AMTV News: Russian Incursions Into Strategic US Territory & Reddit Island's Bold Plan

Topher Morrison

PurpleSerf.com

Welcome to AMTV News, I’m your host Topher Morrison.  Today is Wednesday August 15th, 2012.

First up…

Russian Military Tests US Defenses, Again

Washington Free Beacon

A Russian nuclear-powered attack sub, likely Akula class, operated undetected for weeks in the Gulf of Mexico.  This secret incursion took place at the same time Russian strategic bombers conducted a massive exercise in the arctic, which made incursions into restricted US airspace near Alaska and California in June and July.  It was a move made by the Russians not seen since before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.  So – in light of recent events – here’s a flashback… Just who fired, what appeared to many, including experts a missile of the coast of California in November of 2010?

European Citizenship: Death of Nations?

EuroNews

It’s described as something similar to what we have in the United States, a love of country, but an affinity for our state.   In Europe freedom of travel has been energized with integration, electoral reforms allow foreigners to vote were they live and work.  And a European identity is being forged, which binds under its own national anthem the peoples of Europe.  What also bind Germans, for example to Greeks, are dictates from Brussles and of course soaring debt.

Reddit Island: Birth of Nations?

Gawker

It’s been dubbed ‘Nerd Island’ as Gawker editor Adrian Chen goes about slaying the ‘completely batshit insane’ plans of Libertarian tech mogul Peter Thiel and members of the social news site Reddit, known for its anti-SOPA activism.  While the rest of the planet attempts to govern under one roof, Thiel as far as Chen is concerned, has ‘wasted’ part of his billion dollar fortune in the attempt to create floating city states aimed at, according to the Seasteading Institute: ‘peacefully testing new ideas for government.” Chen is more than skeptical and sees it as a veiled attempt at ‘keeping the party alive after [rich people] finish utterly pillaging all land-based civilization.’  The Reddit sub community Reddit Island similarly aims at creating, according to Chen albeit in a less caustic vein, ‘a self-sustaining libertarian technopia where download speeds are high and taxes are low.’  It’s no doubt zany, but the idea isn’t as new as it seems.  A group of highly educated professionals seeking a new life far from anachronistic models and willing to risk their fortune and reputations to accomplish it is hardly novel.

Ladies and Gentlemen: Start your Engines…

‘Black Box’ Standards for Your Car

The Hill

For Americans the automobile is sacred.  It is the epitome of freedom and often seen as an extension of one’s personality.  Come September our cars may soon be viewed as an extension of the federal government.  The National Highway Traffic Saftey Administration has green-lighted new standards for event data recorders, similar to those found in airplanes.  EDRs are currently voluntary, however, recent legislation and intimate knowledge of the bureaucracy suggest the NHTSA is merely setting the stage to federally mandate a black box in every car in America.

Artificial Retina to Restore Normal Vision

Science Daily

Researchers have cracked the code to mouse and monkey retinas allowing them with a novel prosthetic device to bring sight to the blind – animals that is. Currently blind humans are offered some comfort with barely navigable implants, but this breakthrough promises to restore ‘normal vision.’  The proposed visor takes in light and an advanced chip translates the information into a code the brain uses to formulate an image.  This new revolution provides hope to some 25 million people worldwide.  

George Soros & Co. Flock to Gold

Zero Hedge & GoldCore

In September of 2010 billionaire fancier and social engineer George Soros said Gold is “the ultimate asset bubble” and “is certainly not safe” – this was after all when QE2 was but in its infancy. Gold, then at $1225 per ounce, has since seen a nominal high of $1920.30 in September 2011 and after a months long correction looks to be moving north once again.  Eating his words Soros has more than doubled his stake in the SPDR gold trust ETF according his latest SEC filing.  And Famed John Paulson’s hedge fund, managing over $21 billion, has more than 44% of its assets allocated to gold. Big money is on this precious metal especially in lieu of officially beginning QE3.

College is Dead: Peter Thiel’s Plan

CNBC

The show is called “20 Under 20” and aired for the first time on Monday…

Capturing every corner of alternative media watch AMTV News Monday – Friday.  Find our in depth commentary and analysis of stories like these at GreeneWave.com, part of the AMTV Network.

AMTV News: Russia Deploys Warships to Syria

Topher Morrison

PurpleSerf.com

This is AMTV News, I’m your host Topher Morrison.  Today is Wednesday July 11^th 2012.

