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2008-08-20T08:50:00.004-04:00

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Martial Law in the USA-It will Never Happen

2008-08-14T09:08:00.004-04:00

It is getting closer and the blame is being put not on the governmental screw ups and sick policies, it is starting in the helpless poor communities, This mayor is slick or is getting orders from the big boys.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH VIDEO

FCC Commissioner: Fairness Doctrine Could Lead To Government Regulation Of Web

2008-08-14T08:38:00.005-04:00

McDowell says reinstated powers could be tagged on to net neutrality debate by leading Democrats
Paul Joseph Watson[1] Prison PlanetWednesday, August 13, 2008

FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell says that the potential re-introduction of the Fairness Doctrine under a Democratic administration could lead to “government dictating content policy” on the Internet.
The Fairness Doctrine was an FCC regulation mandating broadcasters afford time to opposing viewpoints. It was abolished in 1987 by the Supreme Court after it was found to be harmful to journalistic freedom and anathema to the First Amendment.
[2] Speaking to the Business and Media Institute, McDowell stated that the Fairness Doctrine could return under a different name and be tagged on to the net neutrality debate, opening the door for the government to regulate content on the Web.

McDowell said the net neutrality effort could win the support of “a few isolated conservatives” who may not fully realize the long-term effects of government regulation.
“I think the fear is that somehow large corporations will censor their content, their points of view, right,” McDowell said. “I think the bigger concern for them should be if you have government dictating content policy, which by the way would have a big First Amendment problem,” said McDowell.
“Then, whoever is in charge of government is going to determine what is fair, under a so-called ‘Fairness Doctrine,’ which won’t be called that – it’ll be called something else,” McDowell said. “So, will Web sites, will bloggers have to give equal time or equal space on their Web site to opposing views rather than letting the marketplace of ideas determine that?” he added.
The reinstitution of the Fairness Doctrine has strong support amongst top Democratic powerbrokers and an effort to push it through under a different name is expected should Barack Obama secure the presidency.
In June, [3] House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters that the Democratic caucus was interested in bringing back the Fairness Doctrine. Senators Richard Durbin and John Kerry have also publicly supported its return.
Neo-Con radio talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh have long railed against the Fairness Doctrine, but its impact would be felt by all alternative news outlets, who would be forced to devote some of their time to parroting government talking points while enduring constant harassment and threat of closure.

Double standards and cowardice still guide Western diplomacy

2008-08-14T07:49:00.001-04:00

The Caucasus and the Palestine-Israel conflicts
Stuart Littlewood
August 12, 2008

Stuart Littlewood contrasts the West’s condemnation of Russia’s intervention in Georgia with its silence over Israeli breaches of international law and crimes against humanity.While the fragile "freedom" boats and their courageous volunteer crews steer a course for Palestinian territorial waters in an effort to break Israel’s illegal siege of the Gaza Strip, our Western leaders are once again tripping over their double standards. "X has invaded a sovereign neighbouring state and threatens a democratic government elected by its people," lectures Bush. "Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st century. X's government must respect Y's territorial integrity and sovereignty."On cue, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown chips in. X's military action in Y "threatens the stability of the entire region and risks a humanitarian catastrophe", he chirps. "We are committed to working ... to ensure a peaceful and speedy resolution ... which maintains Y's territorial and political integrity." UK Conservative leader and Prime-Minister-in-waiting David Cameron brands X a "dangerous bully" and urges the international community to stand up and condemn its action. He tells the BBC:
The only language that bullies understand is when someone stands up to them... What X has done here is used massive and disproportionate force. It's breached international law and it has violated Y's territorial integrity... It has acted as a massive and dangerous bully and we can't allow this to go ahead without it being challenged.
These statesmen, the great white hopes of the Western world, must be talking about Israel’s military boot on Palestine’s throat, right? Wrong. They are ticking off Russia for stamping on Georgia while too cowardly to criticize Israel for similar breaches of international law and crimes against humanity. The US-Israel axis and its UK dogsbody are not noted for concern about other people's democratically-elected governments. They stick their nose into Georgia because oil and gas pipelines run through it and Israel has a number of sweet arms deals on the go, including the supply of remote-piloted vehicles (RPVs, or drones), other advanced weaponry and training for the Georgian army's infantry forces. Apparently, Georgia's military is modelled on the Israeli armed forces, so heaven help it's neighbours. And now there are reports that the US is re-routing arms and ammunition intended for Iraq to Georgia.Thanks to Georgia and wall-to-wall coverage of the Beijing Olympics, I almost forgot that the "freedom" boats left Cyprus for Palestinian territorial waters 24 hours ago and I haven’t seen or heard anything about their voyage in our mainstream media. Is there another blackout against any news that might focus on the devastating injustice of the situation? What have Bush, Brown and Cameron to say about this small but significant attempt to dent the siege and help bring to an end the humanitarian crisis imposed by Israel? Doesn’t it warrant their attention? Where is Bush's concern for Palestine's democratic government – the one he and his chums tried to destroy but whose remnants are now holed up in Gaza and running the show there? Where is Brown's concern for Palestine's territorial integrity and sovereignty? And where is Cameron's concern for the disproportionate force used against Palestinian civilians? Have these three heroes ever challenged the "dangerous bully" Israel in the only language it understands? The freedom boats, such easy prey to Israel’s vast array of death-dealing military hardware, are determined to call the bully’s bluff. They make up for what Bush, Brown, Cameron and Western media bosses lack. Whether or not they succeed in their mission to reach Gaza, let's salute them for upholding the honour and decency of millions in the civilized world, east and west, who do not have their hands on the levers of power and are unable, for the moment, to kick out the lunatics that do.
Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. For further information please visit http://www.radiofreepalestine.co.uk/.

Flexible Nanoantenna Arrays Capture Solar Energy

2008-08-13T20:40:00.000-04:00

August 12, 2008

by Roberta Kwok, Idaho National Laboratory
Florida, United States [RenewableEnergyWorld.com]
Researchers have devised an inexpensive way to produce plastic sheets containing billions of nanoantennas that collect heat energy generated by the sun and other sources. The researchers say that the technology, developed at the U.S. Department of Energy's Idaho National Laboratory (INL), is the first step toward a solar energy collector that could be mass-produced on flexible materials.
While methods to convert the energy into usable electricity still need to be developed, it is envisioned that the sheets could one day be manufactured as lightweight "skins" that power products such as hybrid cars or iPods with potentially higher efficiency than traditional solar cells. The nanoantennas also have the potential to act as cooling devices that draw waste heat from buildings or electronics without using electricity.
The nanoantennas target mid-infrared rays, which the Earth continuously radiates as heat after absorbing energy from the sun during the day. In contrast, traditional solar cells can only use visible light, rendering them idle after dark. Infrared radiation is an especially rich energy source because it also is generated by industrial processes such as coal-fired plants.
"Every process in our industrial world creates waste heat," says INL physicist Steven Novack. "It's energy that we just throw away." Novack led the research team, which included INL engineer Dale Kotter, W. Dennis Slafer of MicroContinuum Inc. and Patrick Pinhero, now at the University of Missouri.
The nanoantennas are tiny gold squares or spirals set in a specially treated form of polyethylene, a material used in plastic bags. While others have successfully invented antennas that collect energy from lower-frequency regions of the electromagnetic spectrum, such as microwaves, infrared rays have proven more elusive. Part of the reason is that materials' properties change drastically at high-frequency wavelengths, Kotter says.
The researchers studied the behavior of various materials — including gold, manganese and copper — under infrared rays and used the resulting data to build computer models of nanoantennas. They found that with the right materials, shape and size, the simulated nanoantennas could harvest up to 92 percent of the energy at infrared wavelengths.
The team then created real-life prototypes to test their computer models. First, they used conventional production methods to etch a silicon wafer with the nanoantenna pattern. The silicon-based nanoantennas matched the computer simulations, absorbing more than 80 percent of the energy over the intended wavelength range. Next, they used a stamp-and-repeat process to emboss the nanoantennas on thin sheets of plastic. While the plastic prototype is still being tested, initial experiments suggest that it also captures energy at the expected infrared wavelengths.
The nanoantennas' ability to absorb infrared radiation makes them promising cooling devices. Since objects give off heat as infrared rays, the nanoantennas could collect those rays and re-emit the energy at harmless wavelengths. Such a system could cool down buildings and computers without the external power source required by air-conditioners and fans.
More technological advances are needed before the nanoantennas can funnel their energy into usable electricity. The infrared rays create alternating currents in the nanoantennas that oscillate trillions of times per second, requiring a component called a rectifier to convert the alternating current to direct current. Today's rectifiers can't handle such high frequencies.
"We need to design nanorectifiers that go with our nanoantennas," says Kotter, noting that a nanoscale rectifier would need to be about 1,000 times smaller than current commercial devices and will require new manufacturing methods. Another possibility is to develop electrical circuitry that might slow down the current to usable frequencies.
If these technical hurdles can be overcome, nanoantennas have the potential to be efficient harvesters of solar energy. Because they can be tweaked to pick up specific wavelengths depending on their shape and size, it may be possible to create double-sided nanoantenna sheets that harvest energy from different parts of the sun's spectrum, Novack says.
The team's stamp-and-repeat process could also be extended to large-scale roll-to-roll manufacturing techniques that could print the arrays at a rate of several yards per minute.
The researchers will be reporting their findings on August 13 at the American Society of Mechanical Engineers 2008 2nd International Conference on Energy Sustainability in Jacksonville, Florida.
Roberta Kwok is a Research Communications Fellow at Idaho National Laboratory.

Philippe Starck is tilting toward windmills

2008-08-13T15:35:00.002-04:00

By Alice Rawsthorn
Friday, August 1, 2008
LONDON: There's no point in arguing with Philippe Starck, because it generally goes like this: 1. The world's most famous designer makes a well-meaning and sincere, but slightly preposterous claim. 2. You feel obliged to question the preposterous bit. 3. He comes across all hurt and boyish. 4. You feel mean.
Take Starck's claim to have "invented a concept called Democratic Design," which, he says, gives everyone high quality products at affordable prices. Sounds great, but didn't the modern movement try to do that for most of the 20th century? And how can he claim to have "won the battle" by designing "a chair that sells for less than 100," or $157, when that's still too expensive for most people? Let alone the 90 percent of the world's population who are too poor to afford the basics? What has Democratic Design done for them? "Oh please, I'm not God," pleads Starck. "I'm just a designer, and I'm doing my best."
Luckily for the underprivileged 90 percent, other designers are trying to help them. Starck is battling on another front - developing cheap, attractive, energy-saving products to "introduce everybody to ecology." The first of his Democratic Ecology products is to be launched this fall, a miniature roof-top windmill, priced between 500 and 800, which will produce up to 80 percent of a home's energy. "Imagine a Saturday afternoon, and a guy going stupidly to the supermarket to buy a useless gadget," enthused Starck. "He sees a really sexy object. 'Oh my God, it's beautiful. How much does it cost? 500? That's almost what I'd spend on a useless gadget.' He brings the windmill home, goes to his roof and 15 minutes later he sees it turning and producing energy. Wow!"
Starck's windmill is one of dozens of alternative energy sources to be coming on to the market, but there are sound reasons for taking his product seriously. One is that it's deftly designed, not least because the blades are made of transparent plastic, which will be virtually invisible up on the roof. Another is that it's designed by him, and Starck has been so successful at persuading people to buy visually seductive, but often pointless objects - plastic Louis XV chairs, gun-shaped lamps, garden gnome stools and so on - that he may well be able to do the same for something which is actually useful.
That said, it's been a long time since the design world felt that it had to take Starck seriously. He's a gentle giant, who bears a distinct resemblance to Desperate Dan, the mal barbu cowboy in the British comic "The Dandy." Now 59, he rose to fame in his native France during the 1980s, when his flair for reinventing everyday objects by casting them as something else - a lemon squeezer as a lobster, and plastic chairs as ornate Louis XV ones - was hailed as a playful, and very commercial take on then-fashionable postmodernism.
Starck has since sold hundreds of thousands of his lobster-like lemon squeezers, and nearly a million of just one of his "antique" plastic chairs, Louis Ghost. For better or worse, he has also given us the designer hotel - aided and abetted by the New York hotelier Ian Schrager - and the showstopping restrooms that now pop up in every other bar. Starck cast himself as a media star by spouting his design philosophy in "franglais" soundbites, and bragging about being able to design a chair in the time it took for an aircraft seatbelt sign to go on and off. No other designer could beat him for chutzpah and bankability, but by the mid-1990s Starck was grouching about being bored by design.
Commercially, he's still a colossus, who bags plum jobs, like the creative directorship of Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic space venture, and is shooting a reality TV show for the BBC. But at times he seems like design's equivalent of a dinosaur rocker. Starck's confession this year that he was "ashamed" that "everything I designed is unnecessary" drew derisory roars in the blogosphere. Does he still feel like that? "I regret that my job is design," he admitted. "Design stupidly produces more things, and for years I've spoken about the importance of living with fewer things. But my position is a little ambiguous."
Indeed it is. To his credit, Starck was advocating environmentalism long before it became fashionable, but he hasn't embraced it fully in his work. Nor does he seem to see the irony in rattling off a list of eco-responsible activities - organic diet, solar-powered oyster farm and so forth - ending with "the least polluting plane on the market," his private jet. Now he's hoping to redress the balance with Democratic Ecology.
The windmill is an encouraging start. Made from the same transparent plastic as his best-selling Louis Ghost chairs, Starck developed it and the other Democratic Ecology products in collaboration with Pramac, the Italian industrial group. The timing is propitious with oil prices rocketing and everyone from General Electric to the veteran oilman T. Boone Pickens investing in alternative energy. Lots of homes already sport metal wind turbines on their roofs, so why not transparent plastic ones?
Next up is a solar panel, a film that covers existing windows. Starck is also designing a prefabricated eco-house with glass walls that can be changed from clear or opaque at the push of a button. The prototype is being built for him and his family on the plot of their old home outside Paris.
An electric car is under development too, and an eco-moped. Starck has nearly finished work on a solar and hydrogen-powered boat, the first of which is to be delivered to Hotel Bauer in Venice next spring. "We're seizing every opportunity to create affordable, high-technology ecology products," he said. "It's very, very important that they're beautiful, because ecology should be a pleasure, not a punishment. One of the most beautiful boats in the world is the Venetian taxi, and our boat will be even more beautiful."

The wave of “Capitol Crimes” continues

2008-08-01T07:03:00.000-04:00

By Bill Moyers and Michael Winship
Online Journal Guest Writers

Aug 1, 2008, 00:29

Like the largesse he spread so bountifully to members of Congress and the White House staff -- countless fancy meals, skybox tickets to basketball games and U2 concerts, golfing sprees in Scotland -- Jack Abramoff is the gift that keeps on giving.

The notorious lobbyist and his cohorts (including conservatives Tom DeLay, Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed) shook down Native American tribal councils and other clients for tens of millions of dollars, buying influence via a coalition of equally corrupt government officials and cronies dedicated to dismantling government by selling it off, making massive profits as they tore the principles of a representative democracy to shreds.

A report earlier this summer from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform builds on an earlier committee investigation that detailed some 485 contacts between Abramoff and the Bush administration. According to the new report, “Senior White House officials told the Committee that White House officials held Mr. Abramoff and members of his lobbying team in high regard and solicited recommendations from Mr. Abramoff and his colleagues on policy matters.”

Now Abramoff’s doing time in Maryland, at a minimum security Federal prison, serving five years and ten months for unrelated, fraudulent business practices involving a fake wire transfer he and a partner fabricated to secure a loan to buy SunCruz Casinos, a line of Florida cruise ships that ferried high and low rollers into international waters to gamble (its original owner, Konstantinos “Gus” Boulis, was gunned down, Mafia-style, in February 2001). But come September, Abramoff will be sentenced for his larger-than-life role in one of the biggest scandals in American history, a collection of outrages that has already sent one member of Congress to jail, others into retirement and dozens of accomplices running for cover.

Over the last couple of years he has been singing to the authorities, which is why he has been kept in a detention facility close to DC and the reason his sentencing for tax evasion, the defrauding of Indians and the bribing of Washington officials has been delayed -- the FBI is thought to be using Abramoff’s testimony to build an ever-expanding case that may continue to shake those who live within the Beltway bubble for months and years to come.

Bill Moyers Journal is airing an updated edition of “Capitol Crimes,” a special that was first produced for public television two years ago, relating the entire sordid story of the Abramoff scandals. Produced by Sherry Jones, the rebroadcast comes at a moment of renewed interest, with not only Abramoff’s sentencing imminent, but the most important national elections in decades little more than three months away and continuing, seemingly daily revelations of further, profligate abuses of power.

Monday saw the publication of a 140-page report from the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility, confirming that, as the Washington Post recounted, “For nearly two years, a young political aide sought to cultivate a ‘farm system’ for Republicans at the Justice Department, hiring scores of prosecutors and immigration judges who espoused conservative priorities and Christian lifestyle choices.

“That aide, Monica M. Goodling, exercised what amounted to veto power over a wide range of critical jobs, asking candidates for their views on abortion and same-sex marriage and maneuvering around senior officials who outranked her, including the department’s second-in-command . . . [The report] concluded yesterday that Goodling and others had broken civil service laws, run afoul of department policy and engaged in ‘misconduct,’ a finding that could expose them to further scrutiny and sanctions.”

With the next day’s sunrise came the indictment of Alaskan Republican Ted Stevens, the first sitting US senator to face criminal charges in 15 years. Apparently, the senator was playing the home version of “The Price Is Right,” for among the gifts a grand jury says were illegally rewarded him by the oil company VECO were a Viking gas grill, tool cabinet and a wraparound deck for his mountainside house in Anchorage. In fact, VECO allegedly gave the place an entire new first floor, with two bedrooms and a bath. How neighborly.

(By the way, just to round the circle, Senator Stevens received $1,000 in campaign contributions from Jack Abramoff directly, which subsequently he donated to the Alaskan chapter of the Red Cross, and $16,500 from Native American tribes and others represented by Abramoff, which Stevens gave to other charities.)

Coincidentally, this week also marks the publication of a new book, The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule, written by Thomas Frank, the author of What’s the Matter with Kansas? In an essay in the August issue of Harper’s magazine, adapted from the book, Frank adroitly weaves the actions of Abramoff and his pals into a vastly larger ideological framework.

“Fantastic misgovernment is not an accident,” he writes, “nor is it the work of a few bad individuals. It is the consequence of triumph by a particular philosophy of government, by a movement that understands the liberal state as a perversion and considers the market the ideal nexus of human society. This movement is friendly to industry not just by force of campaign contributions but by conviction; it believes in entrepreneurship not merely in commerce but in politics; and the inevitable results of its ascendance are, first, the capture of the state by business and, second, what follows from that: incompetence, graft, and all the other wretched flotsam that we’ve come to expect from Washington.

“ . . . The conservatism that speaks to us through its actions in Washington is institutionally opposed to those baseline good intentions we learned about in elementary school. Its leaders laugh off the idea of the public interest as airy-fairy nonsense; they caution against bringing top-notch talent into government service; they declare war on public workers. They have made a cult of outsourcing and privatizing, they have wrecked established federal operations because they disagree with them, and they have deliberately piled up an Everest of debt in order to force the government into crisis. The ruination they have wrought has been thorough; it has been a professional job. Repairing it will require years of political action.”

Have we the stamina, commitment -- or even the attention span -- to take such action? Abramoff may be cooling his heels in minimum security but his pals DeLay, Norquist and Reed appear on television and radio whose hosts treat them as political savants with nary a nod to their past nefarious association with Abramoff. Few in the audience seem to notice or care. Former House Majority Leader Delay’s awaiting trial on money laundering charges, and the incorrigible Ralph Reed, who played Christian pastors in Texas for suckers in enlisting their unwitting help for Abramoff’s gambling clients, even has a political potboiler of a novel out -- Dark Horse, the story of a failed Democratic presidential candidate who finds God, then runs as an independent, funded, presumably, by the supreme being’s political action committee.

“Do we Americans really want good government?” That’s a question asked, not by Thomas Frank, but the muckraking journalist Lincoln Steffens, writing more than a century ago in his book, The Shame of the Cities. He wrote, “We are a free and sovereign people, we govern ourselves and the government is ours. But that is the point. We are responsible, not our leaders, since we follow them. We let them divert our loyalty from the United States to some ‘party;’ we let them boss the party and turn our municipal democracies into autocracies and our republican nation into a plutocracy. We cheat our government and we let our leaders loot it, and we let them wheedle and bribe our sovereignty from us.”

From more than a hundred years’ distance, Steffens would recognize Abramoff & company for what they are. And we for who we are; a nation too easily distracted and looking the other way as everything rightfully ours is taken.

Bill Moyers is managing editor and Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program Bill Moyers Journal, which airs Friday night on PBS. Check local airtimes or comment at The Moyers Blog.

