http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11975.htm


What Happened To My Country?

By Steve Osborn


02/19/06 "ICH" -- -- I grew up an American, and proud of it. I was taught in school about the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and Bill of Rights. My brother was a Merchant Marine Officer during the war and had three ships sunk beneath him. We beat the Nazis, the Fascists and the Japanese and made the world safe for democracy. After the war came Nuremberg and the assurance that things like the holocaust could never happen again. The Marshal Plan helped to rebuild the shattered portions of the world. America, Democracy, compassion and help. It was good to be an American. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were sad, but necessary to end the war and save lives, we were told.

We read George Orwell’s 1984, which could happen in Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union, but we could never have thought police and endless war here in the United States. Then came the Cold War, McCarthy, Korea, and later on Vietnam. My service time crossed those wars, but I thanked my stars I didn’t have to fight in them. I was at Bikini for the Hydrogen Bomb tests in 1956, which taught me the the unthinkable horror of nuclear war.

Vietnam taught us the danger and folly of going to war on a false pretext. Tonkin Gulf was to be a lesson to us all, as was the intended impeachment of Nixon for violating the law and the Constitution. We wouldn’t let that happen again; no president was ever going to spy on his own people again, or persecute people who didn’t agree with him or his policies.

Yes, the United States was a nation of great wealth. A nation that took care to see to the freedom and well being of its citizens, and welcomed the downtrodden foreigner to the new land. It was a nation that pioneered the exploration of space and gloried in the advance of science. I was proud to be an American!

My God! What has happened to my nation? My nation that no longer pays more than lip service to its Constitution and Bill of Rights, which have been a beacon to the world for over two centuries. My nation that unilaterally discards treaties that were the hope of a world of peace, guided by law and diplomacy. My nation that will wage a war of aggression against a far off nation that was no threat to it, but that has lots of oil. My nation that gives all of its wealth to the rich and is satisfied to leave its citizens to starve, homeless, unemployed and sickly.

What happened to that Constitution that so wisely divided the government into three separate units, to provide a system of checks and balances against any one branch usurping power? How did we wind up with a President that refers to the Constitution that he swore to protect and defend as “just a goddamned piece of paper,” and a Congress that seems willing to rubber stamp any giveaway the President demands? How did we find ourselves with a Supreme Court that will set aside the Constitution in favor of unlimited presidential power for the duration?

Now I live in an America I don’t dare leave for fear of being spat upon, shot, bombed or kidnaped. I am looked upon as a citizen of a rogue nation that has no concept or respect for any law except bullying and strength. I need a passport even to visit Canada, which was to be our sister nation with open borders forever. I must expect to be required to show my “papers” at any time, to any official. I must accept that the government can break into my house and rifle my belongings and papers any time it wishes on the thinnest of excuses and it is not even required to let me know it has violated my home and my privacy. I must accept the fact that the government can listen in to my private conversations, my phone, my e-mail, can probably read my snail mail if they wish and can put a gag order on anyone who has information on me so I may not even be made aware that I am being spied upon. George Orwell’s absolute dictatorship has crept in to my home and my life and thrown out my beloved Constitution and Bill of Rights. The difference between the United States, Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy is steadily and inexorably diminishing and the people are letting it happen while they remain paralyzed with fear. Fear incited by the gang that runs the White House and their cronies in the propaganda ministry that used to be our last bulwark against tyranny; our once free press.

So now my pride in America is for our past; my sadness for our present; my fear for our future. I am no longer proud to be an American, but I have no place to go.


Stephen M. Osborn (theplace@whidbey.net) is a freelance writer living on Camano Island in the Pacific Northwest. He is an "Atomic Vet." (Operation Redwing, Bikini Atoll 1956, ) who has been very active working and writing for nuclear disarmament and world peace. He is a retired Fire Battalion Chief, lifelong sailor, writer, poet, philosopher, historian and former newspaper columnist.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3011.htm

[A look behind the philosophy and practice of America's push for domination of the worlds economy and culture. First published From Parameters http://carlisle-www.army.mil/ http://carlisle-www.army.mil/, Summer 1997, pp. 4-14: US Army War College]


Constant Conflict

US Army War College Quarterly


There will be no peace. At any given moment for the rest of our lifetimes, there will be multiple conflicts in mutating forms around the globe. Violent conflict will dominate the headlines, but cultural and economic struggles will be steadier and ultimately more decisive. The de facto role of the US armed forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing.

We have entered an age of constant conflict. Information is at once our core commodity and the most destabilizing factor of our time. Until now, history has been a quest to acquire information; today, the challenge lies in managing information. Those of us who can sort, digest, synthesize, and apply relevant knowledge soar--professionally, financially, politically, militarily, and socially. We, the winners, are a minority.

For the world masses, devastated by information they cannot manage or effectively interpret, life is "nasty, brutish . . . and short-circuited." The general pace of change is overwhelming, and information is both the motor and signifier of change. Those humans, in every country and region, who cannot understand the new world, or who cannot profit from its uncertainties, or who cannot reconcile themselves to its dynamics, will become the violent enemies of their inadequate governments, of their more fortunate neighbors, and ultimately of the United States. We are entering a new American century, in which we will become still wealthier, culturally more lethal, and increasingly powerful. We will excite hatreds without precedent.

We live in an age of multiple truths. He who warns of the "clash of civilizations" is incontestably right; simultaneously, we shall see higher levels of constructive trafficking between civilizations than ever before. The future is bright--and it is also very dark. More men and women will enjoy health and prosperity than ever before, yet more will live in poverty or tumult, if only because of the ferocity of demographics. There will be more democracy--that deft liberal form of imperialism--and greater popular refusal of democracy. One of the defining bifurcations of the future will be the conflict between information masters and information victims.

In the past, information empowerment was largely a matter of insider and outsider, as elementary as the division of society into the literate and illiterate. While superior information--often embodied in military technology--killed throughout history, its effects tended to be politically decisive but not personally intrusive (once the raping and pillaging were done). Technology was more apt to batter down the city gates than to change the nature of the city. The rise of the modern West broke the pattern. Whether speaking of the dispossessions and dislocations caused in Europe through the introduction of machine-driven production or elsewhere by the great age of European imperialism, an explosion of disorienting information intruded ever further into Braudel's "structures of everyday life." Historically, ignorance was bliss. Today, ignorance is no longer possible, only error.

The contemporary expansion of available information is immeasurable, uncontainable, and destructive to individuals and entire cultures unable to master it. The radical fundamentalists--the bomber in Jerusalem or Oklahoma City, the moral terrorist on the right or the dictatorial multiculturalist on the left--are all brothers and sisters, all threatened by change, terrified of the future, and alienated by information they cannot reconcile with their lives or ambitions. They ache to return to a golden age that never existed, or to create a paradise of their own restrictive design. They no longer understand the world, and their fear is volatile.

Information destroys traditional jobs and traditional cultures; it seduces, betrays, yet remains invulnerable. How can you counterattack the information others have turned upon you? There is no effective option other than competitive performance. For those individuals and cultures that cannot join or compete with our information empire, there is only inevitable failure (of note, the internet is to the techno-capable disaffected what the United Nations is to marginal states: it offers the illusion of empowerment and community). The attempt of the Iranian mullahs to secede from modernity has failed, although a turbaned corpse still stumbles about the neighborhood. Information, from the internet to rock videos, will not be contained, and fundamentalism cannot control its children. Our victims volunteer.

