[the leveller]

News & Analysis


Monday, January 21, 2013


Elites Now Building Professional European Army

By Staff Report



26




Support wanes for conscript system in Europe ... Austrians vote on army conscription this weekend, an issue on which voters in Switzerland might also be polled this year. In the post-Cold War era various European countries have grappled with the topic, each in their own way. Seventeen countries in Europe have abolished or suspended conscription in the 21st century. Only six European Union member states still maintain the principle of mandatory military service and nearly two-thirds of the total 43 states with armed forces have a professional army. Just what has led to the gradual scrapping of conscription over the past two decades and is there a pattern? ... In Switzerland a proposal by a pacifist group to end conscription is pending. Parliament began discussions on the Switzerland Without an Army initiative last December, to be continued in the Senate before cabinet sets a date for a nationwide ballot. ? SwissInfo
 
Dominant Social Theme: Let's get rid of conscription. It's slavery.
 
Free-Market Analysis: Across Europe we learn conscription is a dead letter as 17 European countries have "abolished or suspended" it. Now Switzerland is considering it (once again), too.
 
The standard libertarian approach to conscription is that it is a kind of state-mandated slavery. But as with many libertarian observations, practice does not always advance the cause of freedom.
 
Certainly getting rid of conscription is admirable and an advance for civil society. But in its place, the power elite has continually substituted standing (national) armies. Thus, a citizen army is turned into a professional one.
 
The pan-European army has a name, of course. It is, in part, called "NATO." But how responsive it is to the taxpayers funding it is most questionable. Citizen input into NATO seems minimal and NATO ? and the United Nations ? rarely justify military actions beyond the most formal of platitudes.
 
It is certainly feasible to suggest that these "voluntary" standing forces are serving interests other than those of the country they purport to support. A dominant social theme pro-offered by the power elite would be that the all-voluntary army is more efficient and less controversial. A subdominant theme would be that they fulfill a democratic mandate more thoroughly than a conscription army. In truth, they are likely being turned into a global ? and globalist ? fighting force.
 
The great Milton Friedman was famous for suggesting libertarian solutions that did not fully advance the causes he wished to promote. He suggested a "steady-state" Federal Reserve, for instance, in lieu of removing it altogether. And Friedman came up with the idea of US "income-tax withholding" in the 1940s.
 
The problem with getting rid of conscription is that it has done nothing to reduce the availability of state force. With a conscripted army, political and military leaders have to be careful; they are risking the lives of their citizens in taking certain actions. With an all-volunteer army, such care is apparently not nearly so necessary. After all, those in an all-volunteer army understood their lives were to be at risk when they joined.
 
And now Switzerland may be added to the list of countries that has scrapped mandatory military service. Here's more from the article:
 
It will be the third time in less than 25 years that [Swiss] anti-conscription initiatives by the group have been put to voters. In 1989 the group won a surprising 35.6 percent in favour of what was a taboo-breaking proposal. Support for a similar plan ? the scrapping of the forces and the creation of a voluntary peace corps ? dropped to 21.9 per cent in a 2001 vote. Last year the pacifist group, backed by centre-left parties, handed in the necessary signatures for their initiative aimed at scrapping conscription ...
 
Able-bodied male citizens are liable for military service at age 19. Military service for women is voluntary. Men and women are discharged at 30 or when they complete military service. In some cases, different regulations apply for non-commissioned officers (NCOs), senior NCOs and officers. An alternative service in Switzerland was only introduced in 1996 as a result of a constitutional amendment, following years of debate ...
 
We think Swiss conscription has something to recommend it within the given parameters of modern power elite strategies. After all, if the Swiss moved to an all-volunteer army, what's to stop the elites from beginning to influence Swiss military policy?
 
Switzerland is a small, "independent" republic and while it does not work especially well, it surely works better than "Europe." So this is one time (among others) where practicality trumps theory. Conscription is surely a kind of slavery but having a volunteer army co-opted by a secretive and unresponsive elite is a worse fate to contemplate.
 
We can certainly see "professionalism" at work as regards the US military ? and it is not a pretty sight. It took years for US officials to get out of Vietnam, but not nearly so long as the current round of (mostly) Middle Eastern wars that are still ongoing. The war in Afghanistan has stretched well beyond a decade and the elites running the US via mercantilism have used the all-volunteer army to surreptitiously ignite wars throughout the region in the meantime.
 
