Report details flaws in Army’s handling of PTSD

[The Army's flawed approach to treating battle-related stress disabilities has been apparent for many years (SEE:  Human Nature Is the Enemy of the State).  Developing better, more efficient behavioral control techniques, that will allow soldiers to get over their mental hang-ups and teach them ways to "man-up" has not helped to stop the escalation of war-related military suicides and violent crime sprees.  The reason that so many returning veterans cannot live with their memories is the shame and guilt for the things that they have seen and done.  There is no way to disconnect a man from well-earned remorse and no reliable method for ensuring that he can forget his past.  Until this happens, decent men will return home to their families, which eerily resemble the decimated families seen by the soldier in Afghanistan and Iraq.  There will continue to be a fairly large percentage of American recruits who cannot rationalize the killing of foreign families to keep American fuel prices low.  Their minds will continue to snap like overstretched, sun-dried rubber bands, as long as they are used and abused to wage wars of aggression.]

An Army report released Friday finds the service still has trouble diagnosing and treating soldiers for post-traumatic stress disorder, despite more than doubling its number of military and civilian behavioral health workers over the past five years.

By GENE JOHNSON

Associated Press

SEATTLE —

An Army report released Friday finds the service still has trouble diagnosing and treating soldiers for post-traumatic stress disorder, despite more than doubling its number of military and civilian behavioral health workers over the past five years.

Confusing paperwork, inconsistent training and guidelines, and incompatible data systems have hindered the service as it tries to deal with behavioral health issues, the report said. It’s a crucial issue: After a decade of war, soldier suicides outpace combat deaths.

Last May, the Army commissioned a task force to conduct a sweeping review of how it evaluates soldiers for mental health problems at all its facilities. The review came under pressure from Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, of Washington, who was upset to learn that hundreds of soldiers at Madigan Army Medical Center south of Seattle had had their PTSD diagnoses reversed by a forensic psychiatry team, resulting in a potential cut to their benefits and questions about whether the changes were made to save money.

About 150 of those soldiers eventually had their diagnoses restored.

“I am pleased that the Army completed this review and has vowed to make fixes over the next year, though I am disappointed it has taken more than a decade of war to get to this point,” Murray said in a statement. “Many of the 24 findings and 47 recommendations in this report are not new. Creating a universal electronic health record, providing better rural health access, and standardizing the way diagnoses are made, for instance, have been lingering problems for far too long. Our service members and their families deserve better.”

The report noted that the Army had made strides in some areas, including cutting how long it takes soldiers to obtain a disability evaluation and publishing a guide to the process.

On a conference call with reporters, Army brass emphasized that many of the report’s recommendations are already being put into effect. For example, over the past year the Army has been assigning behavioral health workers to brigade combat teams so soldiers will feel more familiar with them and more comfortable about getting help, said Lt. Gen. Patricia D. Horoho, who heads the Army’s Medical Command.

Horoho also stressed that there was no evidence that malice motivated the altered diagnoses at Madigan; rather, the changes amounted to difference of opinion, she said.

The task force interviewed 750 people stationed around the globe, conducted listening sessions with 6,400 others and reviewed more than 140,000 records. The Medical Command reviewed diagnoses for all soldiers evaluated for behavioral health problems from October 2001 until last April.

Since September 2001, the report found, 4.1 percent of all soldiers deployed wound up in the disability system with a behavioral health diagnosis such as PTSD or traumatic brain injury.

Nationwide, the report said, 6,400 soldiers had behavioral health diagnoses “adjusted” by medical evaluation boards, with approximately equal numbers having PTSD added as a diagnosis and removed as a diagnosis.

Two locations where medical evaluation boards are held had slightly higher rates of diagnosis changes than the Army-wide average – Fort Polk in Louisiana and Fort Irwin in California, Horoho said. Cases from those locations are being reviewed to ensure no soldiers were improperly affected, but part of the reason for the higher rates may be because those bases rely heavily on civilian health workers, she said.

Last year the Army – and the military as a whole – suffered the highest number of suicides ever recorded, prompting then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to declare it an epidemic. The Army had 183 suicides among active-duty soldiers, up from 167 in 2011, and the military as a whole had 350 suicides, up from 301 the year before.

Among the problems the report documented was that Army bases don’t have a person on site dedicated to overseeing behavioral health issues, despite the many problems they can cause: suicide, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, and child and spouse abuse. Each installation needs someone with a view of all those programs to make recommendations to the commander, the report said.

Army Secretary John M. McHugh said in a statement that the Army will work to place behavioral health experts “at the command and installation levels to provide better consultation, guidance, coordination and recommendations to improve behavioral health care for our soldiers.”

The task force found that of the soldiers surveyed, 37 percent had never received any information about the Army’s disability evaluation system or had to seek the information out on their own. It also said it was confusing and inefficient for troops to navigate the vastly different disability systems maintained by the Army and the Veterans Administration.

The Army and VA plan to have a joint disability system, by which health care providers in either organization will have access to records, by 2017.

“Some changes can be made immediately,” McHugh said. “Others will require more time and coordination. Importantly, this report reviewed our systems holistically – recommending not only short-term solutions, but longer term, systemic changes that will make care and treatment of our soldiers and family members more effective.”

—

Associated Press writer Pauline Jelinek in Washington contributed to this report.

—

Johnson can be reached at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle

get the Nazis out of our government

[It is little wonder that the United States of America is hurtling down the road to dictatorship at warp speed, when both of our premier intelligence bureaus (both foreign and domestic services) have been built-up around solid cores of the worst Nazis available to them.  Basically, the remnants of the Gestapo and the SS were absorbed by the FBI and the CIA for their anti-Communist capabilities.  The CIA used them to gain access to their Russian and Eastern European networks.  The FBI apparently used them for the same purposes inside the US, to infiltrate Soviet bloc expatriate communities.  How could America become anything other than another brutal police state, with people like this controlling the intelligence which would guide our elected decision-makers?  Things like this tend to validate our "extremist" beliefs that our current form of government must be cast-off, so that Democratic government might be returned to our floundering Constitutional Republic.]  

It doesn’t take a “conspiracy theorist” to understand the plain, simple truth, that we have to get the Nazis out of our government.

The FBI’s shameful recruitment of Nazi war criminals

By Richard Rashke

This essay is adapted from Useful Enemies: John Demjanjuk and America’s Open-Door Policy for Nazi War Criminals, which was recently published by Delphinium Books.

A trove of recently declassified documents leads to several inescapable conclusions about the FBI’s role in protecting both proven and alleged Nazi war criminals in America. First, there can be no doubt that J. Edgar Hoover collected Nazis and Nazi collaborators like pennies from heaven. Unlike the military and its highly structured Operation Paperclip — with its specific targets, systematic falsification of visa applications, and creation of bogus biographies — Hoover had no organized program to find, vet, and recruit alleged Nazis and Nazi collaborators as confidential sources, informants, and unofficial spies in émigré communities around the country. America’s No. 1 crime buster was guided only by opportunism and moral indifference.

Each Nazi collaborator that his agents stumbled upon, or learned about from the CIA, was both a potential spy and a potential anticommunist leader. Once they were discovered, Hoover sought them out, used them, and protected them. He had no interest in reporting alleged Nazi war criminals to the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), the Justice Department, or the State Department for possible deportation or extradition. He appeared smug in his simplistic division of Americans into shadeless categories of bad guys and good guys, communists and anticommunists.

Hoover was careful about the number of former Nazis and Nazi collaborators he placed on the FBI payroll. If Congress or its investigative arm, the Government Accountability Office, ever insisted on a tally, he could say with a straight face that there were only a handful of paid confidential sources and informants. But if one adds the war criminals he informally cultivated and used, the number ranges well into the hundreds. Although some of the snapshots may be out of focus, the big picture is now clear. Hoover and the FBI knew the identities, addresses, and backgrounds of up to a thousand alleged Nazis and Nazi collaborators on whom he had files but did not report to INS, Justice, State, or the Office of Special Investigations (OSI) unit of the Justice Department.

Among the newly revealed Nazi collaborators that Hoover and the FBI used and protected were John Avdzej, Laszlo Agh, and Vladimir Sokolov. During the war, Belorussian John Avdzej had been installed as the Nazi’s puppet mayor of the Niasvizh district in western Belorussia, once part of Poland. His first mayoral job was to rid his district of all Poles. As a first step, he gave the Gestapo a list of 120 Polish intelligentsia that included journalists, professors, priests, and former military officers, according to recently declassified intelligence files. Then he took part in their execution, as well as in the murder of thousands of Jews under his political jurisdiction.

The Polish Home Army condemned him to death in absentia. The United States was responsible for bringing Avdzej to America. Hoover snapped him up and protected him until 1984, when OSI charged him with visa fraud. Facing trial and possible extradition for war crimes, Avdzej voluntarily left the United States for West Germany, where he died a free man in 1998.

Laszlo Agh was a wartime member of the Hungarian Arrow Cross, an anti- Semitic group of fascists responsible for the murder of 10,000 to 15,000 Hungarian Jews and the deportation to Auschwitz of another 80,000. According to 12 eyewitnesses, Agh had personally rounded up, imprisoned, tortured, and killed hundreds of Hungarian Jews. The torture included forced calisthenics to the point of unconsciousness, burial in the ground up to the neck until dead, and orders to jump on ground studded with partially buried bayonets.

Agh intrigued Hoover. A bitterly anticommunist leader had fallen into his lap and Hoover quickly recruited him as an unofficial informant. When the INS began to investigate Agh, the FBI refused to cooperate. As a result, Agh was never tried for visa fraud. Like Avdzej, he died a free man.

Russian Vladimir Sokolov (aka Vladimir Samarin) was a senior editor and writer for Rech (Speech), a German-controlled, anti-Semitic Russian newspaper. He entered the United States in July 1951. Sokolov penned articles calling for the extermination of Russian Jews as enemies of the people. Jews advised Stalin, he wrote, started the German-Soviet war, and controlled the White House. Only Germany and its allies had the wisdom to understand the international Jewish conspiracy and the courage to fight “the Kikes of the world.” After the war, Moscow placed Sokolov on its most-wanted list, claiming it had concrete proof that he had worked with the Gestapo as a propagandist and had personally identified Jews for execution. The FBI, on the other hand, considered Sokolov a “sincere, outspoken anti-Communist [and] a potential source.”

At one point, he even taught Russian language and literature at Yale University. “How a man with no high academic credentials suddenly procured such a prestigious position is a mystery,” wrote historian Norman Goda. “It is clear that the FBI used him as an informant while at Yale, possibly to report on Russian students.”

If Sokolov was spying for a U.S. intelligence agency, he was probably an asset in Redcap, a CIA program to collect information on Soviets living and studying abroad. The CIA as well as the FBI wanted to know if a Soviet alien was a KGB mole and, if not, whether he or she could be flipped. Redcap assets were asked to collect information on selected targets. Besides a photograph and handwriting sample, Redcap wanted: a list of non-Soviet contacts; a description of personality, habits, and hobbies; his or her political vulnerability; and the planned date of return to the Soviet Union. Of particular interest to Redcap was information on extramarital affairs that could be used for blackmail.

OSI filed charges against Sokolov for visa fraud and won its case. A federal court stripped him of his U.S. citizenship. To avoid deportation to the Soviet Union, where he would face a public trial and certain execution, Sokolov fled to Canada. He died a free man in 1992.

However shocking and reprehensible, Hoover’s use of alleged Nazis and Nazi collaborators is just a small part of the FBI story. To focus only on that dimension diverts attention away from a more important issue. In choosing to take the low moral ground, Hoover and the FBI betrayed the trust of Americans, living and dead. And in perpetrating a 50-year conspiracy of silence, the FBI shamed Americans and made them unwitting hypocrites in the eyes of the world. Most Americans find morally repugnant — if not criminal — the behavior of European citizens who cheered or merely stood by in silence while Nazis and Nazi collaborators dragged away their neighbors, looted their homes, shot them in the forest, or crammed them into boxcars heading east. How then must Americans judge the cadre of unelected, powerful men who welcomed some of those same murderers to America and helped them escape punishment in the name of national security?

Killing Americans on U.S. Soil: Eric Holder’s Evasive, Manipulative Letter

[SEE:  Does Eric Holder know the law?]

source

By Conor Friedersdorf

The attorney general should be brought before Congress and interrogated about his notion of what the president could do in the aftermath of an attack.

On December 7, 1941, Japanese war planes bombed the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Six decades later, Al Qaeda terrorists flew hijacked airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Neither President Franklin Roosevelt nor President George W. Bush targeted and killed Americans on U.S. soil in the aftermath of those attacks. Doing so wouldn’t have made any sense.

How strange, then, that Attorney General Eric Holder invoked those very attacks in a letter confirming that President Obama believes there are circumstances in which he could order Americans targeted and killed on U.S. soil. “It is possible, I suppose, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws … for the President to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States,” he wrote. “For example, the President could conceivably have no choice but to authorize the military to use such force if necessary to protect the homeland in the circumstances of a catastrophic attack like the ones suffered on December 7, 1941 and on September 11, 2001.”

The very scenario to be guarded against is a president using the pretext of a terrorist attack to seize extraordinary powers. Isn’t that among the most likely scenarios for the United States turning into an authoritarian security state? To be sure, if Americans are at the controls of fighter jets en route to Hawaii, of course Obama could order that they be fired upon. If Americans hijacked a plane, of course it would be permissible to kill them before they could crash it into a building. But those are not the sorts of targeted killings that Senator Rand Paul asked about in a letter to White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan, prompting Holder’s response.

If you read to the end of Holder’s letter, to the passage where he says, “Were such an emergency to arise, I would examine the particular facts and circumstances before advising the president on the scope of his authority,” it becomes clear that, despite invoking Pearl Harbor and 9/11, even he isn’t envisioning a response to an attack in process, which would have to happen immediately. So what does he envision? If he can see that a “for example” is necessary to explain, he ought to give us a clarifying example, rather than a nonsensical one that seems to name-check events for their emotional resonance more than for their aptness to the issue.

Elsewhere in his letter, Holder writes that “the US government has not carried out drone strikes in the United States and has no intention of doing so. As a policy matter moreover, we reject the use of military force where well-established law enforcement authorities in this country provide the best means for incapacitating a terrorist threat.” Interesting they reject it “as a policy matter,” but aren’t willing to reject military force in the United States as a legal matter, even in instances where law enforcement would better incapacitate the threat. For the Obama Administration, conceding that the executive branch is legally forbidden to do certain things is verboten, despite the fact that an unchecked executive is much more dangerous than the possibility of a future president failing to do enough to fight back against an actual attack on our homeland*.

Any thinking person can see that Holder’s letter is non-responsive, evasive, and deliberately manipulative in its sly reassurances, right down to the rhetorically powerful but substantively nonsensical invocation of 9/11. (Being more subtle about it than Rudy Giuliani doesn’t make it right.) To credulously accept this sort of response, on an issue as important as this one, is behavior unfit for any citizen of a free country, where safeguarding the rule of law is a civic responsibility.

Rand Paul deserves tremendous credit for eliciting this response. In its wake, he needs help from his colleagues and his countrymen. The time to discuss the appropriate scope of the president’s authority is now, not in the aftermath of a catastrophic attack on the nation, as Holder suggests. The fact that he disagrees speaks volumes about Team Obama’s reckless shortsightedness.

__
*Does anyone imagine, in the aftermath of a future Pearl Harbor or 9/11, that Congress would refuse to authorize whatever reasonable authority the executive branch required to kill or capture the perpetrators? It is difficult to imagine anyone even worrying over so implausible an outcome.

Jewish Anti-Patriot Center (SPLC) Spreads Panic Over Patriot Groups and Second Amendment Defenders

[SEE:  Who Controls the Southern Poverty Law Center?]

Record number of anti-government militias in USA

Donna Leinwand Leger

The rhetoric and threat of domestic terrorist plots mirrors the mood observed in the six months before the Oklahoma City bombing, the Southern Poverty Law Center says.

The number of militias and radical anti-government “patriot” groups operating in the USA reached an all-time high in 2012, a report Tuesday by the Southern Poverty Law Center finds.

The center tracked 1,360 radical militias and anti-government groups in 2012, a nine-fold increase over 2008 when the center recorded 149 such groups, the report says. The explosive growth began four years ago, sparked by the election of President Obama and anger about the poor economy, the center says.

“As President Obama enters his second term with an agenda of gun control and immigration reform, the rage on the right is likely to intensify,” the center’s senior fellow Mark Potok writes in the report.

The rhetoric and threat of domestic terrorist plots mirrors the mood observed in the six months before the Oklahoma City bombing, a domestic terror attack in 1995 by anti-government militia sympathizer Timothy McVeigh that killed 168 people, center president J. Richard Cohen says in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

“In the last four years we have seen a tremendous increase in the number of conspiracy-minded, anti-government groups as well as in the number of domestic terrorist plots,” Cohen writes. “We now also are seeing ominous threats from those who believe that the government is poised to take their guns.”

The number of anti-government groups grew 7% from 1,274 in 2011 to 1,360 in 2012, while the number of hate groups dropped slightly from 1,018 in 2011 to 1,007 in 2012.

The latest count surpasses the record number of groups formed in the 1990s in response to the 1993 passage of sweeping gun control measures in the Brady Bill and the ban on assault weapons in 1994. In 1996, the number of “patriot” groups peaked at 858, the center reports.

The center predicts the ongoing gun control debate will continue to fuel anti-government anger and swell the ranks of the radical groups. The groups generally believe the federal government is conspiring to confiscate all guns and curtail personal liberties, the center says. Some of the groups have threatened politicians who have proposed gun control measures, the report says.

The report cites examples of groups that predicted civil war and tyranny after Obama’s executive orders on gun control, including Fox News Radio host Todd Starnes who tweeted, ” Freedom ends. Tyranny begins.” and ConservativeDaily.com’s Tony Adkins, who wrote, “Martial law in the United States now a very real possibility.”

The center quotes The United States Patriots Union, which, in a letter to state legislators, called the federal government “a tool of International Socialism now, operating under UN Agendas not our American agenda.” The group said states should defend freedom and liberty “or we are headed to Civil War wherein the people will have no choice but to take matters into their own hands.”

“Their rhetoric is a barometer of the rage that is building in certain quarters,” Cohen says.

Fake Letter from the Bin Laden Impersonator Killed In Abbottabad

[Comparing this alleged letter, supposedly written by the long-dead terrorist, bin Laden, we can easily see that this reputed letter from Abbottabad is a complete fraud.  Nowhere in the fake new evidence, produced from the fake Special Forces raid, does this sound like the words of the man who issued his Fatwa against the "Zionist-Crusaders" in August 1996 (SEE:  Bin Laden's Fatwa--Aug. 23, 1996).  By the way, bin Laden does not even use the Word "Qaeda" at all, in the older example.  The fake letter is absent the real bin Laden's reverence for his faith.  The new guy doesn't even bother writing a traditional Muslim blessing whenever mentioning the Holy Prophet, such as "Peace be unto Him."  In the Fatwa the real bin Laden blesses The Prophet by saying "ALLAH'S BLESSING AND SALUTATIONS ON HIM" (in all capitals) 32 times.  The fake bin Laden uses the word "thus" 9 times in his short letter, even though Usama never says the word once in his entire Fatwa.  

We are asked to swallow a whole load of bullshit, in order to allow them to flesh-out their imaginary union of international terrorists.  As if to reinforce the narrative that we are under attack from an international Islamist entity, the neoconservative Henry Jackson Society recently released a 700 page report called, Al-Qaeda in the United States: A Complete Analysis of Terrorism Offences, which purports to document years of overlooked "terror attacks" which supposedly have happened since 2001.  We have allegedly been overlooking countless terrorist events, writing-up terrorist as regular crimes.  Like everything else in this phony terror war, the image of "al-Qaeda" is created by mislabeling crimes by other people who have nothing to do with the imaginary terrorist international, as "al-Qaeda related."  The rhetorical neocon tome is supposed to open our eyes to what we have overlooked or misunderstood.  It is nonsense, intended to make its argument by sheer weight.  The pdf available at the link given is, thankfully, only 107 pages.]

Letters from Abbottabad: Bin Ladin Sidelined?

CTC–Combating Terrorism Center at West Point

Authors: Don Rassler, Gabriel Koehler-Derrick, Liam Collins, Muhammad al-Obaidi, Nelly Lahoud

This report is a study of 17 de-classified documents captured during the Abbottabad raid and released to the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC). They consist of electronic letters or draft letters, totaling 175 pages in the original Arabic and 197 pages in the English translation. The earliest is dated September 2006 and the latest April 2011.  These internal al-Qa`ida communications were authored by several  leaders, most prominently Usama bin Ladin.  In contrast to his public statements that focused on the injustice of those he believed to be the “enemies” of Muslims, namely corrupt “apostate” Muslim rulers and their Western “overseers,” the focus of Bin Ladin’s private letters is Muslims’ suffering at the hands of his jihadi “brothers”. He is at pain advising them to abort domestic attacks that cause Muslim civilian casualties and focus on the United States, “our desired goal.” Bin Ladin’s frustration with regional jihadi groups and his seeming inability to exercise control over their actions and public statements is the most compelling story to be told on the basis of the 17 de-classified documents. “Letters from Abbottabad” is an initial exploration and contextualization of 17 documents that will be the grist for future academic debate and discussion

SOCOM-2012-0000003
This letter was authored by Usama bin Ladin and addressed to Shaykh Mahmud (`Atiyya Abdul Rahman) on 27 August 2010. Mahmud is specifically directed to tell ‚Basir,‛ who is Nasir al-Wuhayshi (Abu Basir), the leader of al-Qa`ida in the Arabian Peninsula, to remain in his role (presumably in response to a request from Abu Basir that Anwar al-`Awlaqi take his position), and for him to send ‚us a detailed and lengthy‛ version of al-`Awlaqi’s resume. `Atiyya is also told to ask Basir and Anwar al-`Awlaqi for their ‚vision in detail about the situation‛ in Yemen. References are also made in the letter to the 2010 floods in Pakistan, a letter from Bin Ladin’s son Khalid to `Abd al-Latif, al-Qa`ida’s media plan for the 9/11 anniversary, and the need for the ‚brothers coming from Iran‛ to be placed in safe locations.

