My logic of truth

My logic of truth is traveling on ..........

2010-07-21T00:26:00.001-07:00

from : My logic of truth admin.

I have changed my Page to

http://mylogicoftruth.wordpress.com/

you are welcome to sneak a peak .

the "My Logic of truth" admin.

P.S. I'll leave the blog open for Archive reasons so feel free to roam in my Archives ,but the new News i¡ll post on the new page from now on .

Thanks for following !.

Flashback: Silenced: TWA 800 and the Subversion of Justice

2010-07-20T17:04:00.000-07:00

from :

Jack Cashill
Google Video
Sun, 19 Jul 2009 19:17 EDT

How easily the world forgets.

In 1996, TWA Flight 800 was *shot down* south of Long Island. The government of the United States, despite the embarrassment of having been caught in court rigging lab tests and lying in its reports, still officially attributes the disaster to a spark in the 747's center fuel tank, while government spokespeople insist that the witnesses who saw a missile hit the jumbo jet are all drunks.

There were more than 737 official eyewitnesses.

Here's the best documentary available on the subject: Silenced: TWA 800 and the Subversion of Justice

This "pre-9/11" video proves beyond a doubt how conspiracies can be very effectively covered up. An excellent professional production, it proves, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the FBI and DOJ were involved in a serious felony crime and the outrageous cover-up of truth concerning the crash of TWA Flight 800.

As you will see, Flight 800 was actually destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. Every allegation made in this film is backed up with solid, verifiable facts -- none more dramatic than those that come from the Federal government itself.

You'll learn what the 736 official eyewitnesses actually saw; why aviators reject the CIA "cartoon" explanation; how the Feds criminally suppressed reporting; the critical witness drawings; the rigged NTSB hearings; the damning radar data and documentation; the altered physical evidence; undeniable proof of explosive residue proving a missile strike; the stinging report from the machinist union; and much more.

Highly recommended.

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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Germany begins Afghan pullout in 2011

2010-07-10T00:02:00.000-07:00

from : http://www.presstv.ir

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 04:30:03 GMT

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Germany aims to begin handing over security responsibilities to Afghan local forces in at least one of the country's northern provinces by 2011.

The German Foreign Minister says the country aims to begin handing over responsibility for security for Afghanistan's northern provinces to local forces next year.

In a statement to the Bundestag, or lower house of parliament on Friday, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said Germany should transfer at least one of the nine provinces it controls in the war-torn country by 2011, Reuters reported.

"We want to create the conditions within this legislative period that will allow the step-by-step withdrawal of our military presence," he said.

The address came days ahead of an international conference on the region, to be held in the Afghan capital Kabul on July 20.

"Only the Afghan government itself can make peace with those they are fighting," Westerwelle said. "It's also the task of the international community to bring Afghanistan's neighbors into this process."

According to polls, the majority of the German population thinks the country should withdraw from Afghanistan, where some 4,600 soldiers are stationed.

Many lawmakers in the German ruling coalition believe the center-right government will have to take a considerable move towards bringing the troops home before the next federal election in 2013.

Westerwelle said Afghanistan cannot be stabilized by military or humanitarian means alone, but requires a political solution.

Despite an increase in the US-led forces deployed in Afghanistan, which now stands at approximately 140,000, the Taliban are stronger than they have been since their government's ouster in 2001.

MVZ/TG/MVZ

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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Pot Versus Alcohol: Experts Say Booze Is the Bigger Danger

2010-07-03T22:43:00.000-07:00

from : http://www.alternet.org

For more than three decades, America's marijuana policies have been based upon rhetoric. Perhaps it's time to begin listening to what the experts have to say.

July 1, 2010

"That's right, that's right," Nixon agreed. "A person does not drink to get drunk A person drinks to have fun."

The following year Linkletter announced that he had reversed his position on pot, concluding instead that the drug's social harms were not significant enough to warrant its criminal prohibition. Nixon however stayed the course -- launching the so-called "war" on drugs, a social policy that now results in the arrest of more than 800,000 Americans each year for violating marijuana laws.

Decades later, the social debate regarding the use of marijuana versus alcohol rages on. Yet among objective experts who have studied the issue there remains little debate at all. Despite pot's long-standing criminalization, scientists agree that the drug possesses far less harm than its legal and celebrated companion, alcohol.

For example, in the mid-1990s, the World Health Organization commissioned a team of experts to compare the health and societal consequences of marijuana use compared to other drugs, including alcohol, nicotine, and opiates. After quantifying the harms associated with both drugs, the researchers concluded: "Overall, most of these risks (associated with marijuana) are small to moderate in size. In aggregate they are unlikely to produce public health problems comparable in scale to those currently produced by alcohol and tobacco On existing patterns of use, cannabis poses a much less serious public health problem than is currently posed by alcohol and tobacco in Western societies."

French scientists at the state medical research institute INSERM published a similar review in 1998. Researchers categorized legal and illegal drugs into three distinct categories: Those that pose the greatest threat to public health, those that pose moderate harms to the public, and those substances that pose little-to-no danger. Alcohol, heroin, and cocaine were placed in the most dangerous category, while investigators determined that cannabis posed the least danger to public health.

In 2002, a special Canadian Senate Committee completed an exhaustive review of marijuana and health, concluding, "Scientific evidence overwhelmingly indicates that cannabis is substantially less harmful than alcohol and should be treated not as a criminal issue but as a social and public health issue."

In 2007, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare hired a team of scientists to assess the impact of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs on public health. Researcher reported that the consumption of alcohol was significant contributors to death and disease. "Alcohol harm was responsible for 3.2 percent of the total burden of disease and injury in Australia," they concluded. By comparison, cannabis use was responsible for zero deaths and only 0.2 percent of the estimated total burden of disease and injury in Australia.

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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The Media Empire Strikes Back: Reviewing Reviews of South of the Border

2010-06-28T10:50:00.000-07:00

from : http://venezuelanalysis.com

By Cyril Mychalejko - UpsideDownWorld.org, June 28th 2010

Oliver Stone's new documentary about Latin America's leftward political shift and its growing independence from Washington is being lambasted by the media. This shouldn't come as a surprise as Stone calls out the mainstream media in his new film South of the Border for its mostly one-sided, distorted coverage of the region's political leaders—most significantly Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez .

In an interview with CBS about his new film Stone remarked about America's obsession with empire, maintaining global hegemony, and the paranoia that accompanies such obsessions, saying, "We're a sick country."

And as if on cue, the mainstream media has published a flurry of attacks on the documentary, consequently supporting Stone’s arguments in the film about ideological biases and misinformation tainting media coverage about the region, while revealing symptoms of this “sickness” he mentions, such as intellectual impotence, pathological lying, and ideological blindness.

One spectacular example is courtesy of The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), which published a hit piece by Ron Radosh entitled "To Chávez, With Love." In it Radosh remarkably calls out Stone for not mentioning the economic successes of Chile under the brutal dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet during the 1970's as a point of comparison to show how Venezuelan society under Chavez is suffering. For Radosh and the editors at the WSJ, a bloody regime who would kill, torture and/or disappear a filmmaker like Stone is not only a success, but a model to be duplicated. Sick indeed.

On the other end of the minuscule ideological spectrum represented in the U.S. mainstream media is a blog post by Martin Peretz, editor-in-chief of The New Republic. Peretz, who uses the same title as the WSJ piece, actually praises Rodosh, calling him a "brave historian." In a healthy society one could accuse Radosh of being brave, in a perverse sort of way, for thumbing his nose at decency and morality by publicly praising a murderous regime because you would expect widespread condemnation to follow. That, sadly, is not the case.

Peretz goes on to call the democratically-elected Latin American presidents interviewed in Stone's documentary "tyrants", while calling Stone's work "trash," nothing more than ideological-drivel and intellectual laziness. But how could we question the judgement and intellect of a journalism professional with 36 years at The New Republic, whose acute foreign policy judgements include urging former President Bush to attack Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein in a letter (which he co-signed) written by The Project for the New American Century and sent to Bush 9 days after the September 11 terrorist attacks?

The Village Voice also gets into the fray with a vacuous review by critic Karina Longworth. Longworth, who in the past was honest enough to admit that she "know[s] very little about journalism," displays that she knows even less about Latin American politics and Washington's historical relationship with the region. Longworth was upset that Stone would allow the leaders of these "regimes" to have a voice stating their positions, something seldom seen in the U.S. media (one of Stone's and the film's main complaints). She later mocks the idea that the United States might have anything to do with the political and economic underdevelopment of the region. The Village Voice would better serve its readers by leaving Longworth to review movies such as Macgruber, which unlike South of the Border she thoroughly enjoyed.

Tom Gregory, a self-described Democrat and contributor to another "lefty" outlet, The Huffington Post, writes that, "Stone wears the cynicism of a man looking for relevance." First, who the hell is Tom Gregory? Second, while he goes on to accuse Stone of spoon-feeding viewers propaganda he is the one guilty of spreading propaganda, such as his false assertion that Chávez is "anti-semetic", a charge based on a bulletin by the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles which misquoted Chávez. The media unfortunately perpetuated this lie because reporters and editors couldn't be bothered with fact-checking information they published, or with amply correcting their mistakes and amending subsequent public misperceptions created after the fact. Gregory, obviously, is no different.

As you can imagine Forbes, The Washington Times, and The New York Post are among other outlets that joined the circus of attacks and misinformation. But The New York Times seems to have taken particular umbrage to Stone's new film, maybe for being featured in it for its editorial celebrating the short-lived military coup against Chávez in 2002. Larry Rohter and his review "Oliver Stone's Latin America" attempts to fact check Stone (a practice the newspaper unfortuantely didn't employ during the Bush Administration's march to war in Iraq) and set the reader, and potential viewer straight.

One "questionable assertion" Rohter takes issue with is "Stone’s contention that human rights, a concern in Latin America since the Jimmy Carter era, is 'a new buzz phrase,' used mainly to clobber Mr. Chávez." But human rights is in fact a new "buzz phrase" (or imperial alibi) used selectively by Washington and media outlets like The New York Times against countries deemed Washington's adversaries. Human rights is now dangerously being used as a potential excuse for intervention through doctrines such as the U.N.'s "Responsibility to Protect". But for Rohter to know this he would actually have to read publications other than The New York Times.

Rohter also decides to draw attention to an ongoing dispute over the responsibility of the deaths of 19 people during the Washington-backed coup in Venezuela in 2002. He pits an anti-Chávez film X-Ray of a Lie against Stone's assertions which borrow from a film sympathetic to Chávez called The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. But while Rohter focused on this dispute he missed, or deliberately ignored, an opportunity to examine the big picture issue regarding his employer's coverage of the coup, its lack of coverage of the Bush Administration's role in it, and its continued hostile coverage of Venezuela's president. I guess self-criticism and reflection is not in Rohter's job description, nor a policy in general for journalists at the "newpaper of record".

Rohter later in his article labels Bolivian President Evo Morales as a "Chávez acolyte", an insulting and inappropriate label revealing his ideological biases, and then tries to defend Bechtel's role in an International Monetary Fund (IMF) scheme to privatize Bolivia's water system, which led to price gouging, and as a result a country-wide uprising which chased the multi-national corporation and its consortium out of the country.

Finally, Rohter lazily cites a review from his colleague at the Times, who called Stone's film a “provocative, if shallow, exaltation of Latin American socialism,” and Entertainment Weekly's quip that the film was “rose-colored agitprop.” Conspicuously missing are voices supporting Stone's documentary and point of view. But that is what Stone's been saying all along.

Honest criticism of Stone's film should be welcome. It is certainly debatable whether South of the Border will be a popular and effective "101 introduction to a situation in South America that most Americans and Europeans don’t know about.” I hope it is. I hope that it reaches a broad audience and moves viewers to seek out more information on the history and current events of Latin America. But the reviews aforementioned do little more than expose the ideological biases that dominate the U.S. media and the laziness that afflicts journalists today.

These failures of the media are part of the reason why America is ailing.

To Support Independent Media click HERE.

Cyril Mychalejko is an editor at www.UpsideDownWorld.org.

Source: Upside Down World.org

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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The Oil in the Gulf !

2010-06-23T10:48:00.001-07:00

Oil reported just offshore Cuba; Forecast “clearly shows the oil moving southeastward”

2010-06-21T13:44:00.000-07:00

from : http://www.floridaoilspilllaw.com

By oilflorida, on June 20th, 2010

USF model projects oil spill will expand further southward toward loop current, WTSP Channel 10 Tampa Bay, June 18, 2010:

A high pressure system centered over the Gulf of Mexico will bring light northwesterly winds to the oil spill area over the next few days.

As a result, models that attempt to predict the future track of the spill are suggesting that the oil will head back toward the southeast and closer to the loop current.

With mainly light winds in place, the heating of the surface by the sun will play a major role in the wind direction over the spill area. During the early morning hours winds will blow lightly out of the northwest. This pushes the oil away from the coast and toward the southeast out to sea.

As the land heats up during the afternoon hours, a sea breeze develops causing the wind to back to the SSW and blowing the oil back toward the shore. Later in the evening, as the air cools, the winds once again turn to the northwest. The overall affect this will have is to force the oil further toward the southeast and closer to the loop current.

The University of South Florida’s College of Marine Science and the Ocean Circulation Group and jointly produce a computer model that predicts the path of the oil spill. The latest run clearly shows the oil moving southeastward and pushing up against the current. This could lead to more oil entering the current over the next few days. …

The flow out of the loop current is not completely shut off and will likely never do so.

There are now reports of an oil sheen just offshore of Cuba. This implies the oil has reached the southeastern extent of the loop current and could continue east through the Florida straights.

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 and Depopulation: International Takeover by the UN

2010-06-16T09:53:00.000-07:00

from : http://www.infowars.com

Cassandra Anderson
Infowars.com
June 16, 2010

Part 3 of 4

Most people think that the United Nations is a noble enterprise and they don’t understand the history and malignant character of the UN.

Christina Aguilera, Drew Barrymore and Sean Penn are probably unaware, even though they are UN Ambassadors to the World Food Program (WFP), that the intent of the UN is to implement one world government (see videos below). The UN WFP, which spreads GMOs in poor countries, is just one tool used for advancing the goals of Agenda 21, the overarching blueprint for depopulation and total control.




The WFP is corrupt to its core, as evidenced by a leaked UN document about Somalia which exposed that most of the aid goes to UN workers, Islamic militants and contractors.

The UN grew out of the League of Nations, which withered after Woodrow Wilson ( Edward House’s puppet), failed to convince Congress that international treaties and entangling alliances were good for America. Later, Rockefeller was able to advance the globalists’ cause and even donated 18 acres of land for the UN headquarters, located in New York. The Rockefellers have conceived and funded most of the destructive UN programs.

The origin of the food monopoly began with the Rockefeller Dynasty, even before they funded biotech research and industry.(1) The major GMO seed companies like Monsanto, DuPont, Dow, etc. are based in America and the patent laws that protect their monopoly are American.(2) Therefore, it should come as little surprise that the forces behind toxic GMOs promote GMOs internationally by way of the United Nations, using American tax dollars.

USAID

USAID (US Agency for International Development) is a an independent federal agency that is concerned with economic growth and advancing US foreign policy and interests, under the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. The agency is funded by taxpayer money. These interests are often private companies, like Monsanto, that champion so-called humanitarian aid in the name of the American people, using our tax dollars. USAID’s humanitarian efforts include imposing GMO seeds on poor nations by way of complex methods that circumvent the laws of poor countries.(3) Poor countries rarely stand up to the US government directly and are under constant pressure, plus they risk losing financial benefits from the US. So, these poor and transitional countries sell out their own farmers and the population suffers because GMO crops are unhealthy, GMO crops yields are lower and they foster monopolies, resulting in ongoing dependence.

USAID funds many NGOs (Non Governmental Organizations) that carry out USAID’s objectives- here is a list nearly 200 pages long- of the NGOs that are supported by US taxpayers.(4) It is interesting to note how many of these NGOs are concerned with ‘reproductive rights’, which is a fancy term for eugenics (selective breeding programs, often brutally enforced via forced sterilization and genocide). Further, USAID entered into a Public- Private Partnership with the Rockefeller Foundation, with the help of Bill Clinton, in order to use investments to “address” social and environmental problems, under the shelter of a tax free organization.(5) This means that the tax free organization will be able direct ‘impact’ investing which is designed to have an effect on social and environmental problems. In other words, be on the lookout for large investors using their overwhelming influence upon infrastructures, utilities, sewage systems, water sources, etc, which will likely lead to corporate privatization, and total control in pursuit of the final goals of Agenda 21.

UN WORLD FOOD PROGRAM

The UN WFP (World Food Program) receives most of its funding from USAID.

The WFP is corrupt to its core, as evidenced by a leaked UN document about Somalia which exposed that most of the aid goes to UN workers, Islamic militants and contractors.(6) Another example is in Ethiopia where only 12% of the food aid was delivered to the intended poverty stricken area. Additionally, there are more examples of corruption with shipping and trucking fees inflated up to 300% over cost. Of course, NGOs are deeply complicit in this international scheme of theft and incompetence with zero accountability.

Further, USAID director, Rajiv Shah worked for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the USDA, is also the director of A Green Revolution in Africa (Gates and Rockefeller funded). In fact, just last week, Shah said that the UN WFP is creating food systems that will eliminate “humanitarian” food aid over time; a cynic could interpret this as a depopulation plan, consolidation of monopolies and/ or privatization of all resources. Shah also wants to engage the private sector, which means establishing more PPPs (Public- Private Partnerships) which is the modern mechanism of fascism.(7)(5)

UN collectivists, trying to coerce governments to adopt GMOs, use urgent threats of starvation in poor countries to convince the masses that GMOs are beneficial, when the truth is that they have lower crop yields. The WFP, pushing GMOs, have exploited Africa’s famine problem by offering GMO seeds as the only aid/ help offered, in a ‘GM or Death’ ultimatum.(8)

UN WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION

The UN WTO (World Trade Organization) influences tariffs and can impose fines (of hundreds of millions of dollars) on countries when they trade internationally. While they promote the phrase “free trade”, it is anything but a free market, due to the favorable or unfavorable tariff taxes that the WTO sets. It fosters monopolies on a grand scale. It prohibits competition and true free market Capitalism.

F. William Engdahl, author of “Seeds of Destruction”, explains in detail how the Biosafety Protocol, a policy that requiring GMO testing and proof of safety, was undermined. This was done by forcing a clause into the Biosafety Protocol making its rules subordinate to the UN WTO, using the argument that banning GMOs was a barrier to trade under the WTO rules, because the concern over safety was “unproven”. Therefore, the burden of proof for the safety of GMOs was removed from Monsanto and the other manufacturers, which leaves consumers, independent farmers and anyone else harmed by GMOs the costly task of proving, scientifically and in court, that GMOs are unsafe.

In a related UN WTO decision, member countries were forbidden from using their own domestic standards for testing, their own food safety laws and their own product standards, claiming that it would set an “unfair barrier to trade”. Thus, the US government can threaten any government that bans GMOs with violating UN WTO so-called “free trade” rules which have resulted in costly monetary sanctions. The UN WTO settles international trade disputes in secret. Please read Engdahl’s excellent article about the WTO for more information on their manipulative policies.(9)

Incidentally, the Director of the WTO is Rufus Yerxa, former employee of the the US government and Monsanto. Vandana Shiva explains how the WTO imposed trade restrictions on India that limited exports and increased imports, crippling the market and increasing food dependency. The GMO crops also had lower yields because the seed was imported and not adaptable to India’s farming conditions, which resulted in the suicides of over 200,000 Indian farmers- often from drinking Round Up Ready herbicide. (Note that we do not agree with Shiva’s assessment of global warming):

UN NAFTA LAW

The UN NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) and other WTO agreements were signed introduced into law as “agreements”, instead of treaties. Under special legislation, NAFTA was passed into law after Congress authorized George W Bush to enter into tariff agreements and bypassed the usual process to make a treaty a law (requiring 2/3 Senate approval). After Bush entered into the agreements, both houses of Congress passed them into law (a mere 51% majority was needed) on a fast- track. The Supreme Court, acting as agents of the federal government, denied review of this misdeed.(10)

NAFTA has adversely affected both the US and Mexico because it promoted GMO farming in Mexico, contaminating their corn crops, which is a staple food. US grain and food subsidies were used to lower the prices of US food, which flooded the markets of Mexico, wreaking havoc on them. The subsidies were bankrolled by the unsuspecting US taxpayers. Mexico was once food self sufficient, but now it spends 78% of its oil exports to purchase food from the US. US food exports have decreased as a result of NAFTA because some educated countries reject GMOs.(11)

INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND

The UN IMF (International Monetary Fund) and UN World Bank are sister agencies that impose harsh conditions and penalties on loans made to governments, resulting in austerity and privatization. In fact, Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize winner in 2001, former chief economist of the World Bank and formerly one of President Clinton’s economists, exposed the corruption of the UN IMF and World Bank’s practice of keeping developing countries on the loan repayment treadmill, which can lead to harsh measures when the countries fail to repay the loan, instead of allowing a country to go bankrupt and then start over. In 2003, The IMF actually admitted that its policies have often failed for over 60 years.(12)

The IMF and World Bank, working closely with the WTO, offer financial aid and guarantees to multinational companies to privatize in poor countries. Even worse, the IMF and World Bank pressure countries, crippled by debt, to privatize utilities and other resources, especially water. Remember, water is a resource that affects food production. The US Treasury funds 51% of the World bank. The UN derives much power from indebted countries and then is able to make outrageous demands upon the debtor nations, that then benefit corporations and individuals like Bill Gates.(13)

CODEX ALIMENTARIUS

A d v e r t i s e m e n t

Codex Alimentarius, the UN program to control food and health products internationally with the goal of HARMonization of food, means that plants, seeds, livestock, farming and how all food is processed is to become uniform. Of course, GMO food is a major component of this scheme. Codex Alimentarius is a program to codify food worldwide; it won’t work because there is a lack of consideration for local conditions (local weather, soil conditions, water availability, etc). This appears to be just plain stupid until one realizes its true intent: depopulation. Codex Alimentarius operates under two UN agencies: the WHO (World Health Organization), notorious for pushing unsafe vaccines for the H1N1 flu and insider deals with Big Pharma, and the corrupt FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization). Kevin Miller’s excellent film “We Become Silent” is recommended for more details.(14)

There are several unpopular US “food safety” bills currently under consideration. By simply reading the short summary of Senate bill S 510, it is clear that the bill is not designed for food safety, but for government (Department of Health and Human Services, the EPA and the CDC) expansion, control and monetary gain. There are only a few representatives in Washington that are even remotely interested in true food safety and a real solution, which would include the abolition of GMOs, or at least the labeling of GMO food, so that consumers can make an informed choice. Barack Obama issued an Executive Order on June 10, 2010 that opens the door to Codex Alimentarius.(15)

In conclusion, it is obvious that the time is over-ripe for the US to get out of the UN. This action would result in the withering of the UN as it is funded primarily by US tax dollars. The American people will hopefully come to understand that our hard earned money is being used to poison and bankrupt us, and the rest of the world. Education of the masses is the key, and Americans must exert our power and sovereignty, especially now, with the November elections right around the corner.

Christina Aguilera

Drew Barrymore

Sean Penn

Please share this article and information

Please visit Cassandra Anderson’s website at www.MorphCity.comhttp://www.MorphCity.com> for more information about the construction of Agenda 21 and how to stop it

http://www.infowars.com/food-and-depopulation-rockefeller-family/

http://www.infowars.com/food-and-depopulation-monsantos-monopoly/

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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Hands off WikiLeaks!

2010-06-15T02:03:00.000-07:00

from : http://www.uruknet.info

Patrick Martin ,June 14, 2010

Pentagon officials have announced the detention of Army private Bradley Manning, as well as stepped-up efforts to locate Julian Assange, the founder of the WikiLeaks web site, in a security crackdown sparked by the release of politically damaging video of a US military massacre in Iraq.

On June 7, Defense Department officials confirmed that Manning was in confinement in Kuwait "for allegedly releasing classified information." Three days later, Pentagon investigators told the web site Daily Beast that they were looking for Assange in connection with the Manning investigation. The Australian-born WikiLeaks founder had scheduled speaking engagements in New York City and Las Vegas last week, but canceled them, citing "security considerations."

WikiLeaks, which solicits leaks of government and corporate criminality worldwide and makes them public to a global audience on the Internet, published a decrypted and edited version of the video footage in April, using a special web site entitled "Collateral Murder." The original video was shot by the US military in 2007 in the course of a helicopter assault in eastern Baghdad which left some 15 people dead, including two Reuters journalists.

The video and the accompanying voiceover of radio traffic, in which American soldiers joked about exterminating Iraqis, sparked widespread international outrage and a furious counterattack by the American military/intelligence apparatus. Defense Secretary Robert Gates denounced the release of the video, although he conceded that the footage was produced by the US military and had not been doctored.

According to press accounts, Manning was detained May 26 after he made the mistake of confiding in an online acquaintance, Adrian Lamo, an experienced hacker. Manning told Lamo that, in the course of his work as an Army military intelligence analyst at Forward Operating Base Hammer, east of Baghdad, he had been able to acquire a vast stockpile of internal military and State Department documents and communications, including the original footage from which "Collateral Murder" was produced. Lamo turned Manning in to the Army and FBI.

Manning is reportedly being held at a military facility in Kuwait. Several computer hard drives taken from him arrived in Washington Thursday and are now being analyzed by government computer experts to determine what documents Manning downloaded and what he did with them.

Manning enlisted in the Army in 2007 and held a Top Secret/SCI clearance. He reportedly told Lamo that he had been looking through military and government networks for more than a year and found "incredible things, awful things… that belonged in the public domain, and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington DC."

Besides the video which became "Collateral Murder," Manning said he supplied WikiLeaks with a second video showing a May 2009 US air strike near the village of Garani in Afghanistan, in which more than 100 people were killed, including many children.

The main focus of the military/FBI investigation is Manning’s claim to have downloaded some 260,000 secret diplomatic cables, which he described as showing "almost criminal political back dealings." Manning added, according to an e-mail to Lamo, "Hillary Clinton and several thousand diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack when they wake up one morning and find an entire repository of classified foreign policy is available, in searchable format, to the public."

WikiLeaks has denied being in possession of the 260,000 secret cables. Assange has reportedly offered to help finance Manning’s legal defense.

The detention of Manning and the pursuit of Assange must be opposed by all those who defend democratic rights. The American people, and the people of the entire world, have a right to know of the crimes committed by the American military/intelligence apparatus under the orders of the American president.

