Omar Sheikh’s Pak handler Ilyas Kashmiri also handled Headley

PranabDhalSamanta

A year after 26/11, renovation work on at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai on Sunday.

In late 1994, a milkman knocked on the door of a Ghaziabad house. As the door opened, he noticed men with guns inside, but he still delivered the milk. He then tipped off police who raided the place and rescued several foreign hostages being held by a group of terrorists, seeking the release of some arrested militant leaders including Maulana Masood Azhar. Azhar had been arrested in February that year.

When the police reached there, the commander of the terrorist group that called itself Al-Hadid — essentially it was a Harkat-ul Ansar-Harkat-ul Jihad-al-Islami operation — had just stepped out with his trusted lieutenant Omar Saeed Sheikh. The police confronted them as they returned and, in the gunbattle that ensued, Sheikh was injured and arrested but the commander escaped. He was none other than Ilyas Kashmiri. Omar Sheikh was later released in exchange for passengers aboard the hijacked IC-814 at Kandahar.

Kashmiri is the common thread that runs between Sheikh and David Coleman Headley, arrested by FBI for plotting terror attacks on India at the behest of the Lashkar-e-Toiba. Both were Pakistan-born anglicized youth, equally committed and skilled in understanding and adapting to the ways of the West. They did not fit the traditional description of a jihadi terrorist, yet were very effective in planning attacks.

Kashmiri, who was once the head of the infamous 313 brigade and the HuJI that carried out attacks in Kashmir, always looked for recruits with such attributes that allowed them to move under the radar, contributing to his terror missions abroad.

Headley or Daood Gilani was no exception. The FBI believes he is an alumnus of the Cadet College in Hassan Abdal, Pakistan which is very much like India’s military schools that train young children to join the Army. But Gilani moved to the US and then changed his identity in 2006. His cover for travels abroad was that of a representative of First Immigration Services, a company run by co-accused Tahawwur Hussain Rana.

Headley used “doctor” and “Pir Sahib” as the codewords for his patron-in-chief Ilyas Kashmiri. On September 13, amid press reports of Kashmiri’s death in a drone attack, he spoke to his contact in Pakistan who informed him that the “doctor may have got married there”. A distraught Headley shot back, “so it means our company has gone into bankruptcy then”.

FBI investigators believe that “getting married” was coded language for dying or having achieved martyrdom. This 13-minute phone call, according to the FBI, ended at 5.09 pm Chicago time and at 5.12 pm Headley did a Google search for Ilyas Kashmiri to read the latest reports. He repeated the search three days later on September 16 at 7.29 pm and accessed reports on Kashmiri’s alleged death.

The next day he again spoke to his Pakistan contact and said: “It is everywhere now… their marriage has been confirmed”. In the same conversation, a shaken Headley wanted to even fold up their activities. “But now there is nothing to do there. Now let us collect unemployment from the company… when a company lays off in case of bankruptcy, it discharges employees”. When his contact tried to console him that this was not a big loss to their effort, Headley replied: “No, it’s not a small loss, it is a major loss.”

On September 19, he spoke to a “family member” close to Kashmiri and said, “He was our Pir Sahib where you and I went… and we did baiat (oath of allegiance)” he just had a heart attack. It has made me very sad”. But on September 21, he got a call from his first Pakistani contact, who tells him that fresh reports indicate that Kashmiri is still alive. Headley could not control his emotions, “Buddy if this is true, then I will say a 100 prayers, a 100 prayers.”

It was not until September 30 that Headley got final confirmation of Kashmiri being alive. Excited, he made his contact swear several times on the veracity of the information and remarks, “So, he does not get married… so I will be able to meet him upon returning (to Pakistan)”. The reply is in the positive: “Absolutely right, he just today was asking about you”.

On October 3, Headley was off to Chicago’s O’ Hare International airport to board a flight for Philadelphia on his way to Pakistan — it was then that the FBI nabbed him, fearing he may not return for long or they may lose track of him.

Indian investigators believe that Headley, who had spent considerable amount of time and energy surveying targets in Copenhagen was under instructions to put the plan on hold and would have received fresh orders to go to India for attacks there. The Lashkar-e-Toiba member, who was in touch with Headley, had been persuading him to focus on India but FBI investigations suggest Headley was more keen on going ahead with Copenhagen, what he described as the “northern project” and the “mickey mouse project”.

This conflict comes to fore during that week in September when Headley is distraught by news of Kashmiri’s death. His undisclosed Pakistani contact, who is known to Kashmiri as well as the LeT, asks Headley to now reach out to his LeT contact. In that conversation, Headley complains that LeT’s eyes are “again in that direction”. This is important because the LeT contact, as recorded in FBI’s affidavits, had spoken last to Headley about revisiting “Rahul’s city”, a pointer to targeting India.

Headley also did not have a high opinion of his LeT contact, describing him as a person with “rotten guts” in the same conversation with his Pakistani contact, who does not disagree and says, “They do not want to take risks and want to be praised also”. To this, Headley responds: “Then there will be no profit because when you have high aims, as much as an investment will be risky as much is the chance of profits and at the same time there is chance of loss.”

Talk about a fresh attack on India figured first on July 3 when Headley’s LeT contact sent him an email inquiring about “new investment plans” even as Headley was working on the Copenhagen plan. He then asked Headley to revisit “Rahul’s city”, adding that “matters were good enough to move forward”. Headley asks a clarification on whether moving forward meant “towards Rahul” to the North. The reply came: “towards Rahul”.

Headley then asks a few pointed questions about the purpose of the visit and then whether the “northern project” was postponed. He never got a clear answer though he repeatedly asked the question in the email exchange that continued until August-end. At that point, FBI believes, the LeT contact was kept out of the Copenhagen plan. But Headley did tell his LeT contact that he will discuss the plans about “Rahul’s city” when they meet September-end.

While Indian investigators are moving on the assumption that Headley was a LeT member, the best understanding of Headley’s role comes from Headley himself in a September 20 conversation in coded language with one of Kashmiri’s “family members” when it was believed that Kashmiri was dead and Headley was gradually overcoming the “grief”.

“The main thing is business must go on. Main thing is I have some income… make some money. I don’t care if I am working for Microsoft or I am working for a GE or Philips, I don’t care. As long as I am making money, I don’t give a shit,” said Headley, leading FBI to conclude that in the end it did not matter to him whether he was working for Kashmiri’s group or the LeT.

Obama gives Interpol free hand in U.S.

No presidential statement or White House press briefing was held on it. In fact, all that can be found about it on the official White House Web site is the Dec. 17 announcement and one-paragraph text of President Obama’s Executive Order 12425, with this innocuous headline: “Amending Executive Order 12425 Designating Interpol as a public international organization entitled to enjoy certain privileges, exemptions, and immunities.”In fact, this new directive from Obama may be the most destructive blow ever struck against American constitutional civil liberties. No wonder the White House said as little as possible about it.

There are multiple reasons why this Obama decision is so deeply disturbing. First, the Obama order reverses a 1983 Reagan administration decision in order to grant Interpol, the International Criminal Police Organization, two key privileges. First, Obama has granted Interpol the ability to operate within the territorial limits of the United States without being subject to the same constitutional restraints that apply to all domestic law enforcement agencies such as the FBI. Second, Obama has exempted Interpol’s domestic facilities — including its office within the U.S. Department of Justice — from search and seizure by U.S. authorities and from disclosure of archived documents in response to Freedom of Information Act requests filed by U.S. citizens. Think very carefully about what you just read: Obama has given an international law enforcement organization that is accountable to no other national authority the ability to operate as it pleases within our own borders, and he has freed it from the most basic measure of official transparency and accountability, the FOIA.

The Examiner has asked for but not yet received from the White House press office an explanation of why the president signed this executive order and who among his advisers was involved in the process leading to his doing so. Unless the White House can provide credible reasons to think otherwise, it seems clear that Executive Order 12425’s consequences could be far-reaching and disastrous. To cite only the most obvious example, giving Interpol free rein to act within this country could subject U.S. military, diplomatic, and intelligence personnel to the prospect of being taken into custody and hauled before the International Criminal Court as “war criminals.”

As National Review Online’s Andy McCarthy put it, the White House must answer these questions: Why should we elevate an international police force above American law? Why would we immunize an international police force from the limitations that constrain the FBI and other American law-enforcement agencies? Why is it suddenly necessary to have, within the Justice Department, a repository for stashing government files that will be beyond the scrutiny of Congress, American law enforcement, the media, and the American people?

Karachi CCTV footage shows arsonists wreaking havoc

KARACHI: The CCTV footage of the Karachi riots has been released to the media. The footage captured by cameras installed by the city district government clearly shows arsonists setting fire to shops, vehicles and destroying public and private property.The images show several arsonists and rioters setting fire to cars and shops after the blast on Karachi’s Mohammad Ali Jinnah road.According to the CDGK, these and other visuals were also sent to police and other law enforcement authorities so that the people seen in the video can be identified and action can be taken against them.In the footage, police and other security personnel can be seen standing by, doing nothing, while miscreants were busy rioting.DawnNews spoke to DIG South Mr Ghulam Nabi Memon who heads the investigating unit probing the riots. He said the police did not open fire to avoid collateral damage.Memon said had the police opened fire they could have hit mourners in the procession and that would have had negative fallout. — DawnNews

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TTP denies hand in Karachi procession attack

[Is Pak Taliban spokesman telling the truth, or do terrorist bombers sometimes fear being too successful?]

Vehicles are on fire after a bombing struck a Shia procession in Karachi, December 28, 2009. —Photo by AP

KARACHI: The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) on Thursday denied any involvement in the Karachi Ashura procession attack which killed 44 people and left dozens others injured.

Azam Tariq, the TTP spokesman, denied having any involvement in the attack and said militant commander Azmatullah Shaheen’s claim was baseless and that he ‘acted on his own will’.

The TTP, said Tariq, does not target public places in Pakistan.

Earlier, on Wednesday, Asmatullah Shaheen, a top militant commander based in South Waziristan told news agencies by telephone that the TTP was behind the attack, warning that they would carry out more such attacks and also target government installations

Army, ISI Blocking UN Probe Into Bhutto Assassination

‘Limited mandate’ hinders UN probe into Bhutto’s killing

In this file photo taken on July 17, 2009, Peter Fitzgerald (R) a member of UN inquiry commission listens to Ben Malor, a UN official during a news conference in Islamabad. The inquiry commission has been denied access by the Pakistani government to interrogate the Army Chief and other top officials of intelligence agencies. –Photo by Reuters

KARACHI: The UN probe into the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto has hit a road block as the government denied access to the incumbent Army Chief and other top serving military generals for interrogation.

The UN had appointed a three-member inquiry commission to determine the facts and circumstances under which Bhutto was assassinated on December 27, 2007.

According to the terms of reference of the investigation, the UN had demanded that the commission should enjoy compelete cooperation from the government.

The commission wanted access to the Chief of Army Staff Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, former ISI Chief Lt.Gen Nadeem Taj and former Military Intelligence Chief Lt.Gen Nadeem Ejaz Mian among other top officials of the intelligence agencies.

The UN probe commission’s terms of reference said ‘the government shall comply with the requests of the commission for assistance in collecting the required information and testimony, and shall provide it with the necessary facilities to enable it to discharge its mandate.’

A top government official confirmed to DawnNews that a written request had been received from the UN commission to interrogate military officials, including the incumbent Army Chief during the investigation process.

The official added that it was after thorough consultation by the government that the UN commission was informed in writing that access to abovementioned officials cannot be granted to them. –DawnNews

Mufti Usmani holds Blackwater responsible for blast

[Now would that be the Blackwater that works for the ISI, or the one that contracts for the CIA, or isn’t it all the same?]

By Shamim Bano

Karachi

Contrary to the claim and media reports by the media about Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan taking responsibility of the Ashura bomb blast, Mufti Mohammed Rafi Usmani held US agency Blackwater responsible for the gory incident that claimed more than 40 lives.

Addressing a news conference along with Muhammed Taqi, Mufti Muhammed Naeem, Maulana Tanver-ul-Haq and others on Wednesday, Mufti Usmani said that Blackwater was involved in the killing of innocent people in the Muharram procession.

He said that soon after the blast, shops in the city’s economic hub were set ablaze which proved that the attack was “pre-planned and organized”.

Mufti Usmani said that the incident was a conspiracy against Islam and the government totally failed to control the situation, as it was the responsibility of the government to provide security to the citizens and to protect the property. He said that the terrorism act was not committed by any Muslim and instead it was the act of Blackwater that had hired locals to unleash terror in the city.

He alleged that Blackwater was hiring youths in Peshawar to carry out attacks and suicide bombings.

Mufti Usmai said that no person could carry weapons or other destructive items with him on occasions of religious processions and the incident was an attack on the country’s sovereignty.

“By the grace of God we achieved the country, but we do not take care of it. It is not only weaknesses of successive governments but also of the people who are the least bothered about taking care of their country,” he said.

The government, he said, must stop taking dictation from the US and form its own policies. Mufti Usmani demanded that immediate measures should be taken to compensate the affected traders of Boulton Market, Light House and other affected areas.

He also demanded conducting an independent inquiry into the incident and exposing those involved in the heinous crime.

Meanwhile, the Sunni Ittehad Council condemned the attack on the Ashura procession.

Addressing a press conference, Sahibzada Fazal Karim said that the attack on the procession was a conspiracy to destabilise the country.

He demanded of the government to constitute a commission headed by the Chief Justice of the Sindh High Court to probe the matter and to ascertain the losses incurred by the traders within 15 days. He also demanded of the government to announce compensation for the affected traders so that they could restart their businesses again.

He also supported the strike call given by the Sunni Rahber Council for Friday.

Meanwhile, the Sunni Tehreek (ST) in a separate press conference also endorsed the Friday strike call and announced to hold a protest rally in the city on Saturday. ST leader Shakil Qadri said that protest rallies would also be held in other parts of the country.

More Motorcycles and Murder In Karachi

[Just the latest incident of multiple murders, probably using automatic weapons, associated with missing or stolen bikes.  All the assassinations of generals taking place lately have been on motorcycles, just like the recent “hit” in Karachi, where ISI i.d.s were recovered from the assailants.]

Bullet-riddled bodies found

Karachi

The bullet-riddled bodies of Ghulam Nabi, 35, and Aurangzeb, 32, were found lying opposite the Coast Guards’ Headquarter, in Korangi 2ž from the Zaman Town police limits.

The police also recovered a pistol and a motorcycle from the spot.

During investigations, it transpired that the motorcycle was snatched from Korangi Industrial Area (KIA) on December 22 by the slain, Ghulam Nabi, from an employee of a towel factory.

The police said that Nabi was wanted by police stations of Korangi, Zaman Town, Awami Colony and KIA in robbery cases.

The other deceased, Aurangzeb, belonged to Larkana and was employed in a towel factory in KIA. A case was registered and investigation is under way.

IMF Forces Pak Power and Gas Price Hikes, Jan. 1, Social Backlash Anticipated

Power, gas price hike may lead to mass agitation

By Khalid Mustafa

As many as 170 million people of the country will experience from January 1 the double edged sword of almost 18 per cent hike in gas prices and 13.6 per cent raise in power tariff for the January-March period. This would lead to massive inflation in the country, which may trigger a countrywide agitation against the government.

However, the decision to implement in staggering form or in one go will be taken by the top political leadership today (Dec 31).Background interviews say that the elected government would enforce the 13.6 per cent raise in power tariff most probably in staggering form, but the cascading effect would actually raise the power tariff to 15 per cent. However, the Ministry of Finance is adamant to enforce the 13.6 per cent power tariff increase in one go, keeping in view the wrath of the International Monetary Fund, which has recently given the fourth tranche of $1.2 billion of its bailout package.

The Finance Ministry also fears the wrath of the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank that have already showed annoyance for not increasing the power tariff by 06 per cent from October 1, as the government has just implemented raise of 4.4 per cent. At that time, the government did not pass the 6.6 per cent raise across the board as its lifeline and agri tubewells consumers remained aloof from the raise. The decision to raise gas and power tariff may put the existence of the government in danger as in case of backlash from the masses, the anti-government forces will definitely capitalise on the anger of masses against the government.

However, now the government is in a quandary as to whether the subsidy to lifeline consumers or agri tubewells consumers be waived off or not, as again the incumbent regime, which is already in the middle of the storm, cannot afford to take back the subsidy at least from lifeline consumers, who consume just 50 units of electricity. The IMF and donor agencies want the elimination of the subsidy being extended to lifeline consumers, agriculture tubewells customers.

The top leadership is likely to take a political decision today to this effect, but if the subsidy is not withdrawn, then other categories of the power consumers would not face the 13.6 per cent raise, but would face more than that in addition to the accumulative effect of the staggering raise of 13.6 in three months.

Once Again Anti-State Elements Are Given Free Pass To Raise Hell In Karachi

[Will the day never come, when the Pakistani people stop taking this sort of abuse by authority figures and the shadowy sectarian outfits associated with them?  Do not forget that all of these groups are derivatives of Sipah e-Sahaba, or that Sipah was a creation of the ISI.  Over and over we read the same stories in the Pakistani press about murders, arsons and rioting directed against non-Sunni groups, while the police hide and the fire departments are attacked.  Pakistan, you know who is doing this and you know that elements within your own government are either encouraging it, or allowing it to happen.  The same can be said with all these terror bombings attributed to “foreign” sources, even though it is obvious to all that these foreign elements operate with impunity within your country, even though your ISI constantly monitors everything within its realm.  When you point the finger for what has happened in Karachi at Israel, India or the United States, do not forget that the ISI is the CIA’s primary partner in all of this state terror.]

Ashura blast aftermath

Serious questions emerge about performance of LEAs

By Salis bin Perwaiz

KARACHI: Many questions have arisen after the suicide attack on the mourning procession on the 10th of Muharram-ul-Haram and the subsequent arsoning incidents that engulfed the country’s main business hub. Observers allege that the attack happened due to massive security failures. The questions being asked are:

Where was the contingency plan and the Anti-Riot Force? Why did personnel of law enforcement agencies vanish from the spot? Where was the extra force provided to the Sindh Police to tackle any untoward situation, none of which was seen rescuing public and private properties?

When miscreants were targeting major business centres like Boulton Market, Paper Market, Light House and others, where were the reserves of the Sindh Police? Where were the water cannons with which the Sindh Police Department was recently equipped?

Why did the police term the Qasba Morr blast on Muharram 9th a gas explosion? If that was so, where did the splinters come from and how the people received splinters injuries? After the two bomb blasts on the 8th and 9th of Muharram, why did the heads of law enforcement agencies not tighten the security along the Ashura procession?

Commenting on failures of law-enforcement agencies and the distressing episode, observers wondered that every unit of the Karachi Police had its reserves but why they were not used. According to a senior officer, the Karachi Police were provided about 1,700 policemen from the Training Centre. Earlier, in every major incident, it was witnessed that whenever any major law and order situation occurred, the Anti-Riot Force came to combat the rioters. This time, there was no sign of it. They added it seems that the departments had not thoroughly reviewed the contingency plan or they would have known that in case of terrorist activity, there were defined measures they were to adopt to tackle violence and to save public and private properties.

A constable or a policemen deputed for security duty has three options: First, if any violence has happened and rioters or miscreants are attacking public and private buildings, it is the duty of the police to retaliate and save the property but in this tragic violence, no action was taken from the police side. The police and other law enforcement agency personnel simply vanished from the spot. Why?

In the whole scenario, strangely not a single tear gas-shell was fired to disperse the arsonists. Observers said more than three days had passed and yet the police had failed to confirm that the blast was a suicide attack.

In a damning statement, on December 29, City Nazim Mustafa Kamal, told the media he was not contacted by any LEA head for coordination and was not invited to the Ashura security plan meeting, if there was any.

The City Nazim said the fire department was not supported by the LEA personnel as the mob had attacked the fire tenders. On 30th, he again claimedthat he was helpless and that the CDGK rescue workers were left at the mercy of the mob and there was no police help. He appeared in a section of the electronic media and showed footage of the rioting, which showed that there was no control over the rioters by the police.

Meanwhile, there are about six unclaimed bodies and some body parts at the Civil Hospital. The mystery of the police handling of the incident is forcing people to form their own hypothesis, some with pretty compelling evidence, but damning conclusions.

Afghans protest Obama over student killings

worldbulletin.net

Another Guantanamo Alumnus Creates Another “Al Qaida” Front–Coincidence or The Plan?

[Who remembers Abdullah Mehsud, the original creator of the so-called Pakistani Taliban, the TTP?  How about Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was not in Guantanamo, but was a guest for an extended stay with the Jordanian secret police?  Wherever the United States wants to invade next, one of these former prisoners appears, to start another major militant movement, which inevitably justifies American military intervention.  While we were concerned about an Israeli airstrike on Iran and a US invasion of Pakistan, or a new incursion into one of the “Stans,” Obama, Israel and the Saudis came-up with this new front.  Keep in mind two things–the guys we are launching airstrikes upon are Shia, who have nothing to do with Sunni “al Qaida,” and the actual “al Qaida” guys rounded-up by the Yemenis have all been linked to the Mossad by hard physical evidence.  Mossad is “Al Qaida in Yemen.”]

Bomb plot ‘ringleaders’ were freed from Guantanamo Bay

Obama orders tougher airline security as Cuban prison returns to haunt him

By Rupert Cornwell

REUTERS

The leader of al-Qa’ida in Yemen, Nasser al-Wahaishi, 2nd right, his deputy Said al-Shihri, 2nd left, the group’s field commander, Mohammed al-Oufi, right, and the group’s commander, Qassim al-Raimi, left, in a rare video

Bluntly admitting a “systemic failure” of US security procedures, President Obama last night ordered a report within 48 hours on what went wrong to allow a young Nigerian student to come within an ace of blowing up a Detroit-bound plane on Christmas Day.

In his strongest statement on the incident – one of the most perilous terrorist threats since the 11 September attacks – Mr Obama acknowledged both human and systemic mistakes that had led to a “catastrophic” breach of security.

“When our government has information on a known extremist and that information is not shared and acted upon as it should have been, so that this extremist boards a plane with dangerous explosives that could cost nearly 300 lives, a systemic failure has occurred,” the President said in Hawaii last night, where he is on a Christmas break with his family. “I consider that totally unacceptable.”

Mr Obama’s stark words are a measure of how the almost successful attack on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is sending shockwaves far beyond the US. It leaves little doubt that Yemen, where the attack appears to have been planned, will become a de facto third front in America’s “war on terror” after Afghanistan and Iraq. It could also further delay the President’s promise to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay.

New details leave little doubt of the gravity of the attempted bombing. According to experts, the 80 grams of PETN explosive concealed in Abdulmutallab’s underwear could have ripped a hole in the plane’s side as it approached Detroit airport. The device was twice as powerful as the one used by the convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid on a transatlantic flight in December 2001.

The affair has ignited a furious political debate over US anti-terrorist procedures, with Republicans assailing the Obama administration for the system’s failure to identify Abdulmutallab as a risk, despite a host of pointers.

Among these, critics say, are the suspect’s purchase of a single ticket with cash, the fact that he was making the long journey from Nigeria to the US without luggage, and the warning given to the US authorities, including a CIA official, by Abdulmutallab’s father that his son had developed alarming extremist leanings. But it is the Yemen connection that is causing the most concern, and reinforcing doubts about the wisdom of closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay.

It now seems that at least two detainees from the prison who were released to Yemen are part of the al-Qa’ida affiliate group – called al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula – that has claimed responsibility for the attack. They are Abu al-Hareth Muhammad al-Oufi, a field commander, and Said al-Shihri, said to be the group’s deputy leader, who was transferred by the Bush administration to the Saudi authorities and released in 2007. Abdulmutallab, 23, was living in Yemen between August and December this year, and has told investigators it was there that he was supplied with the device he tried to detonate. Earlier this month, the White House announced its intention to transfer the bulk of Guantanamo detainees to an empty prison in northern Illinois, and resettle most of the rest in third countries. That remains the plan, officials say. But of the 200-odd prisoners remaining at Guantanamo almost half are from Yemen – and only last week six Yemenis were sent back to their own country, even though it is a hotbed of al-Qa’ida activity.

According to top Yemeni officials, up to 300 al-Qa’ida militants could be based there, some of whom may be plotting new attacks on Western targets. “Of course there are a number of al- Qa’ida operatives in Yemen, and some of their leaders. We realise this danger,” Yemen’s Foreign Minister, Abu Bakr al-Qirbi, told the BBC.

Mr Abu Bakr al-Qirbi insisted that for all its weaknesses, and its wars with Shia rebels in the north and separatists in the south, Yemen’s central government was committed to the conflict with al-Qa’ida. But, he said, it was not getting enough support from the West.

“We have to expand our counter-terrorism units and this means providing them with the necessary training, military equipment,” he said. The US, Britain and the EU could all help out, he added.

However the immediate priority for the Obama administration – and a prime reason for the President’s forceful words last night – is to regain control of the political fallout of the incident, amid accusations that, with its focus on healthcare reform, it took its eye off the terrorist ball.

“I don’t believe we’ll ever have more advance warning of an attack on America,” one anti-terrorist specialist said yesterday, incredulous that Abdulmutallab’s US visa had not been revoked, and that he was not on a list that would have stopped him boarding a US-bound plane.

Officials say that the father’s warning alone was not enough of a red flag. But Mr Obama has ordered a full review of the watch-list system, as well as an increase in the number of air marshalls on incoming international flights. But that has not defused the issue in the ferociously partisan political climate here. Republicans see fresh opportunity to paint Mr Obama as weak on terrorism, and will carry the offensive into Congressional hearings on the bombing attempt, set for next month.

Provide Aid to Yemen, Or the Bogeyman Will Get You

[Sounds like Bandar’s threats against Britain about investigating royal bribes..SEE: Saudis told Britain it could ‘face another 7/7’]

To stave off al-Qaida, Canada must provide aid: Yemeni ambassador

BY JORGE BARRERA, CANWEST NEWS SERVICE

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, is a Nigerian man suspected of attempting to blow up Northwest 253 flight as it was landing in Detroit on Christmas day.

Photograph by: Handout, U.S. Marshals Service

OTTAWA —Canada needs to play a bigger role in Yemen to help the country loosen the grip of al-Qaida operatives who are trying to establish a presence there, says Yemen’s ambassador to Canada.

Ambassador Khaled Mahfoudh Bahah said the Canadian International Development Agency, Canada’s aid arm, needs to “urgently add Yemen to the recently pruned list of countries currently receiving aid from Ottawa to help raise the country’s standard of living and undercut the growth of al-Qaida.

“Canada cannot be far away from all of this . . . Canada has to look to that corner of the world,” said Bahah, in an interview Wednesday with Canwest News Service.

Bahah said the Yemeni government raised the issue of Canadian aid during a visit by the Speaker of the Senate, Noel Kinsella, in 2008, but never heard back from the Canadian government.

With the recent revelation of a Yemeni al-Qaida connection to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian engineering student who tried to blow up a plane flying from Amsterdam to Detroit on Dec. 25, Bahah said now is the time for countries like Canada to increase their engagement with Yemen.

“It is time for CIDA to make Yemen a focus,” said Bahah. “Otherwise, it will be very costly to think of bringing Yemen back if we don’t look now at increasing its capacity and providing general assistance whether in education, health, water and its government capacity . . . CIDA needs to consider Yemen urgently because it is needed now.”

Bahah’s message to Canada echoes that of Yemeni government ministers who have called for more Western aid in the wake of the botched Christmas Day terror attack on a Northwest Airlines flight. The plane was reportedly flying over Canada when Abdulmutallab attempted to ignite an explosive hidden in his underwear.

Besides assistance from CIDA, Bahah said his government would also like the Canadian Coast Guard to share its expertise with Yemen’s coast guard to increase its ability to monitor the country’s shores.

“Individuals who come to the boundary of Yemen will mostly come from the seaside and the Horn of Africa,” he said. “If there is a strong coast guard on the Yemeni side, I think it would also help prevent and stop (Somali) piracy.”

The Gulf of Aden and a major international shipping lane separate Yemen from Somalia, which has become the world’s top haven for high-seas pirates.

Canada could also help Yemen deal with an increasing refugee burden from neighbouring countries along with sharing its expertise in unifying and governing a diverse and regionalized population, said Bahah.

Yemen became a republic in 1990 when North Yemen, which had gained independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1918, joined South Yemen, which had gained its autonomy from the British in 1967.

Bahah said al-Qaida has attempted to establish a presence in Yemen because it is facing pressure in places like Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. He said al-Qaida was attempting to exploit the high rate of poverty in the country, which has a yearly per capita GDP of $1,000. He said the population has an illiteracy rate of 50 per cent and a female illiteracy rate of 70 per cent.

Bahah said those kinds of numbers should be enough for Canada to add Yemen to the list of 20 countries currently receiving aid from CIDA.

“The support of CIDA would give some relief to the people of Yemen and it would be directly from the Canadian people to the Yemeni people,” he said. “It will create a kind of peace and respect for a Western country.”

In February, the Conservative government announced CIDA would provide aid to only 20 countries.

© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service

Afghan Officer Blows-Away 8 CIA Men

Afghan attacks kill 8 CIA employees, 5 Canadians

Jonathon Burch and Sayed Salahuddin

KABUL

KABUL (Reuters) – A suicide bomber penetrated a foreign army base in Afghanistan to kill eight U.S. CIA employees on Wednesday, one of the spy agency’s largest death tolls, and a separate attack killed four Canadian troops and a journalist.

A “well-dressed” Afghan army official detonated a suicide vest at a meeting of CIA officials in southeastern Khost province, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Reuters.

“This deadly attack was carried out by a valorous Afghan army member when the officials were busy gaining information about the mujahideen, in the (fitness) club,” he wrote in an email.

The attack is one of the most ambitious of the war, highlighting the Taliban’s reach and coordination at a time when violence has reached its highest levels since the overthrow of the Taliban regime by U.S.-backed Afghan forces in 2001.

It was also the second Afghan army killing in as many days on the foreign troops and officials who are meant to be mentoring them, casting a shadow over plans to bolster the Afghan army and police to allow their troops to eventually bring them home.

U.S. President Barack Obama is sending 30,000 extra troops to tackle the violence and NATO allies are contributing thousands more. An Afghan army official said on Wednesday that Washington had pledged $16 billion to train the army and air force.

When asked how the attacker managed to launch an assault in a foreign military base, Taliban spokesman Mujahid replied: “Since the man was an officer, he had not much difficulties.”

U.S. officials said the dead Americans were CIA employees. Some people were also wounded in the explosion, defense officials said, but no U.S. or NATO troops were among them.

The CIA has been expanding its presence in the country, stepping up strikes against Taliban and al Qaeda militants along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Forward Operating Base Chapman, the site of the suicide attack, is near the Pakistan border, in one of the areas of Afghanistan where the Taliban insurgency is strongest.

The agency’s role hunting terrorism suspects in Afghanistan has been criticized by both Afghans and human rights groups.

