Charles Freeman and the Art of Shadow Boxing

Thursday, 12 March 2009 06:16 Andrew Winkler, The Rebel Media Group

Western democracism– especially in its most perverted form, the Anglo-Saxon two-party system – always reminds me of American style ‘World Wrestling’, a choreographed pretend fight with pre-determined outcomes where all ‘competitors’ are employed by the same organisation. No matter who wins the ‘smack down’, the World Wrestling Federation always ends up with a profit.

In the past week however, we all got to enjoy a far more sophisticated spectacle, reminescent of the ancient art of shadow boxing. The superior performance does not come as a surprise, given the star was a highly intelligent, Chinese speaking CIA analyst. According to Arnaud de Borchgrave, darling scribbling of the U.S. disinformation machine, Charles Freeman, is a ‘brilliant analytical mind’ and ‘anathema to the Israel lobby and the neocons.^[1] It didn’t take much more than some bashing by the infamous AIPAC, for the dissident media scene to promptly celebrate Freeman as its latest hero.

Sorry, folks, I hate to be a party pooper, but haven’t you heard of reverse psychology? If an elite puppet like Obama, after appointing Israel firster after Israel firster, suddenly nominates an alleged Israel lobby opponent, like a sacrificial lamb for the AIPAC wolves to tear into pieces, that’s not just political show fighting, it is art.

Anybody familiar with the power of the Jewish lobby should know that a U.S. journalist working for the likes of the UPI and the Washington Post can’t write articles criticising Israel and its lobby like Arnaud de Borchgrave does on a regular basis,^[2] without losing his job, unless he has been instructed to do so. Equally, no U.S. career spook like Charles Freeman can genuinely criticise anything to do with Israel and its 5^th column without being sent lawn-mowing in Mongolia, unless of course his criticism – and the predictable reactions to it – are part of a smokescreen.

Has anybody actually had a proper look at Freeman’s resume?

U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War

AIPAC is trying to fool us by accusing Freeman of being a Saudi puppet. If there are any puppets in the Middle East, it’s the Saudis themselves. Pampered and kept in power for the sake of Western oil interests, those guys do an amazing job at giving Islam a bad name. Their medieval form of government, especially the barbaric legal system and the degrading treatment of women and their bankrolling of ultra-orthodox Islamic sects and terrorist groups is deliberately designed to make Westerners perceive Muslims as backwards, dangerous and cruel. This perception is critical to prevent Western sheeples from getting too upset about the sniping of Palestinian children or the stealing of Iraqi oil.

The Saudis have also been effective at preventing a united Arab front against the Zionist occupation of Palestine. For a role as involved in Anglo-Judean state terrorism as that of the U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, it is no coincidence that it routinely filled with career spooks like Charles Freeman.

Chinese interpreter for Henry Kissinger during his historic visit to China in 1972

No historic event in the second half of the 20^th century has had a more disastrous outcome for Western interests. What Kissinger did during that meeting with Mao Tse Tung was promise – under the guise of globalization – to move the bulk of Western manufacturing assets to China in return for opening the country to the Jewish controlled international banking sector. I couldn’t imagine any bigger act of treason of a U.S. ‘diplomat’. The fact that Freeman didn’t prevent it or at least warn the unsuspecting public, is unforgivable.

There is plenty of other evidence that Freeman is not genuine. Take for example his insistence that decades of Israeli oppression of the Palestinians was the reason for anti-American terrorism. Someone as informed as Freeman knows of course that those two things have little to do with each other. 99.9% of terrorism is performed by groups that are financed and controlled by Western governments, directly or via Saudi billionaires such as the Bin Ladens, irrespective of what motivates the foot soldiers on the ground.

This brings me back to the question what exactly motivated Freeman for his anti-Lobby stunt performed as part of his withdrawn Obama nomination. It’s hard to say. Maybe it’s just a demonstration of Jewish power. Or it is a warning from the bankers in New York and London for the Zios not to get too cocky. Who knows?! At the end of the day, our ruling crime families need the psychopathic mindset of the Judaics in and outside of Israel to carry out their dirty business. That doesn’t mean that they let them get away with everything.

Footnotes:
[1] see his latest Washington Post editorial titled Freeman’s Unpardonable ‘Sin’
[2] read for example Embarrassing history

Related Articles:
The Democracy Hoax
Democracism and Resistance
A Study in the Hegenomy of Parasitism: Chapter 5 – The CIA
The Story of the Committee of 300

Andrew Winkler is the editor/publisher of dissident blog ZioPedia.org and founder of Jews Anonymous. He can be contacted on
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. You can find more of his articles in the Editorial Section of the ZioPedia.org site.

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DIA Director Gen. Michael Maples Claims Afghan Surge Necessary Because of “al Qaida” Comeback

IT WOULD BE NICE IF THE GENERAL WOULD CLARIFY EXACTLY WHO HE MEANS WHEN HE USES THE GENERIC TERM “AL QAIDA;” IS HE REFERRING TO THE VETERAN AFGHAN MUJAHEDEEN OR THE IMPORTED ARAB AND MUSLIM RADICALS GATHERED FROM THE JAILS OF THE MIDDLE EAST, OR OSAMA BIN LADEN’S ORGANIZATION “WORLD ISLAMIC FRONT FOR JIHAD AGAINST THE JEWS AND CRUSADERS,”

OR IS HE REFERRING TO THE TALIBAN, THE “PAKISTANI TALIBAN,” OR SOME OTHER GROUP THAT WANTS AMERICA OUT OF THE MIDDLE EAST?

THERE IS NO “AL QAIDA,” ONLY GROUPS THAT OUR GOVERNMENT AND ITS “FREE PRESS” CALLS BY THAT MADE-UP MONIKER!!

Defense Intelligence Agency Director Army Lt. Gen. Michael Maples testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee regarding ongoing and future national security threats and opportunities on Capitol Hill in Washington on March 10, 2009. (UPI Photo/Roger L. Wollenberg)

Maples: Al-Qaida returning to Afghanistan

WASHINGTON, March 11 (UPI) — The director of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency says al-Qaida has expanded its presence in Afghanistan seven years after the fall of the Taliban.Testifying Tuesday before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, DIA Director Lt. Gen. Michael Maples said while the terrorist group isn’t entrenched in the country as it was before the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, its renewed presence was a key reason for a U.S. decision to send in more troops, the Los Angeles Times reported.

“I believe al-Qaida’s presence in Afghanistan is more significant, although still at a relatively minor scale, than we have seen in the past,” Maples said.

During the hearing, Maples also said intelligence is showing Iran is becoming more active in supporting the Haqqani network, a militant group based in Pakistan that has been attacking U.S. and Afghan forces.

“We are seeing some increased activity between Iran and the Haqqani network,” Maples testified.

Freeman Blasts Israel Lobby for Controlling American Government as He is Shown the Door

“The libels on me and their easily traceable email trails show conclusively that there is a powerful  lobby determined to prevent any view other than its own from being aired, still less to factor in American understanding of trends and events in the Middle East.  The tactics of the Israel Lobby plumb the depths of dishonor and indecency and include character assassination, selective misquotation, the willful distortion of the record, the fabrication of falsehoods, and an utter disregard for the truth.  The aim of this Lobby is control of the policy process through the exercise of a veto over the appointment of people who dispute the wisdom of its views, the substitution of political correctness for analysis, and the exclusion of any and all options for decision by Americans and our government other than those that it favors.

There is a special irony in having been accused of improper regard for the opinions of foreign governments and societies by a group so clearly intent on enforcing adherence to the policies of a foreign government – in this case, the government of Israel.  I believe that the inability of the American public to discuss, or the government to consider, any option for US policies in the Middle East opposed by the ruling faction in Israeli politics has allowed that faction to adopt and sustain policies that ultimately threaten the existence of the state of Israel.  It is not permitted for anyone in the United States to say so.  This is not just a tragedy for Israelis and their neighbors in the Middle East; it is doing widening damage to the national security of the United States.”

Freeman speaks out on his exit

Laura Rozen

Retired Amb. Chas Freeman, who said today that he no longer accepts an offer to chair the National Intelligence Council, has just sent this message:

You will by now have seen the statement by Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair reporting that I have withdrawn my previous acceptance of his invitation to chair the National Intelligence Council.

I have concluded that the barrage of libelous distortions of my record would not cease upon my entry into office.  The effort to smear me and to destroy my credibility would instead continue.  I do not believe the National Intelligence Council could function effectively while its chair was under constant attack by unscrupulous people with a passionate attachment to the views of a political faction in a foreign country.  I agreed to chair the NIC to strengthen it and protect it against politicization, not to introduce it to efforts by a special interest group to assert control over it through a protracted political campaign.

As those who know me are well aware, I have greatly enjoyed life since retiring from government.  Nothing was further from my mind than a return to public service.  When Admiral Blair asked me to chair the NIC I responded that I understood he was “asking me to give my freedom of speech, my leisure, the greater part of my income, subject myself to the mental colonoscopy of a polygraph, and resume a daily commute to a job with long working hours and a daily ration of political abuse.”  I added that I wondered “whether there wasn’t some sort of downside to this offer.”  I was mindful that no one is indispensable; I am not an exception.  It took weeks of reflection for me to conclude that, given the unprecedentedly challenging circumstances in which our country now finds itself abroad and at home, I had no choice but accept the call to return to public service.  I thereupon resigned from all positions that I had held and all activities in which I was engaged.  I now look forward to returning to private life, freed of all previous obligations.

I am not so immodest as to believe that this controversy was about me rather than issues of public policy.  These issues had little to do with the NIC and were not at the heart of what I hoped to contribute to the quality of analysis available to President Obama and his administration.  Still, I am saddened by what the controversy and the manner in which the public vitriol of those who devoted themselves to sustaining it have revealed about the state of our civil society.  It is apparent that we Americans cannot any longer conduct a serious public discussion or exercise independent judgment about matters of great importance to our country as well as to our allies and friends.

The libels on me and their easily traceable email trails show conclusively that there is a powerful  lobby determined to prevent any view other than its own from being aired, still less to factor in American understanding of trends and events in the Middle East.  The tactics of the Israel Lobby plumb the depths of dishonor and indecency and include character assassination, selective misquotation, the willful distortion of the record, the fabrication of falsehoods, and an utter disregard for the truth.  The aim of this Lobby is control of the policy process through the exercise of a veto over the appointment of people who dispute the wisdom of its views, the substitution of political correctness for analysis, and the exclusion of any and all options for decision by Americans and our government other than those that it favors.

There is a special irony in having been accused of improper regard for the opinions of foreign governments and societies by a group so clearly intent on enforcing adherence to the policies of a foreign government – in this case, the government of Israel.  I believe that the inability of the American public to discuss, or the government to consider, any option for US policies in the Middle East opposed by the ruling faction in Israeli politics has allowed that faction to adopt and sustain policies that ultimately threaten the existence of the state of Israel.  It is not permitted for anyone in the United States to say so.  This is not just a tragedy for Israelis and their neighbors in the Middle East; it is doing widening damage to the national security of the United States.

The outrageous agitation that followed the leak of my pending appointment will be seen by many to raise serious questions about whether the Obama administration will be able to make its own decisions about the Middle East and related issues.  I regret that my willingness to serve the new administration has ended by casting doubt on its ability to consider, let alone decide what policies might best serve the interests of the United States rather than those of a Lobby intent on enforcing the will and interests of a foreign government.

In the court of public opinion, unlike a court of law, one is guilty until proven innocent.  The speeches from which quotations have been lifted from their context are available for anyone interested in the truth to read.  The injustice of the accusations made against me has been obvious to those with open minds.  Those who have sought to impugn my character are uninterested in any rebuttal that I or anyone else might make.

Still, for the record: I have never sought to be paid or accepted payment from any foreign government, including Saudi Arabia or China, for any service, nor have I ever spoken on behalf of a foreign government, its interests, or its policies.  I have never lobbied any branch of our government for any cause, foreign or domestic.  I am my own man, no one else’s, and with my return to private life, I will once again – to my pleasure – serve no master other than myself.  I will continue to speak out as I choose on issues of concern to me and other Americans.

I retain my respect and confidence in President Obama and DNI Blair.  Our country now faces terrible challenges abroad as well as at home.  Like all patriotic Americans, I continue to pray that our president can successfully lead us in surmounting them.

More to come.

Voices From The Past Speak Of Current Events

Voices From The Past Speak Of Current Events

By Dr. Harrell Rhome
3-10-9

Secret societies and occult conspiracies influence world history. I have no intention of “proving” this. Do your own research; it’s not all that hard. This essay addresses readers who already know the basics and want to know more. I’ll share some sources you may not have seen before. Once we realize the extent of what has already happened, we see more perils on the horizon. Who is behind our current crises, economic debacles and wars of one kind or another raging around the world? We begin with a modern-day German author.

“There are two levels of historical reality. The first is the general so-called public opinion that is served to the average citizen by the mass media and will later, because of the persons writing it down, become history. The second one, though, is made up of the happenings that are not revealed to the public. This is the world of the machinations by secret lodges and secret societies which interlink capital, politics, economy and religion. On this level, nations are made, wars are instigated, presidents and leaders are put into office and, in case they don’t function, eliminated.” Jan van Helsing, Secret Societies and Their Power in the Twentieth Century, Geheimgesellschaften und ihre Macht Im 20. Jahrhundert.

“There is a power in the world we seldom mention…. I mean the secret societies…. It is useless to deny because it is impossible to conceal, that a great part of Europe – the whole of Italy and France and a great portion of Germany, to say nothing of other countries – is covered with a network of these secret societies, just as the superficies of the earth is now covered with railroads. And what are their objects?  They do not attempt to conceal them.  They do not want constitutional government; they do not want ameliorated institutions… they want to change the tenure of the land, to drive out the present owners of the soil and put to an end ecclesiastical establishments.  Some of them may go even further.”  Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, House of Commons, 14 July 1856.

While renounced, refuted or simply rejected, many feel that if you don’t know what is in the Protocols of Zion, you have a knowledge gap. “Forgeries” or not, they speak to what is going on. Some are put off by the Freemasonic references, and say this was just an anti-Masonic document or something written by Maurice Joly. Again, I have no need to “prove” anything.  Read the Protocols, read some other opinions and decide for yourself. As to the Freemasonic imagery and phraseology, Nesta Webster puts it in perspective.

“Freemasonry is not to be taken seriously, but may serve as a mask and a means of preparing something quite different. How is it possible to ignore the existence of an Occult Power at work in the world?  Individuals, sects, or races fired with the desire for world-dominion, have provided the fighting forces of destruction, but behind them are the veritable Powers of Darkness in eternal conflict with the powers of light.”

The Protocols from over a century ago (or earlier) speak to the world scene today, things happening even as you read these words.

From Protocol 3: “In the present state of knowledge and the direction we have given to its development the people, blindly believing things in print-cherishes-thanks to promptings intended to mislead and to its own ignorance a blind hatred towards all conditions which it considers above itself, for it has no understanding of the meaning of class and condition. This hatred will be still further magnified by the effects of an ECONOMIC CRISIS, which will stop dealings on the exchanges and bring industry to a standstill. We shall create by all the secret subterranean methods open to us and with the aid of gold, which is all in our hands, A UNIVERSAL ECONOMIC CRISIS WHEREBY WE SHALL THROW UPON THE STREETS WHOLE MOBS OF WORKERS SIMULTANEOUSLY IN ALL THE COUNTRIES OF EUROPE. These mobs will rush delightedly to shed the blood of those whom, in the simplicity of their ignorance, they have envied from their cradles, and whose property they will then be able to loot. ‘OURS’ THEY WILL NOT TOUCH, BECAUSE THE MOMENT OF ATTACK WILL BE KNOWN TO US AND WE SHALL TAKE MEASURES TO PROTECT OUR OWN.”

And, from Protocol 21: “We shall replace the money markets by grandiose government credit institutions, the object of which will be to fix the price of industrial values in accordance with government views. These institutions will be in a position to fling upon the market five hundred millions of industrial paper in one day, or to buy up for the same amount. In this way all industrial undertakings will come into dependence upon us. You may imagine for yourselves what immense power we shall thereby secure for ourselves….”

Does this sound like a socialized economy and nationalized banking system? A financial New World Order? Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, a nineteenth century world leader and creator of the Second German Empire, had a clear picture of financial machinations then and now. Notice his focus on America. What he speaks of has happened. The Obama Bail Out rewards the same banksters who got us in this mess in the first place! Think about the leading lights in the White House, Treasury, Federal Reserve and IRS: Rahm Emanuel, Timothy Geithner, Ben Bernanke and Doug Shulman. This is a partial list, and we mustn’t overlook premier Ponzi perpetrator Bernie Madoff and a host of other globalist wheeler dealers. Not only that, think about the interminable Mideast wars, including a possible conflict with Iran, all to the benefit of Zionists and Illuminati world planners.

“I fear that Jewish banks with their craftiness and tortuous tricks will entirely control the exuberant riches of America  The Jews will not hesitate to plunge the whole of Christendom into wars and chaos, in order that the earth should become the inheritance of Israel.”  Bismarck.

USURY BANKING.

Usury is the essential and primary tool of the Illuminati world planners for controlling and manipulating the international banking structure. The ancient Hebrew Scriptures forbade interest, but when Judaism emerged, the Talmud changed the rules. The church didn’t allow usury until the mid 1500s when Christians wanted to get in the game. Secret societies employ useful folk of all cultures and backgrounds, but Judaics seem to stand out. Martin Luther, a skilled translator, read the Talmud in Hebrew. The two verses below are but brief examples; the Babylonian Talmud contains much more. They follow Luther’s comments.

“It is the same kind of boasting when the Jews boast in their synagogues, praising and thanking God for sanctifying them through his law and setting them apart as a peculiar people, although they know full well that they are not at all observing this law, that they are full of conceit, envy, usury, greed, and all sorts of malice. The worst offenders are those who pretend to be very devout and holy in their prayers. They are so blind that they not only practice usury not to mention the other vices but they teach that it is a right which God conferred on them through Moses.” Martin Luther.

“It is allowed to cheat a Gentile and take usury from him”. (Baba Mezia, 61a).

“God has commanded us to take usury from the Gentile and lend him only when he consents to repay with usury.” (Sepher Mizwoth, 73a).

Yet another nineteenth century European leader and statesman had an uncanny sense of these things.

“The Jews have practiced usury since the time of Moses, and oppressed the other peoples. Meanwhile, the Christians were only rarely usurers, falling into disgrace when they did so. We ought to ban the Jews from commerce because they abuse it… The evils of the Jews do not stem from individuals but from the fundamental nature of this people.” Napoleon’s Reflections and from speeches before the Council of State on April 30 and May 7, 1806.

Nesta Webster’s Secret Societies and Subversive Movements (1924), is an exceptional book if you want to understand the nature of occult conspiracies. It is here I first read of Henri-Roger Gougenot des Mousseaux (1805-1876), a mid-nineteenth century French Catholic author (knighted by the Pope) who exposed the Talmudic religion and occult conspiracies. Unfortunately his classic work, Le Juif, le Judaisme et la Judaisation des Peuples Chretiens, The Jews, Judaism and the Judaisation of the Christian People (1869) has never appeared in English. It was translated into German by Alfred Rosenberg, the philosopher of the National Socialist movement, and published in 1921 as Der Jude, Judenthum und die Verjudung der christlichen Volker. This is an influential book. Both Hitler and Dr. Rosenberg were impressed by it. Some say Gougenot des Mousseaux was poisoned by Judaic assassins or Freemasonic agents, and he may have been. He exposed many secrets. A brief example of his work appears below. Has the scenario he described back in the 1860s already taken place in the “formidable crises” of today?

“There will burst forth one fine evening one of these formidable crises which will shake the earth and which occult societies have long prepared for Christian society, and then perhaps will suddenly appear in open day, throughout the entire world, all the militia, all the fraternal and unknown sects of the Cabala. The ignorance, the carelessness in which we live, of their sinister existence, their affinities, and their immense ramifications will in no way prevent them from recognizing each other, and under the banner of no matter what universal alliance, giving each other the kiss of Peace, they will hasten to gather together….” [End quoting.]

The Protocols and plans have proven success in the past and present. The Golden Rule is in force; those who have the gold rule.  The globalist chess masters are rarely seen and almost never identified. National debts are their usurious creation for world control.

“The Illuminati have the world in their grip through the international bankers together with the elite societies and the empires built by them. They are in the process of strengthening their possession of this planet. Their main means of control are the national debts….” Jan van Helsing.

The voices of yesteryear seem prophetic, way ahead of their time. But they were not really prophets; just close and astute observers of historical trends and current events. The more things “change”, the more they stay the same. The Dark Forces and their Illuminati familiars rely on our overall impotence instilled through our abysmal ignorance of key facts. As long as we passively play the role of submissive cattle (goyim), the Protocols will continue to unfold and things will get worse. I don’t mean to end on a grim theme, and I do think things can change for the better. Western culture can survive and prosper and fortunately, more than a few of us are doing what we can, but time is limited. Look around you. In some ways, the sands of the hour glass seem to be running out.

“What appears to be the established order of present-day civilization is actually the inert but spectacular momentum of a high velocity vehicle whose engine has already stopped functioning.”  Jose’ Arguelles, Earth Ascending.

100 Year Old Warning of Planned Economic Catastrophe

Protocol 3:

“In the present state of knowledge and the direction we have given to its development the people, blindly believing things in print-cherishes-thanks to promptings intended to mislead and to its own ignorance a blind hatred towards all conditions which it considers above itself, for it has no understanding of the meaning of class and condition. This hatred will be still further magnified by the effects of an ECONOMIC CRISIS, which will stop dealings on the exchanges and bring industry to a standstill. We shall create by all the secret subterranean methods open to us and with the aid of gold, which is all in our hands, A UNIVERSAL ECONOMIC CRISIS WHEREBY WE SHALL THROW UPON THE STREETS WHOLE MOBS OF WORKERS SIMULTANEOUSLY IN ALL THE COUNTRIES OF EUROPE. These mobs will rush delightedly to shed the blood of those whom, in the simplicity of their ignorance, they have envied from their cradles, and whose property they will then be able to loot. ‘OURS’ THEY WILL NOT TOUCH, BECAUSE THE MOMENT OF ATTACK WILL BE KNOWN TO US AND WE SHALL TAKE MEASURES TO PROTECT OUR OWN.”

We Will Turn You Into Us

Serfing The Third Wave

By Amy de Miceli

The plan to bring forth a new soviet man right here in America has become a chilling reality. George Lucas has even called attention to it in his latest installment of Indiana Jones. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is set in the 1950’s, Indy has been kidnapped by Russians. Mid film his captor, Col. Dr. Irina Spalko, straps Jones to a chair and in a hush voice surrounded by ambient music she softly tells us what we have become, and where we are headed, and if you listen close you’ll hear how its been done.

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“Imagine, to peer across the world and know the enemies secrets, to place our thoughts into the minds of your leaders, make your teachers teach the true version of history, your soldiers attack on our command. We’ll be everywhere at once more powerful than a whisper invading your dreams thinking your thoughts for you while you sleep. We will change you Dr. Jones, all of you, from the inside; we will turn you, into us and the best part– you wont even know its happening “

Our dreams have been invaded and a frightening reality has been developed. Our leaders and teachers, none of them are as they seem, they have been turned from the inside, and we have been lead along for many generations. We are in the midst of a merger of the Russian and American models, a step closer to forming the perfect system of control. We are being crushed by the third wave of change. It is not coming, it is here.

“The First Wave of change— the agricultural revolution—took thousands of years to play itself out. The Second Wave—the rise of industrial civilization—took a mere three hundred years. Today history is even more accelerative, and it is likely that the Third Wave will sweep across history and complete itself in a few decades. We, who happen to share the planet at this explosive moment, will therefore feel the full impact of the Third Wave in our own lifetimes.”
—Alvin Toffler, The Third Wave-1980

The first wave to hit us reveals just how long and far we have been lead, right into our current position, and with each wave of change that crashes our bonds grow tighter.

The agricultural revolution interrupted hunting and gathering and quickly replaced it with the domestication of plants and animals; within only a few thousand years the knowledge spread to all parts of the world. How and why the information was uncovered and implemented at such an expedited pace can be debated in theory, but there are few known facts as to what actually triggered the revolution.

The wanderers became farmers, as hunting grounds became farm land, and by the 17th century the second wave began to roll out, change was slow at first, man became farmer and owner, and with it came barter, money and bondage.

Since then we have been even more hurried through time, the industrial revolution was realized in hundreds of years, as opposed to thousands. The crushing changes of the second wave were directly aimed at our families, although several families managed to fare quite well through the assault. Toffler wrote that just like the first wave, “historians cannot pin down the “cause” of the industrial revolution” (The Third Wave p. 358), however we can see those that were involved in shaping the minds of men throughout it.

Industry drove people from the farm, and as families began moving closer to factories, children would no longer work as they did on the farms, an acceptable solution was mass education and it was ushered in. Toffler points out in The Third Wave, that school was to train children to become good factory workers, punctual, obedient people who can complete mundane tasks repetitively for eight hours a day, which is true, but that describes only half the purpose, mass education was, and still is, much worse than that.

…place our thoughts into the minds of your leaders, make your teachers teach the true version of history

In 1954 the Reece Committee investigated the inner workings of tax exempt foundations, such as those run by the Carnegie, Rockefeller and Ford families. The investigation was brought forth in part because of growing suspicion that these organizations were un-American. It was ultimately revealed that these tax exempt foundations were working in tandem, using foundation money to meddle with our minds.They needed to change our way of thinking, and using the power and influence of their organizations, they promote the idea of global government. One important way to capture and control us (the enemy) was uncovered, get us young and vulnerable, and teach us to love our servitude.

…we’ll be everywhere at once more powerful than a whisper invading your dreams thinking your thoughts for you while you sleep

America was being slowly lead down a path of collectivism, in fact one report uncovered by the Reece committee summarized the third wave we were sleep-walking into, it was from the American Historical Foundation (est. in 1889) and states, “the day of the individual in the United States of America had come to an end, and that the future would be characterized, inevitably, by some form of collectivism…”

…we will change you…all of you, from the inside, we will turn you into us and the best part– you wont even know its happening

The harsh changes of the third wave are aimed at the individual and the Reece Committee was not the only proof of the war on for our minds. Former KGB propagandist, Yuri Bezmenov, revealed soviet secrets of psych warfare that were not only introduced to children by their teachers, but also spread through Hollywood by various artists (directors, writers, actors, poets, musicians, painters,) and pushed ahead by government leaders, and the press. They are all working against the individual, knowingly and unknowingly, in an attempt change our perception of reality. America has been attacked from the inside, through soviet ideological warfare.

Yuri has given some insight as to how effortless brainwashing an entire society can be. First the people must be demoralized, and that can take about fifteen years to indoctrinate a single generation, and when they are grown they will lead the next generation, parroting the doctrine. Once the majority has been reprogrammed they will react properly to the planned destabilization, and accept the Stalin or Lenin type leaders that will rise. Then a generated crisis will be used to make people more agreeable, and finally, normalization, (which may never end) making the brainwashed society find normalcy in a way of life that no one of sound mind would ever willingly accept.

We have been lead through these waves of change for many generations, and have ourselves endured life long doses of brainwash. Many have been changed and the plans to turn us into a collective are nearing completion, a brave new world awaits us. It is up to those who have refused to be demoralized and have managed to hold on to their conscience to bring the truth forward. Fight the globalist plan to destroy the individual, stop the birth of the collective or prepare to suffer total enslavement.

Eternal Resistance to Tyranny!

Israeli warplanes await S-300 sale to Iran

Press TV – March 7, 2009

Russia’s transfer of its S-300 air-defense systems to Iran would be the trigger point for Israel to take Iran to war, says a US think-tank.

The S-300 missile system

As Iran’s quest to obtain the sophisticated Russian-made anti-aircraft missile system S-300 continues to spark controversy, a new “Presidential Task Force” report on Iran by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy warns about the consequences of Iran acquiring the weapon.

The report says the potential transfer of the S-300 systems to Iran “gives rise to the grave risk that Israel could feel compelled to act before the cost of doing so is too high.”

The bi-partisan authors of the document, titled, “Preventing a Cascade of Instability,” propose that the US “should promptly provide Israel with the capabilities – modern aircraft – to continue to threaten high-value Iranian targets” once Russia starts the S-300 delivery.

The “Presidential Task Force” report maintains that the US arms offer to Israel could be used as leverage in pressuring Russia against the sale of S-300 systems to Iran.

The “rebalance of the strategic equation” would come as a result of an assessment of the S-300 system by US and Israeli weapons experts which has described the weapon as an element that can effectively rule out a successful attack against Iran.

“If Tehran obtained the S-300, it would be a game-changer in military thinking for tackling Iran,” says long-time Pentagon advisor Dan Goure.

The surface-to-air system tracks targets using a mobile radar station, immune to jamming.

Aside from the modern aircraft the US has been advised to provide for Israel, Israeli military experts have been on the move to enhance their offensive capabilities.

Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) is reportedly developing a killer drone, known as Harop, which can be used against “anti-aircraft systems and mobile or concealed ballistic missile launchers”.

Harop, which is deployed as a “fire and forget” weapon, is designed to travel over 1,000 kilometers to loiter over suspected locations to spot and attack targets as they are exposed right before activation.

William Schneider, one of the authors of the report and a former under secretary of state in the Reagan administration told a news conference on Wednesday that Iran has ready access to enough fissile material to produce up to 50 nuclear weapons should they decide to make such bombs.

“The ability to go from low enriched uranium to highly enriched uranium, especially if [the Iranians] expand the number of centrifuges, would be a relatively brief period of time, perhaps a year or so, before they’d be able to produce a nuclear weapon,” Schneider said.

In order for Iran to build a nuclear weapon, it needs to reconfigure its existing centrifuge enrichment plant at Natanz to reprocess LEU into weapons-grade HEU, or build clandestine facilities without the knowledge of UN inspectors.

An UN nuclear watchdog official speaking on condition of anonymity responded later by saying that the nuclear watchdog’s monitors and surveillance equipment at the Iranian facilities have not detected any reconfiguration activity on centrifuges, adding that there exists no evidence that Iran is building a clandestine facility to produce the highly enriched uranium needed for bomb fuel.
IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming for her part dismissed the possibility of any such move by Iran explaining that, “No nuclear material could have been removed from the facility without the agency’s knowledge since the facility is subject to video surveillance and the nuclear material has been kept under seal.”
The report by the US think-tank adds that any attempt by the US to hinder the sale of the S-300 systems to Iran should be done while making clear that “the US objective is to delay an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities while the international community continues its efforts to convince Iran to abandon its program.”

Iran’s Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar visited Moscow last month in what was widely believed to be in pursuit of the finalization of a deal on the advanced Russian system.

While there was no official confirmation about the controversial defense systems following the Iranian minister’s return, Evgenia Voiko, an analyst from the Center for Current Politics – an analytical agency close to the Kremlin – told Press TV that Russia would not let the Iranian general return to his country empty-handed.

“The deals would be beneficial for Russia. Iran is one of Russia’s largest military and technical partners. It would be imprudent to lose such a promising customer,” Voiko added.

Kommersant had earlier reported that while an $800 million contract for five S-300 systems had already been signed between Iran and Russia, Moscow has yet to make a decision on whether to deliver them.

CS/HGH
www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=87841&ionid=351020101

Israel Lobby’s Latest Argument for More War for Israel

AIPAC Appeals Court Rules Against Prosecutors

A federal appeals court dealt another setback to prosecutors in the case of two former employees of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) who are charged under the Espionage Act with improperly receiving and transmitting national defense information.  The appeals court rejected (pdf) a pre-trial appeal by the prosecution and affirmed the lower court rulings of Judge T.S. Ellis, III that define which classified information may be introduced at trial.

The appeals court said that the lower court had correctly assessed the relevance of two documents that the defense wished to introduce, referred to as the “FBI Report” and the “Israeli Briefing Document,” and that it had properly devised substitutions for certain classified information in the documents so that they may be presented at trial.

More importantly, the new ruling left undisturbed Judge Ellis’ ground-breaking interpretation of the procedural requirements of the Espionage Act.  That August 2006 interpretation stated that in order for the Espionage Act to be constitutional, it must require prosecutors to show that the defendants possessed a series of “culpable mental states” and that they knowingly chose to violate the law.  (See “Ruling in AIPAC Case Interprets Espionage Act Narrowly,” Secrecy News, February 20, 2007.)  This imposes a substantial, perhaps insurmountable burden of proof that the prosecutors must meet in order to prevail.

The new ruling counts squarely as a win for the defense.  But it also includes a hint of support for the prosecutors’ view that the lower court has made the Espionage Act too difficult to prosecute.

“We are … concerned by the potential that [Judge Ellis’ August 2006 ruling (pdf)] imposes an additional burden on the prosecution not mandated by the governing statute,” the appeals court said in a strikingly ambivalent footnote (footnote 8).  That concern has no immediate legal consequences, but it suggests that the proper interpretation of the Espionage Act is not yet a settled matter.

Prosecutors have not yet indicated how they will respond to the new ruling.  A new trial date may be determined at a status hearing set for February 26.

Inside source reveals FEMA & DHS preparing for mass graves and martial law near Chicago

February 11th, 2009

By: D. H. Williams @ 10:41 PM – EST

An Indiana county municipal official in the vicinity of Chicago reveals the contents of his meetings with FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security. The initial requests seem reasonable enough when FEMA asks the county officials to prepare a Hazard Mitigation Plan to deal with flooding, fires, high winds and tornadoes.

But as the required meetings and calls with FEMA and DHS continue over a two year period their request become more unusual, raising suspicions of county officials

Listen to the audio:

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“We want to know every important thing in this county. We want to know where police departments are. Where weapons are stored. Hazardous material. Where can we land a helicopter. Where are the airports. How big a plane can you land at the airport. Where are all the bridges. Where are all the power stations. Where are all the generating stations.Where are all the substations. They literally wanted to know where everything was. I’m sitting there thinking man if there was ever martial law. This kind of information is exactly the kind of stuff they are going to want. We’re just laying it all out for them right there.”

During the legally mandated meetings held with FEMA and DHS different disaster scenarios were reveled to county officials:

• In late December 2008 municipal officials were invited to Indianapolis for a briefing on the state of Indiana. There were told if industry were to collapse for example GM going bankrupt resulting in mass unemployment a depression would soon follow and municipalities could expect to loose 40% of their funds.
• Every county in the nation would be required to prepare a Hazard Mitigation Plan.
• The county should prepare a plan to vaccinate the entire population within 48 hours and practice the plan several times.
• FEMA inquired to where mass graves could be placed in the county and would they accept bodies from elsewhere.
• The sheriff’s department via the state sheriff association was told that no .223 ammunition rounds would be available as the military would be purchasing all stocks.
• The county was asked to make plans for “hardening” of police and fire stations, putting in hardened bunker type buildings around town.
• The county was asked to make plans for the possibility of up to 400,000 refugees from Chicago.

US Congress Approves Plan Mexico

SEE:

Texas makes emergency plans in case violence spills over from Mexico

US Congress Approves Plan Mexico

By Kristin Bricker

Published on: May 22, 2008

The US Congress approved Plan Mexico, also known as the Merida Initiative, last week, dealing a potentially deadly blow to activists and indigenous communities in Mexico. In the House, 244 Democrats and 32 Republicans voted for the bill and 7 democrats and 159 Republicans voted against it. The Senate approved a slightly different version, with Democrats unanimous in their approval and Republicans split evenly for and against. The House and Senate versions of the bill, which is an amendment to the Iraq supplemental funding bill, still must be reconciled and sent to George Bush for approval, who has threatened to veto the entire Iraq supplemental.

While Bush requested $500 million in funding for Plan Mexico in 2008, the House approved $400 million over the next two years, and the Senate approved $350 million. Analysts expected deeper cuts to Bush’s proposal, but Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Mexican Ambassador to the US Arturo Sarukhan rallied at the last minute, using the recent murder of Edgar Eusebio Millán Gómez, chief of Mexico’s national police force, the infamous Federal Preventative Police, as a pretext to argue for more funding for Mexico’s War on Drugs. The Sinaloa drug cartel is rumored to be responsible for Millán’s murder.

Plan Mexico will provide resources, equipment, and training–but not money–to the Mexican government, police, and military. It is yet another bill designed to line the pockets of the military industrial complex. The US military, government agencies such as USAID and the ATF, and US defense contractors such as mercenary firms and weapons manufacturers will receive funding to carry out Plan Mexico.

As passed by the House, Plan Mexico will provide $116.5 million over the next two years for training and equipment for the Mexican military, and for “strengthening of military-to-military cooperation between the United States and Mexico.” Bush’s request included eight helicopters and two airplanes for the Mexico military.

While Plan Mexico specifically targets drug trafficking, the initiative’s South American counterpart, Plan Colombia, demonstrates that drug war equipment and training will inevitably be used against activists and insurgent organizations. Mexico has already demonstrated its propensity to use deadly drug war equipment donated by the US against insurgents and civilians. Following the Zapatista uprising in 1994, the Mexican military strafed Chiapan indigenous communities using helicopters donated by the US to combat drug trafficking and production.