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Acts of War

2008-08-01T06:54:00.002-04:00

Posted on Jul 29, 2008
By Scott Ritter
The war between the United States and Iran is on. American taxpayer dollars are being used, with the permission of Congress, to fund activities that result in Iranians being killed and wounded, and Iranian property destroyed. This wanton violation of a nation’s sovereignty would not be tolerated if the tables were turned and Americans were being subjected to Iranian-funded covert actions that took the lives of Americans, on American soil, and destroyed American property and livelihood. Many Americans remain unaware of what is transpiring abroad in their name. Many of those who are cognizant of these activities are supportive of them, an outgrowth of misguided sentiment which holds Iran accountable for a list of grievances used by the U.S. government to justify the ongoing global war on terror. Iran, we are told, is not just a nation pursuing nuclear weapons, but is the largest state sponsor of terror in the world today.
Much of the information behind this is being promulgated by Israel, which has a vested interest in seeing Iran neutralized as a potential threat. But Israel is joined by another source, even more puzzling in terms of its broad-based acceptance in the world of American journalism: the Mujahadeen-e Khalk, or MEK, an Iranian opposition group sworn to overthrow the theocracy in Tehran. The CIA today provides material support to the actions of the MEK inside Iran. The recent spate of explosions in Iran, including a particularly devastating “accident” involving a military convoy transporting ammunition in downtown Tehran, appears to be linked to an MEK operation; its agents working inside munitions manufacturing plants deliberately are committing acts of sabotage which lead to such explosions. If CIA money and planning support are behind these actions, the agency’s backing constitutes nothing less than an act of war on the part of the United States against Iran.
The MEK traces its roots back to the CIA-orchestrated overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeg. Formed among students and intellectuals, the MEK emerged in the 1960s as a serious threat to the reign of Reza Shah Pahlevi. Facing brutal repression from the Shah’s secret police, the SAVAK, the MEK became expert at blending into Iranian society, forming a cellular organizational structure which made it virtually impossible to eradicate. The MEK membership also became adept at gaining access to positions of sensitivity and authority. When the Shah was overthrown in 1978, the MEK played a major role and for a while worked hand in glove with the Islamic Revolution in crafting a post-Shah Iran. In 1979 the MEK had a central role in orchestrating the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, and holding 55 Americans hostage for 444 days.
However, relations between the MEK and the Islamic regime in Tehran soured, and after the MEK staged a bloody coup attempt in 1981, all ties were severed and the two sides engaged in a violent civil war. Revolutionary Guard members who were active at that time have acknowledged how difficult it was to fight the MEK. In the end, massive acts of arbitrary arrest, torture and executions were required to break the back of mainstream MEK activity in Iran, although even the Revolutionary Guard today admits the MEK remains active and is virtually impossible to completely eradicate.
It is this stubborn ability to survive and operate inside Iran, at a time when no other intelligence service can establish and maintain a meaningful agent network there, which makes the MEK such an asset to nations such as the United States and Israel. The MEK is able to provide some useful intelligence; however, its overall value as an intelligence resource is negatively impacted by the fact that it is the sole source of human intelligence in Iran. As such, the group has taken to exaggerating and fabricating reports to serve its own political agenda. In this way, there is little to differentiate the MEK from another Middle Eastern expatriate opposition group, the Iraqi National Congress, or INC, which infamously supplied inaccurate intelligence to the United States and other governments and helped influence the U.S. decision to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein. Today, the MEK sees itself in a similar role, providing sole-sourced intelligence to the United States and Israel in an effort to facilitate American military operations against Iran and, eventually, to overthrow the Islamic regime in Tehran.
The current situation concerning the MEK would be laughable if it were not for the violent reality of that organization’s activities. Upon its arrival in Iraq in 1986, the group was placed under the control of Saddam Hussein’s Mukhabarat, or intelligence service. The MEK was a heavily militarized organization and in 1988 participated in division-size military operations against Iran. The organization represents no state and can be found on the U.S. State Department’s list of terrorist organizations, yet since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the MEK has been under the protection of the U.S. military. Its fighters are even given “protected status” under the Geneva Conventions. The MEK says its members in Iraq are refugees, not terrorists. And yet one would be hard-pressed to find why the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees should confer refugee status on an active paramilitary organization that uses “refugee camps” inside Iraq as its bases.
The MEK is behind much of the intelligence being used by the International Atomic Energy Agency in building its case that Iran may be pursuing (or did in fact pursue in the past) a nuclear weapons program. The complexity of the MEK-CIA relationship was recently underscored by the agency’s acquisition of a laptop computer allegedly containing numerous secret documents pertaining to an Iranian nuclear weapons program. Much has been made about this computer and its contents. The United States has led the charge against Iran within international diplomatic circles, citing the laptop information as the primary source proving Iran’s ongoing involvement in clandestine nuclear weapons activity. Of course, the information on the computer, being derived from questionable sources (i.e., the MEK and the CIA, both sworn enemies of Iran) is controversial and its veracity is questioned by many, including me.
Now, I have a simple solution to the issue of the laptop computer: Give it the UNSCOM treatment. Assemble a team of CIA, FBI and Defense Department forensic computer analysts and probe the computer, byte by byte. Construct a chronological record of how and when the data on the computer were assembled. Check the “logic” of the data, making sure everything fits together in a manner consistent with the computer’s stated function and use. Tell us when the computer was turned on and logged into and how it was used. Then, with this complex usage template constructed, overlay the various themes which have been derived from the computer’s contents, pertaining to projects, studies and other activities of interest. One should be able to rapidly ascertain whether or not the computer is truly a key piece of intelligence pertaining to Iran’s nuclear programs.
The fact that this computer is acknowledged as coming from the MEK and the fact that a proper forensic investigation would probably demonstrate the fabricated nature of the data contained are why the U.S. government will never agree to such an investigation being done. A prosecutor, when making a case of criminal action, must lay out evidence in a simple, direct manner, allowing not only the judge and jury to see it but also the accused. If the evidence is as strong as the prosecutor maintains, it is usually bad news for the defendant. However, if the defendant is able to demonstrate inconsistencies and inaccuracies in the data being presented, then the prosecution is the one in trouble. And if the defense is able to demonstrate that the entire case is built upon fabricated evidence, the case is generally thrown out. This, in short, is what should be done with the IAEA’s ongoing probe into allegations that Iran has pursued nuclear weapons. The evidence used by the IAEA is unable to withstand even the most rudimentary cross-examination. It is speculative at best, and most probably fabricated. Iran has done the right thing in refusing to legitimize this illegitimate source of information.
A key question that must be asked is why, then, does the IAEA continue to permit Olli Heinonen, the agency’s Finnish deputy director for safeguards and the IAEA official responsible for the ongoing technical inspections in Iran, to wage his one-man campaign on behalf of the United States, Britain and (indirectly) Israel regarding allegations derived from sources of such questionable veracity (the MEK-supplied laptop computer)? Moreover, why is such an official given free rein to discuss such sensitive data with the press, or with politically motivated outside agencies, in a manner that results in questionable allegations appearing in the public arena as unquestioned fact? Under normal circumstances, leaks of the sort that have occurred regarding the ongoing investigation into Iran’s alleged past studies on nuclear weapons would be subjected to a thorough investigation to determine the source and to ensure that appropriate measures are taken to end them. And yet, in Vienna, Heinonen’s repeated transgressions are treated as a giant “non-event,” the 800-pound gorilla in the room that everyone pretends isn’t really there.
Heinonen has become the pro-war yin to the anti-confrontation yang of his boss, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei. Every time ElBaradei releases the results of the IAEA probe of Iran, pointing out that the IAEA can find no evidence of any past or present nuclear weapons program, and that there is a full understanding of Iran’s controversial centrifuge-based enrichment program, Heinonen throws a monkey wrench into the works. Well-publicized briefings are given to IAEA-based diplomats. Mysteriously, leaks from undisclosed sources occur. Heinonen’s Finnish nationality serves as a flimsy cover for neutrality that long ago disappeared. He is no longer serving in the role as unbiased inspector, but rather a front for the active pursuit of an American- and Israeli-inspired disinformation campaign designed to keep alive the flimsy allegations of a nonexistent Iranian nuclear weapons program in order to justify the continued warlike stance taken by the U.S. and Israel against Iran.
The fact that the IAEA is being used as a front to pursue this blatantly anti-Iranian propaganda is a disservice to an organization with a mission of vital world importance. The interjection of not only the unverified (and unverifiable) MEK laptop computer data, side by side with a newly placed emphasis on a document relating to the forming of uranium metal into hemispheres of the kind useful in a nuclear weapon, is an amateurish manipulation of data to achieve a preordained outcome. Calling the Iranian possession of the aforementioned document “alarming,” Heinonen (and the media) skipped past the history of the document, which, of course, has been well explained by Iran previously as something the Pakistani nuclear proliferator A.Q. Khan inserted on his own volition to a delivery of documentation pertaining to centrifuges. Far from being a “top-secret” document protected by Iran’s security services, it was discarded in a file of old material that Iran provided to the IAEA inspectors. When the IAEA found the document, Iran allowed it to be fully examined by the inspectors, and answered every question posed by the IAEA about how the document came to be in Iran. For Heinonen to call the document “alarming,” at this late stage in the game, is not only irresponsible but factually inaccurate, given the definition of the word. The Iranian document in question is neither a cause for alarm, seeing as it is not a source for any “sudden fear brought on by the sense of danger,” nor does it provide any “warning of existing or approaching danger,” unless one is speaking of the danger of military action on the part of the United States derived from Heinonen’s unfortunate actions and choice of words.
Olli Heinonen might as well become a salaried member of the Bush administration, since he is operating in lock step with the U.S. government’s objective of painting Iran as a threat worthy of military action. Shortly after Heinonen’s alarmist briefing in March 2008, the U.S. ambassador to the IAEA, Gregory Schulte, emerged to announce, “As today’s briefing showed us, there are strong reasons to suspect that Iran was working covertly and deceitfully, at least until recently, to build a bomb.” Heinonen’s briefing provided nothing of the sort, being derived from an irrelevant document and a laptop computer of questionable provenance. But that did not matter to Schulte, who noted that “Iran has refused to explain or even acknowledge past work on weaponization.” Schulte did not bother to note that it would be difficult for Iran to explain or acknowledge that which it has not done. “This is particularly troubling,” Schulte went on, “when combined with Iran’s determined effort to master the technology to enrich uranium.” Why is this so troubling? Because, as Schulte noted, “Uranium enrichment is not necessary for Iran’s civil program but it is necessary to produce the fissile material that could be weaponized into a bomb.”
This, of course, is the crux of the issue: Iran’s ongoing enrichment program. Not because it is illegal; Iran is permitted to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes under Article IV of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Not again because Iran’s centrifuge program is operating in an undeclared, unmonitored fashion; the IAEA had stated it has a full understanding of the scope and work of the Iranian centrifuge enrichment program and that all associated nuclear material is accounted for and safeguarded. The problem has never been, and will never be, Iran’s enrichment program. The problem is American policy objectives of regime change in Iran, pushed by a combination of American desires for global hegemony and an activist Israeli agenda which seeks regional security, in perpetuity, through military and economic supremacy. The specter of nuclear enrichment is simply a vehicle for facilitating the larger policy objectives. Olli Heinonen, and those who support and sustain his work, must be aware of the larger geopolitical context of his actions, which makes them all the more puzzling and contemptible.
A major culprit in this entire sordid affair is the mainstream media. Displaying an almost uncanny inability to connect the dots, the editors who run America’s largest newspapers, and the producers who put together America’s biggest television news programs, have collectively facilitated the most simplistic, inane and factually unfounded story lines coming out of the Bush White House. The most recent fairy tale was one of “diplomacy,” on the part of one William Burns, the No. 3 diplomat in the State Department.
I have studied the minutes of meetings involving John McCloy, an American official who served numerous administrations, Democratic and Republican alike, in the decades following the end of the Second World War. His diplomacy with the Soviets, conducted with senior Soviet negotiator Valerein Zorin and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev himself, was real, genuine, direct and designed to resolve differences. The transcripts of the diplomacy conducted between Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho to bring an end to the Vietnam conflict is likewise a study in the give and take required to achieve the status of real diplomacy.
Sending a relatively obscure official like Burns to “observe” a meeting between the European Union and Iran, with instructions not to interact, not to initiate, not to discuss, cannot under any circumstances be construed as diplomacy. Any student of diplomatic history could tell you this. And yet the esteemed editors and news producers used the term diplomacy, without challenge or clarification, to describe Burns’ mission to Geneva on July 19. The decision to send him there was hailed as a “significant concession” on the part of the Bush administration, a step away from war and an indication of a new desire within the White House to resolve the Iranian impasse through diplomacy. How this was going to happen with a diplomat hobbled and muzzled to the degree Burns was apparently skipped the attention of these writers and their bosses. Diplomacy, America was told, was the new policy option of choice for the Bush administration.
Of course, the Geneva talks produced nothing. The United States had made sure Europe, through its foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, had no maneuvering room when it came to the core issue of uranium enrichment: Iran must suspend all enrichment before any movement could be made on any other issue. Furthermore, the American-backed program of investigation concerning the MEK-supplied laptop computer further poisoned the diplomatic waters. Iran, predictably, refused to suspend its enrichment program, and rejected the Heinonen-led investigation into nuclear weaponization, refusing to cooperate further with the IAEA on that matter, noting that it fell outside the scope of the IAEA’s mandate in Iran.
Condoleezza Rice was quick to respond. After a debriefing from Burns, who flew to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, where Rice was holding closed-door meetings with the foreign ministers of six Arab nations on the issue of Iran, Rice told the media that Iran “was not serious” about resolving the standoff. Having played the diplomacy card, Rice moved on with the real agenda: If Iran did not fully cooperate with the international community (i.e., suspend its enrichment program), then it would face a new round of economic sanctions and undisclosed punitive measures, both unilaterally on the part of the United States and Europe, as well as in the form of even broader sanctions from the United Nations Security Council (although it is doubtful that Russia and China would go along with such a plan).
The issue of unilateral U.S. sanctions is most worrisome. Both the House of Representatives, through HR 362, and the Senate, through SR 580, are preparing legislation that would call for an air, ground and sea blockade of Iran. Back in October 1962, President John F. Kennedy, when considering the imposition of a naval blockade against Cuba in response to the presence of Soviet missiles in that nation, opined that “a blockade is a major military operation, too. It’s an act of war.” Which, of course, it is. The false diplomacy waged by the White House in Geneva simply pre-empted any congressional call for a diplomatic outreach. Now the president can move on with the mission of facilitating a larger war with Iran by legitimizing yet another act of aggression.
One day, in the not-so-distant future, Americans will awake to the reality that American military forces are engaged in a shooting war with Iran. Many will scratch their heads and wonder, “How did that happen?” The answer is simple: We all let it happen. We are at war with Iran right now. We just don’t have the moral courage to admit it.
Scott Ritter is a former U.N. weapons inspector and Marine intelligence officer who has written extensively about Iran.
AP photo / Brennan Linsley
Members of the Iranian resistance group Mujahadeen-e Khalk, or MEK, guard a road leading to the group’s main training camp, watched over by a U.S. Army Abrams tank in background, near Baqubah in north-central Iraq.
A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer. Publisher, Zuade Kaufman.Copyright © 2008 Truthdig, L.L.C. All rights reserved.
Web site development by Hop Studios Hosted by NEXCESS.NET
var sc_project=881573;
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var sc_partition=7;
var sc_security="008dc823";
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urchinTracker();
Acts of War
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080729_acts_of_war/
Posted on Jul 29, 2008
By Scott Ritter
The war between the United States and Iran is on. American taxpayer dollars are being used, with the permission of Congress, to fund activities that result in Iranians being killed and wounded, and Iranian property destroyed. This wanton violation of a nation’s sovereignty would not be tolerated if the tables were turned and Americans were being subjected to Iranian-funded covert actions that took the lives of Americans, on American soil, and destroyed American property and livelihood. Many Americans remain unaware of what is transpiring abroad in their name. Many of those who are cognizant of these activities are supportive of them, an outgrowth of misguided sentiment which holds Iran accountable for a list of grievances used by the U.S. government to justify the ongoing global war on terror. Iran, we are told, is not just a nation pursuing nuclear weapons, but is the largest state sponsor of terror in the world today.
Much of the information behind this is being promulgated by Israel, which has a vested interest in seeing Iran neutralized as a potential threat. But Israel is joined by another source, even more puzzling in terms of its broad-based acceptance in the world of American journalism: the Mujahadeen-e Khalk, or MEK, an Iranian opposition group sworn to overthrow the theocracy in Tehran. The CIA today provides material support to the actions of the MEK inside Iran. The recent spate of explosions in Iran, including a particularly devastating “accident” involving a military convoy transporting ammunition in downtown Tehran, appears to be linked to an MEK operation; its agents working inside munitions manufacturing plants deliberately are committing acts of sabotage which lead to such explosions. If CIA money and planning support are behind these actions, the agency’s backing constitutes nothing less than an act of war on the part of the United States against Iran.
The MEK traces its roots back to the CIA-orchestrated overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeg. Formed among students and intellectuals, the MEK emerged in the 1960s as a serious threat to the reign of Reza Shah Pahlevi. Facing brutal repression from the Shah’s secret police, the SAVAK, the MEK became expert at blending into Iranian society, forming a cellular organizational structure which made it virtually impossible to eradicate. The MEK membership also became adept at gaining access to positions of sensitivity and authority. When the Shah was overthrown in 1978, the MEK played a major role and for a while worked hand in glove with the Islamic Revolution in crafting a post-Shah Iran. In 1979 the MEK had a central role in orchestrating the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, and holding 55 Americans hostage for 444 days.
However, relations between the MEK and the Islamic regime in Tehran soured, and after the MEK staged a bloody coup attempt in 1981, all ties were severed and the two sides engaged in a violent civil war. Revolutionary Guard members who were active at that time have acknowledged how difficult it was to fight the MEK. In the end, massive acts of arbitrary arrest, torture and executions were required to break the back of mainstream MEK activity in Iran, although even the Revolutionary Guard today admits the MEK remains active and is virtually impossible to completely eradicate.
It is this stubborn ability to survive and operate inside Iran, at a time when no other intelligence service can establish and maintain a meaningful agent network there, which makes the MEK such an asset to nations such as the United States and Israel. The MEK is able to provide some useful intelligence; however, its overall value as an intelligence resource is negatively impacted by the fact that it is the sole source of human intelligence in Iran. As such, the group has taken to exaggerating and fabricating reports to serve its own political agenda. In this way, there is little to differentiate the MEK from another Middle Eastern expatriate opposition group, the Iraqi National Congress, or INC, which infamously supplied inaccurate intelligence to the United States and other governments and helped influence the U.S. decision to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein. Today, the MEK sees itself in a similar role, providing sole-sourced intelligence to the United States and Israel in an effort to facilitate American military operations against Iran and, eventually, to overthrow the Islamic regime in Tehran.
The current situation concerning the MEK would be laughable if it were not for the violent reality of that organization’s activities. Upon its arrival in Iraq in 1986, the group was placed under the control of Saddam Hussein’s Mukhabarat, or intelligence service. The MEK was a heavily militarized organization and in 1988 participated in division-size military operations against Iran. The organization represents no state and can be found on the U.S. State Department’s list of terrorist organizations, yet since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the MEK has been under the protection of the U.S. military. Its fighters are even given “protected status” under the Geneva Conventions. The MEK says its members in Iraq are refugees, not terrorists. And yet one would be hard-pressed to find why the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees should confer refugee status on an active paramilitary organization that uses “refugee camps” inside Iraq as its bases.
The MEK is behind much of the intelligence being used by the International Atomic Energy Agency in building its case that Iran may be pursuing (or did in fact pursue in the past) a nuclear weapons program. The complexity of the MEK-CIA relationship was recently underscored by the agency’s acquisition of a laptop computer allegedly containing numerous secret documents pertaining to an Iranian nuclear weapons program. Much has been made about this computer and its contents. The United States has led the charge against Iran within international diplomatic circles, citing the laptop information as the primary source proving Iran’s ongoing involvement in clandestine nuclear weapons activity. Of course, the information on the computer, being derived from questionable sources (i.e., the MEK and the CIA, both sworn enemies of Iran) is controversial and its veracity is questioned by many, including me.
Now, I have a simple solution to the issue of the laptop computer: Give it the UNSCOM treatment. Assemble a team of CIA, FBI and Defense Department forensic computer analysts and probe the computer, byte by byte. Construct a chronological record of how and when the data on the computer were assembled. Check the “logic” of the data, making sure everything fits together in a manner consistent with the computer’s stated function and use. Tell us when the computer was turned on and logged into and how it was used. Then, with this complex usage template constructed, overlay the various themes which have been derived from the computer’s contents, pertaining to projects, studies and other activities of interest. One should be able to rapidly ascertain whether or not the computer is truly a key piece of intelligence pertaining to Iran’s nuclear programs.
The fact that this computer is acknowledged as coming from the MEK and the fact that a proper forensic investigation would probably demonstrate the fabricated nature of the data contained are why the U.S. government will never agree to such an investigation being done. A prosecutor, when making a case of criminal action, must lay out evidence in a simple, direct manner, allowing not only the judge and jury to see it but also the accused. If the evidence is as strong as the prosecutor maintains, it is usually bad news for the defendant. However, if the defendant is able to demonstrate inconsistencies and inaccuracies in the data being presented, then the prosecution is the one in trouble. And if the defense is able to demonstrate that the entire case is built upon fabricated evidence, the case is generally thrown out. This, in short, is what should be done with the IAEA’s ongoing probe into allegations that Iran has pursued nuclear weapons. The evidence used by the IAEA is unable to withstand even the most rudimentary cross-examination. It is speculative at best, and most probably fabricated. Iran has done the right thing in refusing to legitimize this illegitimate source of information.
A key question that must be asked is why, then, does the IAEA continue to permit Olli Heinonen, the agency’s Finnish deputy director for safeguards and the IAEA official responsible for the ongoing technical inspections in Iran, to wage his one-man campaign on behalf of the United States, Britain and (indirectly) Israel regarding allegations derived from sources of such questionable veracity (the MEK-supplied laptop computer)? Moreover, why is such an official given free rein to discuss such sensitive data with the press, or with politically motivated outside agencies, in a manner that results in questionable allegations appearing in the public arena as unquestioned fact? Under normal circumstances, leaks of the sort that have occurred regarding the ongoing investigation into Iran’s alleged past studies on nuclear weapons would be subjected to a thorough investigation to determine the source and to ensure that appropriate measures are taken to end them. And yet, in Vienna, Heinonen’s repeated transgressions are treated as a giant “non-event,” the 800-pound gorilla in the room that everyone pretends isn’t really there.
Heinonen has become the pro-war yin to the anti-confrontation yang of his boss, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei. Every time ElBaradei releases the results of the IAEA probe of Iran, pointing out that the IAEA can find no evidence of any past or present nuclear weapons program, and that there is a full understanding of Iran’s controversial centrifuge-based enrichment program, Heinonen throws a monkey wrench into the works. Well-publicized briefings are given to IAEA-based diplomats. Mysteriously, leaks from undisclosed sources occur. Heinonen’s Finnish nationality serves as a flimsy cover for neutrality that long ago disappeared. He is no longer serving in the role as unbiased inspector, but rather a front for the active pursuit of an American- and Israeli-inspired disinformation campaign designed to keep alive the flimsy allegations of a nonexistent Iranian nuclear weapons program in order to justify the continued warlike stance taken by the U.S. and Israel against Iran.
The fact that the IAEA is being used as a front to pursue this blatantly anti-Iranian propaganda is a disservice to an organization with a mission of vital world importance. The interjection of not only the unverified (and unverifiable) MEK laptop computer data, side by side with a newly placed emphasis on a document relating to the forming of uranium metal into hemispheres of the kind useful in a nuclear weapon, is an amateurish manipulation of data to achieve a preordained outcome. Calling the Iranian possession of the aforementioned document “alarming,” Heinonen (and the media) skipped past the history of the document, which, of course, has been well explained by Iran previously as something the Pakistani nuclear proliferator A.Q. Khan inserted on his own volition to a delivery of documentation pertaining to centrifuges. Far from being a “top-secret” document protected by Iran’s security services, it was discarded in a file of old material that Iran provided to the IAEA inspectors. When the IAEA found the document, Iran allowed it to be fully examined by the inspectors, and answered every question posed by the IAEA about how the document came to be in Iran. For Heinonen to call the document “alarming,” at this late stage in the game, is not only irresponsible but factually inaccurate, given the definition of the word. The Iranian document in question is neither a cause for alarm, seeing as it is not a source for any “sudden fear brought on by the sense of danger,” nor does it provide any “warning of existing or approaching danger,” unless one is speaking of the danger of military action on the part of the United States derived from Heinonen’s unfortunate actions and choice of words.
Olli Heinonen might as well become a salaried member of the Bush administration, since he is operating in lock step with the U.S. government’s objective of painting Iran as a threat worthy of military action. Shortly after Heinonen’s alarmist briefing in March 2008, the U.S. ambassador to the IAEA, Gregory Schulte, emerged to announce, “As today’s briefing showed us, there are strong reasons to suspect that Iran was working covertly and deceitfully, at least until recently, to build a bomb.” Heinonen’s briefing provided nothing of the sort, being derived from an irrelevant document and a laptop computer of questionable provenance. But that did not matter to Schulte, who noted that “Iran has refused to explain or even acknowledge past work on weaponization.” Schulte did not bother to note that it would be difficult for Iran to explain or acknowledge that which it has not done. “This is particularly troubling,” Schulte went on, “when combined with Iran’s determined effort to master the technology to enrich uranium.” Why is this so troubling? Because, as Schulte noted, “Uranium enrichment is not necessary for Iran’s civil program but it is necessary to produce the fissile material that could be weaponized into a bomb.”
This, of course, is the crux of the issue: Iran’s ongoing enrichment program. Not because it is illegal; Iran is permitted to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes under Article IV of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Not again because Iran’s centrifuge program is operating in an undeclared, unmonitored fashion; the IAEA had stated it has a full understanding of the scope and work of the Iranian centrifuge enrichment program and that all associated nuclear material is accounted for and safeguarded. The problem has never been, and will never be, Iran’s enrichment program. The problem is American policy objectives of regime change in Iran, pushed by a combination of American desires for global hegemony and an activist Israeli agenda which seeks regional security, in perpetuity, through military and economic supremacy. The specter of nuclear enrichment is simply a vehicle for facilitating the larger policy objectives. Olli Heinonen, and those who support and sustain his work, must be aware of the larger geopolitical context of his actions, which makes them all the more puzzling and contemptible.
A major culprit in this entire sordid affair is the mainstream media. Displaying an almost uncanny inability to connect the dots, the editors who run America’s largest newspapers, and the producers who put together America’s biggest television news programs, have collectively facilitated the most simplistic, inane and factually unfounded story lines coming out of the Bush White House. The most recent fairy tale was one of “diplomacy,” on the part of one William Burns, the No. 3 diplomat in the State Department.
I have studied the minutes of meetings involving John McCloy, an American official who served numerous administrations, Democratic and Republican alike, in the decades following the end of the Second World War. His diplomacy with the Soviets, conducted with senior Soviet negotiator Valerein Zorin and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev himself, was real, genuine, direct and designed to resolve differences. The transcripts of the diplomacy conducted between Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho to bring an end to the Vietnam conflict is likewise a study in the give and take required to achieve the status of real diplomacy.
Sending a relatively obscure official like Burns to “observe” a meeting between the European Union and Iran, with instructions not to interact, not to initiate, not to discuss, cannot under any circumstances be construed as diplomacy. Any student of diplomatic history could tell you this. And yet the esteemed editors and news producers used the term diplomacy, without challenge or clarification, to describe Burns’ mission to Geneva on July 19. The decision to send him there was hailed as a “significant concession” on the part of the Bush administration, a step away from war and an indication of a new desire within the White House to resolve the Iranian impasse through diplomacy. How this was going to happen with a diplomat hobbled and muzzled to the degree Burns was apparently skipped the attention of these writers and their bosses. Diplomacy, America was told, was the new policy option of choice for the Bush administration.
Of course, the Geneva talks produced nothing. The United States had made sure Europe, through its foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, had no maneuvering room when it came to the core issue of uranium enrichment: Iran must suspend all enrichment before any movement could be made on any other issue. Furthermore, the American-backed program of investigation concerning the MEK-supplied laptop computer further poisoned the diplomatic waters. Iran, predictably, refused to suspend its enrichment program, and rejected the Heinonen-led investigation into nuclear weaponization, refusing to cooperate further with the IAEA on that matter, noting that it fell outside the scope of the IAEA’s mandate in Iran.
Condoleezza Rice was quick to respond. After a debriefing from Burns, who flew to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, where Rice was holding closed-door meetings with the foreign ministers of six Arab nations on the issue of Iran, Rice told the media that Iran “was not serious” about resolving the standoff. Having played the diplomacy card, Rice moved on with the real agenda: If Iran did not fully cooperate with the international community (i.e., suspend its enrichment program), then it would face a new round of economic sanctions and undisclosed punitive measures, both unilaterally on the part of the United States and Europe, as well as in the form of even broader sanctions from the United Nations Security Council (although it is doubtful that Russia and China would go along with such a plan).
The issue of unilateral U.S. sanctions is most worrisome. Both the House of Representatives, through HR 362, and the Senate, through SR 580, are preparing legislation that would call for an air, ground and sea blockade of Iran. Back in October 1962, President John F. Kennedy, when considering the imposition of a naval blockade against Cuba in response to the presence of Soviet missiles in that nation, opined that “a blockade is a major military operation, too. It’s an act of war.” Which, of course, it is. The false diplomacy waged by the White House in Geneva simply pre-empted any congressional call for a diplomatic outreach. Now the president can move on with the mission of facilitating a larger war with Iran by legitimizing yet another act of aggression.
One day, in the not-so-distant future, Americans will awake to the reality that American military forces are engaged in a shooting war with Iran. Many will scratch their heads and wonder, “How did that happen?” The answer is simple: We all let it happen. We are at war with Iran right now. We just don’t have the moral courage to admit it.
Scott Ritter is a former U.N. weapons inspector and Marine intelligence officer who has written extensively about Iran.
AP photo / Brennan Linsley
Members of the Iranian resistance group Mujahadeen-e Khalk, or MEK, guard a road leading to the group’s main training camp, watched over by a U.S. Army Abrams tank in background, near Baqubah in north-central Iraq.
A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer. Publisher, Zuade Kaufman.Copyright © 2008 Truthdig, L.L.C. All rights reserved.
Web site development by Hop Studios Hosted by NEXCESS.NET
var sc_project=881573;
var sc_invisible=1;
var sc_partition=7;
var sc_security="008dc823";
_uacct = "UA-344431-1";
urchinTracker();
Acts of War
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080729_acts_of_war/
Posted on Jul 29, 2008
By Scott Ritter
The war between the United States and Iran is on. American taxpayer dollars are being used, with the permission of Congress, to fund activities that result in Iranians being killed and wounded, and Iranian property destroyed. This wanton violation of a nation’s sovereignty would not be tolerated if the tables were turned and Americans were being subjected to Iranian-funded covert actions that took the lives of Americans, on American soil, and destroyed American property and livelihood. Many Americans remain unaware of what is transpiring abroad in their name. Many of those who are cognizant of these activities are supportive of them, an outgrowth of misguided sentiment which holds Iran accountable for a list of grievances used by the U.S. government to justify the ongoing global war on terror. Iran, we are told, is not just a nation pursuing nuclear weapons, but is the largest state sponsor of terror in the world today.
Much of the information behind this is being promulgated by Israel, which has a vested interest in seeing Iran neutralized as a potential threat. But Israel is joined by another source, even more puzzling in terms of its broad-based acceptance in the world of American journalism: the Mujahadeen-e Khalk, or MEK, an Iranian opposition group sworn to overthrow the theocracy in Tehran. The CIA today provides material support to the actions of the MEK inside Iran. The recent spate of explosions in Iran, including a particularly devastating “accident” involving a military convoy transporting ammunition in downtown Tehran, appears to be linked to an MEK operation; its agents working inside munitions manufacturing plants deliberately are committing acts of sabotage which lead to such explosions. If CIA money and planning support are behind these actions, the agency’s backing constitutes nothing less than an act of war on the part of the United States against Iran.
The MEK traces its roots back to the CIA-orchestrated overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeg. Formed among students and intellectuals, the MEK emerged in the 1960s as a serious threat to the reign of Reza Shah Pahlevi. Facing brutal repression from the Shah’s secret police, the SAVAK, the MEK became expert at blending into Iranian society, forming a cellular organizational structure which made it virtually impossible to eradicate. The MEK membership also became adept at gaining access to positions of sensitivity and authority. When the Shah was overthrown in 1978, the MEK played a major role and for a while worked hand in glove with the Islamic Revolution in crafting a post-Shah Iran. In 1979 the MEK had a central role in orchestrating the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, and holding 55 Americans hostage for 444 days.
However, relations between the MEK and the Islamic regime in Tehran soured, and after the MEK staged a bloody coup attempt in 1981, all ties were severed and the two sides engaged in a violent civil war. Revolutionary Guard members who were active at that time have acknowledged how difficult it was to fight the MEK. In the end, massive acts of arbitrary arrest, torture and executions were required to break the back of mainstream MEK activity in Iran, although even the Revolutionary Guard today admits the MEK remains active and is virtually impossible to completely eradicate.
It is this stubborn ability to survive and operate inside Iran, at a time when no other intelligence service can establish and maintain a meaningful agent network there, which makes the MEK such an asset to nations such as the United States and Israel. The MEK is able to provide some useful intelligence; however, its overall value as an intelligence resource is negatively impacted by the fact that it is the sole source of human intelligence in Iran. As such, the group has taken to exaggerating and fabricating reports to serve its own political agenda. In this way, there is little to differentiate the MEK from another Middle Eastern expatriate opposition group, the Iraqi National Congress, or INC, which infamously supplied inaccurate intelligence to the United States and other governments and helped influence the U.S. decision to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein. Today, the MEK sees itself in a similar role, providing sole-sourced intelligence to the United States and Israel in an effort to facilitate American military operations against Iran and, eventually, to overthrow the Islamic regime in Tehran.
The current situation concerning the MEK would be laughable if it were not for the violent reality of that organization’s activities. Upon its arrival in Iraq in 1986, the group was placed under the control of Saddam Hussein’s Mukhabarat, or intelligence service. The MEK was a heavily militarized organization and in 1988 participated in division-size military operations against Iran. The organization represents no state and can be found on the U.S. State Department’s list of terrorist organizations, yet since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the MEK has been under the protection of the U.S. military. Its fighters are even given “protected status” under the Geneva Conventions. The MEK says its members in Iraq are refugees, not terrorists. And yet one would be hard-pressed to find why the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees should confer refugee status on an active paramilitary organization that uses “refugee camps” inside Iraq as its bases.
The MEK is behind much of the intelligence being used by the International Atomic Energy Agency in building its case that Iran may be pursuing (or did in fact pursue in the past) a nuclear weapons program. The complexity of the MEK-CIA relationship was recently underscored by the agency’s acquisition of a laptop computer allegedly containing numerous secret documents pertaining to an Iranian nuclear weapons program. Much has been made about this computer and its contents. The United States has led the charge against Iran within international diplomatic circles, citing the laptop information as the primary source proving Iran’s ongoing involvement in clandestine nuclear weapons activity. Of course, the information on the computer, being derived from questionable sources (i.e., the MEK and the CIA, both sworn enemies of Iran) is controversial and its veracity is questioned by many, including me.
Now, I have a simple solution to the issue of the laptop computer: Give it the UNSCOM treatment. Assemble a team of CIA, FBI and Defense Department forensic computer analysts and probe the computer, byte by byte. Construct a chronological record of how and when the data on the computer were assembled. Check the “logic” of the data, making sure everything fits together in a manner consistent with the computer’s stated function and use. Tell us when the computer was turned on and logged into and how it was used. Then, with this complex usage template constructed, overlay the various themes which have been derived from the computer’s contents, pertaining to projects, studies and other activities of interest. One should be able to rapidly ascertain whether or not the computer is truly a key piece of intelligence pertaining to Iran’s nuclear programs.
The fact that this computer is acknowledged as coming from the MEK and the fact that a proper forensic investigation would probably demonstrate the fabricated nature of the data contained are why the U.S. government will never agree to such an investigation being done. A prosecutor, when making a case of criminal action, must lay out evidence in a simple, direct manner, allowing not only the judge and jury to see it but also the accused. If the evidence is as strong as the prosecutor maintains, it is usually bad news for the defendant. However, if the defendant is able to demonstrate inconsistencies and inaccuracies in the data being presented, then the prosecution is the one in trouble. And if the defense is able to demonstrate that the entire case is built upon fabricated evidence, the case is generally thrown out. This, in short, is what should be done with the IAEA’s ongoing probe into allegations that Iran has pursued nuclear weapons. The evidence used by the IAEA is unable to withstand even the most rudimentary cross-examination. It is speculative at best, and most probably fabricated. Iran has done the right thing in refusing to legitimize this illegitimate source of information.
A key question that must be asked is why, then, does the IAEA continue to permit Olli Heinonen, the agency’s Finnish deputy director for safeguards and the IAEA official responsible for the ongoing technical inspections in Iran, to wage his one-man campaign on behalf of the United States, Britain and (indirectly) Israel regarding allegations derived from sources of such questionable veracity (the MEK-supplied laptop computer)? Moreover, why is such an official given free rein to discuss such sensitive data with the press, or with politically motivated outside agencies, in a manner that results in questionable allegations appearing in the public arena as unquestioned fact? Under normal circumstances, leaks of the sort that have occurred regarding the ongoing investigation into Iran’s alleged past studies on nuclear weapons would be subjected to a thorough investigation to determine the source and to ensure that appropriate measures are taken to end them. And yet, in Vienna, Heinonen’s repeated transgressions are treated as a giant “non-event,” the 800-pound gorilla in the room that everyone pretends isn’t really there.
Heinonen has become the pro-war yin to the anti-confrontation yang of his boss, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei. Every time ElBaradei releases the results of the IAEA probe of Iran, pointing out that the IAEA can find no evidence of any past or present nuclear weapons program, and that there is a full understanding of Iran’s controversial centrifuge-based enrichment program, Heinonen throws a monkey wrench into the works. Well-publicized briefings are given to IAEA-based diplomats. Mysteriously, leaks from undisclosed sources occur. Heinonen’s Finnish nationality serves as a flimsy cover for neutrality that long ago disappeared. He is no longer serving in the role as unbiased inspector, but rather a front for the active pursuit of an American- and Israeli-inspired disinformation campaign designed to keep alive the flimsy allegations of a nonexistent Iranian nuclear weapons program in order to justify the continued warlike stance taken by the U.S. and Israel against Iran.
The fact that the IAEA is being used as a front to pursue this blatantly anti-Iranian propaganda is a disservice to an organization with a mission of vital world importance. The interjection of not only the unverified (and unverifiable) MEK laptop computer data, side by side with a newly placed emphasis on a document relating to the forming of uranium metal into hemispheres of the kind useful in a nuclear weapon, is an amateurish manipulation of data to achieve a preordained outcome. Calling the Iranian possession of the aforementioned document “alarming,” Heinonen (and the media) skipped past the history of the document, which, of course, has been well explained by Iran previously as something the Pakistani nuclear proliferator A.Q. Khan inserted on his own volition to a delivery of documentation pertaining to centrifuges. Far from being a “top-secret” document protected by Iran’s security services, it was discarded in a file of old material that Iran provided to the IAEA inspectors. When the IAEA found the document, Iran allowed it to be fully examined by the inspectors, and answered every question posed by the IAEA about how the document came to be in Iran. For Heinonen to call the document “alarming,” at this late stage in the game, is not only irresponsible but factually inaccurate, given the definition of the word. The Iranian document in question is neither a cause for alarm, seeing as it is not a source for any “sudden fear brought on by the sense of danger,” nor does it provide any “warning of existing or approaching danger,” unless one is speaking of the danger of military action on the part of the United States derived from Heinonen’s unfortunate actions and choice of words.
Olli Heinonen might as well become a salaried member of the Bush administration, since he is operating in lock step with the U.S. government’s objective of painting Iran as a threat worthy of military action. Shortly after Heinonen’s alarmist briefing in March 2008, the U.S. ambassador to the IAEA, Gregory Schulte, emerged to announce, “As today’s briefing showed us, there are strong reasons to suspect that Iran was working covertly and deceitfully, at least until recently, to build a bomb.” Heinonen’s briefing provided nothing of the sort, being derived from an irrelevant document and a laptop computer of questionable provenance. But that did not matter to Schulte, who noted that “Iran has refused to explain or even acknowledge past work on weaponization.” Schulte did not bother to note that it would be difficult for Iran to explain or acknowledge that which it has not done. “This is particularly troubling,” Schulte went on, “when combined with Iran’s determined effort to master the technology to enrich uranium.” Why is this so troubling? Because, as Schulte noted, “Uranium enrichment is not necessary for Iran’s civil program but it is necessary to produce the fissile material that could be weaponized into a bomb.”
This, of course, is the crux of the issue: Iran’s ongoing enrichment program. Not because it is illegal; Iran is permitted to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes under Article IV of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Not again because Iran’s centrifuge program is operating in an undeclared, unmonitored fashion; the IAEA had stated it has a full understanding of the scope and work of the Iranian centrifuge enrichment program and that all associated nuclear material is accounted for and safeguarded. The problem has never been, and will never be, Iran’s enrichment program. The problem is American policy objectives of regime change in Iran, pushed by a combination of American desires for global hegemony and an activist Israeli agenda which seeks regional security, in perpetuity, through military and economic supremacy. The specter of nuclear enrichment is simply a vehicle for facilitating the larger policy objectives. Olli Heinonen, and those who support and sustain his work, must be aware of the larger geopolitical context of his actions, which makes them all the more puzzling and contemptible.
A major culprit in this entire sordid affair is the mainstream media. Displaying an almost uncanny inability to connect the dots, the editors who run America’s largest newspapers, and the producers who put together America’s biggest television news programs, have collectively facilitated the most simplistic, inane and factually unfounded story lines coming out of the Bush White House. The most recent fairy tale was one of “diplomacy,” on the part of one William Burns, the No. 3 diplomat in the State Department.
I have studied the minutes of meetings involving John McCloy, an American official who served numerous administrations, Democratic and Republican alike, in the decades following the end of the Second World War. His diplomacy with the Soviets, conducted with senior Soviet negotiator Valerein Zorin and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev himself, was real, genuine, direct and designed to resolve differences. The transcripts of the diplomacy conducted between Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho to bring an end to the Vietnam conflict is likewise a study in the give and take required to achieve the status of real diplomacy.
Sending a relatively obscure official like Burns to “observe” a meeting between the European Union and Iran, with instructions not to interact, not to initiate, not to discuss, cannot under any circumstances be construed as diplomacy. Any student of diplomatic history could tell you this. And yet the esteemed editors and news producers used the term diplomacy, without challenge or clarification, to describe Burns’ mission to Geneva on July 19. The decision to send him there was hailed as a “significant concession” on the part of the Bush administration, a step away from war and an indication of a new desire within the White House to resolve the Iranian impasse through diplomacy. How this was going to happen with a diplomat hobbled and muzzled to the degree Burns was apparently skipped the attention of these writers and their bosses. Diplomacy, America was told, was the new policy option of choice for the Bush administration.
Of course, the Geneva talks produced nothing. The United States had made sure Europe, through its foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, had no maneuvering room when it came to the core issue of uranium enrichment: Iran must suspend all enrichment before any movement could be made on any other issue. Furthermore, the American-backed program of investigation concerning the MEK-supplied laptop computer further poisoned the diplomatic waters. Iran, predictably, refused to suspend its enrichment program, and rejected the Heinonen-led investigation into nuclear weaponization, refusing to cooperate further with the IAEA on that matter, noting that it fell outside the scope of the IAEA’s mandate in Iran.
Condoleezza Rice was quick to respond. After a debriefing from Burns, who flew to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, where Rice was holding closed-door meetings with the foreign ministers of six Arab nations on the issue of Iran, Rice told the media that Iran “was not serious” about resolving the standoff. Having played the diplomacy card, Rice moved on with the real agenda: If Iran did not fully cooperate with the international community (i.e., suspend its enrichment program), then it would face a new round of economic sanctions and undisclosed punitive measures, both unilaterally on the part of the United States and Europe, as well as in the form of even broader sanctions from the United Nations Security Council (although it is doubtful that Russia and China would go along with such a plan).
The issue of unilateral U.S. sanctions is most worrisome. Both the House of Representatives, through HR 362, and the Senate, through SR 580, are preparing legislation that would call for an air, ground and sea blockade of Iran. Back in October 1962, President John F. Kennedy, when considering the imposition of a naval blockade against Cuba in response to the presence of Soviet missiles in that nation, opined that “a blockade is a major military operation, too. It’s an act of war.” Which, of course, it is. The false diplomacy waged by the White House in Geneva simply pre-empted any congressional call for a diplomatic outreach. Now the president can move on with the mission of facilitating a larger war with Iran by legitimizing yet another act of aggression.
One day, in the not-so-distant future, Americans will awake to the reality that American military forces are engaged in a shooting war with Iran. Many will scratch their heads and wonder, “How did that happen?” The answer is simple: We all let it happen. We are at war with Iran right now. We just don’t have the moral courage to admit it.
Scott Ritter is a former U.N. weapons inspector and Marine intelligence officer who has written extensively about Iran.
AP photo / Brennan Linsley
Members of the Iranian resistance group Mujahadeen-e Khalk, or MEK, guard a road leading to the group’s main training camp, watched over by a U.S. Army Abrams tank in background, near Baqubah in north-central Iraq.
A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer. Publisher, Zuade Kaufman.Copyright © 2008 Truthdig, L.L.C. All rights reserved.
Web site development by Hop Studios Hosted by NEXCESS.NET
var sc_project=881573;
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var sc_partition=7;
var sc_security="008dc823";
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urchinTracker();
Acts of War
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080729_acts_of_war/
Posted on Jul 29, 2008
By Scott Ritter
The war between the United States and Iran is on. American taxpayer dollars are being used, with the permission of Congress, to fund activities that result in Iranians being killed and wounded, and Iranian property destroyed. This wanton violation of a nation’s sovereignty would not be tolerated if the tables were turned and Americans were being subjected to Iranian-funded covert actions that took the lives of Americans, on American soil, and destroyed American property and livelihood. Many Americans remain unaware of what is transpiring abroad in their name. Many of those who are cognizant of these activities are supportive of them, an outgrowth of misguided sentiment which holds Iran accountable for a list of grievances used by the U.S. government to justify the ongoing global war on terror. Iran, we are told, is not just a nation pursuing nuclear weapons, but is the largest state sponsor of terror in the world today.
Much of the information behind this is being promulgated by Israel, which has a vested interest in seeing Iran neutralized as a potential threat. But Israel is joined by another source, even more puzzling in terms of its broad-based acceptance in the world of American journalism: the Mujahadeen-e Khalk, or MEK, an Iranian opposition group sworn to overthrow the theocracy in Tehran. The CIA today provides material support to the actions of the MEK inside Iran. The recent spate of explosions in Iran, including a particularly devastating “accident” involving a military convoy transporting ammunition in downtown Tehran, appears to be linked to an MEK operation; its agents working inside munitions manufacturing plants deliberately are committing acts of sabotage which lead to such explosions. If CIA money and planning support are behind these actions, the agency’s backing constitutes nothing less than an act of war on the part of the United States against Iran.
The MEK traces its roots back to the CIA-orchestrated overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeg. Formed among students and intellectuals, the MEK emerged in the 1960s as a serious threat to the reign of Reza Shah Pahlevi. Facing brutal repression from the Shah’s secret police, the SAVAK, the MEK became expert at blending into Iranian society, forming a cellular organizational structure which made it virtually impossible to eradicate. The MEK membership also became adept at gaining access to positions of sensitivity and authority. When the Shah was overthrown in 1978, the MEK played a major role and for a while worked hand in glove with the Islamic Revolution in crafting a post-Shah Iran. In 1979 the MEK had a central role in orchestrating the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, and holding 55 Americans hostage for 444 days.
However, relations between the MEK and the Islamic regime in Tehran soured, and after the MEK staged a bloody coup attempt in 1981, all ties were severed and the two sides engaged in a violent civil war. Revolutionary Guard members who were active at that time have acknowledged how difficult it was to fight the MEK. In the end, massive acts of arbitrary arrest, torture and executions were required to break the back of mainstream MEK activity in Iran, although even the Revolutionary Guard today admits the MEK remains active and is virtually impossible to completely eradicate.
It is this stubborn ability to survive and operate inside Iran, at a time when no other intelligence service can establish and maintain a meaningful agent network there, which makes the MEK such an asset to nations such as the United States and Israel. The MEK is able to provide some useful intelligence; however, its overall value as an intelligence resource is negatively impacted by the fact that it is the sole source of human intelligence in Iran. As such, the group has taken to exaggerating and fabricating reports to serve its own political agenda. In this way, there is little to differentiate the MEK from another Middle Eastern expatriate opposition group, the Iraqi National Congress, or INC, which infamously supplied inaccurate intelligence to the United States and other governments and helped influence the U.S. decision to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein. Today, the MEK sees itself in a similar role, providing sole-sourced intelligence to the United States and Israel in an effort to facilitate American military operations against Iran and, eventually, to overthrow the Islamic regime in Tehran.
The current situation concerning the MEK would be laughable if it were not for the violent reality of that organization’s activities. Upon its arrival in Iraq in 1986, the group was placed under the control of Saddam Hussein’s Mukhabarat, or intelligence service. The MEK was a heavily militarized organization and in 1988 participated in division-size military operations against Iran. The organization represents no state and can be found on the U.S. State Department’s list of terrorist organizations, yet since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the MEK has been under the protection of the U.S. military. Its fighters are even given “protected status” under the Geneva Conventions. The MEK says its members in Iraq are refugees, not terrorists. And yet one would be hard-pressed to find why the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees should confer refugee status on an active paramilitary organization that uses “refugee camps” inside Iraq as its bases.
The MEK is behind much of the intelligence being used by the International Atomic Energy Agency in building its case that Iran may be pursuing (or did in fact pursue in the past) a nuclear weapons program. The complexity of the MEK-CIA relationship was recently underscored by the agency’s acquisition of a laptop computer allegedly containing numerous secret documents pertaining to an Iranian nuclear weapons program. Much has been made about this computer and its contents. The United States has led the charge against Iran within international diplomatic circles, citing the laptop information as the primary source proving Iran’s ongoing involvement in clandestine nuclear weapons activity. Of course, the information on the computer, being derived from questionable sources (i.e., the MEK and the CIA, both sworn enemies of Iran) is controversial and its veracity is questioned by many, including me.
Now, I have a simple solution to the issue of the laptop computer: Give it the UNSCOM treatment. Assemble a team of CIA, FBI and Defense Department forensic computer analysts and probe the computer, byte by byte. Construct a chronological record of how and when the data on the computer were assembled. Check the “logic” of the data, making sure everything fits together in a manner consistent with the computer’s stated function and use. Tell us when the computer was turned on and logged into and how it was used. Then, with this complex usage template constructed, overlay the various themes which have been derived from the computer’s contents, pertaining to projects, studies and other activities of interest. One should be able to rapidly ascertain whether or not the computer is truly a key piece of intelligence pertaining to Iran’s nuclear programs.
The fact that this computer is acknowledged as coming from the MEK and the fact that a proper forensic investigation would probably demonstrate the fabricated nature of the data contained are why the U.S. government will never agree to such an investigation being done. A prosecutor, when making a case of criminal action, must lay out evidence in a simple, direct manner, allowing not only the judge and jury to see it but also the accused. If the evidence is as strong as the prosecutor maintains, it is usually bad news for the defendant. However, if the defendant is able to demonstrate inconsistencies and inaccuracies in the data being presented, then the prosecution is the one in trouble. And if the defense is able to demonstrate that the entire case is built upon fabricated evidence, the case is generally thrown out. This, in short, is what should be done with the IAEA’s ongoing probe into allegations that Iran has pursued nuclear weapons. The evidence used by the IAEA is unable to withstand even the most rudimentary cross-examination. It is speculative at best, and most probably fabricated. Iran has done the right thing in refusing to legitimize this illegitimate source of information.
A key question that must be asked is why, then, does the IAEA continue to permit Olli Heinonen, the agency’s Finnish deputy director for safeguards and the IAEA official responsible for the ongoing technical inspections in Iran, to wage his one-man campaign on behalf of the United States, Britain and (indirectly) Israel regarding allegations derived from sources of such questionable veracity (the MEK-supplied laptop computer)? Moreover, why is such an official given free rein to discuss such sensitive data with the press, or with politically motivated outside agencies, in a manner that results in questionable allegations appearing in the public arena as unquestioned fact? Under normal circumstances, leaks of the sort that have occurred regarding the ongoing investigation into Iran’s alleged past studies on nuclear weapons would be subjected to a thorough investigation to determine the source and to ensure that appropriate measures are taken to end them. And yet, in Vienna, Heinonen’s repeated transgressions are treated as a giant “non-event,” the 800-pound gorilla in the room that everyone pretends isn’t really there.
Heinonen has become the pro-war yin to the anti-confrontation yang of his boss, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei. Every time ElBaradei releases the results of the IAEA probe of Iran, pointing out that the IAEA can find no evidence of any past or present nuclear weapons program, and that there is a full understanding of Iran’s controversial centrifuge-based enrichment program, Heinonen throws a monkey wrench into the works. Well-publicized briefings are given to IAEA-based diplomats. Mysteriously, leaks from undisclosed sources occur. Heinonen’s Finnish nationality serves as a flimsy cover for neutrality that long ago disappeared. He is no longer serving in the role as unbiased inspector, but rather a front for the active pursuit of an American- and Israeli-inspired disinformation campaign designed to keep alive the flimsy allegations of a nonexistent Iranian nuclear weapons program in order to justify the continued warlike stance taken by the U.S. and Israel against Iran.
The fact that the IAEA is being used as a front to pursue this blatantly anti-Iranian propaganda is a disservice to an organization with a mission of vital world importance. The interjection of not only the unverified (and unverifiable) MEK laptop computer data, side by side with a newly placed emphasis on a document relating to the forming of uranium metal into hemispheres of the kind useful in a nuclear weapon, is an amateurish manipulation of data to achieve a preordained outcome. Calling the Iranian possession of the aforementioned document “alarming,” Heinonen (and the media) skipped past the history of the document, which, of course, has been well explained by Iran previously as something the Pakistani nuclear proliferator A.Q. Khan inserted on his own volition to a delivery of documentation pertaining to centrifuges. Far from being a “top-secret” document protected by Iran’s security services, it was discarded in a file of old material that Iran provided to the IAEA inspectors. When the IAEA found the document, Iran allowed it to be fully examined by the inspectors, and answered every question posed by the IAEA about how the document came to be in Iran. For Heinonen to call the document “alarming,” at this late stage in the game, is not only irresponsible but factually inaccurate, given the definition of the word. The Iranian document in question is neither a cause for alarm, seeing as it is not a source for any “sudden fear brought on by the sense of danger,” nor does it provide any “warning of existing or approaching danger,” unless one is speaking of the danger of military action on the part of the United States derived from Heinonen’s unfortunate actions and choice of words.
Olli Heinonen might as well become a salaried member of the Bush administration, since he is operating in lock step with the U.S. government’s objective of painting Iran as a threat worthy of military action. Shortly after Heinonen’s alarmist briefing in March 2008, the U.S. ambassador to the IAEA, Gregory Schulte, emerged to announce, “As today’s briefing showed us, there are strong reasons to suspect that Iran was working covertly and deceitfully, at least until recently, to build a bomb.” Heinonen’s briefing provided nothing of the sort, being derived from an irrelevant document and a laptop computer of questionable provenance. But that did not matter to Schulte, who noted that “Iran has refused to explain or even acknowledge past work on weaponization.” Schulte did not bother to note that it would be difficult for Iran to explain or acknowledge that which it has not done. “This is particularly troubling,” Schulte went on, “when combined with Iran’s determined effort to master the technology to enrich uranium.” Why is this so troubling? Because, as Schulte noted, “Uranium enrichment is not necessary for Iran’s civil program but it is necessary to produce the fissile material that could be weaponized into a bomb.”
This, of course, is the crux of the issue: Iran’s ongoing enrichment program. Not because it is illegal; Iran is permitted to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes under Article IV of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Not again because Iran’s centrifuge program is operating in an undeclared, unmonitored fashion; the IAEA had stated it has a full understanding of the scope and work of the Iranian centrifuge enrichment program and that all associated nuclear material is accounted for and safeguarded. The problem has never been, and will never be, Iran’s enrichment program. The problem is American policy objectives of regime change in Iran, pushed by a combination of American desires for global hegemony and an activist Israeli agenda which seeks regional security, in perpetuity, through military and economic supremacy. The specter of nuclear enrichment is simply a vehicle for facilitating the larger policy objectives. Olli Heinonen, and those who support and sustain his work, must be aware of the larger geopolitical context of his actions, which makes them all the more puzzling and contemptible.
A major culprit in this entire sordid affair is the mainstream media. Displaying an almost uncanny inability to connect the dots, the editors who run America’s largest newspapers, and the producers who put together America’s biggest television news programs, have collectively facilitated the most simplistic, inane and factually unfounded story lines coming out of the Bush White House. The most recent fairy tale was one of “diplomacy,” on the part of one William Burns, the No. 3 diplomat in the State Department.
I have studied the minutes of meetings involving John McCloy, an American official who served numerous administrations, Democratic and Republican alike, in the decades following the end of the Second World War. His diplomacy with the Soviets, conducted with senior Soviet negotiator Valerein Zorin and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev himself, was real, genuine, direct and designed to resolve differences. The transcripts of the diplomacy conducted between Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho to bring an end to the Vietnam conflict is likewise a study in the give and take required to achieve the status of real diplomacy.
Sending a relatively obscure official like Burns to “observe” a meeting between the European Union and Iran, with instructions not to interact, not to initiate, not to discuss, cannot under any circumstances be construed as diplomacy. Any student of diplomatic history could tell you this. And yet the esteemed editors and news producers used the term diplomacy, without challenge or clarification, to describe Burns’ mission to Geneva on July 19. The decision to send him there was hailed as a “significant concession” on the part of the Bush administration, a step away from war and an indication of a new desire within the White House to resolve the Iranian impasse through diplomacy. How this was going to happen with a diplomat hobbled and muzzled to the degree Burns was apparently skipped the attention of these writers and their bosses. Diplomacy, America was told, was the new policy option of choice for the Bush administration.
Of course, the Geneva talks produced nothing. The United States had made sure Europe, through its foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, had no maneuvering room when it came to the core issue of uranium enrichment: Iran must suspend all enrichment before any movement could be made on any other issue. Furthermore, the American-backed program of investigation concerning the MEK-supplied laptop computer further poisoned the diplomatic waters. Iran, predictably, refused to suspend its enrichment program, and rejected the Heinonen-led investigation into nuclear weaponization, refusing to cooperate further with the IAEA on that matter, noting that it fell outside the scope of the IAEA’s mandate in Iran.
Condoleezza Rice was quick to respond. After a debriefing from Burns, who flew to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, where Rice was holding closed-door meetings with the foreign ministers of six Arab nations on the issue of Iran, Rice told the media that Iran “was not serious” about resolving the standoff. Having played the diplomacy card, Rice moved on with the real agenda: If Iran did not fully cooperate with the international community (i.e., suspend its enrichment program), then it would face a new round of economic sanctions and undisclosed punitive measures, both unilaterally on the part of the United States and Europe, as well as in the form of even broader sanctions from the United Nations Security Council (although it is doubtful that Russia and China would go along with such a plan).
The issue of unilateral U.S. sanctions is most worrisome. Both the House of Representatives, through HR 362, and the Senate, through SR 580, are preparing legislation that would call for an air, ground and sea blockade of Iran. Back in October 1962, President John F. Kennedy, when considering the imposition of a naval blockade against Cuba in response to the presence of Soviet missiles in that nation, opined that “a blockade is a major military operation, too. It’s an act of war.” Which, of course, it is. The false diplomacy waged by the White House in Geneva simply pre-empted any congressional call for a diplomatic outreach. Now the president can move on with the mission of facilitating a larger war with Iran by legitimizing yet another act of aggression.
One day, in the not-so-distant future, Americans will awake to the reality that American military forces are engaged in a shooting war with Iran. Many will scratch their heads and wonder, “How did that happen?” The answer is simple: We all let it happen. We are at war with Iran right now. We just don’t have the moral courage to admit it.
Scott Ritter is a former U.N. weapons inspector and Marine intelligence officer who has written extensively about Iran.
AP photo / Brennan Linsley
Members of the Iranian resistance group Mujahadeen-e Khalk, or MEK, guard a road leading to the group’s main training camp, watched over by a U.S. Army Abrams tank in background, near Baqubah in north-central Iraq.
A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer. Publisher, Zuade Kaufman.Copyright © 2008 Truthdig, L.L.C. All rights reserved.
Web site development by Hop Studios Hosted by NEXCESS.NET
var sc_project=881573;
var sc_invisible=1;
var sc_partition=7;
var sc_security="008dc823";
_uacct = "UA-344431-1";
urchinTracker();
Acts of War
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080729_acts_of_war/
Posted on Jul 29, 2008
By Scott Ritter
The war between the United States and Iran is on. American taxpayer dollars are being used, with the permission of Congress, to fund activities that result in Iranians being killed and wounded, and Iranian property destroyed. This wanton violation of a nation’s sovereignty would not be tolerated if the tables were turned and Americans were being subjected to Iranian-funded covert actions that took the lives of Americans, on American soil, and destroyed American property and livelihood. Many Americans remain unaware of what is transpiring abroad in their name. Many of those who are cognizant of these activities are supportive of them, an outgrowth of misguided sentiment which holds Iran accountable for a list of grievances used by the U.S. government to justify the ongoing global war on terror. Iran, we are told, is not just a nation pursuing nuclear weapons, but is the largest state sponsor of terror in the world today.
Much of the information behind this is being promulgated by Israel, which has a vested interest in seeing Iran neutralized as a potential threat. But Israel is joined by another source, even more puzzling in terms of its broad-based acceptance in the world of American journalism: the Mujahadeen-e Khalk, or MEK, an Iranian opposition group sworn to overthrow the theocracy in Tehran. The CIA today provides material support to the actions of the MEK inside Iran. The recent spate of explosions in Iran, including a particularly devastating “accident” involving a military convoy transporting ammunition in downtown Tehran, appears to be linked to an MEK operation; its agents working inside munitions manufacturing plants deliberately are committing acts of sabotage which lead to such explosions. If CIA money and planning support are behind these actions, the agency’s backing constitutes nothing less than an act of war on the part of the United States against Iran.
The MEK traces its roots back to the CIA-orchestrated overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeg. Formed among students and intellectuals, the MEK emerged in the 1960s as a serious threat to the reign of Reza Shah Pahlevi. Facing brutal repression from the Shah’s secret police, the SAVAK, the MEK became expert at blending into Iranian society, forming a cellular organizational structure which made it virtually impossible to eradicate. The MEK membership also became adept at gaining access to positions of sensitivity and authority. When the Shah was overthrown in 1978, the MEK played a major role and for a while worked hand in glove with the Islamic Revolution in crafting a post-Shah Iran. In 1979 the MEK had a central role in orchestrating the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, and holding 55 Americans hostage for 444 days.
However, relations between the MEK and the Islamic regime in Tehran soured, and after the MEK staged a bloody coup attempt in 1981, all ties were severed and the two sides engaged in a violent civil war. Revolutionary Guard members who were active at that time have acknowledged how difficult it was to fight the MEK. In the end, massive acts of arbitrary arrest, torture and executions were required to break the back of mainstream MEK activity in Iran, although even the Revolutionary Guard today admits the MEK remains active and is virtually impossible to completely eradicate.
It is this stubborn ability to survive and operate inside Iran, at a time when no other intelligence service can establish and maintain a meaningful agent network there, which makes the MEK such an asset to nations such as the United States and Israel. The MEK is able to provide some useful intelligence; however, its overall value as an intelligence resource is negatively impacted by the fact that it is the sole source of human intelligence in Iran. As such, the group has taken to exaggerating and fabricating reports to serve its own political agenda. In this way, there is little to differentiate the MEK from another Middle Eastern expatriate opposition group, the Iraqi National Congress, or INC, which infamously supplied inaccurate intelligence to the United States and other governments and helped influence the U.S. decision to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein. Today, the MEK sees itself in a similar role, providing sole-sourced intelligence to the United States and Israel in an effort to facilitate American military operations against Iran and, eventually, to overthrow the Islamic regime in Tehran.
The current situation concerning the MEK would be laughable if it were not for the violent reality of that organization’s activities. Upon its arrival in Iraq in 1986, the group was placed under the control of Saddam Hussein’s Mukhabarat, or intelligence service. The MEK was a heavily militarized organization and in 1988 participated in division-size military operations against Iran. The organization represents no state and can be found on the U.S. State Department’s list of terrorist organizations, yet since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the MEK has been under the protection of the U.S. military. Its fighters are even given “protected status” under the Geneva Conventions. The MEK says its members in Iraq are refugees, not terrorists. And yet one would be hard-pressed to find why the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees should confer refugee status on an active paramilitary organization that uses “refugee camps” inside Iraq as its bases.
The MEK is behind much of the intelligence being used by the International Atomic Energy Agency in building its case that Iran may be pursuing (or did in fact pursue in the past) a nuclear weapons program. The complexity of the MEK-CIA relationship was recently underscored by the agency’s acquisition of a laptop computer allegedly containing numerous secret documents pertaining to an Iranian nuclear weapons program. Much has been made about this computer and its contents. The United States has led the charge against Iran within international diplomatic circles, citing the laptop information as the primary source proving Iran’s ongoing involvement in clandestine nuclear weapons activity. Of course, the information on the computer, being derived from questionable sources (i.e., the MEK and the CIA, both sworn enemies of Iran) is controversial and its veracity is questioned by many, including me.
Now, I have a simple solution to the issue of the laptop computer: Give it the UNSCOM treatment. Assemble a team of CIA, FBI and Defense Department forensic computer analysts and probe the computer, byte by byte. Construct a chronological record of how and when the data on the computer were assembled. Check the “logic” of the data, making sure everything fits together in a manner consistent with the computer’s stated function and use. Tell us when the computer was turned on and logged into and how it was used. Then, with this complex usage template constructed, overlay the various themes which have been derived from the computer’s contents, pertaining to projects, studies and other activities of interest. One should be able to rapidly ascertain whether or not the computer is truly a key piece of intelligence pertaining to Iran’s nuclear programs.
The fact that this computer is acknowledged as coming from the MEK and the fact that a proper forensic investigation would probably demonstrate the fabricated nature of the data contained are why the U.S. government will never agree to such an investigation being done. A prosecutor, when making a case of criminal action, must lay out evidence in a simple, direct manner, allowing not only the judge and jury to see it but also the accused. If the evidence is as strong as the prosecutor maintains, it is usually bad news for the defendant. However, if the defendant is able to demonstrate inconsistencies and inaccuracies in the data being presented, then the prosecution is the one in trouble. And if the defense is able to demonstrate that the entire case is built upon fabricated evidence, the case is generally thrown out. This, in short, is what should be done with the IAEA’s ongoing probe into allegations that Iran has pursued nuclear weapons. The evidence used by the IAEA is unable to withstand even the most rudimentary cross-examination. It is speculative at best, and most probably fabricated. Iran has done the right thing in refusing to legitimize this illegitimate source of information.
A key question that must be asked is why, then, does the IAEA continue to permit Olli Heinonen, the agency’s Finnish deputy director for safeguards and the IAEA official responsible for the ongoing technical inspections in Iran, to wage his one-man campaign on behalf of the United States, Britain and (indirectly) Israel regarding allegations derived from sources of such questionable veracity (the MEK-supplied laptop computer)? Moreover, why is such an official given free rein to discuss such sensitive data with the press, or with politically motivated outside agencies, in a manner that results in questionable allegations appearing in the public arena as unquestioned fact? Under normal circumstances, leaks of the sort that have occurred regarding the ongoing investigation into Iran’s alleged past studies on nuclear weapons would be subjected to a thorough investigation to determine the source and to ensure that appropriate measures are taken to end them. And yet, in Vienna, Heinonen’s repeated transgressions are treated as a giant “non-event,” the 800-pound gorilla in the room that everyone pretends isn’t really there.
Heinonen has become the pro-war yin to the anti-confrontation yang of his boss, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei. Every time ElBaradei releases the results of the IAEA probe of Iran, pointing out that the IAEA can find no evidence of any past or present nuclear weapons program, and that there is a full understanding of Iran’s controversial centrifuge-based enrichment program, Heinonen throws a monkey wrench into the works. Well-publicized briefings are given to IAEA-based diplomats. Mysteriously, leaks from undisclosed sources occur. Heinonen’s Finnish nationality serves as a flimsy cover for neutrality that long ago disappeared. He is no longer serving in the role as unbiased inspector, but rather a front for the active pursuit of an American- and Israeli-inspired disinformation campaign designed to keep alive the flimsy allegations of a nonexistent Iranian nuclear weapons program in order to justify the continued warlike stance taken by the U.S. and Israel against Iran.
The fact that the IAEA is being used as a front to pursue this blatantly anti-Iranian propaganda is a disservice to an organization with a mission of vital world importance. The interjection of not only the unverified (and unverifiable) MEK laptop computer data, side by side with a newly placed emphasis on a document relating to the forming of uranium metal into hemispheres of the kind useful in a nuclear weapon, is an amateurish manipulation of data to achieve a preordained outcome. Calling the Iranian possession of the aforementioned document “alarming,” Heinonen (and the media) skipped past the history of the document, which, of course, has been well explained by Iran previously as something the Pakistani nuclear proliferator A.Q. Khan inserted on his own volition to a delivery of documentation pertaining to centrifuges. Far from being a “top-secret” document protected by Iran’s security services, it was discarded in a file of old material that Iran provided to the IAEA inspectors. When the IAEA found the document, Iran allowed it to be fully examined by the inspectors, and answered every question posed by the IAEA about how the document came to be in Iran. For Heinonen to call the document “alarming,” at this late stage in the game, is not only irresponsible but factually inaccurate, given the definition of the word. The Iranian document in question is neither a cause for alarm, seeing as it is not a source for any “sudden fear brought on by the sense of danger,” nor does it provide any “warning of existing or approaching danger,” unless one is speaking of the danger of military action on the part of the United States derived from Heinonen’s unfortunate actions and choice of words.
Olli Heinonen might as well become a salaried member of the Bush administration, since he is operating in lock step with the U.S. government’s objective of painting Iran as a threat worthy of military action. Shortly after Heinonen’s alarmist briefing in March 2008, the U.S. ambassador to the IAEA, Gregory Schulte, emerged to announce, “As today’s briefing showed us, there are strong reasons to suspect that Iran was working covertly and deceitfully, at least until recently, to build a bomb.” Heinonen’s briefing provided nothing of the sort, being derived from an irrelevant document and a laptop computer of questionable provenance. But that did not matter to Schulte, who noted that “Iran has refused to explain or even acknowledge past work on weaponization.” Schulte did not bother to note that it would be difficult for Iran to explain or acknowledge that which it has not done. “This is particularly troubling,” Schulte went on, “when combined with Iran’s determined effort to master the technology to enrich uranium.” Why is this so troubling? Because, as Schulte noted, “Uranium enrichment is not necessary for Iran’s civil program but it is necessary to produce the fissile material that could be weaponized into a bomb.”
This, of course, is the crux of the issue: Iran’s ongoing enrichment program. Not because it is illegal; Iran is permitted to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes under Article IV of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Not again because Iran’s centrifuge program is operating in an undeclared, unmonitored fashion; the IAEA had stated it has a full understanding of the scope and work of the Iranian centrifuge enrichment program and that all associated nuclear material is accounted for and safeguarded. The problem has never been, and will never be, Iran’s enrichment program. The problem is American policy objectives of regime change in Iran, pushed by a combination of American desires for global hegemony and an activist Israeli agenda which seeks regional security, in perpetuity, through military and economic supremacy. The specter of nuclear enrichment is simply a vehicle for facilitating the larger policy objectives. Olli Heinonen, and those who support and sustain his work, must be aware of the larger geopolitical context of his actions, which makes them all the more puzzling and contemptible.
A major culprit in this entire sordid affair is the mainstream media. Displaying an almost uncanny inability to connect the dots, the editors who run America’s largest newspapers, and the producers who put together America’s biggest television news programs, have collectively facilitated the most simplistic, inane and factually unfounded story lines coming out of the Bush White House. The most recent fairy tale was one of “diplomacy,” on the part of one William Burns, the No. 3 diplomat in the State Department.
I have studied the minutes of meetings involving John McCloy, an American official who served numerous administrations, Democratic and Republican alike, in the decades following the end of the Second World War. His diplomacy with the Soviets, conducted with senior Soviet negotiator Valerein Zorin and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev himself, was real, genuine, direct and designed to resolve differences. The transcripts of the diplomacy conducted between Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho to bring an end to the Vietnam conflict is likewise a study in the give and take required to achieve the status of real diplomacy.
Sending a relatively obscure official like Burns to “observe” a meeting between the European Union and Iran, with instructions not to interact, not to initiate, not to discuss, cannot under any circumstances be construed as diplomacy. Any student of diplomatic history could tell you this. And yet the esteemed editors and news producers used the term diplomacy, without challenge or clarification, to describe Burns’ mission to Geneva on July 19. The decision to send him there was hailed as a “significant concession” on the part of the Bush administration, a step away from war and an indication of a new desire within the White House to resolve the Iranian impasse through diplomacy. How this was going to happen with a diplomat hobbled and muzzled to the degree Burns was apparently skipped the attention of these writers and their bosses. Diplomacy, America was told, was the new policy option of choice for the Bush administration.
Of course, the Geneva talks produced nothing. The United States had made sure Europe, through its foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, had no maneuvering room when it came to the core issue of uranium enrichment: Iran must suspend all enrichment before any movement could be made on any other issue. Furthermore, the American-backed program of investigation concerning the MEK-supplied laptop computer further poisoned the diplomatic waters. Iran, predictably, refused to suspend its enrichment program, and rejected the Heinonen-led investigation into nuclear weaponization, refusing to cooperate further with the IAEA on that matter, noting that it fell outside the scope of the IAEA’s mandate in Iran.
Condoleezza Rice was quick to respond. After a debriefing from Burns, who flew to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, where Rice was holding closed-door meetings with the foreign ministers of six Arab nations on the issue of Iran, Rice told the media that Iran “was not serious” about resolving the standoff. Having played the diplomacy card, Rice moved on with the real agenda: If Iran did not fully cooperate with the international community (i.e., suspend its enrichment program), then it would face a new round of economic sanctions and undisclosed punitive measures, both unilaterally on the part of the United States and Europe, as well as in the form of even broader sanctions from the United Nations Security Council (although it is doubtful that Russia and China would go along with such a plan).
The issue of unilateral U.S. sanctions is most worrisome. Both the House of Representatives, through HR 362, and the Senate, through SR 580, are preparing legislation that would call for an air, ground and sea blockade of Iran. Back in October 1962, President John F. Kennedy, when considering the imposition of a naval blockade against Cuba in response to the presence of Soviet missiles in that nation, opined that “a blockade is a major military operation, too. It’s an act of war.” Which, of course, it is. The false diplomacy waged by the White House in Geneva simply pre-empted any congressional call for a diplomatic outreach. Now the president can move on with the mission of facilitating a larger war with Iran by legitimizing yet another act of aggression.
One day, in the not-so-distant future, Americans will awake to the reality that American military forces are engaged in a shooting war with Iran. Many will scratch their heads and wonder, “How did that happen?” The answer is simple: We all let it happen. We are at war with Iran right now. We just don’t have the moral courage to admit it.
Scott Ritter is a former U.N. weapons inspector and Marine intelligence officer who has written extensively about Iran.

