Bomb to drill into underground bunkers
Photo: INLSA
October 13, 2009 Edition 2
WASHINGTON: The Pentagon is speeding up delivery of a colossal bomb designed to destroy hidden weapons bunkers buried underground and shielded by 5 tons of reinforced concrete.
Call it Plan B for dealing with Iran, which recently revealed a long-suspected nuclear site deep inside a mountain near the holy city of Qom.
The 15-ton behemoth - called the massive ordnance penetrator, or MOP - will be the largest non-nuclear bomb in the US arsenal and carry 2 400kg of explosives.
The Pentagon has awarded a nearly $52 million (R382m) contract to speed up placement of the bomb aboard the B-2 Stealth bomber, and officials say the bomb could be fielded as soon as next year.
Pentagon officials acknowledge the new bomb is intended to blow up fortified sites like those used by Iran and North Korea for their nuclear programmes, but they deny there is a specific target in mind.
"I don't think anybody can divine potential targets," Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said. "This is just a capability that we think is necessary given the world we live in."
The Obama administration has struggled to counter suspicions lingering from George Bush's presidency that the US is either planning to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities itself or would look the other way if Israel did the same.
The administration has been careful not to take military action off the table even as it reached out to Iran with historic talks earlier this month. Tougher sanctions are the backup if diplomacy fails to stop what the West fears is a drive for a nuclear weapon.
Defence Secretary Robert Gates recently said a strike against Iran's nuclear facilities would probably only buy time.
The new US bomb would be the culmination of planning begun in the Bush years. The Obama administration's plans to bring the bomb on line more quickly indicate that the weapon is still part of the long-range backup plan.
The MOP could, in theory, take out bunkers such as those Saddam Hussein had begun to construct for weapons programmes in Iraq, or flatten the kind of cave and tunnel networks that allowed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to escape US assault in Afghanistan in 2001.
The precision-guided bomb is designed to drill through earth and almost any underground encasement to reach weapons depots, labs or hideouts. - Sapa-AP
This article i got from my local newspaper and anybody who is informed enough and has done the effert of researching propoganda and how it is used by the media and goverments would be saying "of course they say there is no target!" because the war against terror is a big illusion and the men called Osama and Sadam are NOT what the media or governement portray tem as. They are just puppets like the very men who govern the world, and since its all a lie then what they are telling us about using this bomb is just the same. The so called "war against terror" is their excuse to manufacture such weapons without the public going histeric. THE PUBLIC DEMAND SAFETY!! so the very men who orchastrated the attack on your safety are the ones giving you the solution in return giving them a reason and full go ahead. This bomb is just another major weapon in the corporation or the U.S.A's arsenal and what if it isnt a bomb at all? what if it did contain nuclear power or even atomic? something that big is worth keeping a secret about and almost any giant bomb can be made to look like a another kind through apearance. These are the sorta questions we need to ask the men holding the power, WHAT IS THE freakin' BOMB REALLY FOR?
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
NEW AVATAR MOVIES !? and 1 is not what you would exspect
By Justin Manik
For those who know the Nick Cartoon well here comes a doozy. One is by Mr. Shamalan called The Last Airbender and follows what im hoping to be the proper story of Ang and his journey to become the Avatar as told in the original cartoon series called Avatar the Last Airbender and judging from the trailer it seems to be quite inviting. Mr. Shamalans movies so far have been...umm not so good and acording to what people say (recorded here-> "His movies have just been going down and getting worse evertime he brings out a new one ever since the first one he did". The original cartoon is a favourite of mine and many other and id hate to see it tarnished by hollywood. And lets hope he can recreate the flying Bysen Aupa and the effects of the way the four elements are bended properly and since it isnt a story written by M Night Shamalan himself perhaps he may do good with it. The other movie is by the man who made titanic James Cameron *_* yeah i know... but apparently it isnt along the lines of the Nick series. its in full CGI (not gonna lie tho...the CGI is fucking cool and beats final fantacy's ass and the trailer is on the net if you search for it) and its just called AVATAR. From. from the railer Its apears to be another "other planet, other life forms" Alien type movie wich (for those of you out there who are familiar with David Ickes reseach as well as many others) follows the guid line of conditioning, training and prepairing the viewers (or masses...potatoe patatoe =P for the new wave as well as the so called "terrorist" alien attack nd helps to usher in the advancement to HD and make you buy into it wich will intern aid the new world order in getting what they want. The new wave is in essence the wave of technology wich is happening as i type and it causes humans to forget what exactly is is we are on this planet for and distracts us from the real world and cuts off our connection to the universe. As for the alien attack well what is predicted and summerized by me here =P -> is that as part of the plans of the new wold order (as seen demontrated by The broherhood and their planned attack on the Twin Towers) there is going to be another attack except this one is of much greater scale and will be intergalactic. (explains all the alien fenomina over the past 30 years and many recent Sci Fi films). As usual the Governments of the world will play the attack as propganda and turn the masses against what ever it is our planet is going to be attacked by. Of course it will lead to a war in wich many people will die and many will fight ignornatly against what is going to happen and all these futureristic movies goal is to train you for what weaponry technology that is to come in fighting intergalactic wars and to condition you into what your role will be when this time comes and what you have to do. The outcome and their goal is to use fear and propoganda to make you accept Vchips and become locked into a matrix. its quite simple once you see the entire puzzle and stop looking at one piece and one space and it is a plan wich has gone one long before you, I or even jesus was alive and unless the masses change well then the plan will go on as planned and then its End Game. They simply cannot just publicly do what they want wich is why they distract you with a puppet show of polotics and news while they bring in what they want. less than 200 YEARS AGO poeple woulda laughed at the idea of an I.D and theyd say "for what!?" but...over time things canged and slowly but surely certain requirments came to be that meant we had to have one in order to actualy live a free life or what we THINK is a free life and slowly but surely major events ALL around the world have been shifting and manipulating in order to keep the masses ignorant, dumbed down and helpless without new wave technology. Another and final example is High Def Televisions and HD tv. Well firstly the quality of regular television viewing is actually getting worse and not just looking that way cuz of how good HD looks but it is intetionaly being deminished in order to promote HD and buying an HD television...why? well because the best way of control is from right inside your living room and mind and how better to do so than with better effects, cleaner viewing and more brainwashing. Next we have the new fiber optic cable wich works basicaly with nano technology to send infomation really fast wich will be required if everybody starts using HD and with the 2010 world cup coming in here cape town what a perfect opotunity to usher in the new nano technology. What else can these cables do? well as seen on Oprah during the President Obama celebration show she briefly showed a clip of Will.I.Am being Hologrammed to a CNN studio. Yip...Holograms. Can you say welcme to the Future! =Pintern basicaly with the convinience of holograms humans will no longer need to travel or go out and buy anything or do anything outside of home because it will either be hologrammed to you or you will be hologramed to it...why because with so called crime rates going up and terrorist attacks and future attacks who wants to leave home? it isnt safe right!? and that is the main weapon in the new world order arsenal - Fear. False Evidence Appearing Real.And that is all. what was meant to be a a random movie review turned to a mind spew and remember...stay connected to nature and the planet and be one with yourself blah blah blah blah blah ^___^
Peace
Saturday, June 27, 2009
PETER HITCHENS: How China has created a new slave empire in Africa
I think I am probably going to die any minute now. An inflamed, deceived mob of about 50 desperate men are crowding round the car, some trying to turn it over, others beating at it with large rocks, all yelling insults and curses.
