Wind Eurus Journal

JESUS WARS

2012-02-29T18:43:00.000+11:00

READING THE ROCKS The Autobiography of the Earth 2005

2012-02-29T18:37:00.000+11:00

BIG in ASIA

2012-02-29T18:26:00.000+11:00

The Collapse of Globalism by John Ralston Saul

2012-02-29T18:19:00.000+11:00

Published 2005

This work is by far a great report that every emerging country and economy must read and take on board. John Ralston Saul is a true academic surviving the commercialisation of Universities and tertiary education.

SMART TRUST by Stephen Covey and Greg Link

2012-02-29T00:33:00.001+11:00

"Smart Trust", Stephen M.R. Covey and Greg Link, Free Press, NY, 2012

Value based business seems more important since the Crash of 2008. It has taken 4 years. The Virtue of "trust" is the focus of Coveys work. He doesn't call it a virtue. He and his co-writer Greg Link make no mention of the pre-requisites of Trust to occur nor of the possibilities of other virtues occurring because of "trust". Covey looks only at the fragment of "trust". I am pleased that something is happening in this direction and that Stephen Covey is prepared to put his name on it.

The 4 position graph is the strength of Coveys message. The graph shows that trusting is always in some protocol or training or behaviour indicating an alignment to previous training and education about "trust worthiness"in oneself and other people. Hence situations can be passed through no matter how unfamiliar. Faith gets the process going into the unknown and with it a perceived crisis tends to stop movement. To stop movement is extra dangerous and even fatal in the worst case. Movement must continue for success to visit the moment. Movement is essential for success. Covey's Smart Trust is referencing everything that is happening against your original training. His term judgment is "comparison" to a trained memory from your teacher. Covey does not talk anything like this about Trust. He would not say the world is confused. He puts himself forward as the greatest American Teacher, Trust is an idea that makes sense for him. As a teacher of Corporations he wishes to teach all levels of business to now present trust judgments. Instead he is asking everyone on Wall Street to pretend and do their best theater for business to continue with better speed and predictability.

With this page I am very embarrassed for him and all Americans who cannot help seeing the world as if anybody else is out there doing it right. The West is most corrupt historically and has consistently cannibalised its own people most efficiently. Success consistently without fail with the east. Asia and the Far East have steadily moved forward and present a world that is actually getting it sorted out. The owners of the west cannot help behaving like Romans and attacking any place that has built a surplus. The consistent wealth aggregation in all the uninterfered with independent countries across Asia is prove of this matter.

His most clearest truth statement about "trust" is photographed below.

Inc Trust = Inc Speed + Dec Cost

Indra Nooyi CEO of PepsiCo writes the forward. Joining Pepsi in 2007, just before the Great Crash of 2008, she led a company initiative "Performance with Purpose", while performance was always with PepsiCo human purpose was needed for sustainability into the future.

The critical factor became human sustainability. After the crash "trust" became an issue. The sustainable relationship was based on the knowledge that a transaction can be trusted, hence brand and company. Post 2008 the business environment quantum leaped in volatility and failure to trust. The corrosive crisis of global finance destroyed trust. The crisis of trust. Core to capitalism, the commercial idea of value for the shareholder moved to include the ethical ideal of value, in a word, "trust", because without it there is no trade, no future business and no democracy. The daily exchange of trust with customers, consumers, investors and important stakeholders means there is no crisis and affluence unfolds, until trust is lost. The crisis of trust now makes core virtues paramount to power, money and community.

Covey says the crisis of trust is an opportunity he calls it a "renaissance of trust" needed to minimise risk and maximise opportunity.

Trust was always a critical element of success, even before the Crash of 2008. Nothing will ever change on that account.

Edward Car
29.2.2012

WARREN BUFFET

2012-02-28T23:07:00.108+11:00

After reading Warren Buffets autobiography I notice that over the course of his life, since the second world war, business opportunities fell and continued to fall in the United States all the way into the 1970's. There was really no money to be made by anyone. Strangely so. There was the crash in 1975 with the oil crisis. The mid 1970's represented the peak of the middle class wealth explosion with rising inflation that took the west into high interest rates finally in the 1980's and finished the 80's of with a stock exchange collapse in 1987. All the while Warren Buffet focused on making his wealth inside the United States. The bulk of his cash and wealth growth advantage occurred directly after WW2 till about the mid sixties riding on the back of the post war rebuilding programs. His prudent and conservative manner mixed with an aspurgist or autistic peculiar intelligence for numbers and allergy to people, won him respect early in his life with critical New York Jewish stockbrokers. His trust worthy consistent nature, allergic to risk, found respect in an otherwise closed society as a mild christian. His wealth grew slowly and consistently into the 1990's and the Great Crash of 2008 based on his size and momentum with little debt.

In 2009 indirectly through his Goodfellows Foundation, my Emirau Project was involved with his people in the Trading world. The rules were entities such as Goodfellows could participate five times only and there was a special case created for Warren's Goodfellows Foundation to be involved one more time, a sixth time, in a trade where my project was listed.

Warren Buffets organizational chart

Asia Times Online :: Middle East News, Iraq, Iran current affairs

2011-04-20T21:25:00.000+10:00

Asia Times Online :: Middle East News, Iraq, Iran current affairs

The Sacrifice

2011-04-20T18:05:00.000+10:00

Chernobyl Dead Zone 24,000 years to go.

2011-03-14T10:38:00.003+11:00

Chernobyl Radioactive in Russia 20 Years Later

Yesterday in North East Japan in the Fukushima Daiichi plant, Reactor #1 Exploded with a partial meltdown some several days after the 8.9 Earthquake of Sendai. Reactor #3 is unstable and may explode still and People are stuck in their apartments within 20 kilometers thinking that will be safer despite the media saying 170,000 have been evacuated. No one is educated enough about Nuclear Radiation. The radiation level was reported at 8,217 Sv/hr, well above the fatal 5000mSv for 5 hrs. This time no Firemen were sent out and no Army like at Chernobyl. The streets are empty. After Chenobyl these people hiding in their apartments were dead by the end of a week. In Japan no one is saying anything or doing anything. Many People have been sentenced to death for the sake of Nuclear Electricity, politics and financial reasons. False play of information continued to occur, together with alot of silence, to protect the Owners and Politicians in the current government, who have interest in this kind of lucrative Development. 80% of the worlds Bloggers live in Japan. They now provide the news by collecting snippets of information collected by on he spot witnesses.

The Kashiwazaki Nuclear Plant on the West Coast in Nigata Prefecture failed after a 6.6 level Earth Quake on the 24 July in 2007, the Town became a no go zone and empty for 21 months.

The owners/building contractors and owners of the Bank Loans for this kind of Development are silent and wish to remain invisible. They wish to hide their profits. Just now 20 years after the Chernobyl Disaster they are again building Nuclear Reactors in Europe.

This kind of business should be illegal.

Look at Chernobyl for the truth of the matter. Get ready to understand that these Power Plants only kill and Kill hundreds of square kilometers for tens of thousands of years and increase the back ground radiation of the planet Earth. The Radiation does not go away for an Ice Age or two

.
Please read below.

Please visit the web site: elenafilatova.com
or use
http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/

Elena writes in 2003/2004 till today about Chernobyl.

Ghost Town - Introduction

My name is Elena. I run this website and I don't have anything to sell. What I do have is my motorbike and the absolute freedom to ride it wherever curiosity and the speed demon take me. This page is maintained by the author, but when Internet traffic is heavy it may be down occasionally.

Biking

I have ridden all my life and over the years I have owned several different motorbikes. I ended my search for a perfect bike with a big ninja, that boasts a mature 147 horse power, some serious bark, is fast as a bullet and comfortable for a long trips.

I travel a lot and one of my favorite destinations leads North from Kiev, towards so called Chernobyl "dead zone", which is 130kms from my home. Why my favorite? Because one can take long rides there on empty roads.

The people there all left and nature is blooming. There are beautiful woods and lakes.

In places where roads have not been travelled by trucks or army vehicles, they are in the same condition they were 20 years ago - except for an occasional blade of grass or some tree that discovered a crack to spring through. Time does not ruin roads, so they may stay this way until they can be opened to normal traffic again........ a few centuries from now.

Roentgens

An older unit of the equivalent dose is the rem (Röntgen equivalent man). In some fields and countries, the rem and millirem (abbreviated mrem) continue to be used along with Sv and mSv, causing confusion. Here are the conversion equivalences:

1 Sv = 100 rem
1 mSv = 100 mrem = 0.1 rem
1 μSv = 0.1 mrem
1 rem = 0.01 Sv = 10 mSv
1 mrem = 0.00001 Sv = 0.01 mSv = 10 μSv

To begin our journey, we must learn a little something about radiation. It is really very simple, and the device we use for measuring radiation levels is called a geiger counter . If you flick it on in Kiev, it will measure about 12-16 microroentgen per hour( 0.00012-16 Sv). In a typical city of Russia and America, it will read 10-12 microroentgen per hour. In the center of many European cities are 20 microR per hour, the radioactivity of the stone.

1,000 microroentgens equal one milliroentgen and 1,000 milliroentgens equal 1 roentgen. So one roentgen(10mSv) is 100,000 times the average radiation of a typical city. A dose of 500 roentgens within 5 hours is fatal to humans. That is 5000mSv/hr for 5 hours. Interestingly, it takes about 2 1/2 times that dosage to kill a chicken and over 100 times that to kill a cockroach.

This sort of radiation level can not be found in Chernobyl now. In the first days after explosion, some places around the reactor were emitting 3,000-30,000 roentgens per hour or 30,000mSv - 300,000mSv/hr. The firemen who were sent to put out the reactor fire were fried on the spot by gamma radiation. The remains of the reactor were entombed within an enormous steel and concrete sarcophagus, so it is now relatively safe to travel to the area - as long as one do not step off of the roadway and do not stick in a wrong places.......

The map above shows all our journey through the dead zone. Radiation went in soil and now in apples and mushrooms. It is not retained by asphalt, which makes rides through this area possible.

I have never had problems with the dosimeter guys, who man the checkpoints. They are experts, and if they find radiation on you vehicle, they gave it a chemical shower. I don't count those couple of times when "experts" tried to invent an excuse to give me a shower, because those had a lot more to do with physical biology than biological physics

600 years.

On the Friday evening of April 25, 1986, the reactor crew at Chernobyl-4, prepared to run a test the next day to see how long the turbines would keep spinning and producing power if the electrical power supply went off line. This was a dangerous test, but it had been done before. As a part of the preparation, they disabled some critical control systems - including the automatic shutdown safety mechanisms.

Shortly after 1:00 AM on April 26, the flow of coolant water dropped and the power began to increase.

At 1:23 AM, the operator moved to shut down the reactor in its low power mode and a domino effect of previous errors caused an sharp power surge, triggering a tremendous steam explosion which blew the 1000 ton cap on the nuclear containment vessel and rised it in the air.

Some of the 211 control rods melted and then a second explosion, whose cause is still the subject of disagreement among experts, threw out fragments of the burning radioactive fuel core and allowed air to rush in - igniting several tons of graphite insulating blocks.

Once graphite starts to burn, its almost impossible to extinguish. It took 9 days and 5000 tons of sand, boron, dolomite, clay and lead dropped from helicopters to put it out. The radiation was so intense that many of those brave pilots died.

It was this graphite fire that released most of the radiation into the atmosphere and troubling spikes in atmospheric radiation were measured as far as thousands of miles away.

These were inexcusable errors of design.

The causes of the accident are described as a fateful combination of human error and imperfect technology. Andrei Sakharov said, that Chernobyl accident demonstrates that our system cannot manage modern technology.

In keeping with a long tradition of Soviet justice, they imprisoned several people who worked on that shift - regardless of their guilt. 25 from the shift died.

untill the radiation diminishes to a tolerable level. If we use the lowest scientific estimate, that will be 300 years from now......some scientists say it may be as long as 900 years.

I think it will be 300, but people often accuse me of being an optimist.

I remember..

In Ukrainian language ( where we don't like to say "the") Chernobyl is the name of a grass, wormwood (absinth). This word scares the holy bejesus out of people here. Maybe part of the reason for that among religious people is because the Bible mentions Wormwood in the book of the revelatons - which fortells the end of the world....

REV 8:10 And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters;

REV 8:11 And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.

Also, in our language, if you break the name up, "chorno" means "black" and "byl" means "pain." If I tell someone that I am heading to Chernie... the best case response is; "Are you nuts?"

My dad used to say that people are afraid of a deadly thing which they can not see, can not feel and can not smell. Maybe that is because those words are a good description of death itself.

Dad is nuclear physicist, and he has educated me about many things. He is much more worried about the speed my bike travels than about the direction I point it.

My trips to Chernobyl are not like a walk in the park, but the risk can be managed. Sometimes I go for rides alone, sometimes with pillion passenger, but never in company with any other vehicle, because I do not want anyone to raise dust in front of me.

I was a schoolgirl back in 1986 and as soon as radiation level began to rise in Kiev, dad put all of us on the train to grandma's house. Granny lives 800 kms from here and dad wasn't sure if it was far enough away to keep us out of reach of the big bad wolf of a nuclear meltdown.

The Communist government that was in power then kept silent about this accident. In Kiev, they forced people to take part in their preciously stupid labor day parade and it was then that ordinary people began hearing the news of the accident from foreign radio stations and relatives of those who died. The real panic began 7-10 days after accident. Those who were exposed to the exceedingly high levels of nuclear radiation in the first 10 days when it was still a state secret, including unsuspecting visitors to the area, either died or have serious health problems.

Heading north.

Time to go for a ride. This is our road. There won't be many cars on those roads. This place has ill fame and people try not to settle here. The farther we go, the cheaper the land, the less the people and more beautiful nature.. quite the reverse of everywhere else in the world - and a forecast of things to come.

As we pass the 86th kilometer, we encounter a giant egg - which marks the point where civilization as we know it ends - and the Chernobyl ride begins.

Someone brought the egg from Germany. It represents LIFE breaking through the hard shell of the unknown. I am not sure if this symbolism is encouraging or not. Either way, it makes people think, and for us this is our last chance to stock up on edible food, drinkable water and uncontaminated fuel. Our journey from here is a gradually darkening picture of deserted towns, empty villages and dead farms..

Radiation from the reactor's explosion was disbursed unevenly by the winds, as if in a chessboard fashion, leaving some places alive and others dead. It's hard to say where the fairyland begins.

To me it begin behind of this bridge. This is dead village that is located some 60 kms West of the reactor.

This old man lives in the Chernobyl area. He is one of 3.500 people that either refused to leave or returned to their villages after the meltdown in 1986. I admire those people, because each of them is a philosopher in their own way. When you ask if they are afraid, they say that they would rather die at home from radiation, than die in an unfamiliar place of home-sickness. They eat food from their own gardens, drink the milk of their cows and claim that they are healthy.....but the old man is one of only 400 that have survived this long. He may soon join his 3,100 neighbors that rest eternally in the earth of their beloved homes. It appears that the people with the most courage were the first to die here. Maybe that is true everywhere.

These are radioactive technics as far as the eye can see. They are a type of army truck. Most of these vehicles were full of troops on that days.

How many people died of radiation? No one knows - not even approximately. The officials still keep the death toll at around 30 people, while unofficial sources already put the figure of 300,000 and sometimes over 400,000.

The final toll will not be known in our lifetime, and not in our childrens either.

It is easier to calculate material loses. It was a crippling economic catastrophe for the region - from which it may never recover..

These fire engines never returned in their garages and the firemen they carried never returned to their homes. They were the first on the scene and thought it was an ordinary fire. They did not know what they were really dealing with.

The "Liquidators" were recruited or forced to assist in the cleanup or the liquidation of the consequences of the accident.

As a totalitarian government, the Soviet Union provided many young soldiers to assist with the cleanup of the Chernobyl accident, but did not provide many of them with adequate protective clothing - or any explanation of the dangers involved.
Over 650,000 liquidators helped in the cleanup of the Chernobyl disaster in the first year. This group includes those who built the containment building over the destroyed reactor No. 4 which is called the SARCOPHAGUS.

Soldiers on the roof of Unit # 3 pick up deadly pieces of radioactive graphite after explosion and toss them down into the cauldron of the demolished reactor core.

First, they tried to use robots, but technics have been disabled either by high radiation or been entangled in debris, then they sent thousands of soldiers- biorobots.

Work on the roof was the shortest job of all, and lasted only two minutes. Many soldiers were offered a choice of how to fulfill the tour of duty requirement that was necessary for their retirement from Army. One lasted two years in a hellish rain of bullets, rockets and bombs in Afghanistan, and the other lasted two minutes in a tranquil, silent and invisible rain of gamma rays on the roof of Unit # 3.

This hellish inferno became a sort of paradise for wild animals - at least on the surface. They thrive with no humans to prey upon them, but nobody fully understands how the nuclear poisons have altered their genetic makeup, the extent of their migration or their interactions with the adjacent "safe" areas. Grotesque mutations have been reported, but official science deny that.
Populations of wolves and wild boars grow rapidly. They occupying the abandoned houses and sheds. They are curiously unagressive here. Maybe that has something to do with the food supply which plentiful for all species except man, but contaminated. It's not unusual to see a wolf, a fox, a wild boar or a wild deer casually crossing the road.

These are Prejevalsky Horses. Someone brought a couple of them from Asia a few years ago, they liked it here and now there are 3 herds running in Chernobyl area. They are a sturdy breed and are always on the move. They have a prehistoric look about them. When they sweep by at full gallop, it feels like you might see a herd of ancient Eohippus next. Zoologists also brought two American Bisons to the area, but the idea to breed them didn't work out. The male bison run away. I don't know if he run away from Radiation or from his bride, but he was last seen in Belorussia, heading west. He may have decided to return to America.

This is the town of Chernobyl.

Geiger counter reading here now is 20-80 microroentgens, depending of where you stay. This place is what I call a zombie town, which means that all native population was evacuated in May 1986. Since then town was cleaned a lot and later it became the base for Atomic Power Plant workers.
During times of nuclear fallout, deposition by the wind becomes the major factor. Spreading death in some places, it randomly grants mercy over others. Town of Chernobyl is located just 12 kms on south from reactor if we travel by air. In the first days after accident the level of radiation here was not high. Remarkable, considering at this time the radiation from Chernobyl had already hit Northern Europe. This was still a secret and in Sweden they started looking for leakage from their own nuclear plants. Wind changed direction on May 1st and morning reading showed here 24 milliroentgen an hour. The radioactive clouds have drifted through this place, killed it and went to Kiev, to take part in our famous Labor Day Milliroentgen Parade.

Atomic Plant.

Usually, on this leg of the journey, a beeping geiger counter inspires to shift into high gear and streak through the area with great haste. The patch of trees in front of me is called red - or 'magic" wood. In 1986, this wood glowed red with radiation. They cut them down and buried them under 1 meter of earth.
The readings on the asphalt paving is 500 -3000 microroentgens, depending upon where you stand. That is 50 to 300 times the radiation of a normal environment. If I step 10 meters forward, geiger counter will run off the scale. If I walk a few hundred meters towards the reactor, the radiation is 3 roentgens per hour - which is 300,000 times normal. If I was to keep walking all the way to the reactor, I would glow in the dark tonight. Maybe this is why they call it magic wood. It is sort of magical when one walks in with biker's leather and walks out like a knight in a shining armor.
The plant was closed down for good in 2000. They must build a new sarcophagus soon, because the original one was hastily constructed and is disintegrating.
Only a very small amount of the radiation inside of there had so far escaped. Most scientists believe that more then 90% is still under sarcophagus. The remains of radioactive fuel inside has a name of "The Elephant Foot", it because of it's distinctive shape. About 190 tonnes of uranium and 1 ton of really dangerous Plutonium is still there, so if the big, bad nuclear elephant ever sets its foot out, we'll be in very big trouble...

This is the final checkpoint. Protective radiation suits, a special permission are required beyond this point......I am not that curious.

Our Pyramids

The sarcophagus will remain radioactive for at least 100.000 years. The age for the pyramids of Egypt is 5,000 to 6,000 years. Each cultural epoch left something to humanity, something immortal, like Judaic epoch left us Bible, Greek culture- philosophy, Romans contributed law and we are leaving Sarcophagus, the construction that going to outlive all other signs of our epoch and may last longer then pyramids.

There are many places that not structurally safe, or have collected pockets of intense radiation. There are places where no one dares to go. One such place is the Red Wood forest and another is the Ghost Town Cemetary. The relatives of the people who are buried there can not visit, because in addition to people, much of the radioctive graphite nuclear core is buried there. It is one of the most toxic places on earth.

This is the highest building in town. On the day of disaster, many people gathered on this roof to see the beautiful shining cloud above the Atomic Power Plant.

Up on the roof.

"Let no one on the roof of his house go down to take anything out of the house. Let no one in the field go back to get his cloak. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers!"

(Matthew 24)

I wonder if this roof is what Matthew was talking about.. From here, the shining cloud above the reactor must have been a staggering sight.

Standing on the roof of the highest building in this empty town brings a feeling of being completely alone in the world - like this whole town is.

The day after the accident, this place on the bridge provided a good view of the gaping crack in the nuclear containment vessel that was ruptured by the explosion. Many curious people came here to have a look and were bathed in a flood of deadly x-rays emanating directly from the glowing nuclear core.

Belorussia is a separate country. PLEASE NOTE, the neighboring country suffered more than the country where the disaster took place. Radiation is guest who does not need visas to travel; international by nature radiation appears without invitations and stays forever. The evil, dark wind of that day carried 70% of Chernobyl' s heavy radiation into the neighboring country of Belorussia.
As we travel northward, we begin to grasp the immensity of the total area that was poisoned, and will still be poisoined in the year 2525.

The bread basket

Farms in Ukraine.

By territory Ukraine is a bit bigger than France and in history books it was called a bread basket of Europe.

It is because Ukraine has 40% of the world supply of black earth.

Ones that goes through us is called gamma radiation, it is cumulative, it adds up, so we can calculate what a damage it make for health. Gamma is almost identical X-rays. X-rays are human made, while gamma occurs in nature. It is also called a cosmic radiation. Everyone who flys in high altitude aircraft is exposed to 25 mR/hr of cosmic radiation. Gamma is the toughest type of radiation for immediate problems. Gamma is a wave. It is sort of like invisible bullets that can kill in hours. Alpha and beta on the other hand are particles and work as a time-bomb. With breathing of radiactive dust, they getting inside of a human body, lodges there and in a few years expload with the cancer cells. Alpha particles are the heaviest of the three, betas are extremely light and gammas have no mass at all. Alpha radiation generally can not travel 4-12cms (1-3 inches) before it stoped, so we can play billiard with balls of a pure plutonium. The dead cells on our skin will stop Alpha radiation, so even juggling with plutonium balls would be safe.

If we travel through the area, where radiation level do not exceed 100 mR/hr, then in one hour we'll receive the same dosage of gamma rays that receiving the passanger of plane Kiev-London duaring a few hours of their trip. I don't fly to London, so I can travel to Vilcha where I'll get the same mild dose.
Unfortunately we can not count the alpha and beta particles that we inhale, yet they are the major risk. In the first year after a disaster, the radioactive particles stay on the ground. I'd have to kiss my shoes goodbye if I'd walked on this grass. Likewise, I'd contaminate and paralyze my Geiger counter if I dared let it touch the radiactive surface. Riding here an open vehicle would be as insane as swallow up those plutonium balls. But now, as I said, radiation has gone into the soil and levels have fallen. A good thing about it is that now we can travel through these areas with little health risk, but bad thing is that now this land breathes with radiation from deep inside and it's become hard to make further headway with the decontamination process.
These days, radiation lives in cucumbers and apples, and having a Geiger counter at the greengrocery market is as useful as to have one here. A major concern is the mushrooms. We eat 6 times as much as most Americans. The chemicals in the mushrooms are worse than the Cs137 (even though Cs levels have not decreased in the mushrooms as much as half life of Cs137)

Compared with Plutonium-239, the other chemical elements stands in the same relation as the kings on the stage to the king in real life, for it is Plutonium that will reign for thousands of years. It is extremely toxic and highly chemically reactive, half-life of Plutonium is 24,000 years.

Fortunately Chernobyl was Uranium reactor, all Plutonium that present in the area is a product of Uranium, how much depends on the age of the reactor. Some say, it would still be a small amount, but we don't really need much. By extrapolation, 1 lb (less then half kilogram) of plutonium, universally disposed, would be enough to kill every living human being on the earth.

Americium

Some of villages are heavily poisoned. The radiation here is even higher than it is near the reactor site.

If we take a Geiger counter reading on the road, then one on the grass and compare the two readings, the grass is 8.5 times more than the asphalt, because radiation becomes concentrated in living organisms. The source of this radiation is Americium.

Initially, things were not too bad here. This area was poisoned with Plutonium-241 and a strange quirk of this element is that it is not very radioactive at first. It waits quietly for 14.4 years and then decays into components that include Americium-241 which produces powerful gamma rays, real cannon balls compared to the "bird-shot" particle radiation of the original Plutonium.

The physical half-life of Americium-241, the daughter of Plutonium-241 is more than 400 years.

Sometimes I just hang out with my dad in some wasteland. The Geiger counter he uses was made back in 1986. After Chernobyl disaster there was a shortage of radiation detecting devices and, in a panic, authorities began to hastily produce devices with scale of only 100 microroentgen. Those Geiger counters were completely useless, because in Chernobyl the radiation levels were hundreds of times higher than that - way off the scale. In those days, the level of radiation in my home, in Kiev was about 1000 microroentgen an hour... only now, after 20 years, are those old devices finally becoming usable.
There are two wings of the Wolves Land. So far in my reports of "Ghost Town" and "Land of the "Wolves" we have visited only the southern wing which is located in Ukraine and Belorussia.

The northern wing is located in Belorussia and Russia. It is huge and depressing. May be I will tell about this land some day.

Assange takes on the world

2011-03-14T00:20:00.001+11:00

JULIAN ASSANGE Made in Australia

FOR THE WORLD RECORD

Julian Assange is not alone. There are so many very smart kids growing up that can add up and they see the gross incompetency of the Adults.

Common Sense decreases as Kids grow up and ready themselves for Consumption Society with an education to get that job that will get them all the stuff. Some kids get through the education factory with some Common Sense remaining. Assange is not alone. Be ready for them, especially from Australia.

I am interested to see Australia produce great musicians, actors and creative people, sports people and inventors. Australia produces the best soldiers. Assange is a product of Australian Greatness. Apart from shopping, the rest of the Western World is a bit slow creatively, compared on a per-capita basis, with Australia.

Creativity is the full employment of core virtues. It is serious human business.

What makes the definitive difference is all that Outback in Australia, full of Common Sense thinking and Virtue Based character. It impacts the cities. And now it impacts the world.

Below is a Biographical Essay by an Australian University Academic about Assange.

The Monthly, March 2011, pp. 17-35

The Cypherpunk Revolutionary
Robert Manne on Julian Assange

[Robert Manne is a professor in the School of Social Sciences at La Trobe University, Victoria, Australia.]

ESSAY

FEWER THAN 20 YEARS AGO JULIAN ASSANGE WAS SLEEPING ROUGH. EVEN A YEAR AGO HARDLY ANYONE KNEW HIS NAME. TODAY HE IS ONE OF THE BEST-KNOWN AND MOST-RESPECTED HUMAN BEINGS ON EARTH. Assange was the overwhelming winner of the popular vote for Time magazine's "Person of the Year" and Le Monde's less politically correct "Man of the Year". If Rupert Murdoch, who turns 80 this month, is the most influential Australian of the postwar era, Julian Assange, who will soon turn 40, is undoubtedly the most consequential Australian of the present time.

Murdoch's importance rests in his responsibility for injecting, through Fox News, the poison of rabid populist conservatism into the political culture of the United States; Assange's in the revolutionary threat his idea of publishing damaging documentary information sent by anonymous insiders to WikiLeaks poses to governments and corporations across the globe.

Julian Assange has told the story of his childhood and adolescence twice, most recently to a journalist from the New Yorker, Raffi Khatchadourian, and some 15 years ago, secretly but in greater detail, to Suelette Dreyfus, the author of a fascinating book on the first generation of computer hacking, Underground, for which Assange was the primary researcher. In what is called the "Researcher's Introduction", Assange begins with a cryptic quote from Oscar Wilde; "Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth." Nothing about Assange has ever been straightforward. One of the main characters in Underground is the Melbourne hacker Mendax. Although there is no way readers at that time could have known it, Mendax is Julian Assange.

Putting Khatchadourian and Dreyfus together, and adding a little detail from a blog that Assange published on the internet in 2006-07 and checking it against common sense and some material that has emerged since his rise to fame, the story of Assange's childhood and adolescence can be told in some detail. There is, however, a problem. Journalists as senior as David Leigh of the Guardian or John F Burns of the New York Times in general accept on trust many of Assange's stories about himself. They do not understand that their subject is a fabulist. By contrast, when Daniel Domscheit-Berg, Assange's lieutenant at WikiLeaks between late 2007 and September 2010, heard that Assange was writing an autobiography he tells us in Inside WikiLeaks that his "first thought" was that it should be placed "in the fiction section".

According to Assange, his mother left her Queensland home for Sydney at the age of 17, around 1970, at the time of the anti-Vietnam War movement when the settled culture of the western world was breaking up. In Dreyfus, Assange's mother is not named; in Khatchadourian, she is called "Claire". In fact she was Christine Hawkins. Assange told Dreyfus that his mother's parents were both "academics". This seems a little grandiose. Christine's father, Warren Hawkins, was the principal of the Northern Rivers College of Advanced Education. Christine fell in love with a man called John Shipton in Sydney. A year or so after Julian was born, in Townsville, they parted. Assange did not meet Shipton again till he was 25.

When Julian was about one, Christine met and married a roving theatrical producer and member of what was by now called the counterculture, Brett Assange. According to what Julian told Khatchadourian, Brett was the descendant of a Chinese immigrant who had settled on Thursday Island, Ah Sang or Mr Sang. Together Brett and Christine travelled around the country, performing. He painted a vivid portrait for Khatchadourian of an idyllic life after the family settled for a time on Magnetic Island. "Most of this time was pretty Tom Sawyer. I had my own horse. I built my own raft. I went fishing. I was down mine shafts and tunnels." To Dreyfus, Julian claimed his stepfather was a decent man but also an alcoholic. By the time he was addressing audiences worldwide, his father - he could only be referring to Brett Assange - had become idealised as a "good and generous man" who had taught him the most fundamental lesson in life: to nurture victims rather than to create them. Assange also told Dreyfus about a foundational political memory, an incident that had occurred while he was about four. His mother and a male friend had discovered evidence concerning the British atomic bomb tests that had taken place in Maralinga in greatest secrecy, which they intended to give to an Adelaide journalist. The male friend had been beaten by police to silence him. Christine had been warned that she was in danger of being charged with being "an unfit mother". She was advised to stay out of politics. For a four year old to grasp the political meaning of an encounter such as this seems a little improbable.

When Julian was eight or nine years old, Christine and Brett Assange separated and then divorced. His mother now formed a "tempestuous" relationship with an amateur musician, Keith Hamilton, with whom she had another child, a boy. To Dreyfus, Julian described Hamilton as a "manipulative and violent psychopath". A bitter battle for the custody of Julian's half-brother began. Christine's family was now once more on the move - this time not as before on a "happy-go-lucky odyssey", but hiding on both sides of the continent in permanent terror. To Khatchadourian but not Dreyfus, Julian claimed there was evidence that this man was a member of the Anne Hamilton-Byrne cult The Family and, rather fancifully, that he probably discovered their whereabouts from the "moles" that the cult had inside the government. Because of his itinerant life as a child, and also because his mother was suspicious of the authoritarian culture of formal schooling, Julian claimed that he was home-schooled or independently educated either by professors encountered on their travels or by following his curiosity in public libraries. He did, however, also claim to have attended "very many schools. According to Dreyfus, by the time Mendax was 15 he "had lived in a dozen different places" and had "enrolled in at least as many different schools". His lawyer in his trial of 1996, Paul Galbally, also told the court Assange had been enrolled in about 12 schools. By 2006, Assange claimed he had attended 37 different schools. Given that after his rise to fame the Northern Star reported that he had attended Lismore's Goolmangar Primary School between 1979 and [983, the story of 37 schools seems unlikely.

One of the schools Julian attended was in rural Victoria. In the blog he posted on 18 July 2006, there is an account of his and another outsider's experience at this school.

We were bright sensitive kids who didn't fit into the dominant subculture and fiercely castigated those who did as irredeemable boneheads.

This unwillingness to accept the authority of a peer group considered risible was not appreciated. I was quick to anger and brutal statements such as "You 're a bunch of mindless apes out of Lord of the Flies" when faced with standover tactics were enough to ensure I got into a series of extreme fights and I wasn't sorry to leave when presented with the dental bills of my tormentors.

Eventually Julian's family settled on the outskirts of Melbourne in Emerald and then Teeoma, according to Dreyfus. Christine bought Julian a $700 computer and a modem. Assange fell in love with a 16-year-old girl, Teresa, whom he had met through a program for gifted children. He left home, moved in with and then married his girlfriend. They had a son. This was the period when the underground subculture of hacking was forming in Melbourne. Around 1988 Assange joined this subculture, under the handle Mendax. By October 1989 an attack was mounted from Australia on the NASA computer system via the introduction of what was called the WANK worm in an attempt to sabotage the Jupiter launch of the Galileo rocket as part of an action of anti-nuclear activists. No one claimed responsibility for this attack, which is outlined in the first chapter of Underground, In an article he later published in the left-wing magazine CounterPunch, Assange would claim the WANK worm attack was "the origin of hacktivism". In a Swedish television documentary, WikiRebels, made with Assange's co-operation, there are hints he was responsible.

Mendax formed a closed group with two other hackers Trax and Prime Suspect. They called themselves the International Subversives. According to Dreyfus, their politics was fiercely anti-establishment; their motive adventure and intellectual curiosity; their strict ethic not to profit by their hacking or to harm the computers they entered. Mendax wrote a program called Sycophant. It allowed the International Subversives to conduct "massive attacks on the US military". The list of the computers they could recall finding their way into "read like a Who's Who of the American military-industrial complex". Eventually Mendax penetrated the computer system of the Canadian telecommunications corporation Nortel. It was here that his hacking was first discovered. The Australian Federal Police conducted a long investigation into the International Subversives, Operation Weather. Eventually Trax lost his nerve and began to talk. He told the police that the International Subversives had been hacking on a scale never achieved before. In October 1991 the Australian Federal Police raided Prime Suspect's and Mendax' homes. They found Assange in a state of near mental collapse. His young wife had recently left him, taking their son Daniel. Assange told Dreyfus that he had been dreaming incessantly of "police raids ... of shadows in the pre-dawn darkness, of a gun-toting police squad bursting through his backdoor at 5 a.m." When the police arrived, the incriminating disks, which he had been in the habit of hiding inside a beehive, were scattered by his computer. The evidence was removed.

Assange descended into a personal hell. He entered a psychiatric ward briefly. He tried and failed to return home to live with his mother. He frequently slept along Merri Creek in Melbourne or in Sherbrooke Forest. He told Dreyfus that 1992 was "the worst year in his life". The formal charges against Assange were not laid until July 1994. His case was not finally settled until December 1996. Although Assange had been speaking in secretive tones about the technical possibility of a massive prison sentence, in the end he received a $5000 good behaviour bond and a $2100 reparations fine. The experience of arrest and trial nonetheless scarred his soul and helped shape his politics. In his blog of 17 July 2006, Assange wrote:

If there is a book whose feeling captures me it is First Circle by Solzhenitsyn. To feel that home is the comraderie [sic] of persecuted, and in fact, prosecuted, polymaths in a Stalinist labor camp! How close the parallels to my own adventures! ... Such prosecution in youth is a defining peak experience. To know the state far what it really is! To see through that veneer the educated swear to disbelieve in but still slavishly follow with their hearts! ... True belief only begins with a jackboot at the door. True belief forms when lead [sic] into the dock and referred to in the third person. True belief is when a distant voice booms "the prisoner shall now rise" and no one else in the room stands.

This is a characteristically self-dramatising passage. Solzhenitsyn was incarcerated in the Gulag Archipelago, harassed for years by the KGB and eventually expelled from the Soviet Union. Assange was investigated by the AFP and received a good behaviour bond and a fine.

Before his trial, Julian Assange was extremely sensitive about his reputation. In 1994 he offered to assist the director of Dogs in Space, Richard Lowenstein, with a film he was thinking of making about hackers. Assange spoke about the 290 years he might theoretically spend in prison. He learned that Lowenstein had not kept this information confidential. He was furious. He sent Lowenstein a series of threatening emails in which he outlined details of Lowenstein's sexual life. Lowenstein protested. Had Assange no understanding of the concept of privacy? Privacy, Assange replied, is "relative". "I could monitor your keystrokes, intercept your phone and bug your residence. If I could be bothered ... As one who's has [sic] one's life monitored pretty closely, you quickly come to the realisation that trying to achieve complete privacy is impossible." If Lowenstein wanted to keep details of his life confidential he should use encrypted email. Lowenstein told Assange he had not realised that the information was confidential. "I do not doubt your reasons were not malicious. Stupidity, ignorance and lack of respect come to mind. You seem to think I have only one life. I have many."

While awaiting trial, Julian Assange began to try to reconstruct his life. One overwhelming preoccupation was the bitter struggle waged for the custody of his son, Daniel. In their struggle, Julian and Christine Assange formed a small activist group - Parent Inquiry into Child Protection. They found sources of support inside the Victorian Department of Health and Community Services. An insider provided them with a document of great value to their cause - an internal departmental manual outlining the current rules determining custody disputes. It is almost certainly from this experience that Assange became seriously interested in the political possibilities of leaks. He told Dreyfus that in his fight against government corruption in Victoria he had "acted as a conduit for leaked documents". On several occasions recently, Assange has claimed that while he registered a domain site in 1999 known as "leaks.org" he did nothing with it. This cannot be accurate. In November 1996 he sent the following enigmatic message to those on certain email lists he had created.

A few pointy heads in Canberra have been considering your moderator's continued existence. Consequentially I've been called on to justify labour and resources spent on all projects under my control, particularly those chat can't easily be quantified such as IQ, BOS, LACC, IS, LEAKS ...