The spokesman for American theofascism speaks

2008-07-29T18:06:00.002-04:00

By Mel Seesholtz, Ph.D.Online Journal Contributing WriterJul 1, 2008,
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James Dobson has a Ph.D. in child development. He advocates spanking. He was once known as “the Religious Right’s New Kingmaker.” The “king” he helped make was George W. Bush, who tops “the list when American voters pick the worst U.S. President in the last 61 years.”
As a prominent character in the Bush-Rove nightmare, Dobson, according to Brian Elroy McKinley, set "himself up as a religiously-based political dictator bent on getting us to support his personal view of legislated morality.
"And what’s even worse, Dobson goes to great length to use Scripture to support his view, and yet according to Time magazine he doesn’t even have any formal theological training. In short, Dobson, using his position as a radio psychologist, has set himself up as our moral authority and asks us all to blindly follow. [italics added]
His Focus on the Family empire is considerable, although not as powerful as it once was. A mid-September 2007 article from The Denver Channel.com reported, “Focus on the Family is laying off 30 employees and reassigning 15 others, due in part to a drop in projected revenue . . ."
Dobson and his organization have slowly but surely been losing power. Perhaps that’s why the chairman needed to make more outrageous statements to garner public attention and mobilize the sheeple “to blindly follow” and contribute to his cause.
Dobson used his June 24, 2008 radio broadcast to make preposterous claims and attack Barack Obama. The attack was the lead story on CNN.com:
A top U.S. evangelical leader is accusing Sen. Barack Obama of deliberately distorting the Bible and taking a “fruitcake interpretation” of the U.S. Constitution.In comments to be aired on his radio show Tuesday, Focus on the Family founder James Dobson criticizes the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee for comments he made in a June 2006 speech to the liberal Christian group Call to Renewal.In the speech, Obama suggested that it would be impractical to govern based solely on the word of the Bible, noting that some passages suggest slavery is permissible and eating shellfish is disgraceful.“Which passages of scripture should guide our public policy?” Obama asked in the speech. “Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is OK and that eating shellfish is an abomination? Or we could go with Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount? . . . a passage that is so radical that it's doubtful that our Defense Department would survive its application.”
The first and most obvious question is “Why was this the lead story?” As Wayne Besen of Truth Wins Out noted in his reaction to the story, “Dobson is not an ordained minister, nor is he a religious scholar.” Moreover, Dobson is notorious for twisting and misrepresenting legitimate research: "In the past two years, at least seven researchers have accused Dobson of manipulating or cherry picking their results to back his anti-gay teachings. Letters and videos documenting the concerns of these respected professors can be viewed at RespectMyResearch.org.
"The first researcher to step forward was New York University educational psychologist Carol Gilligan, PhD. On Sept. 14, 2006 Gilligan wrote a letter to Dobson that stated: “I was mortified to learn that you had distorted my work this week in a guest column you wrote in Time Magazine . . . What you wrote was not truthful and I ask that you refrain from ever quoting me again and that you apologize for twisting my work.”
"The most recent scientist to claim Double-Talk Dobson distorted his work was University of Minnesota’s Gary Remafedi, M.D., M.P.H. In a letter to Dobson, dated April 28, 2008, he wrote, “I want to draw your attention to a gross misrepresentation of our research at the website of 'Focus on the Family.’”
"Other leading researchers who have taken issue with Dobson's use of their work include: Dr. Kyle Pruett, Professor of child psychiatry, the Yale University School of Medicine; Dr. Robert Spitzer, Professor of Psychiatry, Columbia University; Angela Phillips, Professor, Goldsmiths College in London; Dr. Elizabeth Saewyc, Associate Professor, school of nursing, University of British Columbia; and Dr. Judith Stacy, Professor of Sociology, New York University."
So the question remains: why would mainstream media give Dobson such front-page coverage without qualification? As Mr. Besen said in his follow-up article, "the wonderful 'liberal media' continues to treat this man as if he is a God-fearing grandfather. What disturbs me, is that the one time Dobson was truly exposed as a kook was when he suggested Sponge Bob Square Pants might be gay. This was worthy of laughs, but when some of the brightest minds in the world take Dobson to task for manipulating years of hard work, the media is largely MIA. Isn’t it time the media paint a full and accurate portrait of a man who has had the ear of many presidents? . . . We urge the media to report the facts and allow America to see the real James Dobson."
Dobson’s statements in his broadcast were nothing short of megalomaniacal: “it is undemocratic to try to pass legislation that I find offensive to the Scripture.” It seems Dobson thinks he alone knows THE “correct” interpretation of scripture and, therefore, he and he alone should decide what legislation is acceptable. Does this sound like the ranting of a theofascist dictator to you?
Dobson’s other statements and accusations are thoroughly addressed on a web site sponsored by “a coalition of pastors and other Christians, lead by Pastor Kirbyjon Caldwell.” Appropriately, the site is titled JamesDobsonDoesNotSpeakForMe.com. Dobson’s statements are compared, point by point, with what Mr. Obama actually said in his 2006 speech which, by the way, warned against the dangers of America become a theocratic state.
Rev. Jim Wallis of Sojourners was both astute and eloquent in his reaction to Dobson’s radio broadcast. It was also based on first-hand knowledge. Rev. Wallis was present at the 2006 speech.
Indeed, Sojourners sponsored the event and reported, "The clear purpose of the show was to attack Barack Obama. On the show, Dobson says of himself, “I’m not a reverend. I’m not a minister. I’m not a theologian. I’m not an evangelist. I’m a psychologist. I have a Ph.D. in child development.” Child psychologists don’t insert themselves into partisan politics in the regular way that James Dobson does and has over many years as one of the premier leaders of the Religious Right. He has spoken about how often he talked to Republican leaders – Karl Rove, administration strategists, and even President Bush himself. This year he tried to influence the outcome of the Republican primary by saying he would never vote for John McCain or the Republicans if they nominated him, then reversed himself and said he would vote after all but didn’t say for whom. But why should America care about how a child psychologist votes?
"James Dobson is insinuating himself into this presidential campaign, and his attacks against his fellow Christian, Barack Obama, should be seriously scrutinized. And because the basis for his attack on Obama is the speech the Illinois senator gave at our Sojourners/Call to Renewal event in 2006 (for the record, we also had Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republicans Rick Santorum and Sam Brownback speak that year), I have decided to respond to Dobson’s attacks. In most every case they are themselves clear distortions of what Obama said in that speech. I was there for the speech; Dobson was not."
In a missive dated “June 2008” and titled “Judicial Tyranny and California Lunacy,” Dobson demonstrated once again how he distorts facts, cherry-picks the Bible, relies on scare tactics, name-calling and irrationalities. For someone who claims to be a defender of and believer in the Bible, Dr. Dobson seems completely ignorant of Romans 13:1-2, NIV: "Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves."
The duly elected and/or appointed judges -- the judicial arm of the “governing authorities” -- who dared render a decision contrary to his wishes, Dobson calls “imperious courts,” “judicial tyranny,” “powermongers [sic] in black robes,” “judicial tyrants.” It would seem Dobson deserves nothing but condemnation, according to the Bible that is.
Aside from name-calling, in “Judicial Tyranny and California Lunacy” Dobson railed against two rulings by California courts: “The first of these unfortunate decisions was issued by the Los Angeles-based Second District Court of Appeal, which declared it illegal for parents without teaching licenses to home school their own flesh and blood.”
Teachers are professionals and as such they have had extensive training not only in pedagogy but in the subject matter they teach. They’ve had to pass certification examinations and be licensed by professional boards. To be sure, America’s public education system has its problems, but how many home-schooling parents have pedagogical training plus academic training and expertise in ALL the various subjects they must teach? Dobson favors home-schooling not because it aids in a child’s social, emotional and intellectual development, but because it affords a means for some to indoctrinate children into the “biblical worldview,” which includes such “facts” as the earth is about 6,000 years old, Adam and Eve were real people, and dinosaurs played with human children in Eden. This clip from Jesus Camp makes the point, as does this response to it.
Dobson’s use of “their own flesh and blood” is a pretentious emotional appeal that excludes adopted children. Apparently he has little time and little concern for them. But he did have time to snipe at the judges of the Second District Court of Appeal: “They might not even be parents, or if they are, who knows how effectively they did the job when their children were young.” Such a statement is not only inappropriate, it shows how very small Dobson really is.
Not surprisingly, aside from again ignoring the Biblical directive in Romans 13:1-2 and attacking the judicial arm of the “governing authorities,” Dobson’s second subject was one of his favorites: advocacy of legal discrimination and bigotry. "The second decision handed down from on high a few weeks ago was even more egregious. The California Supreme Court, by a vote of 4 to 3, overturned an electoral decision supported by 4,618,673 voters in the year 2000. It concerned Proposition 22, which defined marriage exclusively as being between one man and one woman. . . . The Court sniffed, 'Not so fast, common people. We hold the trump card and you lose.'”
True, Proposition 22 -- like 1964’s Proposition 14 that allowed real estate agents and landlords in California to reject home buyers or tenants of their choice, even if their decision was based on racial discrimination -- was passed by popular vote, but both were declared unconstitutional by due process of law. It’s doubtful a Proposition 14 would ever be proposed today. Times and attitudes have changed in relation to many social issues. Dobson, however, remains sequestered in the past.
Attitudes toward gay people and their right to civil equality have also changed significantly since 2000. More and more people -- including a considerable number of evangelical Christians -- have grown weary of Christiantist leaders’ vituperative attacks on gay and lesbian Americans and their obsessive ranting about gay marriage, while ignoring virtually all other social concerns.
Over ninety percent of Fortune 500 companies now have anti-discrimination policies that protect gays. More and more companies, colleges and universities, states and municipalities are offering same-sex domestic partner benefits, despite challenges and litigation from the Christianist Right’s legal minions.
The Los Angeles Times conducted a poll after the state’s Supreme Court’s decision. The question posed was “Did the California Supreme Court make the correct decision?” The results, as of May 18, reflect the changing times and attitudes. Of the 35,257 respondents 75.8 percent said “yes,” while only 24.2 percent said “no.” Other poll results sound the same note:
63 percent say gay marriage is a choiceJun. 3, 2008 04:46 PMUSA TodaySix in ten Americans say the government should not regulate whether gays and lesbians can wed the persons they choose, a new survey finds.As same-sex couples start lining up to get marriage licenses in California on June 17, the USA TODAY/Gallup Poll found 63 percent of adults say same-sex marriage is “strictly a private decision” between two people.
Then there’s reality and basic common sense. Jonathan Rauch, senior writer with National Journal and a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution, made the case in his June 21 Wall Street Journal article “Gay Marriage Is Good for America”:
Marriage, remember, is not just a contract between two people. It is a contract that two people make, as a couple, with their community – which is why there is always a witness. Two people can't go into a room by themselves and come out legally married. The partners agree to take care of each other so the community doesn't have to. In exchange, the community deems them a family, binding them to each other and to society with a host of legal and social ties.This is a fantastically fruitful bargain. Marriage makes you, on average, healthier, happier and wealthier. If you are a couple raising kids, marrying is likely to make them healthier, happier and wealthier, too. Marriage is our first and best line of defense against financial, medical and emotional meltdown. It provides domesticity and a safe harbor for sex. It stabilizes communities by formalizing responsibilities and creating kin networks. And its absence can be calamitous, whether in inner cities or gay ghettos.In 2008, denying gay Americans the opportunity to marry is not only inhumane, it is unsustainable. History has turned a corner: Gay couples -- including gay parents -- live openly and for the most part comfortably in mainstream life. This will not change, ever.Because parents want happy children, communities want responsible neighbors, employers want productive workers, and governments want smaller welfare caseloads, society has a powerful interest in recognizing and supporting same-sex couples. It will either fold them into marriage or create alternatives to marriage, such as publicly recognized and subsidized cohabitation. Conservatives often say same-sex marriage should be prohibited because it does not exemplify the ideal form of family. They should consider how much less ideal an example gay couples will set by building families and raising children out of wedlock.
Mr. Rauch’s statements are echoed by every legitimate medical and sociological association in America and are well summarized in this fact sheet from the American Psychological Association.
Dobson made two other statements in his June 2008 diatribe that attest to his being out of focus not only in relation to American families, but in relation to reality itself: "Has it occurred to Californians to consider what amounts to another 'recall election' for the four justices who have disregarded the institution of marriage? . . .
"Marriage is not simply a Judeo-Christian concept, although it finds its origins in the Garden of Eden. The Creator said to Adam and Eve, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.'" [Genesis 2:24, NIV]
Anyone who doesn’t agree with Dobson is wrong, immoral and anti-American -- sanctimonious megalomania at its darkest. To suggest judges who upheld constitutional guarantees of equality for all citizens be “recalled” speaks to Dobson’s theofascist agenda.
Apparently Dr. Dobson is unaware of the fact that the civil institution of marriage is not a “Judeo-Christian concept” and existed long before Jehovah was created. But the truly scary part is that Dobson believes Adam and Eve were real people and lived in the Garden of Eden . . . no doubt along with Tyrannosaurs Rex.
Since he obviously takes the Bible as literal history and the final word on morality and living a truly “Christian” life, shouldn’t Dr. Dobson hear, honor and obey the words of Jesus before he claims to “stand up for Christ” again: “Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” [Luke 18:22, NIV]
Dobson and the other leaders of the Christianist Right live large. One has to wonder how they justify that given Jesus’ explicit directive. Or maybe that’s one of those “outdated” Biblical edicts they feel so justified in ignoring when it suits their social-political purposes.
The Focus on the Family chairman ended his “passionate” June 2008 message with more irrationality: "let me remind you that California and the rest of the country would not be in the mess it is in if the U.S. Congress had not ignored and run from their duty to protect the institution of the family. All three presidential candidates voted against the Marriage Protection Amendment, and to my knowledge, not a one of them has uttered a word about the preservation of the traditional family. Honestly, we have to assume that they don’t give a hoot about marriage." [italics added]
“Protect the institution of the family?” If “the family” is in danger, it’s certainly not from same-sex couples who have fought so hard for the right to marry and have their families recognized. Perhaps Dobson has in mind a constitutional amendment making divorce illegal. Probably not though, since that would hurt his power-base as the 2004 Barna Group report, titled “Born Again Christians Just As Likely to Divorce As Are Non-Christians,” documented: “among married born again Christians, 35% have experienced a divorce. That figure is identical to the outcome among married adults who are not born again: 35%.” Barna also documented that “nearly one-quarter of the married ‘born agains’ (23%) get divorced two or more times.”
“Preservation of the traditional family.” Does Dobson really think that gay and lesbian Americans marrying will cause heterosexuals to stop marrying? Does Dobson really think that gay and lesbian Americans marrying will cause all existing “traditional families” to self-destruct? Can anyone really be that irrational, that delusional?
“We have to assume that they don’t give a hoot about marriage”: the ultimate non sequitur. How typical that a deceptive, deceiving charlatan prefaces such an absurdity with “honestly.”
Obviously Dobson wants to amend the U.S. Constitution so that it denies civil rights rather than protecting them. A new version of the Federal Marriage Amendment -- now dubbed the “Marriage Protection Amendment” -- has been introduced into the U.S. Senate. Two of the senators who “have named themselves as co-sponsors of S. J. RES. 43” are particularly noteworthy:
Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID), who was arrested June 11, 2007 on charges of lewd conduct in a Minneapolis airport terminal, is co-sponsoring the amendment along with Sen. David Vitter (R-LA).Craig, who entered a guilty plea to a reduced charge of disorderly conduct, was detained and charged for attempting to engage in sexual activity with a male undercover police officer. His arrest and plea became public two months later. At that time, Craig attempted to withdraw his plea and enter a new plea of not guilty. To date, his efforts have been denied by the courts.In July of 2007, Vitter was identified as a client of a prostitution firm owned by the late Deborah Jeane Palfrey, commonly known as The DC Madam.
Now that’s hypocrisy on a par with the antics of one of Dobson’s old buddies, Ted Haggard. It’s also akin to that of Rev. R. Albert Mohler, ninth president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a member of the board of Focus on the Family who, not surprisingly, supported Dobson’s criticism of Mr. Obama. You remember Rev. Mohler, the “sanctity of life” guy who had no problem with eugenics as long as those exterminated were gays.
On March 2, 2007, Mohler published an article titled “Is Your Baby Gay? What If You Could Know? What If You Could Do Something About It?” In it he implicitly acknowledged that sexual orientation has a genetic component and/or is hormonally determined prior to birth, but looked forward to the day when medical science could change that: "If a biological basis is found, and if a prenatal test is then developed, and if a successful treatment to reverse the sexual orientation to heterosexual is ever developed, we would support its use as we should unapologetically support the use of any appropriate means to avoid sexual temptation and the inevitable effects of sin . . ."
Biblical literalists have always argued against any pre-natal meddling with a fetus, claiming that whatever the fetus was, was its God-given birthright. Funny how that thinking changes so radically when gay people are involved. Mohler’s pre-natal genetic cleansing proposal is nothing less than a 21st century theofascist program of eugenics.
The more they pontificate, the more the self-righteous leaders of the Christianist Right contradict themselves and expose their theofascist agenda. Yet a considerable number of Americans continue to support these bigots and hate-mongers who hide behind “religion.” Why? Could it be that they share the same Schadenfreude needs? Or has religion just made them too scared to think for themselves and see reality as it is?In memory of the late George Carlin and his reality-based thoughts about religion . . .
Copyright © 1998-2007 Online Journal

Are You Ready to Face the Facts About Israel?