The all "voluntary" army seems to be serving other interests than "US" ones. There has never been an open forum to confront the Pentagon or various US Intel agencies about the so-called "war on terror" and who benefits from it and why it is prosecuted in the first place.
 
Conclusion: There should be.
SOURCE--THE DAILY BELL

[the leveller]

News & Analysis


Tuesday, February 05, 2013


Elite Attack on Swiss Again: Raise Taxes for Fairness's Sake

By Staff Report



2




Cantons begin to see downside of low tax rates ... For years they fought to offer the lowest tax rates but now some cantons in central Switzerland are questioning the wisdom of this rampant tax competition as the population boom that came with it weighs more heavily on local resources. The paradise that is central Switzerland is as much natural as it is fiscal: glassy lakes, snowy peaks, untouched natural beauty, and a state ? cantonal ? that only moderately taps individual income or business profits. These attributes cause foreign taxpayers to arrive in droves and the European Union to grumble that Switzerland as a whole is a tax haven. But now both Brussels and the cantons are suffering from the effects of this competition that saw the cantons, particularly in the 2000s, practically fall over themselves to outdo each other on lowering taxes, and the discontent is bubbling to the surface. Christian Democrat member of Schwyz cantonal government Othmar Reichmuth gave voice to the rising discontent late last year when in the local press he effectively posed the question: "What do we really want?" ? SwissInfo
 
Dominant Social Theme: We need more taxes to create a truly human society.
 
Free-Market Analysis: We read in SwissInfo that Swiss officials are coming under pressure to raises taxes. Switzerland is one of the world's last remaining functional republics, with power truly flowing from the bottom up in many cases. But over the past decade, every part of Switzerland's demos has come under attack from a controlling power elite that needs to bring Switzerland in line with the rest of Europe.
 
Now Switzerland's low tax structure is being targeted. This is because top Western elites want the Swiss government to be engorged by money. The more money government has, the more power is exercised by the power elite that stands behind governments worldwide and controls their actions secretly via mercantilism.
 
In the recent past, Switzerland's tax secrecy laws have been eviscerated, the country has voluntarily removed itself from a quasi-gold standard regarding the Swiss franc and it has even made adjustments in its relationship to the European Union to make trade and emigration more feasible.
 
The struggle always is whether Switzerland's Low German population will stand alone and relatively free or whether they will be subsumed by the European morass of corruption, dysfunction, austerity and Byzantine socialism.
 
The elites intend for Switzerland to be subsumed ? to a point. Switzerland is still a mighty country containing or managing a huge portion of the world's wealth via its private banking structure. No doubt this will continue but there will be increasingly a two-tier system.
 
Not only will the system be two-tier but it will be increasingly secretive and this will further corrode civil society. The power elite has always used Switzerland to hold gold and other assets but as transparency is thrust upon the Swiss, there will emerge a group of private banks (mostly) that will somehow be exempt from larger trends.
 
The tax pressure being focused on Swiss society is just one more effort in this regard. Here's more from the article:
 
Denouncing the collateral damage of low tax rates as an aging population (49 per cent of inhabitants in Schwyz are aged over 30), an additional 3,000 cars on the roads each year, perpetually rising rents and insurance premiums, and "trains and roads which are jammed morning to night", Reichmuth, a cheese maker by trade, answered his question thus:
 
"I don't need six-lane motorways, or managers with extravagant salaries, or foreigners who benefit from favourable tax treatment."
 
Reichmuth's comments set off something of a small bomb in central Switzerland, the shockwaves of which were felt through to December when citizens in the popular tourist destination of Lucerne accepted a three-point increase in tax rates. In financial trouble, Lucerne had been debt-free until 2007 and all political parties ? with the exception of the far-right Swiss People's Party ? agreed to the rise in taxes.

From one day to the next, Reichmuth became, without intending to, he says, a symbolic figure for a certain discontent among the central Swiss. A poll in the local newspaper Bote der Urschweiz found that for 57 per cent of voters in Schwyz, the population growth generated by the region's appeal was a "curse". Four years earlier, 55 per cent had qualified the increase as a "blessing".
 
Population growth across Switzerland has been particularly pronounced. Since 1972, central Switzerland (Schwyz, Lucerne, Nidwalden, Obwalden, Uri and Zug) has seen its population grow by some 40 per cent, according to the Federal Statistics Office. Only the Lake Geneva region has registered higher growth of 41.5 per cent across cantons Vaud, Valais and Geneva.
 
