Pastor Terry Jones Receives Death Threats After Koran Burning

Terry Jones, the Florida pastor who supervised the burning of the Koran last month, said he’s not backing down after receiving death threats.

Jones said he feels no responsibility for the violence sparked by his church’s action, including the violent protest at a United Nations complex in Afghanistan Saturday that left at least 11 people dead – and 20 killed in weekend violence.

Jones said his beliefs are more important – even at expense of American soldiers.

“Perhaps in the long run, we may save hundreds or thousands,” Jones said.

When asked what would he say to the mother of American soldier about his statement, he said, “We don’t take it lightly…we can’t let it eat us up.”

Top U.S. officials including General David Petreaus and Mark Sedwill, NATO civilian representative in Afghanistan condemned the burning saying they “hope the Afghan people understand that the actions of a small number of individuals, who have been extremely disrespectful to the holy Koran, are not representative of any of the countries of the international community who are in Afghanistan to help the Afghan people.”

Of Saturday’s violence, Jones said it proved his point.

“We wanted to raise awareness of this dangerous religion and dangerous element,” Jones said. “I think [today's attack] proves that there is a radical element of Islam.”

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Detroit and the Death Throes of Socialism

After years of government mandates, corruption, and massive losses in the auto industry, there should be no question as to why Detroit, Michigan is losing thousands of residents each year. The latest census count suggests that Detroit has fallen back some one hundred years in terms of population count.

This does not bode well for Mayor Dave Bing, who is seeking a recount:

The flight of middle-class African-Americans to the suburbs fueled an exodus that cut Detroit’s population 25% in the past decade to 713,777, according to Census Bureau data released Tuesday. That’s the city’s lowest population level since the 1910 census, when automobile mass production was making Detroit Detroit.

The decline, the fastest in city history, shocked local officials, who had expected a number closer to 800,000. Mayor Dave Bing said the city would seek a recount.

“If we could go out and identify another 40,000 people that were missed, and it brings us over the threshold of 750,000, that would make a difference from what we can get from the federal and state government.”

Source: The Wall Street Journal

SmokinOkie, a regular SHTFplan contributor, opines on the matter:

If the mayor’s first reaction to losing a qtr mil people is to measure that in lost goodies from the gubment- maybe it’s the ENTIRE MINDSET of the people who live there, including the idiots they elect to city offices. When your whole damned world-view is predicated on what you “get” from the government, it’s no wonder you’re a declining craphole of a city.

Detroit is so far gone that no amount of federal money will help at this point. A culture of corruption, excessive spending, mismanagement and dependency will inevitably lead to bankruptcy and migration of skilled labor. Will more federal money bring back the union contracted auto industry? Will it improve the schools, which have completely fallen apart over the last two decades and are now to the point where there will be 60 students per class due to budget problems? Will federal government giveaways send the right message to the Detroit city council and policymakers?

Detroit is not alone. The same mentality that has destroyed the wealth of this once vibrant and industrial powerhouse will lead to the bankruptcy of many more in months and years to come; and it will not be isolated to just cities, but entire states. Eventually, the federal government, operating under the same auspices of progressive socialism, will be left decimated.

While in 2008 millions of Americans voted to empower the ideologues who would further expand government sponsored health care, retirement and labor, history will show that it is these very policies that brought down a nation once looked to by the rest of the world as the beacon of freedom and innovation.

Cyclical forecaster Martin Armstrong, in his essay The Collapse of Capitalism or is it Socialism?, discusses this very trend and suggests, contrary to popular progressive opinion, that it is not capitalism, free markets and liberty that are collapsing, but rather, Marxist socialism and communism:

It may seem strange, but we have been undergoing a battle of economic philosophy that transcends so many concepts, that unless we step back, most have difficulty understanding the trend. This battle has often been laced with efforts to control mankind. For within this battle, we will find religion, politics, scientific innovation and progress spanning technology in all areas, but also issues that include both slavery and labor that all create what has become known as our economy.

Sometimes we are too close to a problem that it is just impossible to see. When man landed on the moon and sent the first pictures of Earth rising, only then could we see what our world truly looked like. We are facing the very same problem. The change that we now see and are debating, is still from the view of a fly on an elephant’s back. We do not know we are even on an elephant or what is an elephant.

Our society is still growing and changing. We are going through puberty where the youth rebels against the parent. The profound change, the Great Economic Transformation, became bluntly visible back in 1989 where the world economy began to change with the fall of Communism. That fundamental change was truly an Economic Transformation wave which is now causing the collapse of socialism in the Western nations. What we are facing is confusing. Nevertheless, if we want to see the elephant, it is time to take flight.

Without getting into the obvious issues of individual liberty, the ideologies of communism and socialism can be boiled down to economics. And the fact of the matter is, the mathematics simply don’t work. The numbers don’t add up, no matter how hard those in power try to cover them up and manipulate them. The Soviet Union and the East Block are clear examples of the end result.

The good news is that socialism is a failed experiment. Marx was wrong. The entire system is unsustainable and must collapse.

The bad news is, that there is no easy way out. The period of transformation as socialism collapses and a new paradigm emerges will be difficult and mired in poverty, destitution, violence and war.

View the original article here

Libya, Hypocrisy and Betrayal by the United Nations: Death and Destruction. US-NATO’s New War in North Africa

“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – for ever.” - George Orwell.

The bombing of Libya will begin on or nearly to the day, of the eighth anniversary of the beginning of the destruction of Iraq, 19th March, in Europe. Libya too will be destroyed – its schools, education system, water, infrastructure, hospitals, municipal buildings. There will be numerous “tragic mistakes”, “collateral damage”, mothers, fathers, children, babies, grandparents, blind and deaf schools and on and on. And the wonders of the Roman remains and earlier, largely enduring and revered in all history’s turmoils as Iraq, the nation’s history – and humanity’s, again as Iraq and Afghanistan, will be gone, for ever. 

