Special Interview: Islamic Army in Iraq

False Flag: Bacteriologic Op. waiting to happen ?

Half a million coffins plastic?

Well, apparently the government expects a million and half people are dying in a time relatively close, and the airport in Atlanta is an area of major air traffic, probably the largest in the country, which means that State of Georgia is a main base for conducting military operations and coordinations. It is also the venue of the CDC, the Center for Disease Control. I do not want to alarm anybody, but usually you do not buy plastic 500000 coffins “just in case something happens,” you buy them because you know something will happen. These airtight containers would be perfect to bury the victims of a plague or biological warfare , is not it?

more news on plastic coffins  : www.polyguardvaults.com/index.cfm?ID=9

——————————————————————-

————–

————–

————–

————–

Confession of a CIA Agent about FEMA – Important !!!!!!!

—————————————————————————–

One million names on US government “terrorist” watch list

By Jerry White

One million people—including large numbers of American citizens—are on the US government’s so-called terrorist watch list, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which held a Washington, D.C. press conference earlier this week to mark the ominous milestone.

Since February of this year the ACLU has maintained an online “watch list counter” to track the size of the government’s watch list. A September 2007 report by the inspector general of the Justice Department reported that the list contained 700,000 names and was growing by 20,000 per month. As of this writing, the counter has passed the 1,001,500 mark.

The Terrorist Screening Center (TSC) was set up in December 2003 through a Homeland Security directive signed by President George W. Bush, who ordered the agency to consolidate more than a dozen separate terrorist watch lists maintained by different federal agencies.

The resulting Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB) has been used to detain thousands of people during airport security checks or bar them from flying. Foreign nationals have been held up at US border crossings and prevented from obtaining visas based on the list. Local law enforcement agencies have also accessed the database during routine traffic stops.

Thousands of innocent people have been caught up in the government’s arbitrary dragnet and “no-fly” lists; many held for hours in interrogation rooms, threatened and denied due process. Those on the list have no right to access and challenge the data in which the list is based.

“Members of Congress, nuns, war heroes and other ‘suspicious characters,’ with names like Robert Johnson and Gary Smith, have become trapped in the Kafkaesque clutches of this list, with little hope of escape,” said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office.

The ACLU said those on the list included South African leader Nelson Mandela; Evo Morales, president of Bolivia; and US Senator Edward Kennedy, Democrat from Massachusetts.

Appearing at the press conference was Akif Rahman, a computer consulting company founder from suburban Chicago, who was detained and questioned for more than two hours by US customs officials on four separate occasions when crossing the Canadian border. On one occasion, he was held for 5 ½ hours, shackled to a chair, and physically searched. He was also separated from his wife and children who were forced to wait in a small dirty public area without food or telephones. A US citizen born in Springfield Illinois, Rahman is being represented by the ACLU of Illinois in a lawsuit over this treatment.

A flight from London carrying Yusuf Islam, the pop star formerly known as Cat Stevens, was diverted and forced to land in Maine once the government realized he was aboard. The singer was barred from entering the United States.

Attorney David C. Nelson is one of many men named David Nelson around the US who has been caught up on the list, including a former star of the television show “Ozzie and Harriet.”

The ACLU reported that the list even contained Saddam Hussein’s name, although he was imprisoned in Baghdad and in US custody at the time. It also contained the names of several 9/11 hijackers long after they were killed.

Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU’s Technology and Liberty Program, said, “America’s new million record watch list is a perfect symbol for what’s wrong with this administration’s approach to security: it’s unfair, out-of-control, a waste of resources, treats the rights of the innocent as an afterthought, and is a very real impediment in the lives of millions of travelers in this country. It must be fixed without delay.

“Putting a million names on a watch list is a guarantee that the list will do more harm than good by interfering with the travel of innocent people and wasting huge amounts of our limited security resources on bureaucratic wheel-spinning,” said Steinhardt. “I doubt this thing would even be effective at catching a real terrorist.”