These noncompetitive cultures, such as that of Arabo-Persian Islam or the rejectionist segment of our own population, are enraged. Their cultures are under assault; their cherished values have proven dysfunctional, and the successful move on without them. The laid-off blue-collar worker in America and the Taliban militiaman in Afghanistan are brothers in suffering.

It is a truism that throughout much of the 20th century the income gap between top and bottom narrowed, whether we speak of individuals, countries, or in some cases continents. Further, individuals or countries could "make it" on sheer muscle power and the will to apply it. You could work harder than your neighbor and win in the marketplace. There was a rough justice in it, and it offered near-ecumenical hope. That model is dead. Today, there is a growing excess of muscle power in an age of labor-saving machines and methods. In our own country, we have seen blue-collar unions move from center stage to near-irrelevance. The trend will not reverse. At the same time, expectations have increased dramatically. There is a global sense of promises broken, of lies told. Individuals on much of the planet believe they have played by the rules laid down for them (in the breech, they often have not), only to find that some indefinite power has changed those rules overnight. The American who graduated from high school in the 1960s expected a good job that would allow his family security and reasonably increasing prosperity. For many such Americans, the world has collapsed, even as the media tease them with images of an ever-richer, brighter, fun world from which they are excluded. These discarded citizens sense that their government is no longer about them, but only about the privileged. Some seek the solace of explicit religion. Most remain law-abiding, hard-working citizens. Some do not.

The foreign twin is the Islamic, or sub-Saharan African, or Mexican university graduate who faces a teetering government, joblessness, exclusion from the profits of the corruption distorting his society, marriage in poverty or the impossibility of marriage, and a deluge of information telling him (exaggeratedly and dishonestly) how well the West lives. In this age of television-series franchising, videos, and satellite dishes, this young, embittered male gets his skewed view of us from reruns of Dynasty and Dallas, or from satellite links beaming down Baywatch, sources we dismiss too quickly as laughable and unworthy of serious consideration as factors influencing world affairs. But their effect is destructive beyond the power of words to describe. Hollywood goes where Harvard never penetrated, and the foreigner, unable to touch the reality of America, is touched by America's irresponsible fantasies of itself; he sees a devilishly enchanting, bluntly sexual, terrifying world from which he is excluded, a world of wealth he can judge only in terms of his own poverty.

Most citizens of the globe are not economists; they perceive wealth as inelastic, its possession a zero-sum game. If decadent America (as seen on the screen) is so fabulously rich, it can only be because America has looted one's own impoverished group or country or region. Adding to the cognitive dissonance, the discarded foreigner cannot square the perceived moral corruption of America, a travesty of all he has been told to value, with America's enduring punitive power. How could a nation whose women are "all harlots" stage Desert Storm? It is an offense to God, and there must be a demonic answer, a substance of conspiracies and oppression in which his own secular, disappointing elite is complicit. This discarded foreigner's desire may be to attack the "Great Satan America," but America is far away (for now), so he acts violently in his own neighborhood. He will accept no personal guilt for his failure, nor can he bear the possibility that his culture "doesn't work." The blame lies ever elsewhere. The cult of victimization is becoming a universal phenomenon, and it is a source of dynamic hatreds.

It is fashionable among world intellectual elites to decry "American culture," with our domestic critics among the loudest in complaint. But traditional intellectual elites are of shrinking relevance, replaced by cognitive-practical elites--figures such as Bill Gates, Steven Spielberg, Madonna, or our most successful politicians--human beings who can recognize or create popular appetites, recreating themselves as necessary. Contemporary American culture is the most powerful in history, and the most destructive of competitor cultures. While some other cultures, such as those of East Asia, appear strong enough to survive the onslaught by adaptive behaviors, most are not. The genius, the secret weapon, of American culture is the essence that the elites despise: ours is the first genuine people's culture. It stresses comfort and convenience--ease--and it generates pleasure for the masses. We are Karl Marx's dream, and his nightmare.

Secular and religious revolutionaries in our century have made the identical mistake, imagining that the workers of the world or the faithful just can't wait to go home at night to study Marx or the Koran. Well, Joe Sixpack, Ivan Tipichni, and Ali Quat would rather "Baywatch." America has figured it out, and we are brilliant at operationalizing our knowledge, and our cultural power will hinder even those cultures we do not undermine. There is no "peer competitor" in the cultural (or military) department. Our cultural empire has the addicted--men and women everywhere--clamoring for more. And they pay for the privilege of their disillusionment.

American culture is criticized for its impermanence, its "disposable" products. But therein lies its strength. All previous cultures sought ideal achievement which, once reached, might endure in static perfection. American culture is not about the end, but the means, the dynamic process that creates, destroys, and creates anew. If our works are transient, then so are life's greatest gifts--passion, beauty, the quality of light on a winter afternoon, even life itself. American culture is alive.

This vividness, this vitality, is reflected in our military; we do not expect to achieve ultimate solutions, only constant improvement. All previous cultures, general and military, have sought to achieve an ideal form of life and then fix it in cement. Americans, in and out of uniform, have always embraced change (though many individuals have not, and their conservatism has acted as a healthy brake on our national excesses). American culture is the culture of the unafraid.

Ours is also the first culture that aims to include rather than exclude. The films most despised by the intellectual elite--those that feature extreme violence and to-the-victors-the-spoils sex--are our most popular cultural weapon, bought or bootlegged nearly everywhere. American action films, often in dreadful copies, are available from the Upper Amazon to Mandalay. They are even more popular than our music, because they are easier to understand. The action films of a Stallone or Schwarzenegger or Chuck Norris rely on visual narratives that do not require dialog for a basic understanding. They deal at the level of universal myth, of pre-text, celebrating the most fundamental impulses (although we have yet to produce a film as violent and cruel as the Iliad). They feature a hero, a villain, a woman to be defended or won--and violence and sex. Complain until doomsday; it sells. The enduring popularity abroad of the shopworn Rambo series tells us far more about humanity than does a library full of scholarly analysis.

When we speak of a global information revolution, the effect of video images is more immediate and intense than that of computers. Image trumps text in the mass psyche, and computers remain a textual outgrowth, demanding high-order skills: computers demarcate the domain of the privileged. We use technology to expand our wealth, power, and opportunities. The rest get high on pop culture. If religion is the opium of the people, video is their crack cocaine. When we and they collide, they shock us with violence, but, statistically, we win.

As more and more human beings are overwhelmed by information, or dispossessed by the effects of information-based technologies, there will be more violence. Information victims will often see no other resort. As work becomes more cerebral, those who fail to find a place will respond by rejecting reason. We will see countries and continents divide between rich and poor in a reversal of 20th-century economic trends. Developing countries will not be able to depend on physical production industries, because there will always be another country willing to work cheaper. The have-nots will hate and strive to attack the haves. And we in the United States will continue to be perceived as the ultimate haves. States will struggle for advantage or revenge as their societies boil. Beyond traditional crime, terrorism will be the most common form of violence, but transnational criminality, civil strife, secessions, border conflicts, and conventional wars will continue to plague the world, albeit with the "lesser" conflicts statistically dominant. In defense of its interests, its citizens, its allies, or its clients, the United States will be required to intervene in some of these contests. We will win militarily whenever we have the guts for it.

