Newsmax thinks Mexico is actually in a civil war

Drug Civil War Rages in Mexico

Sunday, May 11, 2008 7:10 PM

By: Phil Brennan Article Font Size

A full-scale civil war is raging in Mexico — and few are paying attention.

Drug cartels seeking to keep control over huge swathes of Mexico have been on a rampage. In the past two weeks alone, at least 10 police officials have been murdered -…
So far, estimates say more than 3,000 Mexicans have been killed, with almost 1,000 deaths this year alone in a brutal struggle by the civilian government to reassert authority.

Who exactly made those estimates?

Linkity:
http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/drug_mexico_cartel/2008/05/11/95167.html

USA government admits that it lied to start war with Iran

US confession: Weapons were not made in Iran after all

(source: CASMII)
Saturday, May 10, 2008
CASMII Press Release
10 May 2008
“US confession: Weapons were not made in Iran after all”
In a sharp reversal of its longstanding accusations against Iran arming militants in Iraq , the US military has made an unprecedented albeit quiet confession: the weapons they had recently found in Iraq were not made in Iran at all.
According to a report by the LA Times correspondent Tina Susman in Baghdad: “A plan to show some alleged Iranian-supplied explosives to journalists last week in Karbala and then destroy them was canceled after the United States realized none of them was from Iran. A U.S. military spokesman attributed the confusion to a misunderstanding that emerged after an Iraqi Army general in Karbala erroneously reported the items were of Iranian origin. When U.S. explosives experts went to investigate, they discovered they were not Iranian after all.”
The US , which until two weeks ago had never provided any proof for its allegations, finally handed over its “evidence” of the Iranian origin of these weapons to the Iraqi government. Last week, an Iraqi delegation to Iran presented the US “evidence” to Iranian officials. According to Al-Abadi, a parliament member from the ruling United Iraqi Alliance who was on the delegation, the Iranian officials totally refuted “training, financing and arming” militant groups in Iraq . Consequently the Iraqi government announced that there is no hard evidence against Iran.
In another extraordinary event this week, the US spokesman in Iraq, Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner, for the first time did not blame Iran for the violence in Iraq and in fact did not make any reference to Iran at all in his introductory remarks to the world media on Wednesday when he described the large arsenal of weapons found by Iraqi forces in Karbala.
In contrast, the Pentagon in August 2007 admitted that it had lost track of a third of the weapons distributed to the Iraqi security forces in 2004/2005. The 190,000 assault rifles and pistols roam free in Iraqi streets today.
In the past year, the US leaders have been relentless in propagating their charges of Iranian meddling and fomenting violence in Iraq and since the release of the key judgments of the US National Intelligence Estimate in December that Iran does not have a nuclear weaponisation programme, these accusations have sharply intensified.
The US charges of Iranian interference in Iraq too have now collapsed. Any threat of military strike against Iran is in violation of the UN charter and the IAEA’s continued supervision on Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities means there is no justification for sanctions.
CASMII calls on the US to change course and enter into comprehensive and unconditional negotiations with Iran.
For more information or to contact CASMII please visit http://www.campaigniran.org

[END]

via:
http://www.campaigniran.org/casmii/index.php?q=node/4886

and originally:

Not once did Bergner point the finger at Iran for any of these weapons and munitions, which is a striking change from just a couple of weeks ago when U.S. military officials here and at the Pentagon were saying that caches found in Basra in particular had revealed Iranian-made arms manufactured as recently as this year. They say the majority of rockets being fired at U.S. bases, including Baghdad’s Green Zone, are launched by militiamen receiving training, arms and other aid from Iran.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2008/05/iraq-the-elusiv.html

The rich people don’t want to get dragged down

Celso Amorim, the Brazilian Foreign minister said that South America would never accept “separatism in Bolivia” and underlined that any autonomy must be negotiated with La Paz, according to Rio’s daily O Globo.

Last Sunday Bolivia’s richest province, Santa Cruz, held a referendum where an overwhelming majority voted for autonomy. Several other Bolivian provinces are on a similar track.

“I don’t think we’ll see separatism. Even because South America would never accept it,” said Celso Amorim.

“Brazil is not against autonomy wishes as long as constitutional principles are respected and that is the will of the Bolivian people,” added Amorim who insisted that the voted Santa Cruz autonomy statute must be in the framework of the current Bolivian constitution.

