US plans to fortify its embassy in Iraq have raised new suspicion about the diplomatic outpost’s purpose in the politically-gridlocked country.

The White House has reduced the number of its troops in Iraq to around 50,000 and said it would take all its forces out of the country by the next year. But Washington has also announced plans to increase the number of American security contractors, tasked with securing American diplomats and diplomatic facilities.

In an interview with Press TV, Entifadh Qanbar from the Shia parliamentary front Iraqi National Alliance (INA) referred to the nationwide misgivings fueled by the planned security buildup.

“I think having 20,000 or 10,000 security personnel on the Iraqi ground is a serious violation of the Iraqi sovereignty,” he said.

“…it will give the impression and the perception that the US embassy is acting beyond its capacity as a diplomatic embassy rather than interference in the Iraqi politics or, as some people would like to call it, acting as a shadow government…”

The contractors would be authorized to run surveillance missions in search for alleged roadside bombs, fly spy planes and man radar facilities. The number of the US-deployed aircraft, helicopters, mine-resistant vehicles and armor-plated cars will also go up to match the reinforcement.

The most infamous among contractors is private security contractor Blackwater, currently known as Xe Services, LLC. In one incident, Blackwater employees killed 17 civilians in Baghdad’s Nisour Square during a shooting spree in 2007.

Frank Wisner, former US ambassador to Egypt and India said, “We paid a terrible price…for what we did with our intervention and it should give us great great pause. Before the United States commits force and changes the regime, we need to take through very carefully what it takes to do that, what the follow-up is and what our responsibility is over the years to come and do a careful cost-benefit analysis. Just to go in because we have the capability is not a good idea.”

The comments came at a time of political vulnerability in Iraq resulting from the March 7 parliamentary polls that did not produce a clear winner to form a new government.

Editors Note:

The Baghdad embassy—the largest of any nation on planet earth and ten times bigger than any other US embassy—is striking evidence indicating a continued US presence in the country for many years to come. The structure cost more than $700 million and is the size of 80 football fields. It is bigger than the Vatican, six times larger than the United Nations compound in New York and is about two thirds the size of the National Mall in Washington. It has space for 1,000 employees who are guarded by scores of paramilitary mercenary forces. In other words it is the perfect structure for a nation that claims to be leaving Iraq very soon.

Islamophobia is sweeping the nation—and it couldn’t have come at a better time.  Just when the American people were starting to become distracted with trivial issues like the potential stock market crash, the re-branding of the war in Iraq, and the ongoing environmental disaster in the Gulf—along comes a crisis of  Biblical proportions, that threatens to destroy the moral fiber of America itself, and deliver its Christian population into the diabolical hands of an Islamic dictatorship ruled under the precepts of Sharia law.

Oh, foolish man.  What can you not be made to believe?
~Adam Weishaupt~

By now, it should be quite obvious that the hysteria centered on the proposed construction of an Islamic cultural center—a full two blocks from Ground Zero—is nothing more than an engineered distraction, designed to take the focus away from serious geopolitical and domestic issues as we head into the November elections.

Late last year, we watched in horror as the Tea Party movement was infiltrated by certain personalities from the GOP establishment.  Glenn Beck, Dick Army, Rick Perry, Sarah Palin, and others of that same ilk—all dressed down to mingle with working class folks— and let them know that the Republican party shares their pain.  Before these clowns got involved, the focus of the Tea Party was on big government, compulsory health insurance and Wall Street bailouts.  But over a period of time—as these Johnny-Come-Latelies sunk their fingers deeper into the pie—they used their influence to diffuse the ire against Wall Street and redirect those energies to support the GOP war agenda.

Now we are starting to see large swaths of Tea Party factions taking up the military banner at their functions—complete with metrosexual cowboys singing war anthems in the background—and stirring up racial tensions the likes of which we have not witnessed since before the civil rights movement of the 1960’s.

No longer is Wall Street feeling the hot pangs of public anger breathing down their necks.  These terrorists have been left to their own devices, with free reign to continue their raping and pillaging of the American dream.  Now, cab drivers wearing turbans have more to fear than the bankster gangster riding in their back seats.

