Steve Quayle : pending invasion of America by Foreign Forces

Steve Quayle on The Hagmann & Hagmann Report 2/4/11 Steve Quayle: invasion of America by Foreign Forces , cold blooded assassins ready to invade America according to an inside source according to his contacts in the intelligence community there is a pending invasion of the United States by foreign forces ,nuclear bombs inside the United States ready to get detonated Steve Quayle is the author

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Ivory Coast: French forces take over Abidjan airport

Right: Incumbent Laurent Gbagbo’s “young patriots” cross the river in boats and head towards Abidjan’s city centre

France has sent extra troops to Ivory Coast’s main city, Abidjan, and taken control of its airport.

A French military spokesman told the BBC there was a security vacuum as forces formerly loyal to incumbent Laurent Gbagbo changed sides.

Fighting continues between Mr Gbagbo’s troops and supporters of his rival, UN-recognised President Alassane Ouattara.

The city’s pro-Gbagbo TV station called for people to mobilise against the French ‘”occupation”.

Mr Ouattara’s forces are reported to be planning a further advance towards the presidential palace and have imposed a curfew on the city.

UN spokesman Hamadoun Toure told the BBC he had heard gunfire near the palace, adding that the situation was very tense.

[more at bbc.co.uk...]

View the original article here

Ivory Coast: French forces take over Abidjan airport

Right: Incumbent Laurent Gbagbo’s “young patriots” cross the river in boats and head towards Abidjan’s city centre

France has sent extra troops to Ivory Coast’s main city, Abidjan, and taken control of its airport.

A French military spokesman told the BBC there was a security vacuum as forces formerly loyal to incumbent Laurent Gbagbo changed sides.

Fighting continues between Mr Gbagbo’s troops and supporters of his rival, UN-recognised President Alassane Ouattara.

The city’s pro-Gbagbo TV station called for people to mobilise against the French ‘”occupation”.

Mr Ouattara’s forces are reported to be planning a further advance towards the presidential palace and have imposed a curfew on the city.

UN spokesman Hamadoun Toure told the BBC he had heard gunfire near the palace, adding that the situation was very tense.

[more at bbc.co.uk...]

View the original article here

Who Are the Rebels Fighting Libyan Government Forces?

 

André de Nesnera March 30, 2011

Fighter planes and missiles from the international coalition are continuing to hit the forces of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. The stated goal is to protect civilians, but many analysts say the international coalition has become, in essence, the rebels' air force. But who exactly are the rebels? In this report from Washington, our correspondent looks at the makeup of the Libyan opposition.

President Barack Obama recently told the American people the military attacks on Libyan government forces were aimed at preventing a massacre of civilians - especially in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi.

"The task that I assigned our forces - to protect the Libyan people from immediate danger and to establish a no-fly zone - carries with it a United Nations mandate and international support," said President Obama. "It is also what the Libyan opposition asked us to do."

But experts are wondering who is this opposition and who are the rebels fighting Ghadafi’s forces?

Ward Carroll is a former Navy radar specialist who flew in earlier no-fly zones over Iraq and Bosnia.

"I don’t think we have an answer for that," said Carroll. "They are not Gadhafi and I think that’s good enough at this point, obviously, for certain organizations and certain nations.”

Marc Ginsberg, former U.S. Ambassador to Morocco, says the Libyan opposition is made up of different personalities and groups.

"It’s a sort of 'Star War' assembly of characters and people who are clearly patriots, very decent people - I’m sure - journalists, opposition military officials who have broken with the regime, former diplomats - and then you’ve got Islamists," said Ginsberg. "The Benghazi section of Libya was basically an opposition stronghold to Gadhafi and it has a very strong Islamist character to it. So while there are very good people who are part of this opposition coalition, we really can’t say that we know for sure what their capacity is to govern Libya."

Retired Air Force General Mike Dunn, who commanded airmen patrolling no-fly zones, also asks - who are the rebels?

"It’s a poorly defined group of mutually hostile and suspicious tribes and factions that have thus far, at any rate, failed to coalesce into a meaningful military force," said Dunn. "We’d like to think this is a group of democratic Jeffersonian type of people that just are fighting for their freedom, when in reality we don’t know a lot about them."

So that begs the question, says General Dunn - who is the international coalition supporting?

Ambassador Ginsberg agrees with General Dunn that the rebels are not a cohesive military entity.

"The opposition is not an army," he said. "The opposition barely has any military means to accomplish the goal of fighting. Look how far they have to go: they have to go from Benghazi back across 450 miles [720 kilometers]of desert to attack Tripoli with what? All they have is at best, at best at this point in time, trucks with machineguns on them. We don’t know in the end what Gadhafi has in reserve and he has money to bring in mercenaries from southern Africa."

Experts agree that without the help of the fighter planes and missiles from the international coalition, the ill-equipped and poorly trained rebel force would have been defeated by now or be on the verge of defeat. Some analysts say the international coalition has become in essence, the rebels’ air force.

Mary-Jane Deeb, the head of the Africa and Middle East Division at the Library of Congress - and author of several books on Libya - says she is surprised that the rebels have such little military training because throughout the Arab world, 12 to 18 month military service is obligatory. And she says the Libyan opposition is essentially made up of urban, educated, young professionals.

"In that way, the Libyan opposition is not too different from the Tunisian and the Egyptian in the sense that they want jobs, they want a better distribution of the wealth, they want an open society, they want to be accepted as part of the global community rather than being treated as a pariah all the time," said Deeb. "They are non-ideological in the sense that they don’t espouse a particular view of life - they are not socialist, they are not fascist, they are not this, they are not that.”

