News Middle East : US forces pull out of Iraqi cities

from : al jazeera

US forces pull out of Iraqi cities

Tuesday's explosion at a Kirkuk market underlines the security challenges facing Iraq [AFP] Iraqi forces have assumed formal control of the capital, Baghdad, and other cities, six years after US-led coalition forces invaded Iraq. But as Iraq marked the occasion by celebrating Tuesday as Sovereignty Day, a car bomb killed up to 40 people and wounded 100 others in the northern city of Kirkuk, serving a grim reminder to the security challenges that Iraqis face following US troop pullout. US troops withdrew from the country's major cities and towns as the midnight deadline passed on Tuesday, leaving security in the hands of Iraqi forces. "The withdrawal of American troops is completed now from all cities, after everything they sacrificed for the sake of security," Sadiq al-Rikabi, a senior adviser to Nuri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, said. He told the Associated Press news agency that Iraq is "now celebrating the restoration of sovereignty". Al-Maliki described the US withdrawal as a "turning point" for the country and declared Tuesday a public holiday. 'Sense of anxiety' But Al Jazeera's Hoda-Abdel Hamid, reporting from Iraq, said: "[Despite] the impression of a withdrawal and a return to sovereignty... there is a sense of anxiety in the air. "Security measures are tighter and some streets sealed off. "People here are extremely nervous ... they're trying to figure out if more roadside bombs are planted." But Mahmoud Almusafir, a former Iraqi diplomat, told Al Jazeera: "For me and all the Iraqis, this is the day the Americans confessed that they can't go more in Iraq, and they can't control the cities, they can't control Iraq. "This is ... [US] face-saving, telling the people of the world that we are not killing Iraqis anymore and letting the government have a proxy war on their behalf." Asked whether he feared Iraqis will start killing other Iraqis after the withdrawal, he replied: "This is American propaganda. They try to sell it to the world and unfortunately the world bought it. "There are no Iraqis killing Iraqis. Iraqis - Sunnis, Shias ... have lived together for hundreds of years. 'Too insulted' "The problem is American propaganda started at the beginning to control the city and this divided everyone ... unfortunately the politicians implemented this policy - the politicians who came with the Americans in 2003." US troops levels in Iraq 2003: 175,000 - original invasion force 2004: 108,000 - US starts withdrawal 2007: 168,000 - increase in violence 2009: 131,000 - troop levels trimmed Early 2010: 128,000 August 2010: 35,000 - 50,000 2011: Complete withdrawal Fireworks continued to light up the sky over Baghdad into the early hours on Tuesday, after thousands of Iraqis, an unprecedented number for a public post-war event, attended a party in a park where singers performed patriotic songs. "All of us are happy - Shias, Sunnis and Kurds on this day ... the Americans harmed and insulted us too much," Waleed al-Bahadili, an Iraqi attending the celebrations, told the AFP news agency. Many Iraqis ignored an appeal by Tariq al-Hashemi, the Iraqi vice-president, to stay away from crowded places during the US pullback, after more than 250 people were killed in bombings over the past 10 days. Scattered bases Motorcycles have been banned indefinitely in Baghdad after they were used last week in three separate attacks, killing more than 100 people. Despite the formal pullback, some US troops will remain in cities to train and advise Iraqi forces. US forces are also ready to return if asked. The US military is to continue combat operations in rural areas and near the border with the permission of the Iraqi government. The US has not said how many troops will be in the cities in advisory roles, but the vast majority of the more than 130,000 US troops forces remaining in the country will be in large bases scattered outside cities.

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website.

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Secret Government in the United States

from : www.911insidejob.net

Editorial on Secret Government
By: 911inidejob.net Webmaster
Sources Are on My Website Which Has Google Search Function

Since the creation of the CIA by Congress in 1947, the CIA grew quickly into a very powerful secret element of this government. At the end of his two terms as president, President Eisenhower warned against the increasing power of the military-industrial complex.

What President Eisenhower failed to warn against was the insidious, well hidden power of the private central bankers of the world, namely the Federal Reserve Bank and the Bank of England. Neither the Federal Reserve Bank nor the Bank of England are departments of the federal government. Each is a cartel of private banks. In fact, to the best of my knowledge, about 75% of the Federal Reserve Bank is owned by the Bank of England.

These central bankers convinced the political powers in each country to allow a private central bank to print the money for the country and then lend it back to the country at interest. If they were not able to be convinced that this was beneficial to the country, then the bankers paid those politicians whatever their “price” was to go along with this scam.

The Bank of England sent their lobbyists to the United States Congress in the early 20th century to lobby for the third reincarnation of a private central bank in this country. The previous two private central banks in the United States had been disbanded as a result of members of Congress and various United States presidents realizing the evil of allowing a private bank to control the supply of a country’s money. The United States Constitution gives the power to print money only to Congress. Some of these well-known United States politicians who realized the evil of a private central bank were Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy.

President Kennedy had passed an Executive Order six months before his assassination. This Executive Order called for the federal government to start printing money based on the silver standard. This would have been the beginning of the end of the Federal Reserve Bank. Benjamin Franklin was very clear that one of the principal reasons for the American Revolution was King George’s insistence that the colonists use the Bank of England currency. Benjamin Franklin was very clear that this would just place the colonists in debt to the Bank of England. Of course, the history books do not tell us this reason for the American Revolution.

The Bank of England reached an agreement with Woodrow Wilson so that the President of Princeton could be elected president of the United States. The agreement was that the Bank of England paid for his campaign and in return he would allow the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank. Woodrow Wilson allowed the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank and then sanctioned the passing of the federal income tax amendment so that “we the people” would pay the interest charged by the Federal Reserve Bank for printing without any constitutional power the currency of this country.

The Income Tax Amendment to the United States Constitution was illegally and improperly signed into law by the United States Congress without the necessary number of states ratifying this Amendment. The United States Supreme Court ruled that this amendment gave no additional taxing power to the federal government. Despite this Supreme Court ruling, which has not been overturned, the IRS and most people in this country act as if the federal income tax is legal and enforceable.

After Woodrow Wilson left office, he was quoted as saying that he had done the worst thing that he could have done to his country by allowing the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank. Henry Ford has been quoted as saying that, if the people knew what the Federal Reserve Bank was doing relative to printing money and lending it to this government at interest, then the people would be revolting in the streets the next day.

Bill Moyers Secret Government documentary which aired on PBS in 1987 warned of this "secret government". I have not watched this video in a good while but my memory tells me that Bill Moyers did not touch upon how the Federal Reserve Bank has the final say in what the military industrial complex does. Since the Federal Reserve Bank controls the supply of money and the interest rate, it then controls the ability of the military industrial complex to manufacture weapons of mass destruction. Moreover, the United States government could not afford the huge military budget which facilitates the domination of those countries whose resources are needed by this complex without the Federal Reserve Bank creating the money from nothing and then lending it to the United States government so that they can purchase weapons from the military-industrial complex.

So getting back to President Eisenhower. I question how he could not have known about the insidious power of the Federal Reserve Bank while he was president. So many former United States Presidents had known about this and warned about this. It was under President Eisenhower’s watch that the CIA overthrew the government of Iran.

However, I do not think President Eisenhower would have guessed that in the few years after leaving office that the CIA would move its operations onto United States soil and kill President Kennedy. He was clearly warning that the military-industrial complex was gaining too much power.

He surely knew the potential for the CIA to go on to overthrow by political means including assassination many government leaders in various countries. This of course was explained as necessary in the Cold War. In reality, the CIA supported the military industrial complex in its plan to steal the resources of what we refer to as "Third World countries". They are third world countries because the "economic hit Men" manipulated them into irreversible economic hardship for the benefit of the military-industrial complex.

Let’s jump ahead in time to the establishment of the neoconservative think tank known as the Project for New American Century. The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) is an American neoconservative think tank based in Washington, D.C., co-founded in early 1997 as a non-profit educational organization by William Kristol and Robert Kagan. The PNAC's stated goal is "to promote American global leadership. Fundamental to the PNAC are the views that "American leadership is both good for America and good for the world" and support for "a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity.

