CIA ASSETS - HALL OF FAME - Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega - Template US Intervention

CIA ASSETS - HALL OF FAME Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega - Template US Intervention via @WikiLeaks COL. WILKERSON - students study covert and overt U.S. operations from 1947 to the present - USA sits back and waxes eloquent re INTERNATIONAL LAW and re HUMAN RIGHTS - WHAT THE WORLD REALLY IS ABOUT IS:  *POWER* - USA exercises its POWER - CLANDESTINELY & OVERTLY quite frequently     / since end of COLD WAR (moreso than DURING COLD WAR) - complex reasons for invasions like PANAMA - USA always puts out RHETORIC such as that of GEORGE H.W. BUSH, in case of PANAMA ... - about LIBERTY and about DEMOCRACY and about FREEDOM BUT it is RARELY - if EVER - about those commodities - it is about RAW POWER -- ECONOMIC, FINANCIAL, sometimes PERSONAL POWER - it is about POWER - that is the way it is with GREAT POWERS - that is the way it is about the WORLD - lament it all day long, but this is the REALITY CONFRONTING us every day --- COLONEL WILKERSON (ret.), an aide to Colin Powell during PANAMA INVASION IN SUMMARY https://www.democracynow.org/2014/12/23/how_the_iraq_war_began_in --- PANAMA - 1989, US INVASION - H.W. BUSH --- OPERATION JUST CAUSE 24,000 US TROOPS  v. SMALLER ARMY THAN NYC POLICE This month marks the 25th anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Panama. On December 20, 1989 President George H.W. Bush /  launched Operation Just Cause /  to execute an arrest warrant /  against Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega / General Noriega was once a close ally to Washington / on the CIA payroll / 1986, his relationship with Washington took a turn for the worse /  on charges of drug trafficking /during the attack, the United States unleashed a force of 24,000 troops equipped with highly sophisticated weaponry and aircraft / against a country with an army smaller than the New York City Police Dept << served as a template for future U.S. military interventions  << guests - Humberto Brown, a former Panamanian diplomat - Greg Grandin, a professor of Latin American history at New York University   / author of The Empire of Necessity: Slavery, Freedom, and Deception in the New World  / article:  "The War to Start All Wars: The 25th Anniversary of the Forgotten Invasion of Panama" - Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell  retired Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, special assistant to the Joint Chiefs of Staff /  Chaired by General Colin Powell at the time of the invasion --- GEORGE H.W. BUSH - MEDIA LIES - NO MEDIA CHALLENGE / PUBLIC DENIED INFORMATION     PRESIDENT GEORGE H.W. BUSH: One year ago, the people of Panama lived in fear under the thumb of a dictator. Today, democracy is restored. Panama is free.     JOSÉ DE JESÚS MARTÍNEZ: We are to say we invaded Panama because Noriega. I don’t know how Americans can be so stupid to believe this. I mean, how can you be so stupid?     MICHAEL PARENTI: The performance of the mainstream news media in the coverage of Panama has been just about total collaboration with the administration. Not a critical perspective. Not a second thought. --- PANAMANIANS KILLED - UNKNOWN NUMBER     REP. CHARLES RANGEL: You would think, from the video clips that we had seen, that this whole thing was just a Mardi Gras, that the people in Panama were just jumping up and down with glee.     VALERIE VAN ISLER: They focused on Noriega, to the exclusion of what was happening to the Panamanian people, to the exclusion of the bodies in the street, to the exclusion of the number dead.     REP. CHARLES RANGEL: The truth of the matter is that we don’t even know how many Panamanians we have killed. --- PANAMA - US, 'MIGHT MAKES RIGHT' DOCTRINE / DESTRUCTION OF COUNTRY TO 'SAVE IT' PETER KORNBLUH: Panama is another example of destroying a country to save it. And the United States has exercised a might-makes-right doctrine --- PANAMA INVASION - SETS STAGE FOR WARS OF 21st CENTURY ROBERT KNIGHT: The invasion sets the stage for the wars of the 21st century. ROBERT KNIGHT well-known host at WBAI, Pacifica Radio, in New York /  part of the trailer for the Academy Award-winning 1992 documentary, The Panama Deception --- ONE MONTH AFTER FALL OF BERLIN WALL - SET TERMS FOR FUTURE INTERVENTIONS - invasion of Panama took place a month after the fall of the Berlin Wall - set the terms for future interventions 1.  