Forget that the government’s spying on Americans began before 9/11 (confirmedhere and here).

Forget that the draconian Patriot Act was written before 9/11.

Forget that the Bush administration used its heightened powers granted under the state of emergency declared in 2001 (and continuing to the present day) to harass those who disagreed with its policies. See this, this and this.

Errington Thompson says:

About two years, ago, I asked Richard Clarke if the CIA is working with the FBI in close harmony. His answer was “not really.”

The New York Times writes:

In some ways, the portrait bears a striking resemblance to the failures before the Sept. 11 attacks, despite the billions of dollars spent over the last eight years to improve the intelligence flow and secret communications across the United States’ national security apparatus.

And Politico notes:

President Barack Obama’s announcement that intelligence agencies had information that could have headed off the attempted airplane bombing on Christmas Day but failed to share it has left many of those who have urged a dramatic overhaul of the intelligence community exasperated.

“It’s discouragingly familiar,” said Tom Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey who co-chaired the 9/11 Commission. “It’s exactly the language we heard when we were making recommendations for the 9/11 report. That was five years ago. We made our recommendations based on the fact that agencies didn’t share information, and it seems to be the case that, once again, they didn’t share information. It’s very discouraging.”

“We thought that had been remedied,” the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Kit Bond (R-Mo.), told POLITICO. “If they’re not talking with each other, that’s a problem that we’ve been tearing our hair out over for a long time, demanding that they talk to each other. … I’m very upset.”

Indeed, while the 9-11 Commission made numerous recommendations on how to prevent future terrorist attacks — many of them simple and inexpensive to implement — the Bush administration failed to do so (and see this and this). Moreover, the Bush administration and its allies actively blocked efforts to do so.

The Department of Homeland Security, instead of protecting vulnerable targets and concentrating on keeping actual bad guys out of our country, instead randomly made up lists which included kangaroo centers, petting zoos and ice cream parlorsas high-priority terrorist threats. And the Bush administration refused to fill important positions at DHS so that our security could be protected.

In areas such as airport security, things haven’t improved since Obama has taken office.

Ben Franklin said:

Those who would trade safety for freedom deserve neither.

As shown above, the government has not really done much to increase our safety. And see this.

But we have lost our freedom.

Source: Washington’s Blog

Other stories at We Are Change Colorado Springs

The Criminalization of Protest

Is America Still a Nation of Laws?

Can We Rescue the Republic Before the Dark Politics Take Over?

Yes, Yemen has oil.

The Middle Eastern nation – in the south of the Arabian Peninsula, bordering the Arabian Sea, Gulf of Aden, and Red Sea – has been exporting a couple of billion dollars worth of crude oil per year.

But it’s oil supplies are shrinking rapidly, and may be totally depleted within 10 years.

As the Yemen Observer notes:

Yemeni crude oil exports decreased to $1.5 billion during the fiscal period from January –October of 2009, compared with $4.2 billion during the same period of 2008, a decrease of $2.7 billion, the Central Bank of Yemen reported.

And the World Tribune points out:

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said Yemen was rapidly losing its crude oil reserves.

In a report, Carnegie said Yemeni oil exports, a key source of foreign currency, declined from 450,000 barrels per day in 2003 to 280,000 in early 2009, Middle East Newsline reported.

“Barring any major new discoveries, energy experts generously estimate that Yemen’s oil exports will cease in 10 years,” the report, titled “Yemen: Avoiding a Downward Spiral,” said.

Source: Washington’s Blog

Other stories at We Are Change Colorado Springs

BOMBSHELL: Evidence Clearly Indicates Staged Attack on Detroit Flight

Senator Lieberman calls for ‘preemptive’ attack on Yemen

VIDEO: Ben Stein Accuses Ron Paul of Anti-Semitism on Larry King

Source: CNN & TruthMovement

Other stories at We Are Change Colorado Springs

Mark Dice Proves People Are Stupid, Again! People sign petition to “increase inflation to 100%” to cause hyperinflation

Ben Bernanke Fears Ron Paul’s Audit Above All Else

Ron Paul aide detained in airport, prompts TSA rules change

Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Senator Joeseph Lieberman (I-CT), who leads the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, has a vision of “tomorrow’s war.”

