Daily Archives: November 14, 2008
Hold USA’s Officials Responsible For Crimes Against Humanity.
Former FBI Agent Geral Sosbee Calls for New Nuremberg Trial
I call for a new Nuremberg Trial to hold individuals of the FBI, CIA, former presidents of the United States of America, members of Congress, Judges, etc. responsible for crimes against Humanity and other high crimes and misdemeanors. Consistent with the rules of the International Military Tribunal a crime against Humanity is defined as:
“Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during…war; or persecution on political, racial, or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of the domestic law of the country where perpetrated.”
Note that crimes against peace are included in the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, even when crimes against Humanity are committed during times of peace.
Note that the FBI and the CIA routinely torture, kill, falsely imprison, or force suicide upon the targeted individuals globally, as I have documented in my reports. I am witness to the fact that the FBI and the CIA inhumanely and regularly torture the targeted person and also force him/her to live under horrific conditions that could reasonably be expected to lead to suicide even while the FBI and the CIA agents and operatives watch and record same.
All United States leaders who participated in the criminal organizations of the fbi and the cia, with respect to torture, false imprisonment, forced suicide, and other atrocities (such as non-consensual human medical experimentation) must stand trial as war criminals, or for crimes against Humanity and crimes against Peace.
Political, military and economics leaders, as well as propaganda directors in the government and in the mainstream media are subject to indictment for crimes against Humanity. The operatives of the fbi and the cia who carried out psychoelectronic (and related psychological operations against human beings) will have a front role seat as defendants at the trial; they will be particularly identified and exposed for their decades long involvement in atrocities.
All fbi and cia directors are to be tried; all presidents who condoned or covered up the crimes will be held liable. All Secretaries of State, Defense, any other agency (such as FDA, HHS, DOJ) which carried out atrocities committed by the fbi and the cia will be held accountable.
All culpable medical and dental doctors will be tried alongside their Handlers, and government agents. All other persons, identified by a thorough and objective investigation, who aided or covered up the atrocities will be called to answer for their crimes against Humanity.
The modern day equivalents of Josef Mengele, Klaus Barbie, Joseph Goebbels and Herman Goering (all of the Nazi Party) who in the United States participated in the crimes against Humanity will be identified and tried for their crimes. Names such as Freeh, Rice, Bush, Cheney, Tenet, Gates, Cornyn, Clinton,etc. will become synonymous with the names of their German Nazi counterparts of the 1930s.
THIS LITTLE ZIONIST TWERP HAS BIG PLANS FOR YOUR CHILDREN
THIS LITTLE ZIONIST TWERP HAS BIG PLANS FOR YOUR CHILDREN
Obama’s Civil Defense Program Resembles
Domestic Draft
In newly rediscovered audio interview, Rahm Emanuel describes militarized training aimed at preparing Americans to deal with terrorist attacks
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
A newly rediscovered 2006 audio clip has shed more light on Rahm Emanuel and Barack Obama’s plan for compulsory community service and a “national civilian security force”. In an interview with Ben Smith of the New York Daily News, Emanuel outlined the agenda for military-style training, essentially a domestic draft, aimed at preparing Americans for a chemical or biological terrorist attack.
Asked by Smith about the universal service plan and whether people would have to live in military barracks, Emanuel laughed before responding, “We’re going to have universal civil defense training, somewhere between the ages of 18 to 25 you will do three months of training….but there can be nothing wrong with all Americans having a joint similar experience of what we call civil defense training or civil service in service of the country, in preparation, which will give people a sense of what it means to be an American.”
In response to the point that the program was significantly expanded in comparison to what the U.S. government already has in place, Emanuel responded, “Guess what – we have a lot more challenges so we are going to need a lot to do it.”
What challenges is Emanuel referring to? The same crisis foretold by Joe Biden, Colin Powell and others that we are “guaranteed” will unfold shortly after Obama takes office?
“It will be a common experience and we will be prepared, God forbid, God forbid that there is a chemical hit, another terrorist act or natural disaster becoming more frequent – there’ll be a body of citizens who are ready and capable and trained – that’s all you have to think about,” said Emanuel before smugly declaring, “We’re all here for you OK? It’s a circle of love.”
Asked if the training would be military style, with people wearing uniforms, Emanuel stated, “If you’re worried about are you going to have to do 50 jumping jacks the answer is yes,” adding that the service could be done through state national guard.
A jumping jack is a military term for an exercise otherwise known as a star jump. What on earth does Emanuel mean when he says Americans are going to be forced to perform military-style physical exercises and what does this have to do with civil defense or preparing for a terrorist attack? It sounds more like the state-mandated physical workouts described in Orwell’s 1984.
The video then features a clip from C-Span from August 2006 in which Emanuel is asked whether the program will be compulsory, to which he responds, “In a sense it’s required of everybody, 18 to 25, three months, and at some point at that point you do it.”
The use of the word “required” is noteworthy, because this exact terminology was removed from Obama’s change.gov website when controversy over the program arose last week.
The militarized nature of the program and its supposed intention sounds more like a draft-lite than the “community service” angle now being pitched on Obama’s website. It also bears similarities to the nationwide FEMA-run program training pastors and preachers to act as “pacifiers” in the event of martial law being declared after a terror attack or a natural disaster.
Will the liberal left pay as much attention to Emanuel’s stated agenda to implement a proxy domestic draft as they did to rumors of Bush bringing back conscription, or will the true scope of Obama’s “national civilian security force” continue to fly under the radar?
Et tu Obama?
Who will your Appointees Serve—Israel or America?
Rahm Israel Emanuel: Will Handle U.S. Domestic Policy for Israel
Dennis Ross: Will Handle U.S. Foreign Policy for Israel
By Mohamed Khodr
“Right and wrong are the same in Palestine as anywhere else. What is peculiar about the Palestine conflict is that the world has listened to the party that committed the offence and has turned a deaf ear to the victims.”
– Prof. Arnold Toynbee, British Historian
“The nation which indulges towards another—a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. ..a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification …Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.”
–President George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796
“Our attachment to no nation on earth should supplant our attachment to liberty.”
–Thomas Jefferson: Declaration on Taking Up Arms, 1775. Papers 1:201
“I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent interests of the community.”
–James Madison, Federalist No: 10: Warning of “Factions/Special Interests” acting against the National Interest
November 13, 2008 “Information Clearinghouse” – -Despite such warnings from our founding fathers against the corruptive influence of a minority “faction/special interest group”, our government has nevertheless surrendered, pandered, implemented, paid and died for the vital interests of a small foreign nation, Israel. America has in effect “outsourced” its foreign policy and national interests to this foreign nation to the detriment of its own interests—political, economic, military, credibility, moral leadership, and friendly alliances around the world.
In effect, our Israeli shackled government would rather expend our treasury, our military youth, sacrifice our economic interests around the world, than dare challenge, change, or have the moral and just courage to even allow a political debate on this destructive “special relationship”. a nation condemned and despised around the world as a rogue brutal military occupier of an entire people living under its American paid for boots, uniforms, rifles, tanks, bullets, missiles, rockets, cluster bombs fighter jets, access to our latest technology and spy satellites, bulldozers, fences, barbed wires, walls, and concentration camps. The Nazism of Germany and the Apartheid of South Africa live in Israel’s policies with our government’s full knowledge, support, political protection, and funding. Many courageous people, including compassionate humanitarian Jews in and out of Israel have made this comparison. Israeli men and women like Uri Avnery, Professor Israel Shahak (deceased), Prof. Illan Pappe, Prof. Avi Shlaim, Israel Shamir, Journalists Amira Hass, Gideon Levy, and many others who work for peace and justice in the Holy Land.
“On the morrow of a persecution in Europe in which they had been the victims of the worst atrocities ever known… the Jews’ immediate reaction to their own experience was to become persecutors in their turn… In 1948, the Jews knew, from personal experience, what they were doing; and it was their supreme tragedy that the lessons learnt by them from their encounter with the Nazi German Gentiles should have been not to eschew but to initiate some of the evil deeds that the Nazis had committed against the Jews”
–Famed British Historian Arnold Toynbee, “A Study of History”
“What do we have to do with apartheid? Does a separation fence constitute separation? Do separate roads for Jewish settlers and Palestinians really separate? Are Palestinian enclaves between Jewish settlements Bantustans?.. Roadblocks and inspections at every turn; licenses and permits for every little matter; the arbitrary seizure of land; special privileges in water use; cheap, hard labor; forming and uniting families by bureaucratic”
–Yossi Sarid, Haaretz April 4, 2005, “Yes, it is Apartheid” (former Knesset Member)
“What is not so understandable, not justified, is what it (Israel) did to another people to guarantee its existence…Have our Jewish sisters and brothers forgotten their humiliation? Have they forgotten the collective punishment, the home demolitions, in their own history so soon? Have they turned their backs on their profound and noble religious traditions? Have they forgotten that God cares deeply about the downtrodden?….Somehow, the Israeli government is placed on a pedestal [in the US], and to criticize it is to be immediately dubbed anti-Semitic, as if the Palestinians were not Semitic.. People are scared in this country [the US], to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful - very powerful”.
