Alex Spillius: Nato is trying to Kill Colonel Gaddafi

A senior American general involved in the Libyan campaign has admitted that NATO forces are trying to kill Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, according to a member of the United States Congress: In the first such admission, Adm Samuel Locklear, commander of the NATO Joint Operations Command in Naples, said that efforts had been stepped up to target the Libyan leader, despite declarations of the "Obama" administration that "regime change" was not the goal! The admiral's comments were revealed by Representative Mike Turner, an Ohio Republican and member of the House Armed Services Committee. Mr. Turner has opposed the military intervention from the outset, and was among those who voted in the House of Representatives last week to deny Obama the authority to wage war against Libya. He told Foreign Policy magazine that he came away from his conversation with Admiral Locklear convinced that NATO was acting beyond "remit" of the United Nations 1973 resolution on Libya, which allowed for enforcement of a no-fly zone and the defense of civilians against Col. Gaddafi's forces. "I believe that the scope that NATO is pursuing is beyond what is contemplated in civil protection, so they are exceeding the mission, he said!" The admiral also repeated a comment he made last month, that a "small" force might be needed on the ground in the initial stages, after the fall of the fall of the Gaddafi regime!

Timberly Ross: Flood Berm Collapses at Nebraska Nuclear Plant

A berm holding the flooded Missouri River back from a Nebraska nuclear power station collapsed early Sunday, but federal regulators said they were monitoring the situation and there was no danger. The Fort Calhoun Nuclear Station shut down in early April for refueling, and there is no water inside the plant, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission said. Also, the river is not expected to rise higher than the level the plant was designed to handle. NRC spokesman Victor Dricks said the plant remains safe. The federal commission had inspectors at the plant 20 miles north of Omaha when the 2,000-foot berm collapsed about 1:30 am Sunday. Water surrounded the auxiliary and containment buildings at the plant, it said in a statement. The Omaha Public Power District has said that the complex will not be reactivated until the flooding subsides. Its spokesman Jeff Hanson, said the berm wasn't critical to protecting the plant, but a crew will look at whether it can be patched: "That was an additional layer of protection we put in," Hanson said. The berm's collapse didn't affect the reactor shutdown cooling or the spent fuel cooling , but the power supply was cut off after water surrounded the main electrical transformers, the NRC said. Emergency generators powered the plant until an off-site power supply was connected Sunday afternoon, according to OPPD. NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko will tour the plant Monday. His visit was scheduled last week, but on Sunday, he was touring Nebraska's other nuclear power plant, which sits along the Missouri River near Brownsville.

Mike Whitney: More Treachery at the Fed?

At the end of today's FOMC meeting, there will be a few surprises: The "recovery" has stalled, and the Fed can't decide whether we have just hit a "soft patch", or we are going to hit something more serious. If it is indeed more serious, the Fed will need a contingency plan to start the economy. Will we have another round of Quantitative Easing, rate caps on short term treasuries, or something else altogether? The financial media want to know, and only Ben Bernanke knows the answers. First quarter growth of our economy is currently an anemic 1.8 percent, and economists are now shaving their estimates for Q2. Some think that the Tsunami in Japan, as well as debt problems in the euro-zone are mainly responsible for the poor growth, but that does not explain the sharp downturn in hiring, manufacturing, housing and consumer confidence: The US is experiencing a drop-off in demand at the worst possible time, just as Obama's $800 billion fiscal stimulus and Bernanke's $600 billion monetary surplus are running out of gas. That means even less support for an economy that can barely stand upright as it is: Here is an excerpt from an article by Nouriel Roubini with a rundown on the economy: "There are good reasons to believe that we are experiencing a more persistent slump - the factors slowing US growth are chronic: These include slow but persistent private and public sector de-leveraging, rising oil prices, weak job creation, another downturn in the housing market, severe fiscal problems at the state and local level, and an unsustainable deficit and debt burden at the federal level. If what is happening now turns out to be something worse than a temporary soft patch, the market correction will continue further, thus weakening growth as the negative wealth effects of falling equity markets reduce private spending. More and more mainstream economists have joined Roubini in thinking that recent sluggishness is more than a "soft patch."

James P. Tucker Jr.: Can Anyone Stop Bilderberg's Lust for War?

Barack Obama says the US role in invading Libya is not a "war", because it is limited to air strikes. If so, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941 was not "war," because Japan had no boots on the ground. Patriots now understand that President Franklin D. Roosevelt baited the Japanese into attacking Pearl Harbor as a means of getting the US into what became World War II. By going to war, the Great Depression could be ended as 12 million men got jobs carrying guns, and millions more would be employed making tanks, jeeps, planes, bombs, bullets, bayonets and other war material. This also benefits Bilderberg and similar groups, which are heavily invested in manufacturing goods to kill people. "Americans buy war like children gobble candy," laughed Henry Kissinger, longtime Bilderberg luminary, "Of course, Barack Obama has to be publicly reluctant to go to war, but we can depend on him!" But Bilderbergers are frankly worried that their campaign to expand the Libyan invasion into a big bloodletting in the Middle East faces difficult obstacles. Obama's claim that the invasion of Libya is not "war" is an effort to avoid complying with the War Powers Act that requires Congress to approve military action 60 days after the guns fire, but bipartisan opposition is emerging in Congress: House Speaker John Boehner threatened to withhold funds for the war, suggesting Congress could take action at any moment: "We have got drone attacks under way, we're spending $10 million a day. We're part of an effort to drop bombs on Qadaffi's compound. It doesn't pass the straight-face test." Senator Jim Webb (D-Va.), a decorated combat veteran and member of the Armed Services Committee, scoffed at the "not a war" claim. "Spending a billion dollars and dropping bombs on people sounds like hostilities to me," he told Associated Press!