unilateral     * without the sanction of the United Nations     * without the sanction of the Organization of American States     = RISKY for USA / didn't occur often even during COLD WAR 2.  violation of NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY     * while USA did this often during COLD WAR, it was the TERMS of the VIOLATION that changed     * done in name of << DEMOCRACY <<     OVERTLY ARGUED that NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY subordinated to << DEMOCRACY <<        thus:  that USA has right to ADJUDICATE the QUALITY of << DEMOCRACY << 3.  invasion of PANAMA -  preview to the first Gulf War     * massive coordination of awesome force     * done spectacularly for public consumption     = putting VIETNAM SYNDROME to REST DEATHS - PANAMA INVASION - Panamanians said something like 3,000 - Pentagon said 'hundreds' of people died HUMBERTO BROWN / PANAMA DIPLOMAT at time of US INVASION - poor neighbourhoods devastated:  el Chorrillo, Maranon, Caledonia - majority that suffered = urban poor -  intimidation / literally expressing NO concern for the POOR -  in the first hour, we had had 200 [BOMBS] and—about close to 400 bombs were dropped after midnight - ELITE (who were complicit) - their neighbourhoods were PROTECTED & they were SAFE - ELITE - some removed from their homes & placed in CANAL ZONE - two different approaches to the URBAN POOR & the PANAMA COMPLICIT ELITE new president, President Varela / wanted to create a special commission to investigate events of INVASION / attempt to get 'national reconciliation' day of mourning vs. day of reflection vs. day of 'liberation' debate /  conflicting view of the impact COLONEL WILKERSON (ret.), an aide to Colin Powell during PANAMA INVASION *my understanding was the understanding that the press reported - everything from attacks on or threatened attacks on our officers and men and women in the military in Panama - to drug trafficking and extensive contacts with drug gangs, grown larger than ever contemplated NOTE:  "you could learn a lot about U.S. operations in its own hemisphere"---COLONEL WILKERSON (ret.), an aide to Colin Powell during PANAMA INVASION -  an operation, not so unique MARINE GENERAL SMEDLEY BUTLER / US MILITARY A CRIMINAL FOR AMERICAN COMMERCIAL INTEREST - look at Marine General Smedley Butler, in his testimony to the then Armed Forces Committee in the Congress - GEN. SMEDLEY BUTLER essentially compared himself to AL CAPONE "Al Capone operated on one continent, I operated on two. I was a criminal for American commercial interest."---Marine General Smedley Butler, in his testimony -- USA, x35 INVASIONS in CARIBBEAN since 1850 - USA hemisphere - interjected our military force into someone’s territory in the Caribbean about 35 times since 1850 - Monroe Doctrine is still operational - USA position:  entitled to interfere in anyone’s country at any time - 2002, USA tried to foment coup in CARACAS, VENEZUELA to overthrow HUGO CHAVEZ -- COLD WAR - forced USA to operate under LEGITIMACY OF MULTILATERALISM - multilaterialism is SWEPT AWAY with the US INVASION of PANAMA 1989 - sets terms of FUTURE USA INVASIONS -- PANAMA INVASION 'CAPSTONE' TO IRAN-CONTRA & to 1980s US INVOLVEMENT NICARAGUA - Noriega key player / shadowy player - mysteries of national security state far outstrip the mysteries of the trinity (Catholicism / religion) - Noriega played both sides - passed info to CUBA same time he brokered deals with the CONTRAS - was an intermediary with CARTELS in COLOMBIA - this is the deep politics behind IRAN-CONTRA - SEYMOUR HERSCH -  broke story, in NEW YORK TIMES - before IRAN-CONTRA     / outlining Noriega involvement in drug running / that was TURNING OF TIDE re USA & NORIEGA -- REAGAN ADMIN. FEDERAL JUDICIARY issue WARRANTS for NORIEGA - drug trafficking & racketeering "You know, Noriega wasn’t really high on our agenda."---BRENT SCOWCROFT, national security adviser for GEORGE H.W. BUSH GEORGE H.W. BUSH ADMIN - pushed by DOMESTIC POLITICS /  OCTOBER INVASION / COUP PANAMA - lot of criticism - PRESS baiting BUSH ADMIN for not supporting plotters AGAINST NORIEGA -- COLIN POWELL -KNEW NOREIGA CIA PAYROLL FOR QUARTER CENTURY "Powell was aware that Noriega had been on the CIA payroll for a quarter century. He had witnessed Noriega being feted as a savior of the Contras by Weinberger at the Pentagon. Support for Noriega had been so staunch that for a time the Reagan administration impeded investigations into allegations of his drug trafficking. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency had even awarded him with a commendation for his contributions to the 'war on drugs.' Powell observed that the Reagan and Bush administrations should have know that 'you could not buy Manuel Noriega, but you could rent him.'" ---Christopher O’Sullivan, 'Colin Powell: American Power and Intervention from Vietnam to Iraq' "With the Cold War ending and the obsessive fear about Nicaragua dissipating, Noriega’s usefulness to Washington evaporated. He also took the fateful step of endorsing the Contadora Peace Process for Central America." ---Christopher O’Sullivan, 'Colin Powell: American Power and Intervention from Vietnam to Iraq' "... it’s a pretty good summary of some of the things that happened ... Powell deputy NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER and then NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER ... last year of REAGAN second administration ... up close & personal watching these things ... Some still classified" ---COLONEL WILKERSON (ret.), an aide to Colin Powell during PANAMA INVASION US MACHINATIONS in LATIN AMERICA from El Salvador to Honduras today: / US supported overthrow of leader of HONDURAS & installed USA'S MAN - well known / THIS IS HOW USA DEALS WITH SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE / LATIN AMERICA ---COLONEL WILKERSON (ret.), an aide to Colin Powell during PANAMA INVASION U.S. has a long history with Panama, going decades back, long aligning itself with the light-skinned European elite from an internal process of Panama itself; not US-only foreign policy - invasion PANAMA - represented a move of USA to ensure that when PANAMA CANAL was returned to PANAMA - that govt in power was the ELITE that USA was accustomed to relate to - former OLIGARCHY & their reps were installed by US as govt - so not limited to NORIEGA no longer served US INTERESTS  / also internal conflict in PANAMA over governance & control of resources - USA concern that if PANAMA CANAL got transferred to PANAMA military would still be in power, giving them control of RESOURCES - ie.  resources from ADMINISTERING PANAMA CANAL --- DEAD IN PANAMA - STILL NO ANSWERS HOW MANY KILLED - families that don’t have any answers of where their family disappeared to / big question in PANAMA - from 1903, when USA supported the oligarchy to become an independent country - to intervention in every INTERNAL conflict in PANAMA >> USA was the FORCE << - first 40 years, Panama policemen never a force that could handle the internal process - depended on US 14 military bases - thus US defines politics and internal process of Panama - PANAMA INVASION / COUP - consolidation of the historical domination of US in PANAMA - US determined politics and all internal process in Panama and supported a small elite that are loyal to USA PANAMA - US INVASION IS PANAMA'S 9/11 - US bombed PANAMA when ppl celebrating CHRISTMAS - US bombed PANAMA at midnight - US violated every basic INTERNATIONAL LAW - from GENEVA CONVENTION / and violated principle of PROTECTING CIVILIAN population in time of war President George H.W. Bush’s announcement on INVASION of PANAMA:     PRESIDENT GEORGE H.W. BUSH: L     Last night, I ordered U.S. military forces to Panama. No president takes such action lightly. This morning, I want to tell you what I did and why I did it. For nearly two years, the United States, nations of Latin America and the Caribbean have worked together to resolve the crisis in Panama. The goals of the United States had been to safeguard the lives of Americans, to defend democracy in Panama, to combat drug trafficking and to protect the integrity of the Panama Canal Treaty. Many attempts have been made to resolve this crisis through diplomacy and negotiations. All were rejected by the dictator of Panama, General Manuel Noriega, an indicted drug trafficker. --- PRESIDENT GEORGE H.W. BUSH, December 20th, 1989 - NORIEGA "was on the payroll of the CIA" - NORIEGA "played multiple roles within Panama" - during the height of Iran-Contra, CIA was willing to work with NORIEGA - at end of COLD WAR, things turned:  NOREIGA became inconvenient to