Gunmen kill anti-Taliban Pakistan minister’s son

Gunmen kill anti-Taliban Pakistan minister’s son

AP

Officials say gunmen have killed the son of an anti—Taliban minister in northwest Pakistan.

Police official Nisar Khan says the Saturday shooting took place in Naushehra district, the hometown of Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Mr. Khan says the minister’s son was on a stroll when he was shot dead.

Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik blamed the attack on Taliban militants.

He said government ministers and their families had been on an insurgent hit list.

Mr. Hussain had always been highly critical of the Taliban.

US Continues To Agitate N. Korea With Lame Cheonan Claims Before Tomorrow’s War Games

Doubts surface on North Korea’s role in ship sinking

Some in South Korea dispute the official version of events: that a North Korean torpedo ripped apart the Cheonan.

By Barbara Demick and John M. Glionna   Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Seoul —

The way U.S. officials see it, there’s little mystery behind the most notorious shipwreck in recent Korean history.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton calls the evidence “overwhelming” that the Cheonan, a South Korean warship that sank in March, was hit by a North Korean torpedo. Vice President Joe Biden has cited the South Korean-led panel investigating the sinking as a model of transparency.

But challenges to the official version of events are coming from an unlikely place: within South Korea.

Armed with dossiers of their own scientific studies and bolstered by conspiracy theories, critics dispute the findings announced May 20 by South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, which pointed a finger at Pyongyang.

They also question why Lee made the announcement nearly two months after the ship’s sinking, on the very day campaigning opened for fiercely contested local elections. Many accuse the conservative leader of using the deaths of 46 sailors to stir up anti-communist sentiment and sway the vote.

The critics, mostly but not all from the opposition, say it is unlikely that the impoverished North Korean regime could have pulled off a perfectly executed hit against a superior military power, sneaking a submarine into the area and slipping away without detection. They also wonder whether the evidence of a torpedo attack was misinterpreted, or even fabricated.

“I couldn’t find the slightest sign of an explosion,” said Shin Sang-chul, a former shipbuilding executive-turned-investigative journalist. “The sailors drowned to death. Their bodies were clean. We didn’t even find dead fish in the sea.”

Shin, who was appointed to the joint investigative panel by the opposition Democratic Party, inspected the damaged ship with other experts April 30. He was removed from the panel shortly afterward, he says, because he had voiced a contrary opinion: that the Cheonan hit ground in the shallow water off the Korean peninsula and then damaged its hull trying to get off a reef.

“It was the equivalent of a simple traffic accident at sea,” Shin said.

The Defense Ministry said in a statement that Shin was removed because of “limited expertise, a lack of objectivity and scientific logic,” and that he was “intentionally creating public mistrust” in the investigation.

The doubts about the Cheonan have embarrassed the United States, which will s begin joint military exercises Sunday in a show of unity against North Korean aggression. On Friday, an angry North Korea warned that “there will be a physical response” to the maneuvers.

Two South Korean-born U.S. academics have joined the chorus of skepticism, holding a news conference this month in Tokyo to voice their suspicions about the “smoking gun:” a piece of torpedo propeller with a handwritten mark in blue ink reading “No. 1″ in Korean.

“You could put that mark on an iPhone and claim it was manufactured in North Korea,” scoffed one of the academics, Seunghun Lee, a professor of physics at the University of Virginia.

Lee called the discovery of the propeller fragment five days before the government’s news conference suspicious. The salvaged part had more corrosion than would have been expected after just 50 days in the water, yet the blue writing was surprisingly clear, he said.

“The government is lying when they said this was found underwater. I think this is something that was pulled out of a warehouse of old materials to show to the press,” Lee said.

South Korean politicians say they’ve been left in the dark about the investigation.

“We asked for very basic information: interviews with surviving sailors, communication records, the reason the ship was out there,” said Choi Moon-soon, an assemblyman with the Democratic Party.

The legislature also has not been allowed to see the full report by the investigative committee, only a five-page synopsis.

“I don’t know why they haven’t released the report. They are trying to cover up small inconsistencies, and that has cost them credibility,” said Kim Chul-woo, a former Defense Ministry official who is now an analyst with the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, a government think tank.

A military oversight body, the Board of Inspection and Audit, has accused senior naval officers of lying and concealing information.

“Military officers deliberately left out or distorted key information in their report to senior officials and the public because they wanted to avoid being held to account for being unprepared,” an official of the inspection board was quoted as telling the South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo.

The Cheonan, a 1,200-ton corvette, sank the night of March 26 about 12 miles off North Korea. The first report issued by Yonhap, the official South Korean news agency, said the ship had been struck by a torpedo, but soon afterward the story changed to say the ship sank after being grounded on a reef.

The military repeated that version for days. The audit board found that sailors on a nearby vessel, the Sokcho, who fired off 35 shots with a 76-millimeter cannon around the time of the sinking, were instructed to say they’d been shooting at a flock of birds, even though at first they had said they’d seen a suspected submarine on radar.

On April 2, as Defense Minister Kim Tae-young was testifying before the National Assembly, a cameraman shooting over his right shoulder managed to capture an image of a handwritten note from the president’s office instructing him not to talk about North Korean submarines.

Such inconsistencies and reversals have fueled the suspicions of government critics. U.S. officials, however, say the panel’s conclusion is irrefutable.

Rear Adm. Thomas J. Eccles, the senior U.S. representative on the panel, said investigators considered all possibilities: a grounding, an internal explosion, a collision with a mine. But they quickly concluded that the boat was sunk by a bubble-jet torpedo, which exploded underneath the vessel and didn’t leave the usual signs of an explosion, he said.

“The pattern of damage was exactly aligned with that kind of weapon,” Eccles said in a telephone interview. “Torpedoes these days are designed to drive underneath the target and explode. They use the energy of their explosion to make a bubble that expands and contracts. It is designed to break the back of the ship.”

Pyongyang, meanwhile, denies involvement in the sinking and calls the accusation against it a fabrication.

South Koreans themselves appear to be confused: Polls show that more than 20% of the public doesn’t believe North Korea sank the Cheonan.

Wi Sung-lac, South Korea’s top envoy for North Korean affairs, says the criticism from within has made it difficult to get China and Russia on board to punish Pyongyang for the attack.

“They say, ‘But even in your own country, many people don’t believe the result,’ ” Wi said.

barbara.demick@latimes.com

john.glionna@latimes.com

Ju-min Park of The Times’ Seoul Bureau and David S. Cloud of the Washington bureau contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times

US directs “propaganda drama” against Iran with Russia help: Ahmadinejad

US directs "propaganda drama" against Iran with Russia help: Ahmadinejad

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejadsaid the US has directed a new “propaganda drama” against Iran with the help of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, ISNA reported.