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchley-PRAVDA: Legal Background to NATO War Crimes!

NATO is committing war crimes in Libya. The rules of engagement are bound by the UN Security Council Resolutions 1970 and 1973, in which there is NO mention of taking out Colonel Gaddafi, his aides or his children or grandchildren. NATO was supposed to police a "no-fly zone" and explain any misgivings to the international community. The People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation asked the countries proposing the above-mentioned Resolutions to explain the details of the "measures" inherent in the agreements. No explanations were given, making the basis for the Resolutions void! No rules of engagement allow for the purposeful targeting of Libyan officials, so the murder of Colonel Gaddafi's grandchildren and the recent strikes on civilian targets in Tripoli amount to to war crimes. The author of this piece has already pressed war crimes charges against David Cameron and Barack Obama in the nearest police station, according to the UN rules. The lack of enforcement of international law leaves the justice system of NATO in question. Supposedly, the international community is bound by the rules of international law, which is subject to the UN charter, and resolutions from the UNSC. Disturbingly, NATO has acted outside these laws, and therefore Barack Obama, David Cameron, Nicholas Sarkozy and the other NATO warmongers are now guilty of war crimes .

Robert Parry: The Lie Behind the Afghan War

In Official Washington, there is one fact about the Afghan War that nearly everyone "knows". In February 1989, after the Soviet Army left Afghanistan, the United States walked away from the war-torn country, creating a vacuum that led to the rise of the Taliban and its readiness to host al-Qaeda's anti-American terrorists. It is a point made by senior administration officials, including incoming Ambassador Ryan Crocker and departing Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who once summed up the conventional wisdom by saying: "We will not repeat the mistakes of 1989, when we abandoned the country, only to see it descend into civil war and into Taliban hands." Gates was there at the time, as President George H W Bush's deputy national security adviser, so he should know! If there is any doubt about about this key historical "lesson" regarding Afghanistan, you simply need to watch the Tom Hanks movie: "Charlie Wilson's War", in which you see Hanks as Rep. Wilson pleading for additional aid to Afghanistan, and getting rebuffed by "feckless" members of a congressional committee. Unfortunately, there is not a word of truth in that movie. There was no immediate cutoff of funds for the Afghan mujahedeen in 1989. Indeed, hundreds of millions of dollars in covert CIA funding continued to flow to the rebels for several years as the US government sought a clear-cut victory over the left-behind communist leader Najibullah, who was holed up in Kabul. With the departure of the Soviets in February 1989, the war was anything but morally unambiguous. By 1990, the Afghan "freedom fighters" had suddenly gone back to form, reemerging as nothing more than feuding warlords, obsessed with settling generations-old scores! The difference was that they were now armed with hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of weapons and explosives of every conceivable type. The justification for the huge CIA operation had been to halt Soviet aggression, not to take sides in a tribal war.

Patrick Henningsen: Why is there a Media Blackout on a Nuclear Incident in Nebraska?

Since flooding began on June 6th, there has been a disturbingly low level of media attention to the crisis at the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Facility near Omaha, Nebraska, but evidence strongly suggests that something VERY SERIOUS has in fact happened there. On June 7th, a fire was reported at Fort Calhoun. The "official story" is that the fire was in an electrical switchgear room at the plant: Apparently the facility lost power to a pump that cools the spent fuel rod pool, allegedly for a duration of approximately 90 minutes. The following sequence of events is documented on the Omaha Public Power District's own website, stating among other things, that there was no imminent danger with the Fort Calhoun Station spent-fuel pool, and that due to a fire in an electrical switchgear room at FCS on the morning of June 7, the plant "temporarily" lost power to a pump that cools the spent-fuel pool. In addition to the flooding that has occurred on the banks of the Missouri River at Fort Calhoun, the Cooper Nuclear Facility in Brownville, Nebraska may also be threatened by the rising flood waters. As was declared at Fort Calhoun on June 7th, another "Notification of Unusual Event" was declared at Cooper Nuclear Station on June 20th. This notification was issued because the Missouri River's water level reached an alarming 42.5 feet. Apparently, Cooper Station is advising that it is unable to discharge sludge into the Missouri River due to flooding, and therefore "overtopped" its sludge pond. Not surprisingly, and completely ignored by the "mainstream" media, these two nuclear power facilities in Nebraska were designated temporary restricted NO FLY ZONES by the FAA in early June. The FAA restrictions were reported as "hazards", and were "effective immediately", and "until further notice". Yet, according to the NRC, there is no cause for the public to panic. A news report from local NBC 6 on the Ft. Calhoun Power Plant and large areas of farm land flooded by the Missouri River, interviews a local farmer worried about the levees: "We need the Army Corps of Engineers to do more. The Corps needs to tell us what to do, and where to go. This is NOT mother nature, this is man-made. Nearby town Council Bluffs has already implemented its own three-tier warning system, should residents be prepared to leave the area quickly. On June 6, 2011, the Federal Aviation put into effect "temporary flying restrictions" "until further notice" over the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant in Blaine, Nebraska. Nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen explains how cooling system pumps must operate continuously, even years after a plant is shut down.