–Former South African Archbishop Desmund Tutu, “Apartheid in the Holy Land”, Guardian April 29, 2002
“Israeli Fascism is alive and kicking. It is growing in the flowerbed that produced the various religious-nationalist underground groups of the past: the group that tried to bomb the Muslim shrines on the Temple Mount, the underground that tried to assassinate the Palestinian mayors, the “Kach” gang, the perpetrator of the Hebron massacre Baruch Goldstein, the murderer of peace activist Emil Gruenzweig, the murderer of Yitzhak Rabin and all the underground groups that were uncovered at an early stage before their deeds could bring them to public notice”.
–Uri Avnery, Counterpunch, “Prof. Ze’ev Sternhell’s Warning on the Growth of Israeli Fascism—It Can Happen Here (Israel)”, September 29, 2008
In launching his presidential campaign, Obama, like all his predecessors, knew that as a democratic candidate the path to the White House must first gain the support and approval of Jewish Americans. Thus in January 2008 he showed his allegiance to the Star of David by writing a letter to U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad (a staunchly Pro Israel Neocon and pusher of the Iraq, Afghan Wars) asking him to vote against a U.N. Resolution condemning Israel’s catastrophic siege of Gaza, with 1.3 million Palestinians, an illegal collective punishment that’s depriving the population from food, water, medicines, fuel, education, and health care, in direct violation of the U.N. Charter and the Fourth Geneva Convention despite Israel’s signatory to both. Obama wrote:
“All of us are concerned about the impact of closed border crossings on Palestinian families. However, we have to understand why Israel is forced to do this. The Security Council should clearly and unequivocally condemn the rocket attacks… If it cannot bring itself to make these common sense points, I urge you to ensure that it does not speak at all”
Pander on Mr. President Elect to the right wing Jewish lobby that controls the very body you serve in, the Senate, as well as the White House. AIPAC usually writes Congressional legislation and resolutions, did they write this for you?
The political, economic, academic, and media power of the Israel Lobby is unsurpassed in the history of America. Jewish monies, amounting to fifty to sixty percent of contributions to the Democratic Party, in conjunction with AIPAC, a most powerful Israeli lobby, ensure that no debate or criticism of Israel ever surfaces. Any who dare challenge Israel’s illegal and brutal occupation and theft of Palestinian land pays a heavy price in smears, loss of credibility, employment, even receive death threats
President Jimmy Carter, who gifted Israel with a peace agreement with Egypt, endured the vilest attacks by many Jews around the world, especially in Israel and its second homeland, America, for his book, “Palestine—Peace or Apartheid”, to the extent that the he was not invited to attend the Democratic Convention held in Denver.
In a Los Angeles Times interview Carter said this: ““A debate in America is an absolutely hopeless dream. “There is not a single candidate in America, for governor, for House of Representatives, for Senate or for president that would dare say anything that was not acceptable to Israel.”
Dual loyalty of Jewish Americans has always been a persistent question in political discourse (see Counterpunch article below).
Your choice, Mr. Obama, of Senator Joe Biden was another pandering signal of your allegiance to Israel as he’s proudly proclaimed, “I’m a Zionist” in an interview with ShalomTV. During his V.P. debate he proudly asserted that no one in the Senate is a better friend of Israel than him. Speaking to the National Jewish Democratic Council on September 23, 2008, Biden sold his soul, Obama’s, and our national interest for Jewish votes and contributions. He said:
“I’ve spent 35 years in my career dealing with issues related to Israel. My support for Israel begins in my stomach, goes to my heart and ends up in my head. And I promise you, I guarantee you, I guarantee you. I would not have joined Barack Obama’s ticket as vice president were I in any doubt, even the slightest doubt, that he shares the same commitment to Israel that I share. I guarantee it. It’s that simple. That is a fact.”
–Senator oe Biden; Vice Presidential Candidate
“The Israelis control the policy in the Congress and the senate … somewhere around 80 percent of the senate of the United States is completely in support of Israel — of anything Israel wants….”
— Senator William Fulbright, Chairman Senate Foreign Relations Committee, October 7, 1973 on CBS’ “Face the Nation”.
“I am aware how almost impossible it is in this country to carry out a foreign policy [in the Middle East] not approved by the Jews. [Former Secretary of State George] Marshall and [former Defense Secretary James Forestall] learned that….. Terrific control the Jews have over the news media and the barrage the Jews have built up on congressmen…. I am very much concerned over the fact that the Jewish influence here is completely dominating the scene and making it almost impossible to get congress to do anything they don’t approve of. The Israeli embassy is practically dictating to the congress through influential Jewish people in the country“
–Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in February 1957 quoted in Fallen Pillars , page 99, by Donald Neff
“I’ve never seen a president –I don’t care who he is– stand up to them [the Israelis]. It just boggles your mind. They always get what they want. The Israelis know what’s going on all the time. I got to the point where I wasn’t writing anything down. If the American people understood what grip those people have on our government, they would rise up in arms. Our citizens don’t have any idea what goes on.” –
–Admiral Thomas Moorer of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Washington Report 12/1999, p.124 quoting from Andrew Hurley’s book, “One Nation Under Israel”
— AFTER 9/11: “Why do they hate us? Pentagon’s Answer
“Muslims do not hate our freedom, but rather they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights”
— US Defense Department’s Defense Science Board: (Christian Science Monitor: 11/29/2004). .
A Historic Election:
“In his speech, Obama intends to remove any doubts that the Democratic Party’s donors and constituents, many of whom are Jewish, may have about his support for Israel”. (Haaretz, see link below)
To say that your election is a historical sentinel event is an under statement. You rose in this nation to the highest office in the land upon the ashes of the millions of African slaves ripped from their land, transported like cattle, bought and sold as property, killed, abused, raped, and hung from gallows; yet in your victory speech you ignored the advocacy and struggle of African American organizations, primarily the NAACP, and civil rights leaders who paved your path to glory and who in tears thanked God that they lived to see the election of an African American, men like the Reverend Jesse Jackson, Representatives John Lewis and Charles Rangel, Ambassador Andrew Young, Ida B. Wells, Medgar Evers, Rosa Parks, W. E. B. Du Bois, Roy Wilkins, Julian Bond, and so many others who gave so much so that you can fulfill the dream and the promise of Dr. King’s America Odd how in all your speeches you never mentioned Dr. King by name.
But you did mention and thank the two people (both Jewish) most responsible for your successful campaign:
“To my campaign manager David Plouffe, my chief strategist David Axelrod…you made this happen, and I am forever grateful for what you’ve sacrificed to get it done.”
–President Elect Barack Obama’s Victory Speech November 4, 2008
Obama’s First Appointment: Rahm Emmanuel as Chief of Staff: “Son of a terrorist”.
Will ensure a domestic policy supportive of Israel.
The appointment of Rahm Emmanuel as your Chief of Staff will have immediate negative repercussions in Congress and around the world. Emanuel is a known hawk and Zionist. His appointment will ensure that U.S. domestic policy will benefit Israel. damn U.S. interests. He will be the gateway to all information that reaches you, thus America and the world will understand that only Pro Israel agendas need apply to the White House.
In an interview with the Israeli Hebrew paper, Ma’ariv 11/6/08, Rahm Emanuel’s father, Dr. Benjamin Emanuel, said this of his son’s influence on you.
“Obviously he will influence the president to be pro-Israel,”Why wouldn’t he be? What is he, an Arab? He’s not going to clean the floors of the White House.”
Rahm’s father insults all Arabs in this statement but this hardly raises a hair in the media nor was it denounced by his son, nor more importantly by Mr. Obama. Obama condemned and distanced himself from friends who came under deliberate smears and media attacks for “insulting” Jews, but Arabs are unworthy of his support, being the American untouchables. What if this was an Arab insulting Jews, do you think you’ll ever be President?
You probably are aware that Dr. Benjamin Emanuel was a member of the Jewish terrorist group, Irgun (led by Menachem Begin) that was responsible for wide ranging terrorist attacks against both the British and Palestinians. Irgun famously massacred an entire village, Deir Yassin. Menachem Begin even boasted of this terrorist massacre of the village in his book “The Revolt”.
Rahm Emanuel served as a volunteer in the Israeli Army during the first Gulf War, protecting his beloved Israel, rather than serve in the U.S. military.
In the Israeli paper, Haaretz (11/7/08 “U.S. Jews laud Obama pick of Rahm Emanuel for Chief of Staff”)
William Daroff, the director of the Washington office of the United Jewish Communities (UJC), an umbrella organization representing 155 Jewish Federations and 400 independent Jewish communities across North America was quoted as saying: “Rep. Emanuel is also a good friend of Israel, coming from good Irgun Stock”.