From New York City to Southern California, large groups of paranoid warmongers gather outside Islamic places of worship to parrot the lies fed to them by the mainstream media.  Much of their ammunition comes straight out of a likely source:  FOX News.

On August 16, disgraced former congressman Newt Gingrich made an appearance on the morning program, FOX and Friends, and said, “Nazis don’t have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust museum in Washington. We would never accept the Japanese putting up a site next to Pearl Harbor. There’s no reason for us to accept a mosque next to the World Trade Center.” Is that right?  Well, assuming that this is a Christian nation, like so many people claim it to be, then I assume it would be wrong to construct a Christian church in Dresden or Hiroshima.  Oh, but I know you’re going to tell me that those were not acts of terrorism.  You may not think so, but I’ll bet there are hundreds of thousands of Germans and Japanese who would beg to differ.

Later that week, on the same program, host Brian Kilmeade asserted his fear that the Islamic Cultural Center in New York City would be the future site of a new “Hamburg Cell.”  In case you didn’t know, the “Hamburg Cell” was where three alleged hijackers reportedly cooked up the 911 plot.  Two of the three men were tried in Germany, but the cases were dropped when the U.S. failed to provide any incriminating evidence that linked them to the attacks.

Other FOX propagandists, like Dick Morris, claim that the center will be used to ‘train and recruit’ future terrorists.  “Shariah law mandates jihad” blurted Morris. “And it mandates terrorism and suicide bombing. So this is really a juridical center that is being established to study and promote and train and recruit Shariah law advocates, which will become terrorists. … We’re establishing literally a command center for terrorism right at the 9/11 site.” This kind of B.S. brings to mind that famous Arte Johnson line from ‘Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In’:  “Very interesting…but stupid!”

Recent evidence suggests just the opposite of Morris’ line of thinking.  According to a recent New York Times article, “A two-year study by a group of academics on American Muslims and terrorism concluded that contemporary mosques are actually a deterrent to the spread of militant Islam and terrorism. The study was conducted by professors with Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy and the University of North Carolina. It disclosed that many mosque leaders had put significant effort into countering extremism by building youth programs, sponsoring antiviolence forums and scrutinizing teachers and texts.”

But this won’t stop the likes of Gingrich, Kilmeade and Morris from spreading their message of intolerance.  They have an agenda, and that agenda is to stir up a deep-seated hatred against the Muslim community in order to rally support for a war on Iran.  And they’ve been very effective.  Their rhetoric is being picked up and repeated by Islamophobes all across the nation.  For them, it’s all about the fear of Shariah law, disrespect to 911 victims, and the paranoid assumption that all Mosques are staging grounds for future terrorist attacks.

In Murfreesboro, Tennessee—opponents of a proposed Mosque spray-painted the words “Not Welcome” on a sign that marked the construction site, and later tore it to shreds.  They also brought dogs to intimidate Muslims as they worshipped in the modest office space they’ve been using as a prayer room.  One man—sounding a lot like Newt Gingrich—told a CNN reporter that “In Islam, a mosque means ‘We have conquered this country,’” And where are they? They’re in the center of Tennessee. They’re going to say, ‘We have conquered Tennessee.’”

In Temecula, California—plans by the Islamic community to build a mosque on a four-acre parcel of land has sparked a similar protest.  Pastor Bill Rench, of Temecula Calvary Baptist Church, echoed Kilmeade and Morris when he stated, “There is a concern with all the rumors you hear about sleeper cells and all that. Are we supposed to be complacent just because these people say it’s a religion of peace? Many others have said the same thing.”

A website for a group calling itself ‘We the People—Citizens in Action’ called on their members to attend a rally in Temecula and to “bring your Bibles, flags, signs, dogs and singing voice.” At the event, demonstrators held up signs that read ‘No Sharia Law’ and ‘Muslims Danced For Joy on 9/11.’ Apparently they haven’t learned that the “so-called” dancing Palestinians they’re referring to were actually paid to perform in front of the camera with candy and cakes supplied to them by the Israel Ministry of Defense.  The whole thing was staged.

What was not staged were the five dancing Israelis arrested on 9/11, who were reported to police after being seen cheering and ‘high-fiving’ as they watched the towers come down.  They’d been shooting video of the disaster from a short distance away.  They were later released by police and deported back to Israel, where three of them admitted on Israeli TV that they were in New York City that day to “document the event.”

