"The Dark Side of Henry Kissinger Is Very, Very Dark" - Seymour Hersh (Why the Troops Must Be Brought Home Now!)

Stolen from that Vagabond Scholar with vast gratitude (and, please pardon me, a little editing):

I, of course, wouldn't steal it except it perfectly complements the emphasis of today's essay.

In American politics today, there are five circles of conservative hell. Unlike those in Dante's Inferno, these are primarily states of pain and suffering that conservatives seek to impose on others in this earthly world - or places of torment where they drag their fellow Americans for company. After all, there's no problem in the country that's not made sweeter by domineering spite!

Note that these are "conservative" movements, not solely Republican, since the conservative Democrats, the Blue Dogs, are indisputably unrepentant scumbags. That said, it's "movement conservatism" that really excels at toxicity and dumb, destructive authoritarianism.

A knowledge of history is the only credible guide to properly understanding our world and its incredible unbelievably huge problems stemming from past terrible decisions on the part of our "leadership" (over the cliff).

Oil Cartel Treaty Enforcer ("Greatest Con Artist of All Time" - First NeoCon?) The Trials of Henry Kissinger (That Will Never Take Place) The Making Of A War Criminal ("Double Agent?") (And Architect of "Crimes Against Humanity") The Nazi Victim Whose Life's Goal Was To Serve Only the Powerful

A Testimony To What Evil Can Do In The World

"Lucky" Henry Kissinger?

Video (please view this most important piece of history if you have any time at all - it clears up a lot of the compromised-reporting fog)

Want to know all the inside reasons why Kissinger should be in danger of prosecution (as well as all the other war criminals)? "He cultivated the Press before anyone even knew it was possible to do." - Barbara Howar. His history of supporting Pinochet's coup in Chile on September 11, 1973, and his reign of terror for 17 years (and being instrumental in the murder of Salvador Allende with CIA-paid assassins ($250,000-payoffs in rubber bands) is documented precisely (as well as the later campaign contributions of ITT and Pepsi-Cola to the Nixon campaign). Some informed conversation about how these known facts were treated by the Church Committee of 1975 is also included. (And you thought that Nixon was only thinking of Watergate that year. A lawsuit brought against Henry Kissinger for his part in the murders of innocents in Chile was filed on the morning of September 11, 2001, which I'm sure we all heard about.) Kissinger was instrumental in the financial suppor of Lon Nol (of the Khmer Rouge's Killing Fields) in Cambodia (merely an illegal sideshow to the real war) against the Vietnamese, ultimately leading to the murder of millions of Cambodians who were seen by Nol's murderous thugs as having any involvement in these affairs (creating 10,000+ American soldier's deaths) and the demonstration Christmas bombing ("mass murder from the sky") which was intended as proof positive to the South Vietnamese that Americans would continue to support them after their disengagement (and received exactly the same deal that had been offered before the Election of 1968). And how Kissinger and Le Duc Tho (the Vietnamese counterpart) were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (don't miss Belushi doing the Kissinger role on Saturday Night Live!). And how the hitting of civilians was a strategic goal of Kissinger's plan. Also why peace talks always collapse and what politicians have benefitted in the past? Seymour Hersh wrote a book, The Price of Power, which documents most of what is contained in the video below. A mixed-emotion Christopher Hitchens wrote a book, xxxx Henry Kissinger and reports on events in the video. Don't forget who ran the CIA after Nixon's resignation. (See Russ Baker's Family of Secrets.) Also be sure to view his service to Gerald Ford's (remember Ford's regrets? No?) invasion of Indonesia (massacre of East Timor (like Cambodia's) by Suharto's Kissinger-supported troops - see Greg Shackleton, reporter killed in East Timor). And no one can access Kissinger's public (government-paid) papers until five years after his death. I understand that psychopaths have no problems with living with their actions. And don't miss two of the best comments ever on an article:

John

Back in 1982 to 1985, I worked as an Intel analyst for the US government with an SCI clearance. I had an older friend who proofed all studies made by our division before being sent up the chain. This fellow passed away a couple of years ago in FL after reaching his 80's. He was an Army Captain during WWII associated with the OSS toward the end of the war, and was tasked to find all the scientists and engineers in northern Germany where ever they could be found at that time to get them out of Germany before the Russians got to them first.

We ate lunch together most days. He told me that he had run across a German missile plant that was filled with scientists and engineers. He called Frankfurt to let them know of his find and to arrange for their transport out of the area because the Russians were not far from finding the same location themselves.

