The chairman of a key Pentagon advisory panel has echoed recent claims by both Joe Biden and Colin Powell,
warning that the next administration will face an international crisis within months of taking office.

Michael Bayer, chairman of the Defense Business Board and veteran Pentagon consultant announced…
during a public meeting late last week that the new President should “prepare for a likely first-270-days crisis.”

Accordingly, the Defense Business Board says the new administration should set a goal
to win Senate confirmation of key Pentagon posts in the first 30 days of the inauguration,
in order to have a full team in place to deal with such a contingency, an Inside Defense report reveals.

The incoming administration “must not wait until June” to get assistant secretaries confirmed
and October for deputy assistant secretaries to be Senate confirmed, Bayer’s briefing (PDF) states.

Under the heading “First 270 Days” appears the following list of Presidents with crisis events next to their names:

Given that the Iranian revolution and the Bay of Pigs were both engineered by the CIA,
and that the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the ‘93 WTC bombing and 9/11 have all been exposed as false flag events,
one wonders whether the coming crisis will constitute more of the same.
The latest warning of a “likely crisis” comes on the back of Joe Biden’s “guarantee”
that an “international crisis” will unfold shortly after President Obama takes office.

“It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy,”
Biden told an audience in Seattle earlier this month.

“Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said.
Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis,
to test the mettle of this guy.” Biden continued.

The assured tone with which Biden delivered his forecast was staggeringly convincing,
and left the observer in no doubt that there will be a major world crisis shortly after Obama takes office.
“Mark my words, mark my words,” Biden stressed,
adding that “tough” and “unpopular” foreign policy decisions will have to be made.

“I promise you it will occur,” Biden added,
“As a student of history and having served with seven presidents, I guarantee you it is going to happen.”

The McCain campaign pounced on Biden’s comments in a recent commercial:

On the same day Biden made his prophesy,
Colin Powell appeared on Meet The Press and stated
“There’s going to be a crisis which will come along on the 21st, 22nd of January that we don’t even know about right now.”

citx say…”If you remember only ONE thing that I say..Remember This..Your Leaders Lie To You..Shamelessly”

a billionaire finances his own INTERNAL referendum..
to authorize term limit changes AGAINST the will of the voters.

THIS story was dismissed as conspiracy theory when G.W. Bush was the subject..
Although the Administration has EXHAUSTIVELY researched the possibility of doing this kind of thing with Presidential term limits..
but this BLATANT usurping of the peoples power is going down with nary a PEEP from anyone?

and by ANYONE i mean the “so-called” Indymedia..i guess events in Oaxaca hit ‘closer to home’?

EAT THE RICH.

LOOK

NO WAR EVER

by Gregory Elich

The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari has been widely hailed in the West, where there has been an outpouring of praise for the man and his efforts. Generally seen as a tireless promoter of peace and reconciliation, Ahtisaari has another side that has not received sufficient attention.

Although his record is long, Ahtisaari’s role in the diplomatic end to NATO’s 1999 war against Yugoslavia is regarded as the key to his selection. In praising the man, Nobel committee secretary Geir Lundestad noted, “There is no alternative to an independent Kosovo.” This baldly political statement indicates why Ahtisaari’s selection is proving so popular among Western leaders, and it is Kosovo that shows just whose interests Ahtisaari has served.
During the 1999 war, NATO’s attacks were having little effect on Yugoslav forces. Through the use of extensive camouflage and decoys, Yugoslav troops had managed to emerge largely unscathed by the end NATO’s bombing campaign. U.S. General Wesley Clark led the NATO campaign, and he pressed military and diplomatic contacts from other NATO countries for agreement to widen the scope of bombing. Clark was a strong advocate of bombing civilian targets, and at one meeting he rose from his chair and banged the table with his fist, bellowing, “I’ve got to get the maximum violence out of this campaign – now!” (1) Under Clark’s direction, the air campaign rapidly took on the character of sustained terror bombing. I saw the effects myself when I was in Yugoslavia in 1999. Every town I visited had been bombed. Purely residential areas had been flattened. Cluster bombs struck civilian areas. Hospitals, schools, apartment buildings, factories, bridges, office buildings – there was no category of civilian targets that NATO had not seen fit to hit. It was impossible to avoid the conclusion that NATO’s strategy was to win its war through terror tactics.