JOURNALIST KILLED

The five Canadians — four soldiers and a journalist — were killed when their armored vehicle was hit by a bomb in southern Kandahar province, the Canadian Defense Ministry said.

The blast, about 4 km (2.5 miles) outside Kandahar, struck the patrol as it was visiting community reconstruction projects.

The Khost base targeted by the suicide attacker is also a center for reconstruction projects, a key part of Obama’s strategy to stabilize the country.

Washington has pledged a “civilian surge,” adding hundreds of U.S. experts to support work on development projects that aim to undermine support for the Taliban and other insurgents.

But foreign aid agencies warned earlier this year that the shift into the military bases, and the use of military personnel to carry out development projects, risked a dangerous blurring of the boundaries between troops and civilians.

The journalist killed was Michelle Lang, 34, on assignment for the Canwest News Service. She was on her first assignment in Afghanistan and had been in the country since December 11.

She is the third journalist to die in Afghanistan this year.

The attack brought Canada’s military deaths in Afghanistan to 138. Canada has a 2,800-strong military mission in Afghanistan, but the mission has become increasingly unpopular at home and it is scheduled to be withdrawn at the end of 2011.

(Writing by Emma Graham-Harrison; Editing by Ron Popeski)

Pakistan Says No to Indian Transit Route

No transit route to Afghanistan for Indian trucks: Pak

December 26, 2009 12:53 IST rediff.com
Notwithstanding United States’ pressure, Pakistan has denied allowing Indian goods to pass through its territory to Afghanistan.

According to The Nation, Pakistan has strongly opposed the US proposal of granting transit facility to Indian trucks to Afghanistan through its soil.

“Washington has swallowed the bitter pill and given up its moves to get land route transit facility for India [ Images ] through Pakistan,” a senior government official, who is privy to the issue, said.

Insiders said Pakistani authorities rebuffed the demands by pointing out towards India’s alleged involvement in terror activities in Balochistan and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas through Afghanistan.

However, Pakistan has agreed to allow Afghanistan more than 60 trucks a month for transporting of its goods up to the Wagah border.

Sources said both Pakistan and Afghanistan have also agreed to maintain a track of the supply trucks through an electronic tracking system.

The drivers of these vehicles would be responsible for the ultimate delivery of the goods in transit while Afghan goods arriving at Pakistani seaports will have to reach Afghanistan within 30 days after their clearance.

India Looking to Dominate In Afghanistan

Let India help Afghanistan

India’s close ties with Afghanistan mean it is well placed to step in when the west has flown its last soldier out of Kabul
guardian.co.uk Shashank Joshi Friday 25 December 2009
In the 19th century, Indian armies twice crossed the Hindu Kush, hoping to stitch together the patchwork political authority of the territory in the service of their British masters. Over a century later, the sovereign republic of India once more has a renewed presence in what was once its mountainous buffer from the Tsarist, and then Soviet, giant to the north.

A year ago, Indians completed the construction of Afghanistan’s new parliament building and, to compound the symbolism, provided training to the legislators who would make the country’s laws. Over a billion dollars in aid and investment, multiple consulates, and a little-reported thousand-strong troop presence all testify to the flourishing ties between the two democracies.

India is Afghanistan’s fifth-largest donor, pledging $1.2bn since 2001 and providing aid that spans education, health and infrastructure. The most eye-catching project, a 215km road connecting the Iranian border to Afghanistan’s arterial highway, will eventually allow India to transport goods by sea to an Iranian port it is developing, and thence to Afghanistan and beyond. This circumvents the overland route, blocked by Pakistan, but also gives a fillip to Indo-Afghan trade ($538m during 2007-8). Hamid Karzai, himself educated in India and the beneficiary of Indian military support during the 1990s, visited India four times in the first five years of his tenure. The Afghan national army, the linchpin of the new American strategy to pacify the country, receives training across India.

Not everyone is happy with the widening Indian footprint. Pakistan, long reliant on Afghanistan as a source of “strategic depth” has invoked fears of encirclement and Indian-sponsored separatism. This is in addition to the panoply of wild “conspiracy theorists who insist that every one of Pakistan’s ills are there because of interference by the US, India, Israel and Afghanistan”, says Ahmed Rashid, a noted Pakistani journalist.

Among other attacks, a car bomb at the Indian embassy in Kabul killed 41 in July 2008. According to the New York Times, American officials quickly presented “intercepted communications between Pakistani intelligence officers and militants who carried out the attack” to demonstrate Pakistani culpability and “the ISI officers had not been renegades”.

Then in September 2009, General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of the International Security Assistance Force, suggested in a leaked assessment of the war that “while Indian activities largely benefit the Afghan people, increasing Indian influence in Afghanistan is likely to exacerbate regional tensions and encourage Pakistani countermeasures in Afghanistan or India”. The scarcely veiled threat of further bloodbaths such as Mumbai prompted renewed anger in the Indian media.

India has responded cautiously. Indian defence minister AK Antony insisted “categorically there is no question of Indian military involvement in Afghanistan not now, not in the future”. A former head of India’s foreign intelligence service has said that “sending troops is not an option”.

There are sound and perhaps compelling reasons for this reticence. There remain bitter memories of the 1,200 deaths suffered by an Indian peacekeeping force in Sri Lanka, and although Indian security forces have six decades of counterinsurgency experience, they face multiple intensifying guerilla wars at home from Maoists and separatists. Moreover, India’s coalition politics, featuring local parties with parochial interests, is hardly suited to sustaining ambitious foreign policies.

Yet more than 1,000 members of the paramilitary Indo-Tibetan Border Police are deployed in Afghanistan. President Obama’s affirmation to withdraw US forces by 2011 has generated a prospective vacuum, inducing Pakistan to renew its support for the Taliban. This has produced loudening, though still marginal, Indian voices in favour of more boots on the ground.

Amir Taheri, writing in The Times, suggests that a military commitment is “surprisingly popular in India”. One former diplomat argues that “influential sections of Indian opinion are stridently calling for an outright Indian intervention in Afghanistan without awaiting the niceties of an American invitation letter”.

The editor of the “realist” journal Pragati writes that “military involvement will shift the battleground away from Kashmir and the Indian mainland”. An affiliated blog draws on the idea of “force fungibility” to argue that “since it is not feasible for Indian troops to directly attack Pakistan’s military-jihadi complex, India should ensure that US troops do so” by “reliev[ing them] of duties in areas where they are not actually fighting the Taliban – especially in western and northern Afghanistan”.

Others have suggested that “the best contribution might be in the areas of combat training and creating capacities in logistics and communications”, still sorely lacking in the embryonic Afghan national army.

Support for the war is faltering in western capitals, partly because citizens cannot see how it furthers homeland security. The frequency and scale of attacks on India mean that Indians have no such trouble. National caveats on force employment – particularly from France, Italy, and Germany – hinder the efficacy of Nato troops, but Indian casualty sensitivity is almost certainly less than that in, say, Britain.

India’s longstanding cultural ties to Afghanistan – Bollywood movies are wildly popular there, for instance – mean that Indian soldiers would be less likely to be stigmatised as occupiers, with 73% of Afghans professing a favourable view of India (and 91% holding the opposite view of Pakistan).

India is also experienced at counterinsurgency, enjoys good relations with regional powers such as Iran and Russia (including bases in Tajikistan), and the large reserves of available forces. India has nearly 9,000 troops with the UN, and just withdrew 30,000 from Jammu and Kashmir.

The obstacle to India’s involvement is Pakistan. Yet few stop to evaluate the absurdity of having “today’s most active sponsor of terrorism” as a frontline ally against terrorists. In December 2009, the New York Times reported Pakistan’s refusal to crack down on Siraj Haqqani, the strongest Taliban commander in Afghanistan, on the basis that he was a “longtime asset of Pakistan’s spy agency”.

The truth downplayed in western capitals is that India is one of the only interested parties, the US included, that has an interest in both state-building and counterterrorism on the Afghan side of the Durand line. Creating incentives for it to expand its provision of security could lay the groundwork for a commitment that will last long after the last western soldier is flown – or desperately airlifted – out of Kabul.

Afghan soldier kills US service member at army base

* 2009 proves to be bloodiest year for international troops

HERAT: An Afghan soldier killed a US service member and wounded two Italian soldiers when he opened fire on foreign troops at an army base in western Afghanistan on Tuesday, said a senior Afghan army officer.

The shooting is the latest in a string of such incidents, at a time when Western countries are pouring resources into training Afghan soldiers and police to fight the Taliban insurgency. “The soldier opened fire on the two Italians and one American in a joint Afghan and foreign base,” a senior officer, General Khair Mohammad Khawari told Reuters.

“Two Italian soldiers were wounded and one American soldier was killed,” Khawari said. “The assailant comes from an area north of the Afghan capital Kabul and is thought to have mental health problems”, said Khawari.

A spokesman for NATO-led forces said a US service member had died following a shooting incident in western Afghanistan. Foreign and Afghan forces were investigating the incident, he said, but declined to give further details. Italian Defence Ministry officials said the attack, which was deliberate and not a case of friendly fire, occurred during a routine supply operation.

One Italian was lightly wounded in the thigh and the other in the hand and leg but both have returned to their duties. Violence in Afghanistan has reached its highest levels in the eight-year war and 2009 has been the bloodiest year for foreign troops. More than twice as many Americans have died in Afghanistan this year than in 2008.

Attacks by Afghan soldiers on their foreign mentors highlight the sometimes testy relations between the two and have prompted public debate in the West about the war and concern over the safety of troops embroiled in an increasingly unpopular conflict. Four US troops were killed and three wounded by Afghan soldiers in two other incidents earlier this year, one in the northeast and one just south of Kabul.

Karachi tragedy a planned conspiracy, says Iftikhar

By Zakir Hassnain

PESHAWAR: NWFP Minister for Information Mian Iftikhar Hussain said on Tuesday the Karachi tragedy on Youm-e-Ashur was a well-planned conspiracy to create chaos, lawlessness and confusion in the city.

Iftikhar, also the spokesman for the provincial government, said it was not the mourners that burnt buildings, a huge number of shops, banks and vehicles, adding it was in fact the anti-state elements that burnt and devastated property which showed it was a well-planned conspiracy to disrupt peace and create lawlessness and confusion.

Addressing a press conference, the spokesman condemned on behalf of the government and the people of the Frontier province the Karachi bomb blast claiming innocent lives and causing colossal damage to the property.

The minister expressed grief and sorrow over the tragic incident and sympathised with the bereaved families. Mian Iftikhar lauded the role of ulema that condemned the Karachi incident. The spokesman said the provincial government was determined to put an end to existence of terrorists and militants.

Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan claim Karachi bombing

Vehicles are on fire after a bombing struck a Shia procession in Karachi, December 28, 2009. — AP Photo

KARACHI: Pakistan’s Taliban on Wednesday claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that killed 43 people in Karachi, and threatened more attacks.

“My group claims responsibility for the Karachi attack and we will carry out more such attacks, within 10 days,” Asmatullah Shaheen, one of the commanders of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or Taliban Movement of Pakistan, who spoke by telephone to a Reuters reporter in Peshawar.

The prospect of more violence comes at a tough time for embattled President Asif Ali Zardari. He already faces political pressure because corruption charges against some of his aides may be revived.

And Zardari has yet to formulate a more effective strategy against the Pakistani Taliban, despite relentless pressure from Washington, which wants his government to root out militants who cross over to attack US and Nato-led forces in Afghanistan and then return to their Pakistan strongholds.

The scale of his challenges was clear on Monday, when a suicide bomber defied heavy security around a Shia procession, killing 43 people and triggering riots.

In a sign of mounting frustrations, Pakistani religious and political leaders called for a strike for Friday to condemn that attack, one of the worst in Karachi since 2007.

The bloodshed illustrated how the Taliban, whose strongholds are in the lawless northwest, have extended their reach to major cities in their drive to topple the government.

“The bombing itself was bad enough, but the violence that immediately erupted was also very well planned,” said Sunni scholar Mufti Muneebur Rehman, who blamed Pakistani authorities for the chaos.

“We want the government not only to compensate those killed in the attacks, but also those who lost their livelihoods, and so we are calling for a complete strike on Friday,” he said.

The Taliban campaign and their hardline brand of Islam — which involves public hangings and whippings of anyone who disobeys them — angered many Pakistanis.
But the Karachi bomb suggested growing violence has raised suspicions of Pakistan’s government.

“The government is using the Taliban as an excuse for everything that is happening anywhere in the country,” said Noman Ahmed, who works for a Karachi clearing agency.

“The organised way that all this is being done clearly shows that the terrorists are being sponsored either by the government itself or some other state that wants to destabilise Pakistan.”

Security policy

Pakistan’s all-powerful military sets security policy. So the key gauge of public confidence may be how the army’s performance is viewed. In the 1980s, Pakistan’s army nurtured militant groups who fought Soviet occupation troops in Afghanistan. The Taliban emerged in the 1990’s after a civil war in Afghanistan.

Now Pakistan’s army faces home-grown militants.

“I don’t buy that foreign hands are involved (in the Karachi attack). They’re domestic elements. They’re those who were nurtured, trained and protected in late 1990s,” said Sajid Ali Naqvi, head of the influential Shias’ Islami Tehrik movement.

The bombing was one of the bloodiest in Karachi since an October 2007 attack on former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto on her return to the country that killed at least 139 people.

Shia leaders, as well as Karachi’s dominant Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) political party, backed the strike call, which could bring the teeming city of 18 million to a standstill.

The high-profile bloodshed had all the hallmarks of the Taliban, who often bomb crowded areas to inflict maximum casualties. The blast led some Pakistanis to conclude that several hands must have been involved.

“The Taliban, or whoever is behind this, cannot do it without the support of a government,” said Shahid Mahmood, whose perfume and watch shops were torched in the riots.

“They know that Karachi is the heart of Pakistan and if it goes down, the country will go down.”

Obama’s War, From Pakistan to Somalia

Terror havens in four states: US

“We will continue to use every element of our national power to disrupt, to dismantle and defeat the violent extremists who threaten us, whether they are from Afghanistan or Pakistan, Yemen or Somalia, or anywhere where they are plotting attacks against the US homeland.” – Photo by AP.

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama has identified Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia as the four places where terrorists were hatching plans to attack the United States.

In a statement issued on Monday evening, Mr Obama also vowed to track down the plotters behind the attempted Christmas Day aeroplane bombing attack.

He said the attack was a serious reminder of the danger his nation faced.

Mr Obama said he also had ordered a thorough review of the airport screening process to determine how the alleged bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was able to fly into the United States.

Commenting on an attempt to bomb a US airliner while it was landing in Detroit, the president said he had directed his national security team to keep up the pressure on those who would attack his country. “We do not yet have all the answers about this latest attempt, but those who would slaughter innocent men, women and children must know that the United States will do more than simply strengthen our defences,” he said.

“We will continue to use every element of our national power to disrupt, to dismantle and defeat the violent extremists who threaten us, whether they are from Afghanistan or Pakistan, Yemen or Somalia, or anywhere where they are plotting attacks against the US homeland.”

Mr Obama noted that apparently the suspect in the Christmas incident was in the US security system, but not on a watch list, such as the so-called no-fly list.

“So I have ordered a thorough review, not only of how information related to the subject was handled, but of the overall watch list system and how it can be strengthened,” he said.

The second review would examine all screening policies, technologies and procedures related to air travel, he added. “We need to determine just how the suspect was able to bring dangerous explosives aboard an aircraft and what additional steps we can take to thwart future attacks.”

Evidence Suggests Phosphorus Used In Karachi Arson Attacks

Chemical used in ‘well-planned’ arson attacks

By Imran Ayub

A bulldozer work at a market which was burned by angry mob in Karachi. — Photo by AP

KARACHI: As firefighters succeeded in dousing the flames engulfing more than 2,000 shops on M.A. Jinnah Road following over 20 hours of effort on Tuesday, they found ‘obvious’ signs of chemicals used in the arson, lending credence to the suspicions of traders and investigators who see the arson as a premeditated and well-planned strike after a deadly attack on the Muharram procession that killed about 43 people on Monday.

Though the traders of more than a dozen wholesale markets found themselves clueless to the reason behind the violent reaction of the bomb attack, investigators, perhaps for the first time in the violent history of Karachi, enjoy immense technological edge provided by the city government’s command and control system.

“Our system has recorded each and every movement,” claimed City Nazim Syed Mustafa Kamal. “We offered the facility to the police for the procession’s surveillance despite the fact that it’s not our responsibility to make security arrangements. But we will do the same if they need help in investigations.”

The city nazim, who monitored the firefighting operation in the nearly 18 different wholesale markets housed in various buildings on M.A. Jinnah Road, said the firemen performed 36-hour duty before and after the tragic events despite the fact that they faced stiff resistance from arsonists who attacked the fire tenders and firefighters.

A few firefighters Dawn spoke to termed the blaze the worst in decades which went wild due to arson coupled with flammable products in different shops and stores.

“There are visible signs of phosphorus used in the fires,” said an official at the city government’s fire department. “Further description of the particular chemical used in the arson can only be established through proper chemical examination, which has not been ordered from any side, including the investigation agencies.”

He said the markets were set on fire one by one in a matter of minutes on M.A. Jinnah Road and the blaze raged from shop to shop and floor to floor.

Though the city police still look for more clues to the number of and links to the suspected suicide bomber, the investigators said they had acquired all the footage recorded by the city government’s surveillance cameras, which could help spot the arsonists.

“We have been analysing and further enhancing the footage to make them more effective,” said Capital City Police Officer Waseem Ahmed. “A sabotage attempt behind the fires can’t be ruled out but there is a question mark over the capability and performance of our fire department.”

He referred to the fact that delays in the arrival of fire tenders to the scene finally forced the police to call a recently-acquired anti-riot vehicle carrying 2,000 gallons of water for firefighting.

Ateeq Meer, the chairman of the Alliance of Market Associations, a common platform for nearly 300 markets and traders’ associations, echoed the same sentiments. But he also blamed the police for not rising to the occasion.

“They left the arsonists free to do what they willed,” he said. “Iqbal Market, Light House market of cloth, Kapra Market with wholesales markets of imported FMCGs (fast moving consumers goods), perfumes, glasses, chemical and medicine have been burnt to ashes. It has already made some 12,500 people unemployed as they were directly associated with the business in these markets, and turned about 2,500 traders into paupers.”

He cited the initial assessment, which estimated that more than Rs30 billion worth of losses were suffered by the traders, but was not ready to believe the government’s announcement for compensation.

“It has been more than two years when the government had come up with the same lollypops following violence in the wake of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination,” Mr Meer said. “They would again set up a committee to assess the damages, claims and then recommend just peanuts. That didn’t work in the past, neither it will work in the future.”

Post-bombing arson poses fundamental questions

By Qadeer Tanoli

Karachi

The riots and the ensuing arson and destruction in the aftermath of the suicide blast on Monday in the main Ashura procession on M.A Jinnah Road have raised several fundamental questions that need to be answered by the authorities.

Was there a delay in the firefighting? At least 2,500 shops were burnt to ashes by rioters, and shopkeepers are questioning the delay in the arrival of fire tenders. A City District Government Karachi (CDGK)-run fire station is situated near the spot of the incident, and shopkeepers believe that “timely action” could have reduced losses, which, according to Alliance of Market Association Karachi (AMAK) Chairman Attique Mir, currently stand at more than Rs30 billion.

The affected shopkeepers from Boulton Market told The News that rescue teams managed, at best, to merely salvage “burnt materials,” which cannot possibly be put to any use at all.

Who ‘stopped’ the fire tenders? Eyewitnesses said that ‘rioters’ first put set fire to hundreds of shops, and then some people made concerted efforts to stop fire tenders from the rescue operation. The first fire tenders managed to reach the spot after a considerable delay, a number of people alleged. By that time, the worst had already been done and the fire had begun to engulf other shops.

AMAK Chairman Attique Mir was of the opinion that the participants of the Ashura procession obviously did not walk around carrying petrol, which was used to set shops ablaze. “It seems that the attack on Boulton Market was preplanned; even the police failed to stop the destruction,” he said.

Who then, was carrying out the arson? There have been reports that specific chemicals were used to ignite the fires, which are not easily available to be used in impromptu protestors

Where was the police support? Misbahudin Farid, an official of the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) who supervised the rescue operation unofficially in the absence of Executive District Officer (EDO) Municipal Services Masood Alam, said that while the fire department had reacted immediately, rioters created hurdles for it, delaying the arrival of fire tenders at the site.

During all of this, he said, the police was not available to support the fire department’s rescue operation.

District Coordination Officer (DCO) Karachi Javed Haneef Khan told The News that the standard practice is to deploy eight fire tenders and a few ambulances with Ashura processions, to tackle any untoward event. He added, however, that the fire department officials, who had been deployed with the procession on Monday, had to run for their lives after they and their vehicles were attacked by mobs. The DCO said that even his own vehicle was set ablaze by rioters.

Did the fire tenders have water, chemical spray? Moreover, Mir said that the first fleet of the fire tenders which arrived on the scene did not have enough water to extinguish the blaze. Water had to be brought from the nearby sea, and the rescue operation began in earnest around 2:00am. Mir further said that the fire department did not have proper chemical sprays either which are needed to extinguish the sort of plastic-related fires that had erupted in a number of shops in Boulton Market. This was a straightforward equation given that a huge number of shops that were in flames historically dealt in plastic goods.

Farid, however, refuted Mir’s claims. “There was no issue regarding the availability of water for the fire tenders,” Farid told The News. He said that hydrants are situated near the site of the incident; around 40 fire tenders used water from this hydrant to extinguish the fire.

Moreover, early Tuesday morning, some fire tenders and a snorkel also came from Hyderabad to assist in the rescue operations.

However, the fires continued to rage well over 24 hours.

How pivotal will the C&CC’s footage be? A couple of days ago, the CDGK had claimed that every inch of the procession route will be monitored through cameras which are being controlled from the Command and Control Centre (C&CC) at the Civic Centre.

Will the footage be able to establish who was carrying out the arson?

The EDO Information Technology (IT) told The News that 23 cameras were installed along the route of the procession; each camera covers a range of two to three kilometres. DCO Khan added that footage of the riots does exist, and will be offered to whichever investigation agency demands it. “Cameras were monitoring activities from Nishtar Park to Merewether Tower. The C&CC should have footage of the rioters, although I have not seen it personally,” he said, adding that looking into these details and forming conclusions was the “job of experts”.

He, however, offered complete support to investigators, and said that the police have already collected some of the relevant records.

Why were important authorities not around? While EDO Municipal Services Masood Alam is currently on leave, Sindh Home Minister Dr Zulfiqar Mirza has reportedly not been in the city for the past three days, despite the fact that Karachi hosts one of the largest Ashura processions in the country every year, and there had already been security concerns voiced before the attack.

Shouldn’t Mirza, the security chief of the province, have been in the city to oversee the arrangements and coordination of an event that is a huge security risk?

Will the enquiry see the light of day? Will the report of the enquiry team constituted by the Interior Minister see the light of day unlike those of May 12 and April 9, which are still awaited?

When will investigations be completed, and when will evidence from the C&CC be made public? The city government had made a massive investment in the C&CC – a system which has now been put the test.

Karachi Attacks More Than Taliban–Think Usual Suspects

[There are forces other than just the so-called Pakistani Taliban at work here.  The sudden appearance of armed thugs…the missing law enforcement and fire-fighters…tell us that the same suspects who promoted rioting and fire-setting in past riots in Karachi are at it once again.  The only thing missing are the multi-colored flags.  Sectarian attacks in the home of the Sunni Tehreek are nothing new.  Who benefits from all of this–surely not the real Afghan Taliban, or the Pushtun people, who will bear the brunt of the reprisals for all of this?  The TTP are an anti-Taliban force who work for foreign forces, but more importantly, they serve the interests of the most virulent of all the anti-Taliban forces within Pakistan itself.  SEE: Waging War Upon Ourselves ]

Masked men ignited violence, claim eyewitnesses

By Zeeshan Azmat

Karachi

A group of mourners present in the procession on Monday have claimed that masked men, who were not part of the procession, appeared on the site and started destroying public property.

Syed Imam, a banker who witnessed the blast, said that he was standing very close to the spot where the blast occurred. “There was dark, thick layer of smoke soon after the blast. I saw several people enter into the road from side lanes and they started hammering the shutters of the shops with hammers.”

Mossa Ali, another mourner present on the spot, alleged that a group of masked-men also came on the road and started firing on people. “None of these men were present in the procession and all of a sudden they took control of the streets and damaged public and private property,” he said.

Jafery, another participant, said that the firing incidents started within five to 10 minutes of the blast. The mourners caught some people who were involved in the arson and ransacking but there were no law enforcement agency personnel present at that time, he added. Later on, the mourners decided to carry on the procession till its final destination and released the miscreants as there was no official present to handover them.

Zionist Handshake

from Rense.com

Western Troops Reportedly Kill 8 Children At Gunpoint In Afghanistan

People chant anti-American slogans and burn an effigy of U.S. President Barack Obama in Jalalabad, south Afghanistan, Wednesday, Dec. 30, 2009., during a protest against the recent killings of 10 civilians allegedly by the coalition forces in Kunar province, eight of them boys aged between 12 and 14. A NATO official said initial reports from troops involved in the fighting on Sunday indicated that the victims were insurgents.

(AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)

Afghan civilians ‘shot dead’ by foreign forces

By Sardar Ahmad (AFP) – 5 hours ago

KABUL — Afghan government investigators on Wednesday accused foreign troops of dragging 10 people, including eight children, from their homes and shooting them dead.

Anti-US protests erupted in at least two cities over the alleged killings as President Hamid Karzai’s office published its report, likely to enflame tensions between the Afghan government and its Western military backers.

The presidential investigating team said the dead included eight children, between 13 and 17 years old, said a statement from Karzai’s office.

The alleged incident took place late Saturday in the eastern province of Kunar, where Taliban activity is high as the militants are believed to cross into Afghanistan across the porous border with Pakistan.

International forces based in Kunar and local police told Asadullah Wafa, head of the investigating team and a former governor of Kunar province, that “they were unaware of the incident,” Wafa told AFP.

“A unit of international forces descended from a plane in the Narang district of Kunar province and took 10 people from three homes, eight of them school students in grades six, nine and 10, one of them a guest, the rest from the same family, and shot them dead,” the statement said, quoting Wafa.

Wafa was shown documents by the principal of the school that the students attended, proving their status, the statement added.

Karzai had spoken to the father and uncles of the students, offering his condolences, and promised a full investigation.

“The president assured them that the government will seriously investigate the incident and deal with the culprits in accordance with the law,” the statement said.

Hundreds of university students blocked main roads in Jalalabad, capital of eastern Nangahar province, on Wednesday to protest the alleged deaths.

The protesters torched a US flag and an effigy of US President Barack Obama in a public square, after chanting “death to Obama” and “death to foreign forces”, witnesses said.

“Our demonstration is against those foreigners who have come to our country,” said Safiullah Aminzai, a student organiser.

“They have not brought democracy to Afghanistan but they are killing our religious scholars and children.”

Protesters in downtown Kabul tied green ribbons around their foreheads on which was written in red “stop killing us,” witnesses said.

Others chanted “foreigners out” and “death to the murderers of Afghan people”.

Civilian deaths in the eight-year war to eradicate a Taliban-led insurgency are a sensitive issue for the Afghan public, and fan tensions between Karzai and the 113,000 foreign troops.

NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which has 113,000 troops in Afghanistan, said it had no activities in the area at the time the alleged incident took place.

A senior Western military official said US Special Forces have been conducting operations in the area, separately from ISAF.

The United Nations released figures this week showing that civilian deaths rose 10.8 percent in the first 10 months of 2009 to 2,038, up from 1,838 for the same period of 2008.

The UN calculations show the majority, or 1,404 civilians, were killed by insurgents fighting to overthrow Karzai’s government and eject Western troops.

But extremists rarely claim responsibility for attacks that kill large numbers of civilians, instead blaming foreign forces in an increasingly effective propaganda campaign.

The Taliban rely increasingly on homemade bombs, which exact a horrific toll on civilians and military alike, with foreign troop deaths at a record 508 this year.

