Syria’s Srebrenica Blamed on Iranian Special Forces

Topher Morrison

PurpleSerf.com

Iran's Quds Force

The massacre in Srebrenica was the last best piece of propaganda of the 20th century.  Syria’s Houla massacre, if swallowed whole, will produce the same deceit.

In 1995, after the Dayton Peace Accords were signed in Ohio, purportedly 8,000 Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) were massacred during a summer in Srebrenica.  It was referred to as the worst mass murder since World War II and the blame was quickly laid at the feet of the usual suspects – Serbian forces.  The result was NATO’s aerial bombardment and the invasion of 60,000 troops under United Nations command.

The Bosnian invasion was predicated on the idea that Srebrenica was a result of “ethnic cleansing” the endgame of course to stymie if not eradicate the Bosniak bloodline.  The only problem was women and children were evidently put on buses and allowed to flee.  When the graves were exhumed and the bodies examined mostly men of fighting age were found.  It took over a decade for the Hague to exonerate Serbia in the action and place it squarely on a Croat, but by 2007 the damage was irreparable in more ways than one.  So goes the fog of war and propaganda.

Syria over the Memorial Day weekend suffered a microcosm of that massacre when 108 civilians (32 children under 10-years-old) in Hula, outside Homs, were summarily dispatched without mercy.  Initial reports suspected the Syrian army, if not, the Alawite Shabiha militia, loyal to the Assad regime.  A Syrian investigation, however, found the culprits to be an 800-man death squad.

Thus far the trial of the Houla Massacre has taken place in the court of public opinion, which has been severely biased in favor of the opposition since the beginning of the Arab Spring, imbued with democratic legitimacy.   In reality the Free Syrian Army (FSA) based from behind NATO lines in Turkey and under the direction of the Syrian National Council (SNC) is supplemented by a dubious international coalition of Islamic fundamentalists from all over the Middle East.

Rather than merely appealing for democratic reforms this sordid sum has created an environment of rampant sectarian violence not scene since Iraq in 2007.  Unfortunately like in Afghanistan and Iraq the grand irony is that the West’s “crusade” as it is often referred to has actually displaced hundreds of thousands of Christians.  According to French Bishop Philip Tournyol Clos:

“…the picture for us is utter desolation: the church of Mar Elian is half destroyed and that of Our Lady of Peace is still occupied by the rebels. Christian homes are severely damaged due to the fighting and completely emptied of their inhabitants, who fled without taking anything. The area of Hamidieh is still shelter to armed groups independent of each other, heavily armed and bankrolled by Qatar and Saudi Arabia. All Christians (138,000) have fled to Damascus and Lebanon, while others took refuge in the surrounding countryside.”

Continuing…

“the enemies of Syria have enlisted some of the Muslim Brotherhood in order to destroy the brotherly relations that traditionally existed between Muslims and Christians: Yet, to date,they are not able to: they have provoked a contrary reaction and the two communities are more united than before. The Syrian soldiers in fact, continue to face foreign fighters, mercenaries Libyans, Lebanese militants from the Gulf, Afghans, Turks”

This heartfelt testimony reflects what we have known for the better part of a year, that the “protestors” and “activists” in Syria are very much part of a larger proxy war which pulls support from a vast cross section of the NATO-Sunni alliance.  Funding of groups like the Muslim Brotherhood has been in the pipeline since at least 2007 when it was reported in the New Yorker that Israel and the US were funneling support through Saudi Arabia so as not to compromise the “credibility” of the ostensibly “Islamic” movement.  A similar tactic was utilized through Pakistan in creation of Al’ Qaeda in 1980s during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (we all know how that worked out).  As members of the Muslim Brotherhood are now honored guests at the White House, one must wonder if “credibility” is any longer an issue.

To continue with the Srebrenica analogy, while there has been no peace accord as there was in Bosnia former UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, has been attempting to monitor a ceasefire (part of his six point plan) as he did in Rwanda and Bosnia, which has by all accounts demonstrably failed as it did twice before.  To be sure, as the Washington Post’s distorted, but still revealing op-ed detailed, wherever Kofi goes killings follow.

The common narrative parroted throughout the MSM (here and here) is that these UN monitors are naively providing “cover” for the Assad regime’s reprisals and add credibility to the Syrian government under the idea that diplomatic solutions are being ardently pursued.  Given what we know about the composition of the insurgency, however, it is much more likely the opposite is true.  UN monitors legitimize the conflict itself as a wholly indigenous uprising that requires diplomacy and time rather than expose it for what it is – a foreign invasion aimed at dismantling a key ally of Iran and Russia.

Srebrenica “claimed 8,000 lives”, however, it later turned out those numbers were grossly exaggerated (more like 700) and the motive – ethnic cleansing – proved tenuous at best.  In reality it was another horror of war propagandized as the international version of a hate crime – a crime against humanity – ostensibly far worse and deserving of invasion.  In Houla, while the scene has changed the goal is very much the same: demonize a vulnerable target government, intervene with force and with overwhelming humanitarian legitimacy post-haste.

