Henry Makow Ph.D.: Veteran's Day Requires a Rethink!

If central bankers start all the wars, are veterans heroes, or mercenaries and dupes? When the United States and England loaned Mexico money in 1903, using its customs revenue as collateral, Illuminati banker Jacob Schiff cabled Ernest Cassel, his English counterpart: "If they don't pay, who will collect the customs?" Cassel replied: "Your marines and ours." Marine General Smedley Butler (1881-1940) confirmed that he was "a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street, and the bankers." In his 1935 book, "War is a Racket" he wrote: "I helped to make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909 -1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China, I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested." Flash forward to 2011, when NATO fomented and led a "revolution" in Libya, one of only four countries that didn't have a Rothschild central bank: NOW LIBYA DOES!!! They don't call it imperialism anymore. Now they call it: "Our mission in Libya." Soldiers aren't mercenaries, they are "missionaries."

Andrew Jones: US Military Veterans Fight the War Against the Economy

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were, and still remain major challenges for United States military troops, but the war back home against a staggering economy is still a formidable opponent in itself. Veterans of those wars continued to acknowledge that battle at the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America's (IAVA) annual gala in New York City this past week, as unemployment for US veterans remained above 10 percent. "Victory in Iraq and Afghanistan is going to be debated for decades, but 'victory' is ultimately going to be measured in how we treat this generation," said Tom Tarantino, a policy and research coordinator with IAVA, who served as an Army captain for a decade, and spent one year in Iraq. "Do we set them up for success, so that they will transition home out of the military, get jobs, go to school, and become that next generation?" Tarantino highlighted the Senate's passage of the Veterans Hiring Bill Thursday, for returning troops being one of the few bipartisan agreements Democrats and Republicans still have nowadays. The passage of the 2009 post 9-11 G.I. Bill also was an important display of Capital Hill's unwavering, undisputed support for veterans in his mind. But even Tarantino's optimism wouldn't guarantee that will always be the case.

Charles Digges: Chain Reaction Scare at Fukushima

Last week, technicians and observers warned of a possible chain reaction in Fukushima Daiichi's destroyed reactor No.2 has now been determined to be a "spontaneous fission incident", a process of radioactive decay that does not involve a chain reaction. The fears behind a possible chain reaction centered on the discovery of xenon gas as a possible harbinger of further fuel melts at the reactors, three of which experienced full meltdowns after the plant was hit by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami in March. But both the plant's owner, Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) and nuclear physicist Katsutada Aoki have said that the presence of xenon is not an indication that the wrecked fuel in the reactors has re-achieved "criticality" or a sustained chain reaction of nuclear fission. "The discovery of xenon in the reactor is no reason to fear anything serious," Aoki, an expert in nuclear engineering who headed the the reactor physics division of the Atomic Energy Society of Japan, told the Japan Times. TEPCO said this week that it considered the source of the xenon to be a spontaneous fission, because technicians had injected boric acid into the reactor vessel to reduce the likelihood of chain fission reactions, but was still able to detect xenon.

Malcolm Moore: US Weapons Full of Fake Chinese Parts

Thousands of United States' warplanes, ships and missiles contain fake electronic components from China, leaving them open to malfunction, according to a US Senate committee. The Senate Armed Services Committee said its researchers had uncovered 1,800 cases in which the Pentagon had been sold electronics that may be counterfeit. In total, the committee said it had found more than a million fake parts had made their way into warplanes such as the Boeing C-17 transport jet and the Lockheed Martin C-130J "Super Hercules". It also found fake components in Boeing's CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter and the Theatre High-Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) missile defence system. "A million parts is surely a huge number. But I want to repeat this: we have only looked at a portion of the defense supply chain, so those 1,800 cases are just the tip of the iceberg," said Senator Carl Levin. In around seven in 10 cases, the fake parts originated in China, while investigators traced another 20 per cent of cases to the United Kingdom and Canada, known resale points for Chinese counterfeits. In the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, counterfeit microchips are often smuggled out of factories, or burned off old computer circuit boards before having their identifying marks sanded off and repainted as new.

Environment News Service: Irreplacable Climate Change

Unless there is a bold change in policy direction, the world will lock itself into an insecure, inefficient and high-carbon energy system, the International Energy Agency warned at the launch of its 2011 World Energy Outlook today in London. The report says there is still time to act, but despite steps in the right direction, the door of opportunity is closing. The agency's warning comes at a critical time in international climate change negotiations, as governments prepare for the annual UN climate summit in Durban, South Africa, from November 28. "If we do not have an international agreement whose effect is put in place by 2017, then the door will be closed forever," IEA Chief Economist Faith Birol warned today. "Growth, prosperity and rising population will inevitably push up energy needs over the coming decades, but we cannot continue to rely on insecure and environmentally unsustainable uses of energy," said IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven. "Governments need to introduce stronger measures to drive investment into efficient and low-carbon technologies," she said. "The Fukushima nuclear accident, the turmoil in parts of the Middle East and North Africa and a sharp rebound in energy demand in 2010, which pushed CO2 emissions to a record high, highlight the urgency and the scale of the challenge," van der Hoeven said. Some key trends are pointing in worrying directions, the agency told reporters today.

Suzanne Goldenberg: BP to End Cleanup in Gulf Oil Spill

BP will officially be off the hook foe any deposits of oil that wash up on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico , unless they can be traced directly to the Macondo well, it has emerged. Under a plan approved by the Coast Guard on 2 November, the oil company will end active cleanup operations and focus on restoring the areas damaged by last year's oil disaster. The plan, which was obtained by the Associated Press, sets out a protocol for determining which areas of the Gulf still need to be cleaned, and when BP's responsibility for that would end. The plan "provides the mechanisms for ceasing active cleanup operations" AP said. It went on to suggest the biggest effort would be reserved for the most popular, heavily visited beaches. More oil would be tolerated on remote beaches. BP will be responsible for cleaning up thick oil in marshes, unless officials decide it is best to let nature do its work. The agency quoted coast guard officials, saying the plan represented an important milestone in restoring the Gulf. BP has set aside about $1bn for restoration. The Obama administration has been indicating for some time that the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, which began on 20 April 2010 with an explosion on board the Deep-water Horizon drilling rig that killed 11 workers, was moving into a second phase. Earlier on Tuesday, the US government rolled out a new five-year plan for selling offshore drilling leases. The proposal was a radically scaled back version of the president's earlier plans for offshore drilling, put forward just a few weeks before the Deepwater Horizon blowout, that would have opened up the Arctic and Atlantic coasts for drilling.

PressTV: Pentagon Warns Against Attacking Iran!

US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has warned against "unintended consequences" of any military attack against Iran over the the country's nuclear program. The Pentagon chief said on Thursday that the strike could have a "serious impact on the region and it could have a serious impact on US forces in the region." AFP reported. He made the remarks after recent Israel's aggressive rhetoric against Iran and its test-launch of an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile. On Sunday, Israeli President Shimon Peres threatened that a attack on the Islamic Republic is becoming "more and more likely." Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak have reportedly been lobbying to persuade the Israeli cabinet to carry out a military strike on Iran. Meanwhile, Iranian leadership has promised a crushing response to any military strike against the country. Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said on Thursday that if any country launches an attack on Iran, it must be ready to "receive firm slaps and fists of steel" from the Iranian Army. In its latest report, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has accused Iran of conducting activities relating to developing nuclear weapons before 2003, adding that these activities "may still be ongoing." Iran, however, rejected the report as "unbalanced, unprofessional and prepared with political motivation and under political pressure, mostly by the United States."