“Somebody in our government said to me in Sana’a, the capital of Yemen, Iraq was yesterday’s war,” Lieberman explained. “Afghanistan is today’s war. If we don’t act preemptively, Yemen will be tomorrow’s war. That’s the danger we face.”

Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA), also appearing on the program, seemed to agree, calling an attack against Yemen “something we should consider.”

“Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan — the Army officer who killed 13 people in a shooting rampage at Fort Hood in November — was linked to Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric now based in Yemen,” The Hill noted.

Unnamed administration officials told US media in the aftermath of the thwarted attack that their suspect had confessed to traveling to Yemen and receiving training by Al-Qaeda.

Lieberman’s saber rattling against Yemen is “likely to be echoed in the days ahead as a growing number of neoconservative and conservative foreign policy voices have used the attempted airline attack to call into question the tactics Obama has applied to curb terrorism,” Sam Stein added.

In a borderline-livid post, Firedoglake writer Spencer Ackerman assailed Lieberman’s hawkish stance. “Is it a mistake to respond to this with more than ridicule? Maybe, but if not: it’s a ludicrously blithe and cost-free assertion to say that we need to take preemptive action in Yemen. What the fuck does Joe Lieberman know about Yemen? What does anyone in the Washington policy community know about Yemen? Fucking nothing except that (a) there is an apparently growing al-Qaeda presence there; Abdulmutallab told investigators that he got hooked up with his botched explosive there; the USS Cole was bombed there; there’s an important port there; and… that’s it.”

“The good news is that while progressives basically need Joe Lieberman’s vote in the Senate to pass domestic legislation, thus giving him a ton of leverage over what happens, nobody needs to listen to him about Yemen,” blogger Matt Yglesias opined.

Source: Raw Story

Other stories at We Are Change Colorado Springs

Senator Max Baucus Drunk On The Senate Floor?

Hillary Clinton: We’ll Still Be In Afghanistan in 50 or 60 Years

Government Health Care: The Next Step On the Road to Tyranny and Slavery

Source: FoxNews

Other stories at We Are Change Colorado Springs

Video: The Hashish Army- Afghanistan. Is this what we are fighting for?????

Unemployment for young vets surpasses 20%

US Workers Starved Into Service

On December 1st, President Obama talked about withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan within 18 months.

Everyone now knows that there is no firm withdrawal date from Afghanistan. Seethis and this.

But in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee on December 2nd, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton actually gave a much longer horizon for the presence of U.S. troops in America:

Senator UDALL.— So, in an ideal world, we would get the job done militarily in the short term; in the medium and long term, we would have a presence in the region, economically, diplomacy, and politically.

Secretary CLINTON. Well, as we have with so many other countries— obviously, we have troops in a limited number of countries around the world; some have been there for 50, 60 years, but we have long-term economic assistance and development programs in many others. And we think that’s a likely outcome in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, that we would be there with a long-term commitment.

Does this mean that U.S. troops will be in Afghanistan in 50 year?

On the surface, Clinton’s statement could be interpreted to mean that troops will leave sooner, but that America will have long-term economic assistance and development programs in Afghanistan for many decades to come.

However, U.S. charities working in Afghanistan report that they are subject to Pentagon sponsorship and control, and so the Afghani people view them as part of the U.S. military (which hampers their aid work).

Therefore, whether or not troops will remain in Afghanistan for a half century or more, the Afghani people and the rest of the world may consider it a permanent occupation.

Remember also that – while the U.S. government has promised to withdraw by December 31, 2011 from Iraq – the U.S. is building numerous permanent military bases in that country. (see this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and this). So talk is cheap.

Source: Washington’s Blog

Other stories at We Are change Colorado Springs

New tax should pay for Afghan war?