If it bleeds it leads…

Russian Warships to Maneuver Near Syria

New York Times

Bashar al-Assad looks like he has a new pitbull.  Protecting its last ally in the Middle East, but most importantly its access to the Mediterranean Russia is sending a flotilla of 11 Russian warships, capable of c arrying hundreds of marines to dock in the ancient port of Tartus.  It is a clear message to the region and the US backing rebel forces in Syria.  Washington is predictably mum, but with poker faces aplenty is it call or check?

Next…

Obama EO Grants Authority to Seize Private Communication Facilities

Electronic Privacy Information Center

Obama has done what the people’s congress could not last year because of public protest.  His order grants new powers to the Department of Homeland Security, most importantly, the power to seize private facilities when necessary, effectively shutting down or limiting civilian communications.  Reasoning Washington needs “at all times and under all circumstances to carry out its most critical and time sensitive missions.” Seems like a one-way street.

Here’s something interesting…

Like 3D?  Imagine 6!

Before It’s News

In the latest from the people who found God in a subatomic particle, the Higgs Boson, comes a new experiment called ATLAS.  The megaminds at CERN using their Large Hydron Collider believe they can view three more dimensions beyond what humans can perceive.  Major surpises are yet on the horizon and possibly even more questions.

Next…

Lone Star State Top Pick for Business

CNBC

On the heels of news that every state with a Republican governor saw reductions in unemployment, Texas is lauded as the best state in America to do business in.  Receiving high marks in CNBC’s grading rubric for infrastructure, tech and innovation, the third lowest cost of living, access to capital all while recovering from a severe economic slump last year.  Get er done!

This is getting ridiculous…

Pentagon Considers Awarding Medals to Drone Pilots

Glenn Greenwald

The military’s gamers, sorry… drone pilots might wear flight suits to work, but they don’t need them.  Spying on weddings, sorry… children…err enemy combatants thousands of miles away from harm sipping on Monster is hardly valorous so why is the Pentagon glorifying ridding a joystick?  Want to award our fearless flyers?  How about a new Nintendo Wii and call it a day?

This is going to get weird…

The Islamist Pyramid Scheme

Washington Times

That’s right the Arab Spring may have just been a plan to install a pyramid scheme that is to say – destroy the Great Pyramids of Giza.  Recent islamist electoral victories throughout the region have spurred the less than reasonable to accomplish what Amr bin al-As, Egypt’s Muslim conqueror, could not in 640 AD.  This week alone 16 ancient mausoleums were ransacked in Mali, viral video showed the Taliban stoning women again and who doesn’t remember the 1,500-year-old Buddah they razed in 2001?  Time to guard the wonders of the world.

Catch my latest choice headlines on AMTV News Monday – Friday at AMTV Media and catch our in depth commentary and analysis of stories like these at GreeneWave.com part of the AMTV network.

Syria: The West and Gulf Allies Arming Terrorists and WMDs Return

Topher Morrison

PurpleSerf.com

The New York Times on Thursday came out with the shocking headline - that is if you weren't paying attention: “C.I.A. Said to Aid in Steering Arms to Syrian Opposition."  However, rather than attempt to detail the larger context of the Syrian crisis it is obvious the author Eric Schmidt and this kingpin of the mainstream media (MSM) have merely moved on to the next chapter in Syrian propaganda in light of an increasingly astute alternative media and informed public.

When the uprising began in Janurary of 2011 during the larger Arab Spring (Arab Nightmare, whatever you’d like to call it) the media painted the Syrian uprising suffuse in glowing terms of fledgling democracy – the demonstrators could do no wrong and why would they?

The dark underbelly of the uprising, left untouched and out of regular reports by MSM journalists for over a year, is its connections with the larger geopolitical machinations of Washington and nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance.  Slowly, reality set in as the actors once called “demonstrators,” changed to “protestors,” then to “activists,” then “opposition,” and “rebels” until now, peppering the rebels, it is finally being acknowledged that there is a sordid mixture of foreign back terrorists hailing from all over the region.

The Cold War II Panorama

Syria is just one piece of America’s greater hegemonic mosaic planned by realist and neoconservative cliques since the fall of the Soviet Union.  It encompasses the whole of what has been envisioned as the "New Middle East," the Pacific and the rest of the world.