In the same article another Jewish American leader, Ira N. Forman, Executive Director of the National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) said: ”Obama made an outstanding selection (Rahm Emanuel) His voting record and leadership in support of the U.S.-Israel relationship are outstanding.”
“Rahm Emanuel has a long history of militarist ideology behind him. His father was a member of the ultra-right-wing terrorist organization Etzel that killed British civilians as part of their anti-British struggle in Palestine in the 1940s. Emanuel, himself a citizen of Israel as well as the United States, has been one of several Congressional leaders enforcing the “Israel Lobby” consensus on the Democrats, in the process shutting out the peace voices that believe Israel’s security would be better served by the U.S. putting pressure on Israel to end the Occupation, move the Wall to inside the pre-67 boundaries, and remove the settlers from the West Bank or tell them to live there as Palestinian citizens.”
–Rabbi Michael Lerner, (barackobama.com) November 7, 2008, “Rahm Emanuel is no Reason for Hope or Celebration”, November 7, 2008***
DENNIS ROSS: Will Ensure a Foreign Policy supportive of Israel as he’s done under Clinton and Bush.
Your campaign announced that Dennis Ross will be your top adviser on Israel and Iran Ross is now at the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy (founded in 1985 by AIPAC’s Martin Indyk)). He is also the First Chairman of the newly established Jerusalem based think tank, The Jewish People Policy Planning Institute, founded by the Jewish Agency. He was a staunch supporter of the Iraq war. His appointment will be a recurrent nightmare and devastating blow to peace in the Middle East, especially to the Palestinians, doomed to occupation and refugee status as long as our Presidents and Congress have Israel as an albatross around their cowardly necks.
In addition to Ross, Obama’s Middle East policy advisors reads like a Who’s Who of Jewish Americans, all staunch supporters of Israel at any cost to this nation.
Obama’s other key Middle East Advisers include:
- Anthony Lake: Served at Director of the National Security Council under Clinton
- Mara Rudman: Former National Security Council Assistant to President Clinton. Works on MidEast issues.
- Dan Shapiro and Eric Lynn: Advisors and Liaisons to the Jewish community. Lynn was an intern at AIPAC.
- Daniel Kurtzer: An orthodox Jew appointed by Bush as Ambassador to Israel.
- Martin Indyk: Former research director at AIPAC, founding executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, AIPAC’s influential think tank. Served under Clinton at the National Security Council on Arab-Israeli issues, Iraq, Iran and South Asia. Served two terms as U.S. Ambassador to Israel.
- Former Representative Mel Levine: Served on House Foreign Affairs Committee, Former Board Member of AIPAC Board, and John Kerry’s former Top Mideast Advisor. His Quote: “By every rating and criterion, [Senator] Kerry’s votes have shown 100 percent solid support for Israel. That’s well understood in his home state of Massachusetts, but not yet throughout the rest of the country.”
- Lee Rosenberg: AIPAC treasurer and strong Obama supporter: In an interview with Ynet.com (2/3/08) he was quoted as saying: “Rosenberg says that the Security of Israel “is the global and policy issue that I care most about” and rejects claims that questioned Obama’s commitment to the Jewish Stat. . “He’s always been a strong supporter of the security of Israel,” he says.”
From Obama’s early political campaigns in Chicago, Jewish monies and support have been at the heart of his campaigns for which he expresses eternal gratitude for the “support of so many friends in the Jewish community, dating back to my first days in public life in Chicago”.
Mr. Obama, you’ve received the most sought after seal of approval in your run for the Presidency, an approval only given to the lucky few who’ve shown their true patriotic allegiance, no, not to America, but to Israel. You’ve received the approval of AIPAC, a self identifying lobby group that has thumbed its nose on U.S. law requiring it to register as such. How clever that the acronym, AIPAC, stands for the American Israeli PUBLIC AFFAIRS Committee, and not the American Israeli Political Action Committee.
“AIPAC has stressed that it is satisfied with Obama’s positions on the Middle East; a spokeswoman recently told the New Republic: “Like all the leading presidential candidates, the senator has a strong record on issues of importance to the pro-Israel community.”
During your presidential campaign you’ve adopted every Pro Israel/AIPAC policy toward the Palestinians, Iran, and the Middle East. Among them.
1. Among the first to support Israel’s devastating invasion of Lebanon in 2006 claiming that Israel was simply defending itself against terrorism.
2. Lead sponsor in the Senate of Legislation promoting Divestment from Iran.
3. Among sponsors of the Iran Sanctions Enabling Act of 2007
4. No negotiations with Hamas and Hezbollah
5. No condemnation of Israel’s brutal two year siege of Gaza with 1.3 million people.
6. No Palestinian “right of return”
7. Strong supporter of more aid to Israel.
8. Jerusalem as an undivided eternal capital of Israel (slightly backtracked on this)
9. While condemning Iran’s nuclear program (Iran signatory to Non Proliferation Treaty) supports Israel despite Israel’s 200 -300 nuclear weapons and a non signatory to the NPT)
Missing from your pandering speeches to AIPAC and Jewish organizations was any mention of the Arab Peace Plan, land for peace formula, occupation, illegal settlements, settler violence, Israeli human rights abuses, violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention, total siege of Gaza, thousands of Palestinian prisoners, including children, and just as importantly—Israel’s direct violation of Section 4 of the U.S. Arms Export Control Act that stipulates that American weapons can legally only be used for internal security or self defense. Israel’s decades’ long bombing and killing of civilians by American weapons clearly violates this law, but no government has had the courage to challenge Israel. History and experience say that like all your predecessors (with exception of Eisenhower) you won’t dare either. .
In fact, Mr. Obama, I can guarantee that five days after your inauguration, January 27, 2009, you will join most of Congress and your administration officials in celebration of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day established by the United Nations in 2005 at the behest of the Bush Administration. Perhaps you’ll be at the U.S. taxpayer built and funded Washington D.C. Holocaust Museum. No other historical holocaust is so recognized and funded by us, the taxpayers.
Your immediate abandonment of “CHANGE” soon after you were elected is already disturbing and bodes ill for your presidency. You’re potential appointees are mostly recycled Clinton officials who are primarily Pro Business, and Pro Israel Jews who offer you protection from the fabricated “Jewish Problem” raised against you by right wing Jewish organizations and individuals.
According to the New York Times, “The New Team” (November 12, 2008) the Jewish Americans listed below, among others, are being considered for senior administration positions. Each can have an important policy impact on MidEast policies, including the educational programs in American schools regarding the possible obligatory teaching of the Holocaust and the marginalization of programs on Arabic, Muslim culture, Islam.
- Richard J. Danzig: For a senior Pentagon position
- Joel Klein: For Secretary of Education. Klein was Superintendent of the New York City School System who succumbed to a ruthless Jewish lobbying group and Pro Israel media pressure to fire Debbie Almontasar, a Muslim educator and principle of a school slated to teach Arabic and MidEast culture. The school was attacked as a “Madrassah” for Jihad, Holy War and militant Islam. Klein replaced her with a Jewish principle. Danielle Salzburg. What else will Klein as Secretary of Education succumb to under the powerful Jewish lobby and media?
- James Steinberg: For Director of the National Security Council
Due to your obvious intimidation by the Israel Lobby regarding the “Anti Israel” position of two Non-Jewish but prominent foreign policy experts, Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinki and Mr. Robert Malley, both serving at your request on your foreign policy advisory team, you shamelessly dismissed Dr. Brzezinski’s role as your advisor, an honorable man who’s served this nation with high distinction while accepting Mr. Robert Malley’s resignation, a highly respected diplomat.
If this is how you respond to pressure from the Israeli Lobby during a campaign, how much of our national interest will you sacrifice to their demands?
You’re being warned not to mess with Israel and its powerful Lobby given their domination of Congress, Israel’s second Knesset.
“Even if, in an impossible-to-imagine worst-case scenario, Obama wanted to fundamentally change the US-Israeli relationship, it is unlikely he would be able to do so” Why? In the article Eran Lerman, Director of the Israel and Middle East Office of the American addressed the issue by saying: “To do that, he is going to need to go to Capitol Hill and build coalitions. And coalition-building in Washington is good for Israel because Israel has many friends on the Hill”.
–Jerusalem Post, November 7, 2008, Analysis: So, nu, can we?
“Will Obama be able to take the One-Jerusalem/Israel-first crowd for granted as he wheels around Jerusalem and Tehran? No. As my commenters point out, these elements are deep in American Jewish life; and we’re not talking about just voters, but the Jewish establishment, or to be precise the Zionist constituents of the American power structure, from the media to the think tanks to the big-money zip codes of 10022 and 90210….he apartheid conditions in the West Bank are destroying the Jewish state, and that the Israel lobby is standing in the way of progress…..Neo-conservatism really means “transfer.” Ethnic cleansing.