Illegal Alien Amnesty Thugs Attack Tea Party Protesters in Ft. Lauderdale

Obama Youth Brigades: “It’s about creating a One World”

US may be ‘unintentionally involved in vast protection racket’: Tierney

Troop surge could backfire if it means more cash for insurgents

A House committee has launched an investigation into claims that US military contractors in Afghanistan are paying the Taliban to guarantee the safety of their transportation convoys, an allegation that could mean American taxpayers are indirectly funding the insurgency that has killed more than 900 American soldiers so far.

“Serious allegations have been [made] that private security providers for US transportation contractors in Afghanistan are regularly paying local warlords and the Taliban for security,” said Rep. John Tierney (D-MA), chairman of the Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs. “After a preliminary inquiry, it has been determined these reports warrant a full-scale subcommittee investigation.”

Tierney said that if the allegations are proven to be true, “it would mean that the United States is unintentionally engaged in a vast protection racket and, as such, may be indirectly funding the very insurgents we are trying to fight.”

Allegations that contractors are resorting to bribing insurgents to guarantee their safety first came to light in an article in The Nation last month. Aram Roston reported:

Welcome to the wartime contracting bazaar in Afghanistan. It is a virtual carnival of improbable characters and shady connections, with former CIA officials and ex-military officers joining hands with former Taliban and mujahedeen to collect US government funds in the name of the war effort.

In this grotesque carnival, the US military’s contractors are forced to pay suspected insurgents to protect American supply routes. It is an accepted fact of the military logistics operation in Afghanistan that the US government funds the very forces American troops are fighting. And it is a deadly irony, because these funds add up to a huge amount of money for the Taliban.

“It’s a big part of their income,” one of the top Afghan government security officials told The Nation in an interview. In fact, US military officials in Kabul estimate that a minimum of 10 percent of the Pentagon’s logistics contracts–hundreds of millions of dollars–consists of payments to insurgents.

Several days after the Nation report, the Financial Times reported that “Taliban fighters have turned NATO’s huge logistics chain into a big source of funds by extorting money from hauliers and kidnapping their drivers for ransom, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, the companies say.”

The FT said the bribery problem is adding to a growing “war economy” in Afghanistan, and may in fact cause President Obama’s Afghan troop surge to backfire because it will give insurgents more targets for extortion:

The militants’ ability to prey on supply lines on both sides of the border shows how the Afghan conflict fuels a self-sustaining war economy in which the boundaries between insurgency, organised crime and banditry are blurred.

Although the amount gleaned from transporters is smaller than the Taliban’s multi-million-dollar income from the opium trade and donations from supporters in Gulf states, any big increase in US troop numbers will provide more convoys to target. “The more trucks there are, and the more roads that are in use, the more opportunities there are for extortion,” a US official said.

The House subcommittee has requested documents from the Pentagon and from eight principal contractors involved in the Host Nation Trucking program, a $2.1-billion initiative that coordinates US military supply lines in Afghanistan, allowing for the shipping of everything from food and water to fuel and ammunition.

A number of progressive activists and politicians have pointed to the allegations of bribery as a sign that the war effort in Afghanistan is misguided. Last week, House Rep. Dennis Kucinich described the alleged schemes as a “racket.”

“US contractors are paying US tax dollars to the Taliban in order to protect the delivery of US shipments of US goods to US soldiers so that our soldiers can fight the Taliban,” Kucinich said, starkly illustrating the implications of the bribery claims.

Source: Raw Story

Other stories at We Are Change Colorado Springs

US troops cannot defeat Taliban says CIA-linked Pak spy

Taliban beheading video of three spies

U.S. weapons end up in al-Qaeda hands

This month Eric Prince has resigned from the scandal ridden Xe inc. formerly know as Blackwater, revealing a decade long relationship as a deep cover CIA operative specifically tasked with building and mobilizing an elite army of private assassins for the CIA.