Syria is witnessing first hand the clash of a newly realigned international political system between the NATO alliance and its ostensible counter balance - the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).   The SCO, most importantly its prominent members China and Russia, is a mutual security organization and as an economic bloc of major eastern powers it is of great import.   Its emerging prominence is what Paul Wolfowitz, then Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, in the ensuing years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, referred to as the “rise of the next superpower” and what the neoliberal agenda has been preparing for over two decades since.

As early as 1991 Syria was slated for regime change.  In 2002, then US undersecretary of State, John Bolton added Syria to the growing “Axis of Evil.”   In 2005 the Washington Post revealed that millions of dollars were funneled through various State Department proxies to Syrian political opposition groups and other endeavors including an anti-regime satellite channel, Barada TV, based in England.

The US government has also taken an active role in training activists and developing new technologies to help protect them against prosecution by authoritarian governments.  In an April 2011 the French news agency AFP reported that the US government for two years budgeted $50 million dollars to train 5,000 activists from various parts of the world including Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon.  When these democracy cells were sent home they spread and created, what a State Department official referred to as, “ripples,” which reverberated throughout the region during the Arab Spring.

While this type of social intervention is an example of freedom of association we must remember we are not speaking of private individuals, but the fate of nations. This subversive strategy may be disagreeable to many taxpayers, it may not, and how this type of social engineering is justified under the Constitution is, if anything, unclear, unfortunately it’s also irrelevant to a certain extent because it is only one part of the larger geostrategic stratagem.

These relatively innocuous covert actions merely lay a foundation of leverage against a target government.  The subsequent acts are promoted by a complicit, gullible and negligent media enamored with the idea of democratic struggle regardless of where it may lead.  It is finally brought to a crescendo in the eyes of the international community and eventually acted upon by multilateral military intervention.  Call it humanitarian intervention or as CNN last Thursday attempted to inject no less than five times – securing weapons of mass destruction.

Imagine for instance the Chinese handpicking the brightest and most charismatic activists among US society during Occupy Wall Street or the Tea Party Movement then training, funding and equipping them for political sabotage.  It would make the Citizens United case pale in comparison.

Regardless of the merit, foreign political influence (to be distinguished from cultural, business, etc.) of any kind especially to this degree creates massive distrust and unrest and therefore opportunity for intervention and bloodshed with no guarantee a liberal democracy will replace autocratic rule.

Lack of Context

Eric Schmitt while detailing much of the dubious actions on the part of US intelligence and the Obama administration narrows the scope of the Syrian civil war within the known paradigm.  Without question the goal of “regime change” is advanced.   Schmidt reports for the New York Times:

“The weapons [being supplied to Syrian rebel groups] including automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, ammunition and some antitank weapons, are being funneled mostly across the Turkish border by way of a shadowy network of intermediaries including Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood and paid for by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the officials said.

The C.I.A. officers have been in southern Turkey for several weeks, in part to help keep weapons out of the hands of fighters allied with Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups, one senior American official said. The Obama administration has said it is not providing arms to the rebels, but it has also acknowledged that Syria’s neighbors would do so.”

If Libya is any indication of how the US government refuses to help “fighters allied with Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups” Syria is in big trouble.  The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) ranked #28 on the US State Department’s list of terrorist organizations was the beneficiary of the NATO led no fly zone that aided opposition groups – of which LIFG (an Al Qaeda affiliate as of 2007) made up a significant part – in their deposal of dictator Muammar Ghaddafi.
 

Leaders of Al Qaeda affiliate LIFG have been helping the Syrian National Council and its Free Syrian Army in repeated reports since at least late last year.  The US government has since the Carter administration had a dubious history of creating, funding and training known terrorist organizations.  In the region the US governement was reported to have trained the Iranian Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK) in the deserts of Nevada. 

Schmidt's article continues:

"With Russia blocking more aggressive steps against the Assad government, the United States and its allies have instead turned to diplomacy and aiding allied efforts to arm the rebels to force Mr. Assad from power."

"Diplomacy" is evidently a catch all term, which occupies the space outside of direct military action.  When Joe Sixpack thinks of diplomacy ambassadors, summits and negotiations come to mind.  The problem is the US has had no official diplomatic relations with Syria since 2005, and according to the administration diplomacy, as most would understand it, will only occur after regime change.