When he called down to the OSS office in Frankfurt he talked to a Sergeant Henry Kissinger. Yep, same Kissinger with the broken accent and voice. Kissinger told him he'd take care of it and get them out of there.

One day passed by and no action. He called back again and Kissinger told the Capt. that he was working on it. The second day the Russians got to them in force and all those scientists and engineers ended up back in Russia.

My friend told me that at that time Kissinger was suspected of being a double-agent for the Soviets. My question to him was how in the world Kissinger ever make it from that position to where he has been in all the previous administrations, and is still able to stick his nose into things even to this day.

I guess it is the same reason why as the Bush "Family of Secrets" story plays out too. It seems to me that the people literally being lynched up over the last century have been the wrong individuals. Put Noriega in, take him out. Put Saddam in, take him out. Use them for nefarious purposes, and take them out before they blow the cover on those who put them in, and why they were put in.

Daylightbroad

It is interesting to note that among Henry Kissinger's protégés was Paul Bremer, President Bush's disastrous head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. Bremer was an assistant to Henry Kissinger from 1972 -76. In 1981 he was promoted to Executive Secretary and Special Assistant to Alexander Haig. Bremer retired from the Foreign Service in 1989 and became managing director at Kissinger and Associates, where he remains today. Scary.

The US Government Can't Account For Billions Spent In Afghanistan Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/us-cant-account-for-billions-spent-in-afghanistan-2010-12 Kandahar City - In its bid to win the hearts and minds of Afghanistan’s teeming population, the United States has spent more than $55 billion to rebuild and bolster the war-ravaged country. That money was meant to cover everything from the construction of government buildings and economic development projects to the salaries of U.S. government employees working closely with Afghans. Yet no one can say with any authority or precision how that money was spent and who profited from it. Most of the funds were funneled to a vast array of U.S. and foreign contractors. But according to a recent audit by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), there is no way of knowing whether the money went for the intended purposes. “The audit shows that navigating the confusing labyrinth of government contracting is difficult, at best,” SIGAR said in releasing the audit. “USAID, the State Department and the Pentagon are unable to readily report on how much money they spend on contracting for reconstruction activities in Afghanistan.” One large part of the problem is that the United States is not demanding accountability for outgoing funds from U.S. companies which have little incentive to fully disclose where the U.S. money is going. Add to this the many Afghan companies that have minimal accounting capabilities and you have a recipe for a massive misappropriation of funds. The money flows from Washington to Afghanistan, with little oversight and accountability, and at every step along the way someone else takes a cut. “There’s no mechanism to track where this money is going,” said Scott Amey, general counsel for the Project on Government Oversight, an independent, nonprofit group that investigates government corruption. “Security problems persist and this money doesn’t seem to be accomplishing a real mission.” As staggering amounts of U.S. tax dollars virtually vanish down a black hole, many of the government projects designed to foster improved relations with the Afghan people and undermine the appeal of the Taliban have fallen far behind schedule or simply aren’t completed. In October, SIGAR found that six Afghan National Police buildings were so poorly built that they are unusable. They were constructed at a cost of $5 million by Basirat Construction, an Afghan construction company. Another report found that the United States has spent nearly $200 million on Afghan security service buildings that cannot be used. SIGAR also found that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) couldn’t account for nearly $18 billion that was paid to some 7,000 U.S. and Afghan contractors for development projects. Afghan contractors often pay kickbacks to local warlords, like Ahmad Wali Karzai, the president’s brother and the so-called “King of Kandahar.” Their actions often undermine the work of the coalition. Botched construction projects aren’t the only U.S. failures. Earlier this summer, coalition forces cleared Malajat, a longstanding Taliban stronghold in the eastern flatlands just outside of Kandahar City. But after they were forced out in September, many of the residents of Malajat remained sympathetic to the Taliban’s cause. In an effort to project provincial and national authority and strengthen Afghan infrastructure, Canada’s Commander's Emergency Response Program and the USAID ordered the construction of four government buildings in Malajat where local residents could meet with government officials to air grievances. The complex was meant to symbolically supplant Taliban power and influence. In accordance with U.S. General David Petraeus’ plan to expand contracting awards to Afghan firms, Afghan companies were hired late in September. The contractors then hired Afghan subcontractors to begin construction in the shadow of a fortress built by Alexander the Great around 330 B.C. Since then, however, little work has been done and the project has