National Security

[I'm going to break my rule and give a ton of links. Sorry if it's too much info at once] This video clip is from the BBC documentary The Century of the Self, and it explains how the media allows itself to be manipulated and used to further the ends of those in power. They did it 50 years ago. They did it to sell the war in Iraq. And they're doing it today. The lobbyists are people they tell us are people we have to trust. For instance, former DHS Sec. Michael Chertoff who's going to get his very own post in this series or former DNI Mike McConnell, who happens to have made a bundle out of security contracts at Booz Allen

Ten years after leaving the government, McConnell was finally making real money -- two million dollars a year at Booz-Allen.

video link

Over the last few weeks there have been a series of posts at different websites that have documented the latest variations of the conjunction of the military and anti-terror industrial complex with our government. I'm going to call it the Fear Industrial Complex because to be boxed in into the Military Industrial Complex would be inaccurate and wouldn't even come close to defining the collusion of 1) the military wing, with 2) the security wing, with 3) the Congressional wing, with 4) the Presidential wing and lastly 5) the media wing of the complex . There are so many links that if I tried to put them all in one post it would take several hours to put together and would shortshrift them all and be a disservice to the thought-provoking information.

With that, here's the first post by Frida Berrigan, with an intro by Tom Engelhardt in the link. I'm posting the entire thing because things like this have a way of disappearing

America’s Global Weapons Monopoly

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From UC TV, Harry Kreisler interviews Jane Mayer.


In her book, "The Dark Side", she explains how, under the direction of Vice President Cheney and his Assistant David Addington, the Bush administration, contrary to American history and tradition, implemented a policy of torture and rendition in violation of U.S. and international law. She also describes the resistance within the government and the military to these actions.



Jane Mayer is an American investigative journalist who has been a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine since 1995. In recent years, she has written extensive articles for that publication on Dick Cheney, the bin Laden family, and the US government's controversial policy of extraordinary rendition. About 56 min.



Click here to download or listen to mp3 Total Duration 1:46:39.

Did Congressman Lungren Ignore Potential National Security Threat Posed by AgraQuest's Importation of Foreign Soils?

Last week, the Sacramento News and Review reported that an AgraQuest worker David Bell contracted a series of respiratory infections during his time working for the company in 1999. Now nearly nine years later, he continues to suffer from the debilitating illness.

The Vanguard raised questions about the environmental impact at the Kennedy Place location for AgraQuest. Questions were most specifically brought forth from Mr. Bell himself who informed the Vanguard that as an employee of AgraQuest he was told to dispose of waste material on a concrete culvert. The Vanguard also showed photographic evidence taken from several years later that suggests the possibility of contamination of the outside worksite.

In a follow up interview with David Bell, he warned us that the ventilation system at the 1105 Kennedy Place office building needs to be fully investigated as well due to the activities that took place in the building and the possibility that microbes ended up in the ventilation system.

Farheed Zakaria & Post-America-Centric World



From May 27, 2008 in San Francisco, CA, hear the editor of Newsweek International, ABC News analyst, and New York Times bestselling author, Farheed Zakaria discusses a future where the U.S. no longer dominates the global economy, geopolitics, and culture. Duration 1 hr. 7 min.



From July 28, 2008, Glenn Greenwald Interviews David Sirota. Sirota's book explores how the pervasive and intense dissatisfaction among the citizenry with our political class can be channeled into genuine political change. Duration 36 min.



Click here to download or listen to mp3 Total Duration 1:46:39




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In 1999, Farheed Zakaria was named "one of the 21 most important people of the 21st Century" by Esquire Magazine.

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Hear Eric Vega, Professor of Chicano Studies at CSUS as he spoke to the Sacramento United Nations Association on June 23, 2008.

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Professor Vega has a law degree from the New College School of Law in San Francisco. He has taught at the Sacramento State College for the last 15 years. He has been the Executive Director of the Sacramento Human Rights and Fair Housing Commission and attorney for Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund. Duration 0:58:43

Great Speeches and Interviews' Past Programs

Hear James Whitaker on the real Iran

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Jim Whitaker is an American who spent most of his life in the Middle East. He's kept silent about his experiences and observations until recently. He decided to go public and discuss Iran and the Middle East with the Sacramento UN Association in May, 2008.

Duration 1:07:48

Antiwar Radio: Charles Goyette Interviews William Hartung

William Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Initiative at the New America Foundation. He discusses the companies that make up the American Military-Industrial-Complex. He is the author of "How Much Are You Making on the War Daddy?: A Quick and Dirty Guide to War Profiteering in the Bush Administration."

Duration 13:02

Hear Scott Ritter and Chris Hedges

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Scott Ritter

Scott Ritter won't let us forget Iraq, Iran and the Constitution.



Scott Ritter was one of UNSCOM's most senior weapons inspectors in Iraq between 1991 and 1998. Prior to working with UNSCOM, he served for eight years in the Army and Marine Corps. In the Marine Corps, he served as an intelligence officer, conducted arms inspections in the former Soviet Union. He provided analysis of Iraq's missile capacity to General Schwarzkopf in the 1991 Gulf War.


Seymour Hersh has observed: "The important thing to know about Scott Ritter is that he was right."

Manzanar World War II Internment Camp

CALIFORNIA MUSLIMS PARTNER WITH JAPANESE-AMERICAN COMMUNITY TO VISIT WWII INTERNMENT CAMP

Pilgrims to include California Community and Religious Leaders; Internment Camp Survivors to Share Stories

(SACRAMENTO, CA, 4/24/08) - On Saturday, April 26, the California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-CA) - in cooperation with the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), and Nikkei for Civil Rights and Redress (NCRR) - will lead a group of Muslim community members and leaders to visit the first camp established to intern Japanese-Americans during WWII.

The group, including the imams of some of the largest mosques in the area, will take part in the 39th Annual Pilgrimage to Manzanar, an event intended to raise awareness of civil rights abuses in our country's past with the aim of preventing them from being repeated. Formerly known as 'Manzanar War Relocation Center,' the central California site was one of ten internment camps that held more than 10,000 innocent Japanese-American men, women and children during the war.

SEE: Pilgrimage to Manzanar (InFocus)
http://www.infocusnews.net/content/view/14652/135/

This year's pilgrimage holds added significance because it marks the 20th anniversary of the passage of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which granted an official apology and reparations to Japanese- Americans interned, without due process, during WWII.