The Russians call it Kompromat – the use by the state of sexual accusations to destroy a public figure. When I was attacked in this way by the government I worked for, Uzbek dissidents smiled at me, shook their heads and said “Kompromat“. They were used to it from the Soviet and Uzbek governments. They found it rather amusing to find that Western governments did it too.
Well, Julian Assange has been getting the bog standard Kompromat. I had imagined he would get something rather more spectacular, like being framed for murder and found hanging with an orange in his mouth. He deserves a better class of kompromat. If I am a whistleblower, then Julian is a veritable mighty pipe organ. Yet we just have the normal sex stuff, and very weak.
Bizarrely the offence for which Julian is wanted for questioning in Sweden was dropped from rape to sexual harassment, and then from sexual harassment to just harassment. The precise law in Swedish, as translated for me and other Sam Adams alumni by our colleague Major Frank Grevil, reads:
“He who lays hands on or by means of shooting from a firearm, throwing of stones, noise or in any other way harasses another person will be sentenced for harassment to fines or imprisonment for up to one year.”
So from rape to non-sexual something. Actually I rather like that law – if we had it here, I could have had Jack Straw locked up for a year.
Julian tells us that the first woman accuser and prime mover had worked in the Swedish Embassy in Washington DC and had been expelled from Cuba for anti-Cuban government activity, as well as the rather different persona of being a feminist lesbian who owns lesbian night clubs.
Scott Ritter and I are well known whistleblowers subsequently accused of sexual offences. A less well known whistleblower is James Cameron, another FCO employee. Almost simultaneous with my case, a number of the sexual allegations the FCO made against Cameron were identical even in wording to those the FCO initially threw at me.
Another fascinating point about kompromat is that being cleared of the allegations – as happens in virtually every case – doesn’t help, as the blackening of reputation has taken effect. In my own case I was formerly cleared of all allegations of both misconduct and gross misconduct, except for the Kafkaesque charge of having told defence witnesses of the existence of the allegations. The allegations were officially a state secret, even though it was the government who leaked them to the tabloids.
Yet, even to this day, the FCO has refused to acknowledge in public that I was in fact cleared of all charges. This is even true of the new government. A letter I wrote for my MP to pass to William Hague, complaining that the FCO was obscuring the fact that I was cleared on all charges, received a reply from a junior Conservative minister stating that the allegations were serious and had needed to be properly investigated – but still failing to acknowledge the result of the process. Nor has there been any official revelation of who originated these “serious allegations”.
Governments operate in the blackest of ways, especially when it comes to big war money and big oil money. I can see what they are doing to Julian Assange, I know what they did to me and others (another recent example – Brigadier Janis Karpinski was framed for shoplifting). In a very real sense, it makes little difference if they murdered David Kelly or terrified him into doing it himself. Telling the truth is hazardous in today’s Western political system.
where IS Craig?
Clark: I thought the first Iraq war went pretty well. Also the second world war to liberate Europe from Naziism. Also the American civil war by the Unionists to ride the South of slavery.
Richard Robinson: the invasion of Uganda to get rid of Idi Amin was a good idea. Vietnam invading Pol Pot was a good example of how even a Communist regime (Vietnam) can be better than a really bad dictator (Pol Pot).
“Oh gawd, now he’s gone Alfred on us …” Not easy to reply to that sort of charge. Must have been the heat of the discussion, if there’s anything in it.
MJ: I did say that IF Venezuela departs too far from democracy (i.e. the right to dissent from the government, the deprivation of which wouldn’t be an ‘improvement’ for the people) then something might have to be done about it.
“I did say that IF Venezuela departs too far from democracy (i.e. the right to dissent from the government, the deprivation of which wouldn’t be an ‘improvement’ for the people) then something might have to be done about it”.
By whom? History shows all too well that the US is perfectly happy to overthrow democracies and replace them with dictatorships. I’m sure you can list a few of them. What’s democracy got to do with it?
MJ, absolutely.
Nomad, I think – as ingo has confirmed – he’ busy doing-up his new abode.
Dreoilin, when you say, “Back anon,” it raises the question as to whether ‘anon’ is standing for parliament(!)
You need to keep an eye on those trolls, btw. When I was young, I lived in a psychiatric hospital (no jibes now!) as my father worked there.
There was a place in the grounds – of this old Victorian asylum – where people made things and one of these buildings was called by the residents, ‘The Gnome Home’, as people made garden gnomes there.