“Enemies have waged psychological war against Iran and some of them have made coordination with some individuals inside Iran for military attack against the country with the help of a couple of regional countries, which are friend to Iran, and Zionists to undermine Iranian nation’s will as they imagine,” he said Friday night in the closing ceremony of national youth festival.

He added, “the propaganda drama kicked-started by Russian President’s speech among the country’s ambassadors where he said Iran will have got access to atomic bomb by next two years.”

Ahmadineajd continued, “Iranian and Russian nations are friends and we are interested in continuing friendship between the two countries, but the remark of Dmitry Medvedev kick-started the propaganda drama of the US against Iran.”

“Unfortunately, some who are uninformed or have wrong analysis are involved in the drama which is against their interests, the question is that why should Russian President play in the US drama?”

Iranian President warned, “the US and its allies cannot make Iran change its stances and they will take their wishes to grave.”

He also added Iran would send its first manned shuttle into space in 2019.

The locally-made shuttle will be guided by a domestic launch pad and control station.

“In response to the enemy’s resolutions, it was decided that the project be pushed forward by five years,” he added.

BP to begin deep-water drilling off coast of Libya, Reaping the Lockerbie Rewards

BP to begin deep-water drilling off coast of Libya

BP will start deep-water drilling off the coast of Libya within weeks, a company spokesman said on Saturday, DPAreporetd.

“Drilling will begin in the next few weeks,” spokesman David Nicholas told the German Press Agency dpa, confirming a report in the Final Times.

The move comes despite concerns about BP’s safety and environmental record, following the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico after and oil rig that had been drilling a well for BP exploded in April.

BP purchased the rights to explore for oil in Libya’s Gulf of Sirte three years ago.

US authorities accuse BP of lobbying for the release of the Lockerbie bomber so it could begin drilling off Libya.

The bomber, Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, was set free last year from a prison in Scotland and returned to his native Libya.

Iran, Turkey sign 1 bln euro gas pipeline deal

[Turkey must be confident that US sanctions do not prevent gas sales, or else they have reached the point of no longer caring.  Interesting that Reuters felt that it had to break this news through its Africa outlet.  That is the best way to bury news, by releasing it on a Saturday in the foreign press.]

Iran, Turkey sign 1 bln euro gas pipeline deal

Reuters Africa

TEHRAN July 23 (Reuters) – Iran and Turkey signed a 1 billion euro ($1.29 billion) contract to build a pipeline that will transfer the Islamic state’s natural gas to Turkey, a statement by the Iranian Oil Ministry said on Friday.

“The one billion euros deal to build 660 km gas pipeline was signed on Thursday during the Iranian Oil Minister’s trip to Turkey,” the statement said.

The statement also said there were talks on exporting Iran’s natural gas to Europe via Turkey and other energy-related issues.

(Writing by Parisa Hafezi, Editing by Sue Thomas)

Turk Army Convoy Explosion Same Town As Iranian Pipeline Bombing

Ağrı'da mayınlı saldırı

24/07/2010 14:20

In rural areas of pain Dogubeyazit County during the passage of military vehicles was placed by terrorists to detonate explosives by remote control as a result of the search of the majors and captains, including four soldiers were injured.

Events today at 10.00 Dogubeyazit District Gendarme Commander, Gendarmerie Senior Captain Ufuk Gokmen’s determination is out in the task handed over to the Gendarmerie Major Zechariah liked with Sarıbıyık from the village gendarmerie outpost located the Fish Lake near Bezirhane village way has occurred. Igdir near the border region during the passage of military vehicles terrorists put off by remote control to detonate explosives had been.

The four soldiers in an explosion at a military vehicle were injured. The explosion injured soldiers District Gendarme Commander Captain Ufuk Gokmen and Specialist Sergeant Neset Fares’s helicopter was removed Erzurum Marshal Fevzi Cakmak Military Hospital, the Light wounded privates Samet Kara and Ali Şahin the Dogubayazit State Hospital, being treated was learned.

Governor: Remote Controlled Explosion

Agri Governor Ali Yerlikaya, Dogubeyazit District Bezirhane Gendarmerie Station Command was sent by the two vehicles comprising the gendarmerie patrol today clockwise during Sarıbıyık villages near separatist terrorist organization by the members based explosives laid they said. During the detonation of explosives at a military vehicle passed four personnel injured while performing Yerlikaya Governor explaining the wounded were being transferred to the hospital, said the suspects were trying to be captured. (Dha)

Conservatism in the Age of Human Husbandry

Conservatism in the Age of Human Husbandry

by Hugo

Were the field of clinical psychology ever to come under the dominion of conservative clinicians, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the profession’s Leviticus of mental hygienics, probably would be shorn of at least 800 of its present 886 pages (and counting).  Still, that reference work of the American Psychiatric Association would require at least one latter day addition: a detailed profile of Compulsive Civil Control Psychosis, or CCCP.

CCCP is a highly particular psychopathy currently afflicting more than a third of all adults in this country–no fewer than 80 million Americans: the 72 million affiliated with the Democratic Party and the 8 million who have cast their ballots for John McCain in this presidential election season.  No minor behavioral disorder, CCCP is aprogressive illness that, left untreated, builds inexorably toward a debilitating state.

Although CCCP is often misdiagnosed as Quality Control Compulsive Disorder (QCCD), it is in fact far more aggressive and resistant to treatment.  Whereas those with QCCD have a pronounced need to locate and control quality in whomever they may find it, patients with Compulsive Civil Control Psychosis are impelled to control whole populations, as well as disaggregated demographic cohorts.  And while both pathologies are marked by compulsive disorder, it is CCCP which manifests the complete symptom complex classically associated with psychotic mania: the disordered thought processes and clouded judgment, the hyperactivity and impulsive spending, the grandiosity and overreaction grossly disproportionate to exogenous events, the exaggerated sense of persecution or victimization.

But the hallmark of CCCP is of course the patient’s inexhaustible and excessive involvement in endeavors aimed at managing the lives, lifestyles and worldview of others.  Those afflicted with Compulsive Civil Control Psychosis are almost always unaware that there is anything wrong with their behavior or attitude toward society.  On the contrary, they are most often impatient, intrusive, meddlesome and, when interfered with, threateningly irritable.  Whether they imagine themselves “independent” or “moderate”, in reality they brook no interference with the liberal indulgence of their overweening and debilitating impulse to human husbandry.