Plan Mexico also includes $210 million over two years to expand the US’s draconian anti-immigrant policy to Mexico’s side of the border. Mexico is a portal to the US for undocumented Central American immigrants. The hope is that Mexico will detect and stop undocumented immigrants in Mexico before they reach the US. The $210 million will be used to modernize and expand Mexico’s immigration database and document verification system, establish secure communications for Mexican national security agencies, procure “non-intrusive” inspection equipment, and support interdiction efforts as well as institution building. $5 million of this money will be used to deploy US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) agents to Mexico. Most alarmingly, at least $168 million of this funding is unspecified, meaning that the Democrat-controlled Congress waived its right to determine legislative policy in favor of giving Bush a free hand in Mexico’s immigration policies and police procedures.

Democrats’ overwhelming support for Plan Mexico in the face of overwhelming Republican opposition is yet another example of Democrats’ refusal to stand up to George Bush, despite their mandate to do so as a result of the 2006 elections.

George Bush proposed Plan Mexico at the end of 2007 for two very apparent reasons:

1. Plan Mexico is an indispensable component of the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP). Known as “NAFTA on steroids” or “NAFTA plus Homeland Security,” the SPP “calls for maximization of North American economic competitiveness in the face of growing exports from India and China; expedited means of resource (oil, natural gas, water, forest products) extraction; secure borders against ‘organized crime, international terrorism, and illegal migration;’ standardized regulatory regimes for health, food safety, and the environment; integrated energy supply through a comprehensive resource security pact (primarily about ensuring that the US receives guaranteed flows of the oil in light of ‘Middle East insecurity and hostile Latin American regimes’); and coordination amongst defense forces.

“Over 300 policies and agreements have been scheduled and/or implemented to realize these corporate priorities. Some examples of these agreements are the integration of military and police training exercises, cooperation on law enforcement, and the expansion of the North American Aerospace Defense Command into a joint naval and land defense command. This also includes redesign of armed forces for combat overseas and greater cooperation in global wars as part of the ‘external’ defense strategy of the security perimeter” (Harsha Walia and Cynthia Oka, “The Security and Prosperity Partnership Agreement: NAFTA Plus Homeland Security”).

The SPP is not a legislative proposal; it is a plan hatched by a board of corporate CEO’s and endorsed by the executive branches of Canada, the US, and Mexico. As such, the legislative branches of these three countries will never vote on the SPP as a policy.

Mexican civil society organizations such as the Center for Economic and Political Investigation for Community Action (CIEPAC) in Chiapas oppose the SPP because they believe that “The United States is making it possible to force Mexico and Canada to change their laws, rules, and regulations in order to secure the economic (“prosperity”) and political (“security”) interests of its government and businesses… in order to appropriate our natural resources for themselves and to increase their profits.”

2. Plan Mexico reflects the effort of one weak president, George Bush, to support another weak president, Felipe Calderon. George Bush can sympathize with Felipe Calderon. He knows what it’s like to steal an election and then have to rule a country with an iron fist while faced with enormous unpopularity. Seeing as though Calderon is one of only two friends George Bush has in Latin America (the other being Colombia’s President Uribe, also the recipient of mind-boggling military funding), George Bush had to act.

When Felipe Calderon took office in 2006 despite massive protests against the electoral fraud that brought him to power, one of the first things he did was deploy the military to drug cartel-dominated states in the north, militarizing a large portion of Mexico without legislative approval. Mexicans and US organizations have argued that this strategy is Calderon’s attempt to bolster a weak president with a strong military alliance and warn that it could signal a return to the “dirty war” era. Plan Mexico represents the further militarization of Mexican society without legislative controls because it will provide US resources and training to the Calderon-controlled military without Mexican congressional approval.

Friends of Brad Will, the Americas Program of the Center for International Policy, and Witness for Peace have criticized Plan Mexico for dumping more resources and controversial US training into the Mexican military and police. The Mexican military has a history of utilizing paramilitaries to terrorize leftists and communities in resistance. Paramilitaries in Chiapas are currently experiencing a renaissance unseen since the 1997 Acteal massacre that resulted in the violent deaths of 47 civilians, most of them women and children. The police’s report card is no better: in May 2006 police raped and sexually assaulted dozens of women they detained without charge during a protest in San Salvador Atenco against, ironically, police repression of the community. While some police were charged with “lewd conduct,” even these light convictions were overturned. US journalist Brad Will was murdered in October 2006 while working in Oaxaca City. He filmed his own assassination, and photographic evidence clearly shows that the shooters are off-duty police and government officials. After a “thorough” investigation, the Mexican government blamed his murder on Oaxacan activists.

While Friends of Brad Will and their allies argue that no human rights safeguards will be adequate to justify US funding for Mexican military and police under current circumstances, Amnesty International and other major human rights organizations fought for human rights safeguards to be included in the bill rather than opposing it outright. Their reward for this stance is a seat at the table: the Senate version of Plan Mexico mandates that the Secretary of the State “consult” with “internationally recognized human rights organizations on progress in meeting the requirements.”

The so-called “safeguards” will do nothing to advance human rights in Mexico. They require that none other than Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice certify that the Mexican military and police have initiated reforms, that serious investigations into the rape of prisoners in San Salvador Atenco and Brad Will’s murder are undertaken by the US and Mexican governments, and that statements obtained through torture not be used in a court of law. The bill also states that no police or military unit that is corrupt or engages in human rights abuses will receive aid under Plan Mexico, a laughable and unenforceable standard. If Rice is unable to certify progress in human rights and anti-corruption, a mere 25% of military and police funding will be withheld, meaning that Congress believes it’s acceptable to give 75% funding to military and police forces even if Condoleezza Rice believes they are corrupt and brutal.

But the problem with human rights safeguards in Plan Mexico isn’t that they’re inadequate. Legislators included safeguards to make military aid from one brutal right-wing government, the United States, to another brutal right-wing government, Mexico, palatable to the US public. Despite irrefutable proof of systematic human rights violations and torture in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, the CIA’s use of “extraordinary rendition” to disappear and torture suspects in “black sites,” and ICE’s drugging of deportees with overdoses of dangerous psychotropic drugs, the United States still likes to think of itself as the principal defender of human rights globally. The rest of the world, however, does not share the same rosy view of the US. In an editorial criticizing the human rights safeguards in Plan Mexico as a pretext for further US-mandated structural adjustment in the form of mandatory “judicial and legal reforms,” Mexico’s La Jornada also notes the irony of the US promoting human rights in other countries: “The United States’ demand to verify respect for human rights in other nations constitutes a grotesque and absurd pretension, taking into account that, on a global scale, the superpower is the principal violator of such rights.”

But Plan Mexico’s human rights safeguards were never meant to be taken seriously. They’re an excuse to slip in a few US-mandated judicial reforms without Mexican Congress’ initiative nor approval, and more importantly, they allow US lawmakers to sleep soundly at night despite the fact that they’ve just unleashed a nightmare on Mexican citizens.

More information on Plan Mexico and the Security and Prosperity Partnership:

The Security and Prosperity Partnership Agreement: NAFTA Plus Homeland Security by Harsha Walia and Cynthia Oka

A Primer on Plan Mexico by Laura Carlsen

Confessions Of An Anti-Zionist Journalist

Confessions Of An Anti-Zionist Journalist

CONFESSIONS OF AN ANTI–ZIONIST JOURNALIST
By Brother Nathanael Kapner, Copyright 2009

Articles May Be Reproduced Only With Authorship of Br Nathanael Kapner
& Link To Real Jew News (SM)

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Brother Nathanael Kapner; PO Box 1242; Frisco CO 80443.
Email: bronathanael@yahoo.com

For The Best Alternative News Coverage CLICK: Rense.com Here
____________________

I WAS BORN A JEW and I hope to die a Christian — an Anti-Zionist Christian at that. Although I was raised in a religious Jewish home, when I reached the age of twenty-one, I repudiated Judaism and embraced Jesus Christ and Christianity. Eventually, I was baptized in the Russian Orthodox Church and now call myself an “Orthodox Christian.”

Having grown up in paradigm of upper-middle class synagogue lifestyle, I know, intimately, how Jews think and operate from the inside. I was taught and instructed – brainwashed – that I, as a Jew, was one of God’s ‘chosen’ and was therefore better than my non-Jewish friends. In fact, I and other Jews were/are ‘better’ than all the other peoples on the planet. I grew up knowing that Jews ran Hollywood, television, radio, the press, and the mass media.

Later, in my adult years as an Orthodox Christian, I came to understand that nearly 50 million Russian Orthodox Christians were murdered by Bolshevik Jews during the communist takeover of Czarist Russia and subsequently under both Lenin & Stalin. I was also to learn later that this massive slaughter of Christians was aided, abetted and financed by Wall Street Jews and the international Zionist money machine…the people of my own birth and upbringing.

I knew I had an enormous amount of information about the Jews and could expose them before a worldwide audience via the Internet if I wanted to. But I hesitated. Why? Because I feared being hated by the Jews and condemned as a ‘meshumad’ – a ‘traitor.’ I also feared being labeled by Gentiles as a ‘racist’ and being smeared by the Zionists and organized Jewry as an ‘anti-semite.’

It wasn’t until the summer of 2007 that the dam broke. This transformation was entirely due to my growing grief of what the Jewish-owned and funded American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) was doing to eradicate all public expressions of Christianity in America.

Among many attacks, I observed the ACLU litigating against public displays of Nativity Scenes and the Cross – while at the same time getting their Jew judges to legally allow the Jewish Menorah to be displayed in public as a ’social symbol,’ but legally banning the Nativity Scene as a “religious symbol.” I was indignant. It was now time to go public and fight back.

THE FIGHT BEGINSI STARTED REAL JEW NEWS in the autumn of 2007. It did not take long for me to realize that two wealthy Anti-Christian/Anti Freedom-Of Speech Jewish groups, namely, the Anti Defamation League and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, were out to stop me. They were/are obviously most concerned about a former Jew going public with the truth about their world domination plans and tactics.

These two Jewish organizations, do, indeed, have a formidable opponent in myself…one Brother Nathanael Kapner, former Jew, who is on to their evil agendas of destroying Christian civilization and ushering in a Jewish police state in which freedom of speech would be stopped, guns will be outlawed, and our Constitution riddled with Jewish Communistic malignancies.

The ADL/Wiesenthal fiat to police the Internet soon targeted this site, Real Jew News, as an object of their CENSURE. For on August 13, 2008, the freedom-hating Jew, Leo Adler, Director of the Canadian branch of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, forced Rack Force Web Hosting to ban Real Jew News from its servers by slandering Real Jew News as a “hate site.” View Entire Story Here.

Not long after that, the truly wicked Anti-Christ Jew, Abraham Foxman of the ADL, forced 2 back-to-back Web Hosting companies to ban Real Jew News, costing me much financial & emotional distress. And to top it all off, the same wicked Jew, Foxman, (he fears the dissemination of the Truth), got Pay Pal to ban me from using their services for donations.

ENEMIES FROM WITHINGETTING EXPOSURE OF REAL JEW NEWS has been an experience of much frustration and disappointment. Over and over again, Websites that I thought were committed to publishing the “Truth,” such as Info Wars & Prison Planet, both owned by Alex Jones, David Icke.com, and The Truth Seeker UK, have all censored my work. These sites are clearly and blatantly running protection for Zionist Jewry and do not believe in freedom of speech. That is beyond debatable.

All of these sites, after either posting a few Real Jew News articles, or allowing forum participators to post links to Real Jew News, soon placed a ban on Real Jew News articles.

On his Info Wars Forum, Alex Jones deleted all comments that had links to articles on Real Jew News. Jones even had a regular forum participator, a man named Nicolae Ibasfalean, BANNED from ever posting on Info Wars Forum again, simply because he posted links to various Real Jew News articles.

Jones, with his massive ego and Protestant fundamentalist background, is clearly a Zionist operative and co-conspirator. Either in the closet or otherwise, it matters not. He is also one of the most notorious ‘borrowers’ of other site’s materials and other talk show host guests and topics. Sadly, his legions of sycophants and kool-aid drinkers are every bit as blind and brainwashed as those who will follow Obama into the abyss…and will never figure it out. William Cooper exposed Jones as a fraud, and was shot to death a few weeks later. Some suggest Cooper was an obstacle…and was removed to clear the way for Jones to ‘fly-paper op’ as much of the patriot community as possible. View YouTube Videos Here.

Particularly distressing was an occurrence on the allegedly open-ended ‘free speech’ David Icke.com Website. A Real Jew News article exposing Obama’s dependence on Jewish wealth and influence was featured on his site early one morning. I was informed two hours later that Icke had taken the entire article down without explanation and banned Real Jew News articles from ever appearing on his site again. This is extremely bizarre behavior by an otherwise remarkable man.

I ASKED MYSELF, “Why are these sites, supposedly dedicated to Anti-Zionism, either giving Real Jew News short shrift or banning Real Jew News altogether? In the case of David Icke, I am extremely concerned about his ultimate agenda.

I noticed on Icke’s site that he often uses David Dees’ illustrations featured on Rense.com, yet never acknowledges David Dees’ authorship & Rense.com as the source for these illustrations — as if — they were Icke’s own property. I do not know how Rense.com feels about this but it certainly presents a less than honorable ‘journalism.’ Rense.com states that its site is the most plagiarized site on the net. Of that there is NO doubt.

Again, regarding Alex Jones, I have learned from reliable and substantial sources (not flakes) that he is, in fact, a crypto-Zionist (which is certainly his right) and that many wealthy Jews not only support him but advertise on his site & radio program as well. This leaves the distinct impression with some that Jones is really not truly loyal to publishing the Truth, but rather to catering to his handlers and power base largely composed of wealthy Zionist Jews and various Jewish Hollywood elite. This is in NO way a gratuitous slam of these men but an honest portrait as I have personally experienced and observed it.

Finally, in the face of my many disappointments and after months of harassment, censorship and frustration, two fine men dedicated to the Truth and Anti-Zionism without compromising to Zionist pressure or sympathy came to my rescue: Jeff Rense, the world-renowned 15-year host of the Jeff Rense Program and Editor-in-Chief of the world news bastion (the last one?) of GENUINE journalism Rense.com Website, and Mark Glenn of the American Free Press. Both of these courageous Internet publicists began publishing Real Jew News articles on their sites and doing radio interviews with me…permitting me my right to freedom of speech on the airways.

Presently, this journalist, Brother Nathanael Kapner, is an official journalist with the Rense.com Website. And Mark Glenn often posts Real Jew News articles on his various Websites such as The Ugly Truth and on American Free Press print editions. And, no, neither of these men had anything to do with my observations memorialized in this essay.

So, Real Jew News, in spite of enemies from without and from within, is growing in readership daily, now up to 700,000 page visits per month. And thus I say to all who would like to see Real Jew News and myself, Brother Nathanael Kapner, disappear from off the face of the earth, “I’ve only just begun…”

___________________________________ A Special Thanks To The Servants Of Jesus Christ For Their Generosity!

Obama Buys Holbrooke’s Asinine Advice, Plans Intensified Air Strikes in Pakistan

THE FOOL BELIEVES THAT WE WILL DRIVE THE MUJAHEDEEN TO THE BARGAINING TABLE JUST LIKE WE DROVE THE SERBS.  THE CIA MASTERMINDS ARE ITCHING TO SHAKE THE “HORNET’S NEST” THAT THEY HAVE CREATED IN THE TRIBAL REGION.  THE HIDDEN INTENTION IS NOT TO HELP PAKISTAN RECOVER FROM THREE DECADES UNDER THE CIA’S THUMB, BUT TO BRING PAKISTAN TO ITS KNEES.  IF PAKISTAN IS TO SURVIVE IT MUST FREE ITSELF FROM FOREIGN HENCHMEN IN ITS OWN GOVERNMENT.

US to step up attacks on Pakistan as it forces Taliban to talk

The United States is planning to escalate aerial bombing raids on Pakistan’s tribal areas in tandem with efforts to force moderate elements of the Taliban to the negotiating table, the Telegraph has learned.

By Dean Nelson in New Delhi and Ben Farmer in Kabul

US President Barack Obama stands during Columbus Police Department graduation ceremonies at the Aladdin Shrine Center in Columbus, Ohio Photo: AFP / GETTY IMAGES

Officials in contact with the State Department said on Sunday that a new offensive would see a dramatic increase in Predator drone attacks on Taliban targets in defiance of Pakistani objections to cross-border attacks.

President Barack Obama on Sunday admitted that the US military was pushing for talks with the Taliban, but officials consulted on the plans said the military conflict would be raised to new levels of intensity before talks could begin. “There will be talks but the Taliban are going to experience a lot of pain first, on both sides of the border,” said one senior Western diplomat.

There are hopes of establishing a “hammer and anvil” encirclement of the Taliban with the Pakistan Army expected to extend its bombardment of terrorist safe havens within the Tribal Area’s Bajaur agency.

President Obama told the New York Times that the United States was not winning the war in Afghanistan as he hinted at the possibility of talks with the Taliban insurgents. The US leader said General David Petraeus, one of the key strategists in the war on al-Qaeda and its allies, believed “part of the success in Iraq involved reaching out to people that we would consider to be Islamic fundamentalists.

“At the heart of a new Afghanistan policy is going to be a smarter Pakistan policy,” Mr Obama said. “As

long as you have got safe havens in these border regions that the Pakistani government can’t control or reach in effective ways, we’re going to continue to see vulnerability on the Afghan side of the border.

“And so it’s very important for us to reach out to the Pakistani government and work with them more effectively.”

That new “smarter policy” has been assigned to former US ambassador to the United Nations, Richard Holbrooke, the architect of the Dayton Accord which ended the war in Bosnia. Mr Holbrooke has in turn appointed Afghan policy expert Barnett Rubin, who supports talks with the Taliban to solve the conflict, as his advisor, it was confirmed last night, subject to security clearance.

In an article in Foreign Affairs magazine last December, Mr Rubin proposed a ‘grand bargain’ in which NATO would end military action if the Taliban agreed “to prohibit the use of Afghan (or Pakistani) territory for international terrorism”. Such an agreement would “constitute a strategic defeat for al-Qaeda,” he wrote.”

Pakistani officials are braced for more fighting in the border region. Lieutenant-General Talat Masood, an influential retired senior Pakistan Army officer, said: “There will no let up in drone attacks, and no let up on Pakistan to do more on its territory.”

Officials plan to augment intensified attacks with a new elite police force drawn from special forces to hold areas cleared of Taliban. There is also a blueprint for training and equipping the paramilitary Frontier Corps to fight an effective counter-insurgency campaign. Funds would be found for a humanitarian package to help tribal groups rebuild homes and villages destroyed in the cross-fire.

An estimated 300,000 people have been displaced by helicopter gunship strikes in Bajuar alone. America will provide much of the resources and officials are developing guidelines to ensure the money does not get siphoned away by American consultancy firms.

Royal Marine Lieutenant General Jim Dutton, deputy commander of Nato-led forces in Afghanistan, said that without a crackdown in Pakistan the Taliban was a much more determined opponent. “When there have been ceasefire deals on the eastern border with Pakistan, it’s been easier for insurgents to move freely across the border,” he said. “When they have felt they were under pressure from the Pakistani army, that freedom to move has been curtailed.”

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, last night welcomed President Obama’s hint that dialogue with “moderate” Taliban leaders might be possible: “It is very good news. This is the Afghan government’s long stand.”

The US Politics Of War Crimes

By Keith harmon snow

	Is the ICC’s Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo a corrupt and willing tool of U.S. politics of genocide?

The ICC can now be viewed as a tool of hegemonic U.S. foreign policy, where the weapons deployed by the U.S. and its allies include the accusations of, and indictments for, human rights violations, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

To understand this, we can ask why no white man has yet been charged with these or other offenses at the ICC—which now holds five Black African “warlords” and seeks to incarcerate and bring to trial another Black man, also an Arab, Omar Bashir.

Why hasn’t George W. Bush been indicted? Or what about Donald Rumsfeld? Dick Cheney? Henry Kissinger? Ehud Olmert? Tony Blair? Vadim Alperin? John Bredenkamp?

Following on the heals of the announcement that the ICC handed down seven war crimes charges against al-Bashir, a story broadcast over all the Western media system and into every American living room by day’s end, President al-Bashir ordered the expulsion of 10 international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) operating in Darfur under the pretense of being purely ‘humanitarian’ organizations.

What has not anywhere in the English press been reported is that the United States of America has just stepped up its ongoing war for control of Sudan and her resources: petroleum, copper, gold, uranium, fertile plantation lands for sugar and gum Arabic (essential to Coke, Pepsi and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream). This war has been playing out on the ground in Darfur through so-called ‘humanitarian’ NGOs, private military companies, ‘peacekeeping’ operations and covert military operations backed by the U.S. and its closest allies.

However, the U.S. war for Sudan has always revolved around “humanitarian” operations—purportedly neutral and presumably concerned only about protecting innocent human lives—that often provide cover for clandestine destabilizing activities and interventions.

Americans need to recognize that the Administration of President Barack Obama has begun to step up war for control of Sudan in keeping with the permanent warfare agenda of both Republicans and Democrats.  (MORE HERE)

Wahabbi Justice

Saudi court sentences 75-year-old woman to lashes

By MAGGIE MICHAEL – 13 hours ago

CAIRO (AP) — A 75-year-old widow in Saudi Arabia has been sentenced to 40 lashes and four months in jail for mingling with two young men who are not close relatives, drawing new criticism for the kingdom’s ultraconservative religious police and judiciary.

The woman’s lawyer told The Associated Press on Monday that he would appeal the verdict against Khamisa Sawadi, who is Syrian but was married to a Saudi. The attorney, Abdel Rahman al-Lahem, said the verdict issued March 3 also demands that Sawadi be deported after serving her sentence.

He said his client, who is not serving her sentence yet, was not speaking with the media, and he declined to provide more details about the case.

The newspaper Al-Watan said the woman met with the two 24-year-old men last April after she asked them to bring her five loaves of bread at her home in al-Chamil, a city north of the capital, Riyadh.

Al-Watan identified one man as Fahd al-Anzi, the nephew of Sawadi’s late husband, and the other as his friend and business partner Hadiyan bin Zein. It said they were arrested by the religious police after delivering the bread. The men also were convicted and sentenced to lashes and prison.

The court said it based its ruling on “citizen information” and testimony from al-Anzi’s father, who accused Sawadi of corruption.

“Because she said she doesn’t have a husband and because she is not a Saudi, conviction of the defendants of illegal mingling has been confirmed,” the court verdict read.

Saudi Arabia’s strict interpretation of Islam prohibits men and women who are not immediate relatives from mingling. It also bars women from driving, and the playing of music, dancing and many movies also are a concern for hard-liners who believe they violate religious and moral values.

Complaints from Saudis have been growing that the religious police and courts are overstepping their broad mandate and interfering in people’s lives, and critics lambasted the handling of Sawadi’s case.

“How can a verdict be issued based on suspicion?” Laila Ahmed al-Ahdab, a physician who also is a columnist for Al-Watan, wrote Monday. “A group of people are misusing religion to serve their own interests.”

Sawadi told the court she considered al-Anzi as her son, because she breast-fed him when he was a baby. But the court denied her claim, saying she didn’t provide evidence. In Islamic tradition, breast-feeding establishes a degree of maternal relation, even if a woman nurses a child who is not biologically hers.

Sawadi commonly asked her neighbors for help after her husband died, said journalist Bandar al-Ammar, who reported the story for Al-Watan. In a recent article, he wrote that he felt the need to report the case “so everybody knows to what degree we have reached.”

The woman’s conviction came a few weeks after King Abdullah fired the chief of the religious police and a cleric who condoned killing owners of TV networks that broadcast “immoral content.” The move was seen as part of an effort to weaken the hard-line Sunni Muslim establishment.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press.

IDF Human Target Practice

The Global Hierarchy of Race

The Global Hierarchy of Race As the only racial group that never suffers systemic racism, whites are in denial about its impact

by Martin Jacques

I always found race difficult to understand. It was never intuitive. And the reason was simple. Like every other white person, I had never experienced it myself: the meaning of color was something I had to learn. The turning point was falling in love with my wife, an Indian-Malaysian, and her coming to live in England. Then, over time, I came to see my own country in a completely different way, through her eyes, her background. Color is something white people never have to think about because for them it is never a handicap, never a source of prejudice or discrimination, but rather the opposite, a source of privilege. However liberal and enlightened I tried to be, I still had a white outlook on the world. My wife was the beginning of my education. But it was not until we went to live in Hong Kong that my view of the world, and the place that race occupies within it, was to be utterly transformed. Rather than seeing race through the prism of my own society, I learned to see it globally. When we left these shores, it felt as if we were moving closer to my wife’s world: this was east Asia and she was Malaysian. And she, unlike me, had the benefit of speaking Cantonese. So my expectation was that she would feel more comfortable in this environment than I would. I was wrong. As a white, I found myself treated with respect and deference; my wife, notwithstanding her knowledge of the language and her intimacy with Chinese culture, was the object of an in-your-face racism. In our 14 months in Hong Kong, I learned some brutal lessons about racism. First, it is not the preserve of whites. Every race displays racial prejudice, is capable of racism, carries assumptions about its own virtue and superiority. Each racism, furthermore, is subtly different, reflecting the specificity of its own culture and history. Second, there is a global racial hierarchy that helps to shape the power and the prejudices of each race. At the top of this hierarchy are whites. The reasons are deep-rooted and profound. White societies have been the global top dogs for half a millennium, ever since Chinese civilization went into decline. With global hegemony, first with Europe and then the US, whites have long commanded respect, as well as arousing fear and resentment, among other races. Being white confers a privilege, a special kind of deference, throughout the world, be it Kingston, Hong Kong, Delhi, Lagos – or even, despite the way it is portrayed in Britain, Harare. Whites are the only race that never suffers any kind of systemic racism anywhere in the world. And the impact of white racism has been far more profound and baneful than any other: it remains the only racism with global reach. Being top of the pile means that whites are peculiarly and uniquely insensitive to race and racism, and the power relations this involves. We are invariably the beneficiaries, never the victims. Even when well-meaning, we remain strangely ignorant. The clout enjoyed by whites does not reside simply in an abstraction – western societies – but in the skin of each and every one of us. Whether we like it or not, in every corner of the planet we enjoy an extraordinary personal power bestowed by our color It is something we are largely oblivious of, and consequently take for granted, irrespective of whether we are liberal or reactionary, backpackers, tourists or expatriate businessmen. The existence of a de facto global racial hierarchy helps to shape the nature of racial prejudice exhibited by other races. Whites are universally respected, even when that respect is combined with strong resentment. A race generally defers to those above it in the hierarchy and is contemptuous of those below it. The Chinese – like the Japanese – widely consider themselves to be number two in the pecking order and look down upon all other races as inferior. Their respect for whites is also grudging – many Chinese believe that western hegemony is, in effect, held on no more than prolonged leasehold. Those below the Chinese and the Japanese in the hierarchy are invariably people of color (both Chinese and Japanese often like to see themselves as white, or nearly white). At the bottom of the pile, virtually everywhere it would seem, are those of African descent, the only exception in certain cases being the indigenous peoples. This highlights the centrality of color to the global hierarchy. Other factors serve to define and reinforce a race’s position in the hierarchy – levels of development, civilizational values, history, religion, physical characteristics and dress – but the most insistent and widespread is color The reason is that color is instantly recognizable, it defines difference at the glance of an eye. It also happens to have another effect. It makes the global hierarchy seem like the natural order of things: you are born with your color, it is something nobody can do anything about, it is neither cultural nor social but physical in origin. In the era of globalization, with mass migration and globalized cultural industries, color has become the universal calling card of difference. In interwar Europe, the dominant forms of racism were anti-semitism and racialized nationalisms, today it is color: at a football match, it is blacks not Jews that get jeered, even in eastern Europe. Liberals like to think that racism is a product of ignorance, of a lack of contact, and that as human mobility increases, so racism will decline. This might be described as the Benetton view of the world. And it does contain a modicum of truth. Intermixing can foster greater understanding, but not necessarily, as Burnley, Sri Lanka and Israel, in their very different ways, all testify. Hong Kong, compared with China, is an open society, and has long been so, yet it has had little or no effect in mollifying Chinese prejudice towards people of darker skin. It is not that racism is immovable and intractable, but that its roots are deep, its prejudices as old as humanity itself. The origins of Chinese racism lie in the Middle Kingdom: the belief that the Chinese are superior to other races – with the exception of whites – is centuries, if not thousands of years, old. The disparaging attitude among American whites towards blacks has its roots in slavery. Wishing it wasn’t true, denying it is true, will never change the reality. We can only understand – and tackle racism – if we are honest about it. And when it comes to race – more than any other issue – honesty is in desperately short supply. Race remains the great taboo. Take the case of Hong Kong. A conspiracy of silence surrounded race. As the British departed in 1997, amid much self-congratulation, they breathed not a word about racism. Yet the latter was integral to colonial rule, its leitmotif: colonialism, after all, is institutionalized racism at its crudest and most base. The majority of Chinese, the object of it, meanwhile, harbored an equally racist mentality towards people of darker skin. Masters of their own home, they too are in denial of their own racism. But that, in varying degrees, is true of racism not only in Hong Kong but in every country in the world. You may remember that, after the riots in Burnley in the summer of 2001, Tony Blair declared that they were not a true reflection of the state of race relations in Britain: of course, they were, even if the picture is less discouraging in other aspects. Racism everywhere remains largely invisible and hugely under-estimated, the issue that barely speaks its name. How can the Economist produce a 15,000-word survey on migration, as it did last year, and hardly mention the word racism? Why does virtually no one talk about the racism suffered by the Williams sisters on the tennis circuit even though the evidence is legion? Why are the deeply racist western attitudes towards Arabs barely mentioned in the context of the occupation of Iraq, carefully hidden behind talk of religion and civilizational values? The dominant race in a society, whether white or otherwise, rarely admits to its own racism. Denial is near universal. The reasons are manifold. It has a huge vested interest in its own privilege. It will often be oblivious to its own prejudices. It will regard its racist attitudes as nothing more than common sense, having the force and justification of nature. Only when challenged by those on the receiving end is racism outed, and attitudes begin to change. The reason why British society is less nakedly racist than it used to be is that whites have been forced by people of color to question age-old racist assumptions. Nations are never honest about themselves: they are all in varying degrees of denial. This is clearly fundamental to understanding the way in which racism is underplayed as a national and global issue. But there is another reason, which is a specifically white problem. Because whites remain the overwhelmingly dominant global race, perched in splendid isolation on top of the pile even though they only represent 17% of the world’s population, they are overwhelmingly responsible for setting the global agenda, for determining what is discussed and what is not. And the fact that whites have no experience of racism, except as perpetrators, means that racism is constantly underplayed by western institutions – by governments, by the media, by corporations. Moreover, because whites have reigned globally supreme for half a millennium, they, more than any other race, have left their mark on the rest of humanity: they have a vested interest in denying the extent and baneful effects of racism. It was only two years ago, you may remember, that the first-ever United Nations conference on racism was held – against the fierce resistance of the US (and that in the Clinton era). Nothing more eloquently testifies to the unwillingness of western governments to engage in a global dialogue about the problem of racism. If racism is now more widely recognized than it used to be, the situation is likely to be transformed over the next few decades. As migration increases, as the regime of denial is challenged, as subordinate races find the will and confidence to challenge the dominant race, as understanding of racism develops, as we become more aware of other racisms like that of the Han Chinese, then the global prominence of racism is surely set to increase dramatically. It is rare to hear a political leader speaking the discourse of color Robert Mugabe is one, but he is tainted and discredited. The Malaysian prime minister, Mahathir Mohamed, is articulate on the subject of white privilege and the global hierarchy. The most striking example by a huge margin, though, is Nelson Mandela. When it comes to color, his sacrifice is beyond compare and his authority unimpeachable. And his message is always universal – not confined to the interests of one race. It is he who has suggested that western support for Israel has something to do with race. It is he who has hinted that it is no accident that the authority of the UN is under threat at a time when its secretary general is black. And yet his voice is almost alone in a world where race oozes from every pore of humanity. In a world where racism is becoming increasingly important, we will need more such leaders. And invariably they will be people of color: on this subject whites lack moral authority. I could only understand the racism suffered by my wife through her words and experience. I never felt it myself. The difference is utterly fundamental. Martin Jacques is a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics. The death of his wife, Harinder Veriah, in 2000 in a Hong Kong hospital triggered an outcry which culminated in this summer’s announcement by the Hong Kong government that it would introduce anti-racist legislation for the first time martinjacques1@aol.com

Serbian spy’s trial uncloaks alliance with CIA

HOW IRONIC, A MAN BEING CHARGED WITH WAR CRIMES AT THE HAGUE GIVES HIS EXPERIENCE IN HELPING CIA SET-UP TRAINING CAMPS FOR THEIR IMPORTED “MUJAHEDEEN” AS PROOF THAT HE IS NOT A MONSTER! CIA CAMPS ARE FOR THE TRAINING OF TERRORISTS, NOT PATRIOTIC “FREEDOM FIGHTERS!

Serbian spy’s trial uncloaks alliance with CIA

Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times

Sunday, March 8, 2009

(03-08) 04:00 PDT Belgrade, Serbia —

At night, when the lawns are empty and the lamps along the walking paths are the only source of light, Topcider Park on the outskirts of Belgrade is a perfect meeting place for spies.

It was here in 1992, as the former Yugoslavia was erupting in ethnic violence, that a wary CIA agent made his way toward the park’s gazebo and shook hands with a Serbian intelligence officer.

Jovica Stanisic had a cold gaze and a sinister reputation. He was the intelligence chief for Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, and regarded by many

as the brains of a regime that gave the world a chilling new term: “ethnic cleansing.”

But the CIA officer, William Lofgren, needed help. The agency was all but blind after Yugoslavia shattered into civil war. Fighting had broken out in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Milosevic was seen as a menace to European security, and the CIA was desperate to get intelligence from inside the turmoil.

So on that midnight stroll, the two spies carved out a clandestine relationship that has never been disclosed: For eight years, Stanisic was the CIA’s main man in Belgrade. During secret meetings in boats and safe houses along the Sava River, he shared details on the inner workings of the Milosevic regime. He provided information on the locations of NATO hostages, aided CIA operatives in their search for grave sites, and helped the agency set up a network of secret bases in Bosnia.

At the same time, Stanisic was setting up death squads for Milosevic that carried out a genocidal campaign, according to prosecutors at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, which was established by the U.N. Security Council in 1993 to try the people responsible for serious human rights violations in the Balkan wars.

Now facing a trial at The Hague, Netherlands, that could send him to prison for life, Stanisic has called in a marker with his American allies. In an exceedingly rare move, the CIA has submitted a classified document to the court that lists Stanisic’s contributions and attests to his helpful role. The document remains sealed, but its contents were described by sources to the Los Angeles Times.

The CIA’s Lofgren, now retired, said the agency drafted the document to show “that this allegedly evil person did a whole lot of good.” Lofgren doesn’t claim to disprove the allegations against Stanisic.

“But setting the indictment aside,” he said, “there are things this man did that helped bring hostilities to an end and establish peace in Bosnia.”

Through his attorney, Stanisic, 58, declined to comment, citing the tribunal’s ban on communications with the media. But Stanisic has pleaded not guilty, and denies any role in creating the squads or even being aware of the crimes they committed.

The CIA’s effort puts it in the unusual position of serving as something of a character witness for a war crimes defendant. The agency declined to comment on the document. Because its contents are classified, the letter could be considered by the court only in closed session. Court officials said it was unclear whether the document would be of significant use to the Stanisic defense, or mainly come into play in seeking a more lenient sentence if he is convicted.

This account is based on dozens of interviews with current and former officials of U.S. and Serbian intelligence agencies, as well as documents obtained or viewed by The Times. Among them are official records of the Serbian intelligence service, and a seven-page account of that bloody period that Stanisic wrote while in prison in The Hague.

In that memo, Stanisic portrays himself as someone who sought to moderate Milosevic, and who worked extensively with the CIA to contain the crisis.

“I institutionalized cooperation with the U.S. intelligence community in spite of the notoriously bad relations between our two countries,” Stanisic wrote. That collaboration, he continued, “contributed significantly to the de-escalation of the conflict.”

The chief prosecutor, Dermot Groome, says that Stanisic’s actions to help the CIA and counter Milosevic only underscore the power he had. In his opening argument, Groome said that the “ability to save lives is tragically the very same authority and the very same ability that (Stanisic) used … to take lives.”

Belgrade still bears the scars of war. Bombed-out buildings are scattered across the city, including a charred cement structure on Knez Milos Street that used to be the headquarters for Serbia’s State Security Service, known as the “DB.”

Stanisic used to occupy the corner office on the top floor. In his prime, he was in charge of 2,000 employees. He wore dark suits and sunglasses, like a Balkan James Bond. His nickname was “Ledeni” – Serbian for “icy.”

Stanisic joined the Yugoslav service in 1975, when the country was still under the communist rule of Josip Broz Tito. He was never regarded as an ideologue or rabid nationalist. But he had a rare aptitude for espionage.

“Stanisic was not an ordinary intelligence officer,” said Dobrica Cosic, a writer and former dissident who was president of Serbia in 1992 and 1993. “He is an intellectual, not a radical policeman. He was educated and skilled, and he knew how to organize that service.”

Because of those skills, Milosevic made Stanisic his top spy despite long-standing distrust between the two.

Milosevic had come to power by exploiting nationalistic fervor and religious animosity. He cast himself as the Serbs’ protector, a posture that resonated powerfully with people who still mark the day their ancestors were defeated by Ottoman Muslims in the 14th century.

In 1991, as ethnic violence escalated, Milosevic ordered the creation of secret paramilitary units, with names like Red Berets and Scorpions, that would roam the Balkans. They wore unmarked uniforms, were led by thugs and committed some of the worst atrocities of the war.