For the past six years, Prince “appears to have led an astonishing double life,” writes Adam Ciralsky. “Publicly, he has served as Blackwater’s CEO and chairman. Privately, and secretly, he has been doing the CIA’s bidding, helping to craft, fund, and execute operations ranging from inserting personnel into ‘denied areas’—places US intelligence has trouble penetrating—to assembling hit teams targeting Al-Qaeda members and their allies.”

Blackwater is and has been from the on set a private army or extension of the CIA. An army that has been implicated in killing civilians, bombing mosques [VIDEO], torture, smuggling weapons, dressing up as aid workers, CIA Raids, and even running child prostitution rings [VIDEO]only to be unsuccessful at paying off Iraqi officials in an attempt to cover up their crimes.

As barbarically unnecessary and costly Blackwater is, the media has tried to dismiss a lot of these reports as just another one of Dick Cheney’s Frankenstein monster hold overs from the Bush administration that is slowly being dismantled. Unfortunately Obama has also been utilizing the ever eager Blackwater special operatives for the Pakistani drone program that has been an absolute PR disaster due to the civilian casualties that stain headlines on a weekly basis.

With these startling revelations, it is little wonder the U.S. government can’t seem to stop using, or separate itself from an obviously mismanaged and brutal element of their supposed war on terror. This death squad role and relationship can be traced back to Israel and the training they gave these special forces in the lead up to the major ground assults in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In fact it was reported in 2003 Israel had been training special forces units as assassination squads, and why not considering Bush adviser and future 9/11 cover-up artist Philip Zelikow stated right around that same time period that we invaded Iraq with the sole purpose of protecting Israel.

The Pakistani drone program Jeremy Scahill writes in the nation is really a top-secret Joint Strategic Operation Command (JSOC) program.

The previously unreported program, the military intelligence source said, is distinct from the CIA assassination program that the agency’s director, Leon Panetta, announced he had canceled in June 2009. “This is a parallel operation to the CIA,” said the source. “They are two separate beasts.” The program puts Blackwater at the epicenter of a US military operation within the borders of a nation against which the United States has not declared war–knowledge that could further strain the already tense relations between the United States and Pakistan. In 2006, the United States and Pakistan struck a deal that authorized JSOC to enter Pakistan to hunt Osama bin Laden with the understanding that Pakistan would deny it had given permission. Officially, the United States is not supposed to have any active military operations in the country.

They are a compartmentalized group of elite operatives which have been tasked with finding and  killing Al-Qaeda militants is what we are being told, but what we really see here is a covert, military backed force, circumventing the oversight and constitutional authority of our elected officials in congress, and is shaping up to be one of the biggest scandals of the decade.

Allowing the CIA, the masters of overthrowing Governments and staging coups to have it’s own private army, stationed in training facilities on American soil has got to be the greatest threat to liberty America has seen in recent years.

Just Al-Qeada Really?

Numerous reports state Al-Qaeda has been reduced to a handful of scattered pockets and even an acknowledgment by the Obama administration that Osama Bin Laden has been known to be dead since Dec. 13, 2001. In fact it has been reported that theJSOC is running the show in both Afghanistan and Pakistan by two high ranking Navy officers Vice Admirals William McRaven and Robert Harward

“Two senior military officers from the shadowy world of Special Operations are playing a large and previously unreported role in shaping the Obama administration’s Afghanistan and Pakistan strategy, a move that underscores that the internal debate has moved past a rigid choice between expansive missions to provide security for Afghan civilians and narrowly tailored missions to find and kill terrorists.”

The Big Picture

So besides protecting the Opium and Oil fields, what is the strategic objective of funding a Blackwater staffed JSOC organized, covert operations against middle eastern targets of the United States? Especially when Al-Qaeda is nothing more than an admitted specter.

The answer is given to us through the suspiciously precognitive writing of former Sen. Gary Hart who writes in a Huffington post article this past Nov. 11, 2009

“Among the early lessons of Afghanistan and Iraq, however, is that 21st century conflict demands Special Forces and small unit capabilities even more than traditional big divisions, large carrier task groups, and long range strategic bombers.  Historic nation-state wars, though always plausible, are declining.  Irregular, unconventional warfare involving dispersed terrorist cells, stateless nations, insurgencies, and tribes, clans, and gangs are increasing dramatically.”

