The Great Game

For the last few days, the release of the Libyan convicted of the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie has made the headlines again. This time, BP (the company we love to hate) is implicated in the early release. Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi was released, we were told, due to his terminal illness. Reports have since been made that he will live for much longer that previously expected. We hear questions surrounding his release and his health, but not his guilt.
A UN observer at the trial is not convinced, and in the years since the bombing, several alternative theories have emerged, a number of which involved the CIA, DEA and drug smuggling. One of the best documentaries on the bombing is The Maltese Double Cross, from 1994:

The Other War

The War on Drugs has raged in the US for decades. A real war, with gun battles and atrocities is spiralling out of control in Mexico. Just one city, Cuidad, has seen 5000 murders in three years. In an interview with NPR, Charles Bowden gave his account of the problem:
"The drug industry is the future," he says. "The problem is you won't live long, but you can't live very long ... if you work in those factories because the wages are essentially slave wages."

The poverty which contributed to the catastrophe cannot be ignored. Bowden blames the North American Free Trade Agreement, other U.S. policies and the election in 2006 of Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who decided to meet the drug industry head-on.

The current state of the War on Drugs in the US is examined in this recent film (American Drug War, 2007):



The film attempts to cover a waide range of issues, including individual freedoms, private prisons, CIA drug operations, whistleblowers and the huge, increasing budgets of agencies involved in the fight.
Has the War on Drugs become part of the problem? And the War on Terror?

Nation Building?

We hear a lot about the term "nation building" when Iraq and Afghanistan are discussed. Many countries have fallen under the influence of the US at some point, and Latin America contains many examples. Latin American countries are currently working to achieve independence from the US by organizing and working together. Do those countries dislike the US simply because of ideological differences? We need only look at the interactions of the last few decades...



Cuba, Guatemala, Chile, El Salvador, Grenada, Nicaragua... the list goes on. Were we just fighting communism?

Happy Thanksgiving

If you think about it, Thanksgiving can be a lot like global politics. People pretend to like eachother in front of relatives, while looking for opportunities to make some passive aggressive comments and figuring out how far they can push their hosts. This doesnt apply to everyone, but I'm sure there is at least one in each gathering!

It seems that our old friend Blackwater (or Xe, as they like to be known as now), is at work for Uncle Sam again. VIP protection must have become boring, so now Blackwater is performing special ops missions alongside the CIA and the Special Ops Command. Those operations now include missions in Pakistan.

"The source, who has worked on covert US military programs for years, including in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has direct knowledge of Blackwater's involvement. The source said that the program is so "compartmentalized" that senior figures within the Obama administration and the US military chain of command may not be aware of its existence."

At the very least, they are conducting snatch missions and intelligence gathering (in a country we are not at war with). However, there have been persistent rumors of "false flag" operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and even Iran - acts of terrorism conducted by groups loyal to, or at least paid by, the US Govt.

Here's a gift idea for the person who has everything - The Official CIA Manual of Trickery and Deception
The Boston Globe has an interesting article on the book here

Which ex-president does this remind you of?

Short memories

Two years ago, the revelation that the CIA was conduction covert psyops against Iran was reported in mainstrean news. This video ties that footage to recent events:

Voices from the wilderness

Here's a guy I could have a beer with (and that doesnt happen very often!) - meet Jesse Ventura: