The neocons' "final solution" for minorities takes shape under Obama

May , 2009 -- The neocons' "final solution" for minorities takes shape under Obushma

The neocon Democrats are back in power in Washington, DC. The tell-tale signs are the massacres of innocent brown and black skinned civilians that are taking place around the world. During the Clinton administration, there were wholesale slaughters of civilians in Rwanda, Congo/Zaire, Lebanon, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Palestine, Haiti, South Yemen, Nepal, Peru, and other countries that were carried out by U.S., British, South African, and Israeli mercenary companies, U.S. military "advisers," and U.S. and British special operations forces.

Under eight years of Team Clinton, ethnic minorities and indigenous groups who took on dictatorships backed by multi-national corporations for control of their resources and lands could expect to face the military power of the United States and that of its allies in Britain and Israel. Clinton foreign and national security policy officials Madeleine Albright, Sandy Berger, William Cohen, Susan Rice, Richard Holbrooke, and others portrayed a kinder and gentler imperialism on the oppressed peoples of the world.

During the eight years of Bush and Cheney, the world's ethnic minorities had no illusions about what they were up against. Bush and Cheney took Clinton's extraordinary rendition policy and turned it into a giant drift net that picked anyone up who was in the wring place at the wrong time and subjected them to institutionalized torture and sexual molestation.

With Obama, some of the same Clinton players are back, including Rice, Holbrooke, and James Steinberg, and so is the policy of massacring those who stand up to multinational corporations, globalization, and Western hegemony. To ensure Clinton policies are resurrected and adhered to, Hillary Clinton serves as Secretary of State, Albright's old job.

During Clinton's administration, it was Lebanon, Rwanda and Zaire/Congo that took the brunt of Clinton/Tony Blair "Third Way" imperialism. Under Obama, it is Lebanon, Sri Lanka, Palestine, and Nigeria that are in the cross-hairs of the globalists and their corporate and neocon lackeys in Washington, London, Paris, and Tel Aviv/Jerusalem.

Palestinians in the Gaza Strip continue to be under siege by Israeli troops and an inhumane economic blockade continues to be enforced by the extreme right-wing expansionist regime of Binyamin Netanyahu, Zionist racist Avigdor Lieberman, and neo-Labor Ehud Barak in Jerusalem.

May 2009 will go down in history as the month the Obama administration adopted and embarked on bloody Clintonian "Third Way" final solutions to ethnic uprisings around the world.....

The viciousness of the Israelis' "final solution" in the Gaza Strip has been emulated by Sri Lanka on the Jaffna Peninsula in the north of the country. Some 100,000 civilians have been forced into concentration camps by Sri Lanka's government, which launched an all-out successful offensive against the separatist Tamil Tigers, killing the top leadership of the movement in the process. Tens of thousands of Tamil civilians had been trapped in the narrow Mullaitivu strip on Jaffna where they were then exposed to an incessant Sri Lankan military offensive. Herding innocent civilians into narrow strips and laying siege to them in a "final solution" now appears to be the order of the day for the regimes in Jerusalem and Colombo.

Not only did Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa's military receive counter-insurgency and intelligence support from Israel but he was attending the Group of Eleven Summit of Middle-Income States on Jordan's Dead Sea at the same time his troops were routing the last Tamil Tiger leaders in their final solution campaign. The Jordan Summit was also attended by Israeli government representatives, as well as by Georgian President Mikhael Saakashvili, a virtual stooge of the Israelis and global troublemaker George Soros. The Jordan Summit was being held at the same time as the Bilderberg globalists were meeting in Greece.

Rajapaksa's predecessor, Chandrika Kumaratunga, upgraded relations with Israel in 2000. Quickly, Israeli technicians from Israel Aircraft Industries began upgrading Sri Lanka's Israeli-made Kfir fighter planes with advanced weapons systems and avionics. Israel also supplied Sri Lanka with Superhawk unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). In October 2005, an Israeli UAV, operating from the Vavuniya base north of Colombo, crashed in Tamil rebel-held territory in the north of the island nation. In January 2003, another Israeli UAV crashed in the north of the country.

Israel's use of Sri Lanka as a military training base goes back to the 1980s. In January 1985, the Indian weekly Blitz reported that the Mossad was providing weapons and intelligence training to Afghan mujahidin insurgents at bases in Sri Lanka.The Afghans reportedly arrived in Colombo from Pakistan carrying Pakistani passports. The Paris-based magazine Afrique-Asie reported that Mossad budgeted $100 million for training and bribing Afghan mujahidin insurgents. It would not be the first time that Mossad would be linked to the Afghan mujahidin insurgents. During the Taliban's rule in Afghanistan, Mossad agents reportedly operated in Afghanistan with a "wink and a nod" not only from the Taliban but from so-called "Al Qaeda" insurgents, some of whom had been trained by the Mossad in Sri Lanka during the 1980s and the mujahidin war against the Soviet Union.

While Sri Lanka's Tamils have sought assistance from their brethren Tamils in India's Tamil Nadu to the north, the Tamils of the Indian state should not be so sanguine about facing problems from Israeli military advisers. In 2003, Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu of the state to the north of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, concluded an agreement with the Israeli security company Nirtal to beef up security and police services in the state. Naidu visited Tel Aviv and met with Nirtal's chairman, General Assaf Hefetz, a former head of the Israeli National Police and who formed the Israeli Police Counter-Terrorist Unit. Nirtal has assisted in counter-terrorism operations in the United States, Mexico, and Greece.

At the same time that Sri Lankan troops and their Israeli advisers were ethnically cleansing Tamils on the Mullaitivu Strip, Nigerian forces, trained by U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) trainers and Israeli advisers, were attacking civilian villages in the Niger Delta region, which has been environmentally decimated by Royal Dutch Shell and other multinational corporate ogres.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), viewed as much a terrorist organization by Nigeria and the Tamil Tigers were viewed by Sri Lanka, claimed that Nigerian used missiles and bombs on several Ijaw communities in Nigeria's Delta State. The Ijaw National Congress said that Nigerian forces waged an air, sea, and land military campaign in which over 1,000 civilians were killed.

MEND and Ijaws have retaliated against oppression from Nigeria and Shell by attacking oil tankers and pipelines in the Niger Delta region.

Where did Nigeria learn its new tactics of "blitzkrieg" and a "final solution" to restive ethnic minorities? In January 2001, Israel's ambassador to Nigeria, George Obiozor declared that the relationship between Israel and Nigeria had vastly improved in the area of "military strategic training."

At the same time Israel was providing training to the Nigerians in the art of genocide against the people of the Delta region, the U.S. mercenary firm, Military Professional Resources Inc. (MPRI) had already provided counter-insurgency training to the Nigerians. MPRI cut its teeth in providing the Croatian military and the terrorist Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) with training and other support to attack the Serbs during the Madeleine Albright-led Balkans war against Belgrade.

The editor wrote about MPRI in the August 1999 Progressive: "[MPRI] which, according to Jane's Intelligence Review, is involved in internal conflicts in Angola and the Congo, as well as the Balkans--did more than $48 million in business in 1997. MPRI's motto is: 'Our integrity is our most treasured asset.' Some of the military leadership of the KLA includes veterans of MPRI-planned Operations Storm and Strike, 1995 Croatian military offensives that resulted in the ethnic cleansing of Serbs from eastern Croatia. One former CIA official confided that he is not surprised that MPRI is now involved with the KLA. 'It fits the pattern,' he said. The military commander of the KLA, Agim Ceku, is a former brigadier general in the Croatian army, and, according to the London Independent's Robert Fisk, an 'ethnic cleanser' in his own right. Along with MPRI military advisers, Ceku helped plan the Croatian offensive that drove some 350,000 Croatian Serbs from Krajina province. Croatian forces also destroyed more than 10,000 Croatian Serb homes."

MPRI's relationship with the Nigerian military received a boost from the Bush administration. Two Bush officials, Theresa Whelan, Africa director in the Defense Department's Office of International Security Affairs and Victor Nelson, a former U.S. military attaché in Abuja and Whelan's director for West Africa, visited Abuja to boost the MPRI training link with Nigeria's military. MPRI established a Joint Combined Arms Training System in Abuja that planned operations against the hapless peoples of the Niger Delta who were opposing further encroachments by oil companies owned and operated by George W. Bush's and Dick Cheney's friends. Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon brought Nigerian officers and non-commissioned officers to Fort Polk in Louisiana for specialized counter-insurgency training targeting the Niger Delta peoples.

