COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Can we find a hole and crawl into it?

Pakistani spy agency denies it unmasked CIA chief
By NAHAL TOOSI, Associated Press
1 hr 28 mins ago
ISLAMABAD – Pakistan's top spy agency denied speculation Saturday that it helped unmask the CIA's station chief in Islamabad in retaliation for a New York City lawsuit linking Pakistan's intelligence chief to the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai, India.
The CIA ordered its station chief out of Pakistan because his life was threatened after a Pakistani lawsuit revealed his name. His recall comes at a delicate time, as the White House presses Islamabad to rid its lawless tribal regions of safe havens for militants fighting in Afghanistan, where the U.S. is grappling with an exit strategy.
The station chief's name was revealed by a Pakistani man threatening to sue the CIA over the deaths of his son and brother in a 2009 U.S. missile strike. The attorney involved with the legal complaint said he learned the name from Pakistani journalists. Pakistan's spy agencies have kept ties to a number of Pakistani journalists as a way to influence coverage.
Questions have arisen as to whether a civil lawsuit filed last month in Brooklyn in connection with the 2008 Mumbai attacks may have raised tensions with Pakistan and spurred it to retaliate. The lawsuit lists Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, as a defendant and accuses the ISI of nurturing terrorists involved in the Mumbai attacks, which left 166 people dead.
A Pakistani intelligence official dismissed any claims of ISI involvement in exposing the CIA official as "a slur." He declined to offer any comment on the Brooklyn lawsuit and said it was entirely possible Pakistani journalists simply figured out the station chief's identity on their own.
Such "unfounded stories can create differences between the two organizations," the Pakistani intelligence official warned.
He also said the CIA has not directly accused the ISI of any wrongdoing in the matter. Like other intelligence officials, he requested anonymity because of the sensitive nature of his work and because he is not authorized to speak to media on the record.
The Associated Press learned about the station chief's removal on Thursday but held the story until he was out of the region.
The CIA's work is unusually difficult in Pakistan, an important but at times capricious counterterrorism ally.
The station chief in Islamabad operates as a virtual military commander in the U.S. war against al-Qaida and other militant groups hidden along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. The chief runs the Predator drone program targeting terrorists and handles some of the CIA's most urgent and sensitive tips.
The station chief also collaborates closely with Pakistani intelligence. The alliance has led to strikes on key militant leaders but has also been marred by spats between the two agencies. During the first term of President George W. Bush's administration, Pakistan almost expelled a previous CIA station chief in a dispute about intelligence sharing.



It is so tempting to say let's just cut our ties with these losers but I suppose it's better to have some 'inside' connection to one of the major sources of the world's problems.  Pakistan has been identified as North Korea's nuclear partner.  In  exchange for Nodong rockets, Pakistan provides technical assistance on building nuclear facilities.


While the modern world sits and watches, the dysfunctional thugocracies and theocracies "arm up".  Can any good come of this?


Top US officer says Iran still driving for a bomb
By ANNE GEARAN, AP National Security Writer
45 mins ago 
MANAMA, Bahrain – Iran is trying to build a nuclear bomb, posing a threat to its neighbors, and the United States is "very ready" to counter Iran should it make a move, the top U.S. military officer said Saturday.
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reassured Persian Gulf nations nervous that an increasingly militarized government in Iran might try to start a war.
"The United States takes very seriously our security commitments in the Gulf region," Mullen said following a meeting with Bahrain's king. Bahrain, directly across the Gulf from Iran, is home to a large U.S.Navy base that would be on the front lines of any war with Iran.
"We're very ready," Mullen said, an unusually direct acknowledgment that the United States has contingency plans to counter Iran should it make a move. "There are real threats to peace and stability here, and we've made no secrets of our concerns about Iran."
We're on the highway to hell.

14 comments:

  1. Nah, we're just wasting incredible amounts of money.

    One cellulosic ethanol refinery in every county, and we tell the whole "kit and kaboodle" to go to hell.

    Exxon, and the Saudis are playing us like a flute.

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  2. Ayr ye a "truthseeker?" Here, go seeketh ye some "truth."

    Saudi Stock Market - 5 Yr. Chart

    Good Luck.

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  3. 10 year chart more interesting.

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  4. "It is so tempting to say let's just cut our ties with these losers but I suppose..."

    Whaddya know.

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  5. Great news from Israel...