In the name of the “war on terror”, the Bush Administration has gone a long way in setting up the structure of a police state. The state surveillance being conducted against more than one million people is not aimed at protecting the American people from terror attacks. It will ultimately be used to track political opponents, particularly as popular opposition grows to the worsening social conditions confronting tens of millions of working people, to the attacks on democratic rights, and the war

The ACLU concluded its press conference by expressing hope that the “next president” would move quickly to fix the excesses carried out by the Bush administration. Any confidence that a Barack Obama White House will dismantle the repressive measures put in place by Bush is an illusion.

Obama has fully embraced the war on terror—both in regards to foreign and domestic policy. He signaled his support for the attack on democratic rights through his Senate vote last week backing the Bush administration’s illegal program of widespread electronic surveillance and wiretapping.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/jul2008/list-j17_prn.shtml

Bush’s Rampage in Somalia

by Mike Whitney

Global Research, July 17, 2008
cleveland.indymedia.org

While George Bush was breezing through photo-ops at the G-8 summit in Japan, his Ethiopian proxy-army in Somalia was grinding out more carnage on the streets of Mogadishu. More than 40 civilians have been killed in the last 48 hours.

On Sunday, Osman Ali Ahmed, the head of the UN Development Program in Somalia, was shot gangland style as he left a mosque after prayers. He died before reaching the hospital with wounds to the head and chest. Ali Ahmed is just the latest of the peace-keepers who have been killed in the ongoing battle between Bush’s Ethiopian occupiers and the Somali guerrillas.

US foreign policy in Somalia has resulted in disaster. Millions of Somalis have been forced to flee their homes and relocate to tent cities in the south to escape the fighting. The latest surge in violence has been the worst in a decade and the security situation continues to deteriorate despite the arrival of 2,600 troops from the African Union and a tentative truce that was signed in June between some of the warring factions.

The western media has stubbornly refused to report on the rising death-toll in Somalia, choosing instead to focus all of their attention on America’s “villain du jour,” Robert Mugabe. Mugabe appears to be next on the neocon’s list for regime change. (Paul Wolfowitz even composed a postmortem for Zimbabwe’s president in a recent Wall Street Journal editorial, “How to Put the Heat on Mugabe”)

In 2006, the United States supported an alliance of Somali warlords known as the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) who established a base of operations in the western city of Baidoa. With the help of the US-backed Ethiopian army, western mercenaries, US Navy warships, and AC-130 gunships, the TFG was able capture Mogadishu and force the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) and their allies to retreat to the south. But, much like Iraq and Afghanistan, the resistance has coalesced into a tenacious guerrilla army which has returned to the capital and resumed the fight making it impossible for their Ethiopian adversaries to govern.

As the struggle continues, the humanitarian situation has gone from bad to worse. At least 2.6 million Somalis are now facing famine due to acute food shortages spurred by a prolonged drought, violence and high inflation. UN monitors have warned that the figure could hit exceed 3.5 million by the end of 2008. The UN Security Council has helped facilitate the violence by failing to condemn US support for Ethiopia’s invasion and by promising to send peacekeepers to mop up after fighting ends. They’ve shown no interest in stopping the bloodshed or threatening sanctions against the aggressors. The UNSC has become little more than an accomplice in Bush’s rampages.

In an interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now, Salim Lone, a columnist for the Daily Nation in Kenya and a former spokesperson for the UN mission in Iraq explains the UN’s role in providing the “go ahead” for the US invasion:

The lawlessness of this particular war is astounding; the most lawless war of our generation. You know, all aggressive wars are illegal. But in this particular one, there have been violations of the UN Charter and gross violations of international human rights. But, in addition, there have been very concrete violations by the United States of two Security Council resolutions. The first one was the arms embargo imposed on Somalia, which the United States has been routinely flaunting for many years now. But then the US decided that that resolution was no longer useful, and they pushed through an appalling resolution in December, which basically gave the green light to Ethiopia to invade. They pushed through a resolution which said that the situation in Somalia was a threat to international peace and security, at a time when every independent report indicated, and Chatham House’s report on Wednesday also indicated, that the Islamic Courts Union had brought a high level of peace and stability that Somalia had not enjoyed in sixteen years. So here was the UN Security Council going along with the American demand to pass a blatantly falsified UN resolution. And that resolution actually was a violation of the UN Charter. You know, the UN Charter is like the American Constitution and the Security Council is not allowed to pass laws or rules that violate the Charter. And yet, who is going to correct them?