In Bridgeport, Connecticut—a dozen “so-called” Christian demonstrators angrily screamed, “Islam is a lie” and “Jesus hates Muslims” at worshippers of a local Mosque.  One demonstrator even confronted a group of children and called them “murderers.” Have these people even read the scriptures?  Where can Jesus be found to say that he hates Muslims?  Muslims weren’t even around during the time Christ walked the Earth.  Islam began almost six hundred years after the death of Christ.  There is not even one biblical passage that eludes to Islam or mosques or Muslims.

We haven’t seen this level of ignorance and superstition since the Salem Witch Trials of the 1600’s.  There are many parallels that be can drawn from that time and now. During that era of American history, the colonies suffered from severe enviromental and economic troubles.  Severe weather changes resulted in crop failures which devastated livestock and the ability for families to put food on the table.  What made matters worse was the influential and fervently religious Puritans, who were very active politically, and attributed all adversity to the wrath of God.  The economic woes, coupled by a belief that all bad things are a result of supernatural punishment for unrepentant sin, fostered a climate of suspicion that sent many in search of the source to their problems.  Someone had to take the blame and be held to answer for all the troubles they inflicted upon everyone else.  While the fanatically religious clung to their superstitions in pursuit of justice, many others took advantage of the hysteria and used it as an opportunity to eliminate bitter rivals and steal coveted and valuable pieces of property.

What we don’t understand, we fear.  What we fear, we judge as evil.  What we judge as evil, we attempt to control.  And what we cannot control…we attack.

We see the same thing happening today.  As we fall deeper into our own economic crisis—aggravated by enviromental disasters and poor money policies—the ignorant masses are susceptible to clinging to a simple explanation for their troubles.  In this case, it is Islam.  They are the modern day witches, whose behavior is foreign and therefore a threat that must be exterminated.  Our modern day equivelent to the Puritans are those fervently religious and politically active Judeo-Christians who cling to a politicised perversion of Biblical scriptures.  They have been led to believe that allegiance to the state of Israel is critical to their salvation.  If Islam is a threat to Israel, then Islam is the enemy that must be defeated.  Then, of course, there are those who are simply taking advantage of the hysteria.  These are our politicians, who will send our children to die in these most unholy of wars, and clean up whatever spoils those wars have wrought.

Contrary to popular perception, none of the victims of the Salem Witch Trials were burned at the stake.  However, the victims of these latest witchhunts have not had it so easy.  Entire villages have burned to the ground in Afghanistan, white phosphorus has been dropped on Palestinian children in Gaza, and talks of a strike on Iran may very well place a mushroom cloud over Tehran in the not so distant future.  Here at home, violence has already begun to show its ugly face.  In New York City, a Muslim cab driver’s throat was aledgedly slashed by an irate Islamophobe and several prayer rugs were urinated upon by an angry drunk shouting racial slurs.

This frightening trend is indeed a crisis—but to both Democrat and Republican candidates seeking office in November—this is a god send.  For the Republicans, the mosque controversey is a good prop, like the paper mache’mask that the “Wizard of Oz” lit on fire and waved around to scare Dorothy into taking on the Wicked Witch of the West.  For the Democrats, bringing attention to the frenzied hysteria of the reactionary right provides a good opportunity to lure back disgruntled dissenters, who have been suffering a bit of buyers remorse since Obama took office.

Just when the time was ripe for the people of this nation to unite in opposition to the established government, we are now beginning to see them part ways… and herded back into their respective corners.

[Via: Keith Johnson]

WMR has learned from its Lebanese intelligence sources that the Lebanese government is coming to realize that Israeli intelligence penetration of all political groups in the country is worse than originally believed.

Israel’s Mossad, once content on penetrating the Christian and Druze parties in the country, has now thoroughly infiltrated the top echelons of Sunni and Shi’a parties, as well. Recently, Lebanon charged retired General Fayez Karam, a senior member of retired General Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement, which is allied with Hezbollah, with spying for Mossad.

