Monday, December 28, 2009
Global Summit in Copenhagen
World leaders walked away from the global summit in Copenhagen without a treaty that will save the climate. The US, EU and Australia put short-term national interests before the fate of our planet. Together, we must let leaders know that we expect nothing less than an effective agreement.
Monday, December 14, 2009
The Bhopal-Union Carbide disaster
In December 1984, a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, leaked over forty tons of the poisonous gas methyl isocyanate into the community surrounding the plant. Indian officials estimate that the gas leak left nearly 3000 people dead and 50,000 people permanently disabled and that 15,000 people died subsequently from exposure to the poisonous gas. (Unofficial estimates range up to 7000-8000 initial deaths, and 15,000-20,000 subsequent deaths.) Some of the injured people of Bhopal attempted to litigate claims against Union Carbide (part of Dow Chemical since 2001) in the US; these US lawsuits were dismissed in 1986 in favour of litigating the claims through the Indian legal system. In 1989 the Indian Supreme Court approved a settlement of the civil claims against Union Carbide for $470 million. Until recently approximately $330 million of the settlement amount had yet to be disbursed to the Bhopal victims and their survivors. In July of 2004, the Indian Supreme Court directed that the balance of the settlement fund be disbursed among all of the Bhopal claimants. In 1999, a group of victims of the Bhopal disaster filed suit against Union Carbide in US federal court seeking compensation for the 1984 incident as well as for the alleged ongoing environmental contamination at and around the Bhopal plant site. After a number of appeals, the plaintiffs’ US claims for compensation for injuries directly related to the 1984 incident were dismissed because the court found that these claims were barred by the 1989 Union Carbide settlement in India. However, the court allowed claims to go forward regarding property damage due to the environmental contamination at the Bhopal plant site and surrounding areas. This US case continues to be litigated. In addition to the US litigation, a criminal lawsuit against Union Carbide and Warren Anderson, its former CEO, has been ongoing in the Indian legal system since 1989.
In the early morning hours, one of the worst industrial disasters in history begins when a pesticide plant located in the densely populated region of Bhopal in central India leaks a highly toxic cloud of methyl isocyanate into the air. Of the estimated one million people living in Bhopal at the time, 2,000 were killed immediately, at least 600,000 were injured, and at least 6,000 have died since.
The leak was caused by a series of mechanical and human errors in the pesticide producing plant, operated by the Union Carbide Corporation, a U.S.-based multinational. For a full hour, the plant's personnel and safety equipment failed to detect the massive leak, and when an alarm was finally sounded most of the harm had already been done. To make matters worse, local health officials had not been educated on the toxicity of the chemicals used at the Union Carbide plant and therefore there were no emergency procedures in place to protect Bhopal's citizens in the event of a chemical leak. If the victims had simply placed a wet towel over their face, most would have escaped serious injury.
The Indian government sued Union Carbide in a civil case and settled in 1989 for $470 million. Because of the great number of individuals affected by the disaster, most Bhopal victims received just $550, which could not pay for the chronic lung ailments, eye problems, psychiatric disorders, and other common illnesses they developed. The average compensation for deaths resulting from the disaster was $1,300. The Indian government, famous for its corruption, has yet to distribute roughly half of Union Carbide's original settlement. Union Carbide, which shut down its Bhopal plant after the disaster, has failed to clean up the site completely, and the rusty, deserted complex continues to leak various poisonous substances into the water and soil of Bhopal.
[audio] Bhopal - An Enduring Tragedy
Author: Allan Little, Assignment, BBC World Service
Dated: 03 Dec 2009
Twenty-five years ago, a gas leak at a Union Carbide chemicals plant in Bhopal released 40 tonnes of poisonous gases over the Indian city, killing thousands of people and injuring tens of thousands more. There has been little clean-up of the site, the water remains dangerously contaminated, and the thousands of victims remain in need of treatment
In the early morning hours, one of the worst industrial disasters in history begins when a pesticide plant located in the densely populated region of Bhopal in central India leaks a highly toxic cloud of methyl isocyanate into the air. Of the estimated one million people living in Bhopal at the time, 2,000 were killed immediately, at least 600,000 were injured, and at least 6,000 have died since.
The leak was caused by a series of mechanical and human errors in the pesticide producing plant, operated by the Union Carbide Corporation, a U.S.-based multinational. For a full hour, the plant's personnel and safety equipment failed to detect the massive leak, and when an alarm was finally sounded most of the harm had already been done. To make matters worse, local health officials had not been educated on the toxicity of the chemicals used at the Union Carbide plant and therefore there were no emergency procedures in place to protect Bhopal's citizens in the event of a chemical leak. If the victims had simply placed a wet towel over their face, most would have escaped serious injury.
The Indian government sued Union Carbide in a civil case and settled in 1989 for $470 million. Because of the great number of individuals affected by the disaster, most Bhopal victims received just $550, which could not pay for the chronic lung ailments, eye problems, psychiatric disorders, and other common illnesses they developed. The average compensation for deaths resulting from the disaster was $1,300. The Indian government, famous for its corruption, has yet to distribute roughly half of Union Carbide's original settlement. Union Carbide, which shut down its Bhopal plant after the disaster, has failed to clean up the site completely, and the rusty, deserted complex continues to leak various poisonous substances into the water and soil of Bhopal.
[audio] Bhopal - An Enduring Tragedy
Author: Allan Little, Assignment, BBC World Service
Dated: 03 Dec 2009
Sunday, December 13, 2009
The Secret US War in Pakistan
.At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which they plan targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, "snatch and grabs" of high-value targets and other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan, an investigation by The Nation has found. The Blackwater operatives also assist in gathering intelligence and help direct a secret US military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-documented CIA predator strikes, according to a well-placed source within the US military intelligence apparatus.
The source, who has worked on covert US military programs for years, including in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has direct knowledge of Blackwater's involvement. He spoke to The Nation on condition of anonymity because the program is classified. The source said that the program is so "compartmentalized" that senior figures within the Obama administration and the US military chain of command may not be aware of its existence.
The White House did not return calls or email messages seeking comment for this story. Capt. John Kirby, the spokesperson for Adm. Michael Mullen, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told The Nation, "We do not discuss current operations one way or the other, regardless of their nature." A defense official, on background, specifically denied that Blackwater performs work on drone strikes or intelligence for JSOC in Pakistan. "We don't have any contracts to do that work for us. We don't contract that kind of work out, period," the official said. "There has not been, and is not now, contracts between JSOC and that organization for these types of services."
Blackwater's founder Erik Prince contradicted this statement in a recent interview, telling Vanity Fair that Blackwater works with US Special Forces in identifying targets and planning missions, citing an operation in Syria. The magazine also published a photo of a Blackwater base near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
The previously unreported program, the military intelligence source said, is distinct from the CIA assassination program that the agency's director, Leon Panetta, announced he had canceled in June 2009. "This is a parallel operation to the CIA," said the source. "They are two separate beasts." The program puts Blackwater at the epicenter of a US military operation within the borders of a nation against which the United States has not declared war--knowledge that could further strain the already tense relations between the United States and Pakistan. In 2006, the United States and Pakistan struck a deal that authorized JSOC to enter Pakistan to hunt Osama bin Laden with the understanding that Pakistan would deny it had given permission. Officially, the United States is not supposed to have any active military operations in the country.
Blackwater, which recently changed its name to Xe Services and US Training Center, denies the company is operating in Pakistan. "Xe Services has only one employee in Pakistan performing construction oversight for the U.S. Government," Blackwater spokesperson Mark Corallo said in a statement to The Nation, adding that the company has "no other operations of any kind in Pakistan."
A former senior executive at Blackwater confirmed the military intelligence source's claim that the company is working in Pakistan for the CIA and JSOC, the premier counterterrorism and covert operations force within the military. He said that Blackwater is also working for the Pakistani government on a subcontract with an Islamabad-based security firm that puts US Blackwater operatives on the ground with Pakistani forces in counter-terrorism operations, including house raids and border interdictions, in the North-West Frontier Province and elsewhere in Pakistan. This arrangement, the former executive said, allows the Pakistani government to utilize former US Special Operations forces who now work for Blackwater while denying an official US military presence in the country. He also confirmed that Blackwater has a facility in Karachi and has personnel deployed elsewhere in Pakistan. The former executive spoke on condition of anonymity.
His account and that of the military intelligence source were borne out by a US military source who has knowledge of Special Forces actions in Pakistan and Afghanistan. When asked about Blackwater's covert work for JSOC in Pakistan, this source, who also asked for anonymity, told The Nation, "From my information that I have, that is absolutely correct," adding, "There's no question that's occurring."
"It wouldn't surprise me because we've outsourced nearly everything," said Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff from 2002 to 2005, when told of Blackwater's role in Pakistan. Wilkerson said that during his time in the Bush administration, he saw the beginnings of Blackwater's involvement with the sensitive operations of the military and CIA. "Part of this, of course, is an attempt to get around the constraints the Congress has placed on DoD. If you don't have sufficient soldiers to do it, you hire civilians to do it. I mean, it's that simple. It would not surprise me."
Keep reading
The source, who has worked on covert US military programs for years, including in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has direct knowledge of Blackwater's involvement. He spoke to The Nation on condition of anonymity because the program is classified. The source said that the program is so "compartmentalized" that senior figures within the Obama administration and the US military chain of command may not be aware of its existence.
The White House did not return calls or email messages seeking comment for this story. Capt. John Kirby, the spokesperson for Adm. Michael Mullen, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told The Nation, "We do not discuss current operations one way or the other, regardless of their nature." A defense official, on background, specifically denied that Blackwater performs work on drone strikes or intelligence for JSOC in Pakistan. "We don't have any contracts to do that work for us. We don't contract that kind of work out, period," the official said. "There has not been, and is not now, contracts between JSOC and that organization for these types of services."
Blackwater's founder Erik Prince contradicted this statement in a recent interview, telling Vanity Fair that Blackwater works with US Special Forces in identifying targets and planning missions, citing an operation in Syria. The magazine also published a photo of a Blackwater base near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
The previously unreported program, the military intelligence source said, is distinct from the CIA assassination program that the agency's director, Leon Panetta, announced he had canceled in June 2009. "This is a parallel operation to the CIA," said the source. "They are two separate beasts." The program puts Blackwater at the epicenter of a US military operation within the borders of a nation against which the United States has not declared war--knowledge that could further strain the already tense relations between the United States and Pakistan. In 2006, the United States and Pakistan struck a deal that authorized JSOC to enter Pakistan to hunt Osama bin Laden with the understanding that Pakistan would deny it had given permission. Officially, the United States is not supposed to have any active military operations in the country.
Blackwater, which recently changed its name to Xe Services and US Training Center, denies the company is operating in Pakistan. "Xe Services has only one employee in Pakistan performing construction oversight for the U.S. Government," Blackwater spokesperson Mark Corallo said in a statement to The Nation, adding that the company has "no other operations of any kind in Pakistan."
A former senior executive at Blackwater confirmed the military intelligence source's claim that the company is working in Pakistan for the CIA and JSOC, the premier counterterrorism and covert operations force within the military. He said that Blackwater is also working for the Pakistani government on a subcontract with an Islamabad-based security firm that puts US Blackwater operatives on the ground with Pakistani forces in counter-terrorism operations, including house raids and border interdictions, in the North-West Frontier Province and elsewhere in Pakistan. This arrangement, the former executive said, allows the Pakistani government to utilize former US Special Operations forces who now work for Blackwater while denying an official US military presence in the country. He also confirmed that Blackwater has a facility in Karachi and has personnel deployed elsewhere in Pakistan. The former executive spoke on condition of anonymity.
His account and that of the military intelligence source were borne out by a US military source who has knowledge of Special Forces actions in Pakistan and Afghanistan. When asked about Blackwater's covert work for JSOC in Pakistan, this source, who also asked for anonymity, told The Nation, "From my information that I have, that is absolutely correct," adding, "There's no question that's occurring."
"It wouldn't surprise me because we've outsourced nearly everything," said Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff from 2002 to 2005, when told of Blackwater's role in Pakistan. Wilkerson said that during his time in the Bush administration, he saw the beginnings of Blackwater's involvement with the sensitive operations of the military and CIA. "Part of this, of course, is an attempt to get around the constraints the Congress has placed on DoD. If you don't have sufficient soldiers to do it, you hire civilians to do it. I mean, it's that simple. It would not surprise me."
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Tuesday, December 1, 2009
-- Habitat for Humanity Int'l
-- Habitat for Humanity Int'l
Hábitat para la Humanidad hace mucho más que construir casas. Trabajando hacia un mundo que cuenta con una vivienda adecuada para todos, tomamos las siguientes acciones:
Producimos casas a bajo costo…por medio de construcción y reparación con mano de obra voluntaria.
Ofrecemos asistencia técnica y capacitación…para que las familias de bajos ingresos mejoren su situación habitacional.
Promovemos oportunidades innovadoras y accesibles de financiamiento…para que las familias de bajos ingresos mejoren su situación habitacional.
Defendemos la causa de una vivienda adecuada para todos…mediante la organización de actividades públicas e incidencia política.
Apoyamos y respondamos ante desastres…para que las comunidades estén preparadas y puedan reconstruir más fácilmente cuando se vean afectadas.
Hábitat para la Humanidad hace mucho más que construir casas. Trabajando hacia un mundo que cuenta con una vivienda adecuada para todos, tomamos las siguientes acciones:
Producimos casas a bajo costo…por medio de construcción y reparación con mano de obra voluntaria.
Ofrecemos asistencia técnica y capacitación…para que las familias de bajos ingresos mejoren su situación habitacional.
Promovemos oportunidades innovadoras y accesibles de financiamiento…para que las familias de bajos ingresos mejoren su situación habitacional.
Defendemos la causa de una vivienda adecuada para todos…mediante la organización de actividades públicas e incidencia política.
Apoyamos y respondamos ante desastres…para que las comunidades estén preparadas y puedan reconstruir más fácilmente cuando se vean afectadas.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Blackwater's Secret War in Pakistan
At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which they plan targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, "snatch and grabs" of high-value targets and other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan, an investigation by The Nation has found. The Blackwater operatives also assist in gathering intelligence and help direct a secret US military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-documented CIA predator strikes, according to a well-placed source within the US military intelligence apparatus.
The source, who has worked on covert US military programs for years, including in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has direct knowledge of Blackwater's involvement. He spoke to The Nation on condition of anonymity because the program is classified. The source said that the program is so "compartmentalized" that senior figures within the Obama administration and the US military chain of command may not be aware of its existence.
The White House did not return calls or email messages seeking comment for this story. Capt. John Kirby, the spokesperson for Adm. Michael Mullen, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told The Nation, "We do not discuss current operations one way or the other, regardless of their nature." A defense official, on background, specifically denied that Blackwater performs work on drone strikes or intelligence for JSOC in Pakistan. "We don't have any contracts to do that work for us. We don't contract that kind of work out, period," the official said. "There has not been, and is not now, contracts between JSOC and that organization for these types of services."
The previously unreported program, the military intelligence source said, is distinct from the CIA assassination program that the agency's director, Leon Panetta, announced he had canceled in June 2009. "This is a parallel operation to the CIA," said the source. "They are two separate beasts." The program puts Blackwater at the epicenter of a US military operation within the borders of a nation against which the United States has not declared war--knowledge that could further strain the already tense relations between the United States and Pakistan. In 2006, the United States and Pakistan struck a deal that authorized JSOC to enter Pakistan to hunt Osama bin Laden with the understanding that Pakistan would deny it had given permission. Officially, the United States is not supposed to have any active military operations in the country.
Blackwater, which recently changed its name to Xe Services and US Training Center, denies the company is operating in Pakistan. "Xe Services has only one employee in Pakistan performing construction oversight for the U.S. Government," Blackwater spokesperson Mark Corallo said in a statement to The Nation, adding that the company has "no other operations of any kind in Pakistan."
A former senior executive at Blackwater confirmed the military intelligence source's claim that the company is working in Pakistan for the CIA and JSOC, the premier counterterrorism and covert operations force within the military. He said that Blackwater is also working for the Pakistani government on a subcontract with an Islamabad-based security firm that puts US Blackwater operatives on the ground with Pakistani forces in counter-terrorism operations, including house raids and border interdictions, in the North-West Frontier Province and elsewhere in Pakistan. This arrangement, the former executive said, allows the Pakistani government to utilize former US Special Operations forces who now work for Blackwater while denying an official US military presence in the country. He also confirmed that Blackwater has a facility in Karachi and has personnel deployed elsewhere in Pakistan. The former executive spoke on condition of anonymity.
His account and that of the military intelligence source were borne out by a US military source who has knowledge of Special Forces actions in Pakistan and Afghanistan. When asked about Blackwater's covert work for JSOC in Pakistan, this source, who also asked for anonymity, told The Nation, "From my information that I have, that is absolutely correct," adding, "There's no question that's occurring."
"It wouldn't surprise me because we've outsourced nearly everything," said Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff from 2002 to 2005, when told of Blackwater's role in Pakistan. Wilkerson said that during his time in the Bush administration, he saw the beginnings of Blackwater's involvement with the sensitive operations of the military and CIA. "Part of this, of course, is an attempt to get around the constraints the Congress has placed on DoD. If you don't have sufficient soldiers to do it, you hire civilians to do it. I mean, it's that simple. It would not surprise me."
