Assassinated CIA agents worked for "contractor" active in Venezuela… By Eva Golinger

31 December, 2009 — VHeadline.com

Eva Golinger: At least eight US citizens were killed on a CIA operations base in Afghanistan on Wednesday … a suicide bomber infiltrated Forward Operating Base (FOL) Chapman located in the eastern province of Khost, which was a CIA center of operations and surveillance. Official sources in Washington have confirmed that the eight dead were all civilian employees and CIA contractors.

Fifteen days ago, five US citizens working for a US government contractor, Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI), were also killed in an explosion at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) office in Gardez. That same day, another bomb exploded outside the DAI offices in Kabul, although no serious injuries resulted.

The December 15 incident received little attention, although it occurred just days after the detention of a DAI employee in Cuba, accused of subversion and distribution of illegal materials to counter-revolutionary groups.

DAI president and CEO, Jim Boomgard, issued a declaration on December 14 regarding the detention of a subcontractor from his company in Cuba, confirming that, ‘the detained individual was an employee of a program subcontractor, which was implementing a competitively issued subcontract to assist Cuban civil society organizations.’

The statement also emphasized the ‘new program’ DAI is managing for the US government in Cuba, the ‘Cuba Democracy and Contingency Planning Program.’ DAI was awarded a US$40 million contract in 2008 to help the US government ‘support the peaceful activities of a broad range of nonviolent organizations through competitively awarded grants and subcontracts’ in Cuba.

On December 15, DAI published a press release mourning ‘project personnel killed in Afghanistan.’

‘DAI is deeply saddened to report the deaths of five staff associated with our projects in Afghanistan … on December 15, five employees of DAI’s security subcontractor were killed by an explosion in the Gardez office of the Local Governance and Community Development (LGCD) Program, a USAID project implemented by DAI.’

DAI also runs a program in Khost where the December 30 suicide bombing occurred, although it has yet to be confirmed if the eight US citizens killed were working for the major US government contractor. From the operations base in Khost, the CIA remotely controls its selective assassination program against alleged Al Qaeda members in Pakistan and Afghanistan using drone (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) Predator planes.

A high-level USAID official confirmed two weeks ago that the CIA uses USAID’s name to issue contracts and funding to third parties in order to provide cover for clandestine operations. The official, a veteran of the US government agency, stated that the CIA issues such contracts without USAID’s full knowledge.

Since June 2002, USAID has maintained an Office for Transition Initiatives (OTI) in Venezuela, through which it has channeled more than $50 million to groups and individuals opposed to President Hugo Chavez. The same contractor active in Afghanistan and connected with the CIA, Development Alternatives Inc. (DAI), was awarded a multi-million dollar budget from USAID in Venezuela to ‘assist civil society and the transition to democracy.’

More than two thousand documents partially declassified from USAID regarding the agency’s activities in Venezuela reveal the relationship between DAI and sectors of the Venezuelan opposition that have actively been involved in coup d’etats, violent demonstrations and other destabilization attempts against President Chavez.

In Bolivia, USAID was expelled this year from two municipalities, Chapare and El Alto, after being accused of interventionism. In September 2009, President Evo Morales announced the termination of an official agreement with USAID allowing its operations in Bolivia, based on substantial evidence documenting the agency’s funding of violent separatist groups seeking to destabilize the country.

* In 2005, USAID was also expelled from Eritrea and accused of being a ‘neo-colonialist’ agency. Ethiopia, Russia and Belarus have ordered the expulsion of USAID and its contractors during the last five years.

Development Alternatives, Inc. is one of the largest US government contractors in the world. The company, with headquarters in Bethesda, MD, presently has a $50 million contract with USAID for operations in Afghanistan.

* In Latin America, DAI has operations and field offices in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, Dominican Republic and Venezuela.

This year, USAID/DAI’s budget in Venezuela nears $15 million and its programs are oriented towards strengthening opposition parties, candidates and campaigns for the 2010 legislative elections.

Just two weeks ago, President Chavez also denounced the illegal presence of US drone planes in Venezuelan airspace.

