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by Eldritch » Sun Feb 03, 2008 5:40 pm
by Iroquois » Sun Feb 03, 2008 7:33 pm
...
As our government took stock of all of its tools to combat terrorism and the Executive Branch was reorganized after September 11, President Bush, members of his Cabinet, and the Congress recognized that the Treasury Department had unique authorities that could contribute to the fight. Although many of the Treasury's law enforcement functions were transferred to the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice in 2003, the Treasury quickly assumed a new role in U.S. national security policy as we began to apply these unique authorities in creative ways. This was the genesis of the office I oversee, the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.
Our mission is to marshal the Treasury Department's policy, enforcement, regulatory, and intelligence functions in order to sever the lines of financial support to international terrorists, WMD proliferators, narcotics traffickers, and other threats to our national security. There are financial networks that underlie all of these threats. Those networks are sources of valuable intelligence; they are also vulnerabilities we can exploit.
...
by slow_dazzle » Mon Feb 04, 2008 5:08 am
So what is the Iranian Oil Bourse about, if it's not a deliberate attempt to kick the U.S. dollar in the goolies, as is so often suggested? "The currency of the IOB contracts was never a consideration," says Cook. Nevertheless, the exchange completely takes the dollar out of the equation. The bourse will be trading on a concept that is new in the oil markets but which is already operating in other fields. It's bafflingly simple. Buyers and sellers connect via the internet on a peer to peer market place. A clearing function ensures the actual delivery of contracts. There won't be any trading intermediaries such as investment banks as middlemen that are making hefty profits.
While the global oil price is determined by supply and demand, Cook believes that the proposed IOB structure will remove much of the current price volatility caused by a toxic combination of speculation by hedge funds and market manipulation by intermediary traders.
by Iroquois » Mon Feb 04, 2008 9:00 am
by gnosticheresy_2 » Mon Feb 04, 2008 10:16 am
by AlicetheKurious » Mon Feb 04, 2008 10:48 am
by elpuma » Mon Feb 04, 2008 11:39 am
Pentagon: The internet needs to be dealt with as if it were an enemy "weapons system".
By Brent Jessop
Global Research, February 2, 2008
Knowledge Driven Revolution.com - 2007-11-19
Information Operation Roadmap Part 3
The Pentagon's Information Operations Roadmap is blunt about the fact that an internet, with the potential for free speech, is in direct opposition to their goals. The internet needs to be dealt with as if it were an enemy "weapons system".
The 2003 Pentagon document entitled the Information Operation Roadmap was released to the public after a Freedom of Information Request by the National Security Archive at George Washington University in 2006. A detailed explanation of the major thrust of this document and the significance of information operations or information warfare was described by me here.
Computer Network Attack
From the Information Operation Roadmap:
"When implemented the recommendations of this report will effectively jumpstart a rapid improvement of CNA [Computer Network Attack] capability." - 7
"Enhanced IO [information operations] capabilities for the warfighter, including: ... A robust offensive suite of capabilities to include full-range electronic and computer network attack..." [emphasis mine] - 7
Would the Pentagon use its computer network attack capabilities on the Internet?
Fighting the Net
"We Must Fight the Net. DoD [Department of Defense] is building an information-centric force. Networks are increasingly the operational center of gravity, and the Department must be prepared to "fight the net." " [emphasis mine] - 6
"DoD's "Defense in Depth" strategy should operate on the premise that the Department will "fight the net" as it would a weapons system." [emphasis mine] - 13
It should come as no surprise that the Pentagon would aggressively attack the "information highway" in their attempt to achieve dominance in information warfare. Donald Rumsfeld's involvement in the Project for a New American Century sheds more light on the need and desire to control information.
PNAC Dominating Cyberspace
The Project for a New American Century (PNAC) was founded in 1997 with many members that later became the nucleus of the George W. Bush administration. The list includes: Jeb Bush, Dick Cheney, I. Lewis Libby, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz among many other powerful but less well know names. Their stated purpose was to use a hugely expanded U.S. military to project "American global leadership." In September of 2000, PNAC published a now infamous document entitled Rebuilding America's Defences. This document has a very similar theme as the Pentagon's Information Operations Roadmap which was signed by then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
From Rebuilding America's Defenses:
"It is now commonly understood that information and other new technologies... are creating a dynamic that may threaten America's ability to exercise its dominant military power." [emphasis mine] - 4
"Control of space and cyberspace. Much as control of the high seas - and the protection of international commerce - defined global powers in the past, so will control of the new "international commons" be a key to world power in the future. An America incapable of protecting its interests or that of its allies in space or the "infosphere" will find it difficult to exert global political leadership." [emphasis mine] - 51
"Although it may take several decades for the process of transformation to unfold, in time, the art of warfare on air, land, and sea will be vastly different than it is today, and "combat" likely will take place in new dimensions: in space, "cyber-space," and perhaps the world of microbes." [emphasis mine] - 60
For more on Rebuilding America's Defences read this.