The massacre, however, retains all the hallmarks of a shake and bake propaganda piece: the group was nearly 1/3 children, the fatalities purportedly as a result of “tank shells” and while many victims were in fact “mutilated and killed by knives.”  Indeed, the footage was “released by the rebels” for Western consumption, that much is undeniable.   Thing is, the Syrian army doesn’t enjoy a monopoly on that type of ordinance since the FSA has been reported to have captured Syrian army tanks as well as receiving even more tanks from defectors.

What was true in Srebrenica (see the Srebrenica fact sheet) is most likely true in Houla, both parties are were responsible for the death and destruction rather than one fail swoop of merciless destruction at the hands of an all-powerful Assad hell bent on crushing the moral of his people and their wishes for democracy.

Tempered with the aforementioned facts, the understandable and demonstrable desire of the media to sensationalize the events, geopolitical interests and the thin evidence (lies of satellite photos showing pro Assad forces “at the time of the attack” were in fact a day old, testimony of defected “air force officer” with “super human” hearing and sight, and testimony from a child in shock and impressionable) an objective analysis may come forth.  Until that time beware the sirens call.

What is Qud’s Force Doing in Syria, Re-balancing or Massacring?

It has been reported that Iranian Revolutionary Guard General Ismail Qa’ani, second-in-command of Iranian Special Forces – Quds Force – has been training Assad’s soldiers since before the Syrian uprising.  This from the International Business Times:

“The Quds, named for the Farsi word for Jerusalem, are Iran’s special forces unit — in American equivalents, a mix between black-ops and the CIA. As the Revolutionary Guard’s external force, the Quds support and facilitate Islamic movements in other nations on Teheran’s behalf, movements that allegedly include terrorist organizations.”

OMG, so like terrorist organizations like NATO backed Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) or Nevada trained MEK both listed on the US State Department’s “Don’t Feed the Terrorists” list, those types of terrorists?  Looks like two can play at this game.

The state department attempted to connect the dots for us in the wake of the Houla massacre neglecting to brief us on the opposition’s questionable allegiances and design.  Its spokesperson, according to IBT:

"Victoria Nuland said that the Shabiha militia, accused of carrying out the Houla massacre, has been modeled after Iran’s paramilitary Basij force, suggesting that the Iranian military could have trained the Syrian civilian soldiers."

This could be true, but it doesn’t explain the inconsistencies and gaps in the favored fiction of Houla, rather it supplies a red hearing.

In reality the official narrative is fraying.  The IEDs, reports of wahabbists, displaced Christians and clandestine support are piling upon a delicate ruse.  The idea that the opposition’s “demonstrators” and “activists” are a homogenous, indigenous and innocuous bunch of freedom loving non-state actors has been so undermined that Sec. of State Hillary Clinton revealed the true mastermind behind the Houla massacre claiming in Copenhagen that Quds “are coaching the Syrian military … helping them set up these sectarian militias.” She effectively, in one line, used up her lifetime supply of irony.

It is evident, according to defectors, the Quds Force was needed because Syria’s Army wasn’t up to task in crucial engagements with the foreign backed FSA and its fundamentalist friends.  Hm, odd.  In the end, the Syrian government (backed by Iran, Russia and China) faces a foreign backed insurgency (under the aegis of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Libya, Turkey, NATO). We are in effect seeing World War III in a fishbowl, perhaps a peak into the future and its only going to get uglier from here.

Genetically Subsidized Food: Just Label It

Topher Morrison

PurpleSerf.com

You are what you eat, but what are you eating?  GMO?

Since 1967 Americans have benefited from the fact they generally knew what was in the food they purchased.  When America ceased to be a predominantly agrarian and rural society, one that grew and raised its own food locally, it became dependent on convenience stores, supermarkets, restaurants and a massive commercial supply chain.

The Fair Packaging and Labeling Act (FPLA) signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson provided a level of transparency and piece of mind to Americans who were now removed from producing their own sustenance.  Since the late 1980s that piece of mind has been seriously called into question and the idea that the quality of the American food supply is anything, but clear has reached a crescendo.

While there are many things that affect the quality of our food the most insidious and surprisingly still little known products are genetically modified organisms (GMOs).  They are produced by a relatively young set of genetic engineering techniques referred to as recombinant DNA technology, pioneered by Herbert Boyer, founder of the famous biotech firm, Genentech.   The technologies infuse genetic material from plants, animals, bacteria and even viruses to create transgenic organisms, which are designed to fulfill a variety of functions.  In 1978, Genentech artificially produced insulin, the hormone used to regulate safe blood sugar levels, using a particular strain of E. coli.