The Bush administration has predictably invoked the “terrorist” hobgoblin to justify its involvement in Somalia, but no one is buying it. The ICU is not an Al Qaida affiliate or a terrorist organization despite the absurd claims of the State Department. It is true that the ICU was trying to enforce Sharia Law, but a much milder form of Sharia than America’s ally, Saudi Arabia.

The ICU was the first government in over a decade to restore security and order to Somalia and — generally speaking — the people were supportive of the new regime. Political analyst James Petras summed it up like this:

The ICU was a relatively honest administration, which ended warlord corruption and extortion. Personal safety and property were protected, ending arbitrary seizures and kidnappings by warlords and their armed thugs. The ICU is a broad multi-tendency movement that includes moderates and radical Islamists, civilian politicians and armed fighters, liberals and populists, electoralists and authoritarians. Most important, the Courts succeeded in unifying the country and creating some semblance of nationhood, overcoming clan fragmentation.

The real motives behind the invasion were oil and geopolitics. According to most estimates 30 percent of America’s oil will come from Africa in the next ten years. Bush’s new warlord friends in the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) have already indicated that they are ready to pass a new oil law that will encourage foreign oil companies to return to Somalia. The same oil giants that are now lining up in Iraq will soon be making their way to Somalia as well.

The Horn of Africa is also critical for its deep-water ports and its strategic location for future military bases. It’s all part of the Grand Schema for reconfiguring the region to accommodate America’s hegemonic ambitions.

Humanitarian Catastrophe: “The Ethiopian invasion has destroyed all the life-sustaining systems”

Heavy fighting and artillery fire have reduced large parts of Mogadishu to rubble. More than 700,000 people have been forced to leave the capital with nothing more than what they can carry on their backs. Entire districts have been evacuated and turned into ghost towns. The main hospital has been bombed and is no longer taking patients. Ethiopian snipers are perched atop rooftops across the city. Over 3.5 million people are now huddled in the south in tent cities without sufficient food, clean water or medical supplies. It is the greatest humanitarian crisis in Africa today; a man-made Hell entirely conjured up in Washington.

Just weeks ago, Amnesty International reported that it had heard many accounts that Ethiopian troops were “slaughtering (Somalis) like goats.” In one case, “a young child’s throat was slit by Ethiopian soldiers in front of the child’s mother.”

In another Democracy Now interview, Abdi Samatar, professor of Global Studies at the University of Minnesota, had this to say:

The Ethiopian invasion, which was sanctioned by the US government, has destroyed virtually all the life-sustaining economic systems which the population have built without the government for the last fifteen years. And the militia that are supposed to protect the population have been looting shops. For instance, the Bakara market, which is the largest market in Mogadishu, has been looted repeatedly by the militias of the so-called Transitional Federal Government of Somalia, supported by Ethiopian troops. And the new prime minister of Somalia, Mr. Hassan Nur Hussein, has himself announced in the BBC that it was his militias that — who have looted this place. So what you have is a population that’s hit from both sides — on one side, by the militias of the so-called Transitional Federal Government, which is recognized by the United States, and on the other side, by the Ethiopian invaders who seem to be bent on ensuring that they break the will of the people to resist as free people in their own country…. What you have is really terror in the worst sense of the word, a million people have been displaced that the Ethiopians have been denying humanitarian aid, and the United States which seems to just watch and let it happen.

It’s like there’s has been a calculated decision made somewhere in the world, maybe in Washington, maybe in Addis Ababa, maybe in Mogadishu itself, to starve these people until they submit themselves to the whims of the American military and the Ethiopians, who are acting on their behalf.

Amnesty International has called for an investigation of the United States role in Somalia.

Regrettably, neither the United Nations nor the establishment media are at all interested in Bush’s war crimes in Africa. All they care about is Mugabe.