All these lists were connected to an internet service provider, Suburbia Public Access Network, that Assange had taken over when its original owner, Mark Dorset, went to live in Sydney. He likened it to a "low cost power-to-the-people enabling technology". Suburbia was the vehicle for several email lists - Interesting Questions (IQ), Best of Security (BoS), Legal Aspects of Computer Crime (LACC), Inside-Source (IS) and, presumably, LEAKS - that Assange created. It was also the free site for several groups of Melbourne activists, artists and others - the Powerline Action Group; the Alternative Technology Association; the Centre for Contemporary Photography; the Australian Public Access Network Association and, strangely enough, the Private Inquiry Agents Association. It is because of the continued existence on the internet of some of the commentary he wrote for these lists in his mid twenties that we can begin to hear, for the first time, the distinctive political voice of Julian Assange. In general, it is intelligent and assured. One of Suburbia's clients had published some of the Church of Scientology's holy scriptures. The church threatened legal action against Suburbia. The client, Dave Gerard, fought back. In March 1996, Assange issued an appeal to join an anti-Scientology protest.

What you have then is a Church based on brainwashing yuppies and other people with more money than sense ... If Nicole Kiddman [sic], Kate Cerbrano [sic], John Travolta, Burce [sic] Willis, Demi Moore and Tom Cruise want to spend their fortunes on learning that the earth is in reality the destroyed prison colony of aliens from outer space then so be it. However, money brings power and attracts the corrupt ... Their worst critic at the moment is not a personal or an organisation but a medium - the Internet. The Internet is by its very nature a censorship free zone ... The fight against' the Church is far more than the Net versus a bunch of wackos. It is about corporate suppression of the Internet and free speech. It is about intellectual property and the big and rich versus the small and smart.

At this time, to judge by the pieces he wrote that have survived, Assange's main political preoccupation seems to have been the extraordinary democratic possibilities of the information.sharing virtual communities across the globe created by the internet, and the threat to its freedom and flourishing posed by censorious states, greedy corporations and repressive laws.

Not everything Assange wrote at this time was serious. He was interested in a computer security software program developed by Dan Farmer of Silicon Graphics known as SATAN. One evening in April 1995 he composed 'The Dan Farmer Rap' for 'firewalls', a list to which he subscribed.

I'm Dan Farmer you can't fool me
The only security consultant to be an MTV,

I've got red hair - hey hands off man! don't touch the lacks of the mighty Dan. AC/DC - from the front or from behind, you can fuck my arse but you can't touch my mind.

philosophy's the trip - evil 'n' stuff, gad, we know a lot, Mike me and Muff.

A real ardent feminist - just like she tells me to be,

See me out there rooting for sexual e-qual-ity ...

I coded it all - yes the mighty Dan did it alone,

if you can't believe it, you and your note pad can fuck off home.

I'm Dan Farmer - now take that down

it's not every day you get to interview

the world's biggest security clown.

Several subscribers to 'firewalls' were appalled. One wrote: "Just reading this made me feel dirty. In 20+ years associated with this business, I don't think I've ever seen debate among professionals degraded to quite this slime-ball level. Mr Assange is an unprincipled ass ..." Assange wrote a sort of apology. "It was perhaps an error of judgment on my behalf to equate the people on this list with those who knew myself and Dan more fully. Such mistakes are ripe to happen when one is merry and full of wine in the wee hours of the morning." Nonetheless, he expressed high amusement regarding all those who had publicly condemned him while privately sending their congratulations. "You know who you are." Assange's Dan Farmer 'peccadillo' was still remembered six years later by a British computer geek, Danny O'Brien.

By 1997 Julian Assange, with his friends Suelette Dreyfus and Ralf Weinmann, had written 'Rubberhose', a piece of 'deniable cryptography' for human rights activists and troublemakers, the purpose of which was to make it impossible for torturers or their victims to know whether all the encrypted data on a computer hard drive had been revealed. It was designed to make torture to extract passwords pointless, and defection and betrayal in the face of such torture impossible. The concept was Assange's. Assange argued a convoluted and rather improbable psychological case about why Rubberhose would cause rational torturers to put away their weapons. Danny O'Brien captured the obvious objection rather well. Despite Rubberhose's deniable cryptography, "won't rational torturers just beat you up 'forever'?"

l am in no position to judge the sophistication of the Rubberhose software or the level of creativity it required. I can however assess the quality of the posting announcing its creation, which Assange sent to the firewalls list in June 1997. Assange called it "One Man's Search for a Cryptographic Mythology". His search to find a suitable name for Rubberhose takes him, in a zany and hilarious stream of consciousness, on a journey through Greek and Roman mythology, the incestuous Cerberus and the cliched Janus; to the moral pessimism of David Hume, who argued the inescapable connection between joy and despondency; to an unexplained rejection of his request for mythological advice by the Princeton History Department; to Sigmund Freud, the Medusa's Head and the castration complex; to a spoof on Zen Buddhism; to a memory of a visit to a mercenary hypnotherapist in Melbourne's Swanston Street - until, through the suggestion of a Swedish friend with an interest in ancient Sumerian mythology - "who calls himself Elk on odd days and Godflesh on even days. Don't ask why" - he finally arrives with a joyous heart at the Mesopotamian god MARUTUKKU, "Master of the Arts of Protection".

If MARUTUKKU was my exquisite cryptographic good, of wit, effusive joy, ravishing pleasure and flattering hope; then where was the counter point? The figure to its ground - the sharper evil, the madness, the melancholy, the most cruel lassitudes and disgusts and the severest disappointments. Was Hume right?

Alas, he was. Assange, "on a cold and wintry night here in Melbourne", discovers in the 4000-year-old Babylonian tablets a reference to the supposedly secret eavesdropping intelligence agency in Maryland, the National Security Agency! It is a magnificently exuberant, bravura literary performance. Assange was not merely a talented code writer and computer geek. There was in him daring, wildness and a touch of genius. For a while he signed his emails not with his customary "Proff." but "Prof. Julian Assange".

Assange was by now a committed member of the free software movement, pioneered by Richard Stallman, whose aim was to regulate communication in cyberspace by software not by law. As members of the movement put it, freedom here meant free speech rather than free beer. The movement stressed democratic, collective contribution.

Assange tended to be somewhat sceptical about the movement, on one occasion arguing that in reality usually one or two people did 80% of the work. Assange was nonetheless involved in the development of NetBSD, an open source computer operating system derived from the original Berkeley Software Distribution source code. Some of the slogans he invented to spruik its virtues can still be found on the internet. Here are three. "We put the OS in OrgaSm"; "Bits for Tits"; "More ports than a Norwegian crack whore".

By the time Assange was working on NetBSD he had been involved for several years with a movement known as the cypherpunks. It was the cypherpunks more than the free software movement who provided him with his political education. Although there are tens of thousands of articles on Julian Assange in the world's newspapers and magazines, no mainstream journalist so far has grasped the critical significance of the cypherpunks movement to Assange's intellectual development and the origin of WikiLeaks.

The cypherpunks emerged from a meeting of minds in late 1992 in the Bay Area of San Francisco. Its founders were Eric Hughes, a brilliant Berkeley mathematician; Timothy C May, an already wealthy, former chief scientist at Intel who had retired at the age of 34; and John Gilmore, another already retired and wealthy computer scientist - once number five at Sun Microsystems - who had co-founded an organisation to advance the cause of cyberspace freedom, the Electronic Frontier Foundation. They created a small group, which met monthly in Gilmore's office at a business he had created, Cygnus. At one of the early meetings of the group, an editor at Mondo 2000, Jude Milhon, jokingly called them cypherpunks, a play on cyberpunk, the "hi-tech, low-life" science-fiction genre. The name stuck. It soon referred to a vibrant emailing list, created shortly after the first meeting, which had grown to 700 by 1994 and perhaps 2000 by 1997 with by then up to a hundred postings per day. It also referred to a distinctive subculture - eventually there were cypherpunk novels, Snowcrash, Cryptonomicon, Indecent Communications; a cypherpunk porno film, Cryptic Seduction; and even a distinctive cypherpunks dress: broad-brimmed black hats. Most importantly, however, it referred to a political-ideological crusade.

At the core of the cypherpunk philosophy was the belief that the great question of politics in the age of the internet was whether the state would strangle individual freedom and privacy through its capacity for electronic surveillance or whether autonomous individuals would eventually undermine and even destroy the state through their deployment of electronic weapons newly at hand. Many cypherpunks were optimistic that in the battle for the future of humankind - between the State and the Individual - the individual would ultimately triumph. Their optimism was based on developments in intellectual history and computer software: the invention in the mid 1970s of public-key cryptography by Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman, and the creation by Phil Zimmerman in the early 1990s of a program known as PGP, 'Pretty Good Privacy'. The seminal historian of codes, David Kahn, argued that the Diffie-Hellman invention represented the most important development in cryptography since the Renaissance. Zimmerman's PGP program democratised their invention and provided individuals, free of cost, with access to public-key cryptography and thus the capacity to communicate with others in near-perfect privacy. Although George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four was one of the cypherpunks' foundational texts, because of the combination of public-key cryptography and PGP software, they tended to believe that in the coming battle between Big Brother and Winston Smith, the victor might be Winston Smith.

At the time the cypherpunks formed, the American government strongly opposed the free circulation of public-key cryptography. It feared that making it available would strengthen the hands of the espionage agencies of America's enemies abroad and of terrorists, organised criminals, drug dealers and pornographers at home. For the cypherpunks, the question of whether cryptography would be freely available would determine the outcome of the great battle of the age. Their most important practical task was to write software that would expand the opportunities for anonymous communication made possible by public-key cryptography. One of the key projects of the cypherpunks was 'remailers', software systems that made it impossible for governments to trace the passage from sender to receiver of encrypted email traffic. Another key project was 'digital cash', a means of disguising financial transactions from the state.

Almost all cypherpunks were anarchists who regarded the state as the enemy. Most but not all were anarchists of the Right, or in American parlance, libertarians, who supported laissez-faire capitalism. The most authoritative political voice among the majority libertarian cypherpunks was Tim May, who, in 1994, composed a vast, truly remarkable document, "Cyphernomicon". May called his system crypto-anarchy. He regarded crypto-anarchy as the most original contribution to political ideology of contemporary times. May thought the state to be the source of evil in history. He envisaged the future as an Ayn Rand utopia of autonomous individuals dealing with each other as they pleased. Before this future arrived, he advocated tax avoidance, insider trading, money laundering, markets for information of all kinds, including military secrets and what he called assassination markets not only for those who broke contracts or committed serious crime but also for state officials and the politicians he called "Congressrodents". He recognised that in his future world only elites with control over technology would prosper. No doubt "the clueless 95%" - whom he described as "inner city breeders" and as "the unproductive, the halt and the lame" - "would suffer, but that is only just". May acknowledged that many cypherpunks would regard these ideas as extreme. He also acknowledged that, while the overwhelming majority of cypherpunks were, like him, anarcho-capitalist libertarians, some were strait-laced Republicans, left-leaning liberals, Wobblies or even Maoists. Neither fact concerned him. The cypherpunks formed a house of many rooms. The only thing they all shared was an understanding of the political significance of cryptography and the willingness to fight for privacy and unfettered freedom in cyberspace. Like an inverse Marxist, Tim May tended to believe that the inexorable expansion of private cryptography made the victory of crypto-anarchism inevitable. A new "balance of power between individuals and larger entities" was already emerging. He predicted with some confidence "the end of governments as we know them". Another even more extreme cypherpunk of the libertarian Right, Jim Bell, like an inverse Leninist, thought that history might need a push. In mid 1995, drawing upon May's recommendation of assassination markets, he began a series explaining his "revolutionary idea", which he called "Assassination Politics". These were perhaps the most notorious and controversial postings in the history of the cypherpunks list. Bell devised a system in which citizens could contribute towards a lottery fund for the assassination of particular government officials. The prize would go to the person who correctly predicted the date of the death. The winner would obviously be the official's murderer. However, through the use of public-key cryptography, remailers and digital cash, from the time they entered the competition to the collection of the prize no one except the murderer would be aware of their identity. Under the rubric "tax is theft" all government officials and politicians were legitimate targets of assassination. Journalists would begin to ask of politicians, "why should you not be killed?" As prudence would eventually dictate that no one take the job, the state would simply wither away. Moreover, as assassination lotteries could be extended across borders, no leader would again risk taking their people to war. Eventually, through the idea of the assassination lottery, then, not only would the era of anarchy arise across the globe, the condition of permanent peace humankind had long dreamt of would finally come to pass. Bell ended his 20,000 word series of postings with these words. "Is all this wishful thinking? I really don't know." A year or so later he was arrested on tax avoidance charges.

Julian Assange joined the cypherpunks email list in late 1995 at the time the controversy over "Assassination Politics" was raging. There were many reasons Assange was likely to be attracted to the cypherpunks. As his encounter with Richard Lowenstein had revealed, he was already interested in the connection between privacy and encrypted communication. Even before his arrest he had feared the intrusion into his life of the totalitarian surveillance state. An atmosphere of paranoia pervaded the cypherpunks list. Assange believed that he had been wrongly convicted of what he called a "victimless crime". The struggle against victimless crimes - the right to consume pornography, to communicate in cyberspace anonymously, to distribute cryptographic software freely - was at the centre of the cypherpunks' political agenda. Moreover the atmosphere of the list was freewheeling - racism, sexism, homophobia were common. Not only Tim May believed that political correctness had turned Americans into "a nation of sheep". On the cypherpunks list no one would disapprove of "The Dan Farmer rag". Yet there was probably more to it than all this. Cypherpunks saw themselves as Silicon Valley Masters of the Universe. It must have been more than a little gratifying for a self-educated antipodean computer hacker, who had not even completed high school, to converse on equal terms with professors of mathematics, whiz-kid businessmen and some of the leading computer code-writers in the world.

Julian Assange contributed to the cypherpunks list from December 1995 until June 2002. As it happens, almost all his interventions have been placed on the internet. On the basis of what historians call primary evidence, the mind and character of Julian Assange can be seen at the time of his obscurity.

The first thing that becomes dear is the brashness. Over a technical dispute, he writes: "[B]oy are you a dummy." When someone asks for assistance in compiling a public list of hackers with handles, names, email addresses, Assange responds: "Are you on this list of morons?" In a dispute over religion and intolerance one cypherpunk had written: "Because those being hatefully intolerant have the 'right' beliefs as to what the Bible says. Am I a racist if I don't also include an example from the Koran?" "No, just an illiterate", Assange replied. Following a savaging from Assange for total computer incompetence, a hapless cypherpunk pointed out that he has been writing code since the age of 14. If one thing is clear from the cypherpunks list, it is that the young Julian Assange did not suffer those he regarded as fools gladly.

In his posts there is humour, although often it is sarcastic. In one of his earliest interventions Assange has read about the arrest of someone caught with diesel fuel and fertiliser. "Looks like I've just been placed into the ranks of the pyro-terrorist. Golly, Deisel [sic] fuel. Gosh, Fertilizer. Ma, other items." Some posts reflect his faith in the theory of evolution. Assange forwarded an article about the role played by the CIA in supplying crack gangs in Los Angeles. A cypherpunk responded: "I wish they'd get back to the business, but add an overt poison to the product. Clean out the shit from the cities. Long live Darwinism." "Darwinism is working as well as it ever was. You may not like it but shit is being selected for," Assange shot back. Other posts reflect his recent life experiences. Assange had helped Victoria Police break a paedophile ring in 1993. On the cypherpunks list he defended the circulation of child pornography on the internet on the grounds that it would cut the need for new production and make it easier for police to capture paedophiles. In another post he expressed deep anger at perceived injustice regarding those with whom he identifies - convicted hackers. One, Tsutomu Shimamura, had not only played a role in the hunting down of a notorious American fellow hacker, Kevin Mitnick (known personally to Assange through his research for Underground), but had even co-authored a book about it, Takedown. "This makes me ill. Tsutomu, when Mitnick cracks will you dig up his grave and rent his hands out as ash trays?" Assange also posted on the reports of violence against another hacker, Ed Cummings AKA Bernie S, imprisoned in the US. "I was shocked. I've had some dealings with the SS ... Those that abuse their power and inflict grave violence on others must be held accountable and their crimes deplored and punished in the strongest manner. Failure to do so merely creates an environment where such behaviour becomes predominant."

Already there are qualities in Assange's postings unusual in the standard cypherpunk. One is a fascination with language. Assange acquired a software program that created anagrams. The deepest institutional enemy of the cypherpunks was the National Security Agency. Assange put the name into his computer. Among the anagrams that emerged were: "National Anti-Secrecy Guy"; "Secret Analytic Guy Union"; "Caution Laying Any Secret"; "Insane, ugly, acne atrocity"; and, Assange's apparent favourite: "National Gay Secrecy Unit". He was also interested in what he described as "tracking language drift; i.e. the relative change in word frequency on the internet as time goes by". He informed the cypherpunks that he had just discovered that in a "10 billion word corpus" the following frequency occurred:

God - 2.177,242

America - 2,178,046

Designed - 2,181,106

Five - 2,189,194

December - 2,190,028

His eccentricity would also have been obvious after a member of the 'firewalls' list forwarded his MARUTUKKU fantasia to cypherpunks.

Where did Assange stand with regard to the radical cypherpunks agenda of Tim May? This question is best answered in two parts. On the question of cryptographic freedom and hostility towards the surveillance state and its chief embodiment - the National Security Agency - Assange was, if anything, even more absolute and extreme than May. In September 1996, Esther Dyson, the chair of the lobby group for freedom in cyberspace, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, was quoted in the Los Angeles Times as being in favour of certain extremely limited restrictions on internet anonymity. On the cypherpunks list a furious controversy, called "The Esther Dyson Fuss", broke out. Some cypherpunks defended Dyson on the ground that she had every right to argue a more nuanced position and that it was anyhow healthy for individuals to speak their mind. May vehemently disagreed. The issue was not her freedom of speech. A critical moment in the battle between freedom and surveillance had arrived. Dyson had defected to the enemy camp. Assange went further. He launched a stinging ad hominem attack.

Examining in detail Dyson's interests it appears she maintains a sizeable and longstanding interest in East European technology companies. She is also very far to the right of the political spectrum (rampant capitalist would be putting it mildly). She also speaks Russian. I'm not saying she's been working for the CIA for the past decade, but I would be very surprised if the CIA has not exerted quite significant pressure ... in order to bring her into their folds during that time period.

"At least you don't accuse me of being a Communist," Dyson responded. "For the record, I am not a tool of the CIA nor have they pressured me, but there's no reason for you to believe me." Perhaps Dyson remembered the incident. When Assange was in trouble last year she wrote a piece on the Salon website arguing that even unpleasant characters need to be defended.

A month or so after September 11 a controversy broke out on the cypherpunks list over the report of a civilised discussion about increased FBI surveillance over internet communications between Mitch Kapor, a co-founder and former board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Stu Baker, an attorney who had once been employed by the National Security Agency. Some cypherpunks had some sympathy for Kapor's moderation. Even they recognised that with September 11 something major had occurred. One pointed out, in addition, that Stu Baker was "a gun for hire, not a doctrinaire blinders-on true believer for either the surveillance enthusiasts or privacy freaks". This was too much for Assange:

Stu is a well known NSA zealot. The only reason there's a bridge between Kapor and Baker is due to the cavernous ravine that lays [sic] between them. Kapor is now apparently half-way across, following Stu's silently beckoning finger, fearfully running from the sounds of angel's wings fooled into believing that they lie behind and not ahead of him.

From beginning to end Assange was, in short, a hardline member of the tendency among the cypherpunks that Tim May called the "rejectionists", an enemy or those who displayed even the slightest tendency to compromise on the question of Big Brother and the surveillance state.

On another question, however, Assange was at the opposite end of the cypherpunks spectrum from Tim May. At no stage did Assange show sympathy for the anarcho-capitalism of the cypherpunks mainstream. In October ]996, a prominent cypherpunk, Duncan Frissell, claimed that in the previous fiscal year the American government had seized more tax than any government in history. Assange pointed out that, as the US was the world's largest economy and that its GDP had grown in the previous rear, this was a ridiculous statement designed to be deceptive. In October 2001, Declan McCullagh expressed "surprise" when a "critique of laissez-faire capitalism" appeared on the cypherpunks list "of all places". Assange replied:

Declan, Declan.

Put away your straw man ... Nobel economic laureates have been telling us for years to be careful about idealised market models ... This years [sic] Nobel for Economics won by George A. Akerlof, A. Michael Spence and Joseph E. Stiglitz "for their analysis of markets with assymmetric [sic] information" is typical. You don't need a Nobel to realize that the relationship between a large employer and employee is brutally assymmetric [sic] ... To counter this sort of assymetery. [sic] Employees naturally start trying to collectivise to increase their information processing and bargaining power. That's right. UNIONS Declan. Those devious entities that first world companies and governments have had a hand in suppressing all over the third world by curtailing freedom of association, speech and other basic political rights we take for granted.

Assange was, then, an absolutist crypto-anarchist but one who leant decidedly to the Left. Mainstream cypherpunks did not defend trade unions or speak negatively of "rampant capitalists" and positively of "human rights activists". He was an electronic but not an economic libertarian.

There is also evidence that Assange was increasingly repelled by the corrosive cynicism common in cypherpunks ranks. Something in his spirit seems to have changed after his trial and the writing of his MARUTUKKU mythology. From 1997 to 2002 Julian Assange accompanied all his cypherpunks postings with this beautiful passage from Antoine de Saint-Exupery. "If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea." On one occasion in July 1999 William H Geiger III presented standard Ayn Rand Objectivist praise of human selfishness. "Everyone is a predator out to advance their own agenda at the expence [sic] of others. Tim is just more honest than most about it." Assange replied with a defence of altruism, for Objectivists an evil.

No ... Everyone maybe self-interested. but some are self-interested in a way that is healthy (to you, or the people you care about), some in a way which is benign. and some in a manner that is pernicious. It is important to distinguish between these different behaviours and support or undermine them accordingly.

On another occasion, a cypherpunk suggested that in I the great struggle for privacy and against censorship ordinary people could not give a damn. Perhaps with Tim May's contempt for "the clueless 95%" in his mind, in March 2002, in what was one of his final cypherpunks postings, Assange responded: "The 95% of the population which comprise the flock have never been my target and neither should they be yours; it's the 2.5% at either end of the normal that I find in my sights, one to be cherished and the other to be destroyed." Already he seems to have imagined the future as a struggle to the death between autocratic elites and electronic freedom fighters. Increasingly, Assange began to mock Tim May. Many thought of May as an anti.Semite, with good reason. In November 2001, when May used a quote from a cypherpunk fellow traveller, David Friedman (Milton's son), Assange emailed: "Quoting Jews again, Tim?"

Julian Assange was a regular contributor to the cypherpunks mailing list particularly before its decline in late 1997 following a meltdown over the question of the possible moderation of the list - censorship! - and the departure of John Gilmore. The cypherpunks list clearly mattered to him deeply. Shortly before his travels in 1998, Assange asked whether anyone could send him a complete archive of the list between 1992 and the present time. While commentators have comprehensively failed to see the significance of the cypherpunks in shaping the thought of Julian Assange, this is something insiders to the movement understand. When Jeanne Whalen from the Wall Street Journal approached John Young of Cryptome in August last year, he advised her to read the Assange cypherpunk postings he had just placed on the internet, and also Tim May's "Cyphernomicon". "This background has not been explored in the WikiLeaks saga. And WikiLeaks cannot be understood without it." Likewise, in his mordant online article on WikiLeaks and Assange, the influential cyberpunk novelist and author of The Hacker Crackdown Bruce Sterling wrote: "At last - at long last - the homemade nitroglycerin in the old cypherpunks blast shack has gone off. "

In 2003 Julian Assange seems to have considered living a more conventional life. He went to the University of Melbourne to study mainly mathematics and physics. As a student of mathematics his results were mediocre. This can hardly be explained by lack of talent. No one worked more closely with Assange than Suelette Dreyfus. "A geek friend of his once described Assange as having an IQ 'in excess of 170'," she wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald of 12 December 2010. "I suspect this could be true." Assange claimed that he became disillusioned with the applied maths department when he discovered its members were working with defence authorities in the US on a military bulldozer adapted to desert conditions known as "The Grizzly Plough". He also claimed that visits to the ANU were thoroughly dispiriting. On one occasion he represented University of Melbourne students at a competition. "At the prize ceremony, the head of ANU physics motioned to us and said, 'you are the cream of Australian physics.' I looked around and thought, 'Christ Almighty I hope he's wrong.''' On another occasion he saw 900 senior physicists in Canberra proudly carrying bags with the logo of the Defence Science and Technology Organisation. He described them as "snivelling fearful conformists of woefully inferior character".

Perhaps there were other reasons for dissatisfaction. By 2004 Assange had reached the elevated position of vice-president of the students' Mathematics and Statistics Society and chief organiser of their Puzzle Hunt - a quiz leading the winner to $200 of buried treasure. He described his role as "plot/script, general nonsense, Abstract(ion), Caesar Cipher, Disc, Platonic, Score, Surstro:mming". Organising a puzzle hunt was a somewhat less engrossing ambition than planning world revolution. And towards the end of his studies this was exactly what he was doing. A female friend provided the journalist Nikki Barrowclough with a vivid portrait of the atmosphere of a share house close-by the University of Melbourne that Assange lived in at this time.

There were beds everywhere, she says. There was even a bed in the kitchen. This woman slept on a mattress in Assange's room, and says she would sometimes wake up in the middle of the night to find him still glued to his computer. He frequently forgot to eat or sleep, wrote mathematical formulas all over the walls and the doors, and used only red light bulbs in his room - on the basis that early man, if waking suddenly, would see only the gentle light of the campfire, and fall asleep again.

Between July 2006 and August 2007 - the period when WikiLeaks was being planned and actualised - Julian Assange maintained a blog at IQ.ORG, some of which he collected under the title "Selected Correspondence". The correspondence can still be found on the internet. Because of its existence, a detailed map of his mind at the age of 35 and at the moment of WikiLeaks' creation is available. Strangely enough, even though there are now some 27 million Google entries on Assange, so far as I am aware no one has offered an analysis. When Domscheit-Berg released his memoir in mid February there was excitement around the globe at his claim that Assange had boasted about fathering several children. On his blog, Assange includes a photo of a bonneted baby under the title "Those Eyes" with the caption, "All the pink ribbons in the world can't hide them." She is his new daughter. In an email of January 2007 he asks someone who is about to publish confidential email correspondence to remove at least the reference to IQ.ORG, which is "near my daughters [sic] photo". The existence of Assange's son, Daniel, is well known. However, if any journalist had read the evidence closely we would not have needed to wait for Domscheit-Berg to learn of at least one of Assange's more recent "love children".

The blog reveals a young man of unusual intellectual range, ambition and curiosity. As expected, there are references to cypherpunks and his work as a code-writer in the free software movement. Assange writes of his loathing for the " 'everything which is not permitted is denied' security types" who "make concurrent salutes to the Fuhrer, Baal and Jack Straw". He explains why as one of the committed developers of NetBSD he has refused to sign a proposed contract: "The contract as well as being an instrument of the state is written in the demeaning language of the corporate state. It should have been written in the language of the programmer world." Some entries, such as his defence of altruism, are familiar to those who have followed his postings on the cypherpunks list. Many others have the range and also eccentricity revealed in his MARUTUKKU performance. There are abstract speculations on philosophy, mathematics, neuroscience, human physiology, the law, history and sociology.

There are also very striking and revealing extracts. One is from a Buddhist text from 500 BC, Ajita Kesakamhal, in defence of materialism. "The words of those who speak of existence after death are false, empty chatter. With the breakup of the body, the wise and the foolish are alike annihilated, destroyed." Another is a wonderful story from the Nazi concentration camp. A Jewish inmate can save his daughter if he chooses which eye of his guard is glass. He chooses the left eye, correctly. His guard asks how he knew. '' 'I'm sorry,' trembled Moshe, 'but the left eye looks at me with a kindly gleam.' '' Assange has great interest in the history of European totalitarianism. One extract is a poem - "bad ... but elevated by its monumental context" - about the atom bomb spies Ethel and Julius Rosenberg: "Even so, we did what we believed in: / Treason, yes, but with good cause." There is also a long extract from an article about the problems besetting those possessing super-high IQs, such as the unfulfilled genius William James Sidis. It concludes with these words: "And so we see that the explanation for the Sidis tragedy is simple. Sidis was a feral child, a true man born into a world filled with animals - a world filled with us." It is not difficult to understand why this article interested him.

Entries on the blog concerning women prefigure future problems. Some passages are awkward in a Mills & Boon kind of way - "a lovely girl I knew ... stood for a moment fully clothed in her shower before letting the wind and rain buffet her body as she made her tremulous approach to my door and of course I could not turn her away." Others are rather sinister, like his study of the etymology of the word 'cad'. "Caddie or cadet used to denote the passenger of a horse-coach picked up for personal profit by the driver ... So a 'cad' is a man who picks up women, profits from them and leaves them by the road side ... Such romantic etymology is enough to make a man want to don his oilskin and mount his horse with whip and smile at the ready." This coldness is striking because other passages in the correspondence are tender. Assange writes of meeting Antony, a country kid he had known since they were both 14, at a mental health centre in East Ringwood. "His smile was shaky but characteristic. His physical edges rounded off by weight gain and his imagination dulled... His limbs and jaw gently shuddered with some frequency," Assange visited him later still at a psychiatric hospital. "When I asked about the cause of his shaking, suggesting a dopamine antagonist, he said, 'No ... If you look closely you'll notice a number of people around here acting the same way. Julian... we're all doing the Mont Park shuffle.' "

What is most important about the correspondence, however, is that in it we can hear for the first time Julian Assange's distinctive political voice. As a former cypherpunk crypto-anarchist the enemy for him is, unsurprisingly, that abstraction he calls the State. "Where words have power to change, the state tries hard to trap, burn or blank them, such is its fear of their power." The state represents the principle of "mendacity". "The state does what it can get away with." True understanding requires the individual "to know the state for what it really is", Yet, unlike most of his fellow cypherpunks, by now Assange unambiguously extends his idea of the state to big business. In thinking about the US, in one blog entry, he asks: "What kinds of states arc giant corporations?" He answers in the following way. As executive power is wielded by a central committee; as there is unaccountable single-party rule; as there is no freedom of speech or association, and pervasive surveillance of movement and electronic communication", what then do you have in that federation of giant corporations that control the US? What else but a "United Soviet of America". Assange is a profound anti-communist. But he regards power in western society as belonging to political and economic elites offering ordinary people nothing more nourishing than a counterfeit conception of democracy and a soul-destroying consumption culture. He points out that when the American colonists waged their struggle for independence there was no talk of shopping or even democracy. Such shallow ideas could not stir the passions.

Assange's selected correspondence is addressed to a small coterie of followers. It involves a revolutionary call to arms. "If we can only live once, then let it be a daring adventure that draws on all our powers ... Let our grandchildren delight to find the start of our stories in their ears but the endings all around in their wandering eyes." Assange seems not particularly interested in future political institutions or in economic arrangements. The revolution he speaks about is moral. He believes that individual action can re-fashion the world. The state may do "what it can get away with" but it does "what we let it get away with" and even "what we let ourselves get away with, for we, in our interactions with others, form the state". Over the whole selected correspondence there is a quotation from the German-Jewish revolutionary anarchist Gustav Landauer, beaten to death by right-wing troops after the Munich soviet experiment of 1919. "The state is a condition, a certain relationship between human beings, a mode of behaviour. We destroy it by contracting other relationships, by behaving differently toward one another ... We are the state and we shall continue to be the state until we have created the institutions that form a real community and society of men." The question is how new institutions can be formed.

In the struggle to create a truly human society, Assange warns his interlocutors not to believe they can think globally but act locally. This is an illusion. Action must be taken on a truly global scale. He is also witheringly contemptuous of those he calls "the typical shy intellectual".

This type is often of a noble heart, wilted by fear of conflict with authority. The power of their intellect and noble instincts may lead them to a courageous position, where they see the need to take up arms, but their instinctive fear of authority then motivates them to find rationalizations to avoid conflict.

For Assange the central political virtue is courage. One of his favourite sayings is: "Courage is contagious." He attributes it to the Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg. In fact it was coined by the evangelist Billy Graham. Assange's politics are also generational. "Perhaps as an old man I will take great comfort in pottering around in a lab and gently talking to students in the summer evening and will accept suffering with insouciance. But not now; men in their prime, if they have convictions are tasked to act on them."

For Assange the great moving forces in history are the need for Love and the thirst for Truth. In his final piece in the selected correspondence, Assange admits that often "outcomes are treated with more reverence than Truth".

Yet just as we feel all hope is lost and we sink into the miasma, back to the shadow world of ghosts and gods, a miracle arises, everywhere before the direction of self interest is known, people yearn to see where its compass points and then they hunger for truth with passion and beauty and insight ... Here then is the truth to set them free. Free from the manipulations and constraints of the mendacious. Free to choose their path, free to remove the ring from their noses, free to look up into the infinite void and choose wonder over whatever gets them through. And before this feeling to cast blessings on the profits and prophets of truth ... on the Voltaires, the Galileos and Principias of truth, on the Gutenbergs, Marconis and Internets of truth, those serial killers of delusion, those brutal, driven and obsessed miners of reality, smashing, smashing, smashing every rotten edifice until all is ruins and the seeds of the new.

But how will the rotten edifice be smashed? On 22 November 2006 Assange provides a link to a paper. He tells his coterie of readers: "No. Don't skip to the good stuff. This is the good stuff," He is pointing them to the central theoretical breakthrough that led to WikiLeaks.

Julian Assange published this paper twice, the first time on 10 November 2006 under the title "State and Terrorist Conspiracies", the second time, in more developed form, on 3 December under the title "Conspiracy as Governance". Stripped of its inessential mathematical gobbledegook, its argument goes like this. The world is at present dominated by the conspiratorial power of authoritarian governments and big business corporations, As President Theodore Roosevelt understood, behind "ostensible governments", there exists "an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul this unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of statesmanship." Authoritarian governments and corporations maintain and entrench their power through a conspiracy. For Assange the conspiracy involves the maintenance of a network of links between the conspirators, some vital, some less so. Conspiracies naturally provoke resistance. Among revolutionaries of earlier generations resistance has involved the attempt to break the links between the leaders of the conspiracy by "assassination ... killing, kidnapping, blackmailing, or otherwise marginalising or isolating some of the conspirators they were connected to". Such methods are no longer appropriate. "The act of assassination - the targeting of visible individuals, is the result of mental inclinations honed for the pre-literate societies in which our species evolved." The new generation of revolutionaries "must think beyond those who have gone before us, and discover technological changes that embolden us with ways to act in which our forebears could not".

Contemporary conspiracies rely on unrestricted information flow to adapt to and control their environments. Conspirators need to be able to speak freely to each other and to disarm resistance by spreading disinformation among I the people they control, something they presently very successfully achieve. Conspirators who have control over information flow are infinitely more powerful than those who do not. Drawing on a passage from Lord Halifax in which political parties are described as "conspiracies against the rest of the nation", Assange asks his readers to imagine what would happen in the struggle between the Republican and Democratic parties in the US "if one of these parties gave up their mobile phones, fax and email correspondence - let alone the computer systems that manage their subscribes [sic], donors, budgets, polling, call centres and direct mail campaigns", He asks them to think of the conspiracy as a living organism, "a beast with arteries and veins whose blood may be thickened and slowed until it faIls, stupefied; unable to sufficiently comprehend and control the forces in its environment". Rather than attacking the conspiracy by assassinating its leading members, he believes it can be "throttled" by cutting its information flows. "Later," he promises, "we will see how technology and insights into the psychological motivations of conspirators can give us practical methods for preventing or reducing important communication between authoritarian conspirators, foment strong resistance to authoritarian planning and create powerful incentives for more humane forms of governance."

The promise is fulfilled in a blog entry of 31 December 2006. Here he outlines finally the idea at the core of the WikiLeaks strategy.

The more secretive or unjust an organization is, the more leaks induce fear and paranoia in the leadership and planning coterie. This must result in minimization of efficient internal communications mechanisms (an increase in cognitive 'secrecy tax') and consequent system-wide cognitive decline resulting in decreased ability to hold onto power as the environment demands adaptation.

Hence in a world where leaking is easy, secretive or unjust systems are nonlinearly hit relative to open, just systems. Since unjust systems, by their nature induce opponents, and in many places barely have the upper hand, leaking leaves them exquisitely vulnerable to those who seek to replace them with more open forms of governance.

There is a direct link between Assange's cypherpunks period and the theory behind WikiLeaks. As we have seen, Assange joined the cypherpunks list at the time when Jim Bell's "Assassination Politics" was being hotly discussed. There is evidence that Assange was fascinated by the idea. In January 1998 he had come upon an advertisement for a prize - "Scoop the Grim Reaper. Who Will Live? Who Will Die?" - which was to be awarded to the person who guessed on what dates certain Hollywood celebrities would die. "Anyone noticed this before?" Assange posted the advertisement on the cypherpunks list under the heading: "Jim ... Bell ... lives ... on ...in ... Hollywood". The similarity between Bell's thought and Assange's are unmistakable. Like Bell, Assange was possessed by a simple "revolutionary idea" about how to create a better world. As with Bell, the idea emerged from reflection upon the political possibilities created by untraceable anonymous communication, through the use of remailers and unbreakable public-key cryptography. The differences are also clear. Unlike with Bell, the revolution Assange imagined would be non-violent. The agent of change would not be the assassin but the whistleblower. The method would not be the bullet but the leak. "Conspiracy as Governance" can most accurately be interpreted as his answer to "Assassination Politics".

In arriving at this position, Assange had drawn together three different personal experiences. From his custody battles in the 1990s he had become interested in the political potency of leaks. From his cypherpunk days he had become interested in the political possibilities of untraceable encrypted communication. And from his involvement in the free software movement he had seen what collective democratic intellectual enterprise might achieve. In essence, his conclusion was that world politics could be transformed by staunching the flow of information among corrupt power elites by making them ever more fearful of insider leaks. He believed he could achieve this by establishing an organisation that would allow whistleblowers from all countries to pass on their information, confident that their identities would not be able to be discovered. He proposed that his organisation would then publish the information for the purpose of collective analysis so as to empower oppressed populations across the globe.

