Post-2001 U.S. Debt to GDP

Did Al-Qaeda put this country in the red zone after 2001?

Another article on infowar

INFORMATION WARFARE
Prof George J. Stein, Air War College, USAF
Airpower Journal - Spring 1995

http://www.iwar.org.uk/iwar/resources/airchronicles/stein.htm

Is there a way we could use information, like current theories of airpower, to create an "information campaign" that engages an opponent simultaneously in time, space, and depth across the full range of his strategic structures so that the result is strategic paralysis (he is deaf, dumb, and blind to anything except that which we permit him to hear, say, or see)?19 Not that we just blind him, but that he sees what we wish him to see without realizing that it's "our" reality, not his. Can we envision that kind of strategic information warfare? And, as was the case with airpower, technology will follow strategic vision. It's OK if we can't insert computer viruses by direct satellite broadcast-today; fry every air defense radar with an electromagnetic burst from a remote unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-today; transfer all the dictator's Swiss bank accounts to the internal revenue service (IRS)-today; project holographic images, complete with proper electronic signatures, of 15 squadrons coming in from the north when we're coming in the back door-today; or beam the Forrest Gump interview with "El Supremo" into every radio and television in banditland-today. Develop the strategic theory of information warfare, and the technology will come.

Thanks to Killtown, who posted this article here:

http://killtown.blogspot.com/2007/05/why-they-didnt-use-planes-to-hit-wtc.html

Here's what Killtown excerpted, which is also interesting, and talks about technologies the author already considered available in 1995:

Let us take just one example of how current technologies could be used for strategic-level information warfare. If, say, the capabilities of already well-known Hollywood technologies to simulate reality were added to our arsenal, a genuinely revolutionary new form of warfare would become possible. Today, the techniques of combining live actors with computer-generated video graphics can easily create a "virtual" news conference, summit meeting, or perhaps even a battle that would exist in "effect" though not in physical fact. Stored video images can be recombined or "morphed" endlessly to produce any effect chosen. This moves well beyond traditional military deception, and now, perhaps, "pictures" will be worth a thousand tanks. Imagine the effect of a nationwide broadcast in banditland of the meeting between the "digitized" maximum leader and a "digitized" Jimmy Carter in which all loyal soldiers are told to cease fighting and return to their homes. The targets of information warfare, remember, are the decisions in the opponent's mind, and the battlespace of the human mind is also the zone of illusion.

Du bist Terrorist

Du bist Terrorist (You are a Terrorist) english subtitles from lexela on Vimeo.

Spinning torture

Notice that MSNBC's coverage of the story on torture seeking a confession of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda is based on alleged torture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is not reported to have confessed to such a link, and not on the alleged torture of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, who is reported to have revealed such a link.



This supports the argument that what Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said about 9/11 was true, while avoiding the difficult problem of the death of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, and the fact that a tortured confession was in fact offered to the United Nations as justification for the Iraq invasion.

http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2009/05/13/two-experts-cast-doubt-on-ibn-al-shaykh-al-libis-suicide/

The alleged link given by Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi was actually used in Colin Powell's February 2003 address to the United Nations, and the alleged attempts to torture KSM to establish a link occurred after this. So why the focus on KSM, when it is the al-Libi confession that was actually used at the United Nations?

http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2009/04/29/even-in-cheneys-bleak-world-the-al-qaeda-iraq-torture-story-is-a-new-low/

Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi: the tortured lie that underpinned the Iraq war

In case anyone has forgotten, when Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, the head of the Khaldan military training camp in Afghanistan, was captured at the end of 2001 and sent to Egypt to be tortured, he made a false confession that Saddam Hussein had offered to train two al-Qaeda operatives in the use of chemical and biological weapons. Al-Libi later recanted his confession, but not until Secretary of State Colin Powell — to his eternal shame — had used the story in February 2003 in an attempt to persuade the UN to support the invasion of Iraq.

Weidlinger Associates and President Bush seem to disagree on what killed most of the people on 9/11

Lead structural engineer for investigation that determined that the collapse of one WTC tower did not cause or contribute to the collapse of the other.

http://www.weidlinger.com/projectslist.aspx?cat=450&type=400&print=true

An investigation of the collapses of the World Trade Center towers was performed by a pre-eminent group of engineering firms led by Weidlinger Associates. The study, conducted on behalf of the attorneys for Silverstein Properties, Inc., is the most comprehensive study to date of why the Twin Towers stood for as long as they did and why they ultimately collapsed. The results of the study were released to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the federal agency charged with conducting an in-depth investigation of the causes of the collapses. The study established that the strength and redundancy of the superstructure of the towers initially allowed them to withstand the high-speed impact of the Boeing 767s and that the subsequent collapses were initiated separately by a combination of immediate damage from the impact of the airliners and the resulting fires on the floors that were struck.

http://www.weidlinger.com/project.aspx?id=1817&type=400&cat=450

According to Levy, little could be done to prevent the buildings' destruction, considering the damage the planes had caused. However, he feels that a more effective rescue-plan could have saved more people.