USA - NOREIGA - El Chorillo neighbourhood, barrio, next to CANAL ZONE - from migrant workers - most from Caribbean / helped build CANAL ZONE - NORIEGA - lower classes, dark lower classes - NOREIEGA - belief in witchcraft, sorcery / NORIEGA superstition presented in press - deemed 'racism' by history prof. GREG GRANDIN --- GREG GRANDIN, professor of Latin American history at New York University --- NORIEGA - RENDERED / NOT EXTRADITED - NORIEGA imprisoned - wasn't "extradited" / USA did NOT have extradition treaty with PANAMA at time - NORIEGA seized ILLEGALLY by USA & brought to FLORIDA / then extradited to FRANCE - NOREIGA imprisoned in FRANCE briefly - NORIEGA then back in PANAMA - NORIEGA put on trial in FLORIDA by federal court in 1992 - NORIEGA defence:   "I was working for the CIA." - number of US GOVT witnesses CONFIRMED NOREIGA DEFENCE - one confirmed NOREIGA helped broker COLOMBIAN DRUG CARTEL deal, in which COLOMBIAN CARTEL passed $10m to CONTRAS - speaks to other issues having to do with the "Dark Alliance" series of Gary Webb, journalist, disclosed later - overt history of US INVASION of PANAMA seen - but DEEP POLITICS - covert / unseen / dark national security state / CIA - the dark national security state history is still UNKNOWN / classified --- GREG GRANDIN, professor of Latin American history at New York University --- MODEL FOR LATER IRAQ INVASIONS NOREIGA -  tyrant, his worst crimes committed with U.S. support, then at some point either he disobeys or her misunderstands orders, then all of a sudden he’s demonized in the corporate media and his country is invaded ---AARON MATÉ, JOURNALIST COL. WILKERSON - students study covert and overt U.S. operations from 1947 to the present - USA sits back and waxes eloquent re INTERNATIONAL LAW and re HUMAN RIGHTS - WHAT THE WORLD REALLY IS ABOUT IS:  *POWER* - USA exercises its POWER - CLANDESTINELY & OVERTLY quite frequently     / since end of COLD WAR (moreso than DURING COLD WAR) - complex reasons for invasions like PANAMA - USA always puts out RHETORIC such as that of GEORGE H.W. BUSH, in case of PANAMA - about LIBERTY and about DEMOCRACY and about FREEDOM - but it is RARELY - if EVER - about those commodities - it is about RAW POWER -- ECONOMIC, FINANCIAL, sometimes PERSONAL POWER - it is about POWER - that is the way it is with GREAT POWERS - that is the way it is about the WORLD - lament it all day long, but this is the REALITY CONFRONTING us every day --- COLONEL WILKERSON (ret.), an aide to Colin Powell during PANAMA INVASION -- DEMOCRACY NOW PRESENTER RAISES QUESTION OF CALLING PROSECUTING GORGE H.W. BUSH ADMIN OFFICIALS      & PROSPECT OF CHANGE - CHANGE IN US FOREIGN POLICY, AS RESULT - COL. WILKERSON (ret.) does not thing there was POLITICAL WILL to hold G.H.W. BUSH ADMIN OFFICIALS accountable - that is reflection DEMOCRATIC FEDERAL REPUBLIC of USA - not very democrratic these days - does not see anything changing substantially until a PROFOUND CRISIS (eg. 9/11, but more serious) confronts USA - thinks that crisis is RAPIDLY COMING upon USA - thinks it's 'climate change' / how tht is handled next generation will:     - paint republic either in very draconian terms     - collapsing in own perfidity [betrayal, intentional deception, intentional breach of good faith]     - or it will resurrect republic --- COLONEL WILKERSON (ret.), an aide to Colin Powell during PANAMA INVASION --- CUBA - SIGNIFICANCE LIFTING OF US EMBARGO - President Raúl Castro and President Barack Obama made their announcements - historic moment - hope the rhetoric of President Obama is matched by deeds - embargo, horrible thing for CUBAN PPL - esp. since end of COLD WAR - BATISTA being original dictator that CASTRO originally overthrew in 1959 - embargo on CUBAN PPL satisfied "BATISTA LEFTOVERS"  - ppl such as:     * IIEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, US Congress     * BOB MENDEZ, US congress    - policy should have been changed long, long ago - all kinds of ramifications to change:     * security     * agricultural sales     * commercial operations - but this is change for 11.5 million CUBAN PPL -- COLONEL WILKERSON (ret.), an aide to Colin Powell during PANAMA INVASION     CUBAN POLITICS - HEAD OF US-CUBA POLICY INITIATIVE 'NEW AMERICAN FOUNDATION' https://www.democracynow.org/2014/12/23/how_the_iraq_war_began_in Enjoyed that interview / article.