–Phillip Weiss (Phillip Weiss website), October 17, 2008
“He (Obama) will have to tell Israel a few home truths: that America can no longer remain uncritical in the face of Israeli army brutality and the colonisation for Jews and Jews only on Arab land. Obama will have to stand up at last to the Israeli lobby (it is, in fact, an Israeli Likud party lobby) and withdraw Bush’s 2004 acceptance of Israel’s claim to a significant portion of the West Bank. US officials will have to talk to Iranian officials – and Hamas officials, for that matter. Obama will have to end US strikes into Pakistan – and Syria”.
-Robert Fisk, U.K. Independent, Obama Has to Pay for Eight Years of Bush’s Delusions. He will have to get out of Iraq, and he will have to tell Israel a few home truths, November 8, 2008
“The negative (Jewish) campaign glossed over Obama’s deep ties in the Chicago Jewish
Community and how he has picked a preeminently pro-Israel foreign policy team”
–Jewish Telegraphic Agency, November 5, 2008.
Mr. Obama, after your victory you called the leaders of nine nations among them Israel, naturally. Yet despite our economic, energy, and credit crisis you did not see fit to call one Arab leader in the Middle East, the very region we and Europe called upon begging for increased oil production, their money and investments to shore up our banks and financial system. Despite American, British, and Israeli bombs killing innocent Muslims, these cowardly pandering dictators called you. While their banks are failing their priority is saving American banks.
America and the world have laid their anguished and frustrated hope in your hands for peace and prosperity after the hell Bush/Cheney/Neocons and Israel created around the world. Yet you start with a hand sullied and biased toward special interests, both domestic and foreign, the very groups you promised to end their influence.
Will you have the courage to be America’s president, a president of all Americans, Jews and Gentiles, a president for America’s interests, not Israel’s, a president who will heed the warnings of Washington, Jefferson, and Madison not to have a “passionate attachment” to any foreign nation, to avoid “foreign entanglements” that sabotage our interests, to end the influence of “factions”, i.e. special interests that dominate our national policies?
I for one will go against the tide of Obamaphoria and predict that as far as foreign policy is concerned, especially in the Middle East, you will fail, for America is always ten steps behind the brilliant and inflammatory military and political machinations of Israel and its lobby.
As Ariel Sharon said: “The Arabs may have the Oil, but we have the matches”.
To pay for your domestic programs you will depend entirely on borrowed money. Given the severe financial crisis, astronomical deficits, and debt of our government,t thanks to the influence of special interest groups, both domestic and foreign, you’ll have a very small window with which to maneuver to pay for a semblance of your domestic programs.
But rest assured, given the apathy and disinterest of our population, you can succumb to these special interest groups without a beep from our citizen spectators who put more thought into sales and football games than the future of their children.
Let’s meet four years from now and you can prove me wrong. In the meantime hundreds of thousands of innocent Muslims will continue to die at the hands of an Imperial Western-Israeli alliance—the true Axis of Evil. Welcome to another Israel Apartheid Wall—The Washington D.C. Beltway.
Recall the words of the man most responsible for your election as an African American:
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy”
–Dr. Martin Luther King, Strength to Love, 1963
Sources for Article:
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp
(George Washington’s Farewell Address 1796: Warning of a “Passionate Attachment” to a Foreign Nation)
http://www.dailynewscaster.com/2008/08/24/joe-biden-i-am-a-zionist/ (
Joe Biden Video: “I am a Zionist”, Septembe 23, 2008
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6640.shtml
“Obama Pivots Away From Dovish Past
Larry Cohler-Esses, The Jewish Week, 8 March 2007
http://www.forward.com/articles/14018/
“Obama Campaign Appoints Adviser To Coordinate Jewish Outreach”
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/10/0082187
(“Obama’s Jews”: Harpers; October 2008)
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/826665.html
“In his speech, Obama intends to remove any doubts that the Democratic Party’s donors and constituents, many of whom are Jewish, may have about his support for Israel”.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3513083,00.html
(Lee Rosenberg’s interview on Barack Obama’s commitment to Israel)
http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/05/obama_on_zionism_and_hamas.php
“Obama on Zionism and Hamas”, May 12, 2008 (Interview with Jeffrey Goldberg)
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1211288137944&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
“Obama the Zionist”, May. 21, 2008
http://origin.barackobama.com/issues/foreign_policy/#onisrael (Obama/Biden on Israel)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahm_Emmanuel (Rahm Emanuel Brief Biography)
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2008/04/israel-sittin-1.html (interview with President Carter)
http://www.counterpunch.org/christison09062004.html
“Dual Loyalties: The Bush Neocons and Israel”
By KATHLEEN and BILL CHRISTISON
Former CIA political analysts
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/mear01_.html
“The Israel Lobby” by Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt
“For the past several decades, and especially since the Six-Day War in 1967, the centrepiece of US Middle Eastern policy has been its relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering support for Israel and the related effort to spread ‘democracy’ throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardized not only US security but that of much of the rest of the world. This situation has no equal in American political history. Why has the US been willing to set aside its own security and that of many of its allies in order to advance the interests of another state? One might assume that the bond between the two countries was based on shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperatives, but neither explanation can account for the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the US provides.
Instead, the thrust of US policy in the region derives almost entirely from domestic politics, and especially the activities of the ‘Israel Lobby’. Other special-interest groups have managed to skew foreign policy, but no lobby has managed to divert it as far from what the national interest would suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that US interests and those of the other country – in this case, Israel – are essentially identical.”
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2008/01/24/obama-gaza-siege-forced-on-israel/
(Obama’s Letter to U.S. Ambassador to U.N. “Gaza Siege “Forced on Israel”)
http://jews4obama2008.wordpress.com/barack-obamas-breakfast-on-feb-24-2008-with-ohio-jews/
(SEE: Barack Obama’s Breakfast Speech on February 24 with Ohio Jews)
“He then said that he will carry with him to the White House “an unshakable commitment to the security of Israel and the friendship between the United States and Israel. The US-Israel relationship is rooted in shared interests, shared values, shared history and in deep friendship among our people … I will work tirelessly as president to uphold and enhance the friendship between the two countries.”: Barack Obama
http://jta.org/news/article/2008/10/28/110913/mccainobamaadvisers
“A look at Obama and McCain advisers”, By Ron Kampeas · October 28, 2008
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=what_does_it_mean_to_be_the_proisrael_candidate
Article: “”What Does It Mean To Be the Pro-Israel Candidate?”
“The major candidates in both parties seek the “pro-Israel” label. Now is the time to debate what it means to support Israel, so that a year from now, elected leaders will be able to refer to publicly recognized ideas to justify acting more sensibly”.
–Gershom Gorenberg | January 18, 2008
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/us/series/the_new_team/index.html
“Obama: The New Team”
http://jews4barack.com/mythfacts/?cat=20
Joe Biden’s Speech to Jewish Americans. Obama like me totally supports Israel
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/28/nyregion/28school.html
“Critics Cost Muslim Educator Her Dream School: Role of Joel Klein, Superintendent of NYC Schools: now considered for Secretary of Education)
*** [Rabbi Michael Lerner is editor of Tikkun Magazine http://www.tikkun.org, chair of the Network of Spiritual Progressives http://www.spiritualprogressives.org, author of 11 books (most recently the 2006 national best-seller The Left Hand of God) and as a member of Rabbis for Obama recently debated Bill Kristol about how Jews should vote in the election.]
http://www.aipac.org/about_AIPAC/default.asp (From AIPAC’s own website: A Lobbying Group)
“As America’s leading pro-Israel lobby, AIPAC works with both Democratic and Republican political leaders to enact public policy that strengthens the vital U.S.-Israel relationship”.
http://www.newstatesman.com/200105140019
(Source for Ariel Sharon quote: “Arabs may have the oil….) –John Pilger: “The big threat in the Middle East is Israel, not Iraq: it could play the nuclear card to blackmail the Americans”, May 14, 2001
ISRAEL’S FUTURE SHOCK
ISRAEL’S FUTURE SHOCK
By Brother Nathanael Kapner, Copyright 2008
Articles May Be Reproduced Only With Authorship of Br Nathanael Kapner
& Link To Real Jew News (SM)
Please Help Support This Site! (Many Expenses)
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Source: Why Israel Can’t Survive @ Here
For The Best Post Election Coverage CLICK: Rense.com Here
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“A LAND WITHOUT A PEOPLE & A PEOPLE WITHOUT A LAND” is one of the most oft cited slogans in the rhetoric of political Zionism. But the slogan flies in the face of even what Israel’s “founding father” David Ben Gurion recognized (& later lied about) in 1918 in the Yiddish language newspaper, Yiddishe Kemper:
“Eretz Israel is not an empty country. West of Jordan alone houses three quarter of a million people. We should not to take the land from others—but to build the ruins.” View Entire Story Here.