Among the political parties penetrated by Israeli intelligence is the Future Movement of Prime Minister Saad Hariri, the son of the former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who was assassinated by a car bomb in Beirut in 2005. The UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) is expected very soon to charge Lebanon’s Hezbollah with the assassination. However, Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah recently announced the group had video evidence from Israeli drones that showed the Israeli Defense Force was tracking Hariri before his assassination.

The STL’s chief prosecutor, Daniel Bellemare of Canada, requested the evidence from Hezbollah. However, WMR has learned that Bellemare is suspected by Lebanese intelligence of having close previous contacts with agents of both the CIA and Mossad. WMR previously reported that Bellemare is suspected to have allowed and introduced into evidence against Hezbollah in the Hariri assassination, doctored cell phone intercepts pointing the “smoking gun” at Hezbollah. It is feared that Bellemare might give Hezbollah’s evidence to Mossad for the Israelis to determine the source of the leak of classified videos.

Mossad is also reported to be grooming a successor to the Lebanese Shi’a political leader Nabih Berri, currently the speaker of the Lebanese parliament. The Mossad operation is being actively supported behind the scenes by Saudi Arabia, a country that is fast becoming one of Israel’s most “open secret” allies in the Middle East.

According to WMR’s sources in Lebanon, one network that Israel and the United States can rely on to support the UN after the expected indictment of Hezbollah for Hariri’s assassination is a Sunni network in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon. It includes a member of the same family as Ziad al-Jarrah, one of the alleged United flight 93 hijackers on September 11, 2001.

Lebanese intelligence has linked the Ziad al-Jarrah, who hailed from the Bekaa Valley, to a Saudi-supported Salafist network that includes “Al-Qaeda” associates that will be used to target Shi’as throughout Lebanon in the wake of the Bellemare charges against Hezbollah. Lebanese intelligence discovered that members of this same Mossad-supported Salafist/Al Qaeda network also targeted top Shi’a leaders in Iraq. WMR has learned that Ziad al-Jarrah was used by the Mossad, the CIA, and Saudi intelligence as a “patsy” in the 9/11 conspiracy, just as similar “patsies” are being used in Iraq and elsewhere to help keep the myth of “Al Qaeda” and Osama bin Laden alive.

The same Salafist/Al Qaeda network in Lebanon, while still in an embryonic stage, was used by Mossad and the CIA to spy on Palestinian groups in Lebanon during the 1980s and 90s, as well as on Syria during its occupation of Lebanon.

The Israeli espionage network also extends to Syria. Lebanese sources report that former Syrian Vice President Abdel Halim Khaddam, who accused Syrian President Bashar al Assad of ordering Rafik Harir’s assassination, is tactically backed by Israel and the United States. Khaddam, who heads the exiled National Salvation Front (NSF), is seeking to overthrow Assad. The NSF not only receives support from Israeli and U.S. intelligence but also from the French and German intelligence.

The NSF maintains offices in Brussels, Berlin, Paris, and Washington, DC and it is suspected of working behind the scenes with Bellemare to bring chargss against Hezbollah for the Hariri assassination. However, previous attempts to have Assad and pro-Syrian Lebanese generals indicted for the assassination fell through due to lack of any credible evidence.

[ By Wayne Madsen -Via: OilPrice.com]

“Eurasia is…the chessboard on which the struggle for global primacy continues to be played.”

In its annual report to Congress on the Chinese military this week, the U.S. Department of Defense “voiced alarm over China’s military buildup,” with particular emphasis on what was described as the nation “investing heavily in ballistic and cruise missile capabilities that could one day pose a challenge to U.S. dominance in the western Pacific.” [1]

The report, originally to have been presented on March 1, bears the title of Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2010 [2]

While commenting favorably on China’s increased “contributions to international peacekeeping efforts, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, and counter-piracy operations,” it focuses extensively on what was noted above: That the nation’s military capacity may keep pace with its economic growth and pose a challenge to the domination of the western Pacific Ocean region that the U.S. gained after World War II and, as with Europe and now Africa, to an almost uncontested degree after the end of the Cold War.

Washington’s incremental and to most of the world imperceptible subordination of Europe through NATO expansion began in the early 1990s and has been completed over the last eleven years, since the war against Yugoslavia and the incorporation of the first former Warsaw Pact nations into the American-controlled military bloc in 1999.