If a group of people made a public statement saying that having a new Pearl Harbor would be the only way the public would support their agenda, and these same people were in positions that would allow them to conduct, permit or enable such an event when that event actually took place...would they deserve your suspicion? Well this is EXACTLY what happened. The very people with established motives for conducting an event like the one that took place on 9/11/2001 were responsible for national security when we had that most unlikely, unrealistic and implausible complete catastrophic failure of every single defense procedure in operation. Yet Americans look to these people for protection now.

The US military was running as many as 15 defense drills that day. Some of these drills were live fly hijacking simulations. Some of the drills were practicing for the possibility of having planes fly into government buildings. Could it be that someone decided that these drills would go live! Why have the corporate news media refused to report the drills to the public? Could it be because you would start asking REAL questions about that day? Well, it is time that you start asking questions because you may just be supporting the real terrorists!

After hundreds of hours of research, it is my opinion that 9/11 was an inside job planned and orchestrated by elements of the United States government with probably the assistance Mossad, the Israeli secret service. I will not get into all of the reasons for my opinion but you can find these reasons in the form of many articles and videos on my website which is www.911insidejob.net.

This false flag attack was the linchpin that allowed this neoconservative government to implement PNAC’s world domination and New World Order agenda. It has allowed this government to decimate the United States Bill Of Rights and to illegally attack Afghanistan and Iraq resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people.

This false flag attack has allowed the neoconservative executive branch to start the “fake war on terror” in order to support its agenda of world domination by spending trillions of dollars for the military and for homeland security. This neoconservative executive branch was made up of at least 32 Israeli dual citizens, many of whom are members of PNAC. The anthrax attack on leading members of Congress in 2001 made it clear to members of Congress that if you “are not with us, then you are against us” and in addition, something detrimental will happen to you.

The military-industrial oil complex, which is funded by the private central banks of the world, the Federal Reserve Bank, the Bank of England, etc. has over the past eight years perpetrated an economic 9/11 on this country.

The Congress and White House together intentionally allowed the “mortgage and credit bubble” to expand exponentially over the past eight years. The White House stopped all “in progress” prosecutions of mortgage companies by State Attorney Generals, including Eliot Spitzer in New York. Eliot Spitzer wrote an editorial in the Washington Post newspaper several weeks before he was politically assassinated by the Bush administration. In this article, Attorney General Spitzer blew the whistle on the White House’s role in allowing the decimation of the US financial markets. The purpose of this intentional economic 9/11 is to destroy the US dollar, create a new North American currency and further the agenda of a one world government with one currency and one private central bank printing the money for the world. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Do you honestly think that the people behind this New World Order Agenda, who facilitated the stealing of the last two presidential elections, would actually allow a president to be elected who would stand in the way of their agenda. The 2004 election was stolen by electronic voting machine fraud and voter suppression. You will not hear this in the mainstream media but the strong, irrefutable evidence is clearly spelled out on my website.

It was a win-win situation in the 2008 presidential election for the military-industrial oil private central banking complex. Both McCain and Obama have signed on to PNAC’s world domination agenda and their “fake war on terror”. They both have also signed onto furthering the catastrophic impact of the economic 9/11 by supporting bailouts and the Federal Reserve Bank’s printing of trillions of more US dollars.

The printing of this debt-based money will devalue the dollar to almost nothing. The value of the dollar has decreased 95% since the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank. Obama Is supporting the devaluing of the dollar to zero. He has appointed a Federal Reserve Bank President and many of the other bankers who implemented this entire financial fraud knowing full well what the end result would be.

In other words, Obama is the front man for this secret cabal whose purpose is to create a New World Order. It is the perfect set up. Most people, even those who consider themselves to be very well-informed and politically astute, think that Obama will save us. No matter what I or any of those few people, who realize that Obama was put there to further the agenda of the New World Order say, we will be marginalized and thought to be pessimistic. People will say “I am going to give him a chance” or “anything is better than George Bush”.

In my opinion,Obama will be at the helm when martial law is declared as a result of the economic 9/11and people will accept his word that it was necessary. People will accept his word that Israel was compelled to attack Iran. People will accept his word that a new monetary currency is necessary since the US dollar is now defunct.

Unless we wake up now, it is my opinion that it is a done deal.

Go to www.911insidejob.net

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website.

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European Union's Lisbon Treaty fuels flames of dissent across continent

from : www.telegraph.co.uk/

By Nick Meo and Patrick Hennessy
Published: 8:30AM BST 28 Jun 2009

The Lisbon Treaty is expected to take a key step towards becoming law across the European Union this week when Germany's highest court rules that it is broadly compatible with the country's constitution.

By Nick Meo and Patrick Hennessy
Published: 8:30AM BST 28 Jun 2009

A group of hooded people burn flags of Spain and France at the end of one of the pro-independence rallies celebrated on occasion of Catalonia's Day Photo: EPA

The much-anticipated judgment will mean that only three out of the EU's 27 member states will still have to complete formal ratification of the treaty - Poland, the Czech Republic and Ireland.

The former two countries merely need their presidents' signatures on the legislation to finalise the process. Ireland, where voters rejected the Treaty last year, will stage a new referendum in October - with the government increasingly confident of a "Yes" vote this time round after the EU assured Ireland of its independence over taxation, security, defence, abortion, and workers' rights.

Politicians across Europe are now looking forward to a day when the controversial treaty gives the EU more streamlined institutions - with greater central power and, for the first time, a new "President of Europe" to represent all the member states around the world.

In Britain, the government has refused demands for a referendum - despite a pledge in Labour's 2005 general election manifesto to hold a public vote on the Lisbon Treaty's predecessor, the European Constitutional Treaty, which collapsed after being voted down in France and the Netherlands.

Recently, however, it has been the Conservatives who have faced difficulties on the treaty. Both David Cameron and William Hague, the Eurosceptic shadow foreign secretary, have publicly pledged that, even if the treaty completes its ratification process in October with an Irish "Yes" vote, they "will not let matters rest."

Kenneth Clarke, the pro-Brussels shadow business secretary, stirred up a hornets' nest by claiming that his party's "settled policy" was not to reopen the treaty once it became law. His comments led to Mr Cameron privately reassuring Tory backbenchers that the party was not softening its tough line on Europe, as revealed by The Sunday Telegraph last week.

Internal Tory troubles over Europe were also heightened last week when the party announced details of its new allies in a new "anti-federalist" group in the European parliament which sees the Tories sitting alongside politicians from a range of parties - mainly from Eastern Europe - some of which have uncomfortable views on homosexual rights and immigration.

The group represents eight countries - above the seven-nation threshold required to receive funding and staffing from the parliament.

The announcement was made on the same day as the election of the new Speaker of the House of Commons - attracting criticism that Mr Cameron was seeking to divert attention away from his new alliance in Strasbourg.

Last week a Finnish Euro-MP pulled out of the 55-strong grouping, which includes 26 Tories and is expected to be the fourth biggest alliance in the newly elected parliament, because some of its members were "too extreme."

Hannu Takkula told The Sunday Telegraph that his British colleagues were not the problem and added: "Some other groups have policies that are too extreme and policies that are too much against Europe."

Two of the parliamentary grouping's members used to belong to the far-right League of Polish Families, which supports capital punishment, and whose youth wing has been accused of attacking gay rights marches. Another MEP in the group, from Latvia, belongs to a party which supports an annual march commemorating former Latvian members of the Waffen-SS.

While the Tories ponder their uncomfortable new European bedfellows, leaders of some of Europe's separatist movements are celebrating the progress of the treaty towards full ratification. They are convinced that the more powerful the EU's own institutions become, the weaker the nation state - and the stronger the case for granting breakaway regions their independence.

The European Union has always had a strong hold over regional policy - including supplying funding - and regional leaders across the continent sense a fresh shift towards breakaways. Regions will have, for example, powers to challenge decisions at the European Court of Justice for the first time, rights which have so far been the preserve of national parliaments. Some 300 different regions already have offices in Brussels.