America Needs Pakistan?s Help – Again Part IV

America Needs Pakistan?s Help – Again Part IV

29 Dec, 2009 Jeff Gates

The Israel/India Alliance Below is the fourth installment in a 5-part series written forOpinion Maker by Jeff Gates, author of Guilt By Association. In April 2009, Tel Aviv signed a $1.1 billion agreement to provide New Delhi an advanced tactical air defense system developed by Raytheon, a U.S. defense contractor. That agreement confirmed what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had earlier announced: “Our ties with India don’t have any limitation….” In May 2009, Israel delivered to India the first of three Phalcon Airborne Warning and Control Systems (AWACS) shifting the balance of conventional weapons in the region by giving India air dominance over Pakistan. Israel has overtaken Russia as India’s chief arms supplier as New Delhi announced $50 billion in defense modernization outlays from 2007 to 2012. The fast emerging fact patterns suggest there is far more implied for Pakistan in this “special defense relationship” than meets the eye. In August 2008, Ashkenazim General David Kezerashvili returned to his native Georgia from Tel Aviv to lead an assault on separatists in South Ossetia with the support of Tel Aviv-provided arms and military training provided by Israel Defense Forces. That crisis ignited Cold War tensions between the U.S. and Russia, key members of the Quartet (along with the EU and the UN) pledged to resolve the six-decade Israel-Palestine conflict. Little was reported in mainstream media about the Israeli interest in a pipeline across Georgia meant to move Caspian oil through Turkey and on to Eurasia with Tel Aviv a profit-extracting intermediary undercutting Russia’s oil industry. Nor did mainstream media report on the self-reinforcing nature of serial well-timed crises that emerged in a compressed time frame. For example, on August 7, 2008, the ruling coalition led by Asif Ali Zarderi called for a no-confidence vote in Parliament on President Parvez Musharraf just as he was scheduled to depart for the Summer Olympics in Beijing. On August 8, heavy fighting erupted overnight in South Ossetia while the heads of state of both Russia and the U.S. were in Beijing. What other crises were then unfolding? But for pro-Israeli influence inside the U.S. government, would our State Department have backed the corrupt Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan, leading to record-level poppy production involving Karzai’s brother? Is the heroin epidemic presently eroding Russian society traceable to Israel’s fabled game theory war-planners who are infamous for disabling their targets from the inside out? Three months after the crisis in Georgia, a terrorist attack in Mumbai renewed fears of nuclear tension between India and Pakistan. When the Mumbai attackers struck a hostel managed by Chabad Lubavitch, an ultra-orthodox Jewish sect from New York, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni announced from Tel Aviv: “Our world is under attack.” See: “Israel and 9-11” By early December, Jewish journalists were arguing that Israel must “fortify the security of Jewish institutions worldwide.” In the U.S., the Department of Homeland Security continued its policy of dispersing U.S. taxpayer funds to protect synagogues and Jewish community centers. Pre-Staged Plausibility Soon after “India’s 9-11” was found to include personnel recruited from Pakistan’s western tribal region, President Zardari announced an agreement with Taliban tribal chiefs to allow Sharia law to govern a swath of the North West Frontier Province where Al Qaeda members reportedly reside. The perception of Pakistani cooperation with “Islamic extremists” created the impression of enhanced insecurity and vulnerability for the U.S. and its allies. That perceived threat was widely reported by mainstream media as proof of the imminent perils of “militant Islam.” With religious extremists portrayed as operating freely in a nuclear-armed Islamic state, Tel Aviv gained traction for its claim that a nuclear-Islamic Tehran posed an “existential threat” to the Jewish state. Meanwhile Israel’s election of an ultra-nationalist governing coalition led by Benjamin Netanyahu further delayed resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict. More delay ensured more extremism and gained more media traction for those marketing a perpetual “global war on terrorism” and its thematic counterpart, The Clash of Civilizations. After the assault in Mumbai, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni argued: “Israel, India and the rest of the free world are positioned in the forefront of the battle against terrorists and extremism.” By its exclusion, Pakistan was implicated as harboring terrorists. Few Americans understand that Pakistan is dominantly Sunni and, unlike Iran’s Shi’a, abhors theocratic rule and the religious extremism common to Al Qaeda as well as the assorted strains of fundamentalism found among the Taliban. Game theory war planning suggests that Pakistan, not India, was the target of India’s 9-11. As with our 9-11, the strategic objective was not the event itself but the anticipated reaction—and the reactions to that reaction. Advised by legions of Ashkenazim, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s October 2009 mission to Pakistan was a diplomatic disaster. Right on cue, a terrorist attack in Peshawar killed dozens just as she arrived in Islamabad. Abrasive, arrogant and aloof, our top diplomat reinforced Pakistani concerns that their nation is surrounded by hostile forces. Clinton’s behavior fueled fears that the government of Pakistan is being set up for portrayal as a “failed state” by ultra-nationalist Jewish advisers to a nation—the U.S.—it has long considered a friend. When Barack Obama hosted the prime minister of India for his first state dinner, the anxiety level in Pakistan was heightened—particularly among those familiar with the dominance of Ashkenazi advisers in the Obama White House. Societal Conflict—By Consensus Meanwhile, India’s oligarchs continued to amass wealth and influence at a record pace as the caste system maintained its stranglehold on Hindu society. By 2007, India’s 40 billionaires had amassed a combined wealth of $351 billion, up from a combined wealth of $170 billion just since 2006. Though New Delhi cites the success of its high-tech sector and its “Bollywood” film industry as signs of a burgeoning middle class, the reality is far from reassuring. As in Russia where the wealth from privatization migrated to a small cadre of dominantly Ashkenazi oligarchs, a similar oligarch-ization is ongoing in India. While maintaining a vast underclass of “untouchables” mired in grinding poverty, India’s policy making elite gravitated to an economic model that traces its U.S. roots to the University of Chicago where Barack Obama taught for 11 years while he was being groomed for political office. The “Chicago Model” advances in plain sight behind an implied assumption that financial freedom is an appropriate proxy for personal freedom. Despite facts confirming that wealth and income are concentrating at record rates worldwide, this “consensus” model insists that nations vest their faith in the infallibility of unfettered financial markets. As that finance-fixated mindset morphed into the “Washington” consensus, the U.S.-dominated international financial institutions imbedded this narrow worldview in law worldwide. As with ordinary Russians, ordinary Indians see their rising prosperity dominated by an caste oligarchy that steadily amasses outsized wealth along with disproportionate political influence. As wealth concentrates, democracies become unworkable; as income concentrates, markets become unsustainable. Those profiled in Guilt By Association and the forthcoming Criminal State series are skilled in displacing facts with what targeted populations can be deceived to believe. Today’s money-myopic “consensus” traces its roots to a subculture within a subculture within a subculture whose belief in the unbridled pursuit of money preempts all other values. http://criminalstate.com/guilt-by-association/ The India-Israel alliance has inflicted on the economy of India the same paradigm that is systematically disabling the U.S. economy—from the inside out—while creating record gaps in wealth and income. Pakistan has an opportunity to resist the embrace of this flawed model and, by so doing, inspire other nations—including the U.S.—to devise a sensible path forward. Next in the series: When Will Israel Assassinate Barack Obama? An author, educator, attorney, merchant banker and adviser to policy-makers worldwide, Jeff Gates served as counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance (1980-87) prior to consulting 35 foreign governments. A Vietnam veteran, he is author of Guilt By Association, The Ownership Solution and Democracy at Risk. Seewww.criminalstate.com.

Israel’s Blitzkrieg on Middle East Oil, Widely Discredited Truth

[SEE: Israel seeks pipeline for Iraqi oil] [Widely discredited in the last years of his life, as a lunatic, conspiracy nut, Mossad (former?) agent, for his crazy, off-the-wall predictions, Vialls got some things exactly right, like the Israeli/American/British conspiracy to get Iraqi oil into Israeli hands.  The following 3-part pre-Iraq war report spells-out Zionist intentions to enrich the shitty little state that masquerades as a “democracy.”  These plans extend to last year’s Georgian/Russian eruption.  Since then, the plan has been up in the air, as the Zionist cabal that runs America figures out a new plan to rearrange the world to Israel’s liking. Israel’s Blitzkrieg on Middle East Oil “Operation Shekhinah” Copyright Joe Vialls, January – December 2002 In early March 2001, a leading European intelligence agency received disturbing news from its most senior and trusted agent in Tel Aviv. Aware of growing international resistance to its ruthless and murderous suppression of the Palestinians, the Israeli Cabinet had met to discuss the limited ways in which it could proceed with its plans to annex the rest of Palestine, with or without the support of principal ally America, or the “International Community”. At the time, the Israeli Cabinet had no idea that the subject matter of its March meeting would later become one of the prime reasons for the September attack on the World Trade Center. The Israeli Cabinet was seriously worried. Despite effective control of the western media by the Jewish-American lobby, risk assessment conducted in Tel Aviv showed there was still a high probability that continued ruthless Israeli activity in Palestine, would lead in turn to increased sanctions by the western nations. Initially the sanctions would take the form of decreased arms shipments to Israel, followed later by increasingly large cuts in overseas financial “aid”, still provided in the main by unwitting American taxpayers. Sooner or later financial aid might dry up completely, but this was not the worst case scenario. Eventually, if western public opinion became strident enough, America and Europe might feel compelled to impose a complete oil embargo on Israel. With no natural resources of its own, and only limited strategic oil reserves in the country, Israel’s armed forces would grind to a complete standstill in only a few weeks. Aircraft and battle tanks have an almost insatiable thirst for petroleum products, and when those products run out, the aircraft and tanks are no more use to their owners than chunks of aluminum and steel waiting for the recycling smelters. Clearly then, the Israeli Cabinet had to find an alternate source of oil, and find it quickly. Moreover, bearing in mind they would no longer be able to pay for the oil because of financial sanctions, the new source would have to be “free”. Back in the sixties, ambitious Israelis had made detailed plans to acquire just such an alternate source of oil by force, but the plans had to be shelved for geopolitical reasons. Those geopolitical restrictions no longer existed in 2001, so the old plans were taken out of storage, dusted off, and renamed Operation Shekhinah. Stealing oil reserves from another nation is certainly not an original idea. The closest historical precedent for Operation Shekhinah was probably back in 1941, when Roosevelt imposed a total oil embargo on Japan during the first American “War on Terror”. Seeing conflict as inevitable and recognizing its desperate need for an alternate source of oil, the Japanese responded accordingly, acutely aware that in order to reach and utilize the oil reserves in the Dutch East Indies, it would first have to overwhelm the [then] vastly superior US Navy. It was in this context that Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander-in-Chief of the Japanese Combined Fleet, suggested an air attack on the US Pacific Fleet, which had moved from its usual base at San Diego on the American west coast, to a mid-Pacific location at Pearl Harbor in May 1940. Yamamoto’s plan was a development of the traditional Japanese defensive strategy. He gambled on a surprise attack to destroy the American naval capability in the Pacific, including its all-important aircraft carriers, and create enough time, perhaps six months, to enable Japan to complete its territorial conquests. Simultaneous attacks by the Japanese army on Hong Kong, Malaya, the Philippines, Guam and the Dutch East Indies would capture the strategically important bases and areas rich in raw materials Japan felt was vital for its national survival and would also now be needed to sustain its war with America. The rest, as they say, is history. Along much the same lines, and for similar strategic reasons in 2001, Israel intended to launch a surprise attack against southern Iraq, capture its southern oil fields, then use the old existing Trans Arabian Pipeline [“Tapline”], to pump the oil back to its own refineries at Haifa. Technical details of the operation will be provided later in this report, and in part two to follow, but first we need to examine the chances of the operation succeeding, and the subsequent reaction of the western nations and Russia. Back in the sixties, when the operation was first planned by Israel, the British, Russians and Europeans had huge investments in the middle east, so an outraged backlash against Israel would have been immediate, and probably terminal for any ongoing “Jewish State” in Palestine. It was on this basis that the Iraqi plan was shelved and left to gather dust. However, during the years that followed, the entire geopolitical landscape changed. By March 2001, the Israeli Cabinet considered the risks to be minimal, and probably non-existent if Operation Shekhinah was handled correctly. What had changed the odds was the new status of Iraq. During the late eighties and nineties, the fledgling “New World Order” and the media had spent millions of dollars demonizing President Saddam Hussein, to the point where he was eventually regarded by 95% of the western public as “The Butcher of Baghdad”. Not only was this Iraqi demon allegedly manufacturing weapons of mass destruction almost identical to those stored in America, he was also the tyrant who “gassed his own Kurds at Halabja”. President Hussein did no such thing. In February 1990 the US Army War College published a report titled “Iraqi Power & US Security in the Middle East”, which proved the Kurds of Halabja died as the direct result of an Iranian Phosgene gas attack. But the western media, firmly in the grip of the Jewish-American lobby, wasn’t going to let the hard truth get in the way of its frantic vilification campaign. In light of Saddam Hussein’s new demonic status, the Israeli Cabinet reasoned in March 2001 that no one would now object to Israel taking strenuous action against this “known war criminal and killer of babies”. Instead, it was calculated that the action would be seen by the western public as daring. Once again the brave Jews would have taken a stand against a dictator in the sacred name of democracy; and hopefully the western public would not notice the millions of barrels of stolen Iraqi oil flowing back to its refineries in Haifa. And even if they did notice, what could they do about it with Israel already in occupation? Before Operation Shekhinah could be launched, Israel needed its own “tame” Arabs on the ground in both northern Saudi Arabia and southern Iraq. Detailed plans of the area had to be drawn up or updated, and airfields and assembly points for incoming Israeli aircraft and ground troops arranged. In order to avoid suspicion or unwanted prying eyes, Israeli agents infiltrated the areas and started offering certain Shi’ite Muslims in the area “free passage” to other countries away from their enemy Saddam Hussein, plus spending money to take with them, in exchange for their ramshackle homes in the area. Predictably there was no shortage of takers, and by mid April 2001 the preliminary operation was in full swing. Droves of Shi’ite Muslims quietly started departing the area for America, Europe and Australasia at enormous cost to the Israelis. Buying entire people smuggling operations was an incredibly expensive business, to which had to be added the ad hoc payments to the migrants and other significant expenses. Once again America unwittingly came to the rescue, with certain financial institutions in the World Trade Center laundering most of the massive funds needed. This activity was conducted with alacrity, because Israel had offered a dazzling quid pro quo to its financial juggernaut in New York City. Once firmly established in southern Iraq, the new Israel would be at the crossroads of middle east oil, not only with direct control of the giant southern Iraqi fields, but also within easy striking distance of Kuwait, northern Iran, and the northern Iraqi pipeline routes. From this position of enormous strength, Israel would be able to either control or blackmail the local states into marketing their oil in an “organized way”, rather than allowing any old Tom Dick or Harry to buy the stuff on the Rotterdam Spot Market. Using sophisticated insider trading techniques, OPEC would be neutered, and world oil supplies would come under the exclusive de facto control of NYMEX and the New York Stock Exchange in the World Trade Center. Concurrent with this activity, the Jewish-American Lobby was frantically urging the White House and US Department of State to step up its enforcement of the illegal “no fly” zones over northern and southern Iraq. The records show that attacks did indeed increase during this period, though the American and British pilots could not have known they were being deliberately used to “blind” the Iraqi air defenses, and ensure they stayed blinded in the run up to Israel’s Operation Shekhinah. When the Israeli surprise attack was finally launched, there would be not the slightest chance of detection by Baghdad until it was too late. The possibility of military intervention by the United States seemed to trouble the Israeli Foreign Minister, but risk assessment came to the rescue and calmed his fears. Though a few US military aircraft based in Kuwait would probably have to be destroyed, either on the ground or in the air, it was calculated that this would not be a problem in technical or public relations terms. Technically, the Israeli aircraft had home-grown fire control systems vastly superior to their American equivalents, and could be relied on to shoot down the US jets swiftly and with the minimum of fuss. In public relations terms the Israelis would later claim it was a case of “mistaken identity”, twist a few arms and grease a few palms in Washington, and the whole affair would be swept under the carpet. Once again the Israeli Cabinet had a sound precedent for this, in the form of the USS Liberty. On 8 June 1967, during the Six Day War between Israel and the Arab States, the unarmed American intelligence ship USS Liberty was attacked for 75 minutes by Israeli aircraft and motor torpedo boats. Thirty-four men died and 172 were wounded. Despite the proven fact that the USS Liberty was far offshore in international waters, and flying a bright, clean American flag, Israel insisted it was all a terrible case of mistaken identity, which it most certainly was not. Israel attacked the USS Liberty in an attempt to “blind” the American intelligence ship and prevent it forwarding details of Israel’s pre-emptive strikes to the Pentagon. The Jewish-American Lobby went to work with a vengeance in Washington, twisting arms and handing out pieces of silver. So effective was the lobbying that the murder of thirty four American sailors on the unarmed USS Liberty went largely unnoticed by the public, and the media was predictably silent on the matter. Though the Liberty’s Captain William Loren McGonagle was later awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for conspicuous gallantry and intrepedity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty, it was presented to him quietly at the Washington Navy Yard, rather than the White House as is customary. American politicians had bent over backwards to avoid embarrassing the murderers of the thirty-four American sailors. The Israeli Cabinet thus knew full well that any American “collateral damage” during Operation Shekhinah could be swept under the carpet in exactly the same way. By early June 2001 the trickle of Shi’ite “migrants” out of northern Saudi and southern Iraq had swelled to a flood, which came to the attention of at least two more European intelligence agencies. For reasons unknown but presumably acting on orders, the Shi’ites were all woodenly claiming they were Afghans, which was not a good move. Afghans speak Farsi but these people couldn’t speak a word of it, which is hardly surprising. The native language in both northern Saudi Arabia and southern Iraq is Arabic. Around this time Russia also became aware of the pending Israeli operation, though it is not yet known whether the information was leaked by a European agency, or provided direct by one of its own agents in Tel Aviv. But what was known by all by this time, was the actual start date for Operation Shekhinah: 2 October 2001, the first day of a seven-day Jewish holiday, and thus a most unlikely period in which expect an attack by Israel. Things then went very quiet for a few weeks until 12 July, when Pravda, still considered by many as the establishment voice of Russia’s old guard communists who control the military and intelligence agencies, printed a story on its page one entitled “Will the Dollar and America Fall Down on August 19? That’s the Opinion of Dr. Tatyana Koryagina”. Was Mother Russia using this expert, and deliberately citing the wrong date, in order to distance herself from involvement in the upcoming 11 September attack on the World Trade Center?

Israel Plans Blitzkrieg to Capture Arab Oil Fields (Part II)

Israel Plans Blitzkreig to Capture Arab Oil Fields (Part III)

Embassy Bombing Trial Confirms “al Qaida” in Yemen Is Mossad

[SEE: Yemen seizes ‘Israel-linked’ cell ; Trial of spies for Israel’s Mossad to start next week ; Yemen arrests ‘Israel’ militants October 6, 2008]

ISRAEL DENIES OPERATING ISLAMIC TERRORIST ORGANIZATION

AIMED AT UNITED STATES

BBC Middle East

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has said the security forces have arrested a group of alleged Islamist militants linked to Israeli intelligence. Mr Saleh did not say what evidence had been found to show the group’s links with Israel, a regional enemy of Yemen. The arrests were connected with an attack on the US embassy in Sanaa last month which killed at least 18 people, official sources were quoted saying.

Israel’s foreign ministry has rejected the accusation as “totally ridiculous”.

“A terrorist cell was arrested and will be referred to the judicial authorities for its links with the Israeli intelligence services,” Mr Saleh told a gathering at al-Mukalla University in Hadramawt province.

“Details of the trial will be announced later. You will hear about what goes on in the proceedings,” he added.

The 17 September attack was the second to target the US embassy since April. Militants detonated car bombs before firing rockets at the heavily fortified building.

Mr Saleh did not identify the suspects, but official sources were quoted saying it was same cell – led by a militant called Abu al-Ghaith al-Yamani – whose arrest was announced a week after the attack.

An Israeli foreign ministry spokesman said the Yemeni president’s statement was without foundation.

“To believe that Israel would create Islamist cells in Yemen is really far-fetched. This is yet another victory for the proponents of conspiracy theories,” Igal Palmor said in remarks reported by AFP.

EVIDENCE MOUNTS FOR US COMPLICITY IN TERRORISM

29 Dec, 2009 Gordon Duff

COULD TERROR WAR BE RESPONSE BY GOP AND ISRAEL AGAINST THREATS TO THEIR GLOBAL PLANS? When nothing adds up, its time we starting looking at what we know.  Our recent terrorist, now dubbed “the crotch bomber” is another dupe.  He could have been working for anyone, drugged, brainwashed or simply influenced, maybe by crazy Arabs, maybe by the Mossad, maybe by the CIA.  We only know the game is falling apart. We do know a couple of things.  Dad, back in Nigeria,ran the national arms industry (DICON) in partnershipwith Israel, in particular, the Mossad.  He was in daily contact with them.  They run everything in Nigeria, from arms production to counter-terrorism.  Though Islamic, Muttalab was a close associate of Israel.  He has been misrepresented.  His “banking” is a cover.  Next, what do we know about the two Al Qaeda leaders Bush had released, the ones who planned this? According to ABC news, the Al Qaeda leaders running the insurgency in Yemen were released from Guantanamo, although two of the highest ranking known terrorist there, without trial. Guantanamo prisoner #333, Muhamad Attik al-Harbi, and prisoner #372, Said Ali Shari, were sent to Saudi Arabia on Nov. 9, 2007, according to the Defense Department log of detainees who were released from American custody. Both of the former Guantanamo detainees are described as military commanders and appear on a January, 2009 video along with the man described as the top leader of al Qaeda in Yemen, Abu Basir Naser al-Wahishi, formerly Osama bin Laden’s personal secretary. With all the hoopla about trials in New York, not a word is said when top level terrorists are released to Saudi friends of the Bush family who let them go.  We are now fighting these two Bush friends in Yemen.  They are running a major insurgency there.  We have been using Cruise missiles and our jets to attack their bases in the last weeks. It is claimed by groups claiming to be Al Qaeda in Yemen that the Detroit attack was in retaliation to US attacks on bases in Yemen run by Al Qaeda leaders released by Bush. The government of Yemen, as reported in the BBC , says that the Al Qaeda terrorists, led by those released by Bush, are really Israeli agents though they have organized attacks against US targets: Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has said the security forces have arrested a group of alleged Islamist militants linked to Israeli intelligence. Mr Saleh did not say what evidence had been found to show the group’s links with Israel, a regional enemy of Yemen. The arrests were connected with an attack on the US embassy in Sanaa last month which killed at least 18 people, official sources were quoted saying. “A terrorist cell was arrested and will be referred to the judicial authorities for its links with the Israeli intelligence services,” Mr Saleh told a gathering at al-Mukalla University in Hadramawt province. “Details of the trial will be announced later. You will hear about what goes on in the proceedings,” he added. The 17 September attack was the second to target the US embassy since April. Militants detonated car bombs before firing rockets at the heavily fortified building. Mr Saleh did not identify the suspects, but official sources were quoted saying it was same cell – led by a militant called Abu al-Ghaith al-Yamani – whose arrest was announced a week after the attack. With continual reports from Pakistan that India and Israel have been involved in terrorst attacks against US supporters there and the recent reports that the Detroit bomber was assisted by an Indian while boarding in Amsterdam and partially confirmed reports that a second bomber, an Indian, was arrested and taken from the plane in Detroit.  MILive broke this story in the US which originated with Reuters: Reuters reports Dutch military police are investigating claims that an accomplice may have helped Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab board Northwest Flight 253 in Amsterdam on Christmas day without a passport. Kurt Haskell of Newport, Mich., took to the comments section of this Web site early Saturday to share his story: That he and his wife, Lori, saw a well-dressed man help Abdulmutallab board the flight without a passport under the guise he was a Sudanese refugee. The military police have already said Abdulmutallab did not go through passport control at Schiphol when he arrived from Lagos. In another interview on Inside Edition, Haskell described what happened: A passenger has come forward with disturbing new details about the plot to bring down a jet, including the astonishing claim that the accused terrorist was able to board the plane without a passport. Kurt Haskell showed INSIDE EDITION his boarding pass for Northwest flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit. The lawyer, who lives outside Detroit, was returning home from an African safari when he says he saw the terror suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallabm, and another man, who he thought was Indian, approach the ticket agent. “Only the Indian man spoke,” says Haskell, “And what he said was, ‘This man needs to board the plane but he doesn’t have a passport.’ ” “His clothes were like jeans and a t-shirt or something, he looked kind of thin, like a 16-year-old teenager, and the other man, looked like he was 50 years old, looked like he was a wealthy, Indian man. I just couldn’t figure out why they were together,” Haskell tells INSIDE EDITION. Let’s review what we know thus far: Our terrorist traveled to Yemen to meet with terrorist there The terrorists in Yemen had been in Guantanamo but had been ordered released by the Bush Administration though they were, perhaps the most dangerous detainees held The government of Yemen tells us that Islamic terrorists there have been arrested who have proven ties to Israeli intelligence Our terrorists father, though we are told is a retired “Nigerian banker” actually ran their defense industry in close cooperation with Israeli Intelligence (Mossad) Our terrorist’s visa to the US was never with drawn, though he was on a “terrorist watchlist” Our terrorist, though flying from Nigeria, entered the Netherlands without passing thru customs, something impossible to do without assistance from an intelligence agency Our terrorist was being assisted by a man appearing to be Indian, who claimed our Nigerian terrorist was a Sudanese refugee with no passport (no passport was used entering the EU, something technically impossible) However, Dutch authorities, the same ones who confirmed he entered the country with no passport also confirmed he had a valid US visa, though on a terrorist watch list that is shared with Dutch authorities. We keep going back to 2007.  Why were these terrorists released to Saudi custody?  Why did Saudi Arabia release them soon afterward?  With the 2nd major terrorist front in the world being Yemen and the terrorist operation there under the control of released Bush detainees, there is reason for suspicion. Why have all of these facts, though easily verifiable, we have a much stronger case against the Bush Administration or Israel than Al Qaeda, an organization whose leaders are released and allowed to continue terror operations with full Saudi and American help? When Pakistan comes to us and says that Israel and India are involved in terrorism there and we ignore it, is it because it isn’t credible or because the US government has been involved, as we seem to be involved in Yemen? Why are we satisfied to take one person into custody, one person who ties to so many irregularities and ask nothing else? As with 9/11 and so many other seeminly impossible times when so many things go wrong that only great power and the cooperation of many agencies in many countries could make it possible, why do we ask nothing. We have a major investigation in Nigeria, not only of the father and his connections to Israel but our own embassy and why they left this visa alone when the individual was a known terrorist. How could this terrorist travel to Yemen to meet with an organization run by former detainees released by Bush and his Saudi friends, former detainees that Yemen claims are working for israel?  How could he do this and be allowed to return to Nigeria, a country whose intelligence services are tied to Israel and trained by Israel.  They would have known in a second. How did this terrorist enter the Netherlands without showing a passport?  Try it.  You will meet lots of Dutch people who will keep you in a small room for hours, days even.  It is absolutely impossible. People are picked up in the EU while in passport control for non-payment of child support.  I am being told they can’t find a terrorist? We haven’t begun to discover how he got past security equipment and screening.  It isn’t like he isn’t the highest profile potential terrorist who has entered Nigeria in decades.  He is Islamic, young and traveling alone.  Ask any young Islamic traveler how many times they have been searched. Is is on a terrorist watchlist.  This is like the “no fly list” on steroids.  You aren’t just denied flight, you are put under immediate surveillance. If he had shown his passport, it would have shown him entering Yemen, a known terrorist training ground.  This would have stopped him also. With the Bush administration releasing terrorist leaders and shepherding them back into their former profession, with our embassy, State Department, Homeland Security and every other organization we spent so many billions of dollars to “coordinate” all failing, is there, just perhaps, a minor sign of conspiracy?

Obama Has His Justification, Now to Find Some Yemeni Targets to Bomb

Report: US gears up for attack in Yemen after botched plane attack

American officials tell CNN that Washington, Yemen looking for new al-Qaeda targets in case Obama orders retaliatory strike; Yemen investigating whether Nigerian suspected in attempted attack spent time with terrorists in country

Yitzhak Benhorin

Published:

12.30.09, 10:34 / Israel News

WASHINGTON – The US and Yemen are looking at new targets in Yemen for a potential retaliation strike, two senior American officials told CNN Tuesday following the failed Christmas Day attack on a Detroit-bound airliner, which al-Qaeda in Yemen claims it organized.   According to CNN, the officials stressed the effort is aimed at being ready with options for the White House if President Barack Obama orders a retaliatory strike, adding that the effort is to see whether targets can be specifically linked to the airliner incident and its planning.

One of the officials was quoted by CNN as saying that the plan is part of a new classified agreement with the Yemeni government that the two countries will work together and that the US will remain publicly silent on its role in providing intelligence and weapons to conduct strikes.

The CNN report said that “by all accounts, the agreement would allow the US to fly cruise missiles, fighter jets or unmanned armed drones against targets in Yemen with the consent of that government.”

Officials in Yemen are investigating whether the Nigerian suspected in the attempted attack spent time with al-Qaeda terrorists in the country in the months leading up to the botched bombing.

According to CNN, the officials stressed the effort is aimed at being ready with options for the White House if President Barack Obama orders a retaliatory strike, adding that the effort is to see whether targets can be specifically

‘Extended period in Yemen’

Administrators, teachers and fellow students at the San’a Institute for the Arabic Language, where Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had enrolled to study Arabic, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he attended school for only the month of Ramadan, which began in late August. That has raised questions about what he did during the rest of his stay, which continued into December.

Abdulmutallab, 23, told US officials after his arrest he received training and instructions from al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen, a law enforcement official has said.  According to Yemeni officials, Abdulmutallab spent another extended period in Yemen, from 2004-2005.

People at the school who knew Abdulmutallab said he was not openly extremist, though he expressed anger over Israel’s actions against Palestinians in Gaza

CNN further reported that  Abdulmutallab’s father spoke with a CIA official in Nigeria about his son’s radicalization.

The official prepared a report on the meeting, but it was not disseminated by CIA headquarters, according to CNN, which cited an unidentified source.

Abdulmutallab’s father, a prominent Nigerian banker, had relayed concerns about his son’s behavior to the US Embassy in Abuja, but the son’s name was never placed on a no-fly list.

Yemen Claims Hundreds of “al Qaida” Bogeymen, at One-Million Dollars Each

[These days, the surest way to get the latest military hardware and mega-bucks in counter-insurgency funds is to claim that your country is infested with hundreds of these “super-terrorists,” like the Nigerian guy, who couldn’t even light himself on fire.  The CIA has really outdone itself with this “al Qaida” scam, just cry “wolf” and the money starts to flow towards you.  Our government and its many agencies are a plague on humanity, a plague on the human psyche.]

Yemen says may harbor up to 300 Qaeda suspects

LONDON

LONDON (Reuters) – Yemen’s Foreign Minister Abubakr al-Qirbi said on Tuesday there could be up to 300 al Qaeda militants in his country, some of whom may be planning attacks on Western targets.

“Of course there are a number of al Qaeda operatives in Yemen and some of their leaders. We realize this danger,” he told BBC radio.

“And they may actually plan for attacks like the one we have just had in Detroit.”

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, based in Yemen, has claimed responsibility for Friday’s attempted bombing of a Delta Airlines plane as it approached Detroit. [nLDE5BR0KO]

Asked to specify the exact number of al Qaeda operatives, Qirbi replied: “I can’t give you really an exact figure. There are maybe hundreds of them: 200, 300 — I don’t have real (hard) figures.”

Nigerian suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, charged with trying to blow up the plane on Christmas Day, lived in Yemen from August to December.

He is said to have told the FBI that there are many more like him prepared to carry out such attacks, according to the BBC report.

Qirbi called for proper intelligence-sharing to stop al Qaeda suspects from traveling to Yemen from countries known to be hotbeds of militancy such as Afghanistan and Iraq.

He appealed for more help from the international community to train and equip counter-terrorist forces to neutralize them.

“We have to work in a very joint fashion in partnership to combat terrorism,” he said. “If we do that, the problem will be brought under control.

The United States, Britain and the European Union could do much more to improve Yemen’s response to counter the threat, he said. “There is some support that is coming, but I must say it is inadequate.”

“We need more training, we have to expand our counter-terrorism units and this means providing them with the necessary military equipment and ways of transportation; we are very short of helicopters.”

Khalid Khawaja, the Connection Between Daniel Pearl and Omar Sheikh

“Before coming to Karachi, Pearl was reportedly in E-mail contact  with  one Khalid Khwaja, a retired officer of the Pakistani Air Force who had served in the ISI in the late 1980s.” The contact who connected Pearl to Omar Saeed Sheikh.

Mansoor Ijaz…a prominent Pakistani-American who came recommended by Indian spooks to get to Muslim militants…”shoe-bomber,” Richard C. Reid, and a virulently anti-Semitic Muslim militant, Mubarak Ali Shah Gilani,…Ijaz made introductions to three sources: Shaheen Sehbai, editor of The News, Pakistan’s largest English language daily; a jihadi activist he declines to name; and — most fatefully — Khalid Khawaja, a Muslim militant and a onetime agent with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) who counts among his very best friends Osama bin Laden…was in the capital, Islamabad, 700 miles to the north, for a several-hour session with Khalid Khawaja…when it came to Muslim militancy, he was the real deal, having acquired his credentials during the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, where, as an air force squadron leader, Khawaja was serving with the ISI, which was distributing C.I.A.purchased munitions to mujahideen. The more radically Islamist the fighter, the more weapons he got, including Osama bin Laden, who formed an instant bond with Khawaja. It deepened when Khawaja was forced out of the ISI in 1988 after criticizing military strongman Zia ul-Haq for not doing enough to Islamize Pakistan…

Khawaja was sufficiently broad-minded in his allegiances that he got the Taliban to agree to receive Ijaz and ex-C.I.A. director Woolsey.

