AMPHIKTYON -FOREIGN: Φεβρουάριος 2011

WE DO NOT SHARE ALL THE OPINIONS OF WRITERS . IT IS THE PERMANENT RULE OF THIS BLOGS
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---- Original Message -----
From: Dirk Chardet
To: Kali-Yuga-Report@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2011 3:29 PM
Subject: KALI YUGA REPORT 110222 - A Time for Resistance - Wisconsin: The First Stop in An American Uprising ? - Obama has joined Likud - USA Matriot Act

PROVIDING INFORMATION NOT FOUND IN THE CONTROLLED MEDIA,

MONITORING THE AGE OF DARKNESS, IGNORANCE, GREED AND STUPIDITY,
& THE ZIONIST WAR FOR WORLD DOMINATION.
SETTING STRAIGHT THE RECORD OF HISTORY

KALI YUGA REPORT 110222

1 - THE VETO AND THE CASE FOR IMPEACHING PRESIDENT OBAMA - Alan Hart
With settlement resolution veto, Obama has joined Likud - Gideon Levy
2 - Craven US veto costs Washington its last shred of credibility - Stuart Littlewood
3 - Israeli media “fears” the new Egypt - Neve Gordon
4 - ALLEN L ROLAND : World War III – A Class War between The people and Corpocracy
5 - EGYPT : SOCIAL MOVEMENTS, THE CIA AND MOSSAD - American Zionism against the Egyptian Pro-Democracy Movement - James
Petras
6 - FRANKLIN LAMB : From Tahrir Square To Shatila Camp, “Hurriya” (freedom )
7 - WILLIAM COOK : “We the Forgotten People of the United States …”
8 - Settlers & Israeli Army Destroy Olive Trees and damage Palestinian farmland - David Steele +
Ministry: 132 Palestinians detained for over 20 years in Israeli Jails +
Palestinian Worker Wounded by Israeli Gunfire in Gaza ; Troops Arrest Five in West Bank + Israel furthers plans to annex occupied East
Jerusalem +
Child, Beit Ummar Mayor, Wounded In Weekly Nonviolent Protest +
Israel Demolishes Khirbet Tana +
Israeli Settlers Attack Palestinias In Hebron & Yatta +
9 - A Time for Resistance - Katrina van den Heuvel
10 - Iraq Roiled by Protests, 2 Killed in Sulaimaniya - Juan Cole +
The Battle of Bahrain : King Hamad – the Mubarak of the Gulf - Justin Raimondo

11 - KHODR : America Change Your Policies in the MidEast Or Lose It
12 - JB Campbell: Anatomy of a Frame - VICTOR BOUT, THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT “FALL GUY” WHEN THE 9/11 COVER STORY FALLS APART
13 - COL. ROBERT BOWMAN CALLS FOR ARREST OF BUSH, 9/11 INVESTIGATION & OTHER VIDEOs
14 - Wisconsin: The First Stop in An American Uprising ? - Sarah van Gelder
15 - Revealed: Air Force ordered software to manage army of fake virtual people - Stephen C. Webster
16 - USA Matriot Act - Cindy Sheehan
17 - Next stop: The House of Saud - Pepe Escobar
18 - There’s more to climate fraud than just tax hikes - Atheo
19 - A review of ZIONISM, MILITARISM AND THE DECLINE OF US POWER - James Petras
20 - The Liars Who Took Us to War

21 - FLASH BACK : How Iraq Was Looted - Evelyn Pringle
22 - FLASH BACK : How Lethally Stupid Can One Country Be?- David Michael Green
23 - Huffington’s Plunder - Chris Hedges
24 - Gold-pegged Yuan; Peso-pegged Dollar - Roy Tov
25 - Kaminski's take on History, Cornplanter's take on Kaminski, Chapter 15 of 'The decline and fall of the Roman Empire'
26 - The heretics dilemma: Attack or not attack the Zionist Achilles heel
27 - Hitler was working for the Zionists
28 - Permanent Biological Contamination of the Gulf - Michael Edward
29 - An Attack’s Anatomy : On Israeli Terror - Roy Tov
30 - The American who Sparked Diplomatic Crisis over Lahore Shooting was CIA Spy - Declan Walsh in Lahore and Ewen MacAskill in
Washington

31 - Will The CIA Assassinate Its Own Agent ? - Zaid Hamid
32 - Hitler - A Zionist Creation - "Behind Blue Eyes"
33 - DID MOSSAD ASSASSINATE ANNA LINDH ? - Christopher Bollyn

All articles are reproduced in accordance with Section 107 of title 17 of the Copyright Law of the United States relating to fair-use and are for the purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. The material presented underneath does not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the editor. Then : everybody should do research of his own and check for deception or some 'agenda'. As always it is : 'Caveat Lector'! .

Thanks to : Debbie Menon (http://mycatbirdseat.com/,http://www.intifada-palestine.com), Alex James, Vatic Project (http://vaticproject.blogspot.com) , "Information Clearing House'', Antiwar.com , DAILY CENSORED, VETERANS TODAY, REDRESS INFORMATION & ANALYSIS, PAK ALERT PRESS, INTIFADA PALESTINA, Global Research, Electronic Intifada, Sabbah Report, RADIO ISLAM, Tom Demeter, Dr. Mary Gillespie, ET AL.

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1 - THE VETO AND THE CASE FOR IMPEACHING PRESIDENT OBAMA
Posted: 21 Feb 2011

by Alan Hart

Never before has an American President’s fear of offending the Zionist lobby and its stooges in Congress been so exposed as it was by Obama’s decision to veto the Security Council resolution condemning continued, illegal Israeli settlement activities on the occupied West Bank and demanding that Israel “immediately and completely cease” all such activities.

In a different America – an informed America – some might think, I do, that Obama should be impeached.

The charge?

TREASON.

After she had exercised the Obama administration’s first veto, the plea made by U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice for understanding of America’s position could not have been more absurd. “Our opposition to the resolution before this Council today should not be misunderstood to mean that we support settlement activity. On the contrary, we reject in the strongest terms the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity.”

So why the veto? Ambassador Rice said:

“The United States has been deeply committed to pursuing a comprehensive and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians, In that context, we have been focused on taking steps that advance the goal of two states living side by side in peace and security, rather than complicating it. That includes a commitment to work in good faith with all parties to underscore our opposition to continued settlements.”

What nonsense! If the Obama administration really wanted to underscore its stated opposition to Israel’s on-going colonization of the occupied West Bank including Arab East Jerusalem, there was no better or more effective way of doing so than voting for the resolution or abstaining. In either case the resolution would have passed and that would have opened the door to real global pressure on Israel if it continued to defy international law.

As for advancing the goal of a two-state solution, the Obama administration has done the opposite. By allowing Israel to continue its illegal settlement activities and consolidate its occupation, it, the Obama administration, has helped to guarantee that there can never be a viable Palestinian state living side by side with an Israel inside its borders as they were on the eve of the 1967 war.

In the context of the conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel, the only thing to which the Obama administration has been deeply committed is not provoking the wrath of the Zionist lobby and its stooges in Congress and the mainstream media. For all practical purposes Obama has surrendered policy making on Israel-Palestine to this lobby. (The veto marked the complete surrender).

The essence of the problem this presents can be simply stated. The Zionist lobby’s agenda – unquestioning support for Israel right or wrong – is not in America’s own best interests. (In reality it is not in anybody’s best interests including those of Israeli Jews and the Jews of the world).

As I pointed out on I February in my post Crunch time coming for America in the Middle East?, what all Arab peoples want is not only an end to corruption and repression and a better life in their own countries. They also want an end to the humiliation caused by Israel’s arrogance of power and American support for it.

It is clear that the manifestations of Arab people power the world is witnessing were not instigated by Islamist extremist groups and are spontaneous protests with demands by citizens from all sections of civil society. So at the present time that is no evidence to suggest that change brought about by people power in Arab states will create more cover, more scope and more popular support for extremist and violent forces which use and abuse Islam in much the same way as Zionists use and abuse Judaism. But this could change, in my view will change, if America goes on supporting Israel right or wrong. In other words, the more the administration in Washington D.C. is perceived by the Arab street as being complicit in the Zionist state’s defiance of international law and crimes, the more American interests and citizens are likely to be targeted and hit.

The American Constitution states that a president can be impeached and removed from office for “treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanours.”

In my view a president who allows a lobby group to put the interests of a foreign power above those of the country of which they are citizens, and who by doing so puts his fellow citizens more in harm’s way than they otherwise would be, is guilty of treason. (And all the more so when the American-Jewish lobby in question does not speak for more than about a third, and possibly only a quarter, of America’s mainly silent and deeply troubled Jews)

Footnote:

The admirable and courageous Gideon Levy, the conscience of Israeli journalism, has a brilliant article (which I have tweeted) in today’s Ha’aretzwith the headline With settlement veto resolution, Obama has joined Likud.

And this is how Gideon concluded his piece:

“If the U.S. had been a responsible superpower, it would have voted for the resolution on Friday to rouse Israel from its dangerous sleep. Instead, we got a hostile veto from Washington, shouts of joy from Jerusalem and a party that will end very badly for both.”

Alan Hart is a former ITN and BBC Panorama foreign correspondent who covered wars and conflicts wherever they were taking place in the world and specialized in the Middle East.

His Latest book Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews, is a three-volume epic in its American edition. He blogs on www.alanhart.net and tweets on www.twitter.com/alanauthor.

With settlement resolution veto, Obama has joined Likud

An America that understands that the settlements are the obstacle should have joined in condemning them.

By Gideon Levy

February 20, 2011 "Haaretz" - - This weekend, a new member enrolled in Likud - and not just in the ruling party, but in its most hawkish wing. Located somewhere between Tzipi Hotovely and Danny Danon, U.S. President Barack Obama bypassed Dan Meridor and Michael Eitan on the right and weakened their position.

The first veto cast by the United States during Obama's term, a veto he promised in vain not to use as his predecessors did, was a veto against the chance and promise of change, a veto against hope. This is a veto that is not friendly to Israel; it supports the settlers and the Israeli right, and them alone.

The excuses of the American ambassador to the UN won't help, and neither will the words of thanks from the Prime Minister's Office: This is a step that is nothing less than hostile to Israel. America, which Israel depends on more than ever, said yes to settlements. That is the one and only meaning of its decision, and in so doing, it supported the enterprise most damaging to Israel.

Moreover, it did so at a time when winds of change are blowing in the Middle East. A promise of change was heard from America, but instead, it continued with its automatic responses and its blind support of Israel's settlement building. This is not an America that will be able to change its standing among the peoples of the region. And Israel, an international pariah, once again found itself supported only by America.

This should have disturbed every Israeli. Is that what we are? Alone and condemned? And all for the continuation of that worthless enterprise? Is it really worth the price? To hell with the UN and the whole world is against us?

We can't wrap ourselves in this hollow iron dome forever. We must open our eyes and understand that if no country, aside from weakening America, supports this caprice of ours, then something fundamental is wrong here.

Israel, which is condemned by the entire world but continues merrily on its way, is a country that is losing its connection to reality. It is also a country that will ultimately find itself left entirely to its fate. That is why America's decision harmed Israel's interests: It continued to blind and stupefy Israel into thinking it can go on this way forever.

A friendly U.S., concerned for Israel's fate, should have said no. An America that understands that the settlements are the obstacle should have joined in condemning them. A superpower that wants to make peace, at a time when Arab peoples are rising up against their regimes and against the U.S. and Israel, should have understood that it must change the old, bad rules of the game of blanket support for the ally addicted to its settlements.

A friendly America should have mobilized to wean Israel of its addiction Only it can do so, and it should have started, belatedly, at the Security Council on Friday.

But promises of change and of real concern for Israel are one thing, and diplomatic behavior is another: another automatic veto, as if nothing has changed. Obama or George W. Bush, there's no difference. When Ambassador Susan Rice said that the draft resolution risked hardening the positions of both sides and could encourage the parties to refrain from negotiations, she misled. She knows that what prevents negotiations and hardens positions is continued building in the settlements.

And when the Israeli Foreign Ministry said it is "peculiar that the Security Council should choose to consider one single aspect" of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations "while ignoring the wider scope of events in our region," it, too, misled. Do the Foreign Ministry's spokesmen really believe there is a serious party that would agree to Israel creating irreversible facts on the ground without let or hindrance?

And to call this "one single aspect?" Perhaps it is only one, but it is certainly the most destructive. And thus it is the one the world sought to condemn - and rightly so.

Moreover, this veto was not cast during ordinary days. These are days of boiling lava in the region. If there were a responsible government in Israel, it would have stopped settlement building long ago - not only to deflect fire from Israel, but to promote an agreement that has never been more vital for it.

If the U.S. had been a responsible superpower, it would have voted for the resolution on Friday to rouse Israel from its dangerous sleep. Instead, we got a hostile veto from Washington, shouts of joy from Jerusalem and a party that will end very badly for both.

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2 -Craven US veto costs Washington its last shred of credibility

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By Stuart Littlewood

22 February 2011

Stuart Littlewood argues that the latest US veto of a draft UN Security Council resolution condemning Israel’s squatter colonies in the occupied Palestinian territories ”has finally lifted the scales from the eyes of all those who unwisely invested high hopes” in President Obama.

Hang you head in shame, O Peace Prize laureate.

The Nobel award, said Barack Obama at the time, was “an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations” and must be shared with everyone who strives for "justice and dignity". Where was the justice and dignity in the sad story of America’s UN veto?

Having blocked the United Nations Security Council draft resolution on 18 February, which would have condemned Israeli squatter colonies as illegal, Obama has now written America completely out of the script on Middle East peace.

Many will see it as a blessing that the US has so spectacularly disqualified itself from serious discussion, and that Obama has finally lifted the scales from the eyes of all those who unwisely invested high hopes in him.

“No doubt the champagne corks were popping in the US-Israeli Combined Operationss headquarters as the Zionist luvvies danced late into the night to celebrate their victory.”

Netanyahu's office was cock-a-hoop and said Israel was "deeply grateful" to be let off the hook and as a reward the delinquent promises to be a good boy and "pursue negotiations vigorously" with the Palestinians. The US veto made it clear that “the only path to such a peace will come through direct negotiations and not through the decisions of international bodies”.

Some people will do anything to stop the United Nations getting a grip on the crisis. It would be more than a tad inconvenient to the crazed Greater Israel project. No doubt the champagne corks were popping in the US-Israeli Combined Operationss headquarters as the Zionist luvvies danced late into the night to celebrate their victory.

The resolution, besides condemning the continuation of settlement activities and other measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the occupied Palestinian territories, in violation of international humanitarian law and relevant resolutions, demanded that Israel ceased forthwith and fully respected all of its legal obligations in that regard.

The US argued that although it opposes Israeli settlements, taking the issue to the UN would only complicate efforts to resume stalled negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians on a two-state solution. Why that should be the case wasn’t explained. Nor was the reason why negotiations should be restarted in the teeth of Israel’s uncompromising territorial objectives and clear dislike of peace.

“...Washington cannot bring itself to call Israel’s settlements on stolen Palestinian land what they really are – illegal – and is only prepared to label them ‘illegitimate’, presumably in case the correct term ruffles too many Israel lobby feathers.”

It seems, from what US ambassador Susan Rice says, that craven Washington cannot bring itself to call Israel’s settlements on stolen Palestinian land what they really are – illegal – and is only prepared to label them “illegitimate”, presumably in case the correct term ruffles too many Israel lobby feathers.

Falling back onto the administration’s familiar double-speak, Rice explained that the veto "should not be misunderstood to mean we support settlement activity" but the US thinks it “unwise for this council to attempt to resolve the core issues that divide Israelis and Palestinians”.

In other words, the United States would much prefer to have the Israel-Palestine question resolved by arm-twisting behind closed doors, in the guise of “direct talks”, than let the Security Council intervene with another binding resolution.

This latest resolution had nearly 120 co-sponsors and the other 14 Security Council members voted in favour. There are reports that Washington earlier threatened to slash aid to the Palestinian Authority if it wasn’t withdrawn, as if to remove any lingering doubt as to the crooked purpose of America's meddling. When this failed the US, as one of the five permanent council members with blocking power, struck it down.

In doing so, the United States has advertised itself to the whole wide world as the willing tool of Zionist ambition and branded itself an enemy of Palestine and of all other countries threatened by the Israeli regime.

Sucked into the swamp of “direct negotiations”
Right on cue, British Foreign Secretary William Hague chimed in with some carefully-crafted balderdash:

I have made clear my serious concern about the current stalemate in the Middle East peace process. Today the UK voted with others, including France and Germany, to reinforce this and our longstanding view that settlements, including in East Jerusalem, are illegal under international law, an obstacle to peace and constitute a threat to a two-state solution...

He started well but quickly showed his eagerness to be sucked down by the US and Israel into the swamp of direct negotiations.

I call on both parties to return as soon as possible to direct negotiations towards a two-state solution, on the basis of clear parameters...

An agreement on the borders of the two states, based on 4 June 1967 lines with equivalent land swaps as may be agreed between the parties.
Security arrangements that, for Palestinians, respect their sovereignty and show that the occupation is over; and, for Israelis, protect their security, prevent the resurgence of terrorism and deal effectively with new and emerging threats.
A just, fair and agreed solution to the refugee question.

Fulfillment of the aspirations of both parties for Jerusalem. A way must be found through negotiations to resolve the status of Jerusalem as the future capital of both states.
Just pause there, please, Mr Hague. First, if a state is doing something that’s illegal and an obstacle to peace, and won’t stop when asked, it surely becomes the responsibility of international community and its law courts, and especially the United Nations, to sort it out. The victim can hardly be expected to NEGOTIATE an end to it.

Secondly, why are Israel’s accumulated crimes now deemed negotiable when the issues were long ago determined by the UN and by international law and wait to be implemented? Not once do you mention delivering that long-awaited justice. Instead you are obsessed with endless, unequal negotiations that are dishonestly convened and favour a very strong party that literally holds a gun to the weak party's head.

And always the talk is of security for the Israelis rather than the Palestinians. You mention security arrangements to "prevent the resurgence of terrorism and deal effectively with new and emerging threats" against Israel. I don’t hear you pressing for equivalent arrangements to prevent Israeli terrorism against the Palestinians.

Mr Hague says:

We therefore look to both parties to return to negotiations as soon as possible on this basis. Our goal remains an agreement on all final status issues and the welcoming of Palestine as a full member by September 2011. We will contribute to achieving this goal in any and every way that we can.

What has the British government done over the years to pave the way towards Palestinian statehood, Mr Hague? Now you’re in an all-fired hurry to rush it through in six months but still unwilling to act positively to establish any likelihood of a JUST solution.

According to Mr Hague:

We understand Israel's deep and justified security concerns. As friends of Israel, we share those concerns, and will strive with Israel to preserve her security and the stability of the region around her. It is precisely because of those concerns that we vote today in favour of this resolution.

And not for the key reason that the settlements are illegal and moving Israeli squatters onto occupied territory seriously breaches the Geneva Convention and amounts to a war crime? Is that not of sufficient concern for you to say so loudly and clearly?

For Mr Hague:

We regret anything which sets back the prospects for peace because we believe it also sets back Israel's security.

There you go again – this slavish attachment to Israel's security above all else. How can Britain be seen as an honest broker any more than the Zionist lackeys of the US administration?

The fact is, Mr Hague, the country you represent does not regard itself particularly as a friends of Israel and is not interested in preserving Israel’s security at the expense of its neighbours. It certainly doesn’t wish to be thought of as an enemy of Palestine just to appease your funny friends in Tel Aviv and Washington.

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3 - Israeli media “fears” the new Egypt

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Neve Gordon

22 February 2011

Neve Gordon describes how Israel's media has been presenting Egyptian democracy as a threat, with one commentator lamenting the end of colonialism.

Over the past three weeks the Israeli media has been extremely interested in Egypt.

During the climatic days of the unprecedented demonstrations, television news programmes spent most of their airtime covering the protests, while the daily papers dedicated half the news and opinion pages to the unfolding events.

“...the dominant attitude here [in Israel], particularly on television, was of anxiety – a sense that the developments in Egypt were inimical to Israel's interests. Egypt's revolution, in other words, was bad news.”

Rather than excitement at watching history in the making, however, the dominant attitude here, particularly on television, was of anxiety – a sense that the developments in Egypt were inimical to Israel's interests. Egypt's revolution, in other words, was bad news.

It took a while for Israel's experts on "Arab affairs" to get a grip on what was happening. During the early days of unrest, the recurrent refrain was that "Egypt is not Tunis".

Commentators assured the public that the security apparatuses in Egypt are loyal to the regime and that consequently there was little if any chance that President Hosni Mubarak's government would fall.

Media switch
Once it became clear that this line of analysis was erroneous, most commentators followed Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's lead and criticized President Barack Obama's administration for not supporting Mubarak. The Foreign News editor of one channel noted that: "The fact that the White House is permitting the protests is reason for worry;" while the prominent political analyst Ben Kaspit expressed his longing for President George W. Bush.

"We remember 2003 when George Bush invaded and took over Iraq with a sense of yearning", Ben Kaspit wrote, adding:

Libya immediately changed course and allied itself with the West. Iran suspended its military nuclear programme. Arafat was harnessed. Syria shook with fear. Not that the invasion of Iraq was a wise move (not at all, Iran is the real problem, not Iraq), but in the Middle East whoever does not walk around with a big bat in his hand receives the bat on his head.

Israeli commentators are equivocal on the issue of Egyptian democracy. One columnist explained that it takes years for democratic institutions to be established and for people to internalize the practices appropriate for democracy, while Amir Hazroni from the Israeli news website NRG went so far as to write an ode to colonialism:

When we try to think how and why the United States and the West lost Egypt, Tunis, Yemen and perhaps other countries in the Middle East, people forget that. The original sin began right after World War II, when a wonderful form of government that protected security and peace in the Middle East (and in other parts of the Third Word) departed from this world following pressure from the United States and Soviet Union... More than 60 years have passed since the Arab states and the countries of Africa were liberated from the “colonial yoke”, but there still isn't an Arab university, an African scientist or a Middle Eastern consumer product that has made a mark on our world.

Fear and the Muslim Brotherhood
While only a few commentators are as reactionary as Hazroni, an Orientalist perspective permeated most of the discussion about Egypt, thus helping to bolster the already existing Jewish citizenry's fear of Islam. Political Islam is constantly presented and conceived as an ominous force that is antithetical to democracy.

Thus, in the eyes of Israeli analysts, the protestors – that Facebook and Twitter generation – are deserving of empathy but also extremely naïve. There is a shared sense that their fate will end up being identical to that of the Iranian intellectuals who led the protests against the Shah.

Channel Two's expert on "Arab affairs" explained that “The fact that you do not see the Muslim Brotherhood does not mean they are not there", and another expert warned his viewers not to "be misled by [Muhammad] ElBaradei's Viennese spirit, behind him is the Muslim Brotherhood".

According to these pundits, the Muslim Brotherhood made a tactical decision not to distribute Islamists banners or to take an active part in leading the protests. One commentator declared that if the Muslim Brotherhood wins, then "elections are the end of the [democratic] process, not its beginning," while an anchorman for Channel Ten asked former Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer whether "the person who says to himself: 'How wonderful, at last the state of Egypt is a democracy,' is naïve?"

The minister responded:

Allow me even to laugh. We wanted a democracy in Iran and in Gaza. The person who talks like this is ignoring the fact that for over a decade there has been a struggle of giants between the Sunni and Shi’ah with tons of blood spilled. The person who talks about democracy does not live in the reality we live in.

Democratic threat
Ben-Eliezer's response is telling, not least because it is well known that Israel supported the Shah regime in Iran and has not proven itself to be a particularly staunch supporter of Palestinian democracy. Democracy in the Middle East is, after all, conceived by this and previous Israeli governments as a threat to Israel's interests.

Dan Margalit, a well-known commentator, made this point clear when he explained that Israel does not disapprove of a democracy in the largest Arab country but simply privileges Israel's peace agreement with Egypt over internal Arab affairs.

Israel, one should note, is not alone in this self-serving approach; most Western countries constantly lament the absence of democracy in the Arab world, while supporting the dictators and helping them remain in office.

In English this kind of approach has a very clear name: it is called hypocrisy.

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4 - ALLEN L ROLAND : World War III – A Class War between The people and Corpocracy
February 21, 2011 posted by Allen L Roland

World War III has already started. It is not a military war but instead an economic class war by the people against the corporate global elite whose puppet spoke person is President Obama. The economically oppressed masses of people in Egypt realized they could literally shut down the government and that empowering message has reached the United States where the masses of enraged people in Wisconsin are taking to the streets in a revolt against their own corporate welfare state. Obama take note ~ this is the beginning of world wide shift in consciousness which will culminate in 2012 and politically sweep away the Oligarchy in the process: Allen L Roland

Wikipedia defines Oligarchy as a form of power structure in which power effectively rests with a small number of people. These people could bedistinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, corporate, or military control. Aristotle pioneered the use of the term as a synonym for rule by the rich, for which the exact term is plutocracy. As such, my use of the term corpocracy should be taken in the same context as the Oligarchy and plutocracy ~ rule by the privileged few or global elite.

Our founded Republic is a state under a form of government in which the people, or some significant portion of them, retain supreme control of the government and where most decisions are made with reference to established laws, rather than the discretion of a head of state, a monarch or appointed Czars.

The epicenter of the Middle East people’s revolt is the ongoing oppression of the Palestinian people by Israel ~ which is a constant and humiliating reminder to the Arab world that they are servants of the global elite who maintain their oppressive regimes through military power and economic control.

The epicenter of the blossoming people’s revolt in the United States is the 9/11 conspiracy where Vice President Dick Cheney created a shadow government committed to corporate welfare and beholden to the global elite. That’s when the Republic began its death throes and the corpocracy emerged from the twin towers ashes ~ where it controlled, and still does control the masses through fear, demonizing, and fabrications with the ultimate big lie being the 9/11 cover up story.

Fueled by greed, arrogance and false patriotism the Corpocracy, under Cheney’s active direction, went to war with Afghanistan and falsely rationalized another war with Iraq, again under Cheney’s active direction, and virtually imprisoned the Middle East through its control of their oppressive monarchies and its unholy alliance with its ongoing partner in crime, Israel. Obama’s continued support of an illegal war and occupation of Afghanistan was an early indication of his allegiance to the corpocracy ~ much to the continued chagrin of progressives and the majority of Americans.

Corporate welfare is a term describing a government’s bestowal of money grants, tax breaks, or other special favorable treatment on corporations or selected corporations which is precisely what the Cheney/Bush administration did in order to achieve the monetary allegiance and goals of the corpocracy ~ while America’s middle class virtually died as their jobs were either shipped overseas or eliminated by corporate welfare.

President Obama eagerly sensed where the power was and signed on board with the corpocracy leaving his progressive base in shambles. This marriage was recently consummated between President Obama and the financial elite with the appointment of J.P. Morgan’s William Daly as his chief of staff, former Goldman executive Gene Sterling as his economic council chief and General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt as the head of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness ( Chuckle ).

The stage was set for economic welfare you can believe in and the people and Republic be damned.

With the corpocracy now financially firmly behind him ~ it would be clear sailing for Obama’s 2012 reelection ~ that is, until the people of Egypt finally woke up, took to the streets and toppled the Mubarak regime which sent a shock wave through the corpocracy and left Obama reacting like a deer in the headlights.

Whoops, the Middle East and North African masses began to realize they could break the chains of their American sanctioned oppression by taking to the streets, voicing their concerns and not only demanding change but not settling for anything less than true change. The seed was dropped and it rapidly took root throughout the world and eventually America ~ what would happen if the American people, who voted for change in 2008, suddenly demanded change?

A wave of revolt spread throughout the Middle East and North Africa and that wave has now become a Tsunami which has finally reached America and in particular Wisconsin. As David DeGraw, Amped Status Report, correctly writes; “ We (America) have all the ingredients for a revolution ~ 59 million people without healthcare, 52 million in poverty, 44 million on food stamps, 30 million in need of work, seven million foreclosed upon and five million homes over two months late in their mortgage payments. Meanwhile, all new political policies and proposals on the table, on the state and federal level, are committed to major cuts in social services. In a sign of what’s to come, Obama’s first disclosed spending cut targets the poor… While continuing their attacks on American small businesses and private-sector workers, the global financial elite are now stepping up their attacks on public workers. In this context, the Wisconsin state government attacks against the state teachers’ union doesn’t have anything to do with the old Democrat vs. Republican divide and conquer debates of the past. This is about people fighting back against their economic oppressors. In Egypt, Mubarak was the Neo-Liberal Aristocracy’s local enforcer. In Wisconsin, Scott Walker is the Neo-Liberal Aristocracy’s local enforcer…..This battle in Madison, Wisconsin, between the American people and the global financial elite, represents the opening salvo, the awakening of an American resistance movement and a sign of what’s to come.” See article ~

By the way, without the tax cuts to big corporations made by Governor Walker and the other Republicans, Wisconsin would have had a surplus, according to the Wisconsin Federal Bureau, a non-partisan group. Just last month, Walker and the Legislature gave away $117 million in tax breaks, mostly for businesses that expand and for private health savings accounts. That’s corporate welfare and a choice lawmakers made. Had it not been for those decisions and a few others, according to the state’s Legislative Fiscal Bureau, the state would have had a surplus

Oh my, obviously a global shift of consciousness is happening and it’s exhilarating. It’s a bottom up shift beginning with the economically downtrodden masses who are finding their voices, the power of their numbers as well as their ability to stop the corpocracy in its tracks by refusing to play by their oppressive rules. What’s happening now in Wisconsin will soon happen throughout the United States. As DeGraw concludes “The economic top one-tenth of one percent of the global population has launched an economic war on us. They are hoarding $39 Trillion in investible wealth, not counting the vast sums they have hidden in offshore accounts. In the United States, we now have the highest and most severe inequality of wealth in our nation’s history. While there is a record number of American citizens currently living paycheck to paycheck, in debt, unemployed, underemployed, without healthcare, on food stamps and in poverty, as our society is breaking down, global bankers have taken our tax dollars and given themselves all-time record-breaking bonuses. The same people who destroyed our economy have been rewarded with trillions of dollars in national wealth. It is now evident that both political parties and all three branches of government, along with the mainstream corporate media, have been bought off by a global economic elite.”

This is not Obama’s shining moment and his true allegiance to the Old World Order as well as the corpocracy and global elite is now being witnessed by the world in the glaring headlights of the bottom-up Egyptian people’s revolution ~ a revolution which most assuredly is now seen as a direct threat to America’s rapidly crumbling empire.Norm Chomsky correctly identifies that threat ~ “ It’s not radical Islam that worries the US, it’s Independence ~ The nature of any regime it backs in the Arab world is secondary to control. Subjects are ignored until they break their chains.”

Well, the nature of the corpocracy is to ignore the people until they break the chains of control by demanding change as is now happening in Wisconsin and throughout the world. For example, Palestinians are now planning a ‘Day of Rage’ after US Vetoed a UN Resolution condemning illegal Israeli Settlements. Anti-US rallies took place in the West Bank towns of Bethlehem, Tulkarem and Jenin this weekend after the 14-1 vote on the resolution, in which the US stood alone against the rest of the security council, including Britain, Germany and France. We actually voted in contradiction of our own stated policy which is the height of hypocrisy and infuriates the masses throughout the Middle East and the world.

World War III has begun and it’s a class battle between the people and the corpocracy but on a larger scale it‘s a battle for our lost Republic, our lost freedoms, our lost soul and our forgotten global evolutionary innate urge to unite and prosper in the spirit of love, altruism and social cooperation instead of survival of the strong or most wealthy. As such, it is a shift in consciousness which will become apparent to all in 2012 and nothing can stop it from evolving.

We cannot deny our destiny and it is divine.

Allen L Roland

About the Author: Allen L Roland is a Freelance Alternative Press Online columnist and psychotherapist. Allen L Roland is also available for comments, interviews, speaking engagements and private consultations. Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his weblog and website www.allenroland.com . He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net

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5 - The Limits of Social Movements

EGYPT : SOCIAL MOVEMENTS, THE CIA AND MOSSAD
By James Petras

The mass movements which forced the removal of Mubarak reveal both the strength and weaknesses of spontaneous uprisings. On the one hand, the social movements demonstrated their capacity to mobilize hundreds of thousands, if not millions, in a successful sustained struggle culminating in the overthrow of the dictator in a way that pre-existent opposition parties and personalities were unable or unwilling to do.

On the other hand, lacking any national political leadership, the movements were not able to take political power and realize their demands, allowing the Mubarak military high command to seize power and define the "post-Mubarak" process, ensuring the continuation of Egypt's subordination to the US, the protection of the illicit wealth of the Mubarak clan ($70 billion), and the military elite's numerous corporations and the protection of the upper class. The millions mobilized by the social movements to overthrow the dictatorship were effectively excluded by the new self-styled "revolutionary" military junta in defining the political institutions and policies, let along the socio-economic reforms needed to address their basic needs of the population (40% live on less than $2 USD a day, youth unemployment runs over 30%). Egypt, as in the case of the student and popular social movements against the dictatorships of South Korea, Taiwan, Philippines and Indonesia, demonstrate that the lack of a national political organization allows neo-liberal and conservative "opposition" personalities and parties to replace the regime .They proceed to set up an electoral regime which continues to serve imperial interests and to depend on and defend the existing state apparatus .In some cases they replace old crony capitalists with new ones. It is no accident that the mass media praise the `spontaneous' nature of the struggles (not the socio-economic demands) and put a favorable spin on the role of military (slighting its 30 years as a bulwark of the dictatorship). The masses are praised for their "heroism", the youth for their "idealism", but are never proposed as central political actors in the new regime. Once the dictatorship fell, the military and the opposition electoralists "celebrated" the success of the revolution and moved swiftly to demobilize and dismantle the spontaneous movement, in order to make way for negotiations between the liberal electoral politicians, Washington and the ruling military elite.