The applications seemed infinite and the need obvious, but another branch of genetic modification also emerged under the guidance of Advanced Genetic Sciences and the Monsanto Company.  This branch, however, has had very little to do with the treatment of disease – quite the contrary.

The now 111 year-old Monsanto’s first product was the artificial sweetener saccharin sold to the Coca-Cola company.  The agribusiness has since offered the world a bountiful mélange of dubious goodies.  Since the early 1940s the good men and women of Monsanto among other things have helped develop the nuclear weapon, given us the infamous pesticide DDT, Agent Orange (Round Up’s big brother) for use in Vietnam, recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBST) to grow our cattle, and ultimately lead their scientists in 1982 to create the world’s first genetically modified plant cell.  Nothing less than a sterling history, to be sure.

GMO food has since infested our food supply and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has done little to regulate it or provide us with the necessary information in order to make informed decisions about our diets.

Twenty years ago Dan Quayle’s “regulatory relief initiative,” part of a broader effort to get government out of the way of growth exposed Americans to genetic contamination.  His FDA policy created by former Monsanto lawyer, Michael Taylor, was predicated on the idea that genetic engineering was the same as traditional plant breeding and therefore required no new regulations.  Over the last 20 years we have seen Mr. Quayle was wrong that GMOs are “substantially equivalent” to natural food.  Natural food isn’t linked to:

• Mental illness
• Gastrointestinal problems and obesity
• Infertility
• Birth defects
• Autoimmune diseases
• Food Allergies
• Cancer
• Poisoning water
• Ravaging the environment (declining bee population, butterflies too)

Herbicides are one thing, but designing a consumable organism, each with its own little pesticide factory within, for mankind to eat prime facie sounds like bad news yet testing and proffering results are handled on a volunteer basis.  It has taken an army of independent scientists, lawyers, investigative journalists and bloggers to expose what was almost as obvious with the tobacco industry – they are lying to us.

We talk a lot about crony capitalism and conflict of interests in the banking, military industrial complex, and green energy sectors, but agricultural businesses are so often neglected from this critique in the mainstream media.

I was once told by a lobbyist I know about how amazingly incestuous Washington D.C. can be, look for yourself and this is just one sector of the economy.  Make no mistake about it.  Our government and its cronies have their hands in everything.

Vote With Your Dollars

 

Thanks to the diligent efforts of activists and concerned citizens we have the ability to negotiate this minefield of genetic garbage – a non-GMO shopping guide.  With tools like these we can vote with our dollars and promote healthy alternatives to our genetically subsidized food supply.  Another obvious tactic to route these nefarious corporations like Monsanto is to grow your own food and reconnect with what has been a part of our lives for millennia – growing our own food.  You don’t have to be outside the city to make it happen either, just see Urban Farming and VermiSok (grows food outdoors in 115 degree weather with food waste called Worm Wine).

SeedsNow.com based out of California, for example, provides an astonishing array of non-GMO, non hybrid, heirloom seeds so you and your family can remain self-sufficient and healthy for the rest of your life.  Don’t just vote with your dollars, vote with your seeds.  Enter promo code ‘Greene10′ for a 10% discount.

In the meantime organizations like these will give you every opportunity to know where the next battle is to be fought in the effort to raise awareness and start labeling GMO products.  The latest success of course being the “Millions Against Monsanto” money bomb, which raised $2 million to promote California’s ballot initiative to label GMO products.  If this agricultural giant, one of the leading economies in the world, falls to reason the GMO threat will be well on its way to being extinguished.

Think about it.  Many countries around the world have outright banned GMO products and are being dragged through world trade courts because of it.  This isn’t the best course of action.  Merely labeling GMO products and refusing to participate in the charade will nullify and dismantle their GMO invasion.

Resources:

• Just Label It
• LabelGMOs.org
• Organic Consumers Fund
• CArighttoknow.org
• Food Democracy Now
• Mercola.com
• Natural News
• Non-GMO Project

It is important to note that aversion to sound policy is bipartisan as usual.  It is absolutely necessary, therefore to vote to remove from office those who promise not to allow lobbyists in their administration and also to label GMOs only to do the exact opposite.

Escape from EU: Rise of the 4th Reich

Topher Morrison

PurpleSerf.com

Where is Snake Plissken when you need him?  Greece is in shambles.  Spain is on the brink and the planet is on the verge of realizing it never recovered from the last recession.  Japan evidently already realizes it as Tokyo’s stock market hit a 28-year-low today, New York will undoubtedly react.  While some in Europe are rallying jittery technocrats to centralize and unite, reason urges otherwise.

The New York Times reports:

“Mario Monti of Italy called for using euro bonds to create a quicker path to common debt for Europe. And Mariano Rajoy of Spain floated the idea of a common fiscal authority in Europe to synchronize budgets and manage debts.

German policy makers have said that kind of deeper budget integration and supervision is a prerequisite before any sort of euro bonds could be issued.”