The U.S. military training project was spurred by then-Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who is now under investigation by Nigerian prosecutors for receiving bribes from Cheney's firm Halliburton/Kellogg, Brown & Root to award the company and its partners a lucrative liquefied natural gas project -- the so-called Team JKS project, led by a consortium of Kellogg, Brown and Root, Snamprogetti and JGC of Japan. .

The U.S.-supported ethnic cleansing that occurred in Croatia and other nations under Clinton's "Third Way" of "Third Reich" behavior is now repeating itself under the neo-Third Way policies of Obama and Clinton's wife. For many of the world's beleaguered ethnic minorities who are facing Israeli- and American-trained professional mass murderers of the infamous White House Murder INC, ......that is "change" they do not want to believe in.....

Western bullying in the Indian ocean

Western bullying in the Indian ocean


The strange lineup of the member countries of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) for or against Sri Lanka at the special session of the body scheduled to take place in Geneva on Tuesday underscores the maritime Great Game unfolding in the Indian Ocean.

Geopolitics is drowning the lamentations over the legitimate aspirations of the Sri Lankan Tamils for equity, justice and fair play and the perennial human-rights questions that arise when the state violates the integrity of the individual. Control of the maritime routes of the Indian Ocean through which 70% of total world traffic of petroleum products passes - and half of the world's container traffic - takes precedence over the tragic plight of the 300,000 ethnic Tamils of Sri Lanka uprooted from their life. The focus of the world powers is on becoming the "Lord of the Malaccas".

The special session is being convened in Geneva at the request of 17 of the 47 members of the UNHRC, including Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Britain. Hovering in the background is the United States. The initiative is primarily of the European Union (EU) and it aims at forcing Sri Lanka to face charges of gross human-rights violations in its war against the Tamil insurgents. An UNHRC recommendation to set up an international commission of inquiry will not mean the end of the world, but it can be a needless headache. An UNHRC special session has been called only on 10 previous occasions.

However, Colombo is not browbeaten. The seasoned poker player has tabled a counter resolution titled "Assistance to Sri Lanka in the promotion and Protection of Human Rights". Believe it or not, the Sri Lankan resolution commends Colombo for its victory over terrorism and solicits funding from a grateful international community. The 12 co-sponsors of the Sri Lankan resolution include China, India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Cuba, Nicaragua and Bolivia.

Russia, China backing Colombo
The outcome of the UNHRC special session can be foretold. The EU won't get anywhere. It had better think of approaching the International Criminal Court based in The Hague. But then, Sri Lanka is not a signatory state. The "international community" can get the United Nations Security Council to refer the case to the ICC, in which case the ICC is mandated to summon a non-signatory state. But then China and Russia wield veto power.

As soon as Colombo declared victory in the war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu took friendly note of it. "As a friendly neighbor, China has kept a close eye on how the Sri Lankan situation developed. We sincerely hope Sri Lanka will make efforts to accomplish national reconciliation, social stability and economic progress," Ma said.

Equally, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko "welcomed" Colombo's success in "restoring control over the entire territory of the country" and liberating the civilians held hostage. Russia "supports the fight of the Sri Lankan government against terrorism and separatism and for state sovereignty and territorial integrity" and stands ready to "strengthen further its cooperation [with Sri Lanka] ... both in a bilateral format and in regional and international organizations on counter-terrorism and on other themes of mutual concern".

China and Russia will ensure that the "international community" cannot torment Colombo. They have invited Sri Lanka to come close to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as a "dialogue partner". In essence, Sri Lanka is transforming as the theater where Russia and China are frontally challenging the US's incremental global strategy to establish a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) presence in the Indian Ocean region.

The US has succeeded in bringing NATO up to the Persian Gulf region. In October 2007, NATO conducted its first-ever naval exercises in the Indian Ocean. The alliance is swiftly expanding its relationship with Pakistan. The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen told a US Congressional hearing on Thursday, "Where I see NATO going is increasingly towards a broader and more in-depth relationship with Pakistan, because of the common interests." But it is Sri Lanka that will be the jewel in NATO's Indian Ocean crown. Russia and China (and Iran) are determined to frustrate the US geostrategy.

US pressure won't work
But the US has taken a position of high principles - the human-rights situation in Sri Lanka. It can block Sri Lanka's application for a US$1.9 billion emergency loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The Sri Lankan economy is in dire straits. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on May 15 that this "is not an appropriate time" to talk about the IMF loan. She confirmed that the US had "raised questions about the IMF loan at this time".

State Department spokesman Ian Kelly has linked the release of the IMF loan to Colombo allowing the UN, the International Committee of the Red Cross and other international aid agencies, to access the camps where "hundreds of thousands" of internally displaced Tamils uprooted in the fighting are sheltered.

Washington is peeved that Colombo already forgot it was the vehement US support that enabled Colombo to launch the military operations against Sri Lanka in 2006. But the Sri Lankan government would say it reciprocated the US backing by signing in March 2007 an Access and Cross Servicing Agreement with the US that allows American warships and aircraft to use facilities in Sri Lanka.

At any rate, the US feels snubbed that Sri Lanka spurned its offer a few months ago to dispatch a naval force to evacuate or provide humanitarian assistance to the Tamil civilians trapped in the war zone. An "assessment team" of the US Navy visited Sri Lanka with a view to work out the range of options for the operation. But Colombo somehow developed cold feet about the wisdom of inviting US "humanitarian intervention". Quite possibly, third countries might have alerted Colombo to the risks involved.

Unsurprisingly, Washington is pressuring Colombo. Kelly said on Thursday, "The international community needs to make an assessment of exactly what happened and consult with the Sri Lankan government on the way forward ... we need to take things a step at a time. We need to focus on the humanitarian situation, and we need to focus on starting a political reconciliation process. Once we take those steps, we can start looking at the broader issue of economic and trade issues [IMF loan]".

However, the US pressure tactic may not work. Like in the case of Myanmar or Sudan, if Washington steps up pressure, China may come to Sri Lanka's help. There is moral muddiness all around. Simply put, a "containment strategy" on the part of the US towards Sri Lanka becomes unworkable. Testy times lie ahead.

On Friday, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa accused unnamed foreign powers of having tried to stop the military operations against the LTTE by "threatening to haul us before war crimes tribunals" and that he was ready "to go to the gallows".

On Saturday, Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa (who is the president's brother) told an Indian TV channel, "If one talks of taking our military to a war crimes tribunal, before that you have to take US troops, UK troops, all those troops and all those leaders, into war crimes [tribunals]." He was angrily responding to the EU demand for an independent inquiry into alleged war crimes by Sri Lankan army.

India-China rivalry
The countries that are backing Sri Lanka at the UNHRC special session on Tuesday have a convergence of interest insofar as they oppose the doctrine of "humanitarian intervention" in sovereign states. China and India have been at the receiving end in the past on the human-rights issue and have extended mutual support in warding off UNHRC pressure.

But in the present context, the motives of China and India are complex. The fact is, China has exploited Sri Lanka's vulnerability to secure the pre-eminent status of a "steadfast ally". China is building in Hambantota a $1 billion port that it may eventually use as a refueling and docking station for its navy as it patrols the



Indian Ocean and protects China's sea lanes in the Indian Ocean.
Jane's Defence Weekly has reported on Chinese supplies of ammunition and ordnance for the Sri Lankan army and navy. The Stockholm International Peace Foundation says China gifted Sri Lanka six F7 jet fighters last year. Chinese aid for Sri Lanka touched $1 billion last year. China is presently Sri Lanka's number one foreign donor, overtaking Japan. (The US and the UK gave measly amounts of $7.4 million and $1.9 million, respectively.)

India views the Chinese inroads into Sri Lanka with disquiet as part of a broad move into the Indian Ocean. But India faces an acute dilemma. Delhi hopes to influence Colombo to seek an early settlement of the Tamil problem, which has serious implications for India's politics and national security. But its capacity to cajole the diehard Sinhalese nationalists to compromise and reconcile suffers as long as China backs Colombo to the hilt. Colombo's defiant statements to the West also hold a subtle message for Delhi.

If Delhi tries to roll back its substantial political, military and economic support to Sri Lanka, China will simply step in. The lure of Sri Lanka for China cannot be overestimated by Delhi. Colombo plays the game beautifully. Before procuring weapons from China, Colombo first presents the wish list in Delhi. If Delhi declines, it promptly approaches Beijing. (This was what happened in the case of Hambantota port, too.)

Therefore, Delhi is unsure about Washington's pressure tactic. It has known Colombo all through as a tough negotiator - be it on the rights of Indian fishermen or over Kachativu Island or regarding stateless persons of Indian origin. Colombo stonewalled for decades all Indian attempts to mediate a settlement to the Tamil problem.