Terror bombing paved the way for final negotiations. It was Yugoslavia’s misfortune that Boris Yeltsin was the president of Russia at the time. He selected former prime minister Victor Chernomyrdin to handle negotiations with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. Always anxious to please the U.S., Yeltsin had Chernomyrdin essentially do little more than deliver NATO’s messages to Milosevic. This approach was not yielding fruit, so Chernomyrdin suggested to American officials that it would be helpful to have someone from a non-NATO Western nation join him when he next visited Belgrade. It was Secretary of State Madeleine Albright who offered the name of Martti Ahtisaari. Getting the Russians on board with the American insistence on NATO leading the occupation of Kosovo was the main sticking point. In the end, Yeltsin, as was his habit, gave the U.S. everything it wanted. (2)

Ahtisaari recalls that before departing for Belgrade, through “a major effort we achieved a final communiqué, signed by both the Russians and by the Americans.” Russian acquiescence, he correctly felt, would push Milosevic “in a corner.” It was the task of Ahtisaari and Chernomyrdin to deliver NATO’s final terms, and they visited President Milosevic on June 2. (3)

Ljubisa Ristic was president of the Yugoslav United Left (JUL), a party formed from 23 smaller communist and left parties. JUL was closely allied with the ruling Socialist Party and a member of the governing coalition. Ristic was also a personal friend of Milosevic’s. He explains what happened at the June 2 meeting. Ahtisaari opened the meeting by declaring, “We are not here to discuss or negotiate,” after which Chernomyrdin read aloud the text of the plan. (4) Ahtisaari says that Milosevic asked about the possibility of modifying the plan, to which he replied, “No. This is the best that Viktor and I have managed to do. You have to agree to it in every part.” (5) Ristic reports that as Milosevic listened to the reading of the text, he realized that the “Russians and the Europeans had put us in the hands of the British and the Americans.” Milosevic took the papers and asked, “What will happen if I do not sign?” In answer, “Ahtisaari made a gesture on the table,” and then moved aside the flower centerpiece. Then Ahtisaari said, “Belgrade will be like this table. We will immediately begin carpet-bombing Belgrade.” Repeating the gesture of sweeping the table, Ahtisaari threatened, “This is what we will do to Belgrade.” A moment of silence passed, and then he added, “There will be half a million dead within a week.” Chernomyrdin’s silence confirmed that the Russian government would do nothing to discourage carpet-bombing. (6)

The meaning was clear. To refuse the ultimatum would lead to the deaths of large numbers of civilians and total devastation. President Milosevic summoned the leaders of the parties in the governing coalition and explained the situation to them. “A few things are not logical, but the main thing is, we have no choice. I personally think we should accept…To reject the document means the destruction of our state and nation.” (7) For Ristic, acceptance meant one thing: “We had to save the people.” (8) Three weeks after Ahtisaari and Chernomyrdin delivered NATO’s ultimatum, Yugoslav Prime Minister Momir Bulatovich explained to both chambers of the Assembly why the government had accepted terms. “Our country was faced with a threat of total annihilation. Through diplomatic mediators and through the media, the aggressors spoke of the future targets to be bombed, including civilian victims counted in the hundreds of thousands.” (9)

two sides of a Psy-Op leaflet…dropped during NATO bombing campaign

It did not take NATO long to violate the peace agreement that Ahtisaari had delivered to Milosevic. While NATO dawdled over entering Kosovo, the secessionist Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) went on a rampage, looting and burning homes, murdering and expelling thousands of Serbs, Roma, Turks, Slavic Muslims, Gorans, Egyptians, Croats and pro-Yugoslav Albanians. Milosevic was livid, and shortly after midnight on June 17, he phoned Ahtisaari and complained that NATO’s delay in entering Kosovo had allowed the KLA to threaten the population. “This is not what we agreed,” he said. (10) It hardly mattered. Once NATO troops entered Kosovo, they did nothing to deter KLA attacks against the populace. The KLA had unimpeded freedom to carry out a pogrom. That summer in Yugoslavia, I heard many refugees tell how attacks had taken place in the presence of NATO troops, who invariably did nothing. On numerous occasions people were thrown out of their homes, threatened, their possessions looted and homes burned while NATO soldiers stood aside and watched.

Ahtisaari’s mission was a success. He “was sensational,” said a senior U.S. official. Chernomyrdin won praise for remaining silent while Ahtisaari threatened Milosevic. “Chernomyrdin did great,” an appreciative U.S. official noted. (11)

The final agreement between Yugoslavia and NATO was spelled out in UN Security Council Resolution 1244, which was implemented in a one-sided way. NATO got everything it wanted, but those aspects of the resolution not to its liking were never implemented. The required demilitarization of the KLA was a sham, with its members handing in obsolete weapons while retaining their arsenal. The resolution also called for the return of some Yugoslav forces to maintain “a presence at Serb patrimonial sites” and at “key border crossings,” as well as to liaise with international forces. NATO never permitted that. Most importantly, the resolution affirmed that the political process of arriving at an agreement on the status of Kosovo would take full account of the “sovereignty and territorial integrity” of Yugoslavia. (12) Instead, Western officials did everything possible to undermine that stipulation.