Amorim also defended a wide agreement in Bolivia.

“It’s perfectly possible to reestablish a dialogue with the help from the (Catholic) Church, OAS (Organization of American States) and the group of country friends which support Bolivia.” Brazil, Argentina and Colombia are the members of the group of country friends with Bolivia.

“What we must do is work together in a coordinated way, all of us in the same direction. We must find a way to reestablish dialogue and that is what we are determined to obtain. But with discretion, no impositions, we can’t forget that the idea of the group of country friends was an initiative from the Bolivian government.”

When asked if given the overwhelming results of the Santa Cruz referendum the situation had turned even more complicated, Amorim replied that “the referendum is over. It’s useless to stop to think whether it makes it easier or more difficult. Bolivia is a country with which we must work for the national unity and this demands dialogue.”

“I think events in Santa Cruz were far less dramatic than what was or has been imagined,” he underscored.

In a similar tone through a video conference Benita Ferrer-Waldner, the European Union Foreign Affairs commissar said the EU was willing to facilitate and bring together the different sides in the dispute, the Bolivian government and the opposing regions.

“We’re doing out best so that all attempts, be them from the Church, from OAS or the envoys from the group of country friends, effectively achieve a path that leads to promote dialogue and a successful dialogue at that,” added Ferrero-Waldner.

Mercopress

via
http://www.brazzilmag.com/content/view/9304/

If the rich Bolivians can secede, the rich Brazilians can secede, and then it will be a question of civil war. Brazil would be better off invading Bolivia to “restore order” than allowing secession.

I haven’t seen anyone *prove* that the USA government is encouraging secession, and I don’t even know if it’s plausible. Certainly elements within the USA encourage Bolivian secession simply by class loyalty and cultural gangrene, but that doesn’t mean that the USA government (or at least some of its factions) wouldn’t like to stop those elements.

82-year-old man tasered on hospital bed by three mounties

An elderly man in Kamloops, B.C., was zapped three times on the torso by a police stun gun while lying on his hospital bed, CBC News has learned.

Frank Lasser, 82, appeared fragile Thursday when he showed the Taser marks on his body and talked about the ordeal he went through Saturday.

“They [police] should have known I had bypass surgery,” Lasser told CBC News.

Lasser has had heart surgery and needs to carry an apparatus to supply oxygen at all times. He was in the Royal Inland Hospital Saturday due to pneumonia but has since been released.
Frank Lasser shows the marks left on his body after being stunned three times by a Taser. Frank Lasser shows the marks left on his body after being stunned three times by a Taser. (CBC)

RCMP said nurses called police after Lasser became delirious and pulled a knife out of his pocket.

Lasser told CBC News that he sometimes becomes delusional when he can’t breathe properly. He said he couldn’t explain why he refused to let go of the knife even after the Mounties arrived.

“I was laying on the bed by then and the corporal came in, or the sergeant, I forget which it was, and said to the guys, ‘OK, get him because we got more important work to do on the street tonight,’” Lasser said.

“And then, bang, bang, bang, three times with the laser, and I tell you, I never want that again.”

via:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2008/05/08/bc-kamloops-man-taser.html

Mexico shooting

Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, May 9, 2008; Page A01

MEXICO CITY, May 8 — Gunmen assassinated Mexico’s national police chief Thursday, blasting him with nine bullets outside his home in the capital and dealing a significant setback to the government’s campaign against drug cartels.

Edgar Eusebio Millán Gómez, the public face of Mexico’s offensive against drug cartels, became the highest-ranking law enforcement official to be killed since the launch of the effort 17 months ago. The assassination could give new confidence to drug cartels blamed for 6,000 killings in the past 2 1/2 years, and embolden other anti-government groups in this violence-plagued nation.

What is Ken Hoop’s issue?

When we make wishes, they sometimes come true in ways we didn’t expect.

One example of this is when patriots call out for sincere, proactive people who want to change the world and they get … Ken Hoop.

Ken Hoop has apparently been thrown off of various websites by people who get pretty emotional about it. Lately he has managed to push Fabius Maximus into snark mode.