The Counterterrorism Tag Team in Karachi
The covert JSOC program with Blackwater in Pakistan dates back to at least 2007, according to the military intelligence source. The current head of JSOC is Vice Adm. William McRaven, who took over the post from Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who headed JSOC from 2003 to 2008 before being named the top US commander in Afghanistan. Blackwater's presence in Pakistan is "not really visible, and that's why nobody has cracked down on it," said the source. Blackwater's operations in Pakistan, he said, are not done through State Department contracts or publicly identified Defense contracts. "It's Blackwater via JSOC, and it's a classified no-bid [contract] approved on a rolling basis." The main JSOC/Blackwater facility in Karachi, according to the source, is nondescript: three trailers with various generators, satellite phones and computer systems are used as a makeshift operations center. "It's a very rudimentary operation," says the source. "I would compare it to [CIA] outposts in Kurdistan or any of the Special Forces outposts. It's very bare bones, and that's the point."
Blackwater's work for JSOC in Karachi is coordinated out of a Task Force based at Bagram Air Base in neighboring Afghanistan, according to the military intelligence source. While JSOC technically runs the operations in Karachi, he said, it is largely staffed by former US special operations soldiers working for a division of Blackwater, once known as Blackwater SELECT, and intelligence analysts working for a Blackwater affiliate, Total Intelligence Solutions (TIS), which is owned by Blackwater's founder, Erik Prince. The military source said that the name Blackwater SELECT may have been changed recently. Total Intelligence, which is run out of an office on the ninth floor of a building in the Ballston area of Arlington, Virginia, is staffed by former analysts and operatives from the CIA, DIA, FBI and other agencies. It is modeled after the CIA's counterterrorism center. In Karachi, TIS runs a "media-scouring/open-source network," according to the source. Until recently, Total Intelligence was run by two former top CIA officials, Cofer Black and Robert Richer, both of whom have left the company. In Pakistan, Blackwater is not using either its original name or its new moniker, Xe Services, according to the former Blackwater executive. "They are running most of their work through TIS because the other two [names] have such a stain on them," he said. Corallo, the Blackwater spokesperson, denied that TIS or any other division or affiliate of Blackwater has any personnel in Pakistan.
The US military intelligence source said that Blackwater's classified contracts keep getting renewed at the request of JSOC. Blackwater, he said, is already so deeply entrenched that it has become a staple of the US military operations in Pakistan. According to the former Blackwater executive, "The politics that go with the brand of BW is somewhat set aside because what you're doing is really one military guy to another." Blackwater's first known contract with the CIA for operations in Afghanistan was awarded in 2002 and was for work along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
One of the concerns raised by the military intelligence source is that some Blackwater personnel are being given rolling security clearances above their approved clearances. Using Alternative Compartmentalized Control Measures (ACCMs), he said, the Blackwater personnel are granted clearance to a Special Access Program, the bureaucratic term used to describe highly classified "black" operations. "With an ACCM, the security manager can grant access to you to be exposed to and operate within compartmentalized programs far above 'secret'--even though you have no business doing so," said the source. It allows Blackwater personnel that "do not have the requisite security clearance or do not hold a security clearance whatsoever to participate in classified operations by virtue of trust," he added. "Think of it as an ultra-exclusive level above top secret. That's exactly what it is: a circle of love." Blackwater, therefore, has access to "all source" reports that are culled in part from JSOC units in the field. "That's how a lot of things over the years have been conducted with contractors," said the source. "We have contractors that regularly see things that top policy-makers don't unless they ask."
According to the source, Blackwater has effectively marketed itself as a company whose operatives have "conducted lethal direct action missions and now, for a price, you can have your own planning cell. JSOC just ate that up," he said, adding, "They have a sizable force in Pakistan--not for any nefarious purpose if you really want to look at it that way--but to support a legitimate contract that's classified for JSOC." Blackwater's Pakistan JSOC contracts are secret and are therefore shielded from public oversight, he said. The source is not sure when the arrangement with JSOC began, but he says that a spin-off of Blackwater SELECT "was issued a no-bid contract for support to shooters for a JSOC Task Force and they kept extending it." Some of the Blackwater personnel, he said, work undercover as aid workers. "Nobody even gives them a second thought."
The military intelligence source said that the Blackwater/JSOC Karachi operation is referred to as "Qatar cubed," in reference to the US forward operating base in Qatar that served as the hub for the planning and implementation of the US invasion of Iraq. "This is supposed to be the brave new world," he says. "This is the Jamestown of the new millennium and it's meant to be a lily pad. You can jump off to Uzbekistan, you can jump back over the border, you can jump sideways, you can jump northwest. It's strategically located so that they can get their people wherever they have to without having to wrangle with the military chain of command in Afghanistan, which is convoluted. They don't have to deal with that because they're operating under a classified mandate."
In addition to planning drone strikes and operations against suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban forces in Pakistan for both JSOC and the CIA, the Blackwater team in Karachi also helps plan missions for JSOC inside Uzbekistan against the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, according to the military intelligence source. Blackwater does not actually carry out the operations, he said, which are executed on the ground by JSOC forces. "That piqued my curiosity and really worries me because I don't know if you noticed but I was never told we are at war with Uzbekistan," he said. "So, did I miss something, did Rumsfeld come back into power?"
Pakistan's Military Contracting Maze
Blackwater, according to the military intelligence source, is not doing the actual killing as part of its work in Pakistan. "The SELECT personnel are not going into places with private aircraft and going after targets," he said. "It's not like Blackwater SELECT people are running around assassinating people." Instead, US Special Forces teams carry out the plans developed in part by Blackwater. The military intelligence source drew a distinction between the Blackwater operatives who work for the State Department, which he calls "Blackwater Vanilla," and the seasoned Special Forces veterans who work on the JSOC program. "Good or bad, there's a small number of people who know how to pull off an operation like that. That's probably a good thing," said the source. "It's the Blackwater SELECT people that have and continue to plan these types of operations because they're the only people that know how and they went where the money was. It's not trigger-happy fucks, like some of the PSD [Personal Security Detail] guys. These are not people that believe that Barack Obama is a socialist, these are not people that kill innocent civilians. They're very good at what they do."
The former Blackwater executive, when asked for confirmation that Blackwater forces were not actively killing people in Pakistan, said, "that's not entirely accurate." While he concurred with the military intelligence source's description of the JSOC and CIA programs, he pointed to another role Blackwater is allegedly playing in Pakistan, not for the US government but for Islamabad. According to the executive, Blackwater works on a subcontract for Kestral Logistics, a powerful Pakistani firm, which specializes in military logistical support, private security and intelligence consulting. It is staffed with former high-ranking Pakistani army and government officials. While Kestral's main offices are in Pakistan, it also has branches in several other countries.
A spokesperson for the US 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 for The Nation that Blackwater has a license to work in Pakistan or to work with Kestral. "We cannot help you," said department spokesperson David McKeeby after checking with the relevant DDTC officials. "You'll have to contact the companies directly." Blackwater's Corallo said the company has "no operations of any kind" in Pakistan other than the one employee working for the DoD. Kestral did not respond to inquiries from The Nation.
According to federal lobbying records, Kestral recently hired former Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger Noriega, who served in that post from 2003 to 2005, 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." Noriega was hired through his firm, Vision Americas, which he runs with Christina Rocca, a former CIA operations official who served as assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs from 2001 to 2006 and was deeply involved in shaping US policy toward Pakistan. In October 2009, Kestral paid Vision Americas $15,000 and paid a Vision Americas-affiliated firm, Firecreek Ltd., an equal amount to lobby on defense and foreign policy issues.
For years, Kestral has done a robust business in defense logistics with the Pakistani government and other nations, as well as top US defense companies. 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."
The military intelligence source confirmed Blackwater works with the Frontier Corps, saying, "There's no real oversight. It's not really on people's radar screen."
In October, in response to Pakistani news reports that a Kestral warehouse in Islamabad was being used to store heavy weapons for Blackwater, the US Embassy in Pakistan released a statement denying the weapons were being used by "a private American security contractor." The statement said, "Kestral Logistics is a private logistics company that handles the importation of equipment and supplies provided by the United States to the Government of Pakistan. All of the equipment and supplies were imported at the request of the Government of Pakistan, which also certified the shipments."
Who is Behind the Drone Attacks?
Since President Barack Obama was inaugurated, the United States has expanded drone bombing raids in Pakistan. Obama first ordered a drone strike against targets in North and South Waziristan on January 23, and the strikes have been conducted consistently ever since. The Obama administration has now surpassed the number of Bush-era strikes in Pakistan and has faced fierce criticism from Pakistan and some US lawmakers over civilian deaths. A drone attack in June killed as many as sixty people attending a Taliban funeral.
In August, the New York Times reported that Blackwater works for the CIA at "hidden bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where the company's contractors assemble and load Hellfire missiles and 500-pound laser-guided bombs on remotely piloted Predator aircraft." In February, The Times of London obtained a satellite image of a secret CIA airbase in Shamsi, in Pakistan's southwestern province of Baluchistan, showing three drone aircraft. The New York Times also reported that the agency uses a secret base in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, to strike in Pakistan.
The military intelligence source says that the drone strike that reportedly killed Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, his wife and his bodyguards in Waziristan in August was a CIA strike, but that many others attributed in media reports to the CIA are actually JSOC strikes. "Some of these strikes are attributed to OGA [Other Government Agency, intelligence parlance for the CIA], but in reality it's JSOC and their parallel program of UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] because they also have access to UAVs. So when you see some of these hits, especially the ones with high civilian casualties, those are almost always JSOC strikes." The Pentagon has stated bluntly, "There are no US military strike operations being conducted in Pakistan."
The military intelligence source also confirmed that Blackwater continues to work for the CIA on its drone bombing program in Pakistan, as previously reported in the New York Times, but added that Blackwater is working on JSOC's drone bombings as well. "It's Blackwater running the program for both CIA and JSOC," said the source. When civilians are killed, "people go, 'Oh, it's the CIA doing crazy shit again unchecked.' Well, at least 50 percent of the time, that's JSOC [hitting] somebody they've identified through HUMINT [human intelligence] or they've culled the intelligence themselves or it's been shared with them and they take that person out and that's how it works."
The military intelligence source says that the CIA operations are subject to Congressional oversight, unlike the parallel JSOC bombings. "Targeted killings are not the most popular thing in town right now and the CIA knows that," he says. "Contractors and especially JSOC personnel working under a classified mandate are not [overseen by Congress], so they just don't care. If there's one person they're going after and there's thirty-four people in the building, thirty-five people are going to die. That's the mentality." He added, "They're not accountable to anybody and they know that. It's an open secret, but what are you going to do, shut down JSOC?"
In addition to working on covert action planning and drone strikes, Blackwater SELECT also provides private guards to perform the sensitive task of security for secret US drone bases, JSOC camps and Defense Intelligence Agency camps inside Pakistan, according to the military intelligence source.
Mosharraf Zaidi, a well-known Pakistani journalist who has served as a consultant for the UN and European Union in Pakistan and Afghanistan, says that the Blackwater/JSOC program raises serious questions about the norms of international relations. "The immediate question is, How do you define the active pursuit of military objectives in a country with which not only have you not declared war but that is supposedly a front-line non-NATO ally in the US struggle to contain extremist violence coming out of Afghanistan and the border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan?" asks Zaidi, who is currently a columnist for The News, the biggest English-language daily in Pakistan. "Let's forget Blackwater for a second. What this is confirming is that there are US military operations in Pakistan that aren't about logistics or getting food to Bagram; that are actually about the exercise of physical violence, physical force inside of Pakistani territory."
JSOC: Rumsfeld and Cheney's Extra Special Force
Colonel Wilkerson said that he is concerned that with General McChrystal's elevation as the military commander of the Afghan war--which is increasingly seeping into Pakistan--there is a concomitant rise in JSOC's power and influence within the military structure. "I don't see how you can escape that; it's just a matter of the way the authority flows and the power flows, and it's inevitable, I think," Wilkerson told The Nation. He added, "I'm alarmed when I see execute orders and combat orders that go out saying that the supporting force is Central Command and the supported force is Special Operations Command," under which JSOC operates. "That's backward. But that's essentially what we have today."
From 2003 to 2008 McChrystal headed JSOC, which is headquartered at Pope Air Force Base and Fort Bragg in North Carolina, where Blackwater's 7,000-acre operating base is also situated. JSOC controls the Army's Delta Force, the Navy's SEAL Team 6, as well as the Army's 75th Ranger Regiment and 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, and the Air Force's 24th Special Tactics Squadron. JSOC performs strike operations, reconnaissance in denied areas and special intelligence missions. Blackwater, which was founded by former Navy SEALs, employs scores of veteran Special Forces operators--which several former military officials pointed to as the basis for Blackwater's alleged contracts with JSOC.
Since 9/11, many top-level Special Forces veterans have taken up employment with private firms, where they can make more money doing the highly specialized work they did in uniform. "The Blackwater individuals have the experience. A lot of these individuals are retired military, and they've been around twenty to thirty years and have experience that the younger Green Beret guys don't," said retired Army Lieut. Col. Jeffrey Addicott, a well-connected military lawyer who served as senior legal counsel for US Army Special Forces. "They're known entities. Everybody knows who they are, what their capabilities are, and they've got the experience. They're very valuable."
"They make much more money being the smarts of these operations, planning hits in various countries and basing it off their experience in Chechnya, Bosnia, Somalia, Ethiopia," said the military intelligence source. "They were there for all of these things, they know what the hell they're talking about. And JSOC has unfortunately lost the institutional capability to plan within, so they hire back people that used to work for them and had already planned and executed these [types of] operations. They hired back people that jumped over to Blackwater SELECT and then pay them exorbitant amounts of money to plan future operations. It's a ridiculous revolving door."
While JSOC has long played a central role in US counterterrorism and covert operations, military and civilian officials who worked at the Defense and State Departments during the Bush administration described in interviews with The Nation an extremely cozy relationship that developed between the executive branch (primarily through Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld) and JSOC. During the Bush era, Special Forces turned into a virtual stand-alone operation that acted outside the military chain of command and in direct coordination with the White House. Throughout the Bush years, it was largely General McChrystal who ran JSOC. "What I was seeing was the development of what I would later see in Iraq and Afghanistan, where Special Operations forces would operate in both theaters without the conventional commander even knowing what they were doing," said Colonel Wilkerson. "That's dangerous, that's very dangerous. You have all kinds of mess when you don't tell the theater commander what you're doing."
Wilkerson said that almost immediately after assuming his role at the State Department under Colin Powell, he saw JSOC being politicized and developing a close relationship with the executive branch. He saw this begin, he said, after his first Delta Force briefing at Fort Bragg. "I think Cheney and Rumsfeld went directly into JSOC. I think they went into JSOC at times, perhaps most frequently, without the SOCOM [Special Operations] commander at the time even knowing it. The receptivity in JSOC was quite good," says Wilkerson. "I think Cheney was actually giving McChrystal instructions, and McChrystal was asking him for instructions." He said the relationship between JSOC and Cheney and Rumsfeld "built up initially because Rumsfeld didn't get the responsiveness. He didn't get the can-do kind of attitude out of the SOCOM commander, and so as Rumsfeld was wont to do, he cut him out and went straight to the horse's mouth. At that point you had JSOC operating as an extension of the [administration] doing things the executive branch--read: Cheney and Rumsfeld--wanted it to do. This would be more or less carte blanche. You need to do it, do it. It was very alarming for me as a conventional soldier."
Wilkerson said the JSOC teams caused diplomatic problems for the United States across the globe. "When these teams started hitting capital cities and other places all around the world, [Rumsfeld] didn't tell the State Department either. The only way we found out about it is our ambassadors started to call us and say, 'Who the hell are these six-foot-four white males with eighteen-inch biceps walking around our capital cities?' So we discovered this, we discovered one in South America, for example, because he actually murdered a taxi driver, and we had to get him out of there real quick. We rendered him--we rendered him home."
As part of their strategy, Rumsfeld and Cheney also created the Strategic Support Branch (SSB), which pulled intelligence resources from the Defense Intelligence Agency and the CIA for use in sensitive JSOC operations. The SSB was created using "reprogrammed" funds "without explicit congressional authority or appropriation," according to the Washington Post. The SSB operated outside the military chain of command and circumvented the CIA's authority on clandestine operations. Rumsfeld created it as part of his war to end "near total dependence on CIA." Under US law, the Defense Department is required to report all deployment orders to Congress. But guidelines issued in January 2005 by former Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone stated that Special Operations forces may "conduct clandestine HUMINT operations...before publication" of a deployment order. This effectively gave Rumsfeld unilateral control over clandestine operations.
The military intelligence source said that when Rumsfeld was defense secretary, JSOC was deployed to commit some of the "darkest acts" in part to keep them concealed from Congress. "Everything can be justified as a military operation versus a clandestine intelligence performed by the CIA, which has to be informed to Congress," said the source. "They were aware of that and they knew that, and they would exploit it at every turn and they took full advantage of it. They knew they could act extra-legally and nothing would happen because A, it was sanctioned by DoD at the highest levels, and B, who was going to stop them? They were preparing the battlefield, which was on all of the PowerPoints: 'Preparing the Battlefield.'"
The significance of the flexibility of JSOC's operations inside Pakistan versus the CIA's is best summed up by Senator Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. "Every single intelligence operation and covert action must be briefed to the Congress," she said. "If they are not, that is a violation of the law."
Blackwater: Company Non Grata in Pakistan
For months, the Pakistani media has been flooded with stories about Blackwater's alleged growing presence in the country. For the most part, these stories have been ignored by the US press and denounced as lies or propaganda by US officials in Pakistan. But the reality is that, although many of the stories appear to be wildly exaggerated, Pakistanis have good reason to be concerned about Blackwater's operations in their country. It is no secret in Washington or Islamabad that Blackwater has been a central part of the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan and that the company has been involved--almost from the beginning of the "war on terror"--with clandestine US operations. Indeed, Blackwater is accepting applications for contractors fluent in Urdu and Punjabi. The US Ambassador to Pakistan, Anne Patterson, has denied Blackwater's presence in the country, stating bluntly in September, "Blackwater is not operating in Pakistan." In her trip to Pakistan in October, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dodged questions from the Pakistani press about Blackwater's rumored Pakistani operations. Pakistan's interior minister, Rehman Malik, said on November 21 he will resign if Blackwater is found operating anywhere in Pakistan.