Page 1 of 4
In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful
Praise be to God, Lord of the universe, and peace and prayers be
upon our Prophet Muhammad, his family, and all of his companions
Now then…
To the noble brother, Shaykh Mahmud, may God protect him
Peace be upon you, God’s Mercy and Blessings
I hope you receive this message of mine while you, your family,
children, and all of the brothers are in good health.
So,
- With regard to what you had mentioned in a previous message,
that some brothers may go to Iran as part of a plan to protect
the brother, thus I see that Iran is not suitable. Also, when
choosing the areas where the brothers will be inside Pakistan
it’s necessary to take into consideration that they are not
areas that encountered floods or may encounter them in the
future.
- With regard to the brothers coming from Iran, thus I see, at
this stage, that they be at safe locations outside the areas
being attacked.
- Regarding what’s related to Pakistan, thus I didn’t take a
look at the report you mentioned. However, the opinion in
general is to be concerned with calming things down and focusing
efforts on the Americans.
- With regard to what pertains to appointing the brothers in the
administrative positions, thus I see that they pledge an
allegiance that would include some points, which would protect
the work and its secrets. Therefore, I hope that you all
deliberate concerning the matter and inform me of your opinion,
and amongst the proposed points, for example:
1- Listening, obedience, and Jihad so as to bring back the
Caliphate.
Page 2 of 4
SOCOM-2012-0000003-HT
2- Protect operational secrets.
3- Protect the work he is going to be responsible for, and
provide advice to the leadership.
- Regarding what brother Basir mentioned relating to Anwar al-
‘Awlaqi, it would be excellent if you inform him, on my behalf
in a private message to him, to remain in his position where he
is qualified and capable of running the matter in Yemen.
Therefore, he shall continue, by the blessings of God, as he has
the characteristics that makes him capable of that.
Additionally, the presence of some of the characteristics by our
brother Anwar al-‘Awlaqi is a good thing, in order to serve
Jihad, and how excellent would it be if he gives us a chance to
be introduced to him more.
- Also, I hope that he be informed of us still needing more
information from the battlefield in Yemen, so that it is
feasible for us, with the help of God, to make the most
appropriate decision to either escalate or calm down. And with
regard to informing us of the situations by them, thus I hope
that brother Basir writes me his vision in detail about the
situations and also asks brother Anwar al-‘Awlaqi to write his
vision in detail in a separate message, as well as brother Abu-
Sufyan Sa’id al-Shahri, to send his vision in detail and
separate.
How excellent would it be if you ask brother Basir to send us
the resume, in detail and lengthy, of brother Anwar al-‘Awlaqi,
as well as the facts he relied on when recommending him, while
informing him that his recommendation is considered. However, we
would like to be reassured more. For example, we here become
reassured of the people when they go to the line and get
examined there.
Page 3 of 4
Also, I hope that brother Basir be informed that the media
appearance is his task, and in general, they should reduce the
appearance during this period unless necessary, and if necessity
calls for one of the brothers to issue a speech, thus Basir
should review it before it’s broadcasted in the media. It shall
be pointed out, whereas you didn’t point out, that the speech of
SOCOM-2012-0000003-HT
brother Sa’id al-Shahri that was issued about the apprehension
of one of the sisters in Saudi was not appropriate at the time.
With regard to what you mentioned in a previous message,
regarding your opinion to reduce the correspondence, thus we are
concerned with the security aspect, yet I have a tape for the
nation that includes instigation of the people of Iraq and
preaching to the Awakenings to return to the Mujahidin. I am
going to send it, God willing, the next time, thus you can
arrange with the courier to have the card that’s going to
contain this statement delivered to the media section directly,
and if a necessary matter develops, we are going to attach to
you a message that will be sent to you by the media section.
- Attached with this message is a visual statement to the
American people that I hope a copy of it be given to the
International Al Jazeera and the Arab Al Jazeera. I also hope
for it to be translated (voice over) to English and to be
delivered to the Al Jazeera channel prior to the anniversary of
9/11, to be broadcasted during it. Also, two copies of it are
attached, one of which is recorded and the other written.
- We sent you, along with the messages that preceded this, a
statement regarding the floods of Pakistan. Its broadcasting to
media was delayed, thus perhaps it’s for a good reason. However,
in any case, I had attached the content of this card to this
message.
- Note: Please broadcast the flood statement before the American
People statement, as the American People statement to be during
the anniversary of 9/11.
- Attached is a message from my son Khalid to brother ‘Abd-al-
Latif, and a message to the brothers in the media section.
Page 4 of 4
In conclusion, I ask God, the Glorified and Almighty, to protect
you and to make you successful towards what He loves and is
satisfied with, and the last of our prayers is praise be to God,
Lord of the Universe, and peace and prayers be upon our Prophet
Muhammad, his family, and all of his companions.
Peace be upon you, God’s Mercy and Blessings
Thursday
SOCOM-2012-0000003-HT
17 Ramadan 1431 Hijri (TN: 27 August 2010)
(TN: End of translation)
SOCOM-2012-0000003-HT

Radically Wrong: The Right to Think Dangerous Thoughts

Radically Wrong: A Counterproductive Approach to Counterterrorism

By Gabe Rottman, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office

Despite evidence to the contrary, the government continues to embrace a theory that adopting radical ideas is a first step toward terrorist violence. Based on this discredited model, “preventive” policies are being pursued, resulting in discrimination, suspicionless surveillance of entire communities, and selective law enforcement against belief communities and political activists. The following is the third installment in the ACLU blog series “Radically Wrong,” which highlights counterterrorism policies that are not only ineffective, but also undermine our constitutional rights.

Earlier this month, the White House blogged about its commitment to empower “members of the public to protect themselves against the full range of online threats, including online radicalization to violence,” and announced the creation of a new interagency working group for that purpose. The working group will coordinate the government’s efforts and develop plans—alongside private industry—to “implement an Internet safety approach to address online extremism.”

The White House initiative raises a basic question: Is it appropriate for the government (in cahoots with private industry) to repurpose programs that, for instance, urge consumers to install anti-virus software and protect their credit card information into something that warns them against “bad” ideas?

My colleagues Mike German and Dena Sher have written at length about how “radicalization” models assume, falsely, that you can predict future violence from present sympathies for “radical” or “extreme” beliefs. As they point out, numerous studies have shown that (1) there is no simple link between the adoption of an ideology and violent action; and (2) that it’s exceedingly difficult to craft a coherent model of the kinds of ideologies or beliefs that could be expected to lead to violence (largely because of the manifold and ever-shifting nature of ideas themselves).

By ignoring these studies, efforts to identify a “radicalization” process focus on normal, everyday speech and association, generally with an ethnic or religious flavor. They do so because the whole purpose of a radicalization model is to provide a non-psychic “minority report“—a way to see into the future under the false presumption that thoughts lead directly to action. So, mosques, hookah bars and book stores become alleged “terrorist incubators.” Wearing Islamic clothes, growing a beard, joining community groups all become supposed indicators of future terrorist activity—even though thousands of people do these things and never commit a single criminal or violent act.

Dollars to donuts, the same thing is going to happen here. The White House announced that the federal consumer protection portal OnGuard Online as well as the Department of Homeland Security’s website titled “countering violent extremism” (which the government refers to by the catchy acronym “CVE”) would begin carrying precautionary “CVE information.” Crucially, even though CVE includes the word “violent,” the initiative has little to do with stopping actual conduct, and much more to do with urging the public to be alert for and report purely expressive or associational activity. The White House also announced that it will work with industry to adapt internet safety measures that help prevent fraud and identity theft to likewise address “online extremism”—whatever that means. There is no detail on what information will be posted to the government’s sites, or how these industry partnerships would work.

The problem, of course, is that countering “extremism” is a completely different animal than consumer protection. OnGuard Online, right now, hosts innocuous tips for getting rid of malware, keeping your kids safe from online fraud and securing your home network. It’s a radically different proposition—no pun intended—to use the site to prevent someone from developing sympathies for Communist Party USA (slogan: “Radical Ideas. Real Politics.”). For the latter, you literally have to warn consumers to be wary of exposure to particular ideas, arguments and opinions.

Accordingly, any government move to use consumer education tools to counter violent extremism will involve very uncomfortable judgment calls about particular groups, individuals, ideas and internet phenomena. Will it warn against people who link to certain blogs? What about people who retweet messages from a group like Hamas, which the U.S. has designated a “foreign terrorist organization” with a “paramilitary arm” and which is also a political organization? What about an individual who “friends” a conservative organization that refuses to recognize the legitimacy of the federal government? Will the program follow the hopelessly amorphous and debunked approach of a New York Police Department report, “Radicalization in the West,” where, for instance, the second supposedly “distinct” stage in the so-called process of “radicalization” involves “a cognitive opening, or crisis, which shakes one’s certitude in previously held beliefs and opens an individual to be receptive to new worldviews”? How would the government even draft that as language for OnGuard Online? Attention America: watch out for people with open minds?

The simple fact is that we all have a First Amendment right to think “dangerous” thoughts. We do not have a First Amendment right to do violent things. Many people have dangerous thoughts, but never do violent things, and it’s virtually impossible to systematically predict which “dangerous” thinkers are going to end up engaging in violence or criminal activity. The Constitution strictly limits restrictions on “radical” speech, and even speech that advocates violence, for precisely this reason. As the Supreme Court explained at another point in our history when the government sought to suppress and literally criminalize ideas:

[T]he mere abstract teaching of Communist theory, including the teaching of the moral propriety or even moral necessity for a resort to force and violence, is not the same as preparing a group for violent action and steeling it to such action.

By dressing up the CVE initiatives as consumer education and internet safety programs, the government is trying to indirectly suppress speech that it can’t directly censor. It should, once and for all, reject these misguided programs.

Previous posts in the “Radically Wrong” series:

Part 1: A Counterproductive Approach to Counterterrorism

Part 2: Misstated Threats – Terrorism isn’t an American-Muslim Problem

The Day of Reckoning

[The big unknown in all of this—

How many of us will pick our guns up, when we are ordered to lay them down?

This is the unknowable variable that induces hesitancy in the feverishly power-drunk bureaucratic minds, actually serving to keep the government at bay, so far— too afraid to declare martial law and seize our guns, for fear that they will set-off an American insurgency, which will dwarf anything that the Pentagon has so far faced in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

In the dramatic, though realistic scenario laid-out for us by Mr. Owens, beneath the following intro, we see that logically, one-percent or less of all American citizens are fully prepared to defend their Second Amendment Right to own a gun for the purpose of self-defense.  A government that is hostile to the very Constitution which it claims to represent is a very real threat to all life, liberty and personal property rights, at least as great a threat as any burglar knocking-in your back door. 

Such a government would no longer within the Republican parameters set for it in the Constitutional division of powers outlined by our Founding Fathers.  It would have exposed itself as a Facist Dictatorship.  Each and every American Patriot owes it to his Family, to posterity and to himself, to oppose such a dictatorship if one ever rises-up above us, down to his last breath and to his last bullet. 

I am still breathing and I have not yet begun to run out of bullets.  How about you? 

Will you be one of the Last American Patriots, when the Dictatorship comes out of the closet?] 

When Gun Confiscation Starts. How Will a Rebellion Play Out Nationwide?

Charleston Voice

Posted by The Watchdog

It is hard to say what will happen. County Sheriffs and police chiefs vowed to stand down and not give material support or help to the federal agencies involved trying to disarm the American people. Many in the US Military will stand down like the East German Military shortly before the Berlin Wall came down. Soon after communism collapsed in Russia and eastern Europe.

It is hard to say if it will bloodless or a blood bath in the streets if the US government tries to come after the guns. It is my hope the US Government collapse flinching when the US Military and Federal Agents hesitate when ordered to disarm the American people, most of all disarm the veterans.

Blogger Bob Owens has written “What Will You See in the Rebellion,” a likely scenario  how a revolt against the US government will possibly unfold.

What you’ll see in the rebellion

Written By: Bob - Dec• 28•12

Let me explain, gun grabbers, how your confiscatory fantasy plays out. Let us imagine for a moment that a sweeping gun control bill similar to the one currently suggested is passed by the House and Senate, and signed into law by a contemptuous President.

Perhaps 50-100 million firearms currently owned by law-abiding citizens will become contraband with the stroke of a pen. Citizens will either register their firearms, or turn them in to agents of the federal government, or risk becoming criminals themselves. Faced with this choice, millions will indeed register their arms. Perhaps as many will claim they’ve sold their arms, or had them stolen. Suppose that as many as 200-250 million weapons of other types will go unregistered.

Tens of millions of Americans will refuse to comply with an order that is clearly a violation of the explicit intent of the Second Amendment. Among the most ardent opposing these measures will be military veterans, active duty servicemen, and local law enforcement officers. Many of these individuals will refuse to carry out what they view as Constitutionally illegal orders. Perhaps 40-50 million citizens will view such a law as treason. Perhaps ten percent of those, 4-5 million, would support a rebellion in some way, and maybe 40,000-100,000 Americans will form small independently-functioning active resistance cells, or become lone-wolves.

They will be leaderless, stateless, difficult to track, and considering the number of military veterans that would likely be among their number, extremely skilled at sabotage, assassination, and ambush.

After a number of carefully-planned, highly-publicized, and successful raids by the government, one or more will invariably end “badly.” Whether innocents are gunned down, a city block is burned to ash, or especially fierce resistance leads to a disastrously failed raid doesn’t particularly matter. What matters is that when illusion of the government’s invincibility and infallibility is broken, the hunters will become the hunted.

Unnamed citizens and federal agents will be the first to die, and they will die by the dozens and maybe hundreds,  but famous politicians will soon join them in a spate of revenge killings, many of which will go unsolved.

Ironically, while the gun grab was intended to keep citizens from preserving their liberties with medium-powered weapons, it completely ignored the longer-ranged rifles perfect for shooting at ranges far beyond what a security detail can protect, and suppressed .22LR weapons proven deadly in urban sniping in Europe and Asia.

While the Secret Service will be able to protect the President in the White House, he will not dare leave his gilded cage except in carefully controlled circumstances. Even then he will be forced to move like a criminal. He will never be seen outdoors in public again. Not in this country.

The 535 members of the House and Senate in both parties that allowed such a law to pass would largely be on their own; the Secret Service is too small to protect all of them and their families, the Capitol Police too unskilled, and competent private security not particularly interested in working against their own best interests at any price. The elites will be steadily whittled down, and if they can not be reached directly, the targets will become their staffers, spouses, children, and grandchildren. Grandstanding media figures loyal to the regime would die in droves, executed as enemies of the Republic.

You can expect congressional staffs to disintegrate with just a few shootings, and expect elected officials themselves to resign well before a quarter of their number are eliminated, leaving us with a boxed-in executive, his cabinet loyalists trapped in the same win, die, or flee the country circumstance, military regime loyalists, and whatever State Governors who desire to risk their necks as well.

Here, the President will doubtlessly order the activation of National Guard units and the regular military to impose martial law, setting the largest and most powerful military in the world against its own people. Unfortunately, the tighter the President clinches his tyrannical fist, the more rebels he makes.

Military commands and federal agencies will be whittled down as servicemen and agents will desert or defect. Some may leave as individuals, others may join the Rebellion in squad and larger-sized units with all their weapons, tactics, skills, and insider intelligence. The regime will be unable to trust its own people, and because they cannot trust them, they will lose more in a vicious cycle of collapse.

Some of these defectors will be true “operators,” with the skills and background to turn ragtag militia cells into the kind of forces that decimate loyalist troops, allowing them no rest and no respite, striking them when they are away from their most potent weapons. Military vehicles are formidable, but they are thirsty beasts, in terms of fuel, ammo, time, and maintenance. Tanks and bombers are formidable only when they have gas, guns, and can be maintained. In a war without a front, logistics are incredibly easy to destroy, and mechanics and supply clerks are not particularly adept at defending themselves.

Eventually, the government will turn upon itself. The President will be captured or perhaps killed by his own protectors. A dictatorship will form in the vacuum.

If we’re lucky, the United States of America, or whatever amalgam results, will again try to rebuild. If we’re very lucky, the victors will reinstate the Constitution as the law of the land. Just as likely though, we’ll face fractious civil wars fought over issues we’ve not begun to fathom, and a much diminished state or states will result, perhaps guided by foreign interests.

It will not be pretty. There will be no “winners,” and perhaps hundreds of thousands to millions of dead.

Yet, this is the future we face if the power-mad among us are not soundly defeated at the ballot box before they affect more “change” than  we, the People, are willing to surrender to would-be tyrants.

[author's note: This article is just one of an evolving series of posts reacting to current events that many are interpreting as possible threats to our Republic and the Constitution. Please proceed to the main page to keep up to date. Thank you.]

The Return of Empires, Part 3

The Return of Empires (III)

By Dmitry MININ (Russia)

Part I

Part II

«Smart power» in the service of the American empire

The dissociation of the United States from a number of international problems by shifting these problems onto allies and delegating authority to them, a result of the United States’ «imperial overheating», is based on the currently popular concept of «smart power», the very emergence of which suggests that America’s former sources of power have been exhausted… The time when America’s leadership went unquestioned has passed. Nowadays, maintaining leadership demands considerable intellectual and political efforts from the rulers of the American empire.

At the official level, the name of this concept was first heard in a speech given by Hillary Clinton at the Senate on 13 January 2009 before she confirmed her candidacy for the post of Secretary of State. Hillary Clinton called for the use of «smart power» in order to maintain America’s leadership in the world, referring to the full range of tools at America’s disposal – «diplomatic, economic, military, political, legal and cultural – picking the right tool, or combination of tools, for each situation».

The idea of «smart power» is a development of the «soft power» concept formulated in 1990 by Harvard professor and politician Joseph Nye, who successfully served as chairman of the National Intelligence Council and was a candidate for National Security Advisor in the team of John Kerry, who went on to lose in the presidential elections. Their closeness suggests that the new Secretary of State is making use of his former colleague’s suggestions with much greater enthusiasm than Hillary Clinton.

In 2004, Nye’s ideas were finalised in his book «Soft Power». Nye’s principal idea is that the United States ought to achieve its stated objectives in the international arena through «engagement» rather than «coercion». Hence the need to use social and cultural values as tools of foreign policy. The dominant power should be attractive in everything it does and offer its own example of development guidelines to others. The theory was well received in Washington and has been actively used in some places, for example in the «colour revolutions» and during the «Arab Spring», although it has since been shown as inadequate since its effect is prolonged and not always obvious. In addition, nobody was prepared to give up «hard power» based on force.

Whereupon Nye suggested combining both concepts within a universal «smart power». In 2006, the renowned research centre CSIS organised the Bipartisan Commission on Smart Power, headed by Joseph Nye and «neocon» Richard Armitage. In 2007, the Commission presented a paper entitled “A Smarter, More Secure America”, which laid out the principles for reorganising world order whilst preserving America’s power.

The concept of «smart power» gave the theory of «soft power» some strategic direction. Its leitmotif was the need for a balanced combination of the resources of both types of power, «soft» and «hard». Of course, everybody already understood what the «carrot and stick» policy is all about. The achievement of modern theoreticians has been the detailed elaboration and operationalisation of ideas that are, by and large, clear to everybody. The concept of «smart power» is not just a synthesis of soft and hard power (combining public diplomacy mechanisms with military interventions, for example), but a new philosophy of interrelations with other powers. Its bottom line is that America’s leadership position should not be realised through the single-handed resolution of international problems, but through the organisation of joint actions. Which, for example, is how America operated during the Libyan war; experts called this «leadership from behind».

«America must learn to do things that others want and cannot do themselves, and to do so in a cooperative fashion», the document reads. In the new approaches, it is also possible to detect a division of the leadership concept into two elements – spacial (control over territories) and functional (superiority in addressing problems on a global scale). The US is prepared to give up part of its spatial leadership for the sake of preserving its functional leadership in all key issues of international life.

The concept of «smart power» allows for the fact that power resources are being redistributed in the modern world and new centres of power are emerging. A complex, multi-tiered cobweb of actors is replacing the pyramidal world order with a hierarchical structure. The hierarchy between them is being preserved, just not as rigidly formalised as before. The one proving to be the most influential in this world is the one who is the most involved in widespread and interlinking networks. As another of the creators of the «smart power» concept, Professor Anne-Marie Slaughter, noted, «The state with the most connections will be the central player, able to set the global agenda, and unlock innovation and sustainable growth».  Slaughter is the one responsible for the idea of creating «a league of democracies», a kind of super-empire on federalist principles whose members should manage the world through joint efforts. Under Bill Clinton, and on the initiative of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, an alliance like this was even established, but was not developed any further for a number of reasons, including the fact that at that time, the US was not seriously ready to share its authority to manage the world, even with its closest allies. Time has inexorably brought them back to this problem.

In line with the concept of «smart power», in 2010 Barack Obama announced the United States’ commitment to the multilateral (read: in partnership with their closest allies and satellites) resolution of all world problems and international conflicts in their newly outlined National Security Strategy. The document states that, «…we must recognize that no one nation – no matter how powerful – can meet global challenges alone». In addition, their willingness to share the burden of maintaining world order was not postulated as a way to democratise international relations, but as a method to preserve «America’s leadership» in the world under new conditions, «based upon mutual interests and mutual respect», obviously. Such «engagement» is expected to begin with their «closest friends and allies – from Europe to Asia; from North America to the Middle East», among which were named Great Britain, France and Germany.

An active transition to the adoption of this policy was clearly timed to coincide with the beginning of the president’s second mandate. In this respect, US Vice-President Joseph Biden’s speech at the International Security Conference held in Munich in February 2013 is revealing. Biden confirmed that the US was switching its attention to the Asia-Pacific Region, having called upon their European allies to be more active in their zone of responsibility «with the unfailing support of the USA». According to Biden’s assurances, «Europe remains the cornerstone and catalyst for America’s engagement with the world». Biden also spoke of the United States’ support for democratic states in Southeast Asia, Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East. Having outlined the claims to America’s newly-established spheres of influence in this way, Biden condemned the notion itself, as usual, but in a rather remarkable way. He declared that America will not recognise the right of any state to have «a sphere of influence», linking this to the non-recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states. And this means that the USA is not going to concede its own positions in the Caucasus alongside Caspian Oil and will continue to regard the post-Soviet world as a geopolitical space, the consolidation of which will not be tolerated.

In Europe, Biden’s speech was seen as a bid to redistribute its spheres of influence. The German newspaper Die Welt wrote: «Europeans are anticipating that, in the future, nothing will remain as it is now. Either with NATO or without this organisation, Washington is no longer able to secure them against the consequences of the weakening of their leadership role and their disorientation. The new world order is worsening the disease identified as «imperial overstretch». At the same time, a new balance is taking shape in the Pacific Region, and without its naval, air force and cyber power, it will be difficult for America to oppose the Chinese Middle Kingdom». According to Die Welt, it has fallen to Joseph Biden to «take Europeans on a journey towards the Pacific Ocean and warn them that America is no longer able, and no longer wants, to carry the burden of maintaining world order alone».

The policy of delegating authority to allies or vassals was discernible in Barack Obama’s State of the Union address to Congress on 12 February, in which he set forth his policy priorities for a second term. Having placed the main emphasis on resolving pressing social and economic problems being faced by America, the President reported that over the next year, 34,000 American servicemen will return home from Afghanistan. «This drawdown will continue and by the end of next year, our war in Afghanistan will be over», Obama said. From the President’s address it follows that, from now on, America will not wage war on terrorists abroad: «to meet this threat, we don’t need to send tens of thousands of our sons and daughters abroad or occupy other nations. Instead, we’ll need to help countries like Yemen, and Libya, and Somalia provide for their own security, and help allies who take the fight to terrorists, as we have in Mali».

