"IF YOUR'E GOING TO PUT YOUR FAMILY IN A NURSING HOME... YOU BETTER VISIT THEM AT LEAST EVERY TWO DAYS, YOU BETTER LIVE NEAR THEM, YOU BETTER BRING THEM LUNCH, YOU BETTER SIT THERE AND WATCH TV WITH THEM, YOU BETTER SIT THERE AND RUB THERE FEET AND LOVE YOUR PARENTS (voice raises in anger) THAT WIPED YOUR BUTT, THAT TOOK CARE OF YOU, YOU SCUMBAG YUPPIES!!!"
-Alex Jones speaking to yuppies (and all Americans for that matter)
"What a bunch of garbage, liberal, Democratic, conservative, Republican, it's all there to control you, two sides of the same coin! Two management teams, bidding for control of the CEO job of Slavery Incorporated!"
--Alex Jones
We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost 40 years......It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supernational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national autodetermination practiced in past centuries.
Author: David Rockefeller, Source: Trilateral Commission meeting, June, 1991
Nancy Pelosi is currently serving as the Speaker of the House… despite much of her talk about opposing President Bush’s agenda and standing behind the Constitution, Mrs. Pelosi’s record speaks for itself! She voted for the PATRIOT act, voted for every bill funding a war she supposedly is against, and has also even voted against legislation that would protect the 4th Amendment. It is also key to mention that Mrs. Pelosi is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a global think tank which has publicly stated that it wants to destroy national sovereignty.
Nancy Pelosi was brought into the House in order to push for impeachment as well as an end to the war in Iraq… to date, she has done none of this!
Recently, members of WeAreCHANGE confronted Mrs. Pelosi at the New York Times Center in Manhattan about these facts.
After being turfed out of the building a fresh confrontation occurred with security and police who demanded to know “who the hell” the protesters were in order that they may have their bags returned to them, which were still inside.
The police officer also tells one of the activists that a cigarette he is smoking is now classed as a weapon.
Cheney, Neocons Considered Killing Americans in Pretext to Attack Iran
Note: Hyperlinks are in bold
In the video here, taped at the Campus Progress journalism conference earlier this month, the Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh reveals how the neocons convened around Dick Cheney and brainstormed ways to kick off World War IV, as they fondly call their pet project to take out the Muslims and foment a contrived “clash of civilizations.”
According to Hersh, this meeting occurred after the neocons failed miserably to stage a rehashed version of the Gulf of Tonkin incident in the Strait of Hormuz, mostly because it is no longer 1964 and such Big Lies — thanks to the internet and bloggers — are far more difficult to float. “For all I know, our Navy was shooting at whales out there,” quipped LBJ about the imaginary act of North Vietnamese boats supposedly attacking U.S. ships, leading to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and undeclared war in Southeast Asia, ultimately resulting in the death of nearly 60,000 Americans and around 3 million Southeast Asians.
In an exclusive Think Progress story, we learn the meeting took place in Cheney’s office and the subject on the table was “how to create a casus belli between Tehran and Washington,” part of an ongoing effort to provide an excuse to attack Iran. “There was a dozen ideas proffered about how to trigger a war,” Hersh explains. “The one that interested me the most was why don’t we build — we in our shipyard — build four or five boats that look like Iranian PT boats. Put Navy seals on them with a lot of arms. And next time one of our boats goes to the Straits of Hormuz, start a shoot-up.”
Hersh would have us believe this scenario did not play out because “you can’t have Americans killing Americans,” an absurd explanation considering the fact the attacks of September 11 were just that — “Americans killing Americans,” a calculated and cold-blooded act of mass murder carried out by elements in the U.S. government as a “new Pearl Harbor,” a cynical pretext to launch the “war on terror,” now grinding into its seventh year.
Ominously, these “ideas” hark back to Operation Northwoods, the JSC plan to stage a false flag terror event — or a number of events — designed to provide a pretext to invade Cuba and take out Fidel Castro. Such “ideas” included “friendly Cubans” attacking the U.S. base at Guantanamo, shooting down a drone disguised as a chartered civil airliner and blaming it on Cuba, inciting riots and staging terror attacks in Miami, and other terrorist acts. Fortunately, then Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, put a kibosh to this insane plan.
More recently, in January, 2003, in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion George Bush and Tony Blair discussed painting planes in United Nations colors “in order to provoke an attack which could then be used to justify material breach” and thus set in motion an invasion, according to Philippe Sands, a leading British human rights lawyer (see Revealed: Bush and Blair discussed using American Spyplane in UN colors to lure Saddam into war, Channel Four News).
In fact, the neocons have not rested in their effort to foment war and force the support of the American people by way of deception. On May 16, 2008, Paul Joseph Watson, writing for Prison Planet, noted confidential recordings released under the Freedom of Information Act revealing the efforts of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and top military analysts to cook up another terrorist attack on America in order to gain support for their ambitious plans to decimate Muslim culture. “The most extraordinary exchange takes place when Lt. Gen. Michael DeLong bemoans shrinking political support for Neo-Con war plans on Capitol Hill and suggests that sympathy for the Bush administration’s agenda will only be achieved after a new terror attack,” writes Watson. “Rumsfeld agrees that the psychological impact of 9/11 is wearing off and the ‘behavior pattern’ of citizens in both the U.S. and Europe suggests that they are unconcerned about the threat of terror.” Rumsfeld characterizes Bush as “a victim of success” because America has not suffered “an attack in five years” and for Rumsfeld and the neocons this state of affairs is indeed lamentable.
Obviously, the neocons will stop at nothing — including the murder of more Americans in a false flag terror attack — to realize their agenda.
Finally, Sy Hersh casts suspicion on himself during the interview when he admits he did not bother to write an article on the neocon casus belli brainstorming session because it did not go forward. “So I can understand the argument for not writing something that was rejected — uh maybe. My attitude always towards editors is they’re mice training to be rats…. But the point is jejune, if you know what that means.” It was “jejune” because Hersh believes the “American public, if you get the right incident, the American public will support bang-bang-kiss-kiss. You know, we’re into it.”
Of course, that may be true for some of the American public, even a large segment, but for those of us up to speed on the master plan of the neocons — total war, so the children of the neocons will “sing great songs about us years from now,” as Richard Perle once said — this comment stinks of irresponsibility. It avoids discussion of the criminal mindset of the neocons, who are determined to start WW IV, even if such a conflict leads to the distinct possibility the Prince of Darkness’ children may not be around to sing great songs.
Speaking at the Campus Progress journalism conference earlier this month, Seymour Hersh — a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist for The New Yorker — revealed that Bush administration officials held a meeting recently in the Vice President’s office to discuss ways to provoke a war with Iran.
In Hersh’s most recent article, he reports that this meeting occurred in the wake of the overblown incident in the Strait of Hormuz, when a U.S. carrier almost shot at a few small Iranian speedboats. The “meeting took place in the Vice-President’s office. ‘The subject was how to create a casus belli between Tehran and Washington,’” according to one of Hersh’s sources.
During the journalism conference event, I asked Hersh specifically about this meeting and if he could elaborate on what occurred. Hersh explained that, during the meeting in Cheney’s office, an idea was considered to dress up Navy Seals as Iranians, put them on fake Iranian speedboats, and shoot at them. This idea, intended to provoke an Iran war, was ultimately rejected:
HERSH: There was a dozen ideas proffered about how to trigger a war. The one that interested me the most was why don’t we build — we in our shipyard — build four or five boats that look like Iranian PT boats. Put Navy seals on them with a lot of arms. And next time one of our boats goes to the Straits of Hormuz, start a shoot-up.
Might cost some lives. And it was rejected because you can’t have Americans killing Americans. That’s the kind of — that’s the level of stuff we’re talking about. Provocation. But that was rejected.
Hersh argued that one of the things the Bush administration learned during the encounter in the Strait of Hormuz was that, “if you get the right incident, the American public will support” it.
“Look, is it high school? Yeah,” Hersh said. “Are we playing high school with you know 5,000 nuclear warheads in our arsenal? Yeah we are. We’re playing, you know, who’s the first guy to run off the highway with us and Iran.”
Transcript:
HERSH: There was a meeting. Among the items considered and rejected — which is why the New Yorker did not publish it, on grounds that it wasn’t accepted — one of the items was why not…
There was a dozen ideas proffered about how to trigger a war. The one that interested me the most was why don’t we build — we in our shipyard — build four or five boats that look like Iranian PT boats. Put Navy seals on them with a lot of arms. And next time one of our boats goes to the Straits of Hormuz, start a shoot-up. Might cost some lives.
And it was rejected because you can’t have Americans killing Americans. That’s the kind of — that’s the level of stuff we’re talking about. Provocation. But that was rejected.
So I can understand the argument for not writing something that was rejected — uh maybe. My attitude always towards editors is they’re mice training to be rats.
But the point is jejune, if you know what that means. Silly? Maybe. But potentially very lethal. Because one of the things they learned in the incident was the American public, if you get the right incident, the American public will support bang-bang-kiss-kiss. You know, we’re into it.
…What happened in the Gulf was, in the Straits, in early January, the President was just about to go to the Middle East for a visit. So that was one reason they wanted to gin it up. Get it going.
Look, is it high school? Yeah. Are we playing high school with you know 5,000 nuclear warheads in our arsenal? Yeah we are. We’re playing, you know, who’s the first guy to run off the highway with us and Iran.
If this story sounds familiar, that's because it is. In one of David Manning's famous memos describing a prewar meeting between George Bush and Tony Blair, he says that Bush admitted that WMD was unlikely to be found in Iraq and then mused on some possible options for justifying a war anyway:
"The U.S. was thinking of flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in U.N. colours," the memo says, attributing the idea to Mr. Bush. "If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach."
In the end, of course, we didn't do this. We just didn't bother with any pretext at all.
In his new exposé of the National Security Agency entitled Body of Secrets, author James Bamford highlights a set of proposals on Cuba by the Joint Chiefs of Staff codenamed OPERATION NORTHWOODS. This document, titled “Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba” was provided by the JCS to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on March 13, 1962, as the key component of Northwoods. Written in response to a request from the Chief of the Cuba Project, Col. Edward Lansdale, the Top Secret memorandum describes U.S. plans to covertly engineer various pretexts that would justify a U.S. invasion of Cuba. These proposals - part of a secret anti-Castro program known as Operation Mongoose - included staging the assassinations of Cubans living in the United States, developing a fake “Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington,” including “sink[ing] a boatload of Cuban refugees (real or simulated),” faking a Cuban airforce attack on a civilian jetliner, and concocting a “Remember the Maine” incident by blowing up a U.S. ship in Cuban waters and then blaming the incident on Cuban sabotage. Bamford himself writes that Operation Northwoods “may be the most corrupt plan ever created by the U.S. government.”
GONZALES, Texas. — A school in Texas will force students who don’t follow the rules to wear prison-like jumpsuits in a controversial move this coming school year.
Gonzales High School has new navy blue jumpsuits that students will wear if they break the dress code.
Violators will be forced to wear the jumpsuit for the day, the report said.
Some parents said the jumpsuits will make students feel like prisoners but the district said it’s just a way to keep the children dressed appropriately for school.
Videos Left: Jesse Ventura Talks 9/11 Truth On Howard Stern
Youtube
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Howard Stern has Jesse Ventura back on the show and he lets rip his views on the vietnam war, the gulf of tonkin false flag event, the PNAC doucuments, a new pearl harbor and 9/11.
See for yourself, how many 9/11 victims family members, survivors, government officials, University professors & Media professionals who are publicly saying "9/11 was a cover up!"
You couldn’t make it up if you tried. Police in Ozark, Missouri repeatedly tased a critically injured sixteen year old boy after he “refused to comply with the officers”.
The cops were called to investigate reports of a boy walking along a busy overpass, but when they got there they found young Mace Hutchinson had fallen 30 ft to the ground below, breaking his back and and foot in the process.
When he did not co-operate with the cops they pulled out their stun guns and fired them into his body, shocking him up to nineteen times with 50,000 volts.
According to the boy’s father, the actions of the police caused an elevated white blood cell count leading Mace to develop a fever that delayed vital surgery by two days.
Ozark Police Capt. Thomas Rousset tried to condone the use of the taser in comments to the media:
“He refused to comply with the officers and so the officers had to deploy their Tasers in order to subdue him. He is making incoherent statements; he’s also making statements such as, ‘Shoot cops, kill cops,’ things like that. So there was cause for concern to the officers.”
The idea that a boy with a broken back would need to be “subdued” by a team of cops is not patently ludicrous but also smacks of a desperate attempt to cover up the true events in this case.
This is a perfect example of how it has become the norm for cops to react with extreme physical force towards anyone who acts out of the ordinary in any way whatsoever.
This behaviour is not limited to cops in the U.S. either, last November a man who slipped into a diabetic coma on the top deck of a bus in Leeds, England described how he was used for electric stun gun “target practice” after he “failed to respond to instructions” and police “mistook him for a suicide bomber”.
Tasers are supposed to be the last response before lethal action, yet police now use the taser as if it is a pair of handcuffs or pepper spray. The latest figures show that over 300 people died in one year in admitted cases in the US alone from being tased.
Prominent heart doctors have declared that there is no doubt that Tasers can cause heart problems and even induce sudden and lethal cardiac arrest.
The UN’s Committee Against Torture issued a statement on the TaserX26, in November of last year which read: “The use of TaserX26 weapons, provoking extreme pain, constituted a form of torture, and that in certain cases it could also cause death, as shown by several reliable studies and by certain cases that had happened after practical use.”
Despite these facts, we see stories every week of old women, children and disabled people being shot with tasers. The weapons are even being used in schools.
The police are now trained that “pain compliance,” a euphemism for torture, is acceptable in apprehending anyone even if that person poses no physical danger.
The heart of the issue is that this was another act of wanton police brutality and torture by means of tasing.
Parents question why Ozark police used stun gun on injured son
by Sara Sheffield, KY3 News
OZARK, Mo. -- A family from Branson wants answers about what happened to their son that left him hospitalized. Early Saturday morning, police found Mace Hutchinson, 16, underneath the Highway F overpass over U.S. 65.
Mace ended up in intensive care at a hospital. His parents believe the actions of Ozark police officers contributed to his injuries and slowed doctors’ abilities to speed his recovery.
“We called the police. My wife was afraid he was going to get ran over or hit,” said witness Doug Messersmith.
Messersmith and his wife were the last known people to see 16-year-old boy walking, shortly before their phone call to 911.
“He looked a little agitated but, other than that, he didn't look to be falling down drunk or anything like that,” he said.
By the time officers arrived, the teen was off the 30-foot overpass, lying on the shoulder below along U.S. 65, with no good explanation as to how he got there.
“According to the doctors, all injuries are consistent with a fall,” said his aunt, Samantha.
Mace's dad believes it was just that, a fall, not a jump. The question is why.
“They tested his system. He was clean of drugs and alcohol. We don't know why unless just being in shock and the whole thing in itself caused him to forget everything,” said Hutchinson.
His aunt says he is undergoing major surgery for a broken back and broken heel. While he was lying on the ground, she wonders why Ozark police used an electric stun gun on him up to 19 times.
“I'm not an officer, but i don't see the reason for ‘Tasering’ somebody laying there with a broken back. I don't consider that a threat,”
His dad says the use of the stun gun delayed what would have been immediate surgery by two days.
“The ‘Tasering’ increased his white blood cell count and caused him to have a temperature so they could not go into the operation.”
“He refused to comply with the officers and so the officers had to deploy their Tasers in order to subdue him. He is making incoherent statements; he's also making statements such as, ‘Shoot cops, kill cops,’ things like that. So there was cause for concern to the officers,” said Ozark Police Capt. Thomas Rousset.
Police say although there are several unanswered questions; the reason for the use of a stun gun is not one of them.
“It's a big concern for the officers to keep this guy out of traffic, to keep him from getting hurt,” said Rousset.
Mace was still in intensive care on Wednesday night, listed in fair condition. He was scheduled for surgery again on Thursday. The family, along with the Ozark Police Department, hopes someone will see this report and come forward with some information. You can call (417) 699-4789 with information or call the Ozark Police Department.
HOUSTON -- With a war in Iraq and fighting on the rise in Afghanistan, the struggle to bring in new U.S. Army recruits is heating up again.
And Irving Gonzales, 18, got caught up in it all.
As his family’s oldest male, he feels he has to do whatever it takes to help out his single mom. For him, that means working long hours at his after-school job.
“My mom was left struggling. I would give her more than half my paycheck,” Gonzales said.
That’s why the Aldine High School senior started thinking about the Army – and the tens of thousands of dollars in bonuses that can come with enlistment.
“They were offering me school, they were offering me bonuses,” he said.
So Gonzales signed up – but only to “pre-enlist” in the Delayed Entry Program. DEP allows kids to try out the military without a binding commitment.
But the 11 News Defenders have found there is a problem: Army recruiters aren’t sticking to the program and are bullying and even lying to potential recruits and their families to keep them from dropping out.
After he had a change of heart, Gonzalez became one such victim.
“I’d rather just stay here, go to college,” he said he told his recruiter.
The reaction: Gonzalez said a recruiter told him if he did drop out, they would send him to jail.
Scared, Gonzales called Sgt. Glenn Marquette, a supervisor at the Greenspoint Recruiting Station.
Marquette told Gonzales there was no way out.
“You signed a binding contract,” he said.
But that wasn’t true.
Army recruiting regulations say delayed entry members can leave any time. They specifically mention “under no circumstances will any (recruiter) threaten, coerce, manipulate, or intimidate (future soldiers), nor may they obstruct separation requests.”
Further, they state: “At no time will any (recruiter) tell a (Delayed Entry Program) member he or she must go in the Army or he or she will go to jail.”
But when Gonzales asked Marquette what would happen if he just didn’t show up for service, a phone recording captured this reply:
“Then guess what?” said Marquette. “You’re AWOL. Absent without leave. You want to go to school? You will not get no loans, because all college loans are federal and government loans. So you’ll be black barred from that. As soon as you get pulled over for a speeding ticket, they’re gonna see you’re a deserter, they’re going to apprehend you, take you to jail.”
Marquette continued: “So guess what? All that lovey-dovey 'I wanna go to college' and all that? Guess what? You just threw it out the window, because you just screwed your life.”
Eric Martinez, 17, is another young recruit who changed his mind.
“They make it seem there’s no way out,” his mother said.
Martinez said the nearby National Cemetery constantly reminds him – and his mother – of the risks and horrors of war.
“She tells me about the stories that happen in Iraq. Some people kill themselves or get shot,” Martinez said.
But when Martinez told that to the recruiter the Army assigned to him, he said he too was threatened.
Then his mother decided to intervene. But when she spoke to the Greenspoint Recruiting Station, they told her, too, that Martinez would be AWOL and go to jail if he didn’t show up for service.
This isn’t the first time the 11 News Defenders have found these sorts of problems -- and at the VERY SAME recruiting station location.
Three years ago in May of 2005, we found that another recruiter from that station, a Sgt. Thomas Kelt, had left this phone message to a high school student. This time the issue was simply keeping an appointment to talk:
“By federal law you got an appointment with me at two this afternoon at Greenspoint Mall,” Kelt told him. “OK? You fail to appear and we’ll have a warrant, OK? So give me a call back.”
Our investigation into that call led to the Army announcing a national stand-down so all of its recruiters could re-examine their methods and regulations.
But just two months later, 11 News found that instead of punishing Sgt. Kelt, the Army had promoted him to the role of station commander at a neighboring recruiting station. That meant he would supervise and train other recruiters on how to do the job.
(And today? the Army confirms Sgt. Kelt still holds that supervisory position, but has since been transferred out of Texas.)
So we caught up with Sgt. Marquette to ask about these latest incidents.
11 News: “I just want to know why you’re telling young recruits they’ll go to jail if they want out of the Delayed Entry Program.”
Marquette: “What are you talking about?”
11 News: “We’d just like to know why you’re telling them that.”
Marquette: “I’m on vacation right now. I really don’t want to be bothered!”
Congressman Ted Poe believes there is an ongoing problem with recruiters.
“We don’t want the government, military, the Army, deceiving American citizens,” Poe said.
Poe speaks from the position of a veteran himself who recently visited Iraq with the Army.
We shared with him new figures 11 News obtained from the U.S. Army that track how recruiters have been doing since our story three years ago.
Turns out, instead of going down, allegations of wrongdoing are actually going up. In 2005, 836 complaints were filed against recruiters. That rose to 874 last year, and the Army is on pace to surpass that figure in 2008.
What’s more? The number of Army recruiters given formal admonishments has nearly doubled since our first report, with 373 citations in 2005 growing to 635 in 2007.
One possible reason for this trend?
The U.S. Government Accountability Office found the Army gives bonuses and other performance incentives to its recruiters based primarily on how many recruits they send to basic training. But the Marine Corps focuses on how many recruits actually finish basic training.
A 2006 GAO report on military recruiting concludes, “This criterion may deter Marine Corps recruiters from committing recruiter violations.”
It is the same point the GAO made in similar reports in 1997 and 1998.
But despite years of recommendations from the GAO, the Army has not changed its ways.
And why would this matter? Take a look at another part of what Sgt. Marquette advised potential recruit Irving Gonzales on what to do if he didn’t want to join the Army anymore:
Marquette (phone recording): “You get into basic training, and you don’t like it? Tell the chaplain you don’t like it. That’s the right way to get out of the Army. Then they’ll process you out of the army… and it’s nothing against your record.”
Gonzales: “That would be the right way to do it?”
Marquette: “Yeah and guess what? If you do it that way? Maybe in the future you may say well (darn), I’m coming to join the Army. Then guess what? You can. You can join the Army. Cuz you got out of the Army the right way. You at least got to go to basic training and try it.”
Gonzales: “I mean that’s the only way? I can’t do it right here?”
Marquette: “No, you cant, no!”
The problem? U.S. Army spokesman Douglas Smith says once you report to basic training, you are a full-fledged soldier. While Smith made clear he can’t comment on Marquette’s specific situation due to an ongoing investigation of the matter, he said in general, “Once you report to basic training it is harder to get out of the Army than if you ask for separation before enlisting.”
What’s more?
“It costs taxpayers money,” Poe said. “And we certainly don’t want people to fake an injury or whatever in boot camp just because the recruiter suggested they do that to get out of the Army permanently.”
But in a written statement to KHOU, the Army’s Smith confirmed:
“(Army recruiters) receive recruiter incentive points for those recruits that ship to (basic training).”
Smith notes the Army does now award some extra incentive points to recruiters when a future soldier completes basic training.
The GAO’s response?
“This change was not like the Marine Corps system, which took away all the recruiter’s credit if the recruit did not make it through basic training,” said Brenda Farrell, director of the GAO’s section that oversees and investigates military matters for Congress. “The Army’s new system just awarded “extra” points.”
And the Army confirms in a written statement that its recruiters still “lose points for those recruits that do not ship to (basic training)… Recruiting personnel are also penalized under the Recruiter Incentive Pay. Recruiting personnel must not exceed the command’s loss rate in order to maintain their monetary incentive.”
This, said Poe, creates a conflict of interest for Army recruiters that encourages them to do whatever it takes to get a recruit to ship to basic training.
“The Marines, in my opinion, have it right,” the Congressman said. “If we could make all the military branches not count a recruit as a recruit until they finish boot camp, then you’re not gonna have the problem.”
But the Army’s Douglas Smith says that currently, “We have no plan to adopt the U.S. Marine Corps model.”
Still, Smith says, “Recruiters should not threaten applicants or Future Soldiers. That violates our regulations.”
He made it clear he was speaking in general, and not about Marquette.
The Congressman’s reaction?
“Our country cannot deceive its citizens,” Poe said. “Since the Army hasn’t taken the initiative, now Congress may have to get involved.”
Poe also said the contract itself to join the Delayed Entry Program is misleading to potential recruits and needs to be rewritten by the Pentagon.
He said it makes it appear as if members really do have to join the Army or face jail, when it’s simply not true.
In the meantime, the U.S. Army says it has launched an investigation into the allegations against Sgt. Glenn Marquette:
“The recruiter against whom the allegations were made has been taken off recruiting duty pending the outcome of the investigation,” the Army said.
And one final fact: The Army confirms they are also at historic lows in the Delayed Entry Program, but deny that that has had any effect on any alleged recruiter behavior.
GURNEE, Ill. -- In the Tweety Bird section of the parking lot at an amusement park here, visitors are trying a new attraction. They jump into Humvees or Black Hawk helicopters and use fake firearms to hunt down "genocidal indigenous forces." They shoot at huge video screens.