It was filled to the gunnels with ceramic gnomes of all shapes, sizes and colours! It sounds like something out of a Syd Barrett song (or David Bowie’s firs single, ‘the Laughing Gnome’ or Al Stewart’s debut single, ‘The Elf’, etc. But ‘The Gnome Home’ was a fixture.
There was also a mynah bird which one of the gardeneres had taught to swear obscenely, something the bird seemed to enjoy doing whenever there were garden fetes replete with ministers’ wives.
Lyndon Johnson and Richrad Nixon did not bomb Vietnam and Cambodia ‘into the Stone Age’ in order to bring ‘democracy and freedom’ (any more than the USSR invaded Czechoslovakia to bring ‘brotherhood and blah-blah-blah’),and even if, by some perverted logic, they had, the outcome was precisely the opposite.
Vietnam’s intervention in Cambodia was a direct result of US actions in Indochina (as it used to be called). Idi Amin was a British stooge. Tanzanian intervention in Uganda was a direct result of UK policy in the region. Bosnia was a manfactured situation – for its own geo-strategic reasons, the West wanted to engineer (divide-and-rule) the break-up of Yugoslavia – and western European countries were playing double-games all over the Balkans.
No, in the context of this discussion, I’m afraid ‘democracy’ is a much-abused term used by capitalist imperial powers when they want to construct propaganda prior to destabilising/ invading/ utterly destroying a country. It is they who have debased a noble term and rendered people suspicious of anyone who actually wants to expand real democracy to people (or indeed, if people themselves want to exapnd it to themslves!). So in various ways, in the end, it is counterproductive and leads to less democracy.
It’s money, power, resources. Dominance. It’s the old ape-thing.
Abe Rene on Fallujah: “no-one intended to cause these injuries”
Good lord.
The Second Battle of Fallujah ?” code-names Operation Al-Fajr (Arabic, “the dawn”) and Operation Phantom Fury ?” was a joint U.S.-Iraqi -British offensive in November and December 2004. It was led by the U.S. Marine Corps against the Iraqi insurgency stronghold in the city of Fallujah and was authorized by the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Interim Government. The U.S. military called it “some of the heaviest urban combat U.S. Marines have been involved in since the Battle of Hue City in Vietnam in 1968.”[15]
US troops launched a major attack on Fallujah in March 2004 and then joined with British forces to storm the city in a much bigger offensive, Operation Phantom Fury, in November of the same year. On November 30, 2004, the UN’s Integrated Regional Information Network reported the aftermath:
“Approximately 70 percent of the houses and shops were destroyed in the city and those still standing are riddled with bullets.” (‘Fallujah still needs more supplies despite aid arrival,’ http://www.irinnews.org, November 30, 2004)
Dreoilin,
“No, Ireland doesn’t belong to NATO.”
Hm, yes, you’re right. So I guess the English landlords can return! Trouble is the landowning aristocracy no longer own the Government of the UK. And other than turning the peasants into tenants what reason would there be for anyone to invade Ireland? Peat? Irish Whiskey? The thing is invasions, even of small water-logged countries, involve costs that may exceed whatever might be gained.
On posse comitatus you seem to be out of touch. According to this article, at least:
http://www.homelandsecurity.org/journal/articles/trebilcock.htm
“The Posse Comitatus Act has traditionally been viewed as a major barrier to the use of U.S. military forces in planning for homeland defense.[1] In fact, many in uniform believe that the act precludes the use of U.S. military assets in domestic security operations in any but the most extraordinary situations. As is often the case, reality bears little resemblance to the myth for homeland defense planners. Through a gradual erosion of the act’s prohibitions over the past 20 years, posse comitatus today is more of a procedural formality than an actual impediment to the use of U.S. military forces in homeland defense. …”
And there is no doubt that NORAD, i.e., the USAF plus a few Canadian planes have responsibility for the defense of North American air space and under normal operating procedures should have intercepted the planes theat demolished the WTC towers and struck the Pentagon.
All this talk about escaping on motorbikes indeed! Me and the misses spent a long weekend escaping on our motorbike, and it appears there are about 1000 new posts that have appeared in our absence. A good, if somewhat demanding trip – murderous taxi drivers and British weather notwithstanding.