And so a formula has been found: «as in Mali»! In other words, from now on America will work towards others fighting for their interests, like the «conqueror of Timbuktu», François Hollande, while they themselves will prefer to exercise «leadership from behind».

To be continued…

Source: Strategic Culture Foundation

The Return of Empires, Part 1

The Return of Empires (I)

By Dmitry MININ (Russia)

 Part I , Part II  

«Larger spaces» versus chaos in international relations?

The recent expeditions of the French in Africa clearly smack less of neoimperialism than they do neocolonialism, and have prompted many to wonder whether the events are the start of a new cycle of world politics in which an outgoing unipolarity is perhaps being replaced by a forthcoming multipolarity not hailed by everyone, or something different, something new or maybe a repeat of history, but in new packaging? Maybe something that would allow, for example, the United States «to leave without actually leaving», to continue implementing their global plans in a more complex system of interstate relations? If so, then the imperial projects and vassal relations of by-gone eras that had seemingly vanished forever will turn out to be much in demand…

One of the first instances of this trend was noted and identified by Jürgen Habermas, a well-known German philosopher, at the beginning of President Barack Obama’s first mandate. He observed, for example, that the «realistic» school of international relations that had restored its influence in Washington after Bush differed from the «neocons» not so much in its aims to preserve America’s global hegemony, as the way these aims would be realised. According to Habermas, the desired world order of this school is largely in response to Carl Schmitt’s theory of larger space (Großraumtheorie). Schmitt thought of «larger spaces» as the spheres of influence of dominant imperial powers and their «strong ideas».

One could say that America was still at a crossroads during Obama’s first mandate, leading rearguard actions to preserve its global leadership, while at the same time becoming increasingly aware of the inefficiency and onerousness of its attempts, especially amid the global financial crisis. From the beginning of his second term in office, however, Obama is starting to decisively reformat the world. The problem being faced by Washington is not only that maintaining its unipolarity is becoming impossible, but that multipolarity is undesirable. Washington is already uncomfortable with the fact that while preserving the existing order, China will eventually arrive at the point of global hegemony and could behave exactly as America itself is doing. As Habermas shrewdly observed: «It is more in America’s own interests to attempt today to bind tomorrow’s global powers to the kind of international order that no longer needs a superpower».

Meanwhile, more and more research is appearing in the West showing that a natural rebirth process of the imperial policies of a number of former parent states has begun in reaction to the devolution of America as global leader and the growing chaos of global politics, and often not in the direction that America would find favourable. The return of empires is described metaphorically in the Italian geopolitical magazine Limes: «Empires will never die so long as their roots are not dug up or covered with salt. Their spirit lives on in many generations of descendants and ascendants, as well as subordinate nations. They are ready to rise again at the first available opportunity, the moment geopolitical pressure on them begins to wane and the systems that have been declared immortal turn out to be brittle and dilapidated». Unable to withstand this «hurricane», the White House, according to proposed recommendations, should be at the head of this process and send it in the «necessary direction». It is advisable to contrast the natural formation of new empires with the organised construction of the kind of empires that America would be able to act jointly with, whilst as far as possible slowing down the creation of potentially hostile formations.

Thus in the newspaper National Interest, Dov Zakheim, former undersecretary of defense (comptroller) and chief financial officer for the US Department of Defense, points to «the growing triumphalism of several empires manqué». According to Zakheim, «In East Asia, China is increasingly flexing its political, economic and military muscles as a commanding power to which others must perform the kowtow ritual of subservience. In the Middle East and Central Asia, Turkey is exploiting its newfound economic and political prowess to extend its influence over the many states that once constituted the Ottoman Empire. And Russia is drawing upon the power and influence it derives from its energy resources to pursue a neo-czarist policy in Europe and in the outlying regions of the old Russian Empire. Nor should one overlook the influence in South Asia of India, whose economy dwarfs that of its neighbors and where the Moghuls once were the dominant force, and Brazil’s inheritance of the Portuguese Empire’s mantle in Africa, facilitated by its own increasing economic clout. The imperial legacies of these states have provided impetus to their nations to cut a greater figure not only within their regions but also on the world stage. When visiting these countries or meeting with their elites, one senses a growing sense that they are reverting to their traditional roles as major powers».

Most worrying to Zakheim, however, is that «all believe that the United States, and even more so Europe, no longer should monopolize decision making for the international community. They reject the post-World War II settlement as outdated and will not automatically accept American leadership on any given issue. Washington policy makers, currently obsessed with that other imperial legatee, Iran, would do well to recognize that there is more to these states than impressive economic growth, military expansion and political influence. Americans are known for their lack of historical sensitivity. They will need all the sensitivity they can muster in order to deal successfully with states whose claim to a greater role on the world stage is motivated as much by past glory as by present success».  It is not difficult to see that Zakheim’s misgivings are akin to those expressed in Samuel Huntington’s prophecies regarding a future «clash of civilizations».

One of the main dilemmas being faced by the United States’ imperial policy at the present moment, according to the German academic Herfried Münkler and expressed in his book «Empires: The Logic of World Domination from Ancient Rome to the United States», is the discrepancy between recognising the irrelevance of further expansion and the fear that this will be perceived by others as a sign of weakness. «It is harder to put down an imperialist, civilizing, humanitarian, value-expanding mission by which an empire has defined itself, without being seen – by those within the empire as well as by others – as in decline». Another peculiarity of America, as defined by Münkler, is that America is, by nature, an «empire in a hurry», a consequence of its short four-year election cycle. «Probably, Washington’s growing tendency in recent years to use the military for problem-solving also has something to do with the time pressure built into democratic mechanisms. Military solutions offer themselves with a suggestion of speed and finality, so that an «empire in a hurry» may grasp at them more often than would be sensible or advisable».

Academics also believe distinct traces of imperial ambition are evident in the policies of the European Union. In an article entitled “The Imperial Re-Bordering of Europe: the case of the European Neighbourhood Policy” (Cambridge Review of International Affairs, June, 2012), it has been pointed out, for example, that the European Neighbourhood Policy could be interpreted as a declaration of the European Union’s imperial intentions. In particular, the fact that the EU’s neighbouring countries would be more like its subordinate subjects than equal partners, according to the plans for integrated relations laid out in the policy, could also be part of its imperial strategies. In keeping with the strategies of a multicultural empire, the European Union is using the European Neighbourhood Policy to create new borders and division lines between its neighbours following the example of the Balkans. According to the article’s author, the imperial policy of transforming borders being carried out by the European Union uses less noticeable, but more importunate instruments of control based on voluntary subordination and the acceptance of imposed regulations.

And so the construction of «larger spaces» in global politics has begun. There is undoubtedly no point in waiting for the borders of these new/old empires to be formalised or officially announced. After all, the point here is not their direct reinstatement with all the accompanying paraphernalia (that would look like a farce), but the return to an appropriate modus operandi for projecting the interests of former parent states. The future global hierarchy which is emerging at the behest of Washington will, in every way possible, avoid identifying itself with the colonial empires of former times, for fear of stirring up the memories of nations. And not just the former colonies who were subjected to ruthless exploitation, but the imperial capitals themselves, whose inhabitants are not so keen on saddling themselves with a burden they have already shaken off and who do not want to see the arrival of new and overwhelming streams of migrants from these territories. Neither is there any point waiting for conventions or agreements similar to the capitulation regimes or acts of vassalage, since modern legal bondage can be far stronger evidence of the dependence of former times. The neoimperialist renaissance of Western powers is easier to follow when it comes to the logic behind their ideas and actions, if one does not attach too much importance to the «high moral standards» they hide behind.

 To be continued…

Source: Strategic Culture Foundation

Zionism Was A Jewish/German Conspiracy To Export Nazi Germany’s Political Problems To the Middle East

[Zionism is a corrupt pre-nazi era Germanic political philosophy, which masquerades as a religious movement, promoting a policy of war against the Palestinian People, for the purpose of exporting Europe's intractible conflicts, biases and hatred to the Middle East.  Zionism tapped into German fear and hatred, into Jewish money, power and influence, to use as political blackmail over the Western governments, for the purpose of forcing them to manufacture a completely new state out of thin air, to be built upon land already owned and occupied by Palestinian Arabs (Semitic cousins of the Sephardic Jews of the Middle East).  The considerable Jewish political and economic influence in the world economy were exerted upon the British government, forcing London to issue the Balfour Declaration in 1917.  This conjured-up a previously non-existent "Jewish right" to buy-up the land and to "return" to Palestine. 

In 1947, the same political/economic arm-twisting was used to force the United States government to create an entirely new Jewish state  in Palestine (with a ready-made army and air force), selling it as the reincarnation of the ancient, totally extinct state of "Israel."  No extinct state, nor imaginary "citizens" of that "state," have "rights" to any land, or to anything else, which is derived from an actual state, any more than "Romans" or "Macedonians," can claim such "rights."   Purported "titles" to that land, which are obtained from probable works of fiction (Old Testament), carry no legal weight, and would have been dismissed outright if such claims had been taken before any judicial authority. 

Whether or not the so-called "Israeli" Russians, who have claimed shares in these pseudo "rights," are, in fact, hereditary "Jews" (even though almost all of them are the offspring of Khazarians, not coming from refugees from the Middle East), is irrelevant to the claim that neither Britain nor the United States of America, nor the United Nations, for that matter, have any authority to create "new" nations.   Therefore, any revival of an ancient, extinct state, previously known as "Israel," which has been savagely recreated on Palestinian land is an illigitimate entity, posing as a legitimate "state."  Any lawful body which attempts to create a completely new state in place of an already existing country, for the single purpose of giving legitimacy to an existing terrorist army that is already waging war against the native population, is party to the war crimes and international acts of aggression committed by that terrorist army.  War crimes and crimes against humanity committed in an organized campaign of ethnic-cleansing de-legitimizes both the so-called "state" aggressor and the authorizing body which created it.  As long as Zionist Israel exists, world peace is impossible.  If the citizens of that country decide to drop the "Zionist" partition, making Israel/Palestine an inclusive Jewish/Arab state, then that would write a new chapter in human history, one where a happy ending for all mankind is actually possible. 

That is the cold, hard truth, which makes Erdogan absolutely correct in calling Zionism out as another "crime against humanity  (SEE: Erdogan Surprises Everybody At the UN, Calling-Out Zionism As the Crime Against Humanity That It Is)."]

US, Israel irked by Turkish PM’s remarks on Zionism

AP

ANKARA: United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Friday joined the United States and Israel in rejecting statements by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan who compared Zionism to fascism at a United Nations meeting aiming to promote dialogue between all faiths.

Addressing the UN Alliance of Civilizations conference in Vienna this week, Erdogan complained of prejudices against Muslims and said Islamophobia should be considered a crime against humanity ”just like Zionism, like anti-Semitism and like fascism.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sharply condemned the remark late Thursday calling it a ”dark and mendacious statement the likes of which we thought had passed from the world.”

In Washington, US National Security Council Spokesman Tommy Vietor said the characterisation about Zionism, the movement to establish and maintain a Jewish state, was ”offensive and wrong.”

”We encourage people of all faiths, cultures, and ideas to denounce hateful actions and to overcome the differences of our times,” he said.

Turkey is a co-sponsor, along with Spain, of the UN initiative to promote tolerance and understanding between various religions and a UN statement said: ”If the comment about Zionism was interpreted correctly, then it was not only wrong but contradicts the very principles on which the Alliance of Civilizations is based.”

The statement said Ban ”believes it is unfortunate that such hurtful and divisive comments were uttered at a meeting being held under the theme of responsible leadership.”

US State Secretary John Kerry is expected to raise the issue when he meets with Erdogan and other Turkish leaders in Ankara on Friday.

Turkey’s state-run news agency, Anadolu, reported Erdogan’s remarks on Wednesday but removed the reference to ”Zionism” in a correction sent out an hour later. It said the correction was ”made by the source” but gave no other explanation.

Turkey and Israel were once important allies but relations have deteriorated sharply after an Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound Turkish aid ship in 2010 which killed nine pro-Palestinian activists.

Erdogan, whose ruling party has roots in Turkey’s Islamic movement, frequently criticises Israeli actions against Palestinians but rarely speaks out against Zionism. In November, he accused Israel of state terrorism and of an ”attempt at ethnic cleansing,” a euphemism used to describe how violence can be used to force a population from an area.

Oklahoma Passes Forced Drug-Testing On the Poor

[Forced compliance with any medically unnecessary drug testing is comparable to the "loyalty oaths" which were so popular in the 1950s with the Right Wing during the McCarthy witch hunts.  Forced taking of bodily fluids to prove that you are a good citizen who abides by every law is a violation of privacy and individual Constitutional rights, specifically, the 5th Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination.  If it is forced upon destitute people, at their own expense, then it should also be forced upon every other citizen of the state, even the Congressmen who wrote the bill and his kids. (SEE: New Drug Screening Law In Oklahoma Takes Effect On Thursday--Updated: Oct 30, 2012).]

House Bill 2388 to drug-test Oklahomans on public assistance passes first hurdle

Rep. Sean Roberts: One of five authors of the bill, he calls it a “common sense” measure to protect tax dollars from misuse by drug addicts.
By WAYNE GREENE World Senior Writer
Published: 2/21/2012  2:42 AM
Last Modified: 2/21/2012  7:38 AM

OKLAHOMA CITY – Drug testing would be required of people applying for public assistance if a measure approved Monday by a House subcommittee becomes law.

“This is a common-sense idea that is long overdue,” said Rep. Sean Roberts, R-Hominy. “The law-abiding families of Oklahoma should not have their tax dollars used to subsidize someone’s drug addiction.”

Roberts is one of five authors of House Bill 2388, which would require applicants for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families – TANF – to take drug tests at their own expense. Any applicant who failed the drug test would be denied assistance for one year and then would be eligible for retesting. Children of parents who fail TANF drug tests could be eligible for benefits through third parties who pass the drug testing.

A similar bill passed a state Senate committee last week.

An estimated 40,634 potential TANF recipients would be affected by the legislation, said Rep. John Bennett, R-Sallisaw, another author of the proposal.

“When a private employee tests positive for drugs, the employer can fire that person,” Bennett said. “Those receiving state services are being paid by the taxpayers of Oklahoma, and we should have the right to fire them if they abuse drugs.”

Bennett cited a report from the Foundation for Government Accountability that says a drug-testing requirement for Floridians seeking state aid resulted in denial of taxpayer-funded assistance to 9.6 percent of applicants, saving $923,000 in the first month of the law’s implementation.

“In Florida, they were seeing $5.71 in savings generated for every $1 spent to administer the drug-testing program,” Bennett said.

Opponents of the measure said it was insulting and un-American.

“When did being poor become a crime? When did having to apply for benefits mean that you’re suspected of being a drug abuser?” asked Ryan Kiesel, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma.

Kiesel said that in Florida 2 percent of the applicants tested positive for drugs – lower than the drug-using population of the general public.

Drug testing by private employers is different from drug testing by the government as a prerequisite for benefits, Kiesel said. The Fourth and 14th amendments to the Constitution protect against suspicionless searches by the government, he said.

Requiring TANF applicants to pay for their own testing adds insult to injury, he said.

“Before they can get this assistance, they have to shell out money that they already don’t have to pay for a drug test to prove that they’re not a criminal. I think that that’s just a ridiculous proposition,” Kiesel said.

It’s too early to say whether the ACLU would challenge the proposal in court, he said.

Rep. Guy Liebmann, R-Oklahoma City, the bill’s first author, rejected the idea that there is any substantial difference between an employer testing job applicants for drugs and the government testing TANF applicants.

“I guess if they’re going to take money from the state, that’s their employer for a while,” Liebmann said. “It’s something that needs to be done. I’m tired of paying a lot of taxes – both to the state and the feds – and seeing it turned around and buying drugs.”

He said he would also push for drug tests for food stamp applicants, but that policy is prohibited by the federal government.

Rep. Jeannie McDaniel, D-Tulsa, was one of two House appropriations subcommittee members who voted against the proposal Monday. McDaniel said she wasn’t convinced that the idea addressed a pressing problem for the state and didn’t want to put the support of needy children at risk without better evidence.

An Oklahoma Department of Human Services liaison told the committee that the agency already has the authority to drug-test people who receive benefits if there is reason to suspect that they are abusing drugs, McDaniel said. The liaison told the committee that about 5 percent of those tested have positive drug results, McDaniel said.
Key points of House Bill 2388

All applicants for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families would be tested for controlled substances.

In two-parent households, both parents would have to test.

Testing would be paid for by applicants.

Applicants who test positive would be ineligible for benefits for one year.

Applicants who test positive again after one year would be ineligible for benefits for three more years.

Applicants who lose benefits could reapply after six months if they complete substance abuse treatment.

TANF benefits for dependent children would not be affected. A “protective payee” who passed a drug check could receive the benefits for the child.

Rules would take effect Nov. 1 if proposal becomes law.
Original Print Headline: Drug-test bill advances

Wayne Greene 918-581-8308
wayne.greene@tulsaworld.com
By WAYNE GREENE World Senior Writer

Getting Squeezed-Out of Google Searches With the Panda Logarithm

[Continuing to look into the negative effects of the new logarithm-based Google Panda, I have uncovered the following guideline for recovering from the Panda-inflicted losses of readers (SEE: Losing Readership Because of Google Panda Search Algorithyms?).  In addition to the loss of several hundred readers a day, as outlined in the cited article above, I have noticed that under "referrals-search engines," my daily posts are no longer listed, meaning that they have been filtered out of Google searches.  All that is left is the occasional link match.   According to the bullet-points below, the new algorithm is keyed towards social media referrals, so if your posts aren't getting "tweeted," or belched-out on "Facebook," then don't bother looking for your usual traffic from search engines.  In the usual "Catch 22" irony, how else do you reach the tweets, which the logarithm picks up, if you are not included in most searches?  They don't have to force us off the Internet, if they can get the Internet to overlook us.]

SEO for Authoritative Content Publishers Before and After Google Panda [Infographic] 

Posted on December 12, 2012

by Susan Gunelius

Many websites that relied heavily on traditional search engine optimization tactics to drive traffic to their sites and build their audiences found themselves in deep holes earlier this year when Google rolled out its Panda and Penguin search algorithm updates. The sites that didn’t suffer were the ones that had focused less on keyword density and writing for search engines and more on writing high quality content for their audiences.

Most Authoritative Content publishers worry less about search engine optimization than creating high quality content, but that doesn’t mean that including search engine optimization in your publishing efforts should be avoided entirely. A few simple tweaks to your content can help new visitors find your site without causing potential penalties from Google.

Fuzz One Media put together a useful infographic that describes the traditional search engine optimization tactics that marketers, web designers, and content publishers were focused on before the Google Panda algorithm change earlier this year. These are the search engine optimization tactics that Authoritative Content publishers should not be using. In contrast, the infographic also provides recommended post-Panda search engine optimization tactics that Authoritative Content publishers can implement without hurting the user experience on their sites or the usefulness of their content.

Courtesy of: Fuzz One Media

 

Keep in mind, search engine optimization is a short-term tactic to help draw attention to your content. It can also help drive more and more traffic over time, but Authoritative Content publishers who focus on strategically creating high quality content again and again will achieve long-term, sustainable, organic growth that can outlast any Google algorithm change.

How should you prioritize your content creation efforts? Authoritative Content publishers should keep doing what they’ve been doing. In other words, they should continue to publish a lot of high quality, useful, and meaningful content that their audiences want and need. In the long run, being useful to people is a guaranteed way to keep them coming back. Using keywords is not. Pursue the audience building strategies and tactics that help you reach your goals as a publisher of Authoritative Content, and you can’t go wrong!

If you want to learn more about search engine optimization, I highly recommend SEOmoz.org, Search Engine Land, and Google Webmaster Tools. Are there any SEO resources that you would add? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Image: Sachin Ghodke

Obama To Map the Human Brain for Improved Behavioral Control

specialized MRI scan

Obama to propose project to map human brain

David Jackson

USA TODAY

The Obama administration is preparing to unveil a decades-long project to map the inner workings of the brain.

As The New York Times points out, the project is designed “to do for the brain what the Human Genome Project did for genetics.”

The Times said the “Brain Activity Map” project could be part of a budget proposal to be released in March, though details — including the costs — are still being worked out.

Obama referenced the brain-mapping project during his State of the Union speech while advocating federal spending on research and development.

“Every dollar we invested to map the human genome returned $140 to our economy — every dollar,” Obama said on Feb. 12. “Today, our scientists are mapping the human brain to unlock the answers to Alzheimer’s.”

From the Times:

“The project, which the administration has been looking to unveil as early as March, will include federal agencies, private foundations and teams of neuroscientists and nanoscientists in a concerted effort to advance the knowledge of the brain’s billions of neurons and gain greater insights into perception, actions and, ultimately, consciousness.

“Scientists with the highest hopes for the project also see it as a way to develop the technology essential to understanding diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, as well as to find new therapies for a variety of mental illnesses.

“Moreover, the project holds the potential of paving the way for advances in artificial intelligence.”

The Relentless March Of The U.S. Police State

The Relentless March Of The U.S. Police State – OpEd 

Written by Robert Higgs
Jonathan Turley, a professor of law at George Washington University, wrote recently:

An authoritarian nation is defined not just by the use of authoritarian powers, but by the ability to use them. If a president can take away your freedom or your life on his own authority, all rights become little more than a discretionary grant subject to executive will. . . . Since 9/11, we have created the very government the framers feared: a government with sweeping and largely unchecked powers resting on the hope that they will be used wisely.

Turley does not say much in this article about the other rail of the Police State Railway that Americans are riding to hell: the drug war, with its massive arrests, prosecution, and imprisonment of people charged only with victimless crimes and its militarization of the state and local police all over the country. (On the militarization of the police, see especially this research paper, a revised version of which will appear in the spring issue of The Independent Review.) This massive bloating of police power and legalized oppression and the corresponding suppression of individual rights have brought down to the lowest level the threats to life, liberty, and happiness that the war on terrorism has created in what most people view as a more remote and less threatening venue—”out there” somewhere, in drone-istan.

Each day, the U.S. police state grows larger, more powerful, more pervasive, and more menacing. When will the majority awaken to the realization that this threat has nothing to do with party politics, that it makes no difference whether a Republican or a Democrat occupies the presidency while our freedoms are demolished?

This country was never a paradise of liberty; it always countenanced the oppression of plenty of people, especially Indians, blacks, and socially marginalized people who did not behave as the “respectable” white elites wanted them to behave. Yet, for the majority of Americans, freedom was a reality in most spheres of life, if only because the governments of the day were too weak to crush the people’s freedoms more thoroughly.

