World War III Scenarios

According to David Bay, Cutting Edge Ministries:

President Richard Nixon issued Executive Order #11647 on February 14, 1972, which reorganized the United States into 10 federal regions... The unconstitutional goal of this reorganization into 10 super regions is to set the stage for the abolishment of governments from the federal, to the state, to the county, and even to the local, levels. The objective is to set in place the form of government that could be implemented during a planned crisis, that would effectively strip us of our elected representational form of government. Suddenly, we would find ourselves being governed by officials who are not elected, nor responsible to any voters.

This regional system is apparently unlimited in its scope and powers. Thus, Americans could very well discover that they are back under the control of the type of government that our Founding Fathers spent their lives and fortunes overthrowing! Worse still, we could find ourselves facing the type of dictator which we have seen ruling Russia and Nazi Germany.

This regional system is also apparently a military structure. We will see this more clearly when the federal program called "General and Complete Disarmament" (Public Law 87-297) is fully integrated according to this 10-region system of government. We also will probably not see this 10-region system implemented until we are under the simultaneous crises of which we have spoken many times.

When America is under the following planned crises, we will witness this changeover to this 10-region system, most likely with FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) exercising initial control. These are apparently the crises that are planned:

1. All-out nuclear warfare in the Middle East (or neutron warfare).
2. All-out nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula (or at least the threat of such a war).
3. Arab terrorists threatening to devastate American cities with atomic, chemical or biological weapons (or actually carrying out this threat).
4. Total oil embargo from the Arab nations in support of Arab forces fighting Israel in the Middle East.
5. Earthquakes deliberately caused to create panic.
6. Simultaneous riots in many American cities to further cause panic.
7. American Presidency weakened because of scandal and infighting with Congress and the Courts to further cause panic among American voters.
8. The Stock Market will crash, causing absolute panic amongst all Americans. Jobs will immediately begin to be lost, thus further adding to the panic.

Antichrist is supposed to appear at the end of the Middle East crisis. If this occurs, then aliens and visible "angels" are to appear to urge all peoples of the world to support him and his plan.

At this moment, the head of FEMA will suddenly appear, announcing that he is taking "temporary" control, and quoting all the various Executive Orders and laws passed by Congress giving him all the authority he needs to assume the powers of government, of all branches of our former Constitutional government.

Once this changeover to the new 10-region system of government occurs, amidst all these contrived and planned crises, you may rest assured the End of the Age is upon us.

Club of Rome's 10 Regions and the 10 Kings of Daniel and Revelation - The "10 horns" are explained in Daniel 7:23-25 and Revelation 17:12 to be 10 kings, and the whole vision is of the last form of Gentile world-power, a confederated 10-kingdom empire, most likely covering the whole earth. Now it's interesting to note that, in 1972, the Club of Rome proposed a plan to divide the whole world into 10 regions. Could these 10 regions be the 10 horns of the Bible? - his2ndcoming

The ten horns which you saw are ten kings who have received no kingdom as yet, but they receive authority for one hour as kings with the beast. These are of one mind, and they will give their power and authority to the beast. These will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them (Revelation 17:12-14).

And the ten horns which you saw on the beast, these will hate the harlot, make her desolate and naked, eat her flesh and burn her with fire. For God has put it into their hearts to fulfill His purpose, to be of one mind, and to give their kingdom to the beast, until the words of God are fulfilled (Revelation 17:16-17).

And I saw the beast, the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against Him who sat on the horse and against His army (Revelation 19:19).

Once the 10 Nations Have Arisen, Antichrist Will Appear - In 1957, Alice Bailey, then the leader of the House of Theosophy, wrote in her collection of writings, "The Externalisation of the Hierarchy," that the world must first be reorganized into "spheres of influence" before it could be organized into a global government (page 209). She made it very clear that this reorganization would not follow traditional national boundaries, but would be a completely different organization. Bailey did not specify how many "spheres of influence" would be created, but her plan was fleshed out in 1974 by New World Order authors, Mihajlo Mesarovic and Eduard Pestel, in a book entitled, "Mankind At The Turning Point." They wrote that the world would be reorganized into 10 Super Nation States, listed below. - David Bay, Cutting Edge Ministries

(1) North America
(2) Western Europe
(3) Japan
(4) Australia, South Africa, and the rest of the market-economy of the developed world
(5) Eastern Europe, including Russia
(6) Latin America
(7) North Africa and the Middle East
(8) Tropical Africa
(9) South and Southeast Asia
(10) China

Cold War Era 10-Region Map (Mexico Not Included in the North American Union)

The 'Little Horn' (Antichrist) Rises Up AFTER the Ten Kings Come to Power - So let us remember the basics here: the man of sin, little horn or antichrist, rises out of a system of 10 kings. The system of 10 kings is controlled by the harlot, Babylon, and the entire system is given its power by the dragon, Satan. Many people get a little too hung up on if it is a 'Masonic conspiracy' or a 'Jesuit conspiracy' or a 'globalist conspiracy.' They are all the same conspiracy. It is part of a Satanic conspiracy to control the globe for the prince of darkness. God has given us a witness as to the final form the system will take: 10 kings ruled by a harlot controlled by the devil. That system is not fully here yet, but true, born-again Christians who are awake and are not sleeping can and are seeing this system coming into being. It is not far off. - Mark S. Watson

I will tell thee mystery of the woman,
And of the beast that carrieth her,
Which hath the seven heads and ten horns.

The beast that thou sawest was, and is not;
And shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition:
And they that dwell on the earth shall wonder,
Whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world,
When they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.

And here is the mind which hath wisdom.
The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.
And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come;
And when he cometh, he must continue a short space.
And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth,
And is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.

And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings,
Which have received no kingdom as yet;
But receive power as kings one hour with the beast.
These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.

These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them:
For He is Lord of lords, and King of kings:
And they that are with Him are called, and chosen, and faithful.

And he saith unto me,
The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth,
Are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.
And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore,
And shall make her desolate and naked,
And shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.

For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil His will,
And to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast,
Until the words of God shall be fulfilled.

And the woman which thou sawest is that great city,
Which reigneth over the kings of the earth.

Revelation 17:7-18

The Middle East crisis will lead to World War III. Antichrist will appear at the end of WWIII to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem. A one-world government with a one-world religion will be established, the anti-Christian kingdom prophesied in chapter 13 of the book of Revelation. This one-world power will offer apparent peace and prosperity to a world in chaos. The devil, Satan, will rule over his earthly kingdom for "a little season," so that he as God will stand in the holy place, showing himself that he is God, and he will deceive many with his signs and wonders.

For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them. - 1st Thessalonians 5:3

The goal of the New Jerusalem Covenant Project is to create the plan by which Antichrist can solve the Middle East crisis; Antichrist will use this crisis to stage his appearance in the world. Antichrist is supposed to appear at the end of the Middle East crisis (World War III). The prophetic reality of Daniel 9:24-27, Matthew 24:15 and Revelation 11:1-12 is that the new Temple will be built after World War III and will produce the Man of Sin. Thus, the Illuminati plans to destroy the Dome of the Rock during the World War III fighting so that their Antichrist can rebuild Solomon's Temple. This reality means that Arabs will retain control over the Temple Mount until the moment Antichrist comes to the world scene and seizes it for the Jews so his temple can be created. "Peace and safety" will be heralded, and the leaders of the major nations will be busily taking credit for their "brilliant" leadership that seemingly finally solved the deeply engrained religious strife in and around Jerusalem that has plagued mankind for the past 1,400 years.- David Bay, Cutting Edge Ministries

The Sixth Seal, the Seven Trumpets, and the Return of Christ

At the opening of the sixth seal, cosmic disturbances will come upon the earth (great earthquake, sun turns black, moon turns blood red, stars fall to earth, sky rolls up like a scroll, every mountain and island moves), which will be followed by silence in heaven for about 1/2 hour before the seventh seal is opened.