Deeb says one can call them Libyan nationalists. They have set up a de facto government - a thirty-one member interim national council. Among its leading members are former Gadhafi Justice Minister Mustafa Abdul Jalil and Mahmoud Jibril, former head of Libya’s national council for economic development.

As for the influence of Islamist groups, Deeb says what is happening in Libya mirrors what is happening in other countries.

“The 20-somethings are turning away from Islamists," she said. "Now you do have an Islamic opposition and you always will have an Islamic extremism in the region. But this is not an Islamic movement. And it is not led by Islamists and it is not demanding the setting up of an Islamic Republic. It is not asking for the establishment of Sharia - Sharia law. It is not fought in the name of God, despite the fact that they move forward and they say “God is great.” It’s not that they stop being Muslims - of course they are Muslims - but that is not what is driving these movements, nor is it the case in Libya.”

Deeb says Islamist movements are growing weaker, not stronger. She says they will try to capitalize on what is happening, but they are not in the vanguard of the popular uprisings now spreading throughout North Africa and the Middle East.

View the original article here

Who Are the Rebels Fighting Libyan Government Forces?

 

André de Nesnera March 30, 2011

Fighter planes and missiles from the international coalition are continuing to hit the forces of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. The stated goal is to protect civilians, but many analysts say the international coalition has become, in essence, the rebels' air force. But who exactly are the rebels? In this report from Washington, our correspondent looks at the makeup of the Libyan opposition.

President Barack Obama recently told the American people the military attacks on Libyan government forces were aimed at preventing a massacre of civilians - especially in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi.

"The task that I assigned our forces - to protect the Libyan people from immediate danger and to establish a no-fly zone - carries with it a United Nations mandate and international support," said President Obama. "It is also what the Libyan opposition asked us to do."

But experts are wondering who is this opposition and who are the rebels fighting Ghadafi’s forces?

Ward Carroll is a former Navy radar specialist who flew in earlier no-fly zones over Iraq and Bosnia.

"I don’t think we have an answer for that," said Carroll. "They are not Gadhafi and I think that’s good enough at this point, obviously, for certain organizations and certain nations.”

Marc Ginsberg, former U.S. Ambassador to Morocco, says the Libyan opposition is made up of different personalities and groups.

"It’s a sort of 'Star War' assembly of characters and people who are clearly patriots, very decent people - I’m sure - journalists, opposition military officials who have broken with the regime, former diplomats - and then you’ve got Islamists," said Ginsberg. "The Benghazi section of Libya was basically an opposition stronghold to Gadhafi and it has a very strong Islamist character to it. So while there are very good people who are part of this opposition coalition, we really can’t say that we know for sure what their capacity is to govern Libya."

Retired Air Force General Mike Dunn, who commanded airmen patrolling no-fly zones, also asks - who are the rebels?

"It’s a poorly defined group of mutually hostile and suspicious tribes and factions that have thus far, at any rate, failed to coalesce into a meaningful military force," said Dunn. "We’d like to think this is a group of democratic Jeffersonian type of people that just are fighting for their freedom, when in reality we don’t know a lot about them."

So that begs the question, says General Dunn - who is the international coalition supporting?

Ambassador Ginsberg agrees with General Dunn that the rebels are not a cohesive military entity.

"The opposition is not an army," he said. "The opposition barely has any military means to accomplish the goal of fighting. Look how far they have to go: they have to go from Benghazi back across 450 miles [720 kilometers]of desert to attack Tripoli with what? All they have is at best, at best at this point in time, trucks with machineguns on them. We don’t know in the end what Gadhafi has in reserve and he has money to bring in mercenaries from southern Africa."

Experts agree that without the help of the fighter planes and missiles from the international coalition, the ill-equipped and poorly trained rebel force would have been defeated by now or be on the verge of defeat. Some analysts say the international coalition has become in essence, the rebels’ air force.

Mary-Jane Deeb, the head of the Africa and Middle East Division at the Library of Congress - and author of several books on Libya - says she is surprised that the rebels have such little military training because throughout the Arab world, 12 to 18 month military service is obligatory. And she says the Libyan opposition is essentially made up of urban, educated, young professionals.

"In that way, the Libyan opposition is not too different from the Tunisian and the Egyptian in the sense that they want jobs, they want a better distribution of the wealth, they want an open society, they want to be accepted as part of the global community rather than being treated as a pariah all the time," said Deeb. "They are non-ideological in the sense that they don’t espouse a particular view of life - they are not socialist, they are not fascist, they are not this, they are not that.”

Deeb says one can call them Libyan nationalists. They have set up a de facto government - a thirty-one member interim national council. Among its leading members are former Gadhafi Justice Minister Mustafa Abdul Jalil and Mahmoud Jibril, former head of Libya’s national council for economic development.

As for the influence of Islamist groups, Deeb says what is happening in Libya mirrors what is happening in other countries.

“The 20-somethings are turning away from Islamists," she said. "Now you do have an Islamic opposition and you always will have an Islamic extremism in the region. But this is not an Islamic movement. And it is not led by Islamists and it is not demanding the setting up of an Islamic Republic. It is not asking for the establishment of Sharia - Sharia law. It is not fought in the name of God, despite the fact that they move forward and they say “God is great.” It’s not that they stop being Muslims - of course they are Muslims - but that is not what is driving these movements, nor is it the case in Libya.”