As well as these greater powers, the proliferation of even smaller states among some of the EU's newer members - including Slovakia and Slovenia - is encouraging those fighting for local independence elsewhere.

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website.

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USAID (CIA) admits it lavishes funding upon amenable Iranians

from : globalresearch

Ken Dilanian
Global Research
Fri, 26 Jun 2009 21:35 UTC

The Obama administration is moving forward with plans to fund groups that support Iranian dissidents, records and interviews show, continuing a program that became controversial when it was expanded by President Bush.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which reports to the secretary of state, has for the last year been soliciting applications for $20 million in grants to "promote democracy, human rights, and the rule of law in Iran," according to documents on the agency's website. The final deadline for grant applications is June 30.

More: USAID report on support to Iranian dissidents

U.S. efforts to support Iranian opposition groups have been criticized in recent years as veiled attempts to promote "regime change," said Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council, the largest Iranian-American advocacy group. The grants enable Iran's rulers to paint opponents as tools of the United States, he said.

Although the Obama administration has not sought to continue the Iran-specific grants in its 2010 budget, it wants a $15 million boost for the Near Eastern Regional Democracy Initiative, which has similar aims but does not specify the nations involved. Some of that money will be targeted at Iran, said David Carle, a spokesman for the appropriations subcommittee that oversees foreign affairs.

"Part of it is to expand access to information and communications through the Internet for Iranians," Carle said in an e-mail.

President Obama said this week the United States "is not at all interfering in Iran's affairs," rejecting charges of meddling that were renewed Thursday by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Asked how the democracy promotion initiatives square with the president's statement, White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said, "Let's be clear: The United States does not fund any movement, faction or political party in Iran. We support ... universal principles of human rights, freedom of speech, and rule of law."

State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said, "Respecting Iran's sovereignty does not mean our silence on issues of fundamental rights and freedoms, such as the right to peacefully protest."

The Bush program "was a horrible idea," Parsi said. "It made human rights activists and non-governmental organizations targets."

Not so, said David Denehy, the former Republican political consultant and State Department official who used to oversee the spending. "To say that we were the cause of repression in Iran is laughable ... Our programs sent a message to the people of Iran that we supported their requests for personal freedom," he said.

The State Department and USAID decline to name Iran-related grant recipients for security reasons.

After Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced a major expansion of the program in 2006 - Congress eventually approved $66 million - the Iranian government arrested activists and closed down their organizations. Several Iranian dissidents, including former political prisoner Akbar Ganji, denounced the U.S. funding as counterproductive.

Some in Congress are happy the program is continuing.

"As the Iranian regime cracks down on its people, I strongly believe that we should be prepared to extend our hand in help and support to any Iranian civil society group that reaches out for it," Sen. Joseph Lieberman, wrote in an e-mail to USA Today.

Most of the money likely hasn't reached Iran but went instead to Washington-based groups, said Suzanne Maloney, an Iran expert who reviewed applications for the democracy program before leaving the State Department for the Brookings Institution. The United States lacks the insight to influence Iran's internal politics, she said.

"We have such limited penetration of Iranian politics," she said. "We are so poorly positioned to add any value."

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website.

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Color revolution fails in Iran

from : www.voltairenet.org

Thierry Meyssan
Voltaire.net
Sat, 27 Jun 2009 15:50 UTC

Tehran's "green revolution" is the latest version of the "color revolutions" which have allowed the United States to impose subservient governments in several countries without needing to use force. Thierry Meyssan, who advised two governments facing this type of crisis, analyses this method and the reasons for its failure in Iran.

© Josetxo Ezcurra

"Color revolutions" are to revolutions what Canada Dry is to beer. They look like the real thing, but they lack the flavor. They are regime changes which appear to be revolutions because they mobilize huge segments of the population but are more akin to takeovers, because they do not aim at changing social structures. Instead they aspire to replace an elite with another, in order to carry out pro-American economic and foreign policies. The "green revolution" in Tehran is the latest example of this trend.

Origin of the concept

This concept appeared in the 90s, but its roots lie in the American public debate of the 70s-80s. After a string of revelations about CIA-instigated coups around the world, as well as the dramatic disclosures of the Church and Rockefeller Senate Committees¹, admiral Stansfield Turner was given the task by President Carter to clean up the agency and to stop supporting "local dictatorships." Furious, the American Social Democrats (SD/USA) left the Democratic party and sided with Ronald Regan. They were brilliant Trotskyite intellectuals², often linked to Commentary magazine. After Regan was elected, he charged them with pursuing the American interference policy, this time using different methods. This is how the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) was created in 1982³ and the United States Institute for Peace (USIP) in 1984. Both of these institutions are organically intertwined: NED administrators sit on the USIP board of directors and vice versa.

Legally the NED is a not-for-profit organization under US law, financed by an annual grant voted by Congress as part of the State Department budget. In order to operate, this organization is co-financed by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is part of the State Department. This legal structure is used jointly as a cover by the American CIA, the British MI6 and the Australian ASIS (and occasionally by Canadian and New Zealand secret services).

The NED presents itself as an agency promoting democracy. It intervenes either directly or using one of its four tentacles: one designed to subvert unions, the second responsible for corrupting management organizations, the third for left-wing parties and the fourth for right-wing parties. It also intervenes through friendly foundations, such as the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (UK), the International Center for Human Rights and Democratic Development (Canada), the Fondation Jean-Jaurès and the Fondation Robert-Schuman (France), the International Liberal Center (Sweden), the Alfred Mozer Foundation (Netherlands), the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, the Friedrich Naunmann Stiftung, the Hans Seidal Stiftung and the Heinrich Boell Stiftung (Germany). The NED thus claims to have corrupted over 6000 organizations throughout the world over roughly 30 years. All of this, of course, under the disguise of training and assistance programs.

© Voltaire.net

As for the USIP, it is an American national institution. It is financed annually by Congress as part of the Defense Department budget. Contrary to the NED which serves as a cover for the three allied states, the USIP is exclusively American. Under the guise of political science research, it can pay salaries to foreign politicians.

As soon as it commanded resources, the USIP financed a new and discrete structure, the Albert Einstein Institution⁴. This small association for the promotion of nonviolent action was initially charged with designing a form of civil defense for the populations of Western Europe in case of an invasion by the Warsaw Pact. It quickly became autonomous and designed a model following which a state, whatever its nature, can lose its authority and collapse.

First attempts

The first attempted "color revolution" failed in 1989. The goal was to overthrow Deng Xiaoping by using one of his close collaborators, the Chinese Communist Party secretary-general Zhao Ziyang, in order to open Chinese markets to American investors and to bring China into the US orbit. Young supporters of Zhao invaded Tiananmen square⁵. They were presented in the Western media as unpoliticized students fighting for freedom against the party's Conservative wing, when in fact this was infighting within the Deng entourage between pro-American and nationalist factions. After having ignored provocations for a long time Deng decided to use force. Depending on sources, the repression ended with 300 to 1000 dead. 20 years later, the Western version of this failed coup has not changed. Western media which recently covered the anniversary of that event presented it as a "popular uprising" and expressed surprise that people in Beijing do not remember the event. This is because there was nothing "popular" about this struggle for power within the Party. This was not a concern for people.

The first successful "color revolution" succeeded in 1990. As the Soviet Union was disintegrating, state secretary James Baker went to Bulgaria to participate in the electoral campaign of the pro-American party, heavily financed by the NED⁶. However, despite pressure from the UK, the Bulgarians - afraid of the social consequences induced by the transformation from soviet union to market economy - made the unforgivable mistake to elect in Parliament a post communist majority. While European community observers testified to the legality of the voting process, the pro-American opposition screamed that electoral fraud had occurred and took to the streets. They set up camp in the center of Sofia and threw the country into chaos for the following six months, until pro-American Zhelyu Zhelev was elected president by the parliament.