The attack on WikiLeaks and its collaborators is part of a broader security crackdown by the Obama administration. As reported by the New York Times this week, the White House has decided to go ahead with the prosecution of Thomas Drake, a whistleblower at the National Security Agency, who sought to expose financial mismanagement at the NSA by providing information to a reporter for the Baltimore Sun.

According to the Times article, "The indictment of Mr. Drake was the latest evidence that the Obama administration is proving more aggressive than the Bush administration in seeking to punish unauthorized leaks. In 17 months in office, President Obama has already outdone every previous president in pursuing leak prosecutions."

This stepped-up crackdown on leaks came the same week as the issuance of a report by Physicians for Human Rights that doctors working for the CIA collaborated with interrogators who conducted torture of prisoners. The doctors monitored the torture sessions to make sure the prisoners did not die—so they could be interrogated and tortured further—and to refine the methods used to make them more painful and effective. The report’s title speaks for itself: "Experiments in Torture: Human Subject Research and Evidence of Experimentation in the 'Enhanced’ Interrogation Program."

The Obama administration is striving to plug leaks, not out of concern that the lives of American soldiers could be endangered, as it habitually claims, but for the same reasons that motivated the Bush administration: top government officials—in the Pentagon, CIA, NSA and in the White House itself—could face war crimes charges, either in the United States or before an international tribunal, based on the evidence produced by such revelations.

Relatives of those killed in the helicopter gunship attack in Iraq criticized Manning’s detention. Nabil Noor-Eldeen, whose brother Namir was one of the Reuters employees killed in the assault, told the press, "Justice was what this US soldier did by uncovering this crime against humanity. The American military should reward him, not arrest him."

Manning is not a criminal, but someone evidently motivated by revulsion against the crimes committed by "his" military and "his" government. The World Socialist Web Site joins with all those demanding that Manning be released without any charges being brought against him. We further demand the dropping of all efforts to investigate and suppress the activities of Julian Assange and other WikiLeaks activists.

Patrick Martin

The author also recommends:

Leaked video shows US military killing of two Iraqi journalists
[7 August 2010]

Following exposure of military massacre in Iraq: The New York Times fingers whistleblower WikiLeaks
[8 April 2010]

US soldier in WikiLeaks massacre video: "I relive this every day"
[28 April 2010]

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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UN "Green Light" for a Pre-emptive US-Israel Attack on Iran? Security Council Resolution Transforms Iran into a "Sitting Duck"

2010-06-13T22:29:00.000-07:00

from : http://www.sott.net

Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research
Fri, 11 Jun 2010 19:59 EDT

"A sitting duck is a defenceless victim, an easy target, vulnerable to attack"

The UN Security Council voted on June 9 the imposition of a fourth round of sweeping sanctions against The Islamic Republic of Iran, which include an expanded arms embargo as well "tougher financial controls".

In a bitter irony, this resolution was passed within days of the United Nations Security Council's outright refusal to adopt a motion condemning Israel for its attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in international waters.

It also followed the holding of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) conference in Washington under UN auspices, which called for the establishment, in its final resolution, of a nuclear free Middle East as well as the dismantling of Israel's nuclear weapons arsenal. Israel is considered to be the World's sixth nuclear power, with, according to Jane Defense, between 100 and 300 nuclear warheads. ( Analysts: Israel viewed as world's 6th nuclear power, Israel News, Ynetnews, April 10, 2010). Iran in contrast has no known nuclear weapons capabilities.

UNSC Resolution 1929 is based on a fundamental falsehood. It upholds the notion that Iran is an upcoming nuclear power and a threat to global security. It also provides a green light to the US-NATO-Israel military alliance to threaten Iran with a pre-emptive punitive nuclear attack, using the UN Security Council as rubber stamp.

The Security Council exercises double standards in the application of sanctions: Whereas Iran is the target of punitive threats, Israel's extensive nuclear arsenal, is either ignored or tacitly accepted by "the international community". For Washington, Israel's nukes are an instrument of peace in the Middle East.

Moreover, whereas all fingers are pointed at Iran which does not possess nuclear weapons, five so-called "non-nuclear" European states including Belgium, Holland, Germany, Italy and Turkey not only possess tactical nuclear weapons under national command, these warheads are deployed and targeted at Iran.

Resolution 1929 (June 9, 2010):

"7. Decides that Iran shall not acquire an interest in any commercial activity in another State involving uranium mining, production or use of nuclear materials and technology as listed in INFCIRC/254/Rev.9/Part 1, in particular uranium-enrichment and reprocessing activities, all heavy-water activities or technology-related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons, and further decides that all States shall prohibit such investment in territories under their jurisdiction by Iran, its nationals, and entities incorporated in Iran or subject to its jurisdiction, or by persons or entities acting on their behalf or at their direction, or by entities owned or controlled by them;

"8. Decides that all States shall prevent the direct or indirect supply, sale or transfer to Iran, from or through their territories or by their nationals or individuals subject to their jurisdiction, or using their flag vessels or aircraft, and whether or not originating in their territories, of any battle tanks, armoured combat vehicles, large calibre artillery systems, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, warships, missiles or missile systems .... , decides further that all States shall prevent the provision to Iran by their nationals or from or through their territories of technical training, financial resources or services, advice, other services or assistance related to the supply, sale, transfer, provision, manufacture, maintenance or use of such arms and related materiel, and, in this context, calls upon all States to exercise vigilance and restraint over the supply, sale, transfer, provision, manufacture and use of all other arms and related materiel;" (Security Council Imposes Additional Sanctions on Iran, Voting 12 in Favour to 2 Against, with 1 Abstention, Includes complete text of UNSC Resolution 1929, UN News, June 9, 2010, emphasis added, )

The Arms Embargo. Implications for Russia and China

Both the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China have caved in to US pressures and voted in favor of a resolution, which is not only detrimental to Iran's security, but which seriously weakens and undermines their strategic role as potential competing World powers on the Eurasian geopolitical chessboard.

The resolution strikes at the very heart of the structure of military alliances. It prevents Russia and China to sell both strategic and conventional weapons and military technology to their de facto ally: Iran. In fact, that was one of major objectives of Resolution 1929, which Washington is intent upon enforcing.

At the same time, by barring Iran from purchasing conventional military equipment, the resolution prevents Iran from defending itself from a US-NATO-Israel attack.

The resolution, were it to be fully enforced, would not only invalidate ongoing bilateral military cooperation agreements with Iran, it would create a wedge in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

It would also significantly weaken trade and investment relations between Iran and its Russian and Chinese partners. The financial and banking provisions in the resolution also point to Washington's resolve to not only isolate Iran but also to destabilize its financial system.

Washington is intent upon enforcing this resolution. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has appointed Robert Einhorn, Special Advisor for Nonproliferation and Arms Control, as U.S. coordinator for the implementation of the sanctions regime directed against both Iran and North Korea:.

"U.S. President Barack Obama hailed the resolution, saying it will put in place the toughest sanctions ever faced by the Iranian government and send an "unmistakable message" to Tehran about the international community's commitment to stopping the spread of nuclear weapons."(Clinton appoints coordinator for sanctions against Iran, DPRK, Xinhua, June 10, 2010

"We expect every country to aggressively implement Resolution 1929" said State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley. Were China and Russia to decide not to abide by the resolution's provisions, particularly those relating to weapons sales to Iran (art. 8), Washington would use this as an opportunity to engage in an increasingly confrontational diplomacy in relation to Beijing and Moscow.

The resolution is also intended to establish a US led hegemony in the production and export of advanced weapons systems. It is is heavy blow, almost a "death sentence", for China and Russia's lucrative international weapons trade, which competes with the US, UK, France, Germany and Israel. In the post-Soviet era, the arms trade has become a central component of Russia's fragile economy. The potential repercussions on Russia's balance of payments are far-reaching.

Disabling Iran's Missile Defence System

UN Security Council resolutions are an integral part of US foreign policy. They are on the drawing board of Washington's think tanks, including the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the Heritage Foundation. In this regard, it is worth noting that the substance of article 8 of UNSC Resolution 1929 (June 9, 2010 was contained in a January 2010 report of the Heritage Foundation, which calls for "blocking arms sales to Iran" including Russia's S-300 missiles:

"Washington and its allies should make every effort to deprive Iran of foreign arms transfers, particularly the impending sale of Russian S-300 surface to air missiles, which could provoke Israel to strike sooner rather than later. Stronger multinational efforts also need to be made to prevent Iran from transferring arms to Hezbollah and Palestinian terrorist groups, which pose a threat not only to Israel, but to stability in Lebanon, Egypt, and Jordan. On November 3, Israeli naval forces intercepted the Francop, an Antigua-flagged cargo ship that was transporting about 500 tons of weapons from Iran to Hezbollah, via Syria.[22] The U.S. should press other allies to join in giving greater assistance to Israeli efforts to intercept Iranian arms flows, particularly to Hezbollah and Hamas." (James Phillips, An Israeli Preventive Attack on Iran's Nuclear Sites: Implications for the U.S, The Heritage Foundation, Washington, DC, January 2010)

Did Moscow assess the implications of the proposed arms embargo?

Immediately following the adoption of the UNSC resolution on June 9th, several Russian press reports indicated that the sale of Russian S-300 missiles to Iran would be frozen, despite assurances by foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that the UNSC resolution would not affect the air-defence deal..(Russia says in talks with Iran on new nuclear plants, Haaretz, June 10, 2010) These contradictory statements suggest that there are significant divisions within the Russian leadership, without which Russia would have duly exercised its veto power in the UN Security Council.

Without Russian military aid, Iran is a "sitting duck". Its air defence system depends on continued Russian military cooperation. Moreover, without Iran, Russia would be constrained to selling military equipment to countries in the US-NATO orbit. (See Russia to offset loss of Iran arms sales with Iraqi, Afghan deals, Russia, RIA Novosti, June 11, 2010)

Pre-emptive nuclear attack on Iran

The World is at dangerous crossroads. The real threat to global security emanates from the US-NATO-Israel alliance. The UN Security Council directly serves the interests of the Western military alliance. The Security Council resolution grants a de facto "green light" to wage a pre-emptive war against Iran, which has been on the Pentagon's drawing board since 2004.

"An operational plan to wage aerial attacks on Iran has been in "a state of readiness" since June 2005. Essential military hardware to wage this operation has been deployed. (For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, Nuclear War against Iran, Jan 2006). In 2005, Vice President Dick Cheney ordered USSTRATCOM to draft a "contingency plan", which would "include a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons." (Philip Giraldi, Attack on Iran: Pre-emptive Nuclear War , The American Conservative, 2 August 2005).

Under the Obama administration, the threats have become increasingly pervasive and far more explicit than under the NeoCons. In October 2009, The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) organized an Event at Washington's Wohlstetter Conference Center on "Should Israel Attack Iran?":

"Iran's nuclear weapons development continues apace, threatening the security of its neighbors and the international community. According to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center, more than 60 percent of the American public believes preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons warrants military action. Israel's deputy foreign minister, Daniel Ayalon, emphasized on September 21 that Israel has "not taken any option off the table" when it comes to countering the Iranian threat. The same day, Israel's top general, chief of staff Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi, made it clear that he would not rule out a military strike on Iran's nuclear installations, repeating that "Israel has the right to defend itself and all options are on the table." As the debate intensifies over how to respond most effectively to Iran's provocations, it is timely to explore the strategic and legal parameters of a potential Israeli strike against the Islamic Republic and provide some thorough analysis about implications for the United States. (American Enterprise Institute, Should Israel Attack Iran?, October 2009, emphasis added)

From a military standpoint, Israel could not undertake a unilateral attack on Iran without the active coordination of the Pentagon:.

"As President Obama extends "an open hand", seeking direct talks with Tehran in his attempt to halt its nuclear programme, Mrs Clinton appeared [June 2009] ready to unnerve the Iranian leadership with talk of a pre-emptive strike "the way that we did attack Iraq". She said that she was trying to put herself in the shoes of the Iranian leadership, but added that Tehran "might have some other enemies that would do that [deliver a pre-emptive strike] to them". It was a clear reference to Israel, where Binyamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister, has talked about the possibility of military action to halt Iran's nuclear programme - something he views as a threat to the Jewish state. ( Don't discount Israel pre-emptive strike, Hillary Clinton warns Iran, Times Online, June 8, 2009, emphasis added)

In April 2010 the message was crystal clear: Washington "would use atomic weapons only in 'extreme circumstances' and would not attack non-nuclear states, but singled out "outliers" Iran and North Korea as exceptions." ( Iran to Take US to UN Over Obama's Threat to Use Nuclear Weapons against Iran, AlJazeera, April 11, 2010). Defence Secretary Robert Gates explained in a television interview "that Washington was making exceptions of Tehran and Pyongyang because they had defied repeated UN Security Council ultimatums over their nuclear programmes." (Ibid).

UN "Green Light" for a World War Three Scenario?

Is this latest Security Council resolution "the green light" which Washington has been seeking?

The substance of the Security Council resolution is also directed at Iran allies: China and Russia.

Ironically, while China and Russia failed to exercise their veto power, they are nonetheless the object of veiled US threats. China is surrounded by US military facilities. US missiles in Poland and the Caucasus are pointed towards Russian cities. More recently, the Obama administration has called for the extension of the sanctions regime directed against Russia's ally, Belarus.

Washington has also announced that "The Pentagon is preparing to embark on a mini-building boom in Central Asia, which would include the construction of strategic US facilities military "in all five Central Asian states, including Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan." (See Defense Dollars Building Boom: Pentagon Looks to Construct New Military Bases in Central Asia, Eurasianet, June 6, 2010). These various military cooperation agreements with former Soviet republics are not only intent upon weakening the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the CSTO, they are part of the US-NATO strategic encirclement of Russia and China.

What this latest resolution suggests is that Washington and its NATO allies not only control the UN Security Council, they ultimately also call the shots on foreign policy in Moscow and Beijing.

This Security Council resolution should dispel the myth of competing super powers. Both China and Russia are an appendage of the New World Order.

As far as international diplomacy is concerned, both China and Russia are "Paper Tigers", with no teeth. "'Paper Tiger' [纸老虎 (zhǐ lǎohǔ)], meaning something that seems as threatening as a tiger, but is really harmless."

Both China and Russia are the victims of their own failed decisions within the United Nations Security Council.

An attack on Iran would immediately lead to military escalation. Syria and Lebanon would also be targeted. The entire Middle East Central Asian region would flare up, a situation which could potentially evolve towards a World War III scenario.

In a very real sense, the US-NATO-Israel military adventure threatens the future of humanity.

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author ,.... but do reflect those of this website for the most of its content .

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Global protest planned over BP's handling of oil disaster

2010-06-12T13:49:00.000-07:00

from : http://www.sott.net

CNN
Sat, 12 Jun 2010 12:51 EDT

Environmentalists plan to stage a worldwide protest against BP on Saturday as the petroleum giant takes hits from politicians and Gulf residents.

Worldwide BP Protest Day claims demonstrations will take place in more than 50 cities across five continents from Pensacola, Florida, to Christchurch, New Zealand.

"Let the world know YOU care," says a flyer on the group's Facebook page, which translates BP's initials to mean British Predator. "We need to let BP know that we are NOT okay with what they are putting in OUR oceans."

The protests come as politicians and Gulf residents slammed BP on Friday over its efforts to end the spew of oil into the Gulf of Mexico and make whole those who have been hurt.

"BP misrepresented what their technology could do," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday. "They misrepresented the amount of oil that was being spewed forth into the Gulf and continued to do so."

She was referring to Thursday's announcement by researchers that doubled estimates of how much oil has been gushing from the ruptured well: About 40,000 barrels (1.7 million gallons) a day may have escaped for weeks.

Pelosi said she met with President Obama on the matter and was pleased to hear that he had ordered the attorney general to look into whether there was negligence on BP's part.

"This is a matter of integrity," Pelosi said. "BP stated that they had the technology to drill deep, to prevent a blowout and that they had the technology to clean up, and none of these things happened to be a fact."

But the multibillion-dollar, multinational company found support for its efforts. In New York, that support came from billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

"The guy that runs BP didn't exactly go down there and blow up the well," he told a radio program. "And what's more, if you want them to fix it and they are the ones with the expertise, I think I might wait to assign blame until we get it fixed."

In London, England, a Downing Street spokesman said Prime Minister David Cameron spoke Friday with BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg.

"The prime minister explained that he was frustrated and concerned about the environmental damage caused by the leak, but made clear his view that BP is an economically important company in the UK, US and other countries," the spokesman said in a news release.

"He said that it is in everyone's interests that BP continues to be a financially strong and stable company."

Svanberg, who is to meet Wednesday with Obama at the White House, "made clear that BP will continue to do all that it can to stop the oil spill, clean up the damage and meet all legitimate claims for compensation," it said.

British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg appealed for a reduction in the vitriol that has gripped many observers. "I don't, frankly, think we're going to reach a solution stopping the release of oil into the Gulf any quicker by allowing this to spiral into a tit-for-tat political, diplomatic spat," he said.

That comment elicited no sympathy from Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser. "Obviously, Nick hasn't been over here and touched the oil," he told CNN. "We get a tropical storm that brings that oil and lays it across coastal Louisiana, we're wiped out for the next 20 years. This community will be dead, and they're talking like we're being too tough?"

By law, the company is responsible for paying all the costs to stop the leak and clean the oil off the shore. That's likely to be the small bill: in the single-digit billions.

A bigger concern will be claims of economic damage from fishermen, hoteliers and other businesses who report losses. BP has said it will pay "all reasonable claims" but has been vague on what "reasonable" means.

BP said that nearly 42,000 claims have been submitted and more than 20,000 payments made, totaling more than $53 million.

So far, the cost of the response is $1.43 billion, it said.

Lawmakers want to make sure the company has enough money not only to remove the oil but to reimburse residents for lost wages and other damage to the economy.

BP has argued that the company has plenty of money to do both. Executives noted last week that BP had a cash flow last year exceeding $30 billion.

The government's response manager offered a new round of numbers as well on what it takes to clean a spill of this magnitude: an Exxon Valdez-like spill every few days that has now gone on for 55 days.

Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said that more than 25,000 people -- contractors, volunteers and members of the military -- were involved on the ground.

Some 3.8 million gallons of oil burned, he said. About 1 million gallons of dispersant has been used to break up the slick. That has taken more than 500 skimmers, barges, ships and aircraft.

Piecemeal efforts to slow the flow are continuing.

As early as Monday, BP plans to deploy "Q4000 Direct Connect," the company's name for a containment device secondary to a primary cap that was put in place over the leaking well last week.

Allen has said he expects that the Q4000 will be able to take an additional 5,000 to 10,000 barrels per day.

A second Transocean drill ship is expected to arrive in mid- to late June, bringing an added capacity of 10,000 barrels per day, the company said.

By mid-July, the current cap will be replaced with a larger device that will provide a tighter seal, the company said.

The cap will be connected to another manifold and hose system to a free-floating riser 300 feet below sea level. The hose attached to the riser will connect with the containment vessel on the surface, giving cleanup workers the option of disconnecting from and then reconnecting to the riser should the ships need to return to port in the event of a hurricane.

The riser would remain in place at all times. This system could contain up to 50,000 barrels per day, according to BP.

The ultimate containment plan would insert mud and cement 18,000 feet under the seabed, effectively stopping the flow of oil, the company said.

Two such wells, one of which would be a backup, are under way and are slated for completion in August.

Meanwhile, a delegation of U.S. senators traveled Friday to the heart of coastal Louisiana to assess the damage.

"Until you see if firsthand, until you really smell it, get a sense of it, you can't understand it fully," said Sen. David Vitter, R-Louisiana.

They were the latest in a virtual parade of officials from Washington to make the trip to the coast. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis was in the region Thursday, and Obama is scheduled to make his fourth trip next week.

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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PHOTOS ISRAEL DOES NOT WANT YOU TO SEE : Hurriyet photos of disarmed Israeli commandos receiving medical care

2010-06-07T16:18:00.000-07:00

from : http://desertpeace.wordpress.com

by Paul Woodward

(Photo via Ali Abunimah)

On the Mavi Marmara, the ship that Benjamin Netanyahu has dubbed “the hate boat”, Israeli soldiers who had been hurt were given medical aid. But some of the civilians who had been shot ended up dying because the Israelis refused to have them evacuated.

Accounts provided by activists on board claim that the first Israeli commandos to land on the ship were forcibly disarmed and then taken below deck for their own safety. Photographs now published by Turkey’s leading newspaper, Hürriyet, support this claim.

Soldiers from any military force rely on their weaponry to maintain their image of power. The Israeli military is no different from any other in wanting to avoid having the vulnerability of its own elite soldiers highlighted. What these photographs reveal, however, is that once these particular soldiers were no longer able to defend themselves, they were not lynched. On the contrary, they were taken out of harms way.

Given the terror that Israelis experience when faced with the risk of having soldiers taken hostage, it appears that one element in the over-reaction of the remaining armed commandos was that they thought it inconceivable that any of their comrades could be held without coming to further harm.

Humiliation and fear.

Was this the context in which enraged soldiers decided that they would then set about teaching their adversaries a lesson?

Did nine men, many of whom were well past an age where it seems at all likely they were engaged in any kind of combat, then become scapegoats?

Were the deaths on the Mavi Marmara the result of a few soldiers demonstrating their military muscle in a desperate effort to restore their tattered pride?

Source

Russia Orders Troops To Prepare For War With US

2010-06-07T11:47:00.000-07:00

from : http://www.eutimes.net

Reports circulating in the Kremlin today state that Prime Minister Putin has ordered Russian military forces to prepare to confront American military forces in Afghanistan over what Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov warns is the “greatest threat to International peace and security”, Afghanistan’s thriving drug trade supported by the US and NATO.

Not being reported to the American people about the Afghanistan war is that it has nothing to do with their being protected from terrorists, but rather it involves the billions of dollars gained for many of the West’s top intelligence agencies (mainly the CIA) from the heroin produced in this region (90% of World’s total) that by 2001 the Taliban had virtually eliminated.

Immediately after the US invasion of Afghanistan in October, 2001, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) installed one of their main Afghan operatives, Hamid Karzai, as President, who then put into power his brother Ahmed Wali Karzai, who since then has increased heroin production to levels unseen in modern times and resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of Russian citizens.

Viktor Ivanov, the head of Russia’s Federal Drug Control Service, Russia’s National drug enforcement agency, told parliament in May that it was reasonable to “call the flow of Afghan opiates the second edition of opium wars.” Ivanov was referring to the 19th-century war between Britain and China sparked by exports of opium from British India to China.

Ivanov isn’t alone.

“I can name you a lot of politicians in Russia who said that the Americans specially arranged the situation in Afghanistan so that we would receive a lot of drugs, and this is the real aim of their occupation,” said Andrei Klimov, the deputy head of the foreign affairs committee in Russia’s lower house of parliament. “I’m not sure this is true, but who knows.”

One person who definitely knew it was true was German President Horst Koehler, who after returning from Afghanistan last month linked the war with the defense of German economic interests because it was securing free trade routes for the West and had nothing to do whatsoever with terrorism. For his “outspokenness” President Koehler was forced to resign plunging an already battered Chancellor Merkel into even greater political turmoil.

Most shocking to understand about the CIA’s being the World’s largest drug trafficker is that it isn’t even kept secret anymore and has been embraced by their new President, Barack Obama, who has used billions of dollars earned through Afghan heroin deals to fund his sending US Special Forces teams to over 75 different Nations as well as building for them a new $100 million headquarters base in Afghanistan while his own citizens plunge deeper into poverty.

Important to note though is that Obama is far from being the first American President to embrace the drug trade as nearly all of his predecessors were likewise involved in starting and maintaining wars to keep the billions earned from this most despicable of crimes preying on the weakest people in their society, mainly the poor and people of colour.

For those few reporters seeking to inform the American people about this crime the hard and brutal lesson learned from the late Gary Webb’s blacklisting and suiciding by US intelligence agents after his revealing the CIA’s involvement in the drug trade presents a chilling example of what these monsters will do to protect themselves and their right to poison anyone they so choose.

Interesting to note too is that according to the head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Antonio Maria Costa, said he has seen evidence that the proceeds of organized crime were “the only liquid investment capital” available to some banks on the brink of collapse last year. He said that a majority of the $352 Billion of drugs profits was absorbed into the economic system as a result.

Though the American people still ignore the crimes being perpetrated by their so called leaders, the lessons of their own history should not be lost upon them, especially when viewed in the light of the use of drug and alcohol laws used for mass imprisonment while at the same time instituting around them a draconian tyrannical society where all their freedoms will be stripped from them.

And for those American’s thinking that their life couldn’t get any worse? They couldn’t be more mistaken! For just this past week Obama’s Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released what they call a “staff discussion draft” of “potential policy recommendations to support the reinvention of journalism” wherein they called for doctrine of “proprietary facts” that would outlaw anyone writing or reporting on anything that happens unless they use the “facts” provided to them by the government.

But than again, and as the history of these American’s seems to show, with their massive government debt about to eclipse their Gross National Product (GDP) for the first time in history, their once vital Gulf of Mexico region succumbing to the World’s worst oil spill catastrophe, and their NASA scientists now warning that the “awakening” Sun may destroy everything anyway, maybe they truly can’t be told the truth and must be treated like the children they act like.

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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Egypt: Gaza blockade a failure, border stays open

2010-06-07T09:32:00.000-07:00

from : http://news.yahoo.com

By SARAH EL DEEB, Associated Press Writer Sarah El Deeb, Associated Press Writer – 44 mins ago

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt – An Egyptian security official declared the blockade of Gaza a failure Monday and said his country will keep its border with the Palestinian territory open indefinitely.

Keeping that crossing point open long term would ease the blockade imposed by Israel three years ago to isolate and punish Gaza's Hamas rulers. It also restores a link to the outside the world for some of Gaza's 1.5 million Palestinians.

Egypt opened its border with Gaza soon after Israel's deadly raid on an international flotilla of activists trying to break the blockade a week ago. Israel has not publicly protested the Egyptian move, but officials declined to comment Monday.

In another escalation of the tension off Gaza's shores, Israeli naval forces shot and killed four men wearing wet suits off the coast on Monday, and the militant group Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades said they were members of its marine unit training for a mission.

Vice President Joe Biden said Monday the U.S. is closely consulting with Egypt and other allies to find new ways to "address the humanitarian, economic, security, and political aspects of the situation in Gaza." He issued the statement after meeting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh.