As the trial got under way last year, Groome showed photos of Stanisic posing with members of the special units. He played audio of intercepted communications in which Stanisic appears to refer to the units as “his boys.”

At one point, Groome introduced a videotape showing images of Muslim men and boys – their hands bound with wire – being led into the woods and shot, one by one, by members of the Scorpions.

“Jovica Stanisic established these units,” said Groome, an American lawyer. And Stanisic made sure “they had everything that they needed, including a license to clear the land of unwanted people, a license to commit murder.”

Former members of the State Security Service dispute those allegations. “We were doing our jobs, according to the law,” said Vlado Dragicevic, who served for years as Stanisic’s deputy. “We never committed acts of genocide. On the contrary, we were trying to stop that.”

CIA officers who served in the region said they assumed Stanisic was no choirboy, but that they never saw evidence he was involved in war crimes. Instead, they viewed him as a key ally in a situation spinning rapidly out of control.

From early on, Stanisic was eager to cement his relationship with the CIA. At one of his meetings with Lofgren, he turned over a sheath of documents, including diagrams of bomb shelters and other structures that Serbian companies had built in Iraq for Saddam Hussein.

But Stanisic also drew boundaries. He never took payment from the CIA, worked with the agency on operations or took steps he would have considered a blatant betrayal of his boss.

Over time, Stanisic sought to move his relationship with the agency out of the shadows. Well after his secret meetings had started, Stanisic persuaded Milosevic to let him open contacts with the CIA as a back channel to the West. The midnight meetings in the park gave way to daylight sessions in Stanisic’s office.

The two spies shared a dark sense of humor. Lofgren liked to wander over to the window, aim his phone at the sky and joke that he was getting GPS coordinates for a missile strike.

In the letter to The Hague, submitted in 2004, the CIA describes Stanisic’s efforts to defuse some of the most explosive events of the Bosnian war.

In spring 1993, at CIA prodding, Stanisic pressured Ratko Mladic, military commander of the breakaway Serb republic in Bosnia, briefly to stop the shelling of Sarajevo.

Two years later, Stanisic helped secure the release of 388 NATO troops who had been taken hostage, stripped of their uniforms and strapped to trees to serve as human shields against NATO bombing runs. In his own written account, Stanisic said he negotiated the release “with the support of agency leadership.”

Also that year, Stanisic tried to intervene when French pilots were shot down and taken captive. Mladic “refused to admit that he was holding the pilots,” Stanisic wrote. But “my service managed to discover the circumstances and location of their captivity,” and shared the information with the CIA and French authorities.

By then, the Clinton administration was engaged in an all-out diplomatic push to end the war. Stanisic accompanied Milosevic to Dayton, Ohio, for peace talks, then returned to Serbia to carry out key pieces of the accord.

It was left to Stanisic to get the president of Bosnia’s Serb republic, Radovan Karadzic, to sign a document pledging to leave office. And Stanisic helped the CIA establish a network of bases in Bosnia to monitor the cease-fire.

Doug Smith, the CIA’s station chief in Bosnia, recalled meeting in Belgrade with Stanisic and a group of disgusted Bosnian Serb officials. As Stanisic instructed them to cooperate with the CIA, Smith said, the assembled guests “shifted uneasily in their seats.”

Smith began meeting with Stanisic regularly, including once on a boat on the Sava. In typically dramatic fashion, Stanisic arrived late at the docks.

“He emerged out of the darkness with bodyguards,” Smith said, and spent much of the evening talking about his boss. “He intensely disliked Milosevic. He went off on how awful Milosevic was – dishonest and crooked.”

Asked whether Stanisic was capable of committing war crimes, Smith replied, “I think he would do as little bad as he could.”

At the time, CIA Director John Deutch was trying to clean up the agency’s image by cracking down on contacts with human rights violators. Years later, the “Deutch rules” were cited as a reason the agency hadn’t done better penetrating enemy groups such as al Qaeda.

But Deutch had no problems with Stanisic. He invited the Serbian to CIA headquarters in 1996, and an itinerary of the visit indicates that Stanisic got a warm welcome.

The Serbian spy chief was taken to hear jazz at the Blues Alley club in Georgetown, Va., and driven to Maryland’s eastern shore for a bird hunt. Deutch even presented Stanisic with a 1937 Parker shotgun, a classic weapon admired by collectors.

Deutch, now a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, declined to comment.

Stanisic’s expanding ties to the CIA became a source of friction with Milosevic, who worried that his top spy was plotting against him. In 1998, Stanisic was fired.

The ensuing years were chaotic. After a new campaign of violence against Kosovo, Milosevic was forced from office in 2000, arrested the next year and taken to The Hague, where he went on trial for war crimes and died of a heart attack in 2006. A series of political assassinations occurred amid suspicion that Stanisic was somehow still pulling the strings.

When Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic – who had sent Milosevic to The Hague – was assassinated in 2003, Stanisic was arrested and detained for three months. Then, without explanation, he too was sent to The Hague.

For the past five years, Stanisic has gone back and forth between Belgrade and the detention center in the Netherlands. His trial was postponed last year to allow him to return to Belgrade for treatment of an acute intestinal disorder that according to court records had caused substantial blood loss. If Stanisic’s health stabilizes, his trial is expected to resume this year.

Stanisic is still seen in Belgrade from time to time, occasionally greeted by well-wishers. But much of his life has crumbled. He is divorced from his wife, estranged from his grown children and spends alternating weeks in the hospital.

“The last time I saw him, he was connected to tubes,” said Dragicevic, Stanisic’s longtime deputy.

Sometimes Stanisic is in good spirits and talks of prevailing in his case. But most of the time, Dragicevic said, “he looks like a person who has already surrendered.”

“The person who was in charge of so many things, the person who was so very important and well known, is now a very lonely one.”

CIA — Capitalism’s Invisible Army

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Edited on Sat Mar-07-09 05:27 PM by Octafish

Most of what we see today — a failed economy based on indentured servitude, declining standards of living for the middle class and poor, wars without end, and a financially and morally bankrupt government — are the direct results of policies that benefit the financial elite of this nation.

This tiny fraction of the nation’s wealthiest people has owned government, pretty much continually, since the time of the first President Johnson. For those interested in learning more about the subject:

The Secret (Insurance) Agent Men

Bush Senior Early CIA Ties Revealed

Bush-Led ‘Disaster Capitalism’ Exploits Worldwide Misery to Make a Buck

The CIA and Riggs Bank

CIA Started by NAZI Sympathizers and Staffed by NAZIs…

I don’t have anything personal against the CIA, per se, just its bosses who’ve looted my grandkids’ future.

— Your Friendly Enemy of Fascism,

Octafish

Pakistan caught in someone else’s war

by
SYED HAMAD ALI*

The sacking of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and other senior judges under Pervez Musharraf’s infamous emergency in November 2007 caused widespread protests and chaos throughout Pakistan.

These are bleak times for Pakistan. Not a day seems to go by without the country somehow managing to capture the world media’s attention. Sometimes I wish, watching the spectacle from a safe distance thousands of miles away from the mayhem, that the Pakistan I grew up in was not so much in the news all the time.

Surely there must be other stories to report on; whatever happened to the economic meltdown in Iceland or the asteroid that nearly hit earth?

But it seems Pakistan is in vogue at the moment, and for all the wrong reasons. The latest episode with the Sri Lankan cricket team has been a shocker, irrespective of how catastrophic the situation already was. The eastern city of Lahore, known for its historic Mughal buildings and gardens and its cultivation of the arts, had been largely spared the chaos engulfing the northwestern part of the country that borders Afghanistan.

Pakistan’s cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan, writing in London’s The Independent, has placed the blame on Pakistan’s involvement in the badly conducted War on Terror: “We were taken into this war against the public will. There were no Pakistanis involved in 9/11. We were sucked in deliberately by a dictator, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who wanted to strengthen his position and receive American money.” Khan has hit the nail on the head.

The Pakistani nation was, without a doubt, forced to become a party to this war under the Musharraf regime, and little seems to have changed since President Asif Ali Zardari took office. If anything, the situation has become worse. The US drone attacks, now revealed to be operating from inside Pakistan, right under the very noses of the military brass, ineluctably also kill innocent Pashtun civilians, including children; they have created widespread anger and hatred against the rulers.

The extremist forces, under the banner of the Taliban, feed on society’s lack of faith in what is seen as the current lot of weak and compliant satraps. The West is spectacularly losing in the battle for hearts and minds in Pakistan by not connecting with the popular sentiment. The US is conducting the war as if the Pakistani people simply do not exist; it is as if the only players are the Taliban and the coalition forces battling it out in a desolate landscape.

But the landscape is not desolate; there are an estimated 170 million people who call Pakistan home. It is the innocent civilians caught in the crossfire who are paying a very heavy price with their lives and who are being mass displaced from sometimes remote villages to safer havens, all this while President Obama gives directions from the luxury and comfort of his White House. Is this the liberal justice and “freedom” espoused by the United States of America where it seems only might is right? There is a general consensus among many Pakistanis that their country is being made a scapegoat for America’s failures in Afghanistan.

On the other hand, in the eyes of many in the Western media it would seem the struggle in Pakistan is some sort of an epic battle between the forces of secularism and fundamentalism. But the reality on the ground is far removed from this. This is not some set for a Hollywood action thriller. Such a representation is misleading because it excludes the vast majority of people in the country, who would fit into neither the category of secular nor fundamentalist.

Make no mistake about this, the majority of people in Pakistan do not support the fundamentalist ideology of the Taliban, just as they do not support the US in the way it is conducting this never-ending war. The Taliban are an embarrassment, not just to Afghanistan and Pakistan, but to the wider Muslim world. The very name Taliban, derived from the Arabic word Talib and meaning student, is a complete misnomer judging by the actions of these people. There is nothing remotely educational or student-like about blowing up girl’s schools, as has been happening in the troubled Swat valley. The uneducated Taliban have only served as fodder to the likes of Fox News and other right-wing propaganda machinery.

But the big question to ask is if there is any road that can lead the country out of this quagmire. The answer is a definite “Yes,” because this war has never been Pakistan’s war, and the first step on any road to stability is to bring back the country’s deposed judges. The spread of the fundamentalists can be checked by restoring Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and other senior judges sacked under Musharraf’s infamous emergency in November 2007. There is still a chance to rein in the spreading lawlessness, but it is certainly not by the US method of dropping bombs and expecting results.

The late Benazir Bhutto, at the time of the emergency, had demanded the judiciary’s restoration and had said: “The flag of Pakistan used to fly over the house of the chief justice. That flag, which was the flag of justice, the flag which was the flag of the judges; who has let down this flag?” She had demanded the restoration of the judges, but unfortunately once in power her own widower and the Pakistan People’s Party seem to have forsaken her wish to see the judges brought back.

Among others, Amnesty International has been urging the government of Pakistan to declare as illegal the sacking of the judiciary by Musharraf. But there is a reluctance to bring back Chaudhry, perhaps because an independent justice system would mean accountability. President Zardari, who has been faced with accusations of corruption and even murder, is speculated to be in fear of court cases against him being brought back to haunt him under such a setting. The chief justice, before getting the sack, had also been calling for the release of some of the hundreds of Pakistan’s missing persons who have disappeared since the country signed up to the Bush administration’s War on Terror.

Now these are the people, the courageous lawyers and judges, who the US and other Western, “freedom-loving” governments should be supporting. That is, if they are serious about defeating the Taliban.

And there are certainly those who, at least verbally, have shown their support. During her campaign as a presidential hopeful, Hillary Clinton spoke out eloquently to CNN about the need for making a connection with the educated middle class. These were the words she used: “The people in the streets are wearing suits and ties; they are lawyers, they are professionals, they are the middle class of Pakistan, which really offers the very best hope for a stable, democratic country and that is in America’s interest, but more importantly, it is in the interest of the Pakistani people.” Now that she is secretary of state, one hopes that Clinton can actually bring herself to act on those words and pressure Pakistan’s government to bring back the judges. The West must show it believes in its own values.

With the country sliding into perpetual chaos, outsiders could be forgiven for thinking the restoration of the judges may not be so pressing an issue. But this would be a mistake of epic proportions. The need of the moment is to strengthen the moderate middle class in Pakistan, not the power-hungry military, nor the corrupt and feudal politicos who currently hold sway. And certainly not the Taliban.

It would seem President Zardari needs the threat of an ever-encroaching Taliban to frighten the West to keep supporting him, and the Taliban need the excuse of an unpopular leader like Zardari in order to step in and fill the vacuum of power. Instead of curbing extremism, the presence of Zardari & Co. has actually acted as a catalyst to the rising tide of fundamentalism sweeping across sections of the country. The strongest deterrent to the rise of the Taliban is if people can have their faith in the judicial system restored. The alternate prognosis, if the rule of law is not restored, is a further descent into chaos and violence. No one wants that.

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*Syed Hamad Ali is a freelance writer based in Cambridge, UK.

Neck deep in crisis

The Kashmiri writer of the following analysis says what I have trying to tell my friends and readers in Pakistan, the crisis that is upon you cannot be escaped by denying your and our past.  Our nations were partners in a noble enterprise to help the suffering Afghan people to escape the horrors of Soviet occupation, only to find that it had been transformed into somewhat of a criminal enterprise by the spy agencies tasked with implementing it.  Ostrich-like attempts to hide from what we had together created, first by Bush Sr., then by Pakistan itself, have allowed the mission-gone-astray to unleash an unholy jihad against the entire Middle East.

Pakistan has been left “holding the bag” for the American mistakes, being branded as the “epicenter of terrorism” as a result of the Mumbai attacks which originated from Pakistan and seven other countries.  Pakistan must “own” its past and be willing to expose the breadth of the transformation that swept over the nation in its own commitments to the joint anti-Soviet jihad, revealing the American and Saudi hands in the creation of the terror network.

Failure to force the United States and Saudi Arabia to take responsibility along with you for the creation of the menace which now threatens Pakistan and all of Southern Asia will eventually leave Pakistan standing alone against the world.

Neck deep in crisis <!–

  

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‘Civilized’ world is more responsible for what is happening in Afghanistan and Pakistan Mehmood ur Rashid In the history of Pakistan Lahore was known for the resolution that later saw the birth of an independent nation. Today the same city of Lahore is in the news, and the matters relates to how Pakistan is dangerously standing on the precipice of undoing. What made Pakistan come this pass? Who shares how much of blame?  Instead of confining the debate to recent news, better take a panoptic view of what has been happening in this region from past many decades. With the invasion of soviet troops into Afghanistan masters of international politics boarded the flights to Kabul. In the name of helping the oppressed people of Afghanistan, the priests of modern civilization drafted a new Bible of exploitation. They mounted their agenda on top of the tower of crisis. People of Afghanistan, enraged at the usurpation of their country, rose in rebellion against the Late Soviet Union. This confrontation had immense potential to change the global power balances. Gauging the same, everyone in its own capacity invested in the great bazaar of exploitation. Pakistan, being the front-line-state, turned into an international counter for all such investments. Propaganda, finance, and arms flowed in. Money, mind and muscle; stakes were all inclusive. Afghan armed groups were showered with the appellations of brave, freedom loving, anti-colonialists; and what not. Ultimately a beautiful and sublime epithet – Afghan Mujahideen- was internationally adapted. Afghanistan was now the land of Jihad and the fighters there bore the insignia of Mujahideen. From here onwards Afghanistan turns into an international battleground and Pakistan a gallery to watch the show. Turbaned ‘Mullah’, waiving a long beard and brandishing an AK-47 becomes the symbol of valor and sacrifice. Hollywood makes movies, world’s best publishing houses release books, newspapers and news channels receive a deluge of reports and features. Everyone pats the back of Mullah. With the passage of time Pakistan turns into an extension of the battleground in Afghanistan. From a gallery it switches over to ground itself. Muslim youth in Pakistan join its Muslim brethren in Afghanistan, to fight the Soviet army. Millions make it to the Graveyard. Shahadah becomes the buzzword. On the other side of the line blood-brokers were making a keen observation of the happenings. To them it was a proxy war. Little mattered to them the destruction of Afghanistan than the emaciation of the Soviets. To provide more canon-fodder, they explored all the possibilities. From a naïve Madrasa student to the cunning drug trafficker, they used everyone. The crises in Afghanistan overwhelmed the establishment in Pakistan. On the pretext of Afghan Jihad all vested interests were fortified by the halo of sanctity. From Military headquarters to Madrasa enclosures, from Market to Mafia; all guarded their peculiar line of interest. Huge amount of human sacrifices and the monstrous destruction could have been minimized, had it not been so. Instead of helping the crises end up in Afghanistan, helpers themselves plunged into trouble. Pakistan placed herself in a perilous position. Somehow, Soviets withdrew. Mujahideen turned triumphant. How sad that decades long war against an invader turned into a fratricide! A monumental opportunity was lost in the mist of chaos and conspiracy. Afghan Mujahidin proved their mettle while fighting but miserably failed to make peace between themselves. Their friends in Pakistan proved no different. In this time of crises the only contender happy at the outcome was none other than America. Her first enemy was out and the other one was madly engaged in self-destruction. Now it was the time for them to have a direct access to Afghanistan and control the Politics and economy of the region. General Zia could prove a hurdle, so was the general belief. Strings were pulled, and Zia was dead. The war that should have been, and was, won by Afghan Mujahidin, was won by America, Brigadier Yousuf speaks his heart out. Interventionist policy of America wreaks havoc to Afghanistan, and ultimately it concludes with Operation Enduring Freedom. Americans are really smart when it comes to nomenclature. First contributors to the crisis in Afghanistan are Soviet Union and America. ‘Civilized’ they are, because they are powerful. Soviets gone, Afghanistan trampled and now Pakistan is burked. ‘Mullah’ was once the symbol of sacrifice. Praise was unstintingly showered on him. Now he is the most detestable entity on this earth. What changed? ‘Mullah’ or the Policy?  Those who are being named so are the same, with all their good and bad elements. But they are no more needed by the ‘leaders’ of this world. If they want to live they have to make so on the terms of the ‘civilized world’. What ever happened in Afghanistan was supposed to have a bearing on Pakistan. Pakistan definitely had a role to play. It is stupid to think that Pakistan should not have involved herself in it. But not accepting the folly of mismanaging the crises and putting the blame squarely on America is even more stupid. It tantamount to self-deception. All the sections of the Establishment, and society at large, in Pakistan share their part of blame. In all this it is a great tragedy that Islam is being projected as a religion of illiterates and backwards. As a humble student of Qura’n, one can be more than sure that Islam is a synonym to Knowledge, Emancipation, Democracy, Progress; one may add up many more adjectives. Unfortunately the reverse of it is being projected. For this sorry state of affairs a whole range of factors is responsible. Cutting short the debate on it, what needs to done is to exhibit a sense of maturity to undo the damage. The kind of violent politics that we are doing is only going to deepen the wound. Whosoever is responsible for the crisis, impact of it is only on the Muslim world. Muslim scholars all over the world, have a Herculean task to perform. Grand scale overhauling of the whole system of education in the Muslim society is needed. Mainstream education and Madrasa education is an unwanted divide.  Instead of responding to the international gallery, the task of expunging the bad elements from the Muslim society should be carried out with an independent outlook. With an open mind and a decent methodology, the rot needs to be undone. It is a collective task of the Muslims of Pakistan to get themselves out of the mire of crises. Feedback at <!– var prefix = ‘ma’ + ‘il’ + ‘to’; var path = ‘hr’ + ‘ef’ + ‘=’; var addy20999 = ‘emrvaid’ + ‘@’; addy20999 = addy20999 + ‘gmail’ + ‘.’ + ‘com’; document.write( ‘‘ ); document.write( addy20999 ); document.write( ” ); //–>\n // –>emrvaid@gmail.com<!– document.write( ‘‘ ); // –>This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it <!– document.write( ” ); // –>

Bush Policies

“In the days after the 9/11 attacks, President Bush was advised that – with the country on a wartime footing – the U.S. military could patrol American streets and burst into a ‘terrorist cell’ without a warrant.”

WE CONSTANTLY WORRY ABOUT THE COMING POLICE STATE, NOT STOPPING TO REALIZE THAT BUSH AND CHENEY TRIED TO CREATE THE AMERICAN GARRISON STATE IN THE 911 WAR RESOLUTION.  FOR SOME REASON, CONGRESS DID IT’S DUTY AND BALKED AT THE REQUEST TO MILITARIZE THE COUNTRY AND AUTHORIZE THE USE OF FULL MILITARY FORCE ON TARGETS WITHIN THE UNITED STATES!

WHERE IS THAT RESPONSIBLE CONGRESS TODAY, WHEN WE NEED TO STOP THE TERROR WAR AND SET ABOUT THE TASK OF REPAIRING THE DESTRUCTION UNLEASHED UPON THE WORLD BY THESE MONSTERS.  IF THEY HAD GOTTEN THEIR WAY, THEN PARTS OF THIS COUNTRY WOULD RESEMBLE AFGHANISTAN AND IRAQ.

NEVER FORGET THAT THE SAME WARLORDS WHO WERE PUSHING THESE EXTREME CONSTITUTIONAL VIOLATIONS ARE THE SAME MEN WHO HATCHED THE LAME-BRAIN IDEA OF CREATING AN INTERNATIONAL JIHADI NETWORK AND PUSHED THE NEOCON AGENDA.

Bush Policies

Handling the truth

Will there be a day of reckoning for the Bush administration antiterror policies that may well have trampled the Constitution?

There’s a compelling public interest in conducting just such an independent, open-minded inquiry. Over the last week, the pressure to do so mounted exponentially – among congressional Democrats as well as civil libertarians and others.

That was due, in part, to the release of chilling antiterror documents crafted by Bush lawyers, as well as the CIA’s shocking admission that its agents destroyed 92 videotapes of interrogations likely involving torture.

It didn’t take much of an imagination to hear the chilling sound of jackboots on pavement echoing from the pages of the formerly secret legal memos.

In the days after the 9/11 attacks, President Bush was advised that – with the country on a wartime footing – the U.S. military could patrol American streets and burst into “a terrorist cell” without a warrant.

Bush was told he could ignore both the Geneva Conventions on humane prisoner treatment and the anti-torture treaty, and pack prisoners off to countries that tortured.

Finally, Bush lawyers contended that “First Amendment speech and press rights” could be muzzled given “the overriding need to wage war successfully.” (An irony to this last item is that the memo’s author was John C. Yoo, now a law professor who writes commentaries for newspapers, including The Inquirer.)

For its part, the CIA already revealed that videos of hundreds of hours of harsh interrogations had been tossed. Last week’s admission, though, only raised more questions about the legality of agency moves.

In releasing this information, President Obama performed a public service by shedding light on decisions and actions that cry out for further examination.

The president, though, would like to move on. Obama’s approach would be to craft antiterror strategies that comport with the law and human-rights treaties – certainly a must.

The forthright statement last week from Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. that “waterboarding is torture” and a technique never to be authorized by his Justice Department set the right tone. Now, the president has tasked Holder to review which interrogation techniques should be authorized.

Both the legal strategies and field tactics used by the U.S. military and intelligence officers at the behest of Bush have been exposed to a large degree in recent years, including warrantless spying on citizens. But the full story has yet to be told.

Amid last week’s disclosures, Senate Democrats under Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont held a hearing Wednesday on the feasibility of a so-called Truth Commission – a panel that might even offer immunity to witnesses in exchange for plumbing the depths of Bush policies.

Congressional Republicans uniformly reject Leahy’s proposal, but the idea has fairly broad backing in legal and civic circles. Even so, there are potential legal pitfalls that would have to be resolved.

A tried-and-true approach could be a congressional inquiry like the famed Church Committee, which in the mid-1970s exposed how the CIA and FBI opened Americans’ mail and committed other rogue acts.

Given the stakes, the nation’s antiterror tactics should be subject to no less scrutiny. The inquiry at the very least could help avoid a repeat of any past mistakes.

Palestinian PM Fayyad steps down

Profile: Salam Fayyad

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has submitted his resignation to President Mahmoud Abbas, he said in a statement.

The move comes ahead of power-sharing talks between Mr Abbas and his rivals Hamas, who control the Gaza Strip.

Mr Fayyad’s resignation would pave the way for the formation of a national unity government, but he will not step down until that happens.

The move is being seen as conciliatory, as Hamas had demanded his departure.

The BBC’s Tim Franks in Jerusalem says Mr Fayyad’s resignation appears to be part of the careful choreography aimed at the creation of a new Palestinian government of national unity.

But he will not actually step down until that government is in place, and there is no guarantee of that, our correspondent says.

Delegations from Fatah and Hamas, as well as other Palestinian groups, have set up committees to look at forming a unity government and holding elections.

FATAH-HAMAS RIVALRY January 2006 – Hamas wins Palestinian Authority legislative election March 2006 – Hamas government sworn in. US and EU suspend ties February-March 2007 – Fatah and Hamas agree to form coalition to end growing factional warfare June 2007 – Hamas seizes control of Gaza from Fatah after continued fighting. Unity government dissolved, Israel tightens blockade of Gaza Strip Gazans seek end to bitter split

Talks have been going on in Cairo between the two sides.

An early indication of progress will come at the end of this month with an initial report into the shape of a future unity government.

The new government would also co-ordinate the rebuilding of Gaza.

The divisions between Fatah and Hamas have been seen as one of the stumbling blocks to progress towards an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.

Mr Fayyad – a former World Bank economist – says his resignation will take effect following the formation of the unity government by the end of March.

Analysts say the desire on the part of Palestinians to achieve reconciliation between their divided leaderships has grown more acute since Israel’s three-week military offensive in Gaza, which ended on 18 January.

Recycled Hospital Waste Danger in Kashmir Too

Extremely dangerous
Recycling of hospital waste is a serious threat to public health

The wellbeing of our health sector has always been reported and discussed in our media. More often than not, it is for unhealthy things that our hospitals get published in our newspapers. It is quite unfortunate, but absolutely true, that the health sector in Jammu and Kashmir, which is mainly represented by our hospitals, is in such a pathetic condition that it is the mutilation of meaning to call it health sector. The report in Rising Kashmir, about how norms and guidelines about waste management are been violated, and how the hospital waste is offering a commercial opportunity to rag pickers, its dealers, the companies that ultimately buy it and use it, and finally a slew of medical stores who sell medical equipments and apparatus manufactured from this waste, is absolutely nauseating.

How could a place that is supposed to treat the disease become a source of disease!  Authorities who manage our hospitals may parry the questions that people have been raising in this regard, not just by deft ways, bringing into use the arcane details concerning techniques and terminology, but also flailing the staffs of official nonchalance. But does that solve our problems? It does not. People might get tired of asking the question and media might feel an element of dullness in covering such things, as they always keep streaming in, but for any civilised society it is a huge concern. Either we have to forget that ours is a human society or else we cannot, and must not, sit silent. People, who run the affairs of our hospitals, mainly SKIMS, SMHS, and LD  hospital must not be let off hook unless they make things work the way they are, as per health norms, supposed to work. If we take the case of hospital waste getting into a trade cycle that ultimately results in harmful syringes, blood bags, catheters and other such material pouring into market, why should it be explained to people how and why it happens. No matter how muscular the excuses are, who on earth can accept that his health is being put to risk, for no fault of his. No denying the fact that those at the helm of affairs are working under tremendous pressures and have to deal with situations that are not so easy to deal with, but it does not exonerate them. It may be extremely painful for them to see the hospital waste getting mismanaged, but that is not enough. They must begin cracking down on this problem. Alongside putting in place the scientific methods of dealing with the waste, they should seek the co-operation of relevant quarters to bust the rings that recycle this waste.

Iraq and Afghanistan constitute atrocities that must be condemned and repudiated

ADDRESS BY H.E. MIGUEL D’ESCOTO BROCKMANN,
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY,
TO THE HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL
GENEVA 4 MARCH 2009

25. Finally, I urge the Council to focus on the profound
problems that have been created by the massive violations
human rights in Iraq. Even as the world absorbs the
inhumanity of the recent invasion of Gaza, we see Iraq as a
contemporary and ongoing example of how the illegal use of
force leads inexorably to human suffering and disregard for
human rights. It has set a number of precedents that we
cannot allow to stand. The illegality of the use of force against
Iraq cannot be doubted as its runs contrary to the prohibition
of the use of force in article 2(4) of the UN Charter. All
12
pretended justifications not withstanding, the aggressions
against Iraq and Afghanistan and their occupations, constitute
atrocities that must be condemned and repudiated by all who
believe in the rule of law in international relations.
26. Reliable and independent experts estimate that over one
million Iraqis have lost their lives as a direct result of the
illegal invasion of their country. The various UN human rights
monitors have prepared report after report documenting the
unending litany of violations from crimes of war, rights of
children and women, social rights, collective punishment and
treatment of prisoners of war and illegal detention of civilians.
These must be addressed to bring an end to the scandalous
present impunity.
27. What can the Council do? I urge you to put the
questions of the situation of human rights in Iraq on your
agenda. You might discuss the appointment of a special
mechanism to report on the situation of human rights there.
You also might consider the reports of the Office of the High
Commissioner on Human Rights that are prepared by the
United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI). It is ironic
that for almost 20 years before the U.S. led invasion and
occupation, there was a Special Rapporteur on Iraq. Yet
precisely when the largest human catastrophe on earth began
to unfold in Iraq in 2003, this post was eliminated. Reliable
13
sources estimate there are over one million civilian deaths in
Iraq as a direct result of the U.S. led aggression and
occupation, and still there is no Special Rapporteur. This is a
serious omission that should be corrected.

Mauritania Expels Israeli Diplomats, Shuts Embassy

Readers Number : 305

06/03/2009 Mauritania’s military junta expelled Israeli diplomats and shut the embassy on Friday after freezing ties with the Zionist entity over its invasion of Gaza. Mauritania was one of only three Arab countries that had full diplomatic relations with Israel and the closure of the embassy in Nouakchott leaves just Egypt and Jordan. Mauritania’s communications minister said the move was a result of a decision taken at a meeting of Arab leaders in Doha in mid-January following Israel’s invasion of Gaza. “We informed them of the decision to suspend relations at the time of the summit in Doha, and it is now being executed,” El Kory Ould Abdel Mola said. “The embassy is closed,” he declared. Another Mauritanian official said Israeli diplomats had been given 48 hours to leave the northwest African country. Staff were seen leaving the building. An Israeli Foreign Ministry official who declined to be identified said he could not confirm the expulsion and suggested the timing of the decision could be linked to a planned visit to Nouakchott by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. “Maybe they are just showing they’re tough,” the official said. Gaddafi heads the African Union and is trying to mediate in the political crisis Mauritania has endured since the first democratically elected president was overthrown last August and General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz took over. An official close to Mauritanian military ruler General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz said the decision to expel the Israeli diplomats followed the decision in January to freeze relations with the state. “This is the logical consequence of the freezing of relations between Israel and Mauritania … there is nothing new,” said the official, who declined to be identified. “This was expected. After General Aziz took the decision at the Doha summit, an envoy from the Mauritanian Foreign Ministry sent a letter to the ambassador of Israel to leave the country,” the official said. Abdel Aziz announced the decision to freeze relations at a summit of Arab nations in Doha, Qatar, in January. Qatar said at the time that it would freeze its own relations with Israel, which are at a lower level than full diplomatic ties. Most other Arab countries also froze Israel’s trade missions in their capitals after Israel’s offensive in Gaza. Nouakchott, in common with other cities across the Arab world, saw protests against the Gaza attacks earlier this year.

Why the Economic Destruction of America May Be Step One of A Global Banking Power Grab

Thursday, March 05, 2009 by: Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor

(CounterThink) The financial events that have taken place in the U.S. and around the world over the last few months are, in many ways, no surprise. In a September, 2008 financial seminar (http://www.truthpublishing.com/Heal…), I publicly predicted the majority of the big trends you’re seeing unfold right now: The wave of commercial bankruptcies, the second round of bailout money, the dangerous creation of new money by the Fed and a continued weakening of both the housing market and the stock market.

These are all playing out like clockwork, driving the U.S. toward financial collapse that now seems irreversible. There is one new element in all this, however, that has emerged in the last month or so, and I’d like to share that with you in this article.

Over the last few months, I’ve kept in touch with some extremely well-connected individuals who have been cluing me in on what’s really happening behind the scenes in the world of global finance. For obvious reasons, these people shall go unnamed, but what they’re now telling me is that the economic meltdown is merely a means to an end. It is being done deliberately, they say, at the very highest levels to achieve a well-planned outcome. What outcome is that? Global rule over all banking, of course.

How to take over the world’s finances

Imagine an international Federal Reserve that creates and controls the money supply for the entire world. The centralization of financial power into the hands of the few would be unprecedented. What power the Fed wields over the United States today, a “global Fed” could soon wield across the entire world.

Achieving such a power grab, however, is no small task. Nations will not voluntarily surrender power over their currencies…

Unless there is a crisis!

In a crisis scenario, nations will give up practically anything — freedoms, finances, and yes, even their own currencies if it means avoiding certain economic disaster. If there’s one thing that the world has learned from 9/11, it’s that the best way to grab power from the People is to either engineer a disaster or piggyback on one that occurs on its own. When faced with the fear of annihilation, the People of any nation will not merely surrender their freedoms and finances, they will beg to turn them over to any apparent “authority” who promises a solution.

(For those who follow David Icke, this is described by him as the “Problem – Reaction – Solution” approach to mass manipulation.)

From this, then, it is rather obvious that the best way to grab control over world currencies and establish one global “Fed” money authority is to engineer a global financial disaster that threatens the stability of the entire global banking system. As stability collapses and life savings are lost, it’s only a matter of time before the riots begin and blood really starts running in the streets.

It is in this moment that the global elite will appear on television screens, as if delivered by God himself, promising an end to all the suffering if only the leading nations of the world will agree to surrender their own currencies and adopt a new, global currency operated by the new “International Fed” (which won’t actually be called that, mind you).

The battle for the future of America is under way right now

With all this in mind, we are faced with a rather sobering scenario. Even though there are many people within the U.S. power structure who are no doubt attempting to save the U.S. economy and prevent outright collapse, there are almost certainly far more powerful people involved in this game who have as their agenda the creation of a global currency controller. And the rise of that institution necessitates the economic downfall of nations like the U.S. and the U.K., to name just two.

So there’s a tug of war going on: Some people are trying to save America, and others are actively working to destroy it and eliminate the existing Federal Reserve altogether, defaulting to a single, global “Fed” organization. It’s important to note that regardless of which side of this battle we’re talking about, none of these power elite are looking out for YOU, the People. This is all just a high-level territorial chess match in which you and I are the lowly pawns.

Destroying a nation in order to rule it

What’s interesting in all this is that if you believe this particular explanation, it means there are elite power brokers in this world who are so arrogant and greedy that they will actively risk the destruction of an entire nation’s economy just to take control over its financial resources in the long run.

If all this sounds familiar, that’s because this is exactly how military warfare works, too: The aggressor invades a country, bombs it to rubble, then takes control over it in order to capture and control the long-term economic benefits and resources produced by that country. (Iraq, anyone?) It’s also exactly what drove Hitler’s mechanized army eastward into Soviet territory in World War II. The battle at Stalingrad was not merely a Soviet victory over German military units, it was the end of Germany’s last desperate attempt to expropriate the lucrative oil fields needed to keep its war machine running.

The point is that, throughout history, power-hungry madmen have always demonstrated a willingness to destroy practically anything (families, cities, nations) in order to get what they wanted. The United States isn’t innocent on this front, either: Read your history on the Dresden bombings to see a dark chapter of U.S. history involving outright genocide on the part of the allies (http://www.rense.com/general19/flam…).

Warfare, of course, can take many forms. The traditional “bombs and bullets” form of warfare is simply the most easily recognizable form of taking over a country. It is by no means the most efficient form. From an economic perspective, it is far more intelligent to take over a nation while leaving its physical infrastructure intact so that all the slave workers can get back to work as quickly as possible after the war, producing new gains for the new controllers.

By one interpretation of world events, America now seems to be in the midst of an economic war that may actually be attempting to crush America’s currency and economy in the hopes that the nation will surrender both to a new global financial authority. The “New World Bank” would be the benefactor of all this.

What does it mean for you?

My predictions along these lines have been consistent: Reduce your spending, get out of debt and convert your soon-to-be-worthless dollars into something real that can out-last any currency collapse.

Some of those “real” things include land, gold, storable food and even your own personal education. A great many people have also chosen to purchase and store firearms, which are likely to become extremely valuable in an Obama gun confiscation scenario. For the record, although I’m not a gun advocate by any means, there is no doubt in my mind that gun confiscation only results in the GOOD guys turning in their guns while the BAD guys keep theirs. In virtually every case around the world, gun confiscation essentially translates into a massive de-arming of the population and an unleashing of either armed criminals or armed criminal governments. In any gun confiscation scenario, those who still have their firearms will find them becoming instantly valuable.

On the dollar front, there is little doubt in my mind that a collapse (or abandonment) of the U.S. currency is inevitable. The most likely scenario emerging right now is that once the economic crisis gets so bad in the U.S. that people are rioting in the streets, Obama will cave in to a new world bank authority and, in doing so, abandon the U.S. dollar.