They have just started to smash the windows. Next, they will pull us out and, well, let's not think about that ...
I am trying not to meet their eyes, but they are staring at me and my companions with rage and hatred such as I haven't seen in a human face before. Those companions, Barbara Jones and Richard van Ryneveld, are - like me - quite helpless in the back seats.
If we get out, we will certainly be beaten to death. If we stay where we are, we will probably be beaten to death.
Our two African companions have - crazily in our view - got out of the car to try to reason with the crowd. It is clear to us that you might as well preach non-violence to a tornado.
At last, after what must have been about 40 seconds but that felt like half an hour, one of the pair saw sense, leapt back into the car and reversed wildly down the rocky, dusty path - leaving his friend behind.
By the grace of God we did not slither into the ditch, roll over or burst a tyre. Through the dust we churned up as we fled, we could see our would-be killers running with appalling speed to catch up. There was just time to make a crazy two-point turn which allowed us to go forwards and so out-distance them.
We had pretty much abandoned our other guide to whatever his fate might be (this was surprisingly easy to justify to myself at the time) when we saw that he had broken free and was running with Olympic swiftness, just ahead of pursuers half hidden by the dust.
We flung open a rear door so he could scramble in and, engine grinding, we veered off, bouncing painfully over the ruts and rocks.
We feared there would be another barricade to stop our escape, and it would all begin again. But there wasn't, and we eventually realised we had got away, even the man whose idiocy nearly got us killed.
He told us it was us they wanted, not him, or he would never have escaped. We ought to be dead. We are not. It is an interesting feeling, not wholly unpleasant.
Why did they want to kill us? What was the reason for their fury? They thought that if I reported on their way of life they might lose their livings.
Livings? Dyings, more likely.
They have just started to smash the windows. Next, they will pull us out and, well, let's not think about that ...
I am trying not to meet their eyes, but they are staring at me and my companions with rage and hatred such as I haven't seen in a human face before. Those companions, Barbara Jones and Richard van Ryneveld, are - like me - quite helpless in the back seats.
If we get out, we will certainly be beaten to death. If we stay where we are, we will probably be beaten to death.
Our two African companions have - crazily in our view - got out of the car to try to reason with the crowd. It is clear to us that you might as well preach non-violence to a tornado.
At last, after what must have been about 40 seconds but that felt like half an hour, one of the pair saw sense, leapt back into the car and reversed wildly down the rocky, dusty path - leaving his friend behind.
By the grace of God we did not slither into the ditch, roll over or burst a tyre. Through the dust we churned up as we fled, we could see our would-be killers running with appalling speed to catch up. There was just time to make a crazy two-point turn which allowed us to go forwards and so out-distance them.
We had pretty much abandoned our other guide to whatever his fate might be (this was surprisingly easy to justify to myself at the time) when we saw that he had broken free and was running with Olympic swiftness, just ahead of pursuers half hidden by the dust.
We flung open a rear door so he could scramble in and, engine grinding, we veered off, bouncing painfully over the ruts and rocks.
We feared there would be another barricade to stop our escape, and it would all begin again. But there wasn't, and we eventually realised we had got away, even the man whose idiocy nearly got us killed.
He told us it was us they wanted, not him, or he would never have escaped. We ought to be dead. We are not. It is an interesting feeling, not wholly unpleasant.
Why did they want to kill us? What was the reason for their fury? They thought that if I reported on their way of life they might lose their livings.
Livings? Dyings, more likely.
These poor, hopeless, angry people exist by grubbing for scraps of cobalt and copper ore in the filth and dust of abandoned copper mines in Congo, sinking perilous 80ft shafts by hand, washing their finds in cholera-infected streams full of human filth, then pushing enormous two-hundredweight loads uphill on ancient bicycles to the nearby town of Likasi where middlemen buy them to sell on, mainly to Chinese businessmen hungry for these vital metals.
To see them, as they plod miserably past, is to be reminded of pictures of unemployed miners in Thirties Britain, stumbling home in the drizzle with sacks of coal scraps gleaned from spoil heaps.
Except that here the unsparing heat makes the labour five times as hard, and the conditions of work and life are worse by far than any known in England since the 18th Century.
Many perish as their primitive mines collapse on them, or are horribly injured without hope of medical treatment. Many are little more than children. On a good day they may earn $3, which just supports a meagre existence in diseased, malarial slums.
We had been earlier to this awful pit, which looked like a penal colony in an ancient slave empire.
Defeated, bowed figures toiled endlessly in dozens of hand-dug pits. Their faces, when visible, were blank and without hope.
We had been turned away by a fat, corrupt policeman who pretended our papers weren't in order, but who was really taking instructions from a dead-eyed, one-eared gangmaster who sat next to him.
By the time we returned with more official permits, the gangmasters had readied the ambush.
The diggers feared - and their evil, sinister bosses had worked hard on that fear - that if people like me publicised their filthy way of life, then the mine might be closed and the $3 a day might be taken away.
I can give you no better explanation in miniature of the wicked thing that I believe is now happening in Africa.
Out of desperation, much of the continent is selling itself into a new era of corruption and virtual slavery as China seeks to buy up all the metals, minerals and oil she can lay her hands on: copper for electric and telephone cables, cobalt for mobile phones and jet engines - the basic raw materials of modern life.
It is crude rapacity, but to Africans and many of their leaders it is better than the alternative, which is slow starvation.
To see them, as they plod miserably past, is to be reminded of pictures of unemployed miners in Thirties Britain, stumbling home in the drizzle with sacks of coal scraps gleaned from spoil heaps.