Egypt and Israel have maintained the blockade since Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007, with Israel describing it as an essential measure to stop weapons from reaching Hamas militants, who have hit southern Israel with rockets and in past years killed hundreds in suicide bombings.

The Egyptian security official said, however, that the closure has failed to achieve its goals, including the release of an Israeli soldier held by Hamas since 2006. Israeli airstrikes and Egyptian security efforts have also yet to choke off a bustling smuggling trade that uses hundreds of tunnels along the Gaza-Egypt border, though the official said Egypt is determined to shut them down.

The crossing point at the border town of Rafah is still subject to restrictions, with Egypt letting in some humanitarian aid and allowing Palestinians into Egypt on a case-by-case basis for medical treatment or to travel onward to attend foreign universities, for example.

Egypt will not allow in large cargo shipments or construction material because the terminal is designed primarily as a crossing for travelers, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

For its part, Israel allows through only basic humanitarian goods, blocking crucial items like cement needed to rebuild war damage because it argues the material could be used by Hamas. The closure has crushed Gaza's already fragile economy.

The Egyptian official said Israel must work out a new policy to end the suffering of the Palestinians while keeping pressure on Hamas.

Like Israel, Egypt also fears sharing a border with a slice of territory controlled by Islamic militants backed by regional rival Iran. Concerned about the flow of weapons, Egypt late last year began building an underground, metal barrier to seal the smuggling tunnels.

"We have a constant security concern, because Iran has its aims, Hezbollah has its aims, Hamas has its aspirations and aims, and al-Qaida can very well be present in Sinai and Gaza," the official said.

Egypt has been harshly criticized in the Muslim world for having helped maintain the blockade.

The official called it a "continuously embarrassing situation" for Egypt and blamed Israel for thinking the closure could pressure Hamas to release the captured soldier, Gilad Schalit.

"Israel still insists that the blockade is a pressure tool, it can release Schalit and force Hamas to stop resistance," the official said. "On the contrary, it becomes more extremist."

In Monday's clash, the Israeli military said a naval force spotted the Palestinians in the waters off Gaza and opened fire. It claimed the forces had prevented an attack on Israeli targets.

Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades said the four killed were training in Gaza's waters. The violent offshoot of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction, made the claim in a text message sent to reporters in Gaza.

Four bodies were retrieved and taken to a hospital in central Gaza, said Moawiya Hassanain, a Palestinian health official. The Palestinian naval police said two people were still missing.

"The bloody escalation today is a desperate attempt by the occupation government to divert the world attention away from the massacre committed against the flotilla," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told reporters in Gaza.

The May 31 flotilla clash, in which eight Turkish men and one dual American-Turkish citizen were killed aboard one of the vessels seized by Israeli commandos, has put Israel under international pressure to lift or at least ease the blockade.

The killings seriously damaged Israel's relations with Turkey, which had been its closest ally in the Muslim world. In Istanbul, a 20-member Asian security group kicked off a summit with Turkey seeking to condemn Israel for the raid.

Israel has sought to portray the nine activists killed as militants, saying they prepared for the fight before boarding the flotilla. The military Monday released the names of five of the activists it said have long-standing ties to terror organizations.

"The state of Israel is under attack," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told lawmakers in his Likud party. He said the attack was a "direct continuation" of international condemnations of Israel's war against Hezbollah guerrillas in 2006 and last year's military offensive against Hamas in Gaza.

___

Associated Press Writers Aron Heller in Jerusalem, Ibrahim Barzak in Gaza City, Gaza Strip, and Selcan Hacaoglu in Istanbul, Turkey, contributed to this report.

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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Freedom Flotilla: Separating Truth from Zionist Bullshit

2010-06-01T23:13:00.000-07:00

from : http://mantiqaltayr.wordpress.com

1. “We will not stop. We will go again. Please, donate for the next trip. We have the Rachel Corrie and another boat.We WILL go until Gaza is free.”

Quoted from the Freegaza.org twitter account. Their website is here. Donate.

2. “It was clear from the size of the force that boarded the ship that the purpose was not only to stop this sail, but to cause the largest possible number of fatalities in order to stop such initiatives in the future.”

Hanin Zoabi, Arab member of the Israeli Knesset who was on board the Mavi Marmara.

3. Janine Zacharia, the Jerusalem Washington New York Times Post’s Wolf Blitzer analogue, just not quite as feminine looking, has begun the propaganda campaign to make sure the Israeli position on Israel’s crimes against the Freedom Flotilla is the dominant one in what’s left of the minds of the American public. Her article on the front page of JEWNYPT today is a microcosm of all that is wrong with American journalism when it comes to the Jewish state. By the way, by “Jewish State” I mean Israel, not the United States, though frankly I could not find fault with any of you if you were confused for just a second. I’ll even give Shas Party members a break on that one.

Here you have an obvious case of murder on the high seas, piracy, and just plain thuggery on the part of Israel. But the Zionist-Jew owned paper in the nation’s capital has a Jewess with years of ties to Israel presenting the Israeli side of the story. She minimizes the death toll by saying “at least 9″ people were killed, while at the same time on her very own twitter account she says the death toll could go up to 19 or 20, and presents almost everything from the Israeli perspective.

She starts right of the bat by describing Israeli’s commando raid on the Turkish ship as a “melee”. You know, a sort of Pier 6 brawl. Shas Party members, please note that the red highlights are mine.

“A nighttime Israeli naval operation to seize control of an aid flotilla headed for the Gaza Strip ended in a fatal melee on Monday as passengers battled with helicopter-borne Israeli commandos aboard a ship sailing on international waters. At least nine pro-Palestinian activists were killed.”

Israel sends in crack troops to seize an unarmed ship and the result is a “melee”. Hmmm. How about the result was Israel’s “killing at least nine passengers”? She knows how to use the passive voice.

This quote is worth looking at as well.

“Eight previous flotillas were either allowed to reach Gaza or were diverted by the Israeli navy without incident.

The above line is so misleading as to constitute an outright lie. Readers will think that boats carrying aid to Gaza either get there, or get diverted to the wonderful Jewish state, all without incident. This is pure, Grade J, kosher, stinking hot Zionist Bullshit.

Read this article: “Israeli gunboats ram boat carrying Cynthia McKinney, the people’s secretary of state.”

CNN, (Cabalah Network News), reported the same story. It sort of had to since one of its very own reporters, Karl Penhaul, was on board the ship, the DIGNITY, with Ms. McKinney. Mr. Penhaul reported that one of the Israeli boats “very severly rammed” the ship.

“When the boat later docked in the Lebanese port city of Tyre, severe damage was visible to the forward port side of the boat, and the front left window and part of the roof had collapsed. It was flying the flag of Gibraltar.”

Ms. Mckinney, in that same article, reported:

“Our boat was rammed three times, twice in the front and one on the side.”

The attack on the DIGNITY was in international waters. The ship could have been sunk, according to its captain.

“It could have ended with people drowning if they hit us more square on,” Dignity’s captain, Denis Healey, said. “It could have gone down in minutes.”

An interesting note, is Ms. McKinney’s comment on Karl Penhaul and CNN.

“Another incredibly committed journalist who was with us was CNN’s Karl Penhaul. Karl reported the truth even when his own station was repeating Israeli disinformation.“

Ever heard of the “SPIRIT OF HUMANITY”?

Here is what Paul Craig Roberts, now retired no doubt in part due to being tired of dealing with tons and tons of Zionist Bullshit, reported about that ship which also went to Gaza to deliver aid.

“On June 30 [2009], the government of Israel committed an act of piracy when the Israeli Navy in international waters illegally boarded the “Spirit of Humanity,” kidnapped its 21-person crew from 11 countries, including former US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and Nobel Laureate Mairead MaGuire, and confiscated the cargo of medical supplies, olive trees, reconstruction materials, and children’s toys that were on the way to the Mediterranean coast of Gaza. The “Spirit of Humanity,” along with the kidnapped 21 persons, is being towed to Israel as I write.”

[Note to Mr. Roberts: Please come out of retirement, we need you more than ever.]

The Freegaza.org folks write on May 31, 2010 concerning the “Spirit of Humanity” the following:

“Israel has yet to return the Spirit of Humanity, registered under a Greek flag.”

Now the Israelis, and there are many places on the net where you can find their quotes, are also saying the Flotilla had links to al-Qa’ida. Here’s a link to a typical Israeli hysterical claim published by one of Zacharia’s former employers, the Jerusalem Post.

So it is no surprise to find that Zacharia uses that talking point as well, but instead she uses the term “militant groups” as she markets Israel’s brand for the zombified American public.

“Because of the much larger scale of this flotilla, and because of concerns about the presence of activists with alleged links to militant groups, Israel mounted a far more aggressive military response than it had before, officials said. Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu consulted with his top security advisers and approved “Operation Sea Breeze” to try to stop the flotilla from reaching Gaza.”

The entire article is like this. Yes, she does quote some sane people who point out the illegality of what Israel is doing, but everything is framed from an Israeli perspective.

This is what you get from a Zionist owned newspaper employing a reporter as its Jerusalem Bureau Chief who has worked for five years as the Washington Bureau Chief for the Jerusalem Post (Wolf Blitzer’s former paper – he was also stationed in Washington for the Jerusalem Post), and who has worked in Israel for “The Jerusalem Report” and for Reuters. (Blitzer did something similar – working for Reuters while in Tel Aviv).

On this note, here’s a link to Alison Weir’s excellent article a while back talking about how so many “US” correspondents in Israel have what appear to be conflict of interest issues.

It’s time to hold the media’s feet to the fire. Do not let the main stream media and its zio-spondents get away with whitewashing Israel’s crimes.

4. Here’s an interesting contrast. This is a link to the Freegaza.org’s twitter account. Here’s one to Janine Zachari’s twitter account. Compare.

5. I just found out from looking at Xymphora’s site that the MV Rachel Corrie is headed toward Gaza. See here to learn the names of some of the people on board.

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author but do reflect those of this website.

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Cynthia McKinney condemns Israeli massacre of activists

2010-05-31T13:55:00.000-07:00

from : http://www.greenpartywatch.org

Don DeBar offers this article about the Israeli Defense Force’s action against a flotilla from the Free Gaza Movement which apparently resulted in the deaths of at least ten people. McKinney, Green Party presidential nominee in 2008, was involved in two earlier attempts to deliver humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza via ship.

Cynthia McKinney Mourns the Dead of the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza:

People of the U.S. and the world must end Israeli impunity now!

I am outraged at Israel’s latest criminal act. I mourn with my fellow Free Gaza travelers, the lives that have been lost by Israel’s needless, senseless act against unarmed humanitarian activists. But I’m even more outraged that once again, Israel’s actions have been aided and abetted by a U.S. political class that has become corrupted beyond belief due to its reliance on Zionist finance and penetration by Zionist zealots for whom no U.S. weapons system is too much for the Israeli war machine, and the silence of the world’s onlookers whose hearts have grown cold with indifference.

I recently visited the offices of IHH, the Turkish humanitarian organization that sponsored one of the Freedom Flotilla boats, and that was targeted by the Israelis for its murderous rampage. Reports are still coming in as to the full extent of the senseless Israeli violence. Of course, I expect Israel’s apologists in the press and in the United States government to shift into high gear to support Israel’s lying machine. Take note of their names. The 12,000 internet squatters/written word grenade throwers, hired by the Israeli Foreign Ministry to defend Israel and attack peace activists online, are already busy spreading their orchestrated disinformation in cyberspace. Be very careful what you read and believe from special interest press and the internet. You could be reading one of Israel’s hired hacks. As a news diversion from what Israel has just done, I suspect that we can also expect to see a lot of historical footage of war’s
atrocities on television: today is Memorial Day in the United States, a day long ago set aside to remember the sacrifices of U.S. war dead.

I encouraged and supported U.S.S. Liberty veteran Joe Meadors’s participation in the Freedom Flotilla. Unfortunately, the fate of the U.S.S. Liberty innocents on the high seas, while in international waters, has now been visited upon the participants in the Freedom Flotilla, in large measure because of the Congressional- and Presidential-level cover-up of the 1967 Israeli attack on that U.S. surveillance ship. Combined with the failure of just about every other effort to hold Israel accountable for its crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide, and crimes against the peace. Belgium and Spain changed their domestic laws of universal jurisdiction after Israeli appeals to do so. The entire musical chairs gang of rotating Israeli leadership are war criminals. During my imprisonment in Israel for attempting to take crayons to the children of Gaza, I called Israel a failed state. If Israel is threatened by unarmed, humanitarian activists to the
point of massacring them, then Israel is a failed state. Israel is a failed nuclear state.

Obama’s most recent granting of an additional $205 million for Israeli “missile defense” is unconscionable, when in the same week, reports revealed for the first time, Israel’s offer of nuclear weapons to apartheid South Africa. Just last week, a paper bearing the signature of former Israeli Prime Minister, Shimon Peres, was released by South Africa, revealing that in 1975, Israel could offer South Africa nuclear weapons “in three sizes.” South Africa’s then-Minister of Defense, P.W. Botha, was South Africa’s signatory to the letter. This information would make the entire Obama Administration look sadly farcical as it points an accusing finger at Iran, except that U.S. obeisance to the Israeli bloodthirst is deadly serious. With deadly outcomes.

Earlier this month, Israel was granted admission to the Organization of Economic and Community Development (OECD), a direct affront to ongoing Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) efforts across the world. Once again, Israel has thumbed its nose at the global community–with bloody results–because it can.

I am proud to serve on the Bertrand Russell Tribunal on Palestine. Its next sitting will be in London, where we will examine corporate complicity in Israel’s crimes against Palestine. The Tribunal will sit from November 5 – 7. Please put this on your calendar. We all must do what we can, where we are to end wars against the people at home and wars against human rights abroad.

Finally, a friend just sent a message to me saying that the Israelis had lost their minds. Sadly, based on the past, the Israelis could very well conclude that they can do anything–imprison me for trying to take love to the children of Gaza and kill humanitarian activists trying to do the same–because they know, in the end, they’ll get away with it. Instead, I would suggest that we are the ones who have lost our minds, our souls, our spirits, and our human dignity if we allow the Israelis to get away with murder–again–and we do nothing.

I am calling on the people of the United States to change course now.

On this Memorial Day 2010, I am stunned and outraged beyond belief while mourning the dead of the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza.

Tags: Cynthia McKinney, Free Gaza Movement

This entry was posted on Monday, May 31st, 2010 at 8:02 am and is filed under Social & Economic Justice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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

THE BIG LIE SELLING YOU WAR WITH NORTH KOREA

2010-05-25T16:05:00.000-07:00

from : http://whatreallyhappened.com

STORY GOES HERE

What can I say; here we go again!

I hardly need to go down the list of lies used to start US wars. We have been though that over and over again.

Nor do I need to elucidate on the many reasons why the US Government is in desperate need for yet another war with which to scare the American people into acceptance of more takes and fewer rights and freedoms.

Anyone with half a brain realizes that the US Government, unable to gain support for an invasion of Iran, has changed gears and decided that North Korea will be the next step towards World War III.

Here is the big lie...

Let us start with a cloned copy of the official South Korean website detailing the sinking of the Cheosan.

From that website we get the following picture of the remains of a torpedo dredged from the bottom of the ocean.

The official claim that North Korea fired this torpedo at a South Korean warship is based on the following blueprint of a North Korean torpedo claimed to be the weapon recovered from the ocean floor.

There are several differences between the torpedo plans and the actual torpedo recovered from the floor of the ocean. But I am going to focus on just one.

Take a close look where the tail cone assembly (indicated by the bulkhead at the leading edge of the fins) attaches to the torpedo main hull. A major component of all modern torpedoes are the fin actuators. These are the small motors that adjust the rudder and dive planes of the torpedo in order to maintain the intended depth and course to target.

Note that the blueprints of the North Korean torpedo show these actuators forward of the tail cone assembly, that is to say in front of the bulkhead that marks where the fin assembly attaches to the torpedo.

Now let us look at the torpedo actually recovered from the bottom of the ocean near where the Cheosan was attacked.

Note that the recovered torpedo these actuators are built INSIDE the tail cone assembly, that is to say to the REAR of the bulkhead that marks where the fin assembly attaches to the torpedo.

And again, as seen in the official released photo of the recovered torpedo.

In short, the torpedo recovered from the ocean where Cheosan was attacked is NOT the same torpedo shown in the North Korean plans. As I stated above, there are additional differences as well between the blueprints and the actual torpedo, but the actuators are the clincher.

The torpedo recovered fronm the oceasn where the Cheosan was sunk is not the North Korean torpedo shown in the blueprints.

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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Russia rebukes US over Afghan heroin output

2010-05-25T02:48:00.000-07:00

from : http://en.rian.ru

11:5625/05/2010

Moscow has criticised US-led forces in Afghanistan for failing to eradicate heroin production and warned at the weekend that drug smuggling was endangering Russia’s national security.

Russia says production of heroin in Afghanistan has increased almost tenfold since the US-led invasion to oust the Taliban began in 2001.

By Isabel Gorst in Moscow

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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Cries From the Past: Torture's Ugly Echoes

2010-05-24T02:54:00.000-07:00

from : http://www.truthout.org

Sunday 23 May 2010

by: H.P. Albarelli Jr. and Jeffrey Kaye, t r u t h o u t | Report

(Illustration: Lance Page / t r u t h o u t)

In a superb op-ed, written by Leonard S. Rubenstein and Stephen N. Xenakis, published recently in the New York Times (Doctors Without Morals, March 1, 2010, p. A23), the issue of holding physicians and psychologists accountable for their ethical breaches in participating in the conduct of torture is expertly raised, along with a well-needed call for investigations into such violations and violators. Rubenstein and Xenakis wrote: "[Despite overwhelming evidence] no agency - not the Pentagon, the CIA, state licensing boards or professional medical societies - has initiated any action to investigate, much less discipline, these individuals. They have ignored the gross and appalling violations by medical personnel. This is an unconscionable disservice to the thousands of ethical doctors and psychologists in the country's service. It is not too late to begin investigations. They should start now."

Rubenstein and Xenakis are absolutely correct in their call for action now, as they are in their accounting of what has gone on historically the past ten years with torture at Guantanamo and elsewhere. However, their op-ed says nothing about the decades preceding the terrible events of 9-11. An examination of these well-hidden, past torture activities might serve well in shedding light on the causes for reluctance and inaction in holding torturers and their professional cohorts responsible.

Operation Dormouse

Contemporary torture's earliest, deepest and most influential roots are found in the CIA's Artichoke Project. Indeed, it is Project Artichoke that encapsulates the CIA's real traveling road show of horrors and atrocities, not MK/ULTRA which, although responsible for its own acts of mindless cruelty, pales in comparison.

That MK/ULTRA received, and continues to receive, the lion's share of the media's attention and public outrage over CIA mind control programs was a deliberately planned outcome on the part of the Agency. This outcome was the central objective of a never before revealed covert operation launched in 1975 and informally code-named Dormouse.

Dormouse, operated out of the CIA's Security Research branch, had its genesis in the 1975 Rockefeller Commission report and in the subsequent Congressional hearings into CIA illegal activities chaired by Senators Frank Church and Teddy Kennedy. Following the initial revelation of Frank Olson's alleged "suicide" by the Rockefeller Commission, a number of high-level meetings occurred between President Gerald Ford's White House and CIA General Counsel Lawrence Houston.

Houston, who had served the Agency as its doyen general counsel for over 25 years, secretly huddled on at least two occasions in June 1975 with Ford's chief of staff, Donald Rumsfeld, and his chief assistant, Richard Cheney. Houston impressed upon both men that any prolonged and intense media scrutiny of Project Artichoke would lead to opening a Pandora's box of legal, institutional, international and public relations problems that could destroy the CIA.

Houston explained that the Agency's MK/ULTRA program was far less problematic for the CIA because it had been a research-based program that initiated 153 contracts to colleges, universities and research institutions nationwide. These contractors, all stalwart and prestigious institutions like Harvard, Columbia, and Tulane Universities, could serve as viable buffers to any harsh outside attacks.

Houston stressed that deliberate exposure of the MK/ULTRA program by essentially offering it to the press would serve to placate the brewing feeding frenzy over so-called mind control projects, and would divert any investigative attempts into the multi-faceted Artichoke Project.

Houston additionally explained to Rumsfeld and Cheney that, along with the release of MK/ULTRA details to the media, the names of a few former CIA employees, such as Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, would also be released to the press. Incredibly, when the subject of possible federal prosecutions of CIA officials for capital crimes and felonies, such as murder and drug trafficking, came up in their discussion, Houston informed Rumsfeld and Cheney that there was little cause for concern.

Explained the Agency's General Counsel, since early 1954, following the death of Army biochemist Frank Olson, a secret agreement between the CIA and the U.S. Department of Justice had been put in place whereby the violation of "criminal statutes" by CIA personnel would not result in Department of Justice prosecutions, if "highly classified and complex covert operations" were threatened with exposure. The agreement had been struck between Houston and Deputy Attorney General William P. Rogers in February 1954, not long after Frank Olson's death, and still remained solidly in place.

Lastly, and worth noting here, was a brief adjunct discussion between Houston, Rumsfeld, and Cheney regarding related concerns about records on former Nazi scientists who had been secretly imported into the United States in the early Fifties by the State Department and Army, as part of Project Paperclip. These German scientists performed highly-classified research at the Army's Fort Detrick and Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland, some of which involved field operations in Europe.

Without doubt, as the extant record clearly reveals, the CIA's Dormouse Operation, as expressed by Houston, was remarkably effective. Information released on the Agency's MK/ULTRA program more than sated the media's curiosity for mind control details, and even a few random Artichoke Program citations in a couple released documents failed to draw any concerted examination by anyone in the press. For example: documents revealing that Dr. Frank Olson had been part of the CIA's ongoing "Artichoke Conference" were near completely overlooked. Within a few short months, Artichoke was widely believed by the media and public to be but a small, innocuous project that had been replaced by the MK/ULTRA behemoth. Still today, numerous publications state that Artichoke was absorbed and replaced by MK/ULTRA, when actually Artichoke operated independently for nearly 17 years beyond the dawn of MK/ULTRA.

What Was Project Artichoke?

The CIA initiated Project Artichoke in August 1951 at the direction of CIA director Walter Bedell Smith and the Agency's Scientific Intelligence Director, Dr. H. Marshall Chadwell. The code name "Artichoke" was selected with sardonic humor from the street appendage given to New York City gangster Ciro Terranova, who was referred to as "the Artichoke King."

Following a brief period of bureaucratic infighting over which CIA department would have jurisdiction over Artichoke, it was decided that the project would be overseen by the Agency's Security Research Staff, headed by Paul F. Gaynor, a former Army Brigadier General, who had extensive experience in wartime interrogations.

Gaynor was notorious among CIA officials for having his staff maintain a systematic file on every homosexual, and suspected homosexual, among the ranks of Federal employees, as well as those who worked and served on Washington's Capitol Hill. Gaynor's secret listing eventually grew to include the names of employees and elected officials at State government levels, and the siblings and relatives of those on Capitol Hill.

In early January 1953, State Department employee John C. Montgomery, who handled considerable classified material, hanged himself in his Georgetown townhouse after learning of his addition to Gaynor's list. In 1954, U.S. Senator Lester C. Hunt (D-WY) killed himself in his senate office after he was threatened by Republicans, using information provided by Gaynor's staff, to publicly expose his son's homosexuality. By the early 1960s, according to one former Agency employee, "It was pretty much routine to consult Gaynor's 'fag file' when conducting background or clearance checks on individuals."

Gaynor's veiled and more despicable activities also extended to racist matters, a fixation he seemed to share with many of the CIA's early leaders, as well as with some of the Pentagon's early ranking officials. According to one former CIA official, Gaynor was once informally cautioned by Allen Dulles concerning his overt support of former Congressman Hamilton Fish III, a strident Nazi sympathizer, and for associating, along with fellow CIA official Morse Allen, with John B. Trevor Jr., an ardent racist, anti-Semite, pro-Nazi, who called for amnesty for Nazi war criminals. Before the CIA was formed, Gaynor was also associated with Trevor's father, John B. Trevor Sr., a Harvard-educated attorney who worked with Army intelligence and who once strongly advocated arming a group of citizens with 6,000 rifles and machine guns to put down an anticipated Jewish uprising in Manhattan that only took shape in Trevor's twisted mind.

In 1997, former CIA Technical Services chief, Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, who had been born into a Jewish family, said, "Throughout the 1950s, and for some time beyond, the Agency was less than a welcoming place for Jews and racial minorities. Those who were actually ever hired or involved in operations learned rather quickly to keep their heads down when certain matters were discussed or rallied round."

Here it should be emphasized that inevitably lurking within, near, and around all of the CIA's early mind-control experiments was a strong element of racism that generally manifested itself through the Agency's principle objective of establishing control over the perceived "weaker" and "less intelligent" segments of society. That the CIA's initial mind control activities show a close kinship with many prominent characters within the racist and anti-immigration eugenics movement is no coincidence. Thus comprised was the central leadership of the CIA's Project Artichoke.

Here it is important to note that the Artichoke Project originated from the CIA's short-lived Project Bluebird, which operated for about two years, 1949 through summer 1951, and concentrated its efforts on former American POWs returned from the Korean War. These servicemen were placed in several Army hospitals, including Valley Forge Hospital, Pennsylvania and the Walter Reed facility in Washington, D.C. There the former POWs were subjected to various behavioral modification programs, including the use of experimental drugs, special interrogation methods, all for what the CIA deemed "offensive objectives." Joining the CIA in Project Bluebird was the Army, Navy, and Air Force (the FBI declined to participate in the project).

Reads one April 1951 Bluebird Project report: "The Navy's research efforts in regards to Bluebird objectives had actually begun in 1947 at Bethesda Naval Hospital. There, according to the Navy's Bluebird designees, J.H. Alberti and Lt. Cmdr. Hardenburg, extensive experiments had been conducted using both drugs and medical aids (polygraph machines, surgical means, hypnotism). Besides Bethesda hospital, the Office of Naval Research conducted a project in partnership with the University of Indiana which in essence [was] a search for valid indications of deception other than the mechanical indicators now being used."

CIA interest in exotic and abusive methods of detecting deception continues to the present day. In July 2003, the CIA, the Rand Corporation and the American Psychological Association conducted a series of workshops on detecting deception. One of these workshops considered the use of truth drugs ("pharmacological agents are known to affect apparent truth-telling behavior") and the use of sensory overloads. The workshop asked its classified participants, "How might we overload the system or overwhelm the senses and see how it affects deceptive behaviors?"