There will be no peace. At any given moment for the rest of our lifetimes, there will be multiple conflicts in mutating forms around the globe. Violent conflict will dominate the headlines, but cultural and economic struggles will be steadier and ultimately more decisive. The de facto role of the US armed forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing.

We are building an information-based military to do that killing. There will still be plenty of muscle power required, but much of our military art will consist in knowing more about the enemy than he knows about himself, manipulating data for effectiveness and efficiency, and denying similar advantages to our opponents. This will involve a good bit of technology, but the relevant systems will not be the budget vampires, such as manned bombers and attack submarines, that we continue to buy through inertia, emotional attachment, and the lobbying power of the defense industry. Our most important technologies will be those that support soldiers and Marines on the ground, that facilitate command decisions, and that enable us to kill accurately and survive amid clutter (such as multidimensional urban battlefields). The only imaginable use for most of our submarine fleet will be to strip out the weapons, dock them tight, and turn the boats into low-income housing. There will be no justification for billion-dollar bombers at all.

For a generation, and probably much longer, we will face no military peer competitor. Our enemies will challenge us by other means. The violent actors we encounter often will be small, hostile parties possessed of unexpected, incisive capabilities or simply of a stunning will to violence (or both). Renegade elites, not foreign fleets, should worry us. The urbanization of the global landscape is a greater threat to our operations than any extant or foreseeable military system. We will not deal with wars of Realpolitik, but with conflicts spawned of collective emotions, sub-state interests, and systemic collapse. Hatred, jealousy, and greed--emotions rather than strategy--will set the terms of the struggles.

We will survive and win any conflict short of a cataclysmic use of weapons of mass destruction. But the constant conflicts in which we selectively intervene will be as miserable as any other form of warfare for the soldiers and Marines engaged. The bayonet will still be relevant; however, informational superiority incisively employed should both sharpen that bayonet and permit us to defeat some--but never all--of our enemies outside of bayonet range. Our informational advantage over every other country and culture will be so enormous that our greatest battlefield challenge will be harnessing its power. Our potential national weakness will be the failure to maintain the moral and raw physical strength to thrust that bayonet into an enemy's heart.

Pilots and skippers, as well as defense executives, demand threat models that portray country X or Y as overtaking the military capability of the United States in 10 to 20 years. Forget it. Our military power is culturally based. They cannot rival us without becoming us. Wise competitors will not even attempt to defeat us on our terms; rather, they will seek to shift the playing field away from military confrontations or turn to terrorism and nontraditional forms of assault on our national integrity. Only the foolish will fight fair.

The threat models stitched together from dead parts to convince Congress that the Russians are only taking a deep breath or that the Chinese are only a few miles off the coast of California uniformly assume that while foreign powers make all the right decisions, analyze every trend correctly, and continue to achieve higher and higher economic growth rates, the United States will take a nap. On the contrary. Beyond the Beltway, the United States is wide awake and leading a second "industrial" revolution that will make the original industrial revolution that climaxed the great age of imperialism look like a rehearsal by amateurs. Only the United States has the synthetic ability, the supportive laws, and the cultural agility to remain at the cutting edge of wealth creation.

Not long ago, the Russians were going to overtake us. Then it was oil-wealthy Arabs, then the Japanese. One prize-winning economist even calculated that fuddy-duddy Europe would dominate the next century (a sure prescription for boredom, were it true). Now the Chinese are our nemesis. No doubt our industrial-strength Cassandras will soon find a reason to fear the Galapagos. In the meantime, the average American can look forward to a longer life-span, a secure retirement, and free membership in the most triumphant culture in history. For the majority of our citizens, our vulgar, near-chaotic, marvelous culture is the greatest engine of positive change in history.

Freedom works.

In the military sphere, it will be impossible to rival or even approach the capabilities of our information-based force because it is so profoundly an outgrowth of our culture. Our information-based Army will employ many marvelous tools, but the core of the force will still be the soldier, not the machine, and our soldiers will have skills other cultures will be unable to replicate. Intelligence analysts, fleeing human complexity, like to project enemy capabilities based upon the systems a potential opponent might acquire. But buying or building stuff is not enough. It didn't work for Saddam Hussein, and it won't work for Beijing.

The complex human-machine interface developing in the US military will be impossible to duplicate abroad because no other state will be able to come from behind to equal the informational dexterity of our officers and soldiers. For all the complaints--in many respects justified--about our public school systems, the holistic and synergistic nature of education in our society and culture is imparting to tomorrow's soldiers and Marines a second-nature grasp of technology and the ability to sort and assimilate vast amounts of competitive data that no other population will achieve. The informational dexterity of our average middle-class kid is terrifying to anyone born before 1970. Our computer kids function at a level foreign elites barely manage, and this has as much to do with television commercials, CD-ROMs, and grotesque video games as it does with the classroom. We are outgrowing our 19th-century model education system as surely as we have outgrown the manned bomber. In the meantime, our children are undergoing a process of Darwinian selection in coping with the information deluge that is drowning many of their parents. These kids are going to make mean techno-warriors. We just have to make sure they can do push-ups, too.

There is a useful German expression, "Die Lage war immer so ernst," that translates very freely as "The sky has always been falling." Despite our relish of fears and complaints, we live in the most powerful, robust culture on earth. Its discontinuities and contradictions are often its strengths. We are incapable of five-year plans, and it is a saving grace. Our fluidity, in consumption, technology, and on the battlefield, is a strength our nearest competitors cannot approach. We move very fast. At our military best, we become Nathan Bedford Forrest riding a microchip. But when we insist on buying into extended procurement contracts for unaffordable, neo-traditional weapon systems, we squander our brilliant flexibility. Today, we are locking-in already obsolescent defense purchases that will not begin to rise to the human capabilities of tomorrow's service members. In 2015 and beyond, we will be receiving systems into our inventory that will be no more relevant than Sherman tanks and prop-driven bombers would be today. We are not providing for tomorrow's military, we are paralyzing it. We will have the most humanly agile force on earth, and we are doing our best to shut it inside a technological straight-jacket.

There is no "big threat" out there. There's none on the horizon, either. Instead of preparing for the Battle of Midway, we need to focus on the constant conflicts of richly varying description that will challenge us--and kill us--at home and abroad. There are plenty of threats, but the beloved dinosaurs are dead.

We will outcreate, outproduce and, when need be, outfight the rest of the world. We can out-think them, too. But our military must not embark upon the 21st century clinging to 20th-century models. Our national appetite for information and our sophistication in handling it will enable us to outlast and outperform all hierarchical cultures, information-controlling societies, and rejectionist states. The skills necessary to this newest information age can be acquired only beginning in childhood and in complete immersion. Societies that fear or otherwise cannot manage the free flow of information simply will not be competitive. They might master the technological wherewithal to watch the videos, but we will be writing the scripts, producing them, and collecting the royalties. Our creativity is devastating. If we insist on a "proven" approach to military affairs, we will be throwing away our greatest national advantage.

We need to make sure our information-based military is based on the right information.

Facing this environment of constant conflict amid information proliferation, the military response has been to coin a new catchphrase--information warfare--and then duck. Although there has been plenty of chatter about information warfare, most of it has been as helpful and incisive as a discussion of sex among junior high school boys; everybody wants to pose, but nobody has a clue. We have hemorrhaged defense dollars to contractors perfectly willing to tell us what we already knew. Studies study other studies. For now, we have decided that information warfare is a matter of technology, which is akin to believing that your stereo system is more important to music than the musicians.