The infrastructure will be destroyed. The embargo will remain in place, thus rebuilding will be impossible. Britain, France and the US., will decide the country needs “stabilising”, “help with reconstruction.” They will move in, secure the oil installations and oil fields, the Libyan people will be an incidental inconvenience and quickly become “the enemy”, “insurgents”, be shot, imprisoned, tortured, abused – and a US friendly puppet “government” will be installed.

The invaders will award their companies rebuilding contracts, the money – likely taken from Libya’s frozen assets without accounting – will vanish and the country will remain largely in ruins.

And the loudest cheerleaders for this, as Iraq, will be running round tv and radio stations in London, Europe and the US, then returning to their safe apartments and their UK/US/Europe paid tenures, in the knowledge that no bombs will be dropping on them. Their children will not be shaking uncontrollably and soiling themselves with terror at the sound of approaching planes.

And this Libyan “Shock and Awe”?  Shame on France, shame on Britain and the US and a UN avowed: “… to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” Every shattered body, every child maimed or blown to bits, every widow, widower, orphan, will have their name of those countries, and the UN., written in their blood in their place of death.  

And the public of these murderous, marauding Western ram raiders, will be told that we were bringing democracy, liberating Libya from a tyrant, from the “new Hitler”, the “Butcher of Bengazi.”

The countries who have ganged together these last days to overthrow a sovereign government have, again, arguably, conspired in Nuremberg’s: ” … supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole”, and yet again, plotted to overthrow a sovereign government, with a fig leaf of “legality” from an arm twisted UN. We have seen it all before.

In time, it will emerge, who was stirring, bribing, de-stabilizing – and likely few will be surprised at the findings. But by then, Libya will be long broken and its people, fleeing, displaced, distraught. 

When it comes to dealing with the usual “liberators”, be careful what you wish for. In six months or so, most Libyans, whatever the failings of the last forty years rule, will be ruing the day.

Felicity Arbuthnot is a frequent contributor to Global Research.  Global Research Articles by Felicity Arbuthnot

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23767

Foreign Intervention in Libya: Creation of 4th War Theater

by grtv

The UN Security Council adopted a resolution establishing a no-fly zone over Libya.

Michel Chossudovsky, director of Centre for Research on Globalization, says western nations are interested in Libyan oil and other resources, not protecting the people and that is why they care more about the fight in Libya, than elsewhere in the Arab world.

VIDEO IN LINK

http://tv.globalresearch.ca/2011/03/foreign-intervention-libya-creation-4th-war-theater

Obama: Most Pro-War President in Living Memory

by grtv

Barack Obama is fighting wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Libya. He is spending more on the US military than any previous president.

If he serves for eight years as president, he will spend over $8 trillion on defence, including the hidden costs of the war economy.

Fifty per cent of all US tax dollars is spent on the US military. America spends more on defence than the combined total military budget of every other country in the world.

VIDEO- WHILE OBAMA SPEAKS- SEE THE SMALL BABY DEAD………………….

http://tv.globalresearch.ca/2011/03/obama-most-pro-war-president-living-memory

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Libya: Largest Military Undertaking since the Invasion of Iraq. Towards a Protracted Military OperationOutright lies by the international media: Bombs and missiles are presented as an instrument  of peace and democratization…

This is not a humanitarian operation. The war on Libya opens up a new regional war theater.

There are three distinct war theaters in the Middle East Central Asian region. Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq.

What is unfolding is a fourth US-NATO War Theater in North Africa, with the risk of escalation.

These four war theaters are functionally related, they are part of an integrated US-NATO military agenda.

The bombing of Libya has been on the drawing board of the Pentagon for several years as confirmed by former NATO commander General Wesley Clark.

Operation Odyssey Dawn is acknowledged as the “biggest Western military intervention in the Arab world since the invasion of Iraq began exactly eight years ago.” (Russia: Stop ‘indiscriminate’ bombing of Libya – Taiwan News Online, March 19, 2011).

This war is part of the battle for oil. Libya is among the World’s largest oil economies with approximately 3.5% of global oil reserves, more than twice those of the US.

The underlying objective is to gain control over Libya’s oil and gas reserves under the disguise of a humanitarian intervention.

The geopolitical and economic implications of a US-NATO led military intervention directed against Libya are far-reaching.

“Operation Odyssey Dawn ” is part of  a broader military agenda in the Middle East and Central Asia which consists in gaining control and corporate ownership over more than sixty percent of the world’s reserves of oil and natural gas, including oil and gas pipeline routes.

With 46.5 billion barrels of proven reserves, (10 times those of Egypt), Libya is the largest oil economy in the African continent followed by Nigeria and Algeria (Oil and Gas Journal). In contrast, US proven oil reserves are of the order of 20.6 billion barrels (December 2008) according to the Energy Information Administration.  U.S. Crude Oil, Natural Gas, and Natural Gas Liquids Reserves).

Largest Military Undertaking since the Invasion of Iraq

A military operation of this size and magnitude, involving the active participation of several NATO member and partner countries is never improvised. Operation Odyssey Dawn was in the advanced stages of military planning prior to the protest movement in Egypt and Tunisia. 

Public opinion was led to believe that the protest movement had spread spontaneously from Tunisia and Egypt to Libya.   

The armed insurgency in Eastern Libya is directly supported by foreign powers. Rebel forces in Benghazi immediately hoisted the red, black and green banner with the crescent and star: the flag of the monarchy of King Idris, which symbolized the rule of the former colonial powers. (See  Manlio Dinucci, Libya-When historical memory is erased, Global Research, February 28, 2011)

The insurrection was also planned and coordinated with the timing of the military operation. It had been carefully planned months ahead of the protest movement, as part of a covert operation.

US, British special forces were reported to be on the ground “helping the opposition” right from the outset.

What we are dealing with is a military roadmap, a timeline of carefully planned military and intelligence events.