We can see from this a kind of perverse logic. The idea is that because Switzerland has low taxes, it is attractive to foreigners who are settling in Switzerland and stressing social and physical resources. It is a nonsensical argument, of course, but one that is being advanced seriously ? first by Brussels and now within Switzerland itself.
 
Any society GAINS when wealthy entrepreneurs settle in its midst. And the logical answer to criticisms regarding this sort of situation would be to point out that dysfunctional societies with high tax rates ought to LOWER them. But this is not what is occurring within this particular conversation. Because Switzerland is functional and in demand as a location to which people want to emigrate, it must raise taxes and generally make itself a less attractive destination.
 
Another reason that forces inside and outside Switzerland are agitating for increased Swiss taxes is because in certain cantons "public budgets have lurched into the red, notably in Schwyz and Zug." In fact, we learn from the article that "Schwyz was one of those which abandoned its previously conservative budget policy to boost the police force and other sectors."
 
The obvious solution to stressed municipal budgets is to LOWER expenditures. But as in so many other parts of the West these days, the conversation does not include this option. Revenues need to be enhanced so the state can do more.
 
In Switzerland ? the great exception ? we can gradually see freedoms being whittled away as a concerted campaign to Europeanize Switzerland continues. Its historic insistence on bank privacy has degenerated, its currency has been debased, its republic attacked and now there is a good deal of agitation to raise taxes and expand government.
 
All these pressures provide us with a textbook example of how Western elites gradually expand government in order to control societies. Switzerland is being homogenized, in our view, to better integrate it into the world governance that the elites are promoting.
 
Conclusion: Here's hoping the Swiss find a way to resist these pressures and retain their freedoms and hitherto responsive and modest government.

[the leveller]

This is taken from my archives,dated 3/3/12
The Leveller
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Sorry, this is a long and difficult one. Concentrate hard!
 
This important item, circulated in Statewatch News, was about the strategic direction of Britain's police from Europe. This is about Europe identifying which "terrorist" groups Europe will target for police action.
 


6. EU: Council of the European Union: Standing Committee on operational cooperation on internal security (COSI): EU Policy Cycle process review: From OCTA to OAP:
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2012/feb/eu-council-cosi-eu-policy-cycle-octa-oap-5751-rev1-12.pdf
 
 and Strategic goals related to the EU's priorities for the fight against organised crime between 2011 and 2013:
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2012/feb/eu-council-cosi-strategic-goals-15850-11.pdf

 However, these documents are almost completely unintelligible because of the large number of acronyms used throughout the documents -  this indicates someone has worked very hard to bury something important, in a mountain of gobbledygook..You may never be able to make sense of it, unless you read the following items first
 
You may have read about Mark Kennedy, the undercover policeman who worked cross-border, infiltrating political groups throughout Europe. His handlers in Britain did not know what he was doing. He was sent abroad but UK police authorising officers were never told. This is mentioned in the HMIC report into Mark Kennedy, which had no locus to investigate his activities abroad, and mentioned this only in connection with problems in accountability while he was operating in the UK.
 
http://www.hmic.gov.uk/publication/review-of-national-police-units-which-provide-intelligence-on-criminality-associated-with-protest-20120202
 "Mark Kennedy was used in... 11 countries on more than 40 occasions" and has also revealed serious failings in supervision: - "NPOIU ... were not (on occasions) informing the authorising officer that he was going overseas, nor providing them with relevant information about what happened while he was overseas."
 

During the same period, foreign undercover officers came to the UK, to infiltrate British political groups. We know that 5 German undercover agents were in Scotland, during the G8 conference at Gleneagles in 2005.
 The government has not included cross-border undercover operations within any of the inquiries into the Kennedy scandal.
 
Undercover operations (infiltration) take place under a plan agreed at a European level. It appears that the activities take place in relation to a strategic plan agreed at a European level, at the European Council, based upon recommendations from Europol and COSI.
 
A 2004 policy document "Strengthening the EU operational police co-operation" explains the system: - "European police co-operation should be 'intelligence-led policing' ... requiring the political level to pro-actively set priorities". This is decided "on the basis of up-to-date and accurate threat analysis" which is set-out by the European Police Chiefs Task Force (PCTF), in cooperation with Europol. The PCTF was set up by the 1999 by the European Council and is equivalent to ACPO at the European level - indeed, Britain is represented by ACPO on the PCTF.
The report continues "following directions on how to operationalise these priorities, Europol should set out the intelligence requirements for the Member States." This means, these operations are generally directed from the highest levels in Europe.
 The report explains how Britain played an influential role in Europe adopting this model..
 
