Le Speakeasy

Front Page Articles :: RE: September open thread

Author: b real
Posted: 09/08/10, 7:20 am (GMT -8)
Topic Replies: 12

on that story re somalia's transitional puppet president firing his military chief and other officials over their selling stores of weapons, as far as open source intel goes, the anon source in the garowe online article cited in the anti-war brief is all that is currently published on this, afaik.

(btw, the A-W brief is factually incorrect in that the current govt in mogadishu is the TFG and not the TNG, which was an earlier creation whose mandate expired in 2004.)

there is some speculation in reader comments on one somali website that sh. sharif's firing of the officials is related to either last week's visit by several key UN personnel (of which the new UN special rep to moon, mahiga, has again since visited the presidential palace in villa somalia) or pressure by AU officials. it's no secret that the TFG is corrupt & encompasses a number of warlords, or that somali militias have sold their weapons on the open market.

no info was provided by the anon source as to any specifics on the weapons stores (volume, type, over what period, etc).

more interested to me in that garowe online article was the mention that, yet again,

Quote:
hundreds of TFG troops in the few areas under government control have mutinied due to "nonpayment of salaries," according to local reports.

when you don't pay your mercenaries or soldiers, don't be surprised when your munitions become commodities

Front Page Articles :: RE: September open thread

Author: Hannah K. O'Luthon
Subject: A drop in the ocean
Posted: 09/07/10, 10:28 pm (GMT -8)
Topic Replies: 12

Via antiwar.com arrives this link about one of the more recent sordid episodes of arms trafficking in the HOA .
Needless to say, I defer to the estimable b real for a more informed discussion of this story.

This story of Mossad wooing of U.S. muslims has also been making the rounds in recent days. It is certainly plausible, and, if true, its full implications can hardly be characterized as reassuring signs of budding Arab-Israeli reconciliation. There are at least two points of interest with regard to this story:
1. That it comes from CIA alumnus Phil Giraldi
2. That it was picked up by the Washington Post.

Finally, I would be delighted to hear some further background with regard to what might well be the most important story of the week.
_________________
Hannah K. O'Luthon

Front Page Articles :: RE: September open thread

Author: Debs is dead
Posted: 09/06/10, 3:59 pm (GMT -8)
Topic Replies: 12

Needless to say I'm fine altho I do appreciate your concern. The shake happened a couple of hundred miles and a few fault lines south of where I live and I slept through. My son was woken and he said the old shack did rattle around, but there is no damage.
If there was an earthquake machine some peeps I know would prolly be alleging it was all a conspiracy since the event's timely occurrence has enabled the media 'to move on' past what was developing into the first tory scandal. Aahh ya get that.

As for Mr Bout, this is my opinion: If he has never sold any guns, bombs, mortars, mines or other instruments of destruction to anyone, he could be a good guy. If he has sold small arms to popular movements for no profit, he may not be a bad guy, but if he has sold any weapons to anyone for profit he is an asshole. Simple black and white just like life [/sarcasm]
I confess to allowing myself the guilty pleasure of gaming lately. I have had a copy of grand theft auto around since I downloaded a clone of it just before release. The protagonist a serbian by the name of Nico is a nice guy who tries hard to look after his mates yet ends up having to kill quite a few people each day just to keep the wolf from the door. maybe Bout is like that, but the thing that holds me back from that belief is, that in the years of living, I have met quite a few stand-over men, blokes who make their living from the basis that everyone else are just pawns in their personal game; I have to say I found none of them to be likeable, not in the least.

Even when they were being quite personable, say, throwing a party which would have been great if the host wasn't there, or shouting 'the boys' a night of 'fun' there was nothing likeable about them. The reason is simple, for these guys their number 1 tool, the one thing that allows them to succeed, is that they generate fear in the minds of all of those around them.
So every now and again, no matter how well things are going one, of these blokes will always say or do something sufficiently 'cold', frequently subtle enough that it seems cool, to ensure no one forgets their place -below the stand-over man in life's pecking order.

The story of Bout staying on in africa when everyone else shot thru, only to be chased out by the cia when they wanted to get back into africa, reminds me very much of a similar story I once read about a kiwi bloke in Latin Amerika & the Caribbean just after ww2.

A book was written about it published in the 1970's and one of my brothers gave it to another brother because the guy involved was an old flying mate of our father in that war.