2008-07-25T19:41:00.001-04:00

by Paul Craig Roberts

"On October 21 (1948) the Government of Israel took a decision that was to have a lasting and divisive effect on the rights and status of those Arabs who lived within its borders: the official establishment of military government in the areas where most of the inhabitants were Arabs." - Martin Gilbert, Israel: A History
I had given up on finding an American with a moral conscience and the courage to go with it and was on the verge of retiring my keyboard when I met the Rev. Thomas L. Are.
Rev. Are is a Presbyterian pastor who used to tell his Atlanta, Georgia, congregation: "I am a Zionist." Like most Americans, Rev. Are had been seduced by Israeli propaganda and helped to spread the propaganda among his congregation.
Around 1990 Rev. Are had an awakening for which he credits the Christian Canon of St. George's Cathedral in Jerusalem and author Marc Ellis, co-editor of the book, Beyond Occupation.
Realizing that his ignorance of the situation on the ground had made him complicit in great crimes, Rev. Are wrote a book hoping to save others from his mistake and perhaps in part to make amends, Israeli Peace/Palestinian Justice, published in Canada in 1994.
Rev. Are researched his subject and wrote a brave book. Keep in mind that 1994 was long prior to Walt and Mearsheimer's recent book, which exposed the power of the Israel Lobby and its ability to control the explanation Americans receive about the "Israeli-Palestinian conflict."
Rev. Are begins with an account of Israel's opening attack on the Palestinians, an event which took place before most Americans alive today were born. He quotes the distinguished British historian, Arnold J. Toynbee: "The treatment of the Palestinian Arabs in 1947 (and 1948) was as morally indefensible as the slaughter of six million Jews by the Nazis. Though nor comparable in quantity to the crimes of the Nazis, it was comparable in quality."
Golda Meir, considered by Israelis as a great leader and by others as one of history's great killers, disputed the facts: "It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist."
Golda Meir's apology for Israel's great crimes is so counter-factual that it blows the mind. Palestinian refugee camps still exist outside Palestine filled with Palestinians and their descendants whose towns, villages, homes and lands were seized by the Israelis in 1948. Rev. Are provides the reader with Na'im Ateek's description of what happened to him, an 11-year old, when the Jews came to take Beisan on May 12, 1948. Entire Palestinian communities simply disappeared.
In 1949 the United Nations counted 711,000 Palestinian refugees.
In 2005 the United Nations Relief and Works Agency estimated 4.25 million Palestinians and their descendants were refugees from their homeland.
The Israeli policy of evicting non-Jews has continued for six decades. On June 19, 2008, the Laity Committee in the Holy Land reported in Window Into Palestine that the Israeli Ministry of Interior is taking away the residency rights of Jerusalem Christians who have been reclassified as "visitors in their own city."
On December 10, 2007, MK Ephraim Sneh boasted in the Jerusalem Post that Israel had achieved "a true Zionist victory" over the UN partition plan "which sought to establish two nations in the land of Israel." The partition plan had assigned Israel 56 percent of Palestine, leaving the inhabitants with only 44 percent. But Israel had altered this over time. Sneh proudly declared: "When we complete the permanent agreement, we will hold 78 percent of the land while the Palestinians will control 22 percent."
Sneb could have added that the 22 percent is essentially a collection of unconnected ghettos cut off from one another and from roads, water, medical care, and jobs.
Rev. Are documents that the abuse of Palestinians' human rights is official Israeli policy. Killings, torture, and beatings are routine. On May 17, 1990, the Washington Post reported that Save the Children "documented indiscriminate beating, tear-gassing and shooting of children at home or just outside the house playing in the street, who were sitting in the classroom or going to the store for groceries."
On January 19, 1988, Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin, later Prime Minister, announced the policy of "punitive beating" of Palestinians. The Israelis described the purpose of punitive beating: "Our task is to recreate a barrier and once again put the fear of death into the Arabs of the area."
According to Save the Children, beatings of children and women are common. Rev. Are, citing the report in the Washington Post, writes: "Save the Children concluded that one-third of beaten children were under ten years old, and one-fifth under the age of five. Nearly a third of the children beaten suffered broken bones."
On February 8, 1988, Newsweek magazine quoted an Israeli soldier: "We got orders to knock on every door, enter and take out all the males. The younger ones we lined up with their faces against the wall, and soldiers beat them with billy clubs. This was no private initiative, these were orders from our company commander.... After one soldier finished beating a detainee, another soldier called him 'you Nazi,' and the first man shot back: 'You bleeding heart.' When one soldier tried to stop another from beating an Arab for no reason, a fist fight broke out."
These were the old days before conscience was eliminated from the ranks of the Israeli military.
In the London Sunday Times, June 19, 1977, Ralph Schoenman, executive director of the Bertrand Russell Foundation, wrote: "Israeli interrogators routinely ill-treat and torture Arab prisoners. Prisoners are hooded or blindfolded and are hung by their wrists for long periods. Most are struck in the genitals or in other ways sexually abused. Most are sexually assaulted. Others are administered electric shock."
Amnesty International concluded that "there is no country in the world in which the use of official and sustained torture is as well established and documented as in the case of Israel."
Even the pro-Israeli Washington Post reported: "Upon arrest, a detainee undergoes a period of starvation, deprivation of sleep by organized methods and prolonged periods during which the prisoner is made to stand with his hands cuffed and raised, a filthy sack covering the head. Prisoners are dragged on the ground, beaten with objects, kicked, stripped and placed under ice-cold showers."
Sounds like Abu Gharib. There are news reports that Israeli torture experts participated in the torture of the detainees assembled by the American military as part of the Bush Regime's propaganda onslaught to convince Americans that Iraq was overflowing with al-Qaeda terrorists. On July 23, 2008, Antiwar.com posted an Iraqi news report that the Iraqi government had released a total of 109,087 Iraqis that the Americans had "detained." Obviously, these "terrorist detainees" had been used for the needs of Bush Regime propaganda. No one will ever know how many of them were abused by Israeli torturers imported by the CIA.
Rev. Are's book makes sensible suggestions for resolving the conflict that Israel began. However, the problem is that Israeli governments believe only in force. The policy of the Israeli government has always been to beat, kill, and brutalize Palestinians into submission and flight. Anyone who doubts this can read the book of Israel's finest historian Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2006).
Americans are a gullible and naive people. They have been complicit for 60 years in crimes that in Arnold Toynbee's words "are comparable in quality" to the crimes of Nazi Germany. As Toynbee was writing decades ago, the accumulated Israeli crimes might now be comparable also in quantity.
The US routinely vetoes United Nations condemnations of Israel for its brutal crimes against the Palestinians. Insouciant American taxpayers have been bled for a half century to provide the Israelis with superior military weapons with which Israelis assault their neighbors, all the while convincing America – essentially a captive nation – that Israel is the victim.
John F. Mahoney wrote: "Thomas Are reminds me of Dietrich Bonhoeffer: an active pastor who comes to the unsettling realization that he and his people have been fed a terrible lie that is killing and torturing thousands of innocent men, women and children. Not without ample research and prayer does such a pastor, in turn, risk unsettling his congregation. The Reverend Are has done his homework and, I suspect, has prayed often and long during the writing of this courageous book."
Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran theologian and pastor who was executed for his active participation in the German Resistance against Nazism.
Professor Benjamin M. Weir, San Francisco Theological Seminary, wrote: "This book will make the reader squirm. It asks you to lend your voice in behalf of the voiceless."
Americans who can no longer think for themselves and who are terrified of disapproval by their peer group are incapable of lending their voices to anyone except those who control the world of propaganda in which they live.
The ignorance and unconcern of Americans is a great frustration to my friends in the Israeli peace movement. Without outside support those Israelis who believe in good will are deprived, by America's support for their government's policy of violence, of any peaceful resolution of a conflict began in 1947 by Israeli aggression against unsuspecting Palestinian villages.
Rev. Are wrote his book with the hope that the pen is mightier than the sword and that facts can crowd out propaganda and create a framework for a just resolution of the Palestinian issue. In his concluding chapter, "What Christians Can Do," Rev. Are writes: "We cannot allow others to dictate our thinking on any subject, especially on anything as important as Christian faithfulness, which is tested by an attitude towards seeking justice for the oppressed. It's a Christian's duty to know."
Duty, of course, has costs. Rev. Are writes: "Speak up for the Palestinians and you will make enemies. Yet, as Christians, we must be willing to raise issues that until now we have chosen to dodge."
More than a decade later, President Jimmy Carter, a true friend of Israel, tried again to awaken Americans' moral conscience with his book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. Carter was instantly demonized by the Israel Lobby.
Sixty years of efforts by good and humane people to hold Israel accountable have so far failed, but they are more important today than ever before. Israel has its captive American nation on the verge of attacking Iran, the consequences of which could be catastrophic for all concerned. The alleged purpose of the attack is to eliminate nonexistent Iranian nuclear weapons. The real reason is to eliminate all support for Hamas and Hezbollah so that Israel can seize the entire West Bank and southern Lebanon. The Bush regime is eager to do Israel's bidding, and the media and evangelical "Christian" churches have been preparing the American people for the event.
It is paradoxical that Israel is demonstrating that veracity lies not in the Christian belief in good will but in Lenin's doctrine that violence is the effective force in history and that the evangelical Christian Zionist churches agree.

"I have more Jewish grandchildren than anyone"

2008-07-20T20:14:00.005-04:00

This is what America has become. A nation led by Israeli loving fifth columnists who will do ANYTHING to please their masters in Tel Aviv. Like Israeli-firster Speaker of the House Pelosi, who never misses a chance to kiss her Zionist Master's derrière. Here's a small sampling of Pelosi's traitorous activities performed in service to that racist and apartheid Jews only state of Hate, Israel:
Start an illegal and immoral war in Iraq to protect Israel's flank?
No problem.
Run up huge debts to keep this immoral war for Israel going and going? No problem.
Stick with the "official" story of how 9/11 was pulled off by some cave-dwelling madmen and not look at the overwhelming evidence that 9/11 was an inside job, pulled off by Zionists and Neocons?
No problem.
Appear at any number of Jews only conventions so that leaders like House Speaker Pelosi can show she can out-Jew even the Zionists in attendance?
No problem.
Repeat numerous Zionist lies about Iran's peaceful pursuit of nuclear power?
No problem.
Promise her Zionist Masters that she, Pelosi, the Speaker of the House and one of the most powerful women in America, will gladly invade another country, Iran, at Israel's behest?
No problem.
Getting tearful when she talks about some member of the ZOF--Zionist Occupation Force--yet never mention in public the thousands and thousands of American kids she has sent to their deaths fighting wars for Israel?
No problem.
Electing to Congress Americans who put America first, second and third, and tell the world's most dangerous, violent and psychotic nation, Israel, that you're the problem and not the solution in the Middle East?
PROBLEM.

Speaker Pelosi, Speaker Itzik talk tough on Iran at Hadassah conclave
By Tom Tugend
As the personification of women's empowerment, two of the most influential female politicians in the United States and Israel stood on the stage, greeted by the cheers of more than 1,800 delegates to the 94th national Hadassah convention.
Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House of Representatives, and Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik had telling messages, embroidered with some warm personal touches.
Pelosi let it be known that she was a mother of five and grandmother of seven, and later noted, "I have more Jewish grandchildren than anyone." (A pardonable exaggeration, since she has only two Jewish grandkids, who, however, serenade her with "Happy Birthday to You" in Hebrew.)
Itzik couldn't quite match Pelosi, but countered with her three children, all Jewish.
On the occasion, though, what was most on the minds of the two speakers was the threat posed by Iran's nuclear ambitions.
"We must take the madmen in Tehran seriously," Itzik urged. "Their nuclear plans threaten not only Tel Aviv, but also New York and Los Angeles."
Pelosi called for "far-reaching and tighter sanctions that recognize that Iran is a danger to the entire world," adding that global security "demands that Iran give up its nuclear ambitions."
The San Francisco Democrat, who led a bipartisan congressional delegation to Israel in May to help celebrate the nation's 60th anniversary, demanded the return of Israeli hostages held by the Iran-supported Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists.
She said that the wife of hostage Eldad Regev had presented her with a set of her husband's military dog tags.
"I wore the dog tags when I was meeting the kings of Jordan and Saudi Arabia and the president of Syria," she said.
Pelosi also warmly praised the work of the Hadassah Medical Organization and its two medical centers in Jerusalem.
Noting that the Hadassah hospitals were open to anyone, regardless of race or religion, she told the delegates, "Hadassah accepts all patients, not because they are Jewish, but because you are Jewish."
Pelosi also called for Jewish community support for a series of health-related bills, ranging from stem-cell research to Medicare reform, which passed both houses of Congress, but were vetoed by President Bush.
"But it won't be long until these bills become law," she promised. "The next president will sign them."
Hadassah's national president, Nancy Falchuck of Boston, standing between Pelosi and Itzik, referred to them jokingly as "Stereo Speakers" and praised them as pioneers who had shattered the glass ceilings in their respective countries.
Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America, has some 300,000 women members in the United States and an additional 30,000 male associate members.
The four-day convention at the Bonaventure Hotel ended Wednesday, July 16, after a crammed program of sessions, workshops and plenary addresses on current politics, the future of medicine, anti-Semitism, women's health, information technology, being green and projects in Israel.
The opening event with Pelosi and Itzik concluded with a lengthy video presentation intertwining the histories of the State of Israel and Hadassah, from 1948 to the present.

26,000 Pastors for Martial Law Continuity of Government

2008-07-17T13:41:00.003-04:00

Watch Story on Youtube

Video compilation about continuity of government plans for martial law including the KSLA News report of the 26,000 pastors recruited for handling the people during a martial law take over.
There are over 800 camps throughout the United States.Recently 26,000 pastors were recruited by FEMA(Federal Emergency Management Association) to instruct their congregations that in case of an emergency they are to peacefully hand over their arms and their children and go to the camps.In a case like Hurricane Katrina, people were starving, and had no home.They had no choice but to go to the FEMA camps or die of starvation.Is this the choice you want to be left with in the event of a local or national emergency, or might it be smarter to prepare now with emergency food, water and supplies?

OMG, The Torah says love thy neighbour, not kill them

2008-07-13T16:17:00.001-04:00

Canadian ISPs Plan Net Censorship

2008-07-13T16:11:00.000-04:00

Canadian ISPs Plan Net Censorship
Concerns grow that Canada's plan will wipeout alt news sites and spread to U.S.

By Mike Finch
A net-neutrality activist group has uncovered plans for the demise of the free Internet by 2010 in Canada. By 2012, the group says, the trend will be global.
Bell Canada and TELUS, Canada’s two largest Internet service providers (ISPs), will begin charging per-site fees on most Internet sites, reports anonymous sources within TELUS.
“It's beyond censorship, it is killing the biggest ecosystem of free expression and freedom of speech that has ever existed,” I Power spokesperson Reese Leysen said. I Power was the first group to report on the possible changes.
Bell Canada has not returned calls or emails.
The plans made by the large telecom businesses would change the Internet into a cable-like system, where customers sign up for specific web sites, and must pay to see each individual site beyond a certain point. Subscription browsing would be limited, extra fees would be applied to access out-of-network sites. Many sites would be blocked altogether.
“We had inside sources from bigger companies who gave us the information on how exclusivity deals are being made at this moment between ISPs and big content providers (like TV production studios and major video game publishers) to decide which web sites will be in the ‘standard package’ offered to their customers, leaving all the rest of the Internet unreachable unless you pay extra subscription fees per every ‘non-standard’ site you visit,” Leysen said. “We knew the source to be 100% reliable, but we also knew the story would be highly controversial if we released the information. We did it because we knew that we’d get more official confirmations once we’d come forward with it. And indeed that is what happened. Dylan Pattyn, who is writing the soon-to-be published article for Time Magazine, received confirmation from sources within Bell Canada and TELUS after we released the information.”
The plans would in effect be economic censorship, with only the top 100 to 200 sites making the cut in the initial subscription package. Such plans would likely favor major news outlets and suppress smaller news outlets, as the major news outlets would be free (with subscription), and alternative news outlets, like AFP, would incur a fee for every visit.
“The Internet will become a playground for billion-dollar content providers just like television is,” said Leysen. “It won’t be possible for a few teenagers in their parents’ basement to start a small site like E-bay that then grows out to be the next big thing anymore. Right now the Internet belongs to those with the greatest ideas. In the future, it’ll belong to those with the biggest budgets.”
With plans in Canada uncovered, I Power thinks that companies in the United States and other nations are also planning similar actions.
“By 2012 ISPs all over the globe will reduce Internet access to a TV-like subscription model, only offering access to a small standard amount of commercial sites and require extra fees for every other site you visit. These ‘other’ sites would then lose all their exposure and eventually shut down, resulting in what could be seen as the end of the Internet,” Leysen said.
Such a subscription plan could possibly restrict free speech far beyond even the current restrictions set by the governments of communist China. Not only would browsing be limited, but privacy would be invaded, as every web site viewed would likely be recorded on a bill in a manner similar to a phone bill.
Why would the ISPs institute such a plan? One word: money.
“This new subscription model is commercially far more beneficial to them than how it is now,” Leysen said. “If Fox wants to launch a new television show online, they’ll have to pay big money to all major ISPs to ensure that their new show will be offered and pushed in the ‘standard package’ of sites/services/channels that people will get through their Internet access. Plus ISPs will also gain extra revenue out of people trying to access the rest of the Internet, as they’ll pay extra subscription fees for every web site they visit.”
But it’s not just the big ISPs that stand to gain.
“Marketing and big budget ‘content-pushing’ just doesn’t seem to work on the Internet, and this is something that several industries want fixed. ISPs know this and will benefit greatly by fixing this for the marketing and entertainment industry,” Leysen said.
The ISPs are said to be confident they can institute such plans through deceptive marketing and fear tactics.
“The Internet will be more and more marketed as a place full of child pornography and other horrible illegal activity in order to get people on their [the ISP’s] side once they start restricting it and make it ‘safer,’” Leysen said. “Unless we really make a stand for this and make sure that mainstream media thoroughly covers the issue, the whole thing will be eased in with proper marketing to make sure that most mainstream customers won’t make a big deal out of it. They will only realize what was lost long after it’s gone.”
For more information about this story see http://ipower.ning.com
For more information about Internet freedom: savetheinternet.com
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Understanding Prejudice

2008-07-13T15:24:00.004-04:00

While taking this survey remember how the US is preaching to everyone that it was formed from Christian principles. Tom

I have found this to be a very educational survey to take if taken with an open mind, click here

The Internet Post

2008-07-12T17:15:00.002-04:00

Sorry for the gap in our posting schedule. Due to a staffs illness we have been somewhat short handed, but we will be resuming regular programing soon.

Is the Fourth Estate a Fifth Column?

2008-07-12T17:11:00.001-04:00

Corporate media colludes with democracy’s demise

Without a free and independent press, this 250-year-old experiment in self-government will not make it. As journalism goes, so goes democracy

I heard this story a long time ago, growing up in Choctaw County in Oklahoma before my family moved to Texas. A tribal elder was telling his grandson about the battle the old man was waging within himself. He said, “It is between two wolves, my son. One is an evil wolf: anger, envy, sorrow, greed, self-pity, guilt, resentment, lies, false pride, superiority and ego. The other is the good wolf: joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”
The boy took this in for a few minutes and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf won?”
The old Cherokee replied simply, “The one I feed.”
Democracy is that way. The wolf that wins is the one we feed. And in our society, media provides the fodder.
Our media institutions, deeply embedded in the power structures of society, are not providing the information that we need to make our democracy work. To put it another way, corporate media consolidation is a corrosive social force. It robs people of their voice in public affairs and pollutes the political culture. And it turns the debates about profound issues into a shouting match of polarized views promulgated by partisan apologists who trivialize democracy while refusing to speak the truth about how our country is being plundered.
Our dominant media are ultimately accountable only to corporate boards whose mission is not life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for the whole body of our republic, but the aggrandizement of corporate executives and shareholders.
These organizations’ self-styled mandate is not to hold public and private power accountable, but to aggregate their interlocking interests. Their reward is not to help fulfill the social compact embodied in the notion of “We, the people,” but to manufacture news and information as profitable consumer commodities.
Democracy without honest information creates the illusion of popular consent at the same time that it enhances the power of the state and the privileged interests that the state protects. And nothing characterizes corporate media today more than its disdain toward the fragile nature of modern life and its indifference toward the complex social debate required of a free and self-governing people.
Let’s look at what is happening with the Internet. This spring the cable giant Comcast tried to pack a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) hearing on network neutrality by hiring strangers off the street to ensure that advocates of net neutrality would not be able to get a seat in the hearing room.
SaveTheInternet.com — a bipartisan coalition — and its supporters helped expose the ruse. Soon after, there was a new hearing, this time without the gerrymandering seating by opponents of an open Internet.
Now Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) has introduced a bill to advance network neutrality, and it has become an issue in the presidential campaign.
We must be vigilant. The fate of the cyber-commons — the future of the mobile Web and the benefits of the Internet as open architecture — is up for grabs. And the only antidote to the power of organized money in Washington is the power of organized people at the net roots.
When Verizon tried to censor NARAL’s (National Abortion Rights Action League) use of text messaging last year, it was quick action by Save the Internet that led the company to reverse its position. Those efforts also led to an FCC proceeding on this issue.
Wherever the Internet flows — on PCs, cell phones, mobile devices and, very soon, new digital television sets — we must ensure that it remains an open and nondiscriminatory medium of expression.
By 2011, the market analysts tell us, the Internet will surpass newspapers in advertising revenues. With MySpace and Dow Jones controlled by News Corporation’s Rupert Murdoch, Microsoft determined to acquire Yahoo!, and with advertisers already telling some bloggers, “Your content is unacceptable,” we could potentially lose what’s now considered an unstoppable long tail of content offering abundant, new, credible and sustainable sources of news and information.
So, what will happen to news in the future, as the already tattered boundaries between journalism and advertising is dispensed with entirely and as content programming, commerce and online communities are rolled into one profitably attractive package?
Last year, the investment firm of Piper Jaffray predicted that much of the business model for new media would be just that kind of hybrid. They called it “communitainment.” (Oh, George Orwell, where are you now that we need you?)
Across the media landscape, the health of our democracy is imperiled. Buffeted by gale force winds of technological, political and demographic forces, without a truly free and independent press, this 250-year-old experiment in self-government will not make it. As journalism goes, so goes democracy.
Mergers and buyouts change both old and new media. They bring a frenzied focus on cost-cutting, while fattening the pockets of the new owners and their investors. The result: journalism is degraded through the layoffs and buyouts of legions of reporters and editors.
Advertising Age reports that U.S. media employment has fallen to a 15-year low. The Los Angeles Times alone has experienced a withering series of resignations by editors who refused to turn a red pencil into an editorial scalpel.
The new owner of the Tribune Company, real estate mogul Sam Zell, recently toured his new property Los Angeles Times, telling employees in the newsroom that the challenge is this: How do we get somebody 126 years old to get it up? “Well,” said Zell, “I’m your Viagra.”
He told his journalists that he didn’t have an editorial agenda or a perspective about newspapers’ roles as civic institutions. “I’m a businessman,” he said. “All what matters in the end is the bottom line.”
Zell then told Wall Street analysts that to save money he intends to eliminate 500 pages of news a week across all of the Tribune Company’s 12 papers. That can mean eliminating some 82 editorial pages every week just from the Los Angeles Times. What will he use to replace reporters and editors? He says to the Wall Street analysts, “I’ll use maps, graphics, lists, rankings and stats.” Sounds as if Zell has confused Viagra with Lunesta.
Former Baltimore Sun journalist and creator of HBO’s The Wire, David Simon, chronicled the effect that crosscutting and consolidation has had in media businesses and on the communities where those businesses have made so much money. He wrote in a Washington Post op-ed, “I did not encounter a sustained period in which anyone endeavored to spend what it would actually cost to make the Baltimore Sun the most essential and deep-thinking and well-written account of life in central Maryland. The people you needed to gather for that kind of storytelling were ushered out the door, buyout after buyout.”
Or as journalist Eric Alterman recently wrote in the New Yorker: “It is impossible not to wonder what will become of not just news but democracy itself, in a world in which we can no longer depend on newspapers to invest their unmatched resources and professional pride in helping the rest of us to learn, however imperfectly, what we need to know.”
For example, we needed to know the truth about Iraq. The truth could have spared that country from rack and ruin, saved thousands of American lives and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, and freed hundreds of billions of dollars for investment in the American economy and infrastructure.
But as reporters at Knight Ridder — one of the few organizations that systematically and independently set out to challenge the claims of the administration — told us at the time, and as my colleagues and I reported in our PBS documentary Buying the War, and as Scott McClellan has now confessed, and as the Senate Intelligence Committee confirmed in June, the Bush administration deceived Americans into supporting an unprovoked war on another country. And it did so using erroneous and misleading intelligence — and with the complicity of the dominant media. It has led to a conflict that, instead of being over quickly and bloodlessly as predicted, continues to this day into its sixth year.
We now know that a neoconservative is an arsonist who sets a house on fire and six years later boasts that no one can put it out. You couldn’t find a more revealing measure of the state of the dominant media today than the continuing ubiquitous presence on the air and in print of the very pundits and experts, self-selected message multipliers of a disastrous foreign policy, who got it all wrong in the first place. It just goes to show, when the bar is low enough, you can never be too wrong.
The dominant media remains in denial about their role in passing on the government’s unverified claims as facts. That’s the great danger. It’s not simply that they dominate the story we tell ourselves publicly every day. It’s that they don’t allow other alternative competing narratives to emerge, against which the people could measure the veracity of all the claims.
Now the dominant media is saying, “Well, we did ask. We did do our job by asking tough questions during the run-up to the war.”
But I’ve been through the transcripts. And I’ll tell you, you will find very few tough questions. And if you come across them, you will discover that they were asked of the wrong people.
John Walcott, Washington bureau chief for McClatchy, formerly Knight Ridder, recently said of his colleagues in the dominant media, “They asked a lot of questions, but they asked even the right questions of the wrong people.” They were asked of the sources who had cooked the intelligence books in the first place or who had memorized the White House talking points and were prepared to answer every tough question with a soft evasion or an easy lie, swallowed by a gullible questioner.
Following the March 2003 invasion, Vice President Dick Cheney dropped into a media dinner to thank the guests for their all-the-war-all-the-time coverage of the contrived and manufactured war.
Sadly, in many respects, the Fourth Estate has become the fifth column of democracy, colluding with the powers that be in a culture of deception that subverts the thing most necessary to freedom, and that is the truth.
But we’re not alone and we know what we need to say. So let us all go tell it on the mountains and in the cities. From our websites and laptops, the street corners and coffeehouses, the delis and diners, the factory floors and the bookstores. On campus, at the mall, the synagogue, sanctuary and mosque, let’s tell it where we can, when we can and while we still can.
Democracy only works when ordinary people claim it as their own.
This article was adapted from Bill Moyers’ keynote address at the National Conference for Media Reform Conference in Minneapolis on June 7. You can read and respond to the full speech at http://www.pbs.org/moyers.
Bill Moyers is the president of the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy and the host of Bill Moyers Journal on PBS.More information about Bill Moyers

Report: Emirates calls on GCC countries to depeg currencies from US dollar to curb inflation

2008-07-07T16:22:00.001-04:00

The Associated Press
Sunday, July 6, 2008

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates: A newspaper in the United Arab Emirates says the tiny Gulf state's government is lobbying neighboring countries to depeg their currencies from the U.S. dollar to curb inflation.

The National, which is owned by the Abu Dhabi ruling family, reported Sunday that the UAE is calling on all six Gulf Cooperation Council member states to "rethink" their monetary policy amid soaring inflation in the oil-rich region.

It cited an internal report by Abu Dhabi's Department of Planning and Economy.

The GCC members are Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Oman. All of their currencies are pegged to the dollar except Kuwait, which depegged its currency, the dinar, from the dollar in May 2007 in favor of a basket of currencies.

The Energy Non Crisis

2008-07-07T11:03:00.001-04:00

The Energy Non Crisis

Big Pharma Is in a Frenzy to Bring Cannabis-Based Medicines to Market

2008-07-06T10:56:00.001-04:00

By Paul Armentano, AlterNetPosted on July 5, 2008, Printed on July 6, 2008http://www.alternet.org/story/90469/
The US government's longstanding denial of medical marijuana research and use is an irrational and morally bankrupt public policy. On this point, few Americans disagree. As for the question of "why" federal officials maintain this inflexible and inhumane policy, well that's another story
One of the more popular theories seeking to explain the Feds' seemingly inexplicable ban on medical pot goes like this: Neither the US government nor the pharmaceutical industry will allow for the use of medical marijuana because they can't patent it or profit from it.
It's an appealing theory, yet I've found it to be neither accurate nor persuasive. Here's why.
First, let me state the obvious. Big Pharma is busily applying for -- and has already received -- multiple patents for the medical properties of pot. These include patents for synthetic pot derivatives (such as the oral THC pill Marinol), cannabinoid agonists (synthetic agents that bind to the brain's endocannabinoid receptors) like HU-210 and cannabis antagonists such as Rimonabant. This trend was most recently summarized in the NIH paper (pdf), "The endocannabinoid system as an emerging target of pharmacotherapy," which concluded, "The growing interest in the underlying science has been matched by a growth in the number of cannabinoid drugs in pharmaceutical development from two in 1995 to 27 in 2004." In other words, at the same time the American Medical Association is proclaiming that pot has no medical value, Big Pharma is in a frenzy to bring dozens of new, cannabis-based medicines to market.
Not all of these medicines will be synthetic pills either. Most notably, GW Pharmaceutical's oral marijuana spray, Sativex, is a patented standardized dose of natural cannabis extracts. (The extracts, primarily THC and the non-psychoactive, anxiolytic compound CBD, are taken directly from marijuana plants grown at an undisclosed, company warehouse.)
Does Big Pharma's sudden and growing interest in the research and development of pot-based medicines mean that the industry is proactively supporting marijuana prohibition? Not if they know what's good for them. Let me explain.
First, any and all cannabis-based medicines must be granted approval from federal regulatory bodies such as the US Food and Drug Administration -- a process that remains as much based on politics as it is on scientific merit. Chances are that a government that is unreasonably hostile toward the marijuana plant will also be unreasonably hostile toward sanctioning cannabis-based pharmaceuticals.
A recent example of this may be found in the Medicine and Health Products Regulatory Agency's recent denial of Sativex as a prescription drug in the United Kingdom. (Sativex's parent company, GW Pharmaceuticals, is based in London.) In recent years, British politicians have taken an atypically hard-line against the recreational use of marijuana -- culminating in Prime Minister Gordon Brown's declaration that today's pot is now of "lethal quality." (Shortly thereafter, Parliament elected to stiffen criminal penalties on the possession of the drug from a verbal warning to up to five years in jail.) In such an environment is it any wonder that British regulators have steadfastly refused to legalize a pot-based medicine, even one with an impeccable safety record like Sativex? Conversely, Canadian health regulators -- who take a much more liberal view toward the use of natural cannabis and oversee its distribution to authorized patients -- recently approved Sativex as a prescription drug.
Of course, gaining regulatory approval is only half the battle. The real hurdle for Big Pharma is finding customers for its product. Here again, a culture that is familiar with and educated to the use therapeutic cannabis is likely going to be far more open to the use of pot-based medicines than a population still stuck in the grip of "Reefer Madness."
Will those patients who already have first-hand experience with the use of medical pot switch to a cannabis-based pharmaceutical if one becomes legally available? Maybe not, but these individuals comprise only a fraction of the US population. Certainly many others will -- including many older patients who would never the desire to try or the access to obtain natural cannabis. Bottom line: regardless of whether pot is legal or not, cannabis-based pharmaceuticals will no doubt have a broad appeal.
But wouldn't the legal availability of pot encourage patients to use fewer pharmaceuticals overall? Perhaps, though likely not to any degree that adversely impacts Big Pharma's bottom line. Certainly most individuals in the Netherlands, Canada, and in California -- three regions where medical pot is both legal and easily accessible on the open market -- use prescription drugs, not cannabis for their ailments. Further, despite the availability of numerous legal healing herbs and traditional medicines such as Echinacea, Witch Hazel, and Eastern hemlock most Americans continue to turn to pharmaceutical preparations as their remedies of choice.
Should the advent of legal, alternative pot-based medicines ever warrant or justify the criminalization of patients who find superior relief from natural cannabis? Certainly not. But, as the private sector continues to move forward with research into the safety and efficacy of marijuana-based pharmaceuticals, it will become harder and harder for the government and law enforcement to maintain their absurd and illogical policy of total pot prohibition.
Of course, were it not for advocates having worked for four decades to legalize medical cannabis, it's unlikely that anyone -- most especially the pharmaceutical industry -- would be turning their attention toward the development and marketing of cannabis-based therapeutics. That said, I won't be holding my breath waiting for any royalty checks.
Oh yeah, and as for those who claim that the US government can't patent medical pot, check out the assignee for US Patent #6630507.

Paul Armentano is the senior policy analyst for the NORML Foundation in Washington, DC.

Independence Day

2008-07-05T11:19:00.000-04:00

Independence DayJuly 4, 2008 — crescentandcross
Independence Day

“I have to get home to my mother, she will be so worried if I am not back soon.”

