Libya - The US vs China Agenda

(Paraphrased from Paul Craig Roberts' comment on the Zerohedge website. With thanks and credit to Paul.)

In the 1930s the US, Great Britain, and the Netherlands set a course for World War II in the Pacific by seizing Japan’s bank accounts in their countries that Japan used to pay for imports and cut Japan off from oil, rubber, tin, iron and other vital materials. Was Pearl Harbour Japan’s response?

Now Washington and its NATO puppets are employing the same strategy against China.

Protests in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, and Yemen arose from the people protesting against Washington’s tyrannical puppet governments. However, the protests against Gaddafi, who is not a Western puppet, appear to have been organized by the CIA in the eastern part of Libya where the oil is, and where China has substantial energy investments.

Eighty percent of Libya’s oil reserves are believed to be in the Sirte Basin in eastern Libya, now controlled by rebels supported by Washington. As seventy percent of Libya’s GDP is produced by oil, a successful partitioning of Libya would leave Gaddafi’s Tripoli-based regime impoverished. http://www.energyinsights.net

The People’s Daily Online (March 23) reported that China has 50 large-scale projects in Libya. The outbreak of hostilities has halted these projects and resulted in 30,000 Chinese workers being evacuated from Libya. Chinese companies report that they expect to lose hundreds of millions of yuan.

China is relying on Africa, principally Libya, Angola, and Nigeria, for future energy needs. In response to China’s economic engagement with Africa, Washington is engaging the continent military with the US African Command (AFRICOM) created by President George W. Bush in 2007. Forty-nine African countries agreed to participate with Washington in AFRICOM, but Gaddafi refused, thus creating a second reason for Washington to target Libya for takeover.

A third reason for targeting Libya is that Libya and Syria are the only two countries with Mediterranean sea coasts that are not under the control or influence of Washington. Suggestively, protests also have broken out in Syria. Whatever Syrians might think of their government, after watching Iraq’s fate and now Libya’s, it is unlikely that Syrians would set themselves up for US military intervention. Both the CIA and Mossad are known to use social networking sites to foment protests and to spread disinformation. These intelligence services are the likely conspirators that the Syrian and Libyan governments blame for the protests.

Caught off guard by protests in Tunisia and Egypt, Washington realized that protests could be used to remove Gaddafi and Assad. The humanitarian excuse for intervening in Libya is not credible considering Washington’s go-ahead to the Saudi military to crush the protests in Bahrain, the home base for the US Fifth Fleet.

If Washington succeeds in overthrowing the Assad government in Syria, Russia would lose its Mediterranean naval base at the Syrian port of Tartus. Thus, Washington has much to gain if it can use the cloak of popular rebellion to eject both China and Russia from the Mediterranean. Rome’s mare nostrum (“our sea”) would become Washington’s mare nostrum.

“Gaddafi must go,” declared Obama. How long before we also hear, “Assad must go?”

The American captive press is at work demonizing both Gaddafi and Assad, an eye doctor who returned to Syria from London to head the government after his father’s death.

The hypocrisy passes unremarked when Obama calls Gaddafi and Assad dictators. Since the beginning of the 21st century, the American president has been a Caesar. Based on nothing more than a Justice Department memo, George W. Bush was declared to be above US statutory law, international law, and the power of Congress as long as he was acting in his role as commander-in-chief in the “war on terror.”

Caesar Obama has done Bush one step better. Caesar Obama has taken the US to war against Libya without even the pretense of asking Congress for authorization. This is an impeachable offense, but an impotent Congress is unable to protect its power. By accepting the claims of executive authority, Congress has acquiesced to Caesarism. The American people have no more control over their government than do people in countries ruled by dictators.

Washington’s quest for world hegemony is driving the world toward World War III. China is no less proud than was Japan in the 1930s and is unlikely to submit to being bullied and governed by what China regards as the decadent West. Russia’s resentment to its military encirclement is rising. Washington’s hubris can lead to fatal miscalculation.

UK Election Campaign - Government ups "terror level"

"Terrorist attack is highly likely" claim marks start of UK election campaign.

Yup, it's election time again - and just like clockwork the security services have raised the terror alert to make sure everyone is suitably frightened. Also, BAE Systems (you know - the ones who took all those Saudi bribes which we're not allowed to investigate because of national security?) have landed a big contract to spy on the British population in their back gardens using remote surveillance drones, so there's plenty of reason to ramp up the fearmongering there too.