While the White House may tolerate or even promote social movements in ousting ("sacrificing") dictatorships, they have every intention in preserving the state .In the case of Egypt the main strategic ally of US imperialism was not Mubarak, it is the military, with whom Washington was in constant collaboration before, during and after the ouster of Mubarak, ensuring that the "transition" to democracy (sic) guarantees the continued subordination of Egypt to US and Israeli Middle East policy and interests.

The Revolt of the People: The Failures of the CIA and MOSSAD

The Arab revolt demonstrates once again several strategic failures in the much vaunted secret police, special forces and intelligence agencies of the US and Israeli state apparatus none of which anticipated, let along intervened, to preclude successful mobilization and influence their government's policy toward the client rulers under attack.

The image which most writers, academics and journalists project of the invincibility of the Israeli Mossad and of the omnipotent CIA have been severely tested by their admitted failure to recognize the scope, depth and intensity of the multi-million member movement to oust the Mubarak dictatorship. The Mossad, pride and joy of Hollywood producers, presented as a `model of efficiency' by their organized Zionist colleagues, were not able to detect the growth of a mass movement in a country right next door. The Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was shocked (and dismayed) by the precarious situation of Mubarak and the collapse of his most prominent Arab client – because of Mossad's faulty intelligence. Likewise, Washington was totally unprepared by the 27 US intelligence agencies and the Pentagon, with their hundreds of thousands of paid operatives and multi-billion dollar budgets, of the forthcoming massive popular uprisings and emerging movements.

Several theoretical observations are in order. The notion that highly repressive rulers receiving billions of dollars of US military aid and with close to a million police, military and paramilitary forces are the best guarantors of imperial hegemony has been demonstrated to be false. The assumption that large scale, long term links with such dictatorial rulers, safeguards US imperial interests has been disproven.

Israeli arrogance and presumption of Jewish organizational, strategic and political superiority over "the Arabs", has been severely deflated. The Israeli state, its experts, undercover operatives and Ivy League academics were blind to the unfolding realities, ignorant of the depth of disaffection and impotent to prevent the mass opposition to their most valued client. Israel's publicists in the US, who scarcely resist the opportunity to promote the "brilliance" of Israel's security forces, whether it's assassinating an Arab leader in Lebanon or Dubai, or bombing a military facility in Syria, were temporarily speechless.

The fall of Mubarak and the possible emergence of an independent and democratic government would mean that Israel could lose its major `cop on the beat'. A democratic public will not cooperate with Israel in maintaining the blockade of Gaza – starving Palestinians to break their will to resist. Israel will not be able to count on a democratic government, to back its violent land seizures in the West Bank and its stooge Palestinian regime. Nor can the US count on a democratic Egypt to back its intrigues in Lebanon, its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, its sanctions against Iran. Moreover, the Egyptian uprising has served as an example for popular movements against other US client dictatorships in Jordan, Yemen and Saudi Arabia.For all these reasons,Washington backed the military takeover in order to shape a political transition according to its liking and imperial interests.

The weakening of the principle pillar of US imperial and Israeli colonial power in North Africa and the Middle East reveals the essential role of imperial collaborator regimes. The dictatorial character of these regimes is a direct result of the role they play in upholding imperial interests. And the major military aid packages which corrupt and enrich the ruling elites are the rewards for being willing collaborators of imperial and colonial states. Given the strategic importance of the Egyptian dictatorship, how do we explain the failure of the US and Israeli intelligence agencies to anticipate the uprisings?

Both the CIA and the Mossad worked closely with the Egyptian intelligence agencies and relied on them for their information, confiding in their self-serving reports that "everything was under control": the opposition parties were weak, decimated by repression ad infiltration, their militants languishing in jail, or suffering fatal "heart attacks" because of harsh "interrogation techniques". The elections were rigged to elect US and Israeli clients – no democratic surprises in the immediate or medium term horizon.

Egyptian intelligence agencies are trained and financed by Israeli and US operatives and are amenable to pursuing their masters will. They were so compliant in turning in reports which pleased their mentors, that they ignored any accounts of growing popular unrest or of internet agitation. The CIA and Mossad were so embedded in Mubarak's vast security apparatus that they were incapable of securing any other information from the grassroots, decentralized, burgeoning movements which were independent of the "controlled" traditional electoral opposition.

When the extra-parliamentary mass movements burst forward, the Mossad and the CIA counted on the Mubarak state apparatus to take control via the typical carrot and stick operation: transient token concessions and calling out the army, police and death squads. As the movement grew from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands, to millions, the Mossad and leading US Congressional backers of Israel urged Mubarak to "hold on". The CIA was reduced to presenting the White House with political profiles of reliable military officials and pliable "transitional" political personages, willing to follow in Mubarak's footsteps. Once again the CIA and Mossad demonstrated their dependence on the Mubarak apparatus for intelligence of who might be a "viable" (pro-US/Israel) alternative, ignoring the elementary demands of the masses. The attempt to co-opt the old guard electoralist Muslim Brotherhood via negotiations with Vice-President Suleiman failed, in part because the Brotherhood was not in control of the movement and because Israel and their US backers objected. Moreover, the youth wing of the Brotherhood pressured them to withdraw from the negotiations.

The intelligence failure complicated Washington and Tel Aviv's efforts to sacrifice the dictatorial regime to save the state: the CIA ad MOSSAD did not develop ties to any of the new emerging leaders. The Israeli's could not find any `new face' with a popular following willing to serve as a crass collaborator to colonial oppression. The CIA had been entirely engaged in using the Egyptian secret police for torturing terror suspects ("exceptional rendition") and in policing neighboring Arab countries. As a result both Washington and Israel looked to and promoted the military takeover to preempt further radicalization.

Ultimately the failure of the CIA and MOSSAD to detect and prevent the rise of the popular democratic movement reveals the precarious bases of imperial and colonial power. Over the long-run it is not arms, billions of dollars, secret police and torture chambers that decide history. Democratic revolutions occur when the vast majority of a people arise and say "enough", take the streets, paralyze the economy, dismantle the authoritarian state and demand freedom and democratic institutions without imperial tutelage and colonial subservience.

JAMES PETRAS : American Zionism against the Egyptian Pro-Democracy Movement
February 20, 2011 posted by Veterans Today

The leading Zionist official in the Obama Administration and AIPAC point man, Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg traveled to Israel to assure the Netanyahu/Lieberman regime that the Israeli-Egyptian Treaty would remain unchanged.
By James Petras / Veterans Today

One of the least analyzed aspects of the Egyptian pro-democracy movement and US policy toward it, is the role of the influential Zionist power configuration (ZPC) including the leading umbrella organization – the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (CPMAJO) – Congressional Middle East committee members, officials occupying strategic positions in the Obama Administration’s Middle East bureaus, as well as prominent editors, publicists and journalists who play a major role in the prestigious newspapers and popular weekly magazines.

This essay is based on a survey of every issue of the Daily Alert (propaganda bulletin of the CPMAJO), the NY Times and the Washington Post between January 25 – February 17, 2011.

From the very beginning of the Egyptian pro-democracy movement, the ZPC, called into question the legitimacy of the anti-dictatorial demands by focusing on the “Islamic threat”. In particular the ultra-Zionist Washington Post, theWall Street Journal and the Daily Alert harped on the “threat” of a “Islamic takeover” by the Muslim Brotherhood even as the overwhelming number of non-Zionist experts and reporters in Egypt demonstrated that the vast majority of protestors were not members of any Islamic political movement, but largely advocates of a secular democratic republic (see the Financial Times 1/26/11-2/17/11).

Once their initial propaganda ploy failed, the ZPC developed several new propaganda lines: the most prominent of which was a sustained defense of the Mubarak dictatorship as a bulwark of Israel’s ‘security’ and guardian of the so-called “Peace Accord” of 1979. In other words the ZPC pressured the US administration, via Congressional hearings, the press and AIPAC to support Mubarak as a key guarantor and collaborator of Israel’s supremacy in the Middle East; although it meant that the Obama regime would have to openly oppose the million-member Egyptian freedom movement. Israeli journalists, officials and their US Zionist counterparts willingly admitted that although the Mubarak regime was a bloody, corrupt tyranny, he should be supported because a democratic government in Cairo might end Egypt’s decades-old collaboration with the brutal Israeli colonization of Palestine.

Once it became clear that uncritical support for Mubarak was no longer a viable position and the Obama Administration was appealing to the democratic movement to “dialogue” and negotiate with the dictator, the ZPC demanded caution in backing a “dialogue” and assurance that the dialogue did not lead to any abrupt changes in the Mubarak-Israeli treaty. The ZPC and its scribes in the Washington Post presented Mubarak’s hand picked “Vice President” Omar Suleiman, a notorious torturer and long-term collaborator of Israel’s Mossad, as the legitimate interlocutor for the dialogue – even as he was unanimously rejected by the entire pro-democracy movement.

As the demonstrators grew in number and engulfed the major public squares throughout the country and extended beyond the first week, Israel and the ZPC promoted a possible alternative solution, which would keep Mubarak in power, during a nine month ‘transition’ period. Caught off guard by the rapid growth of Egypt’s pro-democracy movement, Israel’s willing accomplices in the US administration and media conceded that an end to the dictatorship would be a good thing… if it was managed appropriately; namely, if it excluded or minimized the role of the Muslim Brotherhood and maximized the role of the pro-Israel military high command and intelligence services as overseers of the “transition”. The ZPC contemptuously rejected Egypt’s independent pro-democracy movement and its leaders and sought to undermine the Egyptian people’s movement by inflating the role of the “best organized” Islamic Brotherhood and warned of a future Islamist “seizure of power”.

The leading Zionist official in the Obama Administration and AIPAC point man, Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg traveled to Israel to assure the Netanyahu/Lieberman regime that the US was in contact with the Egyptian military high command and sectors of the civilian opposition (ElBaradei) and that Washington’s support of the democracy movement was conditioned by their assurance that the Israeli-Egyptian Treaty would remain unchanged.

When Mubarak was finally forced to resign, handing power to a military junta, the ZPC congratulated the coup-makers, supported its demobilization of the movement and more important, celebrated the Egyptian generals’ endorsement of the “Peace Agreement of 1979”. Now the Israeli propaganda machine began to harshly criticize Mubarak and portrayed the military coup as a positive step toward an “orderly and peaceful transition”. By ‘orderly’ the Zionist think tankers meant a ‘regime change’ that did nothing to change the blockade of Gaza, the regular shipment of fuel to Israel, or the hotline of collaboration between Tel Aviv and Cairo. Israeli and American Zionists rejected early elections and promoted a prolonged process in which the Egyptian military, the US Administration and the ZPC could handpick members of the ‘transitional constitutional and electoral commissions’ committed to continuing Mubarak’s policy of unconditional submission to Israel. By “peaceful” the pro-Israel diplomats in the Obama Administration meant clearing the streets of the masses of pro-democracy activists and demonstrators so that decisions could be controlled by the small circle of Mubarak military and civilian holdovers behind closed doors. By “transition”, the circles of Zionists propagandists, US/Israeli policy makers and Egyptian generals meant that nothing would change but the face of Mubarak.

While Israel and the bulk of Zionist scribes and propagandists in the US opposed or questioned the pro-democracy movements against pro-Israeli rulers in the Middle East, they embraced and publicized the social movements opposing the Iranian regime. In every print and electronic outlet, the pro-Israel journalists emphasized the repressive, brutal nature of the Iranian regime, called for regime change and raised the specter of a military confrontation if Iranian warships traversed the Suez Canal, Iran’s right by international maritime law. Israeli security, the threat of ‘radical Islam’ and Iran were cited to place narrow limits on all discussions and debates over US policy regarding the enormous and growing mass pro-democracy movements throughout the Arab world.

The same prominent US Zionist scribes who, at first, defended US support for the dictatorial Mubarak regime and then supported the military takeover in Cairo, have now become born-again backers of anti-regime democrats in Iran. This is not inconsistent: the issue for US Zionists is how might pro-democracy movements affect Israel’s colonial policies in Palestine and Israel’s expanding power in the Middle East? In other words, the ZPC in Congress and the White House are not concerned about promoting democracy through American foreign policy, but only about harnessing US diplomacy and military leverage to serve Israel.

What is striking about Obama’s twist and turns in policy toward the mass popular struggles in Egypt is how closely it repeats and implements the policy positions of the US Zionist power configuration clearly presented in the ‘52 organizations’ propaganda organ, the Daily Alert.

AUTHOR James Petras is a Bartle Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York. He is the author of 64 books published in 29 languages, and over 560 articles in professional journals, including the American Sociological Review, British Journal of Sociology, Social Research, Journal of Contemporary Asia, and Journal of Peasant Studies. He has published over 2000 articles in nonprofessional journals such as the New York Times, the Guardian, the Nation, Christian Science Monitor, Foreign Policy, New Left Review, Partisan Review, Temps Moderne, Le Monde Diplomatique, and his commentary is widely carried on the internet. His publishers have included Random House, John Wiley, Westview, Routledge, Macmillan, Verso, Zed Books and Pluto Books. He is winner of the Life Time Career Award, Marxist Section, of the American Sociology Association, the Robert Kenny Award for Best Book, 2002, and the Best Dissertation, Western Political Science Association in 1968. Some recent titles include Unmasking Globalization: Imperialism of the Twenty-First Century (2001); co-author The Dynamics of Social Change in Latin America (2000), A System in Crisis (2003), co-author Social Movements and State Power (2003), co-author Empire With Imperialism (2005), co-author, Multinationals on Trial (2006). His most recent titles are The Power of Israel in the United States and Rulers and Ruled in the United States, (acquired for Japanese, German, Italian, Indonesian, Czech and Arabic editions), Zionism, Militarism and the Decline of US Power, and Global Depression & Regional Wars. He has a long history of commitment to social justice, working in particular with the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement for 11 years. In 1973-76 he was a member of the Bertrand Russell Tribunal on Repression in Latin America. Previously, he wrote a monthly column for the Mexican newspaper, Le Jornada, and the Spanish daily, El Mundo. He received an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. View Clarity titles at Middle East, Clear Day Books and Amazon.com

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6 - FRANKLIN LAMB : From Tahrir Square To Shatila Camp, “Hurriya” (freedom)
February 21, 2011 posted by Franklin Lamb

Panicked Israeli leaders and their agents in Congress are busy trying to convince the American public how vital and cheap the $3 billion per year cost of Camp David is for America’s security while they know the truth is precisely the opposite.
Franklin Lamb

Beirut, Lebanon

A Palestinian woman driven out of modern-day Israel during the 1948 Nakba carries her belongings. Hanini.org - Wikimedia Commons
The Tahrir Square “Hurriya!” tremors spreading across the Middle East may or may not be impacting today’s events in the historically liberal American state of Wisconsin and other areas of America, yet most of us would agree that the Tunisian-Egyptian revolutions are being felt far and wide and appear to be dramatically gaining steam. Lebanon’s Palestinian refugees camps are no exceptions.

Perhaps sooner rather than later, a half dozen or so Arab despots may reluctantly retire or leave for medical treatment in Saudi Arabia. Indeed some Saudis may themselves move to America to occupy their vast real estate holdings stateside, some located in largely Israeli duo-national neighborhoods, whose occupancy rates are also dramatically rising, as many in Israel sense that the CIA predicted collapse of their settler colony may be accelerating.

Also feeling the widening flood torrents are those depending on the 1978 Camp David Accords and its ‘Rosemary’s baby,’ the 1979 “Peace Treaty” that castrated Egypt, betrayed the Palestinians and ceded regional dominance to Israel for three decades. The White House reportedly is reconciled to the fact that Camp David may be ‘renegotiated’ but, like Israel, fears it may be frozen and indefinitely suspended if not scrapped completely in the coming months. This is part part of the re-ordering we are witnessing as the new era and indeed culture of resistance spreads.

Panicked Israeli leaders and their agents in Congress are busy trying to convince the American public how vital and cheap the $3 billion per year cost of Camp David is for America’s security while they know the truth is precisely the opposite. AIPAC has been saturating Capitol Hill this week as well as media outlets with its just released Red Alert! ”Urgent Appeal” which reads as follows: “Please urge your House member to sign a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that urges all branches of the U.S. government to emphasize to prospective Egyptian leaders and opposition figures the importance of Egypt’s international obligations, specifically its Camp David peace treaty with Israel.”

Just yesterday, 2/18/11, the Palestinian UN delegation, in a rare display of back bone, presumably influenced by the revelations in the Palestine Papers, of treachery and resulting charges of treason, as well as Tahrir Square, joined the 130 UN Member co-sponsors of the UNSC Resolution and stared down Barak Obama and Ambassador Susan Rice and rejected their proposed gutting of the modest Security Council Resolution condemning Israeli settlements. Before the vote, threats were issued from the White House personally delivered to PA “President” Mahmoud Abass during a 40 minute reportedly tense telephone call from the President and before Abbass presumably recovered from that upbraiding, another one came from Hilary Clinton.

The British, Russian, and Chinese ambassadors were among those who rose to speak in favor of the failed resolution. Still, it was a rare 14-1 Security Council vote in solidarity with Palestine. It was also yet another American Veto, that for the 63rd time, signaled the American public and the World that under Congressional pressure, it is Israeli settlers inhabiting stolen land, not the American people or their values, that still prevail even as the US and Israel reap an Arab and Islamic awakening that is hastening their expulsion from the region. Just hours after the courageous UN vote, the new provisional government in Cairo announced the opening of Rafah crossing, if only on a limited basis-for now.

Symbolism is everywhere-and sometimes seemingly everything. Who would have thought that Egypt, just days after Mubarak’s recall, would welcome, for the first time since 1979, Iranian warships through the Suez Canal? When Iran’s ships arrive at Port Said they are expected to be greeted and perhaps feted by dock workers and the Egyptian public, despite Israeli threats and claims delivered by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman that Iran’s use of the international waterway is “an hostile act” and ”proves the Iranians are becoming more and more cheeky.”

Many Palestinians in Lebanon’s camps and communities, like the rest of us appear almost mesmerized by what’s been happening. A survey conducted by the Arab World for Research and Development (AWRAD), published on February 2, 2011 showed, that 74 percent of the Palestinians support pro-democracy protests in Tunisia, which toppled President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. In Lebanon’s camps it appears that support for the Arab Awakening grows with each new revolt in the region.

They feel, as no doubt many who have been working for Palestinian civil rights in Lebanon for the past 20 years,including more than two dozen International and local NGO’s and civil society organizations, that the power of Tahrir Square will mean that Lebanon’s Palestinian refugees will at long last be granted the elementary, internationally mandated civil right to own a home and to work that every other refugee enjoys by law.

Stellar examples of the new Palestinian leadership in Lebanon’s camps pressing for civil rights include my best friend in Shatila Camp Zeinab al Hajj, born, raised and still living in Shatila Camp. And does she ever welcome western visitors whom she quickly converts to her cause! To arrive at Zeinab’s home/office and to learn about the Palestinian refugee’s urgent need for elementary civil rights, and why she and her friends believe the new Hezbollah led government, also inspired by Tahrir Square, will honor its moral, religious, legal and political obligations to achieve the right to work and home ownership, is simple enough.

The 14 member three generation Al Hajj family always welcomes foreign visitors into their three rooms and roof top space that overlooks the area of the camp where some of the most intense slaughter took place not only during the 1982 Sabra-Shatila Massacre, also during the 1985-88 camp wars when Shatila and Burj Barajneh camps were targeted for destruction by some factions who still today boast that Palestine is their blood stream cause. Indeed some of those who gave the orders to slaughter men, women and children in Shatila during the misnomered “camp wars’ ghoulishly have their photo-shop posters plastered around parts of the south end of Shatila camp.

Of course there were no “camp wars” but rather a series of intermittent slaughters of mainly unarmed civilians between 1985-88, allegedly to prevent the return of the PLO under Arafat’s leadership, until then Hezbollah spokesman, Subhi al-Tufayli (later Secretary-General between 1989-92) and others stepped in and demanded that President Hafez Assad of Syria put an end to the killing, declaring that Hezbollah was prepared to send fighters to defend the Palestinian camps. One can imagine what Palestinian families, nearly all of whom lost a relative at the hand of their Arab brothers, feel today about those smiling “solidarity” faces as they walk their children to school. Just seeing them plastered on poles and walls, is for this observer, enraging and the equivalent of seeing Ariel Sharon’s or Rafael Eitan’s bill boarded mugs inside Shatila camp.

To sit with and learn from ‘Miss International’, her friends and her elderly parents, who as children walked half a day into Lebanon from Safed in northern Palestine on May 12, 1948, all one has to do is enter Shatila Camp from the south, diagonal from what’s left of the Palestine Red Crescent Society’s Akka Hospital. Continue north along Rue Sabra toward what remains of the former Gaza PRCS Hospital. Gaza Hospital was for years, before the Palestinian Resistance departed in August of 1982, among the best equipped and administered hospitals in the Middle East. It was bombarded, destroyed and stripped of all its equipment during the Camp “Wars”, and the hospital’s shell is now home to roughly 1000 refugees who exist, packed into every room, hall way and alcove from the operating theater to the hospital morgue. Continue north past Martyr’s Cemetery where around 1000 unidentified victims of the Israeli sponsored 1982 Massacre at Shabra-Shatila are buried, one takes the third right down a narrow alley where the sun has not shown for 60 years. Step around the puddles of sewage and the ruts, watch out for dozens of beautiful children chasing and playing, or going or coming from the camps two UNWRA schools, avoid careening bikes and proud, if stressed, Palestinian women with shopping bags, sometimes balanced on their heads, and babies in their arms and you’ll find the cinder block hovel on your left next to a rusty zinc roofed shelter that camp residents avoid. The reason people don’t like to go inside the shelter is that 29 years ago the al-Hajj family allowed their neighbors to hide in their shelter during the 1982 massacre, as they themselves fled east to the then Algerian Embassy, across airport road from Shatila camp-currently the City Hall of the Hezbollah run Municipality of Ghouberi.

When the Hajj family returned to their home following the Massacre, they learned that all 17 neighbors using their shelter were slaughtered because the Israelis had given maps showing the exact location of the 11 shelters to the Phalange-Lebanese Forces militias. Zeinab, 7 years old at the time, recalls that she wanted to stay in the shelter and not flee because she planned to play with her dolls and her best friend Mona and they liked their private ‘hideout’ space. All 278 camp residents, with four exceptions, who entered the Israeli identified shelters in Shatila Camp were butchered between 6 pm Thursday and around midnight Friday, September 16-17, 1982.

Last night’s conversation, while enjoying a delicious bowl of hot Palestinian shorba prepared by Mrs. Hajj was about what Zeinab and her friends call the “Great Arab and Palestinian Awakening.” ‘What is happening? “Is it possible that Sykes-Picot’ off-spring can be liberated sooner rather than later?” Zeinab’s sister Suha, a nursing student at near-by Bahman hospital, scowled, referring to Israel.

Amidst the unfolding upheaval in the Middle East, some are expecting Lebanon’s Palestinian camps to erupt in revolt to protest economic and social conditions that are worse than any of the areas now in open revolt. If an eruption comes, it will be a quest for freedom, dignity and justice. Lots of meetings and discussions are being held but so far few signs of organizing mass demonstrations, although the current calm could abruptly shatter.

Zeinab’s friends are also more optimistic these days about the chances that they will finally be granted some elementary civil rights. The growing excitement appears to be fueled by the freedoms many camp residents predict in Tunisia and Egypt and perhaps throughout the region, but also as a result of the new government in Lebanon. The failure in Parliament last summer to achieve meaningful changes with respect to the right to work and to own a home in Parliament was a major disappointment in the camps, but with the new government hopes have risen.

Their growing zeal is made manifest in the quickly spreading activism among young Palestinians, being encouraged by their elders whose numbers comprise many sometimes honored, sometime seemingly forgotten, Palestinian resistance heroes who over the past half century helped earn the world’s recognition and increasing support of the Palestinian cause. I mean this reference to honor those, now middle aged, many sitting idly in the camps reminiscing and wondering what went wrong as they discuss latest developments such as the Palestine Papers, and who have struggled for so long to return to Palestine. Many from before the days when the arch Zionist Golda Meir could proclaim that “there are no such people as Palestinians” and much of the world’s media reflexively reported her lies as truth, and who have never compromised the principles which underpin the Palestinian struggle for justice. I recently met a man in Shatila Camp, who in 1950 in Gaza, worked with the Executive Committee of the Refugees’ Conference. This was of course 14 years before the founding of the PLO in Cairo. It was this Committee which led the first legislative council in Gaza in the early sixties, and sent the first Palestinian delegation of refugees to the United Nations in 1961.

(pictures removed)

The elderly refugees who lived and suffered through ‘the Nakbah’ period (catastrophe of Palestine occupation)

During holy Ramadan The Qatari Red Crescent under the motto “ You are our dignity, our blessing ,and our renaissance” arrange banquets for the elderly in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon

Lebanon’s camps are full of aging heroes. Among them thousands of mothers who have suffered and achieved so much for their families, their cause and their country. Their progeny fill the teeming camps. There is a young Nelson Mandela in Rashedeyeh camp near Tyre. Another I met in Ein el Helwe appears to be a clone on Dalal Moughiby. In Nahr al Bared, still waiting to be rebuilt following its destruction in 2007, I watched a youthful Khalil al Wazir (Abu Jihad) explain his hopes to revive Palestinian resistance until liberation. In Wavall camp in the Bekaa I spent an evening with teenaged would-be Hassan Nasrallah who wants to help lead his people back to Palestine.

Like the streets of Cairo, Lebanon’s camps are starting to cry “Hurriya!” The camps here have birthed new leadership, aided by the old, that will anticipate that the new government will respect the words of the Resistance and enact in Parliament the full Right to Work and repeal the discriminatory 2001 law that criminalizes Palestinian home ownership.

Copyright FRANKLIN LAMB

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7 - WILLIAM COOK : “We the Forgotten People of the United States …”
February 20, 2011 posted by Prof. William A. Cook

Let’s admit it, the country has been stolen.
By William A. Cook STAFF WRITER

We thought we had used the democratic process to rid our country of George W. Bush by the peaceful election of a man who told Americans he would right the wrongs of that Zionist Cabal. Instead we have a houseboy doing the chores of his Mars, Netanyahu. How far can he fall? Is there no principle, no obsequious cringing, no personal shame he will not endure to pay homage to his masters?

They have shackled him hands and feet, dragging him to the hanging tree, where he is now displayed for all to see, a beaten man sans hope, sans freedom, sans dignity, sans everything. And without remorse, they have rewritten the Constitution:

“We the Neo-Con Cabal working in the Obama administration in 2011, in order to form an exclusive club of faithful AIPAC owned contributors and Zionists United in the state of Israel, establish a clandestine corrupt government, the purpose of which is to undermine justice, create domestic instability through fear, provide our military industrial complex with billions of tax dollars to promote our own welfare, and secure to ourselves and our posterity the Liberty that comes with totalitarian indifference to all others by crushing them by coercion, threat, imprisonment, or death, and so ordain and establish this new Constitution to protect us from their wrath and their Courts of Justice.”

Such is the State of the Nation in this month of February, just three weeks into it, blessed we had hoped by the revolution of a truly free people, the people of Egypt, that taught us by show and tell how to be a government of the people, by the people , and for the people. Thus did they give us a chance to demonstrate that we, too, are a free people, free to break the shackles that bind us to the state that has no conscience, no compassion, no sense of justice, and no mercy. But we abrogated our rights by denying once again the rights of the Palestinian people and the voice of all the people around the world who stood ready in the General Assembly and in the Security Council to take on the rogue state that defies every UN convention including Genocide, suggesting rather that all these nations shove their opinions where the sun does not shine, the ultimate consequence of Obama’s veto. Once more the state built on illegality walks free, blessed by Obama’s gift brought to them on a platter, a goblet brimming with impunity, a sour but beloved drink adored by Netanyahu and his bouncer, Avigdor.

Since these masters lack all shame, they immediately run to their word processors to defend their illegal actions by donning the robe of victim. Listen to their laments:

AIPAC: “Far too often, the UN has served as an open forum to isolate and delegitimize Israel—America’s lone stable, democratic ally in the Middle East.” Considering that Israel stands accused by the international community of nations for crimes against humanity and its defiance of the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, protected from due process in the International Courts by its bought US veto vote, the only recourse the people of the world have is to continue to try Israel and its accomplice the United States with new resolutions hoping that at some point America might sunder the chains that bind it to Israel. Isolation and delegitimization end when Israel goes before its peers and accounts for its crimes.

U. S. Senator Mark Kirk: “The U.S. should never compromise on its commitment to the preeminent democracy in the Middle East. The administration acted correctly in opposing the latest attempt by the UN to castigate one of America’s strongest allies.” What democracy? How can a state justify citizenship by birth or conversion in a religion? That’s a theocracy; both citizenship and marriage are controlled by the religion. Are there Palestinians living in Israel and called citizens, yes; are they equal in all respects, no.

What democracy requires that its citizens declare allegiance to Judaism if that citizen is not Jewish? What freedom of religion is that? And how is Israel one of America’s strongest allies? Because of our allegiance to Israel, the United States is shunned around the world, seen as complicit in all of Israel’s crimes from the 2006 devastation of Lebanon, the Christmas invasion of Gaza, and the killings of Turkish citizens on a mercy voyage to Gaza last May 31, and understood to be a hypocritical nation that promotes democracy and freedoms but imposes its will by force of arms, especially in the Middle East.

Representative Henry Waxman: “The U.S. veto reaffirms that the only productive course ahead is for the Palestinian leadership to resume direct negotiations with Israel without preconditions.” When will it become obvious to our Israeli representatives that such “peace talks” have been going on for 63 years with no results. Read the newspapers every time a new set of talks is promoted; not one anywhere in the world expects such talks between Israel and Palestinian “leaders” to result in peace.

Israel has no intention of creating a Palestinian state. The reason is simple: for all 63 years Israel has been stealing Palestinian land and they have gotten away with it. Today that intention is even more rigid since they have discovered oil and gas off the coast of Gaza. Recognition of Palestine would require that Israel recognize the legitimate right of the Palestinians to own those resources.

They have no intention of doing that. The solution must be given to the UN. All nations of the UN except the US and Israel accept the right of the Palestinians to have a state within the borders of 1967. Israel refuses. How then can there be a resolution? If the UN were to place Peace Keepers on the green line between the two peoples having declared the existence of Palestine, a termination of hostilities could be achieved, if Israel wanted to cooperate. Until Israel is forced by international law to address its crimes, there can be no peace.

And so the voices cry in the wilderness the lies that have sustained them these many decades. But the American people now know that their government is not run by the vote of the people who elected a man committed to peace and the inherent rights of humankind. They now know he is a patsy operating on behalf of his masters, a frightful spectacle in this time when people across the globe, and even those in our own country in Wisconsin, have taken to the streets to demonstrate that it is the people that should run the country, not the lackeys of a foreign state.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: William A. Cook is a Professor of English at the University of La Verne in southern California. His most recent book, The Plight of the Palestinians, was published by Macmillan this past summer. He can be reached at www.drwilliamacook.com or wcook@laverne.edu.

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8 - Settlers & Israeli Army Destroy Olive Trees and damage Palestinian farmland
Monday February 21, 2011 14:13 by David Steele - IMEMC & Agencies

The Ma'an News Agency reported, on Monday, that a group of settlers uprooted olive trees and damaged Palestinian farmland near Nablus.

File - Olive trees destroyed and uprooted by the army, Ni'ilin - Active Stills

The settlers destroyed 270 olive trees using chainsaws and other equipment, according to a PA official. The Palestine Telegraph gives a figure of 220 trees and notes that the settlers came from the Yush Adam settlement. Palestinians living nearby claim that the intention is to expand nearby settlement outposts.

Ghassan Daghlas, a PA official, stated that 100 of the trees belonged to Abdul-Razzaq Dawabsha, 100 belonged to Muhammad and Shahada Dawabsha and 70 belonged to Sabir Dawabsha.

Ministry : 132 Palestinians detained for over 20 years in Israeli Jails

GAZA CITY (Ma’an) -- The Detainees’ Ministry in the Gaza Strip said Monday that more than 132 Palestinian prisoners have spent over 20 years in Israeli jails.

Detainees Abdullah Judeh and Jihad Abdul Hadi entered their 21st year in prison on Monday, the ministry said.

Judeh, 43, from Ramallah, was sentenced to life in prison accused of involvement in attacks against Israel.

Hadi, 43, from Aqraba village in Nablus, is serving a 25-year sentence accused of affiliation with Hamas and opposing the occupation, a ministry statement said.

The ministry added that Abir Issa Atef, 33, marked her 11th year in Israeli detention on Monday. She is from Dura near Hebron, and sentenced to 16 years detention.

She was severely beaten during investigations at Talmond prison and her sight was damaged, the ministry said, adding that she suffers chronic headaches and backache.

Source: http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=362085
Palestinian Worker Wounded by Israeli Gunfire in Gaza; Troops Arrest Five in West Bank

21.02.11 - 14:25
Gaza – PNN – A Palestinian worker was injured on Monday when Israeli troops stationed east of Gaza City opened fire on him.

Palestinian sources said that a group of workers were collecting construction materials near Gaza City's eastern border with Israel when
troops stationed there opened fire at them, injuring one.

Since Israel enforced its siege on Gaza five years ago and stopped allowing construction materials, Palestinian workers have been forced

to approach the borders to collect rubble from homes destroyed by the Israeli army.

Palestinian sources said that since last November Israeli troops have killed two workers and injured 129 others trying to gather construction

materials.

In related news, a series of overnight raids by the Israeli ended on Monday morning with the arrests of at least five Palestinians and the

erection of several checkpoints around the southern West Bank city of Hebron.

In the village of Yatta, south of Hebron, Israeli soldiers arrested Muhammad Ahmed Abu Sabheh and Muhammad Mahmoud Abu Ubeid and

took them to an unknown location after raiding their homes and searching their belongings. Local sources said the army set up at least two

checkpoints around Hebron and stopped passing cars to check identifications.

Three Palestinian workers from the village Battir, near Bethlehem, were arrested during clashes in Jerusalem with Israeli troops.

Nidal Mustafa Adwan, 27, Raed Ibrahim al-Qaysi, 37, and Hassan Muhammad Adwan, 34, were arrested for not carrying the correct permits.