Perhaps one of the best examples of this was the treatment of "enemy combatant" Jose Padilla, who by the time he entered a U.S. courtroom had suffered tremendously, and irreversibly, from the abuses of deliberately induced sensory and systems overload.

In early summer of 1951, just weeks before Bluebird was renamed Artichoke, officials within the CIA's Security Office - working in tandem with cleared scientists from Camp Detrick's Special Operations Division, who in turn worked closely with a select group of scientists from a number of other Army installations, including Edgewood Arsenal - began a series of ultra-secret experiments with LSD, mescaline, peyote, and a synthesized substance, sometimes nicknamed "Smasher," which combined an "LSD-like drug with pharmaceutical amphetamines and other enhancers."

This substance was used in a number of highly classified field experiments, at least four of which were conducted outside the United States. While details of these experiments are sketchy, former Fort Detrick biochemists report, "None of the field experiments produced the type of results desired," and as a result, "ranking Army Chemical Corps officials elected to focus LSD and other drug experiments on more narrowly defined groups, as well as individuals." Chief among the field experiments that failed in the "desired results" category were the horrifying events that took place in Pont St. Esprit, France in 1951. There in a small, peaceful village one early summer morning nearly 700 people went stark raving mad with 4 people killing themselves. (This incident is detailed in my book, "A TERRIBLE MISTAKE: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments") This experimental focus remained in place when Project Artichoke was initiated.

At its inception, the Artichoke Project needed a steady supply of experimental subjects. Wrote CIA Security Research chief Paul Gaynor in a never before revealed February 1953 memo: "It is imperative that we move forward more aggressively on identifying and securing a reliable, ready group, or groups, of human research subjects for ongoing Artichoke experimentation. There can be no delays in this extremely important work."

Other CIA reports reveal that the CIA's Security Research Staff was not sitting idly by while awaiting the securing of ready groups of human subjects. Teams of Agency officials and contract physicians were traveling frequently to locations in Europe where, in the isolation of CIA safe houses, enhanced interrogations and behavior modification experiments were being conducted on various defectors, double-agents, and kidnapped foreign agents.

Reads a November 1956 Artichoke report that could have easily been written today at Guantanamo, Cuba: "The team physician administered a suppository containing a small amount of heroin to the subject so as to increase subject's pain threshold." The physician referred to in this report, a well-known Washington, D.C. psychologist, made over 90 Artichoke-related trips abroad.

In September 1953, Artichoke Project director Morse Allen, a former Naval intelligence officer and State Department employee, hand-carried a two-page memorandum to Paul Gaynor. The memo bears the subject: "Artichoke Research Program." It reads in part: "[T]here are some four thousand (4,000) American military men who are serving court martial sentences in the federal prisons at the present time. These men are scattered through the federal institutions according to their age - some being at reformatories, others at prisons. It is administratively possible that the sentences of these men can be reduced by direction of the Adjutant General's office. Therefore, if these men should be wanted for work on a dangerous research project, it might be possible to motivate their interest by promising that recommendations would be made to the Adjutant General's office to have their sentences appropriately reduced if they co-operated in the experimentation. Also many offenses of military men were committed in circumstances which might tend to lessen the feeling of guilt on the part of the individual and such cases might reveal interesting information."

Allen next suggested that federal prisons "that have hospital setups with doctors on the permanent staff" be used for experiments. Wrote Allen, "Such things as the size of the institution and current population would have to be considered but it is a fact that the federal prisons are not overcrowded as is the case with many state prisons, thus it would be much easier to obtain working space in a federal institution." Artichoke teams secretly working in the prisons could be passed off as "coming from nearby universities or research institutions," explained Allen. About a week later, Allen amended his September memo to include "federal hospitals and institutions under the control of the [U.S.] Public Health Service."

Wrote Allen, "There are a large number of USPHS-controlled facilities that can be used for experiments, these in addition to the facilities recommended in the earlier memorandum bearing the same subject."

Gaynor promptly approved Allen's recommendations, ordering their immediate implementation. Within a few weeks, progress reports concerning the conduct of experiments at three federal prisons, as well as a reformatory in Bordentown, New Jersey, were submitted to Gaynor. Experiments were also conducted at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, D.C., a Veterans Administration hospital in Detroit, Michigan, and at the Federal Narcotics Farm in Lexington, Kentucky. Experiments at the Narcotics Farm, somewhat romanticized in some current publications, were specifically targeted at African-American inmates, who were considered by the program's director to be inferior to white inmates at the facility.

When the newly created U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) was created just weeks later with Nelson A. Rockefeller as Under-Secretary, the CIA found it remarkably easy to gain HEW's approval for use of Federal medical facilities as fronts for covert drug and interrogation experiments using unwitting human subjects. Inevitably, nearly all those unwitting experimental subjects chosen for HEW-sponsored projects were African-Americans and persons from immigrant groups and what one Agency document referred to as the "lower classes."

A central Artichoke objective, according to one CIA document, centered on: "The problem exists of ascertaining whether effective and practical techniques exist, or could be developed, which could be utilized to render an individual subservient to an imposed will or control, thereby posing a potential threat to National Security." [Italics added]

The same document explained that the Agency also wanted to put the same techniques to their own effective uses in the field offensively. Reads the document: "We need to also explore the 'subtle' means of making an individual say or do things he would normally not consider through the use of covertly administered drugs, 'Black Psychiatry'*, hypnosis, and brain damaging processes. Dr. Chadwell feels these processes may be tried but they are 'elaborate, impractical and unnecessary.'"[Italics added. Dr. Chadwell was H. Marshall Chadwell, the CIA's director of Scientific Intelligence.]

A subsequent April 1954 Artichoke Conference meeting, attended by Frank Olson's Fort Detrick superior, Col. Vincent Ruwet, explored the real nitty-gritty of Artichoke experimentation. Noted a CIA report on the meeting, "It was also recognized [by conference participants] that if Morse Allen and his group could produce bodies and if certain very rough, primitive, and ultimate tests could be carried out then a more accurate prediction could be made in connection with the ultimate goal of the group which is the running of selected foreign nationals back into Europe for specific work for this Agency."

CIA Security Research chief Paul Gaynor, attending the same Artichoke Conference meeting, reminded the gathered Agency and Fort Detrick officials, "All individuals can be broken under mental and physical assaults and by such techniques as denying sleep, exhaustion, persuasion, starvation, pain, humiliation, and sickness."

Added Gaynor, "The capacity to endure assaults of all kinds varies in individuals. We need to teach the Artichoke techniques to medical officers in the field... we also need to combine these techniques with the work carried on at Edgewood Arsenal and at Camp Dietrich [sic] ...and the special use of ergots, as well as Lysergic Acid. Experiments with new ideas, for example the hypo-spray instrument (owned by the E.R. Squibb Company) using criminals and the criminally insane, have been very successful."

An italicized and revealing note at the end of the Artichoke meeting report reads: "Morse Allen and Paul Gaynor emphasized the fact that this type of work must not be overwhelmed and overburdened in a maze of statistics, technical reports and learned academic experimentation since previous experiences along these lines clearly indicate that when this appears the end results are almost always negative." Reportedly, much of these very same statements and thinking are contained in a number of the training manuals used today by CIA and Army interrogators.

Project Artichoke Operational Overseas

Beginning in January 1954, following a series of experimental field assignments, the CIA began to systematically dispatch special assignment Artichoke Teams from the U.S. to locations throughout Europe, Japan, Southeast Asia, and the Philippines. Team assignments were given by special "EYES ONLY" cables with each assigned a tracking number. By 1961 the numbers had reached as high as 257 specific assignments. Nearly all of these assignments would fall under today's definition of "enhanced interrogations."

Through a number of Project Artichoke documents, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, we are able to obtain glimpses into those activities and techniques employed by the dispatched teams, which appear to have been at least a dozen in number.

A February 6, 1954 team report, delivered to CIA headquarters by "Diplomatic Courier," provides partial insight into one seemingly unique Artichoke field assignment in Europe. The report states: "These two subjects [foreign agents] are disposal problems, one because of his lack of ability to carry out a mission and the other because he cannot get along with the chief agent of the project. Both have extensive information concerning (other) assets and thus are security risks wherever they are disposed of. Anything that can be done in the Artichoke field to lessen the security risk will be helpful since the men must be disposed of even at maximum security risk. The urgency of consideration of this case is due to the fact that one of the men is already somewhat stir crazy and has tried to escape twice."

Another field report reads: "Subject was given a sedative suppository to increase his resistance to pain, this in order to intensify his ordeal midway through the planned session." Another reads in part: "This A [Artichoke] session involved four subjects all of whom present serious disposal problems after results are produced."

Domestic Artichoke Operations

In February 1954, with over 65 Artichoke Team visits to sites in Europe and the Far East having already occurred, Paul Gaynor decided to open a new Artichoke Project front. This front would be located within America's borders despite the fact that many people in the nation's capital believed that the CIA's founding charter forbade the organization from conducting domestic operations. In numerous ways, this new front gave initial shape and direction for the CIA's still-to-come "rendition" activities that we witness today.

Gaynor outlined this in a memo sent to the Agency's Technical Services Division, explaining that Artichoke officials were about to embark on creating "a mechanism within the United States which will be a ways and means of contacting alien citizens in the United States" whereby they could be "branded as alien threats and removed from the United States as 'undesirable aliens.'" The objective of establishing this mechanism was to facilitate "legal entree" for the contacted aliens so that they might, following careful "screening and testing," conduct covert missions in targeted foreign countries.

Gaynor's memo continued, stating the best technique for "contacting these people" was through the use of "sympathetic fake left-wing organizations" secretly established by the CIA. Remarkably, the memo went on stating the best process established by Artichoke officials for identifying those aliens to use involved "selection, screening, indoctrination and ultimately hypnosis." However, states the memo, "the sixty-four dollar question is can individuals be commanded under hypnosis to do things they would not otherwise do because of morals, training, ethics, etc."

Earlier, in March 1952, Security Research officials along with CIA Scientific Intelligence Branch researchers had made a concerted decision to pursue hypnotism toward the principle objective that, "Two hundred trained [CIA] operators, trained in the United States, could develop [and command] a unique, dangerous army of hypnotically controlled agents" who would carry out any instructions they were given without reservations. Several years later, CIA officials would describe the abilities of this "unique, dangerous army" as "mildly hair-raising."

Artichoke Evolves into Assassination Project

Perhaps it was inevitable that Project Artichoke would eventually develop an "executive action" or assassination component. The CIA had been seriously contemplating such a capacity since its founding. In 1952, one Artichoke official wrote: "Let's get into the technology of assassination, figure most effective ways to kill - like Empress Agrippina - do you want your people to be able to get out of the room? Do you want it traced?"

Other hard evidence of the CIA's leanings toward assassination as a feature of policy and operations is yet another memorandum by the Agency's Security Office and Artichoke official Morse Allen. Wrote Allen about Martin Luther King in 1965: "It is [redacted]'s belief that somehow or other Martin Luther King must be removed from the leadership of the Negro movement, and his removal must come from within and not from without. [Redacted] feels that somehow in the Negro movement, at the top, there must be a Negro leader who is 'clean' who could step into the vacuum and chaos if Martin Luther King were exposed or assassinated."

Rewriting History and Creating Disinformation

In recent years there has been a concerted effort on the part of some groups and writers to deliberately disown and downplay the horrors of Project Artichoke. Perhaps the finest recent example of this is an article written by Charles S. Viar of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Intelligence Studies, a private group. Viar's article entitled PANDORA'S BOX: MKULTRA and the Weaponization of the Human Psyche is posted on the center's web site.

Viar, who claims to have been a student of James Jesus Angleton in 1986 and 1987, and an expert on intelligence affairs, erroneously claims in his article that the Artichoke Project and its techniques had been "developed and successfully refined by the Soviets, Nazi, and Western intelligence services between 1920 and 1973." This rewriting of history appears as nothing short of an amazing effort to distort the truth; as is well established by the CIA's own records, the term Artichoke was never applied to any program or techniques prior to 1952, when the Agency first employed the project codename.

Viar also appears to buy into and promote the cover story invented by Cheney and Rumsfeld in 1975 that Project Artichoke was, in 1953, replaced by MK/ULTRA. Additionally, he buys into the "unwitting" dosing of Frank Olson as "part of an MKULTRA experiment," this despite that Olson was a member of the CIA's Artichoke Conference and never worked with MK/ULTRA projects. Viar then remarkably writes, "There is no evidence that either the CIA or the US military operationalized Artichoke," a statement that is shattered to pieces by the numerous Artichoke operational reports and records filed by both the CIA and army from 1954 through to at least 1970. If this is not enough, Viar then states that it was "the Soviets" who "shared Artichoke with their Arab allies," and then equates Project Artichoke to "suicide bombers" and "Al Qaeda." Lastly, Viar also writes that the CIA's delving into parapsychology matters is near completely overlooked by historians, despite the ample writings and exposure of the Agency's MK/ULTRA subprojects, which extensively dealt with ESP and other parapsychology matters.

Project Artichoke Today

With today's media reports concerning the CIA and Department of Defense black sites cropping up all over the world map, and with horrifying reports concerning alleged "suicides" at US-operated compounds holding "enemy combatants" that make Frank Olson's suicide-turned-murder case look like a stroll through atrocity park, readers should be ever mindful that the roots of the CIA's secret mind control and enhanced interrogation programs are firmly planted in the soil of Project Artichoke.

Over the past months, new secret black sites prisons have been discovered at Guantanamo Naval Base and at Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan. The Guantanamo site has been linked to the deaths of three prisoners in 2006, while Bagram secret prison, said to be run by the Defense Intelligence Agency, has been the subject of investigations by the New York Times, Washington Post, and BBC, exposing widespread use of beatings, isolation, sleep deprivation, and other techniques derived from Appendix M of the 2006 Army Field Manual. This portion of the manual outlines abusive forms of interrogation reserved only for captives that supposedly don't warrant prisoner-of-war status.

Interest in the use of drugs and mind control techniques in military research and operations persists to the present day. A November 2006 instruction from the Secretary of the Navy (3900.39D) informs that the Undersecretary for the Navy would heretofore be the "Approval Authority for research involving: (a) Severe or unusual intrusions, either physical or psychological, on human subjects (such as consciousness-altering drugs or mind-control techniques)."**

A public presentation of the new policy at the Defense Department Training Day in Washington, D.C. on November 14, 2006, only 16 days after the new policy was released, deleted the parenthetical remarks on drugs and "mind control," but left intact the instruction two paragraphs later that the Undersecretary also be responsible for research of, "Potentially or inherently controversial topics (such as those likely to attract significant media coverage or that might invite challenge by interest groups.)"

Like a modern day Ministry of Truth, U.S. government agencies and their partners are busy trying to erase the evidence of their crimes, whether from sixty years ago, or six. Most recently, the American Psychological Association (APA) has changed the web pages that describe their 2003 workshop conducted with the CIA and the Rand Corporation on deception. One webpage has dropped the link to another page that described the workshops investigation of sensory overload and truth drugs. The descriptive page on workshops has been scrubbed entirely, and is only available through the use of web archives sites. Worth noting is that throughout the 1950s and 1960s the APA worked quite closely with both the CIA and Army on mind control projects, many of which completely crossed ethical lines, as well as the APA's Code of Ethics, into areas described by many observers as sheer madness.

Attempts to prevent judicial review of the rendition and torture programs are moreover an official position of President Obama's administration. On May 12, the administration filed a brief to the Supreme Court about whether to hear an appeal from Maher Arar in his lawsuit against former Attorney General Ashcroft and other Bush administration figures. Arar was kidnapped from New York's JFK Airport and rendered secretly to Syria, where he was tortured for almost a year. His suit was dismissed by a federal circuit appeals court. Now, President Obama's Acting Solicitor General, Neal Katyal, has pronounced the administration's position that further deliberations on Mr. Arar's suit are "unwarranted." The former Solicitor General, Elena Kagan, who was involved in U.S. decision-making on the case, is now a nominee for the Supreme Court.

Finally, the release last year of the CIA's 2004 Inspector General report on the "enhanced interrogation" program revealed an operation that with its use of doctors as control agents, its reliance on methods of psychological and physiological torture, and the experimental nature of the program, led Physicians for Human Rights to release a white paper that concluded that "possible human experimentation" was taking place, and emphasized the urgent need for a thorough investigation.

---

*According to one former CIA official: "'Black Psychiatry' refers to psychiatric methods used by trained and licensed physicians on subjects. These methods may not be in the best interest of the subject's mental well-being and health." The same official remarked, "There was no shortage of or problems recruiting psychologists in the 1950s and 1960s who would willfully, and sometimes enthusiastically, practice 'Black Psychiatry.'" The various methods of 'Black Psychiatry' were provided in a training setting in the 1950s through to at least the 1970s at the CIA's Butler Health Center facility in Rhode Island, where many physicians, including Dr. Robert Hyde, worked for the Agency. The Butler Center also served as the CIA's central site for exposing its own officials and agents to the effects of LSD and other drugs.

** Recent reports concerning the CIA and Army have both organizations experimenting on a selected basis with a new mind altering drug whose effects are described as "incredibly mind altering yet at the same time allowing subjects to adhere to a sufficient sense of sanity thus allowing better opportunity for truth inducing techniques..." The drug, described by one former intelligence official as "ETX," is said to last for "about 48-hours."

H.P. Albarelli Jr. is the author of "A TERRIBLE MISTAKE: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments." He has written numerous newspaper and magazine articles on biological warfare and intelligence affairs. He can be contacted through his Web site: www.albarelli.net.

Jeffrey Kaye, a psychologist living in Northern California, writes regularly on torture and other subjects for Firedoglake. He also maintains a personal blog, Invictus. His email address is sfpsych at gmail dot com

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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sick science : Artificial life? Synthetic genes "boot up" cell

2010-05-20T12:39:00.000-07:00

from : http://www.reuters.com

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Researchers trying to make synthetic life in the lab have "booted up" a hollowed-out bacterium using a human-made genome in a major step toward making synthetic life.

Science | Health

They hope to use their stripped-down version of a bacterium to eventually engineer custom-made microbes.

"This is the first synthetic cell that's been made, and we call it synthetic because the cell is totally derived from a synthetic chromosome, made with four bottles of chemicals on a chemical synthesizer, starting with information in a computer," said genome pioneer Craig Venter, who led the research.

"This is the first self-replicating species that we have had on the planet whose parent is a computer," he added.

Venter has said he would like to try to make bacteria to produce fuel, to design algae that can vacuum up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and to use in making better vaccines.

"This becomes a very powerful tool for trying to design what we want biology to do," Venter said at a news conference.

Reporting in the journal Science, Venter's team said they worked with a synthetic version of the DNA from a small bacterium called Mycoplasma mycoides transplanted into another germ called Mycoplasma capricolum, which had most of its insides removed.

After many false starts, the new microbe came to life and began replicating in the lab dish.

"This is an important step we think, both scientifically and philosophically. It's certainly changed my views of the definitions of life and how life works," Venter said in a statement.

THWARTED SUCCESS

It took years to first figure out how to make an artificial chromosome with assembled artificial genetic sequences. They then had to figure out how to transfer this into another bacterium.

At first, nothing happened. It turned out there was a single error in the more than one million "base-pairs" in the genetic sequence. "Our success was thwarted for many weeks," they wrote in their report.

"So accuracy is essential," Venter told the news conference.

The researchers do not claim to have created a completely synthetic life form.

Their eventual goal: "Can a complete genetic system be reproduced by chemical synthesis starting with only the digitized DNA sequence

contained in a computer?" they asked in their paper.

Venter said the team consulted many different experts in ethics before they started. The institute's Dan Gibson said they also briefed the White House because of the security implications -- the technique might be used to synthesize biological weapons, for instance.

Several other researchers said the study was a landmark.

"Venter is creaking open the most profound door in humanity's history, potentially peeking into its destiny," Julian Savulescu of Britain's University of Oxford, said in a statement.

"He is going toward the role of a god: creating artificial life that could never have existed naturally, creating life from the ground up using basic building blocks."

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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Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has passport confiscated

2010-05-18T00:09:00.000-07:00

from :

Sophie Tedmanson in Sydney

May 17, 2010

The Australian founder of the whistleblower website Wikileaks had his passport confiscated by police when he arrived in Melbourne last week.

Julian Assange, who does not have an official home base and travels every six weeks, told the Australian current affairs program Dateline that immigration officials had said his passport was going to be cancelled because it was looking worn.

However he then received a letter from the Australian Communication Minister Steven Conroy’s office stating that the recent disclosure on Wikileaks of a blacklist of websites the Australian government is preparing to ban had been referred to the Australian Federal Police (AFP).

Last year Wikileaks published a confidential list of websites that the Australian government is preparing to ban under a proposed internet filter – which in turn caused the whistleblower site to be placed on that list.

Mr Assange, 37, told The Age newspaper that half an hour after his passport was returned to him an AFP officer searched one of his bags and questioned him about a previous criminal record for computer hacking offences when he was a teenager.

He was then told his passport status was classified as "normal" on the immigration database

In 1991 Mr Assange, described by Wikileaks as "Australia’s most famous ethical computer hacker", was charged with 30 offences over the alleged hacking of police, Telco’s and US military computers. He admitted to 24 charges and was fined and placed on a good behaviour bond.

Mr Assange told the Dateline program that Australia is one of a few countries he is wary of travelling in as a result of documents published on the Wikileaks website.

"There are places … Dubai, who is trying to have us arrested, Switzerland under the bank secrecy laws, Cayman Islands," he said. "Australia had the federal police in relation to its censorship list so there are some jurisdictions that from time to time it wouldn’t be sensible to go there."

Wikileaks, which publishes anonymously sourced confidential documents from governments and corporations, was launched in January 2007.

The site has since exposed secrets about corruption in Kenya, Nato’s plans for the war in Afghanistan and the operations manual for the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay.

Last month Wikileaks created international headlines when it published classified US military footage of an American attack helicopter gunning down Iraqi civilians and a Reuters photographer in 2007.

Until recently Mr Assange has kept a very low profile, rarely granting interviews or making public appearances.

He is believed to have boltholes in Iceland, Sweden and Kenya, but does not have an official home base. He says he travels every six weeks, running his Wikileaks empire from a laptop and a backpack while on the road.

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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Who is Bombing in Iraq?

2010-05-14T23:47:00.000-07:00

from : http://www.globalresearch.ca

Are the bombers Al-Qaeda, the CIA or Israel?

by Christopher King

Global Research, May 14, 2010

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Christopher King argues that it is likely that the American CIA – or Israel acting on its behalf – is responsible for recent atrocities in Iraq, in order to extend and consolidate the occupation, just as it is probable that the Times Square bomber was, wittingly or otherwise, acting for the CIA or Israel, to justify the US military intervention in South Asia.

On 10 May there were more than two dozen bombings and shootings in Iraq that killed at least 85 people and injured at least 300.These were coordinated attacks, clearly by the same organization.

The American response to this and other recent attacks is to delay plans for withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Obama’s election promise was to withdraw troops from Iraq by May this year. Not only is that obviously not going to happen but we learned after his election that “withdrawal” meant leaving 50,000 troops as ‘trainers’ as well as 4,500 special forces and tens of thousands of para-military contractors.

Now, the US is reviewing even the slipped drawdown schedule out of concern for the security of the Iraqi people. Considering the million killed by the US and the four to five million refugees created by them I would not have thought that they would be bothered by fewer than one hundred dead in a little internal trouble. It might be said to be an improvement on US outcomes.

As these attacks are providing the US with an excuse for delaying even its token withdrawal however, we need to think about who is behind them.

I wrote on 20 April that the probability is that the United States Central Intelligence Agency is behind these attacks, using local groups. It’s dirty tricks of this sort that the CIA does and is well financed by the US government to do. The US will never leave Iraq while there is oil in the ground, as I said in April 2008. I’m amazed that the media and even the US anti-war brigade still have faith that leaving will happen. The US didn’t go there in the first place, nor build its fortresses, in order to leave. As it happens, however, the elections to keep their puppet in place did not go to plan.

This latest series of attacks on top of a long series of lesser but still deadly attacks is not the work of a small group. It’s a large, well disciplined, well financed group with substantial support.

The usual unnamed officials of unspecified nationality say that Al-Qaeda is doing the attacks. Well they would, wouldn’t they? Am I mistaken in recalling that General David Petraeus’s great success in Iraq was the elimination of Al-Qaeda? Or was that only while he was paying the Awakening Councils to go after them – if indeed Al-Qaeda was ever in Iraq at all. Since the Iraq invasion itself was based on a pack of lies there is no reason to believe anything that we are subsequently told about what is happening there or anywhere else where the US is involved.

Actually, even people on the ground in Iraq often don’t know who is doing what and allegiances are constantly changing. It’s suggested that Al-Qaeda doesn’t want the Americans to leave because the cost of the occupation is damaging America. There are also Iraqi groups who have done well out of the occupation and would like to see the Americans stay. Whether any of these groups would be capable of attacks on this scale, or would be willing to carry them out, is doubtful. I don’t buy Al-Qaeda. That’s the standard US scare story and it’s worn out, like the dozens of accusations that Iran was behind the Iraqi resistance and supplying arms and bomb technology without a scrap of evidence. All propaganda and rubbish – like Saddam’s nuclear programme, his weapons of mass destruction, his collaboration with Al-Qaeda, his mobile chemical laboratories. All now officially certified lies.

This is certain: the US invasion caused extraordinary devastation in Iraq and its continued presence is the problem for Iraqis. It’s most likely that because they have no intention of leaving, it’s the US itself that is behind the attacks. Or maybe the Israelis on their behalf, using locally organized groups.

Yes, the Israelis are in Iraq and they have no love for Arabs. In 2005 they were reported to be training Kurds in northern Iraq, now a semi-autonomous region. Brigadier-General Janis Karpinski, who was blamed for the atrocities in Abu Ghraib prison, said that she was shocked to meet an Israeli interrogator in Iraq. There’s plenty of scope here for deniability on the part of both the US army and the CIA which sometimes gets asked questions. With the Israeli-US axis operating in Iraq anything is possible. The Israelis are beginning to pop up in trouble spots such as Georgia where they were “trainers” as well.

The Israelis, CIA, US and UK military all regularly assassinate suspected militants along with innocent men, women and children. They consider no-one to be innocent. Nor would false-flag provocations be beyond the US-Israeli axis. On 8 June 1967 the Israelis attempted to sink the USS Liberty in an attack that left 34 American sailors dead and 173 wounded. The American Department of Defence colluded with Israel. It recalled fighter aircraft that had been launched from a nearby carrier to give assistance and probably co-planned the incident. The crew was threatened and warned not to talk about the attack.