MJ: If Venezuela went Communist, it would be up to America to protect democracy by organising a coup, but more competently than in Chile or Iran. In those cases there was a failure to prevent fascism afterwards. The purpose of the coup would be to establish the sort of democracy that we see now in South America in Chile or Argentina, or Spain and Portugal.
technicolour: The insurgency was especially intense, necessitating heavy fighting in Fallujah. Therefore the terrorists were ultimately responsible for the destruction and loss of life. Without them, it would not have been necessary for US Marines to go there.
In fact, as Donovan Campbell explains in “Joker One” the US stopped fighting in Fallujah too soon, which made it possible for insurgents to move fighting to Ramadi.
Anno, said
“I use the term [Gonk] to denote the vanity of the West which is spiritually empty, yet considers itself to be the peak of humanity and intelligence. It is intended to be racist in the way that that Islamophobia is racist, not against a particular race or nation.”
As I inferred, Anno uses “Gonk” as a racial perjorative. Moreover, despite his claim to the contrary, he applies the term indiscriminately to all westerners, as in “Gonk alliance.”
This I continue to maintain should be totally unacceptable here, just as it would surely be unacceptable on the blog of, say, a former Communist Vietnamese diplomat to allow reference to the Vietnamese Communists as “Gooks.”
To tolerate reference to one’s own people by a racial pejorative is to abandon one’s nationality. If calling Britons Gonks, is acceptable to the British and their former ambassadors, then Britain and Britishness are essentially at an end. It means that Britain has become a nation of self-hating losers, with a future that is likely to be nasty, brutish and short.
Since Richard Robinson inanely equates my views with those of Abe Rene, perhaps Abe will kindly explain to me — so we can keep on the same wavelength — why the hell it would be “up to America [if Venezuela went Communist] to protect democracy by organising a coup?”
In particular, when exactly did the world invite the United States to police the world in accordance with the dictates of America’s largely insane ruling elite?
And why do you assume that the United States, with a smaller manufacturing base than China and only one fifth China’s population, is capable of policing the World even if it wanted to?
And is it not the case that the United States is destroying itself through imperial overstretch driven by lunatics like Zbigniev Bzrizzinskizzz whose only rationale for American World empire is the single sentence with which he begins his book “The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives”; namely: “Hegemony is as old as man”?
And is that it? Is that the sole justification there is for using white phosphorus on civilians in Fallujah, for supplying Israel white phosphorus shells to use on civilians in Gaza, for driving four million Iraqis from their homes, and countless other actions of extraordinary brutality?
And how is America supposed to maintain its position as global hegemon as the prosperity of the American people is destroyed by Wall Street swindlers shipping capital and technology abroad in pursuit of windfall profits, as America’s preeminence in science and engineering erodes as the result of the export of jobs to the slave plantations of Asia, and as the people of the west are so demoralized that they barely protest when referred to with racist contempt in terms just as pejorative as Gook or nigger?
And you think America should be prepared to launch more wars and instigate more coups and dirty civil wars?
“In those cases there was a failure to prevent fascism afterwards”.
That’s one way putting it I suppose. Another might be to say that they crushed an uncompliant democracy in order to install a compliant fascist dictatorship.
Heh! I thought this blog was about 911!
Abe, that is the Genghis Khan defence. Surrender, or we will obliterate you from history! What a wonderful democracy it must be that employs such strategies! Hail democracy! Hail freedom! Freedom is death and work makes free!
Alfred: I think I can answer all your questions in your post of 7pm today. It’s because Abe thinks Kristianity= Good, anything else = bad. So these godless communists (his term) are no good at all, and that’s what’s wrong with those societies. And muslims… well, the less said about them the better, obviously. And the likes of Haiti got what they pretty much deserved because of their dabbling in Voodoo back in the day. But the US – well, they’re kkkristians, so that makes what they say and do pretty much alright. God’s own work, in fact.
Glenn, Suhayl
It is all very well to mock American supremacism, exceptionalism, or religiosity, whether spelled with a C or a K, but whether we like it or not, we — Canada, Britain, Ireland, etc. — are imperialist side-kicks. If the American empire collapse things are likely to go very ill with us.
So I care as much for the success of American actions as for their rationale and I see little prospect for the success, in a technological age, for an empire with a hollowed out economy, and an educational system that caters seriously only to the children of the elite most of whom are more interested in financial engineering than quantum engineering.
So what I want to know is how America’s foreign policy can possibly serve the American people.