Internet 2
Part of the Information Operation Roadmap's plans for the internet are to "ensure the graceful degradation of the network rather than its collapse." (pg 45) This is presented in "defensive" terms, but presumably, it is as exclusively defensive as the Department of Defense.
As far as the Pentagon is concerned the internet is not all bad, after all, it was the Department of Defense through DARPA that gave us the internet in the first place. The internet is useful not only as a business tool but also is excellent for monitoring and tracking users, acclimatizing people to a virtual world, and developing detailed psychological profiles of every user, among many other Pentagon positives. But, one problem with the current internet is the potential for the dissemination of ideas and information not consistent with US government themes and messages, commonly known as free speech. Naturally, since the plan was to completely dominate the "infosphere," the internet would have to be adjusted or replaced with an upgraded and even more Pentagon friendly successor.
In an article by Paul Joseph Watson of Prison Planet.com, he describes the emergence of Internet 2.
"The development of "Internet 2" is also designed to create an online caste system whereby the old Internet hubs would be allowed to break down and die, forcing people to use the new taxable, censored and regulated world wide web. If you're struggling to comprehend exactly what the Internet will look like in five years unless we resist this, just look at China and their latest efforts to completely eliminate dissent and anonymity on the web."
Conclusion
The next article will examine the Pentagon's use of psychological operations or PSYOP and the final article in this series will examine whether or not there are any limits to using information operations on the American public or foreign audiences.
by American Dream » Mon Feb 04, 2008 2:12 pm
by Seamus OBlimey » Mon Feb 04, 2008 2:34 pm
February 3, 2008
US Crashes Internet In Middle East After Saudi Threat, Russia Responds With Air Forces
By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers
Reports circulating in the Kremlin today are painting a grim picture of just how desperate US War Leaders have become as their economy continues its freefall towards total bankruptcy by their crashing of Global Internet access for the Middle East’s banking centers in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Iran, UAR, Turkey and Kuwait.
These reports state that the Americans became ‘enraged’ this past week when the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) rejected US demands for an immediate increase in oil production.
Further angering the Americans this past week was Turkey’s rejection of US demands for them to sever banking ties with Iran's Bank Mellat, and which allows Iranian continued access to Global banking resources.
But, these reports state, the greatest fears of the United States were raised this past week when Saudi Arabia ‘warned’ the United States to ‘back off’ of its threats against Iran or face the Saudi’s decoupling the US Dollar from its enormous World oil trade transactions.
Though the American President [pictured top left with Saudi King] personally went to the Saudi Kingdom to lobby the US’s Middle East allies in agreeing for attacks against Iran for the Iranians decoupling of the US Dollar from its oil trade, Bush was quickly rebuffed.
It should be noted that those Nations who have dared to decoupled the US Dollar from their oil trade, Iraq, Iran, Russia and Venezuela, have come under withering attacks from the Americans, and their Western Allies; none worse than the Iraqis who are reported to have suffered over 1 million deaths since being invaded by the US in 2003.
But, as these reports state, the ‘worst nightmare’ of the Americans appeared to be coming true this past week when their Saudi Arabian allies were reported to have begun the decoupling of the US Dollar from their oil trade with the intention of replacing the rapidly declining American currency with the European Euro.
American War Leaders, though, have had previous warnings of the Saudis growing fears of being the holders of trillions of declining US Dollars with Saudi Arabia, for the first time, refusing to drop their interest rates in ‘lock-step’ with the US Federal Reserve, and leading to fears of a ‘stampede’ by other Middle Eastern Nations out of US Dollar backed assets.
Under such a threat, and with the Saudi King growing closer to Iran’s President Ahmadinejad [both pictured top left 2nd photo], Russian Military Analysts state in these reports that the United States invoked one of their so called ‘nuclear options’ by severing the four major undersea cables connecting the Middle East’s major banking centers to their Western, and Global, counterparts.
The significance to the severing of these cables is the Middle East Banking Centers being denied access to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), based in Brussels and which carries up to 12.7 million messages a day containing instructions on many of the International transfers of money between banks, lies in Saudi Arabia, or any other Middle East Nation, being unable to change their previously, before loss of communication, encoded currency instructions from being changed.
Moscow’s actions against the West, in the severing by the United States of these cables, was swift as President Putin ordered Russian Air Force Fighters and Bombers to take immediate action to protect the Russian Nations vital undersea cables in the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans.
To some of the Russian Air Force assets used we can read as reported by the Reuters News Service article titled "Russia sends bombers, fighters to Atlantic, Arctic", and which says:
"Air force pilots will carry out practice in the areas involving reconnaissance, missile-bombing attacks on a navy attack force of a hypothetical enemy, air-to-air combat and refuelling and patrolling," an air force spokesman said. The bomber group included two Tupolev Tu-160 strategic bombers, codenamed "Blackjack" by NATO, two turbo-prop Tu-95 "Bear" strategic bombers, and eight Tu-22 "Blinder" bombers. MiG-31 and Su-27 fighters were also sent to the region."