Khawaja, in short, was a source to kill for, and Danny charmed him. Describing the reporter to Ijaz as “competent, straightforward,” and not given to asking “inappropriate questions,” Khawaja agreed to steer Danny to leading jihadis and to be a sounding board during his time in country.

Blackwater ‘hired’ Pak’s intelligence, army officers: Khwaja

M Zulqernain

Lahore, Dec 29 (PTI) Controversial US private security firm Blackwater, accused of carrying out secret operations in Pakistan, has hired services of army officers and former employees of intelligence agencies of this country for “handsome” salaries, a retired ISI official has claimed.

Khalid Khwaja, who has been at the forefront in raising the issue of “missing persons” or people detained without charges by Pakistani security agencies, said that ex- intelligence personnel hired by Blackwater had been asked to “pick up people with alleged connections to Taliban or al-Qaeda.”

The Supreme Court “has directed the Pakistan government to produce some 1,000 or so missing persons. The Pakistani (intelligence) agencies have expressed inability to comply with the order (on the ground that they do) not have knowledge about the missing persons,” he told PTI.

Israel to issue gas masks to population

by Tina Redlup on December 28, 2009

Israel will begin distributing its entire population with gas masks in two months, though no reason has officially been given by the Israeli government.

No indication or threat has been made against Israel from any country that an attack is planned. No country in the Middle East is believed to be likely to engage in chemical or biological warfare with Israel, either.

The gas mask distribution has, however, raised questions as to Israel’s potential plans to launch an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Such an attack could cause an unconventional response from Iran. Iran’s chemical and biological weapons capabilities are currently not known.

Rumors in the Middle East abound that Israel is preparing to rein in Hezbollah through another war on Lebanon. Hezbollah, however, is also not believed to hold any chemical or biological weapons.

The only country in Israel’s region currently believed to have access to a major chemical or biological weapons program is Israel itself, though the country unlikely to utilize them in an attack.

Despite the lack of a viable threat, Israel will begin issuing the gas masks to each of its residents in February. The Israel Defense Forces will manage the distribution. The IDF have engaged the Israel Postal Company to aid in the distribution, a departure from the use of Home Front Command for previous distributions.

In addition to the gas masks, children eight years and younger will receive, for the first time, the Mamtek gas mask.

“We are the only country in the world that produces gas masks for children, and the children’s gas mask we produce is the only one in the world that supplies prime defense for this age group,” Col. Yosi Sagiv,head of the Gas Mask Administration of the Home Front Command, told bacelonanews.net. “All that is left is to hope that it will not be necessary to experience first hand how well these gas masks work,” he said.

Grinding a Greater Axis of Evil

Daniel Martin Varisco

SOURCE: Tabsir.net (12-28-09)

[Daniel Martin Varisco is Chair, Anthropology Department at Hofstra University.]

Terrorism takes a toll far beyond the lives lost everyday, even when a plot is thwarted. On Christmas day a 23-year-old Nigerian named Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab attempted to set himself off as a human bomb on a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. On the surface he hardly fit the profile of a crazed militant fresh out of a training camp in the hills of Pakistan. His father was a recently retired chairman of First Bank of Nigeria and he is an engineering student at University College London. But it now seems that his father was so concerned about his son’s politics that he warned the U.S. embassy about him just a month ago. Initial reports indicate that the explosives were said by Mutallab to be provided by al-Qaeda in Yemen. Based on this claim certain U.S. politicians, most notably Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, have called for Yemen to be added to the growing terrorist axis of evil. “So I leave you with this thought that somebody in our government said to me in the Sana’a, the capital of Yemen. Iraq was yesterday’s war. Afghanistan is today’s war. If we don’t act preemptively, Yemen will be tomorrow’s war. That’s the danger we face.” Lieberman told Fox News.

Lieberman is actually calling for Yemen to become today’s war, but the key to his thinking is best summed in another line from the same interview: “We’ve got to constantly be thinking like the terrorists here.” Well, Joe, this is the problem. You are thinking like the terrorists when you suggest going into a country you know nothing about and dropping bombs. Unfortunately, it appears we have already started doing that. The Yemeni government’s attacks last week on a suspected al-Qaeda hideout in Abyan are reported to have left as many as 82 civilians killed and more than 213 injured, according to local estimates. The government claimed that it had eliminated at least 34 al-Qaeda fighters. President Obama even sent a message of congratulation to President Salih for his success in fighting terrorism. So as far as the media is concerned, whether the go-get-’em mantra of Fox News or we-must-be-the-mainstream New York Times, a preemptive propaganda strike has already been made. “With fears also growing of a resurgent Islamist extremism in nearby Somalia and East Africa, administration officials and American lawmakers said Yemen could become Al Qaeda’s next operational and training hub, rivaling the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan where the organization’s top leaders operate,” reports the latter.

“Locals covering the bodies of civilians whose death was war causality in the government’s raid on Al-Qaeda camp in Al-Mhfad district in Abyan governorate south of Yemen.” Photo from UAE Al-Bayan newspaper by Mohammed Al-Ghubari

So is Yemen the new terrorist haven, the latest forwarding address for the international conspiracy branded al-Qaeda? Let’s take a reality check. While Americans have been fed a steady diet, much with distorted fatuous reporting and fearmongering, about Iraq and Afghanistan, most people do not have a clue about Yemen, nor even where it is located on a map. It is a lot easier to paint and tarnish a clean slate the way you want it to look, since there are no annoying ground facts to check the tendency to draw enemies lurking behind every bush. The internal strife in Yemen has little to do with the international terror network we are supposedly ridding the world of in Iraq and Afghanistan, unless we make the Yemenis believe that should be the issue. The problem is a struggling economy of an over-populated country precariously united a little less than two decades ago. This misunderstanding is demonstrated in the caption provided to the New York Times article noted above. The implication is a bunch of angry terrorism sympathizers no doubt shouting “Death to America.” In reality, these protests are part of a much wider expression of frustration in the former South Yemen over the hegemonic intrusion of the north. Their anger is at their own government, one which the United States is encouraging to further deny rights to its citizens. If you want to understand why there are protests, which have been ongoing, look at the corruption, high-handed violations of human rights and outright poverty in a part of Yemen that had once seemed prosperous under a socialist regime.

Another point is lost in the frenzy of blame. As noted in the same New York Times article, the surge of al-Qaeda in Yemen is not just a home-grown phenomenon but due to individuals who have fled from Saudi Arabia. While Yemen is not the wild no-man’s land of northern Pakistan, it is easier to find a hiding place or blend in than it would be in Saudi territory. The Yemeni government, under a President now in power over three decades, has never controlled the entire country, but it has managed to keep a relative peace with local tribes. This de facto semi federation political context has recently come unglued with the rebellion in the north around a firebrand named al-Houthi. But this began as a local battle against government policy and not a training camp for anti-American or pro-Iranian sympathizers. The pressure by our government on the Yemenis to get the bad guys allows the government to crack down on its political opponents. In the process it is likely that sympathy for al-Qaeda will take root. Sentiments such as those expressed by Senator Lieberman do more for recruiting terrorists than any online firebrand sermons. Instead of grinding out raw meat for an ever expanding axis of evil, the best way to mitigate terrorism is, contrary to the advice of Lieberman, to stop acting like terrorists. At this point anyone who has any kind of grievance can jump on the al-Qaeda bandwagon because we have made a loose knit ideal into an icon. The people of Yemen are not the enemy, but we can certainly make them want to be our enemies.

I speak not simply as a talking head, but from personal experience. In 1978 I arrived in Yemen for ethnographic research, spending over a year in a rural valley where all the men were armed. This was tribal Yemen, where few people trusted the weak central government, but who pulled together as a community to build local roads, schools and even health clinics. Not once did I ever feel threatened because a code of honor was still in force and I was a guest, not a threat to anyone there. At that time the United States was admired as a God-fearing country, unlike the communists on the other side of the warming Cold War. During the 1980s I returned numerous times to Yemen as a development consultant and saw Yemeni professionals, many newly returned from advanced degrees in the United States, eager to improve living conditions in their poor country. In 2005 I sat in a diwan with several men I had known on a day-to-day basis over 25 years earlier. They were shocked at the U.S. invasion of Iraq and asked me what I thought of it. I noted that I personally did not think the war was right and thought it would only bring more problems. At one point a friend turned to me and said, “When you first came here we liked America because it stood for something we did not have, now we know your country is as corrupt as our own.”

New Russian crude could be game-changer in Asia

By James Topham and Judy Hua

TOKYO/SINGAPORE: Russia’s Espo Blend crude is just starting to hit the market, but as output ramps up it is expected to change the rules of the oil game in Asia at the expense of Middle East rivals.

Exports of the diesel-rich, medium-heavy sweet grade could rise to 600,000 barrels per day (bpd) in the next few years from 250,000 bpd in the first quarter, targeting refineries in China, Japan and South Korea, traders and analysts say.

The crude will move by pipeline to the Russian Far East coast, placing it close to Asian markets for shipment by tanker, fitting into Asia’s aim to diversify oil imports and limit dependence on the Middle East.

Provided refiners are content with the grade’s quality, the new supply may force Gulf producers to review their export strategies, crude pricing and even consider offering a competing grade blended from different crudes to match the Espo quality.

“It could change the demographics of the region’s crude buying. I mean how can Venezuelan crudes compete with an Espo that is directly pumped in when they have to be shipped halfway across the world?” said Al Troner, President of Asia Pacific Energy Consulting.

“It could force Gulf producers to lower their prices to Asia to stay competitive and not lose market share.” Asia is struggling with declining domestic output of lower-sulphur crude while supplies of sour grades from Opec producers have been curbed since end-2008.

This has helped Russia to boost its oil exports, led by cheaper Urals crude, as the country seeks to secure markets in the energy-hungry region and rely less on the West amid often frosty relations with the European Union.

The East Siberian-Pacific Ocean (Espo) pipeline offers the perfect vehicle for Russia to further increase oil exports to the growing economies in Asia, especially when the link to China comes online within two years.

“China particularly values crude that does not require waterborne transit as this has certain logistical advantages as well as better supply security attributes,” said John Vautrain, Senior Vice President of Purvin & Gertz Inc.

Competitive, but rough edges remain

Espo Blend, named after the pipeline, flows from East Siberian oilfields to a new terminal in the sea port of Kozmino, near Vladivostok, where it can be exported tax-free to Asia.

Russia, the world’s top oil producer as Saudi Arabia keeps to Opec-led supply curbs, plans to export 3.1 million tonnes (250,000 bpd) of Espo Blend via Kozmino in the first quarter of 2010.

Espo’s initial API gravity is around 34 degrees, with sulphur content of up to 0.6 percent, lighter than Urals and similar to Middle East benchmark Oman crude, traders say.

Its quality is still evolving as more Russian producers pump oil via the pipeline, making the grade unstable for some time, which could initially limit its popularity among Asian refiners.

“Nobody knows the final quality. The only known factor is that it will not be stable for a while,” said a Western trader.

Analysts say Espo Blend will eventually be ideal for Asian refiners because of their ability to handle higher amounts of sulphur and for the grade’s exceptional yield of middle distillates, based on initial assessments.

Medium-heavy sweet crude is not available in large volumes on the spot market. So, any new market share carved out by Espo Blend could force Gulf producers to blend their existing crudes to match the grade so as not to lose out, analysts said.

“These qualities, combined with the pipeline to China and the fact that Asian buyers are looking to diversify their crudes, mean Espo could be a game-changer for the region,” Troner said.

China has loaned $25 billion to Russia in return for supplies of Siberian oil for the next two decades.

The first stage of the pipeline has the capacity to move 30 million tonnes a year (600,000 bpd) from the town of Taishet to Skovorodino, from which a spur will run to the Chinese border, where half of the oil is projected to go by 2012.

The other half will be sent to Kozmino, where the second phase is due for completion in 2014. Till then, the oil will be moved by rail to the Pacific coast before being put on tankers for Northeast Asian ports.

Russia’s top oil producer Rosneft last month sold the first cargo of Espo Blend for late-December loading to Finnish trader IPP Oy at a premium of 50 cents a barrel to regional benchmark Dubai crude. New crudes often trade at discounts to entice buyers to test them, and some traders said the Espo premium was good compared with rivals such as Oman. But for now, Espo’s unstable quality may not yet attract refiners as the first cargo might had been resold at a discount to Trafigura, traders said.

The European trader also bought a January cargo from TNK-BP after taking another from Gunvor, bringing its total to 300,000 tonnes, stirring talk that Trafigura is building up a big stockpile of the new crude. But the brunt of the eventual impact could be felt by Oman – a medium-heavy grade like Espo – and Abu Dhabi’s Murban crude, as well as arbitrage barrels of African and Mediterranean crudes that are increasingly shipped to Asia.

China is a big buyer of Oman, which is among the most actively traded on the spot market in Northeast Asia, where an average 389,000 bpd of the crude has been shipped this year.

Lower demand for Oman would send sellers such as equity holder Shell scrambling for new markets. Big traders such as Vitol, Total, Sinopec and Chinaoil who are active buyers and sellers of Oman would also be affected.

Perhaps to meet this competition, which will affect its Arab Light crude markets, Saudi Arabia will put “millions of barrels” in commercial storage in Japan, in a deal that will place its oil near its major customers in Northeast Asia.

Exports from Kozmino are set to leap to 900,000 tonnes in January, a loading schedule showed this month, primed to make the Pacific port Russia’s No.3 seaborne oil outlet.

“Long term, when in full flow, it will displace the most expensive arbitraged barrels of Urals, then Oman, and possibly lighter barrels depending on quality,” said the Western trader.—Reuters

Lebanese army fires on Israeli fighter planes: military

HASBAYA: Lebanese anti-aircraft guns opened fire on four Israeli fighter planes that were violating its air space on Tuesday, the military said.

“The army’s anti-aircraft guns fired in the direction of four Phantom-type enemy Israeli planes that had been overflying the (southeastern) Hasbaya region at low altitude since this (Tuesday) morning,” an army spokesman said.   [If the IDF was trying to obtain intel on Hezbollah movements within Lebanon it would use drones or more capable aircraft.  The fact that it is flying these ancient dinosaurs over Lebanon is indication that they are there to hopefully be shot down.]

By mid-morning the planes were still conducting their exercises in the region, he added. The army publishes almost daily reports of Israeli violations of Lebanese air space. But it rarely opens fire unless the Israeli planes fly within range of its guns.

Israeli infringements of Lebanese airspace are a breach of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 which ended the devastating 2006 war between Israel and Shiite militant group Hezbollah.

Israel argues that the overflights are necessary to monitor what it says is massive arms smuggling by Hezbollah in breach of the same resolution.

Detroit jet terrorist attack was staged

The recent failed attack on a US passenger jet traveling from Amsterdam to Detroit was a set-up provocation controlled by US intelligence, author and journalist Webster Tarpley stated to RT.“[The terrorist’s] father, a rich Nigerian banker, went to the US embassy in Nigeria on November 19 and said ‘my son is in Yemen in a terrorist camp, do something about this.’ Nevertheless, the son is allowed to buy a ticket in Ghana, paying cash, $2,800, for a one-way ticket,” Tarpley said.After that, a mentally deficient young man who doubtfully could make it from one gate to another managed to illegally enter Nigeria and get on a plane to Amsterdam.“There was a well-dressed Indian man who brought him to the gate and said, ‘my friend does not have a passport, get him on, he is Sudanese, we do this all the time – that is impossible!”

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An International Crime Called Gaza

By Dr. Elias Akleh

December 28, 2009 A fully pre-meditated international crime of genocide has been taking place during the last 62 years in the heart of the Arab World. The victims are the Palestinian people especially those in the Gaza Strip. The assassin is the worst ever terrorist group deceptively called the Israeli Defense Forces under the leadership of the theocratically most racist “god’s chosen” deceitfully self-proclaimed “democratic Jewish-only” Israel. Israel had been created, financed, armed, and politically protected by, mainly, British and American rapture-vision-obsessed Talmudist power elites consisting of profit-seeking financiers and military-industrial complex. In December 2008 this Israeli Terrorist Forces added another war crime to its long list of war crimes against the Palestinians since 1948. One more time the international political community had become an accomplice to one more Israeli war crime either by being a passive silent witness or by becoming an active participant and protector of Israeli war criminals. One more international war crime had been perpetrated against the Palestinians. It is an international crime since multi political regimes; Israeli, American, European and even Arab governments, had joined in this crime that is STILL GOING ON up to this very minute. For almost the last three years Israel had subjected Gaza to an illegal economic siege, which in itself constitutes a crime against humanity. Israel had, and still is, preventing the entry into Gaza of vital life sustaining products such as food stuff, fuel, medicine and needed medical equipment, water purification equipment and many building materials. This is a genocidal crime using hunger and thirst as weapons. Starting late December of 2008 and for continuous 22 days Israeli terrorist army had perpetrated a genocidal war crime against Gaza Palestinians. The Israeli army, known to be the fourth powerful army in the world, attacked unarmed civilian Palestinians of Gaza comprising mostly of children, women, and old people. There was no regular army in Gaza to face the well equipped, well trained to murder Israeli army. Only few male civilians, who took it on themselves to carry the light arms they could obtain to resist the Israeli war criminals in order to protect their own families. The Israeli military radio station announced that half of the Israeli air force had conducted 2500 air sorties dropping a total of 1,000,000 KG of explosives on the civilian families of Gaza. This is not counting the shells fired by the artillery and tanks. They had used high precision GPS-guided bombs to destroy vital locations such as the UN food warehouse and schools, government buildings, hospitals and medical clinics, religious buildings and civilian institutions. From his observation of the video taped explosions in Gaza, the British weapons expert Dy Williams concluded that the Israeli army had used DIME bombs to guarantee murder of victims, Phosphorous bombs producing 900 centigrade degrees of heat, and DU bombs producing 5,000 centigrade degrees of heat, that is equal to the heat of the sun surface. The Israeli soldiers, themselves, had admitted and boasted to “Breaking The Silence” organization of committing war crimes in Gaza. These included, among many, the deliberate murder of civilians including women and children, using civilians as human shields, shelling homes after hording groups of civilians inside, destroying and vandalizing properties and civilian homes, and writing hate and racial graffiti on walls. Israeli criminal leaders were not satisfied with mere destruction of Gaza infrastructures, contaminating agricultural land and water, and murdering some 1500 Palestinians. They had carefully chosen the most lethal weapons of mass destruction (WMD) that will cause the death of Palestinians, who survived the attack, and the death of their future born generations. Besides their devastating environmental contamination effects the Israeli bombs were found to have long lasting reproductive toxic, carcinogenic, genotoxic, fetotoxic and pathogenic effects on humans. A study titled “Craters Gaza 2006/09 and respectively WP Bomb Gaza 2009”published on www.newweapons.org was done by Prof. Mario Barbieri CNR, Rome, Prof. Maurizio Barbieri, University of Rome, and Prof. Paola Manduca, University of Genova. They analyzed dirt samples from four bomb craters in Gaza, and residual components of spent Israeli bombs. Their analyses found unusual concentrations of Molybdenum (male sperm toxicant), copper, nickel, cadmium and Mercury (carcinogenics), Tungsten (genotoxic and fetotoxic), Zinc and Manganese (carcinogenic and fetotoxic) Aluminium (fetotoxic and pathogen affecting nervous system and kidneys), and Cobalt (DNA repair inhibitor and mutagenic). Even now, after a year of the Israeli barbaric war crimes against Gaza, the Israeli air force bombards life vital centers, while the Israeli army use bulldozers to raze fertile farm lands, destroy crops, and shoot farmers. The Israeli attack boats have become worse than the Somali pirates. They attack and sink Palestinian fishing boats. They fire at, kidnap, and confiscate international humanitarian aid materials loaded on boats of “Free Gaza” organizations. In a blatant violating of all international laws and a disdain to all humanitarian appeals the terrorist Israeli state had severely tightened its military siege against the Gaza Strip after the end of its last onslaught in January 2009. Palestinians in Gaza are living without clean drinking water, bare minimum food, without electricity, and without the necessary medical supplies. This is a real holocaust. A holocaust is the premeditated plan to exterminate masses of people (such as the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza), whether through gassing, incendiary phosphorous, DU and WMD bombs, hunger and thirst, or any other means leading to mass death. Instead of coming to the aid of Palestinians the UN reverted to its old tactic of blaming the Palestinian victims and Ban KI-moon requesting a permanent cease fire. In its meeting the UN had totally ignored the Palestinian elected Hamas government; a major part of this conflict. Rather it listened to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who humiliatingly begged the UN for help, promising to do “everything” to secure peace. In an indirect way he blamed Hamas government and did not even criticize Israel’s aggression. The UNSC issued Resolution 1860 that ignored realities of Israeli genocide of Palestinians, exonerated the Israeli terrorists, blamed the Palestinian victims (as usual) and equated them with the Israeli terrorist army. It stressed the urgency of and called for an immediate durable ceasefire leading to full withdrawal of Israeli forces. It called for efforts to prevent alleged illicit trafficking of arms into Gaza (but not the sale of arms to Israel). Thus denying the Palestinians any means of defending their lives against terrorist Israel. It misrepresented the conflict as a humanitarian crisis by calling the international community to provide humanitarian aid to alleviate the suffering of Gazans. This is not a humanitarian crisis; an Israeli occupation. It is a political conflict with grave humanitarian consequences. This is a genocidal holocaust of 1.5 Palestinians through thirst, starvation and use of WMD. THIS IS BLATANT NAKED WAR CRIMES. Ban Ki-moon was sent to visit Gaza after the Israeli onslaught. He cared only to check the bombed UN warehouse and schools but not the civilian sufferings. He cared more about buildings than humans. He later expressed his “pleasure”that Israeli leaders had agreed to meet with UN representatives to discuss precautions that further “accidental bombing” of UN facilities could be avoided. Thus meeting with Israeli war criminals has become a UN pleasure. He stated, further, that he would close any investigation into Israel’s war crimes. Whatever Israel bombs and destroys Western donors volunteer to pay for. These donor countries pledged $4.5 Billion for Gaza reconstruction on the condition that such money is paid to Abbas’ Palestinian Authority and not Hamas. After a whole year of the onslaught, Gaza Palestinians had never received one cent of that money, and no reconstruction had even started. Most of the money had gone into the private pockets of Abbas’ gang and to his security forces. After the failure of Israeli siege of Gaza and its onslaught on the Strip to destroy the democratically elected Hamas government The Western countries stepped in to produce harsher measures. In February 2009 experts from nine Western countries (US, UK, France, Canada, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, and Norway) met in Copenhagen to discuss ways of combating alleged weapons smuggling into Gaza. Their main concentration was to use Egypt as a land front to further tighten the siege against Gaza, specifically to target the underground tunnels Gazans use to smuggle in food stuff, goods, and fuel. They also decided to send NATO warships into the Mediterranean, Red Sea, and Persian Gulf to intercept alleged weapon smuggling from Iran to Gaza. At the end of January 2009 French President Nicolas Sarkozy sent a frigate with helicopters to the waters off Gaza to combat arms smuggling into Palestinian territories. He ordered his Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner to coordinate closely with the US and EU to come up with more effective ways to fight arms smuggling on land and sea. Sarkozy said: “We have pledged to help Israel and Egypt with all the technical, military, naval and diplomatic ways to help end the smuggling of weapons into Gaza.” British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, issued an order to deploy the British Navy to the region to help fight weapons smuggling. “We’ll send Royal Navy to help fight weapon smuggling” He stated courageously. Latest British scandal came this month when its Foreign Office Minister Ivan Lewis said that UK is urgently looking into reforming its laws to protect Israeli war criminals, such as Tzibi Levni, from being arrested. Germany sent end of January border police exports and equipment to detect and destroy tunnels in Gaza Strip. German Deputy Interior Minister, August Hanning, claimed that Egypt had requested the detection equipment and the technical skills. The newly elected American President at the time Barak Obama had also sent American vessels into the region to board all suspected vessels of smuggling weapons. He also had asked the Gulf States, especially Saudi Arabia, to help combat arms smuggling. The US had sent surveillance cameras and underground sound sensors to Egypt to be installed on the border with Gaza. Recently the US Army Corps of Engineers had constructed treated steel plates and is helping Egypt install them as an underground wall on the Gaza border to prevent tunnel digging. While denying Palestinians acquire any arms for self defense the US and EU member states are major arms exporters to Israel. According to figures from Brussels the European Union member states authorized the export of €200 million in arms exports to Israel in 2007, with France far and away the Israel’s biggest European weapons supplier. According to the EU’s 2008 report on arms export licenses, published in December for the 2007 calendar year and consolidating the accounts that member states must annually submit, 18 member states authorized a total of 1,018 such licenses to Israel worth €199,409,348. The US is the largest arms exporter to Israel. Successive American Administration had sold Israel the latest and most technologically and most devastating weapons. According to Amnesty International the US had provided Israel with $8.3 Billion worth or weapons between 2004 and 2007. In 2002 the US granted Israel $21 Billion worth in military aid. Israel’s 2006 war against Lebanon and its 2008/09 war against Gaza were carried using American weapons. Still Obama’s administration had delivered late last January 14,000 tons of weapons to Israel delivered by the German cargo ship, Wehr Elbe, to Israeli port of Ashdod. Recently, peace prize winner, President Obama has signed off $2.775 Billion in further defense aid for Israel, a part of the $30 Billion over 10 years. Last Monday 12/21 Obama has approved a defense spending bill that includes $2.2 Million in funds for Israel’s missile defense program, more than double what was approved last year. All this while American economy is collapsing, housing crisis is exacerbating, and unemployment rate is rising. It seems for Obama administration the Israeli citizen is more important than the American tax payer. Also refer to my article“Arming Terrorist Israel”. EU and US don’t mind breaking their own laws for the sake of arming terrorist Israel. Under Criterion 2 of the EU Code of Conduct on Arms Exports, Member States are supposed to “deny an export license if there is a clear risk that the proposed export might be used for internal repression, or be used in the commission of serious violations of international humanitarian laws”. Israel is proved to commit both offenses. The US breaks three of its own arms export laws; US Arms Export Control Act (P.L. 80-829), Foreign Assistance Act (P.L. 97-195), and the Leahy Law (Foreign Ops Appropriation Act). With such extraordinary consorted international efforts and the use of such amassed technical and military powers one would imagine that Israel, EU and US are fighting a war against a great global enemy not impoverished and starved civilians trying to survive on a small and narrow war-scorched strip of land. The reality is that this international power is fighting the resisting spirit of these people against colonial occupation. They are afraid that such spirit may spread over and impede their own occupation in the region. To destroy this spirit these Western governments are willing to unconditionally support terrorist Israel financially, militarily and politically, on the expense of their citizens tax payers despite their own economic crises and joblessness. The worst accomplices in this international crime are the Arab governmental regimes, who are supposed to protect their Palestinian brothers from such a holocaust. Rather than united in one nation, one government, one military, and one economy Arab leaders had, instead, asserted the division of the Sykes-Picot Agreement. Thus they keep themselves weak and vulnerable to foreign occupation, interference and control that can be overtly and covertly seen in almost every Arab state. The Arab League is just a tool to keep the leaders in a chaotic disagreement unable to make any national decision. For the last 61 years they have watched Palestinian land gradually gobbled by the Zionist occupation and had not taken any significant action to free Palestine. Rather they spend their Billion oil money in buying obsolete weapons to rust in the desert. Finally they stopped financing Palestine freedom fighters and surrendered the penniless Palestinian Authority to the merciless manipulation of the pro-Israeli Western donor countries. While some had completely withdrawn from the Arab/Israeli conflict, others like Jordanian and Egyptian regimes had actively contributed to the suppression of all forms of Palestinian resistance against Israeli occupation. During the Israeli 22 days onslaught on Gaza Arab leaders kept coming up with unreasonable excuses for not convening an urgent summit meeting. When they finally did meet, they, as usual, agreed to disagree on how to deal with the Israeli aggression. They finally begged the UN to interfere. Such delay gave Israelis longer time to murder more Palestinians and destroy more homes. The Arab League, later on, issued a resolution calling for breaking Israel’s siege of Gaza, yet they donated money to Abbas’ security forces, controlled by American general Dayton, to oppose the democratically elected Hamas government. Instead of feeding the starving Palestinians in Gaza the League is spending $50 Million to protect the lives of endangered marine turtles on 8000 square meters coast land off Al-Arish in Egypt. What a humanitarian gesture! Like all colonial puppet local regimes, the present Palestinian Authority, under the leadership of Mahmoud Abbas and his thugs, had hijacked the Palestinian leadership and offered Palestine and its people on the Israeli alter to glorify a genocidal god and his chosen people. My previous articles ( here and here) discuss the betrayal of the present Palestinian Authority. This betrayal was recently exposed by Israeli audio and video recording of these so-called Palestinian leaders urging the Israelis to attack Gaza to finish off the elected Hamas government regardless of any Palestinian casualties. Abbas and his PA had also tried to muffle Goldstone’s Report about Israel’s crime. Besides crushing dissidents and any form of pro-Palestinian solidarity, Jordan has become a training campground for Abbas’ security forces under the supervision of the American General Keith Dayton. Dayton had established a twin sister of the American School of Assassins to suppress Palestinian resistance. It was reported that about four thousands trainees of this School were ready to enter and control Gaza after the anticipated destruction of Hamas government. Besides suppressing and robbing its own citizens for the last 28 years, Hosni Mubarak’s Egyptian regime has played the most active role, second to Israel, in opposing elected Palestinian government and in the destruction of Gaza and starving its people. To ease Mubarak’s conscious for participating in such genocide of his Arab brothers his regime is paid a handsome $2 Billion in the form of American Aid. Mubarak’s regime has committed crimes against humanity by fully participating in the Israeli siege against Gaza. Rather than helping the next door homeless and hungry Arab brothers of Gaza Strip the Mubarak’s regime preferred to send, last May, an airplane full with humanitarian aid to Sri Lanka on the opposite side of the globe. This regime was a stubborn obstacle in the face of every international solidarity movement and organizations, who tried to break the siege against Gaza. The regime blocked the entry of thousands of tons of badly needed food aid to Gaza; letting them rot in the desert heat, and finally burn them as spoiled food. Under the deceptive banner of “fighting arms smuggling into Gaza” it erected the most sophisticated surveillance equipment to detect and prevent life-sustaining materials delivered to Gaza through tunnels. This month, December 2009, Egyptian Mubarak’s regime, with the help of American Army Corps Engineers, is building an underground steel wall to block tunnel digging, and is running underground pipes to flood the existing tunnels with sea waters. Egyptian regime has opposed the elected Hamas Palestinian leadership and sided with the Western puppet Abbas, whose presidency has expired. It has sabotaged all reconciliation attempts between the two Palestinian factions by imposing harsh conditions against Hamas government and altering the text of agreements before signature. The Egyptian policy towards their Palestinian brothers in Gaza, many of whom carry Egyptian citizenship, was reflected in the confession of its Foreign Minister, Ahmad Aboul-Gheti, in 11th of November 2008 when he stated that Egypt was closing Rafah Crossing with Gaza to punish a Palestinian faction (Hamas). Opening the Crossing, in his opinion, constitutes recognition of Hamas’ legitimacy. Unlike the silence over the Holocaust during WWII conscientious citizens of these same international criminal governments are actively mobilized to act against terrorist Israel and the genocidal policies of their governments. Through Breaking Gaza Siege Campaigns many of them, such as Viva Palestina and The Hope convoys, are delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza. They have also organized boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaigns to boycott companies that sustain Israeli occupation on Palestine such as Motorola and Caterpillar, as well as academic and cultural boycott of all Israeli academic and cultural institutions, all of them are supported by the Israeli government. The effects of these campaigns had penetrated the blindly pro-Zionist American congress, where on December 18th Representatives Jim McDermott and Keith Ellison are seeking signature on a “Dear Colleague” letter to President Obama criticizing Israel’s siege of Gaza. Representatives Jim Moran and Bob Inglis are also seeking signatures on another “Dear Colleague” letter to Secretary of State Clinton urging her to pressure Israeli government to end the ban on student travel from Gaza to the West Bank. This week protests are organized in major countries around the world in US, UK, France, Turkey, Ireland, Germany, Spain, Australia, Belgium, Switzerland, Sweden, Canada, Poland, Denmark, Greece, Jordan, and occupied Palestine (Israel), commemorating the first anniversary of the Israeli onslaught against Gaza. Under the Principle of Universal Jurisdiction we are witnessing Western courts issuing arrest warrants against Israeli leaders (Tzibi Livni) and army generals (former military chief Moshe Yaalon and General Doron Almog) for committing war crimes. International lawyers are filing for more arrest warrants against more Israeli war criminals. Soon Israeli leaders will be chased across the globe as war criminals the same way Israel had chased German Nazis as war criminals.