CCCP most commonly afflicts persons of high intellectual attainment and socioeconomic position.  High-functioning sufferers have been known to achieve great success in such fields as journalism, education and politics, and it is even conceivable that a Control Compulsive could rise undetected to high office.  Left untreated, however, the illness often progresses to a destructive and even deadly final stage.

Come that day when clinicians of genuinely conservative outlook assume leadership of the American Psychiatric Association, reliable treatments for CCCP will be at hand.  In the meantime it is unlikely that the APA would see fit to add the disorder to its already over-long diagnostic manual.

There is no point, after all, in trying to explain water to a fish.

The Trilateral Commission–Usurping Sovereignty

The Trilateral Commission: Usurping Sovereignty

By Patrick Wood

[Editor’s note: For ease of reading, all members of the Trilateral Commission appear inbold type]

“President Reagan ultimately came to understand Trilateral’s value and invited the entire membership to a reception at the White House in April 1984”
— David Rockefeller, Memoirs, 20021


{sidebar id=1} According to each issue of the official Trilateral Commission quarterly magazine Trialogue:

Trilateral Commission LogoThe Trilateral Commission was formed in 1973 by private citizens of Western Europe, Japan and North America to foster closer cooperation among these three regions on common problems. It seeks to improve public understanding of such problems, to support proposals for handling them jointly, and to nurture habits and practices of working together among these regions.”2

Further, Trialogue and other official writings made clear their stated goal of creating a “New International Economic Order.” President George H.W. Bush later talked openly about creating a “New World Order”, which has since become a synonymous phrase.

This paper attempts to tell the rest of the story, according to official and unofficial Commission sources and other available documents.

The Trilateral Commission was founded by the persistent maneuvering of David Rockefellerand Zbigniew Brzezinski. Rockefeller was chairman of the ultra-powerful Chase Manhattan Bank, a director of many major multinational corporations and “endowment funds” and had long been a central figure in the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Brzezinski, a brilliant prognosticator of one-world idealism, was a professor at Columbia University and the author of several books that have served as “policy guidelines” for the Trilateral Commission. Brzezinski served as the Commission’s first executive director from its inception in 1973 until late 1976 when he was appointed by President Jimmy Carter as Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.

The initial Commission membership was approximately three hundred, with roughly one hundred each from Europe, Japan and North America. Membership was also roughly divided between academics, politicians and corporate magnates; these included international bankers, leaders of prominent labor unions and corporate directors of media giants.

The word commission was puzzling since it is usually associated with instrumentalities set up by governments. It seemed out of place with a so-called  private group unless we could determine that it really was an arm of a government – an unseen government, different from the visible government in Washington. European and Japanese involvement indicated a world government rather than a national government. We hoped that the concept of a sub-rosa world government was just wishful thinking on the part of the Trilateral Commissioners. The facts, however, lined up quite pessimistically.

If the Council on Foreign Relations could be said to be a spawning ground for the concepts of one-world idealism, then the Trilateral Commission was the “task force” assembled to assault the beachheads. Already the Commission had placed its members in the top posts the U.S. had to offer.

Brzezinski and CarterPresident James Earl Carter, the country politician who promised, “I will never lie to you,” was chosen to join the Commission byBrzezinski in 1973. It was Brzezinski, in fact, who first identified Carter as presidential timber, and subsequently educated him in economics, foreign policy, and the ins-and-outs of world politics. Upon Carter’selection, Brzezinski was appointed assistant to the president for national security matters. Commonly, he was called the head of the National Security Council because he answered only to the president – some said Brzezinski held the second most powerful position in the U.S.

Carter’s running mate, Walter Mondale, was also a member of the Commission. (If you are trying to calculate the odds of three virtually unknown men, out of over sixty Commissioners from the U.S., capturing the three most powerful positions in the land, don’t bother. Your calculations will be meaningless.)

On January 7, 1977 Time Magazine, whose editor-in-chief, Hedley Donovan was a powerful Trilateral, named President Carter “Man of the Year.” The sixteen-page article in that issue not only failed to mention Carter’s connection with the Commission but also stated the following:

“As he searched for Cabinet appointees, Carter seemed at times hesitant and frustrated disconcertingly out of character. His lack of ties to Washington and the Party Establishment – qualities that helped raise him to the White House – carry potential dangers. He does not know the Federal Government or the pressures it creates. He does not really know the politicians whom he will need to help him run the country.”3

Is this portrait of Carter as a political innocent simply inaccurate or is it deliberately misleading? By December 25, 1976 – two weeks before the Time article appeared - Carterhad already chosen his cabinet. Three of his cabinet members – Cyrus VanceMichael Blumenthal, and Harold Brown – were Trilateral Commissioners; and the other non-Commission members were not unsympathetic to Commission objectives and operations. In addition, Carter had appointed another fourteen Trilateral Commissioners to top government posts, including:

    • C. Fred Bergsten (Under Secretary of Treasury)
    • James Schlesinger (Secretary of Energy)
    • Elliot Richardson (Delegate to Law of the Sea)
    • Leonard Woodcock (Chief envoy to China)
    • Andrew Young (Ambassador to the United Nations)

As of 25 December 1976, therefore, there were nineteen Trilaterals, including Carter andMondale, holding tremendous political power. These presidential appointees represented almost one-third of the Trilateral Commission members from the United States. The odds of that happening “by chance” are beyond calculation!

Nevertheless, was there even the slightest evidence to indicate anything other than collusion? Hardly! Zbigniew Brzezinski spelled out the qualifications of a 1976 presidential winner in 1973:

“The Democratic candidate in 1976 will have to emphasize work, the family, religion and, increasingly, patriotism…The new conservatism will clearly not goback to laissez faire. It will be a philosophical conservatism. It will be a kind of conservative statism or managerism. There will be conservative values but areliance on a great deal of co-determination between state and the corporations.”4

On 23 May 1976 journalist Leslie H. Gelb wrote in the not-so-conservative New York Times,“(Brzezinski) was the first guy in the Community to pay attention to Carter, to take him seriously. He spent time with Carter, talked to him, sent him books and articles, educated him.”5 Richard Gardner (also of Columbia University) joined into the “educational” task, and as Gelb noted, between the two of them they had Carter virtually to themselves. Gelb continued: “While the Community as a whole was looking elsewhere, to Senators Kennedy and Mondale…it paid off. Brzezinski, with Gardner, is now the leading man on Carter’sforeign policy task force.”6

Although Richard Gardner was of considerable academic influence, it should be clear thatBrzezinski was the “guiding light” of foreign policy in the Carter administration. Along with Commissioner Vance and a host of other Commissioners in the State Department,Brzezinski had more than continued the policies of befriending our enemies and alienating our friends. Since early 1977 we had witnessed a massive push to attain “normalized” relations with Communist China, Cuba, the USSR, Eastern European nations, Angola, etc. Conversely, we had withdrawn at least some support from Nationalist China, South Africa, Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia), etc. It was not just a trend – it was an epidemic. Thus, if it could be said that Brzezinski had, at least in part, contributed to current U.S. foreign and domestic policy, then we should briefly analyze exactly what he was espousing.

