Yet another 9/11 Conspiracy Theory

The Internet is full of crazy 9/11 conspiracy theories, many blaming the United States, the PNAC, the Bush Administration, and so many others. As we approach this 6th anniversary of the attacks, I've begun formulating my own theory. Here's a rough timeline of how it happened:

1953 - CIA's Operation Ajax overthrows Mohammed Mossadeq, the democratically-elected Prime Minister of Iran, after he nationalizes the Iranian oil industry previously controlled by British Petroleum. Shah of Iran installed.

1958 - CIA-trained assassins, including a young Saddam Hussein attempt to take out the Prime Minister of Iraq, Abd al-Karim Qasim, after he tries to nationalize the Iraqi oil industry.

1963 - CIA orchestrates the coup, show trial, and execution of Qasim, cementing Ba'ath party rule in the country.

1969 - Israel, with U.S. financial backing, preemptively invades Egypt, Jordan, and Syria.

1971 - Richard Nixon abandons the gold standard in response to rising foreign debt.

1973 - Israel defeats Egypt and Syria in the Six-Day War. U.S. announces a $2.2 billion aid package to Israel weeks after the end of the war. OPEC nations launch embargo against U.S. Oil prices skyrocket. Saudi Arabia suddenly becomes very very wealthy and begin itching to modernize their ancient infrastructure.

1974 - The U.S. & Saudi Arabia enter into the Joint Economic Commission, aka the Saudi Arabian Money-Laundering Affair. Saudis pay U.S. companies to build and manage Saudi infrastructure, agree to use the dollar as the sole currency for oil sales, and keep oil prices low for the U.S. U.S. agrees to arm Saudi Arabia so they can protect their vast oil wealth.

1979 - Iranian students and religous leaders overthrow the Shah, create a powerful Shi'ite theocracy in Iran. Saudi Arabia, fearing the Shi'ite influence on the Middle East, invests heavily in promoting Sunni Islam, funding Wahhabi Islamic schools in and around the Kingdom.

1979-1989 - Soviet Union invades Afghanistan, CIA's Operation Cyclone funds and arms Afghan Mujaheddin groups, who are allied with Saudi millionaire Usama bin Laden's Maktab al-Khidamat and other Wahhabist Sunni groups. These groups later coalesce to form al-Qa'ida, and begin exporting jihadist ideals to other countries.

1980 - Iran-Iraq tensions over the Shatt-al-Arab waterway erupt into war. The U.S. begins heavily arming and funding Saddam Hussein's Iraq against Iran. Bechtel builds chemical weapons plants used to manufacture sarin and mustard gas later used against Shia and Kurds.

1988 - Iran-Iraq war ends, 1 million dead, Iraqi infrastructure decimated. U.S. offers to rebuild Iraq in exchange for a Saudi-style oil deal. Saddam declines. CIA jackals fail to assassinate him.

1990 - Soviet Union pulls out of Afghanistan. Iraq invades Kuwait (with U.S. permission). Usama bin Laden offers his victorious Mujaheddin army to the House of Saud as protection against Iraqi invasion. The Saudis say "no thanks" and opt for U.S. protection instead. UBL is angered by this royal dissing.

1991 - U.S. airstrikes and invasion drive Iraq out of Kuwait. U.S. builds military bases in Saudi Arabia to enforce the no-fly zone. The presence of U.S. troops on the holiest site of Islam further angers UBL.

1993 - Ramzi Yousef, al-Qa'ida associate and nephew of North Carolina Aggie and future 9/11 architect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, bombs WTC Tower 1 with a truck bomb and escapes to Manila.

1994 - Usama bin Laden speaks out against the Saudi royal family and is exiled to Sudan.

1995 - Ramzi Yousef begins planning Bojinka plot, which includes assassination of Pope, Bill Clinton, and crashing of a jet liner into CIA headquarters.

1996 - Usama bin Laden issues fatwa against United States, demanding removal of U.S. forces from Saudi Arabia.

1998 - Usama bin Laden issues another fatwa against United States, al-Qa'ida bombs U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es-Salaam.

2000 - al-Qa'ida operatives bomb USS Cole

2001 - al-Qa'ida operatives hijack jet liners and fly them into WTC and Pentagon.

See? The U.S. wingnuts are indeed responsible for 9/11!

Cholera outbreak in Iraqi Kurdistan

Juan Cole reports on a growing health crisis in Iraq: Sulaymaniah has reported five deaths from cholera in Kirkuk and Sulaymaniyah. There have also been 2,000 cases of severe diarrhea in Sulaymaniah, a majority of which are believed to be cholera-related.

Terrible as this outbreak is, it pales in comparison to the verbal diarrhea being spewed by a certain President trying to compare the Iraq Quagmire with Vietnam, Korea, and World War II.

I AM WEB TWO POINT ZERO

I just posted this FYAD about my new Twitter account and am now Digging the thread. Does it GET any more WEB TWO POINT ZERO??

read more | digg story

How to make $350 million by doing nothing!

