Category: News

M K Bhadrakumar
Asia Times
Saturday, January 9th, 2010

A year ago, Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Saleh made
the startling revelation that his country’s security forces
apprehended a group of Islamists linked to the Israeli intelligence
forces. “A terrorist cell was apprehended and will be referred to
the courts for its links with the Israeli intelligence services,”
he promised.

Saleh added, “You will hear about the trial
proceedings.” Nothing was ever heard and the trail went cold.
Welcome to the magical land of Yemen, where in the womb of time the
Arabian Nights were played out.

Combine Yemen with the mystique of Islam, Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda
and the Israeli intelligence and you get a heady mix. The head of the
US Central Command, General David Petraeus, dropped in at the capital,
Sana’a, on Saturday and vowed to Saleh increased American aid to
fight al-Qaeda. United States President Barack Obama promptly echoed
Petraeus’ promise, assuring that the US would step up
intelligence-sharing and training of Yemeni forces and perhaps carry
out joint attacks against militants in the region.

Another Afghanistan?
Many accounts say that Obama, who is widely regarded as a gifted and
intelligent politician, is blundering into a catastrophic mistake by
starting another war that could turn out to be as bloody and chaotic
and unwinnable as Iraq and Afghanistan. Yes, on the face of it, Obama
does seem erratic. The parallels with Afghanistan are striking. There
has been an attempt to destroy a US plane by a Nigerian student who
says he received training in Yemen. And America wants to go to war.

Yemen, too, is a land of wonderfully beautiful rugged mountains that
could be a guerilla paradise. Yemenis are a hospitable lot, like Afghan
tribesmen, but as Irish journalist Patrick Cockurn recollects, while
they are generous to passing strangers, they “deem the laws of
hospitality to lapse when the stranger leaves their tribal territory,
at which time he becomes ‘a good back to shoot at’.”
Surely, there is romance in the air – almost like in the Hindu
Kush. Fiercely nationalistic, almost every Yemeni has a gun. Yemen is
also, like Afghanistan, a land of conflicting authorities, and with
foreign intervention, a little civil war is waiting to flare up.

Is Obama so incredibly forgetful of his own December 1 speech
outlining his Afghan strategy that he violated his own canons?
Certainly not. Obama is a smart man. The intervention in Yemen will go
down as one of the smartest moves that he ever made for perpetuating
the US’s global hegemony. It is America’s answer to
China’s surge.

A cursory look at the map of region will show that Yemen is one of
the most strategic lands adjoining waters of the Persian Gulf and the
Arabian Peninsula. It flanks Saudi Arabia and Oman, which are vital
American protectorates. In effect, Uncle Sam is “marking
territory” – like a dog on a lamppost. Russia has been
toying with the idea of reopening its Soviet-era base in Aden. Well,
the US has pipped Moscow in the race.

The US has signaled that the odyssey doesn’t end with Yemen.
It is also moving into Somalia and Kenya. With that, the US establishes
its military presence in an entire unbroken stretch of real estate all
along the Indian Ocean’s western rim. Chinese officials have of
late spoken of their need to establish a naval base in the region. The
US has now foreclosed China’s options. The only country with a
coastline that is available for China to set up a naval base in the
region will be Iran. All other countries have a Western military
presence.

The American intervention in Yemen is not going to be on the pattern
of Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama will ensure he doesn’t receive any
body bags of American servicemen serving in Yemen. That is what the
American public expects from him. He will only deploy drone aircraft
and special forces and “focus on providing intelligence and
training to help Yemen counter al-Qaeda militants”, according to
the US military. Obama’s main core objective will be to establish
an enduring military presence in Yemen. This serves many purposes.

A new great game begins
First, the US move has to be viewed against the historic backdrop of
the Shi’ite awakening in the region. The Shi’ites (mostly
of the Zaidi group) have been traditionally suppressed in Yemen.
Shi’ite uprisings have been a recurring theme in Yemen’s
history. There has been a deliberate attempt to minimize the percentage
of Shi’ites in Yemen, but they could be anywhere up to 45%.