Xe, Formerly Blackwater, Poses Biggest Threat to Pakistan’s Nukes

Xe, Formerly Blackwater, Poses Biggest Threat to Pakistan’s Nukes Dr Shahid Qureshi December 28, 2009 Is America out to hurt her trusted ally? Main photo of Blackwater courtesy:opinion-maker.org (LONDON) – Lawyers from the local bar associations protested outside the ‘secret base’ of US mercenaries (Xe/Blackwater) inside the ‘Sehala’ Police Training College, a few miles from the Kahuta Nuclear Plant. Why did Pakistani media ignore the story? Kahuta Nuke Plant As the propaganda that Pakistani nukes are likely to fall into the hands of the Taliban continues in the American press, one wonders what might be the U.S. intent. Seen in the light that American mercenaries have become overt operationally, it appears that the intent is to use them to ‘lift’ the Pak Nukes using the threat from the Taliban as an excuse. It is a most ridiculous statement that the Taliban are going to walk into Pakistani nuclear sites and take control. Are nuclear weapons toys that can be taken away from an errant kid? It is common knowledge that different sections of the system are stored in different places; “how can Taliban take over all sites and put them together” was my response to a question by Adam Brooks, BBC’s Washington correspondent, in a live program on BBC World Service TV on 23rd December 2009. Tehrik Taliban in Pakistan, face covered, holding AK-47 Some analysts believe that Blackwater is a bigger threat to Pakistan’s nuclear sites than real Taliban. There are reports that (TTP) ‘Tehrik Taliban Pakistan’ is co-sponsored by CIA-Raw-Mossad and perhaps some other interested parties. In fact TTP is created to fight Taliban in Afghanistan and may be entrapments. The attacks on Pakistan’s sensitive institutions are serving the purpose of the enemies of Pakistan including India. The Al-Qaida threat is like a ‘swine flu’ which can be used anywhere from Yemen, Somalia, Saudi Arabia and FATA depending on the aims, purpose and objectives of the Neoconic emerging policies in the concerned areas. Al-Qaida is a trump card in the hands of the defence contractors and war profiteers, main benefactors of Global War on Terror and of 9/11 terrorism. Pakistan’s spy chief Lt. General Shuja Pasha reportedly gave proof of the CIA’s involvement into destabilising/terrorist activities in Pakistan. According to some assessments U.S. mercenaries with support of ‘locally recruited agents’ are behind the targeted killings of senior Pakistani military officers in the past few months. Vodpod videos no longer available. more about “Xe, Formerly Blackwater, Poses Bigges…“, posted with vodpod In the current scenario it is irrelevant who gave permission, freedom of movement and a base in the Police Training College a few miles from the “Kahuta Nuclear Plant” to US private mercenaries (Blackwater/Xe) in Pakistan. The most important question is what Rehman Malik and Zardari are doing about it? According to reports, four U.S. nationals, who were dressed in Taliban clothes, speaking Pashto, were arrested by the police approximately 1.5 miles from the Kahuta Nuclear Plant. They were carrying explosives and dozens of hand grenades in a 4×4 jeep with some kind of spying and jamming equipments. When they were brought to the police station, people from Rehman Malik’s Interior Ministry and allegedly Salman Faruqui Zardari’s NRO partner and beneficiary got these criminals released without charge and handed over to the US embassy.” Lawyers from the local bar associations protested outside the secret base of US mercenaries (Xe/Blackwater) placed inside ‘Sehala’ Police Training College. Even the head of the college, a senior DIG, was not allowed in the US facility. That reminded me of the reported incident where military dictator General Ayub Khan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs – none other than Zulifkar Ali Bhutto, father in law of President Zardari, wanted to visit a U.S. Base in Peshawar. His request was turned down by the base commander and he was turned away from the canteen. Soon after, a U.S. spy plane U2 was shot down in the Soviet air space and the pilot was taken into custody. Which obviously resulted in shutting down of the base as well as daily U2 flights. General Ayub Khan In the current scenario without making corruption a moral or political issue, Pakistan is facing two major internal threats from two individuals. Asif Zardari and Rehman Malik are two major threats to Pakistan’s security and sovereignty. Rehman Malik is responsible for providing safe passages to Blackwater mercenaries via corrupt police officials day in day out. When there is overwhelming evidence that Blackwater/Xe are involved in terrorism and anti-state activities against Pakistan’s armed forces, nuclear program and assassination of Benazir Bhutto, according to former Army Chief General Aslam Baig (whom she awarded with a medal). Rehman Malik should be tried in open court for aiding, abetting and procuring for all the incidents when foreign mercenaries, who were released on the orders of his interior ministry. In mid September 2009 a senior police officer Nasir Aftab was sacked by Rehman Malik because he arrested and apprehended armed Blackwater agents. The incident took place in Islamabad when Superintendent intercepted some officers of an intelligence agency and marines of a powerful country riding in a vehicle. He took them to the Margala police station where a brawl took place. The SP later lodged an FIR against some officials of the intelligence agency. The Acting Chief of Islamabad Police DIG (Operations) Bin Yamin said, “reasons of officers’ removal were not mentioned in the letter”. So the responsibility comes down to Mr. Rehman Malik. He should be questioned. There is a dire need to identify ‘local collaborators’ and ‘enemies of the state’ in Pakistan. According to a report filed by Fawad Ali of ‘The Nation’ on 14th December 2009, “17 Top Pakistani officials are protecting US interests in (NWFP) province neighbouring Afghanistan. Seventeen officials serving in NWFP on various important posts are active members of the notorious American Khyber Club (AKC) that is believed to be a hotbed of conspiracies against Pakistan; highly placed sources informed The Nation. These officials are facilitating American diplomats, operatives of CIA and mercenaries of Blackwater in their activities stretched across the province and FATA. In reciprocation, the local officials get full support in getting lucrative postings, transfers and getting away with inquiries, etc, sources disclosed and added they are taken care of by Americans who have tons of money at their disposal.” “Those who stand out in serving US interests are posted on the posts of their own choice despite lapse of tenure, and this speaks of increasing American influence in our internal matters,” an official said. Their nominees get U.S. visas in no time and the children as well as siblings of some officials are getting free educations in prestigious institutions abroad. “These days serving American interests is more fruitful for anyone than serving interests of Pakistan,” an official who was made OSD for an unforgivable crime of non-cooperation with foreigners told The Nation. The top 17 officials who have made American Khyber Club their second home include nine from the District Management Group (DMG), six officers representing the Police Service of Pakistan (PSP), while two are in the Office Management Group (OMG). The PSP officers who take pride in having personal relations with American operatives hail from Peshawar, Bannu, Lakki Marwat, Waziristan and Kohat. They have been spotted roaming around with foreigners in their bulletproof cars and holding secret meetings with them in their offices, which is an open violation of rules and regulations, sources informed. The DMG officials who are protecting U.S. interests in the region hail from Peshawar, Nowshehra, Swabi, Mardan and Charsadda. They also use the American Khyber Club as their unofficial secretariat. The officials belonging to OMG and PSC Executive Group hail from Waziristan and Shabqadar. Orders have been repeatedly circulated that government officials can’t meet foreigners (Americans) without prior approval from the authorities concerned but no one seems to be interested in abiding by the rules. On the other hand, those who are not in the good books of the American Consulate have been given insignificant posts or have simply been made Officers on Special (Spiritual) Duty (OSDs). The sources informed that Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency has reported the matter to the highest authorities in Islamabad. While talking to the writer the above-mentioned senior journalist, Mr. Fawad Ali confirmed that he has “been threatened by the notorious Blackwater,” which forced him to go public to save his life. It looks likes a failed attempt to recruit him? So what did Rehman Malik do as all the police service officers are accountable to his ministry? Rehman Malik is toeing a “U.S. Plan of using minorities” which is becoming more and more visible – which Iranians clearly understand. The questions one should be asking Mr Malik are: (a) Why majority of the people and companies hired by Xe/Blackwater are Shias? (b) Why he always names Sunni sectarian groups/organisations minutes after the incidents. (c) Is he settling scores for someone in the name of counter terrorism? (d) Why he never mentioned Indian Raw after the attack on a Sri Lankan team in Lahore, when Punjab CID warned of India’s plan long before the incident? On the one hand they are supporting Shia minority elements in private security agencies business, but on the other making majority Sunnis realize that less then 5% Shias of Pakistan are ruling the country from Presidency, State Bank, and media. The so called Shia left pseudo intellectuals have jumped on the U.S. bandwagon everywhere, both Pakistan and Iran should be careful with them. The US strategy of creating sectarianism failed in Iraq and it was allegedly Blackwater and private mercenaries bombing both Sunnis and Shia mosques. The Obama Administration must bring to justice those ‘friendly spies’ arrested in the U.S., who were releasing information about U.S. troop movements in Iraq as IED’s were planted on those routes. A senior based in the region told me that sometimes these private mercenaries establish fake checkpoints, take people away for search, plant remote control bombs in their cars, tell them to collect their papers from the place where explosion is intended, when vehicles get there, devices are exploded. These people did not know that they were carriers. Private mercenaries are terrorizing people with the help of the locals. The people who killed senior Pakistani military officers were allegedly re-trained by Xe/Blackwater. It is a fact that soldiers and officers retire at a young age due to type of profession and need to join other professions. Exposure of these snakes in the grass, aiders and abettors of these foreign mercenaries is important. Blackwater in Pakistan for “Targeted Killings” According to a report, “The security company of Ikram Sehgal, MD of Pathfinder and Security Management Services (SMS) was brought into the spotlight for being security providers of American embassy, and the strength of 20,000 plus security guards employed in that organization armed with sophisticated weapons and armoured vehicles were discussed.” The cause of frustration is solely based on suspicious activities of foreign agencies and their agents in Pakistan with local backing. It is important to analyze what owners of these agencies are up and to and where they are going. For Example as reported in the media, Mr Ikram Sehgal’s statement, “No harm in recognizing Israel”, is not only treacherous but against the state of Pakistan. Mr Ikram Sehgal, chief editor of the Defence Journal, said on Saturday that there would be no harm in Pakistan’s recognition of Israel if Tel Aviv could be pursued to refrain from a pro-Indian policy. In a lecture at the Department of International Relations at Karachi University, he said if Jordan and Egypt could recognize Israel, why not Pakistan? He does not understand the legality of the issue and historical stands of the father of the nation on the issue. Should this man be allowed to continue run his ‘private army’ which could be converted into Israeli army at any time? A few years back Brinks USA was also among those who jumped into the local security business, but a major cause of panic is the recent recovery of weapons during a raid on the residence of Capt. Zaidi of InterRisk security agency and the discovery of illegal prohibited weapons. It was recently reported that an international company SkyPlan is delivering NATO supplies via Sialkot airport. Why has this matter not been fully investigated as to who is behind these activities? Did Pakistan Armed Forces train Black water/Xe’s local recruits to work against the national interests of the state? As far as Zardari and Rehman Malik are concerned, they have converted Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party into (PPPP) Pimping, Pleasuring and Profiteering Party. Source: opinion-maker.org ============================================ (Dr Shahid Qureshi is an award winning journalist and writer on foreign policy & security based in London)

:: Article nr. 61555 sent on 29-dec-2009 03:57 ECT
www.uruknet.info?p=61555

Link: www.salem-news.com/articles/december272009/blkwtr_pak.php

The Gaza Bombshell (for those who missed it)

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and President George W. Bush, whose secret Palestinian intervention backfired in a big way. Photo illustration by Chris Mueller; left, by Debbie Hill/Sipa Press; right, by Issam Rimawi/ApaImages/Polaris; background by Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters/Corbis.

The Gaza Bombshell

After failing to anticipate Hamas’s victory over Fatah in the 2006 Palestinian election, the White House cooked up yet another scandalously covert and self-defeating Middle East debacle: part Iran-contra, part Bay of Pigs. With confidential documents, corroborated by outraged former and current U.S. officials, the author reveals how President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Deputy National-Security Adviser Elliott Abrams backed an armed force under Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, touching off a bloody civil war in Gaza and leaving Hamas stronger than ever.

by DAVID ROSE

April 2008

The Al Deira Hotel, in Gaza City, is a haven of calm in a land beset by poverty, fear, and violence. In the middle of December 2007, I sit in the hotel’s airy restaurant, its windows open to the Mediterranean, and listen to a slight, bearded man named Mazen Asad abu Dan describe the suffering he endured 11 months before at the hands of his fellow Palestinians. Abu Dan, 28, is a member of Hamas, the Iranian-backed Islamist organization that has been designated a terrorist group by the United States, but I have a good reason for taking him at his word: I’ve seen the video.

To hear an interview with David Rose and to see documents he uncovered,click here.

It shows abu Dan kneeling, his hands bound behind his back, and screaming as his captors pummel him with a black iron rod. “I lost all the skin on my back from the beatings,” he says. “Instead of medicine, they poured perfume on my wounds. It felt as if they had taken a sword to my injuries.”

On January 26, 2007, abu Dan, a student at the Islamic University of Gaza, had gone to a local cemetery with his father and five others to erect a headstone for his grandmother. When they arrived, however, they found themselves surrounded by 30 armed men from Hamas’s rival, Fatah, the party of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas. “They took us to a house in north Gaza,” abu Dan says. “They covered our eyes and took us to a room on the sixth floor.”

The video reveals a bare room with white walls and a black-and-white tiled floor, where abu Dan’s father is forced to sit and listen to his son’s shrieks of pain. Afterward, abu Dan says, he and two of the others were driven to a market square. “They told us they were going to kill us. They made us sit on the ground.” He rolls up the legs of his trousers to display the circular scars that are evidence of what happened next: “They shot our knees and feet—five bullets each. I spent four months in a wheelchair.”

Abu Dan had no way of knowing it, but his tormentors had a secret ally: the administration of President George W. Bush.

A clue comes toward the end of the video, which was found in a Fatah security building by Hamas fighters last June. Still bound and blindfolded, the prisoners are made to echo a rhythmic chant yelled by one of their captors: “By blood, by soul, we sacrifice ourselves for Muhammad Dahlan! Long live Muhammad Dahlan!”

There is no one more hated among Hamas members than Muhammad Dahlan, long Fatah’s resident strongman in Gaza. Dahlan, who most recently served as Abbas’s national-security adviser, has spent more than a decade battling Hamas. Dahlan insists that abu Dan was tortured without his knowledge, but the video is proof that his followers’ methods can be brutal.

Bush has met Dahlan on at least three occasions. After talks at the White House in July 2003, Bush publicly praised Dahlan as “a good, solid leader.” In private, say multiple Israeli and American officials, the U.S. president described him as “our guy.”

The United States has been involved in the affairs of the Palestinian territories since the Six-Day War of 1967, when Israel captured Gaza from Egypt and the West Bank from Jordan. With the 1993 Oslo accords, the territories acquired limited autonomy, under a president, who has executive powers, and an elected parliament. Israel retains a large military presence in the West Bank, but it withdrew from Gaza in 2005.

In recent months, President Bush has repeatedly stated that the last great ambition of his presidency is to broker a deal that would create a viable Palestinian state and bring peace to the Holy Land. “People say, ‘Do you think it’s possible, during your presidency?’ ” he told an audience in Jerusalem on January 9. “And the answer is: I’m very hopeful.”

The next day, in the West Bank capital of Ramallah, Bush acknowledged that there was a rather large obstacle standing in the way of this goal: Hamas’s complete control of Gaza, home to some 1.5 million Palestinians, where it seized power in a bloody coup d’état in June 2007. Almost every day, militants fire rockets from Gaza into neighboring Israeli towns, and President Abbas is powerless to stop them. His authority is limited to the West Bank.

It’s “a tough situation,” Bush admitted. “I don’t know whether you can solve it in a year or not.” What Bush neglected to mention was his own role in creating this mess.

According to Dahlan, it was Bush who had pushed legislative elections in the Palestinian territories in January 2006, despite warnings that Fatah was not ready. After Hamas—whose 1988 charter committed it to the goal of driving Israel into the sea—won control of the parliament, Bush made another, deadlier miscalculation.

Vanity Fair has obtained confidential documents, since corroborated by sources in the U.S. and Palestine, which lay bare a covert initiative, approved by Bush and implemented by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams, to provoke a Palestinian civil war. The plan was for forces led by Dahlan, and armed with new weapons supplied at America’s behest, to give Fatah the muscle it needed to remove the democratically elected Hamas-led government from power. (The State Department declined to comment.)

But the secret plan backfired, resulting in a further setback for American foreign policy under Bush. Instead of driving its enemies out of power, the U.S.-backed Fatah fighters inadvertently provoked Hamas to seize total control of Gaza.

Some sources call the scheme “Iran-contra 2.0,” recalling that Abrams was convicted (and later pardoned) for withholding information from Congress during the original Iran-contra scandal under President Reagan. There are echoes of other past misadventures as well: the C.I.A.’s 1953 ouster of an elected prime minister in Iran, which set the stage for the 1979 Islamic revolution there; the aborted 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, which gave Fidel Castro an excuse to solidify his hold on Cuba; and the contemporary tragedy in Iraq.

Within the Bush administration, the Palestinian policy set off a furious debate. One of its critics is David Wurmser, the avowed neoconservative, who resigned as Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief Middle East adviser in July 2007, a month after the Gaza coup.

Wurmser accuses the Bush administration of “engaging in a dirty war in an effort to provide a corrupt dictatorship [led by Abbas] with victory.” He believes that Hamas had no intention of taking Gaza until Fatah forced its hand. “It looks to me that what happened wasn’t so much a coup by Hamas but an attempted coup by Fatah that was pre-empted before it could happen,” Wurmser says.

The botched plan has rendered the dream of Middle East peace more remote than ever, but what really galls neocons such as Wurmser is the hypocrisy it exposed. “There is a stunning disconnect between the president’s call for Middle East democracy and this policy,” he says. “It directly contradicts it.”

Preventive Security

Bush was not the first American president to form a relationship with Muhammad Dahlan. “Yes, I was close to Bill Clinton,” Dahlan says. “I met Clinton many times with [the late Palestinian leader Yasser] Arafat.” In the wake of the 1993 Oslo accords, Clinton sponsored a series of diplomatic meetings aimed at reaching a permanent Middle East peace, and Dahlan became the Palestinians’ negotiator on security.

As I talk to Dahlan in a five-star Cairo hotel, it’s easy to see the qualities that might make him attractive to American presidents. His appearance is immaculate, his English is serviceable, and his manner is charming and forthright. Had he been born into privilege, these qualities might not mean much. But Dahlan was born—on September 29, 1961—in the teeming squalor of Gaza’s Khan Younis refugee camp, and his education came mostly from the street. In 1981 he helped found Fatah’s youth movement, and he later played a leading role in the first intifada—the five-year revolt that began in 1987 against the Israeli occupation. In all, Dahlan says, he spent five years in Israeli jails.

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Alleged “Al Qaida” Allegedly In Lebanon (again)

[Every time that Israel, the Saudis and the US hatch a new plan to destabilize Lebanon, as a way to get to Hezbollah, there is an “al Qaida” sighting, just like Bigfoot.  Has it been so long since the last episode, which was the opening act for the new “Qaida” linked group Fatah al-Islam, that they forget its linkage to the Zionist gang?  SEE: The Gaza Bombshell.]

Qaida Reportedly Mobilizing Militants in Lebanon and Plotting Attacks against UNIFIL

Al-Qaida militants are plotting terrorist attacks against state institutions and foreign missions in coordination with Fatah al-Islam and wanted Palestinian fighter Abdel Rahman Awad, a well-informed security source told An Nahar daily.
The source said that Lebanese security agencies have also received information about the infiltration of al-Qaida militants into the country from Pakistan via Turkey, Greece and the Lebanese-Syrian border. The militants are seeking refuge in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, the source told An Nahar.

The militants are residing in apartments in the north and Mount Lebanon pending their infiltration into the refugee camps, according to the security source.

Al-Qaida members are also training other militants in the refugee camp of Ain el-Hilweh to carry out attacks against U.N. peacekeepers stationed in southern Lebanon, the source said.

He added that two weeks ago Jund al-Sham received financial assistance from a top al-Qaida official for the purpose of activating sleeper cells in the camp.

Putin: Russia must counter US missile defences

Mr Putin has criticised the original US missile shield plans Russia needs “to develop offensive weapons systems” to counter US missile defences and maintain the strategic balance, PM Vladimir Putin says. Otherwise, the United States would feel “completely protected” and able to “do whatever they want”. The US this year dropped controversial plans for missile defence bases in the Czech Republic and Poland, but said it would develop other defensive systems. Mr Putin said such plans were hindering nuclear arms reduction talks. Russia and the US are yet to find a successor to the Cold War-era Start I treaty, which expired on 5 December. The 1991 treaty led to deep cuts in nuclear arsenals on both sides. Both sides have agreed to continue observing Start I until they reach a new agreement. Under a joint understanding signed in July, deployed nuclear warheads should be cut to below 1,700 on each side within seven years of a new treaty – a huge cut on Soviet-era levels. Nonetheless, between them the two countries will retain enough firepower to destroy the world several times over. ‘Correct and brave’ “To preserve the balance, we must develop offensive weapons systems, not missile defence systems as the US is doing,” Mr Putin said during a visit to Russia’s Far East. “The problems of missile defence and offensive arms are very closely linked. “By building such an umbrella over themselves our [US] partners could feel themselves fully secure and will do whatever they want, which upsets the balance,” the Russian premier added. Mr Putin did not say what kind of offensive weapons Russia was seeking to develop. Earlier this month, President Dmitry Medvedev said Russia would continue to develop new nuclear missiles and launchers despite the disarmament talks, describing this as “routine practice”. In September, Mr Putin described as “correct and brave” a decision by US President Barack Obama to shelve controversial missile defence bases in Poland and the Czech Republic. Mr Obama did, however, say Washington would develop new ballistic missile defences elsewhere, including a sea-based system. He said the US still needed a programme to defend the US against missiles from “rogue states” like Iran. Moscow had long objected to plans by the administration of former-President George W Bush to base a missile interceptor system close to its borders, calling it a threat to its security.

Thousands mourn after bomb rattles Pakistani city

Faisal Aziz

KARACHI

KARACHI (Reuters) – Several thousand mourners attended funerals on Tuesday for victims of a suicide bombing that killed 43 people in Pakistan’s commercial capital, an emotional reminder of a raging Taliban insurgency.

Coffins were carried through throngs paying their respects to people blown up on Monday at a procession at the climax of Ashura, one of the most important events in the Shi’ite calendar.

Earlier, Pakistan’s interior minister appealed for calm in Pakistan’s biggest city Karachi, where shopowners surveyed gutted premises a day after the attack triggered a city-center riot.

The bombing underscored multiple security challenges facing nuclear-armed U.S. ally Pakistan at a volatile time for President Asif Ali Zardari, who could be weakened further if corruption charges against his close aides are revived.

His political troubles are accompanied by heavy pressure from Washington to root out militants it says use sanctuaries in Pakistan to cross over and attack U.S.-led troops in Afghanistan.

The government launched a security crackdown last October against al Qaeda-linked Taliban militants in their tribal strongholds in northwest Pakistan and retaliatory bombings since have killed hundreds of people across the country.

Although the government blamed militants for the Karachi attack — the third in as many days — some mourners expressed disbelief that fellow Muslims were capable of such carnage.

“I am one hundred percent sure that the United States and its agents are behind this attack, and all other such attacks in the country,” said Syed Kausar Hussain Zaidi, a Shi’ite lawyer.

“There aim is to destabilize Pakistan. The so-called religious extremists spreading this terror are nothing but U.S. puppets.”

SECTARIAN BLOODSHED

The attack in Pakistan’s biggest city may have been a bid to ignite sectarian bloodshed to create new security crises.

Pakistani security forces patrolled nearly empty streets.

“I appeal to the people of Karachi to stay peaceful. This is the economic hub of Pakistan,” Interior Minister Rehman Malik told reporters after attending the funeral of a paramilitary soldier who authorities said pounced on the suicide bomber.

In a sign of growing anxiety, trading at Karachi’s stock market ended 75 minutes ahead of the normal 1030 GMT close due to safety concerns, said one of its officials.

Investors have factored in the violence. But sustained trouble could hurt financial markets in an economy in virtual recession. The index ended 0.12 percent lower at 9,410.66 points amid thin trade.

Mourners expressed anger, shouting confusing slogans.

“Down with America. Down with the Taliban. Down with Israel.”

Religious scholars urged people to remain peaceful.

The provincial government declared a public holiday. Public transport was out of service and most shops were shut.

“Our office and the whole building is completely burned. Everything has been destroyed,” said Saleem Khan, who runs a car rental business along what is normally a busy road.

Karachi police chief Waseem Ahmed told Reuters initial investigations showed the suicide bomber was aged between 18 and 20, and that he used 8-9 kg (18-20 lb) of explosives. He said at least 500 shops had been set ablaze.

“It is clear that the terrorists are very well organized. They want to destabilize the country,” said Anjum Naqvi, who was part of the bombed procession.

Provincial health secretary Hashim Raza Zaidi said the death toll had risen to 43, while 52 people were still in hospitals.

“It’s a huge loss for the families of those killed. But what about our families? We are alive and have lost everything,” said Mohammad Shams, owner of a shop that makes plastic.

A teeming city of 18 million, Karachi has a long history of ethnic and factional violence, although it has been spared the brunt of Taliban attacks over the past couple of years.

Quicksilver Messenger Service – What About Me?

Obama, what are you going to do about me and the million or more like me?

America, my home, what has become of you?  You were once the land of the free, the defender of the oppressed children of the earth…now you have become Shiva, Destroyer of the world.  My heart grows weary from the fight against frustration…I want to let it all just be, however it is to be…but I cannot.   The world must grow, yet you stifle it at every occasion.  My God has told me of a better way, how things could one day be, if only….

If we could only glimpse the better way that some of us have seen, then there would be no resistance to the idea of laying down all the arms in the world in a single motion, a single statement that we all see what the Prophets have tried to pound into our little closed minds.  There is a better way, The One True Religion, The Way of Moses, Mohammed and Jesus, a common path tread by all the Prophets.  Our worth is measured in how we treat the least and the most wretched among us.  There is no room for war when one child suffers without cause; it is a disgrace to the human race.

This song by Quicksilver Messenger Service gives a glimpse of the great question that will decide all of our fates–What will we do about those who are different, the refuse of society, the rejects locked-away in prisons and psych wards?  How many of those of us who are different, those of us who cannot accept things the way they are, are needlessly set-apart from society because no one has the time or the desire to understand our conditions or the moral dilemmas that confound us, or cares to get involved with the freaks of society?  It is far easier to separate the freaks from society, once they have been identified or diagnosed, than it is to show human concern, compassion or generosity of spirit.

We wage war upon ourselves, before we wage it upon the world.  This is why our prisons are filled with mostly minorities and other victims of the class war, why we are a world leader in executions.  America is a very sick society, with a great need for healing.

You poisoned my sweet water.You cut down my green trees.The food you fed my childrenWas the cause of their disease.My world is slowly fallin’ downAnd the airs not good to breathe.And those of us who care enough,We have to do something…….(Chorus)Oh…….oh What you gonna do about me?Oh…….oh What you gonna do about me?Your newspapers,They just put you on.They never tell youThe whole story.They just put yourYoung ideas down.I was wonderin’ could this be the endOf your pride and glory?(Chorus)I work in your factory.I study in your schools.I fill your penitentiaries.And your military too!And I feel the future trembling,As the word is passed around.”If you stand up for what you do believe,Be prepared to be shot down.”(Chorus)And I feel like a strangerIn the land where I was bornAnd I live like an outlaw.An’ I’m always on the run……………………..An Im always getting bustedAnd I got to take a stand……..I believe the revolutionMust be mighty close at hand…………………..(Chorus)I smoke marijuanaBut I cant get behind your wars.And most of what I do believeIs against most of your lawsI’m a fugitive from injusticeBut I’m goin’ to be free.Cause your rules and regulationsThey dont do the thing for me(Chorus)And I feel like a strangerIn the land where I was bornAnd I live just like an outlaw.An’ I’m always on the run.