"Democracy": selling your country to foreign interests behind the people's backs

Since then, Washington has kept instigating regime changes everywhere in the world, using street unrest rather than military juntas. It is important here to understand what is at stake. Behind the soothing rhetoric of "the promotion of democracy", Washington's actions aim to impose regimes that are opening their markets to the US without conditions and which are aligning themselves to their foreign policy. However, while these goals are known by the leaders of the "color revolutions", they are never discussed and accepted by the mobilized demonstrators. In the event when these takeovers succeed, citizens soon rebel against the new policies imposed on them, even if it is too late to turn back. Besides, how can opposition groups who sold their country to foreign interests behind their populations' backs be considered "democratic"?

In 2005, the Kyrgyz opposition contested the legislative elections and brought to Bishkek demonstrators from the south of the country. They toppled President Askar Akayev. This was the "Tulip Revolution". The national assembly elected Kurmanbek Bakiyev as president. Unable to control his supporters who were looting the capital, he announced having chased the dictator and pretended that he intended to create a national union government. He pulled General Felix Kulov (former Bishkek Mayor) out of prison and named him prime minister. After the situation was back under control, Bakiyev got rid of Kulov and sold the country's few resources to US companies with no invitation to tender but with significant backhanders. He set up a US military base in Manas. The population's standard of living had never been lower. Felix Kulov offered to get the country back on its feet by federating it to Russia as it used to be. He was quickly sent back to jail.

A blessing in disguise?

It is sometimes objected that for states which were subjected to repressive regimes, even if these "color revolutions" only bring the appearance of democracy, they nonetheless constitute an improvement for their populations. Experience shows however that this is far from certain. The new regimes can turn out to be far more repressive than the old ones.

In 2003, Washington, London and Paris⁷ organized the "Rose Revolution" in Georgia⁸. According to a classic scheme, the opposition blew the whistle about electoral fraud during legislative elections and took to the streets. The demonstrators forced president Eduard Shevardnadze to flee and they seized power. His successor, Mikheil Saakashvili, opened the country to US economic interests and broke off from his Russian neighbor. The economic aid that Washington promised to replace Russian aid never came. The already weakened economy collapsed. In order to continue to please his backers, Saakashvili needed to impose a dictatorship⁹. He shut down the media and filled up the prisons, which did not prevent Western media from continuing to describe him as a "democrat". Continuing on his collision course, Saakashvili decided to bolster his popularity by engaging in a military adventure. With the help of the Bush administration and of Israel to which he rented air bases, he ordered the bombing of the population of South Ossetia, killing 1600 people, most of whom also held Russian citizenship. Moscow struck back. American and Israeli advisers fled¹⁰. Georgia was left devastated.

Enough!

The main mechanism of the "color revolutions" consists in focusing popular anger on the desired target. This is an aspect of the psychology of the masses which destroys everything in its path and against which no reasonable argument can be opposed. The scapegoat is accused of all the evils plaguing the country for at least one generation. The more he resists, the angrier the mob gets. After he gives in or slips away, the normal division between his opponents and his supporters reappears.

In 2005, in the hours following the assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri, a rumor spread in Lebanon according to which he was killed by "the Syrians". The Syrian army, which had been maintaining order since the end of the civil war according to the Taëf agreement, was now booed. Syrian president Bashar al-Assad was personally accused by the US authorities, which was as good as proof for public opinion. To those who noted that Rafik Hariri, despite stormy episodes, had always been useful to Syria and thats his death deprived Damas of a central collaborator, it was answered that the "Syrian regime" is so fundamentally evil that it cannot help but killing even its friends. The Lebanese people were calling for the G.I.s to come and get rid of the Syrians. But to everyone's surprise, Bashar al-Assad, considering that the costly deployment of his army was not welcome in Lebanon any longer, decided to pull it back. Legislative elections were organized in which the "anti-Syrian" coalition triumphed. This was the "Cedar Revolution". After the situation calmed down everyone realized that even if Syrian generals had looted the country in the past, the departure of the Syrian army did not change anything to the country's economic situation. Furthermore, the country was now in danger: it was not able to defend itself from the expansionism of its Israeli neighbor. The main "anti-Syrian" leader, general Michel Aoun, thought better of it and joined the opposition. Furious, Washington multiplied assassination plans to get rid of him. Michel Aoun formed an alliance with Hezbollah on a patriotic platform. It was about time: Israel attacked.

In every case, Washington prepared the "democratic" government in advance, which confirms that these are takeovers in disguise. The names composing the new team are kept secret for as long as possible. This is why the pointing out of the scapegoat is always done without suggesting a political alternative.

In Serbia, young pro-US "revolutionaries" chose a logo that belonged to the Communist popular imagination (the raised fist) to hide their subordination to the United States. They used "he is done!" as a slogan, which federated the anger against the personality of Slobodan Milosevic, who was held responsible for the bombing of the country even though it was done by NATO. This model was replicated numerous times, for example by the Pora! group in Ukraine, or by Zubr in Bielorussia.

The deceiving appearance of nonviolence

The PR staff members of the State Department maintain the non-violent image of the "color revolutions". They all put forward the theories of Gene Sharp, who founded the Albert Einstein Institution. Yet nonviolence is a combat method used to persuade authorities to a political change. In order for a minority to seize power and to exercise it, it must always use violence at some point. All "color revolutions" did.

© Unknown
Srdja Popovic (on the left), Serbian leader of the Otpor movement, Gene Sharp, founder of the Albert Einstein Institution (center) and his assistant colonel Robert Helvey, most senior member of the training academy for embassy military attachés.

. In 2000, Slobodan Milosevic called for anticipated elections despite still having a year to run as president. After the first round, neither he nor his principal opponent, Vojislav Koštunica, had secured a majority of the votes. Without waiting for the second round, the opposition claimed voting fraud and took to the streets. Thousands of demonstrators walked on the capital, including the miners from Kolubara. Their daily salaries were paid indirectly by the NED, without them realizing that they were paid by the United States. The pressure from the demonstration was insufficient so the miners started attacking buildings with bulldozers that they had brought, hence the name "bulldozer revolution."

In cases when the tension is just dragging on, and when counterdemonstrations are being organized, the only solution for Washington is to throw the country into chaos. Inciting agents are then placed in both camps to fire on the crowd. Each party can then observe that the others are shooting while they are peacefully advancing. The confrontation spreads.

In 2002, Caracas' upper-class took to the streets to protest the social policies of President Hugo Chavez¹¹. Using clever manipulation, private TV stations created the impression of a human tidal wave. There were 50,000 people according to observers and 1 million according to the press and the State Department. Then there was the Llaguno Bridge incident. TV stations clearly showed armed pro-Chavez supporters firing on the crowd. In a press conference, the National Guard general and vice minister of domestic security confirmed that the "Chavez militias" fired and killed 19 people. He resigned and called for the dictator to be overthrown. The president was quickly arrested by military rebels. However millions of people descended in the capital's streets and constitutional order was restored.

A subsequent journalistic investigation went over the details of the massacre of the Llaguno Bridge. It brought to light a deceptive picture manipulation, where chronological order was modified as proved by the protagonists' watch dials. In reality, the pro-Chavez supporters were under attack and after having fallen back, they were trying to escape by using their weapons. The inciting agents were local policemen trained by a US agency¹².

In 2006, the NED reorganized the opposition to Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki. It funded the creation of the Orange party of Raila Odinga. He received the support of Senator Barack Obama, who was accompanied by destabilization experts (Mark Lippert, current chief of staff for the national security adviser, and general Jonathan S. Gration, current US special envoy to Sudan). During a meeting with Odinga, the Illinois Senator invented a vague family relationship with the pro-US candidate. However Odinga was defeated during the 2007 legislative elections. Supported by Senator John McCain as president of the IRI (the NED's Republican pseudopod), he disputed the validity of the vote and called for his supporters to take to the streets. This is when anonymous text messages were sent en masse to ethnic Luo voters. "Dear Kenyans, the Kikuyu have stolen the future of our children... we must treat them in the only way that they understand... with violence". The country, despite being one of the most stable in Africa, suddenly erupted in violence.