Mike Whitney is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Mike Whitney

Some background notes:

You will recall that after years of instability by USA backed rival war lords, the UIC emerged out of the chaos, uniting local village courts that acted to resolve problems between local people in the absence of any government.

UIC succeeded in uniting together and pacifying Somalia (which is 100% moslem tribal nation) under the leadership of Sheikh Sherif Ahmed, and even opened the port of Mogadishu which had been closed for years. At that point “Bin Laden” came out with a message in their support (UIC denied any connection — and this is another proof that the OBL tapes are issued by Al CIAda), to justify the USA hostility towards UCI, and to justify the subsequent USA supported invasion of Somalia by Ethiopia troups to back the unwanted West apponted puppet provional Somalia government.

The president of the puppet government President Abdullah Youssef is now protected by a French private mercenary company Secopex.

Ethiopian troupes are sustaining heavy losses, even as they have been supported by USA misile attacks on villages.

Oil trading company files for bankruptcy

By Javier Blas in London

SemGroup, the US physical oil trader, yesterday filed for bankruptcy as it acknowledged losses of more than $3.2bn in different energy markets after betting this year that crude oil prices would fall. Its collapse came as oil prices plunged to their lowest levels since early June. West Texas Intermediate crude oil fell to an intraday low of $125.63 a barrel, down $5 on the day.

Traders sold oil futures as news emerged that tropical storm Dolly was set to miss oil and natural gas installations in the US Gulf of Mexico. Signs of slower oil demand in the US during the summer season also contributed to the sell-off, analysts said. Nauman Barakat, of Macquarie in New York, said: “Overall my bias remains to the downside and I still would like to sell rallies rather than buy dips.”

Traders said SemGroup could have exacerbated the spike in oil prices this month, when the market experienced unprecedented swings of more than $10 in a day, as the company was buying back its previous bets on lower prices.

The bankruptcy of SemGroup, which describes itself as the 14th-largest US private held company, affects approximately $3.1bn of debt, according to court filings. BP, the oil company, is the largest creditor, with almost $160m.

SemGroup bet in the futures market that prices would fall as a way to hedge its positions in the physical market. But as oil prices jumped this month to a record of $147.27 a barrel from less than $100 a barrel at the beginning of the year, the mounting losses triggered large margin calls from banks – a request to put up more collateral – draining the company’s cash reserves.

The company said in a court filing that it had lost $2.4bn in oil hedges at the New York Mercantile Exchange and another $850m in over-the-counter energy markets.

The credit crunch has exacerbated energy traders’ battle with margin calls as commercial and investment banks are reluctant to extend their credit lines to cover margins calls amid volatile markets.

SemGroup’s publicly traded subsidiary, SemGroup Energy Partners, which is not part of the bankruptcy, yesterday rose 10.9 per cent on Nasdaq as it said it would be able to carry on its business in spite of the collapse of its parent.

SemGroup Energy Partners shares had lost more than 70 per cent in the three previous trading days.

Kevin Foxx, chief executive of SemGroup Energy Partners, told investors and bankers in a conference call that the company had “a strong future as an independent energy transportation” business.

SemGroup did not return calls seeking comment.

Link

Americans Organize to “Save Starbucks”

 as the Economy Slips into Recession

The dollar is crashing and the economy tanking; yet some American’s are rallying to “save their Starbucks.” Talk about denial.

Citizen groups around the country are mobilizing to save their Starbucks after the company announced it will shut down 600 stores. These people don’t realize that Starbucks will have to double or triple their prices as the dollar continues to crash and the reason Starbucks has to close stores is because Americans are too broke to buy “premium” merchandise now that their currency has become the laughing stock of Forex.

Incredibly, and Forex traders can’t help but chuckle at this, these citizens are not mobilizing to restore habeas corpus, or to restore the rule of law as it applies to America’s spying telephone companies, or restore the checks and balances of the Republic that would prevent the president from declaring himself sole judge and jury in any case against any American who can then be detained for any length of time for any reason — as is now the case with the recent ruling of the US Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit (not to mention the workers themselves at Starbucks that nobody seems to care about after it was revealed that Starbucks management was stealing the barista’s tips).