9 year-old Mona clutched at the gaping hole in her stomach, blood pouring out of her as if someone had turned on a faucet. There was something so terribly and indescribably out of place in her frail words, the colliding of two disparate worlds, that of a mother’s child, and that of a little girl facing down the ugliest of what life and humanity had to offer.
The man kneeling at her side however knew better. He was a trained medical professional, and in a war zone known as Gaza of all places. He had seen this scenario a thousand times before, and a thousand times too many as far as he was concerned. This child would not be going home, at least not her earthly home, given the fact that she had just been shot in the stomach at close range by a soldier wielding a machine gun, the bullets from which produced exit wounds on her tiny body that were as large as golf balls. Had she known that her insides had just been turned to mush, it is highly unlikely that she would have been as composed as she was at this moment.
Her gesture in worrying about her mother, about not wanting to cause a beloved parent any grief was partly genuine, and partly an attempt to distract herself from the fact that she knew something terrible had just happened to her. Indeed a child’s sweetness knows no bounds, irrespective of where such a child can be found in the world. As she lie in a bath of her own warm blood that increased with each passing second, while frantic adults attempt to effect that which they know is futile, all she can think is that her mother must be worried, and how she wishes she could be home with her now, if only for enough time to give her one final embrace, tell her of a daughter’s love, and to say goodbye.
In the end, it all came down to sweets, an indispensable part of any child’s life, even in places that have been torn apart by warfare for the last century such as this. Today, little Mona, despite having grown up in a world of bullets and mortars, allowed the carelessness of her childhood to overpower her reason just enough to persuade her towards venturing forth into that deadly world of never ending violence to buy some cookies at the corner store. The fact that Israeli soldiers were busy with their latest masterpiece in butchery nearby did not seem to arouse her concern. After all, when all things were considered, this was just another day in the life of someone who knew she had been born under a sentence of death and who had developed an intimacy of sorts with this fact as if it had been her own skin.
On her way back, humming something sweet and armed with nothing more dangerous than the cookies in her hand, she was indiscriminately shot by an Israeli soldier, who, like all the rest of his ilk, had been told by both political and spiritual leaders that it is the religious duty of all good Zionists, a mitzvah, to cleanse the promised land of any impurities that may be infecting it, a process of sterilization which included, if it can be imagined, slaughtering helpless Arab children. And so, this courageous and obedient soldier from among a group of people who fancy themselves as being a light among nations, without the slightest hesitation pulled the trigger, simultaneously swatting away at the shred of what remained of his conscience as if it were some species of annoying insect.
For little Mona, it merely felt like a lit match touching her insides momentarily, and it was not until she began to feel the sensation of warm wetness on her dress that she began to panic. Her first instinct was that she might get into trouble for having gotten her new dress dirty, since the last thing her mother told her before leaving the house was to make sure not to get it messy.
Thus is the mind of a child, even when facing the awfulness of eternity that their thoughts are always to be found firmly rooted in something trivial and sweet. Perhaps it was the panic stricken appearances on the faces of those around her who were trying to help that caused her to realize the seriousness of what it was that she was facing, or perhaps it was the unseen whisper into her soul from some divine messenger telling her to hurry up, since time was running out. Either way, no one really knows.
And so in that fifteen seconds before her spirit was liberated from the hellish existence that had been imposed upon her and upon the rest of the inhabitants of the Holy Land by the self-described ‘chosen people’, the little Palestinian child of 9 years forgot all about her cookies, as well as about every other item of what encompasses a child’s existence, grew up quickly, remembered everything she had been taught during the religion classes she had taken throughout her life, and made her last statement of faith. In her last words, there was no malice, no pulsa de nura–the infamous curses that rabbis and Orthodox Jews hurl daily at passing Christians or Muslims in Israel, no condemnations, no vows of revenge. Her composure, as she lie there in a pool of her own blood, was as graceful and as dignified as was that of any patriot or saint who has secured a rightly earned place in mankind’s memory as a result of having had his or her life cut short by the actions of men hell-bent upon doing evil to others. For Mona, it would be one simple statement, without any fanfare or drama, final words that will probably be remembered by few, short of those who loved her more than they loved themselves.
The little girl whose life had been snuffed out like a candle, the last fragrance of this little Palestinian flower who had been cut down by the hatchet of Jewish supremacism had nothing more spiteful in her final curtain call other than “God is great.”
From a bird’s eye view, this was but one of several tragic scenes taking place on that day. A few miles away, a family of seven had just barely made it out of their home when the bulldozer crashed through where the living room was. There were no warnings that this demolition process was about to take place, and had it not been for the fact that 14 year-old Ismail went to the window to see what the noise was that was coming from outside, the entire family would most likely have been buried beneath the rubble. This was a common occurrence these days, of not ordering the evacuation of a home to be demolished, since the Israelis cared nothing about the lives of the filthy Arabs who were polluting their sacred land, and thus preferred that the entire mess be hauled away, home and dwellers included. Under the gaze of 3 armed-to-the-teeth Israeli soldiers, the family stood by and watched helplessly as everything that encompassed their lives was reduced to rubble within a few minutes.
There was nothing left of the meager example of their family’s security and order now, and even though what they had called a life had been a miserable existence anyway, at least they had had a place to call home where they could eat, sleep, and find refuge from the rain. This home, which had literally stood for centuries, was just one of thousands in recent years that has been bulldozed in order to make way for a new apartment complex for “better people,” the Zionists, who, if you were to ask them, were a race apart and chosen by God to be the bringers of enlightenment, peace and righteousness to the rest of humanity.
Perhaps it was the colors of it that caught his eye, the green, black, brown and white that contrasted with the sand-colored rubble of his former home’s exterior. Ismail went over to where his bedroom used to be and found it jutting forth from the rubble, the Palestinian flag he cherished and which he had used to adorn his room on the same wall upon which he hung the photos of friends and family members who had died fighting to liberate their land of its oppressors. He carefully pulled it out from the rubble, paying the same respect to his country’s colors that is paid by other citizens around the world to their respective countries, and forgetting where he was, or possibly, because of remembering where he was, draped the flag over the rubble in what was the only act of defiance he cold muster at this moment. 14 year-old Ismail turned and stared at his oppressors with a controlled yet determined stare. The three armed Israeli soldiers, recently arrived from the former Soviet Union and not able to speak even one word of the same Aramaic that was the language of the Biblical ancestors from whom they claimed to be descendents, finally got what they had been hoping for that day. After all, what good were guns for anyway if they remained cold and unfired? Was there no truth to the old saying that a weapon unused was a useless weapon? Therefore, without any concern paid for what might be future consequences, one from among them chuckled, lifted the American-made rifle that had been gifted to him by virtue of his ethnic superiority from a nation that dares to calls itself Christian, aimed its sights squarely between the boy’s eyes, and in the plain sight of all who were present, launched one of his .22 caliber missiles traveling at 3,300 feet per second through the boy’s head, resulting in a spray of pink mist that left the smell of human blood in the air.
Even before the echoes of the gunshot had died, the family was screaming in agony and running to the spot where Ismail lie as motionless as a child’s doll. His last act of defiance, of simply saluting the flag and of swearing loyalty to the land that his forefathers had inhabited for over a thousand years resulted in the execution of a death sentence under which he had lived from the moment he was born. And as the family members hold him in their arms, watching as his life flows out of him in rivers of red, wailing towards heaven and begging the Almighty who created him to spare his life, those who were responsible for authoring this misery-laden event simply walk away snickering, thinking to themselves that they are now one step closer to having finished the business of exterminating Amalek, the people whom their ancestors were commanded to eradicate in cleansing the promised land, Eretz Y’Israel and of making it racially and spiritually pure. Later that evening, there would be drinks and discussions of what kind of medals would be forthcoming as a result of the day’s hard work…
…And these were just some of the thoughts going through his mind as he looked out the window that evening, watching the night sky as its darkness was interrupted every few seconds by brilliant displays of light. It was July 4’th, 2004; Independence Day in America, but his thoughts could hardly be focused on the festivities that were supposed to mark this event. Not now, and not anytime soon. His eyes had been opened to something so horrible that precluded celebrating anything, much less the freedom that he was supposed to have as an American. It must have been quite a scene down there in town where all the fireworks were taking place. Over-sized Americans stuffed into under-sized clothing, beer in one hand and something to shove into their mouths in the other, congregating for the purpose of celebrating something that in reality they no longer possessed. Waddling around like penguins and peppering their base and trivial discussions with language that one would hear in an x-rated film, they had painted themselves into the ultimate picture of black humor, and had it not been for the fact that such terrible consequences were attached to this situation, one could have been moved towards laughing at all of it.
But laughing was out of the question now, for to do so would have been as vulgar as telling dirty jokes at a funeral. The tragedy was too great, too monstrous, too serious. Besides the fact that it was the ultimate in contrasting images, as well it was all taking place in the midst of unimaginable suffering for millions of others around the globe. Just imagining the audacity of it all made the bile in his throat rise and caused his brain to scream out loud in pain. They were like a group of individuals who had inherited a great fortune generations past, but who today, unbeknownst to them were as penniless as street bums, and all of this the result of their having allowed shyster lawyers to administer their estate and bleed it dry of all its wealth. Tonight as they celebrate their perceived fortunes and congratulate themselves for having inherited them, that which they do not realize is that fact that they are bankrupt, busted, broke, and even now, as they drink and mingle with each other, laughing and talking as foolish heirs often do, the paperwork is being signed in remote places wherein their foreclosure and eviction is being planned and implemented. It had become the ultimate contradiction of themes, Independence Day in America, as much so as if there had been something known as Virtuousness Day in the ancient city of Sodom thousands of years ago.
Our spiritually ex-patriate American, watching all of this from a distance remembered reading something once in a medical journal about schizophrenia and about how one of the telltale signs of this condition’s presence was found in an individual’s ability to simultaneously hold two completely contradictory ideas, and if this wasn’t a description of what had happened to this country, he didn’t know what could be. They had become a nation of madmen, wild beasts who couldn’t think for themselves outside of the parameters that had been constructed for them by overlords who were capable of doing nothing but evil. Here they were, celebrating their freedom in an age where their lives had been reduced to that of mice within a cage, and they were too stupid to realize it. A corporate police state had been constructed around them, and their country resembled the land of their forefathers as much as a swine resembles a ballerina, and yet they were too blind to see it.
But yet, as if on Pavlovian clue, here they were, shouting and hollering like a bunch of maniacs about how wonderful all of it was and how proud they were to be Americans, the freest people on the planet, how much God loved them and blah, blah, blah. He swallowed hard in contemplating these realities, and having ingested this nauseating gruel of clashing images, felt the beginnings of a sickness in his stomach that was not going to be chased away by anything over-the-counter.
For whatever reason, he had not been infected with this virus that had gripped millions of his countrymen on September 11 2001, and in the interests of maintaining his as well as his family’s intellectual and spiritual health, he had imposed upon himself and upon those who were under his charge a strict quarantine from his countrymen since that fateful day. Over the course of the following 3 years, from a safe distance he watched in horror as his nation slowly but surely came down with this plague of intellectual and spiritual paralysis, watched as his former countrymen marched uninterruptedly towards their own oblivion without so much as a trace of resistance.
And so, in maintaining this agenda of keeping his loved ones off of the political version of the Titanic, on this night our American friend was at home with his family instead of participating in the mass-suicide that was taking place down in town.
When the first “boom” had gone off, he and his wife had looked at each other simultaneously, each bearing a face that revealed the underlying sense of puzzlement mixed with a small amount of concern that each felt. It was followed by another distant “boom” and then another, and then both of them, remembering what day it was, nodded their heads and said in unison “July the 4th.”
The event shouldn’t have taken them by such surprise, particularly since they had spent a good part of that evening watching Independence Day, that not-so-subtle piece of propaganda released upon the American people just prior to initiating the wars to save Israel. Talk about blatant, this unashamed effort of pumping up the American people into supporting what was to be the biggest bloodbath in history, theirs or anyone else’s for that matter. A storyline wherein the planet is suddenly threatened with complete annihilation from hostile, fanatical un-humans bent upon the destruction of everyone who is not like them, an extra-terrestrial jihad which is defeated by the combined efforts of Jewish brains and American brawn. The only thing that could have made the film more obvious would have been bearded aliens dressed in sheets and quoting verses from some religious book that inspired them to do what it was that they were doing.
We should suppose though that our couple should be given some slack for having forgotten where they were and in what time period they were living, since the events of the last 2 years in America have been a whirlwind of sorts that should have left anyone with half an ounce of sense somewhat senseless.
It was only a few minutes of these distant festivities going on before there was heard the sound of small footsteps coming down the stairs. In single file, beginning with the youngest (who we can suppose were the most frightened by the noise and thus wanted to get to Mom and Dad as quickly as possible) up to the oldest came the 5 children who were suddenly awakened by what sounded like strange thunder. They made a beeline for the couch where Mom and Dad were seated, asking what all the noise was about, huddling in closely as children are biologically programmed to do. When “fireworks” came the answer, all the children turned their heads towards the window to see for themselves, relieved somewhat that there was no storm, or worse, that there was no new war that had just begun in their vicinity, a reality of present day life that they had come to understand better during the course of the last two years. The oldest boy, who by then had begun to feel the stirrings of his masculine nature already, was the first to recognize the light show for how it appeared, and walking towards the window to get a better gaze, said ominously “It looks like Iraq.”
Out of the mouths of babes, as the saying has always gone.
It certainly did look like Iraq, at least that version of it that had been presented to Americans in the opening moments of the war, wherein the night sky in Baghdad was illuminated in dizzying displays of light that resembled any night in
America on July the 4th. Perhaps this was how the puppet masters in Washington and Tel Aviv wanted it to be seen, this “shock and awe” as they characterized it, in trying to get the “freest” people in the world to acquiesce to the agenda of murdering 1.5 billion Muslims for Israel’s benefit. The other children, understanding the importance found in the oldest boy’s words, also walked towards the window to get a better view. They stood there, saying nothing, although everyone in the room knew what was on each other’s mind. They winced at each flash, recoiled a bit, not displaying the ‘ooohs’ and ‘aaahs’ that children would normally exhibit at such a performance. The light show, paired with its distant booms and crackles was just one of several obscene spectacles that their young eyes had witnessed since the beginning of the present war to erect the Israeli empire. Prior to this were the images of the little Iraqi boy whose arms had been completely blown off of his body when the Americans dropped a bomb directly on his home, killing his entire family. And as sickening as this was–the image of this boy fighting to keep himself from succumbing to utter despair, the spectacle which followed was even worse; that of the American soldiers loading him onto a military transport to take him to a medical facility and cheering as he went on his way, a grandiose attempt by the Zionist media to gloss over this tragedy that had somehow slipped past the censors and made its way before the eyes of the American people.
Of course, there were as well many other scenes that these children witnessed which brought the reality of this war to their eyes and which made them smarter than the average American as to what it was all about—the women and children of Palestine who were being shot and blown up on a daily basis for the last century by those who fancied themselves as the apple of God’s eye–America’s only allies in the Middle East, the Israelis, not to mention the daily destruction of all those monuments that have stood for thousands of years and which are considered sacred to billions of Christians and Muslims around the world. And so, what had taken place over the course of the last two years of watching the war on television and of discussing its awful realities with Mom and Dad is that these children had been robbed of their youth and their innocence. They understood life and the ugly side of human nature much better than children should, and this was the reason why there was no excitement in their eyes tonight while watching the rockets’ red glare and bombs bursting in air. Rather, they looked upon the images as any decent individual with open eyes should in America of 2004; a disgusting display of patriotic pornography that was a bringer of disease and death. It was pure smut, a way of defiling what would normally have been the beautiful act of expressing one’s love for the country in a wholesome, healthy way and of replacing it with a whorish, cheap, and sterile performance for lustful spectators. Worse yet is the fact that the national life and vitality that should have been produced by the consummation of this political marriage was (just as had been taking place in the literal sense over 4,000 times a day during the course of the last 30 years) torn to pieces by the political and cultural abortionists in Washington, New York, and Los Angeles, leaving in their wake a trail of death and destruction for hundreds of millions. And so, having had their fill of these ugly scenes and of being scandalized in such a frightful way, all went upstairs in single file as they had come down, a silent march, that, although not uttering a word, yet spoke volumes.
Having had enough of it herself, his wife followed suit and went to bed, leaving our friend in solitude to ponder other thoughts that refused to be chased away the night on which Americans were busy celebrating their freedom, Independence Day.…
The phone ringing at 3 am in the morning could never be a good thing. It was either bad news or a prank. For this particular individual, a phone call at 3 am to this number was particularly worrisome, since, being the most popular actor in the world, he had only given it out to a handful of friends and relatives. He heard his wife and the youngest of their seven children stir as the rings continued.
“Hello?” he answered, expecting to hear the voice of his father or someone else from the family with some kind of important news. “You think you’re pretty smart don’t you?” taunted the voice on the other line. It was a man’s voice, menacing, with a thick Brooklyn accent. The actor had heard the voice before, since this was not the first time he had been called in this manner. The voice continued. “You made me and my friends really mad, and we’re going to make sure that you pay for your crimes, you and your entire family. Think about that when you’re trying to get back to sleep.” The actor started to say something, displaying that angry, determined look on his face that he had famously worn in his movies and which had been seen before by millions of people around the world, but before he could get a word out, the line went dead.
“How did they get this number?”
His crime, the thing that had outraged this tiny minority of tyrants and which had driven them to the brink of madness was his decision to make a movie about the one man who was the most revered by the world’s 1 billion Christians and 1.5 billion Muslims, Jesus of Nazareth. In the months leading up to the release of the movie, the Zionist organizations had gone ballistic and had pulled the levers on every machine upon which they held sway in trying to destroy this man and his project. Under their direction, every newspaper, magazine, radio and television program had devoted a considerable amount of their attention to the campaign of smearing him and of making a mockery of his film. Some of these groups, the less cautious, actually petitioned the US government to have this man and his associates arrested as terrorists under the provisions of the Patriot Act.
It was July the 4th, Independence Day in America, and not only his life, but the lives of those whom he loved had just been threatened, again, something that had become a regular event now for over a year as a result of his daring to exercise his freedom of speech and religion. He had gone to the police, the FBI of all people, but nothing was done short of periodic assurances by agency spokesmen that “they were looking into it.”
Our American actor should have known better than to call them, since after all it was this same agency that had allowed over 200 spies who had been directly involved in the attacks of September 11th to be sent back to Israel immediately following what took place on that fateful day. Added to this, the fact that the Zionist group that was responsible for making such a fuss about his movie, the ADL, was a known yet unregistered agency of the Israeli government and the fact that it had enjoyed a love affair with the FBI over the course of the last 5 decades should have signaled to him whose priorities were going to take precedence in this matter.
And if these two items weren’t enough, then that which should have brought his expectations into proper alignment with reality was the fact that the individual who was responsible for overseeing much of the FBI’s investigations held dual citizenship in America and in Israel, and this fact, more than anything else should have underscored for him just how ridiculous the business of contacting them over this matter really was. In all fairness to our naïve American actor though, what else could he do? He had a family whose safety he was responsible for securing, and he still, foolishly, believed in the system, at least somewhat.
Tonight, the same people who flocked to see his famous movie in droves will don their baseball hats, their t-shirts emblazoned with such recently resurrected and popularized slogans as “United We Stand” and “God Bless America” and who, while clutching in their hands the millions of miniature American flags specially made for this event will celebrate their enslavement to the very same jackals who made the threatening phone call tonight, although none among the sheep will recognize this as being the case. They will nostalgically and schizophrenically lump the triumph of this man’s movie and the war in the Middle East together as being two sides of the same coin–2 fronts in the war to save Christianity and its civilization–two battles being fought in defense of the faith and freedom, refusing to see that the very same people who were responsible for running this man’s life through the meat grinder are the very same who are sending America’s sons and daughters off to die in the Middle East for the benefit of a foreign power who is, despite all the propagandizing that has taken place, no friend. And while all this is taking place, in the very land where a war of liberation was waged by a peasant carpenter from Nazareth against the descendents of those who made the threatening phone call tonight a continuation of this war is raging at full throttle. At this moment, the gangsters who put to death the main character in the same film which Christians in America stampeded like buffalo to go see in 2004 have returned after being chased out in 70 AD and are attempting to impose upon the world the very same nightmare that the Palestinian carpenter-turned-revolutionary tried to prevent.
Tonight, all the spots that commemorate the great events of this carpenter’s life and which have stood as some of the greatest monuments to the development of Western Civilization are being bulldozed and blown up by Jewish supremacist tyrants, while a group of Arab peasants attempt to prevent this disaster from taking place, even with their life’s blood. Tonight, as Americans celebrate the memories of those who gave their lives for the liberation of their own country from a foreign invader, will at the same time curse and castigate those who are attempting to do the same in the lands of Palestine and Iraq. Tonight, “cowards” and “terrorists,” as they have been called by the President of the United States and by his Zionist overlords, are fighting with every ounce of their beings to liberate their respective countries from the foreigners who have invaded their lands and who are slaughtering their women and children in the tens and hundreds of thousands. Adults, not having the sophisticated weaponry that is used against them by their oppressors will strap themselves with explosives and blow themselves up in order to take out the assassins within the Israeli military machine and their hired mercenaries from America who murder women and children on a daily basis. Children, in what is but a modern day repeat of the battle fought between David vs. Goliath will bravely go up against tanks and machine guns, often armed with nothing more than rocks and sticks and will fight this enemy with every ounce of their beings, knowing beforehand that they stand a good chance of losing arms and legs and even their lives. These “cowards” and “terrorists” will do so for exactly the same reasons and in exactly the same manner as was done by those rare Americans who, over 200 years previously, drove out foreign invaders who were bent upon enslaving them and of robbing them of their own destinies. Every man, woman, and child in Iraq, Palestine and every other place where the beast of Jewish supremacism is on the rampage, are–whether donning a rifle, grenade launcher, bomb vest, or a vehicle laden with explosives–brilliant reincarnations of the patriots of 1776 who refused to go down without a fight, who refused to go quietly into the night, freedom fighters whose existence today has been reduced to one agenda that is beyond negotiation or surrender, which is simply, “give us liberty or give us death.” Of course we will not find an ounce of this awareness among those Americans who have chosen to tempt the patience of fate on this night, July 4th, Independence Day. As they foolishly wave their flags, put their hands over the hearts and sing with a quivering voice the national anthem with tears welling up in their eyes, what they have chosen to do is to participate in an obscene display of hypocrisy and contempt for that gem of incalculable value known as freedom, as well as for the justice that must accompany its existence if it is to remain a viable entity. The contempt that they maintain for those who are paying with their life’s blood so that they themselves may experience just a tasting of the same freedom that Americans presume to be celebrating on this night has become a perfect representation of the two minute’s hate of George Orwell’s nightmarish novel 1984. Tonight, as it will be for many future nights in the coming years, the cursing that the Americans will display against those in the Middle East for daring to defend their beloved homelands and families from foreign assassins has become the chanting of the contradictions in that infamous, prophetic piece of fiction turned-into-non-fiction which predicted a future state of madness for humanity: war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength, and by such, has now become the process of spitting on the graves of those who gave their lives before them in the noble cause of freedom. What they are doing in effect by championing the war against Israel’s enemies, in cheering like the mob at the coliseum for the hellish precepts of the Jewish supremacist agenda is to hold in contempt the war for freedom that their forefathers waged centuries past, although today, most of them are too stupid to recognize this as being the case. For in reality, what are they daring to celebrate this night? Freedom? They are as bankrupt of this currency as some indigent, homeless hobo on the street begging for food. Justice? Their political and cultural system is as anemic of this life-sustaining element to the point of near death. Truth? The fools who tonight are championing the slaughter of the last remaining impediment to the enslavement of the Jewish supremacist agenda stagger around aimlessly, inebriated on the drug of duplicity that they ingest on a daily basis by a government media complex furthering the cause of Zionist tyranny. Decency? Their society has become like a leper colony full of dying individuals who are rotting away from the corrosive effects of the plague, a plague that has resulted from poisons that have been deliberately poured into the wellspring of their culture by the very same assassins who bow at the feet of the Israeli agenda. After all, what is the event being remembered this evening, and for which all of this energy and effort is being expended? The day when a group of rugged individuals refused to be enslaved by a man named George who was a puppet to the business interests and corporations that controlled him? The day in which patriots stood up to the most powerful political, economic, and military power in the world at that time for the chance to run their lives free of those who would be their overlords? The day in which they fought back against an invasion initiated by foreign powers that threatened the peace and prosperity of their lives and the lives of those whom they loved? Please…no more.
It is something that, out of respect for the dead, should be put on hold for a while, this celebration of Independence Day in America. Not only out of respect for those who gave their lives fighting for this thing known as freedom 200 years ago in America, but more importantly, out of respect for those who are fighting for it today and who are being rewarded with nothing but scorn and derision by Americans for their efforts. The honor that is due to the minutemen at Lexington Bridge who were killed by the British is shamed and tarnished when remembering the event in which 35 of America’s young men were deliberately murdered by the Israelis in 1967 when the ship that carried them, the USS Liberty, was torpedoed, napalmed and machine-gunned for almost 2 hours with the quiet complicity of the American government. The outrage with which Americans recall the unsuccessful assassination attempt on George Washington’s life by the British is irredeemably defiled when paired next to what was successfully realized by a nuclear weapons-hungry Israel against the same John F. Kennedy who stood in her way of getting the bomb. The disdain that Benedict Arnold has suffered for 2 centuries now and counting as a result of his treachery in turning coat and siding with America’s enemy at that time is but a grain of sand placed alongside a mountain when considering the manner in which today all the elected members of the American government have unflinchingly cast their lots with the worst enemy that America has ever had. Here they were this night, standing solidly behind the man who lied to them about the reasons for America’s entry into the present war being fought in erecting the Israeli empire, King George, the man responsible for the deaths of thousands of sons and daughters serving in the American military and who has promised to send even more to die in the coming years, and they cheer. This man and his coterie who silently sent back to Israel the nest of spies, 200 or more, who played an indispensable role in the deaths of 3,000 Americans on September 11th sits atop his throne receiving the adulations of a compliant and conquered American people. They hoop and holler over their ancestors having thrown off the shackles of a foreign power 2 centuries past, and yet drink themselves silly over the fact that they have become the useful idiots of a foreign power whose thirst for supremacy and blood makes what was ‘British tyranny’ in 1776 look like paradise. Even now, as the next terrible event is being planned that will dwarf what took place on 9/11, these individuals who today inform on their friends and family to the Zionist thought police and who would have been the hated loyalists in America’s war against Great Britain 200 years ago refuse to see the obvious for what it is. And it is in this light therefore that our American friend, watching from a distance as the fires of duplicity and treachery consume the land that he used to love becomes a refugee, a wanderer without a home and without a country to which he can swear his allegiance. He sees the circus in town for what it really is, a farce of unprecedented historical outrage that should be an abomination in the eyes of every decent human being on the planet. The presence of these individuals tonight at what should be the solemn ceremony of celebrating freedom and of commemorating the sacrifices made by selfless individuals for their beloved country is as appropriate as would be a whore clad in a red dress at someone’s first communion ceremony.
In the meantime, our friend must do the unthinkable, something that he never would have imagined doing in a million years, which is to find an escape route out of this ‘land of freedom’ before this beast that is on the rampage snatches his own children and drags them off to fight and die for the benefit of a hostile, maniacal foreign power. He must begin preparations to flee, while there is time, to some safe haven lest the storm that is gathering comes and destroys everything that has given his life meaning. As a descendant of those who came to America looking for freedom from their respective countries, he must reverse these events and bring the family name to distant shores, someplace where his children will be safe–not only from being physically kidnapped and dragged off to die in order to serve the beast of the Zionist agenda, but as well from the highly contagious and deadly mental illness that has destroyed their countrymen.
And as he looks out the window, wincing as the mid-air explosions and percussions–meant as a celebration of this thing called independence, punctuate what would ordinarily have been a peaceful night, he thinks to himself, “If I could be president for a day, the things I would do.” In his meanderings, he envisions what would take place in a world where freedom and liberty are celebrated and honored in the spirit of true justice, where vice and bloodthirstiness are contained and then, even if only temporarily, terminated instead of celebrated. And he concludes his thoughts by saying something that he always remembered hearing his grandfather solemnly say when speaking of future events, a man who was born in the same Holy Land where today’s true patriots are fighting and who understood where life’s importance lie; “Yom Yommi”, which, when translated from the same Aramaic tongue spoken by the freedom fighters of Palestine 2,000 years ago against the beast of Jewish Supremacism simply means “the day will come.”
The day will come wherein Independence Day, on whatever date it falls, will be a day celebrated by all the world’s peoples, not just by those in America. It will be a day commemorating the event wherein mankind fought and achieved its independence from the beast of the Jewish supremacist agenda, and wherein a wooden stake was driven through the heart of a vampire that terrorized the world in such an unimaginable and unprecedented way. It will be remembered as the day wherein those who were tyrannized in such a brutal manner by the descendents of Cain rose up and finally cast into the lake of fire this animal that has prowled about humanity’s homestead and who has snatched the helpless, dragged them off towards oblivion and devoured them without any mercy. It will be the day wherein from the heavens, children like Mona and Ismail and all the others who were cut down by Hell’s assassins are remembered and enshrined as some of the best individuals that humanity had to offer as a result of their having given their lives in fighting for the taste of freedom. It will be celebrated as the day in which the beast and his 2,000-year agenda was finally put to the torch, and permanently made a thing of the past, never to be resurrected again. And, with these last thoughts, our American friend turns from the shock and awe, walks towards where his wife and baby lie sleeping, thinking of the heroes whose exploits would one day tell the story of freedom and justice for all mankind…
And it was July 4th, 2004, Independence Day in America.
‘Independence Day’ is an excerpt of Mark Glenn’s book No Beauty in the Beast…Israel Without Her Mascara which can be accessed by going to www.crescentandcross.com. The author can be reached at

he thought in disbelief. It was a brand new number, and only about 5 people had it. The only way possible was to break into the phone company’s computer banks and retrieve it, which would have required the resources of a government or at the very least, its passive cooperation. mailto:crescentandcross@gmail.com

U.S. Funding Terror Attacks In Iran

2008-07-04T20:41:00.002-04:00

WTF, I thought that they were the ones that were...............

By Sherwood Ross

The recent surge of terrorist violence in Iran likely is being funded in part by the Bush administration with the support of Congress.
According to a report in the July 7-14 issue of The New Yorker magazine, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh says the U.S. reportedly has been funding the Iranian dissident terrorist group Mujahideen-e-Khalq, or M.E.K.; the Kurdish separatist Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan, or PJAK; and, according to some sources, the Jundallah, or Iranian People’s Resistance Movement.

“Hardly a day goes by now we don’t see a clash somewhere,” retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner is quoted by Hersh as stating. “There were three or four incidents over a recent weekend, and the Iranians are even naming the Revolutionary Guard officers who have been killed.” Gardiner has taught strategy at the National War College and is monitoring the violence in Iran.
The bloodshed in Iran likely has been underwritten by the U.S. Congress which last year acceded to a request from Bush “to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran,” Hersh writes, “designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership.” Bush asked for $400 million for the work.
“The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Ara and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations,” Hersh added, noting that “Clandestine operations against Iran are not new” and U.S. Special Operations Forces “have been conducting cross-border operations from southern Iraq, with Presidential authorization, since last year.”
Earlier this year, a militant Ahwazi group claimed to have assassinated a Revolutionary Guard colonel, Hersh noted, and the Iranian government conceded an explosion in the southern city of Shiraz had been a terrorist act. That blast killed a dozen people and injured more than 200. Hersh said it could not be learned if there was any specific U.S. involvement in that incident.
However, the M.E.K., which has been on the State Department’s terrorist list for more than a decade, in recent years “has received arms and intelligence, directly or indirectly, from the United States,” Hersh writes, and some of the newly authorized covert fund money may well flow into their coffers. A Pentagon consultant who was not named told Hersh, “The (Bush) Administration is desperate for results.”
As for the Kurdish PJAK, reportedly getting U.S. covert funding, Hersh quotes Gardiner as noting there has been a marked increase in the number of their armed engagements with Iranians and terrorist attacks on Iranian targets. PJAK fighters last May attacked Revolutionary Guards and in June attacked Iranian border guards.
A former senior intelligence official indicated to Hersh that Vice President Cheney’s office “set up priorities for categories of targets (in Iran) and now he’s getting impatient and applying pressure for results. But it takes a long time to get the right guys in place.”
The official added, “There is huge opposition inside the intelligence community to the idea of waging a covert war inside Iran, and using Baluchis and Ahwazis as surrogates.”
The official was also quoted as saying there had been a meeting in Cheney’s office and “The subject was how to create a casus belli (an event to justify a declaration of war) between Tehran and Washington.”
Hersh also wrote that Admiral William Fallon, who until recently headed the U.S. Central Command with oversight for Iraq and Afghanistan, “resigned under pressure, after giving a series of interviews stating his reservations about an armed attack on Iran.”
Retired Marine General John Sheehan, formerly commander-in-chief of the U.S. Atlantic Command, told Hersh that when Fallon “tried to make sense of all the overt and covert activity conducted by the military in his area of responsibility, a small group in the White House leadership shut him out.”
Hersh quoted a Pentagon consultant as stating, “Fallon went down because, in his own way, he was trying to prevent a war with Iran, and you have to admire him for that.”
In sum, while the Bush regime claims the Iranians are behind attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq, (an assertion fraught with what the New York Times delicately called “significant uncertainties,”) there is no longer any question Bush is doing just that inside Iran; that Cheney is looking for a cause to start a war; and that the White House will fire any flag officer that dares to stand in its way. #

(Sherwood Ross is a resident of Miami, Fla., who writes on military and political subjects. He has worked as a reporter for the Chicago Daily News and for wire services. Reach him at sherwoodr1@yahoo.com).Authors Bio: Sherwood Ross has worked as a publicist for the City of Chicago and as a public relations consultant to New York City. He worked as news director for the National Urban League; as a reporter for the Chicago Daily News and a workplace columnist for Reuters. He has also been a media consultant to colleges, universities, law schools and more than 100 national magazines including The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Business Week, and Foreign Policy. Ross also was a talk show host at WOL Radio, Washington, D.C., and holds an award for "best spot news coverage" for Chicago radio stations. He is the author "Gruening of Alaska,"(Best)and several plays, including "Baron Jiro," produced at Live Arts Theatre, Charlottesville, Va., and "Yamamoto's Decision," read at the National Press Club, where he is a member. His favorite quotations are from the Sermon on The Mount.

Enough already!

2008-07-04T15:38:00.001-04:00

By Frank Scott Online Journal Contributing Writer

While a cowardly congress avoids prosecuting George W. Bush for using the constitution as toilet paper and getting us into war by twisting facts even more than his syntax, more serious problems await their failure to act as representatives of the American people.
Problems such as: Should we bomb Iran for Israel, or pay Israel to bomb Iran and either way suffer the consequences? Should we resolve this dilemma with the present regime, or wait for the new executive staff next year? How long can the international community -- the USA, Israel, a British lapdog and a French poodle -- tolerate the mad killer in Tehran who threatens to exterminate Jews, sodomize puppies and rape white women in his demonic campaign to rule the world. Or something like that.
Our political paparazzi spread stories of Ahmadinejad and Iran that are almost that blatantly idiotic. As madmen press for us to murder more people in their quest for a divinity that will leave them chosen survivors of a nuclear holocaust, our corporate congress acts as willing servant. It is only aroused to action when Zionists snap their fingers, or when neocons wave a flag.
No wonder so many are swept up in a passionate hope that dulls the senses, but at least seems to offer some light at a very dark time. It is necessary to be asleep to experience a dream, but now we need to be comatose to imagine an American Dream of prosperity, peace and justice, let alone a self-focused one of personal success. A fully awakened people have to confront the present crisis before it becomes an American Nightmare.
The constant leaking of information about planned attacks on Iran indicate that groups within the establishment, supportive of empire but opposed to its present madness, are trying to avoid disaster. But the ruling fanatics are also hard at work, and with the most spineless opposition our nation has ever known -- if they’d been around during the American revolution we’d all be speaking with British accents -- there is a vital need to come out of our political slumber, or mythical dreams will become factual nightmares.
While it’s easy to see that attacking Iran could be more insanely destructive than the slaughter we have caused in Iraq, that is only apparent to those with some sense remaining after having our heads beaten to a pulp by distortions of reality. Our irrational consciousness controllers claim that Iran threatens mankind, especially Jewish mankind, and this based on evidence as convincing as proof of how many angels dance on the head of a pin.
When Ahmadinejad quoted his Imam and said that the rulers of Israel, like those of the Soviet Union, would vanish into history, it somehow became a threat of holocaust revival, endlessly repeated by those incapable of coherent reasoning in English, let alone the Persian spoken by Ahmadinejad.
At a time of confusion and fear, many Americans who hardly believe much their government and its controlling institutions say, seem ready to swallow any bilge shoved into their heads if it’s about the Islamic world. This may be a time for the doubters of much that they are told, most of the time, to become disbelievers in everything they are told, all the time.
Given that we are supposedly a nation of believers, it might be better if we prayed for guidance from immaterial forces before letting hysterical crackpots push us into supporting material action of ever more murderous intolerance and stupidity.
Iran is neither a threat to America, nor is its nuclear program any of our business. Especially since our business involves being the only nation to have ever used nukes, arming ourselves with more of them, and remaining silent about the mass murder potential of the primary source of moronic fables about Iran. That would be AIPAC -- the American Jewish lobby -- and Israel, where Mordechai Vanunu spent years in prison for trying to tell the world that it is as great a threat to humanity as is the USA. Why? It is founded on a myth of perpetual threat of annihilation at the hands of the rest of the world, so that any defense against that threat, however irrational, is deemed logical and even divine.
For the moment, the paranoia is focused on Iran, but it once was Iraq and soon could be any nation or group that incurs the animosity of Israel’s American lobby. And it doesn't take much beyond honest criticism to incur the highly financed rage of that lobby and its sentiment of pending doom, based on biblical legend more than historic reality. If descendants of Native Americans and African slaves had the same psychological aberration, Americans might never be allowed to sleep again.
A public almost desperate to see the Bush regime fade away seems to have been lulled into a state of greater passivity than usual. But the incredible nature of proposed war on Iran may be, hopefully, pushing many closer to action. If that only involves a gentile sector of the ruling class, relief will be brief, at best. If it means a breakthrough in desires and demands for a truly democratic society run by a majority of citizens and not their minority rulers, we may not only avert short-term disaster but bring on real long term-hope for progress.
If we remain angry, confused and lashing out at innocent scapegoats instead of challenging real power, an outlook that can seem personally bleak could soon turn into one of social disaster. It is long past the time for Americans to say we’ve had enough and we can’t take it anymore. That means ending the dictatorship of corporate wealth and Zionism, and beginning a democracy of all the people. Can we? We’d better.

Copyright © 2008 Frank Scott. All rights reserved.Frank Scott writes political commentary which appears in the Coastal Post, a monthly publication from Marin County, California, and on numerous web sites, and on his shared blog at legalienate.blogspot.com. Contact him at frankscott@comcast.net.

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The Fouth of July Lie

2008-07-04T10:54:00.000-04:00

A Fresh Look at Holidays

by Butler Shafferby Butler Shaffer

I have long been a critic of the state’s co-option of holidays to serve governmental purposes, thus negating the messages these holidays originally served. July 4th – designed to celebrate independence from the state – has been refashioned as a holiday for revelling in the state’s favorite activity, war. Television treats us to a seemingly endless supply of John Wayne films, urging us to embrace the contradictory idea that submitting ourselves to increased state power is the way to promote our liberty! It is such twisted thinking that leads those who refuse to examine the content of their minds to bleat about the soldiers who "fight for our freedom." What nonsense. Shall we next be told that Sunset Boulevard hookers are peddling virtue?
Just how far we have contorted our thinking about "independence day" is reflected in most people’s thinking about fireworks. Like private gun-ownership, our personal use of fireworks represents too much power in the hands of individuals. And so, we confine ourselves to the absurdity of having the state celebrate our liberty and independence for us!
Memorial Day is another holiday corrupted by statism. Originally begun as a day for remembering the dead – particularly those who had died in war – it, too, has been twisted into a day for celebrating – not condemning – warfare. Back to the film files for more John Wayne flicks. Like his neocon successors who never heard a gunshot fired in anger, Wayne remains a hero to the statists for having bravely and selflessly defended the back-lot of Republic Pictures during World War II.
The November 11th Armistice Day holiday of my childhood – which celebrated the end of a war – has metamorphosed into Veterans Day, with thousands of war veterans donning their American Legion caps or U.S.S. Missouri baseball caps to praise the war system, rather than its albeit temporary cessation. More John Wayne celluloid makes it to the television screens. In such fictionalized accounts, young and impressionable minds learn the righteousness not only of obedience to authority, but of throwing oneself upon a live hand grenade.
And for what could we be more thankful on that fourth Thursday in November than living in a nation ruled by an all-powerful state that protects us from the savage hordes menacing us from such lands as Grenada, Afghanistan, Libya, Panama, Iraq, or any other enemy-of-the-month selected by establishment rulers? Nor does New Year’s Day go unused by the state, it being the date on which most of the new regulations on our lives take effect, as well as the beginning of a new tax year.
Even Christmas – the day, not that many decades ago, that was virtually synonymous with "peace" – has given rise to Christmas cards depicting flag-draped Santa Clauses, and homes decorated in red, white, and blue lights. And as children unwrap their "G.I. Joe" toys or their warrior-based computer games, the ballad "Onward Christian Soldiers" may be heard on a local radio station.
Even as modernly practiced, there is one nice thing about national holidays: they provide a day off work for government employees. With this thought in mind, I propose a further expansion of such holidays, to the end that all 365 days of the year be taken up in honoring someone, or some event, or some group of people who should be accorded the same recognition as those now favored. I have a few samples to get our thinking started.
When a holiday for Martin Luther King was first being considered, I suggested other renowned blacks as more suitable honorees, Frederick Douglass being my choice. If there was an insistence upon selecting a more recent candidate, I would have preferred Malcolm X, who – particularly near the end of his life – saw the deeper basis of social conflict than the simplistic "black-versus-white" model upon which most of us have settled, and which is becoming a focal point in this year’s presidential campaign. So, indulge my thinking for the purpose of having additional national holidays for Douglass and Malcolm.
In this age of hyphenated ego-boundary identities, religious, ethnic, and nationality groups could take up the cause for honoring their specific associations. The Christians and Jews already have their holidays (a word which, itself, stems from "holy days") recognized. But what about Muslims, Buddhists, Shintoists, Hindus, and the many other religions that are not recognized with a holiday? At a time when politicians like to talk about diversity, why are the members of these religions left out? And what about atheists? Shouldn’t Madalyn Murray O’Hair’s birthday also be recognized, as a confirmation of the non-establishment clause of the 1st Amendment?
Just imagine what could be done to shrink governmental behavior by recognizing nationality groups for a national holiday? Lithuanian Day, Cinco de Mayo, Norwegian Day, Kenya Day, Thailand Day, . . . on and on to encompass all nationalities as well as sub-nationalities (e.g., not just Iraq Day, but Shiite Day, Sunni Day, etc.). Yugoslavia – which has since decentralized into five separate nations – and Czechoslovakia – which has fragmented into the Czech Republic and Slovakia – could multiply the numbers, just as the collapse of the Soviet Union has breathed new life into a great many independent nations.
And why have we limited America’s presidential nominees to a single President’s Day? How about a day to honor each of them? My favorite – and the only one I would choose to honor – would be William Henry Harrison, a man who caught pneumonia on inauguration day and died a month later! Grover Cleveland would probably be entitled to two such days, his having served two non-consecutive terms.
You get the picture. Occupations, genders, lifestyles, belief systems, etc., etc., could each be recognized. Instead of a generic "Labor Day," what about a day recognizing farmers, who produce the food that sustains us? Furthermore, what about a day to honor those whose work is far more central to our well-being than rock stars and athletes, namely, those who dispose of the entropic wastes of our world (e.g., garbage and trash collectors, undertakers, and plumbers)? Such people – along with farmers – do the work many of us despise and yet, without their efforts, we would be inundated in waste (have you ever lived in New York City during a garbage-collectors’ strike?).
Let us have a paid holiday for everyone, in honor of all these e pluribus unum groups we like to imagine have created America. If all 365 days could be filled up, this would mean that all government employees would continue to get paid: they just wouldn’t show up for work to do anything. The benefit of paying such people to stay out of our way would be a wonderful first step toward a total dismantling of the state. We would still be stuck with paying their salaries but, on the other hand, we would have put an end to their ceaseless meddling. Enough of these people might become so bored with having no work to perform, they might quit their government jobs and go into the marketplace with the rest of us! To paraphrase an old Vietnam War saying, "what if they created a government, but nobody came?"
July 4, 2008
Butler Shaffer [send him e-mail] teaches at the Southwestern University School of Law. He is the author of Calculated Chaos: Institutional Threats to Peace and Human Survival.
Copyright © 2008 LewRockwell.com
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The great Fake Panic of 2008

2008-07-03T09:26:00.000-04:00

The great Panic of 2008, click here.

Happy Oil Dependence Day

2008-07-02T08:39:00.002-04:00

Posted on Jul 1, 2008
AP photo / Charles Dharapak

Sen. Charles Schumer, left, accompanied by Sen. Robert Casey Jr. and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, takes questions during a news conference on Capitol Hill in April. The three legislators were calling on President Bush to urge OPEC members to increase oil supplies or risk Congress blocking arms sales to Saudi Arabia and other OPEC countries.