Except that here the unsparing heat makes the labour five times as hard, and the conditions of work and life are worse by far than any known in England since the 18th Century.
Many perish as their primitive mines collapse on them, or are horribly injured without hope of medical treatment. Many are little more than children. On a good day they may earn $3, which just supports a meagre existence in diseased, malarial slums.
We had been earlier to this awful pit, which looked like a penal colony in an ancient slave empire.
Defeated, bowed figures toiled endlessly in dozens of hand-dug pits. Their faces, when visible, were blank and without hope.
We had been turned away by a fat, corrupt policeman who pretended our papers weren't in order, but who was really taking instructions from a dead-eyed, one-eared gangmaster who sat next to him.
By the time we returned with more official permits, the gangmasters had readied the ambush.
The diggers feared - and their evil, sinister bosses had worked hard on that fear - that if people like me publicised their filthy way of life, then the mine might be closed and the $3 a day might be taken away.
I can give you no better explanation in miniature of the wicked thing that I believe is now happening in Africa.
Out of desperation, much of the continent is selling itself into a new era of corruption and virtual slavery as China seeks to buy up all the metals, minerals and oil she can lay her hands on: copper for electric and telephone cables, cobalt for mobile phones and jet engines - the basic raw materials of modern life.
It is crude rapacity, but to Africans and many of their leaders it is better than the alternative, which is slow starvation.
It is my view - and not just because I was so nearly killed - that China's cynical new version of imperialism in Africa is a wicked enterprise.
China offers both rulers and the ruled in Africa the simple, squalid advantages of shameless exploitation.
For the governments, there are gargantuan loans, promises of new roads, railways, hospitals and schools - in return for giving Peking a free and tax-free run at Africa's rich resources of oil, minerals and metals.
For the people, there are these wretched leavings, which, miserable as they are, must be better than the near-starvation they otherwise face.
Persuasive academics advised me before I set off on this journey that China's scramble for Africa had much to be said for it. They pointed out China needs African markets for its goods, and has an interest in real economic advance in that broken continent.
For once, they argued, a foreign intervention in Africa might work precisely because it is so cynical and self-interested. They said Western aid, with all its conditions, did little to create real advances in Africa, laughing as they declared: 'The only country that ever got rich through donations is the Vatican.'
Why get so het up about African corruption anyway? Is it really so much worse than corruption in Russia or India?
Is it really our business to try to act as missionaries of purity? Isn't what we call 'corruption' another name for what Africans view as looking after their families?
And what about China herself? Despite the country's convulsive growth and new wealth, it still suffers gravely from poverty and backwardness, as I have seen for myself in its dingy sweatshops, the primitive electricity-free villages of Canton, the dark and squalid mining city of Datong and the cave-dwelling settlements that still rely on wells for their water.
After the murderous disaster of Mao, and the long chaos that went before, China longs above all for stable prosperity. And, as one genial and open-minded Chinese businessman said to me in Congo as we sat over a beer in the decayed colonial majesty of Lubumbashi's Belgian-built Park Hotel: 'Africa is China's last hope.'
I find this argument quite appealing, in theory. Britain's own adventures in Africa were not specially benevolent, although many decent men did what they could to enforce fairness and justice amid the bigotry and exploitation.
China offers both rulers and the ruled in Africa the simple, squalid advantages of shameless exploitation.
For the governments, there are gargantuan loans, promises of new roads, railways, hospitals and schools - in return for giving Peking a free and tax-free run at Africa's rich resources of oil, minerals and metals.
For the people, there are these wretched leavings, which, miserable as they are, must be better than the near-starvation they otherwise face.
Persuasive academics advised me before I set off on this journey that China's scramble for Africa had much to be said for it. They pointed out China needs African markets for its goods, and has an interest in real economic advance in that broken continent.
For once, they argued, a foreign intervention in Africa might work precisely because it is so cynical and self-interested. They said Western aid, with all its conditions, did little to create real advances in Africa, laughing as they declared: 'The only country that ever got rich through donations is the Vatican.'
Why get so het up about African corruption anyway? Is it really so much worse than corruption in Russia or India?
Is it really our business to try to act as missionaries of purity? Isn't what we call 'corruption' another name for what Africans view as looking after their families?
And what about China herself? Despite the country's convulsive growth and new wealth, it still suffers gravely from poverty and backwardness, as I have seen for myself in its dingy sweatshops, the primitive electricity-free villages of Canton, the dark and squalid mining city of Datong and the cave-dwelling settlements that still rely on wells for their water.
After the murderous disaster of Mao, and the long chaos that went before, China longs above all for stable prosperity. And, as one genial and open-minded Chinese businessman said to me in Congo as we sat over a beer in the decayed colonial majesty of Lubumbashi's Belgian-built Park Hotel: 'Africa is China's last hope.'
I find this argument quite appealing, in theory. Britain's own adventures in Africa were not specially benevolent, although many decent men did what they could to enforce fairness and justice amid the bigotry and exploitation.
It is noticeable that in much former British territory we have left behind plenty of good things and habits that are absent in the lands once ruled by rival empires.
Even so, with Zimbabwe, Nigeria and Uganda on our conscience, who are we to lecture others?
I chose to look at China's intervention in two countries, Zambia and the 'Democratic Republic of the Congo', because they lie side by side; because one was once British and the other Belgian.
Also, in Zambia's imperfect but functioning democracy, there is actual opposition to the Chinese presence, while in the despotic Congo, opposition to President Joseph Kabila is unwise, to put it mildly.
Congo is barely a state at all, and still hosts plenty of fighting not all that far from here.
Statues and images of Joseph's murdered father Laurent are everywhere in an obvious attempt to create a cult of personality on which stability may one day be based. Portraits of Joseph himself scowl from every wall.
I have decided not to name most of the people who spoke to me, even though some of them gave me permission to do so, because I am not sure they know just how much of a risk they may be running by criticising the Chinese in Africa.
I know from personal experience with Chinese authority that Peking regards anything short of deep respect as insulting, and it does not forget a slight.
I also know that this over-sensitive vigilance is present in Africa.
The Mail on Sunday team was reported to the authorities in Zambia's Copper Belt by Chinese managers who had seen us taking photographs of a graveyard at Chambishi where 54 victims of a disaster in a Chinese-run explosives factory are buried. Within an hour, local 'security' officials were buzzing round us trying to find out what we were up to.
This is why I have some time for the Zambian opposition politician Michael Sata, known as 'King Cobra' because of his fearless combative nature (but also, say his opponents, because he is so slippery).