More importantly, in the northern part of the country, they
constitute the majority. What bothers the US and moderate Sunni Arab
states – and Israel – is that the Believing Youth
Organization led by Hussein Badr al-Houthi, which is entrenched in
northern Yemen, is modeled after Hezbollah in Lebanon in all respects
– politically, economically, socially and culturally.

Yemenis are an intelligent people and are famous in the Arabian
Peninsula for their democratic temperament. The Yemeni Shi’ite
empowerment on a Hezbollah-model would have far-reaching regional
implications. Next-door Oman, which is a key American base, is
predominantly Shi’ite. Even more sensitive is the likelihood of
the dangerous idea of Shi’ite empowerment spreading to Saudi
Arabia’s highly restive Shi’ite regions adjoining Yemen,
which on top of it all, also happen to be the reservoir of the
country’s fabulous oil wealth.

Saudi Arabia is entering a highly sensitive phase of political
transition as a new generation is set to take over the leadership in
Riyadh, and the palace intrigues and fault lines within the royal
family are likely to get exacerbated. To put it mildly, given the vast
scale of institutionalized Shi’ite persecution in Saudi Arabia by
the Wahhabi establishment, Shi’ite empowerment is a veritable
minefield that Riyadh is petrified about at this juncture. Its
threshold of patience is wearing thin, as the recent uncharacteristic
resort to military power against the north Yemeni Shi’ite
communities bordering Saudi Arabia testifies.

The US faces a classic dilemma. It is all right for Obama to
highlight the need of reform in Muslim societies – as he did
eloquently in his Cairo speech last June. But democratization in the
Yemeni context – ironically, in the Arab context – would
involve Shi’ite empowerment. After the searing experience in
Iraq, Washington is literally perched like a cat on a hot tin roof. It
would much rather be aligned with the repressive, autocratic government
of Saleh than let the genie of reform out of the bottle in the oil
rich-region in which it has profound interests.

Obama has an erudite mind and he is not unaware that what Yemen
desperately needs is reform, but he simply doesn’t want to think
about it. The paradox he faces is that with all its imperfections, Iran
happens to be the only “democratic” system operating in
that entire region.

Iran’s shadow over the Yemeni Shi’ite consciousness
worries the US to no end. Simply put, in the ideological struggle going
on in the region, Obama finds himself with the ultra-conservative and
brutally autocratic oligarchies that constitute the ruling class in the
region. Conceivably, he isn’t finding it easy. If his own memoirs
are to be believed, there could be times when the vague recollections
of his childhood in Indonesia and his precious memories of his own
mother, who from all accounts was a free-wheeling intellectual and
humanist, must be stalking him in the White House corridors.

Israel moves in
But Obama is first and foremost a realist. Emotions and personal
beliefs drain away and strategic considerations weigh uppermost when he
works in the Oval Office. With the military presence in Yemen, the US
has tightened the cordon around Iran. In the event of a military attack
on Iran, Yemen could be put to use as a springboard by the Israelis.
These are weighty considerations for Obama.

The fact is that no one is in control as a Yemeni authority. It is a
cakewalk for the formidable Israeli intelligence to carve out a niche
in Yemen – just as it did in northern Iraq under somewhat
comparable circumstances.

Islamism doesn’t deter Israel at all. Saleh couldn’t
have been far off the mark when he alleged last year that Israeli
intelligence had been exposed as having kept links with Yemeni
Islamists. The point is, Yemeni Islamists are a highly fragmented lot
and no one is sure who owes what sort of allegiance to whom. Israeli
intelligence operates marvelously in such twilight zones when the
horizon is lacerated with the blood of the vanishing sun.

Israel will find a toehold in Yemen to be a god-sent gift insofar as
it registers its presence in the Arabian Peninsula. This is a dream
come true for Israel, whose effectiveness as a regional power has
always been seriously handicapped by its lack of access to the Persian
Gulf region. The overarching US military presence helps Israel
politically to consolidate its Yemeni chapter. Without doubt, Petraeus
is moving on Yemen in tandem with Israel (and Britain). But the
“pro-West” Arab states with their rentier mentality have no
choice except to remain as mute spectators on the sidelines.