For many decades, however, these freedoms have been smashed one after another under the pretense of protecting people from foreign enemies, criminals, and terrorists. Thus have Americans marched with little more than a whimper toward a destination that combines elements of the dystopias imagined by novelists such as Huxley, Orwell, and Bradbury with ever more high-tech innovations used to monitor our every move, whether it be financial or personal.

The question is: how much farther must we travel down this road before people will be compelled to admit that “the land of the free” is more a reassuring myth than a description of the land in which we actually live—to recognize that the freedoms to go shopping and browse the Web are not enough to make a society genuinely free?

About Robert Higgs
Robert Higgs is Senior Fellow in Political Economy for The Independent Institute and Editor of the Institute’s quarterly journal The Independent Review. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Johns Hopkins University, and he has taught at the University of Washington, Lafayette College, Seattle University, and the University of Economics, Prague. He has been a visiting scholar at Oxford University and Stanford University, and a fellow for the Hoover Institution and the National Science Foundation.
View all posts by Robert Higgs →

It Was Only A Matter of Time–Liberal Writer Is Calling for Drone Assassination of Rogue Officer Dorner

[Police departments should absolutely NOT have their own air forces!  There should be no drones under the control of civilian police departments.  If drones are needed in extreme cases, then the military could be called in, to operate under civilian control, under military restrictions.  If they can get away with killing Americans from thousands of feet away, using drones, then it is only one step away from dispatching snipers to city rooftops, whenever a felon is sighted. 

The Police State is breathing down our neck.]

Should an armed drone be dispatched to kill Christopher Dorner?

Why should the lives of law enforcement agents be risked to apprehend this suspected domestic terrorist?

Glenn Greenwald,   Email

Christopher Jordan Dorner has declared ‘war’ against former LAPD colleagues and their families in a manifesto posted online. Photograph: Reuters

 

A major manhunt has been underway in the Los Angeles area for Chris Dorner, the former LAPD officer, Navy reservist, and trained marksman who is the prime suspect in the murder of three people, including the daughter of an LAPD captain (who previously represented him in a disciplinary proceeding) and her fiance. A lengthy Facebook messageattributed to Dorner vows that he will continue to kill not only members of the LAPD but also their children and spouses until he receives a public apology for what he believes was his unfair firing:

“This will be a war of attrition . . . . I will utilize OSINT to discover your residences, spouses workplaces, and children’s schools. IMINT to coordinate and plan attacks on your fixed locations. . . . HUMINT will be utilized to collect personal schedules of targets. I never had the opportunity to have a family of my own, I’m terminating yours. . . . I know your significant others routine, your children’s best friends and recess. I know Your Sancha’s gym hours and routine. I assure you that the casualty rate will be high.”

Surveillance drones are now being used to try to locate him. LAPD are so apprehensive that they have already mistakenly shot at innocent people when they saw vehicles resembling the one they thought belonged to Dorner. Authorities suspect he’s hiding in “the icy wilderness” of Big Bear east of Los Angeles which, reported AP, is “filled with thick forests and jagged peaks, that creates peril as much for Dorner as the officers hunting him.”

Here’s my question: if the surveillance drones detect his location, should the lives of law enforcement agents be risked, along with other civilians, in an attempt to apprehend this highly-trained warrior? Why shouldn’t an armed drone instead be immediately dispatched once his location is ascertained and simply kill him?

Obama Administration Running Scared Over Killer-Drone Inquisition

[Gen. McChrystal was just quoted in the press admitting that drone murders were a bad idea, which only served to "multiply our enemies."  If you have two high mucky-mucks like Gen. Stanley McChrystal and former CIA chief Gates openly making simultaneous admissions that the assassination program has a downside, then it seems obvious that the Administration believes it is running into some serious trouble.  The entire assassination program is no more than a continuing series of war crimes, covered over with legal technicalities and diplomatic niceties, which were dreamed-up by a bunch of American lawyers.  All of these criminal assaults were based on arguments made, which derived their assumed authority from a delusional reading of the Congressional resolution which originally authorized the use of American forces in this war, the  "Authorization for Use of Military Force.''

"That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons."--SEC. 2. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES. (a)

This single paragraph has somehow been stretched to cover all of the criminal wars which have followed the original effort in Afghanistan, beginning with Iraq, none of which had even a remote connection to the 911 attacks.  The problem with that, is that the war authorization now is invoked to justify giving military support to the same "al-Qaeda" forces, who were blamed for the attacks in the original war resolution.  The contradiction in this is astounding--a single war resolution, which allegedly provides the legal basis for the "Islamist" war against the Syrian government, as well as the Afghan war against the same "al-Qaeda," even though many of those same "Islamist" veterans fighting in Syria  honed their skills by killing Americans in Afghanistan or in Iraq.

All of this evidence of criminal behavior in the waging of this war in the highest levels of the Federal government is coming-out during hearings for John Brennan for the next CIA director.   He is currently being grilled by the Congress about his love for the deadly terminator-drones, questioning the legality and morality of their use in non-war zones.  Other issues of CIA mal- and misfeasance are being raised by Senators like Lindsay Graham, who wants answers about agency wrongdoing in the Benghazi debacle.  Now is the time for all of those concerned citizens of the Earth, or of the United States to make known their own objections to the criminal activities of the CIA. 

Whatever protest you feel moved to make, then make it now.  By the time they close their drone network over the entire United States, it will probably be too late.]

Gates backs lawmakers’ oversight of drone program

By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press

FILE – In this Feb. 7, 2013 file photo, Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., right, welcomes CIA Director nominee John Brennan on Capitol Hill in Washington, prior to the start of Brennan’s confirmation hearing before the committee. Lawmakers are considering whether Congress can set up a court to decide when drones can kill U.S. citizens overseas, much like the secret courts that now grant permission for surveillance. It’s another sign of the U.S. philosophical struggle over remote warfare, raised after CIA head nominee John Brennan’s vigorous defense of the drones. Photo: J. Scott Applewhite

WASHINGTON (AP) — Robert Gates, a former defense secretary and spymaster, is backing lawmakers’ proposal to form a special court to review President Barack Obama’s deadly drone strikes against Americans linked to al-Qaida.Gates, who led the Pentagon for Presidents George W. Bush and Obama and previously served as the Central Intelligence Agency’s director, said Obama’s use of the unmanned drones follows tight rules. But he shares lawmakers’ wariness over using the unmanned aircraft to target al-Qaida operatives and allies.

“I think that the rules and the practices that the Obama administration has followed are quite stringent and are not being abused. But who is to say about a future president?” Gates said in an interview broadcast Sunday.

The use of remote-controlled drones — Obama’s weapon of choice to strike al-Qaida with lethal missiles in places such as Pakistan and Yemen — earned headlines last week as lawmakers contemplated just how much leeway an American president should have in going after the nation’s enemies, including its own citizens.

“We are in a different kind of war. We’re not sending troops. We’re not sending manned bombers. We’re dealing with the enemy where we find them to keep America safe. We have to strike a new constitutional balance with the challenges we face today,” said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.

“The policy is really unfolding. Most of this has not been disclosed,” the second-ranking Senate Democrat added.

The nomination of John Brennan, Obama’s counterterrorism adviser who oversaw many of the drone strikes from his office in the West Wing basement, kick-started the discussion.

During Thursday’s hearing, Brennan defended drone strikes only as a “last resort,” but he said he had no qualms about going after Anwar al-Awlaki in September 2011. A drone strike in Yemen killed al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, both U.S. citizens. A drone strike two weeks later killed al-Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, a Denver native.

Those strikes came after U.S. intelligence concluded that the elder al-Awlaki was senior operational leader of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula plotting attacks on the U.S., including the failed Christmas Day bombing of an airplane as it landed in Detroit in 2009.

“I think it’s very unseemly that a politician gets to decide the death of an American citizen,” said Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. “They should answer about the 16-year-old boy, al-Awlaki’s son who was killed not as collateral damage, but in a separate strike.”

Many lawmakers suggested uneasiness about the unfettered program.

“It just makes me uncomfortable that the president — whoever it is — is the prosecutor, the judge, the jury and the executioner, all rolled into one,” said Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine.

The potential model that some lawmakers are considering for overseeing such drone attacks is a secret court of federal judges that now reviews requests for government surveillance in espionage and terrorism cases. In those proceedings, 11 federal judges review wiretap applications that enable the FBI and other agencies to gather evidence to build cases. Suspects have no lawyers present, as they would in other U.S. courts, and the proceedings are secret.

Some Republicans were wary of such an oversight proposal.

The Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said his members review all drone strikes on a monthly basis, both from the CIA and Pentagon.

“There is plenty of oversight here,” said Rep Mike Rogers, R-Mich.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said a separate oversight panel would be “an encroachment on the powers of the president of the United States.”

“But what we need to do is take the whole program out of the hand of the Central Intelligence Agency and put it into the Department of Defense, where you have adequate oversight,” McCain said. “Since when is the intelligence agency supposed to be an air force of drones that goes around killing people? I believe that it’s a job for the Department of Defense.”

Gates, Paul and King spoke with CNN’s “State of the Union.” Durbin appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Rogers was interviewed on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” McCain was on “Fox News Sunday.”

Seattle Citizens Resist Activation of Obama’s National Drone Surveillance Network

Heated hearing airs distrust over SPD drones

A public hearing Wednesday on the Seattle Police Department’s plans to deploy drones drew sharp criticism from numerous speakers.

By Christine Clarridge, Seattle Times staff reporter

There was no shortage of strong opinions — or strong words — when a Seattle City Council committee took up the issue of unmanned police drones during an often heated hearing Wednesday.

“You’re more dangerous than Nazi,” Alex Zimmerman, an activist with Stand Up America, told the members of the council’s Public Safety, Civil Rights and Technology Committee. “You’re more dangerous than Communist; more dangerous than Gestapo; more dangerous than KGB.”

Another speaker called committee members “idiots” for even considering an ordinance that would govern the Seattle Police Department’s use of drones, also known as Unmanned Aerial Systems.

“Not only ‘no drones,’ but no more council. You guys are crooks. You guys are idiots. You’re telling us they got them already, we have to use them … You guys are becoming a police state … The people do not want this,” said Samuel Bellomio, also with Stand Up America.

The meeting, called to discuss a proposed ordinance that would set restrictions on how and when the police department can use the tiny aircraft, ended with committee Chairman Bruce Harrell saying the conversation had been helpful and would likely lead to the measure being refined.

The proposal is to go back before the committee for a possible vote Feb. 20, then on to the full council Feb. 25.

Jennifer Shaw, the deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, said the ACLU would prefer that Seattle police did not have drones. However, since the department had purchased two with money from a federal Homeland Security grant, she said, it’s important for the city to establish “strong restrictions.”

She recommended that the ordinance be refined to include a more “robust audit provision” and language stating the drones are part of a pilot program.

“We’d like to be able to see if it’s effective and then have the council determine if it should still be going on,” Shaw said.

The proposed restrictions were written after the police department received approval last year from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to operate drones, sparking an uproar among residents, privacy advocates and civil-rights activists.

The FAA approval was granted after President Obama signed a law that compelled the agency to plan for safe integration of civilian drones into American airspace by 2015.

The restrictions would ban the use of drones for general surveillance or for flights over open-air assemblies.

It also would require a warrant be obtained in all but “exigent” or emergency circumstances, such as situations involving hostages, search-and-rescue operations, the pursuit of armed felons, bomb threats and the detection of “hot spots” in fires, or for the collection of traffic data.

The proposed restrictions would ban the use of drones for the collection of information on anyone not specifically named in a warrant, but specify that information collected inadvertently while an unmanned system was being operated in good faith would not violate the ordinance.

That last clause was troubling to members of the audience, including Chris Stearns of the Human Rights Commission, who said the city should make it illegal to use data inadvertently collected by drones in criminal prosecutions.

Committee member Nick Licata said the term “exigent” was too broad and that he would like the ordinance to specify that the drones can only be used for hostage situations and bomb threats.

He also suggested the ordinance specify that the use of drones in emergency circumstances would require the written authorization of an assistant police chief or captain, instead of a lieutenant as proposed.

The ordinance also states that any data collected by drones would be deleted after 30 days unless there was a “reasonable belief that the data is evidence of criminal activity or civil liability.”

The measure would also set up provisions for audits and an annual review.

The issue has ignited strong feelings among opponents. During a public meeting in October, protesters shouted down police speakers during a presentation on the aircraft.

 

Christine Clarridge:

206-464- 8983 or cclarrdge@seattletimes.com

City of Seattle Legislative Information Service

Information retrieved on February 7, 2013 12:43 PM 

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Council Bill Number: 117707 

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AN ORDINANCE relating to the regulation of unmanned aircraft systems operated by the Seattle Police Department; adopting City policies regarding the acquisition and operation of unmanned aircraft systems; and establishing a new Chapter 14.18 in the Seattle Municipal Code.

Status: In Committee

Date introduced/referred to committee: February 4, 2013
Committee: Public Safety, Civil Rights, and Technology
Sponsor: HARRELL; CO-SPONSOR CLARK

Index Terms: LAW-ENFORCEMENT, CRIME-PREVENTION, POLICE, AIRCRAFT

Fiscal Note: Fiscal Note to Council Bill No. 117707

 

---

Text
 

AN ORDINANCE relating to the regulation of unmanned aircraft systems operated by the Seattle Police Department; adopting City policies regarding the acquisition and operation of unmanned aircraft systems; and establishing a new Chapter 14.18 in the Seattle Municipal Code.

WHEREAS, the U.S. Congress has authorized the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to approve the use of unmanned aircraft systems by public agencies for domestic purposes; and

WHEREAS, FAA regulations are primarily focused on safety issues related to unmanned aircraft operations; and

WHEREAS, absent federal regulations, it falls on local jurisdictions to regulate unmanned aircraft operations to protect the public’s reasonable expectation of privacy and civil liberties; and

WHEREAS, unmanned aircraft may help public agencies gather information in certain public safety situations, such as natural disasters, search and rescue, police investigations, and significant traffic accidents; and

WHEREAS, the Seattle Police Department may operate a limited number of unmanned aircraft under certain circumstances; NOW, THEREFORE,

BE IT ORDAINED BY THE CITY OF SEATTLE AS FOLLOWS:

Section 1. A new Chapter 14.18 of the Seattle Municipal Code is established as follows:

Chapter 14.18 Unmanned Aircraft Systems — Pilot Program

14.18.010 Statement of Purpose

The purpose of this chapter is to authorize the Seattle Police Department (SPD) to conduct a pilot program to use unmanned aircraft systems and to establish City policies regarding unmanned aircraft operations. No other City of Seattle department may acquire or operate unmanned aircraft. The policies described in this Chapter 14.18 apply to unmanned aircraft as defined in this Chapter 14.18. Unless otherwise specified, the policies contained in this chapter apply to all persons employed or retained by the City of Seattle, including agents retained on a temporary, contract, or voluntary basis.

14.18.020 Definitions applicable to this chapter

“Data collection” means the acquisition of information by use of one or more sensing devices.

“Sensing device” means a device capable of acquiring data from its surroundings. Sensing devices include, but are not limited to cameras (both still and video, using either visible, ultraviolet, or infrared frequencies), microphones, thermal detectors, chemical detectors, radiation gauges, and wireless receivers in any frequency (including cellular, WiFi, or other data frequencies).

“Target” means one or more individuals or areas for which data collection is authorized in the documentation justifying deployment of an unmanned aircraft.

“Unmanned aircraft” or “unmanned aircraft systems” means an unmanned vehicle or device carrying sensing equipment.

14.18.030 Authorization of pilot program

SPD is authorized to operate up to two Draganflyer X6 unmanned aircraft consistent with the regulations contained in this Chapter 14.18. SPD must obtain ordinance authority prior to acquiring or operating any additional unmanned aircraft beyond the two Draganflyer X6 in its possession as of January 1, 2013.

14.18.040 City policies regarding the operations of unmanned aircraft

A. Unmanned aircraft shall not be used to conduct general surveillance.

B. Unmanned aircraft shall be used only for data collection.

C. Unmanned aircraft shall not be equipped with weapons.

D. Unmanned aircraft should be used for data collection only on the target (as specified in the warrant or written documentation authorizing the operation of the unmanned aircraft as required in Section 14.18.050). SPD should avoid data collection on individuals, homes, or other areas other than the target. Inadvertent data collection is not a violation if such data is collected while an unmanned aircraft is operated in good faith.

E. SPD may use facial recognition or biometric matching technology on data collected by unmanned aircraft only to confirm the identity of the target specified in the warrant or written documentation required in Section 14.18.050.

F. Operations of unmanned aircraft are prohibited between the end of evening civil twilight and the beginning of morning civil twilight, as published in the American Air Almanac, converted to local time.

G. Unmanned aircraft operations shall not be conducted over populated areas or heavily trafficked roads unless specifically authorized by the Federal Aviation Administration.

H. Unmanned aircraft operations shall not be conducted over an open-air assembly of people.

I. Data collected inadvertently on an individual, home, or area may be used only in those cases where such data evidences significant risk of personal injury or property damage. In such rare circumstances, the data may be used for any purpose consistent with current law.

14.18.050 Circumstances under which SPD may deploy and operate unmanned aircraft

A. Prior to deploying and operating unmanned aircraft, SPD shall obtain a warrant based upon probable cause, with the exception of the circumstances described in subsection 14.18.050.B.

B. For the following circumstances, a warrant is not required unless otherwise needed under the law.

1. Exigent circumstances, when time is of the essence for data collection needed to reduce the risk of serious bodily harm to a member of the public. Examples include hostage situations, search and rescue, hot pursuit of armed felony suspects, bomb threats, and detection of ‘hot spots’ in fires;

2. Data collection of a traffic accident; or

3. Training exercises, provided that data shall not be collected on individuals unless those individuals have consented to the collection.

Prior to deploying unmanned aircraft under this subsection 14.18.050.B, written authorization at or above the rank of Lieutenant is required using a standard form that specifically identifies the target on which data is to be collected.

14.18.060 Data retention, record keeping, and public disclosure

A. Data collected by an unmanned aircraft shall be deleted within 30 days unless there is a reasonable belief the data is evidence of criminal activity or civil liability, or the data is collected under subsection 14.18.050.B3.

B. SPD shall maintain a log recording each use of an unmanned aircraft. The log shall include the date, time, and location of use; the target of data collection; the type of data collected; the justification for the deployment; the operator(s) of the unmanned aircraft; and the person who authorized the use. Each log entry shall be maintained for a minimum of three years.

C. Prior to deploying unmanned aircraft, SPD shall develop written data retention and record-keeping policies that address the following:

1. The time period for which data collected by unmanned aircraft will be retained beyond the time period specified in subsection 14.18.060.A.

2. How the records are to be labeled; the method selected must allow for personnel to readily search and locate records, or know with certainty that they have been deleted.

3. The system to be used to store the records.

4. Who may access the records and the specific procedures for doing so.

5. A method for tracking who views unmanned aircraft records, including the date, time, the personnel involved and the reason(s) for viewing the records.

6. Who has authority to obtain copies of the records and how the existence and location of copies will be tracked.

7. The unit or individuals responsible for ensuring compliance with SPD’s data retention and record-keeping policies for unmanned aircraft.

D. Notwithstanding the provisions of this Chapter 14.18, SPD shall comply with the Public Records Act, RCW Chapter 42.56.

14.18.070 Annual report

SPD shall provide a written report by March 1 of each year to the Public Safety, Civil Rights, and Technology Committee, or its successor committee, on the deployment of unmanned aircraft for the preceding year. Each report shall include the date of each unmanned aircraft deployment, the specific circumstances under which it was deployed (per Section 14.18.050), the reasons for deployment, whether and how the data collected proved useful for public safety or law enforcement purposes, and whether the data collected for each incident was deleted within 30 days or retained. The report shall also include all costs associated with the unmanned aircraft pilot program (operating and capital), and any additional information Council may request.

14.18.080 No effect on admissibility

A. Neither compliance with nor a failure to comply with the policies contained in this chapter shall affect the admissibility of video recordings as evidence in criminal, civil, or administrative proceedings.

14.18.090 Civil liability

A. No cause of action may be based upon the activity of departmental personnel in complying with a court order, or an action authorized by this Chapter 14.18.

B. The City reserves all defenses at law consistent with this Chapter 14.18, including but not limited to consent, privilege, participation, and waiver, and as to departmental personnel or a City official, any defense arising in the employer/employee or principal/agent relationship.

C. No cause of action may be based upon this Chapter 14.18 against the Mayor, the City Council, any City department head, any departmental personnel, or any other City officer or employee, individually, for any action or omission made in good faith in the scope and course of his or her duties. In the event such a lawsuit is brought against a City officer or employee, individually, for such an action or omission, and the officer or employee cooperates fully in defense of the lawsuit, the City Attorney may represent the individual and defend the litigation. If the claim is deemed a proper one or judgment is rendered against the City officer or employee individually, the judgment shall be paid by the City in accordance with its procedures for the settlement of claims and payment of judgments.

14.18.130 Employee discipline

A. Any City personnel who violates policies contained in this Chapter, 14.18 or any implementing rule or regulation, may be subject to the disciplinary proceedings and punishment authorized by the City Charter, Article XVI.

B. For City personnel who are represented under the terms of a collective bargaining agreement, Section 14.18.130 prevails except where it conflicts with the collective bargaining agreement, any memoranda of agreement or understanding signed pursuant to the collective bargaining agreement, or any recognized and established practice relative to the members of the bargaining unit.

Section 2. The City Auditor is requested to review SPD’s policies and procedures for compliance with Seattle Municipal Code 14.18, with a written report due to the City Council by September 30, 2014.

Section 3. This ordinance shall take effect and be in force 30 days after its approval by the Mayor, but if not approved and returned by the Mayor within ten days after presentation, it shall take effect as provided by Seattle Municipal Code Section 1.04.020.

Passed by the City Council the ____ day of ________________________, 2013, and signed by me in open session in authentication of its passage this

_____ day of ___________________, 2013.

_________________________________

President __________of the City Council

Approved by me this ____ day of _____________________, 2013.

_________________________________

Michael McGinn, Mayor

Filed by me this ____ day of __________________________, 2013.

____________________________________

Monica Martinez Simmons, City Clerk

(Seal)

VallesC LEG UAS ORD January 29, 2013 Version #1

 

Imbecilic NATO Chief Rasmussen Revives Western “Missile Gap” Bogeyman and Multiplies It By Three

[Ratmussen sounds like MacNamara, Cheney and Wolfowitz rolled into one, as he restates the PNAC (Project for a New American Century) warning about other powers that might purchase the capabilities to prevent our aggressions against weaker resource-rich Third World nations.  This mouthpiece for the owners of the world is trying to scare Westerners away from making long-overdue defense cuts, since the Rockefellers and the Bilderbergers and the fuckin' Queen of England don't have real, world-class militaries of their own, they must keep the NATO war machine alive, until they have finished raping all the little countries of the world as well as all of those bigger countries with insignificant military forces of their own.  NATO is a threat to the entire human race, most of all to Americans and Europeans themselves.  The hungry beast will devour us all for fuel for the perpetual war machine.  It is time for the peace-loving people of the world to declare war upon the massive bureaucracies which make all of this possible.] 