The Christian Science Monitor recently reported that Blackwater "provides security for a US-backed aid project" in Peshawar, suggesting the company may be based out of the Pearl Continental, a luxury hotel the United States reportedly is considering purchasing to use as a consulate in the city. "We have no contracts in Pakistan," Blackwater spokesperson Stacey DeLuke said recently. "We've been blamed for all that has gone wrong in Peshawar, none of which is true, since we have absolutely no presence there."
Reports of Blackwater's alleged presence in Karachi and elsewhere in the country have been floating around the Pakistani press for months. Hamid Mir, a prominent Pakistani journalist who rose to fame after his 1997 interview with Osama bin Laden, claimed in a recent interview that Blackwater is in Karachi. "The US [intelligence] agencies think that a number of Al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders are hiding in Karachi and Peshawar," he said. "That is why [Blackwater] agents are operating in these two cities." Ambassador Patterson has said that the claims of Mir and other Pakistani journalists are "wildly incorrect," saying they had compromised the security of US personnel in Pakistan. On November 20 the Washington Times, citing three current and former US intelligence officials, reported that Mullah Mohammed Omar, the leader of the Afghan Taliban, has "found refuge from potential U.S. attacks" in Karachi "with the assistance of Pakistan's intelligence service."
In September, the Pakistani press covered a report on Blackwater allegedly submitted by Pakistan's intelligence agencies to the federal interior ministry. In the report, the intelligence agencies reportedly allege that Blackwater was provided houses by a federal minister who is also helping them clear shipments of weapons and vehicles through Karachi's Port Qasim on the coast of the Arabian Sea. The military intelligence source did not confirm this but did say, "The port jives because they have a lot of [former] SEALs and they would revert to what they know: the ocean, instead of flying stuff in."
The Nation cannot independently confirm these allegations and has not seen the Pakistani intelligence report. But according to Pakistani press coverage, the intelligence report also said Blackwater has acquired "bungalows" in the Defense Housing Authority in the city. According to the DHA website, it is a large residential estate originally established "for the welfare of the serving and retired officers of the Armed Forces of Pakistan." Its motto is: "Home for Defenders." The report alleges Blackwater is receiving help from local government officials in Karachi and is using vehicles with license plates traditionally assigned to members of the national and provincial assemblies, meaning local law enforcement will not stop them.
The use of private companies like Blackwater for sensitive operations such as drone strikes or other covert work undoubtedly comes with the benefit of plausible deniability that places an additional barrier in an already deeply flawed system of accountability. When things go wrong, it's the contractors' fault, not the government's. But the widespread use of contractors also raises serious legal questions, particularly when they are a part of lethal, covert actions. "We are using contractors for things that in the past might have been considered to be a violation of the Geneva Convention," said Lt. Col. Addicott, who now runs the Center for Terrorism Law at St. Mary's University School of Law in San Antonio, Texas. "In my opinion, we have pressed the envelope to the breaking limit, and it's almost a fiction that these guys are not in offensive military operations." Addicott added, "If we were subjected to the International Criminal Court, some of these guys could easily be picked up, charged with war crimes and put on trial. That's one of the reasons we're not members of the International Criminal Court."
If there is one quality that has defined Blackwater over the past decade, it is the ability to survive against the odds while simultaneously reinventing and rebranding itself. That is most evident in Afghanistan, where the company continues to work for the US military, the CIA and the State Department despite intense criticism and almost weekly scandals. Blackwater's alleged Pakistan operations, said the military intelligence source, are indicative of its new frontier. "Having learned its lessons after the private security contracting fiasco in Iraq, Blackwater has shifted its operational focus to two venues: protecting things that are in danger and anticipating other places we're going to go as a nation that are dangerous," he said. "It's as simple as that."
The source, who has worked on covert US military programs for years, including in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has direct knowledge of Blackwater's involvement. He spoke to The Nation on condition of anonymity because the program is classified. The source said that the program is so "compartmentalized" that senior figures within the Obama administration and the US military chain of command may not be aware of its existence.
The White House did not return calls or email messages seeking comment for this story. Capt. John Kirby, the spokesperson for Adm. Michael Mullen, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told The Nation, "We do not discuss current operations one way or the other, regardless of their nature." A defense official, on background, specifically denied that Blackwater performs work on drone strikes or intelligence for JSOC in Pakistan. "We don't have any contracts to do that work for us. We don't contract that kind of work out, period," the official said. "There has not been, and is not now, contracts between JSOC and that organization for these types of services."
The previously unreported program, the military intelligence source said, is distinct from the CIA assassination program that the agency's director, Leon Panetta, announced he had canceled in June 2009. "This is a parallel operation to the CIA," said the source. "They are two separate beasts." The program puts Blackwater at the epicenter of a US military operation within the borders of a nation against which the United States has not declared war--knowledge that could further strain the already tense relations between the United States and Pakistan. In 2006, the United States and Pakistan struck a deal that authorized JSOC to enter Pakistan to hunt Osama bin Laden with the understanding that Pakistan would deny it had given permission. Officially, the United States is not supposed to have any active military operations in the country.
Blackwater, which recently changed its name to Xe Services and US Training Center, denies the company is operating in Pakistan. "Xe Services has only one employee in Pakistan performing construction oversight for the U.S. Government," Blackwater spokesperson Mark Corallo said in a statement to The Nation, adding that the company has "no other operations of any kind in Pakistan."
A former senior executive at Blackwater confirmed the military intelligence source's claim that the company is working in Pakistan for the CIA and JSOC, the premier counterterrorism and covert operations force within the military. He said that Blackwater is also working for the Pakistani government on a subcontract with an Islamabad-based security firm that puts US Blackwater operatives on the ground with Pakistani forces in counter-terrorism operations, including house raids and border interdictions, in the North-West Frontier Province and elsewhere in Pakistan. This arrangement, the former executive said, allows the Pakistani government to utilize former US Special Operations forces who now work for Blackwater while denying an official US military presence in the country. He also confirmed that Blackwater has a facility in Karachi and has personnel deployed elsewhere in Pakistan. The former executive spoke on condition of anonymity.
His account and that of the military intelligence source were borne out by a US military source who has knowledge of Special Forces actions in Pakistan and Afghanistan. When asked about Blackwater's covert work for JSOC in Pakistan, this source, who also asked for anonymity, told The Nation, "From my information that I have, that is absolutely correct," adding, "There's no question that's occurring."
"It wouldn't surprise me because we've outsourced nearly everything," said Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff from 2002 to 2005, when told of Blackwater's role in Pakistan. Wilkerson said that during his time in the Bush administration, he saw the beginnings of Blackwater's involvement with the sensitive operations of the military and CIA. "Part of this, of course, is an attempt to get around the constraints the Congress has placed on DoD. If you don't have sufficient soldiers to do it, you hire civilians to do it. I mean, it's that simple. It would not surprise me."
The Counterterrorism Tag Team in Karachi
The covert JSOC program with Blackwater in Pakistan dates back to at least 2007, according to the military intelligence source. The current head of JSOC is Vice Adm. William McRaven, who took over the post from Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who headed JSOC from 2003 to 2008 before being named the top US commander in Afghanistan. Blackwater's presence in Pakistan is "not really visible, and that's why nobody has cracked down on it," said the source. Blackwater's operations in Pakistan, he said, are not done through State Department contracts or publicly identified Defense contracts. "It's Blackwater via JSOC, and it's a classified no-bid [contract] approved on a rolling basis." The main JSOC/Blackwater facility in Karachi, according to the source, is nondescript: three trailers with various generators, satellite phones and computer systems are used as a makeshift operations center. "It's a very rudimentary operation," says the source. "I would compare it to [CIA] outposts in Kurdistan or any of the Special Forces outposts. It's very bare bones, and that's the point."
Blackwater's work for JSOC in Karachi is coordinated out of a Task Force based at Bagram Air Base in neighboring Afghanistan, according to the military intelligence source. While JSOC technically runs the operations in Karachi, he said, it is largely staffed by former US special operations soldiers working for a division of Blackwater, once known as Blackwater SELECT, and intelligence analysts working for a Blackwater affiliate, Total Intelligence Solutions (TIS), which is owned by Blackwater's founder, Erik Prince. The military source said that the name Blackwater SELECT may have been changed recently. Total Intelligence, which is run out of an office on the ninth floor of a building in the Ballston area of Arlington, Virginia, is staffed by former analysts and operatives from the CIA, DIA, FBI and other agencies. It is modeled after the CIA's counterterrorism center. In Karachi, TIS runs a "media-scouring/open-source network," according to the source. Until recently, Total Intelligence was run by two former top CIA officials, Cofer Black and Robert Richer, both of whom have left the company. In Pakistan, Blackwater is not using either its original name or its new moniker, Xe Services, according to the former Blackwater executive. "They are running most of their work through TIS because the other two [names] have such a stain on them," he said. Corallo, the Blackwater spokesperson, denied that TIS or any other division or affiliate of Blackwater has any personnel in Pakistan.
The US military intelligence source said that Blackwater's classified contracts keep getting renewed at the request of JSOC. Blackwater, he said, is already so deeply entrenched that it has become a staple of the US military operations in Pakistan. According to the former Blackwater executive, "The politics that go with the brand of BW is somewhat set aside because what you're doing is really one military guy to another." Blackwater's first known contract with the CIA for operations in Afghanistan was awarded in 2002 and was for work along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
One of the concerns raised by the military intelligence source is that some Blackwater personnel are being given rolling security clearances above their approved clearances. Using Alternative Compartmentalized Control Measures (ACCMs), he said, the Blackwater personnel are granted clearance to a Special Access Program, the bureaucratic term used to describe highly classified "black" operations. "With an ACCM, the security manager can grant access to you to be exposed to and operate within compartmentalized programs far above 'secret'--even though you have no business doing so," said the source. It allows Blackwater personnel that "do not have the requisite security clearance or do not hold a security clearance whatsoever to participate in classified operations by virtue of trust," he added. "Think of it as an ultra-exclusive level above top secret. That's exactly what it is: a circle of love." Blackwater, therefore, has access to "all source" reports that are culled in part from JSOC units in the field. "That's how a lot of things over the years have been conducted with contractors," said the source. "We have contractors that regularly see things that top policy-makers don't unless they ask."
According to the source, Blackwater has effectively marketed itself as a company whose operatives have "conducted lethal direct action missions and now, for a price, you can have your own planning cell. JSOC just ate that up," he said, adding, "They have a sizable force in Pakistan--not for any nefarious purpose if you really want to look at it that way--but to support a legitimate contract that's classified for JSOC." Blackwater's Pakistan JSOC contracts are secret and are therefore shielded from public oversight, he said. The source is not sure when the arrangement with JSOC began, but he says that a spin-off of Blackwater SELECT "was issued a no-bid contract for support to shooters for a JSOC Task Force and they kept extending it." Some of the Blackwater personnel, he said, work undercover as aid workers. "Nobody even gives them a second thought."
The military intelligence source said that the Blackwater/JSOC Karachi operation is referred to as "Qatar cubed," in reference to the US forward operating base in Qatar that served as the hub for the planning and implementation of the US invasion of Iraq. "This is supposed to be the brave new world," he says. "This is the Jamestown of the new millennium and it's meant to be a lily pad. You can jump off to Uzbekistan, you can jump back over the border, you can jump sideways, you can jump northwest. It's strategically located so that they can get their people wherever they have to without having to wrangle with the military chain of command in Afghanistan, which is convoluted. They don't have to deal with that because they're operating under a classified mandate."
In addition to planning drone strikes and operations against suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban forces in Pakistan for both JSOC and the CIA, the Blackwater team in Karachi also helps plan missions for JSOC inside Uzbekistan against the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, according to the military intelligence source. Blackwater does not actually carry out the operations, he said, which are executed on the ground by JSOC forces. "That piqued my curiosity and really worries me because I don't know if you noticed but I was never told we are at war with Uzbekistan," he said. "So, did I miss something, did Rumsfeld come back into power?"
Pakistan's Military Contracting Maze
Blackwater, according to the military intelligence source, is not doing the actual killing as part of its work in Pakistan. "The SELECT personnel are not going into places with private aircraft and going after targets," he said. "It's not like Blackwater SELECT people are running around assassinating people." Instead, US Special Forces teams carry out the plans developed in part by Blackwater. The military intelligence source drew a distinction between the Blackwater operatives who work for the State Department, which he calls "Blackwater Vanilla," and the seasoned Special Forces veterans who work on the JSOC program. "Good or bad, there's a small number of people who know how to pull off an operation like that. That's probably a good thing," said the source. "It's the Blackwater SELECT people that have and continue to plan these types of operations because they're the only people that know how and they went where the money was. It's not trigger-happy fucks, like some of the PSD [Personal Security Detail] guys. These are not people that believe that Barack Obama is a socialist, these are not people that kill innocent civilians. They're very good at what they do."
The former Blackwater executive, when asked for confirmation that Blackwater forces were not actively killing people in Pakistan, said, "that's not entirely accurate." While he concurred with the military intelligence source's description of the JSOC and CIA programs, he pointed to another role Blackwater is allegedly playing in Pakistan, not for the US government but for Islamabad. According to the executive, Blackwater works on a subcontract for Kestral Logistics, a powerful Pakistani firm, which specializes in military logistical support, private security and intelligence consulting. It is staffed with former high-ranking Pakistani army and government officials. While Kestral's main offices are in Pakistan, it also has branches in several other countries.
A spokesperson for the US 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 for The Nation that Blackwater has a license to work in Pakistan or to work with Kestral. "We cannot help you," said department spokesperson David McKeeby after checking with the relevant DDTC officials. "You'll have to contact the companies directly." Blackwater's Corallo said the company has "no operations of any kind" in Pakistan other than the one employee working for the DoD. Kestral did not respond to inquiries from The Nation.
According to federal lobbying records, Kestral recently hired former Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger Noriega, who served in that post from 2003 to 2005, 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." Noriega was hired through his firm, Vision Americas, which he runs with Christina Rocca, a former CIA operations official who served as assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs from 2001 to 2006 and was deeply involved in shaping US policy toward Pakistan. In October 2009, Kestral paid Vision Americas $15,000 and paid a Vision Americas-affiliated firm, Firecreek Ltd., an equal amount to lobby on defense and foreign policy issues.
For years, Kestral has done a robust business in defense logistics with the Pakistani government and other nations, as well as top US defense companies. 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."
The military intelligence source confirmed Blackwater works with the Frontier Corps, saying, "There's no real oversight. It's not really on people's radar screen."
In October, in response to Pakistani news reports that a Kestral warehouse in Islamabad was being used to store heavy weapons for Blackwater, the US Embassy in Pakistan released a statement denying the weapons were being used by "a private American security contractor." The statement said, "Kestral Logistics is a private logistics company that handles the importation of equipment and supplies provided by the United States to the Government of Pakistan. All of the equipment and supplies were imported at the request of the Government of Pakistan, which also certified the shipments."
Who is Behind the Drone Attacks?
Since President Barack Obama was inaugurated, the United States has expanded drone bombing raids in Pakistan. Obama first ordered a drone strike against targets in North and South Waziristan on January 23, and the strikes have been conducted consistently ever since. The Obama administration has now surpassed the number of Bush-era strikes in Pakistan and has faced fierce criticism from Pakistan and some US lawmakers over civilian deaths. A drone attack in June killed as many as sixty people attending a Taliban funeral.
In August, the New York Times reported that Blackwater works for the CIA at "hidden bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where the company's contractors assemble and load Hellfire missiles and 500-pound laser-guided bombs on remotely piloted Predator aircraft." In February, The Times of London obtained a satellite image of a secret CIA airbase in Shamsi, in Pakistan's southwestern province of Baluchistan, showing three drone aircraft. The New York Times also reported that the agency uses a secret base in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, to strike in Pakistan.
The military intelligence source says that the drone strike that reportedly killed Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, his wife and his bodyguards in Waziristan in August was a CIA strike, but that many others attributed in media reports to the CIA are actually JSOC strikes. "Some of these strikes are attributed to OGA [Other Government Agency, intelligence parlance for the CIA], but in reality it's JSOC and their parallel program of UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] because they also have access to UAVs. So when you see some of these hits, especially the ones with high civilian casualties, those are almost always JSOC strikes." The Pentagon has stated bluntly, "There are no US military strike operations being conducted in Pakistan."
The military intelligence source also confirmed that Blackwater continues to work for the CIA on its drone bombing program in Pakistan, as previously reported in the New York Times, but added that Blackwater is working on JSOC's drone bombings as well. "It's Blackwater running the program for both CIA and JSOC," said the source. When civilians are killed, "people go, 'Oh, it's the CIA doing crazy shit again unchecked.' Well, at least 50 percent of the time, that's JSOC [hitting] somebody they've identified through HUMINT [human intelligence] or they've culled the intelligence themselves or it's been shared with them and they take that person out and that's how it works."
The military intelligence source says that the CIA operations are subject to Congressional oversight, unlike the parallel JSOC bombings. "Targeted killings are not the most popular thing in town right now and the CIA knows that," he says. "Contractors and especially JSOC personnel working under a classified mandate are not [overseen by Congress], so they just don't care. If there's one person they're going after and there's thirty-four people in the building, thirty-five people are going to die. That's the mentality." He added, "They're not accountable to anybody and they know that. It's an open secret, but what are you going to do, shut down JSOC?"