"A critical aspect of the event was the location of the fire stairs," he noted. "They were clustered around the centers of the buildings and were made unusable when the explosions occurred. That is why almost everyone on the lower floors managed to get out and almost no one from the upper floors escaped."

This destruction of the fire escapes and the fact that it took firefighters almost an hour to reach the upper floors accounted for most of the lives lost. Though the New York Fire Department was using the most sophisticated technology available, Weidlinger determined that a more efficient system for putting out high-rise fires needs to be developed.

. . .

Weidlinger's study was done on behalf of Larry Silverstein for the purpose of his insurance claim. In its investigation the firm used advanced computer modeling, photo and video analyses, and original engineering plans for the World Trade Center.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3601/is_39_49/ai_101679160/

Various analyses of the buildings' destruction, including those of Weidlinger Associates and NIST, are discussed by Jeff King here:

http://www.plaguepuppy.net/public_html/Confronting%20the%20Evidence/what_failed_and_how.htm

King points out that Matthys P. Levy, chairman of Weidlinger Associates Inc., stated that for the "collapses" to appear as they did, all of the core columns must have failed simultaneously.

Weidlinger Associate's report is summarized here:

http://enr.construction.com/news/buildings/archives/021025.asp

I am most interested in the assertion, based on this report that was commissioned by attorneys and presumably submitted in the insurance case in federal court, that most of the people died as a result of the plane impacts blocking the fire stairs, and firemen not being able to get up to the fires.

I am still waiting for the "9/11 Truth and Justice" physicist Steven Jones, and for the "Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth," to make a serious critique of NIST's crash physics claims in NIST NCSTAR 1-2.

http://wtc.nist.gov/NCSTAR1/NCSTAR1-2index.htm

Let me repeat a quote from the Real Estate Weekly, which is accurate:

This destruction of the fire escapes and the fact that it took firefighters almost an hour to reach the upper floors accounted for most of the lives lost.

What really happened to the stairs, and what really happened to the elevators?

President Bush, channeling "Khalid Sheikh Mohammed," told a much more plausible version of events:

"For example, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed described the design of planned attacks of buildings inside the U.S. and how operatives were directed to carry them out. That is valuable information for those of us who have the responsibility to protect the American people. He told us the operatives had been instructed to ensure that the explosives went off at a high -- a point that was high enough to prevent people trapped above from escaping."

Joseph Stiglitz on an easy and cheap fix

Create new banks.


Stiglitz was able to elaborate more on this at Davos, without stupid questions from CNBC talking heads:

http://dailybail.com/home/2009/2/15/bank-bailout-news-video-from-the-world-economic-forum-at-dav.html


Instead, investment banks are allowed to stash billions offshore and have their bad bets covered by the taxpayer. This is so outrageous - looting on a monumental scale.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2009/03/23/big_clawback/

Receivership, now.

http://www.hussmanfunds.com/wmc/wmc090323.htm

Though I believe that the consequences (via credit default swaps and the like) are overstated of letting bondholders take a haircut, and will ultimately be no worse than having the public take the losses, the fact is that we don't even need the bonds of major financial institutions to go into default. What we do need to do is offer those bondholders a choice:

1) The U.S. government takes receivership of the financial institution, changes the management, wipes out the stockholders and a chunk of the bondholders claims entirely, continues the operation of the institution in receivership, eventually reissues the company to private ownership, and leaves the bondholders with the residual. This is not “nationalization,” but receivership – a form of “pre-packaged bankruptcy” that protects the customers and allows the institution to continue to operate, followed by re-privatization. As I've previously noted, this would fully protect all of the customers and depositors at no probable expense to the public. Alternatively;

2) The bondholders voluntarily agree to move a portion of their claims lower down in the capital structure, swapping debt for equity (preferred or common), allowing the bank to have a larger cushion of Tier-1 capital, avoiding insolvency, and hopefully allowing the bank to recover by its own bootstraps, preferably assisted by debt restructuring on the borrower side (via property appreciation rights and the like). Similar debt/equity swaps would be an appropriate strategy toward failing U.S. automakers as well.

Good Bank, not Bad Bank:

http://blogs.ft.com/maverecon/2009/03/dont-touch-the-unsecured-creditors-clobber-the-tax-payer-instead/

And finally, an excellent blogpost pointing out that nationalization is happening now, but of the downside only:

http://www.interfluidity.com/posts/1235210036.shtml

We are all tired of the lies, Mr. Geithner. By all means, let nationalization be a last resort, and do all you can to offer liquidity to private parties willing to take both the upside and downside of speculating in questionable paper. But if you keep nationalizing the downside and privatizing the upside, it will not be very long at all before the public concludes that stress tests and market prices are just a sleight-of-hand for Davos man while he picks our pockets, again. Act fairly, and you may end up nationalizing the worst few of the larger banks. Keep up the games, and we will insist that you nationalize them all. It is getting hard to believe that there is a banker in the land who has not already robbed us. Eventually we will tire of drawing fine distinctions.

Ya think?

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=227162