Some among them may actually acquiesce with the Israeli security
presence in the region as a safer bet than the spread of the dangerous
ideas of Shi’ite empowerment emanating out of Iran, Iraq and
Hezbollah. Also, at some stage, Israeli intelligence will begin to
infiltrate the extremist Sunni outfits in Yemen, which are commonly
known as affiliates of al-Qaeda. That is, if it hasn’t done that
already. Any such link makes Israel an invaluable ally for the US in
its fight against al-Qaeda. In sum, infinite possibilities exist in the
paradigm that is taking shape in the Muslim world abutting into the
strategic Persian Gulf.

It’s all about China
Most important, however, for US global strategies will be the massive
gain of control of the port of Aden in Yemen. Britain can vouchsafe
that Aden is the gateway to Asia. Control of Aden and the Malacca
Strait will put the US in an unassailable position in the “great
game” of the Indian Ocean. The sea lanes of the Indian Ocean are
literally the jugular veins of China’s economy. By controlling
them, Washington sends a strong message to Beijing that any notions by
the latter that the US is a declining power in Asia would be nothing
more than an extravagant indulgence in fantasy.

In the Indian Ocean region, China is increasingly coming under
pressure. India is a natural ally of the US in the Indian Ocean region.
Both disfavor any significant Chinese naval presence. India is
mediating a rapprochement between Washington and Colombo that would
help roll back Chinese influence in Sri Lanka. The US has taken a
u-turn in its Myanmar policy and is engaging the regime there with the
primary intent of eroding China’s influence with the military
rulers. The Chinese strategy aimed at strengthening influence in Sri
Lanka and Myanmar so as to open a new transportation route towards the
Middle East, the Persian Gulf and Africa, where it has begun contesting
traditional Western economic dominance.

China is keen to whittle down its dependence on the Malacca Strait
for its commerce with Europe and West Asia. The US, on the contrary, is
determined that China remains vulnerable to the choke point between
Indonesia and Malaysia.

An engrossing struggle is breaking out. The US is unhappy with
China’s efforts to reach the warm waters of the Persian Gulf
through the Central Asian region and Pakistan. Slowly but steadily,
Washington is tightening the noose around the neck of the Pakistani
elites – civilian and military – and forcing them to make a
strategic choice between the US and China. This will put those elites
in an unenviable dilemma. Like their Indian counterparts, they are
inherently “pro-Western” (even when they are
“anti-American”) and if the Chinese connection is important
for Islamabad, that is primarily because it balances perceived Indian
hegemony.

The existential questions with which the Pakistani elites are
grappling are apparent. They are seeking answers from Obama. Can Obama
maintain a balanced relationship vis-a-vis Pakistan and India? Or, will
Obama lapse back to the George W Bush era strategy of building up India
as the pre-eminent power in the Indian Ocean under whose shadow
Pakistan will have to learn to live?

US-India-Israel axis
On the other hand, the Indian elites are in no compromising mood. Delhi
was on a roll during the Bush days. Now, after the initial misgivings
about Obama’s political philosophy, Delhi is concluding that he
is all but a clone of his illustrious predecessor as regards the broad
contours of the US’s global strategy – of which containment
of China is a core template.

The comfort level is palpably rising in Delhi with regard to the
Obama presidency. Delhi takes the surge of the Israeli lobby in
Washington as the litmus test for the Obama presidency. The surge suits
Delhi, since the Jewish lobby was always a helpful ally in cultivating
influence in the US Congress, media and the rabble-rousing
think-tankers as well as successive administrations. And all this is
happening at a time when the India-Israel security relationship is
gaining greater momentum.

United States Defense Secretary Robert Gates is due to visit Delhi
in the coming days. The Obama administration is reportedly adopting an
increasingly accommodative attitude toward India’s longstanding
quest for “dual-use” technology from the US. If so, a
massive avenue of military cooperation is about to open between the two
countries, which will make India a serious challenger to China’s
growing military prowess. It is a win-win situation as the great Indian
arms bazaar offers highly lucrative business for American companies.