In addition to working on covert action planning and drone strikes, Blackwater SELECT also provides private guards to perform the sensitive task of security for secret US drone bases, JSOC camps and Defense Intelligence Agency camps inside Pakistan, according to the military intelligence source.
Mosharraf Zaidi, a well-known Pakistani journalist who has served as a consultant for the UN and European Union in Pakistan and Afghanistan, says that the Blackwater/JSOC program raises serious questions about the norms of international relations. "The immediate question is, How do you define the active pursuit of military objectives in a country with which not only have you not declared war but that is supposedly a front-line non-NATO ally in the US struggle to contain extremist violence coming out of Afghanistan and the border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan?" asks Zaidi, who is currently a columnist for The News, the biggest English-language daily in Pakistan. "Let's forget Blackwater for a second. What this is confirming is that there are US military operations in Pakistan that aren't about logistics or getting food to Bagram; that are actually about the exercise of physical violence, physical force inside of Pakistani territory."
JSOC: Rumsfeld and Cheney's Extra Special Force
Colonel Wilkerson said that he is concerned that with General McChrystal's elevation as the military commander of the Afghan war--which is increasingly seeping into Pakistan--there is a concomitant rise in JSOC's power and influence within the military structure. "I don't see how you can escape that; it's just a matter of the way the authority flows and the power flows, and it's inevitable, I think," Wilkerson told The Nation. He added, "I'm alarmed when I see execute orders and combat orders that go out saying that the supporting force is Central Command and the supported force is Special Operations Command," under which JSOC operates. "That's backward. But that's essentially what we have today."
From 2003 to 2008 McChrystal headed JSOC, which is headquartered at Pope Air Force Base and Fort Bragg in North Carolina, where Blackwater's 7,000-acre operating base is also situated. JSOC controls the Army's Delta Force, the Navy's SEAL Team 6, as well as the Army's 75th Ranger Regiment and 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, and the Air Force's 24th Special Tactics Squadron. JSOC performs strike operations, reconnaissance in denied areas and special intelligence missions. Blackwater, which was founded by former Navy SEALs, employs scores of veteran Special Forces operators--which several former military officials pointed to as the basis for Blackwater's alleged contracts with JSOC.
Since 9/11, many top-level Special Forces veterans have taken up employment with private firms, where they can make more money doing the highly specialized work they did in uniform. "The Blackwater individuals have the experience. A lot of these individuals are retired military, and they've been around twenty to thirty years and have experience that the younger Green Beret guys don't," said retired Army Lieut. Col. Jeffrey Addicott, a well-connected military lawyer who served as senior legal counsel for US Army Special Forces. "They're known entities. Everybody knows who they are, what their capabilities are, and they've got the experience. They're very valuable."
"They make much more money being the smarts of these operations, planning hits in various countries and basing it off their experience in Chechnya, Bosnia, Somalia, Ethiopia," said the military intelligence source. "They were there for all of these things, they know what the hell they're talking about. And JSOC has unfortunately lost the institutional capability to plan within, so they hire back people that used to work for them and had already planned and executed these [types of] operations. They hired back people that jumped over to Blackwater SELECT and then pay them exorbitant amounts of money to plan future operations. It's a ridiculous revolving door."
While JSOC has long played a central role in US counterterrorism and covert operations, military and civilian officials who worked at the Defense and State Departments during the Bush administration described in interviews with The Nation an extremely cozy relationship that developed between the executive branch (primarily through Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld) and JSOC. During the Bush era, Special Forces turned into a virtual stand-alone operation that acted outside the military chain of command and in direct coordination with the White House. Throughout the Bush years, it was largely General McChrystal who ran JSOC. "What I was seeing was the development of what I would later see in Iraq and Afghanistan, where Special Operations forces would operate in both theaters without the conventional commander even knowing what they were doing," said Colonel Wilkerson. "That's dangerous, that's very dangerous. You have all kinds of mess when you don't tell the theater commander what you're doing."
Wilkerson said that almost immediately after assuming his role at the State Department under Colin Powell, he saw JSOC being politicized and developing a close relationship with the executive branch. He saw this begin, he said, after his first Delta Force briefing at Fort Bragg. "I think Cheney and Rumsfeld went directly into JSOC. I think they went into JSOC at times, perhaps most frequently, without the SOCOM [Special Operations] commander at the time even knowing it. The receptivity in JSOC was quite good," says Wilkerson. "I think Cheney was actually giving McChrystal instructions, and McChrystal was asking him for instructions." He said the relationship between JSOC and Cheney and Rumsfeld "built up initially because Rumsfeld didn't get the responsiveness. He didn't get the can-do kind of attitude out of the SOCOM commander, and so as Rumsfeld was wont to do, he cut him out and went straight to the horse's mouth. At that point you had JSOC operating as an extension of the [administration] doing things the executive branch--read: Cheney and Rumsfeld--wanted it to do. This would be more or less carte blanche. You need to do it, do it. It was very alarming for me as a conventional soldier."
Wilkerson said the JSOC teams caused diplomatic problems for the United States across the globe. "When these teams started hitting capital cities and other places all around the world, [Rumsfeld] didn't tell the State Department either. The only way we found out about it is our ambassadors started to call us and say, 'Who the hell are these six-foot-four white males with eighteen-inch biceps walking around our capital cities?' So we discovered this, we discovered one in South America, for example, because he actually murdered a taxi driver, and we had to get him out of there real quick. We rendered him--we rendered him home."
As part of their strategy, Rumsfeld and Cheney also created the Strategic Support Branch (SSB), which pulled intelligence resources from the Defense Intelligence Agency and the CIA for use in sensitive JSOC operations. The SSB was created using "reprogrammed" funds "without explicit congressional authority or appropriation," according to the Washington Post. The SSB operated outside the military chain of command and circumvented the CIA's authority on clandestine operations. Rumsfeld created it as part of his war to end "near total dependence on CIA." Under US law, the Defense Department is required to report all deployment orders to Congress. But guidelines issued in January 2005 by former Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone stated that Special Operations forces may "conduct clandestine HUMINT operations...before publication" of a deployment order. This effectively gave Rumsfeld unilateral control over clandestine operations.
The military intelligence source said that when Rumsfeld was defense secretary, JSOC was deployed to commit some of the "darkest acts" in part to keep them concealed from Congress. "Everything can be justified as a military operation versus a clandestine intelligence performed by the CIA, which has to be informed to Congress," said the source. "They were aware of that and they knew that, and they would exploit it at every turn and they took full advantage of it. They knew they could act extra-legally and nothing would happen because A, it was sanctioned by DoD at the highest levels, and B, who was going to stop them? They were preparing the battlefield, which was on all of the PowerPoints: 'Preparing the Battlefield.'"
The significance of the flexibility of JSOC's operations inside Pakistan versus the CIA's is best summed up by Senator Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. "Every single intelligence operation and covert action must be briefed to the Congress," she said. "If they are not, that is a violation of the law."
Blackwater: Company Non Grata in Pakistan
For months, the Pakistani media has been flooded with stories about Blackwater's alleged growing presence in the country. For the most part, these stories have been ignored by the US press and denounced as lies or propaganda by US officials in Pakistan. But the reality is that, although many of the stories appear to be wildly exaggerated, Pakistanis have good reason to be concerned about Blackwater's operations in their country. It is no secret in Washington or Islamabad that Blackwater has been a central part of the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan and that the company has been involved--almost from the beginning of the "war on terror"--with clandestine US operations. Indeed, Blackwater is accepting applications for contractors fluent in Urdu and Punjabi. The US Ambassador to Pakistan, Anne Patterson, has denied Blackwater's presence in the country, stating bluntly in September, "Blackwater is not operating in Pakistan." In her trip to Pakistan in October, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dodged questions from the Pakistani press about Blackwater's rumored Pakistani operations. Pakistan's interior minister, Rehman Malik, said on November 21 he will resign if Blackwater is found operating anywhere in Pakistan.
The Christian Science Monitor recently reported that Blackwater "provides security for a US-backed aid project" in Peshawar, suggesting the company may be based out of the Pearl Continental, a luxury hotel the United States reportedly is considering purchasing to use as a consulate in the city. "We have no contracts in Pakistan," Blackwater spokesperson Stacey DeLuke said recently. "We've been blamed for all that has gone wrong in Peshawar, none of which is true, since we have absolutely no presence there."
Reports of Blackwater's alleged presence in Karachi and elsewhere in the country have been floating around the Pakistani press for months. Hamid Mir, a prominent Pakistani journalist who rose to fame after his 1997 interview with Osama bin Laden, claimed in a recent interview that Blackwater is in Karachi. "The US [intelligence] agencies think that a number of Al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders are hiding in Karachi and Peshawar," he said. "That is why [Blackwater] agents are operating in these two cities." Ambassador Patterson has said that the claims of Mir and other Pakistani journalists are "wildly incorrect," saying they had compromised the security of US personnel in Pakistan. On November 20 the Washington Times, citing three current and former US intelligence officials, reported that Mullah Mohammed Omar, the leader of the Afghan Taliban, has "found refuge from potential U.S. attacks" in Karachi "with the assistance of Pakistan's intelligence service."
In September, the Pakistani press covered a report on Blackwater allegedly submitted by Pakistan's intelligence agencies to the federal interior ministry. In the report, the intelligence agencies reportedly allege that Blackwater was provided houses by a federal minister who is also helping them clear shipments of weapons and vehicles through Karachi's Port Qasim on the coast of the Arabian Sea. The military intelligence source did not confirm this but did say, "The port jives because they have a lot of [former] SEALs and they would revert to what they know: the ocean, instead of flying stuff in."
The Nation cannot independently confirm these allegations and has not seen the Pakistani intelligence report. But according to Pakistani press coverage, the intelligence report also said Blackwater has acquired "bungalows" in the Defense Housing Authority in the city. According to the DHA website, it is a large residential estate originally established "for the welfare of the serving and retired officers of the Armed Forces of Pakistan." Its motto is: "Home for Defenders." The report alleges Blackwater is receiving help from local government officials in Karachi and is using vehicles with license plates traditionally assigned to members of the national and provincial assemblies, meaning local law enforcement will not stop them.
The use of private companies like Blackwater for sensitive operations such as drone strikes or other covert work undoubtedly comes with the benefit of plausible deniability that places an additional barrier in an already deeply flawed system of accountability. When things go wrong, it's the contractors' fault, not the government's. But the widespread use of contractors also raises serious legal questions, particularly when they are a part of lethal, covert actions. "We are using contractors for things that in the past might have been considered to be a violation of the Geneva Convention," said Lt. Col. Addicott, who now runs the Center for Terrorism Law at St. Mary's University School of Law in San Antonio, Texas. "In my opinion, we have pressed the envelope to the breaking limit, and it's almost a fiction that these guys are not in offensive military operations." Addicott added, "If we were subjected to the International Criminal Court, some of these guys could easily be picked up, charged with war crimes and put on trial. That's one of the reasons we're not members of the International Criminal Court."
If there is one quality that has defined Blackwater over the past decade, it is the ability to survive against the odds while simultaneously reinventing and rebranding itself. That is most evident in Afghanistan, where the company continues to work for the US military, the CIA and the State Department despite intense criticism and almost weekly scandals. Blackwater's alleged Pakistan operations, said the military intelligence source, are indicative of its new frontier. "Having learned its lessons after the private security contracting fiasco in Iraq, Blackwater has shifted its operational focus to two venues: protecting things that are in danger and anticipating other places we're going to go as a nation that are dangerous," he said. "It's as simple as that."
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009
One Laptop per Child
The mission of One Laptop per Child (OLPC) is to empower the children of developing countries to learn by providing one connected laptop to every school-age child. In order to accomplish our goal, we need people who believe in what we’re doing and want to help make education for the world’s children a priority, not a privilege. It’s not a laptop project. It’s an education project In 2002, MIT Professor Nicholas Negroponte experienced first-hand how connected laptops transformed the lives of children and their families in a remote Cambodian village. A seed was planted: If every child in the world had access to a computer, what potential could be unlocked? What problems could be solved? These questions eventually led to the foundation of One Laptop per Child, and the creation of the XO laptop.
OLPC’s mission is to provide a means for learning, self-expression, and exploration to the nearly two billion children of the developing world with little or no access to education. While children are by nature eager for knowledge, many countries have insufficient resources to devote to education—sometimes less than $20 per year per child (compared to an average of $7,500 in the United States). By giving children their very own connected XO laptop, we are giving them a window to the outside world, access to vast amounts of information, a way to connect with each other, and a springboard into their future. And we’re also helping these countries develop an essential resource—educated, empowered children. Most of the nearly two–billion children in the developing world are inadequately educated, or receive no education at all. One in three does not complete the fifth grade. The individual and societal consequences of this chronic global crisis are profound. Children are consigned to poverty and isolation—just like their parents—never knowing what the light of learning could mean in their lives. At the same time, their governments struggle to compete in a rapidly evolving, global information economy, hobbled by a vast and increasingly urban underclass that cannot support itself, much less contribute to the commonwealth, because it lacks the tools to do so. It is time to rethink this equation. Given the resources that developing countries can reasonably allocate to education—sometimes less than $20 per year per pupil, compared to the approximately $7500 per pupil spent annually in the U.S.—even a doubled or redoubled national commitment to traditional education, augmented by external and private funding, would not get the job done. Moreover, experience strongly suggests that an incremental increase of “more of the same”—building schools, hiring teachers, buying books and equipment—is a laudable but insufficient response to the problem of bringing true learning possibilities to the vast numbers of children in the developing world. Standing still is a reliable recipe for going backward. Any nation’s most precious natural resource is its children. We believe the emerging world must leverage this resource by tapping into the children’s innate capacities to learn, share, and create on their own.
OLPC’s mission is to provide a means for learning, self-expression, and exploration to the nearly two billion children of the developing world with little or no access to education. While children are by nature eager for knowledge, many countries have insufficient resources to devote to education—sometimes less than $20 per year per child (compared to an average of $7,500 in the United States). By giving children their very own connected XO laptop, we are giving them a window to the outside world, access to vast amounts of information, a way to connect with each other, and a springboard into their future. And we’re also helping these countries develop an essential resource—educated, empowered children. Most of the nearly two–billion children in the developing world are inadequately educated, or receive no education at all. One in three does not complete the fifth grade. The individual and societal consequences of this chronic global crisis are profound. Children are consigned to poverty and isolation—just like their parents—never knowing what the light of learning could mean in their lives. At the same time, their governments struggle to compete in a rapidly evolving, global information economy, hobbled by a vast and increasingly urban underclass that cannot support itself, much less contribute to the commonwealth, because it lacks the tools to do so. It is time to rethink this equation. Given the resources that developing countries can reasonably allocate to education—sometimes less than $20 per year per pupil, compared to the approximately $7500 per pupil spent annually in the U.S.—even a doubled or redoubled national commitment to traditional education, augmented by external and private funding, would not get the job done. Moreover, experience strongly suggests that an incremental increase of “more of the same”—building schools, hiring teachers, buying books and equipment—is a laudable but insufficient response to the problem of bringing true learning possibilities to the vast numbers of children in the developing world. Standing still is a reliable recipe for going backward. Any nation’s most precious natural resource is its children. We believe the emerging world must leverage this resource by tapping into the children’s innate capacities to learn, share, and create on their own.
Monday, November 2, 2009
The Conspiracy Files - The Truth Behind The Third Tower
59:14 - 9 months ago
The documentary updates an edition of The Conspiracy Files shown earlier this year. It features new interviews with the lead official investigator and an important new eyewitness together with architects, scientists and others who think there was a sinister plot to destroy the building. World Trade Centre Building 7 has become the subject of heated speculation and a host conspiracy theories suggesting it was brought down by a controlled demolition. There is little photographic evidence of the building on 9/11. Yet seven hours after the Twin Towers collapsed, this third huge tower at the World Trade Centre collapsed in a matter of seconds. Afterwards, the thousands of tonnes of steel from the building were taken away to be melted down in the Far East. From the outside it was an anonymous building, but it housed some unusual tenants: the CIA, the Secret Service, the Pentagon and the very agency meant to combat terrorist attacks in New York, the Office of Emergency Management. Some people think WTC 7 had to be demolished because it is where plans were hatched for a massive conspiracy on 9/11. Official investigators concluded that fire caused the collapse of this third tower at the World Trade Centre. But that makes this the first and only skyscraper in the world to collapse because of fire. The Conspiracy Files explores the questions that continue to be raised and tries to find out what really happened. Produced and Directed by Mike Rudin Assistant Producer: James Giles The documentary updates an edition of The Conspiracy Files shown earlier this year. It features new interviews with the lead official investigator and an important new eyewitness together with architects, scientists and others who think there was a sinister plot to destroy the building. World Trade Centre Building 7 has become the subject of heated speculation and a host conspiracy theories suggesting it was brought down by a controlled demolition. There is little photographic evidence of the building on 9/11. Yet seven hours after the Twin Towers collapsed, this third huge tower at the World Trade Centre collapsed in a matter of seconds. Afterwards, the thousands of tonnes of steel from the building were taken away to be melted down in the Far East. From the outside it was an anonymous building, but it housed some unusual tenants: the CIA, the Secret Service, the Pentagon and the very agency meant to combat terrorist attacks in New York, the Office of Emergency Management. Some people t...all » The documentary updates an edition of The Conspiracy Files shown earlier this year. It features new interviews with the lead official investigator and an important new eyewitness together with architects, scientists and others who think there was a sinister plot to destroy the building. World Trade Centre Building 7 has become the subject of heated speculation and a host conspiracy theories suggesting it was brought down by a controlled demolition. There is little photographic evidence of the building on 9/11. Yet seven hours after the Twin Towers collapsed, this third huge tower at the World Trade Centre collapsed in a matter of seconds. Afterwards, the thousands of tonnes of steel from the building were taken away to be melted down in the Far East. From the outside it was an anonymous building, but it housed some unusual tenants: the CIA, the Secret Service, the Pentagon and the very agency meant to combat terrorist attacks in New York, the Office of Emergency Management. Some people think WTC 7 had to be demolished because it is where plans were hatched for a massive conspiracy on 9/11. Official investigators concluded that fire caused the collapse of this third tower at the World Trade Centre. But that makes this the first and only skyscraper in the world to collapse because of fire. The Conspiracy Files explores the questions that continue to be raised and tries to find out what really happened. Produced and Directed by Mike Rudin Assistant Producer: James Giles
Ex agente revela actividades de terrorismo y narcotráfico de la DEA
Celerino Castillo III es un ex agente de la policía estadounidense antidroga, DEA, que trabajó para el gobierno de Estados Unidos en América Latina desde 1984 a 1991. Denuncia cómo agentes de la DEA y de la CIA introducían grandes cantidades de droga en Estados Unidos, a fin de adquirir narcodólares para financiar asesinatos y actos terroristas de los contras en todo Centroamérica. Conozca cómo Estados Unidos ayudó al terrorista Luis Posada Carriles a escapar de la cárcel en Venezuela.