"I like that I got to use a gun!" said 13-year-old Spencer Padgett, after trying the "Virtual Army Experience." His dad, Scott, from Laporte, Ind., said he wanted his son to gain an appreciation of the sacrifices being made by the Army.
The Virtual Army Experience -- a traveling exhibit of the U.S. Army -- has been touring the country for the past year and a half, stopping at amusement parks, air shows and county fairs. The Army, which collects information from the thousands of people who play the game, says it's an innovative way to reach a new audience. But critics don't like the idea of the military using giant videogames as a recruiting tool.
While the Army met its goal of adding 80,000 new soldiers last year, it faces a tough recruiting environment. These days, "parents are less likely to encourage their children to consider military service," said Douglas Smith, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Recruiting Command.
The Virtual Army exhibit is based on a videogame the Army began developing in 1999, after missing recruiting goals. Not only do videogames give the Army a new way to relate to the public, they also present "an opportunity to shape their tastes," said Col. Casey Wardynski, director of the Army's Office of Economic and Manpower Analysis at West Point.
The Army spent about $9 million building four versions of the Virtual Army Experience, Col. Wardynski said. It cost $9.8 million last year to operate the exhibits. This year, the main exhibits will visit 40 events. The smaller "Delta" version will visit 31 separate events.
U.S. Army
Visitors wait in line to play the Army's traveling exhibit.
"It's catering to the interest of America's youth," said Nicholas Mantych, 21, from Genoa City, Wis., who recently tried the Virtual Army game. He suggested another idea the Army could offer players: "They should give them gear and paintball guns."
Recent player Miles Cahill, 23, who works at a videogame retailer, said the Army's game wasn't as good as other shooter games he's tried, but it was still fun. He didn't mind the marketing aspect.
"Beer companies have hot women. They have a videogame," he said.
The Virtual Army set up camp for nine days this month outside the Six Flags Great America amusement park here. Ads throughout the theme park touted the Army's attraction. One read: "Bumper cars or fully loaded Humvees?"
U.S. Army
Participants take aim while playing the Virtual Army Experience.
A chain-link fence cordoned off the Army's 19,500-square-foot exhibit. VAE adviser Lt. Col. Randall Zeegers, 6 feet 5 inches tall, saluted children as they passed and posed for pictures.
"There's no sales going on here," said Lt. Col. Zeegers, who added that the goal of the VAE is primarily to educate the public. "It's another way to tell our story ourselves."
Those who want to try the game are asked for their age, address, phone number and email, and the information is entered into a database. Players are also asked whether they want to join or learn more about the Army. Local recruiters can contact promising leads, if they are at least 17, within 24 hours.
Players file into an air-conditioned trailer, filled with computers and Xbox 360 consoles, where they wait to be briefed. Then Staff Sgt. John Harper explains the mission: Genocidal indigenous forces are attacking international aid workers. It's up to the players to protect them.
Participants enter a dark, inflatable dome. They climb into one of six modified Humvees or two Black Hawk helicopters. Each vehicle, mounted with fake M-249 Squad Automatic Weapons and M-4 rifles, faces three huge screens where the videogame is projected.
Players fire air-pressured guns, meant to mimic the recoil and kickback of real ones. The ethnicity of the bad guys they shoot at is ambiguous. The rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire blares from the game's speakers and the Humvees shake from the simulated blasts of roadside bombs. Some participants hoot and holler. Despite the nature of the game, there is no blood or guts on screen.
Scores are higher if players only shoot people in uniform; they lose points for firing indiscriminately or at noncombatants.
A Bit of Reality
At the end, there's a bit of reality: Silver Star recipient Sgt. Jason Mike, 25, is introduced and the crowd applauds. He talks about his experience in Iraq and encourages the players to visit the Army's videogame Web site.
Interacting with soldiers after playing the game is key, said Eric Johnson, president of Ignited, an El Segundo, Calif., marketing company, which helped design the Virtual Army Experience. "Even the most cynical come out with a better appreciation," he said. "They tend to be more receptive to the message that the Army is trying to send to them."
The majority of those who play the Virtual Army game aren't a good fit for the Army, Col. Wardynski said. Of the 55,200 people who tried it last year, about 2,200 met the Army's age qualifications and showed an interest in enlisting.
Most are like Megan Horton, 24, who enjoyed playing but isn't interested in enlisting. "I think I shot, like, 10 'friendlies' " -- the characters that players are supposed to be protecting -- she said.
Not everyone supports the Virtual Army. During Summerfest, a recent 11-day music festival in Milwaukee, organizers say hundreds of people called to complain about the presence of the Army's game there. In response, the Army modified the exhibit there so users played a target-practice game instead of battling indigenous forces.
Other critics say the Army's videogames don't give an accurate portrayal of war and Army life.
"War is not a game," said Sholom Keller, national membership coordinator for Iraq Veterans Against the War, who said he served in the Army from 2001 to 2005 and fought in Afghanistan and Iraq.
There is only so much the Virtual Army Experience can do to depict Army life, and it does a better job than a 30-second commercial, Col. Wardynski said. "Because it's game technology, does that make it evil? I don't think so," he said.
Enlisting First
Michelle Naleck, a 21-year-old cocktail waitress from Wauconda, Ill., tried the Virtual Army Experience at Six Flags. "It's not real life, but it kind of gives you an idea of what to expect," she said. Ms. Naleck recently enlisted in the Army.
She's not a gamer and didn't fare well at the game, she said. But the exhibit wouldn't have had an impact on her decision to enlist, she added. "I wouldn't take such a big step in my life just because of a videogame."
Mr. Mantych, the 21-year-old from Wisconsin, had also already enlisted in the Army before he played the game. While he was trying the virtual experience, he was thinking about things other participants probably weren't, he said. "This is going to be me in two years, but in a real-life situation. And I'm going to have to kill people and use real bullets."
He was set to ship out to basic training at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri last week.
By Paul Craig Roberts Online Journal Contributing Writer
Jul 21, 2008, 00:14
The Bush Regime’s “terrorist” protection schemes have reached the height of total incompetence and utter absurdity. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, a private organization that defends the US Constitution that inattentive Americans neglect, there are now one million names on the “terrorist” watch list.
What confidence can we have in a regime that is incapable of differentiating an Assistant US Attorney General from a terrorist?
Mr. Robinson said: “If I were convinced that America is a safer place because I get hassled at the airport, I might put up with it, but I doubt it. I expect my story is similar to hundreds of thousands of people who are on this list and find themselves inconvenienced.”
“Hundreds of thousands of people” on a watch list that they have no business being on?
Yes. “Members of Congress, nuns, war heroes and other ‘suspicious characters,’ with names like Robert Johnson and Gary Smith, have become trapped in the Kafkaesqueclutches of this list, with little hope of escape,” said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office.
And this is America, not Nazi Germany?
How can Airport “Security” possibly protect anyone when the idiots cannot differentiate a high-level American government official from a terrorist?
Do you really believe there are one million terrorists and nothing has blown up in the US since September 11, 2001 (assuming you believe the government’s account of that episode)?
How can there possibly be 1,000,000 terrorists and America still be in one piece? If there were 1,000,000 terrorists, America would be in ruins. According to the Bush Regime’s line, it only took a handful of terrorists to destroy one of America’s tallest skyscrapers and a section of the Pentagon and to send the President of the United States scurrying to a hiding place.
One million terrorists could bring America to its knees, and they wouldn’t need to fly on airplanes to accomplish this.
What we are witnessing with the one million person “watch list” is bureaucracy run amok. One Million Terrorists makes the danger seem overwhelming. Such overwhelming danger rationalizes the aggressive behavior of the bullies and thugs attracted by the power of confiscating your toothpaste and bottled water and riffling your belongings in your luggage.
Show your ID.
Take off your shoes.
Take off your belt.
Take off your jacket.
Empty your pockets.
Don’t complain about being searched without a warrant or you will miss your flight. You might be arrested, handcuffed, kicked and otherwise abused -- the fate of many American citizens.
The morons who comprise the US government call the “watch list” one of the government’s “most effective tools in the fight against terrorism.”
What an effective tool it is! It cannot tell the difference between Jim Robinson and a Muslim terrorist.
The “watch list” has not apprehended a single terrorist, but thousands of American citizens have been inconvenienced and arrested.
The ACLU says that “putting a million names on a watch list is a guarantee that the list will do more harm than good by interfering with the travel of innocent people and wasting huge amounts of our limited security resources on bureaucratic wheel-spinning.”
It is worse than that. What the “watch list” or “no-fly list” is doing is training Americans to submit to warrantless searches, to abandon their constitutional rights, and to submit to humiliation by thugs and bullies. A Gestapo is being trained to have no qualms about searching and intimidating fellow citizens, using any excuse to delay or arrest them. Americans are being taught to use arbitrary power and to submit to arbitrary power. In the false name of “safety from terrorists,” Americans are being made the least safe people on earth.
(07-28) 14:48 PDT SACRAMENTO -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will wait until Thursday to sign an order slashing state workers' pay to the federal minimum wage and laying off thousands of other employees to save money during the impasse over the state's $17.2 billion budget deficit, a spokesman for the governor said today.
Administration officials said last week that the governor, who said he was frustrated by the nearly monthlong impasse, was set today to give the order, which would cut pay for about 200,000 state workers to $6.55 an hour. Their wages would be restored with back pay once a new budget is enacted.
A draft of the executive order obtained by The Chronicle also indicated the governor wants to layoff nearly 22,000 seasonal and student workers.
Aaron McLear, a spokesman for Schwarzenegger, said the governor decided to wait until Thursday, the first day of the new pay period for state workers, to give the order.
Still, questions remain about whether state Controller John Chiang will defy the governor. Chiang, who has the authority to disburse pay checks, has said he will not go along with the governor's plan if he signs the order, setting up a potential political and legal battle between the Republican governor and the Democratic controller.
The state is in danger of running out of cash by the end of September if there is no budget in place. Negotiations between the governor, Republican lawmakers and Democratic legislators who control the Legislature so far have not yielded a budet deal nearly a month after the new fiscal year began on July 1.
Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, had planned to force a budget vote on the Senate floor on Tuesday but pulled the plug on that plan today, saying there has been progress in budget talks and he didn't want to "disrupt that progress."
SACRAMENTO (AP) — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is threatening to pay thousands of state employees the federal minimum wage of $6.55 an hour until lawmakers reach a deal on California's overdue state budget.
Democrats and Republicans have so far been unable to compromise on a solution to the state's $15.2 billion budget deficit for the fiscal year that started July 1. As the stalemate continued, Schwarzenegger has ratcheted up his rhetoric.
Spokesman Aaron McLear said the Republican governor is contemplating signing an executive order next week that would pay about 200,000 state workers the federal minimum wage, which is $1.45 an hour less than California's minimum wage.
Employees would receive their full salary retroactively once a budget is signed.
"Because the Legislature has failed to produce a budget over a month past their deadline and because we don't have a rainy day fund, the governor is looking at a number of options to make sure the state does not run out of cash," McLear said.
A draft of the executive order also said state agencies would be prevented from hiring any nonessential employees and would be forced to terminate about 20,000 contracts with temporary workers, interns and contractors. There also would be a ban on most overtime.
The administration estimates that immediately terminating the contracts and suspending overtime would save the state about $100 million a month. The deferred wages would take several weeks to implement, saving the state as much as $400 million a month starting in late August.
State Controller John Chiang, whose office pays state employees, criticized Schwarzenegger's threat as a political ploy that could end up costing the state even more in litigation fees.
"Forcing public servants to involuntarily loan the state cash by foregoing their hard-earned paychecks puts an untenable burden on our teachers, health care workers and those who provide critical public services," Chiang said in a statement.
"Cutting workers' salaries will do nothing meaningful to improve our cash position or help us make our priority payments."
The Service Employees International Union, which represents nearly half the affected workers, was considering legal action to try to block the move, spokesman Jim Zamora said.
"We're victims of this budget crisis. It's not our fault that the state Legislature and Governor Schwarzenegger can't come together to pass a balanced budget," he said.
The union represents about 95,000 clerical, office and civilian workers throughout the state.
Emergency, disaster and other critical workers would be exempt from the order.
Legislative leaders in both houses have said they are working to meet an Aug. 1 deadline. Without a spending plan in place by then, the state will have to start negotiating on expensive loans to address a cash shortfall that will affect state coffers by the end of September.
Democrats are seeking to raise taxes by $8.2 billion, while Republicans want to balance the budget mostly through cuts. Schwarzenegger said Tuesday that he will not sign a budget if it does not include long-term budget reform, such as a rainy day fund to help ease the state through tough economic times.
Records: Arnold's father was member of Nazi storm troops
VIENNA, Austria (AP) — It's just a tiny typewritten line tucked away in an immense archive, but it sheds further light on the Nazi past of Arnold Schwarzenegger's father.
The brief entry in one of millions of documents stored at the Austrian State Archives shows that Gustav Schwarzenegger, the late father of the film star now running for governor of California, was a volunteer member of the Sturmabteilung, or SA — the notorious Nazi storm troopers also known as brownshirts.
The father's Nazi Party membership and combat record in the German army are not new, and his son's dismay about it is well known. The revelations of SA membership that emerged a week ago add another strand to the murky story.
The "SA 1.5.1939" listing shows that the elder Schwarzenegger joined May 1, 1939, the year after Germany annexed Austria and six months after the brownshirts played a crucial role in the bloody Kristallnacht riots.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center, which in 1990 investigated Gustav Schwarzenegger's wartime past at his son's request, plans to conduct new research before the Oct. 7 California recall election to establish what the father's unit did, said Rabbi Marvin Hier.
Whatever it finds out, "We will give it to Arnold, then to the public," Hier told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from the center's Los Angeles headquarters. "Whatever the record shows, so may it show. Should that record have any bearing on Arnold Schwarzenegger himself? In my opinion, absolutely not."
The Wiesenthal Center didn't find the storm trooper reference in its 1990 investigation because that record was sealed until last year, 30 years after Gustav Schwarzenegger's death in 1972.
The new information was "negative," though SA membership is not considered a crime in itself, as membership in the Gestapo or the paramilitary SS would be, Hier said.
"We know what the SA and the Nazi Party stood for," he said. "Arnold knows this, and he's not proud of the fact that his father was a member of the Nazi Party and that his father was a member of the SA. This is a matter of deep embarrassment, but Arnold cannot be judged by his father."
Schwarzenegger campaign spokesman Sean Walsh said Sunday the actor continues to fight for equality and humanitarian ideals.
"His record regarding stamping out intolerance is absolutely rock-solid and he will continue to work closely with the Simon Wiesenthal Center to ensure that the attitudes and actions that occurred in the Nazi era never happen again," Walsh said.
Walsh doesn't believe the actions of Schwarzenegger's father will influence voters in the Oct. 7 recall election.
Arnold Schwarzenegger has donated nearly $750,000 to the center, raised millions more, and helped the organization fight anti-Semitism. Born two years after World War II ended, he long ago distanced himself from his late father's views and in 1991 he received the Wiesenthal Center's National Leadership Award.
Schwarzenegger successfully sued a British tabloid in 1989 and a journalist in 1993 for suggesting he held Nazi and anti-Semitic opinions. He won undisclosed libel damages.
The storm troopers, a paramilitary organization tied to the Nazi Party, played a crucial role in expanding Adolf Hitler's power.
They were part of the 1938 Kristallnacht rampage, during which more than 1,000 synagogues were destroyed. In its aftermath, about 30,000 Jewish men were dragged to Nazi concentration camps and several hundred people were killed or committed suicide.
Gustav Schwarzenegger became a member the following year, at a time when SA membership was declining. The troops had 900,000 members in 1940, down from 4.2 million in 1934, according to the "Encyclopedia of the Holocaust," published in Germany and Switzerland.
Austrian State Archives don't have details about the elder Schwarzenegger's SA activities, and don't provide enough information to determine whether he was any worse than most Nazis, said Ursula Schwarz, a researcher at the Documentation Archive of the Austrian Resistance.
"You cannot judge that from these documents. You would need a whole lot more," she said.
There's no doubt that Schwarzenegger's father was a convinced Nazi; Austrian records indicate he joined the party on March 1, 1938, two weeks before the country was annexed. A separate record obtained by the Wiesenthal Center indicates he sought membership before the annexation but was only accepted in 1941.
But his past raises few eyebrows in Austria, where many have relatives who were Nazis.
Austrian newspapers, in stories proudly describing their native son's successes in a U.S. state much larger than his home country, mention Gustav Schwarzenegger's Nazi ties only in passing, if at all.
The Vienna daily Der Standard, in a recent story headlined "Arnie steps in: A man makes himself a legend," wrote that "Gustav, a high-ranking Nazi, brought up the bespectacled, rather frail boy with an iron fist and quite a few slaps in the face."
The archive records also include the elder Schwarzenegger's tattered ID booklet, with a photo of him sporting slicked back hair and a Hitler-style mustache. It lists injuries, hospital stays and medals. Another document says he saw action in Poland, France, Lithuania and in Russia, where he was wounded.
A health registry document describes him as a "calm and reliable person, not particularly outstanding" and assesses his intellect as "average."
Austrian authorities in 1947 determined that the elder Schwarzenegger could work as a police officer despite his Nazi past because there was no evidence he had committed war crimes.
Arnold's Nazi ProblemWhy won't he repudiate Kurt Waldheim?
By Timothy Noah Posted Thursday, Aug. 7, 2003, at 6:46 PM ET
Here's a question Jay Leno forgot to ask Arnold Schwarzenegger when he announced his candidacy for governor of California on last night's Tonight Show: "Will you renounce your support for Kurt Waldheim?"
A little refresher course may be in order. Kurt Waldheim, a widely esteemed former secretary general of the United Nations, was running for president of Austria in March 1986 when it came to light that he had participated in Nazi atrocities during World War II. Waldheim had always maintained that he had served in the Wehrmacht only briefly and that after being wounded early in the war, he had returned to Vienna to attend law school. In fact, Waldheim had resumed military service after recuperating from his injury and had been an intelligence officer in Germany's Army Group E when it committed mass murder in the Kozara region of western Bosnia. (Waldheim's name appears on the Wehrmacht's "honor list" of those responsible for the atrocity.) In 1944, Waldheim had reviewed and approved a packet of anti-Semitic propaganda leaflets to be dropped behind Russian lines, one of which ended, "enough of the Jewish war, kill the Jews, come over." After the war, Waldheim was wanted for war crimes by the War Crimes Commission of the United Nations, the very organization he would later head. None of these revelations prevented Waldheim from winning the Austrian election, but after he became president, the U.S. Justice Department put Waldheim on its watch list denying entry to "any foreign national who assisted or otherwise participated in activities amounting to persecution during World War II." The international community largely shunned Waldheim, and he didn't run for re-election. (This information comes from the1992 book Betrayal: The Untold Story of the Kurt Waldheim Investigation and Cover-Up, by Eli M. Rosenbaum and William Hoffer.)
One month after these revelations began to splash across the front pages of newspapers worldwide, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver held their wedding reception* at the Kennedy compound in Hyannisport, Mass. Schwarzenegger, a native of Austria, had invited Waldheim to the wedding, which of course can't be held against him because the invitations surely went out well before the war crimes story broke. (Schwarzenegger, who held dual citizenship in Austria and the United States, had also endorsed Waldheim.) Waldheim didn't attend, but he sent a gift—a statue of Arnold, in lederhosen, bearing off Maria, who wore a dirndl. Admiring it, Schwarzenegger offered a tribute that stunned the assemblage into shocked silence (this is reported in Arnold: An Unauthorized Biography, by Wendy Leigh):
My friends don't want me to mention Kurt's name, because of all the recent Nazi stuff and the U.N. controversy, but I love him and Maria does too, and so thank you, Kurt.
Schwarzenegger's name remained on Waldheim's campaign posters. After Waldheim was elected, Schwarzenegger paid him a visit and was photographed with him. According to the New York Post's "Page Six" gossip column, Schwarzenegger was seen sitting beside Waldheim as recently as 1998, when the two attended the second inauguration of Waldheim's successor as president, Thomas Klestil.
In 1988, Schwarzenegger was asked in a Playboy interview what he thought of Waldheim. He replied:
I hate to talk about it, because it's a no-win situation. Without going into details, I can say that being half-Austrian and half-American, I don't like the idea that these two countries that mean so much to me are in such a disagreement. Austria is a very important place for Americans, because it is a neutral country. With a little bit of good will, the problem will be straightened out. I think it's well on the way.
Why on Earth didn't Schwarzenegger take this opportunity to speak out against Waldheim? It surely isn't because Schwarzenegger himself had any Nazi sympathies (though during the filming of the documentary Pumping Iron, he reportedly once made a foolish comment praising Hitler). Rather, Schwarzenegger was likely playing politics—to be more specific, Austrian politics and family politics. For years it was rumored that if Schwarzenegger didn't run for governor of California, he would run for president of Austria. Because Austrians have long resented what they see as Waldheim's pointless scapegoating, any firm denunciation would have ruled the latter possibility out. In addition, Schwarzenegger's mother had for many years lived with Alfred Gerstl, a prominent Austrian politician who rose to the top post in the upper house of Austria's parliament. Schwarzenegger reportedly addressed him as "Uncle." (Schwarzenegger's father, who died three decades ago, was a police official who had belonged to the Nazi party.)
Rather than confront his Waldheim problem head-on, Schwarzenegger has proclaimed his disgust for Nazism, raised money for education about the Holocaust, traveled to Israel (where he met with then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin), and given generously to the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, which in 1997 bestowed on him its National Leadership Award. "He wants no truck with … Waldheim," the Wiesenthal Center's Rabbi Marvin Hier told the Jerusalem Post. "He probably did not have any clue as to the seriousness of the allegations against Waldheim at that time [i.e., 1986]. To suggest that Arnold's an anti-Semite is preposterous. He's done more to further the cause of Holocaust awareness than almost any other Hollywood star."
Clearly, though, that won't be enough. If Schwarzenegger doesn't renounce Waldheim in a highly public way, he can forget about ever becoming governor of California.
Correction, Aug. 11, 2003:An earlier version of this piece stated incorrectly that Schwarzenegger and Shriver "exchanged wedding vows" at the Kennedy compound. In fact, they exchanged vows at a nearby church, then held their wedding reception at the Kennedy compound, where the scene described above took place. (Return to the corrected sentence.)
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Below: Why is Arnold showing off a Nazi Deaths Head on the cover of TIME?
No this is not photo shopped. You can visit TIME magazines online cover archive to view this.
The son of an SS nazi officer,
Schwarzenegger has publicly stated that
he has dreamed of being a dictator and that he
admires Hitler. He campaigned for war criminal
Kurt Waldhiem after it had been made public that he
was a top nazi.
The stories of Arnold's barbaric harassment of women are
legendary. He publicly admits to steroid and marijuana use.
He supported Enron chief, Ken Lay during the California energy
crisis and now his political operatives have launched a blitzkrieg
promoting him for President and seeking to end the Constitutional
bar against him holding that office. And there's more...
So what if I told you that the powers of financial capitalism (bankers etc.), had a far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands, able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole.
This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were themselves private corporations?
Wow! The most powerful bankers creating a world system of financial control, dominating the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole, with secret meetings. Surely you would think Tocque has fallen under the spell of a wild conspiracy theory.
But you can put away the cat in the tinfoil hat. Those are not my words. And it's not a theory. They are the words of one of the greatest, most eminent historians in modern times, the late Carroll Quigley - of Harvard, Princeton and the Georgetown Foreign School.
Here is bill Clinton referring to his former college professor Quigley at the 1992 Democratic convention:
"As a teenager, I heard John Kennedy’s summons to citizenship. And then, as a student at Georgetown I heard that call clarified by a professor named Carroll Quigley, who said to us that America was the greatest nation in history because our people had always believed in two things: that tomorrow can be better than today and that every one of us has a personal moral responsibility to make it so."
Quigley could write credibly about the far reaching aims of these ruling elites because he himself was a member of the ruling class and, as such, he was given unprecedented access to their private files and records. When he published these words in his 1300 page tome, Tragedy & Hope: A History of the World in Our Time, not only was he adding to the historical record a previously untold story, he was making history himself in doing so.
The story I am about to share is critically important. One simply cannot understand politics without understanding the significant role the ruling class plays in it - behind the scenes, and beyond the grasp of democratic oversight. Quigley is an essential introduction to what I call the adult history of the world. And it is only with this historical understanding that we can understand the forces shaping our world, and possibly hope to affect them.