This was clearly a false flag attack that was bungled, the probable intention to blame the Syrians or Egyptians with willingness of the US to sacrifice its own ship and crew. For the story, visit the Liberty Veterans’ Association website or read their report. The US-Israeli axis operates deeper than Americans or Europeans realize and we must be prepared to follow their thinking.

Why should we believe that the Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, was briefed by the Pakistani Taliban – even if he believes it himself? Did they show him their membership cards, perhaps? Perhaps his Pakistani handlers were Taliban-certified by someone of reliable reputation and good character? I prefer a group backed by the CIA which is now publicly known to be active in Pakistan and who would like to supply evidence of the Taliban’s wish to attack the US itself. It justifies their atrocities and keeps the war going.

Faisal Shahzad’s crude construct didn’t explode and it wasn’t going to. It wasn’t even a bomb – just some petrol cans, propane cylinders, fireworks and fertilizer of the wrong sort for bomb-making. A nuisance but harmless. He had never been trained by a real bomb-maker or if he was, the crude construct was intended to merely burn. Remember the USS Liberty when you read these accounts.

These people think that it’s clever to get others to do their dirty work for them or better still, to suborn nationals of their target countries. Empires are only possible if collaborators with the occupiers can be found – and it’s never difficult. The Palestinians have Mahmoud Abbas, Iran had the Shah, Afghanistan has Karzai, Iraq has Maliki, the UK had Anthony Blair and Gordon Brown as well as the collaboration of most of the UK’s political class both in the US’s wars of aggression and its occupation of the UK with its bases. Our government has changed but as the French say, plus ça change, plus c’est la meme chose (more change, more of the same thing).

We are getting a constant stream of conflicting messages from the Americans and our own war criminals whom they have suborned: they’re leaving Iraq and Afghanistan soon but at the same time are in it for the long haul of 10 years or so. The purpose of this apparent nonsense is to give everyone something that they can hear and believe in while shutting out what they don’t want to hear. These messages have collaborating psychologists’ fingerprints on them.

This is a critical time when we need men of honesty and goodwill who will act for the good of the UK and Europe. That means leaving the Middle East and detaching from America and its crimes. Some countries are finding out how leech-like this parasitic country holds on. The Japanese in Okinawa are finding that the US won’t remove its bases on request. Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium have called for the removal of US nuclear weapons from Europe. The US says that this is an issue for NATO to decide and an unnamed official says: “Single countries shouldn’t be coming forward with decisions or unilateral reviews.” So there you have it.

With the NATO First Act of the United States, getting the US, its bases and its nuclear weapons out of Europe will be found to be impossible when Europeans realize that it is necessary. This extraordinary Act has it that either the US Congress or host countries can have US bases closed or redeploy nuclear weapons. Well, already it seems that individual countries can’t ask for nuclear weapons to be removed from their soil. Once on the statute books, it’s a small step to make either into both – and that seems to be the case already.

You might think that the present economic crisis and Middle Eastern war situation is bad. It’s actually much worse than that. Do you think that the US wouldn’t do in Europe what it’s doing in the Middle East? What it has done in Guantanamo? The crimes it has Europe’s politicians collaborating in? And who got the money from the worthless derivatives that our banks bought and European taxpayers are paying for? Europe’s politicians are either paralyzed in a state of wilful blindness and denial or they can view with equinamity the Wikileaks Collateral Murder video and think that they and their families will be looked after no matter what the crimes – like Anthony Blair.

With America under economic and geopolitical pressures of its own making, the future for Europe is every bit as bad as it is for other countries that the US occupies. We should recall the crimes of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, among which was the torture and murder of about 7,000 persons in the Santiago Stadium in 1973, outlined in this Washington Post obituary. What the newspaper neglects to mention is that the United States was Pinochet’s backer.

Christopher King is a retired consultant and lecturer in management and marketing. He lives in London, UK.

Global Research Articles by Christopher King

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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Sheeple: Signs That You Might Be Part Of The Herd…

2010-05-13T10:04:00.000-07:00

from : http://waronyou.com

Giordano Bruno

Millions of people from countries across the world have begun to wake up to the very real threat of repressive and engineered Globalism, or what the financial elite and the politicians who work for them often refer to as “The New World Order”. The movement against this centralization of economic and social power has gained traction in nearly every sphere, to the point where even the mainstream media has been forced on occasion to acknowledge its existence and prevalence. Those of us who have been working more than a few years in this activist organization, what many of us call the “Patriot Movement”, or the “Liberty Movement”, have seen incredible leaps and bounds in the fight against disinformation and the spread of unadulterated truth. Our work has gone viral, and our membership has skyrocketed, however, the task of diluting ignorance in the overall populace is far from over.

Every researcher, writer, and filmmaker who tackles the New World Order issue will suffer the unfortunate experience of running into people who are almost criminally uninformed, and this will happen on a regular basis. For a long time, our frustration was magnified by our inability to specifically define what it was that made these people the way they were. Were some just mentally inadequate, and unable to effectively process the facts? Were they so indoctrinated by the MSM that there was no turning back? Was there an innate difference in intuitive faculties that made some people quick in picking out a lie, and others slow? Many theories abound, but one thing was certain; in our quest to inform the masses, there were always going to be those who were incapable of hearing or understanding what we had to say, no matter how factual, rational, and refined our arguments. We now call these wonders of intellectual rustication “Sheeple”…

Sheeple can be found in every country, every ethnic background, every religious organization, and every subculture. After years of examination and experience, it has become much easier for the Liberty Movement to identify and categorize the various forms of sheeple, and come to terms with the triggers in the human mind that cause some to willfully ignore logic and wisdom. I have written in the past about some of these triggers, including my article “Sheeple: Why They Are The Way They Are”: http://neithercorp.us/npress/?p=182

I believe it is important to cover this issue once again, especially in light of recent attempts by the MSM, along with the ADL and SPLC, to demonize our movement and paint us as villainous cartoon characters in the minds of the general public, which will make things even more difficult for us in the near future if we are not prepared. For those in the movement, knowing when you are dealing with sheeple, why they function cognitively the way they do, and how you might be able to get around their mental blocks, is of utmost importance today. Every new person who is awakened to the abyss they are about to plunge into could tip the balance away from tyranny and establish a cultural foothold for free-thought. Every person counts. With the world on the edge of financial and political ruin due to the manipulations and mechanizations of elitism, we must work harder than ever before.

Identifying Sheeple

Not everyone who is unaware or uneducated on the intricacies of Globalism, Central Banking, and the NWO, is necessarily “sheeple”. All of us, at one time or another, were nearly clueless as to the real workings of our government and our economy behind the proverbial curtain. I have found that many people are quite open to the information I make available as long as I make it available in a way that is not immediately overwhelming for them, and as long as I present solid evidence to back every claim that I relate. It is very important to be able to make the distinction between those who are brazenly dim-witted, and those who simply have not been adequately exposed to the facts.

Below, I will list my observations on the various ‘types’ of sheeple, and how to recognize them. Keep in mind some people might fall into more than one category.

The ‘Happy-Go-Lucky’ Sheeple:

Also known as the “Yuppie”. Life is a party for these folks. As long as they are not affected by the immediate circumstances of the troubles surrounding them, they couldn’t care less about politics, economics, war, or governmental deceit. They may even be aware of the terrible facts behind a certain issue, but as long as the routine of their mundane existence remains intact, they will have little motivation to effect changes in their thinking or their world. In fact, some ‘Happy-Go-Lucky’ Sheeple ENJOY a random catastrophe or two, because it gives them conversational fodder for the small-talk around the water cooler that they love so much. Their primary drives are unchecked consumerism (the accumulation of useless things), and emotionally empty sexual exchanges (the accumulation of false self-confidence). Most of what they know about the world they derive from watching fifteen minutes of mainstream television news a day. They often parrot talking points they overheard on MSNBC or CNN, and rarely have an original thought.

I have found that these men and women are normally from upper middle-class, white collar families. They have likely been coddled and sheltered from the suffering that goes on outside of the affluent bubble they were born into, and have probably never had to truly struggle for anything in their lives, giving them an audacious sense of entitlement. Plenty of these people break out of this one track thinking pattern on their own. I have known quite a few. But others will refuse to see the obvious unless confronted with the prospect that they personally might lose something if they do not take action.

The ‘Quasi-Intellectual’ Sheeple:

My favorite kind of sheeple. These people hold themselves in very high esteem. Some even see themselves as part of the elite (though most of them are not). Normally from the “professional class”, they often hold positions as Doctors, Lawyers, Bankers, Investors, Professors, Scientists, etc, though some have not yet left the university setting, and are simply getting a head start on their superiority complex.

Quasi-Intellectual Sheeple believe in the world of academia as unerring, as opposed to true scholars, who always have the wisdom to question the conclusions of academia. To me, an Ivy League degree is little more than a $100,000 piece of paper; it tells me nothing of the true intelligence of the person holding it. One need only look at the thousands of mainstream “professional” financial analysts who blindly supported Keynesian economics and refused to acknowledge the bubbles being facilitated by the private Federal Reserve’s artificially low interest rates and free money mentality. Their expensive education counted for nothing, and the economy is now on a ruinous downward slide.

At bottom, most “higher education” is really indoctrination. People attaining degrees in economics learn what the financial establishment WANTS them to learn, and nothing more. The same goes for any other field of study in which information is extremely centralized and filtered. Yet, Quasi-Intellectual Sheeple have such misplaced faith in the ivory tower that they assume through the system they have reached the pinnacle of knowledge. Those who have not assimilated themselves into this system as the Quasi-Intellectual has are to be ignored or ridiculed when presenting an opposing view.

This type of sheeple is driven by the desire for respect, power, and sometimes sycophantic admiration. Actually being intelligent is less important to them than having others believe they are intelligent without question. When asked to prove their intelligence, they often respond with indignance. They rarely if ever consider the possibility that they may be wrong on any subject, especially if it’s a subject they received a degree in. When they find themselves facing someone who has a better grasp of an issue than they do, they will not relent. Instead, they will turn towards subversive debate tactics to confuse the discussion, go off on tangents to avoid direct confrontation, and when he is really cornered, he will throw out barrages of obscure vocabulary in an attempt to impress others and distract them from the fact that he has no idea what he is talking about.

Quasi-Intellectual Sheeple are easy to identify by their arrogant demeanor. They tend to distance themselves from FOX and CNN and read periodicals like Forbes and Foreign Affairs, which are still propaganda, just of a more complex nature. They respond to most arguments with a smile, due to overconfidence, until they realize they are being soundly outmatched, and then they tend to lose composure. It takes a lot of public embarrassment before they will mend their ways.

The ‘Working-Class Idiot’ Sheeple:

Otherwise known as “the good ole’ boy”. (Special Note: I came from a parallel background, and am highly familiar with these sheeple.) You would think that people who fancy themselves as hardcore conservatives would be aware of the push towards global government and the fact that groups like Al-Qaeda are a fairytale distraction away from the real threat: Socio-Corporate Elitism and overgrown Federal bureaucracy. Apparently, they would ‘love’ to hear about it, but the football game is on and their wife is in their ear and the rugrats won’t stop eating all the damn frosted flakes. Such is the life of men without valid priorities.

These folks are usually Neo-Conservative lapdogs, an ideology suspiciously identical to Socialism with a corporate twist. Mussolini had a name for this combination, though the term escapes me…

Its not that they LIKE big government, Socialism, and the loss of liberties, it’s just that they are too ignorant to realize that that’s what they are supporting when they support the current Republican Party. These sheeple are very competitive. Sadly, however, they are often not accomplished in much of anything, which forces them to live vicariously through the exploits of others; like sports teams, political figures, and soldiers sent to third world hell-holes to blow up “bad guys”. Winning, regardless of whether or not the fight is legitimate or justified, is at the top of the Working Class Idiot’s list.

They like to believe that they have a deep relationship with their conscience, which adds pain when attempting to explain anything to them. These men are vindicated in their own minds by a set of logical fallacies that would boggle the likes of Freud. Being rational is not important to those who are vehemently self righteous. They ARE the “good guys”, anyone who disagrees is a “bad guy”, and that is that. This mindset makes them very easy to dupe, and very easy to lead.

The Working Class Idiot worships television. More than a couple of days without it and he shivers like a starving drug addict. He watches FOX religiously, and not intelligent commentators like Andrew Napolitano. He’s a much bigger fan of frothing psychotics such as Bill O’ Reilly, spewing baseless nonsense like a third grader’s baking soda volcano spews foam. When cornered in an argument, this type of sheeple will try every trick he knows to degrade or intimidate his opponent. When that does not work, he has no problem resorting to violence. How to get through to this sheeple? Find a sports figure, prominent Republican, or military man who talks openly about the NWO (there are some out there). Only then will he take the blinders off.

The ‘New Age’ Sheeple:

Otherwise known as “unabashed collectivists”. Not to be confused with people who do legitimate study into mythology, spiritualism, and the teachings of the ancient past. These are the folks who read Oprah throwaway books like “The Secret”, and think they have actually learned a secret.

You don’t have to walk on egg shells with New Age Sheeple when it comes to the NWO. They are just as likely to approach you about it. The problem is, they think it’s the best thing since patchouli sticks! Why? Because their vision of a one world order comes from an overexposure to Gene Rodenberry-esque fantasy and a subversive form of propaganda I like to call “Positivism”.

Most ‘New Agers’ are people who have at one point or another in their lives met with serious struggle, unlike the ‘Happy-Go-Lucky’ sheeple. However, instead of holding steady through this struggle, they gave up, curling into a ball never to put any real effort into anything substantial again. They often make elaborate excuses for themselves, and adopt Eastern philosophical concepts they don’t really understand. Zen becomes an excuse to ignore the rest of the world and focus on something pointless like underwater basket weaving. Karma becomes an excuse and vindication for any unfortunate event. Self awareness gets confused with self-centeredness. While Happy-Go-Lucky sheeple focus superficially on the outside world, New Agers focus superficially on their inner world.

New Age Sheeple do not set out to actively and physically fix problems. They follow the Positivist view, which is to ignore bad things and hope they go away, or make them go away “with their minds”. No, I am not joking. Every New Ager I have ever met holds stubbornly to the belief that if they think happy thoughts and wish hard enough, their invisible “mental energy” will change their surroundings for them. “If only everyone was blindly optimistic about everything,” they think to themselves, “our society would be perfect…” I hate to break it to them, but no amount of ‘happy vibes’ will stop an inflationary dollar implosion, or stop people who have deliberately chosen to ignore their consciences from doing terrible things.

I have spent over two decades in the martial arts, so I am well aware of the mental and spiritual energy idea. However, in the martial arts, you are taught (rightly I think) that priming ones inner focus only prepares you for struggle, it does not make struggle disappear. What the New Age really boils down to is an attempt to cut corners and slap together easy answers for the very complex and intricate problems of life. It is a lazy man’s methodology of denial in which there is no concrete reality, only “point of view”. This breeds hive-mindedness, because the search for individualism is in itself an exhausting marathon, one they would rather not undertake. Overt collectivism is much easier. All you have to do is follow the swarm. And because New Agers force themselves to become so mutable, over the years they will mindlessly adapt to any horrifying circumstance. If reality is only a “point of view”, then why not rationalize wars and holocausts as illusory blips in time?

The only way to get through to New Age Sheeple that I have found is to show them succinctly that the New World Order the Global Elites are constructing is not the same as the one they like to imagine. Making them read through UN white papers on global governance and federal documents like PDD 51 and the Civilian Inmate Labor Program can help. They will still probably think a one world government is a good idea, but at least they won’t support the Elite’s version.

The ‘Quasi-Activist’ Sheeple:

Also known as “the rebel with too many causes and not enough knowledge”. At least these sheeple are willing to leave their houses and fight for something, even if they know little to nothing about what they are fighting for or over. The problem is that their lack of insight and in-depth understanding on most issues makes them highly susceptible to manipulation. These are the “useful idiots” we hear so much about; the people who support Anarchist groups that promote Socialist ideals (uh, Socialism is contrary to the tenets of real Anarchism, guys…), the people who believe everything they are told by the CRU on global warming even though the CRU has never released original source data proving that anything they say is true, the people who blame Capitalism and free markets for the economic collapse even though we haven’t had legitimate Capitalism and free markets in over a century. Without knowing the facts behind these issues, how can one effectively involve himself in them?

Quasi-Activist Sheeple protest not so much to change the world, but to FEEL like they are changing the world. Being a part of something greater, even if it’s a sham, is a major motivator. These people are under the impression that they have an inside track on the workings of politics and culture, but the information sources they use are ultimately narrow and biased. NPR for example is not a reliable news source, and just because they speak in a monotone voice with a British accent does not mean they are educated on social undercurrents or that they are objective. Most “progressive” journalism is merely the leftist equivalent of FOX; highly saturated with disinformation and emotional button pushing. This helps to create a subculture that sees itself as “alternative”, when it is actually the flipside of the same old false paradigm coin.

The advantage of dealing with Quasi-Activists is that they do realize something is very wrong with the world. This is more than most other sheeple accomplish in an entire lifetime. The key is showing them the inaccuracy of the information sources they are too dependent on, and breaking them out of the fake left/right mental trap. As long as they continue to blame all the problems of the planet on “the right”, as long as they continue to blame generalized and fictitious opponents that were designed for them by the media, they will never understand why America continues on its self-destructive path despite all their civil discourse.

Common Sheeple Arguments

Below are listed some of the most often uttered sheeple arguments, as well as the rational responses to them.

1) The NWO is just a “conspiracy theory”:

Set aside the fact that politicians and leaders of finance talk about the New World Order constantly in speeches, books, and on nighttime television. The temptation here is to push the sheeple label and start a battle of insults. When someone accuses you of “conspiracy theory” what they are really saying is that you are a liar, crazy, or both. Of course, calling someone a liar or crazy does not negate their arguments. Hollow character attacks like this are meant to interfere or defuse legitimate and logical discussion. Force the sheeple to address the information you present instead of allowing them to make your personal character the subject of the debate. This rule goes for you too. Don’t just call them sheeple without backing up your claims and pointing out the inconsistencies in their beliefs.

2) I’m well informed and have never been a “sheep”:

Most human beings, regardless of the time they live in, think they have it all figured out. Even men in the dark ages thought they had reached the summit of understanding. They are able to perpetuate this illusion because they are rarely challenged to prove the accuracy of their information or the wisdom in their perspective. Challenge their knowledge on specific issues, and show them there is always more to learn.

3) I’m not the “sheeple”! You are because you believe in conspiracy theories:

Yes, full grown adults still use the rubber/glue tactic. Remember, one of the main threads linking all sheeple is that they believe what they believe so that they can belong, so that they can be a part of a majority. Delving into NWO research is the last thing anyone does to “fit in”. Just mentioning it can alienate friends, family, potential hot dates, etc. No one follows this information because they expect to feel accepted by the masses. They follow it because they know it is the truth.

4) The NWO is not possible because it would involve too many people. Someone would let the cat out of the bag eventually:

Actually, the Global Elites themselves let “the cat out of the bag” constantly. They speak openly about plans for world government, world financial control, population control and reduction, and they write bills and legislation that are designed to limit or erase our civil liberties. The proof is hidden in plain sight.

5) You’re connecting dots that are not there:

Neither I nor any other researcher needs to “connect dots” when we have the public admissions and documents of the Elites themselves.

6) You’re just fear mongering to get attention:

The term “fear mongering” denotes the use of lies to induce hysteria. If the information we present is true and supported by tangible facts, then how other people are affected by it is not our problem, it is theirs. Frankly, learning the truth should make a person feel empowered, not hysterical.

7) Everything is just chaos. There is no such thing as an organized conspiracy to control the world:

The events they see as chaos make perfect sense to us because we have an insight into information they do not. It’s that simple. The numerous movements in a complex time-piece might seem like chaos to someone that doesn’t know what a time-piece is, or the purpose of a gear, or second hand. Try to explain the concept of color to a blind person. Without a full accounting of the facts, it is very hard for one to know a thing. Also, a quick glance through any encyclopedia, even those with heavy editing, will reveal numerous “conspiracies” throughout history by small groups of men to rule the known world at the expense of the rest of us. Why was it perfectly plausible a hundred years ago, or fifty years ago, but not today?

Yeah, I know the NWO exists, but who cares! We can’t stop it, so just live your life and have fun while you can:

Nihilism is the worst kind of mental illness because it allows a person to constantly fulfill his own prophecies by doing nothing. When it comes to cultural progression, there is no such thing as the insurmountable scenario. Anything can be accomplished with the right amount of intelligence and effort. Nihilists make no effort to fix the problems they are confronted with, then claim they were right to be nihilistic because nothing changed. We have a responsibility not just to ourselves, but to the future. We have a responsibility to deal with the problems of the present, instead of pawning them off on the next generation.

9) Its all our fault that Globalists get away with murder. Most of us are just stupid:

This is only partly true. The average person does share part of the blame for not educating himself on circumstances, and for not taking action, however, ultimately it is the Elites who initiate the crimes we are then forced to either face or ignore. They are the ones that literally spend billions of dollars on propaganda designed to keep us in a fog. In the end, it is they who carry the principal culpability, not “the people”.

10) What’s so bad about a one-world government? It would be the end of war, right?:

Global government designed around a collectivist structure and ruled by men who believe themselves to be “genetically and philosophically superior” to the rest of us would not fix anything, it would only make our current problems much worse. War would be perpetual, because there will always be people who fight to be free from despotism, and even planetary governments need to create fear to manipulate the citizenry towards certain goals. Our economy would be equalized; meaning it would be equally oppressive and feudalistic for everyone. And, the liberties we hold dear today would be a distant memory tomorrow. Anyone who truly thinks that more government makes them “safer” is not just extraordinarily naÃ¯ve; they are sheeple…

Breaking The Sheeple Barrier

Sheeple can change. I have seen it with my own eyes on numerous occasions. If the sheeple you are dealing with at any given moment is a stranger, or mere acquaintance, you may not feel that it is worth the immense effort necessary to enlighten them to the problems at hand. But, if said sheeple is a family member or loved one, you might have no other choice but to push forward. There is nothing worse than seeing the people you care about suffer because you were unsuccessful in warning them of impending danger.

The above sections can help in easing through the process of waking up a member of the herd, though the best efforts will be wasted without patience and persistence. In every person there are barriers and doorways to truth. The trick is finding the unique keys which open those doors and break down those barriers. There are some who will claim that it is futile to make the attempt. That we should leave well enough alone. That many are too far gone to be helped. I beg to differ. If that was true, then the Liberty Movement would not be making the tremendous strides it is today. We did not get to where we are now by giving up when the waters became choppy, and I believe when this age is chronicled and spoken of, it will be our perseverance above all else that defines us. It is a grueling task to defeat an opponent who cannot be dissuaded, who cannot be made to give up. It is nearly impossible to defeat that same opponent when he is also right. To those in the New World Order, we are such an opponent. As long as we do not falter, the sheeple will grow thinner in number, replaced by cognizant vibrant individuals, and the warped ambitions of Globalists will not come to pass…

About: :
I'm just a American patriot who believes in freedom for all, even the ones I don't like. It's time to make a stand and take over the media, government, and police of this nation. Join me in the movement and join the forums.

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

The UK Elections: A Very British Fraud

2010-05-11T11:17:00.000-07:00

from : http://www.globalresearch.ca

by Cailean Bochanan

Global Research, May 11, 2010

In These New Times - 2010-05-09

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Strong evidence of electoral fraud in recent UK elections has been reported in several outlets. This would not be the first time considering political fraud is embedded in the system. Like electronic voting machines which enable leaders in the United States to steal elections at will, the UK’s way of procuring false votes is to invent false voters, or "ghosts", all the more since no "ghostbusting" mechanisms are available.

Thursday’s election has been described as a shambles, a complete farce which shames the nation, after scenes of thousands being turned away from polling stations without being able to vote. Is this just another instance of chaotic Britain muddling along, like Dad’s Army, or is there a more sinister element of systemic fraud?

That malpractice had been at play in previous elections, in 2005, the Scottish elections of 2007 and the infamous Glasgow North East by-election last year, was more than evident. My view was that it could become the central focus of this election rather than the pseudo-conflict between three City-backed politicos.

This view seemed to be confirmed when high-profile candidate George Galloway MP of the leftist Respect party made thefollowing sensational revelations:

“Respect has a substantial dossier on the current abuse and the principal people involved in this attempted fraud. George Galloway will name these people and the Respect bus will drive to their addresses where reporters and photographers will have the opportunity to question the people Galloway has named.”

We had also had the comments of Martin Bell, the conscience of Britain, the White Knight who had vanquished the corrupt Tory, Neil Hamilton:

“There is actually a possibility that the result of the election could be decided by electoral fraud. That’s pretty grim.”

With these two leading the charge there was a real possibility that light would be cast on the dark recesses of British political life.

But this is Britain. On the morning of the 7th Galloway made this remarkable statement to the press:

“What we’ve done in these three cases is to point out the huge increase in numbers of people suddenly registering at their addresses in the space of a few days. We’ve never said it is voter fraud.”

Had someone” had a word” with George or was he just the conductor whereby the lightning of this issue was safely lead to earth? The rest is silence, a silence unlikely to be broken by a report from electoral observers from Europe andcommonwealth countries to come out in two months time.

And so the election remains just a shambles, nothing more. There is, of course, to be a thorough investigation to make sure nothing of the like occurs ever again.

The absence of fraud leaves us with a very unconvincing narrative for the course of this election. What was the nth rerun of the old firm five yearly fixture had been dramatically enlivened by the performance of Nick Clegg , leader of the Liberal-Democrat party, in the TV debates. As a result there was a surge of enthusiasm for Clegg, suddenly a contender, reflected in a huge increase in registrations to vote. But these votes didn’t go to Clegg. The last pre-election poll showed him kneck and kneck with New Labour with both trailing the Tories. The “strange" exit polls (as noted by Vince Cable), however, suddenly revealed a drop in the Lib Dem vote, which was confirmed in the actual results, as reported. So Clegg’s TV successes only inspired people to register and vote for his opponents. Either the British people are perverse or this electoral process was.

The growing corruption of the British electoral process is well documented and doesn’t require anything additional from conspiracy theorists such as myself. Listen to Richard Mawley QC, the judge presiding over a case of vote-rigging in Birmingham in June 2004:

“The system is wide open to fraud and any would-be political fraudster knows that”. Citing evidence of “massive, systematic and organised fraud”, Judge Mawley said the system was “hopelessly insecure” and sent a message to those that claimed that the current postal voting system was working, adding: “Anybody who has sat through the case I have just tried and listened to evidence of electoral fraud that would disgrace a banana republic would find this statement surprising.”