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Another Day, Another Israeli War Crime

[More proof that the settlers colonizers run the Zionist regime.   The US and the rest of the Zionist West are guilty of aiding state terror in every Israeli war crime.] Israeli military constructs new roadblock in West Bank village, crippling farmers’ economy International Solidarity Movement (ISM) December 28, 2009 The Israeli army erected a giant earth mound across a crucial agricultural road in the northern West Bank village of Madama this week. The road block severely limits hundreds of farmers’ access to their lands, making transport by vehicle all but impossible. The intentional crippling of the village’s chief economy comes as settler violence continues unabated in the region. Four Israeli military jeeps and one Caterpillar bulldozer entered the village on Wednesday night to construct the road block. The targeted dirt road cuts directly underneath the speedy settler road leading west from Yitzhar settlement, where a tunnel was constructed to allow the road’s continuation to farmers’ land. The bulldozer quickly moved massive mounds of earth across the road underneath the bridge, entirely blocking it and removing the possibility of access to cars and tractors by village farmers. ISM activists visited Madama to witness families clambering over the earth mound on foot and herding, with great difficulty, donkeys and flocks of sheep and goats across the blockage. The prevention of tractor access is critical now especially, as Palestine enters its wet season and land must be ploughed to become fertile for the new year. Approximately 500 of Madama’s farmers hold land on the other side of the road block, whose economic livelihood is severely threatened by this senseless impediment. The road overhead, linking Israeli settlers effortlessly with their homes and work outside the settlements, cuts deeply through Madama’s land, as it has done since it was built 10 years ago. Two homes, belonging to Yasser Taher’s family, are now isolated on the other side of the highway, marking them as prime targets for settler and military harassment, leaving children traumatised and inevitably forcing the majority of the family to move to a safer home within Madama. Madama resident Abed Al-Aziz Zeiyada became the latest victim in an endless series of settler incursions as he drove his taxi home on Friday night. Settlers of Yitzhar settlement, waiting on the side of the road, hurled rocks at his car and destroyed the windscreen. When Zeiyada reached Huwara, now without a windscreen in his car, he was stopped by Israeli forces at a flying checkpoint. Showing them the unmistakeable damage, Zeiyada was refused assistance by Israeli soldiers. He returned to Madama and paid a 700 shekel bill for the window to be fixed the next day. Residents of Madama always have one eye fixed on the settlements that loom over the village; Bracha to the north, and Yitzhar to the south. Yitzhar alone is built on 1000 dunums of Madama’s land, including all of its water wells. Villagers are forced to spend vast amounts of their income on water, a 90-litre tank costing a crippling 125 shekels. Settler incursions also occur frequently, wrecked upon homes on the edge of the village, if not from the settlers then from the military, whose base next to Bracha send jeeps careening through the streets of Madama and neighbouring villages by night. Israeli settlements, illegal under international law, and their network of Apartheid roads, in addition to Israeli government and military suffocating policy and presence in occupied Palestine culminate in a devastating effect on the everyday lives of Palestinians, such as residents of Madama village, whose voices all too often go unheard.

:: Article nr. 61559 sent on 29-dec-2009 05:11 ECT
www.uruknet.info?p=61559

Link: palsolidarity.org/2009/12/10066

The American people face a serious moral dilemma

Inside the Military-Industrial-Media Complex: Impacts on Movement for Social Justice

By Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff

Lists of Iraqi dead. (Photo: Zen / Flickr)

The American people face a serious moral dilemma. Murder and war crimes have been conducted in their name. Yet most Americans have no idea of the magnitude of deaths and tend to believe that they number in the thousands and are primarily Iraqis killing Iraqis.  Corporate mainstream media are in large part to blame. The question then becomes how can this mass ignorance and corporate media deception exist in the United States and what impact does this have on peace and social justice movements in the country?[iv]

Truth Emergency and Media Reform

In the United States today, the rift between reality and reporting has peaked. There is no longer a mere credibility gap, but rather a literal Truth Emergencyin which the most important information affecting people is concealed from view. Many Americans, relying on the mainstream corporate media, have serious difficulty accessing the truth while still believing that the information they receive is the reality. A Truth Emergency reflects cumulative failures of the fourth estate to act as a truly free press. This truth emergency is seen in inadequate coverage of fraudulent elections, pseudo 9/11 investigations, illegal preemptive wars, torture camps, doctored intelligence, and  domestic surveillance.   Reliable information on these issues is systematically missing in corporate media outlets, where the vast majority of the American people continue to turn for news and information.

Consider these items of noteworthy conditions. US workers have been faced with a thirty-five year decline in real wages while the top few percent enjoy unparalleled wealth with strikingly low tax burdens. US schools, particularly in the west, are more segregated now than half a century ago. The US has the highest infant mortality rate among industrialized nations, is falling behind in scientific research and education, leads the world as a debtor nation, and is seriously lacking in healthcare quality and coverage, which results in the deaths of 18,000 people a year. America has entered another Gilded Age. Someone should alert the media.[v]

The Free Press or Media Reform Movement is a national effort to address mainstream media failures and the government policies that sanction them. During the 2008 National Conference for Media Reform (NCMR) in Minneapolis, Project Censored interns and faculty conducted a survey, completed by 376 randomly selected NCMR attendees out of the 3,500 people registered for the conference. This survey was designed to gauge participants’ views on the state of the corporate news media and the  effectiveness of the media reform movement. The survey also sought to determine the level of belief in a truth emergency, a systematic hiding of critical information in the US. Not surprisingly, for a sample of independent media reform activists, majorities in the 90% plus range agreed on most criticisms of mainstream media, that corporate media failed to keep the American people informed on important issues facing the nation and that a truth emergency does indeed exist in the US. Regarding the reasons, 87% of the participants believed that a military-industrial-media complex exists in the US for the promotion of the US military domination of the world and most agreed with research conclusions by Project Censored, and others, that a continuing powerful global dominance groupinside the US government, the US media, and the national policy structure is responsible. What was clear from our survey is that media democracy activists strongly support not only aggressive reform efforts and policy changes but also the continuing development of independent, grassroots media as part of an overall media democracy movement.

While most progressive media activists do not believe in some omnipotent conspiracy, an overwhelming portion of NCMR participants do believe the leadership class in the US is dominated by a neo-conservative group of some several hundred people who share a goal of asserting US military power worldwide. This Global Dominance Group (GDM) continues under both Republican and Democratic rule.  In cooperation with major military contractors, the corporate media, and conservative foundations, the GDM has become a powerful long-term force in military unilateralism and US political processes.

The Global Dominance Group and Information Control

A long thread of sociological research documents the existence of a dominant ruling class in the US, which sets policy and determines national political priorities. C. Wright Mills, in his 1956 book The Power Elite, documented how World War II solidified a trinity of power in the US that comprised corporate, military and government elites in a centralized power structure working in unison through “higher circles” of contact and agreement.[vi] This power has grown through the Cold War and, after 9/11, the Global War on Terror.  (read full article HERE)

Lift the Siege on Gaza Now–Solidarity Events Near You

Lift the Siege on Gaza Now!

PLEASE FORWARD FAR AND WIDE, TELL YOUR FRIENDS IN OTHER CITIES Find an action near you! http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/424/p/salsa/event/common/public/index.sjs?distributed_event_KEY=548 OR:  www.gazafreedommarch.org click on Solidarity actions. We’re calling on activists around the globe to organize an action between December 27th through December 31st to send your elected officials a message to pressure the Israeli government to Lift the Siege on Gaza Now! Dec 31 12:00 March across the Golden Gate Bridge December 31st:  March across the Golden Gate Bridge to support the  Gaza Freedom … Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, 94956 San Francisco , CA 22 attendees 100 max

Dec 27 13:00 New York City: December 27: ONE YEAR AFTER THE MASSACRE STAND IN SOLIDARITY WITH GAZA March marking the first anniversary of the Israeli invasion of Gaza … 42nd Street and 7th Avenue New York, NY 4 attendees 15000 max

Dec 31 13:00 Boston: First Night Against the Wars – Let Gaza Live! The Greater Boston Stop the Wars Coalition in conjunction with Code Pink- Boston will be … Copley Square Boston , MA 15 attendees

Jan 01 15:00 Gaza Freedom March 2010 On December 31st, 2009 the largest-ever international delegation will hold a massive non-violent … Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC Vancouver, BC 3 attendees

Jan 01 15:00 Gaza Freedom March A solidarity march for the Gaza Freedom March in Calgary, Alberta TBA Calgary, AB 3 attendees

Jan 01 15:00 Gaza Freedom March – London, Ontario One year after the massacre of the people of Gaza, we gather in solidarity with Palestinians to … Victoria Park (Richmond and Central) London, ON 2 attendees

Dec 27 15:00 One year on…Join the vigil outside the Israeli Embassy One year since the Beginning of the Attacks on Gaza Protest Outside the Israeli Embassy End the … High Street Kensington, W8, London, United Kingdom London 5 attendees

Dec 30 18:30 GFM Vigil at Disneyland – Los Angeles Solidarity Action Gaza Freedom March – Los Angeles / Orange County Solidarity Action at Disneyland: December 30 … Disneyland, Anaheim, California Anaheim , CA 7 attendees

Dec 29 19:00 Film Screening – Occupation 101 and Life in Occupied Palestine – Juneau, AK On December 31, 2009, more than 1,000 citizens from across the world will join with an estimated … Gold Town Nickelodeon Theater, 171 Shattuck Way Juneau, AK

Dec 30 17:00 DC Vigil for Gaza DC Vigil for Gaza Candlelight vigil to commemorate the one year anniversary of the Israeli … 7th St and H St NW Washington, DC 9 attendees

Dec 27 12:30 Rally – Commemoration of the massacre in Gaza more detail to come Plaza Sant Jaume de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain Barcelona

Dec 27 18:00 Gaza Solidarity Event: Movie & Snacks Join CodePINK and other concerned activists as we watch one of the following movies to learn more … 101 Alter St. Philadelphia, PA 19147 IMPORTANT YOU MUST RSVP, THIS IS A PRIVATE RESIDENCE Philadelphia, PA 6 attendees 20 max

Dec 28 17:00 Vigil for Gaza – Los Angeles Arab, Muslim, Christian and activist pro-Palestine community will be holding a vigil for Gaza on … 6380 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 11 attendees

Dec 27 13:00 Gaza Solidarity – House Party House Party to reflect on a year of CODEPINK activism on the issues of Gaza, and Israel/Palestine … Concord, California Concord, CA

Dec 27 14:00 Gaza Freedom March & public commemoration in Scotland Gaza Freedom March & public commemoration in Scotland Speakers: Scottish & Gaza participants … Edinburgh, Scotland Edinburgh, ot 1 attendee

Dec 30 19:30 Free film: Death in Gaza In spring 2003, award-winning filmmaker James Miller and reporter Saira Shah, set out to take a … Cafe Bohemia 937 Central Avenue St. Petersburg, FL 3 attendees 75 max

Dec 31 13:00 Gaza Freedom March Solidarity Rally Rally in solidarity with freedom marchers to end the siege of Gaza. As part of the program Desi … Castonguay Square (downtown, adjacent to City Hall and across the street from Rep. Mike Michaud’s office). Waterville, ME 5 attendees 1000 max

Jan 01 12:00 Friday Vigil for Gaza Gather at 6th and Broadway January 1, 2010 at 12 noon for a demonstration in solidarity with the … 6th and Broadway Louisville, KY 1 attendee 1000 max

Jan 06 17:37 Candle light vigil An event in the memory of all innocent lives that were killed during the Israeli aggression on … UC San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive La Jolla, CA 3 attendees 100 max

Dec 30 12:00 Gaza Freedom March On December 30 we will walk in solidarity with the Gaza Freedom March through the town of Blue … High Street Blue Hill, ME 1 attendee Event Details Email the host

Dec 28 17:00 In Solidarity with the People of Gaza, In Solidarity with Members of our Community Participating in the Gaza Freedom March, Join … In front of Northampton, Massachusetts City Hall, 5-6:30 p.m. Northampton, MA 2 attendees 1000 max Event Details Email the host

Dec 28 11:00 Gaza Solidarity Action Boycott of businesses which promote or profit from the continued occupation of Palestine Chapel Hills Mall 1710 Briargate Boulevard Colorado Springs, CO 1 attendee Event Details Email the host

Dec 31 18:00 In Door Solidarity Vigil – Denver Short service in chapel At 6pm New Years Eve First Unitarian Church 1400 Lafayatte St. Denver, CO 80218 Denver, CO 3 attendees 200 max Event Details Email the host

Dec 29 18:30 Sreening: Life In Occupied Palestine We will screen the dvd, “Life in Occupied Palestine”, by Anna Baltzer. Jack Smith who visited … WECU Education Bldg 511 East Holly Street Bellingham, WA 5 attendees 50 max Event Details Email the host

Dec 27 17:00 Mahnwache Anlässlich des Jahrestages des Kriegsbeginnes gegen Gaza, führt unsere Jugendgruppe eine Mahnwache … Gerberstraße 45 / Stadtzentrum Pößneck Event Details Email the host

Dec 28 16:00 Stand with Gaza On Monday, 28 December 2009 from 4-5 PM we will gather across from the Dubuque, Iowa, federal … 601 Locust Street, Dubuque Iowa The southeast corner of Washington Park Dubuque, IA 1 attendee 2000 max Event Details Email the host

Dec 30 11:30 GFM Local Action of Soidarity We will gather at Hennepin County Government Center – on the second floor “public service … 300 S 6th St Minneapolis, MN 5 attendees 2000 max Event Details Email the host

Dec 31 10:30 Gaza Freedom March on the Israeli side of the Erez Crossing Gaza Freedom March on the Israeli side of the Erez Crossing December 31st, 2009 10:30 … Israel Israel, ot 3 attendees Event Details Email the host

Jan 06 14:30 REMEMBER THE CHILDREN OF GAZA REMEMBER THE CHILDREN OF GAZA 2.30PM Wednesday, 6th January Embassy of Israel Ballsbridge, … Ballsbridge, Dublin 4 Ireland 1 attendee Event Details Email the host

Dec 27 16:00 GAZA – 1 an apres – MobilisationS sur Marseille 27 Décembre 2009 Nous étions des millions dans les rues de France et d’ailleurs 1 an après, soyons au RDV ! … Angle Belsunce/Canebiere, Marseille, France Marseille 1 attendee Event Details Email the host

Dec 29 17:00 Vigil (Mahnwache) DÜSSELDORF SCHADOWPLATZ We want to remember on the cruel attacs that happened one year ago. a totaly defensless population … SCHADOWPLATZ DÜSSELDORF INENNENSTADT Düsseldorf 2 attendees 5 max Event Details Email the host

Dec 31 16:00 Bethlehem: Lift the Siege on Gaza and commemorate the atrocities The program in Bethlehem to lift the Siege on Gaza and commemorate the atrocities 4-6 PM 31 … Nativity Square, Bethlehem, West Bank, Israel Event Details Email the host

Dec 30 18:30 AN EVENING OF SOLIDARITY WITH GAZA FREEDOM MARCHERS OSU junior Jessica Campbell will be one of 1000 Americans (including 100 students, 3 from Oregon) … Corvallis Multicultural Literacy Center 128 SW 9th Street Corvallis, OR 3 attendees 60 max Event Details Email the host

Dec 27 17:00 Gaza Freedom Vigil Sydney On the anniversary of Israel’s attack on Gaza Break the siege of Gaza-End the Occupation Sunday 27 … Town Hall Square, Sydney, Australia Sydney 2 attendees Event Details Email the host

Dec 30 12:00 Rally Planned in Support of the Gaza Freedom March – Juneau, AK On December 31, 2009, more than 1,000 citizens from across the world will join with an estimated … Dimond Court Plaza Juneau, AK Event Details Email the host

Dec 28 16:00 Free Gaza March Starting at the Federal Bldg in Syracuse, we will march towards Clinton Square with a banner, … Federal Building, Syracuse 100 S. Clinton Street Syracuse, NY Event Details Email the host

Dec 27 15:00 Gathering for Gaza – Join us in Doylestown, PA Gathering for Gaza ……A vigil in Support of Gaza on the anniversary of the 22 days of … North Main Street and East Court Street Doylestown, PA 3 attendees 500 max Event Details Email the host

Dec 29 17:30 Candlelight vigil – Reims, France Candlelight vigil in support of the Gaza Freedom March REIMS Place d’Erlon (la Fontaine de la Solidarité), France REIMS 1 attendee Event Details Email the host

Dec 27 14:00 Brussels: Gaza Freedom March Solidarity March & Vigil December 27, 2009 2:00pm, march through the main streets of Brussels 4:00pm, vigil with candles … carrefour Avenue, Stalingrad et Boulevard du Midi Brussels Event Details Email the host

Dec 28 16:30 Daily vigil with candles daily from 16.30 to 19.00 at Heilggeistkirche Bern, Switzerland Event Details Email the host

Dec 28 16:30 Daily vigil with candles daily from 16.30 to 21 h Limmatquai Zurich, Switzerland, 1 attendee Event Details Email the host

Dec 27 13:00 CT in Solidarity with GAZA Join us for entertainment, speakers, and a solidarity march! On the one year memorial of the … Charter Oak Cultural Center, 21 Charter Oak Avenue Hartford, CT 2 attendees 2000 max Event Details Email the host

Dec 27 17:00 GAZA SOLIDARITY VIGIL A non-violent vigil on the front steps of the state capital to demonstrate our solidarity, as a … 500 Woodlane Ave Little Rock, AR 72201 Little Rock, AR 1 attendee Event Details Email the host

Dec 30 16:00 Vigil Planned in Support of the Gaza Freedom March In Westchester: The Middle East Committee of WESPAC will support the Gaza Freedom March by … White Plains Metro North Station,16 Ferris Avenue White Plains, NY 1 attendee Event Details Email the host

Dec 27 13:00 Sacramento Gaza Seige Protest ACTION NAME: Sacramento Gaza Seige Protest DATES: Dec 27, 2009 through Dec 27, 2009 … Arden and Heritage Sacramento, CA Event Details Email the host

Dec 30 19:00 Gaza Freedom March-One Year after the Massacre- Join us in solidarity with the Gaza Freedom March, marking the brutal invasion of Gaza one year … Traditions Cafe 300 5th Avenue SW Olympia, WA Event Details Email the host

Dec 27 19:00 Praying for Gaza We would like to host the multi-faith gathering where we will pray for Gaza. We will use prayers … ul. Plonowa 6a, 61-312, Poznan, Poland Poznan Event Details Email the host

Dec 27 15:00 Mahnwache Mahnwache zur Erinnerung an die an die Opfer des Angriffs Veranstalter: Flüchtlingskinder im … Am Holzmarkt Tübingen Event Details Email the host

Dec 27 15:00 Mahnwache Mahnwache zur Erinnerung an die an die Opfer des Angriffs Marktplatz Reutlingen Event Details Email the host

Dec 30 19:00 Screening of Occupation 101 The Rebuilding Alliance along with Grace Episcopal Church announce the upcoming screening of the … Grace Episcopal Church in Georgetown 1041 Wisconsin Ave NW Washington, DC 14 attendees 100 max Event Details Email the host

Dec 31 09:00 Livestream Connect Café Unternehmen MITTE Gerbergasse 30 Basle, Switzerland Event Details Email the host

Dec 29 16:00 Luminaria Vigil Albuquerque New Mexico is holding a Gaza Luminaria Vigil on Tuesday Dec. 29th at 4:00pm in front … Federal Court House on Lomas and 5th St Albuquerque, NM 1 attendee Event Details Email the host

Dec 31 17:30 Gaza Solidarity Peace Vigil Palouse Peace Coalition Peace Vigil and dasein network will be at Friendship Square, Main St, … Main St. Friendship Square Moscow, ID Event Details Email the host

Dec 27 19:00 A benefit for the children of Gaza Sunday December 27 A benefit for the children of Gaza Brainwash Cafe – 1122 Folsom Street, … 1122 Folsom Street San Francisco , CA Event Details Email the host

Dec 30 17:00 Free Gaza Solidarity Rally Corner of Division and Main Spokane, WA 1 attendee Event Details Email the host

Dec 27 13:00 Toronto’s Gaza Freedom March Break the Siege, March in Global Solidarity 180 Bloor Street West, Toronto Israeli Consulate to Dundas Square Toronto, ON 4 attendees Event Details Email the host

Dec 31 14:00 Gaza Freedom March 2pm-5pm Open House Dec 31st In remembrance of the over 300 Palestinian children killed in the … 2641 Sun Terrace Drive Hartland, MI 1 attendee 10 max Event Details Email the host

Dec 27 12:00 Vigil at Water Tower Park – Chicago CHICAGO, IL Dec. 27, noon to 1:00 pm: Vigil at Water Tower Park We will unfurl a banner with the … 180 East Pearson Street Chicago, IL Event Details Email the host

Jan 01 12:00 Break the Siege Vigil Women in Black, Baltimore will hold a “Break the Siege” vigil at Pratt and Light St. in … Pratt and Light Sts. in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. Baltimore, MD 2 attendees 50 max Event Details Email the host

Dec 27 12:00 Let Gaza Live The Kalamazoo Nonviolent Opponenets to War and the Kalamazoo WOmen in Black stand for peace and … Federal Building,410 West Michigan Avenue Kalamazoo, MI 49007. Kalamazoo, MI 1 attendee Event Details Email the host

Dec 29 15:00 Rally Rally in memory of the cruel Israeli attack against Gaza one year ago and in solidarity with the … Hamburg Reesendammbrücke / Jungfernstieg /Alsterarkaden Center in the near of the Town Hall Hamburg Event Details Email the host

Dec 31 15:00 Remember Gaza – Rally Downtown Denver Rally in downtown Denver – March on 16th Street Mall 16th Street Mall Denver, CO 1 attendee 1000 max Event Details Email the host

Dec 27 14:00 Downtown Procession in Solidarity with Gaza Freedom March and the people of Gaza On Sunday Dec 27 2009, Palestine Solidarity Committee will hold a silent procession in downtown … Westlake Plaza 4th & Pine in Downtown Seattle Seattle , WA Event Details Email the host

Dec 31 13:00 Free Gaza Support Demonstration Ferry Street Bridge action organized to support the Gaza Freedom March from Egypt into Gaza, … 500 E. 4th AVE Eugene, OR Event Details Email the host

Dec 28 15:00 Vigil für the people of Gaza From 3pm to 6pm we will meet in Freiburg, southern Berthold-Straße/Place of the Old Synagogue on … Southern Bertholdstraße/Place of the Old Synagogue, Freiburg, Germany Freiburg Event Details Email the host

Dec 31 02:00 Vigil to support the Gaza Freedom Marchers Join us in a vigil in support of the 14 Mid-Hudson Valley residents who have gone to Gaza to … Village Green 6 Tinker Street Woodstock, NY Event Details Email the host

Dec 29 05:15 Vigil in Solidarity with Gaza Freedom March All are invited to join in solidarity with Bill and Genie Durland and all those marching in Gaza … Bijou and Nevada Colorado Springs, CO 1 attendee Event Details Email the host

Dec 27 18:00 auch wir lieben das leben Auch wir lieben das Leben, wann immer wir zu ihm finden so der Refrain eines Gedichts von … Filmbuehne am Steinplatz, Hardenbergstr.12 Berlin Event Details Email the host

Dec 31 10:30 Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers will fly kites at Bamiyan Peace Park for Gaza Freedom March In participation of the Gaza Freedom March, the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers of Our Journey to … Afghanistan Bamiyan Event Details Email the host

Dec 27 12:00 Gainesville: Gaza Freedom March Solidarity Action CODEPINK Gainesville is organizing a solidarity action with Gaza Freedom March for December 27, … Gainesville Mall Gainesville, FL Event Details Email the host

Dec 27 19:00 Memorial Concert for Gaza Artists perform to commemorate the anniversary of the Israeli invasion of Gaza 27 dec 2008. The … Immanuelskyrkan, Kungstensgatan, Stockholm, Sweden Stockholm 1 attendee 800 max Event Details Email the host

Dec 30 17:30 Chicago in Solidarity with Gaza Featuring: Live Broadcast from Gaza Freedom March Interviews with Chicagoans on the … Grace Place, 2nd floor Sanctuary 637 S. Dearborn Chicago, IL 1 attendee 200 max Event Details Email the host

Dec 29 17:30 Break the Siege, Support BDS Short candlelight vigil followed by event launching local Detroit BDS campaigns, with music by … Dearborn City Hall, Michigan Ave. & Schaefer & Lebanese Heritage Club, 4335 Maple Street Dearborn, MI 3 attendees 250 max Event Details Email the host

Dec 29 11:30 Solidarity with Gaza We will build a sort of wall or pyramid with packing cartons and install it in the pedestrian zone … Richard-Strauss Foundtain Kaufingerstr. Munich Munich, Germany, ot Event Details Email the host

Dec 29 19:00 Phoenix Area Solidarity Action with The Gaza Freedom March The film “Occupation 101,” the award winning documentary film on the root causes of the Israeli- … Phoenix, AZ 2 attendees 150 max Event Details Email the host

Dec 31 17:00 DIY Last Night Parade Peace Activists calling for an End to the Occupation of Palestine will join Women in Black and … Pacific and Laurel Sts., Santa Cruz, CA Santa Cruz, CA 2 attendees Event Details Email the host

Dec 27 19:00 Vigil for Gaza Grand Ave. and Lindell Blvd. St Louis, MO Event Details Email the host

Dec 31 16:00 Candle-Light Freedom March Join the Racine Coalition for Peace and Justice (RCPJ) and other peace groups on Thursday, Dec. … Cup of Hopes coffee shop 517 6th Street Racine, WI 2 attendees Event Details Email the host

Dec 27 14:00 Filistin için Yürüyoruz! 27 Aralik Gazza saldirisinin yildonumu. Filistin için Israil’e Karsi Boykot Girisimi. 25 Aralik … Tünel-Taksim Istanbul Event Details Email the host

Dec 27 12:00 accion solidaridad-Pais Vasco-Euskadi concentracion en San Sebastian-Donostia dia 27 diciembre a las 12horas. recordatorio de los … San Sebastian-Donostia, Spain San Sebastian-Donostia, ot Event Details Email the host

Dec 27 13:00 Demonstration to commemorate the 1st anniversary of Israel’s massacre in Gaza Organized by the Houston Coalition for Justice and Peace in Palestine Westheimer and Post Oak Houston , TX Event Details Email the host

Dec 27 12:00 One Year After: The Israeli Attack on Gaza and Prospects for Peace in the Middle East. with Eduardo Cohen One Year After: The Israeli Attack on Gaza and Prospects for Peace in the Middle East. with … 2124 Brewster Avenue Redwood City, CA Event Details Email the host

Dec 29 18:00 Demonstration Demonstration in front of the Israeli Embassy in Solidarity with the people in Gaza – 1 year after … In front of the Israeli Embassy, Katechaki & Kifisias Athens Event Details Email the host

Dec 27 14:30 Food Not bombs Northampton Serving Every week Food not bombs serves ton of free food all over the world. I Northampton MA we serve … rt 9 Northamoton MA. parking can be found for free on weekends anywhere in town, but closest and most accessibly in the lot accross the street from the courthouse, behind the trendy clothes store. Northampton, MA Event Details Email the host

Dec 29 15:00 GFM Support Vigil Support six North Texans who are on the Gaza Freedom March and call attention to the continuing … Texas Israel Chamber of Commerce 1302 E. Collins Blvd. Richardson, TX Event Details Email the host

Dec 31 14:00 Rally for solidarity with Gaza march Today is the day that more than a thousand people from 43 countries (including Liz Barger from … 1100 Broadway Nashville, TN Event Details Email the host

Dec 27 14:00 Gaza 1 an après rassemblement le dimanche 27 décembre 14h-19h à la Place des Nations, Genève 14h grande tente … Place des Nations, Genève Genève Event Details Email the host

Dec 27 16:30 Scotland Commemorates Gaza One year on: Protest + Vigil One year on since Israel’s war crimes + Genocide on Gaza While we enjoy the festive break with … Buchanan Street (at Nelson Mandela Place), Glasgow UK. Glasgow Event Details Email the host

DAVID HEADLEY AND JEWS

David headley and his mother. (Ex-Khyber Barkeep Charged in Mumbai Attacks)

“He was absolutely gorgeous.

“He was over six feet tall and looked liked a typical American college student (he was enrolled at Princeton, but rarely went to classes)…

“Daood was a babe-magnet at Khyber Pass.

“He had a very young and pretty girlfriend, and also had a stunning 40-year-old mistress who sat alone in a booth waiting for him to get off work and cried bitter tears because of the sweet young thing.” (A description of David Headley –Ratbang Diary: Well, I Am SHOCKED! )

According to family friends, David Headley’s mother, Serrill Headley, was involved in heavy drinking and multiple sexual relationships, and David Headley engaging in the same behavior. (DOG EAT DOG – IN INDIA)

David Headley’s father worked for Voice of America, which is used by the CIA. (Pak PM’s PRO admits he is Headley’s half-brother.)

David Headley enrolled in the Valley Forge Military Academy.(Terror suspect was drug dealer, then informant Philadelphia …)

Was he recruited by the CIA?

Main Indian Jewish communities. David Headley’s father’s ancestors migrated to Pakistan from Jastarwal in India’s Punjab state and Etawah.
Is David Headley Jewish?

David Headley’s mother, allegedly, was an American Jewish lady. (according to a comment here:Cached )

David Headley visited various Jewish sites in India.

He claimed to be Jewish when he reportedly stayed at the Chabad centre in Mumbai in July 2008.

The American FBI found a book in his bag in Chicago entitled ‘To Pray as a Jew’. (Cached )

According to Israeli and Indian officials, between 40,000 and 60,000 young Israelis have either permanently moved or established long-term residence in India. (Karma Kosher Conscripts in New-Age Diaspora Seek Refuge in Goa. )

In 2008 and in 2009, Israel issued temporary travel warnings for its citizens thinking of visiting Goa, in India. (Anti-Terror Bureau warns Israelis not to travel to Goa – Haaretz …)

Goa

Mumbai bombing suspect David Headley reportedly has a link to Goa and an American in Goa. (David Headley’s Goa link traced with US terror suspect 12Kerala.com)

The Indian officials investigating the 26/11/08 Mumbai attacks claim to have traced David Headley’s Goa connection.

The officials claim that Headley was in constant touch with an American who has been living in Goa for the past nine years.

Reportedly the American in Goa has been running several business including bear bars and massage parlours in Goa.

Anjuna beach in Goa has a Chabad House, a Jewish prayer home, which is frequented by Israelis during the tourist season.

Israeli tourists, who form a sizeable portion of the foreign tourists in Goa, visit Goa in the months of October to February. (No central input on Headley’s stay in Goa: police)

Mumbai

Mumbai’s Chabad House is suspected of having been used as a base for the Mumbai attacks of 2008.

Starting in March 2009, David Headley is reported to have visited a Chabad House in Delhi, a hotel in Pushkar near a Jewish centre, a guest house in Goa, and an office of El Al. (The Hindu : News / National : Headley planned synchronised attacks …)

One theory about Chabad is that the Chabad Jews have been anti-Zionist and in favour of cooperation with Putin’s Russia. The Eliyahoo Synagogue, the most important synagogue for Mumbai Jews, located near the Apollo port and the Hotel Taj Mahal, was untouched in the 2008 Mumbai attacks. It was built by the Sassoons. (The Riddle of Mumbai)

Another theory is that Chabad is being used by Mossad for terror attacks in India.