Fear not. We are already masters of information warfare, and we shall get around to defining it eventually. Let the scholars fuss. When it comes to our technology (and all technology is military technology) the Russians can't produce it, the Arabs can't afford it, and no one can steal it fast enough to make a difference. Our great bogeyman, China, is achieving remarkable growth rates because the Chinese belatedly entered the industrial revolution with a billion-plus population. Without a culture-shattering reappreciation of the role of free information in a society, China will peak well below our level of achievement.

Yes, foreign cultures are reasserting their threatened identities--usually with marginal, if any, success--and yes, they are attempting to escape our influence. But American culture is infectious, a plague of pleasure, and you don't have to die of it to be hindered or crippled in your integrity or competitiveness. The very struggle of other cultures to resist American cultural intrusion fatefully diverts their energies from the pursuit of the future. We should not fear the advent of fundamentalist or rejectionist regimes. They are simply guaranteeing their peoples' failure, while further increasing our relative strength.

It remains difficult, of course, for military leaders to conceive of warfare, informational or otherwise, in such broad terms. But Hollywood is "preparing the battlefield," and burgers precede bullets. The flag follows trade. Despite our declaration of defeat in the face of battlefield victory in Mogadishu, the image of US power and the US military around the world is not only a deterrent, but a psychological warfare tool that is constantly at work in the minds of real or potential opponents. Saddam swaggered, but the image of the US military crippled the Iraqi army in the field, doing more to soften them up for our ground assault than did tossing bombs into the sand. Everybody is afraid of us. They really believe we can do all the stuff in the movies. If the Trojans "saw" Athena guiding the Greeks in battle, then the Iraqis saw Luke Skywalker precede McCaffrey's tanks. Our unconscious alliance of culture with killing power is a combat multiplier no government, including our own, could design or afford. We are magic. And we're going to keep it that way.

Within our formal military, we have been moving into information warfare for decades. Our attitude toward data acquisition and, especially, data dissemination within the force has broken with global military tradition, in which empowering information was reserved for the upper echelons. While our military is vertically responsible, as it must be, it is informationally democratic. Our ability to decentralize information and appropriate decisionmaking authority is a revolutionary breakthrough (the over-praised pre-1945 Germans decentralized some tactical decisionmaking, but only within carefully regulated guidelines--and they could not enable the process with sufficient information dissemination).

No military establishment has ever placed such trust in lieutenants, sergeants, and privates, nor are our touted future competitors likely to do so. In fact, there has been an even greater diffusion of power within our military (in the Army and Marines) than most of us realize. Pragmatic behavior daily subverts antiquated structures, such as divisions and traditional staffs. We keep the old names, but the behaviors are changing. What, other than its flag, does the division of 1997 have in common with the division of World War II? Even as traditionalists resist the reformation of the force, the "anarchy" of lieutenants is shaping the Army of tomorrow. Battalion commanders do not understand what their lieutenants are up to, and generals would not be able to sleep at night if they knew what the battalion commanders know. While we argue about change, the Army is changing itself. The Marines are doing a brilliant job of reinventing themselves while retaining their essence, and their achievement should be a welcome challenge to the Army. The Air Force and Navy remain rigidly hierarchical.

Culture is fate. Countries, clans, military services, and individual soldiers are products of their respective cultures, and they are either empowered or imprisoned. The majority of the world's inhabitants are prisoners of their cultures, and they will rage against inadequacies they cannot admit, cannot bear, and cannot escape. The current chest-thumping of some Asian leaders about the degeneracy, weakness, and vulnerability of American culture is reminiscent of nothing so much as of the ranting of Japanese militarists on the eve of the Pacific War. I do not suggest that any of those Asian leaders intend to attack us, only that they are wrong. Liberty always looks like weakness to those who fear it.

In the wake of the Soviet collapse, some commentators declared that freedom had won and history was at an end. But freedom will always find enemies. The problem with freedom is that it's just too damned free for tyrants, whether they be dictators, racial or religious supremacists, or abusive husbands. Freedom challenges existing orders, exposes bigotry, opens opportunity, and demands personal responsibility. What could be more threatening to traditional cultures? The advent of this new information age has opened a fresh chapter in the human struggle for, and with, freedom. It will be a bloody chapter, with plenty of computer-smashing and head-bashing. The number one priority of non-Western governments in the coming decades will be to find acceptable terms for the flow of information within their societies. They will uniformly err on the side of conservatism--informational corruption--and will cripple their competitiveness in doing so. Their failure is programmed.

The next century will indeed be American, but it will also be troubled. We will find ourselves in constant conflict, much of it violent. The United States Army is going to add a lot of battle streamers to its flag. We will wage information warfare, but we will fight with infantry. And we will always surprise those critics, domestic and foreign, who predict our decline.


Major (P) Ralph Peters is assigned to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, where he is responsible for future warfare. Prior to becoming a Foreign Area Officer for Eurasia, he served exclusively at the tactical level. He is a graduate of the US Army Command and General Staff College and holds a master's degree in international relations. Over the past several years, his professional and personal research travels have taken Major Peters to Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Ossetia, Abkhazia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Pakistan, Turkey, Burma, Laos, Thailand, and Mexico, as well as the countries of the Andean Ridge. He has published widely on military and international concerns. His sixth novel, Twilight of Heroes, was recently released by Avon Books. This is his eighth article for Parameters. The author wishes to acknowledge the importance to this essay of discussions with Lieutenant Colonels Gordon Thompson and Lonnie Henley, both US Army officers.

The two items below from Wayne Madsen...

http://waynemadsenreport.com/

February 17-18, 2006 -- It's back to the future for Porter Goss's CIA. A United Nations Human Rights Commission panel has called on the United States to shut down its prisoner gulag at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Bush administration, which has nurtured a global "prison-industrial complex" comprised of private military contractors, CIA airline front companies operating rendition flights, secret prisons, and off-the-books slush funds from the sale of Afghan heroin on the international market, quickly rejected the UN's call for terminating the Guantanamo prison.

More details are emerging about the CIA's new secret aircraft operations from U.S. and European intelligence sources.

The globe-hopping CIA contract Gulfstream V, known as the "Guantanamo Bay Express," (former tail numbers N379P, N8068V, N44982) once registered to Premier Executive Transport Services, a Massachusetts-based front company located in a law office at 339 Washington St., Suite 202, Dedham, MA 02026. Another CIA front company, Crowell Aviation Technologies, which operated a rendition flight Cessna 208 (tail number N1016M) also operated from the same Dedham law firm office address.

Recently, the ubiquitous Gulfstream V was sold again, this time to a mysterious Miami firm, N126CH, Inc., of 2930 Biscayne Boulevard, Miami, Florida. N126CH also happens to be the new tail number for the Gulfstream Guantanamo Bay Express, The attorney of record for N126CH, Inc. is Sharon Christenbury, who is also the attorney of record for Crescent Heights of America, Inc., a real estate/condominium development firm owned by billionaire and Bush-Cheney donor Bruce Menin, whose president is Russell W. Galbut. Christenbury has also registered other firms that use U.S. aircraft tail numbers for corporate names: N360CH, Inc.; N260CH, Inc.; N720CH, Inc.; and N180CH, Inc.

