1-26-2010

This Week's CIA Nail Biting Episode of Anwar "Fake-Fake" al-Awalaki - "Obama Kills Cleric." O Shucks, Missed Him Again - Executive Order 13528-B

Aren't the communi$t$' who hate America and make war on Her amazing! Their latest scam reminds me of the expression "It's my story and I'm sticking to it," with a twist. The guy's "story" is the biggest pack of lies known to mankind, but he vows to stand by his pack of lies. The bad guys, some in the CIA, the Omega Agency, the Rothschilds and Rockefellers, twist is in the form of a New Year Series, call it the "Anwar 'Fake-Fake' al-Awalaki Scam." Like the "It's my story" guy, the communi$t$' are standing by their scam even though it is continually and thoroughly debunked, basically in real time.

From the CIA Fantasy Department comes good ole boy pissed off American Anwar 'Fake-Fake' al-Awalaki. 'Fake-Fake' is an American with no money who travels to Yemen and captures the hearts and minds of al Queda Sunni. al Queda instantly trust Anwar because his first name has "war" in it, or for some other equally ridiculous reason. But anyway, these American loving trusting Sunni bestow on Fake-Fake revered cleric status, a huge military operation, arms, money, web sites, instant world wide notoriety, Facebook, blog, MP-3, Wikipedia this, Wikipedia that. Try as hard as Blackwater mercenaries, US satellites, drones and General Petraeus can, Fake-Fake is not harmed and his operations grows to the point all people on the planet fear him. The CIA script writers magically have Fake-Fake behind the Ft. Hood Shooter and the Christmas "Burn Off His _alls Bomber"

Google Obama's Executive Order 13528. Obama signed it January 11, 2010 and Obama's Executive Order comes on the heels of the Flight 253 incident and the publicity associated with Anwar 'Fake-Fake' al-Awalaki.

Logic dictates General Petraeus and his Pentagon buddies are behind the manufacture of Anwar 'Fake-Fake' al-Awalaki and the Christmas day Flight 253 incident for the purpose of creating an incident to justify Obama signing Executive Order 13528.

Combine Executive Order 13528 with FEMA's National Incident Management System

and FEMA's Incident Command System and the United States is on its way to putting the Federal Government in charge of handling many types of "incidents" in which loss of life may take place. Previously individual states were in charge of loss of life incidents which take place in their state. FEMA's education program began in February 2008 and is comprised of Five-Year NIMS Training Plan.

FEMA now tells these organizations what to do when an incident takes place which may threaten life and now has a system in place for doing so. This includes all emergency services related disciplines such as EMS, hospitals, public health, fire service, law enforcement, public works/utilities, skilled support personnel, and other emergency management response, support and volunteer personnel, as follows:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incident_Command_System

January 22, 2010 Secretary of Defence Robert Gates admitted to more treason when he stated Blackwater was operating in Pakistan. Blackwater in Pakistan: Gates ConfirmsThe article states Blackwater's activities were taking place with the "consent and permission" of the Pakistani government, as if the fact the Pakistani government gives Blackwater permission to kill in Pakistan that makes it legal. Not only does the logic insult my intelligence it makes about as much sense as an angry wife hiring a hit man to kill her husband and the hit man gives as the reason for killing the husband the wife gave him "consent and permission" to kill her husband. How upsetting it is for an educated person like Gates not to admit that the US Constitution directs the US Congress, and only the US Congress, to direct the US military to invade another country. The fact Blackwater is not part of the US military is even more illegal. Blackwater killing people in Pakistan is simply lawless activity. Blackwater killing people in Pakistan is a violation of International Law and Blackwater should be punished by International Law for doing so.

One may ask why is it treason for the US military to operate in a country like Pakistan, Yemen, Iran, Columbia, Mexico or wherever when the US Congress has not directed them to do so? Its making war on the United States which is the definition of treason. Making war on Pakistan, that it, US troops operating in Pakistan, requires Pakistan to make war on the United States. The US military making war on Pakistan is exactly the same thing as the US military making war on the United States, when the US military has not been directed by the US Congress to operate in Pakistan.