David Sassoon, whose grandson Edward Albert Sassoon, married Aline Caroline de Rothschild, the grand-daughter of Jacob (James) Mayer Rothschild. (www.iamthewitness.com/…/1878-1919.htm)

India has many connections to top Jews.

Lieutenant General JFR Jacob (Jacob-Farj-Rafael Jacob) is a former governor of the Indian state of Goa.

His family were Baghdadi Jews originally from Iraq who settled in Kolkata in the middle of the 18th century. 6

David Sassoon (1792 – 1864) was the treasurer of Baghdad between 1817 and 1829 and the leader of the Jewish community in Bombay (now Mumbai).

The British government gave Sassoon “monopoly rights” to the manufacture of Opium.

Sassoon expanded his opium trade into China and Japan. (Hong Kong, the Land Built on Opium )
~

aangirfan: HEADLEY, THE CIA, NARIMAN HOUSE, FALSE FLAG OPS

aangirfan: HEADLEY INTERROGATED MORE THAN ONE MUMBAI SUSPECT – REPORTS

aangirfan: HEADLEY, LIKE DAWOOD IBRAHIM, LINKED TO 1993 BOMBINGS …

aangirfan: DAVID HEADLEY, MUMBAI SUSPECT, WORKED FOR THE DRUG …

aangirfan: MUMBAI SUSPECT DAVID HEADLEY INTRODUCED HIMSELF AS A CIA AGENT…

aangirfan: “KASAB WAS INTERROGATED BY HEADLEY”

aangirfan: DID US SPECIAL FORCES CARRY OUT THE MUMBAI ATTACKS?

aangirfan: Mossad increases its control of India

aangirfan: BRUCE REIDEL, DAWOOD IBRAHIM and the BOMBAY ATTACKS

The Riddle of Mumbai–29th November 2008

The Riddle of Mumbai

By Abdollah Shahbazi

Written: 29th November 2008

Translated: 11th December 2008

I was very busy Wednesday night and Thursday morning and consequently away from news. On Thursday evening I was awaken by a call from one of my friends. He told me about massive explosions and terror in Mumbai. Since then I have been following this strange event closely.

Details of the event can be studied in news websites. It can be summarized as such:

Around 21:30, Wednesday 26th of November, a number of men armed with automatic weapons landed from boats in front of the Gateway of India, located at the beach of Mumbai and in front of the Taj Mahal Hotel, as reported by CNN and the police. These people, as if following a Hollywood action movie style, separated into different groups. They start shooting and killing people and take possession of a number of cars, including a police van. They then go to the Taj Mahal Hotel, Hotel Oberoi Trident and Café Leopold; all three being centers of tourist’s residence and gathering. Their other targets included the CST train station (Victoria station), Cama & Albless Hospital and the synagogue of a Jewish sect called CHABAD. They kill people and take hostages.

Reports mention around 200 killed and 300 wounded and rising. The most notable of the victims is the former rabbi of CHABAD of New York’s Brooklyn and his wife. This event has particularly affected the New York Jews of all sects and has turned Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka, into symbols of victims of terrorism. Zionists and the government of Israel have also become the hosts of mourning and are using the blood of Rabbi Holtzberg and his wife and other Jews killed in the CHABAD synagogue of Mumbai to gain sympathy and advertise in favor of Zionism.

Who were the attackers? This is the question that The Christian Science Monitor has asked in its edition of Friday 28th of November.

Street fighting was still going on and the event was not yet over that Indian officials accused “foreign elements”, meaning the government of Pakistan. Naturally, Pakistani officials immediately denied the allegations. The Hindu, apparently craving a new war between India and Pakistan, followed the same and again in the middle of an ongoing event and without any proper evidence announced that the terrorists are members of the “Lashkar-e-Taiba” (The Pure Army), a militant group based in Pakistan.

The Washington Post, quoting “US counterterrorism experts” wrote “the attacks appear to be well coordinated, indicating that the attackers received foreign terrorist training and support.”

These “experts” had “hidden knowledge” as well and called the attackers “Muslim” and called their act “Jihad”. This newspaper, the most circulated in Washington, D.C., has been owned since 1933 by the Jew plutocrat family of Meyer- Graham. They are the descendants of Eugene Meyer, the first head of The World Bank. This newspaper added, quotingBruce Riedel, a former South Asia analyst for the CIA and National Security Council and author of The Search for Al Qaeda, “This is a new, horrific milestone in the global jihad.” Roger W. Cressey, a former White House counterterrorism official in the Clinton and Bush administrations also said: “This group had to receive some training or support from professionals in the terrorism business.”

The New York Times, The largest metropolitan newspaper in the United States, owned since 1935 by the Jew plutocrat family of Sulzberger, made things much simpler for us and without any evidence or reason suggested that the “gunmen could easily be members of India’s Muslim minority”. Adding “There are a lot of very, very angry Muslims.”

The Guardian reported that “the gunmen were more likely to be homegrown Indian terrorists, rather than foreigners.”and laid its suspicion on an unknown group called the “Deccan Mujahideen” and certain others; who all happen to be Muslims. Their reason was certain emails sent to the media signed by this group.

3-What is the result of my research?

Counterterrorism expert’s ideas are correct. The attackers were definitely professionals and there is definitely a “foreign hand” in the event. It was fully organized to the last detail. Even the target locations were chosen in detail and with particular objectives. Those choices needed specialized historical and political knowledge.

4- Choosing the Taj Mahal Hotel as the main target is worth some thought. Millions of people worldwide watched the historic and majestic view of the Taj Mahal Hotel burn for two days. This was in effect very similar to the fate of the Twin Towers of New York on September 11th 2001. Both were important symbols of the two cities: the Twin Towers were symbols of New York as the commercial and financial centre of the western world. The Taj Mahal Hotel was the best known symbol of Mumbai, a city which until the first half of the twentieth century was the commercial and financial centre of the East.

This hotel was opened in 1903. It coincided with the reign of Mozaffar Al Din Shah of Qajar of Iran and shortly before the beginning of the Constitutional revolution in Iran. Once opened, it was the grandest eastern hotel. In our time it was one of the most beautiful historical buildings of Mumbai and India. I have seen this hotel. Though very grand and beautiful, it was aged and in need of repair and restoration. This restoration can and will take place now; quite possibly from the pocket of the Indian government.

The Taj Mahal Hotel belongs to the Tata family. They are a family of the Parsis of India; native Zoroastrians of Indian origin claiming an ancient Persian origin. They are considered one of the richest families of the world. This family, like other plutocrat Parsis of India, gained its initial wealth from the Opium trade of the 19th century. The 6th Volume of my Jew and Parsi Plutocrats, which is still to be published, deals with the “Parsi oligarchy of India” and their partnership with Jew, American and English plutocrats. This was a relationship that made history. The Tata family, like the rest of the Parsi plutocrats, has deep Masonic and Zionist connections and old partnership and relations with Jew plutocrats. An important portion of India’s industry and trade belongs to this oligarchy.

Me in front of the Gateway of India (1993)

This monument, similar to the triumphal arches of Europe, was constructed between 1911 to 1924 in commemoration of The King of Britain and Emperor of India, George the Fifth’s, visit to India

Me in front of the Hotel Taj Mahal (1993)

5- Can such an attack on the synagogue of the Jewish CHABAD sect in Mumbai, exactly when the former Rabbi of Brooklyn and his family were there, be considered a coincidence? If the attackers were “anti-Jewish”, shouldn’t they have occupied the great synagogue of Mumbai Jews, the Keneseth Eliyahoo Synagogue, which has 150 years of history, and taken its residents hostage? This is the synagogue that Sir Jacob Sassoon built in 1886 and named it after his father, Elijah Sassoon. Elijah Sassoon was the second son of David Sassoon, a famous Jew plutocrat and founder of the “Sassoon Empire” in the East, and brother of Sir Albert (Abdullah) Sassoon. I have written extensively about the Sassoon family, their connections with the Rothschilds and their role in the formation of new Imperialism. Therefore my detailed research about this family, and their great role in India and Iran, will be published in the later volumes of my book.

Isn’t the important and historical Eliyahoo Synagogue, the most important synagogue of Mumbai Jews, located near the Apollo port, Hotel Taj Mahal and the Museum of Prince of Wales? Why should the small and unknown building of the CHABAD sect, with its small number of members, have been occupied? This building is located further away from the “centre of operation” (Hotel Taj Mahal and Apollo port) and is harder to find.In satellite pictures, you can easily see that the Eliyahoo Synagogue (The main synagogue of Mumbai) is quite close to the Hotel while the “Nariman Building”, the location of the small synagogue of the CHABAD sect, is quite far. These pictures make it clear that occupying the CHABAD sect’s synagogue, killing Rabbi Holtzberg, one of the main leaders of CHABAD, together with his wife and other CHABAD members present in the mentioned synagogue was one of the main objectives of the operation. This was not an accidental and random hate killing of Jews.

The main old synagogue of Mumbai, the Eliyahoo (Sassoon) Synagogue, near Hotel Taj Mahal and Cafe Leopold.
It was not attacked.

The far off and little known building of the CHABAD sect, which was attacked

1- Hotel Taj Mahal (The main target of the terrorist operation)
2- Cafe Leopold (Attacked)
3- Hotel Oberoi Trident (Attacked)
4- The grand and historic Victoria train station (Attacked)
5- The Kama hospital (Attacked)
6- The small and far off synagogue of CHABAD sect (Attacked)
7-The Eliyahoo (Sassoon) synagogue near Hotel Taj Mahal, Cafe Leopold and on the way from Hotel Taj Mahal to the Victoria station. This is the main synagogue of Mumbai Jews. It is run by supporters of Zionism and the State of Israel (Not attacked)

The very close distance between Hotel Taj Mahal and the main synagogue of Mumbai (The Eliyahoo Synagogue) is evident in this picture. If the terrorists were truly anti Zionists or anti Jewish, why didn’t they occupy this synagogue, which was on their way? Why did they take the long way to occupy the small and little known building of the synagogue of the CHABAD sect? Would it be far fetched to assume that the planners of the Mumbai tragedy removed the historical building of the Eliyahoo synagogue from their operation, perhaps due to personal affection or some debt to that place?

1- Hotel Taj Mahal
2- The Prince of Wales Museum and the Natural History Museum
3- The Eliyahoo synagogue (the main and historical synagogue of Mumbai)

6- The attackers did not take “Zionist Jews” or even “ordinary Jews” hostage and they did not brutally kill their known Rabbi. They chose distinguished members of CHABAD.

CHABAD is a sect of Hasidic Judaism. Hasidim are orthodox Jews who consider themselves pious and that is the reason they have chosen this name. Hasid means piety and Hasidim means the pious. CHABAD is a 250 years old sect that originated in the town of Lubavitch, a small town in Tsarist Russia. Therefore it was named “CHABAD-Lubavitch”. Today, this sect is known as one of the largest sect of Orthodox Jews and has about two hundred thousand followers. The name of this sect is made from the three Hebrew words of “Chochmah” (Wisdom), “Binah” (Understanding) and “Da’at” (Knowledge). Actually the name should be pronounced “HABAD”. The CHABAD is a sect of pious Jews who neither have anything in common with “Political Judaism” nor accept religious and political Zionism. They do not recognize the State of Israel.

One website displayed a letter from the fifth leader of the CHABAD and wrote this about them:

CHABAD leaders in recent years have shown sympathy to cooperation with Putin and the Russian government. This has caused worry among the Zionists leaders and Israel.

The policy of Putin’s government is similar to that of the Tsarist Russia’s, which empowered Karaite Judaism against Talmudic ones (Rabbinical Oligarchy). Now they empower CHABAD against Zionist Jews. An example of following this policy was Putin’s giving of a golden medal to Mendel Pewzner, a CHABAD Rabbi, in 2003. In 2005, the great Rabbi of Russian Jews, Pinkhas Goldschmidt, was prevented from entering Russia after his trip to Israel and was replaced by Berel Lazar as the new Chief Rabbi of Russia. Zionists called this act of Putin “Stalinist”.

Meeting of Berel Lazar, the Rabbi of CHABAD, with Vladimir Putin

7- The attack on the small synagogue of CHABAD Jews in the “Nariman building” of Mumbai, taking the 29 year old CHABAD rabbi and his wife and children hostage and their brutal killing and the consequent cry the blues of the Israeli official and Zionists, reminds me of the massacre of the Karaites of Al Qods (Jerusalem) during the Crusades at the hands of the Crusaders; Those bloodthirsty knights who Zionists today generously keep their memory alive in their Hollywood blockbusters, and their corrupt leader, Jacques de Molay, who occupies a saintly place in Freemasonry. In the second half of the Eleventh Century, a group of crusader knights, led by Godfrey of Bouillon, were influenced by Rabbinical Oligarchy to imprison Karaites in their synagogue and burn the building down. In the official history of Jews, this event is portrayed as another oppression of the “Jews”. It is hardly ever mentioned who influenced the crusader knights, who were partners with opportunist Jew Oligarchs, to create this horrendous tragedy.

---

Notes:

Karaites in Persian Qarai’un, in English Qara’ism; meaning Readers [of Scripture]): In the Second century Hijri/ Eight century AD, the authoritarian rule of Rabbinic- Talmudic oligarchy (Hakhamim, Hakhams) caused opposition amongst Jews and led to the creation of a powerful movement against them. Leading this movement was Annan ibn Davoud (Anan ben David). Annan lived around 135- 159 Hijri (754- 775 AD) in Baghdad, during the time of the Abbasid Caliph Al Mansur. His followers were initially known as “Annan’ie” and later were named “Karaites”. Other Jews called them “Bani Mikra” or “Beile Mikra” (The tribe of Mikra). “Mikra” (מקרא) means “reading” or “that which is read”. This was because they recognized the original and early scriptures as the only valid source of religious wisdom and denied the oral tradition that the Rabbinical- Talmudic Jewish had spread in recent centuries. As written in Karaite documents, Hakhams first tried to gain support of Annan, but were unsuccessful. Annan was later imprisoned on orders of Caliph Al Mansur (Quite possibly due to the conspiracy of Jewish leaders). Abu Hanifa, one of the great Muslim Scholars, advised him in prison to talk about similarity of his views with Islamic ones in front of the Caliph and he was forgiven by doing so. Annan took some of his ideas from Islam and was influenced by Abu Hanifa. He was especially against the closed society of Jews and the forbiddance of relation with non-Jews. In the second half of the Ninth century AD, the ideas of Annan ibn Davoud were taken by Benyamin ibn Moosa (Benjamin ben Moses) Nahawandi and were formulated into an influential sect. (Nahavand is a city in Persia/ Iran.) His role in the sect was to such an extent that Arabic sources mention the sect as the “followers of Annan and Benjamin”. Between Eight to Eleventh century AD, the Karaites centre of activity was in the Arabian Peninsula and was later spread further among the Jews of Asia Minor. Among the Jews, Karaites were the most serious threat to the Hakhams (Hakhamim) and Rabbinical Oligarchy up until the coming of the European movement of Haskalah (enlightenment) in the late 18 century. The Encyclopaedia Judaica (1971, vol. 10, p. 764) mentions “the tremendous religious, political, and economic fermentation in the entire East, resulting from… the collision of Islam with world religions; and the social and economic grievances of the poorer classes of Jewry” as the main reason for founding of the Karaite sect. From the Fourth century Hijri/ Tenth century AD, a group of distinguished scholars came to being amongst the Karaites who wrote in Arabic and this sect became a powerful force among the Jews, seriously challenging the Rabbinical- Talmudic version of Judaism. At this time, the main centers of Karaites were in Persia (Iran), Mesopotamia, Al Qods (Palestine), Egypt and North Africa. It was at this time that Jewish Hakhams started writing books against Annan and Karaism. It is interesting to know that both the writings of the Karaites and those written against them by the Hakhamim were in Arabic. At the time of the Crusader oligarchy of Europe’s attack on Al Qods (second half of the 11th century AD), Crusader knights destroyed the centre of Karaites in Al Qods (Jerusalem) in the horrible fashion that was mentioned earlier. This was a heavy blow against the Karaites. From then until the 15th century AD Egypt became their main refuge. In the 14th to 16th centuries some of the Karaites were in the Asia Minor. In the 17 and 18 centuries their main centre was moved to Crimea and Lithuania. At the end of the 18 century these lands were added to the Russian Empire. At first, Russian rulers did not distinguish between Karaites and Talmudic Jews and treated both in the same fashion. It was from the time of Catherine the Second (The Great) that the difference between the Karaites and other Jews was discovered. Thereafter more attention was given to them and they received special treatments. At the time of Nicolai the First, Karaite leaders went to the Tsarist officials and announced that they are different from Rabbanites; that they are good citizens, industrious and politically loyal. Russian officials understood their distinguished position more and in 1863 gave them full Russian citizenship and rights. In 1932 their number was reported as ten thousand and they lived mostly in Crimea. At this time around 2000 Karaites lived outside of Russia in Poland, Constantinople, Al Qods (Palestine), Egypt and Mesopotamia (Iraq). In January of 1932 the government of Germany announced that it does not consider the Karaites Jewish. Therefore they were not harmed from Germany’s attacks during World War II. In 1970 the number of Karaites residing in Israel was reported as seven thousand, who mostly lived in Ramleh, Ashdod and Beer- Sheva.

Knights Templar: The Order of the Poor Knights of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon was at first name of a group of French knights which was formed in Al Qods (Jerusalem) in 1118 AD by the Crusaders. This group was gradually expanded and was formed into a mercenary military force that sold its services to the Crusader rulers. They rose greatly in military power and took charge of the transport of gold and other looted treasures from the East to Europe. After the end of the Crusades in 1291 they returned to Europe. Having got used to years of killing, caravan raiding and piracy, they naturally felt restless in their new surroundings. Therefore they kept their organization, chose for themselves a leader with the title of “The Grand Master” and continued their operations in a secret fashion. Their continued operation was considered a threat to the security of France and in 1304, Philip the 4th, King of France, ordered their arrest. Many of them were imprisoned and were tried in Papal and French courts. In 1312, Pope ordered the order to be closed down and King Philip publicly executed a number of the leaders of the group, including Jacques De Molay, the last “Grand Master” who was from the nobility. The remaining Templars fled to Portugal and created a new order called the “Knights of Christ”. This group had the main role in Portugal’s colonial activity in North Africa and the East and the later founding of Portugal’s colonial Empire. The flag of this group was the same as the one of the Knights Templar: a red cross on a white background, which today happens to be the flag of International Red Cross. In our time, the Knights Templar are an important branch of Freemasonry with their own special orders and conducts. For example, the Grand Master is called “The Grand commander”. In all Masonic sects, the name and memory of Jacques De Molay is greatly venerated and Philip the 4th is extremely hated.

Abdollah Shahbazi (b. 1955) is author of The Jew and Parsi Plutocrats: British Imperialism and Iran, 7 vol. in Persian:

Vol. 1 in two parts: 1- Overseas Plunder and the new Western Civilization, 2- Jews and the Jewish Oligarchy (543 pp.)

Vol. 2: The Jewish Oligarchy and the Formation of Global Plutocracy (625 pp.)

Vol. 3: Aristocracy and the new West (553 pp.)

Vol. 4: Early History of Freemasonry (586 pp.)

Vol. 5: Financial Aristocracy and the collapse of the Traditional Order (448 pp.)

Vol. 6 and 7 are about the Parsi sect, Parsi Oligarchy of India and the role of Global Plutocracy in the contemporary history of Iran (to be published).

abdollah.shahbazi@gmail.com

Iran: Revolution versus Revolution

Professor As’ad AbuKhalil

the Angry Arab Website

Yesterday, I was expecting to be mad at Aljazeera. I was expecting that the relations between the Qatari Emir and the Iranian government would produce lame reports that would downplay the significance of the protests in Iran. Aljazeera–yet again–pleasantly disappointed me. It is not in any way covering up what is going on in Iran, and it is even citing–in the tradition of the journalistic standards of the New York Times–opposition websites. Al-Arabiyya TV (the private station of King Fahd’s brother-in-law which now is largely run by the entourage of Prince `Azzuz) is going crazy. The propaganda work of AlArabiyya is out of all bounds now: there is no attempt even of covering news anymore: not in Iran, not in Yemen, and not in Palestine. It is really naked and vulgar House of Saud propaganda all day long, 24 hours a day. Aljazeera’s coverage has been straightforward although it would have liked more discussion and lengthy reports. What can I say: many Arabs like Ahmadinad because he is the opposite of their leaders in standing up for Palestinians and sounding defiant against Western governments. But people–if you believe the trends in social science–follow the analytical recipe of Rational Choice Theory. They decide their own self-interest, first and foremost on the basis of what they know, or what they think they know, and based on their estimate of their own self-interests. I am quite impressed with the courage of the Iranian people: these are people who were courageous against the Shah dictatorship, and they are now being courageous against the clerical dictatorship. In fact, I was so impressed with the courage of the Iranian people that I felt most jealous. Why can’t we see those scenes in Damascus, Cairo, Riyadh, Amman, etc? Have Arabs become that numbed and that tranquilized and that domesticated by their oppressive regimes? Or is that a sign of hope, and you need a measure of hope to rebel and protest? Or is this the impact of more than 300 TV satellite stations approved by the House of Saud? But the Iranian people will not take no for an answer, and it does not matter anymore whether Ahmadinajad won or did not win the election. People are rightly fed up with the lousy Revolution itself, and with those stale slogan, and with that Guardianship of the Jurisconsult (as Hamid Enayat translated in that excellent chapter on it in James Piscatori’s edited book, Islam in the Political Process) doctrine, which should be opposed, whether it appears in Iran or in Lebanon. At least in Lebanon, Hizbullah read the writings on the wall a few years ago, and the party has become largely embarrassed by the doctrine–or so it seems to me. Guardianship of the Jurisconsult is sectarianism within sectarianism. I remember as a college student being frustrated with the enthusiasm that some leftists like Adonis (yeah, he was a leftist, believe it or not back then), Anour Abdel Malik, and Michel Foucault. And of course many Arab nationalists and fake Arab liberals (like Hazim Saghiyyah) were praising the "authenticity"—don’t you hate that word?–of the Islamic Revolution. If Ahmadinajad has any sense or respect for people he would resign. Hell, if there is any respect for people on the part of the leaders, the Supreme Leader would submit a Supreme Resignation. Of course there are creeps who are trying to hedge their bets and see how things turn: I really worry that corrupt Khumayniyite, like Rafsanjani or Moussavi, would seize power and betray the aspirations and dreams of the young. I saw footage of the demonstrators and they were very young, although I noted the absence of women among them. But then again: it would not surprise me if a sexist revolution is replaced by a sexist revolution. But the people may now be leading Moussavie and other lousy leaders, and not the other way round. Personally, I find it hard to not applaud the protests by the young against a corrupt and oppressive revolution, which carries the banner of religion to boot. The Iranian government now is at a crossroad: it can either cracks down more and more, and arrests and kills as Khumayni was fond of doing, or it can open it and submit concession. The latter course is the Gorbachev course would eventually lead to the dismantlement of the regime. So I am hoping for the worst for the regime, while I have no hope for next government in Iran, if the regime is overthrown. I can see the situation descending into civil wars of sorts: there are basis of support for the regime and those can get the support of the regime to go against their rivals in the streets. But I saw an interview with deputy chief of Tehran police and I was struck by his defensive and subdued tone. When the elements of the regime start to backtrack or start to change tone, it is a sign that people are scrambling for cover. And for any supporter of the Palestinians and their support for their protest against savage Israeli occupation, can’t but extend sympathy to the students who simply want to remove the heavy hand of the government from their lives. Having said all that, it is just dumb at this point, as I read about Obama’s new war in Yemen in the New York Times, to discount the dirty hand of US/Israel/Saudi Arabia in Iranian affairs. This does not stigmatize the protesters but it stigmatize their leaders and some members. Just read All the Shah’s Men and know what I mean. Of course, Abbas Milani in his article in the New Republic–what a choice to write about revisionism of Iranian history–now absolves the US government of responsibility for the coup and blames Khumayni for the coup. For him, Roosevelt of the CIA was working for Iranian cleric. Now let us go to the coverage: now while I respect the practice of the New York Times to cover Iran from Toronto, I believe that we don’t have a clear picture of what is happening. This is why I am not sure that we can announce the death of the regime. And I read in the first section of the Iran article in the paper edition of the New York Times (from Toronto of course) a reference to witnesses cited by website. So the New York Times relies in its coverage on its correspondent in Toronto who relies on Websites who rely on unnamed witnesses in Iran. That is called journalism. Can you imagine the New York Times following that formula in covering Israeli crimes against the Palestinians? And to my surprise, the New York Times added this today (not in the paper edition but in the web version): "Foreign journalists have been banned from covering the protests, and the reports could not be independently verified." It is time for that caveat, and it should be added to every article on daily basis. Now let us turn to another element of the coverage. Let us face it, the protest movement in Iran is no more peaceful. Yet, I don’t see those Western liberals calling on Iranians to stick to peaceful protests the way they hector Palestinians on a daily basis. Look at this: "In some parts of Tehran, protesters pushed the police back, hurling rocks and capturing several police cars and motorcycles, which they set on fire. Videos posted to the Internet showed scenes of mayhem, with trash bins burning and groups of protesters attacking Basij militia volunteers amid a din of screams. Onevideo showed a group of protesters setting an entire police station aflame in Tehran. Another showed people carrying off the body of a protester, chanting, “I’ll kill, I’ll kill the one who killed my brother.”" I don’t know about you, but that does not sound like the Gandhi style protest that Palestinians are requested to emulate. Also, can you imagine the reactions of the US government is such protests are mounted against the Saudi or Egyptian government? Just two weeks ago, Jeffrey Feltman (the fanatic and rabid Zionist who runs the Middle East at the US Department of State, and who assumes that sampling of Middle East food is all that training in Middle East studies that one needs) said in Bahrain that his government supports the ugly war by the Yemeni government against rebels in the South AND in the North because he said that a government can’t stand by while a protest movements takes place within its borders. Just two weeks ago. And did you read the statement by the White House yesterday? Nauseating. Of course, no one believes that US government cares one bit about the people of Iran, except of course those who are eager to appear on CNN to see their faces while they praise Obama and hail his leadership and expect him to liberate Iran for them.

James Petras-on No Lies Radio

Tuesday 12/29: James Petras, analyst & critic of Zionist power in the USA

Tuesday, December 29th, 9 a.m. – 10 a.m. Pacific (noon – 1 pm Eastern) on Fair and Balanced,http://www.noliesradio.org, archived a few hours later here: James Petras, Bartle Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology at Binghampton University, New York.
James Petras is the author of the brand-new article "Bended Knees: Zionist Power in American Politics." He has authored more than 60 books published in 29 languages, and over 560 articles in professional journals. His recent books include Rulers and Ruled in the US Empire, The Power of Israel in the United States,Zionism, Militarism, and the Decline of US Power, and Global Depression and Regional Wars.
In "Bended Knees" Petras writes: "The key to the power of the Zionist Power Configuration is that it is a mass grassroots organization, bolstered by the financial support by scores of millionaires and dozens of billionaires and a complicit mass media." Maybe the FEMA camps, built to house opponents of the Zionist wars, should instead be filled with the roughly 500,000 hardcore members of this "grassroots organization" (Petras’s estimate) as well as the scores of millionaires, dozens of billionaires, and hundreds of media decision-makers who should all be prosecuted as unregistered agents of a foreign power?
* * *
(Note: Truth Jihad Radio will be on vacation Saturday 12/26 and 1/2, rebroadcasting earlier shows with John Cobb, Richard Falk, Webster Tarpley and Jonathan Elinoff.)

‘Army of shadows’

	YAVUZ BAYDAR y.baydar@todayszaman.com Columnists
The title is borrowed from the masterpiece of French cinema’s great master, Jean-Pierre Melville, although the content differs somewhat radically from what has been taking place in Ankara these days.
The story which unfolded after the revelations concerning Bülent Arınç, deputy prime minister and outspoken figure of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), that he and perhaps some other high level AKP personalities were under the surveillance of some mid-ranking officers, took a new turn, with an unprecedented raid into the heart of the mysterious — and to many, notorious — Special Forces Central Command.Circumstances that led to the raid by civilian prosecutors in Ankara and a couple of extraordinary meetings between the prime minister and the top commanders are, to say the least, most peculiar. Initial reports in the midst of the fog of events were confusing. Two officers, a colonel and a major, linked with the special forces headquarters, last Saturday were caught, arrested, “picked up” later by their commander and released by the military prosecutor. The chief of general staff released, after four days of silence and media speculation, a written statement, stating that the officers were on duty to watch an alleged “mole” within the army. He was, the statement said, staying on the same street as Arınç. Then, the fog dispersed somewhat. Reports said the officers were caught and suspected of gathering intelligence about the president, the prime minister and other AKP top figures. A private who allegedly belongs to the same “team” as the colonel and mayor was recorded — through wiretapping — as telling his father that “we were busy burning many sensitive documents at the special forces headquarters,” which led to civilian prosecutors entering the building. Around 20 people from the office, joined later by a judge, managed to force their way into the building, despite the resistance of military officers, but were not allowed to search the parts where top secret documents were kept. In the crisis that erupted, a final “go ahead” was given to the civilian prosecutors and police to do a search in the presence of military prosecutors. Eight officers were arrested, including the ones who were initially released by the military judges. This points, clearly, to a crisis. There seems to be no other reasonable explanation, given the pattern of developments. The special forces unit is serving under Deputy Chief of General Staff Gen. Aslan Güner. How to explain, then, the extraordinary meeting on Saturday, between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Chief of Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ and Land Forces’ Commander Gen. Işık Koşaner? Although it is unknown who actually asked for such an extraordinary meeting (over three hours), it should be noted that Erdoğan discussed — most certainly — the image of a perceived “threat” with the current and prospective top commanders. And the civilian judiciary is using its recently enhanced powers to the limits, unseen before, confronting the secretive military. In this sense, one could argue that the matter is of major significance. The arrests of officers, it can be said, invalidate the top command statement of last Wednesday. All data received so far indicate that something was “cooking” in the special forces headquarters. But what? At this stage, it is still covered with fog. A rather serious claim voiced by some “insiders” is that activities point to a preparation of a putsch. An ex-military source told Mehmet Altan, columnist for the Star daily, that the “decision has been made for the numbers of regional commands to double from the current 16” and that “it was a pattern before military coups.” What to make of that allegation, I do not know. But given the written and oral record of the special forces, whose history dates back to the early ‘50s, all is open to serious speculation. The department, which has been untouchable and surrounded by deep mystery, has been seen as responsible for triggering internal havoc with the aim of destabilization simply because of those characteristics. It is, in other words, regarded as the unexposed Turkish “Gladio.” At this stage, institutional warfare has taken a new turn. The military is losing, step by step, its status as immune from civilian control. The deeper the penetration is, the more urgent the need for an institutional cleansing will be. Until the very latest, we have seen resistance prevail, but the moment of truth of putting things in order and even restructuring the army is approaching the current top commanders. Turkish democracy has suffered enough from the lethal shadows of its army.