I have asked my brothers if they still have the book remember the dude's name but while they remember the story the details also elude them. The guy started up a sort of bush airline after ww2 using surplus dc3's (dakotas) etc and quickly became the preminent airline in the area, moving from air freight into passenger services. Then the quiet amerikans began their destabilisation efforts in the region. from what I can remember of the book, the guy wasn't a problem ie he didn't 'blow cia cover' or anything, it was just that PanAm etc wanted the routes which had become good little earners so they trotted off to congress and got the pols to pressure the cia to pressure their freshly installed puppets into pulling the plug on the unamerikan airline's government contracts airport landing rights etc.

Riches to rags overnight for the unconnected kiwi.

The Thaksin stuff is not surprising either. I reckon that most of us here recognise that the post ww2 beef amerika had with the USSR had bugger all to do with communism and everything to do with two empires colliding.

Russia has been copping too much from amerika in the former soviet republics ( I notice there is an attempt to use the UN as a front to get into Kyrgyzstan. Last nite on the BBC they were saying the deployment was a united nations initiative this article calls the police deployment an "Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe" deployment.
Shades of afghanistan eh. Doubtless as far as the asshole whitefellas tryin to call the shots "seen one stan and you've seen em all")

Now where was I? Oh Bout and Thailand. maybe there is a russian support for thaksin, it would be good for thais and would certainly slow down the huge encroachment on russian turf amerika has been carelessly implementing.

If thailand did end up in the russian sphere the numbskulls in washington would be deep in the pooh. But who knows. all we really know is that what definitely isn't happening is what we are told is happening.

The thing that really gives me the shits about all this is by the time thai authorities realise the jig is up and that the redshirts are the strongest political force about, the redshirt leadership will have been suborned 100% by the usual crew of liars and cheats who wreck all political movements that don't take over immediately.

However the planet badly needs balance things have been much worse with a monopoly on global power so I'll keep rooting for Thaksin if he has got russians in his closet.

ps sorry bout typos I'll fix em when I have time.
_________________
Political action in its source is pure,
Human, direct, but in its civil function
Becomes the jail it laboured to destroy.
(Pig Island Letters, p. 10)

Front Page Articles :: RE: September open thread

Author: Hannah K. O'Luthon
Subject: Missing link
Posted: 09/06/10, 2:06 am (GMT -8)
Topic Replies: 12

Here is the link to the Russia Today story on the hypothetical Victor Bout - Thaksin Shinawatra connection. It is perhaps not irrelevant (if true) that the plane detained in Thailand bearing arms from North Korea was registered in, of all neocon beloved places, Georgia.
This second article from Russia Today also seems to me to be well worth reading. In particular, the following quote

Quote:
Some say the US pursuit of Bout is all about money. According to the media director of Trine Day books, Kent Goodman, Bout is being targeted for crossing the CIA in its own business deals in Africa.

�All the information they had, to begin with, the Thai court kicked out because they said it was obviously politically motivated and that was completely true,� he said. �He has always said that he was a businessman who was heading an air cargo business in Africa and that is what we think, too. The problem was that in the 90s when everybody else left Africa, he stayed and developed his cargo business, which took over 90 per cent of the business.�

�The problem was that the CIA and other business concerns wanted those routes for themselves. So they cooked up this whole thing to get rid of Bout, get him out of the picture,� he added.

One should note that Trine Day Books is the publisher of Daniel Estulin's book The Shadow Masters, which has been cited elsewhere in this thread (or it's August predecessor), and which gives what might well be called the KGB "counter-legend" to the Victor Bout story.

By the way, I know that in writing KGB rather than FSB I am making an error with regard to presently correct nomenclature. I doubt that this error will confuse anyone. More generally, there is a substantial problem in discussing spookish activity with precision since clandestine and disinformation activities are best carried out under false flags and false names. It is very likely the case that the CIA as a whole has been blamed for many activities that were carried out either by other entities or by "rogue elements" within the organization. Here "rogue element" can mean either fanatical free-lancers, or, more frequently, special action programs operating outside the (none too robust) system of controls imposed by the U.S. Congress. Presumably the same holds for other countries with well funded and active secret services.