Great Game in the Indian Ocean
Clearly, it is far too simplistic to portray Sri Lanka as a mere playpen of China-India rivalry. There is a huge geopolitical backdrop. The US's naval dominance is declining. On the other hand, China's navy may have more warships than the US's in the coming decade.

In the March-April issue of Foreign Affairs magazine, noted strategic thinker and author Robert Kaplan analyzed the power plays in the Indian Ocean. As Kaplan wrote, the US is "beginning an elegant decline by leveraging the growing sea power of allies such as India and Japan to balance against China".

To a great extent, the US volte face on Rajapksa's war (after having been such a strong supporter until quite recently) stems from the strategic setback it suffered insofar as while the American admirals had been scared away by Sri Lanka's ethnic strife, China simply moved in. The West finds Rajapaksa getting too close to China for its comfort. On China's part, however, the fueling station in Sri Lanka becomes vital for optimally using the series of port facilities that it has lined up in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar connecting the southern Chinese province of Yunnan.

The naval presence in Sri Lanka becomes invaluable for China if the planned canal across the Isthmus of Kra in Thailand materializes connecting the Indian Ocean with China's Pacific coast, a project that has the potential to dramatically shift the balance of power in Asia. Therefore, no matter what it takes, Beijing will strive to expand its influence in Sri Lanka and help Colombo ward off US bullying.

But, having said that, the US also has a need for greater cooperation with China. To quote Kaplan, the US "seizes every opportunity to incorporate China's navy into international alliances; a US-Chinese understanding at sea is crucial for the stabilization of world politics in the 21st century". This in turn creates a compulsion for the US to both act as a "broker" between India and China and as a moderator of the competition between the two hugely ambitious powers. As Kaplan put it, even as India and China "bump into each other" in the Indian Ocean, "the job of managing their peaceful rise will fall on the US Navy to a significant extent".

Curiously, during a visit to Delhi on May 14, the US Pacific Command chief Admiral Timothy J Keating dropped a bombshell among the unsuspecting Indians by revealing that he declined an offer recently from a top-ranking Chinese naval official for a US-Chinese understanding to split the seas east of Hawaii and west of Hawaii between the two navies.

Keating went on to say that on his part, he invited China to join the annual US-India naval exercises codenamed "Malabar Exercises" (which strategists in Delhi fancy as their exclusive partnership with the US), but China declined, saying it preferred to be an observer. Kaplan was right in saying, "There will be surely tensions between the three [US, Chinese, Indian] navies, especially as the gaps in their relative strength begins to close."

What all this adds up to in immediate terms is that Colombo will be plainly dismissive of the UNHRC meet on Tuesday. Indeed, its first instinct is to hoot with derision. The Sinhala establishment is fully aware of Sri Lanka's immense strategic value in the accelerating power struggle in the Indian Ocean. Sri Lanka sits on a central theater of global conflict and competition and will derive leverage to reinforce its sovereignty and independence and its strategic autonomy.....

......The New American Century

Video
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3776750618788792499&hl=en

This film is astonishing, it goes in detail through the untold history
of The Project for the New American Century with tons of archival
footage and connects it right into the present.

This film exposes how every major war in US history was based on a
complete fraud with video of insiders themselves admitting it.

This film shows how the first film theaters in the US were used over a
hundred years ago to broadcast propaganda to rile the American people
into the Spanish-American War.

This film shows the white papers of the oil company Unocal which called
for the creation of a pipeline through Afghanistan and how their exact
needs were fulfilled through the US invasion of Afghanistan.

This film shows how Halliburton under their “cost plus” exclusive
contract with the US Government went on a mad dash spending spree akin
to something out of the movie Brewster’s Millions,
yet instead of blowing $30 million they blew through BILLIONS by
literally burning millions of dollars worth of hundred thousand dollar
cars and trucks if they had so much as a flat tire.
I have seen a ton of films, this film contains a massive amount of
incredible footage I have never seen before anywhere, it is an
historical documentary which exposes all the lies of the past
so that you can understand the present. This film is a must see.

“A stunning film. It should be seen as widely as possible, in cinemas,
bars, clubs, at meetings and, of course, through the internet.
I’m sure the film will continue to be a source of debate and political
education for many years. Maybe until the war criminals have been
brought to trial.” - Ken Loach

“In the White House, they weren’t thinking of 9/11 as an attack, but as
a gift!” - Robert Steele, former CIA agent

While Massimo Mazzucco’s first political documentary, Global Deceit
(2006), focused on the long list of inconsistencies in the official
version of the 9/11 attacks, The New American Century explores the
historical, philosophical and economic background that suggests a matrix
for such events that is much closer to home than the so-called “Islamic
terrorism”.

The film provides solid evidence for the true reasons behind the
Afghanistan and Iraq wars, whose unfolding is described in chilling
detail in a document called
“Project for the New American Century”, published in the year 2,000,
that seems to have served as the actual blueprint for such dramatic events.

http://www.documentarywire.com/the-new-american-century.

Hambantota & Gwadar....Update

The foundation for the construction of a modern port with Chinese assistance at Hambantota in southern Sri Lanka was formally laid in October, 2007. The construction actually started in January, 2008.

2. It is a 15-year project to be completed in stages. The entire project is estimated to cost US $ one billion. The present Chinese commitment is for the construction of the first stage only, which is estimated to cost US $ 360 million. China has agreed to give 85 per cent of this amount at concessional interest. The balance is being contributed by the Government of Sri Lanka.

3. The first stage of the 15-year (2008-2023) project is expected to be completed by the end of 2010. This stage envisages the construction of a 1000-metre jetty, which will enable the harbour to function as an industrial port for the import and export of industrial chemicals, fuel and heavy machinery. By 2023, Hambantota is projected to have a liquefied natural gas refinery, aviation fuel storage facilities, three separate docks giving the port a transshipment capacity and dry docks for ship repair and construction. The project also envisages that when completed the port will serve as a base for bunkering and refueling.

4. The draught (depth) of the new harbour will be 16 metres against 15 metres in Colombo. A 230 metre passage-entrance channel will be created at the breakwater which is 988 metres long on the west end and 311 metres long on the east end.

5. The Government hopes that as a refueling location Hambantota will have many advantages over the Colombo port or ports in South India. The construction has been undertaken by a consortium of Chinese companies headed by the China Harbour Engineering Company and the Sino Hydro Corporation.

6. The project doesn’t have a separate consultant. The Sri Lanka Port Authority (SLPA) is functioning as the client-cum-consultant while the China Harbour Engineering Co Ltd is the contractor. In September, 2008, there were 328 Sri Lankans and 235 Chinese working at the site-----engineers, administrative personnel and others. The present number is not known.

7. The first stage due to be ready by end 2010 will allow three ships to berth. The final stage, for which there is no offer of funding yet from China, is planned to accommodate more than 30 ships, which is the present capacity at Colombo.

8. Reliable reports say that while the Sri Lankan authorities want Hambantota to emerge as a modern port with better facilities and efficiency than any of the ports in South India, they do not want the present importance of the Colombo port to be reduced. Colombo presently has the reputation of being the most modern and most efficient port in South Asia. They want this reputation to be maintained. There is no proposal at present to set up container yards and cater to container ships at Hambantota.

9. The present Chinese interest is in the use of the docking and refueling facilities that would come up in Hambantota for their commercial and naval ships. There is no proposal at present for a Chinese naval base at Hambantota.

10. The Chinese have helped Pakistan in the construction of a similar port at Gwadar on the Mekran coast in Balochistan. The first phase of the construction has already been completed and the port was commissioned when Pervez Musharraf was the President. The contract for the running of the port has been given to a Singapore company.

11. From the beginning, Gwadar was planned as a naval-cum- commercial port. Both Pakistan and China were interested in its naval potential. Pakistan wanted the naval facilities in Gwadar to give a strategic depth to its navy and reduce its dependence on the Karachi port, which is vulnerable to attack by the Indian Navy in times of war. The Chinese were interested in the use of the refueling and docking facilities of Gwadar for their naval ships visiting the Gulf area.

12. The Pakistanis had and continue to have ambitious plans for the development of Gwadar as a port to cater to the external trade of the Central Asian Republics (CARs) and the Xinjiang and the Sichuan provinces and the Tibetan region of China. They also offered to the Chinese the use of Gwadar as a transshipment point for oil and gas, which could be brought to Gwadar and from there moved by pipelines to Xinjiang. They also proposed the construction of a rail and road network between Gwadar and Xinjiang. They are also interested in the construction of a huge oil refining capability in Gwadar. Beyond agreeing to feasibility studies in respect of these proposals emanating from Pakistan, the Chinese have not made any firm commitments regarding their participation in any other project in addition to the port construction.