Palestinian state-run news agency Wafa said that five Palestinians were arrested in Ramallah and Hebron overnight, but could not verify

the names or locations of the people in question.

Monday, February 21, 2011
Israel furthers plans to annex occupied East Jerusalem
IMEMC - The Wadi Hilweh Information Center, based in the Silwan neighborhood of East Jerusalem, has published an article raising their
concerns over an scheduled project to encircle East Jerusalem with parks to complete the annexation of the entire city and much of the
surrounding area in the West Bank.

The Center states that the Israeli ran Jerusalem Municipality has approved the project that will install nine new parks around the East side
of the city over the next eight years, with an annual budget of NIS 60 million (over US$ 16.5 million).

In the process, large amounts of Palestinian owned lands in Wadi Hilweh, Wadi Rababa, and al-Bustan neighborhoods of Silwan, Sawwanah,
near the Mount of Olives and the Old City will have have to be razed, leading to mass displacement of Palestinian residents of Jerusalem.

Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Palestinian population of East Jerusalem are considered protected persons, due to Israel’s
occupation of the city in 1967 and, as such, the transfer of the population, in part or whole, is illegal under international law.

Child, Beit Ummar Mayor, Wounded In Weekly Nonviolent Protest
Sunday February 20, 2011 05:21 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies

Palestinian medical sources reported, Saturday, that a child and the mayor of Beit Ummar town, near the southern West Bank
city of Hebron, were wounded after the Israeli army opened fire at the weekly nonviolent protests against the Wall and settlements.

File - Soldier Kidnapping Palestinian Children

Medical sources reported that the mayor was shot in his left leg, while the child was mildly injured after being hit by fragments of a

concussion grenade fired by the army.

The army attacked the nonviolent protests and fired rounds of live ammunition, rubber-coated metal bullets and gas bombs at the

protesters.

Several residents were treated for the effects of teargas inhalation but did not require hospitalization.

saed at imemc dot org
http://www.imemc.org

Israel Demolishes Khirbet Tana
Monday February 21, 2011 13:59 by David Steele - 1 of International Middle East Media Center Editorial Group

Israeli forces demolished a number of tents near Nablus yesterday, reports the Ma'an News Agency.
The tents belonged to villagers of Tana, a village located east of Nablus, and had been donated by the Palestinian Authority (PA)

and Red Cross. It was reported that bulldozers and military jeeps were involved in the demolition. The residents have thus been left

homeless and vulnerable to weather. Parts of the West Bank and Israel have experienced heavy rainfall and storms recently, adding

to the hardships faced by the families concerned. This is the fourth such demolition in less than 18 months.

Tana is located within Area C, which covers some 60% of the West Bank and is under full Israeli military control. Residents need

permits to live in the area (including for longstanding villages that pre-date Israel's occupation of the West Bank), but these are

often refused. The UN has noted that, in contrast to the plight of Palestinians living in Area C, Israeli settlements have detailed a

pproval plans. Moreover, even settlement outposts, which are illegal in Israeli law as well as international law, are very rarely demolished.

http://www.imemc.org

Israeli Settlers Attack Palestinias In Hebron & Yatta
Saturday February 19, 2011 14:54 by Sandy Khair - IMEMC & Agencies

On Saturday, Israeli settlers threw stones at several Palestinian residents in the city of Hebron and the nearby town of Yatta, wounding at least one.
An eyewitness reported that Nassar Mohammad al- Rajabi was wounded and suffered bruising in various parts of his body after being

pelted with stones in al-Sahla neighborhood, in the old city of Hebron.

He added that the Carmel settlers attacked a number of residents of Um al-Kheir area, hurled stones at them and threatened to carry out more attacks to force the Palestinian residents out of the area where they and their ancestors have lived for hundreds of years.

The illegal settlement of Carmel is located to the east of Yatta village.

Mu’tasim al-Hathalin, from the village of Khirbet Um Al-Kheir which is adjacent to Carmel settlement, said that a number of residents were repeatedly attacked by the Israeli settlers.

He voiced an appeal to human rights organizations to intervene to stop the ongoing violations, and provide the local residents with protection, particularly in the areas adjacent to the settlement and the Israeli Annexation Wall.

hebron | israeli attacks | news report news at imemc dot org
http://www.imemc.org
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9 - A Time for Resistance

By Katrina van den Heuvel

February 18, 2011 "The Nation" -- A friend e-mailed me this morning, "Do you think events taking place in Wisconsin might be as important as what's happening in Cairo, if the media really got the word out? Might it be the spark to halt the Tea Party Express?" Another friend e-mailed, "It's possible that this labor strike in Wisconsin could become our Uncut." (In response to Britain's draconian public spending cuts, citizens there formed UK Uncut, a Twitter-organized movement, to protest wealthy tax evaders. If the rich paid for their fair share of taxes, the movement argues, the pressure on the state budget would diminish or disappear.)
Wisconsin's Republican governor and Republican-dominated legislature are moving to destroy organized labor, moving to abolish democratic rights that were the essence of the New Deal, and treating working-class Americans as though they were meaningless in our country's mosaic. Meanwhile, those who are responsible for the catastrophic financial crisis are riding high--and in the name of deficits they largely caused, they insist that those who worked a lifetime to build and own their homes, to send their children to public schools, to have security in their retirement years, to have decent medical care--that those citizens should pay the price for budgetary crises in honor, dignity and decency.

There are some who still respect the contributions of working people: Contrast what Governor Walker is doing in Wisconsin with the constructive steps the new Democratic Governor of Connecticut, Dannel Malloy, is taking to address the same problems. But there are too many cheerleaders for fiscal austerity roaming our political landscape, abetted by a mindless mainstream media's suffocating consensus.

However, as the events in Cairo, and now Wisconsin, show us, this is a moment of extraordinary possibility. It is a time for global, nonviolent challenge to anti-democratic forces, wherever they may be--forces that have enriched themselves while promising stability based on coercion, suppression of rights and profound corruption.

This remarkable moment is captured in a small book by Stéphane Hessel, a 93-year-old distinguished French diplomat, leader of the Resistance, survivor of Nazi concentration camps and drafter of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Published last October in France, Hessel's "Indignez-Vous!" (which could be translated as "Get Angry!" or--my preference--"Time for Outrage!") and its message of resistance and nonviolence became a publishing phenomenon--unexpectedly reaching the top of France's bestseller list and selling close to 2 million copies.

We are proudly publishing Hessel's 4,000-word manifesto in the next issue of The Nation.

"Time for Outrage!" forces us to ask how we can look at today's trends and not be angry. Hessel calls on the young, in France and around the world, to engage actively in defense of human and economic rights. His fervent advocacy of nonviolent activism captures the spirit of the revolutions in Tunisia and Cairo. It has also moved women marching in Italy to protest Silvio Berlusconi's barbarism to display the book’s title on placards. It is a spirit that now animates brave and defiant workers, students and their allies all over the world.

In rousing language, Hessel reminds us: "The motivation that underlay the Resistance was outrage. We, the veterans of the Resistance movements and the fighting forces of Free France, call on the younger generations to revive and carry forward the tradition of the Resistance and its ideas. We say to you: take over, keep going, get angry! Those in positions of political responsibility, economic power and intellectual authority, in fact our whole society, must not give up or let ourselves be overwhelmed by the current international dictatorship of the financial markets, which is such a threat to peace and democracy."

There is a new spark in the world and in our country--lit by citizens of conscience resisting forces that would trample economic justice, decency and dignity.

"To you who will create the twenty-first century, we say, from the bottom of our hearts,
TO CREATE IS TO RESIST.
TO RESIST IS TO CREATE." Stephane Hessel, October 2010

Copyright © 2011 The Nation

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10 - Iraq Roiled by Protests, 2 Killed in Sulaimaniya
By Juan Cole

February 18, 2011 "Information Clearing House" -- --- What I can’t understand is, if the American Right Wing were correct that George W. Bush was ‘right’ in trying to kick start democracy in the Middle East by invading and occupying it, then why would it be necessary for people to demonstrate and burn government buildings in… Iraq? And why have 5 people been shot down for demonstrating in two days in Iraq, as many as in the repressive monarchy of Bahrain?

Iraqis have been demonstrating against the al-Maliki government and lack of services for two weeks now. But on Thursday, a wave of rallies swept the country from north to south, leaving two dead in Sulaimaniya and government buildings torched elsewhere.

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that in the city of Kut in Shiite south Iraq (the capital of Wasit province), crowds threatened the provincial headquarters. This action came a day after they had burned down the provincial council building and saw 3 protesters killed by security forces.

Euronews has video of Wednesday’s events in Kut:

The Iraqi parliament set a discussion of the protests for Saturday, while Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki warned that unnamed sinister forces were attempting to divert the legitimate demands of the people to unstated nefarious purposes.

In Kut on Thursday, dozens of demonstrators gathered in front of the mansion of the governor of Wasit Province, demanding the removal of the local governor. They demanded better government services, an end to administrative corruption (constant demands for bribes by provincial officials to do their jobs), accountability for the corrupt, and jobs. On Wednesday, police had shot dead three protesters and wounded more in Kut after they had set fire to a government building.

On Thursday, in the town of Nasar in Dhi Qar province, 490 km south of Baghdad, police chief Sabah al-Fatlawi said that a curfew had been implemented after government buildings were burned.

Also on Thursday, some 600 demonstrators in the southern port city of Basra in Iraq rallied in front of the provincial governor’s mansion, demanding his resignation over failure to provide basic services. They were pushed back by police.

Al-Hayat says that medical officials announced that two persons had been killed and more than 30 wounded in Sulaimaniya when a crowd of some 3000 came out to demand that the Kurdistan Regional Government address problems of unemployment and undertake to improve the situation in the region. The demonstration was sponsored by “The Network for Safeguarding Rights and Liberties,” which was protesting the authoritarian rule of the two Establishment Kurdish parties that make up the Kurdistan Alliance. Iraqi political parties are patronage machines that leave non-members on the outside and sometimes destitute. They demanded a change in government and an end to corruption.

On Monday, Shiite clerical leader Muqtada al-Sadr had called for peaceful demonstrations against what he called the continued American occupation of Iraq. Sadrists have probably been key to the demonstrations in the southern Iraqi cities.

Juan Cole is Professor of History at the University of Michigan. www.juancole.com

The Battle of Bahrain
King Hamad – the Mubarak of the Gulf

By Justin Raimondo

February 18, 2011 "Antiwar" -- Of the new revolutionary eruptions, post-Egypt, perhaps the most problematic for Washington is the upsurge in Bahrain, where a Sunni king has long ruled over his predominantly Shi’ite subjects. King Hamad is a corrupt tyrant whose disregard for basic human rights was underscored by the actions of his security forces in storming a protest encampment in the capital city’s main square, murdering 5 protesters in a surprise assault in the dead of night, and wounding over 200. There are indications that at least some of the assailants were Saudis. Bahrain, a small island kingdom in the Persian Gulf, is connected to Saudi Arabia by a causeway.
In recent years, the government has bowed to American pressure to at least put on a façade of "democratic" reform, but the changes Hillary Clinton praised in her visit to Bahrain a few months ago were merely cosmetic: the elected parliament is still an advisory body, corruption is pandemic, and citizens have no say in how they are governed or by whom. Indeed, it seems that the much-touted "reform" supposedly undertaken in the country at Washington’s request is merely a façade for political manipulation and high-end thievery. In Bahrain, torture of political dissidents is routine.

The protesters aren’t seeking the overthrow of the al-Khalifa monarchy, as far as I can tell: their demands are limited to the firing of King Hamad’s uncle, Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa, whose term of office as prime minister has dragged on now for 40 years. Sheikh Khalifa, a major landowner, has come to symbolize the ill-gotten gains of the royal family, which virtually owns the entire country outright. As in Tunisia, where the weight of dictator Ben Ali’s family laid heavily on the country’s sinking fortunes – and as in Egypt, too, where the Mubarak clan had some $70 billion socked away in Swiss bank accounts – resentment over this massive thievery has boiled over into revolution.

However, few premonitions of trouble seem to have ever penetrated the walls of our embassy in Manama, the capital, where our diplomats, as recently as December, 2009, reported that everything was coming up roses. One diplomatic cable, brought to us by Wikileaks, tells us the king is "personable and engaging," and has "overseen the development of strong institutions" — although I doubt the diplomat who wrote that had this in mind. "I’ve just been beaten by a gang of thugs," said ABC reporter Miguel Marquez as he was assaulted by Bahrain government forces — which just about sums up our position in the region, where we are invariably on the side of the thugs.

Bahrain is a key element of the administration’s strategy against Iran: it is the headquarters of the Fifth Fleet, and will be the linchpin of any future military action in the Gulf by US forces. Simply put, the Empire cannot afford to lose Bahrain. "Bahrain is a friend and an ally and has been for many years," intones our Secretary of State: "We call on restraint from the government, (and) to keep its commitment to hold accountable those who have utilized excessive force." The King has promised to investigate the killings – which is like Mubarak promising to investigate the killings committed by pro-government thugs in Egypt. Good luck with that, Hillary.

Go here for an overview of the political landscape in Bahrain: in short, the terrain is characterized by a great sectarian divide between the Sunni elite and the Shi’ite majority. Shi’ites claim that the government discriminates against them in public sector employment, business regulation, and the granting of housing subsidies. The opposition demands a revised constitution, to be written and voted on by a body of elected delegates.

They also claim the government is bringing in Sunnis from outside Bahrain and granting them citizenship in order to bolster the ruling elite’s political base: the country is less than 30 percent Sunni.

Bahrain has been a more compliant puppet than even Mubarak’s Egypt: while Wikileaks cables from Cairo complained that the Egyptian military still seems to consider Israel its principal enemy, US diplomats in Manama report no such ambiguity in Bahrain’s ruling circles. The Bahraini government was the first Arab country to send an ambassador to "liberated" Iraq, and US officials have praised them for cuuddling up to the Israelis. King Hamad has been agitating for a US attack on Iran almost as strenuously as the Israelis, albeit less publicly. On a visit to the country, General David Petraeus met with the King, who, according to a US diplomatic cable,

"Pointed to Iran as the source of much of the trouble in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He argued forcefully for taking action to terminate their nuclear program, by whatever means necessary. ‘That program must be stopped,’ he said. ‘The danger of letting it go on is greater than the danger of stopping it.’ King Hamad added that in light of these regional developments, Bahrain was working to strengthen GCC coordination and its relations with allies and international organizations. He specifically mentioned NATO and confirmed that Bahrain had agreed to the Alliance’s request to use Isa Airbase for AWACS missions, although the detail on numbers and timing have yet to be discussed."

The US is going to need this kind of political support, as well as the strategic military advantage afforded by Bahrain in any future conflict with Iran. Yet in the wake of the Pearl Square massacre, and the continuing crackdown, the price for that support is going to be rather high – so high that it hardly seems worth paying. On another visit by Petraeus, in which he met with the king, Hamad is reported to have said:

"Bahrain had received a message from Iranian FM Mottaki, urging regional governments to support the efforts of Iran, Iraqi insurgents, Hamas, Hezbollah, Taliban and Syria to drive American forces from the Gulf. The King commented: &With friends like these, who needs enemies?"

US diplomats might now turn the king’s question back on him, and ask: with friends like you, who needs enemies?

Perhaps anticipating this, it looks like the King had his alibi ready as far back as 2008, when the meeting took place:

"King Hamad related the report that Bahrainis were receiving training from Hezbollah in Lebanon, but admitted he had no definitive proof. He also speculated that the Syrian government was complicit, and must be helping these Bahrainis travel without passport verification as tourists."

Expect any day now to hear that Hezbollah – Bahrain’s stand-in for the Muslim Brotherhood — is behind what’s happening in the country. In that case, refer to the appended comment in the WikiLeaked diplomatic cable, which reads:

"Post has heard versions of this theory from Bahraini officials in the past, but despite our requests the GOB has been unable to provide convincing evidence."

The rebellion in Bahrain is a dagger pointed at the heart of the War Party’s campaign against Iran, and more: it is a sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of the House of Saud. Right across the King Fahd causeway,in the oil-rich Eastern province, are as many as two million Shi’ites, who live and work atop the world’s greatest concentration of oil reserves and around 90 percent of Saudi oil production. The predominantly Shi’ite workers who work those oil fields are the key to the Kingdom’s wealth and future stability, and the Saudi kleptocrats cannot afford to let a Shi’ite uprising in Bahrain succeed.

Bahrain – and Saudi Arabia – are the weak underbelly of the elaborate US security structure in the region. In place since Franklin Delano Roosevelt cemented the US alliance with the House of Saud, in 1943, it may all be coming undone – and in very short order.

Justin Raimondo is the editorial director of Antiwar.com. He is the author of An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard (Prometheus Books, 2000), Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement (ISI, 2008), and Into the Bosnian Quagmire: The Case Against U.S. Intervention in the Balkans (1996).
He is a contributing editor for The American Conservative, a senior fellow at the Randolph Bourne Institute, and an adjunct scholar with the Ludwig von Mises Institute. He writes frequently for Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture.

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11 - KHODR : America Change Your Policies in the MidEast Or Lose It
February 21, 2011 posted by Mohamed Khodr

Your choice. Change now or forever hold your tongue and bombs. Time is running out.
by Muhamed Khodr / Veterans Today

In a few days, or less, Libya will be free from the 42 year rule of the mentally unstable, psychotic, arrogant, divisive, condescending, megalomaniacal leader and self proclaimed “King of Africa.” –Muammar Al-Ghaddafi.

Unlike the deposed Tunisian and Egyptian leaders, Al Ghaddafi is despised by all other Arab tyrants, thus he’ll have no home outside of Libya unless some African nation has pity on this butcher of his people. In just 5 days he’s killed more than 300 civilians using snipers, secret police, Arab and African mercenaries, even his air force to bomb unarmed peaceful protesters

His son, Saif Al Islam, took to the airwaves on Sunday to give the most arrogant, incoherent, rambling and condescending speech—like father, like son.

In it he blamed outside agitators, Islamists, drugged men and children, drunkards, those taking hallucinogens. the Arab media, Facebook, emails, thugs hired by millionaire businessmen, and anything else he could think of on the spur of the moment. All Arab tyrants when faced with opposition use these lies to explain the protests and justify their murderous crackdown.

He said the army had to defend itself against these mobs and thus killed a few Libyans, much less than was reported.

He warned of a civil war and a division of Libya. Incredibly he gave credit to American oil companies for the unity of Libya. “American Oil Companies played a big part in unifying Libya. Who will manage this oil?”

He warned of Neo-Colonialism in Libya if an Islamic Government takes over (the bogeyman that frightens the West):

“The British FM called me. Be ready for a new colonial period from America and Britain. You think they will accept an Islamic Emirate here”

The West will come and occupy you. Europe and the West will not agree to chaos in Libya, to export chaos and drugs so they will occupy us.”

But true to the family’s tradition of eliminating and killing any opposition he threatened the Libyan people with this dire warning.

“Now comes the role of the National Guard and the Army…We will fight to the last man and woman and bullet. We will not lose Libya. We will not let Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya and BBC trick us.”

This is a desperation speech. Al Gaddafi has lost Eastern Libya (Benghazi) with some military units joining the protesters. The largest tribe in Libya has supported his downfall and other tribes have cut off oil pipelines. Libyans by the tens of thousands are protesting in the capitol, Tripoli, braving the bullets.

Shockingly but not unexpectedly, the U.S. and Europe took a few days to utter the mildest of comments against the slaughter of hundreds of Libyans and the injured thousands. They simply asked for “restraint” to avoid more deaths.

If one Israeli soldier was hit by a stone in his America paid boot thrown by an elderly women who just lost her seven children to an Israeli missile you can depend on Obama at 3 a.m. to come out to the Rose Garden and issue this statement:

“Let me be clear. Palestinian terrorism against innocent Israeli soldiers who are simply defending themselves and their lives against horrendous attacks must be condemned yesterday, today, and tomorrow. There is no room for such violence and terrorism at a time when Prime Minister Netanyahu and I are working hard to restart the Peace Process which unfortunately the Palestinians are refusing using the excuse that I vetoed a simple U.N. Security Council Resolution against “illegal” settlements, when in fact they are not “illegal”, but as I’ve said all along, are “illegitimate”. As our Ambassador to the U.N. Dr. Susan Rice so eloquently stated, passing such a Resolution would have led to more “illegitimate” settlements being built. Thank You.”

Of Blood and Oil

With so many European and American oil companies doing business in Libya; Al Gadaffi can kill with impunity.

Ever since Oil was discovered in Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Persian Gulf the region has endured European colonialism, Cold War competition, and finally total American hegemony of the region since 1956.

Oil is the life blood of the entire world but none more so historically than in Europe and the U.S. Both are willing to launch wars and massacre millions if necessary to obtain cheap oil for their factories, transportation system, and personal vehicles. Without oil America’s economy will die adding more fuel to the already bankrupt nation.

America has and will spill precious Arab blood to extract the oil from under their feet and sand dunes. That’s what American Presidents since Franklin D. Roosevelt established as America’s premiere “national interest” in the region.

President Roosevelt met with King Abdul Aziz bin Saud of Saudi Arabia in February 14, 1945 aboard the USS Quincy in the Red Sea to come to a simple agreement: You give us cheap oil, we’ll protect your monarchy and we won’t interfere in the Palestinian issue.

Later, President Jimmy Carter established The Carter Doctrine which declared the Persian Gulf and its oil fields of vital interest to the United States, and that any outside attempt to gain control in the area would be “repelled by use of any means necessary, including military force.”

President Reagan established regional CENTCOM’s (Central Commands around the world, renaming Carter’s initial “Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force: RDJTF).

Today CENTCOM is based in Qatar while the Fifth Fleet is based in Bahrain with military bases in the United Arab Emirates and Oman, among other nations.

The main purpose of CENTCOM, other than prosecuting the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, is to protect the oil flow out of the Persian Gulf, 30% of the world’s oil, and to contain any Iranian threat, even if it means the launching of an Israeli driven third American war.

Bottom Line:

America will protect its Oil Dictatorships even if it means the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Arabs. As former Secretary Madeleine Albright said in an interview with Leslie Stahl on the American TV Program “60 minutes” when asked about the death toll caused by Iraqi sanctions.

Lesley Stahl: “We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?”

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price–we think the price is worth it.” (60 Minutes (5/12/96)

To America the premiere policy in the MidEast is not establishing democracy but supporting and stabilizing the Status Quo.

American policy has always been short sighted, counter-productive, and frankly stupid in the Arab world.

Its umbilical cord ties to Israel where money and weapons flow from the American mother to the Israeli child has cost it dearly for 62 years.

Israel can do no wrong and American politicians are the most cowardly men and women in world politics, unable to even utter the word “no” to Israel as it unleashes American weapons into the hearts and brains of Palestinian children.

America’s long term support of Arab dictators resides on the simpleton principle: As long as you give us cheap oil, allow our military bases in your lands, and fight “Islamic Fundamentalism”, you may annihilate the entire population for all we care.

The revolutions sweeping the Arab world, and shortly the Muslim world, starting with Pakistan, are a direct result of such American political stupidity and imperialism in the region.

Submitting to Israel and its genocidal policies and providing protection to murderous Arab tyrants if not changed will be the undoing of American interests in the region.

Given America’s political history it’s not hopeful that America will change its policy in the near future, but once the Arab monarchies in the Persian Gulf and Saudi Arabia fall, America will be the biggest loser of these revolutions and it will pay the heaviest price for its blind subservience to Israel.

America, make room for China, India, Russia, Brazil, and Japan, which will rapidly dump you as fast as you dump your dictators once their usefulness ends, in exchange for Arab oil and its economic survival.

Future beleaguered American generations will look upon this history and damn the day Israel occupied America and its lobby and Neocons ran its foreign policy.

“And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;”

–Star Spangled Banner, America’s National Anthem

The Rockets and Bombs must end, our relation with Israel and dictators must end, and we must start a respectful mutually beneficial relationship with 1.6 billion Muslims yearning for freedom and peace, and who in unity will end all Muslim terroristic groups.

Your choice. Change now or forever hold your tongue and bombs. Time is running out.

About the Author: Mohamed Khodr is an American Muslim born in the Middle East. He is political activist who frequently writes on the plight of Palestinians living under the brutal occupation of Israel, U.S. Foreign Policy, Islam, and Arab politics.

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12 - JB Campbell: Anatomy of a Frame
February 21, 2011 posted by J. Bruce Campbell

VICTOR BOUT,
THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT “FALL GUY” WHEN THE 9/11 COVER STORY FALLS APART
By J.B. Campbell STAFF WRITER

As VT readers know, the Pentagon was hit by a Soviet-era naval cruise missile called the Granit, known by the US government as the Shipwreck, because that’s what it does: wrecks big ships such as aircraft carriers. Unlike normal cruise missiles, it is made of steel and weighs 7.7 tons. It goes 2.5 Mach and cannot be stopped by any sort of anti-aircraft weapon. It hits ships right at the waterline, which is why the 12 foot holes in the six capital (structural outer) walls of the Pentagon began right above ground level without harming a blade of grass on the lawn out front.

This isn’t about the Granit but rather the innocent man whom the FBI and “Justice Department” are trying to frame for supplying it to the 9-11 terrorists. And they probably would have gotten away with the frame but for the intrepid staff writer for Veterans Today, Dimitri Khalezov.

The innocent man in this Hitchcock-style story is a Russian-German named Victor Bout. Victor established an air freight business in war-torn Africa when the other companies shut down their operations due to unpredictable violence in many African countries. Victor stepped in with his fleet of well-used but serviceable cargo haulers and did quite well for some years. When the violence subsided, the competitors got going again and arranged for Victor’s business to be excluded. He finally gave up and returned to Russia.

Victor Bout (pronounced “boot”) pretty much stayed home and read books or watched television for a couple of years. His wife, Alla, had a small fashion agency in Moscow and they survived on her income. But it was during this down-time that Victor is alleged to have arranged to supply shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles to the military wing of the Columbian Communist Party, FARC. Except the FBI doesn’t really mean it. That was just the excuse to shanghai him to New York and accuse him (secretly) of supplying the Granit cruise missile to the terrorists, whom they do not name. They can’t, because that would reveal to the world what really happened on September 11, 2001.

So there Victor was, watching TV in Moscow, when a Russian friend, Andrew Smulian, persuaded him to go with him to Thailand to meet with possible buyers of his last cargo plane, which was sitting in the Emirates. Victor had nothing better to do and really needed to sell that plane. Accompanying them was a new friend, a Russian colonel who would supposedly help them through Thai immigration. When they arrived in Bangkok, all three were arrested by the Thai police on behalf of the FBI, for attempting to sell SAMs to FARC. Victor’s new colonel friend was, the same day, put on a plane back to Moscow. Smulian was allowed to escape whereupon he left for New York where he was temporarily arrested by the FBI and then released. Victor was railroaded by the cooperative Thai public prosecutor and rendered to the FBI, extradited recently to New York and now sits in the infamous Metropolitan Corrections Center, scheduled for trial in September.

Why would the Russian government cooperate with the FBI to arrest and send an innocent Russian to be imprisoned? Well, the Russian government had not been strictly truthful when it told the world that all of the Granit missiles were recovered from the sunken submarine, Kursk, which went down with all hands on August 12, 2000. At least one of them was stolen and found its way into the capable hands of the notorious Israeli hit-man, Mike Harari, thence into the Pentagon thirteen months later.

The FBI doesn’t want to go there. It also doesn’t want to go near any public mention of the Granit missile. But, thanks to Dimitri Khalezov, the FBI’s entire fake case against Victor Bout is going to collapse.

Some wild and crazy things have been charged against Victor Bout, besides the surface to air missiles going to FARC. He is alleged to have personally flown Osama Bin Laden various places. This despite the fact that he is not a pilot, but only an owner of airplanes. Victor is alleged to be a trafficker in arms, which may be strictly true in the sense that the air cargo business in Africa involves the legal shipment of military items. What’s in the crates is irrelevant and not always possible to discern. I once asked my friend, Bob Hitchman, the most famous pilot for Air America in Laos and Vietnam, if he had ever flown heroin? He said, “Not knowingly. Some of the guys did. But, when the customer calls you and you land in a poppy field and they put a big box on board and tell you to take it to Bangkok, you pretty much know what’s inside. But for me, it was part of the job with no extra pay, although some guys worked it for extra pay.” Bangkok was the location of Richard Armitage’s Far East Trading Company, the main opium and heroin depot since the CIA’s wars in Laos and Vietnam.

That’s the nature of the freight business, here, there and everywhere. But the SAM missiles to FARC is a bogus charge to get a Russian patsy to take the fall for supplying the Granit missile. Not to Mike Harari, of course, but to “al-Qaeda!” And it needs to be a Russian because the Granit was Russian.

The Hitchcock part becomes apparent with the fate of Victor’s earnest and capable Russian lawyer, Yan Dasgupta, who was putting up an effective defense against the FBI railroad job when he suddenly and mysteriously died last August, allegedly due to his doctor prescribing a medication to which he was allergic. Yan was a prominent attorney in Moscow yet his death was not announced until three weeks later!

The “Columbian FARC rebels” who tried to inveigle Victor into selling SAM missiles were actually agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration. Victor had no idea what they were talking about, since he was there to sell an airplane.

The FBI was trying to pin arms sales and fake passports for terrorists on Dimitri and he did over a year in the Bangkok jail fighting extradition to New York. He is today a free man because he could easily show how dishonest the whole idea is of the phantom CIA terror cell, “al-Qaeda,” buying mini-nukes and fake passports from Dimitri or FARC buying SAM missiles from Victor Bout.

Will the Granit become a news story, leaked by the FBI? Not likely, since it would prove that the US government has been lying ever since it began claiming that American Airlines Flight 77, a large Boeing 757, penetrated three rings of the Pentagon through twelve-foot holes and evaporated somewhere inside without a trace that it had ever existed. No, the Granit must not be named publicly, only in a secret court proceeding.

Victor Bout has been offered several deals by the FBI and “Justice Department” if he would just cop a plea. He has been twice offered immunity and US visas for himself and his family if he would admit to offering weapons to the Columbian Communist Party. Victor’s response was and is, “No. Let’s go to trial and you either show evidence or drop all charges against me.” They probably could have succeeded in putting Victor in prison for the rest of his life if not for his good friend, Dimitri Khalezov.

It is almost unbelievable that Victor Bout should have been brought by his treacherous friends to Bangkok for rendition to the US, because Bangkok is where Dimitri also lives. Dimitri has embarrassed the Thai prosecutor’s office for its efforts to rendition him to the US.

When it became known that Victor was in the Bangkok jail, Dimitri quite naturally visited his old friend, who comes from the same small village about forty miles from Moscow. Dimitri gave Victor the benefit of his successful experience fighting FBI extradition. Dimitri had given suggestions, one of which was to make a specific objection to Victor’s illegal detention. Unfortunately, during a three-day absence by Dimitri from Bangkok, the Russian embassy advised Victor’s naïve wife to ignore both Victor’s ill-fated Russian attorney, Yan Dasgupta, and Dimitri, who they said was in the pay of the FBI and was giving treacherous advice! Poor Alla believed the professional liars, and withdrew Victor’s motion. This withdrawal resulted in Victor losing his case against the illegal detention and his eventual extradition.

Now Victor is in the Manhattan mad house awaiting trial. This morning I spoke with his federal defender, Sabrina Shroff, in New York about a very strange request by Victor to bring in a New York attorney named Albert Y. Dayan. Ms. Shroff seemed puzzled as to why Victor would want this particular attorney to represent him. A search of this man’s name produces an alarming dossier. Dimitri suspects that the Russian consulate in New York has arranged for this man to sandbag Victor as he is alleged to have betrayed other Russians who have put their lives in his hands.

I also spoke with Barry Bachrach in Leicester, Massachusetts, who was recommended to Victor by investigative reporter Daniel Estulin. Mr. Bachrach plans to visit Victor in jail this week and prepare a real defense based on Dimitri’s extensive personal knowledge of the events leading up to September 11, 2001.

So this is a preliminary report to prepare VT readers for what is coming, although it was meant to be a secret. VT is leading the way to the truth of 9-11, thanks now entirely to staff writer Dimitri Khalezov and senior editor Gordon Duff, who is unique in world journalism in his recognition of the profound impact that Dimitri’s testimony is having and will continue to have on our understanding of what exactly happened and didn’t happen on September 11, 2001, a date which shall live in infamy since it produced two genocidal wars against innocent people and the framework of dictatorship here in the USA, not to mention the thousands of people slaughtered that day by Mike Harari and his fellow Mossad agents.

We have been saying that Dimitri offers a double dose of reality, namely the nuclear demolition plan for the WTC and Sears Tower based on the 1976 US/USSR treaty for the peaceful use of nuclear explosions that allowed 150 kiloton thermonuclear devices to be used to demolish the buildings. The second reality is Dimitri’s personal knowledge of the role of Mike Harari in the exploitation of this demo plan. But the third reality is Dimitri’s knowledge of the stolen Granit missile and its deployment by Mike Harari against the Pentagon, the keystone of the New York massacre and demolitions of the three WTC buildings, made possible by the mysterious release by Janes Defense the day before of the world’s first photos of the dreaded Shipwreck Granit cruise missile and a description of its 500 kiloton thermonuclear warhead. Mike Harari let the USG know what was coming and when it hit, he (as “Dr. Haji Mohammed Husseini”) warned the USG that there were now two identical thermonuclear bombs in the smoking holes u[ in the Twin Towers, and to prevent the evaporation of New York City, they’d better blow the buildings immediately. His bluff was a complete success, producing for Harari the greatest day of his life, as he gushed to his “friend,” Dimitri Khalezov a few hours later.

Victor Bout had nothing to do with the Granit and was as unaware of it as everyone else until he read Dimitri’s book while sitting in the Bangkok jail.

Veterans Today readers can now understand better why the FBI and “Justice Department” need to produce a patsy for the (so far) crime of the 21st Century. If the awful truth of the Granit, the nuke demo plan and Mike Harari becomes widely known, the US government could come down in a similar manner as Building 7.