    Night search for abducted woman
    Two Arab men, believed Palestinians, stabbed two women hiking near Moshav Matta not far from Beit Shemesh west of Jerusalem inside the Green Line Saturday, Dec. 19. One of them, an Israeli tour guide, reached a group of sightseers in serious condition from knife wounds with bound hands. She was taken to hospital after sounding the alarm that her companion, an American woman was missing. She had seen her being dragged off by the two men before she escaped.
    Her report placed police and IDF forces in the Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Mt. Hebron districts on a high alert.
    Jerusalem police chief Aharon Franco reported that the police and Shin Bet are investigating the possibly that the missing woman is no longer in the region and using all their resources, including undercover informants, to discover her whereabouts and who the kidnappers are.
    Meanwhile, exhaustive searches of the area, backed by helicopters using flares, are taking place to locate the missing woman amid fears for her life. They are scouring the Tzur Hadassa, Beirut Illit and Gush Etzion areas after setting up police roadblocks around Jerusalem. Saturday night, the section of Route 375 between Matta and Roglit Junction linking Tzur Hadassah to the Elah Valley was closed to traffic in both directions. Military sniffer dogs were sent out overnight in search of the trail of the missing woman and her abductors.



    Not to worry, it doesnt count, it's just an American Jewish women...

    SO who would give a shit?

    After all she is a legitimate target, her being a zionist and all...

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  6. Something about floridation has turned the American brain to mush. What does it take to convince the American public that the bad guys are at war with us? And ethanol stations from sea to shining sea will not change that.

    Screaming Queens

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  7. Time to nuke the black rock of mecca...

    Our own Ms t will serve as our own DADT commander in charge of goat fucker evac...

    Oh wait a minute, gays are not allowed inside of Mecca nor Christians... Even Replacement Theology Jackoff Christians like T

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  8. Three rounds to the center of gravity will do the trick...Right...

    Big Iron

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  9. The people of Islam need a reality check...

    I advocate the destruction of the black rock of Mecca

    this will destroy on of the 5 pillars of islam...

    they will have to reform.

    right now? they think allah has blessed them and they are correct. and who can blame them... oil power money and the spread of their faith seems unstoppable.

    Islamic bombings now occurs through-out the globe, last weeks sweden bombing the latest.

    Islam has been at war with the world since the very start.

    Only those that do not know history are deemed to repeat it...

    The arab conquest of the middle east has set world in turmoil, let us not forget it was the arabs that invaded europe and caused the crusades, it was the arabs that were the major slave traders, it was the arabs that now squat on the berbers, copts, druze, jews, kurds and many others lands...

    Maybe the time for the destruction of Islamic sites thruout the globe is the way...

    Nuke the black rock of mecca...

    Destroy the Dome of the Rock...

    Outlaw islamic mosque construction

    and stop buying opec oil

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  10. We do not sit and watch the Pakistani help the NorKs, we subsidize it.

    About $11 billion USD since September, 2001.

    Their connection to NorK well known. in fact they had led to an end of US aid to Pakistan, in October of 1990.

    The wikipedia history story

    It was reported that Pakistani technology was being exported to North Korea. In May 1998, Newsweek magazine alleged that Khan had sent nuclear know-how to Iraq, an allegation that he denied. United Nations arms inspectors apparently discovered documents discussing Khan's purported offer in Iraq; Iraqi officials said the documents were authentic but that they had not agreed to work with Khan, fearing a sting operation.[18]

    The Bush administration investigated Pakistani nuclear weapons proliferation in 2001 and 2002, focusing on Khan's personal role. In December 2002 it renewed the allegation that an unidentified agent, supposedly acting on Khan's behalf, had offered nuclear weapons expertise to Iraq in the mid-1990s. Khan strongly denied this allegation and the Pakistani government declared the evidence to be "fraudulent". The United States responded by imposing sanctions on KRL.


    After the raid on NYCity and DC, in September of 2001, Pakistan was back at the table.
    Got an $11 billion USD line of credit, Pakistan did, and restarted its' nuke development.

    Who said that money was not fungible?

    But make no mistake, the US has not sat idle and watched, no indeed, we've been greasing the wheels for the last ten years.

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  11. Wow glad all that stuff in Israel is over...

    Palestinians murdered her, they found the corpse...


    The body of Christine Logan, who went missing in the Beit Shemesh-Jerusalem area, was found early Sunday morning, after police and IDF searched all Saturday night, fearing she was kidnapped in a nationalistically motivated incident.


    no story here folk, just another dead american jew....

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  12. on no... those peaceloving arabs done murdered a christian gal

    Christine Logan aint a jew...

    there will be hell to pay now..

    bet clinton and obama only send 140 million more in emergency aid for this week to the palestinians..

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