If this unfolds, it means the U.S. dollar will be “traded in” for a new world currency of some sort, and in that exchange, U.S. dollar holders will maddeningly discover (surprise!) that they have lost anywhere from 60 percent to 90 percent of their purchasing power. This is the evil genius of the whole plan: Sure, you can trade in all your dollars, but for how much spending power? The answer, of course, is whatever they want to pay you. Because if all you hold are dollars, you don’t have much choice in the matter, do you?

That’s why diversifying out of the dollar right now is so important for anyone who doesn’t want to lose most of their savings. I’ve covered numerous strategies for this in my course Health Ranger LIVE: Health Preparedness and Financial Protection (http://www.truthpublishing.com/Heal…).

It’s worth noting that an ounce of gold buys you the same goods and services today that it bought fifty years ago. Gold always holds its value, no matter what happens to paper currencies.

Who can you really believe in all this?

As you ponder all this information, keep in mind that historically, in every economic downturn, there have always been politicians and economists who pronounced the end of the downturn practically every week as the markets churned lower and lower. Nobody involved in the financial system (banks, lawmakers, Presidents, etc.) can actually admit the truth for fear of causing runaway financial panic.

Hence the fact that the Federal Reserve outright refuses to name which banks it has funded with bailout money. The very mention of a bank on such a list would likely cause an overnight collapse of the bank itself, so the Fed remains silent in its secrecy. (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?…)

The fragility of this whole system should clue you in on just how bad things really are. When the system is so close to cracking that the Fed doesn’t even dare name which banks it is helping, that’s probably a big, red warning sign that it’s time to exit that system and move your resources to something more stable.

The bottom line? Don’t believe any of the typical authorities on this issue. They all have a stake in keeping the People in the dark while they maneuver their own financial chess pieces around in total secrecy. The only way to not be financially harmed by all this is to make sure you’re not left holding a bag of worthless green paper when the U.S. Treasury merry-go-round music comes to a stop.

And that day is coming sooner that I previously thought. A year ago, I thought the U.S. dollar might survive another decade or two. But now, after watching the Bush bailout followed by the similarly insane Obama bailout, I believe the U.S. dollar will be either declared worthless or abandoned well inside of ten years, and perhaps as early as three. Only time will tell, of course, and there are a lot of variations that could delay or even reverse all this in the short-term, but in the long-term there’s no denying the fate of the world’s largest debtor nation: America will eventually be forced to abandon its currency, which is much the same as declaring national bankruptcy.

Don’t get caught in this financial trap, friends. Trade your dollars for something real while you still can. And if you have the chance to do so, establish your own income stream that cannot be taken away from you. Job losses will continue to mount, and entire industries could come tumbling down before this is all over. We are not out of this yet. Not even close.

The Greatest War Crime of All Time Was Committed By That “Special Relationship,” America and Britain

THE WWII DRESDEN HOLOCAUST–

‘A SINGLE COLUMN OF FLAME’

“You guys burnt the place down, turned it into a single column of flame. More people died there in the firestorm, in that one big flame, than died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.” –Kurt Vonnegut, Jr On the evening of February 13, 1945, an orgy of genocide and barbarism began against a defenseless German city, one of the greatest cultural centers of northern Europe. Within less than 14 hours not only was it reduced to flaming ruins, but an estimated one-third of its inhabitants, possibly as many as a half a million, had perished in what was the worst single event massacre of all time. ___ Toward the end of World War II, as Allied planes rained death and destruction over Germany, the old Saxon city of Dresden lay like an island of tranquillity amid desolation. Famous as a cultural center and possessing no military value, Dresden had been spared the terror that descended from the skies over the rest of the country. In fact, little had been done to provide the ancient city of artists and craftsmen with anti-aircraft defenses. One squadron of planes had been stationed in Dresden for awhile, but the Luftwaffe decided to move the aircraft to another area where they would be of use. A gentlemen’s agreement seemed to prevail, designating Dresden an “open city.” February 13/14 1945: Holocaust over Dresden, known as the Florence of the North. Dresden was a hospital city for wounded soldiers. Not one military unit, not one anti-aircraft battery was deployed in the city. Together with the 600.000 refugees from Breslau, Dresden was filled with nearly 1.2 million people. Churchill had asked for “suggestions how to blaze 600.000 refugees”. He wasn’t interested how to target military installations 60 miles outside of Dresden. More than 700.000 phosphorus bombs were dropped on 1.2 million people. One bomb for every 2 people. The temperature in the centre of the city reached 1600 o centigrade. More than 260.000 bodies and residues of bodies were counted. But those who perished in the centre of the city can’t be traced. Approximately 500.000 children, women, the elderly, wounded soldiers and the animals of the zoo were slaughtered in one night. On Shrove Tuesday, February 13, 1945, a flood of refugees fleeing the Red Army 60 miles away had swollen the city’s population to well over a million. Each new refugee brought fearful accounts of Soviet atrocities. Little did those refugees retreating from the Red terror imagine that they were about to die in a horror worse than anything Stalin could devise. Normally, a carnival atmosphere prevailed in Dresden on Shrove Tuesday. In 1945, however, the outlook was rather dismal. Houses everywhere overflowed with refugees, and thousands were forced to camp out in the streets shivering in the bitter cold. However, the people felt relatively safe; and although the mood was grim, the circus played to a full house that night as thousands came to forget for a moment the horrors of war. Bands of little girls paraded about in carnival dress in an effort to bolster warning spirits. Half-sad smiles greeted the laughing girls, but spirits were lifted. No one realized that in less than 24 hours those same innocent children would die screaming in Churchill’s firestorms. But, of course, no one could know that then. The Russians, to be sure, were savages, but at least the Americans and British were “honorable.” So, when those first alarms signaled the start of 14 hours of hell, Dresden’s people streamed dutifully into their shelters. But they did so without much enthusiasm, believing the alarms to be false, since their city had never been threatened from the air. Many would never come out alive, for that “great democratic statesman,” Winston Churchill–in collusion with that other “great democratic statesman,” Franklin Delano Roosevelt–had decided that the city of Dresden was to be obliterated by saturation bombing. What where Churchill’s motives? They appear to have been political, rather than military. Historians unanimously agree that Dresden had no military value. What industry it did have produced only cigarettes and china. But the Yalta Conference was coming up, in which the Soviets and their Western allies would sit down like ghouls to carve up the shattered corpse of Europe. Churchill wanted a trump card–a devastating “thunderclap of Anglo-American annihilation”–with which to “impress” Stalin. That card, however, was never played at Yalta, because bad weather delayed the originally scheduled raid. Yet Churchill insisted that the raid be carried out–to “disrupt and confuse” the German civilian population behind the lines. Dresden’s citizens barely had time to reach their shelters. The first bomb fell at 10:09 p.m. The attack lasted 24 minutes, leaving the inner city a raging sea of fire. “Precision saturation bombing” had created the desired firestorm. A firestorm is caused when hundreds of smaller fires join in one vast conflagration. Huge masses of air are sucked in to feed the inferno, causing an artificial tornado. Those persons unlucky enough to be caught in the rush of wind are hurled down entire streets into the flames. Those who seek refuge underground often suffocate as oxygen is pulled from the air to feed the blaze, or they perish in a blast of white heat–heat intense enough to melt human flesh. One eyewitness who survived told of seeing “young women carrying babies running up and down the streets, their dresses and hair on fire, screaming until they fell down, or the collapsing buildings fell on top of them.” There was a three-hour pause between the first and second raids. The lull had been calculated to lure civilians from their shelters into the open again. To escape the flames, tens of thousands of civilians had crowded into the Grosser Garten, a magnificent park nearly one and a half miles square. The second raid came at 1:22 a.m. with no warning. Twice as many bombers returned with a massive load of incendiary bombs. The second wave was designed to spread the raging firestorm into the Grosser Garten. It was a complete “success.” Within a few minutes a sheet of flame ripped across the grass, uprooting trees and littering the branches of others with everything from bicycles to human limbs. For days afterward, they remained bizarrely strewn about as grim reminders of Allied sadism. At the start of the second air assault, many were still huddled in tunnels and cellars, waiting for the fires of the first attack to die down. At 1:30 a.m. an ominous rumble reached the ears of the commander of a Labor Service convoy sent into the city on a rescue mission. He described it this way: “The detonation shook the cellar walls. The sound of the explosions mingled with a new, stranger sound which seemed to come closer and closer, the sound of a thundering waterfall; it was the sound of the mighty tornado howling in the inner city.” MELTING HUMAN FLESH Others hiding below ground died. But they died painlessly–they simply glowed bright orange and blue in the darkness. As the heat intensified, they either disintegrated into cinders or melted into a thick liquid–often three or four feet deep in spots. Shortly after 10:30 on the morning of February 14, the last raid swept over the city. American bombers pounded the rubble that had been Dresden for a steady 38 minutes. But this attack was not nearly as heavy as the first two. However, what distinguished this raid was the cold-blooded ruthlessness with which it was carried out. U.S. Mustangs appeared low over the city, strafing anything that moved, including a column of rescue vehicles rushing to the city to evacuate survivors. One assault was aimed at the banks of the Elbe River, where refugees had huddled during the horrible night. In the last year of the war, Dresden had become a hospital town. During the previous night’s massacre, heroic nurses had dragged thousands of crippled patients to the Elbe. The low-flying Mustangs machine-gunned those helpless patients, as well as thousands of old men, women and children who had escaped the city. When the last plane left the sky, Dresden was a scorched ruin, its blackened streets filled with corpses. The city was spared no horror. A flock of vultures escaped from the zoo and fattened on the carnage. Rats swarmed over the piles of corpses. A Swiss citizen described his visit to Dresden two weeks after the raid: “I could see torn-off arms and legs, mutilated torsos and heads which had been wrenched from their bodies and rolled away. In places the corpses were still lying so densely that I had to clear a path through them in order not to tread on arms and legs.” **************** Kurt Vonnegut was in Dresden when it was bombed in 1945, and wrote a famous anti-war novel, Slaughterhouse Five, in 1969. In February 1945, Vonnegut was witness to another pretty good imitation of Mt Vesuvius; the firebombing by Allied forces of Dresden, the town in eastern Germany, during the last months of the Second World War. More than 600,000 incen-diary bombs later, the city looked more like the surface of the moon. Returning home to India-napolis after the war, Vonnegut began writing short stories for magazines such as Collier’s and The Saturday Evening Post, and, seven years later, published his first novel, Player Piano. … Finally, in 1969, he tackled the subject of war, recounting his experiences as a POW in Dresden, forced to dig corpses from the rubble. The resulting novel was Slaughterhouse Five. Banned in several US states – and branded a “tool of the devil” in North Dakota – it carried the snappy alternative title: “The Children’s Crusade: A Duly Dance with Death, by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr, a fourth-generation German-American now living in easy circumstances on Cape Cod (and smoking too much) who, as an American infantry scout hors de combat, as a prisoner of war, witnessed the fire bombing of Dresden, Germany – the Florence of the Elbe – a long time ago, and survived to tell the tale: this is a novel somewhat in the telegraphic schizopfrenic manner of tales of the planet Tralfamodre, where the flying saucers come from, Peace.” …. In December 1944, Vonnegut was captured by the German army and became a prisoner of war. In Slaughterhouse Five, he describes how he narrowly escaped death a few months later in the firebombing of Dresden. “Yes, by your people [the English], may I say,” he insists. “You guys burnt the place down, turned it into a single column of flame. More people died there in the firestorm, in that one big flame, than died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. I’m fond of your people, on occasion, but I was just thinking about ‘Bomber Harris, who believed in attacks on civilian populations to make them give up. A hell of a lot of Royal Air Force guys were ashamed of what Harris had made them do. And that’s really sportsmanship and, of course, the Brits are famous for being good sports,” he concedes. The Independent, London, 20 December 2001, p. 19 *************** The death toll was staggering. The full extent of the Dresden Holocaust can be more readily grasped if one considers that well over 250,000 — possibly as many as a half a million — persons died within a 14-hour period, whereas estimates of those who died at Hiroshima range from 90,000 to 140,000.* Allied apologists for the massacre have often “twinned” Dresden with the English city of Coventry. But the 380 killed in Coventry during the entire war cannot begin to compare with over 1,000 times that number who were slaughtered in 14 hours at Dresden. Moreover, Coventry was a munitions center, a legitimate military target. Dresden, on the other hand, produced only china–and cups and saucers can hardly be considered military hardware! It is interesting to further compare the respective damage to London and Dresden, especially when we recall all the Hollywood schmaltz about the “London blitz.” In one night, 1,600 acres of land were destroyed in the Dresden massacre. London escaped with damage to only 600 acres during the entire war. In one ironic note, Dresden’s only conceivable military target — its railroad yards — was ignored by Allied bombers. They were too busy concentrating on helpless old men, women and children. If ever there was a war crime, then certainly the Dresden Holocaust ranks as the most sordid one of all time. Yet there are no movies made today condemning this fiendish slaughter; nor did any Allied airman–or Sir Winston–sit in the dock at Nuremberg. In fact, the Dresden airmen were actually awarded medals for their role in this mass murder. But, of course, they could not have been tried, because there were “only following orders.” This is not to say that the mountains of corpses left in Dresden were ignored by the Nuremberg Tribunal. In one final irony, the prosecution presented photographs of the Dresden dead as “evidence” of alleged National Socialist atrocities against Jewish concentration-camp inmates! Churchill, the monster who ordered the Dresden slaughter, was knighted, and the rest is history. The cold-blooded sadism of the massacre, however, is brushed aside by his biographers, who still cannot bring themselves to tell how the desire of one madman to “impress” another one let to the mass murder of up to a half million men, women and children.

Freedom in the Air

Israel Shamir – March 6, 2009

Britons never shall be slaves, claims the song. Never say never. They were so free that they could rhyme ‘the queen’, ‘her fascist regime’ and ‘she ain’t no human being’, in the Sex Pistols song. But that was then, and anyway the queen has had enough sense of humour to invite the Pistols to the Palace. Now, a British gentleman Mr Rowan Laxton watched on TV live the Jews pour napalm and brimstone on hapless children of Gaza. Oh bloody Jews, said he, and I am sure so would you. He was immediately arrested and charged with “inciting religious hatred”. Mr Laxton can be sentenced to seven years of jail.

Never mind that none of the Israeli top war criminals (Olmert, Barak, Livni) is religious. Multiple identities of Jews (class, race, religion, nation, state) are used to protect the lot from every side. I checked some blogs covering the story – right-wing bookworms are furious about Laxton. Incidentally, they do not mind to “incite religious hatred” and freely refer to “Muslim savages” and “Islam’s demonstrable bloody-minded nihilism”. On the leftist sites Laxton is described as “racist”, and whoever defends his righteous anger is asked to move to White Power site. These antiracists also mention disapprovingly Laxton’s marriage to a Muslim lady. Even his highly commendable wish to see the killer army going up in smoke is re-described as “desire to murder every Israeli teenager”.

Religious hatred laws are peculiar beasts. While Jews murder Christians and Muslims, or destroy churches and mosques, these laws remain dormant. But if you notice the murders, the laws wake up from their slumber. We reported a church in Migdal ha-Emek was vandalised by Jews. A Russian newspaper carried this report. A Jewish representative in Russia appealed to the attorney general against the newspaper: such a report “incites religious hatred”. The attorney general rejected the Jewish claim, but have no doubt: this attack will make every newspaper in Russia think twice before they mention any misdeed or crime committed by Jews. And in this field, Russia is less inhibited than most.
Laxton had lost his important position in the Foreign Office, too, as his Jewish boss, Foreign Secretary David Miliband, is not as broad-minded as the queen. If Laxton would say of a Jew that “he ain’t human being” he would be probably deported to Guantanamo. The very story of his arrest reminds us the horrors one is being told of 1930s. The man sits in the fitness room, he sees mass murder being broadcasted live on TV, he exclaims: bloody murderers; and his fellows call for NKVD or Gestapo. Not much of freedom is left for the once-proud Britons. They can’t even vent their anger in the gym.

The Gaza pictures you could see on your telly were already sanitised; you were spared the real horrors. But what you did see was strong enough to break the taboo. The Jews are not satisfied with killing, they also want everybody to keep one’s mouth shut about it. But it is not going to work. These prohibitions of speaking one’s mind are demonstrably unfair.

Sure, not every Jew bombed Gaza.

But not every German – hardly any German alive today – is connected to anything unseemly.

Still, it is perfectly permissible to nourish “healthy, virile hate” for Germans, in words of Elie Wiesel.

Jews have no problem to write (in Jerusalem Post): “the Norwegians were the ones who rounded up Jews and robbed them before shipping them off to Auschwitz.” Somehow, nobody screamed: Wot! All Norwegians!?

The SA Jewish Board of Deputies’ David Saks did not mind to write: “the Palestinians are obsessed by – self willed prisoners of – the Islamist death cult”.

But Palestinians are vilified by Jews on daily basis.

Americans routinely observe that the Swiss are a Nation Of Cowards, Tax Cheats, And Fugitive Financiers – and no hate law of Switzerland went into action.

They also propose to burn every Frenchman alive, and the French did not give a damn.

If Mr Laxton would shout “Fuck Yanks!” – nobody would mind, not even the Yanks.
It appears that the Gaza war broke down some important protection valve the Jews used. Was it when they poured white phosphorus on the schools? Or when they employed their usual sophistic in order to prove that it is all right to kill civilians in Gaza, but it is crime to kill a Jew? Or when we learned that they block even macaroni to enter Gaza, in their drive to put Palestinians on diet?

You would not notice it from reading your Jewish-owned newspaper, or by watching your Jewish-edited TV program, but the divergence between public and official points of view never was greater. Masses of Europeans, Americans, Russians are justifiably angry. They are angry because the economic crisis is about to destroy their way of life. They are angry as they saw mass murder of Gaza. Both reasons of anger lead to the same culprit. There are more Jewish billionaires than of any other creed, race or nation. They have got more money from financial operations than anybody, and now they get even more from the state. Their preaching against racism blew up in their faces in Gaza.

The elites are aware of this pent-up anger. Recently in Davos, the Turkish Prime Minister told off the Israeli war criminal of a president, and flew home to hero’s welcome by thousands. Every prime minister, every president – including president Obama – will be received as a hero by multitudes if he tells the Jews where to get off.

The Jews do not know when to stop. It is true, they got to the top this way. The wildest dreams of the Elders of Zion were realised. But while admittedly it is difficult to get to the top, it is nay impossible to stay there forever. Now the Jews are already past the position the Catholic church was when Voltaire called to squash the infamy. There is freedom in the air.

The State Secretary Hilary Clinton became the darling of the Middle East just by saying ‘pasta’. Elections can be won, fame can be achieved, problems can be solved this way. Even the economic crisis can be taken by the people in their stride. Britain need a man like Mr Laxton as her Prime Minister, a man who gets furious watching mass murder, and who dares to speak up his mind.

The United States of Israel

Khalid Amayreh

It seems that one doesn’t have to wait four years to find out that Hillary Clinton is just a fraud, very much like her predecessor in the job, Condoleezza Rice.

The infamous Rice paid 24 visits to Occupied Ramallah and Occupied Jerusalem, babbling about the “peace process” and George Bush’s vision of two states living side by side in peace, Israel and Palestine.

Eventually, however, it was proven beyond any doubt that she was a lying emissary representing even a more lying boss.

So one may really wonder if Hillary Clinton will be re-enacting the same absurd show, same lies, and same deception.

In her recent visit to Occupied Palestine, the former NY senator, who had proven herself a submissive pawn in the service of Zionist circles, reiterated the same old platitudes about US commitment to the “two-state” solution.

However, she didn’t dare utter a word against the unmitigated expansion of Jewish colonies in the West Bank. Needless to say, it is obvious that the relentless intensive building of Jewish-only colonies has already rendered the prospect of a viable Palestinian state utterly unrealistic, if not outright impossible.

Even pro-Israeli stalwarts, people like Bob Simon of CBS, have come to recognize that the two-state solution is dead and that time has passed it by.

If so, how could the Obama administration be truly committed to the two-state solution when the same administration keeps encouraging Israel to build more and more and more colonies on occupied territories? Silence in this case means approval, and both the American monkey and the Israeli organ grinder know it quite well.

Far from calling the spade a spade, Mrs. Clinton dutifully asserted US commitment to Israel’s security, as if the Nazi-like apartheid regime, which possess hundreds of nuclear warheads and has one of the world’s strongest armies, were facing any credible threats.

Clinton was quite silent about the recent genocidal onslaught on Gaza which left the bulk of the coastal territory thoroughly destroyed and more than 6,000 men, women and children dead or maimed, thanks to the American-made and American-supplied weapons of death that Israel unleashed against the thoroughly starved and defenseless people of Gaza.

Such a silence just enforces the impression that Clinton is not really capable of behaving honestly, a sine-qua-non for possessing the ability to make a just and durable peace. After all, she belongs to a politically-promiscuous generation of American politicians in whose lexicon words like honesty and morality and justice don’t really exist.

Let us examine a few other statements uttered by Mrs. Clinton. While in Jerusalem, she said that Israel had the right to defend itself and that no country would tolerate rockets being fired on its population centers.

Well, this is a half-truth that is worse than a big lie.

It is so because she callously ignored the fact that the junkyard-made “rockets” were actually a desperate outcry by a people languishing under a criminal siege unprecedented in its harshness since the Ghetto Warsaw siege in 1942-43.

So, one might ask Mrs. “Innocent Abroad” what she thought the tormented prisoner population of Gaza should do as Israel has effectively been transforming their enclave into a real concentration camp? Die quietly? Or just accept the status of wood hewers and water carriers vis-à-vis the Ubermenschen, the Chosenites?!!

Or just examine another repugnant statement made by her while having a chummy chat with Israeli Prime-Minister designate Benyamin Netanyahu who repeatedly declared that he wouldn’t allow the creation of a real and sovereign Palestinian state on the West Bank?

Clinton pointed out that she would work with any government chosen by the people of Israel?

Well, then why she is refusing to deal with any government chosen by the Palestinian people?

Does she think the Palestinians are “children of a lesser God” who have yet to come of age if they ever will?

Indeed, who does this lady think she is to deny our people their natural God-given right to elect the government of our choice?

A few weeks ago, Israelis elected a new Knesset a majority of whose members are bona fide fascists, many of whom shamelessly demand ethnic cleansing of non-Jews. Others advocate genocide against the Palestinian community whose existence in Palestine predated the arrival of East European Khazari immigrants by thousands of years.

But we heard nothing from Clinton, or Obama or the other political whores of Washington, D.C., past and present, whose one-eyed approach to the Arab-Israel conflict is responsible for the enduring bloodshed and oppression in this part of the world.

Another point. Mrs. Clinton might be tempted to think that the blood money she pledged for the reconstruction of Gaza and propping-up the Palestinian Judenrat in Ramallah would induce the Palestinians to choose a government that would give up or compromise the inalienable rights of our people to return to their homes and towns in what is now Israel. But, nay, this won’t happen, come what may.

This won’t happen, because what is in the heart is in the heart, and collaborators and quislings, no matter what grand titles they have, shall eventually be crushed.

And now a few words for those gullible Palestinian and Arab leaders who entertain the same false hopes every time a new American administration comes to power.

It is time you realize that without a real revolution in Washington, one that would deliver the American government and people from the Zionist stranglehold, there is not the slightest chance in hell that America will be able to accomplish peace in Palestine.

Today, Israel tightly controls the American government, including Congress, as well as the media, especially the so-called agenda-setter media. Moreover, Israeli leaders are bragging about Israel’s predominance in American political life.

“We don’t ask our American friends to do this or that , we order them to do it,” suggested one Israeli official recently.

This means that as long as Israel continues to call the shots in Washington D.C. and as long a American officials such as Hillary Clinton continue to shake at the mere thought of upsetting the powerful Zionist lobby, which exploits America and her resources for the purpose of achieving Jewish-Zionist territorial aggrandizement in the Middle East, counting on America to bring peace to this region borders on illusive and delusional day-dreaming.

For sure, a country that is nearly hopelessly enslaved by Jewish money and Jewish power, is not free to achieve peace.

Such a state should be called the “United States of Israel,” not the “United States of America.”

In recent years and months, some American politicians warned of the grave consequences of America’s phenomenal subservience to Israel.

Michael Scheuer, a former CIA analyst now a consultant to CBS News, was quoted as saying that “our unqualified support of Israel was the main reason for 9/11.”

Anthony Zinni, George Bush’s first envoy to the Middle East declared that “the United States invaded Iraq for Israel and oil.”

Now, Israel is pushing and bullying the Obama administration to attack Iran in order to ensure Israel’s military supremacy in the Middle East and beyond.

Some American government officials privately acknowledge this bullying, but are reluctant to speak openly lest they lose their jobs.

What is crystal clear though is that America’s embrace of Israeli colonialism and criminality will just preclude any genuine chance of peace in Palestine.

In Short, America needs to produce politicians who are more honest than fearing the wrath of the Jewish lobby.

However, this won’t happen until mainstream America discovers the disastrous role Israel and her agents play in America’s national life.

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By Khalid Amayreh http://xpis.ps/Uploadarticles/804articles%20The%20United%20States%20of%20Israel.doc

Spy-dogs Begin to Howl As America Peeks Behind the Curtain

CIA Veterans Blast Senate Probe of Operations Under Bush

By Bobby Ghosh

Inside CIA Headquarters in Langley, Va.

Christopher Morris / VII for TIME

For a handful of CIA operatives who were on the frontlines of the war on terror in the early months and years after 9/11, it’s the stuff of nightmares. After all, they did their job as their political masters defined it, using tools and techniques approved by their lawyers. Then came an election, and a new set of political masters, who have begun second-guessing everything they did before. Suddenly there is lots of talk about “violations” and “wrong-doing,” the promise of formal investigations and hearings, and the very real possibility that their life savings could go to defense lawyers.

Unfortunately for them, that nightmare looks like it may soon become frighteningly real. Against the wishes of the agency’s popular new leader, the CIA is in the crosshairs of two powerful Democratic Senators who are determined to get to the bottom of the Agency’s more controversial operations. And not even the White House has been able to get them to back off. (Read “Intelligence Lapses: The Risks of Relying on ‘Chatter'”.)

Diane Feinstein confirmed Thursday that her Senate Intelligence Committee will investigate the CIA’s interrogation and detention programs under the Bush Administration, a probe that she expects to take a year. The Californian seems to be reading from the same playbook as Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy, who this week reiterated his call for a ‘truth commission’ into the Bush Administration’s national security policies, including wiretapping, treatment of detainees and even the politicization of the Justice Department.President Obama has shown little appetite for raking over those particular coals, saying he’d rather “move forward.” Veteran Democrats on the Hill say it’s all very well for the President to want to start with a clean slate, but they’ve spent years asking questions about alleged wrongdoing under Bush — and they want answers. (Feinstein was unavailable for comment, but she’s expected to release a statement about the investigation this week.) (Read “Panetta: From Washington Insider to CIA Outsider”.)

Current intelligence staffers rarely speak on the record, but a number of recently retired heavy hitters have told TIME that Feinstein’s plan to investigate the Agency is a bad idea for a wide variety of reasons.

The former spies argue that the Agency’s staff need to be protected from changes in political climate. A joint statement issued by Feinstein and her Republican counterpart on the committee, Missouri Senator Kit Bond, said the probe will examine, among other things, “whether the CIA implemented the program in compliance with official guidance, including covert action findings, Office of Legal Counsel opinions, and CIA policy.” But the staffers responsible for carrying out detention and interrogation policies, they say, would never have used the controversial techniques if it had not been for explicit legal guidance from the Bush Administration. “The guy doing the interrogations — he did it knowing that the CIA wouldn’t have asked him to do it unless it was cleared all the way back … to the White House,” says Carl Ford, an ex-CIA hand who headed the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research from 2001-03.

The Great “Global Crisis of Maturity” and the New World Order

By Daniel Taylor
The Technological Revolution

“Although technological powers will be vast and progress will likely be made, the normal level of social resistance and political stalemate is likely to oppose change. Thus, it may take an occasional environmental collapse, global wars and terrorism, or yet unknown calamities to force the move to global consciousness.” — William E. Halal, Emerging Technologies and the Global Crisis of Maturity

The technological revolution that will re-shape humanity and our world is well underway. A cacophony of crises, both real and manufactured, are being heralded as birth pangs of a new global order. Some analysts say that we can no more fathom the political, technological, and social world that will emerge as “…chimpanzees in the forest can comprehend what goes on among humans in a nearby village.” [1]

We witness piecemeal examples of the steady buildup to this catalyst every day in the media. However, they fail to connect them in a coherent picture to demonstrate their interwoven nature. The “big picture” gets lost to many. We leave it to the “experts” to interpret these events and developments, but they often present solutions that come directly from the establishment.

To begin, let’s take a look at the technological revolution. Nanotechnology, biotechnology, information science and cognitive science (NBIC) are converging to form what has been called the largest leap in technological progress in human history. The Transhumanist movement is eagerly anticipating this revolution. Some foresee the fusion of the human brain with computer circuitry as leading “…to a truly revolutionary upheaval for the human race.” [2] Brain-machine interfaces; cloning; genetic engineering of food, plants, and animals; artificial intelligence; nanomaterials; these all stem from the NBIC convergence.

Some countries are currently serving as testing grounds for technologies that are expected to be implemented globally in the near future. For example, South Korea’s “U-city” or “ubiquitous city” called New Songdo – hailed as the city of the future – is nearly fully functional. The city is wired from the ground up with RFID sensors and other advanced computing devices to automate traffic, surveillance and e-government. The marketing campaign for the city is heavily focused on consumer convenience aspects of the technology, reminiscent of the sci-fi thriller Minority Report. The U-city model, being tested in New Songdo, is anticipated to be exported world-wide. There is a reason this technology is being tested in South Korea. As the New York Times reports,

“Much of this technology was developed in U.S. research labs, but there are fewer social and regulatory obstacles to implementing them in Korea,” said Mr. Townsend [a research director at the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, California], who consulted on Seoul’s own U-city plan, known as Digital Media City. “There is an historical expectation of less privacy. Korea is willing to put off the hard questions to take the early lead and set standards.” [3]

Some believe that ubiquitous computing technology, also known as the “Internet of Things”, is heralding the beginning of a “unified global intelligence.” This global intelligence will consist of a vast network of places, things and people that have been given a virtual representation in a computer network. William E. Halal, professor emeritus of science, technology and innovation at George Washington University writes,

“Even with the turmoil that is sure to follow, this will mark the serious beginning of a unified global intelligence, what some have forecast as the emergence of a “global brain” – a fine web of conscious thought directing life on the planet.” [4]

Brain-machine interfaces

The current and ongoing technological revolution has – as shown with the above example – a whole array of implications attached to it. Advancements in brain-machine interfaces provide one of the most startling examples. Fred C. Ikle, former undersecretary of defense for policy under the Reagan administration, and author of The Ultimate Threat to Nations: Annihilation from Within, is anticipating the development of advanced brain-machine interfaces. It is this development that Ikle sees as the most revolutionary. He writes,

“In my judgment, the greatest, most profound transformation of the human condition will not derive from the prolongation of life, or from the anxiously debated – and probably vastly overrated – possibilities of human cloning and “designer babies.” Instead, I see an effective synthesis of the computer with living human brains as the agent that will lead to a truly revolutionary upheaval for the human race.”[5]

These interfaces, Ikle writes, could spark a race between superpowers to create a super-advanced think tank. This brain-computer symbiosis would come from a group of individuals connected to a central computer.

“Its purpose would be greatly to enrich and expand what advanced computers can do by creating a symbiosis between, on one side, a computer system designed for this purpose, and on the other side, the judgmental capacities and essential emotive functions of the human brain. The contribution of the living human brain would probably not come from one individual “hooked up” to a computer, but from computer linkages to an expert committee or group of policy advisors. Such a symbiosis would be far more advanced than the latest brain-computer links.”[6]

Transhumanism

Brain-machine interfaces lead us inevitably to the Transhumanist movement, which sees technologies like this as heralding a new era of human enhancement. Most researchers anticipate these technologies to be developed at first to serve a medical purpose – such as restoring sight, allowing paralyzed individuals to move robotic arms using their minds, etc. The initial focus on providing aid to disabled individuals is giving technologies like brain-machine interfaces public acceptance and support because of its benevolent nature. Eventually, however, these technologies will be used for enhancement purposes and not out of any specific medical necessity.

The June 2002 conference Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance, organized by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Commerce, discussed this NBIC (Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information science and Cognitive science) revolution. The lengthy report demonstrates the intense attention that is being given to these rising technologies. The report calls for the training of a new generation of scientists to aid in the coming convergence.

“Education and training at all levels should use converging technologies as well as prepare people

to take advantage of them. Interdisciplinary education programs, especially in graduate school,

can create a new generation of scientists and engineers who are comfortable working across fields

and collaborating with colleagues from a variety of specialties… education projects need to be launched at the intersections of crucial fields to build a scientific community that will achieve the convergence of technologies that can greatly improve human capabilities.” [7]

The Knowledge NBIC Project, funded by the European Union, is conducting research into the political and social implications of the NBIC convergence. One of the project’s recent reports details the potential applications of these enhancement technologies,

“…people may come to think of themselves as ‘always already disabled’, that is, on the verge of falling behind in a social world where regular neurochemical upgradings are expected as a precondition for adequate performance. The first stirrings of this general problem have already entered public view in controversies concerning the use of drugs to enhance competitive athletic and academic performance. The political responses so far suggest that this… agenda may well be subject to considerable regulation but it is very unlikely that its advance will be stopped altogether.”[8]

The United Kingdom Ministry of Defense report DCDC Global Strategic Trends Programme 2007-2036 is also anticipating the use of this technology.

“By 2035, an implantable information chip could be developed and wired directly to the user’s brain. Information and entertainment choices would be accessible through cognition and might include synthetic sensory perception beamed direct to the user’s senses. Wider related ICT developments might include the invention of synthetic telepathy, including mind-to-mind or telepathic dialogue. This type of development would have obvious military and security, as well as control, legal and ethical, implications.”[9]

The RAND corporation has its sights on this technological revolution as well. RAND’s 2001 report, The Global Technology Revolution: Bio/Nano/Materials Trends and Their Synergies with Information Technology by 2015 covers these issues. Among other trends, it foresees expanded globalization, reduced privacy and potential societal unrest as a response to revolutionary technologies.

“The results could be astonishing. Effects may include significant improvements in human quality of life and life span… continued globalization, reshuffling of wealth, cultural amalgamation or invasion with potential for increased tension and conflict, shifts in power from nation states to non-governmental organizations and individuals… and the possibility of human eugenics and cloning.”[10]

The Scientific Planners

“Man’s conquest of Nature, if the dreams of some scientific planners are realized, means the rule of a few hundreds of men over billions upon billions of men. There neither is nor can be any simple increase of power on Man’s side. Each new power won by man is a power over man as well.” — CS Lewis, The Abolition of Man

The influence of wealthy and important interests in shaping current and past events cannot be ignored when studying what the future may hold. Elites have always sought to project their dominance into the future, and this modern world is no different. Trends can either be products of an organic process or a deliberate method.

As we progress into the future, prominent analysts see a trend toward global government and a “global consciousness” as a natural, logical, and organic process of evolution. What these experts often fail to mention is the fact that it has been a prime directive of institutional schooling to prepare and condition youth to accept world governance for decades.

In 1954 the Reece Committee, chaired by Carroll B. Reece, produced its findings regarding the influence of tax-exempt foundations in the field of education. The Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation, Carnegie Foundation and others were discussed during the Committee hearings. A predominant theme in the Committee’s findings was the desire of the foundations and those behind them to create a system of world governance. The use of propaganda and social engineering were identified as the means to achieve this goal.

The Reece Committee cited a report from the President’s Commission on Higher Education, published in 1947. The cited report states,

“In speed of transportation and communication and in economic interdependence, the nations of the globe are already one world; the task is to secure recognition and acceptance of this oneness in the thinking of the people, as that the concept of one world may be realized psychologically, socially and in good time politically.

It is this task in particular that challenges our scholars and teachers to lead the way toward a new way of thinking. There is an urgent need for a program for world citizenship that can be made a part of every person’s general education.

It will take social science and social engineering to solve the problems of human relations. Our people must learn to respect the need for special knowledge and technical training in this field as they have come to defer to the expert in physics, chemistry, medicine, and other sciences.” [1]

Futurists and government analysts often point to global warming and terrorism as defining crises of our time, as a natural part of the “global crisis of maturity.” Today, these issues are often presented as a justification for a system of world governance. William E. Halal writes,

“Intercultural conflict, weapons of mass destruction, and threats of environmental collapse are likely to force the move to some form of global community as the best means for managing such nagging problems.” [2]

Again, what we are not being told is that these issues were identified by powerful interests many years ago to serve as a pretext to prepare the way for “global solutions.” In a 1991 report titled “The First Global Revolution“, published by the Club of Rome, we find the following statement:

“In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill…. All these dangers are caused by human intervention… The real enemy, then, is humanity itself.” [3]

In order to gain a deeper perspective, let’s take a look at the earlier 1976 Club of Rome report “Rio: Reshaping the International Order” which details a strategy to create a system of economic and world governance. The report states,

“At the highest level, the level of world affairs, international institutions must form the prime movers of planned change.”