And here is a good round-up of information on Victor by Dimitri Khalezov:

http://www.911-truth.net/Victor_Bout/

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VIDEOS

13 - COL. ROBERT BOWMAN CALLS FOR ARREST OF BUSH, 9/11 INVESTIGATION (VIDEO)

Video Shows Dead Man Killing Pakistani ISI Agent? Taliban video solves two mysteries.
Video : http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27529.htm
A video released by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) seems to have put to rest debates about the fate of two men:

Bush Family Connection to JFK Assassination - Must Watch

Hitler Was Working for the Rothschilds, Says Greek Orthodox Bishop
http://whyihateisrael.blogspot.com/2010/12/hitler-was-working-for-rothschilds-says.html

DIMITRI KHALEZOV, GORDON DUFF AND KEVIN BARRETT-NUCLEAR TERRORISM

VETERANS TODAY EXCLUSIVE: “IF RAYMOND DAVIS IS RELEASED, PAKISTAN’S GOVERNMENT WILL FALL”

Jew rabbi Nachum Shifren mistakenly says the truth!
crescentandcross URL: http://wp.me/p2dGk-1fg

Benjamin Netanyahu Ordered to Hasten Jewish Messiah’s Coming

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/02/21/stairs-vs-escalator.aspx
A Dr.Mercola Health Video

Bush Told Of First Attack On 9/11 Before He Left Florida Hotel

http://www.bushstole04.com/911/bush_hotel.htm

More archive video footage has been unearthed that re-emphasizes the fact that President Bush lied about how he first came to know about the events of September 11, 2001.

Watch the clip from 7 minutes in.

ABC News reporter John Cochran told ABC's Peter Jennings, "He got out of his hotel suite this morning, was about to leave, reporters saw the White House chief of staff Andy Card whisper into his ear, then reporters said to the President 'do you know what's going on in New York'? - he said he did and would have something to say about it later."

This contradicts Bush's statement that he made on two separate occasions, that he first learned of what was going on in New York from watching a television outside of the classroom as he prepared to talk about education with a group of Florida schoolchildren.

President Bush Holds Town Hall Meeting
[CNN, Aired December 4, 2001]
QUESTION: One thing, Mr. President, is that you have no idea how much you've done for this country, and another thing is that how did you feel when you heard about the terrorist attack?

BUSH: Well... (APPLAUSE)

Thank you, Jordan (ph).

Well, Jordan (ph), you're not going to believe what state I was in when I heard about the terrorist attack. I was in Florida. And my chief of staff, Andy Card -- actually I was in a classroom talking about a reading program that works. And I was sitting outside the classroom waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower -- the TV was obviously on, and I use to fly myself, and I said, "There's one terrible pilot." And I said, "It must have been a horrible accident."

But I was whisked off there -- I didn't have much time to think about it, and I was sitting in the classroom, and Andy Card, my chief who was sitting over here walked in and said, "A second plane has hit the tower. America's under attack."

Obviously, Bush could not have seen the first plane hit the tower because there was no TV footage broadcast of it until the next day.

Occasion 2:
President Holds Town Hall Forum on Economy in California
[whitehouse.gov, January 5, 2002]

"I was sitting there, and my Chief of Staff -- well, first of all, when we walked into the classroom, I had seen this plane fly into the first building. There was a TV set on..."

As has been well publicized, even after being told of the second plane hitting the south tower and that America was under attack, Bush sat reading a story about a pet goat for well over 5 minutes.

Iran Test-Fires New Supersonic Missile (VIDEO)
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/02/21/iran-test-fires-new-supersonic-missile/

Iran test-fires new supersonic missile
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard have test-fired a supersonic ballistic surface-to-sea missile capable of hitting warships and targets within a 300km range. 08 Feb 2011 The missile, called Persian Gulf, is supersonic, immune to interception and features high precision systems, Chief Commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Brigadier General Mohammad Ali Jafari was reported as saying on Iranian state TV on Monday. Jafari said the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps is currently manufacturing 500km stealth radars and has plans to mass-produce long-range passive radars with a range of 1,100km.

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14 - Wisconsin: The First Stop in An American Uprising?

It took awhile, but Wisconsin shows that the poor and middle class of the U.S. may be ready to push back. Madison may be only the beginning.

By Sarah van Gelder

February 19, 2011 "YES! Magazine" -- - The uprising that swept Tunisia, Egypt, and parts of Europe is showing signs of blossoming across the United States.

In Wisconsin, public employees and their supporters are drawing the line at Governor Scott Walker’s plan to eliminate collective bargaining and unilaterally cut benefits. School teachers, university students, firefighters, and others descended on the capital in the tens of thousands, and even the Superbowl champion Green Bay Packers have weighed in against the bill. Protests against similar anti-union measures are ramping up in Ohio.

Meanwhile, another protest movement aimed at protecting the poor and middle class is in the works. Cities around the country are preparing for a February 26 Day of Action, “targeting corporate tax dodgers.”

Learning from the UK
The strategy picks up on the UK Uncut campaign, begun when a group at a London pub—a firefighter, a nurse, a student, and others—came up with an idea that is part flash mob, part sit-in. In an article published in the Nation, reporter Johann Hari tells the story of the group’s frustration about government cutbacks. If Vodafone, one corporation with a huge back-tax bill, paid up, the cutbacks wouldn’t be needed. The group spread the word over social media, and held loud, impolite demonstrations. The idea quickly went viral, and flash mobs/sit-ins materialized at retail outlets across Britain, shutting many of them down.

Now, a US Uncut group has formed and announced a February 26 Day of Action here to coincide with UK Uncut's planned protests on the same day. Already, a dozen local events are planned. Some groups are keeping quiet about their targets, but several are targeting Bank of America. The goal, according to a statement on the US Uncut website, is “to draw attention to the fact that Bank of America received $45 billion in government bailout funds while funneling its tax dollars into 115 offshore tax havens [...] And to highlight the fact that the poor and middle class are now paying for this largess through drastic government cuts.”

The Politics of Class Warfare
Across the country, the poor and middle class have suffered from the economic collapse: jobs disappeared, mortgages sank underneath debt, and opportunities for a college education evaporated. Much of the bailout that was supposed to fix the economy went to the very institutions that caused the collapse. Many of these institutions are now using tax loopholes andoffshore tax shelters to avoid paying taxes.

It took some time for a political response to coalesce. The Tea Party movement was able to direct discontent away from the Wall Street titans who brought the economy to its knees. Funding from the Koch brothers’ petro-fortune along with fawning attention from Fox News helped get the libertarian movement off the ground. But progressives remained fragmented and few built active, organized bases. Many waited for President Obama to act.

The tide may now be turning. Inspired by people-power movements around the world, people in the United States are beginning push back. The poor and middle class, those who didn't cause the collapse but have felt the most pain from the poor economy, are now being asked to sacrifice again.

Politicians are scurrying to cut spending, but fewer than one in five Americans say the federal budget deficit is their chief worry about the economy, according to a new poll by the Pew Research Center; 44 percent say they're most worried about jobs. Polls show that Americans also want spending for education, investment in infrastructure, and environmental protection. Yet spending in all these areas is up for drastic cuts in state and federal budgets.

Likewise, on the tax side, 59 percent of Americans opposed extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest, according to a Bloomberg poll. Congress cut the taxes anyway, and the package will cost $800 billion over just two years.

Until now, polls have been one of the few places where anger at government policies that favor the rich while cutting service to the middle-class has been visible. But the crowds in Madison and the momentum of US Uncut tell us that may be about to change.

As a statement on the US Uncut website puts it: “We demand that before the hard-working, tax-paying families of this country are once again forced to sacrifice, the corporations who have so richly profited from our labor, our patronage, and our bailouts be compelled to pay their taxes and contribute their fair share to the continued prosperity of our nation. We will organize, we will mobilize, and we will NOT be quiet!”

Here's a "how-to" from UK Uncut http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27523.htm

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15 - Revealed: Air Force ordered software to manage army of fake virtual people

By Stephen C. Webster

February 19, 2011 "Raw Story" -- These days, with Facebook and Twitter and social media galore, it can be increasingly hard to tell who your "friends" are.

But after this, Internet users would be well advised to ask another question entirely: Are my "friends" even real people?

In the continuing saga of data security firm HBGary, a new caveat has come to light: not only did they plot to help destroy secrets outlet WikiLeaks and discredit progressive bloggers, they also crafted detailed proposals for software that manages online "personas," allowing a single human to assume the identities of as many fake people as they'd like.

The revelation was among those contained in the company's emails, which were dumped onto bittorrent networks after hackers with cyber protest group "Anonymous" broke into their systems.

In another document unearthed by "Anonymous," one of HBGary's employees also mentioned gaming geolocation services to make it appear as though selected fake persons were at actual events.

"There are a variety of social media tricks we can use to add a level of realness to all fictitious personas," it said.

Government involvement

Eerie as that may be, more perplexing, however, is a federal contract from the 6th Contracting Squadron at MacDill Air Force Base, located south of Tampa, Florida, that solicits providers of "persona management software."

While there are certainly legitimate applications for such software, such as managing multiple "official" social media accounts from a single input, the more nefarious potential is clear.

Unfortunately, the Air Force's contract description doesn't help dispel suspicions. As the text explains, the software would require licenses for 50 users with 10 personas each, for a total of 500. These personas would have to be "replete with background , history, supporting details, and cyber presences that are technically, culturally and geographacilly consistent."

It continues, noting the need for secure virtual private networks that randomize the operator's Internet protocol (IP) address, making it impossible to detect that it's a single person orchestrating all these posts. Another entry calls for static IP address management for each persona, making it appear as though each fake person was consistently accessing from the same computer each time.

The contract also sought methods to anonymously establish virtual private servers with private hosting firms in specific geographic locations. This would allow that server's "geosite" to be integrated with their social media profiles, effectively gaming geolocation services.

The Air Force added that the "place of performance" for the contract would be at MacDill Air Force Base, along with Kabul, Afghanistan and Baghdad. The contract was offered on June 22, 2010.

It was not clear exactly what the Air Force was doing with this software, or even if it had been procured.

Manufacturing consent

Though many questions remain about how the military would apply such technology, the reasonable fear should be perfectly clear. "Persona management software" can be used to manipulate public opinion on key information, such as news reports. An unlimited number of virtual "people" could be marshaled by only a few real individuals, empowering them to create the illusion of consensus.

You could call it a virtual flash mob, or a digital "Brooks Brothers Riot," so to speak: compelling, but not nearly as spontaneous as it appears.

That's precisely what got DailyKos blogger Happy Rockefeller in a snit: the potential for military-run armies of fake people manipulating and, in some cases, even manufacturing the appearance of public opinion.

"I don't know about you, but it matters to me what fellow progressives think," the blogger wrote. "I consider all views. And if there appears to be a consensus that some reporter isn't credible, for example, or some candidate for congress in another state can't be trusted, I won't base my entire judgment on it, but it carries some weight.

"That's me. I believe there are many people though who will base their judgment on rumors and mob attacks. And for those people, a fake mob can be really effective."

It was Rockefeller who was first to highlight the Air Force's "persona" contract, which was available on a public website.

A call to MacDill Air Force Base, requesting an explanation of the contract and what this software might be used for, was answered by a public affairs officer who promised a call-back. No reply was received at time of this story's publication.

Other e-mails circulated by HBGary's CEO illuminate highly personal data about critics of the US Chamber of Commerce, including detailed information about their spouses and children, as well as their locations and professional links. The firm, it was revealed, was just one part of a group called "Team Themis," tasked by the Chamber to come up with strategies for responding to progressive bloggers and others.

"Team Themis" also included a proposal to use malware hacks against progressive organizations, and the submission of fake documents in an effort to discredit established groups.

HBGary was also behind a plot by Bank of America to destroy WikiLeaks' technology platform, other emails revealed. The company was humiliated by members of "Anonymous" after CEO Aaron Barr bragged that he'd "infiltrated" the group.

A request for comment emailed to HBGary did not receive a reply.

Update: HBGary Federal among bidders

A list of interested vendors responding to the Air Force contract for "persona management software" included HBGary subsideary HBGary Federal, further analysis of a government website has revealed.

Other companies that offered their services included Global Business Solutions and Associates LLC, Uk Plus Logistics, Ltd., NevinTelecom, Bunker Communications and Planmatrix LLC.

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16 - USA Matriot Act

By Cindy Sheehan

February 19, 2011 "Information Clearing House" -- Today, (Feb 16, 2011) the Senate approved an extension of the treasonous USA PATRIOT ACT, following the lead of the House of Representatives.

The USA PATRIOT ACT, commonly called "the Patriot Act," is an acronym contrived to make something that is completely tyrannical and fascist sound appealing. The USA PATRIOT ACT stands for: Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act

With this nation overstretched in at least three foreign wars of aggression based on the lies of such international “luminaries” as confessed liar/murderer “Curveball,” and with the concurrent global economic crisis, it’s dubious whether the USA PATRIOT ACT “united or strengthened America,” in the first place. Secondly, there are many reasons to be cynical about the reasons for ramming the Patriot Act down our throats, anyway.

Michael Moore’s film, Fahrenheit 911 was probably the first international, semi-mainstream exposure that highlighted the way the Patriot Act was passed. Congressman John Conyers (D-MI) recounts how each office got a copy of this massive bill and were given instructions to pass it without having time to analyze or even skim it. Sixty-six House Members and one Senator, Feingold from Wisconsin, were the only ones who did not commit treason on October 26, 2001 by voting to flush what remained of the US Constitution down the toilet of manufactured-mass hysteria.

Of course, my opponent when I ran for US Congress in 2008, “liberal” Nancy Pelosi from “left-wing” San Francisco voted “aye.” Nancy Pelosi proves that not all women operate with the same instincts for peace and protecting the defenseless. This is a side note, but I read a transcript of the interview that I did with President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, (the interview was in English and Spanish) and when the person who transcribed the interview, who was switching from English to Spanish and doing a fabulous job, heard that I told President Chavez that I ran against “Nancy Pelosi,” she heard and wrote: “Nazi policy,” Nancy’s recent career and the trajectory of this Empire in reauthorizing the USA PATRIOT ACT today (under the regime of a Constitutional Law professor) only highlights the Freudian nature of that “slip.”

Well, unlike the POTUS, I am not a Constitutional Law professor, but it “doesn’t take a weatherman to know which way the wind blows,” and I have felt the impact of the increased police state since the passage of this act in 2001.

I have written pretty extensively on the idea of "Matriotism" as a counterbalance to the oftentimes violent jingoism of "Patriotism," where in a time of national crisis, we are to rally around the leadership of this country and blindly follow them to death, or the death of our children (not theirs), no matter how demented their policies are, or no matter how much they contradict basic human rights, human nature and common sense. A Matriot rallies around common sense and peaceful conflict resolution in times of crises—we believe that every human being--not just white, Christian Americans—have the same rights to peace and prosperity and the only way we’ll ever fight is to protect defenseless souls from the encroachment of the dreaded Patriotism. “Patriotism and Patriarchy” stem from the same Roman root of patria which means “fatherland,” but sometimes Father doesn’t always Know Best!

Even though, as a Matriot, I have deep problems with the Constitution as it favored the immoral institution of slavery, did nothing to curb imperialism, or the slaughter of the indigenous populations, and didn’t even mention women, it was a fairly liberal document and became more so with the forced inclusion of a Bill of Rights—I think the US Constitution is far superior to the USA PATRIOT ACT, yet has been rendered totally irrelevant it.

The Patriot Act blatantly curbs our own human rights to privacy and due process in this country and has been used to justify everything from warrantless wire-tapping to indefinite detention—the Bill of Rights explicitly covers these two breeches in the 4th (The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized), and 6th (all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense), and 8th (excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted).

Security of ones person and papers and being free from torture and illegal detention were some of the major points of contention the colonials had with the British colonists.

So, in my opinion, here we live in a country where the government has no legitimate right to rule over us! If the Congress can abrogate the Bill of Rights and its enumerated power (Article I, Sect 8, Clause 11) to declare war, then it has abrogated itself!

Consequently, since today the Congress of the USA has just further made itself illegitimate under US law, a free people do declare that Congress is not the "boss of us."

We reject the USA PATRIOT ACT and its draconian oppressions and declare ourselves a free people based on the political and human law that says a government can only have authority over us with our permission.

Please join me in withdrawing your permission to be misgoverned—the USA MATRIOT ACT: the Unity and Strengthening All by Mentoring Appropriate Trust Required to Instruct and Obstruct Tyranny, is OUR WAY—whether you are male or female.

Education, peace, and the struggle against tyranny is our inalienable human responsibility.

Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox Radio Show Please listen and share!

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17 - Next stop: The House of Saud

By Pepe Escobar

February 19, 2011 "Asia Times" - -Here's a crash course on how one of "our" - monarchic - dictators treats his own people during the great 2011 Arab revolt.

The king of Bahrain, Hamad al-Khalifa, has blood on his hands after his mercenary security forces - Pakistani, Indian, Syrian and Jordanian - with no previous warning, attacked sleeping, peaceful protesters at 3 am on Thursday at the Pearl roundabout, the tiny Gulf country's version of Cairo's Tahrir Square.

In the brutal crackdown, at least five people have been killed - including a young child - and 2,000 injured, some by gunshots, two of these in critical condition. Riot police targeted doctors and medics and prevented ambulances and blood donors from reaching the Pearl roundabout. A doctor at Salmaniya hospital told al-Jazeera there was a refrigerated truck outside the hospital, which he fears the army has used to remove more dead bodies.

The resourceful Maryama Alkawaka of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights was there; "It was very violent, [the police] were not showing any mercy." An avalanche of tweets from Bahrainis denounced an "Israeli-style" sneak attack and shoot-to-kill approach. And many have denounced al-Jazeera for not having kept a live satellite link as it had in Cairo, and for implying that this was only a Shi'ite protest. The Pearl roundabout is now surrounded by nearly 100 tanks at every entrance and exit. Downtown Manama has been turned into a ghost city.

The Shi'ite opposition described it as "real terrorism". Reem Khalifa, senor editor at the opposition newspaper al-Wasat, said, "The regime forces just came and massacred a crowd of people as they slept." They had been "chanting together, shouting 'neither Sunni nor Shi'ite but Bahraini'. We have not seen this before. And this is what annoyed the government agents the most - they are always trying to divide the people ... And now the regime is spreading lies about me and other journalists who are trying to say what is happening."

Khalifa had the courage to stand up and harshly confront Bahrain's foreign minister at a press conference, totally debunking his version of events (he called the deaths "regrettable" but insisted protesters were sectarian, and armed).

The Gulf Cooperation Council - the scandalously wealthy club of local kingdoms which holds over US$1 trillion stashed away in foreign reserves and almost 50% of the world's proven oil reserves still underground - issued, what else, a bland statement supporting Bahrain.

Kill them, but with a velvet glove
Is Washington remotely outraged by all this? The record speaks for itself. United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed "deep concern", according to the State Department, and "urged restraint". The Pentagon said Bahrain was "an important partner"; later Secretary of Defense Robert Gates called Bahrain's Crown Prince Salman - certainly to make sure everything was dandy with the US Navy's 5th Fleet and its 2,250 personnel housed in an isolated compound inside 24 hectares in the center of Manama.

Even the New York Times was forced to acknowledge that US President Barack Obama had "yet to issue the blunt public criticism of Bahrain's rulers that he eventually leveled against President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt - or that he has repeatedly aimed at the mullahs in Iran". But he can't; after all, Bahrain's I-shot-my-people king is another usual suspect, a "pillar of the American security architecture in the Middle East", and "a staunch ally of Washington in its showdown with Iran's Shi'ite theocracy".

Under these strategic circumstances, it's hard to dismiss Lebanese political scientist and blogger at the Angry Arab website As'ad AbuKhalil, when he stresses, "The US had to plot the repression of Bahrain to appease Saudi Arabia and other Arab tyrants who were mad at Obama for not defending Mubarak to the every end."

Incidentally, Saudi Arabia's prince Talal Bin Abdulaziz - father of the billionaire darling of the West prince Al Waleed bin Talal - told the BBC there's a danger the protests in Bahrain could spill into Saudi Arabia.

It's never enough to stress Bahrain is all about Iran vs Saudi Arabia (see All about the Pearl roundabout Asia Times Online, February 18).

The US naval base in Manama translates as a cop on the (Persian Gulf) beat. Moreover, 15% of Saudi Arabia's population is Shi'ite, living in the eastern provinces, where the oil is. That makes it very hard for Bahrainis - Shi'ite and even Sunni - to threaten the ruling, Sunni, al-Khalifa dynasty, as the House of Saud will immediately rush in with all sorts of logistical and military support.

Moreover, Saudi Arabia has huge leverage over Bahrain's oil, which comes from the shared Abu Saafa oilfield, explored by Saudi Aramco and shared with a Bahraini refiner.

Bahrain is far from swimming in oil. According to International Monetary Fund figures, in 2010 Saudi Arabia produced roughly 8.5 million barrels of oil a day; the United Arab Emirates 2.4 million barrels; Kuwait 2.3 million barrels; and Bahrain only 200,000 barrels.

According to Moody's, to balance its budget the Bahrain government needs oil at $80 a barrel, "one of the highest budgetary ‘break-even' points in the region", says the Financial Times. As a Barclays Capital report puts it with typical corporate contortionism, "The announcements of street protests, concessions by the government at the cost of a deteriorating fiscal position and simmering political tensions have created a backdrop that has clearly caused investors to view Bahrain with increased caution."

So if protesters really want to hit the al-Khalifa where it hurts, they should aim at the nexus oil business/financial sector. It will be an extraordinary uphill struggle against a nasty police state crammed with mercenaries - especially Jordanian military consultants (the "master torturer" of the Mukhabarat is a Jordanian) and now also counting on "help" from Saudi tanks and troops. Moreover, the riot police and special forces don't speak the local dialect, and in the case of Balochis from Pakistan, don't even speak Arabic.

Prospects are bleak. The inside dope in Manama is of a split within the royal family. The dreaded, sectarian Khalid bin Ahmed, responsible for the policy of naturalizing "imported" Sunnis to alter the demographic balance and dilute even more the voting rights of the indigenous Shi'ite population, would be on one side; and the king plus Crown Prince Salman (Gates' pal) would be on the other. The king may be losing control. And in this case Saudi Arabia would be lobbying for bin Ahmed to take over and get one of the king's sons, Nasir Bin Hamed to be crown prince. This does make sense if seen under the angle of the brutal crackdown.

Time to cross the bridge
What Bahrain's Shi'ites can certainly accomplish is to inspire Shi'ites in Saudi Arabia in terms of a long fight for greater social, economic and religious equality. It's wishful thinking to bet on the House of Saud reforming itself - not while enjoying extraordinary oil wealth and maintaining a vast repression apparatus, more than enough to buy or intimidate any form of dissent.

Yet there may be reasons to dream of Saudi Arabia following the winds of new Egypt. The average age of the House of Saud trio of ruling princes is 83. Of the country's indigenous population of 18.5 million, 47% is under 18. A medieval conception of Islam, as well as overwhelming corruption, is under increasing vigilance on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

The middle class is shrinking. 40% of the population actually lives under the seal of poverty, has access to virtually no education, and is in fact unemployable (90% of all employees are "imported" Sunnis). Even crossing the causeway to Manama is enough to give people ideas.

Once again, talk about an extraordinary uphill struggle - in a country with no political parties - or labor unions, or student organizations; with any sort of protests and strikes outlawed; and with members of the shura council appointed by the king.

The Arab News newspaper anyway has already warned that those winds of freedom from northern Africa may hit Saudi Arabia. And it may all revolve around youth unemployment, at an unsustainable 40%. There's no question; the great 2011 Arab revolt will only fulfill its historic mission when it shakes the foundations of the House of Saud. Young Saudi Sunnis and Shi'ites, you have nothing to lose but your fear.

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com
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18 - There’s more to climate fraud than just tax hikes
Written by Atheo | Aletho News
By now we know that Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) theory has been built on a mixture of hype and massaged data. Various carbon tax schemes have been put forward, even unprecedented proposals for a world wide taxation authority to be overseen by the UN. Does it follow that the primary agenda behind the fraud was implementing these new taxes, or were these proposed tax schemes secondary and part of a proclivity on the part of the state to seize any opportunity to enhance revenue?

In the three decades since AGW was made into a political tool by Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Party, tax laws have been “reformed” many times in Britain, as well as other Western nations dominated by the AGW meme. Margaret Thatcher and her Conservative Party were known for their opposition to social leveling through taxation. Reduction of public services, combined with hectoring the disadvantaged about self reliance, were hallmarks of British politics through the 1980′s and beyond. In Europe and North America, today’s overall level of taxation is not higher than that prevalent in 1979.

In Britain and the US, governments have been able to utilize the issuance of sovereign debt to increase military budgets while at the same time reducing capital gains and corporate tax rates creating an era of “borrow and spend” growth for the state sector. In the US, the higher income tax brackets have come down while middle class employees have seen increased social security deductions from their paychecks. These revenues were then “borrowed” by the general fund and in fact replaced the revenues lost due to the reduction of corporate taxes.

The burden of financing government spending has been increasingly shifted to the median wage earner and away from the investor and high income earner. Adoption of a tax collection system based on the consumption of energy would seem to fit into this general pattern, since working people spend a larger portion of their earnings on energy, and goods derived from energy, than do the wealthy. However, this outcome could be easily achieved by implementing a flat tax on income or a national sales tax. The rationale used to promote the flat tax is much simpler and would have been more likely to succeed than pushing the AGW carbon tax through fraudulent scaremongering. Right now a national sales tax would be politically far easier to implement in the US.

Since the 1970′s we have seen capital controls lifted allowing for the free movement of capital through most of the world. New tax credits and deductions came into existence which were, in fact, incentives for multinational corporations to shift their operations from industrialized nations to the third world. Lower corporate tax rates could be found in the third world while profits were repatriated at favorable rates. This enabled the shifting of production, and later services, to the third world through tax policies. The Kyoto protocol looked suspiciously similar to these tax policies in that it also created an advantage for the deployment of capital in low wage nations.

A “free trade” regime without tariff barriers would allow for the hyper-exploitation of third world labor while at the same time driving down first world labor costs. But due to the combined competitive disadvantages of poor infrastructure, inexperienced workforces, and transport costs, as well as the necessity of writing off stranded production assets in the developed nations, corporations based in the advanced economies demanded that their governments finance the restructuring of the global economy. Lower labor costs just couldn’t compensate for the disadvantages of moving to China or India, at least not until infrastructure was improved and workforces were trained. Without government assistance offshoring corporations would fail to compete in the marketplace with established industry at home. This motive, providing advantages to investment in the developing nations, is more plausible than the commonly assumed notion that the motive behind the AGW fraud was an excuse to raise taxes on consumers. There is a weakness in this proposition that is similar to the weakness described above regarding carbon taxes though, governments could have aided their corporations through tax advantages without all the complexity and risk involved in AGW fraud.

Yet, there is another motive that is much more certain than either of the above possibilities, even more certain than the profits that Goldman Sachs stood to gain from carbon credits trading schemes. To understand this motive we must return to the time when the AGW meme was first promoted. Three Mile Island had recently been shut down following a near melt down. Unknown quantities of radioactive material were released across a vast area of Pennsylvania. 2,400 lawsuits were filed for death or disease suffered by family members which were ultimately denied access to federal courts. In the US, applications for construction of new nuclear power plants had a zero chance of approval by local authorities. The nuclear industry had come to a standstill. At the same time national policy makers, in conjunction with the military industrial complex, wanted to maintain a dynamic nuclear industry that included ongoing mining, milling, enrichment, research and development as well as a large pool of personnel with nuclear expertise. In fact, Thatcher’s situation was particularly strained in that she wanted to discharge tens of thousands of coal miners, replacing them with the politically poisonous nuclear power plants. This feat would require an overriding fear, something that calls for the public to acquiesce and reserve their strong objections. There would be no way to sell such policies to the public without resorting to a paradigm changing ruse, one that defines any dissidence as a danger to the safety of society. AGW would provide that cover. In fact, it is hard to imagine any other paradigm change that could have subverted the environmentalist opposition to the nuclear industry.

If the AGW theory could be planted within a co-opted or deceived environmental movement, general acceptance of the alarmism would be seen as a victory for the environment despite the fact that CO2 is not actually a pollutant. An entire field of “science” could be elevated with the sole purpose of confirming the theory, creating a consensus of credulousness among its membership whose entire careers are always at stake. The din of propaganda would remain constant until a state of emergency appeared imminent. Nuclear power plants would be presented as the way out while the absence of any solution for nuclear waste disposal would be ignored. The high financial cost of the nuclear facilities would be absorbed later by rate payers while the government would underwrite the investor’s risks.

The AGW Svengali, Al Gore, is no stranger to promotion of the nuclear industry. Since the late 70′s, he has been outspoken in support of new reactors, defending the aborted Clinch River Breeder Reactor, which was was scheduled to produce weapons grade plutonium, to the bitter end. Representation of nuclear interests is actually a Gore family tradition going back to the industry’s foundation. Keith Harmon Snow reports:

A 1957 study by the Brookhaven National Laboratory estimated “the consequences of a very large reactor accident at a hypothetically small nuclear plant near a large city” at 43,000 injuries, 3,400 deaths and $7 billion in 1957 losses. Congress passed the “Gore Bill” of 1956, championed by then U.S. Senator Albert Gore (Sr.) of the pro-nuclear Gore dynasty. This became the Price Andersen Act — reauthorized by Congress again in 2002 – shielding the industry from significant liability for any major nuclear accident. The 1989 Presidential Commission of Inquiry into Catastrophic Nuclear Power Accidents determined that private nuclear corporations would be unlikely to survive unless the federal government insured the industry against such “unexpected and unknown” potential liabilities as the Bhopal disaster (Union Carbide), Agent Orange (Dow) and the Dalkon Shield.

To better appreciate the imperative of maintaining the nuclear industry one must acknowledge the tenuous hold on power that the Western elites possess. The global mass of humanity have little interest in the perpetuation of the existing power structure. While it is possible for a minority to rule over the majority, without an overwhelming technological advantage, military dominance is too costly both in lives and finance. Weapons of mass destruction have provided the ultimate terror instrument necessary to check organized challenges to military supremacy. This was why Hiroshima and Nagasaki were obliterated. Pax Americana arose from the annihilation of non-combatants. The capability of mass murder is why some nations have seats on the UN Security Council with veto power while others have one vote in the General Assembly. Maintenance of this disparity in destructive power is essential to the continued dominance over the non-nuclear nations according to Peter Phillips:

The U.S. Government is blazing a trail of nuclear weapon revival leading to global nuclear dominance. A nuke-revival group, supported by people like Stephen Younger, Associate Director for Nuclear Weapons at Los Alamos, proposes a “mini-nuke” capable of burrowing into underground weapon supplies and unleashing a small, but contained nuclear explosion. This weapons advocacy group is comprised of nuclear scientists, Department of Energy (DoE) officials, right wing analysts, former government officials, and a congressionally appointed over-sight panel. The group wants to ensure that the U.S. continues to develop nuclear capacity into the next half century.

The US nuclear energy industry is overseen by the Department of Energy, which also oversees the nuclear weapons complex through the National Nuclear Security Administration. The reliable lifespan of the current nuclear arsenal is measured in decades. Due to the untested decay characteristics of plutonium it is possible that much of the present arsenal could become unserviceable with little advance warning. The existence of a robust nuclear industry is a prerequisite for new weapons production capability which may be the main factor in Energy Secretary Chu’s strident support for a new generation of nuclear power plants. AGW has been instrumental in the resurrection of nuclear power in the US and Britain. Seen in this light the AGW fraud is not surprising. The mass collusion of lies is actually a normal occurrence when “national security” is perceived to be involved. Institutions and foundations are relied upon to perform their roles. Entire industries conform to the dominant anticipated cap and trade system. Other nations have been co-opted or pressed into accepting the AGW meme. One only has to examine the warmongering lies about Iraqi WMDs or Iranian nuclear weapons programs to put the AGW fraud into perspective.

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19 - A review of ZIONISM, MILITARISM AND THE DECLINE OF US POWER

by James Petras
December 2009 issue of Culture Wars magazine – Ken Freeland
The hegemonic influence of Zionist-Israeli forces over America’s foreign policy, particularly Middle East policy, is a phenomenon without historical precedent. While right-wing radicals, with their focus on patriotism and constitutional values, set off early alarms about this perceived foreign domination, the Left pretty much slept through its insidious ascent to power.

The American Left, indeed, has a long and unfortunate history of giving a free pass to Israel, reserving the whole of its diatribe for imperialists of the indigenous variety. (As James Petras makes clear again and again, this is a predictable result of the antiwar movement’s frequently pro-Israel leadership, and the ubiquitous Zionist-liberal influence within it.)

For the traditional Left, this emergence of a Zionist power elite within the United States presents a significant theoretical problem… it really does not follow from the normal Leftist-materialist construction of the political world, and so it tends to be just ignored. The popular antiwar movement slogan “no war for oil” is its residue: the Left is happy to pin the war tail on the donkey of Big Oil, a traditional bogeyman, and one which fits neatly into a materialist paradigm…

This dismal record of “progressives” is what makes the work of James Petras unique. He is an indefatigable Leftist whose widely published anti-imperialist oeuvre covers some fifty years of contributions to some very prestigious journals. He once shared with me that he broadcasts a 30-minute radio program that is heard weekly in Uruguay. For a professor emeritus (retired), James Petras is one heck of a fireball :

In 2006 he broke new ground with the first installment of what I am going to call his current trilogy: The Power of Israel in the United States. Fully a year before Walt and Mearsheimer would critique this same phenomenon from an Establishmentarian perspective in theirThe Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy,” Petras was exposing it from the Left. While other critics considered themselves cutting-edge for attacking the “neo-conservatives” (neo-cons), this did not suffice for James Petras… after all, the roots of neo-conservatism are not conservative at all, but Zionist….and so he coined the term “Zion-con” to emphasize this analytic difference. Where Walt and Mearsheimer, in their effort to encompass the wider phenomenon of Zionist organization and power in America, would stretch the term “Israel Lobby” to cover a multifarious network of Zionist-Israel’s promoters, many of whom do not engage in actual lobbying, Petras approaches the same phenomenon with fresh conceptual clarity, naming it the Zionist Power Configuration (ZPC), which has become the bedrock of his further analysis — “a complex network of interrelated and informal groupings, operating at the international, national, regional and local levels, and directly and systematically subordinated to the State of Israel, its power holders and key decision makers.”(p.46)

The second work in this series, Rulers and Ruled in the US Empire,was published a year ago. While that work is concerned primarily with Latin American and other rulers, examining the extent to which they really represent a political challenge to US imperialism, several chapters continue his analysis of the ZPC, which he says “far exceeds the resources of AIPAC or the ‘the Lobby.’”