The time for the common man, or at the very least the educated political class like us, to be let in on the secret has long since passed. To take our country back, we must know who exactly we are taking it back from. And we must know what their real agenda is, and their methods for achieving it. It is simply unacceptable in this information age for so many to be oblivious to the real forces of political power, and to allow those forces to operate in secrecy.
These excerpts from Quigley are just the beginning. And while his revelations are about the financial powers of the early 20th Century, they are essential for understanding the power structures that exist today.
Perhaps most importantly, his revelations help us recognize that there is indeed a power class, working behind the scenes, acting upon our government, the mass media and education to bring about a world that is very much contrary to the interests and aims of the public.
The Historian Spills the Beans
Tragedy and Hope is not a book about the ruling class, and it is certainly not a "conspiracy" book. It is, as its title says, a history of the modern world. Quigley has merely reinserted the role of the ruling powers back into the narrative where they belong for any accurate account.
But in the process, Quigley drops a number of bombshells. And I don't mean two week press cycle bombshells. I mean rewrite history bombshells. Here is an incredibly brief synopsis of some of them, followed by the relevant excerptions. (I have linked to the excerpt that corresponds to each item. Just click the number to quickly scroll down.)
Cecil Rhodes, the founder of De Beers and creator of the Rhodes' Trust (of which the Rhodes' Scholarship is a part) formed a secret society with some of the wealthiest and most powerful men in Britain and New York. The primary goal of this group was to federate the English speaking world and to expand the British empire. The structure of this society was an inner circle of "initiates" and outer circles of "helpers." The outer circles were called Round Table groups.
This was during the Gilded Age and it is difficult to even comprehend the wealth of these people (I posted a pic of one of their houses just to convey). And to truly understand their aims, you have to appreciate the reach of their industry. These were the first globalists of the modern era and their vision was breathtaking in scope. They sought to create a transnational trading system that would allow them unfettered access to markets and resources worldwide with minimal red tape. In essence, they were the pioneers of globalization and national sovereignty and colonial unrest was their primary impediment.
It appears the specific goals of this group evolved over the years, and their dream of a world federation gave way to a softer, more subtle alignment. But one can only describe their general aim of recalibrating the political environment, consisting of most major nations, into a global free trading system as being highly successful.
We are witnessing now the fruition of a plan set in motion over a century ago, conceived in secret, and implemented over multiple generations. And while the modern world certainly differs from that imagined by these founders, they are truly the architects of what we may call the Anglo-American empire that thrives today. They laid the foundation, both for the transnational banking and industrial system we have now, and for the methods of exerting the power to create that system.
Intermission
At this point, if this isn't blowing your mind a bit, it's because you already know all about Carroll Quigley and his revelations, you haven't been reading carefully, or you think I'm off my rocker. Let me assure you, I am not a conspiracy theorist. I have zero interest in secret societies. Skull and Bones bores me. My only interest in the ruling class is their subversion, for their own aims, of American democracy, and the many crimes against humanity and nature they commit daily around the world.
It is only to the extent that they are a force in politics that I have any interest at all. Through my involvement in the entertainment industry and academic associations I have known more than a few in the ruling class (mostly their offspring) and I can tell you unequivocally that they are not all evil, Bohemian Grove is not a cult but a fancy camping trip, and that almost all the conspiracy theories you will find on the interenet are wrong. There is, as far as I know, no Illuminati or any other such baloney. And this is not the X-Files.
What we have is pluralism meets feudalism with a hefty amount of mafia thrown in. The ruling class in the early 20th Century, as it is now, was not monolithic. And in spite of their working together to bring about one globalized order, they often compete and work against each other, just like any other political bloc. It is imperative to understand, this is not a conspiracy. It was in its conception. And the powerful certainly conspire and collude daily. But "globalization" is a movement, not too unlike the progressive movement. The difference is the globalists have literally trillions of dollars, euros, and pounds to throw around on their campaign.
The Council on Foreign Relations was a front organization for this group. This shouldn't come as any surprise. The CFR is known well now as a trade lobby. And many also already have a pretty good idea of their role in empire maintenance. But to discover their secret origins was one of Quigley's greatest finds. And if one has any doubt about the power of the CFR, one merely has to read this bit of homespun wisdom spoken on the Senate floor from Senator Earnest Hollings (D) of South Carolina (Congressional Record, June 30, 1993, S8315):
If you ever run for President, you get very wonderful, embossed invitations from the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission, and you get the coffee and fine china, and, man, you are really a high muckety-muck.
And then what they do is get you to swear on the altar of free trade an undying loyalty and support---free trade, free trade. That is all they want. And they co-opt every one of these young Senators that want to run for President.
In England, the front is called the Royal Institute of International Affairs or Chatham House.
Here Quigley describes the methods the group uses to implement its far reaching aims. I'm going to revisit this part in my next post. But this should be of special interest to us all. In fact, I place this as the most important of all of Quigley's revelations.
"The methods can be summed up under three headings: (a) a triple-front penetration in politics, education, and journalism; (b) the recruitment of men of ability (chiefly from [certain universities) and the linking of these men to the [Group] by matrimonial alliances and by gratitude for titles and positions of power; and (c) the influencing of public policy by placing members of the [Group] in positions of power shielded as much as possible from public attention. (Carroll Quigley - The Anglo American Establishment
Thus the title of this diary - Three Easy Steps. This movement has penetrated every power structure civilized life - from politics of course, to journalism (See bombshell #4), and even down to our schools and universities, all with the goal of facilitating their control.
The group had significant control over the most powerful newspapers in the US and Britain, and infiltrated the Left-wing with such instruments as the New Republic:
The American branch of this "English Establishment" exerted much of its influence through five American newspapers (The New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, the Washington Post, and the lamented Boston Evening Transcript)
Here begins the excerpt section. It's a hard read with many unfamiliar names - and some you will know. But I highly recommend reading it. There is far more treasure in here than I outlined.
#1 The Plot
This association was formally established on February 5, 1891, when Rhodes and Stead organized a secret society of which Rhodes had been dreaming for sixteen years. In this secret society Rhodes was to be leader; Stead, Brett (Lord Esher), and Lord Milner were to form an executive committee; Arthur (Lord) Balfour, (Sir) Harry Johnston, Lord Rothschild, Albert (Lord) Grey, and others were listed as potential members of a "Circle of Initiates"; while there was to be an outer circle known as the "Association of Helpers" (later organized by Milner as the Round Table organization)....Thus the central part of the secret society was established by March 1891. It continued to function as a formal group, although the outer circle was, apparently, not organized until 1909-1913.
Quigley describes the "outer", Round Table group's formation thusly:
The Round Table Groups have already been mentioned in this book several times, notably in connection with the formation of the British Commonwealth in chapter 4 and in the discussion of appeasement in chapter 12 ("the Cliveden Set"). At the risk of some repetition, the story will be summarized here, because the American branch of this organization (sometimes called the "Eastern Establishment' ) has played a very significant role in the history of the United States in the last generation.
The Round Table Groups were semi-secret discussion and lobbying groups organized by Lionel Curtis, Philip H. Kerr (Lord Lothian), and (Sir) William S. Marris in 1908- 1911. This was done on behalf of Lord Milner, the dominant Trustee of the Rhodes Trust in the two decades 1905-1925. The original purpose of these groups was to seek to federate the English-speaking world along lines laid down by Cecil Rhodes (1853-1902) and William T. Stead (1849-1912), and the money for the organizational work came originally from the Rhodes Trust. By 1915 Round Table groups existed in seven countries, including England, South Africa, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, and a rather loosely organized group in the United States (George Louis Beer, Walter Lippmann, Frank Aydelotte, Whitney Shepardson, Thomas W. Lamont, Jerome D. Greene, Erwin D. Canham of the Christian Science Monitor, and others). The attitudes of the various groups were coordinated by frequent visits and discussions and by a well informed and totally anonymous quarterly magazine, The Round Table, whose first issue, largely written by Philip Kerr, appeared in November 1910.
...
Money for the widely ramified activities of this organization came originally from the associates and followers of Cecil Rhodes, chiefly from the Rhodes Trust itself, and from wealthy associates such as the Beit brothers, from Sir Abe Bailey, and (after 1915) from the Astor family. Since 1925 there have been substantial contributions from wealthy individuals and from foundations and firms associated with the international banking fraternity, especially the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust, and other organizations associated with J. P. Morgan, the Rockefeller and Whitney families, and the associates of Lazard Brothers and of Morgan, Grenfell, and Company.
The chief backbone of this organization grew up along the already existing financial cooperation running from the Morgan Bank in New York to a group of international financiers in London led by Lazard Brothers. Milner himself in 1901 had refused a fabulous offer, worth up to $100,000 a year, to become one of the three partners of the Morgan Bank in London, in succession to the younger J. P. Morgan who moved from London to join his father in New York (eventually the vacancy went to E. C. Grenfell, so that the London affiliate of Morgan became known as Morgan, Grenfell, and Company). Instead, Milner became director of a number of public banks, chiefly the London Joint Stock Bank, corporate precursor of the Midland Bank. He became one of the greatest political and financial powers in England, with his disciples strategically placed throughout England in significant places, such as the editorship of The Times, the editorship of The Observer, the managing directorship of Lazard Brothers, various administrative posts, and even Cabinet positions. Ramifications were established in politics, high finance, Oxford and London universities, periodicals, the civil service, and tax-exempt foundations.
#2 Expanding the Empire to the US - Council on Foreign Relations
At the end of the war of 1914, it became clear that the organization of this system had to be greatly extended. Once again the task was entrusted to Lionel Curtis who established, in England and each dominion, a front organization to the existing local Round Table Group. This front organization, called the Royal Institute of International Affairs, had as its nucleus in each area the existing submerged Round Table Group. In New York it was known as the Council on Foreign Relations, and was a front for J. P. Morgan and Company in association with the very small American Round Table Group. The American organizers were dominated by the large number of Morgan "experts," including Lamont and Beer, who had gone to the Paris Peace Conference and there became close friends with the similar group of English "experts" which had been recruited by the Milner group. In fact, the original plans for the Royal Institute of International Affairs and the Council on Foreign Relations were drawn up at Paris. The Council of the RIIA (which, by Curtis's energy came to be housed in Chatham House, across St. James's Square from the Astors, and was soon known by the name of this headquarters) and the board of the Council on Foreign Relations have carried ever since the marks of their origin. Until 1960 the council at Chatham House was dominated by the dwindling group of Milner's associates, while the paid staff members were largely the agents of Lionel Curtis. The Round Table for years (until 1961) was edited from the back door of Chatham House grounds in Ormond Yard, and its telephone came through the Chatham House switchboard.
The New York branch was dominated by the associates of the Morgan Bank. For example, in 1928 the Council on Foreign Relations had John W. Davis as president, Paul Cravath as vice-president, and a council of thirteen others, which included Owen D. Young, Russell C. Leffingwell, Norman Davis, Allen Dulles, George W. Wickersham, Frank L. Polk, Whitney Shepardson, Isaiah Bowman, Stephen P. Duggan, and Otto Kahn. Throughout its history the council has been associated with the American Round Tablers, such as Beer, Lippmann. Shepardson. and Jerome Greene.
The academic figures have been those linked to Morgan, such as James T. Shotwell, Charles Seymour, Joseph P. Chamberlain, Philip Jessup, Isaiah Bowman and, more recently, Philip Moseley, Grayson L. Kirk, and Henry M. Wriston. The Wall Street contacts with these were created originally from Morgan's influence in handling large academic endowments. In the case of the largest of these endowments, that at Harvard, the influence was usually exercised indirectly through "State Street," Boston, which, for much of the twentieth century, came through the Boston banker Thomas Nelson Perkins.
The American Group and the CIA
Closely allied with this Morgan influence were a small group of Wall Street law firms, whose chief figures were Elihu Root, John W. Davis, Paul D. Cravath, Russell Leffingwell, the Dulles brothers (Alan Dulles was head of CIA) and, more recently, Arthur H. Dean, Philip D. Reed, and John J. McCloy. Other nonlegal agents of Morgan included men like Owen D. Young and Norman H. Davis.
Roots of the Anglo-American alliance
On this basis, which was originally financial and goes back to George Peabody, there grew up in the twentieth century a power structure between London and New York which penetrated deeply into university life, the press, and the practice of foreign policy. In England the center was the Round Table Group, while in the United States it was J. P. Morgan and Company or its local branches in Boston, Philadelphia, and Cleveland. Some rather incidental examples of the operations of this structure are very revealing, just because they are incidental. For example, it set up in Princeton a reasonable copy of the Round Table Group's chief Oxford headquarters, All Souls College. This copy, called the Institute for Advanced Study, and best known, perhaps, as the refuge of Einstein, Oppenheimer, John von Neumann, and George F. Kennan, was organized by Abraham Flexner of the Carnegie Foundation and Rockefeller's General Education Board after he had experienced the delights of All Souls while serving as Rhodes Memorial Lecturer at Oxford. The plans were largely drawn by Tom Jones, one of the Round Table's most active intriguers and foundation administrators.(cont. below)
#3. The Triple Front
THE MILNER GROUP could never have been built up by Milner's own efforts. He had no political power or even influence. All that he had was ability and ideas. The same thing is true about many of the other members of the Milner Group, at least at the time that they joined the Group. The power that was utilized by Milner and his Group was really the power of the Cecil family and its allied families such as the Lyttelton (Viscounts Cobham), Wyndham (Barons Leconfield), Grosvenor (Dukes of Westminster), Balfour, Wemyss, Palmer (Earls of Selborne and Viscounts Wolmer), Cavendish (Dukes of Devonshire and Marquesses of Hartington), and Gathorne-Hardy (Earls of Cranbrook). The Milner Group was originally a major fief within the great nexus of power, influence, and privilege controlled by the Cecil family. It is not possible to describe here the ramifications of the Cecil influence. It has been all-pervasive in British life since 1886. This Cecil Bloc was built up by Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, Viscount Cranborne and third Marquess of Salisbury (1830-1903). The methods used by this man were merely copied by the Milner Group. These methods can be summed up under three headings: (a) a triple-front penetration in politics, education, and journalism; (b) the recruitment of men of ability (chiefly from All Souls) and the linking of these men to the Cecil Bloc by matrimonal alliances and by gratitude for titles and positions of power; and (c) the influencing of public policy by placing members of the Cecil Bloc in positions of power shielded as much as possible from public attention.
#4. Controlling the Media
The American branch of this "English Establishment" exerted much of its influence through five American newspapers (The New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, the Washington Post, and the lamented Boston Evening Transcript). In fact, the editor of the Christian Science Monitor was the chief American correspondent (anonymously) of The Round Table, and Lord Lothian, the original editor of The Round Table and later secretary of the Rhodes Trust (1925-1939) and ambassador to Washington, was a frequent writer in the Monitor. It might be mentioned that the existence of this Wall Street, Anglo-American axis is quite obvious once it is pointed out. It is reflected in the fact that such Wall Street luminaries as John W. Davis, Lewis Douglas, Jock Whitney, and Douglas Dillon were appointed to be American ambassadors in London.
...This group wielded great influence because it controlled the Rhodes Trust, the Beit Trust, The Times of London, The Observer, the influential and highly anonymous quarterly review known as The Round Table (founded in 1910 with money supplied by Sir Abe Bailey and the Rhodes Trust, and with Lothian as editor), and it dominated the Royal Institute of International Affairs, called "Chatham House" (of which Sir Abe Bailey and the Astors were the chief financial supporters, while Lionel Curtis was the actual founder), the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust, and All Souls College, Oxford...
Infiltrating the Left-wing and the New Republic
More than fifty years ago the Morgan firm decided to infiltrate the Left-wing political movements in the United States. This was relatively easy to do, since these groups were starved for funds and eager for a voice to reach the people. Wall Street supplied both. The purpose was not to destroy ... or take over but was really threefold: (1) to keep informed about the thinking of Left-wing or liberal groups; (2) to provide them with a mouthpiece so that they could "blow off steam," and (3) to have a final veto on their publicity and possibly on their actions, if they ever went "radical."
There was nothing really new about this decision, since other financiers had talked about it and even attempted it earlier. What made it decisively important this time was the combination of its adoption by the dominant Wall Street financier, at a time when tax policy was driving all financiers to seek tax-exempt refuges for their fortunes, and at a time when the ultimate in Left-wing radicalism was about to appear under the banner of the Third International.
The best example of this alliance of Wall Street and Left-wing publications was The New Republic, a magazine founded by Willard Straight, using Payne Whitney money, in 1914. Straight, who had been assistant to Sir Robert Hart (Director of the Chinese Imperial Customs Service and the head of the European imperialist penetration of China) and had remained in the Far East from 1901 to r9l:, became a Morgan partner and the firm's chief expert on the Far East. He married Dorothy Payne Whitney whose names indicate the family alliance of two of America's greatest fortunes. She was the daughter of William C. Whitney, New York utility millionaire and the sister and co-heiress of Oliver Payne, of the Standard Oil "trust." One of her brothers married Gertrude Vanderbilt, while the other, Payne Whitney, married the daughter of Secretary of State John Hay, who enunciated the American policy of the "Open Door" in China. In the next generation, three first cousins, John Hay ("Jock") Whitney, Cornelius Vanderbilt ("Sonny") Whitney, and Michael Whitney ("Mike") Straight, were allied in numerous public policy enterprises of a propagandist nature, and all three served in varied roles in the late New Deal and Truman administrations. In these they were closely allied with other "Wall Street liberals," such as Nelson Rockefeller.
The New Republic was founded by Willard and Dorothy Straight, using her money, in 1914, and continued to be supported by her financial contributions until March 23, 1953. The original purpose for establishing the paper was to provide an outlet for the progressive Left and to guide it quietly in an Anglophile direction. This latter task was entrusted to a young man, only four years out of Harvard, but already a member of the mysterious Round Table group, which has played a major role in directing England's foreign policy since its formal establishment in 1909. This new recruit, Walter Lippmann, has been, from 1914 to the present, the authentic spokesman in American journalism for the Establishments on both sides of the Atlantic in international affairs. His biweekly columns, which appear in hundreds of American papers, are copyrighted by the New York Herald Tribune which is now owned by J. H. Whitney. It was these connections, as a link between Wall Street and the Round Table Group, which gave Lippmann the opportunity in 1918, while still in his twenties, to be the official interpreter of the meaning of Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points to the British government.
A final word
Please use caution when reading this. There is a broader context to this that I am unable to address in this space. Quigley's Tragedy and Hope is over 1300 pages and these citations are scattered seamlessly throughout.
The point is not to assert that there is a secret group who is pulling the strings of the modern world. It is far more complex. It is possible that there still exist the inner circle of "initiates." But I have no evidence for it. In fact, the evidence strongly suggest that after 1910 or so, the whole organization took on a new character. And it certainly got uglier.
The point is to draw light on this hidden part of our history and the inner workings of the one percent of one percent. They love the shadows and secrecy. They control the flow of information to a horrifying extent. They have untold influence over our government in ways most people can't imagine.
And they have a perilous vision for our world. Who has jurisdiction over a transnational economy. Who can regulate it? What democratic institution can even stand up to it?
This is the central downfall of the globalization idea. As David Rothkopf observes in this Newsweek column, having a global economy is great for the pirates, but is devasting for democracy, sovereignty, and justice.
The current financial crisis is another such example, producing serious questions about the influence of the superclass. Of the world's elites, none has strutted the world stage for the past decade like global investment bankers. Masters of money, they created something new: global markets and a constantly evolving array of securities that were both beyond the reach and the comprehension of regulators. Now, the value of some of the complex investment vehicles they created is proving to be illusory.
As a consequence, the world economy was set for the crisis that is currently unfolding. There was no effective global regulator to keep the system in check, and there was no real voice for the average Joe. The Federal Reserve stepped in to stabilize the burnout of one of these major market makers—even though they have no jurisdiction over investment banks, even though many of those supporting the bailout/buyout were the same who have long clamored for "self-regulation," even though many were the ones who had cited the moral hazard of helping to bail out homeowners and encouraging their bad borrowing behavior. And so you have a financial leadership structure that bails out investment bankers worldwide, but not homeowners.
I'll leave you with this video clip I excerpted from the publisher of Harper's and Texaco heir Lewis Lapham's movie, The American Ruling CLass
Zbigniew Brzezinski to be the real power behind an Obama throne By Eric Walberg Online Journal Contributing Writer
Jul 24, 2008, 00:27
As the United States election race enters the final stretch, Barack Obama as the candidate promising change is revealing his true colours, much to the despair of anyone actually expecting any change.
His recent call to declare Jerusalem the undivided capital of Israel, his denial of Palestinans’ right of return, and his support for a Bantustan Palestinian “state” which poses no threat to Israel show how completely he has caved in to the Zionist establishment on that issue.
As President George W Bush calls for early reductions in combat troops in Iraq, Obama’s position on Iraq -- a vow to bring troops home within 16 months, excepting a “residual force” -- looks less and less like a defining moment in his foreign policy. Whatever happens to troop levels, there is no explicit talk of overriding the plans for 14 permanent bases.
Obama is toeing the line in Afghanistan, too. As NATO casualties continue to mount, surpassing monthly Iraqi casualities as of June this year, he is proposing -- now seconded by McCain -- that the United States shift up to 15,000 more troops there from Iraq. Just prior to his trip to Afghanistan, he wrote in a New York Times Op Ed, “We need more troops, more helicopters, better intelligence-gathering and more nonmilitary assistance to accomplish the mission there.” Please, will someone show me the silver lining in an Obama victory in November?
But then none of the above should come as any surprise to those familiar with his chief promoter and foreign policy adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who, along with current (and likely future) Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, has already entered history as helping “suck the Soviets into a Vietnamese quagmire.” These are the words of President Jimmy Carter’s Under-Secretary of Defense Walter Slocumbe in March 1979, eight months before the Soviets were successfully “sucked in,” when Gates was CIA chief. The changing of the guard, come November, will change nothing. US foreign policy has a logic which transcends who sleeps in the White House.
What’s especially ghoulish about all this is that there are four Brzezinski offspring who are all onboard the Obama wagon: Mark (director of Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council under President Bill Clinton, and one of the prime movers of the 2004 color revolution in Ukraine); Ian (currently the US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and NATO affairs and a backer of Kosovan independence, NATO expansion into Ukraine and Georgia and US ABM missiles in Poland); Mika, political commentator on MSNBC whose interview with Michele Obama contributed to the general media Obamamia; and finally Matthew, a friend of Ilyas Akhmadov, “foreign minister” and US envoy of the Chechen opposition.
Brzezinski’s brand of anti-Russian, anti-Muslim geopolitics will dominate a future Obama administration. In Second Chance: Three Presidents and the Crisis of American Superpower, published last year, he lays out his New World Order agenda without so much as a blush. Apparently, there is a global political awakening going on, the goal of which is “dignity.” Not economic development, not the alleviation of poverty, not national sovereignty against the IMF and World Bank. Just plain old dignity, though Zbig’s brand of dignity is the kind attained through secession, Balkanisation, and the creation of weak statelets for each ethnic minority subservient to the US. Think: Kosovo and -- if he has his way -- Chechenia. Neo-Wilsonian demagogy in the service not of peace but of US world domination, encirclement of Russia and control of the Arab world.
Zbig said in endorsing Obama: “What makes Obama attractive to me is that he understands that we live in a very different world where we have to relate to a variety of cultures and peoples.” Obama’s alleged global approach and trans-ethnic, trans-racial allure are right out of Zbig’s university textbook, or rather Second Chance, which will be the manual for the Obama campaign and presidency.
Obama is literally a second chance for Brzezinski: having destroyed the Soviet Union and shattered the Warsaw Pact, he now wants to dismember the Russian Federation itself and put the finishing touches on Afghanistan as an impregnable US military base against China, Russia . . . the list is endless. Perhaps Zbig is dreaming of restoring Greater Poland circa 1600 -- from the Black Sea to the Baltic, all controlled by petty szlachta aristocrats like . . . the Brzezinskis?
The Economist blog put it best: “A new brain for Barack Obama! It’s 78 years old [Ed. note: it’s 80 years old and it still works perfectly. It belongs to Zbigniew Brzezinski, the peppery ex-national security adviser to Jimmy Carter.”
The messianic idealism of the Obama campaign has not been seen since the days of another Brzezinski creation -- Jimmy Carter, who made him national security adviser with disastrous results. Brzezinski’s anti-Russian obsession back in 1976 prompted him to foment the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, which he touted as the greatest single bulwark against Soviet communism. Webster G. Tarpley argues that Brzezinski was even a prime behind-the-scenes mover in the overthrow of the Shah of Iran and installing Ayatollah Khomeini in power in Tehran. Brzezinski cared less about the Middle East and its oil than he did about the need for a centre from which Islamic fundamentalism of the most retrograde type could penetrate the soft southern underbelly of the USSR. For Brzezinski, the space between the southern frontier of the Soviet and the Indian Ocean littoral became an “arc of crisis,” and we have his handiwork to thank for the horrors taking place there to this day.