NATO unveils three key threats to West interests

BRUSSELS

The NATO chief warns that declining defense budgets will put the alliance’s military power and political influence at risk, saying that NATO could find itself facing three serious gaps

NATO Secretary Rasmussen. AFP photo

Declining defense expenditure within NATO could compromise the alliance’s ability to contribute to international crisis management efforts while emerging powers boost theirs, NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen warned yesterday.

In his annual report, Rasmussen said defense spending among the allies is increasingly uneven, not just between North America and Europe, but also among European allies, as some cut defense spending more than others. “Total defense spending by the allies in recent years has been going down, while the defense spending of new and emerging powers has been going up. If these spending trends continue, we could find ourselves facing three serious gaps that would place NATO’s military capacity and political credibility at risk,” he said.

“There is a risk of a widening intra-European gap. While some allies will continue to acquire modern defense capabilities, others might find it difficult to do so.” This would limit the ability of allies to work together in international crisis management, according to the NATO chief. As a second risk, the growing transatlantic gap would limit the practical ability of NATO’s European nations to work together with their North American allies. But it would also risk weakening political support for the alliance in the U.S.

“Finally, the rise of emerging powers could create a growing gap between their capacity to act and exert influence on the international stage and our ability to do so,” he said.

“Together, these three gaps could gradually compromise the alliance’s ability to contribute to international crisis management efforts and cooperative security initiatives,” he added.

Rasmussen also warned that defense budgets have declined at a time when the alliance has undertaken it’s most demanding and significant mission ever, the Afghanistan mission, and when the need for investment in capabilities is essential. He said that overly deep defense cuts could worsen the West’s economic crisis by weakening defense industries that are key drivers of innovation, jobs and exports. “Investment in defense cannot solve our economic problems. But if we cut defense spending too much, there is the risk that we could make the economic situation worse,” he said.

Cost of insecurity higher

The global financial crisis has forced many NATO allies into drastic measures to reduce their budget deficits, leading to sometimes sharp cuts in defense spending. Only a handful of the 28 NATO allies, the U.S., Britain and Greece, last year spent more on defense than the two percent of Gross Domestic Product target set by NATO.

Rasmussen also noted that the cost of insecurity can be much higher as there is a price to pay for security. “Any decisions we take today will have an impact on the security of our children and grandchildren. This is why NATO Allies must hold the line on defense spending in 2013,” he said.

Now We Have the Missing Ingredient Tying Evil Survivalists and Preppers To the School Shooting Controversy

[Not only did the freak kill the driver in front of the kids and take one of them to his "well-stocked bunker," the attack took place within 1/2 mile of Addison High School.  Now they have a reason to go after survivalists, as they move to seize all soon to be banned "illegal type" weapons.  Look for this to happen again, soon...perhaps again and again, until the door swings closed on the Second Amendment.]

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Jimmy Lee Dykes Suspected in Midland City Bus Driver Shooting: REPORT

LOS ANGELES (LALATE) – Jimmy Lee Dykes is allegedly suspected in the Midland City bus driver shooting today that is now a hostage situation, claims the Dothan Eagle newspaper. Jimmy Lee Dykes is allegedly suspected in the shooting of a school bus driver in Midland City in southeastern Alabama Tuesday January 29, 2013; the crime scene, however, now involves the alleged hostage of a six year old student.

Police are not confirming Dykes’ name. They do confirm that the suspect allegedly came onto the bus near Destiny Church, took a six year old studentfrom the vehicle, and fired at the driver. Police have decided not to release any names of persons involved. They are also withholding details about the driver’s condition as well.

But the Dothan Eagle claims that Jimmy Lee Dykes is 65 years old and was allegedly arrested and charged with menacing back on December 22, 2012. The Eagles also claims that Dykes is allegedly the gunman hold-up in the bunker with the child. The bunker is located behind Dykes’ home near US 231.

The Dale County Sheriff’s Office issued the following news release late today “The Dale County Sheriff’s Department has established a command postlocation at the intersection of 231 North and Private Road 1539 in Dale County, Alabama following a shooting. Multiple agencies are present assisting with the incident. Authorities say a call was received regarding a shooting involving a Dale County School Bus at 3:36 p.m.”

Reports claim that the driver may have suffered multiple gunshot wounds. The shooting reportedly happened at 3:36 pm during a routine bus stop. Officials confirm that hostage negotiators are in contact with the suspect. Police Sgt. Rachel David tells news that all schools in Dale County and Ozark City Schools will be closed tomorrow January 30.

When Will the Lying Western Press Stop Using the Term “Al-Qaeda,” When Referring To Saudi Terrorism?

[The all-encompassing term "al-Qaeda," is a descriptive term, used when referring to the principle of Saudi/Wahhabi oversight.  There is no such animal as "al-Qaeda," the alleged international terrorist organization, but there IS a Saudi terrorist organization of global reach.  The supposedly super-scary Algerian incident was NOT the work of an International Islamist, but simply the work of Algerian militant Muslims.  The alleged "all-Qaeda" link is the Saudi/Wahhabi influence that makes news-bites from all such groups sound the same.  That is all the Western press needs to create the myth of AL-Q.  Every step taken over the years by the group of terrorists known as Al-Q is a step taken by the Saudi royals, to implement their own agenda (which is shared with the CIA), moving in an ocean of petrodollars, hoping to secure their own global empire.  CIA patronage of this Saudi "Islamist" force for many decades, is the controlling power which allows the Saudis to keep expanding their subversive reach, while enabling them to direct where the Islamists are allowed to blow-off jihadi steam, without damaging Saudi/US interests.  

 Juhayman Otaibi, leader of Grand Mosque Siege

The radical Islamists of Saudi Arabia, since their siege of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, have been on the Saudi payroll.  As part of the surrender deal, the most tenacious survivors of the Mosque pacification were hired as full-time jihadis and then packed-off to Peshawar and Jalalabad, to wage their Wahhabi jihad against the godless Communists.  Since that time, succeeding Wahhabi-influenced jihadis have either been packed-off to Jihads in Europe and Asia, or else have been paid millions of dollars in protection money to stay away from Saudi Arabia.  The "al-Qaeda" that we have since come to know and adore (now planning our lives around them) is a complete fabrication, which is neither growing stronger, nor will ever really fade away.  On that basis, the following article is just another part of the organized deception.  

Using the term "al-Qaeda" to describe specific attacks is a malicious attempt to  falsely imply an international terrorist angle when describing natural nationalistic militant reactions to Western neo-colonialism, hoping to create a "red herring" behind which to hide outrage to the re-colonization of former Empire territories.  Whenever Western corporations begin to move-in for the mass-pillaging of natural resources militants must, by their nature, rise-up to defend their homelands.  The fact that they are Muslims by birth qualifies them to be called "Islamists" by the Western disinformation (news) agencies.  It is high time to break the cycle of lies that insulates the current and former American and Western administrations from reaping their own outraged reactions from their own constituents for manufacturing this "terrorist" bogeyman.]

Al-Qaida: how great is the terrorism threat to the west now?

In the aftermath of the Algerian hostage crisis, David Cameron issued an ominous warning of the continued threat from terrorism. But is al-Qaida more, or less, dangerous than before?

Hostages surrender to Islamist gunmen who overtook the gas plant in the Algerian desert. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Last week the world took another step towards succumbing to an existential threat. Again.

Speaking in the aftermath of the spectacular seizure and siege of an Algerian gas refinery by Islamist extremists 10 days ago, David Cameron warned of how “we face a large and existential terrorist threat from a group of extremists based in different parts of the world who want to do the biggest possible amount of damage to our interests and way of life”.

There was little further detail, leaving it unclear if the prime minister was referring to al-Qaida, the group founded by the late Osama bin Laden 25 years ago. Or possibly al-Qaida-type groups in the middle of the Saharan desert. Or maybe other offshoots around the world. Or possibly the ideology of al-Qaida.

However, the broad thrust of what he was saying was obvious: if you thought the threat from al-Qaida, however defined, had gone away, you were wrong. It is here, and will be here for decades to come. And it endangers the very foundation of our societies. The intervening week, one imagines, replete as it was with a range of shootings, bombings, arrests and court judgments across the world all involving Islamist extremism, has not improved things.

Such rhetoric was once familiar. We heard much of it in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and through the months before the invasion of Iraq in 2003. But as the years have passed however, such pronouncements of imminent danger became rarer. The public naturally learned to be suspicious of rhetoric raising fears that appeared unreasonable and unfounded. We all learned enough about the complex phenomenon of contemporary Islamist militancy to be able to challenge the sillier claims ourselves. Policymakers recognised that any exaggeration, particularly of the “global” nature of a threat that their own security services were increasingly seeing as local, simply played into the hands of the enemy.

So Cameron’s words last week, echoed elsewhere, were unexpected.

Rather like al-Qaida’s own rhetoric in the wake of the changes wrought by the Arab spring, they sounded dated; at worst, they were an indication of wilful ignorance, a nostalgia for simpler times when leaders could promise “iron resolve” against a threat without provoking widespread scepticism. They have however usefully provoked a new debate on two very old questions, both still urgent and important: what is al-Qaida? And is it more or less dangerous than it was?

Answering the first question is, for once, relatively straightforward. Islamist militancy is a phenomenon going back much further than the foundation of the group al-Qaida by Saudi-born Osama bin Laden in 1988. There have been waves of revivalism in the Muslim world since the days of the Prophet Muhammad. These have frequently come in response to external challenges, whether political, social, cultural and military. Intense and very varied reactions were provoked by European colonialism in the 19th century from Afghanistan to Algeria, from Morocco to Malaysia and beyond. The end of European colonialism in the Muslim world in no way diminished the immediacy of that challenge nor the venality, brutality and incompetence of local regimes. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, scores of different violent extremist movements, in part products of a massive new interest in “Islamism” across the Muslim world, were waging armed struggles against local governments in the name of religion.

Al-Qaida (usually translated as “the base”) was founded – in Pakistan towards the end of the war in Afghanistan against the Soviets – to channel and co-ordinate the dispersed efforts of these movements into a single campaign. It believed that striking at a universally accepted global enemy, the US, would lead to the destruction of “hypocrite” unbelieving regimes across the Muslim world in the short term and, eventually, the creation of a new ill-defined and utopian religious rule. This latter goal was long-term, a cosmic struggle, possibly indefinite and certainly undefinable in terms of time.

Aided by a range of external factors, al-Qaida was to some extent successful in achieving its less abstract aims, striking the US hard and drawing together an unprecedented network of affiliates in the late 1990s. This then helped – particularly by the response to the 9/11 attacks and other operations – disseminate its ideology further than ever before in the noughties.

The high point, however, was reached around 2004 or 2005. Even as it appeared to peak, the wave of extremism was receding. Since then, the central leadership of al-Qaida has suffered blow after blow. It is not just Bin Laden who has been killed or rendered inactive, but pretty much everyone else in the senior and middle ranks of the organisation. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaida central, may be an effective, utterly dedicated and experienced organiser but he lacks Bin Laden’s charisma. Saif al Adel, the only other veteran leader remaining, lacks his stature and may not be at liberty at all but detained in Iran.

Key players who few, beyond specialists, had ever heard of – such as the very capable Libyan Atiyah Abd al-Rahman – have gone. British security officials describe “al-Qaida central” as being “hollowed out”, largely by the controversial drone strikes. Equally damaging for the group, al-Qaida’s training infrastructure is minimal, certainly compared with the dozens of fully fledged camps that were in use on the eve of the 9/11 attacks. Back in 2008, according to interrogation documents, handlers were forced to admit to new recruits coming straight from Europe that their facilities unfortunately bore no resemblance to those depicted in recruiting videos.

Nothing has improved since. Volunteers are fewer than before. There are younger members rising up the thinning ranks, but this is promotion by default not merit.

Equally damaging has been the rejection by successive communities over the past two decades. Almost every attempt by al-Qaida central to win genuine popular support has failed – in Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. Polls show approval ratings for Bin Laden peaking around 2004-5 and then steep decline. This is particularly true when communities have direct experience of extremist violence or rule. The al-Qaida brand is irremediably tarnished. Even Bin Laden was apparently thinking of relaunching the group under a new name, his correspondence reveals.

The terrorist siege of Mumbai had no links with al-Qaida. Photograph: Sebastian D’souza/APThe two most spectacular attacks in recent years – in Algeria and the strike on Mumbai by Pakistan-based militants from the Lashkar-e-Taiba organisation – were carried out by entities that have, in the first instance, tenuous connections with al-Qaida’s senior leadership and, in the second, none at all. This indicates the degree to which the remnant led by al-Zawahiri have become, at best, only one player among many.

The result is that the centripetal force the group once exerted has gone and we have returned to a situation similar to that of the old “pre-al-Qaida” days with a whole series of different local groups involved in local struggles with negligible central co-ordination.

There are major differences with the previous period, of course. Decades of violence have led to much higher structural levels of radicalisation and polarisation. The technology and tactics used by all protagonists in these current “shadow wars” has evolved. Then there are the consequences of the Arab spring – for the Sahel and Syria and elsewhere. But, nonetheless, the unthinking use of the term al-Qaida, as has so often been the case in the past, obscures rather than illuminate the real chaotic and fractured, if still dynamic, nature of modern Islamist militancy. This is something Cameron’s own security services will have told him.

Of course a threat remains. But the big attacks – those that could potentially pose something a little closer to “an existential threat” – are unlikely. These would need to be in a major European or US city or involve at least one passenger jet. If British intelligence, despite having a team devoted for months to checking and rechecking every possible potential lead, could not come up with a single credible threat to the London Olympics last year and their US counterparts were confident enough to declare a similar lack of immediate danger during the recent presidential campaign, it appears fair to assume that bombs in London or New York are a fairly distant prospect for the moment. The biggest threat to airplanes comes from a single highly proficient bombmaker in the Yemen.

The location of the major spectacular attacks appears closely related to al-Qaida’s ability to focus the dispersed energies of contemporary Sunni Islamist extremism. Through the 1990s, attacks were restricted to targets – in Pakistan, Algeria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere – which were distant from western populations, with the exception of the first abortive plot to bomb the World Trade Center in New York in 1993. US troops who were attacked in Somalia in that year in the famous “Blackhawk Down” episode had simply strayed into someone else’s war.

By the late 1990s, US interests were being attacked, but in east Africa or the Yemen. It was only through the first six years of the past decade that the violence approached the west – first in Indonesia, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, then in Madrid and London. But since, the dynamic has reversed, tracking the new weakness of the al-Qaida senior leadership. The big attacks still come – but in Islamabad, Mumbai, Kabul, Baghdad, and now in the deserts of the Sahara. Nor do they strike targets that resonate throughout the Muslim world. A gas refinery in southern Algeria is not the Pentagon.

Partly this is due to vastly improved security precautions and competent intelligence services that co-operated much more effectively.

Intermittent attempts to down airplanes have been defeated, if only just. Hundreds of potential troublemakers have been stopped long before they even begin to contemplate actually perpetrating a violent attack. MI5 officials say that, in part due to closer collaboration with a range of other agencies and particularly the police, they are able to head off possible threats much earlier. One compared their operations to the famously tedious stonewall tactics of the Arsenal team 20 years ago. “It’s boring but it works,” he said.

There is, of course, the fear of a “lone wolf”, a solo, self-radicalising extremist. The example most often cited is Mohamed Merah, the French-Algerian who killed three soldiers as well as three Jewish schoolchildren and a teacher last March.

A spokesman for Mokhtar Belmokhtar, the man who orchestrated the recent refinery attack in Algeria, told French media on Monday that France could expect “dozens like … Merah and Khaled Kelkal” who would spontaneously rise up to kill and maim.

Islamist militia leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who orchestrated the Amenas refinery attack in Algeria. Photograph: APBut real lone wolves are extremely rare. Kelkal, who carried out a series of attacks in France in 1995, plugged into a broader network of militants run and recruited by Algerian groups active at the time. Merah did the shooting on his own but came from a family steeped in extremist versions of Islam and anti-Semitism, had been to Afghanistan and Pakistan to train and was, French and Pakistani officials say, connected to Moez Garsalloui, a high-profile known Belgian militant, now dead, who had been recruiting widely and was well-known to intelligence services. Merah was thus not only part of an old style of terrorism – recruits making their way to the badlands of Pakistan to get trained and then returning to carry out attacks – but was also much less effective than predecessors such as those responsible for the 7/7 attacks in London. The number of people making that journey is now a fraction of the levels of six or seven years ago. Back then, scores, if not hundreds, made their way to the Afghan-Pakistan frontier to fight alongside the Taliban or other groups. Now the number is in the low dozens, according to intelligence officials in Pakistan, the UK and elsewhere.

The other fear is of a new generation of veteran militants returning from the battlefields of the Sahel to wreak havoc in the US or, more realistically, Europe. There are some reports that Canadian or even French passport-holders were among those who attacked the refinery. However, there are two reasons to be relatively sanguine.

Islamist fighters from the Islamist group Ansar Dine in Mali. Photograph: APFirst, the facilities available for training in the region are minimal and there would seem to be no reason why extremists graduating in terrorist studies from there would be better able to carry out effective mass casualty attacks than men such as Merah.

Second, we are yet to see a wave of violence involving veterans of much more longlasting and extensive violence elsewhere in the Maghreb or the core of the Middle East. British intelligence officials pointed to the experience of the horrific conflict in Iraq when asked about the possibility of veterans of the current fighting in Syria, where extremist religious groups are playing an increasingly significant role, posing a threat to the UK. Only one attack – the abortive 2007 London and Glasgow strikes – has been definitively linked to someone involved in that previous conflict, and he was not a former fighter. Iraqi veterans have proved dangerous in Saudi, even in Afghanistan and in the Maghreb. But that is not the same as posing a direct existential threat to the west. There seems, the officials say, to be no reason why the Syrian theatre should produce a greater threat today than the Iraqi theatre has done. Nor, indeed, Mali.

Does this all mean that Islamist militancy will simply die away? Of course not. A phenomenon with such long and complex roots will evolve rather than disappear. That is what is currently happening in this new post-al-Qaida phase. Wherever the various factors that allow the “Salafi-Jihadi” ideology to get traction are united, there is likely to be violence. Extremists do, as Cameron said, “thrive when they have ungoverned spaces in which they can exist, build and plan” and the aftermath of the Arab spring has not just opened up new terrain but also exacerbated existing problems of lawlessness and criminality. Flows of arms from Libya have made a bad situation worse.

And if you take the fighting in Mali and the attack on the refinery, and add it to a list of all the incidents occurring around the globe involving extremist Islamist violence, it is undoubtedly a frightening picture.

In the last few days there were arrests in the Philippines, anti-terrorist operations in Indonesia, deaths in Pakistan (due to infighting between extremist groups), air raids in Afghanistan on suspected al-Qaida bases,battles in the Yemen, shootings and executions in Iraq following the release of a video showing brutal executions, reports of trials in the UK and Germany as well as fighting in Mali.

But does this all add up to al-Qaida 3.0, more dangerous than ever before? There’s a simple test. Think back to those dark days of 2004 or 2005 and how much closer the violence seemed. Were you more frightened then, or now? The aim of terrorism is to inspire irrational fear, to terrorise. Few are as fearful today as they were back then. So that means there are two possibilities: we are wrong, ignorant or misinformed, and should be much more worried than we are; or our instincts are right, and those responsible for the violence are as far from posing an existential threat as they have ever been.

• This article was amended on 29 January 2013. The abortive attacks on London and Glasgow took place in 2007, not 2006 as originally stated.

Jason Burke

The Guardian

The Covert Dictatorship Called “Obamacare”

[First Obama creates the hidden dictatorship by forcing Congressional approval of Presidential authority to force citizens to purchase health care.  Now we find-out the hidden parts of that authoritarian package, which allow sweeping penalties for lifetime smokers, great enough to deny them health care in their old age.  Next it will be overweight people and drug users, followed by gun owners.  

He has created for himself the invisible "Dictatorship of Behavior," by hiding it in plain sight.  He cannot really force people to change their behavior, but he can make their lives so miserable that they want to change, especially if it becomes a choice between living and dying.]

‘Obamacare’ to hit smokers with huge penalties

AFP Photo / Justin Sullivan

Smokers, beware: tobacco penalties under President Obama’s Affordable Care Act could subject millions of smokers to fees costing thousands of dollars, making healthcare more expensive for them than Americans with other unhealthy habits.

The Affordable Care Act, which critics have also called “Obamacare”, could subject smokers to premiums that are 50 percent higher than usual, starting next Jan 1. Health insurers will be allowed to charge smokers penalties that overweight Americans or those with other health conditions would not be subjected to.

A 60-year-old smoker could pay penalties as high as $5,100, in addition to the premiums, the Associated Press reports. A 55-year-old smoker’s penalty could reach $4,250. The older a smoker is, the higher the penalty will be.

Nearly one in every five U.S. adults smokes, with a higher number of low-income people addicted to the unhealthy habit. Even though smokers are more likely to develop heart disease, cancer and lung problems and would therefore require more health care, the penalties might devastate those who need help the most – including retirees, older Americans, and low-income individuals.

“We don’t want to create barriers for people to get health care coverage,” California state Assemblyman Richard Pan told AP. “We want people who are smoking to get smoking cessation treatment.”

Nearly 450,000 US residents die of smoking-related diseases each year, making the unhealthy habit a serious concern for lawmakers. One legislator is trying to criminalize smoking in his state, while others have raised taxes on cigarettes and the Obama administration has tried to inflict hefty fines upon smokers’ premiums.

Karen Pollitz, a former consumer protection regular, told AP that no insurers want to provide coverage for Americans who have been smoking for decades, and that the penalties might prompt people to abandon the habit.

“You would have the flexibility to discourage them,” she told AP.

But quitting is not easy, and charging older smokers up to three times as much as younger ones could make it difficult for them to seek care in the first place. A 60-year-old smoker charged with the penalty could be paying about $8,411 per year for health insurance, which is about 24 percent of a $35,000 income and is considered “unaffordable” under federal law.

“The effect of the smoking (penalty) allowed under the law would be that lower-income smokers could not afford health insurance,” said Richard Curtis, president of the Institute for Health Policy Solutions.

Ultimately, the law that is meant to make health care more affordable could have the opposite effect on older smokers at a time when smoking-related illnesses usually arise.

Jewish Wall Street led USA in permanent decline…….amen

MOSTAQUE ALI

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The Jews will destroy the USA for a variety of opaque quasi religious reasons. This is a shame, given the vast quality and ability of American citizens who could be doing a better job with genuine compassion and reason in the place of the current Obama administration.

Bizarre policies will continue to come out of the USA, and there will no magic formula which corrects the cumulative wrongs that the Jews have inflicted on the country.

The problem with the USA are the collective Jewish leadership.