Troops from 20 NATO new member and candidate states from Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus and Central Asia were deployed to Iraq after the U.S. invasion of 2003, then in the last days of 2008 transferred to Afghanistan where they serve under NATO command. To date 38 nations in Europe (inclusive of the South Caucasus) have provided forces for the Afghan war. Every European nation (excluding minuscule microstates) but Cyprus, in part because of its divided status and Turkish opposition, is either a full NATO member or involved in partnership programs with the bloc. Former Soviet and Yugoslav republics Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia, Macedonia, Moldova and Montenegro (the world’s newest – universally recognized – nation) have advanced Individual Partnership Action Plans and Georgia and Ukraine specially crafted National Annual Programs for integration into the Alliance. The U.S. has subjugated Europe through NATO.

With the launching of U.S. Africa Command on October 1, 2008, the Pentagon has consolidated individual and multilateral partnerships with almost every country on the continent in an effort to, in large part, diminish Chinese and Russia influence.

The Middle East has followed the same pattern, with only Iran and Syria not drawn into the Pentagon’s and NATO’s (with the Mediterranean Dialogue and the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative) military network. Iraq, Kuwait and Jordan host U.S. and NATO forces and Persian Gulf states Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are military partners of the U.S. and the North Atlantic military bloc. The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Jordan and Egypt have supplied military personnel for the Afghan war.

Developments over the last twelve years have seriously called into question Washington’s control of the southern half of the Western Hemisphere, and in 2008 the Pentagon reactivated its Fourth Fleet (which had been disbanded in 1950) for the Caribbean Sea and Central and South America as part of the U.S. response to an increase in independent foreign policy orientation by several nations in the region.

2010 has signalled Washington’s return to Asia and, in particular, concerted and mounting actions to challenge its main economic rival in the world: China.

The Pentagon is currently conducting large-scale war games in South Korea, the second major joint exercises since late last month, and on August 18 Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman announced that the U.S. will hold anti-submarine warfare maneuvers with South Korea in the Yellow Sea, which borders Chinese territory to the north and the west.

Whitman mentioned that “The latest military exercise, planned for early September, followed a visit by Gates and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Seoul last month.” [3]

The past few weeks have seen a series of commentaries in the Chinese press on escalating U.S. military presence in Northeast Asia and the South China Sea. [4] The tone of many of them, often by major military officials and strategists, is one not heard since the Cold War, and the beginning of it at that.

Terms that have appeared in the articles include gunboat diplomacy, brinkmanship, hegemony, unilateralism, bullying tactics, muscle-flexing, Cold War mentality, super war machine and Asian NATO.

A recent feature in Global Times entitled “Dreams of empire a trap for modern powers” asserted the now monthly U.S. war games on either side of the Korean Peninsula – the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan – are “definitely aimed at China,” and that Washington is attempting to reclaim its sphere of influence in East Asia after its seven-year involvement in Iraq (the same will soon be true for Latin America as well) and “sending a reminder” of its military power to the region. The piece, however, also said that “China and Russia are both unable to accept such claims. China’s several military exercises and Russia’s extremely large-scale military maneuvers are responses to the US’s ‘strategic reminder.’” [5]

The same publication wrote on August 18: “The Pentagon, facing budget pressures due to the economic downturn, naturally wants to keep China as a lasting military threat.

“The US continues to flex its military muscle by surrounding China with its military bases, engaging in a war in neighboring Afghanistan, and continuing to sell weapons to Taiwan.” [6]

In the same vein, an editorial in People’s Daily said that “By giving the aircraft carrier USS George Washington’s free access to the Yellow Sea and South China Sea, the United States seems to tell the world that the
‘Asia-Pacific [region] and the [Pacific] ocean are still dominated by the United States.’” [7]

China Daily reported that analysts have recently commented that “The disturbed waters around China reflect how changes in the political landscape between China and the United States are laying the foundation for a future Asian power struggle.” Shi Yinhong, senior scholar of American studies at the Beijing-based Renmin University, was quoted warning that “the US possesses long-term military advantages and sticks to its hegemonic ideals.”