By Robert Scheer
As we head into the Fourth of July weekend of patriotic bluster and beer swilling—but before we are too besotted with ourselves—might we also for once consider our imperfections? Why not take a moment to heed the cautions of our founding father, George Washington, whose true legacy will most likely be ignored during the flag-waving weekend?
Washington’s “Farewell Address” to the new nation was a warning about the threat of American imperial ambitions and a declaration of his high expectations for a republic of free men: “In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old and affectionate friend, I dare not hope they will make the strong and lasting impression I could wish; that they will control the usual current of the passions, or prevent our nation from running the course which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations. But, if I may even flatter myself, that they may be productive of some partial benefit, some occasional good; that they may now and then recur to moderate the fury of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism. ...”
We are drowning in the “impostures of pretended patriotism,” used to cover the lies that got us into Iraq, the defense of torture and the violation of our basic liberties. In the name of patriotism, we presume a God-given American right to reorder the world to our liking, masking the vice of unfettered greed as an obligation of national security.
Any doubts as to this later governing impulse of our imperial ambitions were shattered with the recent news that U.S. advisers to our puppet government in the Green Zone of occupied Iraq have worked out agreements for American oil companies to gain control of Iraqi oil fields. But, then again, what did we expect when we elected a Texas oil hustler, and a failed one at that, to be our president?
Only in an America dumbed down by constant propaganda about our innate moral superiority will anyone any longer believe that we didn’t invade Iraq for the oil, even though Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice came to the Bush administration from the board of directors at Chevron, where they named an oil tanker after her. Like Vice President Dick Cheney with those Halliburton contracts, Rice has stayed true to her corporate sponsors. That’s what the U.S. invasion of Iraq accomplished; for the first time in more than three decades after Iraq joined a worldwide trend of formerly colonized nations gaining control of their own resources, Big Oil is getting its black gold back. It was always about the oil—that’s why “we” invaded Iraq—only “we” aren’t getting any, at least not at a reasonable price. The oil companies are.
I know it’s difficult for the corporate media and politicians, both fueled generously by energy money, to grasp the distinction, but we the people and they the oil companies are not one and the same. While we suffer at the pump, they make record profits, which is the way they like it. Don’t think for a second that U.S. oil companies are rushing into Iraq to expand production to help lower world oil prices, thus making their investments less profitable. They just want to be on the winning side, which is why the CEO of Halliburton relocated his office from Texas to the United Arab Emirates, where I am certain he and his fellow corporate expatriates are able to happily celebrate the Fourth of July.
So, take that American flag off your lapel and replace it with a button bearing the Exxon or Chevron logo. C’mon, Dick Cheney and Condi Rice, be straight about what it is you are really pushing here. ’Fess up—it’s not the good old USA as represented by the sucker taxpayers conned by your patriotic blather. No sirree, what you would have Americans paying homage to is the majesty of the big multinational corporations that exploit American military power to rule the world.
But recognize that you have shamed the legacy of our first president. George Washington, who distinguished the promise of the new world from the corruptions of the old by shunning imperial conquest, said: “Our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing.”
If Barack Obama or John McCain was to offer such words of wisdom this Fourth of July, he would be vilified as “weak,” and that is a fit measure of just how far we have descended from the high hopes of our first president.
Robert Scheer is the author, most recently, of “The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America,” published by Twelve Books.Happy Oil Dependence Day
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Posted on Jul 1, 2008
AP photo / Charles Dharapak
Sen. Charles Schumer, left, accompanied by Sen. Robert Casey Jr. and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, takes questions during a news conference on Capitol Hill in April. The three legislators were calling on President Bush to urge OPEC members to increase oil supplies or risk Congress blocking arms sales to Saudi Arabia and other OPEC countries.
By Robert Scheer
As we head into the Fourth of July weekend of patriotic bluster and beer swilling—but before we are too besotted with ourselves—might we also for once consider our imperfections? Why not take a moment to heed the cautions of our founding father, George Washington, whose true legacy will most likely be ignored during the flag-waving weekend?
Washington’s “Farewell Address” to the new nation was a warning about the threat of American imperial ambitions and a declaration of his high expectations for a republic of free men: “In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old and affectionate friend, I dare not hope they will make the strong and lasting impression I could wish; that they will control the usual current of the passions, or prevent our nation from running the course which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations. But, if I may even flatter myself, that they may be productive of some partial benefit, some occasional good; that they may now and then recur to moderate the fury of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism. ...”
We are drowning in the “impostures of pretended patriotism,” used to cover the lies that got us into Iraq, the defense of torture and the violation of our basic liberties. In the name of patriotism, we presume a God-given American right to reorder the world to our liking, masking the vice of unfettered greed as an obligation of national security.
Any doubts as to this later governing impulse of our imperial ambitions were shattered with the recent news that U.S. advisers to our puppet government in the Green Zone of occupied Iraq have worked out agreements for American oil companies to gain control of Iraqi oil fields. But, then again, what did we expect when we elected a Texas oil hustler, and a failed one at that, to be our president?
Only in an America dumbed down by constant propaganda about our innate moral superiority will anyone any longer believe that we didn’t invade Iraq for the oil, even though Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice came to the Bush administration from the board of directors at Chevron, where they named an oil tanker after her. Like Vice President Dick Cheney with those Halliburton contracts, Rice has stayed true to her corporate sponsors. That’s what the U.S. invasion of Iraq accomplished; for the first time in more than three decades after Iraq joined a worldwide trend of formerly colonized nations gaining control of their own resources, Big Oil is getting its black gold back. It was always about the oil—that’s why “we” invaded Iraq—only “we” aren’t getting any, at least not at a reasonable price. The oil companies are.
I know it’s difficult for the corporate media and politicians, both fueled generously by energy money, to grasp the distinction, but we the people and they the oil companies are not one and the same. While we suffer at the pump, they make record profits, which is the way they like it. Don’t think for a second that U.S. oil companies are rushing into Iraq to expand production to help lower world oil prices, thus making their investments less profitable. They just want to be on the winning side, which is why the CEO of Halliburton relocated his office from Texas to the United Arab Emirates, where I am certain he and his fellow corporate expatriates are able to happily celebrate the Fourth of July.
So, take that American flag off your lapel and replace it with a button bearing the Exxon or Chevron logo. C’mon, Dick Cheney and Condi Rice, be straight about what it is you are really pushing here. ’Fess up—it’s not the good old USA as represented by the sucker taxpayers conned by your patriotic blather. No sirree, what you would have Americans paying homage to is the majesty of the big multinational corporations that exploit American military power to rule the world.
But recognize that you have shamed the legacy of our first president. George Washington, who distinguished the promise of the new world from the corruptions of the old by shunning imperial conquest, said: “Our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing.”
If Barack Obama or John McCain was to offer such words of wisdom this Fourth of July, he would be vilified as “weak,” and that is a fit measure of just how far we have descended from the high hopes of our first president.
Robert Scheer is the author, most recently, of “The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America,” published by Twelve Books.

THE GLOBAL STOCK CRASH!

2008-07-01T15:48:00.001-04:00

Markets around the world have been in serious decline most of this year. In fact the Financial Times reported in its weekend issue that on a global scale the markets are now down the most in 26 years!
Inflation rates are on the rise everywhere, including China. But China can’t engage a tight monetary policy to fight inflation, because that would likely lead to a flight of hot money out of the dollar and other weaker currencies, thus leading to a strong Chinese currency which would hurt their huge exports. It could also lead to a crash of the dollar. If/when that happens, there would be a hellish gnashing of teeth heard around the globe, as wealth held in the form of dollars will be quickly vaporized.
The Chinese and other countries know the day of dollar doom is coming which is why the dollar is continuing to come under pressure.
Americans for the most part are not yet aware of the dollar’s fate and how that is going to devastate their standard of living. But there is a growing sense among foreigners that they don’t want to get paid or hold dollars lest they be holding them when the plunge in the dollar’s exchange rate leads toward zero value for the Greenback. None of the major exporting nations want the dollar to crash just yet. They want more time to trade out of dollars and into something of value if they can before the final day of reckoning hits America and its fraudulent currency.
It seems to your editor that we are approaching a perilous crossroads in economic history, with our decadent, consumer oriented, live-for-today culture on the verge of collapse. We have basically “shot our wad,” as they say, and now we are going to have to pay for our orgies. We blame no one more for our condition than the father of economic lies, John Maynard Keynes, who convinced the West that we could eat our cake and have it too. No need to save to build for a better tomorrow. You need only deficit spend and print money to fund your expenditures. According to Keynes, there was no need to worry about an infinite amount of money supply leading to infinite price increases. If only we got rid off the gold standard, we would never need to suffer any more recessions and depressions.
It is amazing how many Ph.D. economists have swallowed Keynes’s lies, hook, line, and sinker. Of course, most of the high-profile economists have had their careers advanced by selling these lies because they have benefited the Wall Street and Washington establishment. They have used Keynesian lies to deceive the public into thinking that Government can give the public welfare and wars without a price. If only the public could connect the dots between welfare and wars on the one hand and $140 oil on the other, Keynesian lies would be exposed and we would at least have a chance to return to free market, Austrian economics and limited government once again. In other words, the west could become strong and more free again if it went back to work and accepted reality rather than falsehoods.
To be sure, the Keynesian lie has worked well for quite a while. It has worked especially well for the banks that own the Federal Reserve Bank and for those who put it in place to socialize wealth while privatizing profits. But given the rising global economic imbalances, one wonders how long it can continue when we see a growing number of countries facing the same kind of problem Ben Bernanke is facing. Globally, inflation is on the rise—big time. That should be dealt with by a restrictive monetary policy by all central banks in those countries where inflation is on the rise but it is just too painful to accept reality. As we are always noting, debt is the raw material from which money is created in a fiat (as opposed to asset-backed) currency. And so, with the money supply growing exponentially debt is growing even faster than income. That is being dealt with not by policies that would force us to live within our means and rebalance our accounts. Rather it is being dealt with by a faster and faster creation of money, which in turn is resulting in a faster and faster creation of debt. In other words, what is believed to be the cure is actually the problem and making the situation worse over the longer term.
The upcoming monthly issue of J Taylor’s Gold & Technology Stocks newsletter will feature an interview with Alex Macdougall, who is a student of the German hyperinflation experience that culminated in 1923. Alex recently spoke at the Spring CMRE meeting. He drew parallels between the German experience starting in 1870 under Otto von Bismarck, and the experience of the U.S. starting in the early 1900s, when the U.S. began its socialistic policies and inserted the Federal Reserve to fund socialism.
June 28, 2008
Jay Taylor, Editor of J Taylor's Gold & Technology Stockswww.miningstocks.com

U.S. Financial Aid To Israel: Figures, Facts, and Impact

2008-07-01T15:30:00.001-04:00

Summary
Benefits to Israel of U.S. AidSince 1949 (As of November 1, 1997)Foreign Aid Grants and Loans$74,157,600,000Other U.S. Aid (12.2% of Foreign Aid)$9,047,227,200Interest to Israel from Advanced Payments$1,650,000,000Grand Total$84,854,827,200Total Benefits per Israeli$14,630
Cost to U.S. Taxpayers of U.S.Aid to IsraelGrand Total$84,854,827,200Interest Costs Borne by U.S.$49,936,680,000Total Cost to U.S. Taxpayers$134,791,507,200Total Taxpayer Cost per Israeli$23,240
Special Reports:
Congress Watch: A Conservative Total for U.S. Aid to Israel: $91 Billion—and Counting
Congressional Research Report on Israel: US Foreign Assistance by Clyde Mark (213K pdf file)
U.S. Aid To Israel: The Strategic Functions
U.S. Aid to Israel: What U.S. Taxpayer Should Know
U.S. Aid to Israel: Interpreting the 'Strategic Relationship'
The Cost of Israel to U.S. Taxpayers: True Lies About U.S. Aid to Israel
THE STRATEGIC FUNCTIONS OF U.S. AID TO ISRAEL
By Stephen Zunes
Dr. Zunes is an assistant professor in the Department of Politics at the University of San Francisco
Since 1992, the U.S. has offered Israel an additional $2 billion annually in loan guarantees. Congressional researchers have disclosed that between 1974 and 1989, $16.4 billion in U.S. military loans were converted to grants and that this was the understanding from the beginning. Indeed, all past U.S. loans to Israel have eventually been forgiven by Congress, which has undoubtedly helped Israel's often-touted claim that they have never defaulted on a U.S. government loan. U.S. policy since 1984 has been that economic assistance to Israel must equal or exceed Israel's annual debt repayment to the United States. Unlike other countries, which receive aid in quarterly installments, aid to Israel since 1982 has been given in a lump sum at the beginning of the fiscal year, leaving the U.S. government to borrow from future revenues. Israel even lends some of this money back through U.S. treasury bills and collects the additional interest.
In addition, there is the more than $1.5 billion in private U.S. funds that go to Israel annually in the form of $1 billion in private tax-deductible donations and $500 million in Israeli bonds. The ability of Americans to make what amounts to tax-deductible contributions to a foreign government, made possible through a number of Jewish charities, does not exist with any other country. Nor do these figures include short- and long-term commercial loans from U.S. banks, which have been as high as $1 billion annually in recent years.
Total U.S. aid to Israel is approximately one-third of the American foreign-aid budget, even though Israel comprises just .001 percent of the world's population and already has one of the world's higher per capita incomes. Indeed, Israel's GNP is higher than the combined GNP of Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza. With a per capita income of about $14,000, Israel ranks as the sixteenth wealthiest country in the world; Israelis enjoy a higher per capita income than oil-rich Saudi Arabia and are only slightly less well-off than most Western European countries.
AID does not term economic aid to Israel as development assistance, but instead uses the term "economic support funding." Given Israel's relative prosperity, U.S. aid to Israel is becoming increasingly controversial. In 1994, Yossi Beilen, deputy foreign minister of Israel and a Knesset member, told the Women's International Zionist organization, "If our economic situation is better than in many of your countries, how can we go on asking for your charity?"
U.S. Aid to Israel: What U.S. Taxpayer Should Know
by Tom Malthaner
This morning as I was walking down Shuhada Street in Hebron, I saw graffiti marking the newly painted storefronts and awnings. Although three months past schedule and 100 percent over budget, the renovation of Shuhada Street was finally completed this week. The project manager said the reason for the delay and cost overruns was the sabotage of the project by the Israeli settlers of the Beit Hadassah settlement complex in Hebron. They broke the street lights, stoned project workers, shot out the windows of bulldozers and other heavy equipment with pellet guns, broke paving stones before they were laid and now have defaced again the homes and shops of Palestinians with graffiti. The settlers did not want Shuhada St. opened to Palestinian traffic as was agreed to under Oslo 2. This renovation project is paid for by USAID funds and it makes me angry that my tax dollars have paid for improvements that have been destroyed by the settlers.
Most Americans are not aware how much of their tax revenue our government sends to Israel. For the fiscal year ending in September 30, 1997, the U.S. has given Israel $6.72 billion: $6.194 billion falls under Israel's foreign aid allotment and $526 million comes from agencies such as the Department of Commerce, the U.S. Information Agency and the Pentagon. The $6.72 billion figure does not include loan guarantees and annual compound interest totalling $3.122 billion the U.S. pays on money borrowed to give to Israel. It does not include the cost to U.S. taxpayers of IRS tax exemptions that donors can claim when they donate money to Israeli charities. (Donors claim approximately $1 billion in Federal tax deductions annually. This ultimately costs other U.S. tax payers $280 million to $390 million.)
When grant, loans, interest and tax deductions are added together for the fiscal year ending in September 30, 1997, our special relationship with Israel cost U.S. taxpayers over $10 billion.
Since 1949 the U.S. has given Israel a total of $83.205 billion. The interest costs borne by U.S. tax payers on behalf of Israel are $49.937 billion, thus making the total amount of aid given to Israel since 1949 $133.132 billion. This may mean that U.S. government has given more federal aid to the average Israeli citizen in a given year than it has given to the average American citizen.
I am angry when I see Israeli settlers from Hebron destroy improvements made to Shuhada Street with my tax money. Also, it angers me that my government is giving over $10 billion to a country that is more prosperous than most of the other countries in the world and uses much of its money for strengthening its military and the oppression of the Palestinian people.
"U.S. Aid to Israel: Interpreting the 'Strategic Relationship"'
by Stephen Zunes
"The U.S. aid relationship with Israel is unlike any other in the world," said Stephen Zunes during a January 26 CPAP presentation. "In sheer volume, the amount is the most generous foreign aid program ever between any two countries," added Zunes, associate professor of Politics and chair of the Peace and Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco.
He explored the strategic reasoning behind the aid, asserting that it parallels the "needs of American arms exporters" and the role "Israel could play in advancing U.S. strategic interests in the region."
Although Israel is an "advanced, industrialized, technologically sophisticated country," it "receives more U.S. aid per capita annually than the total annual [Gross Domestic Product] per capita of several Arab states." Approximately a third of the entire U.S. foreign aid budget goes to Israel, "even though Israel comprises just…one-thousandth of the world's total population, and already has one of the world's higher per capita incomes."
U.S. government officials argue that this money is necessary for "moral" reasons-some even say that Israel is a "democracy battling for its very survival." If that were the real reason, however, aid should have been highest during Israel's early years, and would have declined as Israel grew stronger. Yet "the pattern…has been just the opposite." According to Zunes, "99 percent of all U.S. aid to Israel took place after the June 1967 war, when Israel found itself more powerful than any combination of Arab armies…."
The U.S. supports Israel's dominance so it can serve as "a surrogate for American interests in this vital strategic region." "Israel has helped defeat radical nationalist movements" and has been a "testing ground for U.S. made weaponry." Moreover, the intelligence agencies of both countries have "collaborated," and "Israel has funneled U.S. arms to third countries that the U.S. [could] not send arms to directly,…Iike South Africa, like the Contras, Guatemala under the military junta, [and] Iran." Zunes cited an Israeli analyst who said: "'It's like Israel has just become another federal agency when it's convenient to use and you want something done quietly."' Although the strategic relationship between the United States and the Gulf Arab states in the region has been strengthening in recent years, these states "do not have the political stability, the technological sophistication, [or] the number of higher-trained armed forces personnel" as does Israel.
Matti Peled, former Israeli major general and Knesset member, told Zunes that he and most Israeli generals believe this aid is "little more than an American subsidy to U.S. arms manufacturers," considering that the majority of military aid to Israel is used to buy weapons from the U.S. Moreover, arms to Israel create more demand for weaponry in Arab states. According to Zunes, "the Israelis announced back in 1991 that they supported the idea of a freeze in Middle East arms transfers, yet it was the United States that rejected it."
In the fall of 1993-when many had high hopes for peace-78 senators wrote to former President Bill Clinton insisting that aid to Israel remain "at current levels." Their "only reason" was the "massive procurement of sophisticated arms by Arab states." The letter neglected to mention that 80 percent of those arms to Arab countries came from the U.S. "I'm not denying for a moment the power of AIPAC [the American Israel Public Affairs Committee], the pro-Israel lobby," and other similar groups, Zunes said. Yet the "Aerospace Industry Association which promotes these massive arms shipments…is even more influential." This association has given two times more money to campaigns than all of the pro-Israel groups combined. Its "force on Capitol Hill, in terms of lobbying, surpasses that of even AIPAC." Zunes asserted that the "general thrust of U.S. policy would be pretty much the same even if AIPAC didn't exist. We didn't need a pro-Indonesia lobby to support Indonesia in its savage repression of East Timor all these years." This is a complex issue, and Zunes said that he did not want to be "conspiratorial," but he asked the audience to imagine what "Palestinian industriousness, Israeli technology, and Arabian oil money…would do to transform the Middle East…. [W]hat would that mean to American arms manufacturers? Oil companies? Pentagon planners?"
"An increasing number of Israelis are pointing out" that these funds are not in Israel's best interest. Quoting Peled, Zunes said, "this aid pushes Israel 'toward a posture of callous intransigence' in terms of the peace process." Moreover, for every dollar the U.S. sends in arms aid, Israel must spend two to three dollars to train people to use the weaponry, to buy parts, and in other ways make use of the aid. Even "main-stream Israeli economists are saying [it] is very harmful to the country's future."
The Israeli paper Yediot Aharonot described Israel as "'the godfather's messenger' since [Israel] undertake[s] the 'dirty work' of a godfather who 'always tries to appear to be the owner of some large, respectable business."' Israeli satirist B. Michael refers to U.S. aid this way: "'My master gives me food to eat and I bite those whom he tells me to bite. It's called strategic cooperation." 'To challenge this strategic relationship, one cannot focus solely on the Israeli lobby but must also examine these "broader forces as well." "Until we tackle this issue head-on," it will be "very difficult to win" in other areas relating to Palestine.
"The results" of the short-term thinking behind U.S. policy "are tragic," not just for the "immediate victims" but "eventually [for] Israel itself" and "American interests in the region." The U.S. is sending enormous amounts of aid to the Middle East, and yet "we are less secure than ever"-both in terms of U.S. interests abroad and for individual Americans. Zunes referred to a "growing and increasing hostility [of] the average Arab toward the United States." In the long term, said Zunes, "peace and stability and cooperation with the vast Arab world is far more important for U.S. interests than this alliance with Israel."
This is not only an issue for those who are working for Palestinian rights, but it also "jeopardizes the entire agenda of those of us concerned about human rights, concerned about arms control, concerned about international law." Zunes sees significant potential in "building a broad-based movement around it."
The above text is based on remarks, delivered on. 26 January, 2001 by Stephen Zunes - Associate Professor of Politics and Chair of the Peace and Justice Studies Program at San Francisco University.
The Cost of Israel to U.S. Taxpayers: True Lies About U.S. Aid to Israel
By Richard H. Curtiss
For many years the American media said that "Israel receives $1.8 billion in military aid" or that "Israel receives $1.2 billion in economic aid." Both statements were true, but since they were never combined to give us the complete total of annual U.S. aid to Israel, they also were lies—true lies.
Recently Americans have begun to read and hear that "Israel receives $3 billion in annual U.S. foreign aid." That's true. But it's still a lie. The problem is that in fiscal 1997 alone, Israel received from a variety of other U.S. federal budgets at least $525.8 million above and beyond its $3 billion from the foreign aid budget, and yet another $2 billion in federal loan guarantees. So the complete total of U.S. grants and loan guarantees to Israel for fiscal 1997 was $5,525,800,000.
One can truthfully blame the mainstream media for never digging out these figures for themselves, because none ever have. They were compiled by the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. But the mainstream media certainly are not alone. Although Congress authorizes America's foreign aid total, the fact that more than a third of it goes to a country smaller in both area and population than Hong Kong probably never has been mentioned on the floor of the Senate or House. Yet it's been going on for more than a generation.
Probably the only members of Congress who even suspect the full total of U.S. funds received by Israel each year are the privileged few committee members who actually mark it up. And almost all members of the concerned committees are Jewish, have taken huge campaign donations orchestrated by Israel's Washington, DC lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), or both. These congressional committee members are paid to act, not talk. So they do and they don't.
The same applies to the president, the secretary of state, and the foreign aid administrator. They all submit a budget that includes aid for Israel, which Congress approves, or increases, but never cuts. But no one in the executive branch mentions that of the few remaining U.S. aid recipients worldwide, all of the others are developing nations which either make their military bases available to the U.S., are key members of international alliances in which the U.S. participates, or have suffered some crippling blow of nature to their abilities to feed their people such as earthquakes, floods or droughts.
Israel, whose troubles arise solely from its unwillingness to give back land it seized in the 1967 war in return for peace with its neighbors, does not fit those criteria. In fact, Israel's 1995 per capita gross domestic product was $15,800. That put it below Britain at $19,500 and Italy at $18,700 and just above Ireland at $15,400 and Spain at $14,300.
All four of those European countries have contributed a very large share of immigrants to the U.S., yet none has organized an ethnic group to lobby for U.S. foreign aid. Instead, all four send funds and volunteers to do economic development and emergency relief work in other less fortunate parts of the world.
The lobby that Israel and its supporters have built in the United States to make all this aid happen, and to ban discussion of it from the national dialogue, goes far beyond AIPAC, with its $15 million budget, its 150 employees, and its five or six registered lobbyists who manage to visit every member of Congress individually once or twice a year.
AIPAC, in turn, can draw upon the resources of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, a roof group set up solely to coordinate the efforts of some 52 national Jewish organizations on behalf of Israel.
Among them are Hadassah, the Zionist women's organization, which organizes a steady stream of American Jewish visitors to Israel; the American Jewish Congress, which mobilizes support for Israel among members of the traditionally left-of-center Jewish mainstream; and the American Jewish Committee, which plays the same role within the growing middle-of-the-road and right-of-center Jewish community. The American Jewish Committee also publishes Commentary,one of the Israel lobby's principal national publications.
Perhaps the most controversial of these groups is B'nai B'rith's Anti-Defamation League. Its original highly commendable purpose was to protect the civil rights of American Jews. Over the past generation, however, the ADL has regressed into a conspiratorial and, with a $45 million budget, extremely well-funded hate group.
In the 1980s, during the tenure of chairman Seymour Reich, who went on to become chairman of the Conference of Presidents, ADL was found to have circulated two annual fund-raising letters warning Jewish parents against allegedly negative influences on their children arising from the increasing Arab presence on American university campuses.
More recently, FBI raids on ADL's Los Angeles and San Francisco offices revealed that an ADL operative had purchased files stolen from the San Francisco police department that a court had ordered destroyed because they violated the civil rights of the individuals on whom they had been compiled. ADL, it was shown, had added the illegally prepared and illegally obtained material to its own secret files, compiled by planting informants among Arab-American, African-American, anti-Apartheid and peace and justice groups.
The ADL infiltrators took notes of the names and remarks of speakers and members of audiences at programs organized by such groups. ADL agents even recorded the license plates of persons attending such programs and then suborned corrupt motor vehicles department employees or renegade police officers to identify the owners.
Although one of the principal offenders fled the United States to escape prosecution, no significant penalties were assessed. ADL's Northern California office was ordered to comply with requests by persons upon whom dossiers had been prepared to see their own files, but no one went to jail and as yet no one has paid fines.
Not surprisingly, a defecting employee revealed in an article he published in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs that AIPAC, too, has such "enemies" files. They are compiled for use by pro-Israel journalists like Steven Emerson and other so-called "terrorism experts," and also by professional, academic or journalistic rivals of the persons described for use in black-listing, defaming, or denouncing them. What is never revealed is that AIPAC's "opposition research" department, under the supervision of Michael Lewis, son of famed Princeton University Orientalist Bernard Lewis, is the source of this defamatory material.
But this is not AIPAC's most controversial activity. In the 1970s, when Congress put a cap on the amount its members could earn from speakers' fees and book royalties over and above their salaries, it halted AIPAC's most effective ways of paying off members for voting according to AIPAC recommendations. Members of AIPAC's national board of directors solved the problem by returning to their home states and creating political action committees (PACs).
Most special interests have PACs, as do many major corporations, labor unions, trade associations and public-interest groups. But the pro-Israel groups went wild. To date some 126 pro-Israel PACs have been registered, and no fewer than 50 have been active in every national election over the past generation.
An individual voter can give up to $2,000 to a candidate in an election cycle, and a PAC can give a candidate up to $10,000. However, a single special interest with 50 PACs can give a candidate who is facing a tough opponent, and who has voted according to its recommendations, up to half a million dollars. That's enough to buy all the television time needed to get elected in most parts of the country.
Even candidates who don't need this kind of money certainly don't want it to become available to a rival from their own party in a primary election, or to an opponent from the opposing party in a general election. As a result, all but a handful of the 535 members of the Senate and House vote as AIPAC instructs when it comes to aid to Israel, or other aspects of U.S. Middle East policy.
There is something else very special about AIPAC's network of political action committees. Nearly all have deceptive names. Who could possibly know that the Delaware Valley Good Government Association in Philadelphia, San Franciscans for Good Government in California, Cactus PAC in Arizona, Beaver PAC in Wisconsin, and even Icepac in New York are really pro-Israel PACs under deep cover?
Hiding AIPAC's Tracks
In fact, the congressmembers know it when they list the contributions they receive on the campaign statements they have to prepare for the Federal Election Commission. But their constituents don't know this when they read these statements. So just as no other special interest can put so much "hard money" into any candidate's election campaign as can the Israel lobby, no other special interest has gone to such elaborate lengths to hide its tracks.
Although AIPAC, Washington's most feared special-interest lobby, can hide how it uses both carrots and sticks to bribe or intimidate members of Congress, it can't hide all of the results.
Anyone can ask one of their representatives in Congress for a chart prepared by the Congressional Research Service, a branch of the Library of Congress, that shows Israel received $62.5 billion in foreign aid from fiscal year 1949 through fiscal year 1996. People in the national capital area also can visit the library of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in Rosslyn, Virginia, and obtain the same information, plus charts showing how much foreign aid the U.S. has given other countries as well.
Visitors will learn that in precisely the same 1949-1996 time frame, the total of U.S. foreign aid to all of the countries of sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean combined was $62,497,800,000--almost exactly the amount given to tiny Israel.
According to the Population Reference Bureau of Washington, DC, in mid-1995 the sub-Saharan countries had a combined population of 568 million. The $24,415,700,000 in foreign aid they had received by then amounted to $42.99 per sub-Saharan African.
Similarly, with a combined population of 486 million, all of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean together had received $38,254,400,000. This amounted to $79 per person.
The per capita U.S. foreign aid to Israel's 5.8 million people during the same period was $10,775.48. This meant that for every dollar the U.S. spent on an African, it spent $250.65 on an Israeli, and for every dollar it spent on someone from the Western Hemisphere outside the United States, it spent $214 on an Israeli.
Shocking Comparisons
These comparisons already seem shocking, but they are far from the whole truth. Using reports compiled by Clyde Mark of the Congressional Research Service and other sources, freelance writer Frank Collins tallied for theWashington Report all of the extra items for Israel buried in the budgets of the Pentagon and other federal agencies in fiscal year 1993.Washington Report news editor Shawn Twing did the same thing for fiscal years 1996 and 1997.
They uncovered $1.271 billion in extras in FY 1993, $355.3 million in FY 1996 and $525.8 million in FY 1997. These represent an average increase of 12.2 percent over the officially recorded foreign aid totals for the same fiscal years, and they probably are not complete. It's reasonable to assume, therefore, that a similar 12.2 percent hidden increase has prevailed over all of the years Israel has received aid.
As of Oct. 31, 1997 Israel will have received $3.05 billion in U.S. foreign aid for fiscal year 1997 and $3.08 billion in foreign aid for fiscal year 1998. Adding the 1997 and 1998 totals to those of previous years since 1949 yields a total of $74,157,600,000 in foreign aid grants and loans. Assuming that the actual totals from other budgets average 12.2 percent of that amount, that brings the grand total to $83,204,827,200.
But that's not quite all. Receiving its annual foreign aid appropriation during the first month of the fiscal year, instead of in quarterly installments as do other recipients, is just another special privilege Congress has voted for Israel. It enables Israel to invest the money in U.S. Treasury notes. That means that the U.S., which has to borrow the money it gives to Israel, pays interest on the money it has granted to Israel in advance, while at the same time Israel is collecting interest on the money. That interest to Israel from advance payments adds another $1.650 billion to the total, making it $84,854,827,200.That's the number you should write down for total aid to Israel. And that's $14,346 each for each man, woman and child in Israel.
It's worth noting that that figure does not include U.S. government loan guarantees to Israel, of which Israel has drawn $9.8 billion to date. They greatly reduce the interest rate the Israeli government pays on commercial loans, and they place additional burdens on U.S. taxpayers, especially if the Israeli government should default on any of them. But since neither the savings to Israel nor the costs to U.S. taxpayers can be accurately quantified, they are excluded from consideration here.
Further, friends of Israel never tire of saying that Israel has never defaulted on repayment of a U.S. government loan. It would be equally accurate to say Israel has never been required to repay a U.S. government loan. The truth of the matter is complex, and designed to be so by those who seek to conceal it from the U.S. taxpayer.
Most U.S. loans to Israel are forgiven, and many were made with the explicit understanding that they would be forgiven before Israel was required to repay them. By disguising as loans what in fact were grants, cooperating members of Congress exempted Israel from the U.S. oversight that would have accompanied grants. On other loans, Israel was expected to pay the interest and eventually to begin repaying the principal. But the so-called Cranston Amendment, which has been attached by Congress to every foreign aid appropriation since 1983, provides that economic aid to Israel will never dip below the amount Israel is required to pay on its outstanding loans. In short, whether U.S. aid is extended as grants or loans to Israel, it never returns to the Treasury.
Israel enjoys other privileges. While most countries receiving U.S. military aid funds are expected to use them for U.S. arms, ammunition and training, Israel can spend part of these funds on weapons made by Israeli manufacturers. Also, when it spends its U.S. military aid money on U.S. products, Israel frequently requires the U.S. vendor to buy components or materials from Israeli manufacturers. Thus, though Israeli politicians say that their own manufacturers and exporters are making them progressively less dependent upon U.S. aid, in fact those Israeli manufacturers and exporters are heavily subsidized by U.S. aid.
Although it's beyond the parameters of this study, it's worth mentioning that Israel also receives foreign aid from some other countries. After the United States, the principal donor of both economic and military aid to Israel is Germany.
By far the largest component of German aid has been in the form of restitution payments to victims of Nazi attrocities. But there also has been extensive German military assistance to Israel during and since the Gulf war, and a variety of German educational and research grants go to Israeli institutions. The total of German assistance in all of these categories to the Israeli government, Israeli individuals and Israeli private institutions has been some $31 billion or $5,345 per capita, bringing the per capita total of U.S. and German assistance combined to almost $20,000 per Israeli. Since very little public money is spent on the more than 20 percent of Israeli citizens who are Muslim or Christian, the actual per capita benefits received by Israel's Jewish citizens would be considerably higher.
True Cost to U.S. Taxpayers
Generous as it is, what Israelis actually got in U.S. aid is considerably less than what it has cost U.S. taxpayers to provide it. The principal difference is that so long as the U.S. runs an annual budget deficit, every dollar of aid the U.S. gives Israel has to be raised through U.S. government borrowing.
In an article in the Washington Report for December 1991/January 1992, Frank Collins estimated the costs of this interest, based upon prevailing interest rates for every year since 1949. I have updated this by applying a very conservative 5 percent interest rate for subsequent years, and confined the amount upon which the interest is calculated to grants, not loans or loan guarantees.
On this basis the $84.8 billion in grants, loans and commodities Israel has received from the U.S. since 1949 cost the U.S. an additional $49,936,880,000 in interest.
There are many other costs of Israel to U.S. taxpayers, such as most or all of the $45.6 billion in U.S. foreign aid to Egypt since Egypt made peace with Israel in 1979 (compared to $4.2 billion in U.S. aid to Egypt for the preceding 26 years). U.S. foreign aid to Egypt, which is pegged at two-thirds of U.S. foreign aid to Israel, averages $2.2 billion per year.
There also have been immense political and military costs to the U.S. for its consistent support of Israel during Israel's half-century of disputes with the Palestinians and all of its Arab neighbors. In addition, there have been the approximately $10 billion in U.S. loan guarantees and perhaps $20 billion in tax-exempt contributions made to Israel by American Jews in the nearly half-century since Israel was created.
Even excluding all of these extra costs, America's $84.8 billion in aid to Israel from fiscal years 1949 through 1998, and the interest the U.S. paid to borrow this money, has cost U.S. taxpayers $134.8 billion, not adjusted for inflation. Or, put another way, the nearly $14,630 every one of 5.8 million Israelis received from the U.S. government by Oct. 31, 1997 has cost American taxpayers $23,240 per Israeli.
It would be interesting to know how many of those American taxpayers believe they and their families have received as much from the U.S. Treasury as has everyone who has chosen to become a citizen of Israel. But it's a question that will never occur to the American public because, so long as America's mainstream media, Congress and president maintain their pact of silence, few Americans will ever know the true cost of Israel to U.S. taxpayers.Richard Curtiss, a retired U.S. foreign service officer, is the executive editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

HUGE CREDIT CARD CRISIS NEXT FOR AMERICA

2008-06-30T15:02:00.001-04:00

Most of Bush's so called ' Stimulus checks' will be spent on credit card payments which will be the next huge financial bubble to burst ~ and it has the potential of bringing down the entire financial system and global economy: Allen L Roland

Many Americans are living off their credit cards but be forewarned ~ that bubble is about to burst as more Americans are using high-interest credit card cash to pay at least part of their mortgages. Overall U.S. credit card debt grew by 435% from $211 billion in 2002 to approximately $915 billion year-end 2007.

Here's how bad it is now ~ By October of 2007, according to a survey of only the leading credit card banks by the Associated Press, the value of credit card accounts at least 30 days late was up 26% from the previous year, to $17.3 billion. Serious delinquencies among some of the biggest lenders rose by 50 percent or more in the value of accounts that were at least 90 days delinquent.

But Making matters worse ~ just as with mortgage debt, credit card debt is put into pools that are then resold to investment houses, other banks and institutional investors. About 45 percent of the nation’s $900-plus billion in credit card debt has been packaged into these pools, and so many companies, not just a few, are at risk of being forced out of business by credit card debt write-offs.

It's a badly shaking House of Cards and it's about to come crashing down and many Americans will pay the price as Danny Schechter writes in ICH.