Schmidt additionally neglects to mention Iran and China are also attempting to thwart a possible invasion and are supporting the Assad regime in kind, fearing a war would undoubtedly destabilize the region and allow western interests to set up shop for the inevitable confrontation with Iran.  Syria, in other words, is the Path to Persia.  Continuing:

"By helping to vet rebel groups, American intelligence operatives in Turkey hope to learn more about a growing, changing opposition network inside of Syria and to establish new ties. “C.I.A. officers are there and they are trying to make new sources and recruit people,” said one Arab intelligence official who is briefed regularly by American counterparts."

Indeed this is the endgame, “to establish new ties.”  By doing so western powers can more easily back the right horse during a bid for leadership and therefore have a great influence on the decision making in any subsequent administrations.  Additional support like “providing satellite imagery and other detailed intelligence on Syrian troop locations and movements” or setting “up a rudimentary intelligence service” all serve this purpose and future designs in the Middle East.  And finally:

"The struggle inside Syria has the potential to intensify significantly in coming months as powerful new weapons are flowing to both the Syrian government and opposition fighters."

The “allies,” a term which is supposed to bring us back to WWII, and the new “axis” of China, Russia and Iran are playing Syria like a game of Rock’em Sock’em Robots.  The thing is the Syrian people and their nation aren’t a toy and western citizens should refrain from using them as such in some vain attempt at reliving the democratic revolutions of our own past.

Global Research’s Professor Michael Chudovksy gives a comprehensive breakdown of Syria.  More importantly that the "protests" was in fact an armed insurrection from the beginning:

Massive War Games Planned Off Syrian Coast

Topher Morrison

PurpleSerf.com

Iran, Syria, Russia and China are planning the “biggest-ever wargames in the Middle East,” according to an unconfirmed report on the semi-official Iranian news site Fars News. A Syrian official denied the claims, however, China and Russia have come to the aid of both countries in recent months at the UN Security Council, vetoing military intervention in Syria and expanded sanctions on Iran.

According to the report this new axis, as it were, are preparing 90,000 troops, 400 aircraft and 1,000 tanks for the massive joint maneuvers, which are to take place along the Syrian coast within a month.

It has been recently reported that Russian armament sales will continue unabated to Syria including shipment of refurbished Cold War era attack helicopters.  The shipment has been reported to have turned back off the Scotland coast after losing its insurance due to the controversial nature of its mission, however, its transponder has since been turned off and verification cannot be achieved.  It is possible the armaments are still on their way to Syria.

Russia’s tacit support of the Bashar al Assad regime has the US State Department dismayed, however, in light of covert training, funding and harboring militant opposition elements in Turkey, a NATO member, the western nations are hardly blameless in the intervention.  It has been reported that presumably US, UK, France, Jordan and Turkey have Special Operations Forces in Syria since at least December of 2011 training opposition forces and providing reconnaissance.  Outfinanced and outgunned and fearing another Libyan style multilateral qu d’etat Iranian Quds Force and Russian SOF have also been reported providing similar assistance to the Syrian military.

Russian interests in the region center around the deep sea ports of Tartus and Latakia.  In 2007 Russia endeavored to reestablish a permanent naval presence in the Mediterranean for the first time since the Cold War.  Needless to say the prospect alarmed many in Washington and Tel Aviv.  China has a similar and potentially sticky port access issue in Gwadar, Pakistan in a region where NATO and US forces are waging a full-blown drone war and are covertly, as in Syria, aiding opposition forces.  It has been speculated that this Balochistan region could change Sino-US strategic equations significantly.  An effort in Congress to drive a wedge between the region and the Pakistani government in Islamabad was shelved in February – at least for now.

The Fars News report of war games states that Russian “atomic submarines and warships, aircraft carriers and mine-clearing destroyers as well as Iranian battleships and submarines will also arrive in Syria” and that Egypt has agreed to let 12 Chinese warships cross the Suez Canal for the exercises.  Considering US designs to deny Chinese naval freedom out of Pakistani ports and therefore projection into the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf China has a vested interest in aiding Russia and its claims to access the Mediterranean.

Syria meanwhile faces international pressure, predominantly from the West’s NATO member nations, to end a 15-month crackdown on local rebels trying to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad.  But this is of course more than about “rebels.”  The small wars of the last decade are mere peons on the grand chessboard, however, it looks as though larger pieces are being moved into place.

To understand the containment policy I invite you to read NATO's Ring of Fire: The Western Flank and Russia and its follow up The Eastern Flank, China and the Indian "Linchpin."