Deeb says Islamist movements are growing weaker, not stronger. She says they will try to capitalize on what is happening, but they are not in the vanguard of the popular uprisings now spreading throughout North Africa and the Middle East.

View the original article here

350 British special forces already deep inside Libya

By David Williams, Tim Shipman

African Union leader offers to mediate between rebels and Gaddafi
David Cameron says: ‘There’s no future for Libya with Gaddafi at the helm’
PM warns his supporters they ‘risk being found guilty of war crimes’
British Tornado aircraft launch fresh wave of attacks on Gaddafi’s forces
Bombing raids target military bases on outskirts of Tripoli
Squadron of SAS and SBS troops have been in country for a month
MoD has already spent nearly £30m on air operations and missile strikes

Footage of NATO planes destroying Libyan tanks has been released by the Ministry of Defence as the African Union intervenes in the crisis to mediate in a bid to prevent further bloodshed.

In a meeting between five African heads of State and Libyan representatives, the Union has agreed to act as mediators for any peace talks that take place between the government and the rebels.

The head of the Union, Jean Ping, said the talks were an attempt to ‘foster an exchange of views in order to take action on the situation in Libya and to seek the ways and means towards a swift solution to the crisis’.

[Source]

View the original article here

‘Libya war could last 30 years’: Armed forces minister’s extraordinary admission

Defiant: Colonel Gaddafi appeared on Libyan state TV to declare he is ready for a drawn-out conflict.

Ministers admitted yesterday that they have no idea how long the military operation against Colonel Gaddafi could take.

Asked for an estimate, Armed Forces Minister Nick Harvey said: ‘How long is a piece of string? We don’t know how long this is going to go on.

‘We don’t know if this is going to result in a stalemate. We don’t know if his capabilities are going to be degraded quickly. Ask me again in a week.’

The comments come as a defiant Muammar Gaddafi made a speech on Libyan state television last night in which he claimed said he was ready for entrenched conflict, saying; ‘In the short term, we’ll beat them, in the long term, we’ll beat them.’

The Libyan leader was said to have delivered the message to supporters at his residential compound near the capital Tripoli which was hit by an allied cruise missile on Sunday.

He denounced the ‘unjust’ action against his country and called those taking action against Libya as ‘crazed fascists’.

And as Tory MPs expressed fears that the war could last for 30 years, Foreign Secretary William Hague added to fears of an expensive and open-ended commitment, saying that it was impossible to put a deadline on British involvement.

Mr Hague said: ‘It’s too early to speculate. It depends what happens one way or another.

‘I don’t think you can put a deadline or a time objective to that.

‘We need to do those things as long as it is necessary, and that will depend on how people react in Libya, the reaction of the Gaddafi regime, on so many factors.’

In a major speech last night, he added: ‘We will continue to enforce United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 until there is a complete and genuine ceasefire and an end to attacks on civilians.’

Liberal Democrat Mr Harvey went further than any minister yet in admitting that ground forces may be needed.

The UN resolution rules out an ‘invasion’ and an ‘occupying force’ but not ground force assistance to protect civilian lives.

‘I don’t think we would at this stage rule anything in or rule anything out,’ Mr Harvey said.

‘It’s something that the twists and turns of the next few days and weeks will determine, what any individual country puts into this fray.

‘I think it’s a question of interpretation where the deployment of ground troops becomes the landing of an occupying force and I just don’t think it’s productive to speculate on that, but I cannot foresee it on any significant scale.’

The uncertainty over the length of the war comes after mixed messages from the Government over whether Colonel Gaddafi himself was a legitimate target.

On Monday, Downing Street was forced to publicly contradict claims by the Chief of the Defence Staff General Sir David Richards that the dictator could not be legally killed in a military strike.

Chancellor George Osborne sought to reassure the public that the cost of the war would not spiral out of control, saying it would be ‘in the tens of millions not the hundreds of millions of pounds’.

He said it would be paid for from the Treasury’s reserve, rather than the main defence budget.

The Government expects the air campaign, featuring RAF Typhoon and Tornado jets plus Tomahawk cruise missiles fired from the submarine Triumph, to cost around £3million a day, though the Daily Mail has calculated that the first three days cost nearly £6million each.

But costs and the length of the deployment will soar if either of those scenarios prompts a need for ground troops.

Other members of the military coalition have already decided not to stick with the mission for ever.
Norwegian foreign minister Jonas Gahr Støre last night announced that his country would put a time limit on its military involvement.

‘We have made our planes available for three months,’ he said.

Intelligence chiefs and diplomats are preparing a series of options papers for David Cameron spelling out what might happen next.

The scenarios they are examining include the possibility of a military stalemate between Gaddafi’s forces and the opposition, where the rebels lack the firepower to seize the capital Tripoli.

They are also looking at the prospect that Libya will split in two, with a de facto separation between the Gaddafi-controlled West and the rebel-occupied East.

Tory MP Rory Stewart, a former diplomat who was deputy governor of an Iraqi province after the war there, warned that Britain could be sucked into a three-decade long imbroglio in the Middle East.

‘Don’t get sucked into Libya. I think the no-fly zone is the correct thing to do but this is a 20-to 30-year marathon with a very complicated region.’

Tory MP John Baron, one of only 13 MPs to vote against the war during a Commons debate on Monday night, also warned that the commitment could be open-ended.

‘What is the exit strategy?’ he asked.

‘We risk being drawn into an ill-defined mission whilst civilian casualties rise.

‘If there is a stalemate on the ground, are we simply going to walk away? These are questions that are not being answered at the moment, and I think they should be.’