After days of rioting, president Kibaki was forced to accept the mediation of Madeleine Albright as president of the NDI (the NED's Democrat pseudopod). A prime ministerial position was created and offered to Odinga. Since the hate text messages had not been sent from the Kenyan installations, one can wonder which foreign power was behind them.

Mobilizing the international public opinion

During the last few years, Washington had the opportunity to instigate "color revolutions" with the understanding that they would fail to seize power but that they would help manipulate public opinion and international institutions.

In 2007, many Burmans were up in arms because of the domestic fuel price increase. Demonstrations spread as Buddhist monks took a leading role in the protest. This was the "Saffron Revolution"¹³. Washington could not care less about the Rangoon regime; however they were interested in orchestrating the people of Burma in order to exercise pressure on China which holds strategic interests in Burma (pipelines and military bases for electronic intelligence gathering). It was therefore crucial to distort people's perception of reality. Pictures and films shot on mobile phones started to appear on YouTube. They were anonymous, impossible to verify and without context. It was precisely their lack of reliability that gave them authority, and allowed the White House to fit them with their interpretation of the situation.

More recently, a 2008 student demonstration brought Greece to a grinding halt following the murder of a 15 year old young man by a policeman. Hoodlums were soon seen rioting. They had been recruited in neighboring Kosovo and brought in by bus. The city centers were devastated. Washington was trying to scare foreign investors away in order to secure a monopoly on the investments in the gas terminals that were being built. The weak Karamanlis government was portrayed as being iron fisted. Facebook and Twitter were used to mobilize the Greek Diaspora. Demonstrations spread to Istanbul, Nicosia, Dublin, London, Amsterdam, The Hague, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Paris, Rome, Madrid, Barcelona, etc.

The Green Revolution

The operation conducted in 2009 in Iran belongs to the long list of pseudo revolutions. First, a 400 million dollar budget was voted in 2007 by Congress to orchestrate a "regime change" in Iran. This was in addition to the ad hoc budgets of the NED, the USAID, the CIA & co. How this money is being used is unclear, but the three main recipients are the following: the Rafsanjani family, the Pahlavi family and the People's Mujahedin of Iran.

The Bush Administration decided to instigate a "color revolution" in Iran after confirming a decision by the Joint Chiefs of Staff not to conduct a military attack of that country. This choice was then approved by the Obama Administration. The plans for a "color revolution" which had been drawn up by the American Enterprise Institute in 2002 with Israel were then reopened. I had published an article at that time regarding this plan ¹⁴. In it, one can identify the current protagonists: that plan has not changed much since then. A Lebanese chapter was added which predicted an uprising in Beirut in case of a victory of the patriotic coalition (Hezbollah, Aoun), but it was later cancelled.

The script included huge support for the candidate chosen by Ayatollah Rafsanjani, the disputing of the presidential election results, widespread bombings, the toppling of president Ahmadinejad and of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, setting up a transition government headed by Mousavi, restoring the Monarchy and creating a government headed by Sohrab Sobhani.

According to the 2002 plans, the operation was overseen by Morris Amitay et Michael Ledeen. It mobilized in Iran the Irangate network. Here is a necessary quick historical background: the Irangate (Iran - Contra affair) was an illegal arms deal. The White House wished to supply weapons to the rebels in Nicaragua (to fight against Sandinistas) and to Iranians (in order to drag the Iran-Iraq war for as long as possible), but was prevented from doing so by Congress. Israelis then offered to act as subcontractors for both operations. Ledeen, who has both US and Israeli citizenships, served as a link in Washington, while Mahmoud Rafsanjani (the brother of the Ayatollah) was his counterpart in Tehran. This took place over a background of widespread corruption. When the scandal broke out in the United States, an independent inquiry committee was headed by Senator Tower and General Brent Scowcroft (Robert Gates' mentor) to investigate.

Michael Ledeen is an old fox involved in many secret operations. He could be found in Rome during the assassination of Aldo Moro. He also appears to have been linked to the fake Bulgarian connection after the assassination attempt on John Paul II, or more recently to the fake claims of Nigerian uranium supply to Saddam Hussein. He currently works for the American Enterprise Institute¹⁵ (with Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz) and for the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies¹⁶.

Morris Amitay is a former director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). He is today the vice president of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) and the director of a consulting company for the weapon industry.

On April 27, Morris and Ledeen held a seminar on Iran with Senator Joseph Lieberman at the American Enterprise Institute, regarding the Iranian elections. On May 15, a new seminar was held. The public part of the event consisted of a round table discussion headed by Senator John Bolton about the "haggling" over Iran: would Moscow agree to end its support of Tehran in exchange for Washington renouncing its missile shield project in Central Europe? French expert Bernard Hourcade took part in the debates. At the same time, the Institute launched a website, intended for the press, about the coming crisis: IranTracker.org. The website includes a section on the Lebanese elections.

In Iran, the responsibility for overthrowing old rival Ayatollah Khamenei rested on Ayatollah Rafsanjani. Born in a family of farmers, Hashemi Rafsanjani built his fortune on real estate speculation during the time of the Shah. He became the main pistachio dealer in Iran, and increased his wealth during the Irangate. His assets are estimated to several billion dollars. After he became the wealthiest man in Iran, he became successively president of the parliament, president of the Republic, and now chairman of the Assembly of Experts (an arbitration body for the parliament and the Guardian Council of the Constitution). He defends the interests of Tehran's merchant class. During the electoral campaign, Rafsanjani required Mir-Hossein Mousavi, his former adversary who became his protégé, to promise he would privatize the oil sector.

With no connection to Rafsanjani, the People's Mujahedin of Iran have been used by Washington¹⁷. This organization, protected by the Pentagon, is considered a terrorist organization by the State Department and has been considered as such by the European Union. Indeed, it is responsible for dreadful operations in the 80s, including a huge bombing which killed Ayatollah Beheshti, four department heads, six department head assistants and one fourth of the parliamentary group of the Islamic Republic party. The People's Mujahedin of Iran is headed by Massoud Rajavi, who first married the daughter of former President Abol-hassan Banisadr and then the cruel Maryam. Its headquarters are located outside of Paris and its military bases in Iraq, first under the orders of Saddam Hussein, are now under the Defense Department. The People's Mujahedin provided the logistics for the bombing attacks which took place during the electoral campaign¹⁸. They were responsible for instigating clashes - which they probably did - between Pro Ahmadinejad supporters and their opponents.

Should chaos have followed, the Supreme Leader could have been overthrown. A transition government, headed by Mir-Hossein Mousavi, would have privatized the oil sector and brought back the Monarchy. The son of the former Shah, Reza Cyrus Pahlavi, would have ascended to the throne and would have nominated Sohrab Sobhani as prime minister. With this in mind, Reza Pahlavi published in February a number of interviews with French journalist Michel Taubmann, the director of Arte's information office in Paris, and who presides the Cercle de l'Observatoire, the club for French neo conservatives. It is useful to remember that Washington had made similar plans for the restoration of the Monarchy in Afghanistan. Mohammed Zahir Shah was supposed to ascend to the throne again and Hamid Karzai would have become prime minister. Unfortunately, at age 88, the pretender had become senile. Karzai thus became president. Both Sobhani and Karzai hold United States citizenships. Both were involved in the Caspian sea's oil sector.

As far as propaganda was concerned, the initial plan had been given to Benador Associates, a public relations firm. But it evolved with the influence of Goli Ameri, the United States Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs. This American Iranian woman is John Bolton's former colleague. As a new media specialist, she implemented infrastructure and Internet training programs for Rafsanjani's friends. She also developed radio and television programs in Farsi for the State Department propaganda, in conjunction with the BBC.

Iran's destabilization failed because the main drive behind the "color revolutions" was not appropriately initiated. Mir-Hossein Mousavi did not manage to make Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the focus of popular anger. The Iranian people did not fall into the trap; they did not hold the outgoing president responsible for the United States' economic sanctions against the country. Therefore the protests were limited to the northern suburbs of Tehran. The authorities refrained from creating counter demonstrations, and let the plotters expose themselves.