Clearly, a cozy three-way US–Israel-India alliance provides the
underpinning for all the maneuvering that is going on. It will have
significance for the security of the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf and
the Arabian Peninsula. Last year, India formalized a naval presence in
Oman.

All-in-all, terrorism experts are counting the trees and missing the
wood when they analyze the US foray into Yemen in the limited terms of
hunting down al-Qaeda. The hard reality is that Obama, whose main plank
used to be “change”, has careened away and increasingly
defaults to the global strategies of the Bush era. The freshness of the
Obama magic is dissipating. Traces of the “revisionism” in
his foreign policy orientation are beginning to surface. We can see
them already with regard to Iran, Afghanistan, the Middle East and the
Israel–Palestine problem, Central Asia and towards China and Russia.

Arguably, this sort of “return of the native” by Obama
was inevitable. For one thing, he is but a creature of his
circumstances. As someone put it brilliantly, Obama’s presidency
is like driving a train rather than a car: a train cannot be
“steered”, the driver can at best set its speed, but
ultimately, it must run on its tracks.

Besides, history has no instances of a declining world power meekly
accepting its destiny and walking into the sunset. The US cannot give
up on its global dominance without putting up a real fight. And the
reality of all such momentous struggles is that they cannot be fought
piece-meal. You cannot fight China without occupying Yemen.

Sheldon Richman
Campaign For Liberty
Saturday, January 9th, 2010

“The House and Senate plan to put together the final health
care reform bill behind closed doors according to an agreement by top
Democrats.”

That less-than-startling piece of news was delivered by House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She was at the White House when she said it, so
it’s okay with President Obama.

Thus, as the CBS News headline had it, “Obama Reneges on Health Care Transparency.”

Anyone who is really shocked (shocked!) that this is happening
should avoid talking to strangers on the street. You’ll wind up
believing you own a bridge.

In other words, no one really thought Obama and his cronies were
going to make government transparent by conducting business on C-SPAN.
As the head of the Council on Foreign Relations said admiringly about
Obama in another context, “He’s learned the difference
between campaigning and governing.” Indeed. Even if he wanted to,
there was no way Obama was going to get our misrepresentatives in
Congress to do it.

The phrase “transparent government” is just this side of
a logical contradiction. A really transparent government would barely
qualify as a government at all. Imagine if you could witness all the
backroom dealing, logrolling, outright bribery, and the rest of the
shenanigans that go on under the laughable rubric
“governing.” It wouldn’t last a week.

Once in a while we get a glimpse. When Sen. Ben Nelson’s vote
on the health-insurance takeover was cynically bought with the promise
that everyone but Nebraskans would pay Nebraska’s new Medicaid
bill, there was genuine disgust — even in Nebraska. The payoff to
Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu got a similar reception. But that was just
the tip of the iceberg. Did you hear that companies with fewer than 50
employees would be exempt from the health-insurance
mandate–except for construction companies? Then the threshold is five. It’s a little favor to the construction trade unions:

“Labor unions that have negotiated health benefits for
construction workers lobbied for the provision. Without it, they said,
small nonunion employers would have an unfair competitive advantage
over companies that they say do ‘the right thing’ by
providing health benefits to plumbers, electricians, carpenters,
roofers and other workers in the building trades,” the Times reported.

This sort of thing happens every day. As Michael Kinsley once said,
the real scandal in Washington is the legal stuff, not the illegal
stuff, that goes on.

Political Transactions Costs

We can’t say we weren’t warned. A few years ago a great scholar named Charlotte Twight explained it all in her book Dependent on D.C.: The Rise of Federal Control over Ordinary Americans. I’m a huge fan of this book, and everyone concerned with liberty should read it closely. What I said about it in 2003 still holds:

If I may be blunt, this is a subversive book — in
the sense that if average Americans were to read and grasp it, they
would turn into libertarian revolutionaries. Why? Because Twight
documents the ways that officials systematically mislead us about what
government does. In many cases, she uses their own words to convict
them of mass deception aforethought.