There are few original ideas in politics. In the creation of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange was responsible for one.

In late 2006 Assange sought a romantic partner through OKCupid in the name of Harry Harrison. Under the heading, "What am I doing with my life?", he answered: "directing a consuming, dangerous human rights project which is, as you might expect, male-dominated". Under the heading, "I spend a lot of time thinking about", he answered: "Changing the world through passion, inspiration and trickery". There was something distinctly Walter Mittyish about it all. Under the informal leadership of Julian Assange, a group of mainly young men, without resources and linked only by computers, now began to implement their plans for a peaceful global political revolution.

On 4 October Assange registered the domain name "WikiLeaks.org" in the US. He called it WikiLeaks because he had been immensely impressed by the success of the Wikipedia experiment, where 3 million entries had been contributed through the input of a worldwide virtual community. As he put it, WikiLeaks would be to leaks what Wikipedia was to the encyclopedia. Strangely and perhaps revealingly, it was registered under the names of two fathers, his biological one, John Shipton, and his cypherpunk political one, John Young, a New York architect who ran the intelligence leak website Cryptome, which could be seen as WikiLeaks' predecessor. Assange explained his request for assistance to Young like this:

You knew me under another name from cypherpunks days. I am involved in a project that you may have a feeling for ... The project is a mass document leaking project that requires someone with backbone to hold the .org domain registration ... We expect the domain to come under the usual political and legal pressure. The policy for .org requires that registrants names not be false or misleading. It would be an easy play to cancel the domain unless someone were willing to stand up and claim to be the registrant.

The choice of Young reveals something about Assange. For Young was undoubtedly the most militant security cypherpunk of all, who had published on his website an aerial photo of Dick Cheney's hideout bunker, a photograph of the home of Fox News's Bill O'Reilly, and the names of 276 British and some 600 Japanese intelligence agents and 2619 CIA "sources". Young was also Jim Bell's greatest champion. After Bell's arrest and imprisonment, Young nominated him for the Chrysler Award for Innovation in Design. Bell had, he argued in his nomination, contributed "an imaginative and sophisticated prospective for improving governmental accountability by way of a scheme for anonymous, untraceable political assassination".

A potential WikiLeaks logo in development, 2006, as published by Cryptome. (c) Wikileaks

Serious work on the establishment of WikiLeaks began in December 2006. One of the first tasks was to decide upon a logo. Before opting for the hourglass, the WikiLeaks team thought seriously about a mole breaking through a wall above which stood three sinister authoritarian figures, arms folded. Another early task was to put together an advisory board. The first person he wanted was Daniel Ellsberg. Assange explained the purpose of WikiLeaks and why he had been approached:

We'd like your advice and we'd like you to form part of our political armor. The more armor we have, particularly in the form of men and women sanctified by age, history and class, the more we can act like brazen young men and get away with it.

Here was one generation speaking to another. A month after being contacted Ellsberg replied. "Your concept is terrific and I wish you the best of luck with it." He did not agree to join the board. Two leading cypherpunks were approached - the British computer security specialist Ben Laurie and one of the cypherpunks founders,John Gilmore. Laurie became actively involved. Gilmore instead asked the Electronic Frontier Foundation he had also co-founded to help. Assange's old cypherpunk sparring partner, Danny O'Brien, now with the EFF, offered to assist. Also approached not long after were two Chinese Tiananmen Square dissidents, a member of the Tibetan Association in Washington and Australian journalist Phillip Adams. All agreed to join the board of advisers and, then, most seem never to have heard from WikiLeaks again.

What do the early internal documents reveal about the charge that WikiLeaks was an anti-American outfit posing as a freedom of information organisation? In his invitation to Gilmore, Assange had pledged that WikiLeaks "will provide a catalyst that will bring down government through stealth everywhere, not least that of the Bushists". In its first public statement, WikiLeaks argued that "misleading leaks and misinformation are already well placed in the mainstream media ... an obvious example being the lead-up to the Iraq war".

And in an email of 2 January 2007 Assange even argued that WikiLeaks could advance by several years "the total annihilation of the current US regime and any other regime that holds its authority through mendacity alone". And yet, despite these statements, the evidence surrounding WikiLeaks' foundation makes it abundantly clear that anti-Americanism was not the primary driving force. Time and again, in its internal documents, it argued that its "roots are in dissident communities" and that its "primary targets are those highly oppressive regimes in China, Russia and central Eurasia". China is a special focus. One or more of WikiLeaks' inner coterie were Taiwanese hacking into Chinese government sources. At the time of its foundation, WikiLeaks claimed to have more than a million documents. Almost certainly almost all came from China. For this reason, WikiLeaks argued publicly that "a politically motivated legal attack on us would be seen as a grave error in western administrations". Concerning its targets, the formulation is precise. WikiLeaks has in its sights authoritarian governments, the increasingly authoritarian tendencies seen in the recent trajectory of the western democracies, and the authoritarian nature of contemporary business corporations.

What then of the charge that WikiLeaks was a revolutionary organisation pretending to be concerned merely with reformist liberal issues such as exposure of corruption, open government and freedom of information and expression? The internal WikiLeaks documents show that the answer to this question is complex. At its foundation, Assange frequently argued that WikiLeaks' true nature did indeed need to be disguised. Because "freedom of information is a respected liberal value", Assange argued, "we may get some sympathy" but it would not last. Inevitably governments would try to crush WikiLeaks. But if the mask of moderation was maintained, at least for some time, opposition would be "limp wristed". A quotation from the Book of Isaiah, he believed, might be suitable "if we were to front as a Ploughshares [peace] organisation". To John Young he wrote: "We have the collective sources, personalities and learning to be, or rather appear to be, the reclusive ubermensch of the 4th estate". The emphases are mine. He also knew that if WikiLeaks was to prosper, and also to win support from philanthropic bodies such as the Soros Foundation, the hacker-cypherpunk origin of the inner circle needed to be disguised. "We expect difficult state lashback [sic] unless WikiLeaks can be given a sanctified frame ('centre for human rights, democracy, good government and apple pie press freedom project' vs 'hackers strike again')." The key to WikiLeaks was that its true revolutionary ambitions and its moderate liberal public face would be difficult for opponents to disentangle. Open government and freedom of information were standard liberal values. However, as explained in the theory outlined in "Conspiracy as Governance", they were the values in whose name authoritarian structures would be undermined world-wide, through the drying up of information flows and a paralysing fear of insider leaks.

It was not only opponents who found it difficult to keep the public and private faces of WikiLeaks distinct. Despite those involved understanding the need for disguise, at its foundation the excitement was so palpable and the ambition so boundless that, when it was called upon to explain itself, the mask of apple pie liberal reformist moderation instantly fell away. On 3 January 2007 a small crisis arose when WikiLeaks' existence was prematurely revealed. Assange immediately put together a brilliant description of WikiLeaks for public release.

Principled leaking has changed the course of human history for the better; it can alter the course of history in the present, it can lead to a better future ... Public scrutiny of otherwise unaccountable and secretive institutions pressures them to act ethically. What official will chance a secret corrupt transaction when the public is likely to find out? ... When the risks of embarrassment through openness and honesty increase, the tables are turned against conspiracy, corruption, exploitation and oppression ... Instead of a couple of academic specialists, WL will provide a forum for the entire global community to examine any document relentlessly for credibility, plausibility, veracity and falsifiability ... WL may become the most powerful intelligence agency on earth, an intelligence agency of the people m WL will be an anvil at which beats the hammer of the collective conscience of humanity... WL, we hope, will be a new star in the political firmament of humanity.

Julian Assange recognised that the language of what amounted to the WikiLeaks Manifesto might appear a little "overblown". He recognised that it had about it too much the flavour of "anarchy". But in general when it was written he was pleased.

John Young was not. In early January 2007 he decided that WikiLeaks was a CIA-backed fraud. "Fuck your cute hustle and disinformation campaign. Same old shit, working for the enemy ... Fuck 'em all." "We are going to fuck them all. Chinese mostly but not entirely a feint," Assange cryptically replied, Young decided now to post all the WikiLeaks correspondence between early December 2006 and early January 2007 on his website. Later, in 2010, he published Assange's contributions to the cypherpunks list between 1995 and 2002. It is because of his baseless suspicion that the mind of Julian Assange and the intellectual origins of WikiLeaks are able to be understood.

In February 2007, Julian Assange travelled to Nairobi to attend the World Social Forum, a very large gathering of mainly left-wing human rights activists and NGOs. He stayed on in Kenya for several months, involved with anti-corruption forces but also fascinated and repelled by the world of superstition he encountered:

Here, in Africa there was a two page fold out on the 'Night Runner' plague. Plague? Yes, Of people - typically old, who supposedly run around naked at night ... tapping on windows, throwing rocks on peoples [sic] roofs, snapping twigs, rustling grass, casting spells and getting lynched because it's the' right thing to do' .

Insofar as we can affect the world. let it be to utterly eliminate guilt and fear as a motivator of man and replace it cell for cell with love of one another and the passion of creation.

Assange was a true Enlightenment Man.

The next Social Forum was to be held between 27 June and 4 July in Atlanta. Assange wanted WikiLeaks volunteers to attend. Emails he sent in early June can be found on the internet. They provide the clearest evidence of his political viewpoint and strategic thinking at this time. In the first he assures his supporters that WikiLeaks' future is secure. "[T]he idea can't be stopped. It's everyone's now." Some people have apparently argued that WikiLeaks' idealism or "childlike naivety" is a weakness. He believes they are entirely wrong. "Naivety is unfailingly attractive when it adorns strength. People rush forward to defend and fight for individuals and organizations imbued with this quality." Confronted by it, "virtuous sophisticates" are "marooned". Some people are clearly worried that WikiLeaks will be captured by "the Left". Assange assures his followers they need not be concerned. In the US the problem is rather that WikiLeaks is seen as too close to the CIA and American foreign policy. In fact, "we'll take our torch to all." Some people have dearly expressed doubts about Social Forum types. Assange more than shares them. They are by and large "ineffectual pansies" who "specialize in making movies about themselves and throwing 'dialogue' parties ... with foundation money", while fantasising that "the vast array of functional cogs in brute inhumanity... would follow their lead, clapping, singing and videotaping their way up Mt. Mostly Harmless". In Africa Assange has seen human rights fighters of real backbone. He warns his followers not to expect to find such people in the US. He quotes at length from Solzhenitsyn's 1979 Harvard address about the radical decline of "civic courage" in the West especially among the "ruling and intellectual elites". Nonetheless, to advance WikiLeaks' cause, the Social Forum - the world's biggest NGO "beach party" - matters. Assange anticipates that anti-Iraq War feeling will hold it together. Although WikiLeaks has so far concentrated on "the most closed governments", he explains that it is about to publish explosive material on American "involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan". He hopes that the anti-war movement will embrace these documents so that WikiLeaks can avoid the "retributive" blast from pro-war forces. It is vital to position itself "as everyone's friend". If anyone still needs it, this despatch is proof that Assange has a biting tongue, a mordant wit and a brilliant political mind.

It is obvious that by June 2007 several members of the Left had indeed gravitated to WikiLeaks. In Assange's view, this group were thinking of publishing commentary on leaked documents in a way that allowed their political bias to show. He sent a different email to them:

OK, you guys need to keep the Progressive Commie Socialist agendas and rhetoric to yourselves or you're going to go nowhere very, very fast. Now, now, don't get your dander up: if I can pass by gross mis-characterizations of the existing world order as 'capitalism' or 'white supremacy' I you can stay calm and listen a minute.

WikiLeaks was in danger, he argued, of being positioned either as a CIA front by John Young types or as a same-old left-wing outfit "preaching to the choir". All partisanship would be lethal. WikiLeaks needed to keep itself open to whistleblowers of all stripes - even "conservative and religious types waking up to the fact that they've been taken for a ride". "What you need to strive for is the same level of objectivity and analytical disinterest as the League of Women Voters. No, even higher. Else I'll be so disheartened that I'll lower myself to government contracting work." This email is not only illuminating from the point of view of WikiLeaks' grand strategy. It is also decisive as to his true political position. Assange might have been on the left of the spectrum by anarcho-capitalist cypherpunk standards but he was by no means a standard leftist. His politics were anti-establishment but genuinely beyond Left and Right.

Between 2007 and 2010 Assange's political thinking was shaped by two key ideas. The first, as we have seen, was that all authoritarian structures - both governments and corporations - were vulnerable to insider leaks. Fear would throttle information /lows. Assange called this a "secrecy tax". Inevitably, he argued, because of this tax, governments and corporations with nothing to hide would triumph over their secretive, unjust conspiratorial competitors. This aspect of his politics amounted to a kind of political Darwinism, a belief not in the survival of the fittest but of the most transparent and most just. As an organisation that encouraged whistleblowers and published their documents, WikiLeaks was aiding and speeding up this process.

There was, however, another dimension of his politics that reflected his long association with the cypherpunks. Assange believed that, in the era of globalisation, laws determining communication were going to be harmonised. The world would either opt for a closed system akin to Chinese political secrecy and American intellectual property laws, or an open system found to some extent in Belgium and Sweden. Once more, Assange hoped that WikiLeaks was assisting a positive outcome to this struggle through its role as what he called a global publisher of last resort. If WikiLeaks could survive the attacks certain to be mounted by governments and corporations, the rights of human beings to communicate freely with each other without the intervention of governments would be entrenched. WikiLeaks was, according to this argument, the canary in the mine. Assange was taken with the famous Orwell quote. He who controls the present controls the past and he who controls the past controls the future. The world was at a turning point. Either Big Brother would take control of the internet or an era of unprecedented freedom of communication would arrive.

Assange was by now in the habit of composing motivational emails for his volunteers. This is the message he sent them on 12 March 2008:

Mankind has successfully adapted changes as monumental as electricity and the engine. It can also adapt to a world where state sponsored violence against the communications of consenting adults is not only unlawful, but physically impossible. As knowledge flows across nations it is time to sum the great freedoms of every nation and not subtract them. It is time for the world as an international collective of communicating peoples to arise and say 'here I am'.

This might have come straight out of a cypherpunks manifesto. In the first weeks of 2010 Assange was involved in an ultimately successful political manoeuvre to turn Iceland into the world's first "data haven" with the most politically progressive anti-censorship laws on Earth. According to Domscheit-Berg, Assange's idea of a data haven came straight from the canonical cypherpunk novel by Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon, which ranked with Solzhenitsyn's The First Circle as Assange's favourite.

There was an aspect of WikiLeaks' work that was, through 2008 and 2009, beginning to trouble Assange. Although it was a peripatetic organisation with only four permanent staff - Assange, Domscheit-Berg and two others known as " the architect" and "the technician" - WikiLeaks had proven to be an outstanding success in attracting leaks and then publishing them. By late 2009 it had published documents concerning an Islamist assassination order from Somali; massive corruption in Daniel arap Moi's Kenya; tax avoidance by the largest Swiss bank, Julius Baer; an oil spill in Peru, a nuclear accident in Iran and toxic chemical dumping by the Trafigura corporation off the Ivory Coast. Further, it had released the Guantanamo Bay operational manuals; secret film of dissent in Tibet; the emails of Sarah Palin; a suppressed report into an assassination squad operating in Kenya; American intelligence reports on the battle of Fallujah, and reports into the conditions in its jails; the CIimategate emails; the internet censorship lists from Australia; and, finally, the loans book of the Icelandic bank Kaupthing. WikiLeaks had never been successfully sued, although Julius Baer had tried. None of the identities of the whistleblowers who sought to conceal them had been uncovered. WikiLeaks had won awards from the Economist, in 2008, and from Amnesty International, in 2009. Assange believed that WikiLeaks' information had determined a Kenyan election. He knew that the publication of the loans book in Iceland had riveted the nation, especially after Kaupthing had brought down an injunction against the national broadcaster's evening television news. And yet, as his internal communications make clear, he was puzzled and appalled by the world's indifference to his leaks.

Assange had once regarded WikiLeaks as the people's intelligence agency. In January 2007 he sincerely believed that when WikiLeaks published commentary on the Somalia assassination order document it would be "very closely collaboratively analysed by hundreds of Wikipedia editors" and by "thousands of refugees from the Somali, Ethiopian and Chinese expat communities". This simply had not happened. Commentary by the people on material produced by their intelligence agency never would. He had once hoped for engaged analysis from the blogosphere. What he now discovered were what he thought of as indifferent narcissists repeating the views of the mainstream media on "the issues de jour" with an additional flourish along the lines of "their pussy cat predicted it all along". Even the smaller newspapers were hopeless. They relied on press releases, ignorant commentary and theft. They never reported the vitally significant leaks without WikiLeaks intervention. Counterintuitively, only the major newspapers in the world, such as the New York Times or the Guardian, undertook any serious analysis but even they were self-censoring and their reportage dominated by the interests of powerful lobby groups. No one seemed truly interested in the vital material WikiLeaks offered or willing to do their Own work. He wrote to his volunteers:

What does it mean when only those facts about the world with economic powers behind them can be heard, when the truth lays [sic] naked before the world and no one will be the first to speak without a bribe? WikiLeaks' unreported material is only the most visible wave on an ocean of truth rotting in draws [sic] of the fourth estate, waiting for a lobby to subsidize its revelation into a profitable endeavour.

In Iraq, a junior American intelligence analyst, Private Bradley Manning - at least according to very convincing evidence yet to be tested in court - had been following WikiLeaks' activities with interest. On 25 November 2009 WikiLeaks released a document comprising 573,000 messages from September 11. As this material could only come from a National Security Agency leak, Manning was now convinced that WikiLeaks was genuine. Eventually, after sending WikiLeaks some cables concerning the American Ambassador in Iceland, he decided to download 93,000 logs from the Afghan War, 400,000 incident reports from the war in Iraq and 250,000 State Department cables, to which he and hundreds of thousands of American officials had access, and to send them to WikiLeaks. As a cover, he brought along Lady Gaga CDs and, while downloading these documents onto disc, pretended to be mouthing the words to the music. Some time after, he confessed to a convicted hacker, Adrian Lamo, what he had done. The most secure encryption and remailing systems were powerless against human, all-too-human frailty. Lamo in turn informed the FBI and American military authorities. Shortly after, Manning was arrested and taken to a military prison in West Virginia. Lamo also went with his evidence to a longstanding acquaintance, another convicted hacker, Kevin Poulsen, who worked at the magazine Wired. Poulsen published the log of some of the conversation between Manning and Lamo.

(12.15:11 PM) bradass87 hypothetical question: if you had free reign [sic] over classified networks for long periods of time ... say 8-9 months ... and you saw incredible things, awful things ... things that happened in the public domain, and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington DC ... what would you do?

(12.26:09 PM) bradass87 lets just say 'someone' I know intimately well, has been penetrating US classified networks, mining data like the ones described... and been transferring that data from the classified networks Over the 'air gap' onto a commercial network computer... sorting the data, compressing it, encrypting it, and uploading it to a crazy white haired aussie who can't stay in one country very long.

One of the items sent to WikiLeaks was a video of a coldblooded, American Apache helicopter attack on a group of Iraqis, in which up to 15 men were gunned down. Assange made the decision to concentrate the resources and the energies of WikiLeaks on publishing it under the title: "Collateral Murder". In early April 2010, he flew to Washington to launch it, with his temporary chief-of-staff in Iceland (where the video had been edited), Rop Gonggrijp, the Dutch veteran of Berlin's Chaos Computer Club. On 5 April, Assange addressed the National Press Club. His frustration with the indifference of the world was, to put it mildly, about to end.

For once, the cliche is true. What happened over the next ten months is stranger than fiction. With the release of the "Collateral Murder" footage, WikiLeaks became instantly famous. At the suggestion of a journalist at the Guardian, Nick Davies, Assange decided to publish the new material he had received from Manning anonymously in association with some of the world's best newspapers or magazines. Complex and heated negotiations between WikiLeaks and the Guardian, the New York Times and Der Spiegel were now conducted. Even though these negotiations are one of the less interesting aspects of this story, already three books from the news outlets involved offering their own perspectives have been published. Assange had long regarded the western media as narcissistic. It is likely that his judgement was now confirmed.

In July the first of the Manning tranche, the Afghan War Diary, was published. Assange held back only 15,000 of the 93,000 reports. Unforgivably, those released included the names of perhaps 300 Afghans who had assisted western forces. A Taliban spokesperson, Zabiullah Mujahid, claimed that a nine-member commission had been created after the documents were released "to find out about people who were spying". Assange was unrepentant. Both in private and in public, he argued that if they were collaborators they deserved to die. Assange did, however, learn from the experience. When the Iraq War logs were released in October most names had been redacted.

By now, WikiLeaks was beginning to implode. Relations between Assange and Domseheit-Berg became increasingly tense, especially after Assange warned him, in April 2010, rather alarmingly: "If you fuck up, I'll hunt you down and kill you." Some insiders such as Birgitta Jonsdottir, the anarchist Icelandic parliamentarian, were concerned about the cavalier way in which Assange had handled the moral issue of the Afghan War Diary. Many resented what they saw as the increasingly dictatorial tendency inside WikiLeaks. Assange told the Icelandic anarchist historian Herbert Snorrason: "I don't like your tone. If it continues you're out. I am the heart and soul of this organization, its founder, philosopher, spokesperson, original coder, organizer, financier, and all of the rest. If you have a problem ... piss off."

On 21 August, Assange discovered that he was under investigation for sexual crime after he slept with two Swedish supporters during a triumphal visit to Stockholm, one of whom, Anna Ardin, to complicate matters, had written advice on her blog concerning seven legal [correction] kinds of revenge women might take after sexual mistreatment. Facing these charges, Assange expected total loyalty. Neither Domscheit-Berg nor Jonsdottir were willing to give him what he wanted. Domscheit-Berg was suspended from WikiLeaks; Jonsdottir quit. The "architect" followed. He and Domscheit-Berg took the WikiLeaks' submissions with them, at least temporarily, on the grounds that its sources needed far more scrupulous protection. Yet there was more to the implosion of WikiLeaks than concerns about Assange's laxity over security, or his cavalier and dictatorial behaviour. In December, Rop Gonggrijp confessed to the Chaos Computer Club: "I guess I could make up all sorts of stories about how I disagreed with people or decisions, but the truth is that [during] the period that I helped out, the possible ramifications of WikiLeaks scared the bejezuz out of me. Courage is contagious, my ass."

Assange had taken on the power of the American state without flinching. His identification with Solzhenitsyn was no longer empty. Assange decided to release the 250,000 US Department of State cables WikiLeaks still had in its possession on drip-feed so their content could be absorbed. On 28 November the first batch was published. The American vice-president, Joe Biden, called Assange a "high-tech terrorist". The rival vice-presidential candidate of 2008, Sarah Palin, thought he should be hunted down like Osama Bin Laden, a suggestion that led Assange to quip to Paris Match that at least that option assured him of a further ten years of freedom. Visa, Mastercard and Pay Pal severed connections with WikiLeaks. A global guerrilla hacker army of WikiLeaks supporters, Anonymous, mounted an instant counterattack. Assange was by now facing two legal threats - extradition to Sweden to be interviewed about his relations with Anna Ardin and Sofia Willen or extradition to the US where a secret grand jury had been established to look into whether he had committed crimes outlined in the 1917 Espionage Act or broken some other law. After a preliminary hearing in London on the Swedish extradition request, he was first imprisoned in Wandsworth jail and then placed under a form of house arrest.

In early April 2010 hardly anyone had heard of Julian Assange. By December he was one of the most famous people on Earth, with very powerful enemies and very passionate friends. A future extradition to the US was almost certain to ignite a vast Left vs Right global cultural war, a kind of 21st-century equivalent of the Dreyfus Affair. Ironically, if that broke out, his staunchest and most eloquent defenders were likely to be people such as John Pilger or Tariq Ali, whom Assange privately had once derided as followers of the "Progressive Commie Socialist" agenda, or the left-wing American film-maker Michael Moore, whom, Domseheit-Berg tells us, Assange considered "an idiot". He would also be championed by millions of "average shy intellectuals" across the western world who had watched on passively as the political and business elites and their spin-masters in the US and beyond plunged Iraq into bloody turmoil, brought chaos to the global financial markets and resisted action over the civilisational crisis of climate change.

Assange had long grasped the political significance of his compatriot, Rupert Murdoch. In "Conspiracy as Governance" he had called the disinformation the political and business elites fed the people to safeguard their power and their interests the "Fox News Effect". As the pressure on Assange mounted, Murdoch was clearly on his mind. In December, he spoke to Pilger in the New Statesman of an "insurance file" on Murdoch and News Corp his supporters would release if he came to harm and to Paris Match about Murdoch's supposed "tax havens". If a culture war was engaged over Assange's extradition to the US it would involve, strangely enough, the clash of cultural armies mobilised by the creators of Fox News and WikiLeaks, the two most influential Australians of the era.

16 February

Thanks to Robert Manne for an exemplary essay and The Monthly for paying him 2 cents an hour.

Cryptome supplements:

Cyperhpunks on Wikipedia

Assassinatin Politics by Jim Bell

wikileaks-gest.htm Wikileaks in Gestation 2001 December 25, 2010

Tim May True Nyms and Crypto Anarchy December 23, 2010 (offsite)

wikileaks-lash.htm Wikileaks CIA, Soros and Competitors Backlash December 12, 2010

siss.htm Sensitive Information Security Sources September 4, 2010

wikileaks-soros.htm George Soros OSI CIA Inquiry on Wikileaks August 10, 2010

lamo-webster.htm Adrian Lamo and Timothy Douglas Webster August 2, 2010

ja-economics.htm Julian Assange Essay on Participatory Economics August 2, 2010

ja-conspiracies.pdf Julian Assange Essays on Conspiracies July 31, 2010

assange-cpunks.htm Julian Assange Writes Online 1995-2002 May 22, 2010

cpunks-92-98.zip Cypherpunks Mail List 1992-98 May 20, 2010 (8.3MB)

wikileaks-leak2.htm Wikileaks Leak 2 January 9, 2007

wikileaks-leak.htm Wikileaks Leak January 7, 2007

A sends:

I admire the speed with which you put complete documents on your site. Here's a correction for Dr. Manne's article. He wrote: "Anna Ardin ... had written advice on her blog concerning seven legal kinds of revenge women might take after sexual mistreatment."

This is part of the misinformation campaign concerning the Swedish cases. Ardin translated, or published a translation of, an eHow article on revenge that's legal. In other words, the article talks about ways of taking revenge that are not against the law; the article is not about how to use the legal system to take revenge. Making a false allegation of rape would be illegal. The article was published in January, long before she met Assange. The article does mention a person who has cheated or dumped someone, but this is used as an example, and it appears to be worded to be gender-neutral in the first reference. The second reference is to "he," which is proper English grammar. The article also says it's better to forgive than take revenge, and not to take revenge disproportionate to the offense. Here's one of many sources on this:

http://nicholasmead.com/2010/08/21/how-to-smear-a-hero/

From: Robert Manne <R.Manne[at]latrobe.edu.au>
To: A, <cryptome[at]earthlink.net>
Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2011 18:15:42 +1100
Subject: RE: Manne article

Dear A,

I hadn't noticed the unintended ambiguity.

I should have said lawful.

As I will when the essay is re-published.

Best, Robert Manne

Don't Cry now that Someone is better than You.

2011-03-09T16:10:00.004+11:00

The flow of Money is the flow of energy

The flow of Money is the flow of energy sorting out the landscape and eventually delivers to us all the eventual outcome of how it all is. The world is slowly needing to take a long serious hard look at what is going on with itself. Please do not step into the flow without knowing how unconditional the flow really is and how it is always forever. It is perfect every time. If it washes your building away and creates a mess down stream., you can’t then cry because something is then bigger than you in the world.

The movement from the childish adolescent “I want it all for myself forever and ever” to “how can we help you here with the next step into the Unknown”.

That falls into the category of unconditional HONESTY. This is assumed that someone is still trustworthy or that Trust is still needed in this neo Libertarian “just take it all and quit with the virtues nonsense” in our behaviour.

Regardless of whether there is or has been a long enduring economical war across the greater global community or not, Western Aristotle didn’t believe in a world without slaves. The Almighty God of the West has just said take it all, as much as you want, for you are without argument my “Chosen Ones”.

This does not appear true as it turns out.

In fact the money has been growing in the East uninterrupted for thousands of years. No matter how much the Libertarians and later the refurbished Neo Libertarians tried to destroy all matters for the sake of business interest. Nothing is out of context. Look out the window and stop burning history accounts. The big money is real, it is cash, it has re invaded China and China is the legal entity that will protect all that hard work, now cash that has returned to China from the distantly dispatched and once exiled Over Seas Chinese. Too bad the West was not chosen as a friend.

Neo Libertarian political structures have not and still can not interfere with this solid source of ongoing cash.

If the West is not the friend because it is seen as a corrupt thief, mindset stealing and liar, it cannot cry like a baby and refuse to grow up beyond adolescence and expect to be treated as anything different.

The world in the mean time has grown up without the West and it is perceived Government-Business lamination of self deluded Old Money owners.

The money is so old that it is dying. Greatness and therefore immortality is not in question for the west.

Below is a historical snapshot of getting to a point of saturation so early in the opportunity of trade when dealing with the West. This is an omen for the West.

It is over for the Western "Take it All" Experiment.

One World, World Order pretentiousness seems a bit embarrassing now.

Greater China

Mar 3, 2011

Trade dance stomps on Huawei deal
By Benjamin A Shobert

Criticism of how Chinese companies participate in their export markets is fairly easy to come by: they compete primarily on price, or they make short-cuts on product quality, or they do not understand how to build brands.

The good thing about each of these criticisms is that they can be addressed, whether through investment or recrafting their business strategies. But, as the rebuffed attempt by one of the world's biggest telecommunications equipment suppliers, Huawei Technologies, to purchase assets from a small information technology company, illustrated last week, one criticism of China's leading exporters is not so easily remedied: Washington's concern over the lack of transparency between China's government and certain industries, in particular those with a potential impact on national security matters.

Huawei, whose technology is also used around the world to build mobile phone networks, said last week it had decided to cancel a deal to buy patents and hire some employees from 3Leaf Systems, a California-based cloud-computing company. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Pentagon demanded Huawei retroactively seek approval of the transaction from a secretive panel called the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which reviews foreign investment that might threaten national security.

Post September 11,2001, policymakers and politicians in Washington have been understandably focused on looking for vulnerabilities in America's infrastructure. One of the primary concerns that this process has elevated has been cyber-security, specifically the country's reliance on the Internet not only for commerce, but for linkages between military assets, the power grid, and overall telecommunication capacity. Washington, and from Huawei's perspective not rightly so, has conflated concern over cyber-security with the ongoing role of the Chinese government in Huawei's business.

This concern has been hammered on by, among other agencies, the US-China Congressional Committee (USCC). Over the past several years, its hearings and annual reports have repeatedly pointed to the emphasis China's military places on cyber-warfare and the potential for key and Chinese-made components in America's telecommunications sector to somehow enable a Chinese cyber-attack on US interests.

Given the enormous role China's supply chain plays in this particular part of America's economy, these questions have informed many key American politicians who have blocked Huawei's attempts to either sell into the US, or purchase technology from American firms.

Huawei clearly understands that this suspicion has been poisonous to its ability to pursue meaningful merger and acquisition activities in the US. As Ken Hu, chairman of Huawei USA wrote in an open letter to the US government last week:

'The allegation that Huawei

Hu then goes on to state, "We are committed to working together with governments in all countries to take all necessary measures to protect information security."

Huawei obviously believes the CFIUS review process has been politicized in a manner that has prevented them from getting a fair hearing. But William Vigdor, a Washington-based lawyer at Vinson and Elkins and an expert on the CFIUS review process, disagrees with this.

According to Vigdor, "The computer and telecommunications industries are industries in which CFIUS has taken an interest for many years. Also, the United States government is examining closely issues of cyber-security. The transaction touched (at least in part) on those areas."

According to Vigdor, the CFIUS review process has been more actively deployed over the past several years, "particularly when it comes to extending reviews into 75-day investigations. This is due largely to the enactment of the Foreign Investment and National Security Act of 2008 that requires CFIUS to conduct an investigation (not just a 30-day review) for a transaction involving a government owned entity or critical infrastructure, unless the Department of Treasury and lead CFIUS agency determine at the level of deputy secretary, that the transaction will not impair the national security."

Some have suggested that Huawei's problems in the US boil down to two primary areas: first, a perceived lack of transparency as to the ongoing relationship between China's military and the tentacles of its global business, and second, a lack of effective public relations to plead its case with key decision-makers and influence-peddlers both in Washington and around the country in advance of the CFIUS process being triggered. Huawei's formal response from its USA chairman appears to acknowledge the latter concern and, while too little too late, is a major step in the right direction since the last time Huawei and CFIUS butted heads.

In that sense, Huawei's reaction to the rejection of its 3Leaf deal shows that the company is learning. While the formalized boundaries that guide CFIUS make for potential obstacles that Huawei can identify and may hope to ultimately work through, the more intangible challenge is best illustrated by a letter from eight US senators last summer.

The politicians questioned allowing the company to provide key telecom equipment to Sprint on the basis of national security concerns. Their concerns amount to "what-ifs", a set of questions and scenarios that are admittedly of the sort policymakers are elected to ask, but equally designed to be so open-ended that they would prove extremely difficult for Huawei to answer.

For all the discussion over the role of public relations in Huawei's management of its relationship with Washington, these "what-if" questions may prove to be the most damning, in large part because they are unanswerable and speak to fundamental discomforts held by many in Washington.

In Hu's letter he writes that "... in the United States we hire independent third-party security companies, such as EWA, to audit our products in order to certify the safety and reliability of the products at the source code level", but if no matter what Huawei offers to do along these lines, the country's politicians are fundamentally uncomfortable with turning over key parts of the nation's telecommunication infrastructure to near-peer economic competitors, then Huawei may have reached a saturation point in the US.

However, it could be a mistake to interpret Washington's Huawei-3Leaf decision purely through the lens of national security. While these concerns did constitute part of the pushback by CFIUS, they may not have been the only factor. This decision can also be seen as part of an ongoing dance between the two countries as they define the next generation of rules that will animate their trade relationship for several years to come.

Last year, US companies in the information technology and medical-device markets in particular raised concerns over China's Indigenous Innovation policy and its restrictions on their ability to export high-value products into China. To many companies in these sectors, it seemed as if Chinese trade policy had decisively tilted towards a protectionist mindset. For all the concern that America would turn inwards, it seemed to these businesses that in fact it was China that was becoming overly protectionist.

Most of these concerns related to how the Indigenous Innovation policy prohibited Chinese government stimulus monies from being spent on any goods or services not provided by a Chinese-owned firm. This was felt by many in the US to be a classic protectionist move that walled off critical segments of China's market from US companies.

Additionally, portions of the policy required US companies to disclose key parts of their technologies to Chinese partners, amounting to a state-sponsored transfer of technology that would have left many US companies empowering new competitors as a trade for short-term access to China's market.

Last year, politicians in Washington heard from frustrated American chief executive officers who believed they were being unfairly discriminated against in their attempts to penetrate the Chinese market. And now a frustrated Chinese company, told again that it will have limits placed on its ability to work in the US, believes it is being treated unfairly in the American market.

While an effective public relations strategy might aid both groups, much of what they are each bumping into remains political concerns that outstrip the ability of their businesses to address and remedy.

Have we reached a point in US-China relations where both countries are saying to one another: "This far, but no further"? Rather than resort to enacting new, more stridently protectionist measures, have both countries determined the same outcome can be achieved through more nuanced approaches: For China, through policies tied to government stimulus that direct monies only towards Chinese-owned businesses, and for America, by using national security concerns as an easy mechanism for pushing Chinese businesses out of key parts of the national economy?

It may be that the Huawei-3Leaf situation can be fully understood as specific to the American telecommunications market, and the country's concerns over letting a Chinese company own technology deemed critical to US national security. Or, it could be that Huawei represents an opportunity for Washington to score an easy point on a politically sensitive issue; the threat China plays not against US national security, but to the American economy.

If so, Huawei may have reached the limits of what it can successfully achieve in the US, a lesson that will surely resonate with the many other Chinese-owned multinationals whose plans for American markets involve similar market exploration, mergers and acquisitions.

Benjamin A Shobert is the managing director of Teleos Inc (www.teleos-inc.com), a consulting firm dedicated to helping Asian businesses bring innovative technologies into the North American market.

(Copyright 2011 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

A revolution against neoliberalism?

2011-03-04T21:28:00.000+11:00

If rebellion results in a retrenchment of neoliberalism, millions will feel cheated.

On February 16th I read a comment that was posted on the wall of the Kullina Khalid Saed's ("We are all Khaled Said") Facebook page administered by the now very famous Wael Ghonim. By that time it had been there for about 21 hours. The comment referred to a news item reporting that European governments were under pressure to freeze bank accounts of recently deposed members of the Mubarak regime. The comment said: "Excellent news … we do not want to take revenge on anyone … it is the right of all of us to hold to account any person who has wronged this nation. By law we want the nation’s money that has been stolen … because this is the money of Egyptians, 40 per cent of whom live below the poverty line."

By the time I unpacked this thread of conversation, 5,999 people had clicked the "like" button, and about 5,500 had left comments. I have not attempted the herculean task of reading all five thousand odd comments (and no doubt more are being added as I write), but a fairly lengthy survey left no doubt that most of the comments were made by people who clicked the "like" icon on the Facebook page. There were also a few by regime supporters, and others by people who dislike the personality cult that has emerged around Mr. Ghoneim.

This Facebook thread is symptomatic of the moment. Now that the Mubarak regime has fallen, an urge to account for its crimes and to identify its accomplices has come to the fore. The chants, songs, and poetry performed in Midan al-Tahrir always contained an element of anger against haramiyya (thieves) who benefited from regime corruption. Now lists of regime supporters are circulating in the press and blogosphere. Mubarak and his closest relatives (sons Gamal and 'Ala’) are always at the head of these lists. Articles on their personal wealth give figures as low as $3 billion to as high as $70 billion (the higher number was repeated on many protesters’ signs). Ahmad Ezz, the General Secretary of the deposed National Democratic Party and the largest steel magnate in the Middle East, is supposed to be worth $18 billion; Zohayr Garana, former Minister of Tourism, $13 billion; Ahmad al-Maghrabi, former Minister of Housing, $11 billion; former Minister of Interior Habib Adli, much hated for his supervision of an incredibly abusive police state, also managed to amass $8 billion — not bad for a lifetime civil servant.