Sata has challenged China's plans to invest in Zambia, and is publicly suspicious of them. At elections two years ago, the Chinese were widely believed to have privately threatened to pull out of the country if he won, and to have helped the government parties win.
Peking regards Zambia as a great prize, alongside its other favoured nations of Sudan (oil), Angola (oil) and Congo (metals).
Even so, with Zimbabwe, Nigeria and Uganda on our conscience, who are we to lecture others?
I chose to look at China's intervention in two countries, Zambia and the 'Democratic Republic of the Congo', because they lie side by side; because one was once British and the other Belgian.
Also, in Zambia's imperfect but functioning democracy, there is actual opposition to the Chinese presence, while in the despotic Congo, opposition to President Joseph Kabila is unwise, to put it mildly.
Congo is barely a state at all, and still hosts plenty of fighting not all that far from here.
Statues and images of Joseph's murdered father Laurent are everywhere in an obvious attempt to create a cult of personality on which stability may one day be based. Portraits of Joseph himself scowl from every wall.
I have decided not to name most of the people who spoke to me, even though some of them gave me permission to do so, because I am not sure they know just how much of a risk they may be running by criticising the Chinese in Africa.
I know from personal experience with Chinese authority that Peking regards anything short of deep respect as insulting, and it does not forget a slight.
I also know that this over-sensitive vigilance is present in Africa.
The Mail on Sunday team was reported to the authorities in Zambia's Copper Belt by Chinese managers who had seen us taking photographs of a graveyard at Chambishi where 54 victims of a disaster in a Chinese-run explosives factory are buried. Within an hour, local 'security' officials were buzzing round us trying to find out what we were up to.
This is why I have some time for the Zambian opposition politician Michael Sata, known as 'King Cobra' because of his fearless combative nature (but also, say his opponents, because he is so slippery).
Sata has challenged China's plans to invest in Zambia, and is publicly suspicious of them. At elections two years ago, the Chinese were widely believed to have privately threatened to pull out of the country if he won, and to have helped the government parties win.
Peking regards Zambia as a great prize, alongside its other favoured nations of Sudan (oil), Angola (oil) and Congo (metals).
It has cancelled Zambia's debts, eased Zambian exports to China, established a 'special economic zone' in the Copper Belt, offered to build a sports stadium, schools, a hospital and an anti-malaria centre as well as providing scholarships and dispatching experts to help with agriculture. Zambia-China trade is growing rapidly, mainly in the form of copper.
All this has aroused the suspicions of Mr Sata, a populist politician famous for his blunt, combative manner and his harsh, biting attacks on opponents, and who was once a porter who swept the platforms at Victoria Station in London.
Now the leader of the Patriotic Front, with a respectable chance of winning a presidential election set for the end of October, Sata says: 'The Chinese are not here as investors, they are here as invaders.
'They bring Chinese to come and push wheelbarrows, they bring Chinese bricklayers, they bring Chinese carpenters, Chinese plumbers. We have plenty of those in Zambia.'
This is true. In Lusaka and in the Copper Belt, poor and lowly Chinese workers, in broad-brimmed straw hats from another era, are a common sight at mines and on building sites, as are better-dressed Chinese supervisors and technicians.
There are Chinese restaurants and Chinese clinics and Chinese housing compounds - and a growing number of Chinese flags flapping over factories and smelters.
'We don't need to import labourers from China,' Sata says. 'We need to import people with skills we don't have in Zambia. The Chinese are not going to train our people in how to push wheelbarrows.'
He meets me in the garden of his not specially grand house in the old-established and verdant Rhodes Park section of Lusaka. It is guarded by uniformed security men, its walls protected by barbed wire and broken glass.
'Wherever our Chinese "brothers" are they don't care about the local workers,' he complains, alleging that Chinese companies have lax safety procedures and treat their African workers like dirt.
In language which seems exaggerated, but which will later turn out to be at least partly true, he claims: 'They employ people in slave conditions.'
He also accuses Chinese overseers of frequently beating up Zambians. His claim is given force by a story in that morning's Lusaka newspapers about how a Zambian building worker in Ndola, in the Copper Belt, was allegedly beaten unconscious by four Chinese co-workers angry that he had gone to sleep on the job.
I later checked this account with the victim's relatives in an Ndola shanty town and found it to be true.
All this has aroused the suspicions of Mr Sata, a populist politician famous for his blunt, combative manner and his harsh, biting attacks on opponents, and who was once a porter who swept the platforms at Victoria Station in London.
Now the leader of the Patriotic Front, with a respectable chance of winning a presidential election set for the end of October, Sata says: 'The Chinese are not here as investors, they are here as invaders.
'They bring Chinese to come and push wheelbarrows, they bring Chinese bricklayers, they bring Chinese carpenters, Chinese plumbers. We have plenty of those in Zambia.'
This is true. In Lusaka and in the Copper Belt, poor and lowly Chinese workers, in broad-brimmed straw hats from another era, are a common sight at mines and on building sites, as are better-dressed Chinese supervisors and technicians.
There are Chinese restaurants and Chinese clinics and Chinese housing compounds - and a growing number of Chinese flags flapping over factories and smelters.
'We don't need to import labourers from China,' Sata says. 'We need to import people with skills we don't have in Zambia. The Chinese are not going to train our people in how to push wheelbarrows.'
He meets me in the garden of his not specially grand house in the old-established and verdant Rhodes Park section of Lusaka. It is guarded by uniformed security men, its walls protected by barbed wire and broken glass.
'Wherever our Chinese "brothers" are they don't care about the local workers,' he complains, alleging that Chinese companies have lax safety procedures and treat their African workers like dirt.
In language which seems exaggerated, but which will later turn out to be at least partly true, he claims: 'They employ people in slave conditions.'
He also accuses Chinese overseers of frequently beating up Zambians. His claim is given force by a story in that morning's Lusaka newspapers about how a Zambian building worker in Ndola, in the Copper Belt, was allegedly beaten unconscious by four Chinese co-workers angry that he had gone to sleep on the job.
I later checked this account with the victim's relatives in an Ndola shanty town and found it to be true.
Recently, a government minister, Alice Simago, was shown weeping on TV after she saw at first hand the working conditions at a Chinese-owned coal mine in the Southern Province.
When I contacted her, she declined to speak to me about this - possibly because criticism of the Chinese is not welcome among most of the Zambian elite.
Denis Lukwesa, deputy general secretary of the Zambian Mineworkers' Union, also backed up Sata's view, saying: 'They just don't understand about safety. They are more interested in profit.'