The seventh seal in the Book of Revelation reveals itself as the seven trumpets, described as "the wrath of the Lamb." The first four trumpets will bring destruction upon the earth (1/3 of trees burned up, all green grass burned, 1/3 of sea turns to blood, 1/3 of sea creatures die, 1/3 of ships destroyed, 1/3 of waters poisoned, 1/3 of sun and moon and stars darkened).

When the fifth trumpet is sounded, Satan will be released from the bottomless pit to rule over his earthly kingdom (his one-world government and religion). He will stand in the holy place claiming to be God, and he will promise peace and security to a world in desperate need of grand solutions to profound problems. Satan, deceiving many with his signs and wonders, will reign as king over this earth for five months, during which time (the sixth trumpet) 1/3 part of man will be killed (most likely Christians and others who refuse to worship "the beast" and to receive his "mark" in their right hand or forehead).

After this earthly reign by Satan for "a little season" and his persecution of the followers of Christ, Christ will return in the clouds of heaven with great power and glory (the seventh trumpet) to deliver up His people to the kingdom of heaven. He then will destroy by fire the kingdom of "the beast" and create a new heaven and a new earth over which He will reign with His people for eternity.

"And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, 'It is my people:' and they shall say, The Lord is my God." (Zechariah 13:9)

According to The Green Agenda:

You don’t need to look in the shadows for the coming world government: it is standing right before your eyes. When they bring “order out of chaos,” the United Nations will be transformed and the final global empire will be born. So what events could possibly bring about the conditions that would allow the emergence of a one world government? I will briefly describe what I consider to be the most likely scenario:

Ezekiel 38 and 39 describe an attack on Israel by a coalition of Islamic nations and Russia. It seems that this conflict also involves other parts of the globe. The invading forces are completely destroyed by God’s divine intervention. The military power of Russia is annihilated, and Islam, which promised its believers a final ultimate victory, is shattered.

The world economy lies in total ruin. Significant areas of the planet are devastated. People everywhere are distraught and in despair. Emergency meetings are held at the United Nations where the blueprints for a new global system are presented and quickly adopted.

“We need a new beginning” they will say; “We all must change and renounce our old destructive ways.” Amazingly everything is already in place. The Earth Charter would be endorsed as a Planetary Constitution and the Security Council replaced with some new 'United Earth Council.' The world would be divided into 10 administrative regions with each one represented by an Earth Councillor.

The blame for the recent conflict, and many of the world's other problems, would be placed firmly on traditional religions. They would be swiftly outlawed and replaced by reverence for the earth itself. “We nearly destroyed Gaia!” they would say, “We nearly destroyed our own Mother!”

Over the last decade, the United Nations has brazenly been reinventing itself into a global government, striving to obtain the legal framework, financial resources, and grassroots support to implement its policies. As outlined in my preceding articles, it has effectively seized legal and regulatory control in many countries, through Agenda 21, and developed a Constitution, the Earth Charter, for its vision on a transformed global interdependent society.

In 1992 the UN formed a Commission on Global Governance charged with devising a system of future global management. Second in charge of the Commission, and lead author of its report, was Maurice Strong, with whom readers will be quite familiar by now. After several years of “extension consultation” with “world leaders, philosophers and futurologists,” the Commission produced a report entitled Our Global Neighbourhood...

One of the primary thrusts of 'Our Global Neighbourhood' was the formation of “regional blocs or unions to enhance political, economic and environmental security.” The report proposed that “Regional Neighbourhoods” be established, modelled closely on the successful example of the European Union.

Recent years have seen a large number of such regional unions emerging, or being strengthened, including the African Union, the Mediterranean Neighbourhood Partnership, the Gulf States Coalition, and the proposed North American Union.

The report also recommended a gradual reduction in the sovereignty of independent states, arguing strongly in favour of international “courts of accountability,” binding global agreements, and significantly enhancing the legal authority of the UN. Dr Robert Muller, Assistant Secretary-General of the UN and co-founder of UNESCO, clearly describes this UN plan for a new 'World Union:'

In my view, after fifty years of service in the United Nations system, I perceive the utmost urgency and absolute necessity for proper Earth government... There is no shadow of a doubt that the present political and economic systems—if systems they are—are no longer appropriate and will lead to the end of life evolution on this planet. We must therefore absolutely and urgently look for new ways. The less we loose time, the less species' and nature will be destroyed.

Since the United Nations is the only worldwide, universal organization that is presently available, since it had fifty years of valuable experience and many successes, and since it paved the way to proper Earth government (instead of putting it on the defensive, unjustified attacks and criticism, reduction of resources and non-payment of obligatory contributions) governments should honestly ask themselves if a better way would not be to consider a second generation United Nations upgraded by a true quantum jump into a proper Earth-preserving and human-well-being and justice-ensuring organization of our planet.

The continental approach to a world union remains an important avenue. One could conceive five continental unions: the European Union, an American, an African, an Asian, and an Australian Union. A World Union could be constructed as a super-structure and common political, economic and environmental instrument to achieve these objectives. - The Earth Charter in Action

This strategy appears to be based on the Club of Rome's proposal to divide the earth into 10 administrative regions, which they outlined in their report Mankind at the Turning Point. You can find their original map in my previous article on that topic. Interestingly, the UN is currently in the process of reviewing and reforming the organization, with particular emphasis on the Security Council.

Several alternative models have been proposed which will make the Council more 'representative and democratic.' One of these, the Italian Model, proposes replacing the current 10 seats held by individual nations with 10 seats representing 'regional unions,' two seats for Europe, three for Asia, etc. You can compare the different proposals here.

'Our Global Neighbourhood' concluded with 12 key recommendations which I have listed below, and it was these that caused such a furore that the rest of the report barely received a comment. The UN claimed that the report was merely a “visioning exercise” intended to generate discussion and did not represent official UN policy goals. The report was effectively shelved and the Commission was disbanded:

1. Consolidation of all international agencies under the direct oversight of the United Nations.
2. Regulation by the United Nations of all transnational organizations and financial institutions.
3. Independent source of revenue for the United Nations, and taxes on aircraft and shipping fuels, and licensing the use of the global commons.
4. Eliminate the veto power and the permanent member status on the Security Council.
5. Authorize a United Nations ready reaction force.
6. Require United Nations registration of all arms and the reduction of national armies as a part of a multilateral global security system under the authority of the United Nations.
7. Require individual and national compliance with all United Nations Human Rights treaties.
8. Activate the International Criminal Court, make the International Court of Justice compulsory for all nations, and give individuals the right to petition the courts to remedy social injustice.
9. Create a new institution to establish economic and environmental security by ensuring sustainable development.
10. Create a new international environmental court.
11. Adopt a declaration that climate change is an essential global security interest that requires the creation of a high-level action team to allocate carbon emission based on equal per-capita rights.
12. Cancellation of all debt owed by the poorest nations, global poverty reductions, and equitable sharing of global resources as allocated by the United Nations.