He then asks,

“…are our present and planned force structures configured for new military threats; are weapons procurement programs continuation of traditional acquisitions or focused on future requirements; is the intelligence community properly coordinated and focused on emerging realities; for non-military concerns–such as failed states, radical fundamentalism, pandemics, climate degradation, energy dependence, and resource competition–are new international coalitions needed; are existing alliances adequate to anticipate and respond to these crises or are new ones required; most of all, does our government require new legislative authority to achieve national security under dramatically changing conditions?”

We see here that Hart who also wrote a book on the subject called Under the Eagles Wings: A National Security Strategy of the United States for 2009 has easily just expanded the use and role of these rogue assassination units from foreign operations against terrorists, to operations against what he terms  as “non-military threats” or “stateless nations” inside the United States and abroad.

He goes further in his book stating,

“We will be required to conduct multinational training exercises between our special forces and those of other nations. We must operate jointly and collectively against Jihadi and other terrorist groups that endanger the security of all. We will find it necessary to integrate communications systems and databases among law enforcement and public safety agencies of liberal democratic nations. Pg. 17″

Isn’t this exactly what we are seeing with the reported CIA/Blackwater operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan? They’re not over their just fighting Al-Qaeda, but using the war on terror as a front operation to train multinational privatized commandos and integrating the fighting forces of the developed nations? We have Delta Force, Rangers, CIA, Green Beret, S.E.A.L’s, IDF,Mossad, Mi5, SAS, Marines etc. etc., all being utilized and training as rapid deployment forces and occupation forces to better serve as a cohesive militarily force in a increasingly globalized world.

In the Homeland

It would be one thing if it was only Al-Qaeda and militants on foreign shores they were after, but in a incredibly revealing article from the New York Times we see that they were operational in the United States during the 2005 Bush inauguration in direct violation of Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 as stated in the article.

“These commandos, operating under a secret counter-terrorism program code-named Power Geyser, were mentioned publicly for the first time this week on a Web site for a new book, “Code Names: Deciphering U.S. Military Plans, Programs and Operation in the 9/11 World,” (Steerforth Press). The book was written by William M. Arkin, a former intelligence analyst for the Army.

…

The precise number of these Special Operations forces in Washington this week is highly classified, but military officials say the number is very small. The special-missions units belong to the Joint Special Operations Command, a secretive command based at Fort Bragg, N.C., whose elements include the Army unit Delta Force.”

If you count Blackwaters apperance in Katrina, they are used to training and operating on American soil and conducting training exercises that run into unfortunate deaths like what happened on a Colorado Mountain topin August

The Blackwater story is the actualized realization of Gary Hart’s book, and it all happened in 2009 just like the title suggested.

So if Al-Qaeda is Gone, Who is the New Enemy?

The answer to that question is simply you, by expanding the definition of terrorist over the last decade DHS has increasingly been issuing report after report that middle America is potentially terrorists. According to the MIAC report, property rights activist, tax evaders, gun owners, home schoolers, Christians, and people angry about the economy are all potential terrorists.

MIAC Report

Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism

Things to Come

You can be sure that things will not stay the same, an economic collapse that could degrade into a full blown civil war is currently being planned for by the Obama administration as reported by the EU Times, and expanded upon by Chuck Baldwin in his latest column.

The simple fact is while America has been sleeping, the groundwork to totally and finally break the American people into accepting global government as a solution to war, climate change, food, pandemics, and natural disasters is in place.

Think about how many drills you have heard about in the past months of American soldiers training with foreign forces, and with the overly hyped swine flu being declared a level six pandemic recently we have the perfect cover to train and deploy multinational peace keeping forces all over America and the World, as shown in the NLE 2009 massive training drills conducted over the summer.