To the final outcome of these events it is not in our knowing, other than one Russian Banking Official, wishing to remain anonymous, stating that, “Should the Saudi’s effectively decouple their oil from the US Dollar, the United States, for all practical purposes will cease to be a World power as it economy will collapse completely as the US Dollar has no value in and of itself due to the staggering debt of the Americans. Without oil they are nothing.]
© February 3, 2008 EU and US all rights reserved.
http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1067.htm
Sunday, February 03, 2008
The King called up his jet pilots; he said you'd better earn your pay
Russians!
Russian air force out again, in some strength; and exercising a whole range of types, including the White Swan...sorry...Tu-160 BLACKJACK, BEAR, BACKFIRE, and MiG31 and Su27 fighters into the bargain, to say nothing of jet tankers. For people who aren't making a political point, they certainly look like it.
Meanwhile, the French Air Force has deployed a flight of Mirage 2000 fighters to Iceland under the NATO agreement; obviously no connection there.
The Yorkshire Ranter
Iran rocket launch (video at link - doesn't look very successful if that's it}
Feb. 4 - Iran launches test rocket, preparing to send satellite into orbit.
Iran has launched a rocket designed to send its first home-made research satellite into orbit in the next year, state television said. The move is likely to add to Western concerns about Tehran's nuclear plans.
The ability to put satellites into orbit could indicate an advance in the Islamic Republic's missile technology.
State media said the satellite, called Omid, which means Hope, would be launched by March 2009.
Reuters
by isachar » Mon Feb 04, 2008 5:07 pm
by judasdisney » Mon Feb 04, 2008 5:12 pm
by slow_dazzle » Tue Feb 05, 2008 4:38 am
Two weeks ago George Bush was sent on a mission to the Middle East to deliver a horse's head. We all remember the disturbing scene in Francis Ford Coppola's “The Godfather” where Lucca Brassi goes to Hollywood to convince a recalcitrant movie producer to use Don Corleone's nephew in his next film. The “Big shot” producer is finally persuaded to hire the young actor after he wakes up in bed next to the severed head of his prize thoroughbred. I expect that Bush made a similar “offer they could not refuse” to the various leaders of the Gulf States when he met with them earlier this month.
The media tried to portray Bush's trip to the Middle East as a "peace mission", but that just a smokescreen. In fact, three days after Bush left Jerusalem, Israel stepped-up its military operations in the occupied territories and resumed its merciless blockade of food, water, medicine and energy to the 1.5 million people of Gaza. Clearly, Bush had green-lighted the operations or Israel's aggression would have been seen as a slap in the face of the President of the United States.
So, what was the real purpose of Bush's trip? After all, he has no interest in peace or in honoring his commitment to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. So, why would he choose to visit the Middle East just as his second term as president is winding down and there is no chance of success?
Sometimes personal visits are important; especially when the nature of the information is so sensitive that the message has to be made face to face. In this case, Bush went to the trouble of traveling half-way around the world to tell the Saudis and their friends in the Gulf States that they were going to continue linking their oil to the dollar or they were going to “sleep with the fishes”. For the last two months, various sheiks and finance ministers have been moaning and groaning about the falling dollar---threatening to break from the so-called “dollar-peg” and covert to a basket of currencies. Bush's trip appears to have rekindled the spirit of brotherly cooperation. The grumbling has ceased and everyone is back "on board". The regional leaders now seem considerably less bothered by the fact that inflation is gobbling up their economies and driving labor, food, energy and housing through the roof. Reuters summed it up like this:
“After a flurry of public disagreements over currency reform last year, Gulf central bankers are trying to close ranks, talking up the pegs as a source of stability and playing down the dollar's weakness as a temporary phenomenon.”
Looks like Bush smoothed things over.
But why would anyone want to disrupt communications in Iran (and other countries)? Could this be some subtle message to Iran, an example of how their communications can be affected by outside forces? Maybe this is a prelude to an attack, or perhaps a test run for a future one?
Communication has always been an important factor in military action, and cutting these cables might affect Iran´s ability to defend itself. But even if that were not the case, it would certainly make it difficult for them to report any events to the outside world. So, if they were attacked, we would have to rely on news reports from the usual sources (the Mainstream Media), and we all know where their loyalties lie.
Oddly enough, Russia also experienced some "internet problems" during this same period, but that may be another coincidence?
by Gouda » Tue Feb 05, 2008 4:42 am
by Jeff » Tue Feb 05, 2008 1:17 pm
by Pele'sDaughter » Tue Feb 05, 2008 1:20 pm
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