Such figures may prove to be inaccurate. They may be too low, or maybe too high, and we may never know precisely because much of the money is outside of Egypt, and foreign governments will only investigate the financial dealings of Mubarak regime members if the Egyptian government makes a formal request for them to do so. Whatever the true numbers, the corruption of the Mubarak regime is not in doubt. The lowest figure quoted for Mubarak’s personal wealth, of "only" $3 billion, is damning enough for a man who entered the air force in 1950 at the age of twenty two, embarking on a sixty-year career in "public service."

A systemic problem

The hunt for regime cronies’ billions may be a natural inclination of the post-Mubarak era, but it could also lead astray efforts to reconstitute the political system. The generals who now rule Egypt are obviously happy to let the politicians take the heat. Their names were not included in the lists of the most egregiously corrupt individuals of the Mubarak era, though in fact the upper echelons of the military have long been beneficiaries of a system similar to (and sometimes overlapping with) the one that that enriched civilian figures much more prominent in the public eye such as Ahmad Ezz and Habib al-Adly.

Despite macroeconomic gains, tens of millions of Egyptians still live in poverty [EPA]

To describe blatant exploitation of the political system for personal gain as corruption misses the forest for the trees. Such exploitation is surely an outrage against Egyptian citizens, but calling it corruption suggests that the problem is aberrations from a system that would otherwise function smoothly. If this were the case then the crimes of the Mubarak regime could be attributed simply to bad character: change the people and the problems go away. But the real problem with the regime was not necessarily that high-ranking members of the government were thieves in an ordinary sense. They did not necessarily steal directly from the treasury. Rather they were enriched through a conflation of politics and business under the guise of privatization. This was less a violation of the system than business as usual. Mubarak’s Egypt, in a nutshell, was a quintessential neoliberal state.

What is neoliberalism? In his Brief History of Neoliberalism, the eminent social geographer David Harvey outlined "a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterised by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade." Neoliberal states guarantee, by force if necessary, the "proper functioning" of markets; where markets do not exist (for example, in the use of land, water, education, health care, social security, or environmental pollution), then the state should create them.

Guaranteeing the sanctity of markets is supposed to be the limit of legitimate state functions, and state interventions should always be subordinate to markets. All human behavior, and not just the production of goods and services, can be reduced to market transactions.

And the application of utopian neoliberalism in the real world leads to deformed societies as surely as the application of utopian communism did.

Rhetoric vs. reality

Two observations about Egypt’s history as a neoliberal state are in order. First, Mubarak’s Egypt was considered to be at the forefront of instituting neoliberal policies in the Middle East (not un-coincidentally, so was Ben Ali’s Tunisia). Secondly, the reality of Egypt’s political economy during the Mubarak era was very different than the rhetoric, as was the case in every other neoliberal state from Chile to Indonesia. Political scientist Timothy Mitchell published a revealing essay about Egypt’s brand of neoliberalism in his book Rule of Experts (the chapter titled "Dreamland" — named after a housing development built by Ahmad Bahgat, one of the Mubarak cronies now discredited by the fall of the regime). The gist of Mitchell’s portrait of Egyptian neoliberalism was that while Egypt was lauded by institutions such as the International Monetary Fund as a beacon of free-market success, the standard tools for measuring economies gave a grossly inadequate picture of the Egyptian economy. In reality the unfettering of markets and agenda of privatization were applied unevenly at best.

The only people for whom Egyptian neoliberalism worked "by the book" were the most vulnerable members of society, and their experience with neoliberalism was not a pretty picture. Organised labor was fiercely suppressed. The public education and the health care systems were gutted by a combination of neglect and privatization. Much of the population suffered stagnant or falling wages relative to inflation. Official unemployment was estimated at approximately 9.4% last year (and much higher for the youth who spearheaded the January 25th Revolution), and about 20% of the population is said to live below a poverty line defined as $2 per day per person.

For the wealthy, the rules were very different. Egypt did not so much shrink its public sector, as neoliberal doctrine would have it, as it reallocated public resources for the benefit of a small and already affluent elite. Privatization provided windfalls for politically well-connected individuals who could purchase state-owned assets for much less than their market value, or monopolise rents from such diverse sources as tourism and foreign aid. Huge proportions of the profits made by companies that supplied basic construction materials like steel and cement came from government contracts, a proportion of which in turn were related to aid from foreign governments.

Most importantly, the very limited function for the state recommended by neoliberal doctrine in the abstract was turned on its head in reality. In Mubarak’s Egypt business and government were so tightly intertwined that it was often difficult for an outside observer to tease them apart. Since political connections were the surest route to astronomical profits, businessmen had powerful incentives to buy political office in the phony elections run by the ruling National Democratic Party. Whatever competition there was for seats in the Peoples’ Assembly and Consultative Council took place mainly within the NDP. Non-NDP representation in parliament by opposition parties was strictly a matter of the political calculations made for a given elections: let in a few independent candidates known to be affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood in 2005 (and set off tremors of fear in Washington); dictate total NDP domination in 2010 (and clear the path for an expected new round of distributing public assets to "private" investors).

Parallels with America

The political economy of the Mubarak regime was shaped by many currents in Egypt’s own history, but its broad outlines were by no means unique. Similar stories can be told throughout the rest of the Middle East, Latin America, Asia, Europe and Africa. Everywhere neoliberalism has been tried, the results are similar: living up to the utopian ideal is impossible; formal measures of economic activity mask huge disparities in the fortunes of the rich and poor; elites become "masters of the universe," using force to defend their prerogatives, and manipulating the economy to their advantage, but never living in anything resembling the heavily marketised worlds that are imposed on the poor.

Unemployment was a major grievance for millions of Egyptian protesters [EPA]

The story should sound familiar to Americans as well. For example, the vast fortunes of Bush era cabinet members Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, through their involvement with companies like Halliburton and Gilead Sciences, are the product of a political system that allows them — more or less legally — to have one foot planted in "business" and another in "government" to the point that the distinction between them becomes blurred. Politicians move from the office to the boardroom to the lobbying organization and back again.

As neoliberal dogma disallows any legitimate role for government other than guarding the sanctity of free markets, recent American history has been marked by the steady privatization of services and resources formerly supplied or controlled by the government. But it is inevitably those with closest access to the government who are best positioned to profit from government campaigns to sell off the functions it formerly performed. It is not just Republicans who are implicated in this systemic corruption. Clinton-era Secretary of Treasury Robert Rubin’s involvement with Citigroup does not bear close scrutiny. Lawrence Summers gave crucial support for the deregulation of financial derivatives contracts while Secretary of Treasury under Clinton, and profited handsomely from companies involved in the same practices while working for Obama (and of course deregulated derivatives were a key element in the financial crisis that led to a massive Federal bailout of the entire banking industry).

So in Egyptian terms, when General Secretary of the NDP Ahmad Ezz cornered the market on steel and was given contracts to build public-private construction projects, or when former Minister of Parliament Talaat Mustafa purchased vast tracts of land for the upscale Madinaty housing development without having to engage in a competitive bidding process (but with the benefit of state-provided road and utility infrastructure), they may have been practicing corruption logically and morally. But what they were doing was also as American as apple pie, at least within the scope of the past two decades.

However, in the current climate the most important thing is not the depredations of deposed Mubarak regime cronies. It is rather the role of the military in the political system. It is the army that now rules the country, albeit as a transitional power, or so most Egyptians hope. No representatives of the upper echelons of the Egyptian military appear on the various lists of old-regime allies who need to be called to account. For example, the headline of the February 17th edition of Ahrar, the press organ of the Liberal party, was emblazoned with the headline "Financial Reserves of the Corrupt Total 700 Billion Pounds [about $118 billion] in 18 Countries."

A vast economic powerhouse

But the article did not say a single word about the place of the military in this epic theft. The military were nonetheless part of the crony capitalism of the Mubarak era. After relatively short careers in the military high-ranking officers are rewarded with such perks as highly remunerative positions on the management boards of housing projects and shopping malls. Some of these are essentially public-sector companies transferred to the military sector when IMF-mandated structural adjustment programs required reductions in the civilian public sector.

But the generals also receive plums from the private sector. Military spending itself was also lucrative because it included both a state budget and contracts with American companies that provided hardware and technical expertise. The United States provided much of the financing for this spending under rules that required a great deal of the money to be recycled to American corporations, but all such deals required middlemen. Who better to act as an intermediary for American foreign aid contracts than men from the very same military designated as the recipient of the services paid for by this aid? In this respect the Egyptian military-industrial complex was again stealing a page from the American playbook; indeed, to the extent that the Egyptian military benefited from American foreign aid, Egypt was part of the American military-industrial complex, which is famous for its revolving-door system of recycling retired military men as lobbyists and employees of defense contractors.

Consequently it is almost unthinkable that the generals of the Supreme Military Council will willingly allow more than cosmetic changes in the political economy of Egypt. But they could be compelled to do so unwillingly. The army is a blunt force, not well suited for controlling crowds of demonstrators. The latest statement of the Supreme Military Council reiterated both the legitimacy of the pro-democracy movements demands, and the requirement that demonstrations cease so that the country can get back to work. If demonstrations continue to the point that the Supreme Military Council feels it can no longer tolerate them, then the soldiers who will be ordered to put them down (indeed, in some accounts were already ordered to put them down early in the revolution and refused to do so) with deadly force, are not the generals who were part of the Mubarak-era corruption, but conscripts.

Pro-democracy demonstrators and their sympathisers often repeated the slogans "the army and the people are one hand," and "the army is from us." They had the conscripts in mind, and many were unaware of how stark differences were between the interests of the soldiers and the generals. Between the conscripts and the generals is a middle-level professional officer corps whose loyalties have been the subject of much speculation. The generals, for their part, want to maintain their privileges, but not to rule directly. Protracted direct rule leaves the officers of the Supreme Military Council vulnerable to challenges from other officers who were left on the outside. Also, direct rule would make it impossible to hide that the elite officers are not in fact part of the "single hand" composed of the people and the (conscript) army. They are instead logically in the same camp as Ahmad Ezz, Safwat al-Sharif, Gamal Mubarak, and Habib al-Adly — precisely the names on those lists making the rounds of regime members and cronies who should face judgment.

Ultimately the intense speculation about how much money the Mubarak regime stole, and how much the people can expect to pump back into the nation, is a red herring. If the figure turns out to be $50 billion or $500 billion, it will not matter, if Egypt remains a neoliberal state dedicated (nominally) to free-market fundamentalism for the poor, while creating new privatised assets that can be recycled to political insiders for the rich. If one seeks clues to how deeply the January 25th Revolution will restructure Egypt, it would be better to look at such issues as what sort of advice the interim government of generals solicits in fulfilling its mandate to re-make Egyptian government. The period of military government probably will be as short as advertised, followed, one hopes, by an interim civilian government for some specified period (at least two years) during which political parties are allowed to organise on the ground in preparation for free elections. But interim governments have a way of becoming permanent.

Technocrats or ideologues?

One sometimes hears calls to set up a government of "technocrats" that would assume the practical matters of governance. "Technocrat" sounds neutral — a technical expert who would make decisions on "scientific" principle. The term was often applied to Yusuf Butros Ghali, for example, the former Minister of the Treasury, who was one of the Gamal Mubarak boys brought into the cabinet in 2006 ostensibly to smooth the way for the President’s son to assume power. Ghali is now accused of having appropriated LE 450 million for the use of Ahmad Ezz.

I once sat next to Ghali at a dinner during one of his trips abroad, and had the opportunity to ask him when the Egyptian government would be ready to have free elections. His response was to trot out the now discredited regime line that elections were impossible because actual democracy would result in the Muslim Brotherhood taking power. Conceivably Ghali will beat the charge of specifically funneling the state’s money to Ahmad Ezz. But as a key architect of Egypt’s privatization programs he cannot possibly have been unaware that he was facilitating a system that enabled the Ezz steel empire while simultaneously destroying Egypt’s educational and health care systems.

The Egyptian army controls a range of businesses, ranging from factories to hotels [EPA]

The last time I encountered the word "technocrat" was in Naomi Klein’s book The Shock Doctrine — a searing indictment of neoliberalism which argues that the free-market fundamentalism promoted by economist Milton Friedman (and immensely influential in the United States) is predicated on restructuring economies in the wake of catastrophic disruptions because normally functioning societies and political systems would never vote for it. Disruptions can be natural or man-made, such as … revolutions.

The chapters in The Shock Doctrine on Poland, Russia, and South Africa make interesting reading in the context of Egypt’s revolution. In each case when governments (communist or apartheid) collapsed, "technocrats" were brought in to help run countries that were suddenly without functional governments, and create the institutional infrastructure for their successors. The technocrats always seemed to have dispensed a form of what Klein calls "shock therapy" — the imposition of sweeping privatization programs before dazed populations could consider their options and potentially vote for less ideologically pure options that are in their own interests.

The last great wave of revolutions occurred in 1989. The governments that were collapsing then were communist, and the replacement in that "shock moment" of one extreme economic system with its opposite seemed predictable and to many even natural.

One of the things that make the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions potentially important on a global scale is that they took place in states that were already neoliberalised. The complete failure of neoliberalsm to deliver "human well-being" to a large majority of Egyptians was one of the prime causes of the revolution, at least in the sense of helping to prime millions of people who were not connected to social media to enter the streets on the side of the pro-democracy activists.

But the January 25th Revolution is still a "shock moment." We hear calls to bring in the technocrats in order to revive a dazed economy; and we are told every day that the situation is fluid, and that there is a power vacuum in the wake of not just the disgraced NDP, but also the largely discredited legal opposition parties, which played no role whatsoever in the January 25th Revolution. In this context the generals are probably happy with all the talk about reclaiming the money stolen by the regime, because the flip side of that coin is a related current of worry about the state of the economy. The notion that the economy is in ruins — tourists staying away, investor confidence shattered, employment in the construction sector at a standstill, many industries and businesses operating at far less than full capacity — could well be the single most dangerous rationale for imposing cosmetic reforms that leave the incestuous relation between governance and business intact.

Or worse, if the pro-democracy movement lets itself be stampeded by the "economic ruin" narrative, structures could be put in place by "technocrats" under the aegis of the military transitional government that would tie the eventual civilian government into actually quickening the pace of privatization. Ideologues, including those of the neoliberal stripe, are prone to a witchcraft mode of thinking: if the spell does not work, it is not the fault of the magic, but rather the fault of the shaman who performed the spell. In other words, the logic could be that it was not neoliberalism that ruined Mubarak’s Egypt, but the faulty application of neoliberalism.

Trial balloons for this witchcraft narrative are already being floated outside of Egypt. The New York Times ran an article on February 17th casting the military as a regressive force opposed to privatization and seeking a return to Nasserist statism. The article pits the ostensibly "good side" of the Mubarak regime (privatization programs) against bad old Arab socialism, completely ignoring the fact that while the system of military privilege may preserve some public-sector resources transferred from the civilian economy under pressure of IMF structural adjustment programs, the empire of the generals is hardly limited to a ring-fenced quasi-underground public sector.

Officers were also rewarded with private-sector perks; civilian political/business empires mixed public and private roles to the point that what was government and what was private were indistinguishable; both the military and civilians raked in rents from foreign aid. The generals may well prefer a new round of neoliberal witchcraft. More privatization will simply free up assets and rents that only the politically connected (including the generals) can acquire. Fixing a failed neoliberal state by more stringent applications of neoliberalism could be the surest way for them to preserve their privileges.

A neoliberal fix would, however, be a tragedy for the pro-democracy movement. The demands of the protesters were clear and largely political: remove the regime; end the emergency law; stop state torture; hold free and fair elections. But implicit in these demands from the beginning (and decisive by the end) was an expectation of greater social and economic justice. Social media may have helped organise the kernel of a movement that eventually overthrew Mubarak, but a large element of what got enough people into the streets to finally overwhelm the state security forces was economic grievances that are intrinsic to neoliberalism. These grievances cannot be reduced to grinding poverty, for revolutions are never carried out by the poorest of the poor. It was rather the erosion of a sense that some human spheres should be outside the logic of markets. Mubarak’s Egypt degraded schools and hospitals, and guaranteed grossly inadequate wages, particularly in the ever-expanding private sector. This was what turned hundreds of dedicated activists into millions of determined protestors.

If the January 25th revolution results in no more than a retrenchment of neoliberalism, or even its intensification, those millions will have been cheated. The rest of the world could be cheated as well. Egypt and Tunisia are the first nations to carry out successful revolutions against neoliberal regimes. Americans could learn from Egypt. Indeed, there are signs that they already are doing so. Wisconsin teachers protesting against their governor’s attempts to remove the right to collective bargaining have carried signs equating Mubarak with their governor. Egyptians might well say to America 'uqbalak (may you be the next).

Dr. Walter Armbrust is Hourani Fellow and University Lecturer in Modern Middle East Studies at Oxford University. He is the author of Mass Culture and Modernism in Egypt (Cambridge University Press, 1996).

This article first appeared on Jadaliyya.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

Source:

Al Jazeera

The Arabs are saying, "It is time to get Honest in the World"

2011-03-02T17:00:00.003+11:00

THE UNREST ACROSS THE MIDDLE EAST

is saying what the West cannot do.

Tom Engelhardt documents very eloquently the historical state of the Global society in his essay “Washington’s Echo Chamber”published in Asia Times, below. He records the American mind set and I cannot help reflecting on Rome and its Senate dealing with the exploits of its armies all around the known world. The Senate would benefit from the pillaging of wealth from city states that have accumulated gold and valuables that were sacked and returned to Rome and its Senators and related families. To be a senator, being a general was one major way to become wealthy enough to live on the hill of Patricians or the hill of Plebeians from which the Senators came from. Rome fell it could be argued, because they had pillaged all the accumulated Gold available at the time and going to Gaul was all that was left. Soon after the Mercenaries being paid from the booty failed to be enough and the troops turned onto Rome to find it stored with the Patricians and Plebeians in Rome. Rome was an economic system build on theft. It used Mercenaries led mostly by Romans to rob and plunder others. This went well for the first 400 years as they brought the Mediterranean under its control and taxation, the next seven hundred years after Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon it focused on the Gold poor Gauls and far away tribes people, the Republic collapsed into a Fascist dictatorship protecting the interests of the wealthy Senators. Just the way Aristotle justified it in his and Plato’s Republic.

The US today represents the collective West and reflects this continuation of never ending Aristotelian philosophical justification of Neo-Libertarians living on the hill and conveniently with the grace of Old Testament’s single God, do mean and greedy things to the world.

The world is now slowly dying

Somehow stealing from the world and lying to the people is still in.

Old Money drives its own wheel barrow as it always has. Marxism didn’t change anything it simply centralized the capitalism .Capitalism and Communism are both Neo-libertarian structures no different to Medieval Monarchy, all support accumulating unlimited wealth to the Owners.

Freedom and Democracy seen now to motivate the people of the Middle East is annoyed about this point.

It is not about Philosophies and their Political structures, it is about not Stealing and not lying. It is about the common code of virtues being lost behind the lies and theft.

Without this clarification we cannot Belong together.

As the world dies in front of our eyes we need to stop and concider a brand new direction. I suggest looking at the world without Aristotle and the Old Testament that under pin Neo-Libertarian justification for the answer. It was all there then as it is with real communities and pure eco-systems today.

Neo Libertarian high ground contaminated the West.

The bottom line is Greed and Dishonesty won, the world was taken from us by the owners who were taken by the vices

It is beautiful when the Owners are virtue driven then.

Please enjoy Tom below.

DISPATCHES FROM AMERICA
Washington's echo chamber
By Tom Engelhardt

This is a global moment unlike any in memory, perhaps in history. Yes, comparisons can be made to the wave of people power that swept Eastern Europe as the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989-91. For those with longer memories, perhaps 1968 might come to mind, that abortive moment when, in the United States, France, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Brazil and elsewhere, including Eastern Europe, masses of people mysteriously inspired by each other took to the streets of global cities to proclaim that change was on the way.

For those searching the history books, perhaps you've focused on the year 1848 when, in a time that also mixed economic gloom

with novel means of disseminating the news, the winds of freedom seemed briefly to sweep across Europe. And if enough regimes fall and the turmoil goes deep enough, there's always 1776, the American Revolution, or 1789, the French one, to consider. Both shook up the world for decades after.

But here's the truth of it: you have to strain to fit this Middle Eastern moment into any previous paradigm, even as - from Wisconsin to China - it already threatens to break out of the Arab world and spread like a fever across the planet. Never in memory have so many unjust or simply despicable rulers felt quite so nervous - or possibly quite so helpless (despite being armed to the teeth) - in the presence of unarmed humanity. And there has to be joy and hope in that alone.

Even now, without understanding what it is we face, watching staggering numbers of people, many young and dissatisfied, take to the streets in Morocco, Mauritania, Djibouti, Oman, Algeria, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Yemen, and Libya, not to mention Bahrain, Tunisia, and Egypt, would be inspirational.

Watching them face security forces using batons, tear gas, rubber bullets, and in all too many cases, real bullets (in Libya, even helicopters and planes) and somehow grow stronger is little short of unbelievable. Seeing Arabs demanding something we were convinced was the birthright and property of the West, of the United States in particular, has to send a shiver down anyone's spine.

The nature of this potentially world-shaking phenomenon remains unknown and probably, at this point, unknowable. Are freedom and democracy about to break out all over? And if so, what will that turn out to mean? If not, what exactly are we seeing? What light bulb was it that so unexpectedly turned on in millions of Twittered and Facebooked brains - and why now?

I doubt those who are protesting, and in some cases dying, know themselves. And that's good news. That the future remains - always - the land of the unknown should offer us hope, not least because that's the bane of ruling elites who want to, but never can, take possession of it.

Nonetheless, you would expect that a ruling elite, observing such earth-shaking developments, might rethink its situation, as should the rest of us. After all, if humanity can suddenly rouse itself this way in the face of the armed power of state after state, then what's really possible on this planet of ours?

Seeing such scenes repeatedly, who wouldn't rethink the basics? Who wouldn't feel the urge to reimagine our world?

Let me offer as my nominee of choice not various desperate or dying Middle Eastern regimes, but Washington.

Life in the echo chamber
So much of what Washington did imagine in these last years proved laughable, even before this moment swept it away. Just take any old phrase from the George W Bush years. How about "You're either with us or against us"? What's striking is how little it means today. Looking back on Washington's desperately mistaken assumptions about how our globe works, this might seem like the perfect moment to show some humility in the face of what nobody could have predicted.

It would seem like a good moment for Washington - which, since September 12, 2001, has been remarkably clueless about real developments on this planet and repeatedly miscalculated the nature of global power - to step back and recalibrate.

As it happens, there's no evidence it's doing so. In fact, that may be beyond Washington's present capabilities, no matter how many billions of dollars it pours into "intelligence." And by "Washington" I mean not just the Barack Obama administration, or the Pentagon, or our military commanders, or the vast intelligence bureaucracy, but all those pundits and think-tankers who swarm the capital, and the media that reports on them all. It's as if the cast of characters that makes up "Washington" now lives in some kind of echo chamber in which it can only hear itself talking.

As a result, Washington still seems remarkably determined to play out the string on an era that is all too swiftly passing into the history books. While many have noticed the Obama administration's hapless struggle to catch up to events in the Middle East, even as it clings to a familiar coterie of grim autocrats and oil sheiks, let me illustrate this point in another area entirely - the largely forgotten war in Afghanistan. After all, hardly noticed, buried beneath 24/7 news from Egypt, Bahrain, Libya and elsewhere in the Middle East, that war continues on its destructive, costly course with nary a blink.

Five ways to be tone deaf in Washington
You might think that, as vast swathes of the Greater Middle East are set ablaze, someone in Washington would take a new look at our Af/Pak war and wonder whether it isn't simply beside the point. No such luck, as the following five tiny but telling examples that caught my attention indicate. Consider them proof of the well-being of the American echo chamber and evidence of the way Washington is proving incapable of rethinking its longest, most futile, and most bizarre war.

1. Let's start with a recent New York Times op-ed, "The 'Long War' May Be Getting Shorter". Published last Tuesday as Libya was passing through "the gates of hell", it was an upbeat account of Afghan war commander General David Petraeus' counter-insurgency operations in southern Afghanistan.

Its authors, Nathaniel Fick and John Nagl, members of an increasingly militarized Washington intelligentsia, jointly head the Center for a New American Security in Washington. Nagl was part of the team that wrote the 2006 revised army counter-insurgency manual for which Petraeus is given credit and was an advisor to the general in Iraq. Fick, a former marine officer who led troops in Afghanistan and Iraq and then was a civilian instructor at the Afghanistan Counter-insurgency Academy in Kabul, recently paid a first-hand visit to the country (under whose auspices we do not know).

The two of them are typical of many of Washington's war experts who tend to develop incestuous relationships with the military, moonlighting as enablers or cheerleaders for our war commanders, and still remain go-to sources for the media.

In another society, their op-ed would simply have been considered propaganda. Here's its money paragraph:

It is hard to tell when momentum shifts in a counter-insurgency campaign, but there is increasing evidence that Afghanistan is moving in a more positive direction than many analysts think. It now seems more likely than not that the country can achieve the modest level of stability and self-reliance necessary to allow the United States to responsibly draw down its forces from 100,000 to 25,000 troops over the next four years.

This is a classic Washington example of moving the goalposts. What our two experts are really announcing is that, even if all goes well in our Afghan war, 2014 will not be its end date. Not by a long shot.

This is a position Petraeus has supported. Four years from now our "withdrawal" plans, according to Nagl and Fick, will leave 25,000 troops in place. If truth-telling or accuracy were the point of their exercise, their piece would have been titled, "The 'Long War' Grows Longer".

Even as the Middle East explodes and the US plunges into a budget "debate" significantly powered by our stunningly expensive wars that won't end, these two experts implicitly propose that Petraeus and his successors fight on in Afghanistan at more than $100 billion a year into the distant reaches of time, as if nothing in the world were changing.

This already seems like the definition of obliviousness and one day will undoubtedly look delusional, but it's the business-as-usual mentality with which Washington faces a new world.

2. Or consider two striking comments Petraeus made that bracket our new historical moment. At a morning briefing on January 19, according to New York Times reporter Rod Nordland, the general was in an exultant, even triumphalist, mood about his war. It was just days before the first Egyptian demonstrators would take to the streets, and only days after Tunisian autocrat Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali had met the massed power of nonviolent demonstrators and fled his country. And here's what Petraeus so exuberantly told his staff: "We've got our teeth in the enemy's jugular now, and we're not going to let go."

It's true that the general had, for months, not only been sending new American troops south, but ratcheting up the use of air power, increasing special operations night raids, and generally intensifying the war in the Taliban's home territory. Still, under the best of circumstances, his was an exultantly odd image.

It obviously called up the idea of a predator sinking its teeth into the throat of its prey, but surely somewhere in the military unconscious lurked a more classic American pop-cultural image - the werewolf or vampire. Evidently, the general's idea of an American future involves an extended blood feast in the Afghan version of Transylvania, for like Nagl and Fick he clearly plans to have those teeth in that jugular for a long, long time to come.

A month later, on February 19, just as all hell was breaking loose in Bahrain and Libya, the general visited the Afghan presidential palace in Kabul and, in dismissing Afghan claims that recent American air raids in the country's northeast had killed scores of civilians, including children, he made a comment that shocked President Hamid Karzai's aides.

We don't have it verbatim, but the Washington Post reports that, according to "participants", Petraeus suggested "Afghans caught up in a coalition attack in northeastern Afghanistan might have burned their own children to exaggerate claims of civilian casualties".

One Afghan at the meeting responded: "I was dizzy. My head was spinning. This was shocking. Would any father do this to his children? This is really absurd."

In the American echo chamber, the general's comments may sound, if not reasonable, then understandably exuberant and emphatic: We've got the enemy by the throat! We didn't create Afghan casualties; they did it to themselves! Elsewhere, they surely sound obtusely tone deaf or simply vampiric, evidence that those inside the echo chamber have no sense of how they look in a shape-shifting world.

3. Now, let's step across an ill-defined Afghan-Pakistan border into another world of American obtuseness. On February 15, only four days after Hosni Mubarak stepped down as president of

Egypt, Obama decided to address a growing problem in Pakistan.
Raymond Davis, a former US Special Forces soldier armed with a Glock semi-automatic pistol and alone in a vehicle cruising a poor neighborhood of Pakistan's second-largest city, Lahore, shot and killed two Pakistanis he claimed had menaced him at gunpoint. (One was evidently shot in the back.)

Davis reportedly got out of the vehicle firing his pistol, then photographed the dead bodies and called for backup. The responding vehicle, racing to the scene the wrong way in traffic, ran over a motorcyclist, killing him before fleeing. (Subsequently, the wife of one of the Pakistanis Davis killed committed suicide by ingesting rat poison.)

The Pakistani police took Davis into custody with a carful of strange equipment. No one should be surprised that this was not a set of circumstances likely to endear an already alienated population to its supposed American allies.

In fact, it created a popular furor as Pakistanis reacted to what seemed like the definition of imperial impunity, especially when the US government, claiming Davis was an "administrative and technical official" attached to its Lahore consulate, demanded his release on grounds of diplomatic immunity and promptly began pressuring an already weak, unpopular government with loss of aid and support.

Senator John Kerry paid a hasty visit, calls were made, and threats to cut off US funds were raised in the halls of congress. Despite what was happening elsewhere and in tumultuous Pakistan, American officials found it hard to imagine that beholden Pakistanis wouldn't buckle.

On February 15, with the Middle East in flames, Obama weighed in, undoubtedly making matters worse: "With respect to Mr Davis, our diplomat in Pakistan," he said, "we've got a very simple principle here that every country in the world that is party to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations has upheld in the past and should uphold in the future, and that is if our diplomats are in another country, then they are not subject to that country's local prosecution."

The Pakistanis refused to give way to that "very simple principle" and not long after, "our diplomat in Pakistan" was identified by the British Guardian as a former Blackwater employee and present employee of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). He was, the publication reported, involved in the agency's secret war in Pakistan. That war, especially much-ballyhooed and expensive "covert" drone attacks in the Pakistani tribal borderlands whose returns have been overhyped in Washington, continues to generate blowback in ways that Americans prefer not to grasp.

The president knew that Davis was a CIA agent, even when he called him "our diplomat". As it turned out, so did the New York Times and other US publications, which refrained from writing about his real position at the request of the Obama administration, even as they continued to report (evasively, if not simply untruthfully) on the case.

Given what's happening in the region, this represents neither reasonable policy-making nor reasonable journalism. If the late Chalmers Johnson, who made the word "blowback" part of our everyday language, happens to be looking down on American policy from some niche in heaven, he must be grimly amused by the brain-dead way our top officials blithely continue to try to bulldoze the Pakistanis.

4. Meanwhile, on February 18 back in Afghanistan, the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on one of that country's "largest money exchange houses", charging "that it used billions of dollars transferred in and out of the country to help hide proceeds from illegal drug sales".

Here's how Ginger Thompson and Alissa J Rubin of the New York Times contextualized that act: "The move is part of a delicate balancing act by the Obama administration, which aims to crack down on the corruption that reaches the highest levels of the Afghan government without derailing the counter-insurgency efforts that are dependent on Mr Karzai's cooperation."

In a world in which Washington's word seems to travel ever less far with ever less authority, the response to this echo chamber-style description, and especially its central image - "a delicate balancing act" - would be: no, not by a long shot.

In relation to a country that's the prime narco-state on the planet, what could really be "delicate"? If you wanted to describe the Obama administration's bizarre, pretzled relationship with Karzai and his people, words like "contorted", "confused" and "hypocritical" would have to be trotted out. If realism prevailed, the phrase "indelicate imbalance" might be a more appropriate one to use.

5. Finally, journalist Dexter Filkins recently wrote a striking piece, "The Afghan Bank Heist" in the New Yorker magazine on the shenanigans that brought Kabul Bank, one of Afghanistan's top financial institutions, to the edge of collapse. While bankrolling Karzai and his cronies by slipping them staggering sums of cash, the bank's officials essentially ran off with the deposits of its customers. (Think of Kabul Bank as the institutional Bernie Madoff of Afghanistan.) In his piece, Filkins quotes an anonymous American official this way on the crooked goings-on he observed: "If this were America, fifty people would have been arrested by now."

Consider that line the echo-chamber version of stand-up comedy as well as a reminder that only mad dogs and Americans stay out in the Afghan sun.

Like a lot of Americans now in Afghanistan, that poor diplomat needs to be brought home - and soon. He's lost touch with the changing nature of his own country. While we claim it as our duty to bring "nation-building" and "good governance" to the benighted Afghans, at home the US is being unbuilt, democracy is essentially gone with the wind, the oligarchs are having a field day, the Supreme Court has insured that massive influxes of money will rule any future elections, and the biggest crooks of all get to play their get-out-of-jail-free cards whenever they want.

In fact, the Kabul Bank racket - a big deal in an utterly impoverished society - is a minor sideshow compared to what American banks, brokerages, mortgage and insurance companies, and other financial institutions did via their "ponzi schemes of securitization" when, in 2008, they drove the US and global economies into meltdown mode.

And none of the individuals responsible went to prison, just old-fashioned Ponzi schemers like Madoff. Not one of them was even put on trial.

Just the other day, federal prosecutors dropped one of the last possible cases from the 2008 meltdown. Angelo R Mozilo, the former chairman of Countrywide Financial Corp, once the nation's top mortgage company, did have to settle a civil suit focused on his "ill-gotten gains" in the subprime mortgage debacle for $67.5 million, but as with his peers, no criminal charges will be filed.

We're not the good guys
Imagine this: for the first time in history, a movement of Arabs is inspiring Americans in Wisconsin and possibly elsewhere. Right now, in other words, there is something new under the sun and we didn't invent it. It's not ours. We're not - catch your breath here - even the good guys. They were the ones calling for freedom and democracy in the streets of Middle Eastern cities, while the US performed another of those indelicate imbalances in favor of the thugs we've long supported in the Middle East.

History is now being reshaped in such a way that the previously major events of the latter years of the foreshortened American century - the Vietnam War, the end of the Cold War, even 9/11 - may all be dwarfed by this new moment.

And yet, inside the Washington echo chamber, new thoughts about such developments dawn slowly. Meanwhile, our beleaguered, confused, disturbed country, with its aging, disintegrating infrastructure, is ever less the model for anyone anywhere (though again you wouldn't know that here).

Oblivious to events, Washington clearly intends to fight its perpetual wars and garrison its perpetual bases, creating yet more blowback and destabilizing yet more places, until it eats itself alive. This is the definition of all-American decline in an unexpectedly new world. Yes, teeth may be in jugulars, but whose teeth in whose jugulars remains open to speculation, whatever Petraeus thinks.

As the sun peeks over the horizon of the Arab world, dusk is descending on America. In the penumbra, Washington plays out the cards it once dealt itself, some from the bottom of the deck, even as other players are leaving the table. Meanwhile, somewhere out there in the land, you can just hear the faint howls. It's feeding time and the scent of blood is in the air. Beware!

Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project, runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com. He is the author of The End of Victory Culture, a history of the Cold War and beyond, as well as of a novel, The Last Days of Publishing. He also edited The World According to TomDispatch: America in the New Age of Empire (Verso, 2008), an alternative history of the mad Bush years. His latest book is The American Way of War: How Bush's Wars Became Obama's (Haymarket Books),

(Used by permission Tomdispatch)

(Copyright 2011 Tom Engelhardt.)

Gaddafi Shoots and Bombs his People February 2011

2011-02-23T12:56:00.000+11:00

Below is an account dealing with the silent and accepted harvesting of people, their citizenship and social effort to finance and run a significant Hedge Fund based in London.

This is a time in history where transparency is unravelling all the Smoke and Mirrors relate to unprecedented wealth accumulation.

Middle East

Feb 23, 2011

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THE ROVING EYE
'Brother' Gaddafi, you're going down
By Pepe Escobar

You know the fat lady is about to sing when a dictator unleashes hell from above over his own unarmed, civilian compatriots, and bombs parts of his capital city. That's a bridge too far even by the unspeakable standards of Western-backed dictators in the Arab world.

You know the (ghastly) show may be over when Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi, one of the most popular Sunni authorities in the world, not least because of his weekly show on al-Jazeera, issues a fatwa - "I am issuing a fatwa now to kill [Muammar] Gaddafi. To any soldier, to any man who can pull the trigger and kill this man to do so" - and then prays live, on al-Jazeera, for the end of the

Libyan dictator ("O Lord save the Libyans from this pharaoh." When he finishes, the al-Jazeera anchor says "Amen").

You know the bells are ringing when your "Abu Omar Brigade", responsible for your protection, is still on a rampage; but your ambassadors around the world defect en masse; your own deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Ibrahim Omar al-Dabashi, says your government is carrying out genocide; your fighter pilots refuse to bomb your cities; your military officers, in a statement, ask all members of the army to head to Tripoli and depose you; a coalition of Islamic leaders tells all Muslims it is their duty to rebel against you because of your "bloody crimes against humanity"; and to top it off, people are calling for a "million man march" following the Egyptian model.

And what about the Maltese Falcons? In a day of volcanic activity, it's hard to beat the spectacular defection of two colonels of the Libyan Air Force, who flew their Mirages to Malta. They had refused to bomb protesters in Benghazi, telling Maltese authorities they had come so close to carrying out their mission that they could see the crowds on the ground. They also passed "classified" information about what the Libyan military has been up to.

And all this in just one day - Monday.

It was not enough to deploy "black African" mercenaries in a shoot-to-kill rampage in Benghazi. Already on Sunday, Sheikh Faraj al-Zuway, leader of the crucial al-Zuwayya tribe in eastern Libya, had threatened to cut oil exports to the West within 24 hours unless what he called the "oppression of protesters" in Benghazi was stopped.

Akram Al-Warfalli, a leader of the al-Warfalla tribe, one of Libya's biggest, in the south of Tripoli, had told al-Jazeera Gaddafi is "no longer a brother, we tell you to leave the country". The 500,000-strong Berber, Tuaregs from the southern desert, are also against him. When you have four of your key tribes - the spine of your system - marching on Tripoli to get rid of you, you better watch out.