fallen behind schedule. As of early November, Afghans earning about a dollar a day had only dug holes for the foundation of the building complex, which was optimistically scheduled to be completed by July. Work Habits, Cultural Mandates Most Afghans do little work in the winter months. Despite numerous inquiries, U.S. and Canadian officials could not estimate the cost of the project. Gen. Ben Hodges, a former top U.S. commander in Kandahar, told The Fiscal Times that the success of the Kandahar offensive will depend in part on the United States and its allies building Afghan economic, political and security infrastructure over the winter. Projects like the Malajat government building are essential to keeping the Taliban out once the fighting season resumes next spring, especially as the U.S. strategy review has shown tenuous progress here. But there is little confidence among soldiers and development workers that this project will be completed in time. “We can pour as much money as we want into this and it’s not getting done by the spring,” said an official with the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team (KPRT), a civilian and Canadian-led organization jointly operated with the United States. “These people [Afghan contractors] have no accountability.” Thomas Ford, a spokesman for the KPRT project, said he could not reveal the identities of Afghan contractors involved because of security concerns. He also said he did “not have the exact cost figures in front of [him]”and declined to provide them. Canadian forces, along with KPRT, are scheduled to leave next summer. The United States is expected to assume sole responsibility for their projects. Petraeus, commander of the NATO International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and U.S. Forces Afghanistan, acknowledged in a September memorandum that the contracting process in Afghanistan has been deeply flawed for years and needed to be changed if the Afghan war is to be won. “With proper oversight, contracting can spur economic development and support the Afghan government and NATO's campaign objectives," wrote Petraeus. "If, however, we spend large quantities of international contracting funds quickly and with insufficient oversight, it is likely that some of those funds will unintentionally fuel corruption, finance insurgent organizations, strengthen criminal patronage networks and undermine our efforts in Afghanistan." At Kandahar Airfield, a base the size of London’s Heathrow Airport located just outside of Kandahar City, contractors provide transportation, food service, sanitation and construction, among other services. According to a July 2010 Congressional Research Service report, as of last March private contractors made up 57 percent of all personnel in Afghanistan employed by the Department of Defense. "This apparently [represents] the highest recorded percentage of contractors used by DOD in any conflict in the history of the United States," the study found. According to the report, there were 68,197 Pentagon contractors in Afghanistan, compared with 52,300 uniformed U.S. personnel. Of the Pentagon contractors, 9,300 were U.S. citizens, 52,000 were Afghan, and 7,000 were third-country nationals. There has been a 300 percent increase in contractors since 2007, according to the Defense Contract Management Agency. Outside of U.S. bases, Afghan firms are primarily employed due to security concerns in places like Kandahar City. As with the Malajat buildings, locals are hired for construction projects that U.S. military commanders have said are key to demonstrating Kabul’s central authority, especially in provinces reluctant to recognize Afghan President Harmid Karzai as their ruler. Afghan contractors have also been hired to help train Afghan police. As a result of U.S. pressure, the Afghan government recently arrested American Roy Carver, CEO of Red Sea Engineers and Constructors, a company that has received $500 million in Pentagon contracts to construct buildings at U.S. bases. Carver is charged with not paying his Afghan subcontractors. Amey, of the Project on Government Oversight, said the situation in Afghanistan mirrors the U.S. experience in Iraq: Security concerns made it difficult for foreign contractors to work on the battlefield, forcing reliance on local contractors with little accountability. It’s an endless cycle of frustration and failure. “It seems as if there wasn’t a lessons- learned approach carrying into Afghanistan, which is not to waste federal taxpayer dollars on contracting projects like this,” Amey said in an interview with The Fiscal Times. “We can build an embassy and things can work around that, but what are we doing around the rest of country? If our money is going to security and the rest is going to impractical projects that aren’t being completed, then the government has to reevaluate the model.” This article originally appeared on The Fiscal Times. http://www.businessinsider.com/us-cant-account-for-billions-spent-in-afghanistan-2010-12 ____________________ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/dubai/8228244/Britain-forms-plan-for-Gulf-evacuation-in-event-of-war-with-Iran.html Britain forms plan for Gulf evacuation in event of war with Iran The British armed forces are drawing up contingency plans to evacuate hundreds of thousands of British residents and tourists from Dubai and other Gulf cities in the event of war with Iran. By Richard Spencer, Dubai 10:00PM GMT 28 Dec 2010 The Coalition government under David Cameron ordered an immediate review of British military planning in the Gulf after the election last May. The Daily Telegraph can reveal that new