As for their general treatment of African workers, Lukwesa says he knows of cases where Chinese supervisors have kicked Zambians. He summed up their attitude like this: 'They are harsh to Zambians, and they don't get on well with them.'
Sata warns against the enormous loans and offers of help with transport, schools and health care with which Peking now sweetens its attempts to buy up Africa's mineral reserves.
'China's deal with the Democratic Republic of the Congo is, in my opinion, corruption,' he says, comparing this with Western loans which require strong measures against corruption.
Everyone in Africa knows China's Congo deal - worth almost £5billion in loans, roads, railways, hospitals and schools - was offered after Western experts demanded tougher anti-corruption measures in return for more aid.
Sata knows the Chinese are unpopular in his country. Zambians use a mocking word - 'choncholi' - to describe the way the Chinese speak. Zambian businessmen gossip about the way the Chinese live in separate compounds, where - they claim - dogs are kept for food.
There are persistent rumours, which cropped up in almost every conversation I had in Zambia, that many of the imported Chinese workforce are convicted criminals whom China wants to offload in Africa. I was unable to confirm this but, given China's enormous gulag and the harshness of life for many migrant workers, it is certainly not impossible.
Sata warns that 'sticks and stones' may one day fly if China does not treat Zambians better. He now promises a completely new approach: 'I used to sweep up at your Victoria Station, and I never got any complaints about my work. I want to sweep my country even cleaner than I swept your stations.'
Some Africa experts tend to portray Sata as a troublemaker. His detractors whisper that he is a mouthpiece for Taiwan, which used to be recognised by many African states but which faces almost total isolation thanks to Peking's new Africa policy.
But his claims were confirmed by a senior worker in Chambishi, scene of the 2005 explosion. This man, whom I will call Thomas, is serious, experienced and responsible. His verdict on the Chinese is devastating.
He recalls the aftermath of the blast, when he had the ghastly task of collecting together what remained of the men who died: 'Zambia, a country of 11million people, went into official mourning for this disaster.
'A Chinese supervisor said to me in broken English, "In China, 5,000 people die, and there is nothing. In Zambia, 50 people die and everyone is weeping." To them, 50 people are nothing.'
This sort of thing creates resentment. Earlier this year African workers at the new Chinese smelter at Chambishi rioted over low wages and what they thought were unsafe working conditions.
When Chinese President Hu Jintao came to Zambia in 2006, he had to cancel a visit to the Copper Belt for fear of hostile demonstrations. Thomas says: 'The people who advised Hu Jintao not to come were right.'
He suspects Chinese arrogance and brutality towards Africans is not racial bigotry, but a fear of being seen to be weak. 'They are trying to prove they are not inferior to the West. They are trying too hard.
'If they ask you to do something and you don't do it, they think you're not doing it because they aren't white. People put up with the kicks and blows because they need work to survive.'
Many in Africa also accuse the Chinese of unconcealed corruption. This is specially obvious in the 'Democratic Republic of the Congo', currently listed as the most corrupt nation on Earth.
A North-American businessman who runs a copper smelting business in Katanga Province told me how his firm tried to obey safety laws.
They are constantly targeted by official safety inspectors because they refuse to bribe them. Meanwhile, Chinese enterprises nearby get away with huge breaches of the law - because they paid bribes.
'We never pay,' he said, 'because once you pay you become their bitch; you will pay for ever and ever.'
Another businessman shrugged over the way he is forced to wait weeks to get his products out of the country, while the Chinese have no such problems.
'I'm not sure the Chinese even know there are customs regulations,' he said. 'They don't fill in the forms, they just pay. I try to be philosophical about it, but it is not easy.'
Unlike orderly Zambia, Congo is a place of chaos, obvious privation, tyranny dressed up as democracy for public-relations purposes, and fear.
This is Katanga, the mineral-rich slice of land fought over furiously in the early Sixties in post-colonial Africa's first civil war. Brooding over its capital, Lubumbashi, is a 400ft black hill: the accumulated slag and waste of 80 years of copper mining and smelting.
Now, thanks to a crazy rise in the price of copper and cobalt, the looming, sinister mound is being quarried - by Western business, by the Chinese and by bands of Congolese who grub and scramble around it searching for scraps of copper or traces of cobalt, smashing lumps of slag with great hammers as they hunt for any way of paying for that night's supper.
As dusk falls and the shadows lengthen, the scene looks like the blasted land of Mordor in Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings: a pre-medieval prospect of hopeless, condemned toil in pits surrounded by stony desolation.
Behind them tower the leaning ruins of colossal abandoned factories: monuments to the wars and chaos that have repeatedly passed this way.
There is something strange and unsettling about industrial scenes in Africa, pithead winding gear and gaunt chimneys rising out of tawny grasslands dotted with anthills and banana palms. It looks as if someone has made a grave mistake.
And there is a lesson for colonial pride and ambition in the streets of Lubumbashi - 80 years ago an orderly Art Deco city full of French influence and supervised by crisply starched gendarmes, now a genial but volatile chaos of scruffy, bribe-hunting traffic cops where it is not wise to venture out at night.
The once-graceful Belgian buildings, gradually crumbling under thick layers of paint, long ago lost their original purpose.
Outsiders come and go in Africa, some greedy, some idealistic, some halfway between. Time after time, they fail or are defeated, leaving behind scars, slag-heaps, ruins and graveyards, disillusion and disappointment.
We have come a long way from Cecil Rhodes to Bob Geldof, but we still have not brought much happiness with us, and even Nelson Mandela's vaunted 'Rainbow Nation' in South Africa is careering rapidly towards banana republic status.
Now a new great power, China, is scrambling for wealth, power and influence in this sad continent, without a single illusion or pretence.
Perhaps, after two centuries of humbug, this method will work where all other interventions have failed.
But after seeing the bitter, violent desperation unleashed in the mines of Likasi, I find it hard to believe any good will come of it.
When I contacted her, she declined to speak to me about this - possibly because criticism of the Chinese is not welcome among most of the Zambian elite.
Denis Lukwesa, deputy general secretary of the Zambian Mineworkers' Union, also backed up Sata's view, saying: 'They just don't understand about safety. They are more interested in profit.'
As for their general treatment of African workers, Lukwesa says he knows of cases where Chinese supervisors have kicked Zambians. He summed up their attitude like this: 'They are harsh to Zambians, and they don't get on well with them.'
Sata warns against the enormous loans and offers of help with transport, schools and health care with which Peking now sweetens its attempts to buy up Africa's mineral reserves.
