By R.J. Hillhouse

Red alert: Our national security is being outsourced.

The most intriguing secrets of the “war on terror” have nothing to do with al-Qaeda and its fellow travelers. They’re about the mammoth private spying industry that all but runs U.S. intelligence operations today.

Surprised? No wonder. In April, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell was poised to publicize a year-long examination of outsourcing by U.S. intelligence agencies. But the report was inexplicably delayed — and suddenly classified a national secret. What McConnell doesn’t want you to know is that the private spy industry has succeeded where no foreign government has: It has penetrated the CIA and is running the show.

Over the past five years (some say almost a decade), there has been a revolution in the intelligence community toward wide’scale outsourcing. Private companies now perform key intelligence-agency functions, to the tune, I’m told, of more than $42 billion a year. Intelligence professionals tell me that more than 50 percent of the National Clandestine Service (NCS) — the heart, brains and soul of the CIA — has been outsourced to private firms such as Abraxas, Booz Allen Hamilton, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon.

More at the Washington Post

I’m a little late in crossposting this. Fade sent it to me on May 9th, and I overlooked it. My bad. But it’s not too late to post. Check out The House of the Rising Sons when you get a chance!

Yesterday on Crooks & Liars, Nicole Belle posted this: Senate Kills Import
Drug Plan.
She was upset at the failure of congress to allow Americans to get their
drugs from other countries, because they are cheaper.

Two hours later, C&L had another post from Nicole Belle about problems with
China’s imported fish meal, which made its way into fish farms in America.
Time to become a vegetarian

Obviously there are some cross-currents here. We’ve seen what Free Market
foodstuffs from China have done to us recently.

Do you REALLY want cheap drugs made in Mexico that AREN’T even certified by
the FDA?Good luck with THAT. Certainly the FDA has some major issues right
now. Well, every industry oversight watchdog group has suffered under the
dubious leadership of George Bush, with his penchant for appointing
ex-industry officials into positions that call for someone with an bent on
REGULATION, not looking the other way.

But besides that, America needs laws that affect Big Pharma’s pricing here
in America. “Free” market it’s not. Our solution isn’t outsourcing every
single product we buy- That just hurts the country in the end. We need to
fix our country and the corporate mindset that is ruining us from within. We
need to fix the price-controls that Big Pharma, Big Oil have set up.

AND- We, as a people, need to stop buying the cheapest crap we possibly can.
THAT is what supports the sweat shops and the child labor factories of the
world. Why buy cheap crap that you have to replace six months later?

Spend a bit more for American produced goods of quality. If the American
people were NOT in a race to the bottom of the heap in ALL of our endeavors,
and were willing to invest a little more money in our own products, we
wouldn’t be in this mess.

And hell, I say that, and I’m broke. But I’ll spend an extra $20 on
groceries just so I’m not funnelling the profits to China via Wal-Mart.

Our country is disintegrating before our very eyes. And contrary to most
progressive logic, I am telling you it IS a moral issue, just not the one
you expect. Our greed is what is killing our nation, our incessant lust for
more and more, fueled by a disposable economy and a disposable society.

Yes, for the time being, Americans unstoppable addiction to buying all
manner of useless crap has kept dollars changing hands and somewhat fueled
the economy. But when all the profits end up overseas, in the end we are
destroying our own economy for some false sense of staying afloat.

Wal-Marts are in every major community in our country. Do you know what a
Wal-Mart is?

“It’s the cheapest place to get stuff, thats what it is!” you say.

Well, there’s more of a price than you realize. Wal-Mart makes everything so
cheap by short-changing their American workers, with no health care and no
benefits and by their communist-like, union-busting ways. There was a time
when every single object in Wal-Mart was American made, not too long ago.
And Sam Walton got rich off that. But now, the people who run Wal-Mart get
most of their goods from China, Pakistan, South America and other countries.

So the “discounts” you get are made possible by hurting America. Small
businesses, that Republicans like to claim they support are dying off. Big
business is the only thing thriving in the U.S. under an administration that
bends over backwards for the ultra-rich. Regular Americans suffer, and CEOs
get multi-million dollar bonuses for closing U.S. factories and opening up
cheap factories in third world countries with an employee base that aren’t
much more than slaves.

There’s a big vacuum over every major corporate operation- and that vacuum
is effectively sucking money straight out of America and shipping it to
every other country in the world, even countries that don’t like us so well.
Those small businesses, that used to line every main street in America- they
are empty now. We have no one to blame in the end but ourselves.

Stop short-changing America. Spend a little extra if you have to, but I
think that you will find that the few dollars you put back into [tag]American
products[/tag] and American workers is money well invested. This is how we, the
people can save our country. Our politicians won’t do it for us, they are
too busy stuffing their own pockets to look further into the future than
their own retirement. Our retirement? We won’t have one if we don’t start
taking care of our own country RIGHT NOW.

More outsourcing……. We keep going the way we are, and there won’t be any jobs in the U.S. Plenty of foreign products to buy, but no money to buy them with.

NEW YORK: Citigroup announced Wednesday that it would eliminate or reassign more than 26,500 jobs as part of a sweeping overhaul to cut costs and streamline the global bank’s sprawling operations.

Under intense pressure from investors, the company announced plans to lay off more than 17,000 workers, with the first pink slips coming this week. About 9,500 jobs will be moved to locations overseas or around the United States where the cost of doing business is lower, from more expensive locations like London, Hong Kong and New York, where the company’s headquarters are based.

Two-thirds of those jobs will be eliminated through attrition.

Roughly 8 percent of Citigroup’s 327,000 workers, from entry-level consumer bankers to senior executives in the investment bank, will be affected by the restructuring. All five of its major business divisions will face cuts.

“Ultimately these changes will streamline Citi and make us leaner, more efficient, and better able to take advantage of high-revenue opportunities,” Charles Prince 3rd, Citigroup’s chairman and chief executive officer, said in a statement.

Read more at The International Herald Tribune