One of the aspects of the Bout case which makes it fascinating, is precisely the fact that it is a rare (partially) visible example of such mechanisms in operation. The documented fact that the Bout organization supplied services to both the United Nations in Africa and the United States in Iraq and Bosnia underlines the complex reality behind the multimedial propaganda campaigns.
_________________
Hannah K. O'Luthon

Front Page Articles :: RE: September open thread

Author: noiseannoys
Posted: 09/05/10, 2:56 pm (GMT -8)
Topic Replies: 12

http://www.juancole.com/2010/09/collapse-of-kabul-bank-points-to-terminal-corruption-of-karzai-government.html

What are empire and its allies actually fighting for in this country?
What sort of government does Karzai supposdely provide to the Afghani people?
Why has it cost empire 1,172 of its young lives the countless lives of Afghani civilians and others to achieve this?
What is the point of this?
Why is such action supported here in Australia, there in Empire and elswhere by other allies?
What is to be gained?

As for this repeated display of pissing into the wind..

http://www.counterpunch.com/

What does it cost to repeatedly hold these mock demonstrations of resolving this issue..by now it must run into many many millions of money that could be spent on numerous far more worthy causes..too many to list.

Incidentaly if you want to watch money dissappear just look at this...even for a minute...it is the workings of monsters.

http://www.costofwar.com/

Surely to borrow a line from an earlier post from debs...this is just more 'pushing shit up the hill'; well isn't the pile at the top of the hill in imminent danger of collapsing onto not only those who pushed it there in the first place.
But onto all of us.

Perhaps this short poem by Tadeusz Rozewicz best sums up.

THE NEW MAN

The new man
that's him there
yes it's that
sewage pipe
which lets through
everything

Front Page Articles :: RE: September open thread

Author: DaveS
Posted: 09/05/10, 6:46 am (GMT -8)
Topic Replies: 12

Hannah,

I think when talking about arms dealers, we're dealing in shades of blood red. Most psychopaths are often quite engaging and very pleasant � when it suits their needs. I'm sure Bout is simply the sacrificial lamb in this little drama. A reminder to those who ply the dark trades about who wields the real power.

Speaking of Debs... I wonder how he's doing? Hopefully the NZ quake didn't affect him. I wish him and his fellow country men godspeed in getting their lives back to normal. Mother Nature has become quite the rock and roller the past few years; volcanos, earthquakes, floods... makes me think I might want to go read the Bible's chapter of Revelations, or at the very least Nostradamus, and see if I can't get a handle on what's happening

Seriously, I find it very interesting how much earth activity we're seeing, and I wonder if there isn't a sort of cyclic pattern in these happenings? There is plenty of weird juju to pay attention to in the news these days, regardless of what direction your tinfoil hat points. I guess mass ufo sightings, like in the '50's, is the next logical thing (did I just use 'mass ufo sightings' and 'logica'l in the same sentence?) As I was saying, mass sightings should be the next collective weirdness we witness. Just a guess.

I've been staying away from the computer a lot these past days... a pretty lady has snuck up behind me and... well... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGPb7qL-Sck&feature=related yeah, that's how it feels, don't it?

From what what I've gathered during my brief forays upon the 'net, the world keeps turning stranger as what's left of America's middle class is slowly crushed under our outrageous war debt. A debt owed to the wealthy elite who've convinced people that war is peace and debt is freedom. Or something like that. Everywhere I turn I see lies and fecal splatters passing as truth and hope, and I don't think enough other people are noticing.

I'm lucky to live in a town where time has slowed way down. I can't imagine living in any crowded part of the country where there isn't a place a person can escape the feeling of being around others. My friend and I climbed Mt Lamborn on Friday, and at the top I thought we might be experiencing another 9/11 as there wasn't a plane to be heard or seen. Out here that's rarer than honest politicians, and it's as appreciated too. I love thinking I'm the only one alive sometimes. Feels pretty peaceful when you're in a place you can imagine such a thing because there are no human noises.

I hope Debs is well, and the rest of you are doing well too. Somehow the little people of the world shall overcome whatever it is that keeps us from realizing a much healthier/happier existence then the angry times we're currently living in. How come people can't see how wasteful all the fighting is? Peace sure is cheaper, and easier on the planet too. We don't need to fight global warming as much as we need to fight global waring.