Eva Golinger
evagolinger@hotmail.com

Bilderbergs of the world unite! By William Bowles

31 December 2009

“In Post-War Iraq, Use Military Forces to Secure Vital U.S. Interests, Not for Nation-Building” — The Heritage Foundation

And just in case you still haven’t got the point, the same Heritage Foundation document, dated 25 September, 2002 went on to tell us,

“Protect Iraq’s energy infrastructure against internal sabotage or foreign attack to return Iraq to global energy markets and ensure that U.S. and world energy markets have access to its resources.”[1]

Continue reading

Kiyes nou ye? | Jean Jacques Dessalines, Haiti’s liberator and his three ideals | Paying Homage to Father Gerard Jean Juste: Yon Gwo Mapou Tonbe

30 December, 2009 — Ezili’s Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network

Ezili Dantò’s Note:
These links and pages are posted on the occasion of the 206th anniversary of Haiti’s Independence. We remember we are a BLACK nation with a Vodun culture from mother Africa. We remember Jean Jacques Dessalines, Haiti’s liberator and his three ideals. We remember Dessalines’ Law and that Blacks were the original peoples on the planet, including the Americas. We pay homage to Father Gerard Jean Juste who passed away in 2009: Yon Gwo Mapou Tonbe.

*********

Dessalines’ Law:
www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/dessalines.html#Law

“…Never again shall colonist or European set foot on this soil as master or landowner. This shall henceforward be the foundation of our constitution.”

Jamais aucun blanc ni Europeén ne mettra pied sur ce territoire à titre de maitre ou de propriétaire. Cette résolution sera désormais la base fondamentale de notre constitution. (Liberté ou La mort, Jean Jacques Dessalines, April 28, 1804)

“…No whiteman of whatever nation he may be, shall put his foot on this territory with the title of master or proprietor, neither shall he in future acquire any property therein…” (Jean Jacques Dessalines, 1805 Haitian Constituion, Art. 12.)

“…Aucun blanc, quelle que soit sa nation, ne mettra le pied sur ce territoire à titre de maitre ou de propriétaire, et ne pourra à l’avenir acquérir aucune propriéte.” (Jean Jacques Dessalines, 1805 Haitian Constituion, Art. 12.)

Dessalines’ Law laid down for Haiti to survive in a hostile environment as translated by Moriso Lewa: “The only good white is the white that shoots the bad whites – Sèl blan ki bon blan se blan k met fizi sou move blan yo” (Moriso Lewa – from “Blan Mannan”)

*
Continue reading

Obama bombs Yemen again, as he claims to stand “with those who seek their universal rights.” By Mozhgan Savabieasfahani

30 December, 2009 — Palestine Think Tank

What a charade!

obama-yemen.jpgI learned the word “charade “ from my Texan English teacher in Teheran long ago. I later found out she was the wife of a U.S. military advisor for the Shah’s puppet regime. I still remember my teacher’s meticulous attention to English pronunciation and her glittering diamonds. Many such U.S. military families fled Iran when the 1979 revolution arrived.

Obama, like his predecessors, got on T.V. yesterday to declare his love for freedom and universal human rights. What a charade! Do you, Mr. Obama, expect us to embrace your calls for people’s universal rights as you continue to illegally occupy Iraq and Afghanistan, as you continue to bomb Pakistan, as you tighten crippling sanctions on Iran, and as you shamelessly talk of destabilizing politically independent nations? And as you continue your full support for Israel and its criminal acts in Palestine?

Do you expect us to believe you care for people’s universal rights as you start another war in Yemen?

So what about Yemen, you ask?

Suddenly Obama has introduced us to his latest “enemy”: Yemen.

Continue reading

Escalating War in Afghanistan Apt to Hurt Fragile U.S. Economy By Sherwood Ross

25 December, 2009 — Global Research

If Iraq war spending helped plunge the U.S. economy into its worst slump since the Depression, what does President Obama think his escalation of the Afghan war will do it?

Besides forcing taxpayers to cough up fresh billions to enable the Pentagon to chase down a few hundred Taliban fighters, the Afghan war is liable to continue to inflate oil prices—-and this means more than the ongoing swindle of motorists at the pump.

Higher oil prices also slow the global economy, causing our trading partners to buy fewer Made-in-USA goods, thus reducing demand for our products and leading to layoffs.

Spending money on war also siphons billions of dollars from truly productive uses.

“Today, no serious economist holds the view that war is good for the economy,” write Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard government finance expert Linda Bilmes in their book “The Three Trillion Dollar War: the True Cost of The Iraq Conflict.”

Referring to Iraq, they write, “The question is not whether the economy has been weakened by the war. The question is only by how much.” They note, “Oil prices started to soar just as the war began, and the longer it has dragged on, the higher prices have gone.”

Continue reading