This process, to embolden Brussles, is estimated to take between five and ten years, but the wonderful thing about a crisis is its ability to motivate.  To be sure, whatever happens will happen soon.  George Soros predicts three months and Joschka Fischer, Germany’s former vice-Chancellor, gives EU leaders two weeks to save the project.

Either the EU will crumble beginning with Greece’s departure on June 17^th after their elections and return to the Drachma (test trading since last week) or a more powerful central government in Europe will emerge.

If this sounds a bit scary it should.  Spain’s Rajoy urged the 17-nation union to “cede more sovereignty” to a central fiscal authority and parroted the European Commission’s call for a banking union with a single regulator and deposit guarantee fund.  Joining the pro union chorus is also new French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici: “We need to go toward a banking union,” he said on RTL radio.  With that the socialists are officially on board in Paris.  The thing is who has the money to put where their mouth is?  Not Rajoy.  Not Monti.  Maybe Moscovici, but Germany on the other hand…

Given the current crisis Soros sees a possible 4^th Reich ahead, “a German empire with the periphery as the hinterland,” he said.  While CNBC says this was a “warn[ing]” from Soros his statements clearly suggest he wrestles with little misgivings on the prospect.

With northern creditor nations bailing out ailing Spain and Greece, Germany is effectively at the helm and Soros knows it.  “We need to do whatever we can to convince Germany to show leadership and preserve the European Union…the future of Europe depends on it,” said Soros, reports Bloomberg News.

If you listened to Mosocovici the entire planet depends on what happens in Europe and therefore how Germany plans its next move. “Let’s not delude ourselves: If the euro falls apart, so will the European Union, triggering a global economic crisis on a scale that most people alive today have never experienced,” he said, reports The Daily Telegaph.

In a way he might be right, the world is walking a tight rope finer than frogs hair.  US employment numbers are wilting, a fact Obama “lays at the feet of European leaders.”  Brazil, China and India all see anemic growth.  Iran has been writhing in hyperinflation since at least January with fresh sanctions taking their effect at the beginning of the month and the rest of Middle East on perpetual red alert with Syria in the throws of civil war.  To top it all off the first world isn’t setting any kind of example. The OECD club is at a record average public debt of 106% of GDP and the red flags in bond markets couldn’t be raised higher:

“German 10-year Bund yields closed at 1.17pc. The two-year notes turned negative. British Gilts closed at 1.53pc, the lowest in 300 years. US Treasuries fell to 1.45pc, lower than at any time during the Great Depression.”

Greece is aflame with persistent protests, Cyprus isn’t looking good, neither is Portugal and Italy’s ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi claims his “people are in shock.  Confidence has collapsed. [And they] have never had such a dark future.”  The Daily Telegraph’s Ambro Seevans Pritchard agrees:

“Indeed, the jobless rate for [Italian] youth has jumped from 27pc to 35pc in a year. Terrorism has returned. Anarchists knee-capped the head of Ansaldo Nucleare last month [and] Italy’s tax office chief was nearly blinded by a letter bomb.”

If the real politik lesson holds – let not crisis go to waste – who will pass this global opportunity up?

Should history provide us prologue as it often does.  This is exactly the time when the fearful and insecure turn to anything for security.  With these nations biting their nails strength will need to come from somewhere, lets hope it comes from independence not unity.  Perhaps this is a time when Germany should exit, followed shortly by France and allow the EU to stand on its own for what it is, “a valueless and physically unattractive monument to the hubris of bureaucrats who valued an economic ‘system’ over any actual economies,” writes Tim Cavanaugh of Reason.

The European experiment has failed.  Attempting to prolong the endeavor will only beget more crises down the road.  Individual states should stand on their own, go through the necessary withdrawals and kick the bailout addiction and let the pusher banks sucker some other region.  Let not your hearts be troubled, if the euro is destroyed it will be scary, but we’ll all be the better for it.

It is interesting to note, however, with all the buzz talk about the zombie apocalypse and 2012 how fitting it would be to see Germany’s Angela Merkel leading her zombie states army into perpetual debt slavery.

Flame Virus and Blowback on the Digital Battlefield

Topher Morrison

PurpleSerf.com

The “Flame” virus is the atom bomb of 21^st century espionage, to date the largest and most elaborate computer bug ever discovered.  It has lived in the deep recesses of Iranian government computers for years, spying on everyone and everything it comes into contact with.

It is more than a mere surveillance virus, it’s an “entire” self-contained “cyber espionage operation” according to Roel Schouwenberg, a senior security researcher with Russian based Kaspersky Labs, one of the first security networks to analyze the malware.  While mostly infecting Iranian computer systems the virus has also been detected throughout the Middle East in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Sudan and even as far as Europe under the name sKyWIper or “Wiper,” this according to Hungarian based CrySyS Lab.  By their estimates Flame may have been active “for as long as five to eight years.”