No, these citizens are mobilizing to keep the doors open at shops that charge them $4 (soon to be $12) for drinks made from agricultural products (coffee beans) that the company has no, true legal right to exploit without adequate compensation to the indigenous populations that have farmed these products for millennia.

I digress … my point is that Americans can’t afford stuff they used to be able to afford, and they are becoming increasingly alone in this — as compared to other citizens in other countries — due to the falling U.S. dollar and the rise in the value of currencies we compete with.

As a few in the financial press in the U.S. have said (the ones who manage money for a living, not the ones who just talk about money), Americans will be shocked by their loss of purchasing power — as the dollar collapses — versus their compatriots in other countries — whose currency is rising, but by then it will be too late to do anything about it.

We are seeing this play out with Starbucks and their impoverished fans who are trying to keep it open.The plain fact is, most Americans can no longer afford Starbucks. The ingredients used to make these products are beyond the reach of Americans now, just like gas and housing. And this is just the beginning. As current trends relating to the dollar’s collapse continue — Starbucks will have to double and triple their prices and close hundreds more stores.

Americans can’t see what is staring them in the face.

Tell me again… I don’t think I understand. Why is Starbucks closing 600 restaurants?

For several reasons, all connected to the same underlying problem of America losing its economic sovereignty and the viability of its currency.

The cost of Starbucks raw materials; sugar, coffee, milk, wheat, chocolate are all skyrocketing in price due primarily to the concomitant fall in the U.S. dollar that has forced the price of these commodities, all priced in dollars, sky high.

Additionally, Starbucks, like all fast food franchises is also a real estate operator and the same problems we see in the nation’s real estate market we see in Starbucks real estate portfolio as the U.S. real estate market crashes due to a crashing dollar (the Fed keeps trying to bail out the un-bailable banks/mortgage/Fannie Mae crooks by printing more dollars that have the effect of killing the value of the ones in circulation).

Additionally, America’s household budgets are getting squeezed at the gas pump. Oil, like other commodities, is also priced in dollars and is going up as the dollar crashes.

Amazingly, the fact that Americans are now being shut out from something they covet because of the irresponsible Fed policies that have wrecked the stock market, housing market and dollar never seems to cross anyone’s mind.

It’s as if 300 million Americans live in a sno-globe of deceit and raining down on them are trillions of fake snow flake dollars that are destroying their purchasing power, economy and sovereignty and their only thought is to make snow balls, ‘have fun’ and ‘Save Our Starbucks.’

Starbucks is the first, but not the last example of how a falling dollar will make most items that Americans gorge on too expensive for Americans to buy with their crumbling currency.

In a few years time, it is quite possible that Americans, like the Chinese last decade, will be working to keep themselves alive manufacturing products that will be shipped overseas to China; products that they themselves will be unable to afford.

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/92236/

Chavez seeks alliance with Moscow

Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, has called for a strategic alliance with Russia to protect his country from the United States.

“That way we can guarantee Venezuela’s sovereignty, which is now threatened by the US,” Chavez said shortly after his arrival in Moscow on Tuesday.

Chavez has repeatedly accused Washington of plotting an invasion of Venezuela to destabilise his government, despite US denials.

The president is in Russia to broker a number of deals involving weapons purchases, oil exploration and possibly the creation of a joint financial institution.

It is his first meeting with Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, who took office in May.

Welcoming Chavez at his castle resort near Moscow, the capital, Medvedev said Russian-Venezuelan relations “are one of the key factors of security in the (South American) region”.

However, Jonah Hull, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Moscow, said Russia is determined to keep the visit low-profile.

“Russia’s leadership has changed since Chavez’s last visit. But the Kremlin remains keen to keep things low key … For Moscow, Chavez is a valued weapons buyer, but also something of a loaded weapon where his virulent anti-US rhetoric is concerned.”

Arms shopping

Russian media have reported that Chavez is expected to reach a number of agreements for purchasing Russian military hardware while in Moscow, with one
paper reporting the deals could be worth up to $2bn.