Then we have the testimony of the Zionist Jew, Robert Weltsch, editor of the German Zionist weekly, Juedische Rundschau, In 1925, Welthsch wrote:
“We may be a people without a home, but, alas, there is not a country on earth without a people. Palestine itself has an existing population of 700,000.” View Entire Story Here.
Last, we have a statement from the “father of Zionism” himself, Theodore Herzl. In his major work, Der Judenstaat, published in 1896, Herzl speaks of the existing Arab population as an impediment to ongoing Jewish immigration:
“Immigration can continue until the inevitable moment when the native population feels itself threatened and forces the government to stop a further influx of Jews. Immigration is consequently futile unless we have the sovereign right to continue such immigration.” View Entire Story Here.
OLMERT WARNS OF ‘END OF ISRAEL’WITHIN TEN YEARS the number of Arabs living under Israeli control (including Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel itself) will surpass the number of Israeli Jews. When that happens, in the absence of large-scale ethnic cleansing, Israelis will be forced to choose between two futures.
The State of Israel will either be Jewish, but not democratic — because a Jewish minority will control a land mostly inhabited by Palestinians — or Israel will be democratic, but not Jewish, because Palestinians will form a majority in a binational state.
Concern is growing throughout Israel in the face of a perceived Arab “demographic threat.” In the West Bank & Gaza alone, the Arab population grew from 2.8 million to 3.7 million in the last ten years.
Outgoing Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, recently articulated his fears about a fast-growing Arab population:
“If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights, then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished.” View Entire Story Here.
Fertility rates are higher among Arabs than Jews in Israel. Thus the question comes to the fore: “Will Israel be Jewish or democratic?” Since it can’t be both, the Zionist dream on which Israel is founded will end. May it be, O Lord, may it be!
How Israel helps eavesdrop on US citizens
How Israel helps eavesdrop on US citizens
Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 3 November 2008
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After the 11 September 2001 attacks, the United States government launched a massive program to spy on millions of its own citizens. Through the top secret National Security Agency (NSA), it has pursued “access to billions of private hard-line, cell, and wireless telephone conversations; text, e-mail and instant Internet messages; Web-page histories, faxes, and computer hard drives.” In his new book, The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America author James Bamford casts light on this effort, including a detailed account of how spying on American citizens has been outsourced to several companies closely linked to Israel’s intelligence services.
It is well-known that the two largest American telecom companies AT&T and Verizon collaborated with the US government to allow illegal eavesdropping on their customers. The known uses to which information obtained this way has been put include building the government’s massive secret “watch lists,” and “no-fly lists” and even, Bamford suggests, to deny Small Business Administration loans to citizens or reject their children’s applications to military colleges.
What is less well-known is that AT&T and Verizon handed “the bugging of their entire networks — carrying billions of American communications every day” to two companies founded in Israel. Verint and Narus, as they are called, are “superintrusive — conducting mass surveillance on both international and domestic communications 24/7,” and sifting traffic at “key Internet gateways” around the US.
Virtually all US voice and data communications and much from the rest of the world can be remotely accessed by these companies in Israel, which Bamford describes as “the eavesdropping capital of the world.” Although there is no way to prove cooperation, Bamford writes that “the greatest potential beneficiaries of this marriage between the Israeli eavesdroppers and America’s increasingly centralized telecom grid are Israel’s intelligence agencies.”
Israel’s spy agencies have long had a revolving-door relationship with Verint and Narus and other Israeli military-security firms. The relationship is particularly close between the firms and Israel’s own version of the NSA, called “Unit 8200.” After the 11 September attacks, Israeli companies seeking a share of massively expanded US intelligence budgets formed similarly incestuous relationships with some in the American intelligence establishment: Ken Minihan, a former director of the NSA, served on Verint’s “security committee” and the former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) official responsible for liaison with the telecom industry became head of the Verint unit that sold eavesdropping equipment to the FBI and NSA.
Bamford writes that “concern over the cozy relationship between the [FBI] and Verint greatly increased following disclosure of the Bush administration’s warrantless eavesdropping operations. At the same time that the tappers and the agents have grown uncomfortably close, the previous checks and balances, such as the need for a FISA warrant, have been eliminated.”
FISA — the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 — required the government to seek court warrants for wiretaps where at least one target was in the US. In 2005, it was revealed that the Bush administration had been flagrantly violating this law. Last July, Congress passed a bill legalizing this activity and giving retroactive immunity to the telecom companies that had assisted.
Although there has never been any congressional oversight of the Israeli intelligence-linked firms operating in the heart of the US security establishment, American lawmakers and officials are not always so relaxed when it comes to foreign intrusion in the “national security” sphere. In early 2006, there was a national uproar when Dubai Ports World, a global company based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), attempted to buy the business that manages six major American seaports.
Democratic and Republican lawmakers united against the Bush administration’s approval of the sale, claiming it would harm national security. Senator Barack Obama echoed many in both parties when he said at the time, “Over four years after the worst terrorist attack in our history, not only are we failing to inspect 95 percent of the cargo that arrives at US ports, but now we’re allowing our port security to be outsourced to foreign governments.”
A New York Times editorial justified such alarmism on grounds that “money to finance the 9/11 attacks flowed through” the UAE, although there was never an allegation that the country’s government or Dubai Ports World were involved in that. The newspaper also cited claims that “Abdul Qadeer Khan, the rogue Pakistani nuclear scientist, sent equipment to Libya and Iran through Dubai,” even though it also acknowledged that “port managers have little if anything to do with inspecting cargo or checking manifests” (“Reaping What You Sow,” Editorial, 24 February 2006).
Unlike the UAE, however, Israel has a well-established record of compromising American national security. The most notorious case was that of convicted spy Jonathan Pollard. Although the full details of his crimes are still secret, he is thought to have passed critical information about US intelligence-gathering methods to Israel, which then traded those secrets to US adversaries. In 2005, Larry Franklin, a Defense Department analyst, pleaded guilty to spying for Israel. Most recently, Ben-Ami Kadish, a retired US army engineer, was indicted in April for allegedly passing classified documents about US nuclear weapons to Israel from 1979 to 1985. Two former officials of AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying group, are still awaiting trial on charges that they passed classified information between Franklin and the Israeli government.
Nor have particular Israeli firms established a record of trustworthiness that would justify such complacency. Jacob “Kobi” Alexander, the former Israeli intelligence officer who founded Verint, fled the US to Israel in 2006 just before he and other top executives of a subsidiary were indicted for fraud that allegedly cost US taxpayers and company shareholders $138 million. Alexander eventually adopted a fake identity and hid in the southern African country of Namibia where he is now fighting extradition. In only once case did US officials block an Israeli high-tech firm from taking over an American company for security concerns.
Israeli companies do not assist the US only to spy on its own citizens, of course. Another Israeli firm, Natural Speech Communication (NSC), among whose directors is former Mossad chief Shabtai Shavit, makes software that the US uses to electronically analyze and key-word search recorded conversations in “Levantine Arabic,” the dialects “spoken by Israeli Arabs, Jordanians, Lebanese and Palestinians.” Mexico and Australia are among other countries known to use Israeli technologies and firms to eavesdrop on their citizens.
Not surprisingly, some of Bamford’s claims have been criticized by pro-Israel activists for lacking evidence. Writing about a subject shrouded in secrecy is inherently difficult. But even what is solidly known ought to make Americans demand that Israeli intelligence activities (not less than their own government’s) be sharply curtailed. In his 2001 book Body of Secrets, Bamford contended that Israel’s attack on the US Navy signals ship USS Liberty during the June 1967 war was deliberately intended to prevent the Americans from learning about Israeli massacres of Egyptian prisoners of war. Thirty-four sailors were killed in the attack on the ship off the Sinai coast. Despite decades of demands by USS Liberty survivors, the US has never reopened the investigation.
So far Bamford’s latest revelations involving Israel have had scarcely more impact. Former Democratic Senator Bob Kerrey gave The Shadow Factory a mostly glowing review in The Washington Post. But Kerrey, who was a member of the 9/11 Commission and is president of The New School University in New York, anxiously discounts Bamford’s contentions that the 11 September hijackers in any way “were motivated by anger over an Israeli bombing of Lebanese civilians in 1996″ and reassures us their only motive was “radical Islamic fervor.” Kerrey concludes that Bamford’s “apparent negativity toward Israel is a significant distraction from the content of his book” (Bob Kerrey, “Big Brother’s Big Failure,” 12 October 2008).
When any material that raises legitimate questions about Israeli actions is automatically discounted by US elites, and the motives of critics immediately cast under suspicion, it is no wonder Israel gets away with so much.
Zbigniew Brzezinski Rallying “THE BASE” (al Qaida)
Le Nouvel Observateur, Paris, 15-21 January 1998
Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski
Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?
B: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?
Q: Some stirred-up Moslems? But it has been said and repeated Islamic fundamentalism represents a world menace today.
B: Nonsense! It is said that the West had a global policy in regard to Islam. That is stupid. There isn’t a global Islam.
