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21st Century Strategy: Militarized
Europe, Globalized NATO
by Rick Rozoff
Global
Research, February 26, 2010
With the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) on the Reduction
and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms expiring last December
5 and its successor held up almost three months in large part because
of U.S. missile |
shield provocations in recent weeks, the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization is forging ahead with the formulation and implementation
of a new Strategic Concept.
On February 5 Russia unveiled its new military doctrine, which
identified further NATO expansion eastward to its frontier and American
and NATO interceptor missile deployments on and near its borders
as the “main external threats of war.” [1]
On February 23 NATO held its fourth seminar on the new –
21st century – Strategic Concept decided upon at the sixtieth
anniversary summit in April of 2009 in Strasbourg, France and Kehl,
Germany. After previous meetings in Luxembourg, Slovenia and Norway,
the final – and far most important – meeting was held
in Washington, DC. Entitled Strategic Concept Seminar on Transformation
and Capabilities, it was conducted at the National Defense University
in the nation’s capital.
The Strategic Concept endorses expansion of the bloc deeper into
the Balkans and the former Soviet Union, broadening global partnerships
outside the Euro-Atlantic zone and consolidating an interceptor
missile system to cover all of Europe as a joint U.S. and NATO project.
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The
700 Military Bases of Afghanistan
By Nick Turse, February 11, 2010
Originally published in TomDispatch
In the nineteenth century, it was a fort used by British forces.
In the twentieth century, Soviet troops moved into the crumbling
facilities. In December 2009, at this site in the Shinwar district
of Afghanistan’s Nangarhar Province, U.S. troops joined members
of the Afghan National Army in preparing the way for the next round
of foreign occupation. On its grounds, a new military base is expected
to rise, one of hundreds of camps and outposts scattered across
the country.
Nearly a decade after the Bush administration launched its invasion
of Afghanistan, TomDispatch offers the first actual count of American,
NATO, and other coalition bases there, as well as facilities used
by the Afghan security forces. Such bases range from relatively
small sites like Shinwar to mega-bases that resemble small American
towns. Today, according to official sources, approximately 700 bases
of every size dot the Afghan countryside, and more, like the one
in Shinwar, are under construction or soon will be as part of a
base-building boom that began last year.
Existing in the shadows, rarely reported on and little talked about,
this base-building program is nonetheless staggering in size and
scope, and heavily dependent on supplies imported from abroad, which
means that it is also extraordinarily expensive. It has added significantly
to the already long secret list of Pentagon property overseas and
raises questions about just how long, after the planned beginning
of a drawdown of American forces in 2011, the U.S. will still be
garrisoning Afghanistan. READ
FULL STORY
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Arrested Terrorist
Leader Exposes Extensive CIA Connections
Al Qaeda affiliate says his group was armed and assisted by U.S.,
Britain and Israel
Steve Watson
Infowars.net Friday, Feb 26th, 2010
The leader of a Pakistan based terrorist organisation closely affiliated
with Al Qaeda has detailed how his group benefited from extensive
political and financial support from the CIA in return for continued
attacks against the government, the people and the infrastructure
of Iran.
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Abdolmalek Rigi, the leader of the Pakistan-based Jundullah terrorist
organization was captured earlier this week by Iranian security officials
in the south of the country.
Rigi was tracked by Iranian intelligence when he boarded a flight
from Dubai to Kyrgyzstan on Tuesday.
According to officials, Rigi was using a forged Afghan passport which
was issued to him by the U.S. government.
The 31-year-old terror leader issued a statement on Iranian state
TV yesterday, during which he alleged that he had made a pact with
the U.S. for safe haven and unlimited military aid to pursue terrorist
activities against the Iranian government.
“They said they
would cooperate with us and will give me military equipment, arms
and machine guns. They also promised to give us a base along the border
with Afghanistan next to Iran,” Rigi said.
“They [were]
prepared to give [us] training and/or any assistance that [we] would
require, in terms of telecommunications security and procedures as
well as other support, the Americans said they would be willing to
provide it at an extensive level,” he added.
Rigi indicated that the relationship with U.S. intelligence continued
through the election of Barack Obama and up to the present day. READ
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Defense Secretary
Robert Gates Confirms Blackwater in Pakistan
By Jeremy
Scahill
In an interview with the Pakistani TV station Express TV, Defense
Secretary Robert Gates confirmed that the private security firms
Blackwater and DynCorp are operating inside Pakistan. “They’re
operating as individual companies here in Pakistan,” Gates
said, according to a DoD transcript of the interview. “There
are rules concerning the contracting companies. |
| If they’re contracting with us
or with the State Department here in Pakistan, then there are very
clear rules set forth by the State Department and by ourselves.”
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YEMEN:
Food security takes a knock
Late and scarce rainfall have caused many crops to
wither
SANAA, 25 February 2010 (IRIN) - Cereal production in Yemen has
declined for the second consecutive year due mainly to a lack of
rainfall, according to Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Irrigation
Abdulmalik al-Thawr.
Yemen’s grain production, including sorghum and wheat, declined
to 675,000 tons in 2009 from 715,000 in 2008, according to the government’s
Central Statistics Organization (CSO).
While aggregate cereal production in 2009 was only slightly lower
than in the previous year, it was about 24 percent less than the
2007 bumper crop, according to a report by the UN Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO).
“Most of the water sources in valleys producing grain dried
up… About 97 percent of the country’s agricultural land
is threatened by desertification," al-Thawr said.
Ismail Muharram, head of the Agricultural Research & Development
Authority based in the central governorate of Dhamar, said agriculture
in Yemen largely depended on rainwater.
"The rainfall season was three weeks late, and as a result
many crops withered, particularly in the central highlands,"
he said, pointing out that 2009 rainfall was much lower than average.
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US: The Nuclear
Lobby`s $645 Million Con Job
Posted: 2010/02/25
From: Source
By Harvey Wasserman (Counterpunch)
The mystery has been solved.
Where is this "new reactor renaissance" coming from?
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There has been no deep, thoughtful
re-making or re-evaluation of atomic technology. No solution to
the nuke waste problem. No making reactors economically sound. No
private insurance against radioactive disasters by terror or error.
No grassroots citizens now desperate to live near fragile containment
domes and outtake pipes spewing radioactive tritium at 27 US reactors.
No, nothing about atomic energy has really changed.
Except this: $645 MILLION for lobbying Congress and the White House
over the past ten years.
As reported by Judy Pasternak and a team of reporters at American
University's Investigative Reporting Workshop, filings with the
Senate Office of Public Records show that members of the Nuclear
Energy Institute and other reactor owner/operators admit spending
that money on issues that "include legislation to promote construction
of new nuclear power plants." READ
FULL STORY
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