Mexico, Pakistan, Yemen, Columbia, Ukraine, Iran and every country which detects US operations in their country, clandestine or otherwise, by Blackwater, the Omega Agency, CIA or whatever, should immediately file a complaint with the United Nations.

White House Mulls Legality of Assassinating US-Born Cleric

http://news.antiwar.com/2010/01/25/white-house-mulls-legality-of-assassinating-us-born-cleric/

Can US 'Take Out' a Citizen Not Charged With Any Crimes?
by Jason Ditz, January 25, 2010
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According to US intelligence officials, the Obama Administration has “missed” several opportunities to assassinate US-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki because lawyers are still unclear on the legality of killing him.

At issue is that Awlaki, a New Mexico-born Muslim cleric, is not charged with any crimes under US law and is only speculatively linked by the Obama Administration to terrorism through secret “intelligence reports.”

As a native-born citizen of the United States, assassinating him on the basis of secret evidence which is so shaky that officials haven’t felt comfortable issuing charges against him is a legal grey area, to say the least.

But despite this legal concern, officials had no problem in backing Yemeni air strikes which attempted to assassinate Awlaki just last month. US officials said Awlaki was ‘probably’ killed in those strikes, though it later turned out he wasn’t even present at the site of the attack.

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Obama Executive Order Seeks to “Synchronize and Integrate” State and Federal Military Forces by Tom Burghardt
Posted on January 17, 2010 by dandelionsalad

http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2010/01/17/obama-executive-order-seeks-to-“synchronize-and-integrate”-state-and-federal-military-forces-by-tom-burghardt/