“The truth is, there is no Islamic army or terrorist group called Al Qaida. And any informed intelligence officer knows this. But there is a propaganda campaign to make the public believe in the presence of an identified entity representing the ‘devil’ only in order to drive the ‘TV watcher’ to accept a unified international leadership for a war against terrorism. The country behind this propaganda is the US and the lobbyists for the US war on terrorism are only interested in making money.”
[THE FOLLOWING INVOICE DOCUMENTS TRANSFER OF STINGER MISSILES FROM CIA AGENT TED GUNDERSON TO "TIM OSMAN," A.K.A. OSAMA BIN LADEN
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by Pierre-Henri Bunel
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Global Research, November 20, 2005
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Shortly before his untimely death, former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook told the House of Commons that “Al Qaeda” is not really a terrorist group but a database of international mujaheddin and arms smugglers used by the CIA and Saudis to funnel guerrillas, arms, and money into Soviet-occupied Afghanistan. Courtesy of World Affairs, a journal based in New Delhi, WMR can bring you an important excerpt from an Apr.-Jun. 2004 article by Pierre-Henry Bunel, a former agent for French military intelligence.
Wayne Madsen Report
“I first heard about Al-Qaida while I was attending the Command and Staff course in Jordan. I was a French officer at that time and the French Armed Forces had close contacts and cooperation with Jordan . . .
“Two of my Jordanian colleagues were experts in computers. They were air defense officers. Using computer science slang, they introduced a series of jokes about students’ punishment.
“For example, when one of us was late at the bus stop to leave the Staff College, the two officers used to tell us: ‘You’ll be noted in ‘Q eidat il-Maaloomaat’ which meant ‘You’ll be logged in the information database.’ Meaning ‘You will receive a warning . . .’ If the case was more severe, they would used to talk about ‘Q eidat i-Taaleemaat.’ Meaning ‘the decision database.’ It meant ‘you will be punished.’ For the worst cases they used to speak of logging in ‘Al Qaida.’
“In the early 1980s the Islamic Bank for Development, which is located in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, like the Permanent Secretariat of the Islamic Conference Organization, bought a new computerized system to cope with its accounting and communication requirements. At the time the system was more sophisticated than necessary for their actual needs.
“It was decided to use a part of the system’s memory to host the Islamic Conference’s database. It was possible for the countries attending to access the database by telephone: an Intranet, in modern language. The governments of the member-countries as well as some of their embassies in the world were connected to that network.
“[According to a Pakistani major] the database was divided into two parts, the information file where the participants in the meetings could pick up and send information they needed, and the decision file where the decisions made during the previous sessions were recorded and stored. In Arabic, the files were called, ‘Q eidat il-Maaloomaat’ and ‘Q eidat i-Taaleemaat.’ Those two files were kept in one file called in Arabic ‘Q eidat ilmu’ti’aat’ which is the exact translation of the English word database. But the Arabs commonly used the short word Al Qaida which is the Arabic word for “base.” The military air base of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia is called ‘q eidat ‘riyadh al ‘askariya.’ Q eida means “a base” and “Al Qaida” means “the base.”
“In the mid-1980s, Al Qaida was a database located in computer and dedicated to the communications of the Islamic Conference’s secretariat.
“In the early 1990s, I was a military intelligence officer in the Headquarters of the French Rapid Action Force. Because of my skills in Arabic my job was also to translate a lot of faxes and letters seized or intercepted by our intelligence services . . . We often got intercepted material sent by Islamic networks operating from the UK or from Belgium.
“These documents contained directions sent to Islamic armed groups in Algeria or in France. The messages quoted the sources of statements to be exploited in the redaction of the tracts or leaflets, or to be introduced in video or tapes to be sent to the media. The most commonly quoted sources were the United Nations, the non-aligned countries, the UNHCR and . . . Al Qaida.
“Al Qaida remained the data base of the Islamic Conference. Not all member countries of the Islamic Conference are ‘rogue states’ and many Islamic groups could pick up information from the databases. It was but natural for Osama Bin Laden to be connected to this network. He is a member of an important family in the banking and business world.
“Because of the presence of ‘rogue states,’ it became easy for terrorist groups to use the email of the database. Hence, the email of Al Qaida was used, with some interface system, providing secrecy, for the families of the mujaheddin to keep links with their children undergoing training in Afghanistan, or in Libya or in the Beqaa valley, Lebanon. Or in action anywhere in the battlefields where the extremists sponsored by all the ‘rogue states’ used to fight. And the ‘rogue states’ included Saudi Arabia. When Osama bin Laden was an American agent in Afghanistan, the Al Qaida Intranet was a good communication system through coded or covert messages.
Meet “Al Qaeda”
“Al Qaida was neither a terrorist group nor Osama bin Laden’s personal property . . . The terrorist actions in Turkey in 2003 were carried out by Turks and the motives were local and not international, unified, or joint. These crimes put the Turkish government in a difficult position vis-a-vis the British and the Israelis. But the attacks certainly intended to ‘punish’ Prime Minister Erdogan for being a ‘toot tepid’ Islamic politician.
” . . . In the Third World the general opinion is that the countries using weapons of mass destruction for economic purposes in the service of imperialism are in fact ‘rogue states,” specially the US and other NATO countries.
” Some Islamic economic lobbies are conducting a war against the ‘liberal” economic lobbies. They use local terrorist groups claiming to act on behalf of Al Qaida. On the other hand, national armies invade independent countries under the aegis of the UN Security Council and carry out pre-emptive wars. And the real sponsors of these wars are not governments but the lobbies concealed behind them.
“The truth is, there is no Islamic army or terrorist group called Al Qaida. And any informed intelligence officer knows this. But there is a propaganda campaign to make the public believe in the presence of an identified entity representing the ‘devil’ only in order to drive the ‘TV watcher’ to accept a unified international leadership for a war against terrorism. The country behind this propaganda is the US and the lobbyists for the US war on terrorism are only interested in making money.”
In yet another example of what happens to those who challenge the system, in December 2001, Maj. Pierre-Henri Bunel was convicted by a secret French military court of passing classified documents that identified potential NATO bombing targets in Serbia to a Serbian agent during the Kosovo war in 1998. Bunel’s case was transferred from a civilian court to keep the details of the case classified. Bunel’s character witnesses and psychologists notwithstanding, the system “got him” for telling the truth about Al Qaeda and who has actually been behind the terrorist attacks commonly blamed on that group. It is noteworthy that that Yugoslav government, the government with whom Bunel was asserted by the French government to have shared information, claimed that Albanian and Bosnian guerrillas in the Balkans were being backed by elements of “Al Qaeda.” We now know that these guerrillas were being backed by money provided by the Bosnian Defense Fund, an entity established as a special fund at Bush-influenced Riggs Bank and directed by Richard Perle and Douglas Feith.
French officer Maj. Pierre-Henri Bunel, who knew the truth about “Al Qaeda” — Another target of the neo-cons
Who Owns Nature?: Monsanto & Biotech Corporations Move to Monopolize Seeds & Biodiversity
Who Owns Nature?: Monsanto & Biotech Corporations Move to Monopolize Seeds & Biodiversity
- Who Owns Nature?
ETC Group, November 13, 2008
Straight to the Source
New report warns of corporate concentration, commodification of nature; highlights global resistance grounded in “Food Sovereignty”
ETC Group today releases a 48-page report, “Who Owns Nature?” on corporate concentration in commercial food, farming, health and the strategic push to commodify the planet’s remaining natural resources.
In a world where market research is becoming increasingly proprietary and pricey, ETC Group’s report names names, discloses market share and provides top 10 industry rankings up and down the corporate food chain. Not all the corporations identified in ETC Group’s new report are household names, but collectively they control a staggering share of the commercial products found on industrial farms, in our refrigerators and medicine cabinets.
An international advocacy organization based in Canada, ETC Group has been monitoring corporate power in the industrial life sciences for the past 30 years. The report reveals that:
From thousands of seed companies and public breeding institutions three decades ago, 10 companies now control more than two-thirds of global proprietary seed sales From dozens of pesticide companies three decades ago, 10 now control almost 90% of agrochemical sales worldwide From almost 1,000 biotech start-ups 15 years ago, 10 companies now account for three-quarters of industry revenues The top 10 pharmaceutical companies control 55% of the global drug market
With collapsing systems – eco, climate, food and financial – as the backdrop, Who Owns Nature? warns that, with engineering of living organisms at the nano-scale (a.k.a. synthetic biology), industry is setting the stage for a corporate grab that extends to all of nature.
“About one-quarter of the world’s biomass has already been commodified,” explains ETC Group’s Pat Mooney. “With extreme genetic engineering, we’re seeing new corporate strategies to capture and commodify the three-quarters of the world’s biomass that has, until now, remained beyond the market economy.”