Needed: A More Just and Equitable World Order

The Trilateral Commission held their annual plenary meeting in Tokyo, Japan, in January 1977. Carter and Brzezinski obviously could not attend as they were still in the process of reorganizing the White House. They did, however, address personal letters to the meeting, which were reprinted in Trialogue, the official magazine of the Commission:

“It gives me special pleasure to send greetings to all of you gathering for the Trilateral Commission meeting in Tokyo. I have warm memories of our meeting in Tokyo some eighteen months ago, and am sorry I cannot be with you now.

“My active service on the Commission since its inception in 1973 has been a splendid experience for me, and it provided me with excellent opportunities to come to know leaders in our three regions.

“As I emphasized in my campaign, a strong partnership among us is of the greatest importance. We share economic, political and security concerns that make it logical we should seek ever-increasing cooperation and understanding. And this cooperation is essential not only for our three regions, but in the global search for a more just and equitable world order (emphasis added). I hope to see you on the occasion of your next meeting in Washington, and I look forward to receiving reports on your work in Tokyo.

“Jimmy Carter”7

Brzezinski’s letter, in a similar vein, follows:

“The Trilateral Commission has meant a great deal to me over the last few years. It has been the stimulus for intellectual creativity and a source of personal satisfaction. I have formed close ties with new friends and colleagues in all three regions, ties which I value highly and which I am sure will continue.

“I remain convinced that, on the larger architectural issues of today, collaboration among our regions is of the utmost necessity. This collaboration must be dedicated to the fashioning of a more just and equitable world order (emphasis added). This will require a prolonged process, but I think we can look forward with confidence and take some pride in the contribution which the Commission is making.

“Zbigniew Brzezinski”8

The key phrase in both letters was “more just and equitable world order.” Did this emphasis indicate that something was wrong with our present world order, that is, with national structures? Yes, according to Brzezinski, and since the present “framework” was inadequate to handle world problems, it must be done away with and supplanted with a world government.

In September 1974 Brzezinski was asked in an interview by the Brazilian newspaper Vega.“How would you define this new world order?” Brzezinski answered:

“When I speak of the present international system I am referring to relations in specific fields, most of all among the Atlantic countries; commercial, military, mutual security relations, involving the international monetary fund, NATO etc. We need to change the international system for a global system in which new, active and creative forces recently developed – should be integrated. This system needs to include Japan. Brazil, the oil producing countries, and even the USSR, to the extent which the Soviet Union is willing to participate in a global system.”9

When asked if Congress would have an expanded or diminished role in the new system,Brzezinski declared “…the reality of our times is that a modern society such as the U.S. needs a central coordinating and renovating organ which cannot be made up of six hundred people.”10

Brzezinski developed background for the need for a new system in his book Between Two Ages: America’s Role in the Technetronic Era (1969). He wrote that mankind has moved through three great stages of evolution, and was in the middle of the fourth and final stage. The first stage he described as “religious,” combining a heavenly “universalism provided by the acceptance of the idea that man’s destiny is essentially in God’s hands” with an earthly “narrowness derived from massive ignorance, illiteracy, and a vision confined to the immediate environment.”

The second stage was nationalism, stressing Christian equality before the law, which “marked another giant step in the progressive redefinition of man’s nature and place in our world.” The third stage was Marxism, which, said Brzezinski, “represents a further vital and creative stage in the maturing of man’s universal vision.” The fourth and final stage wasBrzezinski’s Technetronic Era, or the ideal of rational humanism on a global scale – the result of American-Communist evolutionary transformations.11

In considering our structure of governance, Brzezinski stated:

“Tension is unavoidable as man strives to assimilate the new into the framework of the old. For a time the established framework resiliently integrates the new by adapting it in a more familiar shape. But at some point the old framework becomes overloaded. The newer input can no longer be redefined into traditional forms, and eventually it asserts itself with compelling force. Today, though, the old framework of international politics – with their spheres of influence, military alliances between nation-states, the fiction of sovereignty, doctrinal conflicts arising from nineteenth century crises – is clearly no longer compatible with reality.”12

One of the most important “frameworks” in the world, and especially to Americans, was the United States Constitution. It was this document that outlined the most prosperous nation in the history of the world. Was our sovereignty really “fiction”? Was the U.S. vision no longer compatible with reality? Brzezinski further stated:

“The approaching two-hundredth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence could justify the call for a national constitutional convention to reexamine the nation’s formal institutional framework. Either 1976 or 1989 – the two- hundredth an anniversary of the Constitution – could serve as a suitable target date culminating a national dialogue on the relevance of existing arrangements… Realism, however, forces us to recognize that the necessary political innovation will not come from direct constitutional reform, desirable as that would be. The needed change is more likely to develop incrementally and less overtly…in keeping with the American tradition of blurring distinctions between public and private institution.”13

In Brzezinski’s Technetronic Era then, the “nation-state as a fundamental unit of man’s organized life has ceased to be the principal creative force: International banks and multinational corporations are acting and planning in terms that are far in advance of the political concepts of the nation-state.”14

Brzezinski’s philosophy clearly pointed forward to Richard Gardner’s Hard Road to World Order that appeared in Foreign Affairs in 1974, where Gardner stated,

“In short, the ‘house of world order’ would have to be built from the bottom up rather than from the top down. It will look like a great ‘booming, buzzing confusion,’ to use William James’ famous description of reality, but an end run around national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece, will accomplish much more than the old-fashioned frontal assault.”15

That former approach which had produced few successes during the 1950’s and 1960’s was being traded for a velvet sledge-hammer: It would make little noise, but would still drive the spikes of globalization deep into the hearts of many different countries around the world, including the United States. Indeed, the Trilateral Commission was the chosen vehicle that finally got the necessary traction to actually create their New World Order.

