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Emerging threats of resource wars. U.S. House hearing

June 23, 2016

Emerging threats of resource wars. U.S. House hearing

Goh Chun Teck, Lim Xian You, Sum Qing Wei, Tong Huu Khiem. Resource Wars.2011. A hot-seat multiplayer game where players compete with each other for territories that generate resources such as coal, water, gold and gas. A Player can sell resources for money, which he can use to purchase even more territories to grow his empire, or fight with other players to attempt to conquer their territories. NatiOnal University of Singapore. CS2103 Projects AY10/11 Semester 1
Goh Chun Teck, Lim Xian You, Sum Qing Wei, Tong Huu Khiem. 2011. Resource Wars. Players compete with each other for territories that generate resources such as coal, water, gold and gas. A Player can sell resources for money, which he can use to purchase even more territories to grow his empire, or fight with other players to attempt to conquer their territories. National University of Singapore.

[ About half of the pages are images from Brigadier General John Adams “Remaking American security. Supply chain vulnerabilities & national security risks across the U.S. Defense Industrial Base”.  

Alice Friedemann   www.energyskeptic.com  author of “When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation, 2015, Springer]

House 113-63. July 25, 2013. The Emerging threat of Resource Wars.  U.S. House of Representatives,  88 pages.

DANA ROHRABACHER, California.  We import 750,000 tons of vital minerals and material every year.  An increasing global demand for supplies of energy and strategic minerals is sparking intense economic competition that could lead to a counterproductive conflict.

A ‘‘zero sum world’’ where no one can obtain the means to progress without taking them from someone else is inherently a world of conflict.

Additional problems arise when supplies are located in areas where production could be disrupted by political upheaval, terrorism or war. 

When new sources of supply are opened up, as in the case of Central Asia, there is still fear that there is not enough to go around and thus conflict emerges.   The wealth that results from resource development and the expansion of industrial production increases power just as it uplifts economies and uplifts the standards of peoples.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Washington prepares for World War III

November 7, 2015

Washington prepares for World War III

The US military-intelligence complex is engaged in systematic preparations for World War III. As far as the Pentagon is concerned, a military conflict with China and/or Russia is inevitable, and this prospect has become the driving force of its tactical and strategic planning.

Three congressional hearings Tuesday demonstrated this reality. In the morning, the Senate Armed Services Committee held a lengthy hearing on cyberwarfare. In the afternoon, a subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee discussed the present size and deployment of the US fleet of aircraft carriers, while another subcommittee of the same panel discussed the modernization of US nuclear weapons.

The World Socialist Web Site will provide a more detailed account of these hearings, which were attended by a WSWS reporter. But certain preliminary observations can be made.

None of the hearings discussed the broader implications of the US preparations for war, or what a major war between nuclear-armed powers would mean for the survival of the human race, and even of life on our planet. On the contrary, the hearings were examples of what might be called the routinization of World War III. A US war with China and/or Russia was taken as given, and the testimony of witnesses and questions from senators and representatives, Democrats and Republicans alike, concerned the best methods for prevailing in such a conflict.

The hearings were component parts of an ongoing process. The witnesses referred to their past writings and statements. The senators and representatives referred to previous testimony by other witnesses. In other words, the preparations for world war, using cyber weapons, aircraft carriers, bombers, missiles and the rest of a vast array of weaponry, have been under way for a protracted period of time. They are not a response to recent events, whether in the South China Sea, Ukraine, Syria or anywhere else.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

One Small Step For NSA Reform, One Giant Leap for Congress

June 3, 2015

One Small Step For NSA Reform, One Giant Leap for Congress

Featured photo - One Small Step for NSA Reform, One Giant Leap for Congress

Exactly two years after journalists Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras traveled to Hong Kong to meet an NSA whistleblower named Edward Snowden, Congress has finally brought itself to reform one surveillance program out of the multitude he revealed — a program so blatantly out of line that its end was a foregone conclusion as soon as it was exposed.

The USA Freedom Act passed the House in an overwhelming, bipartisan vote three weeks ago. After hardliner Republicans lost a prolonged game of legislative chicken, the Senate gave its approval Tuesday afternoon as well, by a 67 to 32 margin. The bill officially ends 14 years of unprecedented bulk collection of domestic phone records by the NSA, replacing it with a program that requires the government to make specific requests to the phone companies.