13. Even though it is about two years since the Gwadar port was commissioned, it has not been attracting many ocean-going ships. Most shipping companies prefer the continued use of the Karachi port despite its inefficiency. This is mainly due to the poor security situation in the Makran coast and the failure of the Pakistani authorities to develop the road and other infrastructure, which could sustain an increased level of activity at Gwadar. Even the Chinese preferred using the facilities at Karachi for the ships of their anti-piracy patrols than the facilities at Gwadar. Unless and until there is peace and stability in Afghanistan, the prospects of Gwadar emerging as the gateway for the external trade of the CARs will remain weak.

14. In contrast to Pakistan, Sri Lanka’s interest in developing Hambantota has remained purely commercial. It has very limited external trade. The Colombo port is able to meet satisfactorily its external trade needs. It does not need another port for this purpose. Its interest in Hambantota is as a source of additional foreign exchange earned by offering world class facilities and efficiency to international shipping companies. It is hoping that the present Colombo port and the new port coming up at Hambantota will give it an advantage over India, whose ports are not known for their modern facilities and efficiency.

15. The Sri Lankan Navy has a long history of cordial relations and co-operation with the Indian Navy. It fears no threat from the Indian Navy. As a result, the interest of the Sri Lankan Navy in Hambantota is minimal. But the Chinese interest is more strategic than purely commercial. It is very unlikely that Sri Lanka would allow the Chinese Navy to use Hambantota against India. But a Chinese naval presence in Hambantota would add to the concerns of the Indian Navy by increasing the vulnerability of the South to pressures from the Chinese Navy.

16. Reliable reports say that the Chinese have not so far raised the question of developing Hambantota as a naval base which they can also use to ensure the security of their oil and gas supplies. But they do not rule out the possibility of the Chinese raising it if and when negotiations are held for additional Chinese financial commitments for the subsequent stages of the project.

PNAC's masterplan of hundreds of Tribes With Flags on the March Worldwide...

PNAC's masterplan of hundreds of Tribes With Flags on the March Worldwide....

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=3882

Happy Days are here again. It's as if the George W Bush years in Afghanistan had never left, with Washington still wallowing in an intelligence-free environment. A surge is coming to town - just like the one General David Petraeus engineered in Iraq. A Bush proconsul (Zalmay Khalilzad) wants to run the show - again. A hardliner (General Stanley McChrystal) is getting ready to terrorize any Pashtun in sight. A new mega-base is sprouting in the "desert of death" in the southern Afghan province of Helmand. And as in Bush time, no one's talking pipeline, or the (invisible) greatest regional prize: Pakistani Balochistan.

Bush's "global war on terror" (GWOT) may have been rebranded, under new management, "overseas contingency operation" (OCO). But history in Afghanistan continues to repeat itself as farce - or as an opium bad trip.

Zalmay does Pipelineistan

It was hardly stunning that Bush's pet Afghan hound Zalmay Khalilzad, a US citizen born in Afghanistan and former envoy to both Afghanistan and Iraq, would now be angling - via his pal President Hamid Karzai, who tried to get President Barack Obama on board - to become the unelected CEO of Afghanistan, or a sort of "unofficial" prime minister. Any Afghan that believes the West is not behind this racket must be a stone statue in the Hindu Kush.

United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Obama's AfPak envoy Richard Holbrooke are supposed to be very excited about the scheme. Karzai and Khalilzad have had what the New York Times quaintly described as "a long and sometimes bumpy relationship". Khalilzad certainly has CEO experience - acquired as US ambassador to Afghanistan (2003-2005), when he was the real power behind Karzai's shaky throne (as much as he was totally blind to anything happening outside of Kabul).

Karzai has always denied - including to this correspondent - he was a minor Unocal employee plus entertainer of Taliban delegations visiting Houston and Washington in 1997. Khalilzad's relationship is less murky: he was a certified Unocal advisor. The "prize" - from president Bill Clinton to Bush and now Obama - is still the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan pipeline, then known as TAP and now known as TAPI, with the inclusion of India (See Pipelineistan goes Af-Pak Asia Times Online, May 14, 2009).

Khalilzad was a key player in setting up the Afghanistan-America Foundation in the mid-1990s, a lobby that during the Clinton administration became very influential because of its spinning of TAP, hyped as a key pipeline to bypass both Iran and Russia.

Karzai's brother Qayum was on the advisory board, along with Khalilzad and Ishaq Nadiri, who later conveniently became "economic advisor" to Karzai. Qayum and another Karzai brother - Mahmoud - owned a Baltimore-based restaurant chain in the US (that's why people in Kabul and western Pakistan call Karzai "the kebab seller"). Hamid got a lot of kebab money during his exile in Quetta right up until the end of 2001, when he was miraculously parachuted into Kabul by US special forces.

Khalilzad, as Bush's Afghan pet, was absolutely key in convincing suspicious former mujahideen, many of them Tajiks, to have Hamid (from a minor Pashtun tribe) installed as "interim" leader of Afghanistan after the Taliban fell in December 2001. The mujahideen wanted King Zahir Shah. With the puppet guaranteed in power, Karzai, Pakistan's president General Pervez Musharraf and Turkmenistan's Saparmurat "Turkmenbashi" Nyazov signed an agreement to build TAP in December 2001. The pipeline, now TAPI, is an absolutely key plank of Washington's Central Asia strategy. Khalilzad as CEO will move mountains to make sure that TAPI defeats its much more sound rival, IPI, the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline, also known as the "peace pipeline".

It will be a bumpy ride. And - tragedy of tragedies - it will eventually lead to Khalilzad having to talk pipelines with the Taliban all over again. Karzai does not even control Kabul, not to mention the rest of a ravaged country ranked as the fifth-most corrupt in the world by Transparency International. The more Karzai's local governors get corrupted, the more the Taliban advance village by village and tribal clan by tribal clan, propelled by their nasty mix of outright threats and hardcore punishment. The Taliban, on top of it, have struck alliances with myriad criminal groups, and are supported by their Pashtun cousins in the Pakistani tribal areas.

The helpless Karzai, profiting from the good services of Islamabad and Riyadh, is trying to talk to everybody - from the neo-Taliban to the historic Mullah Omar-commanded Taliban and also old Saudi/Pakistan favorite Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. And this while Obama's strategic advisers spin that the war is "winnable" if Washington captures - with a lot of cash - the hearts and minds of tribal Pashtuns.

Some of this new US cash flowing into Afghanistan has been diverted to the Orwellian Afghan Social Outreach Program, which builds anti-Taliban local councils, while the no less Orwellian Afghan Public Protection Force has started to build Sunni Awakening-style militias. Arming Pashtun militias who will inevitably turn against the Western occupiers does not exactly qualify as brilliant counter-insurgency.

Balochistan revisited

Meanwhile, Balochistan, the biggest prize in the region (see Balochistan is the ultimate prize Asia Times Online, May 9, 2009) remains totally under the radar of the frenetic US news cycle. Numerous Balochi readers pointed out to this correspondent that it is now in fact a 50% Balochi/Pashtun province. Most Pashtuns live near the Afghan border. And many happen to be neighbors of Afghanistan's Helmand province - the key site of the upcoming Obama surge.

In case of a hypothetical balkanization of Pakistan, Balochis and Pashtuns would go separate ways. Quetta, the provincial capital, in terms of population and business activity, is already dominated by Pashtuns.

Balochistan's internal politics are complex. Balochis and Brahvies are separate nationalities - with different spoken languages and culture. Quite a few Balochis do not accept Brahvies as Balochis. What all Balochi tribal leaders agree on is to demand maximum autonomy and control over their natural resources. Islamabad always responds with firepower.

What is now Balochistan and Sind in Pakistan was conquered centuries ago by the Balochi Rind tribe. They never submitted to the British. During the Ronald Reagan 1980s, Balochis tried - in secret - to strike a deal with the US for an independent Balochistan in return for the US controlling regional Pipelineistan. Washington procrastinated. Balochis took it very badly. Some decided to go underground or go for armed struggle. Islamabad still doesn't get it. Washington may.

If the Pashtunwali - the ancestral Pashtun code - is still king (don't threaten them, don't attack them, don't mislead them, don't dishonor them, or revenge is inevitable), Balochis can be even more fearsome. Balochis as a whole have never been conquered. These are warriors of ancestral fame. If you think Pashtuns are tough, better not pick a fight with a Balochi. Even Pashtuns are terrified of them.