Fernando Velázquez, del colectivo radial Pueblos Sin Fronteras, de Radio Pacífica, de Estados Unidos, entrevistó a Celerino Castillo III, ex agente condecorado de la DEA, que trabajó en Guatemala, Salvador, Honduras y Belize entre 1984 y 1991, y autor del libro "Quemaduras de pólvora" (Powder Burns). Por su interés y la actualidad de las denuncias, publicamos esta entrevista, grabada en mayo de 2007.
Celerino Castillo III junto al ex presidente George Bush
El agente cubano de la CIA Félix Rodríguez, quien se jacta de haber participado en el asesinato del Che.
Hablemos de Luis Posada Carriles. ¿Cómo lo conoció, bajo qué circunstancias y qué clase de trabajo o tareas hacían?
Todo comenzó cuando el cubano de la CIA estuvo trabajando en El Salvador en el hangar número 4, y el número 5 era de la CIA. En ese tiempo, el teniente coronel Oliver North y Félix Rodríguez ayudaron a Luis Posada a escapar de la prisión en Venezuela. Ellos se lo trajeron al aeropuerto de Ilopango para que él trabajara en las llamadas "Casas de seguridad" (Safe-houses) de los pilotos que transportaban armas y drogas y que volaban a Ilopango. Él estaba encargado de un almacén pagándole, trabajó en la embajada estadounidense del Salvador, a cargo de sus dos coroneles.
Luis Posada trabajaba en Guatemala también, y en ese tiempo yo lo conocí no tanto en El Salvador como en Guatemala. Él andaba haciendo unos operativos encubiertos con unos nicaragüenses de los contras, y andaban haciendo planes de trabajo de cómo infiltrar y hacer esas cosas contra Nicaragua. Ahí es donde yo lo conocí a eĺ. Me lo presentó un agente de la CIA que se llamaba Randy Capster, y ese es el famoso Randy que estuvo involucrado en el secuestro de la monjita americana Diana Ortiz. Fue cuando estaban entrenando los escuadrones de la muerte en Guatemala y en El Salvador.
Quién los estaba entrenando?
La CIA y la DEA, la G-2. Recuérdese que en ese tiempo (1984-85-86) los Estados Unidos le habían quitado la ayuda a Guatemala y a los países cercanos porque violaban los derechos humanos. Usaron una compañía del Departamento de Estado que se llama AID. Los fondos que nos daban a la DEA pasaban del narcotráfico finalmente eran para la G-2, ayudando a la G-2 con unos "centavos" porque el Departamento de Defensa no podía darle dinero, ya que habían cortado la ayuda. Bajo cubierto, con la DEA, lavaron el dinero que le estaban dando a los contras y al Ejército.
¿Ellos estaban trabajando con el narcotráfico junto con la G-2 o todavía no?
Sí, la DEA ya estaba trabajando. Por ejemplo, nosotros estábamos echándole combustible a las avionetas que venían de Colombia, cargadas de cocaína. El otro agente de la DEA, que se llamaba Russell Reina, él decía que iba a decomisar el cargamento de ese avión llegando a los Estados Unidos, y después de 5 ó 6 avionetas que estábamos llenando de combustible nosotros, pues finalmente nunca las estaban agarrando. El señor Reina decía que habían cambiado el plan de vuelo yendo para los Estados Unidos, y la verdad es que eran cargamentos de los contras, que estaban llevando coca a los Estados Unidos, para darles dinero a los contras.
¿Y qué hacía Luis Posada Carriles en ese momento?
Posada Carriles en el 88 ya estaba ahí trabajando en Ilopango. Él estaba ayudando a Félix Rodríguez y a Oliver North. Nosotros sabemos eso porque teníamos una fuente en Ilopango, que nos avisaba de los cargamentos que entraban y salían. Nosotros sabíamos que estaba allí Luis Posada y que él se había escapado. Todo el mundo sabía: el embajador, la CIA, Jack McCavettt que era el jefe de estación allí en El Salvador sabía. Y se habían traído diez permisos para Luis Posada para trabajar en Ilopango, con Félix Rodríguez y con Oliver North.
Cuál era la función de Posada Carriles en ese momento?
Posada estaba encargado de pagarles a todos los pilotos de los contras que estaban llegando a Ilopango, y todos los nicaragüenses que estaban trabajando bajo cubierto hacían los operativos y se venían a Ilopango. Entonces, Luis Posada los ponía en "safe-houses", casas de seguridad donde podían vivir y hacer sus planes. Allí fue donde hicieron el plan para poner las minas en los puertos de Nicaragua. Esos se los entregó a Luis Posada un individuo que se llamaba Grashine. El famoso Grashine, que era un tipo que trabajaba con la CIA, involucrado en el tráfico de drogas, que le decomisaron en Miami una cantidad de coca. Él era conocido pero presentaba credenciales. Recuerdo que andaba Chico Guirola con él. Chico Guirola era un salvadoreño que trabajaba con el presidente Cristiani, y que le agarraron con 5 millones de dólares en Texas, y lo andaba siguiendo la aduana de los Estados Unidos, le decomisaron el dinero, y al final le devolvieron la avioneta y el dinero porque la CIA ordenó que estaba trabajando con los contras.
Luis Posada Carriles se envolvió en alguna contratación de mercenarios o de gente que iba a poner bombas o explosivos en esa época?
Así es. Luis Posada era parte de la operación para poner minas en Nicaragua, para volar los barcos que estaban llegando de otros países con gas y petróleo.
¿Qué me dice usted de Rodríguez? ¿Él tenía una posición más elevada que Carriles o tenían el mismo poder?
No, Félix Rodríguez ya estaba sentado con Oliver North. Tenía una posición un poquito más alta, porque Félix trabajaba nada más en Ilopango, y Luis Posada trabajaba en todo lo que era América Central. Anduvo en Honduras, con John Negroponte, cuando era el embajador. Estuvo en Guatemala trabajando, fue cuando yo lo conocí. Posada trabajaba en todo lo que eran las vueltas en El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras y Guatemala.
¿Y este Félix Rodríguez es un presumido o realmente estuvo envuelto en el golpe contra Salvador Allende en Chile y el asesinato del Che Guevara en Bolivia?
¿Y este Félix Rodríguez es un presumido o realmente estuvo envuelto en el golpe contra Salvador Allende en Chile y el asesinato del Che Guevara en Bolivia?
Yo recuerdo que él era famoso por esa historia cuando yo llegué, pero lo que me chocaba mucho es que Félix Rodríguez decía que él era un oficial del Ejército de los Estados Unidos, y Félix Rodríguez entró a los Estados Unidos ilegalmente en los 60s. La CIA lo puso como oficial encubierto y lo comenzaron a mandar a "basic training", entrenamiento básico del Ejército. Él no terminó, se salió para trabajar con la CIA. Para ser un oficial del Ejército de los Estados Unidos, tienes que estar 125 días seguidos de entrenamiento y recibirte del entrenamiento básico y el avanzado. Félix Rodríguez nunca llegó a eso. A él le dieron de baja, porque se quiso ir a trabajar con la CIA.
Pero él tenía mucha autoridad en las operaciones que hacía.
Sí, porque en ese tiempo todos los cubanos eran anticomunistas contra Cuba. A ellos los dejó la CIA involucrarse en el tráfico de drogas. Hubo un operativo muy grande en los 70, que estuvieron involucrados en el tráfico de cocaína y en el tráfico de heroína. La DEA y el Departamento de Justicia detuvo a 150 cubanos que estaban trabajando con la CIA y a todos los encerraron. Esta gente venía a asesinar gente por la CIA.
¿Pero también los soltaron después o se quedaron encerrados?
Los soltaron a todos, lógicamente. Por ejemplo a Orlando Bosch, cuando estuvo involucrado con Luis Posada, ¿qué crees que hizo el presidente Bush? Le quitó los cargos en Miami.
Fernando Velázquez, del colectivo radial Pueblos Sin Fronteras, de Radio Pacífica, de Estados Unidos, entrevistó a Celerino Castillo III, ex agente condecorado de la DEA, que trabajó en Guatemala, Salvador, Honduras y Belize entre 1984 y 1991, y autor del libro "Quemaduras de pólvora" (Powder Burns). Por su interés y la actualidad de las denuncias, publicamos esta entrevista, grabada en mayo de 2007.
Celerino Castillo III junto al ex presidente George Bush
El agente cubano de la CIA Félix Rodríguez, quien se jacta de haber participado en el asesinato del Che.
Hablemos de Luis Posada Carriles. ¿Cómo lo conoció, bajo qué circunstancias y qué clase de trabajo o tareas hacían?
Todo comenzó cuando el cubano de la CIA estuvo trabajando en El Salvador en el hangar número 4, y el número 5 era de la CIA. En ese tiempo, el teniente coronel Oliver North y Félix Rodríguez ayudaron a Luis Posada a escapar de la prisión en Venezuela. Ellos se lo trajeron al aeropuerto de Ilopango para que él trabajara en las llamadas "Casas de seguridad" (Safe-houses) de los pilotos que transportaban armas y drogas y que volaban a Ilopango. Él estaba encargado de un almacén pagándole, trabajó en la embajada estadounidense del Salvador, a cargo de sus dos coroneles.
Luis Posada trabajaba en Guatemala también, y en ese tiempo yo lo conocí no tanto en El Salvador como en Guatemala. Él andaba haciendo unos operativos encubiertos con unos nicaragüenses de los contras, y andaban haciendo planes de trabajo de cómo infiltrar y hacer esas cosas contra Nicaragua. Ahí es donde yo lo conocí a eĺ. Me lo presentó un agente de la CIA que se llamaba Randy Capster, y ese es el famoso Randy que estuvo involucrado en el secuestro de la monjita americana Diana Ortiz. Fue cuando estaban entrenando los escuadrones de la muerte en Guatemala y en El Salvador.
Quién los estaba entrenando?
La CIA y la DEA, la G-2. Recuérdese que en ese tiempo (1984-85-86) los Estados Unidos le habían quitado la ayuda a Guatemala y a los países cercanos porque violaban los derechos humanos. Usaron una compañía del Departamento de Estado que se llama AID. Los fondos que nos daban a la DEA pasaban del narcotráfico finalmente eran para la G-2, ayudando a la G-2 con unos "centavos" porque el Departamento de Defensa no podía darle dinero, ya que habían cortado la ayuda. Bajo cubierto, con la DEA, lavaron el dinero que le estaban dando a los contras y al Ejército.
¿Ellos estaban trabajando con el narcotráfico junto con la G-2 o todavía no?
Sí, la DEA ya estaba trabajando. Por ejemplo, nosotros estábamos echándole combustible a las avionetas que venían de Colombia, cargadas de cocaína. El otro agente de la DEA, que se llamaba Russell Reina, él decía que iba a decomisar el cargamento de ese avión llegando a los Estados Unidos, y después de 5 ó 6 avionetas que estábamos llenando de combustible nosotros, pues finalmente nunca las estaban agarrando. El señor Reina decía que habían cambiado el plan de vuelo yendo para los Estados Unidos, y la verdad es que eran cargamentos de los contras, que estaban llevando coca a los Estados Unidos, para darles dinero a los contras.
¿Y qué hacía Luis Posada Carriles en ese momento?
Posada Carriles en el 88 ya estaba ahí trabajando en Ilopango. Él estaba ayudando a Félix Rodríguez y a Oliver North. Nosotros sabemos eso porque teníamos una fuente en Ilopango, que nos avisaba de los cargamentos que entraban y salían. Nosotros sabíamos que estaba allí Luis Posada y que él se había escapado. Todo el mundo sabía: el embajador, la CIA, Jack McCavettt que era el jefe de estación allí en El Salvador sabía. Y se habían traído diez permisos para Luis Posada para trabajar en Ilopango, con Félix Rodríguez y con Oliver North.
Cuál era la función de Posada Carriles en ese momento?
Posada estaba encargado de pagarles a todos los pilotos de los contras que estaban llegando a Ilopango, y todos los nicaragüenses que estaban trabajando bajo cubierto hacían los operativos y se venían a Ilopango. Entonces, Luis Posada los ponía en "safe-houses", casas de seguridad donde podían vivir y hacer sus planes. Allí fue donde hicieron el plan para poner las minas en los puertos de Nicaragua. Esos se los entregó a Luis Posada un individuo que se llamaba Grashine. El famoso Grashine, que era un tipo que trabajaba con la CIA, involucrado en el tráfico de drogas, que le decomisaron en Miami una cantidad de coca. Él era conocido pero presentaba credenciales. Recuerdo que andaba Chico Guirola con él. Chico Guirola era un salvadoreño que trabajaba con el presidente Cristiani, y que le agarraron con 5 millones de dólares en Texas, y lo andaba siguiendo la aduana de los Estados Unidos, le decomisaron el dinero, y al final le devolvieron la avioneta y el dinero porque la CIA ordenó que estaba trabajando con los contras.
Luis Posada Carriles se envolvió en alguna contratación de mercenarios o de gente que iba a poner bombas o explosivos en esa época?
Así es. Luis Posada era parte de la operación para poner minas en Nicaragua, para volar los barcos que estaban llegando de otros países con gas y petróleo.
¿Qué me dice usted de Rodríguez? ¿Él tenía una posición más elevada que Carriles o tenían el mismo poder?
No, Félix Rodríguez ya estaba sentado con Oliver North. Tenía una posición un poquito más alta, porque Félix trabajaba nada más en Ilopango, y Luis Posada trabajaba en todo lo que era América Central. Anduvo en Honduras, con John Negroponte, cuando era el embajador. Estuvo en Guatemala trabajando, fue cuando yo lo conocí. Posada trabajaba en todo lo que eran las vueltas en El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras y Guatemala.
¿Y este Félix Rodríguez es un presumido o realmente estuvo envuelto en el golpe contra Salvador Allende en Chile y el asesinato del Che Guevara en Bolivia?
¿Y este Félix Rodríguez es un presumido o realmente estuvo envuelto en el golpe contra Salvador Allende en Chile y el asesinato del Che Guevara en Bolivia?
Yo recuerdo que él era famoso por esa historia cuando yo llegué, pero lo que me chocaba mucho es que Félix Rodríguez decía que él era un oficial del Ejército de los Estados Unidos, y Félix Rodríguez entró a los Estados Unidos ilegalmente en los 60s. La CIA lo puso como oficial encubierto y lo comenzaron a mandar a "basic training", entrenamiento básico del Ejército. Él no terminó, se salió para trabajar con la CIA. Para ser un oficial del Ejército de los Estados Unidos, tienes que estar 125 días seguidos de entrenamiento y recibirte del entrenamiento básico y el avanzado. Félix Rodríguez nunca llegó a eso. A él le dieron de baja, porque se quiso ir a trabajar con la CIA.
Pero él tenía mucha autoridad en las operaciones que hacía.
Sí, porque en ese tiempo todos los cubanos eran anticomunistas contra Cuba. A ellos los dejó la CIA involucrarse en el tráfico de drogas. Hubo un operativo muy grande en los 70, que estuvieron involucrados en el tráfico de cocaína y en el tráfico de heroína. La DEA y el Departamento de Justicia detuvo a 150 cubanos que estaban trabajando con la CIA y a todos los encerraron. Esta gente venía a asesinar gente por la CIA.
¿Pero también los soltaron después o se quedaron encerrados?
Los soltaron a todos, lógicamente. Por ejemplo a Orlando Bosch, cuando estuvo involucrado con Luis Posada, ¿qué crees que hizo el presidente Bush? Le quitó los cargos en Miami.
Killer flu recreated in the lab
Scientists have shown that tiny changes to modern flu viruses could render them as deadly as the 1918 strain which killed millions.
A US team added two genes from a sample of the 1918 virus to a modern strain known to have no effect on mice.
Animals exposed to this composite were dying within days of symptoms similar to those found in human victims of the 1918 pandemic.
The research is published in the journal Nature.
The lesson is not to be complacent about anything to do with flu
Professor John Oxford
The work of the US team, lead by Dr Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin, was carried out under the tightest security.
Experts focused on two genes thought to play a key role in the infection process.
One controls production of a spike-like molecule called haemagglutinin (HA), believed to be used by the flu virus to attach itself to the cells it is about to infect.
Previous research published earlier this year in the journal Science identified the HA gene as being the crucial element which made the 1918 virus so deadly - and the latest work appears to confirm this.
Post mortems on mice injected in the nose with the composite virus showed that it had rampaged through their lungs, producing inflammation and haemorrhaging.
The researchers stress the experiment is conclusive for lab mice, and not humans.