As I reflect on Petras’ series of books dealing with this subject, I am reminded of the hurricane I recently weathered: like its pulsating, blistering winds, each of Petras’ attempts to grapple with this problem is more sweeping and intense than the last, sweeping the moribund detritus off the political landscape and leaving us with fresh, clear language that perfectly corresponds with the political realities we face, but were formerly unable to name. As Confucius says, the first step to political reform is calling things by their proper names. And in Zionism, Militarism, and the Decline of US Power, Petras’ Zhi’ngmi’ng (the Chinese word for the Confucian “rectification of terms”) keeps pace with fast-moving political developments: Here we meet with the Zion-libs (as opposed to neo-libs); they are no more grounded in traditional liberalism than the Zion-cons are in conservatism. As to the Zion-cons, they have transmogrified into Zion-fascists:

There is no transcendent event that defines the moment in which Zion-Conservatism became Zion-Fascism. The transition was an evolutionary process during which racism, militarism and authoritarianism developed a mass community base, took hold over time, and became the definitive modus operandi of the ZPC.

Like earlier fascist movements, Zion-fascism subscribes to racialist doctrines of knowledge. According to Zionist epistemology only Jews can (if they dare) criticize Jews as knowledge of Jewry is monopolized by a closed communally defined people. This Zion-fascist theory of knowledge is buttressed by the frequent utterances of progressive or leftist Zionists who frequently dismiss or warn non-Jewish writers that they enter the ‘Jewish’ debate at their peril. (p.41)

Much of this latest book anatomizes the political integuments that connect the ship of state to the ZPC, who then navigate it into the stormy sea of Zionist bellicosity. But considerable space is also devoted to reexamining the long history of US provocation of its “enemies” as a pretext for imperial war, and to which the events of 9/11, according to the author, were no exception.

There are two schools of thought within the 9/11 Truth movement: One of them believes that the events were a false flag operation in which some US government had a direct hand. This is the “Made It Happen on Purpose (MHOP)” school. Its counterpart believes that The US government became aware of the 9/11 plan, but allowed it to happen rather than trying to intercept it so that a pretext for Middle East wars could be provided – the Let it Happen On Purpose” (LHOP) school of thought. Petras’ view is an interesting hybrid, where the US government deliberately politically provokes it into happening, then allows it to happen and covers up the role of its own and allied facilitators (the Israelis) in the interest of targeting Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. While my own predilections are of the MHOP variety, for reasons we do not have the space to consider here, I can very much appreciate the detailed expose Petras provides of US government and Israeli support for the 9/11 actions. Whether or not a widening of US militarized imperialism was the actual motivation for causing, provoking or allowing these criminal events to take place, it is unarguable that this is how those events have been politically exploited.

More conceptual groundbreaking is done in his chapter called “Military-driven vs. Market-driven Empire.” Here he cogently makes the case that America’s costly militarized empire building (at Israel’s behest) is costing it much and gaining it little, while Japan, Russia, China and other market-driven imperialists are making tremendous gains with their more constructive approaches. Anyone not familiar with his earlier work might suspect that Petras is advocating the more profitable market-driven empire in place of this costly military-driven one. So I asked the author to respond to a hypothetical reader who might have this concern. I’ll let him speak for himself:

“Opposing the Iraq war and war threats to Iran is in no way implicitly supporting any imperialism..The book argues that there are two paths to empire via capital expansion and via military conquest . One is more destructive the other is more exploitative of labor. Neither is progressive and both must be fought. However, when US imperial power is used –by Zionists- to serve a foreign power-Israel- we have an additional problem: to recover our national independence so that the American people can decide our policies best.”

A clear and reassuring answer, yet I wish he had been clearer about the “both must be fought” aspect in this book for the benefit of new readers. Of course, anyone who doubts it only needs to review his earlier years of published solid opposition to market-driven imperialism in Latin America and elsewhere.

The threat of the ZPC to basic American democratic values and to the integrity of the antiwar movement is clearly spelled out in the book’s final pages. As a lifelong antiwar activist myself, I cannot too strongly concur with this timely observation:

The collapse of the US peace movement, the lack of credibility of many of its leaders and the demoralization of many activists can be traced to strategic failures: the unwillingness to identify and confront the real pro-war movements and the inability to create a political alternative the the bellicose Democratic Party.

Anyone with in an interest in this problem is encouraged to read my recent report about the subversion of the National Assembly against the War (a recent effort to reunify our fractured antiwar movement) by these very same Zionists, who imposed their “war for oil” slogan over the democratic decision of the Assembly to identify the machinations of the Zionist lobbies as a primary cause (Petras spends a great deal of time in his book debunking the “war for oil” canard, as have other cutting-edge writers, such as Jonathon Cook, Israel Adam Shamir, etc.)

All three books in this trilogy are published only in paperback edition, at low prices affordable to working people. Anyone who has come to understand the problem of Zionism in the US political arena, and anyone who is coming to understand it, will not find a better guide than this irrefragable sociologist James Petras, the C. Wright Mills of our times.

Source

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http://www.bushstole04.com/Iraqwar/liars_war.htm

20 - The Liars Who Took Us to War

February 16, 2011

February 2003 - Colin Powell waves a fake vial of anthrax as he tells the United Nations a whole host of lies, which the Bush administration knew (or should have known) were nothing but complete fabrications, in order to take the U.S. to war against Iraq. The main target of this criminal deception was the citizenry of the United States, which would be asked to fight and fund a pre-planned war of aggression. Eight years later, hundreds of thousands of Americans and Iraqis have been killed or maimed and untold billions of dollars wasted in an utterly criminal war. At what point will those responsible for egregious war crimes be held accountable for their actions?

We have first-hand descriptions of biological weapons factories on wheels. The source was an eyewitness — an Iraqi chemical engineer who supervised one of these facilities. He was present during biological agent production runs. He was also at the site when an accident occurred in 1998. Twelve technicians died.
- U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell telling the lies of Al-Janabi to the United Nations, 5 February 2003

The Iraqi defector who fabricated tales of mobile bioweapons trucks and clandestine factories has admitted for the first time that he lied and then watched as his lies were used to justify the war.

Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, codenamed "Curveball" by German and American intelligence officials who dealt with his claims, told the Guardian, "They gave me this chance. I had the chance to fabricate something to topple the regime."

Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, a.k.a. "Curveball" lives in Karlsruhe, Germany.

As U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell gathered his notes in front of the United Nations security council, al-Janabi knew what Powell would say. Al-Janabi was, after all, Powell's main source, a man his German handlers had feted as a new "Deep throat" — an agent so pivotal that he could bring down a government.

As Curveball watched Powell make the U.S. case to invade Iraq, he was hiding an admission that he has not made until now: that nearly every word he had told his interrogators from Germany's secret service, the BND, was a lie.

CURVEBALL'S LIES EXPOSED IN 2000

The Guardian reports that Janabi claimed he was first exposed as a liar as early as mid-2000, when the BND (German intelligence agency) travelled to a Gulf city, believed to be Dubai, to speak with his former boss at the Military Industries Commission in Iraq, Dr. Bassil Latif.

Even now, Curveball seems bemused that his lies got as far as they did. He says he thought the game was up by the end of 2000. By that point, the BND had flown to Dubai to interview his former boss at Iraq's military industrial complex, Dr. Basil Latif, who had told them that his former underling was a liar.

Several British intelligence officers were present at the meeting with Latif. Their German counterparts left Dubai seeing their prized source in a new light. According to them, Curveball had claimed that Latif's son, who was then at school in Britain, was a procurer of WMD. That information was easily proven wrong by the British spooks.

The BND then returned to Germany and sent an officer to confront their source. "He says 'there (are) no trucks'; and I say, ok, when (Dr. Basil says) there are no trucks then (there are none)," Curveball recalled in broken English. "I did not speak to them again until (the) end of May 2002."

Al-Janabi's confession confirms that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was based on a whole series of lies that were known to be fabrications. These lies were pushed by the Bush administration and the Zionist-controlled press to start an illegal war of aggression that had been planned long in advance. This is exactly like the first war against Iraq in 1991 started by George H.W. Bush, which was foisted on the American people based on a similar pack of blatant lies about alleged Iraqi atrocities told to Congress by a young lady who turned out to be the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador.

The war of aggression in Afghanistan, now in its tenth year, has also been based on a pack of lies about 9/11. The fact that these extremely costly and disastrous wars have all been sold to the public on lies, lies which were known to be fabrications at the time, should be ample cause to hold those who conspired to wage these wars of aggression accountable for crimes against the peace, the most serious of war crimes.

Sources and Recommended Reading:

"Defector admits to WMD lies that triggered Iraq war" by Martin Chulov and Helen Pidd, Guardian, 15 February 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/15/defector-admits-wmd-lies-iraq-war

"Curveball: How US was duped by Iraqi fantasist looking to topple Saddam", by Martin Chulov and Helen Pidd, Guardian, 15 February 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/15/curveball-iraqi-fantasist-cia-saddam

Curveball articles in The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/curveball

http://www.bollyn.com/the-lies-that-took-us-to-war-in-iraq

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21 - FLASH BACK : How Iraq Was Looted

By Evelyn Pringle

Countercurrents.org

When President Bush announced "Mission Accomplished," and the end of the war in May 2003, he also said we would help the citizens of Iraq rebuild their country. "Now that the dictator's gone," he stated, "we and our coalition partners are helping Iraqis to lay the foundations of a free economy."

Apparently he was referring to the Coalition Provisional Authority that took up residence in Saddam's luxurious palace in May 2003, with the newly appointed King, Paul Bremer. The CPA was granted the authority to award reconstruction contracts in Iraq and it used that authority to implement what will go down in the history books as the most blatant war profiteering scheme of all time.

In large part, the masterminds of the reconstruction disaster that would occur after the CPA took over Iraq were Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, and Undersecretary of Defense, Douglas Feith.

But to ensure control of the contracting process on the ground in Iraq, Bush filled the top slots of the CPA with the administration cronies. For instance, a friend of Cheney's, Peter McPherson, took a leave of absence as president of Michigan State University to serve as Bremer's economic deputy.

The leader of the CPA's private development sector was Thomas Foley, an old college classmate of Bush, who served as finance chairman for his Presidential campaign in Connecticut and also raised more than $100,000 for Bush.

Relatives of the administration were also given jobs, such as Ari Fleischer's brother Michael, and Simone Ledeen, the daughter of Michael Ledeen. Cheney's daughter Liz, also did a short stint. However, it should be noted that none of them lounged around for too long in what soon became a hellhole in Iraq.

On May 16, 2003, the CPA issued its first regulation and described its authority in no uncertain terms stating:

"The CPA is vested with all executive, legislative, and judicial authority necessary to achieve its objectives, to be exercised under relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions, including resolution 1483 (2003), and the laws and usages of war. This authority shall be exercised by the CPA Administrator."

With one swipe of the pen, Bremer granted himself the authority to run the government ministries, appoint Iraqi officials and award contracts for reconstruction. Next he fired 500,000 Iraqis, most of them soldiers, but pink slips also went out to many doctors, nurses, teachers and other public employees as well.

For the most part, the CPA financed its activities with billions of dollars that belonged to the Iraqis. On May 22, 2003, a UN Security Council passed a resolution that directed the proceeds from Iraqi oil to be placed in a Development Fund for Iraq, and the CPA was granted authority to control the fund and decide which profiteers would get contracts.

During the year that Bremer controlled the purse strings, the Iraqi Development Fund received $20.2 billion, including $8.1 billion from the UN's oil-for-food program, $10.8 billion from Iraqi oil, and the rest from repatriated funds, vested assets and donations.

The CPA accounting system was cash and carry and a steady stream of cash was flown into Bagdad from the US. Inspector General, Stuart Bowen later said that he knew of one $2 billion flight.

A report released by the House Government Reform Committee in February 2007, shows that in the 13 months that Bremer ruled, from May 2003 to June 2004, the Federal Reserve Bank in New York shipped nearly $12 billion in a cash to Iraq.

One can only imagine the Bank service charges associated with these shipments because to accomplish this feat, according to the Democratic chairman of the Reform Committee, Henry Waxman, the cash weighed 363 tons and the Bank had to count and pack 281 million individual bills, including more than 107 million $100 bills, and then load them onto wooden pallets to be shipped to Bagdad on C-130 cargo planes.

Inspector Bowen later said that he determined that some of this cash went to pay salaries for thousands of "ghost employees" and Iraqi civil servants who did not exist.

Within a few months of the CPA's arrival in Iraq reports of corruption in the contracting process began appearing in the media. A British adviser to the Iraqi Governing Council told the BBC that officials in the CPA were demanding bribes of up to $300,000 in return for contracts.

Reports of flat out-fraud remained steady throughout Bremer's reign in Iraq. One audit showed that the CPA Ministry of Finance could not provide documentation for about $17 million spent on employee salaries in February 2004, and a CPA Advisor to the Ministry of the Interior said the Ministry was paid for 8,602 guards but only 602 could be verified.

A CPA advisor to the Ministry of Finance was so concerned about payroll corruption that he submitted a formal complaint that stated in part: "Of the 1.6 million government employees currently on payroll, credible estimates put the number of ghost workers at somewhere between 250,000-300,000 employees."

An October 2004, audit performed for the International Advisory and Monitoring Board, created by the UN to monitor the spending of Iraqi money, found one case where a payment of $2.6 million was authorized by a CPA senior adviser to the Ministry of Oil, and auditors were unable to obtain an underlying contract or any evidence that the services had been rendered.

The auditors in this group found 37 cases where files could not be located for contracts worth $185 million all total. In another 52 cases, there was no record that goods had been received for a total of $87.9 million.

People on the ground in Iraq said that doing business with the CPA was reminiscent of the Wild West. Former CPA employees told a congressional committee that sackfuls of cash were tossed around like footballs. Franklin Willis, showed pictures of himself and others holding up bundles of $100 notes totaling $2 million, which he said was used to pay the contractor Custer Battles. "We told them to come in and bring a bag," Willis said.

He also testified that millions of dollars in $100 bills were stored in the basement of the CPA offices and distributed to favored contractors with little accounting discipline. For instance, in the year that the CPA ruled, Custer was awarded contracts worth more than $100 million.

Two former Custer employees ended up filing a lawsuit under the Federal False Claims Act, saying Custer had swindled $50 million from the CPA with scams like double-billing for salaries and repainting the forklifts found at the Baghdad airport and then leasing them back to the US government.

The employees said the CPA paid the Custer $15 million to provide security for Iraq's civilian airline, when no services were needed because the airline was grounded during the time covered by the contract.

These employees said they kept informing the CPA about Custer's fraudulent conduct for more than a year and when they asked why the firm continued to get contracts, they were told: "Battles is very active in the Republican party, and speaks to individuals he knows in the Whitehouse almost daily."

In June 2004, the Government Accounting Office estimated that more than $1 billion in had been wasted due to illegal overcharges by contractors since the war began. A later audit by the Iraqi government found that as much as $1.27 billion was lost to accounting irregularities between June 2004 and February 2005.

Inspector Bowen cited two examples of poor oversight in a November 3, 2005 interview on National Public Radio where $28 million was paid to build 5 power plants and $1.8 million was paid to rebuild a library, but the work was never performed and the money
"simply disappeared," he said.

A recent report by Bowen says DynCorp was paid $43.8 million for a residential camp for police training personnel and has been empty for months and that the company may also have billed $18 million in other unjustified costs.

About $4.2 million, he says, was improperly spent on 20 VIP trailers and an Olympic-size pool and an additional $36.4 million in spending for weapons such as armored vehicles, body armor and communications equipment that cannot be accounted for.

Not surprisingly, Cheney's Halliburton remained the top profiteer under Bremer's rule. A July 23, 2004, audit conducted by Bowen, showed the company had received 60% of all contracts paid for with Iraq money, including 5 no-bid contracts worth $222 million, $325 million, $180 million, and the last 2 together totaled $194 million for the last two. In comparison, the audit showed that the CPA awarded only 2% of the reconstruction contracts to Iraqi companies.

In one example of blatant fraud, an audit found that Halliburton was charging for more than 41,000 meals a day for soldiers when only about 14,000 were served.

By the fall of 2003, the country was realizing that the rational for war was based on lies and that the only ones drawing any benefits were the profiteers. So when Bush asked Congress for another $20 billion for the CPA, Bremer was summoned to Washington to explain where all the money was going and of course he testified in full stonewall mode.

Before the Appropriations Committee on September 22, 2003, Bremer said the CPA had detailed records of all its receipts and outlays that could be audited by Congress. But when he testified before the Armed Services Committee 3 days later he said the Office of Management and Budget was responsible for maintaining the CPA records and that Congress would have to go to the White House to access the records.

That arrogant assertion went over like a lead balloon with many members of Congress. Senator Robert Byrd said he was outraged over the inability to monitor CPA spending. "There is no reason why any arm of the executive branch charged with making such significant spending decisions," he said, "should not be working directly with Congress."

"When we're talking about handing over another $20 billion to the CPA," he said, "there is a real need for Congress to confirm that the CPA has its finances in order and that it is managing the taxpayer's money responsibly."

"We don't even know how much of the $20 billion," Byrd said, "will flow to government contractors in Iraq."

"Whatever the amount is," he noted, "we know that the size and scope of the profits being made will be enormous."

"Former Bush Administration officials," he warned fellow Senators, "are even setting up consulting firms to act as middlemen for contractors hoping to take part in the bonanza."

"Are we turning the U.S. Treasury into a grab bag for favorite campaign contributors to be financed at taxpayer expense?" he asked.

The answer was yes, and what a grab bag it was. Media reports revealed that Bush's ex-campaign manager and Feith's former law partner had set up consulting firms to profit off the war by lining up contracts for clients through their partners in crime within the CPA.

Other reports revealed that contracts worth $407 were awarded to a firm called Nour that was formed less than 2 months after the war began. The names linked to the profits from Nour, among many others, included former Secretary of Defense, William Cohen, Ahmad Chalabi via a $2 million kickback, his nephew Salam Chalabi as the attorney handling the deal, and the money trail even led to the First Brothers, Marvin and Jeb Bush.

But come to find out, Doug Feith the ringleader on the ground in Washington, had awarded a batch of no-bid contracts to a favored company the month before the war began for the purpose of controlling the media in post-war Iraq.

In October 2003, the Center for Public Integrity obtained copies of 7 contracts awarded to the San Diego-based Science Applications. The total value of the contracts was redacted but the Center was able to determine that they were all awarded in February 2003, and called for the work to be directed by Feith.

However, the Center's most stunning discovery was that when the contracts were awarded, Feith's top deputy at the time, Christopher "Ryan" Henry, had been a senior vice president at SAIC until October 2002.

In addition, one of SAIC's board members was Army General, Wayne Downing, who ran counterterrorism in the Bush administration for almost a year after 9/11, and had even went to the CIA with Cheney to discuss intelligence on Iraq. Downing had also served as an advisor to Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress, and was well-known advocate for a war against Saddam.

Some of the SAIC contracts required that specific persons referred to as "executive management consultants" be hired and the pay range listed went as high as $209 and $273 per hour. The Center said congressional sources estimated the value of the media contract as $38 million for the first year and as high $90 million in 2004.

The SAIC had no special expertise to justify the award of these contracts. One company executive, quoted in the media, said the firm's only credential for setting up an independent media, supposedly modeled after the BBC, was military work in "informational warfare"-signal jamming, "perception management," and the like.

Under these contracts, the Iraq Media Network (IMN) was established and journalist, Mark North, who covered the Iraq invasion for National Public Radio, was hired to train Iraqi journalists to report for the IMN.

In one of the many Congressional hearings, North testified about the control of the IMN by the CPA and said CPA officials regularly directed and censored the activities of the news station and provided "a laundry list of CPA activities" to cover in the news reports instead of stories about security or the lack of electricity and jobs

While testifying, he also described the CPA's shabby treatment of Iraqi employees and its refusal to pay their wages. "For the first two months," North said, "the local staff of about 200 journalists and technicians were not paid their salaries."

When the staffers went on strike in attempt to get paid, he said, the CPA told the Iraqis to get back to work or the US Army would remove them from the studios.

All total, the CPA had control of Iraqi money for one year between June 2003 and June 2004, but unfortunately no auditors arrived to take a look at the agency's spending until April 2004, two months before the CPA's rule was scheduled to end.

And as so often happens when it comes to giving solid advice or warnings, the senior Senator from Virginia was absolutely right. It was far too late for audits, because the CPA and its gang of profiteers had already robbed the Iraqis blind.

The favored companies enjoyed a fraud-free-all. For instance, Halliburton said it had lost over $60 million worth of government property including trucks, office furniture and computers. Inspector Bowen reported that 6,975 items valued at $61.1 million were lost, and in June 2005, the Defense Contract Audit Agency reported that the Halliburton had overcharged or presented questionable bills for close to $1.5 billion.

In the end, Bowen's audit concluded that "the CPA's internal controls for approximately $8.8 billion in DFI funds disbursed to Iraqi ministries through the national budget process failed to provide sufficient accountability for the use of those funds."

As of February 2007, according to Bowen, audits of the CPA have resulted in 300 criminal and civil investigations, 5 arrests and convictions, and another 23 cases are currently under prosecution at the DOJ, and he is working on 76 on-going investigations.

One of the convictions involved Robert Stein, a former CPA comptroller and funding officer, who recently pleaded guilty to 5 felony counts including conspiracy, money laundering, and bribery in stealing more than $2 million of reconstruction funds and taking more than $1 million in kickbacks to rig the bids on contracts that exceeded $8 million.

The whistleblower case against Custer Battle went to trial and a jury found that Custer had committed 37 acts of fraud and filed $3 million in false claims, and rendered a verdict with a $10 million penalty. However, the verdict was overturned by Republican appointed US District Court Judge TS Ellis III, who ruled that the CPA was not a US entity and therefore the false claims act does not apply to it.

In the ruling, the judge said Custer's accusers "failed to prove that the U.S. government was ever defrauded. Any fraud that occurred was perpetrated instead against the Coalition Provisional Authority, formed to run Iraq until a government was established."

Legal experts say this ruling is great news for the CPA and contractors because from now on anyone charged with any act of fraud related to the Iraqi money doled out by the CPA in Bagdad will use it in attempt to avoid civil or criminal prosecution.

Evelyn Pringle can be reached at: evelyn- evelyn-pringle@sbcglobal.net

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22 - FLASH BACK : How Lethally Stupid Can One Country Be?
By David Michael Green, AlterNet
Posted on March 28, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/80497/
Watching George W. Bush in operation these last couple of weeks is like having an out-of-body experience. On acid. During a nightmare. In a different galaxy.

As he presides over the latest disaster of his administration (No, it's not a terrorist attack -- that was 2001! No, it's not a catastrophic war -- that was 2003! No, it's not a drowning city -- that was 2005! This one is an economic meltdown, ladies and gentlemen!) bringing to it the same blithe disengagement with which he's attended the previous ones, you cannot but stop and gaze in stark comedic awe, realizing that the most powerful polity that ever existed on the planet twice picked this imbecilic buffoon as its leader, from among 300 million other choices. Seeing him clown with the Washington press corps yet once again -- and seeing them fawn over him, laugh in all the right places, and give him a standing ovation, also yet once again -- is the equivalent of having all your logic circuits blown simultaneously. Truly, the universe has a twisted and deeply ironic sense of humor. Monty Python is about as funny -- and as stiff -- as Dick Nixon, by comparison.

It's simply incomprehensible. It's not so astonishing, of course, that a country could have a bad leader whose aims are nefarious on the occasions when they are competent enough to rise to that level of intentionality. Plenty of countries have managed that feat, especially when -- as was the case with Bush -- every sort of scam is employed to steal power, and then pure corruption and intimidation used to keep it. History is quite littered indeed with bimbos and petty criminals of this caliber. What is harder to explain is how the citizens of a country of such remarkable achievements in other domains, and with the capacity to choose, allow this to happen. And then stand by silently watching for eight years as the tragedy unfolds before their eyes.

But let's give credit where credit is due. This is precisely by design. This is exactly the outcome intended by the greatest propaganda-promulgating regime since Hermann Göring set fire to the Reichstag. It was Göring himself who famously reminded us that, "Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. ...Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." Sure worked in Germany. And it worked even better here, because these guys were so absolutely careful to avoid exposing the costs of their war to those who could demand its end. For example, by some counts, there are more mercenaries in Iraq, at extremely high cost, than there are U.S. military personnel.

There's only one reason for that. If the administration implemented the draft that is actually necessary to supply this war with adequate personnel, the public would end both the war and the careers of its sponsors, post haste. For the same reason, this is the first American war ever which has not only not been accompanied by a tax increase, but has in fact witnessed a tax cut. Likewise -- to "preserve the dignity" of the dead, of course -- you are no longer permitted to see photographs of flag-draped caskets returning to Dover Air Force Base. And the press are embedded with forces who are also responsible for their safety, which is just a fancy way of saying that they're so censored they make Pravda look good. It is, in short, quite easy for average Americans to get through their day, every day, without the war impacting their lives in any visible respect, and that is precisely what hundreds of millions of us are doing, week in and week out. All of this is courtesy of an administration that couldn't run a governmental program to save its own life -- but, boy, it sure as hell knows how to market stuff.

Perhaps Americans and American democracy are no wiser or better than any other people or political system, even today, even after the worst century of warfare in human history, even after the mirror-image experience of Vietnam. Maybe the experience of Iraq hasn't even changed them, and they'll once again follow like lemmings when led to war by pathetic creatures such as George W. Bush, 50 years from now. Or five years from now. Or even five months from now, as Dick Cheney tees up a confrontation with Iran in order keep Democrats out of the White House and himself out of jail.

Sure, presidents and prime ministers, no less than kings and führers, will lie their countries into war. Sure, they're very good at it and getting better all the time. Definitely a frightened people are more prone to stupidity than those lucky enough to contemplate in the luxury of quiet safety. Without question, it helps an awful lot -- if you're just Joe Sixpack, out there trying to figure out international politics in between a long day's work, helping the kids with their algebra homework, and the Yankee game -- to have a checking-and-balancing Congress, a responsible opposition party, and/or a critical media helping you to understand the issues accurately, rather than gleefully capitulating to executive power at every opportunity. But that by no means excuses a public who was fundamentally far more lazy than they were ignorant or confused. And lazy is one thing when you're talking about a highway bill or even national healthcare. But when it comes to war, lazy is murder.

I don't think it took a giant leap of logic to understand that this war was bogus from the beginning, even based on what was known at the time. The war was sold on three basic arguments, each of which could have been easily dismantled even then with a little thoughtful consideration.

The first was WMD, of course. So, OK, perhaps your average American didn't know that the United States government (including many in the current administration) had actually once supplied Saddam Hussein the material to make these evil weapons and had covered for him at the United Nations and elsewhere when he used them. This historical myopia is very much part of the problem, of course. Americans are so ready to denounce supposed enemies without doing the slightest bit of historical homework to make sense of the situation. If you don't know that the United States actually canceled elections and helped assassinate a "democratic" president in Vietnam, of course you're going to support war there. If you don't know that the United States toppled a democratically elected Iranian government to steal the country's oil and then installed a brutal dictatorship in its place, of course you're going to be angry at U.S. diplomats being held hostage. And if you don't bother to learn the true history of Iraq, perhaps you'll find the WMD argument quite persuasive.

But, in fact, even without the historical background information, it never made a damn bit of sense. Iraq had been pulverized by war and sanctions for over 20 years prior to 2003. Two-thirds of its airspace was controlled by foreign militaries. Its northern region was effectively autonomous, a separate country in all but name. It was in no position to attack anyone. Moreover, it hadn't attacked anyone -- not the United States or anyone else. Indeed, it hadn't even threatened to attack anyone. Shouldn't that be part of the calculation in determining whether to go to war? Do we really want to give carte blanche to any dry (we hope) drunkard in the White House who today wants to bomb Norway ("They're stealing our fish!") or tomorrow wants to invade Burkina Faso ("They dress funny!")?

Too often, of course, the historical answer to that question has unfortunately been yes, we apparently do want to do that. But let's consider the massive warning signs in this case, even apart from what could be known about the administration's lies at the time. Shouldn't it have been enormously problematic that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11? Even the administration never had the gall to make that claim. Wasn't it transparent to anyone that America had plenty on its plate already in dealing with the enemy we were told we had, rather than adding a new adventure to the pile? And why wasn't this thing selling throughout the world, or even amongst the traitorous half of the Democratic Party in Congress? Remember how everyone at home and abroad -- yes, including the French -- supported the United States and its military actions in Afghanistan only 12 months before? Shouldn't it have been a warning sign of epic proportions that these same folks wouldn't countenance a war in Iraq just a year later? That the administration had to yank its Security Council resolution off the table, even after breaking both the arms of every member-state around the horseshoe table, because it could still only get Britain and two other patsies to lie down for this outrage, out of a total of 15, and nine needed to pass?

And how about the logic of that whole WMD thing, after all? Did anyone ever stop to think that 36 other countries were thought to have clandestine WMD programs, including around a dozen that are pretty hostile to the United States? Did anyone not remember that the Soviets once had nearly 25,000 strategic nuclear warheads pointed in our direction? What ever happened to the logic of deterrence? To mutually assured destruction? And what about the mad rush to go to war, preempting the U.N. weapons inspectors from doing their job? Are we really OK with the notion that instead of "risking" whatever would have been at risk by giving the inspectors another six or eight weeks to finish up, we've instead bought this devastating war down on our own heads for no reason at all?

The second rationale for war was the bogus linkage between Iraq and al Qaeda. The extent and ramifications of this lie are so significant that the White House, it was just recently revealed, squelched a Pentagon report showing no connections between the two. Remember how definitive Cheney and the rest were of this supposed al Qaeda linkage, based pretty much entirely on a meeting between two operatives in Prague which likely didn't even take place? Now we find out that the Department of Defense has spent the last five years combing through a mere 600,000 documents, and found zero evidence of such a link. Not some evidence. Not mixed evidence. Zero evidence.

Then, once again, there's the matter of that whole pesky logic thing. Pay attention now, class. What do we know about al Qaeda? They are devoted to religious war -- jihad -- in the name of replacing governments across the Middle East with theocracies, or better yet recreating the old Islamic caliphate stretching across the region, right? Right. Now if this vision could have more thoroughly contradicted Saddam's agenda for a secular dictatorship seeking regional domination on his own Stalinist terms, it is hard to imagine how. You don't need a Ph.D. in international politics to see that these two actors were about as antithetical to each other as the Republican Party is to integrity.

Lastly, Bush's little adventure in Mesopotamia was supposed to bring democracy to the region, remember? Never mind, of course, that there has long already been a fairly thriving Islamic democracy, right next door. Oops! It's called Turkey. And let's not forget Mr. Bush's long-standing devotion to democracy, as he amply demonstrated in the American election of 2000. Or as he has continually manifested by bravely and publicly pushing the Chinese to democratize. Just as he has with his pals in Egypt and especially the family friends running Saudi Arabia, the recipient of more American foreign aid than nearly any other country in all the world.

What is clear is that the reasons given to the American public for the war in Iraq were entirely bogus. This much is already on the public record, from the Downing Street memos [http://downingstreetmemo.com/] and beyond. Even if we can only speculate on why they actually invaded -- oil, glory, personal insecurity, Israel, clobbering Democrats, Middle Eastern dominance -- what we know for sure is that the rationale fed to the public was a knowingly fabricated pack of scummy lies [http://www.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/Default.aspx?source=home&context=overview&id=945]. It wasn't about WMD, it wasn't about links to al Qaeda, and it sure wasn't about democracy.

But even if we can't identify the true motivations within the administration for invading, we can surely begin to see the costs. Probably a million Iraqi civilians are dead [http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths.html]. Over 4 million are displaced and now living as refugees [http://www.refugeesinternational.org/content/article/detail/9679]. Together, these equal a staggering one-fifth of the population of the entire country. Meanwhile, the remaining four-fifths are living in squalor, fear and a psychological damage so extensive that it is hard to grasp. America has lost 4,000 soldiers, with perhaps another 30,000 gravely wounded. Hundreds of thousands more will be scarred for life from their experiences in the hell of Mr. Bush's war. Our military is broken and incapable of responding to a real emergency, at home or abroad. Our economy will sustain a blow of perhaps $3 trillion before all is said and done. Our reputation in the world is in the toilet. We have turned the Iranian theocracy into a regional hegemon. And we have massively proliferated our own enemies within the Islamic community. That would be one hell of an expensive war, even if the reasons given for it were legitimate. It is nearly incomprehensible considering that they were not.

This week, a man died in France, the last surviving veteran of World War I, a devastating conflict that -- even a century later -- nobody can really explain to this day. Meanwhile, Dick Cheney, John McCain and Joe "Make-me-SecDef-Mac-oh-please-pick-me-Mac" Lieberman parachuted into Iraq for photo-ops to sustain the war they don't have the integrity or the guts to abandon. Never mind that their visits had to be by surprise, and that they stroll around the Green Zone wearing armored vests -- surely the most powerful measures of the war's success imaginable. Of course, to be fair, we've only been at it for five years now. Perhaps after the remaining 95 on McCain's agenda go by, Americans will finally be safe enough in Iraq to announce their visits in advance.

So, happy anniversary, America! You put these people in charge, and then -- after seeing in explicit in detail what they were capable of -- you actually did it again in 2004! You stood by in silence watching the devastation wrought upon an innocent people, produced in your name and financed by your tax dollars. And you continue to do just that again, now in Year Six.