“The achievement of this global planning and management system calls for the conscious transfer of power – a gradual transfer to be sure – from the nation State to the world organization. Only when this transfer takes place can the organization become effective and purposeful.”[4]

Halal continues in his Futurist article, praising the Club of Rome for its anticipation of these events,

“The major conclusion from this analysis is that the world is facing a global crisis of maturity, the most salient example being the near-collapse of the global banking system in October 2008. Warnings of massive transformations have been anticipated for decades by the Club of Rome and many others. Today, however, the acceleration of change seems to be producing a mounting series of severe global disruptions – energy shortages as oil supplies peak, impending climate change and environmental decline in general… continuing terrorism… as globalization inexorably strains old systems to the breaking point.”[5]

As these crises develop amidst the rising technological revolution, we are entering an “Age of Transitions” in which the elite of society – who have foreseen, and in many cases manufactured these crises – hope to emerge on top.

The Great Transition

“It will be necessary to replace today’s cumbersome social systems, religious dogmas, heated emotions, partisan ideologies, and other commonly outmoded forms of thought and consciousness that now form the major obstacles to progress.” — William E. Halal, Emerging Technologies and the Global Crisis of Maturity

There are several futurists, think tanks and high level government analysts that are both eagerly anticipating and warning that there will be great social conflict during this “great transition”. They are nearly uniform in calling for a casting aside of “outmoded forms of thought” to pave the way for a new era. By holding on to “ancient ideas” of government and religion, people are holding back the progress of the great technological revolution and a resulting “planetary civilization”. Some have compared the potential impact of this transition to the social and political impact of the Industrial Revolution. This new revolution, however, is on a much grander scale.

Some call it the “Age of Transitions”, others the “Global Crisis of Maturity”. Zbigniew Brzezinski called it the “Technectronic Era”. However it is labeled, it brings with it major change and upheaval to humanity. Fred C. Ikle, author of The Ultimate Threat to Nations: Annihilation from Within, sees a widening gap between the “two souls” of society. One is dedicated to the scientific outlook that has been freed from religious and political bindings, while the other clings to the “stubborn past” of tradition and religion. Ikle sees this expanding gap as a great danger to all governments world-wide. Ikle writes,

“This widening chasm is ominous. It might impair the social cohesion of societies, and of nations, by drawing the human psyche in two directions: to the personal and national identity that resides in acquired beliefs, memories, and traditions of the past; and to the promise of greater wealth and power offered by untrammeled technological progress… In the scientific sphere, we are neither emotionally tied to our cultural and religious heritage, nor pining for a final redemption. But when animated by the world’s old soul, we seek to protect our identity by clinging to ancient artifacts from our ancestors and hallowed legends from the distant past.”[1]

William E. Halal stated in the March-April 2009 edition of The Futurist that, “Some new form of global order is needed to avert disaster.” He continues, “The transition could happen anytime, but it is hard to conceive of a future in which today’s systems could survive much beyond 2020, let alone 2030.” Halal writes,

“It will be necessary to replace today’s cumbersome social systems, religious dogmas, heated emotions, partisan ideologies, and other commonly outmoded forms of thought and consciousness that now form the major obstacles to progress.”[2]

Halal cites prominent pollster John Zogby’s new book The Way We’ll Be as he discusses the rise of a new “global generation.” His description of this generation fits current economic trends that point to dramatically lower standards of living, but frames this as a “sustainable” lifestyle. The “First Globals” as he calls them will be “…intent on living sustainable lives in a unified world.” Zogby writes,

“…we are in the midst of a fundamental reorientation of the American character… away from wanton consumption and toward a new global citizenry in an age of limited resources.” [3]

Michio Kaku, a theoretical physicist and futurist, believes that the globe is moving towards what he calls a “Type 1” civilization. This civilization, according to Kaku, will be technologically superior and constitute a world-wide system of governance, a global language, culture, and global economy. The transition may not be smooth, however. As kaku has repeatedly stated, there will be resistance to the rise of this “Type 1” civilization. In a 2006 interview Kaku stated,

“It’s the most dangerous of all transitions because there are some people who don’t want to be in type 1. They instinctively in their gut know that a type 1 system will be a system of different discourses, of different ideas and clashes of ideas and so on and so forth and these people who don’t want this transition are the terrorists.

In their gut, the terrorists know that we’re headed for type 1. They can’t articulate it, they don’t know the larger outlines of it, but in their gut they don’t like it.”[3]

In an earlier 2005 BBC interview Kaku said,

“…look at the economies. NAFTA, European Union, Trading blocks, the birth of a new economy is taking place.

Now there are people who don’t like this transition, who feel in their gut feel more comfortable being in a Type minus 1. They’re the terrorists. They in their gut realize that a Type 1 civilization has flowing ideas, challenging orthodoxies, new bigger, wondrous ideas popping forth. That’s Type 1.” [5]

As the world faces unparalleled economic turmoil, America’s decline is marking a historical geopolitical time period. The re-ordering of the globe is underway. The “Global Crisis of Maturity” – as envisioned by the elite – is ushering in a new world order as advancing technologies dramatically alter society.

It is vitally important that everyone, especially young people, gain their own understanding of what we are facing. The school system may prepare you for the future, but only in a manner that is self-serving to the establishment and kept within safe confines to prevent organic change. This study must involve not just a study of potential technological developments, but an understanding of the nature of power and the elites that wield it. Social engineers and opinion molders will be working overtime to shape society during this “Age of Transitions” as societal norms are broken and reshaped, and the political battlefield is thrown into chaos.

Related articles:

Trends to a New World Order: Part 1

Trends to a New World Order: Part 2

Anticipatory Conformity: Will the Growing Surveillance Panopticon Cause us to Self-censor?

Global warming hysteria serves as excuse for world government

Orwellian Ubiquitous Computing May Build Ultimate Surveillance Society

EU Set to Move ‘Internet of Things’ Closer to Reality

Educators Seek Shift in U.S. Schooling to Stress “Global” Values, See Nationalism as “Obsolete”

Citation:

The Technological Revolution:

1. Ikle, Fred Charles. The Ultimate Threat to Nations: Annihilation from Within. Columbia University Press, 2006. Page 33

2. lbid 1, Ikle.

3. “Korea’s High-Tech Utopia, Where Everything Is Observed.” The New York Times. October 5, 2005. Available at:

4. Halal, William E. “Emerging Technologies and the Global Crisis of Maturity.” The Futurist. March-April 2009.

5. lbid 1, Ikle.

6. lbid 1, Ikle. Page 32.

7. Mihail C. Roco and William Sims Bainbridge, National Science Foundation. “Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance.” Arlington, Virginia 2002. Page 21. Available here:

8. Project coordinator: Nico Stehr Ph.D. F.R.S.C. “Knowledge Politics and New Converging Technologies: A Social Science Perspective.” Available here:

9. “DCDC Global Strategic Trends Programme 2007-2036.”

10. Philip S. Anto´n, Richard Silberglitt, James Schneider. “The Global Technology Revolution: Bio/Nano/Materials Trends and Their Synergies with Information Technology by 2015.” RAND Corporation. 2001. Available here:

The Scientific Planners:

1. United States. Cong. House Special Committee to Investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations and Comparable Organizations. 1954.

2. Halal, William E. “Technology’s Promise: Highlights from the TechCast Project”, The Futurist, Nov-Dec 2006.

3. Alexander King & Bertrand Schneider. The First Global Revolution. New York: Pantheon Books, 1991. Page 115.

4. Jan Tinbergen. RIO: Reshaping the International Order: A Report to the Club of Rome. 1976. Page 100.

5. lbid 2, Halal.

The Great Transition:

1. lbid 1, Ikle. Page 16.

2. lbid 2, Halal.

3. lbid 2, Halal.

4. 2006 interview with the Conscious Media Network. Available here:

5. BBC Hard Talk Extra. Gavin Esler interviewing Michio Kaku. April 22, 2005.

US Justice Department memos: the specter of military dictatorship

4 March 2009

A set of nine secret memos released by the US Justice Department Monday reveal that in the weeks and months after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks the US government began erecting the legal scaffolding for a full-blown military dictatorship.

Attorney General Eric Holder declared that the release of the documents, which were posted on the Justice Department’s web site, signaled a new era of “transparency and openness.” The actions of the Obama administration in recent weeks, however, including the invocation of national security and state secrets to quell lawsuits challenging the worst abuses of the Bush era, make it clear that the threat revealed in these memos is far from over.

The thrust of the memos, written by former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo, then-Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee and others in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, was that the president, as commander-in-chief in the “global war on terrorism,” had the right to suspend the Constitution and treat American citizens on US soil as if they were soldiers in an invading foreign army.

In a September 25, 2001, memo, Yoo argued for the unfettered right of the White House to carry out warrantless domestic wiretapping. He insisted that the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures was inoperative in the context of the war on terror, which had “changed the calculus of a reasonable search.”

In response to an inquiry from the White House concerning its authority to deploy US troops within the United States itself, Yoo and then-Special Counsel Robert Delahunty issued an October 23, 2001, memo insisting that nothing in the Constitution or the law could stop him.

In the document, Yoo and Delahunty acknowledged that what was under consideration included “deploying troops and military equipment to monitor and control the flow of traffic into a city; attacking civilian targets, such as apartment buildings, offices, or ships where suspected terrorists were thought to be.”

The Justice Department officials admitted that the use of military forces against US citizens on American soil raised “novel and difficult questions of constitutional law,” but argued that such forces would not be bound to respect constitutional rights, allowing them to search houses and seize suspects, without the need for court approval or a search warrant.

In the same memo, they made the case that calling out the military on US soil could be joined with a sweeping suppression of freedom of speech. “First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully,” they wrote.

Other memos explicitly rejected any power of the courts or Congress to limit the president’s actions. This included a finding that Congress had no right to restrict the president’s treatment of detainees or their transfer to other countries, a practice known as rendition that was used to subject them to interrogation under torture. They also asserted that the president was not bound to obey laws requiring court approval for wiretapping.

Included in the released documents was a January 15, 2009, memo—issued just five days before Bush left office—signed by the outgoing head of the Office of Legal Counsel, Steven Bradbury. In it, Bradbury claimed that a number of the legal opinions expressed in the earlier memos were no longer operative and had been secretly “withdrawn or superseded.”

This document had the character of a legal cover for the government attorneys who are clearly complicit in the criminal activities of the Bush administration, including domestic spying, torture and extra-legal detentions.

This cover-up is essentially taken as good coin by the Obama administration and the Democrats in Congress. The administration treats the earlier memos as “mistakes,” while Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said that the memos exposed “the Bush administration’s misguided national security policies.”

Involved here were not “misguided” policies in an otherwise legitimate “war on terror,” but rather a deliberate and frontal assault on the Constitution and democratic rights. No one, either in the Obama administration or in the Democratic congressional leadership, suggests that those responsible for these illegal policies should be held accountable, including by means of criminal prosecutions.

The American Civil Liberties Union, whose lawsuits were at least partially responsible for the release of the memos, welcomed their publication, but noted pointedly that “dozens of other OLC memos, including memos that provided the basis for the Bush administration’s torture and warrantless wiretapping policies, are still being withheld.”

Indeed, far from “turning the page” on the government criminality and dictatorial actions of the Bush administration, the Obama Justice Department is defending them. In two cases before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in California—one involving the rendition of suspects to torture centers overseas, and the second, the illegal wiretapping of US citizens—Obama’s attorneys have invoked the “state secrets privilege,” arguing that even to allow the cases to be heard would pose a threat to national security.

In the wiretapping case, a judge last Friday ruled against the government, ordering that a classified document proving that the National Security Agency illegally spied on an Islamic charity and its lawyers be released to the plaintiffs. The Obama Justice Department responded with the extraordinary argument that the court had no right to release the document, and that the decision of the Director of National Intelligence to keep it secret could not be questioned.

In making this argument, the Obama administration is defending both illegal domestic spying—which continues to this day—and the principle of unchallengeable executive power, which was at the heart of the dictatorial conceptions laid out in the Bush Justice Department memos.

Continuity rather than change is what characterizes the Obama administration’s actions. The Democratic Party and its congressional leaders were, after all, direct accomplices in the criminal actions of the Bush administration, from illegal wars of aggression, to domestic spying, rendition and torture.

More fundamentally, the turn towards police state methods of rule is driven not by an overarching fear of terrorism, but by the explosive tensions building up within American society itself, which is characterized above all by the highest levels of social inequality since before the last Great Depression.

Democratic forms are increasingly irreconcilable with the immense gulf dividing the masses of working people from the narrow financial elite that controls both major parties and all the institutions of government. Under conditions of the unfolding meltdown of the capitalist economy, the tendencies toward dictatorial methods of rule will only accelerate, under Obama just as surely as they would have under Bush.

Bill Van Auken

Saudi Minister Urges Arab Unity Against Enemies of Israel

Arabs should stand up to Iran: Saudi minister

CAIRO: Saudi Arabia’s minister of foreign affairs urged Arabs on Tuesday to stand up to Persian Iran’s ambitions in the region, including its nuclear programme.

Prince Saud Al-Faisal told a meeting of Arab foreign ministers that non-Arab countries should not interfere in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories – all places where Iran had been accused of supporting militants. Saud stressed that the resolution of disputes among Arabs depended on “a unified and a joint vision” in dealing with the “Iranian challenge in regard to the Arabian Gulf security and the nuclear issue”. His remarks came a day after he and his Arab counterparts had expressed their concerns about the growing influence of Shia Iran to United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The ministers and Clinton met on the sidelines of an international conference in Egypt on Monday that raised $5.2 billion in pledges to rebuild the devastated Gaza Strip. ap

Midas Ears

Wednesday, 04 March 2009 04:10 Israel Shamir

A new spectre haunts America. It enters the well-protected boardrooms of newspapers and banks, shakes the deep foundations of its towers. It is the spectre of glasnost: the dark secret of Jewish power is out. Just recently it was ‘third rail’, touch-and-die, deadly dangerous to mention, certain end to a career. Just recently, Joe Public snapped his TV from an eminence with an Israeli passport to a member of a Jewish think-tank, and muttered to himself: Surely it is just a coincidence that so many important and largely unelected people in our country happen to belong to this small minority group. Surely it is just a coincidence that they belong to different parties but reach the same conclusions. Surely it is just a coincidence that ninety per cent of American foreign aid goes to their cousins in prosperous Tel Aviv. Surely it is just a coincidence that they run our newspapers, television, cinema, universities. Anyway, we are not allowed to notice this elephant in our sitting room.

Only rare desperados comment, as Edgar Steele did on Rense.com: “The silence in America concerning Jews is simply deafening, isn’t it? The old adage has it that, when visiting a foreign country, to ascertain who really runs things, one need determine only who is spoken about in whispers, if at all.” Judged by this measure, the Jews rule supreme. Indeed, when I referred to ‘Jewish media lords’ during a UNESCO conference in the summer of 2001, the audience’s hearts missed a beat.

The yet-unfought War on Iraq changed this. The American Ultimatum date was set on 17 March, the Jewish feast of Purim. Purim, 1991 saw destruction of Iraqi armies and death of 200,000 Iraqis. Too many coincidences for a purely American war. The Americans peeped into the bottomless abyss of World War Three and woke up from their generation-long stupor. Thus the first victim of the Iraqi War is not truth, but the strongest taboo in the West. A Democrat member of Congress, usually a most docile specimen, one James Moran, dared to tell his supporters: “If it were not for the strong support of the Jewish community for this war with Iraq we would not be doing this.”

He was immediately slapped by a Jewish overseer: “It is simply stunning to hear Representative Moran make such accusations”, said National Jewish Democratic Council Executive Director, Ira N. Forman. “First, a number of the current leaders of the anti-war movement are Jewish, and Jewish organizations have clearly not been at the forefront among those groups actively and stridently supporting a war in Iraq”. Forman had spoken, and the media reported and amplified his view, and Moran duly recanted, slapped. But he is not the only one.

The secret is out, and like the secret of King Midas and his long ears, it is being sung now from coast to coast, despite the frantic efforts of the organised Jewish community to clamp the lid back on the boiling cauldron. Kathleen and Bill Christison,[i] two ex-CIA experts, exposed the link between right-wing American Jews and the Bush Administration. Edward Said, the most celebrated American thinker of Palestinian origin, stated the cause: “An immensely wealthy and powerful republic has been hijacked by a small cabal of individuals, all of them unelected and therefore unresponsive to public pressure.”[ii]

He was seconded by courageous Herman, Neumann and Blankfort. These Americans of Jewish origin object to the un-elected, anti-democratic Jewish power as they would object to any disproportionate minority power. Their presence, as they were not afraid of the anti-Semitic label, was instrumental in turning the tide and saving the intimidated majority from its browbeating.

Edward Herman, the author of Manufacturing Consent (together with Noam Chomsky), wrote of “the powerful pro-Israel lobby in the United States, which advances Israeli interests by pushing for U.S. aid and protection to Israel, and, currently, by pressing for a war against Iraq, which again will serve Israeli interests. This lobby has not only helped control media debate and made congress into `Israeli occupied territory’, it has seen to it that numerous officials with ‘dual loyalties’ occupy strategic decision-making positions in the Bush administration…”

Jeffrey Blankfort, the Californian who defeated ADL in court and made Foxman pay heaps of dollars for his espionage against activists, took an important next step and rejected the views upheld by Noam Chomsky, Joel Beinin and Stephen Zunes, for these older radicals play down the crucial importance of Jewish power. Jeff Blankfort noticed the roots of the Rupture Evangelicals’ meteoric rise in the US. This obscure sect would never have left its lair in remote Dixie, but for the Jewish media lords. Jeff noticed that when Black Entertainment Television was taken over by Viacom, whose owner, Sumner Redstone (né Murray Rothstein), was recently described in the New York Times as the world’s biggest media owner, he eliminated BET’s news program and began running evangelical Christian infomercials for Israel. Blankfort’s list of ‘Jews in media’[iii] enables an understanding of the secret of Jewish charm, and it can be compared with a similar extensive list by Prof. Kevin MacDonald of California State University.

The Iraqi War, and even more its linkage with Palestine, became the litmus test of Jewish power. Organised Jewry pushed for war and at the same time denied its involvement. Thus in New York City, the City Council rejected an anti-war resolution, and only 12 of its 51 members were for it. This is not strange for heavily Jewish New York. Indeed, a Democrat, Rep. Robert Jackson, said it in a most straightforward way: “New York City is the home away from home for most Jews; and many members of the Jewish community think [the war is] in the best interests of the state of Israel.” According to Jackson, several of his council colleagues have been intimidated into silence by the pro-Israel crowd: “People are not talking about this.”

Jackson was certainly right, but a Jewish newspaper[iv] (surprisingly or not, all newspapers in the New York area are Jewish) condemned him for … racism: “[He claimed that] not only do the Jews run New York City, but they’ve cowed their opponents into silence. Jackson could as well call New York Hymietown.”

This response is remarkable for its typically Jewish logic. First, the opponent’s rational argument is perverted and distorted, then it is aligned with opprobrium; and at the last stage, the opponent is destroyed forever. That is one of the secrets of Jewish might: the Jews enter a dialogue berserk-like, with great vehemence, quite foreign to the Socratic style. While sane people are satisfied with quoting their opponent and fighting his arguments, madmen (for berserk is a temporarily-mad individual) go for the jugular.

David Mamet, the Jewish American playwright, provides a good example of this vehemence as he notices a “Volvo of old, the vehicle of my brethren, the congenitally liberal. It was festooned, as are its kind, with every sort of correct exhortation: Save James Bay, Honour Diversity, and so on. A most interesting bumper sticker read: Israel Out of the Settlements … a slogan which could best be translated as Hook-nosed Jews Die”.

I wonder why Mamet stopped at this, for with equal adequacy the slogan can be translated as Torture Babies, Denounce America and Burn Apple Pie. Who cares for the form of the Jewish nose? Mel Brooks noticed long ago that Jewish girls have the cutest noses, made by the best plastic surgeons…

It is the racist Jewish policies in occupied Palestine that annoy good, ‘congenitally liberal’ people. But if Mamet were honest, he would not be Mamet.
Now, Bill Keller of the NY Times read the Riot Act to the Americans. He kindly allows that ‘most of the big Jewish organizations and many donors are backing the war’ but insists that ‘the idea that Israel’s interests are driving one of the most momentous shifts in America’s foreign policy is simple-minded and offensive’. Well, Keller is certainly being paid for his convictions by a Jewish media lord, and one of the nastiest, Arthur Sulzberger Jr, the owner of the NY Times, the Boston Globe and a host of other publications. This undermines the possible veracity of Keller’s words. Let something similar be written in a thoroughly non-Jewish newspaper! But alas, there are no important media outlets in the US that are not owned or controlled by Jews …

Surely a coincidence? Do not bet on it. A few days ago, in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, at the Sasson Conference on anti-Semitism, the French Jewish historian Simcha Epstein of the Antisemitism Institute dealt with the situation in pre-war France but pertained more immediately to America. This is what Epstein said:

“The pre-war anti-Semites said that the Jews of France organized a syndicate secretly bankrolling and subverting the press. And what did the Jews say at that time? They said: ‘Of course not! No, it’s a lie, of course not! We are not engaged in conspiracies!’ And what did the historians and the Jewish historiography coming afterwards say? ‘Of course not! It is anti-Semitic drivel!’ But we know now from Jewish sources that before the WWII the Jews of France secretly financed the press.

“Since the end of 19^th century, there was a secret Jewish organization, well financed, which bought and bankrolled newspapers. Sometimes it took over existing newspapers, which suddenly became pro-Dreifus because they received Jewish subsidies. New papers were created especially by the Jews. Two very important papers of the period, one was called Les Droits de l’Homme, the Rights of Man, was financed by the Jews, and L’Humanité, which was the Socialist and then the Communist newspaper of France, was also financed by Jews. I say this on the authority Jewish sources of course.

“And this brings us to a dramatic dilemma of historiography. Saying this, saying what I said, is something horrible and unacceptable, because it means that the Jews organized a conspiracy and secretly bought the media, or part of the media. That was precisely what the anti-Semites said at that time, and what they still say today. And we know now from Jewish sources that the allegations were true, that there was a Jewish clandestine activity of bankrolling the press.” [Listen to this sentence ]

Some people perceive every suggestion that Jews are able to act together as a mad conspiracy theory. Let them read and re-read this report by a Jewish historian made at a Jewish conference. If it is proven now beyond any reasonable doubt that the Jews of France secretly bought and subverted French media for many years in order to distort the national discourse and eventually push unprepared France into the horrible and unneeded World War Two, is it impossible to consider that the Jews of the US have secretly taken over their national media and are now pushing the US into a horrible and unneeded World War Three?

Actually there is no need for secrecy. One of the chief Zionist ideologists, Zeev Hefetz (ex-spokesman of PM Begin), wrote in an American daily: “Disarming Iraq is only a start in Middle East” as “the Arab and Iranian (sic!) cultures” are “irrational” and that nothing can be done, short of war, to “improve the collective mental health of Arab societies”. [v]Certainly this massive ‘disarmament’ will be carried out by American soldiers, though the commands will be given by the Jewish chicken-hawks roosting in Pentagon. As for reasons for the war, they were eloquently stated by a keynote speaker at a conference on anti-Semitism by Yehuda Bauer, the director of the Holocaust Memorial Institute Yad va-Shem in Jerusalem:

The Jews are not a nation, neither a religion, he said. They are a civilisation, and they have their civilising mission. They cannot tolerate the competing civilisation of Islam, as they could not tolerate Christendom or Communism. That is why the war with Islam is unavoidable.

But the war is avoidable. Even today, at minutes before H-hour, the war is avoidable. And if fire is unavoidable, let the Jewish advisers of President Bush be fired. Let this Purim see the great Exodus of the “Wolfowitz Cabal” from the Pentagon. Excluding the clinical possibility of his actual zombification, G W Bush should be able to understand that he has been misled by this powerful, un-elected minority. They cannot deliver what they promised. Moreover, their own days at the helm of the Republic are numbered. They over-estimated their abilities, and pushed too hard. As the frog of La Fontaine, they can blow up. Bush still can do a U-turn, and save himself and his country.

In a way, today’s America reminds of Russia in 1986, at the beginning of glasnost. After the Soviet citizens were allowed to learn who rules them and how, the days of the Soviet regime were counted. Glasnost gave place to perestroika. Now, for the first time in a generation, Americans are allowed to see the men in power, the toxic combination of the Right-Wing Democrats of Lieberman, the Republican neo-liberals, the Neo-Cons and plain Con-men. The Iraqi War brought them forward and presented them in clear light. Now is the time to undo their hold.

It can’t be postponed for the divisive presidency of G W Bush is perceived as the period of ‘White’ Protestant Anglo-Saxon rule, despite the prevalence of his Jewish advisers. All available contenders for the next elections – Lieberman, Kelly and even Kuchinich – claim their Jewish connections and declare their undivided loyalty to Jewry and to the state of Israel. In the present political setup of America, there will be no real alternative to Jewish ascendancy. If Bush flops, it will be construed by the media as a WASP flop. If he succeeds, it will be seen as success of his Jewish advisers.

That is why American patriot forces should not wait for the next elections, or for the end of war. They must act now, by calling the war off. They have an enemy, but he is not in Iraq. What is called for is a new American revolution, on a par with the New Deal and abolition of slavery, with de-monopolisation of the discourse; that is of media and universities, for starters. In the beginning of the Twentieth Century, Americans undid the mighty Standard Oil. They created new anti-monopoly laws and terminated the threat to democracy. This achievement could be repeated now.

---

[i] Kathleen and Bill Christison, `A Rose By Another Name: The Bush Administration’s Dual Loyalties’, Counterpunch, Dec. 13, 2002).

[ii] http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/628/op2.htm

[iii] Here is enough sampling to indicate that it is not:

First of all, Sumner Redstone ( né Murray Rothstein) owns $8 billion dollars worth of Viacom, which gives him the controlling interest in CBS, Viacom, MTV worldwide (Brian Graden, president), and most recently he bought Black Entertainment Television and proceeded immediately to cut down its public-affairs programming. The president of CBS is Leslie Moonves, the great nephew of David Ben-Gurion.

Michael Eisner is the major owner of Disney-Capitol Cities, which owns ABC. David Westin is the president of ABC News. Although it has lost viewers, Nightline host Ted Koppel is a strong supporter of Israel. Lloyd Braun is chair of ABC Entertainment. And there is the perennial Barbara Walters.

Neil Shapiro is the president of NBC News. Jeffrey Zucker is the head of NBC Entertainment and Jack Myers has some important post there, as well.

Although Rupert Murdoch of Fox is not Jewish, Mel Karamazin, the president of the corporation is, as is Peter Chernin, the second in command at Murdoch’s News Corps.

Sandy Grushow is chairman of Fox Entertainment, and Gail Berman is president. Murtdoch has received numerous awards from various Jewish charities.

Jamie Kellner is chair and CEO of Turner Broadcasting.

Walter Issacson is the News Director of CNN which also has Wolf Blitzer, host of Late Edition, Larry King of Larry King Live, Paula Zahn, and Andrea Koppel, Ted’s daughter.

Jordan Levin is chairman of Warner Bros. Entertainment.

Howard Stringer is chair of Sony Corp. of America.

Robert Sillerman is the founder of Clear Channel Communications,

Ivan Seidenberg is chair of Verizon Communications

Terry Semel, former co-chair of Warners is CEO of Yahoo.

Barry Diller, former owner of Universal Entertainment, is the chair of USA Interactive.

Joel Klein is chair and CEO of Bertelsmann’s American operations, the largest publishing conglomerate in the world.

Mort Zuckerman, the Chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish American Organizations, owns US News and World Report and the NY Daily News.

Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. publishes the NY Times, the Boston Globe and a host of other publications.

Marty Peretz publishes the New Republic, which is unabashedly pro-Israel, as is

William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard.

Donald Graham, Jr. is the chair and CEO of Newsweek and the Washington Post.

Michael Ledeen, of Iran-Contra fame, edits National Review.

Ron Rosenthal is the Managing Editor of the SF Chronicle and Phil Bronstein is the Executive Editor.

David Schneiderman owns the Village Voice and a number of other “alternative” weeklies.

Columnist William Safire, Tom Freidman, Charles Krauthammer, Richard Cohen, Jeff Jacoby, are among the most widely syndicated columnists.

There are a number of widely syndicated talk show hosts such as Michael Savage (ABC) on more than 100 stations, Michael Medved, 124 stations, and Dennis Prager who has an Israeli flag on his website. Others include Ron Owens, Ben Wattenberg, and former ZOA official Jon Rothman, all in San Francisco on ABC.

In Hollywood, which was founded by Jews, there is of course, Stephen Spielberg, David Geffen, and Jeffrey Kranzberg of Dreamworks, Eisner of Disney, Amy Pascal, chair of Columbia, and many, many more.

For the intellectuals, we have NPR, with pundit Daniel Schorr and weekend hosts Scott Simon and Liane Hansen, Robert Segal, Susan Stanberg, Eric Weiner, Daniel Lev, Linda Gradstein (a well-known speaker at pro-Israel events) covering Jerusalem, Mike Schuster (whose soft-ball interview with Ariel Sharon after Sabra and Shatila should have brought him before the court of Hamarabi). Brook Gladstein.

And that’s just for starters. From the boss to the delivery it’s an impressive list. While they certainly can’t be put in the same box when it comes to Israel, they more or less guarantee that there will be limits to any criticism they may make of Israel”.

[iv] NY Post 22.02.03

[v] November 12, 2002 The New Haven Register

Source: Israel Shamir

GAZA…. OPERATION ‘WINTER STORM’, PART 2

LIVING IN TENTS IN WINTER!!!???

WE SHOULD MAKE CONGRESS WINTER IN SOME TENTS, TO MAKE THEM UNDERSTAND THE INHUMANITY WE SUPPORT EVERYDAY IN THAT SHITTY LITTLE FASCIST COUNTRY IN THE MIDDLE EAST!

GAZA…. OPERATION ‘WINTER STORM’, PART 2

March 3, 2009 at 8:35 am (Gaza, Israel, Palestine, War Crimes)

After ISRAEL demolished their homes

Where are the international human rights organization to see the suffering of Palestinian citizens in Gaza?

It is winter in Gaza and according to the UNITED NATIONS, 50,800 people are now homeless and have no access to the basic necessities of life.

400,000 people are without running water

Most water, sewer, and power facilities have been completely destroyed or rendered inoperable.

Israel has proven to be so completely unaccountable

---

Heritage Foundation Frets Over Ravelling Alliance, Seeks Renewed World Domination

Brown Thinks Its Time for US/Britain to Begin New World Order

The Subtle Seeds of the Terror War (1986)

Obama buries Reaganomics under $3.6 trillion mountain

The president has killed off the idea of small government with a vast schedule of tax and spend to combat recession

The Obama–Brown White House Talks: The U.S.–U.K. Special Relationship Must Be Maintained

by Nile Gardiner, Ph.D.

WebMemo #2317

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will be the first European leader to meet with President Barack Obama when he visits the White House on March 3. The two world leaders are expected to discuss a range of issues, including the war in Afghanistan, the Iranian nuclear threat, and the global financial crisis, as well as the upcoming G-20 talks in London and the NATO 60th anniversary summit in Strasbourg/Kehl. In addition to meeting with the President, Brown will address a joint session of Congress on March 4, making him only the fifth British prime minister to be given the honor. A Shift Away from Britain? The Brown–Obama meeting will be overshadowed by growing concerns about a possible weakening of the U.S.–U.K. Special Relationship, tensions over strategy in the war in Afghanistan, and the threat of a renewed American protectionism. The Anglo-American alliance is being eroded on several fronts, from falling levels of U.K. defense spending and the gutting of Britain’s armed forces by the Labour government to the gradual erosion of British sovereignty in Europe and the rise of a European Union defense identity now being backed by Washington. It is also threatened by the new U.S. Administration’s apathy and indifference toward the U.K. President Obama’s surprise decision to remove a bust of Sir Winston Churchill from the Oval Office and return it to the British government sent an early signal to London that the new Administration will adopt a far less robust approach toward the historic Anglo-American alliance. The White House is already recalibrating the alliance as a “special partnership,” —not a “special relationship”—a subtle play on words indicating a potential shift away from a decades-long policy of according Britain a unique status as America’s most important ally. U.S. Overtures to Europe The Obama White House is keen to significantly strengthen America’s relationship with both France and Germany, continental Europe’s biggest powers, as well as with Brussels, the institutional heart of the European Union. This approach is partly the product of a distinctly pro-European outlook on the part of the new Administration following transatlantic tensions during the Bush Administration. It is also based on a naive belief that major European allies will actually increase defense spending and reduce the burden on America and that the EU will play a more supportive role in world affairs alongside the United States. Washington is already making major concessions to France in the NATO alliance, with French officers reportedly in line to take two senior NATO command positions: Allied Command Transformation (one of NATO’s two supreme commands, based in Norfolk, Virginia) and Joint Command Lisbon (one of NATO’s three main operations headquarters, which also commands the NATO Rapid Reaction Force). The White House is also sending clear signals that it supports a greater military and defense role for the European Union. In his speech at the Munich Security Conference in early February, Vice President Joe Biden made it clear that the United States will “support the further strengthening of European defense, an increased role for the European Union in preserving peace and security, [and] a fundamentally stronger NATO–EU partnership.” Anglo-American Leadership Is NeededSince the Second World War, there has scarcely been a more important period for joint U.S.–British leadership. The Anglo-American Special Relationship would be imperiled if the new U.S. Administration looks to Brussels instead of London for its most important strategic partnership. Jeopardizing this relationship would be a huge mistake. The EU is obsessed with challenging American global leadership rather than working with it, and the European Project is ultimately all about building a counterweight to American power. The Obama–Brown White House meeting will be an important opportunity for the President and the Prime Minister to establish a stronger framework for Anglo-American cooperation on the world stage, particularly in regard to key issues such as Afghanistan, the future of NATO, and the Iranian nuclear crisis. The War in AfghanistanDespite all the fashionable rhetoric in European capitals about Iraq being a distraction from the war against the Taliban, on the battlefields of Afghanistan almost two-thirds of the 47,000 troops currently serving as part of the 40-nation NATO-led International Security Assistance Force are from the English-speaking countries of the U.S., the U.K., Canada, and Australia. These nations have also taken roughly 85 percent of the casualties. Britain has nearly as many troops in the country as all the other major European Union powers combined, some of whom, like Germany, cower under dozens of “caveats” aimed at keeping their troops out of harm’s way. The United States has pledged to send an additional 17,000 troops, and the U.K. is also considering the deployment of further forces to boost the nearly 9,000 British soldiers already serving in Helmand province. President Obama and Prime Minister Brown should directly challenge European complacency and indifference over Afghanistan and issue a strong statement calling on European allies to pull their weight in the conflict by sending more combat troops to the south of the country. NATO is a war-fighting alliance, not a peacekeeping organization. The stakes are extremely high, and there is a danger that the brutal Taliban, backed by al-Qaeda, will reassert control over vast swathes of the country. Europe’s NATO members must make a no-strings attached commitment to step up to the plate and bear a bigger part of the burden. If this does not happen, the consequences for the future of the alliance will be dire. European apathy over Afghanistan threatens to tear NATO apart, and an institution that has for decades succeeded as the most effective international organization of its time could become irrelevant. It is time for French President Nicolas Sarkozy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and other European leaders to roll up their sleeves and commit their troops and resources to winning the war against the Taliban. The Future of NATO In the lead-up to the NATO 60th anniversary summit, both the United States and Great Britain must take a step back and launch a fundamental, wide-ranging review of the long-term implications of French demands for the future of the alliance. It would be a huge strategic error of judgment by the new U.S. Administration and the British government to support French ambitions for restructuring Europe’s security architecture. This would ultimately weaken the Anglo-American Special Relationship as the engine of the transatlantic alliance and pave the way for the development of a separate European Union defense identity, which will ultimately undermine NATO. Washington and London must also commit to advancing the expansion of the NATO alliance—specifically the inclusion of Georgia and Ukraine in the Membership Action Plan. The new U.S. Administration, together with Britain, should send a clear signal to Moscow that NATO expansion is an internal matter for the alliance and not open to Russian veto. A firm commitment must also be made by the Obama Administration to establish a third site missile defense system in Eastern and Central Europe, a vital part of a global defense shield that is needed to protect the West from rogue regimes such as Iran. The Iranian Nuclear Threat President Obama and Prime Minister Brown should issue a strong statement calling for the strengthening of both U.N. Security Council and European sanctions against Tehran. The U.S. and British leaders must push for European countries to support a complete investment freeze—including a ban on investment in Iranian liquefied natural gas operations—and the possible use of military force as a last resort against Iran’s nuclear facilities. They should reject the idea of direct negotiations with a tyranny that has threatened to wipe a key ally, Israel, off the face of the earth. This is a time for tough resolve in the face of an extremely dangerous foe—a rogue state close to nuclear capability ruled by fanatical Islamists that will have no qualms about using their power to dominate the Middle East or to arm a wide array of proxy international terrorist groups. The EU has tried to negotiate with Tehran for several years under the guise of “constructive engagement,” an approach that has resulted in an emboldened Iran that grows closer by the day to building a nuclear weapon. The EU’s policy toward Iran has been all carrot and no stick—a futile exercise that has achieved nothing but failure. Great Britain Is America’s Most Reliable Friend The Special Relationship is vital to American and British interests on many levels, from military, diplomatic, and intelligence cooperation to transatlantic trading ties. If President Obama does not invest in its preservation, the end result will be a weaker United States that is less able to stand up to terrorism and tyranny, and project power and influence on the world stage. Whether waging war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda, standing up to the Russian bear, or halting Iran’s nuclear ambitions, President Obama should maintain the Anglo-American Special Relationship as the centerpiece of the transatlantic alliance. As nearly every post-war President has found, when it comes to securing the free world, there is simply no alternative to U.S.–British leadership Nile Gardiner is the Director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation. Erica Munkwitz assisted with research for this paper.