You may even wish to delve further into America's Pacific Century: Containing China and indulge in an informative analysis of US hegemonic machinations in a new video from Nile Bowie and Global Research TV.

NATO's Ring of Fire: The Western Flank and Russia

Topher Morrison

PurpleSerf.com

When it comes to the growth of domestic government it may be arguable that administrations of either Democrat or Republicans pursue different agendas, albeit usually revolving around the prevailing social issues of the day.  When it comes to foreign affairs, however, there is a seamless continuity of agenda aimed at maintaining and growing – American hegemony.

In foreign affairs at-large this American influence leads an Anglo-European coalition through its military arm – NATO.  It should be clear, however, that when NATO acts it is invariably at the behest of U.S. interests as it “contributes between one-fifth and one-quarter of NATO’s budget.  In FY2010 that contribution totaled $117.8 million…But that factors only direct payments, not deployments of personnel,” reported CBS News last year.  U.S. equity in NATO has been concentrated even more as European member nations’ contributions shrank by $45 billion over the past two years due to fiscal turmoil.

Nevertheless, NATO and its 28 member countries flexed their collective muscle last month during their summit in Chicago.  NATO announced its first step toward implementation of a ballistic missile shield, to be deployed in four phases by about 2020, sending clear signals to those not in the Club – namely China, Russia, Iran and North Korea – that amid growing security threats NATO is ready to counter any potential aggressor.  According to a statement released by NATO leaders:

"We have declared an interim ballistic missile defence capability as an initial step to establish NATO’s missile defence system, which will protect all NATO European territories, populations and forces against the increasing threats posed by the proliferation of ballistic missiles…”

Given the current threat of asymmetrical warfare from non-state actors it seems as though conventional confrontations may not be a thing of the past.

This is a layout of just some of the players involved in the Sino-Russian
containment zone NATO and the U.S. are attempting to install.
The real containment sphere, as it were, is 4-dimensional incorporating
land, sea, air, space, and the internet.

Western Flank, Europe

The U.S. and NATO now have bases and/or military operations in former Soviet spheres of influence: Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Lithuania, Estonia are among those little known.  Moscow, understandably rejects the idea that the NATO missile shield in this area is merely for Iran.  Russia offered to operate the missile shield jointly with NATO, but was dismissed by the alliance revealing the ruse for what it is.  NATO’s secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen called Russian “concerns groundless.”

Before NATO leaders met last month Russia threatened to strike the NATO missile shield should progress continue.  Despite the threats, NATO’s deputy secretary general, Alexander Vershbow, told the conference last month the shield is "not and will not be directed against Russia" and that Russia's intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) are "too fast and too sophisticated" for the planned system to intercept.  If this is true, NATO countries will be even more vulnerable as Russia recently tested a new ICBM, which according to the Russian military improves its ability to overcome current or future missile defense systems.

Western Flank, The Middle East

It has been the plan since 1991, soon after the fall of the Soviet Union, to have the U.S. infiltrate – diplomatically or otherwise – its former client states right up to the Russian motherland.  The plan, referred to more appropriately as a “foreign policy coup,” was revealed by Gen. Wesley Clark to an audience in California in 2007.  He claims Paul Wolfowitz, then undersecretary of defense, told him that the U.S. has 5-10 years to "clean up those old Soviet client regimes, Syria, Iran, Iraq, before the next great superpower comes on to challenge us."

In 2001, the timetable was given an extension after the attacks of 9/11.  While visiting the Pentagon, a classified strategy was revealed to Gen. Clark that the U.S. planed to dismantle and replace the governments of seven nations: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran.  Other than Iran of course, five of the seven governments have already been deposed.

Somalia remains in the throws; corrupt, occupied by a coalition of African armies, fending off fundamentalist factions and offering little more than 21^st century pirates.  Lebanon was coaxed into uprising in 2006 through a sophisticated “color revolution” strategy piloted successfully by the likes of the U.S. government funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED) – a sort of social CIA.

And Syria as we have documented in detail is in the midst of a dangerous foreign backed insurgency focused on delegitimizing the Syrian government in the eyes of the rest of the world.  Should Syria fall, Russia will lose its only direct ports of access to the Mediterranean – Tartus and Latakia.  As late as 2007 it was revealed the Russians were to re-establish a permanent naval presence in the Mediterranean through access to these new ports.  Needless to say, this alarmed many in Washington and Tel Aviv.