When America continues to fail, YOU know who is responsible.

 

Courtesy of Infowars.com

President Barack Obama is believed to be Jewish on his mothers side, and a groomed agent of the CIA since birth (his mother worked for the CIA)….linked to Wall Street and the neo-liberal Jews of George Soros et al.

John Kerry the would be secretary of state is Jewish, though outwardly Catholic. Being Catholic is a disguise the Jews have adopted since the Middle Ages for a 1000 years.

Joseph Biden the vice president is of Jewish descent.

Timothy Geithner
Treasury Secretary, Crypto-Jew. All reliable information points to him being ethnically Jewish (at least partially), but if not, he definitely married into The Tribe (m. Carole Sonnenfeld, 1985); he has been President of the New York Fed (which is by far the most powerful and influential branch of the Fed) during the major economic crisis (2007-present) which has utterly decimated the American economy and brought us to the brink of a depression and now this guy is put in charge of the Treasury?

Janet Napolitano
Secretary of Department of Homeland Security, Jewish. Born to Jewish mother (technically makes her Jewish), she claims her religion is now Methodist. She also may be a closet bull dyke.

Robert Swan Mueller III may be crypto-Jewish, serving an extra-ordinary long time in his current position as the head of the FBI, the Jewish run organization that has led the false flag terrorism in the USA from 1993 to the point where the country is now a full police state.…though he has a crisp well groomed WASP persona from NY. Billions of useless Latinos pour into the country from the South….and yet when John Smith and his family move from Portland to Chicago, they must undertake grueling uber gestapo like humiliating inspections, and gropings to reinforce Jewish power and Jewish obedience training for the coming total gulag state…….which is a mixture of sexual fantasy based on BDSM and humiliation. In the Soviet  gulags mass rape was the order of the day, as a form of control, dominance and of course humiliation.  

Benjamin Shalom Bernanke….Head of the Federal Reserve…theoretically and constitutionally not part of the administration, but to all intents and purposes is.

Jack Lew	Chief of Staff to the President
David Plouffe	Senior Advisor to the President
Danielle Borrin	Associate Director, Office of Public Engagement; Special Assistant to the Vice President
Gary Gensler	Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission
Dan Shapiro	Ambassador to Israel
Gene Sperling	Director National Economic Council
Mary Schapiro	Chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission
Steven Simon	Head of Middle East/North Africa Desk at the National Security Council
Eric Lynn	Middle East Policy Advisor

    
Some more current and former members of the Obama administration.

Douglas Shulman
IRS Commissioner, Jewish.

Steven Rattner
Treasury Advisor For Auto Sector, Jewish.

Robert Rubin
Economic Advisor to the President, Jewish.

Alan Blinder
Economic Advisor to the President, Jewish.

Jason Furman
Director Of Economic Policy, Jewish.

Jon Leibowitz
Chairman Of FTC, Jewish.

Ronald Klain
Chief of Staff to the Vice President, Jewish.

Jared Bernstein
Chief Economist and Economic Policy Adviser to the Vice President.

Paul Volcker
Economic Advisor to the President, Former Head of Fed Reserve, Crypto-Jewish

Lee Feinstein (2009- )
Foreign Policy Advisor

Gary Gensler (2009- )
Chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission

Elena Kagan (2009- )
Solicitor General of the United States

Ronald Klain (2009- )
Chief of Staff to the Vice President

Jack Lew (2009- )
Deputy Secretary of State

Eric Lynn (2009- )
Middle East Policy Advisor

Peter Orszag (2009- )
Director of the Office of Management and Budget. Formerly a member of Clinton’s Whitehouse, advisor to the Bank of Iceland before they crashed and burned, and also advisor to the Jewish Oligarchs in Russia when they started stealing billions.

Dennis Ross (2009- )
Special Advisor for the Gulf and Southwest Asia to the Secretary of State Mara Rudman (2009- ) Foreign Policy Advisor

Mary Schapiro (2009- )
Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission

Dan Shapiro (2009- )
Head of Middle East desk at the National Security Council (yet another ‘neutral diplomatic Jew’ when it comes to foreign policy matters involving the Middle East); also a major Washington lobbyist and fundraiser for the Democratic Party.

James B. Steinberg (2009- ) and Jacob Lew, Deputy Secretaries of State, second in rank only to Hillary Clinton in foreign policy matters (meaning if something happens to her one of them will take over, giving a Jew yet another major Cabinet slot); both of these people are hardcore Zionist Israel Firsters, so it is difficult to imagine how they will remain objective and neutral when it comes to dealing with foreign policy matters in the Middle East.

Lawrence Summers (2009- )
Director National Economic Council, Crypto-Jew (real name: Samuelson)

Mona Sutphen (2009- )
Deputy White House Chief of Staff

Eric Lander AND Harold E. Varmus, Co-Chairs of the President’s Council of Advisers on Science/Technology.

Penny Pritzker
Obama’s National Finance Chair during the election cycle; she is a billionaire heiress of the Pritzker family fortune (at least 5-7 separate billionaires in the family); the Pritzkers are major players in the ’squeaky clean’ Chicago political scene.

Robert Reich
Economic adviser to Obama-Biden.

Nora Volkow
Director, National Institute of Drug Abuse. Great-grandaughter of Trotsky (Leon Bronstein),

Bolshevik murderer and point man for the International Banking Jew’s over-throw of Russia.

Richard Hass
President of the CFR and Obama’s ambassador at large.

Jon Leibowitz
Chairman, Federal Trade Commission.

Alan Bersin
Special Representive for Border Affairs.

Susan Sher
Chief of Staff for Michelle Obama.

Thanks to Zsidozas
Obama’s Jews, Change we can’t believe in

OBAMA’S LEADING JEWISH ‘CZARS’

Economic Czar
Larry Summers (real name: Samuelson)

Regulatory Czar
Cass Sunstein

Pay Czar
Kenneth Feinberg

Medical Czar
Ezekiel Emanuel (brother of Rahm Emanuel)

Guantanamo/Military Jails Czar
Daniel Fried

Car Czar
Steven Rattner

Border Czar
Alan Bersin

Climate Czar
Todd Stern

Global Warming Czar
Carol Browner

Climate Change Czar
Todd Stern

JEWS IN INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

Richard Holbrooke
Special Envoy to Pakistan/Afghanistan

Stuart Levey
Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence

Lawrence Summers
Chairman, National Economic Council

Paul Volcker: Chairman, Economic Recovery Advisory Board

Jared Bernstein
Chief Economist and Economic Adviser,

Peter Orszag
Director, Office of Management and Budget

Jason Furman
Deputy Director, Office of Management and Budget

Dennis Ross
Obama’s Ambassador-At-Large in the (Entire) Middle East

Jeffrey Zeints
Chief Performance Officer to streamline government and cut costs as well as Deputy

Director for Management at the Office of Management and Budget

Gary Gensler
Chairman, Commodity Futures Trading Commission

Mary Schapiro
Chairwoman, Securities and Exchange Commission

Sheila Bair
Chairman, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation

Karen Mills
Administrator, Small Business Administration

Jon Leibowitz
Chairman, Federal Trade Commission

Douglas Shulman
Commissioner, Internal Revenue Service

Neil M. Barofsky
Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (“SIGTARP”)

The Federal Reserve…

Benjamin S. Bernanke
Chairman of the Federal Reserve

FRB of Boston
Eric S. Rosengren: Jewish

Timothy F. Geithner: (former) FRB of New York.
Crypto-Jewish. Former Goldman Sachs executive Stephen Friedman was acting head until May, when questions about his insider Goldman Sachs stock purchases came up and he stepped down. Denis Hughes, an apparent Goyim labor leader, fills the spot at least until December, when a new one will be named for 2010.

FRB of Philadelphia
Charles I. Plosser: Jewish

FRB of Richmond
Jeffrey M. Lacker: Jewish

FRB of St. Louis
James B. Bullard: Jewish

FRB of Minneapolis
Gary H. Stern: Jewish

FRB of Kansas City
Thomas M. Hoenig: Jewish

FRB of Dallas
Richard W. Fisher: Jewish

FRB of San Francisco
Janet L. Yellen: Jewish

The Pentagon Is Defining “We the People” As “Domestic Enemies” of the United States for A Reason

[All government emergency plans have consisted of defending the ramparts against "domestic enemies," without ever going into too much detail about the nature of that alleged "enemy."  Reports which actually define the enemies of corporate America (resisters to anti-Constitutionalism and other one-worlder political blocs) as the enemies of America, help confirm for us that the government has a bleak future in mind for us.  Perhaps the intention for defining We the People as "domestic enemies" is to convince us that it is time to take-up arms in our own insurrection?  As the report below points-out, the intention is always to cause division and dissension, hoping to produce a justification for enforcing martial law.  If they want  to push us into taking-up arms, it is because they are looking for a reason to take us down.] 

West Point Defines “Domestic Enemies” to Prepare Troops to Take On Americans

Activist Post 

Dees Illustration

Brandon Turbeville

Soldiers and police in America take an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. But knowing who is a domestic enemy of the Constitution can be confusing to a young grunt. So a West Point think tank decided to broadly define what a domestic enemy may look like to ensure soldiers follow orders when the time comes.

In a study recently published by the West Point Combating Terrorism Center entitled, “Challengers From The Sidelines: Understanding America’s Violent Far-Right,” Arie Perliger, the author of the study, attempts to present a picture of an America infested with dangerous “Right Wing” domestic terrorists lurking in the shadows and waiting to launch an attack on government establishments, agents, and minorities.

In the study, what Perliger defines as the “Far-Right” is actually a mixture of race hate groups with ordinary militias, anti-abortion activists, Libertarians/Anarchists, and “conspiracy theorists.” Perliger suggets that this “Far-Right” contingent is glued together by an identification with an “anti-federalist” ideology as well as a belief in a “New World Order.” According to Perliger, these groups are concerned with the “corrupted and tyrannical nature of the federal government and its apparent tendency to violate individuals’ civilian liberties and constitutional rights.”

Perliger, who is the director of terrorism studies at the West Point Combating Terrorism Center writes in the Introduction to the study that its purpose is to provide “a conceptual foundation for understanding different far-right groups and then presents the empirical analysis of violent incidents to identify those perpetrating attacks and their associated trends.”

For all the repetition of the terms “terrorism” and “violent” however, it is important to mention just how broad a definition has been assigned to this term in recent years. As Madison Ruppert of End the Lie writes in his article, “West Point study identifies ‘violent far-right’ with recognizing tyrannical, corrupt nature of government,” “It is worth noting that the federal government is quite tyrannical andcorrupt with a federal judge ruled the government can claim the legal right to assassinate Americanswithout any charge or trial while never explaining the legal basis, engage in widespread illegal surveillance (which is dramatically increasing) and indefinitely detain Americans.”

Ruppert continues by stating, “If those aren’t violations of individuals’ civil liberties and constitutional rights, I don’t know what is.”

Yet, while Perliger defines three different branches of the “far-right” – racist/white supremacy movement, anti-federalist movement, and fundamentalist movement – the author lumps the three different branches into one, all while conveniently ignoring pertinent facts that might not back up his claims.

Perliger’s paper notably lacks mention of the fact that a great many “racist/white supremacy” organizations are themselves either partially or even entirely staffed by law enforcement agents of government intelligence. Likewise, Perliger entirely conflates race-based movements (also likely infiltrated and controlled by government agencies) with what he labels the “Christian Fundamentalist” movement. This, as Madison Ruppert points out, is described with a complete lack of understanding (intentional or otherwise) as to what “fundamentalism” actually is.

Yet, the “anti-federalist” movement (itself a variety of movements mixed together to provide an easier category for Perliger and his readers), is the most interesting when evaluating the West Point paper. According to Perliger, this “movement” is centered around a belief in a “New World Order,” and the recognition of the “corrupted and tyrannical nature of the federal government and its apparent tendency to violate individuals’ civilian liberties and constitutional rights.”

In this regard, Perliger writes,

The anti-federalist rationale is multifaceted, and includes the beliefs that the American political system and its proxies were hijacked by external forces interested in promoting a “New World Order” (NWO) in which the United States will be absorbed into the United Nations or another version of global government. They also espouse strong convictions regarding the federal government, believing it to be corrupt and tyrannical, with a natural tendency to intrude on individuals’ civil and constitutional rights. Finally, they support civil activism, individual freedoms, and self government. Extremists in the anti-federalist movement direct most their violence against the federal government and its proxies in law enforcement.

In further summarizing the “anti-federalist” viewpoint, Perliger writes,

The anti-federalist movement’s ideology is based on the idea that there is an urgent need to undermine the influence, legitimacy and practical sovereignty of the federal government and its proxy organizations. The groups comprising the movement suggest several rationales that seek to legitimize anti-federal sentiments. Some groups are driven by a strong conviction that the American political system and its proxies were hijacked by external forces interested in promoting a “New World Order,” (NWO) in which the United States will be embedded in the UN or another version of global government. The NWO will be advanced, they believe, via steady transition of powers from local to federal law-enforcement agencies, i.e., the transformation of local police and law-enforcement agencies into a federally controlled “National Police” agency that will in turn merge with a “Multi-National Peace Keeping Force.” The latter deployment on US soil will be justified via a domestic campaign implemented by interested parties that will emphasize American society’s deficiencies and US government incompetency. This will convince the American people that restoring stability and order inevitably demands the use of international forces. The last stage, according to most NWO narratives, involves the transformation of the United States government into an international/world government and the execution and oppression of those opposing this process.

Indeed, anyone even faintly aware of historical and current events would be hard-pressed to argue with the so-called “anti-federalists” in their analysis.

Regardless, in light of the recent push for citizen disarmament, the paper tellingly states,

Linda Thompson, the head of the Unorganized Militia of the United States details the consequence of this global coup: ”This is the coming of the New World Order. A one-world government, where, in order to put the new government in place, we must all be disarmed first. To do that, the government is deliberately creating schisms in our society, funding both the anti-abortion/pro-choice sides, the antigun/pro-gun issues…trying to provoke a riot that will allow martial law to be implemented and all weapons seized, while ‘dissidents’ are put safely away”. The fear of the materialization of the NWO makes most militias not merely hostile towards the federal government but also hostile towards international organizations, whether non-profitable NGOs, international corporations, or political institutions of the international community, such as the UN.

Perliger, of course, does not attempt to challenge any of Thompson’s claims as they are presented in this short quotation nor does he attempt to debunk any of the claims made by the “anti-federalist” communities that he so concisely repeats in the statement above. While, admittedly, it is not a stated goal of the author’s study to defend his position and debunk those of his subjects, one would also be justified in concluding that Perliger does not attempt to defend his case simply because disproving the claims made by the “anti-federalist” activists as he presents them would impossible for him to do in a convincing manner.

Yet the purpose of the paper is not to provide legitimate information about these groups as much as it is to terrify the reader – West Point and other military trainees – into believing that anyone who rightly supposes that their government is overstepping its bounds, violating their rights, or moving forward in otherwise unconstitutional directions is a conspiracy-obsessed, right-wing, racist fanatic who is intent on killing military, police, and minorities.

Unfortunately for the author, however, a careful reading of his own argument causes it to fall apart at the seams.

After postulating numerous reasons for the alleged violence of “far-right” groups ranging from political, socio-economic, geographical, and operational possibilities, Perliger attempts to turn to the actual numbers.

At first, Perliger’s presentation of thousands of violent attacks per year (using 2010 statistics) is quite shocking since such attacks are not known to the general public and the mainstream media has not seized upon them at every available opportunity as one would expect. The actual level of violence in its own right, whether reported or not, would be concerning to say the very least.

These numbers would be an even more concerning situation if they demonstrated that such attacks were on the rise.

Unfortunately for the government argument, however, this is not the case as even Perliger has to admit when he says, “Hence, in periods during which many streams of terrorism have shown improvement in their operational capabilities and, as a result, an increase in their tendency to engage in mass casualty attacks, the violent American far right shows stagnation, at least in terms of its ability to enhance the harm it generates.”

For instance, while the term “right-wing violent attack” might conjure images of lynchings, executions, or mass terror attacks, the statistics, even those presented by Perliger, tend to show a different reality. Indeed, the type of “attack” referenced in Perliger’s study is entirely unclear in terms of just what would constitute a “right-wing violent attack.”

Indeed, when examining Perliger’s statistics, one can easily see that well over half of the “attacks” being described are actually proxy “attacks” (loosely defined term) against property, “foiled attacks” (which are wildly undefined, especially since the overwhelming majority of any foiled terrorist attack in the United States has been directed by the FBI), “heavy damage to property,” and “cross burnings.”

Likewise, with so many acts of property damage and racial symbols being later determined to have been directed by the “victims” themselves, one must also call these numbers into question since they are left unclear in the study.

Of those attacks designed to cause “mass casualties,” the Oklahoma City Bombing was no doubt included in the statistics, an obvious government-run false flag operation.

Yet, even among the 42% of “attacks” described as involving “specific human targets,” the incidents are not necessarily connected with any political, racial, or religious origin. As with any attempt at methods of divide and conquer, there is the very real possibility that any violent attack leveled against any individual of minority status or non-right-wing political ideology is thus considered to be a “specific human target” attack. Under such loosely defined rules of categorization, since the incidence of “specific human targets” were overwhelmingly one on one or (at most) two on one altercations, a simple shoving match between two individuals in which one could be remotely considered right wing, racist, or religious could then be delineated as a violent right-wing attack.

Since Perliger easily allows his own political bias to appear during the course of the paper and, since much of his political theory is based upon Israeli political scientist Ehud Sprinzak’s Iceberg model of the structure of political movements, it is apparent that Perliger’s own methodology is likely devised in a manner that would allow even the most distant and unrelated events seem directly related to the core of political ideology Perliger has set in his sites.

Such a concern is only compounded by the fact that one of Perliger’s main sources for his paper is the Southern Poverty Law Center, a notorious race-baiting organization that routinely accuses anyone who disagrees with the company line in regards to government policy as racist and potentially violent and dangerous. Not far behind, of course, is the citation of the Anti-Defamation League, an organization of similar race-based incredibility.

In the end, Perliger’s report is nothing more than just another cog in the wheel of a military-industrial complex on overdrive in its attempt to brainwash new military recruits into believing that a terrorist lurks behind every bush. More importantly, these new recruits are being trained that such terrorists are no longer shadowy Muslims hiding in caves in Afghanistan, but good ol’ boys, gun owners, and average American citizens that will eventually have to be dealt with.

Read other articles by Brandon Turbeville here. 

Brandon Turbeville is an author out of Florence, South Carolina. He has a Bachelor’s Degree from Francis Marion University and is the author of three books, Codex Alimentarius — The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies, and Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident. Turbeville has published over 190 articles dealing on a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties. Brandon Turbeville’s podcast Truth on The Tracks can be found every Monday night 9 pm EST at UCYTV.  He is available for radio and TV interviews. Please contact activistpost (at) gmail.com. 

Africom Gen. Carter Ham Admits Pentagon Error In Teaching Military Skills Without First Teaching Military Ethics and Human Values

[It is very rare to hear an American general speaking in such a candid manner, it is is unacceptable to admit mistakes for a perfect organization like the Pentagon, because any weakening of their armor of "denial" could ultimately have a corrosive cascading effect, eventually bringing-down the entire five-sided house of lies.  The Pentagon is the mother of all lies and the father of the CIA, the world's premier institute of pure lies.  Whatever inhuman, illegal human experiments that the CIA has done were actually done for the Pentagon, allowing the generals to hide behind their curtain (armor) of denial, while the agency continued to study the human breaking point.  The Nazi pseudo-scientists were looking for the limits of human mental endurance, so that they could overcome them.  

The Nazis were in firm agreement with the concept of a super-soldier, as a natural bi-product of their beliefs in "Aryan" superiority.  The super-soldier concept reinforced the Nazi ideas of a "superman" or "Godman."  The American continuation of these Nazi mind-control experiments was investing in the torture and murder which formed the foundation for the original studies.  Such inhuman experimentation was (and is) done in total violation of every  international law or treaty, or the sanctity of human rights or any kind of "military ethos."  Any further research which builds upon this criminal line of investigation is also immoral and unethical by its connection to the tainted line of inquiry.  Pentagon continuation of this research led to major breakthroughs in mind-control sciences, giving them the covert capability to create actual "Manchurian Candidate" assassins and the overt capability to make major leaps in military training, allowing the military to train around human hang-ups and mental weakness.  

In the Nazi version of super-soldier training, compassion would be considered a weakness.  In the SOCOM version of super-soldier training, feelings of any kind (except for the violent ones) are weaknesses to be overcome, more enemies to be vanquished.  This explains why so many Spec Ops veterans suffer from PTSD, and why military suicides have surpassed the number of combat deaths.  This also helps to explain why so many US SOCOM training operations lead to the possibly inadvertent creation of death squads, often self-formed units of gung-ho trainees who are eager to use the skills that they have just been given to correct the wrongs in their own country. 

Gen. Ham is referring to this basic error in the Pentagon's training regime, which has been exposed in Mali and elsewhere.   The Pentagon, in its shortsightedness, has trained hundreds of professional killers in Mali, most of whom are proving to have the same morals as a bunch of neanderthal contract killers.  Like mob hit men, their only real concern is not getting caught, covering-up the evidence of their crimes.  War crimes, like those occurring in Mali, cannot be explained by claims of the killers' ignorance, especially when they try to hide the evidence that will convict them.  

Mass-executions, executions of prisoners and the wounded, decapitations, machete dismemberment, followed by hiding the bodies down wells and burning tires on top of them, all in hopes of covering-up their war crimes.  All of this happened under the watchful eyes of their duplicitous French Army overlords.  American Special Forces might have trained these guys, but it took the French to put them to doing their dirty work.]

Just a corpse buried in Sévaré in central Mali. In several places in the city, residents saw soldiers of the national army throwing bodies in wells.

“This is a naked body, crudely buried and only the left arm and buttocks are visible on the surface of loose soil. It lies in a corner in the center of Sévaré, a town of some 30,000 inhabitants where the park Malian military and the French army which controls the airport….

“I was there!” Exclaims Moussa S. ”The dead were rebels!” Added the former soldier, who does not hide his hatred of “redskins”, the nickname given by the Tuareg. ”They have thrown in the well. Soldiers completed wounded rebels, brought from Konna.’s Alive were executed. Then they covered the body of tires and gasoline and burned.” Macule blood the well’s mouth, which was partially blocked by rubble. Nearby, the smell is nauseating. Witnesses speak of 25 to 30 bodies buried in this area. Of manhunts, there have been many. ”Being Arab, Tuareg or dressed in the traditional way, for someone who is not Sévaré this is enough to make it disappear,” two young show. ”Wearing a beard, they say, it’s a suicide.”

Last Friday, a father and his young son from the north and crossing Sévaré, were killed. Machetes and bullets, before ending up in the pit.”