One of Kofi Annan’s first actions when he became Secretary-General of the United Nations was to appoint Maurice Strong as his Senior Policy Advisor. He then tasked Strong with preparing a plan to “reform the institution of the United Nations.”

In 2002, Strong produced a 95-page document entitled Renewing the United Nations: A Programme for Reform, which was basically a step-by-step program to implement many of the recommendations of 'Our Global Neighbourhood.' Many of these reforms have been slowly working their way through UN system. However, after Maurice Strong was indicted for his involvement in the Iraq Oil-for-Food scandal, he was forced by pressure from the United States to resign from his UN roles.

The reforms Strong designed are being implemented by the UN, but they have not been the transformation that he desired. It is the opinion of this author that the current bureaucratic and unwieldy structure of the United Nations is unlikely to ever deliver the “global interdependent society” that the Earth Charter, and the Green Movement, is fervently calling for. Most members of the general population are not motivated to change by mere words in a charter, and the majority are likely to resent further intrusion into their lives.

True fundamental change is most often born out of crisis. A common creed among the Green Agenda activists has long been “order out of chaos.” They believe that people from all nations will literally beg for their New World Order if it can promise safety and security at a time when people feel under personal imminent threat.

To once again quote the famous words of David Rockefeller “A New World Order is coming… all we need is the right major crisis.” And remember, it was the Rockefeller family that donated the land on which the United Nations now stands.

Thus it seems far more likely that the UN itself will be transformed, most likely after some major international crisis which the UN is unable to prevent or respond to adequately. After all, the League of Nations was born after the first truly global crisis, World War 1, and then it was “reformed” into the United Nations following World War 2. However there are some serious impediments to the implementation of the final phase of the Global Green Agenda:

1. Evangelical Christianity – True Bible-believing Christians are very likely to resist the imposition of any system of global governance, especially if it based around an earth-centred religion. Christians realise that this earth is temporary and will soon pass away. The Bible specifically warns them that humans will eventually end up “worshipping the creature instead of the Creator.” However the leaders of certain denominations seem to have no problem with the Agenda. Pope Benedict proclaimed, during Live Earth that “environmental degradation is a sin, and global warming is a defilement of the Divine Will.”
2. Islam – Moslems are also likely to fiercely resist any New World Order that mandates a form of earth-worship. There are more than one billion followers of Islam, and they show remarkably little enthusiasm for accommodating New Age eco-theology into their doctrines. Hence it is likely that the power of Islam will have to be shattered before the Global Green Agenda can be fulfilled.

3. The United States of America – The USA has long been a bastion of individual liberty and freedom. Thank God George Bush defeated Al Gore in the 2000 Presidential election. If Gore had won, I have no doubt we would now be deep in the midst of the Green Reich. President Bush has bravely defended American sovereignty from the clutches of the global elitists. However this could soon change. If Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama is elected President it could well be the end of the American dream.

4. Communist China – The totalitarian Communist Party of China is very unlikely to relinquish much of its power to a new transformed United Nations. However, China is currently treading a precarious path. Its economic miracle is in fact a house of cards built on slave labour and artificially managed conditions. China is very vulnerable to an economic collapse, which could lead to a popular revolution or bankrupt the country.

5. Authoritarian Russia – Putin has established a tight authoritarian grip on Russia and is unlikely to bow willingly to a resurrected UN. However, Putin could soon be gone and a new Gorbachev could arise. Another possibility is that Russia could also once again lose its position as a global power broker through economic problems or war.

So, to quickly summarise, the activists behind the Global Green Agenda have established regulatory control in many societies through Agenda 21, they have written a Constitution for their transformed global society with the Earth Charter, and they have even described, in detail, how their new global system will operate in 'Our Global Neighbourhood.' However, several obstacles must be removed before the final phase of the Agenda, global governance based on a system of earth-worship, can be fulfilled:

• Firstly, a situation must arise where otherwise apathetic, or even hostile, members of society will beg for a new global system. They must feel so personally threatened that they will eagerly give up their personal liberty for the promise of safety and security. 'Our Global Neighbourhood' said the surrender of liberty is "a principle that will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the imperatives of global environmental cooperation." In my opinion, global warming is currently being used as a conditioning tool with its fervent call for global unity to save a wounded planet.

• Secondly, certain nations and religious groups are unlikely to accept a new global system that involves the loss of national sovereignty, the loss of individual liberty, and reverence for the earth as a divine being...

As David Rockefeller stated, “all we need is the right crisis.” Everything is now in place. They are just building momentum and waiting for the storm they know is coming. You don’t need to look in the shadows for the coming world government: it is standing right before your eyes. When they bring “order out of chaos,” the United Nations will be transformed and the final global empire will be born.

Iran Leaders Hint at Missile Attacks Against U.S. Bases

Iran Leaders Hint at Missile Attacks Against U.S. Bases, Call for End to Nuclear Negotiations

The Daily Caller
May 29, 2012

With the May 23 negotiations in Iraq failing to persuade Iran to give up its illicit nuclear program, Iranian leaders have returned to threats of war — including the provocative statement that their missiles can reach every U.S. military base in the Middle East, and a call to halt all nuclear negotiations with the West.

On Saturday, Iranian Brig. Gen. Hossein Salami threatened that all “enemy” bases in the region are vulnerable to Iranian attack.

“Wherever you imagine these bases are, they are within the reach of Iranian missiles,” he said, according to Fars News Agency, the media outlet run by the powerful Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The news report said half of Iran’s missile capability is still unknown to the West.

Also on Saturday, the editor-in-chief of Iran’s conservative Keyhan newspaper — which generally reflects the Iranian regime’s point of view – penned an editorial calling for a full halt to negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program.

“After two days of negotiations in Baghdad,” Hossein Shariatmadari wrote, ”it seems that the negotiations only serve the West and its political need with their current economic problems. The Baghdad negotiations showed that the West has not changed its attitude and still demands its illegal requests regarding Iran’s nuclear program.”

Shariatmadari has said in the past that Iran should acknowledge to Western nations that it has nuclear weapons capabilities. On Saturday he suggested the 5+1 nations only want to continue negotiations in order to keep oil prices steady and avoid a shock to an already-teetering global economy.

“It can be assumed that the upcoming negotiations to be held in Moscow will also not result in much and our presence will only secure the need of the enemy,” he said. “Therefore, it’s best that Iran does not participate in any future negotiation, be it in Moscow or elsewhere.”

As the Iranian delegation negotiated with the representatives of the 5+1 in Baghdad last week, Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told Revolutionary Guard officers graduating from Imam Hussein University that Western nations’ days as global superpowers are numbered.

“The oppressive powers, despite their show of force, are on the track of destruction. … Soon the future will smile on the Iranian nation,” he predicted, according to Keyhan.

This latest instance of saber-rattling during a university graduation was a sequel to equally provocative comments from Iranian Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi in April, during a speech at the University of Yazd.

“The power of our naval forces is such that we have a presence in all the waters of the world and, if needed, we can move to within three miles of New York,” Fadavi boasted.