Brilliant! Put on your party hat, America. You won the prize.

You've successfully answered the musical question, "How lethally stupid can one country be?"

David Michael Green is a professor of political science at Hofstra University. He is delighted to receive readers' reactions to his articles (dmg@regressiveantidote.net) but regrets that time constraints do not always allow him to respond. More of his work can be found at www.regressiveantidote.net/.

© 2008 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/80497/
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23 - Huffington’s Plunder
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/huffingtons_plunder_20110221/
Posted on Feb 21, 2011
By Chris Hedges

I was in New York City on Thursday night at the Brecht Forumto discuss with the photographer Eugene Richards his powerful new book “War Is Personal” when I was approached for an interview by a blogger for The Huffington Post. I had just finished speaking with another blogger who had recently graduated from UC Berkeley.

These encounters, which are frequent at public events, break my heart. I see myself in the older bloggers, many of whom worked for newspapers until they took buyouts or were laid off, as well as in the aspiring reporters. These men and women love the trade. They want to make a difference. They have the integrity not to sell themselves to public relations firms or corporate-funded propaganda outlets. And they keep at it, the way true artists, musicians or actors do, although there are dimmer and dimmer hopes of compensation. They are victims of a dying culture, one that no longer values the talents that would keep it healthy and humane. The corporate state remunerates corporate management and public relations. It lavishes money on the celebrities who provide the fodder for our national mini-dramas. But those who deal with the bedrock virtues of truth, justice and beauty, who seek not to entertain but to transform, are discarded. They must struggle on their own.

The sale of The Huffington Postto AOL for $315 million, and the tidy profit of reportedly at least several million dollars made by principal owner and founder Arianna Huffington, who was already rich, is emblematic of this new paradigm of American journalism. The Huffington Post, as Stephen Colbert pointed out when he stole the entire content of The Huffington Post and rechristened it The Colbuffington Re-post, produces little itself. The highly successful site, like most Internet sites, is largely pirated from other sources, especially traditional news organizations, or is the product of unpaid writers who are rechristened “citizen journalists.” It is driven by the celebrity gossip that dominates cheap tabloids, with one or two stories that come from The New York Times or one of the wire services to give it a veneer of journalistic integrity. Hollywood celebrities, or at least their publicists, write windy and vapid commentaries. And this, I fear, is what news is going to look like in the future. The daily reporting and monitoring of city halls, courts, neighborhoods and government, along with investigations into corporate fraud and abuse, will be replaced by sensational garbage and Web packages that are made to look like news but contain little real news.

The terminal decline of newspapers has destroyed thousands of jobs that once were dedicated to reporting, verifying fact and giving a voice to those who without these news organizations would not be heard. Newspapers, although they were too embedded among the power elite and blunted their effectiveness in the name of a faux objectivity, at least stopped things from getting worse. This last and imperfect bulwark has been removed. It has been replaced by Internet creations that mimic journalism. Good reporters, like good copy editors or good photographers, who must be paid and trained for years while they learn the trade, are becoming as rare as blacksmiths. Stories on popular sites are judged not by the traditional standards of journalism but by how many hits they receive, how much Internet traffic they generate, and how much advertising they can attract. News is irrelevant. Facts mean little. Reporting is largely nonexistent. No one seems to have heard of the common good. Our television screens are filled with these new chattering celebrity journalists. They pop up one day as government spokespeople and appear the next as hosts on morning news shows. They deal in the currency of emotion, not truth. They speak in empty clichés, not ideas. They hyperventilate, with a spin from the left or the right, over every bit of gossip. And their corporate sponsors make these court jesters millionaires. We are entertained by these clowns as corporate predators ruthlessly strip us of our capacity to sustain a living, kill our ecosystem because of greed, gut civil liberties and turn us into serfs.

Any business owner who uses largely unpaid labor, with a handful of underpaid, nonunion employees, to build a company that is sold for a few hundred million dollars, no matter how he or she is introduced to you on the television screen, is not a liberal or a progressive. Those who take advantage of workers, whatever their outward ideological veneer, to make profits of that magnitude are charter members of the exploitative class. Dust off your Karl Marx. They are the enemies of working men and women. And they are also, in this case, sucking the lifeblood out of a trade I care deeply about. It was bad enough that Huffington used her site for flagrant self-promotion, although the cult of the self has reached such dizzying proportions in American society that such behavior is almost expected. But there is an even sadder irony that this was carried out in the name of journalism.

“Something is happening here,” Bob Dylan sang in “Ballad of a Thin Man,” “but you don’t know what it is. Do you Mr. Jones?”

This latest form of “liberal” exploitation exposes yet again the liberal class for who they really are—opportunists whose operating methods are as callous as those used in running the textile mills in southern China. Is it any wonder that working men and women, who have been abandoned and betrayed by these self-identified liberals, hate the liberal class and its transparent hypocrisy? Is it any wonder that the some 40 million Americans who live in poverty are invisible to the wider culture? Is it any wonder that the tea party and all the lunatics on the fringe of our political spectrum put their cross hairs on the liberal class and its purported values? Let’s not forget the title of Huffington’s latest book: “Third World America: How Our Politicians Are Abandoning the Middle Class and Betraying the American Dream.”

Liberals like these deserve the rage they engender.

The argument made to defend this exploitation is that the writers had a choice. It is an argument I also heard made by the managers of sweatshops in the Dominican Republic and Mexico, the coal companies in West Virginia or Kentucky and huge poultry farms in Maine. It is the argument made by the comfortable, by those who do not know what it is to be hard up, desperate or driven by a passion to express one’s self and the world through journalism or art. It is the argument the wealthy elite, who have cemented in place an oligarchic system under which there are no real choices, use to justify their oppression.

Who would not want to be able to carry out his or her trade and make enough to pay the bills? What worker would decline the possibility of job protection, health care and a pension? Why do these people think tens of millions of Americans endure substandard employment?

If Huffington has a conscience, she will sit down when the AOL check arrives and make sure every cent of it is paid out to those who worked free or at minimal wages for her over the last six years, starting with Mayhill Fowler, the blogger who broke the “clinging to guns and religion” story about Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign and spent two years writing and reporting without a salary.

“She strung me along for two years while I repeatedly asked for funding for three projects, and then I quit,” Fowler told me from Oakland, Calif., as I spoke with her by phone. When Fowler, whom the site nominated twice for a Pulitzer, finally resigned last year in disgust, Mario Ruiz, the spokesperson for The Huffington Post, acidly told Yahoo News: “Mayhill Fowler says that she is ‘resigning’ from The Huffington Post. How do you resign from a job you never had?”

That comment says it all. It exposes the callousness of our oligarchic class and their belief that they have a right to use anyone who can contribute to the monuments they spend their lives erecting to themselves.

Chris Hedges is a fellow at The Nation Institute and a weekly Truthdig columnist. His newest book is “Death of the Liberal Class.”

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24 - Gold-pegged Yuan; Peso-pegged Dollar

Roy Tov

To a large extent – at least in the short and mid terms – the fate of the State of Israel depends on the future of the USA. Last week we got a reminder of that when America vetoed a UN decision condemning the illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Since even the USA doesn’t recognize these rat holes as legal, its veto shows again the strange double standards that are so identified worldwide with American-styled democracy: a society of equal corporations exploiting slaves worldwide while favoring club members. Even club-member humans are not all equal. These humans are divided in two classes: “judiciary persons” (like corporations and any other soulless contraptions) who have all the rights and simple persons who have only the right to consume. Was this an exaggerated paragraph? Despite its overstated humor, it is worryingly close to reality./p>
It seems the USA wouldn’t stop its automatic support of an internationally recognized terror inflicting organization known as the State of Israel. Thus, it is only logical for us – the Israeli terror victims – to ask loudly when would the terrorists supporters be no longer a military threat to the free world. After all, we all have the right to be free and equal, even if not having been born to the “Mishpaha Lohemet.” During the second American attack on Iraq, I was fascinated by the American administration’s rhetoric. We all remember the “weapons of mass destruction” lies, but there was much more than that. “Financing the war” was also a key phrase said by frenzied politicians while looking for juice to run their toys of mass destruction. There was no better testimony to the fact this was a war of choice – and thus unacceptable – aimed to create financial profits through cheap oil and the revival of American military industries than this mantra. The phrase also reflected the American mindset as a world financial center and the main printer of a fiat money known as American dollar, the world’s reserve currency at that moment in time. Through these silent subtexts, it also hinted at a very different future.

The USA won’t disappear from the international arena as a significant player as a result of a military defeat. Granada won’t retaliate for the American crimes; neither would Afghanistan or Iraq. Attacking the weak is another characteristic of America. Two months ago – by the end of 2010 – the media was full with articles announcing China having become the second largest economy – bypassing Japan. The same number of articles tried to predict when China would bypass America. In fact – without paying attention to their analytic methods – they were predicting an economic event. Some said 2020, others 2015. All of them ignored a rapidly changing financial situation which would control the economic development in the near future. Most economists use linear models in their predictions, while reality is often non-linear and non-derivative. The reason for that is the low-level mathematics learned at financial faculties. The result of this overlook will be dramatic; probably all predictions will fail.

America is #1 only because economic output is measured in the current reserve money, i.e. American dollars. There is a simple but excellent way of describing the problematic of these statistics. Bolivia is a producer of coffee. A pound of average coffee here costs around one American dollar. In the US, a coffee of similar quality would probably cost around 4$. Let’s say that both economies sell just one pound of coffee per year. If measuring the production of each economy in dollars, then the US economy could be claimed as being four times larger than the Bolivian one; however, if measuring by weight, both economies would be the same size. The world’s economy is measured in US dollars and thus it is highly biased toward the American economy, presenting it as much larger than it is.

In order to keep this illusion of economic size, a key goal of the US government is to keep its currency as the global monetary measurement unit. However, this won’t last. It makes no sense calculating the trade between China and India in US dollars; the distortions in such a case are multiple. In the case of Thai products reaching Nepal via India, measuring the events in American dollars is ridiculous. One solution would be adopting a basket of carefully balanced measurements methods; this would probably happen in the next decades. Measuring under a more accurate system, the US would probably rate as the third largest economy in the world. If measuring the EU as one economic unit, then the US would be just fourth.

Moreover, not everyone is happy with the ongoing situation. Last year, Russia and China scrapped the dollar in their mutual transactions. The same applies for a few other countries. At the beginning of February 2011, the IMF issued a report on a possible replacement for the dollar as the world's reserve currency. The report recommends using Special Drawing Rights that could help stabilize the global financial system. Simply, heavily indebted America cannot provide a stable currency anymore. Roughly at the same time, the Asian Development Bank said in a joint study with Columbia University's Earth Institute, that the Chinese Yuan could rapidly become an internationally used currency and serve as an alternative to the US dollar in central bank reserves. In fact, China owns not only a substantial part of the American debt, but also the debt of European countries as Spain, forcing a future in which the Yuan would grow in importance. As such, the opening of the Yuan as a floating currency that can be traded everywhere is almost inevitable. Despite some decentralization in its trading during recent years, Yuan is still heavily controlled by the Chinese government. America and Europe are waiting and pushing for this moment; vulture bankers will pray on the new reserve currency and speculate on its future.

Yet, those thinking China would accept Western ideas just because America, the IMF, or even the ADL, recommend them are wrong. China would not let its currency float freely; its centralistic economy wouldn’t be able to survive such an environment. Yet, the current situation in which the Yuan was pegged to the dollar for many years and even now it follows it closely is not acceptable anymore. Simply the dollar is not stable anymore, undermining the main quality search by the Chinese from a reserve currency. There are clear signs the Chinese have a very different plan in mind.

On November 17, the World Gold Council released its third-quarter Gold Demand Trends report, which showed a 12% year-on-year rise in gold demand in the third quarter of 2010. The rise was a result of an ongoing increase in the purchase of gold by China and India. In the fourth quarter the demand increased by another 9%, driven by the same markets. I won’t analyze the numbers here since they are intentionally measured by the IMF using a much undervalued system (moreover, it uses unstable dollars). Yet, China has become the fifth largest holder of gold reserves and it seems it aims at growing them even more. In order to keep the prices in line, China cannot announce this as its policy.

Economies of such a size cannot change overnight. That means all planned changes can be seen much before they are implemented. Is the ongoing gold accumulation by the Chinese a sign they would peg the Yuan to a gold standard in the near future? Probably so. If that happens the financial situation would change overnight; economics would change in the following year or so. The American dollar would sink (would it be pegged to the Mexican peso?) and be dropped as reserve money. America doesn’t produce much these days – some cars and military weapons which are used for wars which cannot be repeated in the actual multi-polar reality – and thus a worthless dollar won’t change much the exports’ attractiveness of this market. Overnight, America would drop a few notches and China would become the world’s #1 economy, with no need to wait for the dollar-measured statistics anymore. Would then America still support Israel? Actually, it won’t matter anymore…

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25 - Kaminski's take on HISTORY

Dirk Chardet

With a friend like John Kaminski, those opposing the coming Global Zionist-Talmudic Empire, also known as 'The New World Order', definitely do not need an enemy.

The articles written by Kaminski have the following effects on readers
- uniting jews and zionists ;
- dividing anti-zionists jews and anti-zionist gentiles :
- giving the 'general public' the idea that anti-semitism is still very much alive and that therefore jewry and Israel should get our support.

Originally I thought Kaminski (JK) to be jewish, something he vehemently denied (which I then believed), but now I am sure my initial thoughts were correct. JK is not just a crypto-zionist, but a jewish crypto-zionist, who has made it his work to spread anti-semitism, that fuels zionism and to neutralize the work of anti-zionist jewish authors. By convincing the gentiles that 'no jew can ever be trusted', he and the ADL hope to make sure that authors like Gilad Atzmon, Jonathan Azaziah, Norman Finkelstein and other HEROES OF RESISTANCE lose their credibility. Without this credibility few people will forward their articles, their messages will not be widely spread and read and thus become less dangerous to zionism.

JK's articles are very well written and seem to have a solid basis of research. Unfortunately this is not really the case, as more critical reading reveals. In a text on AIDS he totally missed the point, in another article his argument was entirely build on the implicit assumption that every jew, worldwide, religious or secular, knows exactly what is found in the Talmud and behaves accordingly.
For those who don't know : the Talmud is an obscene 'religious' book, that allows men to have sex with girls from the age of 3 years and 1 day, that emphasizes that non-jews are not human, but just animals on two legs, that jews should rule the world, etc.
Of course, such a assumption is totally ridiculous : Torah-jews and secular jews know nothing about the Talmud.

In other articles, one of them with the title : 'At the mercy of monsters' (guess who these monsters are .. ), Kaminski states that 'the jews' were responsible for the fall of the Roman Empire. A number of quotes from Edward Gibbon's ''Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'', should illustrate this. Doing some research myself, I found that by far most historians agree on a combination of factors as Christianity, decadence, lead in the drinking water, monetary trouble, and military problems. Imperial incompetence and chance could be added to the list. Even the rise of Islam is proposed as the reason contributing to Rome's fall

Apart from this, even Kaminski's supposed source, Gibbon himself wrote :
"But the decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the causes of destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest; and, as soon as time or accident had removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight.... The victorious legions, who, in distant wars, acquired the vices of strangers and mercenaries, first oppressed the freedom of the republic, and afterwards violated the majesty of the purple. The emperors, anxious for their personal safety and the public peace, were reduced to the base expedient of corrupting the discipline which rendered them alike formidable to their sovereign and to the enemy; the vigour of the military government was relaxed, and finally dissolved, by the partial institutions of Constantine; and the Roman world was overwhelmed by a deluge of Barbarians."
- Gibbon - Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

So, not a word here of 'the jews did it', like in the next quote.

Vandals and Religious Controversy
Vandals took over the Roman territory in Africa, just as Rome lost Spain to the Sueves, Alans and Visigoths. A perfect example of how interconnected all the "causes" of Rome's fall are, Rome lost revenue along with the territory and administrative control. It needed revenue to support its army and it needed its army to keep what territory it still maintained.
See: "The Decline of the Roman Power in Western Europe. Some Modern Explanations," by Norman H. Baynes. The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 33, Parts 1 and 2 (1943), pp. 29-35.

So ................... Kaminski will make up 'historical facts', whenever it suits him ; he doesn't take the truth seriously.
dch

CORNPLANTER's take on Kaminski

Wow Dirk!
You are famous!
The renowned ''Jew hater'', John Kaminsky, called you a ''goy Jew Wannabe!"
I'm jealous.
Maybe someday his 'collegue Mr.WC' will "out" me.
Did you notice he capitalized "Jew" but not "goy?"
Childhood training is hard to change.

During the Vietnam Struggle, (in the US) we used to joke about the government political and narcotics agents who would grow beards and learn the anti-war and druggie jargon, but just could not top shining their black shoes. Or if they owned a neck tie, it would be thin and black. One fellow in Seattle who hung around the Vietnam Veterans Against the War was the only visible member of his important group: "Committee To Investigate the FBI." Most people figured he was CIA. 1) The government agencies were not as sophisticated in those days as they are now; 2) The protesters were largely experienced GI's and rich (Jewish) college students who had managed to keep from being drafted, (who later became rich lawyers and stock brokers); 3) there was news published in the underground press along with important stuff like information on drugs, rock and roll bands and concerts, and sex adds. Take away the media and take away the draft dodging college students; take away the drafted college students and take away the rich Jewish commie movement that sold out to the banking and lawyer and politician business, and today you have sick and slowly dying GI's who are so stoked up on steroids they don't know up from down or good from evil, and you have a CIA working hand in hand with Mossad agents to pay (capitalism) some poor foreign schmuck to set up a fake bomb or burn his underwear.

Then there is Kaminsky. This little post of his would get him some jail time in many countries, including the United States, if he was not protected. He is inciting his readers to kill Jews. Isn't that exactly what he says the jews themselves, do? (Sacrifice their own to promote their cause?) If unthinking people who already hate jews see this, they might feel an inner need to fulfill Kaminsky's call to start killing the "ung_dly" jews. Then he wins, because the Jewish Lobby can cry about the atrocities of the goyim and their need for protection and more war machinery for Israel. And we get to sacrifice the killer(s) and use them as an excuse for more cancerous Israeli manufactured surveillance machinery.
CP

For further research
The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire Volume 1 Chapter 15

Etext of Edward Gibbon's History of the Later Roman Empire and Its Fall - The Progress of the Christian Religion,and the Sentiments, Manners, Numbers, and Condition of the Primitive Christians

Chapter XV: Progress Of The Christian Religion.

Part I.

The Progress Of The Christian Religion, And The Sentiments, Manners, Numbers, And Condition Of The Primitive Christians. *

Contents
Preface
Intro
Volume I
Gibbon Ch. 1 - Parts I II III
Gibbon Ch. 2 - Parts I II III IV
Gibbon Ch. 3 - Parts I II
Gibbon Ch. 4 - Parts I II
Gibbon Ch. 5 - Parts I II
Gibbon Ch. 6 - Parts I II III IV
Gibbon Ch. 7 - Parts I II
Gibbon Ch. 8 - Parts I II
Gibbon Ch. 9 - Parts I II III
Gibbon Ch. 10 - Parts I II III IV
Gibbon Ch. 11 - Parts I II III
Gibbon Ch. 12 - Parts I II III
Gibbon Ch. 13 - Parts I II III IV
Gibbon Ch. 14 - Parts I II III IV
Gibbon Ch. 15 - Parts I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX
A candid but rational inquiry into the progress and establishment of Christianity may be considered as a very essential part of the history of the Roman empire. While that great body was invaded by open violence, or undermined by slow decay, a pure and humble religion gently insinuated itself into the minds of men, grew up in silence and obscurity, derived new vigor from opposition, and finally erected the triumphant banner of the Cross on the ruins of the Capitol. Nor was the influence of Christianity confined to the period or to the limits of the Roman empire. After a revolution of thirteen or fourteen centuries, that religion is still professed by the nations of Europe, the most distinguished portion of human kind in arts and learning as well as in arms. By the industry and zeal of the Europeans, it has been widely diffused to the most distant shores of Asia and Africa; and by the means of their colonies has been firmly established from Canada to Chili, in a world unknown to the ancients.

But this inquiry, however useful or entertaining, is attended with two peculiar difficulties. The scanty and suspicious materials of ecclesiastical history seldom enable us to dispel the dark cloud that hangs over the first age of the church. The great law of impartiality too often obliges us to reveal the imperfections of the uninspired teachers and believers of the gospel; and, to a careless observer, their faults may seem to cast a shade on the faith which they professed. But the scandal of the pious Christian, and the fallacious triumph of the Infidel, should cease as soon as they recollect not only by whom , but likewise to whom , the Divine Revelation was given. The theologian may indulge the pleasing task of describing Religion as she descended from Heaven, arrayed in her native purity. A more melancholy duty is imposed on the historian. He must discover the inevitable mixture of error and corruption, which she contracted in a long residence upon earth, among a weak and degenerate race of beings. *

Our curiosity is naturally prompted to inquire by what means the Christian faith obtained so remarkable a victory over the established religions of the earth. To this inquiry, an obvious but satisfactory answer may be returned; that it was owing to the convincing evidence of the doctrine itself, and to the ruling providence of its great Author. But as truth and reason seldom find so favorable a reception in the world, and as the wisdom of Providence frequently condescends to use the passions of the human heart, and the general circumstances of mankind, as instruments to execute its purpose, we may still be permitted, though with becoming submission, to ask, not indeed what were the first, but what were the secondary causes of the rapid growth of the Christian church. It will, perhaps, appear, that it was most effectually favored and assisted by the five following causes: I. The inflexible, and if we may use the expression, the intolerant zeal of the Christians, derived, it is true, from the Jewish religion, but purified from the narrow and unsocial spirit, which, instead of inviting, had deterred the Gentiles from embracing the law of Moses. II. The doctrine of a future life, improved by every additional circumstance which could give weight and efficacy to that important truth. III. The miraculous powers ascribed to the primitive church. IV. The pure and austere morals of the Christians. V. The union and discipline of the Christian republic, which gradually formed an independent and increasing state in the heart of the Roman empire.

I. We have already described the religious harmony of the ancient world, and the facility * with which the most different and even hostile nations embraced, or at least respected, each other's superstitions. A single people refused to join in the common intercourse of mankind. The Jews, who, under the Assyrian and Persian monarchies, had languished for many ages the most despised portion of their slaves, emerged from obscurity under the successors of Alexander; and as they multiplied to a surprising degree in the East, and afterwards in the West, they soon excited the curiosity and wonder of other nations. The sullen obstinacy with which they maintained their peculiar rites and unsocial manners, seemed to mark them out as a distinct species of men, who boldly professed, or who faintly disguised, their implacable habits to the rest of human kind. Neither the violence of Antiochus, nor the arts of Herod, nor the example of the circumjacent nations, could ever persuade the Jews to associate with the institutions of Moses the elegant mythology of the Greeks. According to the maxims of universal toleration, the Romans protected a superstition which they despised. The polite Augustus condescended to give orders, that sacrifices should be offered for his prosperity in the temple of Jerusalem; whilst the meanest of the posterity of Abraham, who should have paid the same homage to the Jupiter of the Capitol, would have been an object of abhorrence to himself and to his brethren. But the moderation of the conquerors was insufficient to appease the jealous prejudices of their subjects, who were alarmed and scandalized at the ensigns of paganism, which necessarily introduced themselves into a Roman province. The mad attempt of Caligula to place his own statue in the temple of Jerusalem was defeated by the unanimous resolution of a people who dreaded death much less than such an idolatrous profanation. Their attachment to the law of Moses was equal to their detestation of foreign religions. The current of zeal and devotion, as it was contracted into a narrow channel, ran with the strength, and sometimes with the fury, of a torrent.

This inflexible perseverance, which appeared so odious or so ridiculous to the ancient world, assumes a more awful character, since Providence has deigned to reveal to us the mysterious history of the chosen people. But the devout and even scrupulous attachment to the Mosaic religion, so conspicuous among the Jews who lived under the second temple, becomes still more surprising, if it is compared with the stubborn incredulity of their forefathers. When the law was given in thunder from Mount Sinai, when the tides of the ocean and the course of the planets were suspended for the convenience of the Israelites, and when temporal rewards and punishments were the immediate consequences of their piety or disobedience, they perpetually relapsed into rebellion against the visible majesty of their Divine King, placed the idols of the nations in the sanctuary of Jehovah, and imitated every fantastic ceremony that was practised in the tents of the Arabs, or in the cities of Phoenicia. As the protection of Heaven was deservedly withdrawn from the ungrateful race, their faith acquired a proportionable degree of vigor and purity. The contemporaries of Moses and Joshua had beheld with careless indifference the most amazing miracles. Under the pressure of every calamity, the belief of those miracles has preserved the Jews of a later period from the universal contagion of idolatry; and in contradiction to every known principle of the human mind, that singular people seems to have yielded a stronger and more ready assent to the traditions of their remote ancestors, than to the evidence of their own senses.

The Jewish religion was admirably fitted for defence, but it was never designed for conquest; and it seems probable that the number of proselytes was never much superior to that of apostates. The divine promises were originally made, and the distinguishing rite of circumcision was enjoined, to a single family. When the posterity of Abraham had multiplied like the sands of the sea, the Deity, from whose mouth they received a system of laws and ceremonies, declared himself the proper and as it were the national God of Israel and with the most jealous care separated his favorite people from the rest of mankind. The conquest of the land of Canaan was accompanied with so many wonderful and with so many bloody circumstances, that the victorious Jews were left in a state of irreconcilable hostility with all their neighbors. They had been commanded to extirpate some of the most idolatrous tribes, and the execution of the divine will had seldom been retarded by the weakness of humanity. With the other nations they were forbidden to contract any marriages or alliances; and the prohibition of receiving them into the congregation, which in some cases was perpetual, almost always extended to the third, to the seventh, or even to the tenth generation. The obligation of preaching to the Gentiles the faith of Moses had never been inculcated as a precept of the law, nor were the Jews inclined to impose it on themselves as a voluntary duty.

In the admission of new citizens, that unsocial people was actuated by the selfish vanity of the Greeks, rather than by the generous policy of Rome. The descendants of Abraham were flattered by the opinion that they alone were the heirs of the covenant, and they were apprehensive of diminishing the value of their inheritance by sharing it too easily with the strangers of the earth. A larger acquaintance with mankind extended their knowledge without correcting their prejudices; and whenever the God of Israel acquired any new votaries, he was much more indebted to the inconstant humor of polytheism than to the active zeal of his own missionaries. The religion of Moses seems to be instituted for a particular country as well as for a single nation; and if a strict obedience had been paid to the order, that every male, three times in the year, should present himself before the Lord Jehovah, it would have been impossible that the Jews could ever have spread themselves beyond the narrow limits of the promised land. That obstacle was indeed removed by the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem; but the most considerable part of the Jewish religion was involved in its destruction; and the Pagans, who had long wondered at the strange report of an empty sanctuary, were at a loss to discover what could be the object, or what could be the instruments, of a worship which was destitute of temples and of altars, of priests and of sacrifices. Yet even in their fallen state, the Jews, still asserting their lofty and exclusive privileges, shunned, instead of courting, the society of strangers. They still insisted with inflexible rigor on those parts of the law which it was in their power to practise. Their peculiar distinctions of days, of meats, and a variety of trivial though burdensome observances, were so many objects of disgust and aversion for the other nations, to whose habits and prejudices they were diametrically opposite. The painful and even dangerous rite of circumcision was alone capable of repelling a willing proselyte from the door of the synagogue.

Under these circumstances, Christianity offered itself to the world, armed with the strength of the Mosaic law, and delivered from the weight of its fetters. An exclusive zeal for the truth of religion, and the unity of God, was as carefully inculcated in the new as in the ancient system: and whatever was now revealed to mankind concerning the nature and designs of the Supreme Being, was fitted to increase their reverence for that mysterious doctrine. The divine authority of Moses and the prophets was admitted, and even established, as the firmest basis of Christianity. From the beginning of the world, an uninterrupted series of predictions had announced and prepared the long-expected coming of the Messiah, who, in compliance with the gross apprehensions of the Jews, had been more frequently represented under the character of a King and Conqueror, than under that of a Prophet, a Martyr, and the Son of God. By his expiatory sacrifice, the imperfect sacrifices of the temple were at once consummated and abolished. The ceremonial law, which consisted only of types and figures, was succeeded by a pure and spiritual worship, equally adapted to all climates, as well as to every condition of mankind; and to the initiation of blood was substituted a more harmless initiation of water. The promise of divine favor, instead of being partially confined to the posterity of Abraham, was universally proposed to the freeman and the slave, to the Greek and to the barbarian, to the Jew and to the Gentile. Every privilege that could raise the proselyte from earth to heaven, that could exalt his devotion, secure his happiness, or even gratify that secret pride which, under the semblance of devotion, insinuates itself into the human heart, was still reserved for the members of the Christian church; but at the same time all mankind was permitted, and even solicited, to accept the glorious distinction, which was not only proffered as a favor, but imposed as an obligation. It became the most sacred duty of a new convert to diffuse among his friends and relations the inestimable blessing which he had received, and to warn them against a refusal that would be severely punished as a criminal disobedience to the will of a benevolent but all-powerful Deity.

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Edward Gibbon - The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire Volume 1
Edward Gibbon - The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire Volume 1

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Dr. Gunther Kümel, Presentation of the H.-Hypothesis from 1900 to 2006.
http://www.rebelnews.org/opinion/editorial/651883-the-heretics-dilemma-attack-or-not-attack-the-zionist-achilles-heel

26 - The heretics dilemma: Attack or not attack the Zionist Achilles heel

One of the most difficult question dissident writers have to consider is what position to take towards the Zionist miracle weapon, the 'Jewish Holocaust'. While most pro-Palestinian activists are quite conscious of the role the alleged systematic murder of six million Jews by Nazi Germany has in the justification and perpetuation of the brutal Zionist colonialisation of the Middle East, very few dare questioning its factuality. Even those writers willing to question just about everything else, Hitler's backing by international Jewish bankers, 9/11, the war on terror, global warming, wouldn't dare touching the official narrative.

So why this self-restraint? It's not like they are all taking the 'Holocaust' story at face value. When questioned privately they often will quite happily admit that they believe that the 6 million number is exaggerated, but very few have an idea to what extent. All they know is that we are being lied to about pretty much everything to do with politics and history, and they sense that a narrative that cannot be questioned without losing ones job, livelihood or even your freedom, is in all likelihood untrue.

Sadly, very few dissidents are aware of even the most essential objections made by Holocaust revisionists such as Arthur Butz, Robert Faurisson or Germar Rudolf, for example that

1/3 of the 6 million figure is made up of victims who supposedly were killed by the non-toxic exhaust fumes coming from the diesel motor of a captured Russian tank, and then tracelessly burned with highly rationed petrol in ground water filled trenches,
none of the alleged gas chambers used to kill another 3-5 million Jews with the fumicide Zyklon B had provisions for exhaust fumes for workers to safely remove the dead bodies, or
none of the gas chambers' walls contain any traces of the used poison, while the walls of the neighbouring far smaller rooms used to disinfect prisoner uniforms with the same substance, do contain traces, detectable even with the naked eye.
But even if they knew those simple facts, they wouldn't necessarily come to the conclusion that the actual number of Jews perished in Nazi custody must be closer to the 270,000 figure derived from the meticulous official death book records kept by the camp administrations. In my personal experience, debating the 'Holocaust' is not unlike a religious discussion, where facts and figures do not really matter, only what and who the pious followers want to believe. When confronted with objections debunking the official myth, most Holocaustians will simply turn around and say something silly like if the six million Jews haven't been killed as alleged by the official narrative then they must have been killed another way. Why? Because six million disappeared and there are too many witnesses testifying that they have been murdered by the SS. Still wondering why they call the 'Holocaust' a secular religion?

No matter, to which extent our fellow dissidents disbelieve the law-enforced official version of the truth, they won't dare to show even the slightest doubt in public. So big is their fear of instantly turning into a social leper, someone no publisher will dare to publish, no employer to employ, no donor to support, no friend to remain friend with, for fear of the wrath of the Jews.

What our fellow dissidents fail to consider though is that without the 'Holocaust' narrative there wouldn't be a Jews-only state on stolen Palestinian land. There wouldn't be a Jewish stranglehold on Western politics. There wouldn't be U.S. vetoes in the U.N. Security Council whenever world opinion just can't take any more of Israel's bestialities. Yes, the 'Holocaust' is the Jewish miracle weapon that makes them seemingly invincible, but it is also their Achilles heel. You take the 'Holocaust' narrative away from them and their whole card house of lies and threats will collapse.

The dilemma for dissidents is how to effectively counter the effect of the 'Holocaust'. If we ignore it, we will keep fighting an uphill battle against an enemy with superior weaponry. If we question it, we scare away most of our allies. I don't know the answer which approach is more effective. Only time will tell. Personally, I believe that all we need is a critical mass of martyrs to sacrifice everything for the sake of the truth, for the '100th monkey effect' to kick in and suddenly everybody realise that, 'of course it couldn't be true.' But that's just me being optimistic. One thing is for sure though: To refer to the 'Holocaust' as if it was a historic fact is like donating money for Zionist settlers to bulldoze Palestinians homes and build settlements. The least we can do is use hyphens when referring to their hoax.

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www.webng.com/linuxhelp/ (edited by dch)

27 - Hitler was working for the Zionists

In April, 1939, Ambassador William C. Bullitt, called me to the American Embassy in Paris. The American Ambassador told me that war had been decided upon. He did not say, nor did I ask, by whom. He let me infer it... When I said that in the end Germany would be driven into the arms of Soviet Russia and Bolshevism, the Ambassador replied: "What of it? There will not be enough Germans left when the war is over to be worth bolshevising."
Karl von Wiegand; reported in the Chicago Herald American, April 23, 1944.

Having the partly jewish Hitler run Nazi Germany had many advantages:

When Germany attacked France, Heinz Guderian made blitzkrieg come true. By constantly disobeying orders and relentlessly driving his men and tanks as far as they could go, he wrecked havoc, far beyond the expected front line. His disregard for orders amid the fog of war, meant that the crypto-Jews in the Nazi high command were not immediately able to intervene, to prevent, Guderian's quick and stunning victory.