The mechanism for European control of cross-border undercover operations, as explained in official documents.
 We can actually see an example (below) where the European Presidency directed police actions against animal rights activists as a politically-led priority.
 

*** *** ***
 
This appeared to have developed from the Tampere and Hague programmes on Security, as explained in the following EU policy document.
 

http://www.statewatch.org/news/2004/nov/nov-sum-pctf.pdf
 COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION
 Brussels, 27 October 2004
 13075/1/04  REV 1

 NOTE
 from : Presidency
 Subject : Strengthening the EU operational police co-operation
 ...

 The 1999 Tampere conclusions of the European Council call in paragraph 44 for the establishment
 of a "European Police Chiefs Operational Task Force to exchange, in co-operation with Europol,
 experience, best practices and information on current trends in cross-border crime and contribute to
 the planning of operative actions".
 Since then, the Police Chiefs Task Force (PCTF) has been meeting once every Presidency and has
 spent a large part of its meetings on the discussion of its tasks.
 In its Declaration on combating Terrorism of 25 March 2004, the European Council called "on the
 Task Force to review how its operational capacity can be reinforced and to focus on proactive
 intelligence."1
 Moreover, the Hague Programme refers to Article III-261 of the draft Treaty establishing a
 Constitution for Europe which sets out the need to "ensure that operational co-operation on internal
 security is promoted and strengthened within the Union".

 ... the need for more co-ordination of operative actions has been stated. It follows
 notably from the Tampere conclusions and their proposal to set up the PCTF but has recently been
 more developed in two different proposals on a methodology for European police co-operation: the
 Comprehensive Operational Strategic Plan for Police (COSPOL) of the Netherlands delegation and
 the European Criminal Intelligence Model (ECIM) of the UK delegation.
 While the COSPOL and ECIM proposals may differ on the practical and procedural details, they are
 based on the same premises
 - European police co-operation should be "intelligence-led policing", providing for a link between
 "assessment" and "action"2, requiring the political level to pro-actively set priorities
 - the potential of available actors and instruments for European operational police co-operation
 should be enhanced and made better use of.
 Moreover, both models set out the following general requirements:
 - at a political level, the priorities for operational co-operation should be decided, on the basis of
 up-to-date and accurate threat analysis
 - following directions on how to operationalise these priorities, Europol should set out the
 intelligence requirements for the Member States (obviously in co-operation with HENU's)
 - taking these into account, Member States should provide the necessary intelligence for Europol
 to store and analyse, on the basis of which, Europol and the concerned Member States' law
 enforcement agencies should co-ordinate and execute investigations
 - the debriefing of these investigations should provide the necessary input for Europol to draw up
 the analysis for the political level to set the priorities.
 In this methodology, the "action" is left to the law enforcement agencies of the Member States, with
 the assistance of Europol. The "assessment" belongs to the policy-making level.
 


It appears that although the individual operations may be arranged between member states, the activities take place in relation to a strategic plan agreed at a European level, at the European Council, based upon recommendations from Europol and COSI.
 

http://police-eu2010.be/mu-eu2010/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/Harmony_FinalDraft.pdf
Harmony

4.2 Step 2: Decision-making
 01. Before the JHA Council can come up with conclusions, the
 decision-making process needs to be prepared by COSI. ...
 02. The threat assessment carried out by Europol should, beside the
 analysis of information, contain conclusions. In this step, these
 conclusions need to be converted into recommendations. This task
 can be carried out by the COSI with Europol?s assistance. The full
 threat assessment and its conclusions, produced by Europol, stay
 at the level of the Law Enforcement services/community. A policy
 advisory document comprising an executive summary, accompanied
 by a proposal for priorities and recommendations, drafted by
 Europol under the guidance of COSI, is forwarded for political consideration.
 03. The JHA Council remains the responsible political body which
 decides upon the priorities to be tackled, based on the policy
 advisory document.
 04. The Council Conclusions must determine priorities concerning
 crime phenomena (including criminal groups and types of crime)
 and organised crime groups. Priority setting has to be done on a
 pan - European and regional level. The priorities on a pan-
 European level can contain direct tasking. The conclusions for the
 regional level should be more carefully articulated, ?invitations?,
 directed towards the Member States. Tasking of EU agencies can
 always be direct.
 05. Priorities are set to tackle cross-border structural problems via a
 more planned and long term approach. This doesn?t mean that
 other areas of internal EU security are not of concern, however
 these problems may be better tackled by a swift and reactive
 approach.
 