United Nations Complicity

So far, the bombing campaign has resulted in countless civilian casualties, which are either categorized by the media as “collateral damage” or blamed on the Libyan armed forces.

In a bitter irony, the UN Security Council Resolution 1973 grants NATO a mandate “to protect civilians”

Protection of civilians

4. Authorizes Member States that have notified the Secretary-General, acting nationally or through regional organizations or arrangements, and acting in cooperation with the Secretary-General, to take all necessary measures, notwithstanding paragraph 9 of resolution 1970 (2011), to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, including Benghazi, while excluding a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory, and requests the Member States concerned to inform the Secretary-General immediately of the measures they take pursuant to the authorization conferred by this paragraph which shall be immediately reported to the Security Council; (UN Security Council Resolution on Libya: No Fly Zone and Other Measures, March 18, 2011)

The UN resolution grants coalition forces carte blanche to engage in an all out war against a sovereign country in derogation of international law and in violation of the UN charter. It also serves dominant financial interests: it not only allows the military coalition to bomb a sovereign country, it also allows for the freezing of assets, thereby jeopardizing Libya’s financial system.

Asset freeze

19. Decides that the asset freeze imposed by paragraph 17, 19, 20 and 21 of resolution 1970 (2011) shall apply to all funds, other financial assets and economic resources which are on their territories, which are owned or controlled, directly or indirectly, by the Libyan authorities, ….

No where in the UNSC resolution is the issue of regime change mentioned. Yet it is understood that opposition forces will receive part of the money confiscated under Article 19 of resolution 1973. In fact discussions with opposition leaders to that effect have already taken place. Its called  cooptation and financial fraud: 

20. Affirms its determination to ensure that assets frozen pursuant to paragraph 17 of resolution 1970 (2011) shall, at a later stage, as soon as possible be made available to and for the benefit of the people of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya;

With regard to the “Enforcement of the arms embargo” under para. 13 of the resolution, coalition forces will commit themselves without exception to enforcing an arms embargo on Libya. Yet from outset they have violated Art. 13, by supplying weapons to opposition forces in Benghazi.

Protracted Military Operation?

Concepts are turned upside down. In an utterly twisted logic. peace, security and protection of the Libyan people, are to be achieved through missile attacks and aerial bombings. 

The objective of the military operation is not the protection of civilians but regime change and the break up the country, as in Yugoslavia, namely the partition of Libya into separate countries. The formation of a separate State in the oil producing area of Eastern Libya has been contemplated by Washington for many years.

Barely a week before the onslaught of the bombings,. the director of  National intelligence James Clapper emphasized in a testimony to the US Senate Armed Services Committee that Libya has significant air defense capabilities and that a no fly zone approach could potentially result in a protracted military operation:

Obama’s policy is “aimed at the goal of having Gadhafi leave office,” the national security adviser reiterated.

But Clapper’s testimony underscored how difficult that could be.

He told the Senate committee that he thinks “Gadhafi is in this for the long haul” and that he doesn’t think Gadhafi “has any intention … of leaving.”

Later, enumerating his reasons for believing that Gadhafi would prevail, Clapper said that the regime has more military supplies and can count on the army’s best trained, “most robustly equipped” units, including the 32nd Brigade, which is commanded by Gadhafi’s son, Khamis, and the 9th Brigade.

The bulk of its hardware comprises Russian-made air defenses, artillery, tanks and other vehicles, “and they appear more disciplined about how they treat and repair that equipment,” Clapper continued.

Clapper disputed assertions that a no-fly zone could be quickly and easily imposed on Libya, saying Gadhafi commands the Middle East’s second largest air defense system after Egypt’s.

“They have a lot of Russian equipment, and there is a certain quality in numbers. Some of that equipment has fallen into the oppositionists’ hands,” he continued.

The system comprises about 31 surface-to-air missile sites and a radar complex that “is focused on protecting the (Mediterranean) coastline where are 80 or 85 percent of the population is,” Clapper said. Gadhafi’s forces also have “a large, large number” of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles.

Army Gen. Ronald Burgess, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, endorsed Clapper’s assessment, saying momentum was shifting to Gadhafi’s forces after initially being with the opposition.

“Whether or not it has fully shifted to Gadhafi’s side at this time in-country I think is not clear,” Burgess said. “But we have now reached a state of equilibrium where … the initiative, if you will, may be on the regime side.”

Hours after Clapper spoke, Thomas Donilon, Obama’s national security adviser, offered a different assessment, suggesting sharply diverging views between the White House and the U.S. intelligence community.

He said the intelligence chiefs’ analysis was “static” and “unidimensional,” based on the military balance of power, and failing to take into account both Gadhafi’s growing isolation and international actions to boost his opponents. (White House, intel chief split on Libya assessment | McClatchy, March 11, 2011)

The foregoing statement suggests that Operation Odyssey Dawn could lead to a protracted drawn out war resulting in significant NATO-US losses.

NATO military setbacks were reported by Libyan sources from the very outset of the air campaign.

Within hours of the commencement of the bombings, Libyan sources (yet to be confirmed) pointed to the shooting down of three French jets. (See Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya,  Breaking News: Libyan Hospitals Attacked. Libyan Source: Three French Jets Downed, Global Research, March 19, 2011).

The Libyan national TV network announced that a French fighter plane had been shot down near Tripoli. The French Army denied these reports:

“We reject the information that a French fighter plane was shot down in Libya. All the planes we sent on missions today returned to base” said the spokesman of the French Army, colonel Thierry Burkhard, quoted by Le Figaro.” (Libya: A french fighter plane was shot down! The French Army denies this information, xiannet.net March 20, 2011)

Internal Libyan sources (to be confirmed) also reported on Sunday the downing of two Qatari military jets. According to Libyan reports, yet to be confirmed, a total of five French jets have been shot down. Three of these attacking French jets were, according to the reports, shot down in Tripoli. The other two French military jets were shot down while attacking Sirt (Surt/Sirte). (Mahdi  Darius Nazemroaya, Libyan Sources Report Italian POWs Captured. Additional Coalition Jets Downed, Global Research, March 20, 2011)

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23815

NO MEDIA COVERAGE……………IN A FREE DEMOCRACY….