Understanding the philosophy of the Trilateral Commission was and is the only way we can reconcile the myriad of apparent contradictions in the information filtered through to us in the national press. For instance, how was it that the Marxist regime in Angola derived the great bulk of its foreign exchange from the offshore oil operations of Gulf Oil Corporation? Why did Andrew Young insist that “Communism has never been a threat to Blacks in Africa”? Why did the U.S. funnel billions in technological aid to the Soviet Union and Communist China? Why did the U.S. apparently help its enemies while chastising its friends?

A similar and perplexing question is asked by millions of Americans today: Why do we spend trillions on the “War on Terror” around the world and yet ignore the Mexican/U.S. border and the tens of thousands of illegal aliens who freely enter the U.S. each and every month?

These questions, and hundreds of others like them, cannot be explained in any other way: the U.S. Executive Branch (and related agencies) was not anti-Marxist or anti-Communist – it was and is, in fact, pro- Marxist. Those ideals which led to the heinous abuses of Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, and Mussolini were now being accepted as necessary inevitabilities by our elected and appointed leaders.

This hardly suggests the Great American Dream. It is very doubtful that Americans would agree with Brzezinski or the Trilateral Commission. It is the American public who is paying the price, suffering the consequences, but not understanding the true nature of the situation.

Barry GoldwaterThis nature however, was not unknown or unknowable. Senator Barry Goldwater (R-AZ) issued a clear and precise warning in his 1979 book, With No Apologies:

The Trilateral Commission is international and is intended to be the vehicle for multinational consolidation of the commercial and banking interests by seizing control of the political government of the United States. The Trilateral Commission represents a skillful, coordinated effort to seize control and consolidate the four centers of power – political, monetary, intellectual and ecclesiastical.”16

Unfortunately, few heard and even fewer understood.

Follow the Money, Follow the Power

What was the economic nature of the driving force within the Trilateral Commission? It was the giant multinational corporations – those with Trilateral representation – which consistently benefited from Trilateral policy and actions. Polished academics such asBrzezinski, Gardner, Allison, McCracken, Henry Owen etc., served only to give “philosophical” justification to the exploitation of the world.

Don’t underestimate their power or the distance they had already come by 1976. Their economic base was already established. Giants like Coca-Cola, IBM, CBS, Caterpillar Tractor, Bank of America, Chase Manhattan Bank, Deere & Company, Exxon, and others virtually dwarf whatever remains of American businesses. The market value of IBM’s stock alone, for instance, was greater than the value of all the stocks on the American Stock Exchange. Chase Manhattan Bank had some fifty thousand branches or correspondent banks throughout the world. What reached our eyes and ears was highly regulated by CBS, the New York Times, Time magazine, etc.

The most important thing of all is to remember that the political coup de grace preceded the economic coup de grace. The domination of the Executive Branch of the U.S. government provided all the necessary political leverage needed to skew U.S. and global economic policies to their own benefit.

By 1977, the Trilateral Commission had notably become expert at using crises (and creating them in some instances) to manage countries toward the New World Order; yet, they found menacing backlashes from those very crises.

In the end, the biggest crisis of all was that of the American way of life. Americans never counted on such powerful and influential groups working against the Constitution and freedom, either inadvertently or purposefully, and even now, the principles that helped to build this great country are all but reduced to the sound of meaningless babblings.

Trilateral Entrenchment: 1980-2007

25th Anniversary of Trilateral Commission

From left: Peter SutherlandSadako Ogata,Zbigniew Brzezinski, Paul VolckerDavid Rockefeller. (25th Anniversary, New York, Dec. 1, 1998. Source: Trilateral Commission)

It would have been damaging enough if the Trilateral domination of the Carteradministration was merely a one-time anomaly; but it was not!Subsequent presidential elections broughtGeorge H.W. Bush (under Reagan), William Jefferson ClintonAlbert Gore and Richard Cheney (under G. W. Bush) to power.

Thus, every Administration since Carter has had top-level Trilateral Commission representation through the President or Vice-president, or both!

It is important to note that Trilateral domination has transcended political parties: they dominated both the Republican and Democrat parties with equal aplomb.

In addition, the Administration before Carter was very friendly and useful to Trilateral doctrine as well: President Gerald Ford took the reins after President Richard Nixon resigned, and then appointed Nelson Rockefeller as his Vice President. Neither Ford nor Rockefeller were members of the Trilateral Commission, but Nelson was David Rockefeller’s brother and that says enough. According to Nelson Rockefeller’s memoirs, he originally introduced then-governor Jimmy Carter to David and Brzezinski.

How has the Trilateral Commission effected their goal of creating a New World Order or a New International Economic Order? They seated their own members at the top of the institutions of global trade, global banking and foreign policy.

For instance, the World Bank is one of the most critical mechanisms in the engine of globalization.17 Since the founding of the Trilateral Commission in 1973, there have been only seven World Bank presidents, all of whom were appointed by the President. Of these seven, six were pulled from the ranks of the Trilateral Commission!

    • Robert McNamara (1968-1981)
    • A.W. Clausen (1981-1986)
    • Barber Conable (1986-1991)
    • Lewis Preston (1991-1995)
    • James Wolfenson (1995-2005)
    • Paul Wolfowitz (2005-2007)
    • Robert Zoellick (2007-present)

Another good evidence of domination is the position of U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), which is critically involved in negotiating the many international trade treaties and agreements that have been necessary to create the New International Economic Order. Since 1977, there have been ten USTR’s appointed by the President. Eight have been members of the Trilateral Commission!

    • Robert S. Strauss (1977-1979)
    • Reubin O’D. Askew (1979-1981)
    • William E. Brock III (1981-1985)
    • Clayton K. Yeutter (1985-1989)
    • Carla A. Hills (1989-1993)
    • Mickey Kantor (1993-1997)
    • Charlene Barshefsky (1997-2001)
    • Robert Zoellick (2001-2005)
    • Rob Portman (2005-2006)
    • Susan Schwab (2006-present)

This is not to say that Clayton Yeuter and Rob Portman were not friendly to Trilateral goals, because they clearly were.

The Secretary of State cabinet position has seen its share of Trilaterals as well: Henry Kissinger (Nixon, Ford), Cyrus Vance (Carter), Alexander Haig (Reagan), George Shultz(Reagan), Lawrence Eagleburger (G.H.W. Bush), Warren Christopher (Clinton) andMadeleine Albright (Clinton) There were some Acting Secretaries of State that are also noteworthy: Philip Habib (Carter), Michael Armacost (G.H.W. Bush), Arnold Kantor(Clinton), Richard Cooper (Clinton).