After Snowden’s leak of NSA documents revealed it, the program was repeatedly found to violate the law, first by legal experts and blue-ribbon panels, and just last month by a federal appellate court. Its rejection by Congress is hardly a radical act — it simply reasserts the meaning of the word “relevant” (the language of the statute) as distinct from “everything” (how the government interpreted it).

At the same time, the Freedom Act explicitly reauthorizes — or, rather, reinstates, since they technically expired at midnight May 31 — other programs involving the collection of business records that the Bush and Obama administrations claimed were authorized by Section 215 of the Patriot Act. In fact, even the bulk collection of phone records, which was abruptly wound down last week in anticipation of a possible expiration, may wind up again, because the Freedom Act allows it to continue for a six-month transition period.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

If the U.S. Sends Weapons to Ukraine, “the EU Will Break Up … and the American Century Will Have Ended In Shame, Disgrace and Defeat”

March 25, 2015

If the U.S. Sends Weapons to Ukraine, “the EU Will Break Up … and the American Century Will Have Ended In Shame, Disgrace and Defeat”

Is the U.S. Digging Its Own Grave?

In response to the news that the U.S. House of Representatives has just voted to send weapons to Ukraine, guest writer Eric Zuesse send me the following email:

My guess is that if Obama sends weapons [to Ukraine], then the EU will break up, and the U.S. will have, as remaining European allies, only Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, and maybe two or three other shall nations. The Donbass military (as it now is), will, I think, nonetheless win against the third invasion from Ukraine; and Putin and his ally China will also have, as new allies, Japan and South Korea, and much of Europe, and maybe even including Australia and UK; and the American Century will have ended in shame, disgrace and defeat, without any nuclear war (which would be pointless, even for America’s psychopathic aristocrats). So: I am more optimistic than Paul Craig Roberts and some others are.

I think that the U.S. aristocracy are shocking other nations’ aristocracies at how evil they are, and that this will cause those others to distrust the U.S. aristocrats so much, that the American Empire will end in shame, disgrace, defeat, humiliation, and collapse. I think that this collapse will be unprecedented in world history. But for me, this was decisive in making me as optimistic as I now am. (However, I have been optimistic, though less so, ever since the end of June, which was when Obama lost the first Ukrainian war of invasion against Donbass.)

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

US House Votes 348-48 To Arm Ukraine, Russia Warns Lethal Aid Will “Explode The Whole Situation”

March 25, 2015

US House Votes 348-48 To Arm Ukraine, Russia Warns Lethal Aid Will “Explode The Whole Situation”

Yesterday, in a vote that largely slid under the radar, the House of Representatives passed a resolution urging Obama to send lethal aid to Ukraine, providing offensive, not just “defensive” weapons to the Ukraine army – the same insolvent, hyperinflating Ukraine which, with a Caa3/CC credit rating, last week started preparations to issue sovereign debt with a US guarantee, in essence making it a part of the United States (something the US previously did as a favor to Egypt before the Muslim Brotherhood puppet regime was swept from power by the local army).

The resolution passed with broad bipartisan support by a count of 348 to 48.

According to DW,  the measure urges Obama to provide Ukraine with “lethal defensive weapon systems” that would better enable Ukraine to defend its territory from “the unprovoked and continuing aggression of the Russian Federation.”

“Policy like this should not be partisan,” said House Democrat Eliot Engel, the lead sponsor of the resolution. “That is why we are rising today as Democrats and Republicans, really as Americans, to say enough is enough in Ukraine.”

Engel, a New York Democrat, has decided that he knows better than Europe what is the best option for Ukraine’s people – a Europe, and especially Germany, which has repeatedly said it rejects a push to give western arms to the Ukraine army, and warned that Russia under President Vladimir Putin has become “a clear threat to half century of American commitment to an investment in a Europe that is whole, free and at peace. A Europe where borders are not changed by force.”

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Global Bankers’ Coup: Bail-In and the Shadowy Financial Stability Board | WEB OF DEBT BLOG

December 15, 2014

The Global Bankers’ Coup: Bail-In and the Shadowy Financial Stability Board | WEB OF DEBT BLOG.

