U.S. Intelligence Says Iran Not Seeking Development of Nuclear Weapons

This startling announcement from the U.S. Intelligence community is dangerous, but shows that there are parts of our Government that aren’t willing to give President Bush carte blanche in starting his war with Iran.

How is the U.S. Intelligence community in not wanting to allow Bush to further damage its credibility dangerous? Especially if removes from the table the evidence needs to further his ambitions before leaving office? Well, what worries us, is that if certain elements see that our spies won’t give Bush the circumstantial evidence he needs to start a fight with Iran, they may seek to provide direct evidence to justify the war.

You will soon see the various alternative anti-Bush sites now suggesting the “false-flag” terror danger is higher. And it may well be.

Dangerous times.

Technorati Tags: Iran, Terrorism, War, World War III

The March Towards a Fascist Dictatorship

Speaking to promote her new book The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot, Naomi Wolf makes a compelling argument that what the U.S. is currently seeing with the Bush administration is right in line with what happens when a democracy falls to dictatorship. She makes some good points, but hits a bit of a pothole when she makes a quick reference to Hillary Clinton reversing all of the illegal surveillance when she’s President (!). I have a hard time understanding how someone who understands that there’s a dangerous cabal running our government, could miss the fact that Hillary Clinton’s smack dab in the middle of it. She’s a danger, not a solution.

Ron Paul (who Wolf does mention as the sole Republican who has signed on to the “return to the Constitution” pledge) is the solution to the problem.

Technorati Tags: Politics, Fascism, War

Martial Law in Pakistan and Social Media in the U.S.

It’s just amazing to me that while we watch Pakistan descend into the hell of Martial Law (regardless of what they call it), and Citigroup’s CEO Charles Prince stepping down, warning of another $11 BILLION in writedowns on top of the $6 BILLION they’ve already charged off, thanks in part to the subprime mortgage fiasco, here in the U.S., we’re watching with great interest the launch of the Google and MySpace partnership that promises to revolutionize social media.

Are we nuts? An already nuclear nation is having to put troops in the streets to hold back its Islamic foes from taking the country over, and the biggest bank in the world is starting to show signs of terrible financial problems, yet we’re actually concerned with neat new ways to connect with friends on MySpace and Facebook.

9/11 and another bin Laden video

As we remember the day 6 years ago that changed many things about the way Americans live their lives, a new video from Osama bin Laden is released, praising one of the 19 hijackers who killed thousands of innocent people. No bombs, dirty or otherwise, no airliners flying into buildings, no event that again "changes everything." But the day is still young.

Judith Miller in the Telegraph lays out why New York hasn’t been attacked again.

There’s another possible reason. Could al Qaeda be the paper tiger? I mean, really, if a teenage heavy metal fan can rise in the ranks to be important, as Adam Gadahn (the purported author of Osama’s recent video), how credible can the organization be? In the war against al Qaeda and insurgency in Iraq, we tend to forget that the hijackers were overwhelmingly citizens of Saudi Arabia, yet there’s nothing but love between our government and that one. Could it be that al Qaeda is just "something shiny" to divert attention from the Saudi origins of 9/11?

I’ve asked this question before: If 19 men, mostly Americans, flew planes into buildings in the Middle East, killing thousands, would Americans be able to travel anywhere in the Middle East? Of course not, even if the perpetrators of such an even were identified as extremist fundamental Christians and were shunned by the American public, the U.S. would suffer greatly.

Yet the Saudi government gets a pass.

Bin Laden, 9/11, Sub-Prime Meltdown Woes, Nukes on B-52s – A Tense Week

There’s plenty for the wary to watch this week. Much anxiety circulating on the net regarding:

1. The new video from Osama bin Laden
2. Wall Street sell-off on Friday thanks to bad labor statistics
3. Nukes hitchhiking across the country
4. 9/11 anniversary on Tuesday
5. Interesting "put" options that suggest someone may think (or know) that a catastrophic economic event is about to occur

I don’t think I’m wrong when I say that this week has more negative portends than any week in a long, long time, so a quick analysis of each of them follows.

New bin Laden video

It’s not the first time we’ve seen OBL since 9/11/2001, but it’s the first time we’ve seen him with a dyed, trimmed beard. What’s the significance of that? According to this study of Islamic thought regarding the trimming of beards…Hard to say. It’s amazing that Western Civilization is locked in a battle to the death with people who feel the need to argue and write extensively about trimming facial hair. There’s also some concern that September 11th is on Tuesday this year, as it was in 2001.

Wall Street

For the past several weeks, it’s been the sub-prime mortgage meltdown making headlines. Now Countrywide says it’s laying off as many as 12,000 workers. The problem is deepening, and will continue to accelerate, since the housing industry is enormously important to the strength of the U.S. economy, even if the Fed doesn’t see it (or doesn’t want to panic us). Housing drives the economy. It provides jobs, that provide disposable income that allows people to buy things. The appreciation of real estate "values" has created money through home equity loans that bought millions of flat-screen HD tvs. Well, that equity is drying up, and so will the tv sales (and the auto sales, computer sales, vacation spending and in many cases, consumer debt servicing). It’s a bad scene.

Hitchhiking nukes

Six nuclear warheads flew on the missile pylons of a B-52 bomber last week, in clear violation of Air Force rules governing the transportation of atomic weapons. How in the world could this kind of "mistake" happen? Was it a mistake, or were the weapons flown, rather than trucked from Minot, ND to Barksdale AFB in Lousiana to meet a deadline? There’s buzz (also known as "informed speculation) that since Barksdale is a staging base for Midlle East deployments, the weapons were on their way to be launched against Iran, but some dissident military assets blew the whistle. Some say it was all a stunt intended to send a message to the Iranian government that we’re not messing around. There are even those who say the nukes are to be used on us. Any way you look at it, it’s a dangerous situation.

9/11 Anniversary

Tuesday marks the 6th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon by someone hostile to the American people. Whether you believe it was, in fact, 19 Islamic extremists or some sinister cabal who want you to think it was the work of Osama bin Laden, the fact remains, not only is Tuesday the anniversary of those horrific events, but September 11th was also a Tuesday. Some who see conspiracy everywhere are pointing to such a coincidence. Hard to say whether the kind of people who would commit such acts care about that or not, but it’s still worth noting. The human mind and eye constantly searches for familiar patterns, and throughout the history of our species, such patterns reappear time and time again.

Those strange "puts"

In the weeks before 9/11, some still unidentified investors purchased options that would only pay off if the stock prices of American Airlines and United Airlines dramatically fell. Well, since 9/11 caused both of those companies financial hardship (since their aircraft were used in the attacks), someone made billions of dollars. Did they know 9/11 was going to happen? Sure seems so. Well, now word is circulating of an even bigger "bin Laden" trade. Someone has bet a billion dollars that the stock market is going to lose 30-50% of its value by September 21. If it doesn’t lose that big, the entity making the trade loses close to a billion dollars US. What do they know? A more rational (but not completely reassuring) explanation for these trades says they’re merely a "box trade" engineered to provide a low interest rate loan.

Be well, be safe and be prepared.