By Michael Collins

(Washington, DC) A faction of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard called the Quds Force (QF) is center stage in the War on Terror for the second time in five years. In 2007, President George W. Bush hauled out the group of middle and upper level Iranian government officials as a rationale for military action against Iran. The decisive shutdown of the Bush effort marks a critical turning point in recent history and will be discussed later in the article.

QF II began last Tuesday when FBI Director Robert Mueller and Attorney General Eric Holder unified the terror storyline between the rabid neoconservatives of the Bush era and the low key loyalists to the national security state in the Obama administration.

(Washington, DC) Stratfor Global Intelligence just published an essay announcing that the nation's rulers have conducted a "successful war" on terror following the events of 9/11. The author, CEO and Stratfor founder, George Friedman, dressed up the standard Bush - Cheney justification for the past ten years of foreign misadventures and domestic decline

"…one of the most extraordinary facts of the war that begin on 9/11 was that there have been no more successful major attacks on the United States." George Friedman, September 6

That's the argument pure and simple. How do you counter that?

First, the statement excludes the most important fact about 9/11. It was a "successful major attack on the United States." The event caused human tragedies accompanied by the shock that the most powerful nation on earth left its centers of governance and finance unprotected.

Friedman and those he defends have one overriding imperative in discussing 9/11, exclude the event itself as a topic of discussion. Move on as though history starts after the successful attacks. Never ever let the topic focus on Bush administration's command negligence surrounding 9/11.

Michael Collins

"The stochastic terrorist is the person who uses mass media to broadcast memes that incite unstable people to commit violent acts." G2geek, January 10, 2011

Daily Kos diarist G2geek published an essay on January 10 that deserves attention and further analysis. He argued that rash media figures activate lone wolf types through "emotional rhetoric." When the lone wolves commit an assassination, bombing, etc., the emotional rhetoric of media personalities makes them stochastic terrorists. Why? The volume and intensity of their rhetoric will inevitably launch a lone wolf terrorist on the unsuspecting target for assassination. G2geek says that the theory does not yet apply to the Giffords assassination due to limited information on the assassin. However, the author provides examples of previous political murders used to support his argument and theory.

Definition: Stochastic: 1) RANDOM, specifically: involving a random variable; 2) involving chance or probability; PROBABILISTIC. Miriam Webster

Michael Collins

Fiction delivers justice that reality rarely approaches. Victims endure suffering and emerge as victors after overcoming incredible challenges. Stieg Larsson's gripping Millennium Trilogy weaves a story of revenge and triumphs for Lizbeth Salander, locked away in a mental institution and sexually abused for years. When Salander got out and threatened to go public about a high level sexual exploitation ring, the perpetrators sought to lock her up again. In the final installment, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, Salander found some justice. (Image)

Susan Lindauer's autobiography, Extreme Prejudice, tells a story with certain broad similarities. In her case, however, the hornet's nest kicked back with a real vengeance. After over a decade as a U.S intelligence asset, Lindauer was privy to information about pre war Iraq that threatened to serve up a huge embarrassment to the Bush-Cheney regime. She hand delivered a letter to senior Bush administration officials in hopes of averting what she predicted would be the inevitably tragic 2003 US invasion of Iraq. Those officials, unnamed in the indictment, were her second cousin, then White House chief of staff Andy Card, and Colin Powell.

Michael Collins

How did we get to the point of full body scans at airports, the massive personal intrusion that represents, and the tens of millions spent for machines that irradiate us as a consequence of merely flying from here to there?

The proximate cause is the attempted bombing of a December 25, 2009 Northwest airlines flight. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, an engineering student, attempted to mix, then detonate a bomb as Northwest Flight 253 from Amsterdam made its descent to Detroit's Metropolitan Airport. Mr. Abdulmutallab somehow got on the flight with the chemicals undetected, hidden in his underwear. (Image)

By Michael Collins
Part II of III (Part I)

WASHINGTON - Placed in office through legalized bribery, supported by public funding for their every need, protected against the laws that we're expected to obey, Congress represents the epitome of lawlessness; lawmakers who have no regard for the law. (Image)

Members of Congress are different. They get to retire at age 62 with lifetime pensions and health benefits. To qualify, they need just five years of service. They get free phone, mail, and other communications plus paid domestic and foreign travel. Supposedly, they're not allowed to take gifts but the list of exceptions offers plenty of room for luxurious appreciation.

The biggest gift of all - a six to seven figure job with a major corporation or lobbying firm right after retirement - is still fair game for any member. The revolving door never stops.