Excerpt: " While many eyes are focusing on the housing meltdown and its hugely negative effect on an economy clearly moving into recession, few are paying attention to the next bubble expected to burst: credit cards. Combined with the subprime losses, such a credit card nightmare has the potential, experts say, of bringing down the entire financial system and global economy... we are actually face to face with the results of the most massive failure of our political and economic system since the Depression. "
Allen L Roland http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/2008/06/30.html
House of CardsYou thought the housing crisis was bad? You ain’t seen nothing yet.By Danny Schechter
The Mess
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20196.htm
28/06/08 "LA CityBeat" -- - Nationwide, two million homes sit vacant. Home sales are at a nine-year low. Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers says that housing finance has not been this bad since the Depression. We still don’t know the full extent of the colossal subprime rip-off, but a recent Bank of America study did some guesstimating on the scale of the consequences of the “credit crisis.” The meltdown in the U.S. subprime real estate market, the bank said, had led to a global loss of $7.7 trillion dollars in stock market value since October.
While many eyes are focusing on the housing meltdown and its hugely negative effect on an economy clearly moving into recession, few are paying attention to the next bubble expected to burst: credit cards. Combined with the subprime losses, such a credit card nightmare has the potential, experts say, of bringing down the entire financial system and global economy.
You and your credit card have become key players in the highly unstable financial crunch. Mortgage lender cupidity and bank credit card greed wedded to financial institution deregulation supported by both political parties, have been made manifestly worse by Bush administration support-the-rich policies. It has brought us to a brink not seen since just before the Great Depression.
While campaigning in Edinburg, Texas, in February, Barack Obama met with students at the University of Texas-Pan American. “Just be careful about those credit cards, all right? Don’t eat out as much,” he said. After the foreclosure crisis, he warned, “the credit cards are next in line.”
The coupling of home equity debt and credit card debt has gone hand in glove for years. The homeowners at risk can no longer use their homes as ATM machines, thanks to their prior re-financings and equity loans, often used in the past to pay off their credit cards. Indeed, homeowners cashed out $1.2 trillion from their home equity from 2002 to 2007 to pay down credit card debts and to cover other costs of living, according to the public policy research organization Demos.
To compound the problem, fewer people are paying their credit card bills on time. And, to flip the old paradigm, more are using high-interest credit card cash to pay at least part of their mortgages instead of the other way around.
How bad is it?
• Financial analysts say that in the U.S. alone more than $850 billion in unpaid credit card balances is at stake and fast approaching $1 trillion, roughly the same amount as in the subprime market.
• CNN reports that worldwide, consumers have racked up more than $2.2 trillion in purchases and cash advances on major credit cards in just the last year.
• The unpaid debt portion of this is continuing to pile up, with U.S. consumers last year adding $68 billion against their credit lines, boosting credit card debt by 7.8 percent, the largest increase in seven years, just when the last recession was beginning.
• Even as they spent, consumers have been going into default at a stunning rate. The percentage of people delinquent on their credit cards is soaring, and credit card companies are now writing off somewhere near 5 percent of payments.
• By last fall, the major banks were setting aside billions for loan-loss reserves while anticipating an increase of 20 percent in non-payments over the next two to four quarters.
• Capital One, one of the biggest credit card banks, was forced to write off $1.9 billion in bad debt just in the last quarter of 2007.
•By October, according to a survey of only the leading credit card banks by the Associated Press, the value of credit card accounts at least 30 days late was up 26% from the previous year, to $17.3 billion. Serious delinquencies among some of the biggest lenders rose by 50 percent or more in the value of accounts that were at least 90 days delinquent.
• Making matters worse, or more widespread throughout the economy, just as with mortgage debt, credit card debt is put into pools that are then resold to investment houses, other banks and institutional investors. About 45 percent of the nation’s $900-plus billion in credit card debt has been packaged into these pools, and so many companies, not just a few, are at risk of being forced out of business by credit card debt write-offs.
What this adds up to, and what Obama didn’t say, is that we are actually face to face with the results of the most massive failure of our political and economic system since the Depression. Since Ronald Reagan, we have been living in an era in which neither the meltdown of the savings and loan banks in the 1980s nor the Enron-like scandals of the Bush years has stopped the relentless advancement and protection by both parties of the ability of financial institutions to make a buck at any cost to the social good and economic fabric. Which is what you get, of course, when both parties are so dependent on massive financial contributions to get their candidates into office and when the corporate media, heavy with advertising from the FIRE sector – Finance, Insurance and Real Estate – doesn’t warn the public or investigate the egregious fudging, misrepresentation and outright fraud that underpins the subprime and looming credit card crisis.
Priceless!
The credit card industry (Visa, MasterCard, American Express, etc.) and the 10 banks that dominate the industry as the primary card issuers spend an estimated $2 billion a year in endless marketing worldwide. We are all bombarded with their solicitations and sales tie-ins and gimmicks. They know that they might only have a 2-3 percent return rate, but that more than pays the enormous costs. They have thus succeeded in supplying 1.5 billion cards to 158 million U.S. card holders. That averages to 10 cards per person. In the last few years, retailers, banks, a wide range of companies, sports teams, unions and even universities have launched specialized card programs. Like the car companies that discovered that they made more money on car loans than automobiles, the benefits of what’s been called “financialization” is obvious to more business sectors.
Credit card advertising for new card holders is especially effective now as inflation drives costs up and consumers have less to spend. “Charging it” on yet another new credit card is for many the only option to meet their budgets or maintain their lifestyles, especially as gas prices rise. It’s become habit for many to spend more than they have. As a result, overall U.S. credit card debt grew by 435% from 2002 to year-end 2007, from $211 billion to approximately $915 billion.
The relentless, continuing push by the credit card banks doesn’t target potential customers alone. Constant focus group studies and other research techniques are still being used to persuade retailers to encourage more credit card transactions. Increasingly, businesses simplify their use by “swiping” and other gimmicks, no signed receipt needed.
“More and more sectors of the American economy recognize that their financial success is based on the success of the credit card industry,” explains Robert Manning, the author of the definitive Credit Card Nation and a leading expert who has been sounding the alarm about the consequences of credit card debt.
“Everything is very clearly thought out and premeditated. Whether it’s having conferences and think tank sessions about how to encourage people to accept more debt [or] to work with merchants – for example, to persuade merchants with empirical information that ... if they use a credit card that they’ll buy 20-25 percent more.”
Manning notes that saving and thrift was historically a positive value in the U.S. As recently as the l980s, the national savings rate was 10 to 11 percent. Since 2005, Americans have saved less than 1 percent of their disposable incomes. In fact, the most recent figures from March show that the savings rate is negative, below zero. And also in March the government reported that for the first time since the Depression, Americans owe more on their ≠homes than they have in equity. Essentially, on average, America is broke and its credit cards played a dominant role in getting there.
Manning, who teaches at Rochester Institute of Technology, has taken on the issue with original research and financial literacy courses for students. He found that many of his students already had credit cards before they arrived on campus, some for years.
As we all know, the companies don’t tell about the downside when they are seducing customers. They offer low introductory or teaser rates, in the same way that mortgage brokers enticed sub-prime customers. They offer rewards, frequent flyer miles and other prizes. Students are especially targeted because they have little real-world financial experience. The U.S. Public Interest Research Group, which is campaigning against student debt, says the average is $4,000 per student, but it easily climbs after four years to $15,000 to $20,000.
All of this, in our globalized world, is not unique. Clear across the world and down under, the New Zealand Union of Students’ Associations (NZUSA) and bank workers’ union Finsec are joining forces to try and keep students out of high-interest debt. The amount students owe on credit cards has increased by 32 percent since 2004, according to the NZUSA Income and Expenditure Survey. Credit card debt has increased at a higher rate than low to no interest overdrafts.
Here in the U.S., one mother, Joan E. Lisante, has set up a website targeted at other parents, www.consumeraffairs.com, so they can tell their stories. She wrote recently about what she calls the “plastic prison.”
“My 22-year-old son Jon, a college senior, got 52 credit card offers in the last year. I know this because, like a CIA operative, I intercepted the offers pouring into our mailbox.
“He got 19 from Capitol One, 13 from Providian, six from Washington Mutual, four from Chase, four from eBay and one each from an assortment of lenders ranging from PayPal to First Premier Bank in Sioux Falls, South Dakota (co-capital with “Small Wonder” Delaware of the credit card kingdom).
“Most begged Jon to rip open the envelope and wallow in instant gratification. Capital One, the most persistent suitor, shouted, ‘Offer Status: Confirmed. No Annual Fee!’
“‘16 Card Designs’ (but none that tally the total whenever you use it). You could get a response in as little as 60 SECONDS when you apply online.
“Now this kid has never held a job (yet) for more than one summer. He spent one summer working in the FEMA flood insurance call center, which shows how much expertise you need to work there. Although he is familiar with the inner workings of Blockbusters and Starbucks, Jon’s not yet a member of any corporate elite, prestigious profession or skilled craftsman’s guild. Does this matter? Apparently not.”
“The key for the banks,” Manning says, “is to get them dependent upon consumer credit, shape their attitudes towards savings, consumption and debt and to then multiply the number of financial products that they’re buying from that particular bank so the credit card will lead to the student loan, to the car loan, eventually to a home mortgage and then maybe some insurance products and investment opportunity.
The banks, he says, want students in a condition of dependency. “Young people today that see credit as a social entitlement have no understanding of what it is going to entail to repay those loans back. Once they’re used to living on borrowed money, then the banks realize that they’ll be following that pattern possibly for the rest of their lives. By the time they graduate they’re so indebted, and they’re so dependent upon the use of credit and debt, that it’s already presaged their future. They can’t possibly pursue the kinds of careers that they anticipated.”
Defaults on student loans are climbing. Many students used those loans to pay off credit cards. Military recruiters are now promising to pay off debts to entice enlistments. Other government agencies are also offering funds as part of their head-hunting.
Rise Up
“Many of you have probably forgotten that the American Revolution was largely driven by the great American planners, that were heavily in debt to European banks and they had very onerous terms,” Manning said in a lecture I attended when I was making my film In Debt We Trust. “And they recognized that they could not financially prosper under such outrageous financial demands.”
On the day I visted Manning’s lecture in an alcove literally right next door to the lecture room in the student center, local branches of banks like Chase and HSBC were signing up students for checking accounts and credit cards. Freshmen lined up at the tables to set up accounts. The banks had permission from the same school administration that hires Manning to counsel students to avoid getting into debt.
I listened in at the pitches.
BANK REP: “You don’t need anything for deposit, and we’re giving out free backpacks.”
BANK REP: “You get zero percent on the purchases for the first six months and then it goes to the standard intrest rate.”
QUESTION: “What’s the interest rate?”
BANK OF AMERICA REP: “The interest rate is variable ... to be honest with you, off-hand, I don’t know the interest rate off-hand. Sorry.”
A student is counting out twenties as his first deposit.
BANK REP: “I just need your signature. Right here, please.”
ANOTHER BANK REP: “And it’s free while they’re a student.”
What will happen when they do have to pay it back includes nonstop calls to them and their parents. Credit card collection agencies know how to harass, threaten and then sweet-talk cardholders who are late. They even have a term for people squeezed by debt: “sweatbox.” They also know that the longer the debt goes unpaid, the larger the potential profit for companies, as interest builds up at rates of up to 30 percent. Credit card promoters call people who only pay minimums “revolvers.” Those of us who pay our bills in full? “Deadbeats.”
Recently the companies unilaterally hiked late fees and penalties that compound the debt. A few missing payments can earn you an interest rate hike to 29 to 30 percent. If you are late with a payment on some other debt not related to your credit card, you can readily find your interest fee doubled on your credit card. Some companies make more on fees and penalties than on interest payments. The companies racked up more than $17 billion in 2006, the last year for which records are available.
Like many of the homeowners who accepted subprime mortgages, and like you with your credit cards, youths and adults alike signed dense agreements that are largely unreadable. The credit card banks constantly update these with those small print notices with which you get assaulted in the mail, these drafted by risk-minimizing lawyers. Of course, it’s unlikely you bother to read these. In part of the unread text, the companies give themselves the right to unilaterally change the deal even after it is signed. Other small print insures that consumers cannot sue them over differences. All grievances have to be arbitrated in a process the companies created and control.
Even the Federal Reserve Bank condemns some of these practices, noting: “Although profitability for the large credit card banks has risen and fallen over the years, credit card earnings have been consistently higher than returns on all commercial bank activities.”
The Failure Trifecta
Track the subprime and credit card mess back, and you will find its origins in free market policies since Reagan that deregulated banking and much of the oversight that managed for years to keep the greed-meisters on Wall Street in check. The failure of media-lionized Alan Greenspan’s Federal Reserve Bank to pay attention to predatory lenders and sub-prime schemers allowed them to prosper.
Add to these failures a complicit Congress, with Democrats and Republicans alike dependent on donations from the three leaders of the FIRE economy. To assure their freedom to run their businesses their own damn way, the banks in the 1990s persuaded Congress to deregulate the practices of financial service companies. Pro-business Court decisions have allowed them to base their operations in low-tax states like South Dakota and Delaware and to end consumer protections against usury.
This decade, Bush’s tax cuts and his bankruptcy “reform” bill strengthening the power of credit card companies were passed with bipartisan support, including that of Senator Dianne Feinstein. Add major media amnesia to this list and you get a trifecta of failure. The New York Times admitted that advocates warned them that a rise in predatory lending was destroying poor communities in 2001, but they sat on the story for nearly six years.
Neither the politicians nor the media told us that every major brand name banking firm and investment house had its fingers in the juicy pie of pedaling mortgage-backed securities worldwide without disclosing that many of these mortgages were deliberately offloaded on people whom they knew could not afford to pay them. As with the credit card industry, these mortgage borrowers were cleverly given “teaser rates” that would soon reset upwards. The banks then resold the mortgages as “asset-backed paper” even though the assets’ value was so questionable.
Meanwhile, media outlets took in hundreds of millions in ad revenues from deceptive lenders and credit card banks encouraging Americans to shop and charge till we drop. The Super Bowl broadcast ran all those cool but misleading ads by credit card companies and mortgage hustlers. It was, um, “priceless.”
Notes scholar Lionel Tiger: “Those who have been operating the managerial levers of the financial system have failed embarrassingly and massively to comprehend the processes for which they are responsible. They have loaned money avidly and recklessly to people who couldn’t pay it back.
“They fudged data to get loans approved and recalculated. Then they sausaged fragile figments of money reality into new ‘products’ which could be sold around the world to investors eager to enjoy the surprising returns which often accompany theft, managerial incompetence and fraud. When it comes to responsibility for all this, there appears to be no one here but us spring chickens.”
Danny Schechter blogs for Mediachannel.org. His film In Debt We Trust spawned the action website http://www.stopthesqueeze.org/ . He’s written a new book on the crisis called PLUNDER: An Investigation Into Our Economic Calamity. Dissector@mediachannel.org .
Allen L Roland http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/2008/06/30.html
Freelance Alternative Press Online columnist and psychotherapist Allen L Roland is available for comments, interviews, speaking engagements and private consultations ( allen@allenroland.com )
Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his weblog and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on http://www.conscioustalk.net/

The meaning of the phrase "well-regulated" in the 2nd amendment

2008-06-30T14:43:00.000-04:00

From: Brian T. Halonen
The following are taken from the Oxford English Dictionary, and bracket in time the writing of the 2nd amendment:

1709: "If a liberal Education has formed in us well-regulated Appetites and worthy Inclinations."

1714: "The practice of all well-regulated courts of justice in the world."

1812: "The equation of time ... is the adjustment of the difference of time as shown by a well-regulated clock and a true sun dial."

1848: "A remissness for which I am sure every well-regulated person will blame the Mayor."

1862: "It appeared to her well-regulated mind, like a clandestine proceeding."

1894: "The newspaper, a never wanting adjunct to every well-regulated American embryo city."

The phrase "well-regulated" was in common use long before 1789, and remained so for a century thereafter. It referred to the property of something being in proper working order. Something that was well-regulated was calibrated correctly, functioning as expected. Establishing government oversight of the people's arms was not only not the intent in using the phrase in the 2nd amendment, it was precisely to render the government powerless to do so that the founders wrote it.

Fighting Mind Control

2008-06-30T12:16:00.001-04:00

by pete chamberlin on Sun Jun 29, 2008 1:46 pm

David Rockefeller writes on page 405 of his memoirs:
“Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as 'internationalists' and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure - one world, if you will. If that is the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it," http://lonelantern.org/site/index.php?o ... iew&id=356
“The supra-national sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries.” http://www.constitutionforum.net/main_g ... nment.html
Rockefeller and his elite partners in genocidal plans to commit crimes against humanity laugh it off whenever these charges surface – that he is one of the masters of an elite intellectual planning group that is carrying-out an elaborate plot to eliminate nations and subjugate the world with a new world order. The American and Western media dutifully parrots Rockefeller’s sarcastic denials to every available consciousness that is feeding on the IV drip of the addictive TV brainwashing unit. He is a principle financier for most of the research being done into forced behavioral modification techniques in the United States and Europe. The corporately owned media are an indispensable component of this plot against all nations.
The power elite plan for world dictatorship rests on the ability of psycho/social scientists to brainwash the human race into submission. It is believed that a “scientific dictatorship” can be constructed using these techniques on a global scale. The main key to their plans is our ignorance as a people. By their secret estimates, whenever the dumbing-down of America reaches a determined saturation point, resistance to their plans will crumble and Americans will voluntarily lie-down under the marching boots.

It is either purposeful misleading or simple foolishness on the part of those who suggest that there is no elite plan for world domination, based on total human subjugation, because there is a very real paper trail of evidence that documents its creation. A small portion consists of leaked documents, but the bulk of it is found in quotations from the elite themselves and in the documents that they have released into the world (persuaded by their own egos that it was safe to do so.) They are available to anyone who cares to look for them, or knows the keywords to finding them. I intend to present some of them for you here.

The spokesmen for the international elitists (who call themselves “futurists”) boldly proclaim the controllers’ goals to the world. They have boasted of their plans for destroying the free will of humankind, in order to domesticate us into suitable beasts for the new world order. Skeptics seek to discredit those who try to warn about the impending plans for a new world order, calling us “conspiracy theorists” (as if that was a bad thing). Here are some select quotes by a few of those spokesmen that highlight exactly what these futurists had in mind for us all; skeptics should check-out the research being offered for themselves:

"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country."- Edward Bernays (nephew of Sigmund Freud) in his 1928 book Propaganda.

“The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated. When the technique has been perfected, every government that has been in charge of education for a generation will be able to control its subjects securely without the need of armies or policemen."
- Bertrand Russell, "The Impact of Science on Society", 1953

“Education should aim at destroying free will, so that, after pupils have left school, they shall be incapable, throughout the rest of their lives, of thinking or acting otherwise than as their schoolmasters would have wished."

"Diet, injections, and injunctions will combine, from a very early age, to produce the sort of character and the sort of beliefs that the authorities consider desirable, and any serious criticism of the powers that be will become psychologically impossible."

"Gradually, by selective breeding, the congenital differences between rulers and ruled will increase until they become almost different species. A revolt of the plebs would become as unthinkable as an organized insurrection of sheep against the practice of eating mutton."
- Bertrand Russell, "The Impact of Science on Society", 1953, pg 49-50
http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=22599

[Russell’s observation echoes that of another futurist predecessor, international socialist-transformed into popular icon, H. G. Wells, as expressed in his SciFi classic, Time Machine. His “Eloi” and “Morlocks” represent the anticipated end result of mankind’s tampering with nature through abominations like “eugenics” and psychological/pharmacological manipulation.]

"In like manner, the scientific rulers will provide one kind of education for ordinary men and women, and another for those who are to become holders of scientific power. Ordinary men and women will be expected to be docile, industrious, punctual, thoughtless, and contented. Of these qualities, probably contentment will be considered the most important. In order to produce it, all the researches of psycho-analysis, behaviourism, and biochemistry will be brought into play.... All the boys and girls will learn from an early age to be what is called 'co-operative,' i.e., to do exactly what everybody is doing. Initiative will be discouraged in these children, and insubordination, without being punished, will be scientifically trained out of them."

"On those rare occasions, when a boy or girl who has passed the age at which it is usual to determine social status shows such marked ability as to seem the intellectual equal of the rulers, a difficult situation will arise, requiring serious consideration. If the youth is content to abandon his previous associates and to throw in his lot whole-heartedly with the rulers, he may, after suitable tests, be promoted, but if he shows any regrettable solidarity with his previous associates, the rulers will reluctantly conclude that there is nothing to be done with him...before his ill-disciplined intelligence has had time to spread revolt. This will be a painful duty to the rulers, but I think they will not shrink from performing it."
- Bertrand Russell, "The Scientific Outlook", 1931

Aldous Huxley announced: "There will be in the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak. Producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda, or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution."
Government efforts and privately funded research have launched an intensive effort to do the nasty things outlined by these intellectuals. The program to create a scientific methodology for altering human nature began in experiments in mass terror conducted at the end of World War II, in the Operations Research project, which advocated and then studied the fire-bombings of Germany. The Strategic Bombing Survey was a plan for the Royal Air Force to concentrate on bombing German worker housing while leaving military targets alone, to break the morale of the German worker...FEMA is a natural successor to the Strategic Bombing Survey of WW II. Dr. Kurt Lewin, theoretician for what the Tavistock conspirators called crisis management, was deeply involved in the study... Lewin incorporated the Strategic Bombing Survey into FEMA.” – Dr. John Coleman. http://www.barefootsworld.net/tavistok.html
The behavioral control methods developed by Dr. Lewin’s group have been implemented over decades, through the controlled corporate media, the corrupted educational system, and the addicting medical industry/drug culture (Which government drug operation is most profitable, “legal” pharmaceuticals or the illegal drug pipeline?). The bulk of the scientists involved with Lewin and the formulating of this new “friendly fascism” (as the process has been described in the Changing Images of Man produced by the brain-stormers at Stanford Research Institute) are Russian and German Jewish psychologists and social scientists of the secular persuasion, who fled European anti-Semitism, before the war, to work in England and the United States.

The research which grew out of this work later blossomed at the secretive Tavistock Institute, before spreading across the Atlantic into a network of American foundations, think tanks and institutes. These institutes have served as the vanguard for the elitist forces, carrying-out the campaign to destroy America from within.

The Zionist neoconservatives who hijacked American foreign policy for Israel were a product of the corruption these Jewish social scientists and psychological theorists had sown through the elitist foundations and think tanks. This is the path that brought them into the seats of government power and placed Israel indirectly in the shepherd’s seat, watching over and misleading the American sheeple.

The following is all from the “Zionist brainwashing of America” - http://rense.com/general78/antisem.htm

“The method of operation chosen by the movement has been to seize the ‘conservative’ cause and to mutate it into a new racist form of fascism, modeled after National Socialism. Their anti-Muslim beliefs provided the foundation for their ‘master class’ theories. Their aim was to prove that only the strong deserved to be treated as human beings, using the new ideology of American ‘exceptionalism’ and manifest destiny. With their rise to power, America became a tool for digging up the Middle East and rebuilding ‘Zion.’

The Zionist neocons had inherited the corporate/government machinery that had been taken over by previous Zionist agents, incorporating the brainwashing techniques developed from the psychiatric methods created by mostly Jewish psychologists. http://www.jinfo.org/Psychologists.html They had developed their theories of psychotherapy and social engineering through their study of deviant human nature and anti-Semitism in Nazi psychological indoctrination in the heart of fascist Europe. The Zionist social scientists studied the world which had been distorted by fascist nationalism, seeking to create a science to manipulate personalities, hoping to change the fascist mindset, so that it might truly happen ‘never again.’

The corporate government propagandists who had studied their work on the aberrant psychology of the worst of all human beings developed highly coercive manipulative group psychotherapy techniques. The therapeutic conditioning which had been created by Sigmund Freud and his associates became the foundation for brainwashing techniques and a reverse conditioning process, intended to produce a new generation of fascists here in America and wherever else it was to be used. Now variants of these psy-ops techniques are being used in every strata of society, to control and to manipulate large groups of people, most notably through advertising, government disinformation and the ‘entertainment’ industry.

Intellectual Jewish refugees, who had fled to America and England from Nazi Germany and Austria, brought different elements of the new Nazism with them, which they later formulated into their specialized sciences by interpreting their own personal experiences and research. The neoconservative students of those scholars fashioned their research into a science of political indoctrination, based on their combined knowledge of fascist tactics of deception and intimidation. The Zionist neoconservatives didn’t build the government machinery; they merely inserted themselves into the driving seats and forced the American people to line-up quietly behind them. Through fear and terrorist intimidation, they forced the people to accept a fascist/racist ideology that they would never willingly accept otherwise.

They had inherited a government of self-seeking ‘public servants’ who had stopped serving the public long ago, most of which had been indoctrinated with the new ideology at foundations (mostly associated with the Tavistock Institute). Their mentors, the Jewish psychologists and social scientists who were key players in the history of Tavistock, had done their preparatory work very well, from their seats on the thousands of think tanks and foundations. The Tavistock Institute is a $6 Billion a year network of Foundations in the U.S., consisting of ten major institutions, 400 subsidiaries, and 3000 other study groups and think tanks. It is funded by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. From these positions of power, they applied the manipulative psychological techniques that had been developed by Sigmund Freud and his students. http://www.barefootsworld.net/tavistok.html (source for all quotes on Tavistock)

The psychologists and social scientists associated with Tavistock have woven the degenerate ideas of Freud into the neoconservative ideology. There they have implemented their mass-conditioning techniques as part of the plan to create a fascist Zionist America and a fascist world. The plans for us are almost completed.

“The individual is essentially an enemy of society and has instinctual urges that must be restrained to help society function. ‘Among these instinctual wishes are those of incest, cannibalism, and lust for killing...
‘For masses are lazy and unintelligent...So destructive is human nature, he claims, that ‘it is only through the influence of individuals who can set an example and whom masses recognize as their leaders that they can be induced to perform the work and undergo the renunciations on which the existence of civilization depends.’ All this sets a terribly hostile society that could implode if it were not for civilizing forces and developing government...”
From The Future Of An Illusion, by Sigmund Freud. http://www.adolphus.nl/xcrpts/xcfreudill.html

At Tavistock, Alexandre Kojève’s studies of Hegelian dialectics provided the final pieces of the puzzle for the Zionist plotters seeking to force the new fascist ideology on to the unsuspecting American people. It was Kojève’s interpretations of ‘Hegel through the lens of Marx,’ in his ‘End of History’ thesis that produced the ‘clash of civilization’ theory of Francis Fukuyama. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre_Koj%C3%A8ve
Using the dialectic method, they constructed a credible ‘bogeyman,’ in the form of Islamic terrorism, with which to herd the frightened American sheeple right into Israel’s open arms, since the Zionist state would logically appear to be the antithesis of the Islamists.

Since the 9/11 attacks the Islamists have been inflated into an almost supernatural menace. A dark whisper campaign has nearly succeeded in equating all Islam with terrorism. The echo chamber of the corporate media has amplified their reputations as terrorists by focusing on their former exploits against the Soviets in Afghanistan. The coining of the deceptive term ‘Islamofascists’ linked Islamic ideology to the Nazis, providing the propagandistic ammunition needed for the brainwashing campaign. In the indoctrinated neo-fascist ideology, modeled after National Socialism, liberals are traitors, the enemies of the growing police state, while anti-liberals (conservatives) are the new anti-Semitic super-patriot agitators.

Their mind-numbing campaign of fear and intimidation created a state of dissonance within the minds of the targeted American populace, making the people susceptible to suggestion. Utilizing the brainwashing methods of group dynamics, they made this new paradigm the new national ‘consensus.’ Hyper-patriotism became a guilt weapon, used to bludgeon the new fascist group identity into the scrambled conscious of post 9/11 America. The historical lessons taught by Jewish refugee George Mosse (mentor of neoconservative agitator Michael Ledeen) on the psychological and political indoctrination skills used by the Nazi propagandists, showed the way to the fascist transformation of American political parties, using the new mythology of Islamofascism.
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fasci ... aquer.html

According to another Jewish psychologist, Martin Seligman, the author of ‘Learned Optimism’ (the alleged psychological antidote to learned helplessness), human minds can be trained to passively accept unpleasant situations. http://www.jinfo.org/Psychologists.html
“...nullifying the natural reactions, which normally cause attempts to escape or to control the situation. It is a state of deep depression, brought on by prolonged immersion in a reality of learned helplessness...A person with learned helplessness easily gives in her/his goals if s/he failed few times in achieving them. Such persons show apathy, no motivation, depression and pessimism.”
http://www.see-ran.org/expanded/?id=00069

The American military is now developing virtual reality computer simulations, based on the theory of learned helplessness, to help it plan psy-ops operations to help it manipulate the populations of entire nations.
“The intent is to ‘...test multiple courses of action to anticipate and shape behaviors of adversaries, neutrals, and partners. By applying theories of economics and human psychology, its developers believe they can predict how individuals and mobs will respond to various stressors... They try to anticipate how stressed-out populations can be manipulated by increasing the fear and anxiety-induced helplessness, through the introduction of panic-causing events.

The A. I. thinking of the massive computer simulations used in the program is based upon the theories of Israeli-American cognitive psychologist Daniel Kahneman.”
http://www.theregister.com/2007/06/23/s ... page3.html

If this rise of the lower classes can be postponed until the public is ripe for surrender and is ready to consent to enslavement and legal encroachment, the elite can achieve energy dominance.
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/socio ... ooper2.htm

TV represents the perfect subliminal programming mechanism for the human attention cycle, which has been estimated to be 14 seconds, before focus slips. If not for the pervasive influence of television the levels of American resistance would be much higher:

“Experiments conducted by researcher Herbert Krugman reveal that when a person watches television, brain activity switches from the left to the right hemisphere. The left hemisphere is the seat of logical thought. Here, information is broken down into its component parts and critically analyzed. The right brain, however, treats incoming data uncritically, processing information in wholes, leading to emotional, rather than logical responses. The shift from left to right brain activity also causes the release of endorphins, the body's own natural opiates--thus, it is possible to become physically addicted to watching television, a hypothesis borne out by numerous studies which have shown that very few people are able to kick the television habit. It's no longer an overstatement to note that the youth today that are raised and taught through network television are intellectually dead by their early teens...The dumbing down of humanity is represented by another shift which occurs in the brain when we watch television. Activity in the higher brain regions (such as the neo-cortex) is diminished, while activity in the lower brain regions (such as the limbic system) increases.” - “Mind control tv”
http://www.redicecreations.com/specialr ... ntrol.html

If electronic mind control were impossible, then why would the European Union pass the following resolution against it?

“In January 1999, the European Parliament passed a resolution where it calls " for an international convention introducing a global ban on all development and deployment of weapons which might enable any form of manipulation of human beings. It is our conviction that this ban can not be implemented without the global pressure of the informed general public on the governments. Our major objective is to get across to the general public the real threat which these weapons represent for human rights and democracy and to apply pressure on the governments and parliaments around the world to enact legislature which would prohibit the use of these devices to both government and private organisations as well as individuals." (Plenary sessions/Europarliament, 1999)” http://www.angelfire.com/or/mctrl/NewCrit-JPSS-CS2.htm

If it is impossible then why have so many mind control devices been patented?

“patent numbered 03951134 on the Internet pages of IBM Intellectual Property Network for a device, described in the patent, as capable of picking up at a distance the brain waves of a person, process them by computer and emit correcting waves which will change the original brain waves.” http://soleilmavis.spaces.live.com/Blog ... 1908.entry

Machines can now read brain waves:

“In the middle of 1992, a sophisticated 122-channel brain research system became operational. This instrument is the culmination of more than ten years of development of the magnetoencephalographic (MEG) technology in the LTL. The magnetic field caused by neural currents flowing in the brain is measured by an array of 122 superconducting sensors which cover the subject's head in a helmetlike fashion.”
122-SQUID neuromagnetometer http://ltl.tkk.fi/triennial/squid.html

Toys respond to brain waves:

http://www.physorg.com/newman/gfx/news/newtoysreadb.jpg

Why couldn’t the visual, optical and electromagnetic signals emitted by TVs act as carrier signals, where hidden subliminal signals might be broadcast? Subliminal message generators have also been patented:

“US PAT NO: 5,270,800
TITLE: Subliminal message generator

ABSTRACT:
A combined subliminal and supraliminal message generator for use with
a television receiver permits complete control of subliminal messages
and their manner of presentation.

US PAT NO: 5,170,381
TITLE: Method for mixing audio subliminal recordings

ABSTRACT:
Audio subliminal recordings are made in which in addition to using a
primary carrier, such as music, two audio channels are used to deliver
subliminal messages to the brain.”
http://beyond-the-illusion.com/files/Mi ... blmnls.txt

The whole mess reads like a script from a b-movie, specifically, this movie:

http://bookarmor.com/wp-content/uploads ... eylive.jpg

From “They Live” script:
http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scri ... enter.html

“Our impulses are being redirected
We live in an artificially-induced state of consciousness,
The movement began eight months ago
By a group of scientists.
They accidentally discovered these signals being sent.
The under-class is growing,
Human rights are non-existent.
In their repressive society, we are their unwitting accomplices.
Their intention to rule rests with the annihilation of consciousness.
We have been lulled into a trance,
They have made us indifferent.
We are focused only on our own gain.
They are safe as long as they are not discovered.
That is their method of survival,
Keep us asleep.
Keep us selfish.
Keep us sedated.
We are their cattle.
We are being bred for slavery.
We cannot break their signal.
The signal must be shut off at the source.
They want benign indifference.
We could be pets or food, but all we really are is livestock.”

In the real world,we also have to shut down the signal at its source, the television. The controlled press has to be shut down. It is the primary threat we face today. This is the singular corrosive force that is empowering the controllers over all other measures, even the economic ones. This invasive degenerative force is welcomed into every living room, where it is embraced like an old friend. A large majority of people trust TV and everything it tells them.

The “nightly news” is the primary programming channel, it must be switched off, if humanity is to survive the final round-up. The object of the programming is to suppress, or if possible, to eliminate the free will. The technocrats who maintain the systems of control believe that the creation of a global dictatorship requires the suppression of free will in all subjects, beginning with Americans who are the unfortunate target nation that has the privilege of being the epicenter of the global wave generator. We have to convince everyone to ignore the news and turn-off all other network programming. Even seemingly innocuous programs like sit-coms and soap operas are used for brainwashing, conveying corrupt immorality to the sheeple as an acceptable new standard.

The second most-important component of brainwashing is children’s tv and video games (Followed closely by the behavioral conditioning dispensed by the educational system.) Anyone who wants to save their kids should seriously consider unplugging their “one-eyed babysitters.”

The pulsating waves of techno-programming radiate outward from American assets, working best when they have a powerful operational field (like here at ground zero), where they can draw capacitance to generate an overwhelming pulse. If America fully submits to the psycho/sensual assault, surrendering our God-given right to resist, then the power of those who lead us is magnified before the world’s eyes, thus reinforcing the sense of inevitability and discouraging any further puny resistance.

Turning people away from the news programmers will require the formation of another news outlet, designed to accommodate people who do not use computers, or like to read. We need radio outlets throughout the country which broadcast daily, compiling program reports from Internet sources, to counter the network wire service subversion. Maybe some of the key sites (such as Crime and Corruption of New World Order or What Really Happened) will join their efforts to produce a common feed, putting out a daily summary on key reports that include all important news determined to be vital to maintaining a vigilant democracy. All we have to do is find sympathetic DJs, willing to use Internet news aggregator services, or newspapers to run a daily list of key reports. In addition to these news outlets, there has to be a way for listeners to read the whole Internet report.

We must encourage independent thought and cultivate a spirit of resistance. Organized resistance to psychological manipulation must focus on finding ways to break through the news filter that keeps independent thought away from the sheeple. New methods must be devised to transmit simple short messages of truth that summarize the dilemma. Education should be aimed at specific target groups, such as veterans and policemen. Specific goals should be set, such as stopping the war on Iran and de-legitimizing American elections through “No Vote” efforts.

We have to prepare to fight the main thrust of the elitist plans next year, whichever Zionist shill gets elected. Either candidate is sure to take-up the Israeli torch to lead the mob against Iran. We must organize a general strike or a one-day national work stoppage to highlight the sorry state of affairs and rally American patriotism against the international elite and the plans for global dictatorship and permanent war. We must prove that we are fighting Israel’s war and organize boycotts of Israeli goods http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/cgi-bin/ ... #more22242 and protests at all American Israeli embassies and AIPAC headquarters. http://dailyscare.com/3175/protest-isra ... ac-offices

The principle of the “economic amplifier” outlined in the “Silent Weapons” document http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/socio ... ooper2.htm as an instrument of coercion and control also works in other situations where the authority figures are attempting to gain control over people, manipulating them to pre-determined outcomes. We saw it used in the recent incident in Britain of police use of Agents Provocateurs to provoke acts of resistance from the crowd, for the purpose of justifying massive police retaliation.

http://www.infowars.net/pictures/june20 ... police.jpg

The process for amplification by the silent weapon is accurately compared to the actions of electrical components. Police or military figures create “inductance” in the closed system of the protest rally using provocateurs as “amplifiers,” release a burst of kinetic energy into the circuit, causing pent-up energies “capacitance” to be released. The “static” caused by these increased energy levels is then ruthlessly suppressed in a reverse pulse of violence, the purpose for the entire amplification.

In imperial foreign policy, the same principle is followed, for the same reason, to create violent agitation of the targeted population, in order to justify the ruthless suppression of that population. False front groups (terrorists) agitate against inflamed tensions, promoting further violence, thus justifying a cycle of even greater cleansing violence. The idea is to compel targeted populations to force compliance from their government, just like the fire-bombing strategy used to force Hitler’s capitulation. Today, the doctrine has been so refined that much lower levels of terror may be employed to stampede the locals. Small acts of terror are amplified through reaction attacks (feedback), which are echoed back in a closed amplification loop, eventually amplifying the violence to extreme levels, the purpose of the entire process.

We need to reevaluate our definitions of violence, to encompass all the ways that people are being violated by the elitist killers. Forcing unnecessary fuel inflation (price gouging) is another act of “violent” provocation. The process is the same - the inductance is an artificially produced price surge, to measure the public reaction or changes in spending habits, before it is partially backed off. The two steps forward, one step back shock increases both profits and popular reaction, as well as conditioning the public to accept the violation.

The controversial “Silent Weapon” document describes the process below:
“Economic engineers achieve the same result in studying the behavior of the economy and the consumer public by carefully selecting a staple commodity such as beef, coffee, gasoline, or sugar and then causing a sudden change or shock in its price or availability, thus kicking everybody's budget and buying habits out of shape.
They then observe the shock waves which result by monitoring the changes in advertising, prices, and sales of that and other commodities.
The objective of such studies is to acquire know-how to set the public economy into a predictable state of motion or change, even a controlled self-destructive state of motion which will convince the public that certain ‘expert’ people should take control of the money system and reestablish security (rather than liberty and justice) for all. When the subject citizens are rendered unable to control their financial affairs, they of course, become totally enslaved, a source of cheap labor.
Labor strikes deliver excellent test shocks to an economy, especially in the critical service areas of trucking (transportation), communication, public utilities (energy, water, garbage collection), etc.
By shock testing, it is found that there is a direct relationship between the availability of money flowing in an economy and the psychological outlook and response of masses of people dependent upon that availability.
For example, there is a measurable, quantitative relationship between the price of gasoline, and the probability that a person would experience a headache, feel a need to watch a violent movie, smoke a cigarette, or go to a tavern for a mug of beer.
It is most interesting that, by observing and measuring the economic modes by which the public tries to run from their problems and escape from reality, and by applying the mathematical theory of Operations Research, it is possible to program computers to predict the most probable combination of created events (shocks) which will bring about a complete control and subjugation of the public through a subversion of the public economy (by shaking the plum tree).
The following comes from “The Planned Collapse of America.” http://www.informationclearinghouse.inf ... e18857.htm It is taken from a study produced by Stanford Research Institute, Changing Images of Man
http://www.skilluminati.com/research/en ... df_format/

“The government has known for decades that America is on a countdown to self-destruction. Among the elite it is common knowledge that our “global economy” must one day collapse from its own dead weight...The research revealed that there were a multitude of crises that were about to intersect in America’s near future. Not the least of these converging catastrophes was a rapidly approaching breakdown of both American capitalism and democracy...researchers clearly predicted that the American economy was destined to collapse from its own dead weight. The data also showed that that economic collapse was to be accompanied by disastrous social repercussions, such as rioting and upheaval, which would lead us into a ‘garrison state.’

The government was looking forward to a very troubling future, trying to figure out the best path through it. The plan was to find ways to shape and mold mankind into a new cultural image, complete with new ideas and ideologies, even religious ones. The root of the problem was human nature, and solution was to re-shape the competing forces of daily life, in order to forge a new image of a new human nature.” [From Changing Images.]