The same piece said concerning the threat of the U.S. soon deploying the USS George Washington supercarrier – which has “cruised along waters surrounding China, covering nearly 2,000 nautical miles in East Asia during the past two months” including in the South China Sea – near China’s northeast coast  that “Beijing is within striking distance of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in the Yellow Sea.” [8]

People’s Daily said of the pretext Washington employs for its increasing and presumably permanent military intrusion in the area, the sinking of a South Korean warship almost five months ago: “The United States made a lot out of the Cheonan incident by making use of joint exercises to re-control the situation in Northeast Asia. It also took advantage of the…attitudes of the ASEAN Regional Forum and some ASEAN countries and greatly played up the so-called [Chinese] ‘threat’ to speed its return to Southeast Asia….[I]n light of the country’s recent display off the South China Sea, the escalating actions appear to be more a strategic show of strength rather than just a reaction to one particular incident.” [9]

A Chinese analysis of August 18 presented the developments discussed above in a concise historical and geopolitical context:

“US intervention in the South China Sea disputes isn’t incidental. It’s the outcome of the Barack Obama administration’s ‘return to Asia’ strategy. Some American analysts argue that China expanded its influence in Southeast Asia as the US was focused on the ‘war on terror’ after the 9/11 attacks. Their logic is simple: any potential challenger to Washington in Eurasia should be the target of US global strategy….By getting involved in the South China Sea disputes and fanning trouble between China and its neighbors, Washington aims to contain Beijing and re-establish its global hegemony.” [10]

What is at stake in the seas off the coasts of the Koreas and in the South China Sea is more than the March 26 sinking of the Cheonan and more than just East Asia.

The observation that the U.S. will not tolerate any competitor or future rival in Eurasia, and that the control of that vast tract of land from the eastern Atlantic to the western Pacific is the key to global domination, is not typical of language often heard in China. It is rather that most associated with Zbigniew Brzezinski in recent years. The latter has been held in high esteem in China as he was National Security Advisor in the Carter administration, running U.S. foreign policy behind the back of Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, when Washington transferred diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to the People’s Republic of China on January 1, 1979.

In his 1998 book The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives, Brzezinski triumphantly gloated that “The defeat and collapse of the Soviet Union was the final step in the rapid ascendance of a Western Hemisphere power, the United States, as the sole and, indeed, the first truly global power.” [11]

The leadership of China, first courted by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger in 1972, saw Brzezinski as the man most responsible for weakening Beijing’s and Washington’s main adversary at the time, the Soviet Union, with his support of anti-Soviet forces from Afghanistan to Poland and the undermining of Moscow’s allies in Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

With the USSR out of the way after 1991, though, it should have dawned on Chinese officials that the first sole and truly global power would sooner or later be knocking on their door as well. It has taken almost two decades, but just that is occurring.

It is not as though they were not notified, either.

The opening sentence of Brzezinski’s introduction to The Grand Chessboard states: “Ever since the continents started interacting politically, some five hundred years ago, Eurasia has been the center of world power.”

In the book’s introduction and in its second section, “The Eurasian Chessboard,” the self-styled geostrategist, customarily grouped among (and perhaps at the top of) what are called America’s foreign policy realists, offers sweeping and grandiose claims symptomatic of acute individual as well as national megalomania.

His comments include:

“For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia. For half a millennium, world affairs were dominated by Eurasian powers and peoples who fought with one another for regional domination and reached out for global power. Now a non-Eurasian power is preeminent in Eurasia — and America’s global primacy is directly dependent on how long and how effectively its preponderance on the Eurasian continent is sustained.”

“How America ‘manages’ Eurasia is critical. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world’s three most advanced and economically productive regions. A mere glance at the map also suggests that control over Eurasia would almost automatically entail Africa’s subordination, rendering the Western Hemisphere and Oceania geopolitically peripheral to the world’s central continent. About 75 per cent of the world’s people live in Eurasia, and most of the world’s physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for about three-fourths of the world’s known energy resources.”

More to the point in regards to the current situation, he brashly asserted that “America is now Eurasia’s arbiter, with no major Eurasian issue soluble without America’s participation or contrary to America’s interests.”

“All of the potential political and/or economic challengers to American primacy are Eurasian. Cumulatively, Eurasia’s power vastly overshadows America’s. Fortunately for America, Eurasia is too big to be politically one.