Ongoing Iran War Preparations? Arabian Sea: Center Of West’s 21st Century WarThe monumental expansion of arms sales and the buildup of naval and air power in the Arabian Sea region are unprecedented. They are also alarming to the highest degree.

A quarter of the world’s nuclear aircraft carriers will soon be in the Arabian Sea.

The Nimitz class nuclear-powered supercarrier USS Abraham Lincoln arrived in the region on October 17 to join the USS Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group, which in turn had arrived there on June 18 as part of a regular rotation.

The Charles de Gaulle, flagship of the French navy, the country’s only aircraft carrier and the sole non-American nuclear carrier, will soon join its two U.S. counterparts. The U.S. possesses half the world’s twenty-two aircraft carriers, all eleven supercarriers (those displacing over 70,000 tons) and eleven of twelve nuclear carriers.

Regarding the unscheduled deployment of a second American aircraft carrier to the region, a CBS News report stated:

“Air strikes in Afghanistan are up 50 per cent and now Defense Secretary Gates has ordered a second aircraft carrier, the USS Lincoln, into the fight.

“Two carriers operating off the coast of Pakistan means about 120 aircraft available for missions over Afghanistan. And that’s not counting U.S. Air Force missions flown out of Bagram and Kandahar.” [1]

The countries bordering the Arabian Sea are Somalia, Djibouti, Yemen, Oman, Iran, Pakistan, India and the island nation of Maldives.

USS Lincoln and USS Truman are currently assigned to the Fifth Fleet’s area of responsibility, which encompasses the Northern Indian Ocean and its branches and offshoots: The Arabian Sea, the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the eastern coast of Africa south to Kenya, the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf.

The nations on the Red Sea and Persian Gulf are, in addition to those mentioned above, Egypt, Eritrea, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Sudan and Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, respectively. 

The Fifth is the first fleet established in the post-Cold War period, recommissioned in 1995 after being deactivated in 1947. (Similarly, the Fourth Fleet, which is assigned to the Caribbean Sea and Central and South America, was reactivated two years ago after being decommissioned in 1950.)

It shares a commander and headquarters with U.S. Naval Forces Central Command (CENTCOM) at Manama, Bahrain, across the Persian Gulf from Iran. CENTCOM was the last regional military command launched by the Pentagon during the Cold War (1983) and its area of responsibility stretches across what has been referred to as the Broader Middle East from Egypt in the west to Kazakhstan, bordering China and Russia, to the east.

The Fifth Fleet and Naval Forces Central Command are jointly in charge of five naval task forces operating in and near the Arabian Sea which patrol several of the most strategic chokepoints on the planet: The Suez Canal linking the Mediterranean Sea, where the U.S. Sixth Fleet and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s Operation Active Endeavor hold sway, to the Red Sea. The Bab Al Mandeb connecting the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden. The Strait of Hormuz between the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf.

Combined Task Force 150 (CTF-150) is a multinational naval group established in 2001 with logistics facilities in the Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti and operates from the Strait of Hormuz to the Gulf of Aden and past the Bab Al Mandeb to the Red Sea and south to the Indian Ocean nation of Seychelles. Last year the Pentagon secured a military facility in Seychelles, its second in an African nation, where it has deployed Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles (drones), PC-3 Orion anti-submarine and surveillance aircraft, and 112 Navy personnel. Other nations currently contributing ships and personnel to CTF-150 are Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Pakistan, South Korea and Thailand. Recent participants also include Australia, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Singapore, Spain and Turkey.

Combined Task Force 151 (CTF-151) was launched in January of 2009, operates in the Gulf of Aden and the Somali Basin and covers an area of 1.1 million square miles. Twenty nations are scheduled to participate in the U.S.-led task force and Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Singapore, South Korea and Turkey have already enlisted. Its commanders to date have been from the U.S., Britain, South Korea and Turkey.

Combined Task Force 152 (CTF-152) operates from the northern Persian Gulf to the Strait of Hormuz, between the areas of responsibility of CTF-150 and CTF-158, and is part of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Combined Task Force 158 (CTF-158) operates in the northern-most part of the Persian Gulf, is also part of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and consists of British and Australian as well as U.S. ships. Its main tasks are to oversee Iraqi oil installations and to create an Iraqi navy under the Pentagon’s control.

The U.S. has divided the world between six regional military commands and six navy fleets. The Arabian Sea is covered by three of the Pentagon’s overseas military commands – Central Command, Africa Command and Pacific Command – to provide an indication of the importance attached to the region.

In addition to the Fifth Fleet’s and Naval Forces Central Command’s headquarters in Bahrain, Central Command also maintains command, forward deployment, air and training bases and facilities in Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates in the Persian Gulf in addition to 56,000 troops and air, naval and infantry bases in Iraq.

Several months before the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York City and on the Pentagon, the U.S. signed an agreement with the small nation of Djibouti (with a population of 725,000) to take over a former French base, Camp Lemonnier, which is now a United States Naval Expeditionary Base hosting the Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa, assigned to Africa Command since the latter was activated two years ago. The Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa’s area of responsibility takes in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Seychelles, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Yemen, with the Indian Ocean nations of Comoros, Mauritius and Madagascar effectively included.

In early 2002 the U.S. deployed 800 special operations troops to Camp Lemonnier to conduct covert operations in Yemen across the Gulf of Aden from Djibouti. There are now in the neighborhood of 2,000 U.S. troops in the country and 3,000 French troops there in what has been described as France’s largest overseas military base. In the beginning of this decade Germany deployed 1,200 troops to Djibouti along with forces from Spain and the Netherlands. Britain added troops in 2005.