Wikileaks releases major RAND study into Iraq, Afghan intelligence, counterinsugency: Pentagon Papers II?

Wikileaks

March 2, 2009 Major RAND study with 300 interviews: Intelligence Operations and Metrics in Iraq and Afghanistan, Nov 2008 Download from fast site, current site, Sweden, US, Latvia, Slovakia, UK, Finland, Netherlands, Poland, Tonga, Europe, SSL, Tor Summary This major November, 2008 RAND Corporation study on intelligence operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, conducted 300 interviews at all levels with US, UK and Dutch intelligence officers and diplomats. The 318 page document could be described as part of the “Pentagon Papers” for Iraq and Afghanistan. It was confidentially prepared for the Pentagon’s Joint Forces Command and focuses on intelligence and counterinsurgency operations. Marked “For Official Use Only” study was distribution restricted to a select group of Coalition war partners and Israel. The study is a notable news and policy source, not for its arguments or conclusions, but rather for its wealth of candid and revealing interview quotes which are spread throughout the document, but especially in the 200 page appendix. The material has been verified, and we ask readers to go through the document to extract key quotes for their communities. There is a wealth of interview quotes on almost every aspect of the wars. The authors of the quotes, ranging from the UK Ambassador and the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency to on the ground intelligence officers, can be discovered via the footnote appendix. Sample quote: [THE FOLLOWING DESCRIBES THE PROCESS OF USING LOCAL GROUPS IN COUNTER-INSURGENCY PSYOPS, TO DIVIDE AND FRACTURE THE LOCAL POPULATION, USING CARROT AND STICK TACTICS, CULTIVATING A FRIENDLY GROUP, WHILE NEUTRALIZING “NON-COMPLIANTS.”] COIN Shaping Operations Are a Matter of Holding Ground with Some Segments of the Population While Altering Attitudes in Others If you are able to win over the real loyalty of a small percentage of the population and create ambivalence in the large segment of population, then you are going to win. —Maj Justin Featherstone, British Army12 British Army Lt Col Jim Suggit provided the author an interesting and potentially valuable expansion of a concept very similar to that previously introduced in the RAND publication Street Smart: Intelligence Preparation of the Battleield for Urban Areas.13 he RAND work ofered the continuum of relative interests, with which some readers might be familiar, as a means of considering populations in a conlict environment (see Figure 4.1). Colonel Suggit’s model relies on diferent stratiication, but the more interesting aspect is his use of pins, levers, and springs as means of portraying shaping operations. he series of images in Figure 4.2 uses imaginary individuals in the habitually noncompliant sector and those to its right as an exemplary case. he model consists of pins, to keep groups or individuals in place while inluencing 1. or moving one or more others 2. levers, to increase separation between selected groups as desired 3. springs to oust or eliminate those chosen for purging. 14 The overarching objective is to move members of the population from right to left (toward increasing compliance) while neutralizing those unwilling to make such a change. Operations in the example provided, start with ixing (pinning) individuals in the rarely compliant group and those to their left in place (i.e., maintaining their levels of compliance and forestalling deterioration in attitude). 15 A lever then increases the separation between the rarely compliant and habitually noncompliant groups to facilitate eforts to reduce the inluence of the habitually noncompliant on individuals to their left. Eforts to improve compliance in the rarely compliant group are then undertaken, success being shown by the spread of color from those who are sometimes compliant. Further operations seek to purge the fanatical hostile group. While the physical representation of the model is helpful, the real value is in the functions represented by the pins, levers, and springs. Realizing that all actions and messages inluence multiple audiences, the conscious efort of ixing or pinning attitudes in place (e.g., via PSYOP messages, providing civil-afairs aid) is crucial, as is recognition that separating some groups from others improves chances of success (e.g., by demonizing the habitually noncompliant group while demonstrating the beneits of increased compliance). The model also relects understanding of an obvious but often-overlooked condition: Some individuals are simply incorrigible and must be eliminated. Resources expended to persuade them to become more compliant are wasted in all but the most exceptional of cases. 12 Featherstone (2006). 13 Medby and Glenn (2002). 14 Suggit (2007a). 15 Suggit (2007c). UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY// REL TO USA/AUS/NZL/ISR/NATO UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY// REL TO USA/AUS/NZL/ISR/NATO General Counterinsurgency Observations 73 Figure 4.1 Continuum of Relative Interests SOURCE: Medby and Glenn (2002). RAND TR605-4.1 Adversary: A population element with the capability, interest, and intent to exploit a friendly vulnerability. Obstacle: A population element with an active capability to exploit a friendly vulnerability. Current interests may or may not be compatible with friendly-force goals, but there is no intention to interfere with friendlyforce activities. Neutral: A population element whose interests do not conflict with either the friendly or adversarial force. Capability to affect the friendly-force mission may exist, but it is currently inert. Accomplice: A population element with the capability to capitalize on a friendly or adversary vulnerability and whose intentions are compatible with friendly-force objectives. Ally: A population element whose interest and intent is to assist in accomplishing friendly-force objectives. Context United States Military or intelligence (ruling) RAND Corporation Primary language English File size in bytes 3576168 File type information PDF document, version 1.3 Cryptographic identity SHA256 d6f1e55f8a6920b22446c76137782dc2c9238b274dbed182bbef02fca78ed533

:: Article nr. 52303 sent on 22-nov-2009 04:00 ECT
www.uruknet.info?p=52303

Link: wikileaks.org/wiki/Major_RAND_study_with_300_interviews:_Intelligence_Operations
_and_Metrics_in_Iraq_and_Afghanistan%2C_Nov_2008

New World Order Begins with a Handshake

Brown arrives in US for talks with Obama

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is in the United States for his first meeting with President Barack Obama. Ahead of the visit, Brown said he would press Obama on the need to cooperate globally to counter the economic crisis. The British prime minister, the first European leader to meet President Obama, has called for “bold action” as the Group of 20 major economies prepare to meet in London next month. During his stay in Washington, Brown will also address both chambers of Congress.

Experimental Animals – ( Why Atomic Vets Nix Nukes )

MY UNCLE DICK WAS ALSO A VETERAN SURVIVOR OF “OPERATIONS CROSSROADS” ATOMIC TESTS IN 1946–support ship USS Burleson (APA-67)

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It’s Time For The Madness To Stop By Sheila Samples March 03, 2009 “Information Clearing House” — Sometimes it’s hard to come to grips with the truth — especially if that truth is about our own country, and is in direct opposition to everything we’ve been taught since childhood. Patriotism is in our genes, and through the years it has been a national conviction that, if our country needed us, serving in the military to protect our freedom was not only the right thing to do, but the only thing to do. We still believe that. We still leap to our feet at the first beat of a drum at a military parade, clutch our hearts at the sight of the Stars and Stripes, weep at the refrain of the National Anthem. However, far too many of us succumb to the pomp and pageantry of war — of mission accomplished — with little concern for the human beings who made that possible — what they went through, what they’re still going through — so we can maintain our arrogant national pride. From the beginning, those in the military have served their country with unswerving loyalty. They continued to march even after Henry Kissinger belched out the truth that Duty–Honor–Country is a one-way street because “Military men are dumb, stupid animals to be used” as pawns for foreign policy. And, it has long been a dead-end street for those captured or left behind on foreign soil — for those who return from battlefields maimed both mentally and physically, and for those who are innocent victims of malicious life-destroying experiments who have no chance of the extent of their injuries being recognized and are refused the necessary health care. The most ghastly experiment the military ever conducted was Operation Crossroads, a series of “Manhattan Project” tests requested by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1946 to study the effects of nuclear weapons on ships and equipment. After bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki the year before, US officials knew the effect of massive radiation on human beings and animals. They had to know. So what else were the thousands of navy personnel positioned on ships from five to eight miles from the Bikini Atoll bomb site in the central Pacific if not guinea pigs? One young sailor stationed at the Bikini Atoll in 1946 was Anthony Guarisco who, like thousands of others, has suffered horribly for the last 63 years as a result of radiation poisoning and like those others, has been denied the proper health care. Guarisco is the founder of both the National and International Alliance of Atomic Veterans. In 1994, Academy Award-winning team Vivienne Verdon-Roe and Michael Porter produced a documentary, “Experimental Animals,” featuring Guarisco who, very calmly, describes the horrors of that 1946 July. (Note: Ecological Options Network has just re-released “Experimental Animals” on-line and as a DVD, because EON filmmaker/activist Jim Heddle says, “we think it’s as relevant today as it was when it was produced.”) The first bomb — Able — was dropped from a B-29 on July 1. As a health precaution, military personnel in the area were told to “cover their eyes.” Guarisco said it was awesome. He said it immediately “came home to me what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I could see how 55-65 thousand people could die in one-and-a-half seconds.” But the second one — Baker — was beyond awesome. Guarisco said it was detonated beneath the ocean from a depth of 90 feet, and “sucked a target array of approximately 100 ships into the air like little toys. I saw the U.S. Arkansas soar into the air about 200 feet and come down in two pieces. I saw aircraft carriers just flinging around as if they were toys.” According to the Navy’s historical report, “The inability to complete inspections on much of the target fleet threatened the success of the operation after BAKER. A program of target vessel decontamination was begun in earnest about 1 August. This involved washing the ships’ exteriors using work crews drawn from the target ships’ companies under radiological supervision of monitors equipped with radiation detection and measurement devices. Initially, decontamination was slow as the safe time aboard the target ships was measured only in minutes. As time progressed, the support fleet itself had become contaminated by the low-level radioactivity in marine growth on the ships’ hulls and seawater piping systems.” Ironically, although the ships were towed out of the area just 10 days after the blast where the work could be done in uncontaminated water, no warning was given to the human experimental animals, who were allowed to swim in contaminated water, walk barefoot on beaches and breathe poisonous air. Guarisco said, “We went back into the ground zero area immediately after each of the detonations, and I spent a total of 67 days in the Bikini lagoon within one mile of the epicenter. And I became ill after the second detonation, approximately four or five days after that…I had symptoms similar to having a bad case of influenza. I had welts on my body — I broke out with welts — and it was scary for me. I was urinating blood, I was very sick.” And Guarisco wasn’t the only one who became ill. In a 1998 National Radio Project interview with Michael O’Rourke, who monitors veterans health issues for the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States, Guarisco said, “Other people on my ship were also feeling very sick. And for many, many years I thought that, well, certainly if there was anything wrong surely they would let me know. But,” he said, “I found out many years later that’s not how it is. You know, the government and the U.S. military are not about to say anything about anybody who’s exposed to high levels or low levels of radiation. It was hard for me to come out of denial, to understand that I was dealing with people who really were not interested in anything else but waiting for me to die.” Guarisco says that, in one — two — blinding flashes, “we saw what World War III will look like. We have seen the firestorm, we have been witness to the sacrilegious devastation that nuclear weapons put forth, and we have seen our brother and our sister veterans die from being exposed to this terribleness.” He says the bottom line of nuclear weapons is the bottom line of the profit margin — that “deterrent” or “first strike” are fear code words used to keep the population at bay and to pave the way for the nuclear industry to keep building more expensive (profitable) weapons. In his March 2008 tribute to both of his parents, Guarisco’s son, Vincent, goes into greater detail about his father’s lifelong battle, not only with the effects of radiation but with the nuclear industry and government itself. For more than 60 years, both Anthony and Mary Guarisco were out there, militant activists armed with the truth, relentlessly attempting to derail the nuclear train before it goes over the cliff, taking human survival with it. The United States has more nuclear weapons than any other nation. Although we have avoided the instant, negative repercussions of another Nagasaki or Hiroshima, we have nevertheless managed to contaminate most of the world with Depleted Uranium. In 2006, Japanese professor Dr. K. Yagasaki, by using the known amount of uranium used in the Hiroshima bomb — about the size of a two-litre milk container — calculated that a ton of DU used on the battlefield results in the equivalent of 100 Hiroshima bombs worth of radiation released into the atmosphere. So, when it was reported that 2,000 tons of DU were dropped on Iraq from 2003 to 2006, we need to understand that what was released in the Iraqi atmosphere, and then spreading worldwide, was the equivalent of 200,000 Hiroshima bombs. The total amount of DU the US has used since 1991 is approximately 4,600 tons (1,000 in the first Gulf War, 800 in Kosovo, 800 in Afghanistan and a further 2,000 tons in the second Iraq war.) This amounts to approximately 460,000 Hiroshima bombs, ten times the amount of radiation released into the atmosphere from all previous nuclear testing worldwide. And, it’s important to note this calculation was three years ago. Since that time, we’ve had three more years of non-stop DU bombing… Throughout the ’60s, the US conducted numerous toxic and chemical weapons tests on its military personnel. In July 2008, Nic Maclellan, journalist, researcher and development worker in the Pacific, wrote… “Under Project SHAD, the US Navy conducted six tests in the Marshall Islands and off the coast of Hawai’i between 1964-68. Pentagon documents released in 2002 show the US Defense Department sprayed live nerve and biological agents on ships and sailors, and sprayed a germ toxin on Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands. “These Cold War-era experiments to test the Navy’s vulnerability to toxic warfare involved about 4,300 US military personnel, mostly from the Navy. Most were never informed that the tests were being conducted, breaching all ethical principles about informed consent for test subjects.” It’s time that we, as a nation, not only face the truth — but come to grips with it. Those who serve with such trust and loyalty cannot imagine that they are, at best, “experimental animals” to be used and cast aside by ruthless corporate thugs. How many generations of Anthony Guariscos must we lose before we realize that “support the troops” means protect the troops? Like Guarisco said, we must stand up, stand together and demand the abolition of all nuclear weapons if human beings on this planet are to survive. It’s time for the madness to stop. Before we are all atomic veterans. Sheila Samples http://sheilastuff.blogspot.com/ is an Oklahoma writer and a former civilian US Army Public Information Officer. She is a regular contributor for a variety of Internet sites. Contact her at rsamples@wichitaonline.net

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The Language of Looting

by Michael Hudson

In order to steal literally everything, the Lords of Finance must render language incapable of describing the crime. “Society’s basic grammar of thought, the vocabulary to discuss political and economic topics, is being turned inside-out.” The banksters still think they can rule from the center of confusion. “Today’s policy is to ‘rescue’ these giant bank conglomerates by enabling them to ‘earn’ their way out of debt – by selling yet more debt to an already over-indebted U.S. economy. The hope is to re-inflate real estate and other asset prices.”

This article originally appeared in Counterpunch.org.

“Banking shares began to plunge Friday morning after Senator Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat who is chairman of the banking committee, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television that he was concerned the government might end up nationalizing some lenders “at least for a short time.” Several other prominent policy makers – including Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina – have echoed that view recently.” — Eric Dash, “Growing Worry on Rescue Takes a Toll on Banks,” The New York Times, February 20, 2009

How is it that Alan Greenspan, free-market lobbyist for Wall Street, recently announced that he favored nationalization of America’s banks – and indeed, mainly the biggest and most powerful? Has the old disciple of Ayn Rand gone Red in the night? Surely not.

The answer is that the rhetoric of “free markets,” “nationalization” and even “socialism” (as in “socializing the losses”) has been turned into the language of deception to help the financial sector mobilize government power to support its own special privileges. Having undermined the economy at large, Wall Street’s public relations think tanks are now dismantling the language itself.

Exactly what does “a free market” mean? Is it what the classical economists advocated – a market free from monopoly power, business fraud, political insider dealing and special privileges for vested interests – a market protected by the rise in public regulation from the Sherman Anti-Trust law of 1890 to the Glass-Steagall Act and other New Deal legislation? Or is it a market free for predators to exploit victims without public regulation or economic policemen – the kind of free-for-all market that the Federal Reserve and Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) have created over the past decade or so? It seems incredible that people should accept today’s neoliberal idea of “market freedom” in the sense of neutering government watchdogs, Alan Greenspan-style, letting Angelo Mozilo at Countrywide, Hank Greenberg at AIG, Bernie Madoff, Citibank, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers loot without hindrance or sanction, plunge the economy into crisis and then use Treasury bailout money to pay the highest salaries and bonuses in U.S. history.

“Having undermined the economy at large, Wall Street’s public relations think tanks are now dismantling the language itself.”

Terms that are the antithesis of “free market” also are being turned into the opposite of what they historically have meant. Take today’s discussions about nationalizing the banks. For over a century nationalization has meant public takeover of monopolies or other sectors to operate them in the public interest rather than leaving them to special interests. But when neoliberals use the word “nationalization” they mean a bailout, a government giveaway to the financial interests.

Doublethink and doubletalk with regard to “nationalizing” or “socializing” the banks and other sectors is a travesty of political and economic discussion from the 17th through mid-20th centuries. Society’s basic grammar of thought, the vocabulary to discuss political and economic topics, is being turned inside-out in an effort to ward off discussion of the policy solutions posed by the classical economists and political philosophers that made Western civilization “Western.”

Today’s clash of civilization is not really with the Orient; it is with our own past, with the Enlightenment itself and its evolution into classical political economy and Progressive Era social reforms aimed at freeing society from the surviving trammels of European feudalism. What we are seeing is propaganda designed to deceive, to distract attention from economic reality so as to promote the property and financial interests from whose predatory grasp classical economists set out to free the world. What is being attempted is nothing less than an attempt to destroy the intellectual and moral edifice of what took Western civilization eight centuries to develop, from the 12th century Schoolmen discussing Just Price through 19th and 20th century classical economic value theory.

“What we are seeing is propaganda designed to deceive, to distract attention from economic reality.”

Any idea of “socialism from above,” in the sense of “socializing the risk,” is old-fashioned oligarchy – kleptocratic statism from above. Real nationalization occurs when governments act in the public interest to take over private property. The 19th-century program to nationalize the land (it was the first plank of the Communist Manifesto) did not mean anything remotely like the government taking over estates, paying off their mortgages at public expense and then giving it back to the former landlords free and clear of encumbrances and taxes. It meant taking the land and its rental income into the public domain, and leasing it out at a user fee ranging from actual operating cost to a subsidized rate or even freely as in the case of streets and roads.

Nationalizing the banks along these lines would mean that the government would supply the nation’s credit needs. The Treasury would become the source of new money, replacing commercial bank credit. Presumably this credit would be lent out for economically and socially productive purposes, not merely to inflate asset prices while loading down households and business with debt as has occurred under today’s commercial bank lending policies.

How neoliberals falsify the West’s political history

The fact that today’s neoliberals claim to be the intellectual descendants of Adam Smith make it necessary to restore a more accurate historical perspective. Their concept of “free markets” is the antithesis of Smith’s. It is the opposite of that of the classical political economists down through John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx and the Progressive Era reforms that sought to create markets free of extractive rentier claims by special interests whose institutional power can be traced back to medieval Europe and its age of military conquest.

Economic writers from the 16th through 20th centuries recognized that free markets required government oversight to prevent monopoly pricing and other charges levied by special privilege. By contrast, today’s neoliberal ideologues are public relations advocates for vested interests to depict a “free market” is one free of government regulation, “free” of anti-trust protection, and even of protection against fraud (as evidenced by the SEC’s refusal to move against Madoff, Enron, Citibank et al.). The neoliberal ideal of free markets is thus basically that of a bank robber or embezzler, wishing for a world without police so as to be sufficiently free to siphon off other peoples’ money without constraint.

The Chicago Boys in Chile realized that markets free for predatory finance and insider privatization could only be imposed at gunpoint. These free-marketers closed down every economics department in Chile, every social science department outside of the Catholic University where the Chicago Boys held sway. Operation Condor arrested, exiled or murdered tens of thousands of academics, intellectuals, labor leaders and artists. Only by totalitarian control over the academic curriculum and public media backed by an active secret police and army could “free markets” neoliberal style be imposed. The resulting privatization at gunpoint became an exercise in what Marx called “primitive accumulation” – seizure of the public domain by political elites backed by force. It is a free market William-the-Conqueror or Yeltsin-kleptocrat style, with property parceled out to the companions of the political or military leader.

“The neoliberal ideal of free markets is basically that of a bank robber or embezzler, wishing for a world without police.”

All this was just the opposite of the kind of free markets that Adam Smith had in mind when he warned that businessmen rarely get together but to plot ways to fix markets to their advantage. This is not a problem that troubled Mr. Greenspan or the editorial writers of the New York Times and Washington Post. There really is no kinship between their neoliberal ideals and those of the Enlightenment political philosophers. For them to promote an idea of free markets as ones “free” for political insiders to pry away the public domain for themselves is to lower an intellectual Iron Curtain on the history of economic thought.

The classical economists and American Progressives envisioned markets free of economic rent and interest – free of rentier overhead charges and monopoly price gouging, free of land-rent, interest paid to bankers and wealthy financial institutions, and free of taxes to support an oligarchy. Governments were to base their tax systems on collecting the “free lunch” of economic rent, headed by that of favorable locations supplied by nature and given market value by public investment in transportation and other infrastructure, not by the efforts of landlords themselves.

The argument between Progressive Era reformers, socialists, anarchists and individualists thus turned on the political strategy of how best to free markets from debt and rent. Where they differed was on the best political means to achieve it, above all the role of the state. There was broad agreement that the state was controlled by vested interests inherited from feudal Europe’s military conquests and the world that was colonized by European military force. The political question at the turn of the 20th century was whether peaceful democratic reform could overcome the political and even military resistance wielded by the Old Regime using violence to retain its “rights.” The ensuing political revolutions were grounded in the Enlightenment, in the legal philosophy of men such as John Locke, political economists such as Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill and Marx. Power was to be used to free markets from the predatory property and financial systems inherited from feudalism. Markets were to be free of privilege and free lunches, so that people would obtain income and wealth only by their own labor and enterprise. This was the essence of the labor theory of value and its complement, the concept of economic rent as the excess of market price over socially necessary cost-value.

Although we now know that markets and prices, rent and interest, contractual formalities and nearly all the elements of economic enterprise originated in the “mixed economies” of Mesopotamia in the fourth millennium BC and continued throughout the mixed public/private economies of classical antiquity, the discussion was so politically polarized that the idea of a mixed economy with checks and balances received scant attention a century ago.

“Power was to be used to free markets from the predatory property and financial systems inherited from feudalism.”

Individualists believed that shrinking central governments would shrink the control mechanism by which the vested interests extracted wealth without work or enterprise of their own. Socialists saw that a strong government was needed to protect society from the attempts of property and finance to use their gains to monopolize economic and political power. Both ends of the political spectrum aimed at the same objective – to bring prices down to actual costs of production. The common aim was to maximize economic efficiency so as to pass on the fruits of the Industrial and Agricultural Revolutions to the population at large. This required blocking the rentier class of interlopers from grabbing the public domain and controlling the allocation of resources. Socialists did not believe this could be done without taking the state’s political and legal power into their own hands. Marxists believed that a revolution was necessary to reclaim property rent for the public domain, and to enable governments to create their own credit rather than borrow at interest from commercial bankers and wealthy bondholders. The aim was not to create a bureaucracy but to free society from the surviving absentee ownership power of the vested property and financial interests.

All this history of economic thought has been as thoroughly expunged from today’s academic curriculum as it has from popular discussion. Few people remember the great debate at the turn of the 20th century: Would the world progress fairly quickly from Progressive Era reforms to outright socialism – public ownership of basic economic infrastructure, natural monopolies (including the banking system) and the land itself (and to Marxists, of industrial capital as well)? Or, could the liberal reformers of the day – individualists, land taxers, classical economists in the tradition of Mill, and American institutionalists such as Simon Patten – retain capitalism’s basic structure and private property ownership? If they could do so, they recognized that it would have to be in the context of regulating markets and introducing progressive taxation of wealth and income. This was the alternative to outright “state” ownership. Today’s extreme “free market” idea is a dumbed-down caricature of this position.

“A ‘free market’ was an active political creation and required regulatory vigilance.”

All sides viewed the government as society’s “brain,” its forward planning organ. Given the complexity of modern technology, humanity would shape its own evolution. Instead of evolution occurring by “primitive accumulation,” it could be planned deliberately. Individualists countered that no human planner was sufficiently imaginative to manage the complexity of markets, but endorsed the need to strip away all forms of unearned income – economic rent and the rise in land prices that Mill called the “unearned increment.” This involved government regulation to shape markets. A “free market” was an active political creation and required regulatory vigilance.

As public relations advocates for the vested interests and special rentier privilege, today’s “neoliberal” advocates of “free” markets seek to maximize economic rent – the free lunch of price in excess of cost-value, not to free markets from rentier charges. So misleading a pedigree only could be achieved by outright suppression of knowledge of what Locke, Smith and Mill really wrote. Attempts to regulate “free markets” and limit monopoly pricing and privilege are conflated with “socialism,” even with Soviet-style bureaucracy. The aim is to deter the analysis of what a “free market” really is: a market free of unnecessary costs: monopoly rents, property rents and financial charges for credit that governments can create freely.

Political reform to bring market prices in line with socially necessary cost-value was the great economic issue of the 19th century. The labor theory of intrinsic cost-value found its counterpart in the theory of economic rent: land rent, monopoly price gouging, interest and other returns to special privilege that increased market prices purely by institutional property claims. The discussion goes all the way back to the medieval churchmen defining Just Price. The doctrine originally was applied to the proper fees that bankers could charge, and later was extended to land rent, then to the monopolies that governments created and sold off to creditors in an attempt to extricate themselves from debt.

Reformists and more radical socialists alike sought to free capitalism of its egregious inequities, above all its legacy from Europe’s Dark Age of military conquest when invading warlords seized lands and imposed an absentee landlord class to receive the rental income, which was used to finance wars of further land acquisition. As matters turned out, hopes that industrial capitalism could reform itself along progressive lines to purge itself of its legacy from feudalism have come crashing down. World War I hit the global economy like a comet, pushing it into a new trajectory and catalyzing its evolution into an unanticipated form of finance capitalism.

“Instead of industrial capitalism increasing capital formation we are seeing finance capitalism strip capital.”

It was unanticipated largely because most reformers spent so much effort advocating progressive policies that they neglected what Thorstein Veblen called the vested interests. Their Counter-Enlightenment is creating a world that would have been deemed a dystopia a century ago – something so pessimistic that no futurist dared depict a world run by venal and corrupt bankers, protecting as their prime customers the monopolies, real estate speculators and hedge funds whose economic rent, financial gambling and asset-price inflation is turned into a flow of interest in today’s rentier economy. Instead of industrial capitalism increasing capital formation we are seeing finance capitalism strip capital, and instead of the promised world of leisure we are being drawn into one of debt peonage.

The financial travesty of democracy

The financial sector has redefined democracy by making claims that the Federal Reserve must be “independent” from democratically elected representatives, in order to act as the bank lobbyist in Washington. This makes the financial sector exempt from the democratic political process, despite the fact that today’s economic planning is now centralized in the banking system. The result is a regime of insider dealings and oligarchy – rule by the wealthy few.

The economic fallacy at work is that bank credit is a veritable factor of production, an almost Physiocratic source of fertility without which growth could not occur. The reality is that the monopoly right to create interest-bearing bank credit is a free transfer from society to a privileged elite. The moral is that when we see a “factor of production” that has no actual labor-cost of production, it is simply an institutional privilege.

So this brings us to the most recent debate about “nationalizing” or “socializing” the banks. The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) so far has been used for the following uses that I think can be truly deemed anti-social, not “socialist” in any form.

By the end of last year, $20 billion was used to pay bonuses and salaries to financial mismanagers, despite the plunge of their banks into negative equity. And to protect their interests, these banks continued to pay lobbying fees to persuade legislators to give them yet more special privileges.

“Do we really want to let banks ‘pay back taxpayers’ by engaging in yet more predatory financial practices.”

While Citibank and other major institutions threatened to bring the financial system crashing down by being “too big to fail,” over $100 billion of TARP funds was used to make them even bigger. Already teetering banks bought affiliates that had grown by making irresponsible and outright fraudulent loans. Bank of America bought Angelo Mozilo’s Countrywide Financial and Merrill Lynch, while JP Morgan Chase bought Bear Stearns and other big banks bought WaMu and Wachovia.

Today’s policy is to “rescue” these giant bank conglomerates by enabling them to “earn” their way out of debt – by selling yet more debt to an already over-indebted U.S. economy. The hope is to re-inflate real estate and other asset prices. But do we really want to let banks “pay back taxpayers” by engaging in yet more predatory financial practices vis-à-vis the economy at large? It threatens to maximize the margin of market price over direct costs of production, by building in higher financial charges. This is just the opposite policy from trying to bring prices for housing and infrastructure in line with technologically necessary costs. It certainly is not a policy to make the U.S. economy more globally competitive.

The Treasury’s plan to “socialize” the banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions is simply to step in and take bad loans off their books, shifting the loss onto the public sector. This is the antithesis of true nationalization or “socialization” of the financial system. The banks and insurance companies quickly got over their initial knee-jerk fear that a government bailout would occur on terms that would wipe out their bad management, along with the stockholders and bondholders who backed this bad management. The Treasury has assured these mismanagers that “socialism” for them is a free gift. The primacy of finance over the rest of the economy will be affirmed, leaving management in place and giving stockholders a chance to recover by earning more from the economy at large, with yet more tax favoritism. (This means yet heavier taxes shifted onto consumers, raising their living costs accordingly.)

“The Treasury has assured these mismanagers that ‘socialism’ for them is a free gift.”

The bulk of wealth under capitalism – as under feudalism -always has come primarily from the public domain, headed by the land and formerly public utilities, capped most recently by the Treasury’s debt-creating power. In effect, the Treasury creates a new asset ($11 trillion of new Treasury bonds and guarantees, e.g. the  $5.2 trillion to Fannie and Freddie). Interest on these bonds is to be paid by new levies on labor, not on property. This is what is supposed to re-inflate housing, stock and bond prices – the money freed from property and corporate taxes will be available to be capitalized into yet new loans.

So the revenue hitherto paid as business taxes will still be paid – in the form of interest – while the former taxes will still be collected, but from labor. The fiscal-financial burden thus will be doubled. This is not a program to make the economy more competitive or raise living standards for most people. It is a program to polarize the U.S. economy even further between finance, insurance and real estate (FIRE) at the top and labor at the bottom.

Neoliberal denunciations of public regulation and taxation as “socialism” is really an attack on classical political economy – the “original” liberalism whose ideal was to free society from the parasitic legacy of feudalism. A truly socialized Treasury policy would be for banks to lend for productive purposes that contribute to real economic growth, not merely to increase overhead and inflate asset prices by enough to extract interest charges. Fiscal policy would aim to minimize rather than maximizing the price of home ownership and doing business, by basing the tax system on collecting the rent that is now being paid out as interest. Shifting the tax burden off wages and profits onto rent and interest was the core of classical political economy in the 18th and 19th centuries, as well as the Progressive Era and Social Democratic reform movements in the United States and Europe prior to World War I. But this doctrine and its reform program has been buried by the rhetorical smokescreen organized by financial lobbyists seeking to muddy the ideological waters sufficiently to mute popular opposition to today’s power grab by finance capital and monopoly capital. Their alternative to true nationalization and socialization of finance is debt peonage, oligarchy and neo-feudalism. They have called this program “free markets.”

Michael Hudson is a former Wall Street economist. A Distinguished Research Professor at University of Missouri, Kansas City (UMKC), he is the author of many books, including Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire (new ed., Pluto Press, 2002) He can be reached via his website,

___FCKsi___1mh@michael-hudson.com

Report: One In 31 In Prison, On Parole Or Probation

DOES ONE IN THIRTY-ONE ADULTS IN PRISON SYSTEM PROVE THAT AMERICA IS A SOCIETY OF CRIMINALS OR A  POLICE STATE?

Report: One In 31 In Prison, On Parole Or Probation

Pew Center Report Validates State Commissioner’s Approach To Rehabilitation

By MARK SPENCER |The Hartford Courant

March 3, 2009

The year before Theresa C. Lantz became correction commissioner in 2003, the annual increase in the state’s prison population was projected to continue unabated, as it had for 20 years.

If the estimate had held, the state could have needed up to three more prisons by now, each at a cost of about $150 million. Lantz hasn’t asked for one.

“I don’t want to build prisons,” Lantz said Monday. “I want to build communities.”

During the first year of her tenure, the prison population dropped 4.2 percent — the largest decrease in the country — as Lantz retooled the system from one that emphasized incarceration to one that prepared inmates to return to their communities.

That approach was endorsed by a report released Monday by the nonprofit Pew Center on the States at a time when one in 31 adults in the country is in prison, on parole or on probation.

Despite the get-tough sentences enacted in the 1980s and ’90s, increasingly high incarceration rates have failed to significantly reduce recidivism. Prisons now cost the country about $47 billion a year, a 303 percent increase over 20 years.

It costs an average of $79 a day to house an inmate in prison, compared to $3.42 per day to supervise those on probation and $7.47 a day for those on parole.

“Most states are facing serious budget deficits,” said Susan Urahn, managing director of the Pew Center. “Every single one of them should be making smart investments in community corrections that will help them cut costs and improve outcomes.”

Parole, probation and other community-based programs have the potential to save taxpayer dollars while improving public safety by reducing recidivism, according to the Pew report. Supporters of such programs are quick to say that there are violent offenders who should be locked up for a long time, but many inmates could return to the community with careful screening, close monitoring and support programs.

Lantz said the vast majority of inmates will eventually be released. Parole allows her department to continue to work with them as they re-enter the community rather than have them just walk out the door on the last day of their sentence.

“I really believe there’s a population that is incarcerated that we can transition into the community,” Lantz said.

Adam Gelb, director of the Pew Center, said some states are using sophisticated systems to sort inmates based on their risk to public safety, then tailoring intervention and monitoring schemes to meet the need. Technology such as GPS systems and rapid drug testing are also increasingly being deployed.

There are risks in the approach for politicians fearful of appearing soft on criminals.

“It’s a lot easier to keep throwing money at prisons,” Gelb said.

Lantz, after reducing the prison population for the first four years of her tenure, saw the landscape change in a flash when two parolees were charged with the brutal murders of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters in their Cheshire home in July 2007.

Another incident a short time later in which a parolee was involved in a carjacking prompted Gov. M. Jodi Rell to temporarily suspend the parole of inmates convicted of violent crimes.

A task force created by the governor eventually drafted recommendations that Lantz said have improved the system. The parole board, previously hobbled by a lack of detailed information on inmates, now gets police reports, court transcripts and even juvenile records.

Rell’s parole ban was lifted after four months, but was a factor in the state’s prison population’s hitting an all-time high of 19,894 inmates on Feb. 1, 2008.

Lantz said Rell and the legislature resisted overreacting and provided the resources necessary to do the job. More parole officers were hired, the number of halfway house beds was increased and additional monitoring technology was purchased.

The number of inmates is dropping again, hovering at about 19,000.

“The reforms and systems and programs we’ve put in place are working,” Lantz said.