Advocates of synthetic biology – the creation of designer organisms built from synthetic DNA – are promising a post-petroleum future where fuels, chemicals, drugs and other high-value products depend on biological manufacturing platforms fuelled by plant sugars. In the 21st century “sugar economy,” industrial production will be based on biological feedstocks (agricultural crops, grasses, forest residues, plant oils, algae, etc.) whose sugars are extracted, fermented and converted into high-value products. Synthetic microbes will become “living chemical factories” that require massive quantities of plant biomass. ETC Group warns that corporations are poised to appropriate and further commodify biological products and processes in every part of the globe – as well as destroy biodiversity, deplete soil and water and displace marginalized farmers.
ETC Group’s report highlights similarities between the current financial and food crises. “Corporate-controlled food systems, suffering from decades of deregulation, have resulted in a cornucopia of calamities making us sicker, fatter and more vulnerable,” says ETC’s Research Director Hope Shand. Ongoing food contamination scandals, the global obesity burden and ocean “dead zones” caused by fertilizer pollution are among the food chain disasters cited in Who Owns Nature? “Unhealthy and hazardous food products are constant reminders of a corporate food chain broken to bits,” adds Shand.
Governments are working hand-in-hand with corporations to deny the root causes of the crises and sidestep structural reforms. “Despite the implications for democracy and human rights, no international body exists to monitor global corporate activity and no UN body has the capacity to monitor and evaluate emerging technologies,” says ETC Group’s Kathy Jo Wetter. “The ongoing food emergency and imploding global economy testify to the need for monitoring and oversight of corporations, as well as social control of powerful new technologies.”
Who Owns Nature? reports on daunting trends in corporate concentration and technology convergence, but it also points to a very different reality and a powerful contrast to the corporate-controlled life sciences. Although a single company – Monsanto – accounts for almost one-quarter of proprietary seed sales, about three-quarters of the world’s farmers routinely save seed from their harvest and grow locally-bred varieties. Wal-Mart may be the world’s largest buyer and seller of retail food, but 85% of global food is consumed close to where it is grown – much of it outside the formal market system.
“There is vast and growing resistance to the dislocation and devastation caused by the agro-industrial food system,” points out Silvia Ribeiro of ETC Group. “In the global struggle for Food Sovereignty, the playing field isn’t level, but the scope of resistance is massive – peasant farmers, fisher people, pastoralists and allied civil society and social movements are fighting for locally controlled and socially just food and health systems.”
To download the full report: www.etcgroup.org
US violated international law: Pakistan
US violated international law: Pakistan
Pakistan has accused the United States of violating international law by launching missile attacks on its northwestern tribal region.
A series of recent strikes against suspected militant targets in the area bordering Afghanistan have led to sharply increased tension between Washington and Islamabad.
A foreign ministry spokesman in Islamabad says the attacks violate all understandings between the two sides, and Pakistan wants them stopped.
Meanhwhile, Pakistan’s army chief, Ashfaq Kayani, will visit Brussels next week for talks on the issue with senior NATO officials.
Bush defends free-market system
Bush defends free-market system
US President George W Bush has admitted the financial system needs reforming, but insists the credit crunch was not a failure of the free-market system.
Speaking in New York, Mr Bush said that while financial markets did need some new regulation and more transparency, free trade should not be restricted.
His comments come before world leaders meet in Washington at the weekend to discuss the global economic downturn.
Mr Bush said bold government measures had already helped improve matters.
Yet he said state action was not a “cure-all”, and what was now needed was a reform of the global economy “without trying to re-invent the system”.
He has called for improved accountancy rules, better co-ordination of national laws and regulations, and making the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund more representative.
Mr Bush’s comments seemed to please investors, as America’s main Dow Jones index ended up 6.7%.
Although analysts said most of the gain was due to bargain hunters picking up cheap stocks following three straight days of falls.
‘Fix problems’
Returning to the cause of the credit crunch, Mr Bush admitted that failures had been made “by lenders and borrowers, by financial firms, by governments and independent regulators”.
But that the answer was “not to try to reinvent the system”.
Instead, he said the solution was to “fix the problems we face, make the reforms we need, and move forward with the free market principles that have delivered prosperity and hope to people around the world”.
He added that while capitalism was “not perfect”, it was “by far the most efficient and just way of structuring an economy”.
“It would a terrible mistake to allow a few months of crisis to undermine 60 years of success,” said President Bush.
Global reform
Ahead of the summit, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said the US dollar was no longer “the only global currency”.
Speaking at a ceremony in Paris, Mr Sarkozy said times had changed since the Bretton Woods conference after World War II laid the foundations of modern financial institutions.
“What was true in 1945 can no longer be true today,” he said.
French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said the strength of the euro was making it more attractive than before.
But she cautioned creating further instability through a major shift in central banks’ currency reserves.
The summit in Washington brings together leaders of the world’s biggest democracies, emerging nations and international organisations.
Bush behind bars — fantastic Harper’s cover just came in the mail
The Shape of Things to Come
THE NEW AMERO, LEARN TO LOVE IT, AFTER G20 MEETS!
THE NEW AMERO, LEARN TO LOVE IT, AFTER G20 MEETS!
A Conservative Estimate of Total Direct U.S. Aid to Israel: Almost $114 Billion
A Conservative Estimate of Total Direct U.S. Aid to
Israel: Almost $114 Billion
By Shirl McArthur
TABLE 1: Direct U.S. Aid to Israel (millions of dollars) |
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Total
|
Military |
Economic
Grant |
Immigrant
|
ASHA
|
All Other
|
| 1949-1996 |
68,030.9
|
29,014.9
|
23,122.4
|
868.9
|
121.4
|
14,903.3
|
| 1997 |
3,132.1
|
1,800.0
|
1,200.0
|
80.0
|
2.1
|
50.0
|
| 1998 |
3,080.0
|
1,800.0
|
1,200.0
|
80.0
|
?
|
?
|
| 1999 |
3,010.0
|
1,860.0
|
1,080.0
|
70.0
|
?
|
?
|
| 2000 |
4,131.85
|
3,120.0
|
949.1
|
60.0
|
2.75
|
?
|
| 2001 |
2,876.05
|
1,975.6
|
838.2
|
60.0
|
2.25
|
?
|
| 2002 |
2,850.65
|
2,040.0
|
720.0
|
60.0
|
2.65
|
28.0
|
| 2003 |
3,745.15
|
3,086.4
|
596.1
|
59.6
|
3.05
|
?
|
| 2004 |
2,687.25
|
2,147.3
|
477.2
|
49.7
|
3.15
|
9.9
|
| 2005 |
2,612.15
|
2,202.2
|
357.0
|
50.0
|
2.95
|
?
|
| 2006 |
2,534.53
|
2,257.0
|
237.0
|
40.0
|
?
|
.53
|
| 2007 |
2,500.24
|
2,340.0
|
120.0
|
40.0
|
?
|
.24
|
| 2008 |
2,423.8
|
2,380.6
|
0.0
|
39.7
|
3.0
|
.5
|
| Total |
103,614.67
|
56,024.0
|
30,897.0
|
1,557.9
|
143.3
|
14,992.47
|
|
Notes: FY 2000 military grants include $1.2 billion for the Wye agreement and $1.92 billion in annual military aid. FY 2003 military aid included $1 billion from the supplemental appropriations bill. The economic grant was earmarked for $960 million for FY 2000 but was reduced to meet the 0.38% rescission. Final amounts for FY 2003 are reduced by 0.65% mandated rescission, the amounts for FY 2004 are reduced by 0.59%, and the amounts for FY 2008 are reduced by .81%. |
||||||
| Sources: CRS Report RL33222: U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel, updated Jan. 2, 2008, plus the FY ’08 omnibus appropriations bill, H.R. 2764. | ||||||
This estimate of total U.S. direct aid to Israel updates the estimate given in the July 2006 issue of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. It is an estimate because arriving at an exact figure is not possible, since parts of U.S. aid to Israel are a) buried in the budgets of various U.S. agencies, mostly that of the Defense Department (DOD), or b) in a form not easily quantifiable, such as the early disbursement of aid, giving Israel a direct benefit in interest income and the U.S. Treasury a corresponding loss. Given these caveats, our current estimate of cumulative total direct aid to Israel is $113.8554 billion.
It must be emphasized that this analysis is a conservative, defensible accounting of U.S. direct aid to Israel, NOT of Israel’s cost to the U.S. or the American taxpayer, nor of the benefits to Israel of U.S. aid. The distinction is important, because the indirect or consequential costs suffered by the U.S. as a result of its blind support for Israel exceed by many times the substantial amount of direct aid to Israel. (See, for example, the late Thomas R. Stauffer’s article in the June 2003 Washington Report, “The Costs to American Taxpayers of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: $3 Trillion.”)