Better monitoring
But they say that their work may lead to better ways to assess the potential danger of emerging flu viruses.
Writing in Nature, the researchers say: "Once the properties of the (1918) HA gene that gave rise to its lethal infectivity are better understood, it should be possible to devise effective control measures and to improve global surveillance networks for influenza viruses that pose the greatest threat to humans as well as other animal species."
Scientists believe the 1918 virus leapt to humans by mutating from bird flu, possibly after passing through pigs, which are able to harbour both human and avian viruses and thus allow them to swap genes as the viruses reproduce.
For that reason, experts are deeply concerned that the avian flu that has broken out in poultry flocks in parts of south-east Asia may acquire genes that will make it highly infectious as well as lethal for humans.
Professor John Oxford, an expert in virology at Queen Mary College London, told BBC News Online the latest research underlined just what a threat all flu viruses potentially posed.
He said: "It is not a big difference at all between a virus that kills 15m people and one that does not kill anyone at all.
"The lesson is not to be complacent about anything to do with flu. Every flu virus must be carrying baggage that could potentially harm us, and we would be well advised not to ignore them."
Many deaths
The 1918 "Spanish" flu pandemic is estimated to have infected up to one billion people - half the world's population at the time.
The virus killed more people than any other single outbreak of disease, surpassing even the Black Death of the Middle Ages.
Although it probably originated in the Far East, it was dubbed "Spanish" flu because the press in Spain - not being involved in World War I - were the first to report extensively on its impact.
The virus caused three waves of disease. The second of these, between September and December 1918, resulting in the heaviest loss of life.
It is thought that the virus may have played a role in ending World War I as soldiers were too sick to fight, and by that stage more men on both sides died of flu than were killed by weapons.
Although most people who were infected with the virus recovered within a week following bed rest, some died within 24 hours of infection.
Expertos alertan sobre guerra biológica y negocio de Donald Rumsfeld con la "gripe porcina"
El informativo Pacífica entrevistó a distintos expertos en Estados Unidos y México, que alertan sobre la elaboración de armas químicas en los laboratorios del Pentágono y los millonarios beneficios para las transnacionales farmacéuticas. En este caso, para los laboratorios Gilead Sciences Inc. dirigidos por Donald Rumsfeld, que tienen los derechos sobre el fármaco "Tamiflu", que se está vendiendo como remedio para la gripe y que ya hizo una recaudación billonaria con la gripe aviar.
Prensa Web YVKE, con información de Pacífica
Lunes, 27 de Abr de 2009. 11:48 am
¿Sabía usted que el virus de la influenza porcina apareció por primera vez en Estados Unidos y que el único medicamento al que parece responder es producido por un laboratorio del que es directivo y propietario Donald Rumsfeld?
Reporte de Pacífica: Gripe porcina y guerra biológica. (Tamaño: 12.8 MB)
Vea también:
Fuerza Armada de EEUU obtuvo el genoma del virus H1N1: ¿Por qué no hacemos nuestro propio Tamiflu?
¿Por qué llamarla "gripe porcina" si aún no se ha aislado en animales?
¡Sabrá Dios qué peste soltó el Imperio!
Un revelador trabajo de investigación del Informativo Pacífica, elaborado por el colectivo periodístico con base en California Pueblos Sin Fronteras, plantea varias interrogantes que los medios hegemónicos de comunicación han obviado, en su afán por generar terror entre la población.
¿Cuál es el origen del nuevo virus que ya ha matado a más de cien personas en México? ¿A quién beneficia esta epidemia? ¿Qué otras noticias está sepultando? ¿Para qué se está utilizando la emergencia en México?
El reporte de Fernando Velázquez menciona un artículo de la investigadora Lori Price en el sitio web Globalresearch.ca , titulado "La gripe acaba con los memos de la tortura", en el que ésta señala que la influenza porcina, fabricada probablemente en laboratorios militares de Estados Unidos, ha acabado con la noticia de los memos sobre la tortura ordenada por la Agencia Central de Inteligencia (CIA) contra prisioneros en Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, y cárceles secretas.
El artículo mencionado señala que un investigador de biodefensa indonesio declaró el año pasado que Estados Unidos ya podía fabricar armas biológicas en el laboratorio de Los Álamos, usando muestras de la gripe aviar enviadas por Indonesia a la Organización Mundial de la Salud. Detalles sobre el tema aparecen en el libro "Es tiempo de que cambie el mundo: manos divinas detrás de la gripe aviar", escrito por el ministro de Salud indonesio.
Lori Price subraya que la actual histeria provocada por el virus porcino podría dar grandes ganancias a Donald Rumsfeld. El ex secretario de Defensa de Bush es directivo desde hace 20 años del laboratorio Gilead Sciences, Inc. la firma con sede en California que fabrica y tiene los derechos de "Tamiflu", el supuesto remedio contra la influenza que aterroriza al mundo.
Fernando Velázquez también entrevistó para su reporte al periodista Ralph Schoenman, productor del programa radial "Taking Aim" (Apuntando) que se transmite en la emisora WBAI de Nueva York. Schoenman afirma que los laboratorios militarizados a lo largo de Estados Unidos han estado perfeccionando armas biológicas con los virus porcino, aviar, el asiático y otras enfermedades para las que no hay respuesta inmunológica.
"En laboratorios de nivel 4 y 5 en todo el país las enfermedades más virulentas han sido alteradas de tal forma que no hay defensa contra ellas, y han sido arrojadas en varias partes del mundo. Se han dispersado en África, y han sido monitoreadas por militares estadounidenses", afirma Schoenman.
Velázquez también menciona en su reporte el libro "Clouds of Secrecy" (Nubes de secretos), del profesor de políticas de Salud Pública Leonard Cole, quien documenta que por 40 años el Pentágono ha estado esparciendo billones de bacilos I en el metro de Nueva York, en las escuelas públicas de Minneapolis y Saint Louis y, en particular, en la bahía de San Francisco. En esa ciudad, los efectos fueron un incremento en un 10% de meningitis de la espina dorsal. El número de personas impactadas por el bacilo I asciende a 10 millones.
Velázquez recuerda el libro "Matando la esperanza", donde William Bloom describe que en 1971 la central de inteligencia proveyó a exiliados cubanos con un virus que causa fiebre porcina africana. Seis semanas después, un brote de la enfermedad obligó al gobierno cubano a sacrificar a medio millón de puercos. Diez años después la población fue atacada por una epidemia de dengue transmitida por mosquitos, que se extendió por la isla enfermando a más de 300 mil personas y matando a 158 (de los que más de un centenar eran niños menores de 15 años).
Reporta también Fernando Velázquez que documentos desclasificados en 1956 y 1958 revelan que el ejército estadounidense crió grandes cantidades de mosquitos en La Florida y en Georgia para ver si los insectos podían ser usados como armas diseminando enfermedades, y que en 1969 más de 500 estudiantes de 36 países se graduaron en cursos sobre guerra epidemiológica en la escuela de química del ejército en Fort McClellan en Alabama.
Prensa Web YVKE, con información de Pacífica
Lunes, 27 de Abr de 2009. 11:48 am
¿Sabía usted que el virus de la influenza porcina apareció por primera vez en Estados Unidos y que el único medicamento al que parece responder es producido por un laboratorio del que es directivo y propietario Donald Rumsfeld?
Reporte de Pacífica: Gripe porcina y guerra biológica. (Tamaño: 12.8 MB)
Vea también:
Fuerza Armada de EEUU obtuvo el genoma del virus H1N1: ¿Por qué no hacemos nuestro propio Tamiflu?
¿Por qué llamarla "gripe porcina" si aún no se ha aislado en animales?
¡Sabrá Dios qué peste soltó el Imperio!
Un revelador trabajo de investigación del Informativo Pacífica, elaborado por el colectivo periodístico con base en California Pueblos Sin Fronteras, plantea varias interrogantes que los medios hegemónicos de comunicación han obviado, en su afán por generar terror entre la población.
¿Cuál es el origen del nuevo virus que ya ha matado a más de cien personas en México? ¿A quién beneficia esta epidemia? ¿Qué otras noticias está sepultando? ¿Para qué se está utilizando la emergencia en México?
El reporte de Fernando Velázquez menciona un artículo de la investigadora Lori Price en el sitio web Globalresearch.ca , titulado "La gripe acaba con los memos de la tortura", en el que ésta señala que la influenza porcina, fabricada probablemente en laboratorios militares de Estados Unidos, ha acabado con la noticia de los memos sobre la tortura ordenada por la Agencia Central de Inteligencia (CIA) contra prisioneros en Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, y cárceles secretas.
El artículo mencionado señala que un investigador de biodefensa indonesio declaró el año pasado que Estados Unidos ya podía fabricar armas biológicas en el laboratorio de Los Álamos, usando muestras de la gripe aviar enviadas por Indonesia a la Organización Mundial de la Salud. Detalles sobre el tema aparecen en el libro "Es tiempo de que cambie el mundo: manos divinas detrás de la gripe aviar", escrito por el ministro de Salud indonesio.
Lori Price subraya que la actual histeria provocada por el virus porcino podría dar grandes ganancias a Donald Rumsfeld. El ex secretario de Defensa de Bush es directivo desde hace 20 años del laboratorio Gilead Sciences, Inc. la firma con sede en California que fabrica y tiene los derechos de "Tamiflu", el supuesto remedio contra la influenza que aterroriza al mundo.
Fernando Velázquez también entrevistó para su reporte al periodista Ralph Schoenman, productor del programa radial "Taking Aim" (Apuntando) que se transmite en la emisora WBAI de Nueva York. Schoenman afirma que los laboratorios militarizados a lo largo de Estados Unidos han estado perfeccionando armas biológicas con los virus porcino, aviar, el asiático y otras enfermedades para las que no hay respuesta inmunológica.
"En laboratorios de nivel 4 y 5 en todo el país las enfermedades más virulentas han sido alteradas de tal forma que no hay defensa contra ellas, y han sido arrojadas en varias partes del mundo. Se han dispersado en África, y han sido monitoreadas por militares estadounidenses", afirma Schoenman.
Velázquez también menciona en su reporte el libro "Clouds of Secrecy" (Nubes de secretos), del profesor de políticas de Salud Pública Leonard Cole, quien documenta que por 40 años el Pentágono ha estado esparciendo billones de bacilos I en el metro de Nueva York, en las escuelas públicas de Minneapolis y Saint Louis y, en particular, en la bahía de San Francisco. En esa ciudad, los efectos fueron un incremento en un 10% de meningitis de la espina dorsal. El número de personas impactadas por el bacilo I asciende a 10 millones.
Velázquez recuerda el libro "Matando la esperanza", donde William Bloom describe que en 1971 la central de inteligencia proveyó a exiliados cubanos con un virus que causa fiebre porcina africana. Seis semanas después, un brote de la enfermedad obligó al gobierno cubano a sacrificar a medio millón de puercos. Diez años después la población fue atacada por una epidemia de dengue transmitida por mosquitos, que se extendió por la isla enfermando a más de 300 mil personas y matando a 158 (de los que más de un centenar eran niños menores de 15 años).
Reporta también Fernando Velázquez que documentos desclasificados en 1956 y 1958 revelan que el ejército estadounidense crió grandes cantidades de mosquitos en La Florida y en Georgia para ver si los insectos podían ser usados como armas diseminando enfermedades, y que en 1969 más de 500 estudiantes de 36 países se graduaron en cursos sobre guerra epidemiológica en la escuela de química del ejército en Fort McClellan en Alabama.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Crece el apoyo al paro nacional en Puerto Rico
Por LAURA N. PEREZ SANCHEZ
The Associated Press
SAN JUAN -- Tras varias semanas de protestas y actos de desobediencia civil, organizaciones civiles alistan un paro nacional para el jueves en repudio al despido de más de 20.000 empleados públicos.
Varios economistas advirtieron el miércoles que las cesantías prolongarán la recesión económica en la isla y que el paro de un día tendrá un impacto económico de al menos 32 millones de dólares.
Jefes de familia despedidos se mostraron esperanzados en que el gobernador Luis Fortuño escuche el reclamo del paro nacional y revierta las cesantías.
"Yo espero que si este hombre (Fortuño) tiene un poquito de compasión con los que no tenemos nada... eche para atrás todo este disparate que ha cometido. Creo que es indigno quitarle el trabajo a otro", manifestó Adolfo Ayala, un oficial administrativo del Departamento de Educación de 40 años.
Según el reverendo metodista Juan Vera de la organización Todo Puerto Rico por Puerto Rico, que encabeza el paro nacional, "una masa inmensa paralizará el país como señal de que esa es la vocación y el sentir de toda la sociedad puertorriqueña".
Plaza Las Américas, el centro comercial más grande del Caribe, permanecerá cerrado el jueves como una medida de seguridad ante la celebración en sus alrededores del paro nacional. En los 300 establecimientos del centro comercial laboran unos 10.000 empleados y recibe más de 50.000 visitantes al día.
La televisora WAPA mostró trabajadores colocando paneles de madera en algunas puertas del complejo comercial como parte de los preparativos por la manifestación.
La presidenta de la Asociación de Economistas, Martha Quiñones, dijo que en diciembre de 2008 la firma evaluadora de crédito Standard & Poors advirtió al gobierno que reducir el gasto público sin asegurarse de que el sector privado podía absorber a los trabajadores despedidos podría "aumentar la brecha recesionaria".
Según la Cámara de Comercio, a lo largo de 2009 se han perdido al menos 4.000 empleos mensuales en el sector privado.
La Junta de Reestructuración y Estabilización Fiscal, nombrada por Fortuño, anunció en septiembre el despido de 16.970 empleados gubernamentales para reducir el déficit fiscal por 3.200 millones de dólares.
Otros 7.816 empleados fueron destituidos en mayo, pero poco más de 3.000 maestros transitorios y conserjes tuvieron que ser reclutados nuevamente al inicio del curso escolar en agosto.
Los manifestantes planifican reunirse temprano en diversos puntos de la capital y marchar hasta converger en la entrada principal del centro comercial Plaza Las Américas, cuyos dueños no han descartado la posibilidad de detener operaciones debido al posible bloqueo de las vías de acceso.
Varias organizaciones obreras han anunciado su intención de paralizar la actividad económica en ese centro comercial, el más grande de Puerto Rico.
Fortuño advirtió que se podrían radicar cargos de terrorismo contra los que entorpezcan el flujo de suministros en los muelles y puertos del país, pero la fiscalía estadounidense en la isla dijo que, para llegar a esa conclusión, habría que analizar cada caso.
La tasa de desempleo ascendió a 15,8% en septiembre y el gobierno estima que subirá a 17,1% cuando la mayoría de los 16.970 empleados públicos queden sin trabajo el 6 de noviembre.
Transmisión en vivo del Paro Nacional desde los diferentes puntos.
The Associated Press
SAN JUAN -- Tras varias semanas de protestas y actos de desobediencia civil, organizaciones civiles alistan un paro nacional para el jueves en repudio al despido de más de 20.000 empleados públicos.
Varios economistas advirtieron el miércoles que las cesantías prolongarán la recesión económica en la isla y que el paro de un día tendrá un impacto económico de al menos 32 millones de dólares.
Jefes de familia despedidos se mostraron esperanzados en que el gobernador Luis Fortuño escuche el reclamo del paro nacional y revierta las cesantías.
"Yo espero que si este hombre (Fortuño) tiene un poquito de compasión con los que no tenemos nada... eche para atrás todo este disparate que ha cometido. Creo que es indigno quitarle el trabajo a otro", manifestó Adolfo Ayala, un oficial administrativo del Departamento de Educación de 40 años.
Según el reverendo metodista Juan Vera de la organización Todo Puerto Rico por Puerto Rico, que encabeza el paro nacional, "una masa inmensa paralizará el país como señal de que esa es la vocación y el sentir de toda la sociedad puertorriqueña".
Plaza Las Américas, el centro comercial más grande del Caribe, permanecerá cerrado el jueves como una medida de seguridad ante la celebración en sus alrededores del paro nacional. En los 300 establecimientos del centro comercial laboran unos 10.000 empleados y recibe más de 50.000 visitantes al día.
La televisora WAPA mostró trabajadores colocando paneles de madera en algunas puertas del complejo comercial como parte de los preparativos por la manifestación.
La presidenta de la Asociación de Economistas, Martha Quiñones, dijo que en diciembre de 2008 la firma evaluadora de crédito Standard & Poors advirtió al gobierno que reducir el gasto público sin asegurarse de que el sector privado podía absorber a los trabajadores despedidos podría "aumentar la brecha recesionaria".
Según la Cámara de Comercio, a lo largo de 2009 se han perdido al menos 4.000 empleos mensuales en el sector privado.
La Junta de Reestructuración y Estabilización Fiscal, nombrada por Fortuño, anunció en septiembre el despido de 16.970 empleados gubernamentales para reducir el déficit fiscal por 3.200 millones de dólares.
Otros 7.816 empleados fueron destituidos en mayo, pero poco más de 3.000 maestros transitorios y conserjes tuvieron que ser reclutados nuevamente al inicio del curso escolar en agosto.
Los manifestantes planifican reunirse temprano en diversos puntos de la capital y marchar hasta converger en la entrada principal del centro comercial Plaza Las Américas, cuyos dueños no han descartado la posibilidad de detener operaciones debido al posible bloqueo de las vías de acceso.
Varias organizaciones obreras han anunciado su intención de paralizar la actividad económica en ese centro comercial, el más grande de Puerto Rico.
Fortuño advirtió que se podrían radicar cargos de terrorismo contra los que entorpezcan el flujo de suministros en los muelles y puertos del país, pero la fiscalía estadounidense en la isla dijo que, para llegar a esa conclusión, habría que analizar cada caso.
