Ellen Brown Interviewed on The Progressive Radio News Hour

Brown is a civil litigation attorney, distinguished author, and frequent writer on financial issues. A new edition of her important book, “Web of Debt,” is a brilliant analysis of the private banking system, how it usurped money creation power, and how we can get it back.

WikiLeaks Investigators Feared Bradley Manning had Links to Foreign Agents

Army computer specialist tells military court investigators were suspicious about soldier’s background in Britain. “There was a great deal of concern that there could be a foreign intelligence service involved,” the witness said. Manning’s links to people and places outside the US were checked. “He had lived overseas in the UK,” Mander told the court.

Pentagon Pressure May Have Delayed Obama Apology

PENTAGON PRESSURE
MAY HAVE DELAYED
OBAMA APOLOGY

By Sherwood Ross

Reportedly, under pressure from the Pentagon, President Obama “hesitated for more than a week” before he phoned Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari “to provide a qualified apology” for the November 26th killings by U.S. aircraft and artillery of two dozen Pakistani soldiers at a border post near Afghanistan, Robert Dreyfuss reports in The Nation magazine.

There are two U.S. policies on Pakistan: that of the White House and State Department, which prefer to talk, and that of the CIA and Pentagon, which prefer to fight, Dreyfuss writes in the December 26th issue of the American liberal magazine. President Obama’s delayed and weak response may have been a result of that internal tug-of-war.

Dreyfuss raises the possibility that by its sustained attack on the Pakistani troops the U.S. military may have been sending a message to the Pakistans, whose sanctuaries for Afghan insurgents it considers a major obstacle to its progress in the fighting. It is possible, the article said, the Pentagon might be “thinking about escalating the (Afghanistan) war into Pakistan.”

In the wake of the U.S. attack, Pakistan did not attend a Bonn conference hosted by German Chancellor Angela Merkel to work out an accord between Afghanistan, the U.S.-led coalition, Pakistan, and the Taliban, editor Dreyfuss noted.

What’s more, Pakistan also demanded the U.S. quit a drone base there and closed down U.S. supply lines into Afghanistan. Pakistanis are seething not only over the Nov. 26th slaughter but also over the killing of two Pakistanis last January by an armed CIA contractor; the incursion into their country that killed Osama bin Laden last May 1st; and “the barrage of drone attacks on Pakistan’s tribal areas,” Dreyfuss reports.

“Even many U.S. generals know that the war in Afghanistan can’t be won militarily,” Dreyfuss writes, “so the U.S. needs an all-out focus on a settlement, even after the crash-and-burn conference in Bonn.”

A good place to begin, he proposes, would be with a unilateral US/NATO cease-fire. “By halting drone attacks, the United States could provide a face-saving way for Pakistan to enter serious negotiations. A cease-fire would also end the mixed messages sent to the Taliban and their allies and provide a true test of their willingness to come to the table.”

Coaxing Pakistan and the Taliban into talks while getting the region’s powers to underwrite a rebalanced Afghan accord, and very likely a new Constitution is complex indeed, Dreyfuss points out. “With each passing day, it seems the Obama administration isn’t up to the task, and that could mean we will remain bogged down in the (Afghan) quagmire even after 2014,” he writes.
This is unfortunate, he adds, as the American people have turned sharply against the war and want their troops out of Afghanistan. Currently, the timetable for departing calls for 33,000 U.S. troops to quit Afghanistan by next September and withdrawal of nearly all foreign forces by 2014.

Dreyfuss writes that by pursuing “a contradictory policy of warmaking, peace talks and development assistance,” it isn’t all that clear that the Obama administration knows what it’s doing.
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(Sherwood Ross, who formerly worked for major dailies and wire services, is a public relations consultant for good causes. Reach him at sherwoodross10@gmail.com. Hear his commentaries on New American Dream internet radio at 8 PM EST the first Thursday of each month.)

US court claims Iranian 9/11 link

A US court has won a default judgement that Iranian officials, including its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, provided help to the 9/11 hijackers behind the worst terror attack on American soil. The lawsuit was filed by the families of the atrocity’s victims. There was no Iranian representation in court. RT talks to Michel Chossudovsky, Director of the Center for Research on Globalization.

Chicago Rally to Thank Obama for Supposedly Ending War in Iraq Turns Up 30 Speakers and 10 Audience Members

The rally was sponsored by Marilyn Katz and Carl Davidson and “Chicagoans Against War in Iraq,” and was promoted as a big national event. I heard about the planning here in Virginia. Among the 30 speakers were the president of the Cook County Board Toni Preckwinkle, Alderman Joe Moore, and Tom Hayden. But an email report I’ve just been forwarded says the audience was “5-10,” and “Dozens and dozens of prepared placards that said ‘yes we can’ were in a box, untouched.”

New Photos Released of Iraq Atrocity, With Documents and Video

Warning: the video shows extremely gruesome photos, part of Needham’s proof. U.S. Army Ranger John Needham, who was awarded two purple hearts and three medals for heroism, wrote to military authorities in 2007 reporting war crimes that he witnessed being committed by his own command and fellow soldiers in Al Doura, Iraq. His charges were supported by atrocity photos which, in the public interest, are now released in this video. John paid a terrible price for his opposition to these acts. His story is tragic.

The Trial of Bradley Manning — Rule of Law or Rule of Intimidation, Retaliation & Retribution

The federal courts have long established mechanism of dealing with classified information in national security cases. The military’s contention that it took 19 months to figure out how to try him while protecting classified materials reeks of intimidation, retribution and retaliation.

Washington State Senator’s Murray and Cantwell Vote Yes on NDAA

Both US Senators from Washington State, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, voted yes on the contentious National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which will allow for the indefinite detention of ANY U.S. citizen, even without a reason for that detention ( under Section 1031 (b) 2).

Set Your Doomsday Clock to 11:51

President Obama wanted a bill that limited him in no way, and he is likely to issue a law-altering signing-statement that further removes any offensive limits on absolute tyrannical power. This type of signing statement is another example of something done secretly by Bush, exposed, turned into a temporary scandal, denounced by candidate Obama, then utilized by President Obama, formally established by executive order, and now more or less accepted by everyone as the norm.

The American Empire in Latin America: “Democracy” is a Threat to “National Security”

This is an excerpt from a chapter in a current book-in-progress being funded through The People’s Book Project [Andrew Gavin Marshall]. The chapter is on the American Empire’s early implementation of its “Grand Area” designs in Latin America, as defined by the Council on Foreign Relations during World War II.