Guderian advanced an astonishing 250 miles across enemy terrain in only eleven days. Then, on May 24, with his Panzer forces at Gravelines, only ten miles from Dunkirk, Hitler himself, ordered that the tanks were to halt. Guderian's forces were within hours of capturing more than 300,000 of the best-trained professional soldiers of the British Expeditionary Force, along with some 100,000 of France's best-trained and equipped men. Guderian read the order with disbelief. His commander, General von Kleist, stated that on receiving the order, "I decided to ignore it, and to push on across the canal. But then came a more emphatic order that I was to withdraw behind the canal. My tanks were kept halted there for three days."

By having Hitler order Guderian's tank divisions to sit on their hands while Dunkirk was evacuated, the Jews were able to prevent the complete and utter destruction of the French and British armies, thus keeping alive the possibility of a two-front war. However, although Hitler was able to rescue some 335,000 men, all their tanks and equipment were lost.

When outraged German generals demanded to know why they were being prevented from forcing the complete surrender of the defeated armies, Hitler prattled on about his admiration for the British Empire and its importance as an essential element of world stability. Hitler did not explain why it was so important to let the hundreds of thousands of troops escape immediately, rather than say, to capture them, and later release them after having extracting various concessions. Indeed, how could he? This incident alone, should have given Hitler away as the enemy, however, the Germans, naive to such monumental deception, kept obeying orders, and in the end, it was only thought that Hitler was insane.

German aircraft had hit Allied air bases in France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands, destroying large numbers of planes on the ground, and crippling air defenses. Although large numbers of planes had been lost, the evacuation at Dunkirk enabled most of the British pilots, who had been based in France, to escape and fight another day. In fact, the number of planes lost, turned out to be much less important than the number of pilots, and potential pilots, that Hitler had rescued.

Although, Britain was now open and defenseless, Hitler refused to attack. Hitler refused to even feign an attack on Britain, in order to draw the British navy to the channel, where it could be obliterated by aircraft.

So, after refusing to take out zionist controlled Britain, Hitler attacks the Soviet Union, deliberately setting up the dreaded two-front war.

Yes, to reduce the pressure for an attack on England, Hitler attacked Germany's major ally, the Soviet Union. Why attack your ally, rather than the helpless Britain? The answer is obvious.

The German attack overwhelmed the Soviets. Army Group Center achieved a stunning victory against the forces opposing it, and was positioned to strike at Moscow in the immediate future. Now that it looked like Moscow was sure to fall, Hitler single-handedly saved the city, by ordering Army Group Center to stop its advance and turn south (a decision opposed by all his generals). The Jews were willing to accept any loss, to save Moscow. Once Moscow fell, the war in the East was over.

The war had gone exceedingly badly for the Soviets and there was a fear that Japan would attack from the East, at this time when the Soviet Union had no way of defending itself. It has been speculated that (jewish) Roosevelt deliberately goaded the Japanese into war with the United States, in order to prevent this outcome.

Also, a Japanese-American war could be usefully used by Hitler as a pretext for a declaration of war against the United States and thus allow the United States to participate directly in the European theater. But how could Roosevelt be sure that Hitler would declare war?

On December 11, 1941, Hitler declared war on the United States, using the pretext of the Tripartite Pact, even though he was no more obliged to declare war on the United States than Japan was obliged to declare war on the Soviet Union, which Germany had been fighting since June 1941. Japan never declared war on the Soviet Union.

Hitler refused total mobilization of the German people, even though the munitions factories cried out for manpower and all his enemies had long since recruited woman into the work force. Hitler never bothered to use half the potential German labor force. Even though Goebbels called for total mobilization early in the war, Hitler was able to prevent this until it was too late.

On November 19, 1942, when the Soviet 5th Tank and 21st Armies launched their counter-offensive northwest of Stalingrad, the Fourth Panzer and 6th Armies were in grave danger of encirclement, unless they broke out immediately. To ensure the 6th Army would be trapped, Hitler ordered that it should not attempt to break-out, but should hold their ground and fight to the last man. The more dead or captured Germans, the better.

The 6th Army's senior officers complained that unless they broke out immediately, their army would have to be supplied by air for weeks, if not months, which appeared to be an impossible task.

However, Hitler insisted that the Luftwaffe could sustain the Sixth Army from the air. The Luftwaffe commanders in the field, were unanimous in their belief that this was not possible. Only the Luftwaffe's commander in chief, Göring (another Jew), similarly stated that it would be possible.

When Zeitzler challenged Göring as to whether he even knew what tonnage needed to be flown in every day, Göring spat back, "I don't, but my staff officers do." Zeitzler summarized what would be necessary and Göring retorted, "I can do that." Zeitzler told him he was a liar. With this, Hitler replied "The Reichsmarschall (Göring) has made his report to me, which I have no choice but to believe."

Thus, Hitler closed the trap on the 6th Army.

To ensure the 6th Army was doomed, Hitler arranged that 250 of the vitally important Ju 52s be used to transport 81,000 German troops to Tunisia. The Tunisia campaign had little strategic value and no chance of success. But, more importantly, it ensured that the 6th Army could not be supplied by air and would thus provide the Soviets with a great victory.

Von Richthofen reported: "Of yesterday's 47 Ju 52s, 22 made sorties (into the Stalingrad pocket); of today's 30, 9 made sorties. We flew in 75 tons today, instead of the 300 tons ordered by the High Command, which is not possible with the few Ju 52s available."

More than 150,000 Axis soldiers, most of them German, were killed or wounded at Stalingrad and another 108,000 were captured.

This apparent madness, caused significant opposition to Hitler. Ulrich von Hassel held secret meetings with British and American officials, and hoped that a successful coup would translate into an honorable peace treaty. This, however, was not part of the plan, so the Jews had Roosevelt declare that only an unconditional surrender would be acceptable (January 1943). Thus, they saved their man from any coup, and he was free to continue his destruction of the German people.

Hitler tells the Soviets an attack will occur at Kursk and delays the attack for more than four months, until the Soviets had built defensive lines, eight deep. The Soviets concentrate 1,300,000 soldiers with 3,600 tanks, 20,000 artillery pieces, including 6,000 76mm anti-tank guns, and 2,800 aircraft in and around Kursk. An attack anywhere other than Kursk would be fatal for the Soviets, but the Soviets seem to know that the attack will come only at Kursk.

To incur the maximum possible number of German casualties, Hitler orders German troops to attack, as promised, at Kursk; to attack the most heavily defended lines ever constructed.

Hitler is amazed by the supermen of the elite SS Panzer Korps Liebstandarte, who, in the south, break through all eight defensive lines and take on the reserve Soviet tank battalions.

Less than two weeks into the offensive, worried that the Liebstandarte might win the battle for the Germans, Hitler strips this elite group of their tanks and sends them to Northern Italy, where they sit on their hands for some months before returning to the eastern front. The pretext of the Sicily invasion, was used.

Before the Normandy invasion, Rommel stated the obvious; that the western tank divisions must be based close to the Atlantic coast. These tanks were necessary to stop the invasion force once it had penetrated the beach defenses. If the tank divisions were based too far from the coast, Allied air power would prevent them from reaching the critical areas, or delay them until it was too late.

Understanding this, Hitler based many of the tank divisions, half way to Paris.

In an attempt to justify this stupidity, Hitler stated that one of his commanders, Gerd von Rundstedt, was of the opinion that the panzers should be formed into large units near Paris, where they would wait, allowing the Allies to extend into France, before cutting them off, and that Rundstedt's (crazy) opinion must not be ignored. Of course, Rundstedt was another covert Jew.

Not wanting to leave anything to chance, Hitler formed a strategic armor reserve, which could only be released for action by his authority. Early in the Normandy invasion, Hitler refused to commit any of the forces from the reserve, using the pretext that his staff were afraid to wake him. Later, he used the pretext that the real attack was not to be at Normandy, where the bombs were dropping and the troops landing, but would come in the Pas de Calais area.

Before the war, German scientists discovered the nerve gases Tabun (1936) and Sarin (1938). To manufacture Tabun, a large industrial complex was built at Dyhernfurth an der Oder, with some 30,000 tons of Tabun eventually being produced. It was weaponized and stored at various locations in Germany and Poland, with a major storage area at Krappitz, some 80 kilometers from Auschwitz. Of course, the Nazis never used the nerve gas, Tabun, to mass-murder Jews at Auschwitz, simply because, the Nazis never mass-murdered any group at Auschwitz.

Even though the use of these thousands of tons of weaponized nerve gas would have won the war for Germany, Hitler refused to give the order to use it, and it remained in its storage areas untill captured by the Allies.

The Germans had been the first to discover nuclear fission (which is the basis of uranium and plutonium atomic weapons) and before the war, were undisputed leaders in this area. By directing nuclear scientists to research nuclear reactors, rather than nuclear weapons, the Jews in the Nazi high-command were able to minimize the chance that Germany ever developed atomic weapons. However, since research into nuclear reactors naturally leads to nuclear weapons, funding in this area was limited to three million Deutschmarks per annum, and, in 1942, the number of scientists involved in nuclear research was cut from 70 to 44. As far as it is known, Germany had no scientists working on nuclear weapons, at any time during the war.

Hitler personally sabotaged German jet fighter development, by insisting that a bomber version of the fighter be developed and manufactured. When it tuned out that without bombs, the bomber version, was still a very impressive interceptor, Hitler demanded that they be flown by bomber pilots. Since the bomber pilots did not have the necessary fighter pilot training to perform and survive this type of mission, this proved a total disaster, as desired.

The British double agent, Eddie Chapman (Agent Zigzag), had the opportunity to kill Hitler in a suicide bombing at a Nazi rally. This he offered to do, however, jewosh Churchill (British prime minister) who had kept a personal interest in the Zigzag case, made sure that this opportunity to kill Hitler was rejected. Neither the British, nor the Americans, made any attempt on Hitler's life.

Hitler, Goering and Himmler, have close relatives currently living in Israel (Matthias Goering, the great-nephew of Hermann Goering, Katrin Himmler, the great-niece of Heinreich Himmler and Hitler's nephew's grandson).

"We are not denying and are not afraid to confess that this war is our war and that it is waged for the liberation of Jewry... Stronger than all fronts together is our front, that of Jewry. We are not only giving this war our financial support on which the entire war production is based, we are not only providing our full propaganda power which is the moral energy that keeps this war going. The guarantee of victory is predominantly based on weakening the enemy forces, on destroying them in their own country, within the resistance. And we are the Trojan horses in the enemy's fortress. Thousands of Jews living in Europe constitute the principal factor in the destruction of our enemy. There, our front is a fact and the most valuable aid for victory (Weizmann is alluding to Hitler and other Jew Nazis)." Chaim Weizmann, President of the World Jewish Congress, Head of the Jewish Agency and later President of Israel.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kd4IGwjclH8

http://worldvisionportal.org/wordpress/index.php/2011/02/gulf-synthetic-genes-crossing-species-barriers/

The Gulf Blue Plague
28 - Permanent Biological Contamination of the Gulf
by Michael Edward of http://blueplague.org

//Radio Broadcast video at bottom of article//

SYNTHETIC GENES ARE CROSSING SPECIES BARRIERS

While natural genetic parasites, viruses and bacteria are limited by species barriers, the storm of artificial genetics created by synthetic biology engineers – in order to eliminate the flow of crude oil and gasses in the Gulf of Mexico – are actually designed to cross species barriers. This has created new viral and bacterial pathogens never seen before. It is directly responsible for the spreading of drug and antibiotic resistant viral and bacterial outbreaks along the Gulf Coast, a pestilence that I have named The Gulf Blue Plague.

HORIZONTAL GENE TRANSFER

Genetic engineering – synthetic biology – involves designing artificial genes to deliberately cross species barriers by invading their genetic makeup. Simply explained, it improves the direct transfer of genetic material to an unrelated species. This is called Horizontal Gene Transfer (HGT), or Lateral Gene Transfer (LGT), and is usually accomplished with the conveyance of genes by infectious viruses named bacteriophages, or simply ‘phages’. LGT or HGT is any process in which an organism transfers genetic material (i.e., DNA) to another cell that is not its offspring. It has been used by genetic engineers to make Transgenic Organisms.

TRANSGENIC ORGANISMS

Engineered genetic modification creates a transgenic organism by inserting DNA into a host organism, such as bacteria, with the assistance of a virus or a plasmid. The mature host organism will then pass on the DNA which has been artificially inserted into its genome.

Transgenic DNA typically contains genetic material from bacteria, viruses and other genetic parasites. This is the cause behind diseases as well as the antibiotic resistant genes that make infectious diseases untreatable. Horizontal transfer of transgenic DNA has the potential to also create new viruses and bacteria that cause diseases and spread drug and antibiotic resistance genes among pathogens.

Genetic material released from both dead and live cells persevere in all environments. Our entire biosphere is being exposed to all kinds of new gene combinations that did not previously exist in nature and would never have come into being without synthetic gene engineering.

TRANSFERING DNA BY INFECTING VIRUSES

Bacteriophages are a class of viruses that infect bacteria. They are simply a “package” of DNA surrounded by a protein “coat”. This coating has special properties that make it stick to bacterial cell walls. Once attached, they inject their DNA into the bacteria. Viral DNA forces the invaded cell to stop its normal activity and, instead, it will reproduce millions of copies of the whole virus.

When new viruses are produced in the bacteria, a piece of bacterial DNA may become enclosed in the virus coat. The virus will then carry this bacterial DNA to other bacteria where it becomes a part of their chromosome. This is called bacterial transduction and is especially common in water.

Synthetic DNA transfer by a virus causes an uncontrolled increase of genetically engineered genes by microorganisms. These bacteria then spread over wide distances on dust particles and in the oceans. They are ingested by birds that spread them transcontinentally when they migrate. They are also spread by fish and other marine life that also migrate from ocean to ocean. In other words, this eventually causes a worldwide distribution. But the worst part of all this is that effects on the entire earth biosphere is absolutely unknown.

CELLS ADOPT ALIEN GENES

We have a catastrophic biological disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. This is because the cells of all species, including those of mankind, can and do adopt foreign genetic material from both dead and live cells. According to biology and genetics scientists, this is what we can expect as a result:

New cross-species viruses that directly cause diseases.
The artificial development of new bacterial diseases.
The reactivation of dormant viruses present in all cells.
Antibiotic resistant genes in viral and bacterial pathogens.
The uncontrolled spread of new genes that have never before existed.
PERMANENT BIOLOGICAL CONTAMINATION

As I was writing this article, I received an e-mail from a news blog owner in Spain. He informed me about an important commentary made by a well know university biologist as a reply to my previous research written in The Perfect Genetic Storm. He felt the professor’s reply was extremely important and wanted me to know “we are spreading this information so there will be an end to this madness” in the Gulf of Mexico.

The following excerpts are translated from the Spanish blog Noticias de Abajo:

Biologist Máximo Sandín is the former Biology Department professor at the Independent University of Madrid where he taught on Human Evolution and Ecology. He has directly commented on the translated article The Perfect Genetic Storm – Synthetic DNA and the Gulf Blue Plague.

Dr. Sandín is the author of We are Virus and Bacteria as well as many other publications.

“I believe that some (rather many) of the activities of the “biotechnology” or “bioengineering” companies are becoming ever more dangerous each day because their practices seem to be completely behind the back of present scientific knowledge.

Their pretensions to change “genes” voluntarily, or to modify or interfere in the natural phenomena, are based on a declining conception that does not genetically consider the ecology. These genetically modified genomes are very unstable due to the way they are obtained. For that reason, the genes are transferred to the modified or transgenic organisms that produce a permanent biological contamination in the ecosystems whose effects are unforeseeable.

On land, communities of associated bacteria and viruses (bacteriophages or “phages”) plentifully exist in the ecosystem for the purification of the fresh water, degradation of toxic substances, waste product recycling, CO2 production, and nitrogen fixation in plants. These communities genetically exchange information by means of plasmids and viruses. The viruses control the bacterial population. For that reason, the altered transgenic genes can cross to other organisms in the ecosystem. This practice has been repeatedly denounced by prestigious and independent scientists, although the mass media does not report this.

The populations of bacterial and viral communities in the oceans are spectacular. It has been determined that there are one million bacteria and ten million viruses per milliliter; however, for some scientists these figures are conservative.

Their functions are of equal importance for the marine ecosystems. They are in the base of the trophic pyramid for the control of microorganism populations, in the degradation of ocean waste, in the photosynthesis and respiration of the ocean, and the CO2 interchange with the atmosphere, including the formation of clouds.

We now have news on the methods to fight against the petroleum flow in the Gulf of Mexico. The suspicions that they have been using bacteria with “synthetic” or genetically modified genomes are very founded if we consider that the megalomaniac Craig Venter is involved.

What is being observed is not so much that the “synthetic microbes” produce “mutations” in the natural microorganisms, because that phenomenon is more of a localized problem. The true problem is that the horizontal transference of these modified genes between marine microorganisms is taking place, and that would be a “permanent biological contamination” of the ocean where the medium and long term effects cannot be predicted; but with complete certainty this will be a serious danger for the marine ecosystem in every area. I guess I will have to hope, but if these crazy activities go unchecked, we will end up confronting a problem for which we cannot find a solution.”

As I’ve been saying for months,

“Wherever the Gulf Wind Blows and the Gulf Water Flows”
Audio file download: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/wvp/2011/02/04/the-gulf-blue-plague.mp3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kd4IGwjclH8
References

Ho, M.W. (1998, 1999). Genetic Engineering Dream or Nightmare? The Brave New World of Bad Science and Big Business. Gateway, Gill & Macmillan, Dublin; Ho, M.W., Traavik, T., Olsvik, R., Tappeser, B., Howard, V., von Weizsacker, C. and McGavin, G. (1998). Gene Technology and Gene Ecology of Infectious Diseases. Microbial Ecology in Health and Disease 10, 33-59; 2000a (note 9) . http://www.psrast.org/hrtrintr.htm

http://online.sfsu.edu/~rone/GEessays/horizgenetransfer.html

http://noticiasdeabajo.wordpress.com/2011/01/23/la-introduccion-de-bacterias-sinteticas-esta-produciendo-mutaciones-en-los-microorganismos-naturales-la-plaga-azul-del-golfo/

http://noticiasdeabajo.wordpress.com/2011/01/30/sobre-la-utilizacion-de-bacterias-con-genoma-sintetico-en-el-golfo-de-mexico/

http://www.somosbacteriasyvirus.com/

http://www.somosbacteriasyvirus.com/bacterias.html

http://www.somosbacteriasyvirus.com/virus.html

http://blueplague.org / http://worldvisionportal.org

Related Tags: Bacteria, Bacteriophages, Gulf, Gulf of Mexico, Microbiolology, Synthetic Genome, Viruses
Previous Topic: Voices from the Shattered Gulf Radio Special
Next Topic: Gulf BioTerrorism: A Silent & Deadly Enemy Among Us (PART I)
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29 - An Attack’s Anatomy : On Israeli Terror

Roy Tov
In On Suma Qhana and a Bad Pastor I described how Israel accessed my place of refuge as a preparation for an attack. Suma Qhana and the Quispe Brothers were the main operational tools enabling it. On the morning of July 23, 2009, I was forced to leave the church building where I was living very early, a few minutes before 7 AM. The noise was impossible and I knew that complaining to the brothers would be useless; I’d tried that too many times. I left the building and headed downwards, towards La Paz downtown.

I chose advancing through the Apumalla River. As most rivers crossing the city, it is covered up; this one passes near the church and is not paved. It provides a quick access by foot to downtown while being inaccessible to cars. Several roads cross it and twice in my way down suspicious 4x4 trucks crossed my way. They advanced too slowly, as if in a reconnaissance mission, and were out of place. At that hour I never met even one. I chose to advance faster and eventually reached the Santa Cruz and Illampu corner a few minutes later; this is where “El Lobo” – an Israeli owned restaurant which apparently doubles as a Mossad substation - is. Invigorated by the exercise, I decided to move downwards through the Santa Cruz, that was the fastest way to reach downtown and get some distance from El Lobo and the suspicious trucks.

Somewhat down that street, four Israeli men were waiting. Probably following their expectations, I moved away from them as fast as possible, meaning I entered the Linares Alley. This is the center of the backpackers’ area in La Paz, featuring many souvenir stores half hidden in a maze of narrow alleys. Fearing they would follow me, I immediately turned left and began descending a steep and unnamed alley leading to Murillo Street and to what I thought would be safety. Halfway down, I heard some muffled steps behind me. I turned around exactly when a small, stocky Bolivian man reached me, bypassed me, and stopped about a yard ahead of me, blocking my escape route. “Roy” he said. That was impossible; I use a Spanish name with Bolivians. Feeling what was going on, I turned backward just in time to see one of the Israelis that I had seen instants before on the Santa Cruz Street. Another man was out of sight, and jumped on me from behind; his arm wrapped my throat. He had a solid piece of metal on the inner part of his elbow; he pressed it on the lower part of my neck. He pulled backwards and I fell, another man picked up my feet at that moment and pushed them away from me. That increased the pressure on my neck. I felt the neck making a funny noise and everything turned black.

I was awake. Nobody was near me. My backpack and all my documents have been taken away. I stood up. Nothing seemed broken, tough my neck felt funny. I headed down to Murillo Street. Unsurprisingly, there were two policemen waiting there. Crime in Bolivia pays dividends to the police; seldom a crime is committed without the police knowing or even helping it. This is not secret; it’s all over the Bolivian media. I approached them and shouted “I’ve been attacked.” Standing next to me, the policemen barely herd the weak whisper that came out of my broken throat. I repeated that and pointed at the alley.

The two policemen began running into the alley. I wasn’t sure if they wanted to see the crime scene or if they were running away from me. In any case I followed them. We stopped at the attack spot – on the upper side of the picture appearing in this page. There I explained them what did happen. They run upwards and I followed. We reached the Linares Alley. It was deserted. From there we walked to Santa Cruz Street and took a look. One of the policemen began speaking with me, while the second one entered the Jimenez Alley. Seconds later, the second came out holding in his hand one of my obsolete Bolivian ID documents; it was the only item that had survived the attack. Why would the attackers waste time in picking up this item among all my belongings is only one of the strange things of this attack. More was to come. The first policeman stopped a young man walking down the street. They knew each other; the policeman asked him if he saw anything. He denied and was released. Then he policemen told me “Go to the PTJ,” and then they were gone.

PTJ is the acronym for “Policia Tecnica Juridica,” the part of the Bolivian police dealing with crime. Downtown La Paz is small; most official institutions are close to each other. I headed to the national headquarters; they provide services on a 24/7 basis. Minutes later I was there and approached the denounces counter, I knew it since I had visited it after an earlier attack. It was empty. I stood there until a police officer appeared. “It’s closed, come back at 9 AM,” he told me. It was impossible. I pointed at a couple making a denounce inside. “It’s closed, come back at 9 AM,” he repeated, seeming displeased at my observation.

There was nothing I could do. Back on the street I went to the nearby UTOP’s headquarter. “We deal only with riots, go to the Forensic Center.” The Forensic Center was closed. A police on a nearby street told me to go to the Transit Police Headquarters. “We don’t deal with that; you’ll find a tourist police officer at the San Francisco Church,” I was told at the transit. Eventually this policeman went with me to the nearby church. There were no signs of policemen there; it was too close to the crime scene and that may explain their absence. I went to the refugees’ office, which is near the transit police building. I entered and waited by the door. They weren’t expected to appear before 8:30 AM. Minutes later, the policeman keeping the building – he works there all time and knows me well – told me not to wait inside and took me out of the building.

With a torn shirt – several items were taken from my pockets and my clothes were in bad shape – and a painful throat I lamely stood next to the building until someone of the personnel arrived. The refugees’ lawyer was summoned immediately. “The Tourist Police is open round the clock, let’s go,” he told me. Minutes later I made a formal denounce there. The police officer there kept changing times and places. I needed to correct her every time; it was as if she was trying to render the denounce useless. Then we went to the PTJ, by now it was open and I made a second denounce. Also this officer used the same trick with hours and places. “Can you recognize the face of the Bolivian accomplice?” he asked. “Yes,” I said; the lawyer had told me I’ll be shown an album of criminals’ pictures. However, as soon as I confidently said “yes,” I was announced the event was over. Nobody wanted me to recognize the criminal.

>From there I reached the Forensic Center and coordinated a visit for the early afternoon; the physician also told me there was no problem in approaching the emergency room before the forensic test. Soon afterwards I was at the emergency room of a Catholic hospital which cooperates with the refugees’ office. I had no intentions of letting them perform intrusive tests or to let them inject we with drugs. Local hospitals are famous for causing infections that demand additional treatments (and create bonus incomes for the hospital). After a physician examined my throat, he wanted to give me cortisone to avoid the inflammation. I refused. They refused to let me go. “You’ll suffocate to death otherwise,” a nurse told me. They brought a new syringe and show me the cortisone ampoule. Eventually, after some thirty minutes, I began experiencing difficulties in my breathing and agreed to the injection.

In the early afternoon, I returned for the forensic examination. While waiting in the large inner yard of the building, R.G. appeared. He is the Bolivian intelligence officer described in The Cross of Bethlehem. In March 2007 he admitted “Israel asked to put an eye on you.” His son is one of the Bolivians working in a joint false-missionaries program with the CIA; Bolivian missionaries can enter where Americans cannot. I ignored him. Then, the physician told me my throat had been badly crashed. Later that year permanent damage to my throat was diagnosed; since then it is slowly and steadily deteriorating. I won’t describe here the subsequent contacts with official bodies here, but nobody doubts the Israelis and the local police carried out a joint crime; apparently the Bolivian intelligence had also had a profitable role. Thirty coins of tin for a Bolivian Judas.

It was Thursday. In the early evening there was a service at the church. I appeared with my torn shirt. “I want to speak,” I said to Wilson, the congregation’s president. “No,” he said. By then the cortisone began doing its job and - with pain – I could speak. The pastor walked to the pulpit and began praying; everybody knew what had happened to me. “Oh Lord, why did You abandon us…” began the pastor.

I didn’t let him finish. I walked toward the pulpit and stood next to him. Eventually he cut short his prayer, and, humiliated, left the pulpit. He was one of those that have sold me. “Thank you Lord for having let me pass another test,” I began. This sentence left the pastor with no air and he collapsed into his chair, he had been shown his attitude was no Christian. He now understood his error. “I have failed here; years I teach and preach the same message, and yet you do not comprehend that informing on a brother is a sin…” I continued. People cried; yet, they went on informing. In November, I left.

Meir Dagan slept well that night.

Please contribute to my cause by purchasing a copy of my book The Cross of Bethlehem, or anything from the Amazon links in this website.

Roy Tov is a refugee recognized under the 1951 Geneva Convention. Due to a recent attack by Israel, he was left with permanent damage in his throat. Israel attempted also to entrap him in several ways, even by using a prominent American politician. He is seeking resettlement under the 1967 Geneva Protocol or to be gracefully recognized by other country under the 1951 Convention. In any case that must be in a country with no diplomatic relations with Israel.

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30 - The American who Sparked Diplomatic Crisis over Lahore Shooting was CIA Spy

• Raymond Davis employed by CIA 'beyond shadow of doubt'
• Former soldier charged with murder over deaths of two men
• Davis accused of shooting one man twice in the back as he fled

By Declan Walsh in Lahore and Ewen MacAskill in Washington

February 20, 2011 "The Guardian" -- The American who shot dead two men on a Lahore street, triggering a diplomatic crisis between Pakistan and the United States, is a CIA agent who was on assignment at the time of the incident.

Raymond Davis has been the subject of widespread speculation since he opened fire with a semi-automatic Glock pistol on the two men who had pulled up alongside his car at a red light on 25 January.

Pakistani authorities charged him with murder, but the Obama administration has insisted he is an "administrative and technical official" attached to its Lahore consulate and is entitled to diplomatic immunity.

Based on interviews in the US and Pakistan, the Guardian can confirm that the 36-year-old former special forces soldier is employed by the CIA. "It's beyond a shadow of a doubt," said a senior Pakistani intelligence official.

The revelation may complicate American efforts to free Davis, who says he acted in self-defence when he opened fire on two men, both of whom were carrying guns.

Pakistani prosecutors, who say the men were petty criminals trying to rob him at gunpoint, accuse the spy of using excessive force, getting out of his car to shoot one of them twice in the back as he ran away. The man's body was discovered 30 feet from his motorbike.

"It went way beyond what we define as self-defence. It was not commensurate with the threat," a senior police official involved in the case told the Guardian.

The Pakistani government is aware of Davis's CIA status yet has kept quiet in the face of immense American pressure to free him under the Vienna convention. Last week President Barack Obama described Davis as "our diplomat" and dispatched his chief diplomatic troubleshooter, Senator John Kerry, to Islamabad. Kerry returned home empty-handed.

Many Pakistanis are outraged at the idea of an armed American rampaging through their second largest city; some analysts have warned of Egyptian-style protests if Davis is released. The government, fearful of a furious public backlash, says it needs until 14 March to decide whether Davis enjoys immunity.

Outrage has been heightened by the death of a third man who was crushed by an American vehicle as it rushed to Davis's aid. Pakistani officials believe the vehicle's occupants were also CIA because they came from the same suburban house where Davis lived and were heavily armed.

The US refused Pakistani demands to interrogate the two men and on Sunday a senior Pakistani intelligence official said they had left the country. "They have flown the coop, they are already in America," he said.

ABC News reported that the men had the same diplomatic visa as Davis. It is not unusual for US intelligence officers, like their counterparts round the world, to carry diplomatic passports.

The US has engaged in an edgy public relations offensive to free Davis, accusing Pakistan of illegally detaining him and riding roughshod over international treaties. Angry politicians have proposed slashing Islamabad's $1.5bn (about £900m) annual aid; the state department repeatedly describes him as "a member of the administrative and technical staff of the US embassy in Islamabad".

But Washington's case is hobbled by its resounding silence on Davis's background and role. Davis served in the US special forces for 10 years before leaving in 2003 to become a private security contractor. A senior Pakistani official said he believed Davis worked with Xe, the controversial firm formerly known as Blackwater, before joining the CIA.

Pakistani suspicions about Davis's role were stoked by the equipment police confiscated from his car after the shooting: an unlicensed pistol, a long-range radio, a GPS device, an infrared torch and a camera with pictures of buildings around Lahore.

"This is not the work of a diplomat. He was doing espionage and surveillance activities," said the Punjab law minister, Rana Sanaullah, adding that he had "confirmation" that Davis was a CIA employee.

A number of US media outlets later learned about Davis's CIA role but have kept it under wraps at the request of the Obama administration, which fears that disclosure could inflame opinion in Pakistan and possibly put Davis at risk.

A Colorado television station, 9NEWS, initially made a connection after speaking to Davis's wife, who lives outside Denver. She referred its inquiries to a number in Washington which turned out to be the CIA. The station subsequently removed the CIA reference from its website at the request of the US government.

Nicole Vap, an executive producer, said: "Because of the safety concerns, we decided to amend the story. But it remains accurate."

The episode has badly damaged relations between the CIA and the ISI, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency. Some reports, quoting Pakistani intelligence officials, have suggested that the men Davis killed, Faizan Haider, 21, and Muhammad Faheem, 19, were ISI agents with orders to shadow Davis because he crossed an unspecified "red line".

A senior police official, however, confirmed American claims that the men were petty thieves – investigators found stolen mobile phones on their bodies, as well as small amounts of foreign currency and illegal weapons – but did not rule out an intelligence link.

A senior ISI official denied the dead men worked for the spy agency but admitted the CIA relationship had been badly damaged. "Their tactics of using good cop, bad cop do not work. We are a sovereign country and if they want to work with us, they need to develop a trusting relationship on the basis of equality. Being arrogant and demanding is not the way to do it," he said.

Tensions between the spy agencies have grown in recent months. The CIA Islamabad station chief was forced to leave in December after being named in a civil lawsuit, and the ISI was angered when its chief, General Shuja Pasha, was named in a New York lawsuit related to the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

Although the two spy services co-operate in the CIA's drone campaign along the Afghan border, there has not been a drone strike since 23 January – the longest lull since June 2009. Experts are unsure whether both events are linked.

With the next hearing scheduled for 14 March, Davis awaits his fate in Kot Lakhpat jail in Lahore. Pakistani officials say they have taken exceptional measures to ensure his safety, including ringing the prison with paramilitary Punjab Rangers. The law minister, Sanaullah, said Davis was being kept in a "high security zone" and was receiving food from visitors from the US consulate.

Sanaullah said another 140 foreigners were in the same facility, many on drugs charges. Several press reports have speculated that the authorities worry the US could try to spring Davis in what one termed a "Hollywood-style sting".

"All measures for his security have been taken," said the ISI official. "He's as safe as can be."

See also - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfEJjXZjfL0&feature=player_embedded

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31 - Will The CIA Assassinate Its Own Agent ?
Zaid Hamid – Telephone Interview (Press TV ir) Raymond Davis

Pakistani defense analyst and security consultant Zaid Hamid says that there is evidence that confirms the links between the detained US undercover operative, Raymond Davis, with “CIA espionage and sabotage” as well as the “US drone attacks” in Pakistan.

Posted February 20, 2011

CIA May Shut Up By Killing Him: Lahore Jailers

By Islamabad Globe

February 20, 2011 ------ Pakistan has never arrested an American mercenary before, so there is a learning curve. Islamabad has increased the security around the US national “Raymond Davis”. Fearing that the high-profile prisoner may be killed the Pakistani Police, Intelligence, Civilian and Military authorities have taken a few extraordinary security measures to protect Davis. They have also planned to keep Davis at some distance from the U.S. officials visiting him. The ajil authorities decided to disallow physical contact between Davis and U.S. officials, who visit him. “Davis’ visitors would now be allowed to interact with him from across a glass wall, as it happens in the West and the United States. There is apprehensions about a possible attempt on “Davis” life. Some suspect that the Americans could take “Davis” out because he knows too much. The Russian Agencies have him identified as part of the CIA Task Force with deep links to the terrorists.