On December 11, 2014, the US House passed a bill repealing the Dodd-Frank requirement that risky derivatives be pushed into big-bank subsidiaries, leaving our deposits and pensions exposed to massive derivatives losses. The bill was vigorously challenged by Senator Elizabeth Warren; but the tide turned when Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorganChase, stepped into the ring. Perhaps what prompted his intervention was the unanticipated $40 drop in the price of oil. As financial blogger Michael Snyder points out, that drop could trigger a derivatives payout that could bankrupt the biggest banks. And if the G20’s new “bail-in” rules are formalized, depositors and pensioners could be on the hook.

The new bail-in rules were discussed in my last post here. They are edicts of the Financial Stability Board (FSB), an unelected body of central bankers and finance ministers headquartered in the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland. Where did the FSB get these sweeping powers, and is its mandate legally enforceable?

Those questions were addressed in an article I wrote in June 2009, two months after the FSB was formed, titled “Big Brother in Basel: BIS Financial Stability Board Undermines National Sovereignty.” It linked the strange boot shape of the BIS to a line from Orwell’s 1984: “a boot stamping on a human face—forever.” The concerns raised there seem to be materializing, so I’m republishing the bulk of that article here. We need to be paying attention, lest the bail-in juggernaut steamroll over us unchallenged.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Congressional Leaders Reach Deal on Spending – NYTimes.com

December 10, 2014

Congressional Leaders Reach Deal on Spending – NYTimes.com.

Congressional leaders reached a deal Tuesday on a more than $1 trillion spending package that would fund most of the federal government through the current fiscal year.

But because negotiations on the package dragged over policy details, House lawmakers also prepared to move on a short-term spending measure that would avert a government shutdown if Congress cannot pass the larger bill by Thursday, when the current funding expires.

Even with nettlesome last-minute issues, leaders in both parties expressed confidence that they would be able to keep the government running. Lawmakers battled behind the scenes over dozens of additional policy provisions ranging from the Environmental Protection Agency’s jurisdiction over some bodies of water to the District of Columbia’s marijuana laws to matters of campaign finance.

The big spending package, which congressional leaders had hoped to have ready on Monday, did not come until Tuesday evening. The final legislation would largely keep domestic funding at current levels, while providing more money to fight various crises abroad.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Wall Street Moves to Put Taxpayers on the Hook for Derivatives Trades | Liberty Blitzkrieg

December 7, 2014

Wall Street Moves to Put Taxpayers on the Hook for Derivatives Trades | Liberty Blitzkrieg.

Wall Street has for some time attempted to put taxpayers on the hook for its derivatives trades. I highlighted this a year ago in the post: Citigroup Written Legislation Moves Through the House of Representatives. Here’s an excerpt:

Five years after the Wall Street coup of 2008, it appears the U.S. House of Representatives is as bought and paid for as ever. We heard about the Citigroup crafted legislation currently being pushed through Congress back in May when Mother Jones reported on it. Fortunately, they included the following image in their article:

Screen Shot 2014-12-05 at 3.32.12 PM

Unsurprisingly, the main backer of the bill is notorious Wall Street lackey Jim Himes (D-Conn.), a former Goldman Sachs employee who has discovered lobbyist payoffs can be just as lucrative as a career in financial services. The last time Mr. Himes made an appearance on these pages was in March 2013 in my piece: Congress Moves to DEREGULATE Wall Street.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity : Reckless Congress ‘Declares War’ on Russia

December 5, 2014

The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity : Reckless Congress ‘Declares War’ on Russia.

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Today the US House passed what I consider to be one of the worst pieces of legislation ever. H. Res. 758 was billed as a resolution “strongly condemning the actions of the Russian Federation, under President Vladimir Putin, which has carried out a policy of aggression against neighboring countries aimed at political and economic domination.”

In fact, the bill was 16 pages of war propaganda that should have made even neocons blush, if they were capable of such a thing.

These are the kinds of resolutions I have always watched closely in Congress, as what are billed as “harmless” statements of opinion often lead to sanctions and war. I remember in 1998 arguing strongly against the Iraq Liberation Act because, as I said at the time, I knew it would lead to war. I did not oppose the Act because I was an admirer of Saddam Hussein – just as now I am not an admirer of Putin or any foreign political leader – but rather because I knew then that another war against Iraq would not solve the problems and would probably make things worse. We all know what happened next.

That is why I can hardly believe they are getting away with it again, and this time with even higher stakes: provoking a war with Russia that could result in total destruction!

If anyone thinks I am exaggerating about how bad this resolution really is, let me just offer a few examples from the legislation itself:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Olduvai IV: Courage
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Olduvai II: Exodus
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