Especially, this computation does not include the costs resulting from the invasion and occupation of Iraq—hundreds of billions of dollars, 4,000-plus U.S. and allied fatalities, untold tens of thousands of Iraqi deaths, and many thousands of other U.S., allied, and Iraqi casualties—which is almost universally believed in the Arab world to have been undertaken for the benefit of Israel. Among other “indirect or consequential” costs would be the costs of U.S. unilateral economic sanctions on Iran, Iraq, Libya and Syria, the costs to U.S. manufacturers of the Arab boycott, and the costs to U.S. companies and consumers of the 1973 Arab oil embargo and consequent and subsequent soaring oil prices partially as a result of U.S. support for Israel.
Among the real benefits to Israel that are not direct costs to the U.S. taxpayer are the early cash transfer of economic and military aid, in-country spending of a portion of military aid, and loan guarantees. The U.S. gives Israel all of its economic and military aid directly in cash during the first month of the fiscal year, with no accounting required of how the funds are used. Also, in contrast with other countries receiving military aid, who must purchase through the DOD, Israel deals directly with the U.S. companies, with no DOD review. Furthermore, Israel is allowed to spend 26.3 percent of each year’s military aid in Israel (no other recipient of U.S. military aid gets this benefit), which has resulted in an increasingly sophisticated Israeli defense industry. As a result, Israel has become a major world arms exporter; the Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports that in 2006 Israel was the world’s ninth leading supplier of arms worldwide, earning $4.4 billion from defense sales.
Another benefit to Israel are U.S. government loan guarantees. The major loan guarantees have been $600 million for housing between 1972 and 1990; $9.2 billion for Soviet Jewish resettlement between 1992 and 1997; about $5 billion for refinancing military loans commercially; and $9 billion in loan guarantees authorized in FY ’03 and extended to FY ’10. Of that $9 billion, CRS reports that Israel has drawn $4.1 billion through FY ’07. These loans have not—yet—cost the U.S. any money; they are listed on the Treasury Department’s books as “contingent liabilities,” which would be liabilities to the U.S. should Israel default. However, they have been of substantial, tangible benefit to Israel, because they enable Israel to borrow commercially at special terms and favorable interest rates.
Components of Israel Aid
Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. aid since World War II (not counting the huge sums being spent in Iraq). The $3 billion or so per year that Israel receives from the U.S. amounts to about $500 per Israeli. Most of this money is earmarked in the annual Foreign Operations (foreign aid) appropriations bills, with the three major items being military grants (Foreign Military Financing, or FMF), economic grants (Economic Support Funds, or ESF), and “migration and refugee assistance.” (Refugee assistance originally was intended to help Israel absorb Jewish refugees from the Soviet Union, but this was expanded in 1985 to include all refugees resettling in Israel. In fact, Israel doesn’t differentiate between refugees and other immigrants, so this money is used for all immigrants to Israel.)
Not earmarked but also included in congresssional appropriations bills is Israel’s portion of grants for American Schools and Hospitals Abroad (ASHA) and monies buried in the appropriations for other departments or agencies. These are mostly for so-called “U.S.-Israeli cooperative programs” in defense, agriculture, science, and hi-tech industries.
Before 1998, Israel received annually $1.8 billion in military grants and $1.2 billion in economic grants. Then, beginning in FY ‘99, the two countries agreed to reduce economic grants to Israel by $120 million and increase military grants by $60 million annually over 10 years. FY ’08 is the last year of that agreement, with military grants reaching $2.4 billion (reduced by an across-the-board rescission), and zero economic grants. Then, in August 2007, U.S. and Israeli officials signed a memorandum of understanding for a new 10-year, $30 billion aid package whereby FMF will gradually increase, beginning with $2.55 billion in FY ’09, and average $3 billion per year over the 10-year period.
Methodology
TABLE 2: Foreign Aid and DOD Appropriations
|
|||
| Basic Documents | Conference Report | Public Law | |
| FY ’04 Defense | H.R. 2658 | H.Rept. 108-283 | P.L. 108-87 |
| Omnibus | H.R. 2673 | H.Rept. 108-401 | P.L. 108-199 |
| FY ’05 Defense | H.R. 4613 | H.Rept. 108-662 | P.L. 108-287 |
| Omnibus | H.R. 4818 | H.Rept. 108-792 | P.L. 108-447 |
| FY ’06 Defense | H.R. 2863 | H.Rept. 109-359 | P.L. 109-148 |
| Foreign Aid | H.R. 3057 | H.Rept. 109-265 | P.L. 109-102 |
| FY ’07 Defense | H.R. 5631 | H.Rept. 109-676 | P.L. 109-289 |
| Foreign Aid | H.J.Res. 20 | P.L. 110-5 | |
| FY ’08 Defense | H.R. 3222 | H.Rept. 110-434 | P.L. 110-116 |
| Omnibus | H.R. 2764 | H.Rept. 110-497 | P.L. 110-161 |
| Notes: H.R.=House Resolution; S.=Senate Resolution; H.Rept.=House Report; the “public law” is the final, binding version, as signed by the president. In FY ’04, ’05, and ’08 defense was passed separately and foreign aid was included in the consolidated or “omnibus” bill. In FY ’07 defense was passed separately and foreign aid was included in the continuing resolution, H.J. Res. 20, which continued ’07 appropriations at the ’06 level with some exceptions—including, of course, for Israel. | |||
As with previous Washington Report estimates of U.S. aid to Israel, this analysis is based on the annual CRS report, U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel, which uses available and verifiable numbers, primarily from the foreign operations appropriations bills. Although the CRS report does include such things as the old food for peace program, the $1.2 billion from the Wye agreement, the $1 billion in FMF included in the FY ’03 Emergency Supplemental appropriations bill, the subsidy for “refugee resettlement,” and money from the ASHA account, it does not include money from the DOD and other agencies. Nor does it include estimated interest on the early disbursement of aid.
The January 2008 CRS report on aid to Israel shows a total of $101.1908 billion through FY ’07. Table 1, on the previous page, is drawn from the summary table of that report, plus $2.4238 billion from the FY ’08 omnibus appropriations bill and estimates for ASHA and “other” amounts in FY ’08, for a total of $103.6147 billion through FY ’08.
To that has been added $10.2407 billion, as detailed below, for a grand total of $113.8554 billion.
Estimated Amounts Not Included in Table 1: $10.2407 Billion
Defense Department Funds: $7.694 Billion. For previous estimates, a search going back several years was able to identify $6.794 billion from the DOD to Israel through FY ‘06. Adding $450 million from the FY ’07 DOD appropriations and $450 million from the ’08 appropriations gives a total of $7.694 billion. (The FY ’08 appropriations bill earmarks $155.6 million for Israel. However, AIPAC’s Web site reported that the total for earmarked and non-earmarked programs was $450 million—and who would know better than the Israel lobby itself?)
The military aid from the DOD budget is mostly for specific projects. The largest items have been the canceled Lavi attack fighter project, the completed Merkava tank, the ongoing Arrow anti-missile missile project, and several other anti-missile systems, most recently the “David’s Sling” short-range missile defense system. Haaretz reported in June that a senior U.S. defense official has said the U.S. will support and help Israel’s development of the advanced Arrow 3 designed to intercept advanced ballistic missiles. The fact that the U.S. military was not interested in the Lavi or the Merkava for its own use and has said the same thing about the Arrow and the other anti-missile projects would seem to jettison the argument that these are “joint defense projects.” The FY ‘01 appropriations bill also gave Israel a grant of $700 million worth of military equipment, to be drawn down from stocks in Western Europe, and the FY ’05 defense appropriations bill includes a provision authorizing the DOD to transfer an unspecified amount of “surplus” military items from inventory to Israel. In addition, since 1988 Israel has been designated a “major non-NATO ally,” giving it access to U.S. weapons systems at lower prices, and preferential treatment in bidding for U.S. defense contracts.
Interest: $2.089 Billion. Israel receives its U.S. economic and military aid in a lump sum within one month of the new fiscal year or the passage of the appropriations act. Applying one-half of the prevailing interest rate to the aid for each year (on the assumption that the aid monies are drawn down over the course of the year), the July 2006 estimate arrived at a total of $1.991 billion through FY ’06. To that, using an interest rate of 4 percent, is added $50 million for FY ’07 and $48 million for FY ’08, for a cumulative total of $2.089 billion through FY ’08.
Other Grants and Endowments: $457.7 Million. The July 2006 report included $456.7 million in U.S. grants and endowments to U.S.-Israeli scientific and business cooperation organizations. The two largest are the BIRD (Israel-U.S. Binational Research & Development) Foundation and the BARD (Binational Agriculture and Research and Development) Fund. While these are mostly self-sustaining, the BARD Fund gets about $500,000 a year from the Agriculture Department. Adding $0.5 million for each of FY ’07 and ‘08 to the ’06 total gives a new total of $0.457.7 billion.
For the convenience of those who wish to look up more details, citations for the foreign aid and DOD appropriations bills for the past five years are given in Table 2 above.
Shirl McArthur, a retired U.S. foreign service officer, is a consultant based in the Washington, DC area.