History may eventually register how Gaddafi's appalling 41-year rule in Libya (he was already in power when "Tricky Dicky" Richard Nixon was the United States president) virtually collapsed in only 24 hours. There will be blood - a lot of blood; but "brother" is about to go down.

'Rivers of blood will run through Libya'
The beginning of the end was classic Arab dictator stuff; Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi, looking like an upscale bouncer in suit and tie, went on Libyan state TV on Sunday night instead of his father to deliver a threatening/repellent/pathetic speech that only infuriated the Libyan masses even more, after six days of protests in the historic Cyrenaica region.

After threatening to "eradicate the pockets of sedition" (echoes of Iran's leadership eradicating protests last week) Gaddafi's "modernizing" son said Libyans risked igniting a civil war in which Libya's oil wealth "will be burned".

In 2009, Said received a PhD from the London School of Economics (LSE) with a thesis titled "The Role of Civil Society in the Democratization of Global Governance Institutions: From 'Soft Power' to Collective Decision-Making". Last year he delivered a lecture about it at the LSE (listen to it here.)

Isn't wonderful that the ghastliest dictators in the world may send their offspring to the best schools in the world where they can appease the West's false consciousness while back at home they openly threaten their own people and go for sniper fire, automatic weapons and heavy artillery against their unarmed compatriots?

It's doubtful the LSE taught Saif how to ignite a flash civil war with just a rant. But that's what he accomplished.

Libyan writer Faouzi Abdelhamid - comparing the name Saif al-Islam ("sword of Islam") with Saif al-I'dam ("sword of execution") came out all guns blazing, calling the whole Gaddafi clan criminals and thieves; "You don't even have the right of living among us as ordinary citizens, because you're guilty of high treason".

By the time Saif was delivering his threats, the eastern city of Benghazi had already fallen to the protesters. Tripoli was next, on Monday. With the regime blocking all phone lines, all day Monday occasional, frantic tweets relayed all sorts of terrifying rumors and facts - inevitably clouded by the ominous sound of live ammunition. Helicopters raining bullets down on people in the streets below. Fighter jets launching strikes. Snipers firing from building tops.

Schools, government offices and most stores in Tripoli were closed, with armed "Revolutionary Committees", ie regime thugs, patrolling the streets hunting for protesters in Tripoli's old city. According to Salem Gnan, a London-based spokesman for the National Front for the Salvation of Libya, 80 people may have died when protesters surrounded Gaddafi's residence and were shot at from inside the compound.

As the People's Hall - where the parliament meets when it is in session in Tripoli - was set on fire and all cities south of Tripoli were progressively being "liberated", al-Jazeera managed to trace the source of jamming of its Arabsat satellite frequency to a Libyan intelligence building south of the capital.

Ahmed Elgazir, a human-rights researcher with the Libyan News Center (LNC) in Geneva, later told al-Jazeera he got a call for help from a woman witnessing a massacre in progress on a satellite phone. Eyewitnesses reported to Agence France-Presse another "massacre" in the Fashloum and Tajoura districts of Tripoli. By late Monday night, the (unconfirmed) death toll in Tripoli alone had reached at least 250.

Among Libyans, virtually all information all around the country was and remains word of mouth. But tweets that reached al-Jazeera or the BBC also emphasized a profound disgust with the deafening silence of the "international community" ("Are we only worth mentioning when it has to do with oil and terrorism?")

Round up the oily condemnations
Said "international community" indeed started noticing when the Libyan Quryna newspaper reported protests had broken out in the northern city of Ras Lanuf, whose oil refinery processes 220,000 barrels a day.

Yes, apart from Gaddafi's antics, Libya registers in the West because it exports 1.7 million barrels of oil a day. Its gross domestic product is US$77 billion - number 62 in world rankings; that theoretically implies a per capita income of over $12,000 a year, more, for instance, than BRIC member Brazil. But profound inequality is the norm; roughly 35% of Libyans live below the poverty line, and unemployment is running at an unbearable 30%. The oil wealth stays in Tripolitania. Eastern Libya - Cyrenaica - where the anti-Gaddafi revolution started, is dirt poor.

In the high-stakes front, the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) - also owner of a London-based hedge fund - has invested more than $70 billion around the world. It's a major shareholder, for instance, in the Financial Times, Fiat and one of Italy's top soccer clubs, Juventus. LIA invests - and plans to invest - billions in Britain.

Cue to the European Union (EU) foreign ministers issuing the usual, bland, bureaucratic condemnation. At least Italian Prime Minister, "bunga bunga" idol and close Gaddafi pal Silvio Berlusconi, who had said earlier he didn't want to "disturb" his friend, had to qualify the massacre of civilians as "unacceptable" and profess he was "alarmed". To see Berlusconi literally kissing Gaddafi's hands, go here No less than 32% of Libya's oil exports go to Italy.

Then there's another classic - Washington's deafening silence. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued the standard bland condemnation. Libyan-American scientist and activist Naeem Gheriany told the Institute for Public Accuracy the Barack Obama administration "says it's 'concerned' about the situation - there's no real condemnation in spite of the dire situation. People are being massacred in the hundreds, Gaddafi is reportedly using anti-aircraft guns to shoot people. In a few days, more people in Libya have apparently been killed than in weeks in Iran, Tunisia, Bahrain, Yemen and even Egypt (which has a much larger population) ... Even the oil cannot justify this silence."

Not to mention that Washington and Gaddafi have been the best "war on terror" pals. Captured al-Qaeda operative Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi - the object of a Central Intelligence Agency "rendition" to former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and Omar "Sheikh al-Torture" Suleiman, who duly tortured him into confessing to a non-existent Saddam-al-Qaeda weapons of mass destruction connection that then-secretary of state Colin Powell used as "intelligence" at his United Nations speech in February 2003 - was later tracked in Libya by Human Rights Watch just to end up his life as an alleged "suicide".

Milan villa or The Hague?
Libyan opposition writer Ashour Shamis has remarked, "For Gaddafi it's kill or be killed". The family told Saudi paper al-Sharq al-Awsat, "We will all die on Libyan soil." That means Gaddafi and a row of hated offspring.

Son Khamis - the commander of an elite special forces unit, trained in Russia - is the mastermind of the repression in Benghazi. Son Saadi is, or was there too, alongside the head of military intelligence, Abdullah al-Senussi.

Son Muatassim is Gaddafi's national security adviser and, until now, possible successor. In 2009, he tried to set up his own special forces unit to erode Khamis's power.

Son Saif, the "modernizer" with an LSE diploma, cuts no mustard with the regime's old guard and the dreaded "Revolutionary Committees".

Son Saadi is basically a thug fond of raising hell across nightclubs in Europe. Same applies to son Hannibal.

It all looks and sounds like a cheap blood-splattered gangster movie. What to make of Gaddafi's bizarre 20-second appearance on state TV early this Tuesday ("I'm in Tripoli, not in Venezuela"), clutching an umbrella, sitting inside a cream-colored microvan and sporting a winter hat with ear flaps, with no clue of what is going on? (After all he was supporting his pals, Tunisia's Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, and to Mubarak, until the very end). He defined TV channels - such as al-Jazeera - as "dogs" (in the 1980s he had already used hit squads to murder exiled "stray dogs" who challenged his revolution).

Still, Gaddafi should not be underestimated. He controls all the hardware - defense, security, foreign affairs. Plus all those "black African" mercenaries/exterminators paid in gold. Yemen's Ali Abdullah Saleh said Yemen was not Egypt or Tunisia. Gaddafi said Libya was not Egypt or Tunisia. Mubarak said Egypt was not Tunisia.

They were all wrong; the entire Arab world now is Tunisia. The Libyan masses hate "their" leader. Even fellow Arab dictators - with the exception of the House of Saud - hate him. He has few expat options. Venezuela's Hugo Chavez would be crazy to offer him asylum and forever destroy his "champion of the poor" credibility.

Well, there's always Berlusconi. Nice villa near Milan, great pasta, and he can pitch his Bedouin tent in the luxurious gardens. And if Berlusconi is sent to jail in his "Rubygate"-related trial in April, Gaddafi may even move up to the main residence. But, after you bombed your own citizens from the air, and hired mercenaries to shoot them, there is only one choice destination: the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

(Copyright 2011 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

Next stop: The House of Saud
(Feb 18, '11)

1. Next stop: The House of Saud

2. US Internet declaration bugs China

3. The spies who got it wrong

4. Iran gas pipeline to Pakistan on hold

5. Lost dollars

6. Silver and opium

7. A cunning plan ...

8. All about Pearl roundabout

9. A guide to weapons of mass disruption

10. China's rotten Apple core

(Feb 18-21, 2011)

Self Help against the Vices of Power in BURMA 2011

2011-02-20T01:16:00.000+11:00

Asia Times

Southeast Asia

Feb 18, 2011

PHOTO ESSAY
Rangers to the rescue in Myanmar
By Tony Cliff

KAREN STATE, Myanmar - Saw Maw Nam spreads his dental instruments over a plastic sheet on the spongy ground of a vast but untended durian plantation cleared from Myanmar's northern Karen State jungle. With the help of a camper headlamp, he vigorously pulls at a tooth from a puzzled woman.

"Here most of the people get their teeth rotten by the betel nuts they constantly chew," smiles the 38-year-old Karen, himself a regular chewer. Besides Saw Maw Nam, who also goes by the nickname of "Superman", a group of women with their young children and a few elders from a nearby village sit on a tarpaulin.

Some have lived here since birth, others have come more

recently, forced to leave homes which were burnt down by government soldiers. Settled amid the small crowd, young medics take blood samples from screaming babies and test the breathing of their mothers with a stethoscope.

Photos by Tony Cliff

"Malaria is a big killer here," says Saw Hser Doh, a 25-year-old Karen medic. "Many people suffer from dysentery, anemia and other diseases which can be easily treated."

A female assistant will then distribute medicine and dutifully write down the details in a log book. Moving around this little theatre, Sai Khur Harn, a 28-year old Shan, is filming with a compact video camera. Later he will record the testimony of two villagers, detailing how they were forced to work as porters on trails infested with landmines by the government army - they all say "SPDC", the acronym for "State Peace and Development Council", the ruling military junta's official name since 1997.

Pictures and reports of atrocities perpetrated by soldiers against civilians will be processed on portable computers and sent with satellite equipment to a mailing list across the globe, including to international human rights activists and a handful of United States congressmen.

A short distance from the medical makeshift facilities, squatting near a fire with their guns within reach, other young men wash cuts of red meat for lunch. They are Naw Naw La Pang, a 30-year old Kachin, and Kya Bon, a 36-year old Lahu, both security volunteers.

They are all members of the Free Burma Rangers (FBR) relief team who reached the plantation the day after a tough walk through remote mountainous jungle. They were accompanied by some 20 porters carrying medical supplies, blankets, cloth and other emergency items.

The FBR were founded in 1997 by a then 37-year-old former American Special Forces officer who had grown up in Thailand and a handful of young Karen from a refugee camp. They were horrified by the displacement, disease and death of a brutal and large scale offensive along the Thai-Myanmar border launched by the government army against Karen insurgents.

"Refugees arriving on the border were more or less accommodated in camps in Thailand but we realized that there were huge needs in the jungle and the mountain where scores of displaced people were hiding in terror, nobody was helping them", says a FBR founder, who for security reasons asked not to be quoted by his real name but rather by pseudonym Tha-U-Wa-A-Pa, or "the father of the white monkey" in the Karen language.

It took a few years before the FBR established itself as a humanitarian force to reckon with and become the only organization of its kind not directly affiliated with an ethnic resistance movement to actually work deep inside Myanmar's vast ethnic territory.

In many ways, the FBR have reactivated in Myanmar what pioneering international non-governmental organizations (NGO) such as the French Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) or Aide Medicale Internationale (AMI) were doing in the 1980s in war-torn countries like Afghanistan before switching to more cautious strategies.

Then, humanitarian groups frequently worked without governments' authorization to send medical relief teams in war zones, often by passing through clandestine border crossings. Today, with the vast network of humanitarian organizations all over the world, the FBR are one of the few that have maintained this risky, life-saving approach.

Most FBR missions take place in Myanmar's so-called "black zones", a term used by the junta to describe ethnic territories with intense underground activities. They are also where soldiers have a free license to kill suspected guerrillas as well as civilians. The ongoing offensive in ethnic territories is not new but rather the continuation of a massive counter-insurgency strategy launched in the 1960s under a policy known as the "Four Cuts".

The objective then was to push the insurgents from central Myanmar to more remote mountainous areas and cut their links to food, money, intelligence and recruits with the local and mostly sympathetic population. That move also had an economic motive: the exploitation of these lands vast and rich natural resources. The policy has over the years amounted to an endless and efficient ethnic cleansing campaign which is still ongoing.

The "black zones" in particular have become a setting for daily tragedies. Government soldiers, driven by a system that insures total impunity, have engaged in a myriad of abuses: murder, rape, torture, destruction, looting, forced labor, child conscription. FBR and other organizations estimate that there are currently over one million internally displaced people in Myanmar's ethnic areas. Some are forced to flee fighting and abuses for a few days, others for months or even years.

FBR volunteers are young people selected by ethnic leaders for their motivation and aptitude. They are generally trained from a one to two month period in secret camps set up in ethnic territory. They learn the basic techniques of medical emergency, psychological counseling, media reporting, map reading, landmine removal and physical training before signing up for at least four years with the organization. A new "Ranger" has to make the fundamental commitment "to be with people under attack and to stand with them if they cannot flee".

After a year of practice, volunteer medics are invited to attend an advanced training program where they are taught more sophisticated techniques, including amputation. Western medical professionals often travel from overseas to volunteer and run training sessions.

The most regular is with no doubt Shannon Allison, a 49-year-old American dentist. Every year or so, this former Special Forces officer and friend of Tha-U-Wa-A-Pa leaves his dental practice in Mandeville, Louisiana, his wife and their four children for the journey to the Thai-Myanmar border.

Carrying his equipment, including a specially designed portable drill that works on solar energy, he often disappears for a month in the Myanmar jungle with a FBR team. Wherever the expedition stops, Allison, a gentle and always laughing giant, pulls and fills rotten teeth but most importantly imparts his dental expertise to young volunteers such as Superman.

The FBR currently have 55 teams with a total of about 300 volunteers from 11 different ethnic groups, half of them Karen. Each team operates for spells or one to two months, and sometimes as long as four months, in conflict affected ethnic territories. The teams' security is usually provided by the local ethnic resistance movements that operate in those areas. For instance, the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) in the East and the Arakan Liberation Army (ALA) in the West organize the crossing of strategic and heavily mined military roads in their territories. The priority of FBR teams, who must move constantly to eschew entrenched SPDC positions and camps, is to avoid at all cost any encounter with soldiers.

They can be painstaking maneuvers when, as it often happens at the start of a FBR expedition, a column of 150 people including a hundred unarmed porters has to be moved. Since 1997, however, only a few FBR members have been killed or captured by government soldiers. Others have perished from malaria or other diseases.

The bulk of the FBR budget - about US$1 million in 2010 - comes from private donors, mostly American and European Christian networks, but also some European governments have discreetly provided the organization with equipment. Increasingly complicated administration and logistics managed outside of Myanmar are generally taken care of by Western volunteers, mostly from the US.

The FBR also contributed, thanks to a large private donation from a couple of American citizens, to set up an early warning system in 150 Karen villages. These village headmen were trained and provided with communication equipment and solar panels. Any move by the Myanmar army in a given location can be quickly dispatched to the nearest KNLA rebel position who will send guerrillas to help villagers to flee and hide in the forest before the soldiers arrive.

Because the FBR's core founders are Christian, it is often erroneously believed that it's a religious organization. "That's not exact," says Tha-U-Wa-A-Pa, himself a devout Christian. "Even if Christians like myself are motivated by the love God gives to the people, we have amongst our volunteers non-believers as well as people from Buddhist and animist background".

Members of the team often gather children and women in a so-called "Good Life Club" program specifically designed for them. Under the direction of Daniel Dan Phone, a 33-year old Karen, the children will sing, dance and play for a couple of hours before receiving a pack containing toilet items, toys and baby outfits.

For Dan Phone, this kind of jungle recreation afternoon represents a dramatic turn from a previous life. Indeed a few years ago he was making a living as a pianist playing Chopin and Bach in the lobby of Rangoon Sedona and Traders luxury hotels ... "I thought I was useless there and I decided to join the Karen resistance where I had some relatives and friends, and more recently I volunteered with the FBR".

Currently FBR teams are at work in Mon, Karen, Karenni, Shan, Arakan and Chin States. In almost 14 years of existence, according to their own statistics, FBR teams have treated over 360,000 patients and helped over 750,000 people. Although difficult to measure, another upshot of FBR's work appears to be deterrence, judging by the decline in the number of villages raided and pillaged by government troops in recent years.

"The KNLA told us that many times they intercepted messages by the SPDC telling their troops to be careful as human rights groups were in the area filming," says Tha-U-Wa-A-Pa. "We were told sometimes they mentioned FBR, other times they just said human rights groups."

FBR teams also try to get as much information as they can about the Myanmar army officers and soldiers responsible for atrocities. Names, ranks, locations and other details have been reported, but so far it has been impossible to confirm whether this kind of exposure has directly changed their actions.

The FBR's existence has been recognized at the very top of the SPDC's hierarchy. During a state visit to India in 2010, General Than Shwe, the junta's leader, reportedly asked Indian authorities to crack down on Tha-U-Wa-A-Pa and his volunteers because they "are trying to destabilize the peaceful border with millions of dollars from the American government". That's almost an official acknowledgement.

Tony Cliff, a pseudonym, is a Bangkok-based freelance photojournalist. Since 1999 he has accompanied FBR teams in Karen, Karenni and Shan States for periods of two to five weeks. He may be reached at tonycliff7@gmail.com.

(Copyright 2011 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

Cannibalisation repeats itself because the Stupid Owners haven't changed

2011-02-19T23:55:00.000+11:00

Asia Times

China Business

Feb 17, 2011

Silver and opium
By Antal E Fekete

The Opium Wars do not belong to the glorious episodes of Western history. Rather, they were instances of shameful behavior the West still has not lived down.

Mercantilist governments resented the perpetual drain of silver from West to East in payment for Oriental goods (tea, silk, porcelain) that were in high demand in the Occident, while facing low demand in the Orient for Occidental goods. From the mid-17th century, more than 9 billion Troy ounces, or 290 thousand tonnes, of silver was absorbed by China from European countries in exchange for Chinese goods.

The British introduced opium along with tobacco as an export item to China in order to reduce the trade deficit. Under the

disguise of free trade, the British, the Spanish and the French, with the tacit approval of the Americans, continued sending their contraband to China through legitimate as well as illegitimate trade channels even after the Chinese dynasty put an embargo on opium imports.

Because of its strong appeal to the Chinese masses, and because of its highly addictive nature, opium appeared to be the ideal solution to the West’s trade problem. And, indeed, the flow of silver was first stopped, and then reversed. China was forced to pay silver for her addiction to opium smoking that was artificially induced by the pusher - the British.

Thus silver was replaced by opium as the mainstay of Western exports. In 1729 China, recognizing the growing problem of addiction and the debilitating and mind-corrupting nature of the drug, prohibited the sale and smoking of opium, allowing only a small quota of imports for medicinal purposes. The British defied the embargo and ban on opium trade, and encouraged smuggling. As a result, British exports of opium to China grew from an estimated 15 tonnes to 75 tonnes by 1773. This increased further to 900 tonnes by 1820; and to 1,400 tonnes annually by 1838 - an almost 100-fold increase in 100 years.

Something had to be done. The Chinese government introduced the death penalty for drug trafficking and put British processing and distributing facilities on Chinese soil under siege. Chinese troops boarded British ships in international waters carrying opium to Chinese ports and destroyed their cargo, in addition to the destruction of opium found on Chinese territory. The British accused the Chinese of destroying British property and sent a large British-Indian army to China in order to exact punishment.

British military superiority was clearly evident in the armed conflict. British warships wreaked havoc on coastal towns. After taking Canton (Guangzhou), the British sailed up the Yangtze River. They grabbed the tax barges, inflicting a devastating blow on the Chinese as imperial revenues were impossible to collect. In 1842, China sued for peace, with a pact that was concluded in Nanking and ratified the following year. In the treaty, China was forced to pay an indemnity to Britain, open four port cities where British subjects were given extraterritorial privileges, and cede Hong Kong to Britain. In 1844 the United States and France signed similar treaties with China.

These humiliating treaties were criticized in the House of Commons by William E Gladstone, who later served as prime minister. He was wondering "whether there had ever been a war more unjust in its origin, a war more calculated to cover Britain with permanent disgrace". The Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston, replied that nobody believed that the Chinese government’s motive was "the promotion of good moral habits", or that the war was fought to stem China's balance of trade deficit.

The American president, John Quincy Adams, chimed in during the debate by suggesting that opium was a "mere incident". According to him "the cause of the war was the arrogant and insupportable pretensions of China that she would hold commercial intercourse with the rest of mankind not upon terms of equal reciprocity, but upon the insulting and degrading forms of the relations between lord and vassal."

These words are echoed, 160 years later, by President Barack Obama's recent disdainful pronouncements to the effect that China's exchange-rate policy is unacceptable to the rest of mankind as it pretends that China's currency is that of the lord, and everybody else's is that of the vassal.

The peace of Nanking did not last. The Chinese searched a suspicious ship, and the British answered by putting the port city of Canton under siege in 1856, occupying it in 1857. The French also entered the fray. British troops were approaching Beijing and set on to destroy the Summer Palace. China again was forced to sue for peace. In the peace treaty of Tianjin, the port for Beijing, China yielded to the demand to create 10 new port cities, and granted foreigners free passage throughout the country. It also agreed to pay an indemnity of five million ounces of silver: three million to Britain and two million to France.

This deliberate humiliation of China by the Western powers contributed greatly to the loosening and ultimate snapping of the internal coherence of the Qing Dynasty, leading to the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864), the Boxer Uprising (1899-1901) and, ultimately, to the downfall of the Qing Dynasty in 1912.

The present trade dispute between the US . and China is reminiscent of the background to the two Opium Wars. Once more, the issue is the humiliation and plunder of China as a "thank you" for China's favor of having provided consumer goods for which the West was unable to pay in terms of Western goods suitable for Chinese consumption. The only difference is the absence of opium in the dispute.

Oops, I take it back. The role of opium in the current dispute is played by paper. Paper dollars, to be precise.

In 1971, an atrocity was made that I call the Nixon-Friedman conspiracy. To cover up the shame and disgrace of the default of the US on its international gold obligations, Milton Friedman (following an earlier failed attempt of John Maynard Keynes) concocted a spurious and idiotic theory of floating exchange rates. It suggests that falling foreign exchange value of the domestic currency makes it stronger when in actual fact the opposite is true: it is made weaker as the terms of trade of the devaluing country deteriorates and that of its trading partners improves.

President Richard Nixon was quick to embrace the false theory of Friedman. No public debate of the plan was permitted then, or ever after. Under the new dispensation, the irredeemable dollar was to play the role of the ultimate extinguisher of debt, a preposterous idea. The scheme was imposed on the world under duress as part of the "new millennium", shaking off the "tyranny of gold", that "barbarous relic", the last remnant of superstition, the only remaining "anachronism of the Modern Age".

The ploy was played up and celebrated as a great scientific breakthrough, making it possible for man to shape his own destiny rationally, free of superstition, for the first time ever. Yet all it was a cheap trick to elevate the dishonored paper of an insolvent banker (the US) from scum to the holy of holies: international currency. The fact that fiat paper money has a history of 100% mortality was neatly side-stepped. Any questioning of the wisdom of experimenting with it in spite of logic and historical evidence was declared foggy-bottom reactionary thinking.

The amazing thing about this episode of the history of human folly was the ease with which it could be pushed down the throat of the rest of the world, including those nations that were directly hurt by it, such as the ones running a trade surplus with the US. Their savings went up in smoke.

The explanation for this self-destructing behavior is the addictive, debilitating and mind-corrosive nature of paper money, in direct analogy with that of opium. The high caused by administering the opium pipe to the patient (read: administering quantitative easing, or QE) had to be repeated when the effect faded by a fresh administration of more opium (read: QE2).

If the patient resists, like China did in 1840, then a holy opium war must be declared on it in the name of the right of others to free trade. Now 170 years later, a New China once more demurs against the paper-torture treatment it was subjected to by the American debt-mongers and opium pushers.

But beware: if the West starts another Opium War, this time it is not China that will be on the losing side.

Antal E Fekete has since 2001 been consulting professor at Sapientia University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. In 1996, Professor Fekete won the first prize in the International Currency Essay contest sponsored by Bank Lips Ltd of Switzerland.

(Copyright 2011 Antal E Fekete)

Fidel Castro and his Cuba

2011-02-18T08:41:00.001+11:00

Nothing Changes with particular Landlords throughout history. There is a particular style and way of going about things that the "Bay of Pigs" illustrates as a clear Architype.There is a way of thinking and a school of Philosophers that support a particular Doctrine that goes back to the 2nd Battle of Venice in 1509. Venice would have been obliterated if there was not a betrayal of all the Kings of Europe. All for financial control reasons. Nothing has changed since and the same as the Financial Medieval Period before all the way back to the Financial problems of the Romans.

Bay of Pigs Invasion

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bay of Pigs Invasion

Part of the Cold War

Map showing the location of the Bay of Pigs

Date	April 17–19, 1961
Location	Bay of Pigs, southern Cuba
Result	Cuban government victory

Belligerents

Cuba

United States
Cuban exiles

Commanders and leaders

Fidel Castro
José Ramón Fernández
Juan Almeida Bosque
Che Guevara ^[1]^[2]
Efigenio Ameijeiras

John F. Kennedy
Richard M. Bissell, Jr.
Pepe San Roman
Erneido Oliva

Strength

c. 25,000 army^[3]
c. 200,000 militia^[3]^[4]
c. 9,000 armed police^[3]^[4]

c. 1,500 ground forces^[A]

Casualties and losses

176 killed^[B]
c. 4,000 wounded^[C]

118 killed^[D]
1,202 captured^[E]

Political background

The Bay of Pigs Invasion was an unsuccessful action by a CIA-trained force of Cuban exiles to invade southern Cuba, with support and encouragement from the US government, in an attempt to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro.
The conflict was launched in April 1961, less than three months after John F. Kennedy assumed the presidency in the United States. The Cuban armed forces, trained and equipped by Eastern Bloc nations, defeated the invading combatants within three days.
The main invasion landing took place at a beach named Playa Girón, located at the mouth of the bay. The invasion is named after the Bay of Pigs, although that is just one possible translation of the Spanish Bahía de Cochinos. In Cuba, the conflict is sometimes known as La Batalla de Girón, or just Playa Girón.

On March 17, 1960, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower approved a document prepared by the 5412 Committee (also known as the 'Special Group'), at a meeting of the US National Security Council (NSC). The stated first objective of the plan began as follows:^[5]

A PROGRAM OF COVERT ACTION AGAINST THE CASTRO REGIME
1. Objective: The purpose of the program outlined herein is to bring about the replacement of the Castro regime with one more devoted to the true interests of the Cuban people and more acceptable to the U.S. in such a manner to avoid any appearance of U.S. intervention.

The outline plan (code-named Operation Pluto) was organized by CIA Deputy Director for Plans Richard Mervin Bissell, Jr., under CIA Director Allen Dulles. Having experience in actions such as the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état, Dulles was confident that the CIA was capable of overthrowing the Cuban government as led by prime minister Fidel Castro since February 1959. The first detailed CIA plan proposed a ship-borne invasion at the old colonial city of Trinidad, Cuba, about 270 km (170 mi) south-east of Havana, at the foothills of the Escambray Mountains in Sancti Spiritus province. Trinidad had good port facilities, it was closer to many existing counter-revolutionary activities, it had an easily defensible beachhead, and it offered an escape route into the Escambray Mountains. When that plan was rejected by the State Department, the CIA went on to propose an alternative plan. On April 4, 1961, President Kennedy then approved the Bay of Pigs plan (also known as Operation Zapata), because it had an airfield that would not need to be extended to handle bomber operations, it was further away from large groups of civilians than the Trinidad plan, and it was less militarily 'noisy,' that would make any future denial of direct US involvement more plausible. The invasion landing area was changed to beaches bordering the Bahía de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs) in Las Villas Province, 150 km south-east of Havana, and east of the Zapata peninsula. The landings were to take place at Playa Girón (code-named Blue Beach), Playa Larga (code-named Red Beach), and Caleta Buena Inlet (code-named Green Beach).^[6]^[7]^[8]^[9]
In March 1961, the CIA helped Cuban exiles in Miami to create the Cuban Revolutionary Council (CRC), chaired by José Miró Cardona, former Prime Minister of Cuba in January 1959. Cardona became the de facto leader-in-waiting of the intended post-invasion Cuban government.^[10]

Existing anti-Castro resistance in Cuba

After the success of the Cuban Revolution in January 1959, counter-revolutionary groups grew, particularly in the Escambray Mountains, where the War Against the Bandits guerrilla war continued sporadically until 1965. Prior to the invasion, the CIA supported and supplied various groups with arms and other resources, but they were not included in the invasion plans due to concerns about information security.^[6]^:64 No quarter was given during the suppression of the resistance in the Escambray Mountains, where former rebels from the War Against Batista took different sides.^[11] On 11 March 1961, Jesus Carreras and American William Alexander Morgan (a former Castro ally) were executed after trial.^[12]^[13]
On April 3, 1961, a bomb attack on militia barracks in Bayamo killed four militia and wounded eight more. On April 6, the Hershey Sugar factory in Matanzas was destroyed by sabotage.^[14] On April 14, 1961, guerrillas led by Agapito Rivera fought Cuban government forces near Las Cruces, Montembo, Las Villas, where several government troops were killed and others wounded.^[14] Also on April 14, 1961, a Cubana airliner was hijacked and flown to Jacksonville, Florida; resultant confusion then helped discovery of the staged 'defection' of a B-26 and pilot at Miami on 15 April.^[15]^[16]^:245

Preparation and training for invasion

In April 1960, the CIA began to recruit anti-Castro Cuban exiles in the Miami area. Until July 1960, assessment and training was carried out on Useppa Island and at various other facilities in South Florida, such as Homestead AFB. Specialist guerrilla training took place at Fort Gulick, Panama and at Fort Clayton, Panama.^[15]^[17]^:78 For the increasing ranks of recruits, infantry training was carried out at a CIA-run base code-named JMTrax near Retalhuleu in the Sierra Madre on the Pacific coast of Guatemala.^[18] The exiles group named themselves Brigade 2506 (Brigada Asalto 2506).^[18] In summer 1960, an airfield (code-named JMMadd, aka Rayo Base) was constructed near Retalhuleu, Guatemala. Gunnery and flight training of Brigade 2506 aircrews was carried out by personnel from Alabama ANG (Air National Guard), using at least six Douglas B-26 Invaders in the markings of FAG (Fuerza Aérea Guatemalteca), legitimate delivery of those to the FAG being delayed by about six months. An additional 26 B-26s were obtained from US military stocks, 'sanitized' at 'Field Three' to obscure their origins, and about 20 of them were converted for offensive operations by removal of defensive armament, standardization of the 'eight-gun nose', addition of underwing drop tanks and rocket racks.^[19]^[20] Paratroop training was at a base nicknamed Garrapatenango, near Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. Training for boat handling and amphibious landings took place at Vieques Island, Puerto Rico. Tank training took place at Fort Knox, Kentucky and Fort Benning, Georgia. Underwater demolition and infiltration training took place at Belle Chase near New Orleans.^[9]
The CIA used Douglas C-54 transports to deliver people, supplies, and arms from Florida at night. Curtiss C-46s were also used for transport between Retalhuleu and the CIA base code-named JMTide (aka Happy Valley), at Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua. On April 9, 1961, Brigade 2506 personnel, ships, and aircraft started transferring from Guatemala to Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua.^[13]
In early 1961, Cuba's army possessed Soviet-designed T-34 and IS-2 Stalin tanks, SU-100 self-propelled 'tank destroyers', 122 mm howitzers, other artillery and small arms, plus Italian 105 mm howitzers. The Cuban air force armed inventory included Douglas B-26 Invader light bombers, Hawker Sea Fury fighters, and Lockheed T-33 jets, all remaining from the Fuerza Aérea del Ejército de Cuba (FAEC), the Cuban air force of the Batista government.^[18]
Anticipating an invasion, Che Guevara stressed the importance of an armed civilian populace, stating "all the Cuban people must become a guerrilla army, each and every Cuban must learn to handle and if necessary use firearms in defense of the nation."^[21]

Participants

US Government personnel

Recruiting of Cuban exiles in Miami was organized by CIA staff officers E. Howard Hunt and Gerry Droller. Detailed planning, training and military operations were conducted by Jacob Esterline, Col. Jack Hawkins and Colonel Stanley W. Beerli under the direction of Richard Bissell, and his deputy Tracy Barnes.^[9]

Cuban government personnel

Already, Fidel Castro was known as, and addressed as, the commander-in-chief of Cuban armed forces, with a nominal base at 'Point One' in Havana. In early April 1961, Raúl Castro was assigned command of forces in the east, based in Santiago de Cuba. Che Guevara commanded western forces, based in Pinar del Río. Major Juan Almeida commanded forces in the central provinces, based in Santa Clara. Raúl Curbelo Morales was head of the air force. Sergio del Valle Jiménez was Director of Headquarters Operations at Point One. Efigenio Ameijeiras was the Head of the Revolutionary National Police. Ramiro Valdés Menéndez was Minister of the Interior and head of G-2 (Seguridad del Estado, or state security). His deputy was Comandante Manuel Piñeiro Losada, also known as 'Barba Roja'. Captain José Ramón Fernández was head of the School of Militia Leaders (Cadets) at Matanzas.^[3]^[17]^:169^[22]^[23]^[24]
Other commanders of units during the conflict included Major Raúl Menéndez Tomassevich, Major Filiberto Olivera Moya, Major René de los Santos, Major Augusto Martínez Sanchez, Major Félix Duque, Major Pedro Miret, Major Flavio Bravo, Major Antonio Lussón, Captain Orlando Pupo Pena, Captain Victor Dreke, Captain Emilio Aragonés, Captain Angel Fernández Vila, Arnaldo Ochoa, Orlando Rodriguez Puerta.^[15]^[17]^[25]^[26]
Soviet-trained Spanish advisors were brought to Cuba from Eastern Bloc countries. These advisors had held high staff positions in the Soviet Armies during World War II, and became known as 'Hispano-Soviets', having long-resided in the Soviet Union. The most senior of these were the Spanish Communist veterans of the Spanish Civil War, Francisco Ciutat de Miguel, Enrique Lister, and Cuban-born Alberto Bayo.^[27] Ciutat de Miguel (Cuban alias: Ángel Martínez Riosola, commonly referred to as Angelito) was an advisor to forces in the central provinces. The role of other Soviet agents at the time is uncertain, but some of them acquired greater fame later. For instance, two KGB colonels, Vadim Kochergin and Victor Simanov were first sighted in Cuba in about September 1959.^[28]^[29]

Prior warnings of invasion

The Cuban security apparatus knew the invasion was coming, via their secret intelligence network, as well as loose talk by members of the brigade, some of which was heard in Miami, and was repeated in US and foreign newspaper reports. Nevertheless, days before the invasion, multiple acts of sabotage were carried out, such as the arson attack in the El Encanto department store in Havana on 13 April, killing one shop worker.^[15]^[17]^:123-125 The Cuban government also had been warned by senior KGB agents Osvaldo Sánchez Cabrera and 'Aragon', who died violently before and after the invasion, respectively.^[30] The general Cuban population was not well informed, except for CIA-funded Radio Swan.^[31] As of May 1960, almost all means of public communication were in the government’s hands.^[32]^[33]
On April 29, 2000 Washington Post article, "Soviets Knew Date of Cuba Attack", reported that the CIA had information indicating that the Soviet Union knew the invasion was going to take place, and did not inform Kennedy. Radio Moscow broadcast an English-language newscast on April 13, 1961 predicting the invasion "in a plot hatched by the CIA" using paid "criminals" within a week. The invasion took place four days later.^[34]
David Ormsby-Gore, British Ambassador to the US, stated that British intelligence analysis, as made available to the CIA, indicated that the Cuban people were predominantly behind Castro, and that there was no likelihood of mass defections or insurrections.^[16]^:264

Prelude to invasion

Air attacks on airfields (15 April)

During the night of 14/15 April, a diversionary landing was planned near Baracoa, Oriente Province, by about 164 Cuban exiles commanded by Higinio 'Nino' Diaz. Their mother ship, named La Playa or Santa Ana, had sailed from Key West under a Costa Rican ensign. Several US Navy destroyers were stationed offshore near Guantanamo Bay to give the appearance of an impending invasion fleet.^[35] The reconnaissance boats turned back to the ship after their crews detected activities by Cuban militia forces along the coastline.^[3]^[17]^:156–159^[18]^[22]^[36]^[37]
As a result of those activities, at daybreak, a Cuban Air Force reconnaissance sortie over the Baracoa area was launched from Santiago de Cuba. That was a FAR T-33, piloted by Lt Orestes Acosta, and it crashed fatally into the sea. On 17 April, his name was falsely quoted as a defector among the disinformation circulating in Miami.^[38]
At about 06.00 Cuba local time on 15 April 1961, eight Douglas B-26B Invader bombers in three groups simultaneously attacked three Cuban airfields at San Antonio de Los Baños and at Ciudad Libertad (formerly named Campo Columbia), both near Havana, plus the Antonio Maceo International Airport at Santiago de Cuba. The B-26s had been prepared by the CIA on behalf of Brigade 2506, and had been painted with the markings of the FAR (Fuerza Aérea Revolucionaria), the air force of the Cuban government. Each was armed with bombs, rockets and machine guns. They had flown from Puerto Cabezas in Nicaragua, and were crewed by exiled Cuban pilots and navigators of the self-styled Fuerza Aérea de Liberación (FAL). The purpose of the action (code-named Operation Puma) was reportedly to destroy most or all of the armed aircraft of the FAR in preparation for the main invasion. At Santiago, the two attackers destroyed a C-47 transport, a PBY Catalina flying boat, two B-26s and a civilian DC-3 plus various other civilian aircraft. At San Antonio, the three attackers destroyed three FAR B-26s, one Sea Fury and one T-33, and one attacker diverted to Grand Cayman due to low usable fuel. At Ciudad Libertad, the three attackers destroyed only non-operational aircraft such as two P-47 Thunderbolts. One of those attackers was damaged by anti-aircraft fire, and ditched about 50 km north of Cuba with the loss of its crew Daniel Fernández Mon and Gaston Pérez. Its companion B-26, also damaged, continued north and landed at Boca Chica field (Naval Air Station Key West), Florida. The crew, José Crespo and Lorenzo Pérez-Lorenzo, were granted political asylum, and made their way back to Nicaragua the next day via Miami and the daily CIA C-54 flight from Opa-Locka Airport to Puerto Cabezas. Their B-26, purposely numbered 933, the same as at least two other B-26s that day for disinformation reasons, was held until late on 17 April.^[17]^:130^[38]