The geopolitical secret is not to antagonize but to court them, and offer them total autonomy. In an evolving strategy of balkanization of Pakistan - increasingly popular in quite a few Washington foreign policy circles - Balochistan has very attractive assets: natural wealth, scarce population, and a port, Gwadar, which is key for Washington's New Great Game in Eurasia Pipelineistan plans.

And it's not only oil and gas. Reko Diq (literally "sandy peak") is a small town in the deserted Chaghi district, 70 kilometers northwest of already remote Nok Kundi, near the Iran and Afghanistan borders. Reko Diq is the home of the world's largest gold and copper reserves, reportedly worth more than US$65 billion. According to the Pakistani daily Dawn, these reserves are believed to be even bigger than similar ones in Iran and Chile.

Reko Diq is being explored by the Australian Tethyan Copper Company (75%), which sold 19.95% of its stake to Chile's Antofagasta Minerals. Only 25% is allocated to the Balochistan Development Authority. Tethyan is jointly controlled by Barrick Gold and Antofagasta Minerals. The Balochis had to have a serious beef about that: they denounce that their natural wealth has been sold by Islamabad to "Zionist-controlled regimes".

Washington is focused on Balochistan like a laser. One of high summer's blockbusters will be the inauguration of Camp Leatherneck, a vast, brand new US air base in Dasht-e-Margo, the “desert of death” in Helmand province in Afghanistan. Quite a few of Obama's surge soldiers will be based in Camp Leatherneck - a cross-border, covert ops stone's throw from southeast Iran and Pakistani Balochistan.

Under McChrystal, the new US and North Atlantic Treaty Organization top commander in Afghanistan, one should expect a continuous summer blockbuster of death squads, search-and-destroy missions, targeted assassinations, bombing of civilians and all-out paramilitary terrorization of tribal Pashtun villages, community leaders, social networks or any social movement for that matter that dares to defy Washington and provide support for the Afghan resistance.

"Black Ops" McChrystal is supposed to turn former Chinese leader Mao Zedong upside down - he should "empty the sea" (kill and/or displace an untold number of Pashtun peasants) to "catch the fish" (the Taliban or any Afghan opposing the US occupation). There couldn't be a better man for the counter-insurgency job assigned by Obama, Petraeus, Clinton and Holbrooke.

American journalist Seymour Hersh has detailed how McChrystal directed the "executive assassination wing" of the Pentagon's Joint Special Operations Command. No wonder he was a darling of former vice president Dick Cheney and secretary of defense Rumsfeld. The Obama administration's belief in his extreme terrorization methods qualifies as no more than Rumsfeldian foreign policy.

And McChrystal still has the luxury of raising any amount of calibrated hell in neighboring Balochistan to suit Washington's plans - be they to provoke Iranians or incite Balochis to revolt against Islamabad.

According to Pakistani writer Abd Al-Ghafar Aziz, writing for al-Jazeera's Arabic website, Balochistan has been accused by the US for years of "supporting terrorism and harboring the leaders of the Taliban and al-Qaeda". US Predator drones "have been striking 'precious targets', resulting in the death of over 15,000 people". Aziz described Balochis as "orphans without shelter and without protection".

Neighboring Iran is taking no chances; it is testing sophisticated border patrolling techniques this week in its southeast province of Sistan-Balochistan, along the 12,500 kilometers of border with both Afghanistan and Pakistani Balochistan. One of Tehran's ultimate national security nightmares is US-cross border covert ops launched from Pakistani Balochistan, the kind of stuff that's music to McChrystal's ears.

Slouching towards balkanization

There's little doubt Obama's surge will fail. Washington's plan B is also lame - it boils down to some kind of arrangement with the Taliban, something that Saudi Arabia has been frantically mediating.

The problem is the military/Inter-Services Intelligence nexus in Islamabad will continue to support the Taliban in Afghanistan - no matter what Washington concocts - because the only possible outcome in their minds is the defeat of the "pro-India" Northern Alliance, which is the de facto power in Kabul with Karzai as a puppet. The Northern Alliance will renege on its alliance with India over their dead bodies. And backed up not only by India but also Iran and Russia, they will never allow the Taliban in power.

In the long run, Obama's AfPak strategy may acquire its own relentless, volatile momentum of addicting the military in Islamabad to make war on their own people - be they Pashtuns or Balochis. So Washington may in fact be setting the slow but inexorable march towards the balkanization of Pakistan. If Pashtun cousins on both sides of the border - 26 million in Pakistan, 13 million in Afghanistan - would eventually find an opening to form a long-dreamed-of Pashtunistan, Pakistan as we know it would break up. India might intervene to subdue Sind and Punjab, keeping both under its sphere of influence. Washington for its part would rather concentrate on exploiting the natural wealth and strategic value of an independent Balochistan.

Thus a Pakistan not unlike an Iraq still under US occupation - broke up into three parts - now starts to emerge as a distinct possibility. Unless an improbable Pakistani popular revolt, backed by middle-ranking Pakistani soldiers, rumbles on to make the top heads of the army/security/politico establishment roll. But drones, not guillotines, are the flavor of the moment in AfPak.

A CIA implant in Karzai's back yard

A CIA implant in Karzai's back yard


The neo-conservatives have all but been vanquished. But the Barack Obama administration in the United States is making a solitary exception in the case of Zalmay Khalilzad. He is back on the Washington circuit, repeating an amazing trapeze act which has few parallels in the chronicles of political opportunism.

His life and times have been exciting, on a constant upward graph ever since he migrated from the dusty ancient Silk Road town of Mazar-i-Sharif on the Amu Darya in northern Afghanistan to the United States in search of the American dream.

"Zal" (as he is popularly known) has crossed the American political divide with abandon. Branded as a neo-con who contributed to the New American Century Project under former US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld's watch, he was indeed destined to occupy key positions in the US establishment during the George W Bush era, which he did, steadily rising from the position of under secretary in the Pentagon, special envoy to the Iraqi Kurds and Afghans, ambassador to Afghanistan and Iraq, finally, to cabinet rank as Bush's representative to the United Nations.

Now he is reportedly negotiating his way back to his old hunting ground in Kabul. The New York Times newspaper's ace Washington correspondent has broken the story quoting senior American and Afghan officials that Zal could assume a "powerful, unelected position inside the Afghan government". Such a position, a senior US administration official has been quoted as saying, involves Zal serving as "a prime minister, except not prime minister because he wouldn't be responsible to a parliamentary system".

That's one hell of a cute way of putting a complicated matter in real perspective. Cooper reveals that officials in the Obama administration wouldn't admit they are behind the seamless idea, but apparently Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Af-Pak representative Richard Holbrooke are all seized of it and have been plain decent about it, leaving it to President Hamid Karzai "to decide whether to proceed".

Karzai, apparently, is mulling over what is undeniably a most dicey situation - the Obama administration wants to insert Zal into the Kabul power structure but will not be upfront about it. He must be wondering that it's a bit like what the Chicago mafia would have done to him.

Karzai can make out from a mile that the immaculate conception of Zal's return is all about Obama choreographing a design for bypassing him. Obama has made no bones about his contempt for heads of state living in "bunkers" and refusing to come out. But Obama doesn't want to get rid of Karzai outright for a variety of reasons - because he is unable to do so, because the time is not opportune to do so when the war is almost at a touch-and-go stage, and finally, because Karzai won't easily walk into the sunset.

So, the "smart" thing, which is the hallmark of the Obama administration, is to let Karzai be in his presidential robe, to pamper his vanity while neatly sidestepping him, ignore him gradually and eventually transact all real business of state through Zal. Cooper reports, "A plan that puts Khalilzad near the top of a Karzai government would provide the Obama administration with a strong conduit to push American interests in Afghanistan."

Obama, Clinton and Holbrooke - they must be holding breath and waiting and watching "whether Karzai remains willing to bring Khalilzad aboard". The problem is not only that Zal had a bumpy relationship with Karzai when he served in Kabul as the American viceroy. Times have changed.

The old Karzai is no more the current Karzai. Zal cannot ride roughshod over him and expect him to take it in his stride, as he used to. Today, Karzai truly believes he is the leader of the Afghan people. Therefore, Zal must undergo a veritable metamorphosis himself and evolve into an altogether new butterfly. Karzai would like to be certain that Zal doesn't begin to dictate once he is ensconced in power in Kabul.