The Revolutionary Guards have successfully launched ballistic missiles from naval ships, and have stated that they have vessels equipped with long-range ballistic missiles.

The Guards have already mapped out the U.S. bases in the region as part of a wartime contingency plan to disrupt the movement of air and ground forces.

Iran’s ballistic missiles can reach targets more than 1,250 miles away, potentially putting U.S. bases in Afghanistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and parts of other countries within Tehran’s firing range.

An International Atomic Energy Agency report released Friday concluded that Iran has amassed 6.2 tons of uranium enriched to a low level of 3.5 percent purity. If enriched further, that amount would be enough for five nuclear bombs, the Institute for Science and International Security declared on Friday.

Iran, the IAEA wrote, also has doubled its highly enriched uranium stockpile — 20 percent pure fissile material — to a total of 145 kilograms.

The report indicated that inspectors had also recorded “the presence of particles” of 27 percent-enriched uranium at Iran’s Fordow facility.

The 5+1 nations negotiating with Iran at the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — plus Germany. They have asked Iran to halt its enrichment process at the 20 percent level and allow inspectors full access to suspect sites, including the Parchin military site where the UN suspects Iran is carrying out nuclear arms-related tests.

Iran has refused, but Iranian hard-line cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami stated in his Friday prayer sermon that Iran will not relinquish its right to 20 percent enrichment, which is a short step from weapons-grade uranium.

Keyhan reported Monday that the 5+1 talks produced an awkward moment on May 23 when Dr. Saeed Jalili, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, asked his negotiating adversaries if they were aware of the significance to Iranians of the date and the location where they were negotiating.

They weren’t.

“Thirty years ago today we took back the city of Khorramshahr from Saddam [Hussein],” Jalili said. During that 8-year-war, he explained, the same 5+1 countries provided support to the Iraqi dictator.

“We were alone. … Where is Saddam now and where do we stand in the region? Today on the anniversary of the freedom of Khorramshahr … we are here in Saddam’s palace.”

“When the world stood on one side and the Islamic republic [of Iran] on the other,” Jalili concluded, “we did not surrender to the West and East’s illogical demands. And so do not expect us to surrender now to the current illogical demands.”

All this comes as The Washington Post reported Sunday that U.S. diplomats were the targets of Iran-based assassination plots. U.S. officials and their counterparts in the Middle East, according to the Post, see the attempts as part of a 13-month plan, hatched by operatives linked to Iran, to kill foreign diplomats in at least seven nations.

And barely a week ago, Iran’s top military commander said his country was fully committed to destroying Israel.

“The Iranian nation is standing for its cause, and that is the full annihilation of Israel,” Maj. Gen. Hassan Firouzabadi, the Iranian military’s chief of staff, said in a speech to a May 20 defense gathering.

Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for a former CIA operative in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and the author of the award winning book ”A Time to Betray.” He is a senior Fellow with EMPact America, a member of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security and teaches at the U.S. Department of Defense’s Joint Counterintelligence Training Academy (JCITA).

U.S. Military Denies Parachuting into North Korea

U.S. Commandos Parachuted into N. Korea: Report

AFP
May 29, 2012

US and South Korean special forces have been parachuting into North Korea to gather intelligence about underground military installations, a US officer has said in comments carried in US media.

Army Brigadier General Neil Tolley, commander of US special forces in South Korea, told a conference held in Florida last week that Pyongyang had built thousands of tunnels since the Korean war, The Diplomat reported.

"The entire tunnel infrastructure is hidden from our satellites," Tolley said, according to The Diplomat, a current affairs magazine. "So we send (South Korean) soldiers and US soldiers to the North to do special reconnaissance."

"After 50 years, we still don't know much about the capability and full extent" of the underground facilities," he said, in comments reported by the National Defense Industrial Association's magazine on its website.

Tolley said the commandos were sent in with minimal equipment to facilitate their movements and minimize the risk of detection by North Korean forces.

At least four of the tunnels built by Pyongyang go under the Demilitarized Zone separating North and South Korea, Tolley said.

"We don't know how many we don't know about," he admitted.

Among the facilities identified are 20 air fields that are partially underground, and thousands of artillery positions.

In February, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported that had built at least two new tunnels at a nuclear testing site, likely in preparation for a new test.

U.S. Military Denies Parachuting into N.Korea

Agence France-Presse
May 29, 2012

The US military Tuesday vehemently denied a media report that special forces had been parachuted into North Korea on intelligence-gathering missions, saying a source had been misquoted.

Current affairs magazine The Diplomat quoted Brigadier General Neil Tolley, commander of special forces in South Korea, as saying soldiers from the US and South Korea had been dropped across the border for "special reconnaissance" missions.

But Colonel Jonathan Withington, public affairs officer for US Forces Korea, said some reporting of the conference had taken Tolley "completely out of context".

"Quotes have been made up and attributed to him," he said, denying that any US or South Korean forces had parachuted into the North.

"Though special reconnaissance is a core special operations force (SOF) mission, at no time have SOF forces been sent to the north to conduct special reconnaissance," he said in a statement.

The Diplomat quoted Tolley as saying that the North had built thousands of tunnels since the 1950-53 Korean War.

"The entire tunnel infrastructure is hidden from our satellites," the magazine reported him as saying at a press conference in Florida last week. "So we send (South Korean) soldiers and US soldiers to the North to do special reconnaissance."

According to the magazine, he said commandos parachute in with minimal supplies to watch the tunnels undetected.

At least four of the tunnels built by Pyongyang go under the Demilitarized Zone separating North and South Korea, Tolley was reported as saying.

"We don't know how many we don't know about."

Jerusalem is the Most Difficult Symbolic Issue for the Peace Process

Insight: Jerusalem Expansion Reaches Point of No Return

Reuters
May 22, 2012

Named for the crash site of an airforce plane shot down during the Six Day War in 1967, Givat HaMatos may yet prove the place where Palestinian hopes of a creating a capital in Jerusalem also plunge to earth.

'Airplane Hill' lies on the southern fringes of Jerusalem's city limits - rock-strewn land dotted with shabby, prefabricated bungalows and the occasional pine tree.

Once a tranquil backwater, the area has become the focus of hectic activity in the last six months, with Israeli authorities releasing plans for 2,610 housing units and 1,110 hotel rooms.

With the approval process going more quickly than expected, building could start later this year, creating the first new Israeli settlement in 15 years among the sprawl of a modern Jerusalem that is spread out over many hills.

If that happens, it would effectively cut off the city's mainly Arab neighbourhoods from Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, imperiling the Palestinians' prospects for establishing a coherent capital and with it their goal of an independent state.

"There is only so much territorial abuse this tortured land can take before we kill the political options of saving the two- state solution," said Daniel Seidemann, an Israeli attorney who monitors urban developments he thinks affect chances for peace.

"What is happening at Givat HaMatos is a game changer," he said, his finger tapping a map of the area for added emphasis. "Events are careering out of control."

Of all the obstacles blocking the way to peace between the Palestinians and Israelis, the status of Jerusalem is arguably the most intractable.

"It's the most difficult symbolic issue for the peace process. It's an emotional issue," Israeli Prime Benjamin Netanyahu told Reuters earlier this month.

For Israelis, all of the city, including East Jerusalem and its West Bank suburbs captured in 1967, is their "eternal and indivisible" capital, the home the Jews dreamed of through 2,000 years of exile, and the site of their revered Western Wall.