Deception flight (15 April)

About 90 minutes after the eight B-26s had taken off from Puerto Cabezas to attack Cuban airfields, another B-26 departed on a deception flight that took it close to Cuba but headed north towards Florida. Like the bomber groups, it carried false FAR markings and the same number 933 as painted on at least two of the others. Prior to departure, the cowling from one of the aircraft's two engines was removed by CIA personnel, fired upon, then re-installed to give the false appearance that the aircraft had taken ground fire at some point during its flight. At a safe distance north of Cuba, the pilot feathered the engine with the pre-installed bullet holes in the cowling, radioed a mayday call and requested immediate permission to land at Miami International airport. The pilot was Mario Zúñiga, formerly of the FAEC (Cuban Air Force), and after landing he masqueraded as 'Juan Garcia', and publicly claimed that three colleagues had also defected from the FAR. The next day he was granted political asylum, and that night he returned to Puerto Cabezas via Opa-Locka.^[20]^[38]^[39]

Reactions (15 April)

At 10:30am on 15 April at the United Nations, the Cuban Foreign Minister Raúl Roa attempted to accuse the US of aggressive air attacks against Cuba, and that afternoon formally tabled a motion to the Political (First) Committee of the UN General Assembly. In response, US ambassador to the UN Adlai Stevenson stated that US armed forces would not "under any conditions" intervene in Cuba, and that the US would do everything in its power to ensure that no US citizens would participate in actions against Cuba. He also stated that Cuban defectors had carried out the attacks that day, and he presented a UPI wire photo of Zuniga's B-26 in Cuban markings at Miami airport. Stevenson was later embarrassed to realize that the CIA had lied to him and to Secretary of State Dean Rusk.^[8]^[13]^[22]
On 15 April, the national police, led by Efigenio Ameijeiras, started the process of arresting thousands of suspected anti-revolutionary individuals, and detaining them in provisional locations such as the Karl Marx Theatre, the moat of Fortaleza de la Cabana and the Principe Castle all in Havana, and the baseball park in Matanzas.^[12]

Phony war (16 April)

On the night of 15/16 April, the Nino Diaz group failed in a second attempted diversionary landing at a fresh location near Baracoa.^[22]
On 16 April, Merardo Leon, Jose Leon, and 14 others staged an armed uprising at Las Delicias Estate in Las Villas, with only four surviving. Leonel Martinez and 3 others took to the countryside.^[14]^{[clarification needed]}
Following the air strikes on airfields on April 15, 1961, the FAR managed to prepare for armed action at least four T-33s, four Sea Furies and five or six B-26s. All three types were armed with machine guns for air-to-air combat and for strafing of ships and ground targets. CIA planners had failed to discover that the US-supplied T-33 jets had long been armed with M-3 machine guns. The three types could also carry bombs, for attacks against ships and tanks.^[40]
No additional air strikes against Cuban airfields and aircraft were specifically planned before 17 April, because B-26 pilots' exaggerated claims gave the CIA false confidence in the success of the 15 April attacks, until U-2 reconnaissance photos on 16 April showed otherwise. Late on 16 April, President Kennedy ordered cancellation of further airfield strikes planned for dawn on 17 April, to attempt plausible deniability of US direct involvement.^[9]
Late on April 16, 1961, the CIA/Brigade 2506 invasion fleet converged on 'Rendezvous Point Zulu', about 65 kilometres (40 mi) south of Cuba, having sailed from Puerto Cabezas in Nicaragua where they had been loaded with troops and other materiel, after loading arms and supplies at New Orleans. The US Navy operation was code-named Bumpy Road, having been changed from Crosspatch on 1 April 1961.^[9] The fleet, labelled the 'Cuban Expeditionary Force' (CEF), included five 2,400-ton (empty weight) freighter ships chartered by the CIA from the Garcia Line, and subsequently outfitted with anti-aircraft guns. Four of the freighters, Houston (code name Aguja), Río Escondido (code name Ballena), Caribe (code name Sardina), and Atlántico (code-name Tiburón), were planned to transport about 1,400 troops in seven battalions of troops and armaments near to the invasion beaches. The fifth freighter, Lake Charles, was loaded with follow-up supplies and some Operation 40 infiltration personnel. The freighters sailed under Liberian ensigns. Accompanying them were two LCIs (Landing Craft Infantry) 'purchased' from Zapata Corporation then outfitted with heavy armament at Key West, then exercises and training at Vieques Island. The LCIs were Blagar (code-name Marsopa) and Barbara J (code-name Barracuda), sailing under Nicaraguan ensigns. The CEF ships were individually escorted (outside visual range) to Point Zulu by US Navy destroyers USS Bache, USS Beale, USS Conway, USS Cony, USS Eaton, USS Murray, USS Waller. A task force had already assembled off the Cayman Islands, including aircraft carrier USS Essex with task force commander John A. Clark (Admiral) onboard, helicopter assault carrier USS Boxer, destroyers USS Hank, USS John W. Weeks, USS Purdy, USS Wren, and submarines USS Cobbler and USS Threadfin. Command and control ship USS Northampton and carrier USS Shangri-La were also reportedly active in the Caribbean at the time. USS San Marcos was a Landing Ship Dock that carried three LCUs (Landing Craft Utility) and four LCVPs (Landing Craft, Vehicles, Personnel). San Marcos had sailed from Vieques Island. At Point Zulu, the seven CEF ships sailed north without the USN escorts, except for San Marcos that continued until the seven landing craft were unloaded when just outside the 5 kilometres (3 mi) Cuban territorial limit.^[13]^[15]^[41]

Invasion

Bahia de Cochinos 1961

Invasion day (17 April)

During the night of 16/17 April, a mock diversionary landing was organized by CIA operatives near Bahia Honda, Pinar del Rio Province. A flotilla of small boats towed rafts containing equipment that broadcasted sounds and other effects of a shipborne invasion landing. That was the source of Cuban reports that briefly lured Fidel Castro away from the Bay of Pigs battlefront area.^[15]^[17]^:183^[22]
At about 00:00 on April 17, 1961, the two CIA LCIs Blagar and Barbara J, each with a CIA 'operations officer' and an Underwater Demolition Team (UDT) of five frogmen, entered the Bay of Pigs (Bahía de Cochinos) on the southern coast of Cuba. They headed a force of four transport ships (Houston, Río Escondido, Caribe and Atlántico) carrying about 1,400 Cuban exile ground troops of Brigade 2506, plus tanks and other armour in the landing craft. At about 01:00, the Blagar, as the battlefield command ship, directed the principal landing at Playa Girón (Blue Beach), led by the frogmen in rubber boats followed by troops from Caribe in small aluminum boats, then LCVPs and LCUs. The Barbara J, leading Houston, similarly landed troops 35 km further northwest at Playa Larga (Red Beach), using small fiberglass boats. Unloading troops at night was delayed, due to engine failures and boats damaged by unseen coral reefs. The few militia in the area succeeded in warning Cuban armed forces via radio soon after the first landing, before the invaders overcame their token resistance.^[17]^:161,167^[22]
At daybreak at about 06:30, three FAR Sea Furies, one B-26 and two T-33 jets started attacking those CEF ships still unloading troops. At about 06:50, and 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) south of Playa Larga, Houston was damaged by several rockets from a Sea Fury and a T-33, and about 2 hours later captain Luis Morse intentionally beached it on the western side of the bay. About 270 troops had been unloaded, but about 180 survivors who struggled ashore were incapable of taking part in further action because of the loss of most of their weapons and equipment. At about 07:00, two invading FAL B-26s attacked and sank the Cuban Navy Patrol Escort ship El Baire at Nueva Gerona on the Isle of Pines.^[22]^[38] They then proceeded to Girón to join two other B-26s to attack Cuban ground troops and provide distraction air cover for the paratroop C-46s and the CEF ships under air attack.
At about 07:30, five C-46 and one C-54 transport aircraft dropped 177 paratroops from the parachute battalion of Brigade 2506 in an action code-named Operation Falcon.^[42] About 30 men, plus heavy equipment, were dropped south of Australia sugar mill on the road to Palpite and Playa Larga, but the equipment was lost in the swamps, and the troops failed to block the road. Other troops were dropped at San Blas, at Jocuma between Covadonga and San Blas, and at Horquitas between Yaguaramas and San Blas. Those positions to block the roads were maintained for 2 days, reinforced by ground troops from Playa Girón.^[17]^:206
At about 08:30, a FAR Sea Fury piloted by Carlos Ulloa Arauz crashed in the bay, due to stalling or anti-aircraft fire, after encountering a FAL C-46 returning south after dropping paratroops. By 09:00, Cuban troops and militia from outside the area had started arriving at Australia sugar mill, Covadonga and Yaguaramas. Throughout the day they were reinforced by more troops, heavy armour and T-34 tanks typically carried on flat-bed trucks.^[17]^:195-196 At about 09:30, FAR Sea Furies and T-33s fired rockets at the Rio Escondido, that 'blew up' and sank about 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) south of Girón.^[18]^[22]
At about 11:00, a FAR T-33 attacked a FAL B-26 (serial number 935) piloted by Matias Farias who then survived a crashlanding on the Girón airfield, his navigator Eduardo Gonzales already killed by gunfire. His companion B-26 suffered damage and diverted to Grand Cayman Island; pilot Mario Zúñiga (the 'defector') and navigator Oscar Vega returned to Puerto Cabezas via CIA C-54 on 18 April. By about 11:00, the two remaining freighters Caribe and Atlántico, and the CIA LCIs and LCUs, started retreating south to international waters, but still pursued by FAR aircraft. At about 12:00, a FAR B-26 exploded due to heavy anti-aircraft fire from Blagar, and pilot Luis Silva Tablada (on his second sortie) and his crew of three were lost.^[20]^[22]
By 12:00 hundreds of militia cadets from Matanzas had secured Palpite, and cautiously advanced on foot south towards Playa Larga, suffering many casualties during attacks by FAL B-26s. By dusk other Cuban ground forces were gradually advancing southward from Covadonga and southwest from Yaguaramas toward San Blas, and westward along coastal tracks from Cienfuegos towards Girón, all without heavy weapons or armour.^[22]
During the day three FAL B-26s were shot down by FAR T-33s, with the loss of pilots Raúl Vianello, José Crespo, Osvaldo Piedra and navigators Lorenzo Pérez-Lorenzo and José Fernández. Vianello's navigator Demetrio Pérez bailed out and was picked up by USS Murray. Pilot Crispín García Fernández and navigator Juan González Romero, in B-26 serial 940, diverted to Boca Chica, but late that night they attempted to fly back to Puerto Cabezas in B-26 serial 933 that Crespo had flown to Boca Chica on 15 April. In October 1961 the remains of the B-26 and its two crew were found in dense jungle in Nicaragua.^[38]^[43] One FAL B-26 diverted to Grand Cayman with engine failure. By 16.00, Fidel Castro had arrived at the central Australia sugar mill, joining José Ramón Fernández whom he had appointed as battlefield commander before dawn that day.^[17]^:168
On April 17, 1961, Osvaldo Ramírez (leader of the rural resistance to Castro) was captured in Aromas de Velázquez, and immediately executed.^[44] The CIA was unaware or unconcerned at such repression's effects on the planned operation.^[13]
At about 21:00 on 17 April 1961, a night air strike by three FAL B-26s on San Antonio de Los Baños airfield failed, reportedly due to incompetence and bad weather. Two other B-26s had aborted the mission after take-off.^[20]^[40] Other sources allege that heavy anti-aircraft fire scared the aircrews, the resultant smoke perhaps a convenient excuse for "poor visibility".^[17]^:138

Invasion day plus one (D+1) 18 April

By about 10.30 on 18 April, Cuban troops and militia, supported by tanks, took Playa Larga after Brigade forces had fled towards Girón in the early hours. During the day, Brigade forces retreated to San Blas along the two roads from Covadonga and Yaguaramas. By then, both Fidel Castro and José Ramón Fernández had re-located to that battlefront area.^[17]^:207
At about 17.00 on 18 April, FAL B-26s attacked a Cuban column of 12 civilian buses leading trucks carrying tanks and other armour, moving southeast between Playa Larga and Punta Perdiz. The vehicles, loaded with civilians, militia, police and soldiers, were attacked with bombs, napalm and rockets, suffering heavy casualties. The six B-26s were piloted by two CIA contract pilots plus four pilots and six navigators from Brigade 2506 air force.^[22]^[38] The column later re-formed and advanced to Punta Perdiz, about 11 km northwest of Girón.^[17]^:197

Invasion day plus two (D+2) 19 April

During the night of 18 April, a FAL C-46 delivered arms and equipment to the Girón airstrip occupied by Brigade 2506 ground forces, and took off before daybreak on 19 April.^[45] The C-46 also evacuated Matias Farias, the pilot of B-26 serial '935' (code-named Chico Two) that had been shot down and crash-landed at Girón on 17 April.^[42]
The final air attack mission (code-named Mad Dog Flight) comprised five B-26s, four of which were manned by American CIA contract air crews and pilots from the Alabama Air Guard. One FAR Sea Fury (piloted by Douglas Rudd) and two FAR T-33 (piloted by Rafael del Pino and Alvaro Prendes) shot down two of these B-26s, killing four American airmen.^[13]
Combat air patrols were flown by Douglas A4D-2N Skyhawk jets of VA-34 squadron operating from USS Essex, with nationality and other markings removed. Sorties were flown to reassure Brigade soldiers and pilots, and to intimidate Cuban government forces without directly engaging in acts of war.^[38]
Without direct air support, and short of ammunition, Brigade 2506 ground forces retreated to the beaches in the face of considerable onslaught from Cuban government artillery, tanks and infantry.^[18]^[46]^[47]
Late on 19 April, destroyers USS Eaton (code-named Santiago) and USS Murray (code-named Tampico) moved into Cochinos Bay to evacuate retreating Brigade soldiers from beaches, before firing from Cuban army tanks caused Commodore Crutchfield to order a withdrawal.^[22]

Invasion day plus three (D+3) 20 April

From 19 April until about 22 April, sorties were flown by A4D-2Ns to obtain visual intelligence over combat areas. Reconnaissance flights are also reported of Douglas AD-5Ws of VFP-62 and/or VAW-12 squadron from USS Essex or another carrier, such as USS Shangri-La that was part of the task force assembled off the Cayman Islands.^[22]^[38]
On 21 April, Eaton and Murray, joined on 22 April by destroyers USS Conway and USS Cony, plus USS Threadfin (submarine) and a CIA PBY-5A Catalina flying boat, continued to search the coastline, reefs and islands for scattered Brigade survivors, about 24-30 being rescued.^[45]

Aftermath

Casualties

Aircrews killed in action totaled 6 from the Cuban air force, 10 Cuban exiles and 4 American airmen.^[20] Paratrooper Herman Koch Gene was killed in action, and the American airmen shot down were Thomas W. Ray, Leo F. Baker, Riley W. Shamburger and Wade C. Gray.^[22] In 1979, the body of Thomas 'Pete' Ray was repatriated from Cuba. In the 1990s, the CIA admitted to his links to the agency, and awarded him the Intelligence Star.^[48] 114 Cuban exiles from Brigade 2506 were killed in action.^[D]
The final toll in Cuban armed forces during the conflict was 176 killed in action.^[B] Other Cuban forces casualties were between 500 and 4,000 (killed, wounded or missing)^[C] The airfield attacks on 15 April left 7 Cubans dead and 53 wounded.^[15]

Prisoners

"Havana gleefully noted the wealth of the captured invaders: 100 plantation owners, 67 landlords of apartment houses, 35 factory owners, 112 businessmen, 179 lived off unearned income, and 194 ex-soldiers of Batista."

— Life magazine ^[49]

On 19 April 1961, at least seven Cubans plus two CIA-hired US citizens (Angus K. McNair and Howard F. Anderson) were executed in Pinar del Rio province, after a two-day trial. On 20 April, Humberto Sorí Marin was executed at Fortaleza de la Cabaña, having been arrested on 18 March following infiltration into Cuba with 14 tons of explosives. His fellow conspirators Rogelio Gonzalez Corzo (alias 'Francisco Gutierrez'), Rafael Diaz Hanscom, Eufemio Fernandez, Arturo Hernandez Tellaheche and Manuel Lorenzo Puig Miyar were also executed.^[12]^[14]^[17]^:46^[36]^[50]
Between April and October 1961, hundreds of executions took place in response to the invasion. They took place at various prisons, including the Fortaleza de la Cabaña and El Morro Castle.^[36] Infiltration team leaders Antonio Diaz Pou and Raimundo E. Lopez, as well as underground students Virgilio Campaneria, Alberto Tapia Ruano, and more than one hundred other insurgents were executed.^[8]
About 1,202 Brigade 2506 members were captured, of which nine died from asphyxiation during transfer to Havana in a closed truck. In May 1961, Fidel Castro proposed to exchange the surviving Brigade prisoners for 500 large farm tractors, valued at $28 million (US).^[16]^:713 On 8 September 1961, 14 Brigade prisoners were convicted of torture, murder and other major crimes committed in Cuba before the invasion, five being executed and nine jailed for 30 years.^[3] Three confirmed as executed were Ramon Calvino, Emilio Soler Puig ('el Muerte') and Jorge King Yun ('el Chino').^[12]^[18] On 29 March 1962, 1,179 men were put on trial for treason. On 7 April 1962, all were convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison. On 14 April 1962, 60 wounded and sick prisoners were freed and transported to the US.^[3] On December 21, 1962, Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro and James B. Donovan, a US lawyer, signed an agreement to exchange 1,113 prisoners for US$53 million in food and medicine, sourced from private donations and from companies expecting tax concessions. On 24 December 1962, some prisoners were flown to Miami, others following on the ship African Pilot, plus about 1,000 family members also allowed to leave Cuba. On 29 December 1962, President John F. Kennedy attended a 'welcome back' ceremony for Brigade 2506 veterans at the Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida.^[18]

Political reaction

Robert F. Kennedy's Statement on Cuba and Neutrality Laws, April 20, 1961

The failed invasion severely embarrassed the Kennedy Administration, and made Castro wary of future US intervention in Cuba. In August 1961, during an economic conference of the Organization of American States in Punta del Este, Uruguay, Che Guevara sent a note to Kennedy via Richard N. Goodwin, a secretary of the White House. It said: "Thanks for Playa Girón. Before the invasion, the revolution was weak. Now it's stronger than ever."^[51]
Additionally, Guevara answered a set of questions from Leo Huberman of Monthly Review following the invasion. In one reply, Guevara was asked to explain the growing number of Cuban counter-revolutionaries and defectors from the regime, to which he replied that the repelled invasion was the climax of counter revolution, and that afterwards such actions "fell drastically to zero." In regards to the defections of some prominent figures within the Cuban government, Guevara remarked that this was because "the socialist revolution left the opportunists, the ambitious, and the fearful far behind and now advances toward a new regime free of this class of vermin."^[52]
As CIA director Allen Dulles later stated, they thought that once the troops were on the ground any action required for success would be authorized to prevent failure as Eisenhower had done in Guatemala in 1954 after the invasion looked as if it was collapsing.^[53] President Kennedy was angered with the CIA's failure, and claimed he wanted "to splinter the CIA in a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds."^[54] Kennedy commented to his journalist friend Ben Bradlee, "The first advice I'm going to give my successor is to watch the generals and to avoid feeling that because they were military men their opinions on military matters were worth a damn."^[55]

Later analysis

Maxwell Taylor survey

On 22 April 1961, President Kennedy asked General Maxwell D. Taylor, Robert F. Kennedy (Attorney General), Admiral Arleigh Burke and Allen Dulles (Director of Central Intelligence) to form the Cuba Study Group, to report on the lessons to be learned from the failed operation. On 13 June, General Taylor submitted the report of the Board of Inquiry to President Kennedy. The defeat was attributed to lack of early realization of the impossibility of success by covert means, inadequate aircraft, limitations of armaments, pilots and air attacks to attempt plausible deniability, and ultimately, loss of important ships and lack of ammunition.^[9]^:324

CIA report

In November 1961, CIA inspector general Lyman B Kirkpatrick, authored a report 'Survey of the Cuban Operation', that remained classified top secret until 1996. Conclusions were:^[9]^:99

The CIA exceeded its capabilities in developing the project from guerrilla support to overt armed action without any plausible deniability.
Failure to realistically assess risks and to adequately communicate information and decisions internally and with other government principals.
Insufficient involvement of leaders of the exiles.
Failure to sufficiently organize internal resistance in Cuba.
Failure to competently collect and analyze intelligence about Cuban forces.
Poor internal management of communications and staff.
Insufficient employment of high-quality staff.
Insufficient Spanish-speakers, training facilities and material resources.
Lack of stable policies and contingency plans.

In spite of vigorous rebuttals by CIA management of the findings, CIA Director Allen Dulles, CIA Deputy Director Charles Cabell, and Deputy Director for Plans Richard Bissell were all forced to resign by early 1962.^[7]
In later years, the CIA's behaviour in the episode became the prime example cited for the psychology paradigm known as groupthink syndrome.^[22]
In mid-1960, CIA operative E. Howard Hunt had interviewed Cubans in Havana; in a 1997 interview with CNN, he said, "…all I could find was a lot of enthusiasm for Fidel Castro."^[56]

Invasion legacy in Cuba

The invasion is often recognized as making Castro even more popular, adding nationalistic sentiments to the support for his economic policies. Following the April 15 air attacks on Cuban airfields, he declared the revolution "Marxist-Leninist".^[23] After the invasion, he pursued closer relations with the Soviet Union, partly for protection, that helped pave the way for the Cuban Missile Crisis a year and a half later. Castro was now increasingly wary of further US intervention, and more open to Soviet suggestions of placing nuclear weapons on Cuba to ensure its security. There are still yearly nationwide drills in Cuba during the 'Dia de la Defensa' (Defense Day), to prepare the population for an invasion.

Invasion legacy for Cuban exiles

Many who fought for the CIA in the conflict remained loyal after the event; some Bay of Pigs veterans became officers in the US Army in Vietnam, including 6 colonels, 19 lieutenant colonels, 9 majors, and 29 captains.^[57] By March 2007, about half of the Brigade had died.^[58]
In April 2010, the Cuban Pilot's Association debuted a monument at the Kendall-Tamiami Executive Airport memorializing the 16 aviators for the exile side killed during the battle.^[59] The memorial consists of an obelisk and a restored B-26 replica aircraft atop a large Cuban flag.^[60]

Playa Girón today

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Museo Giron

Museum of the invasion with a preserved Hawker Sea Fury.

Little remains of the original village, which in the 1960s was small and remote. It is still remote, with just a single road to the village and out again, but it has grown markedly since the invasion. Few people there today were residents at the time. The road from the north is marked by frequent memorials to the Cuban dead. There are billboards marking where invaders were rounded up and showing pictures of their being led away. Another at the entrance to the village quotes Fidel Castro's comment that the conflict was the "first defeat of Yankee imperialism." A two-room museum, with aircraft and other military equipment outside, shows pictures, arms and maps of the attack and photos of Cuban soldiers who died. Billboards and other material also remember the US-financed 'mercenaries'.

Explanatory notes

^ 1,500 ground forces (including 177 paratroops) - c. 1,300 landed. Also Cuban exile aircrews, American aircrews, CIA operatives^[15]
^ 176 Cuban government forces killed^[15]^[36]
^ 500 Cuban forces wounded,^[17]^:180 or 4,000 killed, missing or wounded (includes militias and armed civilians)^[18]^:179
^ 118 invaders killed (114 Cuban exiles plus 4 American aircrew)^[22]
^ 1,202 Brigade members captured (1,179 tried; 14 tried previously for pre-invasion crimes; 9 died in transit)^[15]

Notes

^ Kellner 1989, pp. 69-70. “Historians give Guevara, who was director of instruction for Cuba’s armed forces, a share of credit for the victory”
^ Szulc (1986), p. 450 - "The revolutionaries won because Castro's strategy was vastly superior to the CIA's; because the revolutionary morale was high; and because Che Guevara as the head of the militia training programme and Fernandez as commander of the militia officers' school, had done so well in preparing 200,000 men and women for war."
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Szulc (1986)
^ ^a ^b FRUS X, documents 19, 24, 35, 245, 271
^ FRUS VI, p. 850
^ ^a ^b Jones (2008)
^ ^a ^b Higgins (2008)
^ ^a ^b ^c Faria (2002), pp. 93-98.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Kornbluh (1998)
^ Bethell (1993)
^ Dreke (2002), pp. 40–117.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Thomas (1971)
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Bay of Pigs, 40 Years After: Chronology. The National Security Archive. The George Washington University. http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/bayofpigs/chron.html
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Corzo (2003), pp. 79–90
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j Fernandez (2001)
^ ^a ^b ^c Schlesinger (1965)
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l ^m ⁿ ^o ^p Rodriguez (1999)
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ Johnson (1964)
^ Overall, Mario E. (2003). Bay of Pigs: The Guatemalan Connection http://www.laahs.com/artman/publish/article_50.shtml
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Hagedorn (2006)
^ Kellner 1989, pp. 54-55.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l ^m ⁿ ^o ^p Wyden (1979)
^ ^a ^b Kellner 1989, p. 69.
^ Alfonso, Pablo. 2001. Los Ultimos Castristas. Centro de Documentacion y Formacion, Caracas. ISBN 978-980-07-5657-7, pp. 125–6.
^ del Pino, Rafael (2002-03-02). "Como te Paga un Dictador" (in es). Network 54. http://www.network54.com/Forum/59476/thread/1015117960/last-1015117960/COMO+TE+PAGA+UN+DICTADOR. Retrieved 2007-12-24.
^ Dreke (2002)
^ Paz-Sanchez (2001), pp. 189–99.
^ British Foreign Office. Chancery American Department, Foreign Office, London September 2, 1959 (2181/59) to British Embassy Havana classified as restricted Released 2000 by among British Foreign Office papers. Foreign Offices Files for Cuba Part 1: Revolution in Cuba "in our letter 1011/59 May 6 we mentioned that a Russian workers' delegation had been invited to participate in the May Day celebrations here, but had been delayed. The interpreter with the party, which arrived later and stayed in Cuba a few days, was called Vadim Kotchergin although he was at the time using what he subsequently claimed was his mother's name of Liston (?). He remained in the background, and did not attract any attention." These two agents went on to train overseas personnel including Carlos the Jackal (Ilich Ramírez Sánchez) and subcomandante Marcos (Rafael Sebastián Guillén).
^ "El campo de entrenamiento "Punto Cero" donde el Partido Comunista de Cuba (PCC) adiestra a terroristas nacionales e internacionales" (in es). Cuban American Foundation. 2005-11-07. http://www.canf.org/2005/1es/noticias-de-Cuba/2005-nov-07-el-campo-de-entrenamiento.htm. Retrieved 2009-01-25. ^{[dead link]}
^ Welch and Blight (1998), p. 113.
^ Montaner, Carlos Alberto (1999). "Viaje al Corazón de Cuba" (in es) (PDF). Plaza & Janés. http://www.firmaspress.com/viaje-al-corazon-de-cuba.pdf.
^ "The New York Times". 1960-05-26. p. 5.
^ Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (1983-10-04). "The Situation of Human Rights in Cuba, Seventh Report — Chapter V". Organization of American States. http://www.cidh.oas.org/countryrep/Cuba83eng/chap.5.htm. Retrieved 2004-12-24.
^ Galbraith, J.K. (2000) http://web.archive.org/web/20060904201459re_/utip.gov.utexas.edu/jg/archive/2000/crimesoimmense.pdf
^ Wyden (1979), p. 172 (footnote †)
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Triay (2001), pp. 83-113
^ FRUS X, document 198
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h Ferrer (1975)
^ Szulc, Tad. Asylum Granted to Three Airmen. New York Times. 17 April 1961 http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/bay-of-pigs/NYT-4-17-61d.htm
^ ^a ^b MacPhall, Doug & Acree, Chuck (2003). Bay of Pigs: The Men and Aircraft of the Cuban Revolutionary Air Force. http://www.laahs.com/artman/publish/article_38.shtml
^ FRUS X, document 87
^ ^a ^b Cooper, Tom (2003) Clandestine US Operations: Cuba, 1961, Bay of Pigs. http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_154.shtml
^ Pfeiffer, Jack. CIA Official History of the Bay of Pigs, Vol.I extract, document 141167. http://www.foia.cia.gov/search_options.asp
^ "Nuevo Acción" (in es). http://www.nuevoaccion.com/.
^ ^a ^b FRUS X, document 110
^ De Paz-Sánchez (2001)
^ Vivés (1984)
^ Thomas, Eric. "Local Man Forever Tied To Cuban Leader: Father Frozen, Displayed by Fidel Castro". KGO ABC7, KGO-TV/DT. http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=assignment_7&id=5056129. Retrieved 2007-02-22.
^ Bay of Pigs: Invasion and Aftermath by Life magazine, caption for the image entitled "Jose Miro Greets His Ransomed Son"
^ Ros (1994), pp. 181-185
^ Anderson (1997), p. 509
^ Huberman. Cuba and the U.S. interview with Che Guevara, Monthly Review, September 1961
^ Reeves, Richard (1993), pp. 71, 673.
^ "CIA: Maker of Policy or Tool?." New York Times. April 25, 1966
^ Dallek (2003) An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963, p. 368
^ Hunt, Howard (1997). "Episode 18: Backyard". Cold War. CNN. Archived from the original on 2007-11-06. http://web.archive.org/web/20071106000444/http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/18/interviews/hunt/. Retrieved 2010-05-20.
^ Ros, Enrique (1994), pp. 287–98.
^ Iuspa-Abbott, Paola. "Palm Beach County Bay of Pigs veterans remember invasion of Cuba". South Florida Sun-Sentinel. http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/cubanews/2007w13/msg00006.htm. Retrieved 2007-03-27. ^{[dead link]}
^ B-26 Bomber is part of Airport Monument by Richard Yager, Miami's Community Newspapers
^ Video: Miami Unveils Monument to Cuban Pilots NBC News Miami, April 16, 2010

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Ros, Enrique. 1994 (1998). Girón la verdadera historia. Ediciones Universales (Colección Cuba y sus jueces) third edition ISBN 0-89729-738-5
Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr. 1965, 2002. A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House. Houghton Mifflin ISBN 1-57912-449-6 ISBN 978-1-57912-449-6
Jean Edward Smith. Bay of Pigs: The Unanswered Questions. The Nation, (Apr. 13, 1964), p. 360–363.
Somoza Debayle, Anastasio and Jack Cox. 1980. Nicaragua Betrayed. Western Islands Publishers, pp. 169–180 ISBN 0-88279-235-0 ISBN 978-0-88279-235-4
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FOR THE HISTORCAL RECORD Driving through the gates of hell

2011-02-17T18:36:00.002+11:00

Middle East

Feb 10, 2011

DISPATCHES FROM AMERICA
Driving through the gates of hell
By Tom Engelhardt

As we've watched the dramatic events in the Middle East, you would hardly know that we had a thing to do with them. Oh yes, in the name of its "war on terror", Washington had for years backed most of the thuggish governments now under siege or anxious that they may be next in line to hear from their people.

When it came to Egypt in particular, there was initially much polite (and hypocritical) discussion in the media about how our "interests" and our "values" were in conflict, about how far the US should back off its support for the President Hosni

Mubarak regime, and about what a "tightrope" the Barack Obama administration was walking.

While the president and his officials flailed, the mildest of questions were raised about how much we should chide our erstwhile allies, or encourage the massed protestors, and about whether we should "take sides" (as though we hadn't done so decisively over the last decades). .

With popular cries for "democracy" and "freedom" sweeping through the Middle East, it's curious to note that the George W Bush-era's now-infamous "democracy agenda" has been nowhere in sight. In its brief and disastrous life, it was used as a battering ram for regimes Washington loathed and offered as a soft pillow of future possibility to those it loved.

Still, make no mistake, there's a story in a Washington stunned and "blindsided," in an administration visibly toothless and in disarray as well as dismayed over the potential loss of its Egyptian ally, "the keystone of its Middle Eastern policy", that's so big it should knock your socks off.

And make no mistake: part of the spectacle of the moment lies in watching that other great power of the Cold War era finally head ever so slowly and reluctantly for the exits. You know the one I'm talking about. In 1991, when the Soviet Union disappeared and the United States found itself the last superpower standing, Washington mistook that for a victory most rare. In the years that followed, in a paroxysm of self-satisfaction and amid clouds of self-congratulation, its leaders would attempt nothing less than to establish a global Pax Americana. Their breathtaking ambitions would leave hubris in the shade.

The results, it's now clear, were no less breathtaking, even if disastrously so. Almost 20 years after the lesser superpower of the Cold War left the world stage, the "victor" is now lurching down the declinist slope, this time as the other defeated power of the Cold War era.

So don't mark the end of the Cold War in 1991 as our conventional histories do. Mark it in the early days of 2011, and consider the events of this moment a symbolic goodbye-to-all-that for the planet's "sole superpower".

Abroads, near and far
The proximate cause of Washington's defeat is a threatened collapse of its imperial position in a region that, ever since president Jimmy Carter proclaimed his Carter Doctrine in 1980, has been considered the crucible of global power, the place where, above all, the Great Game must be played out.

Today, "people power" is shaking the "pillars" of the American position in the Middle East, while - despite the staggering levels of military might the Pentagon still has embedded in the area - the Obama administration has found itself standing by helplessly in grim confusion.

As a spectacle of imperial power on the decline, we haven't seen anything like it since 1989 when the Berlin Wall came down. Then, too, people power stunned the world. It swept like lightning across the satellite states of Eastern Europe, those "pillars" of the old Soviet empire, most of which had (as in the Middle East today) seemed quiescent for years.

It was an invigorating time. After all, such moments often don't come once in a life, no less twice in 20 years. If you don't happen to be in Washington, the present moment is proving no less remarkable, unpredictable, and earthshaking than its predecessor.
Make no mistake, either (though you wouldn't guess it from recent reportage): these two moments of people power are inextricably linked. Think of it this way: as we witness the true denouement of the Cold War, it's already clear that the "victor" in that titanic struggle, like the Soviet Union before it, mined its own positions and then was forced to watch with shock, awe, and dismay as those mines went off.

Among the most admirable aspects of the Soviet collapse was the decision of its remarkable leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, not to call the Red Army out of its barracks, as previous Soviet leaders had done in East Germany in 1953, Hungary in 1956, and Prague in 1968. Gorbachev's conscious (and courageous) choice to let the empire collapse rather than employ violence to try to halt the course of events remains historically little short of unique.

Today, after almost two decades of exuberant imperial impunity, Washington finds itself in an uncomfortably unraveling situation. Think of it as a kind of slo-mo Gorbachev moment - without a Gorbachev in sight.

What we're dealing with here is, in a sense, the story of two "abroads". In 1990, in the wake of a disastrous war in Afghanistan, in the midst of a people's revolt, the Russians lost what they came to call their "near abroad", the lands from Eastern Europe to Central Asia that had made up the Soviet Empire.

The US, being the wealthier and stronger of the two Cold War superpowers, had something the Soviets never possessed. Call it a "far abroad". Now, in the midst of another draining, disastrous Afghan war, in the face of another people's revolt, a critical part of its far abroad is being shaken to its roots.

In the Middle East, the two pillars of American imperial power and control have long been Egypt and Saudi Arabia - along with obdurate Israel and little Jordan. In previous eras, the chosen bulwarks of "stability" and "moderation", terms much favored in Washington, had been the Shah of Iran in the 1960s and 1970s (and you remember his fate), and Saddam Hussein in the 1980s (and you remember his fate, too). In the larger region the Bush administration liked to call "the Greater Middle East" or "the arc of instability", another key pillar has been Pakistan, a country now in destabilization mode under the pressure of a disastrous American war in Afghanistan.

And yet, without a Gorbachevian bone in its body, the Obama administration has still been hamstrung. While negotiating madly behind the scenes to retain power and influence in Egypt, it is not likely to call the troops out of the barracks. American military intervention remains essentially inconceivable. Don't wait for Washington to send paratroopers to the Suez Canal as those fading imperial powers France and England tried to do in 1956. It won't happen. Washington is too drained by years of war and economic bad times for that.

Facing genuine shock and awe (the people's version), the Obama administration has been shaken. It has shown itself to be weak, visibly fearful, at a loss for what to do, and always several steps behind developing events. Count on one thing: its officials are already undoubtedly worried about a domestic political future in which the question (never good for Democrats) could be: Who lost the Middle East? In the meantime, their oh-so-solemn, carefully calibrated statements, still in command mode, couched in imperial-speak, and focused on what client states in the Middle East must do, might as well be spoken to the wind. Like the Cheshire Cat's grin, only the rhetoric of the last decades seems to be left.

The question is: How did this happen? And the answer, in part, is: blame it on the way the Cold War officially ended, the mood of unparalleled hubris in which the United States emerged from it, and the unilaterialist path its leaders chose in its wake.

Let's do a little reviewing.

Second-wave unilateralism
When the Soviet Union dissolved, Washington was stunned - the collapse was unexpected despite all the signs that something monumental was afoot - and then thrilled. The Cold War was over and we had won. Our mighty adversary had disappeared from the face of the Earth.