The key to her thesis is the concept of political transactions
costs. In economics, transactions costs are the expenses one accepts to
engage in exchanges. To use Twight’s example, if you hire someone
to plant a tree in your yard, the transaction costs include any
expenses you would not have incurred had you planted the tree yourself.

There are transactions costs associated with politics too. These,
Twight says, are “the costs to individuals of reaching and
enforcing political agreements regarding the role and scope of
government… [t]he costs to each of us of perceiving, and acting
upon our assessment of, the net costs of particular governmental
actions and authority… of learning the likely consequences of
proposed government programs and taking political action in response to
such programs… .”

We could sum up the idea with the phrase “eternal
vigilance,” which takes time, effort, and money. Or as others
have put it, “freedom isn’t free.”

Of course the higher the political transactions costs, other things
equal, the less monitoring people will engage in. Keep in mind that any
one person’s clout is small, so the payoff from absorbing the
costs and engaging in the monitoring are also small. That results in a
government watched closely by those who stand to gain a lot (the
special interests) and not so closely by those who stand to pay, in the
aggregate, a lot (the mass of taxpayers).

Twight points out that there are “natural” transactions
costs, as with any economic activity, but also “contrived”
transactions costs — the ones “deliberately created by government officials to increase our costs of assessing and responding to government policies” (emphasis added).

You’re not apt to read about these in textbooks or
the establishment apologies on most newspaper editorial and op-ed
pages. For some unfathomable reason, most pundits don’t want us
to worry our little heads knowing that politicians may intentionally
make it more difficult for us to see what’s really going on or to
do anything about it.

But it’s hard to conclude the politicians would want it any
other way. How else to explain 2,000-page bills laden with impenetrable
legislatese — which no member of Congress will read in their
entirety — and 800-page amendments? Have you tried reading the
federal budget? Such output mocks the ideal of an “informed
citizenry.” That’s the last thing the misleaders in
Washington want.

As Oscar Wilde said, “Nowadays to be intelligible is to be found out.”

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
January 9, 2010

	Drudge ran these photos with the headline: “Big Sis Wants to See Under Your Clothes.”

Drudge hit the nail right on the head. It headlined a Reuters story as follows: “Big Sis Wants to See Under Your Clothes.”
The website put up a montage of Janet Napolitano, boss of the
Department of Homeland Security, staring at the now infamous Bild
photographic recreation of a young woman rendered naked by a full body
scanner.

Obama and crew are determined to install these expensive and dangerous machines in airports across the nation. Napolitano said
“she will travel to Spain this month to meet with her
international counterparts to seek tougher international aviation
security measures,” i.e., she will peddle full naked scanners to
“international counterparts.”

Obama’s “two-pronged approach Obama outlined Thursday
will have little effect on domestic airline passengers and will involve
many behind-the-scenes changes aimed at keeping suspected terrorists
off U.S.-bound international flights,” including naked body
scanning machines, according to USA Today.

“The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) bought 150
scanners in September for $25 million, but none has been installed. The
machines create vivid images of passengers underneath their clothing.
They would improve the detection of weapons such as the explosive
powder a Nigerian passenger got through a metal detector in Amsterdam
and allegedly tried to use to detonate on Dec. 25 in an airliner over
Detroit, Napolitano said at a briefing after Obama addressed the
nation.”

In fact, according to scientists, full naked body scanners will not detect chemicals and liquids of the sort supposedly used by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

Last week it was reported that these intrusive machines are being promoted by former DHS boss Michael Chertoff.

“Mr. Chertoff should not be allowed to abuse the trust the
public has placed in him as a former public servant to privately gain
from the sale of full-body scanners under the pretense that the
scanners would have detected this particular type of
explosive,’’ said Kate Hanni, founder of FlyersRights.org,
which opposes the use of the scanners.

Talk about a communication breakdown. It should be obvious by now
that the federal government is a revolving door of corruption where
former officials “retire” to work for defense contractors
and other corporations that do business at taxpayer expense.

Mr. Chertoff is merely doing what is expected of him.