Imagine - 9 years and Osama Bin Laden apparently still alive. Isn't it good the government is spending our taxes on spying on us? Maybe he's hiding in someone's garden shed in Surbiton?

Yemen: A Front Too Far?

This is a very interesting development. For some time Saudi Arabia has been involved in the Yemeni civil war, fighting on the side of the Yemeni government against the "insurgents". For the past year or so, the US has been covertly involved in Yemen on the Saudi side (in its usual role as global mercenary), undertaking "cadre" operations to train up the counter-insurgency teams there.

An interesting coincidence, then, that the Detroit wannabe turrist bomber is now being linked with Yemen, despite being Nigerian. A bit like the 9/11 guys were linked with Iraq despite being Saudi Arabian - but we digress. And now, President Obama is making it very clear that he's going to be embroiling the US very overtly indeed in Yemen in the coming months, despite the US being already committed to two other wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

So who's pulling whose strings? Manuscripts Don't Burn would subtly suggest that the Saudi royal family have enormous influence in US government circles, as we know from 9/11 and its aftermath, plus their buddy-buddy relationship with the Bush dynasty. Perhaps the Saudis aren't having as easy a time of it in Yemen as they'd've liked, and are calling in US favours?

One thing's for sure: 2010 is going to be a watershed. Global trends analysts are already raising warning flags that anti-Americanism and anti-NATOism are at their peak since 9/11, and that we've pissed off so many people in the Muslim world that a major terror event is very likely on the cards. In such an event, the global economy simply isn't strong enough to withstand the shock; the gold spike and subsequent dollar crisis would likely cause the whole house of cards to collapse.

Is that what's forcing America's hand? Fighting a war on three fronts just sounds historically stupid - but maybe it's the lesser of two evils? Given that Israel absolutely seems to be itching to bomb the hell out of Iran, and Iran has already said it will strike back, Manuscripts Don't Burn is probably quietly grateful that the CIA "regime change" ops currently engineering the so-called Green Revolution in Iran appears to be bearing fruit.

Manuscripts Don't Burn is a history fan. Of reading history, that is. And we don't mind saying, the current situation looks grim, grimmer than it has since WW2. The international tensions are at breaking point, and the US seems to be thrashing around wildly in its attempts to secure energy resources into the next decade, and not giving a damn who pays the price. At the moment the global economy is a global fake, and it's only our complicit media that's papering over the cracks. But the strain is starting to show; dollar collapse, bond strikes, and preemptive wars seem the order of the day for the next 12 months.

Looking back at our predictions for 2009, we made one major mistake: we failed to reckon with how much future agony our governments would commit us to in order to stave off pain today. When faced with the need for painful restructuring, our governments continued to borrow (print) money, plunging us (the taxpayers) into intolerable debt for the next generation, if not more. The depth of the irresponsibility has been breathtaking, exceeded only by the willing blindness of the gullible proles swallowing the party line and refusing to see the reality of where we're headed.

So - what's it to be? Chaotic collapse? Preemptive war? Global default (probably starting with the US and UK)? Trade wars? As usual, impossible to say. But one thing seems clear: 2010 will be the year of the Black Swan, the unpredictable straw that breaks the camel's back. This time next year, the Second Great Depression will be truly underway, and people may even be permitted to speak its name in public. After that, it's only a matter of time before gold repatriation kicks in again, commodity prices continue to deflate, and currency inflation reduces people's buying power to Depression levels.

It's not looking like a good year...

The Pakistan Gambit (6): Pakistani Govt defies US

Things are moving quickly in Pakistan. Yesterday, the Guardian reported, the Pakistani parliament overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling for dialogue with extremist groups and an end to military action.

The US is unlikely to take this sitting down. There have already been a dozen US missile strikes inside Pakistan since September, and a ground assault, fuelling anti-US sentiment. But the US is clear on what it expects the Pakistani strategy to be. "Pakistan needs to and is attacking insurgents in its northern areas," said Patrick Moon, a deputy US assistant secretary of state. "Sanctuaries for Afghanistan Taliban in Pakistan complicate our security operations. Pakistani Taliban and other extremists such as al-Qaida are posing a threat to the stability of Pakistan."

But where do these Pakistani Taliban come from? Well, under a treaty with the tribes of northern Pakistan, the Pakistan army was not originally allowed to enter the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (a legacy of the British Raj). However - and note the savage irony - this accord broke down in 2004 under US pressure calling for al-Qaida bases to be disrupted. It sparked a tribal insurrection and pushed the locals towards extremism, creating a Pakistani Taliban.