According to news reports emanating from Pakistan the new security measures include limiting physical contact between Davis and the U.S. officials and diplomats. According to officials a directive has been issued to strictly check the food provided to the American killer. Outside food will not be allowed to be given to the CIA mercenary. According to a new report “A food committee has been constituted, which would ensure that he is not provided poisoned food in the jail.” According to the pres reports “Even chocolates, brought by the U.S. officials, would not be provided to Davis.” Surveillance cameras had also been installed zeroing in on Davis in the Kot Lakhpat Jail.

“Davis”, despite being a lowly technical assistant, has the kind of importance that U.S. President Barack Obama had to ask for his early release and an influential Senator John Kerry rushed to Pakistan to try to take him back to the U.S.. It snot often that Pakistan arrests a diplomat, especially one carrying a customized Block Pistol which uses an illegal bore.

Police in Lahore arrested “Raymond Davis” after he shot dead two Pakistanis on Jan. 27. He shot the kids in the back (shooting them through the front windshield of his vehicle) and then got out of his vehicle walked over the injured cyclists and then pumped five bullets into each young man. Davis claimed that he killed them in self defense because they were trying to rob him. Davis was in his colossal bullet-proof SUV, they were on puny 70 cc motorbikes. How could they rob him?

The U.S. government demanded the urgent release of Davis with conflicting statements about his status. The case is still in the Lahore High Court which has placed Davis’ name in the exit control list. The court has directed the Pakistani government to decide within 15 days that whether Davis is a diplomat or not. The Court has also directed the Police to find the other murderer.

The key document governing diplomatic immunity is the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, specifically articles 29, 31, 37, and 39. :

Article 29: A diplomatic agent “shall not be liable to any form of arrest or detention.”

It is obvious that Mr. “Davis” was not a diplomat. Pakistan Law requires the diplomat be identified as such and that his name be submitted to the Pakistani Foreign Office which has the option of approving the diplomatic immunity or not. Mr. Davis’s name was not on the list of US diplomats on the day of the accident. The US Embassy tried to submit his name the next day

According to Brig (Retd) Shaukat Qadir “On January 25th 2011, just two days before Davis shot and killed the two young Pakistanis, the US Embassy submitted a list of its diplomatic and non-diplomatic staff in Pakistan to the Pakistani Foreign Office (FO), as all foreign nations are required to do annually. The list included 48 names. Raymond Davis was not on the list. The day after Davis shot and killed the two Pakistanis, the US Embassy suddenly submitted a “revised” list to the Foreign Office which added Davis’ name!

When Pakistani police took Davis into custody on January 27th, he had on his person an ordinary American passport with a valid ordinary Pakistan visa, issued by the Pakistan Embassy in Washington. On January 28th, a member of the US Consulate wanted the Pakistani police to exchange that passport in Davis’ possession with another one. The fresh passport being offered was a diplomatic passport with a valid diplomatic visa dated sometime in 2009. This visa was stamped in Islamabad by the FO!”

It gets ridiculously funnier. The prosecutor representing the Punjab government has presented two letters from the US Embassy as evidence before the Lahore High Court, forwarded to the Punjab government through the FO. The first letter, dated January 27, reads: “Davis is an employee of the US Consulate General Lahore and holder of a diplomatic passport.” The second, dated February 3rd, states that Davis is a member of the “administrative and technical staff of the US Embassy Islamabad!” Just how gullible do the Americans take Pakistanis to be!

The Washington Post admits that “The U.S. embassy complicated matters by first sending a diplomatic note to the Pakistani Foreign Ministry on Jan. 27 describing Davis as “an employee of U.S. Consulate General Lahore and holder of a diplomatic passport.” A second note, on Feb. 3, described him as “a member of the administrative and technical staff of the U.S. embassy.”The difference in the phrasing of Davis’s employment confirms that if his status had been accpeted “Davis” would have been covered by 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, and thus has a lesser form of immunity. Foreign Minsiter Mahmood Quresh clearly stated that “Davis” did not have blanket and universal immunity that the the US has claimed”

“But consular staff also enjoy immunity from the jurisdiction of the receiving state with respect to their consular functions.” Mr. “Davis” was not perfoming any Consular functions in Mozung Chungi.

Article 31:”A diplomatic agent shall enjoy immunity from the criminal jurisdiction of the receiving State,” with certain exceptions involving property and commercial activity.

Article 37: “Members of the administrative and technical staff of the mission, together with members of their families” will have the same privileges and immunities in articles 29 and 31 as long as they are not nationals or permanent residents of the country. The one exception is that they are not immune from civil suits for acts performed outside the course of their official duties.

Article 39: “Every person entitled to privileges and immunities shall enjoy them from the moment he enters the territory of the receiving State on proceeding to take up his post or, if already in its territory, from the moment when his appointment is notified to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs or such other ministry as may be agreed.”

The Notification is missing in the case of Mr. “Davis”.

Article 43 of that Convention states that “consular officers and consular employees shall not be amenable to the jurisdiction of the judicial or administrative authorities of the receiving State in respect of acts performed in the exercise of consular functions.” There are exceptions for some civil disputes, such as “damage arising from an accident in the receiving State caused by a vehicle, vessel or aircraft.”

–the key words are in respect of acts PERFORMED IN THE EXERCISE OF HIS CONSULAR FUNCTIONS.” Mr. “Davis” while he was shooting two kids in the back (through the front windshield of his SUV) with an illegal Block pitol was obviously not performing his Consular functions. In fact there are no identifiable Consular Functions which Mr. “Davis” performed at any time. He was visitng places which are no go areas and taking pictures of places which photography is prohibited.

Even the Washington Post admitted that “President Obama, however, may have pushed the envelope when he referred to Davis as “our diplomat.” Davis may have had diplomatic cover, but not many diplomats carry a Glock pistol — and then use it with lethal results. The circumstances of his employment — and the incident in Lahore — remain too murky to make a definitive judgment on the president’s statement at this point”

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27528.htm

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32 - Hitler - A Zionist Creation - Part One
by regular blog contributor, "Behind Blue Eyes"

"Before I start my critique I would like to state that the so-called Holocaust is a complete HOAX and has been used ever since to bleed Germany dry and as a justification for Zionist Israeli racism, genocide and atrocities etc.

"The Second World War is being fought for the defense of the fundamentals of Judaism." (Statement by Rabbi Felix Mendlesohn, Chicago Sentinel, October 8, 1942).

"World War II was a Zionist plot to make way for the foundation of the Jewish State in Palestine." (Joseph Burg, an anti-Zionist Jew).

Simon, after doing a lot of research into this area I have come to the conclusion that Hitler and The Nazi Party was a Zionist inspired set-up from day one.

The name itself gives the game away. Taken from this link -
http://www.somethingjewish.co.uk/judaism_guide/ashkenazi_jews/index.htm
'Ashkenazi Jews, also called Ashkenazim are Jews who are descendants of Jews from Germany, Poland, Austria and Eastern Europe.'

According to Wikipedia a Nasi was the highest-ranking member and president of the Sanhedrin and the Romans recognised the nasi as 'Patriarch of the Jews'.

The Treaty of Versailles was hijacked by Jewish international financiers to create the necessary economic, social, and political and conditions necessary for Hitler to exploit.

Lloyd George told the New York journal American of June 24th 1924:
“The international bankers dictated the Dawes reparations settlement. The protocol which was signed between the allies and associated powers and Germany is the triumph of the international financier. Agreement would never have been reached without the brusque and brutal intervention of the international bankers. They swept statesman, politicians, and journalists to one side, and issued their orders with the imperiousness of absolute Monarchs, who new there was no appeal from their ruthless decrees. The settlement is the joint ukase of King Dollar and King Sterling. The Dawes report was theirs. They inspired it and fashioned it. The Dawes report was fashioned by the Money Kings. The orders of German financiers [led by the Warburg Bank] to their political representatives were just as peremptory as those of allied bankers to their political representatives.”

Hitler was instructed by German Army Intelligence to spy on The German Workers Party. The head of German Army Intelligence was none other than Max Warburg brother of Paul Warburg, founder of The US Federal Reserve!!! The modus operandi of the Zionists has always been to infiltrate/and or set up groups and political organisations/parties of every description including anti-semitic:-

“It is essential that the sufferings of Jews. . . become worse. . . this will assist in realization of our plans. . .

I have an excellent idea. . . I shall induce anti-Semites to liquidate Jewish wealth. . .

The anti-Semites will assist us thereby in that they will strengthen the persecution and oppression of Jews.

The anti-Semites shall be our best friends.”
Theodor Herzl, Founder of Zionism in 1897.

"It is from us that the all engulfing terror proceeds. We have in our service persons of all opinions, of all doctrines, monarchists, demagogues, socialists, communists and utopian dreamers of every kind...striving to overthrow all established forms of order. All states are in torture... but we will not give them peace until they openly acknowledge our international Super government..."
Protocol 9

The Nazi party was set-up, financed and maintained by Jewish International Financiers. Montagu Norman, governor of the Rothschild-controlled Bank of England, and a close friend of Schacht.In fact they were so close that Schacht named his grandson after him. It was Norman who pressed for and supported the raising of the U.S. interest rates by the Federal Reserve, which was the final push that led to the Wall Street crash, the New Deal, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Norman was the most influential central banker in the world at that time and his actions, in league with Wall Street, were crucial.

Once Hitler was safely elected, the attitude of the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve to Germany was transformed. Credit was offered to the Nazi regime and after the Nazis successfully invaded Czechoslovakia; Norman released £6 million of Czechoslovakian gold to Hitler, which was deposited in London. This was done with the agreement of the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain.

On June 11th 1934, and again the following October, Norman and Schacht met in secret at Badenweiler in the Black Forest to arrange loans for Hitler and the Nazis. But who was behind Norman? His family almost turned the Bank of England into their personal property. One grandfather, George Warde Norman, was the governor from 1821-1872 and his other grandfather, Lord Collet, was governor from 1887-1889. Montagu Norman spent a period in the United States at the offices of the Rothschild-funded Brown Brothers (later Brown Brothers, Harriman) and was befriended by the family of W.A Delano, relatives of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the President of the United States at the same time that Norman was head of the Bank of England.

This all-powerful banker was actually a “yes man” for the Rothschild’s, and here again, we see the ploy at work. He was portrayed as anti-Jewish. For more information on this watch Banking With Hitler at -
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=YauM5dHLn1s

Alfred Rosenberg, an occultist with a Jewish, Estonian and French background made a copy of The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion available to Hitler. Why would a man with a Jewish background hand to Hitler the very ammunition that would lead to the attempt by his regime at the destruction of a grouping of people we know as the Jews?

When you accept the proven involvement of Jewish bankers and their political representatives to have been very involved in the funding of the Nazis re- armament, you have only two possible answers:

Either Zionists are not Jews or the Zionists wanted a mass persecution of there own people.

Both these answers are true. Many Zionists are not Jewish. Those that were knew that to further the rise and creation of the Zionist State in Palestine, they required an irrefutable need. The gathering Nazi hatred and blame towards the Jewish people for the ills of the world which led to the mass persecution, gave the Zionist elite exactly that.

Ernst Hanfstaengl, a close friend of Franklin Roosevelt, was also a close associate of Hitler before the war, says he was warned by the Austrian writer, Rudolf Kommer that, “if any political party emerges with an Anti-Semitic programme directed by Jewish or half Jewish fanatics, we shall have to watch out”.

Hanfstaengl wrote that later, after experiencing the influence that Alfred Rosenberg had on Hitler, he began to realise what that remark really meant:

"I thought back to Rudolph Kommer’s remark about an Anti-Semitic programme directed by Jewish or half – Jewish fanatics – Rosenberg was distinctly Jewish in appearance, although he would have been the first to protest furiously if anyone had questioned his ancestry. Yet I used to see him most mornings sitting in a dingy café at the corner of Briennerstrasse and Augustenstrasse with a Hungarian Jew named Holoschi, who was one of his principle assistants. The man called himself Hollander in Germany and was another of these Jewish Anti-Semites…I suspected the Aryan background of many of the others, Strasser and Streicher looked Jewish to me as well as figures like Ley, Frank and even Goebbels, who would have difficulty in proving their pedigree.”

So the creation of hatred towards the Jewish race, then the grotesque treatment that followed Hitler’s decrees, was hyped to enormous proportions to justify the takeover of Palestine for a Jewish Homeland. No one used this method more than Lord Victor Rothschild in his House of Lords speeches urging support for a Jewish State in Palestine. You can see the play by the elite clearly here. To add further to this, Hitler’s book Mein Kampf, was ghost written by Major General Karl Haushofer, who acknowledged that a major source for the ‘ideas’ it expressed came from Halford J. MacKinder, a director of the elite’s London School of Economics.

In 1996, official German documents uncovered by an American student also proved that many of Hitler’s leading officers and thousands of his troops were of Jewish decent. You can now understand why Britain appeased Hitler. The elite had to make sure the re-armament of Germany went un-headed. Only when Hitler’s war machine was ready would the stance of Britain change.

For a lot more information read -

Hitler's Jewish Soldiers -
http://just-another-inside-job.blogspot.com/2007/04/150-000-jews-in-hitlers-army.html

The Final Solution to Adolf Hitler -
http://just-another-inside-job.blogspot.com/2007/06/final-solution-to-adolf-hitler.html

Adolf Hitler Founder of Israel -
http://sos-at.blogspot.com/2006/02/adolf-hitler-founder-of-israel.html

Nazi medal commemorating Zionist collaboration with Hitler -
http://just-another-inside-job.blogspot.com/2007/04/nazi-medal-commemorating-zionist.html

Nazis were Zionists -
http://sos-at.blogspot.com/2007/11/nazis-were-zionists.html

Was Hitler a Rothschild? -
http://geocities.com/cliff_shack/HitlersSecretGrandfather.html

Zionism and the Third Reich -
http://just-another-inside-job.blogspot.com/2007/05/zionism-and-third-reich.html

Hitler - A Zionist Creation - Part Two
"Blue Eyes" laid out a very convincing case for Hitler being a Zionist political creation in Hitler - A Zionist Creation - Part One. In response to my question in the comments, to what degree Hitler was aware of his puppet status, "Blue Eyes" develops the argument further :

"That is the really crucial question Simon. Was he a willing or unwilling pawn in this Zionist engineered heinous conflict?

David Icke has written a fantastic article entitled Was Hitler a Rothschild? -
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/esp_sociopol_rothschild04.htm

Hitler like many leaders of today was surrounded by a Zionist cabal - Heydrich, Goebbels, Rosenberg, Streicher and Eichmann.

Taken from Christopher Jon Bjerknes -
'The Nazis opposed the gold standard. The Nazis opposed the Capitalists and the unregulated private control of land and of loan capital. The Nazis took the Capitalists' money, but the intent of sincere Nazis was always to use this money to drive Jewish Capitalism from the European Continent forever.

And there were sincere Nazis, Hitler, Goebbels, Heydrich, Eichmann and other Bolshevik Zionists not among them.

So why did the Nazis, under Hitler's leadership, and through Gottfried Feder's tutelage, oppose the Jews' gold standard; and why did FDR, an agent of Jewish Communism, seize gold for the Jews; if Hitler was working for the Jews, and paper money unencumbered with debt is bad for the Jews?

The Jews wanted a prolonged and devastating Second World War, which would eclipse the carnage and destruction of WW I. There was not nearly enough gold in existence to provide the loan capital needed to finance the war machine required in Germany and America to fund the wartime economies of those nations. So the Jews taught Hitler, through Feder, how to make his own money, how to circulate it, and how to engage in international trade without throwing out all of Germany's growth into the slop bucket of Jewish usury, nor let the Jews intervene in international trade and harvest the wealth of German production as middlemen.

In this way, the Jews, who also poured money directly into Germany, financed Hitler in order to ultimately destroy Germany, and much of Europe, through Jewish manufactured war. They had done the same with their agent Napoleon Bonaparte, who considered himself to be the Jews' messiah, who tried to take Palestine for the Jews, who emancipated the Jews, and who was rewarded by the Jews with prison as punishment for promoting good Gentile-Jewish relations, which led to Jewish assimilation--the Jews most hated enemy.

The Zionists were afraid that the "Jewish race" was disappearing through assimilation. They wanted to use anti-Semitism to force the segregation of Jews from Gentiles and to unite Jews, and thereby preserve the "Jewish race". They hoped that if they put a Hitler-type into power—as Zionists had done in the past, they could use him to herd up the Jews of Europe and force these Jews into Palestine against their will. This would also help the Zionists to inspire distrust of, and contempt for, Gentile government, while giving the Zionists the moral high-ground in international affairs, despite the fact that the Zionists were secretly behind the atrocities.'

Hitler in pre-WWI Austria got heavily into The Occult and became a friend of the Jewish Lanz von Liebensfels author of the anti-Jewish magazine "Ostara" and founder of a secret society called "The Order of The New Templars."

He also became an admirer of the works of Jewish Occultist Helen Blatavsky and The Theosophical Society. Interestingly enough their symbol has on it a Swastika, Star of David and serpent! This can be found at:-
http://www.ts-adyar.org/emb_logo.gif

More information on Occult aspects of Hitler:-

Hitler and the Secret Societies -
http://www.illuminati-news.com/hitler-occult.htm

Satanism of Hitler -
http://www.cephas-library.com/nwo_satanism_of_hitler.html

Under the 1935 Nuremberg Laws, only two flags were permitted in Nazi Germany. One was the swastika. The other was the blue and white banner of Zionism. The Zionist party was the only other political party in Nazi Germany that enjoyed a measure of freedom, and could publish a newspaper.

Zionists had a record of cooperation with the Nazis in the 1930's. They had a trade plan by which German Jews could redeem their property in Nazi goods exported to Palestine. Adoph Eichmann also helped them set up training camps in Europe and even visited Palestine as their guest. In 1935 the steamer "Tel Aviv" made its maiden voyage from Nazi Germany to Haifa with Hebrew letters on its bow and a Nazi flag fluttering from its mast. The Captain of the Zionist-owned ship was a member of the Nazi Party. A passenger described the spectacle as a "metaphysical absurdity."

Actually it made perfect sense.

The ship transported German Jews who had taken advantage of the "Haavara" program, which allowed them to exchange their money for its value in Germany products in Palestine. As a result, the fledgling Jewish colony received about 70,000 highly educated German Jews and 140 million Reichmarks worth of German industrial equipment. This laid the foundation of Israel's infrastructure.

Zionists, welcomed the Nazis' anti Semitic policies. Like the Nazis, they believed in race-based national character and destiny. Like the Nazis, they believed Jews had no future in Germany. The co-operation extended to political and economic spheres. Adolph Eichmann set up agricultural training camps in Austria to prepare young Jews for Kibbutz life. He visited Palestine and conferred with Zionist leaders who confessed their true expansionist goals Think about it. Hitler could have just confiscated all the Jewish wealth. Instead he used the "Haavara Program" to help establish the State of Israel.

On Nov. 25, 1940, a boat carrying Jewish refugees from Nazi Europe, the "Patra," exploded and sank off the coast of Palestine killing 252 people.

The Zionist "Haganah" claimed the passengers committed suicide to protest British refusal to let them land. Years later, it admitted that rather than let the passengers go to Mauritius it blew up the vessel.

"Sometimes it is necessary to sacrifice the few in order to save the many," Moshe Sharett, a former Israeli Prime Minister said at memorial service in 1958.

Jack Bernstein in his book 'An American Jew in Racist Marxist Israel stated -

“The Ashkenazi Jews, who migrated to Israel from Germany, while sympathetic to Communism and support it, tend to favour the practises of Nazi-style fascism. During World War II in Germany these elite Zionist Ashkenazi Jews worked closely with Hitler’s Gestapo in persecuting the lower class German Jews and delivering them to concentration camps. Now living in Israel, these elite Zionist Jews, who were well trained in Nazi-style fascism and favour it, have imposed many facets of fascism on Israel.

To give the impression that Israel is a democracy, members of the Knesset (Israel’s Congress) are elected – but it’s an odd kind of election. This is where Israel’s so-called democracy stops. It doesn’t make any difference which party wins an election, the Likud or Labour Party, the elite Zionist Jews rule in a dictatorial manner – giving favours to the elite clique and brutally suppressing any dissent.

Concerning Nazism/Fascism please let me clear a point. Germans are an admirable people – I dare say even great. But in Germany, the general population were victims of the Nazis who through cunning and brutality gained power. [Just as I have stated throughout this work and what is happening now in this nation and around the world] .

In Germany, the average Jews were victims of the Zionist elite who worked hand in hand with the Nazis. Many of those same Zionist Jews, who, in Germany, had worked with the Nazis, came to Israel and joined hands with the Zionist /Communist Jews from Poland and Russia. It is the two faces of communism and Nazi-style fascism that rule Israel. Democracy is merely an illusion."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

33 - DID MOSSAD ASSASSINATE ANNA LINDH ? Christopher Bollyn - American Free Press 26 Sept. 2003

Sweden’s popular foreign minister Anna Lindh is the third high-ranking Swedish political opponent of Zionism to have been murdered since 1948, which raises the question: Was Lindh assassinated because of her outspoken opposition to Israel’s occupation of Palestine?

When Sweden’s foreign minister Anna Lindh was brutally stabbed by an unknown assailant while shopping in an upscale Stockholm department store, it marked the third murder in 55 years of a high-level Swedish opponent of Zionist aggression in Palestine.

While the controlled press was quick to point out an unidentified suspect, later released, with alleged ties to “neo-Nazis,” it has virtually ignored the historical precedents that suggest that the killing of Lindh may have been an assassination aimed at silencing an influential political opponent of the Zionist extremists who control the Israeli government and wield great influence in Washington.

Anna Lindh’s Sweden “has had more of an impact on Palestinian history than closer or greater powers throughout the world,” Hanan Ashrawi, the Palestinian professor and negotiator, wrote after the murder.

The death of Lindh and the late UN representative in Baghdad, Sergio Vieira de Mello, represents the loss of “two voices who called with determination for salvaging the UN’s role in Iraq and for implementing its resolutions in Palestine,” Bouthaina Shaaban, a minister in the new Syrian government, wrote in The Daily Star (Lebanon).

Shaaban noted that Lindh had:-

· Called upon the European Union, on April 3, 2002, to sever ties with Israel in protest against Israeli practices;
· Called on US President George W. Bush to deny Sharon unconditional support, as this would inflame the Middle East;
· Stressed that the only solution in the Middle East rested in ending the Israeli occupation (otherwise everybody would become a hostage to the conflict);
· Played an important role in shaping the EU’s decision to adopt a policy toward Palestinian President Yasser Arafat different from that of the U.S.;
· Confirmed the importance of Arafat as a partner in the peace process, rejecting Washington’s claims that he supported terrorism;
· Stood firmly against the war on Iraq;
· And warned of the dangers of changing another country’s regime without the support of international law.

Regarding weapons of mass destruction, Lindh called for the creation of a Middle East free of such weapons, including Israel. Lindh strongly opposed the Anglo-American aggression and occupation of Iraq.

A GLOBAL LOSS

Sweden’s effect on the Middle East “has been consistently constructive, positive, and human with a deep-seated tradition of fairness, justice, and peaceful intervention,” Ashrawi wrote, “Unfortunately, three such Swedish champions had met with violent and untimely deaths, each a tragedy unto itself, but a national and global loss in the larger scheme of things.”

On the ill-fated day Lindh had gone with a friend to Nordiska Kompaniet (NK) a few blocks from the parliament building on Sept. 10 to buy an outfit for an upcoming televised debate on the European common currency, the Euro. Lindh’s image had appeared on posters in Sweden for the “yes” campaign she supported.

Although there was no recognizable leader for the “no” side, opinion polls before the Sept. 14 referendum showed 53 percent of Swedish women remained opposed to the Euro, with only 29 percent in favor.

When Lindh died on Thursday, Sept. 11, after more than 6 hours of surgery, Sweden’s prime minister called off campaigning for the Sunday referendum on the Euro. With the “no” vote strongly ahead of the “yes” vote there was some speculation and wishful thinking that Lindh’s murder would boost the “yes” side.

SWEDEN REJECTS EURO

The Euro referendum went ahead and with more than 80 percent of the Swedish electorate having cast ballots, the “no” side won by a large margin of 14 percent: 56 percent opposed and 42 percent in favor.

The un-elected president of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, clearly at a loss for words in an interview with CNN after the vote, pooh-poohed the very idea of using a referendum to decide whether a nation should adopt the Euro. The Swedish results, Prodi said, were “worse than I expected.”

Charles Hodgson of CNN reminded Prodi that in every nation where the people had decided on the Euro in a referendum, it had been rejected.

Sweden’s rejection of the Euro, however, clearly does not bode well for the Euro in other European nations that have retained their fiscal sovereignty, primarily Great

Britain and Denmark, where similar referenda will be held in the future.

MURDER IN BROAD DAYLIGHT

Lindh was shopping without bodyguards at the upscale NK department store, when she was savagely stabbed in the stomach, chest and arm, just before 4 p.m.

Hanna Sundberg, an eyewitness, told The Associated Press that she saw a man chase Lindh up an escalator from the ground floor to the first upper level into a store called Filippa K.

"She fell on the floor and the man was stabbing her in the stomach," she said. "She laid on the floor and it looked as if a tall man, wearing a peaked cap, was hitting her," she told AP. "But when he ran away, he threw away a knife."

Sundberg ran to Lindh, who said: "God, he has stabbed me in the stomach!"

Another witness, Anna Lekander, who had been in the boutique, where there were “only a handful of shoppers at the time,” said she had not noticed that Lindh was there as well.

Lekander said nothing about a man chasing Lindh up the escalator.

Lekander told the BBC that she had learned from others who were present that Lindh had entered the shop together with a friend, seemingly with "no bodyguards or anything.”

Soon after leaving the shop, Lekander heard people shouting from inside, "Catch him, catch him”.

"It happened very quickly, I could see people running and I went back into the shop," Lekander said.

"I could see a person lying on the floor, but I didn't know it was her,” Lekander said. "There was blood everywhere.”

The attacker fled down the escalator and was able to flee without any resistance from security guards. Police were reported to be searching for a man wearing a camouflage jacket.

Lindh was initially reported to be serious condition but her injuries were said not to be “life-threatening” as she underwent six hours of surgery at the Karolinska Hospital. Doctors said she suffered extensive damage to her liver and had internal bleeding.

A company named Hufvudstaden owns NK, a 100-year-old department store founded by Josef E. Sachs. AFP asked Michael Lorenz, owner of Duty Security, which provides security for NK, about the number and location of guards at the time Lindh was murdered. Lorenz would not say how many guards were on duty or what kind of security detail his firm provided at the exits of NK.

Lorenz also refused to answer questions about how an assailant could attack a prominent Swedish politician in broad daylight in a department store with numerous closed-circuit video cameras and security guards and flee without encountering any resistance or security personnel in pursuit.

PALESTINIAN SUPPORTER

Ylva Anna Maria Lindh was a rising star in Sweden’s ruling Social Democrat Party (SDP). At age 46, Lindh was an intelligent and articulate politician with more than 20 years experience in government. An outspoken and attractive foreign minister, Lindh was expected to be Sweden’s next prime minister. She has two young sons, 8 and 13.

As Sweden’s foreign minister since 1998, Lindh’s “main objectives were to encourage dialogue between the rich and the poor worlds, and to support the independence of the Palestinian and Kurdish peoples,” according to Olle Svenning, London correspondent of the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet and personal friend of Lindh.

Lindh was an outspoken critic of Israel’s prime minister Ariel Sharon and his brutal policies affecting the millions of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation: "Our stand is firm and clear,” the foreign minister said in an October 2001 interview :-

· "Israeli settlements on the West Bank must go;
· there must be a Palestinian state;
· Israel must vacate occupied areas on the West Bank and Gaza Strip; and
· end all extra-territorial executions and attacks on Palestinians.
· This should be done immediately.”

Asked if she expected anything from a dialogue with the Israeli government led by Sharon, whose “record of war crimes” was described as “being without parallel in post-War history,” Lindh replied, “I agree. It makes no sense to have a dialogue with Sharon’s government. There will be no talks with him from our side.”

In June 2002, the youth wing of Lindh’s Social Democrat Party pressed charges against Sharon of war crimes and violation of international law. At the time Lindh said she understood there was "both bitterness and anger because the Israeli government is guilty of violating international law."

"Sometimes the Israeli-Palestinian conflict makes me so angry that I kick the wastepaper bin in my office or throw things around," Lindh said. She had described Sharon as a “maniac” and said on Swedish television that she would not buy Israeli goods and fruits sold in Swedish markets.

At a meeting of European Union member states in April 2002, Lindh had called for the EU to cut relations with Israel to protest the repressive practices of Israeli occupation forces against the Palestinians.

A frequent critic of Sharon, Lindh said in May 2002 that her goal was that "Israeli citizens will turn against the military policies of Sharon."

“Israel's government,” she said, “has chosen a course of action that risks placing the country outside of the rest of the world community.”

Lindh criticized U.S. President George W. Bush for ignoring the Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, saying U.S. policies rewarded “Sharon's violence.”

“I am very worried about this American debate,” Lindh said on Swedish radio. “I think this discussion equating Arafat with terrorists is both inappropriate and stupid. It is a very dangerous policy.”

“It contradicts the entire peace process... and can only lead to outright war in the Middle East,” she said.

At a gathering of European foreign ministers in Riva del Garda, Italy, days before she was killed, Lindh had blamed the U.S. and Israel for the collapse of the “Roadmap” peace plan and resignation of Palestinian prime minister Mahmoud Abbas.

Lindh said Abbas had been given “the kiss of death” when the Bush Administration and Israel had decided to deal only with him and sideline Palestinian president Yasser Arafat.

“Of course Arafat's unwillingness to give Abu Mazen (Abbas) increased power was decisive, but Abu Mazen's position would have been much stronger if Israel had also contributed to the peace process," Lindh told Swedish radio at the meeting in Italy. Lindh said Israel had continued building illegal Jewish settlements, erecting a wall separating Israel and the Palestinian territories, and assassinating leaders of Hamas.

Lindh’s principled and unequivocal position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was like that of the late Swedish prime minister Olof Palme, who was assassinated in Stockholm in 1986, and Count Folke Bernadotte, the United Nation’s Mediator on Palestine, who was brutally murdered by a Zionist terror gang near Jerusalem in 1948.

The assassination of Bernadotte, “at the hands of the Israeli terrorist organization… began a lethal Swedish connection with Palestine,” Ashrawi wrote. “Palestine lost its first Swedish champion,” Ashrawi wrote, when Bernadotte “was brutally murdered, shot at point blank, by three Jewish Stern Gang members in Jerusalem.”

In 1986, then Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme was shot as he walked home from the cinema with his wife. As Ashrawi noted, Palme had sought recognition for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and a validation for the peaceful resolution of the conflict through ending the 1967 Israeli occupation of Palestinian and other Arab lands. Palme’s politics were based on international legality and UN resolutions, and “a deeply-felt commitment to fairness and human decency,” Ashrawi wrote.

Ulf Dahlsten, Palme's personal secretary in 1986, said that Lindh was the most important Swedish political figure since the late prime minister. In her speeches against the war in Iraq and in support of the Palestinians, Lindh was seen as Palme's natural heir. There have long been rumors in intelligence circles that Lindh was the daughter of Palme.

American Free Press asked Ninni Jonzon, news editor of Göteborgs-Posten, if there was any discussion in the Swedish media comparing Lindh’s murder with the political assassination of Bernadotte, or the unsolved murder of Palme. “Absolutely not,” Jonzon said. Asked why, she replied, “I don’t know.”

ASSASSINATION OF BERNADOTTE

As UN mediator, Bernadotte had the mandate to "promote a peaceful adjustment of the future situation in Palestine" and to mediate beyond the terms of the Nov. 29, 1947 Partition Plan, in which the U.N. General Assembly had voted to partition Palestine into Arab and Jewish states.

The Partition Plan, which gave the Zionists more than half of Palestine, led to war between Arab and Zionist forces after Israel proclaimed its establishment on May 14, 1948. Bernadotte's first action had been to arrange a truce, which lasted from June 11 to July 9.

Bernadotte put forward a proposal for solving the conflict, which suggested that Jerusalem be placed under Jordanian rule, since all the area around the city was designated for the Palestinian Arab state.

The U.N. partition plan had declared Jerusalem an international city that was to be ruled by neither Arab nor Jew. But Jewish terrorist groups, headed by the Polish immigrants Yitzhak Shamir and Menachem Begin, who both later served as Israeli prime ministers, rejected partition and claimed all of Palestine and Jordan for the Jewish state. These Jewish extremists saw Bernadotte as an enemy - an obstacle to their agenda - that had to be removed.

While no one was ever charged for the murders of Palme or Bernadotte, three Zionist terrorists have been named in Israeli and western documents as being behind the planning and murder of Bernadotte. Chief among them is Yitzhak Shamir (born Yezernitsky), who headed a Zionist terrorist organization during the British occupation of Palestine known as LEHI, or the Stern Gang.

New York Times columnist C.L. Sulzberger reported meeting two of Shamir’s Stern Gang members on July 24, 1948. The Stern Gang terrorists said: "We intend to kill Bernadotte and any other uniformed United Nations observers who come to Jerusalem." Asked why, "They replied that their organization was determined to seize all of Jerusalem for the state of Israel and would brook no interference by any national or international body."

Shamir, also reportedly sent two agents to Egypt to assassinate the British minister Lord Moyne, “because he was an enemy of the Jews and the Zionists.”

Shamir, however, never faced justice for the murder of Bernadotte and went on to serve as Paris bureau chief the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad (1955–65), member of the Israeli parliament (1973–96), and as prime minister of Israel (1983–84 and 1986–92).

According to Michael Collins Piper, author of Final Judgment, Shamir is also suspected of having played a key role in the assassination of U.S. president John F. Kennedy by arranging a French-based hit squad of assassins that killed the president, a foe of Israel's Ben Gurion and strong opponent of Israel's nuclear ambitions.

Finis

Courtesy Raja Mattar and Rumor Mill News

COPIED FROM: about "Mysterious Deaths" at
www.gnosticliberationfront.com/my...nna

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