Lastly, it should be noted that the Federal Reserve has likewise been dominated by Trilaterals: Arthur Burns (1970-1978), Paul Volker (1979-1987), Alan Greenspan (1987-2006). While the Federal Reserve is a privately-owned corporation, the President “chooses” the Chairman to a perpetual appointment. The current Fed Chairman, Ben Bernanke, is not a member of the Trilateral Commission, but he clearly is following the same globalist policies as his predecessors.

The point raised here is that Trilateral domination over the U.S. Executive Branch has not only continued and but has been strengthened from 1976 to the present. The pattern has been deliberate and persistent: Appoint members of the Trilateral Commission to critical positions of power so that they can carry out Trilateral policies.

The question is and has always been, do these policies originate in consensus meetings of the Trilateral Commission where two-thirds of the members are not U.S. citizens? The answer is all too obvious.

Trilateral-friendly defenders attempt to sweep criticism aside by suggesting that membership in the Trilateral Commission is incidental, and that it only demonstrates the otherwise high quality of appointees. Are we to believe that in a country of 300 million people only these 100 or so are qualified to hold such critical positions? Again, the answer is all too obvious.

Where Does the Council on Foreign Relations Fit?

While virtually all Trilateral Commission members from North America have also been members of the CFR, the reverse is certainly not true. It is easy to over-criticize the CFR because most of its members seem to fill the balance of government positions not already filled by Trilaterals.

The power structure of the Council is seen in the makeup of its board of directors: No less than 44 percent (12 out of 27) are members of the Commission! If director participation reflected only the general membership of the CFR, then only 3-4 percent of the board would be Trilaterals.18

Further, the president of the CFR is Richard N. Haass, a very prominent Trilateral member who also served as Director of Policy Planning for the U.S. Department of State from 2001-2003.

Trilateral influence can easily be seen in policy papers produced by the CFR in support of Trilateral goals.For instance, the 2005 CFR task force report on the Future of North America was perhapsthe major Trilateral policy statement on the intended creation of the North American Union. Vice-chair of the task force was Dr. Robert A. Pastor, who has emerged as the “Father of the North American Union” and has been directly involved in Trilateral operations since the 1970’s. While the CFR claimed that the task force was “independent,” careful inspection of those appointed reveal that three Trilaterals were carefully chosen to oversee the Trilateral position, one each from Mexico, Canada and the United States:Luis RubioWendy K. Dobson and Carla A. Hills, respectively.19 Hills has been widely hailed as the principal architect of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that was negotiated under President George H.W. Bush in 1992.

The bottom line is that the Council on Foreign Relations, thoroughly dominated by Trilaterals, serves the interests of the Trilateral Commission, not the other way around!

EU PosterTrilateral Globalization in Europe

The content of this paper thus far suggests ties between the Trilateral Commission and the United States. This is not intended to mean that Trilaterals are not active in other countries as well. Recalling the early years of the Commission, David Rockefeller wrote in 1998,

“Back in the early Seventies, the hope for a more united EUROPE was already full-blown – thanks in many ways to the individual energies previously spent by so many of the Trilateral Commission’s earliest members.” [Capitals in original]20

Thus, since 1973 and in parallel with their U.S. hegemony, the European members of the Trilateral Commission were busy creating the European Union. In fact, the EU’s Constitution was authored by Commission member Valéry Giscard d’Estaing in 2002-2003, when he was President of the Convention on the Future of Europe. [For more on the EU, see European Union: Dictatorship Rising? and The Globalization Strategy: America and Europe in the Crucible]

The steps that led to the creation of the European Union are unsurprisingly similar to the steps being taken to create the North American Union today. As with the EU, lies, deceit and confusion are the principal tools used to keep an unsuspecting citizenry in the dark while they forge ahead without mandate, accountability or oversight. [See The Globalization Strategy: America and Europe in the Crucible and Toward a North American Union]

Conclusion

It is clear that the Executive Branch of the U.S. was literally hijacked in 1976 by members of the Trilateral Commission, upon the election of President Jimmy Carter and Vice-President Walter Mondale. This near-absolute domination, especially in the areas of trade, banking, economics and foreign policy, has continued unchallenged and unabated to the present.

Windfall profits have accrued to interests associated with the Trilateral Commission, but
the effect of their “New International Economic Order” on the U.S. has been nothing less than devastating. (See America Plundered by the Global Elite for a more detailed analysis)

The philosophical underpinnings of the Trilateral Commission are pro-Marxist and pro-socialist. They are solidly set against the concept of the nation-state and in particular, the Constitution of the United States. Thus, national sovereignty must be diminished and then abolished altogether in order to make way for the New World Order that will be governed by an unelected global elite with their self-created legal framework.

If you are having negative sentiment against Trilateral-style globalization, you are not alone. A 2007 Financial Times/Harris poll revealed that less than 20 percent of people in six industrialized countries (including the U.S.) believe that globalization is good for their country while over 50 percent are outright negative towards it.21 (See Global Backlash Against Globalization?) While citizens around the world are feeling the pain of globalization, few understand why it is happening and hence, they have no effective strategy to counter it.

The American public has never, ever conceived that such forces would align themselves so successfully against freedom and liberty. Yet, the evidence is clear: Steerage of America has long since fallen into the hands of an actively hostile enemy that intends to remove all vestiges of the very things that made us the greatest nation in the history of mankind.

Endnotes

  1. Rockefeller, David, Memoirs (Random House, 2002), p.418
  2. Trialogue, Trilateral Commission (1973)
  3. Time Magazine, Jimmy Carter: Man of the Year, January 7, 1977
  4. Sutton & Wood, Trilaterals Over Washington (1979), p. 7
  5. New York Times, Jimmy Carter, Leslie Gelb, May 23, 1976
  6. ibid.
  7. Trialogue, Looking Back…And Forward, Trilateral Commission, 1976
  8. ibid.
  9. Sutton & Wood, Trilaterals Over Washington (1979), p. 4
  10. ibid. p. 5
  11. Brzezinski, Zbigniew, Between Two Ages: America’s Role in the Technetronic Era (New York: Viking Press, 1973), p. 246.
  12. ibid.
  13. ibid.
  14. ibid.
  15. Gardner, Richard, The Hard Road to World Order, (Foreign Affairs, 1974) p. 558
  16. Goldwater, Barry, With No Apologies, (Morrow, 1979), p. 280
  17. Global Banking: The World Bank, Patrick Wood, The August Review
  18. Board of Directors, Council on Foreign Relations website
  19. Building a North American Community, Council on Foreign Relations, 2005
  20. Rockefeller, David, In the Beginning…” The Trilateral Commission at 25, 1998, p.11
  21. FT/Harris poll on Globalization, FT.com website

Obama’s Trilateral Commission Team

Obama’s Trilateral Commission Team

Top 25 of 2010

Source:
August Review.com, January 30, 2009
Title: “Obama: Trilateral Commission Endgame”
Author: Patrick Wood

Student Researcher: Sarah Maddox
Faculty Evaluator: Peter Phillips
Sonoma State University

Barack Obama appointed eleven members of the Trilateral Commission to top-level and key positions in his administration within his first ten days in office. This represents a very narrow source of international leadership inside the Obama administration, with a core agenda that is not necessarily in support of working people in the United States.