Lord Browne, the former chairman of oil giant BP, which did deals with Gaddafi’s regime, predicted that the conflict would drag on.

He said: ‘I have a sense that everything I have seen of him [Gaddafi] is that he is someone who will stick around to the last possible moment.’

Plans for Nato takeover of mission ‘are in chaos’

Attempts to get Nato to take charge of the military mission in Libya were in chaos last night.

With America determined to surrender command of the no-fly zone, world leaders were on the verge of creating a cumbersome two-tier structure to answer the question: Who is running the war?

David Cameron had called for Nato in Brussels to assume command from the U.S. general co-ordinating the air strikes.

But after a day of bitter exchanges between Nato ambassadors, it became clear that some countries, such as Germany and Turkey, will not give the green light for Nato to take over.

Instead, officials were last night racing to create an international committee to oversee the military action, while the nuts and bolts of the command and control would be operated by Nato officers.

The coalition of the willing will bring together Britain, France, the U.S., Canada and other hawkish members of Nato, leaving the refuseniks on the sidelines.

Mr Cameron and Foreign Secretary William Hague were last night fighting to persuade Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, to join the grouping.

Nato is launching an operation to enforce an international arms embargo on Libya and has completed plans ‘if needed’ to take charge of the operation to enforce the no-fly zone declared by the United Nations Security Council last week, Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said.

However Nato ambassadors have so far failed to agree whether the alliance should take over when the United States relinquishes command in the next few days.

Mr Cameron discussed the need for Nato to play a ‘key role’ in the military action in Libya with U.S. President Barack Obama last night. In a telephone call this evening with Mr Obama, Downing Street said the two leaders had agreed ‘that these arrangements now needed to be finalised’.

Diplomatic sources described yesterday’s meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Brussels as a moment of ‘theatre’.

One envoy said: ‘The meeting became a little bit emotional.’

Turkey opposed a Nato mission, in part because the country’s prime minister Tayyip Erdogan felt snubbed because he was not invited to a summit on the military action in Paris by French President Nicolas Sarkozy last weekend.

Mr Sarkozy, whose armed forces have only recently rejoined Nato, had pushed for a separate command structure parallel to Nato.

His foreign minister Alain Juppe said:

‘This is therefore not a Nato operation.’

The compromise deal being thrashed out is expected to see an awkward hybrid of Nato infrastructure and a political front.

A senior No 10 source said last night: ‘We are getting close but we are not yet over the line.’

Source

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Unnatural Forces

03/23/11 Buenos Aires, Argentina – To every cause, an effect. To every action, a reaction. To every well-meaning, do-gooder, interventionalist policy, a broken heart and an empty pocket. Such are the rules of life, Fellow Reckoner. It’s no use arguing with them. They are what they are, and for good reason. Bad behavior is discouraged by undesirable consequences. Dishonesty, for example, results in mistrust. And one can’t very well get along in life without trust. But imagine for a moment. Just imagine…

…imagine for a second that you were impervious to this inconvenient collection of celestial algorithms. Imagine that the rules did not apply to you, in other words…that you were somehow immune to, or removed from, the objective laws of reality, such as they are. Imagine that you could go out every night, party as long as you wanted, drink as much as you cared to and sleep with whomever took your fancy. (Remember, we’re just imagining here.) And now, suppose for an instant that there were no negative consequences. None. Zero. There was no hangover. No jilted wife (or husband) and no guilty conscience. No discouraging affects whatsoever; nothing to tell you that you were a bad boy (or girl).

Welcome to the fanciful “reality” as experienced by the world’s governments, where idiotic actions result in reelections and signals are so far removed from actuality that up is commonly mistaken for down and black for white. This is a world where deficit spending – that is, forking out more cash than is actually in your possession at any one time – is thought of as a prudent path to prosperity and where statistics are so routinely tortured as to barely resemble any recognizable definition. This is a “reality” where marching off to indefinable, unwinnable wars in far off lands, at the cost of tens of thousands of young lives, inspires not disgust, shame and embarrassment, but pride, patriotism and chest-beating camaraderie. It is a “reality” where naturally free men and women voluntarily elect “leaders”…as if there existed some gap in their lives where self respect and determination ought to be. It is a “reality” in which the weak are promoted at the expense of the strong and where anything that can go wrong almost certainly will.

This “reality,” as experienced by any and all governments, is, unfortunately, less surprising an occurrence than we might freely have hoped for. In fact, it is as inevitable as it is undesirable. Permit us to explain. Better still, permit us to cite the work of Morris and Linda Tannehill. This, from their indispensable book The Market for Liberty:

“…government is an extra market institution – it’s purpose is not to make profits but to gain power and exercise it. Government officials have no profit and loss data. Even if they wanted to satisfy their forced ‘customers,’ they have no reliable ‘error signal’ to guide their decisions. Aside from sporadic mail from the small minority of his constituents who are politically conscious, the only ‘error signal’ a politician gets is the outcome of his re-election bids. One small bit of data every two to six years! And, even this tidbit is hardly a clear signal, since individual voters may have voted the way they did because they liked the candidate’s sexy appearance or fatherly image. Appointed bureaucrats and judges, of course, don’t even get this one small and usually confusing data signal; they have to operate completely in the dark.”

Given that governments are both motivated by a perverse goal – power, not profit – and driven by individuals who, necessarily, are inspired by force rather than voluntary exchange, it is little wonder that nations periodically undergo sea changes in the form of revolutions, civil wars and social and political upheaval. Left unchecked, all governments inevitably descend into pure sin. Even the most lethargic, apathetic citizenry is likely to stand up and declare that “enough is enough” eventually. The only surprising thing is that it doesn’t happen with more frequency and to more welcome cheers.