US CAPITALIST MODEL - Middle-class the Indebted Working Class

Working-class, Middle-class, Debtor-class, Financial-class, Socialising Capitalist Risk (Privatising Profits), Columbia University, New York University, FIRE Economy, Housing Economy, Rentier Class, IN SUMMARY http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/06/02/are-students-a-class/ June 2, 2017 Are Students a Class? by Michael Hudson Students usually don’t think of themselves as a class. They seem “pre-class,” because they have not yet entered the labor force. They can only hope to become part of the middle class after they graduate. And that means becoming a wage earner – what impolitely is called the working class. But as soon as they take out a student debt, they become part of the economy. They are in this sense a debtor class. But to be a debtor, one needs a means to pay – and the student’s means to pay is out of the wages and salaries they may earn after they graduate. And after all, the reason most students get an education is so that they can qualify for a middle-class job. The middle class in America consists of the widening sector of the working class that qualifies for bank loans – not merely usurious short-term payday loans, but a lifetime of debt. So the middle class today is a debtor class. slow growth of U.S. employment in the post-2008 doldrums (the “permanent Obama economy” in which only the banks were bailed out, not the economy) the financial class views the role industry and the economy at large / as being to pay its employees enough / so that they can take on an exponentially rising volume of debt interest and fees (late fees and penalties now yield credit card companies more than they receive in interest charges) = soaring, leaving the economy of goods and services languishing money and banking textbooks say that all interest (and fees) are a compensation for risk / any banker who actually takes a risk is quickly fired / banks don’t take risks / that’s what the governments are for / ie socializing the risk, privatizing the profits banks anticipating: U.S. economy may be unable to recover under the weight of the junk mortgages and other bad debts / that the Obama admin left on the books in 2008 banks therefore insisted: > that the government guarantee all student debt also insisted that govt. guarantees the financial gold-mine buried in such indebtedness ie. late fees that accumulate FICTITIOUS 'AS IF' ECONOMY - FINANCIAL ECONOMY whether students actually succeed in becoming wage-earners or not > the banks will receive payments in today’s emerging fictitious “as if” economy > govt. will pay the banks “as if” there is actually a recovery if there were to be a recovery, then it would mean that the banks were taking a risk – a big enough risk to justify the high interest rates charge on student loans = simply a replay of what banks have negotiated for real estate mortgage lending students who do succeed in getting a job hope to start a family, or at least joining the middle class most typical criterion of middle-class life in today’s world (apart from having a college education) is to own a home / but almost nobody can buy a home without getting a mortgage / price of such a mortgage is to pay up to 43 percent of one’s income for 30 years / ie. one’s prospective working life in today’s as-if world that assumes full employment, not just a gig economy banks know how unlikely it is that workers actually will be able to 1. earn enough to carry the costs of their education 2. along with cost of real estate debt - costs of housing are so high - price of education is so high - amount of debt workers must pay off top of every paycheck is so high *US labour is priced out of world markets (except for military hardware sold to Saudis & other US protectorates) So the banks insist that the government pretends that housing as well as education loans not involve any risk for bankers banks insist that govt protects housing as well as education loans from any risk for bankers Federal Housing Authority / guarantees mortgages that absorb up to 43% of the applicant's home income is not growing / job loss is formerly middle-class labor is being downsized to minimum-wage labor (MacDonald’s and other fast foods) or “gig” labor (Uber) the fees mount up rapidly when there are defaults – all covered by the govt AS IF it is this compensates the banks for risks that the govt. itself bears From debt peons (footsoldiers / menials) to wage slaves peon fm. Spanish peón, fm. Medieval L. pedōn-, foot-soldier college education is a precondition for joining the working class (except for billionaire dropouts) / the middle class is a debtor class / so deep in debt that once they manage to get a job / have no leeway to go on strike / protest against bad working conditions = what Alan Greenspan described as the “traumatized worker effect” of debt Students = the new NINJAs: No Income, No Jobs, No Assets / parents have assets, and these are now being grabbed, even from retirees govt. has 1. assets – the power to tax (mainly labor these days) 2. even better – the power to simply print money (mainly Quantitative Easing to try and re-inflate housing, stock and bond prices these days) students hope to become independent of their parents > burdened by debt + facing a tough job market > left even more dependent > why so many have to keep living at home > as students do get a job and become independent > they remain dependent on the banks > to pay the banks, they must be even more abjectly dependent on their employers view matters from the vantage point of bankers