Also, Abe, to describe the Blair-Brown Govts as “socialist” is inaccurate. Whatever one’s views on socialism, they most certainly were not that. They were right-of-centre, hyper-managerialist adminstrations (ideologically much closer to Thatcherism than to the govts of Wilson/ Callaghan/ Atlee, which themselves were not fully socialist actually though they had socialists in them) which became addicted to imperialism.
A brand new site folks:
scientistsfor911truth.org/
Are you a scientist? Please register – we need you. Thanks
Posted by: Mark Golding – Children of Iraq at September 13, 2010 6:01 PM
Another brand new site.
actorsandartistsfor911truth.org/
I would like to thank the many members of the the 911 truth movement.
The movement has formed over the last ten years from people of all
ages, students, mothers, fathers, granddads
and more from many diverse backgrounds, different occupations and cultures.
The binding glue of all these people is a common belief that the
official explanation of 911 is at best erroneous, misleading and false,
at worse, misinformation, deceit and a fabrication to justify war.
It is the collective voice of this movement and the
independent actions of its proponents that will eventually expose the
full truth of 911 so that future generations are
able to better their world based on a knowledge that trust can
NEVER be taken for granted.
Thank-you
Mark Golding
Children of Iraq Association
LONDON
13th September 2010
Suhayl said:
“Abe [described]… the Blair-Brown Govts as “socialist” …. Whatever one’s views on socialism, they most certainly were not that. They were right-of-centre, hyper-managerialist adminstrations…”
Hyper-managerialist: sounds like Joe Stalin.
The thing is that the ends of the political spectrum are connected to form a circle, so that the hypermanagerialists of the right and the hypermanagerialist of the left tend to join hands, as in the case of Hitler and Stalin in the dismemberment of Poland. Afterwards they fought bitterly, but among true hypermanagerialists there is only room for one ruler of the world.
Hypermanagerial global hegemonism has now come to America, and with it the end of a limited constitution government. Whether you call it socialist (America just got universal health insurance whether folks wanted it or not) or right wing or fascist, what is evident is that liberty and human rights are fast disappearing both in Britain and America.
Dreiolin: “Ireland and Switzerland “exist” perfectly well, without much military to speak of. Of course, neither country gives weapons’ manufacturers a whole lot of business. Ireland’s main defense, IMO, is non-aggression.”
I argued that geographical location is something that Ireland benefits from now and was talking about how a massive war in Europe is far less likely today as would seem obvious from my comments:
“One of the things that Ireland clearly benefits from is its geographical location. Western European nations have finally learnt to live with each other after a few centuries of extraordinary bloodshed and Ireland sits right on the periphery where no country except possibly the US or the UK could possibly mount a successful invasion without having to go through other far stronger militaries that wouldn’t allow it.”
But your bringing up of World War Two actually bolsters my point rather than refutes it.
“Ireland and Swizerland both went through WWII without being invaded, although Germany was in control of France, and therefore only a few miles away. The only country that considered invading us was Britain, and that was because of the fear that Germany would invade us first and be sitting on Britain’s doorstep. In the event, neither happened.”
Well, Ireland may have remained neutral throughout World War Two and not been invaded but to suggest that its non-aggression is what saved it from being invaded we’d have to be able to explain why this didn’t prevent invasions of the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Norway and repeated invasions by the Soviet Union and Germany of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia (it also didn’t prevent Iceland from British invasion).
Belgium and Holland were invaded because their location provided access for the German military to outflank France’s Maginot Line. Their non-aggression was casually brushed aside. Denmark had a non-aggression pact with Germany but was invaded to allow Germany a strategic location for its invasion of Norway (which was also invaded by Britain) which itself was strategically located. The non-aggression of both nations counted for little in both cases.
“As for geographical location, take a look at Switzerland please.”
Oh yes, there it is. It’s slap-bang in the middle of the Alps. I bet that would be a fun country to invade.
“Then think about WWII again.”
Okay, I looked it up and saw that there were indeed invasion plans for Switzerland called Operation Tanenbaum. The Swiss government’s policy was to heavily militarize and create an impregnable fortress in the mountains. Its policy was to make any possible invasion so costly that it would be a deterrent in itself. Not only that, but Swiss fighter planes even shot down Luftwaffe planes that strayed into Swiss airspace.