A brief by Stratfor.com, a private U.S. intelligence firm, offered this analysis:

“A Russian naval presence off the Syrian coast could allow Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's regime to better inoculate itself against a potential attack by the US or Israel ... The Russians would be offering an attractive insurance policy."

Recognizing western efforts to deny Russia this access reveals that the Syrian “civil war” is really a microcosm – or if its allowed to succeed, a prelude – of World War III.  There are no less than seven countries involved in the hostilities in one way or the other and because of it Russia has recently buttressed the Assad government and Russian strategic interests with new attack helicopters, weapons and advisors.  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Pentagon, least to say, have not welcomed the move.

Western Flank, Central Eurasia

The U.S. and NATO now have bases and/or military operations Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan among other Central Asian states including Georgia where U.S. forces are training their military.  While all these young, recently emancipated countries, are ostensibly democratic there has been evidence of rampant corruption, rigged elections and ethnic strife as can be expected from a region carved up quite arbitrarily.

The U.S. has nonetheless embraced whatever system these post-Communist orphans have come up with as long as they didn’t run back to a resurgent Russian Empire.  Afghanistan might also be included as one of these former Soviet states, but of course only for a brief period as the USSR was rebuffed and sent packing after its botched invasion during the 1980s.

The U.S. and NATO have been in Afghanistan for over ten years now.  Detractors scratch their heads and wonder why the U.S. would be sucked into another Vietnam, mired in scandal and setbacks.  Some call it a quagmire, however, a sober assessment might conclude we were never intended to leave.  Afghanistan, amidst this vast containment strategy is an ideal outpost.  It sits atop trillions of dollars of mineral reserves, a crossroads for oil essential oil pipelines and offers a perfect peak into Russia and China.

Since NATO hasn’t been the best houseguest, killing hundreds of civilians and military personnel in the most aggressive drone war to date, Pakistan is no longer willing to serve as a NATO supply conduit.  NATO and the U.S. military will now use a “reverse transit” through three former Soviet satellites (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan) to ship military equipment out of Afghanistan bypassing Pakistan altogether.  The move is purportedly six times more expensive.  Whether this is a bonafide exit route or merely a way of creating better partnerships closer to Russia remains to be seen.

What is clear is that Pakistan serves a similar role to China as Syria serves Russia – naval access.  While many are talking about Syria few are talking about the fact the Pentagon admits the U.S. is at war in Pakistan.  While the cover story is of course the favored fiction – Al-Qaeda reigns in Pakistan – groups, which are funded by staunch pro U.S. allies Saudi Arabia and UAE, the ultimate goal is denial of access as much as it is in Syria.

The Wall Street Journal reported last year that the Port of Gwadar, in coastal Balochistan region of Pakistan, is scheduled to be the latest in China’s “’String of Pearls’ wherein China has also funded construction or upgrades of ports in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Myanmar,” a stratagem aimed at strengthening economic ties, securing access to crucial resources and projecting force into the Indian Ocean, Arabian Gulf and the African Continent.

As the U.S. exits (at least publicly) its relationship with Pakistan, China is taking over.  In addition to the Port of Gwadar China sees the Iran-Pakistan pipeline, the Turkmentistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline as vital to its economic health.  To this end China has delivery of 50 JF-17 fighter jets, a unspecified number of 4,400 ton frigates, submariner training and possibly China’s more advanced FC-20, also known as the J10, but details are thin.  In the final analysis Balochistan has been and will continue to be the victim (like Syria) of subversion, destabilization and political sabotage, "a nexus," writes Eric Draitser at Stop Imperialism, "the point at which diametrically opposing strategic interests converge."  These are the typical tools of the realist school of geopolitics.

Part II will cover the South China Sea, the South Pacific and India, the Asian linchpin.

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…"

Goodbye NASA, Hello Space Age! To Infinity and Beyond!

Topher Morrison
PurpleSerf.com


Warp speed to lunar mining, moon bases, heavenly hotels, missions to Mars, leisure, adventure and exploration!

Image Credit: Small Art Works 

The National Aeronautical Space Administration (NASA) has a very special place in the hearts of many Americans, but its time has ended.  Granted, the end of the space shuttle program is by no means the end of NASA itself, like all government agencies it will find a way to persist regardless of deep budget cuts.  From Apollo 11 to the disasters of Challenger and Columbia NASA has had its ups and downs as will the future of private space exploration, however, unlike under NASA the burden of finance, risk and reward will no longer rest so heavily on the shoulders of the American taxpayer.