Iran’s National Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) or MAHER Center, which initially discovered the worm working its way through their systems, reported it was undetectable by 43 known antivirus protocols and only discovered after several investigations.  The intruder has thus far been successful at not only remaining undetected until recently, but responsible for “mass data loss” according to MAHER officials.  Iranian agencies have since developed a removal tool to eliminate the threat.

At a whopping 20 megabytes Flame is 20 to 30 times larger than the infamous Stuxnet and Duqu viruses discovered in 2009 and 2010.  Stuxnet was used to attack Iran’s nuclear program, the ravenous bug caused centrifuges in a targeted facility to spin out of control, ultimately destroying it and setting back potential nuclear capability by years if new estimates by Israeli intelligence are correct.

Flame exceeds previous generations of malware.  It has the capability to collect lists of “vulnerable passwords”, “create series of user’s screen captures,” covertly send intelligence back to remote servers, link to discoverable Bluetooth devices and even act as a beacon for a Bluetooth device to link back.  It is quite versatile, capable of infecting Windows XP, Vista and 7 other common operating systems.

While Flame was created on a different platform than Duqu or Stuxnet, in fact utilizing a well known, easier to use “Lua” programming language, responsible for popular games like Angry Birds evidence seems to suggest that Flame is similar enough in that the previously “unassailable” Linux OS is also thought to be vulnerable.  The fact that Flame uses this unorthodox, albeit simpler code has been credited with its ability to outwit standard countermeasures even given its relatively colossal size.

One of the most interesting parts of Flame is its various permutations.  It has an ability to carry out very specific tasks each time it is recreated.  Besides the aforementioned it can also turn on microphones, potentially cameras and send back all relevant information through multiple domains to its command and control servers (C&C) located all over the world.  Moreover, as a veritable binary spy it has an exit strategy.  The controller can use the “browse32” function to create a digital LZ and pluck the virus out from behind enemy lines leaving not a trace.

The State-Sponsored Cyber War

There is little doubt in the cyber security realm that Flame is anything, but a state-sponsored operation.  The two other possible culprits – hacktivists and cybercriminals – don’t match Flame’s modus operandi.  Flame isn’t after bank accounts and it doesn’t resemble the rather simple tools known to be used by Anonymous, LulzSec and others.  Rather than targeting multilateral corporations or political institutions, the high concentration of attacks within Iran and throughout the Middle East suggests geopolitical objectives generally pursued by nation states.

Israel and the United States top the short list of likely culprits and for simplicity’s sake Israel has been more than happy to tacitly admit complicity – again.  According to Vice PM Moshe Yaalon Israel is “blessed as being a country rich with high-tech” and takes pride in the “opportunities” this has given them.  More specifically the likely source is Israel’s Unit 8200, equivalent to the United State’s National Security Agency (NSA) and in fact founded in 1952 off surplus American military equipment.  The unit has allegedly been responsible for using a secret “kill switch” to deactivate Syrian air defenses during Operation Orchard.  Moreover, alumni of the military intelligence branch have gone on to found leading Israeli IT companies.  Unit 8200 is shrouded in mystery including its commander a Brigadier-General whose identity remains classified.

Considering Israel and the U.S. have acknowledged conducting clandestine operations in Iran this is merely the next logical chapter after years of ongoing low intensity warfare.  No conventional troops, no sorties just faux color revolutions, Nevada trained proxy insurgencies a la Mujadahideen-e-Khalq (MEK), multi lateral sanctions and a cornucopia of sabotage or given recent events the newest tactic – cybertage.  The perfect strategy for the 21^st century, after all it’s discrete and politically correct.

The responsibility for conducting these offensive cyber operations in the new digital battlefield is likely the newest player on the military industrial complex’s bench, the Pentagon’s Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM), which virtually ties together the strategic mosaic of American global hegemony.

According to the U.S. officials USCYBERCOM is responsible for merely “defense” of military telecommunications infrastructure (.mil etc.), but recent reinterpretations of what the best defense actually is and broad mission statements make vividly clear its hegemonic intent:

“USCYBERCOM plans, coordinates, integrates, synchronizes and conducts activities to: direct the operations and defense of specified Department of Defense information networks and; prepare to, and when directed, conduct full spectrum military cyberspace operations in order to enable actions in all domains, ensure US/Allied freedom of action in cyberspace and deny the same to our adversaries.”

Domestic considerations are left to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its brand new baby the National Cybersecurity Center, a mini Pentagon, recently completed and based in Salt Lake City, Utah.  Ring leading the cyber security circus is undoubtedly the now nearly century old ultra secretive NSA no stranger to flouting international or U.S. law.  A fact well documented by James Bamford in his works Puzzle Palace and Body of Secrets.