For Palestinians, there can be no peace until Israel cedes them control over East Jerusalem, a symbol of their national struggle and home to Islam's third holiest site, al-Aqsa mosque and the glittering Dome of the Rock.

In the absence of a deal, or even meaningful negotiations, Israel has been busy developing the holy city, building impressive, stone-clad neighbourhoods across the annexed land in defiance of constant international criticism.

PRECIOUS LAND

A series of recent interviews with Israelis and Palestinians suggests that the development is at a tipping point.

Plans for Givat HaMatos are not taking place in a vacuum.

Israeli officials are also pushing to expand the nearby settlements of Gilo and Har Homa, thereby building a broad, concrete crescent just north of the hilltop town of Bethlehem.

Some 35 percent of Palestinian economic activity is centered on a line that stretches from Bethlehem through East Jerusalem and on to Ramallah, the West Bank's administrative centre, north of Jerusalem. Critics say the southern settlements will snap this link.

"It is like putting a ribbon around a finger and pulling tighter and tighter until all the blood is cut off," said Ashraf Khatib, a Palestinian activist from East Jerusalem.

"But it is not just in the south. The Israelis are creating facts on the ground across the eastern city," he added.

A proud exponent of that policy is Aryeh King, the founder of the Israeli Land Fund whose stated mission is to "reclaim the land of Israel for the people of Israel".

In April, he secured the eviction of an Arab family from a home in the Arab neighborhood of Beit Hanina after a court ruled that the place had been legally bought by a Jew. He immediately moved half a dozen young supporters into the house and promised further evictions in the months ahead.

"We are locating property in all of East Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, every piece of land is important. All the plots put together can change the reality," said King, standing in the backyard of the low-rise building he had just taken over.

"The reality we don't want to see happen is one that we think would lead to catastrophe - the division of the city."

Jews, from Biblical kings such as David and Solomon to present day Israelis, see Jerusalem as the home of their religion and as a national capital fit for their people.

Most Israelis dismiss accusations their presence in East Jerusalem is illegal and bridle at the term "settlement" to describe what they refer to as Jewish neighbourhoods.

POPULATION GROWTH

As British imperial forces left Palestine in 1948, 60 percent of Jerusalem's population was Jewish. The United Nations had planned to put the city under international control, but war intervened and when a truce ended it, Jordan held the eastern sector, including the walled Old City with its sacred sites.

Israel controlled the West Jerusalem.

Following the 1967 war, Israel swept away the armistice boundary, or Green Line, and more than doubled the city limits. In 1980, parliament passed a law declaring united Jerusalem as the national capital, a move never recognized internationally.

Palestinians say the new masters have strived to alter the demographics, limiting land available to develop in Arab neighbourhoods, imposing residency rules that push Arabs out and demolishing more than 2,000 of their homes in East Jerusalem.

This has had little impact on population ratios, even as the number of inhabitants has soared from 263,000 in 1967 to around 800,000 today. Indeed the Arab ratio is climbing, with secular Israelis reluctant to settle in a city known for tensions and as home to growing numbers of religiously observant Jews.

According to the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, 36 percent of inhabitants were Arab in 2009 against 28 percent in 1980. City officials say the figure will hit 40 percent by 2020. By contrast, 20 percent of Israel's total population are Arabs.

"Jerusalem is not a Jewish city, not an Israeli city, but a bi-national city. It is not a united city. It is divided in more ways than you could care to imagine," said Seidemann, who is the go-to person for diplomats seeking information on town planning.

The divisions are often invisible to the naked eye. Outsiders rarely notice when they cross from west to east, and are surprised if Jewish taxi drivers refuse to take them to hotels in Arab areas because they fear being pelted with stones.

Likewise, both visitors and residents often express surprise when told that leafy districts of solid, modern homes are the very settlements which are so regularly denounced abroad.

"This place isn't a settlement," said Ofer Dror, a 36-year-old technician and resident of Har Homa, a terraced suburb of neat, white-stone apartments housing 13,000 Israelis that overlooks the Biblical town of Bethlehem.

"If we were behind some fence or a separation line then I might think that," he added, clearly surprised by the concept.

WINNERS AND LOSERS

Ironically, just a hundred meters from Har Homa's outer ring of houses, lives a Palestinian shepherd stranded by a fence.

Saed al-Zawahri lost a third of his land as the settlement spread this past decade. He grazes his small flock of sheep over his remaining three acres, cut off from Bethlehem, which lies tantalizingly close behind coils of barbed wire.

Israel has sealed much of the West Bank behind walls and fences following a wave of Palestinian suicide attacks at the start of the last decade that killed many hundred Israelis.

This has ensnared Zawahri in a bureaucratic mess.

Denied Jerusalem residency, he says he is only allowed to travel to Bethlehem but is not entitled to register a car with Israeli license plates to drive on the Israelis-only roads he would need to get him there. Likewise, he says he does not have the right to shop in the adjacent Har Homa and must call in special deliveries from Palestinian stores.

"They plan a thousand years ahead," said the 74-year-old shepherd. "They plan to get rid of us."

Asked if anything could stop the Israeli expansion, he smiled wryly.

"Only God. All the Arab armies already tried and failed," he said, referring to the wars of 1948, 1967 and 1973, when combined Arab forces tried but failed to defeat Israel.

However, recent events in Jerusalem suggest that the United States could influence policy-making if it wanted to.

A review of city planning activity shows that between March 9 and November 1 in 2010 there was a de facto halt on settlement work in the city and again from January 3, 2012 to early April.

The first period coincided with intense U.S. lobbying for a freeze to entice the Palestinian leadership into peace talks - negotiations that swiftly broke down when Netanyahu rejected Palestinian demands for a further extension to the halt.

There is no clear explanation for the second period of inactivity, although some diplomats have suggested Netanyahu applied the brake to avoid rows with Washington as he sought to gain U.S. support for a tough stance on Iran's nuclear strategy.

"Israel failed to get the green light from America to attack Iran. Shortly afterwards the building plans for Jerusalem accelerated. Who knows if these two facts are connected?" said a senior Western diplomat in Israel who declined to be named.

Israeli officials said the apparent freeze was coincidental.

Municipal leaders complain openly about the outside pressure that is brought to bear as they seek to run one of the world's iconic cities, administering garbage collection, school buses and restaurant permits, while welcoming in the tourist hordes.

"Everything stood still for quite a few months but from the point of view of the city's various populations it was tragic," says Deputy Mayor Naomi Tsur, adding that the order in 2010 to stop work had come directly from Netanyahu.

"This is a living city. People have to live somewhere, send their children to schools," she said. "When we are left to ourselves we know how to do it, but we are not left to ourselves."

With peace talks blocked and world attention fixed on myriad other crises, the floodgates have lifted and the city authorities seem to have a free hand to do what they want.

Out in Givat HaMatos, the bulldozers could swing into action by the autumn, when the summer heat starts to fade.

"The geography and demographics will then be so Balkanised that the two-state solution will be gone," said Seidemann.

"All the analysts we have met in the intelligence community in Europe and the United States, including the White House, see it and know it is coming."