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CIA's Gulfstream V Guantanamo Bay Express: Now owned by Bush-Cheney contributors

In 2002, Menin contributed $2000 to the Republican Campaign Committee of New York. Florida GOP Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen also received financial support from Menin. Galbut has contributed to a number of GOP and Democratic Leadership Counsil (DLC) (“GOP Lite”) politicians. They include George W. Bush, the Northstar Leadership PAC of GOP Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota, Florida GOP Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, Indiana Democratic Senator Evan Bayh, the Republican Campaign Committee of New York, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and the Solutions America PAC of former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, and Florida GOP Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite.

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CIA's Boeing 737 in Estonia in 2003: Various stops in locations not known as terror havens.

There is interest by U.S. intelligence agents in the activities of a California and Geneva, Switzerland-based “humanitarian” aircraft and telecommunications services company that was active in providing various “services” during Taliban/Al Qaeda joint control of Afghanistan and continues to provide similar “services” in Hamid Karzai’s Afghanistan. The non-profit company is linked to a “Christian” aviation operation that was been linked to the Contra wars in Central America in the 1980s as well as Pat Robertson’s Operation Blessing.

U.S. intelligence sources report from Afghanistan that aircraft bearing the markings of the California/Geneva firm are being used to ferry around Afghan tribal leaders and export high-grade Afghan heroin. Opium exports, which is at record production levels in Afghanistan, are being used to supplement Porter Goss’s agency’s off-the-books operations, in much the same way that cocaine was used to support various Contra and other Central American covert operations in the 1980s.

In fact, the Christian aviation organization was involved in supporting various right-wing paramilitary forces in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica supported by the Dallas-based Central America Mission (CAM), itself torn between those who disagreed with Ronald Reagan’s Central American policies and those who covertly supported the right-wing paramilitaries by funneling them CIA aid from U.S. embassies in Managua, Nicaragua and San Jose, Costa Rica.

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U.S. intelligence agents want to know why contract aircraft like this one are ferrying around Afghan warlords and contraband.

Some of CAM’s Central American operatives worked closely with Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) of Redlands, California. One such operative was the head of the Campus Crusade for Christ in Nicaragua, Jimmy Hassan. Appearing on Robertson’s 700 Club in 1985 with exaggerated claims of Sandinsta repression, Hassan became a cult hero for the Religious Right.

CAM and MAF are linked to a variety of Christian Right organizations in the United States. Some veterans of MAF and CAM in the Central American wars are now active in Afghanistan operations – activities that are worrying to U.S. intelligence agents who believe that under Goss, the CIA is opening its doors to religious zealots, war profiteers, and neo-con opportunists.

The following is a comprehensive list of the flights of the Boeing 737 (former N313P). The Boeing was re-registered to Keeler and Tate Management using tail number N4476S and continued to be used for secret prisoner transfers. Keeler and Tate operated from an office located at 245 E. Liberty St., Suite 510, Reno, Nevada 89501. The law firm of Steven Peterson used the same address as did Laxalt Group West, the law firm of former Nevada Republican Senator Paul Laxalt, who was known as President Ronald Reagan’s “First Friend.” Note that some of the stops are far from the "war on terror" -- Turks and Caicos Islands, Fiji, Las Vegas, Geneva, New Orleans, Romania, Macedonia, Palma de Mallorca, Cyprus, etc. Not much terrorism but all are likely stops for planes running drugs out of Afghanistan and other drug transit points.