“The best and simplest way to procure false votes is to invent false voters – “ghosts”, as they are known in the trade” reports Nick Davies in a highly recommended 2001 Guardian article which exposed the various modalities of UK electoral fraud. He elaborates:

“The real joy of raising electoral ghosts is that there are no ghostbusters: there is no system for checking the accuracy of the electoral register. Riggers can find a derelict building, or add a couple of extra houses to a street, or use the address of a hostel or anywhere else with a transitory population, and simply bung in names. If they are unlucky or particularly clumsy, and happen to catch the eye of an electoral registration officer, the police may be called. But, under normal circumstances, the paperwork is routinely processed straight on to the register with no attempt at checking.”

He goes on to discuss widespread techniques such as the “Tipp-Ex trick” and “granny farming”. But this was 2001: he is describing the process in its infancy, as it were, before New Labour really systematised fraud by introducing postal votes for all, proxy votes for all and making it easier to add names to the electoral register. I don’t intend to give a comprehensive treatise on our fraudulent practices: I limit myself to providing these highlighted links for those of you who wish to do some further study. And very interesting it is too.

Electoral fraud in the UK is an open secret, the elephant in the room(another one!) but nothing ever happens about it. We have “independent “ bodies like the shadowy “Electoral Commission” making recommendation which are ignored. In fact, there are bodies everywhere and skeletons falling out of cupboards but we Brits are just too polite to notice. The police are forever following up allegations; there have been fifty in the last week. But nothing happens.

Trying to divert criticism from itself, Jenny Watson of the Electoral Commission blamed Britain’s “Victorian” electoral system. I’ve never heard it called that before; in any case, it’s much more like the notorious 18th century system of rotten burghs. We also hear comparisons with “third-world countries”. But corruption or alleged corruption in countries like Zimbabwe results in a chorus of indignation and calls for regime change. No one is doing that here for the simple reason that the people calling for regime change in Zimbabwe are the regime in Britain, and they don’t want to overthrow themselves.

Should we, the people, want to overthrow them? On the basis of the scenario I have outlined above there is a strong prima facie case for an orange revolution in Britain. I’m not referring here to another 1688, a coup d’etat by Anglo-Dutch finance backed by loyalist mobs. Instead, Lib Dem voters should be out in the main squares demanding a full criminal investigation into the events of last week: they should pick up where George Galloway left off. What use will PR be to them if the votes continue to be rigged? What is the use of all the votes in the world if we don’t have the rule of law?

The wider world also has to learn the truth about British democracy, a system whereby political fraud, as easy as throwing a frame of snooker, is enthroned next to financial fraud, and we are all the losers. They will then equip themselves all the better to resist the interfering, the warmongering and the malicious busybodying of a country which has yet to learn that the empire is over.

Cailean Bochanan is editorial columnist for UK-based In These New Times.

Cailean Bochanan is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Cailean Bochanan

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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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. : Sex, Lies and Oil Spills

2010-05-11T10:46:00.000-07:00

from : http://www.huffingtonpost.com

A common spin in the right wing coverage of BP's oil spill is a gleeful suggestion that the gulf blowout is Obama's Katrina.

In truth, culpability for the disaster can more accurately be laid at the Bush Administration's doorstep. For eight years, George Bush's presidency infected the oil industry's oversight agency, the Minerals Management Service, with a septic culture of corruption from which it has yet to recover. Oil patch alumnae in the White House encouraged agency personnel to engineer weakened safeguards that directly contributed to the gulf catastrophe.

The absence of an acoustical regulator -- a remotely triggered dead man's switch that might have closed off BP's gushing pipe at its sea floor wellhead when the manual switch failed (the fire and explosion on the drilling platform may have prevented the dying workers from pushing the button) -- was directly attributable to industry pandering by the Bush team. Acoustic switches are required by law for all offshore rigs off Brazil and in Norway's North Sea operations. BP uses the device voluntarily in Britain's North Sea and elsewhere in the world as do other big players like Holland's Shell and France's Total. In 2000, the Minerals Management Service while weighing a comprehensive rulemaking for drilling safety, deemed the acoustic mechanism "essential" and proposed to mandate the mechanism on all gulf rigs.

Then, between January and March of 2001, incoming Vice President Dick Cheney conducted secret meetings with over 100 oil industry officials allowing them to draft a wish list of industry demands to be implemented by the oil friendly administration. Cheney also used that time to re-staff the Minerals Management Service with oil industry toadies including a cabal of his Wyoming carbon cronies. In 2003, newly reconstituted Minerals Management Service genuflected to the oil cartel by recommending the removal of the proposed requirement for acoustic switches. The Minerals Management Service's 2003 study concluded that "acoustic systems are not recommended because they tend to be very costly."

The acoustic trigger costs about $500,000. Estimated costs of the oil spill to Gulf Coast residents are now upward of $14 billion to gulf state communities. Bush's 2005 energy bill officially dropped the requirement for the acoustic switch off devices explaining that the industry's existing practices are "failsafe."

Bending over for Big Oil became the ideological posture of the Bush White House, and, under Cheney's cruel whip, the practice trickled down through the regulatory bureaucracy. The Minerals Management Service -- the poster child for "agency capture phenomena" -- hopped into bed with the regulated industry -- literally. A 2009 investigation of the Minerals Management Service found that agency officials "frequently consumed alcohol at industry functions, had used cocaine and marijuana and had sexual relationships with oil and gas company representatives." Three reports by the Inspector General describe an open bazaar of payoffs, bribes and kickbacks spiced with scenes of female employees providing sexual favors to industry big wigs who in turn rewarded government workers with illegal contracts. In one incident reported by the Inspector General, agency employees got so drunk at a Shell sponsored golf event that they could not drive home and had to sleep in hotel rooms paid for by Shell.

Pervasive intercourse also characterized their financial relations. Industry lobbyists underwrote lavish parties and showered agency employees with illegal gifts, and lucrative personal contracts and treated them to regular golf, ski, and paintball outings, trips to rock concerts and professional sports events. The Inspector General characterized this orgy of wheeling and dealing as "a culture of ethical failure" that cost taxpayers millions in royalty fees and produced reams of bad science to justify unregulated deep water drilling in the gulf.

It is charitable to characterize the ethics of these government officials as "elastic." They seemed not to have existed at all. The Inspector General reported with some astonishment that Bush's crew at the MMS, when confronted with the laundry list of bribery, public theft and sexual and financial favors to and from industry "showed no remorse."

BP's confidence in lax government oversight by a badly compromised agency still staffed with Bush era holdovers may have prompted the company to take two other dangerous shortcuts. First, BP failed to install a deep hole shut off valve -- another fail-safe that might have averted the spill. And second, BP's reported willingness to violate the law by drilling to depths of 22,000-25,000 feet instead of the 18,000 feet maximum depth allowed by its permit may have contributed to this catastrophe.

And wherever there's a national tragedy involving oil, Cheney's offshore company Halliburton is never far afield. In fact, stay tuned; Halliburton may emerge as the primary villain in this caper. The blow out occurred shortly after Halliburton completed an operation to reinforce drilling hole casing with concrete slurry. This is a sensitive process that, according to government experts, can trigger catastrophic blowouts if not performed attentively. According to the Minerals Management Service, 18 of 39 blowouts in the Gulf of Mexico since 1996 were attributed to poor workmanship injecting cement around the metal pipe. Halliburton is currently under investigation by the Australian government for a massive blowout in the Timor Sea in 2005 caused by its faulty application of concrete casing.

The Obama administration has assigned nearly 2,000 federal personnel from the Coast Guard, the Corps of Engineers, the Department of Defense, the Department of Commerce, EPA, NOAA and Department of Interior to deal with the spill -- an impressive response. Still, the current White House is not without fault -- the government should, for example, be requiring a far greater deployment of absorbent booms. But the real culprit in this villainy is a negligent industry, the festering ethics of the Bush Administration and poor oversight by an agency corrupted by eight years of grotesque subservience to Big Oil.

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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Look Out, Obama Seems to Be Planning for a Lot More War

2010-05-08T14:53:00.000-07:00

from : http://www.alternet.org

Judging by the Barack Obama administration's reports, pronouncements and actions in recent months point to even greater war-making across the planet.

May 8, 2010 |

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There's more war in America's future - a great deal more, judging by the Barack Obama administration's reports, pronouncements and actions in recent months.

These documents and deeds include the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), the Ballistic Missile Defense Report, the nuclear security summit in New York and the May 3-28 United Nations nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference, as well as the continuing wars in the Middle East and Central Asia, and the 2011 Pentagon war budget request.

The United States government presides as a military colossus of unrivalled dimension, but the QDR, which was published in February, suggests Washington views America as being constantly under the threat of attack from a multitude of fearsome forces bent on its destruction. As such, trillions more dollars must be invested in present and future wars - ostensibly to make safe the besieged homeland.

The NPR says the long-range US goal is a "nuclear-free" world, but despite token reductions in its arsenal of such weapons, the Pentagon is strengthening its nuclear force and bolstering it with a devastating "conventional deterrent" intended to strike any target in the world within one hour. In addition this document, published in April, retains "hair-trigger" nuclear launch readiness, refuses to declare its nuclear force is for deterrence only (suggesting offensive use) and for the first time authorizes a nuclear attack, if necessary, on a non-nuclear state (Iran).

Meanwhile, Obama is vigorously expanding the George W Bush administration's wars, and enhancing and deploying America's unparalleled military power.

The Obama administration's one positive achievement in terms of militarism and war was the April 9 signing in Prague of the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia that reduces deployed strategic nuclear weapons to 1,550 warheads each. It was a step forward, but all agree it was extremely modest, and it does not even faintly diminish the danger of nuclear war.

The QDR is a 128-page Defense Department report mandated by congress to be compiled every four years to put forward a 20-year projection of US military planning. A 20-member civilian panel, selected by the Pentagon and congress, analyzes the document and suggests changes in order to provide an "independent" perspective. Eleven of the members, including the panel’s co-chairmen - former defense secretary William Perry and former national security adviser Stephen Hadley - are employed by the defense industry.

Although the Pentagon is working on preparations for a possible World War III and beyond, the new report is largely focused on the relatively near future and only generalizes about the longer term. Of the QDR's many priorities three stand out.

# The first priority is to "prevail in today's wars" in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen and wherever else Washington's post-9/11 military intrusions penetrate in coming years. Introducing the report February 1, Bush-Obama Defense Secretary Robert Gates issued this significant statement: "Success in wars to come will depend on success in these wars in progress." The "wars to come" were not identified. Further, the QDR states that military victory in Iraq and Afghanistan
is "only the first step toward achieving our strategic objectives".
# Second, while in the past the US concentrated on the ability to fight two big wars simultaneously, the QDR suggests that's not enough. Now, the Obama administration posits the "need for a robust force capable of protecting US interests against a multiplicity of threats, including two capable nation-state aggressors."

Now it's two-plus wars - the plus being the obligation to "conduct large-scale counter-insurgency, stability and counter-terrorism operations in a wide range of environments", mainly in small, poor countries like Afghanistan. Other "plus" targets include "non-state actors" such as al-Qaeda, "failed states" such as Somali, and medium-size but well-defended states that do not bend the knee to Uncle Sam, such as Iran or the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, and some day perhaps Venezuela.
# Third, it's fairly obvious from the QDR, though not acknowledged, that the Obama government believes China and Russia are the two possible "nation-state aggressors" against which Washington must prepare to "defend" itself. Neither Beijing nor Moscow has taken any action to justify the Pentagon's assumption that they will ever be suicidal enough to attack the far more powerful United States.

After all, the US, with 4.54% of the world's population, invests more on war and war preparations than the rest of the world combined. Obama's 2010 Pentagon budget is US$680 billion, but the real total is double that when all Washington's national security expenditures in other departmental budgets are also included, such as the cost of nuclear weapons, the 16 intelligence agencies, Homeland Security and interest on war debts, among other programs.

Annual war-related expenditures are well over $1 trillion. In calling for a discretionary freeze on government programs in January's state of the union address, Obama specifically exempted Pentagon/national security expenditures from the freeze. Obama is a big war spender. His $708 billion Pentagon allotment for fiscal 2011 (not counting a pending $33 billion Congress will approve for the Afghan "surge") exceeds Bush's highest budget of $651 billion for fiscal 2009.

At present, US military power permeates the entire world. As the QDR notes: "The United States is a global power with global responsibilities. Including operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, approximately 400,000 US military personnel are forward-stationed or rotationally deployed around the world."

The Pentagon presides over 1,000 overseas military bases (including those in the war zones), great fleets in every ocean, a globe-spanning air force
, military satellites in space and nuclear missiles on hair trigger alert pre-targeted on "enemy" or potential "enemy" cities and military facilities. A reading of the QDR shows none of this will change except for upgrading, enlarging (the Pentagon just added six new bases in Colombia) and adding new systems such as Prompt Global Strike, an important new offensive weapon system, which we shall discuss below.

The phrase "full spectrum military dominance" - an expression concocted by the neo-conservatives in the 1990s that was adopted by the Bush administration to define its aggressive military strategy - was cleverly not included in the 2010 QDR, but retaining and augmenting dominance remains the Pentagon's prime preoccupation.

The QDR is peppered with expressions such as "America’s interests and role in the world require armed forces with unmatched capabilities" and calls for "the continued dominance of America’s Armed Forces in large-scale force-on-force warfare". Gates went further in his February 1 press conference: "The United States needs a broad portfolio of military capabilities, with maximum versatility across the widest possible spectrum of conflicts." Obama bragged recently that he commanded "the finest military in the history of the world".

Evidently, the Pentagon is planning to engage in numerous future wars interrupted by brief periods of peace while preparing for the next war. Given that the only entity expressing an interest in attacking the United States is al-Qaeda - a non-government paramilitary organization of extreme religious fanatics with about a thousand reliable active members around the world - it is obvious that America's unprecedented military might is actually intended for another purpose.

In our view that "other purpose" is geopolitical - to strengthen even further the Pentagon's military machine to assure that the United States retains its position as the dominant
global hegemon at a time of acute indebtedness, the severe erosion of its manufacturing base, near gridlock in domestic politics, and the swift rise to global prominence of several other nations and blocs.

The QDR touches on this with admirable delicacy: "The distribution of global political, economic and military power is shifting and becoming more diffuse. The rise of China, the world’s most populous country, and India, the world’s largest democracy, will continue to reshape the international system. While the United States will remain the most powerful actor, it must increasingly cooperate with key allies and partners to build and sustain peace and security. Whether and how rising powers fully integrate into the global system will be among this century’s defining questions, and are thus central to America’s interests."

At the moment, the QDR indicates Washington is worried about foreign "anti-access" strategies that limit its "power projection capabilities" in various parts of the world. What this means is that certain countries such as China and Russia are developing sophisticated new weapons that match those of the US, thus "impeding" the deployment of American forces to wherever the Pentagon desires. For instance:

China is developing and fielding large numbers of advanced medium-range ballistic and cruise missiles, new attack submarines equipped with advanced weapons, increasingly capable long-range air defense systems, electronic warfare and computer network attack capabilities, advanced fighter aircraft and counter-space systems. China has shared only limited information about the pace, scope and ultimate aims of its military modernization programs, raising a number of legitimate questions regarding its long-term intentions.

To counter this trend in China and elsewhere, the Pentagon is planning, at a huge and unannounced cost, the following enhancements: "Expand future long-range strike capabilities; Exploit advantages in subsurface operations; Increase the resiliency of US forward posture and base infrastructure; Assure access to space and the use of space assets; Enhance the robustness of key ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance) capabilities; Defeat enemy sensors and engagement systems; and Enhance the presence and responsiveness of US forces abroad."

In addition, the US not only targets China with nuclear missiles and bombs, it is surrounding the country (and Russia as well, of course) with anti-ballistic missiles. The purpose is plain: In case the US finds it "necessary" to launch ballistic missiles toward China, the ABMs will be able to destroy its limited retaliatory capacity.

According to an article in the February 22 issue of China Daily, the country's English-language newspaper: "Washington appears determined to surround China with US-built anti-missile systems, military scholars have observed ... Air force colonel Dai Xu, a renowned military strategist, wrote in an article released this month that 'China is in a crescent-shaped ring of encirclement. The ring begins in Japan, stretches through nations in the South China Sea to India, and ends in Afghanistan'."

Compared to the Bush administration's 2006 QDR, there has been a conscious effort to tone down the anti-China rhetoric in the current document. But it is entirely clear that China is number one in the QDR's references to "potentially hostile nation states".

According to the February 18 Defense News, a publication that serves the military-industrial complex, "Analysts say the QDR attempts to address the threat posed by China without further enraging Beijing. 'If you look at the list of further enhancements to US forces and capabilities ... those are primarily capabilities needed for defeating China, not Iran, North Korea or Hezbollah,' said Roger Cliff, a China military specialist at Rand. 'So even though not a lot of time is spent naming China ... analysis of the China threat is nonetheless driving a lot of the modernization programs described in the QDR'."

Incidentally, according to the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, this year's Chinese defense budget, for a country four times larger than the United States, is $78 billion, compared to the $664 billion for the Pentagon (without all the national security extras harbored in other department budgets). China possesses 100-200 nuclear warheads compared to America's 9,326 (when both deployed and stored weapons are included). China is contemplating the construction of an aircraft carrier; the US Navy floats 11 of them. China has no military bases abroad.

In our view, China appears to be constructing weapons for defense, not offense against the US - and its foreign policy is based on refusing to be pushed around by Washington while doing everything possible to avoid a serious confrontation.

Russia as well is treated better in the new QDR than in 2006, but it is included with China in most cases. Despite Moscow's huge nuclear deterrent and abundant oil and gas supplies, it's only "potential enemy" number two in terms of the big powers. Washington feels more threatened by Beijing. This is largely because of China's size, rapid development, fairly successful state-guided capitalist economy directed by the Communist Party, and the fact that it is on the road to becoming the world's economic leader, surpassing the US in 20 to 40 years.

It seems fairly obvious, but hardly mentioned publicly, that this is an extremely dangerous situation. China does not seek to dominate the world, nor will it allow itself to be dominated. Beijing supports the concept of a multipolar world order, with a number of countries and blocs playing roles. At issue, perhaps, is who will be first among equals.

Washington prefers the situation that has existed these 20 years after the implosion of the Soviet Union and much of the socialist world left the United States as the remaining military superpower and boss of the expanded capitalist bloc. During this time Washington has functioned as the unipolar world hegemon and doesn't want to relinquish the title.

This is all changing now as other countries rise, led by China, and the US appears to be in gradual decline. How the transition to multi-polarity is handled over the next couple of decades may determine whether or not a disastrous war will be avoided.

Jack A Smith is editor of the Hudson Valley Activist Newsletter in New York State and the former editor of the Guardian Newsweekly (US). He may be reached at jacdon@earthlink.net

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

USA : Senate rejects proposal to break up largest banks

2010-05-06T18:28:00.001-07:00

from : http://www.reuters.com

(Reuters) - The Senate Thursday rejected a proposal that would split up the six largest banks in an effort to ensure that large financial firms do not threaten the economy if they fail.

The measure, which failed by a vote of 33 to 61, would have placed hard limits on banks' market share of insured deposits and limited the size of their non-deposit liabilities.

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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US Stocks extend plunge almost 1000 points on concerns about Greece

2010-05-06T15:51:00.000-07:00

from : http://www.sott.net

Tom Paradis
Associated Press
Thu, 06 May 2010 17:35 EDT

© AP Photo/Henny Ray Abrams
Traders work on floor, in New York

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Thursday, May 6, 2010, in New York. It was a painful flashback to the darkest days of 2008: Stocks plunged and the Dow Jones industrials skidded by hundreds of points as traders succumbed to fears that Greece's debt problems would halt the global economic recovery.

The stock market had one of its most turbulent days in history as the Dow Jones industrials dropped almost 1,000 points in less than half an hour on fears that Greece's debt problems could halt the global economic recovery.

The market's plunge came less than 90 minutes before the end of trading. The Dow's drop was its largest loss ever during the course of a trading day, but it recovered to a loss of 347 at the close. All the major indexes lost more than 3 percent.

There were reports that the sudden drop was caused by a trader who mistyped an order to sell a large block of stock. The drop in that stock's price was enough to trigger "sell" orders across the market.

Still, the Dow was already down more than 200 points as traders watched protests in the streets of Athens on TV. Protestors raged against austerity measures passed by the Greek parliament. But traders were not comforted by the fact that Greece seemed to be working towards a resolution of its debt problems. Instead, they focused on the possibility that other European countries would also run into trouble, and that the damage to their economies could spread to the U.S.

"The market is now realizing that Greece is going to go through a depression over the next couple of years," said Peter Boockvar, equity strategist at Miller Tabak. "Europe is a major trading partner of ours, and this threatens the entire global growth story."

The stock market has had periodic bouts of anxiety about the European economies during the past few months. They have intensified over the past week even as Greece appeared to be moving closer to getting a bailout package from some of its neighbors.

Computer trading intensified the losses as programs designed to sell stocks at a specified level kicked in. Traders use those programs to try to limit their losses when the market is falling. And the selling only led to more selling as prices fell.

"I think the machines just took over. There's not a lot of human interaction," said Charlie Smith, chief investment officer at Fort Pitt Capital Group. "We've known that automated trading can run away from you, and I think that's what we saw happen today."

On the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, stone-faced traders huddled around electronic boards and televisions, silently watching and waiting. Traders' screens were flashing numbers non-stop, with losses shown in solid blocks of red numbers.

The impact on some stocks was enormous although brief. Stock in the consulting firm Accenture fell to 4 cents after closing at $42.17 on Wednesday. It closed at $41.09, down just over $1.

NYSE spokesman Raymond Pellecchia said the plunge wasn't caused by a problem with the exchange's trading systems. The Nasdaq Stock Market said it was reviewing its trades with other trading networks.

Even if there were technical issues, emotions about the world economy were running high. Down 998.50 points in its largest point drop ever, the Dow recovered two-thirds of that amount but still had its biggest point loss since February 2009.

The Dow has lost 631 points, or more than 5 percent, in three days amid worries about Greece. That is its largest three-day percentage drop since March 2009, when the stock market was nearing its bottom following the financial crisis.

The losses were so widespread that just 173 stocks rose on the NYSE, compared to 3,008 that fell. The major indexes were all down more than 3 percent.

Meanwhile, interest rates on Treasurys soared as traders sought the safety of U.S. government debt. The yield on the benchmark 10-year note, which moves opposite its price, fell to 3.4 percent from late Wednesday's 3.54 percent.

related :

Panic on Wall Street as Dow Plummets 9% Over Fears for Global Financial System .

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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The “New” Iraq

2010-05-04T14:49:00.000-07:00

from :

JNOUBIYEH | 12:15 PM

By Ghali Hassan
Countercurrents.org

Seven years after the illegal invasion of Iraq by the Anglo-American fascist armies, it is clear today that the deliberate and systematic destruction of the Iraqi nation was premeditated and unprovoked act of naked aggression aimed at expanding U.S.-Israel Zionist power. These barbaric crimes ‘should never be forgotten and never be forgiven’.

“By violating international laws and conventions in 2003 in order to attack a defenceless nation for no reason [other than serving Israel’s Zionist-fascist ideology], George W. Bush [and Tony Blair were] reclaiming those most primal instincts that had led the Mongol barbarians Hulagu and Turko-Tamerlane to destroy Baghdad in 1258 and 1401 respectively. And by going back to the law of the jungle, Bush [and Blair] did not just destroy Baghdad and the whole of Iraq, but [they] also instigated a treacherous plan against the precious legal and institutional heritage that mankind has been laboriously building since the Treaty of Westphalia of October 24, 1648, generally considered the founding document of the nation-state and the first attempt at outlawing the right of might”, writes Tunisian journalist Hmida Ben Romdhane (La Presse de Tunisie, April 11, 2010). Unlike the destruction of Baghdad by the barbarian Mongols, the destruction of the Iraqi society by the West’s most recent militarised religio-fascist alliance of George Bush and Tony Blair is an act of terrorism that will live in infamy.

Unprovoked Aggression

There is no doubt that the barbaric attack on Baghdad in March 2003 will remain one of the most violent acts of terrorism in history of mankind. According to U.S. officials, “Shock and Awe” was aimed at terrorising the entire Iraqi population and intimidating Iraq’s neighbours, particularly Syria and Iran. After 13 years of genocidal sanctions, that deprived Iraqi children and the population as a whole of essential medical supplies and nutrition, Iraqis are virtually defenceless in the face of overwhelming violence.

It is estimated that the 13-year long U.S.-Britain imposed sanctions – coated with the United Nations despicable colour – caused the death of more than 2 million innocent Iraqi civilians, including the death of more than 600,000 infants under the age of 5 years. The sanctions were accurately described as the real weapons of mass destruction (WMD). According to John Mueller and Karl Mueller, the brutal and inhumane sanctions against the Iraqi people have caused far more deaths over time than the combined use of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons in the two world wars (Foreign Affairs, May/June 1999).

Unsatisfied by the enormous atrocity and resilience of the Iraqi people and their government, the U.S. and Britain concocted a pretext (WMD and link to terrorism) to justify an illegal act of aggression to occupy Iraq. After the pretext was exposed as a lie, the U.S. and U.S. accomplices concocted new pretext to justify the illegal aggression, the West “moral responsibility” and concern for the welfare of the Iraqi people. The so-called “Responsibility to Protect” or R2P – not applicable to the Palestinians – was the same concept used by the German Nazis to justify Nazi terror. The difference was that the Nazis were allegedly “protecting ethnic Germans” in Poland and Russia.

Not since the Fascist army of Adolf Hitler invaded and occupied parts of Europe has the world witnessed such barbaric violence and destruction as that being perpetrated by the Anglo-American fascist armies. For most Iraqis today, living under U.S. military Occupation is no less brutal than Poles or Russians were living under the brutal Nazi occupation that most Westerners considered barbaric.

Prior to the invasion, Iraq was subjected to a massive and vicious propaganda campaign. The country was portrayed as a pariah state by mainstream-Zionist media and their despicable journalists distorting facts and promoting aggression. Iraq’s late president Saddam Hussein was demonised and used as a moral compass to justify Anglo-American aggression and war crimes.