Peace
DaveS
_________________
www.thefreedailyobserver.com

Front Page Articles :: RE: September open thread

Author: Hannah K. O'Luthon
Posted: 09/05/10, 1:44 am (GMT -8)
Topic Replies: 12

The last "Victor Bout" link on the August thread, seems to have indeed had a deeper meaning. The Russia Today tv news cycle of yesterday (Sept. 4) had a fairly long story regarding a "back story" to the Thai Supreme Court's reversal of the early decision not to extradite Bout to the U.S. According to the Russia Today story, Bout refused to cooperate in an attempt to implicate ex Thai prime minister Thaksin (Thailand's (much better version of) Berlusconi) in an arms trafficking deal, which seems to have been a secret services organized false flag operation with the precise intent of ruining Thaksin's respectability. I will post links tomorrow when I am at a better connection and have more leisure. In any case, it seems that the Thai part of the story is not yet over, and may indeed yet provide further surprises.
Needless to say, I am in full agreement with Debs on the overall picture, except perhaps that I am not so sure that Bout is indeed such a reprehensible fellow. Most people who have actually dealt with him seem to find him likable. Whether or not his actions are disgusting crimes is in part debatable, and depends on whose "terrorists" are being supplied.
_________________
Hannah K. O'Luthon

Front Page Articles :: RE: bernhard sighting

Author: b real
Posted: 09/04/10, 7:53 pm (GMT -8)
Topic Replies: 1

intersting. looking at his channel, i gather these are all original footage? or is there a bp feed w/ public access? or one that is easy to tap? anyway, glad to see b's kept the moa handle - gives a whiff of hopium that maybe, just maybe, one day the old watering hole will revise from the ashes and all will be well again...

Front Page Articles :: RE: September open thread

Author: noiseannoys
Subject: on whole nations being turned into monsters
Posted: 09/03/10, 1:45 am (GMT -8)
Topic Replies: 12

May i ask that we bare witness to this mans comments...

http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/chris_hedges_on_moral_courage_20100901/

and listen to the evicerating analysis of the world we live in...a world increasingly inhabited by monsters.

Front Page Articles :: RE: September open thread

Author: b real
Posted: 09/02/10, 9:30 pm (GMT -8)
Topic Replies: 12

this was from earlier in the week on democracynow, but i wanted to draw attention to it since it's a subject i've posted on a number of times over the years and yet another public refutation of the official narrative of the genocide in rwanda

Draft UN Report Accuses Rwandan Troops of Committing Genocide in the Congo

peter erlinder gets some air time to offer some info you generally won't receive from the mainstream press

Front Page Articles :: RE: August Open Thread

Author: b real
Posted: 09/02/10, 9:17 pm (GMT -8)
Topic Replies: 61

juannie - uh oh - i did not bring up those suggested readings to dissuade you from finishing conrad - i would recommend completing it, if you have not already

i recommended them b/c i myself found them very useful for thinking about the book and some of the larger issues/arguments in its wake. that other book, 'exterminate all the brutes', does an admirable job of placing conrad in the context of his times and some of his socially-conscious contemporaries, stressing the work as anti-imperialist/anti-colonialist. the swedish author uses heart of darkness as window into an interrogation of the worldview that led ultimately to extermination camps in germany.

for achebe, the excuse that conrad's racism was a narrative device or that it is what one should expect from a man of his time simply does not hold up to scrutiny. in a later lecture achebe refuted the idea that conrad was a man of his times by asking what then accounts for w.e.b. dubois - was he also not a man of his times? an encounter described in a guardian article from several years back fleshes out achebe's years of thought on the matter - the case against conrad - and may be of interest.

Front Page Articles :: RE: September open thread

Author: Debs is dead
Posted: 09/02/10, 2:18 am (GMT -8)
Topic Replies: 12

Call me sceptical but I have a great deal of difficulty understanding why anyone who seriously wanted to move russian manufactured surface to air missiles into so called 3rd world theatres would use someone as well known as Victor Bout.
Similarly why would Victor involve himself in a deal that would get him so seriously offside with the amerikans as supplying FARC with MANPADs when he could easily use a front person?

Equally important, russian involvement in Mozambique was pretty much over when the USSR went belly up in 1990. I don't believe that digging up any pre new Russian Empire dirty laundry about Mozambique would be worth much at all. The bloke HKO'L has linked to above sounds to me to have the usual USIS (formerly United States Information Agency) mid western septic tank twang to his phrasing.

For my money the persecution of the asshole Victor Bout is what it is. Bout let himself become too well known and amerikan imperialists see some advantage to making him a scapegoat for all the weapons destroying the non corporatised world. Of course the reality, that biggest source of armaments, particualarly 'ant-personnel' armaments is the amerikan manufacturers, stays unspoken. That won't come out at trial because I imagine the trial will have a touch of the Noriegas to it. That is apart from evidence than blackens Bout and makes amerika seem Mom and apple pie, everything will be supressed.