http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/
by Tom Burghardt
Dissident Voice
Antifascist Calling…
January 16th, 2010
In the wake of the Flight 253 provocation, over-hyped terrorism panics, and last year’s Big Pharma and media-engineered hysteria over the H1N1 flu pandemic, President Barack Obama signed Executive Order 13528 on January 11.
Among other things, the Executive Order (EO) established a Council of Governors, an “advisory panel” chosen by the President that will rubber-stamp long-sought-after Pentagon contingency plans to seize control of state National Guard forces in the event of a “national emergency.”
According to the White House press release, the ten member, bipartisan Council was created “to strengthen further the partnership between the Federal Government and State Governments to protect our Nation against all types of hazards.”
“When appointed” the announcement continues, “the Council will be reviewing such matters as involving the National Guard of the various States; homeland defense; civil support; synchronization and integration of State and Federal military activities in the United States; and other matters of mutual interest pertaining to National Guard, homeland defense, and civil support activities.”
Clearly designed to weaken the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 which bars the use of the military for civilian law enforcement, EO 13528 is the latest in a series of maneuvers by previous administrations to wrest control of armed forces historically under the democratic control of elected state officials, and a modicum of public accountability.
One consequence of moves to “synchronize and integrate” state National Guard units with those of the Armed Forces would be to place them under the effective control of United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM), created in 2002 by Bushist legislators in both capitalist parties under the pretext of imperialism’s endless “War on Terror.” At the time, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called USNORTHCOM’s launch “the most sweeping set of changes since the unified command system was set up in 1946.”
The real-world consequences of those changes weren’t long in coming.
Following their criminal inaction during 2005’s Hurricane Katrina catastrophe, the Bush regime sought, but failed, to seize control of depleted Gulf Coast National Guard units, the bulk of which had been sent to Iraq along with equipment that might have aided the recovery. Bush demanded that then Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco sign over control of the Guard as well as state and local police units as the blood price for federal assistance.
At the height of the crisis, Bush cited presidential prerogatives for doing so under the Insurrection Act, a repressive statute which authorizes the President to federalize National Guard units when state governments fail to “suppress rebellion.” How the plight of citizens engulfed by Katrina’s flood waters could be twisted into an act of “rebellion” was achieved when Orwellian spin doctors, aided and abetted by a compliant media, invented a new criminal category to cover traumatized New Orleans residents: “Drowning while Black.”
Fast forward five years. Given the serious implications such proposals would have for a functioning democracy, the media’s deafening silence on Obama’s Executive Order is hardly surprising. Like their role as cheerleaders in the escalating wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, media self-censorship tell us much about the state of affairs in “new normal” America.
Like his predecessors in the Oval Office, stretching back to the 1960s with Pentagon “civil disturbance” plans such as Cable Splicer and Garden Plot, both of which are continuously updated, our “change” President will forge ahead and invest the permanent National Security bureaucracy with unprecedented power.
Under color of the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act, an unsavory piece of Bushist legislative detritus, “The President shall establish a bipartisan Council of Governors to advise the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the White House Homeland Security Council on matters related to the National Guard and civil support missions.”
The toothless Council, whose Executive Director will be designated by the Secretary of Defense no less, “shall meet at the call of the Secretary of Defense or the Co-Chairs of the Council.”
Will such a Council have veto power over administration deliberations? Hardly. They are relegated “to exchange views, information, or advice with the Secretary of Defense; the Secretary of Homeland Security” and “the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism.”
Additional entities covered by the EO with whom the Governors Council will “exchange views” include, “the Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement; the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Americas’ Security Affairs; the Commander, United States Northern Command; the Chief, National Guard Bureau; the Commandant of the Coast Guard; and other appropriate officials of the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense, and appropriate officials of other executive departments or agencies as may be designated by the Secretary of Defense or the Secretary of Homeland Security.”
In other words, right from the get-go, the Council will serve as civilian cover for political decisions made by the Executive Branch and the security apparat. EO 13528 continues, “Such views, information, or advice shall concern: (a) matters involving the National Guard of the various States; (b) homeland defense; (c) civil support; (d) synchronization and integration of State and Federal military activities in the United States; and (e) other matters of mutual interest pertaining to National Guard, homeland defense, and civil support activities.”
When news first broke last summer of Obama’s proposal to expand the military’s authority to respond to domestic disasters, it was opposed by the National Governors Association (NGA).
Congressional Quarterly reported that a letter sent on behalf of the NGA opposed creation of the Council on grounds that it “would invite confusion on critical command and control issues, complicate interagency planning, establish stove-piped response efforts, and interfere with governors’ constitutional responsibilities to ensure the safety and security of their citizens,” Govs. Jim Douglas, R-Vt., and Joe Manchin III, D-W.Va., wrote.
According to their August letter to Paul N. Stockton, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Americas’ Security Affairs, Douglas and Manchin III argued that “without assigning a governor tactical control” of military forces during a natural disaster such as a flood or earthquake, or an unnatural disaster such as a terrorist attack or other mass casualty event, the “strong potential exists for confusion in mission, execution and the dilution of governors’ control over situations with which they are more familiar and better capable of handling than a federal military commander.”