Mali crisis: US military admits mistakes in training army

French forces are leading the offensive against Islamist rebels in Mali

The commander of US forces in Africa says the Pentagon made mistakes in its training of Malian troops now trying to oust Islamists from the north.

Gen Carter Ham, of US Africom, said American forces had failed to train Malian troops on “values, ethics and a military ethos”.

He was speaking after reports of abuses by Mali government troops taking part in the French-led counter-offensive.

Meanwhile, air strikes have been reported near the northern city of Gao.

The militant stronghold came under fire as the military operation entered its third week.

Islamists seized the north of the country last year and have imposed a strict interpretation of Sharia law on its inhabitants.

France intervened militarily on 11 January to stop them advancing further south.

‘Military ethos’

However, human rights groups have since accused Malian troops of killing Arabs and ethnic Tuaregs as they advance north.

The claims caused alarm in the West, particularly in the US which has been training troops in Mali and neighbouring countries to tackle the militant threat for several years.

Gen Ham said Malian troops were given plenty of tactical training, but not enough ethics training.

“We were focusing our training almost exclusively on tactical or technical matters,” he told a forum at Washington’s Howard University.

“We didn’t spend probably the requisite time focusing on values, ethics and a military ethos.”

More French troops and equipment are being flown out to Mali

The general said not enough was done to convince Malian recruits that “when you put on the uniform of your nation, you accept the responsibility to defend and protect that nation, to abide by the legitimate civilian authority that has been established, to conduct yourselves according to the rule of law”.

“We didn’t do that to the degree that we needed to,” he added

Mali’s army staged a coup in March 2012.

In the chaos which followed, Islamist militants and secular rebels extended their control of the whole of the north – an area of the Sahara Desert larger than France – while the army hardly put up any resistance.

Meanwhile, French TV has been carrying grainy images of air strikes which the military said was near the city of Gao.

Malian and Niger security sources also reported the strikes, saying two Islamist bases with fuel stocks and weapons dumps near Gao had been destroyed.

French and Malian troops also staged joint patrols for the first time, in the town of Douentza west of Gao, the French AFP news agency said, quoting Malian sources.

The BBC’s Mark Doyle in Mali says a big international troop build-up is continuing ahead of a probable French-led air and ground offensive against Gao and other desert cities.

There are currently about 2,000 French troops in Mali.

An armed column of Chadian soldiers is making its way to Mali overland and more than 1,000 Nigerian soldiers are expected there too.

The UN refugee agency says more than 7,000 civilians have fled to neighbouring countries since 10 January to escape the fighting.

In another development, Egypt’s President Mohammed Morsi has unveiled a proposal for a peaceful resolution to the Mali conflict.

The five-point plan includes political negotiations, economic and development initiatives and co-ordinated relief efforts. President Morsi has spoken against military intervention in Mali.

Breaking: New York Creates Psychiatric Police State

By JonRappoport

It’s a done deal.

Governor Cuomo, along with Democrat and Republican legislators, is ramming through a bill to restrict gun ownership, re-classify weapons in order to ban them—and, in a far-reaching move, create psychiatrists as cops who must report patients to law-enforcement, in order to keep the patients from owning a weapon.

Psychiatrists must report patients “who could potentially harm themselves or others.” If such a patient owns a gun, it will be confiscated.

This means a comprehensive data base, accessible by law-enforcement personnel and anyone else involved in doing background checks These “problematic” patients will be kept from buying a new weapon, too. Otherwise, the law would have no teeth.

As usual, the devil is in the details. Psychiatrists will err on the side of caution and report many patients. No shrink wants to blink into television cameras after one of his patients has just shot his father.

Patients who want to own weapons will lie to psychiatrists about their thoughts and feelings, never admitting they’re considering suicide or murder.

After such a murder, a psychiatrist will say: “He never said anything about killing anybody. Here, look at my notes. There’s nothing there.”

For this and other reasons, such as the existence of the data base, doctor-patient confidentiality will go out the window.

Therefore, the practice of psychiatry, which already minimizes talk therapy and merely dispenses drugs, will move even further in that direction. Tight-lipped patients, who don’t want to go on a police list, will seek an office visit with the sole motive of obtaining a drug.

Since all the emphasis is now on “mentally ill patients who are prone to violence,” the possibility of indicting the drugs in violence will recede over the horizon.

SSRI antidepressants (Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, etc.) and other brain drugs do, in fact, cause people to go crazy and commit violent crimes, including murder. This is an open secret in the psychiatric profession, and the public is becoming more aware of it every day.

But it will be swept under the carpet.

Under the new law, a psychiatrist can’t be prosecuted for failing to report a patient who later commits murder, as long as the psychiatrist “acted in good faith.” The meaning of that phrase is broad enough to automatically cast blanket exoneration on most shrinks, which closes off the chance a psychiatrist will be pilloried for prescribing a drug he knows can induce violence in the patient.

This New York law will be copied and passed by other states, and in the end, we will see a national data base of psychiatric patients.

The official attitude will be: anyone who sees a psychiatrist is a potential killer.

This will give rise to protests on behalf of “a new underclass”: psychiatric patients. Advocates will arise to take up their cause. Court cases will abound. The whole business will devolve into a complete mess.

But out of it will come a hands-on partnership between cops and shrinks, who’ll march should to shoulder into their version of a psychiatric police state.

Seventy-two hour mandatory holds in psych wards for “observation” will expand. During this period of incarceration, shrinks will dose inmates hard with drugs, in order to make them more docile, because no psych ward wants to be accused of releasing a patient who then goes on to kill people.

Drugs to subdue the mind in that way are very powerful. They are called anti-psychotics, or major tranquilizers. As has been shown, they induce tremors, which are signals of motor brain damage.

We can expect to see hundreds of thousands more people, perhaps millions, who are damaged, permanently, by these drugs.

The motto will become: destroy the patient, before he can destroy others.

As the crown on all this, people who have ever professed political ideas outside the mainstream, and so end up in a database of “potential threats to the State,” can be kept from owning a weapon, merely by finding a way to get them into a psychiatrist’s office, on any pretext. Once there, the psychiatrist can report them as prone to harming themselves or others, and that will function as a bar to possessing a gun.

New York has just created a door that swings in both directions. A huge number of people who are seeing psychiatrists can be kept from gun ownership. And people who can see with their eyes what this country has turned into can be turned, on cooked-up technicalities, into psychiatric patients. Once in the system, they, too, can be denied all 2nd Amendment rights.

It will undoubtedly be called “The 2nd Amendment Exclusion.”

Coming to your neighborhood.

by Jon Rappoport
January 15, 2013
www.nomorefakenews.com

Group Protests at CIA Headquarters

Anti-torture organization fasts, blocks off entrance.

Hooded members of Witness Against Torture block the front entrance to CIA Headquarters Saturday, Jan. 12, to protest the agency’s use of torture and drone attacks. Photo by Alex McVeigh.

 

#McLean — The Dolley Madison Boulevard entrance to CIA Headquarters was rendered impassable the morning of Saturday, Jan. 12, as more than three dozen people in orange prison jumpsuits and black hoods over their heads lined up to protest actions taken by the intelligence agency in recent years.

#Members of Witness Against Torture planned the rally, their third at the CIA headquarters in recent years. In addition to the protesters in prison garb, others gathered to speak and pass out information about the activities they’re against.

#“I wish this is something we could do every day, that would shut this place down,” said Jack McHale of Burke, who had been fasting for the past week as part of the group’s protest.”

Photo by Alex McVeigh

The group Witness Against Torture dress in prison jumpsuits and display models of Reaper drones in front of CIA Headquarters Saturday, Jan. 12. The group held the event to protest the use of torture, drone attacks and detention in Guantanamo Bay.

#THIS ISN’T THE FIRST TIME McHale has fasted to bring attention to peace and justice issues. In 2003, he and a friend started a “Pre-Emptive Fast for Peace,” which lasted three weeks and eventually grew to more than 1,200 people around the country.

#McHale fasted then to bring attention to the impending war in Iraq, and to encourage people to write to their legislators urging them to vote against the war. Now, more than eight years later, McHale is hoping to bring to light the consequences of the war he hoped this country wouldn’t start.

#“This is a two-pronged program, we want to shine a light on tactics such as torture and drone attacks, and educate people as to the terror they cause around the world,” he said. “And we want to bring attention to the 166 people still imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay by this administration.”

#While fasting, McHale consumes only liquids, mostly water and 100 percent fruit juices.

#The orange-clad protesters stood next to several models of the General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper, an unmanned drone used by the U.S. Army, Navy and CIA.

#“One of our goals is to convince people who are anti-war, but aren’t opposed to drone attacks [of] the terrible affect these drones are having on civilians,” said Nuala Cohen of Burke, who has been a peace activist for more than 10 years. “I’ve been involved in planning the last one, but this is the first time I’ve been out here, and it’s very powerful to see.”

#Many of the protesters fasted leading up to the event, which also included a protest the previous night at the White House.

#“What’s disturbing to me is that the program of torture and indefinite detention that was introduced by the Bush administration has in many ways been replaced by a program of drone attacks and killing people without any kind of process anywhere in the world,” said Andy Worthington, a journalist from Britain who has published books and documentaries about Guantanamo Bay.

#THEY BROKE their fast after the demonstration at the CIA Headquarters, hosted by the Langley Hill Friends, a Quaker organization.

#“For me, the experience of eating after a fast is overwhelming. In addition to the intense, sorely missed flavors, I appreciate the experience of chewing, and it seems that I can literally feel the food as it travels toward my empty, grateful stomach,” said Chantal DeAlcuaz, a Witness Against Torture member. “As the WAT community paused from our work for a joyful meal together, I was keenly aware of conversations around drones and further protest. These discussions were a poignant reminder that though we pause to celebrate, our work will undoubtedly continue.”

#McHale said they plan to take at least six drone models to Washington, D.C., on Inauguration Day next week, and they plan to protest at the CIA the second Saturday of every month.

The CIA’s First Big “Secret War” In Laos and What Remains of the Hmong People

[In the first of many major Secret Wars to come, the CIA saw the potential to exacerbate tensions between the Lao Hmong people and the Laotian People's Army, in order to raise a secret guerilla army of their own to use against the North Vietnamese Army.  After more than 100,000 of the Hmong perished because of the terrorism which they unleashed and the retribution for it, they were abandoned completely by their CIA masters.  They were then "fair game" for the systematic hunt for them which continues unto this day.   The CIA is like a massive vampire beast, feeding on local tensions, whether those tensions be nationalist, religious, ethnic or tribal in nature.  They are agitated through the strategy of tension and the "false flag" terror attacks which make it all possible, destroying societies, peoples and nations to fill the ranks of the CIA's many secret armies, which, in the end, ALL rely on child soldiers as young as eight years old to murder and terrorize for the sake of the American Empire.  

The Agency is a cancerous evil which must be cut-out of the heart of America is the Old Girl is going to survive.]  

The CIA’s ‘Secret War’

February 25, 2011

By William Lloyd-George

  

Decades after US forces exited the Vietnam War the remnants of a CIA-backed force of Lao villagers still live in fear in the jungle.

 

In a clearing deep inside the Laotian jungle, a group of Hmong fall to the ground and beg me for help as soon as they see me. Chor Her, a skinny man wearing torn camouflage, is the only one to remain standing. He salutes before joining the others on the muddy ground.

‘We have no food, every day we have to run, we are being hunted like animals,’ says one elderly woman,weeping. The young children surrounding her are also crying—I’m told it’s the first time they’ve seen a foreigner. Indeed, these people have been largely cut off from the outside world since the Vietnam War.

Back then, the Hmong were fighters—secret fighters in a 15-year covert US operation backed by the CIA. Now they are forced to constantly run for their lives in a country whose government doesn’t officially acknowledge they exist.

‘The Americans gave us weapons and told us to shoot the enemy,’ says Chor Her, waving a battered CIA-issued M79 in the air. ‘Then they left us and we’ve been slowly dying here ever since…When the Lao Army kills one of our men, they feel as though they’ve killed an American in revenge for us helping them during the war.’

Almost before he has finished his sentence, another man jumps into the conversation, pleading for food and medicine. ‘We are human beings, so why does the world turna deaf ear and blind eye to us?’ he asks.

As the Vietnam War raged,Washington noticed that communist forces had spilled over into Laos. In response, the Americans launched what was later called a secret war. At the time, Laos had been declared ‘neutral,’ but with a growing communist presence, the CIA saw it as the next front in the conflict. A handful of CIA agents were flown in to build on existing tensions between the Hmong and the Laotian government, led by the communist Pathet Lao.

‘They were better than anyone else around, every step they took was up or down so they could move a lot faster than the enemy,’ says Bill Lair, a legendary CIA agent who headed the agency’s paramilitary operations in Laos. ‘They needed a leader and Vang Pao seemed like the most suitable man for the job.’

Vang Pao, or ‘the General,’ was selected for his charisma and leadership skills, honed when the Hmong had previously allied with the French against North Vietnamese forces. With the help of the CIA, he reportedly trained and armed more than 60,000 Hmong fighters. While the Americans set up a major military airport in Northern Laos, the Hmong were in charge of disrupting communist supply lines and rescuing downed pilots.

It has been estimated that the Hmong lost nearly 100,000 people during this secret operation. As the war progressed, and with casualties quickly mounting, Vang Pao and his CIA backers eventually had to turn to the use of child soldiers to keep up the resistance efforts.

 

‘An American and a Thai man came into my school and I was taken away to military training,’ says Bou Than, a former Hmong soldier. Still only 13 years-old, the war was raging around him in the Laotian jungle. He was poached from a classroom and shipped straight off for military training.

‘I saw many of my school friends die in those jungles to help American forces,’ he says. ‘Kids as young as eight were being used.’

It’s rumored that at one point, Vang Pao said he wanted to cease all military operations with the CIA over concerns that the enormous loss of life could ultimately lead to the Hmong communities being wiped out altogether. Regardless of his intentions, though, the Hmong involvement continued—as did the casualties.

Soaring heroin sales were perhaps one thing that persuaded him to keep going. Before the Americans arrived, opium smoking was a cultural norm in the region and was prevalent throughout the Hmong highlands. US planes gave the Hmong the opportunity to do something they hadn’t previously—transport and sell large quantities of the drug, including to US soldiers.

There has been a great deal of debate since over the exact details of the operation, based on testimony given by CIA agents who were there at the time. But one thing is clear—there was a busy opium trade operating in the region, and the agency appears to have turned a blind eye.

A number of CIA officers have claimed since that, fearing their operation could be embarrassingly exposed, they decided to give Vang Pao his own local airline, Xieng Kouang airlines, as part of a compromise following his demands for control of all of the agency’s planes.

Much of the opium that was produced is said to have ended up in the hands of American GIs on the frontlines, leading to a dramatic rise in the number of overdoses among soldiers. Yet despite this obvious drawback, those involved in the operation appear to have felt there was little they could do as the profits were, in effect, also helping to fund the war effort.

‘Opium grew everywhere in our highlands,’ says Tho Ther, a former Hmong soldier who now resides in the United States. ‘We smoked it openly, but it was only when the Americans came that our leaders began to sell it.’

‘We were losing countless male children for the CIA’s war and needed to pay to keep the villagers happy,’ he adds. ‘Otherwise they would have changed sides to save their men from joining our army.’

But it still wasn’t enough. The communist forces continued to grow in strength and advanced towards the CIA bases despite Washington’s best efforts—and $2 million a day spent carpet bombing Laos—to stop them. Accepting defeat, the Americans eventually fled, taking a handful of Hmong leaders, including Vang Pao.

With the Americans out of the picture, the Pathet Lao moved to try to wipe out the remaining Hmong elements that had worked with the CIA. But while thousands perished in aerial attacks on Hmong settlements—spurring a mass exodus to Thailand—the rest fled deeper into the jungle, where many remain today, still hoping the United States will return to save them.

 

Funeral for a Father

Earlier this month, thousands of mourners gathered in California for Vang Pao’s funeral. While an average Hmong usually receives a three-day funeral, owing to his stature among exiled Hmong, Vang Pao was given a six-day ceremony. While his critics have suggested his decision to support foreign forces led to his people suffering unnecessarily, the numbers attending the funeral demonstrated the loyalty he still inspired, with thousands of supporters flocking from locations as far away as France and Thailand to bid farewell to the symbolic head of a troubled people.

‘We call him “father.” He was always our leader and never turned his back on us, until his very last day,’ says Meng Lee, who attended the service.

In what turned out to be his final effort to secure some kind of lasting peace for his people, Vang Pao last year surprised followers by announcing a planned visit to Laos to meet government officials. The plan, revealed at a Hmong New Year dinner, was for him to make a peace deal with his former enemy on the Thai-Laotian border. Once peace had been agreed, Vang Pao planned to travel into Laos to assist the jungle Hmong. He hoped that those left in the jungle could then join repatriated refugees from Thailand on specially designated farmland, free from persecution.

But the Laotian government didn’t share this vision. In response to the proposal, Laos’ foreign minister is quoted as having said: ‘If he comes to Laos soon he must submit to the death sentence.’ The trip was cancelled.

The chilling response wasn’t entirely surprising—the Laotian government remains bitter over the role Vang Pao played in the Vietnam War. Ironically, then, the death of the would-be peacemaker might actually benefit the Hmong people, leaving space for a younger generation of ‘untainted’ leaders better able to avoid direct conflict with Vientiane. Still, the prospects for a breakthrough anytime soon seem remote.

No Foreign Friends?

Despite being home to more than 250,000 Hmong refugees, the United States has done little to try to resolve the ongoing tensions. In a recent meeting between US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Lao’s foreign minister in Washington, no mention seems to have been made of the persecuted Hmong.

The same can be said for Thailand, which allowed the forced repatriation of 4000 Hmong despite having trained many of Vang Pao’s forces. Thailand now also tops the list of Laos’ foreign investors.

Meanwhile, the Lao People’s Army continues to hunt down the remainder of the once formidable Hmong force. Always on the run, they have no time to harvest rice, so they survive largely by eating bugs and tree roots. Some of those who have surrendered in the past have returned to the jungle with stories of torture and rape. Without any form of foreign assistance, it seems likely most will eventually be found by the Army.

Shortly after Vang Pao’s death, speaking over a phone smuggled in by Hmong-American activists, Chor Fer says his group is struggling.

‘We’ve lost our father and don’t know what to do, we just keep running with nowhere to go,’ he says over a crackling line. ‘Every one of us wants to put an end to the war, but we know what will happen if we surrender. The communists will kill us.’

William Lloyd-George is a freelance journalist based on the Thai-Burma border. His work has appeared in TIME, The Independent, Bangkok Post, Afternposten, Irrawaddy and Global Post among others.

How FBI Enforces New Cointelpro Fascism On Behalf of Bankers

[SEE:  THE ORIGINS OF THE OVERCLASS]

Revealed: how the FBI coordinated the crackdown on Occupy

New documents prove what was once dismissed as paranoid fantasy: totally integrated corporate-state repression of dissent

• 
• • Naomi Wolf
  • guardian.co.uk
    

Police used teargas to drive back protesters following an attempt by the Occupy supporters to shut down the city of Oakland. Photograph: Noah Berger/AP

It was more sophisticated than we had imagined: new documents show that the violent crackdown on Occupy last fall – so mystifying at the time – was not just coordinated at the level of the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and local police. The crackdown, which involved, as you may recall, violent arrests, group disruption, canister missiles to the skulls of protesters, people held in handcuffs so tight they were injured, people held in bondage till they were forced to wet or soil themselves –was coordinated with the big banks themselves.

The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, in a groundbreaking scoop that should once more shame major US media outlets (why are nonprofits now some of the only entities in America left breaking major civil liberties news?), filed this request. The document – reproduced here in an easily searchable format – shows a terrifying network of coordinated DHS, FBI, police, regional fusion center, and private-sector activity so completely merged into one another that the monstrous whole is, in fact, one entity: in some cases, bearing a single name, the Domestic Security Alliance Council. And it reveals this merged entity to have one centrally planned, locally executed mission. The documents, in short, show the cops and DHS working for and with banks to target, arrest, and politically disable peaceful American citizens.

The documents, released after long delay in the week between Christmas and New Year, show a nationwide meta-plot unfolding in city after city in an Orwellian world: six American universities are sites where campus police funneled information about students involved with OWS to the FBI, with the administrations’ knowledge (p51); banks sat down with FBI officials to pool information about OWS protesters harvested by private security; plans to crush Occupy events, planned for a month down the road, were made by the FBI – and offered to the representatives of the same organizations that the protests would target; and even threats of the assassination of OWS leaders by sniper fire – by whom? Where? – now remain redacted and undisclosed to those American citizens in danger, contrary to standard FBI practice to inform the person concerned when there is a threat against a political leader (p61).

As Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, executive director of the PCJF, put it, the documents show that from the start, the FBI – though it acknowledgesOccupy movement as being, in fact, a peaceful organization – nonetheless designated OWS repeatedly as a “terrorist threat”:

“FBI documents just obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) … reveal that from its inception, the FBI treated the Occupy movement as a potential criminal and terrorist threat … The PCJF has obtained heavily redacted documents showing that FBI offices and agents around the country were in high gear conductingsurveillance against the movement even as early as August 2011, a month prior to the establishment of the OWS encampment in Zuccotti Park and other Occupy actions around the country.”

Verheyden-Hilliard points out the close partnering of banks, the New York Stock Exchange and at least one local Federal Reserve with the FBI and DHS, and calls it “police-statism”:

“This production [of documents], which we believe is just the tip of the iceberg, is a window into the nationwide scope of the FBI’s surveillance, monitoring, and reporting on peaceful protestors organizing with the Occupy movement … These documents also show these federal agencies functioning as a de facto intelligence arm of Wall Street and Corporate America.”

The documents show stunning range: in Denver, Colorado, that branch of the FBI and a “Bank Fraud Working Group” met in November 2011 – during the Occupy protests – to surveil the group. The Federal Reserve of Richmond, Virginia had its own private security surveilling Occupy Tampa and Tampa Veterans for Peace and passing privately-collected information on activists back to the Richmond FBI, which, in turn, categorized OWS activities under its “domestic terrorism” unit. The Anchorage, Alaska “terrorism task force” was watching Occupy Anchorage. The Jackson, Michigan “joint terrorism task force” was issuing a “counterterrorism preparedness alert” about the ill-organized grandmas and college sophomores in Occupy there. Also in Jackson, Michigan, the FBI and the “Bank Security Group” – multiple private banks – met to discuss the reaction to “National Bad Bank Sit-in Day” (the response was violent, as you may recall). The Virginia FBI sent that state’s Occupy members’ details to the Virginia terrorism fusion center. The Memphis FBI tracked OWS under its “joint terrorism task force” aegis, too. And so on, for over 100 pages.

Jason Leopold, at Truthout.org, who has sought similar documents for more than a year, reported that the FBI falsely asserted in response to his own FOIA requests that no documents related to its infiltration ofOccupy Wall Street existed at all. But the release may be strategic: if you are an Occupy activist and see how your information is being sent to terrorism task forces and fusion centers, not to mention the “longterm plans” of some redacted group to shoot you, this document is quite the deterrent.