Western opportunists and America’s apologists who pretended to be “against” the Anglo-American aggression and hide behind the “No War for Oil” Zionist deception have long fallen in line. The so-called “liberal class” and “progressives” have often described the murderous Occupation as a “failure” and “incompetence”, praised the U.S.-staged fraudulent elections and attacked the legitimate Iraqi Resistance as “violent insurgency” and “bigoted Sunnis”. Their criticism of the Occupation and U.S. imperialism has always been an intellectual cowardice. If the U.S. failed to impose its Zionist-imperialist agenda on Iraq, credit must go to the Iraqi Resistance. It shatters the myth of invincibility of the ‘world only superpower’.

From time to time the “liberal class” and “progressives” criticise Barack Obama’s policies and calling him ‘worse than Bush’, as if Obama has the power to make changes to U.S. criminal policies. The motive is to manipulate the public and deflect attention away from the anti-Muslim Zionist ruling class that control the centres of power and finance in America. We all know that Obama has no real power to make changes. He is just another product, a tool, of the Zionist ruling class. Indeed, the Obama Administration is the most Zionist administration in U.S. history.

After seven years of hibernation, the “liberal class” and “progressives”, including Israel’s apologists are back to show their loyalty (backflipping), attacking Iran and condemning Iran’s alleged “rigged” elections. It is important to remember that Iran doesn’t pose threat to any nation, but Israel with its fascist ideology and an arsenal of nuclear weapon posed a threat not only to entire region but to the world. The same Zionist propaganda that led to the aggression against Iraq is being recycled.

The Zionists’ (the architects of the war) murderous strategy in Iraq was to destroy the fabric of the Iraqi society, and turn Iraq into a colonial dictatorship subservient to U.S.-Israel Zionist power. There was no “failure” or “incompetence” on the part of the U.S. government, as suggested by the loyal “opposition”. The destruction of Iraq was planned at least two years before the aggression in 2003. It was driven by the neo-conservative and neo-liberal ideologues (in lay terms, Zion-fascists) with strong ties to Israel’s fascist regime. “They openly stated that their top priority was to advance Israel’s agenda, which, in this case, was a U.S. war against Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein, occupy the country, physically divide Iraq, destroy its military and industrial capability and impose a pro-Israel/pro-U.S. puppet regime”, writes American sociologist James Petras.

As a result of the illegal invasion and seven years of murderous Occupation, an estimated 1.5 million defenceless Iraqi civilians, mostly women, children and young men, have been murdered, with the majority by the invading Anglo-American armies. It is the most premeditated and barbaric mass murder of innocent civilians in the history of human civilisation. The “new” Iraq is a nation of orphans and widows.

Furthermore, many American official and international organisation have quietly acknowledged that the destruction of Iraq’s cultural heritage was deliberate and premeditated. It was designed to remove Iraq’s history as the birthplace of civilisation. Even Adolf Hitler never thought of committing such heinous crimes during the Nazi occupation of Europe. Priceless cultural artefacts may have been stolen by Nazi officials but never destroyed. In Iraq, Museums and galleries holding the history of world civilisation were trashed and looted. Libraries were ransacked and books were burned in masses. It was all performed under the watchful eyes of the invading armies. As James Petras noted: “[T]he destruction of the scientific, academic, cultural and legal foundations of an independent state means increasing reliance on the Western (and Chinese) multinational corporations and their technical infrastructure – facilitating imperial economic penetration and exploitation”.

In the “new” Iraq, Iraqis are living in a climate of fear and terror today. From the outset, the Occupation fomented violence in order to destroy the Iraqi society. Before the invasion, Iraqis lived side-by-side in every city and town regardless of ethno-religious backgrounds. They intermarriage and live in a cultural and mosaic society. To encourage anarchy and insecurity, the occupying army disbanded the Iraqi Army, police and security forces and replaced them with Kurdish warlords, political gangsters, imported death squads, and religious militias. “The ‘war of all against all’ served the interests of the U.S. Occupation forces”, writes James Petras. From the outset of the Occupation, the U.S. sought to control Iraq through violence and the colonial policy of ‘divide and rule’ by handing out political positions to expatriates along strictly ethno-religious lines. The so-called “political process” was designed to achieve this division of Iraq.

By propping up corrupt criminals, religious fundamentalists and terrorists who were parachuted into Iraq by the invading armies, the American and to a lesser extent the British governments were able to hide behind a facade of corrupt expatriate stooges and blaming them for the Occupation-generated violence and crimes. Corruption is one of the most effective colonial tools, brought into Iraq to deflect attention away from the Occupation. Transparency International has ranked (the ‘new’) Iraq as the fourth most-corrupt nation in the world in its annual survey. Indeed, the creation of a corrupt and illegitimate puppet government inside the Occupation Headquarter (known as the ‘Green Zone’) aimed at transforming Iraq into a “failed state” that needs Western interference and “help”.

Expatriate stooges were appointed and encouraged to compete against each other for the title of Iraq’s “strongman”. The more violent and corrupt the “strongman” the more accepted by the U.S. administration. Hundreds of young men are disappearing every month (if not every week) into “secret” prisons, where they are routinely tortured, raped, humiliated and many of them later murdered. Amnesty International (AI) and Human Rights Watch (HRW) were the first to blame the puppet government for crimes committed under the radar screen of the occupying forces while they remain silent when Iraqis are tortured, raped and massacred by U.S.-British invading armies. Both, AI and HRW reports on Iraq were consciously prepared to exonerate the occupying armies and depict Iraq as a “sovereign” nation marred by violence and violation of human right law.

Violence will continue to engulf Iraq’s major cities; just enough to justify the ongoing murderous Occupation, serves U.S.-Israel Zionist interests and diverts public attention away from the Occupation. Furthermore, to enforce colonial divisions and facilitate the liquidation of anti-Occupation Resistance leaders, the U.S. occupying army used Nazi-like methods to separate populations along ethno-religious lines by erecting walls around neighbourhoods in Baghdad and other cities. For example, the Capital Baghdad with its marked ghettoes and perpetual violence is a mirror image of Warsaw under Nazi occupation under wretched living conditions.

Deterioration of Living Conditions

Since 2003, living conditions in Iraq continue to deteriorate. Once a middle-class nation, Iraq has been deliberately reduced to a state of abject destitution. In the “new” Iraq, nearly half the population live in extreme poverty. A report by the British charity organisation, Oxfam, shows that 43 percent of Iraqis lives in absolute poverty and some 8 to 10 million Iraqis need emergency aid. The country is still under the genocidal sanctions. The official unemployment rate is more than 50 percent of the Iraqi active population. The illegitimate puppet government’s own statistics revealed that 45 percent of Iraqis live in absolute poverty lacking the necessities to survive. Nearly 62 percent (15.8 million) of Iraqis ‘completely depend’ on the food rationing system to survive from month to month. The system was created by President Saddam Hussein to confront the genocidal sanctions and avert mass starvation. Despite the reduction in the number of food and non-food items by the illegitimate puppet government, many Iraqis still depend on the system to survive.

After seven years of murderous Occupation and deteriorating living conditions, Iraq is suffering the worst refugee crisis in history. “Iraq would be the world’s second-worst crisis, as the report points out, second only to Afghanistan, and ahead of Sudan. So the strain on Iraq’s neighbours, particularly Jordan and Syria, and to a lesser extent on Lebanon is immense”, said Jessica Mathews, President of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a U.S. propaganda think-tank known for its pro-Israel Zionist bias. At least 2.7 million Iraqis are internally displaced (by violence) and living in conditions of extreme poverty, enduring constant attacks and eviction from temporary shelters. An estimated 3 million able Iraqis have fled Iraq into exile in neighbouring countries. Only a small number of Iraqi refugees were allowed into those Western nations who pretend to have “liberated” Iraq. The majority of Iraqi refugees have found a safe haven in Syria and Jordan. Most of Iraqi refugees are in ‘legal limbo’, unable to work and with no hope of returning to their country. The primary causes for Iraqi refugees’ flight are violence, lack of access to water, sanitation, electricity, health care and education.

Targeting Iraq’s Education

Iraq’s education, once the best in the region, has been the target of the Occupation. Iraq’s education has been dismantled by the invading armies and their collaborators. The Iraqi curriculum has been changed to distort history and depicts the U.S. and Israel as democratic and civilised societies by covering up their war crimes, flagrant violations of international law human rights, violent ideology, corruption, growing inequalities, gross injustices and racist policies at home and abroad. It is estimated that only 30 percent of the 3.5 million students were attending schools. The majority of the dropouts are female. According to a report by UNESCO, school attendance prior to the Anglo-American aggression was nearly 100 percent. The crisis is exacerbated by the increase number of orphaned children. There are at least 5 million Iraqi orphans, many of them live on the streets.

Iraqi universities and colleges have been besieged by U.S.-created extremists and criminals. Tens of thousands of prominent Iraqis, including academics, doctors, teachers and political personalities have been murdered in cold blood in a U.S-Israel orchestrated assassination campaign dubbed “DeBa’athification”. Many had to leave Iraq for safety reasons, which contributed to brain drain.

The planned campaign was designed not only to kill Iraq as a nation by destroying Iraq’s human resources and independence, but also removing the base of the Iraqi Resistance to the Occupation. Professional Iraqis who survived the murderous campaign have left the country, leaving an education system in a state of collapse. Students are being graduated in masse without the necessary professional knowledge, especially those who work in the health care services. “There is really a huge difference between now and the times of Saddam Hussein, when medical graduates left college with competence to treat any patient”, said Professor Fua’ad Abdel-Razak of Baghdad university (IRIN, 16 May, 2007). Before the invasion, education and healthcare with modern health facilities were universal.

Deterioration of Iraq’s Healthcare

Iraq’s healthcare system has deteriorated at an alarming rate with a devastating impact on the health of the Iraqi people. The deterioration of the healthcare services has seen a marked increase in mortality. According to UNICEF, under the Occupation, Iraqi children are now dying faster than before invasion. One in four children under five years of age is chronically malnourished. One in eight Iraqi children die before the age of five, and millions of Iraqi children are affected by post traumatic disorder. “Healthcare in Iraq since 2003 is worse than during the sanctions. At that time we had little equipment and medicine, but in the last three years we have lost almost all the specialists”, said Dr Majeed al-Naomi in a Baghdad clinic. It is estimated that at least, 25 percent of Iraq's 18,000 physicians had left the country since the invasion in 2003 which is devastating the healthcare system.

Furthermore, Thousands of tons of white phosphorous shells, ‘depleted’ uranium (DU), napalm, cluster bombs, and neutron bombs were dropped on Iraqi population centres, including Baghdad Basrah and Fallujah. The Anglo-American armies used more than 1700 tons of DU during the 2003 invasion on top of more than 320 tons of DU used in 1991 attacks on Iraq. In the natural environment, these weapons-grade particles have extremely long half-lives and there is strong evidence of their detrimental effects on the health of the Iraqi people.

Iraqi officials are reporting incidences of cancer, deformed babies and other health problems have risen sharply since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Many suspect the causes are contamination from weapons used in years of Anglo-American criminal wars and unchecked pollution. In Fallujah, Iraqi children are suffering from brain damage, deformity and cancer. An Iraqi doctor said that the rate of deformity and cancer among children in Fallujah is extremely high when compared with the rate of cancer ad deformity of that in 2003. A spike in the number of births of stillborn, deformed and paralyzed babies there has alarmed doctors. Fallujah was the target of two massive assaults by the U.S. military. In Basra, Doctor Jawad al-Ali said: “We have seen new kinds of cancer that were not recorded in Iraq before the 2003 war, types of fibrous (soft tissue) cancer and bone cancer. These refer clearly to radiation as a cause.” In Basra, Leukaemia cases were up by 600 percent since 1990.

Access to clean water remains inadequate in many parts of the Iraq. According to the World Bank survey, 87.5 percent of the population have no adequate water supply, and 20 percent proper sewage disposal. In many parts of Iraq, including Baghdad and Basra, the water, soil and air are contaminated with radio-active particles caused by DU shells without adequate healthcare services the situation is rapidly worsening for the most vulnerable Iraqis, including women and children.

The Status of women

According to UNICEF, before the Anglo-American invasion, “Rarely do women in the Arab world enjoy as much power and support as they do in Iraq”. After seven years of U.S. Occupation, the status of Iraqi women has deteriorated beyond belief. The U.S.-imposed constitution has stripped Iraqi women of all the civil and basic rights that they enjoyed before the invasion and condemning them to statutory second-class citizens. Unemployment among Iraqi women is nearly 80 percent. A report by the Organisation for Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI) released on the fourth anniversary of the Anglo-American invasion stated that: “women of Iraq have gradually lost most of their 20th century gains and privileges in the last 4 years of occupation”. You would think European Islamophobes who pretend to support Muslim women “liberation” in Europe would be concerned about Iraqi women’ rights under Occupation. Instead, they are engaged in a fascist campaign of anti-Muslim hatred to justify Western war on Muslims.

According to Professor Maha Sabria of Al-Nahrain University in Baghdad, "The status of women here is linked to the general situation. The violation of women's rights was part of the violation of the rights of all Iraqis. [...] At the same time women do not have freedom of movement because of the deteriorated security conditions and because of abductions of women and children by criminal gangs”. (Inter Press Service, 12 March 2010).

Furthermore, as a result of the U.S. Occupation and its violence, there are 2.5 million widows in Iraq, the highest in the world. According to the United Nations, in 2006, 90 to 100 women were widowed each day by the Occupation and its collaborators. Many of these widows do not know what happened to their spouses and most of them receive no assistance from the puppet government.

Throughout Iraq, women are living in fear of their lives and dignity. Kidnapping and rape are the common crimes under the Occupation. Over 10,000 women have suffered detention at the hands of U.S. forces and their Iraqi collaborators. The majority of detainees remain without charges. They are tortured and abused on regular basis. (See my: Iraq: A cluster of torture prisons, Online Journal, March 08, 2006). The situation for Iraqi women reflects the country’s situation under U.S. military Occupation.

Elections and Colonial Dictatorship

The recent U.S.-staged illegitimate elections were conducted in an atmosphere of terror and execution perpetrated by the Occupation forces and their collaborators. The final outcome of fraudulent elections was ensured. Like the 2005 elections, the 2010 elections were widely regarded, both in Iraq and outside Iraq, as rigged and fraudulent elections. The elections designed to legitimise the Occupation and validate a corrupt U.S.-imposed colonial dictatorship led by U.S. stooges. With a puppet government in place, the U.S. can claim that Iraq is sovereign and that U.S. Occupation of Iraq is legitimate (See my: Iraq's Fraudulent Elections, New Matilda, January 19, 2005; Iraq: A Colonial Dictatorship, Global Research, April 29, 2005).

Unlike Iran recent free elections that have been condemned as “rigged” by the Zionist media and Western opportunists, Iraq’s fraudulent elections – under murderous foreign military Occupation – were promoted and praised as “democratic”. While Iyad Allawi, the U.S.-created thug claimed “victory”, prolonged post-elections’ wrangling is the norm. He has called for the privatisation of Iraq's industries and Iraq’s oil and gas resources. Before he was parachuted into Iraq, Allawi was a Western-paid terrorist based in Europe. He still is a paid terrorist. In Iraq, Allawi and his associates were involved in terrorism, including the bombing buses used by schoolchildren. Whatever, there is no evidence that a puppet government will demand an end to the Occupation. Meanwhile, Nori al-Maliki, the Iranian quisling has not giving-up his chance to continue serving U.S. and Iran interests from his office in the ‘Green Zone’.

Meanwhile, Obama’s “commitment” to troops’ withdrawal by the end of 2011 is flawed. It is a propaganda designed to manipulate the public and promote the perception that Iraq is a free and sovereign nation. The Occupation continues, but it is “invisible occupation”, as Priya Satia of Stanford University rightly called it. “In reality, most of the ‘withdrawing’ forces are merely relocating to forward operating bases where they appear to be hunkering down for a long entr’acte [pause] offstage in expensive, built-to-last [military bases]” (Financial Times, July 01, 2009). “But Iraqis are too shrewd to fall for invisible occupation again: indeed they never fall for it the first time ... in 1932”, added Satia. Moreover, the so-called “Status of Forces Agreement” between the U.S. military and the puppet government is a fraud, because it was never ratified by the Iraqi people. It is a deal between an occupier and a puppet government.

American military bases are being built (against the wishes of the Iraqi people) to enforce a permanent colonial occupation and to serve U.S.-Israel Zionist interests. Since 1991, “the U.S. has not just been building bases to wage wars, but has been waging wars to leave behind the bases. The effect has been to create a new U.S. military sphere of influence wedged in the strategic region between the E.U., Russia and China. The Pentagon has not been building these sprawling, permanent bases just to hand them to client governments”, writes Professor Zoltan Grossman of Evergreen State College. There are nearly 300 U.S. military bases in Iraq; many of them are the size of small towns. American advisors (at least 1,400 CIA agents) will remain stationed in the largest embassy in the world in the centre of Baghdad as a symbol of U.S. imperialism. In addition, there are at least 100,000 mercenaries (‘private war contractors’) fanning violence throughout Iraq.

Finally, the impacts of the murderous Occupation on the lives of the Iraqi people are reflected in numerous Western polls that revealed a significant majority of Iraqis despise the presence of U.S. troops and mercenaries and want an end to the murderous Occupation. Hence, without armed resistance, it is unlikely the U.S. will end its illegal colonial Occupation of Iraq. The legitimate Iraqi Resistance to the Occupation will continue until Iraq is liberated.

The premeditated and deliberate destruction of Iraq in pursuit of U.S.-Israel Zionist expansion constitutes a war of aggression that resulted in genocide. The ultimate responsibility of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Anglo-American fascist armies in Iraq rests with those who deliberately planned and executed an act of unprovoked aggression. George Bush, Tony Blair and their accomplices are guilty of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. Their crimes are reminiscent of the crimes committed by Nazi leaders. In civilised societies they would be hanged for their crimes.

The Iraqi people have the right to live in a sovereign nation free of repression, torture and terrorism; to enjoy justice and respect for human rights, and prosperity. The only condition to build a new Iraq for all Iraqis, proud of its history and Arab identity, is the liberation of the Iraqi people from U.S. colonial Occupation.

Ghali Hassan is an independent writer living in Australia.

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

US deploys 1000 drones in Afghanistan

2010-05-04T14:18:00.000-07:00

from : http://www.presstv.ir

Tue, 04 May 2010 07:38:17 GMT

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A US Predator drone flies over the moon above Kandahar Air Field, southern Afghanistan.

The US is deploying thousands of drones in Afghanistan, raising suspicions as to whether the move is aimed at monitoring militants or targeting another country.

Regional defense analysts believe that the unmanned aerial vehicles could be brought into play against regional countries in the wake of mounting tensions with Iran over its nuclear activities, the Pakistan Observer newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Deputy Director for Resources and Acquisition for the Pentagon's Joint Staff, Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Glenn Walters, recently said that the American military has sent a host of its 6,500 drones to the Middle East region.

He further noted that even though the US Pacific Command, Southern Command and Africa Command are in dire need of more UAVs, they are obliged to wait until the demand is met at the Central Command.

Walters also pointed out that the American military, whose UAV fleet has grown from about 200 since the beginning of the US-led war in Afghanistan, will have to specify as to what to do with the drones, as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan allegedly come to a close.

MP/TG/HRF

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

Fox News Makes Excuse for CIA’s Afghan Opium Cultivation

2010-05-02T16:09:00.000-07:00

from : http://www.uruknet.info

Kurt Nimmo

Infowars.com, May 2, 2010

In an amazing propaganda segment, Fox News’ Gerald Rivera talks with an occupation soldier about U.S. support of the opium trade in Afghanistan. The soldier tells Rivera he does not like supporting Afghan opium production. The U.S., he insists, has turned a blind eye to the cultivation because it is a cultural thing. He’d rather the Afghans grow watermelons.

Is it possible the U.S. will tell the brother of Afghanistan’s U.S.-installed ruler he should get in the watermelon business?

It was reported a few months ago that Ahmed Wali Karzai was on the CIA payroll and intimately involved in the opium trade Fox News and the rest of the corporate media tell us is run by the evil Taliban.

Fox News did not report that before everything changed on September 11, 2001, and before the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, the Taliban had imposed a ban on opium production. This resulted in opium production collapsing by more than 90 per cent. It was the U.S. supported Northern Alliance that came to the rescue and began protecting the production of raw opium.

"CIA-supported Mujahedeen rebels [who in 2001 were part of the Northern Alliance] engaged heavily in drug trafficking while fighting against the Soviet-supported government and its plans to reform the very backward Afghan society," William Blum writes in The Real Drug Lords.

Under the interim government of Hamid Karzai, opium poppy cultivation once again began to skyrocket and opium markets were restored. According to the United Nations Drug Control Program (UNDCP), opium cultivation increased by 657 per cent in 2002 in relation to its 2001 level. The UNDCP estimated 2002 opium poppy cultivation would cover an area between 45,000 and 65,000 hectares. Opium cultivation in 2001 had fallen to an estimated 7,606 hectares. According to the UN, in 2006 alone Afghanistan supplied 92 percent of the world’s supply of opium (see Apratim Mukarji’s Afghanistan: From Freedom to Terror, p. 22-23).

"The Golden Crescent drug trade, launched by the CIA in the early 1980s, continues to be protected by US intelligence, in liaison with NATO occupation forces and the British military. In recent developments, British occupation forces have promoted opium cultivation through paid radio advertisements," Michel Chossudovsky wrote in 2007.

"Respected people of Helmand. The soldiers of ISAF and ANA do not destroy poppy fields," the radio promo said. "They know that many people of Afghanistan have no choice but to grow poppy. ISAF and the ANA do not want to stop people from earning their livelihoods." This is basically the same excuse used by the soldier interviewed by Geraldo.

"Senior Bush Administration officials had displayed a complete lack of interest in the Afghan opium problem ever since 9/11," James Risen writes in State of War. "In fact, the White House and Pentagon went out of their way to avoid taking on the Afghan drug lords from the very outset of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan."

Not mentioned is the fact that more than 95 percent of the revenue generated by opium production is siphoned off to business syndicates, organized crime and banking and financial institutions.

"In many instances, drug money is currently the only liquid investment capital," said Vienna-based UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa said last January. "In the second half of 2008, liquidity was the banking system’s main problem and hence liquid capital became an important factor."

Former Managing Director and board member of Wall Street investment bank Dillon Read, Catherine Austin Fitts, has long alleged that the banksters launder imponderable amounts of drug money. "According to the Department of Justice, the US launders between $500 billion – $1 trillion annually. I have little idea what percentage of that is narco dollars, but it is probably safe to assume that at least $100-200 billion relates to US drug import-exports and retail trade," writes Fitts.

The CIA has long secured the lucrative global drug market for Wall Street and for its own operational "off-the-books" purposes. "The CIA’s operational directorate, in other words that’s their covert operations, para-military, dirty tricks — call it whatever you want — has for at least 40 years that we can document paid for a significant amount of its work through the sales of heroin and cocaine," Guerrilla News Network reported in an interview with Christopher Simpson.

The CIA has been in the drug running business since the 1950s. In Burma, Vietnam, Laos, Latin America, and Afghanistan, the CIA — also known as the "Cocaine Import Agency" — has remained at the forefront of the international illicit drug trade. The journalist Gary Webb and the San Jose Mercury News tied the CIA and the Contras to a large crack cocaine ring in Los Angeles. Webb paid with his life for revealing this information to the public.

None of this was mentioned by Geraldo Rivera and Fox News. Instead we are told drug dealing in Afghanistan is something engaged in by the evil Taliban (a group of religious fanatics created by the CIA and its partner, Pakistin’s ISI intelligence service).

Not that the Taliban are innocent — they have abandoned their old ways and are now exploiting the opium bumper crop to fund their operations.

"Curbing the Taliban’s multimillion dollar opium poppy business was a major goal of a military operation to seize this former insurgent stronghold," the Associated Press reported in March. "If they destroy the crops and curb the trade, they lose the support of the population — a problem for which they have no easy solution."

Support of the population, of course, comes in a far distant second to maintaining the addiction of Wall Street and the CIA to billions of dollars in profit.

:: Article nr. 65610 sent on 03-may-2010 00:36 ECT
www.uruknet.info?p=65610

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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Testing the Limits of Freedom of Speech: Ernst Zundel Speaks Out

2010-05-01T13:07:00.000-07:00

from : http://www.salem-news.com

Kourosh Ziabari Salem-News.com

Foreign Policy Journal's exclusive interview with one of Europe's most well-known political prisoners.

Ernst Zundel

(TEHRAN) - Ernst Zundel is a German author and historian who has spent seven years of his life behind bars as a result of expressing his controversial viewpoints and opinions. He is a revisionist who has denied the Holocaust as described by most historians. He has been one of the most prominent political prisoners in Europe and has been jailed in three countries on two continents.

After his arrest in the U.S. in 2003, he was deported to Canada, where he was kept in prison as “a threat to the national security” for two years. After deportation to Germany in March 2005, he was convicted and sentenced in 2007 to five additional years of imprisonment on charges of holocaust denial. He was finally released on March 1, 2010.

This is the first interview Ernst Zundel has given since his release, published in the Foreign Policy Journal.

Firstly, I would like to extend my congratulations on your recent release. Were you ever mistreated or subject to any type of mental or physical punishment in breach of international conventions?

My entire treatment these past seven years by those arresting me, trying and convicting me, and keeping me in prison has been in brutal breach of international conventions. I was arrested in broad daylight on American soil by officials of the U.S. government who acted as hit squads for a nefarious lobby. There was no arrest warrant. I was not read my rights. I was whisked away in handcuffs without being allowed to get my wallet, to call my attorney, to be allowed to make my case before an American Immigration Judge or even hug my wife goodbye.

I was incarcerated in six different prisons on two continents in three countries—the USA, Canada, and Germany—without relief of any kind. In effect, I have had 10 percent of my life stolen from me – and for what “crime”? For having “overstayed my U.S. visa”?

Throughout my imprisonment, basic human rights principles were trampled underfoot repeatedly and with impunity. The worst prisons were the Canadian detention centers at Thorold, Ontario and at Toronto West, where I was held for two long years in isolation cells, ice-cold in the winter, no shoes or socks allowed. The electric light in these cells, bright enough to be able to read, was kept on 24 hours a day. Through a glass slot in the door I was checked every 20 minutes, and my activities were meticulously noted by the guards: one sheet for every day. No dignity, no privacy. My toothbrush was kept in a plastic bin in a hall. I was not allowed to speak to other prisoners.