According to Wikipedia:
“In the course of the war, detailed invasion plans were drawn up by the German military command, such as Operation Tannenbaum, but Switzerland was never attacked. Switzerland was able to remain independent through a combination of military deterrence, economic concessions to Germany, and good fortune as larger events during the war delayed an invasion… The Swiss press vigorously criticized the Third Reich, often infuriating its leadership. Under General Henri Guisan, a massive mobilization of militia forces was ordered. The Swiss military strategy was changed from one of static defense at the borders, to a strategy of organized long-term attrition and withdrawal to strong, well-stockpiled positions high in the Alps known as the Reduit. This controversial strategy was essentially one of deterrence. The idea was to make clear to the Third Reich that the cost of an invasion would be very high. During an invasion, the Swiss Army would cede control of the economic heartland and population centers, but retain control of crucial rail links and passes in the Reduit.”
In conclusion then, non-aggression was a feeble strategy against invasion. If Ireland had been located where Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Latvia, Lithuania or Estonia are located then in all likelihood it would have shared exactly the same fate as those countries which also attempted a policy of non-aggression. What saved Ireland from invasion (and Switzerland too, to some extent) was its geographical location. The Axis Powers had little interest in Ireland (except perhaps as a potential ally) as Hitler’s main war aims were in the East.
Dreoilin,
I again find myself agreeing with Angrysoba on this, sort of, but I find some unexpolred middle ground. Maybe it’s to do with language. We so often call our military forces ‘defence’, when in fact they are more often used offensively. It is sensible for a country to maintain its defences. Switzerland is a good example of this. Military service is compulsory, and the population are well armed! I think that regulations require all buildings to have nuclear shelters. This really is defence.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switzerland#Swiss_Armed_Forces
Non-aggression is not a deterrent, but aggression is very effective at making oneself a target. I also believe that major weapon manufacturing countries are likely to have effective lobbyists only too keen to see more war.
This is interesting, from Professor David Miller: Spinwatch under attack.
What concerns certain individuals so much? Are they afraid that any form of association with, or naming on, such whistleblowing websites may damage their career potential? Or do they have something to hide? Or is it a bit of both: Elites like to shroud the specific dealings and dynamics which maintain their position as an elite.
http://www.spinwatch.org/blogs-mainmenu-29/david-miller-unspun-mainmenu-31/5381-guardian-comment-piece-on-spinprofiles-removal-from-the-internet
Alfred: First, I forgot to say what an excellent post that was of yours at 7:00pm. Second, if I may, it looks like you didn’t quite appreciate that my reply to it was not a general mocking of American superiority, rather it was a summation of some of the views pertinent to your post expressed by your correspondent Abe on a number of posts in recent weeks. Every point mentioned by me was a point that had been independently raised by Abe in either this thread or one very recently.
I just had a look around the net to find out anything more about Ataturk’s alleged freemasonry and discovered that he was in fact a gay, Jewish Freemason. One site called AtaJew.com says he wasn’t just GAY but REALLY gay. And Jewish.
Sounds like Kompromat to me.
It’s just strange that, with all these claims out there placing the blame on 911 on the U.S. government and/or the Jews, the 911 Truth Movement is failing miserably. Who can tell me why that’s true?
angrysoba – “I just had a look around the net to find out anything more about Ataturk’s alleged freemasonry and discovered that he was in fact a gay, Jewish Freemason”
*laughter* It’s like I said before; there’s an infinite number of monkeys out there, and lots of them have got a script they’d like to discuss. So what are the chances it’s Hamlet ?
“but to suggest that its non-aggression is what saved it from being invaded, yada yada yada …”–Angry
My (casual) reference to non-aggression was related to the *present*. I didn’t mention it as a “strategy against invasion” in WWII. Typical convolutions from you.
Re geographical location: in WWII we were technically neutral, but the West Coast of Ireland was marked out with secret location numbers to guide American planes (as requested by the US Ambassador to London) and the British had the use of an air corridor across Donegal (from their territory in Northern Ireland) to the Atlantic. So, rather than keeping us safe from invasion, our location was in fact useful to the Allies (and with the full cooperation of the Irish Government.) Meanwhile, crash-landing German pilots, and spies, were interned, while British and/or American military who ended up here were repatriated. Daily reports from a watch on the Atlantic went to Dublin and from there to London. None of this, obviously, was a “strategy against invasion”.
“The Axis Powers had little interest in Ireland (except perhaps as a potential ally)”
That’s funny, that is. Given what I explained above.
Ireland and Switzerland weren’t invaded, period — as you have agreed. But you took a damn long route to agreeing with me.