There is a new twist: the merger of the private sector, DHS and the FBI means that any of us can become WikiLeaks, a point that Julian Assange was trying to make in explaining the argument behind his recent book. The fusion of the tracking of money and the suppression of dissent means that a huge area of vulnerability in civil society – people’s income streams and financial records – is now firmly in the hands of the banks, which are, in turn, now in the business of tracking your dissent.

Remember that only 10% of the money donated to WikiLeaks can be processed – because of financial sector and DHS-sponsored targeting of PayPal data. With this merger, that crushing of one’s personal or business financial freedom can happen to any of us. How messy, criminalizing and prosecuting dissent. How simple, by contrast, just to label an entity a “terrorist organization” and choke off, disrupt or indict its sources of financing.

Why the huge push for counterterrorism “fusion centers”, the DHS militarizing of police departments, and so on? It was never really about “the terrorists”. It was not even about civil unrest. It was always about this moment, when vast crimes might be uncovered by citizens – it was always, that is to say, meant to be about you.

Hard Truth About One of the Bush War Criminals

Globe

[SEE:  The Old Vampire Doesn’t Look So Good]

Defense Contractor NBC honors ailing war criminal George H.W. Bush with Freemasonic “33 photo” propaganda tribute

By Martin Hill
LibertyFight.com

A few points to start out: NBC is not an impartial media outlet. George H.W. Bush is not a respectable, admirable man or a national hero. And “33″ is not an insignificant number- It is quite relevant and meaningful, in some circles at least.

NBC is owned by General Electric, a “defense contractor and the 2nd largest company in world according to Forbes“, which has received over $16 billion dollars in bailouts from American taxpayers. They build and sell engines for the F-16 fighter aircraft and Apache Block III helicopters. For them, war is literally a profit racket; so it makes sense that they would “honor” warmongers.

NBC news far from impartial- they shill for the military-industrial complex and in 2003, fired Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Peter Arnett after Arnett reported the truth from Iraq: “America is reappraising the battlefield, delaying the war against Iraq, maybe a week and rewriting the war plan. The first plan has failed because of Iraqi resistance. Now they are trying to write another plan- So our reports about civilian casualties here, about the resistance of the Iraqi forces, are going back to the United States. It helps those who oppose the war when you challenge the policy to develop their arguments.”

As Steve Watson of PrisonPlanet.com reported in 2010,

“MSNBC is the epitome of the controlled corporate mainstream media, being as it is 80% owned by General Electric, operated by military industrial complex giant General Dynamics, whose primary business comes from supplying arms and weapons systems to the US government and its international allies. It is not and never has been sympathetic to anti-establishment or anti-war activism – this is the same network that cancelled Jesse Ventura’s talk show simply because he opposed the Iraq war”.

On December 26, NBC reported ”George H.W. Bush in ‘guarded condition’ in intensive care, battling elevated fever, spokesman says”.

NBC didn’t even break the story. Twenty days earlier on December 6, THE GLOBE tabloid magazine had already broke the story which hit supermarket checkout racks, with a front cover photo and headline which read“GEORGE BUSH, 88, PLEADS: LET ME DIE AT HOME!” The GLOBE article stated in part, “Hospitalized with a dangerous lung condition, former President George H.W. Bush knows his days are numbered and has asked to be allowed to die at home.”

Featured prominantly in the Johnny-come-lately NBC article was an elaborate slideshow, titled ‘The life and times of George H.W. Bush‘. Coincidentally, the slideshow presentation includes thirty-three photos, summarizing the 41st president’s life. The collection of historic and ‘cute’ photos attempts to present a dignified, affable codger who deserves to be honored. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth.

The number thirty-three holds quite a significance in Freemasonic circles. The numbers 11, 13 and 33 are the Illuminati / Freemason Signature. In their propaganda piece preceding the likely demise of the freemasonic former president, there are many flattering photos of Bush with family, with other politicians, playing horseshoes, etc. But NBC left out several photos of the REAL George H.W. Bush which should have been included.

There are no photos of George H.W. Bush in Dallas on the morning of John F. Kennedy’s assassination standing in front of the Texas Book Depository in Dealey Plaza, but the photos can be seen here. The photo of the FBI memo acknowledging that Bush was a CIA opeative at that time can be seen here: “FBI director J. Edgar Hoover wrote this memo 5 days after the assassination, naming George Bush as a CIA officer… “The substance of the forgoing information was orally furnished to Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency and Captain William Edwards of the Defense Intelligence Agency on November 23, 1963, by Mr. V.T. Forsyth of this Bureau.”

There are no photos of George H.W. Bush at the MENA, Arkansas drug running operation with Bill Clinton. The allegation “that Mena is a myth, that the CIA never ran cocaine through the Mena airport, or laundered the proceeds through various Arkansas financial institutions including Morgan Guarantee, Madison S&L, Worthen Bank, and most importantly, the Arkansas Development Finance Authority” is thoroughly debunked here. There is no photo of George Bush with legendary CIA agent Felix Rodriguez a.k.a. “Mr. Gomez” who ran the Mexican portion of the Iran-Contra guns and drug running operation on MSNBC, but the photo can be seen here.  

[Also here for more information on Mena.]

There are no photos of George H.W. Bush with the underage male homosexual hookers that admittedly toured his White House in 1989, as acknowledged in national newspapers and on the national TV news at the time: See TV News: Call boys in Bush Sr’s Whitehouse and the actual newspaper articles from The Washington Times: HOMOSEXUAL PROSTITUTION INQUIRY ENSNARES VIPS WITH REAGAN, BUSH June 29, 1989. [More info on this matter here and here.]

There are no photos of George H.W. Bush reacting to the half a million innocent Iraqis who died a s a result of of his sanctions during the first Iraq war. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told 60 Minutes on May 12, 1996 that the deaths were “worth it”:

Lesley Stahl: “We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?”
Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price -we think the price is worth it.”

Perhaps Bush shares the same views as his wife Barbara, who told ABC’s “Good Morning America” on March 18, 2003 “Why should we hear about body bags and deaths? Oh, I mean, it’s not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?” In December 2011, current Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who was formerly the CIA Director, similarly said that the systematic slaughter of 1.5 million Iraqis and the destruction of their nation was also “worth it”: “As difficult as [the Iraq invasion and occupation] was, and the cost in both American and Iraqi lives, “I think the price has been worth it, to establish a stable government in a very important region of the world”.

There are no photos of George H.W. Bush at his Masonic Yale Skulll and Bones ‘tomb’ which admitedly has skeletons of dead human babies hanging on the walls: “Dozens of skeletons and skulls, human and animal, dangle from the walls, on which German and Latin phrases have been chiseled (“Whether poor or rich, all are equal in death”) [Skull & Bones Society - A rare look inside Skull and Bones, the Yale secret society by Alexandra Robbins. See also Cremationofcare skull & bones archive and Bilderberg.org for more details on this matter.]

Bush’s father Prescott, the Nazi financier, and his son, George W. Bush, were also both members of Skull and Bones. In his autobiography, George W. Bush wrote “My senior year (at Yale University) I joined Skull and Bones, a secret society … so secret, I can’t say anything more.” [White House 'Bonesman' leads nation into the dark USATODAY 9/25/02.] In 2004 both George W. Bush and his cousin John Kerry laughed about the secrecy of their Skull and Bones memberships in separate TV interviews, which can be seen here.

NBC included no photos of George H.W. Bush taking part in occult ceremonies at Bohemian Grove performing mock human sacrifies to Molech and worshiping satan with other attendees Newt Gingrich, Henry Kissinger and Arnold Schwarzenegger. But photos of the Bushes, father and son together at Bohemian Grove, can be seen in the Annals of the Bohemian Club (vol 7), 1987-1996. Also inlcuded in the book are images from the occult Cremation of Care ceremony:

“This image from Page 131 shows the ancient Caananite occult ritual, the “Cremation of Care Here you see a smug George W. Bush with his father, Bush Senior (taken in 1995) giving what they call a “lakeside chat” at the Grove. This page also shows Newt Gingrich, another member. The talks are given no less than a dozen yards from the stone idol where “mock” human sacrifices take place. This is the same idol you see featured above in the Cremation of Care ceremony photo.”

For much more information and documentation on this matter, click here.

Speaking of skeletons of dead babies and human sacrifices, there are no photos of George H.W. Bush with his young daughter “Robin Bush” before she mysteriously died at a young age, allegedly from “lukemia”. It is on record that George W. Bush did not go to his sisters funeral. What kind of family doesn’t let a boy go to his little sister’s funeral? What did they do with her body? One can only speculate as to how she really died or where her body went. [SeeFREEMASONS: THEIR GOD IS THE DEVIL.]

There is no photo of George H.W. Bush with 62-year-old Bertha O. Champagne, the live-in housekeeper who was ‘crushed to death’ at the Alexandria, Virginia home of Marvin P. Bush. According to Marvin’s statement to police, Bertha went out to her car to retrieve some photos of her and George W. Bush to show to Marvin, on September 29th 2003 . How does one get crushed to death by her own Oldsmobile between the front of her car and a wall anyway? “Champagne was pinned between the car and a small building next to the driveway” the police report stated, with pools of blood and broken glass at the scene. No one was ever arrested or charged in the “accident.” (Oh Bertha, Poor Bertha, what did you see?)

There is no photo of George H.W. Bush having dinner with his good friends the Hinckley family the night before their son John Hinckley shot and tried to murder Ronald Reagan. Rense.com reports ”NBC news anchor John Chancellor, eyebrows raised, informed the viewers of the nightly news that the man who tried to kill the president was acquainted with the son of the man who would have become president had the attack succeeded. As a matter of fact, Chancellor reported in a bewildered tone, Scott Hinckley and Neil Bush had been scheduled to have dinner together at the home of the (then) vice-president’s son (Neil) the very next night. The story of the Bush-Hinckley connection was reported on the AP and UPI newswires and in some newspapers, including the Houston Post, which apparently originated the story. It was also reported in Newsweek magazine.”

There is no photo of George H. W. Bush weeping and babbling about the JFK assasination in front of a large audiences at innapropriate times. Apparently a tormented guilty conscience shows through at times, even in the hardest cases. In December 2006, Bush senior sobbed and covered his face while speaking about his son Jeb at a large Florida gathering. The very next month, in January 2007, Daddy Bush Attacked JFK “Conspiracy Theorists”. Paul Joseph Watson of PrisonPlanet.com reported

“Former President triumphs Warren Commission at Ford’s funeral; Are the Bush’s breaking down?
During his speech at yesterday’s funeral service for Gerald Ford, former President George H.W. Bush bashed JFK “conspiracy theorists” and defended the Warren Commission report, another odd public outburst indicative of a crime family whose decades of misdeeds may finally be catching up with them. “After a deluded gunman assassinated President Kennedy, our nation turned to Gerald Ford and a select handful of others to make sense of that madness,” said Bush. “And the conspiracy theorists can say what they will, but the Warren Commission report will always have the final definitive say on this tragic matter. Why? Because Jerry Ford put his name on it and Jerry Ford’s word was always good.”

Despite the Bush family presenting the facade of being “respectable pro-life Christians” for the gullible Republican voting block, there are no photos of George H.W. Bush praising his friend eugencist Margaret Sanger or attacking the Roman Pontiff Pope Paul VI and demanding worldwide population control as he did publicly on the House floor while a Congressman in the 1960′s, which is outlined in the official Congressional record. Our 2008 entry George H.W. Bush: Evil Population Control Ghoul- “Rubbers Goes To Congress” outlines a brief summary, as well as a youtube video, covering little known details of George H. W. Bush’s vehement advocacy of global population control when he was a Congressman in the late 1960′s. Includes congressional testimony of Bush’s attacks on the Pope and his support of planned parenthood. Excerpts are from the excellent book “George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography” by Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin Chapter X: Rubbers Goes to Congress [Available to read for free here. Excerpt at bottom of this page. See also Bush, Kissinger, Sanger and Ginsburg: All Eugenicists.]

NBC didn’t see fit to include photos of George H. W. Bush meeting with Osama bin Laden’s brother, Shafig bin Laden, in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Washington, on the morning of 9/11/01. In 2003, Paul Joseph Watson of PrisonPlanet.com reported “They were on Carlyle Group business just a few miles from where hijackers supposedly acting on behalf of Osama bin Laden would fly a plane into the Pentagon.”

Lastly, MSNBC presented no photo of George H. W. Bush being confronted by an educated and outraged patriotic American, who told him off in public in 2010. After being responsible for the murder and sterilization of countless millions of people worldwide, the degenerate coward occultist George H.W. Bush didn’t have the guts to say a single word in response to one man who had the courage to call him a “murderous, Zionist piece of $#@!!” to his face at a Houston Pizza Place. Instead, he used his government guards to try and bully the man, unsuccessfully. I am proud to say that this man, Greg, has been a friend of mine for many years and this dedicated truth-seeker’s act of speaking “truth to power” is not only admirable, but is a model for the rest of us:

[Watch video: How an old Bush can ruin a good lunch Jan 9, 2010.]
“January 6, 2010 – As if a restaurant’s shrine to a mass murderer and featured menu items in the name of the diabolical traitor to America weren’t enough, George Bush Sr. himself arrived when I was eating lunch with friends. Although I’m aware of many of his countless crimes against humanity, my mind went blank when it came to speaking out. It’s a wonderful thought for me to imagine these killers being scolded each and every time they appear in public.”

The Secret Service later called Greg’s friends and even came knocking on his door: Confronting a killer Part II: The Secret Service visit Jan 13, 2010

Q: What happens when you confront an ex-president and former head of the CIA?
A: The Secret Service visit you at home.
Thank you all for the overwhelming support! It means so very much to me.
It is an honor to know I was speaking for millions around the world when I shared my disgust with the so-called man.

On January 12, 2010 InfoWars reported: Man Who Confronted Bush Senior On Tape Visited by Secret Service:
“The video blogger who confronted international war criminal and top-drawer minion of the New World Order, George Bush Senior, was visited by the Secret Service after posting a video of the incident on YouTube. Earlier today he wrote an email to HoustonTruth.org:
Wanted to make you all aware that I was just visited by the Secret Service.
I stupidly opened the door, but then closed and locked it and told them I’d be right back with them. Then I put a tape in my camera and started to record. They told me they can’t talk on camera and left.
Thought you all should know in case I go missing, etc. No word as of this post if the Secret Service returned. The video in question follows. Please note the video contains strong language.” [See also O'Reilly demands 'deranged' Bush heckler be arrested

Hopefully, this collection will serve as a concise outline of the actual legacy of George H. W. Bush. And hopefully, for his own sake, this dreadful conspirator will repent for his own good before he meets his maker.

Martin Hill is a Catholic paleoconservative and civil rights advocate. His work has been featured on LewRockwell.com, WhatReallyHappened, Infowars, PrisonPlanet, Economic Policy Journal, FreedomsPhoenix, Veterans Today, The Wayne Madsen Report, Devvy.com, Rense, Antiwar.com, IamtheWitness.com, National Motorists Association, RomanCatholicReport.com, WorldNetDaily, ZionCrimeFactory.com, The Orange County Register, KNBC4 Los Angeles, Los Angeles Catholic Lay Mission Newspaper, KFI 640, The Press Enterprise, BlackBoxVoting, and many others. Archives can be found at LibertyFight.com

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Excerpts from: "George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography"

by Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin
Chapter X: Rubbers Goes to Congress
[Available to read for free here: http://www.tarpley.net/bush10.htm]

“Bush belonged to a small group of congressmen who successfully conspired to force a profound shift in the official U.S. attitude and policy toward population expansion. Embracing the “limits to growth” ideology with a vengeance, Bush and his coterie, which included such ultraliberal Democrats as then- Senator Walter Mondale (Minn.) and Rep. James Scheuer (N.Y.), labored to enact legislation which institutionalized population control as U.S. domestic and foreign policy.

Bush began his Malthusian activism in the House in 1968, which was the year in which Pope Paul VI issued his enyclical “Humanae Vitae,” which contained a prophetic warning of the danger of coercion by governments for the purpose of population control. The Pope wrote: “Let it be considered also that a dangerous weapon would be placed in the hands of those public authorities who place no heed of moral exigencies…. Who will stop rulers from favoring, from even imposing upon their people, the method of contraception which they judged to be most efficacious?” For poorer countries with a high population rate, the encyclical identified the only rational and humane policy: “No solution to these difficulties is acceptable which does violence to man’s essential dignity….The only possible solution … is one which envisages the social and economic progress both of individuals and of the whole of human society….”

This was a direct challenge to the cultural paradigm transformation which Bush and other exponents of the oligarchical world outlook were promoting. Not for the first time nor for the last time, Bush issued a direct attack on the Holy See. Just days after Humanae Vitae was issued, Bush declared: “I have decided to give my vigorous support for population control in both the United States and the world.” He also lashed out at the Pope. “For those of us who who feel so strongly on this issue, the recent enyclical was most discouraging.”

During his four years in Congress, Bush not only introduced key pieces of legislation to enforce population control both at home and abroad. He also continuously introduced into the congressional debate reams of propaganda about the threat of population growth and the inferiority of blacks, and he set up a special Republican task force which functioned as a forum for the most rabid Malthusian ideologues.

“Bush was really out front on the population issue,” a population- control activist recently said of this period of 1967-71. “He was saying things that even we were reluctant to talk about publicly.”

Bush’s open public advocacy of government measures tending towards zero population growth was a radical departure from the policies built into the federal bureaucracy up until that time. The climate of opinion just a few years earlier, in December 1959, is illustrated by the comments of President Eisenhower, who had said, “birth control is not our business. I cannot imagine anything more emphatically a subject that is not a proper political or governmental activity … or responsibility.”

As a congressman, Bush played an absolutely pivotal role in this shift. Shortly after arriving in Washington, he teamed up with fellow Republican Herman Schneebeli to offer a series of amendments to the Social Security Act to place priority emphasis on what was euphemistically called “family planning services.” The avowed goal was to reduce the number of children born to women on welfare.

THE NAZI ROOTS OF U.S. GUN-CONTROL LAWS

 

Exclusive: Ellis Washington has historical chart linking firearm restrictions to genocide

 by ELLIS WASHINGTON Email 

Ellis Washington is a former editor of the Michigan Law Review and law clerk at The Rutherford Institute. He is an instructor at Spring Arbor University, the American College of Education, and the National Paralegal College. Washington is a co-host on “Joshua’s Trial, a radio show of Christian conservative thought. A graduate of John Marshall Law School, his latest book is “The Nuremberg Trials: Last Tragedy of the Holocaust” (2008) and law review article, “Natural Law Considerations of Juvenile Law” (2010). Visit his website, Ellis Washington Report.

 

Here’s the Formula: Hatred + Government + Disarmed Civilians = Genocide.

What makes the argument so powerful? Two factors. First, it makes common sense: Unarmed, defenseless people have no hope against armed aggressors. Second, it states the historical truth: Evil governments did wipe out 170,000,000 innocent non-military lives in the 20th century alone.

~ Jews for the Preservation of Firearm Ownership website

The pretext: Massacre of the innocents – Newtown, Conn.

I am a professor at a wonderful online school called National Paralegal College (NPC). Shannon Southard, a student there recently raised some very prescient questions on the issue of gun control:

Seems that almost every shooting that has made national headlines recently has involved a shooter suffering from one form or mental issues or another. We had two tragic shootings this week – one in a crowded mall another in an elementary school. Not to mention the awful shooting earlier this year at the movie theater. … Who should be blamed for these individuals being able to commit such heinous acts – lawmakers for allowing access to weapons, mental health professionals for possibly not treating appropriately, society for turning their backs on them?

This prompted fellow NPC student, Kathryn Dunigan to remark, “Almost all the mass shooters over the past 20 years, including the ones at Columbine and the Aurora Theater were on mind altering psychiatric drugs. Is gun control really the national conversation we need, or is [it] medication control?”

This comment prompted my response to Kathryn:

Don’t take the easy (unconstitutional) way out. … I want you to reconsider your remarks in light of constitutional history. If you follow Obama’s and the Democratic Party path to disarm law-abiding citizens, then the criminals (who won’t obey any gun laws) will be emboldened to use gun violence without limits. Why? Because they will know that law-abiding citizens will be disarmed and easy prey for criminals to abuse We the People. When in doubt, always follow the Constitution.

I would invite you to read Dr. John Lott’s excellent book dispelling liberal assumptions on the correlation between the access of guns and the proliferation of gun violence. You can read a short analysis of Dr. Lott’s book, “More Guns, Less Crime.”

Note the level of vitriol in the academic community against his theories. Why? Because progressives understand that to effect and increase federal government hegemony and state-control throughout society, the Second Amendment must be repealed. Look at the history of all fascist societies from Robespierre and the Jacobins, the French Enlightenment, Germany’s Otto von Bismarck, to Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Franco, etc. The first thing these tyrants want to do as soon as they secured power was to disarm the public and make the STATE (e.g., the army, police, secret police, Gestapo, etc.) the only entity legally allowed to possess guns. Why? So the state can steal your unalienable (God-given) liberties and make you slaves of the Leviathan State. … In my opinion, President Obama has almost taken America to that abyss.

The Policy

The great Spanish philosopher George Santayana warned us decades ago: Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (JPFO) is an organization dedicated to the preservation of gun rights in the United States and “to encourage Americans to understand and defend all of the Bill of Rights for everyone.” The group was founded by former firearms dealer Aaron S. Zelman in 1986. JPFO interprets the Second Amendment as recognizing a pre-existing natural right of individuals to keep and bear arms.

According to the comprehensive research by JPFO, all of America’s present gun-control laws have Nazi origins, evidenced by the group’s shocking accusation that the Gun Control Act of 1968 was plagiarized almost word for word from Nazi legislation. The German Weapons Law, which existed before the Nazis came to power in 1933, was amended on March 18, 1938, by the Nazi government. The JPFO’s claim is based in part by the fact that the 1968 law introduces the “sporting purpose” test to distinguish different types of weapons, similar to the “sporting purpose” test that existed in the German law in question. Sen. Thomas Joseph Dodd (father to Sen. Chris Dodd) was a prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials and had reviewed copies of the Nazi firearms law as the 1968 legislation was being drafted.

Examine carefully the JPFO chart below detailing the history of global gun control laws in just a few selected countries over the past 100 years; it is a Who’s Who of hatred of liberty, government fascism, disarmed civilians and genocide.

The Postlude

America, you have a constitutional natural right to be armed in order to protect yourself, because under U.S law the police have no duty to protect the average person. The Bill of Rights (the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution) are all unalienable rights, which meant that they are God-given, self-evident truths, natural rights that originated from God, the Bible and Natural Law and therefore can never be lawfully taken away by man or the State.

America, if you don’t learn your history, you will be damned to repeat it.