The Pentagon has quietly shifted combat troops and warships to the Middle East after the top American commander in the region warned that he needed additional forces to deal with Iran and other potential threats, U.S. officials said.

Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis, who heads U.S. Central Command, won White House approval for the deployments late last year after talks with the government in Baghdad broke down over keeping U.S. troops in Iraq, but the extent of the Pentagon moves is only now becoming clear. Officials said the deployments are not meant to suggest a buildup to war, but rather are intended as a quick-reaction and contingency force in case a military crisis erupts in the standoff with Tehran over its suspected nuclear weapons program. The Pentagon has stationed nearly 15,000 troops in Kuwait, adding to a small contingent already there. The new units include two Army infantry brigades and a helicopter unit - a substantial increase in combat power after nearly a decade in which Kuwait chiefly served as a staging area for supplies and personnel heading to Iraq. The Pentagon also has decided to keep two aircraft carriers and their strike groups in the region. Earlier this week, the American carrier Carl Vinson joined the carrier Stennis in the Arabian Sea, giving commanders major naval and air assets in case Iran carries out its recent threats to close the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic chokepoint in the Persian Gulf, where one-fifth of the world's oil shipments passes.

The latest US intelligence report concludes the war against the Taliban has reached an impasse, with the Taliban remaining committed to taking back Afghanistan by force as soon as NATO troops leave the country. - Two current and one former US official speaking on condition of anonymity told AP the intelligence community’s take on the war is that the Taliban may only be paying lip service to peace talks with NATO and Afghan government. The classified Afghan National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) declares the war at a stalemate, with NATO security gains far outweighed by corruption at all levels of Afghan government. The report also finds special operations raids and programs to bolster local Afghan security are somewhat effective in degrading the Taliban, but it returns as soon as NATO forces withdraw from an area. The assessment also questions the overall success of the longest war in US history.

At least two of four US Marines shown in a video appearing to urinate on Taliban corpses have been identified, a Marine Corps official has told the BBC. - The video, which was posted online, purports to show the Marines standing over the bodies of several Taliban fighters, at least one of whom is covered in blood. The Marines have begun a criminal investigation and an internal inquiry. US officials and Afghan officials have condemned the video. The Taliban condemned the video, but said it would not affect the political process. The origin of the video is not known, but it was originally posted to YouTube. It has not been verified but correspondents say all indications are that it is authentic.

David Swanson/Russia Today: Marine video exposes systemic abuse by US troops - Video Interview

Arthur Silber: The Varieties of Pissing - The rulers of the United States piss on you, and on every other human being on Earth not favored by privilege and power.
James Cogan: US marines desecrate Afghan dead - As in previous cases of military abuse, it seems the media will publicly vilify the rank-and-file troops involved in the desecration, but abstain from any commentary—let alone criticism—of the political and military establishment that created the debased climate in which this abuse took place.

The price of Afghan opium rose dramatically in 2011, the UN has said. - Opium poppy farmers in Afghanistan probably earned more than $1.4bn (£910m) last year - equivalent to 9% of the country's GDP, it estimates. Prices started to rise in 2010 after the poppy crop was hit by a fungal disease. The head of the UN's Office on Drugs and Crime said opium helped fund the Taliban insurgency and fuelled corruption in Afghanistan. "Opium is a significant part of the Afghan economy," Yury Fedotov said. Around 90% of the world's opium comes from Afghanistan, according to the office, which carries out an annual survey of production there. The Afghan Opium Survey for 2011 found that the value of opium in the country had increased by 133%. Areas of poppy cultivation which had been affected by the fungal disease in 2010 recovered and yields went back up. Last year's survey had predicted a rise in poppy planting as farmers responded to higher market prices.

Paul DeRienzo: Interview with Alfred McCoy
Kurt Nimmo: Afghanistan: Drug Addiction Lucrative for Neolib Banksters, CIA
William Blum: The Real Drug Lords: A brief history of CIA involvement in the Drug Trade
Michel Chossudovsky: Washington's Hidden Agenda: Restore the Drug Trade