bankers have $1.3 trillion in student loan claims - college tuitions are soaring USA - even more than health care (financialised health care, not socialised health care) - banks often end up with more education expense than the colleges - b/c any interest rate is a doubling time at student loan rates of, say, 7 percent > interest payments double the original loan value in just 10 years Rule of 72 provides an easy way to calculate doubling times of interest-bearing debt / divide 72 by the interest rate, and you get the doubling time fatal symbiosis has emerged between banking and higher education in USA / bankers sit on the boards of the leading universities / not simply by buying their way in as donors / b/c banks finance the TRANSFORMATION of universities into real estate companies universities major real estate holders in New York City: - Columbia University - New York University - like the churches, they pay no property or income tax - as considered to play a vital social role - from the bankers’ vantage point, their role is to provide a market for debt - student debt magnitude now outstrips even that of credit card debt - sweetheart deal with New York University - made by Citibank - New York University, steers incoming students to it to finance their studies with loans - school can charge as much for an education as banks are willing to lend students - banks are willing to lend as much as govts will guarantee - bankers on the school boards endorse bloated costs of education - knowing: however much more universities make, the bankers will receive just as much in interest and penalties FIRE ECONOMY Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate sectors criticism exists on the shifting of the U.S. economy to a FIRE economy at the expense of a manufacturing and export-based economy United States has eschewed productive elements of its economy in favor of consumption to its long term detriment Particularly after 1973 … pundits of the status quo hailed the proliferation of the "FIRE" (finance, insurance, real estate) economy as the coming of a new "service" "post-industrial" economy that would replace the old "smokestack" economy and the jobs lost through plant closings, restructuring, and down-sizing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIRE_economy FIRE SECTOR OWNED MAINLY BY ONE PERCENT same thing with housing - whatever owner of a home receives when he sells it - bank will make an even larger sum of money on the INTEREST charges on the mortgage = why all the growth in the U.S. economy is going to the FIRE sector, owned mainly by the One Percent UNDER these terms / a “more educated society” does not mean a more employable labor force / it means a less employable society b/e - more and more wage and consumer income is used not to buy goods and services, not to eat out in restaurants or buy the products of labor / but to pay the financial sector and its allied rentier class rentier - person who lives on income from property or securities Rentier capitalism economic practices of monopolization of access to any kind of property (physical, financial, intellectual, etc.) / and gaining significant amounts of profit without contribution to society more educated society under these rules = simply ... - a more indebted society - an economy succumbing to debt deflation, austerity and unemployment (except at minimum-wage levels) for half a century Americans imagined themselves getting richer and richer / by going into debt to buy their own homes and educate their children riches have turned out to be riches for the banks, bondholders and other creditors / not for the debtors What used to be applauded as “the middle class” turns out to be simply an indebted working class. http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/06/02/are-students-a-class/ This was a great article. It's shocking what the banks are permitted to get away with under a system of private capitalism (versus state capitalism / socialism) - ripping off the taxpayer in every way possible, to enrich the few at the top.

BRITISH & NATO-ALLIED OIL ARAB ALLIANCE & IMPERIALIST FOREIGN POLICY RESPONSIBLE FOR JIHAD ON WEST

BRITISH & NATO-ALLIED OIL ARAB ALLIANCE & IMPERIALIST FOREIGN POLICY RESPONSIBLE FOR JIHAD ON WEST HIGHLIGHT FROM JOHN PILGER ARTICLE  ... British foreign policy ... alliance with extreme Islam, especially the sect known as Wahhabism or Salafism, whose principal custodian and banker is the oil kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Britain's biggest weapons customer. This imperial marriage reaches back to the Second World War and the early days of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. The aim of British policy was to stop pan-Arabism: Arab states developing a modern secularism, asserting their independence from the imperial west and controlling their resources. The creation of a rapacious Israel was meant to expedite this. Pan-Arabism has since been crushed; the goal now is division and conquest. —John Pilger Britain, Saudi Arabia, Jihad on Britain, FBI Leak, David Cameron, Theresa May, David Blair, UK-Saudi Arms Deal, Bank of Scotland Cluster Bombs, Yemen, South Sudan, Congo, Central African Republic, Libya, Uganda, Mali, MI5, Follow John Pilger on twitter @johnpilger http://johnpilger.com/articles/terror-in-britain-what-did-the-prime-minister-know TERROR IN BRITAIN: WHAT DID THE PRIME MINISTER KNOW? 31 May 2017 The unsayable in Britain's general election campaign is this. The causes of the Manchester atrocity, in which 22 mostly young people were murdered by a jihadist, are being