La tasa de desempleo ascendió a 15,8% en septiembre y el gobierno estima que subirá a 17,1% cuando la mayoría de los 16.970 empleados públicos queden sin trabajo el 6 de noviembre.
Transmisión en vivo del Paro Nacional desde los diferentes puntos.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
No Peace, No Prize
President Barack Obama's Nobel peace surprise was given "primarily for his work on and commitment to nuclear disarmament," according to Agot Valle, a Norwegian politician who served on the award committee. Valle told the Wall Street Journal that the stewards of the prize wanted to "support" Obama's goal, as expressed recently at the United Nations, "of a world without nuclear weapons."
It's tough to think of a goal more widely espoused than the dream of an H-bomb-free planet. Ronald Reagan and Jane Fonda, political opposites, came together on this one - in his second term, Reagan stunned his own advisers and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev by suggesting a treaty that would take nuclear arsenals down to "zero."
As long as a nukeless world remains wishful thinking and pastoral rhetoric, we'll be all right. But if the Nobel committee truly cares about peace, they will think a little harder about actually trying to make it a reality. Open a history book and you'll see what the modern world looks like without nuclear weapons. It is horrible beyond description.
During the 31 years leading up to the first atomic bomb, the world without nuclear weapons engaged in two global wars resulting in the deaths of an estimated 78 million to 95 million people, uniformed and civilian. The world wars were the hideous expression of what happens when the human tendency toward conflict hooks up with the violent possibilities of the industrial age. The version of this story we are most familiar with today is the Nazi death machinery, and so we are often tempted to think that if Hitler had not happened, we would never have encountered assembly line murder.
The truth is that industrial killing was practiced by many nations in the old world without nuclear weapons. Soldiers were gassed and machine-gunned by the hundreds of thousands in the trenches of World War I, when Hitler was just another corporal in the Kaiser's army. By World War II, countries on both sides of the war used airplanes and artillery to rain death on battlefields as well as cities, until the number killed around the world was so huge the best estimates of the total number lost diverge by some 16 million souls. The dead numbered 62 million, or 78 million - somewhere in there.
So, when last we saw a world without nuclear weapons, human beings were killing each other with such feverish efficiency that they couldn't keep track of the victims to the nearest 15 million. Over three decades of industrialized war, the planet had averaged around three million dead per year. Why did that stop happening?
A world with nuclear weapons in it is a scary, scary place to think about. The industrialized world without nuclear weapons was a scary, scary place for real. But there is no way to un-ring the nuclear bell. The science and technology of nuclear weapons is widespread, and if nukes are outlawed someday, only outlaws will have nukes.
Instead of fantasies about a nuke-free planet where formerly bloodthirsty humans live together in peace, what the world needs is a safer, more stable nuclear umbrella. That probably means fewer nukes in fewer hands - when President Obama talks about strengthening the non-proliferation regime and stepping up efforts to secure loose nukes, he is on the right track. Nuclear weapons are only helpful if they are never used.
But zero weapons is a terrible idea. As bad as they are, nukes have been instrumental in reversing the long, seemingly inexorable trend in modernity toward deadlier and deadlier conflicts. If the Nobel committee wants someday to honor the force that has done the most over the past 60 years to end industrial-scale war, they will award a peace prize to the bomb.
There is a slight whiff of condescension attending the announcement that Barack Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize. There is the sense that he has won simply by not being George W. Bush. Effete Europe is congratulating rowdy America for cleaning up its act and not bringing guns to the dinner table.
Well, I'm as relieved as anybody that the Bushian gunslingers have been given the gate and, as regular readers know, I'm a big fan of patient, rigorous diplomacy--and there's a certain lovely irony to any prize that brings the Taliban and the neoconservative Commentary crowd together in high dudgeon--but let's face it: this prize is premature to the point of ridiculousness. It continues a pattern that holds some peril for Obama: he is celebrated for who he is not, and for who he might potentially be, rather than for what he has actually done. If he doesn't provide results that justify the award, this Nobel will prove a millstone come election time.
And so, how to handle this "triumph" becomes a strategic puzzle that requires serious thought. Two immediate thoughts occur: he can't reject it, but accepting it can't be about him. He can and should immediately say something like, "I don't deserve this." That's a no brainer. The question is, what should he say after that?
Perhaps: "But the American people do." For creating and sustaining a stable and civil democracy that is the envy of the world. And he should celebrate the essential American idea: that the things we have in common as human beings are more important than the things that divide us. It doesn't matter who you are, where you come from, whether you believe in God or not--this American principle, the belief in certain inalienable rights, should be the basis for international interactions as well.
This should be followed by the necessary caveats--the things that conservatives call "apologies" but are required for credibility--especially the idea that we haven't always abided by our founding principles in dealing with the rest of the world.
But enough of the high-blown stuff: the Nobel needs to be an excuse for an action agenda. One idea, which Zbigniew Brzezinski has been touting, would be to announce the parameters for a Middle East peace settlement--and recruit the rest of the world to get behind it. This would not please those Israelis--and their American enablers--who want to hold onto lands that they gained by conquest, nor would it please those Palestinians harboring fantasies of regaining lands they left 60 years ago, but most people have a rough sense of what constitutes justice in this tortured patch of earth and Obama might use his Peace Prize to actually create some peace in the world's most vexing place.
I'm sure there are other things he can and should do--starting with finding an appropriate place to donate the $1.4 million that comes with the award. I'd give it to Greg Mortenson or someone else who has a successful track record of building schools in difficult places.
In the end, this premature prize is a significant challenge for the President: Will Barack Obama use it to demonstrate that he actually has the courage, moral fortitude, intelligence and creativity that the award portends? The expectations bar has always been set impossibly high for Obama. This raises it.
It's tough to think of a goal more widely espoused than the dream of an H-bomb-free planet. Ronald Reagan and Jane Fonda, political opposites, came together on this one - in his second term, Reagan stunned his own advisers and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev by suggesting a treaty that would take nuclear arsenals down to "zero."
As long as a nukeless world remains wishful thinking and pastoral rhetoric, we'll be all right. But if the Nobel committee truly cares about peace, they will think a little harder about actually trying to make it a reality. Open a history book and you'll see what the modern world looks like without nuclear weapons. It is horrible beyond description.
During the 31 years leading up to the first atomic bomb, the world without nuclear weapons engaged in two global wars resulting in the deaths of an estimated 78 million to 95 million people, uniformed and civilian. The world wars were the hideous expression of what happens when the human tendency toward conflict hooks up with the violent possibilities of the industrial age. The version of this story we are most familiar with today is the Nazi death machinery, and so we are often tempted to think that if Hitler had not happened, we would never have encountered assembly line murder.
The truth is that industrial killing was practiced by many nations in the old world without nuclear weapons. Soldiers were gassed and machine-gunned by the hundreds of thousands in the trenches of World War I, when Hitler was just another corporal in the Kaiser's army. By World War II, countries on both sides of the war used airplanes and artillery to rain death on battlefields as well as cities, until the number killed around the world was so huge the best estimates of the total number lost diverge by some 16 million souls. The dead numbered 62 million, or 78 million - somewhere in there.
So, when last we saw a world without nuclear weapons, human beings were killing each other with such feverish efficiency that they couldn't keep track of the victims to the nearest 15 million. Over three decades of industrialized war, the planet had averaged around three million dead per year. Why did that stop happening?
A world with nuclear weapons in it is a scary, scary place to think about. The industrialized world without nuclear weapons was a scary, scary place for real. But there is no way to un-ring the nuclear bell. The science and technology of nuclear weapons is widespread, and if nukes are outlawed someday, only outlaws will have nukes.
Instead of fantasies about a nuke-free planet where formerly bloodthirsty humans live together in peace, what the world needs is a safer, more stable nuclear umbrella. That probably means fewer nukes in fewer hands - when President Obama talks about strengthening the non-proliferation regime and stepping up efforts to secure loose nukes, he is on the right track. Nuclear weapons are only helpful if they are never used.
But zero weapons is a terrible idea. As bad as they are, nukes have been instrumental in reversing the long, seemingly inexorable trend in modernity toward deadlier and deadlier conflicts. If the Nobel committee wants someday to honor the force that has done the most over the past 60 years to end industrial-scale war, they will award a peace prize to the bomb.
There is a slight whiff of condescension attending the announcement that Barack Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize. There is the sense that he has won simply by not being George W. Bush. Effete Europe is congratulating rowdy America for cleaning up its act and not bringing guns to the dinner table.
Well, I'm as relieved as anybody that the Bushian gunslingers have been given the gate and, as regular readers know, I'm a big fan of patient, rigorous diplomacy--and there's a certain lovely irony to any prize that brings the Taliban and the neoconservative Commentary crowd together in high dudgeon--but let's face it: this prize is premature to the point of ridiculousness. It continues a pattern that holds some peril for Obama: he is celebrated for who he is not, and for who he might potentially be, rather than for what he has actually done. If he doesn't provide results that justify the award, this Nobel will prove a millstone come election time.
And so, how to handle this "triumph" becomes a strategic puzzle that requires serious thought. Two immediate thoughts occur: he can't reject it, but accepting it can't be about him. He can and should immediately say something like, "I don't deserve this." That's a no brainer. The question is, what should he say after that?
Perhaps: "But the American people do." For creating and sustaining a stable and civil democracy that is the envy of the world. And he should celebrate the essential American idea: that the things we have in common as human beings are more important than the things that divide us. It doesn't matter who you are, where you come from, whether you believe in God or not--this American principle, the belief in certain inalienable rights, should be the basis for international interactions as well.
This should be followed by the necessary caveats--the things that conservatives call "apologies" but are required for credibility--especially the idea that we haven't always abided by our founding principles in dealing with the rest of the world.
But enough of the high-blown stuff: the Nobel needs to be an excuse for an action agenda. One idea, which Zbigniew Brzezinski has been touting, would be to announce the parameters for a Middle East peace settlement--and recruit the rest of the world to get behind it. This would not please those Israelis--and their American enablers--who want to hold onto lands that they gained by conquest, nor would it please those Palestinians harboring fantasies of regaining lands they left 60 years ago, but most people have a rough sense of what constitutes justice in this tortured patch of earth and Obama might use his Peace Prize to actually create some peace in the world's most vexing place.
I'm sure there are other things he can and should do--starting with finding an appropriate place to donate the $1.4 million that comes with the award. I'd give it to Greg Mortenson or someone else who has a successful track record of building schools in difficult places.
In the end, this premature prize is a significant challenge for the President: Will Barack Obama use it to demonstrate that he actually has the courage, moral fortitude, intelligence and creativity that the award portends? The expectations bar has always been set impossibly high for Obama. This raises it.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Aracataca and Sucre
"García Márquez is like a head of state," Fidel Castro has remarked. "The only question is, which state?" The comment starts to take us into what's unique about its subject's work and life--not least because of who delivered it. No other writer in our time has operated on so vast a scale. None has approached his literary achievement; none has so parlayed achievement into political prominence. His multifarious career as novelist, journalist, screenwriter, institution-builder, freelance diplomat, all-around wise man, global celebrity and keeper of his own gaudy legend is unified by one idea: the writer as public man. For García Márquez, literature is the continuation of politics by other means--unless it's the other way around. Other contemporary writers have sought such a role--Norman Mailer, Günter Grass, A.B. Yehoshua, Arundhati Roy--but none has approached his continental, even worldwide reach. He is Tolstoy for the twentieth century, a Latin American Dickens. Above all, he is Joyce, for while Dickens aimed himself at particular ills, García Márquez, inspired by Castro's example to lead a comparable revolution in the mental sphere, created the unformed conscience of his race. Before he could do so, however--and this is the great story of his life--he had to discover his own
How Gerald Martin manages to compress that life into fewer than 600 shrewd, lucid, incisive pages is a wonder in itself. That he is English, and writes in English, appears to have been little impediment. An esteemed scholar of Latin American literature, Martin interviewed more than 300 subjects over the course of seventeen years. A footnote mentions a 2,000-plus-page manuscript from which the present volume has been extracted. When the larger version is published, as is Martin's intention, it will undoubtedly be worth reading to the last drop.
Martin has not only beaten his way through the thicket of conflicting versions that García Márquez has offered of almost every major event in his life; he evaluates those events with a sensitivity tempered, especially with respect to his subject's incessant reputation-mongering, by skepticism. His psychological analyses are penetrating but prudent--no semi-Freudian overreach here--his biographer's inevitable "no doubts" and "must surely haves" generally persuasive. While he exhibits a degree of sympathetic bias in evaluating García Márquez's political activities, he does not shy away from pointing out his missteps, just as he is candid about the artistic demerits of his lesser works. To his comprehensive grasp of the multifaceted literary context from which his subject's work emerged, Martin adds a thorough knowledge of Colombian history and a sophisticated understanding of cold war politics and culture. His prose, nimble and forceful, is seasoned with wry humor. Best of all is Martin's abundant possession of that rarest and most precious commodity among literary biographers: critical acumen. To encounter his interpretations of One Hundred Years of Solitude, The Autumn of the Patriarch, No One Writes to the Colonel and other works--readings that combine biographical acuity with a remarkable feeling for form and voice--is to discover these masterpieces anew.
Gabriel García Márquez was born in 1927 in the small town of Aracataca in his country's sweltering Caribbean coastal zone, a provenance that determined his relationship not only to Colombian society but to the larger currents of world culture. In contrast to the dark clothes and long faces of haughty, chilly Bogotá--Andean, insular--costeño culture is unlaced, profane and feverishly exuberant: precisely the qualities that first strike us in so much of García Márquez's work. It is also mongrel; through the world of his childhood blew a "leaf storm" of transients (to take the title of his first book)--Arabs and Gypsies, East Asians and Europeans, Indians from the Sierra and migrants from the old runaway-slave regions--all drawn by the banana plantations of the United Fruit Company. While metropolitan Bogotá sat removed in its high mountain valley, little Aracataca found itself stirred into the great, global mixing bowl of the Caribbean Basin.
As a young boy, the shy, solitary García Márquez looked out upon this tumultuous world from the shelter of the place he would forever after think of simply as The House: his grandparents' compound of verandas, gardens, workshops, plaster saints, guava trees and macaws--a treasure chest of meanings and smells. One of the delights of reading about his life is discovering how many of the marvels recounted in his fiction are not made up. There really was a wandering accordionist named Francisco the Man who sang the news of distant places. The writer's grandfather really had been a colonel in the civil wars, really did sire a brood of illegitimate children, really had left his native town after killing a man in an affair of honor, really did spend his retirement making little golden fishes. If the old man represented an amalgam of José Arcadio Buendía, the patriarch, and Colonel Aureliano, the warrior, García Márquez's grandmother was the magnificent Ursula--mercilessly superstitious, iron-willed, a baker of little candy animals--whose family name, Iguarán, she shared. The two figures divided his boyhood world: the rational, practical, public realm of the Colonel, who would take his grandson by the hand as he made his rounds about town, and the domestic, feminine, spirit-ridden space of Tranquilina Iguarán and her fleet of housemaids and aunts. The dictionary on one hand; the fables of the kitchen on the other.
If his grandparents' domain became One Hundred Years of Solitude, García Márquez was living there for reasons adumbrated in Love in the Time of Cholera. Like Florentino Ariza, the writer's father was a lowly telegraph operator, charming but illegitimate. Like Fermina Daza, his mother was a stubborn beauty whose family refused to sanction the young couple's love. As in the novel, Luisa Santiaga was sent away on an arduous backcountry trek designed to extinguish her passion, only to thwart the scheme with the help of a conspiracy of telegraphists. But the feckless Gabriel Eligio lacked his alter ego's determination and industry, which is why his eldest son was placed with his maternal grandparents for the first ten years of his life, while his mother continued to produce offspring (there would eventually be eleven altogether) and his father bounced from place to place, an itinerant "pharmacist" now.
The parallels with Joyce are noteworthy: the loutish, braggardly father; the large brood of more or less alien younger siblings. García Márquez never seems to have integrated himself into the life of the family once he joined their peregrinations. He refused to accept Gabriel Eligio's authority--the Colonel would always be his real father--and the early sense of maternal abandonment would haunt him for the rest of his life. Sucre, the isolated river town where the family finally dropped anchor, would become Aracataca's demonic twin. The latter was reborn as Macondo, locus of enchantment, the former as the anonymous and malevolent setting of No One Writes to the Colonel, Chronicle of a Death Foretold and In Evil Hour, whose intended title was "This Shit-Heap of a Town."
Whatever his struggles in the family, however, García Márquez was valued for another quality he shared with the Irishman: early evidence of intellectual ability. School ignited his wildfire passion for reading, classmates deferred to his superior gifts and a long string of teachers promoted his advancement despite his intractable inability to spell and hopeless incompetence at math. By 20, he was publishing his first stories under the shadow of Kafka while pretending to study law in Bogotá. Within a year, however, fate had taken a sharp turn for both himself and his country. The assassination of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, a charismatic populist who had dared to challenge Colombia's decades-long oligarchic consensus, touched off days of rioting in the capital city and, eventually, the years of right-wing repression known as La Violencia. García Márquez would later remark that the Bogotazo, as the upheaval became known, was the moment that Colombia finally entered the twentieth century. It certainly marked his own political coming-of-age. By striking coincidence, Gaitán was to have met that day with another 21-year-old, in town for a Pan-American student congress. The name in the slain leader's appointment book read "Fidel Castro."
Keep reading at The Nation
How Gerald Martin manages to compress that life into fewer than 600 shrewd, lucid, incisive pages is a wonder in itself. That he is English, and writes in English, appears to have been little impediment. An esteemed scholar of Latin American literature, Martin interviewed more than 300 subjects over the course of seventeen years. A footnote mentions a 2,000-plus-page manuscript from which the present volume has been extracted. When the larger version is published, as is Martin's intention, it will undoubtedly be worth reading to the last drop.