So what is the solution? Does one even exist? Happily for us, truths tend, by their very nature, to be more apparent than we generally give them credit for. Truths don’t require construction, in other words; only that we destruct myth to see them more clearly. Perhaps the most common, insidious rumor that the government has managed to perpetuate is the lie that it is, itself, necessary at all. We are all familiar with the phrase “necessary evil,” for example. Voters are said to select between the “best of a bad bunch” or the “lesser of two evils.” And, we humans are commonly heard to say that the only two certainties in life are “death and taxes,” or, in other words, our own expiration date and the theft and coercion we must be subjected to until it comes due.

Such a defeatist way of thinking is, obviously or not, utterly absurd. Why be party to evil at all? Why choose the least rotten apple on the tree when there is a whole orchard waiting to be picked? Why, since we so vehemently abhor coercion in our personal lives, in our day-to-day, voluntary dealings with one and other, should we permit, enable and validate it in our “political” lives? Surely there is a better way, no?

Continue the Tannehills, with a none-too-subtle clue:

“…the big advantage of any action of the free market is that errors and injustices are self-correcting. Because competition creates a need for excellence on the part of each business, a free-market institution must correct its errors in order to survive. Government, on the other hand, survives not by excellence but by coersion; so an error or flaw in a governmental institution can (and usually will) perpetuate itself almost indefinitely, with its errors being “corrected” by further errors. Private enterprise must, therefore, always be superior to government in any field.”

Joel Bowman
for The Daily Reckoning

Joel Bowman is managing editor of The Daily Reckoning. After completing his degree in media communications and journalism in his home country of Australia, Joel moved to Baltimore to join the Agora Financial team. His keen interest in travel and macroeconomics first took him to New York where he regularly reported from Wall Street, and he now writes from and lives all over the world.

View articles by Joel Bowman

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View the original article here

Unnatural Forces

03/23/11 Buenos Aires, Argentina – To every cause, an effect. To every action, a reaction. To every well-meaning, do-gooder, interventionalist policy, a broken heart and an empty pocket. Such are the rules of life, Fellow Reckoner. It’s no use arguing with them. They are what they are, and for good reason. Bad behavior is discouraged by undesirable consequences. Dishonesty, for example, results in mistrust. And one can’t very well get along in life without trust. But imagine for a moment. Just imagine…

…imagine for a second that you were impervious to this inconvenient collection of celestial algorithms. Imagine that the rules did not apply to you, in other words…that you were somehow immune to, or removed from, the objective laws of reality, such as they are. Imagine that you could go out every night, party as long as you wanted, drink as much as you cared to and sleep with whomever took your fancy. (Remember, we’re just imagining here.) And now, suppose for an instant that there were no negative consequences. None. Zero. There was no hangover. No jilted wife (or husband) and no guilty conscience. No discouraging affects whatsoever; nothing to tell you that you were a bad boy (or girl).

Welcome to the fanciful “reality” as experienced by the world’s governments, where idiotic actions result in reelections and signals are so far removed from actuality that up is commonly mistaken for down and black for white. This is a world where deficit spending – that is, forking out more cash than is actually in your possession at any one time – is thought of as a prudent path to prosperity and where statistics are so routinely tortured as to barely resemble any recognizable definition. This is a “reality” where marching off to indefinable, unwinnable wars in far off lands, at the cost of tens of thousands of young lives, inspires not disgust, shame and embarrassment, but pride, patriotism and chest-beating camaraderie. It is a “reality” where naturally free men and women voluntarily elect “leaders”…as if there existed some gap in their lives where self respect and determination ought to be. It is a “reality” in which the weak are promoted at the expense of the strong and where anything that can go wrong almost certainly will.

This “reality,” as experienced by any and all governments, is, unfortunately, less surprising an occurrence than we might freely have hoped for. In fact, it is as inevitable as it is undesirable. Permit us to explain. Better still, permit us to cite the work of Morris and Linda Tannehill. This, from their indispensable book The Market for Liberty:

“…government is an extra market institution – it’s purpose is not to make profits but to gain power and exercise it. Government officials have no profit and loss data. Even if they wanted to satisfy their forced ‘customers,’ they have no reliable ‘error signal’ to guide their decisions. Aside from sporadic mail from the small minority of his constituents who are politically conscious, the only ‘error signal’ a politician gets is the outcome of his re-election bids. One small bit of data every two to six years! And, even this tidbit is hardly a clear signal, since individual voters may have voted the way they did because they liked the candidate’s sexy appearance or fatherly image. Appointed bureaucrats and judges, of course, don’t even get this one small and usually confusing data signal; they have to operate completely in the dark.”

Given that governments are both motivated by a perverse goal – power, not profit – and driven by individuals who, necessarily, are inspired by force rather than voluntary exchange, it is little wonder that nations periodically undergo sea changes in the form of revolutions, civil wars and social and political upheaval. Left unchecked, all governments inevitably descend into pure sin. Even the most lethargic, apathetic citizenry is likely to stand up and declare that “enough is enough” eventually. The only surprising thing is that it doesn’t happen with more frequency and to more welcome cheers.