The "Pakistani Taliban and other extremists" which the US is demanding the Pakistani government attacks are a direct result of US policy in Pakistan.

Manuscripts Don't Burn awaits the US response with interest. We would expect some major terrorist atrocity inside Pakistan, or perhaps even an attempt on the government. A military coup looks ever more likely.

The Pakistan Gambit (5): Who Pays the Piper...

Manuscripts Don't Burn is noting with interest the continued development of the Neocon strategic agenda in the Middle East / Iran / Pakistan / Central Asian region, as Pakistan is now brought to its knees due to financial aid to the country having been stalled since June. Last week President Zardari travelled to China, having expressed reluctance to seek US financial aid due to the political strings attached - following recent US incursions into Pakistani territory, including bombing of civilians, schools, etc, on the border, overt pro-Americanism is a political no-no. China clearly said "no" (now why would they do that?), and now Zardari finds himself having to eat his words and go cap-in-hand to the IMF asking for his very own bail-out.

And the cost of all this? An estimated $6bn - cheap given the recent $700bn bank bail-out. And, in return, the US would be able to impose "conditions" rather unpleasant to the democratically elected Zardari.

Manuscripts Don't Burn would playfully like to offer the following scenario: the IMF approach, whether successful or not, will trigger further huge political instability in Pakistan, with, in all likelihood, Zardari shortly falling from power, to be replaced by a far more compliant pro-US non-elected military governorship. With UN oversight, of course, and a nice big fat "peacekeeping force" to make sure everything goes according to plan. Unless, of course, Mr Zardari is willing to play ball, and assume the position...

Or, well, maybe we just have to invade Pakiranistan after all...

The Pakistan Gambit (4): Do As You Are Told

CUI BONO?

Get a map. Look at all the countries surrounding Iran, and think of the best way of geographically isolating a country which you can't - yet - invade. You need: Iraq, Georgia, Afghanistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan... and Pakistan. Dominos, falling, year by year.

As we reported, by this time last year the USA was operating forces covertly within Pakistan despite protests by the Pakistani army. Increased instability within national borders, resulting in unrest, factionalization - the usual destabilization tactics.

Last Friday / Saturday, after 12 months of political turmoil, the new Pakistani government issued a clear statement that infringements on their sovereignty by "foreign powers" (guess who?) were unacceptable.

Hours later, a "bomb" destroys the hotel where a secret meeting of the Pakistani government was due to happen, but fortunately changed at the last minute. Message: TOE THE LINE. WE CAN GET YOU ANYTIME.

Yesterday, the Pakistani army start firing on US troops unilaterally and illegally crossing their borders.

Draw your own conclusions. Here at Manuscripts Don't Burn, we're comparing and contrasting every other CIA covert ops destabilization campaign since the war.

Regime change, anyone?

Oh, no, hang on, it's the TERRORISTS. Riiiiiight... Always is, bub. We're the good guys, remember, whoever we kill.

Olympic blackmail brings China into line

The Daily Telegraph reported this morning that China has revealed to the UN details of Iran's "secret nuclear program". How wonderfully decent of them, we are told, that they've shown sense and kicked these Mad Mullahs in the nuts as they so rightly deserve. Hurrah!

Naturally we are not given the opportunity to comment on this piece of "news". So, just for fun, Manuscripts Don't Burn would like to present an "alternative" interpretation of this shock cooperation by the nefarious... we mean cuddly... or is it nefarious... damn... Chinese... Remember folks - we're at war with Eastasia, we've always been at war with Eastasia...

Dick Cheney has a matter of months left in office, and the eastern Med and Red Sea are teeming with a recently much-bolstered US naval presence (presumably to ensure fishing and sunbathing expeditions continue unmolested...). He's declared openly that Iran is in his sights, but the military disagree, and have started resigning. Even the intelligent reports don't help Deadeye Dick in his mission to "Save Tha Werld...", so we need something a little more weighty. Something that will stick in the UN. But Russia and China won't play ball - Dick, mate, you can't just go blowing shit up cos you want to. It's where we get our oil...

Then, quite out of the blue, riots break out in Tibet. China blames the Dalai Lama and friends for stirring things up. Surely not that nice man in the orange dress and glasses who's always smiling? Suddenly, the west is talking about boycotting the Olympics, which China has been pouring dosh into and spinning into the biggest propaganda event of the century. At last - a lever which might just budge those Intractable Chinese.

Suddenly the Chinese turn up with all this evidence that the Iranians are bomb-crazed loons hell-bent on bombing us all back into the stone age (hang on... sorry, I think that's someone else...). The crime? Iran has "obtained information on how to manufacture nuclear-armed weapons". What - you mean they Googled it? Get away! That's just unfair! Of course, we in the West are too afraid to Google it anymore, lest we get spirited away for a few years' holiday in Guantanamo, but those Evil Mullahs just don't care - they LIKE orange jumpsuits, for Chrissakes! They Google everything - they just refuse to be censored like good God-fearin' patriots.

Well, more fool them. Googling shit is a crime, now, punishable by Nuclear Destruction by Deadeye Dick. Watch this space as the hysterical media machine ratchet up the pressure for the Iranian gambit. Dick *could* leave it for his idiot-grinning corporate successor to follow up, but our suspicion is that he wants to press the buttons himself. Manuscripts Don't Burn puts its money on an attack before year-end.

The Pakistan Gambit (3): US Predator Drones active inside Pakistan

The Guardian reported this morning "suspected" missile attacks by US predator drones in Wana, South Waziristan. As many as seven separate missiles are reported hitting two houses in the town, killing at least 20 people, including "several" Al-Qaeda militants - indicating mostly civilian casualties. The attacks are reported to have been preceded by the characteristic buzzing sound of the unmanned US drones, although both the US and Pakistani governments retain a policy of not recognising the politically inflammatory unmanned drone attacks.

Manuscripts Don't Burn would just like to note this event in passing as confirmation of our earlier comment (see December's entries) that the US military was about to enter Pakistan and engage militarily, despite American denials and the vociferous outrage of the Pakistani army to the contrary. Interestingly, the Guardian report mentions an unusual admission by the Saudi government - remembering of course that Bin Laden is a Saudi and most of the 9/11 pilots were Saudis - that at least 3 of its nationals had been deported from Pakistan for being there "in an illegal capacity" - doubtless Al-Qaeda members there. Saudi Arabia continues to be the primary source of so-called Al-Qaeda agitation, and yet has never been held to account - doubtless because of the royal families very close ties with the Bush family and its enormous financial holdings within the USA (this being the country which beheads rape victims, remember, and with whom Jack Straw declared we share so many common values...).

The US continues to intervene militarily in its gradual geopolitical game of Middle Eastern oil hegemony (in which we count Pakistan as a key player in connecting with Afghanistan and helping in the encirclement and isolation of Iran). Now, thanks to its interference, Pakistan is a no-go area for westerners. Well done, men. Next we will doubtless see the case being made for a more robust presence in Pakistan in order to make it safe for foreigners...

Blatant Graft Brings the West to the brink of Economic Collapse

Sometimes, when reading the papers, it's easy to get the impression that all this economic chaos and impending suffering and hardship is some Act of God. The way the papers paint it, it's as much a surprise to the Powers That Be as to the rest of us. Heavens to Betsy, they say, how could things have come to this? It was all going so well - none of us saw this coming...

Go to hell. The coming wipeout of our decent standards of living and social freedoms is horribly deliberate, and the result of a policy more than a generation old to reverse the social and economic levelling which followed WW2 and replace it with a blatant unfairness and pseudo-feudalism reminiscent of the late 19th century - before We the Proles got organised and demanded our share of the cake.

Whilst the supine press continue to hem and haw and wonder how things could have gone so terribly wrong, Manuscripts Don't Burn would like to express its anger and disgust, and enumerate some facts which may help shed light on events unfolding in the US and which will ultimately impact the freedoms and standard of living of all of us in the West, and indeed beyond. Not only is what is currently being called "the sub-prime crisis" a deliberate product of US government policy, it is merely the latest episode in the tightening of the noose of the New World Order, and the US government itself (in the person of The Dear Leader, BushCo) is managing the shenanigans in a way which - to those of us of purer mind - appears deeply criminal. Bearing in mind that this is merely the latest episode, Manuscripts Don't Burn would like to observe:

1. In an unprecedented use of the legal power of "federal pre-emption," BushCo recently ordered the individual states of the US to NOT enforce their consumer protection laws, thus allowing banks to practice "fraudulent conveyance" or "predatory lending" as it's defined under US law. In other words, BushCo didn't just turn a blind eye to what the banks were up to, they actively enabled the whole sub-prime bullshit that led to this bail-out.

2. Eliot Spitzer - the "bane of Wall Street" - was in Washington in February to launch a campaign to take on and investigate the financial alchemy of the Bush regime, and some of the biggest financial powers on the planet.

On the night of February 13 when Spitzer made the stupid choice to order some saucy take-out in his Washington Hotel room, he had just finished signing these words for the Washington Post about predatory loans:

"Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye."

Spitzer said in the headline, that Bush was the "Predator Lenders' Partner in Crime." The President, said Spitzer, was a fugitive from justice.

3. Last Wednesday, the 12th March, Carlyle Capital went bankrupt. Carlyle Capital is an offshore subsidiary of the Carlyle Group, who have some powerful friends: James Baker, Senior Counsel; notable partners, former and past: George Bush, the Bin Laden family, John Major and more dictators, pirates and presidents than you've had hot dinners. The Federal Bank acted swiftly and Bernanke dumped $200 billion on the poor little suffering bankers. They got the public treasure, and got to keep all those houses too. As a result, every mortgage sharking operation shot up in value on Wall Street.

The very same day the bail-out was decided - what a coincidence! - the man called "The Sheriff of Wall Street" was cuffed, and Eliot Spitzer was silenced.

4. Senator David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana, paid Washington DC prostitutes to put him in diapers, yet the Senator was not exposed by the US prosecutors busting the pimp-ring that pampered him. Naming and shaming and ruining Spitzer - rarely done in these cases - was made at the "discretion" of Bush's Justice Department.

So, BushCo creates financial turmoil, breaking the law yet again. It gets away with it - yet again - and yet again simultaneously enriches all their friends in the ruling class. Meanwhile, the poor move into their cars.

Is it us, or is anyone else seeing a pattern here?

Saudi Prince threatened "another 7/7" over BAe Investigation

The Guardian yesterday reported something which to many of us has been obvious for some time - that the Saudis have had a lot more to do with events such as 911 and 7/7 than our cringing media have dared say. Court documents released yesterday have revealed that during the official British investigation into the BAe / Saudi bribing scandal in 2004-2006, Saudi Arabia's rulers threatened to make it easier for terrorists to attack London unless corruption investigations into their arms deals were halted.

Previously secret files describe how investigators were told they faced "another 7/7" and the loss of "British lives on British streets" if they pressed on with their inquiries and the Saudis carried out their threat to cut off intelligence.

Prince Bandar, the head of the Saudi national security council, and son of the crown prince, was alleged in court to be the man behind the threats to hold back information about suicide bombers and terrorists. He faces accusations that he himself took more than £1bn in secret payments from the arms company BAE.

He was accused in yesterday's high court hearings of flying to London in December 2006 and uttering threats which made the prime minister, Tony Blair, force an end to the Serious Fraud Office investigation into bribery allegations involving Bandar and his family.

The threats halted the fraud inquiry, but triggered an international outcry, with allegations that Britain had broken international anti-bribery treaties.

Lord Justice Moses, hearing the civil case with Mr Justice Sullivan, said the government appeared to have "rolled over" after the threats. He said one possible view was that it was "just as if a gun had been held to the head" of the government.

Manuscripts Don't Burn notes for the moment that this revelation is receiving little attention in our Supine Corporate Media - including a grovelling article on the BBC site which would be funny if it weren't so serious, suggesting that it was the BAe inquiry posing the danger to lives rather than the Saudi threats - understandable given that woman-beheading Saudi Arabia is an enormous investor in BushCo and a country with which we share "so many common virtues", in the NuLabour government's words. Consequently we would like to present this information here - for posterity's sake.

Deconstructing the War on Terror

AnthropoidApe, a fellow contributor to the Guardian's Comment Is Free pages, today offered a deconstruction of the BushCo term "War on Terror" which sums up perfectly the geopolitical game today. We at Manuscripts Don't Burn cannot better AnthropoidApe's word-perfect commentary, and so, with great thanks to him, we would like to present it here for amusement, and also for posterity:

"Plenty of people have pointed out that the term "War on Terror" is incoherent (because you can't make war on a tactic) and oxymoronic (because war IS terror).

The term is Orwellian because it is chosen by powerful criminals to dress up their crimes as virtue.

Nevertheless, the term bears analysis. It's not a stupid or trivial throw-away line. The term "War on Terror" is a core slogan for the US regime and despite some effort they have never been able to replace it with anything better. It remains a key term in the neocon lexicon because it attempts to redefine "war" in a neocon way.

The "War on Terror" purports to fight a tactic instead of a concrete opponent because it is not really a war. The "War on Terror" has no realistic, achievable war aims. There is no prospect of it ending in victory, and even the conditions of such a victory are not concretely specified. It is predicted and intended to go on and on and on... for the foreseeable future.

In short, the "War on Terror" is not a war but a political regime. It is the military dictatorship of the Commander-in-Chief of the United States over his country and the world. The "War on Terror" is another name for the "Pax Americana" - because War is Peace - and you are either for it or against it.

The "War on Terror" regime is organised as a full dictatorship despite the survival of republican institutions in the USA and of world institutions like the United Nations. "War on Terror" ideology subordinates those institutions to the will of the Decider, just like the political institutions of the Roman Republic, shells of which lived on under the emperors. The Bush dynasty autocrat George the Second in his glory and majesty gives orders to the US people, to the UN Security Council and to other sovereign states, with no trace of embarrassment. In his own thinking he is king of the world.

As part of the "War on Terror", the dictator abrogates any laws or human rights whatever with impunity. That principle is what passes for the legal basis of the regime and its application is exemplified by detention without trial, by official kidnappings, torture and disappearances and by the genocidal imperialist conquest of Iraq.

The Cheney-Bush gang want to call their regime a "war" because they need political and legal cover for their spree of crime and violence. The notions of "war" and "wartime" sustain the domestic climate of fear and chauvinism that they strive after.

On the other hand, they want none of those trappings of the "old" concept of war in which both sides are belligerents of equal standing. No, any violent resistance to their ("anti-terror") violence must be illegitimate.

Employing the legal category of "prisoner of war" and respecting the international laws of war centred on the Geneva Conventions would cramp the imperial style. Instead those laws are flouted and we are provided with a new conceptual apparatus and a new euphemistic terminology: "unlawful combatant" (=POW), "enhanced interrogation techniques" including "sleep management" (=torture), "extraordinary rendition" (=kidnapping and deportation to torture), "ghost detainee" (=disappeared person), "black site" (=secret prison) etc. The asymmetrical term "War on Terror" fits right in because it recognises the US (with a retinue of vassal allies) as the sole legitimate belligerent and constructs all the Empire's armed opponents as criminal "terrorists" rather than warriors.

In short the "War on Terror" is called a war simply to licence large-scale aggressive violence and international diktat by the US regime.

In the non-rhotic NZ dialect, "War on Terror" sounds just the same as "War on Terra" and a friend of mine always writes it that way. It's apt: the only way to construe the "War on Terror" regime as a real war is to see it as a world wide, long term and often violent conflict over whether the US empire will by divine right rule and pillage our planet forever or whether other nations will also be independent and sovereign. In other words, a war of the US neocons against all the peoples of Terra.

I'm backing Terra to win."

- AnthropoidApe on the Guardian website, 30th January 2008

The Pakistan Gambit (3): Pakistani Army Says No To US Troops

Seemingly oblivious to its own overweening arrogance, the Bush administration's senior national security advisors are debating whether or not to expand CIA and US military activities to conduct "far more aggressive covert operations" in the tribal areas of Pakistan, reported the New York Times last Saturday.

The Pakistani Army wasted no time at all in reacting angrily to this complete invasion of sovereignity. "It is not up to the US administration, it is Pakistan's government who is responsible for this country," chief military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad told AFP yesterday, as reported on the Yahoo website.

Manuscripts Don't Burn is under no illusions as to why this story broke on Saturday. As we said last month, the focus - for the time being at least - of the NWO's bogus "War on Turr" has switched to Pakistan, doubtless due to self-evident Russian and Chinese warnings that Iran for now is a no-go area for BushCo's bullying. However, Pakistan clearly is not - and it certainly isn't able to stand up for itself against the might of the USA. Again as we mentioned last month, Pakistan remains highly strategic for the oil grab currently underway by the folks at the Project for the New American Century, and is on its list of "Countries to Invade"; likewise occupation of Pakistan by American forces provides a neat encirclement of Iran, increasingly isolating that country which stubbornly refuses to implode in the face of US aggression.

Either way, Manuscripts Don't Burn would like to note the breathtaking arrogance of the Bush administration - including the delightful Mr Cheney - openly discussing options for military activities within Pakistan's internationally recognised borders, without actually informing its head of state. Musharraf, like the rest of us, doubtless learned it from the New York Times.

A clearer attempt to drive a wedge between the Pakistan's President and its army we have never seen. Divide and rule, as ever, is the name of the game, and Musharraf must be made to realise who he relies upon for his job.

Ron Paul - The Man Who Won't Go Away

Well, Manuscripts Don't Burn has had to ferret around in the bowels of the online media to turn up any mention of the Presidential candidate who polled 10% of Iowa yesterday, over twice that of Rudy Giuliani. Mention of Ron Paul is being quietly downplayed.

We've decided to showcase Larry King's interview of Ron Paul, which was controversial and contentious, and made Paul look rather good, was never broadcast but relegated to a "web exclusive" in a direct-to-video moment. Manuscripts Don't Burn didn't realise the "equal airtime" law could be circumvented in this way: apparently filming a candidate and then posting a link in some godforsaken corner of the internet satisfies the requirement that you're treating a candidate in the same way as one you give prime billing on your televised news spots. That's news to us - who on earth to they think they're kidding?

You can watch the Larry King interview here - it's worth it just to hear Paul say loud and clear that he believes America's interventionist meddling throughout the world and its endless corporate wars are a complete disaster - and remember that 10% of the vote went to him.

Manuscripts Don't Burn likewise notes as interesting the fact that Fox have now started to discuss whether they should be covering him. A rather late night section from Fox questioning why they've been ignoring him so far is here.

Now, Manuscripts Don't Burn doesn't agree with Ron Paul's politics at all. But, he appears to be taking the corporate feudalists on head on, which gains him kudos in our book. In any case, in the interests of what remains of our tattered democracy, he surely needs a little more than blatant attempts at patronising belittlement by the media...

The Pakistan Gambit (2): US Troops Going In Already!

Oops... looks like the timescales are shorter than we initially thought! The Washington Post has announced today that US troops are to be deployed in Pakistan early in the New Year "as part of an effort to train and support indigenous counter-insurgency forces and clandestine counterterrorism units", according to US defense officials. Haw-haw-haw. Sure they are, George...

Interestingly, the Blogosphere is filled with punters who, just like Manuscripts Don't Burn, are not buying the official line on this. Looks like you're gonna have to try harder this time, George...

Cool. Manuscripts Don't Burn is bowled over with the bare-faced brazenness of these folks - the body is barely cold, and already the troops are tooling up.

We'll keep you posted - it looks like this one is going to unfurl quickly. Should be "fun".

The Pakistan Gambit: A Classic Pincer Movement

Manuscripts Don't Burn has been watching Pakistan with interest over the past month or two. The invasion of Iran, which has been on and off constantly for at least two years now, took a body blow earlier in the month with the publication of the National Intelligence Estimate which stated Iran was currently not pursuing nuclear weapons.

Naturally geopolitics doesn't grind to a halt when a strategic problem crops up - it simply seeks to accomplish its goals via a different path. Hence the massive destabilisation of Pakistan over the past half year.

Given that this is all about oil, Pakistan forms a key link in the oil supply chain from Afghanistan and the Caspian Basin. Also, now that an Iranian invasion is off the cards for the time being, it has become vital to isolate Iran as much as possible, and surround it with American troops. Gaining control of Pakistan was always on the cards for the Project for the New American Century , but things have definitely been brought forwards very rapidly with the NIE and the necessary retreat from Iran.

Manuscripts Don't Burn notes that Musharraf himself successfully instituted a state of emergency in early December and managed to change the law to bring direct control of Pakistan's nukes into his hands only - and not into those of any elected prime minister. Given the impending civil war in Pakistan, this seems like an amazingly prophetic move - except of course there are rarely any coincidences in geopolitics. Theoretically at least, no matter how bad the civil war gets, the nuclear arsenal remains in Musharraf's hands; the question now of course is how long before the UN offers Musharraf a peacekeeping force, which of course will be predominantly under American control. Manuscripts Don't Burn expects this within a few weeks at most.

The UK and US media are already painting Bhutto's assassination as linked to - surprise, surprise - Al Qaeda. Doubtless the Taliban will be implicated too. And probably Sauron, Kim Jong Il, Vlad the Impaler, and the Bastard Lovechild of Hitler and Joseph Goebbels, just for good measure. After all, we need to get some knees jerking if this thing is going to work...

Next stop - Pakistan! Let's get those Iranians surrounded, boys!

Even the Daily Telegraph doesn't believe it any more!

It must be serious. Very serious. Even the comments on the Daily Telegraph pages don't believe the War on Terror bollocks any more. This morning, courtesy of gorgeous pouting faux-welshman Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, we have the ludicrous article entitled "Fatwa against the dollar", in which he attempts to claim that the desperate attempts of Middle Eastern countries such as Saudi Arabia (with whom we apparently share so many "values", remember...) to free themselves of their Dollar peg before it cripples their economies are not, in fact, due to the fact that the US Dollar is currently a major economic liability, but rather a plot by Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda to - yup, you guessed it - bring down the United States by engineering a run on the Dollar.