It didn't take long for terms like "sole superpower" and "hyperpower" to crop up, or for dreams of a global Pax Americana to take shape amid talk about how our power and glory would outshine even the Roman and British empires. The conclusion that victory - as in World War II - would have its benefits, that the world was now our oyster, led to two waves of American "unilateralism" or go-it-alone-ism that essentially drove the car of state directly toward the nearest cliff and helped prepare the way for the sudden eruption of people power in the Middle East.

The second of those waves began with the fateful post-9/11 decision of Bush, vice president Dick Cheney, defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and company to "drain the global swamp" (as they put it within days of the attacks in New York and Washington). They would, that is, pursue al-Qaeda (and whomever else they decided to label an enemy) by full military means.

That included the invasion of Afghanistan and the issuing of a with-us-or-against-us diktat to Pakistan, which reportedly included the threat to bomb that country "back to the Stone Age". It also involved a full-scale militarization, Pentagonization, and privatization of American foreign policy, and above all else, the crushing of Iraqi dictator Saddam and the occupation of his country. All that and more came to be associated with the term "unilateralism", with the idea that US military power was so overwhelming Washington could simply go it alone in the world with any "coalition of the billing" it might muster and still get exactly what it wanted.

That second wave of unilateralism, now largely relegated to the memory hole of history by the mainstream media, helped pave the way for the upheavals in Tunisia, Egypt, and possibly elsewhere. As a start, from Pakistan to North Africa, the Bush administration's global "war on terror", along with its support for thuggish rule in the name of fighting al-Qaeda, helped radicalize the region.

(Remember, for instance, that while Washington was pouring billions of dollars into the American-equipped Egyptian army and the American-trained Egyptian officer corps, Bush administration officials were delighted to enlist the Hosni Mubarak regime as "war on terror" warriors, using Egypt's jails as places to torture terror suspects rendered off any streets anywhere.)

In the process, by sweeping an area from North Africa to the Chinese border that it dubbed the Greater Middle East into that "war on terror", the Bush administration undoubtedly gave the region a newfound sense of unity, a feeling that the fate of its disparate parts was somehow bound together.

In addition, Bush's top officials, fundamentalists all when it came to US military might and delusional fantasists when it came to what that military could accomplish, had immense power at its command: the power to destroy. They gave that power the snappy label "shock and awe", and then used it to blow a hole in the heart of the Middle East by invading Iraq. In the process, they put that land, already on the ropes, onto life support.

It's never really come off. In the wars, civil and guerrilla, set off by the American invasion and occupation, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis undoubtedly died and millions were sent into exile abroad or in their own land. Today, Iraq remains a barely breathing carcass of a nation, unable to deliver something as simple as electricity to its restive people or pump enough oil to pay for the disaster.

At the same time, the Bush administration sat on its hands while Israel had its way, taking Palestinian lands via its settlement policies and blowing its own hole in southern Lebanon with American backing (and weaponry) in the summer of 2006, and a smaller hole of utter devastation through Gaza in 2009. In other words, from Lebanon to Pakistan, the Greater Middle East was destabilized and radicalized.

The acts of Bush's officials couldn't have been rasher, or more destructive. They managed, for instance, to turn Afghanistan into the globe's foremost narco-state, even as they gave new life to the Taliban - no small miracle for a movement that, in 2001, had lost any vestige of popularity. Most crucial of all, they and the Obama administration after them spread the war irrevocably to populous, nuclear-armed Pakistan.

To their mad plans and projects, you can trace, at least in part, the rise to power of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza (the only significant result of Bush's "democracy agenda", since Iraq's elections arrived, despite Bush administration opposition, due to the prestige of Ayatollah Ali Sistani).

You can credit them with an Iran-allied Shi'ite government in Iraq and a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan, as well as the growth of a version of the Taliban in the Pakistani tribal borderlands. You can also credit them with the disorganization and impoverishment of the region. In summary, when the Bush unilateralists took control of the car of state, they souped it up, armed it to the teeth, and sent it careening off to catastrophe.

How hollow the neo-conservative quip of 2003 now rings: "Everyone wants to go to Baghdad. Real men want to go to Tehran." But remember as well that, however much the Bush administration accomplished (in a manner of speaking), there was a wave of unilateralism, no less significant, that preceded it.

Our financial jihadis
Though we all know this first wave well, we don't usually think of it as "unilateralist", or in terms of the Middle East at all, or speak about it in the same breath with the Bush administration and its neo-con supporters.

I'm talking about the globalists, sometimes called the neo-liberals, who were let loose to do their damnedest in the good times of the post-Cold-War Bill Clinton years.

They, too, were dreamy about organizing the planet and about another kind of American power that was never going to end: economic power. (And, of course, they would be called back to power in Washington in the Obama years to run the US economy into the ground yet again.) They believed deeply that we were the economic superpower of the ages, and they were eager to create their own version of a Pax Americana. Intent on homogenizing the world by bringing American economic power to bear on it, their version of shock-and-awe tactics involved calling in institutions like the International Monetary Fund to discipline developing countries into a profitable kind of poverty and misery.

In the end, as they gleefully sliced and diced subprime mortgages, they drove a different kind of hole through the world. They were financial jihadis with their own style of shock-and-awe tactics and they, too, proved deeply destructive, even if in a different way.

The irony was that, in the economic meltdown of 2008, they finally took down the global economy they had helped "unify". And that occurred just as the second wave of unilateralists were facing the endgame of their dreams of global domination. In the process, for instance, Egypt, the most populous of Arab countries, was economically neo-liberalized and - except for a small elite who made out like the bandits they were impoverished.

Talk about "creative destruction"! The two waves of American unilateralists nearly took down the planet. They let loose demons of every sort, even as they ensured that the world's first experience of a sole superpower would prove short indeed. Heap onto the rubble they left behind the global disaster of rising prices for the basics - food and fuel - and you have a situation so combustible that no one should have been surprised when a Tunisian match lit it aflame.

That this moment began in the Greater Middle East should be no surprise either. That it might not end there should not be ruled out. This looks like, but may not be, an "Islamic" moment. If the second wave of American unilateralists ensured that this would start as a Middle Eastern phenomenon, conditions for people power movements exist elsewhere as well.

The gates of hell
Nobody today remembers how, in September 2004, Amr Musa, the head of the Arab League, described the post-invasion Iraqi situation. "The gates of hell," he said, "are open in Iraq." This was not the sort of language we were used to hearing in the US, no matter what you felt about the war. It read - and probably still reads - like an over-the-top metaphor, but it could as easily be taken as a realistic depiction of what happened not just in Iraq, but in the Greater Middle East and, to some extent, in the world.

Our unilateralists twice drove blithely through those gates, imagining that they were the gates to paradise. The results are now clear for all to see.

And don't forget, the gates of hell remain open. Keep your eyes on at least two places, starting with Saudi Arabia, about which practically no one is yet writing, though one of these days its situation could turn out to be shakier than now imagined. Certainly, whoever controls the Saudi stock market thought so, because as the situation grew more tumultuous in Egypt, Saudi stocks took a nosedive.

With Saudi Arabia, you couldn't get more basic when it comes to US policy or the fate of the planet, given the amount of oil still under its desert sands. And then don't forget the potentially most frightening country of all, Pakistan, where the final gasp of America's military unilateralists is still playing itself out as if on a reel of film that just won't end.

Yes, the Obama administration may squeeze by in the region for a while. Perhaps the Egyptian high command - half of which seems to have been in Washington at the moment the you-know-what hit the fan in their own country will take over and perhaps they will suppress people power again for a period. Who knows?

One thing is clear inside the gates of hell: whatever wild flowers or weeds turn out to be capable of growing in the soil tilled so assiduously by the victors of 1991, Pax Americana proved to be a Pox Americana for the region and the world.

Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project, runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com. He is the author of The End of Victory Culture, a history of the Cold War and beyond, as well as of a novel, The Last Days of Publishing. He also edited The World According to TomDispatch: America in the New Age of Empire (Verso, 2008), an alternative history of the mad Bush years. His latest book is The American Way of War: How Bush’s Wars Became Obama's (Haymarket Books). You can catch him discussing war American-style and that book in a Timothy MacBain TomCast video by clicking here.

(Used by permission Tomdispatch)

(Copyright 2011 Tom Engelhardt.)

What is never presented to the reader is the Economic History of the Money Lenders and how they make a profit out of the continious struggle of humanity. This is an uninterrupted history of incredile stablility. As a business it is Blue Ribbon safe. As the struggles goes on, so do all the innocent animals die along with any untarnished perspective given by an eco-system or any person with comon sense.

However, the Old Testemant makes it very clear that the innocent must be sacrificed for projects deemed good by the chosen ones.

And we all accept this quietly as we watch the world die before our eyes.

2011-02-17T18:01:00.000+11:00

Asia Times online article:

China Business

Feb 10, 2011

Chinese puzzle
By Antal E Fekete

There is really just one question about China for the Western mindset. How could the Chinese have made the colossal mistake of investing their hard-earned savings in the debt of the US government - to the tune of US$1 trillion, the largest sum one country has ever loaned another in all history. (There is only one other puzzle greater than this: How could the US government in good faith allow its debt to accumulate in Chinese hands? But we leave that question for another occasion to discuss). US debt is easy to buy but hard to get rid of. The harder, the larger are the sums involved.

It is true that a huge bull market in bonds has been rolling on for the past 30 years - since 1981. But putting all of China's eggs

into the same basket was a terrible mistake even if we ignore the reckless fiscal and monetary policy the US government has been pursuing since 1971. Belatedly, the Chinese are trying to correct their mistakes through diversification.

China could have learned from Japan's sad example. Before the Chinese appeared as buyers, Japan was the largest investor in US debt. In 1971, Japan was running an unprecedented trade surplus vis-a-vis the US, and the exchange rate of the Japanese yen was 300 to the dollar. American policymakers and money doctors put enormous pressure on Japan to let the yen float upwards, as this was the "in thing" to do after the Nixon-Friedman conspiracy made the US default on its foreign gold obligations "respectable", on the spurious theory that this would first ease, then eliminate the American trade deficit.

Japan, in effect still an occupied country, yielded to the American pressure and the yen rose so that by 1981 only 100 yen were needed to buy one dollar. This was a three-fold appreciation of the yen, but it did not bring about an improvement in the American trade deficit with Japan, as promised by Friedmanite propagandists. Instead, there was a 10-fold further deterioration!

Yet the Americans did not revise their policy recommendations, and continued to insist on floating the yen upwards. It appeared that the Americans had a hidden agenda that was not the elimination of the American trade deficit. Could it have been abatement of the American debt? Indeed, the yen-value of Japan's foreign exchange reserves held in dollars was cut by two-thirds as a result of foreign exchange policy forced upon Japan.

The Chinese should have seen the writing on the wall: buying dollar-denominated assets was tantamount to kissing good-by to your savings. In terms of the Nixon-Friedman conspiracy this was extortion, an underhanded way of secretly siphoning off the savings of America's trading partners running surpluses, disguised as exchange-rate policy.

Worse still, when the Japanese wanted to draw on the remnants of their savings held in American banks to tie them over temporary cash shortages, they found that the money wasn't there. The American money-doctors were ever-ready to come up with a solution. The Japanese government had excellent credit rating and no debt to foreigners. Why not borrow the money it needed?

Once more, the Japanese meekly complied. They swapped their temporary need for dollars for permanent government debt in yen. By now the Japanese government has the worst indebtedness on record: it would take two years of Japan's GDP to pay it off. See the vicious combination: selling bonds in an appreciating currency while buying bonds in a depreciating currency? A free one-way ticket to the poorhouse.

China should have seen the trap. The Americans want them to buy all the dollar-denominated bonds. Then they would start twisting arms to let the yuan float upwards, ostensibly as a valid exchange-rate mechanism to rectify trade imbalances. Clearly, it is not a valid mechanism because, well, it does not work. It only makes the trade imbalance worse.

Neither are the Americans shooting for elimination of their trade deficit. They are shooting for an abatement of America's debt. They know that higher exchange rate for the yuan means imperceptibly siphoning off China's savings. An indigent country, China, underwrote with its savings the profligacy of an affluent country, the US. Unbelievably, China appears to be caving in to American demands and let the yuan float upwards.

If the Chinese wanted to draw on the remnants of their savings held in American banks, they might just find out, as the Japanese did before them, that the money isn't there.

It can be safely predicted that the American debt-mongers would again be on hand to come up with the solution. China has excellent credit rating and zero debt to foreigners. The Chinese should borrow the dollars they need, to tie themselves over, rather than liquidate their dollar holdings. Like Japan earlier, China, too, could swap its temporary dollar shortage for permanent government debt in the domestic currency. This is debauchery: Mephistopheles trying to corrupt the uncorrupted. This is lacing foreign banking systems with toxic debt.

The Chinese puzzle can be stated as follows. The irrational and masochistic behavior of the Japanese can be explained by the fact that Japan was still an occupied country. But China is not. China could refuse to listen to the siren-song of the American exchange-rate manipulators and debt-mongers. Why doesn't China stand up to this corruption? "Just say no" to the drug of indebtedness, and expose the debauchery behind it!

Here is the explanation of the Chinese puzzle from a non-Chinese perspective. The 1972 popping up of Nixon in China (which was worth composing an opera on the theme) started the pilgrimage of young uncorrupted Chinese scholars to American universities. Well, at least those among them who were economists, monetary scientists, and banking experts have been thoroughly corrupted and brainwashed. Keynesian and Friedmanite theories have been pumped into them through force-feeding. They have never been told that there is a coherent and respectable body of economic knowledge refuting, point-by-point, the false and corrosive economic theories of Keynes and Friedman.

China utterly lacks scholars who are well-versed in Austrian economics and in valid monetary theory, to provide antidote for the Keynesian and Friedmanite poison. China was made a fertile ground for American debauchery.

Friedman's theory of deliberate use of foreign exchange rates as a tool of balancing foreign trade is vicious, false, and fraudulent. It has never worked. It never will. It is motivated by American self-interest, ready to wage a new opium war on China, to reduce the indebtedness of the US through a disguised devaluation of the dollar, at the expense of its trading partners, and to push the responsibility for the trade imbalance on the surplus countries.

The correct solution to the trade problem is not the flotation of currencies up and down. Quite to the contrary: the solution is the stabilization of foreign exchange rates! China badly needs advisers who are able to show the way in this direction.

Antal E Fekete has since 2001 been consulting professor at Sapientia University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. In 1996, Professor Fekete won the first prize in the International Currency Essay contest sponsored by Bank Lips Ltd of Switzerland.

(Copyright 2011 Antal E Fekete.)

From March 5 through 13, 2011, the New Austrian School of Economics will hold a course on "Adam Smith's Real Bills doctrine and circulating capital at the Martineum Academy in Szombathely, Hungary. This is the second in a four-course series on Austrian Economics, a branch of economic science based on the work of Carl Menger (1840-1921). It is meant for those, including beginners, who are interested in the theory of money, credit, and banking, with special emphasis on the current financial and economic crisis. On Monday, March 14, the school will hold a seminar on "Basis, Co-basis, Permanent Backwardation of Gold and Silver and What It Means", the third in the series. For further information on both course and seminar, please contact Dr Judith Szepesvari, e-mail: szepesvari17@gmail.com.

The Hmong Genral Van Pou

2011-02-17T10:57:00.001+11:00

Hmong honour general who fought secret war for CIA

Mark Arax, Fresno

February 8, 2011

Hmong mourners watch General Vang Pao's funeral procession in Fresno. Photo: AFP

IF VANG Pao had died a simple farmer like so many other Hmong here, his funeral would have been an elaborate affair.
For three days, as Hmong custom has it, his family and friends would have mourned in high-pitched chants, feasted on freshly slaughtered beef and burnt a giant pile of fake currency to buy his soul into the spirit world.
But General Vang Pao was no plain Hmong elder, and his death last month at age 81 has brought forth no ordinary grief. He is known to his people as the general, the hero of the Central Intelligence Agency's long-ago secret war in the jungles of Laos, a man who was leaving behind 25 children, 68 grandchildren and an uprooted nation of Hmong refugees who regard him as something near a king.

Lt-Col. Vang Pao in 1961. Photo: Getty Images

So his funeral - six days and nights, with 10 cows slaughtered and stir-fried each day - has become a send-off for the ages.
It began last Friday, his body borne on a horse-drawn carriage through the streets of Fresno, California, throngs of grieving Hmong lining the way. Scottish bagpipers played The Green Hills of Tyrol and two T-28 planes, the aircraft piloted by Hmong guerilla fighters in the Vietnam War, flew overhead.
And the funeral rolled down a long red carpet at the weekend, as thousands more Hmong from across the country, and some from as far away as Thailand and France, strode into the convention centre of this farming capital of California to say goodbye.
Many of the Hmong here - tens of thousands of tribal people who emigrated from Thai refugee camps in the 1970s, '80s and '90s - wanted to see Vang Pao buried at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honours, befitting a man, they say, whose Hmong battalions saved the lives of many downed American pilots. But on Friday, the Pentagon announced that it had denied the family's request to waive the policy that restricts military burials at Arlington to US service members.
Vang Pao's family and friends said they were disappointed by the decision. ''The CIA recruited General Vang Pao in 1961 to lead a guerilla force,'' a statement read. ''He fought in combat situations for 15 years. The covert war resulted in the death of 35,000 of the general's men.
''We strongly believe the right thing to do is to honour his contributions to the United States.''
NEW YORK TIMES

This war continues without pause. It may be the longest war in recent history and no one take responsibility for the ongoing destruction of the Hmong People and Land. Rather is is accepted that this animistic culture be destroyed.

I wish to take note that these people and way of life and place of life is a vital school of teaching and demonstration of what success is and how success can be achieved. The Hmong are the most successful society on this world that offer the secrets of immortality of human life.The wisdom these people carry should not be exterminated by planned and deliberate war of eradication.

The oldest remnant Celtic Pagan Goddess worshiping society in Europe lasted till 1550 and it was on the remote Dalmatian coastline of Croatia. Its demise coincided with the instigation of the Papal Inquisition administered right across Europe for 200 years there after. The genocide statistics of exterminated women alone goes through 100 million over that period.

The Hmong in there high mountain retreats of very in hospitable topography represent this same remnant of pure animists for Asia and the World, now in direct conflict since the colonial French invasion to modern times. These people have helped change history and saved many lives. They themselves have experienced modern germ and chemical warfare kill whole villages of their people and concentration death camps by the North Vietnamese Army and continue the conflict into present times.The Vietnamese Army is still occupying Laos and the war against the Hmong continues. The Army Generals are deforesting Hmong Land to pay for their armies conveniently while Laos is still occupied since the Vietnam War.

The Hmong are keepers of immortality and the power base does not want it.

The world needs the Hmong. The world needs the secrets of the Hmong for its own survival.

The diametrical opposite is the Neo-Libertarian thinking that is responsible for the Hmong destruction and the destruction and poisoning of our planets water, air and soil, of the removal of our worlds forests and fish from all the Oceans.

What appears to be hopeless for all concerned, the Hmong show faith to a world we all will be so sorry to lose. They are fighting for you and me as we speak. I give my most sincerest and humblest thanks to these people for they give the lives of their children and themselves to hold onto what is true and valuable; they belong.

OITC by Mr. Fulford

2011-02-05T11:28:00.000+11:00

More about the OITC

The man in charge of the secret organization known as the Office of International Treasury Control (IOTC) is R.C. Dan. Dan claims to be a Cambodian Prince and now lives in the Thai Royal family complex in Bangkok, Thailand. The man known to us as whistleblower is an Australian who used to work for him. The U.S. educated Mr. Dan claims special privileges in the Senate and the House by the United Nations. These may have been granted but then again it is hard to find many treaties or agreements the U.S. has not broken. He claims to be the sole arbiter, owner and controller of the The international collateral combined accounts of the global debt facility. He also claims to have 3^rd to 5^th level security clearance granted to him by the U.S. Congress. Dan was appointed in 1995 as the sole arbiter for the Bank of International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland. He also has the codes for 60 types of special “debt instruments” connected to a complex combination of countries, treaties, banks and other financial institutions. Most of these are now in deep trouble because of the quadrillions of dollars of toxic financial products based on nothing but fiat (out of nothing) money. So long as the Ponzi scheme known as Wall street collapses and economic discipline is imposed, the whole mess can be cleared up within 3 years.
These so-called “debt instruments” were created by the U.S. treasury department over the years and given to countries that have trade surpluses with the U.S. There are, for example, special sets of boxes specific only to certain countries or institutions.
The problem is that after nearly a century of issuing these debt boxes, the chickens are coming home to roost. President Obama tried at the recent G8 plus 5 meeting in Italy to borrow more money than George Bush junior did in 8 years. He was told a resounding no. The result should be total economic chaos in the U.S. by September 30^th. The good news for the Americans is that it is not the U.S. that is bankrupt but rather a corporation known as the United States of America Corporation headquartered in the independent statelet known as Washington D.C. Once the Feds go down the drain of history, the American people will be provided with extremely generous funding to rebuild their industry and develop suppressed technology. The Pentagon will also be given generous funding to help it transform itself into a more benevolent organization. In the meantime, we know the Feds are not going to go quietly into the night so we have to be extremely vigilant in stopping whatever crazy thing they try next. The question for Mr. Dan is, when are you going to go public and tell the world the truth?

Dear Mr. Fulford,
Somehow, I suspect that the English version of your Japanese text is lacking a few things probably conveyed through inference. R.C. Dan is a bag man for the Octopus isn't he? You are systematically outing all of these folks so that they have no options left. Someone is feeding you the information with the intention of exposing all the various shell games going on around the world simultaneously. I guess this means that all the Ex-intelligence types who had survived on using their financial fraud talents will now have to get real jobs.
Below is copy from a story about the OITC. It was written in 2006. I saw the website relating to Mr. Dan and it explained the comment about the "Australian" whistleblower. The OITC is akin to the Brady Bond scam which extracted committment of resources from third world countries, securitized them and then failed to pay in gold as promised. Actually, that gold disappeared with the World Trade Center II.
With respect to the PLAGUE, I have some comments. The word is spreading. Don't tell your professors, tell your local newspapers, file injunction with county courts and let your states attorney know. Send the information to LOCAL TELEVISION STATIONS not national ones. Local ones are the ones who are reporting on Concentration camps, UFOs and other stories that the national media won't touch. Eventually, when enough local coverage develops, the national media picks up on the story.
NEITHER THE MEDIA NOR STATE GOVERNMENT NOR EVEN THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION ARE MONTOLITHIC. The majority of the people working in these organizations don't have any idea what is going on. The culprits are a much smaller cabal within the larger groups. When the facts are presented correctly, most people listen. Just use the documents that Jane has provided (link is on her birdflu666 blog) and the stories about the Marine that almost died from his flu vaccination, the Polish homeless that have died and the other information...those facts plus the fact that the vaccine is UNTESTED will convince the people that you speak to that vaccinating everyone with a highly mutable (it mutates easily) untested vaccine is a bad idea for four very important reasons:
1. Exposing a mutable organism to a lot of different genetic material by vaccinating all kinds of people will ensure THAT IMPOSSIBLE TO ANTICIPATE GENETIC MUTATIONS WILL OCCUR WITHIN THE FLU VIRUS. Those mutations will make the virus more deadly because it will have the keys to many more types of immune systems (remember that we are all different, the more types that the flu runs into, the faster it adapts to humanity itself.)
2. Baxter's vaccines have already proven fatal to large numbers of people during their tests. Even though the Polish homeless were vaccinated with the "avian" flu virus, its failures are indicative of problems with the concept for the vaccine, the labs that handled it or the medium that the vaccine is suspended in. Any one of those reasons means that the swine vaccine won't be much better.
3. Baxter Labs doesn't seem to have very good quality control. Their labs avian flu vaccine was lethal to a large number of homeless Polish people. They sent out LIVE VIRUS in huge quantities in March 2009 to countries around the world. If they are this careless with critical aspects of their processes, what faith can we have in their vaccines? There is no assurance that they won't send out live virus or co-mingled virus in the vaccine.
4. BECAUSE THERE ARE NOW LAWS THAT SHIELD BAXTER FROM ANY CONSEQUENCES FOR BAD VACCINE, THEY HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO INCENTIVE TO PROVIDE SAFE VACCINE.
MK

MK

DAN STORY
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http://www.fiji.gov.fj/publish/page_6339.shtml
Police Commissioner cautions on partnership with OITC
Mar 7, 2006, 07:51 Email this page

Police Commissioner Andrew Hughes at a press conference this afternoon (o6/03) strongly advised anyone wanting to go into partnership with the Office of the International Treasury Control (OITC) to exercise caution and common sense as they have found a lot of irregularities with the company and its representative Mr Keith Scott.
Commissioner of Police Andrew Hughes at the press conference this afternoon. On the right is the Acting Director Corporate Communications with the Police Force Ms Sylvia Low

Speaking in his independent capacity of Commissioner of Police, Mr Hughes said the police force has made preliminary enquiries overseas regarding OITC and Mr Scott and nothing that they received gave credence or legitimacy to the organisation and Mr Scott.
“We’ve been monitoring closely the meetings that have been occurring between Mr Scott the representative of the OITC and the Viti Landowners Resource Association particularly the agreement between the two concerning a promise of US$6 billion deposited into a bank to be formed in Fiji through some partnership arrangement.
“What we can say is that the information that we do have at hand leads us to conclude that the proposed transaction is highly irregular, it is questionable and leaves me with a profound level of suspicion.”
Mr Hughes said at the moment there are a lot of unanswered questions but no one has lodged a complaint with Police.
He said if police suspicions are grounded then what happens in this type of cases is that people come forward and make a complaint when it is all too late.
Mr Hughes has therefore urged all those who are associated anyway with dealing to exercise the utmost caution.
“Please do not send any money if its requested as some form of an advanced fee for this transaction to proceed. Do not send any money until a complete and exhausted background check through independent means has been conducted.
“In a deal of this magnitude it is common sense that due diligence is conducted and that the full bona-fides of all parties is ascertained. And at this juncture what I can tell you is that Fiji Police is unable to do that based on our investigations overseas.”
Mr Huhges said while Mr Scott is known by Australian Authorities, he was not at liberty to divulge information on what Mr Scott was known for.
He also said the interesting thing about the whole venture was that the United Nations which deals with Governments does not know anything about OITC and this just leads on to many more unanswered questions and giving everyone a degree of suspicion and doubt that such a venture will really eventuate to the benefit of the landowners.
-End-

A GOLD study

2011-02-05T10:45:00.008+11:00

Part 4

PART 4.1 - TINKER, LAWYER, TRAITOR, SPY

Allen Dulles, his brother, John Foster, and James Jesus Angleton are central to this story. The Dulles brothers were at the heart of a conspiracy dedicated to eradicating Communism and shifting the political spectrum of the world far to the right. This was part of a strategy designed to benefit the business interests of an elite group of iron-willed men who sat atop a network of transnational companies in the US, Japan and Europe.

This elite liked what Mussolini and Hitler were trying to do in Europe and were happy to finance both fascists in order to place them in the seats of power in Italy and Germany. These power brokers would later learn that the Austrian Corporal had a mind of his own and would not be content to be a mannequin for larger interests. The result was World War II.

Throughout the Second World War secret discussions took place between various factions in Germany and the US and Great Britain aimed at finding an acceptable formula that would bring peace to Western Europe and result in a coalition of the West that was militarily capable of defeating Stalin and the Soviet Union.

By 1942, with the defeat of the Third Reich in Stalingrad, it became clear to many of the more observant players that Germany would lose the war. As a consequence, secret discussions and peace-feelers increased in intensity. One of those who quickly formed the opinion that Germany would be defeated was Walter Schellenberg, chief of the SS Foreign Intelligence Service.

In spite of the horrendous crimes that the SS was guilty of, it was regarded by one Catholic archbishop as the "most respectable of the Nazi Party organizations." Unarguably the SS was the very elite of the Third Reich and attracted an officer corps composed of the well–to-do, the well-connected and the blue-blooded of Germany. The latter included the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg, Prince Wilhelm of Hesse and the Prince von Hohenzollern -- and in an honorary role, the Prince of Lippe-Biesterfeld, who is better known to the world as Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands.

Most members of this elite inner circle of the SS were against Hitler and were content to engage in an on-going series of secret peace talks with a hard core of extreme right-wing groups in the US and UK aimed at deposing Hitler in favour of Himmler -- who, despite his humble origins, possessed real power and who made the right diplomatic noises about maintaining a relationship with the Vatican. Underlying these peace discussions was a joint understanding that a war should be prosecuted by Germany and the West against Russia to defeat Communism.

The man chosen by Walter Schellenberg to oversee these negotiations was Prince Max von Hohenlohe, who, as early as 1942, approached Sir Samuel Hoare -- a member of a right-leaning British group under Lord Halifax. Getting no results, Schellenberg instructed Hohenlohe to open a channel with the US. In January 1943, Hohenlohe met with Allen Dulles in Geneva.

For the remainder of the war, Dulles maintained intimate connections with the SS despite orders from the President to cease and desist. For Dulles, business came well ahead of loyalty to one's country. The result of these early contacts, as we have earlier seen, was Operation Sunrise and the absorption of large contingents of the SS and Gestapo into the US anti-communist cause.

According to whispers circulating in the black gold market, the Dulles brothers, James Jesus Angleton and others associated with the story of World War II plunder did not object to acquiring a personal share of the loot. How true this rumour is is not known, but Sterling Seagrave in his book The Yamato Dynasty reveals that former US President Herbert Hoover and General Douglas MacArthur each had large gold bullion accounts valued in the tens of millions of dollars. PART 4.1a - DEEPER SECRETS What the foregoing shows is that there is, and has been for many decades, a conspiracy of silence relating to the actual – as opposed to official – quantity of mined gold in the world. Words fail to convey the global significance of this purposely concealed disparity. In fact, the difference between official figures and reality represents a gulf so wide and a secret so dark as to be nearly unbelievable. But the facts are now evident.

Speaking openly of this particular aspect of the story is not without some perceived dangers, and I do so with reservations that are tempered only by the knowledge that, in the last analysis, the truth should be told. Although this statement may seem fanciful I can assure readers that others who are also in the know share this concern and I am not alone in taking measures to protect and duplicate my files.

No one who earns a living from the world of gold or who trades or holds the noble metal as an asset – including most governments, central banks, the intelligence community, heads of state, narcotics cartels, organised crime clans and, of course, the all powerful gold banks -- wish “their” market and this “secret” to be disturbed by reality. For too long these and other forces have perpetrated a myth designed to penalise the many while enriching the few – very much a direct consequence of the final dismantling of the Bretton Woods Agreement by the Nazi- and Mafia- associated President, Richard Nixon, in 1971.
Readers of this Dossier will see for themselves from the papers of the late Baron Krupp that are provided in the Appendices that the richest man in the world certainly is not Microsoft’s Bill Gates, who is a real latecomer so far as the wealth stakes are concerned. The figures shown by Carl Letermeyer, Baron Krupp’s attorney, reveal that the House of Krupp earned income during the early mid Eighties that, on average, was greater than $2 trillion a year. Whether these prodigious sums belonged entirely to Krupp, or whether, instead, the Krupp Foundation was used to launder huge quantities of loot, remains uncertain. Rumours and whispers point in the latter direction and may point to a conspiracy that has a distasteful hard right-wing smell to it.

We now know that just one Golden Lily “777” treasure site was worth almost $200 billion in 1945 US dollars. We also know that there were dozens of triple seven sites, plus some triple nines and, of course, tens of dozens of smaller troves. In fact, Japan’s Golden Lily teams stashed plunder in a minimum of 172 burial sites on the Philippines alone.[i]

A reliable estimate is that the value of gold at these 172 sites collectively totalled $100 trillion in 1945 US dollars – a figure that simply dwarfs the present day global debt. This sum is so massive as to be virtually incomprehensible -- yet it probably does not include the complete figures, as we shall see.

Others who have investigated this story sensibly avoid mentioning such figures, knowing that the perceptions of the uninformed -- and, perhaps even of experts -- will be that they are preposterous–and that this perception may tend to create an undesirable attitude that will discount the rest of their work. There are other fears besides these, too.

Meanwhile, we need note that a very considerable quantity of Japanese plunder was also buried throughout Indonesia and there is evidence to suppose that there were other sites in Korea, too. The Philippines, although the largest site for buried treasure, was by no means the only one.

A feeling for what we are dealing with took place some moths ago between me and a knowledgeable individual in these matters who, for convenience's sake, I will call "Tom." This individual contacted me some months ago seeking to exchange information in the hope of clarifying a number of questions he had regarding a corpus of information he had been made privy to over a number of years. Significantly, he was cognizant of Peter Johnston’s story and knew of his arrest and troubles. He also knew about some of the people and firms Johnston was in contact with at the time of his arrest. It seemed clear he had followed the case at the time – and remembered it.

Tom told me he had been involved in what he termed “international business” for the past 25 years, during which time he had become familiar with transactions involving black market gold and other precious metals. He said that this was not his principal business, adding that he found most of the approaches made to him about gold little more than irritations.

Tom went on to reveal that a few years ago he became personally involved with the story of “Sukarno’s Treasure,” and a large cache of gold hidden in the jungles of Indonesia. In the early 1990s, a long-time friend and business partner of his met a Filipino gentleman (whose identity I am aware of), who was a retired lawyer now living in the United States. This gentleman was an intimate of Bung Sukarno, who appointed him the principal trustee of Sukarno's fabled gold hoard -- the so called “Revolutionary Fund.” This person was also intimately knowledgeable about President Marcos's own dealings in black gold and, as Tom relayed it to me,

"he has doc's and significant knowledge re Marcos dealings, deposits in various banks & the relationship and dealings between Marcos & Sukarno."

Tom then added:

"For whatever reasons, after the death of Sukarno control over this evidently personal fortune was turned over not to his immediate family heirs, but rather to the safe keeping of a group of individuals called "gurus." These gurus had been instructed by Sukarno, in writing I understand, to contact [the trustee] & to look to him for leadership with regard to how and what when it came to the stashed cache of valuables. The issue of how & why [the trustee] gained what ever authority and control he has over all this stuff that's hidden in the jungles of Indonesia, and also the issue of whether his authority has any larger legitimacy is probably important. But this doesn't belie the fact that apparently he does have at least some significant degree of control over it; i.e. he knows how to get to it, he's the recognized connection to & for the people physically holding it, and he has authority as "mandated trustee" over it in writing from Sukarno (I've seen the document)."

Tom continues:

"Over the past few years I've also seen and been able to peruse many thousands of pages of apparently original aging bank documents and statements pertaining to the personal assets and fortune, of the late Sukarno. According to the master document I've seen these assets, precious metals & also cash totalled 270 T. U$ in 1964, and are supposedly on deposit with UBS, SBC and various other major world banks. I say supposedly because evidently they are but they aren't; but this is another story."

The apparently paradoxical statement that "...they are but they aren't," will be clarified shortly from other sources. Much of this had a very familiar ring to it and I felt it likely that he was discussing many of the same certificates of deposit that Dr. Damanik had access to.

Tom continued his story:

"Also about five years ago several Americans I've worked with, known and trusted to the very highest degree for more than twenty-five years now, travelled to Indonesia with [the trustee]. While there they were taken to several repositories, in the jungle mountains of Irian Jaya and some other places in the Indonesian islands, (at each location after several days trekking through the jungles where they were allowed freely and at their leisure to view and inspect all that was there and anything and everything they wanted to see, handle or kick-the-tires of). In these repositories was and still is a very very large volume of valuables - Art objects; Gems; Jewelry; and a extremely large volume of precious metals. To quote my friend, I have never seen anything like this in my life. There was stack upon stack and row upon row, of beautifully made UBS origin precious metal storage boxes, all containing 1KG J. M. Hallmarked Gold or Platinum bars, each bar with a unique number and certificate [i.e., one kilogram bars bearing the Johnson Mathey hallmark]. There were some large jade carvings, gems, etc. etc. It was like the Arabian Nights. At this time, along with stacks of files and doc's (several large suit cases full) pertaining to the Sukarno metal deposits in UBS, several bars were brought back to the US and are presently in a safety-box here."

Significantly, Sukarno's trustee agreed to allow a selection of bars drawn at random from the cache to enable them to be drilled and analysed to verify their purity and metal content (a bar number and description was provided to this writer for verification purposes). Also, a number of UBS and SBC documents that were also provided during the same trip later were able to be verified genuine.

As interesting and, indeed, as important as this information was, there was a still more significant surprise awaiting me. According to Tom, Sukarno's trustee explained that all this gold and other plunder was originally intended:

"...to be the reserve for a third world non-aligned nations bank that Sukarno was going to set up with HQ in Indonesia.”

In one stroke much of the smoke and mirrors that had surrounded Dr. Damanik's own reticent explanations to Peter Johnson were clarified.

Sukarno's plan to found a non-aligned world bank is of the greatest historical significance. The establishment of such a powerful entity possessing gold reserves that dwarfed those available to the West would have sent shivers of fear down the backs of Western governments and the European and US banking fraternity, which just a few years earlier had concluded the Bretton Woods Agreement, resulting in the establishment of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Both institutions remain the primary vehicles for keeping Third World nations impoverished -- a fact that benefits a wealthy West dedicated to a social structure dependent on consumerism.

It is more than likely that this plan for a non-aligned nations’ world bank formed the substantive backdrop to the 1955 Bandung conference of non-aligned nations that so clearly caused concern for the Bilderberg group in 1955 -- and which Dr. Damanik darkly referenced in his discussions with Peter Johnston. Founding such a bank would certainly have galvanized the intelligence community into action and may very well amount to the real motive -- and hitherto an even deeper secret -- behind the CIA's decision, commencing 1955, to corral and then overthrow President Sukarno.

Tom observed:

"I can understand no one wanting to upset the apple cart with regard to the current status of metal in the bank, legal or not, that may or may not have legitimately belonged to a dead third world leader. In fact I've been told very rudely by one banker that the banks who issued the deposit certificates in question do not and never did have anything to do with them ... the heirs of Sukarno have no right to any of these deposits ... and they are currently being controlled and operated by 'legally appointed names,' but these individuals have nothing to do with anything Indonesian."

This state of the affairs neatly dovetails with the facts regarding Peter Johnston's and Dr. Damanik's gold certificates. If Sukarno (and Marcos et al) did not control the gold -- and since it was stolen during World War II by the Golden Lily, clearly they didn't -- who does control it and why does such a fortune remain undisturbed in the jungles of Indonesia?