NASA by any argument enjoyed its fiscal zenith in 1965 (4.4% of federal budget) during the Space Race between the US and the former Soviet Union.  Amidst the Cold War the two superpowers were in a literal boat race for years until Neil Armstrong in the summer of 1969 set foot on the moon famously proclaiming the feat as: "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."  NASA at this time was useful above all for one reason, its ability to demonstrate American political, economic, technological, and ideological superiority.


After the stellar success of Apollo 11 and the corresponding prestige it bestowed on America, NASA was relegated to the very unsexy task of hauling space antennas and assembling the constellation of satellites necessary to power our modern economy.  Recently, instead of an elite cadre of space exploring super scientists NASA has been used as a political football as much as ever and has been referred to as a "$18.9 billion self-esteem program" for its awkward foray into scientific ambassadorship rather than serious space travel.  


It has taken decades for the NASA model and the legion of scientists and private contractors it supports to come to grips with the inevitable walk into obsolescense.  NASA may maintain its mission statement to "pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery, and aeronautics research", but these are responsibilities which have traditionally found more fruition in the private sector.


While there are compelling arguments to keep NASA as the tip of the spear a la Christopher Columbus who "discovered" the new world for Europe on Queen Isabella's dime, others point to the example set by British and Dutch joint-stock companies of the early 17th century which succeeded in actual colonization and famously advancing commercial interests.  These early models of the modern corporation upon hearing of potential riches in the New World garnered the support of many private citizens through the selling of stock on the promise of potentially large dividends versus merely relying on the fickle largesse of kings and queens.


Today many companies are stepping up to the plate in hopes of providing private persons with the same opportunities provided by the Virginia and Plymouth Companies of the early colonial period.  Albeit, nobody is seriously considering colonizing the moon any time soon some may in the near future find themselves on our first satellite longer than the 21 hours and 31 minutes of Apollo 11.  From $200k low earth orbit adventures envisioned by Virgin Galactic and SpaceShipOne to celestial semi trucks designed by Orbital Sciences Corp. and SpaceX to service the International Space Station (ISS) near space is already if not well on its way to being domesticated.

Image Credit: Reported by Gizmodo.com in '08

There are companies entirely self funded by the fortunes of internet moguls to titans of hospitality as in the case of Bigelow Aerospace of North Las Vegas, Nevada.  Already tasting the success of currently orbiting modules and industry accolades this 1998 stellar startup aims to develop space habitats as well as the vehicles necessary to transport their crews and residents.  For a surprising list of private space companies just look here and see what marvels they are coming up with.


Low Earth orbit is just the beginning!  While there may be some who cover this uncertain period as the abdication of US hegemony in space or that the US will be consigned to heavenly hitchhiking relying on the Russians and Chinese I would submit we are embarking on an unbridled adventure.  For those alarmists out there still beating the benighted drum of "peak oil" and "renewable fuels" look no further than our own solar system laden with hydrocrabons and other sources of abundant fuel.

Image Credit: Richard Kurbis and National Space Society

Take the moon for example, lunar strip mining may not be the stuff of science fiction much longer.  The isotope Helium-3 is an amazing substance able to aid in nuclear fusion which cleanly releases vast amounts of energy.  Helium-3 is not only abundant in the atmosphere of Jupiter, but there is purportedly millions if not hundreds of millions of tons lying on the surface of the moon and companies like Shackelton Energy Co., a subsidiary of Stone Aerospace aims at raising billions of dollars in order to extract and deliver this precious possibility to Earth.  Other fuels such as plutonium-238 while rare on earth are also abundant on the moon and will be able to power everything from space stations to lunar rovers.


According to Jill Stuart, fellow in global politics of the London School of Economics' Department of Government, since 'the international community sort of insists that [space travel] be tied to a state', and given the fact that 'governments control most access to space through their ownership of most launch pads' the US government will continue to be able to assert a measurable authority over its citizens' access to space.  NASA therefore will no doubt be here for posterity, but it will most likely transform into something a kin to the FAA of space, a bureaucracy that will manage, certify, and license America's appetite for the cosmos.


Regardless, let the real Space Race begin!