If you speak out against this rogue government after the collapse and clamp down, you will go to one of the hundreds of FEMA re-education and work camps that have gone up around the country.

Those who choose to fight against it in an armed resistance, whether a nation state or an individual will be targeted by multinational private mercenary squads who have cut their teeth in the lawless deserts of Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan and will have the full backing of both the military and intelligence apparatus of these United States when it comes to tracking down and killing those it deems enemies of the state.

They want a Global Government and the United States middle class won’t stand for it unless major panic ensues. The security state is ready to take the velvet gloves off in everything from…

NSA Wiretapping and domestic surveillance, $5 Billion for Pentagon Funded Propaganda Campaigns, Militarized Police Forces , and mobilizing a youth corp against veterans and patriots, it is a nightmare to contemplate but very, very real.

Now if you want a real ugly glance at just how bad things have gotten with the use of mercs, look into Hardin, Montana and how a  foreigner and  felon with 17 aliases bought out the city, took over the jail and staffed it with foreign mercenaries.

Choices

With the planned collapse of our Economy by the Fed, the war on the Mexican border that is quickly spilling over into American cities nationwide, and the increasing militarized security grid that has invaded every aspect of American life we are faced with a choice as red blooded Americans as we come to the end of 2009. We either stand up and fight for the values of our constitutional republic by outing every criminal in government and reclaiming or nations capital and military, or we allow them to be integrated into the New World Order system that will violently suppress all opposition via Blackwater type hit teams.

Your call America will you heed the warning signs all around you or will you drown out your conscience with football, and Friday night movies? As a final thought we have the newly announced Air force’s Global Strike Brigade being assembled for rapid deployment of nuclear munitions anywhere in the world the architects of this global society are ruthless killers and deadly serious and will utilize any means necessary to assure success. Those of us who are awake are desperately praying the public can wake up in time, because this reality is being forced on us like it or not.

Source: Truth Alliance

Other stories at We Are Change Colorado Springs

Martial Law Is Their Business – and Business Sure Is Swell

Justice Dept.: Blackwater Contractor Saw Killing Iraqis as 9/11 Payback

Blackwater Founder Implicated in Murder

We’re heading to Afghanistan, why?

Because of Al-Queda?

Intelligence estimates are there are 100 Al-Queda fighters left in Afghanistan…and my guess is they’re in pretty rough shape.

So we need 30,000 troops to deal with that?

This is a bonanza for somebody – but not for Afghanistan or Americans.

Watch for the coming war surtax…

Hey, someone’s got to pay for this.

Source: Brass Check TV

Other stories at We Are Change Colorado Springs

President Obama’s Secret: Only 100 al Qaeda Now in Afghanistan

The Suicides Continue To Rise Army on track to surpass 2008 Numbers

The Constitutional Bankruptcy of our Republic

With New Surge, One Thousand U.S. Soldiers and $300 Million for Every One al Qaeda Fighter

As he justified sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan at a cost of $30 billion a year, President Barack Obama’s description Tuesday of the al Qaeda “cancer” in that country left out one key fact: U.S. intelligence officials have concluded there are only about 100 al Qaeda fighters in the entire country.

A senior U.S. intelligence official told ABCNews.com the approximate estimate of 100 al Qaeda members left in Afghanistan reflects the conclusion of American intelligence agencies and the Defense Department. The relatively small number was part of the intelligence passed on to theWhite House as President Obama conducted his deliberations.

President Obama made only a vague reference to the size of the al Qaeda presence in his speech at West Point, when he said, “al Qaeda has not reemerged in Afghanistan in the same number as before9/11, but they retain their safe havens along the border.”

A spokesperson at the White House’s National Security Council, Chris Hensman, said he could not comment on intelligence matters.

Continued at ABCNews

Other stories at We Are Change Colorado Springs

Fake Al-Qaeda – Video CENSORED across Israel

U.S. weapons end up in al-Qaeda hands

VA State Police Say Anti-NWO and Gun Rights Activists are Terrorists