proposals are being drawn up to coordinate military activity in the region with local allies hostile to Iran, particularly the United Arab Emirates. Planners have realised they had to tear up existing emergency plans for local British residents. Since the previous review in the 1990s, the expatriate population has grown to more than 100,000 in the UAE alone, while a million British tourists, from businessmen on stopovers to England footballers with marital problems, come to Dubai every year. It is feared they might be at risk if, as it has promised, Iran retaliates for any military strikes on its nuclear sites with missile attacks on "western interests" in the Gulf. Royal Navy warships, along with their American and French counterparts, regularly patrol the Gulf and tie up in UAE ports, while Iran has also threatened to mine the strategically crucial Straits of Hormuz. The region's gearing up for the possibility of a war stands in contrast to the relaxing tourists on beaches or the opulent expat villa compounds. In the last year, the United Nations, the US and Europe have all imposed heavy sanctions on Iran. The Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, was one of a number of regional Arab leaders revealed in Wikileaks cables to have been pressing for even tougher action. Diplomats say he has also been the key mover, along with William Hague, the foreign secretary, in demanding an upgrading of Britain's traditional military ties with its former colonial protectorates in the Gulf. He has also personally raised the issue of the safety of the foreign population, which makes up 70 per cent of the UAE's 4.5 million residents. The new military co-operation plan, whose full terms remain secret, will be signed off in the first half of 2011, when Mr Cameron is expected to visit. It is regarded as such a priority that it is being protected from defence cuts. The plan is also expected to include an offer from Britain to help to keep vital infrastructure such as electricity and water desalination plants running in the event of war. Meanwhile, proposals are being drawn up to organise evacuation runs for civilians across the border to Oman, which is not currently in Iran's sights, and other neighbouring countries. Cruise liners may be posted in the Gulf of Aden, with Royal Navy warships shuttling civilians from the small emirate of Fujeirah, which lies outside the Straits of Hormuz. Depending on assessments of the safety of civilian flights, extra airfields in addition to the region's extensive network of international airports may be opened up. Diplomats are keen to stress that embassies around the world are required to maintain contingency plans for British citizens facing all kinds of disasters and emergencies. In the Middle East, they usually entail recommending expatriates stay put and maintain a low profile – as, for example, during the Gulf War. "The physical requirements to move this many people means that we would try to delay evacuation as long as possible," said another Gulf-based diplomat. But as Iran refuses to dismantle its nuclear programme, the potential for disaster is not being discounted. "It is a huge number of people who are affected here," the source said. "There are over 100,000 Brits who live here, one million Brits who visit every year. Their safety is a matter of particular concern." _____________________________ http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/qatar/137385-many-arab-officials-have-close-cia-links-assange-.html Many Arab officials have close CIA links: Assange Thursday, 30 December By MOBIN PANDIT & AHMED EL AMIN DOHA: Top officials in several Arab countries have close links with the CIA, and many officials keep visiting US embassies in their respective countries voluntarily to establish links with this key US intelligence agency, says Julian Assange, founder of the whistle-blowing website, WikiLeaks. “These officials are spies for the US in their countries,” Assange told Al Jazeera Arabic channel in an interview yesterday. The interviewer, Ahmed Mansour, said at the start of the interview which was a continuation of last week’s interface, that Assange had even shown him the files that contained the names of some top Arab officials with alleged links with the CIA. Assange or Mansour, however, didn’t disclose the names of these officials. The WikiLeaks founder said he feared he could be killed but added that there were 2,000 websites that were ready to publish the remaining files that are in possession of WikiLeaks after “he has been done away with”. “If I am killed or detained for a long time, there are 2,000 websites ready to publish the remaining files. We have protected these websites through very safe passwords,” said Assange. Currently, his whistle-blowing website is exposing files in a ‘responsible’ manner, he claimed. “But if I am forced we could go to the extreme and expose each and every file that we have access to,” thundered the WikiLeaks founder. “We must protect our sources at whatever cost. This is our sincere concern.” Some Arab countries even have torture houses where Washington regularly sends ‘suspects’ for ‘interrogation and torture’, he said. WikiLeaks is receiving sensitive files from Afghanistan, Kenya, Russia and China, among other countries. For nine years the US and Nato forces have failed to silence people in Afghanistan because the people there are loyal and truthful. The US marines fighting in Afghanistan are not happy being there and don’t really know why they are there and fighting for what, said Assange.The US is trying to use latest technology to disrupt his website but in vain. “Washington is also projecting