With slim prospects of congressional authorization for the scheme, in fact the 2008 language was removed from subsequent Defense spending legislation, other means were required. Playing bureaucratic hardball with the governors, this has now been accomplished by presidential fiat, further eroding clear constitutional limits on Executive Branch power.
These maneuvers as I have previously written, have very little to do with responding to a catastrophic emergency. Indeed, EO 13528 is only the latest iteration of plans to expand the National Security State’s writ and as such, have everything to do with decades-old Continuity of Government (COG) programs kept secret from Congress and the American people.
Derided by neocons, neoliberals and other corporatists as a quaint backwater for “conspiracy theorists” railing against “FEMA concentration camps,” Continuity of Government, and the nexus of “civil support” programs that have proliferated like noxious weeds are no laughing matter.
Indeed, even members of Congress are considered “unauthorized parties” denied access “to information on COG plans, procedures, capabilities and facilities,” according to a Pentagon document published by the whistleblowing web site Wikileaks, as are the classified annexes of National Security Presidential Directive 51 and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 20 (NSPD 51/HSPD 20). In a new twist on administration promises of transparency and open government, even the redacted version of these documents have been removed from the White House web site.
As Antifascist Calling previously reported (see: “Vigilant Shield 09: A Cover for Illegal Domestic Operations?“), the Congressional Research Service issued a 46-page report in 2008 that provided details on the COG-related National Exercise Program, a “civil support” operation that war games various disaster scenarios.
Among other things, the document outlines the serious domestic implications of military participation in national emergency preparedness drills. CRS researchers pointed to the Reagan-era Executive Order 12656 (EO 12656) that “directs FEMA to coordinate the planning, conduct, and evaluation of national security emergency exercises.” EO 12656 defines a national security emergency as “as any occurrence, including natural disaster, military attack, technological emergency, or other emergency that seriously degrades or seriously threatens the national security of the United States.”
Such programs, greatly expanded by the Bush-era Homeland Security Presidential Directive 8 (HSPD-8), also removed from the White House web site, established “a national program and a multi-year planning system to conduct homeland security preparedness-related exercises.” CRS avers, “The program is to be carried out in collaboration with state and local governments and private sector entities.”
The Defense Department’s role during such emergencies were intended to focus “principally on domestic incident management, either for terrorism or non terrorist catastrophic events.” DoD would play a “significant role” in the overall response. Such murky definitions cover a lot of ground and are ripe with a potential for abuse by unscrupulous securocrats and their corporate partners.
The primary DoD entity responsible for “civil support,” a focus of Obama’s EO is USNORTHCOM and its active combat component, U.S. Army North. However, as with almost everything relating to COG and current plans under EO 13528 that propose to “synchronize and integrate State and Federal military activities,” USNORTHCOM’s role is shrouded in secrecy.
As researcher Peter Dale Scott revealed in 2008, when Congressman Peter DeFazio, Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson and Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Christopher Carney sought access to classified COG annexes, their request was denied by the White House. Scott wrote: “DeFazio’s inability to get access to the NSPD Annexes is less than reassuring. If members of the Homeland Security Committee cannot enforce their right to read secret plans of the Executive Branch, then the systems of checks and balances established by the U.S. Constitution would seem to be failing.”
One hammer blow followed another. In 2008, Army Times reported, that the “3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team [BCT] has spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle, helping restore essential services and escorting supply convoys. Now they’re training for the same mission–with a twist–at home.”
Analyst Michel Chossudovsky commented, “What is significant in this redeployment of a US infantry unit is the presumption that North America could, in the case of a national emergency, constitute a ‘war theater’ thereby justifying the deployment of combat units.” According to Chossudovsky, “The new skills to be imparted consist in training 1st BCT in repressing civil unrest, a task normally assumed by civilian law enforcement.”
“It is noteworthy, the World Socialist Web Site commented, “that the deployment of US combat troops ‘as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters’ … coincides with the eruption of the greatest economic emergency and financial disaster since the Great Depression of the 1930s.”
“Justified as a response to terrorist threats,” socialist critic Bill Van Auken averred, “the real source of the growing preparations for the use of US military force within America’s borders lies not in the events of September 11, 2001 or the danger that they will be repeated. Rather, the domestic mobilization of the armed forces is a response by the US ruling establishment to the growing threat to political stability.”
Since USNORTHCOM’s deployment of a combat brigade on U.S. soil, the capitalist crisis has deepened and intensified. With unemployment at a post-war high and the perilous economic and social conditions of the working class growing grimmer by the day, EO 13258 is a practical demonstration of ruling class consensus when it comes to undermining the democratic rights of the American people.
After all, where the defense of wealth and privileges are concerned corporate thugs and war criminals have no friends, only interests…
Tom Burghardt is a researcher and activist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition to publishing in Covert Action Quarterly and Global Research, an independent research and media group of writers, scholars, journalists and activists based in Montreal, his articles can be read on Dissident Voice, The Intelligence Daily and Pacific Free Press. He is the editor of Police State America: U.S. Military “Civil Disturbance” Planning, distributed by AK Press. Read other articles by Tom, or visit Tom’s website.
from the archives:
Militarization of the American Homeland: Suppression of “Civil Disturbances” by Tom Burghardt