Martin has not only beaten his way through the thicket of conflicting versions that García Márquez has offered of almost every major event in his life; he evaluates those events with a sensitivity tempered, especially with respect to his subject's incessant reputation-mongering, by skepticism. His psychological analyses are penetrating but prudent--no semi-Freudian overreach here--his biographer's inevitable "no doubts" and "must surely haves" generally persuasive. While he exhibits a degree of sympathetic bias in evaluating García Márquez's political activities, he does not shy away from pointing out his missteps, just as he is candid about the artistic demerits of his lesser works. To his comprehensive grasp of the multifaceted literary context from which his subject's work emerged, Martin adds a thorough knowledge of Colombian history and a sophisticated understanding of cold war politics and culture. His prose, nimble and forceful, is seasoned with wry humor. Best of all is Martin's abundant possession of that rarest and most precious commodity among literary biographers: critical acumen. To encounter his interpretations of One Hundred Years of Solitude, The Autumn of the Patriarch, No One Writes to the Colonel and other works--readings that combine biographical acuity with a remarkable feeling for form and voice--is to discover these masterpieces anew.
Gabriel García Márquez was born in 1927 in the small town of Aracataca in his country's sweltering Caribbean coastal zone, a provenance that determined his relationship not only to Colombian society but to the larger currents of world culture. In contrast to the dark clothes and long faces of haughty, chilly Bogotá--Andean, insular--costeño culture is unlaced, profane and feverishly exuberant: precisely the qualities that first strike us in so much of García Márquez's work. It is also mongrel; through the world of his childhood blew a "leaf storm" of transients (to take the title of his first book)--Arabs and Gypsies, East Asians and Europeans, Indians from the Sierra and migrants from the old runaway-slave regions--all drawn by the banana plantations of the United Fruit Company. While metropolitan Bogotá sat removed in its high mountain valley, little Aracataca found itself stirred into the great, global mixing bowl of the Caribbean Basin.
As a young boy, the shy, solitary García Márquez looked out upon this tumultuous world from the shelter of the place he would forever after think of simply as The House: his grandparents' compound of verandas, gardens, workshops, plaster saints, guava trees and macaws--a treasure chest of meanings and smells. One of the delights of reading about his life is discovering how many of the marvels recounted in his fiction are not made up. There really was a wandering accordionist named Francisco the Man who sang the news of distant places. The writer's grandfather really had been a colonel in the civil wars, really did sire a brood of illegitimate children, really had left his native town after killing a man in an affair of honor, really did spend his retirement making little golden fishes. If the old man represented an amalgam of José Arcadio Buendía, the patriarch, and Colonel Aureliano, the warrior, García Márquez's grandmother was the magnificent Ursula--mercilessly superstitious, iron-willed, a baker of little candy animals--whose family name, Iguarán, she shared. The two figures divided his boyhood world: the rational, practical, public realm of the Colonel, who would take his grandson by the hand as he made his rounds about town, and the domestic, feminine, spirit-ridden space of Tranquilina Iguarán and her fleet of housemaids and aunts. The dictionary on one hand; the fables of the kitchen on the other.
If his grandparents' domain became One Hundred Years of Solitude, García Márquez was living there for reasons adumbrated in Love in the Time of Cholera. Like Florentino Ariza, the writer's father was a lowly telegraph operator, charming but illegitimate. Like Fermina Daza, his mother was a stubborn beauty whose family refused to sanction the young couple's love. As in the novel, Luisa Santiaga was sent away on an arduous backcountry trek designed to extinguish her passion, only to thwart the scheme with the help of a conspiracy of telegraphists. But the feckless Gabriel Eligio lacked his alter ego's determination and industry, which is why his eldest son was placed with his maternal grandparents for the first ten years of his life, while his mother continued to produce offspring (there would eventually be eleven altogether) and his father bounced from place to place, an itinerant "pharmacist" now.
The parallels with Joyce are noteworthy: the loutish, braggardly father; the large brood of more or less alien younger siblings. García Márquez never seems to have integrated himself into the life of the family once he joined their peregrinations. He refused to accept Gabriel Eligio's authority--the Colonel would always be his real father--and the early sense of maternal abandonment would haunt him for the rest of his life. Sucre, the isolated river town where the family finally dropped anchor, would become Aracataca's demonic twin. The latter was reborn as Macondo, locus of enchantment, the former as the anonymous and malevolent setting of No One Writes to the Colonel, Chronicle of a Death Foretold and In Evil Hour, whose intended title was "This Shit-Heap of a Town."
Whatever his struggles in the family, however, García Márquez was valued for another quality he shared with the Irishman: early evidence of intellectual ability. School ignited his wildfire passion for reading, classmates deferred to his superior gifts and a long string of teachers promoted his advancement despite his intractable inability to spell and hopeless incompetence at math. By 20, he was publishing his first stories under the shadow of Kafka while pretending to study law in Bogotá. Within a year, however, fate had taken a sharp turn for both himself and his country. The assassination of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, a charismatic populist who had dared to challenge Colombia's decades-long oligarchic consensus, touched off days of rioting in the capital city and, eventually, the years of right-wing repression known as La Violencia. García Márquez would later remark that the Bogotazo, as the upheaval became known, was the moment that Colombia finally entered the twentieth century. It certainly marked his own political coming-of-age. By striking coincidence, Gaitán was to have met that day with another 21-year-old, in town for a Pan-American student congress. The name in the slain leader's appointment book read "Fidel Castro."
Keep reading at The Nation
Another Mysterious Electrocution Death in Iraq
Adam Vernon Hermanson "was a natural-born leader," according to his brother, Jesse. In 2002, just before his eighteenth birthday, Adam enlisted in the US military, armed with the required permission from his parents because he was not legally an adult. Adam spent six years in the Air Force. In all, he did three tours in Iraq and one in Uzbekistan. After he was honorably discharged from the military in early 2009 with the rank of staff sergeant, Hermanson took up employment as a private bodyguard in his hometown of Las Vegas, where, according to his family, he protected a wealthy individual. But according to Jesse, Adam was interested in returning to Iraq as a private military contractor. "He had been talking about it a lot; he was interested in Blackwater," Jesse recalls.
US Air Force Staff Sgt. Adam Hermanson, pictured in Baghdad, Iraq, died Sept. 1. At the time he was working for Triple Canopy.
In May, Adam signed a contract that would put him back in the action--as a private contractor for Triple Canopy, the company that the State Department has chosen to take over much of Blackwater's security work in Iraq. According to his cousin, Paul Moreno, Hermanson was offered about $350 a day for a four-month contract. "It happened real fast," Jesse remembers. "He didn't want the family to know and get worried. He actually did it behind the backs of the family--my mom found out a day and a half before he was going. We were trying to change his mind and say it wasn't worth the money, but he felt that he needed to do it to pay off bills and get a house and be financially secure." Jesse adds, "He had also tried to get a job in Vegas as a Metro Police officer, and they denied him even with all of his training." Adam's mother, Patricia, says, "We know he disliked it. His plan was that after four months he was going to leave Triple Canopy and get a house."
Hermanson arrived in Iraq in June and took up residence inside the Green Zone at Triple Canopy's base at Camp Olympia. His family said his e-mails were brief and primarily made up of questions about how everyone else was doing. As for his work, he told the family he wasn't allowed to say much. "The last time I talked to him, I noticed that it wasn't really Adam--the way he talked," Patricia recalls. "He said he was working seventeen-hour days. When I asked how it was going there, he said, 'I can't really say much, but let's just say the average Joe couldn't be here and do what we do.'"
Earlier this week, Hermanson returned home on a flight to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. His body was in a coffin. Hermanson was not killed by enemy fire or an improvised explosive device or even by "friendly fire." In fact, he died in what is considered to be the safest place in Iraq for Americans--the heavily fortified Green Zone. His body, according to his family, was discovered on the floor of a shower near his quarters at Camp Olympia. It appears that Hermanson was electrocuted.
On Tuesday morning, the military medical examiner who performed Hermanson's autopsy met with Hermanson's wife, Janine. "He said that everything was still pending and that he can't make a final [statement] because the toxicology and all that stuff has not come back yet. But he said that [the cause of death] was a low-voltage electrocution," she told The Nation. "When I got the call I was told that he was found in a shower, and now I am getting told that there was even still electrical current on the shower floor when they found him."
When Patricia got the news, she thought there must have been a mistake. "Adam didn't want me to worry and had told me he was in Kuwait. I just found out he was in Iraq the day he died. He said, 'Mom, I'm gonna go to Kuwait, it's gonna be a piece of cake--they even have a water park there.' All along he was telling me a lie because he didn't want me to worry."
Hermanson's family suspects that Adam may have died as a result of faulty electrical wiring. And they have good reason to think that--at least sixteen US soldiers and two contractors have died from electrocution. The Pentagon's largest contractor in Iraq, KBR (a former Halliburton subsidiary), has for months been at the center of a Congressional investigation into the electrocution deaths because the company has the massive LOGCAP contract and is responsible for almost all of the electrical wiring in US-run facilities in Iraq. The eighteen soldiers and contractors died as a result of KBR's "shoddy work," according to Senator Frank Lautenberg.
Janine Hermanson, who served four years in the Air Force, where she met her husband, said Adam will be cremated on Wednesday and a funeral service will be held Saturday. "I just want whoever is responsible to pay for it," she says. "It's not right. I know there are many cases, and it shouldn't keep happening. It should stop." Patricia echoed those sentiments. "My son went over to Iraq four times, and he was in harm's way every single time, and for him to die like this is just wrong," she says. "We want justice for this. It is shocking and unbelievable that he died, but worse is how he died."
KBR has long denied that it has been responsible for any of the deaths in Iraq, and the company says it had nothing to do with Hermanson's death. "KBR has no operations or maintenance responsibility for the living, office, or shower facilities at Camp Olympia, the Triple Canopy compound where the death occurred. Nor does KBR maintain the electrical system in the facilities or for the camp," KBR spokesperson Heather Browne said in a statement to The Nation. "We have found no evidence that that KBR constructed the camp, installed the electrical system, or ever had any operations or maintenance responsibility for the living, office, or shower facilities." The Defense Department, which is responsible for KBR's work in Iraq, did not respond to requests to confirm or deny KBR's claims. Triple Canopy would not comment on whether it did the electrical wiring for the facility where Hermanson died or if an outside contractor was involved. A Triple Canopy spokesperson told The Nation she was "unable to provide additional information at this time."
The problem of electrocutions and shocks in Iraq has become a major issue because of the number of deaths and incidents involving soldiers and Defense Department contractors. The military is making its way through inspections at the more than 90,000 US-run facilities in Iraq, a massive undertaking. According to the Associated Press, "KBR's database lists 231 electric shock incidents in the more than 89,000 facilities the company runs in Iraq, according to military records."
As The Nation has previously reported, the Defense Department paid KBR more than $80 million in bonuses for contracts to install electrical wiring in Iraq. The award payments were for the very work that resulted in the electrocution deaths of US soldiers, according to Defense Department records. More than $30 million in bonuses were paid months after the death of Sgt. Ryan Maseth, a highly decorated 24-year-old Green Beret who was electrocuted while taking a shower at a US base in January 2008. His death, the result of improper grounding for a water pump, was classified by the Army Criminal Investigations Division as a "negligent homicide," but the Pentagon recently announced there would be no criminal charges filed in the case. Two other soldiers who died from electrocution while showering are Navy Petty Officer Third Class David Cedergren and Army Cpl. Marcos Nolasco.
As for Hermanson's death, a Triple Canopy spokesperson said the company is "saddened at this terrible loss," telling The Nation, "As a matter of policy, Triple Canopy will not comment further until the investigation is complete." The State Department did not return calls requesting comment. Hermanson's family members, however, say they will not give up until they get to the bottom of Adam's death. "I know at the end Adam was fighting--fighting to stay alive even as he was being electrocuted," his mother says. "Now we need to fight for him."
US Air Force Staff Sgt. Adam Hermanson, pictured in Baghdad, Iraq, died Sept. 1. At the time he was working for Triple Canopy.
In May, Adam signed a contract that would put him back in the action--as a private contractor for Triple Canopy, the company that the State Department has chosen to take over much of Blackwater's security work in Iraq. According to his cousin, Paul Moreno, Hermanson was offered about $350 a day for a four-month contract. "It happened real fast," Jesse remembers. "He didn't want the family to know and get worried. He actually did it behind the backs of the family--my mom found out a day and a half before he was going. We were trying to change his mind and say it wasn't worth the money, but he felt that he needed to do it to pay off bills and get a house and be financially secure." Jesse adds, "He had also tried to get a job in Vegas as a Metro Police officer, and they denied him even with all of his training." Adam's mother, Patricia, says, "We know he disliked it. His plan was that after four months he was going to leave Triple Canopy and get a house."
Hermanson arrived in Iraq in June and took up residence inside the Green Zone at Triple Canopy's base at Camp Olympia. His family said his e-mails were brief and primarily made up of questions about how everyone else was doing. As for his work, he told the family he wasn't allowed to say much. "The last time I talked to him, I noticed that it wasn't really Adam--the way he talked," Patricia recalls. "He said he was working seventeen-hour days. When I asked how it was going there, he said, 'I can't really say much, but let's just say the average Joe couldn't be here and do what we do.'"
Earlier this week, Hermanson returned home on a flight to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. His body was in a coffin. Hermanson was not killed by enemy fire or an improvised explosive device or even by "friendly fire." In fact, he died in what is considered to be the safest place in Iraq for Americans--the heavily fortified Green Zone. His body, according to his family, was discovered on the floor of a shower near his quarters at Camp Olympia. It appears that Hermanson was electrocuted.
On Tuesday morning, the military medical examiner who performed Hermanson's autopsy met with Hermanson's wife, Janine. "He said that everything was still pending and that he can't make a final [statement] because the toxicology and all that stuff has not come back yet. But he said that [the cause of death] was a low-voltage electrocution," she told The Nation. "When I got the call I was told that he was found in a shower, and now I am getting told that there was even still electrical current on the shower floor when they found him."
When Patricia got the news, she thought there must have been a mistake. "Adam didn't want me to worry and had told me he was in Kuwait. I just found out he was in Iraq the day he died. He said, 'Mom, I'm gonna go to Kuwait, it's gonna be a piece of cake--they even have a water park there.' All along he was telling me a lie because he didn't want me to worry."
Hermanson's family suspects that Adam may have died as a result of faulty electrical wiring. And they have good reason to think that--at least sixteen US soldiers and two contractors have died from electrocution. The Pentagon's largest contractor in Iraq, KBR (a former Halliburton subsidiary), has for months been at the center of a Congressional investigation into the electrocution deaths because the company has the massive LOGCAP contract and is responsible for almost all of the electrical wiring in US-run facilities in Iraq. The eighteen soldiers and contractors died as a result of KBR's "shoddy work," according to Senator Frank Lautenberg.
Janine Hermanson, who served four years in the Air Force, where she met her husband, said Adam will be cremated on Wednesday and a funeral service will be held Saturday. "I just want whoever is responsible to pay for it," she says. "It's not right. I know there are many cases, and it shouldn't keep happening. It should stop." Patricia echoed those sentiments. "My son went over to Iraq four times, and he was in harm's way every single time, and for him to die like this is just wrong," she says. "We want justice for this. It is shocking and unbelievable that he died, but worse is how he died."
KBR has long denied that it has been responsible for any of the deaths in Iraq, and the company says it had nothing to do with Hermanson's death. "KBR has no operations or maintenance responsibility for the living, office, or shower facilities at Camp Olympia, the Triple Canopy compound where the death occurred. Nor does KBR maintain the electrical system in the facilities or for the camp," KBR spokesperson Heather Browne said in a statement to The Nation. "We have found no evidence that that KBR constructed the camp, installed the electrical system, or ever had any operations or maintenance responsibility for the living, office, or shower facilities." The Defense Department, which is responsible for KBR's work in Iraq, did not respond to requests to confirm or deny KBR's claims. Triple Canopy would not comment on whether it did the electrical wiring for the facility where Hermanson died or if an outside contractor was involved. A Triple Canopy spokesperson told The Nation she was "unable to provide additional information at this time."
The problem of electrocutions and shocks in Iraq has become a major issue because of the number of deaths and incidents involving soldiers and Defense Department contractors. The military is making its way through inspections at the more than 90,000 US-run facilities in Iraq, a massive undertaking. According to the Associated Press, "KBR's database lists 231 electric shock incidents in the more than 89,000 facilities the company runs in Iraq, according to military records."
As The Nation has previously reported, the Defense Department paid KBR more than $80 million in bonuses for contracts to install electrical wiring in Iraq. The award payments were for the very work that resulted in the electrocution deaths of US soldiers, according to Defense Department records. More than $30 million in bonuses were paid months after the death of Sgt. Ryan Maseth, a highly decorated 24-year-old Green Beret who was electrocuted while taking a shower at a US base in January 2008. His death, the result of improper grounding for a water pump, was classified by the Army Criminal Investigations Division as a "negligent homicide," but the Pentagon recently announced there would be no criminal charges filed in the case. Two other soldiers who died from electrocution while showering are Navy Petty Officer Third Class David Cedergren and Army Cpl. Marcos Nolasco.
As for Hermanson's death, a Triple Canopy spokesperson said the company is "saddened at this terrible loss," telling The Nation, "As a matter of policy, Triple Canopy will not comment further until the investigation is complete." The State Department did not return calls requesting comment. Hermanson's family members, however, say they will not give up until they get to the bottom of Adam's death. "I know at the end Adam was fighting--fighting to stay alive even as he was being electrocuted," his mother says. "Now we need to fight for him."
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