So what is the solution? Does one even exist? Happily for us, truths tend, by their very nature, to be more apparent than we generally give them credit for. Truths don’t require construction, in other words; only that we destruct myth to see them more clearly. Perhaps the most common, insidious rumor that the government has managed to perpetuate is the lie that it is, itself, necessary at all. We are all familiar with the phrase “necessary evil,” for example. Voters are said to select between the “best of a bad bunch” or the “lesser of two evils.” And, we humans are commonly heard to say that the only two certainties in life are “death and taxes,” or, in other words, our own expiration date and the theft and coercion we must be subjected to until it comes due.

Such a defeatist way of thinking is, obviously or not, utterly absurd. Why be party to evil at all? Why choose the least rotten apple on the tree when there is a whole orchard waiting to be picked? Why, since we so vehemently abhor coercion in our personal lives, in our day-to-day, voluntary dealings with one and other, should we permit, enable and validate it in our “political” lives? Surely there is a better way, no?

Continue the Tannehills, with a none-too-subtle clue:

“…the big advantage of any action of the free market is that errors and injustices are self-correcting. Because competition creates a need for excellence on the part of each business, a free-market institution must correct its errors in order to survive. Government, on the other hand, survives not by excellence but by coersion; so an error or flaw in a governmental institution can (and usually will) perpetuate itself almost indefinitely, with its errors being “corrected” by further errors. Private enterprise must, therefore, always be superior to government in any field.”

Joel Bowman
for The Daily Reckoning

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SAUDI ARABIAN FORCES INTERVENE IN YEMEN

BAHRAIN – NO WITNESSES REQUIRED- HEY CAMERON THESE ARE PEOPLE TOO!!!!Saudi Arabia forces intervene in YemenInterview with Editor Jeff Steinberg of the Executive Intelligence Review.

Saudi Arabia has currently intervened in a violent crackdown in the US-backed Bahrain to crush protesters, killing several people attending a peaceful sit-in at Manama’s Pearl Square.

Press TV interviewed Editor Jeff Steinberg of the Executive Intelligence Review from Washington regarding the uprisings in the Middle East and Western and Saudi interference.

Press TV: I would like to get your opinion on this state of emergency that’s been imposed on Yemen. Do you think it’s going to give the green light for further bloodshed in the country as the protests continue?

Steinberg: I’m afraid it’s quite possible, and this is not simply an internal Yemeni situation any long. The Saudis have intervened in a very dramatic way as they have also in Bahrain. In both Bahrain and Yemen they are strongly pressing for the governments of those two countries to use brutal force to simply suppress the protesters who have been up until now demanding reforms. But with the level of brutality that has been used in both cases with strong Saudi backing; in addition, they have support from London.

What you’ve got now is a danger that the reform demands have not been sectarian in nature. In Bahrain, demonstrators were both Shia and Sunni joining together in the initial phases. Now there is an attempt to turn this into a sectarian issue. There are completely false allegations that Iran is secretly steering these Shia rebellions when in fact these are legitimate demands for economic and political reform in these countries that have been under jackboot rule for a long time. Now this resulting to violence is only going to make things worse. There is no way these regimes can succeed using the methods they are using.

Press TV: Can you elaborate a bit more on the Saudi intervention here in Yemen? We do realize there is a lot here at stake with these uprisings moving forward into the countries in the Persian Gulf. Saudi Arabia is keeping a very close eye not only in Bahrain but also Yemen. We have discussed in length the repercussions [that] the intervention can have in Bahrain. What about in Yemen? Can you elaborate a bit more on that?

Steinberg: Well going back to two years ago when the Saudis carried out a very brutal cross-border military operation largely through helicopter bombardment of villages along the border area. These are predominantly members of a Houti sect that is not even really officially a Shia Muslim sect. Nevertheless, along that border area the Saudis directly intervened militarily. Then they greatly exacerbated the tensions inside of Yemen.

So what we are getting is intelligence here at Executive Intelligence Review and the Saudis are active all over the place throughout the [P]GCC region, and they are basically drawing a line in the sand. They are saying under no circumstances can there be reform, under no circumstances can the people be given a greater voice or a greater share of the economic benefits of these oil rich areas. In the case of Yemen, which is the poorest and least developed of these countries, they are engaging in direct support and demanding the kind of brutal actions we saw today just as we saw the same thing in Bahrain.

I would not be surprised at all to find out that Saudi forces are directly involved in backing up the Yemeni government in some of these actions. Again there is a propaganda-smear campaign claiming that the Houtis are agents that are armed and secretly controlled from Tehran. Anybody in their right mind knows that this is complete propaganda and there is not an ounce of truth in it.

Press TV: We do know a lot is at stake here in Yemen not just for Saudi Arabia, but also for the US. Let’s not forget Ali Abdullah Saleh has been an ally of Washington with regards to its war on terror fighting the so-called al-Qaeda in Yemen in the South of the country. Now when you are judging by the US reaction, which is very numb on this, the US has decided to sit this one out. With the Saudi influence that you have just spoken about the US is directly or indirectly involved in this, isn’t it?

Steinberg: Yes, but there is also a big conflict here that people are trying to keep below the surface. The fortune between the United States and Saudi Arabia on this is great. The core ally of the Saudis in pushing what could be a permanent sectarian war throughout the Islamic world is actually Great Britain. These are the old divide and conquer policies that the British have been perfecting since the time of when the Ottoman Empire collapsed. Secretary Gates was in Bahrain. Gates and Hilary Clinton have been in touch with the government in Yemen.