N313P Boeing 737:
20.09.2002 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Fayetteville, North Carolina, USA
20.09.2002 From: Fayetteville, North Carolina, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
21.09.2002 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Fayetteville, North Carolina, USA
21.09.2003 From: Fayetteville, North Carolina, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
24.09.2002 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Fayetteville, North Carolina, USA
24.09.2002 From: Fayetteville, North Carolina, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
30.09.2002 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Columbus, Ohio, USA
03.10.2002 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Wichita, Kansas, USA
04.10.2002 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Jacksonville, Florida, USA
07.10.2002 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dallas, Texas, USA
10.10.2002 From: Dallas, Texas, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
23.10.2002 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Wilmington, North Carolina, USA
23.10.2002 From: Wilmington, North Carolina, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
30.10.2002 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Wilmington, Delaware, USA
30.10.2002From: Wilmington, Delaware, USA to: Greer South Carolina USA
31.10.2002 From: Greer South Carolina USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
08.11.2002 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Fayetteville, North Carolina, USA
08.11.2002 From: Fayetteville, North Carolina, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
15.11.2002 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Myrtle Beach South Carolina USA
15.11.2002 From: Myrtle Beach South Carolina USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
19.11.2002 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Myrtle Beach South Carolina USA
20.11.2002 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Memphis, Tennessee, USA
22.11.2002 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, USA
22.11.2002 From: Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, USA to: Frankfurt, Germany
24.11.2002 From: Amman, Jordan to: Frankfurt, Germany [overflew Switzerland]
25.01.2002 From: Frankfurt, Germany to: Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, USA
25.11.2002 From: Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, USA to: Kinston Kinston, North Carolina, USA
30.11.2002 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Albuquerque New Mexico, USA
30.11.2002 From: Albuquerque New Mexico, USA to: Portsmouth New Hampshire, USA
01.12.2002 From: Portsmouth New Hampshire, USA to: Pisa, Italy [overflew Switzerland]
01.12.2002 From: Pisa, Italy to: Frankfurt, Germany [overflew Switzerland]
04.12.2002 From: Frankfurt, Germany to: Mildenhall, England
04.12.2002 From: Mildenhall, England to: Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, USA
05.12.2002 From: Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, USA to: Desert Rock, Nevada, USA
05.12.2002 From: Desert Rock, Nevada, USA to: Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
06.12.2002 From: Las Vegas Nevada to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
14.12.2002 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
15.12.2002 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Frankfurt, Germany
16.12.2002 From: Frankfurt, Germany to: Islamabad, Pakistan
23.12.2002 From: Islamabad, Pakistan to: Frankfurt, Germany
23.12.2002 From: Frankfurt, Germany to: Dulles Washington DC, USA
24.12.2002 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
10.01.2003 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
11.01.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Shannon, Ireland
11.01.2003 From: Shannon, Ireland to: Frankfurt, Germany
11.01.2003 From: Frankfurt, Germany to: Parnu, Estonia
14.01.2003 From: Frankfurt, Germany to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
14.01.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
30.01.2003 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
30.01.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Ramstein Airbase, Germany
01.02.2003 From Ramstein Airbase, Germany to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
04.02.2003 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
05.02.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: MacDill Air Force Base, Tampa, Florida, USA
05.02.2003 MacDill Air Force Base, Tampa, Florida, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
06.02.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Frankfurt, Germany
10.02.2003 From: Ramstein Airbase, Germany to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
10.02.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
13.02.2003 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Memphis, Tennessee, USA
13.02.2003 From: Memphis, Tennessee, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
14.02.2003 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
14.02.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Frankfurt, Germany
28.02.2003 From: Frankfurt, Germany to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
28.02.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
03.03.2003 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Tulsa Oklahoma US
04.03.2003 From: Newburgh, New York, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
06.03.2003 From: Tulsa Oklahoma US to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
10.03.2003 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dulles Washington DC,USA
10.03.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: London Luton, England
11.03.2003 From: London Luton, England to: Kuwait
14.03.2003 From: Larnaca, Cyprus to: Shannon, Ireland
16.03.2003 From: Frankfurt, Germany to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
16.03.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
24.03.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: London Luton, England
27.03.2003 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
28.03.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: London Luton, England
28.03.2003 From: London Gatwick, England to: Shaikh Isa, Bahrain [overflew Switzerland]
30.03.2003 From: Dubai, UAE to: London Luton, England [overflew Switzerland]
30.03.2003 From: London Luton, England to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
31.03.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
13.04.2003 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
13.04.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Frankfurt, Germany
14.04.2003 From: Frankfurt, Germany to: Dubai, UAE [overflew Switzerland]
15.04.2003 From: Kuwait London to: Luton, England [overflew Switzerland]
15.04.2003 From: London Luton, England to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
16.04.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
04.05.2003 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
05.05.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Frankfurt, Germany
06.05.2003 From: Frankfurt, Deutschland to: Kuwait [overflew [Switzerland]
30.05.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Frankfurt, Germany
13.06.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Frankfurt, Germany
08.05.2003 From: Dubai, UAE to: Frankfurt, Germany
09.05.2003 From: Frankfurt, Germany to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
09.05.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
13.05.2003 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
13.05.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Frankfurt, Germany
15.05.2003 From: Frankfurt, Germany to: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia [overflew Switzerland]
20.05.2003 From: Dubai, UAE to: Frankfurt, Germany [overflew Switzerland]
21.05.2003 From: Frankfurt, Germany to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
21.05.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
27.05.2003 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Fayetteville, North Carolina, USA
27.05.2003 From: Fayetteville, North Carolina, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
30.05.2003 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
30.05.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Frankfurt, Germany
31.05.2003 From: Frankfurt, Germany to: Riyadh King Khaled Saudi Arabia [overflew Switzerland]
02.06.2003 From: Dubai, UAE to: Dublin, Ireland [overflew Switzerland]
03.06.2003 From: Dublin, Ireland to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
03.06.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
06.06.2003 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Fayetteville, North Carolina, USA
06.06.2003 From: Fayetteville, North Carolina, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
10.06.2003 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
10.06.2003 From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
12.06.2003 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
13.06.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Frankfurt, Germany
13.06.2003 From: Frankfurt, Germany to: Baku, Azerbaijan
15.06.2003 From: Karachi, Pakistan to: Frankfurt, Germany
15.06.2003 From: Frankfurt, Germany to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
16.06.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Johnston County (Smithfield), North Carolina, USA
26.06.2003 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: New Orleans Louisiana MSY
26.06.2003 From: New Orleans Louisiana MSY to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
06.07.2003 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dulles Washington DC USA
10.07.2003 From: Larnaca, Cyprus to: Glasgow, Scotland [overflew Switzerland]
10.07.2003 From: Glasgow, Scotland to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
11.07.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
13.07.2003 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dallas, Texas, USA
19.07.2003 From: Dallas, Texas, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
22.07.2003 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
22.07.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Amman, Jordan [overflew Switzerland]
24.07.2003 From: Frankfurt, Germany to: Glasgow, Scotland
25.07.2003 From: Glasgow, Scotland to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
25.07.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Elizabeth City North Carolina, USA
25.07.2003 From: Elizabeth City North Carolina, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
25.07.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC; USA to: Panama City, Florida, USA
25.07.2003 From: Panama City Florida, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
25.07.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
28.07.2003 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
28.07.2003 From: Elizabeth City North Carolina to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
05.08.2003 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
05.08.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Frankfurt, Germany
08.08.2003 From: Kuwait to: Frankfurt, Germany
08.08.2003 From: Frankfurt, Germany to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
09.08.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
13.08.2003 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
13.08.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Frankfurt, Germany
16.08.2003 From: Glasgow, Scotland to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
16.08.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
22.08.2003 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Indianapolis, Indiana, USA
26.08.2003 From: Frankfurt, Deutschland to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
27.08.2003 From: Pasco, Washington, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
02.09.2003 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
03.09.2003 From: Brunswick Naval Air Station, Maine, USA to: Frankfurt, Germany
04.09.2003 From: Frankfurt, Germany to: Amman, Jordan [overflew Switzerland]
06.09.2003 From: Larnaca, Cyprus to: Glasgow, Scotland [overflew Switzerland]
07.09.2003 From: Glasgow, Scotland to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
07.09.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
11.09.2003 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Georgetown, Delaware, USA
13.09.2003 From: Georgetown, Delaware, USA to: Dallas, Texas, USA
19.09.2003 From: Dallas, Texas, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
20.09.2003 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
20.09.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Prague, Czech Republic
21.09.2003 From: Prague, Czech Republic to: Tashkent, Uzbekistan
22.09.2003 From: Kabul, Afghanistan to: Szymany, Poland
23.09.2003 From: Rabat, Marocco to: Guantanamo Bay, Cuba
25.09.2003 From: Turks and Caicos Islands to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
25.09.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
16.10.2003 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
17.10.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Oxford, England
19.10.2003 From: RAF Northolt, England to: Tripoli, Libya
22.10.2003 From: Mitiga, Libya to: RAF Northolt, England
28.10.2003 From: RAF Northolt, England to: Mitiga, Libya [overflew Switzerland]
29.10.2003 From: Mitiga Libya to: RAF Northolt, England
29.10.2003 From: RAF Northolt, England to: Shannon, Ireland
30.10.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
13.11.2003 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USAto: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
13.11.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Frankfurt, Germany
14.11.2003 From: Frankfurt, Germany to: Moscow, Russia
20.11.2003 From: Rabat, Marocco to: Frankfurt, Germany [overflew Switzerland]
20.11.2003 From: Frankfurt, Germany to: Kabul, Afghanistan
23.11.2003 From: Turks and Caicos Islands to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
23.11.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
30.11.2003 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
01.12.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: RAF Northolt, England
01.12.2003 From RAF Northolt, England to: Mitiga, Libya [overflew Switzerland]
03.12.2003 From: Mitiga, Libya to: RAF Northolt, England
06.12.2003 From RAF Northolt, England to: Malta
10.12.2003 From: Malta to: Mitiga Libyen
12.12.2003 From: Mitiga, Libya to: Oxford, England
12.12.2003 From: Oxford, England to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
14.12.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Frankfurt, Germany
14.12.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Baghdad, Iraq.
16.12.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA (2:08 AM) to: Luton, England
17.12.2003 From: London Luton, England to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
17.12.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
23.12.2003 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
24.12.2003 From Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Geneva, Switzerland
24.12.2003 From: Geneva, Switzerland to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
24.12.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
26.12.2003 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
26.12.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Providenciales Turks and Caicos
27.12.2003 From: Providenciales, Turks and Caicos to: Guantanamo Bay, Cuba
28.12.2003 From: Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to: Rabat, Marocco
31.12.2003 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
05.01.2004 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
05.01.2004 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Frankfurt, Deutschland
06.01.2004 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Amman Marka ADJ
09.01.2004 From: Prague, Czech Republic to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
10.01.2004 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
15.01.2004 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
16.01.2004 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Shannon, Ireland
16.01.2004 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Shannon, Ireland
17.01.2004 From: Shannon, Ireland to: Larnaca, Cyprus
21.01.2004 From: Larnaca, Cyprus to: Rabat, Marocco
22.01.2004 From: Rabat, Marocco to: Kabul, Afghanistan
22.01.2004 From: Kabul,Afghanistan to: Algiers, Algeria
22.01.2004 From: Algiers, Algeria to: Palma de Mallorca, Spain
23.01.2004 From: Palma, Spain to: Skopje, Macedonia
24.01.2004 From: Skopje, Macedonia to: Baghdad, Iraq
24.01.2004 From: Baghdad, Iraq to: Kabul,Afghanistan
25.01.2004 From: Kabul, Afghanistan to: Timisoara, Romania
25.01.2004 From: Timisoara, Romania to: Bucharest, Romania
26.01.2004 From: Bucharest, Romania to: Palma de Mallorca, Spain
28.01.2004 From: Palma, Spain to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
28.01.2004 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
06.02.2004 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
07.02.2004 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Frankfurt, Germany
07.02.2004 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Amman Marka, Jordan
08.02.2004 From: Larnaca, Cyprus to: Shannon, Irland
08.02.2004 From: Shannon, Ireland to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
09.02.2004 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
15.02.2004 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
16.02.2004 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Mitiga, Libya
21.02.2004 From: Mitiga, Libya to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
21.02.2004 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
02.03.2004 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
02.03.2004 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Frankfurt, Deutschland
03.03.2004 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Amman, Jordan
04.03.2004 From: Shannon, Ireland to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
05.03.2004 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
06.03.2004 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
07.03.2004 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Tripoli, Libya
09.03.2004 From: Mitiga, Libya to: Palma de Mallorca, Spain
12.03.2004 From:Palma de Mallorca, Spain to: Örebro, Sweden
14.03.2004 From: Larnaka, Cyprus to: Shannon, Ireland
14.03.2004 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
09.04.2004 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
20.04.2004 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
20.04.2004 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Frankfurt, Germany
21.04.2004 From: Frankfurt, Germany to: Mitiga, Libya [overflew Switzerland]
23.04.2004 From: Palma de Mallorca to: Mitiga, Libya