'China's deal with the Democratic Republic of the Congo is, in my opinion, corruption,' he says, comparing this with Western loans which require strong measures against corruption.
Everyone in Africa knows China's Congo deal - worth almost £5billion in loans, roads, railways, hospitals and schools - was offered after Western experts demanded tougher anti-corruption measures in return for more aid.
Sata knows the Chinese are unpopular in his country. Zambians use a mocking word - 'choncholi' - to describe the way the Chinese speak. Zambian businessmen gossip about the way the Chinese live in separate compounds, where - they claim - dogs are kept for food.
There are persistent rumours, which cropped up in almost every conversation I had in Zambia, that many of the imported Chinese workforce are convicted criminals whom China wants to offload in Africa. I was unable to confirm this but, given China's enormous gulag and the harshness of life for many migrant workers, it is certainly not impossible.
Sata warns that 'sticks and stones' may one day fly if China does not treat Zambians better. He now promises a completely new approach: 'I used to sweep up at your Victoria Station, and I never got any complaints about my work. I want to sweep my country even cleaner than I swept your stations.'
Some Africa experts tend to portray Sata as a troublemaker. His detractors whisper that he is a mouthpiece for Taiwan, which used to be recognised by many African states but which faces almost total isolation thanks to Peking's new Africa policy.
But his claims were confirmed by a senior worker in Chambishi, scene of the 2005 explosion. This man, whom I will call Thomas, is serious, experienced and responsible. His verdict on the Chinese is devastating.
He recalls the aftermath of the blast, when he had the ghastly task of collecting together what remained of the men who died: 'Zambia, a country of 11million people, went into official mourning for this disaster.
'A Chinese supervisor said to me in broken English, "In China, 5,000 people die, and there is nothing. In Zambia, 50 people die and everyone is weeping." To them, 50 people are nothing.'
This sort of thing creates resentment. Earlier this year African workers at the new Chinese smelter at Chambishi rioted over low wages and what they thought were unsafe working conditions.
When Chinese President Hu Jintao came to Zambia in 2006, he had to cancel a visit to the Copper Belt for fear of hostile demonstrations. Thomas says: 'The people who advised Hu Jintao not to come were right.'
He suspects Chinese arrogance and brutality towards Africans is not racial bigotry, but a fear of being seen to be weak. 'They are trying to prove they are not inferior to the West. They are trying too hard.
'If they ask you to do something and you don't do it, they think you're not doing it because they aren't white. People put up with the kicks and blows because they need work to survive.'
Many in Africa also accuse the Chinese of unconcealed corruption. This is specially obvious in the 'Democratic Republic of the Congo', currently listed as the most corrupt nation on Earth.
A North-American businessman who runs a copper smelting business in Katanga Province told me how his firm tried to obey safety laws.
They are constantly targeted by official safety inspectors because they refuse to bribe them. Meanwhile, Chinese enterprises nearby get away with huge breaches of the law - because they paid bribes.
'We never pay,' he said, 'because once you pay you become their bitch; you will pay for ever and ever.'
Another businessman shrugged over the way he is forced to wait weeks to get his products out of the country, while the Chinese have no such problems.
'I'm not sure the Chinese even know there are customs regulations,' he said. 'They don't fill in the forms, they just pay. I try to be philosophical about it, but it is not easy.'
Unlike orderly Zambia, Congo is a place of chaos, obvious privation, tyranny dressed up as democracy for public-relations purposes, and fear.
This is Katanga, the mineral-rich slice of land fought over furiously in the early Sixties in post-colonial Africa's first civil war. Brooding over its capital, Lubumbashi, is a 400ft black hill: the accumulated slag and waste of 80 years of copper mining and smelting.
Now, thanks to a crazy rise in the price of copper and cobalt, the looming, sinister mound is being quarried - by Western business, by the Chinese and by bands of Congolese who grub and scramble around it searching for scraps of copper or traces of cobalt, smashing lumps of slag with great hammers as they hunt for any way of paying for that night's supper.
As dusk falls and the shadows lengthen, the scene looks like the blasted land of Mordor in Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings: a pre-medieval prospect of hopeless, condemned toil in pits surrounded by stony desolation.
Behind them tower the leaning ruins of colossal abandoned factories: monuments to the wars and chaos that have repeatedly passed this way.
There is something strange and unsettling about industrial scenes in Africa, pithead winding gear and gaunt chimneys rising out of tawny grasslands dotted with anthills and banana palms. It looks as if someone has made a grave mistake.
And there is a lesson for colonial pride and ambition in the streets of Lubumbashi - 80 years ago an orderly Art Deco city full of French influence and supervised by crisply starched gendarmes, now a genial but volatile chaos of scruffy, bribe-hunting traffic cops where it is not wise to venture out at night.
The once-graceful Belgian buildings, gradually crumbling under thick layers of paint, long ago lost their original purpose.
Outsiders come and go in Africa, some greedy, some idealistic, some halfway between. Time after time, they fail or are defeated, leaving behind scars, slag-heaps, ruins and graveyards, disillusion and disappointment.
We have come a long way from Cecil Rhodes to Bob Geldof, but we still have not brought much happiness with us, and even Nelson Mandela's vaunted 'Rainbow Nation' in South Africa is careering rapidly towards banana republic status.
Now a new great power, China, is scrambling for wealth, power and influence in this sad continent, without a single illusion or pretence.
Perhaps, after two centuries of humbug, this method will work where all other interventions have failed.
But after seeing the bitter, violent desperation unleashed in the mines of Likasi, I find it hard to believe any good will come of it.
White House Weighs Order on Detention
Officials: Move Would Reassert Power To Hold Terror Suspects Indefinitely
By Dafna Linzer and Peter FinnProPublica and Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, June 27, 2009
Obama administration officials, fearing a battle with Congress that could stall plans to close the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, are crafting language for an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely, according to three senior government officials with knowledge of White House deliberations.
Such an order would embrace claims by former president George W. Bush that certain people can be detained without trial for long periods under the laws of war. Obama advisers are concerned that an order, which would bypass Congress, could place the president on weaker footing before the courts and anger key supporters, the officials said.
After months of internal debate over how to close the military facility in Cuba, White House officials are increasingly worried that reaching quick agreement with Congress on a new detention system may be impossible. Several officials said there is concern in the White House that the administration may not be able to close the prison by the president's January deadline.
White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said that there is no executive order and that the administration has not decided whether to issue one. But one administration official suggested that the White House is already trying to build support for an order.