North Korea to Boost Nuclear Deterrent after U.S. Pressure

North Korea to Boost Nuclear Deterrent after U.S. Pressure

Reuters
May 22, 2012

Isolated North Korea stepped up its war of words against the United States on Tuesday, vowing to boost its nuclear deterrent after Washington warned Pyongyang of further sanctions if it did not abandon its atomic program.

The North's foreign ministry spokesman said via the official KCNA news agency that it would "bolster its nuclear deterrent as long as the United States was continuing with its hostile policies" and that it planned "countermeasures" following pressure from Washington.

Last week, world leaders meeting in the United States said the isolated North needed to adhere to international norms on nuclear issues and said it would face more isolation if it "continues down the path of provocation".

Under new leader Kim Jong-un, North Korea launched a long range rocket in April, breaking an agreement with the United States that would have traded food aid for access to its nuclear facilities, among other things.

Many experts now believe the reclusive North is preparing for a third nuclear test, and could even use highly enriched uranium for the first time. Experts say the North already has enough fissile material from plutonium for at least six nuclear bombs.

U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Policy Glyn Davies told reporters in Seoul on Monday that North Korea could expect "a swift and sure" reaction by the international community if it undertook further hostile actions.

Davies was holding talks with his Chinese counterpart in Beijing on Tuesday.

China is North Korea's sole major economic and diplomatic backer and even it has put pressure on Pyongyang to back down on plans for a nuclear test.

Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, was skeptical that the latest rhetoric from Pyongyang signaled a nuclear test was imminent.

"North Korea is simply saying: Don't agitate or provoke us," he said.

Recent satellite imagery published by IHS Jane's Defense Weekly, a specialist defense publication, showed there had been more work at the site of previous nuclear tests that could indicate the North was preparing for its third nuclear test.

The Janes analysis showed mining carts and excavation equipment as well more debris from inside a tunnel that could be used for a third nuclear test.

"A third nuclear test by North Korea would be the latest move in restarting its nuclear weapons program, which it agreed to mothball in a 29 February deal with the U.S.," said Janes analyst James Hardy.

Since the death of Kim Jong-il in December, Kim Jong-un, believed to be in his late 20s, has shown he will continue with his father's hardline "military first" policy.

The Rothschilds Want Iran’s Banks

The Rothschilds Want Iran’s Banks

Iran is one of only three countries left in the world (the other two are North Korea and Cuba) whose central bank is not under Rothschild control

American Free Press
February 13, 2012

Could gaining control of the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran (CBI) be one of the main reasons that Iran is being targeted by Western and Israeli powers? As tensions are building up for an unthinkable war with Iran, it is worth exploring Iran’s banking system compared to its U.S., British and Israeli counterparts.

Some researchers are pointing out that Iran is one of only three countries left in the world whose central bank is not under Rothschild control. Before 9-11 there were reportedly seven: Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, Libya, Cuba, North Korea, and Iran. By 2003, however, Afghanistan and Iraq were swallowed up by the Rothschild octopus, and by 2011 Sudan and Libya were also gone. In Libya, a Rothschild bank was established in Benghazi while the country was still at war.

Islam forbids the charging of usury, the practice of charging excessive, unreasonably high, and often illegal interestrates on loans, and that is a major problem for the Rothschild banking system. Until a few hundred years ago usury was also forbidden in the Christian world and was even punishable by death. It was considered exploitation and enslavement.

Since the Rothschilds took over the Bank of England around 1815, they have been expanding their banking control over all the countries of the world. Their method has been to get a country’s corrupt politicians to accept massive loans, which they can never repay, and thus go into debt to the Rothschild banking powers. If a leader refuses to accept the loan, he is oftentimes either ousted or assassinated. And if that fails, invasions can follow, and a Rothschild usury-based bank is established.

The Rothschilds exert powerful influence over the world’s major news agencies. By repetition, the masses are duped into believing horror stories about evil villains. The Rothschilds control the Bank of England, the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the IMF, the World Bank and the Bank of International Settlements. Also they own most of the gold in the world as well as the London Gold Exchange, which sets the price of gold every day. It is said the family owns over half the wealth of the planet—estimated by Credit Suisse to be $231 trillion—and is controlled by Evelyn Rothschild, the current head of the family.

Objective researchers contend that Iran is not being demonized because they are a nuclear threat, just as the Taliban, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and Libya’s Muammar Qadaffi were not a threat.

What then is the real reason? Is it the trillions to be made in oil profits, or the trillions in war profits? Is it to bankrupt the U.S. economy, or is it to start World War III? Is it to destroy Israel’s enemies, or to destroy the Iranian central bank so that no one is left to defy Rothschild’s money racket?

It might be any one of those reasons or, worse—it might be all of them.

Washington Pressures the Philippines into Conducting Joint Military Exercises in the South China Sea

Brewing a Conflict with China

By Paul Craig Roberts, Infowars.com
Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Washington has pressured the Philippines, whose government it owns, into conducting joint military exercises in the South China Sea. Washington’s excuse is that China has territorial disputes with the Philippines, Indonesia, and other countries concerning island and sea rights in the South China Sea. Washington asserts that China’s territorial disputes with the like of Indonesia and the Philippines are a matter of United States’ national interests.

Washington has not made it clear what Washington’s stake is in the disputes. The reason Washington cannot identify why China’s disputes with the Philippines and Indonesia are threats to the United States is that there is no reason. Nevertheless, the undefined “threat” has become the reason Washington needs more naval bases in the Philippines and South Korea.

What this is all about is provoking a long-term cold war conflict with China that will keep
profits and power flowing into Washington’s military-security complex. Large profits flow to armaments companies. A portion of the profits reflow into campaign contributions to “the people’s representatives” in DC and to presidential candidates who openly sell out their country to private interests.

Washington is going to construct new naval bases in the Philippines and on the environmentally protected Jeju Island belonging to South Korea. Washington will waste tax revenues, or print more money, in order to build the unnecessary fleets to occupy these bases. Washington is acquiring bases in Australia for US Marines to protect Australia from China, despite the lack of Chinese threats against Australia. Bush and Obama are the leading models of the “people’s president” who sell out the people, at home and abroad, to private interests.

Why is Washington ramping up a new cold war?

The answer begins with President Eisenhower’s warning to the American people in his last public address about the military/industrial complex in 1961. I won’t quote the warning as it is available online. Eisenhower pointed out to Americans that unlike previous wars after which the US demilitarized, after World War II the cold war with the Soviet Union kept the power and profits flowing into the military/industrial complex, now known as the military/security complex. President Eisenhower said that the flow of power and profit into the military/industrial complex was a threat to the economic wellbeing and liberty of the American people.

No one paid any attention, and the military/security complex was glad to be rid of the five-star general war hero president when his second term expired. Thanks to the hype about the “Soviet threat,” the military/security complex faced an unlimited horizon of mounting profits and power as Americans sacrificed their future to the interests of those who protected Americans from the Soviet threat.

The good times rolled for the armaments companies and security agencies for almost three decades until Reagan and Gorbachev reached agreement and ended the cold war. When the Soviet Union subsequently collapsed, the future outlook for the power and profit of the US military/security complex was bleak. The one percent was about to lose its fortunes and the secret government was about to lose its power.