Obama, on his part, cannot hold out any assurance to Karzai in this regard, either. It has to be left to Karzai and Zal to work out between then, which they are reportedly doing at the moment in Kabul. Nor can Karzai depend on the Afghan constitution to ensure that Zal will scrupulously function under his supervision.

For, the real catch is that Zal will be an extra-constitutional authority, not accountable to the Afghan constitution or parliament or people or, arguably, even to Karzai himself. Karzai would apprehend that ultimately, Zal is Zal and from the time he hit the ground, he would be sprinting and it would be impossible to match his stamina for outpacing his peer group.

To be sure, Zal will report only to Washington. All the same, Clinton, too, needs to be watchful. To quote Cooper, "While he was working for the Bush administration, Khalilzad often brushed up against other officials, including secretary of state Condoleezza Rice." Now, that's formidable dexterity - to bypass Condi and deal directly with Bush.

The million-dollar question, however, is what the Obama administration is hoping to achieve by inserting Zal into the extraordinary pack of hugely ambitious American high-fliers who are hovering around the Hindu Kush already. As things stand, Holbrooke by himself has a reputation as a "bulldozer".

Then there is the legendary commander with the Roman name, Central Command chief General David Petraeus. At the field level, Petraeus has just put one of his favorites in as the new commander of US forces in Afghanistan so that he has a total grip on what is going on - General Stanley McChrystal. The American media estimate that apart from top-notch soldierly qualities, McChrystal has a knack for maintaining excellent chemistry with politicians.

Taking all factors into account, Karzai cannot be faulted if he draws the right conclusion that the raison d'etre of Zal's insertion into the Kabul power structure is to incrementally eject him out of it. It is all a bit Kafkaesque - the Obama administration expects Karzai to cooperate to commit political suicide.

But Zal's insertion is also about geopolitics. The regional powers will take note the timing of his return to Hindu Kush when the Great Game is accelerating in the Caspian and Central Asia. Zal has it all mapped out in his brain from his Rand Corporation days - oil pipelines, containment of Russia, regime change in Iran.

But Moscow and Tehran won't be the only regional capitals to feel uneasy about the return of the thousand-pound guerilla. Islamabad too will have a vague sense of disquiet. One thing about Zal is that he never tried to hide his contempt and antipathy towards the Pakistanis, when he served in Kabul as ambassador.

Arguably, Zal had a personality problem at that time with president General Pervez Musharraf and that doesn't have to necessarily extend to General Parvez Kiani, the present chief of the army. But then, Zal's problem with Musharraf was about the shenanigans of the Inter-Services Intelligence in Afghanistan, and Kiani was the agency's chief at that time.

That brings us to the Taliban. Zal is just the right man to handle the brief when the US begins direct talks with the Taliban. Taliban leader Mullah Omar would recollect that Zal wrote a hard-hitting article in the Washington Post 10 years ago impressing on the Bill Clinton administration to grant diplomatic recognition to the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Zal's thesis was, "you can deal with the Taliban if you know how to deal with them". Zal argued persuasively in his article that the Taliban were an eminently reasonable lot with which to get acquainted.

By now Karzai would have begun to sense that Zal is being dispatched by the Obama administration to Kabul primarily for dealing with Mullah Omar. As a native Afghan and Pashtun, Zal can be much more effective than any of the experts in Holbrooke's team in dealing with the Taliban.

One great quality about Zal is that he is a highly flexible diplomat. He criss-crossed the ethnic and tribal divides in Iraq with amazing skill. Nothing deterred him when a job had to be done. Obama seems to have decided that Zal could just be the right man Washington needs at this point to bring the Taliban around.

The hard core of the Af-Pak strategy is finally unfolding. The influential Washington columnist David Ignatius couldn't have put it better:

To understand Petraeus' basic approach, try to picture in your mind a horizontal line that charts the level of militancy of insurgent groups. On the left are the hard-core "irreconcilables" who could never be co-opted by the US. But as you move right along the line, the groups become more pliable and join the "reconcilable" camp. What Petraeus did in Iraq was to move groups from one category to the other - transforming hardcore insurgents into members of tribal militias on the US payroll. The remaining fanatics became targets for special forces' "capture or kill" operations, which were overseen in Iraq by McChrystal. It was a "hard-and-soft strategy" - using kinetic firepower to clear an area, and then gentler counter-insurgency tools to hold it and build through economic development.

As Petraeus envisages reconciliation with the Taliban, it will happen village by village, across Afghanistan's nearly 400 districts, rather than in a big sit-down with the group's leader, Mullah Omar ... Petraeus wants to restore tribal authority, as he did in Iraq, and meld it with the power of the central government and a US-trained army.

To be sure, there is no one in Washington today who can match Zal's impeccable credentials, having seen it all in Iraq, and knowing like the palm of his hands the ethos and traditions of the Pashtun tribes. Certainly, he will take his stance to the right of McChrystal. When the tough special forces commander hits the Taliban hard, rubbishes them and makes them "reconcilable", and when the "chameleon insurgents" - as Petraeus calls them contemptuously - begin to peel away, he will pass them on to Zal.
Zal will carefully roll up his sleeves, sit down with them over a cup of green tea, and talk some sense into their dazed minds. And then, he will make a mental note as to the fastness of the color of the "chameleons" facing him and looking at him with their watery eyes, before short-listing them for future assignments. That is, until a job falls vacant for Zal himself - in the presidential palace in Kabul.

Russian-Israeli Mafia elements in Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority

Russian-Israeli Mafia elements in Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority

WMR's European sources have provided some details of Israeli Foreign Minister's Avigdor Lieberman's organized crime-related activities. Lieberman's racist and organized crime links have a number of world leaders not anxious to be seen in public with him. In fact, after a recent meeting in Berlin between Lieberman and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German insisted that there would be no joint press conference held after their talks.

Although Lieberman's racist attitudes toward Arabs and Muslims in general are problematic for a number of government leaders, it is the fact that Lieberman, a former night club bouncer, is enmeshed in a number of criminal investigations that may end up in his conviction and imprisonment. WMR has learned from German sources that while Transport Minister in Ariel Sharon's government from 2001 to 2002, Lieberman controlled a Cyprus-based firm, Trasimeno Trading Ltd.," that funneled money from Austrian gambling tycoon Martin Schlaff, owner of a firm called Placzek, and Russian-Israeli mob kingpin Michael Chernoy to the coffers of Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu, which represents the interests of Israel's Russian and Soviet expatriate community, a group that is highly-infused with criminal elements that help form the nexus for a global criminal enterprise.

The Israeli law enforcement investigation of Lieberman also involves a company controlled by his daughter, Michal Lieberman Galon, "M.L. 1 Ltd.," which is being investigated for laundering over US$3 million for her father's political party.

On January 12, 2006, WMR reported on the Schlaff connection to Ariel Sharon's Likud government:

"According to law enforcement sources, investigators are looking at Abramoff's possible connections to the defunct Oasis Casino in Jericho in the West Bank. The casino, which began operations in 1998, was partly-owned by CAP, a company registered in Liechtenstein in which the Palestinian Authority under Yasir Arafat was a 23 percent shareholder. Another owner was a Vienna, Austria-based casino company, Casinos Austria International, in which Martin Schlaff, a close friend of Sharon, was a major investor. Schlaff's brother, James, is also under investigation. Last week, Israeli police seized computers, cell phones, documents, and a PDA from the home of Schlaff's parents in Israel while he was visiting from Austria. Police also investigated money transfers to Gilad Sharon, Ariel Sharon's son, from South African businessman Cyril Kern and other transfers via BAWAG Bank in Austria. Sharon's other son, Omri, was also financially involved in the Oasis casino.

Although Netanyahu criticized the Oasis casino as providing funding for Palestinian terrorists, investigators are looking at Netanyahu's involvement in helping to steer $140,000 in tribal casino money away from Abramoff's Capitol Athletic Foundation (CAF) charity in Washington, DC to right-wing West Bank settlers in Beitar Illit on the West Bank so they could buy 'security equipment' and sniper lessons. Records indicate a flow of money from CAF to Kollel Ohel Tiferet, a virtually unknown group in Israel. Netanyahu, as Finance Minister in Sharon's former Likud government, would have been aware of money transfers from Abramoff to various Israeli interests, including the settlers and casino interests."

Schlaff is also said to have laundered money for the former security service, the "Stasi," of the ex-German Democratic Republic in eastern Germany. Schlaff also became a major shareholder in Austria's RHI AG, Austria's largest privately-owned industrial group.