Tomas Ramirez, Chavez’s spokesman, said the president was also scheduled to meet Vladimir Putin, Russia’s prime minister, as well as several military and business leaders.

Kommersant, a Russian daily newspaper, reported on Tuesday that Chavez is looking to order Ilyushin jets, diesel-powered submarines, TOR-M1 air defense systems and possibly tanks.

“We want peace, but we are forced to strengthen our defence,” Chavez said upon his arrival.

Rosoboronexport, Russia’s state-owned arms trader, declined to comment on any potential deals.

Venezuela, which spent $4bn on international arms purchases between 2005 and 2007, mostly from Russia and China, has a defence budget of $2.6bn, according to the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.

The US stopped supplying arms to Venezuela in 2006.

Commenting on Chavez’s visit, Gonzalo R Gallegos, a spokesman from the US state department, said: “We’re not here to tell them what they should or shouldn’t do, but I think it’s clear that Hugo Chavez has his government to lead, he’ll make the decisions he needs to make.

“However, he has other situations at home that he may want to pay more close attention to.”

Joint bank

Alexis Navarro, Venezuela’s ambassador to Moscow, said Chavez also wants to discuss the possibility of creating a joint bank with Russia.

The two sides are also expected to discuss three energy deals involving Russian companies Gazprom, Lukoil, TNK-BP and Venezuela’s state-run oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA, the Kremlin said in a statement.

Lukoil is currently helping Venezuela quantify heavy crude oil deposits in its Orinoco River basin, one of the world’s largest petroleum deposits.

Gazprom has two natural gas exploration and production licenses in Venezuela.

Commercial trade between Venezuela and Russia reached $1.1bn last year, almost double the $517m in trade during 2006, according to statistics cited by Venezuela’s state-run news agency.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2008/07/2008722121720488481.html

30,000 Iraqi troops poised for assault on Diyala

Around 30,000 Iraqi soldiers and policemen from various parts of the country would take part in the crackdown in the central Iraq province starting August 1.

BAQUBA, (Iraq) – AROUND 30,000 Iraqi soldiers and policemen are poised to launch a military assault in Diyala province, bastion of Al-Qaeda fighters, from August 1, army and police officers said on Wednesday.
‘The operation is aimed at cleansing the region of insurgents, Al-Qaeda and militias who are still there’, a senior Iraqi military officer told AFP on condition of anonymity.

He said around 30,000 Iraqi soldiers and policemen from various parts of the country would take part in the crackdown in the central Iraq province starting August 1.

Senior Iraqi police officials in Baquba, the capital of Diyala, confirmed the assualt would start on August 1.

‘It will be an operation led by the Iraqi army. The US army will probably only watch… If they need help, we’ll help them. If not, we will not do anything’, a US military officer said.

Iraq’s interior ministry spokesman Major General Abdul Karim Khalaf announced on July 13 that the Iraqi military would launch an assault in Diyala but did not specify the date.

He said troops expected tough fighting during the assault.

Diyala and its capital Baquba are Iraq’s most dangerous regions with insurgents regularly carrying out attacks, including by female suicide bombers.

The assault in Diayla follows similar Iraqi military operations in the southern provinces of Basra and Maysan, and the northern province of Nineveh. — AFP

http://www.straitstimes.com/Latest%2BNews/World/STIStory_260539.html

US general warns Russia on nuclear bombers in Cuba

Russia would cross “a red line for the United States of America” if it were to base nuclear capable bombers in Cuba, a top US air force officer warned on Tuesday.

“If they did I think we should stand strong and indicate that is something that crosses a threshold, crosses a red line for the United States of America,” said General Norton Schwartz, nominated to be the air force’s chief of staff.

He was referring to a Russian news report that said the military is thinking of flying long-range bombers to Cuba on a regular basis.

It was unclear from the report whether that would involve permanent basing of nuclear bombers in Cuba, or just use of the island as a refueling stop.

In his confirmation hearing to become the air force’s chief of staff, Schwartz was asked what he would recommend if Russia were to base nuclear capable bombers in Cuba.