Bed sheets were changed only after three months. No pillows. No chairs. When I wrote to my wife or to my attorneys, I had to sit on a makeshift pile of my court transcripts. No radio, no television, not even an electrical outlet to sharpen my pencils. No ball point pens, only pencil stubs, cut in half with a saw. No spoons, forks, or knives were permitted; only a white plastic spoon with a fork called a “spork” that had to be returned every time at the end of the meal. With very few exceptions when furtive guards showed me some kindness away from the surveillance cameras, I was treated as though I was the worst of criminals. That’s Canada for you, where I have lived and worked without a criminal record for more than 40 years.

It was somewhat better, but not much, in the United States. In Germany, it was quite a bit better in terms of the basic necessities, but personal mail was routinely withheld – 1,700 letters for up to five years – even after I forced a court to order that it be given to me. My so-called trial in Mannheim was a political show trial in the Stalinist mode in that my guilt was a foregone conclusion. I requested that exculpatory exhibits be allowed as validation for what I believed and had written and said. No meaningful defense was allowed. I could not put on record any forensic evidence, any historical documents, or even expert witnesses... That very request to be allowed to offer evidence was held to be a new offense of criminal behavior and could have resulted in new criminal charges – as were, in fact, lodged against my lawyers during that very trial who tried to overcome these restrictions.

Along with the rest of EU members, Germany regularly criticizes other countries for violations of free speech and human rights. However, your case demonstrated the emptiness of such claims within Europe. What’s your take on that? Is Europe really a utopia of liberty and freedom of speech?

Most European countries have only selected free speech for officially approved and sanctioned views on history. Almost all EU countries have laws in place that restrict freedom of speech under the guise of one fig leaf or other, such as the prevention of racist or neo-Nazi activities. The state decides selectively who is and what is racist. These laws are hypocritical, in Germany’s case superseding even their own Basic Law.

Dissidents are allowed very little opportunity to be read or heard in the mainstream corporate media channels of the West. The control mechanisms of the press are many, often subtle but widely understood and obeyed – fear of loss of jobs, diminished circulation, the withholding of government advertisements etc. There is no longer unrestricted freedom in any Western country, not even in the U.S. with its wonderful Constitution and Amendments such as the Bill of Rights.

Allow me here to point out to your readers the outline of a censorship practice known by its neutral term “rendition”, but more honestly defined as political kidnappings to force the silencing of dissident speech or alternate thoughts. Renditions in the West are ever more frequently practiced not only against alleged “terrorist suspects” but against ordinary political activists and writers whose viewpoints are frowned upon by such outfits as AIPAC and similar Zionist lobby and interest groups, B’nai Brith, the Canadian Jewish Congress etc.

In order to spell out what I can only describe to you in broad strokes, I’d like to briefly shed light on the period preceding my arrest in the U.S. and Canada; the conniving and the similarity in other cases like mine, where an innocuous or alleged infraction is used as a fig leaf to silence a political opponent.

Viet Dinh, a Georgetown University law professor and director of their Asian Law and Policy Studies Program who helped craft the Patriot Act, put it succinctly, as reported in an American publication called Wired that deals with freedom of speech on the net. That interview reads:

Wired News: An estimated 5,000 people have been subjected to detention since 9/11. Of those, only five — three noncitizens and two citizens — were charged with terrorism-related crimes and one was convicted. How do we justify such broad-sweeping legislation that has resulted in very few terrorist-related convictions?

Dinh: I’ve heard the 5,000 number. The official numbers released from the Department of Justice indicate approximately 500 persons have been charged with immigration violations and have been deported who have been of interest to the 9/11 investigation.

It may well be that a number of citizens were not charged with terrorism-related crimes, but they need not be. Where the department has suspected people of terrorism, it will prosecute those persons for other violations of law, rather than wait for a terrorist conspiracy to fully develop and risk the potential that that conspiracy will be missed and thereby sacrificing innocent American lives in the process.

This is exactly what happened to me. The initial reason given was an alleged immigration infraction – namely a “visa overstay”. I was no terrorist; I was a dissident writer. My political detractors knew perfectly well that I was in America legally, awaiting adjustment of status due to my marriage to an American citizen. I was in Immigration Adjustment of Status proceedings, meticulously following all the prerequisite steps. I was living openly in a rural area in Tennessee and was listed by address in the local telephone book. The U.S. government had given me a Social Security number, a work permit, a document that allowed me to leave the country and return unmolested. I had undergone and passed an FBI check and a health clearance. The only last step missing was a personal interview by an immigration official to ascertain a valid marriage to my American citizen wife.

We had been notified in writing that this interview could take as long as three years, and that no status report would be given. We were patiently waiting for that last step, a routine interview with an immigration official. Our immigration attorney had requested such an interview in writing – twice! Under oath, he testified that he had written those letters. These letters have mysteriously disappeared from our immigration file. When I was arrested, it was claimed that I had negligently “missed a hearing” which gave them grounds for an arrest due to a visa overstay. In other words, a simple bureaucratic loophole was found or fabricated that has cost me seven years of my life.

What happened to me in the context of a deliberate state policy of deception has also happened to others. Similar ruses via false accusations were used in cases like Germar Rudolf, likewise married to an American citizen, El Masri of Germany, Maher Arar of Canada, Gerd Honsik of Spain, Siegfried Verbeke of Belgium, David Irving, and now Bishop Williamson of England, to name only a few individuals who were caught between the grindstones of a criminal policy possible only under the Patriot Act in the U.S. and similar legal instruments in other countries. Embedded in that background of a widespread covert policy and practice to force political conformity, my case makes eminent sense. We are no longer dealing with an aberration. These extrajudicial renditions give 9/11 and the Patriot Act a new light as a global policy instrument of brutal censorship of unpopular thinkers and writers.

The thrust of a prestigious publication such as yours would normally deal with the policies of foreign governments, renditions, kidnappings, and incarcerations not only of foreign enemies but, as in the case of Vanunu, an Israeli-born-and-raised atomic scientist. He was no neo-Nazi, no racist, no Holocaust Denier, yet he was relentlessly pursued by the Mossad and ultimately kidnapped and jailed for 18 years.

The patterns of the breaking of international law and conventions, the use of false identities, and the brazen practice of breaking and entering by spy and intelligence agencies, etc. – these criminal activities are daily in the news. This sets the stage and makes my case a logical progression of an old, established policy, with this one difference: we are no longer talking about hunting and kidnapping alleged “Nazi war criminals” like Eichmann or stone-throwing Palestinians or even “Arab terrorists”, but instead the targeting of writers and other political dissidents in Western countries calling themselves “democracies”.

My story does not even end there. In my case, my “Holocaust Denier” profile was convenient, but passé. It was not even, as is so commonly and falsely claimed, “Denial of the Holocaust” or even more bizarre, my “visa overstay”! I was told what actually happened by a friend of ours with high-level UN connections. In his own words: “It was the Blue Booklet that did it! That’s when it was decided at the very highest level to take you out for good!”

Here is what happened, briefly: In the early months post-9/11 my wife, an avid Internetter, discovered a compelling research document entitled Stranger than Fiction: An Independent Investigation of 9/11 and the War on Terrorism by Anonymous, 11-11-02. She gave it to me over breakfast. I read it, found it interesting, and ran a few copies off on my printer for people on my mailing list. I did not write that lavishly footnoted paper. I did not research it. I merely copied it. Somebody must have concluded that I, with my background of thorough forensic investigations in other areas, showed more than ordinary interest in 9/11 as a potential political false flag common in intelligence agency operations!

During my trial in Mannheim, ostensibly for “Holocaust Denial”, portions of my monthly newsletter, where I mentioned this booklet and the 9/11 topic, were referenced by the prosecution as criminal offenses. Only after it became clear that I welcomed the opportunity to have my attorneys present forensic evidence of a potential 9/11 cover-up were those portions of the accusation against me hastily dropped, and my trial became a “Holocaust Denial” show trial in the traditional Stalinist mode, “… accuse wildly but don’t allow a defense!”

As we later found out through various freedom of information requests in various countries, there was in place for years a deliberate, convoluted plan to arrest and detain me under false pretenses so as to take me out and put me behind bars.

I mention this only as an overarching, logical example as to how diabolically clever my political opponents are in using the accusation of “Holocaust Denial” and persecution of Holocaust Revisionists as arrows in their arsenal of weaponry to shore up, consolidate, and protect their deceptively acquired power and influence.

What’s the reality behind Holocaust? Didn’t it happen at all? What about people such as Elie Wiesel, Thomas Blatt, Wladyslaw Bartoszewski and Leopold Engleitner who are Holocaust survivors and describe their own accounts of those painful days, when they personally witnessed the heart-rending demise of their parents in concentration camps and bone-crushing machines. How should we resolve these contradictions?

I will not answer this question. I would risk five more years in jail if I answered these questions honestly and truthfully. However, in the age of the Internet, others less known than I am find ways to simplify a painful, multifaceted problem, as the cartoon [Prevent Holocaust, Bomb Iran by Carlos Latuff] makes plain.

Many people of other countries have come to the categorical conclusion that the Western world is a beacon of liberty and unrestricted freedom of speech. But it sometimes seems that the reality is something else, and that people can be easily prosecuted merely for publishing views that are disliked. The booklet you published, Did Six Million Really Die?, is an example. What do you think?

Here is just one more example of what I already outlined above: We have faxes and other documents that prove on official embassy letterhead that the much vaunted and propagandized U.S. Judiciary has run interference for these kidnappers and renditioners via behind-the-scenes ex parte communication, thus engaging in a cover-up and whitewash worse than the ones practiced by those the U.S. government always blames for human rights violations in their hypocritical press campaigns, like against China in Tibet, Lukashenko in Belarus, Putin in Moscow and, of course, Iran during the recent so-called Green Revolution.

Many Zionist websites have introduced you as a white supremacist. Is that a fair characterization?

This claim is a convenient character assassination technique. I have never been a white supremacist and have stated so for decades, publicly, in countless interviews, newsletters, speeches, broadcasts, etc. It is my opponents’ modus operandi to broad-brush complex issues by politically expedient demonization.

You’re opposed to the regime of Israel because of its discriminatory and atrocious approach against the nation of Palestine. You consider yourself a pacifist who advocates stability and peace; aren’t these beliefs incompatible with your viewpoint regarding Hitler, who is internationally considered to be a notorious dictator and relentless killer? How can your peace-seeking stance come together with your approval of Hitler?

I cannot answer this question due to legal restraints. An honest and complete answer would land me in jail as a re-offender very quickly. Implicit in your question is the toxic image of me that my detractors would like you to have. To be called a Nazi is worse than being called a leper. For decades I have been on the receiving end of just such a targeted character assassination campaign. I have been jailed many times - not for advocating an ideology - but for expressing a dissident, alternative viewpoint on many topics, including Adolf Hitler’s role in history. Revisionism is not an ideology. It is merely a scientific method of re-examining historical events and of trying to understand the movers and shakers who made history a footnote to their personalities.

Let me answer your question this way: I have always abhorred any kind of violence in the pursuit of political goals. By anyone! Politically, I was and am a pacifist, much in the Gandhi style. I advocate a sober, neutral look at history, including the period known as the Third Reich. The peoples of the world, regardless of what system of government they live under, owe it to themselves to emancipate themselves of the simplistic images of propaganda and deceit posing as history.

On May 1995, your Toronto residence was the target of an arson attack which resulted in $400,000 worth of damage. A few days later, some of your extremist opponents were caught trying to break into your property. Again a few days later, you received a parcel bomb which the Toronto police detonated. Have you ever tried to lodge a complaint against them? Have they ever been lawfully sentenced?

This is the flip side of some of the questions above. While I have never advocated or engaged in violence, egregious acts of violence have been repeatedly practiced on me, of which the political kidnapping in 2003 was merely the latest. As to the fire and the bomb, no, nothing was ever resolved. The police apprehended the bomb builders and senders, but the charges laid were stayed. There seems to have been no political will at the highest levels of the Canadian government. There was no political coin to be garnered by prosecuting Jewish arsonists, who even confessed to the deed.

Do you differentiate between the Zionists and Jews as the followers of a divine, monotheistic religion?

Yes, the two are totally different. Some Orthodox Jews who are united against Zionism, such as the Neturei Karta, believe that also. They know the godfathers of Communism and Zionism followed identical policies. The guiding spirit behind the two systems is the same. Neturei Karta rabbis attended the 2006 Teheran Conference sponsored by your President in an attempt to distance themselves from what they consider to be a dangerous atheist clique in the pursuit of illegal politics of conquest of which they want no part.

The mainstream corporate media, while having already vilified you, remained silent about your release. What do you think about this? Are you going to continue your ideological path or would you prefer to keep a low profile and forget about the intellectual activities?

Ironically, that was exactly what I intended to do when I moved to Tennessee and married Ingrid; keeping a low profile and turning to private endeavors such as my love for art and music. I felt that my revisionist outreach was finished, concluded to my inner satisfaction. Let others read both sides and then judge for themselves. All the arguments, all the information needed on the Holocaust is out there, on the Internet, in tens of thousands of websites, all for the taking. How often do you have to dig up an archeological site to find yet one more bone, yet one more implicating shard? My wife likes to say that you don’t have to eat a camel to know what a cutlet tastes like. I was quite ready to retire and satisfy my creative needs and desires. I could leave the political mopping-up activities for others to complete. But could my political opponents bring themselves, as rational people might have, to likewise call it quits? No; that is simply not in their nature.

As you point out so cogently, a powerful vilification campaign is still going full blast. It keeps my name in the media for people to decide for themselves who I am. Upon my release, my wife has collected thousands and thousands of letters from readers, only three of which were negative! Not a bad record, of the millions of dollars spent and millions of words dispersed in an attempt to paint me as as a devil with horns.

Let me ask you – would your prestigious publication have cared to interview me if you thought that I deserved the label of Evil Incarnate?

[FPJ's editor note: The views and beliefs of Ernst Zundel are his own, and not those of Foreign Policy Journal. It is the policy of FPJ to uphold the principle of freedom of speech, which means freedom to say things that others may find despicable. It is otherwise a meaningless principle. It is also the position of FPJ that both sides to a story deserve to be heard. It's up to readers to draw their own conclusions and make their own judgments.]

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The latest writer to join Salem-News.com's team; Kourosh Ziabari is an Iranian media correspondent, freelance journalist and the author of Book 7+1. He is a contributing writer for websites and magazines in the Netherlands, Canada, Italy, Hong Kong, Bulgaria, South Korea, Belgium, Germany, the U.K. and the U.S. He was once a member of Stony Brook University Publications’ editorial team and Media Left magazine’s contributing writer, as well as a contributing writer for Finland’s Award-winning Ovi Magazine. As a young Iranian journalist, he has been interviewed and quoted by several mainstream mediums, including BBC World Service, PBS Media Shift, the Media Line network, Deutsch Financial Times and L.A. Times. Currently, he works for the Foreign Policy Journal as a media correspondent. He is a member of Tlaxcala Translators Network for Linguistic Diversity and World Student Community for Sustainable Development. You can write to Kourosh Ziabari at: kziabari@gmail.com

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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Russia says genetically modified foods are harmful

2010-05-01T12:20:00.000-07:00

from : http://www.sott.net

Voice of Russia

Fri, 16 Apr 2010 13:41 EDT

Russia has started the annual Days of Defence against Environmental Hazards from the 15th of April to the 5th of June with the announcement of sensational results of an independent work of research. Scientists have proved that Genetically Modified Organisms are harmful for mammals. The researchers discovered that animals that eat GM foodstuffs lose their ability to reproduce. Campbell hamsters that have a fast reproduction rate were fed for two years with ordinary soya beans, which are widely used in agriculture and those contain different percentages of GM organisms. Another group of hamsters, the control group, was fed with pure soya, which was found with great difficulty in Serbia because 95 percent of soya in the world is transgenic.

Concerning the experiment carried out jointly by the National Association for Gene Security and the Institute of Ecological and Evolutional Problems, Dr. Alexei Surov has this to say. "We selected several groups of hamsters, kept them in pairs in cells and gave them ordinary food as always," says Alexei Surov. "We did not add anything for one group but the other was fed with soya that contained no GM components, while the third group with some content of Genetically Modified Organisms and the fourth one with increased amount of GMO. We monitored their behavior and how they gain weight and when they give birth to their cubs. Originally, everything went smoothly. However, we noticed quite a serious effect when we selected new pairs from their cubs and continued to feed them as before. These pairs' growth rate was slower and reached their sexual maturity slowly. When we got some of their cubs we formed the new pairs of the third generation. We failed to get cubs from these pairs, which were fed with GM foodstuffs. It was proved that these pairs lost their ability to give birth to their cubs," Dr. Alexei Surov said.

Another surprise was discovered by scientists in hamsters of the third generation. Hair grew in the mouth of the animals that took part in the experiment. It's unclear why this happened. The researchers cannot understand why a programme of destruction is launched when animals take GMO foodstuffs. They say that this can be neutralized only by stopping to eat these foods. Consequently, scientists suggest imposing a ban on the use of GM foods until they are tested for their bio-security. The results of Russian scientists coincide with those of their colleagues from France and Austria. For one, when scientist proved that GM maize was harmful for mammals, France banned immediately its production and sale. The scientists who carried out the experiment say that it's too early to make far-reaching conclusions about the health hazards of the GMO. They insist that there is a need to carry out comprehensive research. They suggest implementing the project, "Safety Gene Technology" at the innovation centre, "Skolkovo" which is being set up near Moscow.

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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The 3 Most Common Types of PC Virus Infections

2010-04-27T16:36:00.000-07:00

from : http://www.sott.net

Ned Smith
TechNewsDaily
Tue, 27 Apr 2010 19:12 EDT

Web security and the vexing problem of malicious software made headlines again last week when computer antivirus software maker McAfee sent out a botched update that crashed thousands of computers around the world.

Such hiccups in computer security software are rare. What isn't rare is the damage caused by the malicious software known as malware that antivirus software is designed to thwart. Last year hackers stole approximately 130 million credit card numbers, according to an Internet Security Threat Report released this month by security software maker Symantec. And in the third quarter of 2009 alone, there was over $120 million in reported losses due to online banking fraud.

David Perry, global director of education for security software maker Trend Micro, is a 22-year veteran of fighting malware. He gave TechNewsDaily a guided tour of malware's trinity, the three most likely sources of malware infection

Trojans

Ground Zero for malware is the Internet itself. The Web is by far the most common vector for malware infection, Perry said. "The most universal thing of all that's involved in cyber bad guy activity is the Web."

Users don't even have to click anything on websites to infect their computers. Just looking is enough. "Look at the web page and Bang!, you're infected without so much as a how-do-you-do," he said.

Forsaking Internet Explorer and replacing it with another browser such as Firefox won't give you much protection either, Perry said. Malware is basically equal opportunity when it comes to browsers and browser plug-ins.

A Trojan downloader is the most common malicious software to get hit with, he said. A Trojan is any program that pretends to be something other than what it really is - a downloader is a program that downloads another program. "It's like Robin Hood," Perry said. "He shot an arrow with a string over a tree branch. He used the string to drag up a rope and the rope to drag up a basket of stuff."

In the past, sites devoted to porn and file sharing were the usual suspects for being sources of infection. "It used to be true," but no longer, Perry said. "We've seen government agencies and the Roman Catholic Church get infected; we've seen railroads and airlines and the British Museum get infected. There is no safe web page."

To make matters worse, infected computers are often asymptomatic and appear to be functioning normally. Many Trojan viruses don't slow your computer down or make your cursor go crazy. Like high blood pressure, malware is a silent killer.

"Unfortunately, there's a big cognitive disconnect on the part of users who have seen movies where the virus comes on the screen and announces that it is infecting you," Perry said. "Any malware you see today will be by design as symptom free as they can possibly make it."

Botnets

The web is also where you risk contracting a drive-by bot infection that will enlist your computer as an agent in a fraudster's arsenal.

"A botnet is a collection of infected PCs that the bad guys now own," Perry said. "Botnets are the source of all spam - they're used for ID theft, extortion, industrial espionage and finding other web pages to infect. I would call it the Swiss Army Knife of the malware world. It does a lot of things for a lot of people."

Like the majority of malware software, botnets are asymptomatic. Until you wake up and find your bank account has been drained, that is, or discover that your ID has been appropriated for use by someone else.

Scareware

Fake antivirus programs, which are often referred to as "scareware," is the third and arguably most irritating leg of the malware stool.

With scareware, a warning pops up on your computer screen telling you that your computer is infected and attempts to sell you a program to disinfect the program. This is the ultimate no-win situation.

If you click anywhere on the warning, you get infected. If you ignore the warning, it will never go away. And if you fall for the ruse and buy the fake antivirus program, your computer will then become another warrior in the scammer's botnet army.

"This is the one thing in the world of malware that is visible," Perry said. "If you're infected, you'll know it because it's visible and bugs you all the time."

If you think you can simply hit Alt-Control-Delete - the keyboard combination that brings up the Task Manager in Windows - to rid shut down the offending program, think again. Many malware programmers expect panicked users to do this, and create fake Task Manager windows that trigger the infection.

So how big is the problem? Over 100,000 new Trojan downloaders are created every day, Perry said. Most computer users aren't knowledgeable enough to deal with the problems themselves without help, he added. "It's too vast and too pervasive."

The best defense, he said, is to install a suite of Internet security software and religiously update it.

"For right now, count your change and watch your Ps and Qs," he said. "There's no way to easily tell that something wrong is going on on the Internet."

If you'd like to learn more about the dos sand don't of practicing safe computing, a good place to start is 13 Ways to Protect Your System, a list of security tips from McAfee's Threat Center.

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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German troops in Afghanistan call on Angela Merkel to explain why they're at war

2010-04-24T16:19:00.000-07:00

from : www.dailymail.co.uk

By Mail Foreign Service
Last updated at 4:12 PM on 21st April 2010

Under pressure: German troops are calling on Chancellor Angela ( LOT name "Ferkel"instead of Merkel means "little pig" )Merkel to tell them why they're at war in Afghanistan

German soldiers are wearing their hearts on their sleeves - in the form of a badge that protests their country's involvement in the war in Afghanistan.

Some troops have taken to wearing the cloth accessory that states - ironically - 'I fight for Merkel' in a bid to persuade the German Chancellor Angela Merkel to explain exactly what they are fighting and dying for.

Four more troops were killed, and five badly injured, in Afghanistan last week.

Seven soldiers have died there so far this month, bringing the total to 43 in all since they were first deployed eight years ago.

Unable to engage the Taliban directly on the ground, frustrated by their government’s inability to acknowledge they are even engaged in a war and angered by the lack of popular support for their mission, the badges are a low-key mutiny that has sent shock waves through the top brass of the Bundeswehr.

Soldiers were warned this week that it is illegal to sew the cloth patches on to their uniforms.

But that hasn’t stopped them from buying the badges in their hundreds, in desert beige or NATO green, at the ISAF camp at Mazar-e-Sharif.

'They want the Chancellor, their ultimate boss, to finally find the clear words to put the war against the Taliban into black and white,' Bild Zeitung, Germany’s biggest daily paper, said today.

Chancellor Merkel is to make a statement to parliament tomorrow. Her spokesman said she wants to make clear her 'high-esteem' for the work of the German soldiers in Afghanistan in the light of the recent casualties.

But she will be speaking in the Reichstag after being put under pressure from U.S. General Stanley McChrystal, who arrived in Germany today with a brief from the White House to get the Germans to do more in Afghanistan.

Germany has the third largest presence in Afghanistan after the U.S. and Britain. The German parliament approved the dispatch of a further 850 soldiers in February when it extended the mandate for the military mission.

Yet the political will for German troops to engage the enemy head-on remains lacking.

Cracks are growing in the parties that supported their engagement there up until now.
Ottmar Schreiner, a left-wing member of the opposition Social Democratic Party (SPD), said his party has 'growing doubts' about German involvement in Afghanistan.

He said: 'If things haven't improved in Afghanistan by next year then I don't see where a majority for a new extension of the mandate is going to come from.'

The trouble for Mrs Merkel is that German involvement is deeply unpopular with some 80 per cent of the public, who want the troops to come home. Germany’s disastrous wars of the last century have left its public with a deep pacifistic streak.

The German press has been swift to condemn the government for its indecisiveness.

The Financial Times Deutschland said: 'With every dead German soldier in Afghanistan, the calls for an immediate withdrawal grow louder. This reflex shows that the German public is still not clear about the character of the mission.

'The politicians are largely to blame. Since the beginning of the mission eight years ago they suppressed a realistic description of the situation... Deaths, injuries, battles and heavy weaponry -- none of these suit the picture that was painted back then.'

The left-wing Berliner Zeitung said: 'Why are German soldiers in Afghanistan at all? As the chancellor and her government are still sticking to the military mission there it is their duty to explain it. But she has failed to do so.

'This can be explained by her basic attitude - it is only worth talking about problems when they become virulent.

'In the case of Afghanistan this is particularly catastrophic. Because the government has failed to make its case in what is the biggest foreign policy and security policy challenge in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1267802/German-troops-Afghanistan-Angela-Merkel-explain-theyre-war.html#ixzz0m3wuxA6D

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

A LOT tribute to one of the best Instrumental live performance ever ! peace and love to the world !

2010-04-23T00:46:00.001-07:00

from :youtube / mike oldfield

Mike Oldfield Tubular Bells Live in Montreux 81

Germany set to sell Israel submarines

2010-04-21T23:26:00.000-07:00

from : http://www.presstv.ir

Germany set to sell Israel submarines

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 01:18:28 GMT

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New reports say Israel is planning to establish a deep-sea navy and is negotiating with Germany over the purchase warships and submarines.

According to a report published by United Press International, Germany will supply Israel with three more Dolphin class attack submarines, several warships, and possibly two MEKO A-100 corvettes.

The MEKO variant sought by the Tel Aviv regime costs an estimated $300 million.

The warship, with a range of 4,635 miles, can carry one medium-size helicopter and 24 weapons systems — 16 ship-to-shore and eight anti-ship missile launchers adapted to US weapons as well as air-defense missiles and automatic cannon.

Citing an unnamed Israeli source, the UPI report said that the Israeli navy would like even more Dolphins.

"Our ideal number would be nine — enough to ensure we have the necessary assets at sea to cover all relevant threats and targets," UPI quoted the source as saying.

Israel had begun the negotiations over the program in October 2007 when the Israel Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi visited Berlin.

The expansion program, which will transform the regime's navy into a deep-water navy, has provoked outrage among German opposition parties, including the Social Democrats, who say weapons should not be sent to "crisis zones."

However, Germany has provided special discounts on arms sales to Israel in the past. The Tel Aviv regime's 2006 order for two Dolphin class submarines was approved despite the Social Democrats' opposition to the deal.

SB/HGL