The fact is, the longer Israel carries on its oppression of Palestinians and manipulation of American foreign policy thru agents like Feith Perle and Wolfowitz, the more people are going to take seriously the spirit if not the letter of the Protocols.
.
.
Fabius Maximus replies: Amazing how for a thousand years every generation of the west has found some reason to hate the Jews. Perhaps some genetic defect, a mutation in our ancestors.

Ken Hoop works a kind of alchemy on websites. They go from an even keel to a festival of snark.

Gianni Alemanno hailed as Duce

Via the Guardian:

Italy’s new parliament met for the first time today with applause for Rome’s mayor-elect, Gianni Alemanno, a day after followers celebrated his triumph with straight-arm salutes and fascist-era chants.

Alemanno, a former neo-fascist youth leader, took 54% of the vote in a run-off on Sunday and Monday, crushing his rival, Francesco Rutelli, a deputy prime minister in the last, centre-left government.

Silvio Berlusconi, who won a general election earlier this month, welcomed the latest evidence of Italy’s leap to the right by declaring: “We are the new Falange”. Although he took care to wrap his remark in a classical context, his choice of words appeared to be a nod and a wink to his most extreme supporters.

The original Falange — the word means “phalanx” — was the Spanish fascist party, founded in the 1930s, which supplied Francisco Franco’s dictatorship with its ideological underpinning.

The prime minister-elect’s closest ally, Umberto Bossi, the Northern League leader, kept up the intimidating rhetoric, arriving for the first session of Italy’s parliament warning of violence if the centre-left did not go along with his plans for federalism.

“I don’t know what the left wants [but] we are ready,” he told reporters. “If they want conflicts, I have 300,000 men always on hand.”

On Monday night, the area around Rome’s city hall rang to chants of “Duce! Duce!”, the term adopted by Italy’s dictator, Benito Mussolini, equivalent to the German “Führer”. Supporters of the new mayor gave the fascist Roman straight-arm salutes.

I hesitate to categorize this as Retroculture, but certainly they are acting traditionally and with an anticommunist slant…

Gary Brecher fans rejoice, TakiMag has two by Brecher

Rejoice, rejoice, o war nerd fanboys, to you has come Gary Brecher.

demography

And

eating soup

Blast from the past: Boyce and DiPrima

Applied Philosophy
is offering a blast from the past: Boyce and DiPrima, applied to population dynamics.

Truly, in the hurly-burly and hustle-and-bustle of life, we too rarely stop and take time for what is truly important in life … differential equations.

James Petras analyzes USA industrial decay

I’m not too crazy about his writing style — some things seem over-verbalized and under-communicated.

By the mid-1950’s, while the US vastly expanded its state military apparatus (armed forces, intelligence agencies and clandestine armies), Western Europe and Japan expanded and built up their state economic agencies, public enterprises, investment and loan programs for the private sector. Even more significantly, US military spending and purchases stimulated Japanese and European industries. Equally important state-private procurement policies subsidized US industrial inefficiency via cost over-runs, non-competitive bidding and military-industrial monopolies.

US empire building via projections of military power absorbed hundreds of billions of dollars in government expenditures in regions and countries with low economic payoffs in the Caribbean, Central American, Asia and Africa.

While military-driven empire building did increase short term domestic growth and rising income, and led to some important civilian spin-offs and technological breakthroughs that entered the civilian economy, European and Japanese market-based empire building moved with greater dynamism from domestic to export led growth and began to challenge US predominance in a multiplicity of productive sectors.

The US prolonged and costly war against Indo-China (roughly 1954-74) epitomized the replacement of European colonial-military empire building by the US version. The hundreds of billions of dollars in US government war spending spilled over into Japanese and South Korean high-growth manufacturing industries. Western European manufacturing achieved productivity gains and export markets in former African and Asian colonial nations, while the US Empire’s murderous wars in South East Asia discredited it and its products throughout the world. Domestic unrest, widespread civilian protests and military demoralization further weakened the US capacity to pursue its imperial agenda and defend strategic collaborating regimes in key regions.

The relative decline of US manufacturing exports was accompanied by the massive growth of US public debt, which in turn stimulated the vast expansion of the financial sector which then shaped regional and national policy toward de-industrializing central cities and converting them into a finance-real estate and insurance monoculture.

Original essay is worth reading in full.