What arrant bollocks. Fortunately, saner and considerably more economic-minded individuals than us here as Manuscripts Don't Burn are in complete agreement with our sentiments, and are currently loudly saying so on the comments section of dear Ambrose's latest barking ramble. We'd just like to offer one such comment from a Mr. Johan de Meulemeester as a token of the increasing impatience the thinking world is showing towards these clumsy attempts to put some life into the limp and flaccid nonsense that was "The War on Terror":

"We don't need to debate this issue; you have opted to believe what FOXNEWS peddles and I have opted to be highly skeptical. I've heard the arguments many times that the government is too incompetent to engage in conspiracies - however history has repeatedly demonstrated that governments do engage in all sorts of evil to justify their wars etc (Reichstag fire, Gulf of Tonkin etc etc).
"Even given the above the fact is that "terror" kills less people than lightning strikes; more people die every year from stingray attacks than do from "terror". So we should all focus our efforts and government budgets on what does kill a lot of people - cancer, heart disease, pneumonia, car accidents, smoking, drinking, old age, hunger.
"The 1/2 trillion U$ budget assigned to the Pentagon every year is just a total waste ; 90% of that bureaucracy and budget should be eliminated - the remaining 10% should be assigned strictly to defending the American homeland."

So, there you have it. If nothing else, one additional consequence of the PNAC insanity is likely to be a new wave of American Isolationism once all this crap has cleared - and that, sadly, is good for no one. For no one at all.

Oil Wars: A Deafening Silence

This morning there is a total absence in the mainstream press of any mention of the comments of Iran's oil minister, Gholam Hussein Nozari, on Saturday, that henceforth Iran will no longer be accepting payments in US dollars for its oil.

Nozari, declaring that the dollar is "no longer considered a trustworthy currency", has effectively thrown the gauntlet down to Washington in a move which, when tried four years ago by Saddam Hussein, led directly to the USA's preemptive attack and illegal invasion of Iraq.

In a further move which will doubtless up the ante, Iran also signed an oil deal worth an estimated $2bn (current value) with China on Sunday, sending clear signals that those following the USA's policy of sanctions are likely to miss out on significant deals.

Manuscripts Don't Burn considers the time more than ripe for a pretext appearing for a US or Israeli preemptive strike on Iran. This weekend has seen two significant events stepping up the pressure on the US to act - will our media even see fit to report that the Iranian's are no longer trading their oil in US dollars? Are they independent enough to report the actual news, rather than just the official line?

Time will tell.

It's the Oil, Stupid...

Why do we always go through the silly charade of pretending to ask ourselves "Hmm... Golly, George Bush appears to have lied, I wonder what he's up to?"

Don't we all know by now? Are we just trying to give ourselves due justification for ignoring the crimes of this lying warmonger as he drives through his "program" regardless of democracy, international will, or justice?

The PNAC website, endorsed by Cheney et al, says it clearly: the neocons are going for the oil in the Middle East. The Iraq war said it clearly: we all know there were no WMDs, and no exit strategy, and that it would nearly bankrupt the US, but we went in anyway. And Lo! - Halliburton and the US now control the Iraqi oil.

And then Iran. Drums of war throbbing away in the White House with insinuation after insinuation since 2003/4. Now we have clear intelligence reports which say there's no threat - but the White House lies to us about them and chooses to keep repeating the Big Lie over and over again anyway.

The Neocons want control of the Middle East's oil. It won't stop with Iran, there are several other candidates for takeover there yet. And if it propels the world into war, and kills hundreds of thousands or even millions of people, well, that's okay - they're a long way away from American soil, and - well, we've gotta get control of that oil.

Hmm... golly, George seems like he lied to us about the NIE. Cheney, too. Golly. What could be the reason for that? Maybe they just made an understandable mistake. Hell, they've got our best interests at heart, after all, haven't they?

Cui bono? We don't even have to ask any more - we know what these guys are up to. We're just lying to ourselves if we think we have to wonder.

It's just good ole Imperial power and resource grab. All we have to ask ourselves is: are we happy with our country lying to us and cheating us and attacking foreign countries to line their pockets? We thought it was OK in the 19th century; since WW2 we decided we were better than that. Have we changed our mind?