To peeps like the habitues of Le Speakeasy this will seem a pointless task not unlike Sisyphus and the stone. Pushing shit uphill. But just as the deaths of four zionists living on stolen land gave the media two newscycles to attack palestinian aspirations prior to the 'peace talks' farce even though most days more than 4 Palestinian civilians are butchered by the IDF without it hitting the news, the Bout Kangaroo Court will provide many different ways of calling post communist russians baddies and amerikans 'goodies' and so the opportunity to reinforce amerikan exceptionalism amongst those whose faith may be slipping.
Many idjits will believe that alla the mines maiming african kids are thanks to Bout, not thanks to Bendix.

IMO that is all Bout is about. Enabling revisionism.
_________________
Political action in its source is pure,
Human, direct, but in its civil function
Becomes the jail it laboured to destroy.
(Pig Island Letters, p. 10)

Front Page Articles :: RE: September open thread

Author: Hannah K. O'Luthon
Subject: Authorized versions
Posted: 09/01/10, 9:06 pm (GMT -8)
Topic Replies: 12

Thanks to jonku for the reference to Glenny's book.
To get a glimpse at what I take to be the "KGB authorized version" of overlapping facts one can look at Daniel Estulin's Shadow Masters. The latter is, in my opinion, extremely uneven: it almost seems (perhaps only to me) to have multiple authors: although a few sections are rather analytical (and convincing) most of the rest reads like a spies and Bilderbergers potboiler. It's probably the latter aspect that has given Estulin's books their popularity, and they certainly do provide points of view that are "outside of the western mass-media box". The nice thing about the disinformation game is that it's open to all and any number can play.
_________________
Hannah K. O'Luthon

Front Page Articles :: RE: September open thread

Author: jonku
Subject: a book recommendation ...
Posted: 09/01/10, 8:52 am (GMT -8)
Topic Replies: 12

Thanks for the article, HKO.

I just picked up a copy of McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld by Misha Glenny.

He talks about the evolution of Bout's, and other international criminals' business following the breakup of the USSR. Very detailed, he's a British reporter who has investigated this phenomenon for decades. It's a good read.

Quote:
Misha Glenny develops a pair of theses: how it is the international demand for illicit goods, especially in first-world "consumer countries," that is in the driver's seat, and how it was the collapse of the Soviet Union that was "the single most important event prompting the exponential growth of organized crime around the world in the last two decades."

Here's a bit of video of the author on Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/McMafia-Journey-Through-Criminal-Underworld/dp/1400044111

There's also Google books ...

Quote:
Former BBC World correspondent Glenny (The Balkans, 1804�1999 ) presents a riveting and chilling journey through the myriad criminal syndicates flourishing in our increasingly globalized world, which make up as much as 20% of global GNP. Tracing the growth of organized crime�ranging from the burgeoning sex trade in volatile, postcommunist Bulgaria to elaborate Internet frauds in Nigeria�Glenny expertly combines interviews with key players, economic studies and sociological analysis. He argues that the chaos and political upheaval following the demise of communism in Eastern Europe, along with increasing demand in the West and the easy flow of money and people provided the perfect opportunity for organized crime to gain a foothold on the dark side of the globalizing economy. Glenny's achievement is in introducing readers to the less familiar aspects of global crime, from Kazakhstan's �caviar mafia� to the flourishing marijuana trade in British Columbia. Consequently, his interview subjects are equally varied: sex slaves in Tel Aviv, a co-conspirator in the deadly 1993 Mumbai bombings and top Washington policy makers share the pages. Readers yearning for a deeper understanding of the real-life, international counterparts to The Sopranos need look no further than Glenny's engrossing study. 16 pages of photos; maps. 100,000 announced first printing . (Apr. 10)

_________________
- jonku

Front Page Articles :: September open thread

Author: Hannah K. O'Luthon
Subject: September open thread
Posted: 09/01/10, 5:48 am (GMT -8)
Topic Replies: 12

Just to start a September thread, here's another Thai take on the Victor Bout case. The author has wide experience in Thailand and vicinity, and is presumably well known to intelligence operatives. Comparison with the output of everyone's favorite hasbara site
may be in order, at least as one's weekly exercise in smoke and mirrors.
_________________
Hannah K. O'Luthon