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One must read this one closely but when it dawns on you that the 10 Governors to be appointed by the President will perhaps soon correspond to the 10 FEMA REGIONS and effectively will be under the Secretary of Defense and hence the President in a system of Regional Military Governors over all States, not just the States they might be from, you might just experience a chill up your spine. Note that then all States in essence have been taken over at least on paper by the President and will be administered Militarily. Read carefully Section -2 Functions, of this Executive Order and you will clearly see how inclusive these functions can be……. especially Item e which has language sufficiently broad and loose that a Tank Battalion could be driven through it.

Americans had better understand that this Executive Order along with all of those previously signed ,and with Presidential Decision Directive 51 and others will be used to destroy the Constitution and Bill of Rights and to render each American effectively into nothing more than a member of a work gang subject to control of the Regional Military Governor who is under the Secdef who is under the President. Posse Comitatus then is dead, Habeas Corpus is dead, Bill of Rights is dead, and only the whims and subjective decisions of the Regional Military Governor, as directed by the President via the Secretary of Defense and executed by Northcom troopers who now include U.S. , Canadian, Mexican, and other Foreign troops as well as Mercenaries and the States’ National Guards, Militias, and Police agencies will be the Iron Fist Rule of the Land.

Is this what the Founding Fathers would be proud of or would they say we have come full circle and that now We the People should invoke the Declaration of Independence once again and be ready on Lexington Green and prepositioned at Concord Bridge ? I think I know what Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Sam Adams, and old “Swamp Fox” would say.

Here is the official White House document. Click on this link for the PDF of the Executive Order. Read it and weep for America.

http://www.eutimes.net/2010/01/alert-obama-signs-martial-law-executive-order/

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THE NATION WAR & PEACE BLACKWATER
Blackwater in Pakistan: Gates Confirms
by JEREMY SCAHILL

January 22, 2010

On Thursday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates confirmed that Blackwater is operating in Pakistan. In an interview on Express TV, Gates, who was visiting Islamabad, said, "They [Blackwater and another private security firm, DynCorp] are operating as individual companies here in Pakistan," according to a DoD transcript of the interview. "There are rules concerning the contracting companies. If they're contracting with us or with the State Department here in Pakistan, then there are very clear rules set forth by the State Department and by ourselves."