Glen Ford: Americans Are Deeply Involved In Afghan Drug Trade - The U.S. set the stage for the Afghan (and Pakistan) war eight years ago, when it handed out drug dealing franchises to warlords on Washington's payroll. Now the Americans, acting as Boss of All Bosses, have drawn up hit lists of rival, “Taliban” drug lords. “It is a gangster occupation, in which U.S.-allied drug dealers are put in charge of the police and border patrol.” “U.S.-allied drug dealers are put in charge of the police and border patrol, while their rivals are placed on American hit lists.” If you’re looking for the chief kingpin in the Afghanistan heroin trade, it’s the United States. The American mission has devolved to a Mafiosi-style arrangement that poisons every military and political alliance entered into by the U.S. and its puppet government in Kabul. It is a gangster occupation, in which U.S.-allied drug dealers are put in charge of the police and border patrol, while their rivals are placed on American hit lists, marked for death or capture. As a result, Afghanistan has been transformed into an opium plantation that supplies 90 percent of the world’s heroin. [Illustration: David Dees]

A US military tribunal is recommending a court martial for Army Private Bradley Manning for allegedly funneling thousands of classified US documents to WikiLeaks, the US Army said Thursday. - “The investigating officer (Lieutenant Colonel Paul Almanza) concluded that the charges and specifications are in the proper form and that reasonable grounds exist to believe that the accused committed the offenses alleged,” according to the US Army Military District of Washington. “He recommended that the charges be referred to a general court martial.” The charges include aiding the enemy, wrongfully causing intelligence to be published on the Internet knowing it is accessible to the enemy, and theft of public property or records. Manning, 24, was the focus of a seven-day hearing last month to determine whether or not he should face a court-martial for what authorities have described as one of the most serious intelligence breaches in US history. Defense attorneys argued at the conclusion of those proceedings that the charges should be reduced. Manning, who served in Iraq from November 2009 until his arrest the following May, faces life in prison if convicted.

When Mitt Romney Came To Town — Full, complete version. - “When Mitt Romney Came to Town,” a film about Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s time as CEO of Bain Capital, is without a doubt the most serious attack on the former Massachusetts governor’s campaign. Produced by a former top Romney strategist, the film focuses on people turned out of their jobs at four of the many companies Bain Capital essentially looted, tapping into the popular discontentment with Wall Street to label Romney a “corporate raider.” [Video]

IMF confirms sending mission to Egypt next week to discuss possible financial support. - The International Monetary Fund confirmed Thursday it was sending a mission to Egypt to discuss possible financial aid to the country, even as analysts cautioned that the potential lifeline may not be enough to stem serious economic worries that materialized following former President Hosni Mubarak’s ouster. Egypt turned down a $3 billion IMF load in June, when officials argued that they did not want to saddle a new, post-Mubarak civilian government with additional debt. In the aftermath of the popular uprising that toppled Mubarak with ongoing political unrest and instability, the country’s economic situation has deteriorated sharply over the past year, with net international reserves falling by 50 percent and tourism and foreign investment hammered.

Iran needs to get in front of these terrorist attacks against nuclear physicists. The attacks are always made using two people on a motorcycle attaching the bomb to the car with magnets. The terrorists obviously know whose car to attack, and the movements of that car. They must have insiders at the universities where the physicists work to associate each targeted physicist with a particular vehicle, and are trailing the cars from the universities. In order to catch the terrorists, Iranian authorities will have to start covertly following these cars themselves (they may even consider dummy cars). All they need to do is catch one pair of terrorists to break the terrorist network and determine who is behind the attacks. My guess: MEK being run by the CIA, working for their Jewish masters to create the idea that there must be a nuclear bomb program or else there would be no reason to kill all these scientists and passersby.

PressTV: Iranians hold funeral for terror victim
PressTV: Khamenei: CIA, Mossad behind Iran killing
Stephen Lendman: Waging Covert War on Iran
Jim Lobe: Whoever Killed the Scientist Was Aiming at Much More
John Glaser: Bolton Says Sanctions and Assassination Programs Are ‘Half-Measures,’ Argues for War
AWIP: Another nuclear scientist killed in Iran; Israel accused

January 11 was the tenth anniversary of amerika’s Guantanamo torture prison. National Public Radio commemorated the anniversary by airing critics and defenders of Washington’s violation of US statutory law, the Geneva Conventions, and the US Constitution. Listening to the former government officials justify their crimes, I realized that I was listening to those who had set the table and served the agenda that transformed the US into a criminal police state. Here was confirmation of Professor Dennis Loo’s theory of democracy in which an elite decides the agenda and the subservient media prepares the electorate’s receptivity. In his new book, Globalization and the Demolition of Society (2011) Professor Loo suggests that democracy without an independent and aggressive media becomes a disguised form of dictatorship. People think that by voting they are determining outcomes when in fact they are merely legitimizing agendas decided by the elite.