US War in Afghanistan Haunted by Bush War Crimes

Prof. Michael Haas

An Afghan child killed by U.S-led troops in Kabul early September 1, 2008. March 1, 2009 While additional American troops are being deployed to Afghanistan, George W. Bush’s misdeeds continue to handicap combat effectiveness there. Past disrespect to the country must be reversed by an immediate apology to the Afghan people and new orders to field commanders to follow the Geneva Conventions on the battlefield. The U.S. war in Afghanistan began in 2001 as a war of aggression similar to the attack on Iraq. Prior to the start of that war on Oct. 7, 2001, the Taliban government in Kabul offered to hand over Osama Bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader, if the U.S. provided proof he was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Bush deemed Kabul’s response insufficient and he attacked without adequately seeking an alternative or peaceful way to resolve differences…and the UN was not given a proper role. This attack violated Article 2 of the UN Charter that states “All members shall refrain…from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity…of any state…” Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq attacked the United States, so neither war was based on self-defense. Preemptive war is not an accepted form of self-defense under international law. The list of U.S. war crimes committed in Afghanistan alone documented in my book include the following: # The U.S. bombed the children’s hospital in Kabul and a hospital in Herat, resulting in 100 deaths. This violated the Red Cross Convention of 1864 that established even military hospitals as “neutral” and that must be “respected by belligerents.” # Clearly marked Red Cross warehouses were bombed on three occasions in the Afghan War during October 2001, a violation of the Geneva Convention of 1929 that protects “the personnel of Voluntary Aid Societies.” # During its 2001 offensive in Afghanistan, at least 1,000 civilians were killed by U.S. carpet bombing. This violates Protocol 1 to the Geneva Conventions prohibiting “indiscriminate attacks” against civilians. # While the Hague Convention of 1899 requires that prisoners be “humanely treated,” this was often not the case in Afghanistan where the conditions in the prisons were so shocking that Canadian forces stopped sending prisoners to the American-run prisons at the end of 2005, preferring to send them to facilities run by the Afghan government. # Although the Geneva Convention of 1949 forbids “violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds,” captives were murdered in Afghanistan’s prisons. Some were chained naked to the ceiling, cell doors, and the floor. One man, Ait Idr, had his face forced into a toilet that was repeatedly flushed. Another, Mohammed Ahmed Said Haidel, was hit with his arms tied behind his back until his head began to bleed. Another, Ahmed Darabi, was hung by his arms and repeatedly beaten, though he survived—unlike (a) taxicab driver (named) Dilawar, who died from the same treatment. # Prisoners of war “shall be lodged in buildings or in barracks,” says the POW Convention of 1929 but many cells at American-run prisons in Afghanistan lack windows and adequate ventilation. Some prisons lacked heat during cold weather so that prisoners died of exposure. What’s more, some prisoners have been held in solitary confinement for years. # Where the Geneva Convention decrees sick or wounded prisoners “shall not be transferred as long as their recovery may be endangered by the journey,” some prisoners transferred in Afghanistan were thrown to the ground from helicopters and badly injured. Still others were kicked or beaten en route and others died while stuffed into sealed cargo containers. Not surprisingly, the deaths of some Afghan prisoners have never been recorded, another war crimes violation. Aggressive war was first declared to be illegal when the U.S. and France coauthored and later ratified the multilateral Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928, thus incorporating that document into what the U.S. Constitution calls “the law of the land.” Furthermore, the U.S. is a signatory to both the United Nations Charter and the Nuremberg Charter of 1945, and the Tokyo Charter of 1946. The Nuremberg Charter, for example, defines crimes against peace as “planning, preparation, initiation or the waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties…,” a definition that fits U.S. actions in Afghanistan during 2001. It is not only the peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq whose rights have been trampled, for today the globe is being transformed into an unchecked superpower playpen where might appears to make right. Hundreds of years of human rights progress are in serious jeopardy as long as governmental war criminals live blissfully in the knowledge that they will never be accountable for their crimes. The more the public observes reference in the news to possible war crimes violations, the more decision makers will be accountable. Otherwise, the impunity of high Bush administration officials for the immense violations documented….threatens to turn back the clock on human progress by shredding the Magna Carta, the American Constitution, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Hague and Geneva Conventions, and similar agreements that have advanced humanity from barbarism toward civilized behavior. Bush has accomplished a transformed United States where leaders have abandoned democratic principles and loyal citizens are profoundly ashamed of how the ideals of the country they love so much have been abandoned. Something must be done or Americans will believe that whatever Bush has done was right. Bringing George W. Bush and his administration to justice for war crimes is the most compelling way in which to dispel the fiction that what has been done was necessary and proper. Otherwise, the specter of war crimes will continue to haunt the world, and civilization itself will unravel helplessly. Professor Haas, a distinguished authority on international law and human rights, is the author or editor of 33 books on government and world politics. Haas has taught political science at Northwestern, Purdue, and the University of London. To receive his book “George W. Bush, War Criminal?”(Praeger), from which the information for this article was drawn, please send check in the amount of $32 to Haas at P.O. Box 46127, Los Angeles, CA 90046. Haas may be reached at mikehaas@aol.com

:: Article nr. 52254 sent on 20-nov-2009 21:55 ECT
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U.S. War in Afghanistan Haunted by Bush war Crimes

Prof. Michael Haas

An Afghan child killed by U.S-led troops in Kabul early September 1, 2008. March 1, 2009 While additional American troops are being deployed to Afghanistan, George W. Bush’s misdeeds continue to handicap combat effectiveness there. Past disrespect to the country must be reversed by an immediate apology to the Afghan people and new orders to field commanders to follow the Geneva Conventions on the battlefield. The U.S. war in Afghanistan began in 2001 as a war of aggression similar to the attack on Iraq. Prior to the start of that war on Oct. 7, 2001, the Taliban government in Kabul offered to hand over Osama Bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader, if the U.S. provided proof he was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Bush deemed Kabul’s response insufficient and he attacked without adequately seeking an alternative or peaceful way to resolve differences…and the UN was not given a proper role. This attack violated Article 2 of the UN Charter that states “All members shall refrain…from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity…of any state…” Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq attacked the United States, so neither war was based on self-defense. Preemptive war is not an accepted form of self-defense under international law. The list of U.S. war crimes committed in Afghanistan alone documented in my book include the following: # The U.S. bombed the children’s hospital in Kabul and a hospital in Herat, resulting in 100 deaths. This violated the Red Cross Convention of 1864 that established even military hospitals as “neutral” and that must be “respected by belligerents.” # Clearly marked Red Cross warehouses were bombed on three occasions in the Afghan War during October 2001, a violation of the Geneva Convention of 1929 that protects “the personnel of Voluntary Aid Societies.” # During its 2001 offensive in Afghanistan, at least 1,000 civilians were killed by U.S. carpet bombing. This violates Protocol 1 to the Geneva Conventions prohibiting “indiscriminate attacks” against civilians. # While the Hague Convention of 1899 requires that prisoners be “humanely treated,” this was often not the case in Afghanistan where the conditions in the prisons were so shocking that Canadian forces stopped sending prisoners to the American-run prisons at the end of 2005, preferring to send them to facilities run by the Afghan government. # Although the Geneva Convention of 1949 forbids “violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds,” captives were murdered in Afghanistan’s prisons. Some were chained naked to the ceiling, cell doors, and the floor. One man, Ait Idr, had his face forced into a toilet that was repeatedly flushed. Another, Mohammed Ahmed Said Haidel, was hit with his arms tied behind his back until his head began to bleed. Another, Ahmed Darabi, was hung by his arms and repeatedly beaten, though he survived—unlike (a) taxicab driver (named) Dilawar, who died from the same treatment. # Prisoners of war “shall be lodged in buildings or in barracks,” says the POW Convention of 1929 but many cells at American-run prisons in Afghanistan lack windows and adequate ventilation. Some prisons lacked heat during cold weather so that prisoners died of exposure. What’s more, some prisoners have been held in solitary confinement for years. # Where the Geneva Convention decrees sick or wounded prisoners “shall not be transferred as long as their recovery may be endangered by the journey,” some prisoners transferred in Afghanistan were thrown to the ground from helicopters and badly injured. Still others were kicked or beaten en route and others died while stuffed into sealed cargo containers. Not surprisingly, the deaths of some Afghan prisoners have never been recorded, another war crimes violation. Aggressive war was first declared to be illegal when the U.S. and France coauthored and later ratified the multilateral Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928, thus incorporating that document into what the U.S. Constitution calls “the law of the land.” Furthermore, the U.S. is a signatory to both the United Nations Charter and the Nuremberg Charter of 1945, and the Tokyo Charter of 1946. The Nuremberg Charter, for example, defines crimes against peace as “planning, preparation, initiation or the waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties…,” a definition that fits U.S. actions in Afghanistan during 2001. It is not only the peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq whose rights have been trampled, for today the globe is being transformed into an unchecked superpower playpen where might appears to make right. Hundreds of years of human rights progress are in serious jeopardy as long as governmental war criminals live blissfully in the knowledge that they will never be accountable for their crimes. The more the public observes reference in the news to possible war crimes violations, the more decision makers will be accountable. Otherwise, the impunity of high Bush administration officials for the immense violations documented….threatens to turn back the clock on human progress by shredding the Magna Carta, the American Constitution, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Hague and Geneva Conventions, and similar agreements that have advanced humanity from barbarism toward civilized behavior. Bush has accomplished a transformed United States where leaders have abandoned democratic principles and loyal citizens are profoundly ashamed of how the ideals of the country they love so much have been abandoned. Something must be done or Americans will believe that whatever Bush has done was right. Bringing George W. Bush and his administration to justice for war crimes is the most compelling way in which to dispel the fiction that what has been done was necessary and proper. Otherwise, the specter of war crimes will continue to haunt the world, and civilization itself will unravel helplessly. Professor Haas, a distinguished authority on international law and human rights, is the author or editor of 33 books on government and world politics. Haas has taught political science at Northwestern, Purdue, and the University of London. To receive his book “George W. Bush, War Criminal?”(Praeger), from which the information for this article was drawn, please send check in the amount of $32 to Haas at P.O. Box 46127, Los Angeles, CA 90046. Haas may be reached at mikehaas@aol.com

:: Article nr. 52254 sent on 20-nov-2009 21:55 ECT
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Link: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12504

Albert Einstein Quotations Opposing a Jewish State

Albert Einstein Quotations Opposing a Jewish State

in 1938, 1946 & 1952 and Labeling Future Israeli Prime

Minister Menachem Begin a Fascist in 1948.

After the death of the first president of Israel in 1952, the Israeli government offered the post of second president to Einstein. He declined the offer.

John Spritzler

October 7, 2006

[newdemocracyworld.org]

Albert Einstein, on April 17, 1938, in a speech at the Commodore Hotel in New York City, said:

“I should much rather see reasonable agreement with the Arabs on the basis of living together in peace than the creation of a Jewish state. Apart from practical consideration, my awareness of the essential nature of Judaism resists the idea of a Jewish state with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power no matter how modest. I am afraid of the inner damage Judaism will sustain — especially from the development of a narrow nationalism within our own ranks, against which we have already had to fight strongly, even without a Jewish state.” [1]

In January, 1946, in a reply to the question of whether refugee settlement in Palestine demanded a Jewish state, Einstein told the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry,

“The State idea is not according to my heart. I cannot understand why it is needed. It is connected with narrow-minded and economic obstacles. I believe it is bad. I have always been against it.” [2]

Letter to the New York Times, December 4, 1948, from Albert Einstein and other prominent Jews, denouncing Menachem Begin, a future prime minister of Israel who is highly regarded by the current ruling Likud Party, as a fascist. After the death of the first president of Israel in 1952, the Israeli government offered the post of president to Einstein. He declined the offer.

[Note: the bolding is not in the original]

New Palestine Party
Visit of Menachem Begin and Aims of Political Movement Discussed

TO THE EDITORS OF THE NEW YORK TIMES:

Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our times is the emergence in the newly created state of Israel of the “”Freedom Party”” (Tnuat Haherut), a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties. It was formed out of the membership and following of the former Irgun Zvai Leumi, a terrorist, right-wing, chauvinist organization in Palestine.

The current visit of Menachem Begin, leader of this party, to the United States is obviously calculated to give the impression of American support for his party in the coming Israeli elections, and to cement political ties with conservative Zionist elements in the United States. Several Americans of national repute have lent their names to welcome his visit. It is inconceivable that those who oppose fascism throughout the world, if correctly informed as to Mr. Begin’s political record and perspectives, could add their names and support to the movement he represents.

Before irreparable damage is done by way of financial contributions, public manifestations in Begin’’s behalf, and the creation in Palestine of the impression that a large segment of America supports Fascist elements in Israel, the American public must be informed as to the record and objectives of Mr. Begin and his movement.

The public avowals of Begin’’s party are no guide whatever to its actual character. Today they speak of freedom, democracy and anti-imperialism, whereas until recently they openly preached the doctrine of the Fascist state. It is in its actions that the terrorist party betrays its real character; from its past actions we can judge what it may be expected to do in the future.

Attack on Arab Village

A shocking example was their behavior in the Arab village of Deir Yassin. This village, off the main roads and surrounded by Jewish lands, had taken no part in the war, and had even fought off Arab bands who wanted to use the village as their base. On April 9 (THE NEW YORK TIMES), terrorist bands attacked this peaceful village, which was not a military objective in the fighting, killed most of its inhabitants —— 240 men, women, and children —— and kept a few of them alive to parade as captives through the streets of Jerusalem. Most of the Jewish community was horrified at the deed, and the Jewish Agency sent a telegram of apology to King Abdullah of Trans-Jordan. But the terrorists, far from being ashamed of their act, were proud of this massacre, publicized it widely, and invited all the foreign correspondents present in the country to view the heaped corpses and the general havoc at Deir Yassin.

The Deir Yassin incident exemplifies the character and actions of the Freedom Party.

Within the Jewish community they have preached an admixture of ultranationalism, religious mysticism, and racial superiority. Like other Fascist parties they have been used to break strikes, and have themselves pressed for the destruction of free trade unions. In their stead they have proposed corporate unions on the Italian Fascist model.

During the last years of sporadic anti-British violence, the IZL and Stern groups inaugurated a reign of terror in the Palestine Jewish community. Teachers were beaten up for speaking against them, adults were shot for not letting their children join them. By gangster methods, beatings, window-smashing, and wide-spread robberies, the terrorists intimidated the population and exacted a heavy tribute.

The people of the Freedom Party have had no part in the constructive achievements in Palestine. They have reclaimed no land, built no settlements, and only detracted from the Jewish defense activity. Their much-publicized immigration endeavors were minute, and devoted mainly to bringing in Fascist compatriots.

Discrepancies Seen

The discrepancies between the bold claims now being made by Begin and his party, and their record of past performance in Palestine bear the imprint of no ordinary political party. This is the unmistakable stamp of a Fascist party for whom terrorism (against Jews, Arabs, and British alike), and misrepresentation are means, and a “”Leader State”” is the goal.

In the light of the foregoing considerations, it is imperative that the truth about Mr. Begin and his movement be made known in this country. It is all the more tragic that the top leadership of American Zionism has refused to campaign against Begin’’s efforts, or even to expose to its own constituents the dangers to Israel from support to Begin.

The undersigned therefore take this means of publicly presenting a few salient facts concerning Begin and his party; and of urging all concerned not to support this latest manifestation of fascism.

(signed)

Isidore Abramowitz, Hannah Arendt, Abraham Brick, Rabbi Jessurun Cardozo, Albert Einstein, Herman Eisen, M.D., Hayim Fineman, M. Gallen, M.D., H.H. Harris, Zelig S. Harris, Sidney Hook, Fred Karush, Bruria Kaufman, Irma L. Lindheim, Nachman Maisel, Symour Melman, Myer D. Mendelson, M.D., Harry M. Orlinsky, Samuel Pitlick, Fritz Rohrlich, Louis P. Rocker, Ruth Sager, Itzhak Sankowsky, I.J. Schoenberg, Samuel Shuman, M. Znger, Irma Wolpe, Stefan Wolpe

New York, Dec. 2, 1948

Alfred M. Lilienthal, in What Price Israel? , recounts that on April 1, 1952, in a message to the Children of Palestine, Inc., Einstein “spoke of the necessity to curb ‘a kind of nationalism’ which has arisen in Israel ‘if only to permit a friendly and fruitful co-existence with the Arabs.'” Lilienthal also relates a personal conversation with Einstein: “Dr Einstein told me that, strangely enough, he had never been a Zionist and had never favored the creation of the State of Israel. Also, he told me of a significant conversation with [Chaim] Weizmann [leader of the World Zionist Organization.] Einstein had asked him: ‘What about the Arabs if Palestine were given to the Jews?’ And Weizman said: ‘What Arabs? They are hardly of any consequence.'” [3]

1. Albert Einstein, in Ideas and Opinions, Crown Publishers, New York, 1954, p. 190

2. Alfred M. Lilienthal, What Price Israel?, 50th Anniversary edition, 2003, pg. 130

3. Lilienthal, pg. 131

I will be blunt. It will take a revolution.

[This article focuses on why revolution is necessary to win a specific and important reform. But similar reasoning applies to winning most other important reforms, because the problems these reforms seek to solve are, from the point of view of our ruling elite, not problems but rather solutions: solutions to THEIR problem of controlling us and strengthening their power over us in an increasingly undemocratic and unequal society.]

How Can We End the U.S. Government’s Pro-Israel Foreign Policy?

by John Spritzler

July 5, 2007

[newdemocracyworld.org]

I will be blunt. It will take a revolution. Here’s why.

It is plain to see that the corporate/government elite who control the U.S. government, and for whom elections are just a means of legitimizing that control, support the Israeli government’s ethnic cleansing with virtually no dissent from their ranks–not a peep. Gentile or Jew, it makes no difference–wealthy and powerful people in the United States all “get it”–Israel is good for them.

This is what they, or at least their astute advisers, fully appreciate. Israeli ethnic cleansing foments what appears on the surface to be a religious war in the Middle East between Jews and non-Jews. In actuality it is a divide-and-rule conflict that strengthens the power of all elites in the region, by allowing them to pose as defenders of their own people while actually oppressing and exploiting them. George Orwell got it right.

At stake in the Middle East is whether the oil wealth will be controlled by corporate elites for the benefit of corporate elites, or by ordinary people for the benefit of ordinary people.

But it’s not just the Middle East that is at stake. The balance of power in the United States itself is at stake.

The Orwellian Cold War has now been replaced with the Orwellian War on Terror. These are wars of social control, most importantly for social control of the American population itself (as well as the populations of U.S. allies.) The main purpose of such wars–on both sides–is not to “win the war” but to maintain a war mentality domestically so that the ruling elite can use “national security” to justify pretty much anything they wish, and put dissenters on the defensive by accusing them of being unpatriotic.

Wars like this need a dramatic story line. To create compelling propaganda for the story line there must be some “germs of truth” facts to spin. American Cold War propaganda, for example, could point to the Soviet Union’s Gulag, its one-party-only “democracy” and lack of free speech to paint a picture of a Communist boogie man aiming to enslave Americans. Soviet propaganda, on the other hand, could point to America’s racial discrimination and the fact that many Americans lived in abject poverty in a land where others were billionaires to argue that, as bad as things might be under Communism, it would be far worse under Capitalism.

The War on Terror story line for American consumption needs its own “Gulag”-type facts to be credible. The story is that violent hate-driven religious fanatic terrorists want to kill peaceful democratic people like ourselves. The 9/11 attack certainly made this story seem credible to many (for a while–at least 36% of Americans now suspect our government was complicit in the attack), but that attack was a one time only event (so far.) The War on Terror story needs ongoing day-to-day “facts” to spin.

Israel provides decades of the most photogenic and heart-string-pulling “germ of truth” facts for this story line that one could imagine. Israel, Americans are repeatedly told, is the “only democracy in the Middle East” and it only wants to be a little tiny country where Jews can live in peace and not be attacked by violent anti-Semites, but violent hate-driven religious fanatic anti-Semitic terrorists keep attacking Israel, day after day after day, with suicide bombers and rockets non-stop.

It makes for damned effective War on Terror propaganda, as long as Americans remain ignorant of the fact that Israel is based on ethnic cleansing and the anger at Israel is anger at ethnic cleansing, not anti-Semitism (which is, of course, why the American media never ever inform Americans about Israel’s ethnic cleansing.) This propaganda is so effective that nobody with any real power in the United States even dreams of telling Israel to stop the ethnic cleansing, since if it ended peace would break out in Palestine/Israel and a major prop for the Orwellian War on Terror would collapse.

Short of some completely unforeseen development in the Middle East that would present a better means of carrying out a divide-and-rule Orwellian war in that region than Israel’s ethnic cleansing currently does, the American ruling elite will continue to support the Israeli government’s ethnic cleansing, no matter what.

This means that until we remove the American elite from power, they will support Israel’s government the way they have been doing for decades. That’s why it will take a revolution to end U.S. support for Israel.

How Do We Build a Revolutionary Movement?

The first step is to identify the objective: building a revolutionary movement, a movement whose goal is to remove our ruling elite from power and create a genuine democracy.

Some people are afraid, however, that taking this first step means abandoning the objective that got them into political activism in the first place. I want to address this concern here.

Realistically speaking, it is quite likely that if and when Americans finally overthrow the current ruling elite they will do so while still largely ignorant about what is going on in Palestine/Israel. Americans, after all, have plenty of close-to-home reasons for making a revolution besides our government’s pro-Israel foreign policy. Americans even have some direct knowledge about the war in Iraq because Americans are sent to fight and kill and die there. But no Americans are being ordered to fight in Palestine.

Consider these two different scenarios.

#1) We build a non-revolutionary movement focused 100% on persuading Americans that our government should stop supporting Israel, and we succeed in winning over 80% of Americans, but the government continues to support Israel just as it continues to wage war in Iraq despite overwhelming public opposition.

#2) We build a revolutionary movement that, while including opposition to Israeli ethnic cleansing, does not focus on that topic but rather focuses on the issues Americans care about the most, and thereby succeeds in removing the elite from power and creating a genuine democracy.

Which scenario does the most good for Palestinians? Clearly the #2 scenario.

Ordinary Americans may not know why it is wrong to support Israel today because of all the lies and lack of truth they have been exposed to, but once the people telling the lies and covering up the truth are out of power Americans would quickly discover the truth and come to the conclusion that they would rather support the people opposed to ethnic cleansing than the people carrying it out. Don’t forget that ethnic cleansing has never been a big vote-getter in the United States, not unless it was disguised as “the only democracy in the Middle East.”

This is why we need to get out of the Johnny-one-note single issue mode of thinking, in which we place all of our eggs in one basket–the “end America’s pro-Israel foreign policy” basket. If there is ever going to be a revolution in the United States, it will not be driven by the single issue of the country’s pro-Israel foreign policy. That issue is one of many others. It is an important one, however. And it is one which, if not understood, will cause people to be confused about how our society works and why we need a revolution. But it is an issue that ordinary Americans can come to understand in only two very different ways.

One way is to become an expert in matters Palestinian, by reading books and articles or watching films that are obscure and that require a fair amount of dedication to discover. (The non-revolutionary single-issue kind of movement seeks to educate the public in this manner exclusively.)

The other way is to hear somebody point out that what elites do to control and exploit ordinary people in Palestine/Israel is really no different (in kind if not degree) from what they do to control and exploit ordinary Americans; to hear, in other words, that one’s own knowledge–from personal experience about why we don’t have affordable health care or decent jobs and pensions or good schools for all, and how our elite prevent us from making our country more equal and democratic with policies that pit us against each other along racial and other non-class lines–is all that is required to understand why our government supports a government like Israel that defines itself with KKK logic to be a “Jewish state.” (A revolutionary movement would explain and condemn our government’s pro-Israel foreign policy this way mainly, knowing that expert knowledge about Palestine will be of interest to some people, but not most.)

For the majority of Americans, understanding events in Palestine seems less important than understanding domestic concerns or a war in which Americans are fighting, and they are naturally more attentive to a movement that talks about such concerns than one that talks exclusively about Palestine. Furthermore, a movement that explains US support for Israel by asking Americans to understand this as a continuation abroad of the same kinds of elite methods of manipulation and domination that Americans, from their direct experience, understand so well with respect to domestic issues closer to home, is more effective than asking Americans to become experts on Palestine divorced from everything else.

This is why we need to start thinking about building a revolutionary movement and not a reform movement focused just on one issue.

http://spritzlerj.blogspot.com/2007/06/how-can-we-end-us-governments-pro.html

Other articles about Palestine/Israel by John Spritzler

The Israel lobby`s power comes from the US ruling class

BEST EXPLANATION I HAVE SEEN THAT ZIONISM IS A TOOL OF THE AMERICAN RULING ELITE, A CONSPIRACY WITHIN A CONSPIRACY.  THE BANKERS’ CONSPIRACY USES ANTI-SEMITISM AND THE DOCTRINE OF A “JEWISH CONSPIRACY” TO FURTHER THE PLAN FOR ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT.

The Israel lobby`s power comes from the US ruling class

John Spritzler

March 1, 2009 Among those who, like myself, oppose Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, there is an important debate about a fundamental question. The debate is about how to explain the fact that the American government supports Israel virtually unconditionally with more economic, military and diplomatic aid than it gives to any other country. One commonly believed explanation is that the “Israel Lobby”–consisting of organizations like AIPAC and a host of other pro-Israel Jewish organizations in the United States–has hijacked U.S. foreign policy by using its wealth and control of the mass media to buy or intimidate Congressmen. According to this view, the American government’s pro-Israel foreign policy is harmful to the interests of the non-Jewish American corporate upper class, and were it not for the power of the Israel Lobby American foreign policy, reflecting as it does the interests of the American upper class, would not be as pro-Israel as it is today. I call this the “The Lobby Makes Them Do It” view. I think it is just plain factually wrong. The alternative view that I hold is that the Israel Lobby’s power comes from the (mostly non-Jewish) American ruling class. The leading advocate of the “The Lobby Makes Them Do It” view is James Petras. Petras asserts that the Israel Lobby prevailed over America’s Big Oil elite to get the U.S. to invade Iraq for the benefit of Israel: “The principal governmental architects of the war, the intellectual promoters of the war, their publicly enunciated published strategies for the war were all deeply attached to the Israel lobby and worked for the Israeli state. Wolfowitz, number 2 in the Pentagon, Douglas Feith, number 3 in the Pentagon, Richard Perle, head of the Defense Board, Elliot Abrams in charge of Middle East affairs for the National Security Council, and dozens of other key operatives in the government and ideologues in the mass media were life-long fanatical activists in favor of Israel, some of whom had lost security clearances in previous administrations for handing over documents to the Israeli government… “In fact the US-Middle East wars prejudice the oil interests in several strategic senses. The wars generate generalized hostility to oil companies with long-term relations with Arab countries. The wars result in undermining new contracts opening in Arab countries for US oil investments. US oil companies have been much friendlier to peacefully resolving conflicts than Israel and especially its Lobbyists as any reading of the specialized oil industry journals and spokespeople emphasize. “ Just on the facts, Petras is wrong. Far from opposing the Israel Lobby, Big Oil uses that lobby. As Juan Cole writes: “Neoconservative Jews in the US like Richard Perle, Frederick Kagan and Michael Rubin at the American Enterprise Institute who vocally support the Iraq War (and have gotten rich off it) are a minority of a minority, and even are at odds with the Israeli security establishment! Moreover, the American Enterprise Institute, which crafted the Iraq War, gets funding from Exxon Mobil, and last I checked it was run by white Protestants. The vice chair of AEI is Lee Raymond, former CEO of Exxon Mobil and surely Dick Cheney’s old golf partner in the Dallas years. That is, the Kagans and the Rubins, who identify with the Revisionist Zionist movement on the Israeli Right, are useful idiots for Big Oil, not movers and shakers in their own right.” The American corporate upper class, the American ruling class, is pro-Israel because they (or at least their sophisticated advisors, like Henry Kissinger, Condoleeza Rice, General James Jones, etc.) know that Israeli ethnic cleansing of Palestinians performs a strategically crucial service for the American ruling class. The ethnic cleansing polarizes the Middle East along non-class lines, fomenting an ethnic war pitting Jews against non-Jews. The American ruling class uses this ethnic war to strengthen its domestic control over ordinary Americans, and to strengthen the control of Middle Eastern ruling elites (kings, mullahs, dictators) over ordinary people in their respective nations. These are the most important strategic objectives of the American ruling class: social control to prevent the spread of pro-democratic, pro-working class, pro-solidarity movements from overthrowing elite rule anywhere in the world. Regarding domestic control of the American population, the key strategy of elite social control has for many decades been to rely on Orwellian wars of social control. The particular “foreign enemy” has changed over time, from Teddy Roosevelt’s Spain to Woodrow Wilson’s “Huns” to FDR’s Fascists to Truman’s Communists to Bush’s and Obama’s Terrorists. By ensuring that the American mass media refrain from telling Americans the true reason (Israel’s ethnic cleansing) why Palestinians and Arabs and Muslims take up arms against Israel, the American ruling class ensures that Americans will believe the lie that Palestinians/Arabs/Muslims are hateful, irrational, anti-semitic terrorists who kill decent Israelis “just like us” and would likewise kill Americans if we fail to obey our upper class rulers who protect us from terrorism. Similarly, the oil-rich Middle East ruling classes, in countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran, use their people’s anger at Israel to strengthen their power over them, as I discuss in some detail in How Israel Helps Saudi Arabia’s Rulers Control their Working Class and How Israel Helps the Islamic Republic of Iran Control the Iranian Working Class. James Petras is naive to think that Big Oil’s interests are prejudiced by the pro-Israel U.S. foreign policy. If the Saudi royal family, for example, were really opposed to U.S. support for Israel, then it would use its vast wealth to support pro-Palestinian forces inside the United States, to counter the Israel Lobby; but it doesn’t. By the same token, if any members of the American mostly non-Jewish ruling class, with billions of dollars to throw around (Buffet gave away $40 billion alone!), wanted to tell Americans the truth about Zionism (the movement to create and protect a Jewish state), they could do so. They could tell Americans how Zionism is all about ethnic cleansing, how Albert Einstein (whom the Israeli government asked to be the President of Israel, and declined) always opposed the Jewish state idea because it was morally wrong, and how the Zionists betrayed European Jews during World War II by opposing rescue efforts (so there would be more dead Jews to give them greater standing at the post-war negotiations over who would “get” Palestine)–they could do so; but they don’t. If they did, they could turn the American public against Zionism and against the Israel Lobby as quickly as they turn it against a politician soliciting sex in a toilet stall. So why don’t they do it? It is not because Zionists control the mass media. Sure, pro-Zionists do control the mass media, but billionaires could create their own anti-Zionist media if they wanted to. After all, Rupert Murdoch owns a large enough media network to do the job and at the time of his divorce in 1998 his personal fortune was only 3.3 billion pounds (less than $5 billion I imagine.) The American ruling class chooses not to oppose the Israel Lobby because they have no reason to. The Israel Lobby is an instrument (“useful idiots” as Juan Cole puts it) of the American ruling class. The Lobby spreads the lies that the pro-Israel foreign policy requires, and it keeps politicians in line who might otherwise stray from the path. The Lobby is powerful because it does the bidding of the powerful. Very different organizing strategies against Zionism are appropriate, depending on whether one agrees with “The Lobby Makes Them Do It” view of James Petras or the view I advocate. If Petras is correct, then the natural strategy to turn U.S. foreign policy around would be to side with the likes of Big Oil against the Israel Lobby. But since Big Oil and the Israel Lobby are in fact on the same team, this is a ridiculous strategy. Instead, the strategy that makes sense is to mobilize the general public against the American ruling class around not only opposition to Israeli ethnic cleansing but also opposition to the entire anti-democratic, anti-equality agenda of the ruling class. This is a revolutionary pro-working class strategy, and only it can win.

:: Article nr. 52259 sent on 21-nov-2009 00:27 ECT
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Link: www.newdemocracyworld.org/War/Lobby.htm

Sen. Whitehouse Prepares the Nation for Torture Horrors

buhdydharma, Daily Kos

Feb 28, 2009

Senator Whitehouse is on both the Intelligence Committee and the Judiciary Committee. Thus he perhaps more than anyone else has access to ALL of the available information on the Bush Torture Network. Including the remaining pictures and videotapes from Abu Ghraib that were concealed from the public view. Pictures and videotapes that even Rumsfeld was shocked by, even though, as has become apparent since, he authorized them….or at least the programs that led to them.. Before he was implicated he had this to say…

What is shown on the photographs and videos from Abu Ghraib prison that the Pentagon has blocked from release? One clue: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told Congress last year, after viewing a large cache of unreleased images, “I mean, I looked at them last night, and they’re hard to believe.” They show acts “that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhumane,” he added.

A Republican Senator suggested the same day they contained scenes of “rape and murder.” Rumsfeld then commented, “If these are released to the public, obviously it’s going to make matters worse.”

And that is only one of the horrifying aspects of what has occurred in the Bush Torture Network. Thus Senator Whitehouse’s warning to the nation.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

more about “Sen. Whitehouse Prepares the Nation f…“, posted with vodpod

H/T tahoebasha!

Whitehouse starts at about 50 seconds in. And here is the most relevant text, thanks to Greenwald.

As we work toward a brighter future ahead, to days when jobs return to our cities, capital to our businesses, and security to our lives, we cannot set aside our responsibility to take an accounting of where we are, what was done, and what must now be repaired.

We also have to brace ourselves for the realistic possibility that as some of this conduct is exposed, we and the world will find it shameful, revolting. We may have to face the prospect of looking with horror at our own country’s deeds. We are optimists, we Americans; we are proud of our country. Contrition comes hard to us.

But the path back from the dark side may lead us down some unfamiliar valleys of remorse and repugnance before we can return to the light. We may have to face our fellow Americans saying to us, “No, please, tell us that we did not do that, tell us that Americans did not do that” – and we will have to explain, somehow. This is no small thing, and not easy; this will not be comfortable or proud; but somehow it must be done.

IF the full story of the Bush Torture Network is ever told out loud, on televison, it will shock the nation…and perhaps even the jaded and inattentive conscience of a nation that has been buried under eight years of horror upon Bush horror. None worse than what was done to our fellow human beings, in our names.

:: Article nr. 52268 sent on 21-nov-2009 14:06 ECT
www.uruknet.info?p=52268

Link: www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/2/27/17407/9646/766/700982

Are The Jews God’s Chosen People?

Friday, 27 February 2009 08:12 Andrew Winkler, The Rebel Media Group

One misunderstanding that often confuses pious Christians and Judaics alike is the Judaic claim to be God’s ‘Chosen People’. The implied meaning is that the God Christians and Judaics share favours Judaics over all other human beings, giving them a privileged position.

The question I always ask, when confronted with that claim, is how that alleged favouritism is transferred from Biblical times’ Judaics to modern days Jews. Is it race or religion? This distinction is important because only a very small minority of modern days Jews, the so-called Oriental Jews, are the direct descendants of Biblical times’ Judaics. The majority of the descendants are today’s Palestinians. So if the ‘Chosen People’ status is transmitted genetically, then it is the Palestinians and not the Jews who are the chosen ones.

No, no, that’s impossible, is usually the shocked response to such ‘heretic’ thoughts. Imagine the consequences! It is, of course, the ‘Covenant’ between God and the Judaics, that makes them his ‘Chosen People’. In this religious contract the Judaics have undertaken to follow God’s law as layed down in what Christians call the Old Testament (OT).

My next question then is how God would feel if his Chosen People introduced thousands of new rules and exemptions to an extent that God’s original rules are no longer followed. Wouldn’t that break the ‘Covenant’ and make the Judaics loose their favourite status?

Of course, it would. Judaism has rejected the covenant by introducing the so-called oral tradition which was codified in form of the Babylonian Talmud after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. Anyone who has studied Judaism is aware of the fact that

• the Talmud has absolute priority over the OT,
• the Talmud is the most perverted and racist piece of hate literature ever written in human history,
• the Talmud systematically reinterprets the OT to an extent that what the OT ‘really means’, according to the rabbis’ teachings, and what Christians and Muslims believe have no resemblance what so ever, and
• that rabbis during their training spend more than 90% of their time studying the Talmud, and the rest is reserved for things like the sex-crazy black magic classic of the Cabala. The OT is only studied through the angle of what the Talmud teaches how to understand the OT.

According to traditional Christian teachings, the Judaics have lost their status as the Chosen People by rejecting God’s word in form of the OT in favour of the oral teachings of the rabbis which – most of the time – are in complete contradiction to what the OT says. Jesus got killed by the Judaics – either, as the Talmud describes in most gruesome detail, by the rabbis themselves, or by bullying the Romans into killing him – for rejecting the oral teachings of the rabbis.

If we follow the theory that the Chosen People is transferred via adherence to the Covenant, God’s law, Biblical times’ Judaics have lost the favourite status. By rejecting the oral tradition and refocusing on God’s law, the Christians have taken the place of the Judaics as the Chosen People. If modern days’ Jews want to regain God’s good-will, they have to reject the racist and pornographic oral traditions codified in the rabbinic concoctions of the Talmud and Cabala.

Andrew Winkler is the founder and editor/publisher of dissident blog ZioPedia.org and independent news site RebelNews.org. You can read more of his writings in the editorial section of ZioPedia.org. Andrew can be contacted on
andrew@therebel.org

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Source: ZioPedia.org

Israel’s eternal impunity

To justify itself, state terrorism creates terrorists: it sows hatred and harvests alibis. Everything indicates that the bloodbath in Gaza, which its creators claim was designed to eliminate terrorists, will result in a proliferation of them. Since 1948 Palestinians have lived in perpetual humiliation. They can’t breathe without permission. They have lost their country, their land, their water, their freedom, their everything.

They don’t even have the right to elect their own leaders: when they vote for someone they aren’t supposed to vote for, they are punished. Gaza is being punished. It has been transformed into a rat’s nest without an exit since Hamas fairly won the 2006 elections. Something similar occurred in 1932 when the Communist Party won in El Salvador. Drenched in blood, Salvadoreans paid for their misbehaviour and since that time have lived under military dictatorships. Democracy is a luxury that not all peoples deserve.

***

The homemade rockets that the militants of Hamas blindly launch into land that used to be theirs and was usurped by the Israeli occupation, are the offspring of impotence. And desperation, bordering on suicidal madness, is the mother of the futile boasting that denies the existence of the state of Israel – while an extremely efficient war of extermination has been denying Palestine’s right to exist for years.

Little of Palestine remains. Bit by bit Israel is erasing it from the map.

The settlers invade, accompanied by soldiers who correct the borders as they go. Bullets sanctify the pillage, in legitimate defence.

There is no war of aggression that doesn’t claim to be a defensive war. Hitler invaded Poland to prevent Poland from invading Germany. Bush invaded Iraq to keep Iraq from invading the world. In each of its defensive wars, Israel swallows up another piece of Palestine and the snacking continues. This process is justified with land deeds granted by the Bible, by the 2000 years of persecution that the Jewish people suffered and the panic generated by the sight of Palestinians lying in ambush.

***

Israel is the country that has never complied with UN resolutions or recommendations, never abides by judgements of international courts and mocks international law. It is also the only country that has legalized the torture of prisoners.

What gives them the right to deny the rights of others? Who is granting them the impunity with which they are carrying out the slaughter of Gaza? The Spanish government couldn’t bomb the Basque region to wipe out ETA, or Britain invade Ireland to liquidate the IRA, with impunity. Perhaps the tragedy of the Holocaust introduced a policy of eternal impunity? Or is it the all-powerful US that gave the green light and has in Israel the most unfailing of vassals.

***

The Israeli army, the most sophisticated and modern in the world, knows whom to kill. It doesn’t kill by error. It kills for horror. The civilian victims are referred to as ‘collateral damage’, according to the dictionary of other imperial wars. In Gaza, three of every ten instances of collateral damage are children. Then there are thousands of wounded and disabled, victims of the technology of human butchery that the military industry is successfully applying in this operation of ethnic cleansing.