Today, the country's senior minister for the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), Bashir Bilour, also acknowledged that the company is operating in Pakistan's frontier areas. Bilour told Pakistan's Express News TV that Blackwater's activities were taking place with the "consent and permission" of the Pakistani government, saying he had discussed the issue with officials at the US Consulate in Peshawar, who told him that Blackwater was training Pakistani forces.
When Gates was asked what the US response would be if the Pakistani parliament passed a law banning private security companies, Gates said, "If it's Pakistani law, we will absolutely comply."
As Gates's comments began to make huge news in Pakistan, US defense officials tried to retract his statement. As the Wall Street Journal reported, "Defense officials tried to clarify the comment Thursday night, telling reporters that Mr. Gates had been speaking about contractor oversight more generally and that the Pentagon didn't employ Xe in Pakistan."
Bilour's statements are consistent with what a former Blackwater executive and a US military intelligence source told me in December--that Blackwater is working on a subcontract for Kestral, a Pakistani security and logistics firm. That contract, say my sources, is technically with the Pakistani government, which helps cloak Blackwater's presence. From my article in The Nation:
Blackwater owner Erik Prince is close with Kestral CEO Liaquat Ali Baig, according to the former Blackwater executive. "Ali and Erik have a pretty close relationship," he said. "They've met many times and struck a deal, and they [offer] mutual support for one another." Working with Kestral, he said, Blackwater has provided convoy security for Defense Department shipments destined for Afghanistan that would arrive in the port at Karachi. Blackwater, according to the former executive, would guard the supplies as they were transported overland from Karachi to Peshawar and then west through the Torkham border crossing, the most important supply route for the US military in Afghanistan.
According to the former executive, Blackwater operatives also integrate with Kestral's forces in sensitive counterterrorism operations in the North-West Frontier Province, where they work in conjunction with the Pakistani Interior Ministry's paramilitary force, known as the Frontier Corps (alternately referred to as "frontier scouts"). The Blackwater personnel are technically advisers, but the former executive said that the line often gets blurred in the field. Blackwater "is providing the actual guidance on how to do [counterterrorism operations] and Kestral's folks are carrying a lot of them out, but they're having the guidance and the overwatch from some BW guys that will actually go out with the teams when they're executing the job," he said. "You can see how that can lead to other things in the border areas." He said that when Blackwater personnel are out with the Pakistani teams, sometimes its men engage in operations against suspected terrorists. "You've got BW guys that are assisting...and they're all going to want to go on the jobs--so they're going to go with them," he said. "So, the things that you're seeing in the news about how this Pakistani military group came in and raided this house or did this or did that--in some of those cases, you're going to have Western folks that are right there at the house, if not in the house." Blackwater, he said, is paid by the Pakistani government through Kestral for consulting services. "That gives the Pakistani government the cover to say, 'Hey, no, we don't have any Westerners doing this. It's all local and our people are doing it.' But it gets them the expertise that Westerners provide for [counterterrorism]-related work."
When I tried to get confirmation of Blackwater's work with Kestral, I was bounced around from agency to agency. Eventually, a spokesman for the State Department's Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC), which is responsible for issuing licenses to US corporations to provide defense-related services to foreign governments or entities, would neither confirm nor deny that Blackwater has a license to work in Pakistan or to work with Kestral. "We cannot help you," said department spokesman David McKeeby after checking with the relevant DDTC officials. "You'll have to contact the companies directly." Blackwater's spokesman Mark Corallo said the company has "no operations of any kind" in Pakistan other than one employee working for the DoD. Kestral did not respond to my inquiries.
Kestral's lobbyist, former assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger Noriega, who served in that post from 2003 to 2005, would not provide comment on the contract either. Noriega, according to federal lobby records, was recently hired by Kestral to lobby the US government, including the State Department, USAID and Congress, on foreign affairs issues "regarding [Kestral's] capabilities to carry out activities of interest to the United States."
All of this appears to be a contradiction of previous statements made by the Defense Department, by Blackwater, by the Pakistani government and by the US Embassy in Islamabad, all of whom claimed Blackwater was not in the country. In September the US ambassador to Pakistan, Anne Patterson, denied Blackwater's presence in the country, stating bluntly, "Blackwater is not operating in Pakistan." In December in The Nation, after I reported on Blackwater's work for JSOC and Ketral in Pakistan, the Pentagon did not issue any clear public denials, and instead tried to pass the buck to the State Department, which in turn passed it to the US Embassy, which in turn issued an unsigned statement saying the story was false. Shortly after my story came out in The Nation, ABC News reported that in 2006, "12 Blackwater "tactical action operatives" were recruited for a secret raid into Pakistan by the U.S. military's Joint Special Operations Command, according to a military intelligence planner. The target of the planned raid, code-named Vibrant Fury, was a suspected al Qaeda training camp, according to the planner."
In Pakistan, there appears to be egg on the face of the country's Interior Minister Rehman Malik, who has said on numerous occasions that he would resign if it is proven that Blackwater is operating inside Pakistan. Today, Express TV rebroadcast Malik saying in November, "There is no Blackwater."
What's that old saying? "Never believe anything until it has been officially denied."
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About Jeremy Scahill
Jeremy Scahill, a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute, is the author of the bestselling Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, published by Nation Books. He is an award-winning investigative journalist and correspondent for the national radio and TV program Democracy Now!. more...