me as a terrorist and wants to convince the world that I am another Osama bin Laden,” he said. According to Assange, he will be put on a trial for his various expose in a special court in London from January 11, 2011 and this court deals with terror-related cases. “If the UK (where I am based right now) decides to hand me over to Sweden for alleged cases of sexual abuse, they (Stockholm) would hand me over to the US,” he said. Assange said he feared that the US might slap laws declaring him as a spy who had been acting against Washington. The Pentagon has set up a ‘war room’ manned by 120 officials and their job is just to disrupt and destroy WikiLeaks, he said. “We have more files dealing with defense issues of Central Europe, but I or my staff didn’t have the time to go through all of them.” What is being published by the five media partners of WikiLeaks are publishing only those details which they think are interesting for their readers. There are some Arab officials who are ‘stealing’ oil of their countries. “We need these media partners to focus more on this issue,” Assange said in this extensive, interesting and last version of his interface with Doha-based Aljazeera. US embassies around the world are very anxious about Israel, Iran, Labour unions, arms dealings (mainly selling of American arms), and spying through high-tech devices. The Peninsula _____________________ http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/internet/affidavit-details-fbi-operation-payback-probe Affidavit Details FBI "Operation Payback" Probe DECEMBER 29--As part of an international criminal probe into computer attacks launched this month against perceived corporate enemies of WikiLeaks, the FBI has raided a Texas business and seized a computer server that investigators believe was used to launch a massive electronic attack on PayPal, The Smoking Gun has learned. The FBI investigation began earlier this month after PayPal officials contacted agents and “reported that an Internet activist group using the names ‘4chan’ and “Anonymous” appeared to be organizing a distributed denial of service (“DDoS”) attack against the company,” according to an FBI affidavit excerpted here. The PayPal assault was part of “Operation Payback,” an organized effort to attack firms that suspended or froze WikiLeaks’s accounts in the wake of the group’s publication of thousands of sensitive Department of State cables. As noted by the FBI, other targets of this “Anonymous” effort included Visa, Mastercard, Sarah Palin’s web site, and the Swedish prosecutor pursuing sex assault charges against Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder. On December 9, PayPal investigators provided FBI agents with eight IP addresses that were hosting an “Anonymous” Internet Relay Chat (IRC) site that was being used to organize denial of service attacks. The unidentified administrators of this IRC “then acted as the command and control” of a botnet army of computers that was used to attack target web sites. Federal investigators noted that “multiple, severe DDos attacks” had been launched against PayPal, and that the company’s blog had been knocked offline for several hours. These coordinated attacks, investigators allege, amount to felony violations of a federal law covering the “unauthorized and knowing transmission of code or commands resulting in intentional damage to a protected computer system.” The nascent FBI probe, launched from the bureau’s San Francisco field office, has targeted at least two of those IP addresses, according to the affidavit sworn by Agent Allyn Lynd. One IP address was initially traced to Host Europe, a Germany-based Internet service provider. A search warrant executed by the German Federal Criminal Police revealed that the “server at issue” belonged to a man from Herrlisheim, France. However, an analysis of the server showed that “root-level access” to the machine “appeared to come from an administrator logging in from” another IP address. “Log files showed that the commands to execute the DDoS on PayPal actually came from” this IP, Agent Lynd reported. Two log entries cited in the affidavit include an identical message: “Good_night,_paypal_Sweet_dreams_from_AnonOPs.” Investigators traced the IP address to Tailor Made Services, a Dallas firm providing “dedicated server hosting.” During a December 16 raid, agents copied two hard drives inside the targeted server. Court records do not detail what was found on those drives, nor whether the information led to a suspect or, perhaps, a continuing electronic trail. In a brief phone conversation, Lynd declined to answer questions about the ongoing denial of service probe. Search warrant records indicate that agents were authorized to seize records and material relating to the DDoS attacks “or other illegal activities pertaining to the organization “Anonymous” or “4chan.” A second IP address used by “Anonymous” was traced to an Internet service provider in British Columbia, Canada. Investigators with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police determined that the Canadian firm’s “virtual” server was actually housed at Hurricane Electric, a California firm offering “colocation, web hosting, dedicated servers, and Internet connections,” according to its web site. FBI Agent Christopher Calderon, an expert on malicious botnets who works from the bureau’s San Jose office, is leading the probe of the second IP (and presumably has seized a server from Hurricane Electric). Hurricane’s president, Mike Leber, did not respond to a message left for him at the firm’s office in Fremont, which is about 20 miles from PayPal’s San Jose headquarters. (5 pages)