The US preference in all of this is for there to be a certain reform opening process. We don’t want instability. The US does not believe there is any better viable alternative to Saleh in Yemen at this point but the US has a big problem with the use of particularly foreign troops or mercenaries as we’ve seen in Bahrain and in Libya. We don’t want that. We know there is no inherent stability in this kind of brutal sectarian crack down. The Saudis have gone against the United States. We have an added factor that the President of the United States has been disengaged and completely indecisive on these issues to the point that his two leading cabinet officials Hilary Clinton and Bob Gates are getting ready to leave.

They have reached the point of total frustration and cannot get a coherent policy out of the White House. So in that context the Saudis are acting with British backing to go with the same old kind of brutal and oppressive policies, and if they think they are going to get away with it they are going to wind up the big losers in this case. That’s my firm belief.

Press TV: This lack of a coherent policy on the part of Washington that you just touched upon, why do you think that is in place right now? Is it because of the inefficiency of the Obama Administration or is it them not being able to realize that their interests in the region will change from country to country.

Steinberg: There is a case by case approach being adapted here which is in itself problematic. You have to have a coherent and consistent policy especially in a part of the world that is as important as the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. So that is one part of the problem, but the bigger factor is that the Obama Administration is deeply divided, and the President is incapable of making touch leadership decisions. He listens to Gates and Hilary and he goes in a certain direction, and later in the same day he is bombarded by Human Rights, the UN Ambassador and Dennis Ross and even his own wife.

So he’s incapable of making the kind of firm decisions that is the first qualification for being president. He’s a terribly failed president and it’s becoming more and more of an open secret around Washington. I hear it every day from prominent democrats as well as republicans as well as people in the administration who are just totally frustrated, and fed up that you don’t have a functioning presidency.

Press TV: So what kind of repercussions can this have as old leaders are seeking to crush all these uprisings they are witnessing in their countries?

Steinberg: Well two things can happen. Number one, because the entire international economy and especially the international financial system are completely fragile at this point. The US banks are still carrying more toxic non-performing debt. They are hiding it on their books. The Fed is printing money as fast as possible to bail out the banks. We are getting into a hyper inflationary problem that is hitting the entire world with increased food prices and increased oil prices.

So if that goes any further because of unending crisis and violence and brutality in the worlds’ oil patch then the whole world economy is in jeopardy. Secondly, if the Saudis and the British get this traction on a sectarian conflict when in fact this has been an outpouring of the Arab streak both Sunni and Shia demanding more participation, better economic benefits and freer and more open government.

If this goes into a nasty sectarian direction, then the Middle East is in a hopeless quandary that is going to potentially last for generations. In Europe from 1492 to 1698 you had permanent religious warfare going on. That was within Christianity. The danger is you could have the same thing provoked by the British and by the Saudis for a permanent conflict zone in the entire Islamic world. I hope and pray that doesn’t happen.

Press TV: Let’s hope so too. That was Jeff Steinberg with the Executive Intelligence Review speaking to us from Washington.

NM/PKH

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/170785.html

BAHRAIN REVOLUTION!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aBKsMGkzXc&feature=player_embedded

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Libyan Forces Use Tear-Gas To Disperse Anti-Gaddafi Protest In Tripoli, Gun Fire Heard

We were about an hour early with our prediction on when the Libyan violence newsflow will pick up. The headlines are coming now. Reuters reports that Libyan forces use tear-gas to disperse anti-Gaddafi protest in Tripoli, gun fire heard. Look for oil to drift higher with stocks now completely oblivious as the ES-Crude correlation factors have been deactivated virtually everywhere.

Full Update from the AP:

Frces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi have fired tear gas at protesters marching in the capital Tripoli, calling for the Libyan leader's ouster.

The security forces fired at least five cannisters of tear gas at the crowd of around 1,500 protesters in the Tripoli district of Tajoura. The crowd briefly scattered, but rejoined to continue their march, according to an Associated Press reporter at the scene.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — Protesters marched from mosques in the Libyan capital Friday, calling for Moammar Gadhafi's ouster, in defiance of a heavy crackdown by regime supporters over the past week that has spread fear in Tripoli.

Similar protests a week ago were met by a brutal crackdown, when militiamen opened fire on demonstrators moments after they began their marches, killing a still unknown number. Since then, pro-Gadhafi forces have carried out a wave of arrests against suspected demonstrators, snatching some from their homes in nighttime raids.

In the morning Friday, security forces set up checkpoints in parts of the capital, searching cars and questioning drivers to find anyone who might be planning to join the protests. Internet services, which have been spotty throughout Libya's upheaval, appeared to be halted completely in Tripoli on Friday.

Still, some 1,200 protesters marched out of the Murad Agha mosque in Tripoli's Tajoura district after noon prayers were completed. They chanted "the people want to bring the regime down" and waved the red, black and green flag of Libya's pre-Gadhafi monarchy, adopted as the banner up the uprising.

"I am not afraid," said one 29-year-old man among the protesters. He said in the protests a week ago one of his relatives was shot to death — not by militias, he said, but by a pro-Gadhafi infiltrator among the demonstrations. "There are many spies among us. But we want to show the world that we are not afraid" he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of fears of retaliation.

Control of the capital is crucial to the Libyan leader, since it remains his strongest remaining bastion amid the uprising that began on Feb. 15 and has broken the entire eastern half of Libya out of his control. Even some cities in the west near Tripoli have fallen to the uprising, and the opposition has repelled repeated attacks by pro-Gadhafi forces trying to take back the territories.

A large force from a brigade led by one of Gadhafi's sons led a new attack Friday on Zawiya, the closest opposition-held city to Tripoli, a resident said. The troops from the Khamis Brigade — named after the son — attacked Zawiya's western side, firing mortars and then engaging in battles of heavy machine guns and automatic weapons with armed residents and allied army units, said the resident.