Obama was groomed for the presidency by key members of the Trilateral Commission. Most notably, Zbigniew Brzezinski, co-founder of the Trilateral Commission with David Rockefeller in 1973, has been Obama’s principal foreign policy advisor.

According to official Trilateral Commission membership lists, there are only eighty-seven members from the United States (the other 337 members are from other countries). Thus, within two weeks of his inauguration, Obama’s appointments encompassed more than 12 percent of Commission’s entire US membership.

Trilateral appointees include:
* Secretary of Treasury, Tim Geithner
* Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice
* National Security Advisor, Gen. James L. Jones
* Deputy National Security Advisor, Thomas Donilon
* Chairman, Economic Recovery Committee, Paul Volker
* Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Dennis C. Blair
* Assistant Secretary of State, Asia & Pacific, Kurt M. Campbell
* Deputy Secretary of State, James Steinberg
* State Department, Special Envoy, Richard Haass
* State Department, Special Envoy, Dennis Ross
* State Department, Special Envoy, Richard Holbrooke

There are many other links in the Obama administration to the Trilateral Commission. For instance, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is married to Commission member William Jefferson Clinton.
Secretary of Treasury Tim Geithner’s informal group of advisors include E. Gerald Corrigan, Paul Volker, Alan Greenspan, and Peter G. Peterson, all members. Geithner’s first job after college was with Trilateralist Henry Kissinger at Kissinger Associates.

Trilateralist Brent Scowcroft has been an unofficial advisor to Obama and was mentor to Defense Secretary Robert Gates. And Robert Zoelick, current president of the World Bank appointed during the G.W. Bush administration, is a member.

According to the Trilateral Commissions’ website, the Commission was formed in 1973 by private citizens of Japan, Europe (European Union countries), and North America (United States and Canada) to foster closer cooperation among these core democratic industrialized areas of the world with shared leadership responsibilities in the wider international system. The website says, “The membership of the Trilateral Commission is composed of about 400 distinguished leaders in business, media, academia, public service (excluding current national Cabinet Ministers), labor unions, and other non-governmental organizations from the three regions. The regional chairmen, deputy chairmen, and directors constitute the leadership of the Trilateral Commission, along with an Executive Committee including about 40 other members.”
Since 1973, the Trilateral Commission has met regularly in plenary sessions to discuss policy position papers developed by its members. Policies are debated in order to achieve consensuses. Respective members return to their own countries to implement policies consistent with those consensuses. The original stated purpose of the Trilateral Commission was to create a “New International Economic Order.” Its current statement has morphed into fostering a “closer cooperation among these core democratic industrialized areas of the world with shared leadership responsibilities in the wider international system.”
Since the Carter administration, Trilateralists have held these very influential positions: Six of the last eight World Bank Presidents; Presidents and Vice-Presidents of the United States (except for Obama and Biden); over half of all US Secretaries of State; and three quarters of the Secretaries of Defense.

Two strong convictions guide the Commission’s agenda for the 2009-2012 triennium. First, the Trilateral Commission is to remain as important as ever in maintaining wealthy countries’ shared leadership in the wider international system. Second, the Commission will “widen its framework to reflect broader changes in the world.” Thus, the Japan Group has become a Pacific Asian Group, which includes Chinese and Indian members, and Mexican members have been added to the North American Group. The European Group continues to widen in line with the enlargement of the EU.

Update by Patrick Wood
The concept of “undue influence” comes to mind when considering the number of Trilateral Commission members in the Obama administration. They control the areas of our most urgent national needs: financial and economic crisis, national security, and foreign policy.

The conflict of interest is glaring. With 75 percent of the Trilateral membership consisting of non-US individuals, what influence does this super-majority have on the remaining 25 percent?
For example, when Chrysler entered bankruptcy under the oversight and control of the Obama administration, it was quickly decided that the Italian carmaker Fiat would take over Chrysler. The deal’s point man, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, is a member of the Trilateral Commission. Would you be surprised to know that the chairman of Fiat, Luca di Montezemolo, is also a fellow member?
Congress should have halted this deal the moment it was suggested.

Many European members of the Trilateral Commission are also top leaders of the European Union. What political and economic sway do they have through their American counterparts?
If asked, the vast majority of Americans would say that America’s business is its own, and should be closed to foreign meddlers with non-American agendas.
But, the vast majority of Americans have no idea who or what the Trilateral Commission is, much less the power they have usurped since 1976, when Jimmy Carter became the first Trilateral member to be elected president (Project Censored Story #1, 1976).

In light of today’s unprecedented financial crisis, they would be abhorred if they actually read Zbigniew Brzezinski’s (co-founder of the Commission with David Rockefeller) statement from his 1971 book, Between Two Ages: America’s Role in the Technetronic Era, which states that, “The nation-state as a fundamental unit of man’s organized life has ceased to be the principal creative force: International banks and multinational corporations are acting and planning in terms that are far in advance of the political concepts of the nation-state.”
Yet, this is exactly what is happening. The global banks and corporations are running circles around the nation state, including the United States. They have no regard for due process, Congress, or the will of the people.

Why have the American people been kept in the dark about a subject so great that it shakes our country to its very core?
The answer is simple: The top leadership of the media is also saturated with members of the Trilateral Commission who are able to selectively suppress the stories that are covered. They include:
• David Bradley, Chairman, Atlantic Media Company
• Karen Elliot House, former Senior Vice President, Dow Jones & Company, and Publisher, the Wall Street Journal
• Richard Plepler, Co-president, HBO
• Charlie Rose, PBS
• Fareed Zakaria, Editor, Newsweek
• Mortimer Zuckerman, Chairman, US News & World Reports
There are many other top-level media connections due to corporate directorships and stock ownership.