27.04.2004 From: Amman, Jordan to: Shannon, Irland
28.04.2004 From: Shannon, Ireland to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
02.05.2004 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dallas, Texas, USA
05.05.2004 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Fayetteville, North Carolina, USA
08.05.2004 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
08.05.2004 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Frankfurt, Germany
10.05.2004 From: Shannon, Ireland to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
11.05.2004 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
20.05.2004 From: Cincinnati Ohio, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
27.05.2004 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
27.05.2004 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
12.06.2004 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
12.06.2004 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Shannon, Ireland
15.06.2004 From: Frankfurt, Germany to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
15.06.2004 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
21.06.2004 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
21.06.2004 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
22.06.2004 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
23.06.2004 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Johnston County (Smithfield), North Carolina, USA
23.06.2004 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Las Vegas Nevada USA
24.06.2004 From: Las Vegas Nevada LAS to: Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
25.06.2004 From: Honolulu, Hawaii, USA to: Nadi, Fiji
30.06.2004 From: Honolulu, Hawaii, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
01.07.2004 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
21.07.2004 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
22.07.2004 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
30.07.2004 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
30.07.2004 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Frankfurt, Germany
01.08.2004 From: Shannon, Ireland to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
01.08.2004 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
14.08.2004 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Memphis, Tennessee, USA
15.08.2004 From: Memphis, Tennessee, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
02.09.2004 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
02.09.2004 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Frankfurt, Germany
07.09.2004 From: Palma de Mallorca, Spain to: Mitiga, Libya
10.09.2004 From: Frankfurt, Germany to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
10.09.2004 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
12.09.2004 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dallas, Texas, USA
20.09.2004 From: Dallas, Texas, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
19.10.2004 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Columbia, South Carolina, USA
19.10.2004 From: Columbia, South Carolina, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
22.10.2005 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
23.10.2004 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Frankfurt, Germany
26.10.2004 From: Frankfurt, Germany to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
26.10.2004 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Guantanamo Bay, cuba
26.10.2004 From: Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to Turks and Caicos Islands
28.10.2004 From: Wilmington, North Carolina, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
18.11.2004 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA
02.12.2004 From: Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
11.12.2004 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
12.12.2004 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA Frankfurt, Germany Letztmals
16.12.2004 From: Frankfurt, Germany to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
17.12.2004 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
07.01.2005 From: Palma de Mallorca, Spain to: Libya/Morocco
16.01.2005 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
16.01.2005 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Libya Mitiga
18.01.2005 From: Palma de Mallorca to: Mitiga, Libyen
19.01.2005 From: Mitiga, Libya to: Glasgow, Scotland
19.01.2005 From: Glasgow, Scotland to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
20.01.2005 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
05.02.2005 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
06.02.2005 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Glasgow, Scotland
07.02.2005 From: Glasgow, Scotland to: Baghdad, Irak
16.02.2005 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
22.02.2005 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Myrtle Beach South Carolina USA
22.02.2005 From: Myrtle Beach South Carolina USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
14.04.2005 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Memphis, Tennessee, USA
14.04.2005 From: Memphis, Tennessee, USA to: Azores, Portugal
17.04.2005 From: Khartoum, Sudan to: Baltimore, Maryland; USA
18.04.2005 From: Baltimore, Maryland, USA to: Memphis, Tennessee, USA
22.04.2005 From: Baltimore, Maryland, USA to: Porto, Portugal
22.04.2005 From: Porto, Portugal to: Khartoum, Sudan
26.04.2005 From: Manchester, New Hampshire, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
29.04.2005 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Memphis, Tennessee, USA
21.04.2005 From: Memphis, Tennessee, USA to: Baltimore, Maryland, USA
30.04.2005 From: Baltimore, Maryland, USA to: Athens, Greece
06.05.2005 From: Kandahar, Afghanistan to: Prague, Czech Republic
06.05.2005 From: Prague, Czech Republic to: Baltimore, Maryland, USA
07.05 05 From: Baltimore, Maryland, USA to: Richmond ,Virginia, USA
27.05.05 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Richmond, Virginia, USA
27.05.05 From: Richmond Virginia, USA to: Baltimore, Maryland, USA
27.05.05 From: Baltimore, Maryland, USA to: Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
30.05.2005 From: Las Vegas ,Nevada, USA to: Baltimore, Maryland, USA
31.05.05 From: Richmond Virginia, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
16.06.2005 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
18.06.2005 From: Roanoke, Virginia, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
02.07.2005 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Norfolk, Virgina, USA
02.07.2005 From: Norfolk Virginia, USA to: Glasgow, Scotland
02.07.2005 From: Glasgow, Scotland to: Porto, Portugal
02.07.2005 From: Porto, Portugal to: Baghdad, Irak
05.07.2005 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
13.07.2005 From: Kinston Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Myrtle Beach South Carolina USA
13.07.2005 From: Myrtle Beach South Carolina USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
04.09.2005 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dulles, Washington DC, USA
05.09.2005 From: Dulles, Washington DC, USA to: Providence, Rhode Island RI USA
06.09.2005 From: Providence, Rhode Island, USA to: Porto, Portugal
13.09.2005 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Dallas, Texas, USA
11.10.2005 From: Dallas, Texas, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
20.10.2005 From: Fayetteville, North Carolina, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
20.10.2005 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Myrtle Beach South Carolina USA
20.10.2005 From: Myrtle Beach South Carolina USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
20.10.2005 From: Fayetteville, North Carolina, USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
20.10.2005 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Wilmington, North Carolina, USA
15.12.2005 From: Kinston Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Houston, Texas, USA
16.12.2005 From: Myrtle Beach South Carolina USA to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA
24.01.2006 From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA to: Tulsa Oklahoma
26.01.2006 From: Tulsa Oklahoma to: Kinston, North Carolina, USA

UPDATE:

February 19, 2006 -- More on CIA rendition planes and their varied destinations. Billions missing from Iraq (including money from Saddam Hussein and his government officials as well as Iraqi oil sales) and $44 billion missing from the U.S. Treasury in Iraq. Reports of renewed CIA drug smuggling operations. "Air America" is back in operation and its transporting more than "Al Qaeda" prisoners.