"Our men are fighting back the force, which is big," the resident said. Zawiya, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) west of Tripoli, has beaten back several assaults the past week.

Throughout the night and into the early hours Friday, pro-Gadhafi forces also fired mortars and anti-aircraft guns at the outskirts of opposition-held Misrata, Libya's third largest city located just east of Tripoli, a doctor in the city said. He said it appeared to be an intimidation tactic, causing no casualties.

The crisis has turned into something of deadlock between the two sides. Gadhafi's forces have been unable to take back significant ground from the rebellion. At the same time, his opponents, made up of ragtag citizen militias backed by mutinous army units, don't seem to have the capabilities to make a military move against territory still in regime hands.

Instead, the eastern-based opposition is hoping that residents of those areas — including Tripoli — will be able to rise up like they did in other cities where protesters drove out Gadhafi loyalists.

Friday could be a significant test of whether the opposition can maintain protests in Tripoli in the face of a fearsome clampdown.

Several hours before prayers, streets were eerily empty, with few residents out. Security forces, however, began to take up positions. In Tajoura, an eastern district of the capital where protests a week ago were attacked, police set up two checkpoints on the main highway leading to downtown. They stopped cars to search them, check drivers' ID and ask where they were going or coming from.

Before noon prayers, worshippers massd in the Murad Agha mosque, debating on the next steps. They said messages between Tripoli organizers were being aired on radio being aired from Benghazi, the main city in the opposition-held east, and audible in the capital. At one point, they decided to hold a sit-in inside the mosque to avoid coming under gunfire by stepping outside.

"Gadhafi lies with impunity," said one 80-year-old among the worshippers, wearing traditional Libyan dress. "For 40 years, he never told the truth."

But in the end, the 400 protesters inside marched out, joined by hundreds of others.

Libyan authorities briefly barred many foreign journalists from leaving their hotel in Tripoli, claiming it was for their protection because they had information "al-Qaida elements" plan to open fire on police to spark clashes. They later allowed them to go out into Tripoli.

Gadhafi loyalists in the capital have unleashed a wave of arrests and disappearances since last Friday's bloodshed. Bodies of people who vanished have been dumped in the street. Gunmen in SUVs have descended on homes in the night to drag away suspected protesters, identified by video footage of protests that militiamen have pored through to spot faces. Other militiamen have searched hospitals for wounded to take away.

Residents say they are under the watchful eyes of a variety of Gadhafi militias prowling the streets. They go under numerous names — Internal Security, the Central Support Force, the People's Force, the People's Guards and the Brigade of Mohammed al-Magarif, the head of Gadhafi's personal guard — and they are all searching for suspected protesters.

"While you are speaking to me now, there are spies everywhere and people watching me and you," one man said, cutting short a conversation with an Associated Press reporter visiting the Tripoli district of Zawiyat al-Dahman on Thursday.

The fear among Gadhafi opponents is so intense that when one family set up a mourning tent in Tripoli's Fashloum neighborhood on Thursday for a 56-year-old protester killed last Friday, no one showed up to pay condolences.

During the man's burial several days earlier, "the militia was also there watching us," said the man's brother. He — like other residents — asked that he and his relatives not be identified for fear they too would be hunted down.

He said his brother was shot when militiamen opened fire on protesters emerging from Fashloum's main Al-Baz mosque last week. "My brother was hit with a bullet right in the heart. In minutes he lost all his blood," he said, showing a mobile phone video clip of the body, with a hole in the chest.

While rushing to Tripoli's central hospital, he found militia stationed in front of the building.

"Doctors at the hospital told me that they are taking the injured to underground rooms inside the hospital away from the militia," said the brother, who is a doctor himself.

The number of deaths across Tripoli last Friday is not confirmed. The brother gave the names of six people from Fashloum who were killed. He said other bodies of slain protesters that day were seen being loaded into cars by militiamen and have not been seen since. He said he knows families who are still searching for bodies of their loved ones.

Others were arrested later on. The brother said he knows a 37-year-old man who disappeared for several days afterward. Then his body was dumped in a street in Tripoli's Abu Selim district.

In Tajoura, a 31-year old protester showed the AP on Thursday the houses of his two brothers, who were rounded up in a 3 a.m. raid a day earlier.

The protester said he was on the roof of a nearby building during the raid, counting the militia vehicles: 15 white pickup trucks with People's Guards license plates and two 4x4 Toyotas screeched up to the adjacent houses in a narrow, unpaved alley. They cordoned off the buildings, militiamen leaped over the buildings' fences, froze the door locks off with a compressed substance in cans and broke in. They drove off with his 32- and 35-year-old brothers, whose whereabouts remains unknown, the protester said.

They were among 20 protesters rounded up in Tajoura at that same time, according to various residents.

"They call Tajoura 'the terrorist neighborhood' because we dared to call for ousting Gadhafi," the protester said.

In the home of one of the arrested men, clothes were left scattered around the living room, drawers were open and the TV was still on. The door was intact, but its lock was knocked out. In the bedroom, the mattress was overturned. The protester said money, jewelry and four mobile phones were also taken. Other young men from the family had already been arrested days earlier, he said.

Except for the barking dogs, the house was empty and still.

"We moved their families away from here. There is no way they can stay after what happened," he said, adding that he and his fellow activists had also decided not to spend the night in their homes.

"This is the message to all Libyans: if you say you don't want Gadhafi, this is what will happen to you," he said.

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