The 1980 Carter Doctrine -- that the US was determined to dominate the Persian Gulf -- is at the root of the first Gulf War, of the present Iraq war, and of the possible war on Iran. Brzezinski’s grandiose schemes of world transformation caused a renewal of the Cold War and gave birth to Al-Qaeda, and without Soviet restraint the results could easily have been far more tragic than they turned out to be. By 1980, disillusionment with Carter led to the nightmare of the Reagan regime. But this was of little concern to Brzezinski -- a mere blip on his radar screen.
In 2008, we have an obscure Illinois senator, a neophyte with no legislative achievements to speak of, but with a raft of utopian promises, including solving the race problem once and for all. Recession, unemployment and an alarming rise in poverty are of no consequence; a golden age is at hand thanks to his magnetic personality. Since he knows nothing of foreign policy, these matters will be competently managed by the Brzezinski cabal.
But there seems to be one slight hitch. Despite Obama’s slavish pro-Israeli genuflections of late, he is still not trusted by the Jewish lobby. Quite possibly because they know who the power behind the throne-to-be is, and they can’t stomach him, nor he them. Addressing the AIPAC crew in an interview with The Daily Telegraph, he said, “They operate not by arguing but by slandering, vilifying, demonising. They very promptly wheel out anti-Semitism. There is an element of paranoia in this inclination to view any serious attempt at a compromised peace as somehow directed against Israel.”
But then Brzezinski was a key player in Carter’s 1978 Camp David Accords, much loathed by the Zionists as giving up Sinai in exchange for a cold peace with Egypt. Brzezinski is definitely not a hardcore Zionist, though he’s happy to allow the destruction of Palestine. Perhaps he is, under his suave exterior, still the quintessential Polish anti-Semite, with a vision of the New World Order without Israel at the centre.
If he can keep up the momentum, however, he may be able to outflank the Zionists in Washington and bringing his horse first past the finish line. They are on the defensive these days, what with spy trials, even J Street Project, a Jewish lobby group that -- gasp -- dares to criticise Israel. Is this, then, the silver lining in an Obama victory?
Navy Prosecutor In Gitmo Case: "If they hadn't shot down the fourth plane it would've hit the dome" "Bin Laden driver" case contains revealing details
Steve Watson Infowars.net
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Though the trial the man, dubbed "Osama bin Laden's driver", is primarily functioning as a show piece for the Bush administration's "war on terror", some interesting information emerged from the Guantanamo Bay naval base yesterday in the form of a direct admission from a US prosecutor that the fourth plane was "shot down".
The revelation came during assertions from representatives for the prosecution that Salim Hamdan had detailed knowledge of the intended target of the fourth hijacked plane on 9/11.
...prosecutor Timothy Stone told the six-member jury of U.S. military officers who will decide Hamdan's guilt or innocence that Hamdan had inside knowledge of the 2001 attacks on the United States because he overheard a conversation between bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
"If they hadn't shot down the fourth plane it would've hit the dome," Stone, a Navy officer, said in his opening remarks.
The tribunal's chief prosecutor, Col. Lawrence Morris, later explained that Stone was quoting Hamdan in evidence that will be presented at trial. Morris declined to say if the "dome" was a reference to the U.S. Capitol.
The report goes on to state "United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in a field in rural Pennsylvania. U.S. officials have never stated it was shot down although rumors saying that abound to this day."
Flight 93 had an 8 mile wide debris field, a fact that does not tally with official story that the aircraft was fully intact in the seconds before it hit the ground.
Large pieces of fuselage were also recovered from a marina in Indian Lake, a couple of miles away from the crash site, and the planes engines, which according to the laws of physics should have plunged deep into the ground along with the rest of the airliner were never found.
Only a one-ton segment of an engine was ever recovered, again more than a mile from the crash site, which the FBI declared had ‘bounced’ there.
Eyewitness accounts, in addition to one call from the flight, also describe loud engine noises, white smoke and parts falling from the flight as it approached its final resting place.
We have previously reported on credible individuals who claim to have personally talked with the pilots who shot the plane down.
With the economic news of the week of July 14—the continuing crisis among mortgage lenders, the onset of bank failures, the announced downsizing of General Motors, the slide of the Dow-Jones below 11,000—we are seeing the ongoing collapse of the U.S. economy.
Even the super-rich are becoming nervous as cries for an emergency suspension of short selling ring out.
What is really taking place, however, is that the producing economy of working men and women is being crushed by the overall debt burden on households, businesses, and governments that could reach $70 trillion by 2010. The financial system, including mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is bankrupt, as the debts it is based on cannot be repaid.
This is because the producing economy of people who work for a living simply can no longer generate enough purchasing power for people either to pay their debts or allow them to purchase what is being sold in the marketplace. In turn it is the debt burden and the loss of societal purchasing power that are crashing the stock market. Thus the collapse of the financial economy has started to destroy the producing economy as well.
It’s a “perfect storm,” the result of a 200-year-old financial system where money is largely created by bank lending and where since 1980 our industry and jobs have been increasingly outsourced abroad to cheap labor markets. Thus domestic incomes have stagnated while the nation’s GDP has not been able to keep up with the exponential growth of debt.
While the mainstream media are blind, deaf, and dumb as to the causes, the victims within the middle and working classes are seeing their livelihoods ruined, jobs taken away, pensions eroded, homes foreclosed on, and are being saddled with ever-increasing debt and forced to work under more and more stress due to rising burdens of taxation, gas and food price inflation, and bureaucratic rules and regulations. The only places a more-or-less normal life may still be possible will be the wealthiest imperial centers like Washington, New York, Houston, Chicago, or San Francisco.
All that the current bailouts being engineered by the Federal Reserve are doing is to create more debt to shore up failing financial institutions. No new wealth is being created. It’s band-aids on band-aids.
The problem politically is that control of the U.S. long ago was turned over to the bankers and the financiers of the Western world. It was called financial “deregulation,” accelerated under President Ronald Reagan, and has run amok since then. From a longer historical view, it’s the same phenomenon that first created and then ruined the British Empire , and it’s what created and is now ruining the American Empire today.
A side-effect of control by the bankers and financiers is that they are also Zionists, so we have the added multi-trillion dollar burden of trying to conquer the Middle East on behalf of the international oil interests and the state of Israel .
The situation has deteriorated sharply since the 1970s as U.S. affairs have been managed on behalf of the financial interests by what you might call the “Three Amigos”—Henry Kissinger, Paul Volcker, and Alan Greenspan. Kissinger, while Nixon’s secretary of state, made the U.S. dependent on the Middle East for oil, lavished billions on Israel ’s war machine, and created the petrodollar to support our trade and fiscal deficits. Volcker, while chairman of the Federal Reserve, crashed the U.S. producing economy in the recession of 1979-1983, leading to the rise of the “service economy.” Greenspan, during his own Federal Reserve chairmanship, presided over the bubble economy which was created through massive official fraud in home mortgage lending and is now sinking like the Titanic.
The politicians have enabled these financial crimes. Above all it’s been the Bush family which has served as a political Trojan Horse for the financiers for three generations, with affairs having become much worse since George H.W. Bush invaded Iraq for the first time in 1991. The enablers have included a majority of the members of the U.S. Congress. (See the conclusion of Patrick Buchanan’s new book, Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War for an account of how the U.S. since the Bush I presidency has replicated the catastrophic errors of failed British imperialism.)
The American people are not entirely innocent. We have been so lulled to sleep by the financier-owned media that we have allowed these disasters to take place and are now reaping the consequences. We have been the fodder for their wars and the signers of their loans. We have tried to carve out our own piece of the pie which is now crumbling.
What is taking place is not just the collapse of the U.S. , but more than likely the final crash of Western civilization, since we are the last of the world empires to go down the drain. World War I saw the end of the German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian, and Ottoman empires. World War II saw the disappearance of the French, British, Japanese, and Italian empires, along with Nazi Germany. The Soviet empire collapsed in 1991. The American is next. The danger is that we may lash out and start a nuclear World War III out of frustration and to appease the elitists of the world who see war and famine as their pathway to world control. Such a war would also mean a military takeover domestically to manage the pathetically weak nation that we are becoming.
The bankers and financiers do not care if nations and empires destroy themselves and each other, because they are internationalists. In fact, the more war and mass starvation there is the better off they feel. All they need is a base from which to operate. London has been their main base of operations since the Bank of England was founded in 1694, though they have a strong presence in other nations. They have been especially influential in northwest Europe , where elitism in the form of Freemasonry endeavored since the time of the French Revolution to destroy the authority of the Catholic Church.
In fact, World War I was a project of the Freemasons in dismembering Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, both largely Catholic. This destruction allowed the masters of usury to flourish within the atheistic and materialistic culture that Freemasonry fostered across Europe . World War I also resulted in the virus of Communism, largely egged on by the internationalists and Freemasons, though it had such a tragic impact on Russia and Central Europe before spreading to China and East Asia .
It is theoretically possible that the US as a nation could still save itself through an internal revolution, while playing a much reduced role in the world. After all, England , France , and Italy still exist as shadows of their past greatness. But, realistically, all ordinary people can do today is try to survive, perhaps by working with friends and neighbors in planting food and living within the underground economy. At least people might not then have to starve to death, because hard as it is to believe that “it could happen here,” widespread famine in the U.S. seems a real possibility over the next several years. Nations take such risks when they allow capitalist agribusiness to destroy local agriculture.
On a national level, it is likely that as a response to the economic crisis some attempt will be made by desperate politicians to try to replicate the New Deal, but to do this effectively would require political control by a nationalistic reform party. Even then, additional reform measures such as control of credit as a public utility, a basic income guarantee, and a national dividend would be needed for real economic security to replace the current madness that could soon make the U.S. a relic of history.
Richard C. Cook is a former U.S. federal government analyst, whose career included service with the U.S. Civil Service Commission, the Food and Drug Administration, the Carter White House, NASA, and the U.S. Treasury Department. His articles on economics, politics, and space policy have appeared on numerous websites and in Eurasia Critic magazine. His book on monetary reform, entitled We Hold These Truths: The Hope of Monetary Reform, will be published soon by Tendril Press. He is also the author of Challenger Revealed: An Insider’s Account of How the Reagan Administration Caused the Greatest Tragedy of the Space Age, called by one reviewer, “the most important spaceflight book of the last twenty years.” His website is at www.richardccook.com.
A TSA screener observes an image from a new whole-body scanner installed at Miami International Airport. The device uses radio waves to see objects through clothing.
Posted on Mon, Jul. 21, 2008
Airport scanners see through clothes
By INA PAIVA CORDLE
Travelers, be aware: Your full-blown image -- private parts and all -- could soon be visible to a security officer, on-screen, at an airport near you.
Miami International Airport is one of a dozen airports nationwide that have begun pilot-testing whole-body imaging machines, which reveal weapons and explosives concealed under layers of clothing.
''It allows us to detect threat objects that are not metallic and that cannot be detected by metal detectors, and items that are sometimes missed even in a physical pat-down, in a nonintrusive manner,'' said Mark Hatfield, federal security director for the Transportation Security Administration at MIA.
As passengers step inside the machine, they extend their arms and legs for several seconds, as millimeter wave technology creates an image. About 25 feet away, in a covered booth, a security officer in radio contact, views the ghostly silhouette -- with the face blurred -- on a screen. The officer determines if a concealed weapon, such as a ceramic knife, or explosive detonation cord, exists, Hatfield said.
''The image projected is more humanoid than human,'' he said. ``What's important is providing a clear view of a threat object. And the person going through the machine will never see the operator.''
`RANDOM SELECTION'
So far, the technology has been used for five days at two MIA checkpoints, at Concourses G and J, replacing the machines that emitted puffs of air. At least two more body-imaging machines will be deployed in the next few months, one at J and one at an interim checkpoint at C/D, Hatfield said. Each machine costs $170,000. To date, no explosives have been detected, he said.
At least for now, the TSA is using ''continuous, random selection'' to choose passengers for the machines, and it is optional. Travelers who decline will be physically patted down. All passengers must still go through metal detectors.
''For our travelers, through this airport, this machine adds even an additional layer of security,'' said Miami-Dade Aviation spokesman Marc Henderson.
`STRIP SEARCH'
Full body imaging technology has been in the works for at least five years, as the government grappled with issues of privacy and civil liberties, Hatfield said.
''It is tantamount to, essentially an electronic strip search, and that is our concern,'' said Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida. ``The most intrusive technology that intrudes upon personal privacy should not be the first line of our security.''
Hatfield said that the TSA has mitigated those concerns by having the security officer located in a remote booth, where he or she never sees the passenger. Furthermore, the passenger's face is blurred on the screen. And the image is permanently deleted immediately after viewing and cannot be stored, printed or transmitted, Hatfield said.
`NAIVE'
Still, privacy concerns remain.
''It is naive to think that the use of this technology will be restricted to airports,'' Simon said. ``The problem here is that we are shredding what little remains of personal privacy in America without much careful thought.''
Unlike the puffer machines, which blast a person with air, then vacuum the particles and scan them for traces of explosives, the body-imaging machines use millimeter waves. A passenger steps into the machine and remains still for a few seconds, while the technology creates a three-dimensional image of the passenger from two antennas that simultaneously rotate around the body.
LOW LEVEL OF ENERGY
Millimeter waves use electromagnetic waves to generate an image based on the energy reflected from the body, creating a robotic image. The energy emitted is 10,000 times less than that of a cellphone, the TSA said.
Miami is one of 21 airports nationwide receiving the new technology.
The whole body imaging machines are already in use in Los Angeles, New York's JFK, Baltimore-Washington, Denver, Albuquerque, Ronald Reagan Washington, Detroit, Dallas-Fort Worth and Phoenix Sky-Harbor, Washington Dulles and Las Vegas airports.
Other airports that will get the new machines in the coming months include Chicago O'Hare, Atlanta, Newark, Boston, Indianapolis, New York LaGuardia, Tampa, San Juan and San Francisco, the TSA said. There are no current plans to place the machines at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood.
Last week, for the first time, the average American woke up to the fact that our economy is in trouble.
Despite Bernanke and Paulson's pep talks, despite the happy talk by the talking heads, despite the cooked earnings reports desperately being put out by the banks and others, last week people still got - on a gut level - that the economy is in mortal danger.
The failure of IndyMac and the fact that Freddie and Fannie are on the ropes are what finally woke people up. The cracks in our financial system have become so big that the crew trying to maintain the facade simply can't paint over them any more.
Everyone I talk with - from the construction manager, to the baker, to the lawyer, to the doctor - are now all are in a holding pattern . . . They're all just waiting to see what happens with the economy.
None of them are making big purchases, or starting new ventures, or jumping into new investments. All of them know that there are big problems with the U.S. economy, but are hoping that it turns around.
So what? Who cares what the people I'm talking to are doing?
Because the same thing is happening all over the U.S. That means that the economy is quickly freezing up. And that means a depress . . . er, a very severe recession.
And everyone you're talking with is saying the same thing, right? (That's probably why you're reading this . . . you already know its true from your own experience).
"The nightmare scenario for U.S. economic authorities is here: confidence in their ability to rescue the country from a housing-led financial panic is now at its lowest level since the crisis began.
This means losses for investors, already totaling nearly half a trillion dollars, could mount even further over the next few months, with implications for business investment and the overall health of the economy.
***
Saturated with bad news, investors appear to have thrown in the towel. As they do this, the risks that both consumers and businesses will face further retrenchment at the same time is growing."
Last week was a huge turning point, when the average American could no longer be tricked by the fast-talking ponzi scheme salesmen. Last week was the week that America woke up to the economic crisis we've been facing for a long time.
On a positive note, everyone I speak with now finally understands that the war in Iraq is a large part of why our economy is sinking like a stone. And see this
.
Once they get that, the pressure to get us out of Iraq will become very strong. Hopefully, the economic crash will help wake people up in other areas as well.
WASHINGTON — Driven by a sour economy and skittish consumers, U.S. business bankruptcies saw their sharpest quarterly rise in two years, jumping 17 percent in the second quarter of 2008, according to an analysis by McClatchy.
Commercial filings for the first half of 2008 are up 45 percent from last year, as the national climate for commerce continues to deteriorate amid rising energy and food costs, mounting job losses, tighter credit and a reticence among consumers to part with discretionary income.
From April through June, 15,471 U.S. businesses called it quits, according to data from Automated Access to Court Electronic Records, an Oklahoma City bankruptcy management and data company.
States that saw the biggest increase in filings were Delaware, Montana, Oregon, Maryland and Connecticut, suggesting that the economic gloom is spreading beyond large population centers.
It was the 10th straight quarter that business bankruptcy filings have increased. Nearly 29,000 companies filed in the first half of 2008.
Another 60,000 to 90,000 others probably have closed, because roughly two to three businesses fold for every one that files for bankruptcy, said Jack Williams, resident scholar at the American Bankruptcy Institute.
The vast majority of these failed companies are among the nation's 23 million small businesses, with fewer than 100 employees. Their fortunes have tumbled as the national economic downturn has deepened.
"The climate is turning desperate for small businesses," said George Cloutier, founder of American Management Services, a consulting firm that helps small companies increase profits. "They are in crisis, and, as these numbers show, it's getting worse and worse."
Larger enterprises typically have more capital to weather downturns, but many of them also are reeling from the sputtering economy.
"I've been doing this for 36 years, and this is clearly the worst I've ever seen," said Harding Dawahare, the president of the Lexington, Ky.-based Dawahare's clothing store chain, which employs more than 400 people.
It was 1907 when Dawahare's Syrian immigrant grandfather, Serur Dawahare, began packing his mules with bags of fabric and linens and peddling his goods door to door to coal miners in Eastern Kentucky.
From those modest beginnings, Dawahare's grew to a 32-store clothing chain with outlets throughout Kentucky and a few stores in Tennessee and West Virginia.
However, Harding Dawahare did the unthinkable recently and filed for bankruptcy after amassing more than $9 million in debts. He said his problems began after a tough year in 2006, but it was the 2007 holiday season that did him in.
"We had a great third quarter, but if you don't have a good fourth quarter, you're not gonna make it. And that's essentially what happened. The economy tanked in late November and it never came back, and we just couldn't overcome it."
More than 20 percent of the newly shuttered businesses were in California, which logged 3,141 bankruptcies in the second quarter.
Texas fielded the next highest number of bankruptcies with 1,168, followed by Michigan with 702 and Florida with 635. New York was next, with 618 petitions, and Colorado had 547.
Commercial bankruptcy filings reported by Automated Access to Court Electronic Records are typically higher than official government figures due to a more thorough reading of the petitions.
Robert Lawless, a law professor at the University of Illinois and a bankruptcy expert, has researched and written about the federal government's underreporting of business bankruptcies. He estimates that roughly one in seven people who file for consumer bankruptcy do so in connection with their businesses.
Tom Clements' pet shop in Tampa, Fla., started seeing steep declines in business in April of last year.
"We didn't know what it was at the time, so we were trying to work through it," Clements said.
But as sales stayed flat for the next 15 months, Clements, 62, realized that the economy was forcing customers to make tough choices. "Obviously a puppy isn't something that everybody has to have."
With listed assets of about $2,605, Clements filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in June, owing more than $260,000 for back taxes, a property lease, auto leases, unpaid inventory, dog food, phone service, advertising, pest control, waste removal and other services.
"I absolutely loved that business," Clements said wistfully. "It's the kind of business where people were happy. You come, get a puppy or a dog, you go home happy. Unfortunately, I'm not a philanthropist."
Clements said the lingering debt and the money he invested had jeopardized his and his wife's retirement.
"That's why I wouldn't ever consider going back into something like that again," he said.
Williams of the bankruptcy institute said that because bankruptcies were lagging economic indicators, they probably would "continue to increase at least for the next year to 18 months at the rate that we're seeing right now."
Cloutier wants the federal government to create a $10 billion emergency-loan fund to help struggling small businesses avoid bankruptcy. Williams is skeptical.
"I think most of the business problems are not simply market-driven, they're operational. So there's a mix. Throwing more money at a poor operation means you just spent more money, but the operation is still poor."
Jodi and Steven Carbaugh of Waynesboro, Pa., ended up in bankruptcy court after they tried to expand their Cupo' Joe coffee shop in Greencastle, Pa.
In 2006, the couple used their home as collateral to buy a nearby Amish-owned bakery. "Big mistake," Jodi Carbaugh said.
As their debt increased, the couple tried to juggle four business-related loans and their home mortgage as well as pay vendors, employees, utilities and insurance. At the same time, business at the coffee shop began to slow.
Some 70 miles outside Washington, the Cupo' Joe was a favorite morning launching pad for residents who drive to work in the nation's capital. But as gas prices increased, Jodi Carbaugh noticed that business began to wane, falling 40 percent since last year.
"People had to spend more money to buy gas to get to D.C. instead of buying lattes and specialty breads," Carbaugh said. At the same time, food prices spiked. A case of eggs tripled to $60 and a 50-pound bag of flour went from about $20 to more than $50.
"The price of goods increased so drastically that we couldn't ask folks to pay what it cost to make the products," Carbaugh said.
Their fortunes bottomed out in June, when they filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy protection.
"We worked as hard as we could for as long as we could," Carbaugh said of their failed ventures. " . . . Some of life's lessons aren't so easily learned, but we learned our lesson."
Left (Video) Seven years after the attacks of September the Eleventh, a global awakening has taken place, the likes of which the world has never seen. As the corporate-controlled media dwindles into extinction, a new breed of journalists and activists has emerged.
Commentary More than a movement -- the search for 9/11 truth is an awakening By Kevin Quirk Online Journal Contributing Writer
Jul 21, 2008, 00:22
A year ago, I announced in this forum the launching of my survey for a book that would compile personal accounts of ordinary people active in the 9/11 truth movement. Since then, I’ve been gathering dozens of revealing, often moving stories from inside and outside the U.S., and I’ve begun to put a shape to Voices for 9/11 Truth. Along the way, I’ve come to believe that what we call the 9/11 truth movement is not really a movement per se. It’s something else, something potentially more important, more meaningful, and maybe even more impactful.
First, the obvious: we’re not exactly a homogenous group. Yes, there is a shared commitment to prompt a thorough and impartial 9/11 investigation and unravel the sinister mess behind the crime and cover-up, but we’re not linked by bloodlines, gender, age, economic status, or any other common entity. We’re no clearly defined, pre-established group seeking a platform to gain rights or power -- and anyway, we’d be hard pressed to put together a thousand members for a rally, let alone hundreds of thousands. In fact, what I’ve been most struck by in fielding these personal accounts and interacting with the gutsy people behind them is the wide diversity of those who believe that 9/11 was orchestrated from within our government.
That diversity should strengthen the sense of real community among 9/11 truthers while further dispelling the government and corporate media’s ridiculous attempts to marginalize and pigeonhole those who conclude that 9/11 was clearly an inside job.
We’ve all seen how some of the more visible members of the 9/11 truth movement highlight their professional standing: scholars for 9/11 truth, engineers and architects for 9/11 truth, etc. Understandingly, they believe that impressive titles or credentials are essential in establishing credibility of the evidence -- and the movement itself. But as I’ve dug deeper into who’s really out there spreading the truth about 9/11, I’ve found an inspiring assemblage of ordinary people from all walks of life. I’ve heard from priests, veterans, entrepreneurs, lawyers, therapists, technicians, comedians, students, writers, broadcasters, salespeople, homemakers, a DVD producer, a former intelligence officer, and a former member of FDNY, as well as those who happen to be engineers, scholars, and scientists. The credibility of the average person plastering their towns with 9/11 truth DVDs, organizing grassroots lectures and rallies, or just trying to convince family and friends, comes not from their status but from their passion, their commitment, and the authenticity of what they believe and how they proclaim it, even in the face of rejection and scorn.
Geographically, Voices for 9/11 Truth have come from the Northeast, Midwest, South, and Far West of the U.S., as well as from several provinces of Canada. I’ve also heard from 9/11 truth activists from England, Spain, France, Belgium, Sweden, Finland, Bulgaria, and Japan. Ages range from over-70 retirees to a middle-school student who debates teachers on 9/11 in the classroom. Socio-economical levels vary from struggling recent college grads to one truther sporting a 9/11 bumper sticker on a Porsche Boxster.