Ecuador has begun an innovative environmental initiative - NOT allowing drilling in the Ishpingo-Tiputini-Tambococha (ITT) oil reserve. In exchange for protecting this extremely vital section of the Amazon, Ecuador hopes to receive up to $350 million in donations and debt relief from foreign governments and international organizations.

Donor countries Norway and Spain are almost on board, as are international organizations such as The Pachamama Alliance and others.

he envisaged procedure is that the state would issue bonds for the crude that is to remain untapped, on the undertaking that it will never be extracted, and that the Yasuní National Park, declared a Biosphere Reserve by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in 1989, will be protected.

Ecuador is basing its proposal on four key arguments: the need to combat climate change, curb the destruction of biodiversity, protect the Huaorani, Tagaeri and Taromenane indigenous people, and transform the country’s economy by adopting a new development model.

"The 350 million dollar contribution would be for 10 years, after which it would drop steadily, because an alternative source of income for the state would be developed, that could yield dividends indefinitely," said environmental activist Esperanza Martínez, an expert on oil issues.

Haleh Free!

Iranian-American scholar Dr. Haleh Esfandiari has been released on bail after spending more than three months in a notorious Iranian prison for political dissidents. She still faces espionage charges and has had her U.S. and Irani passports confiscated. Her colleagues at the Woodrow Wilson Center have been working since May for her release.

Hurricane Dean Ripping Up The Joint

Hurricane Dean skipped across the Yucatan yesterday as a Category 5 storm and remains a still-dangerous Category 1 storm. Although Mexico is taking the brunt of the storm, its effects have been felt in Belize, Jamaica, Barbados, Cuba, Dominica, Hispaniola, Dominican Republic, Saint Lucia, and the Cayman Islands as Dean threaded the Caribbean Needle. See who's working relief and appealing for funding at ReliefWeb.

Terrorism Index 2007: The Surge is Failing

In the not-surprise story of the year, a survey of more than 100 foreign policy experts by Foreign Policy and the Center for American Progress has found that 91% believe we are losing the "War on Terror."

A majority also agree that the troop surge in Iraq is failing:

More than half say the surge is having a negative impact on U.S. national security, up 22 percentage points from just six months ago. This sentiment was shared across party lines, with 64 percent of conservative experts saying the surge is having either a negative impact or no impact at all. When the experts were asked to grade the government’s handling of the Iraq war, the news was even worse. They gave the overall effort in Iraq an average point score of just 2.9 on a 10-point scale. The government’s public diplomacy record was the only policy that scored lower.

The good news is that a majority of the experts are not falling for the Bush Administration's assertion that "we have to fight the abstract concept there so we don't have to fight it here."

Only 12 percent believe that terrorist attacks would occur in the United States as a direct result of a U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq. Eighty-eight percent of the experts said that either such a scenario was unlikely or that they see no connection between a troop withdrawal from Iraq and terrorist attacks inside the United States. This line of thinking was consistent across party lines, with 58 percent of conservatives saying they did not believe terrorist attacks would occur at home as a result of a military drawdown in Iraq.

7.9-Magnitude Earthquake in Peru

A major earthquake struck just off the coast of Peru yesterday. Death toll now stands at 330, but is expected to climb as damage assessments are conducted.

From the US Geological Survey:

An earthquake occurred near the coast of Central Peru, about 45 km (25 miles) west-northwest of Chincha Alta or about 145 km (90 miles) south-southeast of Lima at 5:40 PM MDT, Aug 15, 2007 (6:40 PM local time in Peru). The magnitude and location may be revised when additional data and further analysis results are available. There have been reports of damage in the Lima area. A tsunami warning and watch has been issued for the Pacific coast of South and Central America. For information about tsunamis, contact the NOAA Tsunami Warning Centers at http://tsunami.gov.

This earthquake occurred at the boundary between the Nazca and South American tectonic plates. The two plates are converging at a rate of 78 mm per year. The earthquake occurred as thrust-faulting on the interface between the two plates, with the South American plate moving up and seaward over the Nazca plate. Coastal Peru has a history of very large earthquakes. The August 15 shock originated near the source of two earthquakes, both in the magnitude 8 range, that occurred in 1908 and 1974. This earthquake is south of the source of a magnitude 8.2 earthquake that occurred in northern Peru in 1966 and it is north of the magnitude 8.3 earthquake that occurred in 2001 near Arequipa, Peru. The largest earthquake along the coast of Peru is the magnitude 9 that occurred in 1868. The 1868 earthquake produced a tsunami that killed several thousand people along the South American coast and also caused damage in Hawaii.

View updates on the situation and see a list of relief organizations at Reliefweb

UK Court Allows Release of Incriminating Congo Corruption Docs

The London High Court has dismissed a lawsuit by a Congo offical attempting to block watchdog group Global Witness from publishing evidence that Denis Christel Sassou-Nguesso, the son of Congo’s President and head of a state-run oil firm, spent hundreds of thousands of company dollars on a lavish shopping spree.