Digital attacks are nothing new to the U.S. strategy.  Preceding even Hollywood movies like War Games and Hackers the CIA was purportedly behind “the mother of all Scada attacks” 30 years ago when it used a “logic bomb” to blow up a Siberian gas pipeline.  The KGB was trying to steal pipeline control software and the CIA rigged the software to over pressurize the Soviet pipelines.  In a similar vein,  Flame has been found infecting the Iranian oil industry responsible for 80% of the country’s revenue.

Digital Blowback

Over and over again we hear from not only Iran’s leadership, but through our own intelligence services that Iran is demonstrably no closer to a nuclear weapon than they were almost 10 years ago.  That is precisely the need for an all encompassing super virus like Flame, a virus capable of telling us about literally every key stroke Iranian officials make.  Western nations have no evidence thus far of Iran’s nefarious intent merely hearsay, the opinion of “intelligence experts”, former “security chiefs” and crazy theocrats bent on Islamic empire.  Western and Israeli intelligence agencies are looking for a “smoking calutron,” thus far they have failed.

Nevertheless it is political gold to be tough on Persia with persistent little regard for how we arrived at this point of mistrust – meet our lingering Iranian war psychosis.  Probably the most disturbing part of it all is the obvious self-fulfilling prophecy and the clear opportunity for digital blowback and ultimately the validation of everything the government wishes to convince us is a real threat.

In March on “60 Minutes” retired U.S. Air Force General Michael Hayden, former director of the CIA and NSA, commented on the downside of the Stuxnet virus. “There are those out there who can take a look at this… and maybe even attempt to turn it to their own purposes,” Hayden said.  His opinion was backed up by Sean McGurk, a former cybersecurity official at DHS who noted the Stuxnet source code could be copied and used against new targets, possibly aimed back at the United States.  Whoever created Stuxnet or DuQu, “They opened the box. They demonstrated the capability… It’s not something that can be put back,” according to Mcgurk.

Flame opens the same Pandora’s Box.  As Thomas Friedman was famous for noting, the World is Flat – so is the digital battlefield.  “In warfare, when a bomb goes off it detonates; in cyberwarfare, malware keeps going and gets proliferated,” said Roger Cressey, senior vice president at security consultancy Booz Allen Hamilton, at a Bloomberg cybersecurity conference held in New York last month.  The idea that our own espionage malware will proliferate in our fruitless attempt the prevent the proliferation of other weapons of mass destruction (albeit physical in nature) will surely use up a life time supply of irony.

Alas, this is the sign of our times.  We end one war only to receive another in its stead.  The code wars of the future may be entirely of our own design and will make the asymmetrical warfare of the War on Terror seem like a brief and illequipping prologue as citizens and or terrorists with sophisticated knowledge of software coding could wreak crippling global havoc.  Perhaps if our own government’s malware doesn’t pervade every system on Earth an idealistic Luddite might send us all back to the Stone Age so that we might live history all over again.

Reset.

Capitalism, the Face of Space?

Topher Morrison

PurpleSerf.com

Remember when the shuttle program was axed last year?  Conservatives and scientists throughout America, short of performing harakiri in abject dishonor, lamented President Barack Obama’s decision to cut NASA’s prized program.

Conservatives were quick to use the opportunity to berate Obama over another policy failure surely responsible for ending American primacy in space and abandoning the final frontier to China and Russia.  Scientists likewise bemoaned the cut in funds for “crucial” scientific research claiming it would forestall our technological progress.

Related Article: “Goodbye NASA, Hello Space Age! To Infinity and Beyond!”

The knee jerk reaction is understandable, mankind’s fascination with space is insatiable, if not, our addiction to a constellation of artificial satellites surely is.  But that is the point, our need to maintain and grow this celestial infrastructure alone should drive markets to fill the void where cosmic bureaucrats formerly held sway.  The idea that without Big Science, and the largesse of the U.S. government, technological progress would halt in America and left to be dictated solely by others is without merit.

On Friday, after a privately owned company linked up with the International Space Station, Apollo 11’s Buzz Aldrin, the second man to step onto the moon, seemed to agree.  “Nearly 43 years after we first walked on the moon, we have taken another step in demonstrating continued American leadership in space.”

What for a moment seemed embarrassing, even abhorrent – to ask Russia for a lift into space – has given way to a realization Barack Obama’s single random act of cost cutting may have earned him a very special accolade.  Much to the chagrin of conservatives and alarmists Obama may soon be regarded as harbinger of capitalism in space.

By providing the initial thrust, namely the demand for private rockets and shuttles, for a fledgling commercial space industry to supply (not to mention a home for unemployed rocket scientists) Obama has in his absence accomplished what he never could have dreamed in all his meddlesome machinations.

On Friday a private company, Space X, headed by a real life Tony Stark a.k.a. Elon Musk officially abolished the nearly 50 year government monopoly in space.  Musk, the man who helped bring about the world’s largest Internet payment system, Pay Pal, and the unbelievably fast all electric Tesla Roadster on Friday made a quantum leap in commercializing space.