In total, there are as many as 8-10,000 military personnel from NATO nations in Djibouti. The Pentagon has used Camp Lemonnier, the port of Djibouti and the country’s international airport for attacks in Yemen and Somalia, and French troops in the country assisted Djibouti in its armed conflict with neighboring Eritrea in 2008. France uses the country to train its troops for the war in Afghanistan and the Pentagon used it to support the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia in 2006.

The U.S. Fifth Fleet ordinarily has one aircraft carrier, serving as the nucleus of a carrier strike group, assigned to it. With USS Lincoln joining USS Truman in the Arabian Sea this month it now has two. USS Lincoln is accompanied by a guided missile destroyer and “brings more than 60 additional aircraft to the theater in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.” [2]

USS Truman’s strike group includes four Aegis class destroyers equipped for Standard Missile-3 anti-ballistic missiles, a guided missile cruiser and the German frigate FGS Hessen. Carrier Wing 3 attached to the aircraft carrier includes three strike fighter squadrons, a Marine fighter attack squadron, and airborne early warning, electronic attack and helicopter anti-submarine squadrons.

Since passing though the Suez Canal on June 28 until late last month Carrier Wing 3 had “completed more than 3,300 aircraft sorties and logged more than 10,200 flight hours, with more than 7,200 of those hours in support of coalition ground forces in Afghanistan.” [3] There are 7,000 sailors and marines attached to the USS Truman carrier strike group.

Beforehand, shortly after entering the Mediterranean Sea in May, USS Truman engaged in joint interoperability exercises in Marseille with its French fellow nuclear aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle. French warplanes landed on the Truman’s deck and American ones on Charles de Gaulle’s.

The French carrier was returned to port for repairs on the day it set sail for “a four-month mission to support the fight in Afghanistan,” but “will recover lost time at sea and its itinerary is not likely to change.”

Its new mission, the first since 2007, “is to take it to join the fight against piracy off Somalia in the Indian Ocean and the NATO mission in Afghanistan.

“The new mission of the ship is to join the fight against pirates that is taking place off the coast of Somalia in the Indian Ocean [where a] NATO mission is ongoing.” [4] Nuclear aircraft carriers are a curious choice for contending with piracy.

The NATO deployment in question is Operation Ocean Shield, inaugurated in August of 2009 and extended to the end of 2012. Standing NATO Maritime Group 1 and Standing NATO Maritime Group 2, which have also visited Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates and participated in joint naval maneuvers with Pakistan on the eastern end of the Arabian Sea, rotate for the operation in the Gulf of Aden.

The U.S.’s Operation Enduring Freedom encompasses sixteen nations in all -  Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Cuba (Guantanamo Bay), Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Jordan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, the Philippines, Seychelles, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkey and Yemen – and NATO’s efforts parallel and reinforce the Pentagon’s across the width of the Arabian Sea from the Horn of Africa to South and Central Asia.

At its summit in Istanbul, Turkey in 2004, NATO launched the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative to build military partnerships with the six member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – and has conducted military exchanges and cooperation with them in the interim. [5] The United Arab Emirates has supplied NATO with troops for the war in Afghanistan and hosts a secret air base for the transit of troops and equipment to the war zone.

In May of 2009 French President Nicolas Sarkozy opened a military base in the United Arab Emirates, the first permanent French base in the Persian Gulf and the first overseas base in 50 years. Including a navy and air force base and a training camp, it was seen at the time as a show of force against Iran which contests the Abu Musa island in the Persian Gulf with the Emirates.

NATO forces also operate out of bases in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The North Atlantic Alliance has launched several helicopter gunship attacks inside Pakistan since late last month and on September 30 killed three Pakistani soldiers.

There are 120,000 troops from almost 50 nations serving under NATO’s International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.

This year NATO has airlifted Ugandan troops to Somalia for the armed conflict there.

The Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier en route to the Arabian Sea to support the war in that country as well for operations off the coast of Somalia was commissioned in May of 2001. Seven months later it sailed to the Arabian Sea to support Operation Enduring Freedom and the war in Afghanistan. On December 19 of that year Super Étendard attack jets and Rafale Ms fighters took off from its deck to conduct bombing and reconnaissance missions, in all over 140.

The following March Super Étendard and Mirage warplanes assigned to Charles de Gaulle carried out air strikes before and during the U.S.-led Operation Anaconda.

When the French carrier arrives in the Arabian Sea this month it will be accompanied by two frigates, an attack submarine and a refuelling tanker, 3,000 sailors and 27 aircraft: Ten Rafale F3 fighters, 12 Super Étendard  attack jets, two Hawkeye early warning planes and three helicopters.

According to the commander of the group, Rear Admiral Jean-Louis Kerignard, “the force would help allied navies fight piracy off the coast of Somalia and send jets to support NATO in the skies above Afghanistan.

“The ships will also train alongside allies from Saudi Arabia, India, Italy, Greece and the United Arab Emirates and make two stopovers at the French base in Djibouti before returning to France in February 2011.” [6]

With USS Lincoln and the USS Truman carrier strike group, there will be three carriers, ten other ships, an attack submarine and as many as 150 military aircraft in the Arabian Sea. That is in addition to the five warships of the NATO Maritime Group 1 in theater, 14-15 ships with CTF-150 and perhaps dozens more with CTF-151, CFT-152 and CTF-158. A formidable armada covering the sea from one end to the other.

In the north of the Arabian Sea, the Gulf of Oman and into the Persian Gulf, on October 21 the U.S. announced a $60 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia for advanced fighter jets, helicopters, missiles and other weaponry and equipment,” according to a Western news agency “the largest US arms deal ever.” [7]

US military bases surround Iran

Last month the Financial Times disclosed that Washington plans to sell $123 billion worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. This January reports surfaced of White House plans to sell Patriot missile batteries to Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The U.S. Navy also patrols the Persian Gulf with Standard Missile-3 interceptor missile-equipped warships. [8]

On the eastern end of the Arabian Sea, on October 23 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced a $2 billion, five-year military aid package for Pakistan, and President Obama’s scheduled visit to India next month is reported to include massive arms deals that will effect the U.S. supplanting Russia as India’s main weapons supplier.