“I would certainly offer the best military advice that we engage the Russians not to pursue that approach,” he said.

The newspaper Iszvestia on Monday cited an unnamed senior Russian air force official in Moscow as saying that Russia may start regular flights by long-range bombers to Cuba in response to US plans to install a missile defense system in eastern Europe.

A White House spokeswoman declined to comment on the Russian report because there had been no “official response from the Russian government.”

Conducting long-range bomber patrol to Cuba would signal a reawakening of military cooperation by former Cold War allies Moscow and Havana, and recall the 1962 missile crisis that brought Washington and Moscow to the brink of war.

Over the past year, Russia already has revived long-range strategic bomber patrols in the Pacific and north Atlantic.

The Russian moves come amid rising tensions over the US missile defense plans, and warnings by Moscow that it will be forced them to counter them militarily.

Until now, US officials have shrugged off the stepped up Russian military activity, while insisting that a radar in the Czech Republic and 10 missile interceptors it plans to install in Poland pose no threat to Russia.

White House press secretary Dana Perino recalled assurances US President George W. Bush offered Russian President Dmitry Medvedev two weeks ago at a G8 summit.

“The president repeated that our missile defense system should not be seen as a threat to Russia, we want to actually work with the Russians to design a system that Russia, and Europe and the United States could work on together as equal partners and we’ll continue to do that,” she said.

“We seek strategic cooperation with the Russians. We want to work with them on preventing missiles from rogue nations like Iran from threatening our friends and allies,” said Perino.

But Medvedev has warned that the missile defense project worsens regional security and will force Moscow to consider counter-measures.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5g06R9TaaWdS1HHzHe1Jg53mfnpwg

150 Somali soldiers join UIC

———————————————————————————

Ethiopia Invades Somalia on Behalf of American Imperialism

African leaders are falling into line to act as puppets of US imperialism. Ethiopia’s Zenawi is already acting as a proxy for the US and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni is reportedly eager to send troops into Somalia.

———————————————————————————

About 150 government troops have deserted their military bases in Somalia, joining the fighters of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC).

UIC fighter welcomed the soldiers, who believed they were misguided by the Somali government, a Press TV correspondent reported.

“Last year, the government selected 4,000 of us claiming they would provide us with education…, but they forced us into bases before arming us and coercively training us to destroy our nation,” said a 19-year-old soldier.

He added that “we secretly delivered messages to (Al-Shabaab spokesman) Robow Abu Mansuur asking them to target the bases so we can seize the opportunity to join the UIC and Al-Shabaab (the military wing of the UIC)”.

The fighters enjoy strong popular support. They were removed from power in 2006 following the onrush of the Ethiopian-backed Somali troops. Violence has ever since taken its toll on the country.

Elsewhere 25 soldiers were found dead between Lego and the southern region of Lower Shabelle’s Wanlaweyn town.

Meanwhile, at least seven Somali officials left the government claiming, in a statement, that they were meant to work for their people not ‘the enemy of the nation’.

“I am ready to join the fighters to defend my country from the devil named the Somali government” said one official who also accused the administration of ‘anti-Islamic’ activities.

————————————————————

You will recall that after years of instability by USA backed rival war lords, the UIC emerged out of the chaos, uniting local village courts that acted to resolve problems between local people. UIC succeeded in uniting together and pacifying Somalia (which is 100% moslem tribal nation) under the leadership of Sheikh Sherif Ahmed, and even opened the port of Mogadisho which had been closed for years.

At that point “Bin Laden” came out with a message in their support (UIC denied any connection — and this is another proof that the BL tapes are issued by Al CIAda), to justify the USA hostility towards UCI, and to justify the subsequent USA supported invasion of Somalia by Ethiopia troups to back the unwanted West apponted puppet provional Somalia government.

The president of the puppet government President Abdullah Youssef is now protected by a French private mercenary company Secopex. Apparently, Somalia has un-exploited oil. Fighting now rages again but UIC are winning many battles.

Thousands have been displaced and famine is now a big threat.
Ethiopian troupes are sustaining heavy losses, even as they have been supported by USA misile attacks on UIC forces.