However, it must be noted that the propaganda was successful with the Western media. International public opinion really believes that two million Iranians took to the streets, when the real figure was ten times lower. The fact that foreign correspondents were under house arrest facilitated these exaggerations because they were exempt from having to provide evidence for their allegations.

Having given up war, and having failed at overthrowing the regime, what is Barack Obama's remaining option?

References

1. The numerous reports and documents published by these committees are available online on the following website: The Assassination Archives and Research Center.


2. "New York Intellectuals and the invention of neo-conservatism", Denis Boneau, Voltaire Network, November 26 2004.


3. "The NED, the networks of democratic interference", Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network, January 22 2004.
   


4. "The Albert Einstein Institution: non-violence according to the CIA", Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network, January 4 2005.
   


5. "Tiananmen, 20 ans après", professor Domenico Losurdo, Réseau Voltaire, June 9 2009.


6. At the time, the NED was relying in Eastern Europe on the Free Congress Foundation (FCF), operated by Republicans. Later on, this organization disappeared and was replaced by the Soros Foundation, operated by Democrats, with the assistance of which the NED would plot new "regime changes".


7. Concerned with smoothing out relations between France and the US, French president Jacques Chirac tried to establish better relations with the Bush Administration on Georgia's back, all the more because of French economic interests in Georgia. Salomé Zourabichvili, number 2 in the French secret services, was nominated as ambassador in Tbilisi. She then switched nationalities and became the Foreign Secretary for the "Rose Revolution".


8. "The Secrets of the Georgian Coup", Paul Labarique, Voltaire Network, January 7 2004.


9. "Géorgie : Saakachvili jette son opposition en prison" (Georgia: Saakachvili jails the opposition) and "Manifestations à Tbilissi contre la dictature des roses" (Protests in Tbilisi against the dictatorship of the roses), Réseau Voltaire, September 12 2006 and September 30 2007.


10. The Bush Administration was hoping that this conflict would act as a smoke screen. Israeli bombers were supposed to take off simultaneously to strike neighboring Iran. But even before attacking Georgian military installations, Russia bombed the airports that had been rented out to Israel, pinning its planes to the ground.


11. "Opération manquée au Venezuela" (Failed operation in Venezuela), Thierry Meyssan, Réseau Voltaire, May 18 2002.


12. Llaguno Bridge: Keys to a Massacre. Documentary by Angel Palacios, Panafilms 2005.


13. "Birmanie : la sollicitude intéressée des États-Unis" (Burma: United States' selfish concern), Thierry Meyssan, Réseau Voltaire, November 5 2007.


14. "False reasons to intervene in Iran", Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network, February 12 2004.


15. "The American Enterprise Institute in the White House", Voltaire Network, June 21 2004.


16. "Les trucages de la Foundation for the Defense of Democracies" (The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies' tricks), Réseau Voltaire, February 2 2005.


17. "Les Moudjahidin perdus" (The Lost Mujahedin), Paul Labarique, Réseau Voltaire, February 17 2004.


18. "Le Jundallah revendique des actions armées aux côtés des Moudjahidines du Peuple" (The Jundallah claims responsibility for actions with the People's Mujahedin), Réseau Voltaire, June 13 2009.

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website.

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White House drafts executive order to allow indefinite detentions

from : www.rawstory.com

By ProPublica

Published: June 26, 2009
Updated 2 hours ago

By Dafna Linzer and Peter Finn

The Obama administration, fearing a battle with Congress that could stall plans to close Guantanamo, has drafted an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely, according to three senior government officials with knowledge of White House deliberations.

Such an order would embrace claims by former president George W. Bush that certain people can be detained without trial for long periods under the laws of war. Obama advisers are concerned that bypassing Congress could place the president on weaker footing before the courts and anger key supporters, the officials said.

After months of internal debate over how to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, White House officials are growing increasingly worried that reaching quick agreement with Congress on a new detention system may prove impossible. Several officials said there is concern in the White House that the administration may not be able to close the facility by the president’s January deadline.

White House spokesman Ben LaBolt did not directly respond to questions about an executive order but said the administration would address the cases of Guantanamo detainees in a manner “consistent with the national security interests of the United States and the interests of justice.”

One administration official suggested the White House was already trying to build support for an executive order.

“Civil liberties groups have encouraged the administration, that if a prolonged detention system were to be sought, to do it through executive order,” the official said. Such an order could be rescinded and would not block later efforts to write legislation, but civil liberties groups generally oppose long-term detention, arguing that detainees should either be prosecuted or released.

The Justice Department has declined to comment on the prospects for a long-term detention system while internal reviews of Guantanamo detainees are underway. The reviews are expected to be completed by July 21.

In a May speech, President Obama broached the need for a system of long-term detention and suggested that it would include congressional and judicial oversight. “We must recognize that these detention policies cannot be unbounded. They can’t be based simply on what I or the executive branch decide alone,” the president said.

Some of Obama’s top legal advisers, along with a handful of influential Republican and Democratic lawmakers, have pushed for the creation of a “national security court” to supervise the incarceration of detainees deemed too dangerous to release but who cannot be charged or tried.

But the three senior government officials said the White House has turned away from that option, at least for now, because legislation establishing a special court would be both difficult to pass and likely to fracture Obama’s own party. These officials, as well as others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about internal deliberations.

On the day Obama took office, 242 men were imprisoned at Guantanamo. In his May speech, the president outlined five strategies the administration would use to deal with them: criminal trials, revamped military tribunals, transfers to other countries, releases and continued detention.

Since the inauguration, 11 detainees have been released or transferred, one prisoner committed suicide and one was moved to New York to face terrorism charges in federal court.

Administration officials said the cases of about half of the remaining 229 detainees have been reviewed for prosecution or release. Two officials involved in a Justice Department review of possible prosecutions said the administration is strongly considering criminal charges in federal court for Khalid Sheik Mohammed and three other detainees accused of involvement in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

The other half, the officials said, present the greatest difficulty because these detainees cannot be prosecuted either in federal court or military commissions. In many cases the evidence against them is classified, has been provided by foreign intelligence services, or has been tainted by the Bush administration’s use of harsh interrogation techniques.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. agreed with an assessment offered during congressional testimony this month that fewer than 25 percent of the detainees would be charged in criminal courts and that 50 others have been approved for transfer or release. One official said the administration is still hoping that as many as 70 Yemeni citizens will be moved, in stages, into a rehabilitation program in Saudi Arabia.

Three months into the Justice Department’s reviews, several officials involved said they have found themselves agreeing with conclusions reached years earlier by the Bush administration: As many as 90 detainees cannot be charged or released.

The White House has spent months meeting with key congressional leaders in the hopes of reaching agreement on long-term detention, even as public support for such a plan has wavered as lawmakers have sought to prevent detainees from being transferred to their constituencies.

Lawyers for the administration are now in negotiations with Sens. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) and Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) over separate legislation that would revamp military commissions. A senior Republican staff member said that senators have yet to see “a comprehensive, detailed policy” on long-term detention from the administration.

“They can do it without congressional backing, but I think there would be very strong concerns,” the staff member said, adding that “Congress could cut off funding” for any detention system established in the United States.

Concerns are growing among Obama’s advisers that Congress may try to assert too much control over the process. This week Obama signed an appropriations bill that forces the administration to report to Congress before moving any detainee out of Guantanamo and prevents the White House from using available funds to move detainees onto U.S. soil.

“Legislation could kill Obama’s plans,” said one government official involved. The official said an executive order could be the best option for the president at this juncture. Under one White House draft that was being discussed earlier this month, according to administration officials, detainees would be imprisoned at a military facility on U.S. soil but their ongoing detention would be subject to annual presidential review. U.S. citizens would not be held in the system.

Such detainees — those at Guantanamo and those who may be captured in the future — would also have the right to legal representation during confinement and access to some of the information that is being used to keep them behind bars. Anyone detained under this order would have a right to challenge his detention before a judge.