WMR has also learned from German sources that the BAWAG Bank was also used to launder money that was involved in illegal nuclear proliferation involving a Liechtenstein-based firm, Galonia Etablissement." The "BAWAG affair" was exposed in 2006 and some US $90 million went missing. It is believed that some of the money ended up in Lieberman's party's coffers in Israel. The scandal and money laundering also places Israel's Foreign Minister in a smuggling network that was under active investigation by CIA counter-proliferation non-official cover agent Valerie Plame Wilson, exposed to the media by a neocon cabal that included I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby and John Hannah, both Likud loyalists who served in Vice President Dick Cheney's office.

Schlaff reportedly wants to establish his own bank in Liechtenstein. Which brings up Schlaff's relationship with companies owned by the sons of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, whose Fatah movement has been accused of massive corruption by the Hamas opposition. Two companies owned by Abbas' sons were recently awarded a more than US$2 million contract by the CIA-linked U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) for road construction in West Bank territory controlled by Abbas.

Yasser Abbas, a Canadian-Palestinian businessman, is the owner of Falcon Electro Mechnical Contracting Company, Falcon Trading Group, and Falcon Tobacco. The latter has a monopoly on the sale of American Lucky Strike and Kent cigarettes in the West Bank and Gaza. Falcon Electro Mechanical was one of the beneficiaries of the USAID construction contract. The other USAID contract recipient was Sky Advertising, headed by Tarek Abbas, the Palestinian leader's other son. Yassir Abbas also has his hands in the coffers of the Palestine Investment Fund (PIF), originally set up by wealthy Gulf Arabs to fund poor Palestinian farmers and shopkeepers. Instead, the fund, which is flush with some US$1.3 billion, is used to financially back large enterprises, including Wataniya Palestine, a Palestinian telecommunications company that is backed by U.S. and Gulf Arab investments.

With Sharon, Arafat, Abbas, and Sharon's two sons and Abbas's two sons all being part of a contrivance of fraud that is overseen by Israel's Russian- and Eastern European-born Mafia dons, it is easier to understand the outrage of Hamas in Palestine and Israel's shrinking left-wing parties of the nation's socialist-leaning Jewish and Arab population. As far as Israel's Haaretz is concerned, the burgeoning scandal among Israelis and Palestinians is the Russian-Israeli mob having "a finger in every pie."

As President Barack Obama meets this week with Binyamin Netanyahu in Washington, he should know that supporting the current so-called representatives of the Palestinian people, Fatah and the Palestine Authority in any U.S. "showdown" with Netanyahu's Likud coalition with the Russian-Israeli Mafia is a fool's errand....

Yemen to be redivided with input of additional Tribes with Flags made in USA....

Yemen to be redivided with input of additional Tribes with Flags made in USA....


CIA- and MI6-run "Al Qaeda" moves in to "support" South Yemeni independence factions. Al Qaeda's move is to help the CIA and MI-6 defuse the legitimate Peaceful Southern Movement, which wants Democratic Yemen's independence, stamped out by US and British military aid to North Yemen in 1994, restored.....

Watch what "they" do....[ CIA/MOSSAD/DIA/AMAN/MI6/DGSE...etc.] not what they say, is the watchword..... Obushma like all politicians is very much enamored with how things appear - to the general i.e. ignorant public... Israel will of course say a few apt words about peace and the two-state solution and at the same time continue to prepare for the extermination of the Palestinian people and a lot of the Lebanese people again and again.... as the world watches ‘helplessly’ i.e. apparently helplessly,.... the Neo-Hegemonic crowds in USA/ISRAEL/BRITAIN....etc. continue to spread their venim worldwide by ushering in the thousands of Tribes with Flags globally, from Colombia to the Philippines, continue the militarization of Energy and minerals etc. and continue to want absolute control on transportation choke-points on a massive scale....etc, and History will honor them by creating shadows within which certain segments of our past can be hidden and pretty much forgotten.... It is within those shadows that the nightmare we all secretly dread lies sleeping.....

South Stream becomes a reality, while Nabucco remains a pipe dream

[South Stream becomes a reality, while Nabucco remains a pipe dream.]

South Stream deal signed in Sochi

The pipeline is a rival project to the Western-backed Nabucco pipeline, designed to bring gas from Central Asia and the Caspian to Europe bypassing Russia. The EU, nervous about growing energy dependence on Russia, is backing the project despite the current economic crisis.

Russian gas monopoly Gazprom signed agreements on Friday with transit states Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia and Italy to push forward South Stream, another pipeline to pump natural gas to Europe.

The pipeline is a rival project to the Western-backed Nabucco pipeline, designed to bring gas from Central Asia and the Caspian to Europe bypassing Russia. The EU, nervous about growing energy dependence on Russia, is backing the project despite the current economic crisis.

The agreements with the Bulgarian Energy Holding, Greece’s Desfa and Serbia’s Srbijagas outline pre-investment cooperation and requirements for joint ventures to design, build and maintain the pipeline.

In a new additional agreement to their memorandum of understanding on South Stream, Gazprom and Italy’s Eni said on Friday they would increase the pipeline’s capacity from the planned 31 billion cubic meters of gas a year to 63 billion, Gazprom announced.

The two companies have already set up a joint venture to build the pipeline that will run through the Black Sea to Bulgaria on to Greece, Serbia, Hungary and Italy.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi traveled to the Black Sea resort of Sochi to attend the signing of the deals along with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.

Commenting on Friday’s agreements, Putin said they “contributed to Europe’s energy security.”

Europe has expressed concerns about being dependent on Russia, which supplies a quarter of its natural gas needs. Calls for diversified supplies intensified following bitter price disputes between Russia and Ukraine in recent years, when Moscow cut off gas to Ukraine, affecting consumers across Europe.

Moscow has argued that South Stream and another gas link to Europe via the Baltic Sea, Nord Stream, would cut its dependence on transit states like Ukraine and improve European energy security.

Echoing Putin, Berlusconi told reporters: “Under the circumstances, a major step toward boosting energy security was made.”

Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said on Friday South Stream would cost an estimated 8.6 billion euros ($11.6 billion), and the pipeline launch date had been set for December 31, 2015, although the partners would try to complete the project earlier if possible.

Talks between Russia and its partners in the project have not run smoothly, with Italy seeking the right to sell gas from the pipeline not only domestically, and Bulgaria also planning to host the Nabucco pipeline.

In April, Bulgaria, affected by Russia’s cutting off gas supplies to and via Ukraine in January, hosted a “gas summit” of major producers and European consumers to promote Nabucco. Sources of gas supplies remain a problem for the project....

Obushma thinks a lot about gas....

Obushma thinks a lot about gas in Asia.

Pakistan, and Afghanistan, would benefit from the proposed TAPI pipeline, if it follows the route above.

The USA is in favour of the TAPI pipeline, which could take gas from Turkmenistan to India.

Above, in GREEN we see the proposed TAPI pipeline.

In RED we see the proposed IPI pipeline, by which Iran could supply India with gas.

IPI would benefit Iran, and is opposed by the USA.

Russia, Kazakstan and Iran have the most gas.

What's really going on in Pakistan, India, Iran, Afghanistan and other such places in Asia with links to oil, gas and pipelines?

Is the USA trying to cause divisions between Pakistan and India?

The Mumbai attacks look as if they were meant to cause the balkanisation of Pakistan. ( http://www.globalresearch.ca/)

In 2006, the Armed Force Journal published an article by retired Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters, which called for the redrawing of the borders of the Middle East. Above, we see Ralph Peters' Map of a Redrawn Middle East.

Would this allow gas to go from Turkmenistan to India, without going through Pakistan?

Is the USA trying to keep in with Iran?

Will there be an alliance of Russia, China, Pakistan, India, Iran and others?

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), founded in 2001 by the leaders of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, is the Russian-Chinese equivalent of NATO. Member states in dark green. Observer states in light green.

On 14 May 2009, Pepe Escobar, at http://www.voltairnet.org/, explained what he thinks is going on in Eurasia, in terms of oil, gas and wars. (Pipelineistan goes Af-Pak)

Among the points made:

1. There is a battle for control of oil and gas and for control of the oil and gas pipelines designed to link the Persian Gulf, Central Asia, South Asia, Russia, and China.

2. Russia and Iran control roughly 20% of the world’s oil reserves and nearly 50% of its gas reserves.

Countries such as Russia, Turkmenistan and Iran have huge reserves of gas.

3. There is a plan for a $7.6 billion Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline.

An agreement for its construction was initialed in 2008.

The USA has tried to wreck the deal.

Pakistan's former President Pervez Musharraf wanted pipelines linking the Persian Gulf and Pakistan with China.