Even more striking has been the rich diversity in religious and, yes, even political backgrounds. My survey has attracted fundamentalist Christians, as well as Catholics, Jews, Mormons, agnostics, and those with more eclectic religious or spiritual leanings. In politics, respondents have in no way been limited to the ranks of Progressives, Greens, or Libertarians. I’ve compiled profiles from Independents, mainstream Democrats, and several Republicans, including those who, pre-catching the 9/11 truth wave, voted for Bush in 2000 and even ’04!
If we’re all nuts, it’s one hell of a holiday variety pack.
So the 9/11 truth crowd hasn’t come together because of something we are. Rather, we came to the same place through something that happened inside our psyches and spirits.
That’s why I see this more as a 9/11 truth awakening. Beyond the basic questions of who really did it, and all the hows and whys that go with it, diving into 9/11 truth for many becomes a personal and even spiritual process. It stirs us to ask deep and profound questions: Who am I and what do I really believe? How do I know what I know? How would it change my life if I admit that “Dad” or any authority figure is really capable of the unthinkable? What does it mean to wake up and tell the truth every day -- to myself, first, and then to those around me who may ridicule me for what I say?
The first question I ask my respondents is how and when they first rejected the “official” government story and came to believe or strongly suspect our government’s involvement in 9/11. For some, the “aha” came within months, weeks, or even days (or hours) of the attacks. But many others did not cross that threshold until two, three, or even four years after 9/11. Reading David Ray Griffin, watching Loose Change, or coming across some other compelling source of evidence may trigger an initial exploration, but most don’t make the leap to the “other side” without some real soul-searching.
It’s more than just getting past cognitive dissonance. For many people I have heard from, embracing 9/11 truth has meant a massive overhaul of how they see themselves, their government, their media, their jobs, their churches, their families, and everything else around them. It’s little wonder, then, that when I ask how their involvement in 9/11 truth has changed their lives, many respondents paint a portrait of a major transformation and a lasting spiritual experience. They don’t speak as converts to some fundamentalist “ism,” but rather as grounded and aware people who feel like a veil has been lifted. Some are angry, or frustrated by the lack of action on the get-the-bad-guys front, but almost all are grateful for the personal change as they display amazingly creative and resourceful ways to open the doors for others to glimpse 9/11 truth. And the veils are coming off for more and more folks every day. As a former spiritually-oriented counselor and writer committed to both personal and cultural change, I’m especially heartened by this part of the 9/11 truth picture.
I’m searching for a potential publisher for Voices for 9/11 Truth, a daunting challenge in a climate where a best-selling author like Steve Alten had to veer far from the mainstream publishing world to find a home for The Shell Game -- a book that weaves 9/11 truth evidence into a novel! But as I wait and hope for a change in the weather, I’m trying to keep perspective.
We all want to see our culture act from the truth of what really happened on 9/11. We want Congress to wake up. We want the corporate media to wake up. We want not just a real investigation but real justice for the perpetrators. All that’s imminently worth our continued time, energy, and passion. But even if that sea change never happens -- as it sure hasn’t happened for so many other covert operations -- let’s get clear about one thing. This 9/11 truth awakening can never be called a failure.
Kevin Quirk, a former journalist, is an author, editor, and personal historian with A Writer’s Eye. He can be reached at kevin@awriterseye.com.
Earlier this week Charlie Brooker generated the largest number of online responses to an article in the history of Comment is free. His theme was conspiracy theory in general and the 9/11 conspiracy theories in particular – and it collected more than 1,700 comments. Brooker thinks conspiracy theories console those who find reality too dull and complicated without the garnish of a hidden agenda: "Embrace a conspiracy theory and suddenly you're part of a gang sharing privileged information; your sense of power and dignity rises a smidgeon and this troublesome world makes more sense, for a time."
Brooker's line belongs to a mini-genre of attempts to explain the public's willingness to entertain conspiracy theories in psychological terms. Indeed he is very close to that stern rationalist Melanie Phillips, who has decided that, in the absence of religion, conspiracy theories satisfy "our desperate need to make order out of chaos".
The conspiratorial world view does have its consolations. But so does Brooker's. There's a certain pleasure and drama in declaring that the world is driven by incompetence and error, and that things are more or less as they seem. You can preen yourself on how well-adjusted you are, how you haven't fallen for that stuff about lizards, or Illuminati. You have learned to live without magic. You're saying "I don't believe in 9/11 conspiracy theories", but you are signalling that you are sceptical and rational and that you don't have personal hygiene issues. There's a psychological pay-off for both the cock-up and the conspiracy theory of history.
Our willingness to entertain conspiracy theories is doubtless influenced by our life experiences. A man in his 20s with time on his hands is more likely to be drawn to the wilderness of mirrors that surrounds that death of John Kennedy than a successful columnist in his 30s.
But this is beside the point. Wide-ranging conspiracies do take place, whether we are inclined to believe that they do or not. It might well be consoling to believe that the CIA plots the overthrow of unhelpful foreign regimes. But it is also true. To insist that, say, the CIA had nothing to do with the fall of Guatemalan leader Jacobo Árbenz in 1954, or the overthrow of Chile's Salvador Allende in 1973 might feel terrifically sensible and sane – we can't always be seeing the hidden hand of the CIA, there's no call for reductionism. It is also, you know, wrong.
What happened on 9/11 is, in the end, a matter of fact – whatever our worldview might incline us to consider plausible or possible. The true authorship of the attacks is as difficult to establish as anything else about the world of international terrorism and espionage.
For myself, I have no idea what happened, because I have no more idea of how the business-intelligence-political nexus works than I have about what chess grandmasters are up to when they are staring at the board, looking all thoughtful.
The attacks on the US on September 11 2001 were part of a web of events that interconnect with oil, drugs, money, organised crime, imperialism, existing institutions and us. And religion, and a lot more money.
It might feel wise and sensible to declare that any explanation that differs from the official account requires hundreds of impossibly tight-lipped bureaucratic killers. But that presupposes that we know how the world works, and we don't.
Maybe the 9/11 attacks were all about a small team of terrorists who managed to hold it together in a world otherwise characterised by crossed wires and blundering incompetence. But I don't know, and nor does Charlie Brooker.
The most important conspiracy theory about 9/11 rarely gets mentioned by writers like Brooker and Phillips. In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq the White House made every effort to link Saddam Hussein to al-Qaida. Far from being a production of what commentators like to call the tinfoil hat brigade, this particular paranoid fantasy emerged from the work of a highly focused and skilled group of people.
They worked in secret to manipulate the American and the global public and we can trace the impact of the efforts over time. So here is a (true) conspiracy to promote a (false) conspiracy theory. The White House's psy-war operatives were doubtless a professional and measured lot. I am sure that they knew how to behave in socially appropriate ways and enjoyed their work. They also helped pave the way for an illegal war in which more than half a million people have died. There's a 9/11 conspiracy theory hard at work, right there. It doesn't matter what sort of person you are, whether you are coolly rational or groping around for meaning in an indifferent world, America's spooks conspired to stampede the public into war on a false prospectus.
Some of the same people are now working hard to convince us that Iran poses an unacceptable threat to the peace-loving nations of the world. If they can they will use conspiracy theories of various kinds to do it, all the while acting conspiratorially. So it is hardly surprising that people – intelligent, level-headed people – are willing to believe that sophisticated conspiracies exist and that they are sometimes extremely important drivers of events. Given that they demonstrably do exist.
And while elements in the American state angle for another war in the Middle East, Melanie Phillips and Charlie Brooker will doubtless continue to heap scorn on an irrational public. Which seems a little, well, paranoid, under the circumstances.
The post-9/11 airline watch list that is supposed to keep terrorists off of airplanes has swelled to more than 1 million names, including at least one investigative reporter who had been critical of the Transportation Security Agency, which maintains the watch list.
CNN's Drew Griffin reported on the bloating of the watch list, which an ACLU count pegged at 1,001,308 names Wednesday afternoon. Griffin's is one of those names, he says.
"Coincidentally, this all began in May, shortly after I began a series of investigative reports critical of the TSA. Eleven flights now since May 19. On different airlines, my name pops up forcing me to go to the counter, show my identification, sometimes the agent has to make a call before I get my ticket," Griffin reported. "What does the TSA say? Nothing, at least nothing on camera. Over the phone a public affairs worker told me again I'm not on the watch list, and don't even think that someone in the TSA or anyone else is trying to get even."
The TSA, which is a part of the Department of Homeland Security, said Griffin's name wasn't even on the watch list, and the agency blamed the airlines for the delays the reporter experienced. The airlines, on the other hand, said they were simply following a list provided by TSA.
While it wouldn't be much of a stretch for plenty of people to believe the TSA would exercise its revenge via watch-list meddling, an agency spokesman insists that just isn't the case.
"So if there's any thought or shadow of a thought that TSA somehow put you on a watch list because of your reporting," spokesman Christopher White said, "it is absolutely fabricated."
Two Peer-Reviewed Scientific Papers Debunk CO2 Myth
Global warming consensus takes another battering
Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Three top scientists have once again contradicted the claim that a “consensus” exists about man-made global warming with research that indicates CO2 emissions actually cool the atmosphere, in addition to another peer-reviewed paper that documents how the IPCC overstated CO2’s effect on temperature by as much as 2000 per cent.
Professor George Chilingar and Leonid Khilyuk of the University of Southern California, and Oleg Sorokhtin of the Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences have released a study that they claim completely contradicts the link between CO2 and global temperature increases.
“The writers investigated the effect of CO2 emission on the temperature of atmosphere. Computations based on the adiabatic theory of greenhouse effect show that increasing CO2 concentration in the atmosphere results in cooling rather than warming of the Earth’s atmosphere,” states the preamble to the paper.
The full study, which appears in the Energy Sources journal, is sure to cause ire amongst climate cult adherants.
According to the paper, “Computer models used by the UN’s climate panel (IPCC) were pre-programmed with overstated values for the three variables whose product is “climate sensitivity” (temperature increase in response to greenhouse-gas increase), resulting in a 500-2000% overstatement of CO2’s effect on temperature in the IPCC’s latest climate assessment report, published in 2007.”
The paper also outlines evidence to confirm that Mars, Jupiter, Neptune’s largest moon, and Pluto warmed at the same time as Earth warmed, a factor attributed to the Sun having been more active than at almost any other time in the past 11,400 years.
The paper concludes, “CO2 enrichment will add little more than 1 °F (0.6 °C) to global mean surface temperature by 2100.”
__________________
Watch a great film about the global warming fraud at the following link:
James Bovard, the great libertarian champion of our freedom and civil liberties, recently shared with readers his mail from Bush supporters. For starters here are some of the salutations: "communist bastard," "goodfella," "a piece of trash, scum of the earth." It goes downhill from there.
Bush’s supporters demand lock-step consensus that Bush is right. They regard truthful reports that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction and was not involved in the September 11 attack on the US – truths now firmly established by the Bush administration’s own reports – as treasonous America-bashing.
As well, Bovard is interpreted as throwing cold water on the feel-good, macho, Muslim butt-kicking that Bush’s invasion of Iraq has come to symbolize for his supporters. "People like you and Michael Moore," one irate reader wrote, "is (sic) what brings down our country."
I have received similar responses from conservatives, as, no doubt, have a number of other writers who object to a domestic police state at war with the world.
In language reeking with hatred, Heritage Foundation TownHall readers impolitely informed me that opposing the invasion of Iraq is identical to opposing America, that Bush is the greatest American leader in history and everyone who disagrees with him should be shot before they cause America to lose another war. TownHall’s readers were sufficiently frightening to convince the Heritage Foundation to stop posting my columns.
Bush’s conservative supporters want no debate. They want no facts, no analysis. They want to denounce and to demonize the enemies that the Hannitys, Limbaughs, and Savages of talk radio assure them are everywhere at work destroying their great and noble country.
I remember when conservatives favored restraint in foreign policy and wished to limit government power in order to protect civil liberties. Today’s young conservatives are Jacobins determined to use government power to impose their will at home and abroad.
Where did such "conservatives" come from?
Claes Ryn in his important book, America the Virtuous, explains the intellectual evolution of the neoconservatives who lead the Bush administration. For all their defects, however, neocons are thoughtful compared to the world of talk radio, whose inhabitants are trained to shout down everyone else. From whence came the brownshirt movement that slavishly adheres to the neocons’ agenda?
Three recent books address this question. Thomas Frank in What’s the Matter With Kansas, locates the movement in legitimate conservative resentments of people who feel that family, religious, and patriotic values are given short shrift by elitist liberals.
These resentments festered and multiplied as offshore production, jobs outsourcing, and immigration took a toll on careers and the American dream.
An audience was waiting for rightwing talk radio, which found its stride during the Clinton years. Clinton’s evasions made it easy to fall in with show hosts, who spun conspiracies and fabricated a false consciousness for listeners who became increasingly angry.
Show hosts, who advertise themselves as truth-tellers in a no-spin zone, quickly figured out that success depends upon constantly confronting listeners with bogymen to be exposed and denounced: war protesters and America-bashers, the French, marrying homosexuals, the liberal media, turncoats, Democrats, and the ACLU.
Talk radio’s "news stories" do not need to be true. Their importance lies in inflaming resentments and confirming that America’s implacable enemies are working resolutely to destroy us.
David Brock’s The Republican Noise Machine lacks the insights of Thomas Frank’s book, but it provides a gossipy history of the rightwing takeover of the US media. Brock is unfair to some people, myself included, and mischaracterizes as rightwing some media personalities who are under rightwing attack.
Brock is as blindly committed to his causes as the rightwing zealots he exposes are to theirs. Unlike Frank, he cannot acknowledge that the rightwing has legitimate issues.
Nevertheless, Brock makes a credible case that today’s conservatives are driven by ideology, not by fact. He argues that their stock in trade is denunciation, not debate. Conservatives don’t assess opponents’ arguments, they demonize opponents. Truth and falsity are out of the picture; the criteria are: who’s good, who’s evil, who’s patriotic, who’s unpatriotic.
These are the traits of brownshirts. Brownshirts know they are right. They know their opponents are wrong and regard them as enemies who must be silenced if not exterminated.
Some of Brock’s quotes from prominent conservative commentators will curl your toes. His description of the rightwing’s destruction of an independent media and the "Fairness Doctrine" explain why a recent CNN/Gallup poll found that 42% of Americans still believe that Saddam Hussein was involved in the September 11 terrorist attack on the US and 32% believe that Saddam Hussein personally planned the attack.
A country in which 42% of the population is totally misinformed is not a country where democracy is safe.
Today there is no one to correct a lie once it is told. The media, thanks to Republicans, has been concentrated in few hands, and they are not the hands of newsmen. Corporate values rule. If lies sell, sell them. If listeners, viewers, and readers want confirmation of their resentments and beliefs, give it to them. Objectivity turns listeners off and is a money loser.
In his book, Cruel and Unusual, Mark Crispin Miller, professor of media studies at New York University, explains how rightwing influence has moved the media away from reporting news to designing our consciousness. "The Age of Information," Miller writes, "has turned out to be an Age of Ignorance."
Miller makes a strong case. His description of how CNN and Fox News destroyed the credibility of Scott Ritter, the leading expert on Iraq’s weapons, reveals a media completely given over to propaganda. Ritter stood in the way of the neocon’s invasion of Iraq.
CNN’s Miles O’Brien, Eason Jordan, Catherine Callaway, Paula Zahn, Kyra Phillips, Arthel Neville, and Fox News’ David Asman and John Gibson portrayed Ritter as a disloyal American, a Ba-athist stooge on the take from Saddam Hussein, and compared him to Jane Fonda in North Vietnam.
With this, the rightwing talk radio crazies were off and running. Anyone with the slightest bit of real information about the state of weapons development in Iraq was dismissed as a foreign agent who should be shot for treason.
By substituting fiction for reality, the US media took the country to war. The CNN and Fox News "journalists" are as responsible for America’s ill-fated invasion of Iraq as Cheney and Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Perle.
With a sizable percentage of the US population now addicted to daily confirmations of their resentments and hatreds, US policy will be increasingly driven by tightly made-up minds in pursuit of unrealistic agendas.
American troops are in Iraq on false pretenses. No one knows all the fateful consequences of this mistaken adventure. Bush’s reelection would be seen as a vindication of aggression, and more aggression would likely follow. A continuing expenditure of blood, money, alliances, good will, and civil liberties is not a future to which to look forward.
Dr. Roberts [send him mail] served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. During the Cold War era, he was a member of the Committee on the Present Danger. He is a former Associate Editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal editorial page and a former contributing editor of National Review. During 1986-87 he assisted the French government’s privatization of socialized firms and was awarded the Legion of Honor. He is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.
Video 2:Ray McGovern, who was in the CIA for twenty seven years asked him why he lied about the run-up to the Iraq war. Rumsfeld then proceeded to lie to McGovern to cover up his earlier statements about WMD's being in Iraq. He also tries to use the troops in his defense, a terrible strategy, but not uncommon unfortunately. Notice, at the end of the clip, Ray gets vilified for asking Rumsfeld some pointed questions. We can't have that, no-no-no.
I must admit that I think most members of Congress are economic dunces who would be lucky to pass one of my introductory courses in economics. Time and again, we see the typical Congressman (or woman) making statements that boggle the mind, and so I find myself concluding that perhaps they simply are stupid and in need of education.
However, the older I become, the more I realize that the political classes really are not interested in economic education. They have had Ron Paul giving them almost daily lessons that would rival any good content from a Harvard doctorate in the subject, but he always is seen as a fringe character. Thus, I finally have come to realize that these are people who really couldn't care less about the economic damage that they do.
The latest frenzy about oil speculation is a good case in point. As Robert Novak recently pointed out in the Washington Post, Congress seems to be trying to convince everyone that the fundamental price (governed by supply and demand) actually would be about half of what it is if it were not for those darn speculators:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, back from the Fourth of July break last week, delivered a typical harangue on Republican obstructionism and Democratic virtue that included a promise: By week's end, he would show Republicans his proposal to deal with "this speculation thing" that he calls the root cause of $4-a-gallon gasoline. It would attempt "to end speculation on the oil markets."
Novak later writes:
A current embodiment can be found in Rep. Bart Stupak, a former Michigan state trooper now in his 16th year of representing his state's Upper Peninsula. A centrist Democrat, he is what Speaker Sam Rayburn once referred to as a "workhorse" rather than a "show horse." As chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee's oversight and investigations subcommittee, he has made "excessive speculation in the energy markets" his signature issue the past three years.
Stupak has introduced bills tilting at the speculative windmill with all manner of tight federal regulation over commodities markets. Testifying last Wednesday before the House Agriculture Committee about this need, he rejected supply and demand as having pushed up oil prices.
The star witness before Stupak's committee two weeks earlier was Michael W. Masters, a hedge fund operator headquartered in Christiansted, Virgin Islands. Hardly anybody had heard of him prior to his appearance before Congress beginning May 20 to sing songs Democrats wanted to hear. He said at Stupak's subcommittee's June 23 hearing that federal regulation would drop the price of oil $65 to $70 a barrel in a month – a claim viewed as preposterous by economists I consulted. While Masters swore that his firm does not deal in oil futures, BusinessWeek reported June 27 that he "has a keen financial interest in lower oil prices" because of his portfolio's heavy stakes in airlines and autos.
Given that the airlines recently were repeating this mantra, one thinks that it could be a situation in which a falsehood is repeated enough times until people believe it. However, most airline executives are not as stupid as members of Congress, and most members of Congress, while not exactly near the top in intelligence, nonetheless are extremely cunning characters, and I believe that this latest assault on speculation is something that needs to be more closely examined.
First, as Robert Murphy has demolished that argument, as well as other economists, the notion that traders suddenly have decided that they can make the big bucks selling oil futures back and forth like a hot potato is pretty silly. (Granted, it is paraded as truth in the halls of Congress, which is even more proof that it is a silly idea, as good ideas generally get traction on Capitol Hill.)
Second, turning Congress loose on commodities traders is going to step on the turf of Sen. Dick Durban of Illinois, who is seen as a guardian of the Chicago Board of Trade. However, it is that point that is relevant here. We have to look at an alternative argument, and Fred McChesney provides it.
In the January 1998 edition of The Freeman, McChesney wrote in "High Plains Drifters: Politicians’ Lucrative Protection Racket" that what we think we are seeing might not be the case. We believe we are watching an orgy of economic illiteracy, and certainly what comes out of recent congressional hearings on oil prices qualifies for that category.
However, even members of Congress can see that they are strangling domestic production and refining of oil at every turn and the U.S. Government’s "war on terror" has spooked the markets, since a huge percentage of the world’s oil is transported through the Persian Gulf. Furthermore, the Federal Reserve has turned loose the dogs of inflation, and with the housing and stock markets moribund, the new money is moving (surprise, surprise) into commodities and consumer prices.
Yet, why would Congress now be blaming the speculators? Yes, blaming speculators has been a favorite sport ever since the Middle Ages, but I always thought that the modern political classes believed themselves to be more intelligent and sophisticated than decision makers of yore. McChesney points to a different reason: extortion.
Exploitative behavior need not involve stealth, as typifies theft. Take blackmail, where Person A agrees to forbear from some perfectly legal action in exchange for payment from Person B. For example, A may know of B’s extramarital affair and threaten to reveal it to B’s spouse and the rest of the world (as A is perfectly free to do), but agrees not to tattle in exchange for money. Superficially, the transaction resembles a contract, but there is a crucial difference. Commercial contracts between A and B would leave both better off than they were before A came on the scene. But B agrees to a blackmail deal to avoid being made worse off by A’s intrusion. When Bill Cosby contracts with a production company or television network, he gains; had he acceded to the demands of his alleged daughter, he would have been paying protection money to avoid her attempts to make him worse off. Had model Elle Macpherson agreed to the alleged demands for money in exchange for a promise not to post nude photos of her on the Internet, she likewise would have been paying to avoid being made worse off, not to gain.
So, too, with politicians. They may well take payments to make private parties better off, such as providing tariffs or subsidies. Occasionally, these payments cross the legal line and are actionable as bribery. Prosecutions are few and far between. They largely target not the true substance of the transaction – payment for special favors – but some failure to follow the prescribed legal methods of payment for the favors. Campaign-spending laws provide the blueprint for perfectly legal bribery.
But a politician has an alternative for raising money: selling protection. (emphasis mine) He can agree not to do something that otherwise he says he would do, something that would reduce the wealth of the potential donor. The most obvious burden that can be threatened is a tax, but there are any number of others that a politician can propose and then withdraw for a price. A private citizen will be just as willing to pay for a special favor worth $1 million as he will to avoid a $1 million tax. (This assumes constant marginal utility of wealth; with declining marginal utility of wealth, a citizen will pay more to avoid the $1 million loss than for the $1 million gain.)
This, then, is the essence of the political protection racket. Superficially, selling special favors and selling protection do look the same: payment is made to the politician in both cases. But in the extortion racket, citizens are made to pay, not for special favors from Uncle Sugar, but to protect private wealth that they have earned the old-fashioned way, outside the political process.
He goes on to point out that legislators around the country have special names for bills that are designed to damage specific industries or organizations – if they actually are passed. I say "if" because there is a way that these organizations can stop or slow down the legislative juggernaut, and that is to pay up. McChesney writes:
One observes this sort of protection being sold routinely, at all levels of government. Legislative extortion is commonly practiced through so-called "milker bills," to use a term popular in California. A bill is drafted and submitted, not because there is any legitimate need for it, but because it threatens some private person or group that predictably will pay to have the bill withdrawn. "Juice bills" is another term for those legislative proposals intended to squeeze private interests for cash.
In Illinois, the name "fetcher bill" is apparently the more common designation for legislative proposals intended purely as shakedowns of monied interests.
Indeed, one notices that the current attempts by Congress to place blame upon the speculators via actual legislation is lacking. Writes Novak:
The dominant figure of Stupak's hearing, however, was his mentor and model in paranoid politics: the chairman of the full Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. John Dingell, now in his 27th term in the House from the Detroit area. Just shy of his 82nd birthday, Dingell showed that he had lost none of his legendary sarcasm and invective in questioning Republican officials.
Dingell told his cross-examination target, Walter Lukken, a former Republican Senate aide who is acting chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, that he was "twiddling your thumbs" in not regulating "those good-hearted folks up there in New York who are running this wonderful, speculated enterprise." He concluded: "Now we find that these good-hearted folks in the futures market have figured how . . . to screw the farmers and the consumers in the city . . . on a whole new product: oil."