By using his own privately designed rocket, the Falcon 9, to propel the Dragon spacecraft to that DMV in the sky known as the International Space Station Musk has been passed a baton formerly reserved for a small elite band of government agencies and has taken Space X boldly where no private company has gone before.  Albeit NASA contributed $381 million in seed money – fancying themselves venture capitalists – much of the blood and sweat is due to this entrepreneurial magnate.

Elon Musk almost lost his shirt investing much of his own money while building Tesla Motors from the ground up, but he ultimately prevailed as the Tesla sedan proves electric cars are viable and don’t have to look like a bug on acid.

Speaking of magnates Richard Branson is well on his way to making low Earth orbit a hot spot for celebrities and those with cash to blow.  His Virgin Galactic enterprise has already built the world’s first Spaceport in New Mexico and his passenger manifests read like the headlines at TMZ.  He plans to have space tourists enjoying a float about very soon.

In an elite cocktail of capitalism Google’s Eric Schmidt, Ross Perot and James Cameron (no doubt bored of travelling deeper in Earth’s oceans than any other human) have teamed up for a new cosmic voyage and no its not a movie, much more blue collar – asteroid mining.  According to the company, Planetary Resources:

“…near-term goals are to dramatically reduce the cost of asteroid exploration. We will combine the best practices of commercial aerospace innovation, operational adaptability, and rapid manufacturing to create robotic explorers that cost an order of magnitude less than current systems.

We will control costs by constraining scope and creating simple designs that can be executed by a small, expert team. And although we will hold ourselves to the highest standards and practices, we will aggressively accept mission risk where appropriate.

Our philosophy will allow rapid development of private, commercial interplanetary space exploration. In light of fiscal challenges facing the spaceflight community, innovation in cost and market is as valuable as innovation in capability.”

Yikes!  “Aggressively accept mission risk” and “innovation in cost and market” utterances we rarely ever heard from NASA.  These intergalactic miners aren’t the only ones seeking new energy stores in space.  Companies like Shackelton Energy are chomping at the bit for an opportunity to scoop up helium-3 and plutonium-238 which should be able to power everything from space stations to lunar rovers.

Don’t feel like hauling space luggage, floating in low Earth orbit, mining the moon or asteroids?  Robert Bigelow, founder of BudgetSuites, has a six-diamond idea that will make the Burge Dubai blush – space hotels.  He has already tested and launched experimental modules that currently remain in orbit and Elon Musk has agreed to partner with Bigelow Aerospace in order to kick off an international marketing effort for private-sector space stations.

Needless to say if we can extricate NASA and the U.S. government successfully from these processes we’ll have full fledged capitalism in space.  Until then it is unfortunately more of the same we suffer from here on Earth – crony capitalism.  Many of these cosmos bound start ups are funded by Congress through NASA and until companies like Space X, Blue Origin, Planetary Resources, Sierra Nevada Corp, etc. are able to cut the proverbial multi-million dollar umbilical cord it remains to be seen whether the market in space is ultimately worth it – at least right now.

As MSNBC’s Cosmic Log reported earlier this month:

It is highly questionable whether NASA will get as much money for commercial crew development as it has requested. The request for fiscal year 2013 was almost $830 million, but a Senate subcommittee cut that figure to $525 million. Today the House passed a bill specifying an even lower funding level, $500 million. The White House has threatened a presidential veto of that bill, in part because of its concerns about the cutback in commercial crew support.

Pegging space exploration and development to the political fate of the U.S. government is not a sustainable business model.  Our financial and real estate markets can attest to that fact.  While Newt Gingrich was right, its time to shoot the Moon we don’t want the government involved again, politicians all too often will use it as a political football.  If Space X and Elon Musk want to dine on Mars in their very own Martian Space colony they’re going to have to figure out how to do it on their own.

Until then, we’ll still be rooting for the private space race to begin:

NATO Summit in the Rearview: The Big and Expensive Non-Event

Topher Morrison

PurpleSerf.com

The NATO summit held in Chicago, Illinois has been hailed as a success by Mayor Rahm Emanuel and President Barack Obama.  But has America’s police state erased its 1968 “police riot” or did administration media shills merely apply white out?

The lack of incidence was a testament to, among many things, the continued abdication by the American left of their traditional anti-war stance, having since 2008, been demonstrably inoculated by the Obama presidency.  Those who did make it to the protest, an estimated 3,000 souls marching last Friday, were reported to be representing over 100 groups of international origin or part of the Occupy movement at large.

The relative peace enjoyed by the City of Chicago during the protests was also likely due to the last minute decision to move the G8 conference to Camp David.  Had the G8 simultaneously occupied Chicago beside its military arm – NATO – the affair may have been more, well – lively.