From the Global Witness press release:

Denis Christel Sassou-Nguesso is the son of the President of Congo and head of Cotrade, a public agency which sells the country’s oil. In June, Global Witness published documents from a Hong Kong court case which show that he and another official spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on what seem to be personal items, including designer brands. The bills were paid by companies which appear to have received, via other shell companies, money related to Congo's oil sales

Sassou-Nguesso and his company, Long Beach Limited, sought a London court injunction to force Global Witness to remove his company records and credit card statements from its website. In a judgment handed down on Wednesday, Judge Stanley Burnton rejected the claim, ruling that “it is an obvious possible inference that [Sassou Nguesso’s] expenditure has been financed by secret personal profits made out of dealings in oil sold by Cotrade.”

Capital flight is a serious problem in the developing world, with an estimated $225 billion in tax revenues lost to offshore shelters every year. This is equal to the amount of annual ODA needed to reach the Millennium Development Goals.

North Pole? More Like North Pool!

On account of Arctic sea ice is at its lowest level in recorded history, according to Cryosphere Today and also data. While the shipping and extraction industries salivate over new shipping lanes, animals are not so happy with this development per se.

Senegal Anti-FGM Org Wins Hilton Prize

Al Jazeera reports that the Senegal-based Tostan has won the $1.5 million Hilton Prize for their grassroots work getting women to speak out against female genital mutilation.

Amartya Sen, a Nobel Prize-winning economist and a Hilton Prize juror, said: "There are many great things about Tostan and its leadership but the most important is (Melching's) freshness of approach and ability to think differently.

"She has put new thought into the discussion about how you get a critical proportion of the population to agree and act in unison, to be an example to others."

Tostan's grass-roots approach, using indigenous African languages and working in the poorest communities, has drawn comparisons with the campaign against foot-binding in China.

First they came for the trade unionists

Amnesty International is joining with 168 million others to call for the release of two Iranian trade union activists who have been jailed for the past few weeks.

Mansour Ossanlu, head of the Union of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company, and Mahmoud Salehi, former head of the Saqez Bakers' Union, are trade union leaders who have been detained on vaguely worded charges intended to stop their efforts to create strong trade unions that can defend workers against discriminatory laws and practices.

Mahmoud Salehi - who has been imprisoned since 9 April - is seriously ill and is allegedly not receiving the specialist medical treatment that he requires.

Mansour Ossanlu, who had been released in December, was again detained on 10 July. He had spent eight months in detention between December 2005 and August 2006, and a further month between November and December 2006 in connection with his activities as head of the bus workers union (Sherkat-e Vahed), and was facing trial.

SA flood victims angry at lack of help

Biharis are becoming increasingly angry at the Indian government's lack of assistance in the wake of the country's worst flooding in years, according to a Reuters report.

Watching muddy flood waters gush over a road leading to his submerged village in Bihar, 23-year-old Rupesh Kumar laughs incredulously when asked if his family had received aid being dropped by air force helicopters.

"Air-drops? Forget those, we have not even seen a helicopter since flooding started 15 days ago, or a government boat," said Kumar, a farmer in the impoverished state.

The floods have affected around 30 million people in India, more than 10 million of them in densely populated Bihar alone, and about 20 million in Bangladesh, officials said.

Relief agencies such as Save the Children and CWS are appealing for aid.

.tv Domain Disappearing Due To Climate Change

And by "domain" I don't mean the top-level domain, but the entire nation of Tuvalu. The 26-square-kilometer South Pacific nation consisting of 9 coral islands and about 10,000 people could be the first nation wiped out by global climate change, according to IPS News. In the past twelve years, Tuvalu has reported a sea level change of 10 centimeters. With most of the population living only one or two meters above sea level, experts propose that the entire nation could be submerged in fifty years.

But the good news is that Tuvalu is not going down without a fight. Instead, they are becoming a model of sustainability.

"Construction of the first ever biogas digestor on a coral island is complete," said Gilliane Le Gallic, president of Alofa Tuvalu, a Paris-based group that is working with the local Tuvaluan government.

Located on a small islet near Tuvalu's capital of Funafuti, the biogas digester uses manure from about 60 pigs to produce gas for cooking stoves. More importantly, more than 40 Tuvaluans have been trained at the newly opened Tuvalu National Training Centre on renewable energy.

"We are trying to create simple, workable models of sustainable development that can be reproduced by others elsewhere," Le Gallic, a documentary filmmaker, told IPS from Paris.

Oxfam Decries Decreased DFID Disbursement

In today's Guardian, Oxfam criticizes the UK for decreasing official development assistance, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. On the bright side, new PM Gordon Brown has reiterated the long-standing goal of increasing aid spending to .07% of GDP by 2010.

As Gordon Brown called at the UN for a fresh international effort to eradicate poverty, Oxfam and other charities picked up on figures from the Department for International Development (Dfid) last month showing that Britain's aid to sub-Saharan Africa dropped by 1% in 2006/07 to £1.085bn. Aid to the whole of Africa fell 2% to £1.113bn.

Mr Brown has committed Britain to reaching an internationally-agreed goal of raising overseas aid spending to 0.7% of GDP by 2013; the figure last year was 0.52%, the highest share since 1964.

Still, the .52% share of GDP spent on foreign aid by the UK is admirable compared to the paltry .17% provided by the United States.