Why did Lukken, who surely knows better, not rebut that? For the reason that the kid kicked around in the schoolyard by a bully does not hit back: for fear of inviting more abuse. But Harry Reid has not yet achieved Democratic agreement on a bill, and Bart Stupak's legislative panacea for cutting oil prices by $30 a barrel remains stalled in committee. The paranoid style is hard to turn into action.
One can bet that Dick Durban is receiving lots and lots of campaign cash from the commodities futures organizations, and Dingell most likely is a beneficiary as well. Right now, the only people making money are the traders, something that is not lost to members of Congress who would like to squeeze some of those profits for themselves.
However, this brinksmanship does have its setbacks. First, it reduces private enterprise to little more than a campaign cash cow for money-starved legislators. The effects on business are obvious, as it makes everyone a villain. Second, there are times when it is hard to stop the train. Take the October, 1987, stock market crash, as Jennifer Itskevich points out:
In the days between October 14 and October 19, 1987, major indexes of market valuation in the United States dropped 30 percent or more. On October 19, 1987, a date that subsequently became known as "Black Monday," the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted 508 points, losing 22.6% of its total value. The S&P 500 dropped 20.4%, falling from 282.7 to 225.06. This was the greatest loss Wall Street had ever suffered on a single day.
Members of Congress soon blamed the "speculators," or to be more specific, "program trading" in which institutions would sell large blocks of stock whenever the prices reached certain points. They also blamed the sale of stock options and derivatives, not surprisingly, as they would fall under the "speculation" category.
However, real culprit turned out to be Congress itself, as Itskevich points out:
While structural problems within markets may have played a role in the magnitude of the market crash, they could not have caused it. That would require some action outside the market that caused traders to dramatically lower their estimates of stock market values. The main culprit here seems to have been legislation that passed the House Ways & Means Committee on October 15 eliminating the deductibility of interest on debt used for corporate takeovers.
Two economists from the Securities and Exchange Commission, Mark Mitchell and Jeffry Netter, published a study in 1989 concluding that the anti-takeover legislation did trigger the crash. They note that as the legislation began to move through Congress, the market reacted almost instantaneously to news of its progress. Between Tuesday, October 13, when the legislation was first introduced, and Friday, October 16, when the market closed for the weekend, stock prices fell more than 10 percent – the largest 3-day drop in almost 50 years. In addition, those stocks that led the market downward were precisely those most affected by the legislation.
Ultimately, Congress would strip the anti-takeover provisions from its bill, and the market recovered. Yet, while this crash was a financial disaster, nonetheless it strengthened the hand of Congress, as members were able to hold hearings, berate witnesses, blame speculators, and hold themselves out as the white knights, despite the fact that they were the real culprits.
The latest attacks on oil traders falls into the above category. A disaster in the markets would increase the power of Congress, not to mention the regulatory agencies of the executive branch and the White House itself. The press would be adoring of Congress, just as it is adoring of any extortion plan that comes from Capitol Hill. And, most important, not only would it strengthen the hand of the political classes, but it would lead to more campaign cash. And the beat goes on.
July 15, 2008
William L. Anderson, Ph.D. [send him mail], teaches economics at Frostburg State University in Maryland, and is an adjunct scholar of the Ludwig von Mises Institute.He also is a consultant with American Economic Services.
Dollar Falls to Record Versus Euro; Credit Woes May Damp Growth
By Agnes Lovasz and Kosuke Goto
July 15 (Bloomberg) -- The dollar declined to a record low against the euro on speculation Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson will say credit- market losses are hurting U.S. economic growth.
The currency also weakened to the lowest level in more than a month against the Japanese yen and to a 25-year low versus the Australian dollar on concern confidence in the debt of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will diminish even after the U.S. government pledged support for the two-largest buyers of home loans. The pound surpassed $2 for the first time since July 1 after U.K. inflation quickened to the fastest pace in at least 11 years.
``The markets are reacting negatively to the renewed credit crisis in the U.S. and that's hurting the dollar across the board,'' said Roberto Mialich, a Milan-based currency strategist at Unicredit Markets & Investment Banking, a unit of Italy's largest lender. ``The market is speculating that Bernanke will offer a gloomy outlook for the U.S. economy.''
The dollar fell to $1.6038 per euro, the lowest since the euro's inception in 1999, and was at $1.6006 as of 7:22 a.m. in New York, from $1.5908 yesterday. The U.S. currency also dropped to 104.61 yen, the lowest level since June 9, from 106.14 yen yesterday. The yen traded at 167.69 per euro, from 168.89 yesterday, when it weakened to 169.75, the lowest since the single currency's debut.
The dollar may fall to between $1.62 and $1.63 in the coming month, Mialich said.
Given Up Gains
The U.S. currency has given up all the gains made versus the euro since July 3, when European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said he has ``no bias'' on future interest- rate moves.
The dollar rose as much as 1.7 percent to $1.5611 per euro that week. It has since slumped as much as 2.7 percent as concern increased that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which buy or finance almost half the $12 trillion of U.S. mortgages, would need to be rescued by the U.S. government.
The Dollar Index, which tracks the greenback against the currencies of six U.S. trading partners, fell for a fifth day on the ICE market to 71.334, the lowest since April 23, from 71.915.
Bernanke will give his semiannual testimony on monetary policy and the economy before the Senate Banking Committee at 10 a.m. Washington time. A separate hearing at the committee with Paulson, and Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox on financial markets, is scheduled for about 11:30 a.m.
``The reality is the U.S. housing market and credit squeeze haven't hit bottom yet,'' said Takuma Kurosawa, global markets treasurer in Tokyo at HSBC Bank, a unit of Europe's biggest lender. ``That's discouraging investors from holding dollar assets.''
Losses and Writedowns
Global banks and securities firms have reported losses and writedowns of more than $400 billion as the subprime-mortgage market collapsed.
The British pound was bolstered by expectations accelerating inflation will keep the Bank of England from lowering interest rates to avert a recession.
Consumer prices climbed 3.8 percent from a year earlier, exceeding the government's 3 percent upper limit for a second month and the highest level since records began in 1997, the Office for National Statistics said today in London. Economists forecast 3.6 percent, according to the median of 36 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey. The pound was at $2.0107, from $1.9951 yesterday.
Japan Rates
The Swiss franc rose to within half a cent of parity with the U.S. dollar and the Japanese yen strengthened as investors reversed purchases of higher-yielding assets financed with loans in Switzerland and Japan.
Against the dollar, the franc rose as much as 1.4 percent to 1.0021 before trading at 1.0044, from 1.0161 yesterday.
The yen stayed higher after the Bank of Japan kept interest rates at 0.5 percent today, the lowest among major economies, as expected by all 39 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.
The world's second-largest economy will grow 1.2 percent in the year ending March 31, slower than the 1.5 percent forecast on April 30, the central bank said in a statement in Tokyo. Consumer prices excluding fresh food will climb 1.8 percent, more than the 1.1 percent projected three months ago, it said.
Dollar at 100 Yen?
The yen may rise as high as 100 per dollar this year as the Bank of Japan is more likely to raise interest rates than the Federal Reserve, said Toyoo Gyohten, former currency-policy chief at Japan's Ministry of Finance.
Japan's central bank may increase borrowing costs should inflation accelerate and the economy sustain growth of at least 1 percent, Gyohten said.
``The Fed is most likely to maintain its current level of interest rates,'' Gyohten, president for the Institute of International Monetary Affairs in Tokyo, said in an interview yesterday. ``The BOJ is more likely to raise rates. The medium- term trend is for a weaker dollar and a stronger yen.''
U.S. stocks fell yesterday, led by financial shares, after the government's seizure of Pasadena, California-based IndyMac Bancorp Inc. and predictions of wider credit losses overshadowed Paulson's pledge to shore up Fannie and Freddie. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index declined 0.9 percent.
The dollar may extend declines on concern Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will get the majority of funds they need by borrowing from the Fed rather than an investment from the government, increasing supply of the U.S. currency, said Ashley Davies, a currency strategist in Singapore at UBS AG, the world's second-biggest currency trader.
Trigger Declines
``Any whiff that the authorities will adopt steps to monetize the problems facing the U.S. housing market would be the trigger to drive the euro-dollar'' lower, Davies wrote in a report today.
Against Australia's currency, the dollar weakened to 98.39 cents, the lowest level since 1983, from 97.18 cents yesterday.
Gains in the euro were limited after a report showed investor confidence in Germany, Europe's largest economy, fell to a record low in July, weakening the case for higher rates.
The ZEW Center for European Economic Research in Mannheim said its index of investor and analyst expectations fell to minus 63.9 in July from minus 52.4 the previous month. Economists expected a decline to minus 55, according to the median of 37 forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey.
Inflation Report
``For the dollar to drop abruptly from here is unwarranted,'' said Robert Minikin, a senior currency strategist at Standard Chartered Plc. ``We don't think the U.S. economy, or the financial system, is uniquely vulnerable. We see a lot of negative news on the U.K. and the euro zone economies. The balance of risks is tilted towards a recovery.''
The dollar may rise to $1.5750 in coming weeks and strengthen to $1.56 by the end of this quarter, Minikin said.
Losses in the dollar may be limited by speculation reports will show inflation accelerated, spurring traders to add to bets the Fed will raise its benchmark interest rate from 2 percent.
U.S. producer prices increased 8.7 percent from a year earlier in June, the most since 1981, according to a Bloomberg News survey of economists before a Labor Department report today. A report tomorrow will show consumer prices rose 4.5 percent in June, the most since September 2005, according to a separate Bloomberg survey.
Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Former Governor Jesse Ventura slammed the weak dollar policy as part of a war being waged on the middle class in America by the U.S. government as the greenback collapsed to an all time record low against the euro today.
Ventura made the comments before his appearance on Larry King Live last night, during which he announced he would not be running for the U.S. Senate.
“The dollar has fallen through the floor, there’s half a dozen countries now that have a higher value and more than that than us,” Ventura told The Alex Jones Show.
The former Minnesota Governor identified two key factors behind dollar devaluation - the war in Iraq and the ballooning national debt.
“It’s the exact two things that I’ve been harping on for the last 2 months and a half….we must do something about the $9 trillion dollars plus of debt we owe throughout the world,” said Ventura, adding that most people in America were unconcerned about the greenback’s spectacular plummet.
Asked why the establishment were not going to reverse the destruction of the dollar, Ventura responded, “Because I don’t think they really care, they’re making their money and they’re in their position.”
“To me it’s clear there is a war on the middle class in America today being waged by our own government - they’re out to destroy what was the American dream and the American dream was the middle class, we were the country where you could get a job and you could support your family….that’s being extinguished greatly today and it seems our illustrious elected officials don’t have a problem with it,” said Ventura.
The dollar fell to an all time record low against the euro today on the back of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac being bailed out by the U.S. government.
The dollar declined to $1.6038 per euro, the lowest since the euro’s inception in 1999, and was at $1.6004 as of 11:13 a.m. in London, from $1.5908 in New York yesterday. The greenback also hit a 25-year low versus the Australian dollar.
Above: Watch the full interview with Jesse Ventura Via Youtube in four parts.
Twenty-five U.S. Military Officers Challenge Official Account of 9/11– Official Account of 9/11 “Impossible”, “A Bunch of Hogwash”, “Total B.S.”, “Ludicrous”, “A Well-Organized Cover-up”, “A White-Washed Farce” Jan. 14, 2008 PDF VersionArticle on OpEdNews
Eight U.S. State Department Veterans Challenge the Official Account of 9/11– Official Account of 9/11 "Flawed", "Absurd", "Totally Inadequate", "a Cover-up" Jan. 5, 2008 PDF VersionArticle on OpEdNews
Seven Senior Federal Engineers and Scientists Call for New 9/11 Investigation – Official Account of 9/11 "Impossible", "Hogwash", "Fatally Flawed"
Dec. 13, 2007 PDF VersionArticle on OpEdNews
Eight Senior Republican Administration Appointees Challenge Official Account of 9/11 – "Not Possible", "a Whitewash", "False"
Dec. 4, 2007 PDF VersionArticle on OpEdNews
Seven CIA Veterans Challenge 9/11 Commission Report – Official Account of 9/11 a "Joke" and a "Cover-up"
Sep. 23, 2007 PDF VersionArticle on OpEdNews
Senior Military, Intelligence, Law Enforcement,
and Government Officials Question
the 9/11 Commission Report
Many well known and respected senior U.S. military officers, intelligence services and law enforcement veterans, and government officials have expressed significant criticism of the 9/11 Commission Report or have made public statements that contradict the Report. Several even allege government complicity in the terrible acts of 9/11. This website is a collection of their statements. It is not an organization and it should be made clear that none of these individuals are affiliated with this website.
Listed below are statements by more than 130 of these senior officials. Their collective voices give credibility to the claim that the 9/11 Commission Report is tragically flawed. These individuals cannot be simply dismissed as irresponsible believers in some 9/11 conspiracy theory. Their sincere concern, backed by their decades of service to their country, demonstrate that criticism of the Report is not irresponsible, illogical, nor disloyal, per se. In fact, it can be just the opposite. (continued below)
Iran's Photoshopped Missiles Are "Glorified Scuds" Ridiculous merry-go-round over fake photos and the real facts behind Iran's non existent weapons program
The events of the last two days surrounding the Iranian missile tests once again highlight that the perception of any threat Iran poses to the U.S. and even to Israel is wholly manufactured and has been blown out of all proportion by the Western media and, by proxy, the two presidential candidates.
Several defense analysts reiterated yesterday that the missile test, far from being a show of strength on the part of the Iranians was another reminder of their supreme lack of fire power.
Mark Fitzpatrick of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) said:
"In terms of capability, they claimed the Shahab-3 could travel 2,000 kilometres carrying a one-tonne warhead. This is very unlikely."
“The Shahab-3 normally has a range of 1,300 kilometres and the range can be extended to 2,000 kilometres but it would require a much lighter warhead."
As Pepe Escobar of the Asian Times points out, "Experts disagree on the merits of the Shahab-3 - a copy of the North Korean Nodong; for some it's not that less erratic than a glorified Scud."
In a nutshell, not only does Iran not have any nuclear warheads to fire at Israel, it doesn't even have the missiles to put them on.
This tallies with the report of the International Atomic Energy Agency and even the US's own National Intelligence Estimate, seemingly now completely forgotten, which have both declared that an Iranian weapons program does not exist and has not existed for at least five years.
And now we come to the missiles that never were.
Despite both the Iranian state media and our own lamestream repeaters having reported that Iran fired a barrage of missiles over two days, defense officials have since admitted that only one missile was fired yesterday and seven, not nine were fired on Wednesday.
The reason one further missile was fired a day late was because it failed on the first day, a fact that was handily photoshopped out of photographs and replaced with a clone of one of the other firing missiles before being released to the media (see above).
The doctored image, said to have been released to the AFP by Sepah News, the media arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, went on to appear on the front pages of The Los Angeles Times, The Financial Times, The Chicago Tribune and several other newspapers as well as on BBC News, MSNBC, Yahoo! News, NYTimes.com and many other major news Web sites.
AFP retracted the photo yesterday afternoon and throughout the day, according to the New York Times, several news sites including LATimes.com and MSNBC.com denied knowledge of where the photograph had originated.
Meanwhile the London Times sat on the fence and ludicrously cut the picture in half!! Now there's only two missiles!
This all only came to light because the blog site little green footballs noticed the doctoring and ran a story on it, a fact that the mainstream media ignored altogether. The Washington Post briefly ran a piece on the fake photo with a credit to LGF, but has since removed the story from their website.
Several experts on photography have now agreed that the photograph was digitally manipulated.
Who altered the photograph? who knows, but clearly it was done in order to cover up the embarrassing fact for Iran, and anyone who would want to continue hyping an imaginary Iranian weapons threat, that one of their "glorified scuds" failed.
If Iranian state authorities were responsible for the missile fakery, then they are either incredibly stupid or are now desperate to make it seem they have more military might than reality has proven. Either way this does not bode well for the rest of the world.
“I know that these missiles are part of a threat to wipe Israel off the map, but now they've proved that they have the Photoshop capabilities to do it.” one NY Times commenter succinctly offers.
"Clearly someone thought four missiles would be 33% more scary than three." another suggests.
In closing, consider the following.
Israel has recently spent the last two months conducting huge military exercises involving more than 100 F-16 and F-15 fighter jets, openly declaring them as dry runs for a strike on Iran, and has also openly declared war with Iran to be "Inevitable."
Add to this the fact that Congress is considering an absolute blockade of the entire country of Iran, and punishment for any country or any business group trading with Iran.
Israeli war minister Ehud Barak will visit Washington next week to meet with top U.S. government officials and President Bush in what some are suggesting will be the final planning session in anticipation of a military strike on Iran.
None of these things are considered by the controlled media to be provocations, but a test of substandard missiles by Iran, photoshopped to cover up it's partial failure, has made the front pages everywhere as an impending and deadly threat.
Inevitably, the two presidential candidates have added their own seasoning to the same bubbling caldron of baloney.
John McCain, who earlier this week joked that rising exports of US cigarettes is "a good way to kill Iranians", stated that "Iran's most recent missile tests demonstrate again the dangers it poses to its neighbors and to the wider region, especially Israel." He also ludicrously used Iran's missile test as a way of vindicating the establishment of U.S. missile "defense" shields in the Czech Republic and Poland, countries Iran couldn't hit even if it wanted to (which would take some explaining if it decided it did).
In fact, while McCain declared the missile test a grave threat to Eastern Europe, the Russians used the same event to claim the exact opposite!
MCain's presidential "opponent" Obama, repeated a call for "coercive diplomacy" and stated "The threat from Iran's nuclear program is real and it is grave."
The Iranian threat is so grave and real that it has to be photoshopped, wildly exaggerated and repeatedly blown out of all proportion by every arm of the corporate media before anyone will buy it.
During a town hall event in Portsmouth, OH on Wednesday, John McCain was asked by a member of the audience whether his links to the parent organization of the Project for a New American Century explain why he has been reluctant to support calls for a new investigation of 9/11.
The questioner began, "I was curious about a document. Back in September of 2000, the Project for a New American Century, or PNAC, whose members included Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Jeb Bush and Paul Wolfowitz, wrote a document entitled 'Rebuilding Americans Defenses.'"
As McCain turned and paced away from him, the questioner continued, "In it, they state, quote, "The process of transformation, even if it bring revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event like a new Pearl Harbor."
"Now, many Americans believe that that 'new Pearl Harbor' event took place on 9/11," the questioner went on, as McCain grimaced slightly. "And according to a recent New York Times and CBS News poll, 84% of Americans believe that there were some criminal elements of our government involved in 9/11."
Calls of disapproval began to arise from the audience, but the questioner shot back, "Hold on!" and continued asking McCain, "Can you tell us about your role as -- hold on -- as president of the 'New Citizen Project,' founded in 1994, which served as a chief fund-raising and parent organization to PNAC? And is this one of the factors that has made you so reluctant to support the victims' family members and first responders who are begging for a new investigation into 9/11?"
The boos became louder at that point, and McCain grimaced again, turned his back and walked away, but the questioner insisted, "It's a serious question."
"I have a serious answer, sir," McCain replied, "and that is that it was Joe Lieberman and I -- a Democrat -- that sponsored the legislation for the 9/11 Commission. ... And very frankly, the administration was not, shall I say, enthusiastic about the establishment of that commission. ... I am proud of what the 9/11 Commission did. I am proud that we have enacted many of the reforms ... that they recommended. And I will stand by their recommendations and their conclusions, as will the overwhelming majority of Americans."
"It's a free country," McCain concluded. "You are free to disagree with their conclusions. But I am proud to have been one of those who was, along with Joe Lieberman, responsible for the establishment of the 9/11 Commission."
Toddlers who turn their noses up at spicy food from overseas could be branded racists by a Government-sponsored agency.
The National Children's Bureau, which receives £12 million a year, mainly from Government funded organisations, has issued guidance to play leaders and nursery teachers advising them to be alert for racist incidents among youngsters in their care.
This could include a child of as young as three who says "yuk" in response to being served unfamiliar foreign food.
The guidance by the NCB is designed to draw attention to potentially-racist attitudes in youngsters from a young age.
It alerts playgroup leaders that even babies can not be ignored in the drive to root out prejudice as they can "recognise different people in their lives".
The 366-page guide for staff in charge of pre-school children, called Young Children and Racial Justice, warns: "Racist incidents among children in early years settings tend to be around name-calling, casual thoughtless comments and peer group relationships."
It advises nursery teachers to be on the alert for childish abuse such as: "blackie", "Pakis", "those people" or "they smell".
The guide goes on to warn that children might also "react negatively to a culinary tradition other than their own by saying 'yuk'".
Staff are told: "No racist incident should be ignored. When there is a clear racist incident, it is necessary to be specific in condemning the action."
Warning that failing to pick children up on their racist attitudes could instil prejudice, the NCB adds that if children "reveal negative attitudes, the lack of censure may indicate to the child that there is nothing unacceptable about such attitudes".
Nurseries are encouraged to report as many incidents as possible to their local council. The guide added: "Some people think that if a large number of racist incidents are reported, this will reflect badly on the institution. In fact, the opposite is the case."
Is disliking spicy food a sign of racism? Leave your comments below
Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Potential next President John McCain’s sick obsession with slaughtering brown people in the Middle East betrayed itself again yesterday when he responded to a question about exporting cigarettes to Iran by saying, “maybe that’s a way of killing them.”
McCain was asked by a reporter, “We’ve learned that exports to Iran increased by tenfold during the Bush administration, biggest export was cigarettes,” to which McCain snapped back, “maybe that’s a way of killing them,” before laughing and chuckling, “I meant that as a joke.”
This is not the first time that McCain has expressed his bloodlust for seeing Iranians massacred.
During an April 2007 town hall meeting in South Carolina, one of McCain’s fawning Neo-Con slug acolytes stood up and asked why “we don’t send an airmail message to Tehran,” to which McCain responded, “Remember that old Beach Boys song? Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran.”
The whole audience snickered at the thought of innocent Iranian women and children being blown to bits for the good of the American empire.
Does a historical pretext even exist against which to measure potential Presidents who find killing hundreds of thousands of people funny?
Hitler, Pol Pot, and Osama Bin Laden liked to talk about slaughtering masses of people on a regular basis, but they stopped short of cracking jokes about it.
McCain was subject to a barrage of criticism after his last outburst but he’s gone on to repeat such comments without a care in the world.
Either the body politic is so jaded by 7 years of imperial Neo-Con bloodletting that McCain thinks such comments are tame in comparison, or he knows he’s a ringer and has no chance anyway of beating the elite’s chosen one for 2008 - Barack Obama.
Or he could just be one sick bastard. That makes for presidential material these days.
Seven years after the attacks of September the Eleventh, a global awakening has taken place, the likes of which the world has never seen. As the corporate-controlled media dwindles into extinction, a new breed of journalists and activists has emerged.
Join Alex Jones, Luke Rudkowski and others as they set out on a mission determined to expose the ruthless global elite, and alert the masses to the truth about 9/11.
Strap in and get ready to ride along as criminal overlords David Rockefeller, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Alan Greenspan, John McCain, and many others are confronted about their lies and manipulation.
Including interviews with Jesse Ventura, Rosie O'Donnell, George carlin, Willie Nelson and Martin Sheen, this film is unlike anything you have ever seen. the only question after viewing it is, will you become part of the Truth Rising.
The documentary provides an in-depth look at the plight of 9/11 first responders, many afflicted with serious health problems from the toxicity of Ground Zero. Truth Rising reveals and challenges the astounding arrogance and negligence of the government in regard to the heroic efforts of first responders, police, and fire-fighters. Truth Rising indicts the administration of Rudy Giuliani and that of the EPA and Christine Todd Whitman, who proclaimed the air in lower Manhattan was safe to breathe, contrary to numerous warnings to the contrary.
Rockefeller minion, trilateralist, and CFR member Zbigniew Brzezinski tells Luke Rudkowski to "Please sit down and shut up."
Truth Rising is a tool for 9/11 activists
The 9/11 Chronicles: Part One, Truth Rising is the first extensive documentary on the 9/11 truth movement. It serves as an ideal educational tool for those either uninformed about this growing movement or those wanting to know more. It is imperative that Truth Rising reach as many people as possible. Please purchase a copy of Truth Rising, make copies, and give them to your family, friends, and strangers on the street.
From Prison Planet:
An Alex Jones Film. Coming to the Infowar July 4th, 2008 & online first at Prison Planet.tv.