See flight list for the CIA Gulfstream, Guantanamo Bay Express, that stopped off in such "terrorist havens" as Wildwood, New Jersey; Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; Destin/Fort Walton Beach, Florida; Las Vegas, Miami, Santa Ana, California; Anchorage, Alaska; and such drug terminals as the Turks and Caicos Islands and Marrakesh, Morocco.

Click here [link] for flights of the Gulfstream V Guantanamo Bay Express.

(IMAGE)

From Guantanamo Bay Express to Marrakesh Express?

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_513.shtml

Iranians, why can't you be more like us?

By Bev Conover

Online Journal Editor & Publisher

Feb 16, 2006, 20:37

Dear Iranians, our dictator doesn't like your president. The difference, assuming you had a fair and honest election, is you elected your guy and ours stole two elections, but our guy wants to give you democracy.

Our guy keeps telling us that we can't use our money -- what, if anything, is left of it -- to help our people, because he needs every penny he can squeeze out of us and borrow from other countries for his endless wars and his war-profiteering buddies who are funneling it into their offshore bank accounts as fast as he hands them the greenbacks. Of course, with the kind of democracy he wants to give you, your guy will have to pony up your money to our guy. Our guy will take oil in lieu of cash. Not the worst deal, eh?

On the surface, our guy and his secretary of state, Condoleezza "Fried" Rice, would have people believe you can promote democracy like toothpaste. So Ms. Fried Rice -- fried as pertaining to her brain -- wants another $75 million of our or borrowed money to convince (okay, propagandize) you that our democracy makes for whiter teeth. Truth is, it makes for no teeth at all, because many of us can't afford dentists, among other things.

But hey, you have been on the receiving end of our democracy campaign ever since we started really feeling our oats about what a great, free nation we are shortly after our "greatest generation" defeated the Nazis and Japanese -- some say single-handedly.

Have you forgotten that our CIA rid you of your popular, duly elected Premier Mohammed Mossaddeg, because he was going to nationalize Iran's oil industry and seize control of the British owned and operated Anglo-Iranian Oil Company? Now how democratic was that?

So our guy, Ike (who may or may not have been elected, because we can't be sure of how long election thefts have been going on) teamed up with the Brits' guy, Winnie Churchill, to cook up a plot that led to the coup, carried out by the CIA, that toppled Mossaddeq and saddled you with Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Could you have asked for a greater gift?

Dunno about you, but everything was going swimmingly for us until our friend (puppet) the shah was toppled by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who turned your country into an Islamic republic, which didn't sit well with our guys, either.

Uncle Ronnie Reagan may have traded arms for hostages to get back our people that your people were holding, which helped you in your war with Iraq, but he sent his special envoy and our current secretary of war, Donny Rumsfeld, out the other door to Iraq to supply Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to use against you -- those WMD that our current guy and Rummy claimed Saddam was going to use against us, but, hard as our guys looked, couldn't find. Ya gotta admit that from our guys' standpoint that was a brilliant move, except you and the Iraqis failed to knock off each other so our guys could grab your land and oil.

Despair not. It took a few more years, but look at how our current guy liberated the Iraqis. Why in a few more years there will be nothing and no one left in the place, except us, the oil and depleted uranium.

Ain't democracy great? How can you resist it? Don't you want whiter teeth; a more efficient police state; an economy in shambles; debt that can never be repaid; a destroyed environment; permanent unemployment; people unable to afford health care, housing, food clothing; no safety net or pensions; and your children and grandchildren used as cannon fodder in endless wars?

Now if you reject Ms. Fried Rice's snake oil promotion . . . er, gift of democracy, our guy or his evil buddies in Israel will nuke you. Hell, they may do it even before she gets to add another $75 million to our debt. And if they do that, you won't have to concern yourselves about whiter teeth, just bones that glow in the dark.


Copyright © 1998-2006 Online Journal

"...Let's lay the blame for these tortures squarely where it belongs: on the shoulders of the "Commander-in-Chief." It's only fair; if this gibbering goon is going to lay claim to unrestricted powers, then by God he will have to bear unrestricted, unmitigated responsibility as well..."

http://www.chris-floyd.com

EYES WIDE OPEN

by Chris Floyd

Thursday, 16 February 2006

Salon.com has obtained a cache of torture photos and videos from Abu Ghraib, along with previously unreleased investigation reports which detail "a total of 1,325 images of suspected detainee abuse, 93 video files of suspected detainee abuse, 660 images of adult pornography, 546 images of suspected dead Iraqi detainees, 29 images of soldiers in simulated sexual acts, 20 images of a soldier with a Swastika drawn between his eyes, 37 images of Military Working dogs being used in abuse of detainees and 125 images of questionable acts."

Our webmaster, Rich Kastelein, has put together a special page containing the photos released by Salon.com (which, as the website notes, represent only a small fraction of the total), along with other materials, including video of the recent Australian TV broadcast that first brought this new belching of Bush-filth to light. You can find it here: Abu Ghraib Part II. http://www.chris-floyd.com/abu/

Yes, we said Bush-filth. Let's lay the blame for these tortures squarely where it belongs: on the shoulders of the "Commander-in-Chief." It's only fair; if this gibbering goon is going to lay claim to unrestricted powers, then by God he will have to bear unrestricted, unmitigated responsibility as well. And in truth, it has been well-documented by now that the widespread, systematic -- and on-going -- use of torture throughout America's new worldwide gulag was instigated at Bush's order, "justified" by the pretzel logic of his legal bagmen -- Alberto Gonzales and John Yoo, among many others -- and promulgated through presidential "executive orders" and directions laid down by Donald Rumsfeld.

Of course, these Abu Ghraib photos themselves represent only a small fraction of the atrocities carried out -- in our name -- in secret hell-holes around the globe. The photos depict the raw and brutal dawn of a system that has become progressively more refined, more "professional," now largely removed from the hands of untrained grunts with digital cameras, and instead carried out in secret by CIA agents and other operatives of the America's mammoth "security organs" -- again, acting under presidential orders, and presidential protection.

What shall we say when history asks how such crimes came to be committed in the name of America? Will we say that we stood silently by, shrugging our shoulders, filling our bellies, closing our eyes? Or will we be able to say: We saw. We dissented. We resisted. We condemned.

Rich has done a masterful job with his many special projects on this site, providing vivid pictures -- and copious supporting materials -- for all those who want to open their eyes to the horrors of the illegal war in Iraq, and to the brutality and moral corruption of the "War on Terror." He has done it again here. Go, see, open your eyes, and let them know -- these torturers, these bloodstained betrayers of our common humanity -- let them know that you know what they are, what they have done.