4. Iran has "observer" status in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which includes Russia and China.

Iran will probably become a full member, thus giving it the protection of Russia and China.

China needs Iranian oil and gas and has already made a $100 billion gas deal with Iran.

Russia wants to sell weapons and nuclear energy technology to Iran.

5. China wants Turkmenistan to speed up the construction of the Turkmen-Kazakh-China pipeline which goes from Turkmenistan to China.

Turkmenistan by Tom Masters

6. China needs gas from Russia as well.

7. Russia hopes to see a Russian-controlled Pipeline stretching from Kazakhstan to Greece that will control the flow of energy to Western Europe.

8. The Afghan War is about energy, heroin and military bases.

The USA would like to control the energy-rich former Soviet republics.

The USA wants to split Russia and China.

Afghanistan occupies a strategically important position.

Afghanistan is believed to be rich in natural gas, petroleum, coal, copper, chrome, talc, barites, sulfur, lead, zinc, and iron ore.

The heroin trade in Afghanistan uses U.S. dollars.

Afghan heroin kills 30,000 Russians annually.

In 2008, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Pakistan, and India signed an agreement to build a pipeline (TAPI) to take gas from Turkmenistan to Pakistan and India without the involvement of either Iran or Russia.

It would cut through Afghanistan.

9. TAPI’s rival is IPI (India, Pakistan,Iran).

TAPI’s history begins in the mid-1990s, in the Clinton era, when the Taliban were friends of Clinton and the California-based energy company Unocal.

Brzezinski and Kissinger took an interest in the idea of an Afghan pipeline.

The negotiations with the Taliban broke down over the subject of pipeline fees.

There was a Group of Eight summit meeting in Genoa in July 2001.

At that meeting, western diplomats indicated that Bush had decided to attack the Taliban before the end of 2001.

On 9 11, 2001, Bush had his excuse for war.

Afghanistan's new leader Karzai, Pakistani President Musharraf and Turkmenistan’s Nyazov agreed to build a pipeline through Pakistan.

10. In 2006, Russia's Gazprom agreed to buy Turkmenistan's natural gas at the 40% mark-up asked for.

Turkmenistan left the Afghan pipeline project.

Russia also cornered much of the gas exports of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan as well.

11. In 2008, Turkmenistan discovered new gas and found it had the second largest gas reserves in the world, ahead of Iran and below Russia.

Without Turkmen gas, Gazprom can’t export all it needs to Europe, the source of 70% of Gazprom’s profits.

Turkmenistan had signed contracts to supply Russia (and China and Iran).

Gazprom thought it controlled all of Turkmenistan’s gas exports, but, the newly discovered gas turns out not to be part of the deal.

12. Obama is working hard to win over Turkmenistan.

Obama wants the TAPI pipeline (Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India).

And he also wants the Turkey-to-Austria Nabucco pipeline to thwart Gazprom.

The proposed Nabucco pipeline, which pleases the USA but not Russia.

13. In March 2009, a pipeline supplying gas to parts of Pakistan was blown up. This raises doubts about the safety of a future pipeline bringing Iranian gas to India via Pakistan (IPI). Balochistan is increasingly troubled.

In April 2009, in Turkmenistan, an explosion hit a pipeline and damaged exports to Russia.

Brzezinski still wants a pipeline through Afghanistan.

14. If Turkmenistan decides to support TAPI, a pipeline through Afghanistan, the USA may have to become friends with the Taliban.

However, at present, Russia is still in the strongest position.

15. Gwadar is a port in Pakistan.

It was built by China.

China hopes to get oil from Iran, via a TAPI pipeline, and Gwadar is to be part of the link.

Pakistan could help take Iranian gas to China, or Turkmenistan gas to Europe.

There’s NATO vs. the SCO (Russia, China).

With TAPI (Turkmenistan Afghanistan Pakistan India), Iran loses and the USA is happy.

With IPI (India Pakistan Iran), the USA is unhappy.

If the Nabucco (Turkey to Austria) pipeline is abandoned, the USA is unhappy.....

Nabucco starts to shape up

Nabucco starts to shape up...?
By Robert M Cutler

MONTREAL - The European Union (EU) and Turkey have resolved two major differences that were preventing agreement on the terms for the Nabucco natural gas pipeline, and the Turkish President Abdullah Gul is reported to have promised that a signing ceremony will take place on June 25 in Ankara.

Principals behind the Nabucco project, on the drawing-boards for years, intend to build the 3,300-kilometer pipeline from the eastern border of Turkey through the Balkans to the Baumgarten gas hub in Austria, where national energy company OMV leads the Nabucco Gas Pipeline International consortium. Other members of the consortium are Botas (Turkey), Bulgargaz (Bulgaria), Transgaz (Romania), MOL (Hungary), and RWE (Germany).

The two problems that were solved in Prague last week involved pricing and the legal regime for Turkish consumption of gas flowing through the pipeline. The EU had insisted that Turkey pay the equivalent of European prices; Turkey had proposed a figure 15% less than that. The common-sense resolution that was adopted provides for Turkey's price to be based on the cost of transportation: the gas consumed in Turkey will hardly go all the way to Baumgarten, so it will cost less. As for the legal regime, the EU has abandoned its insistence that the norms of its acquis communautaire apply in Turkey, a non-member of the European body, and a middle ground within Turkish law has been found.

While part of the breakthrough is due to the EU dropping of unrealistic demands, the electoral defeat of the AKP of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in recent municipal elections appears to have played a role in facilitating the agreement. (See Turkish magic, Asia Times Online, April 16, 2009.) That is because subsequent cabinet changes brought new people with more practical experience, pragmatism and realism directly into decision-making roles.

In particular, the professional background of new Energy Minister Taner Yildiz is as an electrical engineer with experience in the electricity production and distribution industries. Turkey has been increasing its natural gas demand by between 6% and 8% for much of the current decade, and that gas goes mostly directly into the electricity industry. The number of cities on the natural gas distribution grid has increased from nine in 2002 to 63 last year.

New Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu also played a significant role. Formerly chief foreign policy advisor to the prime minister, his background is that of an academic international relations expert. He has been a main architect of the AKP regime's foreign policy, to such a degree that his influence in contemporary Turkey is compared with the influence of Henry Kissinger on US foreign policy in the 1970s.

Davutoglu has crafted the country's controversial openings to the Middle East, including to Hamas, and also the Israel-Syria negotiations, as well as talks concerning relations with the Kurdish region in northern Iraq, all while declaring the EU and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to be "the most important pillars of the policy of setting a balance between security and freedom". His brief is now not only to help to formulate foreign policy but also to execute it.

There are still two or three more rounds of negotiations to be conducted before the expected June 25 signing. On May 13, Erdogan visited Baku to discuss natural gas pricing with Azerbaijani officials and to assure them that, despite some thawing in relations between Turkey and Armenia, the long-standing Turkish blockade of Armenia will not be lifted until the situation in the contested region of Nagorno-Karabagh is resolved to Azerbaijan's satisfaction. It is consequently necessary that the US continues its attempts for a breakthrough on the Karabagh issue.

The Nabucco project would in the first instance take gas from the further development of Azerbaijan's offshore Shah-Deniz project, which has so far been delayed even though it is piping some gas through the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzerum line (BTE, also called the South Caucasus Pipeline, or SCP). In Prague for the first time, EU officials spoke to the press about the possibility of an undersea pipeline from Turkmenistan to Azerbaijan (see Another trans-Caspian pipe dream, Asia Times Online, February 28, 2008, and New chance for Trans-Caspian pipeline , Asia Times Online, October 24, 2008).

The Turkmenistan government sent an observer delegation to Prague. At a minimum, Ashgabat will use Nabucco as a bargaining chip with Moscow, but OMV, the Nabucco principal, along with Germany's RWE established a joint venture several months ago for energy relations with Turkmenistan and are already working on confidence-building through such projects as ameliorating electricity production and distribution in the country.

On May 16, Erdogan is visiting Sochi in southern Russia for talks with Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. However, Erdogan's new foreign minister, Davutoglu, seems to be charting a course away from ideas of an all-encompassing Turkish-Russian energy condominium in the region, which had led to the construction under the Black Sea of the Blue Stream pipeline between the two countries as a blocking move by Moscow against prospects a decade ago for a Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline from Turkmenistan.

This can only be constructive, as Azerbaijan's experience over the last 20 years demonstrates the benefits to the national economy as well as sovereignty, of having a multiple-pipeline policy. It is perhaps this lesson that Turkmenistan's President Gurbanguly Berdimuhammedow is now appreciating.