The monumental expansion of arms sales and the buildup of naval and air power in the Arabian Sea region are unprecedented. They are also alarming to the highest degree.

The West, America and its NATO allies, are escalating military operations across the area, from Asia to Africa to the Middle East. The theater of operations has recently broadened from South Asia to the Arabian Peninsula with drone and helicopter attacks in Pakistan and air and cruise missile strikes in Yemen.

A war that started at the beginning of the century is in its tenth year and gives every indication of being permanent.

1) CBS News, October 18, 2010
2) Navy NewsStand, October 17, 2010
3) Navy NewsStand, September 26, 2010
4) Associated Press, October 14, 2010
5) NATO In Persian Gulf: From Third World War To Istanbul
Stop NATO, February 6, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/26/nato-in-persian-gulf-from-third-world-war-to-istanbul
6) Expatica, October 13, 2010
7) Deutsche Presse-Agentur, October 21, 2010
U.S. Extends Missile Buildup From Poland And Taiwan To Persian Gulf
Stop NATO, February 3, 2010
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/02/03/u-s-extends-missile-buildup-from-poland-and-taiwan-to-persian-gulf

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HITLER AT LEAST ONLY RAMPAGED ACROSS EUROPE- NATO BULLY BOY IS OUT OF CONTROL!!

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UK: Muslim girl gets death threats for entering a global beauty pageant

Posted: March 20, 2011 | Author: barenakedislam | Filed under: Women | 6 Comments »

UK GUARDIAN --Most of the negative comments have come from a minority of Muslim men who claim Muslims who claim she is d

enigrating the name of  Islam. “I get people saying, ‘you’re not a Muslim’ and ‘you’re using religion to get attention’. I said they were the ones bringing religion into it. I’m not representing Islam; I just want to represent my country, and of that I am very proud. They are trying to control me, using religion as a tool to attack.”

The attacks on the Manchester-based English literature graduate began after a local newspaper ran an article 10 days ago revealing her ambition to become the first Muslim to represent Great Britain at the beauty contest. Since then, she has received around 300 messages a day on her Facebook page, a handful of which are abusive.

But even she has been surprised by the furore that her participation in the British heats of Miss Universe has prompted. Rather than confirming her hopes that society had progressed since her childhood, the controversy has made her question the state of multiculturalism in modern Britain. “It has highlighted the divisions that exist, a lack of social integration, a lack of adhesion between white and coloured people, and this needs to be addressed,” she said. “I thought my participation might be something that people did not agree with, but I never thought I’d get abused.”

Bukhari accuses her abusers of having the same sort of mindset as those who support “honour” killings and beat women. Many of the comments are, she says, from individuals who want sharia law instead of a liberal democracy.

The abuse that truly shocked Bukhari arrived last Tuesday in the form of an online racist rant. Within hours she had shut down her Facebook fan page, but a friend was then sent a number of internet links to images of people murdered for standing up for their principles. “She rang up and said, ‘Shanna, you need to be very careful because he’s trying to make me aware that things will happen’. Not a direct death threat perhaps, but he was trying to say that something is going to happen to me.”

Bukhari takes the threat of physical violence seriously. She makes sure she is never alone, both in her Manchester flat and on the city streets, and has contacted a private security firm for protection when attending charity events to raise money for the Joshua Foundation, a charity for terminally ill children. She fears that Britain’s Miss Universe finals in Birmingham in May will also be a target: “It worries me that haters will turn up. I know what they are capable of.”

Bukhari says the abuse has been disillusioning partly because she enjoyed a liberal upbringing; her parents sent her to a Catholic school in Blackburn where she was the only Muslim but was “completely accepted”. It was only when she moved to Manchester in 2001, she said, that she became aware of segregation as an issue.

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The Death of the Nuclear Power Renaissance

03/15/11 Laguna Beach, California – Chris Mayer, editor of Mayer’s Special Situations, shared this bit of investment wisdom with his subscribers yesterday:

“Charlie Munger, the long-time Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, says there are three buckets where investment ideas go: ‘Yes,’ ‘No’ and ‘Too Hard.’ I think uranium is too hard.”

We would not quarrel with that logic; and we certainly would not quarrel with Chris’s caution. As an early, and indefatigable, bull on uranium, Chris led his subscribers to some very large gains in the sector. After yesterday’s selloff, some of those gains were much smaller than they had been. Nevertheless, Chris told his subscribers to “hit the bid” on two of the uranium plays he had recommended.

“I think we should sell our two uranium holdings,” Chris wrote. “We’ll book a 73% gain on Kalahari Minerals (KAH:lsx) and a 10% gain on Paladin Energy (PDN:tsx; PALAF:pink sheets). The latter is down 23% today. Once, we were up 70% on the name. So this is a disappointment. But Kalahari is a very nice win for a stock we held little more than a year.”

Uranium is “too hard” indeed. On the other hand, nothing is very easy these days. Following the Nikkei’s vertical plunge during the last two days, most stock markets around the globe also posted minus signs. From the highs of March 11 – the day the 9.0 quake struck – to the lows of today, Japan’s Nikkei Index plunged more than 20%. The would-be buyers of Japanese stocks apparently decided that widespread devastation and smoldering nuclear power plants are not bullish phenomena.

Following the Nikkei’s example, the MSCI EAFE Index of international stocks dropped 7% during the last three trading sessions and erased its gains for the year-to-date. Here in the States, stocks are also wobbling. But buying interest seems to await every selloff. On Monday morning, the Dow Jones Industrial Average sliced through 12,000 immediately after the opening bell and fell as much as 140 points. But as the lunchtime hour was drawing to a close – about the time the third martinis were making their way to the lunch tables – investors regained their bravado.