The military/security complex went to work to revive the need for a massive “defense” and “security” budget. Among their willing tools were the neoconservatives, with their French Jacobin ideology and Israeli loyalties. The neocons defined America as the “indispensable people.” Such extraordinary people as Americans must establish hegemony over the world as the sole remaining superpower. As most neoconservatives are allied with Israel, the Muslim Middle East became the target of opportunity.

Muslims are sufficiently different from Westerners that Muslims are easy to demonize.
The demonization began in the neoconservative publications. Once Dick Cheney had the George W. Bush regime staffed with neoconservatives, the next step was to create “threats” to Americans out of verbiage about the Taliban’s responsibility for 9/11 and about “Iraqi weapons of mass destruction,” including verbal images from Bush’s National Security Advisor of “mushroom clouds” over US cities.

No one in the US government or the “free” US media or the media of the US puppet states in England, Europe, Japan, Taiwan, Canada, Australia and South Korea was struck by Washington’s proposition that “the world’s sole superpower” was threatened by the likes of Iraq and Iran, neither of which had any offensive military capability or any modern weapons, according to the unequivocal reports of the weapons inspectors.

What kind of “superpower” is threatened by Iraq and Iran? Certainly, not a real one.

No one seemed to notice that the alleged 9/11 hijackers were Saudi Arabians, not Afghans or Iraqis, yet it was Afghanistan and Iraq that were labeled “terrorist threats.” Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, which do terrorize their subjects, are safe from having America bring them democracy, because they are Washington’s puppets, not independent countries.

As fear of nonentities swept over the population of “the world’s sole superpower,” the demands for war against “America’s enemies”–”you are with us or against us”–swept through the country. “Support the troops” plastic ribbons appeared on American cars. Americans went into a frenzy. The “towel heads” were after us, and we had to fight for our lives or be murdered in our beds, shopping centers, and airliner seats.

It was all a hoax to replace the Soviet threat with the Muslim threat.

The problem that developed with the “Muslim threat” is that in order to keep the profits and power flowing into the military/security complex, the promised six-week war in Iraq had to be extended into 8 years. The war in Afghanistan against a few thousand lightly armed Taliban has persisted for more than a decade, longer than the attempted Red Army occupation of Afghanistan.

In other words, the problem with hot wars is that the need not to win them in order to keep them going (Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan are all long-term wars never won) in order that the profits and power continue to flow to the military/security complex demoralizes the US military and creates the world-wide impression that the “world’s sole superpower” cannot even defeat a few thousand insurgents armed with AK-47s, much less a real army.

In Iraq and Afghanistan more US soldiers have died from demoralization and suicides than from combat. In Iraq, the US was humiliated by having to end the war by putting the Sunni insurgents on the US military payroll and paying them to stop killing US troops. In Korea the US was stopped by an army of a backward third world country that lived on rice. What would happen today if the US “superpower’s” militarily confronted China, a country with an economy on which the US is dependent, about equal in size to the US economy, operating on its home territory? The only chance the evil in Washington would have would be nuclear war, which would mean the destruction of the entire world by Washington’s hubris.

Fortunately, profits are more important to Washington than ending life on earth. Therefore, war with China will be avoided, just as it was avoided with the Soviet Union. However, China will be presented by Washington and its prostitute media, especially the New York Times, Washington Post, and Murdoch’s collection of whores, as the rising threat to America. The media story will shift the importance of America’s allies from Europe to countries bordering the South China Sea. American taxpayers’ money, or newly printed money, will flow into the “new alliance against China.”

China’s rise is a great boon to the US military/security complex, which governs america in which there is a pretense of “freedom and democracy.” China is the profitable replacement for the “Soviet threat.” As the days go by, the presstitute media will create in the feeble minds of Americans “The CHINA Threat.”

Soon whatever little remains of the US living standard will be sacrificed to Washington’s confrontation with China, along with the seizure of our pensions and personal savings in order to deter “the China threat.”

If only Americans were an intelligent people. Then they might have some prospect of holding on to their incomes, remaining wealth, and liberty. Unfortunately, Americans are so thoroughly plugged into the Matrix that they present as a doomed people, incapable of thought, reason, or ability to comprehend the facts that the rest of the world sees clearly.

Can reality be brought to the American people? Perhaps a miracle will occur. Stay tuned.

This article first appeared at Paul Craig Roberts’ new website Institute For Political Economy. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His Internet columns have attracted a worldwide following.

Panetta Says the 'U.S. Must Remain a Global Power, But ... More and More Nations are Making and Must Make an Important Contribution to Global Security'

U.S. Sees South America as Possible China Counter

The Associated Press
April 28, 2012

In these days of shrinking U.S. defense budgets, the Obama administration is looking to South America to help monitor and protect the Asia-Pacific region in the years ahead.

During visits to Colombia, Brazil and Chile this past week, Pentagon chief Leon Panetta underscored their importance as military partners in the Pacific, where China is challenging U.S. influence in a number of countries. As those defense relationships grow, officials say it can only help U.S. economic and political ties across South America.

Panetta's talks also focused on how the United States can support their military efforts, including those directed at the expanding threat of cyberattacks, according to several senior defense officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because the meetings were private.

U.S. officials left the region thinking that at some point there may be opportunities to talk with South American nations about helping to train Afghan forces after NATO combat troops leave at the end of 2014. Officials would provide no details on which countries might eventually be willing to take on some of the training mission, which will need advisers as other NATO nations withdraw their troops.

With the U.S. turning its focus from Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon's new military strategy puts more importance on the Asia-Pacific region. North Korea is a growing threat while China is building its military and working to expand its political and economic influence.

The Pentagon is poised to move more forces to the Pacific, including rotating units in and out of Australia. The U.S. has long provided training, equipment, assistance and a security umbrella for many of the region. With looming budget cuts that will reduce the size of the military, the U.S. is looking to South American countries to be more active global partners.

"The United States, just like other countries, are facing budget constrictions, which are going to affect the future," Panetta told reporters at a news conference in Brazil. "And what we believe is that the best way to approach the future is to develop partnerships, alliances, to develop relationships with other countries, share information, share assistance, share capabilities, and in that way we can provide greater security for the future."

Panetta would like to see South American countries use their greater military capability to train some Central American nations that are not as advanced.

Defense chiefs Juan Camillo Pinzon of Colombia, Celso Amorim of Brazil and Andres Allamand of Chile brought up cyberthreats as a major concern, including incidents of hacker attacks and data thefts, U.S. defense officials said.

The three countries, said one official said, want help from the U.S. in hardening their computer networks against breaches and increasing their technological skills. The official said there is a recognition of how vulnerable they are, and they want to learn more about the nature of the threat and how to combat it.

That threat is likely to involve China, which is steadily gaining as a top trading partner and economic developer in South America. It's surpassing the U.S. in trade with Brazil, Chile and Peru, and is a close second in Argentina and Colombia.

For the first time, U.S. intelligence officials publicly called out China late last year as a significant cyberthreat. While they did not directly tie attacks to the Beijing government, they said the Chinese are systematically stealing American high-tech data for their own economic gain. The unusually forceful public report seemed to signal a new, more vocal U.S. government campaign against the cyberattacks.

The Pentagon's clandestine National Security Agency is an acknowledged world leader in cybertechnologies. U.S. officials have struggled to work out ways for the government to help other nations as well as the private sector in the United States shore up critical networks.