For more information, this writer’s original 1978 book, Trilaterals Over Washington, is available in electronic form at no charge at http://www.AugustReview.com. This site also has many papers analyzing various aspects of the Trilateral Commission’s hegemony in the United States and elsewhere, since it’s founding in 1973.

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Iran-Contra Colonel In Gun-Run Case

Iran-Contra Colonel In Gun-Run Case

Independent News

A retired U.S. Air Force colonel charged in the 1980s in an Iran-Contra related weapons smuggling case has been indicted in a U.S. federal court inMiami with conspiring with an Israeli aeronautics engineer to illegally export 2,000 AK-47s to Somalia.

The June 17 indictment against Joseph O’Toole, 79, now based in Claremont, California, was unsealed today. POLITICO earlier Monday reportedon the indictment of his Israeli co-defendant, Chanoch Miller. Miller, an Israeli citizen and former executive Israeli defense firm Radom Aviation, was arrested in Miami on June 18th and his indictment was unsealed on June 21.

O’Toole , then described as a Santa Ana-based aviation consultant, was charged in 1989 with conspiring with a controversial Israeli self-described former Mossad agent, Ari Ben-Menashe, and a Connecticut resident Richard St. Francis, with trying to sell three U.S. C-130 air cargo planes toIran. But the charges against O’Toole were dropped in 1991 during the first Gulf War.

Beginning in April, according to the indictment, Miller and O’Toole conspired to obtain and transport hundreds of AK-47s from Bosnia to the northern Somalian city of Banderal, using false end user certificates of Chad, in violation of U.S. arms export control laws. Somalia is under a U.N. arms embargo. But the transport services source they contacted turned out to be an informant for the U.S. Customs and Immigrations Enforcement (ICE) agency, the indictment describes.

On June 15, 2010, the indictment states, Miller wired $116,000 from an Israeli bank to a Broward County, Florida Wells Fargo branch to pay for the weapons and air transport as well as a $2,000 commission for O’Toole, the seven-count indictment said.

The case against Miller and O’Toole was brought by the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida Wifredo Ferrer and Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Walleisa.

Source: Politio By: Laura Rozen
June 28, 2010 06:23 PM EDT

http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=80A7489E-18FE-70B2-A89E66D7C14A1EE5

US envoy warns pro-Kurd deputies over separation

[Outgoing ambassador to Turkey telling Kurds to give-up on the idea of independence, as he is being transferred to Baghdad, where he will work to keep the Kurds from disrupting the Iraqi government.  The Kurds are American bait, to be reeled-in or let-out, to attract the bigger fish in Turkey and Iran.  One would think that people would wake-up to such cynical manipulations.]

US envoy warns pro-Kurd deputies over separation

ANKARA – Hürriyet Daily News

Turkey’s pro-Kurdish party should abandon any ideas of separating from the country lest the breakaway state become a “third-class” country, the outgoing U.S. ambassador to Turkey has warned, daily Hürriyet reported Friday.

The U.S. Embassy in Ankara would neither confirm nor deny Hürriyet’s report, but an official said Jeffrey “voiced U.S. support for the ‘democratic initiative’ and a strong, international-oriented Turkey.”

“If you split [from Turkey], you will be a third-class Middle Eastern country. Turkey will continue on its path as a Western state,” Ambassador James Jeffrey reportedly told a group of deputies, including Sırrı Sakık from the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party, or BDP, during a meeting a week ago.

Sakık told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review on Friday, however, that he did not remember “Jeffrey saying those words.”

Jeffrey has been appointed as the top American envoy to Baghdad, leaving his post in Ankara to Francis J. Ricciardone.

The outgoing ambassador hosted deputies Abdülkadir Aksu and Vahit Erdem from the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP; İlhan Kesici from the main opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP; and Oktay Vural from the Nationalist Movement Party, or MHP, in addition to Sakık, for a farewell lunch on July 13, Hürriyet reported.

According to the daily, the participants discussed whether Turkish citizens of Kurdish origin aspired to live as a separate entity. Deputies at the lunch reportedly highlighted the fact that the Kurdish people in Turkey are different from the ones in Syria and Iraq, since there has been a mixed social structure for centuries.

“We don’t want to be a country in the quagmire of the Middle East. We want Turkey to be a country integrated with the West, one that has embraced European values and established democratic freedoms,” Sakık told the Daily News. “If there were a vote among Kurds, the ones who would seek separation would be insignificant, maybe 3 percent.”

Criticizing the government for not reducing the 10 percent national election threshold, which he calls a clear example of hypocrisy, Sakık said his party could not approve the constitutional amendments set for a Sept. 12 referendum under such conditions.

“The ambassador asked me the reason why the BDP has decided to boycott the referendum,” Sakık said, adding that he told him “the amendments were far from responsive to our demands.”

Ahmadinejad–Medvedev ‘Mouthpiece’ of Iran Enemies

Ahmadinejad: Medvedev ‘Mouthpiece’ of Iran Enemies

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has dubbed his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev the “mouthpiece” of Iran’s enemies, in the latest tirade born of rising differences between Tehran and Moscow.
“In a meeting with his ambassadors, he (Medvedev) said we have knowledge that Iran is moving towards the bomb,” Ahmadinejad was shown saying in footage broadcast by state television on Saturday.

“We regret that Medvedev has become the mouthpiece for the plans of Iran’s enemies,” the hardline president said in the footage filmed at a gathering in Tehran on Friday.

On July 12, Medvedev made his toughest remarks to date about the Iranian nuclear programme, which Tehran has always insisted is entirely peaceful in aim.

“Iran is nearing the possession of the potential which, in principle, could be used for the creation of a nuclear weapon,” he told Russian diplomats.

Three days later, Medvedev warned Iranian leaders that they did not “live in space” and accused them of exploiting the nuclear standoff with the international community for political ends.

“Iran is an active trade partner of ours. But this does not mean that we are indifferent to how Iran is developing its nuclear programme,” Medvedev said at a news conference alongside German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Ties between Tehran and Moscow deteriorated sharply when Russia backed a fourth set of UN sanctions over Iran’s nuclear programme adopted by the Security Council on June 9.

“Russia is a great nation and we are friends and are interested in expanding our friendly relationship, but you should know that the remarks (of Medvedev) are a trailer for the propagandist scenario that the US will stage,” Ahmadinejad said.

“This scenario has been kick-started by the Russian president.”

A traditional ally of Iran, Russia had previously taken a much softer line on the nuclear issue than western governments and had spoken out in favor of more diplomacy.

But in recent months it has toughened its stance, backing western calls for more sanctions.(AFP)