No tsunami carnage or atomic plumes were going to get in the way of their “Buy” orders! Nosirree! And no Middle East civil wars were either. After all, Warren Buffet bought Lubrizol. That had to count for something, right?

By day’s end, the Dow had trimmed its losses to a mere 51 points, while nearly reclaiming the 12,000 mark. In this morning’s trading session, the Dow is attempting an encore. After tumbling nearly 300 points at the opening bell, the Dow has shaved its losses to only 150 points (as of this moment). Even so, the NASDAQ Composite Index has slipped into the loss column for the year-to-date, while the Dow and S&P 500 are flirting with a similar fate.

Tomorrow is another day, of course. But tomorrow’s news stories probably won’t look dramatically different from today’s. One possible exception may be the news stories circulating about the nuclear power industry.

According to today’s headlines, the post-quake crisis at several Japanese reactors is a “Three Mile Island event” that will stop the growth of nuclear power dead in its tracks. A gaggle of government officials around the world are saying as much…and we take them at their word, sort of.

Obviously, the unfolding nuclear tragedy in Japan is not a non-event…as the harrowing volatility in global stock markets attests. The uranium sector, in particular, is in full meltdown mode: The ISE-CCM Global Uranium Stock Index has plummeted 27% during the last week. The price of uranium itself (“U308”) is down a similar amount. Not a good week for the uranium bulls.

But just maybe, tomorrow’s headlines about the fate of nuclear power will not resemble today’s. Just maybe, tomorrow’s headlines will be less bearish. Our respected colleague, Chris Mayer, is not optimistic. “The nuclear power renaissance is dead,” he says flatly in the column below. Chris makes a compelling argument. And it almost never pays to disagree with the man (which is why we almost never do). But we suspect that nuclear power will live to fight another day…and will do so within an “investable timeframe.”

As regular readers of The Daily Reckoning may recall, your editor named uranium as his “Trade of the Decade.” Two months ago, this call looked brilliant (or lucky). Today, not so much. Two months ago, uranium and uranium stocks were both sitting atop plump 50% gains for the decade-to-date. But those gains have shriveled to single digits.

So where to from here?

Admittedly, given the crisis in Japan, uranium might not be the “Trade of 2011.” But we think uranium investments still have a solid shot at performing well throughout the rest of the decade. In other words, we’ll keep dancin’ with the one who brung us – not just for sentimental reasons, but for stone-cold economic reasons. Environmental disasters notwithstanding, nuclear power remains an extremely competitive and compelling alternative to fossil-fuel-powered electricity generation.

The opponents of nuclear power tend to portray the contrast between nukes and hydrocarbon-generated electricity as a choice between adopting a rabid hyena or a Golden Retriever puppy. But the contrast is not quite that extreme or simplistic. A more accurate metaphor might be choosing between sleeping under a guillotine blade every night or sleeping in an airport smoking lounge. As long as the blade never falls, that’s a much better – and healthier – place to sleep.

That’s the nuclear industry’s critical challenge: preventing that blade from falling, no matter what. The newest nuclear technologies purport to achieve exactly that. Meanwhile, the world’s coal-fired power plants are continuously converting the earth’s atmosphere into a smoking lounge. This reality will not change, which is one very big reason why the demise of nuclear power may have been greatly exaggerated.

Nuclear power has played – and continues to play – an essential role in worldwide power generation. More to the point of this discussion, nuclear power’s role is growing most rapidly in the economies of the world that are growing most rapidly. The Fukushima disaster won’t change that trend.

To be sure, the world’s newfound anxieties about nuclear power are probably not nothing; but they may not be very much of anything. For starters, many of the “concerned” individuals who are voicing anti-nuke viewpoints are individuals who happen to have an additional agenda or two in their hip pockets. Many of these individuals are either members of an opposition party in their particular country or are members of some group that has long opposed nuclear power.

In the midst of the crisis, no one wishes to oppose these dissident voices. But once the crisis passes, the dissident voices may have to yell a little louder if they wish to be heard…and these voices might have to yell really, really loudly if the price of crude oil surges toward $150 or $200 a barrel.

Secondly, many of the folks who are issuing the harshest anti-nuke remarks reside in countries like Germany and the US that were already hostile to nuclear power.

The map below, courtesy of the World Nuclear Association, identifies the locations of nuclear power plants that are currently under construction. Of these, 42% reside in China; 16% in Russia and 11% in India. The G-7 countries, combined, account for only 3% of all nuclear plants currently under construction!

So if you are an investor in uranium, do you really care that Germany might not renew some nuclear power licenses or that Switzerland will find a new way to stall construction of three new nuclear plants?

Even in the Developed World, the news for the nuclear industry is not all bad. At the very same moment that the Swiss and the Germans were pandering to their publics, the French, Spanish and Italians were promising full-speed ahead on their nuclear power programs.

“France will continue to rely on nuclear power,” Bloomberg News reports. “Spain, which is extending the life of existing plants, said Fukushima won’t hold back its nuclear policy. Italy’s environment minister said the earthquake won’t make the country reconsider to build new plants.”

“We can’t switch to renewables overnight,” says French Environment Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet said. “For the foreseeable future, we will need nuclear.”

So will the rest of the world. Net-net, the long-term prognosis for nuclear power may not be as grim as the near-term headlines suggest.

Eric Fry
for The Daily Reckoning

Eric J. Fry, Agora Financial’s Editorial Director, has been a specialist in international equities for nearly two decades. He was a professional portfolio manager for more than 10 years, specializing in international investment strategies and short-selling.  Following his successes in professional money management, Mr. Fry joined the Wall Street-based publishing operations of James Grant, editor of the prestigious Grant's Interest Rate Observer. Working alongside Grant, Mr. Fry produced Grant's International and Apogee Research —  institutional research products dedicated to international investment opportunities and short selling. 