suppressed to protect the secrets of British foreign policy. Critical questions - such as why the security service MI5 maintained terrorist "assets" in Manchester and why the government did not warn the public of the threat in their midst - remain unanswered, deflected by the promise of an internal "review". The alleged suicide bomber, Salman Abedi, was part of an extremist group, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, that thrived in Manchester and was cultivated and used by MI5 for more than 20 years. The LIFG is proscribed by Britain as a terrorist organisation which seeks a "hardline Islamic state" in Libya and "is part of the wider global Islamist extremist movement, as inspired by al-Qaida". The "smoking gun" is that when Theresa May was Home Secretary, LIFG jihadists were allowed to travel unhindered across Europe and encouraged to engage in "battle": first to remove Mu'ammar Gadaffi in Libya, then to join al-Qaida affiliated groups in Syria. Last year, the FBI reportedly placed Abedi on a "terrorist watch list" and warned MI5 that his group was looking for a "political target" in Britain. Why wasn't he apprehended and the network around him prevented from planning and executing the atrocity on 22 May? These questions arise because of an FBI leak that demolished the "lone wolf" spin in the wake of the 22 May attack - thus, the panicky, uncharacteristic outrage directed at Washington from London and Donald Trump's apology. The Manchester atrocity lifts the rock of British foreign policy to reveal its Faustian alliance with extreme Islam, especially the sect known as Wahhabism or Salafism, whose principal custodian and banker is the oil kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Britain's biggest weapons customer. This imperial marriage reaches back to the Second World War and the early days of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. The aim of British policy was to stop pan-Arabism: Arab states developing a modern secularism, asserting their independence from the imperial west and controlling their resources. The creation of a rapacious Israel was meant to expedite this. Pan-Arabism has since been crushed; the goal now is division and conquest. In 2011, according to Middle East Eye, the LIFG in Manchester were known as the "Manchester boys". Implacably opposed to Mu'ammar Gadaffi, they were considered high risk and a number were under Home Office control orders - house arrest - when anti-Gadaffi demonstrations broke out in Libya, a country forged from myriad tribal enmities. Suddenly the control orders were lifted. "I was allowed to go, no questions asked," said one LIFG member. MI5 returned their passports and counter-terrorism police at Heathrow airport were told to let them board their flights. The overthrow of Gaddafi, who controlled Africa's largest oil reserves, had been long been planned in Washington and London. According to French intelligence, the LIFG made several assassination attempts on Gadaffi in the 1990s - bank-rolled by British intelligence. In March 2011, France, Britain and the US seized the opportunity of a "humanitarian intervention" and attacked Libya. They were joined by Nato under cover of a UN resolution to "protect civilians". Last September, a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee inquiry concluded that then Prime Minister David Cameron had taken the country to war against Gaddafi on a series of "erroneous assumptions" and that the attack "had led to the rise of Islamic State in North Africa". The Commons committee quoted what it called Barack Obama's "pithy" description of Cameron's role in Libya as a "shit show". In fact, Obama was a leading actor in the "shit show", urged on by his warmongering Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, and a media accusing Gaddafi of planning "genocide" against his own people. "We knew... that if we waited one more day," said Obama, "Benghazi, a city the size of Charlotte, could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world." The massacre story was fabricated by Salafist militias facing defeat by Libyan government forces. They told Reuters there would be "a real bloodbath, a massacre like we saw in Rwanda". The Commons committee reported, "The proposition that Mu'ammar Gaddafi would have ordered the massacre of civilians in Benghazi was not supported by the available evidence". Britain, France and the United States effectively destroyed Libya as a modern state. According to its own records, Nato launched 9,700 "strike sorties", of which more than a third hit civilian targets. They included fragmentation bombs and missiles with uranium warheads. The cities of Misurata and Sirte were carpet-bombed. Unicef, the UN children's organisation, reported a high proportion of the children killed "were under the age of ten". More than "giving rise" to Islamic State - ISIS had already taken root in the ruins of Iraq following the Blair and Bush invasion in 2003 - these ultimate medievalists now had all of north Africa as a base. The attack also triggered a stampede of refugees fleeing to Europe. Cameron was celebrated in Tripoli as a "liberator", or imagined he was. The crowds cheering him included those secretly supplied and trained by Britain's SAS and inspired by Islamic State, such as the "Manchester boys". To the Americans and British, Gadaffi's true crime was his iconoclastic independence and his plan to abandon the petrodollar, a pillar of American imperial power. He had audaciously planned to underwrite a common African currency backed by gold, establish an all-Africa bank