In order to secure the City of Chicago the summit was declared a “National Special Security Event” by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and according to reports it sure felt special.  Pepe Escobar of Asia Times opined:

"It’s lockdown time – complete with Iraq-style concrete barriers; battalions sporting upgraded riot gear; “extraction teams” to snatch and grab pinpointed protesters in a “low intensity conflict” environment; and an Orwellian guest star, the LRAD (long-range acoustic device) – a sound cannon bound to “ensure a consistent message is delivered to large crowds”, according to the Chicago Police Department."

Not only was there extensive drilling, planning and canvassing prior to the event NATO appropriately established its patented no-fly zone over Chicago lest an Occupy ultra-light plane a la Mad Max or some crazed anarchist decided to drop any airborne presents.

The scene once again reminded the nation that any U.S. city can transform instantly into highly controlled environment where safety is subordinated to any and all other concerns.  As Bernard Harcourt of the London Guardian reports, “The NATO summit will come and go, but Mayor Emanuel has authorized a ‘new normal’ of militarized social control in Chicago.”

Eight-foot tall, anti-scale security fencing went up all over that perimeter and downtown, including Grant Park; and the Chicago police – as well as myriad other federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, such as the FBI and the US secret service – were out in force on riot-geared horses, bikes, and patrols – batons at the ready. Philadelphia Police Department is sending over reinforcements to help out; Chicago has also asked for recruits from police departments in Milwaukee and Charlotte-Mecklenburg, NC. Meanwhile, F-16 warplanes “screamed through the skies as part of a pre-summit defense exercise” and helicopters hovered incessantly.

Orchestrating the massive symphony of security from an “undisclosed location” were over 40 federal agencies.

On the ground tactics were also utilized, namely herding protestors in order to “tire them out” and utilizing layered maneuvers with bike or foot patrols passively monitoring protests while heavily armored contingents awaited out of sight.

The most startling of all the strategies used to diminish the possibility of making an international scene was classic gumshoe investigative work – no, not really.

Chicago Police didn’t mob down protestors like they did in 1968 they just pre-emptively raided and arrested “selected protesters considered dangerous.”  It later turned out that the “NATO 3” who were officially charged with terrorism were in fact patsies set up once again by informants under the employ of the U.S. Government’s Terror Factory.  The evidence purportedly discovered has since been claimed to have been “planted” by law enforcement.

In the final analysis the NATO summit was a microcosm.  The U.S. government displayed an overwhelming force posture replete with bells and whistles, its respective agencies and the city spent more than was needed, it trumped up terrorism to malign forces it perceived as a threat, the entire affair received little media coverage and an anemic anti-war movement since the rise of Barack Obama failed to attract any meaningful attention.  Don’t they get it?  Nobody finds “eat the rich” or Robin Hood tax programs newsworthy.  It was a non-event just as the state had hopped it would be.

Perhaps the summit was a non-event precisely because it wasn’t important.  Not one person in Chicago and relatively few in the media drew attention to the fact this “international event” was in fact quite parochial.  NATO is a powerful minority in the world.  The grand military alliance, which represents a crumbling western economic bloc, based on the G8, and comprising 28 other countries is being challenged.

Notice that Vladamir Putin, an ostensible member of the G8 didn’t attend Camp David.  Many of the G8 members have in fact been outpaced economically by the BRICS.  China is obviously bigger than everyone save the U.S.  Brazil is bigger than Canada, Italy and the U.K., according to the IMF.  India is larger than Brazil…

Under this lens is it not understandable that creating a missile ring in defense of Europe might be viewed as just another expensive entitlement program as we have discussed before?  Vladamir Putin seems to understand what it’s meant to delineate and where the missiles are pointing - so do the Chinese.  With the rise of new nations and severe debt crisis riddling western democracies the world is in the throws of an obvious re balancing act, what will emerge is unknown, perhaps a tripolar world?

Where and when do Russia and China have their say?
When and where will a tripolar world assert itself?

The global military industrial entitlement complex is merely another type welfare program similar to domestic liabilities crippling Greece and other nations.  The wildly expensive missile defense shield around Europe furthers the analogy of the microcosm mentioned above.  According to Harcourt:

"...this police state serves, in reality, as our new welfare state. The security mania represents our truly unique way of stimulating the economy, of employing piece labor, of creating government jobs and subsidized contracts. Just think of the amount of overtime pay that we are disbursing with all this policing. Instead of investing in schools and education, in job training, or in re-entry programs, this is how we invest in our future. And we never think of it as government welfare because it falls in that sacred space of security…"

Banes of Our Existence, a Political Cartoon

Topher Morrison

PurpleSerf.com

Original political cartoon by Michael Ramirez as seen on Real Clear Politics.

"FALSE PARADIGM" is added by Topher Morrison.

You ever wish political cartoons would be a little more balanced?  Wish they would stop browbeating a false paradigm while feigning comedy?  Above is an original cartoon by Michael Ramirez. Below is my enhanced version.

As seen through the patented objectivity lens of Topher Morrison