“Eurasia is thus the chessboard on which the struggle for global primacy continues to be played.”

With the Russian government conceding point after point to Washington of late – including U.S. and NATO air, infantry, naval and interceptor missile deployments, exercises, bases and installations on the Baltic and Black Seas, in the South Caucasus and Central Asia – and India all but formally recruited into an Asia-Pacific version of NATO, China is Washington’s main “potential political and/or economic challenger” in Eurasia and hence in the world.

It is not so much a matter of China choosing to play that role as being cast in it nonetheless. For no other reasons except its economic power, its size and its location.

As Brzezinski stated over twelve years ago, “How America copes with the complex Eurasian power relationships — and particularly whether it prevents the emergence of a dominant and antagonistic Eurasian power — remains central to America’s capacity to exercise global primacy.”

The U.S. is reacting to China’s rise by moving its unmatched military machine into the latter nation’s neighborhood and consolidating an Asian NATO to surround it as the original North Atlantic military bloc, now global in its scope, does Russia.

To have expected anything else is to have been either inveterately naive or, as the self-proclaimed commander-in-chief of the world’s sole military superpower Barack Obama recently branded his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao, willfully blind. [12]

Notes

1) Wall Street Journal, August 18, 2010
2) The Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of
China 2010
http://www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/2010_CMPR_Final.pdf
3) Reuters, August 18, 2010
4) Part II: U.S.-China Crisis: Beyond Words To Confrontation
Stop NATO, August 17, 2010
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/08/17/part-ii-u-s-china-crisis-beyond-words-toward-confrontation
5) Global Times, August 15, 2010
6) Global Times, August 18, 2010
7) People’s Daily, August 17, 2010
China Daily, August 18, 2010
9) People’s Daily, August 17, 2010
10) Xinhua News Agency/China Daily, August 18, 2010
11) The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives
http://sandiego.indymedia.org/media/2006/10/119973.pdf
12) Obama Doctrine: Eternal War For Imperfect Mankind
Stop NATO, December 10, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/12/11/obama-doctrine-eternal-war-for-imperfect-mankind
U.S. Risks Military Clash With China In Yellow Sea
Stop NATO, July 16, 2010
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/07/16/u-s-risks-military-clash-with-china-in-yellow-sea

[via:BLN]

New York’s Conservative Party is planning a television ad campaign to pressure a New York City utility to use its power to block a proposed mosque near ground zero that the ad says is planned by an “un-American” Muslim leader.

The ad states “patriotic Americans” want “real answers” about the cultural center proposed for lower Manhattan in a building partly owned by Consolidated Edison. Plans call for the Muslim center to include a mosque in the building about two blocks from the Sept. 11, 2001, attack.

The ad asks viewers to contact the utility, which has more than 3 million customers, at a phone number provided on screen and is the first effort to try to get customers to target the company.

The Conservative Party’s statewide ad to begin running next week says Republican candidate for governor Rick Lazio, the Conservative nominee, is asking the right questions about the effort and who or what groups will fund it.

The utility has said it is legally bound to accept the plans to sell the building under an agreement with its tenant.

“My hope is Con Ed would be civic minded and not participate in the sale,” New York Conservative Party Chairman Michael Long told The Associated Press. “Our little twist is creating a grass-roots effort to put pressure on Con Ed.”

Long said the ad will run statewide in all TV markets on cable television including in New York City where Con Edison has its customer base. Long said it will be a “significant” buy, but said he wasn’t yet sure of the total cost.

Con Edison said Friday in a statement that its action is “consistent with the law and our core beliefs.” If an independent appraiser approves of the price, the property will be sold, the company said.

“We will not allow other considerations to enter into this transaction,” the utility said. “This is New York, a rich diverse city. Con Edison’s values call for respecting people without regard to their racial, ethnic, or religious orientation. They are all our customers.”

The ad will come after President Barack Obama on Friday sought to speak up for religious freedom at a dinner celebrating the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. The $100 million proposal has ignited tensions nationwide and polls show a slight majority of New Yorkers oppose the mosque if it’s located so close to the site of the Sep. 11 attacks.