Turkish military in spotlight as plot probe deepen

ISLAM VS SECULARISM?

A search of army offices has put the once-omnipotent Turkish military under unprecedented pressure.

Supporters of the Democratic Society Party (DTP) shout slogans on December 12, 2009 in Ankara in front of party headquarters. Turkey’s top court on December 11 banned the country’s main Kurdish party for alleged links to separatist rebels of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Party Chairman Ahmet Turk and deputy Aysel Tugluk were also stripped of their parliamentary seats as well as banned from politics for five years along with 35 other party members.

ANKARA, December 28, 2009 (AFP) – A search of army offices has put the once-omnipotent Turkish military under unprecedented pressure, stoking fears of a deepening rift between the Islamist-rooted government and its secularist opponents.

Eight soldiers were detained and offices of the secretive special forces were searched at length over the weekend after two soldiers were arrested near the Ankara home of Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc on Saturday night.

Some media reports have said the two detained on Saturday were linked to an alleged plot to kill Arinc, while the army says the pair had been tasked with following a soldier suspected of leaking information.

The arrests came as dozens of suspects, among them retired generals, are on trial accused of being members of an alleged secularist network which plotted assassinations and political chaos to provoke a military coup against the ruling Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP).

What exactly prompted the search of army offices remains a mystery, but the judiciary’s entry into what is seen as the army’s “bedroom” may prove a turning point in a government drive to clip the military’s wings, observers say.

“This points, clearly, to a crisis… The military is losing, step by step, its status as immune from civilian control,” columnist Yavuz Baydar wrote in Monday’s edition of the English-language Today’s Zaman.

“The moment of truth of putting things in order and even restructuring the army is approaching the top commanders,” he added.

The military, which sees itself as the guardian of Turkey’s secular system, has unseated four governments since 1960.

Army units are also said to be at the core of the “deep state” — a term used to describe alleged networks of security officials acting outside the law, often in collusion with the underworld, to protect what they see as the country’s best interests.

The army’s most recent intervention was in 2007 when it threatened to step in when the AKP nominated Abdullah Gul, a former Islamist, as head of state, forcing early polls. The AKP won a landslide victory and propelled Gul to the presidency.

Curbing the army’s political clout is also a key European Union demand to raise Turkey’s democracy standards, but the government’s secularist opponents remain deeply suspicious over the AKP’s motives, pointing to its roots as a now-banned Islamist movement.

They argue that discrediting and disabling the army — under the guise of democratization — will remove the strongest bulwark of the secular system and give the AKP a free hand in realising its secret agenda of transforming Turkey into an Islamic state.

“It is obvious taboos are being broken,” veteran politician Fikri Saglar, a vocal campaigner against the “deep state,” said in comments on the weekend search published in the Vatan newspaper.

“But time will show whether we are becoming a country with a supremacy of law or (a country) where the ground is being laid for a civilian dictatorship,” he added.

Feeding secularist fears are the many controversies surrounding the probe into the so-called ultra-nationalist Ergenekon network, which allegedly aimed to unseat the AKP.

The investigation, begun in 2007, was initially hailed as a long-overdue blow to the “deep state” and the prosecution’s case was strengthened when several weapons caches were unearthed.

But its credibility waned as police began arresting secularist journalists, academics and writers known as AKP critics.

The probe was accompanied by widespread wire taps, including of senior judges, and a systematic leaking to pro-government media of documents — some with dubious authenticity — exposing alleged army plots against the AKP.

Some of the dozens of suspects currently on trial have accused the police of doctoring and fabricating evidence.

The army chief has decried a “psychological campaign” to smear the army and voiced concern over a possible “confrontation between institutions.”

Israel: A Monster Beyond Control?

By Alan Hart

27 December, 2009
Alanhart.net

On the first anniversary of the beginning of Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip – in my view it was a demonstration of Israeli state terrorism at its most naked – it’s not enough to say that the governments of the Western powers (and others) are complicit in Israel’s on-going collective punishment of 1.5 million Palestinians, 53% of whom are children.

What is actually happening in the blockaded Gaza Strip, and less obviously on the occupied West Bank, is the continuation by stealth of Zionism’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine. My friend Professor Ilan Pappe, Israel’s leading “revisionist” (meaning honest) historian and author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, would and has put it another way. What we are witnessing is, in his words, “genocide in slow motion.” And that, really, is what the governments of the Western powers (and others) are complicit in.

The question that provokes in my mind is: Why, really, are the major powers (and others) allowing it to happen?

The only answer that makes some sense to me is this. They have concluded, but cannot say, that nuclear-armed Israel, with the assistance of the Zionist lobby in all of its manifestations, is a monster beyond control.

In my analysis it’s possible to identify the moment in history when the major powers abandoned any hope they might have had of containing Zionism’s colonial ambitions.

It came, the moment, in the immediate aftermarth of the 1967 war.

Contrary to Zionism’s version of the story, it was a war of Israeli aggression not self-defense. As I document in some detail in my book Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews, Israel’s military and political leaders knew the Arabs were not intending to attack.

That being so, what the major powers ought to have said to Israel (in the diplomatic language of a Security Council Resolution and more explicitly behind closed doors) is something like: “Aggression cannot be rewarded. Aggressors cannot keep territory conquered in war. You are now required to get the hell out of it without laying down conditions for your withdrawal.”

To drive home the point, they could and should have reminded Israel of what President Eisenhower said to the people of America when he demanded Israel’s unconditional withdrawal from Egyptian territory after its collusion with Britain and France in 1956. Eisenhower, the first and the last American president to contain Zionism, said this:

“If we agree that armed attack can properly achieve the purposes of the assailant, then I fear we will have turned back the clock of international order. We will have countenanced the use of force as a means of settling international differences and gaining national advantage… If the UN once admits that international disputes can be settled using force, then we will have destroyed the very foundation of the organisation and our best hope for establishing a real world order.”

As it happened, the major powers could not say that to Israel in 1967 because the Johnson administration had colluded with Israel to the extent of giving it the greenlight to smash Eygpt’s armed forces, in the hope that a humiliating defeat for them would lead to the overthrow of President Nasser.

But also true is that President Johnson sought and obtained an assurance that Israel would not take advantage of the war situation to grab Jordanian and Syrian territory. It was because some in the Johnson administration (probably Defense Secretary McNamara and the Joint Chiefs of Staff) didn’t trust Israel to keep its word that the U.S. spy ship, the Liberty, was stationed off the Israel/Gaza coast to listen to IDF movement orders. And it was because Israeli Defense Minister Dayan didn’t want Johnson to know that he intended to take the West Bank and the Golan Heights that he, Dayan, ordered the attack on the Liberty. (The full story of that attack and Johnson’s cover-up of it is also in my book, in a chapter headed The Liberty Affair – “Pure Murder” on a “Great Day”).

Despite that, the major powers, including and led by America, could still have acted firmly to contain Zionism’s colonial ambitions. They could have said to Israel something like: “We can just about live with the fact that you will retain the newly occupied Arab territories as a bargaining chip, to be exchanged for peace with your Arab neighbours, but we will not allow you to settle those territories. Not one building. If you defy us on this matter, the Security Council will authorize enforcement action as necessary to oblige you to comply with international law.”

In what became Security Council Resolution 242, it was the failure of the major powers to read the riot act to Israel on the matter of not settling the newly occupied territories that marks the moment when they, the major powers, became resigned to the fact that the Zionist state, assisted by its awesomely powerful global lobby, was a monster they could not control. (They could slap it on the wrist from time to time but not control it).

The lesson of the cold-blooded attack on the Liberty was that there is nothing the Zionist state might not do, to its friends as well as its enemies, in order to get its own way. (In my book I explain, on the basis of a conversation with Dayan, the real reason for Israel’s decision to acquire a nuclear arsenal. It was to have the deterrent threat capability of saying to its friends, “Don’t push us further than we are prepared to go or we’ll use these things.”)

So in the full light of the truth of history as it relates to the making and sustaining of conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel, it’s not surprising that the major powers (and others) are today complicit, more by default than design I say, in Zionism’s crimes.

A VERY REAL NEW WORLD ORDER

A VERY REAL NEW WORLD ORDER

By Chuck Baldwin
January 27, 2009
NewsWithViews.com

It is hard to believe, but a majority of Americans (including Christians and conservatives) seem oblivious to the fact that there is a very real, very legitimate New World Order (NWO) unfolding. In the face of overwhelming evidence, most Americans not only seem totally unaware of this reality, they seem unwilling to even remotely entertain the notion.

On one hand, it is understandable that so many Americans would be ignorant of the emerging New World Order. After all, the mainstream media refuses to report, or even acknowledge, the NWO. Even “conservative” commentators and talk show hosts such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, or Joe Scarborough refuse to discuss it. And when listeners call these respective programs, these “conservative” hosts usually resort to insulting the caller as being some kind of “conspiracy kook.” One host even railed that if anyone questions the government line on 9/11, we should “lock them up and throw away the key.” So much for freedom of speech!

This is an area–perhaps the central area–where liberals and conservatives agree: they both show no patience or tolerance for anyone who believes that global government (in any form) is evolving. One has to wonder how otherwise intelligent and thoughtful people can be so brain dead when it comes to this issue. It makes one wonder who is really pulling their strings, doesn’t it?

The list of notable personalities who have openly referenced or called for some kind of global government or New World Order is extremely lengthy. Are all these people “kooks” or “conspiracy nuts”? Why would world leaders–including presidents, secretaries of state, and high government officials; including the media, financial, and political elite–constantly refer to something that doesn’t exist? Why would they write about, talk about, or openly promote a New World Order, if there is no such thing?

Many of us recall President George Herbert Walker Bush talking much about an emerging New World Order. For example, in 1989, Bush told the students of Texas A&M University, “Perhaps the world order of the future will truly be a family of nations.”

Later, Bush, Sr. said, “We have before us the opportunity to forge for ourselves and for future generations a new world order . . .. When we are successful, and we will be, we have a real chance at this new world order, an order in which a credible United Nations can use its peacekeeping role to fulfill the promise and vision of the U.N.’s founders.”

Bush, Sr. also said, “What is at stake is more than one small country, it is a big idea–a new world order.”

Bush, Sr. further said, “The world can therefore seize the opportunity to fulfill the long-held promise of a new world order . . .”

What was President G.H.W. Bush talking about, if there is no such thing as an emerging New World Order? Was he talking out of his mind? Was he hallucinating?

England’s Prime Minister, Tony Blair, said, “We are all internationalists now, whether we like it or not.” He continued saying, “On the eve of a new Millennium we are now in a new world. We need new rules for international co-operation and new ways of organizing our international institutions.” He also said, “Today the impulse towards interdependence is immeasurably greater. We are witnessing the beginnings of a new doctrine of international community.”

In 1999, Tony Blair said, “Globalization has transformed our economies and our working practices. But globalism is not just economic. It is also a political and security phenomenon.”

What is Tony Blair talking about, if there is no emerging New World Order? What does he mean by “a new doctrine of international community”? What does he mean by “new world”? How can one have globalism, which includes “a political and security phenomenon,” without creating a New World Order? Is Tony Blair hallucinating?

Likewise, former President George W. Bush penned his signature to the Declaration of Quebec back on April 22, 2001, in which he gave a “commitment to hemispheric integration and national and collective responsibility for improving the economic well-being and security of our people.”

By “our people,” Bush meant the people of the Western Hemisphere, not the people of the United States. Phyllis Schlafly rightly reminded us that G.W. Bush “pledged that the United States will ‘build a hemispheric family on the basis of a more just and democratic international order.'”

Remember, too, that it was G.W. Bush who, back in 2005, committed the United States to the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), which is nothing more than a precursor to the North American Community or Union, as outlined in CFR member Robert Pastor’s manual, “Toward a North American Community.”

If there is no such thing as an emerging New World Order, what was G.W. Bush talking about when he referred to “a hemispheric family” and an “international order”?

The public statements of notable world leaders regarding an emerging New World Order are copious. Consider the statements of former CBS newsman, Walter Cronkite.

In his book, “A Reporter’s Life,” Walter Cronkite said, “A system of world order–preferably a system of world government–is mandatory. The proud nations someday will see the light and, for the common good and their own survival, yield up their precious sovereignty . . .” Cronkite told BBC newsman Tim Sebastian, “I think we are realizing that we are going to have to have an international rule of law.” He added, “We need not only an executive to make international law, but we need the military forces to enforce that law.” Cronkite also said, “American people are going to begin to realize that perhaps they are going to have to yield some sovereignty to an international body to enforce world law.”

If there is no emerging New World Order, what is Walter Cronkite talking about? Can there be any doubt that Cronkite is talking about global government? Absolutely not!

Now, when Bush, Sr. talks about fulfilling “the promise and vision of the U.N.’s founders,” he was talking about the same thing former UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali was talking about when he said, “The time for absolute and exclusive sovereignty . . . has passed.”

The United Nations has been on the forefront of promoting the New World Order agenda since its very inception. In 1995, the UN released a manual entitled, “Our Global Neighborhood.” It states, “Population, consumption, technology, development, and the environment are linked in complex relationships that bear closely on human welfare in the global neighborhood. Their effective and equitable management calls for a systematic, long-term, global approach guided by the principle of sustainable development, which has been the central lesson from the mounting ecological dangers of recent times. Its universal application is a priority among the tasks of global governance.”

If there is no emerging New World Order, what is “global governance” all about?

“Who are the movers and shakers promoting global government?” you ask. Obviously, it is the international bankers who are the heavyweights behind the push for global government. Remember, one cannot create a “global economy” without a global government to manage, oversee, and control it.

In a letter written to Colonel E. Mandell House, President Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government of the U.S. since the days of Andrew Jackson.”

“Old Hickory” did his best to rid the United States from the death grip that the international bankers were beginning to exert on this country. He may have been the last President to actually oppose the bankers. In discussing the Bank Renewal bill with a delegation of bankers in 1832, Jackson said, “Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time, and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the eternal God, I will rout you out.”

Unfortunately, the international bankers proved themselves to be too formidable for President Jackson. And in 1913, with the collaboration of President Woodrow Wilson, the bankers were given charge over America’s financial system by the creation of the Federal Reserve.

Ever since the CFR and Trilateral Commission were created, they have filled the key leadership positions of government, big media, and of course, the Federal Reserve.

In his book, “With No Apologies,” former Republican Presidential nominee Barry Goldwater wrote, “The Trilateral Commission is intended to be the vehicle for multinational consolidation of the commercial and banking interests by seizing control of the political government of the United States. The Trilateral Commission represents a skillful, coordinated effort to seize control and consolidate the four centers of power– political, monetary, intellectual and ecclesiastical. What the Trilateral Commission intends is to create a worldwide economic power superior to the political governments of the nation-states involved. As managers and creators of the system, they will rule the future.” Was Goldwater a prophet or what?

And again, the goals of the global elite have been publicly stated. Back in 1991, the founder of the CFR, David Rockefeller praised the major media for their complicity in helping to facilitate the globalist agenda by saying, “We are grateful to the Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. . . . It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries.”

How could Rockefeller be any plainer? He acknowledged the willful assistance of the major media in helping to keep the elitists’ agenda of global government from the American people. To this day, the major media has not deviated from that collaboration. And this includes the aforementioned “conservative” talking heads. They know if they want to keep their jobs, they dare not reveal the New World Order. The NWO, more than anything else, is the “Third Rail” to the national media.

Is it any wonder that President Barack Obama has stacked his government with numerous members of the CFR? Among these are Robert Gates, Janet Napolitano, Eric Shinseki, Timothy Geithner, and Tom Daschle. Other CFR members include CFR President Richard Haass, CFR Director Richard Holbrooke, and founding member of the Trilateral Commission and CFR member Paul Volcker. Obama even asked a CFR member, Rick Warren, to deliver the inaugural prayer.

Still not convinced? Just a few days ago, when asked by a reporter what he thought the most important thing was that Barack Obama could accomplish, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said, “I think his task will be develop an overall strategy for America in this period when, really, a New World Order can be created. It’s a great opportunity; it isn’t just a crisis.”

This is the same Henry Kissinger, you will recall, who said back in 1991, “Today, America would be outraged if UN troops entered Los Angeles to restore order. Tomorrow, they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told that there were [sic] an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will plead to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well-being granted to them by the World Government.”

Even Gideon Rachman, the chief foreign affairs commentator for the Financial Times, wrote an editorial expressing his support for world government. In his column he said, “I have never believed that there is a secret United Nations plot to take over the US. . . . But, for the first time in my life, I think the formation of some sort of world government is plausible.

“A ‘world government’ would involve much more than co-operation between nations. It would be an entity with state-like characteristics, backed by a body of laws. The European Union has already set up a continental government for 27 countries, which could be a model. The EU has a supreme court, a currency, thousands of pages of law, a large civil service and the ability to deploy military force.

“So could the European model go global? There are three reasons for thinking that it might.”

Rachman then goes on to explain the reasons why he believes world government is plausible.

Do you now see why it does not matter to a tinker’s dam whether it is a Republican or Democrat who resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? For the most part, both major parties in Washington, D.C., have been under the dominating influence of the international bankers who control the Federal Reserve, the CFR, and the Trilateral Commission. And this is also why it does not matter whether one calls himself conservative or liberal. For the most part, both conservatives and liberals in Washington, D.C., are facilitating the emerging New World Order. It is time we wake up to this reality.

Presidents Bush, Sr., Bill Clinton, and Bush, Jr. have thoroughly set the table for the implementation of the NWO, as surely as the sun rises in the east. All Obama has to do is put the food on the table–and you can count on this: Barack Obama will serve up a New World Order feast like you cannot believe!

That a New World Order is emerging is not in question. The only question is, What will freedom-loving Americans do about it? Of course, the first thing they have to do is admit that an emerging New World Order exists! Until conservatives, Christians, pastors, constitutionalists, and others who care about a sovereign, independent United States acknowledge the reality of an emerging New World Order, they will be incapable of opposing it. And right now, that is exactly what they are not doing.

Jumblat: Dahiyeh Incident Proves Persistence of Israeli Aggressions Against Lebanon

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat considered the explosion that targeted Hamas members in Beirut Southern Suburbs as "an act of sabotage that proves the persistence of Israeli aggressions against Lebanon."
In an article in his party’s Al Anbaa weekly, Jumblat urged "to present all required support for the official security services, especially the army’s intelligence, in order to enable them of unveiling Israeli spy networks."
"The Israeli aggression plan is persistent and ongoing, not only against Lebanon, but also against the West Bank," added Jumblat, condemning "the silence of the entire international community."

The Plot Thins, As the B.S. Gets Thicker

The plot thins …

The more I read about the latest plane terrorist, the more I know it’s all fake.

Yesterday we were told the terrorist himself said the explosive was strapped to his leg, today we are told by the Telegraph,quoting nobody at all, that it was sewn into his underwear. Okay, maybe he was wearing long winter underwear.

The Telegraph, again quoting nobody at all, tells us the explosive was the same as Richard Reid used. Yet in all this time, authorities have not come up with a detection method for this type of explosive?

I can’t wait to see what stories the other rags are coming out with.

From the Guardian: A preliminary FBI investigation found that the device contained an explosive known as PETN, or pentaerythritol. Agents recovered what appeared to be the remnants of a syringe found near Abdulmutallab’s seat, which is thought to have been part of the device.

“Thought to be” doesn’t cut it, and “preliminary investigation” sounds like guesswork. Again we are told it was his leg burning, so I guess he really was wearing long winter underwear. Wonder why they don’t say that? A “preliminary investigation” would have uncovered that fact, at least.

The Guardian goes on to say that the guy’s own father reported him to the US embassy and Nigerian security 6 months ago, and still they let him fly! Or else his father just wants to cover his own hiney in case he’s “thought to be” involved.

The biggest giveaway is that although the US reportedly put the suspect on a list of known terrorists, they didn’t think that was “negative enough” to keep him from flying!

But by golly, from now on – until the impact dies down – a ball of kleenex in the pocket of anybody not on US intelligence lists will not be allowed.

The Mirror says Abdulmutallab bought a one-way ticket. Way to draw attention to himself if he was just an ordinary bloke, but he was a “terrorist” so it had to be overlooked.

The Australian reveals that the story that he went to the washroom and then pretended to be sick, pulling a blanket over himself, is not directly from passengers and airline staff, but from a report that the FBI drew up. Will we hear later, as so often is the case, that passengers were not even interviewed by the FBI?

Basically, they can say that Abdulmutallab said all sorts of things. The part about Al Qaeda in Yemen is rich. Is anyone planning to attack Yemen now to find Bin Laden?

Speaking of rich, the Star reports that the guy lived in a 5 million dollar flat in London. Did Daddy pay for that? Or someone more local, more “intelligent”?

Question: Can explosives flames be put out with a few bottles of water? Will we ever know if he was wearing asbestos?

Another question: What kind of a terrorist would immediately point the finger at his colleagues and give their location? I mean, if he wasn’t afraid to die in an explosion, why would he be afraid of the FBI?

That Shuringa fellow is quite a star. In one report he flew over the backs of seats, and he alone subdued the man, and “I helped put out the fire” he says modestly. Well, every plane scare needs a hero,even if you have to wonder if he was part of the staging.

From Earthtimes:

“The fire was getting worse. I grabbed the suspect out of the seat, to see if he was wearing any more explosives,” Schuringa told CNN. “The cabin crew came with fire extinguishers and … I helped put out the fire.”

Schuringa and a flight attendant then grabbed Abdulmutallab and dragged him to the first-class section, where “we stripped him … to make sure he had nothing else,” Schuringa said.

This is the first indication that more than just bottles of water and patting down the flame was employed. Good gracious; they stripped him. Surely they would have said if he was wearing long winter underwear – I mean that’s a rather vital point, don’t you think?

Passengers to face full body search–Cavity Search?

Passengers to face full body search

Paul Hooper

Security chiefs last night threw a ring of steel around every airport serving America – amid growing fears of a new al-Qaeda onslaught.

And experts warn all US-bound passengers could face full body searches in a bid to thwart future bomb outrages.

Body-searches have already been introduced at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport following a plea from American officials.

Judith Sluiter, a spokeswoman for the Dutch National Co-ordinator for Counter-terrorism, said: “The extra measures apply on all flights to the US for an indefinite period.”

Schiphol is one of Europe’s busiest airports with a heavy load of transit passengers from Africa and Asia to North America.

It strictly enforces EU security rules that only allow small amounts of liquid in hand-luggage if it is in a clear plastic container.

Scanners Bosses at Schiphol have spent the past year testing full-body scanners that allow security staff to see the outline of a passenger’s body beneath their clothes.

But it was unclear whether the scanners would have spotted the device allegedly used by Mutallab.

Meanwhile, Air Canada has announced they are banning passengers from leaving their seats during the last hour of all their flights.

The ban includes reaching up to get a bag from an overhead luggage locker or having any item on their lap.

And a spokesman for the British Airports Authority has warned passengers travelling to the US to expect delays because of extra security checks by airlines.

Earlier Patrick Mercer, chairman of the House of Commons Sub-Committee on Counter-Terrorism, warned al-Qaeda bomb-makers would always try to keep one step ahead of any new crackdown.

He said: “As security evolves, so does terrorism – and now security is going to have to take another twist in order to account for these new devices.

“Scanning will have to be looked at more carefully and used more extensively.”

He added: “The only way round this is by using sniffer dogs around every person or by implementing scanners at every airport.

“It will be very expensive but we can only benefit in the long run.”

CIA has Distributed 400 Million Dollars Inside Iran to Evoke a Revolution

by pakalert

Former Pakistani Army General Mirza Aslam Beig claims the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has distributed 400 million dollars inside Iran to evoke a revolution.

In a phone interview with the Pashto Radio on Monday, General Beig said that there is undisputed intelligence proving the US interference in Iran.

“The documents prove that the CIA spent 400 million dollars inside Iran to prop up a colorful-hollow revolution following the election,” he added.

Pakistan’s former army chief of joint staff went on to say that the US wanted to disturb the situation in Iran and bring to power a pro-US government.

He congratulated President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on his re- election for the second term in office, noting that Pakistan relationship with Iran has improved during his 4-year presidency.

“Ahmadinejad’s re-election is a decisive point in regional policy and if Pakistan and Afghanistan unite with Iran, the US has to leave the area, especially the occupied Afghanistan,” Beig added.

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Iranian Unrest: Evidence Of Western Intelligence Meddling

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Iran Riots: Neda Death Footage – Poster Child For A Million More Tragedies?

Soros, the CIA, Mossad and the new media destabilization of Iran

Special Report: Iran Falls to US PSYOPS

Are the Iranian Protests Another US Orchestrated “Color Revolution?”

US Official: The CIA bribed Iranian government officials, businessmen, and reporters, and paid Iranians to demonstrate in the streets

Video: Kissinger Threatens Regime Change In Iran

The Alexa rankings confirm that Twitter’s penetration in Iran is nearly 0%.

Iran: Some Dots You May Want To Connect

Are You Ready For War With Demonized Iran?

CIA, Iran and the Election Riots – A Tribute To Khomeini’s Iran

Iran: Ahmadinejad Won. Get Over It

Cyberwarfare Begins in Iran

PLOT TO DESTABILISE IRAN

Zionist déjà vu over Iranian Election 09

Obama Admits US Involvement in Iran Coup in 1953, But Doesn’t Admit American Involvement in False Flags

Top Ranking CIA Operatives Admit Al-Qaeda Is a Complete Fabrication

Former Italian President Says 9/11 was CIA & Mossad Operation

Indian Intellects: Al Qaeda Is CIA-Mossad Front

CIA Destabilizing Pakistan

A History Of CIA Coups And Atrocities

CIA: Secret Operations, Drug Money

The CIA Beyond Redemption and Should be Terminated

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The Zionist Elephant In The Room

The New World Order Wants the New World Order to Fail: Order Out of Attacking the New World Order

The USA’s alliance with Iran

It looks as if the CIA and its friends are still doing deals with Iran, and hence with Hamas.

In recent years, ten international banks, including British-based Lloyds, laundered “billions of dollars” for Iran through New York banks.

Some of the money went to fund groups like the Hamas.

Ten of world’s top banks laundered money for Iran

Sir David Manning, who has links to the UK security services, is a director of Lloyds Bank.

(One of the Secret Rulers of the World – Sir David Manning)

The CIA put the Ayatollahs into power because the Shah was not doing what the CIA wanted him to do on oil prices and heroin supply.

The CIA wanted Iran to be backward and feudal.

The CIA sold arms to the Ayatollahs who were seen as good allies against Russia.

(WAS KHOMEINI AN AGENT OF THE US AND UK GOVERNMENTS?)

US Central Command chief General David Petraeus says Washington and Tehran share common interests in the stabilization of Afghanistan. (Petraeus finds shared interest with Iran )

Webster Tarpley, the author of ‘The Unauthorized Biography of George Bush’, has written ‘The Postmodern Coup’.

In this new book, according to Wikipedia, Tarpley relates thatthe Brzezinski faction and its presidential candidateObama are in the ascendant.

The targets of US imperialism are to be Russia, China and its ally Pakistan, instead of Iraq, Iran and Syria.

What do we know about Tarpley?

According to Wikipedia, “Tarpley maintains that the events of 9/11 were engineered by a rogue network of the military industrial complex.

“His writings and speeches describe a model of false flag terror operations by a rogue network in the military/intelligence sector working with moles in the private sector and in corporate media, and locates such contemporary false flag operations in a historical context stretching back in the English speaking world to at least the gunpowder plot in England in 1605…

(Webster Tarpley – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Tarpley sees Barack Obama as being the front man for the intelligence agencies.

Tarpley believes Obama’s ‘controller’ is Zbigniew Brzezinski and that Brzezinski may have recruited Obama at Columbia University.

Brzezinski reportedly wants to destroy Russia and China, which means destroying countries like Pakistan.

Reportedly Brzezinski wants to get Russia to fight China.

Obama, according to Tarpley, is linked to Skull & Bones and Wall Street financiers.

Brzezinski

What do we know about Brzezinski and his friends?

According to The Arc of Crisis, Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and ‘British operative’ Bernard Lewis are among the people who are behind many of the troubling events in the Moslem world.

Reportedly, the Bernard Lewis Plan involved using the Muslim Brotherhood to help Khomeini come to power in Iran.

The idea is to promote the break up of Moslem countries along ethnic and religious lines.

Lewis reportedly wants to encourage nationalistic minorities, such as the Lebanese Maronites, the Kurds, the Armenians, Druze, Baluchis, Azerbaijani Turks, Syrian Alawites, the Copts of Ethiopia, Sudanese mystical sects, and Arabian tribes.

Brzezinski believes that US global dominance depends on US control of Soviet Central Asia.

In The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives, Brzezinski writes about a zone of “percolating violence” including all of Central Asia, Turkey, southern Russia, the western borders of China, the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Reportedly, Brzezinski and Bernard Lewis believing that Islamic fundamentalism can be used to destabilize Russia.

Does the West support Islamic fundamentalists?

Reportedly, a faction of the Muslim Brotherhood overthrew the Shah.

Peter Goodgame, (“Globalists and the Islamists“), wrote that ‘with the rise in energy prices the development of the Third World was checked, but the Arab Middle East became greatly enriched.

‘This was when the Globalists turned to their allies, the Islamists, to remedy the situation.

‘Islam would be used to attack industrialization and modernization using the lie that human progress was un-Islamic and a Western plot against the servants of Allah.’

Reportedly (The Arc of Crisis) the West opposed the idea of the Shah developing nuclear power.

According to Robert Dreyfuss, in ‘Hostage to Khomeini’, in 1975, Western ‘plans for reversing the Shah’s industrialization program and for turning Iran into a model dark ages regime were mapped out.”

Three Bomb Attacks Upon Shia Processions in Three Days In Karachi

Twenty killed as suicide attack hits Shia procession in Karachi

Television pictures showed a big cloud of smoke over the scene and television reporters said angry worshippers attacked a media vehicle. — File photoSINDHBlast near Karachi City CourtsBlast near Karachi City Courts

KARACHI: Twenty people were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a Shia procession on Karachi’s M.A. Jinnah on Monday, CCPO Waseem Ahmed said.

Meanwhile, hospital sources confirmed that 19 people were killed in the incident.

At least 40 people were also wounded in the attack, hospital sources said. The injured were being shifted to the Jinnah and Civil hospitals.

Television pictures showed a big cloud of smoke over the scene and television reporters said angry worshippers attacked a media vehicle.

The police was urging civilians to move away from the site of the blast.

The procession continued to move forward despite the explosion.

This was the third bomb blast in the city in the last three days.

Earlier, on Sunday, 30 people including three policemen were injured when a low-intensity bomb exploded during a Muharram procession near Qasba Mor in Orangi town.

Similarly, a procession in Paposhnagar was targeted on Saturday when a Muharram procession was passing through. The incident left 13 people injured, mostly women and children.