Mr. Fry subsequently joined Agora Inc., as Editorial Director. In this role, Mr. Fry  supervises the editorial and research processes of numerous investment letters and services. Mr. Fry also publishes investment insights and commentary under his own byline as Editor of The Daily Reckoning. Mr. Fry authored the first comprehensive guide to investing internationally with American Depository Receipts.  His views and investment insights have appeared in numerous publications including Time, Barron's, Wall Street Journal, International Herald Tribune, Business Week, USA Today, Los Angeles Times and Money.

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Damage from mega quake increasing, death toll feared to top 1,700

Home » Asia, Disasters » Damage from mega quake increasing, death toll feared to top 1,700

 In photo taken on March 12, 2011, people wait to be rescued from building rooftops in the city of Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, where houses have been swept away by tsunami following a catastrophic earthquake in Japan the previous day.

Damage caused by Friday’s catastrophic earthquake in Japan expanded Saturday, with the combined number of people who have died or are unaccounted for is feared to top 1,700, while an explosion occurred at the nuclear reactor building of Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant and injured four workers.

The four are conscious and their injuries are not life-threatening, according to the electricity firm, while the Fire and Disaster Management Agency dispatched the Hyper Rescue squad from Tokyo to bring equipment to cool down the nuclear plant facilities.

Radioactive materials — cesium and iodine — were also detected around the No. 1 reactor of the plant, according to the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.

The death toll has exceeded 600 so far, a police tally showed, while 200 to 300 bodies were transferred to Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture. It was also reported that another 200 bodies were transferred to gymnasiums in Iwanuma and Natori, both in Miyagi, while around 650 people are missing following the 2:46 p.m. quake with a magnitude of 8.8, the strongest ever recorded in Japan.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano on Saturday expressed the government’s determination to bring relief to the disaster-hit areas. He told a meeting of the emergency disaster headquarters Saturday, ”This is the largest earthquake since the Meiji Era, and it is believed that more than 1,000 people have lost their lives.”

Following the explosion at the Fukushima nuclear plant, Edano said the government instructed residents living within a 10-kilometer radius of the No. 1 and No. 2 nuclear plants to evacuate, but it later expanded the evacuation scope of the No. 1 and No. 2 plant to a 20-kilometer radius.

The total number of evacuees near the nuclear plant plus around 210,000 people evacuated in five prefectures, including Iwate and Fukushima, at the time when strong aftershocks continued, reached 300,000, according to the National Police Agency.

The Defense Ministry said a special unit of the Ground Self-Defense Force and the nuclear safety agency are jointly monitoring radioactive substances around the No. 1 reactor of the No. 1 plant.

Fires in residential areas continued, with Kesennuma in Miyagi Prefecture experiencing three large-scale fires.

The number of partially or completely destroyed buildings has now reached some 3,400, with the number of fires that hit quake-affected areas totaling about 200, according to the fire agency. Meanwhile, the welfare ministry said 181 welfare facilities, including nursing homes, have been damaged.

In Iwate Prefecture, the coastal city of Rikuzentakata was virtually destroyed by a tidal wave, with almost all the city submerged, the local police said. Tsunami reached as high as the third floor of the city hall, and only a few buildings remained in the urban area.

The coastal area of Miyako City and almost all of the town of Yamada, both in Iwate, were also submerged.

Around 1,800 houses in Fukushima Prefecture were found to have been destroyed, according to the National Police Agency.

As rescue officials have not been able to access the tsunami-hit areas as tsunami warnings are still in effect, the overall picture of the destruction remains unclear.

A municipal official of the town of Futaba in Fukushima Prefecture said, ”More than 90 percent of the houses in three coastal communities have been washed away by tsunami. Looking from the fourth floor of the town hall, I see no houses standing.”

Kan inspected the quake-hit Fukushima nuclear plant by helicopter on Saturday morning and visited the nuclear plant. He told an executive of Tokyo Electric Power, ”I hope measures (to support the neighboring residents) will be taken at an early stage.”

In the quake-hit areas, around 5.57 million households had lost power as of Saturday morning, while more than 1 million households in 18 prefectures had had their water supply cut off.

Kan said the government has decided to dispatch 50,000 Self-Defense Force officers to the quake-areas for rescue operations.

On Saturday morning, meanwhile, several strong quakes, one with a magnitude of 6.7 at 3:59 a.m., rocked an inland area on the Sea of Japan coast northwest of Tokyo, hitting Nagano and Niigata prefectures.

Saturday’s first predawn quake, which originated at a depth of 10 km in Niigata’s Chuetsu region, measured upper-6 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale in Nagano Prefecture, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

The agency said it could not rule out the possibility that the latest quake was triggered by Friday’s quake.

Four trains running in a coastal area of Miyagi and Iwate prefectures became unaccounted for after tsunami triggered by Friday’s earthquake hit the area, the train operator said Saturday.

While it is not known how many people were aboard the trains that were running on East Japan Railway Co.’s Ofunato, Senseki and Kesennuma lines on the Pacific coast, several passengers and crew members were rescued.

JR East said, meanwhile, it expects to continue the suspension of bullet train services on the Tohoku, Yamagata and Akita Shinkansen lines through Saturday, while resuming train operations in the Tokyo metropolitan area.

Nine expressways were closed as of Saturday, while at least 464 domestic flights were cancelled.

The quake has imposed troubles also on manufacturing sector, with Toyota Motor Corp., Nissan Motor Co. and Honda Motor Co. planning to suspend production at all their domestic plants on Monday due to difficulties in procuring auto parts.

The quake measured the highest level of 7 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale in northern Miyagi, upper-6 in the rest of Miyagi and part of Fukushima, Ibaraki and Tochigi prefectures, lower-6 in part of Iwate, Fukushima, Gunma, Saitama and Chiba prefectures, and upper-5 in a wider area including central Tokyo, and part of Kanagawa and Yamanashi prefectures.

The Tokyo police said more than 120,000 people in the capital were unable to return home Friday evening due to the suspension of train operations and because of traffic jams.

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