So pleased were Western leaders with Ahtisaari’s performance in 1999, that they called upon the man once again when it came time to negotiate a solution for the province of Kosovo. They saw to it that Ahtisaari was appointed as special envoy to the UN Secretary General to develop a set of recommendations for the final status of Kosovo.

U.S. officials were repeatedly promising secessionist Albanian officials in Kosovo that if negotiations with Serbian officials were to fail, then the province would be granted independence. This ensured that the Albanian delegation was unwilling to compromise or engage in serious negotiations. The Albanians’ maximal demands would be met as long as they could avoid a negotiated settlement. Ahtisaari’s role was to develop the plan for Kosovo’s final status that would be implemented if lieu of an agreement. In the end, secessionist Albanian leaders unilaterally declared independence, which was quickly followed by U.S. and Western European recognition. Yet much of Ahtisaari’s plan provided the basis for the agreement that was implemented between the province and the U.S.

Not surprisingly, Ahtisaari’s plan called for independence. This was to be supervised by “the international community,” that term that seems always to mean Western leaders and their interests and excludes the vast majority of the world’s population. Interestingly, the Ahtisaari plan required that Kosovo “shall have an open market economy with free competition.” (13) Already by this point Western officials in Kosovo had overseen the privatization of much of Kosovo’s socially owned property. Ahtisaari’s inclusion of the phrase “free competition” appears meant to protect the interests of Western investors. U.S. officials are never reluctant to push their own agenda, whatever noble-sounding themes they may trumpet. It may be recalled that the pre-war Rambouillet plan, drawn up by U.S. officials in order to sabotage any possibility of a peaceful outcome, required that “the economy of Kosovo shall function in accordance with free market principles” and allow for the free movement of international capital. (14)

Kosovo’s independence under Ahtisaari’s plan was be supervised and monitored by Western officials. Kosovo would be required to prepare its budget in consultation with the Western-appointed official responsible for managing the province. The plan called for NATO to maintain its military presence. There was to be “close cooperation” with the IMF, and in regard to the privatization of publicly owned entities Kosovo officials were called upon to “take appropriate measures to implement the relevant international principles of corporate governance and liberalization.” The governing Western official would be “the final authority in Kosovo regarding interpretation” of the plan, and positions would be filled through appointment by Western officials. (15) Under Ahtisaari-influenced plan as implemented by the Western powers, Kosovo has less control over its affairs then it would have had under the plan for full autonomy offered by the Yugoslav delegation at Rambouillet.

The selection of Martti Ahtisaari for the Nobel Peace Price was a reward for services rendered. This was a purely political statement, meant to underline an important principle in international affairs. The same Western nations that forcibly carved Kosovo from Serbia are vociferously complaining that independence for South Ossetia and Abkhazia violates international law and the territorial integrity of Georgia. This year’s Nobel Peace Prize affirms the lofty principle that it is only the West that will draw and redraw borders in the manner of 19th-century imperial powers.

Gregory Elich is on the Board of Directors of the Jasenovac Research Institute and on the Advisory Board of the Korea Truth Commission. He is the author of the book Strange Liberators: Militarism, Mayhem, and the Pursuit of Profit.