This film follows the growing momentum of 9/11 truth, as people throughout the world take action against their globalist masters. Shot unlike anything you have ever experienced from Alex Jones, cinema verite' style, this masterpiece not only exposes the mistreatment of our 9/11 heroes, but also shows how a growing number of people around the world are questioning the official version of events that day. Featuring interviews with Willie Nelson, Rosie O'Donnell, Jesse Ventura, George Carlin, Martin Sheen, as well as confrontations with many political figures including Bill Clinton, David Rockefeller and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
From Infowars
Matt Lepacek of We Are Change and Greater NYC Ron Paul Revolutionaries confronts Rudy Giuliani on his foreknowledge of the towers collapsing.
Truth Rising: An Answer to the Lies of the Global Elite:
9/11 Chronicles: Part One, Truth Rising is a testament to free speech, an endangered commodity in post September 11, 2001 America. Alex Jones’ latest documentary is a vivid testament standing in complete and defiant opposition to former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer’s admonishment that “nowadays you have to be careful what you say and do,” as if the orchestrated events of that horrible day have nullified the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In Jones’ latest documentary, filmed in cinéma-vérité style — an appropriate technique, as the phrase translates from the French as “cinema of truth” — we witness repeated instances of police insisting the First Amendment is a dead letter and citizens no longer have the right to speak their minds in public, especially citizens going up against the imposed political orthodoxy and Fleischer’s counsel.
New World Order kingpin David Rockefeller is contronted by We Are Change.
Truth Rising also reveals that it is not only New York City’s militarized police who believe the First Amendment is moribund, but many citizens do as well. “You ain’t American,” insists one such fine specimen at Ground Zero, angry over the possibility that somebody would actually dare contest the official version of events and ask questions and demand answers. Others fling mindless and obscene epithets and swipe at the camera, as if incapable of tolerating, let alone understanding and respecting the First Amendment, an absolute freedom that occupies a preferred position in the pantheon of our liberties. In post-9/11 America, the exercise of free speech is relegated to government mandated “free speech zones” and to insist the whole of the country is a free speech zone casts one in dark suspicion along with the likes Osama and the manufactured enemies of America.
Hillary Clinton cackles when confronted about her association with the Bilderbergers.
Ari Fleischer’s warning is particularly injurious when it comes to the families of 9/11 victims and first responders, the latter consistently ignored, especially by the corporate media. In Truth Rising, first responder and former Iraq war vet David Miller, who is now reduced to toting around a respirator after his exposure to the toxicity of Ground Zero, takes the corporate media to task, rightfully characterizing this corporate cabal as “propagandists,” and “professional lairs and tools who cannot by any stretch of the imagination be considered journalists.” Miller, We Are Change, and unnumbered and mostly anonymous others have stepped forward to fill the imposed void of this deplorable corporate media silence — a deliberate suppression at the hands of their elitist taskmasters — with an indefatigable call not only for answers, but a demand that justice be delivered to the victims.
Rudkowski confronts John McCain, demands a new 9/11 investigation.
Manny Badillo, a 9/11 victim family member, reminds us in Truth Rising that “70% of family members’ questions were never answered during the 9/11 commission report. What if one of our family members were murdered, would we be okay with 70% of their questions never being answered during any trial? There still has never been a trial for those who have died, there still has been nobody held accountable.”
The 9/11 Chronicles demands those who killed 2,819 innocents, including well over 300 first responders, be called out and brought to justice. It is an effort to bring needed attention to the surviving first responders who are sick and dying in alarming numbers. It is an urgently needed effort to counter the disparaging propaganda of the corporate media — in particular but hardly limited to Hearst Corporation’s Popular Mechanics and its unscrupulous scheme to undermine the movement – a propagandistic media tasked with viciously mischaracterizing and slandering 9/11 truth activists as nothing short of crackpots and lunatics. Truth Rising is an answer to dismissive accusations. It documents a growing movement the corporate media refuses to cover without bias and detraction.
Bill Clinton attempts to make a joke about the "Bohemian Club."
If you want to respond to these accusations, get 9/11 Chronicles: Part One, Truth Rising, and make copies, hand them out to your family, friends, and strangers on the street. Alex Jones, Luke Rudkowski, and many others featured in this documentary are patriots and heroes, not fruitcakes and traitors, as the corporate media insists at the behest of the government. Globalists and neocons within the government are afraid of the sort of truth so effectively presented in the 9/11 Chronicles. They are desperate to make sure the people never know the truth.
“How dare you” respond to lies and false history and deliver the light of truth to the darkness of criminal mendacity, rebuked Bill Clinton in Truth Rising when confronted by We Are Change. How dare you respond to one of the largest and most outrageous lies of American history? Clinton’s response is evidence proof positive our rulers are afraid of the truth finally finding the light of day. In Jones’ film, Rockefeller minion Zbigniew Brzezinski demands truth “sit down and shut up,” but it is too late now for that. Truth is on the street. It will not be silenced and 9/11 Chronicles: Part One, Truth Rising will make sure it spreads far and wide.
Mayor Bloomberg's thugs assault We Are Change for daring to ask his lordship a few questions.
From Prison Planet
Seven years after the attacks of September the Eleventh, a global awakening has taken place, the likes of which the world has never seen. As the corporate-controlled media dwindles into extinction, a new breed of journalists and activists has emerged.
Shot unlike anything you have ever experienced from Alex Jones, cinema verite’ style, this masterpiece not only exposes the mistreatment of our 9/11 heroes, but also shows how a growing number of people around the world are questioning the official version of events that day.
Featuring interviews with Willie Nelson, Rosie O’Donnell, Jesse Ventura, George Carlin, Martin Sheen, as well as confrontations with many political figures including Bill Clinton, David Rockefeller and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
I hope all of you enjoy being tortured sheep. Things are going to get hellish. You would be extremely foolish to think otherwise. Fight back!! Don't let them build the high tech police state!! Resist Tyranny!!!
A senior government official with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has expressed great interest in a so-called safety bracelet that would serve as a stun device, similar to that of a police Taser®. According to http://www.lamperdlessletha... target="_blank">this promotional video found at the Lamperd Less Lethal, Inc. website, the bracelet would be worn by all airline passengers (video also shown below).
This bracelet would:
• Take the place of an airline boarding pass
• Contain personal information about the traveler
• Be able to monitor the whereabouts of each passenger and his/her luggage
• Shock the wearer on command, completely immobilizing him/her for several minutes
The Electronic ID Bracelet, as it’s referred to, would be worn by every traveler “until they disembark the flight at their destination.” Yes, you read that correctly. Every airline passenger would be tracked by a government-funded GPS, containing personal, private and confidential information, and would shock the customer worse than an electronic dog collar if the passenger got out of line.
Clearly the Electronic ID Bracelet is a euphemism for the EMD Safety Bracelet, or at least it has a nefarious hidden ability (thus the term ID Bracelet is ambiguous at best). EMD stands for Electro-Musclar Disruption. Again, according to the promotional video, the bracelet can completely immobilize the wearer for several minutes.
So is the government really that interested in this bracelet?
Apparently so.
According to this letter from DHS official, Paul S. Ruwaldt of the Science and Technology Directorate, office of Research and Development, which was written to the inventor whom he had previously met with, Ruwaldt wrote, “To make it clear, we [the federal government] are interested in . . . the immobilizing security bracelet, and look forward to receiving a written proposal.”
The letterhead, in case you were wondering, is from a U.S. Department of Homeland Security office at the William J. Hughes Technical Center at the Atlantic City International Airport, or the Federal Aviation Administration headquarters.
In another part of the letter, Mr. Ruwaldt confirmed, “It is conceivable to envision a use to improve air security, on passenger planes.”
Would every paying airline passenger flying on a commercial airplane be mandated to wear one of these devices? I cringe at the thought. Not only could it be used as a physical restraining device, but also as a method of interrogation, according to the same aforementioned letter from Mr. Ruwaldt.
Would you let them put one of those on your wrist? Would you allow the airline employees, which would be mandated by the government, to place such a bracelet on any member of your family?
Why are tax dollars being spent on something like this?
Earlier reports from the CIA and the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defense have carried similar themes. The December 2000 CIA report, Global Trends 2015 stated that nation's borders would weaken in the process of globalization, with an elite reaping the benefits,
"Scenario Two: Pernicious Globalization Global elites thrive, but the majority of the world’s population fails to benefit from globalization... migration becomes a major source of interstate tension... Internal conflicts increase, fueled by frustrated expectations, inequities, and heightened communal tensions..."
The MoD strategic trends 2007-2036 report covers life extension technologies, stating that a divide may rise between those who can afford to extend their lifespan, such as dictatorial rulers,
"Developments in genetics might allow treatment of the symptoms of ageing and this would result in greatly increased life expectancy for those who could afford it. The divide between those that could afford to ‘buy longevity’ and those that could not, could aggravate perceived global inequality. Dictatorial or despotic rulers could potentially also ‘buy longevity’, prolonging their regimes and international security risks."
The National Intelligence Council's latest report outlines trends in technology that will shape the world to come in 2025. Among the technologies covered is the development of the Internet of Things. The Internet of things, also often referred to as "ubiquitous computing" is currently being tested and showcased in South Korea, where the technology developers admit that there are less expectations of privacy. The Internet of Things (IoT) will enable the tracking and tracing of everyday objects and people in a vast network similar to the internet. Ultimately, the "U-City" model of South Korea will be exported world-wide. PR campaigns for the U-City are already underway in the United States.
Watch this ABC News clip as the "convenience" of the technology is emphasized:
The NIC report on the internet of things states that by 2010, the ability for "Teleoperation and telepresence: ability to monitory and control distant objects" will be achieved. Among the various goals of the Internet of Things technology developers include:
"Sensor networks need not be connected to the Internet and indeed often reside in remote sites, vehicles, and buildings having no Internet connection. Smart dust is a term that some have used to express a vision of tiny, wireless-connected sensors; more recently, others use the term to describe any of several technologies that range from the size of a pack of gum to a pack of cigarettes, and that are widely available to system developers.
Ubiquitous positioning describes technologies for locating objects that may reside anywhere, including indoors and underground locations where satellite signals may be unavailable or otherwise inadequate.
Biometrics enables technology to recognize people and other living things, rather than inanimate objects. Connected everyday objects could recognize authorized users by means of fingerprint, voiceprint, iris scan, or other biometric technology."
The use of RFID tags embedded in everyday objects is the standard approach to achieving the internet of things vision. But, perhaps ominously, technology is being developed that would actually eliminate the need for RFID tags, while still allowing for the tracking of objects and people with the same efficiency. "Machine Vision", as the NIC report states, "...could be a channel for delivering the same type of information that RFIDs enable."
"Machine vision is an approach to the IoT that can monitor objects having no onboard sensors, controllers, or wireless interfaces. For example, some developers propose that cameras on typical cell phones can capture images of objects; using image-processing algorithms, distant servers can identify such objects and report information about them. In other words, machine vision could be a channel for delivering the same type of information that RFIDs enable."
The surveillance element of this technology will allow for "...everyday objects to be channels for surveillance, consumer surveys, measuring environmental-quality benchmarks, and any other continuously changing dimension of the world that people find valuable to track."
There can be little doubt that a surveillance grid has been erected and is expanding every day. The next upgrade to this tracking grid will undoubtedly be spun with a "consumer convenience" approach.
"Shame on you, citizen, for daring to question the system. These seatbelt laws simply create more victimless crimes that do nothing except steal money from those who are victimized by government enforcers looking for violators."
In Illinois there is a law that says one must wear their seatbelt when driving their car. Should a member of a state sanctioned gang known as the police pull you over and find you are not wearing your seatbelt, they are instructed to write a citation instructing you to either mail your tribute to one of their collection agencies or report to one of their superiors should you decide you don’t agree with their “law” and you don’t want to pay them their extortion because you feel doing so would be unjust. Of course, should you decide to do the latter, the cards are stacked against you as it is their system that would be put on trial and they are not about to admit that their system is fundamentally flawed. And shame on you, citizen, for daring to question the system. These seatbelt laws simply create more victimless crimes that do nothing except steal money from those who are victimized by government enforcers looking for violators, and in the worst case scenarios can destroy an individual’s life.
Now, Illinois is not the only state in this nation that has created these unconstitutional seatbelt laws. In fact, the only state that doesn’t have a seatbelt law is New Hampshire, and I applaud them for having the courage to stand up to the federal government and tell them “No, we will not subject our citizens to such intrusive laws simply to receive your bribe money,” but that is an article in itself. This is an article about a friend of mine named Jon who one day decided to stand up to this gang of thugs known as the government and did his best to defeat this behemoth against impossible odds. It is an article about how we have lost our freedoms, even in the smallest of matters, and how too few of us care.
Personally, I wear a seatbelt. I have always worn my seatbelt, and certainly since long before legislators decided to make a law forcing me to. But if I decided not to wear one for whatever reason, I don’t think it’s right that I be forced to wear one by government mandate. What right have they to determine the level of risk I am willing to take with my life? What right have they to tell me how to conduct my affairs whilst driving in my car, which is my private property? In fact, I remember that when the law was passed I almost decided to stop wearing my seatbelt just to say “screw ‘em,” but I didn’t. I know quite a number of people who felt the same way I did. Yet I just kept wearing my seatbelt, kept obeying like all the good little sheep, only vaguely aware that a tiny bit of my freedom had been taken away, that a tiny portion of my ability to determine what is best for me had been delegated to strangers, that a smidgeon of my private, personal life had been intruded upon by faceless bureaucrats working for the heartless state.
But, as many people would say, what difference does all that matter? They pass these laws for your own good. The same can be said for a myriad of other laws. After all, citizen, you are too stupid and juvenile to look after yourself. You can’t possibly make such tough decisions on your own, without the government’s help. Besides, we live in a democracy, right? And what the majority says, what the majority wants must be correct. But we don’t live in a democracy, we live in a republic, and I urge those of you who don’t know the difference to learn on your own what the differences are. One of the purposes of a republic is to keep the majority from abusing minorities. Majority rule is not always fair and just, in fact many times it’s very tyrannical. It has been referred to as the tyranny of the majority. This nation was set up at its inception to protect the ultimate minority, the individual. It was supposed to be set up in such a fashion as to prevent the government, or the majority, from infringing upon the God given rights of the individual. Seatbelt laws are a perfect example of how these fine concepts have been forgotten and discarded by so many living in this nation.
These concepts were not lost on Jon, however. He received a citation for not wearing his seatbelt and decided he was going to try to fight it. He wasn’t a sheep. He wasn’t just going to simply follow the herd, grumble a little, pay the extortionists and just go merrily on his way without so much as uttering a protest. He wasn’t going to just stand there while the shepherd known as government grabbed him and had its way with him. He would challenge the law, and challenge the legality of how such laws are enforced. Sure, he would have to do so in their courts arguing with their judges and follow their convoluted words, but his voice would speak out against what they were doing and he would be heard.
Now, Jon made a mistake. It was a simple mistake most of us would make. When he went to court the first time he was asked to plead and he pled not guilty. By doing so he more or less admitted that the court had purview and could judge him on whether or not he was guilty of this particular crime. Of course, many of us would have done the same believing that we are not guilty of committing a crime when in reality what we want to do is challenge the validity of a certain law and the proper function of the court in regards to that law. He had no real understanding of what he was doing, or even what the charges were against him, yet the judge asked him to enter a plea. This is actually true of most of us, that we have no real understanding of courtroom procedure, as the legislators and lawyers of this nation have so perverted the English language when writing these laws as to make them nearly impossible to understand. There’s a reason most people refer to such language as legalese. If you’re mad about the Hispanics not wanting to learn English, you should be livid about lawyers and judges who don’t wish to use it. Jon got a continuance.
The next time Jon went to court he was not allowed to make his arguments. He was not allowed to challenge the law. He was not allowed to challenge the court’s jurisdiction over him. When he asked his questions the judge told him he was dangerously close to a contempt of court charge. He had pled not guilty and all the judge was interested in was seeing the evidence that he was in fact not guilty and hearing from witnesses. But that wasn’t what Jon’s case was about. He didn’t believe a crime had been committed. There was no victim. There was no harm done to another. There was no property damaged. The judge didn’t care. He proclaimed Jon guilty and demanded the fine be paid. If the fine wasn’t paid, he threatened Jon with a charge of contempt of court and jail time. This is an example of how lives get ruined by a law that seems so simple, that is supposed to protect people from themselves, and yet all it does is steal from innocent people who believe they should be the ones to determine for themselves what safety measures to take while driving, making them victims of the heartless state. And where there are victims, there is crime.
And what of this contempt charge? What of this tool the courts use to be able to silence dissent without so much as even pretending to care? Have not the courts earned our contempt by upholding such blatantly unconstitutional laws? Is it not despicable how they victimize the public with extortionist schemes meant to pick the pockets of the citizenry? The courts are allowed to show contempt for the individuals it drags before it with impunity, but God forbid they should show the contempt the courts deserve or they will be thrown in a cold cell for as long as it takes to break them. It’s even conceivable that one could be declared an enemy combatant by showing such disdain for these extortionists and be thrown in some hell hole in some foreign land and then tortured until one screams “The courts in the United States of America are the best courts in the world! Now please stop!” and then breaks down in tears. This is certainly not fair or just. This is certainly not why these courts were set up. And then they wonder why people hold them in contempt? This is just another way for them to infringe upon one’s first amendment rights. They can’t even follow their own laws yet they expect us to.
And so they threatened to throw my friend Jon into jail for not wearing his seatbelt. He buckled and paid the fine. What would you have done? Jon told me that he believed it was his duty to challenge tyrannical laws. If only more people felt like him, if only more people would refuse to roll over and simply pay their fines without challenging those who wish to rule over us. If only more people would use the courts as a tool to challenge unfair, unjust, unconstitutional laws rather than as a simple venue to determine whether someone is guilty or not guilty of a crime that should never have been a crime in the first place. If just a few more people would take a stand then maybe things would start to change. Maybe those who would rule over us would start to realize that we are thoughtful, powerful human beings that no longer wish to be pushed around. Maybe they would start to treat us like adults who can make their own decisions rather than as children who need their hands held and constant guidance along the way. And speaking of children, it is they who are the real losers the longer these tyrannical laws remain valid in our system. They are being indoctrinated and becoming used to this government tyranny, and it is they who may never know the true meaning and the joy of freedom and liberty. Perhaps we could all learn something from Jon. Perhaps it is the duty of every freedom loving American to challenge tyrannical laws. If you don’t wish to do it for yourself, perhaps you can do it for the children.
FBI Agents could soon be allowed to investigate Americans without any evidence of wrongdoing, according to the Justice Department.
Justice Department officials say FBI Agents would rely on a terrorist profile that could single out Muslims, Arabs or other racial groups. Randall County District Attorney James Farren says this announcement by the Justice Department really doesn't change anything in relation to the personal rights of citizens.
Traditionally the FBI has been more restrictive than other agencies. All this does is put them on a level playing field with other agencies. Some of the other factors that could make someone the subject of an investigation... Recent travel to places known for terrorist activity, access to weapons or military training.
The purpose of giving FBI these extended privileges.... Making it easier for them to meet Congressional demand for security following the September 11th attacks.
"Fusion centers are a creature of the Department of Defense and DARPA, an outgrowth of the supposedly discredited and "defunded" Total Information Awareness program"
In order to sell us on surrendering our rights, the government told us they would establish “fusion centers” around the country to collect intelligence on al-Qaeda and assorted other amorphous bad guys, an explanation that made sense to a lot of people after September 11, 2001. For some reason, though, the government did not get around to telling us that these so-called “fusion centers” are a creature of the Department of Defense and DARPA, an outgrowth of the supposedly discredited and “defunded” Total Information Awareness program, the brainchild of convicted Iran-Contra felon John Poindexter.
Back in 2002, writing for the New York Times, William Safire said Poindexter was “determined to break down the wall between commercial snooping and secret government intrusion. The disgraced admiral dismisses such necessary differentiation as bureaucratic ’stovepiping.’ And he has been given a $200 million budget to create computer dossiers on 300 million Americans.” In other words, the TIA program would create computer dossiers on virtually every American — not just blue eyed, blond haired al-Qaeda Americans, mind you, but everybody without exception.
Due to a spate of bad publicity, the House and Senate moved to cut funding for the program by adding provisions to the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2004. Two years later, in early 2006, Shane Harris, writing for the National Journal, revealed that TIA “was stopped in name only.” It lives on behind the veil of the classified intelligence budget and “names of key projects were changed, apparently to conceal their identities, but their funding remained intact, often under the same contracts.”
Two of the most important components of the TIA program were moved to the Advanced Research and Development Activity, housed at NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Md., documents and sources confirm. One piece was the Information Awareness Prototype System, the core architecture that tied together numerous information extraction, analysis, and dissemination tools developed under TIA. The prototype system included privacy-protection technologies that may have been discontinued or scaled back following the move to ARDA.
In other words, after a meddling and mostly clueless Congress stuck its nose in TIA, the program went undercover and now poses even more of a threat to the liberty of average Americans, not just al-Qaeda dimwits and patsies. TIA and the fusion center concept was just too good for the spooks to let go. An idea “that grabs so much government power at the expense of its citizens’ privacy always has a phoenix-like ability to resurrect itself, and so the fusion center initiative has been reborn under the Department of Homeland Security’s ‘Global Justice Information Sharing Initiative’ and been provided with $380 million in funding for 40 installations throughout the country,” writes the Ohm Project. “These fusion centers are usually located deep in the bowels of some state law enforcement agency… All forty coordinate and share data with each other, but no single agency, Congressional or otherwise, has oversight authority over them.”
However, the sales pitch is ongoing, never mind the lack of “oversight authority” or the Orwellian aspects of the government shuffling through credit, medical, and sundry other records of over 300 million Americans. As KLAS in Las Vegas reported earlier this week, (Video Here:www.youtube.com/watch) while supposedly preventing terrorism “is the main mission of Metro’s Fusion Center,” it is also “proving successful in solving local crimes,” much to the approval of Nevada Congress critter Harry Reid. Las Vegas is not alone in this move away from investigating terrorism and concentrating of crime — Boston, Chicago, and other large cities are selling their fusion centers in the same way. In fact, Chicago’s fusion center dispenses entirely with the idea of terrorism — its fusion center is called the Crime Prevention Information Center. The Kentucky Intelligence Fusion Center promotes its operations as follows:
The principle role of the Intelligence Fusion Center is to compile, blend, analyze and disseminate criminal intelligence and other information (including, but not limited to, threat assessment, public safety, law enforcement, public health, social service and public works) and to support efforts to anticipate, identify, prevent and monitor criminal activity. The ultimate goal is to provide a mechanism where law enforcement, public safety and the private sector can come together with a common purpose to improve the ability to safeguard our homeland and prevent criminal activity.
Not specifically prevent al-Qaeda terrorism, mind you, but “prevent criminal activity.” In order to do this, you have to surrender any last shred of privacy, any quaint idea that you are protected by an increasingly moribund Constitution and Bill of Rights. “Fusion center technologies of all kinds vacuum up information from the real and digital worlds day and night,” explains the Government Security website. “In addition to microphones placed in crime-ridden hot spots, real world citizens send information to fusion centers by calling telephone tip lines or sending e-mail. Video cameras installed by local law enforcement, state departments of transportation and corporate security departments often provide visual data to fusion centers through memoranda of understanding (MOUs) and sometimes by request during emergencies.” In order to fight crime, fusion centers bring together the FBI, DHS, FEMA, CIA, and state and local law enforcement, all of them using a networked system developed by DARPA and the Pentagon.
“Intelligence centers run by states across the country have access to personal information about millions of Americans, including unlisted cellphone numbers, insurance claims, driver’s license photographs and credit reports,” the Washington Post reported in April. “The centers use law enforcement analysts and sophisticated computer systems to compile, or fuse, disparate tips and clues and pass along the refined information to other agencies. They are expected to play important roles in national information-sharing networks that link local, state and federal authorities and enable them to automatically sift their storehouses of records for patterns and clues…. The list of information resources was part of a survey conducted last year, officials familiar with the effort said. It shows that, like most police agencies, the fusion centers have subscriptions to private information-broker services that keep records about Americans’ locations, financial holdings, associates, relatives, firearms licenses and the like.” Additional records at the disposal of widely dispersed fusion centers include “wage and property records, corporate charters, utility records and a host of government files, including criminal justice information and traffic tickets.”
According to the government, all of this data is required to protect you from al-Qaeda… er, excuse me, protect you from pot dealers, shoplifters, prostitutes, drunk drivers and the like. More than half of all federal and state inmates were convicted on drug and “public-order” offenses in 2006. Naturally, they are a national security risk.