“And other than turning the peasants into tenants what reason would there be for anyone to invade Ireland? Peat? Irish Whiskey? The thing is invasions, even of small water-logged countries …”–Alfred
How quickly you slide down the chute into juvenile slagging when you turn out to be wrong about NATO, Alfred. (Maybe all you could see when lying under that bush in the 60s was bog and whiskey?)
Re the Posse Comitatus Act, first you said, “The state relies on the police or military to exert such force as is required” (in law enforcement). Now when I cite Posse Comitatus, you post a link talking about how it has been ‘eroded’. But the intent of the Act remains the same. Quoting from your link: “it remains a deterrent to prevent the unauthorized deployment of troops at the local level in response to what is purely a civilian law enforcement matter.”
(Looks like you have a hard time admitting when you’re wrong. So do I, sometimes.)
Maybe both of you would stick to the point in future and stop dancing around a bloody Maypole … It’s tedious and boring.
Suhayl,
I LOL’d at your “Back anon” interpretation. I’ll think of it in future.
“My (casual) reference to non-aggression was related to the *present*. I didn’t mention it as a “strategy against invasion” in WWII. Typical convolutions from you.”
*I* was also talking about the present. It was *you* who brought up World War Two!
“Ireland and Switzerland weren’t invaded, period — as you have agreed. But you took a damn long route to agreeing with me.”
The issue was not whether or not Ireland and Switzerland were invaded. Of course they weren’t. The issue was WHY they weren’t invaded. Anyone sensible reading this thread would know that YOU were arguing that Ireland and Switzerland were not invaded for the same reason, because of their policy of non-aggression. I am saying that is wrong.
My opinion is this: Ireland was of very limited strategic value for the Germans and it wasn’t a high priority in Germany’s war aims which were mostly in the East. Ireland probably wouldn’t have been invaded under any circumstances except in conjunction with Operation Sea Lion which was never executed so Ireland’s policy of non-aggression is wholly irrelevant in this case the *you* raised.
Switzerland was of greater strategic importance but because of the highly militarised mountain redoubt that the Swiss created any attempt at invasion would have been very costly to the Germans and potentially disastrous. This coupled with Germany’s larger war aims elsewhere is what prevented Switzerland from being attacked.
Policies of non-aggression/neutrality/declarations of non-combatancy/non-belligerency were attempted by several European states such as the aforementioned Holland, Belgium, Norway, Denmark, the Baltic states and others were completely diregarded by Germany. Those states were invaded largely due to their strategic significance.
“Maybe both of you would stick to the point in future and stop dancing around a bloody Maypole … It’s tedious and boring.”
I’m sticking very closely to the point as anyone who cares to read our exchange can see.
Dreoilin,
Did you have a bad day at the office? You seem both out of humor and confused.
If you had read the first half dozen words of my last post you would have seen that I acknowledged directly and explicitly that I was in error in stating that Ireland is a member of Nato. Let me say that again: I was in error in stating that Ireland is a member of Nato.
But Ireland’s non-membership of Nato does not negate the fact that a country that is a member of the World’s largest military alliance is less likely than otherwise to be invaded. However, as Angrysoba correctly points out, security from invasion depends on many circumstances. In particular, during WWII Ireland was not invaded by the Axis because the Axis had no means to do so, and it was not invaded by the Allies because, as you yourself state, it collaborated with the Allies — and had it not done so, Churchill would have had no compunction in occupying Irish territory as military necessity demanded.
My point about peat and whiskey was not merely in jest. Aside from strategic considerations such as during those of the Allies during WWII, there is little reason for anyone to invade Ireland, although if someone figures out how to convert peat to oil, watch out.
I am no expert on posse comitatus, but there is no question that if appropriate procedures are followed, US Federal forces and National Guard units are available for law enforcement within the United States. But obviously if the United States is under attack, as on 9/11 (your example), posse comitatus is irrelevant. So on that, you seem to have been wrong.
Glenn said:
“Alfred: First, I forgot to say what an excellent post that was of yours at 7:00pm.”
Serious mistake, that. !
But yes, I see your point, I think.
Americans do what they do because they are, well to put it simply, God’s chosen people. They need no other justification than that.
Poor things. They are fed such a diet of bollocks by Hollywood, Fox News and the institutions of higher education that can be, and are, led by the nose wherever Wall Street and the military industrial complex wants them to go.
But I should get a bike and go for a long ride.