Officials argue that the plan would give detainees more rights and allow them a better chance to one day end their indefinite incarceration than they have now at Guantanamo.

But some senior Democrats see longterm detention as tantamount to reestablishing the Guantanamo system on U.S. soil. “I think this could be a very big mistake, because of how such a system could be perceived throughout the world,” Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) told Holder.

One administration official said future transfers to the United States for long-term detention would be rare. Al-Qaeda operatives captured on the battlefield, which the official defined as Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and possibly the Horn of Africa, would be held in battlefield facilities. Suspects captured elsewhere in the world could be transferred to the United States for federal prosecution, turned over to local authorities or returned to their home countries.

“Going forward, unless it’s an extraordinary case, you will not see new transfers to the U.S. for indefinite detention,” the official said.

Instituting long-term detention through an executive order would leave Obama vulnerable to charges that he is willing to forsake the legislative branch of government, as his predecessor often did. Bush’s detention policies suffered successive defeats in the courts in part because they lacked congressional approval and tried to exclude judicial oversight.

“There is no statute prohibiting the president from doing this through executive order, and so far courts have not ruled in ways that would bar him from doing so,” said Matthew Waxman, who worked on detainee issues at the Defense Department during Bush’s first term. But Waxman, who waged a battle inside the Bush administration for more congressional cooperation, said the “courts are more likely to defer to the president and legislative branch when they speak with one voice on these issues.”

Walid bin Attash, who is accused of involvement in the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000 and who was held at a secret CIA prison, could be among those subject to long-term detention, according to one senior official.

Little information on bin Attash’s case has been made public, but officials who have reviewed his file said the Justice Department has concluded that none of the three witnesses against him can be brought to testify in court. One witness, who was jailed in Yemen, escaped several years ago. A second witness remains incarcerated, but the government of Yemen will not allow him to testify.

Administration officials believe that testimony from the only witness in U.S. custody, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, may be inadmissible because he was subjected to harsh interrogation while in CIA custody.

“These issues haven’t morphed simply because the administration changed,” said Juan Zarate, who served as Bush’s deputy national security adviser for counterterrorism and is now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

“The challenge for the new administration is how to solve these legal questions of preventive detention in a way that is consistent with the Constitution, legitimate in the eyes of the world and doesn’t create security loopholes that cause Congress to worry,” Zarate said.

ProPublica is an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest. Its content is in the public domain.

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website.

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Venezuelan and the United States Re-Establish Relations and Ambassadors

from : www.venezuelananalysis.com

June 26th 2009, by Tamara Pearson – Venezuelanalysis.com

Mérida, June 26th 2009 (Venezuelanalysis.com) - Today, the Venezuelan ambassador to the United States, Bernando Alvarez, will re-take his position in Washington, and the US ambassador to Venezuela, Patrick Duddy, will return to Venezuela this weekend, the respective foreign ministries said.

In September last year Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez expelled the US ambassador in Venezuela in a gesture of solidarity with Bolivia, who had expelled its US ambassador in response to evidence that the ambassador had met with separatist opposition groups. The US then removed its ambassador from Venezuela.

Alvarez called the re-establishment of relations between the two countries a "historic decision" and said that it expressed a change in the United States, exemplified by the US's attitude in this month's meeting of the Organisation of American States (OAS) where the US was perceived as more diplomatically friendly and open towards Latin American countries.

Alvarez is also president of the newly named Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) and he said it is not clear yet who will take on that position.

Since Barack Obama became president of the US in January both countries' presidents have expressed a desire to restore relations. On Wednesday, Ian Kelly from the US State Department said the renewed ties came out of the recent Summit of the Americas in April where, "Clinton and President Chavez spoke [and since then], both our governments have worked toward the goal of returning ambassadors to our respective capitals.

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website.

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Food Inc: Michael Pollan and Friends Reveal the Food Industry's Darkest Secrets

from : www.truthout .org

Thursday 25 June 2009

by: Tara Lohan | Visit article original @ AlterNet

A scene from the documentary film "Food Inc." (Photo: Food Inc. / Magnolia Pictures)

The new film "Food Inc." is a shocking look at the health, human rights and environmental nightmare that lands on our plate each meal.

It turns out that figuring out the most simple thing - like what's on your dinner plate, and where it came from - is actually a pretty subversive act.

That's what director Robert Kenner found out while spending six years putting together the amazing new documentary, "Food Inc.," which features prominent food writers Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma) and Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation).

Warning: "Food Inc." is not for the faint of heart. While its focus is not on the gory images of slaughterhouse floors and filthy feedlots, what it does show about the journey of our food from "farm" to plate is not pretty.

The story's main narrative chronicles the consolidation of our vast food industry into the hands of a few powerful corporations that have worked to limit the public's understanding of where its food comes from, what's in it and how safe it may be.

But it's also a larger story about the people that have gotten in the way of the stampeding corporate herd - like farmer Joel Salatin (also profiled in Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma), who has bravely bucked the trend to go corporate.

There's also Barbara Kowalcyk, who becomes a tireless food-safety advocate after her 2 1/2-year-old son Kevin died from eating an E. coli-tainted hamburger. And there is the economically strapped Orozco family, which is faced with the difficult decision of whether to save money by buying cheap processed food and spend more later on medical bills, or spring for the more expensive, but healthier food options that stretch its immediate income.

There are also the farmers who appear with their faces blacked out on screen for fear of Monsanto, or the communities ravaged by Type 2 diabetes, or the undocumented workers at processing plants who are recruited from their NAFTA-screwed homelands, illegally brought over the border to work dangerous jobs for peanuts, only to be humiliatingly sacrificed in immigration raids that only criminalize workers and never the employers.

It's really the people that make this film so riveting. If you've read Pollan's or Schlosser's important works, then you already know a lot - but the film is still eye-opening on so many levels. And sometimes, you really just have to see it to believe it.

Both Pollan and Schlosser narrate the film, but it is the ordinary folks in the film that make you realize how critical these issues are to the future of food, health care, the environment and human rights in this country.

If you care about what you eat, then you should see this film - and if you do, you'll likely never walk through the supermarket in the same way again. And that's a damn good thing.

AlterNet recently had the chance to talk with Kenner about whether our food is really safe to eat, why the food industry doesn't want us to know what we're eating, and how we can fight back.

Tara Lohan: So how did this film come about?

Robert Kenner: I read Eric Schlosser's book, Fast Food Nation, and I was struck by the idea that with food, there could be so much we don't know about something we are as familiar with. I began to think about doing a film about how we eat and where the food comes from. Ultimately exploring the idea that - on one level we are spending less of our paycheck on food today than probably at any point in the history of the world - and at the same time, this inexpensive food is coming to us at a high cost that you don't see at the checkout counter.

I thought by being able to talk about all the producers - from the [small farmer] Joe Salatins of the world to big agribusiness - it could be a very interesting conversation. Unfortunately, that conversation never took place [because the agribusiness companies wouldn't consent to be interviewed], so the movie kept transforming into something different. I was very disappointed in the wall and the veil that was placed between us and this conversation about our food.

TL: What was your learning curve like - how much did you know about these issues going into this, and what did you learn along the way?

RK: I'm still learning. I didn't come into this as a food activist, I came into this as a filmmaker who found it an interesting conversation. I didn't want to make a film for the converted, I didn't want to make a film for the true believers; I wanted to make a film for people who hadn't thought about the food they are eating. I thought it was most important to try and get people, not to turn their stomachs but to open their eyes.

My previous film was called Two Days in October, and it was a story about Vietnam told from all different points of view, and I found I learned more from the people whose opinions were different than mine, and I thought that was great - unfortunately, this was the opposite. The people who were different wanted to put up a wall. I didn't realize how subversive the world of food was.

I went to a hearing on whether we should label cloned meats. When the lady who represented the industry spoke and said, "I really think it is not in the consumer's interest to be given this information because it's too confusing," I got goosebumps and thought, "this is scary."