"Civil liberties groups have encouraged the administration, that if a prolonged detention system were to be sought, to do it through executive order," the official said. Such an order could be rescinded and would not block later efforts to write legislation, but civil liberties groups generally oppose long-term detention, arguing that detainees should be prosecuted or released.
The Justice Department has declined to comment on the prospects for a long-term detention system while internal reviews of Guantanamo detainees' cases are underway. One task force, which is assessing detainee policy, is expected to complete its work by July 21.
In a May speech, President Obama broached the need for a system of long-term detention and suggested that it would include congressional and judicial oversight. "We must recognize that these detention policies cannot be unbounded. They can't be based simply on what I or the executive branch decide alone," he said.
Some of Obama's top legal advisers, along with a handful of influential Republican and Democratic lawmakers, have pushed for the creation of a "national security court" to supervise the incarceration of detainees deemed too dangerous to release but who cannot be charged or tried.
But the three senior government officials said the White House has turned away from that option, at least for now, because legislation establishing a special court would be difficult to pass and likely to fracture Obama's party. These officials, as well as others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about internal deliberations.
On the day Obama took office, 242 men were imprisoned at Guantanamo. In his May speech, the president outlined five strategies the administration would use to deal with them: criminal trials, revamped military tribunals, transfers to other countries, releases and continued detention.
Since the inauguration, 11 detainees have been released or transferred, one prisoner committed suicide, and one was moved to New York to face terrorism charges in federal court.
Administration officials said the cases of about half of the remaining 229 detainees have been reviewed for prosecution or release. Two officials involved in a Justice Department review of possible prosecutions said the administration is strongly considering criminal charges in federal court for Khalid Sheik Mohammed and three other detainees accused of involvement in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Emergency Broadcast! - New World Order Ahead~
here is a MUST WATCH video for all those who wish to find out more of the new world order or even for those who know nothing about it and wish to seek more information =)
http://www.davidicke.com/content/view/21125
http://www.davidicke.com/content/view/21125
Friday, May 15, 2009
New Wave Technology Take Over In South Africa
Yip, thats right. The many many years of slavery, injustice by the white man, hostile take overs by the christian religion and european power has led up to this point. The point at wich there might not be a return for at this stage of "the big plan" it becomes accelerated, throughout the years the weapon the illuminati and freemasons have been using is not haste. The work slowly and carefully, pulling out all the stops. but once a framework for a bigger plan on a huge scale is setup and all bounderies are in place and the systems are go...well then that leaves us a bit trapped and in their power if we allow it. For many years big corporations have been racing south africa for its workforce and natural resources and tourism, creating a country on show to the rest of the world. Problem reaction solution! thats the way in wich many of the plans for the illuminati and freemasons are actually brought into play and its all to do with the public sheep. Many many...many MANY! people in today modern society fall into a trap of wanting to be the lastest flavour or have the best stuff and live the good life, but this is an entire falacy made up by the powers that be in order to keep human kind in a dumd down state of wanting to just work work work in order to pay off the loans and the mortgage and school fees. All of wich changes moods and behavoiurs of people and attitudes. Today we have violence, crimes, death and destruction and society is to blame. In the area of technology, it started with a simple box wich allowed humans the ability to view shows and movies. The only reason the box was created was to allow businesses to stick their mouth right into a families home and for 24hours and 7days a week 364days a years pump propoganda, conditioning, sumliminal advertising and brainwashing material into the public minds. Then the television became color, more people bought tvs. The television today is flat, high definition and there are over a million chanels worldwide...now why would people wanna do anything else? and that the point. television is there to program your daily life and tell you what to do, its how sheep in society get their commands and im being completely literal here. The powers that be actually use certain mind control and subliminal techniques wich cause human beings to react in wich ever way the want. The advancement in the television is a greater way of further controling the masses simply because if ever person on the planet had a tv, wich most do, and they confided in certain shows then if the television advanced they would hav to get the new tv in order to watch what they want. For instance, problem reaction solution, the solution is already thought up because its what the illuminati wich to achieve but it wont be possible to just shift from how every one lives today into a complete prison society so they take little steps, one at a time so no one notices and then by the time they reach their goal, nobody even remembers how things used to be. For example, first in our country came the pass law, requiring all africans to carry one wher ever they went and they were only allowed wher ever their pass allowed them. So the problem is freedom, what do the people do? they revolt, they fight back and they want a solution...thats the reaction. So the powers that be, wich hav struck the bee hive to get the bees away in order to get the honey and hav played the public like fools already having their solution now anounce it to the public and bring it into play. So whats the solution? the solution is a free and equal democracy where no one is treated unfair. well that doesnt sound so bad.........but, what is it realy for the people who have something to gain? its a coallision between the african empire and the european, allowing the white man free range over industries and land in south africa, idetity documents also came into play, first as optional then over time certain thigs required an i.d such s gaining a drivers licence and a passport. so all through the ages there have been men standing the background puppetearing a mass sharade for public eye when mean while no body has any fucking clue what they realy doing. So today in South Africa we prepare for 2010 world cup and because of this our country needs upgrading, what a perfect cover being the 2010? so the country needs to be more fitted for a one world community matrix wher no one need leave their homes for anything. New wiring and construction can be seen all over Cape Town, the wiring is being done for a company caled Neotel and its to allow the 2010 to be beamed accross the world...but what it also allows is no non HD television to view shows, all new shows are coming out HD, films are bing shot in HD and soon if you dont have a high definition tv you will not be able to view any shows beacuse outdated tvs wont be compatible, its the easy way of making the masses buy into the new generation of technology and further entrap themselves. The Neotel wiring also allows better internet access, the kind wich allows Holographic images to be transmitted from the other side of the world. Wow...thats pretty cool you might be thinking but what it means is that in conjuntion with the HD television, the new online virtual shops being created and all the games....human beings will fall into a very nasty matrix spider web and after some time it will be no turning back and quite ereversable. The Public will blindly give in to the new and updated technologies and after some time it becomes a part of their life and then no one will have to travel to a shop or to a mall ever agian because why walk when all i have to do is turn on my computer and step into a hologram of the Shopping centre and literary walk around, pick objects up and view them as if they were real and then pay and buy the items i want. well why would the public not like that? simply because they are ignorant and have been driven into a materialistic life style through propoganda and sumliminal advertising. Why would i not give in to being 'cool' and 'popular' and not buy any of the crap wich will lead to humans demise...simply because humans are meant to be out in nature, in fresh air and enjoying life physicaly. Not in a fantasy realm where all your wishes can come tru!...but in the fantacy realm...not in the real world. The problem wich arises most for me is further generations to come, if people buy into these falacies then it will be become apart of their lives, wich is its goal. Then the generations to come are brought up from infancy, the MOST final learning period of their lives, to behave in a certain way, to watch television, all the kiddies shows with the hidden agenda to turn childen into mindless consumers, the kids grow up in a world wher their parents arnt going to parks or to the beach or even the cinima, they just sit at home and hologram themselves everywher because its easier and the news keeps telling them that their are dangerous ciminals all about and terrorists are always bombing shit up so people driven by false fear stay inside and keep their heads burried under the sand when in actual fact the world is not what they tell you it is on the tv, the world is what you make of it? not right. if you cower inside your home then thats what the world is to you. You you stand up and go out there with determination and a will to change the world and stop it from all the destrcution then nothing can go wrong because we are all here for a reason, not a God reason since god is just another form of control. We are here simply by choosing so, it is our soul wich carried us here for a reason and that reason is not completely known but by fucking cheetah it aint to sit around in a cubicle all day or to make some fat cat a richer mother fucker no! the reason is to learn, what to learn is to each individual but we are all on a constant journey for new knowledge and at this current time the world is in turmoil wich means us humans...the FUCKING gardians of this planet! have to take a stand, we have to stop polluting, stop killing, stop hating and stop doing nothing! we as the mass public must stand and rise together as one, we have to put aside out differences of religion and homeland because all of this only further devides us wich is one fo the BIGGEST goals for the powers that be for if we are devided then we are week but together as one force we can appose those who control us through established forms of authority, behind their walls all thet stands are cowards who lie, cheet, murder, steel and corrupt the world and who are to afraid to show their faces for if they did so i myslef and many others would slice it off with the sharpest blade we could find.
