry?

    Someone needs to remind the admiral and his audience that the military is trained and equipped to dispense death and destruction. Military leaders know nothing about nation building, and their efforts along these lines result only in gigantic waste of time, money, and lives. (Of course, we must never forget, especially when discussing the U.S. empire, that one manÂ’s waste is another manÂ’s fabulously enriching government contract.)

    To make matters even worse, “CENTCOM supports US government and United Kingdom lead nation counter-narcotics activities.” No U.S. war is complete, it seems, without dragging the disastrous drug war along with it.

    The imperial authorities constantly emphasize their efforts to promote our security by suppressing “violent extremism” abroad. Repeat after me: extremism always bad; moderation always good. If Barry Goldwater were alive today and still telling us that “extremism in defense of liberty is no vice,” he might well be placed on the Air Force’s target list for the Predator drone. While decrying the violent extremists in the Middle East, Admiral Fallon notes: “Unfortunately, their tactics and radical ideology remain almost unchallenged by voices of moderation.” It takes a heap of chutzpah to impose sanctions on a country, killing hundreds of thousands of children and others with weakened immune systems, then invade the country, killing hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children by bombing, shooting, shelling, beating, stabbing, suffocating, and immolating them, then create such chaos and violence among the populace that millions are forced to abandon their residence and rendered homeless, then announce your regret that so few speak in favor of moderation. Next thing you know, the Devil will express regret that so few denizens of Hell speak in favor of fraternal kindness and Christian charity.

    Fallon aims at “de-legitimizing the underlying social and political movements that support” the extremist groups. He fails to recognize that such delegitimization is utterly impossible as long as the U.S. forces continue to occupy Iraq and Afghanistan and to brutalize their people. The admiral proposes “building capacity in governance and security that helps at-risk societies address problems that foster internal and local grievances.” The overwhelming grievance in the Middle East, however, is the presence of U.S. forces and Washington’s support for local dictators and their legions of thugs. Fallon, however, looks to “empowering credible experts to expose the flaws and internal contradictions of the enemy’s ideology; provide viable, competing alternative worldviews; and contest the intellectual ‘safe harbors’ where extremist ideas incubate.” U.S. military leaders seem to have made a little progress since the days when they lived by the motto, “If you’ve got ‘em by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.” Yet the idea that in the midst of everything the U.S. forces are doing in the Middle East they can employ “credible experts” to transform the dominant ideology is sheer lunacy. Al-Qaida requires no wily recruiting agents in Afghanistan and Iraq; its supporters need only invite people to look out their windows.

    Fallon speaks glowingly of the various Middle Eastern dictatorships with whom the U.S. government maintains cordial relationships. (It’s amazing how many “friends” you can win with a combination of generous bribes and credible threats.) The United States’ “close, reliable partner nations” include such paragons of social and political modernity as Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Pakistan.” Moreover, “Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates are  important partners in maintaining stability in the Gulf.” An honest observer feels compelled to recognize, however, that every one of the filthy-rich sheiks in these desert despotisms would gladly cut Fallon’s throat if they weren’t raking in such fabulous amounts of money from the current arrangements.

    The admiral does recognize a few problems. “Our present inventory of language and intelligence specialists (especially human intelligence) and counterintelligence agents does not support current requirements.” Translation: because we don’t speak or understand Arabic, Pashto, Persian, or any other local language in this part of the world, we haven’t a clue as to what’s going on in the politics and social life of these countries, and therefore we are constantly at the mercy of English-speaking collaborators who will take the risk of feeding us lies and fabricated “intelligence” long enough to get rich and then flee the country before their infuriated countrymen kill them.

    Notwithstanding the many troubles that plague the imperial crusaders in CENTCOM’s area of responsibility, Fallon bravely concludes, “we fight tirelessly against those who would do us harm.” He fails to mention, however, that the people of southwest Asia would harbor no grievances whatsoever against Americans if the U.S. government had only possessed the intelligence and the decency to stay out of their affairs.

    Robert Higgs is Senior Fellow in Political Economy for The Independent Institute and Editor of the InstituteÂ’s quarterly journal The Independent Review. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Johns Hopkins University, and he has taught at the University of Washington, Lafayette College, Seattle University, and the University of Economics, Prague. He has been a visiting scholar at Oxford University and Stanford University, and a fellow for the Hoover Institution and the National Science Foundation. He is the author of many books, including Depression, War, and Cold War.