“The still rising prison population comes after a decade of declines in violent and property crime. According to the FBI’s annual Uniform Crime Reports, violent crime declined 2.2% last year and has dropped a whopping 32% since 1995. Property crime rates have also declined, although not so dramatically, dropping 23% since 1985,” reports the Drug Reform Coordination Network. “Violent and property crime is down, but discretionary drug arrests continue to go through the roof.”
The bastard son of TIA, growing like a cancer in the bowels of the NSA, and the proliferation of fusion centers employing this technology have nothing to do with crime, even nonviolent and victimless crime — it has to do with implementing a total surveillance panopticon, a high-tech control grid.
The FBI is not particularly interested in drug crimes, or violent crime for that matter, but as numerous news stories reveal they are interested in infiltrating and disrupting political activist groups. Under the guise of fighting crime — and more and more, domestic crime is considered terrorism — the government has provided an excuse to roll out its intrusive technologies, cooked up by DARPA and the Pentagon, not so much to surveil Joe and Jane Taxpayer, but rather the troublemakers among us. And the troublemakers, of course, are those opposed to endless war and the imposition of a fascist corporate state. Joe and Jane are not a problem — that is so long as they pay their taxes, follow myriad state and federal laws, get their vaccinations, drink their fluoride, eat their GMO, and donate their kids to various perpetual war for perpetual military-industrial complex profit scams.
In his new exposé of the National Security Agency entitled Body of Secrets, author James Bamford highlights a set of proposals on Cuba by the Joint Chiefs of Staff codenamed OPERATION NORTHWOODS. This document, titled “Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba” was provided by the JCS to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on March 13, 1962, as the key component of Northwoods. Written in response to a request from the Chief of the Cuba Project, Col. Edward Lansdale, the Top Secret memorandum describes U.S. plans to covertly engineer various pretexts that would justify a U.S. invasion of Cuba. These proposals - part of a secret anti-Castro program known as Operation Mongoose - included staging the assassinations of Cubans living in the United States, developing a fake “Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington,” including “sink[ing] a boatload of Cuban refugees (real or simulated),” faking a Cuban airforce attack on a civilian jetliner, and concocting a “Remember the Maine” incident by blowing up a U.S. ship in Cuban waters and then blaming the incident on Cuban sabotage. Bamford himself writes that Operation Northwoods “may be the most corrupt plan ever created by the U.S. government.”
Drawn up in 1962 by top US military leaders and declassified in 2001, Operation Northwoods is a proposal to commit staged acts of terror in the US and elsewhere that would subsequently be blamed on Cubans to create public support for a war. It has been reported that the plan was rejected by president Kennedy himself. It is presented here as evidence of past US governmental deliberations to create fake terror events to blame on their enemies as an excuse to go to war.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff have considered the attached Memorandum for the Chief of Operations, Cuba Project, which responds to a request of that office for a brief but precise description of pretexts which would provide justification for US military intervention in Cuba.
[...]
We could blow up a US ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba... We could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities or even Washington... Hijacking attempts against civil air and surface craft should appear to continue as harassing measures condoned by the government of Cuba... It is possible to create an incident which will demonstrate convincingly that a Cuban aircraft has attacked and shot down a chartered civil airliner enroute from the United States... It is possible to create an incident which will make it appear that Communist Cuban MIGs have destroyed a USAF aircraft over international waters in an unprovoked attack.
Book: U.S. Military Drafted Plans to Terrorize U.S. Cities to Provoke War With Cuba
By David Ruppe
N E W Y O R K, May 1, 2001
In the early 1960s, America's top military leaders reportedly drafted plans to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support for a war against Cuba.
Code named Operation Northwoods, the plans reportedly included the possible assassination of Cuban émigrés, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and even orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities.
The plans were developed as ways to trick the American public and the international community into supporting a war to oust Cuba's then new leader, communist Fidel Castro.
America's top military brass even contemplated causing U.S. military casualties, writing: "We could blow up a U.S. ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba," and, "casualty lists in U.S. newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation."
Details of the plans are described in Body of Secrets (Doubleday), a new book by investigative reporter James Bamford about the history of America's largest spy agency, the National Security Agency. However, the plans were not connected to the agency, he notes.
The plans had the written approval of all of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and were presented to President Kennedy's defense secretary, Robert McNamara, in March 1962. But they apparently were rejected by the civilian leadership and have gone undisclosed for nearly 40 years.
"These were Joint Chiefs of Staff documents. The reason these were held secret for so long is the Joint Chiefs never wanted to give these up because they were so embarrassing," Bamford told ABCNEWS.com.
"The whole point of a democracy is to have leaders responding to the public will, and here this is the complete reverse, the military trying to trick the American people into a war that they want but that nobody else wants."
Gunning for War
The documents show "the Joint Chiefs of Staff drew up and approved plans for what may be the most corrupt plan ever created by the U.S. government," writes Bamford.
The Joint Chiefs even proposed using the potential death of astronaut John Glenn during the first attempt to put an American into orbit as a false pretext for war with Cuba, the documents show.
Should the rocket explode and kill Glenn, they wrote, "the objective is to provide irrevocable proof & that the fault lies with the Communists et all Cuba [sic]."
The plans were motivated by an intense desire among senior military leaders to depose Castro, who seized power in 1959 to become the first communist leader in the Western Hemisphere only 90 miles from U.S. shores.
The earlier CIA-backed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba by Cuban exiles had been a disastrous failure, in which the military was not allowed to provide firepower.The military leaders now wanted a shot at it.
"The whole thing was so bizarre," says Bamford, noting public and international support would be needed for an invasion, but apparently neither the American public, nor the Cuban public, wanted to see U.S. troops deployed to drive out Castro.
Reflecting this, the U.S. plan called for establishing prolonged military not democratic control over the island nation after the invasion.
"That's what we're supposed to be freeing them from," Bamford says. "The only way we would have succeeded is by doing exactly what the Russians were doing all over the world, by imposing a government by tyranny, basically what we were accusing Castro himself of doing."
'Over the Edge'
The Joint Chiefs at the time were headed by Eisenhower appointee Army Gen. Lyman L. Lemnitzer, who, with the signed plans in hand made a pitch to McNamara on March 13, 1962, recommending Operation Northwoods be run by the military.
Whether the Joint Chiefs' plans were rejected by McNamara in the meeting is not clear. But three days later, President Kennedy told Lemnitzer directly there was virtually no possibility of ever using overt force to take Cuba, Bamford reports. Within months, Lemnitzer would be denied another term as chairman and transferred to another job.
The secret plans came at a time when there was distrust in the military leadership about their civilian leadership, with leaders in the Kennedy administration viewed as too liberal, insufficiently experienced and soft on communism. At the same time, however, there real were concerns in American society about their military overstepping its bounds.
There were reports U.S. military leaders had encouraged their subordinates to vote conservative during the election.
And at least two popular books were published focusing on a right-wing military leadership pushing the limits against government policy of the day.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee published its own report on right-wing extremism in the military, warning a "considerable danger" in the "education and propaganda activities of military personnel" had been uncovered. The committee even called for an examination of any ties between Lemnitzer and right-wing groups. But Congress didn't get wind of Northwoods, says Bamford.
"Although no one in Congress could have known at the time," he writes, "Lemnitzer and the Joint Chiefs had quietly slipped over the edge."
Even after Lemnitzer was gone, he writes, the Joint Chiefs continued to plan "pretext" operations at least through 1963.
One idea was to create a war between Cuba and another Latin American country so that the United States could intervene. Another was to pay someone in the Castro government to attack U.S. forces at the Guantanamo naval base an act, which Bamford notes, would have amounted to treason. And another was to fly low level U-2 flights over Cuba, with the intention of having one shot down as a pretext for a war.
"There really was a worry at the time about the military going off crazy and they did, but they never succeeded, but it wasn't for lack of trying," he says.
After 40 Years
Ironically, the documents came to light, says Bamford, in part because of the 1992 Oliver Stone film JFK, which examined the possibility of a conspiracy behind the assassination of President Kennedy.
As public interest in the assassination swelled after JFK's release, Congress passed a law designed to increase the public's access to government records related to the assassination.
The author says a friend on the board tipped him off to the documents.
Afraid of a congressional investigation, Lemnitzer had ordered all Joint Chiefs documents related to the Bay of Pigs destroyed, says Bamford. But somehow, these remained.
"The scary thing is none of this stuff comes out until 40 years after," says Bamford.
Watch the video at the following link. Due to a few cuss words in the video & the censor Nazi's I decided to only provide the link. WE HAVE BEEN LIED TO!! GET MAD!!!
KEEP IGNORING THE TRUTH....DENIAL & CYNICISM DOESN'T MAKE IT NOT TRUE.
Reporter Details Congressionally Approved Covert Funding Of Terrorists In Iran
Military, intelligence, and congressional sources say secret war is vamped to bring down Iranian leadership
Award-winning journalist Seymour Hersh has detailed a move by the Bush administration, with Congressional backing, which represents a "major escalation" in covert military operations aimed at destabilizing the Iranian leadership.
Hersh also details how The CIA and the United States Special Operations Forces have long-standing ties to the PEJAK, the outlawed breakaway faction of the PKK terrorist group in Iran, as well as other Sunni fundamentalists that former intelligence officials say "can also be described as Al Qaeda."
Hersh describes how the neocon White House has vamped up secret efforts to work with the same terrorist groups that were once populated with figures such as Ramzi Yousef, who was convicted for his role in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was fingered as one of the leading planners of the September 11th attacks.
"The Finding was focused on undermining Iran's nuclear ambitions and trying to undermine the government through regime change," and involved "working with opposition groups and passing money," Hersh reveals, quoting an unnamed "person familiar with its contents."
Congress, under Democratic leadership, approved a $400 million request for funding late last year, according to Hersh's sources, military, intelligence, and congressional officials with direct knowledge of the top secret Presidential Finding, which by law must be issued when covert intelligence operations get underway.
The corporate media has somewhat downplayed the revelations, which essentially highlight once again how the so called "war on terror" is a complete fiction, as US elites are funding Sunni extremists intent on destroying the Shiite Iranian leadership.
Hersh spoke about the article in an interview with CNN’s Candy Crowley:
“Well, one of the basic points is no matter what we say about diplomacy, you know, carrot and stick, the stick is working pretty hard and the stick is working overtime. This president did escalate the secret war inside Iran. We’ve been doing stuff inside Iran since ‘05 pretty heavily, Looking at the nuclear facilities, collecting intelligence and trying to undermine the regime, et cetera, et cetera but there was a significant escalation this year.” Hersh said.
“They got a great deal of authorization to spend up to $400 million. That doesn’t mean he’s spent it all yet but he’s got that kind of authorization. The secret committees — anyone who saw “Charlie Wilson’s war,” — Charlie Wilson was able to generate a lot of money secretly. That’s what happens in Congress and the other major thing is we’ve sent in a special task force that operates out of Afghanistan into Iran.”
“I did notice what Ambassador Crocker said about ‘not cross-border’ and I have a lot of respect for him and I don’t want to challenge him. But the fact is were inside but not necessarily cross-border. We have teams inside Iran. These include joint special operations forces, the most elite commando units and basically they’re guys go after high-value targets around the world. They capture them or kill them so it’s a significant increase in American potential for damage inside Iran.”
Hersh went on to state that one of the reasons former Commander of the U.S. Central Command Admiral Fallen was forced out and purged by the Bush administration was that he was unable to find out the full scope of clandestine operations inside Iran. Hersh also stated that the endgame for Bush and Cheney is to ensure that they do not leave office without first having eliminated Iran's nuclear program, whether that be by attacking the country or forcing regime change inside the country.
We have previously carried reports of how the US and Britain are already at war with Iran, have been at war with Iran for a number of years now and are funding anti-Iranian terrorist groups inside Iran in preparation for the fallout that will occur after overt military action is commenced.
High ranking CIA officials, Defense department officials, former UN officials and retired US air force Colonels have gone on record with the specific details.
In an article entitled The US war with Iran has already begun, written back in June 2005, former UN weapons inspector in Iraq, Scott Ritter described how intelligence gathering, direct action and the mobilizing of indigenous opposition is all being carried out already by CIA backed US special forces.
Ritter stated:
As with Iraq, the president has paved the way for the conditioning of the American public and an all-too-compliant media to accept at face value the merits of a regime change policy regarding Iran, linking the regime of the Mullah's to an "axis of evil" (together with the newly "liberated" Iraq and North Korea), and speaking of the absolute requirement for the spread of "democracy" to the Iranian people.
But Americans, and indeed much of the rest of the world, continue to be lulled into a false sense of complacency by the fact that overt conventional military operations have not yet commenced between the United States and Iran.
As such, many hold out the false hope that an extension of the current insanity in Iraq can be postponed or prevented in the case of Iran. But this is a fool's dream.
The reality is that the US war with Iran has already begun. As we speak, American over flights of Iranian soil are taking place, using pilotless drones and other, more sophisticated, capabilities.
The violation of a sovereign nation's airspace is an act of war in and of itself. But the war with Iran has gone far beyond the intelligence-gathering phase.
President Bush has taken advantage of the sweeping powers granted to him in the aftermath of 11 September 2001, to wage a global war against terror and to initiate several covert offensive operations inside Iran.
Ritter goes on to describe how Iranian opposition groups, including the well known right-wing terrorist organization known as Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), once run by Saddam Hussein's dreaded intelligence services, but now working exclusively for the CIA's Directorate of Operations, are carrying out remote bombings in Iran of the sort that the Bush administration condemns on a daily basis inside Iraq.
He also describes how to the north, in neighbouring Azerbaijan, the US military is preparing a base of operations for a massive military presence that will foretell a major land-based campaign designed to capture Tehran.
Ritter is not alone in his assertions.
During an interview on CNN in 2006, retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner claimed that U.S. military operations were already 'underway' inside Iran.
"I would say -- and this may shock some -- I think the decision has been made and military operations are under way," Col. Gardiner told CNN International anchor Jim Clancy.
"The secretary point is, the Iranians have been saying American military troops are in there, have been saying it for almost a year," Gardiner said. "I was in Berlin two weeks ago, sat next to the ambassador, the Iranian ambassador to the IAEA. And I said, 'Hey, I hear you're accusing Americans of being in there operating with some of the units that have shot up revolution guard units.' He said, quite frankly, 'Yes, we know they are. We've captured some of the units, and they've confessed to working with the Americans,'" said the retired Air Force colonel.
The full seven minute CNN segment can be viewed below:
Around the same time that Gardiner revealed this, RAW story ran an exclusive, which also revealed that, according to counterintelligence officials, covert operations were underway that included CIA co-option and use of right wing terror groups:
“We disarmed [the MEK] of major weapons but not small arms. [Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld was pushing to use them as a military special ops team, but policy infighting between their camp and Condi, but she was able to fight them off for a while,” said the intelligence official. According to still another intelligence source, the policy infighting ended last year when Donald Rumsfeld, under pressure from Vice President Cheney, came up with a plan to “convert” the MEK by having them simply quit their organization.
“These guys are nuts,” this intelligence source said. “Cambone and those guys made MEK members swear an oath to Democracy and resign from the MEK and then our guys incorporated them into their unit and trained them.”
The MEK were notorious in Iraq, indeed, Saddam Hussein himself had used the MEK for acts of terror against non-Sunni Muslims and had assigned domestic security detail to the MEK as a way of policing dissent among his own people. It was under the guidance of MEK ‘policing’ that Iraqi citizens who were not Sunni were routinely tortured, attacked and arrested.
MEK has been linked with numerous bombings inside Iran over the course of the last few years. The organization has also killed U.S. troops and civilians since the 70's, yet the Bush cabal continues to fund them.
According to Global Security.org, "In the early 1970s, angered by U.S. support for the pro-Western shah, MEK members killed several U.S. soldiers and civilians working on defense projects in Iran. MEK members also supported the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, in which 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days."
After a bombing inside Iran in February 2007, the London Telegraph also reported on how a high ranking CIA official blew the whistle on the fact that America is secretly funding terrorist groups in Iran in an attempt to pile pressure on the Islamic regime to give up its nuclear program.
The claims were backed by Fred Burton, a former US state department counter-terrorism agent, who said: "The latest attacks inside Iran fall in line with US efforts to supply and train Iran's ethnic minorities to destabilise the Iranian regime."
John Pike, the head of the influential Global Security think tank in Washington, said: "The activities of the ethnic groups have hotted up over the last two years and it would be a scandal if that was not at least in part the result of CIA activity."
More recently, this May, the Iranian Intelligence Ministry busted a CIA-backed terror group that was planning to bomb scientific, educational, and religious centers, and carry out assassinations, according to a report in the Tehran Times. The arrests came weeks after Ret. Gen. Thomas McInerney urged the U.S. to carry out terror bombings in Iran.
McInerney publicly called for the U.S. government to support groups like MEK and carry out deadly bombings in Iran:
Here’s what I would suggest to you. Number one, we take the National Council for Resistance to Iran off the terrorist list that the Clinton Administration put them on as well as the Mujahedin-e Khalq at the Camp Ashraf in Iraq," said McInerney.
"Then I would start a tit-for-tat strategy which I wrote up in the Wall Street Journal a year ago: For every EFP that goes off and kills Americans, two go off in Iran. No questions asked. People don’t have to know how it was done. It’s a covert action. They become the most unlucky country in the world," he added.
Top Neo-Cons have been calling for the US to back terror groups in Iran and other reports clearly indicate that this program has already been in place for years.
Last November, Fox and Friends host Brian Kilmeade openly called for US support for acts of terrorism, such as car bombings, in Tehran. Colonel David Hunt, who has over 29 years of military experience including extensive operational experience in Special Operations, Counter Terrorism and Intelligence Operations, agreed with Kilmeade, stating "absolutely" in response to Kilmead's question about whether cars should start blowing up in Tehran.
"The CIA is giving arms-length support, supplying money and weapons, to an Iranian militant group, Jundullah, which has conducted raids into Iran from bases in Pakistan," the London Telegraph reported last year.
The group has been blamed for a number of bombings inside Iran aimed at destabilizing Ahmadinejad's government and is also active in Pakistan, having been fingered for its involvement in attacks on police stations and car bombings at the Pakistan-US Cultural Center in 2004.
As Seymour Hersh himself also reported back in 2004, U.S. intelligence and Israel’s Mossad are busy at work stirring up trouble in Iran in preparation for an attack on that country. In early 2005, the Guardian reported that “American special forces have been on the ground inside Iran scouting for US air strike targets for suspected nuclear weapons sites."
If this all sounds a little familiar, it's because it is. The fact is that the US has a long history of provocation and covert action inside Iran.
The In 1953 the CIA and MI6 carried out Operation Ajax (officially TP-AJAX), a covert operation by the United Kingdom and the United States to remove the democratically elected nationalist cabinet of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh from power, to support the Pahlavi dynasty and consolidate the power of Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in order to preserve the Western control of Iran's hugely lucrative oil infrastructure.
In planning the operation, the CIA organized a guerrilla force incase the communist Tudeh Party seized power as a result of the chaos created by Operation Ajax. According to formerly “Top Secret” documents released by the National Security Archive, Undersecretary of State Walter Bedell Smith reported that the CIA had reached an agreement with Qashqai tribal leaders in southern Iran to establish a clandestine safe haven from which U.S.-funded guerrillas and intelligence agents could operate.
The conspiracy centered around having the increasingly impotent Shah dismiss the powerful Prime Minister Mossadegh and replace him with General Fazlollah Zahedi, a choice agreed on by the British and Americans after careful examination for his likeliness to be pro-British.
Zahedi was installed to succeed Prime Minister Mossadegh. The deposed Mossadegh was arrested, given a show trial, and condemned to death. The Shah commuted this sentence to solitary confinement for three years in a military prison, followed by house arrest for life.
“If there had not been a military coup, there would not have been 25 years of the Shah’s brutal regime, there would not have been a revolution in 1979 and a government of clerics,” Ibrahim Yazdi, a former foreign minister and leading member of a political party that traces its origins to Mossadegh’s National Front, told the Christian Science Monitor on the 50th anniversary of the coup and installation of the Shah. “Now it seems that the Americans are pushing towards the same direction again. That shows they have not learned anything from history.”
“For many Iranians, the coup was a tragedy from which their country has never recovered. Perhaps because Mossadegh represents a future denied, his memory has approached myth,” Dan De Luce writes for the Guardian. “Beyond Iran, America remains deeply resented for siding with authoritarian rule in the region.”
Alex Jones's latest film Terrorstorm covers the ousting of Mossadegh in depth.
After the Iranian revolution in 1979, the US again found itself sparring with Iran. Again we find a history of provocation and aggression. In particular, a fierce assault known as Operation Praying Mantis, is renowned. The operation began after a US warship had entered mined Iranian territorial waters in the Persian Gulf.
On April 14 1988, the guided missile frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts struck a mine while sailing in the Persian Gulf as part of Operation Earnest Will, the 1987-88 convoy missions in which U.S. warships escorted reflagged Kuwaiti oil tankers to protect them from Iranian attacks. The explosion put a 25-foot hole in the Roberts' hull and nearly sank it. But the crew saved their ship with no loss of life, and Roberts was towed to Dubai on April 16.
After the mining, U.S. Navy divers recovered other mines in the area. When the serial numbers were found to match those of mines seized along with the Iran Ajr the previous September, U.S. military officials planned a retaliatory operation against Iranian targets in the Gulf.
The battle, the largest for American surface forces since World War II,[1] sank two Iranian warships and as many as six armed speedboats. It also marked the first surface-to-surface missile engagement in U.S. Navy history.
The US also attacked and destroyed several Iranian oil platforms in a full out military assault. At the time the Chicago Sun Times reported:
U.S. naval forces on Monday attacked Iranian targets in the Persian Gulf to show the Iranians that "if they threaten us, they'll pay a price," President Reagan said.
In fighting conducted over nine hours, the U.S. forces knocked out two Iranian oil platforms, and then sank or disabled a fast-attack missile patrol boat, two frigates, and three speedboats when Iran attempted to fight back.
Note Reagan's comments. Hence the name 'Operation Praying Mantis' was a reference to the fanning of the wings used to make the mantis seem larger and to scare the opponent.
On November 6, 2003 the International Court of Justice dismissed Iran's claim for reparation against the United States for breach of the 1955 Treaty of Amity between the two countries. The court also dismissed a counter-claim by the United States, also for reparation for breach of the same treaty. As part of its finding the court did note that "the actions of the United States of America against Iranian oil platforms on 19 October 1987 (Operation Nimble Archer) and 18 April 1988 (Operation Praying Mantis) cannot be justified as measures necessary to protect the essential security interests of the United States of America."
The fallout of Praying Mantis also resulted in the U.S. Navy guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes shooting down an Iranian civilian commercial airliner,Iran air flight 665, between Bandar Abbas and Dubai, killing all 290 passengers and crew aboard, including 38 non-Iranians and 66 children. The Vincennes was inside Iranian territorial waters at the time of the shoot-down.
The On the morning of July 3, the Vincennes crossed into Iranian territorial waters during clashes with Iranian gunboats. Earlier in the day, the Vincennes - along with Iranian gunboats - had similarly violated Omani waters until challenged by an Omani warship.
According to the U.S. government, the Iranian aircraft was mistakenly identified as an attacking military fighter. The Iranian government, however, maintains that the Vincennes knowingly shot down a civilian aircraft.
According to the Iranian government, the shooting down of IR 655 by the Vincennes was an intentionally performed and unlawful act. Even if there was a mistaken identification, which Iran has not accepted, it argues that this constituted gross negligence and recklessness amounting to an international crime, not an accident.
Newsweek reporters John Barry and Roger Charles wrote that Rogers acted recklessly and without due care. Their report accused the U.S. government of a cover-up. An analysis of the events by the International Strategic Studies Association described the deployment of an Aegis cruiser in the zone as irresponsible and felt that the expense of the ship had played a major part in the setting of a low threshold for opening fire.
George H.W. Bush, at the time Vice President said "I will never apologize for the United States of America — I don't care what the facts are" in reference to the incident.
It took four years for the US administration to admit officially that the USS Vincennes was in Iranian waters when the skirmish took place with the Iranian gunboats. Subsequent investigations have accused the US military of waging a covert war against Iran in support of Iraq. In February 1996 the US agreed to pay Iran $61.8 million in compensation for the 248 Iranians killed, plus the cost of the aircraft and legal expenses.
So we see that Britain and the US have a long history of covert action against and provocation of Iran in their bid to aggressively control the region. Nothing has changed.
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Award-winning journalist Seymour Hersh has detailed a move by the Bush administration, with Congressional backing, which represents a "major escalation" in covert military operations aimed at destabilizing the Iranian leadership.