and promote economic union among poor countries with prized resources. Whether or not this would have happened, the very notion was intolerable to the US as it prepared to "enter" Africa and bribe African governments with military "partnerships". The fallen dictator fled for his life. A Royal Air Force plane spotted his convoy, and in the rubble of Sirte, he was sodomised with a knife by a fanatic described in the news as "a rebel". Having plundered Libya's $30 billion arsenal, the "rebels" advanced south, terrorising towns and villages. Crossing into sub-Saharan Mali, they destroyed that country's fragile stability. The ever-eager French sent planes and troops to their former colony "to fight al-Qaida", or the menace they had helped create. On 14 October, 2011, President Obama announced he was sending special forces troops to Uganda to join the civil war there. In the next few months, US combat troops were sent to South Sudan, Congo and the Central African Republic. With Libya secured, an American invasion of the African continent was under way, largely unreported. In London, one of the world's biggest arms fairs was staged by the British government. The buzz in the stands was the "demonstration effect in Libya". The London Chamber of Commerce and Industry held a preview entitled "Middle East: A vast market for UK defence and security companies". The host was the Royal Bank of Scotland, a major investor in cluster bombs, which were used extensively against civilian targets in Libya. The blurb for the bank's arms party lauded the "unprecedented opportunities for UK defence and security companies." Last month, Prime Minister Theresa May was in Saudi Arabia, selling more of the £3 billion worth of British arms which the Saudis have used against Yemen. Based in control rooms in Riyadh, British military advisers assist the Saudi bombing raids, which have killed more than 10,000 civilians. There are now clear signs of famine. A Yemeni child dies every 10 minutes from preventable disease, says Unicef. The Manchester atrocity on 22 May was the product of such unrelenting state violence in faraway places, much of it British sponsored. The lives and names of the victims are almost never known to us. This truth struggles to be heard, just as it struggled to be heard when the London Underground was bombed on July 7, 2005. Occasionally, a member of the public would break the silence, such as the east Londoner who walked in front of a CNN camera crew and reporter in mid-platitude. "Iraq!" he said. "We invaded Iraq. What did we expect? Go on, say it." At a large media gathering I attended, many of the important guests uttered "Iraq" and "Blair" as a kind of catharsis for that which they dared not say professionally and publicly. Yet, before he invaded Iraq, Blair was warned by the Joint Intelligence Committee that "the threat from al-Qaida will increase at the onset of any military action against Iraq... The worldwide threat from other Islamist terrorist groups and individuals will increase significantly". Just as Blair brought home to Britain the violence of his and George W Bush's blood-soaked "shit show", so David Cameron, supported by Theresa May, compounded his crime in Libya and its horrific aftermath, including those killed and maimed in Manchester Arena on 22 May. The spin is back, not surprisingly. Salman Abedi acted alone. He was a petty criminal, no more. The extensive network revealed last week by the American leak has vanished. But the questions have not. Why was Abedi able to travel freely through Europe to Libya and back to Manchester only days before he committed his terrible crime? Was Theresa May told by MI5 that the FBI had tracked him as part of an Islamic cell planning to attack a "political target" in Britain? In the current election campaign, the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has made a guarded reference to a "war on terror that has failed". As he knows, it was never a war on terror but a war of conquest and subjugation. Palestine. Afghanistan. Iraq. Libya. Syria. Iran is said to be next. Before there is another Manchester, who will have the courage to say that? Follow John Pilger on twitter @johnpilger http://johnpilger.com/articles/terror-in-britain-what-did-the-prime-minister-know Very interesting article by investigative journalist, John Pilger, written in aftermath of Manchester Arena attack and ahead of the current London Bridge attack: 3RD JIHAD ATTACK - LONDON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE SLAUGHTER MANCHESTER ARENA SLAUGHTER LONDON BRIDGE SLAUGHTER At least seven people died and 48 people were injured in a two-pronged attack on London Bridge and Borough Market, with police shooting the three suspected assailants dead. The attack started when a van rammed into pedestrians on London Bridge and ended with multiple stabbings at restaurants nearby. Police say the suspects were shot dead within eight minutes of the first call. http://edition.cnn.com/2017/06/04/europe/london-terror-attack-witness-borough/index.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter It appears that the Western, including British, political establishment is in fact responsible for the attacks on Britons and all Europeans, by Jihadists - as the Jihad was manifested by British and NATO-allied oil Arab (terrorist funding) alliance machinations,  coupled with imperialist Western capitalist foreign policy, as well as capitalist-serving domestic ideology & accompanying domestic policy of decades standing, the consequences of which, the hostage domestic public subsequently reaps.