Then I realized that this is happening time and time again, and I hadn't been aware of it - whether it's GMOs that these corporations say are really good and will save the world but then they'll fight like hell to make sure you don't know it's in your food.

Then there is [food-safety advocate] Barb Kowalcyk, who can't tell me what she eats because of the veggie libel laws. And I'm thinking something is off. If you live in a free society and are going to have free trade, it has got to be based on information; and if we are being denied that information we can't make the right choices. I didn't realize I was making a film about First Amendment rights. There is a lot to the story about our food.

TL: You mentioned not being able to have the conversation you wanted because there were so many corporations that wouldn't go on camera with you, but there were also ordinary people who were afraid to talk.

RK: You know, if you talk, and you're involved in this world of food production, you do so at great peril. And you pay the price. It is amazing how vulnerable you can be if you step forward and enter this conversation.

TL: One of the startling things in the film was the industry connections that so many of the people had who were in positions of power at the FDA and the USDA.

RK: One thing we say in the film is that we are not opposed to people going from industry to government, that is OK. The problem is when they go from industry to government, rule on things they are involved in in industry and then go back to industry with great bonuses. That seems a conflict of interest.

And it wasn't only in the Bush era. In a funny way this crosses boundaries between Democrats and Republicans. On some of the levels, Monsanto has gotten a free ride because people think they are going to save the world with GMOs and their seeds. It has cut across party lines. It feels like tobacco research. Unfortunately, the ag schools have been taken over by industry, and they are now publishing reports.

I think the parallels to tobacco are really true. Eric [Schlosser] has a line that sums it up: that they are huge, powerful, rich corporations thoroughly connected to government issuing misleading statements about their products, saying they are not unhealthy - ultimately, there are real parallels, and I think as we start to see how unsafe this food is, like tobacco, we are going to change it.

TL: Are you seeing any changes in the first few months of the Obama administration?

RK: Well, I think this wasn't a high priority because, obviously, there are huge crisis situations that have to be solved, but I don't think you can solve health care without changing the food system, when 1 out of 3 Americans born after the year 2000 is going to get early-onset diabetes; it is going to bankrupt the health care system. And I think there is a direct connection between food and health.

I don't think you can deal with the environment without dealing with the food system when 20-25 percent of your carbon footprint involves growing and transporting food.

I think these issues are coming to the surface and are becoming more important, there has just been some movement on food safety where the FDA will have the power to recall food (which they do not have now), such as Nestle's cookie dough, which has E. coli in it.

TL: So, right now, the FDA doesn't have the power to recall food?

RK: The hamburger that killed Barb's son prompted her to help create Kevin's Law to get the USDA, which is in charge of meat, to be able to recall food. It's a complex situation - the USDA oversees meat, but if it's a cheeseburger, then it's the FDA, because it's dairy. But neither of them have the power to recall food. The hamburger that killed Barb's son sat on the shelves for 12 days after he died when they knew where it came from, but the government couldn't recall it - it was up to the corporation. Hopefully that one will start to be changed.

But we are subsidizing food that is making us sick in an even bigger way than E. coli, and that's obesity and diabetes. And I think that we have to figure out a way to turn the farm bill into the food bill.

TL: What does that mean?

RK: To start representing eaters' interests, not agribusiness. Unfortunately, that bill doesn't come up again until 2012. When we screened the film for [USDA head Tom] Vilsack, he said "we need a movement to follow. If there is a movement, we can help follow, but we can't change farm subsidies without people demanding it." Because he's up against agribusiness, and they're very powerful.

TL: To me one of the shocking numbers in the film were the figures for diabetes, which you mentioned - 1 in 3 Americans born after 2000 and 1 in 2 who are minorities - are there people in the health community who are drawing these connections?

RK: Oh yeah, that's why we can't have health care reform without fixing that. Diabetes is going to be so expensive. I really hope that we battle this idea of elitism, that people say that the can only afford bad food. That's why I think that family in the film was so important, because we have people who have a hard time paying for healthier, less-processed food, but meanwhile, they are now paying for it in their health care costs. The invisible costs are becoming very real for them, and how many people in that community have diabetes is astounding. They could not believe I didn't know someone without Type 2 Diabetes.

TL: So, based on everything you've learned in this film, do you think of our food as being safe to eat?

RK: I try not to eat industrialized foods as much. What is the bigger danger, is the idea of how they figure out how to deliver salt, sugar and fat to us. Sixty-four percent of Americans are either overweight or obese. I think, like tobacco they are trying to figure out how to sell you a product that is a bit addicting, and they are using billions of dollars of advertising, and they are training kids to do it at an early age, and they are overwhelming taste buds. So that's the scary part.

TL: One of the things I liked in the film was talking, not just about the environmental and health impacts of the food we are eating, but about the labor laws and the treatment of the workers in some of the processing plants.

RK: For me, one of the shocks of making this film was that at every rural location we went to there were parts of towns that only spoke Spanish and that our food is grown and processed by illegal immigrants, and it is really this hypocritical world that we live in because we are depending on them to deliver this inexpensive food to the supermarket, but yet we also don't want them in our communities because people think it taxes communities - the health care and schools.

But unfortunately, the people who get arrested are the workers who are working hard and doing their part, and the reason they are being hired is because they are doing difficult, dangerous, low-paying jobs, and only people without rights would want to do that work. And that for me was as important as talking about how the animals are mistreated - I tried not to even go there. But people are always shocked by animal mistreatment in the film, and I didn't think I even put it in.

TL: I think there were some pretty gruesome scenes.

RK: God, I was just talking with my editor, and we thought we took them out. What you don't see in this film, and I didn't even want to go there ... you see the chickens, but the fact is that pigs don't move except for the day they are executed, or cows just sit in their own excrement - you know thousands of them in these giant factory feedlots. We've created megafactories, and it's not just the meat, it is the tomatoes and all the way down the line - we've created a machine of great efficiency that produces the food rather inexpensively, but it comes with great consequence.

TL: One of the lighter scenes in the film is where the Wal-Mart reps go out to this small organic dairy farm that is selling its milk to Stonyfield Farms.

RK: Oh yes, this happened right at the end of the film, and we were trying to get Wal-Mart in, and all of a sudden they said yes, we'd like to come. Whoever was willing to appear in the film, I wanted to present them in the best possible light. It is very easy to say a lot of negative things about Wal-Mart, and we wouldn't be the first to do it, but I also thought that I wanted to use that section of the film to show that consumers have power and that we are not out to make a film about how terrible every corporation is, because I do think there is a role in corporations helping to change the system, and we have to talk about that.

TL: What's so funny is when the farmer meets the Wal-Mart reps ...

RK: Yeah, she says, "I've never been in your stores - we boycott you - and I've been doing it for so long, I can't even remember why." She was great.

TL: It makes you realize how complex the food system is, when small organic farmers are also dependent on Wal-Mart to sell what they are producing. What do you think people should be doing - shopping locally and organically is good - but what else?

RK: I think the big thing is that we're not going to be perfect, so if you can change one meal a day, you're going to have a huge impact. Go to takepart.com - that lists things we can be doing and organizations to get involved with to help make change.

We say, we vote three times a day - breakfast, lunch and dinner - but we also vote with our vote. When it comes to our meals, there is local, which I think is the best, it affects things on so many levels. There is organic - I was in fields where people had to wear spacesuits, and I don't think we should be eating food when people need spacesuits to grow it. When you go to the supermarket, start to read labels. All those funny words are corn and soy, and they are going to not be good for you. And know you have power - talk to people, ask for things you want. But don't feel bad if you're not perfect.

People think if they can't do it all the time they don't have to do anything. Change one meal. But then we have to stop subsidizing food that is making us sick, we have to change the national school-lunch program. If we supported local farms and got that to the school systems and spent a dollar there, we'd save a a fortune in medicine and train kids to eat right, and we'd have better communities.

We have to vote with our votes and our forks. I am really optimistic that it's going to change. I feel a sense of real growth - it might not be quick, but it is going to change, there is a real growing movement. The question is when. This is an unsustainable system, it can't go on.

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