This cache of Sukarno gold was, Tom said:

"stashed, left, & has been just held in secret for a long time, at the very least since the 1960s. Also evidently there hasn't been any attempt to launder it, sell any of it off or do much else with it - the only thing I've heard, but don't have anything other than [the trustee] story to substantiate, is that a few years ago a son of one of the people charged with guarding some of this treasure made a deal to sell 200 tonnes of the AU to some Hong Kong people, he spirited it away to Singapore and later ended up dead in a hotel there. Also evidently the only thing anyone seems to have tried to do is something with the CDs relating to metal deposits in Swiss banks, all without result so far as I know."

Suspicious deaths of individuals involved in trying to move, sell or launder black gold are fairly common and, naturally, lead to great care and caution amongst those who try to recover and move hoards of treasure from their burial sites. This caution usually extends to the practice of not discussing details of such transactions with anyone other than intimates. Again, the reference to failed attempts to sell gold certificates backed by this gold parallels Peter Johnston's own experience.

Having digested the information received from Tom, I posed a number of subsequent questions to him. He replied saying:

"Yes, when I said 270 T I meant US$ 270 Trillion. This is the 'Value' figure indicated on the top of a UBS 'Master' document [the trustee] has. As it's on their letter head evidently it was put together by UBS. This document is a very long listing of account or certificate ID#s, on a page about 3+ feet square. One can match ID numbers of individual certificates against numbers found on this list. Also some numbers have indications that these have been loaned to or are/were being used by someone (NASA funding, UK Crown are only a few I remember). I assume these certificates and their periodic statements, the related warehouse receipts and this master document refer only to the Au & PT being held by UBS in storage. Also I assume these don't concern the hoard of Au, Pt, art & gems that's still hidden in the jungles."

"To give you an idea of what's involved. There are: - Bank certificates indicating Au and Pt on deposit with UBS; thousands of tons total! - Yearly Statements regarding many of these accounts sent out by the banks concerned to three designated world locations (most recent of these I've seen personally are dated 1994). Most of these are hundreds of pages each. - Vault Keys & Depositor I.D. cards made of gold, Warehouse receipts, all related to these UBS accounts and vaults. - Bank CDs related to cash, issued by banks such as Credit Suisse, SBC, HKSB, Bank of Tokyo. - Accounts in several other major and minor world banks. - A Power of Trusteeship Document granted to [the trustee] which I understand gives him authority to govern and administer certain aspects if not all of this estate (And which I also understand IS on file with the Swiss government and several Swiss banking institutions). - Finally, the 'Master List' above mentioned."

"Although we have all these documents indicating metal & also cash on deposit with UBS and other banks, many thousands of pages, never the less, I am told several puzzling & seemingly contradictory things by a banker who to me clearly appears to have some inside knowledge re these matters:
1.) That UBS, Credit Suisse and SBC 'Do not and never did have anything to do with these deposits'. This, even though all these documents are on the letterheads of UBS, Cr Swiss, SBC, etc., and even though these banks have sent and continue to send out yearly statements regarding these deposits.
2.) That 'These accounts are currently operative, not dormant; and the people who run them do so with the proper authority'. However, 'NO heir of Sukarno or Marcos has any right to govern any of these accounts and deposits ... or has any authority whatever over these accounts. Those are not their own ... private family ... accounts, to be bequeathed to family or designated heirs'. This, although Sukarno's name, signature and picture, as well as that of some of his family members, are on these certificates and accounts (also Marcos on some others I gather).
3.) Also related to Marcos, 'These accounts are being properly administered by the appointed "names". The Credit Suisse "cash'' account alone is now over $3 billion, spread over 200 accounts (for Marcos personal share only, of course)'. And, 'Why doesn't anyone ask Imee and her husband about the Deutsche Bank deposits in his name? Why is he completely uninterested in recovering any assets?' 4.) Finally, although I'm told 'The truth of all this is much simpler than the elaborate speculations which have allowed brokers of all sorts to cheerfully attempt to screw each other'. At the same time I am rather rudely instructed 'not to delve deeply into matters that can earn you more knowledge than you should be reasonably comfortable having.'"

In a later exchange, Tom revealed that Sukarno's trustee told him that:

"UBS tried to bribe him in 1992, this was when he went to Switzerland to talk to UBS and present his credentials and position statement. I don't remember exactly but I think they offered him $100 million cash & 100 tons of Au to go away and forget about it. Also, I believe there were at least 2 others who [the trustee] had given original certificates to present to UBS who were bribed; one lady somehow connected with the World Bank, and another man somehow connected to the then mayor of Paris. Then there's the incident of the SBC $25 million FCM note #4507 B.L."

"About 4+ years ago we met with some retired US treasury dept. people. Among the many things [the trustee] has they chose a $25 million FCM (or FMC ?) note to work with. As I understand this is a US dollar Swiss treasury note of some kind issued by SBC. This note has reached maturity and I believe it's now worth in the neighborhood of $80 million. The note is in the name of one of Sukarno's former wives named Harteeni (sp?). [The trustee] has the documentation to show that she has signed it over to him, thus if there were any doubt Harteeni is still living so conceivably she could confirm this."

"To try to make a long story short. When these retired treasury people presented a copy of this note to UBS NY requesting arrangements be made for payment on it to [the trustee], law officers of some kind were called in, the copy of the note was confiscated and they were charged by the bank with presenting a false document. A court date was set, and far from being distraught I can tell you that [the trustee] and the retired treasury people were very happy, because now this was going to be a beginning in bringing up the matter of all of Sukarno's deposits, [the trustee's] trusteeship, etc. etc.

However when they went to court neither the UBS NY lady lawyer who had brought the charge, [lawyer's name withheld], nor anyone else from UBS showed up to pursue or press the charge. Finally I can tell you that at the present time one of the retired treasury people has filed a written complaint with his US Senator, complaining that his rights were violated by what happened. The Senator has begun his own investigation of the matter, feeling that someone's trying to cover up something & also maybe he can get the democrats on this. However I've heard the Senator's preliminary investigation has run into a lot of roadblocks and hasn't gotten very far."

I have cited Tom's story at some length, not only because it fills in many gaps in Peter Johnston's own story, but also because it is highly revealing in its own right. Tom sought answers to the many questions he had about the foregoing, not least the curious involvement of the numerous international banks involved, not as principals, but as representatives for others. As we shall see, it is almost certainly the case that these "others" are a group of nations who were party to a secret agreement to exert control over plundered World War II gold and other assets and to ensure these did not enter the banking system or otherwise be utilised without such nations’ approval.

Footnotes

[i] See Seagrave, Sterling, The Yamato Dynasty (London: Bantam Press, 1999) for a more detailed background on the nature, size and quantity of Golden Lily plunder sites in the Philippines.

PART 4.2 - DEFROCKING THE SECRET TREATY

Exciting as Tom's revelations were, I still needed to make sense of the underlying structure that appeared to govern this mountain of gold still hidden in Southeast Asia.

The answer to this enigma appears to reside in a secret meeting held in 1972 in which 48 nations (or representatives from 48 nations) participated that formalised an earlier informal agreement (dare I say a "Secret Treaty?") to control and "use" the metal plundered during World War II. By all accounts, bullion banks, central banks, and also refineries have since joined in this arrangement and have formed an unofficial "club" to police and control the black gold that they henceforward designated as being on "vacation." This appears to imply that gold plundered during World War II, whether it is kept in bank vaults beneath Zurich Airport or concealed in burial sites in the Philippines or Indonesia makes little real difference to those who are pulling the strings. In any event this ratification remains "unofficial."

The secret 1972 meeting occurred just one year after President Nixon closed the gold window and one year before the Trilateral Commission was founded -- an event that resulted in the integration of Japan into the Western fold. As we have seen from previous pages, a number of reports indicate that the Trilateral Commission is a large mover and shaker in the world of black gold.

According to information I have received, almost all of the gold plundered by Japan's Golden Lily came from official state reserves (see images on this page) and thus the exact amounts plundered were obviously known and clearly hallmarked -- one reason Ferdinand Marcos hired Bob Curtis to alter the metal’s "fingerprint" of the gold Marcos had recovered and Marcos insisted that "his" metal should not be offered for sale on any of the world’s seven official bullion markets.

Yet one has to ask why these gold reserves -- which have been known about by senior officials and bankers in the US and in Europe, at least since 1945 -- have been allowed to remain in situ rather than being returned to the dozen or so Southeast Asian nations to which they rightfully belong. In keeping the existence of this plunder a secret and not permitting its integration in the official global banking and financial system appears, on the face of it, to be little more than a contravention of international law, somewhat akin to piracy, doesn’t it?

But that is not all. Those individuals and groups that today are legitimately working to privately recover (under existing laws governing "treasure troves") gold and other treasure stashed in the Philippines and elsewhere by the Golden Lily cannot dispose of the assets they have recovered without going through the banking system; apart, that is, from comparatively small deals that occasionally take place between private parties.

Moreover, it has been suggested by one knowledgeable source that the money earned by private treasure hunters who are directed through this labyrinth is a fraction of the current value of the metal they recover -- a fact that is corroborated by Sukarno's trustee. The powers that be have decreed that the found metal is nevertheless not theirs to dispose of as they please -- despite the fact that they have legally recovered it and legitimately own it. Instead it "belongs" to an unofficial and immensely powerful "club" the members of which rigorously control distribution for their own ends -- whatever they may be. Clearly, this is a case of the arrogance of might and muscle stamping international law to a pulp.

It also seems that a mechanism is in place governing the movement of this metal. The gold and platinum that are permitted to enter the banking system are indirectly and unobtrusively "vectored" through cut-outs until they reach -- so I am informed -- an arm's-length associate firm of the Union Bank of Switzerland. This firm, in turn, is said to operate on behalf of an un-named American entity that is believed to be the Federal Reserve. This arrangement and line of access exactly parallels the transactional guidelines given to Peter Johnston by Dr. Damanik.

When I say "enter the banking system," this does not necessarily mean physical movement. Indeed, as we have seen with the Sukarno revelations, large quantities of bullion remain immobile in the jungles of Indonesia. A great deal also remains untouched and still buried in the Philippines.

Physical accessibility is not necessary or, perhaps, even desirable for the powers that be. If the gold cannot be moved except with their express permission, it is for all intents and purposes little different from bullion that is locked and guarded in a bank vault -- where change of ownership is customarily effected by book transfer and/or the exchange of paper certificates denoting ownership.

We have also seen from some accounts that this metal can be utilized -- perhaps hypothecated -- as an asset to generate funding for a variety of purposes, including, it appears, America's NASA projects and certain projects on behalf of the British crown. Another source has indicated the involvement of this gold in the construction of sophisticated weapon systems, including ICBMs during the Cold War. It is impossible to corroborate these claims but, if true, such usage would certainly have been protected by state secrecy, I imagine. Moreover, according to documents Peter Johnston provided, some metal has been leased to sovereign nations on a long-term basis -- even though the borrower must have known that the gold was both legally and technically "stolen." Meanwhile, there are almost certainly numerous other projects for which this plunder has acted as collateral.

That these arrangements (the Secret Treaty) remain secret and unofficial means they are unaccountable and are thus absent of any scrutiny by democratically elected officials and, more worrying, the public at large. It is not even known for certain that those who act on behalf of sovereign nations in this respect have done so with the consent of their own democratic institutions. One cannot help but ask if each and every president since 1945 was made aware of this deepest secret. We do know as a matter of historical fact that Allen Dulles did not shirk from betraying his president and country. His loyalties lay first and foremost with an international group of powerful businessmen.

That being the case, is it not possible to suggest that this is a secret kept by a fairly small and tight club for their own ends -- and if you're not one of them (to use Margaret Thatcher's terminology "is he one of us?") you are kept out of the charmed circle? And if these are valid questions to ask, then is it possible to identify who "they" might be?

As we have already seen two elite and interlocked groups -- the Trilateral Commission and the Bilderberg group -- have their fingerprints all over this story. Might their aim be to slowly and stealthily engineer the world into whatever image and shape they wish? Colonel Fletcher Prouty, in his excellent book, JFK, chills his readers with what he believes the scenario of this elite is: war for profit, genocide to depopulate the world to what are regarded as manageable levels and, ultimately, the introduction of mechanisms aimed at social control. If democratically elected leaders such as JFK get in the way of the elite’s plans, they are terminated. In outlining this frightening scene, Prouty also argues that the Cold War was, to some extent anyway, a charade, since members of Russia’s own elite had gone along with this programme since at least 1972. Clearly, having access to almost unimaginable sums of money confers a degree of power that is almost beyond dream. One knowledgeable former Swiss banker says that the members of the "club" who control access to these assets already have plans to go "global."

Even today, secrecy remains at the heart of this decades old intrigue and I do not think it an over-statement to regard this story as the biggest secret of them all. What little I truly know of the dispensation of power and the perennial behind-the-scenes scheming by unelected, unaccountable members of a shadowy cabal fills me with no confidence that they will, or plan, to, do the right thing for the majority of us. What is known of their modus operandi points to a creed of self-righteous greed and an appalling absence of morality that to most of us would chill the marrow. One can easily imagine they see themselves as the modern gods of Olympus cruelly toying with mankind even as they lazily drop a grape into their mouths or sip a goblet of wine.

If I had not had the assistance of Peter Johnston in providing me with his bulging files four and half years ago, this story would not have been told. It is fitting, therefore, that the last words of this Dossier call for Peter's besmirched name to be cleared. Peter, at all times, WAS empowered with legally binding authority to dispose of the assets legally controlled by Dr. Damanik. Peter had no way of knowing that a secret cabal with immense power would be threatened by his efforts to dispose of these assets. His arrest, trial and imprisonment constitute a blatant miscarriage of justice that, at the very least, emanated from the Union Bank of Switzerland, which, in turn, was aided and abetted by the Bank of England. Others stood idly by, thus compounding his wrongful imprisonment.

by David GuyattSeptember 2000

from DeepBlackLies Website

WIG (Wing In Ground Effect) craft-Creative Journey

2011-02-03T17:17:00.010+11:00

Return of the WIG

A ground effect vehicle (GEV) is one that attains level flight near the surface of the Earth, made possible by a cushion of high-pressure air created by the aerodynamic interaction between the wings and the surface known as ground effect. Also known as a wing-in-ground-effect (WIG) vehicle, flarecraft, sea skimmer, ekranoplan, or wing-in-surface-effect ship (WISE), a GEV can be seen as a transition between a hovercraft and an aircraft. The International Maritime Organization, (IMO), has classified the GEV as a ship.[1] A GEV differs from an aircraft in that it cannot operate without ground effect, so its operating height is limited relative to its wingspan.

The last time any major navy considered using WIG was the soviet navy, but in recent times, reports have emerged of both Russia and the united states developing new massive versions of these craft , these craft have the potential to change amphibious landings forever, delivering huge military sealift payloads at airlift speeds .

The soviet WIG's

These craft were originally developed by the Soviet Union as very high-speed military transports, and were based mostly on the shores of the Caspian Sea and Black Sea. The largest had max take-off weight over 544 tonnes. The development of ekranoplans was supported by Dmitri Ustinov, Minister of Defence of the USSR. About 120 ekranoplans (A-90 Orlyonok class) were initially planned to enter military service in the Soviet Navy. The figure was later reduced to fewer than thirty vehicles, planned to be deployed mainly for the Black and the Baltic Soviet navies. Marshal Ustinov died in 1985, and the new Minister of Defence Marshal Sokolov effectively stopped the funding for the program. The only three operational A-90 Orlyonok ekranoplans built (with renewed hull design) and one Lun-class ekranoplan remained at a naval base near Kaspiysk.

The new Russian ekranoplans

a Beriev concept for a 1,000 ton payload wing-in-ground (WIG) effect vehicle is a concept in search of funding. It is an innovative concept which is comparable to the new Boeing PELICAN WIG. A Beriev official said the company welcomes foreign investment to bring this concept to life.

The american project

BY WILLIAM COLE

It would be the biggest bird in the history of aviation.

Dwarfing all previous flying giants, the Pelican, a high-capacity cargo plane concept currently being studied by Boeing Phantom Works, would stretch more than the length of a U.S. football field and have a wingspan of 500 feet and a wing area of more than an acre. It would have almost twice the external dimensions of the world's current largest aircraft, the Russian An225, and could transport five times its payload, up to 1,400 tons of cargo.

Designed primarily for long-range, transoceanic transport, the Pelican would fly as low as 20 feet above the sea, taking advantage of an aerodynamic phenomenon that reduces drag and fuel burn. Over land, it would fly at altitudes of 20,000 feet or higher. Operating only from ordinary paved runways, the Pelican would use 38 fuselage-mounted landing gears with a total of 76 tires to distribute its weight.

The military, commercial and even space prospects for such a cargo plane—officially known as the Pelican Ultra Large Transport Aircraft, or ULTRA—are also huge.

"The Pelican can broaden the range of missions for which airplanes are the favoured way to deliver cargo," said Boeing's Pelican program manager Blaine Rawdon, who is designing the plane with Boeing engineer Zachary Hoisington . "It is much faster than ships at a fraction of the operational cost of current airplanes. This will be attractive to commercial and military operators who desire speed, worldwide range and high throughput. We envision that the Pelican can multiply aircraft's 1-percent share in a commercial market now dominated by container ships."

John Skorupa, senior manager of strategic development for Boeing Advanced Airlift and Tankers, said, "The Pelican currently stands as the only identified means by which the U.S. Army can achieve its deployment transformation goals of deploying one division in five days, or five divisions in 30 days, anywhere in the world." If necessary, he said, the Pelican could carry 17 M-1 main battle tanks on a single sortie. Commercially, the aircraft's size and efficiency would allow it to carry types of cargo equivalent to those carried by container ships, at more than 10 times the speed.

"It is attracting interest as a mother ship for unmanned vehicles, enabling rapid deployment of a network-centric warfare grid, a likely future mode of operation for modernized U.S. forces as demonstrated in Afghanistan ," Skorupa said. "And it is attracting interest as a potential first-stage platform for piggybacking reusable space vehicles to an appropriate launch altitude.

"Why would such a huge airplane be flown at such a low altitude?

By flying low, the Pelican, like its name-sake, exploits the aerodynamic benefits of a well-known phenomenon called ground effect. Flying close to water, the wing downwash angle and tip vortices are suppressed, resulting in a major drag reduction and outstanding cruise efficiency.

"It's an effect that provides extraordinary range and efficiency," Skorupa said. "With a payload of 1.5 million pounds, the Pelican could fly 10,000 nautical miles over water and 6,500 nautical miles over land.

"Flying in ground effect demands the latest flight control technology, conceded Skorupa. Reliable systems will provide precise, automatic altitude control and collision avoidance. Cruise altitude will be adjusted according to sea state, and if the seas get too rough, the Pelican can easily climb to high altitude to continue the flight.

When could the Pelican be flying? The answer may lie in the Army's Advanced Mobility Concepts Study, scheduled for release next April. The Pelican has been offered by Boeing as part of a system-of-systems solution that would include the C-17 Globe master III transport, the CH-47 Chinook helicopter and the Advanced Theatre Transport.

"A favourable report would set the stage for a possible co development effort between Boeing, the U.S. military and interested commercial cargo carriers," Skorupa said.

Flightglobal

DATE:03/02/04

SOURCE:Flight International

Flightship assets go up for auction

EMMA KELLY / PERTH
Three wing-in-ground-effect aircraft, one complete, included in sale after liquidators fail to find buyer for Australian firm
Auctioneers will this week sell the assets of Australian wing-in-ground-effect (WIGE) commercial aircraft manufacturer Flightship Ground Effects after liquidators failed to find a buyer for the Queensland-based company.
Flightship managing director John Leslie appointed Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu as voluntary administrators in late October as he believed the manufacturer was insolvent or approaching insolvency.
Flightship designed and developed the FS8 Dragon Commuter WIGE. Production of the single-engined, all-composite aircraft started in January 2003 after sea trials verified the design (Flight International, 28 January-3 February 2003). The aircraft is powered by a General Motors V8 automotive engine driving two propellers.
The eight to 10-seat aircraft was aimed at coastal passenger and freight services and had already received orders from Asia, Canada, the Maldives and the Middle East. The manufacturer had in addition designed a larger twin-turboprop variant, dubbed the Dragon Clipper.
The administrator attempted to recapitalise the manufacturer late last year but failed to reach agreement with stakeholders, resulting in it being placed in liquidation in December. The administrator attributed Flightship's collapse to it underestimating the costs required to bring its product to market. The company, which employed around 100 people, was owned by Singaporean businessmen and Leslie.
Deloitte tried to sell the business as a going concern. Auctioneers Strophairs will sell off the company's assets on 3 February. These include moulds and jigs, one complete FS8, two near-complete aircraft, plans, technical drawings, parts and equipment.

Wed Feb 19, 2003 11:00 pm

Dear All,
Flightship is very alive and well with 65 workers currently building FS8
craft for many customers. After many (many!) man hours we have now
extensively modified the FS8 001 prototype design into a
hydrodynamically and aerodynamically sophisticated ground effect
machine. In the process we have increased payload capability to 10
persons (8+2) plus 200 kgs luggage, reduced construction weight,
significantly improved hull shape and aerodynamic configuration, control
system , electronics system, undercarriage and water drive, main engine
and virtually every other facet of the craft's original presentation.

This work has involved the excellent an ongoing support and cooperation
of our classification society and a team of contracted aerospace,
electronics and materials technology consultants. In the process we have
drawn heavily on the entire Dornier/RFB database we purchased several
years ago which gives us the design technology to build craft from the
beautiful X113 through to 500 tonnes displacement as our market
continues to mature.

Currently on the 5,000 sq metre workshop floors in Cairns we have 3 FS8
craft under simultaneous build with another 5 sold and waiting for build
behind them, all for delivery this year with first craft roll out due
within 30 days from now and a following craft every 30 days after that.
Active negotiations for a further total of 42 FS8 craft in both
commercial and military configurations are progressing well.

We are not as obvious in the media now that we are dealing with mainly
qualified commercial operators and our appointed agents. This has
meant that we are generally not seeking media attention to create sales
enquiries although such articles as Flight International last month are
appearing in the established trade magazines.

At this time we are exhibiting in Singapore at the Work Boat Asia expo
with very great response direct from the market. We have another 6
trade exhibitions scheduled this year including Philippines, UAE,
Australia, China and Singapore.

Great to see the WIG ring functioning, its not that we aren't here , its
just we are very head down and doing the business! New format Flightship
web site should be up in a week or so I am told.

Regards to all,
John Leslie
Flightship

**Message: 1
** Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2003 21:33:38 +0100
** From: Stephan Aubin <Stephan.Aubin@...>
**Subject: Flightship
**
**Hi to all
**
**maybe I should not ask this question, but has anyone any news from
**Flightship ?
**
**They have money, a beautiful and performant Fischer-made craft, and a
**potential market. I just wish nothing bad happened to them !
**
**Last time I heard from them they were about to start
**production. It was
**in May 2002.
**
**St駱han

THE WIG PAGE Sponsored by:

WINGSHIP TECHNOLOGY

For some reason, Anti-Leslie campain comments.......

siththee
# 01 Jan 2011 Saturday 1:59 pm go to five star hotel and meet bbw naneedj.info

flightboat
# 01 Jan 2011 Saturday 2:37 pm @ecogreensingapore
You can send a email to Mr. Keng Hian POH in Wigetworks Pte. in Singapore visiting their web site. I don’t know AF8 price yet because Singaporean company hasn’t start the production.
Ekranoplans also are aerodynamicaly stable in ground effect mode and of course you are right about the aerodynamics. There is electronic systems that secure the stabilization of WIG crafts and this is the secret between succesful WIG crafts and failures.

ecogreensingapore
# 01 Jan 2011 Saturday 3:19 pm How much is that Airfish 8 selling now?

flightboat
# 01 Jan 2011 Saturday 3:52 pm @ecogreensingapore
FS8 now is located in operation and certified by Lloyd’s and by Singapore Marine Authorities. FS8 has never crashes company problems between Leslie and Singapore investors and shareholders lead in company liqaudation, also this is proven by Delloite Tohatsu company report.
Maybe you are confused with other German WIG craft project that it is crashed, Sea Falcon 8.

flightboat
# 01 Jan 2011 Saturday 4:35 pm @ecogreensingapore
FS8 now called as Airfish-8 in Singapore nad it hasn;t any stability problem is know one of the most well proven WIG craft concept (reverse delta wing) by Dr. Alexander Lippisch. In Australia (Cairns) Leslie has tried to made changes in the certified prototype and AF8 has lost once this stability but assistant of Mr. Hanno Fischer has gone in Cairns and fix the problem after demand of local maritime authorities.

flightboat
# 01 Jan 2011 Saturday 5:07 pm @ecogreensingapore
The problem continues for 6 years now in Singapore with FS8 owner successor (Wigetworks). The relations with old designer is not good from the side of Wigetworks. Leslie (and not Lislie) was a bad selection of Singaporean owners of FS8 as a business partner that he has a bankrupty of WIG craft company before in Tasmania.

ecogreensingapore
# 01 Jan 2011 Saturday 5:58 pm The problem with WIG is … it is a phenomenon by itself, and it is different from aerodynamic, FS8 previous owner Lislie is not a WIG designer… and making entreprenuer mistake of wanting to do it yourself, without consulting the old designer. and it crashes.

Xigano1
# 01 Jan 2011 Saturday 6:14 pm I love how the Aussies embrace 21th century marine transport like this as well as fast cats, hydrofoils, etc., while the rest of the world get’s scared by anything that goes faster than 30 knots. Oi Oi Oi !

flightboat
# 01 Jan 2011 Saturday 6:50 pm @farrusquito
Ekranoplan called all the Russia WIG craft Type A and Type B, this is a German WIG craft Type A.

farrusquito
# 01 Jan 2011 Saturday 7:30 pm It is a Ekranoplan Taxi ….good to see again a Ekranoplan in action

flightboat
# 01 Jan 2011 Saturday 8:06 pm @DrPilotRedC
As for size take a look in Russia crafts Orlyonok, Ekranoplan KM and Lun. But in German technology we don’t have at the moment a size comparable with Hovercraft. As for amphibian capabilities, Ekranoplans have, take a look in Aquaglide-5. German technology WIG crafts (like Airfish have some amphibian capabilities with wheels can go out to beach through ramp.

DrPilotRedC
# 01 Jan 2011 Saturday 8:43 pm @flightboat Their only advantage right now is size and they can hover up onto a beach.

flightboat
# 01 Jan 2011 Saturday 9:26 pm @DrPilotRedC
Hovercraft technology has many disadvantages and especially: Hovercrafts are consuming much more fuels, don’t have enough operational limits (high Hs) for commercial use, and they are not enviroment friendly such as high noise level – sea spray many times in 30 meters high and sea creautures suffering from high pressure in sea level.

DrPilotRedC
# 01 Jan 2011 Saturday 10:02 pm Good hovercraft replacement.

briquetaverne
# 01 Jan 2011 Saturday 10:15 pm It sort of looks like a pelican flying above the water the way the wings are positioned.

flightboat
# 01 Jan 2011 Saturday 10:35 pm I kwnow that Singaporean company has fails to commercialize the FS8 (production line) but you can wait little more to see better WIG crafts in production in next months from Korea companies with German WIG technology – Hoverwing.

flightboat
# 01 Jan 2011 Saturday 11:16 pm This was the reason that the prototype FS8-001 has canibalized by Australian company and restore back after 3 years by Singaporean company. Anyway if you want to operate a WIG craft you can address in inventor or technology or in Russia companies that they have already craft for commercial use like Aquaglide-5.

flightboat
# 01 Jan 2011 Saturday 11:54 pm In my comment I didn’t speak about the Singaporean but for the previous partner of them that he tried in Cairns (Australia) to build something different (heavier) without knowledge and rights.

flightboat
# 02 Jan 2011 Sunday 12:14 am Try to visit their web site (WigetWorks) or to read articles in news to see that the prototype FS8-001 has repaired and certified by Lloyd’s over 2 years now.

krabiair
# 02 Jan 2011 Sunday 1:11 am The FS8 is now owned by Singapore, they have tried to make it fly for more than 2 years. If I want to operate the WIG craft, how I can get one or two craft.

flightboat
# 02 Jan 2011 Sunday 1:27 am Who told you all that theory. Probaply you are confused with the failed effords of John Leslie team (Flightship Ground Effect Pty. Ltd.) to bypass the copyrights of German Airfish WIG Technology. Leslie illegal copies are more heavy than prototype and for that reason all these crafts never take off from the water.

flightboat
# 02 Jan 2011 Sunday 1:39 am Operating of the control surfaces by the steering wheel for a turn, is done in such a manner that the craft makes a coordinated banking maneuver with the craft simultaneously reaching the altitude required for such a turn. Banking angle is approx. 15 degress.
Turning radius is approx. 300 meters.

dirtTdude
# 02 Jan 2011 Sunday 1:58 am does it bank in to turns like an airplane? what is the turning radius at full speed?

krabiair
# 02 Jan 2011 Sunday 2:28 am FS8 is a very good WIG craft. But the craft is too heavy. Their engineers tried to get more horse powered engine to drive the craft but they couldn’t make it. I suggested them to use light weight composite material instead. But no response so far.

mmomsboy
# 02 Jan 2011 Sunday 3:21 am very good and it does’nt chop up fish like a hydrofoil

Decades drought ended. Vibrant Wilderness in S.A. blessing AFL & EFL Leaders' visit in January 2011

2011-01-28T21:59:00.011+11:00

SUCCESS DOCTRINE training in S.A. created and conducted by TOTAL ARTIST Edward CAR

Keynes: The Return of the Master (2009) Robert Skidelsky does a good job teaching us about Keynes

2010-12-05T21:44:00.001+11:00

Robert Skidelsky's official website

Robert Skidelsky does a good job teaching us about Keynes. Skidelsky and Keynes offer good value to our world. Both are aware of the Neo Libertarian pre-disposition to sacred greed and holy self endlessness. Since the crash of 2008 everybody in the west is now stepping forward with a new solution and re-involvement of Governments. We can no longer entrust the remaining world to the “Invisible Hand” first raised by the famous first liberal economist Adam Smith 1776, of free market business. This is true in the west. Not in the East.

The western “invisible Hand” could not in its time penetrate the Eastern free markets no matter how hard it hit the east. This is true of at least the last 400years of advanced banking, iron cannons and square sail Barque rigged Dutch and British vessels.

Please also remember the business world of the East has always been larger and eternally unfathomable to the invaders from Europe and more recently the USA, called the west.

They too had an “invisible hand” and it was network of Over Seas Chinese (OSC) who fled main land China to maintain their free market and business. They did this quite successfully and remained impenetrable through history. Nothing stopped the trade moving through the links not even WW2. They are masters of the “invisible hand”. They have now owned at least 30% of all the cash and profit generating business in the west since the war ended and Governments forgot about Keynesian Economics and sold state assets off. Our Bureaucrat people in the west don’t talk about it. They can’t get at the information enough to make policy. Instead the Neo Libertarian Landlords and major shareholders had their own vice ridden tricks. Cannibalism of its own citizens is one and economic guerilla attacks on the Eastern markets, is the second. Economic war has been waged against this greater Global economy at the destruction of our biosphere, community and all living things.

Think about it. Please discuss.

The smallest part of the global economy is western. Its Neo Libertarians tried “One World Order”, Market Globalization and massive indebtedness strategies of the IMF and its bed fellow the innocent World Bank. They “their invisible hand” twisted these Government institutions into wealth accumulation houses for the empowerment of the neo libertarians’ sacred hoarding affliction. Removing the invisible hand of the East meant monopoly. Thank God that is impossible.

Not so nice when the same invisible hand turns on the remainder of the possible world economy and started to cannibalize it. That is you and me and our children’s future. The young already feel that their opportunity has been stolen from them.

That is happening. It is philosophically possible, morally and ethically because Aristotle promoted Slavery. The Old Testament promotes the Chosen People. When God gets involved you and I lose in the West. The Crash of 2008 has already stolen from the unborn for two or three generations if I am kind.

This means it is good that Cosco invades Europe takes over the port. They are now fully vertically integrated with their own ships coming to their own major European port. The thinking is different.

The last time something similar happened in history is the completed railway from Basra in Iraq to Germany, meaning Germany and the alliance of all the countries taking the railroad control oil into Europe. It was completed in 1914 a few weeks before WW1 started. British troops landed at Basra and destroyed the facility.

The enemy is within our house. Hollywood horror is correct here if you accept the projection of this sick neo libertarian mindset. If you are so absolutely greedy then the horror is all yours!

What we have to do with great speed as this mentally diseased western monster is shadow boxing is create an unprecedented number of National Parks, Marine Parks with living but no mining and harvesting rights, Community Living Sanctuaries where people are allowed to live freely in eco-systems with other species, clean fresh water and clean fresh air. We need Artisanal Fee Zones where people of the Pacific and elsewhere can fish and live as they always have. We need to do business with them. The Neo Libertarians have the idea you matter least and can eat fish farmed from tanks.

When we do business with people we make them wealthy and this makes us wealthy.

Mentally sick business people forget about the rest of community and kill it, starve it, trick it and lie to community. It as if their notion of the “Chosen Ones” fundamentally means kill all others when a shortage is perceived when the season is limited. Mentally Sick business people take huge sums of money from mentally sick Landlords and Money Lenders when driven by the mental instability of monopoly. The common sense of empowering the other is wiped off the board and instead it is rehashing Aristotle and accelerating world slavery. As if this is possible!

Think about it.

Imagine the mind that thinks like this. It certainly is not a Over Seas Chinese family and virtue based society, nor is it the so called developing world that just wants you to get out and leave them alone with all your philosophy stuff, smoke and mirrors called the “inevitable progress”. The Australian Aborigine just looks at you and all those behind you and sees you as mad. The Hmong see you as mad. The Masai in East Africa see you as mad. The Sommeliers see you as mad. Everywhere I have travelled in search of indigenous people who are still custodian landowners they tell me how mad my people are.

It goes on and on and on. Go find out for yourself.

We are all looking at the Neo Libertarians bashing up against the Eastern domain of business wondering when they will notice their fist is bleeding and broken. In the mean time, the Eastern domain has invaded New York, Europe, and London and from the Middle East back to Japan it is Asia and the Neo Libertarians and their Landlords cannot own any of it with control. Yet Cosco a major shipping company from Asia just bought Piraeus Port in Athens and a mobile telephone network in 2010 and now this “invisible hand” controls it.

The Asian Landlord is not the Chinese Government it is one of the numerous OSC Clans. A virtue based business model my insane neo libertarian bourgeois friends.

Immature children playing like spoilt brats with loaded guns and release germ warfare to ultimately win. Then these spoilt brats lie and go to their Philosophers, Rabbis and Bishops and they say don’t worry you are still the “chosen ones”. It is good business my children.

Be careful who you play with. In time you cannot be honest. It will then be impossible for the whole world to trust you. Then you will lose power and property, and your invisible hand.

Robert Skidelsky nicely documents the crash of 2008. He lays out their fact as they had them in 2009. More is coming out all the time. There is now a witch hunt for the “invisible hand” boys who own and captured the wealth from the citizens born and unborn.

I was reading Asia Times while this maneuver was going on. The worlds leading free to speak intelligence was reporting on moves made and deliberately not made. A difference could have been made. But it was not. Cannibalism is evident. It is all recorded there for you to read. Your children will one day.

The Crash of 2008 was a setup. Then the setup becomes a set up. Very intellectual! Very Bank of England! Setups are about vectoring more cash faster into particular harvesting accounts. That’s the plan. Especially when you cannot play the whole world! When you are not invited to play in the street you have to go home and scratch your sisters eyes out, kick your dog, stamp on the ants and empty the fish tank out after heating it on the stove. All this before mommy and daddy come home. Total social and environment collapse sounds good when you want to get the kids back playing in the street.

The people who own the money to make change happen in your western world street prefer total environmental collapse. The New Testament is about Jesus and he is about heroic love and that is all about “Compassion” fully understood by the Pacific, Asia and Islam, and every animist society anywhere. So the problem is not coming from there.

You hunt the problem down.

Please meet Robert Skidelsky. This man is intellectually elegant. That means he has heart and knows something is wrong.

Wind Eurus Journal

JESUS WARS

READING THE ROCKS The Autobiography of the Earth 2005

BIG in ASIA

The Collapse of Globalism by John Ralston Saul

SMART TRUST by Stephen Covey and Greg Link

WARREN BUFFET

Asia Times Online :: Middle East News, Iraq, Iran current affairs

The Sacrifice

Chernobyl Dead Zone 24,000 years to go.

Assange takes on the world

Don't Cry now that Someone is better than You.

A revolution against neoliberalism?

The Arabs are saying, "It is time to get Honest in the World"

Gaddafi Shoots and Bombs his People February 2011

Self Help against the Vices of Power in BURMA 2011

Cannibalisation repeats itself because the Stupid Owners haven't changed

Fidel Castro and his Cuba

Bay of Pigs Invasion

Political background

Existing anti-Castro resistance in Cuba

Preparation and training for invasion

Participants

US Government personnel

Cuban government personnel

Prior warnings of invasion

Prelude to invasion

Air attacks on airfields (15 April)

Deception flight (15 April)

Reactions (15 April)

Phony war (16 April)

Invasion

Invasion day (17 April)

Invasion day plus one (D+1) 18 April

Invasion day plus two (D+2) 19 April

Invasion day plus three (D+3) 20 April

Aftermath

Casualties

Prisoners

Political reaction

Later analysis

Maxwell Taylor survey

CIA report

Invasion legacy in Cuba

Invasion legacy for Cuban exiles

Playa Girón today

See also

Explanatory notes

Notes

References

FOR THE HISTORCAL RECORD Driving through the gates of hell

The Hmong Genral Van Pou

Hmong honour general who fought secret war for CIA

Mark Arax, Fresno

OITC by Mr. Fulford

A GOLD study

WIG (Wing In Ground Effect) craft-Creative Journey

Decades drought ended. Vibrant Wilderness in S.A. blessing AFL & EFL Leaders' visit in January 2011

Keynes: The Return of the Master (2009) Robert Skidelsky does a good job teaching us about Keynes