And as usual – it is always this way – in Gaza for every hundred Palestinians killed one Israeli is killed.

‘These Palestinians are dangerous people’ is the message rained down by the other parallel bombardment, by the mass media of manipulation, which would have us believe that one Israeli life is worth that of one hundred Palestinians. These media would also have us believe that Israel’s 200 atomic bombs are humanitarian and that it was a nuclear power named Iran that annihilated Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

***

Does the so-called ‘international community’ exist?

And if so is it anything more than merchants, bankers and warriors? Is it anything more than an artistic name the US uses on the world stage?

In the face of the tragedy of Gaza world hypocrisy shines once again. As usual, indifference, empty speeches, vapid declarations, high-sounding rhetoric, ambiguous positions pay tribute to sacred impunity.

In the face of the tragedy of Gaza the Arab countries wash their hands – as usual. And as usual the European countries wring their hands.

Old Europe, with such a gift for beauty and perversity, weeps one tear after another, while secretly celebrating this masterful game. Because hunting Jews was always a European custom, though for half a century now the Palestinians have been paying the price for this historic crime. The Palestinians, who are also Semites but who were never, and are not, anti-semitic, are paying in their own blood and money some else’s debt.

© IPS

Sermon from the Corporate Church

Sermon from the Corporate Church

By: Peter Chamberlin

Hurricane winds pound at the gates of Fortress America and our leaders send out the order for more straw and sand to pound into the widening cracks. The harder the winds of change blow the more apparent it becomes that our “leaders” cannot lead, when they themselves await orders from above. As our house of cards flies apart at the seams, the master planners send their minions scrambling to salvage their disintegrating investments, worrying only about their “property,” caring less about the human life that is huddled in fear within.

This belief, that property is more valuable than human life itself, is the basis of humanity’s current problems. Capitalism, the embodiment of this belief, is in its death throes. The multiple crises which proponents of the capital faith have engineered were not unanticipated events; in fact, they were foreseen very clearly, as they have always been key elements of the planned grand finale to be implemented. The plan has always been to turn the coming catastrophe into the grandest opportunity of all time for men with no souls, having been consumed by greed.

Human nature itself has become the enemy of the master class. Only the indomitable human spirit and the eternal will to resist stands in the way of the global empire which promises limitless potential profits for a handful of the most heartless individuals. The most powerful of this select few foresee the coming opportunity and its dreadful unimaginable cost of the elimination of a sizeable portion of the human race, and yet, they remained undisturbed by its inhumanity and malevolence. The master planners do not believe it is possible to save the whole human race, so why waste resources (money) on those who cannot survive on their own. To try to do more would surely doom the system, the cornerstone of the religion of avarice. In their minds, preserving the fittest, most successful individuals is the best way to ensure the survival of the faith and the species.

Faith in the infallibility of capitalism and the belief that it is the answer to mankind’s problems permeates American culture, wherever it has taken root around the world. It is extremely unnerving to suggest to a true believer that capitalism is a doomed religion or that it is intrinsically harmful to mankind, comparable to cursing God to a faithful Muslim or Christian. But the hard truth is that trying to save capitalism from its own contradictions is an impossible task that will waste all the money spent trying, while the world reels from the multiple crises spun-off by the imposter “god” in its death throes.

The masters of deception have interwoven faith in capital with patriotic belief, while painting critics of either with the same brush of “communist.” Following their pseudo logic, all those who resist the plan for a global empire built on the graves of billions of “useless eaters” are considered to be enemies of mankind, no better than communists, terrorists, or other common criminals. Even though resistance to a plan of mass genocide is obviously an act of self-defense, those who dare to do so are marked as extremists and terrorists, targeted for death or incarceration in the war on terror. In the end, real patriots will seethe with righteous anger when they realize that America itself is the final target marked for destruction in the envisioned New Order. The destruction of the banks is a planned event, as was the elimination of American industry.

The wise men who plan the wars and move the grand chess pieces for their imaginary humanitarian reasons have developed their own scientific methods for persuading the human race into accepting their master plan. In their cold calculations they have arrived at a working hypothesis, whereby they have concluded that they only have to manipulate a small portion of the human race located in America, in key Western countries and in the Middle East, which stands in the way of their plans of conquest. All available resources are focused on this small segment of humanity, especially upon the leadership of this small select group, seeking to persuade them by the power of the purse or through sheer fear of military force to accept the takeover.

The leadership in every zone of conflict (including potential leaders) is assessed and targeted to either co-opt or to destroy. Group leadership manipulation techniques are used to build-up the useful groups who will accept the corporate domination, while tearing-down those that are thought to be impediments to the conquest. This process has advanced the empire’s agenda all over the planet, while strewing a trail of human wreckage in its wake. Entire countries have been destabilized and laid to waste in the service of the empire’s grand design. For the most part, the targeted individuals do not realize that they are being manipulated by forces hostile to their own desires or agendas. The fortunate few who do understand the forces allayed against the human race are effectively quarantined by corporate constrictions placed on all available mediums of communication, thereby limiting their ability to spread their infectious knowledge (truth) to others.

The infectious truth is that there exists a small powerful group of men who consider themselves to be gods, intent upon ruling the world. The global economic collapse is a product of their machinations, as is the “war on terror” we wage to save the global economy. We have decimated Afghanistan and Iraq as part of their plan to save capitalism and avert their eventual total ruin. We savage these countries thinking that we are saving our own country, which these men have sacrificed on the altar of “globalism” for their own enrichment. In the end, nothing is being saved, as the economic order is collapsing and our military begins to escalate the resource war in Asia. Our sons fight and die to finalize the world takeover for these false gods.

The Afghan/Pakistani quagmire, the focus of this plan, has been made worse by the sheer ignorance, neglect and brutality of the previous American administration. This policy was custom made for driving entire populations into taking-up arms in self-defense, with the only other path to “victory” given serious consideration being the complete decimation of those targeted populations. There is no room at the top for discussions of possible solutions of the impending intersecting world crises that involve moving resources from the accounts of the master class into the hands of the suffering masses. I was recently very surprised to hear one of the master strategists of the empire, adviser to President Obama, Zbigniew Brzezinski, advocating just that in an interview, when he called for creation of a National Solidarity Fund.

Another of Obama’s advisers, Richard Holbrooke, recently explained that the idea in Afghanistan/Pakistan was to separate the “reconcilables from the irreconcilables,” a call taken-up by Pakistani foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi. The “reconcilables” (those who will submit and become collaborators to the empire) could either be bought or brought into submission by a process of coercion. In the grand design those who prove to be immune to the fear tactics are coerced by more lethal persuasion. Surely Obama himself is in the dark about the depth of the depravity of the plan he has been hand-picked to administer.

The actual cost of the truly extremist “plan-to-takeover-the-world” is not to be measured in dollars, but in innocent lives claimed. The price tag for saving the collapsing capitalist system is much greater than the trillions of dollars now being cited in descriptions of the continuing bailout; it will be remembered simply as world war III, which claimed billions of lives. The horror that has been planned for us has been described best as the apocalypse or “Armageddon (a period of upheaval marked by famine and war of such ferocity that divine intervention will be required to save a remnant of the human race) by the ancient prophets who foresaw our era of false gods, describing the economic empire created as “The Beast”.

It is not possible to save the super-capitalists from the world crisis that they have brought on themselves. No amount of money poured down the drain, nor sacrifice of innocent multitudes will save the personal fortunes of the world’s richest most powerful men, but the correct expenditure of their massive fortunes would turn the situation around, saving the entire human race and setting the foundations for a new humane economic order. Obama must realize when the time comes that under the emergency powers of his office he not only has the authority to seize our assets, but he also has access to all the assets of America’s richest men for meeting those emergencies that threaten the common good.

Very soon it will become obvious to all that the national emergency that we have begun to enter truly threatens everything. Let capitalism pass away peacefully. Prepare to embrace a new humane economic order. If it is inevitable that the people must bailout the banks to preserve some semblance of the American way of life, then shouldn’t the people then own the banks? If, in the end, a choice must be made between a few men owning everything at the people’s expense, or the people owning their own means of production, then we all must choose to be our own masters.

peter.chamberlin@yahoo.com

Yes we are raging – against a Government that spies on its citizens while ignoring the crimes of greedy bankers

By James Slack

Today one of Britain’s most senior police officers with responsibility for public order raises the spectre of a ‘summer of rage’, with victims of the increasingly bitter recession taking to the streets in possibly violent protest.

Superintendent David Hartshorn, who heads the Metropolitan police’s public order branch, warned that law-abiding middle-class individuals who would never have considered joining demonstrations may now seek to vent their anger through protests this year.

Thousands of workers demonstrated in Dublin on Saturday. Police fear the worsening economic situation will lead to mass street protests in the UK

Many will consider such a scenario unlikely, or point out this has not been the ‘British way’ over the past two decades.

Violent protests take place in Europe – in recent weeks Greek farmers have blocked roads over falling agricultural prices, a million workers in France took to the streets to demand greater protection for their jobs and wages and Icelandic demonstrators have clashed with police in Reykjavik – but not here.

But can we really be so sure? The public’s rage with the banks and the Government is growing by the day.

Thousands are losing their jobs through no fault of their own because bankers who made millions during the good times are calling in the loans which their employers need to stay afloat.

Homes are being repossessed across the country, but not the penthouse flats and country piles of bank bosses who thought nothing of taking home vast seven-figure bonuses, and consider £1 million a year a modest income.

The innocent are being punished while the guilty continue to lead affluent lives.

As Ken Macdonald, the former Director of Public Prosecutions says today: ‘If you mug someone in the street and you are caught, the chances are that you will go to prison. In recent years, mugging someone out of their savings or their pension would probably earn you a yacht.’

Add to this a second issue highlighted by Sir Ken: the march of the surveillance state.

Ministers have been spending their time focussing on eroding our most treasured individual freedoms, while doing little or nothing to curb criminal behaviour by the banks.

The DNA database containing the samples of hundreds of thousands of entirely innocent people…the largest number of CCTV cameras in the world…anti-terrorist powers being deployed against dog foulers…restrictions on telling religious jokes…

All of these intrusive, liberty-sapping polices were developed while the banks were blowing billions on reckless sub-prime lending.

How much better a place Britain would be today if Labour had focussed on regulating the banks and getting a grip on the shambolic, toothless Financial Services Authority, rather than building a surveillance state.

That the public is being watched by Big Brother at every turn is deeply  alarming. That the innocent were being tracked going about their every day lives while a blind eye was being turned to a financial sector apparently hell-bent on destruction is unforgivable.

Thus, the idea of the ‘summer of rage’ may not be as far-fetched as it first appears.

Superintendent Hartshorn talks of the banks, particularly those that still pay large bonuses despite receiving billions in taxpayer money, becoming ‘viable targets’. Likewise, the headquarters of multinational companies and other financial institutions in the City which are being blamed for the financial crisis.

It is to their eternal shame that our banks should find themselves in such a position, and that Labour – while eroding the civil liberties Britain has fought so hard to defend over the centuries – was prepared to sit back and allow it to happen.

News From England, Test Lab For Global Police State

It is time to resist

David Omand’s national security strategy report shows us we have a very short time to save society from tyranny

“Once an individual has been assigned a unique index number, it is possible to accurately retrieve data across numerous databases and build a picture of that individual’s life that was not authorised in the original consent for data collection,” says Sir David Omand in a report for the Institute for Public Policy research.

This is not some wild fantasy. It is the world that we are about to move into and which Jack Straw’s coroners and justice bill, the ID Cards Act, RIPA laws and the EBorders scheme have patiently constructed while we have been living in an idiots’ paradise of easy money.

We have a choice: either we can believe that the British state is peculiarly immune to tyrannical instincts that are beginning to show in this government or we can now start to oppose what is going on. We have a very short time to save our society from this nightmare, as has been made clear by Sir Ken Macdonald, the former DPP, Dame Stella Rimington, the former head of MI5, and the House of Lord constitutional committee.

Omand is not the first civil servant to describe this world to us. In 2006 Sir David Varney, the head of Transformational Government predicted that the state would know “a deep truth about the citizen based on their behaviour, experience, beliefs, needs or desires”. The report from the IPPR merely fills in the gaps of this statement and shows us how it will be done.

Omand is a “securicrat” par excellence. He is the former intelligence and security adviser to Tony Blair; he speaks from the heart of the surveillance bureaucracy; and his views are those of GCHQ, which has lobbied for the measures in the coroners and justice bill. His paper is presented by some as a warning – which it is to all of us – but having met the man and debated him, I am pretty sure that this represents his heart’s desire. Either way, the important point is that we now have a very clear picture of what is about to happen, and it is for us to respond by fashioning a society where the powers that technology grants our rulers are controlled.

You may wonder why parliament has not alerted us to these dangers. That is because it is because part of the project, and Labour ministers continue to shelter behind the Human Rights Act, which offers no protection to the British public whatsoever. What we need is entrenched legislation that controls the executive and makes sure that no British citizen will ever be assigned a number so that the state may conveniently watch his or her every move.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is time to resist for we cannot rely, as Omand asks us, on the “essential reasonableness of the UK police, security and intelligence agency activity”.

Tomorrow week the Commons committee meets to discuss Jack Straw’s data-sharing proposal in the coroners and justice bill. If this measure goes through we are lost.

Dostoevsky & The Jewish Bankers

Dostoevsky & The Jewish Bankers

DOSTOEVSKY & THE JEWISH BANKERS
By Brother Nathanael Kapner, Copyright 2009

FEODOR DOSTOEVSKY LEFT US A “PROPHECY” of the threat to Christian civilization by emancipated Jewry.

In his book, Diary Of A Writer, published in 1877, Dostoevsky penned a journal entry, entitled, The Jewish Question. With alarming and frightening foresight, (by which he penetrated into today’s events), Dostoevsky predicted a growing domination over social and political affairs by the Jews with their newly acquired rights:

“The Jews look forward to world domination. This requires them to maintain their own close-knit identity. If the Jews are given equal legal rights in Russia, but are allowed to keep their ‘State within a State,’ they would be more privileged than the Russians. The consequences of this situation are already clear in Europe.” View Entire Article Here.

Expressing his concern regarding Jewry’s agenda for world domination, Dostoevsky demonstrated how Jewish bankers had taken over Europe by the mid 1800’s:

“It is not for nothing that everywhere in Europe the Jews are reigning over the stock exchanges, not for nothing that they control capital, not for nothing that they are masters of credit, and not for nothing, I repeat, that they are the masters of all international politics.

What is coming is the complete triumph of Jewish ideas, before which, sentiments of humanity, the thirst for truth, Christian feelings, and the national and popular pride of Europe must bow.

And what will be in the future is known also to the Jews themselves: Their reign is approaching, their complete reign!” View Entire Article Here.

IN LIGHT OF JEWRY’S CONTROL of Europe’s financial & social sphere, Dostoevsky then voiced his fears regarding Jewry’s threat to Russia:

“What if there were only three million Russians and there were eighty million Jews? How would they treat Russians and how would they lord it over them? What rights would Jews give Russians?

Wouldn’t they turn them into slaves? Worse then that, wouldn’t they skin them altogether? Wouldn’t they slaughter them to the last man, to the point of complete extermination?” View Entire Article Here.

DOSTOEVSKY BROUGHT HIS PROPHECY to a head by predicting that Jewry’s religious dictates, coupled with the control of the “Yid and his bank,” would bring the Gentiles into complete subjugation:

“It is impossible to conceive of a Jew apart from his religion. They are all waiting for their messiah, all of them, from the lowest Yid to the highest and most learned philosopher and rabbi-Kabalist. They all believe that their messiah will unite them in Jerusalem and bring by his sword, all nations to their feet.

The Yid and his bank are now ruling over everything: over Europe, education, civilization, socialism, especially socialism, for he will use it to uproot Christianity and destroy its civilization. And when only anarchy remains, the Yid will be in command of everything.

For while the Jew goes about preaching socialism, he will stick together with his own, and after all the riches of Europe have been wasted, the Yid’s bank will still be there.” View Entire Quote Here & Here.

Scary, Isn’t it? And, Very Much Up To Date Is It Not?
… Brother Nathanael Kapner, A Former Jew, Reporting …
___________________________________
For More See: Jewry’s Scheme For World Domination Click Here

And: The ‘Jewish Question’ Now A Global Issue Click Here

And: Federal Reserve: A Private Jew Bank Strangling America! Click Here

And: Putin’s Purge Of The Rothschild Money Changers Click Here

And: Solzhenitsyn & The Jews Click Here

Hepatitis Plight of India’s Untouchables?

10,000 kg of used syringe seized, 15 docs booked

Joydeep Ray

Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation has sealed 15 clinics of private doctors and recovered over 10,000 kgs of used syringe from raids on Friday morning.

Fifteen doctors have been booked under various provisions of Indian Penal Code by Ahmedabad city police.

No formal arrests have been made so far, but the doctors may be arrested after investigation.

PTI adds: The district health officials also raided godowns of scrap dealers across the city and sealed five godowns from where large quantity of used syringes, needles and bio-medical waste were found.

According to health officials, these scrap dealers used to purchase used syringes and biomedical waste from those dealers in hepatitis-hit Modasa town, who were booked on Wednesday night by the police.

“We have sealed five godowns, which contained large quantity of bio-medical waste, used syringes and needles,” Chief District Health Officer (CDHO), Ahmedabad, Dr R R Vaidya
said.

“Three godowns have been sealed in Saijpur Bogha area and two in Asarwa area,” Vaidya said, adding that the owners of the godown are being questioned, and they are in the process of filing an FIR.

He said that the operation was jointly carried out by district health officials, Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation officials and police.

Gaza: Death`s Laboratory

By Conn Hallinan Feb 27, 2009, 04:03

Erik Fosse, a Norwegian cardiologist, worked in Gaza hospitals during the recent war.`It was as if they had stepped on a mine,` he says of certain Palestinian patients he treated. `But there was no shrapnel in the wound. Some had lost their legs. It looked as though they had been sliced off. I have been to war zones for 30 years, but I have never seen such injuries before.`

Dr. Fosse was describing the effects of a U.S. `focused lethality` weapon that minimizes explosive damage to structures while inflicting catastrophic wounds on its victims. But where did the Israelis get this weapon? And was their widespread use in the attack on Gaza a field test for a new generation of explosives?

DIMEd to Death

The specific weapon is called a Dense Inert Metal Explosive (DIME). In 2000, the U.S. Air Force teamed up with the University of California`s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The weapon wraps high explosives with a tungsten alloy and other metals like cobalt, nickel, or iron in a carbon fiber/epoxy container. When the bomb explodes the container evaporates, and the tungsten turns into micro-shrapnel that is extremely lethal within a 13–foot radius. Tungsten is inert, so it doesn`t react chemically with the explosive. While a non-inert metal like aluminum would increase the blast, tungsten actually contains the explosion to a limited area.

Within the weapon`s range, however, it`s inordinately lethal. According to Norwegian doctor Mad Gilbert, the blast results in multiple amputations and `very severe fractures. The muscles are sort of split from the bones, hanging loose, and you also have quite severe burns.` Most of those who survive the initial blast quickly succumb to septicemia and organ collapse. `Initially, everything seems in order…but it turns out on operation that dozens of miniature particles can be found in all their organs,` says Dr. Jam Brommundt, a German doctor working in Kham Younis, a city in southern Gaza. `It seems to be some sort of explosive or shell that disperses tiny particles…that penetrate all organs, these miniature injuries, you are not able to attack them surgically.` According to Brommundt, the particles cause multiple organ failures.

If by some miracle victims resist those conditions, they are almost certain to develop rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS), a particularly deadly cancer that deeply embeds itself into tissue and is almost impossible to treat. A 2005 U.S. Department of health study found that tungsten stimulated RMS cancers even in very low doses. All of the 92 rats tested developed the cancer.

While DIMEs were originally designed to avoid `collateral` damage generated by standard high-explosive bombs, the weapon`s lethality and profound long-term toxicity hardly seem like an improvement.

It appears DIME weapons may have been used in the 2006 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, but not enough to alarm medical workers. But in Gaza, the ordinance was widely used. Al-Shifta alone has seen 100 to 150 victims of these attacks.
Gaza as Test

Dr. Gilbert told the Oslo Gardermoen, `there is a strong suspicion…that Gaza is now being used as a test laboratory for new weapons.`

Marc Garlasco, Human Rights Watch`s senior military advisor, says `it remains to be seen how Israel has acquired the technology, whether they purchased weapons from the United States under some agreement, or if they in fact licensed or developed their own type of munitions.`

In fact, Congress approved the $77 million sale of 1,000 GBU-39s to Israel in September 2008, and the weapons were delivered in December. Israel was the first foreign recipient of the DIMES.

DIME weapons aren`t banned under the Geneva Conventions because they have never been officially tested. However, any weapon capable of inflicting such horrendous damage is normally barred from use, particularly in one of the most densely populated regions in the world.

For one thing, no one knows how long the tungsten remains in the environment or how it could affect people who return to homes attacked by a DIME. University of Arizona cancer researcher Dr. Mark Witten, who investigates links between tungsten and leukemia, says that in his opinion `there needs to be much more research on the health effects of tungsten before the military increases its usage.`
Beyond DIMEs

DIMEs weren`t the only controversial weapons used in Gaza. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) also made generous use of white phosphorus, a chemical that burns with intense heat and inflicts terrible burns on victims. In its vapor form it also damages breathing passages. International law prohibits the weapon`s use near population areas and requires that `all reasonable precautions` be taken to avoid civilians.

Israel initially denied using the chemical. `The IDF acts only in accordance with what is permitted by international law and does not use white phosphorus,` said Israel`s Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi on January 13.

But eyewitness accounts in Gaza and Israel soon forced the IDF to admit that they were, indeed, using the substance. On January 20, the IDF confessed to using phosphorus artillery shells as smokescreens, as well as 200 U.S.-made M825A1 phosphorus mortar shells on `Hamas fighters and rocket launching crews in northern Gaza.`

Three of those shells hit the UN Works and Relief Agency compound on January 15, igniting a fire that destroyed hundreds of tons of humanitarian supplies. A phosphorus shell also hit Al-Quds hospital in Gaza City. The Israelis say there were Hamas fighters near the two targets, a charge that witnesses adamantly deny.

Donatella Rovera of Amnesty International said: `Such extensive use of this weapon in Gaza`s densely-populated residential neighborhoods…and its toll on civilians is a war crime.`

Israel is also accused of using depleted uranium ammunition (DUA), which a UN sub-commission in 2002 found in violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions, the International Convention Against Torture, the Conventional Weapons Convention, and the Hague Conventions against the use of poison weapons.

DUA isn`t highly radioactive, but after exploding, some of it turns into a gas that can easily be inhaled. The dense shrapnel that survives also tends to bury itself deeply, leaching low-level radioactivity into water-tables.
War Crimes?

Other human-rights groups, including B`Tselem, Gisha, and Physicians for Human Rights, charge that the IDF intentionally targeted medical personal, killing over a dozen, including paramedics and ambulance drivers.

The International Federation for Human Rights called on the UN Security Council to refer Israel to the International Criminal Court for possible war crimes.

Although the Israelis dismiss the war-crimes charges, the fact that the Israeli cabinet held a special meeting on January 25 to discuss the issue suggests they`re concerned about being charged with `disproportionate` use of force. The Geneva Conventions require belligerents to at `all times` distinguish between combatants and civilians and to avoid `disproportionate force` in seeking military gains.

Hamas` use of unguided missiles fired at Israel would also be a war crime under the Conventions.

`The one-sidedness of casualty figures is one measure of disproportion,` says Richard Falk, the UN`s human rights envoy for the occupied territories. A total of 14 Israelis have been killed in the fighting, three of them civilians killed by rockets, 11 of them soldiers, four of the latter by `friendly fire.` Some 50 IDF soldiers were also wounded.

In contrast, 1,330 Palestinians have died and 5,450 were injured, the overwhelming bulk of them civilians.

`This kind of fighting constitutes a blatant violation of the laws of warfare, which we ask to be investigated by the Commission of War Crimes,` a coalition of Israeli human rights groups and Amnesty International said in a joint statement. `The responsibility of the state of Israel is beyond doubt.`
Enter the Hague?

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann would coordinate the defense of any soldier or commander charged with a war crime. In any case, the United States would veto any effort by the UN Security Council to refer Israelis to the International Court at The Hague.

But, as the Financial Times points out, `all countries have an obligation to search out those accused of `grave` breaches of the rules of war and to put them on trial or extradite them to a country that will.`

That was the basis under which the British police arrested Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1998.

`We`re in a seismic shift in international law,` Amnesty International legal advisor Christopher Hall told the Financial Times, who says Israel`s foreign ministry is already examining the risk to Israelis who travel abroad.

`It`s like walking across the street against a red light,` he says. `The risk may be low, but you`re going to think twice before committing a crime or traveling if you have committed one.`

Conn Hallinan is a Foreign Policy In Focus columnist.

http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5862

A people abandoned

By Serge Halimi Feb 27, 2009, 04:07

By 14 January Israeli troops had killed more than a thousand Palestinians confined to a narrow strip of land and subjected to land, sea and air bombardment by one of the most formidable armies in the world. A Palestinian school converted into a United Nations refuge had been bombed (1), a resolution – issued by the only organisation that really represents the “international community” people are so fond of talking about – had called in vain for a halt to the military operations in Gaza. So, on 14 January, the European Union showed just how firmly it was prepared to react to this mixed display of violence and arrogance. It decided to suspend the process of rapprochement with Israel! But to lessen the impact of what might, even so, have been seen as gentle reproach to Tel Aviv, it explained that this was a “technical”measure, not a “political”one. And that the decision was taken by “both parties”.

Israel is free to do as it likes. Its army had already destroyed most of the Palestinian infrastructure funded by the EU and there had been little or no reaction, no legal action, no call for reparations (2). It then imposed a blockade on people already living in poverty, with no water, food or medical supplies. Still no response, only endless admonitions and a general refusal to become involved in the argument, on the pretext that violence of the strong is not always accompanied by submission of the weak. So why should Israel suppose that it cannot continue to act with impunity?

Twenty years ago, the Jewish state took the precaution of encouraging the rise of Hamas against the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). Hamas was a dream adversary, with a medieval charter, doubtful military potential and no inclination to “communicate” with western public opinion. Having no “partner for peace”is a perfect excuse to bomb and colonise ad lib. But even now, there are still newspaper editors in Europe complaining that Israel one day lose the moral high ground” (3).

The United States too has nothing against the Tel Aviv government’s plans. On 9 January, the House of Representatives passed a resolution recognising Israel’s “right to defend itself against attacks from Gaza”. A few hours earlier the Senate had “reaffirmed the United States’ strong support for Israel in its battle with Hamas”. Perhaps with the idea of striking some sort of “balance”, the House of Representatives resolution also expresses to innocent Israeli and Palestinian victims and their families”. That resolution was adopted by 390 votes to five. The Senate resolution was adopted unanimously. The US executive also held firm: a few hours after announcing a unilateral ceasefire, Ehud Olmert rang the US president to thank him for his support. Support also includes non-refundable aid amounting to $3 billion a year, which no-one including Obama has thought of questioning.

With this sort of backing, the main Israeli parties’ aim seems to be clear: to destroy any prospect of achieving the internationally recognised aim of establishing a genuine Palestinian state. The West Bank will continue to be an amorphous collection of homelands, criss-crossed with walls and roadblocks, dotted with settlements, and drip-fed by the European Union. And Gaza will be bombed whenever its neighbour has a mind to unleash a disproportionate “response” to rocket or other attacks. In fact, after 60 years of defeat, humiliation, exile, violation of signed agreements, colonisation and internecine feuding, after governments all over the world have abandoned them to their fate and allowed international law, including international humanitarian law, to be ridden over roughshod, it is nothing short of a miracle that the Palestinians are still determined to assert their national identity in real terms.

If they succeed, it will not be thanks to the Europeans, or to the Americans or to most Arab states. In Gaza, these powers have all conspired once again in the interminable spoliation of a nation.

http://mondediplo.com/2009/02/01abandoned

Fueling the Cycle of Hate

By YIGAL BRONNER and NEVE GORDON Feb 27, 2009, 04:13

Israeli soccer matches were suspended during the assault on Gaza. When the games resumed last week, the fans had come up with a new chant: `Why have the schools in Gaza been shut down?` sang the crowd. `Because all the children were gunned down!` came the answer.

Aside from its sheer barbarism, this chant reflects the widespread belief among Israeli Jews that Israel scored an impressive victory in Gaza – a victory measured, not least, by the death toll.

Israeli pilots and tank commanders could not really discriminate between the adults and the children who hid in their homes or huddled in the UNRWA shelters, and yet they chose to press the trigger. Therefore, it is not at all surprising that the lethal onslaught left 1,314 Palestinians dead, of which 412 – or nearly one third of all of the casualties – were children.

This latest assault underscores that Israel, not unlike Hamas, readily resorts to violence and does not distinguish between civilians and combatants (only the weapons at Israel`s disposal are much more lethal). No matter how many times the Israeli government tries to blame Hamas for the latest Palestinian civilian deaths it simply cannot explain away the body count, especially that of the children. In addition to the dead, 1,855 Palestinian children were wounded, and tens of thousands of others have likely been traumatised, many of them for life.

Every child has a story. A Bedouin friend recently called to tell us about his relatives in Gaza. One cousin allowed her five-year-old daughter to walk to the adjacent house to see whether the neighbours had something left to eat. The girl had been crying from hunger. The moment she began crossing the street a missile exploded nearby and the flying shrapnel killed her. The mother has since been bedridden, weeping and screaming, `I have let my girl die hungry`.

As if the bloody incursion was not enough, the Israeli security forces seem to be keen on spreading the flames of hatred among the Arab population within Israel. Hundreds of Palestinian citizens of Israel have been arrested for protesting at the Israeli assault and more than 200 of them are still in custody. One incident is enough to illustrate the psychological effect these arrests will likely have on hundreds more children.

A few days after the ceasefire, several men wearing black ski masks stormed the home of Muhammad Abu Humus. They came to arrest him for protesting against the killings in Gaza. It was four in the morning and the whole family was asleep when the men banged on the door. After entering the house, they made Abu Humus`s wife Wafa and their four children Erfat (12), Shahd (9), Anas (6) and Majd (3) stand in a corner as they searched the house, throwing all the clothes, sheets, toys, and kitchenware on the floor. With tears in their eyes, the children watched as the armed men then took their father away and left.

Chance would have it that Abu Humus, a long-time peace activist and member of the Fatah party, is a personal friend of ours. In 2001, he joined Ta`ayush Arab-Jewish Partnership, and since then has selflessly organized countless peace rallies and other joint activities. During the past eight years, we have spent many hours at each other`s homes and our children have grown up respecting and liking one other. It is hard to believe that just one month ago he attended the Bar Mitzvah of Yigal`s son in a Jerusalem synagogue.

Muhammad and Wafa Abu Humus have tried over the years to instill in their children a love and desire for peace, and while the security forces may not have destroyed this, the hatred they have generated in one night cannot be underestimated. Indeed, what, one might ask, will his children think of their Jewish neighbours? What feelings will they harbour? And what can we expect from those children in Gaza who have witnessed the killing of their parents, siblings, friends and neighbours?

We emphasize the Palestinian children because so many of them have been killed and terrorized in the past month. Yet it is clear that Israeli children are suffering as well, particularly those who have spent long periods in shelters for fear of being hit by rockets.

The one message that is being conveyed to children on both sides of this fray is that the other side is a bloodthirsty monster. In Israel, this was instantly translated into gains for the hate-mongering Yisrael Beytenu party headed by the xenophobic Avigdor Lieberman, who is now the frontrunner in mock polls being held in many Jewish high schools, with the hawkish Binyamin Netanyahu coming in second.

Hatred, in other words, is the great winner of this war. It has helped mobilise racist mobs, and as the soccer chant indicates it has left absolutely no place for the other, undermining even basic empathy for innocent children. Israel`s masters of war must be happy: the seeds of the next wars have certainly been sown.

Yigal Bronner teaches in the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago.

Neve Gordon is chair of the department of politics and government at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and author of Israel’s Occupation (University of California Press, 2008).

http://www.counterpunch.org/gordon01272009.html

Israel Planning Mass Expansion of W.Bank Settlement Bloc

Readers Number : 52

27/02/2009 Despite the Israeli formal commitment not to expand West Bank settlements, a government agency has been promoting plans over the past two years to construct thousands of housing units east of the Green Line, Israeli daily Haaretz has reported. The plans, which have not yet been approved by the Israeli government, were drawn up by the Civil Administration, the government agency responsible for nonmilitary matters in the West Bank. Details of the plans appear in the minutes of the agency’s environmental subcommittee, which were obtained by the B’Tselem organization under the Freedom of Information Act. The plans propose the initial construction of 550 apartments in Gva’ot, located near Alon Shvut in the Gush Etzion settlement bloc, followed by construction of another 4,450 units at a later stage. Rimonim will get another 254 apartments if the plans are approved, and expansion plans are also in the works for Einav and Mevo Dotan. All three of these settlements are east of the separation fence. Ma’aleh Adumim has included planned construction in the E-1 corridor in its sewage treatment plans. That corridor, which links Ma’aleh Adumim to occupied Jerusalem, is eventually slated to hold some 3,500 apartments. Nearby Kfar Adumim’s sewage treatment plan predicts that the settlement will double its population “in the coming years,” to 5,600 inhabitants. And in Eshkolot, the Civil Administration instructed the settlement to draw up a sewage plan adequate for a population five times its current one. A Civil Administration spokesman said that its “environmental subcommittee does not discuss approval for housing units at all, but deals with the professional aspects of the area’s environmental needs, sometimes at the theoretical level.”

Experts Discuss US Options in Afghanistan, Pakistan
By Deborah Tate

An Afghan checkpoint on the border with Pakistan

A panel of experts urged changes in U.S. policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan. Their testimony before a U.S. Senate panel on Thursday came as the Obama administration is conducting a review of U.S. policy in the region.

Much of the hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee dealt with Afghanistan, where President Barack Obama has decided to send another 17,000 troops to respond to the worsening violence there.

The experts at the hearing agreed with the president’s decision, but said success in Afghanistan would require more than just an increase in troop numbers.

The experts agreed on the need to unify the NATO and American military command chain, help the Afghan government increase the ranks of its Army and intensify U.S. engagement in the region — proposals offered by the Senate Armed Services Committee top Republican, Senator John McCain of Arizona, in a Washington speech this week.

Retired Army Lieutenant General David Barno, Director of the National Defense University’s Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies, offered a sober assessment.

“In my judgment, the international effort in Afghanistan is drifting toward failure. There is still time to turn it around. But it will take strong U.S. leadership, a change of strategic direction, focused and substantial effort,” he said.

Barno called for a unified counterinsurgency approach. “A unified strategy must include counter-narcotics, rule of law, governance, development, building security forces and counterterrorism,” he said.

Barno suggested pursuing this approach in three phases. He said the United States and its allies should focus first on stabilizing Afghanistan and setting the conditions for a successful presidential election later this year. He said that next year, the focus should shift toward building additional Afghan security forces and state institutions. Barno described the final phase, to take place between 2015 and 2025, as movement to full Afghan control as security improves and economic capability takes root.

James Dobbins, Director of the RAND Corporation’s International Security and Defense Policy Center and a former U.S. envoy to Afghanistan, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the goal of U.S. policy in Afghanistan should be security for the Afghan people.

“Our job is neither to defeat the Taliban nor to determine the future shape of Afghan society. The American and allied objectives should be to reverse the current negative security trends and ensure that fewer innocent Afghans are killed next year than this year. If as a result of our efforts the current rise in violence is reversed and the population made more secure, the Afghan people will be able to determine their own future through peaceful rather than violent competition of ideas, people and political factions,” he said.

The experts agreed that Pakistan poses a top challenge to the region.

Lieutenant General Barno called on the United States to assist Pakistan in reforming the country militarily and economically. “We have to have a vision of a long term relationship there that <!– /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:”Cambria Math”; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:1; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-format:other; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:0 0 0 0 0 0;} @font-face {font-family:Calibri; panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:swiss; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-1610611985 1073750139 0 0 159 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:””; margin-top:0in; margin-right:0in; margin-bottom:10.0pt; margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:”Calibri”,”sans-serif”; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} span.body {mso-style-name:body; mso-style-unhide:no;} .MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} .MsoPapDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; margin-bottom:10.0pt; line-height:115%;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} –>
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allows them to believe in the sustained presence and the sustained involvement of the United States in the region. Their lack of that belief today undercuts all of our efforts,” he said.

Marin Strmecki, Senior Vice President and Director of Programs at the Smith Richardson Foundation, suggested that the United States use development aid as leverage to spur greater efforts by Islamabad against extremists in the border area with Afghanistan. He called for increasing such aid to the level given to Egypt — the largest recipient of U.S. development aid.

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“I think if Pakistan moves into a fully cooperative posture, vis-à-vis Afghanistan, we should be prepared to put on the table Egypt-level assistance in the long-term to rebuild Pakistan’s educational infrastructure, its economy, and to prove that the United States has an interest in Pakistan — not because it is going to help us in the war on terror, but for Pakistan’s own sake.

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only after Pakistan has become fully cooperative in our relationship,”

he said.

A number of U.S. lawmakers favor increasing development aid to Pakistan, although not all of them say it should be made conditional.