War, What Is It Good For?

Well, War Industry Profits. Mostly



If the United States cut their war industry budget by even 10 percent, hundreds of thousands of jobs would be lost, some towns would shut up for good, congressmen and congresswomen would lose their jobs.

War is American Industry. Now more than ever.

Meanwhile in Tiblisi, Georgia, the American-backed government smashes protesters calling for President Saakashvili to resign :

From the Financial Times :

The violence underscores the political fragility of the country, which is a hub for strategic oil and gas pipelines carrying Caspian oil and gas to the west.

The protests, launched last Saturday were led by Nino Burdjanadze, a former speaker of parliament and one of the architects of the 2003 Rose Revolution that swept Mr Saakashvili to power.

Support for Mr Saakashvili has waned since he led Georgia into a disastrous war with Russia in 2008 that ended when Georgia lost control of two fifths of its territory.

Georgia’s fragmented opposition say Mr Saakashvili has monopolised power and repressed independent voices, breaking his promise to promote democracy in Georgia. Russia has kept up relentless pressure on the president to resign since the war, describing him as a madman unfit to rule.

Every Friday, protesters pour into the streets of Yemen demanding the president step down. The violence increases week by week, as the president refuses to sign the agreement that committed to, to step down.



A civil war in Yemen seems a possibility now. Much to the horror of Saudi Arabia.

The revolutions in North Africa, the Middle East and Europe continue to spread.

Were The CIA Told "Don't Kill Bin Laden"?

The UK Telegraph takes from an interview with Michael Scheur, the former head of the Bin Laden unit inside the CIA, that "he was repeatedly ordered not to stop the al-Qaeda chief".

The story is interesting, not only for its potted history of Osama Bin Laden, but for some fascinating revelations, besides the fact the CIA apparently did not want Bin Laden dead for most of the 2000s.

From the UK Telegraph :

In August 1998 al-Qaeda killed 12 Americans and 200 others in bombings at two American embassies in east Africa. President Clinton ordered the CIA to dismantle al-Qaeda and, in Scheuer’s words, “take care” of bin Laden. The Pentagon launched cruise missile attacks on bin Laden’s training camps, but he had left the compound hours earlier. Scheuer estimates they had at least eight further opportunities to assassinate bin Laden in the following months.

“I’m not saying it would have been simple to take care of the problem, but it got progressively harder when we didn’t take those opportunities. One 50 cent round could have put us all out of our agony.”

In June 1999, he sent off an angry memo to senior officers asking why his men were risking their lives on someone America apparently had no interest in stopping. “I don’t know what you are doing when you talk to the President but he will not get a better opportunity than this,” he told them.

Scheuer was dismissed from his job and spent the next two years running counter-heroin operations in Pakistan and the Middle East. On September 11, 2001, he was back at CIA headquarters in Langley.

Arriving home exhausted at 11.30pm, he took a shower and crawled into bed when his phone went. It was his successor at the bin Laden unit. “We need you back,” he said.

Three months later British and American special forces were at Tora Bora, bin Laden’s heavily defended cave complex in Afghanistan, when they heard his voice over a captured radio.

It was the last time they had a fix on him for nine years. The Afghans let bin Laden walk out of Tora Bora and head for Pakistan during a ceasefire.

Scheuer continued to act as an adviser to the bin Laden unit until 2004 when he resigned in disgust at the way in which the public was being lied to over the opportunities to capture the terrorist leader.

His books have pointed out the many failings of American policy in the Middle East, not least their inability to address the other causes of western unpopularity in the region while portraying a myopic image of bin Laden as a lunatic.

He retains a sneaking regard for the quarry he hunted in vain for so long. “I respect his piety, integrity and skills,” he says. And the next generation of al-Qaeda? “They will be even more cruel and bloody-minded.”

The Full Story Is Here

Wikileaks Pushes Revolution In Europe

Wikileaks is now pumping the new reality of a European Revolution, promoting Twitter hashtags, locations for protests and dates of marches and gatherings on its heavy-traffic website :

2011-05-25 #Europeanrevolution ignites after #spanishrevolution leads the way: massive protests happening now in France, Italy and Greece

As the main camps in Puerta del Sol (Madrid) and Plaza Catalunya (Barcelona) prepare to pack their tents and leave on Sunday, organizers have started to spread their message to the rest of Europe. From the beginning the Internet was abuzz with proposals of a European revolution or a #globalcamp, and for that purpose thousands of blogs and independent websites have been opening, planting the roots of the protests happening now in over twenty cities in France and Italy. Greece has also taken the streets and an estimated 30 thousand people are protesting outside of Athen's Parliament...

Wikileaks is not just releasing classified files and government records once kept hidden anymore, or rattling the doors of the establishment with a war of information.

Now Julian Assange is positioning himself at the centre of a European Uprising, and is purposely creating a new reality where what happened during the Arab Spring unfolds in the capitals of Europe.

More on The European Revolution from the UK Guardian :

A youth-led rebellion is spreading across southern Europe as a new generation of protesters takes possession of squares and parks in cities around Spain, united by a rejection of mainstream politicians and fury over spending cuts.

Protests are also planned in Italy, where the tag #italianrevolution is a trend on Twitter. Plans have been announced for a piazza occupation in Florenceon Thursday night, and for further protests in Italian cities, including Rome and Milan, on Friday.

In Madrid demonstrators have refused to budge from the central Puerta del Sol despite a police charge that dislodged them temporarily on Tuesday night.

Now they have occupied a quarter of the square, covering it with tarpaulins and tents, setting up kitchens, tapping at laptops and settling down to sleep on sofas and armchairs.

Similar scenes were being played out in Barcelona, where protesters held a midday Argentinian-style pan-bashing protest in the Plaza de Catalunya, and in numerous other cities where protesters raised the banner of what they call "the Spanish revolution".

All age groups were present in the protests but the emerging leaders were mostly under 30, part of a generation suffering 45% unemployment. Protesters said they were inspired more by the protests that followed the recent banking crisis in Iceland than by those that have swept through north Africa.

"Spain is not a business. We are not slaves," read one of the hundreds of protest posters glued to the Pueta del Sol's metro station walls.

The Full Story Is Here

What a four mile protest march from the Yemen Revolution looks like :



More On The Yemen Revolution At The Atlantic

The revolutions of the Arab Spring begin with the exchange of information, the defiance of authority and rocks :