“The appropriate question may be not so much how to bring about a transformation...but rather how to facilitate a non-catastrophic transformation.” [page 195]

“No doubt existing consciousness-changing, behavior-shaping, subliminal persuasion, and other conditioning techniques could be used to accomplish some sort of transformation of sobering proportions (we ought to be able to be more effective than Nazi Germany).” [After previously citing Nazi re-invigoration of the Germanic icons and ideals.]
In the wisdom of the elite planners, America was put on trial without our knowledge. The verdict was given, that America must be conditioned to “embrace post-industrialism,” in a new political reality that is described as “friendly fascism.” We cannot accept that verdict. The hour of our summary execution in nearly upon us. Will we accept this unjust decision, or will we fight back against our programming and unseat those who have usurped the Constitution and driven us to World War III against our will?

Contact author: peter.chamberlin@yahoo.com

Judge Advises Crime Victim To Arm Herself After Attack

2008-06-30T08:41:00.002-04:00

Moon Says No Longer Possible For Police To Protect Citizens posted June 27, 2008 General Sessions Court Judge Bob Moon said Friday that crime in Chattanooga "has become so rampant that it is no longer possible for the police department to protect our citizens."He told a woman who had been pulled from her car and beaten in the head that she or her mother needed to "purchase a weapon, obtain a gun permit and learn to protect yourself." The woman moved back in with her mother after the May 4 incident on E. 17th Street.Judge Moon said, "The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that all citizens have a right to purchase a weapon to defend themselves, their families and their homes - unless there is some disqualification that prevents them from owning a weapon."

He said, "All area of our city are subject to crime, and some areas have very high crime rates and need to be 'overpoliced.'"Judge Moon said Coolidge Park is one area that needs to be "overpoliced." He said, "I frequently hear of break-ins, thefts and robberies to tourists and citizens in that area. Having a high police presence there is one way you are going to abate it."Judge Moon raised the bond for Dewayne Beard from $65,000 to $130,000 on especially aggravated robbery and from $15,000 to $50,000 on theft. He bound both cases to the Grand Jury.The woman said she was driving on E. 17th Street when Beard came riding up on a bicycle and pulled a gold handgun on her. When she refused to get out of the car, he began hitting her in the head with the gun.He then pulled her out and drove off with her gold 2001 Toyota Corolla.Police found the woman semi-conscious with severe head injuries. She had to have eight stitches in her head and 10 stitches in her leg, where she was also hit.Police located Beard at 4724 Tomahawk Dr. and arrested him as he walked out of the residence. He told officers the stolen car was being driven "by one of my goons."Officers located the vehicle a couple of blocks away on Bella Vista Drive. Blood was found inside the vehicle, and the woman's purse was also inside.Beard said he threw the gun out of the window while driving through Highland Park. Beard was allowed out on an OR bond when the case was not ready for a hearing within 10 days.On May 31, he picked up new charges of aggravated rape and aggravated burglary.A woman said she was lying nude in her bed and a man began performing a sex act on her. She said when the man then began having sex with her using a condom, she realized it was not her boyfriend.She said she pulled the sheets up and saw it was Beard. That case was bound to the Grand Jury earlier

FXI weekly out look

2008-06-29T20:26:00.001-04:00

EUR/USD Weekly Outlook 6/29 thru 7/4 2008, Click here

Bible Roulette--Are Ya Feeling Lucky Punk?

2008-06-27T12:50:00.003-04:00

By Dennis Diehl
While Christmas may leave many with visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads, fundamentalist evangelicals and Bible prophecy nuts see dragons and beasts, men of sin and rebuilt temples.
They see that tiny little sliver of land that has linked Africa to Europe and across which our pre-human ancestors strode, now called Israel, as the Promised Land for the Chosen People. All others, of course, are not so chosen or special. That’s the problem with the concept of the chosen people. Everyone else has to be the unchosen. And that's the way it feels today when it comes to the Middle East and all her people.
These Bible literalists and prophecy geeks seek meaning for today from the Book of Daniel, with its statues of gold,silver, bronze and iron mixed with clay. They see rams and goats pushing their way across the Middle East and find meaning in the Kings of the North and of the South, though they can never quite figure out who’s who and when.
They just adore Daniel 11, which they read like a newspaper with its four great beasts of the lion, the bear, the leopard and something more astonishing than the others, crashing its way across the planet. It has ten horns all with eyes and a little horn to boot. The meanings of it all are endless but they keep churches full.
These beasts are world empires prophesied, except these descriptions were written after they had come and gone, but don’t bring that up to the read-the-Bible-as-a-newspaper crowd. Most Bible prophecy isn't prophecy at all, but that's for another time.
Later in the Gospels, we see that the end is really getting close now. Wars, rumors of wars, like that’s something new, are everywhere. Every earthquake, flood, tsunami, tornado and cold front just screams at us, “you can sure tell that Jesus has to return any day now.”
Weather can’t just be weather. It has to be prophecy come alive. Of course, it is just weather, but that won’t wash with those who play Bible Roulette with world news and natural disasters. It never dawns on them how God seems limited to expressing his wrath during the appropriate season or plate slippage in slippage-prone areas.
Enter the Book of Revelation. Written by who knows who under the influence of who knows what. Astro-theology at it's best. The Book of Revelation has been responsible for more insane Christian sects, cults and "send in your money because you won’t need it when this all happens", lunacy, than any book in the Bible. Replete with scrolls and lambs, seals and trumpets, vials and plagues, it’s a Fundamentalist preacher’s dream come true and not a bad fear mongering tool for government leaders who just know that Voice in their head is coming right from the throne room of God Himself.
I’ve kidded in the past about having met 23 of the Two Witnesses in my former life as a church pastor, lest you think I don’t know what I’m talking about on this topic. I’ve met a few more since. These are the two great ones, two men actually or Elijah and Moses, Amos and Andy , depending on who you ask, who torment us sinners the last three and half years before Jesus comes.
Of all things, the Two Witnesses just returned from Jerusalem where they set off to start their mission, but it didn’t go all that well, so they came home. Actually it’s a minister, who has rather lost his mind, that I knew in the church. He said the trumpets and seals would break open in April of 2008 and get louder and louder, ending in planetary death on a huge scale and nuclear explosions in our port cities this summer. Hey, it could happen, but that would not be prophecy come alive, it just might be the government needing to cancel elections. Who knows anymore?
Conveniently, he declared his wife the other witness. God works in families, you know. Anyway, old Ron said that if by June of this year it was not obvious the Book of Revelation had come true as HE said, then he’d declare himself a false prophet because anything less would “be quite insane.”Well guess what? He changed the rules of engagement, kept his office as prophet, kept his dwindling church and kept the money. He’s also a liar.

What is Bible Roulette? Bible Roulette is the misuse of the Bible by religious zealots to promote governmental insanity on the world scene so that perhaps out of all the chaos of, say an attack on Iran and the ensuing explosion in the Middle East, Jesus, who loves all the little children of the world, well except Palestinian, Iraqi or Iranian, evidently, will come back and bring Peace.
Our President plays Bible Roulette every time he listens to the likes of John Hagee and his beer belly prophecies about what surely are his accurate views of the Bible and what it means for the Middle East and Christians all over the world. John Hagee plays Bible Roulette for a living.
Most fundamentalists and Bible literalist pastors do. You can get an amazing amount of mileage out of the Book of Revelation and spin it into a career. So do all the ministerial advisors to the candidates. Scary people actually whose mouths needs be shut at times, it seems to me, lest we end up, not with the return of Jesus, but only a large sanitation problem on a major part of the planet and world chaos.
Bible Roulette is currently responsible for more bad decisions in high places than one might ever wish to contemplate. It’s also quite possible that religious zealots who think they have influence in high places are being played the fool so that the narcissists and psychopaths in government can do what they want and prophet, or rather profit, from it all.
Hey, if it didn’t bother our country enough when the President said God told him to strike at Sadaam or that God wanted him to be President, nothing is going to bother us. If your eyebrows have not been raised by now over this President's abuse of power and psychopathic leanings, there is not much more to say. I guess I could say, you reap what you allow to grow.
Another problem we face as humans becoming (human beings may still be a stretch at this time in history and under this administration), is the meme that the nation of Israel is the center of the world for how it’s all going to go for the rest of us. Uzbekistan... not so much. But Israel.. you got to be kidding? Soooooooo special. It’s not. They just know how to play the game of how does a small people survive in a nasty environment.
First of all, you get to have all the nuclear weapons you want. Secondly, you make sure others don’t have any to keep you humble. And thirdly, you make every effort to promote Evangelical Christian zeal for the chosen people so they are taken care of when push comes to shove or we have to vote on something that benefits them over everyone else.
God did not literally establish the nation of Israel. The American taxpayers bought it for them. I bet if we cut off the funding and let God pick up their support, Israel would feel as special, finally, as Uzbekistan.
Time and space would fail me to show how the story of the Israelites in the Old Testament might just be a wee bit exaggerated to give a hopeless people, no different than the people around them, an amazingly more interesting pedigree.
As I was told recently, “God won’t tolerate anyone picking on the Nation of Israel. They are the Chosen People.” Argh, argh and half an argh (you have to know the Book of Revelation to understand that…).
I guarantee you, if Israel, alone or with the aid of the Bush administration, attacks Iran in the next few months and leaves the mess to the next President, you will not think Israel is so special anymore. When the results of such a fool’s game as that hits the fan, you may never want to look at your Bible again or hear one more yelling, ignorant preacher tell you how it all is and that prophecy is coming alive.
You can create your own outcomes when you have such a crazy blueprint in your head. It might not go as you planned however.
So here we sit. The summer of ’08 and it feels really dangerous on the planet as far as I can tell with Bible Roulettesters spinning the cylinder and hoping for a bang instead of a click. Of course, they are pointing the gun at others.
Will the Bush Administration attack Iran, almost as a last cynical and in your face America game? Will this administration go out with a bang just as they came in? Cancel elections maybe or declare it’s too dangerous to not have the powers that be still be for the foreseeable future? Can’t happen, you say?
Here’s how it’s done.
You load your gun with one bullet from Daniel. Drop two bullets from Matthew 24 and three from the Book of Revelation into the cylinders. Now ALL the cylinders are full. Someone is going to die. There is no chance it won't go off.
Get some fundamentalist preacher of note to spin it and then tell the God haunted members of the Congress and Executive Branch and the simple psychopathic narcissists, where to point it and why. Pull the trigger. Its that simple. There is no empty chamber. Lots of people are going to die. The world will never be the same and life as you know for you and your kids will change.
Bible Roulette...Coming to a planet near you, if someone doesn't speak up quickly.

Authors Bio:
Dennis Diehl is a former pastor of 26 years, who outgrew the Literalism of Fundamentalism. He writes about Pastoral and Church abuse and is available to speak on such topics or be helpful to any church suffering under abusive religion or pastors.

Don’t Give Your Consent to Slavery – Fight Fascism!

2008-06-26T19:09:00.000-04:00

by pete chamberlin on Thu Jun 26, 2008 1:33 pm

Normal folks do not want to believe that the human race is dominated by dark forces. But, there is a small group of people who know that it is true, the human race is considered to be livestock, cattle for the real owners of this world, the elite. Since the day of our creation, mankind has been dominated and shaped by inhuman entities, to behave more like cattle. The shapers themselves know this to be true. They also know that if we are not kept ignorant many of us will one day learn to ask the proper questions, until we finally locate the evidence that proves it is all true. Through diligent research, various people have discovered proof of the machinery that controls America’s economy, its political system, its military, its educational system, its medical system, every facet of life. This knowledge is a direct threat to the elite. The elite power game is designed to wear the people down, as they move the nation slowly toward a predicted outcome, where the majority becomes exhausted from fighting a losing struggle and completely submits to total elite domination of all resources. When the American masses freely surrender their free will to the dark overlords, in the name of security, the fate of the world will be sealed by this lawless tyranny. Destruction and suffering, such as has never been witnessed by the eyes of man, will be unleashed upon the helpless victim populations of the earth. Very few people can see this future (no one wants to see it) outside of the elite, who gladly accept it as the price of saving whatever is left of the world for themselves. The masters of humanity count on our blindness and willful ignorance, in order to carry-out their conspiratorial plans. They join in secret organizations, where they are free to openly discuss their schemes amongst their own kind. The documentation of their plotting is kept locked away from the public in corporate vaults and private libraries. Occasionally, someone on the inside discovers their conscience and leaks word of the devilish plans to the outside world, or maybe they simply slip-up and lose track or control of sequestered documents. In order to deceive us and to stall the day of our realization of the multitude of their crimes against humanity, intensive disinformation is introduced into the webstream, discrediting the truth by impersonating it. We have to be diligent in our research to ascertain the veracity of any documents that we might come across. If their revelations cannot be confirmed by multiple sources, then they must be suspect. The “Pentagon Papers” and “Operation Northwoods” come quickly to mind. Both of these major leaks were later partially corroborated by reports of past deceptive military PSYOPS and CIA covert wars. Then there are the out of the blue revelations offered by researchers who claim to have obtained inside information, or in the case of former MI6 agent John Coleman, a training manual from the Tavistock Institute (British mind control research). - , Conspirators' Hierarchy: The Story of the Committee of 300 - http://www.barefootsworld.net/tavistok.html Coleman’s research is automatically suspect because of his previous government involvement. But this research on social scientists and psychologists at Tavistock, founded in studies by British “Operational Research” at the end of World War II (on the psycho/social impact of bombing upon civilian populations), provided valuable insight to me on the mechanisms for studying and manipulating human cattle. http://www.mortyscabin.net/modules.php? ... e&sid=1769 Another very insightful document of questionable origin, which seems to corroborate Coleman’s work, entitled, “Silent Weapons for a Quiet War,” (an Operations Research Technical Manual) is alleged to be a document from the highly-secretive elitist Bilderburg Group.” http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/ha ... etwars.htm This document may be legitimate, or it may also be a carefully constructed piece of disinformation. Whatever it is, it opens even more insights into the potential opinions of the elite towards the American sheeple, or anyone not living up to their lofty cruel standards and ideas for forging a global dictatorship:“The general public refuses to improve its own mentality and its faith in its fellow man. It has become a herd of proliferating barbarians, and, so' to speak, a blight upon the fate of the earth. They do not care enough about economic science to learn why they have not been able to avoid war despite religious morality, and their religious or self-gratifying refusal to deal with earthly problems renders the solution of the earthly problem unreachable by them. It is left to those few who are truly willing to think and survive as the fittest to survive, to solve the problem for themselves as the few who really care.”“This public demand is incredible, so the human god, the political, meets incredibility with incredibility by promising the world and delivering nothing. This public behavior is surrender born of fear, laziness and expediency. It is the basis of the welfare state as a strategic weapon, useful against a disgusting public. They hire politicians to face reality for them.” Silent Weapons builds upon the British work begun at Operations Research and by its offshoot studies, in studying the effects of planned shocks upon the “cattle,” in particular the economic effects of specific psychological shocks. From this research they constructed what they called an “economic amplifier,” for stimulating the economy in various ways, by shocking the populace and using the information obtained to control the people, thereby manipulating their free will.“The low class elements of the society must be brought under total control, i.e., must be house-broken, trained, and assigned a yoke and long term social duties from a very early age, before they have an opportunity to question the propriety of the matter...In order to achieve such conformity, the lower class family unit must be disintegrated by a process of increasing preoccupation of the parents and occupationally orphaned children...The quality of education given to the lower class must be of the poorest sort, so that the ... ignorance isolating the inferior class from the superior class is and remains incomprehensible to the inferior class. With such an initial handicap, even bright lower class individuals have little if any hope of extricating themselves from their assigned lot in life. This form of slavery is essential to maintaining some measure of social order, peace, and tranquility for the ruling upper class.” “Economic engineers...study the behavior of the economy and the consumer public by carefully selecting a staple commodity such as beef, coffee, gasoline, or sugar and then causing a sudden change or shock in its price or availability, thus kicking everybody's budget and buying habits out of shape...They then observe the shock waves which result by monitoring the changes in advertising, prices, and sales of that and other commodities...The objective of such studies is to acquire know-how to set the public economy into a predictable state of motion or change, even a controlled self-destructive state of motion which will convince the public that certain "expert" people should take control of the money system and reestablish security (rather than liberty and justice) for all. When the subject citizens are rendered unable to control their financial affairs, they of course, become totally enslaved, a source of cheap labor.” “Labor strikes deliver excellent test shocks to an economy, especially in the critical service areas of trucking (transportation), communication, public utilities (energy, water, garbage collection), etc...By shock testing, it is found that there is a direct relationship between the availability of money flowing in an economy and the psychological outlook and response of masses of people dependent upon that availability...For example, there is a measurable, quantitative relationship between the price of gasoline, and the probability that a person would experience a headache, feel a need to watch a violent movie, smoke a cigarette, or go to a tavern for a mug of beer.” “It is most interesting that, by observing and measuring the economic modes by which the public tries to run from their problems and escape from reality, and by applying the mathematical theory of Operations Research, it is possible to program computers to predict the most probable combination of created events (shocks) which will bring about a complete control and subjugation of the public through a subversion of the public economy (by shaking the plum tree).”“Keep the public undisciplined and ignorant of basic systems principles on the one hand, while keeping them confused, disorganized, and distracted with matters of no real importance on the other hand.Disengaging their minds, sabotaging their mental activities, by providing a low quality program of public education in mathematics, logic, systems design, and economics, and by discouraging technical creativity.Unrelenting emotional affrontations and attacks (mental and emotional rape) by way of a constant barrage of sex, violence, and wars in the media - especially the T.V. and the newspapers.Shift their thinking from personal needs to highly fabricated outside priorities.Preclude their interest in and discovery of the silent weapons of social automation technology.The best approach is to create problems and then offer the solutions.Keep the public busy, busy, busy, with no time to think; back on the farm with the other animals.”The elitists’ control over information, made possible by the creation of a global computer network, allowed them to absorb all available data from both voluntary and involuntary sources and incorporate the latest facts into their studies for manipulating the unsuspecting masses. The computer-modeling they developed allowed them to accurately predict the real world effect of certain shocks through computer simulations. “A silent weapon system operates upon data obtained from a docile public by legal (but not always lawful) force...The number of such forms submitted to the I.R.S. is a useful indicator of public consent, an important factor in strategic decision making...When the government is able to collect tax and seize private property without just compensation, it is an indication that the public is ripe for surrender and is consenting to enslavement and legal encroachment. A good and easily quantified indicator of harvest time is the number of public citizens who pay income tax.” The move to expand their acquisition of personal information led them to take the risky step of sharing their global computer/communications network, the Internet, with the people, even with the sheeple. But, the document reveals that the controllers were well aware of the risks and accepted it as the necessary price of aggregating all that juicy input. “It was only a matter of time, only a few decades, before the general public would be able to grasp and upset the cradle of power, for the very elements of the new silent weapon technology were as accessible for a public utopia as they were for providing a private utopia.As time goes on and communication and education improve, the lower class elements of the social labor structure become knowledgeable and envious of the good things that the upper class members have. They also begin to attain a knowledge of energy systems and the ability to enforce their rise through the class structure.This threatens the sovereignty of the elite.If this rise of the lower classes can be postponed long enough, the elite can achieve energy dominance. Until such energy dominance is absolutely established, the consent of people to labor and let others handle their affairs must be taken into consideration, since failure to do so could cause the people to interfere in the final transfer of energy sources to the control of the elite.It is essential to recognize that at this time, public consent is still an essential key to the release of energy in the process of economic amplification.”Whether this document is a fraud or not, its characterizations of elitist contempt for the sheeple resonates as truth. This means that they are vulnerable, if we are diligent in our investigations, but only for a limited time. Our window of opportunity is very limited, as we watch it slowly close before us. If the American people capitulate before we can educate them to the dangerous future awaiting us all, then all hope is lost (outside of divine intervention). The people are irrelevant until we learn to organize and to fight back. Until we learn how to disrupt their plan by generating our own reverse shock waves, generated by explosive revelatory truths, we will remain irrelevant. Until we can blow-away the foundations of lies that empower the cover-ups, the truths that could set us all free will remain useless data, lost in the webstream, hidden in executive vaults and private libraries. As long as the people remain compliant to elitist molding, there remains little hope. It is time to strike a blow for hope. We must launch our own counter-offensive, in order to capture the people’s minds, in time to repel the final wave of conformation. We must begin to see the elitists who dominate us as the vile scum that they truly are, alien to all decent human beings. It is our last call for making the American people relevant to those who have been elected to represent us in our fake democracy.In my quest to understand what is needed to avert the catastrophic future that awaits us, and to formulate a workable alternative vision to it, I turned to one of the most-often quoted figures in America, Noam Chomsky. In a recent interview he did with Al-Jazeera Network, “Chomsky: US public irrelevant,” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZuHAqjI3CY Chomsky described our plight and compared it to recent third world revolutions, carried-out by simple folks in similar predicaments: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biyK7NgdCDA “For the majority of the population real wages have stagnated or declined for the past 30 years, there's been growth but it's going to the wealthy and into very few pockets, benefits which were never really great have declined, work hours have greatly increased and there isn't really much to show for it other than staying afloat.” “The elite strategy for managing the electorate is to ignore the will of the people as...interpret[ed] through polling data?... We have models right in front of us. Like pick, say, Bolivia, the poorest county in South America. They had a democratic election a couple of years ago that you can't even dream about in the US. It's kind of interesting it's not discussed [in our press]...A large majority of the population became organised and active for the first time in history and elected someone from their own ranks on crucial issues that everyone knew about – control of resource, cultural rights, issues of justice, you know, really serious issues... A couple of years before this they managed to drive Bechtel and the World Bank out of the country when they were trying to privatise the war. It was a pretty harsh struggle... Well, they reached a point where they finally could manifest this through the electoral system - they didn't have to change the electoral laws, they had to change the way the public acts... Actually if we look at the poorest country in the hemisphere – Haiti - the same thing happened in 1990. You know, if peasants in Bolivia and Haiti can do this, it's ridiculous to say we can't.” The only thing that will save us and the world from the great plundering that is planned for us is another revolution, a revolution of free will. Everyone must stop surrendering their will to the dishonest men and women who claim to represent us. We must reclaim our fading and lost heritage."To oppose the policies of a government does not mean you are against the country or the people that the government supposedly represents. Such opposition should be called what it really is: democracy, or democratic dissent, or having a critical perspective about what your leaders are doing. Either we have the right to democratic dissent and criticism of these policies or we all lie down and let the leader, the Fuhrer, do what is best, while we follow uncritically, and obey whatever he commands. That's just what the Germans did with Hitler, and look where it got them.” Michael Parenti, author. http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/Fascism.html Americans can stop the overlords from carrying-out the final step for ending human freedom, expanding their global war into Iran, escalating it beyond the nuclear threshold. Advancement of their geopolitical plan through the use of terrorism by our own government and through their proxies in foreign intelligence services remains the immoral center of their unholy schemes. We stop this hypocrisy by making this common knowledge.Revelations of “silent weapons” being used in a secret war against them and their families will go a long way towards opening many eyes and convincing people to resist. What is needed is massive resistance, on a scale not seen in this country for a very long time. People have to be convinced to resist cooperating with government and private efforts to collect personal data and conform with illegal mandates. Organize to stop the war, to end the illegal progressive tax system, the submission to intrusive government measures. In the end, we must bring down the corrupt Federal Reserve System. Soldiers must refuse to lay down their freedom and their lives for the war machine. Everyone must stop playing along with our farcical electoral system. Don’t vote on November 6, send them a static-filled signal of our own.

Supreme Court says Americans have right to guns

2008-06-26T12:29:00.001-04:00

By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Americans have a right to own guns for self-defense in their homes, the justices' first major pronouncement on gun rights in U.S. history.

The court's 5-4 ruling struck down the District of Columbia's 32-year-old ban on handguns as incompatible with gun rights under the Second Amendment. The decision went further than even the Bush administration wanted, but probably leaves most firearms restrictions intact.

The court had not conclusively interpreted the Second Amendment since its ratification in 1791. The amendment reads: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

The basic issue for the justices was whether the amendment protects an individual's right to own guns no matter what, or whether that right is somehow tied to service in a state militia.

Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia said that an individual right to bear arms is supported by "the historical narrative" both before and after the Second Amendment was adopted.

The Constitution does not permit "the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home," Scalia said. The court also struck down Washington's requirement that firearms be equipped with trigger locks or kept disassembled, but left intact the licensing of guns.

Scalia noted that the handgun is Americans' preferred weapon of self-defense in part because "it can be pointed at a burglar with one hand while the other hand dials the police."

In a dissent he summarized from the bench, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the majority "would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons."

He said such evidence "is nowhere to be found."

Justice Stephen Breyer wrote a separate dissent in which he said, "In my view, there simply is no untouchable constitutional right guaranteed by the Second Amendment to keep loaded handguns in the house in crime-ridden urban areas."

Joining Scalia were Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas. The other dissenters were Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter.

Gun rights supporters hailed the decision. "I consider this the opening salvo in a step-by-step process of providing relief for law-abiding Americans everywhere that have been deprived of this freedom," said Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association.

The NRA will file lawsuits in San Francisco, Chicago and several of its suburbs challenging handgun restrictions there based on Thursday's outcome.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., a leading gun control advocate in Congress, criticized the ruling. "I believe the people of this great country will be less safe because of it," she said.

The capital's gun law was among the nation's strictest.

Dick Anthony Heller, 66, an armed security guard, sued the District after it rejected his application to keep a handgun at his home for protection in the same Capitol Hill neighborhood as the court.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled in Heller's favor and struck down Washington's handgun ban, saying the Constitution guarantees Americans the right to own guns and that a total prohibition on handguns is not compatible with that right.

The issue caused a split within the Bush administration. Vice President Dick Cheney supported the appeals court ruling, but others in the administration feared it could lead to the undoing of other gun regulations, including a federal law restricting sales of machine guns. Other laws keep felons from buying guns and provide for an instant background check.

White House reaction was restrained. "We're pleased that the Supreme Court affirmed that the Second Amendment protects the right of Americans to keep and bear arms," White House spokesman Tony Fratto said.

Scalia said nothing in Thursday's ruling should "cast doubt on long-standing prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons or the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings."

In a concluding paragraph to the his 64-page opinion, Scalia said the justices in the majority "are aware of the problem of handgun violence in this country" and believe the Constitution "leaves the District of Columbia a variety of tools for combating that problem, including some measures regulating handguns."

The law adopted by Washington's city council in 1976 bars residents from owning handguns unless they had one before the law took effect. Shotguns and rifles may be kept in homes, if they are registered, kept unloaded and either disassembled or equipped with trigger locks.

Opponents of the law have said it prevents residents from defending themselves. The Washington government says no one would be prosecuted for a gun law violation in cases of self-defense.

The last Supreme Court ruling on the topic came in 1939 in U.S. v. Miller, which involved a sawed-off shotgun. Constitutional scholars disagree over what that case means but agree it did not squarely answer the question of individual versus collective rights.

Forty-four state constitutions contain some form of gun rights, which are not affected by the court's consideration of Washington's restrictions.

The case is District of Columbia v. Heller, 07-290.

Wasteful Weapons and the Politicians Who Love Them

2008-06-25T09:17:00.000-04:00

Posted on Jun 24, 2008
By Robert Scheer

Remember Curtis LeMay, the Air Force general played to chilling effect by Sterling Hayden in the 1964 movie “Dr. Strangelove”? If you’re too young for that reference, you probably don’t recall when the concept of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) dominated our military posture toward our Soviet enemy. I bring this up because the midair refueling tanker that the MAD warrior LeMay commissioned suddenly has become a controversy in the presidential campaign.

MAD was based on a triad of air, land and sea forces that would punish a Soviet first strike, ending all semblance of life on the one-sixth of the planet that composed the old Soviet Union. Toward that end, we needed not only thousands of land-based weapons but thousands of other weapons on ships and on airplanes. It was LeMay’s insistence that nuclear-armed bombers be in the air 24/7 that gave rise to the midair refueling tankers that were in the news this past week. Controversy arose when the Government Accountability Office questioned an Air Force decision to award the contract for a new generation of those “gas stations in the sky” to one defense contractor instead of its rival.

The news was presented in a Wall Street Journal front-page story focusing on the profit potential rather than the military significance of the tanker. So, too, the account that led the New York Times business section, which detailed the good news in Boeing’s revived chances to secure the refueling tanker contract. This deal would initially cost $35 billion, but, as the Times pointed out, “The tanker contract, which could eventually grow to $100 billion to build a fleet of 179 refueling planes, is one of the most lucrative ever awarded by the Pentagon.”

Neither newspaper indicated why we needed $100 billion in tankers, other than in a revealing photo in the Times showing one of the airplanes refueling a B-2 bomber, which brings us back to Gen. LeMay and his MAD doctrine. The B-2 was designed to be the modern bomber in the triad confronting the Soviets. Its very expensive stealth cover would be able to penetrate a sophisticated Soviet radar system—which was never built. That also assumes that the B-2’s stealthy cover would stop deteriorating in the rain, as it was wont to do, but the test for this technology never occurred because of the untimely fall of the Soviet menace.

Despite having lost its purpose, production of the B-2 continued for a while as a jobs and profit program supported by key legislators from both parties, as has been the case with the tanker designed to fuel the planes. Woe to the legislator who dares take on any weapons program, and that is why John McCain has become the subject of criticism from the Democrats.

In one of his better performances as a senator, McCain distinguished himself by challenging a swindle that would have rewarded the Boeing company with a contract worth $100 billion for leasing Boeing aircraft that were converted to refueling tankers from a model that was not selling in a depressed market. Thanks to McCain’s insistence on a criminal investigation, the chief financial officer of Boeing and the top procurement officer in the Air Force wing of the Pentagon were sent to serve time in federal prison. The contract was canceled, and a new contract was awarded to Northrop Grumman and a European partner.

The Democratic National Committee now has criticized McCain for having opposed the Boeing deal, charging that McCain had “sent American jobs abroad.” The DNC’s attack on McCain speaks volumes to the bipartisan gut-checking in favor of military waste that has led us to squander trillions of taxpayer dollars since 9/11.

McCain campaign spokesman Brian Rogers responded to the scurrilous attack from the DNC, saying:

“Let’s get this straight: John McCain led the charge to uncover the biggest boondoggle in Pentagon history, saved the taxpayers over $6 billion, helped send corrupt execs and government officials to jail, and the Democrats say he’s the bad guy? It’s absurd. Apparently to Barack Obama and the Democrats, corruption is OK, so long as it helps them politically. That’s not change we can believe in.”

Now, of course, McCain has done his bit to waste egregious amounts of taxpayer money by cheerleading for an Iraq war that has already burdened us with trillions in future debt, but that hardly exonerated the Democrats in once again attempting to one-up the Republicans in throwing money at defense contractors.

The Coming Catastrophe?

2008-06-24T18:04:00.002-04:00

The finishing touches on several contingency plans for attacking Iran

Global Research Editor's note:
We bring to the attention of our readers David DeBatto's scenario as to what might occur if one of the several contingency plans to attack Iran, with the participation of Israel and NATO, were to be carried out. While one may disagree with certain elements of detail of the author's text, the thrust of this analysis must be taken seriously.

"Israel has said a strike on Iran will be "unavoidable" if the Islamic regime continues to press ahead with alleged plans for building an atom-bomb." (London Daily Telegraph, 6/11/2008)
"Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany joined President Bush on Wednesday in calling for further sanctions against Iran if it does not suspend its uranium enrichment program." Mr. Bush stressed again that "all options are on the table," which would include military force. (New York Times, 6/11/2008)

We are fast approaching the final six months of the Bush administration. The quagmire in Iraq is in its sixth painful year with no real end in sight and the forgotten war in Afghanistan is well into its seventh year. The "dead enders" and other armed factions are still alive and well in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan again controls most of that country. Gas prices have now reached an average of $4.00 a gallon nationally and several analysts predict the price will rise to $5.00-$6.00 dollars per gallon at the pump by Labor Day. This, despite assurances by some major supporters of the decision to invade Iraq that the Iraq war "will pay for itself" (Paul Wolfowitz) or that we will see "$20.00 per barrel" oil prices if we invade Iraq (Rupert Murdoch).

One thing the Pentagon routinely does (and does very well) is conduct war games. Top brass there are constantly developing strategies for conducting any number of theoretical missions based on real or perceived threats to our national security or vital interests. This was also done prior to the invasion of Iraq, but the Bush administration chose not to listen to the dire warnings about that mission given to him by Pentagon leaders, or for that matter, by his own senior intelligence officials. Nevertheless, war gaming is in full swing again right now with the bullseye just to the right of our current mess – Iran.

It’s no secret that the U.S. is currently putting the finishing touches on several contingency plans for attacking Iranian nuclear and military facilities. With our ground forces stretched to the breaking point in Iraq and Afghanistan, none of the most likely scenarios involve a ground invasion. Not that this administration wouldn’t prefer to march into the seat of Shiite Islam behind a solid, moving line of M1 Abrams tanks and proclaim the country for democracy. The fact is that even the President knows we can’t pull that off any more so he and the neo-cons will have to settle for Shock and Awe Lite.

If we invade Iran this year it will be done using hundreds of sorties by carrier based aircraft already stationed in the Persian Gulf and from land based aircraft located in Iraq and Qatar. They will strike the known nuclear facilities located in and around Tehran and the rest of the country as well as bases containing major units of the Iranian military, anti-aircraft installations and units of the Revolutionary Guard (a separate and potent Iranian para-military organization).

Will this military action stop Iran’s efforts to develop nuclear weapons? Probably not. It will probably not even destroy all of their nuclear research facilities, the most sensitive of which are known to be underground, protected by tons of earth and reinforced concrete and steel designed to survive almost all attacks using conventional munitions. The Iranian military and Revolutionary Guard will most likely survive as well, although they will suffer significant casualties and major bases and command centers will undoubtedly be destroyed. However, since Iran has both a functioning Air Force, Navy (including submarines) and modern anti-aircraft capabilities, U.S. fighter-bombers will suffer casualties as well. This will not be a "Cake Walk" as with the U.S. led invasion of Iraq in 2003 when the Iraqi Army simply melted away and the Iraqi Air Force never even launched a single aircraft.

Not even close.

If the United States attacks Iran either this summer or this fall, the American people had better be prepared for a shock that may perhaps be even greater to the national psyche (and economy) than 9/11. First of all, there will be significant U.S. casualties in the initial invasion. American jets will be shot down and the American pilots who are not killed will be taken prisoner - including female pilots. Iranian Yakhonts 26, Sunburn 22 and Exocet missiles will seek out and strike U.S. naval battle groups bottled up in the narrow waters of the Persian Gulf with very deadly results. American sailors will be killed and U.S. ships will be badly damaged and perhaps sunk. We may even witness the first attack on an American Aircraft carrier since World War II.

That’s just the opening act.

Israel (who had thus far stayed out of the fray by letting the U.S. military do the heavy lifting) is attacked by Hezbollah in a coordinated and large scale effort. Widespread and grisly casualties effectively paralyze the nation, a notion once thought impossible. Iran’s newest ally in the region, Syria, then unleashes a barrage of over 200 Scud B, C and D missiles at Israel, each armed with VX gas. Since all of Israel is within range of these Russian built weapons, Haifa, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and virtually all major civilian centers and several military bases are struck, often with a result of massive casualties.

The Israeli Air Force orders all three squadrons of their F-16I Sufa fighter/bombers into the air with orders to bomb Tehran and as many military and nuclear bases as they can before they are either shot down or run out of fuel. It is a one way trip for some of these pilots. Their ancient homeland lies in ruins. Many have family that is already dead or dying. They do not wait for permission from Washington, DC or U.S. regional military commanders. The Israeli aircraft are carrying the majority of their country’s nuclear arsenal under their wings.

Just after the first waves of U.S. bombers cross into Iranian airspace, the Iranian Navy, using shore based missiles and small, fast attack craft sinks several oil tankers in the Straits of Hormuz, sealing off the Persian Gulf and all its oil from the rest of the world. They then mine the area, making it difficult and even deadly for American minesweepers to clear the straits. Whatever is left of the Iranian Navy and Air Force harasses our Navy as it attempts minesweeping operations. More U.S casualties.

The day after the invasion Wall Street (and to a lesser extent, Tokyo, London and Frankfurt) acts as it always does in an international crisis – irrational speculative and spot buying reaches fever pitch and sends the cost of oil skyrocketing. In the immediate aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iran, the price of oil goes to $200.00 - $300.00 dollars a barrel on the open market. If the war is not resolved in a few weeks, that price could rise even higher. This will send the price of gasoline at the pump in this country to $8.00-$10.00 per gallon immediately and subsequently to even higher unthinkable levels.

If that happens, this country shuts down. Most Americans are not be able to afford gas to go to work. Truckers pull their big rigs to the side of the road and simply walk away. Food, medicine and other critical products are not be brought to stores. Gas and electricity (what is left of the short supply) are too expensive for most people to afford. Children, the sick and elderly die from lack of air-conditioned homes and hospitals in the summer. Children, the sick and elderly die in the winter for lack of heat. There are food riots across the country. A barter system takes the place of currency and credit as the economy dissolves and banks close or limit withdrawals. Civil unrest builds.

The police are unable to contain the violence and are themselves victims of the same crisis as the rest of the population. Civilian rule dissolves and Martial Law is declared under provisions approved under the Patriot Act. Regular U.S. Army and Marine troops patrol the streets. The federal government apparatus is moved to an unknown but secure location. The United States descends into chaos and becomes a third world country. Its time as the lone superpower is over.

It doesn’t get any worse than this.

Then the first Israeli bomber drops its nuclear payload on Tehran.

David DeBatto is a former U.S. Army Counterintelligence Special Agent, Iraqi war veteran and co-author the "CI" series from Warner Books and the upcoming "Counter to Intelligence" from Praeger Security International.

Global Research Articles by David DeBatto

The American Dream

2008-06-23T08:48:00.002-04:00

The American Dream, George Carlin on You Tube. (foul language is involved in this video, beware)

The Triple Crisis Strikes Harder

2008-06-23T08:19:00.001-04:00

a severe U.S. recession, surging inflation, and close encounters with a Wall Street meltdown.

News on each of these crises has burst onto the scene with gale force, wiping away the last vestiges of sugar-coating by Pollyanna analysts ... creating the conditions for a bond market disaster ... and driving the U.S. stock market into a tailspin:

Deepening the U.S. recession, vehicle sales are expected to plunge to 15-year lows. Dealer lots are overflowing with gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs. But they can't get their hands on enough fuel-efficient cars, limiting sales in the most popular models. Another warning sign: S&P has just put GM, Ford and Chrysler on "credit watch negative." End result: Don't be surprised if one of the Big Three — Ford, GM or Chrysler — is soon forced to file for bankruptcy.

Bankruptcy has already struck over 20 airlines worldwide, with many more on the way. In the U.S alone, the top 10 U.S. airlines are expected to post pre-tax losses of nearly $18 billion this year and next. At the same time ...

U.S. inflation is surging. In May, producer prices jumped 7.2% compared to a year earlier; import prices catapulted 17.8%, the biggest rise ever recorded; and even the so-called "core" producer prices (excluding food and energy) rose at the fastest pace since 1991! Adding to this explosive mix ...