We must unite, forget all our false differences and become one! the color of our skin is not important, if i treat a black man like my brother then he will treat me like his and thats how it works because it aint about black or white, we are all human! and all here for the same reason, to live love and learn and protect this planet. All one must ever strive for and give on to others is Peace, Love, Unity and Respect, with this the world and the living beings on it can never g wrong.
Justin Manik (Bringer of justice wich the system cannot provide)
We must unite, forget all our false differences and become one! the color of our skin is not important, if i treat a black man like my brother then he will treat me like his and thats how it works because it aint about black or white, we are all human! and all here for the same reason, to live love and learn and protect this planet. All one must ever strive for and give on to others is Peace, Love, Unity and Respect, with this the world and the living beings on it can never g wrong.
Justin Manik (Bringer of justice wich the system cannot provide)
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Barack Obama uses Bush funding tactics to finance wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
President Barack Obama has requested another $83.4 billion (£57 billion) from Congress to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, using a controversial special troop funding provision that he voted against as a senator.
Antiwar congressman and activists who played a key role in Mr Obama's election campaign criticised him for deploying the same "off the books" funding tactic that were introduced by his predecessor George W Bush.
Mr Bush was accused of trying to mask the overall cost of the two conflicts – which now stands at virtually $1 trillion - by funding them via annual "emergency" supplements rather than through the usual budgetary process.
The White House says the request, placed on Thursday evening, was needed to secure funding for the current fiscal year and that it will be the last made in this form before the first Obama budget kicks in.
"This will be the last supplemental for Iraq and Afghanistan. The process by which this has been funded over the course of the past many years, the president has discussed and will change," said Robert Gibbs, the president's spokesman.
The request seems certain to be approved comfortably, with support from Republicans. But some liberal Democrats expressed their frustration with the increased funding and Mr Obama's plans for the two conflict zones.
"This funding will do two things – it will prolong our occupation of Iraq through at least the end of 2011, and it will deepen and expand our military presence in Afghanistan indefinitely," said anti-war Rep. Lynn Woolsey. "Instead of attempting to find military solutions to the problems we face in Iraq and Afghanistan, President Obama must fundamentally change the mission in both countries to focus on promoting reconciliation, economic development, humanitarian aid, and regional diplomatic efforts."
The request would fund an average force level in Iraq of 140,000 US troops, finance Mr Obama's initiative to boost troop levels in Afghanistan to more than 60,000 from the current 39,000 and provide $2.2 billion to accelerate the Pentagon's plans to increase the overall size of the US military, the Associated Press reported.
Mr Obama also requested $350 million in new funding to upgrade security along the US-Mexico border and to combat narcoterrorists, along with another $400 million in counterinsurgency aid to Pakistan.
Meanwhile, the top US commander in Iraq has given warning that American combat troops may be required to remain in Iraq after Mr Obama's June 20 withdrawal deadline to deal with al Qaeda terrorists in Mosul and Baqubah. Indeed, General Ray Odierno said that troops levels in the two troubled cities might actually rise rather than fall.
Mr Bush was accused of trying to mask the overall cost of the two conflicts – which now stands at virtually $1 trillion - by funding them via annual "emergency" supplements rather than through the usual budgetary process.
The White House says the request, placed on Thursday evening, was needed to secure funding for the current fiscal year and that it will be the last made in this form before the first Obama budget kicks in.
"This will be the last supplemental for Iraq and Afghanistan. The process by which this has been funded over the course of the past many years, the president has discussed and will change," said Robert Gibbs, the president's spokesman.
The request seems certain to be approved comfortably, with support from Republicans. But some liberal Democrats expressed their frustration with the increased funding and Mr Obama's plans for the two conflict zones.
"This funding will do two things – it will prolong our occupation of Iraq through at least the end of 2011, and it will deepen and expand our military presence in Afghanistan indefinitely," said anti-war Rep. Lynn Woolsey. "Instead of attempting to find military solutions to the problems we face in Iraq and Afghanistan, President Obama must fundamentally change the mission in both countries to focus on promoting reconciliation, economic development, humanitarian aid, and regional diplomatic efforts."
The request would fund an average force level in Iraq of 140,000 US troops, finance Mr Obama's initiative to boost troop levels in Afghanistan to more than 60,000 from the current 39,000 and provide $2.2 billion to accelerate the Pentagon's plans to increase the overall size of the US military, the Associated Press reported.
Mr Obama also requested $350 million in new funding to upgrade security along the US-Mexico border and to combat narcoterrorists, along with another $400 million in counterinsurgency aid to Pakistan.
Meanwhile, the top US commander in Iraq has given warning that American combat troops may be required to remain in Iraq after Mr Obama's June 20 withdrawal deadline to deal with al Qaeda terrorists in Mosul and Baqubah. Indeed, General Ray Odierno said that troops levels in the two troubled cities might actually rise rather than fall.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