To date, however, countries around the world have not come up with any detailed agreements on how best to work together. These issues present legal and political challenges, including conflicting laws and the lack of broadly accepted international guidelines for Internet oversight.

Panetta made it clear that cybersecurity was "a whole new arena" that all the nations are concerned about. He also encouraged South American nations to expand their security efforts to other regions, including Africa.

"The United States must remain a global power," Panetta said during a speech in Brazil. "But ... more and more nations are making and must make an important contribution to global security. We welcome and encourage this new reality because frankly it makes the world safer and all of our nations stronger."

North Korea's Third Nuclear Test Ready 'Soon'

N. Korea: 'Mobile Weapons' Capable of Striking U.S.

Associated Press
April 25, 2012

A senior North Korean army official says his country is armed with "powerful mobile weapons" capable of striking America.

Vice Marshal Ri Yong Ho emphasized the importance of defending the North against the U.S. and South Korea as Pyongyang marked the 80th anniversary of the nation's army Wednesday.

He told officials at the April 25 House of Culture that the weapons could defeat the U.S. "at a single blow."

North Korea made another unusual claim Monday, promising "special actions" that would reduce Seoul's government to ashes.

North Korea is believed to have nuclear weapons but not the technology to put them on long-range missiles. A rocket launch that the U.S. claimed was a North Korean attempt to test missile technology failed this month.

Exclusive: North Korea's Nuclear Test Ready 'Soon'

Reuters
April 24, 2012

North Korea has almost completed preparations for a third nuclear test, a senior source with close ties to Pyongyang and Beijing told Reuters, which will draw further international condemnation following a failed rocket launch if it goes ahead.

The isolated and impoverished state sacrificed the chance of closer ties with the United States when it launched the long-range rocket on April 13 and was censured by the U.N. Security Council, including the North's sole major ally, China.

Critics say the rocket launch was aimed at honing the North's ability to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of hitting the United States, a move that would dramatically increase its military and diplomatic heft.

Now the North appears to be about to carry out a third nuclear test after two in 2006 and 2009.

"Soon. Preparations are almost complete," the source said when asked whether North Korea was planning to conduct a nuclear test.

This is the first time a senior official has confirmed the planned test and the source has correctly predicted events in the past, telling Reuters about the 2006 test days before it happened.

The rocket launch and nuclear test come as Kim Jong-un, the third of his line to rule North Korea, seeks to cement his grip on power.

Kim took office in December and has lauded the country's military might, reaffirming his father's "military first" policies that have stunted economic development and appearing to dash slim hopes of an opening to the outside world.

Washington, Seoul and Tokyo, which have most to fear from any North Korean nuclear threat, are watching events anxiously and many observers say that Pyongyang may have the capacity to conduct a test using highly enriched uranium for the first time.

Defense experts say that by successfully enriching uranium, to make bombs of the type dropped on Hiroshima nearly 70 years ago, the North would be able to significantly build up stocks of weapons-grade nuclear material.

It would also allow it more easily to manufacture a nuclear warhead to mount on a long-range missile.

The source did not specify whether the test would be a third test using plutonium, of which it has limited stocks, or whether Pyongyang would use uranium.

South Korean defense sources have been quoted in domestic media as saying a launch could come within two weeks and one North Korea analyst has suggested that it could come as early as the North's "Army Day" on Wednesday.

Other observers say that any date is pure speculation.

The rocket launch and the planned nuclear test have exposed the limits of China's hold over Pyongyang. Beijing is the North's sole major ally and props up the state with investment and fuel.

"China is like a chameleon toward North Korea," said Kim Young-soo, professor of political science at Sogang University in Seoul. "It says it objects to North Korea's provocative acts, but it does not participate in punishing the North."

Reports have suggested that a Chinese company may have supplied a rocket launcher shown off at a military parade to mark this month's centenary of the birth of Kim Il-sung, the state's founder, something that may be in breach of UN sanctions.

China has denied breaching sanctions.

YOUNGEST KIM STILL IN CHARGE DESPITE ROCKET FIASCO

The source said there was debate in North Korea's top leadership over whether to go ahead with the launch in the face of U.S. warnings and the possibility of further U.N. sanctions, but that hawks in the Korean People's Army had won the debate.

The source dismissed speculation that the failed launch had dealt a blow to Kim Jong-un, believed to be in his late 20s, who came to power after his father Kim Jong-il died following a 17-year rule that saw North Korea experience a famine in the 1990s.

"Kim Jong-un was named first secretary of the (ruling) Workers' Party and head of the National Defence Commission," the source said, adding that the titles further consolidated his grip on power.

North Korean media has recently upped its criticism of South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who cut off aid to Pyongyang when he took power in 2008, calling him a "rat" and a "bastard" and threatening to turn the South Korean capital to ashes.

Pyongyang desperately wants recognition from the United States, the guarantor of the South's security. It claims sovereignty over the entire Korean peninsula, as does South Korea.

"North Korea may consider abandoning (the test) if the United States agrees to a peace treaty," the source said, reiterating a long-standing demand by Pyongyang for recognition by Washington and a treaty to end the 1950-1953 Korean War, which ended in a truce.

North Korea Vows to Cripple the U.S. with Fake Missiles

The Atlantic Wire
April 27, 2012

Following the North Korean military's vow to defeat the U.S. with "powerful modern weapons," U.S. analysts have discovered that the country's missiles are actually fakes. The revelation is embarrassing by its own right but doubly so considering the country just threatened to defeat its enemies with the apparently phony weaponry. Called your bluff?

Today, The Associated Press' Eric Talmadge surveys analysts who studied photos of the missiles North Korea trotted out at its recent military parade. At first blush, the missiles appeared to be new and capable of long-range attacks, but after a closer inspection, analysts doubt the missiles could even get off the ground. "The weapons displayed April 15 appear to be a mishmash of liquid-fuel and solid-fuel components that could never fly together," writes the news agency.

"The metal is too thin to withstand flight. Each missile was slightly different from the others, even though all were supposedly the same make. They don't even fit the launchers they were carried on." Markus Schiller and Robert Schmucker at Germany's Schmucker Technologies say "There is no doubt that these missiles were mock-ups." David Wright, a physicist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, says the missiles are actually "clumsy representations of a missile that is being developed."

This is all rather amusing considering a Bloomberg report on Wednesday that had North Korea's Vice Marshal Ri Yong vowing to defeat the U.S. with its advanced ballistic missile arsenal.

“We are able to continuously corner the U.S. and forcefully retaliate to the enemy’s provocative schemes for war,” Ri said. He added that the army had developed "powerful modern weapons" capable of bringing down the U.S.

David Wright, a physicist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, says the missiles are actually "clumsy representations of a missile that is being developed."

Taken together, this reflects two recurring behaviors we've come to rely on from Pyongyang. First, there's North Korea's exaggerations of its technical prowess, as the breakup of its Unha-3 rocket shortly after launch demonstrated. Second, there's the country's tendency to operate on the cheap. Shortly after the Unha-3's disastrous launch, it was revealed that the effort that went into the failed rocket largely consisted of getting it a new paint job from the failed rocket it launched in 2006. We also learned that the country spent a whopping $15 on its new government website. And all those demands for more government spending on a nutrition program for its people? Ignored. All things considered, 28-year-old Kim Jong-Un must be realizing governing a country isn't as easy as it seems. Smoke and mirrors will only get you so far.