4.3 Step 3: Implementing and monitoring
 ...
 03 To implement and monitor the law enforcement related issues,
 different actors can be involved according to the type of crime
 phenomenon. If horizontal (at EU level) and/or vertical (between
 EU bodies and the MS) interaction or cooperation is necessary,
 an EU agency should be designated to take the lead. In most of
 the situations, as far as the crime phenomenon falls within the
 mandate of Europol, we recommend that Europol should assume
 this responsibility. Driver-ship, especially in the framework of
 tackling regional problems, can also be assumed by a MS.
 04. To implement and monitor the operational activities within the
 area of law enforcement, one can identify three main actors:
 Europol; other EU agencies or bodies (FRONTEX, EUROJUST,
 OLAF, CEPOL, CCWP, etc); and, the MS. These actors, tasked
 through one or more multi-annual strategic plans, have to come
 up with a detailed action plan explaining who is going to do what
 and how, according to an agreed timeline.
 

Now, here is where this gets put into action.
 
Here is where the European Presidency asked Europol and the PCTF for a strategy to deal with Animal Rights Extremism.
 
http://register.consilium.europa.eu/pdf/en/07/st14/st14173.en07.pdf
 COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION
 Brussels, 7 November 2007
 14173/07
 ENFOPOL 173
 Subject : Outcome of proceedings of the Police Chiefs Task Force meeting on 9 October 2007

 4. Animal Rights Extremists in Europe (ARE)
 Europol gave a presentation on the illegal activities of Animal Rights Extremists, which vary
 considerably from one Member State to another and do not represent the same threat everywhere in
 the EU.
The Presidency asked Europol to gather information and present a threat assessment on this subject
at the next Strategic Meeting in order to enable the Police Chiefs to decide on the best manner to
deal to this phenomenon. (Emphasis added)
 The UK delegation stressed the importance of this subject as the UK has been hit badly by this
 complex phenomenon, which can have serious financial and economic implications. This could be
 an opportunity for other Member States to pre-empt a problem that, due to its links to multi-national
 companies, has international aspects and might therefore spread to other Member States.
 
Knowing that cross-border undercover operations take place in response to EU strategies, set by either the Presidency or the Council of Europe, it will now be possible to identify ask for relevant strategy documents, which led to the operations in which Mark Kennedy was employed.

PCTF strategy meetings (as above) take place once every Presidency (i.e. twice a year), we just have to ask for all of the proceedings for the relevant period of operations.
 

Here are some more details on recent policing strategies: -
 
http://www.europol.europa.eu/publications/EU_Terrorism_Situation_and_Trend_Report_TE-SAT/Tesat2010.pdf
 p5-9, p17, p33 onwards
 
http://www.europol.europa.eu/publications/EU_Terrorism_Situation_and_Trend_Report_TE-SAT/TESAT2009.pdf
 p9, p31 onwards
 
http://www.europol.europa.eu/publications/EU_Terrorism_Situation_and_Trend_Report_TE-SAT/TESAT2008.pdf
 p9-10, 13, 15, p36 onwards
 
http://www.europol.europa.eu/publications/EU_Terrorism_Situation_and_Trend_Report_TE-SAT/TESAT2007.pdf
 p6, 12, 15-16, p34 onwards
 
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2003/may/03europol.htm
 
We could all comment on the disproportionate emphasis on groups that do not do a lot of harm
 


European Police College - CEPOL
 
This does not appear to be a "college", in any sense we would normally understand, but rather a system for organising high-level international meetings and policy conferences.
 
http://www.cepol.europa.eu/index.php?id=home
 Home: CEPOL - European Police College
 
04 March 2011
Euro-African Conference - Naples, Italy
The ideas and recommendations produced by the Euro-African Conference held in Naples, Italy, from 7 to 9...
 
25 February 2011
Serving the new EU Security Architecture
The 15th External Relations Working Group (ERWG) meeting took place in Warsaw, Poland, on 10-11 February 2011...
 

14 March 2011 - 18 March 2011
 
48/2011 TOPSPOC - Top Senior Police Officers: The Stockholm Programme (1)
 Austria
 

07 March 2011 - 11 March 2011
 
27/2011 International Police Cooperation - Step 1
 
Spain
 

WikiLeaks on Europol
 
I don't like or trust WikiLeaks, but this cable is interesting
 EUROPOL to become a federal EU police structure - Cable reference id: #03BRUSSELS2375


Best Regards
Nathan