NOTES

[1] Dana Priest, “The Battle Inside Headquarters: United NATO Front was Divided Within,” Washington Post, September 21, 1999.
[2] “Getting to the Table,” Newsweek, June 14, 1999.
[3] Interview with Martti Ahtisaari by Riccardo Chiaberge, “Ahtisaari: This is How I Bent Milosevic,” Corriere della Sera (Milan), July 21, 1999.
[4] Interview with Ljubisa Ristic by Renato Farina, “Why We Serbs Have Given In,” Il Giornale (Milan), June 7, 1999.
[5] Interview with Martti Ahtisaari by Riccardo Chiaberge, “Ahtisaari: This is How I Bent Milosevic,” Corriere della Sera (Milan), July 21, 1999.
[6] Interview with Ljubisa Ristic by Renato Farina, “Why We Serbs Have Given In,” Il Giornale (Milan), June 7, 1999.
[7] Michael Dobbs and Daniel Williams, “For Milosevic, Internal Battle Just Starting,” Washington Post, June 6, 1999.
[8] Interview with Ljubisa Ristic by Renato Farina, “Why We Serbs Have Given In,” Il Giornale (Milan), June 7, 1999.
[9] “Yugoslav Prime Minister Momir Bulatovic Address to Both Chambers of the Assembly of Yugoslavia,” Yugoslav Daily Survey (Belgrade), June 24, 1999.
[10] Geert-Jan Bogaerts, “If Democracy Returns then Milosevic will be Gone,” De Volkskrant (Amsterdam), June 25, 2008.
[11] “Getting to the Table,” Newsweek, June 14, 1999.
[12] Resolution 1244 (1999), UN Security Council, June 10, 1999.
[13] “Comprehensive Proposal for the Kosovo Status Settlement,” UN Security Council S/2007/168/Add.1, March 26, 2007.
[14] “Interim Agreement for Peace and Self-Government in Kosovo,” February 23, 1999.
[15] “Comprehensive Proposal for the Kosovo Status Settlement,” UN Security Council S/2007/168/Add.1, March 26, 2007.

Read HR2755 and tell your representative to take the financial crisis seriously. There is no other way to solve this problem.

NEVER-TO-BE-FORGOTTEN QUOTES ON PRIVATE CENTRAL BANKING:

“Let me issue and control a nation’s money and I care not who writes the laws.”—Mayer Amschel Bauer Rothschild (1744-1812), founder of the private International Banking House of Rothschild.

“The modern banking system manufactures money out of nothing. The process is perhaps the most astounding piece of sleight of hand that was ever invented. Banking was conceived in inequity and born in sin. Bankers own the Earth. Take it away from them but leave them the power to create money, and with a flick of a pen, they will create enough money to buy it back again. Take this great power away from them and all great fortunes like mine will disappear, for then this would be a better and happier world to live in. But if you want to continue to be the slaves of bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, then let bankers continue to create money and control credit.”—Sir Josiah Stamp, president of the Rothschild Bank of England and the second richest man in Britain in the 1920s, speaking at the University of Texas in 1927.

“If the American people ever allow private banks to control issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and the corporations that will grow up around them, will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.”—Thomas Jefferson in the debate over his opposition to the Re-charter of the Private Bank Bill (1809).

“I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies…”—Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1816.

“The Federal Reserve banks are one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever seen. There is not a man within the sound of my voice who does not know that this nation is run by the International Bankers.—Congressman Louis T. McFadden (Rep. Pa)

“The few who understand the system will either be so interested in its profits or be so dependent upon its favours that there will be no opposition from that class, while on the other hand, the great body of people, mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantage that capital derives from the system, will bear its burdens without complaint, and perhaps without even suspecting that the system is inimical to their interests.”—The Rothschild brothers of London writing to associates in New York, 1863, laying the groundwork for the eventual passage of their catastrophic Federal Reserve Act on December 23, 1913

“… You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the grace of the Eternal God, I will rout you out.”—President Andrew Jackson, upon evicting a delegation of International Bankers from the Oval Office
“The real truth of the matter is, and you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government of the U.S. since the days of Andrew Jackson. History depicts Andrew Jackson as the last truly honorable and incorruptible American president.”—President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, November 23, 1933 in a letter to Colonel Edward Mandell House

“We have, in this country, one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board. This evil institution has impoverished the people of the United States and has practically bankrupted our government. It has done this through the corrupt practices of the moneyed vultures who control it.”—Congressman Louis T. McFadden in 1932

“It is well that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”—Henry Ford inventor and founder of the Ford Motor Company.

“Some [most] people think the Federal Reserve Banks are U.S. government institutions. They are not … they are private credit monopolies which prey upon the people of the U.S. for the benefit of themselves and their foreign and domestic swindlers, and rich and predatory money lenders. The sack of the United States by the Fed is the greatest crime in history. Every effort has been made by the Fed to conceal its powers, but the truth is the Fed has usurped the government. It controls everything here and it controls all our foreign relations. It makes and breaks governments at will.”—Congressional Record 12595-12603 — Louis T. McFadden, Chairman of the Committee on Banking and Currency (12 years) June 10, 1932

“History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and its issuance.”—President James Madison
“… we conclude that the [Federal] Reserve Banks are not federal … but are independent, privately owned and locally controlled corporations … without day-to-day direction from the federal government..”—9th Circuit Court in Lewis vs. United States, 680 F. 2d 1239 June 24, 1982