By Michael Collins
Part I of III

First published at Daily Censored

WASHINGTON - Selected to run by the powerful and wealthy, promising the public one thing and delivering another after elected, the President of the United States is the focus of a new political doctrine - the unitary executive.  The office of the president has rapidly become a law unto itself over the past ten years. (Image)

Some time before February 2010, the President of the United States authorized the assassination of a U.S. citizen living overseas.  The citizen was identified by the White House as a terrorist.

Unlike previous government programs to kill individuals overseas, this one wasn't a covert operation.  The program was openly announced, without qualification.  Dennis Blair, the Director of National Intelligence, discussed the plan in February at a congressional hearing.  A few weeks later, John O. Brennan, the president's National Security Adviser, announced that the marked man was one of "dozens" of U.S. citizens put on the presidential death list because "they are very concerning to us."

The principal of unfettered executive power, absent political and judicial restraint, was officially established.  Executive power now supersedes established law.

By Michael Collins

"I'm constantly annoyed that people are distracted by false conspiracies such as 9/11, when all around we provide evidence of real conspiracies, for war or mass financial fraud." Julian Asange, Wikileaks, July 19 (Image right)

John Young was one of the co-founders of Wikileaks. He quickly left the organization in disagreement with some of its policies (CNET). Young was a natural choice for Wikileaks since he has operated a leak website, CRYPTOME, since 1996. His site just released two articles on July 31 attributed to Wikileaks' Julian Assange (me@i.1.org). The announcement read:

By Michael Collins

"So once again, and for the last time, we ask the question: How does this alter the prevailing conventional wisdom about the war?" Chris Floyd, Leaky Vessels: Wikileaks "Revelations" Will Comfort Warmongers, Confirm Conventional Wisdom, Empire Burlesque, July 26, 27

Wikileaks head honcho Julian Assange may be annoyed with the 911 Truth movement and all those conspiracy theories. But he may be appalled when he reads that one of the leading authors and researchers on imperialism and the Iraq war, Chris Floyd, has taken him to task for making much ado about nothing.

Floyd makes his case early on in the article, with maximum effect:

Michael Collins

There they are, the people who brought you every bit of the action in the WikiLeaks video and all of the other horrors flowing from invasion of Iraq. Madeleine Albright (far right, above), former Clinton Secretary of State, is a good place to start. From 60 Minutes:

Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: "We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?"

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it. --60 Minutes (5/12/96)

An exhaustive study found that 227,000 children under five (table 13) died during the George H.W. Bush - Bill Clinton regime of total sanctions against Iraq from 1990 through 2000.

Report from the W'ikiLeaks Press Conference

By Michael Collins

Michael Collins

U.S. Army Counterterrorism issued a report that said WikiLeaks is a threat to U.S. security, particularly in Afghanistan. The report says that the organization should be destroyed and offered a plan. Does the government really think it can destroy WikiLeaks or is the leaked report part of a plan to smear the organization so badly, it will lose supporters and money?

Michael Collins

The public is angry. Why should the public pay for the bankers mistakes. Iceland blogger Halldor Sigurdsson

Who cleans up the mess when ignorant, greedy bankers rack up massive debt then go broke? The people of Iceland made a strong statement Saturday. The sins of big bankers and government regulators shouldn't fall on the citizens. By a 93% to 2% margin, they voted down a proposal requiring them to cover bad debt incurred by one of the nation’s oldest and largest banks. Covering the debt would have cost Iceland's 317,000 citizens around $17,000 each.

Michael Collins

Also posted here and here

The underpants bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, is a curious terrorist. He became disillusioned with his privileged life as the son of a bank chairman and member of the Nigerian elite, it would seem. Rather than pursuing his studies in London, he retreated to Yemen to learn the ways of al Qaeda inspired terrorism.

Farouk was so indiscreet that his father reported him to the U.S. Embassy as a potential terrorist in November. A month later, he managed to get on a jumbo jet headed for Detroit to complete a terror mission. Despite his training in engineering at the prestigious London School of Economics, Farouk failed in his mission. He couldn't mix his explosives to achieve the desired effect. He apparently forgot to detonate the explosive device in mid flight, waiting until just before landing in Detroit to start his task. He retrieved and set off the chemicals to create the explosion in full view of passengers.

What kind of terrorist is this? He doesn't know when, how or where to conduct his criminal enterprise.

Dead man walking, with assistance

"I think now, frankly, he is dead for the reason he is a ... kidney patient," Gen. Pervez Musharraf said on Friday in an interview with CNN.

Musharraf said Pakistan knew bin Laden took two dialysis machines into Afghanistan. "One was specifically for his own personal use," he said.

"I don't know if he has been getting all that treatment in Afghanistan now. And the photographs that have been shown of him on television show him extremely weak. ... I would give the first priority that he is dead and the second priority that he is alive somewhere in Afghanistan." CNN Jan 18, 2002