“People [private Federal Reserve Corporation stockholders] who will not turn a shovel full of dirt on the project (Muscle Shoals Dam) nor contribute a pound of material, will collect more money [usury] from the United States than will the People who supply all the material and do all the work. This is the terrible thing about interest …But here is the point: If the Nation can issue a dollar bond, it can issue a dollar bill [U.S. Note]. The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good also. The difference between the bond and the bill is that the bond lets the money broker collect twice the amount of the bond and an additional 20%. Whereas the currency, the honest sort provided by the Constitution pays nobody but those who contribute in some useful way. It is absurd to say our Country can issue bonds and cannot issue currency. Both are promises to pay, but one [Federal Reserve Notes] fattens the usurer and the other [U.S. Notes] helps the People. If the currency issued by the People were no good, then the bonds would be no good, either. It is a terrible situation when the Government, to insure the National Wealth, must go in debt and submit to ruinous interest charges at the hands of men [International Bankers] who control the fictitious value of gold. Interest is the invention of Satan”.—Thomas A. Edison

Less than a week after the federal government committed $85 billion to bail out AIG,
executives of the giant AIG insurance company headed for a week-long retreat at a luxury resort and spa,
the St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach, California, Congressional investigators revealed today.

“Rooms at this resort can cost over $5,000 a night,”
Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA) said this morning as his committee continued its investigation of Wall Street and its CEOs.

AIG documents obtained by Waxman’s investigators show the company paid more than $440,000 for the retreat,
including nearly $200,000 for rooms, $150,000 for meals and $23,000 in spa charges.

“Their getting their pedicures and their manicures and the American people are paying for that,” said Cong. Elijah Cummings (D-MD).

“This unbridled greed,” said Cong. Mark Souder (R-IN), “it’s an insensitivity to how people are spending our dollars.”

Appearing before the committee, Martin Sullivan, the AIG CEO until June, said the company was overwhelmed by a “financial global tsunami,”
and that “no simple or single cause” was to blame.

“I am heartbroken at what has happened,” Sullivan said.

Robert Willumstad, the CEO from June to September, 2008, maintained AIG was a victim of a “crisis in confidence”…
and an “unprecedented global catastrophe.”
“Through the first week of September we were confident AIG could weather the crisis,” Willumstad testified.
He said the federal government offered its $85 million bail out on the afternoon it prepared for bankruptcy.
Willumstad said the Federal Reserve demanded he resign, and will turn down his AIG retirement package of several million dollars.

But Congressional investigators raised question of “mismanagement” and whether AIG executives sought to “cook the books” and hide negative information from outside auditors.

On Dec. 5, 2007, Waxman said, CEO Sullivan told investors, “We are confident in our marks and the reasonableness of our valuation methods.”

Documents obtained by the committee show that one week earlier, auditors PriceWaterhouse Cooper had…
“raised their concerns with Mr. Sullivan and informed him that PWC believed that AIG could have a material weakness..
relating to the risk management of these areas.”

In March, 2008, the Office of Thrift Supervision wrote AIG…
“We are concerned that the corporate oversight of AIG Financial Products lacks critical elements of independence, transparency, and granularity.”

Asked about the letter by the committee, the SEC’s former chief accountant, Lynn Turner, said..
the letter reflects “a serious problem from the top down of management, that can bring an organization down.”

Former AIG CEO Sullivan said accounting rules required AIG to mark down the value of its holdings,
even though it had no plans to sell them, the “mark to market” provision.

AIG had to sell at “fire sale prices,” he told skeptical members of Congress.
“Suddenly a company with a trillion dollars in assets” was in trouble, said Sullivan.

Waxman questioned both former CEOs about a former AIG auditor..
who claimed he had been blocked from reviewing the books of a London-based division…
that has since been blamed for a large share of the company’s downfall.

Former CEO Willumstad, chairman of the AIG board at the time, said “I honestly don’t remember” the concerns raised by the former auditor.

“I find that very disturbing,” said Congressman Waxman.

Waxman also said there is evidence the two men changed the bonus schedule once the company began to post losses,
so that executives under the “Senior Partners Plan” would continue to make multi-million dollar salaries.

“Mr. Sullivan and the other top executives should have had their bonuses slashed due to poor performance,” said Waxman.

Sullivan said it was “substantially reduced” by the board in 2007 due to poor performance.

Sullivan was given a $15 million “golden parachute” payment after being replaced as CEO in June.

and…

when was the last time YOU had a hot rock massage and your feet slathered in cucumber/jojoba butter?

citx say..GET EXECUTIVE™ y’all!

READ

perhaps THIS is the real mission.